by Terry Marcel
“I have heard it explained,” said Hawk seriously. “Something about the distance between one second and another being shorter in the Forest of Weir. Thus a journey of a night would be only a matter of minutes there. They say that the Forest of Weir is really a crossroads in time and space.”
Ranulf scratched his head.
“Between our world and other worlds,” explained Hawk. He laughed. “It’s beyond me too, Ranulf. But the things which exist in there have no right to exist anywhere.”
“God put me in the Pit of Gimri!” the veteran whistled after some thought. “Had we gone the wrong way at this crossroads of yours we could have finished up—” He ended lamely.
“Anywhere in the universe,” Hawk said for him. “That is if the theories are true.”
They trotted on for another mile across a grassland overgrown with bushes and shrubs in which the early morning dew shimmered as it turned to whispers of mist in the morning air.
“This woman. Meena. What should I know about her?” Ranulf enquired.
Meena tended a pot suspended over a fire kindled in a small ring of stones, now and then popping an aromatic herb into the brew. She had started preparing the broth at the first intimation of Hawk and Ranulf traversing Weir safely.
She gave the cauldron’s contents a final stir and looked towards the cave entrance.
“Enter, Lord Hawk,” she welcomed. “And bring the one-handed one with you.”
The two men bent low as they entered the throat of the cave.
“Sit, sit,” she beckoned. “I have prepared food for your coming.”
Ranulf frowned. How had she known?
“She has her ways,” whispered Hawk to ease his perplexity.
A faint smile flitted over the woman’s chalk-white face; she spooned the pot’s brew into two bowls and handed them to the two men.
Hungrily, they gulped down the hot stew.
“I need your help,” said Hawk once he had taken the edge off his hunger. “There is so little time and I have comrades to find.”
Meena nodded but pressed them to finish their meal.
Once Ranulf had eaten, a strange langour stole over him and he found it well nigh impossible to keep his eyelids open. He blamed it partially on the rich broth but not a little on the smoky atmosphere of the small cave.
“Sleep over there in the corner, one-handed one,” urged the woman. “You will need to renew your strength.”
As she spoke, her voice seemed to croon in Ranulf’s ears and hardly had he moved on to the pile of rugs in the corner than he was fast asleep.
“While Ranulf dreams, we have much to do, Lord Hawk,” said Meena, preparing various coloured powders on the hearth.
From the folds of her robe she withdrew a gnarled root. It was thick and knobbly.
“This is the Dagda—father of all—Lord of the perfect knowledge. And this—”
She paired the first root with a strangely springy twig.
“This is Lug, the wily one. Slayer of Balor.”
Finally she completed the trinity with a silvery shoot.
“Come to us, Nuada of the silver hand.”
Meena placed the three objects in front of her then stretched her hands over the fire.
“Help us, Tuatha de Danann, people of the Goddess Danu. See through the mists of mortal man to what only the immortals can see.”
She dusted the powders into the fire and a miasma of sweet-smelling smoky colours enveloped Hawk.
“You shall journey to where each man you seek awaits. If he is willing he will return here with you.”
She threw the first root into the flames; it flared brightly and Hawk looked into the heart of a spiralling corridor of smoke. Weightless and without fear he fell slowly into the vapour, his thoughts fixed on a giant from the mountains at the edge of the world; an elfin bowman from the Silver Forest; and a dwarf from the Iron Hills.
9
THE GIANT, GORT
The waggon lay tilted at an odd angle and a part of its load of ale barrels had spilled out on to the muddy road. A wooden wheel lying flat on the ground was mute evidence of what had caused the accident. Cursing his luck, the owner of the cart took a kick at the lump in the road which had jarred the wheel off its axle and sent him and his precious cargo sprawling. His ill fortune continued when his clog shoe struck the lump to discover a deep-seated boulder beneath. He hopped and howled, holding a handful of agonised foot.
A deep laugh made him realise that someone else had been witness to his series of disasters.
The road at this point crossed a paved ford before diverging into three directions and the spot was known as Weaver’s Crossing although why was a bit of a mystery. Certainly the ale seller had never seen any weavers hereabouts and the gurgling stream was the upper reaches of the River Shale which eventually became a mighty river washing into the Great Lake.
Tenderly, he tested the damaged extremity on the ground and sighed with relief that no broken bones made him wince. Words of annoyance formed on his tongue as he searched for the unfeeling fool who took pleasure in the catastrophes of others. But the words remained unsaid.
Standing on the other side of the brook was a man leaning on the shaft of an enormous sledgehammer. He was huge. At least seven if not eight foot tall. His legs, encased in ballooning black trousers stuffed into massive jackboots, were like pillared tree trunks. Strapped about his chest was a breastplate of polished iron the size and weight of which it would have needed the strength of four ordinary men to lift. A black curling beard ringed a powerful jaw-line, but his head had not a hair upon it and shone like polished stone.
He strode across the ford and joined the cart owner.
“Forgive my laughter,” chortled the giant. “But the merry way you danced that jig—”
Gort clamped a hand over his mouth at the memory, coughed to clear his throat of laughter and cast his eye around at the little man’s plight. One keg lay at his feet, its contents wholly bubbled out on the grass. The giant sniffed appreciatively.
“A good brew by the smell of it,” he approved.
“The finest ale along the Shale,” sang the ale seller with a disgruntled tone. “Waiting for me to deliver and here I be struck by misfortune.”
From a nearby open-sided shack a group of men argued loudly at a gambling game. Their mode of battle dress and armour suggested that they were mercenaries on the loose looking for a new paymaster. They had paid no heed to what went on in the glade and were too engrossed in their private gaming skills even to show interest in the appearance of the giant.
Gort sniffed the wasted ale again. “Perhaps we can come to an arrangement that will be to our mutual advantage,” he said, licking his lips.
“How?” asked the little man craftily.
“You have a waggon to fix and I have a thirst to satisfy,” began the giant.
The ale seller was an experienced haggler but the giant was a fit match for him and it took a little time to come to an agreement.
“Done!” boomed Gort, swallowing the waggonman’s hand in his own hamlike one.
The giant picked up a barrel, wrenched out the spigot with his teeth and gurgled the beer down in long gulps. He burped cavernously, patted his stomach and proceeded to guzzle another barrelsworth.
The wispy man danced attendance on him and every swallow, every cast-aside empty, was a tiny death to him. He kept moaning out loud but the giant only gave him a lofty squint and downed another four quarts.
Gort wiped the foam from his bearded mouth and smacked his lips.
“Well?” demanded the ale seller.
“Well what?” rejoined Gort.
“I’ve kept my side of the bargain. You’ve drunk as much of my ale as three men.”
“Part of the bargain, skinflint,” rumbled Gort. “First the beer and then there was a price of two pennies mentioned.”
“When the task is done and you haven’t even started yet.”
The little man’s wheedling tone got
on the giant’s nerves. He stood up, tightened his belt and hefted the heavy wheel as if it were a round of cheese.
Tucking his shoulder under the frame of the cart, he levered it up until it was level and rocked the wheel back on its axle. A tap with the hammer drove in the spike to hold the wheel on.
His enormous hands picked up the fallen barrels as if they were made of cork and piled them back on the waggon. The ale seller kept up a running counsel during the whole operation and Gort itched to treat the little man like another of his barrels and toss him on the load with the rest.
He thrust out his hand instead. “Pay up, ratnose.”
The ale seller clambered up on the waggon and reached for the reins.
“I haven’t any money with me. So many thieves about.” His nervous embarrassment made him giggle like a girl. “But I’ll bring it you tomorrow—here—at first light.”
A warning bell rang in the giant’s mind. “Bag of dirt,” he threatened with his hammer.
“Strike me and you get nothing,” said the little man quickly, cowering in the shadow of the big man.
Gort snorted his frustration and lowered his hammer, an action which gave the ale seller a new-found cockiness.
“I’ll bring it you tomorrow—some time,” he said in the manner one would adopt with a demanding child. “And there again—”
Gort’s punched fist grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, picked him up like a travelling bag and flung him off the cart into a midden heap of rotting compost.
Spitting out the smelly waste matter and trying to brush the muck off his dress, he watched with consternation the giant stride around the waggon and with a mighty hammer blow split the repaired wheel in half. For a second time, the waggon fell apart and spewed its load out into the road.
“You owe me nothing now, Picknose,” bellowed Gort.
It was too much for the ale seller. He danced in a paroxysm of rage. “Justice! I demand justice.”
The second waggon crash had at last made the mercenaries pay some notice. Their game was ended and boredom caused them to show some interest in the private squabble.
The little man saw he had their attention and, magically, a small bag of coins appeared in his hands.
“Justice!” he cried again. “Look what this big ox has done to my wares. Am I, an honest merchant, to be treated this way?”
A thin-faced, long-boned mercenary sauntered from the shack. He came alongside the merchant, grinning, and casually retrieved him of his money bag.
“The ale seller is right,” reproached the self-appointed leader of the mercenaries. “Be a good fellow now.” His tone was patronising. “And clear up the mess you’ve made.”
He turned to his fellows who lounged in the opening of the shelter and raised a few insolent chuckles.
“I’d sooner eat cow-dung.”
Gort uttered the statement simply. He had weighed up the pros and cons and decided that this was one situation he couldn’t walk away from.
The mercenary leader couldn’t believe his ears. He looked at each of his comrades before turning to face the giant, his face as hard as granite.
“That can be arranged,” he said evenly. “And you can wash it down with your own blood if need be.”
“So be it,” said Gort.
The six mercenaries fanned out in a semi-circle about the giant who stood there, relaxed, his huge hands resting on the mighty hammer. In the background the ale seller twitched nervously at what he had brought about. He had talked himself into losing a day’s sales because of this great oaf. The pleasure it would be to see him stretched out in the dirt. He rubbed his hands in the expectation of the revenge his money had bought.
The mercenaries came with a concerted rush, mingling left and right slashes in their lunging.
Gort moved extremely fast for such a big man. The shaft of his hammer slammed an uppercut at one man, breaking his jaw, and in a continuity of movement the huge iron hammer drove into another attacker’s chest, cracking the ribs like chicken bones. A mercenary thrust at him from behind and Gort parried the blow, lashed out a tree trunk leg. An iron-shod boot somersaulted the assailant into the tumbled waggon with bone-rattling force.
The giant spun like a dancer and the scything hammer dropped two more in their tracks. There was only the thin-faced leader left and he just stood there, mouth agape. Too late he lifted his sword. Gort thudded his clenched fist on the man’s head and nearly piled him into the soft earth like a centerpole. The mercenary leader collapsed as might a boneless rabbit.
Gort looked about him at the carnage he had wrought and nodded, pleased with the work. A stifled snivelling reminded him of the ale seller. Raising his eyebrows and narrowing his eyes, he rolled towards the shivering figure who fumbled furiously in his jerkin pockets.
An eerie whistling arrested Gort’s intentions.
On a grassy knoll, Hawk stood in a column of hanging mist, beckoning to him.
Gort nodded and peered down at the quaking ale seller. “Consider this the luckiest day of your life, toad,” was his parting shot.
The ale seller watched Hawk and the giant step into the pillar of vapour and vanish.
His jaw slumped open and as he swayed to the ground, one hand still held, outstretched, the two pennies.
Gort stood in Meena’s cave. His mind which had hummed with questions was now strangely contented. He understood that he was needed and that was enough. Peacefully he waited with Ranulf for the next of Hawk’s heroes to appear. An elf from the Silver Forest. The woman cast the second twig into the fire.
10
CROW, THE ELFIN BOWMAN
The water bubbled and fizzed when the hot tongs plunged into it. Steam swirled on the surface. The tongs were withdrawn and clamped in the pincers was a finely-beaten arrowhead. Large hands bore it over to a whetstone.
With infinite care, the arrowsmith set the stone in motion with a pumping of his foot on a pedal board which rotated it through a leather belt system. Sparks flew off at an angle as the smith honed the edges to a razor sharp point. Once he was satisfied with his handiwork, the fletcher fitted the diamond-shaped head to a white feathered shaft of supple wood and placed it beside eleven others exactly the same on a table cut from the trunk of a wide-boled oak.
“Last one done,” he said finally to his customer who sat in dark shade under an overhanging branch.
With the suppleness of a cat, the figure in the shadow crossed to the table. He was clothed in a lightly clinging suit of tan buckskin and his moccasins were made of a similar material. His long, fine hands checked the weight and feel of the dozen arrows. He looked at the arrowsmith and inclined his head with a quick bobbing motion not unlike that of a small bird. But there was something in his black eyes which recognised the skill of an artisan and the smith nodded back with pride.
Once he had worked on quiver after quiver of arrows for elfin bowmen through his working life but it had been a number of years since he had last tapped out the familiar white shafted bolts. It could have been this very elf. The fletcher couldn’t be sure. They all looked so damned alike even though they were so few.
The elf was pathetically thin; his high cheekbones stood out from his hollowed profile and his elongated pointed ears nestled closely to his narrow scalp. While he filled his quiver, these abnormally sharp ears detected sounds coming from the edge of the wood. Two men. But why did they lurk in hiding, he wondered? He took a gold coin from his pouch and offered it to the smith who shook his head at such an overpayment but the elf insisted.
The flash of gold did not go unnoticed by the two men who watched from the cover of the trees.
“A strange individual to be sure,” said one of them.
He was a plump man, neatly dressed like a fairly well-to-do merchant. A cocky flat hat rested on his head at a jaunty angle, made of a rich brown velveteen like his doublet, cloak and pantaloons. Here and there a shiny sheen bespoke the fact that his clothes had seen better days but he wore them with a certain
seedy panache.
The other man snorted. He was altogether a different character. Rougher and burlier. A hard man dressed in a jerkin suit of dark green hide. He flexed a long bow against the ground.
“I’ve never seen his like before,” he mused. He snorted again. “Whatever—he carries gold and the way he inspects those points, no doubt fancies himself a bowman.”
“I’m not sure about this one, Ralf,” muttered the plump one. A worried look made him shake his head nervously.
Ralf twisted his nose disdainfully.
“We have not failed as yet. Play your part as always and his gold will fill our pockets within the hour. Now—” His voice hardened with resolve. “—get rid of the smith.”
The two of them straightened their garb and walked casually down into the clearing. Ralf hung back and studied the elf. Now he was close to him he sniffed off any worry that might have lingered.
“Good day to you, Master Smith,” said his friend. “I have a hard but rewarding task for you.” His voice was oily and slick, believable and honest. “Our waggon lies with a broken wheel a mile down the road. If you will repair it and return here before sunset, you shall be paid handsomely.”
The smith was unhappy at the idea of the long walk and his face showed his lack of interest at the prospect. Concealing a moue of irritation, the plump man fixed a glassy smile on his round features and dug deeply into his money belt.
“Part payment in advance,” he intrigued, grudging every coin he had to part with to make the fellow leave.
The smith gathered a few tools and disappeared along the indicated route.
“Greetings!” said the plump man to the elf once they found themselves alone. “My friend and I could not but notice the beautiful bow you tend so lovingly.”
The elf oiled the string with precise strokes, but his eyes observed the two men keenly.
“Might one ask if you are bound for the Tournament at Brackley?” Crow was asked and he shook his head.
