Prince Gaynor staggered, groaning and slowly fell to his knees.
Now Corum jumped forward and with one arm encircled Gaynor's neck. 'Do you yield, prince?'
'I cannot yield,' Gaynor replied in a strangled voice. 'I have nothing to yield.'
But he no longer struggled as the sinister Hand of Kwll grasped the lip of his visor and tugged.
'NO!' Prince Gaynor cried as he realized what Corum planned. 'You cannot. No mortal may see my face!' He began to writhe, but Corum held him firmly, and the hand of Kwll tugged again at the visor.
'PLEASE!'
The visor shifted slightly.
'I BEG THEE, PRINCE IN THE SCARLET ROBE! LET ME GO AND I WILL OFFER THEE NO FURTHER HARM!'
'You have not the right to swear such an oath,' Corum reminded him fiercely. 'You are Xiombarg's thing and are without honour or will.'
The pleading voice echoed strangely. 'Have mercy, Prince Corum.'
'And I have not the right to grant you that mercy, for I serve Arkyn,' Corum told him.
The Hand of Kwll wrenched for a third time at the visor and it came away.
Corum stared at a youthful face which writhed as if composed of a million white worms. Dead, red eyes peered from the face and all the horrors Corum had ever witnessed could not compare with the simple, tragic horror of that visage. He screamed and his scream blended with that of Prince Gaynor the Damned as the flesh of the face began to putrefy and change into a score of foul colours which gave off a more pungent stench than anything which had issued from the Chaos Pack itself. And as Corum watched the face changed its features. Sometimes it was the face of a middle-aged man, sometimes the face of a woman, sometimes that of a boy - and once, fleetingly, he recognized his own face. How many guises had Prince Gaynor known through all the eternity of his damnation? Corum saw a million years of despair recorded there. And still the face writhed, still the red eyes blazed in terror and agony, still the features changed and changed and changed and changed…
More than a million years. Eons of misery. The price of Gaynor's nameless crime, his betrayal of his oath to Law. A fate imposed upon him not by Law but by the Power of the Balance. What crime could it have been if the neutral Cosmic Balance had been required to act? Some suggestion of it appeared and disappeared in the various features that flashed within the helm. And now Corum did not grip Gaynor's neck, but instead cradled the tormented head in his arms and wept for the Prince of the Damned who had paid a price - was paying a price - which no being should ever have to pay.
Here, Corum felt as he wept, was the ultimate in justice - or the ultimate in injustice. Both seemed at that moment to be the same.
And even now Prince Gaynor was not dying. He was merely undergoing a transition from one existence to another. Soon, in some other distant Realm, far from the Fifteen Planes and the Realms of the Sword Rulers, he would be doomed to continue his servitude to Chaos.
At last the face disappeared and the flashing armour was empty.
Prince Gaynor the Damned was gone.
Corum lifted his head dazedly and heard Jhary-a-Conel's voice in his ears. 'Quickly, Corum, take Gaynor's horse. The barbarians are gathering their courage. Our work is done here!'
The Companion to Champions was shaking him. Corum got up, found his sword where Gaynor had dropped it in the mud, let Jhary help him into the ebony and ivory saddle…
… Then they were galloping towards the walls of Halwyg-nan-Vake with the Mabden warriors howling behind them.
The gates opened for them and closed instantly. Barbarian fists beat uselessly on the iron-shod timbers as they dismounted to find that King Onald and Rhalina were waiting for them.
'Prince Gaynor?' said King Onald eagerly. 'Does he still live?'
'Aye,' Corum answered hollowly. 'He still lives.'
'Then you failed!'
'No.' Corum walked away from them, leading his foe's horse, walking into the darkness, unwilling to speak to anyone, not even Rhalina.
King Onald followed him and then paused, looking up at Jhary who was lowering himself from his saddle. 'He did not fail?'
'Prince Gaynor's power is gone,' Jhary said tiredly. 'Corum defeated him. Now the barbarians have no brain - they have only their numbers, their brutality, their Dogs and their Bears.' He laughed without humour. 'That is all, King Onald.'
They all stared after Corum who, with bowed back and dragging feet, passed into the shadows.
'I will prepare us for their attack,' Onald said. 'They will come at us in the morning, I think.'
'It is likely,' Rhalina agreed. She had an impulse to go to Corum then, but she restrained it. And at dawn the barbarian army of King Lyr-a-Brode joined with the army of Bro-an-Mabden and, still with the strength of the Army of the Dog and the Army of the Bear, began to close in on Halwyg-nan-Vake.
Warriors were packed on all Halwyg's low walls. The barbarians had no siege engines with them, since they had relied on Prince Gaynor's strategy and his Host of Chaos in their taking of all other cities. But there were many of them - so many that it was almost impossible to see the last ranks of their legions. They rode on horses and in chariots or they marched.
Corum had rested for a few hours but had not been able to sleep. He could not rid himself of the vision of Prince Gaynor's face. He tried to remember his hatred of Glandyth-a-Krae and sought the Earl amongst the barbarian horde, but Glandyth was apparently nowhere present. Perhaps he searched for Corum still in the region of Moidel's Mount?
King Lyr sat on a big horse and clutched his own crude battle-banner. Beside him was the hump-backed shape of King Cronekyn-a-Drok, ruler of the tribes of Bro-an-Mabden. Half-idiot was King Cronekyn and well was he nicknamed the Little Toad.
The barbarians marched raggedly, without much order and it seemed that the sunken-featured king looked about him nervously as if he were not sure he could control such a force now that Prince Gaynor was gone.
King Lyr-a-Brode lifted his great iron sword and a sheet of flaming arrows suddenly leapt from behind his horsemen and whistled over the walls of Halwyg, setting light to shrubs which had dried from lack of watering. But King Onald had prepared for this and for some days the citizens had been preserving their urine to throw upon the flames. King Onald had heard of the fate of other besieged cities in his kingdom and he had learned what was necessary.
Several of the defenders staggered about on the walls beating at the flaming arrows which stuck in them. One man ran by Corum with his face burning but Corum hardly noticed him.
With a huge roar the barbarians rode right up to the walls and began to scale them.
The attack on Halwyg had begun in earnest.
But Corum watched for the Army of the Dog and the Army of the Bear, wondering when that would be brought against them. They seemed to be holding it in reserve and he could not quite see why.
Now his attention was forced back to the immediate threat as a gasping barbarian, brand in one hand, sword in his teeth, hauled himself over the battlements. He gave a yell of surprise as Corum cut him down. But others were coming now.
All through that morning Corum fought mechanically, though he fought well. Elsewhere on the walls Rhalina, Jhary and Beldan were commanding detachments of defenders. A thousand barbarians died, but a thousand more replaced them, for Lyr had had the sense at least to rest his men and bring them up in waves. There was no chance of such strategy amongst those who manned the walls. Every warrior who could carry a sword was being used.