Fallowblade Read Free Page A

cavalry were despatched to investigate.
    Having destroyed most of the weathermasters by means of trickery, King Uabhar mobilised his troops—as well as those of his ally, King Chohrab—readying them to march north to invade Narngalis. The Four Kingdoms of Tir were on the brink of war.





WAR
     

     
    A wondrous sword was Fallowblade, the finest weapon ever seen;
Forged in the far-flung Inglefire, wrought by the hand of Alfardēne
Famed mastersmith and weathermage. Of gold and platinum ’twas made:
Iridium for reinforcement, gold to coat the shining blade ,
Delved from the streams of Windlestone; bright gold for slaying wicked wights ,
Fell goblins, bane of mortalkind, that roamed and ruled the mountain heights
Upon a dark time long ago.
    A VERSE FROM ‘T HE S ONG OF THE G OLDEN S WORD ’
     
    O ceans of billowing clouds surged through the frozen peaks of the far north. White vapours seethed, misting the glittering sharpness of ice and precipice. Timeless and serene beyond man’s measure, the mountains themselves stood firm against this tide, their razor crags forever slashing the sky. Below their foundations a terror had lately been unleashed in a burst of silver light; something ancient and lethal, entombed long ago. Now free, it was on the move.
    On the other side of the Four Kingdoms of Tir, hundreds of leagues away, a more mundane force was also moving.
    Watching from a high turret window, unseen, Queen Saibh observed her four strapping sons, the noble concourse on the palace battlements, the swarming crowds of men and horses below. As she gazed upon the departing battalions she was grieving most bitterly. These days she wept often. Her ladies-in-waiting murmured amongst themselves that her sad and wistful loveliness reminded them of a faded flower drooping beneath a fine rain.
    Uabhar had been pleased to view his wife’s red-rimmed, swollen eyes, gleeful at her lamentation, contemptuous at her inability to master her emotions. He thought it was for him.
    ‘Weep for your husband,’ he had bidden her, greatly encouraging. ‘Weep for me as I charge joyously into battle. You see, madam, if a king laughs at his foes and seems unafraid to confront them, his own subjects will believe the Fates are on his side. That will give the troops greater courage to risk their lives for his cause. I must laugh but you must cry, for soon I will depart to face great danger—perhaps I will not return. Then you will be widowed, and all that I have given you will be taken away: your status as queen, your jewels, your fine palace apartments. You will become nothing. Weep for me, madam, as a wife ought.’ As a parting shot he added, ‘My sons will ride beside me, to glory or death.’
    And the fading-flower queen had wept more bitterly than ever, but shed no tear for him; it was for her four brave sons, and also for her servant Fedlamid macDall, who had never returned.
    Below Saibh’s window the King of Slievmordhu, Uabhar Ó Maoldúin, looked out from his battlements across the Fairfield of Cathair Rua, whose well-trodden acres teemed with armed men, horses, chariots and ordnance. Chohrab Shechem, King of Ashqalêth, watched from this vantage point too, lying on a cloth-of-gold-draped litter. Uabhar’s favoured ministers were stationed a few paces back, shoulder to shoulder with numerous household officials and courtiers, though no snowy-robed druids gleamed like pale candles amongst this jewelled and embroidered assembly. The courtiers’ raiment blazed with rich dyes; the blood-flame-wine-soaked reds of Slievmordhu mingling with the sun-sand-fired-clay shades of Ashqalêth. All eyes were fixed on the field, where the last of a vast and clamorous display of battle-ready troops was forming into marching order and moving off. Noises resounded; the ground trembled with the stamp of hoofs, the trample of boots, the mutter of heavy iron wheels crushing gravel. The dusty air racketed with the yelling of orders, shrill whistle blasts,