Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon (35 page)

The young mother turned away to join the other women, who were already welcoming Buda. Velantos and Aelfrix, who was leading the pack pony, stood with Ganath, looking around them with interest.

“Well said!” Beniharen laughed. “Now come and talk to the men about that thorn fence.”

“It’s a simple idea,” he said when they were all gathered around the fire in the largest of the roundhouses. “You make a framework of willow withies and thread bramble through them, or you can use branches from hawthorn or the like. Make it high enough so that anyone trying to get over will make a good target, and have some wicker hurdles handy to hide behind when you shoot. You do have bows, yes?”

The men nodded, but they did not look confident. Mikantor tried to remember what Bodovos had dinned into the heads of the guards.

“Well, then, practice! Every day, with different targets and distances, until you can hit something the size of a man every time. If your bows are not strong, we will try to find someone who can teach you to make better. Spears are good, but it’s best if you never have to come within arm’s length of your enemy.”

“Flint will punch as good a hole as bronze,” growled one of the men, “and there’s more of it.”

“The ancient ones who lie in the barrows up there used flint,” said another.

“Then ask their blessing,” agreed Mikantor, “and their curse upon your foes.” That got some grins, and he gratefully accepted a beaker of beer while the discussion shifted to the health of the cattle and the state of the fields.

“There are other hamlets that might do the same,” Ganath said thoughtfully, taking a seat beside him. “If someone were to show them how.”

“I can’t be everywhere—” Mikantor began, with the same sense of being carried along by unknown forces that he had at sea.

“Of course not, and besides, I expect you’ll be training fighters. But we could bring people to Avalon, teach them all at once, and send them back again.”

“While I train fighters . . .” Mikantor sighed. “You, or Someone, seems to have my future all planned out for me.”

“Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about this.” Ganath lifted one eyebrow.

“In my nightmares,” muttered Mikantor. “You have to understand—I’ve seen the sack of a great city, and I’ve fought marauders as bad as any of Galid’s men or these other bandit chieftains you say his example has spawned. Do you really think that if we take up arms against him, it will be one joyous romp to victory? The people here are not living well, but they are living. There are seven grown men in this hamlet. Leave three to work the land and send the other four to fight and how many will return home? Men die in battle, Ganath. I’ve gotten used to the idea of fighting myself, but leading other men to death still scares me.”

“Mikantor . . . men
die
. No care of yours can prevent that. Will you not allow them the same choice that you have made, to die
for
something, instead of without meaning?”

Mikantor stared. It was so exactly what he had been telling himself not long ago. “Who taught you to strike so shrewdly?” he said finally. “You never used to be like this when we studied together at Avalon.”

“You never used to stride like a warrior,” Ganath replied. “We grew up, Woodpecker. If the gods are good, we will live to grow old.”

Mikantor glanced across the fire at Velantos, who was sitting with the men, attempting to communicate with his fragmentary grasp of the language of the tribes.
I grew up thanks to you,
he thought soberly. As if he had spoken, Velantos looked up and smiled.
We will survive—
Mikantor tried to send the thought.
Somehow I will figure out a way.

 

 

 

MIST SWIRLED LOW UPON the downs, alternately veiling and revealing the broad sweep of the Vale. It might have been as impressive as the view of the Argolid from Mykenae, thought Velantos, if they could have actually
seen
it. Mikantor had assured him that his homeland included mountains as noble as any in Akhaea, but ever since the ancient track they were following had climbed to the ridgeline of the hills, the view had consisted of a green slope disappearing into cloud.

The smith hunched more deeply into the sheepskin garment he had gotten from one of the farmers in exchange for an arrowhead of bronze. He had expected the damp wind that stroked across the grass to blow the mists away, but instead they swirled more thickly. His own people had tales of magic mists sent by the gods to spirit their chosen ones out of danger. He could wish for one of those mists now, if it would only take him somewhere
warm
.

What I need,
Velantos thought morosely,
is a forge. Build the fire hot enough, and it won’t matter what the weather is outside.
A forge, and his image of the Lady to watch over it, and metal to work. Then, wherever his
moira
led him, he would be at home. In his own country he could name the spirits of hill and tree. No doubt there were powers in this land, but they did not speak to him.

He watched Mikantor striding along at the head of their column with a new appreciation for the cheerfulness with which the boy had endured his exile. He tried to convince himself that his own fate did not matter—there was no life for him in his own land—whereas by coming home, Mikantor had come into his own. It was odd how since arriving here the boy had grown, perhaps not in actual height, but in
presence.
As he committed himself more fully to his people, with each day he was becoming the leader they desired.

All this time I thought Woodpecker was sent by the gods to aid
me, thought the smith.
And now it would appear that I was sent to bring
Mikantor,
trained and ready, to the place where the gods want him to be.

He looked up as the others halted. Mikantor was saying something about turning downhill to seek shelter at one of the farmsteads in the valley. The tall lad, Beniharen, did not think they could get there before dark. Velantos shivered again. Ganath pointed ahead and Velantos caught the word for an ancient tomb.

“To sleep near the dead is to sleep
with
them,” muttered Buda in her own tongue.

“When I was an infant, Lady Anderle hid me in a barrow to escape Galid’s men.” Mikantor grinned. “They did me no harm!”

“These Old Ones, they friendly?” Velantos asked.

“If we show honor—” said Beniharen, speaking slowly. “This is where our people leave offerings to the thunder god. The People of the Hills come here sometimes—the first people in the land, who were here before the tribes. They are kin to the Lake Folk that fostered Mikantor.”

“We’ll camp,” said Mikantor. Velantos wondered how much his decision had been motivated by a desire to escape the people who gazed at him with such hunger. The smith had felt like that during the last days of Tiryns, when he was Phorkaon’s only surviving son. To have people look at him as if he could perform some miracle had cured him of any desire he might have had to be a king.

The stopping place was half a league further on, just past a slope where the grass had been carved away to reveal the white chalk beneath. Mikantor said it was the head of the figure of a gigantic horse carved into the hillside, but it was getting too dark to see much of it now.

While Aelfrix tied the pony where it could graze, Buda and Beniharen started a meal. Velantos walked off through the trees. He felt the ache of the day’s march in his legs, but a restlessness he could not define drove him away from the company of other men. Between the tree trunks he glimpsed the solid gray of two great stones and stopped, eyes widening as memory overlaid them with an image of the pillars that flanked the great gate of Tiryns.

He moved forward more slowly. So far he had seen only wooden structures in this land, and thought them the best that these people could build. But the sarsen uprights he saw as he emerged from beneath the trees were the equal of any of the Cyclopean stones at Tiryns. And these, he sensed as he drew near, were older. A line of flat stones almost twice the height of a man fronted a long mound edged by smaller stones, with a ditch on either side. Near the entrance some of the earth had worn away to reveal the mighty uprights and capstones of a passage into darkness. In this land men did not build to defend the living, but to honor the dead.

He followed the path all the way around the length of the mound and came to the entrance. On a flat stone someone had laid the carcass of a grouse and a bunch of creamy primroses. Both were fresh. Velantos straightened, looking around him with the uneasy sensation that unseen eyes were watching. He felt in his belt pouch for something he might leave as an offering, and drew out a bronze brace that had come loose from a chest during the crossing. The box had proved to be beyond repair, but the bronze was a piece of his own forging and he had saved it. The metal clinked faintly as he laid it on the stone, and like an echo he heard a distant rumble.

Thunder
. . . Velantos thought unhappily. The covers of oiled wool they had stretched between the trees suddenly seemed a much less desirable shelter. Shivering once more he turned away, tripped, and went down. As he tried to catch himself, he bruised his hand on something hard and smooth. He sat back on his heels, stifling an oath as the wrist that had been sprained when he was taken captive gave a warning twinge. The rock on which he had landed was still beneath his other hand. It was some close-grained stone, about half the length of his forearm, rounded at one end and widening and flattening to a blunt blade at the other, in fact, the same shape as the mound. No natural stone was shaped so evenly—it was a tool, he realized, something like the stone wedges builders used to split wood. It would hammer bronze as well, he thought, hefting it. It felt curiously right in his hand.

He slid it into his pouch and got to his feet, his heart lightened, even though the wind blew more strongly now, whispering spells to the trees. He could smell supper cooking—a stew of grains and greens and the meat of a hare that Aelfrix had brought down with his sling. It would be hot and filling, and Velantos had ceased to hope for anything more flavorful in this damp northern land.

When they had eaten, they banked the fire and unrolled their bedding beneath the shelters. All of them were tired from the day’s march, and soon Velantos could hear the varied breathing as the others fell asleep. Only he remained wakeful, listening as the wind rose, whipping at the branches and flapping the cloth, hearing the thunder ever more loudly. He waited with mingled apprehension and resignation for the first hissing drops of rain.

Aelfrix, who was sleeping nearest the edge of one of the covers, must have gotten spattered, for he stirred, complaining. Then lightning flared, throwing a relief of black branches against the cloth. Velantos waited, counting, until thunder hammered the heavens, opening them to release a torrent of rain. Wind set all the cloth billowing; ropes parted; first one, then another cover flapped like a torn sail. Suddenly everyone was flailing free of their bedding, seeking shelter beneath the trees. Wind gusted again, driving the rain sideways. In moments they were all soaked through.

Velantos hunkered down in the lee of a beech tree, flinching as lightning flared again. The thunder followed more swiftly now.

“We can’t stay here,” came Mikantor’s voice through the chaos. “Let us ask the ancestors for shelter!”

“You mean to take refuge in the mound?” Ganath’s voice shook.

“No! Ghosts eat our souls!” Buda cried.

“Better to stay here,” came Beniharen’s deep voice. “The storm’s moving fast and will pass soon.”

Another flare of lightning glared on tossing branches; thunder cracked as the divine smith struck once more. Again came the lightning, and a great oak at the edge of the grove burst suddenly into flame. Sound rolled around them. As it passed he heard Mikantor ordering them all into the mound.

“I will go first—” The younger man half carried Buda. Aelfrix scrambled to follow. Ganath and Beniharen were pale shapes behind them. Still draped in the cloak in which he had rolled up to sleep, Velantos got to his feet and stumbled after them. The stone in his pouch thumped against his thigh. Had he inadvertently stolen an offering?

“Old Ones, we ask your mercy—” Mikantor’s voice echoed against stone. “Protect my people, and if you are angered, let your wrath fall on me—”

Over the howl of the wind Velantos heard the murmur of supplication as the others followed. Another stroke of light showed him the opening to the tomb in stark relief, and Beniharen’s tall form bending to enter the passageway.

The ancestors might be angry, but the wrath of the god of thunder was a certainty. For a moment Velantos hesitated at the threshold; then he slid between two of the great stones and clambered up the mound to stand above the entrance to the tomb. Hair streaming, sodden cloak flapping from his shoulders, he extracted the stone ax from his pouch and held it high.

“Diwaz Keraunos,” he cried, “by whatever name they call you here, if I have done wrong, let me be the one to suffer. Spare these people who have done no harm!”

Lightning always struck at the highest. He would be—

Thought was extinguished as sound and light exploded around him. Every hair on his body stood up as the power passed over wet skin and cloth and into the earth below. And then he was falling. Still blind and deafened, he felt the hands of his friends pulling him down, still tingling and twitching, to lie on cold dry stone.

 

 

 

“VELANTOS—IT’S MORNING—CAN YOU HEAR me? Wake up,
please
!”

That was Woodpecker’s voice. Velantos grunted, feeling each muscle complain as awareness returned. He had been ill, he remembered, so he must be in Apollon’s temple, but why had the priests left him on the hard ground?

“Cold . . .” he mumbled. The air smelled of wood smoke and the fresh scent of earth after a rain.