by Dave Duncan
adjourn--"
"No!" roared a voice from the floor, and the
cry was taken up by a thousand throats in a great
roar of anger and disapproval. Even the
visitors were shouting, although they should not meddle in
local business.
Cynewulf did seem surprised then. He
peered narrowly into the gloom as if seeking out
ringleaders, but he kept his self-control and when
he stretched out both arms for silence the crowd
hushed to hear him. "If the honored earls are
willing to let our shire moot take precedence,
then we shall gladly honor their wishes. The
witenagemot stands adjourned until the morrow.
Thegns, the fyrd will assemble tonight at sunset"--
he was shouting at the top of his lungs--"to decide
the issue between us and our tanist in the ways of the
Baels."
Leofric had been whispering to Ceolmund and
some of the other witan. Now he thumped a hand on
his son's massive shoulder. "The Haligdom!"
he said. "Go and seize the Haligdom!"
Upward, ever upward, Wasp drove his
horse, going he knew not where to fight he knew
not what. Only his Blade instinct guided him
through stinking fog and the steady drizzle of mud. The
ash fall was so heavy now, and so hot, that if the
rain part of it ever slackened he would probably
fry. Poor Cwealm, superbly surefooted
though he was, found the going treacherous and painful.
Wasp kept expecting a firedrake to come
flaming and roaring out of the mist at him. Fight a
firedrake with a rapier? Why his Blade instinct
would drive him to come in search of such a
monster he could not imagine. His mission seemed
suicidal. He was not fireproof! In spite
of the wet, he kept hallucinating a smell of
burning--the stench of the massacre at Haybridge
or the smell of West House just before Radgar
came stumbling through the flames to wrap a
blanket around him and carry him out. Twice in his
life he had escaped death by fire, and he
seemed destined to meet it again.
When the ground began to drop away ahead of him
and the wind redoubled its fury, he realized that he
had reached the bleak shoulder called Baelstede.
Coughing and almost blind from the muddy deluge, he
turned Cwealm in the direction of the cave
entrance. It seemed that his destination was to be
Weargahlaew again. He felt a faint stir of
hope--he might not have to fight a firedrake after
all, only mad old Healfwer.
Poor Cwealm had been run to exhaustion.
He coughed and slithered and sometimes bellowed out his
misery; but he kept responding, knowing that
otherwise he would get beaten with a rapier.
"Not long now, big fellow," Wasp told
him. "Won't be so bad in the gully. I never
treated a nag like this in my life before, friend, and I
promise I never will again. It's all for
Radgar. You remember Radgar ...?" Babble,
babble! The stallion was not the only one near the
end of his endurance.
The defile was not better at all. Cwealm
had to plod hock-deep up a steaming river of
hot mud laced with rocks and branches. He
eventually balked, was beaten, went on a few more
steps, and then stumbled. Wasp, deservedly, was
pitched into the muck, which was even hotter than he
had expected. Once he had cleaned off his
face well enough to see, he needed only one glance
at his mount to know that this was the end. Cwealm was
immobilized, and a damaged leg here had to be a
death sentence.
Wasp gave him a hug and wept for him. "I
am sorry, friend, I really am sorry!" He
could read his own name on the death warrant too, so
he wept for himself and his folly, but he also mourned
a great heart. "If the impossible happens and
I ever see Radgar again," he promised, "I
will tell him of your courage."
Then he did what had to be done and did it
well, for he had helped his father butcher animals
and knew where to strike. He wiped
Nothing on his mud-covered cloak and set off
along the gully alone.
Unlike a horse, he could stay out of the mud
river by working his way through the brush and spindly
trees that lined the steeply sloping walls; they
gave him handholds when he slipped on the ooze
underfoot. At least the tunnel would provide
shelter from the constant drizzle.
When he came to the end of the little gorge, he
thought he was to be denied even that. Rock and mud
had cascaded down, building a mound that almost
covered the cave mouth. Closer inspection
revealed that there was a gap left at the top; and
when he had scrambled up to see it, he could feel
a wind blowing past his head. A powerful draft was
blowing into the mountain, so the upper end must still be open
and the way was clear.
Clear at the moment. The ground trembled. The
mountain's menacing rumbling never stopped.
Finding the tinderbox by feel alone was a
painfully long business, but he located it
eventually, and also a lantern with candle left in
it. Some of the crushed-fungus tinder was damp, and
only after a great deal of striking and swearing did
he find a piece dry enough to catch. Then he had
light and he was out of the rain, but his clothes were so
weighted by mud that they felt like the plate mail
he had been forced to wear in Ironhall
broadsword training. Perhaps because there was no
physical means for him to return to Radgar now,
the agony of being separated from his ward had
dwindled. In its place had come the numbing pain
of total exhaustion.
So what? He was wretchedly uncomfortable.
He could not sleep. He set off into the tunnel.
Perhaps twelve hours had passed since he and
Radgar had come through here on their way out. Much
rock had fallen since then. There was no path
anymore. There was hardly a tunnel anymore.
In its place he found an unending climb over
precariously balanced heaps of jagged boulders,
going in constant danger of starting a slide that would
crush his feet or bury him totally. At times
he was wriggling high above the original roof,
hunting for gaps between the heaped debris and the new--
no doubt temporary--roof. Sometimes he knew
he had found a passage because when he thrust his
head and shoulders into the gap he could hear
the wind whistling past his ears. That was a reminder that
the wind could get through narrower places than he
could. The exit, if he ever reached it, might not be
Wasp-sized.
Exhaustion, earth tremors, the reek of
sulfur, now hunger, and certainly thirst ... a
Blade's lot was not a happy one. The end
came without warning. Rocks shifted under him. Then
a rising
din as more and more of the roof collapsed, both
in front of him and behind ... something came down on
his left hand, which held the lantern. He was
plunged into darkness, his scream of agony drowned
out by noise that seemed to beat the brains from his head.
He was pelted by stones, choked by dust. The
tunnel collapsed.
When the noise stopped, the draft had stopped,
too. He was sealed in, buried alive in the
heart of the mountain.
No challenge had been contested in Catterstow
for so long that very few men could remember the last
time. Ceolmund had yielded to Aeled without forcing
a vote, but in his younger days he had shed blood
to win the earldom and keep it. He knew the
unwritten rules. He knew that the earl would
hold court in Cynehof, rallying supporters,
plying thegns with ale and mead, bribing ship lords with
gold. The tanist challenger must set up a
recruiting center of his own and see what he could do
with promises. Since the Haligdom, the great
elementary, was the second largest building in
Waro`edburh, the Wulfwer party should take it
over as its headquarters. This was especially true
on a day like this, when the rain was coming down in
tubfuls. But no one had told Wulfwer this and
by the time someone did, it was too late. Aylwin and
his beefiest buddies had seized the building, and
his father was leading the rest of the fledgling Aeleding party
there in parade. Wulfwer's challenge had opened
opportunities.
"Here!" said Aylwin, thrusting a war helmet
at Radgar. "Choose a sword."
"Huh?"
The huge circular hall was smaller than he
remembered, but still impressive. Often as a child
he had huddled in the doorway beside the jeering town
brats to watch shiploads of Chivian
prisoners being enthralled into useful servants.
With the unthinking cruelty of the young, he had mocked
their screams for mercy. No one had told him he
was doing anything wrong. Chivian crowds had
laughed when Baelish prisoners were butchered in
public. It had been wartime, and things were different
then.
Things were different now. Leofric's werod was
forming itself into a circle, excluding other thegns.
Someone handed Aylwin a shield, and another offered
Radgar a helmet and a collection of wooden
practice swords.
Leofric explained at his elbow. "They're
going to vote you in, Atheling. But they need to know that
you can fight."
"I haven't sworn the cniht's oath,"
Radgar said angrily. This sort of contest was
stupid. It would prove little about a man's
courage in real battle, yet it was dangerous enough
to maim him if something went wrong. The helmet
he was holding had a face plate, which meant he
would be peering out through two small eye holes,
unable to see what he was doing. Ironhall
dueling equipment was better, safer, and so varied
that he was expert in a dozen styles of fighting.
Aylwin would know only broadsword and shield,
possibly battle-ax.
"Well you can't back out now," the ship lord said
smugly, walking away and leaving Radgar in the
circle of grinning faces.
True! He threw the helmet away and
refused the shield. He drew Fancy, a
cat's-eye sword infinitely better than
anything he was being offered. "Come and kill me,"
he said.
"Flames!" said a muffled voice from inside
Aylwin's helmet. "That's a real sword!"
"It's a real sword and I'm going to show you
real sword craft. I'll use the blunt
side. Now come and kill me."
The spectators fell silent. Aylwin
shrugged, flexed his arms, and charged. Reluctant
to strike an unarmored friend with even the wooden
sword, he tried to knock him with his shield
instead. Radgar had expected that. He jumped
aside, grabbed the edge of the shield with his free
hand, and kicked the back of his friend's knee as he
went past. Aylwin hit the tiles in a clatter
and his sword skittered away across the floor.
Radgar stepped up on his back.
"Next?"
Terrible words came out of the helmet. ...
"You're dead. I want someone else."
The onlookers jeered uproariously at their
shipmate's humiliation, but such tricks did not
impress them much. Then Radgar Aeleding disposed
of two more contenders with equal ease and they began
to show interest. There was no elaborate point
system--first hit was counted mortal. The next
men tried to match his speed and agility and came
at him on his own terms, without shield or
helmet, just a blade. They did not pull their
strokes, either. Men who weighed twice what he
did swung two-handed broadswords that would have
shattered bones. He did not try to block those;
he let Fancy nudge the stroke up or down
or aside, using their momentum to throw his
opponents off balance. They all seemed
incredibly slow to him, but he dared not be as gentle
with everyone as he had been with Aylwin. He
rapped a couple of men across the neck with the back
of his sword; he disarmed another by striking his elbow
with the flat of the blade. With the sixth man, he
accidentally drew blood. The wound was not serious,
but honor was satisfied.
"That's all!" He sheathed his sword,
pleasantly aware that he was barely winded. By then
the ale barrels were being rolled in.
"Can he fight?" Aylwin yelled, and the
werod roared approval.
They voted Radgar Aeleding one of them, and a
thegn in the Catterstow fyrd.
If they thought he was good, they should have seen
Wasp.
All over Waro`edburh the afternoon was spent in
argument, wherever two or more thegns were within earshot of
each other. War horns blared, summoning
warriors to the free ale--in Cynehof, at the
tanist's headquarters in the boat sheds, or from
Ship Lord Leofric at the elementary. Most men
would need to try all three, of course. The rain
grew worse, turning everything gray with mud.
Messengers departed in fast boats to fetch
absent members of the fyrd from half Baelmark.
Ancient pirates in their dotage were dragged from
their beds, bathed and combed and made presentable.
Werodu assembled and voted fresh-faced
cnihtas into full thegnhood.
Radgar stayed sober and listened.
Everyone had opinions, from the gawkiest beginner
to thegns who had been old in his childhood. He
steadfastly refused to express his own opinions.
Leofric and Ceolmund were in charge, running the
Aeleding Party, practically planning his first
moves as earl, and it was all nonsense. The
fyrd could not vote for him under the rules, and would not
vote for him if it could. He was almost certain that
Wulfwer's challenge was a fraud dreamed up
by Cynewulf. He did not understand the plot,
though, and he was offered an infinite choice of
theories.
"It is a conspiracy," one elder insisted.
"The King and that lunkish son of his cooked this up
to distract attention from the witenagemot." He
repeated this opinion every few minutes all afternoon.
"The tanist is a Cattering. He thinks his
father is about to be deposed and hopes to snatch the
throne for himself."
"The witenagemot will not stand for that Wulfwer
oaf as king!"
"Who would challenge him? He could slay any
two of them at once."
"Radgar Aeleding, of course. He is
trained like a Chivian Blade."
"No, Cynewulf put his son up to this. He
wants to show the earls that he still has the support
of his fyrd. The fight will be a fraud. ..."
"Who cares about the witenagemot? We need
an earl who can pee straight!"
"The King wants to drop Wulfwer overboard
and he won't go."
"Aeleding is too young. Even the fyrd will not
accept him and the witenagemot--"
"He is only a year younger than his father
was."
"But Aeled first went foering with us at
fourteen. I remember how--"
"True, he was a seasoned ship lord. I
remember how--"
Murder and mayhem, tales to make a man's
hair stand on end! Radgar had never realized how
bloody his father's youth had been. He felt very
inadequate and knew he must seem so to these men.
He missed Wasp. Already he felt like an
unshelled turtle without his sharp young Blade
watching over him. He even missed the kid's
acid-tongued comments on Baelish customs.
The theories were repeated, rehashed, and
embroidered. They grew wilder and
wilder as the day went on, but a significant
number of them presumed that Cynewulf and his son
were somehow conspiring together and that Radgar was in grave
danger of dying suddenly, as had so many other
throne-worthy men of late. No one could clarify
the details of how this would be achieved,
unfortunately, but it showed how little respect
Cynewulf commanded in his own shire.
When dismal afternoon began to darken into evening, the
werod clamored to hear from the atheling himself.
Reluctantly he approached the upturned
wooden bucket that served as a podium. Before he