He let out a long breath. His doubts were gone. The fate of the Halathrin was worse than death, for they understood what was happening to them but could do nothing to prevent it. Cardoroth might fall, might already have fallen, but Gilhain and Aranloth could not hold it against him that he came here to put an end to this. Kareste had been right.

  But could she achieve what she had come here to do? And on what did she wait? For she stood silent and unmoving.

  Brand did not know what would happen next, but it was the one thing he did not expect just at that moment.

  There was a sudden flash of wings. A hawk darted through the air and screeched. The beasts looked at it. Kareste looked at it, and Brand looked at it with a racing heart.

  It landed, seeming to spear into the earth with a thump, but even before the wings ceased beating Durletha sprang up from the ground.

  The witch stood between the two travelers and the beasts. She had taken the form of the old hag that Brand had first met her as, but her eyes were keen and bright.

  Brand’s heart raced even more, and it seemed that he could not stop it. A sudden fear overwhelmed him, and sweat coated his palms.

  Now, of all times, the witch reappeared, and it was not by accident. This was not just a test of Kareste’s power, but also a choosing of Light or Shadow, and Brand dreaded what evil the witch might be able to work in the midst of all that.

  23. A Man is Judged by his Deeds

  Shorty was prepared to die. He had put up a good fight, and whatever else happened he had bought some time for Brand. Every hour counted. Every hour Cardoroth survived was an extra hour his friend had to save them.

  With a thrust of his jaw Shorty stopped his slow retreat. He might die today, but he had no intention of making it easy for Hvargil.

  The traitor to the realm, who would be its king, advanced. He smiled coldly, but in truth he had nothing to be happy about. Whatever arrangement he had with the elùgroths now, he did not guess how quickly it would dissolve later. Lust for dominion had driven him and blinded his sharp mind to what it would be like to rule under the hand of the elùgroths. Promises would come easily to them now, but their words would be less than dust and ash if the winds of fortune blew victory their way.

  “Time to die,” little man. “Did I not warn you? You should have fled when you could.”

  Shorty made no answer, but his eyes glinted with hatred.

  Hvargil grinned at him.

  “Will you pit bare hands against a Halathrin blade?”

  Shorty did not hesitate.

  “If I must.”

  Hvargil looked at him, still advancing very slowly, but it seemed that a shadow of doubt was on him, and he grasped at an idea that suddenly crossed his mind.

  “Perhaps I’ll show you mercy. Run. Run back to the gate now, and I’ll let you live. Your life for the sacrifice of some pride. It’s a fair exchange, wouldn’t you say?”

  Shorty made no move, and Hvargil slowed his advance even more.

  “Maybe when I rule the city I was born to lead, eldest of the royal line that I am, I will need my own Durlin. If you survive the fall of the city, seek me out. This much I’ll say, for a king always rewards valor – you have fought bravely.”

  Shorty thought, and he thought quickly. Not about serving Hvargil, he would never do that, but about why the offer of mercy was made. There was only one reason, and a lot of little things came together to serve it. Hvargil always wished to show himself worthy of being a king, to show himself as reasonable and to present himself as an alternative to Gilhain. He, by contrast to the real king, could afford to show mercy, whereas Gilhain, constrained by necessity, could only ask men to serve and die. By drawing attention to these things Hvargil hoped to undermine the will of the defenders to fight.

  Shorty knew what he had to do. He had to fight to the last, fight against all odds, and come out victorious. It was a near impossible task, but it would dismay Hvargil and defeat the purpose of the whole challenge. Hvargil had guessed from the beginning that Gilhain would send a champion.

  But Shorty smiled to himself. He liked a challenge. It made him feel alive. And looking at things in that light he realized that even dying, so long as he faced it with courage, would work in favor of bolstering the hearts of the defenders.

  Shorty did what should never be done in a fight. He turned his back on the enemy. But he felt safe, at least for a few moments. Hvargil could not stab him in the back before all the defenders who looked on. That would only harden their resolve to fight.

  Slowly, Shorty pointed to the battlement where the king stood, and he bowed to him long and deep. When he straightened, he loosed the cloth tied about his waist that bore the king’s emblem, and he held it high.

  Slowly, with a tight grin on his face, he turned to face Hvargil.

  The man-who-would-be-king watched him. His jaw was clenched.

  “A man is judged by his deeds,” Shorty said, “and not by his height. And a king is judged by his loyalty to the people he rules. Kill me, traitor, if you can. But your gamble is already lost. In the eyes of those who defend Cardoroth, I will die as a hero, and they will oppose you, and those you serve, all the more.”

  Hvargil did not answer. But his face was a twisted thing beneath the beautiful helm, and he unleashed a furious attack.

  Shorty retreated once again. As he stepped back he zigzagged randomly, making it hard for Hvargil to reach him. Agility combated brute strength, and it gave him time. But only so much. The Halathrin blade whirred through the air, always near and getting nearer.

  So near the blade came that Shorty was indeed cut several times on his arms and hands. They were only nicks, and yet the white surcoat of the Durlin became blotched red with his blood.

  Finally, Shorty saw his opportunity. Hvargil made yet another thrust, but this one was just a fraction too far.

  It was not just for show that Shorty had taken the cloth belt of the king from his waist. He used it now, looping it around the blade, the fabric catching and tightening about the jeweled hilt.

  With a great heave, using all his strength but applying it in one swift jerk, he pulled the blade from Hvargil’s grip.

  But he was not done. Even as the sword tumbled through the air he bounded forward and rammed his helm against the head of Hvargil. The other man was not ready for it. There was a mighty thump, for the blow hit Hvargil under the jaw and drove upward. His neck could not turn to diminish the force of the strike.

  Hvargil staggered back. He was dazed, yet even so he drew a dagger. Shorty kicked it out of his hand. And then he unleashed his anger. For this was a man who had cost Cardoroth dearly.

  With speed and agility he punched and kicked and struck a whirlwind of hammering blows at his opponent. Hvargil reeled away, and as he half turned Shorty managed to reef the helm from his head.

  Drawn to that now vulnerable target that he had exposed, Shorty found renewed strength and struck with fury until Hvargil’s face was cut and bleeding in many places.

  Amazingly, Hvargil kept to his feet, trying to fight back. But a great right hook eventually caught him clean on the side of his head. His knees buckled. His legs gave beneath him like a felled tree, and he toppled to the ground.

  Shorty stepped back a few paces and retrieved the Halathrin blade. It felt strange in his hand, but he walked forward again, discarding his own helm and placing the Halathrin wrought helmet on his own head. There he stood above Hvargil, the sword levelled at him as the other man tried to get up.

  Anger flushed through Shorty again. His hand trembled, but he could not kill an unarmed man. He stepped away, and bent down to pick up the king’s cloth that lay in the dirt. With a flourish, he held the belt high. From the Cardurleth came a roar. And then it doubled, thundering down from the wall and rolling across the field. He had won.

  But even so, it was not yet over. The enemy war drums beat loud. There was a sudden rush of elugs. A thousand of them raced across the field. Shorty stared at them.

  Hvargil staggered up and swayed before him, and then he bent over and vomited. Somewhere behind him lay Shorty’s own sword, the sword of his father, and he knew he would never hold that familiar hilt in his hand again.

  Shorty turned and ran. There was no shame in doing so now. But the gate would never be opened in time, and even if that were possible, the defenders could not do it anyway. They could not risk the enemy seizing it, and holding it open long enough for the great horde behind to enter.

  Shorty knew he would be torn to shreds, and no sortie would come out of the gate to save him. They could not risk that for one man, nor could he blame them.

  He nearly ran anyway, for the instinct to live, if even only for a few moments longer, was strong. But instead, he bowed once more to the king.

  When he straightened, he faced the onrushing enemy, raised his sword high, and planted his feet firmly on the ground.

  Gilhain looked down with horror on the scene far below.

  “Do something!” he said to Aranloth.

  It was not a command. It was not a suggestion. There was an element of begging in his voice, and he did not care who heard it.

  But the lòhren was already moving.

  One of Aranloth’s arms swept slowly out before him, palm down. Then, just as slowly, he turned the palm upward.

  There was strain on his pale face, for whatever he did taxed him; it taxed him more than a man who was newly come back from near death should be taxed, but he did it unflinchingly. And he did it with a slow determination, the same slow determination and inhuman patience that had enabled him to face situations such as this before, to withhold his power until just that moment of maximum effect.

  Gilhain looked at the racing elugs. They streamed across the ground like a river that had flooded its banks, and they raised their swords, yelling and cavorting as they sped, each one trying to be the first to reach their victim.

  Gilhain looked at his champion. Shorty stood still as a standing stone, a stone that had been planted there for millennia. His sword was up, but his head was down. There was something in his posture that told Gilhain the man was not scared of death, and yet all the same he was filled with overwhelming sadness. For the end of his life was come, and he knew not what, if anything, would follow.

  And then, transforming that sad scene, a wall of flame spurted from the ground. It leaped and danced and grew.

  Shorty slowly straightened. The flame stood between him and the enemy. He hesitated a moment, but no more than that, and then he turned and began to walk back to the gate.

  He did not hurry, and he took the time to point his sword at Aranloth upon the battlement. It might have been a salute. Or a thank you. Or a sign of respect, but whatever it was, it was a solemn gesture, and the lòhren returned it just as slowly, the flames dancing higher as his arm moved.

  “Thank you,” Gilhain said quietly. “If ever a man deserved to live, it’s him.”

  24. I Must Drink my Fill

  Brand did not take a backward step. He drew his sword, but he knew that battle could not get him out of this. What he needed was time, but no man ever had enough of that.

  Already he sensed Kareste begin to focus her will next to him. Her head was bowed, and her hands held tight Shurilgar’s staff.

  The witch spoke. “Now is the time, Brand of the Duthenor. Choose death, or choose … something else.”

  “My choice was made long ago,” he answered.

  “Then you will die.”

  “Perhaps. But I doubt it.”

  She studied him. “So confident? It’s a trait of the young, though I won’t say you have no reason for it. But you have less now than usual, surrounded on all sides by enemies that overpower you.”

  “Not surrounded.”

  “Ha! You speak of Kareste, and you would buy her time for the enchantment she begins. But what enchantment? To free poor Halathrin souls? So much I discern that she has told you. And truly, it could only be done with one of the halves of Shurilgar’s broken staff. And yet, brave fool, have you not thought what else could be done with the broken half she carries now? What she does even as we speak?”

  Brand offered no answer.

  “I will tell you, brave fool. She holds in her hands the same power by which the beasts were made. By it they can be released … or they can be controlled. She could make them her own creatures and be a force in the world, and with the staff in her possession it would just be the beginning.”

  He looked at Kareste. She now lifted her gaze upward. Her face was expressionless. Her ash-blond hair shimmered like the beasts. Her green-gold eyes glittered, filled with incalculable power. She looked resplendent, beautiful beyond words, but distant and terrible as implacable fate.

  She did not look at him. She did not look at the witch. The wolf-beasts howled and the crows danced madly within the willows.

  “Kill her now!” cried Durletha. “Or all that follows, the great Shadow that will spread across the land, will be your fault. Kill her now, while her mind is deep within her enchantment, or be condemned by all who loved and trusted you.”

  Brand gritted his teeth. No man could make such choices, and yet he caught a glimpse of the long life of Aranloth, the many such choices he must have made, and appreciated anew what he had given of himself for the protection of the land. And he appreciated also what a burden it was.

  He shifted his grip on the Halathrin blade. It glittered blue-white beside the dark waters of the tarn that he was backed up against.

  His gaze went to the witch. And then to Kareste once more. He had though the choice to be made was hers, had thought that she must choose either Light or Shadow. That was certainly true, but he must also choose, and the world had suddenly become far less clear-cut than he had thought.

  Beyond the ever-present but rarely seen extremes of Light and Shadow was the place that men must live. And what might be a dark deed to one was an act of heroism to another.

  He did not know what to do, but after a moment he straightened.

  A bitter brew you have mixed for me,” he said to the witch. “But I came to the table when I agreed to this quest, and now I must drink my fill, for good or for ill.”

  She looked at him with hard eyes, and he thought that he detected a mixture of frustration and surprise in them. There was, perhaps, even admiration.

  “Truly, you have a devil inside you. There’s just no give. Do you know what you could achieve if only you set yourself free of constraints?”

  Brand shrugged. He was happy to talk. It gave time to Kareste.

  “There’s no devil inside me. I’m just a simple man trying to do the right things for the people I love.”

  “Love will get you killed.”

  “And so might hate. Or greed. Or ambition. Or, for that matter, cowardice. And anyway, perhaps it’s better to die trying to do right, than to live knowing you’ve done wrong. What do you think?”

  The witch let out a long breath and gave a slight shrug of her bony shoulders.

  “I think that you are not a simple man at all. But it does not matter what I think, anymore. Events have come to a head. I will have the staff now, even if I must kill you, for others come for it, and I will have it. It is easier to take it from her now than to wait and try to take it from them later.”

  Brand shifted slightly so that he stood between Kareste and the witch.

  “For all your words, you still do not attack. I think you would prefer the beasts to do your work for you. But they make no move. They sense Kareste’s enchantment building, sense that she will set them free. Or can you not feel that?”

  The witch turned slightly and her gaze darted to the beasts.

  Brand had no idea if what he had said was true, but it sent a shiver of doubt through her, and it gave him the opportunity he was looking for.

  Surprise was his friend, and he needed all the help he could get, for once Durletha turned on him, which she was about to do, he would be outmatched.

  He had held the sword before him, but it was with Aranloth’s staff that he attacked. He did not doubt that he had to use it, to draw on the power that was in him, for without his protection Kareste would die and the Halathrin would be trapped forever. He would deal with the consequences later.

  Bright flame, blue-white, shot from the tip of the staff. It enveloped the witch, knocked her down and sent the beasts scattering to get away from her.

  A moment she rolled on the ground, and then she was up, her eyes blazing. Her hand darted forward, fingers spread. Green flame dripped from them, and then it shot in a shimmering spray at Kareste.

  Brand knew the attack was directed at her, even though he stood in the way, he felt it in the driving force of the flame; it struck him, but it mostly sought to get passed him.

  He felt the heat of the attack, and the grass at his feet withered and blackened. Yet a blue-white nimbus had sprung up about his body, summoned by some reflex of his mind to protect him, and it expanded and shrank, stifling the green flame.

  But the witch was not done. She raised her other hand and sent a second stream of fire at him.

  Brand felt the force of it envelop him. The nimbus flickered, and he sank to his knees as though burdened with a weight beyond his strength to carry.

  The green flames darkened, turning near black. He felt ever greater heat from them, and the blackened grass at his feet disappeared in smoke while the very earth itself began to seethe and bubble.

  Brand thought of Cardoroth. He thought of Gilhain and Aranloth, of Shorty and Taingern. He thought of Arell.

  He lifted his head. His eyes blazed. There was a free and reckless surge in his spirit. It was something that he had felt a few times before: the darker the hour, the greater the light within him shone. So it felt now. He staggered to his feet, and then he took a pace toward Durletha. And then another one. He found that with each step his strength seemed to grow.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17