The Worm Ouroboros, Eric Rücker Eddison [epub ebook reader txt] 📗

them off, that they escape

not north again to Galing after the battle when they are worsted by

us.’

 

“Now Gallandus nay-said this strongly, willing him to stand and abide

their onset; for being mountaineers they must certainly choose at

length, if we kept quiet, to attack us up the slope, and that were

mightily to our advantage. But Corsus, that still grew from day to day

more hard to deal with, would not hear him, and at last sticked not to

accuse him before them all (which was most false) that he did practise

to gain the command for himself, and had caused Corsus to be set upon

to have him and his sons murthered as they went from his lodging the

night before.

 

“And Corsus gave order for the march across their front as I have told

it you, O King; which indeed was the counsel of a madman. For

Spitfire, when he saw our column crossing the dale-head on his right,

gave order for the charge, took us i’ the flank, cut us in two, and in

two hours had our army smashed like an egg that is dropped from a

watch-tower on pavement of hard granite. Never saw I so evil a

destruction wrought on a great army. Hardly and in evil case we won

back to Owlswick with but seventeen hundred men, and of them some

hundreds wounded sore. And if two hundred fell o’ the other side, ‘tis

a wonder and past expectation, so great was Spitfire’s victory upon us

at the Rapes of Brima. And now was our woe worsened by fugitives

coming from the north, telling how Zigg had fallen upon the small

force that was left to hold the Stile and clean o’erwhelmed them. So

were we now shut up in Owlswick and close besieged by Spitfire and his

army, who but for the devilish folly of Corsus, had ne’er made head

against us.

 

“An ill night was that, O my Lord the King, in Owlswick by the sea.

Corsus was drunk, and both his sons, guzzling down goblet upon goblet

of the wine from Spitfire’s cellars in Owlswick. Till at last he was

fallen spewing on the floor betwixt the tables, and Gallandus standing

amongst us all, galled to the quick after this shame and ruin of our

fortunes, cried out and said, ‘Soldiers of Witchland, I am aweary of

this Corsus: a rioter, a lecher, a surfeiter, a brawler, a spiller of

armies, our own not our enemies’, who must bring us all to hell and we

take not order to prevent him.’ And he said, ‘I will go home again to

Witchland, and have no more share nor part in this shame.’ But all

they cried, ‘To the devil with Corsus! Be thou our general.’”

 

Gro was silent a minute. “O King,” he said at last, “if so it be that

the malice of the Gods and mine unfortune have brought me to that case

that I am part guilty of that which came about, blame me not overmuch.

Little I thought any word of mine should help Corsus and the going

forward of his bad enterprise. When all they called still upon

Gallandus, saying, ‘Ha, ha, Gallandus! weed out the weeds, lest the

best corn fester! Be thou our general,’ he took me aside to speak with

him; because he said he would take further judgement of me before he

would consent in so great a matter. And I, seeing deadly danger in

these disorders, and thinking that there only lay our safety if he

should have command who was both a soldier and whose mind was bent to

high attempts and noble enterprises, did egg him forward to accept it.

So that he, albeit unwilling, said yea to them at last. Which all

applauded; and Corsus said nought against it, being too sleepy-sodden

as we thought with drunkenness to speak or move.

 

“So for that night we went to bed. But in the morn, O King, was a

great clamour betimes in the main court in Owlswick. And I, running

forth in my shirt in the misty gray of dawn, beheld Corsus standing

forth in a gallery before Gallandus’s lodgings that were in an upper

chamber. He was naked to the waist, his hairy breast and arms to the

armpits clotted and adrip with blood, and in his hands two bloody

daggers. He cried in a great voice, ‘Treason in the camp, but I have

scotched it. He that will have Gallandus to his general, come up and I

shall mix his blood with his and make them familiar.”

 

By then had the King drawn on his silken hose, and a clean silken

shirt, and was about lacing his black doublet trimmed with diamonds.

“Thou tellest me,” said he, “two faults committed by Corsus. That

first he lost me a battle and nigh half his men, and next did murther

Gallandus in a spleen against him when he would have amended this.”

 

“Killing Gallandus in his sleep,” said Gro, “and sending him from the

shade into the house of darkness.”

 

“Well,” said the King, “there be two days in every month when whatever

is begun will never reach completion. And I think it was on such a day

he did execute his purpose upon Gallandus.”

 

“The whole camp,” said Lord Gro, “is up in a mutiny against him, being

marvellously offended at the murther of so worthy a man in arms. Yet

durst they not openly go against him; for his veterans guard his

person, and he hath let slice the guts out of some dozen or more that

were foremost in murmuring at him, so that the rest are afeared to

make open rebellion. I tell you, O King, your army of Demonland is in

great danger and peril. Spitfire sitteth down before Owlswick in

mickle strength, and there is no expectation that we shall hold out

long without supply of men. There is danger too lest Corsus do some

desperate act. I see not how, with so mutinous an army as his, he can

dare to attempt anything at all. Yet hath he his ears filled with the

continual sound of reputation, and the contempt which will be spread

to the disgrace of him if he repair not soon his fault on the Rapes of

Brima. It is thought that the Demons have no ships, and Laxus

cornmandeth the sea. Yet hard it is to make any going between betwixt

the fleet and Owlswick, and there be many goodly harbours and places

for building of ships in Demonland. If they can stop our relieving of

Corsus, and prevent Laxus with a fleet at spring, may be we shall be

driven to a great calamity.”

 

“How camest thou off?” said the King.

 

“O King,” answered Lord Gro, “after this murther in Owlswick I did

daily fear a fig or a knife, so for mine own health and Witchland’s

devised all the ways I could to come away. And gat at last to the

fleet by stealth and there took rede with Laxus, who is most hot upon

Corsus for this ill deed of his, whereby all our hopes may end in

smoke, and prayed me come to you for him as for myself and for all

true hearts of Witchland that do seek your greatness, O King, and not

decay, that you might send them succour ere all be shent. For surely

in Corsus some wild distraction hath overturned his old condition and

spilt the goodness you once did know in him. His luck hath gone from

him, and he is now one that would fall on his back and break his nose.

I pray you strike, ere Fate strike first and strike us into the

hazard.”

 

“Tush!” said the King. “Do not lift me before I fall. ‘Tis supper

time. Attend me to the banquet.”

 

By now was Gorice the King in full festival attire, with his doublet

of black tiffany slashed with black velvet and broidered o’er with

diamonds, black velvet hose cross-gartered with silver-spangled bands

of silk, and a great black bearskin mantle and collar of ponderous

gold. The Iron crown was on his head. He took down from his chamber

wall, as they went by, a sword hafted of blue steel with a pommel of

bloodstone carved like a dead man’s skull. This he bare naked in his

hand, and they came into the banquet hall.

 

They that were there rose to their feet in silence, gazing expectant

on the King where he stood between the pillars of the door with that

sharp sword held on high, and the jewelled crab of Witchland ablaze

above his brow. But most they marked his eyes. Surely the light in the

eyes of the King under his beetle brows was like a light from the

underskies shed upward from the pit of hell.

 

He said no word, but with a gesture beckoned Corinius. Corinius stood

up and came to the King, slowly, as a nightwalker, obedient to that

dread gaze. His cloak of skyblue silk was flung back from his

shoulders. His chest, broad as a bull’s, swelled beneath the shining

silver scales of his byrny, that was short-sleeved, leaving his strong

arms bare to view with golden rings about the wrists. Proudly he stood

before the King, his head firm planted above his mighty throat and

neck; his proud luxurious mouth, made for winecups and for ladies’

lips, firm set above the square shaven chin and jaw; the thick fair

curls of his hair bound with black bryony; the insolence that dwelt in

his dark blue eyes tamed for the while in face of that green bale-light

that rose and fell in the steadfast gaze of the King.

 

When they had so stood silent while men might count twenty breaths,

the King spake saying: “Corinius, receive the name of the kingdom of

Demonland which thy Lord and King give thee, and make homage to me

thereof.”

 

The breath of amazement went about the hall. Corinius kneeled. The

King gave him that sword which he held in his hand, bare for the

slaughter, saying, “With this sword, O Corinius, shalt thou wear out

this blemish and blot that until now rested upon thee in mine eye.

Corsus hath proved haggard. He hath made miss in Demonland. His

sottish folly hath shut him up in Owlswick and lost me half his force.

His jealousy, too maliciously and bloodily bent against my friends

‘stead of mine enemies, hath lost me a good captain. The wonderful

disorder and distresses of his army must, if thou amend it not, swing

all our fortune at one chop from bliss to bale. If this be rightly

handled by thee, one great stroke shall change every deal. Go thou,

and prove thy demerits.”

 

The Lord Corinius stood up, holding the sword point-downward in his

hand. His face flamed red as an autumn sky when leaden clouds break

apart on a sudden westward and the sun looks out between. “My Lord the

King,” said he, “give me where I may sit down: I will make where I may

lie down. Ere another moon shall wax again to the full I will set

forth from Tenemos. If I do not shortly remedy for you our fortunes

which this bloody fool hath laboured to ruinate, spit in my face, O

King, withhold from me the light of your countenance, and put spells

upon me shall destroy and blast me for ever.”

XIX

THREMNIR’S HEUGH

 

Of the Lord Spitfire’s besieging of the witches in

his own castle of Owlswick; and how he did

battle against Corinius under Thremnir’s Heugh,

and the men of Witchland won the day.

 

LORD Spitfire sat in his pavilion before Owlswick in mickle

discontent. A brazier