The Eternal Champion

  Then we were fighting.

  My followers took care to stay away from me as the sword opened pale wounds in the Eldren foes, destroying all whom it even lightly cut. Many Eldren died beneath Kanajana, but there was no battle-joy in me as I fought, for I was still furious with my own people’s actions and there was no skill needed for such slaying—the Eldren were shocked at the death of their commander and they were plainly half-dead with weariness, though they fought bravely.

  Indeed, the slender ships seemed to hold more men than I had estimated. The long-skulled Eldren, well aware that my sword touch was lethal, flung themselves at me with desperate and ferocious courage.

  Many of them wielded long-hafted axes, swinging at me out of reach of my sword. The sword was no sharper than any ordinary blade and, although I hacked at the shafts, I succeeded only in splintering them slightly. I had constantly to duck, stab beneath the whirling axe blades.

  A young, golden-haired Eldren leaped at me, swung his axe and it smashed against my shoulder plate, knocking me off balance.

  I rolled, trying desperately to regain my footing on the blood-smeared deck. The axe smashed down again, onto my breastplate, winding me. I struggled up into a crouching position, plunged forward beneath the axe and slashed at the Eldren’s bared wrist.

  A peculiar sobbing grunt escaped his lips. He groaned and died. The “poison” of the blade had done its work yet again. I still did not understand how the metal itself could be poisoned, but there was no doubting its effectiveness. I straightened up, my bruised body throbbing as I stared down at the brave young Eldren who now lay at my feet. Then I looked about me.

  * * *

  I saw that we had the advantage. The last pocket of fiercely fighting Eldren was on the main deck, back to back around their banner—a scarlet field bearing the silver basilisk of Mernadin.

  I stumbled towards the fray. The Eldren were fighting to the last man. They knew they would receive no mercy from their human enemies.

  I stopped. The warriors had no need of help from me. I sheathed my sword and watched as the Eldren were engulfed by our forces and, although all badly wounded, continued to fight until slain.

  I looked about me. A peculiar silence seemed to surround the two locked ships, though in the distance the sound of cannon could still be heard.

  Then Katorn, who had led the attack on the last Eldren defenders, snatched down their basilisk banner and flung it into the flowing Eldren blood. Insanely he began to trample the flag until it was completely soaked and unrecognizable.

  “Thus will all the Eldren perish!” he screamed in his mad triumph. “All! All! All!”

  He stumbled below to see what loot there was.

  The silence returned. The drifting smoke began to dissipate and hang higher in the air above us, obscuring the sunlight.

  Now that the flagship was ours, the day was won. Not a single prisoner would be taken. In the distance the victorious human warriors were busy firing the Eldren vessels. There seemed to be no Eldren ships left uncaptured, none fleeing over the horizon. Many of our own ships had been destroyed or were sinking in flames. Both sides’ craft were stretched across a vast expanse of water and the ocean itself was covered by so great and thick a carpet of wreckage and corpses that it seemed as if the remaining ships were embedded in it.

  I, for one, felt trapped by it. I wanted to leave this scene as soon as possible. The smell of the dead choked me. This was not the battle I had expected to fight. This was not the glory I had hoped to win.

  Katorn re-emerged with a look of satisfaction on his dark face.

  “You’re empty-handed,” I said. “Why so pleased?”

  He wiped his lips. “Duke Baynahn had his daughter with him.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “Not now.”

  I shuddered.

  Katorn stretched up his head and looked around him. “Good. We’ve finished them. I’ll give orders to fire the remaining vessels.”

  “Surely,” I said, “that is a waste. We could use their ships to replace those we have lost.”

  “Use these cursed craft? Never.” He spoke with a twist of his mouth and strode to the rail of the Eldren flagship, shouting to his men to follow him back to their own vessel.

  I came reluctantly, looking back to where the corpse of the betrayed Duke Baynahn still lay, the crossbow bolt projecting from his slender neck.

  Then I clambered aboard our ship and I gave the orders to save what grapples we could and cut away the rest.

  King Rigenos greeted me. He had taken no part in the actual fighting. “You did well, Erekosë. Why, you could have taken that ship single-handed.”

  “I could have,” I said. “I could have taken the whole fleet single-handed.”

  He laughed. “You are very confident! The whole fleet!”

  “Aye. There was one way.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “If you had let me fight Duke Baynahn—as he suggested—many lives and many ships would have been saved. Our lives. Our ships.”

  “You surely did not trust him? The Eldren will always try some trick like that. Doubtless, if you had agreed to his plan, you would have stepped aboard his ship and been cut down by a hundred arrows. Believe me, Erekosë, you must not be deceived by them. Our ancestors were so deceived—and look how we suffer now.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe you are right.”

  “Of course I am right.” King Rigenos turned his head and called to our crew. “Fire the ship! Fire that cursed Eldren craft! Hurry, you laggards!”

  He was in a good humour was King Rigenos. A great good humour.

  I watched as blazing arrows were accurately shot into bales of combustible materials which had been placed in strategic parts of the Eldren ship.

  The slender vessel soon caught. The bodies of the slain began to burn and oily smoke struck upward to the sky. The ship drifted away, its silver cannon like the snouts of slaughtered beasts, its glistening sails dropping in flaming ribbons to the already flaming deck. It gave a long shudder suddenly as if expiring the last of its life.

  “Put a couple of shots below the waterline,” Katorn shouted to his gunners. “Let’s make sure the thing sinks once and for all.”

  Our brazen cannon snarled and the heavy shot smashed into the Eldren flagship, sending up gouts of water and crashing through the timbers.

  The flagship yawed, but still seemed to be trying to stay upright. Her drifting went slower and slower as she settled lower in the water until she had stopped altogether. And then all at once she sank swiftly and was gone.

  I thought of the Eldren duke. I thought of his daughter.

  And something in me envied them. They would know eternal peace, just as it seemed I should know nothing but eternal strife.

  Our fleet began to reassemble.

  We had lost thirty-eight men-o’-war and a hundred and ten smaller craft of different types.

  But nothing remained of the Eldren fleet.

  Nothing but the burning hulks which we left, sinking, behind us as we sailed, in battle-thirsty glee, for Paphanaal.

  13

  PAPHANAAL

  FOR THE REST of our sailing towards Paphanaal, I avoided both Katorn and King Rigenos. Perhaps they were right and the Eldren could not be trusted. But should we not set some kind of example?

  On the second night of the voyage after the big battle with the Eldren, Count Roldero visited me.

  “You did well there,” he said. “Your tactics were superb. And I hear you accounted well for yourself in the hand-to-hand fighting.” He looked about him in mock fear and whispered, jerking his thumb at a vague spot above him, “But I hear Rigenos decided that it was best he did not put the royal person in danger, lest we warriors lose heart.”

  “Oh,” I said, “Rigenos has a fair point. He came with us, don’t forget. He could have stayed behind. We all expected him to. Did you hear of the order he gave while the truce was on with the enemy commander?”

>   Roldero sniffed. “Had him shot by Katorn?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well…” Roldero grinned at me. “You make allowances for Rigenos’s cowardice and I’ll make allowances for his treachery!” He burst into gusty laughter. “That’s fair, eh?”

  I could not help smiling. But later, more seriously, I said: “Would you have done the same, Roldero?”

  “Oh, I expect so. War, after all…”

  “But Baynahn was prepared to fight me. He must have known his chances were slim. He must have known, too, that Rigenos could not be trusted to keep his word.”

  “If he did, then he would have acted as Rigenos acted. It was just that Rigenos was quicker. Merely tactics, you see—the trick is to gauge the exact moment to be treacherous.”

  “Baynahn did not look like one who would have acted treacherously.”

  “He was probably a very kind man and treated his family well. I told you, Erekosë, it is not Baynahn’s character I dispute. I just say that, as a warrior, he would have tried what Rigenos succeeded in doing—eliminating the enemy’s chief. It is one of the basic principles of warfare!”

  “Do you say so, Roldero?”

  “I do say so. Now drink up.”

  I did drink up. And I drank deep and I drank myself stupid. Now there were not merely the dream memories to contend with, but much more recent memories, too.

  * * *

  Another night came before we reached the harbour city of Paphanaal and we lay at anchor, a sea league or so offshore.

  Then, in the shifting dawn of the morrow, we upped anchors and rowed in towards Paphanaal, for there was no wind to fill our sails.

  Nearer we came to land.

  I saw cliffs and black mountains rising.

  Nearer.

  I saw a flash of brighter colour to the east of us.

  “Paphanaal!” shouted the lookout from his precarious perch in the top trees.

  Nearer.

  And there was Paphanaal.

  She was undefended as far as we could make out. We had left her defenders on the bottom of the ocean, far behind.

  There were no domes on this city, no minarets. There were steeples and buttresses and battlements, all close together. They made the city seem like one great palace. The materials of their construction were breathtaking. There was white marble veined with pink, blue, green and yellow. Orange marble, veined with black. Marble faced with gold, basalt and quartz and bluestone in abundance.

  It was a shining city.

  As we came closer, we saw no one on the quaysides, no one in the streets or on the battlements. I assumed that the city had been deserted.

  I was wrong.

  * * *

  We put in to the great harbour and disembarked. I formed our armies into disciplined ranks and warned them of a possible trap, although I did not really believe there could be one.

  The warriors had spent the rest of the voyage repairing their clothes and their armour, cleaning their weapons and making repairs to their ships.

  All the ships crowded the harbour now, their flags waving in the light breeze that had come up almost as soon as we set foot on the cobblestones of the quay. Clouds came in with the breeze and made the day grey.

  The warriors stood before King Rigenos, Katorn and myself. Rank upon rank they stood, their armour bright, their heavy banners moving sluggishly.

  There were seven hundred divisions, each hundred divisions commanded by a marshal, who had as his commanders his captains, who controlled twenty-five divisions each, and his knights, who controlled one division.

  The wine had helped fade the memory of the battle and I felt the return of my old pride as I stood looking at the paladins and armies of Humanity assembled before me. I addressed them.

  “Marshals, Captains, Knights and Warriors of Humanity, you have seen me to be a victorious war leader.”

  “Aye!” they roared, jubilant.

  “We shall be victorious here and elsewhere in the land of Mernadin. Go now, with caution, and search these buildings for Eldren. But be careful. This city could hide an army, remember!”

  Count Roldero spoke up from the front rank.

  “And booty, Lord Erekosë. What of that?”

  King Rigenos waved his hand. “Take what booty you desire. But remember what Erekosë has said—be wary for such things as poisoned food. Even the wine-cups could be smeared with poison. Anything in this damned city could be poisoned!”

  The divisions began to march past us, each taking a different direction.

  I watched them go and I thought that, while the city received them into its heart, it did not welcome them.

  I wondered what we would find in Paphanaal. Traps? Hidden snipers? Everything poisoned, as Rigenos had said?

  * * *

  We found a city of women.

  Not one Eldren man had remained.

  Not one boy over twelve. Not one old man of any age.

  We had slain them all at sea.

  14

  ERMIZHAD

  I DID NOT know how they slew the children. I begged King Rigenos not to give the order. I pleaded with Katorn to spare them—to drive them from the city if he must, but not to kill them.

  But the children were slain. I do not know how many.

  * * *

  We had taken over the palace which had belonged to Duke Baynahn himself. He had, it transpired, been warden of Paphanaal.

  I shut myself in my quarters while the slaughter went on outside. I reflected sardonically that for all their talk of the Eldren “filth”, they did not seem to mind forcing their attentions on the Eldren women.

  There was nothing I could do. I did not even know if there was anything I should do. I had been brought here by Rigenos to fight for Humanity, not to judge it. I had agreed to answer his summons, after all—doubtless with reason. But I had forgotten any reason.

  I sat in a room that was exquisitely furnished with delicate furniture and fine, light tapestries on walls and floor. I looked at the Eldren craftsmanship and I sipped the aromatic Eldren wine and I tried not to listen to the cries of the Eldren children as they were butchered in their beds in the houses in the streets beyond the thin palace walls.

  I looked at Kanajana, which I had propped in a corner, and I hated the poisoned thing. I had stripped myself of my armour and I sat alone.

  And I drank more wine.

  But the wine of the Eldren began to taste of blood and I tossed the cup away and found a skin that Count Roldero had given me and sucked it dry of the bitter wine it contained.

  But I could not get drunk. I could not stop the screams from the streets. I could not fail to see the flickering shadows on the tapestries I had drawn over the windows. I could not get drunk and therefore I could not even begin to try to sleep, for I knew what my dreams would be and I feared those almost as much as I feared thinking of the implications of what we were doing to those who were left in Paphanaal.

  Why was I here? Oh, why was I here?

  There was a noise outside my door and then a knock.

  “Enter,” I said.

  No one entered. My voice had been too low.

  The knock sounded again.

  I rose and walked unsteadily to the door and flung it open.

  “Can you not leave me in peace?”

  A frightened soldier of the Imperial Guard stood there. “Lord Erekosë, forgive me for disturbing you, but I bear a message from King Rigenos.”

  “What’s the message?” I said without interest.

  “He would like you to join him. He says that there are still plans to discuss.”

  I sighed. “Very well. I will come down shortly.”

  The soldier hurried off along the corridor.

  * * *

  At last, reluctantly, I rejoined the other conquerors. All the marshals were there, lounging on cushions and celebrating their victory. King Rigenos was there and he was so drunk that I envied him. And, to my relief, Katorn was not there.

  Doubtless he
was leading the looters.

  As I came into the hall, a huge cheer went up from the marshals and they raised their wine-cups in a toast to me.

  I ignored them and walked to where the king was seated alone, staring vacantly into space.

  “You wish to discuss further campaigns, King Rigenos,” I said. “Are you sure?”

  “Ah, my friend Erekosë. The Immortal. The Champion. The saviour of Humanity. Greetings, Erekosë.” He put a hand drunkenly on my arm. “You disapprove of my unkingly insobriety, I see.”

  “I disapprove of nothing,” I said. “I have been drinking much myself.”

  “But you—an Immortal—can contain your—” he belched—“can contain your liquor.”

  I took pains to smile and said: “Perhaps you have stronger liquor. If so, let me try it.”

  “Slave!” screamed King Rigenos. “Slave! More of that wine for my friend Erekosë!”

  A curtain parted and a trembling Eldren boy appeared. He was bearing a wineskin almost as large as himself.

  “I see you have not slain all the children,” I said.

  King Rigenos giggled. “Not yet. Not while there are uses for them!”

  I took the wineskin from the child and nodded to him. “You may go.” I held the skin and put the opening to my lips and began to drink deeply. But still the wine refused to dull my brain. I hurled the skin away and it fell heavily and slopped wine over the tapestries and cushions covering the floor.

  King Rigenos continued to giggle. “Good! Good!”

  These people were barbarians. Suddenly I wished that I was John Daker again. Studious, unhappy John Daker, living his quiet, cut-off life in the pursuit of pointless learning.

  I turned to leave.

  “Stay, Erekosë. I’ll sing a song. It’s a filthy song about the filthy Eldren.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “It’s already tomorrow!”

  “I must rest.”

  “I am your king, Erekosë. You owe your material form to me. Do not forget that!”

  “I have not forgotten.”

  The doors of the hall burst open then and they dragged in the girl.