Sailor on the Seas of Fate - Michael Moorcock [10]
"It is all sorcery here," Otto Blendker said. And he smiled wanly as he gave Elric his hand. "I'll fight beside you, Elric."
His sea-green armor shimmering faintly in the lantern light, another rose, his casque pushed back from his face. It was a face almost as white as Elric's, though the eyes were deep and near-black. "And I," said Hown Serpent-tamer, "though I fear I'm little use on still land."
The last to rise, at Elric's glance, was a warrior who had said little during their earlier conversations. His voice was deep and hesitant. He wore a plain iron battle-cap and the red hair beneath it was braided. At the end of each braid was a small fingerbone which rattled on the shoulders of his byrnie as he moved. This was Ashnar the Lynx, whose eyes were rarely less than fierce. "I lack the eloquence or the breeding of you other gentlemen," said Ashnar. "And I've no familiarity with sorcery or those other things of which you speak, but I'm a good soldier and my joy is in fighting. I'll take your orders, Elric, if you'll have me."
"Willingly," said Elric.
"There is no dispute, it seems," said Erekosë to the remaining four who had elected to join him. "All this is doubtless preordained. Our destinies have been linked from the first."
"Such philosophy can lead to unhealthy fatalism," said Terndrik of Hasghan. "Best believe our fates are our own, even if the evidence denies it."
"You must think as you wish," said Erekosë. "I have led many lives, though all, save one, are remembered but faintly." He shrugged. "Yet I deceive myself, I suppose, in that I work for a time when I shall find this Tanelorn and perhaps be reunited with the one I seek. That ambition is what gives me energy, Terndrik."
Elric smiled. "I fight, I think, because I relish the comradeship of battle. That, in itself, is a melancholy condition in which to find oneself, is it not?"
"Aye." Erekosë glanced at the floor. "Well, we must try to rest now."
IV
* * *
The outlines of the coast were dim. They waded through white water and white mist, their swords held above their heads. Swords were their only weapons. Each of the Four possessed a blade of unusual size and design, but none bore a sword which occasionally murmured to itself as did Elric's Stormbringer. Glancing back, Elric saw the captain standing at the rail, his blind face turned toward the island, his pale lips moving as if he spoke to himself. Now the water was waist-deep and the sand beneath Elric's feet hardened and became smooth rock. He waded on, wary and ready to carry any attack to those who might be defending the island. But now the mist grew thinner, as if it could gain no hold on the land, and there were no obvious signs of defenders.
Tucked into his belt, each man had a brand, it's end wrapped in oiled cloth so that it should not be wet when the time came to light it. Similarly, each was equipped with a handful of smoldering tinder in a little firebox in a pouch attached to his belt, so that the brands could be instantly ignited.
"Only fire will destroy this enemy forever," the captain had said again as he handed them their brands and their tinderboxes.
As the mist cleared, it revealed a landscape of dense shadows. The shadows spread over red rock and yellow vegetation and they were shadows of all shapes and dimensions, resembling all manner of things. They seemed cast by the huge blood-colored sun which stood at perpetual noon above the island, but what was disturbing about them was that the shadows themselves seemed without a source, as if the objects they represented were invisible or existed elsewhere than on the island itself. The sky, too, seemed full of these shadows, but whereas those on the island were still, those in the sky sometimes moved, perhaps when the clouds moved. And all the while the red sun poured down its bloody