The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (18 page)

She stood as if he had clubbed her.

“Won’t you understand?” he began.

The wound he had dealt her hopes went too deep. “So you show
yourself a nithing!”

“Hear me,” he said, shaken. “Were the lich anybody else’s—”

Overwrought beyond reason, she slapped him and choked, “The
gods bear witness, I give them my holiest oath, never will I wed you
unless you do this thing. See, by my blood I swear.” She whipped out
her dagger and gashed her wrist. Red rills coursed out and fell in
drops on the fallen leaves.

He was aghast. “You know not what you say. You’re too young,
you’ve been too sheltered.
Listen
.”

She would have fled from him, but he gripped her shoulders and
made her stand. “Listen,” went between his teeth. “Geirolf is still my
father—my father who begot me, reared me, named the stars for me,
weaponed me to make my way in the world. How can I fight him? Did
I slay him, what horror would come upon me and mine?”

“O-o-oh,” broke from Alfhild. She sank to the ground and wept
as if to tear loose her ribs.

He knelt, held her, gave what soothing he could. “Now I know,”
she mourned. “Too late.”

“Never,” he murmured. “We’ll fare abroad if we must, take new
land, make new lives together.”

“No,” she gasped. “Did I not swear? What doom awaits an oathbreaker?”

Then he was long still. Heedlessly though she had spoken, her
blood lay in the earth, which would remember.

He too was young. He straightened. “I will fight,” he said.

Now she clung to him and pleaded that he must not. But an iron
calm had come over him. “Maybe I will not be cursed,” he said. “Or
maybe the curse will be no more than I can bear.”

“It will be mine too, I who brought it on you,” she plighted herself.

Hand in hand again, they went back to the garth. Leif spied the
haggard look on them and half guessed what had happened. “Will you
fare to meet the drow, Hauk?” he asked. “Wait till I can have Grim the
Wise brought here. His knowledge may help you.”

“No,” said Hauk. “Waiting would weaken me. I go this night.”

Wide eyes stared at him—all but Thyra’s; she was too torn.

Toward evening he busked himself. He took no helm, shield, or
byrnie, for the dead man bore no weapons. Some said they would
come along, armored themselves well, and offered to be at his side. He
told them to follow him, but no farther than to watch what happened.
Their iron would be of no help, and he thought they would only get in
each other’s way, and his, when he met the overhuman might of the
drow. He kissed Alfhild, his mother, and his sister, and clasped hands
with his brother, bidding them stay behind if they loved him.

Long did the few miles of path seem, and gloomy under the pines.
The sun was on the world’s rim when men came out in the open.
They looked past fields and barrow down to the empty garth, the
fjordside cliffs, the water where the sun lay as half an ember behind
a trail of blood. Clouds hurried on a wailing wind through a greenish
sky. Cold struck deep. A wolf howled.

“Wait here,” Hauk said.

“The gods be with you,” Leif breathed.

“I’ve naught tonight but my own strength,” Hauk said. “Belike
none of us ever had more.”

His tall form, clad in leather and wadmal, showed black athwart
the sunset as he walked from the edge of the woods, out across
plowland toward the crouching howe. The wind fluttered his locks, a
last brightness until the sun went below. Then for a while the evenstar
alone had light.

Hauk reached the mound. He drew sword and leaned on it,
waiting. Dusk deepened. Star after star came forth, small and strange.
Clouds blowing across them picked up a glow from the still unseen
moon.

It rose at last above the treetops. Its ashen sheen stretched gashes
of shadow across earth. The wind loudened.

The grave groaned. Turfs, stones, timbers swung aside. Geirolf
shambled out beneath the sky. Hauk felt the ground shudder un
der his weight. There came a carrion stench, though the only sign
of rotting was on the dead man’s clothes. His eyes peered dim, his
teeth gnashed dry in a face at once well remembered and hideously
changed. When he saw the living one who waited, he veered and
lumbered thitherward.

“Father,” Hauk called. “It’s I, your eldest son.”

The drow drew nearer.

“Halt, I beg you,” Hauk said unsteadily. “What can I do to bring
you peace?”

A cloud passed over the moon. It seemed to be hurtling through
heaven. Geirolf reached for his son with fingers that were ready to
clutch and tear. “Hold,” Hauk shrilled. “No step farther.”

He could not see if the gaping mouth grinned. In another stride,
the great shape came well-nigh upon him. He lifted his sword and
brought it singing down. The edge struck truly, but slid aside. Geirolf’s
skin heaved, as if to push the blade away. In one more step, he laid
grave-cold hands around Hauk’s neck.

Before that grip could close, Hauk dropped his useless weapon,
brought his wrists up between Geirolf’s, and mightily snapped them
apart. Nails left furrows, but he was free. He sprang back, into a
wrestler’s stance.

Geirolf moved in, reaching. Hauk hunched under those arms and
himself grabbed waist and thigh. He threw his shoulder against a belly
like rock. Any live man would have gone over, but the lich was too
heavy.

Geirolf smote Hauk on the side. The blows drove him to his knees
and thundered on his back. A foot lifted to crush him. He rolled
off and found his own feet again. Geirolf lurched after him. The
hastening moon linked their shadows. The wolf howled anew, but
in fear. Watching men gripped spearshafts till their knuckles stood
bloodless.

Hauk braced his legs and snatched for the first hold, around both
of Geirolf’s wrists. The drow strained to break loose and could not;
but neither could Hauk bring him down. Sweat ran moon-bright
over the son’s cheeks and darkened his shirt. The reek of it was at
least a living smell in his nostrils. Breath tore at his gullet. Suddenly
Geirolf wrenched so hard that his right arm tore from between his
foe’s fingers. He brought that hand against Hauk’s throat. Hauk let
go and slammed himself backward before he was throttled.

Geirolf stalked after him. The drow did not move fast. Hauk sped
behind and pounded on the broad back. He seized an arm of Geirolf’s
and twisted it around. But the dead cannot feel pain. Geirolf stood
fast. His other hand groped about, got Hauk by the hair, and yanked.
Live men can hurt. Hauk stumbled away. Blood ran from his scalp
into his eyes and mouth, hot and salt.

Geirolf turned and followed. He would not tire. Hauk had no long
while before strength ebbed. Almost, he fled. Then the moon broke
through to shine full on his father.

“You…shall not…go on…like that,” Hauk mumbled while he
snapped after air.

The drow reached him. They closed, grappled, swayed, stamped to
and fro, in wind and flickery moonlight. Then Hauk hooked an ankle
behind Geirolf’s and pushed. With a huge thud, the drow crashed to
earth. He dragged Hauk along.

Hauk’s bones felt how terrible was the grip upon him. He let go his
own hold. Instead, he arched his back and pushed himself away. His
clothes ripped. But he burst free and reeled to his feet.

Geirolf turned over and began to crawl up. His back was once more
to Hauk. The young man sprang. He got a knee hard in between the
shoulderblades, while both his arms closed on the frosty head before
him.

He hauled. With the last and greatest might that was in him, he
hauled. Blackness went in tatters before his eyes.

There came a loud snapping sound. Geirolf ceased pawing behind
him. He sprawled limp. His neck was broken, his jawbone wrenched
from the skull. Hauk climbed slowly off him, shuddering. Geirolf
stirred, rolled, half rose. He lifted a hand toward Hauk. It traced a
line through the air and a line growing from beneath that. Then he
slumped and lay still.

Hauk crumpled too.

“Follow me who dare!” Leif roared, and went forth across the field.
One by one, as they saw nothing move ahead of them, the men came
after. At last they stood hushed around Geirolf—who was only a
harmless dead man now, though the moon shone bright in his eyes—
and on Hauk, who had begun to stir.

“Bear him carefully down to the hall,” Leif said. “Start a fire and
tend it well. Most of you, take from the woodpile and come back
here. I’ll stand guard meanwhile…though I think there is no need.”

And so they burned Geirolf there in the field. He walked no more.

In the morning, they brought Hauk back to Leif’s garth. He moved
as if in dreams. The others were too awestruck to speak much. Even
when Alfhild ran to meet him, he could only say, “Hold clear of me.
I may be under a doom.”

“Did the drow lay a weird on you?” she asked, spear-stricken.

“I know not,” he answered. “I think I fell into the dark before he
was wholly dead.”

“What?” Leif well-nigh shouted. “You did not see the sign he
drew?”

“Why, no,” Hauk said. “How did it go?”

“Thus. Even afar and by moonlight, I knew.” Leif drew it.

“That is no ill-wishing!” Grim cried. “That’s naught but the
Hammer.”

Life rushed back into Hauk. “Do you mean what I hope?”

“He blessed you,” Grim said. “You freed him from what he had
most dreaded and hated—his straw-death. The madness in him is
gone, and he has wended hence to the world beyond.”

Then Hauk was glad again. He led them all in heaping earth over
the ashes of his father, and in setting things right on the farm. That
winter, at the feast of Thor, he and Alfhild were wedded. Afterward
he became well thought of by King Harald, and rose to great
wealth. From him and Alfhild stem many men whose names are still
remembered. Here ends the tale of Hauk the Ghost Slayer.

Forgotten Dreams

MICHAEL MOORCOCK

1

B
loody
-
beaked
hawks
soared on the frigid wind. They soared high
above a mounted horde inexorably moving across the Weeping Waste.

The horde had crossed two deserts and three mountain ranges to
be there and hunger drove them onwards. They were spurred on by
remembrances of stories heard from travelers who had come to their
Eastern homeland, by the encouragements of their thin-lipped leader
who swaggered in his saddle ahead of them, one arm wrapped around
a ten-foot lance decorated with the gory trophies of his pillaging
campaigns.

The riders moved slowly and wearily, unaware that they were
nearing their goal.

Far behind the horde, a stocky rider left Elwher, the singing,
boisterous capital of the Eastern World, and came soon to a valley.

The hard skeletons of trees had a blighted look and the horse
kicked earth the colour of ashes as its rider drove it fiercely through
the sick wasteland that had once been gentle Eshmir, the golden
garden of the East.

A plague had smitten Eshmir and the locust had stripped her
of her beauty. Both plague and locust went by the same name—
Terarn Gashtek, Lord of the Mounted Hordes, sunken-faced carrier
of destruction; Terarn Gashtek, insane blood-drawer, the shrieking
flame bringer. And that was his other name—Flame Bringer.

The rider who witnessed the evil that Terarn Gashtek had brought
to gentle Eshmir was named Moonglum. Moonglum was riding, now,
for Karlaak by the Weeping Waste, the last outpost of the Western
civilisation of which those in the Eastlands knew little. In Karlaak,
Moonglum knew he would find Elric of Melniboné who now dwelt
permanently in his wife’s graceful city. Moonglum was desperate to
reach Karlaak quickly, to warn Elric and to solicit his help.

He was small and cocky, with a broad mouth and a shock of red
hair, but now his mouth did not grin and his body was bent over the
horse as he pushed it on towards Karlaak. For Eshmir, gentle Eshmir,
had been Moonglum’s home province and, with his ancestors had
formed him into what he was.

So, cursing, Moonglum rode for Karlaak.

But so did Terarn Gashtek. And already the Flame Bringer had
reached the Weeping Waste. The horde moved slowly, for they had
wagons with them which had at one time dropped far behind but
now the supplies they carried were needed. As well as provisions, one
of the wagons carried a bound prisoner who lay on his back cursing
Terarn Gashtek and his slant-eyed battlemongers.

Drinij Bara was bound by more than strips of leather, that was why
he cursed, for Drinij Bara was a sorcerer who could not normally be
held in such a manner. If he had not succumbed to his weakness for
wine and women just before the Flame Bringer had come down on
the town in which he was staying, he would not have been trussed so,
and Terarn Gashtek would not now have Drinij Bara’s soul.

Drinij Bara’s soul reposed in the body of a small, black-and-white
cat—the cat which Terarn Gashtek had caught and carried with him
always, for, as was the habit of Eastern sorcerers, Drinij Bara had
hidden his soul in the body of the cat for protection. Because of this
he was now slave to the Lord of the Mounted Hordes, and had to
obey him lest the man slay the cat and so send his soul to hell.

It was not a pleasant situation for the proud sorcerer, but he did
not deserve less.

There was on the pale face of Elric of Melniboné some slight trace of
an earlier haunting, but his mouth smiled and his crimson eyes were
at peace as he looked down at the young, black-haired woman with
whom he walked in the terraced gardens of Karlaak.

“Elric,” said Zarozinia, “have you found your happiness?”

He nodded. “I think so. Stormbringer now hangs amid cobwebs
in your father’s armoury. The drugs I discovered in Troos keep me
strong, my eyesight clear, and need to be taken only occasionally. I
need never think of traveling or fighting again. I am content, here,
to spend my time with you and study the books in Karlaak’s library.
What more would I require?”

“You compliment me overmuch, my lord. I would become com
placent.”

He laughed. “Rather that than you were doubting. Do not fear,
Zarozinia, I possess no reason, now, to journey on. Moonglum, I miss,
but it was natural that he should become restless of residence in a city
and wish to revisit his homeland.”

“I am glad you are at peace, Elric. My father was at first reluctant
to let you live here, fearing the black evil that once accompanied you,
but three months have proved to him that the evil has gone and left
no fuming berserker behind it.”

Suddenly there came a shouting from below them, in the street a
man’s voice was raised and he banged at the gates of the house.

“Let me in, damn you, I must speak with your master.”

A servant came running: “Lord Elric—there is a man at the gates
with a message. He pretends friendship with you.”

“His name?”

“An alien one—Moonglum, he says.”

“Moonglum! His stay in Elwher has been short. Let him in!”

Zarozinia’s eyes held a trace of fear and she held Elric’s arm fiercely.
“Elric—pray he does not bring news to take you hence.”

“No news could do that. Fear not, Zarozinia.” He hurried out
of the garden and into the courtyard of the house. Moonglum rode
hurriedly through the gates, dismounting as he did so.

“Moonglum, my friend! Why the haste? Naturally, I am pleased to
see you after such a short time, but you have been riding hastily—why?”

The little Eastlander’s face was grim beneath its coating of dust
and his clothes were filthy from hard riding.

“The Flame Bringer comes with sorcery to aid him,” he panted.
“You must warn the city.”

“The Flame Bringer? The name means nothing—you sound
delirious, my friend.”

“Aye, that’s true, I am. Delirious with hate. He destroyed my
homeland, killed my family, my friends and now plans conquests in
the West. Two years ago he was little more than an ordinary desert
raider but then he began to gather a great horde of barbarians around
him and has been looting and slaying his way across the Eastern
lands. Only Elwher has not suffered from his attacks, for the city was
too great for even him to take. But he has turned two thousand miles
of pleasant country into a burning waste. He plans world conquest,
rides westwards with five hundred thousand warriors!”

“You mentioned sorcery—what does this barbarian know of such
sophisticated arts?”

“Little himself, but he has one of our greatest wizards in his pow
er—Drinij Bara. The man was captured as he lay drunk between two
wenches in a tavern in Phum. He had put his soul into the body of a
cat so that no rival sorcerer might steal it while he slept. But Terarn
Gashtek, the Flame Bringer, knew of this trick, seized the cat and
bound its legs, eyes and mouth, so imprisoning Drinij Bara’s soul. Now
the sorcerer is his slave—if he does not obey the barbarian, the cat will
be killed by an iron blade and Drinij Bara’s soul will go to hell.”

These are unfamiliar sorceries to me,” said Elric. “They seem little
more than superstitions.”

“Who knows that they may be—but so long as Drinij Bara believes
what he believes, he will do as Terarn Gashtek dictates. Several proud
cities have been destroyed with the aid of his magic.”

“How far away is this Flame Bringer?”

“Three days’ ride at most. I was forced to come hence by a longer
route, to avoid his outriders.”

“Then we must prepare for a siege.”

“No, Elric—you must prepare to flee!”

“To flee—should I request the citizens of Karlaak to leave their
beautiful city unprotected, to leave their homes?”

“If they will not—you must, and take your bride with you. None
can stand against such a foe.”

“My own sorcery is no mean thing.”

“But one man’s sorcery is not enough to hold back half a million
men also aided by sorcery.”

“And Karlaak is a trading city—not a warrior’s fortress. Very well,
I will speak to the Council of Elders and try to convince them.”

“You must convince them quickly, Elric, for if you do not Karlaak
will not stand half a day before Terarn Gashtek’s howling blood-letters.”

“They are stubborn,” said Elric as the two sat in his private study later
that night. “They refuse to realize the magnitude of the danger. They
refuse to leave and I cannot leave them for they have welcomed me
and made me a citizen of Karlaak.”

“Then we must stay here and die?”

“Perhaps. There seems to be no choice. But I have another plan.
You say that this sorcerer is a prisoner of Terarn Gashtek. What would
he do if he regained his soul?”

“Why he would take vengeance upon his captor. But Terarn
Gashtek would not be so foolish as to give him the chance. There is
no help for us there.”

“What if we managed to aid Drinij Bara?”

“How? It would be impossible.”

“It seems our only chance. Does this barbarian know of me or my
history?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Would he recognise you?”

“Why should he?”

“Then I suggest we join him.”

“Join him—Elric you are no more sane than when we rode as free
travelers together!”

“I know what I am doing. It would be the only way to get close to
him and discover a subtle way to defeat him. We will set off at dawn,
there is no time to waste.”

“Very well. Let’s hope your old luck is good, but I doubt it now, for
you’ve forsaken your old ways and the luck went with them.”

“Let us find out.”

“Will you take Stormbringer?”

“I had hoped never to have to make use of that hell-forged blade
again. She’s a treacherous sword at best.”

“Aye—but I think you’ll need her in this business.”

“Yes, you’re right. I’ll take her.”

Elric frowned, his hands clenched. “It will mean breaking my word
to Zarozinia.”

“Better break it—than give her up to the Mounted Hordes.”

Elric unlocked the door to the armoury, a pitch torch flaring in one
hand. He felt sick as he strode down the narrow passage lined with
dulled weapons which had not been used for a century.

His heart pounded heavily as he came to another door and flung
off the bar to enter the little room in which lay the disused regalia of
Karlaak’s long-dead War Chieftains—and Stormbringer. The black
blade began to moan as if welcoming him as he took a deep breath
of the musty air and reached for the sword. He clutched the hilt and
his body was racked by an unholy sensation of awful ecstasy. His face
twisted as he sheathed the blade and he almost ran from the armoury
towards cleaner air.

Elric and Moonglum mounted their plainly equipped horses and,
garbed like common mercenaries, bade urgent farewell to the Coun
cilors of Karlaak.

Zarozinia kissed Elric’s pale hand.

“I realize the need for this,” she said, her eyes full of tears, “but
take care, my love.”

“I shall. And pray that we are successful in whatever we decide to
do.”

“The White Gods be with you.”

“No—pray to the Lords of the Darks, for it is their evil help I’ll
need in this work. And forget not my words to the messenger who is
to ride to the south-west and find Dyvim Slorm.”

“I’ll not forget,” she said, “though I worry lest you succumb again
to your old black ways.”

“Fear for the moment—I’ll worry about my own fate later.”

“Then farewell, my lord, and be lucky.”