AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That's it, he thought with sudden conviction. Ibrahim is doing this to us. He's set up some kind of wizardly fear-wall around himself to driven away anyone who might interrupt him. With the thought, the Irishman was able to unfasten the terror from his mind and push it away, like a man holding a snake by its throat at arm's length. He forced a soft chuckle and turned to Bugge. 'It's a trick,' he whispered to the trembling northman. 'Damn it, it's magic , it's only a fright-mask hung over the door to keep children from barging in!'
Bugge stared at him without comprehension, and the Irishman repeated the statement in Old Norse. Bugge caught the gist of it, gave Duffy a strained grin and then passed the message on to the other two. They loosened up a bit, but none of the four on the bank looked really at ease.
They scouted up and down the watercourse edge fifty yards in both directions without seeing or hearing any-thing untoward, and Duffy waved again to the ship. By the patchy moonlight he watched the remaining northmen
wade across, four of them holding up, clear of the water, the pallet on which lay the old King.
When they had all made their way into the cluster of willows, Aurelianus crossed to where Duffy was standing. 'The Fisher King is on the field of battle,' he said, quietly but with a savage satisfaction
All at once the oppressive weight of unspecific fear was gone, and Duffy was able to relax the control-holding muscles of his mind. Suddenly he got the feeling that there were more men on the bank with him than he knew of -he turned, but the moon was behind a cloud and the shadows among the willows were impenetrable. Nevertheless he could sense the presence of many strangers, and from a little further down the bank he caught sounds that seemed to be those of at least one boat pulling in to the bank and disgorging silent men in the darkness. There was flapping and a windy rushing in the air, too, and soft swirl-sounds from the water, as of lithe swimmers just under the surface. The air was as tensely still as if they were in the eye of a vast storm, but the willows all up and down the bank were now twisting and creaking.
Bugge came up beside the Irishman, and by a flitting sprinkle of light Duffy looked for signs of heightened fear in the northman's face, but was surprised to see only an eager reassurance. And he realized that these northmen, like his horse when he was, months ago, so eerily escorted through the Julian Alps, could instinctively recognize allies of this sort, while Duffy tended to be blinded by the fears Christian civilization had instilled in him. The Viking touched him on the shoulder and pointed ahead.
The cloud cover was breaking up and clearing, and Duffy could clearly see three tall men waiting on a low hillock. Without hesitation the Irishman strode up the slope to join them while the large but indistinct body of warriors waited along the bank behind him. When he reached the rounded crest the three turned to him with respectful nods of recognition.
The tallest was as massive and gray and weathered as a Baltic sea cliff, and though an eye-patch covered an empty socket, his good eye looked from Duffy's sword to his face, and glittered with an emotion almost too cold and hard to be called amusement. The second man, though just as big, was darker of skin, with a curly black beard and white teeth that flashed in a fierce smile of greeting. He wore a lion-skin? and carried a short, powerful-looking bow. The third was rangier, with long hair and a beard that even in the leaching moonlight Duffy knew must be coppery red. In his fist he held a long, heavy hammer.
The four of them on the height turned to survey the fair-sized host gathered by the bank of the canal, which must somehow have become wilder, for at least half a dozen ships were moored in it - a Spanish carack, a Phoenician galley, even a dim shape that seemed to be a Roman bireme. There was a long sigh, and the limp
banners began to twitch and flap on the masts.
Looking southeast, Duffy could see an equal host gathered around a vast, black tent on the plain, and at the vanguard stood four tall figures in eastern armor.
The one-eyed man raised a hand, and the wind came up behind him, tossing his gray locks; then he brought the hand forward in a spear-casting gesture, and with the wind the Western force moved forward, gathering speed and sweeping toward the black tent. Running effortlessly in the front rank, Duffy heard the sound of hoof beats mingled with the thudding of boots, and he caught too the flapping of wings and a soft drum-beat of great running paws.
For Duffy the battle that followed was mainly a confusion of quick, unconnected images and encounters. He clove in half a huge, beating butterfly-thing, between the wings of which was a woman's face, mouth agape to sink long teeth into him. A grossly fat, bald man with thick snakes for arms seized Duffy and moaned in wide-eyed imbecility as he began to constrict the Irishman's breath away; he became silent only when a glowing-eyed cat shape had surged past and with one swipe of powerful jaws snapped the bald head off. At one point Duffy faced one of the four tall Turkish warriors who had stood out in front of the assembled Eastern host - the man's left hand, though as mobile and quick as his scimitar-wielding right, was a brassy metallic color and rang like a dagger when he used it to parry Duffy's blade; the Irishman finally managed to sever the arm at the elbow; and when Duffy had delivered the final, beheading stroke, the golden hand was still moving, crawling on the ground like a spider.
Things with the heads of crocodiles contended with dwarfs perched one atop another to form an adversary of conventional height; men enveloped in roaring yellow flames rushed here and there, seeking to embrace their enemies; hollow-eyed corpses lurched past, pulled along by animated swords as pliant as snakes; and, above even the winged warriors that battled with scimitar and long-sword high overhead, impossibly tall, luminous figures -could be glimpsed rushing across the sky.
Finally Duffy burst through the far side of the seething press. Glancing around he saw that six of the northmen were still with him. Bugge grinned at him as they trotted in to re-group. Less than a hundred yards in front of them stood the circular tent of black cloth, flapping like a big, crippled bat on the moonlit plain. Even as Duffy caught his first clear glimpse of it, part of the drapery flipped back and half a dozen turbanned men, back-lit in eerie blue, stepped out of the tent, drew gleaming scimitars and waited grimly for the attack to arrive.
In ten seconds it did, and two of the Turks fell immediately, chopped nearly in half by the northmen's swords; the other four handled their crescent blades skillfully, but refused to give ground or retreat to the flank, and so were each inevitably engaged by one man and run through by several others. Before Duffy could even get in a lick the Turk guards were dead, while his own crew had suffered nothing worse than a nicked forearm or two.
'Come out of your boudoir, Ibrahim, and share the fate of your boys!' yelled Duffy, leaping forward and with a whirling slash cutting the tent flap across the top.
The cloth fell away - and a shape out of nightmare stood, turned, and stared incuriously down at him. It seemed to have been crudely chiselled out of coal, and its face was twisted and distorted as if it had spent centuries under powerful, uneven pressure. Muscles like outcroppings of rock ridged its shoulders, and a shrill, grating yell trumpeted from its mouth as its blunt-fingered hands reached for the man.
Duffy fell over backward like an axed tree, and, when the thing rushed forward, raised his sword as a man might instinctively raise his arm while a tidal wave curls over him.
The creature moved in so quickly that it impaled itself on the long blade, which encountered no resistance in penetrating the stony flesh. A moment later it had wrenched itself back with a moan like layers of rock shifting. Dropping to the ground, it curled up in a ball as a cloud of things like blue fireflies swirled upward out of the gaping wound in its belly.
Lifting himself on his elbows and looking over the fallen monster's bulk, the Irishman saw a dozen robed figures inside the tent, standing around a fire that gleamed bright blue. Then the northmen had bounded past him, howling with rage and swirling their swords, and Duffy hopped shakily to his feet to join them.
The tent shook then with a madman's percussion concert as swords clanged and rasped, mail shirts jingled and helmets were ringingly struck from surprised heads. Duffy sprang at a tall, wiry Turk he took to be Ibrahim, aiming a slash that would have cleft the man in two pieces if it had connected; but the Turkish sorcerer leaped back out of the way, and Duffy spun half around with the force of the wasted swing.
Ibrahim snatched up a small book and hopped nimbly toward an open flap at the back of the tent. The Irishman saw him, realized he was too far away to catch, and flung his sword like a Dalcassian axe. It whirled through the air and struck the magician solidly in tile shoulder. The suddenly blood-spattered book dropped to the ground, but the wizard regained his balance and, wincing and clutching his gashed shoulder, ducked out of the tent.
'Not so fast, you bastard,' growled Duffy, striding after him only to find his way blocked by a desperate-eyed Turk, who drove a quick cut at the Irishman's face. Swordless, he parried it with his left hand while drawing his dagger with his right. He lunged savagely in, snarling with the pain of his mangled palm, and buried his dagger in the man's chest.
A scimitar snapped in half on his steel cap, stunning him as he tried to parry another with his dagger guard; he deflected the blade from his face, but it whipped as he struck it aside and opened a furrow along his forearm. Fearing to riposte with the short,, dagger, Duffy waited tensely for another thrust - but the Turk gasped, buckled at the knees and collapsed, stabbed from behind. The Irishman whirled to take in the entire tent.. .and then slowly relaxed and lowered his blade, for the only figures still standing were Vikings. A few of the blue fireflies had found their way inside, but were dimming and falling silently to the ground.
The book lay where Ibrahim had dropped it, and Duffy slowly crossed the tent, picked it up with his right hand and flipped it open. In faded ink the flyleaf was inscribed:
'For Merlin Aurelianus, these modest magics, from your own little succubus, Becky. Beltane, 1246.' After a moment's hesitation he tore that page out, folded it and tucked it in a pocket, and then dropped the book into the blue fire. He wiped and sheathed his sword, then pulled down a strip of the tent fabric and laid it in the flames.
'Let's go,' he panted to the blood-streaked Bugge, who nodded. Three of the other northmen were still standing, and one of them was bleeding badly from a cut in the side. Duffy led them out of the tent.
The wind was high, and raising rushing clouds of dust in the moonlight, but the plain was empty. Duffy stared around thoughtfully, and then pointed toward the city wall that stood in high, ragged silhouette three hundred yards west. With his sorcerous powers restored, Duffy reflected, Merlin can certainly transport the Fisher King back into the city without our help. The five of them set out, one of. the northmen hopping on one leg and leaning on a companion. Before they'd taken a dozen steps their long-legged shadows were cast across the dirt in front of them, for the tent behind was now a crackling torch of wholesomely yellow and orange flame.
