by Tad Williams
“What is it?”
“Help your friend! Your Croohok! Come!”
Simon kicked his heels against Homefinder’s ribs and followed the trolls as they neatly wheeled their rams about. Homefinder lurched as she struggled across the slippery lake surface after them. Simon could tell that the horse was tired, dreadfully tired. Poor Homefinder! He should stop and give her water ... let her sleep ... sleep ... Simon’s own head was pounding, and his right arm felt as though it had been beaten with clubs.
Aedon’s mercy, what have I done? What have I done today?
The trolls led him back into the knot of battle. The men he saw around him were exhausted almost to heedlessness, like South Islander slaves sent to fight in the old Nabbanai arenas. Foes seemed to hold each other up as they struck, and the clang of weaponry had a dolorous, off-key sound, like a hundred cracked bells pealing.
Sludig and a knot of defenders were surrounded by Thrithings mercenaries. The Rimmersman had an ax in each hand. He had been unhorsed, but even as he struggled to keep his footing on the ice he held two scarfaced Thrithings-men at bay. Simon and the trolls came on as swiftly as the footing would allow, falling on Sludig’s attackers from behind. Although Simon’s cramping arm failed to strike a clean blow, his blade struck near the unprotected tail of one of the Thrithings-men’s horses, making the creature rear suddenly. Its rider crashed to the ice, where he was quickly savaged by Sludig’s companions. The Rimmersman used the skidding, riderless horse as a shield against his other enemy, then was able to get a foot into the stirrup and clamber into the saddle, bringing one of his axes up just in time to ward a blow from the Thrithings-man’s curved sword. Their weapons clanked together twice more, then Sludig, roaring wordlessly, hooked the man’s blade from his grip with one ax and buried the other in the mercenary’s head, smashing down through the stiff leather helmet as though it were an eggshell. He put his boot in the man’s chest and wrenched the ax free; the mercenary flopped over his horse’s neck, then slid heavily to the ground.
Simon shouted to Sludig, then turned quickly as another surge of the struggle pushed a riderless horse heavily against Homefinder’s shoulder, almost jarring him out of his seat. He clutched at the reins, then righted himself and kicked at the panicking creature, which whinnied and scrambled for purchase on the ice before scrambling away.
The Rimmersman stared at Simon for a moment as though he did not recognize him. His yellow beard was spattered with drops of blood, and his chain mail was broken and torn in several places. “Where is Deornoth?”
“I don’t know! I just got here!” Simon lifted himself higher in the saddle to look around, clutching Homefinder with his knees.
“He was cut off.” Sludig stood in his own stirrups. “There! I see his cloak!” He pointed into a clot of Thrithings-men nearby, in whose midst there was a flash of blue. “Come!” Sludig spurred the mercenary’s horse ahead. The beast, fitted with no special iron spikes, slipped and skidded.
Simon called for Sisqi and her friends, who were calmly spearing wounded Thrithings-men. The daughter of the Herder and Huntress barked something to her companions in the Qanuc tongue and they all cantered after Simon and Sludig.
The sky had grown darker overhead as clouds had covered the sun. Now a flurry of tiny snowflakes began to fill the air. The mist seemed to be growing thicker, too. Simon thought he saw a flash of crimson moving in the dark sea of struggling men not far beyond Sludig. Could it be Fengbald? Here, in the middle of things? It seemed impossible the duke would take such a risk when numbers and experience were on his side.
Simon had less than a moment to ponder this unlikely possibility before Sludig had crashed into the clump of Thrithings-men, laying about indiscriminately with his axes. Although two men fell wounded before the Rimmersman, opening his way, Simon saw that others were moving into the gap, several of them still on horseback: Sludig would be surrounded. Simon’s sense of unreality became even stronger. What was he doing here? He was no soldier! This was madness. Yet what else could he do? His friends were being hurt and killed. He spurred forward, slashing at the bearded mercenaries. Each blow now leaped up his arm, a pain like a tongue of fire that he felt through his shoulders into the base of his skull. He heard the strange yipping cries of Sisqi and her Qanuc behind him, then suddenly he was through.
Sludig had climbed down off his horse. He was kneeling beside a figure in a cloak the color of an early evening sky. It was Deornoth, and his face was very pale. Beneath Josua’s knight, half-covered by his blue cloak, a hugely-muscled Thrithings-man lay on his back, staring sightlessly at the cloudy sky, a crust of blood on his lips. With the sharpened clarity of near-madness, Simon saw a snowflake flutter down to land on the mercenary’s opened eye.
“It is the leader of the mercenaries,” Sludig shouted over the clamor. “Deornoth has killed him.”
“But Deornoth, is he alive?”
Sludig was already struggling to lift the knight from the ice. Simon looked around to see if they were in immediate danger, but the mercenaries had been lured away to some other pocket of the shifting chaos. Simon quickly dismounted and helped Sludig lift Deornoth onto the saddle. The Rimmersman climbed up and clutched at the knight, who sagged like an understuffed doll.
“Bad,” Sludig said. “He is bad. We must get him back to the barricades.”
He set out at a trot. Sisqi and the other two trolls fell in behind him. The Rimmersman steered his horse in a wide arc, heading for the outer fringe of the killing ground and comparative safety.
Simon could only lean against Homefinder’s side, panting, staring at Sludig’s back and Deornoth’s slack face bouncing beside the Rimmersman’s shoulder. Things were as bad as could be imagined. Jiriki and his Sithi were not coming. God had not seen fit to rescue the virtuous. If only this whole nightmarish day could be wished away. Simon shivered. It seemed almost that if he closed his eyes this would all be gone, that he would wake in his bed in the Hayholt’s serving quarters, the spring sunlight crawling across the flagstones outside....
He shook his head and struggled into the saddle, legs trembling. He spurred Homefinder forward. No time to let the mind wander. No time.
There was the flash of red again, just to his right. He turned and saw a figure in crimson, sitting on a white horse. The mounted man’s helm was furnished with silver wings.
Fengbald!
Slowly, as though the ice had turned to sticky honey beneath his horses’ hooves, Simon reined up and turned toward the armored man. Surely this was a dream! The duke was behind a small knot of Erkynguardsmen, but his attention seemed fixed on the fighting just before him. Simon, at the outer edge of the battle, had a clear path. He spurred Homefinder forward.
As he moved closer, picking up speed, the silver helmet seemed to grow before him, dazzling even in the murky light. The crimson cloak and bright chain mail were like a wound on the dim darkness of the far-away trees.
Simon shouted, but the figure did not turn. He kicked his boot-irons against Homefinder’s side. She made a huffing noise and increased her pace; foam flew from her lips. “Fengbald!” Simon screamed again, and this time the duke seemed to hear. The closed helm swiveled toward Simon, the eye-slit blankly inscrutable. The duke lifted his sword with one hand and tugged at his reins to bring his horse around to face this attacker. Fengbald seemed slow, as if underwater, as though he, too, found himself in some terrible dream.
Beneath his own helm, Simon’s lips skinned back from his teeth. A nightmare, then. He would be Fengbald’s nightmare, this time. He swung his own sword back, feeling the muscles in his shoulders jump and strain. As Homefinder swept down on the duke, Simon brought his sword around with both hands. It met the duke’s blade with a shivering impact that nearly pushed Simon backward out of the saddle, but something yielded at the blow. When he was past, and had straightened himself in the saddle, he turned Homefinder around in a careful half-circle. Fengbald had fallen from his horse and his sword had been knocked from his h
and. The duke lay on his back, struggling to rise.
Simon vaulted from the saddle and promptly slipped, falling forward to land painfully on elbows and knees. He crawled to where the duke still fought for balance, then rose on his knees and brought the flat of his sword against the shining helm as hard as he could. The duke fell back, arms spread wide like the wings of the silver eagle on his surcoat. Simon clambered on top of him and squatted on his chest. He, Simon, had beaten Duke Fengbald! Had they won, then? Panting, he darted a quick look around him, but no one seemed to have seen. Neither was there any sign that the fighting had been resolved—clots of figures still thrashed in the mist all across the lake. Could he have won the battle without anyone noticing?
Simon pulled his Qanuc knife from the sheath and pressed it against Fengbald’s throat, then fumbled at the duke’s helm. He worked it free at last, tugging it loose with little regard for its owner’s comfort. He tossed it aside. It spun on the ice as Simon leaned forward.
His prisoner was a middle-aged man, bald where he was not gray. His bloodied mouth was missing most of its teeth. He was not Fengbald.
“’S Bloody Tree!” Simon swore. The world was collapsing. Nothing was real. He stared at the surcoat, at the falcon-winged helmet lying just inches away. They were Fengbald’s, there was no question. But this was not the duke.
“Tricked!” Simon groaned. “Oh, God, we have been tricked like children.” There was a cold knot in his stomach. “Mother of Aedon—where is Fengbald!?”
Far across Osten Ard to the west, far from the concerns of Sesuad’ra’s defenders, a small procession emerged from a hole in the Grianspog mountainside like a troop of white mice released from a cage. As they left the shadowy tunnels they stopped, blinking and squinting in the snow-glare.
The Hernystiri, only a few hundred all told, most of them women, children, and old men, milled in confusion on the rocky shelf outside the cavern. Maegwin sensed that with any prompting at all they would quickly dash back into the safety of the caves once more. The balance was very delicate. It had taken a great effort on Maegwin’s part, all her powers of persuasion, to convince her people even to set out on this seemingly doomed journey.
Gods of our forefathers, she thought, Brynioch and Rhynn, where is our backbone!? Only Diawen, breathing deeply of the cold air with her arms lifted as if in ritual celebration, seemed to understand the glory of this march. The expression on the lined face of Old Craobhan left no doubt as to what he thought of this foolishness. But the rest of her subjects seemed mostly fearful, looking for some portent, some excuse to turn back again.
They needed prodding, that was all. It was frightening for mortals to live as their deities wished them to—it was a greater responsibility than most wished to bear. Maegwin took a deep breath.
“Great days are before us, people of Hernystir,” she cried. “The gods wish us to go down the mountain to face our enemies—the enemies who have stolen our houses, our farms, our cattle and pigs and sheep. Remember who you are! Come with me!”
She strode forward onto the path. Slowly, reluctantly, her followers fell into step behind her, shivering despite being wrapped in the warmest clothing they had been able to find. Many of the children were crying.
“Arnoran,” she called. The harper, who had been walking a little distance behind—perhaps hoping that he could fall far enough back that his presence would not be missed—came forward, leaning against the force of the wind.
“Yes, my lady?”
“Walk beside me,” she directed. Arnoran took a look down at the mountain’s sheer, snowy face just beyond the narrow path, then quickly looked away again. “I want you to play a song,” Maegwin said.
“What song, Princess?”
“Something that everyone knows the words to. Something that lifts the heart.” She pondered as she walked. Arnoran looked nervously down at his feet. “Play ‘The Lily of the Cuimnhe.’ ”
“Yes, my lady.” Arnoran lifted his harp and began to pick out the opening strains, working it through a few times to let his chilled fingers warm. Then he began in earnest, playing loudly so that those behind could easily hear.
“The Hernysadharc rose is fair. ”
he sang, lifting his voice above the wind that prowled the mountainside and stirred the trees,“As red as blood, as white as snow,
But still unplucked I’ll leave it there
For I have somewhere else to go.”
One by one at first, then in bunches, others of Maegwin’s band began to pick up the verses of the familiar song.
“At Inniscrich the violets grow
As dark as skies of early night,
But I’ll not have them, even so
For I prefer my beauties bright.
“Near Abaingeat the daisies bloom
Like stars a-twinkle in the sky,
But I will leave them in the coomb
I cannot stop; I must pass by.
“The sweetest flower of all, she grows
Where river past sweet meadow flows,
And where she blossoms I will go:
The Lily of the Cuimhne.
“When someday winter’s winds shall blow
When leaves are withered, sap is slow,
I will recall this love, I know:
The Lily of the Cuimnhe . . .”
By the refrain, scores of people had joined in. The pace of the marching feet seemed to increase, to match itself to the rhythm of the old song. The voices of Maegwin’s people rose until they outshouted the wind—and strangely, the wind grew weaker, as if acknowledging defeat.
The remnants of Hernysadharc marched down from their mountain retreat, singing.
They stopped on a shelf of snow-swept rock, and ate their midday meal beneath the dim and straining sun. Maegwin walked among her people, paying special attention to the children. She felt happy and fulfilled for the first time in long memory: Lluth’s daughter was finally doing what she was meant to do. Satisfied at last, she felt her love for the people of Hernystir come bubbling up—and her people felt it, too. Some of the older folk might still have misgivings about this mad undertaking, but to the children it was a wonderful lark; they followed Maegwin through the camp, laughing and shouting, until even the worried parents were able to forget for a while the danger into which they were traveling, to put aside their doubts. After all, how could the princess be so full of light and truth if the gods were not with her?
As for Maegwin, virtually all her own doubts had been left on Bradach Tor. She had the entire company singing again and on their way before the noon hour had passed.
When they reached the bottom of the mountain at last, her people seemed to gain hope. For all but a few of them, this was the first time they had touched the meadows of Hernystir since the Rimmersgard troops had driven them into the high places half a year before. They were returning home.
The first of Skali’s pickets came forward in a rush as they saw a small army descending from the Grianspog, but reined up in surprise, the hooves of their horses digging up great gouts of powdery snow, when they saw that the army bore no weapons—in fact, carried nothing at all in their arms but swaddled infants. The Rimmersmen, hardened warriors every one, undaunted by the confusion and horror of battle, stared in consternation at Maegwin and her troop.
“Stop!” the leader cried. He was all but hidden in his helmet and fur-lined cloak, and for a moment seemed a startled badger blinking in the door of its sett. “Going where are you?”
Maegwin made a haughty face at his poor command of the Westerling tongue. “We are going to your master, Skali of Kaldskryke.”
The soldiers looked, if possible, even more bewildered. “So many to surrender are not needed,” the leader said. “Tell the women and children for waiting here. Men with us will come.”
Maegwin scowled. “Fool. We do not come to surrender. We come to take our land back.” She waved. Her followers, who had stopped while she spoke to the soldiers, surged forward once more.
; The Rimmersmen fell in beside them like dogs trying to herd a flock of unimpressed and hostile sheep.
As they made their way across the snowy meadowlands between the foothills and Hernysadharc, Maegwin felt anger growing within her once more, anger that for a while had been overwhelmed by the glory of positive action. Here stand after stand of ancient trees, oak and beech and alder, had been leveled by Rimmersgard axes, their carcasses stripped of bark and dragged away across the rutted ground. Skali’s soldiers and their horses had churned the earth around their camps to frozen mud, and the ashes of their countless fires blew across the gray snow. The very face of the land was wounded and suffering—no wonder the gods were unhappy! Maegwin looked around and saw her own fury mirrored in the faces of her followers, their few lingering doubts now vanishing like water drops on a hot stone. The gods would make this place clean again, with their help. How could anyone doubt that it would be so?
At last, as the afternoon sun hung swollen in the gray sky, they reached the outskirts of Hernysadharc itself. They were now part of a much larger crowd: during the slow approach of Maegwin’s folk, many of the Rimmersmen had drifted in from the encampments to watch this odd spectacle, until it seemed that the whole occupying army trailed along after them. The combined company, nearing perhaps a thousand souls, made its way through the narrow, spiraling streets of Hernysadharc toward the king’s house, the Taig.
When they reached the great cleared place atop the hillock, Skali of Kaldskryke was waiting for them, standing before the Taig’s vast oaken doors. The Rimmersman was dressed in his dark armor as though waiting for a fight, and he carried his raven-helm under his arm. He was surrounded by his household guard, a legion of grim, bearded men.