The Chronicles of Corum Read Online Free Page B

feeling of trepidation.
    Castle Sam lay in the middle of a dense elder forest and was reached by a pathway down which the weary Prince in the Scarlet Robe and his weary horse moved. Small animals scampered away from them and a thin ram fell from a brooding sky. No smoke rose here. And when Corum came to the castle he saw that it was no longer burning. Its black stones were cold, and the crows and ravens had already picked the corpses clean and gone away in search of other carrion.
    And then tears came to Corum's eyes for the first time and he dismounted from his dusty horse and clambered over the stones and the bones and sat down and looked about him.
    For several hours Prince Corum sat thus until a sound came from his throat. It was a sound he had not heard before and he could not name it. It was a thin sound that could not express what was within his stunned mind. He had never known Prince Opash, though his father had spoken of him with great affection. He had never known the family and retainers who had dwelt in Castle Sarn. But he wept for them until at length, exhausted, he stretched out upon the broken slab of stone and fell into a gloomy slumber.
    The rain continued to fall on Corum's scarlet coat. It fell on the ruins and it washed the bones. The red horse sought the shelter of the elder trees and lay down. For a while it chewed the grass and watched its prone master. Then it, too, slept.
    When he eventually awoke and clambered back over the ruins to where his horse still lay, Corum's mind was incapable of speculation. He knew now that this destruction must be Mabden work, for it was not the custom of the Nhadragh to burn the castles of their enemies. Besides, the Nhadragh and the Vadhagh had been at peace for centuries. Both had forgotten how to make war.
    It had occurred to Corum that the Mabden might have been inspired to their destruction by the Nhadragh, but even this was unlikely. There was an ancient code of war to which both races had, no matter how fierce the fighting, always adhered. And with the decline in their numbers, there had been no Deed for the Nhadragh to expand their territories or for the Vadhagh to defend theirs.
    His face thin with weariness and strain, coated with dust and streaked with tears, Prince Corum aroused his horse and mounted him, riding on toward the North, where Castle Gal lay. He hoped a little. He hoped that the Mabden herds moved only in the South and the East, that the North would still be free of then: encroachments, as the West was.
    A day later, as he stopped to water his horse at a small lake, he looked across the gorse moor and saw more smoke curling. He took out his map and consulted it. No castle was marked there.
    He hesitated. Was the smoke coming from another Mabden camp? If so, they might have Vadhagh prisoners whom Corum should attempt to rescue. He decided to ride toward the source of the smoke.
    The smoke came from several sources. This was, indeed, a Mabden camp, but it was a permanent camp, not unlike the smaller settlements of the Nhadragh, though much cruder. A collection of stone huts built close to the ground, with thatched roofs and chimneys of slate from which the smoke came.
    Around this camp were fields that had evidently contained crops, though there were no crops now, and others which had a few cows grazing in them.
    For some reason Corum did not feel wary of this camp as he had felt wary of the Mabden caravan, but he nonetheless approached it cautiously, stopping his horse a hundred yards away and studying the camp for signs of life.
    He waited an hour and saw none.
    He moved his horse in closer until he was less than fifty yards away from the nearest single-story building.
    Still no Mabden emerged from any of the low doorways.
    Corum cleared his throat.
    A child began to scream and the scream was muffled suddenly.
    "Mabden!" Corum called, and his voice was husky with weariness and sorrow. "I would speak with you. Why do you not come out of your