by Roger Taylor
Yet it should be addressed, with the camp seething with rumour, their advance halted without any reason being given, and the Mareth Hai sitting, unapproachable, by the cot of the grotesque companion he had brought out of the wilderness.
Part of the answer he knew: the old man was power-real power. Not for him the noisy conjurings of the swift-fingered shamans to gull the superstitious. His was a way of dark, watchful silence that would not grace such antics even with contempt; the way that went straight to its goal and crushed anything that stood in its path. An ancient, a … Endryn's mind hesitated at the word … a magical power; one beyond all understanding.
Yet, though he had no understanding of this power, Endryn was well content to accept the evidence of his own eyes and be grateful that he stood near to the man to whom the command of it had seemingly been granted.
He could not begin to guess at the bargain that Ivaroth might have made to make this creature his own … if that indeed was the case. But now, as mysteriously as he exercised his power, the old man had been stricken; over-reached himself in some way perhaps, as he sought to destroy the fleeing messenger.
And now the great drive south was halted. The camp idle and the men festering.
With each passing day there was the risk that random refugees who had avoided their patrols and scouts, would reach Bethlar or Serenstad and reveal what was happening. He must do something. He was Ivaroth's closest confidant. The ties that bound them were rooted strongly in their pasts, they should protect him.
He took a deep breath as he reminded himself that Ivaroth had killed his own brother.
Still, family was family, these things happened. He and Ivaroth were saddle companions. That was different …?
Composing himself, he went to the door of his tent and, after a brief hesitation, yanked it open and strode out into the cold wintry gloaming.
'Sirs, sirs. Please, sirs…’ The two riders had seen the woman bustling along the track which crossed the field, but were nonetheless surprised as, arms waving agitatedly, she almost hurled herself in front of their horses.
She was middle-aged and stout, and her flushed face and heavy breathing confirmed that she had not run anywhere in many years. Her shoes were soiled with mud and she was wearing no cloak or gown to protect her from the cold weather. What was presumably her good house pinafore was crumpled and grimed.
Without pausing, she seized the bridle of the nearest rider; the younger of the two, a man with a round, worried face which, for all he was no boy, had a touch of innocence about it. She leaned heavily on the bridle for support. ‘Please help me, sirs. I don't know what to do,’ she managed to gasp out eventually.
The man bent forward and laid his hand on her shoulder gently. ‘Quietly, mistress,’ he said. ‘What's the matter? Have you been attacked?'
The woman hesitated, taken aback by the man's heavy foreign accent. Then she looked into his face intently and seemed to reach the conclusion that she could still seek his help.
'No, sir,’ she said, a little more calmly. ‘But I've a hurt man at my cottage, and my husband's … over the fields … and the man needs help. He's raving something terrible. And I can't even ride to the village for a physician.'
Without waiting for an answer, she started to lead the horse towards the track she had just run along. The two men exchanged a brief glance, and the older man nodded.
Keeping pace with the woman's anxious tugging, they soon found themselves passing alongside a carefully cut hedgerow draped with drop-laden cobwebs. Passing through a gateway they came into the garden of a farm-worker's small cottage; it had the high-pitched, thatched roof and broad, overhanging eaves typical of the area.
'This way,’ she said, releasing the horse and bustling off towards an already-open door. The two men dismounted and followed.
The woman had disappeared into a room off the small hallway as they entered, but her whereabouts were revealed almost immediately.
'Oh, you shouldn't be out of bed,’ came her anxious voice. ‘It's bitter out there. You'll catch your death with that fever. Lie down, please…'
'But I must reach Viernce … Warn them … The horsemen … It's following me … tearing the ground…’ the speaker gave a brief, fearful scream. ‘…run … run … I must…'
The second voice was a man's but it was weak and barely coherent. The two men stepped quickly into the room. The woman was trying to prevent a young man from rising from a bed. His tunic and trousers were obviously a uniform of some kind, but they were soiled and torn and his face bore signs of a futile attempt to wash mud and blood from it. His eyes were wide with fear.
'Oh sirs, he's been like this since he woke up,’ the woman volunteered, vainly trying to push the man down. ‘Ranting about a message and something chasing him. I can't handle him, clean him up, or…’ She shrugged and resorted to soft reproach in an attempt to silence the man. ‘Lie still now. Look at the mess you're making of my bed.'
The older of the two men moved to the other side of the bed and sat down on it. ‘Lie down, trooper,’ he said, gently but firmly, putting his hands on the man's shoulders. ‘Nothing pursues you here, you're safe among friends and I'll take your message in a moment. Be still.'
The young soldier's eyes widened further and he seized his comforter's arm. ‘It tore the ground up … tore it up … raced after me … burst my horse … burst it … like a rotten fruit…’ His voice disappeared into a fearful wail, and he began shaking violently.
The man frowned and glanced at his companion whose brow furrowed in response. ‘Enough, trooper,’ he said, this time sternly. ‘You're still on duty and this is no way for a Duke's man to behave. Lie down and be still. That's an order.'
His tone seemed to reach through to the soldier in the man and he became a little quieter. Hesitantly he lay back, though his eyes were fixed on his new commander.
'Who is he? Where's he from?’ the man asked the woman.
'I don't know,’ she replied. ‘He sounds as if he might be from Rendd…’ She gestured vaguely over her shoulder, adding, ‘Up north, I found him sprawled in the field just outside, his horse dead … dying anyway … beside him. He'd ridden it to death. It was foaming and sweating something awful. I managed to drag him in, but he needs proper help, and I can't…'
The man raised a hand to stop her. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘We'll help you.’ He laid his hand on the distressed soldier's forehead and frowned again. ‘Get me the medicine pouch,’ he said to his companion.
The younger man left the room and returned shortly with a leather case which he handed across the bed.
The woman followed the two men's actions anxiously. ‘Are you physicians?’ she asked.
'No,’ replied the older man, with a faint smile as he carefully examined the contents of the pouch. ‘Just travellers. We know enough to look after ourselves, and this was given to us by a … most … remarkable healer.'
Her immediate concerns now transferred to the charge of others, the woman examined her two saviours. Almost immediately, her hand came out to touch the cloak of the man standing beside her. Then realizing what she was doing, she snatched it away. ‘I'm sorry,’ she said, flustered. ‘But it's such lovely material. I…’ A blush lit up her already flushed face further. ‘Who are you?’ she asked, to dispel her embarrassment.
'In your language, I think you'd call me … Jadric,’ the younger man said. ‘And he's … Haster. We're just travellers come to see your great cities.'
'You've picked a sad and dangerous time, sirs,’ the woman said. ‘We'd all hoped that we'd see no more wars again, but…'
'Ah!’ Haster's voice cut through her lament as he held up a small ornately carved stone jar. He removed its lid and shook some tablets into his hand. Picking one up he touched it gingerly with his tongue and pulled a wry face.
'Feverfew?’ the woman asked.
'Similar, I think,’ Haster replied. ‘Fetch him some water to take these with, would you.'
Happy to be do
ing something, the woman scuttled out of the room.
Haster bent forward and, putting an arm around the young man's shoulders, eased him into a sitting position. The woman returned with an earthenware cup.
Haster placed one of the tablets in the man's mouth and offered the cup to him. ‘Swallow this,’ he said. ‘It'll help ease your fever.'
His eyes still fastened to Haster's face, the man did as he was bidden, then lay back.
'Now, tell me your message,’ Haster said after a moment. The young man's agitation threatened to return, but a raised eyebrow from Haster stilled it.
'We were attacked,’ the man began, rapidly.
'We? Who?’ Haster intervened quietly but firmly. The young man looked bewildered for a moment as if the simple question had driven all memories out of his head. ‘The reservists,’ he managed eventually. ‘From Rendd … companies one to five … under Captain Larnss … from Serenstad.’ Haster nodded and motioned him to continue. ‘We were on routine border patrol…’ His eyes widened suddenly and he reached out and clutched Haster's arm. ‘Then they attacked us…'
He fell suddenly silent.
'Who attacked you?’ Haster asked after a moment, laying his hand over the soldier's comfortingly.
Bewilderment returned to the man's face again, but this time it was different. He shook his head. ‘Bethlarii, I suppose,’ he said. ‘But … they didn't look like Bethlarii … and I've never seen so many horses. There were thousands of them…'
'How many, trooper?’ Haster asked, stern again. The man met his gaze. ‘Thousands,’ he repeated unequivocally. ‘Thousands and thousands. The hillside was black with them. Coming and coming.’ His calm slipped away from him again. ‘And they killed everyone … We were in bad order, but we managed to form squares … but they broke … I saw it. All five companies destroyed, wiped out. Everyone.’ His face began to distort as grief started to assert itself. ‘All my friends. I…'
'Later, trooper,’ Haster said quickly. ‘Tears later. Tell us how you escaped and what your message was.'
Words spilling over one another, the young soldier told of Larnss capturing the horse and saving his life in the stream.
'Where am I?’ he said abruptly, breaking into his own narrative, his face shocked. ‘I was supposed to go to Rendd … to warn them … then go to Viernce…’ Agitated, he tried to sit up again but Haster held him. ‘Where am I?'
'You're in a farm house near Viernce,’ Haster said reassuringly. ‘You rode your horse to death, and almost killed yourself in the process. But you're safe here. Tell me what killed your other horse. It tore up the ground, you said.'
The young man's agitation increased violently and his face became white with terror. The woman stepped back in alarm and Jadric moved forward hastily to help Haster hold him down if need arose.
It was some time before the soldier was quiet enough to speak coherently again. ‘It came after me.’ He lifted his arms over his head as if to protect himself.
'What did?'
'I don't know … I could feel it … full of hatred and evil … but I couldn't see anything … the ground heaved and lurched underneath it … soil and shrubs were thrown up into the air…’ His eyes looked upwards as if he were still watching the destruction. Then he looked at Haster and seized his arm again. Haster winced at the force of the grip and with a deceptively gentle movement, pulled his arm free. ‘I jumped off my horse … rolled down the hill. My horse … burst … burst … a great shower of … blood and … bits. Terrible sound…'
Haster and Jadric looked at one another over the distraught storyteller. Both of them were pale.
'I must have caught the other horse … I suppose … I don't know … I just remember … pounding, pounding … fleeing … and the hatred … the horror … following me…’ He began shaking violently again.
Haster nodded to Jadric to hold the man down while he began searching through the medicine pouch again. Retrieving another small stone jar he hastily pushed a second tablet into the man's mouth and then held it shut. After a moment, the man's trembling diminished and his eyes closed.
The two men stood up as he relaxed. ‘He'll sleep for some time now,’ Haster said to the woman. His face was strained and, as if to reassure himself about something, he drew his hand across his forehead.
'Where's his horse?’ he asked.
'It's out in the field at the back. Where it fell,’ she replied. ‘I'll show you.'
A little later, the two men rode into the nearby village and sought out the local Liktor.
'I'll send someone up to the cottage to tend the man straight away,’ the official said after they had recounted the young messenger's tale, omitting only his telling about the destruction of his horse. ‘But all this business about an attack by horsemen on Rendd and then the city…’ He shook his head and pulled a knowing face. ‘Everyone knows the Bethlarii don't have that kind of cavalry. And they certainly wouldn't attack Viernce with it if they had; it's fortified. I think perhaps…'
There was a brief flash of impatience on Jadric's face, but a quick, almost imperceptible, gesture from Haster made him keep silent.
'They're not Bethlarii, officer,’ Haster interrupted, his voice authoritative. ‘Though they might be in league with them as they must have passed through their territory. They're tribesmen from beyond the northern mountains. We travelled through their land to come here and the horse the lad rode is one of theirs without a doubt. Go and look for yourself. You've not seen a horse like that in these parts ever, I'll guarantee you.'
'I haven't seen one like yours, if it comes to that,’ the Liktor retorted with some indignation. ‘But I'm not going to make an invasion out of it. And I can't go rousing the garrison on the strength of a dead horse, and the gullibility of two strangers for the tale of a fevered reservist who's probably nothing more menacing than a deserter.'
Haster fixed the man with a cold gaze, his presence suddenly powerful and dominant. ‘You won't rouse the garrison, officer,’ he said. ‘The commander there will, when he's considered all the relevant information which I would ask you to deliver as soon as possible. If it's a mistake, which I doubt, then no harm's been done, and if the lad's story is accurate, then every moment is vital.'
Despite a good effort, the Liktor could not hold Haster's gaze, and he glanced down quickly at some papers on the desk in front of him. Haster continued before he could speak. ‘As for being strangers, you're quite right. We're both strangers and outlanders, visiting your land for the first time. We've no desire to become involved in one of your wars.’ He reached into his cloak and pulled out a document. ‘However, we're travelling this road at the request of a Commander Ciarll Feranc to see the Duke with the army at Whendrak. As a result of our encounter today we'll now be travelling there as fast as we can. The danger's real, no matter what you might think about it. Please take the lad's story to the commander at Viernce with the same dispatch.'
He offered the document to the officer sufficiently long for him to note the Duke's insignia, then, with a salute, he turned and strode out of the office. Jadric followed him, his face set.
When the Liktor, discomfited and flushed, stepped outside after them, it was to see them galloping down the village street. ‘Reckless riding,’ he muttered to himself crossly, adding peevishly, ‘and you'll not get to Whendrak at that speed, my lords, fine though your horses are.'
'We'd better do as they say, corp. They sounded like Mantynnai to me.'
The intrusion came from a cadet Liktor who had sat silently in the background during the discussion and who now emerged behind his senior to watch the outcome. Part of his training today included learning when to keep silent. The Liktor scowled down at him ferociously.
'Have you finished those mobilization reports I gave you to do, yet, cadet?’ he thundered.
Ivaroth looked down at the blind man, lying on the rough bed. He was torn as ever. Part of him wanted to finish the old man off; rid himself of this fearful creature. That's what it
'll come to in the end, he thought, as he had many times before.
Yet still he watched the rising and falling of the man's chest anxiously, like a mother with a new-born child.
Still he needed him. Needed him to sustain himself with the personal power that made him the greatest and most feared warrior among all the tribes.
He cursed himself for his folly in driving the old man to so outreach himself in attacking the fleeing messenger. But he had become so used to the old man using his power directly on physical objects as well as firing his own inner fighting spirit, that it had never occurred to him that it was anything other than effortless. The old man had broken spear shafts and sword blades, shaken the earth, causing horses to stumble, lit fires, all with a flick of his hand. And, of course, there were the wild, almost unbelievable excesses he indulged in when they visited the worlds beyond. Nothing Ivaroth had seen had prepared him for the toll that destroying that messenger had seemingly wrought.
The old fool must have known what would happen. A memory of the slowly shaking head returned to Ivaroth reproachfully. Yet the old man had obeyed!
His need for me must be greater than mine for him, Ivaroth concluded. Despite his concerns, the thought elated him.
It must indeed be so. The old man had stuck to their bargain faithfully; making no demands, still less, threats, that he should be taken into the worlds beyond to search for this other place he had so lusted after at one time. He had obeyed all Ivaroth's orders without question or delay: tampering with the occasional dream to quell some rebellious lieutenant, or some doubting Bethlarii priest; strengthening his arm so that he could deal with some offender spectacularly; many small things.
I've beaten you, old man, Ivaroth concluded. You're prepared to destroy yourself at my whim because of the fear that I won't take you to the worlds beyond again.
It was a good feeling.
Yet Ivaroth still had his own needs. And they were considerable. He could not keep his army idle here for much longer. Tight though his grip was on the captured territory, it was only a matter of time before news of his invasion would leak out, and then the vital element of surprise would be lost. He wanted no major encounters until the two great armies beyond Whendrak had fought one another to a standstill, leaving him only the weakened and battle-weary remnants to deal with. And, too, a sudden faltering in their advance might well turn his own people on him. And without the old man's power he was virtually defenceless.
