Caddoran

by Roger Taylor

  ‘Get after him!’ Endryk shouted to Rhavvan. ‘Hold him until we’re all together again.’

  They had come to a fairly steep slope. Thyrn was stepping slowly but resolutely from rock to rock, Rhavvan closing with him, but it was obviously going to be difficult to walk the horses up it.

  Rhavvan caught up with Thyrn just as they reached the crest of the slope. The others were far behind.

  Ahead of the two men, the ground fell away into a shallow circular dip. Unlike the rest of the valley, it was smooth and undisturbed.

  At the centre of it stood a group of mounted men.

  And Vashnar.

  Chapter 27

  Draferth looked up at the large and intimidating figure of the Tervaidin officer standing in his way. The two flanking him were no smaller. Draferth smiled agreeably and made to step around the officer as though the obstruction had been accidental. The officer moved to bar his way.

  Draferth’s smile vanished. ‘Excuse me, Officer,’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘There are crowds gathering outside, Senator,’ the officer said. ‘And their mood is uncertain. Given the controversial nature of your remarks in the debate, I think it would be wise if you came with us so that we can… ensure your safety.’

  He held up a hand to prevent a further attempt by Draferth to move past him. Draferth stepped back. ‘Let me pass,’ he said, his manner colder now. ‘You’re exceeding your authority.’

  The officer’s eyes narrowed and his jaw stiffened. ‘It isyou who are exceeding your authority, Senator.’ He could not avoid grinding distaste into this last word. ‘Arvenstaat is governed jointly by the Moot and the Warding. You cannot…’

  It was a mistake. Draferth was no subtle Moot politician but hewas a politician and a debater. In offering an argument the Tervaidin had abandoned his most effective weapon – his physical presence and the authority accorded to his uniform, in so far as it still resembled that of a Warden. Draferth did not allow him to finish.

  ‘Arvenstaat is governed by the Arvens, Officer,’ he snapped back, using the powerful speaking voice that had carried his Acclamation. ‘We hold authority only by virtue of their trust, and it’s they who are now calling both of us to task.’ Draferth slapped the bag of documents he was carrying. ‘And may I remind you that it’s their will that your… little group… is disbanded with immediate effect, pending a full debate in Moot.’

  For a moment it looked as though the officer was going to strike him, and while he did not give ground, Draferth flinched. The officer, however, simply nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, that’s as may be,’ he said with the weary dismissiveness of one used to dealing with troublesome individuals. ‘But I’ve got reason to believe that you’re unwell, Senator; that you’ve perhaps been undertaking more work than you can properly cope with and that this has obviously undermined your reasoning faculties. Why else would you have stolen the Red Kerchief and spoken as you did? That being the case, we’ve an obligation to…’

  Draferth’s anger burst out. ‘What! Stand aside now, or…’

  The officer straightened up and moved closer to him. ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or we’ll make you stand aside.’

  The Tervaidin turned sharply to find himself facing about a dozen of the spectators who had left the Moot Hall at the same time as he had. They blocked the corridor and others were still joining them. Draferth looked openly relieved, but the officer recovered quickly. ‘Members of the public aren’t allowed here,’ he said sternly. ‘Now move along – clear the way.’

  The man who had spoken was as large as the officer, but when he spoke, his easy tone was markedly at odds with the menace he exuded. ‘We’re sorry if we’re in the wrong place. We’re here to see our Senator. We’ll go now that we’ve found him,’ he said, bowing conspicuously to Draferth as he finished.

  The Senator used the change in circumstances to move quickly past the Tervaidin and the new arrivals closed about him protectively. Without further comment they began walking away, the former leaders now acting as a rearguard.

  The three Tervaidin, grim-faced, followed them at a discreet distance.

  * * * *

  Vashnar froze as the figure of Thyrn appeared in the distance. Relief and a dark anger welled up inside him simultaneously. Soon all obstruction to his ambitions would be gone. As he had followed the luring inner call that the hooded figure had left for him, it had grown stronger and, at the same time, he had felt his physical perceptions changing. Increasingly he began to feel that he was moving in several different places at once and that everything he could see and hear existed in forms beyond those which were immediately obvious.

  At first this strangeness had been only slight, and Vashnar had attributed it to a combination of fatigue and exhilaration as he and his men had galloped across the countryside towards the mountains. As it had grown however, he had overcome an initial concern to find himself experiencing a sense of reassurance, of inevitability; the width and depth of the vision he was gaining were merely facets of the power that had been promised to him.

  Now it was vividly shown to be so. For the Thyrn he saw now was not the young and awkward Caddoran that Aghrid and the others saw, but the source of a force which spanned across his every heightened sense and which defied him. Yet it was weak and uncertain, just as Thyrn had always been in front of him. But how could it be otherwise? In this place, nothing could hope to stand against him. For this was where the call had been drawing him. Here he could feel the source of the power that the hooded figure had shown him – the power that was to be his – the power that opened vistas which dwarfed into insignificance his previous petty ambitions.

  Here was its heart, its focus. It pervaded everything – emanated from everywhere.

  Everywhere except for this scar across it that centred about Thyrn.

  But that was easily dealt with.

  Slapping the hilt of his sword he turned to his men and shouted, ‘Kill him! Kill them all!’

  Aghrid snarled in anticipation and, drawing his sword, spurred his horse forward. The others followed him.

  * * * *

  Then they were motionless. No part of them moved, nor their horses. Tossing manes, foaming mouths were caught as in a picture.

  * * * *

  Vashnar’s mouth opened in a silent cry. He released his sword and hesitantly reached out to touch the nearest rider. His hand moved through the seemingly solid figure as though it were not there. He snatched it back in terror, splaying it wide and staring at it wide-eyed as if expecting to find it suddenly missing. Then he gripped it with his other hand and massaged them both desperately. They were solid, warm and real. His ring glittered in the dull light.

  And, though his men were still all about him, silent and unmoving, he was at the centre of the myriad clashing realities he had witnessed when he had encountered the hooded figure.

  ‘Why are you not yet here?’

  The figure was in front of him.

  Vashnar was in no mood to be interrogated. ‘I am here. You brought me here. What’s happening?’

  ‘Thenhe is here. The one who opposes you. Why have you not destroyed him?’

  ‘Release me and I will,’ Vashnar roared.

  ‘I do not bind you,’ the figure replied. His arms opened to encompass the whirling chaos about them. ‘Yours is the key. Destroy him now!’

  Vashnar was suddenly beside himself with frustration and fury. ‘Key! What key? I understand nothing of this.’ He leaned forward and peered into the darkness of the deep hood. ‘I am trapped here in this… half place… neither real nor unreal. I can do nothing.’ He drew his sword and levelled it at the figure. ‘Why have you brought me here? Why do you not use this vaunted power of yours to destroy Thyrn yourself?’

  The figure did not move, but Vashnar felt its malevolent stare piercing him. It hissed – a sound like the wind across a bitter icy plain. ‘Do not challenge me, Vashnar. Your key and what you are opens these Ways – but it is my will that brings together
the power that remains from the unmaking of the Old World – my will and only my will. As it was then, so it is now. I will be for ever. Time does not exist for me. Yet, in time, another will come in your stead.But you have only now. Falter and you are lost.’

  For an instant Vashnar quailed before the force of the personality he could feel before him. But something was flawed. The faintest hint of desperation? It steadied him.

  ‘Do not challenge me either, shade. Whatever you are and wherever you come from, I feel your greed, your lust to be, your need for me. I ask you again, why do you not destroy Thyrn yourself?’

  ‘Because sight of me is denied to him, Vashnar, while sight of him is not denied to me.’

  Vashnar felt the tumult about him fade and the hooded figure slip into the same motionless unreality as his riders.

  The voice was Thyrn’s. It filled Vashnar’s mind. Knowing everything, denouncing everything.

  ‘What have you done, you madman? What have you unleashed? Can you not see the horror of it?’

  Vashnar had a fleeting vision of his men. They were below him and charging towards him with painful slowness. At the same time he touched Thyrn’s thoughts. All was weakness and doubt. Whatever restraint Thyrn had on the hooded figure, he neither understood nor knew how to use; he was a mere infant loose in the armoury – armed but helpless.

  All was solid about him again. Aghrid and his men were charging forward, screaming and shouting. Vashnar drove his spurs into his horse.

  Rhavvan swore as Vashnar’s barked order reached him and the riders began surging towards him. ‘Ye gods, there must be twenty of them.’ He turned to flee, only to find Thyrn clinging to his arm, almost collapsing.

  ‘Stand, Rhavvan!’ the youth implored him. ‘In the name of pity, stand with me. I’ve seen his mind – seen what he’s going to do. There’s a power – an evil – in this place which no one will be able to oppose if it possesses him.’ He shook Rhavvan violently. ‘It doesn’t matter what happens to me. It doesn’t matter what happens to any of us, but you must destroy him, for everyone’s sake.’

  Rhavvan looked at him, then at the advancing riders, then, with a cry of alarm he shook himself free and set off running down the slope they had just climbed.

  Thyrn slithered to the ground. ‘No!’ he shouted frantically after him. But to no avail. Rhavvan kept on running. Thyrn’s voice cracked into a whimper.

  The image returned to him of that final brief contact with Vashnar. That searing touch of the appalling power that might become his, and the will behind it, gorged with all that was savage and unrestrained in the human spirit. He felt it arcing back to the destruction of another world, another time, a destruction that had trapped it here, ravening, but bound.

  Every part of him cried out in denial. He did not know how he had spoken to Vashnar, or from whence his words came. Still less did he know what touch inside him had released Vashnar back into this world. But it had had to be. Touched by his guiding spirit, Vashnar was protected. He could only be dealt with here, now.

  On all fours now, tears of desperation clouded Thyrn’s vision. He had become a solitary, fragile pivot in events far beyond his understanding.

  Always there are choices, came the thought. But all he could choose now was the manner of his dying. Flight would not protect him, and it would yield the field to an enemy more terrible than any he could possibly have imagined.

  His towering friend had deserted him, but he must stand.

  His hand tightened blindly about a stone and he stood up unsteadily and turned to face the advancing riders. As he slipped the stone into his sling he found himself almost overcome by a feeling of forgiveness for Rhavvan’s abandoning him. It mingled with a surging gratitude for everything that had happened to him during the past weeks. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes and tried to focus on his attackers. He was shaking uncontrollably but a residue of Endryk’s teaching flickered sufficiently to sustain him. He knew that he must use the racking desire of his body to flee to save himself long enough to kill Vashnar. He gave no thought to how that was to be done for he knew too, that somehow he would use the dark resources which Vashnar’s very persecution had led him to discover in himself.

  At the sight of their quarry, the fatigue of their frantic dash across country and through the mountains had fallen away from the Tervaidin. Now Rhavvan’s flight urged them on even more and their cheering became jeering as Thyrn launched an ineffective stone at them.

  But as they reached the bottom of the slope, the solitary figure above them was suddenly six, as Thyrn’s companions, drawn by Rhavvan’s desperate urging, joined him, dark, ominous and immovable against the lowering sky.

  Five arrows were released. Three men and one horse fell, bringing down two other riders. The charge faltered.

  A bow was thrust into Thyrn’s hand and arrows pushed into his belt.

  ‘Take your time and pick your mark,’ Endryk’s voice said, cold and frightening.

  Three more volleys of arrows ended the momentum of the charge completely but Vashnar maintained a demented pace and together with Aghrid and one other reached the ridge without injury. A savage kick sent Nordath reeling and, in pushing Thyrn to one side, Endryk too was sent tumbling down the slope by a sidelong blow from Vashnar’s turning horse. As he slithered to a halt, he collided with one of the unhorsed Tervaidin. Recovering, the man swung his sword high to finish his downed victim, but Endryk’s foot shot out and struck him squarely in the groin. Rolling over to avoid the falling man’s sword, he snatched it up and hurled it at another of the Tervaidin charging towards him. The hilt struck him in the face and sent him staggering down the slope.

  At the ridge, Rhavvan’s staff had unhorsed both Aghrid and the remaining rider, and together with Adren and Hyrald he was attacking with a combination of hurled rocks and brutal swordwork those Tervaidin who had survived the arrows and were struggling up the slope to fight on foot.

  For a while it was bitter and desperate work, but the guidance and instruction that Endryk had given the three Wardens, and their deep and righteous anger at the events that had brought them here, combined to make them formidable, and their opponents eventually retreated.

  As the last of them turned and fled, Adren leaned forward on to her sword to catch her breath. Aghrid, however, though unhorsed, had merely been winded. Seeing Adren defenceless and with her back to him, he stood up slowly and lifted his sword to strike her. Hyrald saw the pending attack but was too far away to intervene. His hand was reaching out in instinctive warning and he could feel a cry forming in his throat even as Adren’s head flicked slightly. Then she was stepping sideways, her sword held like a dagger and thrust backwards, the palm of her free hand pressed over its hilt. The blade went straight through Aghrid, lifting him off his feet. With a turn, she wrenched her sword free as Aghrid fell to the ground. His face a mask of hatred, disbelief and pain, Aghrid made a final cut at Adren even as he landed, but she avoided it with an almost casual step then finished him with a single savage blow.

  The few Tervaidin lingering hesitantly on the slope retreated further.

  As she looked up, it was to see Vashnar attacking Thyrn. The young Caddoran had dropped his bow and was flailing his sword in a vain attempt to protect himself. The three Wardens began running at the same time but it seemed they could not reach him in time to prevent Vashnar pressing home his brutal onslaught.

  Then, Nals was in front of Vashnar’s horse, hackles raised, teeth bared, and Nordath, his head bleeding, was clinging on to Vashnar’s leg, trying to unseat him. After a vain attempt to shake him off, Vashnar abandoned his attack on Thyrn to strike down this new assailant. Thyrn, seeing the danger to his uncle, lashed out at Vashnar but missed and struck his horse a glancing blow. Already frightened by Nals, the horse reared, dislodging Nordath and knocking Thyrn over. As he landed, the impact bounced the sword from his hand. Vashnar swung down from his horse and moved to finish on foot the task he had failed to do on horseback.

 
Scrabbling backwards over the rocky ground, Thyrn seized a rock and hurled it at him. It struck Vashnar on the chest without effect.

  Vashnar’s eyes were blazing, but terrifying Thyrn as much as his immediate physical danger was the fragmenting confusion that swirled in Vashnar’s wake – the shards of countless colliding realities. And illuminating all, the bloody light of the power that hung about this place – a power that he knew Vashnar would take into realms beyond imagining – a power that was the very essence of those who had destroyed an entire world with their ignorance and consuming hatred. The scale and horror of this vision threatened to unman Thyrn totally, but even as he felt his last control and resistance slipping away, something deep within him reached out and touched the hurt that was focused about Vashnar – denying it, healing it.

  ‘No!’ A chorus of screaming voices crackled around Vashnar’s cry, and Thyrn’s strange and tenuous touch was dashed aside.

  But where there had been fear there was now anger. As Vashnar strode towards him, Thyrn’s hand closed about a fist-sized rock and with a single sweeping movement, powered by that inner knowledge which as a child had bounced a precious, bright red ball to and fro, he hurled it at Vashnar’s head, a great cry surging in its wake. Vashnar flinched, lifting an arm to protect himself.

  The rock struck his hand.

  It shattered his ring.

  It seemed to Thyrn that suddenly he was alone on the mountain and that a deep silence and stillness pervaded the whole world.