by Roger Taylor
The announcement and the removal of Garren and his followers were greeted by the Councillors with a stunned silence.
As the door closed behind the departing group, Haynar spoke softly but purposefully. ‘Debate what you have heard, my friends,’ he said. ‘And choose well. Freedom and progress, with the responsibility that goes with both; or stagnant Bethlarii overlordship. I will return to hear your will in due course.’ He bowed his head for a moment, then turned and left the platform.
As he left, the silence began to disintegrate around the two watching Serens. At first gradually, then with a great rush like a breaking wave. Several Councillors left the Chamber hastily while all those that remained began talking urgently, and seemingly indiscriminately, to their neighbours on every side.
'Gentlemen.'
Arwain turned. It was the official who had brought them into the Chamber. ‘Would you follow me, please.'
Though his voice was soft, his manner was urgent and Arwain and Ryllans followed him without question.
He led them out of the Chamber by a different door to the one through which they had entered and, as they followed him along passageways and down stairs, Arwain felt an increasing urgency in his pace.
'What's the matter?’ he asked.
'The Maeran will explain,’ the man said, politely.
Then they were walking rapidly down a narrow stone stairway and being ushered into a small courtyard. Their horses were waiting, saddled and ready, along with the platoon and a small group of mounted Whendreachi guards.
Haynar was there also. He stepped forward. ‘You must leave immediately,’ he said. ‘If I'm allowed I shall report your visit to the Council.'
Arwain queried, taken aback by this sudden change in events. He pointed back towards the Council Chamber.
'I thought you were in charge here.'
Haynar smiled ruefully. ‘I am and I am not,’ he replied. ‘The decree I've issued against Garren is a considerable risk…'
'You could have done nothing else,’ Ryllans interrupted unexpectedly.
'You and I know this,’ Haynar said, leading them to their horses. ‘We study our history. But…’ He shrugged. ‘We've got more than a few self-servers and weak-kneed appeasers in the Council. The vote's going to be close. I can't guarantee that we'll stand against Bethlar even though we ought to.'
'Don't you have emergency authority as Maeran?’ Arwain asked, as he mounted his horse.
Haynar smiled again. ‘Garren's a considerable orator. And his followers hold real power on the streets here. My authority's only as effective as my ability to impose it if need arises. As I said in there, our security is no more than the strength of one traitor's arm.'
He waved aside any further debate. ‘You must go now. There's liable to be serious disturbances when the news of Garren's arrest gets out and I can't guarantee your safety. Tell your father what's happening here. Most of us are with you and we'll do our best to oppose Bethlar, but…’ He changed direction. ‘These guards will escort you to the gate. Go now.'
Arwain looked down at him. ‘Do you want our help, Maeran?’ he said significantly, laying emphasis on the last word.
'No, damn it. We want neither of you,’ Haynar said bitterly. ‘But better you than them. And the treaty's going to be no more than smoke in the wind soon if you don't help. But tell your father to be careful. This is just a ploy to some deeper purpose, I'm sure.'
Arwain reached down and took Haynar's hand. ‘I understand,’ he said.
The sound of shouting floated into the courtyard. Haynar nodded. ‘Go,’ he said, then he turned and ran back into the building.
As their escort led them out of the walled courtyard, the truth of Haynar's words became apparent. There was an unmistakable tension in the air. Groups of young men were running about wildly while other people in the street were running to avoid them.
'Ar-Hyrdyn, Ar-Hyrdyn.’ Arwain looked round to see where the chant was coming from.
'Serenstad scum,’ came a cry.
A rock struck Arwain's temple. He slumped forward on to his horse's neck, blood pouring from his head.
Chapter 27
Ivaroth stared up at the southern mountains. His horse was restless, responding to his unease. He was a man of the plains. He did not like mountains. They dominated, hedged in, constrained travellers to narrow, often precarious pathways with giddying heights both above and below. They were no place for a race born to ride free across the endless plains, flat and wide and open, where the weather could be seen and judged and did not turn from bright sunlight to dank freezing mist without warning, where the sun did not rise late and set early amid ominous, judging shadows.
'Ivaroth, I will follow wherever you lead, but…’ There was a head-shaking pause. ‘I have misgivings.'
The speaker was Endryn, one of the few who had stood by Ivaroth when he was accused of his brother's murder and who had spoken out, at no small risk to himself, against his expulsion from the tribe.
The need to answer these doubting words gave Ivaroth the power to dispel his own concerns. He turned to Endryn with a yellow-toothed grin splitting his flat, scarred face.
'You mean you've got bellyache again,’ he said, leaning across and swinging his clenched fist in a backward blow at Endryn's stomach. Used to this attack, Endryn nimbly jerked his horse sideways so that the blow missed, but the prospect of the impact made his muscles tense and, placing his hand on his stomach, he winced and laughed simultaneously.
'I knew it,’ Ivaroth said. ‘You always get the bellyache before a battle. That's what makes you worth having by me in a fight, old friend. Your bad temper and your worse digestion.'
Exposed, Endryn openly hugged his stomach with both hands. ‘Thank you, Mareth Hai,’ he said with some irony. ‘It seems you have the vision of the healer as well as the warrior. But we don't have a battle in front of us at the moment.'
Ivaroth laughed loudly and then waved his fist at the waiting mountains. ‘Of course we do,’ he said. ‘Look at them. Row upon row of enemies. And they'll kill more than a few of us before we're through them.’ He seemed to relish the prospect. ‘Still, our real battle's going to be keeping the men going when they start bleating about the cold and the endless wind and their aching legs.'
'That may happen sooner than you think,’ Endryn said. ‘All the signs down here are that winter's coming early, and there's already snow on some peaks that wasn't there a few weeks ago. A lot of the chieftains will be clamouring for the expedition to be left until the spring.'
Ivaroth turned on him, his face suddenly angry. Endryn flinched, though he knew that the anger was not directed at him.
'No,’ Ivaroth said, savagely. ‘Not by all the powers in this land.’ This was a strange new oath that Ivaroth had taken to using since he had returned from the wilderness with the old man and started on his great rise to power. Whenever he used it, something in his voice seemed to make the very ground shake, and a deep, rumbling unease would pass through Endryn. ‘Now is the time,’ Ivaroth went on, his voice becoming more impassioned. ‘The only time. All will move against us if we delay.’ He held up his fist, clenched tightly as if to prevent something slipping away from him.
'You're so certain,’ Endryn said, unable to still his doubts before the dark presence of the mountains.
Ivaroth bared his teeth. ‘Yes, I am,’ he said. ‘I've been given the vision to see the tide that our people can ride to reach our destiny, and we shall ride it, no matter what the cost. We shall ride to avenge our ancient ancestors and to regain the rich land of the south that is rightly ours. I tell you, Endryn, if we do not do this now, then we'll be doomed to the plains forever until we decay and fail and become weak and scattered like the Ensceini.’ He took in a deep breath. ‘I'll allow nothing and no one to stand in front of this venture, if we have to pull those mountains down stone by stone. As for the men…’ He drew his sword and held it menacingly in front of Endryn. ‘I'll cleave from neck to groin anyone who shows even
a moment's hesitation once the march begins.'
The two men looked at one another. ‘Including me?’ Endryn asked.
Ivaroth laughed. ‘Of course including you-particularly you,’ he said, striking Endryn a great slap on his shoulder. Then he smacked his own chest. ‘I'd cleave myself if I faltered on this road.'
Abruptly he stood up in his stirrups and brandished his sword at the mountains. ‘Hear my voice, ancient rocks,’ he shouted. ‘Grow used to it, because it is the voice of your lord. I shall lead my men through your valleys and over your ridges, and split you asunder if you defy me. Do not doubt either my will or my power, because the one is green and strong and the other was ancient even before you began your journeys to the sky.'
He ended his echoing harangue with an ear-splitting war cry. Endryn, caught up in his fervour, joined in, then the two turned about and galloped back towards their camp.
As Endryn had said, however, there was opposition from some of the chieftains to Ivaroth's scheme to march through the mountains, especially in winter. His principal advisers sat with him in the assembly circle in his great tented pavilion.
'Mareth Hai, a man may ride his horse in any direction he chooses until it dies of exhaustion, but he will still have covered only the merest fraction of your domain. Already your fame is such that your name will ring down in history and legend as the greatest leader the plains have ever known. Do not cast this away so lightly on such a reckless throw…'
'The winter comes early. Such passes as there are will be blocked with snow…'
'We'll barely be able to carry the food we need as it is. If we are delayed…'
'The mountains were set there by the gods to bar our way. To flout their will is to court a fearful retribution…’ This was Amhir, as much a shaman as a chieftain and a constant thorn in Ivaroth's side with his religious utterances. There was a brief, but uneasy pause after he had spoken.
Then, the discussion continued. ‘My tribe has fought often against the southlanders, the Bethlarii. We raid them regularly. In their villages and farms they're but men … and women,’ he added to appreciative nods and laughter. ‘But when the word is out that we're among them again, they fetch up their army and those of us who wish to return again next season, retreat while they can, without dishonour. Their wall of shields and spears cannot be breached and they show no mercy…'
Ivaroth listened attentively to many similar speeches, nodding thoughtfully on occasions, until eventually the circle of chieftains fell silent and the sounds of the camp outside began to seep into the pavilion.
'I hear you all,’ he said quietly. ‘You speak much that is worthy, and you give me sound advice. I'd not have it said that the Mareth Hai disdained the counsel of his chieftains; of those that he has entrusted with the leadership of his people; of those that have ridden and fought by his side.’ He paused. ‘But also, I cannot have it said that I allowed myself, who am but the will of our peoples, to be deflected from our true destiny by timorous, shivering fears.'
His voice grew in power and intensity as he spoke, and, though no one dared move, it seemed that the circle shrank visibly as each tried to avoid that insignificant movement or sound that might suddenly bring down the fearsome, unpredictable anger of their Mareth Hai, like the last gentle breeze that finally topples a teetering boulder.
Ivaroth looked at each in turn. ‘You ask me to look at what has been achieved.’ He flung out his arms contemptuously. ‘Everything so far has been a mere sharpening of our swords in anticipation of the true battle. Hard at times, but no more than a pruning of the weak and ailing. My name is nothing. Our achievements are nothing. Vague echoes on the plains’ wind. But when the sound of our horses thunders across the length and breadth of the rich southlands, then will my name, and our achievements, truly ring down through history.'
Stillness.
'You talk of the winter, of the snow and wind, of going without food.’ He gave a gesture of jocular disbelief. ‘How can you, the leaders of my people, fret about such nonsense? What else is every winter but snow and wind and going without food? Each year we wait through the dreary gloom, stomachs rumbling, hands and faces raw, fearful in case this time the sun doesn't return, until the days…’ He drew out the words and made an incongruous flapping motion with his hands. ‘…slowly lengthen, and the birds return…’ Then with an angry snarl he cut through the momentary lightness he had brought to his speech. ‘This time we do not wait for such slight glories. This time we travel towards a glory of our own.'
He looked round the circle again. ‘As for the mountains being placed there by the gods.’ He shrugged fatalistically. ‘Who am I to gainsay such matters. Perhaps they were, perhaps they weren't. But I know that they weren't placed there to bar our way. They were placed there to challenge our fitness to return to our true land. Can you truly say that we, the greatest tribal federation the plains have ever known, are incapable of scrambling over a few rocks?'
Still no one attempted to speak.
'And as for the Bethlarii.’ He pointed to the two who had spoken about them. ‘I value your words. Not only do your people have the knowledge that will ease our way through the mountains, but you've met the enemy face to face, sword to sword.’ He beckoned his listeners forward and the circle craned inwards. ‘But listen. Dismiss your concern about walls of shields and spears. Formidable they may be against a raiding party, even a large one. But we're no raiding party. We're an army. An army so vast that we could trample them underfoot and scarcely falter in our advance…’ He waved a hand to dismiss his own exaggeration. ‘Not that that will be necessary. Walls can be ridden round, can't they? Ask yourselves, how fast can these walls of shields and spears wheel and turn to protect their flanks and rears? And how fast can they run when we ride past them towards their homes and unprotected wives?'
A tentative but relieved laughter greeted this remark. The Mareth Hai's ambition and ranting oratory were fine in their place, but a glimpse of the down-to-earth fighting tactics that he was evolving for the prospective conflict was reassuring.
His face darkened, and the laughter faded. ‘We go over the mountains,’ he said, looking at each in turn again, as if his black eyes could see into their souls. ‘We go to sweep away those who usurped our ancient land. This and this alone is why we paid the blood debt that has made us now one, where once we were many.’ He leaned forward. ‘I will not allow anyone or anything to thwart this intent. When your people come to you with their innumerable plaints, give them this as a lodestar to dominate their vision and guide their will.’ He drew his sword and pointed it towards the centre of the circle. Lamplight flickered off its polished blade as he turned it slowly from side to side, sending brief, bright stars hurtling across the curving canopy of the tent. ‘I will solve all weariness, all doubt, all discomfort, with this edge if I have to. Many ways seem to exist for the wayward and the weak, but in truth there is only one way. My way. Forward.'
'No!'
The stillness of the circle became suddenly taut at the cry, and all eyes moved from Ivaroth's hypnotic blade to the speaker.
It was Amhir. He was swaying to and fro and clearly in the grip of some religious fervour.
Ivaroth looked at him coldly, but did not speak.
'You blaspheme, Ivaroth Ungwyl,’ Amhir said, his voice hollow and distant. ‘As we near the mountains, more than ever do I know that you will be defying the gods themselves if you seek to lead the people through to the south.'
Ivaroth's grip tightened around his sword hilt as his every instinct prompted him to deliver summary justice for this defiant interruption. A surreptitious and unseen touch from Endryn restrained him, however. The many religions that the tribe followed had been the greatest source of their division and antagonism. So much so that it could be said that, after his fighting skills, Ivaroth's greatest attribute as a leader was his meeting this problem squarely, insisting that all should be allowed to worship as they wished.
But he was an unequivocal, sim
ple reformer, offering no subtle arguments. ‘We have problems enough right here that need our swords and courage. In future, those among you who choose to quarrel violently about the merits and flaws of your many gods I will personally dispatch to them for a final judgement.'
It took but a few summary executions to demonstrate the deep wisdom and effectiveness of this policy.
Nonetheless, mutual intolerance was still a substantial threat to the new-found unity, and religious matters had to be handled carefully. Endryn's discreet reminder was timely. Slaying Amhir for impertinence would cause some stir, but not for long. Slaying him while he might be considered as speaking the will of his gods could give rise to serious problems.
'Amhir,’ he said, menacingly, hoping that his manner alone might reach through to the man before he committed some greater folly. ‘Never before has any leader allowed such freedom for people to worship as they wish. And while I allow that freedom … indeed, enforce it … then the gods have what is their due and they must allow me what is mine; the right to lead my people unhindered. You forget that you sit here as a chieftain, not as a shaman. Keep your visions to yourself. I forgive you your outburst as I know your heart is as sound as your sword arm, but speak no more of this foolishness.'
'No,’ Amhir said loudly. ‘I cannot remain silent. The mountains have spoken to me. They have shown me the future and it is full of darkness and bloodshed if we do not turn from this path. You are led by a demon, Ivaroth, and it leads you to its own purpose, not yours.'
All eyes turned towards Amhir fearfully. His voice was powerful and convincing, and instinctively he fanned the smouldering embers of superstition that lay deep inside the plains’ people. Ivaroth felt the doubts of his chieftains forming around him. At their focus was the ancient, primitive challenge to leadership that they all subscribed to wittingly or unwittingly: surely no one could thus openly oppose the Mareth Hai unless he were truly possessed of some great truth?
