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

whimpering ladies. And by your leave I’ll

keep my tears (which be great spoilers of the cheeks beside) until I

need ‘em.”

 

When they were passed by, “Is it not a stony-livered and a shameless

hussy, O my mother?” said Sriva. “And is it not scandalous her

laughing and jestings; as I have told it thee, when she did bid him

adieu, devising only how best she might coax him to save the life of

yonder chambering traitorous hound?”

 

“With whom,” said Zenambria, “she wont to do the thing I’d think shame

to speak on. Truly this foreign madam with her loose and wanton ways

doth scandal the whole land for us.”

 

But Prezmyra went her way, glad that she had not by an eyelid’s

flicker let her lord guess what a dread possessed her mind, who had in

all the bitter night seen strange and cruel visions portending loss

and ruin of all she held dear.

 

Now, when dawn appeared, was the King’s whole army drawn out in battle

array before the bridgehouse. Corinius held command on the left.

There followed him fifteen hundred chosen troops of Witchland, with

the Dukes of Trace and Estreganzia, besides these kings and princes

with their outlandish levies: the king of Mynia, Count Escobrine of

Tzeusha, and the Red Foliot. Corsus led the centre, and with him went

King Erp of Ellien and his green-coated sling-casters, the king of

Nevria, Axtacus lord of Permio, the king of Gilta, Olis of Tecapan,

and other captains: seventeen hundred men in all. The right the Lord

Corund had chosen for himself. Two thousand Witchland troops, the

likeliest and best, hardened to war in Impland and Demonland and the

southeastern borders, followed his standard, beside the heavy spearmen

of Baltary and swordsmen of Buteny and Ar. Viglus his son was there,

and the Count of Thramnë, Cadarus, Didarus of Largos, and the lord of

Estremerine.

 

But when the Demons were ware of that great army standing before the

bridge-gate, they put themselves in array for battle. And their ships

made ready to move up the river under Carcë, if by any means they

might attack the bridge by water and so cut off for the Witches their

way of retreat.

 

It was bright low sunshine, and the splendour of the jewelled armour

of the Demons and their many-coloured kirtles and the plumes that were

in their helms was a wonder to behold. This was the order of their

battle. On their left nearest the river was a great company of horse,

and the Lord Brandoch Daha to lead them on a great golden dun with

fiery eyes. His island men, Melchar and Tharmrod, with Kamerar of

Stropardon and Strykmir and Stypmar, were the chief captains that rode

with him to that battle. Next to these came the heavy troops from the

east, and the Lord Juss himself their leader on a tall fierce big-boned

chestnut. About him was his picked bodyguard of horse, with

Bremery of Shaws their captain; and in his battle were these chiefs

besides: Astar of Rettray and Gismor Gleam of Justdale and Peridor of

Sule. Lord Spitfire led the centre, and with him Fendor of Shalgreth,

and Emeron, and the men of Dalney, great spearmen; also the Duke of

Azumel, sometime allied with Witchland. There went also with him the

Lord Gro, that scanned still those ancient walls with a heavy heart,

thinking on the great King within, and with what mastery of intellect

and will he ruled those dark turbulent and bloody men who bare sway

under him; thinking on Queen Prezmyra. To his sick imagining, the

blackness of Carcë which no bright morning light might lighten seemed

not as of old the image and emblem of the royal house of Witchland and

their high magnificency and power on earth, but rather the shadow

thrown before of destiny and death ready to put down that power for

ever. Which whether it should so befall or no he did not greatly care,

being aweary of life and life’s fevers, wild longings, and exorbitant

affects, whereof he thought he had now learned much: that to him, who

as it seemed must still adhere to his own foes abandoning the others’

service, fortune through whatever chop could bring no peace at last.

On the Demon right the Lord Goldry Bluszco streamed his standard,

leading to battle the south-firthers and the heavy spearmen of

Mardardale and Throwater. With him was King Gaslark and his army of

Goblinland, and levies from Ojedia and Eushtlan, lately revolted from

their allegiance to King Gorice. The Lord Zigg, with his light horse

of Rammerick and Kelialand and the northern dales, covered their flank

to the eastward.

 

Gorice the King beheld these dispositions from his tower above the

water-gate. He beheld, besides, a thing the Demons might not see from

below, for a little swelling of the ground that cut off their view:

the marching of men far away along the Way of Kings from the eastward:

young Heming with the vassalry of Pixyland and Maltraeny. He sent a

trusty man to apprise Corund of it.

 

Now Lord Juss let blow up the battle call, and with the loud braying

of the trumpets the hosts of the Demons swung forth to battle. And the

clash of those armies when they met before Carcë was like the bursting

of a thundercloud. But like a great sea-cliff patient for ages under

the storm-winds’ furies, that not one night’s loud wind and charging

breakers can wear away, nor yet a thousand thousand nights, the

embattled strength of Witchland met their onset, mixed with them,

flung them back, and stood unremoved. Corund’s iron battalions bare in

this first brunt the heaviest load, and bare it through. For the

ships, with young Hesper Golthring in command most fiercely urging

them, ran up the river to force the bridge, and Corund whiles he met

on his front the onset of the flower of Demonland must still be shot

at by these behind. Hacmon and Viglus, those young princes his sons,

were charged with the warding of the bridge and walls to burn and

break up their ships. And they of all hands bestirring them twice and

thrice threw back the Demons when they had gotten a footing on the

bridge; until in fine, both sides for a long space fighting very

cruelly, it fell out very fatally against Hesper and his power, his

ships all lighted in a lowe and the more part of his folk burned or

drowned or slain with the sword; and himself after many and grievous

wounds in his last attempt left alone on the bridge, and crawling to

have got away was stabbed in with a dagger and died.

 

After this the ships fell back down the river, so many as might avail

thereto, and those sons of Corund, their task manfully fulfilled, came

forth with their folk to join in the main battle. And the smoke of the

burning ships was like incense in the nostrils of the King watching

these things from his tower above the water-gate.

 

Little pause was there betwixt this first brunt and the next, for

Heming now bare down from the east, drave in Zigg’s horsemen that were

hampered in the heavy ground, and pressed his onset home on the Demon

right. Along the whole line from Corund’s post beside the river to the

eastern flank where Heming joined Corinius the Witches now set on most

fiercely; and now were the odds of numbers, which were at first

against them, swung mightily in their favour, and under this great

side-blow on his flank not all the Lord Goldry Bluszco’s soldiership

nor all the terror of his might in arms could uphold the Demons’

battle-line. Yard by yard they fell back before the Witches, most

gloriously maintaining their array unbroken, though the outland allies

broke and fled. Meantime on the Demon left Juss and Brandoch Daha most

stubbornly withstood that onslaught, albeit they had to do with the

first and chosen troops of Witchland. In which struggle befell the

most bloody fighting that was yet seen that day, and the stour of

battle so asper and so mortal that it was hard to see how any man

should come out from it with life, since not a man of either side

would budge an inch but die there in his steps if he might not rather

slay the foe before him. So the armies swayed for an hour like

wrastlers locked, but in the end the Lord Corund had his way and held

his ground before the bridge-gate.

 

Romenard of Dalney, galloping to Lord Juss where he paused a while

panting from violence of the battle brought him by Spitfire’s command

tidings from the right: telling him Goldry’s self could hold no longer

against such odds: that the centre yet held, but at the next onset was

like to break, or the right wing else be driven in upon their rear and

all overwhelmed: “If your highness cannot throw back Corund, all is

lost.”

 

In these short minutes’ lull (if lull it were when all the time the

battle like a sounding sea rolled on with a ceaseless noise of riding

and slaying and the clang of arms), Juss chose. Demonland and the

whole world’s destinies hung on his choice. He had no counsellor. He

had no time for slow deliberation. In such a moment imagination,

resolution, swift decision, all high gifts of nature, are nought:

swift horses gulfed and lost in the pit which fate the enemy digged in

the way before them; except painful knowledge, stored up patiently

through years of practice, shall have prepared a road sure and clean

for their flying hooves to bear them in the great hour of destiny. So

it was from the beginning with all great captains: so with the Lord

Juss in that hour when ruin swooped upon his armies. For two minutes’

space he stood silent; then sent Bremery of Shaws galloping westward

like one minded to break his neck with his orders to Lord Brandoch

Daha, and Romenard eastward again to Spitfire. And Juss himself riding

forward among his soldiers shouted among them in a voice that was like

a trumpet thundering, that they should now make ready for the fiercest

trial of all.

 

“Is my cousin mad?” said Lord Brandoch Daha, when he saw and

understood the whole substance and matter of it. “Or hath he found

Corund so tame to deal with he can make shift without me and well nigh

half his strength, and yet withstand him?”

 

“He looseth this hold,” answered Bremery, “to snatch at safety. ‘Tis

desperate, but all other ways we but wait on destruction. Our right is

clean driven in, the left holdeth but hardly. He chargeth your

highness break their centre if you may. They have somewhat dangerously

advanced their left, and therein is their momentary peril if we be

swift enough. But remember that here, o’ this side, is their greatest

power before us, and if we be ‘whelmed ere you can compass it–”

 

“No more but Yes,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Time gallopeth: so must

we.”

 

Even so in that hour when Goldry and Zigg, giving way step by step

before superior odds, were bent back well nigh with their backs to the

river, and Corund on the Demons’ left had after a bitter battle

checked and held them and threatened now to complete in one more great

blow the ruin of them all, Juss, choosing a desperate expedient to

meet a danger that else must destroy him, weakened his hard-pressed

left to throw Brandoch Daha and well nigh eight hundred horse into

Spitfire’s battle to drive a wedge betwixt Corsus and Corinius.

 

It was now long past noon. The tempest of battle that had quietened

awhile for utter