“What do you do with it now?” they asked.
“I will take it to Mikantor, to the king. I ask that someone takes that word to the Lady at Avalon.”
“Oh, she is not there—” said the old woman. “She and the warrior were going to Azan. He comes to say that Galid has her daughter. Mikantor brings an army and the man goes to join him, but the Lady said she looks for the girl.”
Velantos blinked, wondering why his vision had darkened so suddenly. How could Galid have gotten his hands on Tirilan? It made no sense—And it made no difference. Despite their quarrels, or perhaps because of them, Anderle would do anything to save her child. Even, he thought in anguish, if it meant sacrificing herself. She was like a queen, and he did not want to watch a third queen die.
Why didn’t she tell me? wailed his heart, and his head supplied the answer. Because she didn’t want me to follow her. . . . But the Sword was finished now. He bent swiftly to wrap the blade and sling his pack again.
“I ask one thing more—” he said harshly. “A guide to show me the fastest road to Azan!”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Amizzling rain had been falling since early that morning, not hard enough to slow the march, but sufficient to make it thoroughly uncomfortable. Mikantor would have gone forward through a howling snowstorm, and his men were as eager as he. Since they heard of Tirilan’s capture they had averaged seven leagues a day. But an army, however motivated, could not move as swiftly as a single man. The journey had seemed endless, and with every step his heart cried, Tirilan!
For two days they had been following the road along the ridge above the White Horse Vale. When the drifting mists revealed the land below, he could almost believe he was the same lad who had walked this way two years before, still fearing his destiny. But the dragons on his forearms seemed to writhe as he lifted his spear. His road was clear at last. He would kill Galid, and he would bring order to the land.
He knew his people now. He might not be able to stop the rain from drowning the crops, but if the tribes would follow him, he could redistribute the resources they had. The dragons were a symbol, but even if he had had no personal reason to oppose him, destroying Galid would demonstrate his power.
“It’s not much like the last time.” Ganath echoed his thought as he came up beside him. Mikantor looked back along the line of marching men. Pelicar’s fair head and Beniharen’s dark one bobbed above the others. Ulansi, who had met them on the road, was close behind him. From somewhere farther back he could hear Romen’s voice lifted in song. His only regret was that Velantos was not at his side. His Companions had grown dear to him, but his bond with the smith went deeper. Velantos had shaped him as surely as he had shaped the Sword. But he would see both soon.
Adjonar and Lysandros and Ulansi followed with the new lads who aspired to join the Companions, including the Ai-Ushen prince Tanecar, leading his mother’s men. Grebe and Aelfrix had reached them three days before. Behind them strode the men he had recruited in the north. Fighting beside them had given his own recruits some necessary seasoning and healed the shame of their defeat in the Vale three moons ago. His men were now a more fit fighting force altogether, and those who had been with him the preceding winter were motivated by a concern for Tirilan that almost matched Mikantor’s own. He suspected that his allies were simply looking forward to a good fight on somebody else’s ground.
“I wonder how Velantos is doing now?”
“We’ll find out soon,” said Mikantor. “I think the smithy Grebe told us about is by the tomb, just beyond those trees.” He pointed at a clump of beeches whose tops showed above the next rise.
“That must be it,” said Ganath as a thatched roof appeared among the trees. “Velantos’ quarrel with Lady Anderle must have been like a battle of the gods. I wish I could have been a fly upon the wall!”
“I don’t see any smoke,” said Mikantor. His gut tightened with mingled apprehension and excitement. Had Velantos finished the sword? “Aelfrix—run ahead and tell the smith that we are coming!”
What was he expecting? The vision of the Sword from the Stars had come to Anderle and Velantos, not to him. When his bronze blade broke, he had grieved for the smith’s pain, not the loss of a weapon. A sword was only a sword, and only as good as the hand that wielded it.
Except that if the old men who had given that hunk of metal to Velantos were to be believed, this one might be something more. Mikantor would value it, if only because it meant so much to those he loved, but even as he tried to maintain his detachment, the man he had been when he was called Micail was awakening within him, a man who had known how to wield the kind of power such a sword might hold.
As they turned up the path to the old tomb, Aelfrix came running back.
“He’s gone!” exclaimed the boy. “Most of the elder folk are gone as well. Old Squirrel says that the Lady of Avalon went when Ulansi came to tell her that Lady Tirilan had been taken, seven days ago. It is three days since Velantos went away, after he finished the sword!”
“He’s done it?” breathed Mikantor.
“Squirrel says it was beautiful, shining like a star,” the boy replied.
“But where did he go?” asked Ganath.
“He went after the Lady,” said the boy. “They both went to Azan.”
Mikantor exchanged a worried glance with his friend. He still resented the sensible advisors who had kept him from heading south alone when he heard the news. What kind of trouble could the priestess and the smith get into, wandering in enemy territory alone?
VELANTOS SANK DOWN IN the lee of the barrow, unslung his bag and the swathed length of the sword, and pulled his cloak over his head against the wind. In the past year, he reflected, he had become quite familiar with tombs. The grave mounds of the Island of the Mighty, if not as elaborate as the great tholos tombs of his own land, were more numerous by far, and older. Where the earth had fallen away to reveal a shadowed entry, the stones that framed the door of this one were as large as any of those in Mykenae’s Cyclopean walls. He wondered if the Cyclopes had come from these isles.
The Plain of Azan was fading into gray distances as the sun went down. It was the beginning of the season of harvest, and here and there he could see a ripening field or a rough-cut meadow where they had already scythed the hay. The barrow where he had settled was one of a line that stretched northward. Somewhere in that direction the great henge must lie.
The sky was darkening. He glimpsed a flicker of firelight as a door was opened in one of the scattered farmsteads on the plain. Smoke from their cookfires drifted on the air. But he dared not ask for shelter, not so close to Azan-Ylir. At the farm where he had slept the night before they said that the steadings closest to Azan-Ylir were all held by Galid’s men. The rain seemed to be stopping, and he did not feel cold. Was he finally becoming accustomed to the climate in this country? That was a disturbing thought, as if he were losing part of his identity.
A single stranger at a farm would be conspicuous, but Azan-Ylir was full of people coming and going, swelling Galid’s army, or seeking the scraps that fell from his table like crows around a carcass brought down by wolves. As if the thought had been a summons, a large crow settled on the mound.
“Nay, I did not mean you—” Velantos said genially, remembering Paion, whose bird this was. “And now that I think about it, I was probably being unfair to the wolves, at least the ones who have now allied with Mikantor. I should have called Galid’s followers maggots, battening on the body of this land.”
He pulled open his bag and tossed a piece of cheese to the bird. “Take that in honor of your master. He told me that he sometimes visits these lands. Ask him to watch over me,” he added, although he might do better to call on Erelas, god of travelers and thieves—and beggars. Odikeos had passed unknown when he came as a beggar to his own hall. When Galid saw Velantos in Avalon he had not recognized him as the bronze trader he had met on the road two years ago. After sleeping under hedges for several days he look
ed a proper vagabond. There was no reason his enemy should recognize him now.
As for his present location, Velantos did not fear the dead. It was the living who had succumbed to Galid’s contagion. Once, this had been a well-populated and fertile countryside, but today’s march had taken Velantos past more than one deserted farmstead. Elsewhere men still fought to wrest a living from the land. Here, too many had given up the struggle and preyed on others, taking no thought for those who would come after. This was the evil that Mikantor was born to battle. It was for this that Velantos had forged the Sword.
The smith ate the rest of the cheese and drank from his waterskin. The opening in this barrow was too small for him to crawl inside, but at least it kept off the wind. He wrapped his cloak around him and despite his discomfort fell into a troubled sleep.
Surprisingly, his dreams were fair. He found himself walking across some Otherworldly analogue of the Plain of Azan, for all the fields here were well tilled, the heads of barley hanging heavy on their stalks, fat red cattle grazing in meadows where the grass was knee high. He had never seen this country so richly bountiful, and began to understand why Mikantor loved it.
“It is beautiful, is it not?” Someone spoke behind him. As Velantos turned, a crow glided past him, its feathers flashing white as they caught the sunlight, to perch on the outstretched hand of a young man in a white tunic and red mantle ornamented in the style of this land. But the dark curls and lambent gaze belonged to the god he had met when he dreamed in Korinthos, in Paion’s shrine.
“I told you that I had another home here in the Hyperborean lands,” said the god, “and that you would meet me here.”
“We have met here already,” answered Velantos, “when Galid came to Avalon. You helped me then. Will you hide me from him now?”
“You are going into the bear’s den, and you ask me to protect you from the bear?” Apollon laughed. “If you want to be safe, you are traveling in the wrong direction. Turn around, and you will find your beloved with an army at his back, hot for revenge. You will be well guarded then.”
“Lord, it is not for my own sake that I ask, but for a woman who may be in danger.”
“And what is this woman to you?”
Velantos gazed at him for a long moment, seeking a reply. “My lady,” he whispered at last.
“She is not the Lady of the Forge, though the Lady spoke through her—” warned the god.
“I know it. She is an opinionated bitch of a woman, and a witch as well, and yet in her I see the goddess I have served. I am a man of my hands,” he exclaimed, “not of words. I do not know how to explain what has grown between us. I only know it is there.”
“Are you a hero, I wonder, or a fool?” asked the god.
“I wonder that sometimes myself—” Velantos tried to smile. “I am compelled to make sure she is safe, just as I was compelled to craft the Sword.”
Apollon sighed. “Even the lord of Olympos cannot fight fate.”
“Is that what drives me?” Velantos asked.
“If you must go forward, leave the Sword in the barrow,” the god said then. “The ancestors will guard it well.”
“If I have served you by forging it, I ask whatever aid you can give.”
“I cannot change your fate, only give you the power to recognize it. But I will give you an oracle. If you go to Azan-Ylir, you will pay with your heart’s blood for your heart’s desire.”
“If that is the price, I accept it,” Velantos replied.
The figure of the god grew brighter, so radiant Velantos had to hide his eyes. When he opened them again, he was looking at the golden light of a new day.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” TIRILAN jerked upright, staring.
“It was the wind, my darling,” Anderle replied, “only the wind on the plain.”
“No, I heard hoofbeats—” She ran her hands through her tangled hair, looking wildly around her.
“Breathe, child, it is only the pounding of your heart,” her mother replied. She had hoped to be gone from here today, but Tirilan was not yet strong enough to walk far. She needed hot food. Perhaps for a little while they could dare to light a fire. The last time she had been here, the Henge had been a gateway for the dead, but it would restore life to Tirilan.
“You can laugh—” the girl said bitterly. “You are the one Galid lusts after. Me, he only kept as a weapon against Mikantor!”
“Be still!” Anderle felt her patience snap. “I’ve half a mind—” To let him have you if you cannot act like a priestess of Avalon— her thought ran on.
“Do you remember what I taught you about these stones?” she said instead, indicating the four tall trilithons still standing within the Henge. The uprights and lintel of the fifth were fallen. She and Tirilan had slept in their lee the night before. The smooth surfaces were slightly concave, a solid gray in the morning light that slanted across the toppled stones on the eastern side. It was said that they had been felled in a magical battle between two factions of the priests who had founded Avalon. But power still flowed through the stones.
“The Henge lies on one of the rivers of force that flow through the land. Whether the power rises here because of the Henge, or they built the Henge to mark an intersection of forces I do not know. But those who have been trained as we are trained can draw that power up into the stones. Try it now—breathe out and let your awareness sink into the soil . . . reach out, sense the power . . .” She saw Tirilan’s eyes widen as she felt it, and smiled. “Now breathe in and draw that force upward. That’s it,” she added as the energy began to move.
Tirilan gazed around her, her thin face flushing in wonder. “I can see them glow!”
“That also is part of our training,” said Anderle. “But someone outside the circle would see only a distortion in the air. It is the same with sound. We cannot hear much from outside, nor can others hear what passes within.”
“So we are safe . . .” Tirilan let out her breath in a long sigh and the glow began to fade.
Anderle looked up as a shadow flickered across the stones. It was a swan, not a usual sight on the plain. No doubt the bird had paused at the nearby dewpond. It reminded her of Avalon. Her daughter saw it too, and for a moment looked like her old self once more.
“She flies so high and free,” murmured the girl. “After so long in the dark I forgot the beauty of the sky.”
“Did Galid abuse you?” Anderle dared to ask.
“Do you mean, did he rape me? No—” Tirilan gave an odd laugh. “He threatened to, but that last time he came, his pain was so great, like a hole in the world, I would have given myself to him just to ease him. But he ran away and left me in the dark. . . .”
Anderle gathered her daughter against her, crooning as she had not done since Tiri was a little child. She had hated Galid because of the blood he had shed and the homes he had destroyed, but the man she had seen at Azan-Ylir was suffering from a sickness of the soul. A despair so great it could cloud Tirilan’s bright spirit was a danger to the world.
“By now Mikantor knows you were taken. He will be burning up the leagues to rescue you.”
“But you rescued me—” Tirilan hugged her and laughed. “I weep to think how he must be suffering now, but I suppose that to know he is not the only one who can do heroic deeds will be good for him.”
“We are all heroes, my dear, when danger threatens those we love. . . . And I do love you, even though we do not always agree—” she added unwillingly as she let the girl go. There could only be truth between them here.
And how could she apologize to Velantos for running off without a word? She should have trusted him, but for so long she had been accountable to none save the Goddess. What would their relationship be when this war with Galid came to an end? Had he and she been no more than tools for the gods to wield, or could they forge a life together somehow?
“If we did not love I suppose we would not care enough to quarrel—” Tirilan said softly, stretching out her arms. “Oh, how
thin I have become! I must try to eat more. Mikantor will not want a bundle of sticks in his bed!”
Anderle repressed a smile. The girl was definitely on the mend. But she must have some occupation, or she would begin to fret once more.
“When Velantos brings the Star Sword, it will need a sheath.” She pulled a long bundle from her pack. “This was made for the bronze swords. Velantos forged the iron blade to the same pattern. It is two slats of wood hollowed to receive the blade and covered with rawhide sewn and shrunk.”
“It is not . . . very pretty . . .” Tirilan said dubiously.
“Just so,” her mother agreed. “And so we have this—” She unrolled a piece of doeskin dyed red with madder. “Cover the rawhide with this, and paint on the symbols that will ward the man who bears the blade.” She realized now that she had already made her contribution to the forging of the Sword. It was Mikantor’s mate who must make the sheath for this blade.
And when, Anderle wondered, had she accepted that Tirilan would not be returning to Avalon? When I feared that I had lost her forever, the answer came.
VELANTOS HEARD A HEAVY step behind him and dodged the fist, remembering just in time to cower instead of using the power of his forge-trained arm to knock the man across the yard.
“Make way for a warrior, slave!” The man lurched past. He wore a blade, though to call that length of pitted bronze a sword was as questionable as to call the oaf a warrior. Velantos picked up the firewood he had dropped, cursing his own inattention. He looked the part of a drudge, but even when he really was a slave he had found it hard to act like one. Fortunately the men who were most likely to greet a newcomer with a blow were those who had been vagabonds themselves not so long ago. There were a lot of them. Mikantor was not the only one who was recruiting men. The roundhouses within the palisade were full of them, and more were camped in the fields outside. The dirt and the stink were becoming overpowering. If Mikantor did not come quickly, sickness would do his work for him.