Into Narsindal

by Roger Taylor

  Urssain quailed inwardly at Dan-Tor’s reasonable tone. Groniev shook his head. ‘No, Ffyrst,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think it has to be. Narsindalvak’s a watch tower and barracks. Enemy movements can be seen at great distances and forces launched against them, but until we join up with the Mandroc divisions we’re in no position to venture out against numerically superior forces. And if we don’t venture out, we’ll be besieged and by-passed, and the Lords will be able to march into Narsindal to find the Mandrocs leaderless.’

  Dan-Tor nodded. ‘You think that superior force in an enemy is everything, commander?’ he said.

  Groniev looked at him uncertainly. ‘Not everything, Ffyrst,’ he risked. ‘Though it depends on the extent of the superiority. Knowledge of the enemy, leadership, terrain, are also important factors.’

  ‘Vastly superior force, then,’ Dan-Tor offered, turning slightly.

  Groniev nodded. ‘Vastly superior force must triumph, Ffyrst,’ he said.

  ‘And vastly superior force together with knowledge of the enemy, leadership, etc?’ Dan-Tor continued.

  Groniev, relaxing now, shrugged a smiling concession of the obvious.

  ‘What would you call a leader who knowingly led his men against an opposition so armed, commander?’ Dan-Tor said.

  Groniev frowned a little, still uncertain about the direction of this conversation. He searched for an answer. ‘Insane,’ he decided. ‘Or suicidal.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dan-Tor said quietly, as if wearying of the subject. ‘Of course.’

  A whirring silence filled the room.

  Then, turning to Faron, Dan-Tor said, ‘What insanity prompted you to move against such odds, commander? Or are you, as your co-conspirator suggested, suicidal?’

  Urssain felt a faint twinge of sympathy for the assailed commander.

  Faron did not reply but gazed back at Dan-Tor like some timid animal held by the gaze of a predator. Groniev, spared Dan-Tor’s gaze, understood their position immediately.

  Urssain watched in disbelief as the man drew a knife.

  With seemingly timeless slowness however, Dan-Tor turned and, before Groniev could lunge at him, seized his tunic, dragged him forward and hurled him into the paralysed Faron. The two men staggered across the room and crashed brutally into the wall.

  Urssain found himself almost gaping at the spectacle. He had stood and quaked before the Ffyrst many times, in fear of some terrible, if unknown, retribution, and he had seen others worse affected; but he had never seen him resort to actual personal violence. Strangely he felt the action should have demeaned the man in some way; but it did not. Both Faron and Groniev were heavy and powerful men, well used to dealing with physical assaults, but Dan-Tor had hurled them across the room as effortlessly as if they had been mere playthings. Urssain noticed that he was not even breathing heavily.

  Groniev slithered to the ground, stunned, but Faron lurched forward from the impact. As he did so, desperation broke him free of whatever fear had restrained him. With a cry of pain and anger he bent forward, snatched up the knife that Groniev had dropped and in one smooth movement hurled it at Dan-Tor.

  It was a swift and powerful throw and the knife struck Dan-Tor squarely on the chest.

  Then it clattered to the floor.

  He doesn’t wear armour, Urssain thought, but his momentary bewilderment vanished as Dan-Tor stepped forward and, taking hold of Faron, lifted him clear of the floor and hurled him against the opposite wall of the room. Again the deed seemed to be effortless.

  Urssain needed to feel no pulse to realize that this second impact had killed Faron, but it was Dan-Tor’s casual indifference that chilled him. It was far worse than any callousness or wild-eyed cruelty.

  Dan-Tor looked down at the fallen knife. He opened his hand and the knife rose up into it.

  Then he extended his other hand, palm upwards, and drove Groniev’s knife into it. It did not penetrate. No scratch appeared, nor blemish. He repeated the attack several times but the hand remained uninjured. ‘You could not wield the weapon that could injure me, commander,’ he said. Then, as if bored, he tossed the knife away idly.

  Groniev meanwhile had struggled to his feet. He was leaning against the wall, his eyes wide with terror and rage.

  Dan-Tor cast a brief glance at the broken body of Faron, then turned to Groniev. ‘Superior force, commander,’ he said quietly. ‘Indeed, vastly superior force.’

  Groniev did not reply.

  ‘And I know my enemy, commander, do I not?’ Dan-Tor went on. ‘I know his very heart; his darkest, closest, fears.’ The tone of his voice made Urssain shiver. Dan-Tor held out his arm to the stunned audience. ‘As for leadership, let your men choose now who they wish to follow.’ No one moved.

  ‘What was your other point?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Ah yes, the terrain. Well . . .’ He paused. ‘I know and understand that better than you can begin to imagine.’

  Groniev, still leaning on the wall, looked hastily from side to side, seeking an escape from his plight. Urssain felt again a brief sympathy for this fellow creature caught in the path of a force he could not begin to understand, but it faded rapidly. The man had seen the destruction of Vakloss; if he chose to dispute with its perpetrator then let him take the consequences.

  Dan-Tor raised his right hand towards Groniev as if he were about to offer a blessing. With a flesh-crawling screech of protest, a wide and jagged crack appeared in the wall immediately behind the commander and, with a surprised cry, he tumbled backwards into it.

  Several of the watching officers moved forward instinctively but a wave of Dan-Tor’s left arm froze them all where they stood.

  Groniev managed to regain his balance, but even as he did so, the crack closed a little, wedging him tightly and he let out a brief but unexpectedly fearful shout.

  Urssain remembered that Groniev had a morbid and abiding fear of enclosed places. He felt Oklar’s spirit filling the room.

  ‘I know and understand my terrain, commander,’ Dan-Tor repeated. Then, slowly, as if to a foolish child, ‘And I am master over all that shape and form it. From the weather-blasted peaks of the highest mountains, through the choking, suffocating dust of the southern deserts, to the rocks that lie bound helpless and airless in the dark, crushing, depths far below us; the rocks from which this tower is built.’

  As he spoke, the crack slowly began to close and Groniev began to struggle desperately.

  ‘Do you doubt this, commander?’ Dan-Tor continued.

  Groniev opened his mouth as if to reply, but all that emerged was a choking cry; a cry of terror that began to rise rapidly in pitch and intensity, until it was a howling, pleading scream.

  Urssain then saw that the crack was not crushing Groniev as he had imagined, but closing around him so that soon he would be entombed. Groniev’s scream became one of primeval, inhuman terror. Urssain tried to swallow, but could not; the scream seemed to resonate with every tiny, unreasoned fear lurking in the dark unknown reaches of his own spirit. And it went on and on and on . . .

  Then the crack was gone, closed utterly, and the last shrieking note of Groniev’s nightmare rose into the dank silence of the room and died.

  All that could be heard then was a faint and distant stirring as of some tiny burrowing rodent scuttling behind a panel, though it seemed to Urssain that the whole room was vibrating with the frenzy of Groniev’s demented struggling.

  Dan-Tor stared pensively at the wall for a moment. Urssain noted that he was leaning slightly towards his wounded side as if it were troubling him.

  The officers, somehow released from their paralysis, seemed unable to look at each other. All were pale and visibly shaken. Some sat down heavily, as their legs refused to support them. One man vomited.

  Dan-Tor remained standing, staring at the wall for a long time, as if awaiting some event, then, though he made no movement that Urssain could see, the crack opened again, silently and suddenly, and Groniev slithered from it. As he crawled clear, the crack clo
sed with what, it seemed to Urssain, was almost a sigh.

  Groniev lay at Dan-Tor’s feet and made no effort to rise. His choking breaths were as inhuman as had been his screams.

  Dan-Tor signalled to two men at random. ‘Take him and leave him in the valley somewhere,’ he said.

  Wrinkling their noses, the two men hoisted Groniev into a standing position. He was unable to walk so they placed his arms roughly around their shoulders and hauled him hastily from the room. His feet dragged lifelessly.

  Urssain stepped aside as they passed. Groniev’s finger nails were torn and bloody. And he stank! Urssain’s stomach heaved as the smell wafted past him, but he fought down the spasm. Worse than that was the slack-jawed mouth and the dreadful blankness in Groniev’s eyes. Whatever he had been, he was that no more. The Ffyrst had weapons far worse than death ready to hand.

  Dan-Tor watched the departure of the would-be usurper impassively and then turned his attention to the shocked officers, awaiting their own sentence in silence. Those who had sat down, stood again, as inconspicuously as they could.

  ‘As for you, gentlemen,’ Dan-Tor began. ‘I own to a mistake.’ His voice, however, lacked the self-reproach of the words. ‘A mistake in trusting in your loyalty, a mistake in imagining that you knew where your best interests lay, a mis . . .’

  ‘No, Ffyrst,’ began the cries before he could continue.

  ‘We were lied to and misled – threatened – forgive us, Master,’ was the gist of the ensuing babble.

  Dan-Tor watched impassively. Then he stepped forward and walked among them. Tall and straight, and the desperate focus of all there, he was like a hunter surrounded by his fawning dogs.

  Abruptly, he was almost avuncular. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, smiling. ‘I think perhaps you persuade me. These . . . misunderstandings . . . are the inevitable consequence of our confinement here. Men such as yourselves – warriors – fretful at such inactivity when a treacherous enemy lies so near, can easily fall pray to the corrupting forces that pervade these times. But you are officers, leaders, you must be vigilant. Doubts and lies can be as deadly weapons as swords and spears.’

  He looked around at his audience. ‘Sit down,’ he said, making a signal to Urssain and Aelang to remain standing. ‘I reproach myself a little for allowing this to arise. I’ve been too long away from you, occupied with matters of wider strategy. Tell me now your fears and concerns so that I can undo the work of those traitors.’

  Despite his seeming warmth and charm, the stark images of the recent violence were still far too clear in the minds of all present for them to rush into sudden camaraderie with their enigmatic leader, but equally, a silence might be just as dangerous.

  ‘Why are we here, Ffyrst?’ came a hesitant voice eventually. ‘Why did we flee when we could have held and defeated the High Guard?’

  Urssain could hear his pulse throbbing in the silence that followed.

  But there was no explosion. Dan-Tor’s smiling reasonableness remained.

  ‘You did not have my view, captain,’ he replied eventually. ‘Neither of the battlefield nor . . . of the conflict on other planes.’ He paused as if searching for a simple explanation. ‘It’s true, you could well have held the field, but the Fyordyn were aided in ways which I was unprepared for. Aided by powers that you know nothing of.’ He paused again briefly. ‘As you know, they had been inspired by the Orthlundyn, Hawklan, a strange fanatic who had already attempted to kill me at the very gates of my palace. What you could not know, and what I learned almost too late, was that he has dabbled in certain ancient arts and has somehow acquired a skill in them; a skill far beyond his understanding – a child wielding a great and powerful sword.’ He leaned forward confidentially. ‘Had I resisted him as he rode secretly amongst the High Guards then, in his flailing ignorance, he could have unleashed forces that might have destroyed us all. It was no easy decision for me to quit that field, but I had no choice. I had to let slip what we had won together to save my best men for another time.’

  A long silence greeted him, this was the first coherent explanation of the retreat from Vakloss that had been offered to the Mathidrin. Very cautiously, the original questioner pursued his inquiry. ‘But what of Hawklan, Ffyrst? He lives still. Will his . . . power . . . be any the less in the future?’

  Urssain, deeply sensitive to Dan-Tor’s moods, felt the distant rumbling of the Uhriel and held his breath in anticipation. But it faded, or was restrained, and Dan-Tor smiled – almost laughed – again. ‘Hawklan offers us no threat now, captain,’ he said. ‘Nor in the future. His strength lay in surprise only. I have his measure, and should he choose to ride against us again I’ll demonstrate to him what skill in his chosen art really means.’

  There was just enough barrack-room bravado in his voice to set his listeners alight; he had caught their mood and their needs exactly. Clapping his hands together, he straightened up; his tall lank frame dominated the room.

  ‘Don’t let the narrowness of our confinement here make you forget that this is no small venture we’re employed upon,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t take to heart the loss of a few petty privileges in Vakloss, and a little . . . sparseness . . . here. One day, not too long away, you’ll look back on this time and smile at yourselves for fools. The One that I follow, is bringing together the many threads of His intent. Soon, you will be leading our vast Mandroc army out of the interior. An army that will sweep through the waiting Lords like an icy winter wind through dead autumn leaves. An army that will move irresistibly down through Orthlund and Riddin and out into the world beyond, where all will fall before you and where His bounty will give you power and wealth such as you would hesitate to dream of now.’

  Urssain recognized the rhythms and inflections he had heard echoing across the torchlit crowds in front of the palace at Vakloss and he felt the thrill of the other listeners as Dan-Tor’s words reaffirmed his own ambitious intent.

  However, Dan-Tor finished this harangue with a dark and, for some of those present, familiar warning. ‘Remember this day above all others, and the fate that has befallen those who defied me. The choice is yours; be you my faithful servants and you will be rewarded as my power grows. But recall. You are bound to me and by me. You can be expunged at my whim and others found. Serve me well.’

  As they walked away from the now crushed rebellion, Urssain keeping a respectful pace behind his master, noted again that the Ffyrst was leaning slightly to his injured side.

  It occurred to him briefly to make some sympathetic inquiry, but no sooner did the thought arise than others rose hastily to silence it; the demon in the Ffyrst was far too close to the surface for such a risk.

  ‘Do you want the companies broken up, Ffyrst?’ Aelang said.

  Without pausing in his long strides, Dan-Tor shook his head and replied, ‘No. They’ll be no more trouble now. Besides, things will be happening shortly – we’ve no time for re-organizing our company structure. Promote Castarvi and Mendarran and put them in charge. Tell them it’s a field commission – provisional – that’ll encourage them to stamp out any lingering problems those men are having with their loyalty.’

  The two Mathidrin exchanged a brief look. It was a good choice and also a small lesson or themselves; it told them that the Ffyrst had not distanced himself from his troops as far as he affected. Castarvi and Mendarran were both young, capable, and ruthlessly ambitious, and both had conducted themselves well on the field at Vakloss and in the subsequent retreat. Urssain and Aelang would be able to claim credit and thus loyalty for their promotion, but at the same time Dan-Tor had pointed up his warning – ‘Others can be found.’ They would both need to be watched.

  A salutary lesson, Urssain thought later, alone in his own quarters. In a few brief minutes Dan-Tor had not only quelled the incipient rebellion, he had fired the whole force occupying the tower with a new resolve; the tale of the destruction of Faron and Groniev and Dan-Tor’s subsequent speech would have been retailed to everyone in the tower withi
n the hour. The terrifying physical strength, hitherto never suspected, had been grim surprise enough, but his antics with the knife and the horrific destruction of Groniev had told everyone in the Mathidrin exactly who commanded them in terms they understood. And the promotion of Castarvi and Mendarran would send ripples down through every rank as the jockeying to replace them began.

  Yet above all this had come the mention of Him; and His plans. That had been more than a surprise. Urssain could not remember when he had last heard Dan-Tor refer to these world-spanning intentions, and certainly he had never heard them aired so freely.

  He felt excitement, ambition and fear – terror, even – ring within him. Part of him wanted to flee; flee back to a life of petty thieving in the old unchanging Fyorlund of Rgoric and the Geadrol, of village Redes and their Pentadrols. But even had he not participated in the destruction of that order, he had been shown too much now for such thoughts to be ever more than fleeting distractions on his journey forward in the wake of his master.

  Yet what kind of a man could it be to whom even Dan-Tor would bend his knee? And what kind of a place was Derras Ustramel, His great fortress, whose very name was whispered nervously, if it was mentioned at all? No one that Urssain knew of, save Dan-Tor himself, had ever been there, and even his visits were rare.

  In front of Urssain glowed some of the genuine radiant stones he had had the foresight to ensure would be stored for him here in preference to those concocted in Dan-Tor’s workshops. But even their sunlight could not reach the inner chill that possessed him when he thought about the dank mists that for most of the year pervaded the outer reaches of Lake Kedrieth and the great Mandroc barracks that lay there. And beyond the mists . . .

  Involuntarily, Urssain wrapped his arms about himself and gazed into the glowing stones.

  * * * *

  Mimicking his aide, Dan-Tor too sat still and silent in his eyrie, high in the mist-shrouded tower. The arrow in his side ached dully through his use of the Old Power in dealing with Groniev but he scarcely noticed it. The very triviality of the events had heightened his growing inner turmoil at the bleak impotence of his position.