Fallowblade (9 page)
Authors: Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Perceiving the increasing disarray that was thwarting his strategies, Mac Brádaigh decided to employ fresh tactics. He had been eagerly looking forward to the moment when Marauders would begin pouring into the battlefield like flies to a carcass, in response to the messages carried to them by his own officers. The enemy, he knew, would be dismayed when confronted unexpectedly by the vicious swarmsmen. When he began receiving reports that confirmed the first of the cave dwellers were, at last, converging on the scene of action, he judged that the time was right for an added surprise.
King Uabhar had entrusted Mac Brádaigh with the strange artefact discovered amongst the ruins of the Dome of Strang, the Sylvan Comb, along with the secret that governed it. Spurring his steed through the front lines into the very heart of the fighting, the high commander hurled the goblin artefact to the ground, articulating the Word.
The Comb’s nineteen teeth bit into the dust.
His own men and their allies were prepared for what happened next. The raising of certain flags and the sounding of drums and trumpets had signalled the alert:
Ware the enchantment!
The southerners fell back, having been instructed as to what would occur, but even they were astonished. As for the opposing troops, they were taken by surprise and thrown into confusion.
A sudden wood of silvery trees, most wonderful and uncanny, sprang up around and amongst the fighting men. Their bark seemed etched with spirals and flowing designs, their leaves shimmered and sighed in a nonexistent breeze. Dark vapours coiled between the trees, as if sentient. Eerie shiftings and blinkings in the forest’s shadowy depths gave suggestion that unguessable creatures lurked there. The skulls of the soldiers who found themselves in this wood of weirdness became flooded with a subdued oceanic roar, and a dry rattling like dead leaves shaking in an Autumn wind. They felt dizzy and dislocated, as if transported to some eldritch realm in which nothing they had ever known made sense. A feeling of impending doom and tragedy tainted their awe.
If the Comb’s illusions cast the defenders into turmoil, the incoming Marauders augmented their disorder. At their first appearance, both invaders and defenders were astounded. Mac Brádaigh had issued no forewarning of this to his own troops or Ashqalêth’s. Uabhar’s bizarre alliance had never been openly acknowledged; it had been a secret guarded as closely as possible—given men’s fondness for gossip—until the last moment, for if the southern troops had known, the knowledge would soon have been gleaned by the northerners, one way or another. Soldiers in all camps reacted sharply to the intrusion of their traditional antagonists, until commands rippled through the ranks of the southern allies—‘Stand unafraid, for the swarmsmen are on our side.’
Huge and powerful as oxen, the swarmsmen ploughed havoc amongst the Narngalish. Amongst the fighting men astonishment dawned as they comprehended that the hearsay had been true, and Uabhar had indeed struck some bargain with the monsters. Outrage and disgust flamed, even as they continued to do battle against each other, but when men in the uniforms of Slievmordhu and Ashqalêth remained unscathed by the monsters, and the southerners witnessed the carnage the swarmsmen wrought on their behalf, they took heart, and many began to approve of the unusual manoeuvre.
Outnumbered, demoralised and unable to shield themselves from the debilitating effects of the Comb’s supernatural visions, the northern forces were eventually driven back. King Warwick’s officers endeavoured to beat an orderly retreat so that they might rally the troops, carry the injured with them and review their tactics. The invaders pursued, skirmishing and picking off the few stragglers, until Mac Brádaigh summoned them to fall back and regroup. Both sides had sustained substantial casualties, but the southerners successfully took control of Blacksmith’s Corner. For King Uabhar the invasion had begun well.
That night his triumphant troops, their spirits high, sang songs of ancient battles as they drank their ration of ale around their campfires:
‘Time bygone, wicked goblinkind came down from northern heights,
Laid siege to lands of mortal men and ruled the death-dark nights.
Through many battles terrible, both wights and men engaged,
But Silver Hill was named amongst the greatest ever waged.
From mountain-halls the goblin hordes poured forth with eerie sound,
But, combat-ripe, the Slievmordhuan soldiers stood their ground.
Ever towards the south men turned, expecting soon to see
Three companies of reinforcements, armoured cap-a-pie.
“We’ll hold this camp,” their captains cried, “Until relief arrives!
We’ll not surrender Silver Hill. Defend it with your lives!
Noble Sir Seán of Bellaghmoon commands us in the fray—
No bolder or more valiant man ever saw light of day.”
Yet goblins thronged, wave upon wave, in numbers unforetold.
Alas! The ranks of mortalkind boasted few swords of gold.
They found themselves outnumbered, yet unyielding, pressed the fight.
“The north-bound troops will join us soon! We’re sure to win the night!”
But ere the goblins issued from their vast and sunless caves
In secrecy they had despatched their crafty kobold slaves,
Who, under cover of the dark, by pathless ways had crept.
They struck the northbound companies and slew them as they slept.
All through the night at Silver Hill Sir Seán of Bellaghmoon
Fought on beside his men. At last the sun rose, none too soon.
For, as night’s shade gave way to day the goblins had withdrawn.
A bitter scene of carnage spread beneath the rays of dawn.
“Alas!” cried Bellaghmoon. Sore anguish creased his noble brow.
“Ill fate has met our soldiers, else they’d be beside us now!”
“We must retreat,” his captains urged, “before the setting sun,
For goblins move in darkness. They outmatch us two to one.”
But bold Sir Seán of Bellaghmoon cried, “Never shall we flee,
I’ve sworn to fight for Silver Hill, though death should be my fee.”
His troops thus stayed upon the mount, aware there was no chance,
And when the sun began to fall they sharpened sword and lance.
As darkness came a-creeping, goblins overthrew them all,
Hewed off the head of Bellaghmoon and of his captains tall,
Hoisting the severed polls on pikes. Unto their eldritch halls
They bore their dreadful prizes, for to nail them on the walls.
Above the gates of goblin-realm they hung their grisly plunder.
The mourning winds keened through the vales, the mountains rang with thunder.
But proud Sir Seán who fought so well, he did not die in vain.
Ye bards and minstrels, sing his praise and eulogise his name.
For, hard against all odds, he would not let his sovereign down
And through harshest adversity stayed loyal to the Crown.’
All the while, high above and far away from the clamour of war, Asr
ă
thiel journeyed westwards in her sky-balloon accompanied by her maid, Linnet. The servant leaned on the basket’s rim, gazing dreamily at the landscape over which they were gliding. She enjoyed flight, and her mistress had tutored her well in the rudiments of crewmanship.
Preoccupied with the straitened circumstances of her kindred and worried about her friends who must defend Narngalis, the weathermage was piloting the aerostat somewhat absentmindedly. It was sufficient. After numerous flying hours she had no need to consider what to do next. Her intuitive perception of altitude, and of wind speed and direction, combined with her own observations, enabled her to find the right level to catch the currents she required. Without having to think about it she let heat escape from the sun-crystal a short while before she wanted to ascend, and shut it off a few moments before she wanted to stop rising. Inexperienced pilots often overshot, rising too high before levelling off, but Asr
ă
thiel, to whom the elements were as extensions of her own faculties, never erred.
A thin layer of wispy clouds drifted at an altitude of about five hundred feet, spread on a horizontal plane. Above it stood a deep chasm of cloudless sky, roofed by thick, fast-moving cumulus, like clumps of lamb’s wool borne on a clear tide. The river meandered below, grey as polished pewter, its shores braided by dark green knots of trees. Dense flosses of foliage mottled the landscape as far as the eye could see. Through the dense cover the road could seldom be glimpsed. Occasionally Asr
ă
thiel and her passenger would see a curve of it engraved into the foliage, with pocket-handkerchief fields and meadows fanning out from the verges, studded with square-cut buttons that were the roofs of buildings.
It was easy to spy the marching columns of King Thorgild’s cavalcades and infantry columns: an articulated serpent in gleaming mail winding its way along the River Road towards Narngalis, pennants flying. The troops who walked or rode below the aerostat looked up to behold two beautifully dressed young women gliding upon the air, borne up by a silver-white sphere, and they were struck with awe by the sight. They welcomed the presence of a weathermage to aid them in their journey. Asr
ă
thiel guided her aircraft with a precision that pilots lacking the brí could only dream of, until the basket hovered just above the treetops at the head of the column, matching the pace of the marchers. Flocks of crows scattered from the trees as the balloon passed by.
King Thorgild rode in the lead with his three sons Hrosskel, Halvdan and Gunnlaug. Unhelmed were they, their hair shining copper-gold whenever the sun broke through the clouds. The emblem of the square-sailed longboat was embroidered against the turquoise background of their velvet tabards, and peacock plumes adorned the harness of their steeds. Beneath the tabards they were armed, but not yet heavily armoured for war. Over the rattle and shriek of the startled crows, Asr
ă
thiel exchanged greetings with the royal family and gave them such advice as she could. The way seemed clear before them, she had sighted no danger on the road, and King Warwick’s troops were southbound to meet the first spear thrust of the invasion. She emphasised the fact that haste was imperative, for against the combined forces of Slievmordhu and Ashqalêth, Narngalis would be outnumbered and hard-pressed.
Well after the sun had set, the columns continued to march, but eventually, when they had penetrated a lush and fertile river valley, Thorgild issued the command to halt and make camp for the night. Speed was essential, it was true, but the troops must arrive at their destination in good order, not exhausted and underfed. Within the hour, a city of portable shelters sprang up all along the valley floor.
Having known a long period of peace, Grïmnørsland was not equipped with the latest in tentage for military campaigns. Many of the structures were aged. Most had originally been fashioned for use at tournaments, state ceremonies, picnics or hunting expeditions. Made from heavy sailcloth first dyed with weld then over-dyed with woad to produce a deep blue-green shade, the tents were triangular or wedge shaped, with finials cast in the design of fishes. The royal compound dominated the encampment, its vertical sides adorned with heraldic devices, banners flying from the tips of its pointy roofs. Here it was that Thorgild sheltered his horses and the upper echelons of his household. The main structure in the compound consisted of twelve single- and double-peaked pavilions with tasselled valances, all connected by passages. Four of the edifices were for the use of Thorgild—a pavilion for the council of state, a bath pavilion, an arming pavilion and so on—the rest were for his sons. As royal pavilions went, it was austere.
It was not until Asr
ă
thiel and Linnet had landed the balloon and joined the royal family in their lodgings that the weather-mage spoke of the rumours of Uabhar’s alliance with the Marauders, the unsolved mysteries of Silverton and, above all, the undoubted betrayal and imprisonment of the weather-masters. She had had no wish to dampen the spirits of the troops by shouting such disturbing tidings over their heads from the balloon’s gondola.
Propped against piles of brocade cushions strewn about the carpeted floor, her audience remained in silence while she made her report. Lamps, hanging on long chains from the ridgepole, glowed like faceted gems, their light casting a muted sheen on the wall-hangings and the satin festoons billowing from the ceiling. The youngest prince, Gunnlaug, sat cross-legged with a dish of garlic sausage on his knee, chewing while he listened.
‘I am grieved that Sir Isleif and the Shield Champions were unable to protect the weathermasters from Uabhar’s treachery,’ Thorgild said heavily, when Asr
ă
thiel had finished speaking. ‘My knights never returned from that mission. Uabhar sent word that they had been slain by Marauders on the road as they journeyed, not two leagues from Cathair Rua, but I did not believe a word of it. No barbarian cave dwellers could overcome such fine warriors. I am now convinced they met with foul play from Ó Maoldúin, but there is no way to prove it.’