The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
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chin on his folded arms, his helm laid aside so they should not see it
glint from below; quiet like a cat: half asleep you’d say; but his
eyes were awake, looking down on Krothering. ‘Twas well seen even from
so far away how vilely they had used it.
“The great red sun leaped out o’ the eastern cloudbanks. A stir began
in their camp below: standards set up, men gathering thereto, ranks
forming, bugles sounding; then a score of horse galloping up the road
from Gashterndale into the camp. His highness, without turning his
head, beckoned with’s hand to me to call his captains. I ran and
fetched ‘em. He gave ‘em swift commands, pointing down where the
Witchland swine rolled out their battle; thieves and pirates who
robbed his highness’ subjects within his streams; with standard and
pennons and glistering naked spears, moving northward from the tents.
Then in the quiet came a sound made a man’s heart leap within him:
faint out of the far hollows of Gashterndale, the trumpet of my Lord
Juss’s battlecall.
“My Lord Brandoch Daha paused a minute, looking down. Then a turned
him about with face that shone like the morning, ‘Fair lords,’ a
saith, ‘now lightly on horseback, for Juss fighteth against his
enemies.’ I think he was well content. I think he was sure he would
that day get his heart’s syth of every one that had wronged him.
“That was a long ride down from Erngate End. With all our hearts’
blood drumming us to haste, we must yet go warily, picking our way i’
that tricky ground, steep as a roof-slope, uneven and with no sure
foothold, with sikes in wet moss and rocks outcropping and shifting
screes. There was nought but leave it to the horses, and bravely they
brought us down the steeps. We were not half way down ere we heard and
saw how battle was joined. So intent were the Witchlanders on my
Lord’s main army, I think we were off the steep ground and forming for
the charge ere they were ware of us. Our trumpeters sounded his battle
challenge, Who meddles wi’ Brandoch Daha? and we came down on to
Krothering Side like a rock-fall.
“I scarce know what way the battle went, father. ‘Twas like a meeting
of streams in spate. I think they opened to us right and left to ease
the shock. They that were before us went down like standing corn under
a hailstorm. We wheeled both ways, some ‘gainst their right that was
thrown back toward the camp, the more part with my Lord Brandoch Daha
to our own right. I was with these in the main battle. His highness
rode a hot stirring horse very fierce and dogged; knee to knee with
him went Styrkmir of Blackwood o’ the one side and Tharmrod o’ the
other. Neither man nor horse might stand up before ‘em, and they
faring as in a maze now this way now that, amid the thrumbling and
thrasting o’ the footmen, heads and arms smitten off, men hewn in
sunder from crown to belly, ay, to the saddle, riderless horses
maddened, blood splashed up from the ground like the slush from a
marsh.
“So for a time, till we had spent the vantage of our onset and felt
for the first time the weight of their strength. For Corinius, as it
appeareth, was now himself ridden from the vanward where he had beat
back for a time our main army, and set on against my Lord Brandoch
Daha with horsemen and spearmen; and commanded his sling-casters
besides to let freely at us and drive us toward the camp.
“And now in the great swing of the battle were we carried back to the
camp again; and there was a sweet devils’ holiday: horses and men
tripping over tent-ropes, tents torn down, crashes of broken crockery,
and King Laxus come thither with sailors from the fleet, hamstringing
our horses while Corinius charged us from the north and east. That
Corinius beareth him in battle more like a devil from Hell than a
mortal man. I’ the first two strokes of’s sword he overthrew two of
our best captains, Romenard of Dalney and Emeron Galt. Styrkmir, that
stood in’s way to stop him, a flung down with’s spear, horse and man.
They say he met twice with my Lord Brandoch Daha that day, but each
time were they parted in the press ere they might rightly square
together.
“I have stood in some goodly battles, father, as well thou knowest:
first following my Lord and my Lord Goldry Bluszco in foreign parts,
and last year in the great rout at Crossby Outsikes, and again with my
Lord Spitfire when he smote the Witches on Brima Rapes, and in the
murthering great battle under Thremnir’s Heugh. But never was I in
fight like to this of yesterday.
“Never saw I such feats of arms. As witness Kamerar of Stropardon, who
with a great two-handed sword hewed off his enemy’s leg close to the
hip, so huge a blow the blade sheared through leg and saddle and horse
and all. And Styrkmir of Blackwood, rising like a devil out of a heap
of slain men, and though’s helm was lossen and a was bleeding from
three or four great wounds a held off a dozen o’ the Witches with’s
deadly thrusts and swordstrokes, till they had enough and gave back
before him: twelve before one, and he given over for dead a while
before. But all great deeds seemed trash beside the deeds of my Lord
Brandoch Daha. In one short while had he three times a horse slain
stark dead under him, yet gat never a wound himself, which was a
marvel. For without care he rode through and about, smiting down their
champions. I mind me of him once, with’s horse ripped and killed under
him, and one of those Witchland lords that tilted at him on the ground
as he leaped to’s feet again; how a caught the spear with’s two hands
and by main strength yerked his enemy out o’ the saddle. Prince Cargo
it was, youngest of Corund’s sons. Long may the Witchland ladies
strain their dear eyes, they’ll ne’er see yon hendy lad come sailing
home again.‘8 His highness swapt him such a swipe o’ the neck-bone as
he pitched to earth, the head of him flew i’ the air like a tennis
ball. And i’ the twinkling of an eye was my Lord Brandoch Daha horsed
again on’s enemy’s horse, and turned to charge ‘em anew. You’d say his
arm must fail at last for weariness, of a man so lithe and jimp to
look on. Yet I think his last stroke i’ that battle was not lighter
than the first. And stones and spears and swordstrokes seemed to come
upon him with no more impression than blows with a straw would give to
an adamant.
“I know not how long was that fight among the tents. Only ‘twas the
best fight I ever was at, and the bloodiest. And by all tellings ‘twas
as great work o’ the other part, where my Lord and his folk fought
their way up on to the Side. But of that we knew nothing. Yet certain
it is we had all been dead men had my Lord not there prevailed, as
certain ‘tis he had never so prevailed but for our charging of their
flank when they first advanced against him. But in that last hour all
we that fought among the tents thought each man only of this, how he
might slay yet one more Witch, and yet again one more, afore he should
die. For Corinius in that hour put forth his might to crush us; and
for every enemy there felled to earth two more seemed to be raised up
against us. And our own folk fell fast, and the tents that were so
white were one gore of blood.
“When I was a little tiny boy, father, we had a sport, swimming in the
deep pools of Tivarandarwater, that one boy would catch ‘tother and
hold him under till he could no more for want of breath. Methinks
there’s no longing i’ the world so sore as the longing for air when he
that is stronger than thou grippeth thee still under the water, nor no
gladness i’ the world like the bonny sweet air i’ thy lungs again when
a letteth thee shoot up to the free daylight. ‘Twas right so with us,
who had now said adieu to hope and saw all lost save life itself, and
that not like to tarry long; when we heard suddenly the thunder of my
Lord’s trumpet sounding to the charge. And ere our startled wits might
rightly think what that portended, was the whole surging battle
whipped and scattered like the water of a lake caught up in a white
squall; and that massed strength of the enemy which had invested us
round with so great a stream of shot and steel reeled first forward
then backward then forward again upon us, confounded in a vast
confusion. I trow new strength came to our arms; I trow our swords
opened their mouths. For northward we beheld the ensign of Galing
streaming like a blazing star; and my Lord’s self in a moment, high
advanced above the rout, and Zigg, and Astar, and hundreds of our
horse, hewing their way toward us whiles we hewed towards them. And
now was reaping time for us, and time of payment for all those weary
bloody hours we had held on to life with our teeth among the tents on
Krothering Side, while they o’ the other part, my Lord and his, had
with all the odds of the ground against them painfully and yard by
yard fought out the fight to victory. And now, ere we well wist of it,
the day was won, and the victory ours, and the enemy broken and put to
so great a rout as hath not been seen by living man.
“That false king Corinius, after he had tarried to see the end of the
battle, fled with a few of his men out of the great slaughter, and as
it later appeared gat him ashipboard in Aurwath harbour and with three
ships or four escaped to sea. But the most of their fleet was burned
there in the harbour to save it from our hands.
“My Lord gave command to take up the wounded and tend ‘em, friend and
foe alike. Among them was King Laxus ta’en up, stunned with a
mace-blow or some such. So they brought him before the lords where they
rested a little way down the Side above the home meads of Krothering.
“He looked ‘em all in the eye, most proud and soldierlike. Then a
saith unto my Lord, ‘It may be pain, but no shame to us to be
vanquished after so equal and so great a fight. Herein only do I blame
my ill luck, that it denied me fall in battle. Thou mayst now, O Juss,
strike off my head for the treason I wrought you three years ago. And
since I know thee of a courteous and noble nature, I’ll not scorn to
ask of thee this courtesy, not to tarry but take it now.’
“My Lord stood there like a warhorse after a breather. He took him by
the hand. ‘O Laxus,’ saith he, ‘I give thee not thy head only, but thy
sword;’ and here a gave it him hilt-foremost. ‘For thy dealings with
us in the battle of Kartadza, let time that hath an art to make dust
of all things so do with the memory of
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