The Anvil of Ice Read online

  The Anvil of Ice (Winter of the World volume one)

  By Michael Scott Rohan

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  Resounding praise for Michael Scott Rohan's The Winter of the World:

  "OUTSTANDING FANTASY FICTION" Andre Norton, author of The Mirror of Destiny

  "AMONG THE BEST OF THE CROP…Rohan has an entertaining, engrossing style" Science Fiction Chronicle

  "BOLD…IMPRESSIVE…ORIGINAL" Kirkus Reviews

  "ENGAGING FANTASY…MARVELOUS…VIVID…THOROUGHLY SATISFYING" Publishers Weekly

  "STARTLING…EXCITING…HAUNTING…REMARKABLE… Adept strokes of almost science and seeming reality, and characters that live and breathe…A gifted writer…Pages turn as if by magic." Jean M. Auel, author of Clan of the Cave Bear

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  Other AvoNova Books by Michael Scott Rohan

  The Winter of the World Trilogy:

  Volume 2: The Forge in the Forest

  Volume 3: The Hammer of the Sun

  Chase the Morning The Gates of Noon

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  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  AVON BOOKS

  The Hearst Corporation

  1350 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, New York 10019

  Copyright © 1986 by Michael Scott Rohan

  Published by arrangement with William Morrow and Company, Inc.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 86-12426

  ISBN: 0-38O-7O547-8

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Permissions Department, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019.

  First Avon Books Printing: February 1989

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  For Richard Evans

  Acknowledgements:

  To Deborah, as ever, for her intense involvement and support; to Richard, Toby, and Sarah and other staff members at Macdonald & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., for all they have contributed; and to Maggie Noach, agent extraordinary. Also for their ballads, to the shades of Aloys Schreiber and Carl Loewe.

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  Contents

  Chapter One - The Forging

  Chapter Two - The Apprentice

  Chapter Three - The Sword

  Chapter Four - The Smith of the Saltmarshes

  Chapter Five - The Corsairs

  Chapter Six - On the Anvil

  Chapter Seven - Stone and Steel

  Chapter Eight - The Wind Beneath the Earth

  Chapter Nine - The Voices

  Chapter Ten - The Tempering

  Appendix

  About the Author

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  Chapter One - The Forging

  It was the chill before dawn that woke him, and the snuffling and stamping of the great bull in its stall. The dawns were always cold then, whatever the season, in the Long Winter of the Old World, in the dominion of the Ice. So the chronicles record, and though copied and recopied by many hands, the voice of one who has seen, and felt, speaks still from their pages. But now, on this day, it was newly spring, and the keen air was making the great beast impatient to run free in the pastures among its cows. So the boy sprang out of his pile of skins, wincing at the air's bite, and began scrambling into those of them that were garments. If he let the bull begin bellowing here so early, it would mean a beating. He swung the moth-eaten fur cloak round his shoulders and seized the long goad off the wall, the strange shapes and characters in the icy metal branding his fingers with unknown wisdom. The bull's tossing head, with its horns as long as his body, was no more than a lighter patch in the blackness high above him, but with the ease of long practice he slipped along the stall wall, a slab split from a sandstone boulder, and quickly looped the goad through the carved ring in the bull's nostrils. Instantly the outswept horns ceased goring the air, the great head drooped, and the bull stood docile while the boy undid its tethers and urged it out of the stall. It waited placidly while he untied the rest of the herd and shooed and bustled the huge beasts, white as soiled ice, out into the pallid air, their breath billowing in clouds as they lowed and snorted, their hooves crushing the half-frozen mud. Thus the day that was to change all days began, for him, like any other.

  Nothing else was stirring in the little town called Asenby. The very houses seemed asleep, shuttered tight against the cold; even the wide-eyed faces painted in vivid red and black across their planks looked dazed and only half-awake. The boy scowled as they passed the Headman's great house with the painted whales framing its porch, leaping four stories to the rooftree. When he was a few strides further on he jerked the goad slightly; the bull snorted loudly in pained protest, awaking loud anxious lowings from the rest of the herd. But by the time the shutters slammed open he was already past, turning the corner toward the Landgate.

  From the high old house on the corner light gleamed, warm and red as a breath of summer, running molten gold even into the cold puddles, and there came the low muttering of a chant. The boy scowled again, yet more darkly, and led the bull closer so he could peer in the open door as he passed. Yes, Hervar was there, his lean shadow dancing immense on the wall of the forge as he squatted over his anvil, crooning and tapping away at a flake of blackened metal. The new hoeheads that would be, new for the newmade virginity of the soil. In the working of the metal, in the quavering of the chant, lay potencies united by the power and craft of the smith to make the hoes potent in themselves—a virtue of fertility, for the fields and perhaps also the women who would till them. That much the boy knew, but no more, for all he wished to, for all he had tried to puzzle out the markings on the goad. The wizened old smith had always refused him knowledge, even the simplest instruction in signing and reading that he gave every child of the town. Now he was looking up, glaring through straggling sweat-plastered gray locks and waving the boy sharply away without missing a beat of the chant. His plump apprentice came bustling out, brandishing long iron tongs and shouting. "You keep off, Alv! Out to your work, or I'll scratch your pale hide for you where it itches! Tinker's brat!"

  The boy sneered, twitched the goad around suddenly and set the wide horns tossing a foot's span from the ap-prentice's flattened nose. He retreated with a panic-stricken squeak, and the herd, moving close to the house, began to press against its walls and peer round-eyed and stupid into the smithy. Some beasts were actually scratching themselves against the timbers, till the house vibrated and the chant inside rose to a cracked screech. That might be too much. Hurriedly Alv called them off, back into the center of the street, slapping at their grimy flanks with his hands and leaving the goad securely in the ring.

  The town wall was a massive affair, circling the little knot of streets and running straight out into the sea on either flank of the little harbor, acting as a breakwater. As long as Alv could remember they had been rebuilding and strengthening it, thickening the broad drystone base, shoring up the double rows of mighty pine trunks above and adding towers on the rampart that ran between them, so that constant watch could be maintained on both sea and land. The watchman in the gatetower ahead yawned when Alv hailed him, and made no haste about swinging the great bars up on their counterweights to open the narrow gate. The other herds weren't even stirring yet, though that would have been no defense for him if he'd been late. The cattle filed through in pairs, no more, and the gate swung to again behind. Alv dimly remembered it as wide, and always open in daylight, but these wer
e troubled days; few traders' wagons ever rolled this way now. The cattle jostled and crowded on the uphill path, eager to get to their pastures, and when they reached the high meadows overlooking the town they broke and scattered, some clumsily skipping and bounding as if they were calves once more. Alv clambered up onto his favorite rock seat and deftly flipped the goad free from the ring. The bull stared at him an instant in baffled fury, then snorted violently and went lumbering away across the meadow. Alv settled down to eat the chunk of hard cornbread he had been given last night, and the strip of salt fish he had stolen to go with it. He looked out, far out across the sea to the horizon. Soon the sun would arise and bring him warmth; small birds were singing in the bushes, and the sky was filling with light that reddened the flanks of the cattle and the wisps of smoke that rose over the wood-tiled rooftops below, as kitchen fires were kindled. But the sight kindled other fires in him; how often he had sat there and prayed, to powers he did not know, that the calm gray sea beyond might leave its rolling and rise in wrath to sweep those rooftops away!

  He shivered. The breeze off the sea was growing strong, sending ragged banks of cloud scudding landward; in the growing light they cast weird rippling shadows on the waves. For a few minutes he amused himself watching them—and then he sprang to his feet. In those shadows under the clouds other, deeper, darknesses were slipping across the waves, long sleek shapes lancing in toward the shore. Four of them, low in the water where a watchman nearer sea level might easily miss them in this dim, hazy light.

  Without thinking he cupped his hands and yelled. Nothing happened. If he was wrong they'd flay him alive. He yelled again, and saw the Landgate watchman look up and wave casually. "No!" he screamed, so loud his voice cracked. "Out there, you fool! Out there!" Alv stabbed his arm out seaward again and again. The watchman turned and seemed to cock his head and squint into the low light. Then he sprang up, grabbed the huge steerhorn that hung above the gate and blew a loud bellowing blast. The bull in the meadow echoed it, stamping the turf in challenge. Confused shouts rose up from below, and the rumble of feet on the ramparts; an instant later another horn blew from the seawall, and a drum stuttered. All over the town shutters slammed open, voices squeaked and yammered, men and women charged half-dressed into the street, colliding with each other and tumbling down in the mud. Bright gleams moved more purposefully through the streets and up onto the ramparts, armored men of the town guard marching to their posts, staring as Alv was, out to sea.

  He could see the ships more clearly now, sails furled on their low masts, foam rising along their flanks as long lines of oars dipped and rose in a fast, thrusting rhythm. For an instant, cresting a wave, a long outthrust prow stood out, with a wide flat platform just behind it. Along the black hull beneath the platform was painted an animal head with long sharp-toothed jaws agape. Above the hub-bub below, a single name rose, almost like a sign. "The Ekwesh! Ekwesh raiders!"

  For an instant Alv stood transfixed, staring. The Ekwesh, this far down the coast? But then he remembered his own peril. He went bounding down the slope, forgetting the path, arms flailing wildly to keep his balance as he skidded through the grass. But as he circled the hillside toward the Landgate a solid thudding sound came echoing up to him, and he saw the Landgate quiver and resound as heavy logs were piled against it.

  "Wait!" he screamed at the top of his voice, hearing it absurdly thin and childish against the wind. "Let me in! Open the gate! Wait—"

  On the rampart opposite, only a little below him now, a burly figure in helm and mail turned and gestured sharply. "No time now, boy!" bellowed the Headman. "Should've got back at once! Get away, hide yourself out there somewhere—and have a mind to those cattle!"

  But I gave the alarm! I warned you! The boy stood there an instant with his eyes brimming at the unfairness of it, his fists clenched. But he knew well enough there was no use pleading; if the Headman wouldn't risk opening the gate for his own precious cattle, why risk it for one young thrall? So the Headman would reason, and so his town. Why had he ever bothered to warn them? Wasn't this the destruction he'd been praying for? Let them escape it if they could! As for himself—hide? Where, on these rolling hills? A little further up the slope, overlooking the seaward side of the town, was a clump of scrub. As well there as anywhere; at least he would have a good sight of the fun.

  The ships were nearer now. They must have heard the alarm raised and were plowing directly inshore to the attack, knowing that they could not now hope to land and take the town open and undefended, not without a long siege, which was seldom their way. Archers massed on the rampart, but they were not yet within bowshot, not quite. Alv was staring wide-eyed; he had never seen so powerful a force. Each ship bore at least thirty oars on each side, and there looked to be more than just rowers on board; behind the low gunwales he could see other figures squatting and raising gaudy shields to protect the rowers. Suddenly, obviously at command, every oar swung upright in a great rippling movement like the flick of a fish's fin. In that moment Alv saw three outlandish figures step out onto the platforms. Then the oars swept down in a new, even faster rhythm, and a harsh thudding sound boomed across the water, like enormous drums. Harsh voices sounded in time to it, the ships surged forward and the figures whirled into a dance. Alv felt his mouth go dry. Even he had heard of the shamans of the Ekwesh. Garbed as the god-spirits of their clan they danced up war-craft before battle, to set a fire in the hearts of their own men and quench it in their adversaries. And if the rumors were true, the mightiest of them could do more than that. Then he heard the sharp rattle of a drum from the town. Looking down to the harbor, he saw Hervar, draped in his guild robes and bearing his iron staff, go hobbling across the strip of shingle where the boats were drawn up. He too was chanting, swaying, beckoning. Suddenly he broke into a grotesque hopping, swaying dance that Alv had never seen before, thudding his staff into the gravel, splashing down into the shallows. Beyond him, at the gap in the seawall, the incoming waves seemed to slow, collapse and break as they would around some underwater reef or rock. Hervar danced faster, hopping back and forth with little taut steps, working himself up into a frenzy of concentration. The water boiled, bubbled and broke in a hiss of spray over something that rose from the depths, caked with weedy growths like the back of some kraken-thing that had lain there for years uncounted. It was a huge, metal-bound tree trunk, cut into the likeness of a tall pillar, its capital a chunk of metalwork; from this a network of chains dangled, swinging wildly in the boiling sea. They drew taut suddenly, then slackened again as another pillar rose to left and right of them—a fourth, and then a fifth, rising upward across the wide gap in the seaward wall and filling it with a many-stranded necklace of chain, studded with fine spikes and hooks, lethal to any ship that tried to pass it. Alv whistled with excitement; this was the Seagate, pride of the town, creation of generations of smiths and shielded by their craft from the sea's decaying. He had seen it only once before, as a very young child, when it was used with great effect against a single corsair galley, dipping down to ensnare the hull and lift it out of the water, spilling out the crew.

  From the Ekwesh ships a chorus of yells greeted this challenge, and for the first time Alv heard the sinister rasping song of spear against shield. Having missed their chance of surprise, the raiders would have to face the power of the Seagate, or go away emptyhanded. But that, he knew, was not their way. The ships were so near now he could see the shamans clearly, stamping and whirling on the narrow platforms. The leaping figure was the Bear, a suit of fur with huge clawed paws and a long-jawed mask that snapped and bit at invisible fish as the figure leaped. To the right the gaunt ugly likeness of the Wasp cavorted, jabbing its stinger down into fallen foes. But in the lead ship, racing ahead of the others, the strangest figure of all swept out wide wings, far wider than the platform, under a mask with a curved beak and crest that each stood out a full arm's length, matching the image painted on the boat's flank—the Thunderbird. Straight in toward the rising logs the
sharp bows came, and the marksmen's arrows whined and skipped across the water. One plunged quivering into the side of the platform, but still the Thunderbird danced, faster and faster till the wings stood out and floated like an albatross's, white against the gray clouds rolling overhead. A shout came from the wall, then the flat snap of bowstrings and a swarm of arrows buzzed down around the raiders, pattering like rain into the sea. Alv, springing up in excitement, saw a ceiling of shields whip up to meet them, saw the Bear duck down and the Waspman, struck through body and throat, topple sideways into the sea. But the Thunderbird stopped dead, the wings flew up and back like a stooping hawk's, and the great mask split and fell away to reveal another, glittering hideous, distorted death's head in blue steel. There was a flash, a deafening crackle, and from the gray cloud overhead a streak of glaring blue light came hammering down into the town. Straight onto the beach it smote, onto the twisting figure with the iron staff. A groundshaking roll of thunder drowned out the drum. Light seared along the beach and was gone. A blackened, beardless image of the old smith stood frozen in his place, the staff glowing molten in the rigid fingers. Then they crumbled, and the staff fell sizzling into the surf. Hervar's body fell backward, like a leaf blown from a bonfire, and lay stiffened on the shingle.

  From the harbor mouth came a sudden ominous creaking, and Alv saw the Seagate sway violently, its chains flailing and tangling. The defenders on the wall rushed to reach out pikes, spears, anything that might snag chains or pillars and somehow hold them upright. On one side they caught the chain to the nearest pillar and hauled on it; on the pillar at the other side they sank long poleaxes into the wood. But then a new wavecrest struck, the whole mass swayed once more, and with a relentless grinding of iron the central pillar went toppling forward and pulled the others with it. One fell straight downward, plucking the axemen down into the churning water; the other swung violently in the direction it was being pulled and came smashing down on the wall itself. The logs split, the rampart splintered, armored bodies fell thrashing into the gray waters; the pillar rolled down onto them as they struggled, and blotted them from sight. For an instant its weed-snared base reared up to the light, and then everything was gone. Over the frothing gap rode the leading ship, the Thunderbird dancer sprawled flat on the platform. The black and white bows ground into the harbor gravel, bounced once on the swell, and then the Ekwesh warriors were rising from beside the oars and spilling over into the shallows. But instead of rushing ahead, they stopped at the waterline and knelt down in the shelter of their shields. Then, as the defenders came clamoring down off the walls and from between the houses, the oarsmen rose from their benches with bows in their hands, and the long Ekwesh arrows went whistling out. The first townsmen fell, the others hesitated, and the kneeling warriors leaped up and charged as the other two ships came sailing in through the Seagate. The few remaining archers on the seaward wall died as they loosed their own shafts, and then it was hand-to-hand battle on the shingle. The black clouds opened and spilled dark rain over the scene.