by Robert Ryan
Lanrik knew the injuries were beyond help, and he guessed the scout had at most half an hour to live. The elendhrot was not for healing though; immediately beneath the purple skin of the tuber was a pithy substance that yielded a pain-easing juice.
He held the scout’s hand until Mecklar returned, then put down the water flask and took the tuber offered to him. He worked quickly with a knife to peel away its dark skin and obtain some of its interior. A pinch was all he needed, and he placed it in the Raithlin’s mouth. The scout swallowed and mumbled.
Mecklar looked agitated. “Did you understand that?”
Lanrik shook his head but the scout tried again.
“It’s bitter.”
Mecklar backed away. “It’s a woman!”
Lanrik found Mecklar’s observation annoying but ignored him. What he wanted to know was who she was.
He leaned closer. “What’s your name?”
He flinched at the anguish that showed in her remaining eye.
“You don’t . . . recognize me . . . Lanrik?”
He bit his lip, unable to answer.
She closed her eye. “Don’t think of me as I am now . . . Promise to remember me as I was when I won the archery tournament in the Spring Games.”
Lanrik’s memory flew back to those special three days of the year, and he knew her instantly. “I promise, Lathmai,” he said. He would try to keep it but knew he would struggle all the days of his life.
The archery tournament was held the day before the sword final, and he was near her when she took the winning shot. Her brown hair was luxurious, and her eyes shone with mischief. She surprised him with a kiss after receiving the Red Cloth of Victory, and then danced away with her friends giving him a backward glance and flashing smile. They had been friends, perhaps something more, ever since.
He looked at her now: shriveled, blackened, broken and robbed of her vitality. He had not understood before this moment how much hurt filled the world.
“There’s something . . . you need to know,” she said. “Look to the south and you'll see an army. The enemy is coming . . . Esgallien is in peril.”
He could barely grasp what she was saying. It was all he could do to hold her hand and not cry.
“Other scouts will have noticed your fire. They’ll do whatever needs to be done.”
Lathmai shook her head violently. “The other scouts are dead,” she said. “All of them. You’re the last hope of Esgallien.”
“They can’t be dead,” Lanrik said. He wondered if she was delirious.
Lathmai’s grip tightened. “Gwalchmur betrayed us . . . he knew where the scouts were positioned.”
Gwalchmur was a Raithlin and Lanrik’s mind reeled.
“He’s only one man,” he said at last. “He couldn’t kill them all.”
“He’s not alone,” Lathmai said. “He’s with an elùgroth. Gwalchmur led him to the other scouts . . . and the sorcerer killed them. They stalked me at night . . . told me I was the last . . . then left me to die.”
She shuddered, and he knew her time was short. He squeezed her hand and felt no response, but she spoke once more.
“I watched you move across the plains. The smoke was to attract your attention, though I didn’t know it was you. I’ve done all that I can . . . my strength is gone. You’re the only one who can save Esgallien now. Promise me . . . you’ll not let my suffering be for nothing. Promise me you’ll save our home.” Her grip suddenly tightened. “Promise me . . . you’ll kill Gwalchmur!”
Lanrik closed his eyes and bowed his head. He felt a foreshadowing of fear at what such a promise might lead to. He also knew that he would defy an entire army, even an elùgroth, for Lathmai’s sake.
“I will,” he said.
Her grip relaxed, and her breath became shallow and ragged. He held her hand between both of his for her last few moments.
The presence of an elùgroth explained much. If the other scouts were dead, the way to Esgallien was open. And without being alerted, the city would not respond in time. They must be warned.
The sun began to beat down, and the sheen of perspiration on his face turned to heavy beads of sweat. The hum of insects was loud, but there was no sound from the three people on the summit until Lathmai spoke for the last time.
“Remember me,” she whispered.
“I’ll always remember you. Esgallien will remember you, for you are the Raithlin who saved it.”
There was, perhaps, a hint of a smile on her ruined face before her final breath rattled harshly in her throat and she died. One instant he was holding her hand; the hand of a living person, and the next it was a lifeless object. What had happened to her thoughts and memories? Where had the will that animated her body gone? Could such things be present, and then cease to exist in the span of a single moment?
He looked over Lathmai’s body toward Mecklar, and his voice was cold.
“Do you understand now that the Raithlin are not careless and do not light fires for nothing? Lathmai suffered in ways you and I cannot imagine for the mere hope she could save her people. Do you still say she was incompetent?”
For once Mecklar made no comment. Lanrik ignored him and stood to look over Galenthern and saw what he had not noticed earlier. There was a vague dust cloud on the horizon and below it, pinprick flashes of light from sword hilts, shields and spear tips. There was a shifting of colors and an impression of movement as well. It was, as Lathmai had warned, an army. It was an army intent on destroying his homeland and would travel fast to do so.
There was a more urgent danger. The enemy scouts would have seen the smoke just as he had. They would come to investigate, if they were not already stalking up the tor. If he and Mecklar were killed, who would warn Esgallien?
2. Clear Like Water; Cold Like Ice
Lanrik dragged his gaze from the approaching army. There were things to do and panicking about its approach, or the proximity of enemy scouts, would not help.
He looked at Lathmai’s broken body. “We’ll build a cairn,” he said. “I won’t leave her unburied in the wilderness.”
Mecklar was going to object, but something in Lanrik’s mood made him hesitate.
“There are rocks everywhere. I guess it won’t take long,” he conceded.
Lanrik retrieved her rapier; he had an idea on how to use it later. They formed the cairn against the lee of the boulder by using smaller stones first and then rocks of increasing size. When they covered Lathmai’s face, grief stabbed at Lanrik’s heart like a knife, but he was unwilling to share it with Mecklar and they labored in silence.
All the while a feeling of rage against the shortsightedness of the king, the provocation of his counsellor, and most of all, Lathmai’s killers began to build. He hardened his heart. It’ll motivate me for what I must do next.
Everything was still. The only sound came from the hammering of a nudaluk bird seeking insects in a tree trunk on the southern side of the tor. He was glad of the noise, for it meant that no scouts approached from that direction.
They finished the cairn, and he fixed Lathmai’s rapier in its crest with the hilt set firmly into the rocks. He did not tell Mecklar why.
There was no time for a ceremony, but Lanrik placed his right hand over the trotting fox motif on his cloak and voiced the simple Raithlin creed that he knew meant so much to her:
Our duty is to serve and protect
Our honor is to fight but not hate
Our love is for all that is good in the world
He did not look at Mecklar. The king’s counsellor represented everything that was going wrong. Why did the good like Lathmai die while the lesser lived?
Mecklar shuffled his feet. “That’s all we can do. We’d better get back to Esgallien quickly.”
Lanrik lowered his hand and turned toward him. “Quickly won’t be soon enough.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the enemy will march rapidly. They killed our scouts to provide an opportunity to take
the city by surprise, and they won’t squander it. We’d only reach Esgallien a little before them.”
“They’ll still get a warning – the army will just have to respond quickly.”
“It’s not that simple,” Lanrik said. “The defenses are well organized but it’ll take time to mobilize them. Orders must be given, messages relayed and equipment retrieved. Men must gather in their companies and march several miles to the ford. Without sufficient warning they won’t be ready in time.”
Mecklar chewed at the nail of a grubby thumb.
“There’s nothing to be done about it. Why worry about something we can’t change?”
“There is something to be done about it,” Lanrik said. “I‘ll stay behind and slow the enemy. If I can give Esgallien an extra half day it would make all the difference.”
Mecklar dropped his hand and spat. “You can’t be serious?”
“There’s no other choice.”
“No other choice?” Mecklar repeated in astonishment. “Surely not even a Raithlin can be so arrogant and deluded. One man can’t defy an army!”
Lanrik answered him evenly. “If you’re correct, then nothing is lost except another incompetent scout. You’ll still return to the city and warn them.”
He reached down to the pack on the ground and took out one of the water flasks and some packages of food. He passed the rest to Mecklar.
“There’s no more time for talk. You’d better go quickly, and I suggest you discard the tent and sleeping rug. You’d find them heavy.”
Mecklar grabbed the pack and swung it awkwardly over his back. He tightened the straps and stared hard at Lanrik for a long moment. Then he turned and trudged off without speaking.
Lanrik watched until he disappeared. He had done his best to carry out the mission the Lindrath had given him and avoided being provoked into saying something foolish, despite Mecklar’s needling. What report the man gave was out of his control, and he must now concentrate on the task at hand. He climbed the boulder, careful to hug close to its surface so as not to outline himself, and studied the green expanse of Galenthern once more.
The enemy would have sent scouts ahead of the army; it was just a matter of finding them. They would be moving, and that was what would give them away. Unless they had already reached the cover of the tor, in which case he was a dead man.
His eyes carefully scanned the vast grasslands, but he knew it would be easier to find them if he could put himself in their situation. If he were down there, how would he approach the tor?
The plains appeared perfectly flat from this height, but that was illusory. In reality, there were folds and gullies, small patches of trees and areas of long grass. He would travel beneath the trees and along the gullies in order to take advantage of their concealment.
It was in a gully that he spotted a half dozen of them. They were about five miles away, working their way through scattered ferns that grew nearly man high. It would be at least an hour before they reached him, and he had some time to think.
Was Mecklar right? Were the Raithlin arrogant and over sure of their abilities? Perhaps, and yet they had real skill, acquired and honed over many generations. If he could accomplish his aim, it would surely prove to King Murhain the necessity for maintaining them. It would also ensure Lathmai’s death was not in vain. And there were ways that one man could slow an army.
He cast his mind over the ancient legend of Galathar. Stories had been told for a thousand years about the Halathrin hero. He was a prince among those immortal people and had slowed an army that would otherwise have destroyed their realm. He had done it alone, and though he was a great warrior, he had achieved the feat by other means.
Lanrik shivered. It would be folly to think of himself as anything like the Halathrin. He was no prince in hiding either; not even a minor noble. Nor was he a golden-haired hero with a piercing gaze like they all were in stories. He was just an ordinary man with a liking for peace and quiet. But being ordinary was no reason not to attempt the extraordinary.
Whatever the case, it was time to make a plan. Events were unfolding, and his life and that of his people would be made anew. What had his uncle taught him about a crisis? His voice always carried a bitter edge, unless he was talking about the Raithlin skills, and he could almost hear him speak one of his favorite axioms now. Clear like water; cold like ice.
His eyes looked over the plains but saw nothing as his focus turned inward, and he assessed the situation dispassionately. One man could not fight an army. That was a weakness. What then were his strengths? He was independent. He could hide and maneuver. He was able to transform thought into instantaneous action. An army could not do these things, being enslaved to habit, order and the slowness of chain communication.
What else? There was always more. No problem was insoluble, nor was there only one way to solve it. How could he put these strengths to use? Elugs, who would constitute most of the enemy, were deeply superstitious. That would be the key to it all. If he could not physically slow an army, he must use his strengths to trigger a mental state so that the soldiers were hesitant to march and therefore slowed themselves. Plans unfolded in his mind. They all lead to one final gamble at the end though; a gamble about which he was not yet ready to think.
The end would come when it was time. For now, he must make a beginning. He slid off the bolder and retrieved charcoal from Lathmai’s fire.
The elugs would probably approach along the southern path. They could also circle the tor’s base, split their force, and come up the northern way as well. He would prepare for all contingencies.
Quickly he traced a pattern on both sides of the boulder in broad, black strokes. The pattern was three slanted lines, going from right to left and each one longer than the previous. It was a sign of death in the Graèglin Dennath, the harsh mountain range to the south that was the homeland of the elugs. They called it a drùgluck, and it served as a warning to stay away from a place, usually because of poisonous fumes escaping cracks in the earth, but it also marked sacred areas that served as gateways to the spirit world or locations where the dangerous effects of elùgai, the sorcery of an elùgroth, lingered. Often it signified all three at the one spot.
Working swiftly he laid out rocks in the same pattern in front of the boulder. Next, he broke a leafy branch from a nearby tree and descended the northern path. He went onto the plains and did his best to brush out Mecklar’s tracks heading toward Esgallien. Coming back, he made no effort to hide their older prints from this morning and their ascent of the tor. He wanted the elugs to think that they were still up here and hide the fact that the city was being warned.
He glanced at Lathmai's fire. It had gone out, and to light it again would reveal to the elugs that someone was still on the tor. On the other hand, what was most necessary was that Mecklar reached Esgallien, and fire would help concentrate the elugs’ attention away from him and toward the tor. He swiftly gathered more fuel, including green leaves that would produce dark smoke, and stooped to relight it.
He looked about him grimly. The scene had been prepared, and when the elugs arrived they would have much to contemplate. He used the branch once more to erase all sign of his movements. Irrespective of the risk, it was vital to his plan that he stayed on the tor, and he positioned himself in the shadow of a boulder toward its eastern edge. From here he had a good view of most of the summit, especially Lathmai’s cairn and her rapier.
Time passed slowly; his mind moved between states of anticipation and dread, but none of his inner turmoil showed in his body. After stringing his bow, he sat cross-legged and still, an arrow knocked to the string, and the weapon resting loosely in his hand.
He heard and saw nothing out of the ordinary for a long while yet still knew when the elugs arrived: the nudaluk bird grew silent. There was now only the intermittent hum of insects on the hill.
Many minutes later, he saw the first elug. It had crawled up the southern path and only its head was visible. It watched until it
was satisfied that no immediate threat was present, and then stood slowly, taking several steps onto the plateau. There it stayed, its scimitar drawn, and an alert look in its eyes as it scanned the summit. A long while its gaze rested on Lathmai's cairn.
The elug’s dark skin, tinged with green and slick with sweat, was visible where its rough tunic did not offer cover. It had been a hasty journey to the tor.
Lanrik surmised this was a test: a bait to see if anybody was still on the plateau and to induce an attack that would reveal their location. The lone elug remained close to the rim and could make a quick retreat while his companions remained safe, awaiting a signal to come up. Sensing no threat, the elug gave an impatient flick with the point of his scimitar.
Another four emerged. They each wore their scimitars on back scabbards in characteristic elug fashion. Their long limbs were ungainly and they moved awkwardly, yet Lanrik knew they had speed and strength equal to any man and perhaps greater endurance. They were deadly fighters in a group, but individually they often lacked courage.
Fear touched him as they stood upon the summit, and their cruel gaze swept over it. One of the elugs stared into the shadows where Lanrik waited, and his breathing slowed. Clear like water; cold like ice.
The elug’s eyes turned away after a while and focused on Lathmai’s cairn. It drew their attention as he hoped it would, and the longer they studied the signs he had left and the sword rising from its top, the more he sensed their uneasiness increase.
The elugs moved forward cautiously. One kicked dirt over the fire to stop the smoke. They continued to scan the summit, faces turning and hard eyes darting to and fro, and yet always their gaze was drawn back to the one place. Hesitantly, they gathered before the cairn.
Lanrik was worried because there were only five. Where was the sixth? Regardless, he knew he had no choice but to put his plan into action at the moment of maximum effect on the enemy’s superstition. That moment had nearly arrived.
One of the elugs stepped closer to the cairn, and the others watched him intently. This was something beyond their experience or expectation. What were drùgluck signs doing here, in the homeland of the enemy? Was its warning legitimate?
