The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕

bade him farewell. “Lightning shall be slow to my hasting,” said Zigg, “till I be back again. Meantime, I would have thee be not too scornfully unmindful of that old man.”

“Chirking of sparrows!” said Spitfire. “I have forgot his brabble.” Nevertheless his glance shifted southward beyond Owlswick to the great bluff of tree-hung precipice that stands like a sentinel above the meadows of Lower Tivarandardale, leaving but a narrow way betwixt its lowest crags and the sea. He laughed: “O my friend, I am yet a boy in thine eyes it seemeth, albeit I am well-nigh twenty-nine years old.”

“Laugh at me and thou wilt,” said Zigg. “Without this word said I could not leave thee.”

“Well,” said Spitfire, “to lull thy fears, I’ll not go a-birdsnesting on Thremnir’s Heugh till thou come back again.”

Now for a week or more was nought to tell of save that Spitfire’s army sat before Owlswick, and they on the island sent ever and again three or four ships to land suddenly about Lookinghaven or at the head of the firth, or southaway beyond Drepaby, as far as the coastlands under Rimon Armon, harrying and burning. And as oft as force was gathered against them, they fared aboard again and sailed back to Scaramsey. In those days came Volle from the west with an hundred men and joined him with Spitfire.

The eighth day of November the weather worsened, and clouds gathered from the west and south, till all the sky was a welter of huge watery leaden clouds, separated one from another by oily streaks of white. The wind grew fitful as the day wore. The sea was dark like dull iron. Rain began to fall in big drops. The mountains showed monstrous and shadowy: some dark inky blue, others in the west like walls and bastions of clotted mist against the hueless mist of heaven behind them. Evening closed with thunder and rain and lightning-torn banks of vapour. All night long the thunder roared in sullen intermission, and all night long new banks of thundercloud swung together and parted and swung together again. And the light of the moon was abated, and no light seen save the levin-brand, and the campfires before Owlswick, and the light of revelry within. So that the Demons camped before the castle were not ware of those fifteen ships that put out from Scaramsey on that wild sea and landed two or three miles to the southward by the great bluff of Thremnir’s Heugh. Nor were they ware at all of them that landed from the ships: fifteen or sixteen hundred men-at-arms with Heming of Witchland and his young brother Cargo for their leaders. And the ships rowed back to Scaramsey through the loud storm and fury of the weather, all save one that foundered in Bothrey Sound.

But on the morn, when the tempest was abated, might all behold the putting forth of fourteen ships of war from Scaramsey, every ship of them laden with men-at-arms. They had passage swiftly over the firth, and came aland two miles south of Owlswick. And the ships stood off again from the land, but the army marshalled for battle on the meads above Mingarn Hope.

Now Lord Spitfire let draw up his men and moved out southward from the lines before Owlswick. When they were come within some half mile’s distance of the Witchland army, so that they might see clearly their russet kirtles and their shields and body-armour of bronze, and the dull glint of their sword-blades and the heads of their spears, Volle, that rode by Spitfire, spake and said, “Markest thou him, O Spitfire, that rideth back and forth before their battle, marshalling them? So ever rode Corinius; and well mayst thou know him even afar off by his showiness and jaunting carriage. Yet see a great wonder now: for who ever heard tell of this young hotspur giving back from the fight? And now, or ever we be gotten within spear-shot⁠—”

“By the bright eye of day,” cried Spitfire, “ ’tis so! Will he baulk me quite of a battle? I’ll loose a handful of horse upon them to delay their haste ere they be flown beyond sight and finding.”

Therewith he gave command to his horsemen to ride forth upon the enemy. And they rode forth with Astar of Rettray, that was brother-in-law to Lord Zigg, for their leader. But the Witchland horse met them by the shallows of Aron Pow and held them in the shallows while Corinius with his main army won across the river. And when the main body of the Demons were come up and the passage forced, the Witchlanders were gotten clean away across the water-meadows to the pass betwixt the shore and the steeps of Thremnir’s Heugh.

Then said Spitfire, “They stay not to form even i’ the narrow way ’twixt the sea and the Heugh. And that were their safety, if they had but the heart to turn and stand us.” And he shouted with a great shout upon his men to charge the enemy, and suffer not a Witch to overlive that slaughter.

So the footmen caught hold of the stirrup-leathers of the horsemen, and running and riding they poured into the narrow pass; and ever was Spitfire foremost among his men, hewing to left and to right among the press, riding on that whelming battle-tide that seemed to bear him on to triumph.

But now on a sudden was he, who with but twelve hundred men had so hotly followed fifteen hundred into the strait passage under Thremnir’s Heugh, made ware too late that he must have to do with three thousand: Corinius rallying his folk and turning like a wolf in the pass, while Corund’s sons, that had landed as aforesaid in the storm in the mirk of night, swept down with their battalions from the wooded slopes behind the Heugh. In such wise that Spitfire wist not sooner of any foreshadowing of disaster than of disaster’s self: the thunder of the blow in flank