‘Yes,’ said Alfric. ‘Can’t you hear it crying?’
‘Faintly,’ said the giant. ‘I’m somewhat deaf.’
‘Oh,’ said Alfric. ‘Sorry to hear that.’
So saying, Alfric took the bung from the first of his barrels and kicked it over. A light and combustible oil (distilled at great expense from the flesh of riverworms) spilt outward and spread across the swamp.
‘What are you doing?’ said the giant.
‘Pouring out a libation to the gods,’ said Alfric. ‘It’s a form of sacrifice.’
With that, he unbunged and overturned a second barrel.
‘Libation or no libation,’ said the giant, ‘I’m coming for the baby. If you’re still there when I get there, I’ll have you too.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ said Alfric, and unbunged and kicked over a third barrel.
Kralch waded forward. Then the swamp shallowed, and the giant started to crawl. As it did so, it began to pant in a most hideous way. The truth was, the huge and hideous creature was in danger of expiring as soon as it dragged itself from the supporting watermuck of the swamp; and it put its very life in danger every time it came to claim a baby. One thing was certain: though the giant could crawl, it was totally incapable of standing up and supporting its weight on its legs once it was out of the swamp.
As the giant drew near, Alfric kicked over the last of his barrels. Then waited.
‘I did warn you,’ said the Eater of Babies. ‘If you’re going to run, you’d better start now.’
‘Oh,’ said Alfric coolly, ‘I think it’s you who’s going to do the running.’
So saying, Alfric produced a small jar and a pair of tongs. Alfric reached into the jar with the tongs and pulled out a small piece of metal. The metal looked grey by moonlight; and, had a stronger light been available, its hue would have remained unchanged.
As Alfric shook away the last drops of water, the metal burst into flames.
Alfric touched the flaming metal to his oil slick, which ignited. The swamp erupted. The giant screamed, engulfed by fire. It convulsed in agony. Kicked, clawed, howled and thrashed, and fought its way back into the depths of the swamp.
‘So much for that,’ said Alfric briskly.
Then he shivered, and set forth along the causeway.
Endless seemed that causeway, but at last the steps of the Spiderweb Castle were before him. Alfric climbed those steps and entered that place of death, the Castle of the Curse. As legend alleged, this was a place of the dead. Cold they were, their corpses ageless, frozen for centuries in the same positions.
The guards who held the castle gate never blinked as Alfric walked between them. He walked within, passing elders gathered in twos and threes in private conference; young lovers exchanging kisses and blisses in shadowed places; servants locked for ever in the hurry-scurry attitudes of hard-driven servitors.
At last, he entered the Grand Hall.
Again, legend was confirmed, for here candles shone with a ghostly phosphorescence, and the candles were not consumed by their own burning. It was silent, utterly silent. Alfric heard his own breathing, the creak of his own leather boots, the dry friction as a frisson of nervousness agitated his fingers to a spiderkick shuffle. His footsteps stirred the dust which rose, half-swirled then settled.
As legend said, there was the royal family. Alfric recognized them, just as he recognized their friends and retainers; for each was dressed according to rank and attainments. And there was the Princess Gwenarath; and, as legend said, she was passing fair. So fair that Alfric was moved to touch her cheek. He yielded to this impulse, but found the flesh cold, yes, cold, and as hard as marble. And he saw the dust of ages had gritted in the royal eyes, had settled in the folds of the royal cloak.
But she was fair regardless, and Alfric, despite himself, began to weep; for here a great evil had been done, and for this evil he had no remedy.
Alfric squeezed the tears from his eyes, and, angry at himself for thus sentimentalizing, he got down to business. Where was the queen? There. Proffering the mead to her husband. And he, a half-smile on his lips, was making as if he would take the cup from the gold-decked woman. A noble pair they made, and ‘Let legend do the weeping,’ said Alfric, with willed and conscious brutality.
So saying, he went to the empty chair which stood beside the royal couple. And there was the sword, just as legend claimed. Sulamith’s Grief, a silver sword in a silver sheath. Alfric drew the blade, and it burnt brighter than the candles.
And Did the Grand Hall change?
Did he hear a faint whisper of the noise of revel? Did people silent for long centuries stir, if only by an eyelash? Did ‘I imagine it,’ said Alfric loudly.
And knew it was true, yes, he had been imagining it. There was no noise, no life, and no hope of either. These people were long dead, however perfectly preserved their appearance might be.
Then Something did move.
Alfric saw it not, but heard it. A wrenching sound as metal tore free from metal.
Alfric nearly leapt out of his skin.
‘Who’s there?’ he said.
He drew Sulamith’s Grief and discarded the scabbard. The silver sword quivered in his hand. His heart quick- kicked. His eyes blazed red, alert for murder.
‘Who?’ he roared. ‘Who’s there?’
Nothing.
Nobody.
But something There!
Alfric saw it.
The sword.
The weapon was sheathed at the side of a swarthy warrior of undistinguished appearance, but it was sticking out from the hilt by a good fingerlength. Unless he was sorely mistaken, that blade was the thing which had moved. It was a plain black blade which had leapt (if Alfric was guessing correctly) from a plain black sheath.
Carefully, Alfric recovered the scabbard which he had dropped. He sheathed Sulamith’s Grief. Then he unbuckled the swordbelt belonging to the swarthy warrior. Gingerly, he drew free the plain black sword. Briefly, letters flamed green against the black of the blade. Alfric barely had time to read them, but read them he did, and what he read he would never forget:
‘Bloodbane be my name. A risk to all, not least to he who holds me.’
Alfric shuddered. He knew the history of this sword — for what Yudonic Knight could live in ignorance of the legends which told of its murders?
Still…
Alfric tested the heft of the weapon. While he put it to no test of strength, already he knew that the old iron was no wise weaker for all the ages it had lain here, derelict and abandoned. He knew. For the sword was speaking to him, its assurance wordless yet warm.
‘Hear me,’ said Alfric, swordhanded as he spoke grimvoiced to Grand Hall. ‘You who are dead. You who are living. You who are yet to be. Hear me. I come not as a thief. I come not as a looter. I come as a hero, and what I claim I claim as mine by right. I am the son of Grendel. I am the grandson of Tromso Stavenger, Wormlord of Wen Endex. I am rightful heir to the royal throne. By such right I claim this weapon.’
His voice died away.
Leaving Alfric standing there, alone and unanswered.
He smiled suddenly, wryly amused by his own heroic conceit; then he sheathed Bloodbane and buckled on the swordbelt which sustained the weapon’s scabbard. Then he picked up Sulamith’s Grief, and left.
On the steps of the Castle of the Curse, Alfric paused. The moon shone bright upon the swampland wastes, and he could feel the allure of the moon and his own swelling strength. On a whim, he drew the blacksword Bloodbane, and the old iron ran with white fire as he saluted the moon.
Alfric was still standing there in salute when the swamp giant Kralch erupted from the swamp not fifty paces away. Mud and water streamed from the monster’s shoulders as it slurred its threat:
‘You! I see you! You die!’
A stupid threat to make at that time and place, for it would have been the easiest thing in the world for Alfric
