The Knight of the Swords Part 3

"Aye," promised Corum. "And one that will avenge his people if he is given the opportunity."

"No." Glandyth put his hands on his hips. "He will not be."

"You say you hate our sorcery. But we have no sorcery. Just a little knowledge, a little second sight . . ."

"Ha! We have seen your castles and the evil contraptions they contain. We saw that one, back therethe one we took a couple of nights ago. Full of sorcery!"

Corum wetted his lips. "Yet even if we did have such sorcery, that would be no reason for destroying us. We have offered you no harm. We have let you come to our land without resisting you. I think you hate us because you hate something in yourselves. You areunfinishedcreatures."

"I know. You call us half-beasts. I care not what you think: now, Vadhagh. Not now that your race is gone." Glandyth spat on the ground and waved his hand at the youth. "Let him go." The youth sprang back.

Corum swayed, but did not fall. He continued to stare in contempt at Glandyth-a-Krae.

"You and your race are insane, Earl. You are like a canker. You are a sickness suffered by this world."

Earl Glandyth spat again. This time he spat straight into Corum's face. "I told youI know what the Vadhagh think of us. I know what the Nhadragh thought before we made them our hunting dogs. It's your pride that has destroyed you, Vadhagh. The Nhadragh learned to do away with pride and so some of them were spared. They 43.accepted us as their masters. But you Vadhagh could not. When we came to your castles, you ignored us. When we demanded tribute, you said nothing. When we told you that you served us now, you pretended you did not understand us. So we set out to punish you. And you would not resist. We tortured you and, in your pride, you would not give us an oath that you would be our slaves, as the Nhadragh did. We lost patience, Vadhagh. We decided that you were not fit to live in the same land as the great King Lyr-a-Brode, for you would not admit to being his subjects. That is why we set out to slay you all. You have earned this doom."

Corum looked at the ground. So it was complacency that had brought down the Vadhagh race.

He lifted his head again and stared back at Glandyth.

"I hope, however," said Corum, "that I will be able to show you that the last of the Vadhagh can behave in a different way."

Glandyth shrugged and turned to address his men.

"He hardly knows what he will show us soon, will he, Lads?"

The Mabden laughed.

"Prepare the board!" Earl Glandyth ordered. "I think we shall begin."

Corum saw them bring up a wide plank of wood. It was thick and pitted and stained. Near its four corners were fixed lengths of chain. Corum began to guess at the board's function.

Two Mabden grasped his arms and pushed him toward the board. Another brought a chisel and an iron hammer. Corum was pushed with his back against the board, which now rested on the trunk of a tree. Using the chisel, a Mabden struck the chains from him, then his arms and legs were seized and he was spread-eagled on the board while new rivets were driven into the links of chain, securing him there. Corum could smell stale blood. He could see where the board was scored with the marks 44.of knives, swords, and axes, where arrows had been shot into it.

He was on a butcher's block.

The Mabden bloodl.u.s.t was rising. Their eyes gleamed in the firelight, then* breath steamed and their nostrils dilated. Red tongues licked thick lips and small, antic.i.p.atory, smiles were on several faces.

Earl Glandyth had been supervising the pinning of Corum to the board. Now he came up and stood in front of the Vadhagh and he drew a slim sharp blade from his belt.

Corum watched as the blade came toward his chest. Then there was a ripping sound as the knife tore the samite s.h.i.+rt away from his body.

Slowly, his grin spreading, Glandyth-a-Krae worked at the rest of Corum's clothing, the knife only occasionally drawing a thin line of blood from his body, until at last Corum was completely naked.

Glandyth stepped back.

"Now," he said, panting, "you are doubtless wondering what we intend to do with you."

"I have seen others of my people whom you have slain," Corum said. "I think I know what you intend to do."

Glandyth raised the little finger of his right hand while he tucked his dagger away with his left.

"Ah, you see. You do not know. Those other Vadhagh died swiftlyor relatively sobecause we had so many to find and to kill. But you are the last. We can take our time with you. We think, in fact, that we will give you a chance to live. If you can survive with your eyes gone, your tongue put out, your hands and feet removed, and your genitals taken away, then we will let you so survive."

Corum stared at him in horror.

Glandyth burst into laughter. "I see you appreciate our joke!"

He signaled to his men.

"Bring the tools! Let's begin."

45.A great brazier was brought forward. It was full of red-hot charcoal and from it poked irons of various sorts. These were instruments especially designed for torture, thought Corum. What sort of race could conceive such things and call itself sane?

Glandyth-a-Krae selected a long iron from the brazier and turned it this way and that, inspecting the glowing tip.

"We will begin with an eye and end with an eye," he said. "The right eye, I think."

If Corum had eaten anything in the last few days, he would have vomited then. As it was, bile came into his mouth and his stomach trembled and ached.

There were no further preliminaries.

Glandyth began to advance with the heated iron. It smoked in the cold night air.

Now Corum tried to forget the threat of torture and concentrate on his second sight, trying to see into the next plane. He sweated with a mixture of terror and the effort of his thought. But his mind was confused. Alternately, he saw glimpses of the next plane and the ever-advancing tip of the iron coming closer and closer to his face.

The scene before him s.h.i.+vered, but still Glandyth came on, the gray eyes burning with an unnatural l.u.s.t.

Corum twisted in the chains, trying to avert his head. Then Glandyth's left hand shot out and tangled itself in his hair, forcing the head back, bringing the iron down.

Corum screamed as the red-hot tip touched the lid of his closed eye. Pain filled his face and then his whole body. He heard a mixture of laughter, his own shouts, Glandyth's rasping breathing . . .

. . . and Corum fainted.

Corum wandered through the streets of a strange city. The buildings were high and seemed but recently built, though already they were grimed and smeared with slime.

46.There was still pain, but it was remote, dull. He was blind in one eye. From a balcony a woman's voice called him. He looked around. It was his sister, Pholhinra. When she saw his face, she cried out in horror.

Corum tried to put his hand to his injured eye, but he could not.

Something held him. He tried to wrench his left hand free from whatever gripped it. He pulled harder and harder. Now the wrist began to pulse with pain as he tugged.

Pholhinra had disappeared, but Corum was now absorbed in trying to free his hand. For some reason, he could not turn to see what it was that held him. Some kind of beast, perhaps, holding on to his hand with its jaws.

Corum gave one last, huge tug and his wrist came free.

He put up the hand to touch the blind eye, but still felt nothing.

He looked at the hand.

There was no hand. Just a wrist. Just a stump.

Then he screamed again ...

. . . and he opened his eyes and saw the Mabden holding the arm and bringing down white-hot swords on the stump to seal it.

They had cut off his hand.

And Glandyth was still laughing, holding Corum's severed hand up to show his men, with Corum's blood still dripping from the knife he had used.

Now Corum saw the other plane distinctly, superimposed, as it were, over the scene before him- Summoning all the energy bom of his fear and agony, he s.h.i.+fted himself into that plane.

He saw the Mabden clearly, but their voices had become faint. He heard them cry out hi astonishment and point at him. He saw Glandyth wheel, his eyes widening. He heard the Earl of Krae call out to his men to search the woods for Corum.

The board was abandoned as Glandyth and his men 47.lumbered off into the darkness seeking their Vadhagh captive.

But their captive was still chained to the board, for it, like him, existed on several planes. And he still felt the pain they had caused him and he was still without his right eye and his left hand.

He could stay away from further mutilation for a little while, but eventually his energy would give out completely and he would return to their plane and they would continue their work.

He struggled in the chains, waving the stump of his left wrist in a futile attempt to free himself of those manacles still holding his other limbs.

But he knew it was hopeless. He had only averted his doom for a short while. He would never be freenever be able to exercise his vengeance on the murderer of his kin.

The Seventh Chapter

THE BROWN MAN.

Corum sweated as he forced himself to remain in the other plane, and he watched nervously for the return of Glandyth and his men, It was then that he saw a shape move cautiously out of the forest and approach the board.

At first Corum thought it was a Mabden warrior, without a helmet and dressed in a huge fur jerkin. Then he realized that this was some other creature.

The creature moved cautiously toward the board, looked about the Mabden camp, and then crept closer. It lifted its head and stared directly at Corum.

Corum was astonished. The beast could see him! Unlike 48.the Mabden, unlike the other creatures of the plane, this one had second sight.

Corum's agony was so intense that he was forced to screw up his eye at the pain. When he opened it again, the creature bad come right up to the board.

It was a beast not unlike the Mabden in general shape, but it was wholly covered in its own fur. Its face was brown and seamed and apparently very ancient. Its features were flat. It had large eyes, round like a cat's, and gaping nostrils and a huge mouth filled with old, yellowed fangs.

Yet there was a look of great sorrow on its face as it observed Corum. It gestured at him and grunted, pointing into the forest as if it wanted Corum to accompany it. Corum shook his head, indicating the manacles with a nod.

The creature stroked the curly brown fur of its own neck thoughtfully, then it shuffled away again, back into the darkness of the forest.

Corum watched it go, almost forgetful of his pain in his astonishment.

Had the creature witnessed his torture? Was it trying to save him?

Or perhaps this was an illusion, like the illusion of the city and his sister, induced by his agonies.

He felt his energy weakening. A few more moments and he would be returning to the plane where the Mabden would be able to see him. And he knew that he would not find the strength again to leave the plane.

Then the brown creature reappeared and it was leading something by one of its hands, pointing at Corum.

At first Corum saw only a bulky shape looming over the brown creaturea being that stood some twelve feet tail and was some six feet broad, a being that, like the furry beast, walked on two legs.

Corum looked up at it and saw that it had a face. It was a dark face and the expression on it was sad, concerned, doomed. The rest of its body, though in outline the same as a man's, seemed to refuse lightno detail 49.of it could be observed. It reached out and it picked up the board as tenderly as a father might pick up a child. It bore Conim back with it into the forest.

Unable to decide if this were fantasy or reality, Corum gave up his efforts to remain on the other plane and merged back into the one he had left. But still the dark-faced creature carried him, the brown beast at its side, deep into the forest, moving at great speed until they were far away from the Mabden camp.

Corum fainted once again.

He awoke in daylight and he saw the board lying some distance away. He lay on the green gra.s.s of a valley and there was a spring nearby and, close to that, a little pile of nuts and fruit. Not far from the pile of food sat the brown beast. It was watching him.

Corum looked at his left arm. Something had been smeared on the stump and there was no pain there anymore. He put his right hand to his right eye and touched a sticky stuff that must have been the same salve as that which was on his stump.

Birds sang in the nearby woods. The sky was clear and blue. If it were not for his injuries, Corum might have thought the events of the last few weeks a black dream.

Now the brown, furry creature got up and shambled toward him. It cleared its throat. Its expression was still one of sympathy. It touched its own right eye, its own left wrist.

"Howpain?" it said in a slurred tone, obviously voicing the words with difficulty.

"Gone," Corum said. "I thank you, Brown Man, for your help in rescuing me."

The brown man frowned at him, evidently not understanding all the words. Then it smiled and nodded its head and said, "Good."

"Who are you?" Corum said. "Who was it you brought last night?"

The creature tapped its chest. "Me Serwde. Me friend of you."

50."Serwde," said Corum, p.r.o.nouncing the name poorly. "I am Corum. And who was the other being?"

Serwde spoke a name that was far more difficult to p.r.o.nounce than his own. It seemed a complicated name.

"Who was he? I have never seen a being like him. I have never seen a being like yourself, for that matter. Where do you come from?"

Serwde gestured about him. "Me live here. In forest. Forest called Laahr. My master live here. We live here many, many, many dayssince before Vadhagh, you folk."

"And where is your master now?" Corum asked again.

"He gone. Not want be seen folk."

And now Corum dimly recalled a legend. It was a legend of a creature that lived even further to the west than the people of Castle Erorn. It was called by the legend the Brown Man of Laahr. And this was the legend come to life. But he remembered no legend concerning the other being whose name he could not p.r.o.nounce.