by Roger Taylor
Harlen swallowed again and, involuntarily, his hand twitched to his face as if to wipe off the blood.
Yet there was such confidence in the man, standing there, proffering the weapon. Not the confidence of a young man daring a challenge, but the confidence of a man vastly experienced in imposing his will on others, and restrained by few, if any, physical fears or moral strictures.
Harlen reached out to take the knife. His hand was still trembling.
Casually, as if weary at the delay, Nilsson let his arm fall and dropped the knife on the chair. Harlen’s hand hovered futilely in the space that the knife had occupied.
‘Lord Rannick wants to see your daughter, weaver,’ Nilsson said, looking into the cottage. ‘Now.’
Chapter 13
As Farnor swung the branch around, the figure seemed to disappear. He felt a rush of air seize him. His campfire flew into the air, twisted round, and vanished from view, then two bone-shaking blows on his back knocked the wind out of him.
It took him some time to recover his breath, and quite a lot more to realize that he was on his back on the Forest turf some way away from the fire and that the two body shaking blows had been him landing, and bouncing.
As the realization dawned however, he let out a panic-stricken cry, struggled unsteadily to his feet and looked around frantically.
The figure, hooded and eerie, was crouching low, prodding the campfire with the branch that Farnor had just attacked it with. Farnor gave another cry and, wrenching the knife from his belt, charged wildly towards the silent ambusher.
The figure gave an impatient sigh as Farnor drew nearer, then casually lifted the branch and pointed it at his face. The timing of the movement was such that Farnor could neither focus on, nor dodge around the branch, and as his head flinched backwards to avoid the inevitable impact, so his legs and body continued forward, and he fell flat on his back again. The knife floated from his hand in a graceful arc, glittering in the firelight.
Some reflex in him struggled on, despite the lack of air in his lungs, and his hand banged petulantly about the turf in an attempt to recover his weapon. Noting this tattoo, the figure stretched out the branch and casually drew the knife towards its feet. A hand reached down and picked it up. Still gasping, Farnor made an effort to rise, but the branch flicked out and, with unexpected gentleness, brushed away his supporting arm, dropping him back on to the ground again.
‘Do you always attack defenceless old women when they come to your camp for a little warm, young man?’ the figure asked, sitting down by the fire.
The words slowly penetrated the noise of Farnor’s pounding heart and rasping breathing. The voice was that of an old woman, though it was remarkably free from any hint of frailty. Further, she was none too pleased, by her tone. As Farnor eventually managed to lift his head to examine his interrogator, the end of the branch hovering menacingly in front of his face confirmed this conclusion.
‘Well?’ the voice insisted. The figure’s hood turned towards him, and he could feel himself being intensely scrutinized. Then there was a soft sigh of recognition, and the branch was withdrawn. ‘You are the outsider, then,’ the figure said, returning to poking the fire with the branch. ‘I thought you must be, lighting a fire like that. It’s unusual in the Forest. They don’t like it, you know.’
Farnor watched the figure warily, but made no at-tempt to renew his attack. He had no idea how this… woman… had done what she had done, but she had tossed him through the air seemingly with even less effort than had Nilsson, and, the falls having apparently awakened every fading bruise in his body, he was loath to risk any more. And too, she now had his knife.
How had she come on him so quietly? Why hadn’t the horses given some indication of her approach?
The woman motioned him to rise. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you, approaching you like that,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realize you were so engrossed. Are you all right?’
Farnor was still wide-eyed and panting as he clam-bered to his knees, however, and he ignored both the apology and the inquiry. He pointed to the spot where he had landed previously and asked the question that was uppermost in his mind. ‘How did you do that?’ he said, his voice hoarse.
The figure peered around him to examine the place at which he was pointing. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘Throw me right over there like that,’ Farnor ampli-fied.
‘Oh, that,’ she said dismissively. ‘I didn’t. You did.’ She chuckled softly. ‘I put you down as gently as I could.’
‘But…’
‘Sit down – Far-nor, is it? What strange names you people have.’
Farnor had recovered his wits and breath suffi-ciently now to be a little indignant at this cavalier dismissal of his heritage. ‘You have a name yourself, do you?’ he asked caustically. The figure turned to him slowly, and the branch twitched slightly. Farnor flinched in anticipation.
‘Mind your manners, young man,’ came the authori-tative reply, as she returned her attention to the fire. ‘Round here they call me Uldaneth Ashstock,’ she went on, her tone slightly conciliatory. Farnor frowned. The name was unexpectedly familiar, but where he had heard it eluded him. Then she was chuckling again. It was a warm, female sound, markedly at odds with the impact its owner had just delivered to Farnor and the way she was idly examining his knife in the firelight. ‘Ashstock,’ she repeated to herself, and the chuckle became a soft laugh as though in response to some inner amusement. Then she laid the branch across her knees and tested the blade of the knife with a tentative thumb. ‘A good edge,’ she concluded. There was genuine appreciation in her voice. ‘In fact, a very good edge. Haven’t seen the like of that in many a day. Where’d you learn to do that, young man?’
Farnor abandoned his search for the name, and shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I just do it now,’ he said. ‘I suppose my father showed me once but I always seem to have been able to do it.’
‘Good,’ Uldaneth said. ‘That’s very heartening. Don’t forget to show other people how to do it, as well, though. Otherwise you’ll lose the greater value of the skill, won’t you?’
Farnor did not know what to say by way of reply, but before he could consider the problem, the knife had been gently tossed towards him, handle first. He caught it with a nervous scramble. When he recovered, he found that the hooded head was turned towards him again. Questions flooded into his mind. Awkwardly he thrust the knife back into his belt, ‘Who…?’
‘Why do you carry a kitchen knife, Farnor?’ Uldaneth asked before he could continue.
The question seemed to surge out of nowhere and it felt to Farnor like yet another winding blow. Darkness and anger rose up within him, and simultaneously the many aches plaguing him suddenly began to throb. ‘If you know my name, you know the answer to that as well,’ he replied unpleasantly.
Once again, he felt an almost imperious authority radiate from the shapeless black figure.
‘Just answer me simply, we’ll get on a lot better that way,’ Uldaneth said.
Farnor gazed into the fire for a moment, his face taut and his jaw working. He could not move away from his pain and anger. ‘Mind your own damn business, then. Is that simple enough?’ he snarled, viciously. ‘What I carry is what I carry, and I’ll answer to no one for it, least of all to some strange old woman who sneaks up out of the darkness like a thief.’ He braced himself determinedly for impact.
Uldaneth, however, turned back to the fire, prodded it a couple of times then laid the branch down and sat silent, staring into the flames. Farnor waited, still angry.
After a while, Uldaneth reached up and slowly drew back her hood. For a moment, Farnor thought he caught a glimpse of the proud, handsome face of a young woman but he dismissed it immediately as a trick of the firelight as Uldaneth turned towards him. As with Marken, Farnor found that he could not gauge the age of his new companion. She was certainly an old woman, but her face was that of a powerful and vigorous personality, and though its largest feature was a long
nose it was her eyes that dominated; they seemed to look into the very depths of him.
‘I apologized for that,’ she said. ‘And you’re right. It is none of my business. I’m just naturally curious.’
The complete absence of any antagonism or even reproach in her voice and manner unbalanced Farnor almost as much as the throws that had tumbled him across the Forest floor, and his anger drained out of him instantly, leaving him feeling empty and not a little guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, instinctively apologiz-ing. Uldaneth nodded and returned to her contemplation of the fire again. Farnor looked at her intently. Then, as much for want of something to say as curiosity, he said, ‘You’ve got black hair, haven’t you? I thought none of the Valderen had black hair.’
‘I’m not Valderen,’ Uldaneth replied. ‘I’m what they’d call an outsider these days, like you.’ Farnor thought that he caught a flicker of a sad, lonely smile as she spoke, but it vanished into the firelit shadows playing over her face and the impetus of Farnor’s curiosity swept it from his mind.
‘But I thought that they usually kept outsiders out,’ he said, lowering his voice and flicking a thumb towards the surrounding trees.
‘Oh, they don’t bother about me,’ Uldaneth replied. ‘I’m just an old teacher wandering from lodge to lodge. They’re used to me. I’ve been doing it for… a very long time.’
A teacher! Much of her manner now made sense to Farnor. And he remembered where he had heard her name. ‘Angwen,’ he said, half to himself.
Uldaneth raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘Angwen told me about someone called Uldaneth,’ Farnor went on. ‘An old woman. An outsider. A teacher.’ He paused. ‘But she said that that was a long time ago.’
Uldaneth laughed. ‘At your age, two weeks is a long time, Farnor. When you’re mine, things tend to speed up a little.’ Her laughter faded away and she shook her head pensively. ‘It seems only yesterday I was teaching at Derwyn’s lodge. Not that it was his lodge then, of course.’ She let out a not unhappy sigh and fell silent. Farnor felt like an intruder.
Then she straightened up and slapped her knees noisily. ‘But a lot’s happened in the world since then, young man,’ she said briskly. ‘Far more than any of the Valderen know.’
Farnor was uncertain of the relevance of this obser-vation. ‘But what are you doing wandering about on your own at night?’ he asked, some concern in his voice as a feeling of companionship began to grow within him for this fellow outsider.
‘I’m always on my own,’ she replied. ‘More to the point, what are you doing here?’ Immediately, she gave an irritated click with her tongue and raised her hand to cut off the question. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘None of my business that, is it?’
Once again, however, it was Farnor who felt apolo-getic. An earlier question returned to him. ‘How do you know my name?’ he asked.
‘Derwyn told me,’ Uldaneth replied.
Farnor wanted to ask how it was that she had come again to Derwyn’s lodge after such a long time, but instead he asked, ‘What else did he tell you?’
‘Everything,’ came the immediate answer. ‘And so did Marken, Bildar, Angwen, Edrien, even that loud-mouth EmRan.’ Her forehead wrinkled. ‘I should’ve taken my stick to that little beggar when I was here last. I might have known he’d turn out the way he has.’
Farnor ignored this digression. He was not sure that he enjoyed having his doings related to all and sundry, and it showed on his face.
Uldaneth smiled wryly. ‘Don’t be offended,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you realize what a stir you’ve caused. And the Valderen are considerable gossips.’ She became more serious. ‘Besides, Derwyn wanted me to tell the other lodges about you. He’d sent message squirrels, of course, but as I was going your way he thought I might be able to explain a little better and perhaps help if you ran into any problems on the way.’
Farnor was only partly mollified by this. ‘Derwyn told you why I was here?’ he asked.
Uldaneth nodded. ‘He told me what you’d told him about your parents,’ she said. ‘And that you’re a Hearer of some considerable ability.’ She smiled. ‘Marken’s still so up in the air with excitement, he scarcely needs a ladder to climb to his lodge.’ Despite the humour in her voice, Farnor felt her sharp eyes watching his every response. ‘But Derwyn’s more concerned about what really brought you here – the thing that pursued you and alarmed the trees so much.’
‘Is he…?’ Farnor hesitated. ‘Is he going to go south and look for anything?’ he asked finally.
Uldaneth nodded. ‘Only on a private hunt, though,’ she replied. ‘EmRan got to the Shrub Congressim first, and they wouldn’t support him with a full hunt.’
Farnor’s eyes widened in dismay and he drove his fist into the palm of his hand. ‘He mustn’t go on his own,’ he said, leaning forward and taking hold of Uldaneth’s arm as if shaking her might unsay the news she had just given him. ‘It’s too dangerous. He’s going to need a lot of good men. I did tell him.’
‘Not clearly enough, apparently,’ Uldaneth replied sternly.
Farnor dropped his head on to his hands, abruptly reliving again those moments when he had been at one with the creature. When he had seen – felt – the terror of its victims. And now Derwyn was seeking it out, perhaps on his own. ‘Has he gone yet?’ he asked, desperately shaking away the memory.
Uldaneth shrugged. ‘I think he was intending to go after a first climb for one of Edrien’s cousins. He’s probably gone by now.’
‘He won’t have gone alone, will he?’ Farnor asked.
Uldaneth shook her head. ‘No. He was going to take Marken, and young Melarn. And I imagine Edrien will go with him; perhaps even Angwen.’
Farnor’s anxiety turned to horror. ‘Can’t you stop them?’ he gasped. ‘It’ll kill them all if they find it. It’s attacked groups of armed men, for pity’s sake, it’ll…’ He gave a cry of anguish and frustration and made to stand up.
Uldaneth laid a hand on his shoulder. Though her touch was not heavy, he could not move under its pressure. ‘What’s done is done, Farnor,’ she said. ‘Neither of us can do anything from here. But they’re none of them foolish or reckless people. And at least they’ve got some measure of what it is they’re dealing with. We’ll…’
‘They haven’t the slightest measure!’ Farnor burst in furiously. Then, scarcely realizing what he was doing, he poured out the whole saga of his strange encounters with the creature, ending with his panic-stricken flight into the Forest.
The telling was garbled and frantic, but, oddly, Uldaneth asked no questions; she simply watched and listened intently. Good,’ she said softly, as the tale petered out and Farnor subsided into a morose silence.
‘Good?’ Farnor echoed savagely. ‘Good? How can you say that? They might all be slaughtered They should’ve stayed in their lodges and left me… every-thing… alone.’
‘When people who see an ill thing stay in their lodges, they can look to lose them in time,’ Uldaneth said with chilling calmness.
‘Save your homilies for your pupils, old woman,’ Farnor snapped angrily. He struck his chest. ‘My parents neglected no ill thing. All their lives they worked to make the good better. But they lost everything, for all that – everything. Cut down like troublesome weeds.’
Uldaneth’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I know about losing parents, Farnor,’ she said. ‘Strange as it may seem to you, I’ve not that long lost my own father under less than happy circumstances. And I’ve few words of comfort for you. Sometimes – perhaps always – an ill deed begets ill consequences that travel on and on, far beyond the original cause in both time and distance, until all sense of meaning has gone from them other than the hurt they do.’
‘And the good deeds?’ Farnor’s voice was bleak and cynical.
‘The same,’ Uldaneth replied, with crushing as-suredness. ‘The same.’
Farnor could not argue. Uldaneth looked at him as if she was waiting for something. But he
remained motionless, his head buried in his hands.
For all his stillness however, Farnor’s thoughts were twisting and turning, like caged creatures scrabbling frantically for escape. Images of Derwyn and the others, perhaps now to be slaughtered through his neglect, joined those of his parents, massacred on some mindless whim. This stupid old woman might ramble on about causes and effects travelling on and on, but he knew the single cause of all these happenings; all these brutal pointless deaths. It was Rannick. And only Rannick. And when he had killed Rannick, then…
Then…
But that was of no concern. All that mattered now was to kill the man. Put an end to the horrors he had begun. The image of Rannick’s dead body rose to fill his entire being. It would sustain him, carry him forward. And nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of his achieving this; not surly, watching Valderen, rivers, mountains, trees, ancient or sapling…
As this reaffirmation gathered strength, he felt him-self reaching out, reaching back towards the south, to the valley where he belonged: his home; and Rannick. Vaguely he felt a nervous fluttering about him. A myriad tiny cries of, ‘No!’ clung around him, binding him, straining to hold him here.
He would not be opposed thus! His will turned an-grily towards the voices – began to move…
‘No!’ Uldaneth’s voice and her hand on his shoulder drew him back to himself with a force that left him breathless, as if he had suddenly jerked himself violently awake from that uneasy gloaming between waking and sleeping. ‘You nearly fell into the fire,’ she said gently, still holding his shoulder. ‘Perhaps you should go to your tent. You look very tired.’ She looked into his eyes intently. ‘And you’ve a long way to go yet.’
Her voice was very soothing, and as she spoke she gently moved her hand on his shoulder. The jagged, vivid edges of the awareness to which he had just returned began to fade, and drowsiness began to seep over him. He struggled for a moment to keep his anger alive, but it slipped away from him. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said weakly, his head starting to droop. Then, somehow, he was on his feet, being guided back to his tent, and gentle hands were pulling a blanket up around his neck. A remnant of his true character rose to the surface through the mounting weariness. ‘But where are you going to sleep?’ he mumbled. ‘And the fire? The trees don’t like the fire…’
