by Roger Taylor
'You seem very sure about it,’ Marna retorted.
Engir looked at her. ‘I'm afraid I am,’ he said. ‘Absolutely sure.'
Marna turned to the others. ‘But you'll be killed if you try to attack him,’ she protested, her voice a mixture of exasperation and distress.
'We're soldiers, that's always a risk,’ Engir replied.
'But ...'
'No buts,’ Engir said, before Marna could continue. ‘It's the way it is. We none of us wanted to walk into this, I can assure you. But we're trapped here now, just like everyone in your village.'
'You sneaked in, you can sneak out,’ Marna said. ‘Surely the king has some semblance of an army. What about people in nearby towns and villages, can't they...?'
Engir took her arm. His grip was gentle, but there was a hint of impatience in his voice. ‘Once more, I'll tell you, Marna. Grasp it, whether you like it or not, and don't cloud your mind with ifs and buts—it'll kill you. Nilsson's men are our countrymen. They're trained in many of our ways. They're battle-hardened, disciplined after a fashion, far from badly led, and murderers to a man. Even without Rannick and his burgeoning skills, your king and what passes for his army would be hard pressed to stand against them, and any civilian militia would be massacred out of hand. You're quite right, we can sneak out and try to find help. But this place and this time will haunt us always. By the time we could muster any real help, this land would be long fallen, and the cost in human life and suffering in facing the forces that'd be in play by then, are truly beyond your imagining. We none of us want to be here. We've all got firesides we'd rather be sitting by. But we are here, we know what we know, and we are what we are. Getting killed is a risk in our profession, a calculated risk, not a certainty, and you can rest assured that whatever we do it'll be with a view to being able to ride away from this place successful and intact.'
Engir's words dropped into Marna's tumbling thoughts like shards of ice. Her doubts and fears tossed to and fro, but beat themselves to nothing against both his reasoning and his resolution. She looked at the others, but saw that they were only waiting for her to understand. Until she did, she realized, she was a burden; just another risk to them.
She put her hand to her head. How long ago was it since she had stood by her father as he stripped the willow poles last night? Ten years? Twenty? A lifetime? Her eyes suddenly filled with tears of rage at the rape of her life. She swore violently, and dashed the tears away angrily with her hand. ‘I'm not a soldier,’ she said, sobbing and hoarse. ‘I can't fight.’ She shot a savage look at Aaren. ‘For all I killed someone. But it's my valley, my village; my country, I suppose; and certainly my friends. Just tell me what to do to help.'
* * * *
Nilsson quailed inwardly. Rannick must surely return soon. And when he did...? He breathed slowly and deeply to ease the griping in his stomach. Once again, he wished that damned girl into every hall of hell. Talk about an empire lost for want of a nail!
He brought his fist down on the table, then stood up and arched his back in an attempt to ease his discomfort. Not for the first time his ambitions—not to mention his life—were balanced on an unsteady and precarious edge, and there was nothing he could do but watch and wait and hope that he could ride out the avalanche that must inevitably be coming. His thoughts oscillated between a profound wish for a quiet, simple existence somewhere far away from all this turbulence, and a driving desire for the kind of life that only Rannick's power, coupled to his own military skill, could give. Invariably, he kept returning to his oft reached conclusion that only the latter could now give him the former. It did nothing however, to stop his thoughts from setting off on the entire cycle again.
He swore at the recurrent vision of Marna. That surly bitch! There'd been not a sign of her after she'd reached those rocks. Even Storran and Yeorson had shaken their heads, though he could tell they'd been unhappy about the tracks in some way. But he'd had no time for niceties, they'd had to press on, search as far as they could as quickly as they could.
In the end he had had to give up. She could be anywhere up there. She probably knew the area as well as she knew her own miserable little cottage, for all these villagers affected never to travel so far downland, or whatever it was they called it. He sneered to himself at the ludicrously restricted vision of these pathetic little people.
Not that those who were being drawn to join his growing army were much better, he reflected, as he thought again about the two bodies they had found. Imbeciles! Killing one another. Ye gods, the materials he had to work with! They were never going to be more than arrow fodder, but on the whole they would be of greater value if they waited for their opponents to kill them rather than doing it themselves.
He shook the thoughts from his head. They were an irrelevant distraction. He must, above all, concentrate on composing himself to face his Lord when he returned. And where the devil was he anyway? It had been hours since sundown. Hours since the time appointed for the bringing of this girl to him. Nilsson sat down again, as other thoughts returned to plague him. Had Rannick had an accident? Had he fled for some reason?
He scowled. He could not envisage either possibility, not with Rannick's power growing as it was, and with their plans moving forward so well. Besides, he had read his Lord well enough to know that he had been hot for this girl when he had ridden out of the castle earlier that day.
A clamorous banging brought him to his feet again with a heart-stopping jerk. ‘What?’ he bellowed furiously, as he tore the door open.
'The Lord, Captain,’ stammered a figure, stepping back hastily from this blast. ‘He's returning.'
Nilsson sent the man reeling against the opposite wall of the passage as he stormed past him. Whatever was going to happen, his every instinct told him that it was better that he go out to meet it. As he strode along passageways and clattered down stairs, his mind became completely clear. Now, he must respond heartbeat by heartbeat to events as they unfolded. If anyone could survive the coming storm, it was he, but he must not burden his thinking with a teetering pile of possibilities.
The castle gates were swinging open as he emerged into the torchlit courtyard. He noticed the gate guards standing well back as Rannick entered. He was mounted on the horse that he invariably used, and which was becoming increasingly like him in its vicious, erratic temperament. As Nilsson walked forward to greet him, it seemed to him that Rannick and his sinister mount were not simply moving towards him through the long, wavering shadows of the torchlight but were entering into this world from some other place, alien and frightful. He stopped, as if to go further forward would be to plunge himself into that world and be lost forever.
Rannick came slowly but relentlessly nearer. His horse stared at Nilsson, its eyes glittering red in the torchlight and its head and neck moving from side to side. It was an unnatural, serpentine movement, and it chilled Nilsson. He prepared to step to one side, but the horse halted without command, and Rannick dismounted. A nervous groom came forward and took the reins of the horse, which stared at him balefully as he hesitantly tugged at it. Rannick laid a hand on its neck, and it loped off after the groom, its head bowed close to the ground but still swaying, this way, that way, as if searching for something.
Rannick had the hood of his cloak pulled forward and Nilsson could see nothing of his face, while being all too aware that his own face was clearly visible in the torchlight. Slowly, however, Rannick pulled back the hood. Though he could not have identified any specific change, Nilsson knew that his master was not the same as he had been when he left the castle the previous evening. He risked the initiative. ‘Are you well, Lord?’ he asked, not without some genuine concern.
Rannick nodded slowly. ‘Yes, Captain,’ he replied. ‘I am well. Why do you ask?'
His voice was subtly different too; distant, more sonorous. Nilsson's mind was drawn inexorably back to the Lord that he had followed in the past. Rannick was still but a pale shadow of what he had been, but he was beyon
d dispute, following in his steps. For no reason that he could immediately discern, Nilsson felt the balance of his concerns shift favourably. He reaffirmed his ambition. He must survive this coming danger, and then...?
'You seem ... different, Lord,’ he said, keeping from his voice any hint of either concern or criticism.
Rannick's gaze seemed to pass straight through him. ‘You are a shrewd and ambitious man, Captain,’ he said, his voice leisurely, yet, like his eyes, penetrating. Nilsson felt as though every part of his body were being spoken to. ‘It makes you an attentive as well as a loyal servant. You, above all, have the vision to see ... to know ... that I change each day, that my skill in the use of the power grows each day. But you are right. This day has been a day beyond all others.’ Then, out of the shadows, like an assassin's knife: ‘Where is the girl?'
Despite himself, Nilsson flinched a little at the suddenness of the question. He steeled himself. ‘She is not here, Lord. She has fled.'
Rannick inclined his head slightly, as if he were listening to a voice speaking very softly, or at a great distance. Nilsson felt his own body's defences marshalling themselves. He became aware of every movement, every sound, in the entire courtyard, yet it was as though he were alone in a silent, motionless world that existed only for him and for this moment. And from this world he saw his Lord's face slowly change. His reactions, racing, followed the change, nuance within nuance, as they searched for the probable outcome of his message.
There was anger there. That he had expected, of course; and feared. Feared deeply. He had had enough experience of men thus stricken to know the murderous insanity that could follow such rejection. And with Rannick's power...
In the blink of an eye he oversaw the alternatives before him. They ranged from prostrating himself and begging for mercy, to a sudden knife thrust that would slay at once both his lord and the future that his rekindled ambition had built for him.
And yet there was something else vying with the anger, something deeper, yet in a way pettier. Irritation? Annoyance at an unwelcome distraction?
Nilsson watched. And waited.
'Fled?’ Rannick echoed, after an interminable interval.
'Yes, Lord,’ Nilsson heard himself replying.
The subtle battle for control within Rannick was perceptible only to Nilsson's heightened awareness. The anger came and went until, abruptly, it was transmuted, and when it eventually came to rest in Rannick's eyes it was cold and malevolent but quite free from the wild dementia that Nilsson had expected. It was no less terrible for that.
'That is not acceptable, is it, Captain?’ Rannick said, his voice eerily distant. ‘But I shall deal with it in due course.’ He closed his eyes and turned his face upwards. Slowly, his flame-shadowed expression became ecstatic, then he smiled slightly as he opened his eyes again and looked at Nilsson. He reached out and clasped his hand around Nilsson's shoulder. ‘You seem abstracted, Captain,’ he said, the concern in his voice set at naught by the coldness in his eyes. ‘Doubtless you feared my return?'
Experience had taught Nilsson many years ago that at such times, telling the truth was invariably the wisest course. ‘I was concerned when I heard of the girl's flight,’ he replied. He was about to begin describing the search that he had mounted, and the plans he had made for further, more thorough searches beyond the valley the next day, but Rannick was nodding and the grip was tightening about his shoulder. Rannick began walking across the courtyard, moving Nilsson ahead of him.
'A wise concern,’ Rannick conceded. ‘And an understandable one. But as I went in exultation to commune with ... myself ... in the silence of the woods—to prepare myself—it was revealed to me that this could not be. To squander myself on such transient pleasure—to spend my greatness on a single female—especially one who was, in truth, unsuitable—would be to jeopardize my greater destiny, and with it the true pleasures that lie ahead.'
Nilsson moved forward under the pressure of the guiding hand, still uncertain about the outcome of this unexpected turn of events. ‘A hard decision, Lord,’ he risked.
The hand tightened further about his shoulder until, his knees almost buckling, he was obliged to gasp in pain.
Rannick's grip eased, though he did not remove his hand. ‘You can have no conception how hard, Captain,’ he replied. ‘For my appetites are great.'
They reached a door which a guard threw open for them. As Rannick's hand left his shoulder, Nilsson felt suddenly so light and disorientated that for a moment he thought that the least breeze might have lifted him off his feet.
Rannick looked around the circular hallway that they had entered. He nodded to himself several times, and very slowly.
Then he straightened up. ‘I must meditate further on what has happened today, Captain,’ he said. ‘For it is much more than it seems. But the time is come. We begin the preparations for our conquest of this land in earnest.’ He paused. ‘Tomorrow. See that everyone is ready to move, as we planned.'
Even as he was speaking this last, terse order, he was walking away. Nilsson saluted. He stood motionless until his Lord was out of sight, and for some time after that. Elation filled him. He had flown close to the flame again, closer than ever before. And he had survived! Nothing, nothing, could stand in his way now.
Rannick's dangerous aberration had passed. And he would turn to no other woman in the future; his obsession with his skills was total and all-consuming, now. Nilsson could not begin to surmise what unholy communion had passed between Rannick and his creature that day, but he knew intuitively that Rannick had felt a lessening of his power when he had turned his mind to someone other than himself. And it was the essence of the power that it could not see itself depleted; it could only lust to grow greater and greater. Rannick was trapped utterly.
* * *
Chapter 21
Farnor's homeward journey continued to be both quicker and easier than his outward one. But though he was more at ease with himself, many thoughts about the future disturbed him. Not least among these were the practicalities of what he was intending to do.
How should he confront Rannick? He couldn't simply ride up to the castle and announce himself. Whatever power he might possess, he had learned nothing about either its nature or its use from the Forest, despite his original intentions, and he was loath to assume that it would suddenly manifest itself as need required.
And, mementoes of beating, climbing, and riding—the intermittent aches and pains in his body—reminded him that, power or no, he was not proof against fleshly distress. He could thus not sensibly oppose himself against point and edge, still less bone-crushing teeth. The memory of the creature's malevolent and powerful presence chilled him.
Gradually he came to the conclusion he had reached before he had been drawn on his strange journey through the Great Forest. He would hide in the woods beyond the castle, watching and listening silently, until he could encounter Rannick alone. He had little doubt that, given the element of surprise, he could seize and overpower him. His darker vision of the future might have turned from Rannick's death but he would nevertheless relish subduing him by main force. And this time he would sound no challenge that might bring the creature down on him. And too, he was no longer alone. The trees would be watching and listening with him.
His mood was unsettled, however. Despite all his plans, confronting Rannick was still a stomach-turning prospect which became more frightening with each southbound stride. Yet, it also had a familiar quality of inevitability about it, not unlike that which preceded a trip to Gryss with toothache, though worse by far. What was upsetting him more were his thoughts about Derwyn and his family. True, he had advised Derwyn simply to search for the valley and prepare to defend his people against what might come from there. But he had been vague; he had not warned him as he should other than to tell him to take his best men. He cursed himself roundly for his dark folly every time he thought of his last meeting with Derwyn. It gave him no consolation that not for a moment had
it occurred to him at the time that Derwyn would undertake such an expedition with a small family hunting party.
That, through his neglect, he might have brought to Derwyn's kin the pain of loss that he himself had suffered, troubled him greatly. And the trees could not help. He had asked about Derwyn's fate only once.
'We are frightened where we are near your home, Far-nor. The power there grows apace. It is terrible. And the fear clouds all. Mar-ken and his company passed into the spreading nightfall and I could not Hear him further.'
Farnor did not need to be told this last; fear and confusion permeated the words, jagged and frightful, and layered through with apologies and regret—and shame.
'I understand,’ he said, though he added sternly, ‘But we must both of us struggle to face our fears if they're not to bring us down.’ Then he had tried another approach. ‘Are Marken or the others back at their lodge?'
The answer was starkly clear. ‘No.'
Farnor swore to himself, and unthinkingly urged his horse forward. It took no notice, however, continuing resolutely at the pace that it presumably found most suitable.
There had been such distress in the voice of the trees that, despite his concern, he had not been able to bring himself to pursue the matter. ‘They're none of them foolish or reckless people,’ Uldaneth had said, but that too gave him little consolation. Though as the words came back to him he heard her saying again, ‘What's done is done, Farnor. Neither of us can do anything from here.’ Oddly, that had helped. Some quality in her voice had told him that destroying himself with gnawing anxieties about matters beyond his control was to compound one folly with another. He began trying to quieten himself by becoming absorbed in the gentle, drumming rhythm of his journey, and the tranquillity of the Forest about him.
And tranquil it was. The nights were cool, scented and dreamless, and each morning he was awake, refreshed and alive, before the sound of the dawn horns floated over the treetops to greet him. He found streams to drink from and to bathe in, and the food from Marrin's lodge left him no need either to economize or to hunt.
