by Angus Wells
The next morning dawned bright, and after eating they started off again through the timber, Bracht once more in the lead. The narrow trail they took slowed them and it was close on noon before they left the wood, emerging on the open ground with no sign of further welcome cover ahead. Still, they encountered no ni Larrhyn riders as they traversed the prairie, alternating between canter and walk, the sun warm on their backs, the ever-present wind rustling the knee-high grass. They saw more horses, and sometimes the wild dogs Bracht explained were the chief predators of the grasslands, though the canines stayed always, cannily, well beyond bowshot. They were ugly creatures, blunt of muzzle and heavy-jawed, with long legs and stubby tails, mottled of coat so that they blended with the grass, appearing and disappearing like phantoms as they hunted. It was a profitable time for them, when sickly foals might be easily taken, and that culling, Bracht declared, ensured they offered no danger—in leaner seasons they might, unlike the wolves of the higher country, chance attacking a careless rider.
That night they camped in a shallow hollow, without a fire, aware of the smoke they had seen during the afternoon, closer than before, and started early, while the sun was barely over the eastern horizon. Bracht passed the packhorse into Calandryll’s care, announcing his intention of scouting ahead, and kicked the black stallion to a gallop that carried him rapidly out of sight.
He returned around midmorning, riding fast, swinging the stallion alongside Katya’s grey gelding as she and Calandryll waited nervously to learn what he had found.
“Ni Larrhyn horsemen,” he declared, pointing directly ahead. “Moving across our path.”
“Coming our way?” the warrior woman asked.
“Moving westward.” Bracht shook his head. “But still they’ll see us, save we’re careful.”
Calandryll stared round, seeing only the grass: no place to hide.
“Swift,” Bracht snapped and he realized he had slowed instinctively, heeling the chestnut up to a canter on the Kern’s urging, the packhorse whickering a protest as the tether was snatched tight. “Do we fight them?” he called.
“We hide from them,” Bracht returned, leaving Calandryll no choice but to follow, confused.
It seemed they must ride head-on toward the ni Larrhyn, their paths intersecting, for if the riders crossed their way and they continued this northward progress he could see no other choice in it, nor refuge of any kind. Bracht knows this country, he told himself, trust him; but still he doubted, thinking that surely they must gallop into a battle.
They splashed across a stream, lined like the earlier river with willows and alders, and he realized the terrain sloped upward, and that Bracht made directly for the crest, where surely they must be outlined in all this flat country. But when he topped the ridge he saw no sign of horsemen and guessed the land folded, hiding them, confidence in the Kern’s prairie lore growing then. Cheered, he urged the chestnut to a faster pace, thundering down the farther slope, over more flat, then down again, into a wide bowl, where Bracht reined in.
The Kern was out of his saddle in the same moment, the stallion curvetting as the reins snapped tight. Bracht reached down, seizing a fetlock and lifting as he shoved hard against the animal’s shoulder, muttering urgently in his own language. The stallion snorted a protest, but it knelt, trained to the maneuver, and rolled onto its side. Bracht stroked the muzzle, briefly, still speaking, and dropped the reins across the glossy neck; the stallion remained supine as he darted back.
“Hold the packhorse,” he commanded as he repeated the action, rougher with Calandryll’s mount and Katya’s. “And lie across their necks. Keep a hand on the muzzle; keep them down and silent.”
Calandryll obeyed, twisting to watch as Bracht shouldered the packhorse down and followed his own instructions.
Then they could only wait, after a while aware of a vibration that drummed from the ground, telling them horses approached. Calandryll felt an insect land on his neck, treading delicately through the sweat there, its touch feather-light and mightily irritating. He held one hand clamped over the chestnut’s nostrils, feeling the beast’s neck strain against his weight, as he slapped with his other at the offending bug. It lifted clear, only to return once he removed his hand and he gave up the attempt, resigning himself to suffering its attentions as the vibration became sound, resolving into the steady pounding of hooves. They came closer, louder and louder, and he fastened his hand tighter on the chestnut as the gelding’s eyes rolled and it struggled to rise. He felt the insect joined by another, teasing him, urging him to let go his hold on the horse and slap them away. He resisted the temptation, chancing a look round, seeing Katya sprawled across her grey, her tanned face slick with sweat, her eyes intent on the rim of the bowl. Bracht lay farther back, immobile over the packhorse. Calandryll saw that his bow and quiver lay before the animal and thought that he had not noticed the Kern take up the weapon. The black stallion lay utterly still.
The hoofbeats seemed overwhelming now, like sullen thunder, as if the riders came down into the hollow. Calandryll cursed silently, realizing that his own bow lay trapped beneath the bulk of the chestnut, then that the ni Larrhyn must surely be so close as to render the bow useless: when they saw the three intruders it must surely be swordwork that was needed. He wondered how many warriors there were.
Then, to his surprise, he sensed a difference in the sound, in the vibration. It lessened, the drumbeat pounding fading, growing indistinct until it was no more than a memory, an echo held by strained nerves. He started as a hand touched his shoulder and heard Bracht say cheerfully, “Save you develop some unnatural affection for that horse you can let it up.”
He wriggled clear, the beast surging to its feet, shaking its head and blowing, eyes still rolling. He stroked it, soothing its nervousness until he felt sure the trembling in both of them was gone. Katya, likewise, gentled her mount, and Bracht the packhorse, calling softly to the stallion, which came upright of its own accord and stood silently surveying its master.
“I’d thought . . .” Calandryll paused, sighing gustily. “Dera, but I’d thought they must come on us then.”
Bracht chuckled, motioning for him to mount. “There are places enough to hide”—he grinned—“do you know the land. You’ll learn.”
Calandryll nodded from his saddle. Bracht walked the packhorse closer to the stallion, mounted, and beckoned them after him, up out of the concealing bowl, but eastward now, circling north again across a swath cut through the grass.
“We need ride wary awhile,” he warned, looking to the west. “Their camp will be close.”
How close they saw as dusk came down, the twilight revealing stark the glow of campfires, less than a league distant.
“So,” Bracht decided, “well rest a little and go on through the night—they’ll be out after the wild foals again on the morrow. It may be we must travel by darkness a spell.”
Neither Calandryll nor Katya found fault with his argument and they ate cold meat as full darkness spread over the prairie and the wind dropped away, the air growing colder.
“Shall they not find our trail?” asked Calandryll.
“They’ll find a trail,” Bracht agreed, “but Ahrd willing, they’ll think it no more than wild horses.”
“Then shall they not follow it?” Calandryll wondered. “If they hunt wild horses?”
“Four are scarce worth their time,” Bracht assured him. “And they’ll see there are no foals. No, I think we’re safe enough, save they sight us.”
Which, Calandryll thought, was all too easy if no convenient hollow or hurst presented itself.
That pessimism, though, he kept to himself as they mounted again and proceeded on their journey.
It was hardly slowed by the darkness, for the moon was filled enough now that the grassland shone silvery beneath its glow, that augmented by starlight, the sky stretching vast overhead, presenting myriad constellations to light their way. Calandryll thought that he had never seen so many stars, not ev
en as they crossed the Narrow Sea or the interior of Lysse, as if the vast expanse of Cuan na’For was mirrored in the sky. They cantered like ghosts, league after league until the panoply above was dimmed by the approach of dawn. Bracht slowed then, as the star-pocked velvet became grey, the eastern horizon glowing with the flirtation of the false dawn. They found a stream and paused on its bank to water their animals, not daring to linger there, for fear of wild horses coming to drink, their presence attracting the Lykard. Instead, they rode on as the false dawn faded and the world was blanketed in darkest grey obfuscation, Bracht finally calling a halt below the scarp of a low ridge, declaring that they might sleep awhile and go on once he had scouted their surroundings.
Calandryll had the first watch and climbed to the ridge’s crest to see the sun come brilliant into the sky, the world bathed in hues of fire that ran like liquid flame against the last vestiges of night, birds rising loud all about and the wind starting again, softly insistent. He heard the howling of the dog packs as they commenced their day’s hunting, and the whinnying of the wild horses, the stallions screaming defiance at the canines. Far off, close to the limits of his vision, he saw a herd break from its grazing and begin to run, coming south and west, toward the ridge. As the horses drew closer, smaller shapes became visible, loping behind, and he saw the herd was pursued, or driven, by a fluid line of dogs. He watched as a dappled mare faltered, slowing, and three dogs ran close, snapping at her legs. Two more moved to attack from the front and a stallion turned from his headlong flight to charge back, his scream a challenge. Calandryll watched, fascinated by the drama, as the stallion plunged headlong at the dogs, bowling one over, yelping, spinning to dash hooves down against the tumbling predator. A second was sent flying by the rear hooves and then the mare was running clear, the stallion pausing a moment, plunging, pawing air, the morning loud with his shrill whickering before he, too, raced to rejoin the herd.
Calandryll followed their progress, seeing a group of dogs break off the pursuit to fall upon a foundering youngster, this one less fortunate than the mare, soon hamstrung, soon after dead. He turned from the dog’s bloody gorging to watch the herd, seeing it turn from the direction of the ridge to run westward, toward the columns of windblown smoke that marked the ni Larrhyn encampment. That was too far distant that he could make out anything more than a vague smudging on the grass, a hint of sizable tents, but in time he saw horsemen coming out, presumably alerted by the crying of the horses and the howling of their pursuers. He crouched closer to the ground, confident that over such a distance he could not be seen, but still urged by caution to avoid the chance.
Herd and horsemen came together, the one turning northward, the riders going past, loosing arrows at the dogs. Faintly now, Calandryll heard the yowling that announced a hit, and then the pack was gone, faded back into the grass, and the Lykard warriors turned after the herd. Where the foal had gone down birds circled, black against the early morning sky, waiting for the dogs to finish their feasting that theirs might begin. Calandryll sighed, mourning the foal’s demise even as he acknowledged the inexorable cycle. He ran his hands through the dew-wet grass and rubbed them over his face, murmuring a prayer to Dera, and then, for good measure, one to Ahrd, reminded by the drama how close death stood in this wide and open country.
When the sun had risen higher he woke Bracht, pointing out the Lykard camp.
The Kern nodded, grunting, and said, “Best we sleep the day out with them so close, and travel by night again.”
“Shall I unsaddle the horses?” Calandryll asked.
“I think not.” Bracht stared to where the smoke rose, his face solemn. “It might be we need to move out fast.”
Calandryll shrugged and left the Kern to his watch, going down the slope to stretch out on his blanket, tired now.
Warmed pleasantly by the sun he slept soon and sound, waking slowly, at first not sure where he was, then starting as he heard the sound of scraping on steel. His right hand was locked firm about the hilt of his sword before he recalled he lay on the ground below a ridge in Cuan na’For, a group of hostile ni Larrhyn not far away. That remembrance brought the straightsword smooth from the scabbard as he rolled, coming to a crouch even as the remnants of sleep quit his eyes. He saw Bracht grinning, looking up from the honing of his falchion, and slid the blade home into the sheath.
“All’s well,” Bracht said. “Katya holds the watch and you’ve slept the better part of the day.”
Calandryll peered skyward, seeing the sun moved across the blue, closing on the western horizon. Katya was squatted on the ridge crest, her bow across her knees, and the horses grazed contentedly a little way off. He found his water bottle and took a long drink, then his stomach rumbled and Bracht chuckled, pointing to the saddlebags lying nearby.
“Cold food again. And more until we find some safer place.”
It was sufficient for Calandryll: the dried meat and hard biscuit seemed a luxury, eaten without immediate threat of belligerent interruption.
His hunger sated, he went in search of what privacy the terrain offered to attend another need, and that done, returned to squat by Bracht, tending his own blades with the whetstone.
“Shall we travel always by night?” he asked, answered with a shaking of Bracht’s head.
“For a while, perhaps, but in a day or two we’ll be clear of this grazing and go by day again.”
“Shall there not be more ni Larrhyn, then?” he wondered.
“Not soon,” Bracht said. “The families are scattered in spring—once we’re clear of this group, our way will be open awhile.”
Calandryll nodded, thinking a moment, then: “Do they not join?”
“Not yet,” Bracht replied. “Not until the foaling is done. Then they’ll mass—at summer’s start—close on the Cuan na’Dru to thank Ahrd for his bounty and ask his blessing. Again toward winter, but not yet: now they’re spread thin. Luck was with us, that we came into Cuan na’For at this time of year,”
“Luck?” Calandryll murmured. “Or some design?”
“Whichever.” Bracht shrugged. “It’s our good fortune.”
“I wonder if the Younger Gods had a hand in it,” Calandryll said thoughtfully. “Had Burash not carried us so swift over the Narrow Sea . . .”
Bracht grunted and said, “Perhaps. But then perhaps if the Chaipaku had not taken us, Burash would not have taken a hand. Did the Brotherhood then act their part?”
“Perhaps they did,” Calandryll said. “Albeit unwittingly.”
“Theirs was—is!—aid I’d do without.” Bracht chuckled.
“Still.” Calandryll shrugged, suddenly enjoying this enforced leisure that afforded him the time to muse on such philosophical considerations. “We’ve said before that it seems Tharn perhaps stirs in his limbo to affect the world. Why not Balatur, also? Perhaps he, too, plays some dreaming part.”
“Perhaps,” Bracht allowed, “or perhaps it was no more than chance that brought us back to Lysse, over the Gann Peaks, at a good time.”
Calandryll nodded. “Or the Younger Gods, or Balatur even, lend us what aid they may.”
“That so,” Bracht said doubtfully, “why do they not halt Rhythamun themselves?”
“The design denies it.” Calandryll shook his head. “Dera told us their aid is limited, that this is a thing of men—that men must play their part.”
“She spoke to you and Katya,” Bracht reminded him. “Not to me. If there’s some design here, I cannot see it. I see only we three, in pursuit of Rhythamun; with little enough help save what we make for ourselves.”
“I believe there’s more,” Calandryll declared firmly.
“Then pray Ahrd’s planted some woods in our way,” retorted Bracht, “for well encounter no Lykard there.”
“Why not?”
The Kern frowned a moment, his expression suggesting Calandryll had asked a question so foolish he had no ready answer. Then he smiled, his dark features warming. “I forget you know so little o
f Cuan na’For,” he said gently, friendship’s patience in his voice and eyes. “Cuan na’For is a land of horses, of horsemen, no? And horses live on the grass.” He gestured with the falchion, encompassing the prairie all around. “With so much, they’ve no taste for woodland—so animals and men, both, inhabit the open country, not the woods.”
Calandryll nodded, understanding. “So in woodland, we are safe,” he said.
“Aye,” said Bracht.
“But surely you use wood?”
“That’s true.” Bracht used a thumb to test the falchion’s edge, gingerly, grunting his satisfaction and sliding the blade home in its scabbard. “For the great carts, the lodge poles, saddles and such stuff . . . but taken from those coppices Ahrd allows may be touched. And never oak!”
“How do you know,” asked Calandryll, “which may be touched, and which not?”
“The drachomannii, the ghost-talkers, decide,” Bracht said. “They speak with Ahrd and he advises them.”
Again Calandryll nodded. “These ghost-talkers . . .” he began to ask, silenced by the swift raising of Bracht’s hand.
“Best not discuss them,” the Kern said quickly. “There’ll be one there.” He stabbed a finger in the direction of the ni Larrhyn camp. “And they have long ears. Did he hear you . . .”
He shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished. Calandryll ducked his head, accepting, thinking that there was much to learn of Cuan na’For and its ways; much that was not mentioned in the works of Sarnium or Medith, or any of the scholars and historians he had once read so avidly. So long ago, it seemed. Perhaps someday he would scribe it all, all he learned on this quest . . . He smiled at the thought, reminded that it was one he had entertained before. And that before such bookish matters might be indulged, the quest must first be concluded; and successfully, for otherwise he and Bracht and Katya must surely all be fallen victim to Rhythamun’s insane ambition.
