The Bull and the Spear - 05 (7 page)

With a certain effort of will he dismissed the problem and the image of the red-haired daughter of the king. If today were a day for the making of war, then he had best concentrate on that matter before any other, lest the enemy silence his conscience when they silenced his breathing. He smiled, recalling King Mannach's words. The Fhoi Myore followed Death, Mannach had said. They courted Death. Well, was not the same true of Corum? And, if it were true, did that not make him the best enemy of the Fhoi Myore?

He left his chamber, ducking through the doorway, and walked through a series of small, round rooms until he reached the hall where he had dined the previous night. The hall was empty. Now the plate had been stored away and faint, gray light came reluctantly through the narrow windows to illuminate the hall. It was a cold place, and a stern one. A place, Corum thought, where men might kneel alone and purify their minds for battle. He flexed his silver hand, stretching the silver fingers, bending the silver knuckles, looking at the silver palm which was so detailed that every line of a natural hand was reproduced. The hand was attached by pins to the wrist-bone. Corum had performed the necessary operation himself, using his other hand to drive the drill through the bone. Well might anyone believe it to be a magic hand, so perfect a copy of the fleshly one was it. With a sudden gesture of distaste Corum let the hand fall to his side. It was the only thing he had created in two-thirds of a century—the only work he had finished since the end of the adventure of the Sword Rulers.

He felt self-disgust and could not analyze the reason for the emotion. He began to pace back and forth over the great flagstones, sniffing at the cold, damp air like a hound impatient to begin the chase. Or was he so impatient to begin? Perhaps he was, instead, escaping from something. From the knowledge of his own, inevitable doom? The doom which Elric and Erekose had both hinted at ?

"Oh, by my ancestors, let the battle come and let it be a mighty one!" he shouted aloud. And with a tense movement he drew his battle-blade and whirled it, testing its temper, gauging its balance, before resheathing it with a crash which echoed through the hall.

‘ 'And let it be a successful one for Caer Mahlod, Sir Champion.'' The voice was the sweet, amused voice of Medhbh, King

Mannach's daughter, leaning in the doorway, a hand on her hip. Around her waist was a heavy belt bearing a sheathed dagger and broadsword. Her hair was tied back and she wore a sort of leather toga as her only’armor. In her free hand she held a light helmet not unlike a Vadhagh helmet in design but made of brass.

Rarely given to bombastics and embarrassed at being discovered declaiming his confusion, Corum turned away, unable to look into her face. His humor left him momentarily. "I fear you have very little of a hero in me, lady," he said coldly.

"And a mournful god, Lord of the Mound. We hesitated, many of us, before summoning you to us. Many thought that, if you existed at all, you would be some dark and awful being of the Fhoi Myore kind, that we should release something horrible upon ourselves. But, no, we brought to us instead a man. And a man is much more complicated a being than a mere god. And our responsibilities, it seems, are different altogether—subtler and harder to accomplish. You are angry because I saw that you were fearful ..."

"Perhaps it was not fear, lady."

"But perhaps it was. You support our cause because you chose to. We have no claim on you. We have no power over you, as we thought we might have. You help us in spite of your fear and your self-doubt. That is worth much more than the help of some barely sensate supernatural creature such as the Fhoi Myore use. And the Fhoi Myore fear your legend. Remember that, Prince Corum."

Still Corum would not turn. Her kindness was unmistakable. Her sympathy was real. Her intelligence was as great as her beauty. How could he turn when to turn would be to see her and to see her would be to love her helplessly, to love her as he had loved Rhalina.

Controlling his voice he said: "I thank you for your kindness, lady. I will do what I can in the service of your folk, but I warn you to expect no spectacular aid from me."

He did not turn, for he did not trust himself. Did he see something of Rhalina in this girl because he needed Rhalina so much? And if that were the case what right had he to love Medhbh, herself, if he loved in her only qualities he imagined he saw?

A silver hand covered the embroidered eye-patch, the cold and unfeeling fingers plucking at the fabric Rhalina had sewn. He almost shouted at her:

"And what of the Fhoi Myore? Do they come?"

"Not yet. Only the mist grows thicker. A sure sign of their presence somewhere near."

"Does mist follow them?"

"Mist precedes them. Ice and snow follow. And the East Wind often signals their coming, bearing hailstones large as gulls' eggs. Ah, the earth dies and the trees bow when the Fhoi Myore march." She spoke distantly.

The tension in the hall was increasing.

And then she said: "You do not have to love me, lord."

That was when he turned.

But she had gone.

Again he stared down at his metal hand, using the soft one, the one of flesh, to brush the tear from his single eye.

Faintly, from another, distant, part of the fortress, he thought he heard the strains of a Mabden harp playing music sweeter than any he had heard at Castle Erorn—and it was sad, the sound of that harp.

"You have a harpist of great genius in your Court, King Mannach."

Corum and the king stood together on the outer walls of Caer Mahlod, looking toward the East.

"You heard the harp, too?" King Mannach frowned. He was dressed in a breastplate of bronze with a bronze helmet upon his graying head. His handsome face was grim and his eyes puzzled. "Some thought that you played it, Lord of the Mound."

Corum held up his silver hand. "This could not pluck such a strain as that." He looked at the sky. "It was a Mabden harpist I heard."

' 'I think not," said Mannach. ‘ 'At least, Prince, it was no harpist of my court we heard. The bards of Caer Mahlod prepare themselves for the fight. When they play, it will be martial songs we shall hear, not music like that of this morning."

"You did not recognize the tune?"

' 'I have heard it once before—in the grove of the mound, the first night that we came to call to you to help us. It was what encouraged us to believe that there might be truth in the legend. If that harp had not played, we should not have continued."

Corum drew his brows together. "Mysteries were never to my taste," he said.

"Then life itself cannot be to your taste, lord."

Corum smiled. ' 'I take your meaning, King Mannach. Nonetheless, I am suspicious of such things as ghostly harps."

There was no more to say on the matter. King Mannach pointed towards the thick oak forest. Heavy mist clung to the topmost branches. Even as they watched, the mist seemed to grow denser, descending towards the ground until few of the frost-rimed trees could be seen. The sun was up, but its light was pale, for thin clouds were beginning to drift across it. The day was still.

No birds sang in the forest. Even the movements of the warriors inside the fort were muted. When a man did shout, the sound seemed magnified and clear as a belPs note for a second before it was absorbed into the silence. All along the battlements had been stacked weapons—spears, arrows, bows, large stones and the round tathlum balls which would be flung from slings.

Now the warriors began to take their places on the walls. Caer Mahlod was not a large settlement, but it was strong and heavy, squatting on the top of a hill whose sides had been smoothed so that it seemed like a man-made cone of enormous proportions. To the south and north stood several other cones like it, and on two of these could be seen the ruins of other fortresses, suggesting that once Caer Mahlod had been part of a much larger settlement.

Corum turned to look towards the sea. There the mist had gone and the water was calm, blue and sparkling, as if the weather which touched the land did not extend across the ocean. And now Corum could see that he had been right in judging Castle Erorn nearby. Two or three miles to the south was the familiar outline of the promontory and what might be the remains of a tower.

"Do you know that place, King Mannach?" asked Corum, pointing.

"It is called Castle Owyn by us, for it resembles a castle when seen from the distance, but really it is a natural formation. Some legends are attached to it concerning its occupation by supernatural beings—by the Sidhi, by Cremm Croich. But the only architect of Castle Owyn was the wind and the only mason the sea."

"Yet I should like to go there," said Corum, "when I can."

"If both of us survive the raid of the Fhoi Myore—indeed, if the Fhoi Myore decide not to attack us— then I will take you. But there is nothing to see, Prince Corum. The place is best observed from this distance."

"I suspect," said Corum, "that you are right, King."

Now, as they spoke, the mist grew thicker still and obscured all sight of the sea. Mist fell upon Caer Mahlod and filled her narrow streets. Mist moved upon the fortress from all sides save the West.

Even the small sounds in the fort died as the occupants waited to discover what the mist had brought with it.

It had become dark, almost like evening. It had become cold so that Corum, more warmly clothed than any of the others, shivered and drew his scarlet robe more tightly about him.

And there came the howling of a hound from out of the mist. A savage, desolate howling which was taken up by other canine throats until it filled the air on all sides of the fortress called Caer Mahlod.

Peering through his single eye, Corum tried to see the hounds themselves. For an instant he thought he saw a pale, slinking shape at the bottom of the hill, below the walls. Then the shape had gone. Corum carefully strung his long, bone bow and nocked a slender arrow to the string. Grasping the shaft of the bow with his metal hand, he used his fleshly hand to draw back the string to his cheek and he waited until he saw another faint shape appear before he let the arrow fly.

It pierced the mist and vanished.

A scream rose high and horrible and became a snarl, a growl. Then a shape was running up the hill towards the fort. It ran very fast and very straight. Two yellow eyes glared directly into Corum's face as if the beast recognized instinctively the source of its wound. Its long, feathery tail waved as it ran, and at first it seemed it had another tail, rigid and thin, but then Corum realized that it was his arrow, sticking from the animal's side. He nocked another arrow to his bowstring. He drew the string back and glared into the beast's blazing eyes. A red mouth gaped and yellow fangs dripped saliva. The hair was coarse and shaggy and, as the dog approached, Corum realized it was as large as a small pony.

The sound of its snarling filled his ears and still he did not let fly, for it was sometimes hard to see against the background of mist.

Corum had not expected the hound to be white. It was a glowing whiteness which was somehow disgusting to look upon. Only the ears of the hound were darker than the rest of its body, and these ears were a glistening red, the color of fresh blood.

Higher and higher up the hill raced the white hound, the first arrow bouncing apparently unnoticed in its side, and its howl seemed almost to be a howl of obscene laughter as it anticipated sinking its fangs into Corum's throat. There was glee in the yellow eyes.

Corum could wait no longer. He released the arrow.

The shaft seemed to travel very slowly towards the white hound. The beast saw the arrow and tried to sidestep, but it had been running too fast, too purposefully. Its movements were not properly coordinated. As it ducked to save its right eye, its legs tangled and it received the arrow in its left eye with such an impact that the tip of the arrow burst through the other side of the skull.

The hound opened its great jaws as it collapsed, but no further sound escaped that frightful throat. It fell, rolled a short way down the hill, and was still.

Corum let out a sigh and turned to speak to King Mannach.

But King Mannach was already flinging back his arm, aiming a spear into the mist where at least a hundred pale shadows skulked and slavered and wailed their determination to be revenged upon the slayers of their sibling.

THE SECOND CHAPTER

THE FIGHT AT CAER MAHLOD

“Oh, there are many!"

King Mannach's expression was troubled as he took up a second spear and flung that after the first. "More than any I have seen before.’' He glanced round to see how his men fared. Now all were active against the hounds. They whirled slings, shot arrows and threw spears. The hounds surrounded Caer Mahlod. "There are many. Perhaps the Fhoi Myore have already heard that you have come to us, Prince Corum. Perhaps they have determined to destroy you."