Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon Page 17

  Velantos drew his sword as the first foes reached them, bracing his feet as the shock drove the man in front against him. He gaped as a spearpoint burst through the man’s back, swung up his blade as the slain man slumped, and chopped down as his killer struggled to withdraw the spear. The sword caught in the man’s collarbone and he nearly lost it as the enemy in turn began to fall, wrenched it free with a gasp, and swung against the next contorted face beneath a bronze helmet, aware at the same time of a dim wonder that it should feel so much like hitting the goat carcass on which he had tested the blade. And why not, he told himself as the man reeled back from his blow. They were meat, man and goat alike, compacted of bone and muscle and red blood that fountained when the sword bit through. He whirled and struck again, understanding at last the meaning of the battle dance the priests of the Kouretes taught the boys when they were initiated as men.

  “Retreat to the entry! We’ll hold them there—” he gasped, dodging a spear and sprinting between the pillars of the smaller gatehouse beyond with the others behind him. They had not barricaded it, for the best defense in this narrow space was a hedge of spears. Orange sunlight poured through from the central court on the other side. He ran out into the court. A quick glance showed him the warriors of the king’s guard forming up on the far side before the entrance to the megaron.

  “Be ready—” he called. He turned at a sound more sensed than heard, and reeled aside as a javelin sliced across his upper arm. There was a man on the roof of the smaller propylon. In the next moment another appeared behind him, then more. The ladder! He should have brought it with him. But that did not matter now. He dashed back to the shadow of the propylon.

  “Andaros, they’re behind us! Everyone, to the megaron!”

  Men tumbled out of the shadows of the smaller propylon as more and more foes reached its roof. They were the ones who could throw down missiles now. But they were too eager to come to grips. They brought up the ladder from the other side and began to scramble down. It became a chaotic running fight between the retreating defenders and the foes who were streaming after them.

  Panting, they attempted to form up in front of the king’s guard. With a shout the Eraklidae charged. The first men clutched at the spears that spitted them, tearing them from the defenders’ hands. Then it was work for swords. Accustomed to using either hand in the forge, Velantos hewed with the blade in his right hand and swung the hammer with his left. At such close quarters, the one was as effective as the other. The sword bit deep into flesh, but the hammer shattered bone. In such a scramble no one could go unscathed, but Velantos never felt the blades that stung him. No decisions remained, no care, not even for his own life, only the need to strike and strike again until he could strike no more.

  He blinked as he found himself forced into the shadow of the porch, only then realizing that he had been retreating across the court. Four of the king’s guard stood with him, all that remained to guard the three doors that led within. A swing of the hammer missed and smashed into the alabaster rosette on the wall, blue-painted chips flew into his opponent’s eyes, and the man reeled backward. Velantos edged back through the middle door and cast a quick look behind him, glimpsed the king on his throne with the queen standing beside him, tried to turn back as foes filled the doorway, and went sprawling as they crashed through, sword and hammer sliding across the floor.

  He expected that moment to be his last, but a curt order halted the rush that followed him into the room. Velantos started to lever himself upright and stopped as a spearpoint swung down to prick his throat, the instinct to flinch battling the desire to lean into the blade and show his father that he too could die like a prince of Tiryns. In the distance he could hear the clamor of battle, and from somewhere closer, a woman’s scream, but in the megaron, all was still.

  Heart hammering, Velantos tore his gaze from the spearpoint and looked around him. A dozen warriors stood between him and the throne, big men in red kilts with scars on their bare chests, carrying spears and swords. Through their legs he could see the king and the queen.

  There was no point in trying to prove his courage to his father, he thought numbly, seeing the old man slumped as if he had fallen asleep in the great chair. The king was dead already, had been dead, perhaps, since word came that the Gate was down. Had he taken poison, or had his heart mercifully given way? The queen stood like an image beside him, the same faintly disapproving expression as always on her lips and brows. For a moment their eyes met, and he saw in her gaze a flicker of something that might have been pity, though he found that hard to believe.

  There was a stir at the doorway and men stood aside to let in another group of warriors, better armed, and unwounded as the men of the king’s guard had been until a little while ago. Behind them came an older man in a red cloak with grizzled hair tied up in a warrior’s knot, the scars on his face deepened by the lines of passion and power.

  “Queen Naxomene . . . I am Kresfontes, son of Aristomakhos, and my brother and I claim this citadel.”

  The queen nodded. “I see that it is so,” she said harshly. “I will not bid you welcome.”

  He shrugged. “Your husband has escaped us, but it is you who carry the sovereignty.”

  “Do you think to claim it by taking me to your bed?” She laughed. “It is long since the Lady of Love shared her gifts with me. My sons are all dead, and my daughters all married into other lands.”

  “Then you shall act as nursemaid to the children I get on other women.”

  “How kind! Shall I give you a gift in return? You have taken Tiryns, but in times such as these the women of my line receive the gift of prophecy, and though you have asked no question, I will be your oracle. The line of Pelops is ended, and with it the Age of Heroes. From this time forward, the Plain of Argos will be ruled by the Children of Erakles, but it is our stories that your sons will tell. And though you may have captured this citadel, you will not hold it for long.”

  Now Kresfontes was the one who laughed, although through the ringing in his ears Velantos seemed to catch a note of strain. “Do you think Tisamenos will thunder down from Mykenae to avenge you? Once we have finished here, his citadel will be the next to fall.”

  “You may conquer men, but can you stand against the gods?” asked the queen.

  “We are the heirs of Erakles,” Kresfontes said proudly, “and we come to claim our own. Will the gods not support our right?”

  “Erakles was denied this city by the will of E-ra, and she opposes his blood still,” the queen replied. “Posedaon Enesidaone will shake down these walls rather than leave them in your hands.” Some of the warriors made a sign against evil and she smiled. “That is not a curse; it is a prophecy.”

  “I give this for your prophecy—” Kresfontes made a rude gesture, and his warriors laughed. “You are no longer a queen. You are my slave, and you shall grind the grain to bake my bread. Bind her—”

  Velantos realized that all the warriors were staring at their leader and the queen. He raised himself on one elbow. The hilt of the leaf-shaped sword lay just behind his hand. If he could reach it—what could he do? Leap between Naxomene and the men who were starting toward her, to delay for a few more moments the death of her pride? I can die like a smith, a deeper knowledge replied, with my last work in my hand . . .

  As the first warrior reached for the queen’s arm, Velantos grabbed for the sword, but before either could reach their goal another blade flashed. A twitch of her wrist brought the dagger the queen had held reversed against her inner arm out and up and into her heart. Bright blood blossomed on the fine stuff of her gown as she curled around the blade, sank to her knees, and then to her side on the tiled floor.

  “It is my blood that curses you. . . .” she gasped, and then a last shudder took her and she lay still.

  Velantos surged to his feet, the sword whipping out to take the nearest warrior in the side. Beyond him he saw Kresfontes and lunged toward him. But the enemy were already recovering. Swift
as hounds they turned on him. His left leg gave way as a spear slammed into the calf. Swords that would have pierced him clanged above his head. As he hit the floor, a heavy sandal stamped down on his arm and the sword was torn away.

  At least, he thought with a last flicker of triumph, the boy will live. . . .He saw blades gleam above him and turned to welcome them.

  THE SOUNDS FROM THE upper levels had changed. Woodpecker lifted his head, listening. The full-throated shouts and the clangor of arms had given way to footsteps and voices. Except for the screaming when some woman was seized, it might have been the noise of a crowd on a festival day. But the clamor was all from above.

  Here, nothing moved but the dust motes that swirled in the shaft of sunlight that came in through the high window. But Woodpecker knew that the safety of the smithy was an illusion. When the palace had been secured, the enemy would begin to search the rest of the citadel, and they would find him, and he would be a slave once more. He tried to tell himself that nothing had changed, that he had been a slave since—His mind shied away from the image of a grinning bearded face. The harsh reek of smoke merged with memories of mist that clouded a rocky shore.

  To Velantos, he had been a companion.

  And he had abandoned him.

  Velantos rejected me! He answered that inner accusation. Woodpecker thought he had found a home in Tiryns. To be told he had no right to die in its defense hurt. Was that why he had obeyed Velantos? Or was he afraid? He clasped his long arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. Fear was an old companion. There had always been an undercurrent of anxiety even when he was a child, in the days when he had thought himself free.

  For three years he had been at the mercy of his masters. He had learned every gesture of submission, every way by which a slave might placate wrath or evade a blow. For three years all he had remembered was that he must survive. That was what Velantos had told him to do. He grimaced as he realized he was still obeying a master. In the smithy, everything, from the tools on their shelves to the scarred leather apron hanging from its peg on the wall, resonated with the smith’s identity. Velantos was still here, grumbling, teaching, and all too rarely, loosing that deep-throated roar of laughter that seemed to roll up from his toes—Woodpecker had not left him on the watchtower after all.

  No . . . He shivered. He’s dead.When he sent me away, it was because he meant to die. His gaze sought the clay figure of the goddess that always reminded him of the image above the forge on the Island of Maidens at home. Why couldn’t You save him? He loved You!

  There was a shift in the light as if a bird had flown by the window, though he saw nothing pass. A phrase repeated itself in his awareness—“The god gives the power, but we are the tools . . .” He could not, would not, remember who had said that to him. Perhaps it was the goddess herself, Potnia Athana, who in his own land had another name.

  Velantos had expected to die, but Woodpecker knew from his own experience that sometimes those who were supposed to die lived. What if the smith had not found death in battle? What would they do to him? Without intending it, the boy unfolded from his fetal crouch, legs tingling as he forced numbed muscles to move.

  They will kill him without honor, he thought grimly, enslave him to some wretched work that will grind him into the dust. Woodpecker knew all about the kind of labor that suffocated the spirit and deadened the senses. But such treatment would only goad Velantos to a rebellion that would end in a death more wretched still.

  Now that he was standing, cowering until he was hauled off to a new captivity was no longer an option. He looked up at the goddess once more.

  “You want me to do something, don’t You?” he said aloud.

  Frowning, he took down the leather apron. It would go twice around him, but it might identify him as a skilled craftsman long enough to keep him from being skewered the moment he appeared. And he should take something to demonstrate Velantos’ skill—not a weapon—His gaze fell on an earring in the shape of a pendant lily that Tanit had brought to the smith for repair. He tried not to think about what her fate would be now. He had heard stories from captive women in households where he had served. First rape, then, if they were pretty, service as a whore to the warriors until they were sold. To know that had happened to a girl he had loved must be as great a torment as defeat itself. Woodpecker understood why Velantos would prefer to die.

  But perhaps the prince was not dead.

  He twitched at the sound of voices in the street outside. They were coming already. A swift step took him to the back entrance that led to the sheds where they stored the charcoal and from there to an alley. After a year of doing errands for Velantos he knew all the back ways and shortcuts, and the ladder, if it was still there, that would get him into the Upper Citadel.

  “TAKE HIM OUTSIDE AND kill him—there’s too much blood already on this floor . . .”

  The voice seemed to come from a great distance away. The sword whose point was already cutting into Velantos’ breast twisted, and he forced himself not to flinch from the pain. Rope rasped his left wrist as they bound it; he grunted in agony as they grabbed his right. But he had only to endure a few more moments and he would be done.

  “Bind him, but do not kill!” A new voice cut across the moans of the dying and the jeers of his captors. Velantos’ head jerked round, his eyes widening as he saw Woodpecker, the leather apron flapping around him, standing beside the hearth. “He’s a master smith, valuable. See, that’s his hammer on the floor. You want him alive.”

  “And who may you be, to give orders here?”

  Velantos’ relief that Kresfontes’ voice held amusement warred with his own wrath that the boy had disobeyed.

  “I help him; I learned from him! I have some skill too. But look—” Gold gleamed in Woodpecker’s hand. “He made this earring—it’s beautiful, yes?”

  “Our women are already weighted down by the golden gauds that we have won,” said one of the warriors. “We have all of yours already, and the gold of Mykenae when it falls. We don’t need a smith to make more.”

  “You still need swords!” came the swift rejoinder. “He saw your kind of sword last year and learned. That one—” Woodpecker pointed to the leaf-shaped blade that had come to rest against the curb of the hearth. “He made it. Look at it. Keep him and he’ll make more.”

  With a detached amusement Velantos noted how the sight of the weapon had changed the expressions of the men who guarded him. Woodpecker had made a good try, but if they thought he would work for them they were mistaken, and he would die after all, in some worse way. The gash where the spear had brought him down was still bleeding and his leg was beginning to grow cold. If they waited much longer, it would not matter anyway, for blood loss would finish him.

  Someone had picked up the sword and set it in Kresfontes’ hand.

  “A year?” The enemy leader extended the blade, swept it in a circle and brought it down once more. There were a few nicks in the edge, and it would need to be sharpened before it was a really effective weapon again, but Velantos was distantly pleased that it had held up so well. And killed so many . . . His lips curved a little as his eyes closed.

  “Very well—” The words came from somewhere far away. “Bind up that leg and take him away. You spoke for him, boy—you take care of him. If he lives, we’ll see what he can do.”

  Velantos gasped as a rough bandaging woke the wound in his leg to screaming agony. But the fingers that untied the rope from his damaged wrist were precise and sure.

  “Soon, I’ll get you water,” came Woodpecker’s whisper. The voice was a line that held him to consciousness through the waves of pain, the long-fingered hands cool as they smoothed the matted hair from his brow. “Don’t die, Velantos. You’ve given me my soul again. Don’t leave me alone. . . .”

  “AS BIRD AND BEAST find mates and couple, so it is with men, for none can prosper alone. . . .” Anderle lifted her hands in blessing, and Cimara blushed rosily, casting a swift look at the young m
an who stood at her side. “May the gods grant that your lives will be long and happy, and your offspring prosper in the land!”

  The queen of Azan was old for a first wedding, but her mother had not allowed her to take a husband for fear of Galid’s wrath. Queen Zamara had died just after Midwinter, though it seemed to Anderle that her spirit had succumbed many years before. It had taken some months of secret negotiations to find a suitable bridegroom to sire the next generation of Azani sovereigns. Agraw was from the eastern edge of Azan, where they had not suffered so much from Galid’s depredations. He was a second son, and no doubt his mother had been pleased to settle him so well.

  Agraw was not a bad-looking boy. Beneath the wedding crown his brown hair was thick and curly, and the shoulders draped by the leather cape looked strong. Cimara’s worn features had a youthful radiance beneath a felt cap banded with amber beads to which a rectangle of tubular jet beads had been added on each side. Lappets hung down her back, and her brown hair had been intricately braided behind. Necklet and bracelets were of gold, and her shoulder cape was held to her gown by long pins of bronze. Even Galid had not dared to steal the regalia of the queen.

  The party assembled to witness their vows was small, but Anderle had persuaded enough representatives of Azan’s noble families to come to the sacred grove to validate the ceremony. And they were almost done. The couple had exchanged bread and salt, and on the stone altar the fire that had witnessed their handfasting still burned. Once they had made their offerings to the gods, they could be put to bed, and if the gods were good, Cimara would conceive.