As Cormac had bade, the Dane was moving warily along the wall, advancing toward the corner; thence he would move across the chamber’s rear wall to the corner in which Dithorba was bound.
Cormac’s nape prickled; a chunk of granitic rock lifted without a sound from its piled fellows and went end-over-end at the huger target of the redbearded giant.
“HO!” Wulfhere cried. “Practice does a man good!”
With an almost preposterously expert sweep of his ax, the giant struck the rushing missile away-over an arm’s length from his body.
Another followed close behind, rushing low. Cormac did not wait to see its effect; Wulfhere was prepared, sweating, though from neither heat nor exertion, mac Art rushed toward Dithorba. But the invisible attacker was not distracted. A rock came spinning his way, but a pair of inches above the ground, to catch his shin. He danced, saw another chunk of stone rush off at Wulfhere while still another lofted itself at him, and in dodging he fell.
“Leave this place!” Dithorba’s voice was dry, crackly with age. “Ye cannot free me, so long as I wear the Moonbow points down; Tarmur Roag will put death on both of ye giants. Leave me; this is only death for ye both!”
“Why made ye no reply be-uh-fore!” Wulfhere demanded with some petulance, briefly interrupting himself to fend away a platter-size stone. It scraped across his buckler with an ear-scratching noise.
“Go!” Dithorba Loingsech cried. “I held my silence in hopes Tarmur would not know of your presence and the deaths of the guards he set to watch over me. He knows. More weapon-men will come. Go, go, ye cannot free me; ye cannot fight stones hurled by a powerful mage far from here!”
“Augh!” Wulfhere crashed against the wall. precisely in his armoured stomach a skull-sized stone had struck the Dane, and he slid weakly down the rocky wall with a screeching of steel scales.
“All we need do is pluck that necklace from round your neck, Dithorba Loingsech!” Cormac snarled, and like a vicious animal he used shield to bash away a flying shape of rock that twinkled as if set with a score of diamonds.
“And these chains? Be not foolish, dark man-your comrade is already down and more guards are doubtless on their way!”
Steel will cut silver chain very nicely, Cormac thought, but he said nothing.
Three grey stones leapt up from the dwindled pile; they hurtled at him in a flurry, separating naturally.
With his targe he smashed away the largest, though he heard stout wood crack; in stooping to meet that crotch-aimed lump of rock he bent under the second, which he heard hum past his ear. The third, aimed at his body, struck his helmet with a belling crash and a shower of shivered stone.
His head ringing both at ears and within, Cormac fell and did not rise.
“Wolf!” the Dane called in concern. He was getting himself grunting to his feet with the aid of wall and ax-helve. And two sorcery-driven stones rushed at him.
Cormac’s blue-grey mantle fluttered and bare white legs flashed. Across the floor strewn with stones and corpses and slippery with blood raced Erris of Moytura in a lunatic dash-and in seconds she had reached the shackled mage. As her hands rose to his necklace he swiftly bent his head; the slave snatched away the chain and the Sign of the Moonbow. She hurled it to the floor of hardpacked earth.
Immediately Dithorba went rigid and his eyes closed.
A big flattened rock, just elevating to begin its assault on Wulfhere, clattered back onto the other stones remaining about Dithorba’s ankles. Nor did more stones move.
Totally heedless of her nudity, made the whiter by the slate-hued cloak of Cormac mac Art, Erris squatted beside the fallen Gael. He was up on one forearm, twitching his head, staring dully down. His helmet was dented, though no blood seeped from beneath its rim.
“An we… free Riora, Erris… it’s you… who’s made it possible.”
“Oh please, please Cormac mac Art-be all right, get up get up oh please…”
A great burly form loomed over her, squatted beside her. “What’s this? Be ye tired from this little fray, battle-brother? What ails ye?”
Cormac looked at him. “I have a headache.”
Wulfhere laughed gustily. Cormac detected the trace of hysteria that denoted relief on the Dane’s part. The man was unequipped to cope with an injury to someone he loved, and the men of his chill land were too sure of their masculinity to avoid stating love for another man. Nevertheless Wulfhere’s way was to lard on bluff jests as cover for nervous concern that made him most woefully uncomfortable.
Work remained to be done, and Cormac willed himself to move. His pushing himself was accompanied by twinges in right upper arm and left thigh. His head seemed to tighten within a deep grey band and he staggered in a long moment of vertigo. Leaning on the Dane, he bent to retrieve the Danan sword he’d dropped. He frowned against the throbbing in his head as he straightened. Cormac turned to Dithorba.
“See that ye move not, Dithorba Loingsech,” he said, and he went to the old man and caught his thin arm in a vising grip.
Dithorba shrank and closed his eyes; the other man wielded sword. With five careful strokes of the Danan blade, Cormac freed the queen’s adviser of his four chains. He gazed a moment at the sword; held it up for Wulfhere’s eyes. The Danan blade was both bent and badly notched.
“Hmp! Ruined, by Odin’s eye! My ax would have cut through thicker links of silver than those without taking note-much less bending!”
“Iron,” Cormac said quietly. “All their swords are of iron, not steel.” He went to one knee beside a corpse, moved to another. “Iron! All their helms, their armour… not steel, Wulfhere, but iron.”
While he spoke and moved among the bodies, Erris moved to Dithorba. With more respect than self-consciousness, she removed Cormac’s cloak and swept it around the spindly old man. Naked, she stood with head deferentially bowed. Dithorba but nodded. He stood looking from one to the other of the strangers, rubbing his arms. Despite their being held immobile by Cormac while he struck through the chains, each stroke had brought a painful wrench. The shackles remained, though but one link of silver chain dangled from each.
Danan and Gaelic eyes met.
“Ye’ve come from above,” the dry, brittle old voice said. “A Gael, with that hair and skin and those eyes. We’ve not forgot what ye look like.”
Cormac nodded.
“But ye come not as enemy.” Dithorba glanced at Wulfhere. “And… you. A giant with hair the colour of the pain-rock that yields iron. Two from above-and not as enemies, but to set me free.” The old man shook his head and the plaited white beard stirred on his chest. Erris was a slave, and he took no note of her while she fussed with the cloak’s clasp.
“Wulfhere-Erris has better use for his tunic than the man lying yonder with no wound on him,” Cormac said. “Dithorba Loingsech: my name is Cormac mac Art. Wulfhere the Dane is my battle-brother… my blood brother, though our mothers knew each other not. It is to release ye we’ve come here. It’s help we can provide each other, you and we.”
Dithorba glanced at Erris, who was gazing with longing on the man of her people who lay dead among the others, him with neither wound nor blood on him, save at his nostrils. Reluctantly, Wulfhere went to that corpse.
Dithorba said, “To rescue me, and aid each other. Why?”
“Together,” Cormac said, meeting the old man’s light-eyed gaze levelly, “we must try to free your queen.” Cormac swung his right arm vigorously, against a stiffening of the bruised bicep.
Dithorba stared for a time into the slitted eyes of the dark, scarred man. He nodded, briefly. “Aye-I’d set my life to that end. But… why yourself?”
Turning, Cormac extended a pointing finger at the tall, dark-robed figure in the doorway. “There stands a mage of much power and evil, and as ye well know this holds him mine.” He touched the Moonbow on his chest. “It is because of him I must have… audience with Riora of Moytura, after she is enthroned with her crown upon her.”