The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
- Performer: -
Book online «The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖». Author Eric Rücker Eddison
keep my tears (which be great spoilers of the cheeks beside) until I
need ‘em.”
When they were passed by, “Is it not a stony-livered and a shameless
hussy, O my mother?” said Sriva. “And is it not scandalous her
laughing and jestings; as I have told it thee, when she did bid him
adieu, devising only how best she might coax him to save the life of
yonder chambering traitorous hound?”
“With whom,” said Zenambria, “she wont to do the thing I’d think shame
to speak on. Truly this foreign madam with her loose and wanton ways
doth scandal the whole land for us.”
But Prezmyra went her way, glad that she had not by an eyelid’s
flicker let her lord guess what a dread possessed her mind, who had in
all the bitter night seen strange and cruel visions portending loss
and ruin of all she held dear.
Now, when dawn appeared, was the King’s whole army drawn out in battle
array before the bridgehouse. Corinius held command on the left.
There followed him fifteen hundred chosen troops of Witchland, with
the Dukes of Trace and Estreganzia, besides these kings and princes
with their outlandish levies: the king of Mynia, Count Escobrine of
Tzeusha, and the Red Foliot. Corsus led the centre, and with him went
King Erp of Ellien and his green-coated sling-casters, the king of
Nevria, Axtacus lord of Permio, the king of Gilta, Olis of Tecapan,
and other captains: seventeen hundred men in all. The right the Lord
Corund had chosen for himself. Two thousand Witchland troops, the
likeliest and best, hardened to war in Impland and Demonland and the
southeastern borders, followed his standard, beside the heavy spearmen
of Baltary and swordsmen of Buteny and Ar. Viglus his son was there,
and the Count of Thramnë, Cadarus, Didarus of Largos, and the lord of
Estremerine.
But when the Demons were ware of that great army standing before the
bridge-gate, they put themselves in array for battle. And their ships
made ready to move up the river under Carcë, if by any means they
might attack the bridge by water and so cut off for the Witches their
way of retreat.
It was bright low sunshine, and the splendour of the jewelled armour
of the Demons and their many-coloured kirtles and the plumes that were
in their helms was a wonder to behold. This was the order of their
battle. On their left nearest the river was a great company of horse,
and the Lord Brandoch Daha to lead them on a great golden dun with
fiery eyes. His island men, Melchar and Tharmrod, with Kamerar of
Stropardon and Strykmir and Stypmar, were the chief captains that rode
with him to that battle. Next to these came the heavy troops from the
east, and the Lord Juss himself their leader on a tall fierce big-boned
chestnut. About him was his picked bodyguard of horse, with
Bremery of Shaws their captain; and in his battle were these chiefs
besides: Astar of Rettray and Gismor Gleam of Justdale and Peridor of
Sule. Lord Spitfire led the centre, and with him Fendor of Shalgreth,
and Emeron, and the men of Dalney, great spearmen; also the Duke of
Azumel, sometime allied with Witchland. There went also with him the
Lord Gro, that scanned still those ancient walls with a heavy heart,
thinking on the great King within, and with what mastery of intellect
and will he ruled those dark turbulent and bloody men who bare sway
under him; thinking on Queen Prezmyra. To his sick imagining, the
blackness of Carcë which no bright morning light might lighten seemed
not as of old the image and emblem of the royal house of Witchland and
their high magnificency and power on earth, but rather the shadow
thrown before of destiny and death ready to put down that power for
ever. Which whether it should so befall or no he did not greatly care,
being aweary of life and life’s fevers, wild longings, and exorbitant
affects, whereof he thought he had now learned much: that to him, who
as it seemed must still adhere to his own foes abandoning the others’
service, fortune through whatever chop could bring no peace at last.
On the Demon right the Lord Goldry Bluszco streamed his standard,
leading to battle the south-firthers and the heavy spearmen of
Mardardale and Throwater. With him was King Gaslark and his army of
Goblinland, and levies from Ojedia and Eushtlan, lately revolted from
their allegiance to King Gorice. The Lord Zigg, with his light horse
of Rammerick and Kelialand and the northern dales, covered their flank
to the eastward.
Gorice the King beheld these dispositions from his tower above the
water-gate. He beheld, besides, a thing the Demons might not see from
below, for a little swelling of the ground that cut off their view:
the marching of men far away along the Way of Kings from the eastward:
young Heming with the vassalry of Pixyland and Maltraeny. He sent a
trusty man to apprise Corund of it.
Now Lord Juss let blow up the battle call, and with the loud braying
of the trumpets the hosts of the Demons swung forth to battle. And the
clash of those armies when they met before Carcë was like the bursting
of a thundercloud. But like a great sea-cliff patient for ages under
the storm-winds’ furies, that not one night’s loud wind and charging
breakers can wear away, nor yet a thousand thousand nights, the
embattled strength of Witchland met their onset, mixed with them,
flung them back, and stood unremoved. Corund’s iron battalions bare in
this first brunt the heaviest load, and bare it through. For the
ships, with young Hesper Golthring in command most fiercely urging
them, ran up the river to force the bridge, and Corund whiles he met
on his front the onset of the flower of Demonland must still be shot
at by these behind. Hacmon and Viglus, those young princes his sons,
were charged with the warding of the bridge and walls to burn and
break up their ships. And they of all hands bestirring them twice and
thrice threw back the Demons when they had gotten a footing on the
bridge; until in fine, both sides for a long space fighting very
cruelly, it fell out very fatally against Hesper and his power, his
ships all lighted in a lowe and the more part of his folk burned or
drowned or slain with the sword; and himself after many and grievous
wounds in his last attempt left alone on the bridge, and crawling to
have got away was stabbed in with a dagger and died.
After this the ships fell back down the river, so many as might avail
thereto, and those sons of Corund, their task manfully fulfilled, came
forth with their folk to join in the main battle. And the smoke of the
burning ships was like incense in the nostrils of the King watching
these things from his tower above the water-gate.
Little pause was there betwixt this first brunt and the next, for
Heming now bare down from the east, drave in Zigg’s horsemen that were
hampered in the heavy ground, and pressed his onset home on the Demon
right. Along the whole line from Corund’s post beside the river to the
eastern flank where Heming joined Corinius the Witches now set on most
fiercely; and now were the odds of numbers, which were at first
against them, swung mightily in their favour, and under this great
side-blow on his flank not all the Lord Goldry Bluszco’s soldiership
nor all the terror of his might in arms could uphold the Demons’
battle-line. Yard by yard they fell back before the Witches, most
gloriously maintaining their array unbroken, though the outland allies
broke and fled. Meantime on the Demon left Juss and Brandoch Daha most
stubbornly withstood that onslaught, albeit they had to do with the
first and chosen troops of Witchland. In which struggle befell the
most bloody fighting that was yet seen that day, and the stour of
battle so asper and so mortal that it was hard to see how any man
should come out from it with life, since not a man of either side
would budge an inch but die there in his steps if he might not rather
slay the foe before him. So the armies swayed for an hour like
wrastlers locked, but in the end the Lord Corund had his way and held
his ground before the bridge-gate.
Romenard of Dalney, galloping to Lord Juss where he paused a while
panting from violence of the battle brought him by Spitfire’s command
tidings from the right: telling him Goldry’s self could hold no longer
against such odds: that the centre yet held, but at the next onset was
like to break, or the right wing else be driven in upon their rear and
all overwhelmed: “If your highness cannot throw back Corund, all is
lost.”
In these short minutes’ lull (if lull it were when all the time the
battle like a sounding sea rolled on with a ceaseless noise of riding
and slaying and the clang of arms), Juss chose. Demonland and the
whole world’s destinies hung on his choice. He had no counsellor. He
had no time for slow deliberation. In such a moment imagination,
resolution, swift decision, all high gifts of nature, are nought:
swift horses gulfed and lost in the pit which fate the enemy digged in
the way before them; except painful knowledge, stored up patiently
through years of practice, shall have prepared a road sure and clean
for their flying hooves to bear them in the great hour of destiny. So
it was from the beginning with all great captains: so with the Lord
Juss in that hour when ruin swooped upon his armies. For two minutes’
space he stood silent; then sent Bremery of Shaws galloping westward
like one minded to break his neck with his orders to Lord Brandoch
Daha, and Romenard eastward again to Spitfire. And Juss himself riding
forward among his soldiers shouted among them in a voice that was like
a trumpet thundering, that they should now make ready for the fiercest
trial of all.
“Is my cousin mad?” said Lord Brandoch Daha, when he saw and
understood the whole substance and matter of it. “Or hath he found
Corund so tame to deal with he can make shift without me and well nigh
half his strength, and yet withstand him?”
“He looseth this hold,” answered Bremery, “to snatch at safety. ‘Tis
desperate, but all other ways we but wait on destruction. Our right is
clean driven in, the left holdeth but hardly. He chargeth your
highness break their centre if you may. They have somewhat dangerously
advanced their left, and therein is their momentary peril if we be
swift enough. But remember that here, o’ this side, is their greatest
power before us, and if we be ‘whelmed ere you can compass it–”
“No more but Yes,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Time gallopeth: so must
we.”
Even so in that hour when Goldry and Zigg, giving way step by step
before superior odds, were bent back well nigh with their backs to the
river, and Corund on the Demons’ left had after a bitter battle
checked and held them and threatened now to complete in one more great
blow the ruin of them all, Juss, choosing a desperate expedient to
meet a danger that else must destroy him, weakened his hard-pressed
left to throw Brandoch Daha and well nigh eight hundred horse into
Spitfire’s battle to drive a wedge betwixt Corsus and Corinius.
It was now long past noon. The tempest of battle that had quietened
awhile for utter
Comments (0)