The Sword of Rhiannon

XV. Under the Two Moons

Boghaz, with the true instinct of his breed, had learned every rathole in Khondor. He took them out of the palace by a way so long disused that the dust lay inches thick and the postern door had almost rotted away. Then, by crumbling stairways and steep alleys that were no more than cracks in the rock, he led the way around the city.

Khondor seethed. The night wind carried echoes of hastening feet and taut voices. The upper air was full of beating wings where the Sky Folk went, dark against the stars.

There was no panic. But Carse could feel the anger of the city, and the hard grim tension of a people about to strike back against certain doom. From the distant temple he could hear the voices of women chanting to the gods.

The hurrying people they met paid them little heed. It was only a fat sailor with a bundle and a tall man muffled in a cloak, going down toward the harbor. What matter for notice in that?

They climbed the long, long steps downward to the basin and there was much coming and going on the dizzy way, but still they passed unchallenged. Each Khond was too full of his own worries this fateful night to pay attention to his neighbor.

Nevertheless Carse’s heart was pounding and his ears ached from listening for the alarm which would surely come as soon as Ironbeard went up to slay his captive.

They gained the quays. Carse saw the tall mast of the galley towering above the longships and made for it with Boghaz panting at his heels.

Torches burned here by the hundreds. By their light fighting men and supplies were pouring aboard the long-ships. The rock walls rang with the tumult. Small craft darted between the outer moorings.

Carse kept his head lowered, shouldering his way through the crowd. The water was alive with Swimmers and there were women with set white faces who had come to bid their men farewell.

As they neared the galley Carse let Boghaz get ahead of him. He paused in the shelter of a pile of casks, pretending to bind up his sandal thong while the Valkisian went aboard with his burden. He heard the crew, sullen-faced and nervous, hailing Boghaz and asking for news.

Boghaz disposed of Ywain by dumping her casually in the cabin, and then called all hands forward for a conference by the wine butt, which was locked in the lazarette there. The Valkisian had his speech by heart.

“News?” Carse heard him say. “I’ll give you news! Since Rold was taken there’s an ugly temper in the city. We were their brothers yesterday. Today we’re outlaws and enemies again. I’ve heard them talking in the wine shops and I tell you our lives aren’t worth that!”

While the crew was muttering uneasily over that, Carse darted over the side unseen. Before he gained the cabin he heard Boghaz finish.

“There was a mob already gathering when I left. If we want to save our hides we’d better cast off now while we have the chance!”

Carse had been pretty sure what the reaction of the crew would be to that story and he was not sure at all that Boghaz was stretching it too much. He had seen mobs turn before and his crew of convict Sarks, Jekkarans and others might soon be in a nasty spot.

Now, with the cabin door closed and barred, he leaned against the panel, listening. He heard the padding of bare feet on the deck, the quick shouting of orders, the rattle of the blocks as the sails came down from the yards. The mooring lines were cast off. The sweeps came out with a ragged rumble. The galley rode free.

“Ironbeard’s orders!” Boghaz shouted to someone on shore. “A mission for Khondor!”

The galley quivered, then began to gather way with the measured booming of the drum. And then, over all the near confusion of sound, Carse heard that his ears had been straining to hear—the distant roar from the crest of the rock, the alarm sweeping through the city, rushing toward the harbor stair.

He stood in an agony of fear lest everyone else should hear it too and know its meaning without being told. But the din of the harbor covered it long enough and by the time word had been brought down from the crest the black galley was already in the road stead, speeding down into the mouth of the fjord.

In the darkness of the cabin Ywain spoke quietly. “Lord Rhiannon—may I be allowed to breathe?”

He knelt and stripped the cloths from her and she sat up.

“My thanks. Well, we are free of the palace and the harbor but there still remains the fiord. I heard the outcry.”

“Aye,” said Carse. “And the Sky Folk will carry word ahead.” He laughed. “Let us see if they can stop Rhiannon by flinging pebbles from the cliffs!”

He left her then, ordering her to remain where she was, and went out on deck.

They were well along the channel now, racing under a fast stroke. The sails were beginning to catch the wind that blew between the cliffs. He tried to remember how the ballista defenses were set, counting on the fact that they were meant to bear on ships coming into the fiord, not going out.

Speed would be the main thing. If they could drive the galley fast enough they’d have a chance.

In the faint light of Deimos no one saw him. Not until Phobos topped the cliffs and sent a shaft of greenish light. Then the men saw him there, his cloak whipping in the wind, the long sword in his hands.

A strange sort of cry went up—half welcome for the Carse they remembered, half fear because of what they had heard about him in Khondor.

He didn’t give them time to think. Swinging the sword high, he roared at them, “Pull, there, you apes! Pull, or they’ll sink us!”

Man or devil, they knew he spoke the truth. They pulled.

Carse leaped up to the steersman’s platform. Boghaz was already there. He cowered convincingly against the rail as Carse approached but the man at the tiller regarded him with wolfish eyes in which there was an ugly spark. It was the man with the branded cheek, who had been at the oar with Jaxart on the day of the mutiny.

“I’m captain now,” he said to Carse. “I’ll not have you on my ship to curse it!”

Carse said with terrible slowness, “I see you do not know me. Tell him, man of Valkis!”

But there was no need for Boghaz to speak. There came a whistling of pinions down the wind and a winged man stooped low in the moonlight over the ship.

“Turn back! Turn back!” he cried. “You bear—Rhiannon!”

“Aye!” Carse shouted back. “Rhiannon’s wrath, Rhiannon’s power!”

He lifted the sword hilt high so that the dark jewel blazed evilly in Phobos’ light.

“Will you stand against me? Will you dare?”

The Skyman swerved away and rose wailing in the wind. Carse turned upon the steersman.

“And you,” he said. “How say you now?”

He saw the wolf-eyes flicker from the blazing jewel to his own face and back again. The look of terror he was beginning to know too well came into them and they dropped.

“I dare not stand against Rhiannon,” the man said hoarsely.

“Give me the helm,” said Carse, and the other stood aside, the brand showing livid on his whitened cheek.

“Make speed,” Carse ordered, “if you would live.”

And speed they made, so that the galley went with a frightening rush between the cliffs, a black and ghostly ship between the white fire of the fiord and the cold green moonlight. Carse saw the open sea ahead and steeled himself, praying.

A whining snarl echoed from the rock as the first of the great ballistas crashed. A spout of water rose by the galley’s bow and she shuddered and raced on.

Crouched over the tiller bar, his cloak streaming, his face intense and strange in the eery glow, Carse ran the gauntlet in the throat of the fiord.

Ballistas twanged and thundered. Great stones rained into the water, so that they sailed through a burning cloud of mist and spray. But it was as Carse had hoped. The defenses, invincible to frontal attack, were weak when taken in reverse. The bracketing of the channel was imperfect, the aim poor against a fleeting target. Those things and the headlong speed of the galley saved them.

They came out into open water. The last stone fell far astern and they were free. There would be quick pursuit—that he knew. But for the moment they were safe.

Carse realized then the difficulties of being a god. He wanted to sit down on the deck and take a long pull at the wine cask to get over his shakes. But instead he had to force a ringing laugh, as though it amused him to see these childish humans try to prevail against the invincible.

“Here, you who call yourself captain! Take the helm—and set a course for Sark.”

“Sark!” The unlucky man had much to contend with that night. “My Lord Rhiannon, have pity! We are proscribed convicts in Sark!”

“Rhiannon will protect you,” Boghaz said.

“Silence!” roared Carse. “Who are you to speak for Rhiannon?” Boghaz cringed abjectedly and Carse said, “Fetch the Lady Ywain to me—but first strike off her chains.”

He descended the ladder to stand upon the deck, waiting. Behind him he heard the branded man groan and mutter, “Ywain! Gods above, the Khonds would have been a better death!”

Carse stood unmoving and the men watched him, not daring to speak, wanting to rise and kill him, but afraid. Afraid of the unknown, shivering at the power of the Cursed One that could blast them all.

Ywain came to him, free of her chains now, and bowed. He turned and called out to the crew.

“You rose, against her once, following the barbarian. Now the barbarian is no more as you knew him. And you will serve Ywain again. Serve her well and she will forget your crime.”

He saw her eyes blaze at that. She started to protest and he gave her a look that stopped the words in her throat.

“Pledge them,” he commanded. “On the honor of Sark.”

She obeyed. But it seemed to Carse again that she was still not quite convinced that he was actually Rhiannon.

She followed him to the cabin and asked if she might enter. He gave her leave and sent Boghaz after wine and then for a time there was silence. Carse sat brooding in Ywain’s chair, trying to still the nervous pounding of his heart and she watched him from under lowered eyes.

The wine was brought. Boghaz hesitated and then perforce left them alone.

“Sit down,” said Carse, “and drink.”

Ywain pulled up a low stool and sat with her long legs thrust out before her, slender as a boy in her black mail. She drank and said nothing.

Carse said abruptly, “You doubt me still.”

She started. “No, Lord!”

Carse laughed. “Don’t think to lie to me. A stiff-necked, haughty wench you are, Ywain, and clever. An excellent prince for Sark despite your sex.”

Her mouth twisted rather bitterly. “My father Garach fashioned me as I am. A weakling with no son—someone had to carry the sword while he toyed with the sceptre.”

“I think,” said Carse, “that you have not altogether hated it.”

She smiled. “No. I was never bred for silken cushions.” She continued suddenly, “But let us have no more talk of my doubting, Lord Rhiannon. I have known you before—once in this cabin when you faced S’San and again in the place of the Wise Ones. I know you now.”

“It does not greatly matter whether you doubt or not, Ywain. The barbarian alone overcame you and I think Rhiannon would have no trouble.”

She flushed an angry red. Her lingering suspicion of him was plain now—her anger with him betrayed it.

“The barbarian did not overcome me! He kissed me and I let him enjoy that kiss so that I could leave the mark of it on his face forever!”

Carse nodded, goading her. “And for a moment you enjoyed it also. You’re a woman, Ywain, for all your short tunic and your mail. And a woman always knows the one man who can master her.”

“You think so?” she whispered.

She had come close to him now, her red lips parted as they had been before—tempting, deliberately provocative.

“I know it,” he said.

“If you were merely the barbarian and nothing else,” she murmured, “I might know it also.”

The trap was almost undisguised. Carse waited until the tense silence had gone flat. Then he said coldly, “Very likely you would. However I am not the barbarian now, but Rhiannon. And it is time you slept.”

He watched her with grim amusement as she drew away, disconcerted and perhaps for the first time in her life completely at a loss. He knew that he had dispelled her lingering doubt about him for the time being at least.

He said, “You may have the inner cabin.”

“Yes, Lord,” she answered and now there was no mockery in her tone.

She turned and crossed the cabin slowly. She pushed open the inner door and then halted, her hand on the doorpost, and he saw an expression of loathing come into her face.

“Why do you hesitate?” he asked.

“The place still reeks of the serpent taint,” she said. “I had rather sleep on deck.”

“Those are strange words, Ywain. S’San was your counselor, your friend. I was forced to slay him to save the barbarian’s life—but surely Ywain of Sark has no dislike of her allies!”

“Not my allies—Garach’s.” She turned and faced him and he saw that her anger over her discomfiture had made her forget caution.

“Rhiannon or no Rhiannon,” she cried, “I will say what has been in my mind to say all these years. I hate your crawling pupils of Caer Dhu! I loathe them utterly—and now you may slay me if you will!”

And she strode out onto the deck, letting the door slam shut behind her.

Carse sat still behind the table. He was trembling all over with nervous strain and presently he would pour wine to aid him. But just now he was amazed to find how happy it could make him to know that Ywain too hated Caer Dhu.

The wind had dropped by midnight and for hours the galley forged on under oars, moving at far less than her normal speed because they were short-handed in the rowers’ pit, having lost the Khonds that made up the full number.

And at dawn the lookout sighted four tiny specks on the horizon that were the hulls of longships, coming on from Khondor.