by Angus Wells
“He changed his shape,” Bracht said. “He took the form of Daven Tyras—surely he thought to deceive us thus, to escape us.”
“Surely he hoped to thus deceive us,” retorted Calandryll, anger still in his voice, on his face. “Surely he hoped that in another’s body he would leave us behind, lose himself in Cuan na’For. But the prize he seeks is dreadful enough he’ll not take chances. No, he looks to halt even the possibility of pursuit. Hence that wolf-beast.”
Bracht glanced skyward at that, scanning the heavens and the trees, perhaps remembering the quyvhal Anomius had sent to watch them in Kandahar. When his eyes returned to Calandryll’s face they were troubled and he asked, “How could he know we should take the lesser trail?”
“Likely,” Calandryll replied, “there’s some similar monstrosity left to guard the larger pass. Likely there’s some occult beast that wards every entrance into Cuan na’For.”
“But still you slew it,” said the Kern.
“Aye.” Calandryll nodded, once and sourly. “And in so doing, told him where we are. Likely he’s sent Lykard riding to apprehend us even now.”
“I think not,” Katya said, and he spun toward her, frowning.
“No? Then what shall he do? Grant us free passage? Set his token with those others Bracht bought?”
She ignored the bitterness in his voice, fixing him with a grey-eyed stare as she said, “How should he tell the Lykard of us, save he reveals himself for a warlock? Bracht, did you not say even the Lykard would turn against him were he revealed?”
“Aye,” Bracht answered. “Did he show himself—did the ghost-talkers scry him true—even the Lykard would surely join against him.”
“Then what he does, he must do in secret. I think hell not look to hinder his own passage by arousing enmity among those he looks to for aid. I think what spells he works must be done clandestine, hidden from the ghost-talkers lest he lose the support of the ni Brhyn. They surely believe him Daven Tyras, no? And so, Daven Tyras he must be—a half-blood and nothing more. I do not think he’ll send out warriors to block our way.”
She fell silent, awaiting a response. Bracht nodded, grunting approval of her logic. Calandryll paused, thinking on her words, finding them convincing—there was much sense in them—but not yet quite ready to give up his anger, for all it was directed at himself.
“Even so,” he muttered, “you heard him speak—he promised further obstacles in our path. Already we face the wrath of Jehenne ni Larrhyn, and now it seems we must anticipate thaumaturgy besides. Shall we fight our way across all Cuan na’For?”
“If we must,” Bracht said. “Ahrd, Calandryll! Today we faced a creation of nightmare and you slew it! You wear a blade blessed by a goddess—and that’s proven true. Whatever gramaryes he weaves to halt us, we face them as they come. We’ve the Younger Gods as allies and Rhythamun shall not escape us!”
“Save we die in the chase.”
“There’s that,” Bracht agreed casually. “But is that reason to concede the field?”
“No.” Calandryll shook his head, beginning to smile. “But still I wish we’d not forewarned him.”
Bracht shrugged, reaching out to remove meat that threatened to burn forgotten, passing them each a spitted piece.
“I think,” said Katya slowly, holding the meat in both her hands, “that Cuan na’For is likely too great he may watch it all. Likely he knows of the ni Larrhyn’s enmity and looks to that to . . . delay . . . us. Likely he’ll loose those occult creations he threatened, but still they must find us; or be left like markers along his trail. And as Bracht says—the first is already slain, so why not the next? I think time our greatest enemy now.”
She paused, nibbling daintily, wiping grease from her chin.
“Say on,” urged Calandryll, cheering now, his anger fading, intrigued by the direction her thinking took.
“He rides with the ni Brhyn,” she went on, “northward. Likely, are we not agreed, toward the Borrhun-maj?”
“It seems the most probable course,” Calandryll allowed.
“And while he remains ahead, he’s the advantage of us.”
“With Jehenne ni Larrhyn and whatever else he’s magicked twixt us and him, aye.”
“Then could we overtake him, or get ahead of him, we’d deny him that advantage.”
Calandryll said, “Aye, that’s true.”
Bracht said, “I do not think I like the direction of this.”
Katya chuckled. Calandryll nodded slowly: “You say we should ride for the Cuan na’Dru, directly.”
The woman, in turn, nodded. “As I said before—trusting in Ahrd.”
“Ahrd I trust,” Bracht said, low. “The Gruagach . . .”
He left the sentence hanging: unspoken threat. “Can they be so dangerous?” Katya said, not really asking a question. “You say they guard your tree god, and once already Ahrd has sent you help. Burash promised that Calandryll would be heard, should he cry for aid; Dera told us her kin will give what assistance they may. So—shall Ahrd permit his guardians to harm us?”
Bracht shrugged, not speaking, doubt hooding his eyes.
“What else is there?” Katya pressed. “We’ve Jehenne to avoid, and Rhythamun’s creations; he’s likely with the ni Brhyn now, or gone on. Toward the Kess Imbrun and the Jesseryn Plain, perhaps. Shall we skirt round the forest?”
“I think he will,” said Bracht.
“Then, even though he knows we come after him, he must take that time to avoid Ahrd’s domain. Do we cross it, we may come out ahead of him. May well learn from Ahrd where he is.”
“Do the Gruagach grant us that passage,” Bracht said.
“Gods!” Katya shook her head, her expression pitched somewhere between amusement and frustration. “You’ll take the chance of Jehenne ni Larrhyn nailing you to a tree, you’ll charge bare-blade against a dead thing made by foul necromancy, but these Gruagach . . . What are they, that they set such doubt in you?”
“The forest guardians,” Bracht said, a trifle sullenly, as if he thought his courage questioned—which in a way, Calandryll supposed, it was. “I know no more of them than that. Save that through the edgewoods of the Cuan na’Dru lie the moldering bones of men who have seen them.”
“Men who’ve spoken with gods?” asked Katya, her voice gentle now, reassuring. “Men promised godly aid?”
Bracht shrugged again, tossing the stick he held into the fire. Grease sizzled briefly, spitting in the flames. Bracht wiped his hands on grass, staring moodily into the darkness.
“I think,” Calandryll offered tentatively, troubled by the Kern’s obvious reservations, “that we may have no other choice.”
“Mayhap he does not go north,” Bracht said, but with no great conviction.
“Where then?” Katya demanded. “Not east, for that way he’d have found easier—swifter—passage by boat, out of Aldarin. West? Back into Gessyth? Why leave the swamps, then? Why go back to Aldarin at all?”
“He goes north,” Bracht admitted.
“And ahead of us,” said Katya. “Far enough ahead he’s opportunity to elude us. Do you know the Jesseryn Plain?”
“No.” Bracht waved a negative hand.
“Nor I, or Calandryll,” she said. “But while he remains in Cuan na’For we at least know he takes the shape of Daven Tyras, and you know this land. What if he goes across the Kess Imbrun and steals the body of some Jesseryte? Then it may be we must pursue a stranger in a strange land. I say our best chance of victory is here, now—and therefore speed is of the essence.”
Bracht sighed, studying her earnest face; turned worried eyes to Calandryll, who was not sure what the Kern wanted of him, but could only duck his head in agreement and say, “I think Katya’s right.”
“Ahrd is not our enemy,” she murmured, “so how shall his guardians be?”
“We might approach the edgewoods,” Calandryll said. “Cautiously, and do the Gruagach deny us entry, then we ride around.”
Bracht�
�s lips narrowed, pressing together, and for a moment Calandryll thought he would argue for the more circuitous route, but then he grunted, nodded, and said, “So be it—we attempt the Cuan na’Dru.”
Katya smiled, but it went unnoticed by the Kern, for he rose and walked over to the horses, as if to hide his doubts, or to reassure himself with the proximity of the familiar animals. Calandryll watched as he stroked the stallion’s muscular neck, the black head rising to nuzzle his face, a snicker of pleasure gusting from the beast’s nostrils.
“You think me right?” asked Katya softly, so that Bracht should not hear.
Calandryll turned toward her. In the firelight her hair shone like red-gold, the flames playing shadow games across her face. He wondered if she doubted as he nodded. “You’ve logic,” he agreed. “It seems our swiftest course.”
It was, he knew, a somewhat equivocal answer, but there was that in Bracht’s reaction that aroused his own doubts. The Kern’s initial hesitation to enter Cuan na’For at all had been explained, and once it became obvious they must come here, he had agreed, despite the threat of crucifixion—which, it seemed to Calandryll, was a threat unpleasant enough to give any man pause—but this was something else, something deeper. Bracht’s courage was proven—beyond his own, he thought—and so this reluctance to venture even close to the Gruagach must be a thing set deeper in the Kern than any fear of physical hazard, something that appeared to strike into the roots of his soul. And if his doubts were soundly based—if the mysterious Gruagach should deny them entrance, or look to slay them—then it must be the longer way.
“He’s no coward,” he heard Katya murmur, as if echoing his own thoughts, “I wonder what they are, these Gruagach?”
“I expect,” he answered slowly, as if Bracht’s doubts infected his own mind, “that we shall find out.”
Katya nodded and he saw a measure of reservation in her eyes.
“But still it’s the logical thing,” he said, not sure if he sought to instill confidence in her or himself, “and as you say—Ahrd must surely be our friend and let us safely through.”
“Aye.” She smiled. “But I’d lief Bracht believed that a little stronger.”
Whether he did or not, Bracht gave no sign when he came back to the fire, though he seemed resolute enough, as if, committed now, he allowed himself no more room for doubt. Or hid it, resuming his more customary manner as he outlined what lay ahead and how they should commence their journey across the grass.
With spring come, he explained, the horse herds would be foaling and the clans largely occupied with that, tending and guarding their animals, rather than roaming the prairie. That would limit the activities of potential enemies, affording a better chance of reaching the Cuan na’Dru unhindered. Nor would they ride land quite so open as Calandryll had anticipated, for while the central forest was by far the largest spread of woodland, it was not the only one, the grass between them and it scattered with lesser hursts, and broken by combes and straths. They would, inevitably, cross open terrain, but with luck and Bracht’s knowledge of the Lykard grazing, they had fair enough chance of escaping detection.
“Gart and Kythan spoke of them massing eastward,” Katya said, “because the creatures of Hell Mouth stir.”
“We ride the very edge of their grazing,” Bracht replied. “The line betwixt theirs and my own clan’s—even with Hell Mouth spilling out its strangeling things, they’ll not risk war with the Asyth while their mares drop foals.”
“And if Rhythamun is still with the ni Brhyn?” Calandryll asked. “What then?”
“We’ve the tokens to bring us safe over their territory,” Bracht answered. “We confront him—challenge him. With such a charge against him, the drachomannii must scry him and he’ll be exposed for what he is.”
“A sorcerer of proven power,” Calandryll grunted.
“Aye, of that there’s no doubt,” Bracht said, and grinned, his old self again. “And then—well, you tell me to trust in the Younger Gods, so surely you must trust in Dera’s promise that you’ve the power in you to defeat him.”
Calandryll grinned back, caught in the trap: so it was—he must trust the goddess, even though he felt no inkling of that promised ability. In the final analysis they had, all of them, only faith to sustain them,-but that so far, he reminded himself, had served well enough. He chuckled, that becoming a yawn, and Bracht suggested they bed down.
THE new morning spread mist through the timber, drifting down from the hills to wreathe the trees in ethereal grey, moisture sparkling on grass and branches and horse hide as the sun shone pale in the east and the fattening moon lingered reluctant at the westernmost limit of the sky. Calandryll rebuilt the fire as Bracht checked the horses and Katya prepared their breakfast, and when they had eaten they prepared to mount.
“String your bows,” Bracht advised, “and ride ready to use them. If fight we must, it’s likely to be off horseback.”
They obeyed, latching the quivers forward of their saddles and fixing the bows inside the containers. Calandryll, for all his practice, wondered how well he might flight a shaft from the back of a running horse, thinking that that was a very different proposition to firing from the ground, or the deck of a warboat. Faith, he told himself, have faith. With any luck we’ll pass unchallenged.
He held that thought as he swung astride the chestnut gelding and followed Bracht down the slope, leaving the spread of timber behind, cedar and cypress thinning until before them lay a vast spread of grass. Bracht reined in there, all the doubts of the last night seemingly forgotten as he beamed, rising in his stirrups to encompass the panorama with a sweeping gesture. “Cuan na’For,” he said, reverence in his tone, delight shining in his blue eyes.
Calandryll stared round, for a moment daunted by the vastness of the prairie stretching before them. The sun was risen higher and the sky grown purest blue, high banks of cumulus building white as snow across the eastern horizon, ribbons of cirrus streamered high overhead. A breeze set the grass to rippling and he thought it was as though he looked upon a sea, a great earthly ocean, its waters a myriad shifting shades of green. Far off sunlight sparkled on a river, and scattered over the enormous expanse of verdant land there were darker patches, like cloud shadows—the woodlands Bracht had promised. The air was fresh, clean, and scented with the smell of the grass, of springtime growth. He thought no land could be larger, and then that the finding of Rhythamun in such an enormity must surely be impossible; which, in turn, convinced him that Katya had been right and they must look to Ahrd for help.
“Come,” he heard Bracht say, and heeled the chestnut to a canter, going down the last of the gradient onto flatter ground, where the grass grew high and rustled in the wind like some half-heard song, a wistful melody counterpointed by the trilling and chirruping of the little birds that fluttered, bright-plumed, among the verdancy.
They held a steady pace until they came to the river, its banks marked by willows, steep where the grass ended, with benches of yellow sand from which ducks and wagtails fled at their arrival. Bracht bade them wait awhile as he rode a way along the bank, in both directions, his eyes intent upon the sand, returning to inform them he found no sign of hoofprints to indicate the presence of Lykard, and they splashed across the shallow water and continued on.
At noon they halted to rest the animals and eat, still without sight of other humans, though often they saw scattered herds of wild horses grazing the lush prairie, the king stallions whickering a challenge that was answered by Bracht’s mount.
They cantered on, Calandryll realizing how deceptive the terrain was, for what had seemed from that morning’s vantage point flat grassland rolled and folded in distance-hidden hollows, shallow bowls, and occasionally sharp-flanked cuts. A squadron of horsemen might wait hidden in those undulations, unseen until a careless rider came down on them, or they on him, and he grew more wary, scanning their surroundings as Bracht did. But still no riders were met, although toward the midmost hour of the after
noon they saw, off to the west, plumes of smoke drifting up, marking the position of some Lykard encampment. They speeded their pace then, leaving the smoke behind as they drew nearer a hurst.
As with the land itself, the perspectives of the wood were deceptive. It seemed at first of no great size, but as they closed on it, it seemed to grow, to expand to east and west, far larger than Calandryll had judged. Silver-barked birches were lit by the descending sun, spread like some natural pallisade about the perimeter of the woodland, giving way to hornbeams deeper in, those rising high, to spread their limbs over ground barely grassed and still thick with a crisp layering of fallen leaves. Bracht led them in until the prairie was lost to sight, their path shadowy and loud with bird song, riding steadily deeper until alders showed where a spring gurgled up to form a small pond. They halted there, gathering the makings of a fire but not setting spark to the tinder until dusk fell and the sky grew dark, concealing the smoke. Then, confident that the density of surrounding trunks would hide the glow, they prepared a meal and pitched their tents. Remembering the smoke from the Lykard fires they decided to mount a guard that night, and Calandryll was shaken awake by Katya, the middle watch falling to him.
He wrapped his cloak about his shoulders, the nights being still chilly, and slung his quiver across his back, taking up his bow as he paced a dutiful round. The moon thickened, lancing pale light over the woodland floor, and through the overhang of branches he saw a vista of stars twinkling. The horses snuffled and snorted, making those sounds horses make in sleep; nightjars sang their strident song and owls their softer calls; earthbound predators hunted the darkness, their presence announced only by the dying cries of their prey. But he felt no threat, for all he held an arrow nocked, as if the wood breathed peace, telling him in its dendroid way that no harm should come while they remained within its boundaries. He thought perhaps this was some silent message sent by Ahrd, so firm was the conviction, though this particular woodland seemed not to contain any oaks. His watch was uneventful and he woke Bracht at the agreed hour to find his bed and fall calmly into a dreamless sleep.
