Andrew J. Offutt - Cormac 03 - When Death Birds Fly

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The black owl appeared.
Huge, malevolent and horrific, it dropped from the flame-lit sky. At its awful screech Syagrius’ war-horse
reared. Not even its training could hold the beast steady in the face of such eldritch terror. The horse threw its
rider and bolted. The consul fell heavily.
The black owl rushed down on him with another ear-splitting scream. Its wings were black brooms, thirty feet
from tip to tip, that drove the summer air in gusts. Its eyes flamed yellow. Its beak was stretched wide for
cracking bones while its feet flexed like twin arrays of metal hooks. Other war-horses scattered in blind fear
before it.
Cormac’s sword was in his hand without his conscious thought. He slashed at the monster—and felt
gooseflesh when his sword passed through its body to no effect. It glared, gathered sinewy legs beneath it,
and made a hopping spring at the Gael. He went down beneath it...
WHEN DEATH BIRDS FLY
The Cormac mac Art Series
THE MISTS OF DOOM by Andrew J. Offutt
THE TOWER OF DEATH by Andrew J. Offutt & Keith Taylor
WHEN DEATH BIRDS FLY by Andrew J. Offutt & Keith Taylor
TIGERS OF THE SEA by Robert E. Howard
THE SWORD OF THE GAEL by Andrew J. Offutt
THE UNDYING WIZARD by Andrew J. Offutt
THE SIGN OF THE MOONBOW by Andrew J. Offutt & Keith Taylor
War of the Gods on Earth Series by Andrew J. Offutt
THE IRON LORDS
SHADOW OUT OF HELL
THE LADY OF THE SNOWMIST
WHEN DEATH BIRDS FLY
“For these are the birds of death:
the Owl, a predator of the night, and
the Raven, presider over battlefields:”
The name of Lucanor Magus strikes fear into the souls
of all who sail the rough seas between Galicia and
Britannia, for the spells of this Mage and Sorcerer are as
evil as his heart—and he means to rule these shores by
whatever means he can. But he reckons without
Cormac mac Art, he of the black hair and light eyes who
has struck his own kind of fear throughout his native
Eirrin and as far beyond as seafarers wander and
tell tales of courage.
Cormac is a warrior, more than a match for
any other with sword or axe, but he is more than that.
The blood of the High Kings of ancient days runs in his
veins; the sorceries of such as Lucanor cannot
overcome him though they come from the very
bowels of Hell!
ROBERT E. HOWARD’S
OTHER GREAT HERO
CORMAC MAC ART
All characters in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblence to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
WHEN DEATH BIRDS FLY
An Ace Fantasy Book / published by arrangement with
the authors.
PRINTING HISTORY
First Ace printing / November 1980
Third printing / March 1984
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1980 by Andrew J. Offutt and Kieth Taylor
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10016
ISBN: 0-441-88088-6
Ace Fantasy Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Table of Contents
Prologue: The Black Owl
1.
The Raven
2.
When Wizards Duel
3.
When Dead Men Attack
4.
No Crown of Laurel
5.
When Kings Plot War
6.
Prince of Corsairs
7.
When Sea-wolves Plot
8.
Demon on a Black Horse
9.
“The Ravens Are Flying!”
10.
When Villains Plot Murder
11.
When Vengeance Reigns
12.
Omens
13.
Shadow from Hell
14.
Broken Owl
15.
Cathula
16.
The Reivers Reived
17.
Raven Uncaged
18.
The Lord of Death
19.
The Battle of Soissons
20.
An Instinct for Survival
21.
Fleecing Nantes
22.
The Soul of Lucanor
23.
The Soul of Sigebert
24.
The Dark Huntsman
When Death Birds Fly
ANDREW J. OFFUTT
AND
KIETH TAYLOR
“The Roman empire is beheaded; in the one City, the whole world dies... All things are doomed to die... every
work of man is destroyed by age... but who would have believed that Rome would crumble, at once the
mother and tomb of her children. She who enslaved... is herself a slave.”
—St. Jerome, A.D. 415
“Gaul was lost to the Empire. If the ruling class of Auvergne held out against Euric the Visigoth... it was for
the sake of the new-won independence rather than from loyalty to Rome. Further north, Syagrius, son of
Aegidius, animated by the same spirit, became a de facto ‘king’ of Gaul between the Somme and the Loire.”
—Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient and Medieval History
Prologue:
The Black Owl
“For these are the birds of death; the Owl, a predator of the night, and the Raven, presider over battlefields.”
—Alexandros of Chios
Sorcerous evil swooped above Nantes on broad black wings. Hate and Evil slept fitfully in the nighted city
below. Those two dark forces called to each other as land to restless sea. Black wings slanted downward,
riding the wind. The warm summer’s night seemed to shiver around the ragged edges of swooping night-wings
spreading broader than a man’s height.
Sigebert of Metz, more lately called Sigebert One-ear, stirred in his bed and muttered. Much strong wine
without water had gone down his throat earlier this evening, more than one cup drugged by his physician, a
man tight-lipped against his patient’s cursing. The wine brought Sigebert no peace, him most men would have
said deserved no peace.
A recent sword cut had caught and torn one corner of his sensuous mouth, plowed messily along his cheek,
and shorn off the ear on that side of his head. The raw pain of it came into his dreams even through the fiery
fumes of drugs and drunkenness. Even so, in Sigebert the hate was stronger than the pain. Through his
villainous brain burned visions of a sinewy, tigerish Gael of Eirrin and a huge ax-wielding Dane.
“Death for them,” he mumbled, and he panted. “By Death itself—death, death for them! Death slow and awful!
Death!”
Sigebert awoke to the drumbeat of his pain.
His skin was cold with fevered, nightmare-induced sweat. The coverings of his bed pressed suffocatingly on
his limbs and athletic form. Was difficult for him to be certain whether he slept or woke, and in truth Sigebert
hardly cared. He lay gasping and sweating, hating.
Of a sudden he went rigidly still. Eyes invaded his chamber. Eyes—yellow as topaz, lambent, blazing—were
fixed on him from the foot of his bed. Something—not someone—was there, staring.
Am I awake? Surely this too is dream...
His horror-stricken gaze could discern no more than a blocky and indistinct shape that was like a short thick
log, or a man’s head and limbless torso. Black as the heart of midnight it was, indistinct in the darkness of
Sigebert’s draped nightchamber. Yet it gave a strong, foul impression of deformity and, distortion; or perhaps
that was in Sigebert One-ear’s mind, weighted by pain and alcohol.
In his terror he thought that some goblin or hellish fiend had come for his soul, which was admittedly
damned.
The thing moved. Grotesquely, it seemed to shrug and expand. Vast wings flexed and their tips reached nigh
from wall to wall. Their spread was more broad than the height of a tall man. Black feathers ruffled.
The thing spoke... or did it speak? Sigebert heard words... or did he feel them?
Do not cry out, Sigebert of Metz. An you do, I shall be gone, the which will be to your detriment. I bring news
of your enemies.
Night-spirit, Sigebert thought wildly. Some demon in the form of a gigantic bird...
“Who are you?” he said, and heard his own voice croak.
I am the soul of Lucanor Magus the Physician. Far—
Something surged in Sigebert. Relief, preternaturally sent? Blinking and with sudden hope he said,
“Physician?”
Aye. And mage, Sigebert of Metz, and mage!
“You—have you come to help me in my agony?”
Sigebert received an impression of mirth, which angered him even while it despoiled his shaky foundation of
hope. Against your enemies, he was told. Is not your hatred for them as much a part of your agony as your
physical hurts?
This time Sigebert was unable to speak, and the bird continued, voicelessly.
Far to the south, in a village of the seafaring Basques, my fleshly body sleeps. All of me that is significant
has winged hither, to aid you to destroy those you hate whom I also hate—yea, and for greater reasons than
yours! Yet it is known to me aforetime that you will not heed my advice... this time. On the morrow, in day’s
bright light, you will believe this was merely a dream, gendered by your hate and pain. You will ignore it.
Sigebert’s thoughts moved in slow, murky channels. Already he had gone from fear to disbelief to fear to hope
to shattered hope and wonderment—and curiosity. Half drugged and but partly wakeful, he yet put a shrewd
question.
“You know this? Then why trouble to come to me, physician, mage... creature?”
For reasons that you will learn from your folly, and heed me when again I come to you. You know those
enemies I refer to; you well know them and their inhuman prowess and luck! They are Cormac mac Art and
Wulfhere the Skull-splitter of the Danes—those bloody devils of the sea!
At those names Sigebert came wide awake, and hatred pulsed in him more strongly than the pain that rode
his heartbeat. “Ah.”
They live, and thrive. They have taken refuge in the Suevic kingdom, ruled by Veremund the Tall, that
whispery voice went on, that was not a voice. He now employs them. Even now they prepare to leave
Hispania, those bloody pirates. They undertake a mission to the land of the Danes for this same Veremund.
Once I served him. I, Lucanor Magus, served him, and served him well. Now he has exiled me and, could he
lay hands on me, would have me die slowly. They are to thank for this—Cormac mac Art and Wulfhere the
Dane of their ship Raven. May they be accursed and accursed to world’s end and Chaos to come, and the
Black Gods of R’lyeh devour them!
Sigebert One-ear laughed hoarsely. “I know not your gods, mage. But I share your wish!”
Then attend. Three days from this, these pirates leave the port of Brigantium in Galicia, and will sail east. For
a short time they will lie to in a sheltered bay below the Pyrenees. Though they know it not, I await them in
that same region. I shall incite my... hosts to slaughter them, for these Basques are a folk who love outsiders
not at all.
An I am successful in this, you will not set eyes on me again, Sigebert One-ear, for I shall have no need of
you. Should the Basques fail me, these pirate scum will doubtless run by night up the western coast of Gaul.
Past Burdigala, past the Saxon settlements—and past your own city of Nantes. Beyond that lies Armorica,
called Lesser Britain. There they two have friends and can find a measure of safety. An you are vigilant, you
may entrap them ere they reach that haven. In your hands will it lie then, agent of Kings!
Sigebert strained to pierce the darkness with his stare. It seemed to him that the creature crowding his
bedchamber with its presence was an immense, malefic owl. God’s Death! The musty stench of its feathers
was choking him!
Yes, an owl. He could distinguish the bizarre shape of its evilly wise head, the blazing eyes and hooked
beak. Though he saw them not, he sensed too the taloned feet, ready to drive inwardcurving claws with
merciless power through live flesh. An owl; a black owl! The bird of Athena. Silent-winged predator of night.
Terror of those more timid night-creatures it fed upon. Emblem of death and occult wisdom from ancient days.
And vaster than an eagle, this one!
So. A wizard’s soul gone out from the body in tangible form.
In the dim Frankish forests, Sigebert’s people knew of such things, for despite his Latin education and
manners, Sigebert One-ear of Metz was a German: a Frank. His own people called this sort of sorcerous
messenger Sendings, or fylgja. He could not doubt that this owl was real; Lucanor’s fylgja.
Lucanor.
The name was strange to him. Greek, was it not? No matter; the names of Cormac mac Art and Wulfhere
Skull-splitter were very, very familiar indeed. Pirates. Too recently, whilst they sought to dispose of their
sword-won gains ashore, Sigebert had acted in his official capacity as representative of the king. He sought
to take them into deserved custody. Was then that a sword in the hand of one of their men had butchered his
face.
“Be sure that I will act,” he promised, who had been called the Favoured, for his good looks, since he was
first able to walk. No more.
Laughter?
I am sure that you will not! In the light of day you will believe that none of this occurred, and put it from your
mind. You are not the Count of Nantes, nor will you go to him with a tale so doubtful. The more fool you!
Sigebert gritted his teeth and his nostrils flared in an angry breath. He’d like to meet this Lucanor as a man,
and see how sneery he was then!
His visitor saw. Despite its haughty tone, the thing that was Lucanor knew well that it might need this Frank
for an ally. As chief customs assessor of Nantes, Sigebert held some power, and was well informed of all
goings and comings within the city. More, he hated the huge Danish pirate and his dark henchman even as
Lucanor did. Yet Lucanor’s physical body lay far indeed from northward Nantes. It had not been possible for
him to travel so far, swiftly enow to give Sigebert this warning in the flesh. Nor would he place himself
physically in the power of this clever villain until he had shown the Frank his value.
Besides, his spirit double, his Sending or fylgja as the barbarians called it, must return to his body ere dawn,
for the sun’s direct light could destroy it. They were no friends, Sendings and sunlight.
You will remember, the black owl said, or whispered, or thought harshly. You will not believe, Sigebert
One-ear, Frank, of Metz and now of Nantes... but you will remember, and in my time I will come to you
again.
With a horripilating rustle the great fell bird hopped to the window and was gone on spectral wings. Sigebert
felt the air stir. The thing’s shadow was an evil splotch that flowed over buildings and dark streets of Nantes.
Watchdogs and alley curs across the city cringed and whimpered softly at its passing. None dared bark.
1
The Raven
“The temporary rescue of Italy entailed the permanent ruin of Gaul. A vast horde of Vandals, Suebi and
Alanas, escaping from the central European domination of the Huns, crossed the ill-defended Rhine, and
fanned out across the interior provinces, threatening to invade Britain. Italy was powerless to help, and the
British proclaimed a native emperor... He crossed to Gaul, and expelled the invaders; but they withdrew the
wrong way, not back across the Rhine, but across the Pyrenees into Spain. There most of them stayed. The
(Suevi)... descendants still inhabit northwestern Spain; the Vandals passed on, to leave their name in
Andalusia, ultimately to found a stable kingdom in what had been Roman Africa.”
—John Morris, The Age of Arthur
That same purple night of summer lay on another coast far to the south and west; on Brigantium in the
Suevic kingdom. Here in northern Hispania the night was graciously warm and all but cloudless. The
spacious harbour with its triple bays sighed and surged with the tide.
In a richly tapestried chamber, five men conferred ’neath the beams of a low ceiling. At the head of the
smooth-topped oaken table sat Veremund the Tall, king of this land. Though his long legs were stretched out
he was not the tallest of this extraordinary gathering. At his right hand sat his kinsman and advisor,
tawny-moustached Irnic Break-ax in his tunic of blue with its crossed sets of yellow stripes; Zarabdas the
mage, once a priest of Bel in Syria and now among the Suevic king’s most valued servants, was at his left.
His dusky skin, forked jet-black beard and expressive dark eyes, no less than his eastern robes among the
fair, Germanic Suevi, gave him an air of strangeness and alien mystery that Zarabdas was not ashamed to
exploit. No charlatan, this dark mage among people whose hair ranged in hue from nigh white to a medium
brown, and seldom that dark. His powers and learning were real. So too were the theatrical instincts he had
cultivated, along with his impressive robes.
“Wisdom alone,” Zarabdas had told his king, “will not gain one a hearing.”
They three dominated and ruled the Sueves who dominated northwestern Spain. They three sat at table’s
head, and did not dominate that gathering.
The other men at the stained and battered table were more memorable still. Neither Germans nor Easterners
nor even Celts were these twain, neither members of royal family nor wizards—in the usual sense. They did
possess a certain wizardry at tactics, and at relieving laden ships of their cargoes. And at the bloody work of
sharpened steel. Indeed one of them combined dark hair and dusky skin with pale Celtish eyes, though they
were so deeply set in their slits as frequently to appear darker.
The one was an immense Dane with an immense red beard. His physique seemed to crowd the low room,
compressing the others into corners. When he lowered his voice others were put in mind of distant thunder;
when he raised it, of thunder bursting directly above their heads. Was a voice that had long led men, had
competed with sea-storm and battle-din to be heard, and never could accommodate itself long to more polite
indoor tones. The chest whence it emanated bulged like twin shields and gold armlets and ornaments flashed
on the giant.
The fifth man of that gathering went cleanshaven as if to flaunt his scars of past combats. He was without
ornaments though his black tunic was bordered with gold. His square-cut black hair and dark, somber face
made a setting of startling contrast for the cold, narrow eyes in their slitted niches. His rangy body bespoke
and radiated a different sort of power from the massive Dane’s; swifter and more compact. His hands, one of
which gave pensive support to his chin while the other lay relaxed on the table before him, were long-fingered
and sinewy with tendons prominent on their backs. The right had been scarred; as had his face, more than
twice. With weapons or unaided, those hands knew all there was to know about the business of killing.
King Veremund, and his brother Irnic, and his mage Zarabdas. And their two... guests. At this moment
dreams of these latter two troubled the sleep of a Frank named Sigebert One-ear. Only days agone, they and
their crew of reivers, searaiders, had done the Suevic king a high service. Now they spoke of matters more
mundane, though of little less import.
They were Wulfhere Hausakluifr and Cormac mac Art of Connacht in Eirrin.
“Trade!” King Veremund said, nigh exploding the word from under his droopy yellow-white moustache.
“Shipping! I said once that it has been worse than poor these thirty years, and this supernatural terror that
has haunted our shores all but destroyed it. Because of you, my friends, the terror is now destroyed... and
yet that is only a beginning. There are other dangers.”
“Pirates,” Cormac said, without the sign of a smile.
“Foul bloody seagoing dogs who cannot be countenanced,” Wulfhere added, and when he grinned his full
beard moved like a fiery broom on his barrel of a chest.
Zarabdas the mage muttered, “Set a thief...”
“True, you and your reivers have done well,” Veremund the Sueve went on. “You have also had your losses.
Are there more than twoscore able men left to work your ship Raven—and to fight?” The question was
rhetorical; Veremund knew there were not. “I would copy the Vandals. I would make my nation powerful on
the sea, though we began as a race of horsemen far to the east—as they did. Meseems the best course
were to employ renegade Vandals to make up your numbers, and shipwrights from the same source. Do you
agree?”
Cormac mac Art frowned while Wulfhere impetuously answered at once, though with a brave effort to be
tactful in a king’s presence and conceal his disgust with such a suggestion.
“It’s in no way the same, lord King. Look you: these Vandals did begin as an inland horsefolk, like you Suevi.
But they did not end their travels in this Hispania, as your own Sueves are doing. The Vandals crossed into
Africa generations since, lest they be trapped and destroyed. At that they had to be given sea transport by
some Romish lord in Carthage... What was the fool’s name, Cormac?”
“Bonifacius,” the Gael answered. “It was their aid he was wanting, against a Roman rival. Fool, indeed! He
might as well have imported plague. There was another such fool, in Britain. It’s Jutes and Saxons he is after
inviting over his threshold. His name was Vortigern. Jutes and Saxons rule many gobbets of Britain now, men
without the price of twenty cows calling themselves ‘kings’ and gaining land, followers—and more than twenty
cows.”
The latter words were spoken for the benefit of Irnic, Zarabdas and the king, to whom Britannia was only a
word, same’s Eirrin its neighbour, which they knew of as Hivernia or Hibernia, these Suevi. Wulfhere knew the
story of Vortigern and his importation of Hengist; knew it as well as his Gaelic blood-brother. He should have
done. Hengist the Jute was Wulfhere’s greatest enemy. The Dane’s blue eyes glittered coldly at thought of
that burly Jutish tiger, but Hengist was far away in northern waters—the lying treacherous triple-dealing
bastard.
But it was the Vandals that mattered, this far south.
“Aye, Bonifacius,” Wulfhere said in his resonant rumble. “Well, he’s dead now and no matter his name save
on Loki’s list of Great Fools. The Vandals took Carthage for themselves. Now they’ve made themselves the
greatest sea power on the Mediterranean.” He lurched forward, and his elbow jarred down onto the table as he
pointed. “But what worth be there in that? The Mediterranean is enclosed and tideless as a washtub. Once it
was Rome’s lake and now it’s the Vandals’! Fine for children to go swimming in... but lord King, it’s a man’s
ocean ye have to deal with here!”
Noting that everyone at table had leaned a bit back from him, Wulfhere let his shoulders and his voice drop a
bit. “The Vandals still build their ships to the Romish pattern. Believe me, that is not suited to the wild
Atlantic or the Bay of Treachery yonder!” He waved a mighty arm, thickly pelted with red hair, unerringly in the
direction of the sea off Brigantium. Wagging his big head, Wulfhere leaned back and spoke as if he were a
Greek lecturing a class.
“None but the boldest of Vandal captains dares venture past the Pillars of Heracles, as they call ’em, and up
these Hispanic coasts. Those I and the Wolf,” he said, now indicating Cormac by banging a fist off the Gael’s
thigh, “have met—in their blundering triremes—we have sailed merry circles around.”
He paused, as if working out his own sentence to be sure he’d stated what he intended. Wulfhere’s command
of his native tongue was hardly a scholar’s; his Latin was ghastly, and so most men spoke, in this part of the
world. At that it was better than when he and Cormac had arrived here awhile back, having fled the soldiery
set on them by that Sigebert fellow whose pretty face they’d ruined.
“Rings around Romish triremes built by Vandals in Carthage,” he said again, savouring the sound and thought
of it. “I suppose ye’d wish your own navy to do the same.”
Cormac mac Art’s dark, sinister face showed some small tension about mouth and jaw. Only Zarabdas, by
watching him closely, observed it.
“You suppose rightly, Captain,” Veremund the Tall said. “I am answered.”
Cormac relaxed as unobtrusively as he had tensed for trouble. Few kings indeed would accept such
truculently declaimed outspokenness so mildly. Veremund, though, was like unto no other king Cormac had
met—and was the first the Gael had found whom a man might respect and like. The Sueve knew the uses of
forebearance without being weak—or even appearing so, to intelligent men of craft.
How are these Sueves after having got a good man as king, anyhow? Cormac mused. Unique, Veremund is.
While the Gael thought thus, it was Irnic Break-ax who spoke. “What of the Basques, then? They have been
seamen from ancient times, and surely they know Treachery Bay as well as heart could hope for! I am told
they build goodly ships.”
Cormac was impressed even while his face went cold. From a commander of horse-warriors and kinsman of
the king, it was a sound evaluation. Irnic spoke true. Basque shipwrights and sailors would be worth the
having. Cormac did not like to disillusion the man with whom he’d developed camaraderie.
“True for yourself,” he said. “It’s better for the purpose the Basques are than Vandals would be—were there
any getting them. But there is not. It’s fiercely independent and clannish they are; more so than the Gaels of
Eirrin, and that’s saying much. In their time they held off the Romans from their mountain valleys, and they
held off the Goths, and by the black gods!—they are fell toward outsiders. Never will they be lifting a hand for
someone not of their own race, unless it has a weapon in’t, and that for the spilling of blood and doing of red
death.” Cormac mac Art’s sword-grey eyes looked broodingly back into his own past for a moment. “At base
they be the same folk as the Silures of west Britain, and the Picts of Alba,” he said low, “although the latter
bred with another race in the long ago; a strange race, squat and apish, the signs of which can still be seen
on them. Their breed and mine have an enmity older than the world.”
Cormac, whom men called the Wolf, did not exaggerate. Older than the world was that feud, indeed... or older
than the world as it now existed. Vague memories of former lives and other epochs stirred in his brain,
tempting him to lose the present in that strange reverie others called ‘the rememberings’ that sometimes
seized him without warning. Cormac rejected its lure with all his iron strength of will and focused on the
visages of the two Suevi below their barbarically knotted hair.
“An ye doubt me, my lords,” he said grimly, “send ambassadors to these people. Set beside the northern
Picts, it’s the very flower of gentleness they be—and even so ye’d do well to send men ye can spare.”
King Veremund doubted not, nor was he inclined to put Cormac’s test to trial. The Basques of the Pyrenees
were far closer neighbours of his than were the Vandals. He knew all about them.
“What of the Britons of Armorica?” Zarabdas asked. “Are they not skilled in these arts?”
“They are so,” Cormac admitted. “Their ancestors crossed the sea from Britain, most of them from Cornwall.
The pulse of the sea is after being in their blood since long before Rome was a power. For the lure of your
wealth, lord King, they could be had, though it were better elsewise. It’s Celtic Britons those folk be, by blood
and language. It’s too fiery a mixture they’d be making with Danes and Suevi.” Cormac shook his head,
leaned back, and showed Veremund an implacable expression. “Nay, as we’re to be replenishing our crew
and bring yourself the master-shipwright ye desire, lord King, it’s a longer voyage than that is called for.”
Veremund blinked, started to speak, glanced at Irnic. Wulfhere added to the case Cormac had presented:
“Besides,” he grunted, “Danes build ships better, and sail ’em better, every day of the year.”
King Veremund’s fine brow furrowed in thought. He looked at his cousin Irnic, and though he did not speak
his mind Irnic was able to follow its turning. The king much desired the service of these men—needed them,
in truth. He was loath to send them excessively far beyond his reach.
“A longer voyage,” the King of the Sueves repeated. “Even unto the land of the Danes?”
Wulfhere Skull-splitter chuckled. “It’s there most Danish men are to be found.”
Wulfhere... plague take ye... Cormac thought, but the king and his two advisors showed no offense at the
Dane’s over-plain words. Veremund visibly considered. The thoughts moving in his head were as convoluted
as the thick, barbaric knot of his hair; a twisted 8 atop the back of his skull.
“So be it,” he made concession at last. “One does not ask aid of experts and then tell them how their work
should be done. The Powers speed you on your journey and bring you safe back to Galicia. Rest easy that
while you’re away, your wounded shall have no less care than mine own hearth-companions.”
Cormac smiled in sardonic appreciation of this gentle reminder: the king held hostages against any deceit or
failure in what he doubtless saw as the reivers’ duty. A low rumble of laughter filled Wulfhere’s bull-throat.
The giant said, “The shipwright I have in mind is a man named Ketil, lord King. He is far-travelled. In his early
youth he was apprentice to an itinerant boat-builder who helped Saxon families—and sometimes entire
villages—cross the water to Britain. Since then he’s lived among the Franks and the Frisians; aye, and those
Armorican Britons too, in pursuit of his trade. What last I heard, he had settled to family life in Jutland.”
“Then would he wish to leave them for our service?” Veremund asked, with a hand at his brown beard. “It’s a
long journey to make for a promise.”
“To found a sea-fleet for a king, I am thinking he’d be unable to resist! He is the master of his craft and has
made it an art, and loves it as—as I do mine, by the Thunderer! Moreover, news of your wealth in silver will
sweeten him greatly, King of Sueves! When we show him our offspring of your enchanted chain, lord King,
there will be no sailing fast enow for Ketil!”
Half-smiling, Cormac thought on Veremund’s wealth in silver. Wealth indeed!
In the king’s treasure room lay a chain of massive links of silver, twelve of Wulfhere’s stridey paces in length.
Dwarves had forged it long aforetime, under the direction of their king Motsognir. It had the unique and most
desirable property of growing new links when heated in fire, so that it could spawn new wealth forever, were
its power not abused. Cormac and Wulfhere had earned five paces’ length of such new growth. It was theirs,
to take where they would—and it was silver indeed, and permanent. Yet, at Wulfhere’s words Veremund’s
eyes narrowed a little at realization that they meant to take it out of Galicia.
And yet... it made little difference. They had earned the payment. Were they so short-sighted not to return to
him, they were not the men he wanted, after all. The thought and concept had occurred to Zarabdas, though
as yet it but toyed at the edge of the king’s mind: wealth was power. Unending wealth could lead to absolute
power. With a goodly fleet and good leaders of good weapon-men, along with clever merchants and
diplomats—that chain could change the course of history and make Veremund the Tall master of
Europe—and beyond.
“With your permission, lord King?”
Was the dry, scholarly voice of Zarabdas the mage. Veremund’s gesture assured him of utter freedom.
“Cormac mac Art,” the easterner began, and his dark eyes were intent as, those of a ship’s lookout in
dangerous waters. “I know that naught will turn you from this voyage. Yet I foresee it will be filled with such
danger, physical and else than physical as well; as even you have seldom confronted. Monsters and
sorcerers loom dark athwart your path, and wraiths of haunted darkness flap among the shadows of the
time-to-come on wings of death. Whether you will triumph, or they, I cannot know. In this only can I advise
you hopefully: do you keep ever on your person the golden sigil that once you showed me. It will aid you.”
Cormac’s dark face remained impassive, despite his surprise. The object Zarabdas spoke of was an ancient
golden pendant in the shape of a winged serpent. It had come to the Gael as most things of value come to a
pirate: in the way of plunder. He had kept it, though mentally disavowing superstition. Even now it hung
agleam against the black linen of his tunic. Mac Art’s hand did not go to it at its mention as any other’s
would have done; this man was not like any other.
“Ye say so, mage? Ye’re after telling me otherwise not long since, when ye named this pendant no more than
a piece of jewellery.”
“A blind,” Zarabdas said, his expressive hands making light of the matter. “A distraction. You were a foreigner
come to our shores, with pirates and by night. I did not know you. Besides, I was not sure of the object’s
nature. Since then, I have found mention of it in my books, and one rude drawing. The winged serpent is an
Egyptian sunsymbol, mac Art, and far older than the winged disc of Atun that the saintly if impractical
Pharoah Akhenatun caused to be worshiped. Yea, older and more powerful as well.”
“Why, that bauble almost wound up betwixt the breasts of a mere taverngirl of Nantes,” Wulfhere said,
forgetting that the young woman he mentioned was now quite close to the King of the Sueves of Galicia,
whose wife had died in the service of Lucanor’s god of ancient evil.
Zarabdas took no notice whatever of the Dane’s blurted words. His dark gaze remained on mac Art, and
intense. “I believe the sigil adorned the prow of one of the mystical boats of Ra, long and long agone, in which
souls were ferried to the sun-god’s paradise. Although,” the mage urbanely added with a wave of his hand that
rustled his robe’s full sleeve, “you must know this, mac Art. You yourself spoke of its power to protect you,
on the day we met.”
“Aye,” Cormac nodded brusquely. He had said something of the sort, to bluff Zarabdas and test his
knowledge. Was not the first time a lie of expediency had enveloped a kernel of truth.
So far as Cormac knew, the Egyptian sigil had no more magical power than a stone he might pick up in the
fields. Could wearing the turquoise, amid certain incantations, make one fearless? Was the aventurine the
sacred power-stone of dead Atlantis? Might the amethyst as so many believed, heighten shrewdness,
particularly in matters of trade and business? Zarabdas might now be attempting to befool him in return. He
might even be both sincere and correct, though the likelihood of that seemed small. It scarcely mattered.
Cormac had kept the sigil because it was after all gold, and of value. He would continue to wear the golden
serpent beneath his mail on the off chance of its aiding him—though he’d not be depending on it. He put no
faith in such trinkets.
“And should it fail you, Cormac,” Irnic Breakax said smiling, “your sword-arm must make good the lack!”
Cormac shrugged. “My wits and my sword are all I’ve ever trusted.”
“Well then, my lords,” Wulfhere said, pouring ale down his throat, “I sail with the Wolf here as soon as our
ship is provisioned.” He looked about at pleased expressions. “And if this settles all our business, I know
where two eager wenches await me—and by Wotan, I’d be cruel did I keep them waiting longer!”
Veremund grinned, all strain off him. “By all means, Captain Wulfhere, go and join them,” he said, doubtless
thinking of the woman who was his own new interest.
“As for me,” Zarabdas said, “I have studies to pursue.”
Irnic Break-ax advised that he had promised himself a night-long drinking bout with the comites of his
cousin’s bodyguard, and asked Cormac if he would like to join them. The dark Gael shook his head.
“Perchance later. With thanks, Irnic.”
He departed conference chamber and Kinghouse, and took his thoughts and seat-stiffened limbs for a walk.
He strolled through the nighted streets of Brigantium. A tall man, leanly muscled and powerful, moving lightly
in his black, gold-bordered tunic. He was accustomed to the weight of link-mail over leather, but now,
although he had sworn no oath of allegiance, he had become a king’s man and enjoyed a king’s favour. Such
made a difference.
Even so, the scabbarded sword at his side thwacked his leg with each pace, and a long double-edged dirk
was sheathed at his other hip. The habits of his violent outlaw life had begun firming of necessity when he
was but fourteen. Mac Art was more comfortable armed.
Men looked at him strangely as he passed. Native Hispano-Romans with curly dark hair they were, for the
most part considerably smaller than he. He was swift and deceptively powerful for one so rangy, as some of
these knew. He was not much more like their Suevic overlords than he was like unto them. Many were but
squatters in dilapidated houses, with little to do but loaf and stare. Only a tiny part of the legacy of Rome:
detritus. The Roman-built city’s population had declined since the great days of Empire.
Was not natural for mac Art to move unpurposefully through a darkened city without being approached by
women, but so it was in Brigantium. He did receive a couple of smiles that might have been tentative
invitations. He walked on.
Cormac came to the waterfront district, which was in even poorer state than the rest of the city. Hardly a craft
save fishing boats was moored at the long white docks. Uncrowded and unmanned, the boats looked lonely,
stark. Seawater slapped on stone with a melancholy sound, as if lamenting Brigantium’s past busy
importance. The one Gael of Eirrin in all the land smelled the open sea, and longed to be under weigh.
Cormac knew well the reason for the harbour’s lack of activity.
Of late months the sea had become a source of dread and eerie terror, round about Galicia’s coasts. Ships
had been destroyed by a nameless agency, and on nights otherwise gentle. Men’s lives had been smothered
out in the old Roman lighthouse tower where they tended Brigantium’s fiery beacon. For long and long none
knew what unnatural force slew them. Wreckers had been at work—but of no natural kind, nor with natural
powers, nor from natural motives.
To this coast had Cormac and Wulfhere sailed, accomplishing the nigh impossible, and they had known none
of the horror haunting their destination. Behind them they left treachery and blood and marine-loaded
warships bent on their doom. And they had almost fallen the wreckers’ victims when they approached Galicia
in their long ship Raven, storm-driven and weary.
The Gael’s grey eyes shifted within their slitted dens. Now the beacon-light burned bright and safely in the
many-tiered tower that reared up immense at the harbour entrance. Cormac smiled his bleak, unhandsome
smile at memory of the day he had first seen that structure, and at what he’d found therein. A tower of death
it was then, and he had entered and ascended to discover the smothered, blood-drained corpses of men with
horror in their glassy eyes. He recalled his first meeting with Veremund the Tall, King of the Suevi, and the
pact they’d made between them. For sanctuary and reward of silver, Cormac and Wulfhere agreed to rid
Brigantium of the mysterious horror that haunted it.
Ultimately that had cost Danish lives, and it had cost Galicia one of its physicians, and the king his own
wife.
Cormac stared at the tower and remembered that desperate night when he’d abode there, awaiting that which
came. Masses of moving, crawling kelp, either sentient or sent, came rustling and dripping up out of the dark
sea. It climbed the tower like phantasmal ivy, with a thousand thousand tendrils and a thousand thousand
leech-like mouths for the drinking of the blood of men.
Only Cormac’s foresight, and the firewood and quicklime he had stored in the tower by day, allowed him and
his companions to withstand the soulless onslaught. Had been a hideously near thing, even so.
Then had the Gael discovered the source and nature of the attacks. With his eyes he had seen the ancient,
plague-evil minions of R’lyeh’s black gods, horrors of another age and long dormant—or so it had been
thought. He’d heard their hissing, croaking voices, and had fought them hand to hand. Worst of all, he had
discovered the hidden sect of humans and semi-humans that worshiped those ancient challengers of
humankind, led by the king’s own physician... and his ensorcelled queen.
Even the strife-scarred brain of Cormac mac Art preferred not to remember how that had ended.
Still, it had ended. The wide sea rolled quietly, holding naught now save its own normal dangers. They were
entirely enough. Lucanor the physician, revealed as Lucanor the mage, Lucanor the traitor to more than his
king—to his own humanity—had escaped with his life.
Doubtless fled the kingdom, the Gael mused. Only the dark man-hating gods he worships know where that
Romano-Greek dog cowers now!
Cormac gave his head a jerk to clear it of what had been. He was not the sort of man to dwell in the past;
were he so, he could not bear the memories of all his ugly yesterdays. The physical act and resolve changed
his mood; the desire for solitude dropped from him like a funerary cloak.
He wheeled from the hissing, slapping plain of the sea. Surely Irnic and the comites would be deep in merry
carouse by now! The Gael turned his steps again toward the king’s hall and strove to forbid himself to think.
As he approached a stand of dark, pointed trees that sighed like surf in the night breeze, someone appeared.
Muffled in a long, long cloak, someone stepped from between two pines, and beckoned him. Cormac’s hand
slid across his middle to the sword-hilt on his left hip while his slitted eyes warily searched the deeper shade
behind the cloaked figure. Once already had men attempted to do murder on him in this land.
Then he recognized the stance, the way of moving, the poise of that small exquisite head. He spotted the
glitter of jewels in high-piled hair. He knew Eurica, the king’s younger sister. Cormac’s teeth snapped
together, biting into silence the curse that sprang to his lips. Though she was of age and technically a woman
at fifteen or sixteen, Eurica had led a protected life and was very, very young—as Cormac had been an eerily
older man, in terms of maturity, at that same age.
Clenched teeth ground. The princess was enamoured of him, or the glamour of him—or had been. How she
felt now he neither knew nor over-much cared. Once she had come to his room at night. He had got her out of
there posthaste. To him she was most attractive, aye—and a child, and... simply a blistering nuisance. And a
danger to his life greater than any armed foe. Cormac had had it to the eye teeth with the daughters of kings.
And Princess Eurica here... alone with him at night... even good men had been slain for less.
He greeted her civilly. That much circumstances forced him to do.
“Only in harpers’ tales do kings’ sisters walk out unattended, my lady, and with the most recognizable head
in the land displayed. Who be watching over yourself, and from where?”
“You are brusque as ever, Cormac mac Art.” Her girlish voice held displeasure. “There is—well, there is
someone watching. That could not be avoided. Yet I promise you, she is my most trusted attendant, who
nursed me when I was little. My attendant, not my royal brother’s.” Her voice dropped an octave, with
ignorance of having reminded him of the very reason they must have no meeting, not even low-voiced
converse. “She will not betray us, Cormac.”
“Will she now?”
Cormac was, considerably less trusting. He wished he could think of some way painlessly to make the point
that there was no “us” to betray, and that without sounding finicking or priggish. None suggested itself.
Peradventure she could be affrighted away...
“Royal persons have been stabbed in the back by attendants erenow, Eurica.”
“Not by my Albofled!” the princess assured him, with impatience on her. “Oh, Cormac—she’s out of earshot,
and were she out of seeing-range as well, I’d be in your arms this instant!”
“And I’d be hanging from a gallows tomorrow,” Cormac said stiffly, “or fleeing this land with blood of the king
your brother’s henchman on these hands.”
“Be not foolish,” she said indulgently, going royal. “How should he know? As for fleeing the land.. Cormac, oh
Cormac, I have heard you are about to do that in any case. Is it true?” Close by now, she looked up and her
eyes shone.
“No, my lady.” Call her not by name, he told himself. Be not moved. Aye, it’s attractive she is, and more than
willing. It’s also a silly and theatrical brat she is. Many her age are, but how to tell a king’s sister so?
摘要：

Theblackowlappeared.Huge,malevolentandhorrific,itdroppedfromtheflame-litsky.AtitsawfulscreechSyagrius’war-horsereared.Notevenitstrainingcouldholdthebeaststeadyinthefaceofsucheldritchterror.Thehorsethrewitsriderandbolted.Theconsulfellheavily.Theblackowlrusheddownonhimwithanotherear-splittingscream.It...

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