Guns Of Avalon

CHAPTER 3

I thought back, one morning, upon all that had gone before. I thought of my brothers and sisters as though they were playing cards, which I knew was wrong. I thought back to the rest home where I had awakened, back to the battle for Amber, back to my walking the Pattern in Rebma, and back to that time with Moire, who just might be Eric's by now. I thought of Bleys and of Random, Deirdre, Caine, Gerard, and Eric, that morning. It was the morning of the battle, of course, and we were camped in the hills near the Circle. We had been attacked several times along the way, but they had been brief, guerrilla affairs. We had dispatched our assailants and continued. When we reached the area we had decided upon, we made our camp, posted guards, and retired. We slept undisturbed. I awoke wondering whether my brothers and sisters thought of me as I thought of them. It was a very sad thought.

In the privacy of a small grove, my helmet filled with soapy water, I shaved my beard. Then I dressed, slowly, in my private and tattered colors. I was as hard as stone, dark as soil, and mean as hell once more.

Today would be the day. I do

I kissed Lorraine, who had insisted on coming along. Then I mounted my horse, a roan named Star, and rode off toward the front.

There I met with Ganelon and with Lance. They said, “We are ready.”

I called for my officers and briefed them. They saluted, turned and rode away. “Soon,” said Lance, lighting his pipe.

“How is your arm?”

“Fine, now,” he replied, “after that workout you gave it yesterday. Perfect.” I opened my visor and lit my own pipe.

“You've shaved your beard,” said Lance. “I ca

“The helm fits better this way,” I said.

“Good fortune to us all,” said Ganelon.

“I know no gods, but if any care to be with us, I welcome them.”

“There is but one God,” said Lance. “I pray that He be with us.”

“Amen,” said Ganelon, lighting his pipe. “For today.”

“It will be ours,” said Lance.

“Yes,” said I, as the sun stirred the east and the birds of morning the air, “it has that feel to it.” We emptied our pipes when we had finished and tucked them away at our belts. Then we secured ourselves with final tightenings and claspings of our armor and Ganelon said, “Let us be about it.”

My officers reported back to me. My sections were ready.

We filed down the hillside, and we assembled outside the Circle. Nothing stirred within it, and no troops were visible.

“I wonder about Corwin,” Ganelon said to me.

“He is with us,” I told him, and he looked at me strangely, seemed to notice the rose for the first time, then nodded brusquely.

“Lance,” he said, when we had assembled. “Give the order.”

And Lance drew his blade. His cried “Charge!” echoed about us.

We were half a mile inside the Circle before anything happened. There were five hundred of us in the lead, all mounted. A dark cavalry appeared, and we met them. After five minutes, they broke and we rode on. Then we heard the thunder.

There was lightning, and the rain began to fall.

The thunderhead had finally broken.

A thin line of foot soldiers, pikemen mainly, barred our way, waiting stoically. Maybe we all smelled the trap, but we bore down upon them. Then the cavalry hit our flanks.

We wheeled, and the fighting began in earnest. It was perhaps twenty minutes later... We held out, waiting for the main body to arrive. Then the two hundred or so of us rode on...

Men. It was men that we slew, that slew us-grayfaced, dour-countenanced men. I wanted more. One more...

Theirs must have been a semi-metaphysical problem in logistics. How much could be diverted through this Gateway? I was not sure. Soon...

We topped a rise, and far ahead and below us lay a dark citadel.

I raised my blade.

As we descended, they attacked.

They hissed and they croaked and they flapped. That meant, to me, that he was ru

The hundred or so of us stormed ahead, and the abominations fell by the wayside.

When we reached the gate, we were faced by an infantry of men and beasts. We charged.

They outnumbered us, but we had little choice. Perhaps we had proceeded our own infantry by too much. But I thought not. Time, as I saw it, was all important now.

“I've got to get through!” I cried. “He's inside!”

“He's mine!” said Lance.

“You're both welcome to him!” said Ganelon, laying about him. “Cross when you can! I'm with you!”

We slew and we slew and we slew, and then the tide turned in their favor. They pressed us, all the ugly things that were more or less than human, mixed in with human troops. We were drawn up into a tight knot, defending ourselves on all sides, when our bedraggled infantry arrived and began hacking. We pressed for the gate once more and made it this time, all forty or fifty of us.

We won through, and then there were troops in the courtyard to be slain.

The dozen or so of us who made it to the foot of the dark tower were faced by a final guard contingent.

“Go it!” cried Ganelon, as we leaped from our horses and waded into them.

“Go it!” cried Lance, and I guess they both meant me, or each other.

I took it to mean me, and I broke away from the fray and raced up the stairs.

He would be there, in the highest tower, I knew; and I would have to face him, and face him down. I did not know whether I could, but I had to try, because I was the only one who knew where he really came from-and I was the one who put him there.

I came to a heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs. I tried it, but it was secured from the other side. So I kicked it as hard as I could. It fell inward with a crash.

I saw him there by the window, a man-formed body dressed in light armor, goat head upon those massive shoulders.

I crossed the threshold and stopped.

He had turned to stare as the door had fallen, and now he sought my eyes through steel.

“Mortal man, you have come too far,” he said. “Or are you mortal man?” and there was a blade in his hand.

“Ask Strygalldwir,” I said.

“You are the one who slew him,” he stated. “Did he name you?”

“Maybe.”

There were footsteps on the stairs behind me. I stepped to the left of the doorway.

Ganelon burst into the chamber and I called “Halt!” and he did.

He turned to me.

“This is the thing,” he said. “What is it?”

“My sin against a thing I loved,” I said. “Stay away from it. It's mine.”

“You're welcome to it.” He stood stock still.

“Did you really mean that?” asked the creature.

“Find out,” I said, and leaped forward.

But it did not fence with me. Instead, it did what any mortal fencer would consider foolish.

It buried its blade at me, point forward, like a thunderbolt. And the sound of its passage came like a clap of thunder. The elements outside the tower echoed it, a deafening response.

With Grayswandir, I parried that blade as though it were an ordinary thrust. It embedded itself in the floor and burst into flames. Without, the lightning responded.