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

Zigg answered him, “I’ll be gone at point of day.”

Now they rose up and took their weapons and muffled themselves in their great campaigning cloaks and went forth with torchbearers to walk through the lines, as every night ere he went to rest it was Spitfire’s wont to do, visiting his captains and setting the guard. The rain fell gentlier. The night was without a star. The wet sands gleamed with the lights of Owlswick Castle, and from the castle came by fits the sound of feasting heard above the wash and moan of the sullen sleepless sea.

When they had made all sure and were come nigh again to Spitfire’s tent and Zigg was upon saying good night, there rose up out of the shadow of the tent an ancient man and came betwixt them into the glare of the torches. Shrivelled and wrinkled and bowed he seemed as with extreme age. His hair and his beard hung down in elf-locks a-drip with rain. His mouth was toothless, his eyes like a dead fish’s eyes. He touched Spitfire’s cloak with his skinny hand, saying in a voice like the night-raven’s, “Spitfire, beware of Thremnir’s Heugh.”

Spitfire said, “What have we here? And which way the devil came he into my camp?”

But that aged man still held him by the cloak, saying, “Spitfire, is not this thine house of Owlswick? And is it not the most strong and fair place that ever man saw in this countree?”

“Filth, unhand me,” said Spitfire, “else shall I presently thrust thee through with my sword, and send thee to the Tartarus of hell, where I doubt not the devils there too long await thee.”

But that aged man said again, “Hot stirring heads are too easily entrapped. Hold fast, Spitfire, to that which is thine, and beware of Thremnir’s Heugh.”

Now was Lord Spitfire wood angry, and because the old carle still held him by the cloak and would not let him go, plucked forth his sword, thinking to have stricken him about the head with the flat of his sword. But with that stroke went a gust of wind about them, so that the torch-flames were nigh blown out. And that was strange, of a still windless night. And in that gust was the old man vanished away like a cloud passing in the night.

Zigg spake: “The thin habit of spirits is beyond the force of weapons.”

“Pish!” said Spitfire. “Was this a spirit? I hold it rather a simulacrum or illusion prepared for us by Witchland’s cunning, to darken our counsel and shake our resolution.”

On the morrow while yet sunrise was red, Lord Zigg went down to the seashore to bathe in the great rock pools that face southward across the little bay of Owlswick. The salt air was fresh after the rain. The wind that had veered to the east blew in cold and pinching gusts. In a rift between slate-blue clouds the low sun flamed blood-red. Far to the southeast where the waters of Micklefirth open on the main, the low cliffs of Lookinghaven-ness loomed shadowy as a bank of cloud.

Zigg laid down his sword and spear and looked southeast across the firth; and behold, a ship in full sail rounding the ness and steering northward on the larboard tack. And when he had put off his kirtle he looked again, and behold, two more ships a-steering round the ness and sailing hard in the wake of the first. So he donned his kirtle again and took his weapons, and by then were fifteen sail a-steering up the firth in line ahead, dragons of war.

So he fared hastily to Spitfire’s tent, and found him yet abed, for sweet sleep yet nursed in her bosom impetuous Spitfire; his head was thrown back on the broidered pillow, displaying his strong shaven throat and chin; his fierce mouth beneath his bristling fair moustachios was relaxed in slumber, and his fierce eyes closed in slumber beneath their yellow bristling eyebrows.

Zigg took him by the foot and waked him and told him all the matter: “Fifteen ships, and every ship (as I might plainly see as they drew nigh) as full of men as there be eggs in a herring’s roe. So cometh our expectation to the birth.”

“And so,” said Spitfire, leaping from the couch, “cometh Laxus again to Demonland, with fresh meat to glut our swords withal.”

He caught up his weapons and ran to a little knoll that stood above the beach over against Owlswick Castle. And all the host ran to behold those dragons of war sail up the firth at dawn of day.

“They dowse sail,” said Spitfire, “and put in for Scaramsey. ’Tis not for nothing I taught these Witchlanders on the Rapes of Brima. Laxus, since he witnessed that downthrow of their army, now accounteth islands more wholesomer than the mainland, well knowing we have nor sails nor wings to strike across the firth at him. Yet scarcely by skulking in the islands shall he break up the siege of Owlswick.”

Zigg said, “I would know where be his fifteen other ships.”

“In fifteen ships,” said Spitfire, “it is not possible he beareth more than sixteen hundred or seventeen hundred men of war. Against so many I am strong enough today, should they adventure a landing, to throw ’em into the sea and still contain Corsus if he make a sally. If more be added, I am the less secure. Therefore occasion calleth but the louder for thy purposed faring to the west.”

So the Lord Zigg called him out a dozen men-at-arms and went a-horseback. By then were all the ships rowed ashore under the southern spit of Scaramsey, where is good anchorage for ships. They were there hidden from view, all save their masts that showed over the spit, so that the Demons might observe nought of their disembarking.

Spitfire rode with Zigg three miles or four, as far as the brow of the descent to the fords of Ethreywater, and there