The Bull and the Spear - 05 by Michael Moorcock Page B

battle against an enemy. Corum could see their expressions, their attitudes. He saw the look of resolute courage on every face—men, women, quite young boys and girls—the javelins, axes, swords, bows, slings and knives still clutched in their hands. They had come to do battle with the Fhoi Myore, and the Fhoi Myore had answered their courage with this—an expression of contempt for their power and their nobility. Not even the Hounds of Kerenos had come against this sad army; perhaps the Fhoi Myore themselves had refused to appear, sending only a coldness—a sudden, awful coldness which had worked instantly and turned warm flesh into ice.
     
    Corum turned away from the sight, the bow forgotten in his hands. The horse was nervous and was only too glad to bear him away around the banks of the frozen tarn, where stiff, dead reeds stood like stalagmites, like a travesty of the dead folk nearby. And Corum saw two who had been wading in the water and they too were frozen, appearing to be chopped off at the waist by the flat ice, their arms raised in attitudes of terror, They were a boy and a girl, both probably little older than sixteen years.
     
    The landscape was dead—silent. The plodding of the horse's hooves sounded to Corum like the tolling of a death-knell. He fell forward across his saddle-pommel, refusing to look, unable even to weep, so horror-struck was he by the images he had seen.
     
    Then he heard a moan which at first he thought was his own. He lifted his head, drawing cold air into his lungs, and he heard the sound again. He turned and forced himself to glance back at the frozen host, judging it to be the direction from where the moan had come.
     
    A black shape was clearly visible now among the white ones. A black cloak flapped like the broken wing of a raven.
     
    "Who are you?" Corum cried, "that you weep for these?"
     
    The figure was kneeling. As Corum called out, it rose to its feet, but no face or even limbs could be seen emerging from the tattered cloak.
     
    "Who are you?" Corum turned his horse.
     
    ' Take me, too, Fhoi Myore vassal!' ‘ The Voice was weary and it was old. "I know you and I know your cause."
     
    "I think that you do not know me, then," said Corum kindly. "Now, say who you are, old woman."
     
    "I am Ieveen, mother of some of these, wife of one of these, and I deserve to die. If you be enemy, slay me. If you be friend, then slay me, friend, and prove myself a good friend to Ieveen. I would go now where my lost ones go. I want no more of this world and its cruelties. I want no more visions and terrors and truths. I am Ieveen and I prophesied all mat you see. That is why I fled when they would not listen to me. And when I came back, I found that I had been right. And that is why I weep—but not for these. I weep for myself and my betrayal of my folk. I am Ieveen the Seeress, but now I have none to see for, none to respect me, least of all myself. The Fhoi Myore came and struck them down. The Fhoi Myore left in their clouds with their dogs, hunting more satisfactory game than my poor clan, who were so brave and believed that the Fhoi Myore, no matter how depraved, how wicked, would respect them enough to offer them a fair fight. I warned them of what would befall them. I begged them to flee as I fled. They were reasonable. They told me I could go, but they wished to stay—that a folk must keep its pride or perish in different ways, each one dying within themselves. I did not understand them. Now I understand them. So slay me, sir."
     
    Now the thin arms were raised imploringly, the black rags falling away from flesh that was blue with cold and with age. Now the head covering dropped and the wrinkled face with its thin, gray hair was revealed, and Corum saw the eyes and wondered if, in all his travels, he had ever seen such misery as that which he saw in the face of Ieveen the Seeress.
     
    "Slay me, sir!"
     
    “I cannot,” said Corum. "If I had more courage I would do what