The Hammer of the Sun (50 page)

A contrast indeed, each with an awesome ability to destroy and lay waste; abilities totally opposed, but with the same results, a land blasted and sterile. Strange that so often they should lair together, and at their fiercest -Ice and earthfires in the Nordenbergen, and now here… Could there be some link? Could Louhi be out to make use of them somehow? If there were Powers of the fires - or whether there were or not, could there be some more material link? The fires had grown worse here as the Ice advanced, as it ground down the land, crushing it beneath its overwhelming weight… His spiral swept him through the shadow of the cloud; he shivered violently, and his wings seemed to falter, though they had plenty of power left them. These windy airs, the sun's warmth banished, were suddenly bitterly cold…

He passed out of the shadow, into sunshine so warm and bright it felt almost like a caress. The chill remained with him, nonetheless, sinking deep into his bones. He shifted his weight a little, and without seeking greater heights he struck out to the westward again. He had begun to understand.

The land sped by beneath him, the clean air whistled past and soothed his burns once more, and his mood of exaltation returned. Less concerned now with the sheer marvel of his flight, he began to enjoy the view, to seek the sight of places he recognised or had been told of. Only now did the full extent of the land of Kerys come home to him, only now did he begin to understand the might upon which that great city was founded. A vast land opened beneath him, an expanse even that first sight from the cliffs had not prepared him for; there, where the Vale was narrowest, he had seen only a miniature, a model of the true extent of the land. From the height he now enjoyed he could look across great sweeps of field and forest to the northern wall of Kerys Vale, and the Wild Lands beyond; or he could turn his gaze southward, and see for the first time the Yskia-nas' farther shores, and the different hues of the warmer southlands, the grassy meadows yellowed by midsummer, the light green of orchard and wood, the grain fields fast ripened to gold, and above them, on the slopes of the Vale, the long stretches of dark green olive grove and fig orchard, the brown of vineyard and scrubby goat pastures. So clear was the air that he could make out among them the larger coastal towns, with their walls lime-washed in dazzling white and their roof-tiles green rather than red; Kerbryhaine had adopted that style. In the south man's dominion did not stop at the margins of the Vale, but went on further than the eye could reach, into the shimmering haze of distance where the southern deserts began. Once it had been so in the north also, beyond the cliff tops a tamed country, rustic but civilized, much like Nordeney that had been his home and settled by the ancestors of its folk. Now it was the haunted half-barrens he and Roc had escaped through, helpless before the inexorable advance of the Ice; and the scars of war that had made it so had spread down into the very Vale itself.

He slept that night beneath the trees of an outlying orchard, overgrown and neglected this season; it yielded him some food, and its fallen boughs a sweet-scented fuel for his ascent next morning. By noon that day, less than two days after the fall of the forge, he reckoned he had come the distance it had taken Trygkar's cog well-nigh seven days to sail. Prompted by that thought, he looked up and down the Great River, but there were few ships of any size abroad. He saw the distant wings then, a pair of flyers as fast as himself, and curiously he swung towards them; but they scattered in panic, as what birds might not before something as huge as he? Ever westward as he flew he saw more signs of war, at first those that the greater towns were inflicting upon themselves in their frantic haste to build new fortifications on his pattern; many an ancient building was torn down for the materials, and the lands about gouged up with trench and dyke. But soon he came upon sharper devastations, wide slashes brown and black across the green earth below where holt and hamlet had been overrun and fired, walls tumbled or whitened with flame, fields trampled to muck, pastures empty of beast and herdsman. A wide ring of such ruin marked out many of the greater towns from afar.

That next evening he slept well in a proper bed with blankets, high in an abandoned tower; but he slept hungry. Every morsel of food seemed to have been stripped from the lands around; hardly a bird sang, and no small creatures disturbed the undergrowth in darkness. At dawn, as he was kindling a fire upon the towertop, he heard the approach of horses, and looking out saw a patrol of horse-soldiers, come to investigate the smoke. He had no wish for trouble with them; but he had little cause to worry. When he spread his wings across the tower-top the horses neighed madly and bolted, their riders making no great effort to restrain them. Elof was surprised at how fearsome he seemed to be; perhaps word of the sorcerer who had slain the king and flown away had reached them - yet why should he scare the horses? Puzzled, he kicked the ashes apart, and rising upon the parapet, he launched himself out in a great glide. His quest for rising airs took him far out over the Yskianas, and when he passed high over two large cogs beating southward he decided to try diving down towards them; one might be Trygkar's, and if not he could at least see how the sailors reacted. It was almost the end of him, for even as he came gliding down the sky, confident in his invulnerability aloft, he saw a flurry of activity at the lee gunwales, but was slow to realise what it must be. He lurched aside just in time as the spurt of flame roared up at him. His swooping escape took him across the other ship's sails, and so only arrows were launched at him; but he left them far behind, and soared high to safety once again, very thoughtful. They had fired before they could possibly have made out what he was, the moment they had seen something with wings. What had they learned to fear, out here in what had become the forward lines of the war?

That night he huddled, hungrier than ever, in the lee of four broken walls, and burned the fallen timbers for his morning fire in the damp dawn; the scoured land offered little else. Yet this was still within the lines; no enemies had passed here save a few reivers. Even the defending forces had left desolation in their wake. And not only they; for as he took to the air again he saw snaking across the land ahead what seemed the worst and ugliest scar of all. But it was not long before he could recognise it for the great line of defences he himself had planned, yet never seen. It held still, for the banners of Kerys flew bravely above its battlements; but it was severely marked as by repeated assaults, and in places its outer lines looked from above as if someone had beaten on them with a vast cudgel. Bodies unburied were strewn like chaff about all the ground before, partly burned but still all too recognisable. He did not dare dive closer, lest the fire be turned on him also.

Westward still he flew, and followed over many a forest and field the bruising tracks of wholesale war, the devastation that attends the passage of great armies, and their meeting. Long swathes of grey-black ash streaked the hills, and he knew that his fire-weapons had been at work here; at times the devastation was so wide-swept it seemed as though duellists had slashed at each other with vast swords of flame. Nothing moved in the land below him, and save for distant dots now and again the airs were no less empty. Here and there, all too often, his wings shadowed low mounds set about with rusting spears, to mark where men who would defend their soil had at last become part of it. As in a vision a sound of lamentation rose to him, faint but clear, the weeping of countless voices, the groans of overburdened hearts, and he never knew whence it came, whether by some trick of the airs he heard what passed far beneath, or whether, as one blended out of many, the voice of Kerys itself cried out to him. The earth had swallowed blood here, and sickened of it. It was a land laid waste, marred as a swordcut mars a fair face; and healing was a long way off. The winds that hissed through the shattered forests called after him, bidding him make haste; the rolling music of the wide waters below urged him on.
Fly, Elof! Fly! You are destiny now
! He had no reply; he could only speed on his way, chasing the sun down the sky till evening. There lay his only hope; he could do no more for the land.

That last night of his journey he spent huddled in the lee of a stand of resinous thorn-bushes, sleeping little, watchful for intruders, and in the morning he had to fire it to charge his wings. He rose swiftly and banked away towards the Great River. As the day passed he saw It narrow beneath him, and the cliffs beyond begin to converge. He had come a good part of the length of Kerys, and ahead of him, when he rose high enough, he could see the Gate as a minute blur of grey where the cliffs converged, far ahead. Two week's journey by ship he had matched in the space of less than five days. Though he had left earlier, Roc could not possibly have kept up; he must find one of the places they had chosen as safe tryst. The shores were bleak and eerie places now, and his heart rebelled at risking a night on them, here where the Ice's terrors walked abroad; he settled at last upon one of the islands he and Roc had first seen from the cliff-tops, many years since.

It seemed at first as if war had not touched this lightly wooded little crescent of land, till, in searching the island before the sun sank, he came upon a small beach scarred by a ship's keel, and above the waterline, still recognisable, the ashes of fires. He landed, kneeling, and found they were cold; but his raking fingers uncovered bones that were unmistakable. Ekwesh reivers must have held some rite here to the Ice they served; for even they did not eat the flesh of men as casually as any other. He rose in fury, and buried the ashes with the thunderous downdraft of his wings; then he settled in shelter high up on the island. Gorthawer, unused since he recovered it, seemed to nuzzle his hand like an eager hound, and he found himself wishing those reivers would come back; but he was weak with hunger, and knew the idea was folly. Berries grew on the island, and he managed to catch some small crabs and roast them; poor fare for a man who had eaten little for days, but it would keep his strength for tonight. Tomorrow he would try hunting, and find some way to fish; that should keep him alive until Roc came. He should not be long; for all their sakes he had better not be…

"Well, you haven't withered away, anyhow!" was that worthy's only comment, some five days later.

"Not quite!" Elof admitted, between gulped mouthfuls of the hot stew they had brought him. He set it down a moment to cool, and took a long pull at a pitcher of ale. "Though it felt like it at times. Poor hunting, I expected that; but the fishing as well? Surely even armies couldn't deplete that, not when they were mostly ashore…"

"Maybe Trygkar'll know something -" But the old shipmaster was busy getting the cog under way; already the anchor was clanking up the side, and the sail booming out overhead. He spared Elof no more than a curt but friendly wave. "He won't linger in these open waters, lest we attract a stolen lugger full of hungry reivers! Ach well, you got through, that's what matters." He patted the massive wings outstretched on the deck. "Must've been quite a show; sorry I missed it! And these - I'm disappointed; I was looking to see you swooping down on our mastheads, not hailing for a boat from shore…"

"So you might have, if another cog hadn't set flame on me at sight!"

Roc blew out his cheeks. "Aye, that's reason enough for care! Can't altogether blame them, though; you must have been a pretty fearsome sight! And if they'd heard about Nithaid…"

"No!" objected Elof, swallowing a mouthful of stew too quickly. "The news couldn't have travelled that fast, not to a ship far from the nearest town! Anyway, they were racing to fire while I was still well aloft, before they could have seen anything but wings. And some cavalry ashore bolted at just the sight of wings…"

Roc tapped his broad foot on the deck. "You're saying they've reason to fear wide wings -" Then he stood up straight. "Ach, no… you're not thinking…"

"Kara," said Elof flatly. "Yes, I am." For a minute their glances locked; but then Trygkar, seeing the cog well under way, felt able to leave the helm for a word, and hastily they changed the subject.

"Poor fishing here?" he repeated incredulously. "Why, man, it's the better part of the river, saltier for the seafish!"

"Then do you try your luck!" said Elof sourly. "Trawl a few lines and try! Line and spear, I've tried both from land and from above; and I've lived by fishing before. Not so much as a sprat! The waters are empty, that's it and all about it!"

Trygkar shook his shaggy white head in puzzlement but found no answer. Eight years had changed him little, save to bow his shoulders a trace; he bellowed as vigorously as ever at a young seaman ambling by. "My youngest," he said, jerking his thumb at the lad with evident pride as he scurried off.

Elof stared. "You're bringing a son on this voyage? Shipmaster, it's a deadly dangerous venture - would you risk him?"

Trygkar chuckled dryly. "They're half of this crew my lads, Mastersmith; and the rest close kin, or good northerners - comes to much the same. I'd have brought my old wife along, if she were living yet, sooner than leave her here; the perils of the sea can't be worse. Stand or fall, I fear Kerys'll never be what it was; she's too far gone."

"There's wisdom in that We cannot hope to restore it to what it once was; at best we may salvage some hope for its people. I do not regret what I have done; but for the land's sake I wish it could have been otherwise. Without a strong king…"

"Without Nithaid, mean you?" Trygkar hawked and spat overside. "He wasn't strong, no more than his father and grandfather before him. Save as brutes are strong, and that's the wrong way. The land's well rid of that line. I served 'em all; I know. And I want something better for my lads."