by Roger Taylor
The villagers stared at him, wide-eyed and fearful.
'Move, move,’ The guard's command was echoed drunkenly by Jeorg.
The guard strode over to him and, seizing him by the front of his loose tunic, dragged him to his feet and pushed him violently on to the tumbled heap of staves. ‘Start moving them now,’ he shouted, levelling his sword at Jeorg's throat.
Jeorg blinked and nodded. ‘All right, all right,’ he muttered several times, as he clambered awkwardly to his feet. ‘Don't get angry. It is Whistler's Day, you know. We're only trying to help.’ He took hold of two staves at once and yanked at them. One of them came loose suddenly and he staggered backwards waving it wildly. The guard stepped back to avoid this flailing confusion. As he did so, Jeorg abruptly recovered his balance and, swinging the stave round, struck him a stunning blow on the side of the head.
* * * *
The four slipped across a darkened hall and paused by a closed door. Light streamed underneath it and voices could be heard. Engir listened intently and then silently signalled, ‘Two.’ Very slowly, he eased the latch and began to pull open the door. It creaked immediately. Without hesitating he yanked the door open and strode through. Levrik and the two women followed right behind him. Almost before the brief screech of the door had died away, a savage blow from Levrik's iron-protected knuckles had silenced one of the two startled speakers while Engir's knife had finished another.
'Attack! Attack! Atta ...’ The cry rent open the breathless silence in the brightly lit passage. It came from a man just emerging from a room nearby and it cracked as he saw Aaren hurling herself towards him. None of Nilsson's men were such as would readily flee the threat of personal violence, but the knowledge that he was being attacked by a woman, together with the unhesitant ferocity of her approach and the shock of realizing who she must be, conspired to make Aaren's intended victim falter as he reached for his knife.
Aaren seized his fumbling knife hand and, swinging round, drove her knee into his groin. As he lurched forward, she stepped aside and pushed him head first into the opposite wall of the passage. He slumped to the ground.
As Aaren turned away from him, she saw the door being pushed shut. A massive kick from Levrik sent it crashing open and he was dragging the prostrated occupant to his feet as Aaren entered the room. ‘Saddre!’ she heard, as the figure was drawn up on to his toes and thrust against the wall, Levrik's hand tight about his throat. ‘No!’ she hissed, laying her hand on Levrik's free arm as it drew his knife.
Levrik paused at the touch but did not take his cold, unreadable eyes from Saddre's face. Saddre's eyes, by contrast, showed his every emotion as they flicked from his would-be executioner to his unexpected saviour. Fear and cunning mixed equally, but terrified recognition overrode all. ‘You can't kill me,’ he gasped. ‘You've no authority. You have to take me back.'
Levrik's eyes flashed fiendishly alive for an instant, and his knife came up under Saddre's chin. Aaren's hand still rested gently on Levrik's arm, but she made no apparent effort to stop him. ‘Exigencies of the situation are all the authority we need now, Saddre,’ she said. ‘If we kill your new master, then you'll get your accounting, have no fear. Failing that ...’ She shrugged. ‘Now, take us to him.'
Despite the threat to his own life, Saddre's eyes opened in scorn. ‘Kill him? You're insane. You'll not even get near him. He's probably already as powerful as ...'
Levrik's grip tightened about his throat, choking off his reply. ‘Don't even say that name,’ he said very quietly, but with such intensity that Aaren let her hand slide from his arm. ‘Just take us to him if you want to live long enough for your accounting.'
Saddre, his hands wrapped futilely about Levrik's wrist and his face contorted with pain, managed a flickering and desperate nod. As Levrik eased his grip, an angry voice reached them from the passage.
* * *
Chapter 25
'Riders coming! Riders coming!'
The cry galvanized the resting camp. Nilsson burst out of his tent and almost collided with the frantic messenger. Before he could ask any questions, the man answered them. ‘Dozens of them,’ he gasped, pointing northwards. ‘Armed. Coming fast.'
With uncharacteristic gentleness, Nilsson eased the man to one side, then bellowed out, ‘Arm up. Take close positions.’ The order was unnecessary, however, for his men needed no urging. Even as he shouted, Nilsson saw they were gathering up weapons and forming defensive groups.
A torrent of thoughts swept over him. He had no doubt about who these riders could be. They'd come at last to demand an accounting from him and his men. It puzzled him a little that they'd come from such an unexpected direction. They could only have come to the valley from the south, but how had they managed to move around him in force, unnoticed? And what were they thinking of, using cavalry in this terrain? Was there an infantry force somewhere? But he dwelt on none of these questions. He was content to thank the old habits that had made him place seemingly unnecessary lookouts about the camp. His lips curled back to reveal his teeth, predatory in the firelight that lit the camp. Good discipline on his part meant that the attackers had lost the element of surprise they were obviously relying on, and now it was they who would be surprised.
Suddenly he felt exhilarated. For years, the fear and the rumour of pursuit had debilitated his troops, and to some extent even himself. And even though the fear had dwindled greatly over these last months, it had been with them too long to be banished utterly. If his men could now destroy this force, then the threat would be gone for ever, and morale would be enhanced tenfold.
He plunged back into his tent and emerged, sword in hand, just as Derwyn's men, shouting and screaming, and borne along by their ancient fury, galloped into the camp. They made a formidable sight and, skilled horsemen and lancers that they were, they brought down several men with their initial rush. These however, were mainly new recruits, who panicked and ran. The bulk of Nilsson's men had faced true cavalry in the past, and though they wavered at the first onslaught, they held their ground in tight groups, spiky with menacing swords and alive with blazing brands.
Then, as the impetus of the Valderen's charge was lost and the riders began to mill about, obstructing one another and uncertain how they should attack these unexpected enclaves, Nilsson's men attacked in their turn. The tight-knit groups became suddenly mobile. Selecting a rider they would surge forward, some to hack at the horse's legs while others menaced the rider, who could do little but wave his lance futilely until his horse collapsed under him, or he himself was struck from his blind side.
Derwyn, one of the first riders into the camp and now at the edge of the mêlée, turned to look at the scene. His eyes widened in horror at what he saw, but it was the terrible noises that were beginning to ring through the silent trees that struck to his heart and froze him into immobility; the dreadful screaming of men and horses and the savage, triumphant cries of Nilsson's men. Farnor's words formed cruelly in his mind. ‘They're brutal fighting men. If you go against them rashly, they'll hack you down without a thought.’ And in his careless fury he had moved against them rashly indeed.
As Nilsson watched, however, his reaction was one of growing disbelief. Who were these people? Certainly they weren't his own countrymen, as he had assumed. In fact, though they were good riders, they weren't even cavalrymen. What he had anticipated being a long-awaited confrontation, a bloody and testing battle, promised now to be a bloody and amusing rout. The suddenly remembered old fears evaporated. He shrugged and chuckled to himself. No doubt a few of the attackers would be taken alive for entertainment later on, and he could have his questions answered then.
'Derwyn!’ Marken's voice, soft but desperately urgent, penetrated into Derwyn's guilt and horror. He started violently.
'What have I done, Marken?’ he said, his voice trembling.
'Your horn, man, your horn. Call them to you. Get them out of there,’ Marken shouted.
Derwyn hesitated for a moment. Then
, with shaking hands, unhooked the hunting horn from his saddle. As he raised it to his lips he faltered. His mouth was too dry and his breathing shallow and unsteady.
'Spit, for pity's sake. Take a deep breath, and don't let the others see you like this, or we're all dead,’ Marken hissed, seizing his arm and shaking him ferociously.
Derwyn nodded automatically. Somehow, he managed to moisten his lips and steady his breath. The first note was harsh and discordant, but the very sound of it started to lift him out of his paralysis. Marken raised and sounded his own horn, then others gathering around them did the same, until the calls finally rose above the din of the battle.
* * * *
Farnor needed no warning from the trees. The presence of the creature grew in intensity, although it was not as if it were waking. Rather, it seemed to be returning from somewhere: somewhere that was not in this place. It was a terrifying sensation. His own words to Derwyn returned to him mockingly. ‘Expect to be afraid, but don't fear your fear.’ Well, he was afraid, all right, but that said, what was he to do next?
He put the lantern back into his pocket, then tightened his grip about the staff. Perhaps the creature wouldn't see him, or scent him. But he knew that these were vain hopes even as they came to him. The creature knew him as he knew it, and it would smell his fear both drifting through the night air and trembling through that mysterious bond that he had with it. No. There would be no place secure enough, nor flight fast enough, to save him from it when it emerged to hunt.
His mouth filled suddenly with acrid saliva and his body was possessed with a terrible longing. Blood and terror were in the air, rich and desirable.
Good...
Farnor spat in disgust and denial. In the distance he heard horn calls. Though their note was rapid, desperate even, he was once again staring over the ancient Forest, washed in the bright dawn sunlight, his heart crying out its prayer of thanksgiving to his parents for the gift of life that they had given him. And, he realized now, thanksgiving for the other gifts that they had given him: the love that had sustained him and brought him thus far, scathed but whole and himself, knowing better both the light and the darkness of his nature. And as he had accepted and enjoyed these gifts, so now he must accept that other gift, the one they had given him unknowingly, the one that had twisted and turned its way through the generations of lives in the valley until it had become his; the gift to oppose this creature and the foulness that it had guided Rannick to.
He opened and closed his hands about Marrin's staff fitfully. He could feel the spirit of the most ancient still held in it. Oddly, it gave him more comfort than had the machete and the bow and the vicious arrows that he had just lost. But it was not going to be much use as a weapon.
He peered up into the darkness. The presence of the creature was becoming more intense. It was drawing nearer. The horns were still calling, shrill and urgent now. Derwyn and Nilsson must have met and, whatever the outcome, blood had been spilt. And soon the creature would leave its lair to range through the woods, slaughtering and feeding amongst whomsoever Rannick decreed: Derwyn's people.
'No,’ he said. Not knowing how he did it, he reached out and touched the creature. ‘I understand you more now. Your darkness holds no greater terrors or knowledge than my own. But the light I bring you will destroy you and your master.'
A terrible, high-pitched scream tore open the night. Farnor flinched away from it, but using Marrin's staff to test the ground ahead of him, he forced himself to walk on towards the heart of the malevolence that he could now feel oozing down the mountainside towards him. He felt, too, the creature's claws scrabbling over the rock-strewn ground as it raced frenziedly to reach him. And its pounding heart, its rasping breath, its foul desires. And he could feel its lust for the fear that was soaking through him. Then, most terrifying of all, he felt the rift through which, with Rannick, it drew its awful powers. That mysterious rent in this reality that opened into those worlds that did not belong here; could not belong here without terrible havoc following.
For a fleeting instant, Farnor had a vision of the Forest's great and ancient fear; fear that a flaw lay in the very nature of all things in this age. But it left him—was torn away from him?—almost before he could note it, and his fear became more prosaic: a fear of the power that was emerging to overwhelm him.
Scarcely realizing what he was doing, he leaned on his staff and, looking into the darkness, let the shaking and trembling that he was struggling to restrain take complete possession of him.
After a timeless time, he was still, and all about him was still. The wound torn by the creature filled his consciousness. He reached out, and with his quietness, made it whole.
The scream that the creature had made before was as nothing to that which it uttered now. It seemed to Farnor that the whole of creation rang with its fury and desperation as it strove to tear open that which he had sealed.
But Farnor held.
Though this would not be enough, he knew. The creature still had power enough to kill him and return to undo his work. It had to be destroyed utterly.
He stepped forward into the darkness.
* * * *
'What in His name is all the noise?'
Engir and Yehna turned to face the inquisitor, who had just emerged from a doorway at the far end of the passage. He came towards them, head craning forward, eyes narrowed.
'Lord Rannick?’ Engir almost whispered his question. His mouth and throat had suddenly become dry, and he was shaking.
'Who else, you dolt?’ Rannick replied. He stopped some distance away, his hand pointing towards the fallen man, but his eyes flickering from Yehna to Engir.
'We're new recruits to Captain Nilsson,’ Engir managed to say. Again Rannick craned forward. ‘No,’ he said, very softly. ‘You're his kind, but there's a foulness about you that he'd choke on, just as I am now.'
No, Lord,’ Engir said, stepping forward.
With a cry of rage, Rannick extended his hand towards him. Engir cried out and clutched at his throat. His mouth working desperately for air, he staggered into the open doorway. He collapsed part way into the room, his eyes signalling frantically to Levrik and his right hand circling strangely. Yehna drew her knife and rushed at Rannick, but she had scarcely taken two paces when the same fate befell her.
'No need to take you to him. He's here,’ Saddre gasped to Levrik as Engir tumbled across the threshold. Saddre's eyes were gloating, despite the hand and the knife at his throat. ‘Your turn to account now, I think. I'll enjoy this.'
'Saddre!’ Rannick's voice rasped along the passage.
A vicious blow in the stomach doubled Saddre up before he could reply, though Levrik stopped him from collapsing to the floor. He thrust the gasping figure to Aaren then pulled a leather thong from his belt and took a stone from a pocket.
Long schooled in each other's fighting techniques, a brief hand signal told Aaren of his intention. She was very pale, and her eyes were unashamedly fearful, but she nodded. Then, seizing the gasping Saddre by the scruff of the neck, she yanked him upright and charged with him to the open doorway. He tripped over the choking Engir but Aaren kept up their joint momentum, and as they burst into the passage she swung him round, and, using him as a shield, charged at Rannick, screaming.
Taken unawares by this explosive response, Rannick instinctively held out his hands to prevent the collision. He was partly successful in that he deflected Saddre with a sweep of his arm, but in doing so he lost his balance and staggered heavily into the wall.
Yehna and Engir were released.
'Down, now!’ Levrik's terse command rose above the frantic gasping of his recovering companions as he stepped into the passage. In his right hand he was spinning the leather thong. Before Rannick could react, Levrik's arm came forward and he released the sling. The stone flew from its soft leather saddle towards Rannick's throat.
Levrik had dropped the sling and was drawing a knife even as Rannick's hands came up again to protec
t himself. The stone caught his wrist and, bouncing up, struck him on the temple. With a cry of pain, he stumbled backwards.
Levrik was moving forward when suddenly Rannick's eyes seemed to burst into light. At the same time Levrik saw his own shadow leaping violently ahead of him. Then something hit him powerfully in the back, lifting him off his feet. Reflexes curled him up, rolled him over and brought him upright almost immediately to face his unexpected assailant. But there was no one there except his three companions. Aaren was dragging Yehna and Engir to their feet. At the end of the corridor however, bright flames were pouring out of the doorway they had passed through only minutes before. Black, flame-filled smoke was rolling along the ceiling of the passage.
As Levrik took this in, he became aware of Aaren pointing. She was shouting, too, though her voice was hardly audible above the noise of the flames. He spun round, recalling their true enemy. Saddre was reeling around drunkenly, and Rannick, too, had been knocked over by the concussion from the now blazing hall.
Simultaneously the four moved towards him; dark, menacing and swift against the roaring flames, black knives glinting. But it was too late. Rannick may have been downed but he was sufficiently recovered to defend himself once more. He held out his hand. ‘No!’ he roared. ‘Whoever you are, I shall show you what happens to blasphemers.’ The firelight shone in his eyes again, making it seem as if some internal fire were rising up in response to that now consuming the castle.
The four hesitated.
'I shall show you the true fire,’ Rannick cried. A thin, nerve-wrenching screech rose above the noise, and in front of Rannick a shimmering light appeared. ‘Thus starts your death,’ he said, clambering to his feet, his arm still extended. He turned to Levrik, the light growing ever more brilliant. Abruptly a figure lurched between them. It was Saddre, still stunned from his fall. As he stepped in front of Rannick, the light streamed forward, enveloping him.
He burst into flames.
