Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [187]
Gradually, they began to press in on him, blue painted faces grinning with triumphant expectation, green eyes glaring in the moonlight, full of fierce blood-lust; glowing green bodies tensed to spring at him. He cursed the bad luck which had brought him to this alien land, to die without benefit of his own deities, the grim gods of Phum, without ever knowing where he was or whether he might ever have found the city he sought. And he called out to Krim, Lord of the Seven Spheres, to aid him. But Krim, as was conventional, sent no aid. Indeed, he might not have existed in this sphere at all.
His sword arm was painful now, increasingly less able to swing the great two-handed blade. The pile of disgusting meat grew, but so, it seemed, did the numbers of his attackers.
Then, suddenly, the moonlight disappeared and glancing up he saw that clouds spread across it. It would be even harder to fight in darkness, but he was determined to take as many with him as he could.
To his astonishment, they began to fall back, muttering amongst themselves. They were conferring in a language he had never heard before. Not the now-familiar tongues of Eerin. Taking advantage of this lull, Rackhir stepped back and saw his bow where he had dropped it. Quickly, he bent to snatch it up and string it. From the quiver that never left his belt he drew four arrows, sending one after another, with unerring speed into their ranks. This seemed to be enough to cause them to fall back, slinking into the darkness of the trees.
“Stand, you painted cowards!” he cried in his own language, letting fly another brace of arrows. “Stand!” (In truth, this was pure braggartism, for he could barely stand himself.) But as the two men fell, their companions grunted, yelled, then stumbled off into the undergrowth. He heard them crashing through the wood. Then there was sudden silence. He waited, keeping his guard as best he could. In the darkness, he heard the rasping breath of the dying, the thump of his own heart and—something else…
It was a woman’s voice, sweet, almost a whisper. “I admire you for your courage, stranger. What are you called?”
“I am Rackhir, the Red Archer, Warrior Priest of Phum.” Without thinking, he had answered in his own language. Realizing this, he added, “Men call me in these parts Ronan the Red.”
“Ah, Phum,” murmured the unseen woman in a third tongue altogether. “Such redness there is in Phum. They say it’s a city built of blood, do they not?”
“Those who do not know us, aye.” Rackhir was suspicious. He understood her words perfectly.
The woman’s voice was mellow, slightly mocking. “It’s centuries since I last saw her rust-coloured towers rising from the desert like a mirage. Do her terraces still drip with crimson orchids? Do the ruby fountains still play in her squares, and do her scarlet-maned maidens still bathe themselves there on the Night of the Nomad Nuptials?”
“You know Phum?” He turned, seeking the source of the voice.
“I know all the lands called by my kin the Young Kingdoms. But it is nigh on a millennium since I last saw them. For I am O’Indura of Imrryr, the Dreaming City, and it is my doom to dream for ever, trapped in this place which the folk of Eerin call the Roaming Forest.”
Now he recalled the language she spoke. It was High Melnibonéan, the common speech of all educated dwellers in his own sphere. It had been years since he had used it but the tongue came surprisingly easily to him. “Who were those men?”
“They belong to a tribe called the Nishut, which means “No tribe.” They are slaves, unwilling miners of emeralds, and some say their skins take on the hue of the jewels with which they pay their mistress not