The Best of Men - an epic fantasy (Song of Ages Book 1)

by Wilf Jones

  (late) – ‘Dark as the grave outside but still no ghosts: they must be busy elsewhere. We have made progress today even though the road was harder. Everyone is fitter than me, but I’m worried we will all be exhausted by the time we reach the Francon. There’s not much point in getting there if we’re too tired to fight. I’ve had the Captains trying to slow them down but there is no holding them back. Apparently the men are all fired up with the idea of rescuing the Lady Xandra. Looking for the King’s favour, no doubt. Or hers.

  We have passed through more villages, emptied by the threat of war, and they have given rise to an unpleasant development in our progress. I will be sorry to report the unfortunate increase in the incidence of looting among the ranks. It’s minor and casual, of course: the odd trinket left behind, a fine knife, good clothing. There has been no ransacking but it’s theft whichever way you look at it. The culprits have been tried and found guilty. They know it’s due but their punishment will have to wait.

  7th August (morning) – ‘A day and a night and we will be there. Sometimes I am eager for it, but I confess that at others I am dreading this confrontation. I have lived fifty-six years, good years, and although I am not old, I believe that death now would not be too great a disappointment. I’ve done all I wanted to do, seen all I wanted to see. My children are grown, my wife has gone ahead of me and the prospect of moving on, without her, into sadness and dotage and infirmity does not seem so good.

  ‘These lines make it seem that I seek death. Let me be clear: I do not. But death does not scare me.

  ‘So, what is it then that I dread? Mutilation? The destruction of my army, my people? Certainly not the ghosts! It is the unknown, Lomal. Our blinkered advance. I cannot stand this uncertainty.

  (evening) – ‘Morale was high, but morale is a delicate thing and it takes very little to damage it. On this occasion, fog. I don’t care if I never see another, if I never hear the word. I’m reminded of Jaspar’s letter. This fog is a horrible thing. It’s blinding; it’s drowning in cotton wool; it stuffs up your head like a cold, makes you shiver and makes you lost. At least it came on only as we made camp – perhaps it will be gone by morning. We will have to get ahead whatever happens. Five miles to the mouth of the valley. The outriders should have been back by now but the fog will have delayed them.

  8th August (morning) – ‘No outriders, and no sun. The fog hides them both.

  ‘We can see twenty or thirty yards, we can see the road. Camp will be left behind, left to stand for the event of our return: my army is girding its loins, loosening its limbs, we will not carry tents into battle! I ride at the head of my army. It’s breaking my rule but there are plenty of commanders to sit back and watch.

  – ‘I have made a halt. We must be close to the valley. We must, and yet there is nothing but twenty yards of road, the fog and a dreadful silence. I have ordered a ration and a nip for the chill, and take up my journal to occupy my thoughts. I will not allow myself needless speculation. When the time comes…

  ‘That’s the shout, here we go: the fog is lifting!’

  Hannaydale 3057.8.2

  Tregar was sweating and out of breath. His earlier journey to Hannayford had been leisurely compared with this steeplechase. If he’d found time to think of the infantry footslogging he would have pitied them, but he had thought for his own discomfort only. The small horsed contingent of Temor’s army were not an elite by any means; the horses were not for comfort but for speed. Temor wanted to reach Hannayford as quickly as possible even if it meant leaving the army a day behind, and so the hundred horse ran fast with little regard for safety. Temor himself led them and beside him rode Owen Cookson’s son, Seth, to act as guide. Seth’s brother Cal was with them even though his assistance seemed superfluous – Tregar presumed he had been invited out of courtesy to the other. Naturally, Tregar had to go with them. ‘You never know when you might need a wizard,’ he was told.

  Temor’s purpose in striking on for the Hannay with such haste was ostensibly to make the foraging easier. The advance group would pinpoint the supplies and anything else that might be useful for those who came after. With Temor, however, it was impossible not to suspect another reason for haste: plain impatience. If he could have reached the Francon in a day he would have done it and damn the plans.

  Tregar wasn’t at all sure that keeping Temor’s company would be good for him. The wizard was himself hot tempered and certainly not fight-shy but compared with Shaf, the Lord Temor, Tregar was a wonder of reserve and good common sense.

  Hannayford gave him a decent rest. He wasn’t needed by Lord or soldier and so he parked himself in a rich man’s house and sipped port because he could find no beer. That was the limit of his foraging. He was on his second glass when Cal found him.

  ‘Hello Cal, I suppose someone’s found me a job, eh?’

  ‘Not that I know about,’ Cal frowned and then said, ‘Oh, I see. No, I’ve not come to fetch you. I wanted a word.’

  ‘Well sit ye down. Port?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘How can I help ye?’

  Cal looked at the wizard with his good eye and Tregar at once found himself looking at the wayward one.

  ‘Have ye ever been to a healer with that eye of yourn?’

  ‘No point, it can’t be fixed.’

  ‘Who told ye that? I could have a good try if we ever get a day’s peace.’

  ‘Then you’ll never try, will you. There won’t be any peace anymore. Not for my family anyway.’

  Tregar was ready to rebuff the boy’s pessimism but something in his look held him back. The gaze from the one good eye was so intense, so implacable. Tregar couldn’t help thinking there was something strange about the lad that went beyond the physical. As if to prove him right Cal continued provocatively:

  ‘I’ve seen it, seen it all. No peace ever again.’

  Tregar took a slow, deliberate sip of his port and placed the glass on the table before him. He was playing for time. He wanted a few moments of cool thought before he committed himself.

  ‘Cal,’ he said, ‘I don’t quite know how to put this. Think about it before giving me your answer. Are ye saying you are prescient?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well think about it for—’

  ‘I mean I don’t know because I don’t know what that word means.’

  ‘Oh. Well there’s no real reason ye should. What I mean is, do ye think ye have the ability to see into the future? Known when someone was going to get pregnant, that a storm will come weeks before it happens, a stranger will turn up; that sort of thing?’

  ‘No. None of those. I only know when someone’s going to die.’

  The lad didn’t mince his words.

  ‘How, er, when did ye—’

  ‘The first time? My mam was about to have her fifth. There was nowt wrong with the labour, that’s what they said after, but I knew. I’d dreamt it dead at birth. I saw the birthing and all, and I knew it must be true because I were only seven and I’d never seen a baby born. How could it have been a normal dream if I could see things I knew nowt about. Then when I were eleven me best friend’s eldest brother were on a trip to Coldharbour and I dreamt his horse had thrown him and he’d broken his neck. He came back on a bier.’

  ‘And ye’ve dreamed recently?’

  ‘Aye, a shameful dream.’

  ‘Are ye going to tell me?’

  ‘Can’t. But it’s our Seth;’ Tregar nodded. He thought he understood: the pair were close. ‘Can’t you send him back, Tregar? You must send him back. For his sake and for mine. It won’t happen if he doesn’t go.’

  ‘Now then Cal, just you calm yoursel’. Let me tell ye what I do know. We were taught all about this sort of dream on Errensea. Think about this: ye say ye’ve dreamed that ye’ve seen deaths before they ha
ppen. Well my guess is that ye’ve also dreamt of deaths that didn’t. You’re sensitive, Cal, ye realize the danger where no one else can see it. Sometimes that danger, that threat becomes real and has the effect ye feared, but most times nothing at all happens and then ye forget that ye’ve had the dream. Now, take that riding accident. I’ll bet ye knew the horse, knew it was in a funny mood before the man took it. You realized it was dangerous to ride but who’d ever listen to an eleven year old? There was a risk he would be thrown and ye knew it. D’ye understand me?’

  Cal said nothing for a minute and then said, ‘You don’t understand me. Going on wi’all that rubbish! I’m telling thee, Seth ‘as to go back or we’ve all had it. Speak to the Lord, mek him see. My brother can’t come wi’ us.’

  Statement made the boy spun on his heel and strode out of the room leaving Tregar amazed.

  Before nightfall Tregar did try to speak with Lord Temor about Cal’s fears but found the lad had beaten him to it. Temor was still swearing.

  ‘So that blasted boy has been on at you as well. He must be slow in the head if he thinks I’ll send warriors away before the battle. Mark me, young Seth is an asset. Him and his sword will do more damage than I will.’

  ‘By the sound of things,’ Tregar agreed, ‘he undoubtedly will.’

  From then on Tregar kept a close eye on Seth Cookson. Certainly the lad seemed different but that wasn’t unusual. He was a soldier now, heading for his first battle, ready and willing to prove himself or die in the act. But the boy’s words were brash and reckless, gone the reserve and modesty Tregar remembered from their previous journey, gone the gentle manners. The wizard was convinced that it was mostly down to Temor. Any impressionable young man was bound to become infected by Shaf’s impetuous style. The Lord and the farmer’s lad had fast become friends. They rode together, walked together, ate together. It was no surprise that Seth’s manner had changed.

  As he watched Seth, Tregar found himself watching Cal too. The boy was always there dogging his brother’s footsteps and looking as though he carried the burdens of the world on his young shoulders. Tregar wished he knew what the boy had dreamed.

  When Tregar reached the point on the road where he had, days before, cast ahead with his Sight, he took a moment to try again. The army was putting up tents and starting fires after a third day of toil; there was shouting and joking, there was clatter and turmoil all about. Tregar decided to ride out a little to get away from the noise. This was not his best skill and he needed to be able to focus on the job without distraction. After quarter of a mile or so the path turned and put a hill between him and the camp.

  ‘Right then,’ he said to Sirrah, ‘Which way first, d’ye reckon?’ The horse didn’t reply of course but he did begin to graze with his head pointing southerly. ‘Back the way we came? Aye, why not: back’s better than forward. It’ll help me work my way into it.’

  So he settled himself and then cast back along the route they had travelled. Five miles back, just the trampling of the grass to mark the army’s passage; ten miles, more of the same, some deserted villages. He was beginning to feel pleased with himself. He wondered how far he could get. Small Cuttings was, of course, out of range but Hannayford now, that might just be… Yes! There it was: the empty High Street, clear in his mind’s eye, the Town Hall with a great padlock on the doors, the tall houses, Mr Richard’s pottery and… and, wandering aimlessly, forlornly, among the cracked pots of the pottery yard, the Master of Small Cuttings, Owen Cookson, haunting the ruins.

  Tregar was so surprised he lost concentration and the image disappeared. Owen Cookson in Hannayford. Why? He’d been adamant his place was at home. Was he now set on following them into battle? Did he think perhaps that his sons might have lagged behind? Was he set on bringing them home? The questions were getting in Tregar’s way. Try as he might Hannayford and Owen were lost to him.

  He took a deep breath and tried to think of something else. He pulled Sirrah about and put everything he could muster into looking out westaway. Could he see the River Plain? Could he find the Anparas army? No: too far. The end of the dales were perhaps forty miles from where he now stood. The only point to note was that some of the most westerly villages were still populated – it cheered him to see men and women going about their business.

  Ahead then. The North and the seat of all the trouble. As before his view surged along the way ahead; as before the country opened up before him. It was pointless. Nothing had changed: empty moorland, gaining in height, rocky scars above a path often less defined than a sheep track, twisting and turning up into the mountains. He saw nor men, nor sheep, nor carrion.

  Disappointed once again but resigned to it, the wizard kicked up Sirrah from his grazing intending to amble back down to the camp just in time for supper. But Sirrah wasn’t happy. The grass he’d found was sweet and despite his master’s insistence he was inclined to stay put. It was as Tregar tugged and struggled with the reins that something flew past his head. He lurched to one side and very nearly fell out of his saddle. With a rustle of creaky wings a large raven landed on a rock beside them: a large, rather dishevelled raven whose midnight black feathers were in places dusty brown and crumpled. The raven tutted and the look it gave him from its one good eye was steely with disapproval.

  ‘Yes Ravn, can I help ye?’ Tregar said.

  The raven tutted some more and shifted from foot to foot as though it was standing in tar. It croaked a filthy word that Tregar did not know but could understand perfectly well, and then flew away over the hill. Tregar watched it go and afterward sat bemused in his saddle for a long ten minutes.

  ‘Well Sirrah,’ he said to his horse. ‘if a ravn can talk there’s hope for ye yet. I hope ye pick up a fairer vocabulary.’

  Sirrah made no comment but continued to chew while he could.

  It came to Tregar’s ears, on the following day, that the men were unsettled, not just because of the hard toil of walking through the hills, but because of mysterious portents that littered their way: a two-headed sheep dead on the path; one shooting star too many; a snake choked upon its own tail and, significantly, a raven that circled the advancing army three times the wrong way, and then three times the right way. Self-professed prognosticators argued between themselves about the meaning of the doubtful signs and the army was ablaze with their speculations. Tregar refused to be drawn on the subject.

  After twenty-four hours of this doom-mongering it was widely accepted that a war of the Gods, at the very least, was in the offing. Lord Temor had had enough. He took Seth with him and toured the army as it marched. Wherever he went the soothsayers fled, forewarned no doubt of the coming of his wrath. Tregar was impressed by Temor’s skill in turning the falling morale on its head. By ridiculing the astrologers and augurors he had the men laughing and with Seth supporting him he went on to talk of battle glory and victory. It was a clever work of manipulation. The day ended with an extra ration or two of the diminishing supply of beer. Temor wanted to keep the good mood going.

  It was late on the next rather more subdued evening that the raven turned up again, though few saw him as he flew directly to Tregar’s small tent.

  ‘‘Tis a poor tent for a mage,’ it crowed and cackled at its own wit.

  Tregar decided to pretend that talking ravens were nothing out of the ordinary. ‘Enjoyed confusing the army, I take it? A portent of doom are ye, or a vagabond god with one eye for mischief and none for anything else?’

  ‘You seem a wee bit more confident at our second meeting, wiezart. Cheeky even, though no doubt I deserve it.’

  ‘Are ye here to discuss your sins then, or is there something you want to tell me this time?’

  ‘There is a limit, Tregar, croak, to the lip I am prepared to take, croak. Don’t forget who it is I am.’

  The raven wandered around the tent examining Tregar’s bits and pieces: pulling ou
t a bright red kerchief from the wizard’s pack, meddling with the charms in his jacket pocket.

  ‘How could I forget? But ye’re right, I’m not in a position to be bladdie rude even if you seemingly are.’

  ‘Shall I, croak, Shall I start again Tregar? I am not here for the exercise. I want to speak to you of peace and persuasion.’

  ‘Last time it was war and magic.’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘And the fact that all who are so called evil are not all evil, and all who are so called good are certainly not all good.’

  ‘Well done, cr..craw.’

  ‘Bless you.’

  ‘I wasn’t coughing! Don’t, croak, don’t think I made the throat quite right, ah well.’

  The raven stretched its wings and tried to rearrange a few feathers with its beak. It was not very effective.

  ‘You’re going to have to practise that if ye want to fool anybody.’

  The raven glared at him.

  ‘So, peace and persuasion?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it craw. I’ll go now.’

  ‘What! I thought ye were going to tell me about peace and persuasion!’

  ‘Cannot you understand anything? Do, croaw, do I have to spell it out? In order to achieve lasting peace, that is to craaa stop the basis of, croak croak, the basis of war, the only way is persuasion. That’s all. You just have to know what you’re persuading them to do.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘I cannot tell you.’

  ‘Spurl’s tits! So, I’m supposed to get to the Francon and persuade the enemy, whoever they are, to be peaceful and they’ll listen?’

  ‘Croak, no, crak, don’t be ridiculous. It won’t work this time I don’t, croak. Damn, croak. No this will be when you need to, craa, use m… croak croak croak, magic damn, croak, oh, croak!