The Sword of Morning Star

by Richard Meade

  The tent was silent for a very long while, as Helmut looked at Sandivar. Then Helmut strode forward, placed his good hand on the old man’s shoulder, and said, “All right, Grandfather. We shall not fail you. I would even love you, if I could love.”

  “Perhaps you will, someday,” the old man said. “It was not with light heart, believe me, that I sent you to the other world. But given strength of spirit and greatness of heart, there is a chance, however small, that whatever damage has been done can someday be undone. Meanwhile, disregard me and my welfare. Think of yourself and how the battle can be won.”

  “Oh,” said Helmut, “that I know. Or at least I think I do. In the morning I shall give order that along the line of march each soldier must cut himself half a hundredweight of green boughs and bring them with him.”

  “What?” said Sandivar, startled.

  “Surprised? In war, all is surprise.” Helmut gestured. “Now go to bed, good Sandivar… I mean, Grandfather.”

  Sandivar stared at him, then nodded. “Aye,” he said. “Aye, I go.”

  And when he had, Helmut strode outside the tent and stood there, staring at the cloud-hung sky overhead, the cold wind cutting at his flesh. And he was there for a long time, for he had much to think about.

  With his thirty thousand fighting men strung out behind him in loose order in the barbarian fashion, Kor, with his lieutenants, rode head-on into a cutting twilight wind. “In faith,” he grumbled, “it is colder here than in our homeland. I do not like this.” With his sable cloak pulled about him, he squinted at the gray sky. “I should like to be across the Moor of Yrawnn ere dark. It is a place ghost-haunted and drear. Lead on at a fast clip,” he told Yono, his second-in-command. “I will ride across the army and confer with Albrecht.”

  “Aye,” said Yono. “We will move smartly.” It was evident that he had no lust either to spend the night on the bleak and level tableland that stretched away before them, scattered with boulders here and there, its grass sparse, the wind whistling unrestrained. To cross it would mean marching after dark, for the sun was nearly down; but that was better by far than camping for a night on its unwholesome and—to the men of the Lands of Darkness—unholy vastness.

  So Kor put his battle-bull to its fastest, lumbering gait; and the great red creature, though it had marched all day, made good time across the front of that tremendous army. When he came up to Albrecht, the King of Boorn had dismounted, and his pavilion was being pitched.

  Kor swung down off the bull. “Ho, King Albrecht.”

  “Aye, King Kor?”

  “Surely you are not halting for the night? We must still cross the Moor of Yrawnn.”

  Albrecht pulled the gauntlet off his right hand and slapped it in his left. “My messenger did not reach you?”

  “No message have I had since forenoon.”

  “Then the two of you must have crossed each other. I have word from spies; the armies of Morning Star approach. By nightfall they will reach the farther edge of the Moor. We must halt and prepare for battle on the morrow.”

  For a moment, Kor was silent. Then he began to curse. When he was through cursing, he slammed his helmet savagely to the ground, then picked it up. “That cannot be!”

  “But it must!”

  “No!” Kor roared. “We’ll ride on across the Moor tonight and meet them on different ground tomorrow!” He turned and gestured at that bleak and level wasteland, seemingly infinite in its reach, that lay before them. “That is the most unfortunate piece of ground in all the world for my people! There Sigrieth summoned from the depths of all the hells warriors of supernatural strength to cut us down in a battle that we still feel the effects of! Every man of my army knows the Moor of Yrawnn and dreads it! We cannot fight upon it—”

  He broke off, for Albrecht was staring at him strangely. Then Albrecht said, “That’s only legend. My father was with Sigrieth in that battle. There were no troops from any hells. Only the fighting men of Boorn, and a heavy fog that distorted shapes and altered all appearances and gave Sigrieth latitude to strike where’er he chose… But nothing supernatural. It was a natural battle.”

  Kor’s pale blue eyes turned to slits. His breath wheezed from his nostrils. “Call you my father a liar and a coward? He was there and told me of it. Monsters did arise, and apparitions; skeletons and corpses unkillable by mortal man! Think you he would have been defeated by a force much smaller if that were not the case?” Kor’s hand rested on his sword hilt.

  “All right, King Kor.” Albrecht raised a gauntleted hand. “But still, our horses, our foot soldiers, and your bulls are tired—is this not true? If we thunder and blunder across this moor, and encounter Morning Star’s army in the darkness, who knows what outcome?” He gripped Kor’s wrist. “My spies are accurate: not above forty thousand has he; and we have three and nearly four that number, and there is no terrain for trickery out there on the Moor: it is flat and open, and wherever he is, we can seek him out and kill him without artifice. Not so if we move on, into hills or forest. Here we can swamp him, three or four to one; and we need fear no other mortal. There will be no apparitions and no ghosts—”

  “You do not know!” cried Kor. “You do not know!”

  “I know that no devils from hell e’er rode across the Moor of Yrawnn, but only Sigrieth’s soldiers. And I have so many half-wolves—”

  “Aye. Then your half-wolves go first.”

  “We must make a joint attack.”

  “If we camp here tonight, Albrecht, you take your army first against him, and we wait. Then, if no foul creatures rise—”

  “All right, all right,” said Albrecht wearily. “Think you not that a hundred thousand half-wolves can conquer forty thousand men?”

  “As a man, frankly, no.”

  “Then you shall see,” said Albrecht. “But you are in reserve, and you shall come on my command.”

  “Aye,” said Kor grudgingly. “That, then, will I acknowledge. We shall be in reserve and come upon your command.”

  “Perhaps,” said Albrecht thinly, “you will not even wet a sword.”

  “We will wet our blades ere this is over. But spirits do not bleed.”

  Albrecht laughed shortly. “Maybe not. Anyhow, tell your army to stop, as I tell mine. And to prepare for battle in the morning, for I think, when dawn comes, you’ll see Sigrieth’s bastard yonder on the opposite side of the moor…”

  That day’s march was a long, hard one. Darkness had already fallen when Helmut’s army came out of rolling country to the level terrain which, he knew, was the Moor’s southern edge. There he reined in Vengeance sharply, for in the distance it seemed as if all the stars of heaven had fallen to earth and glittered there—the campfires of Albrecht’s army.

  “So,” said Hagen by him, with anticipation. “The enemy.” The old noble’s voice fairly hissed with a lust for vengeance.

  “Aye,” said Helmut. He swung down from Vengeance, and the two wolfhounds, Death and Destruction, nuzzled against him. He stroked them absently; then, to Luukah, who served as his adjutant, he said: “I want all the green wood and dry gathered today brought up to this line. You know the plan we have discussed. When all is in readiness, then they may eat of what was cooked extra this morning; but we shall have no fires tonight.”

  “Yes, m’lord,” said Luukah, and he disappeared.

  “Now,” said Helmut, staring thoughtfully at the glittering fires across the tableland, “I want me a half-wolf.”

  “What?” ejaculated Hagen; but Helmut had already turned to Sandivar. “Grandfather, tell the dogs in the way you have exactly what I want. I’m sure there’re half-wolf spies enough on prowl out there. I want them to bring one in to me, alive and unharmed.”

  “Aye,” said Sandivar, and dropped to his knees between the great beasts. They stood taut as bowstrings for a moment; then whined and suddenly coursed off into the darkness. Sandivar arose. “They will bring you one. Alive.”

  “Aye, good.” Helmut stared into the darkne
ss. “Well, tomorrow we all pay our reckoning. Grandfather, you’re sure you have no further magic that would aid us?”

  “None allowable. Oh, had we but time, I could recruit new armies of boars and bears, perhaps, from other regions; but then, had we time, you could, too, recruit more men.”

  “Yes,” said Helmut. “Or, for that matter, build great war machines which I have learned the secrets of, and the like of which have ne’er been seen on earth since long before the Worldfire. Machines for throwing huge rocks and burning pitch and things more unbelievable than that, of which you and I have read, Grandfather. But since there is no time to make my knowledge useful, I suppose it will all come down tomorrow to the raw clash of knight against knight, and the pikeman ramming, and horse crashing hard against horse, and blade ringing loud on blade—”

  “Be not regretful,” Sandivar said. “There are no war machines better than a stout arm and great courage. The others—well, your enemies quickly learn to build them too, and better them; and if you introduce them in this world, you may regret it.”

  “Mayhap you’re right,” said Helmut, and paced back and forth in silence, waiting. The wind on his back, from the south, was strong and cold and seemed to mourn as it blew across the moor. Sandivar huddled up against Waddle to keep warm, but Helmut felt no cold: only a pulsing excitement he was almost unable to contain. He thought of Albrecht’s face above him, and of the ax blade poised, and his hand dropped instinctively to the hilt of Rage. To pay that score, he thought, my father’s and poor Gustav’s—that were well worth it all, even if I cannot love… Nissilda’s face swam before him, too, for a moment, but it softened him somehow, and he put it away. Then there was an incredible chorus of growls and snarls and fearful howling beyond the outposts on the plain. “Alert there!” Helmut snapped to guards along the line. “If it’s my dogs, let them and their captive through!”

  It was indeed the hounds, the catch they’d made a good one. A captain of the half-wolf infantry; and Death held one of his forearms locked between his jaws and Destruction the other, and that way, with pressure that could chop both arms in two at the slightest resistance, they dragged the creature into camp.

  By then, Helmut’s pavilion had been raised and a candle lit within. There Helmut confronted the captain, smiling grimly. The dogs still held him, and the creature’s lips were writhed in a sickly snarl of fear.

  “Well, Captain,” Helmut said, staring at him. “Do you know me?”

  The half-wolf shook his head. “I am the son of Sigrieth, sometimes called Helmut, sometimes Morning Star… Careful, stand steady, or you lose your hands and bleed to death. Now, I want intelligence of your army. When do your masters attack, and who leads the assault, and who remains in reserve?”

  The half-wolf’s voice was a whimper. “I know not all that. I am not privy to the councils of the great—”

  “You lead a company,” Helmut said coldly. “You know full well what time that company must be prepared for the assault. You know, too, which element of the army is forward and which is rear.”

  The half-wolf summoned defiance. Helmut said, gently: “Death. Destruction.” Slowly the great jaws tightened. Then the half-wolf howled.

  “Enough,” said Helmut. “You’ll speak now?”

  The half-wolf nodded. Tongue lolling, panting hard, he said: “We are to attack at dawn. King Albrecht leads; King Kor and his men remain in reserve, behind us.”

  Helmut nodded. “The knowledge that we know their plans cannot make them change them in any substantial way; and so you have your life and are released to return to your command to fight on the morrow. But first, two messages must you deliver.”

  “And those are—?” growled the creature.

  “One,” said Helmut, “to King Albrecht. Tell the good King that the small son of Sigrieth remembers well the day that King Albrecht served as axman. Tell him that through sorcery I am now grown, and on the morrow I will challenge him. And tell him that ere the dust settles on the Moor of Yrawnn tomorrow, what he did to my hand, I shall do to his head. Can you remember that?” His eyes blazed. “What he did to my hand I shall do to his head.”

  The half-wolf turned his face away. “Aye, m’lord, I can remember.”

  “And this to King Kor—and you must go to him in person with it. Tell him this: my father’s army lead I—the same army that defeated Gondor here full many years ago. The same army—he must understand. An army of the dead, summoned from darkness and gray deeps, which neither he nor all his bulls can conquer. Tell him the Moor of Yrawnn’s bad luck for him; and that if he fights here, he’ll die here, too. You have that?”

  “Aye, m’lord…”

  “Then…” Helmut turned to Sandivar. “Order the dogs to take him out and turn him loose. Under no conditions are they to kill him, unless first he tries to escape.”

  “I’ll not, I’ll not,” the half-wolf whimpered; and then the two hounds had pulled him back out into darkness.

  Hagen was staring at Helmut. “Do you think he’ll deliver those messages?”

  “The one to his master Albrecht—aye—and probably lose his head in Albrecht’s rage for his trouble. But by that time, he will have told others of the one to Kor; and both messages will race around the army over there and multiply a thousand times. When Kor awakens in the morning, he’ll hear we command a vast army of the damned, waiting for him, as once they waited here for Gondor.”

  “Perhaps,” said Hagen.

  “All war’s perhaps,” said Helmut lightly. “Now, good Hagen, let’s have some rest. For we’re up early in the morning; mankind’s last battle starts at dawn.” And, coolly, he threw himself down on some pillows to rest. The last thing he saw as consciousness was blotted out was Nissilda’s face… But there was no time to dream, for then it was morning, and he must up and gird himself for combat.

  CHAPTER XIII

  At early daylight, a tiercel circled high above the Moor and watched the armies form. Below, gray tatters of mist and fog were whipped away by the cold south wind; but there was to be no sunlight; only a strange corpse-flesh colored glow from the bellies of the clouds not far above. Had the tiercel had an eye for aught but prey, it might have been impressed by what it saw down there, in that eerie light.

  On the north side of the Moor: first Albrecht. He was resplendent in armor beautifully made and etched and filled with intricate goldwork. The banners of Boorn, the Gray Lands Empire, and Wolfsheim fluttered overhead, as three flag-bearers trailed him wherever he went. Just now, in the first light, he was inspecting the ranks of horsemen formed up in companies across the moor.

  Half-wolves were they, but half-wolves well equipped in all required for warfare. Their chargers were the best of Boorn, large, yet fleet, though not, perhaps, entirely reconciled as yet to bearing half-wolves instead of men. Their horse gear was solid and ornate. Their lances, bearing Wolfsheim’s arms upon their pennons, were socketed and braced upright. A vast and awe-inspiring army made they, stretching seemingly almost to infinity. And behind them was another just as large, of pikemen and bowmen. Albrecht felt his heart swell with renewed confidence. That message last night had shaken him; he had not slept well. But looking at all this vast force at his disposal, his unease vanished. Nothing in the world could stand against this army.

  He said as much to Kor, who rode beside him on the inspection, on his blood-red bull with black-tipped horns. “Nothing in the world can stand against this army.”

  Kor spat into the dust. “Ghosts and spirits can.”

  Albrecht jerked rein; and his great steed pawed the air. When it came down, he said ferociously: “I’ll show you what ghosts and spirits do! You still believe that foolishness they fed into that captain to weaken your resolve?”

  “Foolishness, is it?” snarled Kor. “Then I’m a fool?” His hand whipped to his sword.

  “Nay, not so! Apology for the heat with which I spoke.” Albrecht said it quickly. He looked at the massive, gleaming, steel-clad, and fierce rank of the ba
rbarian forces on their bulls, disposed well behind the half-wolves. The great bulls lowed; and they pawed the ground and snorted, and their horns rattled against one another; and their riders, with small round shields, broadswords, and broad-axes, sat at the ready, controlling them easily with strong arms. “We must not let the clever bastard rip our friendship, or no spirits or ghosts will he need. In the event, we’ll try him first, we wolfmen; and when the necessity arises, you’ll come in as well.”

  “Aye,” said Kor. “We’ll come in, if you get whipped.”

  Albrecht looked at him savagely, but said nothing. Kor kicked the bull and rode through a lane in Albrecht’s army to join his own men.

  “M’lord,” said Albrecht’s adjutant, Eero.

  Albrecht nodded. “Give the order to advance,” said he hoarsely, and he reined around.

  Behind him, Eero howled: “Fooorrrrwarrrrrrddddd!” And the drums began to roll. Albrecht, lance steadied, put his charger at a smart trot, aware of the thunder of hooves behind him, enough to make the ground shake.

  And to the south: the tiercel, at the top of its spiral, looked that way. But it had to wheel and dip because the wind blew from the south so strongly.

  Below, what seemed, in contrast to Albrecht’s army, a thin line of horsemen sat drawn up, three or four ranks deep but very short and easily outflanked. Their lances, too, were at the ready; and there were footsoldiers to support them, with pikes and bows. Behind these, fires burned brightly in a straight row all the way across the Moor; and beside each fire was piled several hundredweight of fresh-cut green boughs. Each fire was tended by two men, though it were hard to spare any from the ranks. And in front of this army, Helmut, Sigrieth’s bastard, sat in his fine armor of the steel of the Dolo dwarfs, atop the great white charger Vengeance, with Death and Destruction at his stirrup-irons, curveting and whining with impatience. His morning star hand rested on the saddle pommel; his real hand, gauntleted, clutched the hilt of the sword, Rage, ready to draw it and lay about him when the time came.