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!'
'Rolf,' said Guest, 'I can't kill Sham Cham, for I'm sworn to his cause in solemn alliance. I've sworn to make war on my father.'
'But if you do,' said Rolf, despairing, 'then I must kill you, for I've sworn an oath. Or if I don't kill you, then – then I'll be an oathbreaker, an oathbreaker accursed of Rovac.'
'Then accursed of Rovac you will have to be,' said Guest.
'For my doom is to fight the Witchlord, and I fight him today.'
Rolf couldn't believe he was serious.
'But, Guest,' said Rolf. 'That's – that's your father out there!'
Rolf Thelemite was sweating under the obdurate weight of the sun. A fly fed on his sweat. He was burdened by the heaviness of chain mail, the chafing of leather, the intolerable sweatiness of his feet in his boots. His left ear itching where his dangling gold-snake earring was threaded through the flesh. Guest was watching him. Unsmiling. Guest was only 16 years old, but today all traces of any childish sentimentality were a lifetime removed from his nature. Rolf sensed a sameness about Guest and Jarl. Both were missing a layer of humanity: lacked a sense of the reality of pain. Especially the pain of others! Hence they were dangerous. While Rolf knew how to make a boast, Guest knew how to live one. And Rolf found himself afraid of the Weaponmaster.
'Guest,' said Rolf, making one last try.
Then Guest reached out and took Rolf by the throat. And squeezed. Hard enough for Rolf to feel the swordsman's strength in the fingers. Strength sufficient to kill by crushing. When Guest released the pressure, Rolf coughed, spluttered, touched tentative fingers to the flesh of his throat. Felt the fragility of the structures there.
As Rolf was still groping at his throat, Guest gave Rolf's horse a hearty kick. Thanks to the beast's sturdy temperament, it did not launch itself into an all-out charge. But even this stolid and aging animal was not immune to the feverish anticipation of battle, and it had danced a dozen paces before Rolf was able to rein it in.
With reins in his left hand and his right on his sword, Rolf turned to face Guest Gulkan. Under the hot sun, a gust of wind blew horse-smell and battle-dust between the Rovac warrior and the Yarglat youth. They were estranged by dust and distance. Guest's face was blurred by the dust, by the harshness of the sun. He was no longer Rolf's familiar friend. Rather, he was an anonymous Yarglat, a stranger, a horselord driven by the dynamics of war.
And he was turning, wheeling his horse in response to an order which Rolf had not heard, though others had heard it, must have, for Sham Cham's horsemen were wheeling en masse, and in moments they were sweeping forward in a war-whoop charge. Rolf Thelemite's horse, over-excited, surged forward in a positive gallop.
'Slow down!' yelled Rolf, stupidly, uselessly.
But it was no good. The beast was off, was bolting. Rolf hauled on the reins, but his mount had a mouth like an old boot.
So the hapless Rovac warrior was caught up in the charge, was swept away to destiny.
Up ahead, Guest Gulkan charged with a vengeance.
The young Weaponmaster rode in that charge, screaming with exhilarated fury.
In the face of that fury, the Witchlord's horsemen turned and fled. Through their line of baggage wagons they rode. Then those baggage wagons burst into fire – for they had been crammed with incendiaries, doused with strong liquor and then set alight by torches.
Nothing daunted, Sham Cham's forces continued their attack. Guest Gulkan spurred his horse. The terrified beast galloped through a gap between gouts of erupting fire. Then it crashed into a pit. Down it went, Guest Gulkan going down with it. Shocked and shaken, he found himself seated on his horse in the bottom of the pit. The horse was direly wounded – blood spouting, white bone gashed. It screamed. Its rolling eyes were liquid with reflected fire.
'Grief of gods!' said Guest.
And struggled out of the pit into the tumult of smoke. There he was attacked by a madman. Hack against hack they fought each other, until Guest Gulkan's opponent screamed his battlecry:
'Stranagor!'
On hearing this battlecry, Guest Gulkan realized he had been in battle with one of his own side.
'Sham Cham forever!' gasped Guest.
And moments later the two were bearhugging each other as comrades.
Having thus been reconciled with this aggressor, Guest Gulkan joined Sham Cham's men who were charging down the bank of the Pig and struggling up the steep slope on the other side.
The Pig looked to be no more than waist-deep, so Guest ran toward it readily, tripped, and went sprawling full-length in the riverside mud. He struggled to his feet, brushed away the worst of the mud, regained his sword, and floundered into the water. He got across the river, then started stumbling up the steep bank.
As Guest Gulkan struggled up the bank, his foot broke through the crusted earth. His boot, weighted by the battle-slam intensity of the boy's warcry charge, slammed down on a spike of sharpened bamboo. The spike pierced the boot. Guest's foot was inside the boot. Accordingly, the spike seared into his flesh, and he screamed with intolerable pain. He pulled free his foot, wrenching it clear from the spike. All around, other men were likewise screaming. As they screamed, arrows began to fall amongst them.
The entire slope was pitted with bamboo spikes. There was no quick way up it, and the arrows were soon taking a brutal toll of those whose ambition it was to hack down the Witchlord Onosh.
'Forward, men!' cried Sham Cham.
Then an arrow took him in the eye, and he cried no more.
All around, men were wavering, not knowing what to do. But Guest Gulkan knew. The boy Guest had been born into the household of a mighty warlord, and had studied the theory and praxis of war since he was knee-high to a donkey. He had yet to make himself a complete master of military science, but this he knew for sure – right now, it was most definitely time to be running away. Guest Gulkan promptly took command of the battlefield, and, bellowing like a water-buffalo, he commanded a retreat, and was obeyed. Guest Gulkan got back across the Pig, stumbled through the still-burning wagons, and got onto the flatlands south of there, where he was met by Sken- Pitilkin and Zozimus, both of whom were sitting still on their horses.
'Well my boy,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'How did you enjoy your first battle?'
'Suck shit and die,' said Guest.
Then collapsed, going down in a dead faint in front of Sken-Pitilkin, who looked at Zozimus, who rolled his eyes to heaven then indulged himself in a sigh.
