An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

by Glen Cook

  I kept reminding myself.

  Lord Hammer didn't sleep at all. He spent the night pacing the perimeter. He paused frequently to make cabalistic passes. Sometimes the air glowed where his fingers passed.

  He took care of us. Not a man perished. Instead, the circle took a mule.

  "Butcher it up," Fetch growled. "Save the good cuts. Couple of you guys dig a hole over there where I left the shovel."

  So we had mule for breakfast. It was tough, but good. Our first fresh meat in weeks.

  We were about to march when Fetch announced, "We'll be there tomorrow. That means goof-off time's over. Respond to orders instantly if you know what's good for you."

  Brandy mumbled and cussed. Chenyth wasn't any happier. "I swear, I'm going to smack him, Will."

  "Take it easy. He was in the Breidenbacher Light. I owe him."

  "So? They got you out at Lake Turntine. That was then. What's that got to do with today?"

  "What it's got to do with is, he'll kick your ass up around your ears."

  "Kid wants to duke it out, let him, Will. He's getting on my nerves too."

  "Stow it," Fetch snarled. "Save it for the other guys. It's time to start worrying about getting out alive."

  "What? Then we'd have to walk all the way back." Brandy cackled.

  "Fetch, what's this all about?" Chenyth asked.

  "I already told you, question man."

  "Not why."

  She scowled, shook her head. I asked, "Weren't you ever young, Fetch? Hey! Whoa! I didn't mean it like that."

  She settled for the one shin-kick. Everybody laughed. I winked. She grinned nastily.

  Brandy and Chenyth forgot their quarrel.

  Chenyth hadn't forgotten his question. He pressed.

  "All I know is, he wants the blood of the Father of Dragons. We came now because the monster is sluggish during the winter. Now why the hell don't you just jingle the money in your pocket and do what you're told?"

  "Where'd you meet him, Fetch? When?"

  She shook her head again. "You don't hear so good, do you? Long ago and far away. He's been like a father. Now get your ass ready to hike." She tramped off to her position beside Lord Hammer's stallion.

  The woman had the least feminine walk I've ever seen. She took long, rolling steps, and kind of leaned into them.

  "You ask too many questions, Chenyth."

  "Can it, will you?"

  We were getting close. Not knowing, except that we were going to go up against a dragon, frayed tempers. Chenyth's trouble was that he hadn't had enough practice at keeping his mouth shut.

  Noon. Another barrow blocked our trail. We repeated our previous performance. The feeling of menace wasn't as strong. The thing in the earth let us pass with only token protest.

  The weather grew warmer. The ice melted quickly, turning the trail to mud.

  Occasionally, from ridge tops, we saw the land beyond the forest. Mountains lay ahead. Brandy moaned his heart out till Fetch told him our destination lay at their feet. Then he bitched about everything happening too fast.

  Several of those peaks trailed dark smoke. There wasn't much snow on their flanks.

  "Funny," I remarked to Chenyth. "Heading north into warmer country."

  We passed a living circle. It called to us the way the trees called to me.

  An end to the weird, wide forest came. We entered grasslands that, within a few hours, gave way to rapidly steepening hills. The peaks loomed higher. The air grew warmer. The hills became taller and more barren. Shadows gathered in the valleys as the sun settled toward the Dragon's Teeth.

  Lord Hammer ordered us to pitch camp. He doubled the sentries.

  We weren't bothered, but still it was a disturbing night. The earth shuddered. The mountains rumbled. I couldn't help but envision some gargantuan monster resting uneasily beneath the range.

  IX

  The dawn gods were heaving buckets of blood up over the eastern horizon. Fetch formed us up for a pep talk. "Queen of the dwarves," Brandy mumbled. She was comical, so tiny was she when standing before a mounted Lord Hammer.

  "Lord Hammer believes we are about three miles from the Gate of Kammengarn. The valley behind me will lead us there. From the Gate those who accompany Lord Hammer will descend into the earth almost a mile. Captain Bellweather and thirty men will stay at the Gate. Six men will accompany Lord Hammer and myself."

  Her style had changed radically. I had never seen her so subdued.

  Fetch was scared.

  "Bellweather, your job will be the hardest. It's almost certain that you will be attacked. The people of these hills believe Kammengarn to be a holy place. They know we're here. They suspect our mission. They'll try to destroy us once we prove we intend to profane their shrine. You'll have to hold them most of the day, without Lord Hammer's help."

  "Now we know," Brandy muttered. "Needed us to fight his battles for him."

  "Why the hell else did he hire us?" Chenyth demanded.

  Lord Hammer's steed pranced impatiently. Hammer's gaze swept over us. It quelled all emotion.

  "Lord Hammer has appointed the following men to accompany him. Foud, of the Harish. Aboud, of the Harish. Sigurd Ormson, the Trolledyngjan. Dunklin Hanneker, the Itaskian. Willem Clarig Potter, of Kavelin. Pavlo della Contini-Marcusco, of Dunno Scuttari." She made a small motion with her fingers, like someone folding a piece of paper.

  "Fetch! . . . "

  "Shut up, Chenyth!" I growled.

  Fetch responded, "Lord Hammer has spoken. The men named, please come to the head of the column."

  I hoisted my pack, patted Chenyth's shoulder, said, "Do a good job. And stay healthy. I've got to take you back to Mom."

  "Will . . . ."

  "Hey. You wanted to be a soldier. Be a soldier."

  He stared at the ground, kicked a pebble.

  "Good luck, Will." Brandy extended a hand. I shook. "We'll look out for him."

  "All right. Thanks. Russ. Aral. You guys take care." It was a ritual of parting undertaken before times got rough.

  The red-eyed horse started moving. We followed in single file. Fetch walked with Bellweather for a while. After half an hour she scampered forward to her place beside Lord Hammer. She was nervous. She couldn't keep her head or hands still.

  I glanced back, past Ormson. "Fight coming," I told the Trolledyngjan. Bellweather was getting ready right now.

  "Did you ever doubt it?"

  "No. Not really."

  The mountains crowded in. The valley narrowed till it became a steep-sided canyon. That led to a place where two canyons collided and became one. It had a flat bottom maybe fifty yards across.

  It was the most barren place I had ever seen. The boulders were dark browns. The little soil came in lighter browns. A few tufts of desiccated grass added sere browns. Even the sky took on an ochre hue . . . .

  The blackness of a crack in the mountainside ahead relieved the monochromism.

  It was a natural cleft, but there were tailings everywhere, several feet deep, as if the cleft had been mined. The tailings had filled the canyon bottom, creating the little flat.

  I searched the hillsides. It seemed I could feel eyes boring holes in my back. I looked everywhere but at that cavern mouth.

  The darkness it contained seemed the deepest I had ever known.

  Lord Hammer rode directly to it.

  "Packs off," Fetch ordered. "Weapons ready." She twitched and scratched nervously. "We're going down. Do exactly as I do."

  Bellweather brought the others into the flat. He searched the mountainsides too. "They're here," he announced.

  War howls responded immediately. Here, there, a painted face flashed amongst the rocks.

  Arrows and spears wobbled through the air.

  There were a lot of them, I reflected as I got myself between my shield and a boulder. The odds didn't look good at all.

  Bellweather shouted. His men vanished behind their shields . . . .

  All but my baby brother, who ju
st stood there with a stupefied look.

  "Chenyth!" I started toward him.

  "Will!" Fetch snapped. She grabbed my arm. "Stay here."

  Brandy and Russ took care of him. They exploded from behind their shields, tackled the kid, covered him before he got hurt. That got his attention. He started doing the things I had been teaching the past several months.

  An arrow hummed close to me, clattered on rock. Then another. I had been chosen somebody's favorite target. Time to worry about me.

  The savages concentrated on Lord Hammer. Their luck was poor. Missiles found him repulsive. In fact, they seemed to loath making contact with any of us.

  Not so the arrows of Bellweather's Itaskian bows.

  The Itaskian bow and bowman are the best in the world. Bellweather's men wasted no arrows. Virtually every shaft brought a cry of pain.

  Then Lord Hammer reached up and caught an arrow in flight.

  The canyon fell silent in sheer awe.

  Lord Hammer extended an arm. A falling spear became a streak of smoke.

  The hillmen didn't give up. Instead, they started rolling boulders down the slopes.

  "Eyes down!" Fetch screamed. "Stare at the ground."

  Lord Hammer swept first his right hand, then his left, round himself. He clapped them together once.

  A sheet of fire, of lightning, obscured the sky. Thunder tortured my ears. My hearing recovered only to be tormented anew by the screams of men in pain.

  It had been much nastier above. Dozens of savages were staggering around with hands clasped over their eyes or ears. Several fell down the slope.

  Bellweather's archers went to work.

  "Let's go." Fetch said. "Remember. Do exactly what I do."

  The little woman was scared pale. She didn't want to enter that cavern. But she took her place beside Lord Hammer, who laid a hand atop her disheveled head.

  His touch seemed fond. His fingers toyed with her stringy hair. She shivered, looked at the ground, then stalked into that black crack.

  He only touched the rest of us for a second. The feeling was similar to that when he had caught me after my run-in with the siren tree. But this time the tingle coursed through my whole body.

  He finished with Foud. Once more he swept hands round the mountainsides, clapped. Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled. Bellweather's archers plied their bows.

  The savages were determined not to be intimidated.

  Lord Hammer dismounted, strode into the darkness. The red-eyed stallion turned round, backed in after us, stopped only when its bulk nearly blocked the narrow passage. Hammer wound his way through our press, proceeded into darkness.

  Fetch followed. Single file, we did the same.

  X

  "Holy Hagard's Golden Turds!" Sigurd exploded. "They're on fire."

  Lord Hammer and Fetch glowed. They shed enough light to reveal the crack's walls.

  "So are you," I told him.

  "Eh. You too."

  I couldn't see it myself. Sigurd said he couldn't, either. I glanced back. The others glowed too. They became quite bright once they got away from the cavern mouth. It was spooky.

  The Harish didn't like it. They were unusually vocal, and what I caught of their gabble made it sound like they were mad because a heresy had been practiced upon them.

  The light seemed to come from way down inside the body. I could see Sigurd's bones. And Fetch's, and the others' when I glanced back. But Lord Hammer remained an enigma. An absence. Once more I wondered if he were truly human, or if anything at all inhabited that black clothing.

  After a hundred yards the walls became shaped stone set with mortar. That explained the tailings above. The blocks had been shaped in situ.

  "Why would they do that?" I asked Sigurd

  He shrugged. "Don't try to understand a man's religion, Kaveliner. Just drive you crazy."

  A hundred yards farther along the masons had narrowed the passage to little more than a foot. A man had to go through sideways.

  Fetch stopped us. Lord Hammer started doing something with his fingers.

  I told Sigurd, "Looks like the dragon god isn't too popular with the people who worship him."

  "Eh?"

  "The tunnel. It's zigzagged. And the narrow place looks like it was built to keep the dragon in."

  "They don't worship the dragon," Fetch said. "They worship Kammengarn, the Hidden City. Silcroscuar is blocking their path to their shrines. So they blocked him in in hopes he would starve."

  "Didn't work, eh?"

  "No. Silcroscuar subsists. On visitors. He has guardians. Descendents of the people who lived in Kammengarn. They hunt for him."

  "What's happening?"

  Lord Hammer had a ball of fire in his hands. It was nearly a foot in diameter. He shifted it to his right hand. He rolled it along the tunnel floor, through the narrow passage.

  "Let's go!" Fetch shrieked. "Will! Sigurd! Get in there!"

  I charged ahead without thinking. The passage was twenty feet long. I was halfway through when the screams started.

  Such pain and terror I hadn't heard since the wars. I froze.

  Sigurd plowed into me. "Go, man."

  An instant later we broke into a wider tunnel.

  A dozen savages awaited us. Half were down, burning like torches. The stench of charred flesh fouled the air. The others flitted about trying to extinguish themselves or their comrades.

  We took them before the Harish got through.

  Panting, I asked Sigurd, "How did he know?"

  Sigurd shrugged. "He always knows. Almost. That first barrow . . . ."

  "He smelled their torches," Foud said. The Harish elder wore a sarcastic smile.

  "You're killing the mystery."

  "There is no mystery to Lord Hammer."

  "Maybe not to you." I turned to Sigurd. "Hope he's on his toes. We don't need any surprises down here."

  Lord Hammer stepped in. He surveyed the carnage. He seemed satisfied.

  Several of the savages still burned.

  Fetch lost her breakfast.

  I think that startled all of us. Perhaps even Lord Hammer. It seemed so out of character. And yet . . . . What did we know about Fetch? Only what we had seen. And most of that had been show. This might be the first time she had witnessed the grim side of her master's profession.

  I don't think, despite her apparent agelessness, that she was much older than Chenyth. Say twenty. She might have missed the Great Eastern Wars too.

  We went on, warriors in the lead. The tunnel's slope steepened. Twice we descended spiraling stairs hanging in the sides of wide shafts. Twice we encountered narrow places with ambushes like that we had already faced. We broke through each. Sigurd took our only wound, a slight cut on his forearm.

  We left a lot of dead men on our back trail.

  The final attack was more cunning. It came from behind, from a side tunnel, and took us by surprise. Even Lord Hammer was taken off guard.

  His mystique just cracked a little more, I thought as I whirled.

  There was sorcery in it this time.

  The hillmen witch-doctors had saved themselves for the final defense. They had used their command of the Power passively, to conceal themselves and their men. Our only warning was a premature war whoop.

  Lord Hammer whirled. His hands flew in frenetic passes. The rest of us struggled to interpose ourselves between the attackers and Lord Hammer and Fetch.

  Sorceries scarred the tunnel walls. The shamans threw everything they had at the man in black.

  Their success was a wan one. They devoured Lord Hammer's complete attention for no more than a minute.

  We soldiers fought. Sigurd and I locked shields with Contini-Marcusco and the Itaskian. The Harish, who disdained and reviled shields, remained behind us. They rained scimitar strokes over our heads.

  The savages forced us back by sheer weight. But we held the wall even against suicide charges.

  They hadn't the training to handle professional soldiers w
ho couldn't be flanked. We crouched behind our shields and let them come to their deaths.

  But they did get their licks in before Lord Hammer finished their witch-doctors and turned on them.

  It lasted no longer than three minutes. We beat them again. But when the clang and screaming faded, we had little reason to cheer.

  Hanneker was mortally wounded. Contini-Marcusco had a spearhead in his thigh. Sigurd had taken a deep cut on his left shoulder.

  Fetch was down.

  Me and the Harish, we were fine. Tired and drained, but unharmed.

  I dropped to my knees beside Fetch's still little form. Tears filled my eyes. She had become one of my favorite people.

  She had been last in line, walking behind Lord Hammer. We hadn't been able to get to her.

  She was alive. She opened her eyes once, when I touched her, and bravely tried one of her smiles.

  Lord Hammer knelt opposite me. He touched her cheeks, her hair, tenderly. The tension in him proclaimed his feeling. His gaze crossed mine. For an instant I could feel his pain.

  Lord, I thought, your mystique is dying. You care.

  Fetch opened her eyes again. She lifted a feeble hand, clasped Lord Hammer's for an instant. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  "Don't be," he said, and it felt like an order from a god. The fingers of his left hand twitched.

  I gasped, so startling was his voice, so suddenly did the Power gather. He did something to Fetch's wounds, then to Sigurd's, then to Contini-Marcusco's. Hanneker was beyond help.

  He turned, faced downhill, stared. He started walking.

  We who could do so followed.

  "What did he do?" I whispered to Sigurd.

  The big man shrugged. "It don't hurt anymore."

  "Did you hear him? He talked. To Fetch."

  "No."

  Had I imagined it?

  I glanced back. The Harish were two steps behind us. They came with the same self-certainty they always showed. Only a tiny tick at the corner of Aboud's eye betrayed any internal feeling.

  Foud smiled his little smile. Once again I wondered what they were doing here.

  And I wondered about Lord Hammer, whose long process of creating a mythic image seemed to be unraveling.