Chronicles of Corum (16 page)

“Greetings, Lord of the Mound,” said King Mannach without pomposity. “Greetings, hero. Greetings, son.”

Corum swung down from the saddle, and again he stretched out the silver hand which held the spear, Bryionak. “Here it is. Look at it. It is an ordinary spear, King Mannach—or seems so. Yet it has already saved my life twice upon my journey back to Caer Mahlod. Inspect it, and tell me if you think it an unusual spear.”

But King Mannach followed the example of his daughter and backed away from the spear. “No, Prince Corum, only a hero may carry the spear, Bryionak, for a lesser mortal would be cursed if he tried to hold it. It is a Sidhi weapon. Even when it was in our possession it was kept in a case and the spear itself never touched.”

‘ ‘ Well,” said Corum, ‘ Til respect your customs, though there is nothing at all to fear from the spear. Only our enemies should fear Bryionak.”

“As you say,” said King Mannach in a subdued tone. Then he smiled. “Now we must eat. We caught fish today and there are several hares. Let all these people come with us to the hall and eat too, for they look hungry indeed.”

Bran and Teyrnon spoke for their few surviving clansfolk. “We accept your hospitality, Great King, for we are fare famished. And we offer you our services, as warriors, to aid you in your fight against the fierce Fhoi Myore.”

King Mannach inclined his noble head. “My hospitality is poor compared with your pride and your pledge, and I thank you, warrior, for your presence at our battlements.”

And as King Mannach spoke the last word there came a shout from above and a girl who had been on guard above the gate called:

“White mist boiling on the north and south. The Cold Folk are massing. The Fhoi Myore come.”

King Mannach said, not without humor, “I fear that the banquet will have to be postponed. Let us hope it will be a victory feast.” He smiled grimly. ‘ ‘ And that the fish is still fresh when we’ve finished our fight!”

King Mannach turned to Corum after directing more of his men to the walls. “You must call the Bull of Crinanass, Corum. You must call it soon. If it does not come, then we are over, the folk of Caer Mahlod.”

“I do not know how to call the Bull, King Mannach.”

“Medhbh knows. She will teach you.”

“I know,” said Medhbh.

Then she and Corum joined the warriors on the walls and looked eastward; and there were the Fhoi Myore with their mist and their minions.

“They do not come for sport this day,” said Medhbh.

With his right hand Corum took her left hand, holding it tightly.

About two miles distant, beyond the forest, they saw pale mist churning. It covered the whole horizon from north to south and it moved slowly but purposefully towards Caer Mahlod. Ahead of this mist were many packs of hounds, questing and scenting as ordinary dogs run ahead of a hunt. Behind the hounds were small figures whom Corum guessed were white-faced Ghoolegh huntsmen, and behind these huntsmen were riders, pale green riders who, like Hew Argech, were doubtless brothers to the pines. But in the mist itself could be detected larger shapes, the shapes Corum had seen only once before. These were the dark outlines of monstrous war-chariots drawn by beasts which were certainly not horses. And there were seven of these chariots and in the chariots were seven riders of enormous size.

“A great massing, ‘’ said Medhbh, in a voice which succeeded in sounding brave. “They send their whole strength against us. All seven of the Fhoi Myore come. They must respect us greatly, these gods.”

“We shall give them cause,” said Corum.

“Now we must leave Caer Mahlod,” Medhbh told him.

“Desert the city?”

“We have to go to call the Bull of Crinanass. There is a place. The only place to which the Bull will come.”

Corum was reluctant to go. “In a few hours—perhaps in less time than that— the Fhoi Myore will attack.”

“We must try to return by that time. That is why it is urgent that we go now to the Sidhi Rock and seek the Bull.”

So they left Caer Mahlod quietly, on fresh horses, and rode along, the cliffs above a sea which groaned and roared and rolled as if in anticipation of the coming struggle.

At last they stood upon yellow sand with the dark and jagged cliffs behind them and the uneasy sea before them and looked up at a strange rock which stood alone on the beach. It had begun to rain and the rain and the seaspray lashed the rock and made it shine with a peculiar variety of soft colors which veined it. And in places the rock was opaque and in other places it was almost completely transparent, so that other, warmer colors could be seen at its heart. “The Sidhi Rock,” said Medhbh.

Corum nodded. What else could the rock be? It was not of this plane. Perhaps, like the island of Hy-Breasail, it had come with the Sidhi when they journeyed here to fight the Cold Folk. He had seen things like it before—objects which had no real place upon this plane and which had part of themselves in another plane altogether.

The wind blew the water against his face. It blew their hair and their cloaks about them and they had difficulty climbing the smooth, worn stone and standing at last on the top of the rock. Huge waves rolled down upon the coast. Great gusts threatened to blow them from their perch. Rain washed down them and cascaded over the rock so that small waterfalls were formed.

“Now take the spear, Bryionak, in your silver hand,” directed Medhbh. ‘ ‘Raise it high. ‘’

Corum obeyed her.

“Now you must translate what I tell you into your speech, the pure Vadhagh tongue, for that is the same tongue as the Sidhi.”

“I know,” said Corum. “What must I say?”

“Before you speak you must think of the bull, the Black Bull of Crinanass. He is as tall at the shoulder as you are at the head. He has a long coat of black hair. His horns are wider from tip to tip than you can stretch your arms, and they are sharp, those horns. Can you picture such a creature?”

“I think so.”

“Then speak this and speak it clearly”: All around them the day was turning gray, save for the great rock on which they stood.

“You shall pass through tall gates of stone, you,

Black Bull You shall come forth from where you dwell

when Cremm Croich calls. If you sleep, Black Bull, awaken now. If you wake, Black Bull, then rise now. If you rise, Black Bull, (hen walk. Shake

the earth, Black Bull. Come to the rock where you were sired, where

you were born, Black Bull. For he who holds the spear is master of your

fate.

Bryionak, forged at Crinanass and mined from Sidhi stone,

Fights once more the dread Fhoi Myore, whom

you must fight, Black Bull. Come, Black Bull. Come, Black Bull. Come home.”

Medhbh had spoken this whole thing without drawing breath. Now her gray-green eyes looked anxiously into his single eye. “Can you translate that into your own speech?”

“Aye,” said Corum. “But why would a beast come to answer such chanting?”

“Do not question that, Corum.”

The Vadhagh shrugged.

“Do you still see the Bull in your mind’s eye?” He paused. Then he nodded. “I do.”

‘ ‘Then I will speak the lines again and you will repeat them in the Vadhagh tongue.”

And Corum obeyed, though the chant seemed a crude one to him and hardly Vadhagh in origin. Slowly he repeated what she told him and, as he chanted, he began to feel light-headed. The words began to trip from his lips. He declaimed them. He stood at his full height, clothing and hair blown this way and that by the gray wind, and he held the spear, Bryionak, high, and he called for the Bull of Crinanass. His voice grew louder and louder and sounded above the wind’s snore.

“Come, Black Bull! Come, Black Bull! Come home!”

Speaking the words in his own tongue somehow seemed to give them more weight, though the language Medhbh spoke was scarcely different from the Vadhagh language.

And when the words were finished she put a hand on his arm and a lip to her fingers and they listened through the howling wind and the crashing sea and the cascading rain. Then they heard a distant lowing from somewhere and the Sidhi Rock seemed to glow with richer colors and tremble a little.

The lowing came again, closer.

Medhbh was grinning at him, holding his arm very tightly now.

“The Bull,” she whispered. “The Bull comes.”

But still they could not tell from which direction the lowing reached their ears.

The rain fell in even heavier sheets until they could barely see beyond the rock at all and it was as if the sea had engulfed them.

But the sounds began to merge into one sound and that sound gradually became identified as the deep, reflective lowing of a bull, and they peered from where they stood on the top of the Sidhi Rock. It seemed to them that they saw the great bull bring its great, black bulk up out of the waters of the sea and stand shaking itself upon the shore, turning its huge, intelligent eyes from side to side as it sought the source of the chant which had brought it here.

“Black Bull!” cried Medhbh. “Black Bull of Crinanass! Here stands Cremm Croich and the spear, Bryionak. Here stands your destiny!”

And the monstrous bull lowered its head with the sharp, wide-spaced horns, and it shook its shaggy black body, and it pawed at the sand with its heavy hooves. And they could smell its warm body; they could smell the comforting, familiar stink of cattle. But this was like no familiar farmyard beast. This was a war-beast, proud and confident, a beast which served not a master but an ideal.

It swung its black-tufted tail from side to side as it stared up at the two people who stood side by side on the Sidhi Stone and who stared back at it in wonder.

‘ ‘Now I know why the Fhoi Myore fear that beast,” said Corum.

As Corum and Medhbh descended somewhat nervously from the Sidhi Stone, the Bull’s eyes remained fixed on the spear which Corum carried. Now the animal stood very still, looming over them as they approached it, its head still slightly lowered. It seemed as suspicious of them as they were fearful of it, yet it was plain that it recognized the spear, Bryionak, and had respect for it.

‘ ‘Bull,” said Corum, and he did not feel foolish for speaking to a beast in this way, “will you come with us to Caer Mahlod?”

The rain had turned to sleet now and the sleet glistened on the Bull’s black flanks. Further along the beach the horses were showing signs of fear. They were more than suspicious of the Black Bull of Crinanass: they were in stark terror of it. But the Bull ignored the horses. It shook its head and droplets of moisture flew from the tips of its two sharp horns. Its nostrils quivered. Its hard, intelligent eyes glanced once at the horses and then returned to gaze upon the spear.

Although Corum had, in the past, been in the presence of much larger creatures, he had never confronted an animal which gave such a strong impression of power. It seemed to him at that moment that nothing on Earth could stand against the massive Bull.

Corum and Medhbh left the Bull watching them and crossed the wind-blown sand to calm their horses. They succeeded eventually in soothing them enough so that they could be ridden, but they were still skittish. Then, for there was naught else they could do, they began to ride up the cliff-paths, going back towards Caer Mahlod.

After a few minutes, when it remained stockstill, as if considering a problem, the Black Bull of Crinanass started to follow them, its hooves moving surely along the narrow path, though it never came very close to them. Perhaps, thought Corum, such a beast as that disdained to keep intimate company with mortals as weak as themselves. And the sleet soon turned to snow and the snow blew cold and fierce upon the cliffs of the West, and Corum and Medhbh knew that these were signs that the Fhoi Myore approached and might, even now, have reached the walls of Caer Mahlod.

It was indeed a horrid massing which had collected at the walls of the Mabden fortress, as scum might collect around a proud ship’s hull. The white mist was thick, almost viscous, but it still clung largely to the forest and usually in parts of the forest where there were conifers. Here hid the Fhoi Myore themselves, and the mist was necessary to them—it was a Limbo sort of mist which sustained them. Without it they would be ill at ease. Corum saw the seven dark shapes moving about in it. They had left their chariots and seemed to be conferring. Kerenos himself, Chief of the Fhoi Myore, must be there. And Balahr who, like Corum, had but one eye, but a deadly eye. And Goim, the female Fhoi Myore, with a taste for the manhood of mortals. And the others.

Corum and Medhbh reined in their horses and turned to see if the Black Bull still followed.

It did. It stopped when they stopped, its eyes still upon the spear, Bryionak.

The fight had begun. The Hounds of Kerenos leapt at the walls as they had leapt before. But the Ghoolegh ran against the Mabden, too, with bows and spears. And the pale green riders charged the gate, led by one who was unmistakably Hew Argech, whom Corum should have slain. Even from where they watched upon an eminence looking down upon Caer Mahlod, Corum and Medhbh could hear the cries of the defenders and the bowlings of the dreadful dogs.