by GJ Kelly
Tyrane shot a glance at Gawain.
“More speed would be good, Captain. But take care, Jaxon, the road and the ruts are still soft from the storm.”
“No need to fret, Serres, we’ve all done this hundreds of times, and the tracks in the Simayen were never as good as this.”
With that, Jaxon trotted back to the wagons. Gawain and Tyrane saw him pass word to his people, saw them smile and nod, and then the ladies were bundled up into the rear wagon. Two men placed themselves on the outside flanks at the head of the horses, took hold of the bridles, and began urging them on, until the whole column was rumbling along the track at a steady jogging pace.
Gawain and Tyrane exchange a look which spoke volumes of their shared opinion of the Gorian refugees, and then Tyrane signalled the advance scout to double his speed too.
After only half a mile at their doubled pace, the voice of eldengaze drifted back through the head of the column. “It is keeping pace. It tracks us still.”
“Dwarfspit!” Gawain growled. “Allazar, how is it possible? The wind’s from the east and backing towards the south if anything, our scent can’t be carrying through the woods so quickly that it can match our speed. The trees will break the sound of our passage too, it can’t be using that.”
“There are many means at Morloch’s disposal, Longsword, any one of which he could make available to his servants. If you recall, when first he appeared to you on the plains of Juria on your journey out of Elvendere, he knew exactly where you were and was able to appear before you.”
“He knew exactly where I was because that Dwarfspit black hearted elfwizard I later cleaved in two told him when I left the forest, using that eye-amulet he carried.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting one of those is among us, Longsword?”
“I would see it if it were,” Elayeen asserted.
“Thank you, Eldengaze,” Gawain mumbled, not realising the name he had used, and then added in a slightly louder voice, “However it’s managing to track us, I would prefer that it wasn’t. Any ideas you might have, wizard, for throwing it off our trail would be gratefully received.”
“I shall bend my mind to the task, Longsword.” Allazar announced, adding a little petulantly: “Though not knowing what exactly it is shall make the task a challenging one.”
“What’s the lie of the land over that way, Tyrane?”
“The forest thickens, my lord, and remains dense as far as the river Ostern, and that runs southwest and into the marshes to the west of Raheen. The Old Kingdom plains are still well away to the northwest, on the opposite bank of the Ostern, and the Westguard have that under close watch.”
“Dwarfspit. The thing could’ve been sent in pursuit of Jaxon and his people, or may have been sent for us at the same time as the Graken.”
“I fear that such speculation is a waste of your energies, Longsword. Until we know what it is and what its purpose, there is little we can do. I’m certain I’ll know it, once I see it, and will be able to deal with it.”
“Let’s hope so. It’s a long way yet to Jarn.” And with that, Gawain dismounted, and jogged alongside Gwyn, for the benefit of his own legs as much as for hers.
“It tracks us still.”
Hearing the chilling voice of the eldengaze repeating the same mantra grated on Gawain so much that he put on a burst of speed, running with Gwyn through the vanguard and out a good thirty yards from the head of the column, where he eased back to the same gentle loping pace the Gorians had set themselves. The men of Callodon thought it an act of great nobility, the young warrior king running ahead, sharing the discomfort of all those on foot and placing himself and his famed longsword at the point of the van should any danger threaten from the north. The refugees from Goria were simply baffled that the young man who they’d been told was indeed the King of Raheen and husband to the beautiful elfin with the strange vision would be on foot at all, much less covered in the same mud as they were. Whatever Elayeen and Allazar thought, they kept to themselves.
After three miles and no sign of the darkness doing anything other than keeping pace, Gawain began to allow his mind to wander. The pace was comfortable enough, a quick glance over his shoulder showed that indeed the Gorians seemed well able to maintain it without too much effort, and the horses were moving smoothly enough. The advance scout kept his warning flag lowered, and but for Elayeen’s annoyingly frequent pronouncements concerning ‘it’, this would get them to Jarn within another four days. If the pace could be maintained.
In answer to an unspoken question, Gwyn’s big head bobbed and she snorted. She could trot along like this all day and no, nothing around her was alarming or worrying her.
So why are we running? Seemed to flash through his mind. Was it possible that in reality there was nothing keeping pace with them, that Elayeen’s ‘gift’ was flawed or she unable to understand it? Gawain doubted it. Allazar had been right, her ability was growing in strength and doubting her was probably just petulance and perhaps wishful thinking on Gawain’s part. He was still angry with her. Angry for not waking him at the first sign of danger, resentful of the long hours she had spent deep in private conversation with the wizard, and yes, still bereaved at the loss of the throth between them which might otherwise have given him an insight into the changes the circle had wrought upon her.
He was angry that the Elayeen he loved could not see him, but the Eldengaze could. And now, to Gawain, ‘eldengaze’ was not simply a poor attempt of his at naming the ancient trait or ability that had long faded from the kindred race of Elves. It was becoming Eldengaze, a person. A chilling and independent entity seemingly bereft of personality, alien, utterly divorced from the loving and sensitive beauty Gawain had discovered trapped and bleeding and shining in the moonlight at the edge of Elvendere almost two years ago to the day.
So why are we running? Because the darkness was there. Gawain understood why the Gorians had seemed to call all dark wizard-made creatures and things ‘the darkness’. He’d seen it himself, before he’d destroyed it. Seen it shimmering black beyond the Teeth while he stood on the heights of Tarn, in Threlland. Seen the dark glow emanating from the great lake of aquamire behind the mountain range, watched it as it seemed to draw the very sunlight from the day. He’d ‘liberated’ that great lake of evil, ignited it with the fire that flashed from the great lens filled with the same stuff, in a cave in the mountains where he and Martan of Tellek had discovered the truth about the Ramoths and their ‘great god;’ all of it was nothing but a great deception planned by Morloch to divert attention from the coming invasion, now thwarted.
So why are we running? Ahead, the scout flicked his flag out to the left and then to the right, a signal that another of the many cobbled passing-places was ahead. Gawain flicked a glance over his shoulder, saw Tyrane acknowledge the signal, saw the Gorians jogging along, the mud on their heavy closeweave garments darkening with sweat. It was a bright morning, the sun beginning to warm the track, moisture evaporating from the rain-soaked woodlands evaporating, making the air humid and sticky. The horses would need watering and feed more frequently if they maintained this pace, and once the ditchwater had drained, and much of it already had, that would mean foraging for springs and streams…
More haste, less speed. It had been much easier on the plains. Just the three of them, charging south from Ferdan. Plenty of grass for the horses, vast unbroken oceans of it. Water too, until slowly the heat of summer began drying up the streams and springs, forcing them closer to the woodlands and a more plentiful supply.
So why are we running? “Dwarfspit, that’s a good question.” Gawain mumbled to himself, and as the passing-place came into view, he glanced over his shoulder and raised his hand to signal to Tyrane that he wanted the column to halt ahead. Tyrane acknowledged the signal with a brief wave of his own, and sent the word down the line. Gawain could see there were great heaps of gravel each side of the track at the passing-place, and the crunching underfoot testified that it would
have been needed on this stretch of the Jarn road to keep the track firm when it had been in daily use. The ground was soft here, and the broad expanses of the cobbled areas each side of the road were more gravel than cobbles too.
Gawain stopped in the middle of the track just to the north of the near circular passing area, waiting for the caravan to catch up. It seemed to him he could hear running water beyond the crunching of boots, hooves, and iron-rimmed wheels on the track. Up ahead, the scout had seen or heard the column slowing, and had come to a halt too, and then dismounted. The column, when the vanguard arrived, simply stopped in the road, the Gorians breathing heavily but still comfortably.
“My lord?” Tyrane asked.
“Rest break. Water the horses.” Gawain ordered quietly, cocking his head to listen again once the crunching progress of the column had stopped. “Sounds like there’s running water close by. Good chance to fill barrels, water skins and canteens. And get cleaned up.”
Tyrane’s eyebrows arched expressively, and he darted a quick look at the wizard.
“Longsword, we’ve barely made five miles…”
“What’s the darkness doing?”
Elayeen turned in the saddle. “It has stopped.”
Gawain nodded, as if he’d been expecting the answer, and in truth he had been.
“Recall the scout, Tyrane, find the running water, top up, clean up, and when ready, you’ll move out.”
Again, Tyrane’s eyebrows arched. “We? And you, my lord?”
“Oh, I think I’ll have a rest for a while. And then I think I’ll go hunting. I’ll catch up with you all later.”
An hour later, and with everyone else a great deal cleaner than Gawain thanks to the floodwaters in a nearby stream, the column was preparing to move out again. Gawain decided to remain as he was, filthy and mud-stained from head to toe. It would make for good camouflage.
“Are you sure this is wise, Longsword?”
Gawain shrugged his shoulders. He stood to the side of a large mound of gravel, watching the woodlands to the west and chewing frak. Elayeen stood transfixed some six feet away, the wizard between her and Gawain.
“We have no idea what that is out there.” Allazar reminded him.
“Yet you’re confident you can deal with it should it attack.”
It was Allazar’s turn to shrug his shoulders, and he made much of shifting the Dymendin staff from one hand to the other. “I have been gifted with the power of a D’ith Sek, Longsword, perhaps even more. And fate has delivered us a Dymendin staff with which to focus that power.”
“And if it’s another Salaman Goth, who’s had centuries of practice with a stick as opposed to your what, four days? What then?”
“Ah.”
“It is not a Graken. It moves on foot.”
“Thank you, Eldengaze.” Gawain said quietly, and this time, he knew precisely the name he had used. And again, Elayeen made no comment or protest.
Allazar, however, did, reaching out to grasp the young man’s left arm just above the elbow and to whisper harshly into his ear.
“Longsword, do you know what you just said?”
“I do, wizard.” And Gawain shrugged his arm free of the wizard’s grip. “You will be responsible for my lady when the column departs. I’ll watch you leave from behind this mound of gravel. If Eldengaze sees the darkness following you all, raise your staff above your head. If the darkness does not move, we’ll know it’s me that it’s tracking and no-one else.”
“You? How would it be tracking you?”
“I don’t know, you’re the one with the stick, you tell me.”
Guardsmen of Callodon, their horses now well watered and fed, moved quietly on the track, checking weapons and packs and straps, and mounting up not far from where the three of Raheen stood.
“Longsword, the staff gives me no power at all, you know that,” Allazar spoke quietly and urgently, “And the knowledge of the elders seems only to come to the fore when it is needed and not before. I cannot say what manner of dark-made evil awaits you out there any more than you can.”
“I’ll know soon enough. If it moves off with all of you I’ll simply wait until you’re out of sight and earshot, then move out and swing around behind it.”
“Alone? This is madness, Longsword, you’ve seen the Graken and the Grimmand, and they are only two of the evil creatures it is within Morloch’s power to create. Come away with us, let us make all haste for Jarn and reinforcements…”
Gawain spun on his heel, anger darkening his features into a dangerous scowl and his voice ripping across the road, filled with regal ire.
“I am not some apprentice stable-hand to be cowed by visions of the fading ruin that is Morloch! Nor shall I allow myself to be made by your advice a witless idiot fleeing from unseen and nameless enemies! I am Gawain! Son of Davyd, King of Raheen! And I run towards my enemies with the name of my land and my people ringing clear in their ears to the very last step, be it theirs or mine!”
Allazar backed away a pace, then another, before brushing into Elayeen. She still had her face turned towards the southwest, and she neither moved nor spoke. She was, to her credit, carrying her bow, the bottom of the curved weapon resting correctly and lightly on the top of her boot. Silence but for the noises of the woodland seemed to lend even more weight to the power of Gawain’s words.
“Move on.” Tyrane’s voice drifted down the track, and with a sudden great crunching of wheels and boots, the train moved off.
Gawain glanced over his shoulder, and he saw the captain sitting in his saddle, erect and proud at the side of the track as the wagons passed slowly by, gathering speed, the Gorians determined to continue their jogging pace. Gawain nodded a brief salute, and Tyrane responded with a formal and sincere Callodon salute in return before turning away from the passing-place and cantering to his usual position at the head. Gawain had already told them he might be gone some time, days perhaps if needs be. And that when he returned to rejoin the group, he would do so from the southeast; anything approaching from any other direction would not be him, so they should act accordingly.
“Do you have no words for me?” a hollow voice grated.
“What words I may have are for my lady’s ears, not yours, Eldengaze. Go with the wizard. Watch the darkness. Tell him if it moves, so he can send me the signal.”
Elayeen simply nodded, still gazing out to the southwest. Allazar stared in despair first at her, and then at Gawain.
“Madness,” he said again, and led Elayeen to her waiting horse. Not once did she look towards Gawain.
He watched them go without another word. He watched Allazar guide Elayeen’s horse past the wagons to the head of the train, and then, with the mound of gravel between him and the darkness which even now Elayeen turned to face, he waited. Even from this distance, her blank expression made him shudder. A hundred yards further down the road, he saw Allazar lift his staff high above his head, the great white Dymendin rod glinting in the sunshine. The darkness, whatever it was, had begun moving too.
oOo
21. Hunting
He peeled another slice of frak from a damp and muddy lump taken from a damp and muddy pocket, and chewed, thoughtfully. Ahead along the road he saw Gwyn turn and look towards him briefly, bobbing her head sadly before turning and moving off to catch up with the rearguard once more. It always upset her when Gawain went off on his own, and he understood why.
The one constant in the two years since first he left his homeland had been his horse-friend. Only twice before, that he could remember, had Gwyn baulked at moving forward into danger. The first time had been on the plains after leaving Elvendere, when Morloch had made his first appearance, shimmering in the air before them. Gwyn hadn’t liked that at all and frankly neither had Gawain. Hardly surprising the horse should back away from something so far removed from their ken as that ghastly apparition had been. But she’d barely uttered a snort of derision when the image of the festering and weakly Morloch had appeared be
fore them on the road two short days ago.
The second time had been at the Keep of Raheen, when she had seemed paralysed beneath the vault of the entrance by some unseen force while Salaman Goth’s Graken had advanced. There was obviously something about Grakens that horses really didn’t like… Gawain smiled grimly. There was something about them he didn’t like either.
Insects buzzed and chirped all around him, and birds settled and chirped after being disturbed by the passing of the caravan. Perhaps that was what the dark thing was tracking, he thought, the sudden fluttering of birds as the column crunched or clattered down the road. Crows especially, he noted, flapping up through the highest boughs and out into the open sky above, circling until the din of travellers had passed far enough away to pose no threat before they floated back to their branches.
He watched the shadow of a stick he’d poked into the soft and gritty dirt, chewing frak and listening to the sounds of the column fading, moving slightly, just a step, gauging the distance of the column and the distance of the thing in his mind’s eye, keeping the great mound of gravel between it and himself as best he could. Just in case it made any difference.
Of course, he conceded, and had said as much to Tyrane earlier, it could all go horribly wrong. The thing might detect him and change direction, head straight for him and pick him off. And there would be no silver-haired Eldengaze to warn him. But Gawain didn’t think so. Besides, if Morloch had been serious about saving him for last, well then, Gawain would have nothing to fear as long as the second-to-last of Callodon were still in the neighbourhood. Tyrane had smiled at that. Humour in the face of imminent catastrophe is so much more seemly than pointless wailing, don’t you agree, Captain? And Tyrane had.
Soon, sooner than he’d imagined, the gravel-crunching of the caravan’s progress along the road and the gentle rushing of the unseen stream to the east merged until finally, Gawain was sure that only the sound of running water and woodland noises tickled his ears. He strained them, yet heard nothing which he could assert with any authority came from the caravan. Glancing again at the shadow of the stick, he moved further around the gravel mound.
