The Snowmelt River

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The Snowmelt River Page 40

by Frank P. Ryan


  The noise came from a cataract spilling over the table of rock at the top of the slope. Catching the pallid light of a scudding moon, it dissolved in a curtain of mist and spray that cascaded like rain through the moonlight and shadows over the cliff face. The thunder arose from the impact of the main waterfall against the rocky floor, where it threw up a freezing mist. A deluge of streams and rivulets ran downslope, fast flowing and bitterly cold. While the Shee and the stronger men among the Olhyiu might risk the crossing, for the majority it presented an impassable barrier.

  Dismayed, they gathered on the wet rocks, buffeted by the wind and icy spray, the women and elderly sitting on their bundles, some quietly weeping or cuddling the fretful children.

  Approaching the waterfall, Alan’s hair was immediately soaked, his clothes moulded to the outline of his flesh. Ainé stood beside him in a watchful silence, her sword unsheathed. He felt a dreadful premonition that caused him to look around them into the encroaching night.

  ‘Mage Lord,’ the Kyra warned him, ‘your brow is aflame.’

  ‘I sense danger!’

  ‘Do not speak of it aloud!’ Ainé’s eyes glanced over at the frightened women and children.

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘This creature that terrifies you – this Legun! Tell me what you know about it.’

  ‘The Tyrant has an inner circle, the Septemvile, each a reflection of a different facet of his malevolence.’ Her fingers brushed the scarred left side of her face with a grim reflection. ‘The one who did this to me is his captain. Its name is pride and its mask is death. Had it wished other than to torment me, my death would have followed that of my sister-mother in the arena of Ghork Mega.’

  ‘Is this what I am sensing? Are we going to be attacked by a Legun?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His fist squeezed the shaft of his spear so tightly it hurt. ‘Well – so what can we expect?’

  ‘When a Legun attacks, it may do so in spirit as a bane of darkness – or it may attack as its incarnate self.’ Her voice was lowered, so nobody other than Alan could hear her. ‘In the spirit we may fight it. But if it attacks in the flesh no mortal force will prevail against it.’

  ‘What are you saying? You’re telling me that this thing, this Legun, is what – immortal?’

  ‘So we believe.’

  Alan’s hand rubbed distractedly at his brow. His mouth felt as dry as a desert in this landscape of freezing waterfalls and streams. ‘Oh, man! Jeez!’

  Forcing himself to hide what he was feeling, Alan crossed to where Kate was helping Kemtuk distribute herbs among the Olhyiu, who were huddled in exhausted and demoralised groups. A few women, under the direction of Kehloke, were gathering brushwood. Ainé’s voice cut through this activity as a commanding bark: she forbade it, though they were as fearful of the dark as they were of an attack.

  Alan froze. The sense of menace was suddenly overwhelming.

  Suddenly there was a woman’s high-pitched scream, followed by a heart-stopping silence. Alan could feel a steady drip of sweat fall from his chin onto his chest. He made sure Kate was protected by Shee before heading off in the direction of the scream. His nostrils detected a heavy smell which his instincts told him was blood.

  Somewhere nearby, a trembling voice called out, ‘Great Akoli save us!’

  An entire family had been slaughtered. As he neared he was sickened by the foulness in the air. He gagged on the excremental stench. He glimpsed terror-stricken faces, he heard the patter of running footsteps, the sobbing cries of terrified children. Several were ignoring Ainé’s warning and lighting bundles of twigs to ward away the darkness. One had already thrown burning tinder into the undergrowth, causing more smoke than fire. In the confusion, Alan tripped over a smooth, firm weight. He realised it must be a body. It was too dark to see but he felt the flesh still warm and slippery with blood. He moved his hands about, encountering a heavy leg, the exposed knee above a skin-tight boot.

  A Shee – dead.

  Inching forward, he peered into the shadows and smoking brush. He made out another body, then another. As he touched one of them, there was a shudder of life, as if the injured person was fighting him, cursing and aiming blows at his head.

  ‘Easy – easy!’ he whispered.

  ‘Hah, my friend!’ sounded the answering whisper. ‘It is I, Qwenqwo Cuatzel! My arm is broken – but fortunately not the arm that wields my axe. You should not linger here. Danger is about me – I pray it does not find you.’

  ‘Lie still. I’ll come back for you.’

  ‘Do not tarry over me. It takes more than a demon to make an end of the Fir Bolg!’ In the sudden flare of light from the brushfire, Alan was heartened by the fierce courage of the dwarf, his eyes blazing.

  But even as he left Qwenqwo where he lay, there was a grotesque tearing, as of a rib cage being ripped apart, and it was accompanied by an anguished moaning from nearby in the tall rushes. Alan forced aside some giant reeds to find the old man, Canim. He lay bleeding and broken in the reeking undergrowth. The moaning stopped as Alan arrived by his side. Alan’s nostrils recoiled from that stink again and his stomach heaved. The stench was getting stronger. He was breathless with apprehension.

  Duvaaalll!

  He heard his name, a guttural whisper from the surrounding darkness. A rash of gooseflesh erupted over his skin.

  Outside the clump of rushes, the night air seemed to whirl and glisten like an agitated vapour. Anticipation made the muscles in his legs tense, and rivulets of sweat ran from his brow, over the folds of his face, stinging the angles of his eyes. He could actually taste blood in the air.

  A presence loomed between the bulk of two trees. He saw how it flickered as if willing itself into existence through the resisting dimensions of space and time. A livid vapour began to coil and then expand towards him, licking at the air, following his scent like a snake’s tongue.

  In the past, rage had activated the oraculum. But now, in spite of his rising anger, he felt only a weak throbbing from his brow. There was barely power enough to illuminate the shadows that deepened about him. Coming closer, only a little more substantial than the mist that wreathed the low ground, was a pale phosphorescence. It condensed to something resembling a wraithlike face a long distance above the ground. With the touch of the light from the oraculum, it retracted in hesitation, as if repulsed by it. And then, abruptly, with what sounded like a roar in his mind, it had gone. The effect was so rapid, its disappearance so complete, he might have imagined it.

  For a minute Alan held his ground, staring into the grey darkness, gritting his teeth. Then he shouted for the Kyra. ‘Ainé! Over here!’

  There was shouting now in the background and the sound of running footsteps. Then a firebrand flared next to him. Ainé was examining him, from his face to his feet. ‘Trídédana be praised – can it be that you are without a single wound?’

  ‘It was here. Then it disappeared.’

  The Kyra lifted the flame to peer into the shadows. With a shudder, she recoiled from the stench. ‘Never has it been known for a Legun to withdraw from its murderous purpose. It is not over.’

  Alan explained what he had seen. ‘It spoke my name.’ He shook his head, uncomprehendingly. ‘I tried to use the oraculum. I tried to probe it, but only managed a feeble attempt.’

  Wrinkling her brow, Ainé gazed about her at the impenetrable shadows. ‘There are forces at work in these forests more mysterious than even the legends have foretold.’ She took firm hold of Alan’s arm. ‘Where is the dwarf mage?’

  ‘His left arm was broken during the attack.’

  Her oraculum pulsed rapidly – some words of command, ordering the survivors of the Shee to regroup and maintain their guard. Then she asked Alan to lead her to Qwenqwo. But before he could do so, she murmured, as much to herself as to Alan, ‘A Legun never attacks randomly. There is always a pattern. First it baits a deathmaw – but over the river some miles southward and not within the forest. It destroys the Temple Sh
ip. Only then does it cast its spirit in search of us. Meanwhile its attack was directed not at you, its obvious rival in power, but at the Mage of Dreams.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Who can say? Yet I wonder if this diminutive mage’s understanding runs deeper than he tells.’

  ‘I’ll find Qwenqwo, Ainé. You have important tasks to organise. We’ve got to get away from here.’

  Nodding, she declared, ‘We have more than a dozen dead with no time for ceremony. All we can do is to cover them in haste with rocks. We must press on to the fortress, for it was constructed with defence in mind.’ Pressing the blazing torch into Alan’s hand, Ainé was away, issuing orders.

  Alan ran to where he had left the dwarf mage. ‘Qwenqwo – where the hell are you?’ He turned in a circle, searching for him in the dark of the trees.

  There was no immediate answer. Only the silence and the dark.

  Alan wandered the gloom, peering into shadows. He almost fell again over the body of the dead Shee. Now, inspecting the gruesome remains with the torch, he saw the unfortunate woman had been bitten in two. Shivering with dread, he held out the brand against the encircling darkness, calling more loudly, ‘Qwenqwo! If you’re alive, answer me.’

  ‘Can’t a man take a quiet drink without the hounds baying?’

  Alan heard the grumble from no more than yards away and saw that it came from a cavity in the tangled roots of a tree. Then, as if in a blink, Qwenqwo clambered out of it, a flask uplifted against his lips. ‘Had the monster come back, broken arm or no, I would have left my mark upon its ugly neck.’ Qwenqwo chuckled, while his eyes protruded with excitement. ‘If a neck it truly possessed!’

  ‘You’re drunk!’

  ‘As well a man might be who discovers he owes his life to the witch-warrior lying yonder.’ He waved the bottle in the direction of the dead Shee, and hiccupped.

  Alan helped Qwenqwo to his feet, calling out for the Aides to come and splint the broken bone.

  A Lament for the Fir Bolg

  As one by one the Shee prepared for further combat by going on one knee before Ainé and handing over their swords for recharging through contact with her oraculum, the four friends formed a ring about a single great fire, where they were joined by a dozen or so of the apprehensive Olhyiu elders, including Kemtuk, Siam and Topgal. The dwarf mage also joined them, as did the attentive Milish.

  In the flickering light of the flames, Alan addressed them. ‘The Kyra is certain that the Legun will return.’ He paused to allow the horror of that realisation to sink in. ‘Its target last time seems to have been the Mage of Dreams. And maybe that tells us something – a clue that might help us fight it. Does anybody have any thoughts or ideas they’d like to share?’

  Kemtuk said thoughtfully, ‘It seems to me that it was testing us, perhaps assessing our strengths and weaknesses?’

  Alan nodded. ‘The Kyra is determined that we press on.’

  ‘The Kyra is right.’ Kemtuk glanced towards Siam, who clearly had his reservations. ‘We are already two thousand feet above the river. We must be very close to the plateau and the third wall of defence of Ossierel. Certainly we must hurry to complete that final march. However, I believe the heads may give us direction. If I gauge correctly, each faces directly outward on a line from the heart of Ossierel …’

  ‘So if we stand exactly in the opposite direction from a head, we face directly towards that heart?’

  Kemtuk nodded.

  Siam said, ‘Further progress will be hard. We have children and wounded to carry. The Kyra will grant us a two-hour rest – no more. The strong among us will have to bear the children and the wounded. We will crawl if necessary the final league until we reach the sanctuary.’

  ‘Spoken like a true Olhyiu!’ shouted Qwenqwo Cuatzel, his face breaking into a crooked grin, taking a sip from his flask before passing it to Siam.

  ‘Perhaps,’ spoke Kemtuk, with a sidelong glance at Alan, ‘the Mage of Dreams might offer enlightenment to this company in the dark hours before we head into yet more peril?’

  Alan took the hint from Kemtuk. He looked from the shaman to Qwenqwo, observing a glint in the dwarf mage’s eyes.

  ‘Truly,’ Qwenqwo declared, filling his pipe with one hand, ‘the shaman is the wisest of men, for he recognises the importance of the history we confront on this island. It is a story both great and terrible, yet perhaps one that has been overdue in the telling. I will therefore explain a little of past events that might give you heart in this time of peril.’

  A reflective silence prevailed over the company while the dwarf mage lit his pipe. Then, his voice a little more sobered, he began his story.

  ‘These stone men – these brooding idols, as some have mistaken them – are all that mark the mortal remains of the bravest warriors ever to take up arms in a righteous cause. It is true that you see their likeness in my face, for they were my people, the Fir Bolg. And now, in this meeting of like minds around the campfire, I will share with you a sacred knowledge I have shared with none for two thousand years.

  ‘Here, in this enchanted forest, you have sensed the hand of fate from a time so long ago that all but I have forgotten it. I carry the burden of that history. For I am the sole repository of the purpose that brought my people, an army of fifty thousand warriors, here into this accursed forest, where it was their destiny never to return home.’

  ‘What dreadful power could condemn so great an army?’ demanded Siam, who was staring at Qwenqwo, his eyes wide.

  ‘What power, you ask?’ Qwenqwo took the pipe from his lips to spit into the fire. ‘You will see that I have more reason to hate the Dark Queen than you. There is much that I could tell, if I had as many years as we have minutes, of the ways in which a heartless woman, though young as Alan here and beautiful beyond men’s dreams, plotted the destruction of a warrior nation! Ah, my friends …’ He paused, his face wreathed with sorrow. ‘Yet such is the peril we face that I see with new eyes the purpose of that wrathful queen.’ The dwarf mage smoked his pipe, as if to give him a moment or two to indulge his grief, before continuing.

  ‘At that time, when the army of the Fir Bolg came here, marching for months from a land far to the south, the Queen of the Valley – Nantosueta, she called herself – bade us welcome, for her realm was threatened. Even in those distant times the forces of darkness had long been stirring in the Wastelands across the Eastern Ocean. And had it not been for the courage of the Fir Bolg, that darkness would have been victorious long ago.

  ‘But even after great slaughter of the forces of the enemy and terrible losses too among our own, our leaders knew that we were not fighting powers merely of flesh and blood. Indeed you saw such monsters carved on the walls below.’

  ‘Leguns?’ Milish whispered.

  ‘Leguns indeed. And with them came a hatred of life that would have laid waste even these ancient forests. Some say the queen herself perished in the final battle, and that it is her spirit that has reigned ever more from the Rath that stands upon the fastness of rock that bisects the great river.

  ‘I don’t know all, for I was but a youth at that time, and it may be in consequence that my memory is prejudiced. Yet I know that it was Magcyn’s command that our warriors were given the choice, each man and woman for himself or herself, whether to make a final stand against the forces of evil or return home to the peace of hearth and family. The Arch Mage of the Fir Bolg then cast the runes that foretold that the evil could not be crushed by mortal courage. Only then was Nantosueta’s final recourse made plain. From her vaunted pinnacle she laid the hand of death over the entire valley. So she commanded, and so she watches over it still, making certain that all, who should have been allowed to choose their own fate, were compelled instead to remain in death, their souls enslaved to her terrible purpose.’

  The dwarf mage wept openly, waving away the flask of healwell offered by Milish, for no healing balm could assuage the sorrow that had long brooded in his heart.

 
; ‘Through such treachery,’ he continued, ‘was a warrior race condemned not merely unto death but for eternity. And now you know the true and terrible meaning of the heads. For the Dark Queen in her wrath invoked Mórígán, the raven of death, to accept the sacrifice so that such fealty would endure. Thus was the darkest enchantment cast – an enchantment that emasculated the runestone of the Arch Mage, guaranteeing the enslavement of my people – with every grave marked by the head of its warrior, drawn of his individual living features.’

  Qwenqwo wept for a short time, so that those who sat on either side of him placed their arms about his shoulders and held him steady. Then, once recovered, in a voice of outrage, he continued:

  ‘At the throat of the pass Nantosueta, in her arrogance, moulded the very mountains to the figures of herself and Magcyn, the last king of the Fir Bolg. As such they would forever guard the entrance to her valley like some benighted king and queen.’

  The dwarf mage drew a great sigh and knocked out the ashes of his pipe on the makeshift hearth. ‘My father was none other than the Arch Mage, Urox Zel. After him do I bear the name Cuatzel, for I am the son and heir of Zel. The Mage of Dreams I became in time, for my race was gone and with it my birthright. Thus now, as you see me, with my heart and spirit broken, did I accept this burden and bear it alone for two thousand years.

  ‘So, I now answer you, Mage Lord, Alan Duval – I answer your question as to how the runestone of the Fir Bolg lost its power. And in telling my story I weep no more. For I thank the brave Olhyiu, and you, my friends, who have allowed me to unburden my grief at last. I ask only this of you, that when I fall my grave should be added to theirs, and so the sacrifice will be made complete.’

  There was a hushed silence that lasted several minutes, for not a man or a woman among their circle was other than stirred to a new courage by the story of the sacrifice of an entire nation.

  Alan put his arm around the gnarled shoulders of the dwarf. ‘Thanks, Qwenqwo. I don’t know what to say after hearing your story. Is there anything we can do for you?’

 

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