The History of the Runestaff

by Michael Moorcock

  "Tell your master to lift his mask and speak for himself,"

  Count Brass called back.

  "My master offers you honorable peace. If you surrender now, he promises that he will slay nobody and will merely appoint himself as Governor of your province in King Huon's name, to see justice done and order brought to this unruly land. We offer you mercy. If you refuse, all the Kamarg will be laid to waste, everything shall be burned and the sea let in to flood what remains. The Baron Meliadus says that you well know it is in his power to do all this and that your resist-ance will be the cause of the deaths of all your kin as well as yourselves."

  "Tell Baron Meliadus, who hides behind his mask, too abashed to speak since he knows that he is a graceless cur who has abused my hospitality and been beaten by me in a fair fight - tell your master that we may well be the death of him and all his kind. Tell him that he is a cowardly dog and a thousand of his ilk could not bring down one of our Kamarg bulls. Tell him that we sneer at his offer of peace as a trick - a deception that could be seen for what it is by a child. Tell him that we need no governor, that we govern ourselves to our own satisfaction. Tell him . . ."

  Count Brass broke into a jeering laugh as Baron Meliadus angrily turned his horse about and, with the herald at his heels, galloped back toward his men.

  They waited for a quarter of an hour, and then they saw the ornithopters rise into the air. Hawkmoon sighed. He had been defeated once by the flying machines. Would he be defeated for a second time?

  Count Brass raised his sword in a signal, and there was a great flapping and snapping sound. Looking behind him, Hawkmoon saw the scarlet flamingoes sweeping upward, their graceful fight exceedingly beautiful in comparison with the clumsy motions of the metal ornithopters that parodied them. Soaring into the sky, the scarlet flamingoes, with their riders in their high saddles, each man armed with a flame-lance, wheeled toward the brazen ornithopters.

  Gaming height, the flamingoes were in the better position, but it was hard to believe that they would be a match for the machines of metal, however clumsy. Red streamers of flame, hardly visible from this distance, struck the sides of the ornithopters, and one pilot was hit, killed almost instantly and falling from his machine. The pilotless ornithopter flapped on then its wings folded behind it and it plunged downward, to land, birdlike, prow first, in the swamp below the hill. Hawkmoon saw an ornithopter fire its twin flame-cannon at a flamingo and its rider, and the scarlet bird leaped in the air, somersaulted, and crashed to earth in a great shower of feathers. The air was hot and the flying machines noisy, but Count Brass's attention was now on the Granbretanian cavalry, which was advancing toward the hill at a charge.

  Count Brass made no movement at first; he merely watched the huge press of horsemen as they came nearer and nearer.

  Then he lifted his sword again, yelling, "Towers - open fire!"

  The nozzles of some of the unfamiliar weapons turned toward the enemy riders, and there came a shrieking sound that Hawkmoon thought would split his head, but he saw nothing come from the weapons. Then he saw that the horses were rearing, just as they reached the swampland. Every one was bucking now, eyes rolling and foam flecking its lips.

  Riders were flung off until half the cavalry was crawling in the swamp, slipping on the treacherous mud, trying to control their animals.

  Count Brass turned to Hawkmoon. "A weapon that emits an invisible ray down which sound travels. You heard a little of it - the horses experienced its full intensity."

  "Shall we charge them now?" Hawkmoon asked.

  "No - no need. Wait, curb your impatience."

  The horses were falling, stiff and senseless. "It kills them, unfortunately, in the end," Count Brass said.

  Soon all the horses lay in the mud while their riders cursed and waded back to firm ground, standing there uncertainly.

  Above them, flamingoes dived and circled around the ornithopters, making up in grace for what they lacked in power and strength. But many of the giant birds were falling - more than the ornithopters, with their clanking wings and whirring engines.

  Great stones began to crash down near the towers.

  "The war machines - they're using their catapults," von Villach growled. "Can't we ... ?"

  "Patience," said Count Brass, apparently unperturbed.

  Then a great wave of heat struck them, and they saw a huge funnel of crimson fire splash against the nearest tower.

  Hawkmoon pointed. "A fire cannon - the largest I've ever seen. It will destroy us all!"

  Count Brass was riding for the tower under attack. They saw him leap from his horse and enter the building, which seemed doomed. Moments later the tower began to spin faster and faster, and Hawkmoon realized in astonishment that it was disappearing below the ground, the flame passing harmlessly over it. The cannon turned its attention to the next tower, and as it did so, this tower began to spin and retreat into the ground while the first tower whirled upward again, came to a halt, and let fire at the flame cannon with a weapon mounted on the battlements. This weapon shone green and purple and had a bell-shaped mouth. A series of round white objects flew from it and landed near the flame cannon. Hawkmoon could see them bouncing amongst the engineers who manned the weapon. Then his attention was diverted as an ornithopter crashed close by and he was forced to turn his horse and gallop along the crest of the hill until he was out of range of the exploding power unit. Von Villach joined him. "What are those things?" Hawkmoon asked, but von Villach shook his head, as puzzled as his comrade.

  Then Hawkmoon saw that the white spheres had stopped bouncing and that the flame cannon no longer gouted fire.

  Also the hundred or so people near the cannon were no longer moving. Hawkmoon realized with a shock that they were frozen. More of the white spheres shot from the bell-shaped mouth of the weapon and bounced near the catapults and other war engines of Granbretan. Shortly, the crews of these were also frozen and rocks ceased to fall near the towers.

  Count Brass left the tower he had entered and rode back to join them. He was grinning. "We have still other weapons to display to these fools," he said.

  "But can they fight such a weight of men?" Hawkmoon asked, for the infantry were now moving forward, their numbers so vast that it seemed not even the mightiest weapons could stop their advance.

  "We shall see," Count Brass replied, signaling to a lookout on a nearby tower. The air above them was black with fighting birds and machines, red traceries of fire crisscrossing the sky, pieces of metal and bloody feathers falling all around them.

  It was impossible to tell which side was winning.

  The infantry was almost upon them when Count Brass waved his sword to the lookout and the tower turned wide-muzzled weapons toward the armies of Granbretan. Glass spheres, shimmering blue in the light, hurtled toward the advancing warriors and fell among them. Hawkmoon saw them break formation, begin to run about wildly, flailing at the air and ripping off the masks of their respective Orders.

  "What has happened?" he asked Count Brass in amaze-ment.

  "The spheres contain a hallucinatory gas," Count Brass told him. "It makes the men see dreadful visions." Now he turned in his saddle and waved his sword to the waiting men below. They began to advance. "The time has come to meet Granbretan with ordinary weapons," he said.

  From the remaining ranks of infantry, arrows flew thickly toward them and flame-lances sent searing fire. Count Brass's archers retaliated, and his flame-lancers returned the attack.

  Arrows clattered on their armor, and several men fell. Others were struck down by the flame-lances. Through the chaos of fire and flying arrows, the infantry of Granbretan steadily advanced, in spite of depleted numbers. They paused when they came to the swampy ground, choked as it was with the bodies of their horses, and their officers furiously urged them onward.

  Count Brass ordered his herald forward, and the men approached, bearing the simple flag of his master - a red gauntlet on a white field.

  The three men waite
d as the infantry broke ranks and began to clamber through the mud and over the corpses of the horses, struggling to reach the hill where the forces of the Kamarg waited to meet them.

  Hawkmoon saw Meliadus some distance in the rear and recognized the barbaric vulture-mask of Asrovak Mikosevaar as the huge Muskovian led his Vulture Legion on foot and was one of the first to cross the swamp and reach the slopes of the hill.

  Hawkmoon trotted his horse forward a little so that he would be directly in the path of Mikosevaar when he approached.

  He heard a bellow, and the vulture-mask glared at him with eyes of ruby. "Aha! Hawkmoon! The dog that has worried at us for so long! Now let's see how you conduct yourself in a fair fight, traitor!"

  "Call me not 'traitor,' " Hawkmoon said angrily. "You sniffer of corpses!"

  Mikosevaar hefted his great war ax in his armored hands, bellowed again, and began to run toward Hawkmoon, who jumped from his horse and, with shield and broadsword, prepared to defend himself.

  The ax, shod all in metal, thundered against the shield and sent Hawkmoon staggering back a pace. Another blow followed and split the top edge of the shield. Hawkmoon swung his sword around, and it struck Mikosevaar's heavily armored shoulder with a great ringing sound, sending up a shower of sparks. Both men held their ground, giving blow for blow as the battle raged around them. Hawkmoon glanced at von Villach and saw him engaged with Mygel Hoist, Archduke of Londra, well-matched in age and strength, and Count Brass was plowing through the lesser warriors, trying to seek out Meliadus, who had plainly decided to supervise the battle from a distance.

  From their advantageous position, the Kamargians with-stood the Dark Empire warriors, holding their line firm.

  Hawkmoon's shield was a ruin of jagged metal and useless.

  He flung it from his arm and seized his sword in both hands, swinging it to meet the blow Mikosevaar aimed at his head.

  The two men grunted with exertion as they maneuvered about in the slippery earth of the hill, now jabbing to try to make the other lose his footing, now slashing suddenly at the legs or torso or battering from above or the side.

  Hawkmoon was sweating heavily in his armor, and he grunted with effort. Then suddenly his foot slid from under him and he fell to one knee, Mikosevaar lumbering forward to raise his ax and decapitate his enemy. Hawkmoon flung himself flat, toward Mikosevaar, and grabbed at the man's legs, pulling him down so that both men rolled over and over toward the swamp and the mounds of dead horses.

  Punching and cursing, they came to a halt in the filth.

  Neither had lost his weapon, and now they stumbled to their feet, preparing to continue the fight. Hawkmoon braced himself against the body of a warhorse and swung at the Muskovian. The swing would have broken Mikosevaar's neck had not he ducked, but it knocked the vulture helm from his head, revealing the white, bushy beard and glaring, insane eyes of the Muskovian, who brought his ax upward toward Hawkmoon's belly and had the blow blocked by the sword whistling down.

  Releasing his grip on the sword, Hawkmoon pushed with both hands at Mikosevaar's chest, and the man fell backward.

  As he tried to scramble up, Hawkmoon took a fresh hold of his broadsword, raised it high, and plunged it into the Muskovian's face. The man yelled. The blade rose and descended again. Asrovak Mikosevaar shrieked, and then the sound was suddenly cut off. Once more, Hawkmoon stabbed at his opponent, until little recognizable was left of the head; then he turned to see how the battle went.

  It was hard to tell. Everywhere men were falling, and it seemed that the great majority were Granbretanians. The fight in the air was almost over, and only a few ornithopters circled the sky, while there seemed to be many more flamingoes.

  Was it possible that the Kamarg was winning?

  Hawkmoon turned as two warriors of the Vulture Legion ran toward him. Recklessly he stooped to drag up the bloodied mask of Mikosevaar. He laughed at them. "Look! Your Grand Constable is slain - your warlord is destroyed!" The warriors hesitated, then backed away from Hawkmoon and began to run the way they had come. The Vulture Legion did not have the discipline of the other Orders.

  Hawkmoon began to clamber wearily over the bodies of the dead horses, which were now liberally heaped with human corpses. The battle was thin in this area, but he could see von Villach on the hill, kicking the fallen corpse of Mygel Hoist and roaring in triumph as he turned to deal with a group of Hoist's warriors who ran at him with spears. Von Villach seemed to need no aid. Hawkmoon began to run as best he could up to the top of the hill, to get a better idea of how the battle turned.

  His broadsword was bloodied thrice before he could reach his objective and look at the field. The huge army that Meliadus had brought against them was now scarcely a sixth of its former size, while the line of Karmargian warriors still held fast.

  Half the banners of the warlords were down, and others were sorely beset. The tight formations of the Granbretanian infantry were largely broken, and Hawkmoon saw that the unprecedented was happening and that the Orders were becoming mixed together, thus throwing their members in confusion, since they were used to fighting side by side with their own brothers.

  Hawkmoon saw Count Brass, still mounted, engaged with several swordsmen down the hill. He saw the standard of Meliadus some distance away. It was surrounded by men of the Order of the Wolf. Meliadus had protected himself well.

  Now Hawkmoon saw several of the commanders - Adaz Promp and Jarak Nankenseen among them-ride toward Meliadus. Evidently they wanted to retreat but must wait for Meliadus's order to do so.

  He could guess what the commanders told Meliadus - that the flower of their warriors was being destroyed, that such destruction was not worth suffering for the sake of one tiny province.

  But no call came from the trumpets of the heralds who waited nearby. Meliadus was evidently resisting their pleas.

  Von Villach came up, riding a borrowed horse. He pushed back his helm and grinned at Hawkmoon. "We're beating them, I think," he said. "Where is Count Brass?"

  Hawkmoon pointed. "He is making good account," he smiled. "Should we hold steady or begin to advance-we could if we wished it. I think the Granbretanian warlords are faltering and want to retreat. A push now, and it might make up their minds for them."

  Von Villach nodded. "I'll send a messenger down to the Count. He must decide."

  He turned to a horseman and muttered a few words to him.

  The man began to race down the hillside, through the confusion of embattled warriors.

  Hawkmoon saw him reach the Count, saw Count Brass glance up and wave to them, wheel his horse, and begin to return.

  Within ten minutes, Count Brass had managed to regain the hill. "Five warlords I slew," he said with a satisfied air.

  "But Meliadus slunk away."

  Hawkmoon repeated what he had said to von Villach, Count Brass agreed with the sense of the plan, and soon the Kamarg infantry began to advance steadily, pushing the Granbretanians down the hill before them.

  Hawkmoon found a fresh horse and led the advance, yelling wildly as he chopped about him, striking heads from necks, limbs from torsos, like apples from the bough. His body was covered from head to foot in the blood of the slain.

  His mail was ragged and threatening to fall from him. His whole chest was a mass of bruises and minor cuts, his arm bled, and his leg ached horribly, but he ignored it all as the bloodlust seized him and he killed man after man.

  Riding beside him, von Villach said in a moment of comparative peace, "You seem decided to kill more of the dogs than the rest of our army put together."

  "I would not cease if the blood of Granbretan filled this whole plain," Hawkmoon replied grimly. "I would not cease until everything that lived of Granbretan was destroyed."

  "Your bloodlust matches theirs," von Villach said iron-ically.

  "Mine is greater," Hawkmoon called, driving forward,

  "for half theirs is sport."

  And, butchering, on he rode.

  At last it se
emed that his commanders convinced him, for Meliadus's trumpets shouted the retreat and the survivors broke away from the Kamargians and began to run.

  Hawkmoon struck down several who threw away their weapons in attitudes of surrender. "I do not care for living Granbretanians," he said once as he stabbed a man who had ripped his mask from his young face and begged for mercy.

  But at length even Hawkmoon's bitterness was satiated for a while, and he drew up his horse beside those of Count Brass and von Villach and watched as the Granbretanians re-formed their ranks and began to march away.

  Hawkmoon thought he heard a great scream of rage rise from the retreating army, thought he recognized the vengeful sound as that of Meliadus, and he smiled.

  "We shall see Meliadus again, in some way," he said. Count Brass nodded agreement. "He has found the Kamarg invincible to attack by his armies, and he knows that we are too clever to be deceived by his treachery, but he will find some other way. Soon all the lands about the Kamarg will belong to the Dark Empire and we shall have to be on our guard the whole time."

  When they returned to Castle Brass that night, Bowgentle spoke to the Count. "Now do you realize that Granbretan is insane - a cancer that will infect history and will set it on a course that will not only lead to the destruction of the entire human race, but will ultimately result in the destruction of every intelligent or potentially intelligent creature in the universe?"

  Count Brass smiled. "You are exaggerating, Bowgentle.

  How could you know so much?"

  "Because it is my calling to understand the forces that go to work to make up what we call destiny. I tell you again, Count Brass, the Dark Empire will infect the universe unless it is checked on this planet-and preferably on this continent."

  Hawkmoon sat with his legs stretched out before him, doing his best to work the ache from his muscles. "I have no understanding of the philosophical principles you base your beliefs upon, Sir Bowgentle," he said, "but instinctively I know you to be right. All we think we see is an implacable enemy that means to rule the world - there have been other races like them in the past - but there is something different about the Dark Empire. Forget you not, Count Brass, that I spent time in Londra and was witness to many of their more excessive insanities. You have seen only their armies, which, like most armies, fight fiercely and to win, using conventional tactics because they are best. But there is little conventional about the King-Emperor, immortal corpse that he is, in his throne globe, little conventional about the secret way they have with one another, the sense of insanity that underlies the mood of the entire city. . . ."