“Strangyeard!” cried Sangfugol. “Blast it, I am not staying here by myself. I’ll come with you, whatever madness you’re onto.” He followed the archivist over the barrier. “You are heading right toward the fighting!” he shouted. “You’ll be shot with an arrow!”
“I have to find Isgrimnur,” Strangyeard called back.
Cursing richly, the harper hurried after him.
“Isorn’s right, sire,” said Sludig. “If we pass through the gate, we must make a great charge. The men have already seen the Norns and they are frightened. If we hesitate, the advantage will be the king’s again. Who knows what will happen if he makes a sortie, and us fighting uphill?”
Isgrimnur stared at the Hayholt’s high walls. It was only when seen against a storm like this that the works of man, even such a mighty construction as the Hayholt, seemed truly small. Perhaps they actually could knock down the gate. Perhaps Sludig and the others were right—Elias’ kingdom was a rotting fruit waiting to fall from the vine.
There was another strange, sputtering flash of lightning over the tower tops. Thunder rolled, but following close behind it came a loud crash as the great ram was swung forward into the gate.
“Go, then,” Isgrimnur told Sludig. His carl had not dismounted, but had brought his steam-puffing horse to the edge of the wooden structure where the duke stood. “Hotvig and his riders are still waiting at the edge of the Kynswood. No, better yet, you stay here.” Isgrimnur summoned one of the newly returned outriders and gave him a message for the Thrithings-men, then sent him on his way. “You go back to Isorn, Sludig. Tell him to hold fast and let the first of the men-at-arms go through on foot. There will be no storied charges here, at least not until I see what Elias has waiting.”
As the duke spoke, the ram smashed against the Nearulagh Gate. The timbers seemed to sag inward a little way, as though the huge bolts had been loosened.
“Yes, sire.” Sludig turned his charger toward the walls.
The ram’s engineers swung it forward once more. The iron-plated head crunched against the barrier. A length of wood splintered away down the length of the gate, and even through the storm noises Isgrimnur could hear the excited shouts of men all across the field. The ram was pulled back and then set in motion again. The Nearulagh Gate. shattered and fell inward in an explosion of broken timbers and tumbling statuary. Snow swirled in the empty space. Isgrimnur goggled, almost unable to believe the gate was down. When the snow cleared, a few score of the castle’s pikemen moved into the opening, braced against attack. No great hidden army charged outward.
A long moment passed as the two forces eyed each other through the snow-flurries. It seemed no one could move, that both sides were astonished by what had happened. Then a small, golden-helmeted figure lifted a sword and spurred forward. A score of mounted knights and several hundred foot soldiers surged toward the breach in the Hayholt’s walls.
“Damn me, Isorn!” Duke Isgrimnur shouted. He leaned so far forward that he nearly lost his balance and toppled from the observation platform. “Come back! Where is Sludig!? Sludig! Stop him!” Someone was tugging at his sleeve, pulling him back from the edge of the platform, but Isgrimnur paid the intruder no mind. “Can’t he see that it’s too easy? Isorn!” He knew his voice could not possibly carry above the tumult. “Seriddan! Where are you!? Ride after him—by Dror’s red mallet, where are my messengers!?”
“Duke Isgrimnur!” It was Strangyeard the archivist, still pulling at his sleeve.
“Get away, damn you!” Isgrimnur roared. “I do not need a priest, I need mounted knights. Jeremias, run to Seriddan,” he called. “Isorn has forced our hand. Tell the baron to ride in.”
Strangyeard was undaunted. “Please, Duke Isgrimnur, you must listen to me!”
“I have no time for you now, man! My son has just charged in like a fool. He must think he is Camaris—after all I told him!” He stalked across the platform, satisfying himself that everyone was in as much of a furious state of excitement as he was. The priest pursued him like a dog nipping at the heels of a bull. Finally Strangyeard grasped Isgrimnur’s surcoat and yanked hard, pulling the duke off-balance and almost toppling him over.
“By all that’s holy, Isgrimnur!” he shouted. “You must listen to me!”
The duke stared at the priest’s reddened face. Strangyeard’s eyepatch had slid almost onto his nose. “What are you on about?” Isgrimnur demanded. “We have knocked down the gates! We are at war, man!”
“The Norns must know about the tunnels,” Strangyeard said urgently. Isgrimnur saw Sangfugol the harper skulking beside the platform, and wondered what both a priest and a harper were doing in the middle of things that did not concern them.
“What do you mean?”
“They must know. And if we can think to send somebody under the castle walls ...”
The clamor of men as they charged up the hillside toward the shattered gate, even the grumbling of thunder and the moan of the wind, were suddenly overtopped by a hideous grinding noise, a rasp like fingernails on slate. Horses reared, and several of the soldiers on the platform lifted their hands to their ears.
“Oh, merciful Aedon,” said Isgrimnur, staring up at the Hayholt. “No!”
The last of Isorn’s company had fought their way through the opening in the wall. At their backs, thrusting up from the snowy ground and the wreckage left by the battering ram, a second gate was rising. It climbed upward swiftly, rasping like an ogre’s teeth grinding on bone. Within a few moments the wall was sealed again. The new gate, beneath a layer of snow and mud, was covered with dull iron plates.
“Oh, God help me, I was right,” Isgrimnur groaned. “They have trapped Isorn and the others. Sweet Usires.” He stared in sick horror as the engineers rolled the ram forward and began hammering at the second gate. The metal-clad wood did not seem to give even an inch.
“They think they have trapped Camaris,” Strangyeard said. “That is what they planned to do all along.”
Isgrimnur turned and grabbed at the priest’s robe, thrusting his face close to the smaller man’s. “You knew? You knew?!”
“Goodness, Isgrimnur, no, I didn’t. But I see it now.”
The duke let him go and began shouting frantic orders, sending his remaining archers forward to help protect the engineers, who were receiving redoubled interest from the soldiers on the Hayholt’s walls. “And find me that damn Sithi general!” he bawled. “The one in green! The fairy-folk must help us knock this new wall down!”
“But you still must listen to me, Isgrimnur,” said the priest. “If the Sithi know of those tunnels, the Norns must, too. The Storm King, when he lived, was master of Asu‘a!”
“What does that mean? Speak plainly, damn you!” Isgrimnur was furiously agitated. “My son is trapped in there with only a few men. We must break down this new gate and go in after him.”
“I think you must look ...” Strangyeard began, when another round of excited shouts interrupted him. This .time, though, they came from behind Isgrimnur.
“Coming up through Erchester!” one of the mounted men screamed. “Look! It is the White Foxes!”
“I think you must look behind you, I was going to say.” Strangyeard shook his head. “If we could go beneath the walls, so could they.”
Even in near-darkness it was possible to see that the host moving up Main Row was not human. White faces gleamed in the shadows. White hands held long sharp spears. Now that they had been sighted and the need for stealth was gone, they began to sing, a triumphant chant that fell painfully on Isgrimnur’s ears.
The duke allowed himself one moment of utter despair. “Ransomer preserve us, we have been snared like rabbits.” He patted the priest’s shoulder in silent thanks, then strode to the middle of the platform. “To me, Josua’s men! To me!” He waved to Jeremias, calling for his horse.
The Norns came up Main Row, singing.
30
Beside the Pool
“Up to the tree ...” Guthwulf mum
bled. His face beneath Simon’s hand was oven-hot and slippery with sweat. “To the flaming tree. Wants to go ...”
The earl was getting worse, and Simon did not know what to do. He was still badly hobbled by his own wounds, knew almost nothing of the healing arts, and in any case was in a lightless place with nothing that might be of use in easing Guthwulf’s fever. Because of a dim recollection that fevers had to burn themselves out, he had covered the suffering earl with some of the rags strewn about the floor, but he felt like a traitor putting warm things on someone who seemed to be burning up.
Helpless, he sat down beside Guthwulf once more, listening to him rave and praying that the earl would survive. The blackness pressed in on him like the crushing depths of the ocean, making it hard to breathe, to think. He tried to distract himself by remembering the things he had seen, the places he had been. More than anything he wanted to do something, but at this moment there seemed to be nothing to do but wait. He did not want to be left alone and lost in the empty places again.
Something touched his leg and Simon reached out, thinking that Guthwulf in his misery was looking for a hand to hold. Instead, Simon’s fingers trailed across something warm and covered with fur. He let out a shout of surprise and scrabbled back, expecting momentarily to feel rats or something worse swarming over him. When there was no further contact he crouched, huddled into himself, for a long time. Then his feelings of responsibility for Guthwulf won out and he edged back toward the earl. A squeamish exploration found the furry thing again. It shrank back as he had, but did not go far. It was a cat.
Simon laughed breathlessly, then reached out and stroked the creature. It arched beneath his hand, but would not come to him. Instead it settled against the blind man and Guthwulf’s movements became less agitated, his breathing quieter. The cat’s presence seemed to soothe him. Simon, too, felt a little less alone, and resolved to be careful not to frighten the animal away. He fetched some of the remaining heel of bread and offered a pinch to the cat, who sniffed it but did not take any. Simon ate a few small pieces himself, then tried to find a comfortable position to sleep in.
Simon awakened, abruptly conscious that something had happened. In the darkness it was impossible to discern any changes, but he had the inescapable feeling that things had shifted somehow, that he was suddenly in an unfamiliar place with no knowledge of how he had come there. But the rags around him were the same, and Guthwulf’s labored breathing, though quieter, still rasped away nearby. Simon crawled over to the earl, gently pushed aside the warm and purring cat, and was heartened to feel much of the cramping tension gone from the blind man’s limbs. Perhaps he was recovering from the fever. Perhaps the cat had been his companion and its presence had restored a little of his sanity. In any case, Guthwulf had stopped raving. Simon let the cat clamber back into the crook of the earl’s arm. It felt strange not to hear Guthwulf’s voice.
During the earliest hours of his fever, the earl had been almost lucid for short stretches, although he was so plagued by his voices and former solitude that it was difficult to separate truth from terrifying dream. He talked about crawling through darkness, desperate to find Bright-Nail—although, strangely, he did not seem to think of it as a sword at all, but as something alive that summoned him. Simon remembered Thorn’s disturbing vitality and thought he understood a little of what the earl meant.
It was hard to make sense out of the impressions of a half-mad blind man, but as Guthwulf spoke, Simon pictured the earl walking through the tunnels, lured by something that called to him in a voice he could not ignore. Guthwulf had gone far beyond his usual range, it seemed, and had heard and felt many terrible things. At last he had crawled, and when even those narrow ways were blocked, he had dug, fighting his way through the last cubits of earth that had separated him from the object of his obsession.
He dug into John’s barrow, Simon realized, shuddering. Like a blind mole after a carrot scraping, scraping ...
Guthwulf had taken his prize and had somehow found his way back to his nest, but apparently even the joy of possessing the thing he had sought had not been enough to keep him in hiding. For some reason he had ventured out, perhaps to steal food from the forge—where else had the bread and water come from?—but perhaps for some deeper, more complicated reason.
Why did he come to me? Simon wondered. Why would he risk being caught by Inch? He thought again of Thorn, of how it had seemed almost to choose where it wished to go. Maybe Bright-Nail wanted to find ... me.
The thought was a frighteningly seductive one. If Bright-Nail was being drawn to the great conflict that was coming, then maybe it somehow knew that Guthwulf would never willingly go up into the light again. As Thorn had chosen Simon and his fellows to bring it down from Urmsheim and back to Camaris, maybe Bright-Nail had chosen Simon to carry it up to Green Angel Tower to fight the Storm King.
Another dim recollection surfaced. In my dream, Leleth said that the sword was part of my story. Is that what she meant? The details were strangely misty, but he remembered the sad-faced man who had held the blade across his lap as he waited for something. The dragon?
Simon let his fingers trail away from the cat’s back and down Guthwulf’s arm until they reached Bright-Nail. The earl moaned, but did not resist as Simon gently pried his fingers away. His finger reverently traced the rough shape of the Nail, bound just below the guard. A nail from the Execution Tree of holy Usires! And some sacred relic of Saint Eahlstan was sealed inside the hollow hilt, he remembered. Prester John’s sword. It was astonishing that a onetime scullion should ever touch such a thing!
Simon curled his hand around the hilt. It seemed to ... fit. It lay in his hand as comfortably as though it had been made for him. All other thoughts about the blade, about Guthwulf, slid away. He sat in the dark and felt the sword to be an extension of his own arm, of himself. He stood, ignoring his aching muscles, and slashed at the lightless void before him. A moment later, horrified at the thought that he might accidentally strike Bright-Nail against the rock wall of the cavern and blunt its edge, he sat down again, then crawled away to his corner of the cavern and stretched out on the stone, clutching the sword to him as though it were a child. The metal was cold where it touched his skin, and the blade was sharp, but he did not want to let it go. Across the chamber, Guthwulf murmured uncomfortably.
Some time had passed, although Simon did not know whether he had slept or not, when he suddenly became aware that something was missing: he could no longer hear the earl breathing. For a moment, as he scrambled across the uneven floor, he clung to the wild hope that Guthwulf had grown well enough to leave the cavern, but the presence of Bright-Nail still gripped in his own fingers made that seem very unlikely: the blind man would not for a moment allow someone else to have his blade.
When Simon reached Guthwulf, the earl’s skin was cool as river clay.
He did not weep, but his feeling of loss was great. His sorrow was not for Guthwulf the man, who except for these last dreamlike hours or days he had only known as a fearsome figure, but for himself, left alone once more.
Almost alone. Something bumped against his shin. The cat seemed to be trying to get his attention. It missed its companion, Simon felt sure. Perhaps it thought that somehow he could wake Guthwulf where it had failed.
“Sorry,” he whispered, running his fingers down its back and gently tugging its tail. “He’s gone somewhere else. I’m lonely, too.”
Feeling empty, he sat for a moment and took stock of things. Now he had no choice but to brave the mazy, lightless tunnels, even though he doubted he would find his way out again without a guide. Two times he had stumbled through this haunted labyrinth, each time followed so closely by death that he heard its patient footsteps behind him; it was too much to hope that he would be lucky again. Still, there was little else he could do. Green Angel Tower stood somewhere above, and Bright-Nail must be carried there. If Josua and the others had not brought Thorn, he would do what he could, although it would doubtless end
in failure. He owed that much to all those who had sold their dear lives for his freedom.
It was difficult to put Bright-Nail down—he already felt a little of Guthwulf’s possessiveness, although there was nothing in the small cavern that might endanger the sword—but he could accomplish little with it clutched in his hand. He leaned it against one of the walls, then proceeded to the unpleasant task of undressing the dead earl. When he had removed Guthwulf’s tattered clothing he took some of the rags scattered about the cavern and, in poor imitation of the priestly labors in the House of Preparing, wrapped the body. A part of him felt ridiculous for going to such lengths for a man who had, by all repute, been little-loved in his life, and who would lie here alone and undiscovered regardless, but Simon felt a stubborn urge to pay the blind man back. Morgenes and Maegwin had given their lives for him, and they had been given no memorial, no rites, except those in Simon’s own heart. Guthwulf should not go to the Fields Beyond unheralded.
When he had finished, he stood.
“Our Lord protect you, ”
he began, struggling to remember the words to the Prayer for the Dead,“And Usires His only Son lift you up.
May you be carried to the green valleys
Of His domains,
Where the souls of the good and righteous sing from
the hilltops,
And angels are in the trees,
Speaking joy with God’s own voice....
“Thank you, Guthwulf,” he said when the prayer was done. “I’m sorry to take the sword away from you, but I’ll try to do what should be done.”
He made the sign of the Tree—hoping that, despite the darkness, God would see and so take note of Guthwulf when at last the earl came before Him—then he pulled on Guthwulf’s clothing and boots. A year before, he might have thought twice before donning a dead man’s garb, but Simon had walked so close to death himself that he was now all practicality. It was warm and safe in the cavern, but who knew what cold winds, what sharp stones, awaited him?