An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat (36 page)

That shaghûn smashed into her, knocked her saber away. His fingers closed around her chin and forced her to turn toward him.

Lost! she wailed inside. She should have listened to Al Jahez and Mowfik. The fire was in her again and she could not stop him. He stripped her slowly, taking pleasure in her humiliation.

He pressed her down on the stones and pines needles and stood over her, smiling. He disrobed slowly. And Misr stood there watching, too terrified to move.

Tears streaming, Narriman forced her eyes shut. She had been so close! One broken twig short.

She felt him lower himself, felt him probe, felt him enter. Felt herself respond. Damn, she hated him!

She found enough hatred to shove against his chest. But only for an instant. Then he was down upon her again, forcing her hands back against her breasts. "Karkur," she wept.

The shaghûn moaned softly, stopped bucking. His body stiffened. He pulled away. The spell binding Narriman diminished.

"The Great Death!" she breathed.

It had him, but he was fighting it. Amber wriggled over him, flickering. There were few bloody veins in it. His mouth was open as though to scream, but he was gurgling a form of his earlier keening.

Narriman could not watch.

It did not occur to her that a mere shaghûn, even a shaghûn of the Jebal, could overcome Karkur's Great Death. He was but stalling the inevitable. She crawled to her discarded clothing.

Misr said something. She could not look at him. Her shame was too great.

"Mama.
Do
something."

She finally looked. Misr pointed.

The shaghûn's face was twisted. The muscles of his left arm were knotted. The bone was broken. But there was just one patch of amber left, flickering toward extinction.

He had bested the Great Death!

A silent wail of fear filled her. There was no stopping him! Raging at the injustice, she seized a dead limb and clubbed him. Misr grabbed a stick and started swinging too.

"Misr, stop that."

"Mama, he hurt you."

"You stop. I can do it but you can't." Did that make sense? I can murder him but you can't? No. Some things could not be explained. "Get away."

She swung again. The shaghûn tried to block with his injured arm. He failed. The impact sent him sprawling. The Great Death crept over him. She hit him again.

He looked at her with the eyes of the damned. He did not beg, but he did not want to die. He stared. There was no enchantment in his eyes. They contained nothing but fear, despair, and, maybe, regret. He was no shaghûn now. He was just a man dying before his time.

The club slipped from her fingers. She turned back, collected her clothes. "Misr, let's get our things." For no reason she could appreciate, she recalled Al Jahez's words about severed heads.

She collected the shaghûn's sword, considered momentarily, then gave him the mercy he had denied her.

"You killed him, Mama. You really killed him." Misr was delighted.

"Shut up!"

She could have closed her eyes to his screams, but his dying face would have haunted her forever. It might anyway.

When all else was stripped away, he had been a man. And once a mother had wept for him while a dark rider had carried him toward the rising sun.

Misr Sayed bin Hammad al Muburaki, the Hammer of God, would become a major player in desert politics in the later Dread Empire novels, just as Sadhra prophesied.

The following wasn't originally intended for publication. It was written at the 1969 Clarion Workshop as a birthday gift for Fritz Leiber, one of whose loves was cats. Both he and Robin Wilson, the workshop director, insisted I market it.
This was my second sold and first published piece of short fiction. It was not, at the time, part of the Dread Empire world, that not having yet coalesced. But changing just a few words places it in the wild north of that world rather than the wild north of our own—though, as the name implies, Trolledyngja is a particularly remote mountain wilderness in our own world, armed with an ancient reputation for harboring all manner of the fey.

In the old days there was a man from Telemark, up in Lochlain, which you call Trolledyngja, who had a very strange adventure. His name was Olav and he lived in Rauland, beside Lake Totak. Everyone thought him a ne'er-do-well, because, instead of farming his land, he made his living by fishing the lake, and trapping in the forests covering the sides of the valley leading down to the lake's eastern edge. Olav did not mind what people thought. He was content with his own sort of friends.

Save for a few animals, old Olav had lived most of his life alone. He had just two friends at the time of his great adventure: a mare pony named Faith, and a black kitten with white paws, called Silverheels. A precocious kitten.

They were very close, those three, and some of the more credulous country folk thought Olav a wizard, or even one of the
huldre
-folk—the hidden people, the mischievous elves of that country—because he talked with his animal friends. But there was no truth to that rumor. He had merely saved a talent from childhood, a talent his neighbors had forgotten.

It was a fine, sunny day just before summer's start when Olav began his adventure. He had had a particularly fine catch the day before, so he called Faith and Silverheels, and said, "Friends, let's take this fish down to Rauland Market today. I need some salt, and a pink ribbon for Faith's mane."

So they got the fish, put them into two panniers on the pony's back, Olav set Silverheels up on top, and off they went to market. They had been walking about an hour when Faith noticed that Silverheels was sneaking fish from the baskets.

"Little thief, stop!"

"It's just a small one," said Silverheels, guiltily.

"But the fourth. And there'll be another, and another, and then how will Olav get the money to buy my ribbon?"

"Oh, don't worry, Faith," said Olav. "We have enough to get the ribbon. But if Silverheels steals another fish, we won't get him his bowl of cream." Olav always bought Silverheels a bowl of cream when they took fish down to Rauland town.

Silverheels liked his cream. He took his paws out of the basket and behaved very well. For a time.

Down around Lake Totak they walked, and came to the foot of Dovre Mountain, where trolls and
huldre
-folk were said to live. They reached a turn in the road where an old grandfather of trees had fallen across a huge boulder.

They met a strange man around the turn. Very old he was, dressed in a gray robe, and wearing a white beard so long it hung to his waist. He was leaning on an oaken staff in the middle of the road, humming to himself.

"Excuse me, sir," said Olav. "I have to get by so I can take my fish to Rauland. I have to get some salt, and a ribbon for my pony."

"He's not going to move," said Silverheels. "He's one of the
huldre
-folk."

The old man looked up then, staring at the kitten. Silverheels stared right back, his head cocked naughtily.

"Silverheels is right," Faith said. "He's the king of the
huldre.
My dam told me about him."

The old man turned his strange eyes on the pony. She backed a step away. Olav made signs against the evil eye, twice, hoping that would frighten the
hulder
away.

"I'll buy your mare and kitten," said the bearded man. Olav thought his eyes seemed on fire, so intense was his gaze. Frightened, he made the signs of Hammer and Star, from the new religion and the old, in appeal to whatever gods were watching, then replied, "I'll not sell my friends, all I have in the world."

"Well, if that's the case, you'll just have to come along too, Crazy Olav." Crazy Olav, that's what the villagers down in Rauland called him.

"Where?"

"A place with no name." The old man walked to the fallen tree and smote the boulder beneath with the tip of his staff. The sound was louder than the ringing of the alarm bell in the thane's watchtower, the other side of Rauland. As the ringing died, a large door opened in the side of the rock. Olav could see a passage, lit by smoky torches, waiting within. He made the Hammer and Star again.

The old man stepped through the doorway, then beckoned the three to follow. Then they realized they were
huldrin
, which is the name given those who are bewitched by a
hulder.
They could not keep their feet from starting down the path which led into the heart of the mountain.

Olav, Faith, and Silverheels followed the wizard through a long tunnel. It seemed it would take forever to get wherever they were bound.

Once they happened on a band of drunken trolls, but the old magician cast a spell so they would not be seen by the wicked
tusse
-folk. Had the trolls known of their visitors, they would have had a plump little pony for supper. And, perhaps, a kitten, or even a stringy old Trolledyngjan.

A while later, they came to caves where dwarves lived. Olav marveled at all the gold and silver the little smiths had.

After more weary travel, they came to the end of the tunnel. Olav immediately knew they were nowhere in Trolledyngja. He saw dragons soaring in the sky,
huldre
maidens catching sunbeams in great silver bowls, and he knew that they had entered
Utröst,
the land of the elves.

He and his friends followed the old wizard across a strange land, a land where it was always late afternoon, and, at last, came to a great castle with many towers, which sat high atop a hill.
Huldre
knights rode forth to greet them, hailing the wizard "King," confirming Faith's identification. Princesses lined the gray battlements over the gate, waving gaily colored handkerchiefs, bidding their father a welcome home. All the
huldre
squires and servants, dressed in their finest, were clustered at the drawbridge. The old man stopped and greeted each as he led his captives into the fortress.

Olav, Faith, and Silverheels whispered to one another, questioning these strange events, and wondering what they should do. They wanted to go home, but were unable to escape the spell the wizard had cast. Naturally, they were frightened for there were many tales told in Trolledyngja about the evil ways of some of the folk of
Utröst.

Then little Silverheels succumbed to curiosity, and announced that he wanted to go on. Olav told him the tale of curiosity and the cat, but the kitten wouldn't listen.

The wizard led the way into a great hall where a huge meal was already set on the tables. There were just four places set: platters of meat for Olav and the king, a trencher heaped with fine fresh clover for Faith, and a little golden bowl of cream for Silverheels. Relieved, the three captives took their places at the Elfking's table.

When they were done, and after
huldre
maidens had brought out huge stoops of chilled ale for Olav and the king, it was time to talk.

"Why did you bring us here?" Silverheels asked.

"Ah, little kitten, you're a bold one, I see. I've brought you here because I want you to help my people, in a way only mortals are able. You see, there are a pair of terrible dragons, Ironclaw and Hookfang, who are destroying the kingdom. My people cannot stop them because it's impossible for one under-earth creature to slay another. Only a mortal can give the gift of death to a creature of
Utröst.
And these two dragons cannot be bested, save by being slain."

Olav and Faith shook with fear at the mere mention of dragons, for the
linnormen
have a dreadful reputation in their country, though no Trolledyngjan could truthfully claim to have seen one. But little Silverheels was undismayed. "Why don't you use your magic to make them go away, old wizard?"

"Because a wicked sorcerer of the east, of a land where the sun never shines, is using a magic greater than my own. The
linnormen
are proof from my power. These dragons can be slain only by a sword of steel, and only a mortal can stand the touch of iron."

"Then you were certain I would come too?" Olav asked.

"Yes, you're too fond of your friends to sell them to a stranger. And there was my spell."

"Am I not too old for such carryings on? Anyway, I've never held a sword in my life. I wouldn't know how to use one. How could I slay a dragon?"

"You can do it easy, Olav," said Silverheels, cocking his head at the old fisherman. "I think it'll be fun."

"You're just a kitten," Faith scolded. "You've never even caught a mouse. What would you know about dragons?"

Silverheels pretended he couldn't hear her, because he couldn't think of an answer. Olav and Faith argued with the king and Silverheels until late in the evening (it was always evening in that part of Elfland), but the question was finally settled in spite of any of their wishes.

When Olav and the king were many stoops of ale along, a young
hulder
knight came running in. He bore evil news. "Sire," he cried, "the dragons have come to the castle proper. The Red Dragon, Ironclaw, is setting fire to the fields in the west. The White Dragon, Hookfang, is burning the farmers' village to the east. The country folk are fleeing into the castle, but many have suffered grievous wounds where they were touched by drops of dragon fire."

Silverheels hopped from his stool to the top of the table. He danced with joy because he had a chance to see a real live dragon. Faith and Olav grew very frightened. They were older and wiser, and knew dragons were no fun. The king grew sad. "My enemy has brought evil to the walls of my people. It is sad that you will not help, Olav."

Olav, too, felt sad, but he had always considered himself a wise man. And a wise man knew better that to challenge the might of a dragon. There were many bleached bones to prove it.

Silverheels suddenly gave a little kittenish "miaow" of excitement. His sharp ears had caught the distant roaring of dragons. He leapt to the floor and scampered across the room. Over his shoulder, he called, "I'm going to see the
linnormen
."