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

pretty man to see: leaned forward there on the heather with’s

chin on his folded arms, his helm laid aside so they should not see it

glint from below; quiet like a cat: half asleep you’d say; but his

eyes were awake, looking down on Krothering. ‘Twas well seen even from

so far away how vilely they had used it.

 

“The great red sun leaped out o’ the eastern cloudbanks. A stir began

in their camp below: standards set up, men gathering thereto, ranks

forming, bugles sounding; then a score of horse galloping up the road

from Gashterndale into the camp. His highness, without turning his

head, beckoned with’s hand to me to call his captains. I ran and

fetched ‘em. He gave ‘em swift commands, pointing down where the

Witchland swine rolled out their battle; thieves and pirates who

robbed his highness’ subjects within his streams; with standard and

pennons and glistering naked spears, moving northward from the tents.

Then in the quiet came a sound made a man’s heart leap within him:

faint out of the far hollows of Gashterndale, the trumpet of my Lord

Juss’s battlecall.

 

“My Lord Brandoch Daha paused a minute, looking down. Then a turned

him about with face that shone like the morning, ‘Fair lords,’ a

saith, ‘now lightly on horseback, for Juss fighteth against his

enemies.’ I think he was well content. I think he was sure he would

that day get his heart’s syth of every one that had wronged him.

 

“That was a long ride down from Erngate End. With all our hearts’

blood drumming us to haste, we must yet go warily, picking our way i’

that tricky ground, steep as a roof-slope, uneven and with no sure

foothold, with sikes in wet moss and rocks outcropping and shifting

screes. There was nought but leave it to the horses, and bravely they

brought us down the steeps. We were not half way down ere we heard and

saw how battle was joined. So intent were the Witchlanders on my

Lord’s main army, I think we were off the steep ground and forming for

the charge ere they were ware of us. Our trumpeters sounded his battle

challenge, Who meddles wi’ Brandoch Daha? and we came down on to

Krothering Side like a rock-fall.

 

“I scarce know what way the battle went, father. ‘Twas like a meeting

of streams in spate. I think they opened to us right and left to ease

the shock. They that were before us went down like standing corn under

a hailstorm. We wheeled both ways, some ‘gainst their right that was

thrown back toward the camp, the more part with my Lord Brandoch Daha

to our own right. I was with these in the main battle. His highness

rode a hot stirring horse very fierce and dogged; knee to knee with

him went Styrkmir of Blackwood o’ the one side and Tharmrod o’ the

other. Neither man nor horse might stand up before ‘em, and they

faring as in a maze now this way now that, amid the thrumbling and

thrasting o’ the footmen, heads and arms smitten off, men hewn in

sunder from crown to belly, ay, to the saddle, riderless horses

maddened, blood splashed up from the ground like the slush from a

marsh.

 

“So for a time, till we had spent the vantage of our onset and felt

for the first time the weight of their strength. For Corinius, as it

appeareth, was now himself ridden from the vanward where he had beat

back for a time our main army, and set on against my Lord Brandoch

Daha with horsemen and spearmen; and commanded his sling-casters

besides to let freely at us and drive us toward the camp.

 

“And now in the great swing of the battle were we carried back to the

camp again; and there was a sweet devils’ holiday: horses and men

tripping over tent-ropes, tents torn down, crashes of broken crockery,

and King Laxus come thither with sailors from the fleet, hamstringing

our horses while Corinius charged us from the north and east. That

Corinius beareth him in battle more like a devil from Hell than a

mortal man. I’ the first two strokes of’s sword he overthrew two of

our best captains, Romenard of Dalney and Emeron Galt. Styrkmir, that

stood in’s way to stop him, a flung down with’s spear, horse and man.

They say he met twice with my Lord Brandoch Daha that day, but each

time were they parted in the press ere they might rightly square

together.

 

“I have stood in some goodly battles, father, as well thou knowest:

first following my Lord and my Lord Goldry Bluszco in foreign parts,

and last year in the great rout at Crossby Outsikes, and again with my

Lord Spitfire when he smote the Witches on Brima Rapes, and in the

murthering great battle under Thremnir’s Heugh. But never was I in

fight like to this of yesterday.

 

“Never saw I such feats of arms. As witness Kamerar of Stropardon, who

with a great two-handed sword hewed off his enemy’s leg close to the

hip, so huge a blow the blade sheared through leg and saddle and horse

and all. And Styrkmir of Blackwood, rising like a devil out of a heap

of slain men, and though’s helm was lossen and a was bleeding from

three or four great wounds a held off a dozen o’ the Witches with’s

deadly thrusts and swordstrokes, till they had enough and gave back

before him: twelve before one, and he given over for dead a while

before. But all great deeds seemed trash beside the deeds of my Lord

Brandoch Daha. In one short while had he three times a horse slain

stark dead under him, yet gat never a wound himself, which was a

marvel. For without care he rode through and about, smiting down their

champions. I mind me of him once, with’s horse ripped and killed under

him, and one of those Witchland lords that tilted at him on the ground

as he leaped to’s feet again; how a caught the spear with’s two hands

and by main strength yerked his enemy out o’ the saddle. Prince Cargo

it was, youngest of Corund’s sons. Long may the Witchland ladies

strain their dear eyes, they’ll ne’er see yon hendy lad come sailing

home again.‘8 His highness swapt him such a swipe o’ the neck-bone as

he pitched to earth, the head of him flew i’ the air like a tennis

ball. And i’ the twinkling of an eye was my Lord Brandoch Daha horsed

again on’s enemy’s horse, and turned to charge ‘em anew. You’d say his

arm must fail at last for weariness, of a man so lithe and jimp to

look on. Yet I think his last stroke i’ that battle was not lighter

than the first. And stones and spears and swordstrokes seemed to come

upon him with no more impression than blows with a straw would give to

an adamant.

 

“I know not how long was that fight among the tents. Only ‘twas the

best fight I ever was at, and the bloodiest. And by all tellings ‘twas

as great work o’ the other part, where my Lord and his folk fought

their way up on to the Side. But of that we knew nothing. Yet certain

it is we had all been dead men had my Lord not there prevailed, as

certain ‘tis he had never so prevailed but for our charging of their

flank when they first advanced against him. But in that last hour all

we that fought among the tents thought each man only of this, how he

might slay yet one more Witch, and yet again one more, afore he should

die. For Corinius in that hour put forth his might to crush us; and

for every enemy there felled to earth two more seemed to be raised up

against us. And our own folk fell fast, and the tents that were so

white were one gore of blood.

 

“When I was a little tiny boy, father, we had a sport, swimming in the

deep pools of Tivarandarwater, that one boy would catch ‘tother and

hold him under till he could no more for want of breath. Methinks

there’s no longing i’ the world so sore as the longing for air when he

that is stronger than thou grippeth thee still under the water, nor no

gladness i’ the world like the bonny sweet air i’ thy lungs again when

a letteth thee shoot up to the free daylight. ‘Twas right so with us,

who had now said adieu to hope and saw all lost save life itself, and

that not like to tarry long; when we heard suddenly the thunder of my

Lord’s trumpet sounding to the charge. And ere our startled wits might

rightly think what that portended, was the whole surging battle

whipped and scattered like the water of a lake caught up in a white

squall; and that massed strength of the enemy which had invested us

round with so great a stream of shot and steel reeled first forward

then backward then forward again upon us, confounded in a vast

confusion. I trow new strength came to our arms; I trow our swords

opened their mouths. For northward we beheld the ensign of Galing

streaming like a blazing star; and my Lord’s self in a moment, high

advanced above the rout, and Zigg, and Astar, and hundreds of our

horse, hewing their way toward us whiles we hewed towards them. And

now was reaping time for us, and time of payment for all those weary

bloody hours we had held on to life with our teeth among the tents on

Krothering Side, while they o’ the other part, my Lord and his, had

with all the odds of the ground against them painfully and yard by

yard fought out the fight to victory. And now, ere we well wist of it,

the day was won, and the victory ours, and the enemy broken and put to

so great a rout as hath not been seen by living man.

 

“That false king Corinius, after he had tarried to see the end of the

battle, fled with a few of his men out of the great slaughter, and as

it later appeared gat him ashipboard in Aurwath harbour and with three

ships or four escaped to sea. But the most of their fleet was burned

there in the harbour to save it from our hands.

 

“My Lord gave command to take up the wounded and tend ‘em, friend and

foe alike. Among them was King Laxus ta’en up, stunned with a

mace-blow or some such. So they brought him before the lords where they

rested a little way down the Side above the home meads of Krothering.

 

“He looked ‘em all in the eye, most proud and soldierlike. Then a

saith unto my Lord, ‘It may be pain, but no shame to us to be

vanquished after so equal and so great a fight. Herein only do I blame

my ill luck, that it denied me fall in battle. Thou mayst now, O Juss,

strike off my head for the treason I wrought you three years ago. And

since I know thee of a courteous and noble nature, I’ll not scorn to

ask of thee this courtesy, not to tarry but take it now.’

 

“My Lord stood there like a warhorse after a breather. He took him by

the hand. ‘O Laxus,’ saith he, ‘I give thee not thy head only, but thy

sword;’ and here a gave it him hilt-foremost. ‘For thy dealings with

us in the battle of Kartadza, let time that hath an art to make dust

of all things so do with the memory of