The Hammer of the Sun (22 page)

As he had expected, other windows were flung open above, and all manner of things flung down the walls, water, rubbish, offal and other filth, even rich furnishings; but the throwers could only guess at their target, and their aim was poor. Nets and chains swung and swept from the crenellations above came closest to unbalancing him, but once, when a carved waterspout gave him a firm handhold, he was able to reach up and seize such a net, and by wrenching it suddenly pull his unwary assailant right over the parapet. There were no more nets, then; but also no more such spouts within reach, and he began to grow very weary. He dreaded arrows from among the trees, but none came; he guessed they grew too thickly for any clear shot. But up ahead, blocking his path, was a squat tower, evidently the guard-tower for this end of the wall; he could see that the ledge he stood on ran out around it, past waterspouts at each corner, but equally clearly the lip that was his handhold did not. And when he came out along that ledge he would be briefly in clear sight from the parapet above, and in clear shot. The far side was not so bad, for so steeply sloped the hill that the treetops almost reached it; if worst came to worst he could cast himself down among them. But that bare wall, without a handhold… He fought down his shivering, lest it lose him the hold he had. He twisted his head back, and saw light in the hazy air behind him, the serrated treetops along the hillside growing clear against it. Sunrise was upon the heights, and it would be his friend.

All too soon he had reached the tower, dodging only a few half-hearted missiles; but before he essayed it he waited a few precious moments, resting as best he could. Let them wait, and be less aware! He held up Gorthawer to his weary eyes, saw mirrored in its black sheen a tiny seam of pure fire open between hill and sky. A shaft of gold struck suddenly through the haze, and another, lighting on the tower, the treetops, the wall with dazzling warmth… It was then, when night-eyed watchers must be suddenly blinded, that he made his move, reaching out to straddle the gulf beneath and pull himself across onto the tower. It was worse than before, far worse. The weight of the sword clamped between his fingers, face and chest and knees pressed flat to the rough stonework, he shuffled as fast as he dared, but knew he was far too slow. Upon the very thought a shaft sang over his head and struck dust from the stone. He glared up and saw two archers scrambling up onto the parapet, leaning out to draw, and others running to join them; and useless as it was, he lifted Gorthawer in a dark flash of defiance…

Suddenly it was dulled. A shadow blotted out the sunrise, wings widespread sweeping down its rays towards him, skimming the heads of the startled bowmen; one loosed wildly and fell back behind the parapet, the other leaned out to take new aim and fell shrieking from his perch to crash against the ledge and tumble down upon the treetops below. Elof, heart leaping in his breast, lifted his hand, then ducked as wings thrashed deafeningly above him and half-webbed claws raked the air. He flung up a hand, and suddenly, as swift and sudden as its coming, the great swan was gone. Only then did he realise his hand still held the sword. It was Kara, beyond any shred of doubt; but what had she meant? To help him or to slay him? She had come close to dislodging him also; might easily have done. And yet and yet…

Cursing, half-weeping, confused, he scrambled and staggered to the corner of the tower, only to find that the waterspout here was large enough to block his path. To free his hands he had first to reach Gorthawer over, and scramble gingerly after it. He managed it safely, finding it a great relief to see the treetops so much closer; but when he reached down for his sword it was not there. He looked up, straight into a pair of blazing blue eyes. A window opened above that narrow ledge, and upon it, one foot outstretched, stood Louhi as steadily as she might upon any floor of stone, though the wind plucked wildly at her robe and hair. Her mouth was twisted, her lip bitten to bleeding; he was astonished to see the tracks of tears upon those cheeks like milky ice. And she held the black sword in her outstretched hand.

"So it ends, young smith!" was all she said, ere she thrust.

To few men can it have been given to feel that agony twice; but it was to him. It tore a gasping shriek from him, and he curled around it as if to hold in what was spilled, clasping the sword to him, tearing it from her grasp. Ice was everywhere, and pouring into his entrails; his legs lagged beneath the weight of it, and he toppled from the ledge into open air. A sickening, suspended moment, and the world was full of whipping, crashing, the reek of pines and sickening, numbing impacts. Then something huge hammered into his back, and there was a new agony as the sword was jolted free. Dimly he heard Louhi shouting from above "
Gather me all he bore! And then burn the carrion! But first - set his head atop the Gate
!"

Chapter Five
-
To the Heart of the World

He lay among cold shadows untouched by the sun, unmoving. He was shrouded in a deeper night, aware of nothing save the hot life pouring out of him from the roaring furnace below his heart. It flooded his throat; he had to cough, and stiffened in agony as its white fires racked him, blasting thought. But as they ebbed his mind cleared a little; his body felt cold, numb, immovably heavy, as if it had turned to metal. Dimly he remembered the long sickness he had endured through lack of blood, though mysteriously healed of the wound that caused it; he knew, in a strangely detached fashion, that he must seek to staunch the flow somehow. But floating in darkness, lit and limned only by pain, he could not imagine how; divorced from limbs, from senses, he forgot the use of them. Instinct instead led him inward, into the furnace-glow and past it, to a flame that burned and glittered brighter still at his core, at the meeting of mind and heart. As into the works of his hands that secret fire was channelled, so now it spilled along his veins like solder of silver along some riven seam, to seal, to join, to set secure and weld. The white fire it overtook and quenched, damming its progress, ebbing the outflow of his life. Gradually he grew aware that his throat was clearing, felt his breath grow deeper and steadier, stinging needles of sensation return to his heavy limbs. His eyes fluttered open, saw the familiar floor of a pinewood, and sagged weakly closed again. He was too weary even to be amazed at what he had felt himself do. There was still pain, but better far than the deathly numbness that had passed. If he had turned to metal, he had tempered himself anew.

But as his body healed itself his thoughts grew more agitated. They fluttered like dry pine-needles in the wind, shivering, scattering withering; only two visions stayed fixed and clear, the dark wings shining in the rising light, and the tears that gleamed upon a milk-pale cheek. Kara! He was sure of her now in any shape. She had come, but to save him or assail him, which? Either was possible, but he feared the worst - the more so if she knew what he had been about with Louhi. Though surely she must realise he had succumbed only to seek a chance of escape… Except that he had not. He had told himself that to justify it, and he had lied in his teeth; he wanted Louhi, he had ached for her even as he hated her, and the memory of it was a writhing torment. What had he done, lusting after an unhuman shadow? No, that at least was rubbish! That body was no false seeming, it was the expression in human terms of what she truly was, perilous and fair; and the peril had only added a sensual sting. Had that alone been enough? Surely not. Perhaps she had drugged him with those unguents; equally possibly she had not needed to. He had gone too long without love, thinking only of Kara, hardly noticing other women; no wonder Louhi had made such an impression when she thrust herself at him. Yet still… Still, there had been something else. It could not have been, surely not, the thought of Kara and she… if they… He clamped down hard on the half formed thought, and damned himself for it; but if he was honest, there had been something… Her vulnerability. Of all things, that was it! He had been drawn to her for all those reasons, even the worst; but it had been sympathy for her, sudden and instinctive, buried till now in the depths of his heart. He felt, as he had never once felt in all the fervour of their coupling, a sudden pang of compassion for that lost creature, half formed shadow of a greater self, tormented by the urges of a body she both loathed and scorned to understand. She too was driven to love; yet for all her boasting she could not possess that love, save by force. Kara belonged to neither of them, whatever bonds they might impose, but was at heart only herself. Now, when it was too late, he had come to understand; but he doubted if Louhi ever would. Till then he had thought of her only as trying to ensnare him; but he wondered suddenly if Louhi might not have been drawn to him in just the same way…

Weak and feverish, wrapped in his imaginings, he failed to hear the footsteps till it was too late; those who made them were practised hunters, and accustomed to moving quietly. Only the sudden crash of bushes upslope alerted him, and the guttural bark of triumph. He wanted to spring up, but hesitated; better they thought him unconscious still, and stayed off their guard, especially if they sought to carry him off. Instead he was left lying. Puzzled, he let his eyelids fall open a hair's-breadth and saw them, tall Ekwesh warriors standing casually by, some four or five at least. One pointed with his spear to a long dark stain upon the steeply sloping forest floor, and they both laughed, a short cruel laugh. Then he understood; that strange stain was his own blood, and they thought him dead already. As well he had lain still; if they left him, if they did not seek to plunder his body… Then one grounded his spear in the soft earth and plucked a short axe from his belt, and Louhi's words came back with sickening impact; they were about to execute her command, and he did not even know whether he could move.

But the footsteps crunched among the needles a span from his head; he had no choice but to try. With an agonized groan of effort he thrust himself up on his arms and lashed out desperately to ward off the blow he feared. None came. He managed to lift his head, and was astonished to see the axeman frozen in the act of raising the weapon, his eyes glaring wide, the clan-scars standing out livid on his graying cheeks; from his fellows came only yells of sheer terror. A blood-boltered corpse, as it appeared, had come to life, and there were few things the Ekwesh feared more than the dead; for if their victims could arise, they had much to fear indeed. Spears clattered as they fell among the bushes, and the axe dropped from its wielder's hand. Had Elof been whole, he might then have ventured escape, but the effort even of rising was so great he could only stumble back against a tree, retching with the sickening reek of clotted blood that choked his mouth. Dimly he saw the moment pass, the flicker from fright to fierce resentment in those cold eyes, resentment at being fooled into showing fear. As one they snatched up their weapons to blot it out, and with faces twisted into sneering masks of anger, slowly, contemptuously, they closed in around him.

The sound then might have been a bird cry, a whistling soft yet shrill, and they paid it no heed. But Elof had heard it before, and it woke wild memories in his muddled mind, told him the best thing he could do; he threw himself flat amid his own blood. A sudden soft sussuration filled the air, and his enemies turned uncertainly. Then they yelled in earnest, and threw up their arms to ward their heads; but the hail of stones that came whistling down upon them through the pines brooked no such slender shields, and shattered both together where they struck. Elof saw one warrior's brains dashed completely from his skull, another dance grotesquely under a dozen impacts, a dead pulp before he fell; the axeman whirled about with three arrows through his leather cuirass, wrenched one out, sank down and died with it in his hands. Elof, braving the stones to grab his axe, saw that it looked familiar somehow, graceful yet roughly worked. Ekwesh raced about the clearing, one with an arm drooping limp from the shoulder, but they found no way out; arrows and sling-stones felled one, the other made a mad dash at the bushes, stopped short with a horrible yell and sagged down upon the spear that transfixed his stomach.

The sight was too much for Elof in his weakened state; he was violently sick, and almost fainted with the pain it caused him. He lay helpless as feet rustled across the clearing, and he was seized and lifted in strong hands. A strong odour flooded his nostrils, familiar yet unpleasantly altered, a scent he knew grown rank and harsh; that spurred him enough to force open his eyes. But he thought he was wandering in fever then, for the first face he looked upon was Roc's.

"Easy there!" said Roc breathlessly as Elof sagged with the shock in the arms that held him. "Gone to Hel's own trouble to get you out of here, don't go turning your toes up on me now! You see, dammit?" he added swiftly to the shadowy shapes behind him. "He can't even talk, let alone walk! We'll have to carry him… "

"Not yet!" said a harsh deep voice from behind him, and he was shouldered aside. A burly shadow took his place, slightly shorter than he but as broad or broader. A hard hand clutched Elof s hair and forced back his head so that a face could stare into his, a dark-bearded face that seemed twisted out of a mass of browned cordage, set with eyes of black opal that burned beneath heavy brows. A fine fillet of twisted gold crowned them, and the unkempt beard bristled over a thick golden collar. Those eyes glared deep into his own, and the sunken cheeks seemed to grow hollower still, as if eaten away by those fires within. There was no trace of mildness or mercy in that look; it was hard, proud, suspicious, and above all it was voracious. "Well?" said a voice whose accents had the same half familiar ring to them; but by the face, even by the odour, Elof had already recognised the race of the speaker. The words were heavily sarcastic. "What token can you show us, smith among men? What marvels to amaze us?"