The Worm Ouroboros · Chapter 27 (2/2)

But Brandoch Daha said lightly, “Fear not, my Lord Gro, we’ll reject no honest redes of so wise a counsellor as thou. But,” and here was a light in the eye of him made Gro startle, “did any man with serious intent dare bid me do a dastard deed, he should have my sword through the dearest part of’s body.”

Lord Brandoch Daha now turned him to the rest of them. “Juss,” said he, “friend of my heart, meseemeth y’are all of one mind, and none of my mind. I’ll e’en bid you farewell. Farewell, Gaslark; farewell, La Fireez.”

“But whither away?” said Juss, standing up from his chair. “Thou must not leave us.”

“Whither but to mine own place?” said he, and was gone from the chamber.

Gaslark said, “He’s much incensed. What hast thou done to anger him?”

Mevrian said to Juss, “I’ll follow and cool him.” She went, but soon returned saying, “No avail, my lords. He is ridden forth from Galing and away as fast as his horse might carry him.”

Now were they all in a great stew, some conjecturing one thing and some another. Only the Lord Juss kept silence and a calm countenance, and the Lady Mevrian. And Juss said at length to Gaslark, “This it is, that he chafeth at every day’s delay that letteth him from having at Corinius. Certes, I’ll not blame him, knowing the vile injuries the fellow did him and his insolence toward thee, madam. Be not troubled. His own self shall bring him back to me when time is, as no other power should do ’gainst his good will; he whose great heart Heaven cannot force with force.”

And even so, the next night after, when folk were abed and asleep, Juss, in his high bedchamber sitting late at his book, heard a bridle ring. So he called his boys to go with him with torches to the gate. And there in the dancing torchlight came the Lord Brandoch Daha a-riding into Galing Castle, and somewhat of the bigness of a great pumpkin tied in a silken cloth hung at his saddlebow. Juss met him in the gate alone. “Let me down from my horse,” he said, “and receive from me thy bedfellow that thou must sleep with by the Lake of Ravary.”

“Thou hast gotten it?” said Juss. “The hippogriff’s egg, out of Dule Tarn, by thyself alone?” and he took the bundle right tenderly in his two hands.

“Ay,” answered he. “ ’Twas where thou and I made sure of it last summer, according to the word of her little martlet that first found it for us. The tarn was frozen and ’twas tricky work diving and most villanous cold. It is small marvel thou’rt a lucky man in thine undertakings, O Juss, when thou hast such an art to draw thy friends to second thee.”

“I thought thou’dst not leave me,” said Juss.

“Thought?” cried Brandoch Daha. “Didst ever dream I’d suffer thee to do thy foolishnesses alone? Nay, I’ll come first to the enchanted lake with thee, and let be Carcë i’ the meantime. Howbeit I’ll do it ’gainst the stream of my resolution quite.”

Now was but six days more of preparation, and on the second day of April was all ready in Lookinghaven for the sailing of that mighty armament: fifty and nine ships of war and five ships of burthen and thrice two thousand fighting men.

Lady Mevrian sat on her milk-white mare overlooking the harbour where the ships all orderly rode at anchor, shadowy gray against the sun-bright shimmer of the sea, with here and there a splash of colour, crimson or blue or grass-green, from their painted hulls or a beam of the sun glancing from their golden masts or figureheads. Gro stood at her bridle-rein. The Galing road, winding down from Havershaw Tongue, ran close below them and so along the seashore to the quays at Lookinghaven. Along that road the hard earth rang with the tramp of armed men and the tramp of horses, and the light west wind wafted to Gro and Mevrian on their grassy hill snatches of deep-voiced battle-chants or the galloping notes of trumpet and pipe and the drum that sets men’s hearts a-throb.

In the van rode the Lord Zigg, four trumpeters walking before him in gold and purple. His armour from chin to toe shone with silver, and jewels blazed on his gorget and baldrick and the hilt of his long straight sword. He rode a black stallion savage-eyed with ears laid back and a tail that swept the earth. A great company of horse followed him, and half as many tall spearmen, in russet leather jerkins plated with brass and silver. “These,” said Mevrian, “be of Kelialand and the shore-steads of Arrowfirth, and his own vassalage from Rammerick and Amadardale. That is Hesper Golthring rideth a little behind him on his right hand; he loveth two things in this world, a good horse and a swift ship. He on the left, he o’ the helm of dull silver set with raven’s wings, so long of the leg thou’dst say if he rode a little horse he might straddle and walk it: Styrkmir of Blackwood. He is of our kin; not yet twenty years old, yet since Krothering Side accounted one of our ablest.”

So she showed him all as they rode by. Peridor of Sule, captain of the Mealanders, and his nephew Stypmar. Fendor of Shalgreth with Emeron Galt his young brother, that was newly healed from the great wound Corinius gave him at Krothering Side; these leading the shepherds and herdsmen from the great heaths north of Switchwater, who will hold by the stirrup and so with their light bucklers and little brown swords go into battle with the horsemen full gallop against the enemy. Bremery in his ram’s-horn helm of gold and broidered surcoat of scarlet velvet, leading the dalesmen from Onwardlithe and Tivarandardale. Trentmar of Scorradale with the northeastern levies from Byland and the Strands and Breakingdale. Astar of Rettray, lean and lithe, bony-faced, gallant-eyed, white of skin, with bright red hair and beard, riding his lovely roan at the head of two companies of spearmen with huge iron-studded shields: men from about Drepaby and the southeastern dales, landed men and home-men of Lord Goldry Bluszco. Then the island dwellers from the west, with old Quazz of Dalney riding in the place of honour, noble to look on with his snowy beard and shining armour, but younger men their true leaders in war: Melchar of Strufey, great-chested, fierce-eyed, with thick brown curling hair, horsed on a plunging chestnut, his byrnie bright with gold, a rich mantle of creamy silk brocade flung about his ample shoulders, and Tharmrod on his little black mare with silver byrnie and bats-winged helm, he that held Kenarvey in fee for Lord Brandoch Daha, keen and ready like an arrow drawn to the barbs. And after them the Westmark men, with Arnund of By their captain. And after them, four hundred horse, not to be surpassed for beauty or ordered array by any in that great army, and young Kamerar riding at their head, burly as a giant, straight as a lance, apparelled like a king, bearing on his mighty spear the pennon of the Lord of Krothering.

“Look well on these,” said Mevrian as they passed by. “Our own men of the Side and Thunderfirth and Stropardon. Thou may’st search the wide world and not find their like for speed and fire and all warlike goodliness and readiness to the word of command. Thou look’st sad, my lord.”

“Madam,” said Lord Gro, “to the ear of one that useth, as I use, to consider the vanity of all high earthly pomps, the music of these powers and glories hath a deep under-drone of sadness. Kings and governors that do exult in strength and beauty and lustihood and rich apparel, showing themselves for awhile upon the stage of the world and open dominion of high heaven, what are they but the gilded summer fly that decayeth with the dying day?”

“My brother and the rest must not stay for us,” said the lady. “They meant to go aboard as soon as the army should be come down to the harbour, for their ships be to sail out first down the firth. Is it determined indeed that thou goest with them on this journey?”

“I had so determined, madam,” answered he. She was beginning to move down towards the road and the harbour, but Gro put a hand on the rein and stopped her. “Dear lady,” he said, “these three nights together I have dreamed a dream: a strange dream, and all the particulars thereof betokening heavy anxiety, increase of peril, and savage mischief; promising some terrible issue. Methinks if I go on this journey thou shalt see my face no more.”

“O fie, my lord,” cried she, reaching him her hand, “give never a thought to such fond imaginings. ’Twas the moon but glancing in thine eye. Or if not, stay with us here and cheat Fate.”

Gro kissed her hand, and kept it in his. “My Lady Mevrian,” he said, “Fate will not be cheated, cog we never so wisely. I do think there be not many extant that in a noble way fear the face of death less than myself. I’ll go o’ this journey. There is but one thing should turn me back.”

“And ’tis?” said she, for he fell silent on a sudden.

He paused, looking down at her gloved hand resting in his. “A man becometh hoarse and dumb,” said he, “if a wolf hath the advantage first to eye him. Didst thou procure thee a wolf to dumb me when I would tell thee? But I did once; enough to let thee know. O Mevrian, dost thou remember Neverdale?”

He looked up at her. But Mevrian sat with head erect, like her Patroness divine, with sweet cool lips set firm and steady eyes fixed on the haven and the riding ships. Gently she drew her hand from Gro’s, and he strove not to retain it. She eased forward the reins. Gro mounted and followed her. They rode quietly down to the road and so southward side by side to the harbour. Ere they came within earshot of the quay, Mevrian spake and said, “Thou’lt not think me graceless nor forgetful, my lord. All that is mine, O ask it, and I’ll give it thee with both hands. But ask me not that I have not to give, or if I gave should give but false gold. For that’s a thing not good for thee nor me, nor I would not do it to an enemy, far less to thee my friend.”

Now was the army all gotten ashipboard, and farewells said to Volle and those who should abide at home with him. The ships rowed out into the firth all orderly, their silken sails unfurled, and that great armament sailed southward into the open seas under a clear sky. All the way the wind favoured them, and they made a swift passage, so that on the thirtieth morning from their sailing out of Lookinghaven they sighted the long gray cliff-line of Impland the More dim in the lowblown spray of the sea, and sailed through the Straits of Melikaphkhaz in column ahead, for scarce might two ships pass abreast through that narrow way. Black precipices shut in the straits on either hand, and the seabirds in their thousands whitened every little ledge of those cliffs like snow. Great flights of them rose and circled overhead as the ships sped by, and the air was full of their plaints. And right and left, as of young whales blowing, columns of white spray shot up continually from the surface of the sea. For these were the stately-winged gannets fishing that sea-strait. By threes and fours they flew, each following other in ordered line, many mast-heights high; and ever and anon one checked in her flight as if a bolt had smitten her, and swooped head-foremost with wings half-spread, like a broad-barbed dart of dazzling whiteness, till at a few feet above the surface she clapped close her wings and cleft the water with a noise as of a great stone cast into the sea. Then in a moment up she bobbed, white and spruce with her prey in her gullet; rode the waves a minute to rest and consider; then with great sweeping wing-strokes up again to resume her flight.

After a mile or two the narrows opened and the cliffs grew lower, and the fleet sped past the red reefs of Uaimnaz and the lofty stacks of Pashnemarthra white with seagulls on to the blue solitude of the Didornian Sea. All day they sailed southeast with a failing wind. The coastline of Melikaphkhaz fell away astern, paled in the mists of distance, and was lost to sight, until only the square cloven outline of the Pashnemarthran islands broke the level horizon of the sea. Then these too sank out of sight, and the ships rowed on southeastward in a dead calm. The sun stooped to the western waves, entering his bath of bloodred fire. He sank, and all the ways were darkened. All night they rowed gently on under the strange southern stars, and the broken waters of that sea at every oar-stroke were like fire burning. Then out of the sea to eastward came the daystar, ushering the dawn, brighter than all night’s stars, tracing a little path of gold along the waters. Then dawn, filling the low eastern skies with a fleet of tiny cockleshells of bright gold fire; then the great face of the sun ablaze. And with the going up of the sun a light wind sprang up, bellying their sails on the starboard tack; so that ere day declined the sea-cliffs of Muelva hung white above the spray-mist on their larboard bow. They beached the ships on a white shell-strand behind a headland that sheltered it from the east and north. Here the barrier of cliffs stood back a little from the shore, giving place for a fertile dell of green pasture, and woods clustering at the foot of the cliffs, and a little spring of water in the midst.

So for that night they slept on board, and next day made their camp, discharging the ships of burthen that were laden with the horses and stuff. But the Lord Juss was minded not to tarry an hour more in Muelva than should suffice to give all needful orders to Gaslark and La Fireez what they should do and when expect him again, and to make provision for himself and those who must fare with him beyond those shadowing cliffs into the haunted wastes of the Moruna. Ere noon was all this accomplished and farewells said, and those lords, Juss, Spitfire, and Brandoch Daha, set forth along the beach southward towards a point where it seemed most hopeful to scale the cliffs. With them went the Lord Gro, both by his own wish and because he had known the Moruna aforetime and these particular parts thereof; and with them went besides those two brothers-in-law, Zigg and Astar, bearing the precious burden of the egg, for that honour and trust had Juss laid on them at their earnest seeking. So with some pains after an hour or more they won up the barrier, and halted for a minute on the cliff’s edge.

The skin of Gro’s hands was hurt with the sharp rocks. Tenderly he drew on his lambswool gloves, and shivered a little; for the breath of that desert blew snell and frore and there seemed a shadow in the air southward, for all it was bright and gentle weather below whence they were come. Yet albeit his frail body quailed, even so were his spirits within him raised with high and noble imaginings as he stood on the lip of that rocky cliff. The cloudless vault of heaven; the unnumbered laughter of the sea; that quiet cove beneath, and those ships of war and that army camping by the ships; the emptiness of the blasted wolds to southward, where every rock seemed like a dead man’s skull and every rank tuft of grass hag-ridden; the bearing of those lords of Demonland who stood beside him, as if nought should be of commoner course to them pursuing their resolve than to turn their backs on living land and enter those regions of the dead; these things with a power as of a mighty music made Gro’s breath catch in his throat and the tear spring in his eye.

In such wise after more than two years did Lord Juss begin his second crossing of the Moruna in quest of his dear brother the Lord Goldry Bluszco.