Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

Here the blame for Guest's derelictions must be place fairly and squarely at the feet of the Emperor Onosh. Lord Onosh was, by and large, capable of doing the hard things. But on that occasion he had weakened. When Guest had dueled Jarl in Enskandalon Square,

Lord Onosh had allowed himself to be persuaded into an act of incontinent mercy. So the boy Guest had survived, living thereafter with an exaggerated sense of his own ability, and becoming a danger to the very emperor who had saved his life.

Remember this, if it is your destiny to be an emperor! The seat of power is a seat of decision, and weakness in decision is the doom of the governed and the governors alike.

"The wizards speak of this man Jarl as being large in reputation," said Sham Cham.

"Why, a giant in reputation," agreed Guest, "but I've seen him in his injuries with tears in flood upon his face, and that was over nothing, a trifling matter of broken bones."

So spoke Guest, he who had never yet had to live with the worst of pain, far less to live with spearing pain from step to step, from breath to breath, from moment to moment, and each of those moments but a hair from a flinch.

"So," said Sham Cham, "so you suggests – "

"He speaks from the folly of his youth," said Sken-Pitilkin.

"In the truth of my wisdom I suggest rather that we send forward two wizards in their wisdom to deal with the wild men according to their wiles and thus avoid the wrath of woolly war."

"Woolly war?" jeered Guest. "That's a nonsense! War is not woolly. Sheep are woolly. What were you thinking of?"

"I," said Sken-Pitilkin with dignity, "was thinking – "

"You were thinking you were a sheep!" said Guest. "Woolly war! Really!"

Sometimes it will happen that an adult will mispeak himself in front of a child, and the child will thereafter not let the matter rest, but will strive to keep the error green in memory. So it was with Guest Gulkan on that occasion.

Rolf Thelemite then added his own boast to Guest Gulkan's advice, and those federated dunces routed the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin. Both Rolf and Guest were young; and drunk with bravado; and intoxicated by thoughts of victory and power; and Sham Cham, being likewise afflicted, was in no mood to heed counsels of caution, not when his own forces outnumbered those of the Witchlord by three to one.

"Three swords can cut a single head," said Sham Cham, when he summed up their debates, "be that head a jester's or a queen's."

So it came to pass that on a bright and shining morning the mighty Sham Cham awoke from dreams of revolutionary tax reform, and marched his army to within battle distance of the Pig, there to confront the army of the Witchlord Onosh, lord of the Collosnon Empire.

Then forth from the Witchlord's ranks rode Thodric Jarl, riding under a flag of truce. Jarl was received by an ad hoc embassy which included Sham Cham himself, and Guest Gulkan, and Rolf Thelemite, and the wizards Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin.

"Hail, Cham!" said Jarl.

"Hail, Jarl!" said Cham. "If you have come to present me with your surrender, then I am ready to receive it. My forces outnumber yours by a matter of three to one, therefore your defeat is inevitable."

"I dispute it," said Jarl. "To defeat me and mine, my lord and me, you would need to have odds of a thousand to one in your favor. As you have not the forces to compel a victory, yield me your heart. Then we can negotiate."

"Heart," said Sham Cham, puzzled by Jarl's idiom. "What do you mean by my heart?"

"I mean," said Jarl, "that bloody organ which beats in orgasmic fury underneath the larger of your paps. Give it.

Surrender it. Then there will be a peace between us."

With that, the gray-bearded Thodric Jarl produced a silver platter from a saddlebag and invited Sham Cham to deposit his palpitating blood-beater upon the shining surface of that platter.

"You are drunk," said Sham Cham. Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus, both veterans of past encounters with the Rovac, knew that Jarl was not drunk but, rather, intoxicated by the uplift of the moment.

"Drunk?" said Jarl. He laughed. "No, not drunk. Not drunk, but joyful."

Then Jarl cast the silver platter into the mud. Mud sprayed up into Sham Cham's face, and his horse reared, and Jarl wheeled his own horse and rode back to the lines where the Witchlord Onosh waited with his horsemen, apparently ready to charge.

Sham Cham wiped the mud from his face.

"So," said Sham Cham. "It is war. Very well then. Force against force we will meet them. Force against force we will meet them – and throw them back into the sea."

His choice of idiom betrayed his origins. Stranagor lies by the sea, and the throwing of great quantities of people into that watery organ which dominates the planet's physical geography has ever had pride of place in Stranagor's iconography of war.

Then Sham Cham prepared his horsemen for the charge.

With battle about to be joined, the restlessness of men and horses caused such disorder in the ranks that the wizards Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin were able to work their way toward the rear without attracting undue attention to themselves. Though Zozimus looked like a very eleven warrior in his fish-scale armor, and though Sken-Pitilkin in his fisherman's skirts looked a grim and warworthy skirmisher, neither had any intention whatsoever of wasting their substance in battle.

Do not think less of them for this! It is true that both wizards had sworn themselves to Sham Cham's service. Still, both firmly considered that they could best serve the revolutionary army by offering it their wisdom. Wisdom having been rejected, what else could they do but sit back and watch?

Well…

They could have used their special powers, of course. But a wizard's powers are soon exhausted by the demands of a battlefield, and both Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin preferred to preserve their strength until it was needed for purposes of personal survival. Guest and Rolf remained to the fore of the army's mounting disorder. Both were seated on over-aged geldings rather than the high-spirited stallions to which they had aspired; and both were becoming increasingly glad of the stability of their mounts, for the tension of war-ready men was communicating itself to the army's horses, and those beasts which were more highly-strung were becoming close to unmanageable.

As the moment of battle neared, the Weaponmaster Guest was concentrating too intently to suffer fear. He was visualizing the clash of sword against sword, practicing tactics by imaginative immersion. The restiveness of the horses made him remember his brother Morsh Bataar, crushed beneath a horse, his leg wrecked by the weight of the animal. He must leap clear if his own mount went down. He must

"Guest!"

"What?" said Guest, irritated at being interrupted by Rolf Thelemite. "What is it, Rolf?"

Rolf looked worried.

There was a simple explanation for this:

He was worried!

"Guest," said Rolf, "I've something to tell you."

"Then spit it out, man!" said Guest.

"It's about Jarl," said Rolf. "Jarl and me. He made me promise. Before he ran, I mean. Back in Locontareth. He made me swear. It was an oath, he made me swear an oath."

"What oath?" said Guest, since the question was obviously expected of him.

"He made me swear to kill you," said Rolf.

"Kill me!" said Guest. "You swore an oath to kill me?"

"Yes," said Rolf. "But only – only if you really went to war against your father."

"What else could I do?" said Guest.

"Well, kill Sham Cham," said Rolf.

"What!?"

"Yes, yes, kill him," said Rolf in eagerness. "It's obvious, obvious! Look! He's riding up and down, ride up, a sword, a single blow! We'd spur for escape, we'd be gone, he's dead, as good as dead, just say the word!"