How Gorice the King, Albeit So Strong a Sorcerer, Elected that by the Sword, and Chiefly by the Lord Corund His Captain General, Should Be Determined as for this Time the Event of These High Matters; and How Those Twain, the King and the Lord Juss, Spake Face to Face at Last; and of the Bloody Battle Before Carc?, And what Fruit was Garnered There And what Made Ripe Against Harvest.

Gorice the king sate in his chamber the thirteenth morning after these tidings brought to Carc?. On the table under his hand were papers of account and schedules of his armies and their equipment. Corund sate at the King’s right hand, and over against him Corinius.

Corund’s great hairy hands were clasped before, him on the table. He spoke without book, resting his gaze on the steady clouds that sailed across the square of sky seen through the high window that faced him. “Of Witchland and the home provinces, O King, nought but good. All the companies of soldiers which were appointed to repair to this part by the tenth of the month are now come hither, save some bands of spearmen from the south, and some from Estreganzia. These last I expect to-day; Viglus writeth they come with him with the heavy troops from Baltary I sent him to assemble. So is the muster full as for these parts: Thramn?, Zorn, Permio, the land of Ar, Trace, Buteny, and Estremerine. Of the subject allies, there’s less good there. The kings of Mynia and Gilta: Olis of Tecapan: County Escobrine of Tzeusha: the king of Ellien: all be here with their contingents. But there’s mightier names we miss. Duke Maxtlin of Azumel hath flung off’s allegiance and cut off your envoy’s ears, O King; ’tis thought for some supposed light part of the sons of Corsus done to his sister. That docketh us thirty score stout fighters. The lord of Eushtlan sendeth no answer, and now are we advertised by Mynia and Gilta of his open malice and treason, who did stubbornly let them the way hither through his country while they hastened to do your majesty’s commands. Then there’s the Ojedian levies, should be nigh a thousand spears, ten days overdue. Heming, that raiseth Pixyland in Prezmyra’s name, will bring them in if he may. Who also hath order, being on his way, to rouse Maltra?ny to action, from whom no word as yet; and I do fear treachery in ’em, Maltra?ny and Ojedia both, they have been so long of coming. King Barsht of Toribia sendeth flat refusal.”

“It is known to you besides, O King,” said Corinius, “that the king of Nevria came in last night, many days past the day appointed, and but half his just complement.”

The King drew back his lips. “I will not dash his spirits by blaming him at this present. Later, I’ll have that king’s head for this.”

“This is the sum,” said Corund. “Nay, then, I had forgot the Red Foliot with’s folk, three hundred perchance, came in this morning.”

Corinius thrust out his tongue and laughed: “One hen-lobster such as he shall scarce afford a course for this banquet.”

“He keepeth faith,” said Corund, “where bigger men turn dastards. ’Tis seen now that these forced leagues be as sure as they were sealed with butter. Your majesty will doubtless give him audience.”

The King was silent awhile, studying his papers. “What strength to-day in Carc??” he asked.

Corund answered him, “As near as may be two score hundred foot and fifty score horse: five thousand in all. And, that I weigh most, O King, big broad strong set lads of Witchland nigh every jack of ’em.”

The King said, “’Twas not well done, O Corund, to bid thy son delay for Ojedia and Maltra?ny. He might else have been in Carc? now with a thousand Pixylanders to swell our strength.”

“I did that I did,” answered Corund, “seeking only your good, O King. A few days’ delay might buy us a thousand spears.”

“Delay,” said the King, “hath favoured mine enemy. This we should have done: at his first landing give him no time but wink, set on him with all our forces, and throw him into the sea.”

“If luck go with us that may yet be,” said Corund.

The King’s nostrils widened. He crouched forward, glaring at Corund and Corinius, his jaw thrust out so that the stiff black beard on it brushed the papers on the table before him. “The Demons,” said be, “landed i’ the night at Ralpa. They come on with great journeys northward. Will be here ere three days be spent.”

Both they grew red as blood. Corund spake: “Who told you these tidings, O King?”

“Care not thou for that,” said the King. “Enough for thee, I know it. Hath it ta’en you napping?”

“No,” answered he. “These ten days past we have been ready, with what strength we might make, to receive ’em, come they from what quarter they will. So it is, though, that while we lack the Pixyland succours Juss hath by some odds the advantage over us, if, as our intelligence saith, six thousand fighting men do follow him; and these forced besides with some that should be ours.’

“Thou wouldst,” said the King, “await these out of Pixyland, with that else Heming may gather, afore we offer them battle?”

Said Corund, “That would I. We must look beyond the next turn of the road, O my Lord the King.”

“That would not I,” said Corinius.

“That is stoutly said, Corinius,” said the King. “Yet remember, thou hadst the greater force on Krothering Side, yet wast overborne.”

“’Tis that standeth in my mind, Lord,” said Corund. “For well I know, had I been there I’d a fared no better.”

The Lord Corinius, whose brow had darkened with the naming of his defeat, looked cheerfully now and said, “I pray you but consider, O my Lord the King, that here at home is no room for such a sleight or gin as that whereby in their own country they took me. When Juss and Brandoch Daha and their stinking gaberlunzies do cry huff at us on Witchland soil, ’tis time to give ’em a choke-pear. Which with your leave, Lord, I will promise now to do, other else to lose my life.”

“Give me thy hand,” said Corund. “Of all men else would I a chosen thee for such a day as this, and (were’t to-day to meet the whole power of Demonland in arms) to stand perdue with thee for this bloody service. But let us hear the King’s commands: which way soe’er he choose, we shall do it right gladly.”

Gorice the King sat silent. One lean hand rested on the iron serpent-head of his chair’s arm, the other, with finger outstretched against the jutting cheekbone, supported his chin. Only in the deep shadow of his eye-sockets a lambent light moved. At length he started, as if the spirit, flown to some unsounded gulfs of time or space, had in that instant returned to its mortal dwelling.

He gathered the papers in a heap and tossed them to Corund.

“Too much lieth on it,” said he. “He that hath many peas may put more in the pot. But now the day approacheth when I and Juss must cast up our account together, and one or all shall be brought to death and bane.” He stood up from his chair and looked down on those two, his chosen captains, great men of war raised up by him to be kings over two quarters of the world. They watched him like little birds under the eye of a snake. “The country hereabout,” said the King, “is not good for horsemanship, and the Demons be great horsemen. Carc? is strong, and never can it be forced by assault. Also under mine eye should my men of Witchland acquit themselves to do the greatest deeds. Therefore will we abide them here in Carc?, until young Heming come and his levies out of Pixyland. Then shall ye fall upon them and never make an end till the land be utterly purged of them, and all the lords of Demonland be slain.”

Corinius said, “To hear is to obey, O King. Howsoever, not to dissemble with you, I’d liever at ’em at once, ’stead of let them sit awhile and refresh their army. Occasion is a wanton wench, O King, that is quick to beckon another man if one look coldly on her. Moreover, Lord, could you not by your art, in small time, with certain compositions? ——”

But the King brake in upon him saying, “Thou knowest not what thou speakest. There is thy sword; there thy men; these my commands. See thou perform them punctually when time shall come.”

“Lord,” said Corinius, “you shall not find me wanting.” Therewith he did obeisance and went forth from before the King.

The King said unto Corund, “Thou hast manned him well, this tassel-gentle. There was some danger he should so mislike subjection unto thee in these acts martial as it should breed some quarrel should little speed our enterprise.”

“Think not you that, O King,” answered Corund. “’Tis grown like an almanac for the past year, past date. A will feed out of my hand now.”

“Because thou hast carried it with him,” said the King, “in so honourable and open plainness. Hold on the road thou hast begun, and be mindful still that into thine hand is given the sword of Witchland, and therein have I put my trust for this great hour.”

Corund looked upon the King with gray and quick eyes shining like unto the eagle’s. He slapped his heavy sword with the flat of his hand: “’Tis a tough fox, O my Lord the King; will not fail his master.”

Therewith, glad at the King’s gracious words, he did obeisance unto the King and went forth from the chamber.

The same night there appeared in the sky impending over Carc? a blazing star with two bushes. Corund beheld it in an open space betwixt the clouds as he went to his chamber. He said nought of it to his lady wife, lest it should trouble her; but she too had from her window seen that star, yet spake not of it to her lord for a like reason.

And King Gorice, sitting in his chamber with his baleful books, beheld that star and its fiery streamers, which the King rather noted than liked. For albeit he might not know of a certain what way that sign intended, yet was it apparent to one so deeply learned in nigromancy and secrets astronomical that this thing was fatal, being of those prodigies and ominous prognosticks which fore-run the tragical ends of noble persons and the ruins of states.

The third day following, watchmen beheld from Carc? walls in the pale morning the armies of the Demons that filled the whole plain to southward. But of the succours cut of Pixyland was as yet no sign at all. Gorice the King, according as he had determined, held all his power quiet within the fortress. But for passing of the time, and because it pleased his mind to speak yet face to face with the Lord Juss before this last mortal trial in arms should be begun betwixt them, the King sent Cadarus as his herald with flags of truce and olive-branches into the Demons’ lines. By which mission it was concluded that the Demons should withdraw their armies three bowshots from the walls, and they of Witchland should abide all within the hold; only the King with fourteen of his folk unarmed and Juss with a like number unarmed should come forth into the midst of the bateable ground and there speak together. And this meeting must be at the third hour after noon.

So either party came to this parley at the hour appointed. Juss went bare-headed but, save for that, all armed in his shining byrny with gorget and shoulder-plates demasked and embossed with wires of gold, and golden leg-harness, and rings of red gold upon his wrists. His kirtle was of wine-dark silken tissue, and he wore that dusky cloak the sylphs had made for him, the collar whereof was stiff with broidery and strange beasts worked thereon in silver thread. According to the compact he bare no weapon; only in his hand a short ivory staff inlaid with precious stones, and the head of it a ball of that stone which men call Belus’ eye, that is white and hath within it a black apple, the midst whereof a man shall see to glitter like gold. Very masterful and proud he stood before the King, carrying his head like a stag that sniffs the morning. His brethren and Brandoch Daha remained a pace or two behind him, with King Gaslark and the lords Zigg and Gro, and Melchar and Tharmrod and Styrkrnir, Quazz with his two sons, and Astar, and Bremery of Shaws: goodly men and lordly to look on, unweaponed all; and wondrous was the sparkle of their jewels that were on them.

Over against them, attending on the King, were these: Corund king of Impland, and Corinius called king of Demonland, Hacmon and Viglus Corund’s sons, Duke Corsus and his sons Dekalajus and Gorius, Eulien king of Mynia, Olis lord of Tecapan, Duke Avel of Estreganzia, the Red Foliot, Erp the king of Ellien, and the counts of Thramn? and Tzeusha; unweaponed, but armoured to the throat, big men and strong the most of them and of lordly bearing, yet none to match with Corinius and Corund.

The King, in his mantle of cobra-skins, his staff-royal in his hand, topped by half a head all those tall men about him, friend and foe alike. Lean and black he towered amongst them, like a thunder-blasted pine-tree seen against the sunset.

So, in the golden autumn afternoon, in the midst of that sad main of sedgelands where between slimy banks the weed-choked Druima deviously winds toward the sea, were those two men met together for whose ambition and their pride the world was too little a place to contain them both and peace lying between them. And like some drowsy dragon of the elder slime, squat, sinister, and monstrous, the citadel of Carc? slept over all.

By and by the King spake and said: “I sent for thee because I think it good I and thou should talk together while yet is time for talking.”

Juss answered, “I quarrel not with that, O King.”

“Thou,” said the King, bending his brow upon him, “art a man wise and fearless. I counsel thee, and all these that be with thee, turn back from Carc?. Well I see the blood thou didst drink in Melikaphkhaz will not allay thy thirst, and war is to thee thy pearl and thy paramour. Yet, if it be, turn back from Carc?. Thou standest now on the pinnacle of thine ambition; wilt leap higher, thou fall’st in the abyss. Let the four corners of the earth be shaken with our wars, but not this centre. For here shall no man gather fruit, but and if it be death he gather; or if, then this fruit only, that Zoacum, that fruit of bitterness, which when he shall have tasted of, all the bright lights of heaven shall become as darkness and all earth’s goodness as ashes in his mouth all his life’s days until he die.”

He paused. The Lord Juss stood still, quailing not at all beneath that dreadful gaze. His company behind him stirred and whispered. Lord Brandoch Daha, with mockery in his eye, said somewhat to Goldry Bluszco under his breath.

But the King spake again to the Lord Juss, “Be not deceived. These things I say unto thee not as labouring to scare you from your set purpose with frights and fairy-babes: I know your quality too well. But I have read signs in heaven: nought clear, but threatful unto both you and me. For thy good I say it, O Juss, and again (for that our last speech leaveth the firmest print) be advised: turn back from Carc? or it be too late.”

Lord Juss harkened attentively to the words of Gorice the King, and when he had ended, answered and said, “O King, thou hast given us terrible good counsel. But it was riddlewise. And hearing thee, mine eye was still on the crown thou wearest, made in the figure of a crab-fish, which, because it looks one way and goes another, methought did fitly pattern out thy looking to our perils but seeking the while thine own advantage.”

The King gave him an ill look, saying, “I am thy lord paramount. With subjects it sits not to use this familiar style unto their King.”

Juss answered, “Thou dost thee and thou me. And indeed it were folly in either of us twain to bend knee to t’other, when the lordship of all the earth waiteth on the victor in our great contention. Thou hast been open with me, Witchland, to let me know thou art uneager to strike a field with us. I will be open too, and I will make an offer unto thee, and this it is: that we will depart out of thy country and do no more unpeaceful deeds against thee (till thou provoke us again); and thou, of thy part, of all the land of Demonland shalt give up thy quarrel, and of Pixyland and Impland beside, and shalt yield me up Corsus and Corinius thy servants that I may punish them for the beastly deeds they did in our land whenas we were not there to guard it.”

He ceased, and for a minute they beheld each other in silence. Then the King lifted up his chin and smiled a dreadful smile.

Corinius whispered mockingly in his ear, “Lord, you may lightly give ’em Corsus. That were easy composition, and false coin too methinks.”

“Stand back i’ thy place,” said the King, “and hold thy peace.” And unto Lord Juss he said, “Of all ensuing harm the cause is in thee; for I am now resolved never to put up my sword until of thy bleeding head I may make a football. And now, let the earth be afraid, and Cynthia obscure her shine: no more words but mum. Thunder and blood and night must usurp our parts, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this great piece.”

That night the King walked late in his chamber in the

Iron Tower alone. These three years past be had seldom resorted thither, and then commonly but to bear away some or other of his books to study in his own lodging. His jars and flasks and bottles of blue and green and purple glass wherein he kept his cursed drugs and electuaries of secret composition, his athals and athanors, his crucibles, his horsebellied retorts and alembics and bainsmaries, stood arow on shelves coated with dust and hung about with the dull spider’s weavings; the furnace was cold; the glass of the windows was clouded with dirt; the walls were mildewed; the air of the chamber fusty and stagnant. The King was deep in his contemplation, with a big black book open before him on the six-sided reading-stand: the damnablest of all his books, the same which had taught him aforetime what he must do when by the wicked power of enchantment he had wanted but a little to have confounded Demonland and all the lords thereof in death and ruin.

The open page under his hand was of parchment discoloured with age, and the writing on the page was in characters of ancient out-of-fashion crabbedness, heavy and black, and the great initial letters and the illuminated borders were painted and gilded in dark and fiery hues with representations of dreadful faces and forms of serpents and toad-faced men and apes and mantichores and succubi and incubi and obscene representations and figures of unlawful meaning. These were the words of the writing on the page which the King conned over and over, falling again into a deep study betweenwhiles, and then conning these words again of an age-old prophetic writing touching the preordinate destinies of the royal house of Gorice in Carc?:

Soo schel your hous stonde and bee

Unto eternytee

Yet walke warilie

Wyttinge ful sarteynlee

That if impiouslie

The secounde tyme in the bodie

Practisinge grammarie

One of ye katched shulle be

By the feyndis subtiltee

And hys liffe lossit bee

Broke ys thenne this serye

Dampned are you thenne eternallie

Yerth shuldestow thenne never more se

Scarsly the Goddes mought reskue ye

Owt of the Helle where you woll lie

Unto eternytee

The sterres tealde hit mee.

Gorice the King stood up and went to the south window. The casement bolts were rusted: he forced them and they flew back with a shriek and a clatter and a thin shower of dust and grit. He opened the window and looked out. The heavy night grew to her depth of quiet. There were lights far out in the marshes, the lights of Lord Juss’s camp-fires of his armies gathered against Carc?. Scarcely without a chill might a man have looked upon that King standing by the window; for there was in the tall lean frame of him an iron aspect as of no natural flesh and blood but some harder colder element; and his countenance, like the picture of some dark divinity graven ages ago by men long dead, bore the imprint of those old qualities of unrelenting power, scorn, violence, and oppression, ancient as night herself yet untouched by age, young as each night when it shuts down and old and elemental as the primaeval dark.

A long while he stood there, then came again to his book. “Gorice VII.,” he said in himself. “That was once in the body. And I have done better than that, but not yet well enough. ’Tis too hazardous, the second time, alone. Corund is a man undaunted in war, but the man is too superstitious and quaketh at that which hath not flesh and blood. Apparitions and urchin-shows can quite unman him. There’s Corinius, careth not for God or man a point. But he is too rash and unadvised: I were mad to trust him in it. Were the Goblin here, it might be carried. Damnable both-sides villain, he’s cast off from me.” He scanned the page as if his piercing eyes would thrust beyond the barriers of time and death and discover some new meaning in the words which should agree better with the thing his mind desired while his judgement forbade it. “He says ‘damned eternally:’ he says that breaketh the series, and ‘earth shouldst thou then never more see.’ Put him by.”

And the King slowly shut up his book, and locked it with three padlocks, and put back the key in his bosom. “The need is not yet,” he said. “The sword shall have his day, and Corund. But if that fail me, then even this shall not turn me back but I will do that I will do.”

In the same hour when the King was but now entered again into his own lodgings, came through a runner of Heming’s to let them know that be, fifteen hundred strong, marched down the Way of Kings from Pixyland. Moreover they were advertised that the Demon fleet lay in the river that night, and it was not unlike the attack should be in the morning by land and water.

All night the King sate in his chamber holding council with his generals and ordering all things for the morrow. All night long he closed not his eyes an instant, but the others he made sleep by turns because they should be brisk and ready for the battle. For this was their counsel, to draw out their whole army on the left bank before the bridge-gate and there offer battle to the Demons at point of day. For if they should abide within doors and suffer the Demons to cut young Heming off from the bridge-gate, then were he lost, and if the bridge-house should fall and the bridge, then might the Demons lightly ship what force they pleased to the right bank and so closely invest them in Carc?. Of an attack on the right bank to sit they had no fear, well knowing themselves able I within doors and laugh at them, since the walls were there inexpugnable. But if a battle were now brought about before the bridge-gate as they were minded, and Heming should join in the fight from the eastward, there was good hope that they should be able to crumple up the battle of the Demons, driving them in upon their centre from the west whilst Heming smote them on the other part. Whereby these should be cast into a great rout and confusion and not be able to escape away to their ships, but there in the fenlands before Carc? should be made a prey unto the Witches.

When it was the cold last hour before the dawn the generals took from the King th............