Sword of Avalon: Avalon

  At this season, the land to the west of Tiryns was divided into pasture-land and newly planted fields, the one already indistinguishable from the other as the armies advanced. Although the ground was not so dry as it would be later, dust was beginning to rise. By nightfall red blood would soak that ground.

  Velantos tensed as the chariots neared arrow range. For all their valor and skill, the chariotry of Tiryns had never been blooded. There had been a brief conflict with Argos when his father was a young man, but until they began to train for this invasion, the only combat the current crop of warriors had seen was the yearly war games when the fields lay fallow in the summertime.

  The first volley of arrows streamed like smoke across the lessening gap between the armies, but the enemy had met this kind of attack before. In the midst of each cluster of warriors the round shields swung up, overlapping to cover those below. Some got through; but the momentary gaps were covered as the shields joined once more.

  Faint from below he heard the horns blat as the charioteers shook the reins on their ponies’ backs and urged them into a flat run. Surely no man on foot could withstand the avalanche of horseflesh that was bearing down upon them now. A quiver in their ranks—they were breaking—no, groups were withdrawing in staggered sequence all along the line to let the first chariots through, then closing in around them. Another horn call, and still shooting, the second line of chariots wheeled away with the sweet unity of a flock of birds. But the first rank were trapped, held at bay like bulls surrounded by wolves.

  “Diwaz Thunderer be with them!” whispered Velantos, knowing that Aiaison had been in the forefront of that first charge.

  Now the groups of enemy who were not engaged flowed around them and moved forward, opening their loose line again as the chariots charged once more. These maneuvers had made them a little more vulnerable to the showering arrows, and the second line of chariots had learned from the fate of the first, but some, unaware of the danger or unable to control their horses, drove forward and were engulfed in turn.

  The scene before him was disintegrating into a chaotic mass of plunging horses and struggling men, but Velantos had imagined the possibilities too often not to have a very vivid image of what must be happening down there. The mobile archer was safe enough so long as he was moving, but once his chariot was stopped he must try to fend off attackers with his spear. In combat, Thersander had said, the leaf-shaped slashing sword would defeat the older style of blade.

  “Athana shield them,” he murmured again and again, and never knew that his clenched fist had driven his nails into his palm until he saw the marks there later on.

  Close to three hundred fifty chariots had sped forward in that first charge across the plain. Velantos could see less than half of them still moving now. A few were fleeing. It occurred to Velantos that they had better be prepared to close the gates if the enemy sought to follow up on their victory by attacking the citadel.

  But surely they were not defeated yet—the surviving chariots could keep moving, picking off the foot soldiers from a distance . . . until they ran out of arrows. . . .

  How many of the men of Tiryns would make it home? Velantos’ heart keened at the certainty that Aiaison could not have survived that turmoil. How many of his brothers still lived? a deeper part of his awareness dared to ask. Was it possible that he would be the sole son left to King Phorkaon by the end of the afternoon? There was a time when he would have welcomed that knowledge. It made him gibber in panic now.

  Another chariot wheeled away from the battle and headed homeward, and then more. They were fleeing, and though even tired horses could gallop faster than men burdened by shield and armor, the enemy would be on their heels.

  “Xanthos!” He gripped the guard captain by the arm. “Take half your men and get those people off the wall. Give the others to me—we must be ready to close the gate and hold it when the last of our men have come in!”

  “TAP . . . TAP . . . TAP . . .” WITH exquisite care Velantos drew the sword blade between the bronze anvils, hardening and shaping the curving edge. This last blade had come whole from the mold, the best one he had yet made. The hilt lay ready on his worktable, waiting to be riveted on. It made sense that his skill should improve with practice. With another decade or two of work he might even become a master. A pity, he thought bitterly, that he was not likely to have those years.

  Night had come to Tiryns, but there was little sleep for anyone in the citadel. It was clear to everyone that in the morning the final assault would come. At first, when the Eraklidae surrounded the fortress, Tiryns had expected a siege, a prospect that the people of the citadel, their granary full of winter wheat, could face hopefully. Sickness in a camp often made a siege as deadly to the enemy as to the defenders. And the longer they held out, the more time there would be for the men of Mykenae to come to their rescue.

  But Kresfontes and Temenos, the brothers who were leading that army, wanted the grain for themselves, and had no mind to sit waiting while the people of the city consumed it. The walls of the citadel were mighty, but determined men with ladders could get over them. The walls of Tiryns were strong, but her king no longer had enough men to guard every foot of them. If the sons of Aristomakhos threw all their strength against the citadel, it would fall.

  At least Prince Aiaison had received due honors, even if for the rest of them the citadel would have to serve as a pyre. Velantos wondered if it had taken courage for the queen to lead the women of the city out to search the battlefield, or whether she was too numbed by grief to care. He was still haunted by the image of that doleful torch-lit procession of black-clad women with ashes in their loosened hair. They had gone out to seek their sons and husbands when darkness put an end to the battle, and the Eraklidae, fearing to see the Kindly Ones turn to Furies, had not dared to hinder them.

  Aiaison and Melandros had been found, as all expected, together, limbs mingling in death as they had so often done in love. Melandros must have died first, speared in the back, for he was hardly marked except for that great wound. Aiaison had straddled his body, defending it until they hewed him down. The queen had identified him by the fragments of embroidery that edged the tunic he had worn under his armor. If she could no longer recognize the child of her womb, still she knew the work of her own hands.

  When for a moment Velantos ceased his tapping, he could hear drumming and the sound of drunken laughter. Closer still, a woman’s moan of pleasure told him how others were passing the time. That was better than the quiet weeping he had heard as he came down into the lower citadel. In such moments, he thought, people showed what they really cared for. He might have tried to find Tanit, but the queen and her women were keeping their own vigil. It was perhaps inevitable that he should take refuge in his craft. If this blade was the last piece he would make, he was determined it should be a worthy memorial.

  And he had made a private vow that it would drink deep of enemy blood before it fell from his hand.

  He knocked loose the blocks that held the anvils and took up the sword, reaching at the same time for the sharpening stone. This, at least, could be done sitting down. With even strokes he drew the stone the length of the blade. Presently he became aware that Woodpecker was humming in time to the scrape of stone on bronze. It was a strange, wandering melody in a minor key, unlike any music he had ever heard in his own land.

  “What are you singing?”

  Startled, the boy looked up. “An old song from my country—” he stammered. “Don’t quite know why it comes to me now.”

  “What are the words?”

  Woodpecker shook his head in frustration. “It is hard to put the words in your tongue. I can’t say it in poetry.”

  Velantos waited patiently, for the boy to gather his wits, for the bronze he was polishing to shine. From the passage outside came a burst of drunken laughter. The voices faded as the men went on.

  “’Tis the wild geese . . .” Woodpecker said at last. “That fly in autumn. They come in g
reat crowds, crying, crying. Fill the lake. Sky echoes with noise. Then one day they know it’s time. First some, then all, lift into air, wing higher, higher. The lake is dark, lonely. Only a few feathers float on water. All gone. . . .”

  “By the gods, your people must be cheerful souls!” Velantos mocked gently. But he was thinking that he had never heard Woodpecker say so much about his home.

  The boy shook his head. “I don’t know why I think of it,” he repeated.

  But to Velantos it seemed quite clear. His eyes smarted with a sudden vision of his city turned to a waste of tumbled stones where owls nested and sheep huddled for shelter from the wind. When the spring that warmed his own land now reached the north, the wild geese would return. Even now one heard them overhead, winging toward their distant summer home. But what would the folk of Tiryns leave behind to tell the men of some future year that once they had lived here?

  Sighing, he took up his hammer once more and began to rivet the hilt of the new sword to the blade.

  TEN

  Velantos turned as Woodpecker came up the stairs to the watch post above the outer court, a sweating earthenware jug of water in each hand. As the boy reached the platform, the wind changed and he bent over, coughing. The town below the walls had been burning since early morning, and acrid black smoke rose in a shifting column to stain the sky. Velantos set down his bow, lifted the cloth he had tied over his nose and mouth, and took one of the jugs. The cool water slid down his throat like a blessing.

  They had wondered whether the wells in the lower citadel would last them through a siege. That was no longer a concern. The assault had begun early that morning, and it was now becoming clear to friend and foe alike that Tiryns no longer had enough warriors to man her walls. The Eraklidae had begun with attempts on the main gate and the passage that led from the western bastion, though both were well fortified. Now they were beginning to send groups to assault selected points elsewhere. It was only a matter of time.

  “You think they meant to burn the town?” asked Woodpecker, shielding his nose with his hand. Velantos glimpsed a new knot of men trotting up the ramp, handed the jug back to Woodpecker, and grabbed his bow. He had not his brother’s precision, but his work in the forge gave him a range they would not expect, and packed as they were, any arrow he loosed was bound to hit someone.

  “I doubt it,” Velantos replied as the enemy recoiled and swung up their shields. “It’s been abandoned since they arrived, so they’ve had time to collect any valuables left behind. The fires they built to light their fire-arrows must have gotten out of hand. The smoke must be making it hard for the men who are trying to get up our walls. One advantage of being a defender,” he added with bitter humor. “It takes less energy.”

  “My lord—” One of Aiaison’s slaves appeared in the stairwell. “They are running low on arrows above the gate.”

  Velantos turned, trying to assess the activity on the other walls. “Go to the western bastion and see if they have any to spare. That wall will give the scum a hard time no matter what we do.” It still seemed strange for men to come to him for orders, but he was not only the king’s son, but one of the only unwounded men of fighting age. “Wait—” he added as the man turned away. “If they break through, I want you both to take refuge in the Lady’s shrine. That may stop them from killing you out of hand, and when they know you are slaves you will be spared.” The goddess who had watched over him since the first day he picked up a hammer seemed very distant now, but perhaps her image still had power.

  “I loved Prince Aiaison—” the slave said reproachfully. “And I am still a man. You cannot prevent me from doing what I may to avenge him.”

  Velantos closed his eyes against the pain of that reminder. The stones of the great courtyard were still black from the pyre on which Aiaison and his brothers had burned. May the ancestors receive him kindly, he thought grimly. May they welcome us all.

  “And I will stay with you!” Woodpecker gave him an impudent grin when the other man had gone.

  Velantos glared. How could he expect to command warriors when he could not make one young slave obey? But a dead body was neither slave nor free, and all of them were dead men now. His anger gave way to a wave of sadness. Before this began he should have freed the boy and sent him to follow the wild geese to his northern home.

  Another contingent crowded through the opening in the wall and up the corridor toward the gate, overlapping shields like the scales of some great serpent. He straightened with an oath as he realized they were bringing up a battering ram. The main gate of Tiryns was as mighty as the one at Mykenae, but the weakness of any gate was its timbers. Theirs had come from the mighty oaks that grew in the mountains, but wood could not endure like stone.

  A rending crash from below brought him to his feet, staring, Woodpecker leaped to the parapet.

  “The gate! The wood is in pieces. They’ll use axes now.”

  Velantos nodded. “In a moment they will be through.”

  He was surprised to hear his voice so calm. He could hear a muffled clamor as the attackers pushed through the roofed corridor beyond the Gate. The defenders had broken holes in its ceiling through which they were shooting, but on the roof they had no cover and the enemy had archers too.

  The life he had known was shattering. It was odd how little he felt, now that the time had come. He began to understand why his brothers had yearned for battle. Everything had suddenly become very simple. He nocked another arrow and sent it toward the men who were still crowding up the ramp. He would shoot until he had no arrows left. Then he would draw the leaf-shaped blade whose form he had learned from his foes, and strike—not until there were no more enemies, but until they cut him down.

  More crashes told him that the enemy had broken through the double doors at the end of the roofed corridor.

  “Woodpecker”—he cleared his throat—“you have done more than enough. It is time to seek what refuge you may.”

  The boy shook his head. “I told you already. I stay with you.”

  Unexpectedly Velantos grinned. “You have put muscle on those skinny arms, helping me at the forge, but even your strong arm will do no good once they get this far. There are too many, lad. Go to the smithy. Your hair and skin will tell them that you are no man of this land. Tell them you understand forgework and they will spare you.”

  Reflexively he touched the hammer he had thrust through his belt that morning when he said farewell to the smithy. It was not a warrior’s weapon, but if—no, when it came to close enough quarters for him to use it, no one else would be left to care.

  “Lord, I want no other master. I know them, or men like them. Better to die with you.”

  Were those tears that glimmered in the boy’s dark eyes? It must be the smoke, he told himself. His own eyes were smarting too.

  “Must I make it an order? Or bind you and have you carried below?” Velantos glared. “I will do that if you do not obey! You have served me well, but this is not your fight. We are not your people. Go!” For a moment he thought the boy would continue to argue, but Woodpecker gulped, bent suddenly to seize and kiss his master’s hand, and clattered down the stairs.

  Velantos let out his breath on a long sigh. Everything that he had said was true. He told himself that at least he had saved one of those he cared for, but his post seemed suddenly very lonely. No matter, he thought grimly as the sounds of slaughter grew louder. He would have plenty of company soon.

  The sound of combat echoed from the lower levels but a great quiet seemed to surround him. “Goddess, I’ve had little time to speak to you and nothing to offer,” he whispered, “and now all the time is gone. I thank you for the help you’ve given me. Farewell . . .” He closed his eyes, seeing in memory the image below which Woodpecker was no doubt sheltering now. And in that moment he felt a stir in his awareness and a voice in the silence of his soul.

  “Do not lose hope. We have work for you still . . .”

  Before he could wonder what
he had heard, or if indeed there had been anything at all, the first rush reached the court below. He set another arrow to the bow, feeling his muscles creak as he drew the string back to his ear. He could hear the thud of axes once more as the enemy reached the barricade they had thrown up across the passage to the Great Propylon. But the monumental entry, with its red pillars and painted processional scenes, had been intended to impress with its beauty, not its strength. It would not hold them long. As more and more men poured through, he continued to shoot into the crowd, dodging as javelins arched upward, bounced off the parapet, and rattled across the floor.

  A shriek from the southern side of the citadel brought him around, staring. Velantos had known the attack on the western bastion to be a feint—it was the strongest of their defenses. But he had thought the southern face of the akropolis too sheer to tempt an assault. The oversight hardly mattered, for even if he had suspected its vulnerability they had no men to defend it. He could see the first foes to get over threading through the passageways between the buildings now.

  He tried to remember whom he had put in charge of defending the propylon.

  “Andaros—beware behind you!” he yelled as they burst into the open space before the entry to the courtyard. He nocked an arrow and shot, saw a man near the leader fling his arms wide and fall with the black feathers sticking from his chest, reached for another and scraped his fingers on stone. All his arrows were gone.

  With an oath he flung down the useless bow and reached for his sword, leaped from the platform to the roof, and from that to another and ran across to the Archive Room, praying that the ladder by which in other times the women had climbed up to watch the moonrise would still be there. As he reached the ground, he saw the defenders edging back from the inner door of the propylon into the outer court, swinging around to face the new threat behind them. No need to guess what the enemy intended—the citadels were all built to the same plan. One had only to go upward to reach the central courtyard and the megaron beyond it. And there they would find the king.