The Forge in the Forest (48 page)

After many turns the lane broadened and opened into a wide thoroughfare, its skyline jagged with buildings of many shapes, from tall towers to wide halls and lower houses, yet as a whole fair and well proportioned. Across this the column hurried, and there the moonlight showed a grimmer truth. From a stout linkbracket upon a house wall a corpse dangled by a rope round its neck; it was not garbed as an Ekwesh, but no more could be said. It had been there some days by the look of it and the taint in the air. Atop the bracket, perched on one leg in glutted sleep, sat a fat gray gull. Elof found his own horror and anger mirrored in the faces of his friends, but the Ekwesh paid no heed to the sight, and bundled them up a narrow alley beside an inn.

All through the city they climbed thus, a long and weary way worsened by the devious routes. Long before they reached their destination, not far short of the middle hour of night, Elof had guessed it would be the palace. For all its darkened stone it seemed a fair and noble building, with warm light from within to gild gallery and buttress; it put him less in mind of Kerbryhaine than of the Halls of Summer, its grandeur more graceful than proud. But he was left little time to look; there were many Ekwesh on guard, and the arrival of the column started them stirring like ants. The chieftain wasted little time on words; in moments a side door creaked open, and the travelers were dragged into the smoky red light within. Stairs led downward, worn and winding, low-roofed and echoing; Kermorvan and the tall Ekwesh stood alike in danger here, and in fact as they turned into a level tunnel the chieftain managed to strike his head a heavy blow on a keystone. But he saw his captives hurried down and through a stout wooden door into a dark cellar, and he stood over them, cursing softly and flicking blood from his eyes, while they were unbound and thrust down at spear's point against the cool wall. Then stout manacles were fastened on them at wrist and ankle, and through these they were chained to wall rings at their backs, so tightly they could barely stir. The chieftain stayed long enough to test the fastenings, and order Elof's tightened; then he swept out, and all the rest in his wake, taking all the torches. The door slammed, a key grated in the lock; blackness and silence settled upon them. None spoke, none stirred, for they felt stifled. The nightmare was made absolute.

But at length Kermorvan moved; they heard the clink of his ankle chain. "What has happened?" he asked, in a low voice, dull and incomprehending. "Kerys, what has
happened
?" None of the others answered; they had been about to ask him the same.

"They hurried us here after dark," Elof mused, "as if they did not want us seen…" Then suddenly the words stuck in his throat. Very slowly, very quietly, the key was turning once more in the lock. It drew back, and for an endless moment silence fell again. Then, very cautiously, the door was pushed open a crack, and a feeble glint of yellow light shone in. Above it a face appeared and Elof choked. It seemed deathly, spectral, floating in darkness like one of the faces of Dorghael Arhlannen dust-whitened to a semblance of life. He saw with a shiver that it had their look indeed, of strong bones beneath stretched skin, sunken at cheek and temple, crowned with wisps of colorless hair. But as it glided closer he saw that the hair was thick and silvery, the nose firm and straight, the lips thin but with a trace of color in them; dim blue eyes shone in the sockets. Yet still it might have been one of those faces living, or some other he could not place. It was a very old face, yet noble and fair with the fragile grace of age; in youth it must have been handsome as… Kermorvan. It did not mirror him as Korentyn had; the likeness was of cast alone, but strong, not least in the glitter of cold vitality that rose in those eyes as the light fell upon Elof. He strove to return the old man's gaze, but it was not an easy face to look upon, grown to age, and aged by suffering. The voice bore witness to both.

"Will you say, sirs, who you are?" The voice was fair, the speech was southern, strangely inflected but as clear as any Kerbryhaine, save that it trembled. Instinctively Elof waited for Kermorvan to answer.

"Wayfarers from the west," he said at last. "From the western shores, that men of Morvan settled after its fall."

"Ahhh…" It was a sound of understanding, yet almost a gasp of pain. "How can this be? We did not know that the west had come to anything. And it is a fantastic, a terrible distance to have journeyed…"

"We knew no more of the east," said Kermorvan quietly. "And it was indeed terrible, and cost many lives. But most terrible of all is its ending! What has happened here, that these barbarians who menace us also hold this city?"

The face turned away sharply. "So they hold the west also? Then perish, what you awakened…"

"They've not got it yet," growled Roc. "Those you speak to had some say in that, even myself. Sent 'em running with their shirts on fire!"

"Then hope lives!" said the old man urgently, and then grew flustered. "B-but have you need of meat or drink? I have brought you what I could, poor as it is. I have no better myself."

"That is kindness indeed!" said Elof fervently, for his tongue was swelling with thirst. "But can you free our hands to eat, good jailer?"

"No, good sir, for I am no jailer, not even a turnkey; only for the most menial tasks of a prison am I tolerated. They do not trust me with any keys save the doors. And rightly so!" For a moment metal rang in the tired voice, "You are a northerner, by your speech? It is good to know they thrive in the west also. I must feed you; do you forgive me if I am clumsy, my sight fades fast. But hearken, if you will, to the tally of our woes!" His hand, long and strong as Kermorvan's, raised a flask to Elof s mouth. Watered wine, cool and fresh, flowed against his lips, and he gulped gratefully. "Where did they begin? They have many beginnings. As long past as the fall of Morvan, perhaps, and the deaths in its defense of king and prince both, Keryn and Korentyn." Kermorvan seemed to choke, on the wine as it might have been. "Morvannec they had committed to the care of Karouen the Lord Warden, their cousin, and when the last fugitives fled across the mountains with the sad news, the people took him and his line as their lord. And worthy lords they were, for the most part, being of the line of Kermorvan. Only its fiercest fires they lacked, perhaps, and many thought that no bad thing. Once it was clear that the mountains and the clime held the Ice well at bay, they became more concerned to build new life and prosperity for Morvannec, which had languished so long in the shade of Morvan. And that they found, and enjoyed through many long lifetimes, content for the most part to settle their own immediate problems and forget the past." A bitter note in the old man's voice awoke an echo.

"So also it was with us!" said Kermorvan fiercely. "But go on. How long did it last, this complacency?"

"Till the days of my age," said the old man bleakly. "And I lived as complacent as any. Would I had died so, and rotted in illusion still! About four years past it was that the plague came, if plague it was; some say that our wells were poisoned, though they cannot tell who might have done such a thing. Then in one swift summer a full two-third parts of our folk perished, and those left alive were hard put even to burn their bodies. My family perished; children and close kin; yet I hold it a worse evil that our Lord Koren died, and his lady, without issue, and left us lordless."

"Had he no brothers?" asked Roc, champing at the scraps of bread and meat he was being fed.

"All too many! And some of not the worthiest stamp. They declared their rivalry, and somehow strife and riot broke out around them. Though to do them credit they none of them fostered it; yet it followed them. Lesser men gained influence over the crowds, and one most of all, a roving merchant from our lesser towns as he claimed to be. I doubt that now! For he brought with him as servants many brown-skinned men from lands far southward, as he said, and hired them out to help us, in town and in field. They were hard and tireless workers, and a great assistance to us. We grew used to seeing them, and could not tell how many there were in the city. Then, only last spring, this merchant returned from some voyage. And that same night these servants cast off their guises and took up arms and armor they had concealed, and fell upon the few guards at our gates. Others hastened down out of the wild lands to the north and were given entry. Our other towns they took in like manner, but with ships they stole from our harbor. Many wished to fight them—aye! even I—but we were leaderless and weakened, and from the first they acted as unquestioned conquerors, as if resistance were unthinkable; that counted for much. In a week our whole land was overrun, and for more than a year now we have borne their heavy yoke; we labor ten times harder for them, than ever they for us."

Kermorvan looked at the old man. "Even to serving as their jailer?"

"Aye, even so, in cellars that once held no worse than good wine, and where I was chamberlain and master. Resistance of any kind, even slight and passive, they quell at once and brutally. If you have fought them, you must know the cruelty that is in them, how little of good save in bravery and order, and what manner of evil they practice as worship and kin-rite. That men could sink to such horrors I never dreamed! Their hearts are as dark as their skins!"

"They are a people corrupted," said Elof quietly. "But the skin is no mark of that. Many such have mingled with the old northern kindred, and have suffered as cruelly from the Ekwesh, and hate them as bitterly as do you."

The old man offered Ils bread with elaborate grace, and sighed. "lam sorry for them. But it restores my faith in humanity. I could almost have thought we dealt with some other breed, as legendary as duergar."

Ils snorted, and her eyes took on an evil glint, her voice sardonic menace. "Beware lest a legend snaps off your finger-ends, old human!" The old man gasped, and peered at her so closely their noses almost touched.

"Are you then…"he stammered, and then smiled in sheer wonder. "Oh, my lady, forgive me! I did not mean to match the Elder folk with these brutes, save as being reputed as far above common men as they are below. Still less did I expect ever to meet one of them! Would that you had graced our city in happier circumstances—"

Ils blossomed, but Kermorvan cut urgently across her reply. "Sir, you say the Ekwesh have lingered here a year. Why? Have they brought in their families and thralls, to settle as is their practice?"

The old man shook his head. "No, that they have not. And they waste this city as if they do not mean to stay, herding in the country folk and letting the fields go untended while they waste our store. We have wondered what is their purpose. Almost it might seem they were waiting… Though who can say for what?"

"This merchant," put in Elof. "What is he doing? He is not one of them, you say, yet he rules them?"

"Aye, he does. Him, or his women."

"His women?"

"I have seen them. One has dwelt with him since his first appearance here, and departed on his voyages with him. The other… I cannot say. But they do not carry themselves like wife or daughter, either of them."

The chill at Elof s back was deeper than chain or cold wall could set in him, and he shuddered in apprehension. Yet it had to be asked. "Are they… is one tall, blue-eyed, very fair of hair and skin? And the other… not quite so tall and very slender, with dark locks cut close?"

"These are they, indeed!" burst out the old man. "But how come you to… ah. They have been in the west also."

"And this merchant, what of him? Has he a name?"

"Aye, though what right to it I know not. For once it was honorable of its kind, one of the families that have opposed the line of kings since the ancient days of Morvan. A Bryheren he is. And Bryhon by name."

A sudden spilling of redness across the floor looked more like blood than light. "That's so, old man. But what business have you saying it, that's the damned question, eh?" The torch was held low, the figure behind it all but unrecognizable between shimmering light and shadow. But that bluff orator's voice there was no mistaking.

The old man stood up stiffly, painfully unbending bowed shoulders, and met the accusation calmly. "Sir, it is my given task to feed prisoners."

"Aye, those you've had orders to! And not to wag your doddering tongue! Be thankful that nothing you've said will matter, soon enough. Be off out of the palace, and be damned to you!" The old man was thrust violently up the steps, and the door slammed to behind him. "Stinking rathole!" muttered the voice, and quick steps crossed the room. There was a creaking crash, and a shutter dropped down. The light of a full moon flooded over the dusty earthen floor, and cool air flowed in, bearing the sound and scent of the sea.

"Thank you, Bryhon," murmured Kermorvan calmly.

"Not at all," answered Bryhon Bryheren with equal calm, as he hooked his torch into a wall bracket and came to stand before them, leaning against a pillar and folding his arms.

"You!" raged Roc, straining at his chains. "You spawn of Amicac, how'd you come here? What're you about, you traitor filth?"

Bryhon shrugged. "I don't know what you mean. I am no traitor, and never have been. What I serve, I serve faithfully."

"But solemn oaths you have broken," said Kermorvan, his voice level and cool as edged iron.

"None I meant. None I was not bound to break by earlier, sterner oaths, bound both to take and to break."

Kermorvan sighed deeply. "So it is true, then."

"It is," answered Bryhon.