Into Narsindal [Book Four of The Chronicles of Hawklan]

by Roger Taylor

  Not that it was of any great moment now. The attack had doubtless done some useful damage to both materials and morale but its primary purpose had been to draw the Morlider out of their enclave to join battle. The only question taxing Hawklan as he gazed through the morning greyness was, had this been successful? If the Morlider simply repaired their defences and stayed behind them then the Orthlundyn would have to continue their harassing attacks, and while the previous night's had cost them only two horses and various relatively minor injuries, future forays, being expected, would necessarily take a far greater toll.

  It was with some relief therefore that he saw a large column of men forming up outside the camp, and he urged Serian forward to ensure he stood clear and bold on the skyline. At his signal the others joined him.

  'Careful,’ Andawyr urged softly to Hawklan. ‘I can feel Creost's presence all around.'

  'What's he doing?’ Hawklan asked.

  Andawyr looked at him impatiently. ‘How could I know?’ he said, a little more sharply than he had intended. ‘He's not attacking us for sure, you'll not need me to tell you when he does that.’ Then, repenting a little, ‘He's exerting Power in some way ... wrongly, but not ... against anyone ... not destructively.’ He brushed his hand across his face as though irritated by morning spider threads. ‘It's probably to do with preventing the islands from moving.

  He paused thoughtfully, then leaned across to Atelon and spoke to him softly.

  Another, loud, roll of thunder interrupted this conversation and made everyone look upwards. Hawklan suddenly felt his flesh crawl. He had not felt such a sensation since he had approached Vakloss to confront Dan-Tor, but this, though fainter, was in some way far worse.

  'The Drienvolk are suffering,’ he said to Andawyr.

  'We can do nothing,’ Andawyr reiterated. ‘Look to your front; to the enemy you can fight.'

  Hawklan pulled his mind from the invisible torment high above him and looked again at the smoking camp and the gathering men. As he had expected, the appearance of riders on the skyline had caused some commotion, and angry voices were now reaching him above the ubiquitous sound of the sea.

  'Have your bows ready,’ he said, nudging Serian forward.

  'Let's see if our estimate of their temperament—and range—is correct.'

  The small party began moving down towards the camp, two of the Helyadin discreetly falling in on either side of Andawyr whose horsemanship would be decidedly uncertain if as they anticipated, they were obliged to leave quickly.

  As they neared, someone shouted an order, and the abuse that had been directed at them died down unexpectedly. Abruptly, some of the Morlider broke ranks and spread out in a line to face them. They were archers, silent and waiting. Their bows were lowered, but their arrows were nocked, and the manoeuvre was executed with some efficiency. Hawklan redirected his group a little to approach the other side of the column. There was another order and archers appeared on that side only.

  Hawklan stopped and examined the watching men. ‘Loman. First impression. How do they compare with the Morlider you fought?’ he asked.

  'Badly,’ Loman answered tersely. ‘From our point of view. Somebody's really knocked them into shape. The ones we faced would have been charging at us in a mob by now.'

  Hawklan nodded. ‘Stay here. We have to make sure they keep coming after us. I'm going forward to see if I can provoke them a little. Be ready to run quickly.'

  Gavor flapped his wings in anticipation but as Hawklan was about to move forward Tybek rode past him and at the same time Loman surreptitiously leaned across and took Hawklan's reins.

  Caught unawares by these movements, Hawklan looked from Loman to the retreating Tybek open-mouthed. Loman casually handed him his reins back. ‘Don't make yourself conspicuous, Commander,’ he said, his tone slightly mocking. ‘You have a bodyguard now.'

  In spite of the mounting tension in the group as Tybek neared the silent column, Isloman, riding on Hawklan's other side, chuckled at the expression on Hawklan's face. ‘We thought it was best not to tell you,’ he said.

  Hawklan was about to answer when Tybek stopped. He was some distance from the archers but, Hawklan judged, within range.

  Hawklan found he was making himself breathe quietly and deeply.

  Tybek stood in his stirrups and slowly looked over the waiting column. His manner was arrogant and he offered them no preamble.

  'We visited you last night, Morlider, to let you know what will happen if you choose to stay,’ he shouted. ‘Go back to your islands. We want no fighting but there'll be nothing but pain and death for you if you remain.'

  For a moment there was no response, then a short, stocky figure stepped forward out of the front rank. He cocked his head on one side and looked at Tybek narrowly.

  'We'll put up with the pain and death, horse rider,’ he responded. ‘After all, it's going to be yours, not ours.’ Jeering laughter rose up from the waiting column. The man continued. ‘We're not here to debate, we're here to take this country. If you'll take my advice you and your scruffy mates'll turn your nags round and not stop riding until you're on the other side of the mountains. It'll be a month or two before we get over there.’ His followers endorsed this remark with vigour and obscenity.

  Tybek waved the din aside airily. ‘Don't mistake us for what's waiting for you out there,’ he said, pointing back up the slope.

  The stocky man clapped his hands and then folded his arms. ‘That wouldn't be ... horses ... would it?’ he said, laying a mocking and ponderous emphasis on the word. ‘It's nice to know you've got one or two left. We thought they'd all gone south.'

  More laughter greeted this remark. Someone shouted. ‘Fresh meat at least, lads!’ The stocky man smiled and gave Tybek an apologetic shrug.

  'It seems that horses don't worry us like they used to,’ he said. Then his face changed, the smile vanishing. ‘Anyway, my men are getting cold standing about like this. We'll have to be on our way. We've a camp to find and burn; a murdering sneaking night thieves’ camp. If there's horses—or riders—in it, so much the better.’ His voice rasped with a viciousness that was like the drawing of a sword. Tybek made his horse shy and prance as if it were startled, surreptitiously using the movement to edge it backwards and preparing it to turn and run.

  'Get Andawyr out of here, now,’ Hawklan said urgently.

  'The rest of you get ready to move in and help Tybek.’ Before the Cadwanwr could protest, the two Helyadin were quietly leading him away.

  Still affecting to be having difficulty in controlling his horse, Tybek was continuing his debate. ‘You've been warned. If you're too stupid to learn from a little warning like last night's then take your chances against a full Line of the Muster.’ He pointed back up the slope again. ‘We could use the practice.'

  He paused and curled his lip. ‘And if anyone should know about sneaking, murdering thieves, it's you, you fish-stinking scum.'

  'Shoot him down,’ roared the Morlider, rising more to the sneering contempt in Tybek's voice than to the words. But as the Helyadin turned his horse again, he brought his own bow up and released an arrow at one of the extended lines of archers.

  Then, urging his horse forward up the slope with his knees, he turned in the saddle and released a second arrow at the other line.

  It was an ineffective assault, both arrows falling short, but it was so sudden that it caused a brief hesitation in the two lines and when they had recovered and released their volleys, Tybek was at the limit of their range.

  'Our bows have a longer range,’ Loman said with some considerable satisfaction as Tybek caught up with the now retreating group.

  Tybek glowered at him, his face flushed. ‘Wonderful,’ he said caustically, adding, rhetorically, ‘Did I volunteer for that?'

  Loman laughed and patted him on the back. ‘You did, and you did well,’ he said.

  As they rode on, one of the Helyadin galloped ahead with the information about the approaching column and its ar
chers while the others maintained a pace that drew them away from the Morlider only slowly.

  Hawklan looked at Tybek. A mixture of exhilaration and disbelief lit the young man's face, but there was also a new, stark, knowledge, in his eyes. The knowledge of the awesome reality of facing someone who was seeking to kill him. Tybek would be different ever after.

  The sight and the thought took Hawklan's mind back to the conspiracy that had silently provided a bodyguard for him and sent Tybek out on the dangerous impromptu mission that he himself had casually been about to take. The Orthlundyn army was also changing, beginning to become an autonomous whole. It had learned what it needed of him and it would protect him whether he willed it or not; within certain limits it would not hesitate to constrain him for its greater good.

  It occurred to him briefly that perhaps, after all, what he imagined to be leadership was no more than the pressure he exerted against such constraints. It was an uncomfortable thought and he did not dwell on it for, rather to his surprise, in thinking about the army, he found himself experiencing the unexpectedly turbulent emotions that he had seen in many a parent's eye as they watched their offspring grow. Happy to see their child learning and achieving, yet sad to see it moving out and away on paths of its own choosing, increasingly less dependent on that which had been for so long the centre of its life.

  He smiled at the whimsy of the thought, but was surprised again to find a parental fear swimming in its wake. What if I've not taught this child well enough? What if it should wander too far and become not a source of hope and light for the future, but some fearful monster.

  The intermittent cries of the following Morlider, abusive and savage, ended his reverie. He looked around at his companions, their breath steaming and streaming behind them as their horses carried them through the cold morning air. It had better turn into a fearful monster, he concluded acidly. That was what it had been born for.

  They rode on in silence for a while, with the Morlider column following them steadily and in good order. Eventually the Helyadin who had galloped ahead, returned. ‘Dacu has the message,’ he said to Hawklan.

  Hawklan thanked him and looked around the white landscape. He could see nothing untoward other than the dark scar of the Morlider column, but he knew that Dacu and the other Helyadin would be watching their progress and relaying the information back to the waiting Orthlundyn army. In confirmation of this, Isloman hissed, ‘Message,’ and inclined his head towards a small cluster of trees in the distance. Hawklan looked up in time to see a torch flickering briefly.

  'What did it say?’ he asked.

  Gavor sighed conspicuously. ‘Flashing lights,’ he muttered loudly with monumental contempt. ‘I don't know why you don't let me do all this message carrying.'

  Hawklan had placed Gavor under the same injunction as Andawyr; faced by men, the army must learn from the start to fight and live without the peculiarly valuable aids that those two could offer. ‘Soon you'll have to leave them, then what will they do,’ he had said, adding by way of consolation, ‘Your time will come, have no fear.’ But the raven had taken the restraint with an ill grace and for the most part had been in a profound sulk ever since.

  Hawklan's jaw tightened at Gavor's tone. ‘We've had all this out as you know full well,’ he said, in spite of a promise he had made to himself earlier not to rise to Gavor's goading, adding, a little petulantly, ‘Besides, we have Creost and Dar Hastuin nearby somewhere and, if you remember, you tend to make a bad first impression on Uhriel.'

  Gavor met the sarcasm with a dignified inclination of his head then, muttering something profane under his breath, he related the message, though with great distaste.

  ’”Two more columns leaving the camp. Same size as first", flash, twinkle, flash,’ he said.

  Hawklan favoured Gavor with a malevolent look, then threw a mute appeal to Isloman. Unsuccessfully trying not to laugh at this exchange, the carver nodded a confirmation.

  Hawklan thanked him over-courteously, while Gavor whistled tunelessly to himself and looked with exaggerated interest about the snow-clad countryside.

  A rumbling series of thunderclaps sounded an end to the interlude and once again Hawklan found himself gazing upwards into the concealing blank greyness of the sky. He felt an unreasoning anger at his ignorance about the Drienvolk. Had he known more about them, perhaps he would have been able to offer Ynar guidance at their brief and perhaps crucial meeting.

  With his anger, however, came a deepening of his resolve. The Drienvolk were fighting the same war. The only help he could give them was to win his own battle. The Orthlundyn had resources beyond his reckoning and they looked to him to use them to the full. With that trust came the obligation to commit himself as fully to them as they had to him. They would not falter unless he did and, outnumbered or not, he must lead them forward until Creost and the Morlider were defeated, whatever the cost.

  'Riders ahead,’ Loman said.

  They were Athyr and Yrain. Both were as unkempt as Hawklan and the others, though under their ragged clothes Hawklan knew they too would be armed and armoured for the task ahead.

  Athyr's face was stern and determined, and he waited on no invitation to speak. ‘I think the only way we'll draw enough of them out of the camp is to bring the three columns together and then attack them with just enough infantry to make them send back for reinforcements. If we keep increasing our infantry and gradually easing them back, then they'll probably send for more and more until...’ He banged his fist into his open palm.

  Hawklan looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded.

  'Loman?’ he said, turning to the smith.

  'I doubt the Memsa could have done much better,’ Loman said, smiling a little. ‘I certainly can't. We'll have to think as we go, anyway.'

  'Battle stations, then,’ Hawklan said simply. ‘Take command, Loman. Isloman and I will ride as observers with Andawyr and Atelon and ... my ... their ... bodyguard. You know the final dispositions. Wait for my signal if we don't meet again.'

  Reaching forward, he took first Loman's hand in both of his, and then Athyr's and Yrain's. ‘This will be our day,’ he said looking intently at each in turn.

  As the three galloped away, Andawyr said quietly, ‘I wish I shared your certainty.'

  Hawklan turned to the Cadwanwr. ‘You do, Andawyr,’ he said. ‘You do.'

  Andawyr's eyes widened as the force of Hawklan's personality seemed to become almost tangible around him. Whatever power lay in this man, he realized, was freely given to all who had the will, the courage, to accept it; its light illuminated his own resolves and, more alarmingly, his own dark skills with a fearsome clarity.

  'Why didn't you take command yourself?’ he heard himself saying.

  Hawklan eased Serian forward and Andawyr fell in beside him. ‘The Army's a weapon of Loman's forging,’ he said. ‘Loman's and Gulda's. He understands its heart far better than I ever could. He belongs here. I—we—belong elsewhere.'

  Gavor flapped his wings noisily and then shook his wooden leg violently. ‘Can I at least go and watch, dear boy?’ he said, with forced politeness. ‘I'm getting cramp standing here.'

  Hawklan looked at him suspiciously before conceding, ‘Go on,’ with reluctant indulgence. ‘But take care.'

  Released, Gavor launched himself from Serian's head and, after dipping briefly, began to climb purposefully until he was high above the cold landscape and the insignificant dots that were moving about it in their deadly game.

  To the east the grey sky dwarfed the hazy Morlider Islands, and even the ugly stain that was the huge camp along the shore was diminished. A little to the west of the circling raven, the Orthlundyn camp blended with the terrain to become almost invisible.

  It irked Gavor to be just a spectator to these momentous happenings, though he understood the wisdom of Hawklan's judgement. However, free now to travel the ways he knew, it soon occurred to him that sooner or later Hawklan would be the focus of trouble and that there wou
ld be plenty to do then, with no reproach to be offered. The thought made him chuckle conspiratorially to himself and in an excess of glee he tumbled over and, shaking his wooden leg threateningly at the clouds above, laughed to himself.

  Hawklan looked up at the black figure gliding in smooth sweeping arcs and occasionally faltering and dropping vertically.

  He smiled. It was good to have such a friend, whoever he was.

  'Let's find a high place of our own,’ he said to his companions.

  As the morning proceeded, Hawklan moved his group to and fro for reasons that Andawyr could not always discern but which seemed to keep them fairly clear of the increasingly heated activity while enabling them to observe much of it. He began to see the truth of Hawklan's comment about Loman and the army. No messages came to Hawklan asking for advice or help, yet frequently Andawyr saw Hawklan nodding approvingly at some manoeuvre by the skirmishers who were harrying the Morlider columns.

  Groups of mounted archers attacked from first one direction then another, then from various directions simultaneously.

  Carefully they avoided betraying the superior range of the Orthlundyn bows, but it was dangerous work and while it took a constant toll of the Morlider in dead and wounded, it also took some toll of the Orthlundyn, several being wounded.

  'They're very different from what they were twenty years ago,’ Isloman remarked at one point. ‘Their discipline under fire is far superior.'

  Hawklan nodded. ‘They're certainly keeping their stations well and using their shields to some effect,’ he said. ‘I think Loman should send in some foot slingers now, that should...'

  Isloman caught his arm and pointed. A group of figures had dismounted and were approaching one of the columns on foot. Hawklan left his sentence unfinished and leaned forward intently.

  At Dacu's suggestion, the slingers were armed with lead shot rather than the shaped stones that their natural inclination drew them to. With these, the range of the slings was markedly superior to the Morlider bows and, coupling their expertise with jeering abuse, the slingers exploited it fully.