Web of the Norns

IX

The next fit came just two nights later. He and Aker had been drinking late in a tent across the camp. They were weaving back, leaning on each other and singing one of the plaintive melodies of this world. Aker sang the verses and Grant came in, loud and flat, on the chorus.

A dark figure stepped out from behind a tent and landed a heavy blow on the back of Aker's head. The big soldier dropped, the breath whooshing from his limp body, and simultaneously Grant was backhanded to the ground by a gloved fist, his uncertain balance easily destroyed.

The man stepped out into the moonlight and Grant recognised the moustached corporal of the guard, on duty the day he and Aker arrived.

"Nobody spits in my face," the man muttered, and raised his foot to grind it down on Aker's face. As a burst of icy distance and rage shot through his brain, Grant swung his wooden sword up across the corporal's throat as if, by hatred, the wood had become a real sword. It seemed a light blow, but the man began to crumble together, then hunched over and poured blood out of his mouth as from a tilted bottle, and continued bending more and more until he folded down onto the ground, a shrunken and writhing bundle, rapidly becoming still. Grant stared numbly until he remembered he had heard of the deadly trick of breaking the larynx. Apparently he'd done it.

As Grant pulled himself to his feet, he became aware for the first time that someone else was there. The flap on a lighted tent had been thrown back and a man stood there watching. From the rings that flashed on his fingers, he must be a noble of some kind. He laughed suddenly, and Grant recognised him — the officer who had knocked him out on the drill field.

"Remember what I said, about controlling your temper."

He noticed Grant's tense position and laughed again. "Don't worry, I'm not going to turn you in. Anyone who hits a man in the midst of a good song deserves what he gets. Drag your friend in here and pour some wine down his throat. I want to hear the rest of that verse. I thought I knew all of them!"

He turned back for an instant. "Bring the body in too. The armour and weapons are yours by right of conquest, anyone who can kill with a wooden sword deserves a man's weapon."

The next day Grant swaggered through the camp in leather armour with a bow and quiver of arrows slung on his back and the weight of a light broadsword at his belt. He enjoyed the way the servants and slaves of the camp scurried out of his path, the deference they gave a fighting man, and noticed the eyes of the women camp followers turning to him as he went by.

Then he felt something like a fool as he carefully took off his armour at the practice field and picked up a wooden sword to practice with. He showed himself no more strong or skilled than the day before when he had been merely ranked as a slave. But he lost himself in the exercise and the day passed quickly. At the dinner call, Grant grounded his sword, suddenly aware of weariness, but aware he had learned and improved.

He went to buckle his armour back on. After only one day it was beginning to feel like a second skin and he had felt naked without it.

Aker went by with the stream of men heading for the stew line and slapped him on the shoulder as he passed, which he had been doing often since Grant had won his armour, his way of expressing his pleasure in what had happened.

At the meal line the word was passed. The cast of the Duke's dice had been favourable. Tomorrow they would fight. There was a rush of last minute readying of weapons, and a blowing of discordant bugles for formations.

They marched in the morning against the forces of the Independent Free State of the Tyrant Helbida. The Tyrant's castle stood some miles up the valley. They didn't reach it until afternoon.

The Duke's forces halted in a rough semi-circle about the base of the castle and awaited orders. The castle was of black stone and seemed to grow out of the rugged valley wall. Flags flew from the battlements and occasionally a helmeted head could be seen peering over the edge.

There was a parley and one of the Good Duke's men rode into the castle through an opened postern. Some time later, the gate clanged open and the officer rode back, clutching the bleeding place in his face where his nose had been.

This decided the Duke. He waved his sword, the bugles blew loudly off key, and the men surged forward. They crushed around Grant, who clutched at the spear he had been issued and was pushed forward.

The air was filled with arrows and the roar and crash of battle. The first line of men carried wide shields and scaling ladders which they placed against the sheer walls. Men were clambering up the ladders under a canopy of arrows from bowmen in the rear. Their fire was keeping the parapets fairly clear, but archers concealed behind the crenellations and fire slots poured down a withering rain of arrows at those on the ground.

Grant saw men dropping on all sides, but there were always more pressing from behind. Then he was in the comparative safety of the base of the wall, too close for the archers at the slots to see him. He got his hands on the rungs of a ladder and started to climb. At the next ladder he saw Aker Amen climbing rapidly.

Two forces pulled at him as he clutched the rough wooden rungs. He was conscious of a desire to prove his new-won strength and to keep up with Aker. But one corner of his civilised brain tried to drag him away from that deadly battle. What was the percentage of getting killed in some foolish little war?

No percentage at all Grant mumbled as he clawed his way up the ladder. But if you want to live like a man, you have to be ready to die like one.

The man ahead of him fell off when a heavy rock bounced from the top of his head. Grant tried to catch him but it was over too fast. Then he rapidly ran up the cleared ladder until be was two-thirds of the way to the top.

He turned, grinning, to shout to his friend Aker, just in time to see an arrow pierce Aker's neck from side to side. For an instant the big soldier's hands held their grip on the ladder, and Grant stared into the glazed, sightless eyes. Then Aker was gone over the side of the ladder, gone forever, and there was another man there climbing up from below.

Something hot snapped in Grant's head. Without any dizzying transition he was the berserker, cold with hate, and life became a simple matter of efficiently murdering the maximum number of the enemies of Aker Amen. He climbed.

Men were dying ahead of him, and then he was the first man on the ladder. The top of the wall was ahead, and an archer was peering down at him over a half-drawn bow. Grant drove his spear up into the man's eyesocket and pulled it back with a cold precision as the point crushed through flesh and bone. The man fell past him like a harpooned fish. Before another could fill the dead man's gap, Grant had a hand on the rough stone and pulled himself over the edge. A helmed knight swung a war axe down at his head and Grant barely rolled aside in time. The axe clanked a chip out of the granite crenellation. Before the knight could shift the axe, Grant had clutched him by the leg and thrown him over the edge of the parapet. The man's vanishing shout was followed by a satisfying clang from the foot of the wall.

In the instant before anyone else stepped forward, Grant managed to stand up and swing his spear in front of him. The point caught one of the Tyrant's men in the throat and he died with a hoarse gurgle. Though he was already dead the force of his rush sent him into Grant's arms. In the instant that Grant supported the corpse, three arrows thunked into its back.

The cold berserker rage controlled Grant's every move. He didn't drop the body — it made too good a shield for arrows. Instead he pried the broadsword from the convulsive death clutch of the man's fingers. Then he had time for his first look at the rest of the battle for the wall.

It wasn't going so well for the Good Duke. The few soldiers who had reached the wall were being rapidly killed, while cauldrons of hot oil were clearing the ladders below. On Grant's left there was a mixed tangle of battling men. On his right all of the ladders had been pushed away and at least a dozen of the Tyrant's men were rushing at him.

All of this took less than an instant to see, and in the same instant his berserker's mind made its decision. With a wordless cry he hurled the arrow-studded corpse at the group of attackers and leaped after it.

The very suddenness of the attack saved his life. Yet it was impossible to be in that melee of knives and swords without being cut. Blood ran from a score of wounds that he didn't feel. The Tyrant's men suffered far greater losses. Grant's whirling sword hacked through flesh and armour. When the soldiers came close enough his dagger ripped at their entrails.

Some of the nearest men quailed back before his fury, tangling the men behind. This only made their deaths more certain. Grant clutched the blood-wet pommel of his sword and chopped away at them. A few fell inside the wall; one managed to turn and run away. The rest were dead or dying at Grant's feet.

For that instant the section of the wall was cleared. Grant held the sword up, ready for the next attack. It never came. Slowly the red mist faded from before his eyes and he became aware of the aching soreness of his body. It was with a degree of surprise that he noted the blood soaking into his tunic and the gaping red mouth of a long slice across his right thigh. A clean cut, inches deep, slowly oozing blood from both ends.

Then he glanced up from the wound and saw that he was standing just above the mechanism that operated the drawbridge. Automatically his architect's eye took in the details of the crude windlass and pulleys.

The ramp of the drawbridge wasn't vertical, which meant it dropped of its own weight. Two giant supporting chains were attached to the outer end, they wrapped around an immense rotating log. This was in turn connected by a series of pulleys to the windlass. The pulleys added some mechanical advantage, but still exerted a good deal of pull on the windlass mechanism. A great cog wheel was bolted to the windlass drum, this cog was held in place by a metal pawl. A loop of rope kept the pawl from slipping.

It was absurdly simple. A piece of rope, no thicker than Grant's middle finger, was all that held up the drawbridge. Cut that and the bridge would drop.

Well — why not?

While his civilized mind was still pondering it, his newfound reflexes sent him off the wall. It was just as well he had jumped because an arrow went through the spot where he had stood an instant before. His wounded leg collapsed when he hit the platform below and he ground his teeth together with the pain. But all he had to do was stand up and stagger a few feet. A single stroke of his sword severed the pawl-rope.

Nothing happened. Friction and rust in the ancient mechanism were enough to keep it from moving.

A shout went up from someone who had seen Grant jump and a squad rushed his way. He kicked the cog wheel with his good leg and it began to revolve slowly. As inertia overcame friction it turned faster and faster.

With a great squealing of pulleys and rattling of chains the drawbridge slammed down into position. A tremendous cheer rose from the Duke's army massed outside. They rushed forward and all of the men inside the courtyard turned to face them. Grant was completely forgotten for the moment, an interested spectator to the battle.

The Good Duke's army thundered across the drawbridge and crashed into the portcullis, a sturdy looking gate of thick iron bars. They thrust their swords through the grill and howled at the defenders inside. A shower of arrows was their answer and a rush by the gate guards.

A confined and wicked battle developed around the portcullis. The Tyrant's men had no way of beating off the attack, while the Good Duke's men couldn't get through. There was much jabbing of swords through the grill and still moaning bodies were trampled underfoot. It was the Good Duke himself who ended the impasse.

Surrounded by his household troops he pushed up to the front of the attackers. His guards carried eight foot lances and used them to clear the other side of the portcullis. Under the protection of their shields, the Good Duke crouched against the steel bars. From his raised viewpoint Grant could see the Duke clearly.

It must have been magic of some sort. The warm sunshine in midwinter proved that the Good Duke Darikus was a powerful worker of the arcane arts. Probably counter-spells had stopped him during the attack from outside. But now that he had penetrated the walls he met with more success. He sprinkled something on the bard of the portcullis, and passed his hand over them. His mouth worked as he mumbled a spell.

The results were gratifying. The bars shimmered in a sudden haze and turned a mottled red. They looked as if they had been rusting for a thousand years. When the soldiers cheered and charged, the bars fell into rusty shards.

By force of arms and magic the Good Duke Darikus had captured the castle. And he was aware of the part Grant had played. He saw Grant standing by the windlass and saluted him with his sword pommel before leading the final charge. Only the memory of Aker's death kept a glow of grim pride from Grant at that moment.