The Sword of Morning Star (15 page)

Helmut nodded. “Well said, m’lord. So put we both ourselves unto the test.” He walked around the table, held out the morning star to Sandivar. “Be so good as to unlash that.”

When it was drawn away, a kind of sigh went up around the table at the livid stump revealed. Luukah stared, then brandished his sword. “I mean it, Helmut. If I can take your sword or score a cut—”

“Then you shall lead the revolt against King Albrecht,” said the other wryly. He was aware of all the eyes riveted on him, and of Nissilda, even, watching from the balcony above. He drew Rage and advanced on Luukah.

Luukah moved, very quickly, and suddenly Helmut knew he was up against something rarely encountered—the master swordsman. The young man was quick and graceful as a striking snake, and drunk or sober, his blade arm had its own life and its own intelligence. They laid blade to blade, then went at it, swing, thrust, parry, lunge, thrust, and swing. The blades rang in the Great Hall like chiming bells, and Luukah’s grinning face betrayed naught but confidence. Nor was it unjustified—especially with Helmut off balance because of the unaccustomed freedom from the morning star’s weight. So little as that could give an opponent the upper hand.

Across the hall they fought and back again; and neither could disarm the other, nor even penetrate his guard. Sweat started from their foreheads, and Luukah’s breath came heavier. But there was no change in the clean rhythm of Helmut’s breathing; and now Helmut knew he had naught to fear; when lungs went, legs followed, and arms were not far behind. He waited patiently for that instant of disrhythm; and, as he pressed Luukah harder, it came. With a dazzling speed, a display of swordsmanship that brought the lords to their feet as one, Helmut moved in, apparently directly in the path of the chopping blade. Instead, he pried the sword from Luukah’s hand with Rage’s ringing blade and threw the weapon far across the hall. Then Luukah was helpless, with Rage’s point pressed hard against his throat.

“So, Baron Luukah,” Helmut said, smiling. “The matter of age still disturbs you?”

Luukah, gasping for breath, husked: “Quarter.”

“No question of aught else.” Quickly Helmut sheathed his blade. As he turned back toward the table, the room was subtly different. Helmut, flushed, held out his right arm. Silently, Sandivar rebound the morning star.

Before that was done, Luukah strode around the table, still panting, a tiny trickle of blood running from the scratch where Rage had just broken the skin across his Adam’s apple. “Helmut,” he said.

Helmut turned, his hand away from sword hilt. “Aye, m’lord?”

Luukah’s dark eyes met his. Then Luukah smiled. “I pledge you liege,” he said, and put out both hands and clapped Helmut’s left between his. “By Gods, I pledge you liege and life and fortune!” He whirled to face the others. “Nor dare you, be you men, to do less!”

For a moment, the vast hall was unearthly silent. Then gaunt Count Bomas shoved back his chair, his wintry face and wintry eyes raking hard over Helmut. “Aye,” he said. “This man is surely great Sigrieth’s son, and I for one will pledge him liege and follow him where’er he leads.” His bony hand whipped a dagger from his belt and savagely sank its point into the table. “I say death to Albrecht! And I say, up with Morning Star!”

And that began it. All at once the rafter timbers rang with voices.
“Morning Star! Morning Star! Morning Star
—
!”
And the lords of Boorn hurried forward to pledge their liege.

CHAPTER XI

At the Grancsay rendezvous below the Jaal, Albrecht sat his war-horse on a ridge and surveyed the great army ranked below him. Down on the plain, line after line of tents stretched seemingly to infinity; and each square of canvas housed its complement of half-wolves. The nickering and whinnying of their horses filled the air; the supper fires of those who cooked (many preferred raw meat) made a cloud of smoke; and the soldiers themselves moved here and there about the bivouac so that, from this distance, it was like watching a swarm of ants. A hundred thousand strong, this was surely the largest army ever assembled in Boorn.

And yet—was it strong enough? Albrecht stirred uneasily in the saddle, the fingers of his right hand toying with his sword hilt. To conquer the Lands of Light, yes; no problem there. And soon his forces would be swollen by Kor’s thirty thousand barbarians—and a hundred thousand wolfmen were enough, too, to assure that Kor would be wiped out when Albrecht turned on him at last, after that Southern conquest. Though Kor valued highly the lives of his wife and son, the wife and son whom Albrecht had exchanged as hostages meant nothing to their husband and father. Women there were aplenty, and sons he could always sire; they were only pawns in a very intricate game. Use Kor to help him conquer the South, then turn on Kor, erase that threat always at his back, that dagger always at the throat of Boorn, and take the Dark Lands as his fiefdom, too. All carefully worked out in Albrecht’s head and confided yet to no one, not even loyal Eero, who sat his mount here beside him. And as well: strange matters were astirring in the South. Sorcery and revolution; and that cursed Morning Star.

He had had dispatches once again this morning from his spies down there. The siege of Markau lifted, the Black Wolf dead—ah, that last struck him to the heart; Kierena dead, she with all her beauty and her sorcery… the only fitting mate he’d ever found, and now—She was a wizard, how had it happened? Only another wizard could have done it; and that meant, could only mean, Sandivar.

So probably they’d have to fight before they ever reached the Lands of Light. The word this morning was that the lords were rising up against him, joining forces and melding armies into one. Other word, too, that the outlaw bands of ex-soldiers (it had amused him to think of them preying on those recalcitrant nobles down there) were coming in, as well, and adding their strength to that of Morning Star.

Whom, they said, was Sigrieth’s bastard.

But that, he thought, was surely absurd. Not a half year gone had he chopped the hand from that child, and no child could grow to manhood that swiftly, even had he survived the amputation and abandonment. Unless, of course—Sandivar, curse him, he thought. There again, it could be Sandivar…

Then Eero growled: “Your Majesty—”

Albrecht came back to the world and raised his scowling face. Then he heard it, a strange sullen moaning from afar.

“They come,” said Eero. “Kor and the barbarians.”

“Yes,” Albrecht said and waited.

Louder grew that curious sound. Then they appeared: Kor and his fighting men. With the red of dying sun behind them, they topped a distant hill; and Albrecht drew in his breath with awe.

For they were splendid on their great bulls, whose lowing and bellowing made that moan. Their helmets gleamed blood red in the sun, and pennons fluttered from their lance heads, and the last red sunlight danced along their broad-ax blades and on the dagger tips of the great horns of their riding bulls; and in the fore, with much pomp and panoply of savage sort, came Kor, his sable cloak thrown back, his silver-finished helm with its silver-and-steel bull horns all agleam, his great shoulders straight, his visage fierce. The huge red bull he rode snorted and curveted, tossed its horns and bellowed, and the sound was like a trumpet… He saw the camp and gestured, and turned his bull, and the barbarians followed him across the hilltop in what seemed an endless flowing river of fighting men. Albrecht let out that pent-up breath. With that army joined to his, no fear of Morning Star now! He smiled, and signaled Eero. “Let us go down.”

“So it’s rebellion you have to cope with, eh?” said Kor, as they sat that night in Albrecht’s pavilion. “Your lords have rallied round the bastard?” His eyes narrowed and he grinned in his beard. “Perhaps we’d better wait right here until you’ve coped with them.”

His face expressionless, Albrecht said, “I think not, Kor. You complained because the Lands of Light had little army. This will give your men something on which to stretch their muscles.”

With the point of his dagger, Kor picked his teeth. “And pull your chestnuts from some very hot coals.”

Albrecht spread his hands. “Which King of Boorn would you have to reckon with, friend Kor—myself or Sigrieth’s son?”

Kor, frowning, thought about that. “Aye, we’ve worked well in harness so far, and great rewards beckon if we continue. But with Sigrieth’s seed, there’s no compromise. Still, this is something we’d not counted on.”

“Have you fear of the one-handed bastard?” Albrecht rasped.

Kor flipped his dagger high in the air; it came down point first and quivered in the wood of Albrecht’s table. “I fear no man,” he said harshly. “Nor half-wolf, either, for that matter. How many soldiers have they?”

“At most, they raise forty thousand. We have more than three times that number.”

“Aye,” said Kor, “but much of that not men at all—only half-wolves.”

Albrecht flushed. “Be not contemptuous. They will fight, as you shall see.”

“Summon Eero,” Kor said tersely.

Albrecht hesitated, then gave a call. Immediately, Eero was there with them. “Your Majesty?”

Kor rumbled: “Look at me, Eero.”

Eero did. “No,” said Kor remorselessly. “I mean full in eye.”

Eero’s clawed hands clenched nervously, but he met Kor’s pale stare. But five seconds was more than he could endure, and then he turned his head.

Albrecht’s voice was savage. “You are dismissed. Leave us.”

Eero growled something and strode out. When he had gone, Kor said roughly, “You see? They cannot look a human being in the eye. I doubt not that in numbers they are fierce. But something there is in them that, in the last chance, quails. There is too much wolf, not enough man.” He drained his tankard. “Besides,” he said, “I myself have fought against Sigrieth’s army in actions where we had him outnumbered two and three to one and come off second best. Sigrieth was like a demon, and inspired his men as well to demonhood. Sometimes he conjured up real demons…”

“Sigrieth is dead.”

Kor arose, went to the door of the pavilion, stared out at the vast confusion of the encampment; Albrecht looked at that blocky, ferocious figure outlined against the last light with hatred in his heart. When the battles were won, when the time had come, Kor’s barbarians would see how half-wolves could fight…

Then Kor turned. “Yes,” he said, in a different tone. “Sigrieth is dead. And surely the Gods would not visit us with two of his like in so short a time.”

“The one-handed man they call Morning Star is an impostor.” Albrecht said it quickly, and belief rang in his voice if not in his heart.

Kor sat heavily. “Aye, likely. Give me more wine. Very well, we move tomorrow. Still, there is in me a foreboding—”

All that week, the outlaws had come in. From every lair, covert and crevice in which a man in Boorn could hide, they came, in small bands or large ones—but however they rode, their tight discipline and quiet confidence, their responsiveness to their leaders showed their army training. These were ex-soldiers, veterans, the hard-bitten remnants of Sigreith’s army, dispossessed by half-wolves. Alike, they were motivated by hatred and revenge of Albrecht and Eero and all his kind; but they were not children to be led into battle by a child; and when the leathery officers and noncommissioned officers of the bands confronted Helmut, it was with clear, appraising, and dubious eye.

But once they saw him, their doubts uniformly melted. Luukah had not fighting experience, and so could not recognize a fighting man; and Helmut thus had had to prove himself to him. But these tough and hardened leaders (most of whom had already heard of his exploits: the five men in the Neoroma alley; the detachment of half-wolves beyond the Frorwald; the battle in the forest) recognized him for what he was at once. Something in his eyes and in the set of his mouth; the way he wore his sword; that imposing weight of steel at the end of his wrist; and, above all, his quiet, lack of bluster, the knack for giving terse, clear orders—these won them over with magical speed.

And so, overnight, the plain outside of Markau, where once the wolves had prowled, became an armed camp of men. Truly, it was a raggle-taggle force, poorly supplied, but it grew in numbers every day. Inspecting it with Hagen, Helmut was pleased. “We have full ten thousand here.”

“Aye,” said Hagen as they rode back through the town gate. “And my forces and those of the other lords will swell the total when we rendezvous at Alserbach. I think a shade over forty thousand may we gather. But you know the intelligence from Sandivar. His harriers and falcons circle daily over Albrecht’s camp at Grancsay and bring him word. And now Kor has joined him, is supplied, their armies melded; and I think tomorrow they will move.”

“So shall we,” said Helmut.

“Before we do,” said Hagen, “though you have a thousand details nagging at you, it would pleasure me should you find a few minutes to walk with Nissilda and take a leave of her that will give her some comfort. She fears for me, aye; but she fears for you as well.”

“I shall do that,” Helmut said. “But you know, Hagen—”

“Aye. Sandivar has told me. Yet it is more than passing possible that neither of us will see her ever again. This is not a light task we undertake, nor are many likely to come out of it unscathed. If the memories she has of us are last ones, let them also be pleasant ones.”

“I think now, when Vengeance is stabled, I shall ask her to walk with me in the garden.”

Hagen nodded. “That were well.” He twisted in the saddle. They had ridden to the castle entrance, on its hill inside the town, and now they could overlook the plain, with its encampment. “Do you feel it?” he asked. “There is a change in weather. The sky’s o’ercast, and the wind is rising.”

“Aye,” said Helmut.

“It is a portent that I do not like.”

“Perhaps it’s one for Albrecht.”

“Perhaps.” Hagen swung down and handed reins to a lackey. “I’ll tell Nissilda you’ll be waiting in the garden.”

The rose shattered; the wind, fiercer now and with an edge of cold, blew its pink petals wheeling and drifting across the grass. Nissilda shivered. “Indeed,” she said. “It is early, but the year is waning. Fall comes on—and then winter.”