The Chronicles of Corum (37 page)

More than a million years. Eons of misery. The price of Gaynor’s nameless crime, his betrayal of his oath to Law. A fate imposed upon him not by Law but by the Power of the Balance. What crime could it have been if the neutral Cosmic Balance had been required to act? Some suggestion of it appeared and disappeared in the various features that flashed within the helm. And now Corum did not grip Gaynor’s neck, but instead cradled the tormented head in his arms and wept for the Prince of the Damned who had paid a price - was paying a price - which no being should ever have to pay.

Here, Corum felt as he wept, was the ultimate in justice - or the ultimate in injustice. Both seemed at that moment to be the same.

And even now Prince Gaynor was not dying. He was merely undergoing a transition from one existence to another. Soon, in some other distant Realm, far from the Fifteen Planes and the Realms of the Sword Rulers, he would be doomed to continue his servitude to Chaos.

At last the face disappeared and the flashing armour was empty.

Prince Gaynor the Damned was gone.

Corum lifted his head dazedly and heard Jhary-a-Conel’s voice in his ears.

“Quickly, Corum, take Gaynor’s horse. The barbarians are gathering their courage. Our work is done here!”

The Companion to Champions was shaking him. Corum got up, found his sword where Gaynor had dropped it in the mud, let Jhary help him into the ebony and ivory saddle...

... Then they were galloping towards the walls of Halwyg-nan-Vake with the Mabden warriors howling behind them.

The gates opened for them and closed instantly. Barbarian fists beat uselessly on the iron-shod timbers as they dismounted to find that King Onald and Rhalina were waiting for them.

“Prince Gaynor?” said King Onald eagerly. “Does he still live?”

“Aye,” Corum answered hollowly. “He still lives.”

“Then you failed!”

“No.” Corum walked away from them, leading his foe’s horse, walking into the darkness, unwilling to speak to anyone, not even Rhalina.

King Onald followed him and then paused, looking up at Jhary who was lowering himself from his saddle. “He did not fail?”

“Prince Gaynor’s power is gone,” Jhary said tiredly. “Corum defeated him. Now the barbarians have no brain - they have only their numbers, their brutality, their Dogs and their Bears.” He laughed without humour. “That is all, King Onald.”

They all stared after Corum who, with bowed back and dragging feet, passed into the shadows.

“I will prepare us for their attack,” Onald said. “They will come at us in the morning, I think.”

“It is likely,” Rhalina agreed. She had an impulse to go to Corum then, but she restrained it. And at dawn the barbarian army of King Lyr-a-Brode joined with the army of Bro-an-Mabden and, still with the strength of the Army of the Dog and the Army of the Bear, began to close in on Halwyg-nan-Vake.

Warriors were packed on all Halwyg’s low walls. The barbarians had no siege engines with them, since they had relied on Prince Gaynor’s strategy and his Host of Chaos in their taking of all other cities. But there were many of them - so many that it was almost impossible to see the last ranks of their legions. They rode on horses and in chariots or they marched.

Corum had rested for a few hours but had not been able to sleep. He could not rid himself of the vision of Prince Gaynor’s face. He tried to remember his hatred of Glandyth-a-Krae and sought the Earl amongst the barbarian horde, but Glandyth was apparently nowhere present. Perhaps he searched for Corum still in the region of Moidel’s Mount?

King Lyr sat on a big horse and clutched his own crude battle-banner. Beside him was the hump-backed shape of King Cronekyn-a-Drok, ruler of the tribes of Bro-an-Mabden. Half-idiot was King Cronekyn and well was he nicknamed the Little Toad.

The barbarians marched raggedly, without much order and it seemed that the sunken-featured king looked about him nervously as if he were not sure he could control such a force now that Prince Gaynor was gone.

King Lyr-a-Brode lifted his great iron sword and a sheet of flaming arrows suddenly leapt from behind his horsemen and whistled over the walls of Halwyg, setting light to shrubs which had dried from lack of watering. But King Onald had prepared for this and for some days the citizens had been preserving their urine to throw upon the flames. King Onald had heard of the fate of other besieged cities in his kingdom and he had learned what was necessary.

Several of the defenders staggered about on the walls beating at the flaming arrows which stuck in them. One man ran by Corum with his face burning but Corum hardly noticed him.

With a huge roar the barbarians rode right up to the walls and began to scale them.

The attack on Halwyg had begun in earnest.

But Corum watched for the Army of the Dog and the Army of the Bear, wondering when that would be brought against them. They seemed to be holding it in reserve and he could not quite see why.

Now his attention was forced back to the immediate threat as a gasping barbarian, brand in one hand, sword in his teeth, hauled himself over the battlements. He gave a yell of surprise as Corum cut him down. But others were coming now.

All through that morning Corum fought mechanically, though he fought well.

Elsewhere on the walls Rhalina, Jhary and Beldan were commanding detachments of defenders. A thousand barbarians died, but a thousand more replaced them, for Lyr had had the sense at least to rest his men and bring them up in waves. There was no chance of such strategy amongst those who manned the walls. Every warrior who could carry a sword was being used.

Corum’s ears rang with the roar and the clash of battle. He must have taken a score of lives, yet he was hardly aware of it. His mail was torn in a dozen places, he was bleeding from several minor wounds, but he did not notice that, either.

More flame arrows crossed the walls and the women and children came with buckets to douse the fires that started.

Behind the defenders was a thin haze of smoke. Before them was a mass of stinking barbarian warriors. And everywhere was the hysteria of battle. Blood splashed all surfaces. Human guts smeared the walls. Broken weapons littered the ground and corpses were piled several deep on the battlements in a vain attempt to raise the walls and stem the attack.

Below them, at the gates, barbarians used tree-trunks to try to split the iron-shod wood, but so far they had held.

Corum, only distantly aware of the noise and the sights of battle, knew that his fight with Prince Gaynor had been worthwhile. There was no doubt that Gaynor’s hell-creatures and Gaynor’s tactics would have taken the city by now.

But how much time was there? When would Arkyn return with the substances needed by King Yurette? And did the City in the Pyramid still stand.

Corum smiled grimly then. Xiombarg would know by now that he had slain her servant, Prince Gaynor. Her anger would be that much greater, her sense of impotence the stronger. Perhaps this would lessen the fury of her attack upon Gwlãs-cor-Gwrys?

Or perhaps it would strengthen it?

Corum strove to banish the speculations from his mind. There was no use in them. He picked up a spear, hurled by a barbarian, and flung it back so that it pierced the stomach of a Mabden attacker who clutched the shaft and swayed on the wall for a moment before toppling head over heels to join the other corpses on the ground below.

Then, soon after noon, the barbarians began to retreat, dragging their dead with them.

Corum saw King Lyr and King Cronekyn conferring. Perhaps they were wondering whether to bring up the Army of the Dog and the Army of the Bear. Were they considering a new strategy which would not waste so many of their men?

Perhaps they did not care about the men they wasted?

A boy found Corum on the wall. “Prince Corum, a message. Will you join Aleryon there?”

On aching legs Corum left the battlements and got into a chariot, driving it slowly through the streets to the temple.

And now the temple was packed with wounded both within and without. Corum met Aleryon at the entrance.

“Is Arkyn returned?”

“He is, prince.”

Corum strode in, looking questioningly at the prone bodies on the floor.

“They are dying,” said Aleryon quietly. “They are hardly aware of anything.

There is no need for discretion with these poor lads.”

Arkyn stepped again from the shadows. For all he was a god and the form he assumed was not his true form, he looked tired. “Here,” he said, handing Corum a small box of plain, dull metal. “Do not open it for the substances are very powerful and their radiance can kill you. Take it to the messenger from Gwlãs-cor-Gwrys and tell him to go back through the Wall Between the Realms in his Sky Ship...”

“But he has not the power to return?” Corum argued.

“I will manufacture an opening for him - or at least I hope I will, for I am close to exhaustion. Xiombarg is working against me in subtle ways. I am not sure I will be able to find an opening near to his city, but I will try. If it is far from his city he may be in danger trying to get back there, but it will be the best I can do.”

Corum nodded and took the box. “Let us pray that Gwlãs-cor-Gwrys still stands.”

Arkyn gave a sardonic smile. “Do not pray to me, then,” he said. “For I know no better than you.”

Corum hurried from the temple with the box under his arm. It was heavy and throbbed. He climbed into his chariot, whipped up the horses and raced through the miserable avenues until he came at last to King Onald’s palace.

Up the steps he rushed until he came to the roof where the Sky Ship awaited him. He handed the box to the steersman and told him what Lord Arkyn had said. The steersman looked dubious but took the box and placed it carefully in a locker in the wheel-house.

“Farewell, Bwydyth-a-Horn,” Corum said earnestly. “May you find your City in the Pyramid and may you bring it back to this Realm in time.”

Bwydyth saluted him as he took the ship into the air. Suddenly a ragged gap appeared in the sky. It was unstable. It quivered and it sparked. Beyond it a vivid golden sky could be seen, scarred with purple and orange light which shouted.

Through the gap went the Sky Ship. It was swallowed suddenly and the gap shrank behind it until there was no gap there at all.

Corum stood watching the sky for a moment before he heard a great roar suddenly go up from the walls.

A new attack must be beginning.

He ran down the steps, back through the palace, out into the street. And then he saw the women. They were on their knees. They were weeping. A board was being borne on the shoulders of four tall warriors. On the board was something covered by a cloak.

“What is it?” Corum asked one of the warriors. “Who is dead?”

“They have slain our King Onald,” said the warrior sorrowfully. “And they have sent the Armies of the Dog and the Horned Bear against us. Destruction comes to Halwyg, Prince Corum. Now nothing can stop it!”

The Fifth Chapter
 The Fury of Queen Xiombarg

Savagely Corum whipped the horses back through the streets to the wall. A silence had fallen upon the citizens of Halwyg-nan-Vake and now, it seemed, they waited passively for the death which the victorious barbarians would bring them. Already two women had committed suicide as he passed, hurling themselves from the roofs of their houses. Perhaps they were wise, he thought.

He jumped from the chariot and ran up the steps to the wall where Rhalina and Jhary-a-Conel stood together. He did not need to listen to what they told him, for he could see what was coming.

The great dogs, eyes glaring, tongues lolling, were loping swiftly towards the city, towering over the barbarians who ran beside them. And behind the dogs came the gigantic bears with their clubs and their shields and with black horns curling from their heads, lumbering on their hind legs.

Corum knew that the dogs could leap the walls and that the bears would batter down the gates with their clubs and he reached a decision.

“To the palace!” he shouted. “All warriors to the palace. All civilians find what cover they can!”

“You are abandoning the citizens?” Rhalina asked him, shivering when she saw that his single eye burned black and gold.

“I am doing what I can for them, hoping that our retreat will bring us a little time. From the palace we shall be able to defend ourselves better.

Hurry!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

Some of the warriors moved swiftly, in relief, but others were reluctant.

Corum stayed on the walls, watching as the soldiers straggled back towards the distant palace, herding the citizens with them, carrying the wounded.

Soon only he, Rhalina and Jhary remained on the walls, watching the dogs lope nearer, watching the bears come closer.

Then the three companions descended to the streets and began to run through the ruined, deserted avenues, past burned bushes and crushed flowers and corpses, until they arrived at the palace and supervised the barricading of windows and doors.

The howls of the dogs and the bears, the yells of the triumphant barbarians could now be heard in the distance.

A kind of peace fell over the waiting palace as the three companions climbed to the roof and stood watching.

“How long!” Rhalina whispered. “How long, Corum, before they come?”

“The beasts? Some minutes before they reach the walls.”

“And then?”

“A few more minutes while they nose about for a trap.”

“And then?”

“A minute or two before they attack the palace. And then - I do not know. We cannot stand for long against such powerful foes.”

“Have you no other plan?”

“I have one more plan. But against so many...” His voice trailed off. “I am not sure. I simply do not know the power...”

The howling and grunting grew louder, then stopped.

“They are at the walls,” said Jhary.

Corum arranged his torn, scarlet robe about his shoulders. He kissed Rhalina.

“Farewell, my Margravine,” he said.

“Farewell? What ---?”

“Farewell, Jhary - Companion to Champions. I think you may have to find another hero to befriend.”