David Gemmel - The Hawk Eternal

Barsa leaped to his feet, knowing instantly that he had been tricked. He bellowed a warning to those nearest and drew his sword. Aenir foresters ran to him and then he saw the clansmen bearing down in the gloom. He glanced right and left. He had fewer than a hundred men with him. But if the men of the clan had entered the forest, that left the women alone on open ground. Barsa turned and sprinted south. If they could only hack their way past the women and old men they would be clear.

The Aenir ran from the trees and Barsa’s heart sank. A line of women kneeling in the grass, bows bent. He threw himself to the ground as the shafts whistled home.

A second volley hammered into their ranks and then the clansmen were upon them. Barsa leaped to his feet and parried a thrust from a short sword, sweeping a double-handed blow to the clansman’s unprotected head and caving in the skull. A second man fell to his sword, and a third, as he roared his defiance at them. Then the clansmen fell back, and a warrior strode through their ranks. The man was tall, his long black hair tied at the nape of the neck, a trident beard giving him a sardonic appearance. His eyes were green and in his hand he carried a short sword. Beside Barsa the last of the Aenir foresters died with an arrow in his ribs. Barsa was not afraid of death. He had earned his place in the Grey God’s hall.

Leaning on his sword, he grinned at the blood-drenched clansman.

“Come on then, mountain dung. I’ll see your corpse before you see mine.”

The clansman stepped forward as Barsa’s sword flashed in the air. He parried it, ducking beneath the swing to thrust at the Aenir’s groin. Barsa leaped back, his blade plunging downward. The clansman blocked the blow, iron clashing on iron as the men circled. The Aenir had the advantage of the long sword, but the clansman moved swiftly, his green eyes probing for weaknesses in the Aenir’s defense.

“Frightened, clansman?” sneered Barsa. The man did not reply, but leaped forward with a sword raised. Barsa slashed wildly. The man parried, then spun on his heel to hammer his elbow into Barsa’s face. The Aenir staggered back, then felt the searing agony of a sword blade buried deep in his belly. An awful cry tore from his throat and he pitched to the ground, writhing and straining to free the blade. Then the pain faded, washed from his body by the rushing blood. He rolled to his back, looking up at the sky above him, waiting to see the Valkyrie ride down for his soul.

He wondered if Asbidag would mourn for him. “I’ll cut out his eyes,” he heard someone say. Barsa knew panic; he did not want to be blind in the Hall of Heroes.

“Leave him be,” said the clansman who had cut him.

Relief and release came together, and the light faded.

In the early-morning sunlight the clanswomen stripped the Aenir dead of all weapons and dispatched those warriors still clinging to life. Caswallon walked into the forest with many others of the attacking party, stopping at a fast-moving stream and removing his blood-covered clothes.

The night’s work had appalled the new War Lord. More than six hundred Aenir warriors had been butchered in their sleep; it was no way for a man to die.

Caswallon stepped into the stream, shivering as the icy mountain water touched his skin. Swiftly he washed, then returned to the bank, sprawling out alongside Leofas and the young raven-haired warrior Onic, the finest quarterstaff fighter in the mountains.

“A fine night,” said Leofas, grinning. Stripped of his clothing, the old warrior looked even more powerful. His barrel chest and muscular shoulders gave evidence of his great strength, yet his belly was flat and taut, the muscles of the solar plexus sharp and clean.

“It was a victory, anyway,” said Caswallon wearily.

“You’re a strange man, Caswallon,” said Leofas, sitting up and slapping the younger man between the shoulder blades. “These swine have come upon us with murder and rape and now, I sense, you regret last night’s slaughter.”

“I do regret it. I regret it was necessary.”

“Well, I enjoyed it. Especially watching you gut that tall son of a whore.”

A group of clanswomen, led by Maeg, came to the stream carrying clean clothes for the men. Caswallon dressed, and spotted Taliesen sitting on a fallen tree; the War Lord joined him in the sunshine.

“There is the smell of death in this forest,” said Taliesen. “It reeks of it.” The druid looked impossibly old, his face ashen, the skin dry. His cloak of feathers hung limply on his skeletal shoulders, the colors faded and dust-covered. “But still, you did well, War Lord.”

Caswallon sat beside the old man. “Who are you, druid? What are you?”

“I am a man, Caswallon. No more, no less. I was a student centuries ago and I joined the trek from the stars to see more of life. I wanted to learn the origins of man. The Gates were a means to an end.”

“And what are the origins of man?”

Taliesen chuckled, his tired eyes showing a glint of humor. “I don’t know. I never will. My teacher was a great man. He knew the secrets of the stars, the mysteries of the planets, and the structure of the Gates. And yet, he never learned the origins. Together we journeyed and studied, and ever the great mystery eluded us. I sometimes fear the cosmic force I cannot see, and he laughs at me in my vanity.

“My teacher, Astole, became a mystic in a far land. It happened soon after the Prime Gate failed. You see, we could never travel back far enough, anywhere, to find the first man. The Gates would always be pushed back. Wherever we went, there was a man, developed to some degree. Several hundred years ago I developed a theory of my own, and I left Astole in the deserts of his world and journeyed to a northern land, a Highland kingdom. The people there were under threat, even as you are, and I led them to the Farlain to watch them grow and to see how they would develop. I thought the development would assist my studies.”

“And did it?” asked Caswallon.

“No. Man is a singularly irritating creature. All that happened was that I grew to love the people of the Farlain. My studies were ruined anyway two hundred years ago, when the last of my people wed into the race. We had no women, you see, and every man needs companionship. I recruited many of their children, and so the order survives, but many of those now practicing the skill do not appreciate any longer the… arts behind the machines.

“You, Caswallon, are of my race. You are the great-grandson of the daughter of Nerist. A bright man was Nerist. He alone of all my pupils said we would never reopen the Great Gates. You cannot understand the awful sense of separation and loss we experienced when those gates closed. You see, what happened was an impossibility.”

“Why should it be impossible?” asked Caswallon. “All things have a beginning and an ending.”

“Indeed they do. But when you play with time, Caswallon, you create circles. Think of this: Today you will see the last of the Middle Gates. Today. Now. You will gaze upon it, and your people-our people-will pass through it. But tomorrow, let us say, the Gate disappears. We are worried at first, but then we think: It was there yesterday. Therefore we step through a Lesser Gate into yesterday. What should we find?”

“ The other Gate should once again be there,” said Caswallon.

“Aye, it should-for we saw it yesterday… passed through it. But that is the mystery, my boy. For when the Great Gates disappeared, they vanished throughout time. Impossible, for it does not correspond with reality.”

“You told me,” said Caswallon, “that magic was impossibility made reality. If that is true, there should be no problem accepting the reverse. What happened to your Gates was simply reality made impossibility.”