"Roc, I'm aware of that! And so is he! Do you think he'd care? Was I strong enough to strike a blow, that was all he wanted to know!" They turned to look at Nithaid, sprawled across his chair; he waved a jovial hand at them, and turned to bandy some remarks with his sons who stood beside him. Elof was glad that the little girl, at least, had been spared this. Courtiers came out as they neared the bench, and helped them in. They seemed cruelly amused, some of them, but not unkindly; Elof guessed that the Court Smith had made himself no great favourite, and they would be glad to see him fail. But from the wagers he could hear bandied about, few favoured Elof s chances.
A murmur parted the crowd, and from out of the shadows strode a figure it was hard to recognise as Amylhes. From head to toe he was carapaced in metal of a shimmering bronze hue, shaped to Nithaid's bulky frame; upon the breastplate, from midriff to throat, it bore in traceries of gold the sign of the bull's horns holding the sun, in a coiling, cluttered, florid style. The same gaudy decoration wound across every surface, spreading out along the limbs, for instead of mail they were encased in metal shells, with discs bearing the sun design to shield the joints and hinges, and at the brow and sides of the visored helm. In one hand he bore a heavy mace of matching hue, with many narrow ribs, and a sun-disc at its head. "Plate armour!" hissed Roc. "A whole suit of plate! And solid, by the ring of it!"
Elof glared and said nothing, but there was a sickness in him greater than any pain. He had bargained on some plate armour; but this was a whole suit of it. It was far easier to fashion, but crude compared to the subtle shapings of mail that the best smiths could accomplish. Few active men sought to encase them-selves in so heavy and cumbersome a guard, preferring ring mail with added body plates. Knights of the warrior order of ancient Morvan, with their fast, fluid craft of fighting, preferred less plate; Kermorvan used only light plates at shoulder, elbow and knee, and sometimes the breastplate that bore the crest of his line. Plate might shield the wearer from some blows, but hindered him in avoiding others. Here, avoidance was not at issue; if Elof could not make good his boast at one stroke, he could not move to avoid its counter. That mace would dash out his smithcraft forever, and all the hopes and fears and follies that went with it.
"Let me do it!" hissed Roc fiercely. "I've the strength, I'll have the bastard's head off before a man can move - "
"And yours would follow! No Roc, you've got yourself a bad rap on the head already by trying to help me; look to yourself, rather, don't worsen my fall by sharing it!"
"'Twasn't much. I gambled a dunt on the head against the chance of wringing that scrawny neck. Had the same idea as you now, I guess; only I might have saved your legs, and… and worse. Those anklets…" He groaned under his breath. "Oh Powers, what's the point? What can we ever hope to do now?"
Elof s heart sank like an ember; if even Roc was despairing… But Nithaid was speaking. "You there, give the man his sword! And you, his friend, get him to his feet! be you his prop for now!" He left unsaid what was obvious; that if Elof failed Anylhes would soon see he needed no support ever again.
"Listen, Roc!" said Elof suddenly as they shuffled into a circle lit by many lamps, summer eve though it was outside. "When I give the word, let me go! Yes, let go! Only for a moment! You'll see why…" But then Nithaid raised a peremptory hand, and Amylhes clanked forward to face him, only two strides away. Irouac put the cool hilt of Gorthawer into his hands, and with it the memories of that last shattering stroke against another and greater evil, of the lightning that had bathed it and driven it deep into solid iron. Elof drew a deep shuddering breath, and Nithaid let fall his hand.
Amylhes stepped forward with a clatter of metal, and raised the mace high. "
Now
!" cried Elof, and swinging up Gorthawer he flung his arm free from Roc; both hands met on the hilt, and with that singing snarl the black blade flew high above his head. Amylhes looked up, he could not help it, and for all his own wiry strength the weight of mace and armour told on his arm. He lost the moment of his swing; and in that instant, swaying on legs that were already collapsing under him, Elof brought Gorthawer hissing down.
Weakened as he was, his arms still held a strength few even among smiths could equal. The black blade struck like the lightning that had forged it anew. It met the mace, reaped the head from it like a cornstalk and fell upon the helm beneath, smashing away the visor; the breastplate rang like a bell as it passed and leaped up in baffled fury against the flagstones. The rebound tore it from Elof s fingers, and he toppled; Roc caught at him, but he crashed down onto the stones, and agony convulsed his half-healed legs. The black sword skittered away across the floor to Nithaid's feet. Amylhes' face, revealed in the broken visor, wore a look of startled relief.
But only for a moment. A flicker of vast surprise crossed it, he opened his mouth to speak or cry out, choked, coughed and staggered in a jangle of metal, fighting with the collar of the suit. Blood gushed out of his mouth, and bloodstained tow erupted from the riven breastplate, slashed like soft tin from breast to waist. He hit the flagstones with a jingling crash; plate squealed and scraped as his legs kicked along the flagstones a moment, and fell gradually still.
In the hushed silence that followed Nithaid rose ponderously from his throne, bent down with a breathy grunt to pick up Gorthawer, and gingerly thumbed the edge that had struck. "Not in the least blunted," he announced, as if not in the least surprised. Elof, fighting to breathe against the shock of pain, could not answer. Nithaid prodded the corpse with the toe of his boot. "So there you lie, Amylhes," he said dryly, "for all your craft and cunning. Fool! Did you think me so blind I could not tell for myself the better man? But you were ever a schemer, and wont to force matters. Guards? Take this trash away. Armour and all."
Elof found his voice, though his head was swimming. "You knew? You
knew
? Then why did you force me to this?"
Nithaid shrugged. "As I said: good sport. Though as it turns out I am rid of a mediocre smith and accomplished intriguer, in a way that his powerful kindred cannot lay at my door. I could not be absolutely
sure
, after all, could I?" He hefted Gorthawer and clucked at it delightedly. "And I have a new Court Smith who is related to nobody and ill-placed to interfere, or even go where I do not want him. Your first task, by the way, will be to make me a new armour. And I have a most remarkable sword."
"
That sword is mine
!" grated Elof.
"And you are mine, Valant'," replied Nithaid levelly. "And so also all that belongs to you."
"I am nothing of yours! You may have tricked me into becoming your murderer, Nithaid; but you cannot compel me to work for you!"
Nithaid motioned to the guards, and they dragged Elof swiftly to the dais foot; the jolting pain sickened him
to
silence. He could feel blood oozing from an opened scar. "Let us understand one another, you and I," said the king. "You are mine, either as an outlander thrall, or as a subject of the rightful king of Kerys and all its domains. It makes no difference; but it could. Do well by me, and you both will prosper. But if not -well, I would not coerce a mastersmith such as you with common threats. I would only apply to you the law which governs any man, left to himself, that if you do not work, you do not eat." He shifted his glance to Roc. "But this sturdy fellow here -"
Roc growled deep in his throat. "Do your worst!"
"This sturdy fellow, as I was about to say, I would not waste so. You also would have to work - but in some heavy labour, fettered among felons, or if need be blinded, as I guess you are also some kind of a smith. I think we would have years of work from you, after hunger and thirst first began to bite; but I would rather leave you to look after your friend. He may need you -and he cannot flee. You alone would not get far if you tried, for from his account of your voyage I learned you are scarcely a sailor. The one cannot escape; the other cannot use any freedom he might gain. What do your own efforts tell you?" He leaned forward earnestly, fixing them with a gaze grown suddenly keen. "But do not mistake me! The Ice is your enemy; so also it is mine. And does it not threaten us more closely here than in your homeland? Well then! Do we not need you more urgently here? I would far rather count you as free servants, helping me with the same skill and valour you have displayed. You came asking me for aid; and I never gainsaid you. I mean to drive back these reivers, storm the Gate and make it ours again, hang the Icewitch from it by her own ensnaring hair! But to do that I need to unite this land, build up my power! Help me in that, and you'll flourish! When I trust you I might even have those fetters struck off -"
Elof shook his head violently, too violently; the palace chamber shook around him. "
No, king! Never!
That, never! These are deep waters of smithcraft you cannot understand. Let the fetters be! I am resigned to them. But that broken arm-ring… I can forge another as fair for the little princess. Let me at least have that back, king for it is a dear and bitter memory to me."
Nithaid tapped his teeth with a ridged thumbnail. "As Beathaill is to me - all that is left me of her mother… I will not take from her what I have bestowed, and I know she will not give it up for any reward. Not now, anyway; in a few years, when she is suitably wedded, perhaps, she may put it aside. I can only counsel you to wait. But what's that, man, however dear, to what you could gain? A man like you could earn a title, even, and estates; you'd hold them a hundred times better than many born to them -"
Weakness and bleak despair welled up around Elof; his breath came fast, and fearing he would faint he threw up his hand to stop Nithaid in his flow. "No, King! The Ice is our enemy, but we have little common cause. I have seen your land, and how you rule it; and beside the king I serve you are a brigand chieftain, Nithaid - no more!" A horrified buzz of voices arose in the court, and many shrank back; but though Nithaid's eyes narrowed, he did not interrupt. "To suit yourself you have maimed me, made me your tame murderer, and taken from me things greater than you can guess. I will serve you because I must, under duress, as a thrall only. Never freely, never loyally; you lack the coin that could buy that of me! I will set great craft in your hand; but only as long as it is turned against the Ice. Cease that struggle, turn aside from the fight, and I will serve you as you deserve. I will crush you, Nithaid!"
The silence when he finished could not have been more shattering than while he spoke. Nithaid's hands had closed hard on the leading edges of the throne-arms, white-knuckled, quivering, as if to tear the ivory asunder; his face was bloodless, his eyes staring, his lips working with words half formed. A great lock of hair had fallen across his eyes unheeded, and they were screwed up to inhuman slits. Then suddenly he threw his head back and bayed like a wolf, a great whooping crow of laughter. "You'll crush me, will you? How, lad, how? Under your crutches? By hopping on me? Ho, it'd be worth it just to see you try!" He doubled up with the force of his mirth, hugging himself till tears shone on his cheeks and his nose ran into his beard, and his courtiers, as soon as they were sure of his mood, joined in, whooping with laughter and even mimicking a cripple's gait. "
Enough
!" barked Nithaid suddenly, slapping his hand down on the arm of the throne. "Learn this one's courage, some of you! Then you may mock him! But you, Valant', hear me! Serve me as anything you like, so long as you serve me well! And as for slaying me, why, when you feel ready I give you leave to try!"
Elof had raised himself on his arms at that, though they trembled under him and the blood roared in his ears. He thrust out a hand, and he could not see it tremble. "I hear you, king! So be it!
So be it!"
The walls spun about him, faster and faster, the torches flared up and danced like marsh-lights. And like the marshes, weighing down his limbs, pressing suffocatingly upon his chest, the darkness behind them reached up to enfold him, envelop him and suck him down.
Chapter Seven
-
Sorcerers' Isle
So began, in shed blood and desperate pain, the time of Elof's thralldom; and in blood and pain also it was to end. But that end was to be long in coming, and destined to be the ending of many other things besides. Neither Elof nor Roc could foresee it, and for them those first days were black days, as black as any since their youth. They knew they could count on no aid from Kermorvan and Ils; to their friends they would simply have vanished into the ocean's trackless wastes, and grieve as they might, with the weight of kingdoms upon their shoulders they would be unlikely to risk themselves or others on the same voyage. "And here's hoping they don't!" said Roc glumly. "For they'd simply sail all unwitting into the arms of the Ekwesh, and without your ways of winning help!" He swore, and sank his head in his hands. "How about his weirdness Master Raven? Now I'd even be glad of his brand of aid, though the thought of it puts years on me; can you not get word to him?"
Elof, curled up on a pallet with his maimed legs tucked under him, stared into the darkness and sighed. "Since I began this voyage all has gone amiss as never before; so he warned me, and I defied him. He will not aid me now; perhaps he cannot." He listened a moment to the sound of the river waters lapping against the shore far below, and leaned his weary head back against the timbered wall. "No, my old friend, this is something I must accept -"