Then we shoved off and began our hasty flight down the Droonaa River.
* * *
It was some time before they managed to commandeer a ship for pursuit and by that time we were safely outdistancing them. My crew asked no questions. They were used to my silences, my actions which sometimes seemed peculiar. But, a week after we were on course over the sea, bound for Mernadin, I told them briefly that I was now an outlaw.
“Why, Lord Erekosë?” asked my captain. “It seems unjust.”
“It is unjust, I think. Call it the queen’s malice. I suspect Katorn spoke against me, making her hate me.”
They were satisfied with the explanation and, when we put in at a small cove near the Plains of Melting Ice, I bade them farewell, mounted my horse and rode swiftly for Loos Ptokai, knowing not what I should do when I got there. Knowing only that I must let Arjavh know the turn events had taken.
He had been right. Humanity would not let me show mercy.
My crew bid me farewell with a certain amount of affection. They did not know—and neither did I—that they were soon to be killed because of me.
Now I crept into Loos Ptokai. I sneaked through the great siege camp that we had constructed there and, at night, entered the city of the Eldren.
Arjavh rose from his bed when he heard I had returned.
“Well, Erekosë?” He looked searchingly at me. Then he said: “You were not successful, were you? You have been riding hard and you have been fighting. What happened?”
I told him.
He sighed. “Well, our advice was foolish. Now you will die when we die.”
“I would rather that, I think,” I said.
* * *
Two months passed. Two ominous months in Loos Ptokai. Humanity did not attack the city immediately and it soon emerged that they were awaiting orders from Queen Iolinda. She, it appeared, had refused to make a decision.
The inaction was oppressive in itself.
I fretted often at the battlements, looking out over the great camp and wishing that the thing would start and be finished. Only Ermizhad eased my unhappiness. We openly acknowledged our love now.
And because I loved her, I began to want to save her.
I wanted to save her and I wanted to save myself and I wanted to save all the Eldren in Loos Ptokai, for I wanted to stay with Ermizhad for ever. I did not want to be destroyed.
Desperately I tried to think of ways in which we could defeat that great force, but every plan I made was a wild one and could not work.
And then, one day, I remembered a conversation I had had with Arjavh on the plateau after he had defeated me in battle.
I went looking for him and found him in his study. He was reading from one of the beautifully decorated Eldren scrolls.
“Erekosë? Are they beginning their attack?”
“No, Arjavh. But I recall that you told me once about some ancient weapons your race had—that you still have.”
“What?”
“The old terrible weapons,” I said. “The ones you swore never to use again because they could destroy so much!”
He shook his head. “Not those.”
“Use them this once, Arjavh,” I begged him. “Make a show of strength, that is all. They will be ready to discuss peace then.”
He rolled up his scroll. “No. They will never discuss peace with us. They would rather die. I do not think that even this situation merits the breaking of that ancient vow.”
“Arjavh,” I said. “I respect the reasons for refusing to use the weapons. But I have grown to love the Eldren. I have already broken one vow. Let me break another—for you. “
He still shook his head.
“Just agree to this, then,” I said. “If the time comes when I feel we could use them, will you let me decide—take the decision out of your hands, make it my responsibility?”
He looked searchingly at me. The orbless eyes seemed to pierce me.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Arjavh—will you?”
“We Eldren have never been motivated as much by self-interest as you humans—and never to the extent of destroying another race, Erekosë. Do not confuse our values with those of mankind.”
“I am not,” I replied. “That is my reason for asking you this. I could not bear to see your noble race perish at the hands of those beasts beyond our walls!”
Arjavh stood up and replaced the scroll in the shelves. “Iolinda spoke the truth,” he said quietly. “You are a traitor to your own race.”
“‘Race’ is a meaningless term. It was you and Ermizhad who told me to be an individual. I have chosen my loyalties.”
He pursed his lips. “Well…”
“I seek only to stop them continuing in their folly,” I said.
He clenched his thin, pale hands together.
“Arjavh. I asked you because of the love I have for Ermizhad and the love she has for me. Because of the great friendship you have given me. For all Eldren left alive, I beg you to let me take the decision if it becomes necessary.”
“For Ermizhad?” He raised his slanting eyebrows. “For you? For me? For my people? Not for revenge?”
“No,” I said quietly. “I do not think so.”
“Very well. I leave the decision to you. I suppose that is fair. I do not want to die. But remember—do not act as unwisely as others of your kind.”
“I will not,” I promised.
I think I kept that particular promise.
25
THE ATTACK
AND THE DAYS continued to pass. Gradually the air began to chill; night came sooner. Winter threatened. If winter arrived before Count Roldero, we would be safe until spring, for the invaders would be fools to attempt a heavy siege.
They realised this, too, and it seemed Iolinda must have come to a decision. She gave them permission to attack Loos Ptokai.
After much bickering among themselves, I learned, the marshals elected one of themselves, the most experienced, to act as their war champion.
They elected Count Roldero.
The siege commenced in earnest.
Their massive siege engines were brought forward, including the giant cannon known as the Firedrakes—great black things of iron, decorated with fierce reliefs.
Roldero rode up and his herald announced his presence. I went to speak with him from the battlements.
“Greetings, Erekosë the Traitor!” he called. “We have decided to punish you—and all the Eldren within these walls. We would have slaughtered the Eldren cleanly, but now we intend to put to slow death all those we capture.”
I was saddened.
“Roldero, Roldero,” I begged. “We were friends once. You were perhaps the only true friend I had. We drank together and fought together, made jokes together. We were comrades, Roldero. Good comrades.”
His horse fidgeted beneath him, pawing at the earth.
“That was an age ago,” he said without looking up at me.
“Little more than a year, Roldero.”
“But we are not those two friends any longer, Erekosë.” He looked up, shielding his eyes with a gauntleted hand. I saw that his face had grown old and it bore many new scars. Doubtless I looked as changed as he. “We are different men,” Roldero said, and wrenching at his reins drove his horse away, digging his long spurs savagely into its flanks. Now there was nothing we could do but fight.
The Firedrakes boomed and their solid shot slammed against the walls. Blazing fireballs from captured Eldren artillery (we had become less fastidious as the war went on) screamed over the walls and into the streets. These were followed by thousands of arrows that came in a black shower, blotting out the light.
And then a million men rushed against our handful of defenders.
We replied with what cannon we had, but we relied mainly on archers to meet that first wave, for we were short of shot.
And we repelled them. After ten hours of fighting they fell back.
Then, next day and the day
after, they continued to attack. But Loos Ptokai, the ancient capital of Mernadin, held firm.
Battalion upon battalion of yelling warriors mounted the siege towers and we again replied with arrows, with molten metal and, economically, with the fire-spewing cannon of the Eldren. We fought bravely, Arjavh and I leading the defenders and, whenever they sighted me, the warriors of Humanity screamed for vengeance and died striving for the privilege of slaying me.
We fought side by side, like brothers, Arjavh and I, but our Eldren warriors were tiring and, after a week of constant barrage, we began to realise that we could not much longer hold back that tide of steel.
That night we sat together after Ermizhad had gone to bed. We massaged our aching muscles and we spoke little.
Then I said: “We shall all be dead soon, Arjavh. You and I. Ermizhad. The rest of your folk.”
He continued to dig his fingers into his shoulder, kneading it to loosen it. “Yes,” he said. “Soon.”
I wanted him to raise the subject that was on the tip of my tongue, but he would not.
* * *
The next day, scenting our defeat, the warriors of Humanity came at us with greater vigour than ever. The Firedrakes were brought in closer and began steadily to bombard the main gates.
I saw Roldero, mounted on his great black horse, directing the operation and there was something about his stance that made me realise that he was sure he would break our defences that day.
I turned to Arjavh, who stood beside me on the wall, and I was about to speak when several of the Firedrakes boomed in unison. The black metal shook, the shot screamed from their snouts, hit the main gates, which were of metal, and split the left one down the middle. It did not fall, but it was so badly weakened that one more cannonade would bring it completely down.
“Arjavh!” I yelled. “We must break out the old weapons. We must arm the Eldren!”
His face was pale, but he shook his head.
“Arjavh! We must! Another hour and we’ll be driven off these battlements! Another three and we’ll be overwhelmed entirely!”
He looked to where Roldero was directing the cannoneers and this time he did not remonstrate. He nodded. “Very well. I agreed that you would decide. Come.”
He led me down the steps.
I only hoped he had not overestimated their power.
Arjavh led me to the vaults that lay at the core of the city. We moved along bare corridors of polished black marble, lighted by small bulbs which burned with a greenish glow. We came to a door of dark metal and he pressed a stud beside it. The door moved open and we entered an elevator which bore us yet farther downwards.
I was again astonished at the Eldren. They had deliberately given up all these marvels to satisfy their ideals of justice and honour.
Then we stepped into a great hall full of weirdly wrought machines that looked as if they had just been manufactured. They stretched for nearly half a mile ahead of us.
“These are the weapons,” said Arjavh bleakly.
Around the high walls were arranged handguns of various kinds; there were rifles and objects that looked to John Daker’s eye like anti-tank weapons. There were squat war machines on caterpillar treads, with glass cabins and couches for a single man to lie flat upon and operate the controls. I was surprised that there were no flying machines of any kind—or none that I recognised as such. I mentioned this to Arjavh.
“Flying machines! It would be interesting if such things could be invented. But I do not think it is possible. We have never, in all our history, been able to develop a machine that will safely stay in the air for any length of time.”
I was amazed at this odd gap in their technology, but I commented on it no further.
“Now you have seen these fierce things,” he said, “do you still feel you should use them?”
He doubtless thought such weapons were not familiar to me. They were not so very different to the war machines John Daker had known. And, in my dreams, I had seen much stranger weapons.
“Let us ready them,” I said to him.
We returned to the surface and there instructed our warriors to transport the weapons to the surface.
Roldero had smashed in one of our gates now and we had had to bring up cannon to defend it, but the warriors of Humanity were beginning to press in and some hand-to-hand fighting was going on at the approach to the gates.
Night was falling. I hoped that, in spite of their gain, the human army would retreat at dark and give us the time we needed. Through the gap in the gate I saw Roldero urging his men in. Doubtless he hoped to consolidate his advantage before the twilight ended.
I ordered more men to the breach.
Already I was beginning to doubt my own decision.
Perhaps Arjavh was right and it was criminal to let the power of the ancient weapons loose. But then, I thought, what does it matter? Better destroy them and half the planet than let them destroy the beauty that was the Eldren.
I was forced to smile at this reaction in myself. Arjavh would not have approved of it. Such a thought was alien to him.
I saw Roldero bring in more men to counter our forces and I swung into the saddle of a nearby horse, spurring it towards the crucial breach.
I drew my poison sword, Kanajana, and I voiced my battle-cry—the battle-cry that only a short while ago had urged these warriors I attacked into battle against those I now led. They heard it and, as I suspected, were disconcerted.
I leaped my horse over the heads of my own men and confronted Roldero. He looked at me in astonishment and pulled his horse up short.
“Would you fight me, Roldero?” I said.
He shrugged. “Aye. I’ll fight you, traitor.”
And he rushed at me with his reins looped over his arm and both hands around the hilt of his great sword. It whistled over my head as I ducked.
Everywhere about us, beneath the broken walls of Loos Ptokai, human and Eldren fought desperately in the fading light.
Roldero was tired, more tired than I was, but he battled valiantly on and I could not get through his guard. His sword caught me a blow on my helmet and I reeled and struck back and caught him on the helmet. My helmet stayed on, but his was half-pulled off. He wrenched it off all the way and flung it aside. His hair had turned completely white since I had last seen him bareheaded.
His face was flushed and his eyes bright, his lips drawn back over his teeth. He tried to stab his sword through my visor, but I ducked under the blow and he fell forward in his saddle and I brought up my sword and drove it down into his breastbone.
He groaned and then his face lost all its anger and he gasped: “Now we can be friends again, Erekosë…” and he died.
I looked down at him as he collapsed over the neck of his horse. I remembered his kindness, the wine he had brought me to help me sleep, the advice he had tried to give me. And I remembered him pushing the dead king from his saddle. Yet, Count Roldero was a good man, a good man forced by history to do evil. By his own rule he had been condemned.
His black horse turned and began to canter back towards the count’s distant pavilion.
I raised my sword in salute and then shouted to the humans who fought on. “Look, warriors of Humanity! Look! Your war champion is defeated!”
The sun was setting.
The warriors began to withdraw, looking at me in hatred as I laughed at them, but not daring to attack me while the bloody sword Kanajana was in my hand.
One of them did call back, however.
“We are not leaderless, Erekosë, if that is what you think. We have the queen to send us into battle. She has come to be witness to your destruction tomorrow!”
Iolinda was with the besiegers!
I thought swiftly and then yelled: “Tell your mistress to come tomorrow to our walls. Come at dawn to parley!”
* * *
Through the night we worked to reinforce the gate and to position the new-found weapons. They were raised wherever they would fit and the Eldren so
ldiers were armed with the hand weapons.
I wondered if Iolinda would get the message and, if she did get it, whether she would deign to come.
She came. She came with her remaining marshals in all their proud panoply of war. That panoply seemed so insignificant now, against the power of the ancient Eldren weapons.
We had set one of the new cannon pointing up at the sky so that we could demonstrate its fearful potential.
Iolinda’s voice drifted up to us.
“Greetings, Eldren—and greetings to your human lapdog. Is he a well-trained pet now?”
“Greetings, Iolinda,” I said, showing my face. “You begin to show your father’s penchant for poor insults and obvious irony. Let’s waste no further time.”
“I am already wasting time,” she said. “We are going to destroy you all today.”
“Perhaps not,” I said. “For we offer you a truce—and peace.”
Iolinda laughed aloud. “You offer us peace, traitor! You should be begging for peace—though you’ll get none!”
“I warn you, Iolinda,” I shouted desperately. “I warn you all. We have fresh weapons—weapons which once came near to destroying this whole Earth! Watch!”
I gave the order to fire the giant cannon.
An Eldren warrior depressed a stud on the controls.
There came a humming from the cannon and all at once a tremendous blinding bolt of golden energy gouted from its snout. The heat alone blistered our skins and we fell back, shielding our eyes.
Horses shrieked and reared. The marshals’ faces were grey and their mouths gaped. They fought to control their mounts. Only Iolinda sat firmly in her saddle, apparently calm.
“That is what we offer you if you will not have peace,” I shouted. “We have a dozen like it and there are others that are different, but as powerful, and we have hand cannon which can kill a hundred men at a sweep. What say you now?”
Iolinda raised her face and stared directly up at me.
“We fight,” she said.
“Iolinda,” I pleaded. “For our old love, for your own sake—do not fight. We will not harm you. You can go home, all of you, and live in security for the rest of your lives. I mean it.”