by GJ Kelly
But they too were staring silently out into the vee, eyes streaming, expressions of unimaginable horror and disgust on their tear-stained faces.
The hours that followed were gruesome, the men at the line broken by the carnage they had inflicted and then finally witnessed, and were unable to finish the task they had started. Even Arbo, rushing to the line with his pitchfork, shook his head and backed away when it became clear what needed doing.
“Better them writhing and dead out there than your people,” Valin glowered at the weeping Arrunmen. “There were one hundred and seven folk in Fallowmead at the start of this day. There still are. Be thankful.”
“Vali,” Meeya said softly, and led him away from the figures huddled by the catapults.
Even Chert Ardbinder, whose incendiary expertise still smouldered in the vee and who had hurled insults along with caustic liquids and powders at the enemy, now stood cowed, and shocked by the scale of devastation his devices had achieved.
So it fell to the elves to despatch the crippled enemy survivors, taking great care as they did so, knowing full well the enemy’s treacherous nature and the thirst for blood which would send a blind and dying Meggen’s hands towards an enemy even with its last gasp. The Sight was invaluable, revealing the stronger of the wounded and allowing for them to be shot from a safe distance.
When it was done, and the full horror of the slaughter observed close to, Elayeen found Meeya and Valin staring at her curiously, and even, it seemed to her when she turned to look at them, avoiding her eye.
“The Goth fled to the southeast,” she announced, the sun finally setting and the grisly scene illuminated by twilight and the dying embers of wagon and cart. “We cannot risk a pursuit in the dark. In the morning, we must quit Fallowmead, and hunt that creature to extinction. It cannot be allowed to come close to Sudshear.”
“There may yet be a threat, miThalin, other than the wizard.”
“From where?”
“The Aknid. Perhaps they still guard the encampment? Or perhaps they are loose, and advancing at whatever crab-like pace they can muster.”
“In the morning we can ride out, cautiously, and observe. Come, back to the point. This task is done.”
“They did not come within a hundred yards of the line, Leeny,” Meeya sighed.
“Would you have preferred it if they had?”
“No, of course not, I just…”
“G’wain would greet this result with a cheer and a stream of curses for Morloch. Why do you look away, both of you, after all our years together? Is it the victory you find appalling, or the manner in which it was achieved it?”
“Leeny, I never thought…”
“What?” Elayeen snapped, anger stirring, and the stress of battle and all the weight of Fallowmead’s survival sliding now from her slender shoulders as it did so.
“I never thought it would be like this…”
“One day, Meeya, Ranger of the Kindred, I shall take you and Valin to Raheen, and show you there all that is left of my husband’s lands and all that is left of his people! There is nothing! Nothing there but dust and ash where once thousands dwelled in peace! Had that Goth-lord the power of Morloch’s Breath he would have Breathed it this day and made ash of all things in this valley!” She wheeled on her heel and began to pick her way carefully back towards the line, but stopped, and turned on her friends again.
“Never! Never show pity for Morloch and his spawn before my eyes again, never! And never before Gawain’s! Lest he mark you for a Morloch Collaborator and end you where you stand!”
oOo
29. High Ground
When they left Fallowmead the following morning there was very little ceremony, and their departure was almost as cold as their arrival. Arbo was there, of course, and Crellan Jokdaw. Eona and her daughter, their services required for nothing more serious than rope-burns, blisters, and aching muscles, stood close by, and Fergal, the Master Carpenter, who seemed torn between pride in the workmanship that had spared Fallowmead, and horror at carnage wrought by his machines. The others, Crellan said, apologising for their absence, were busy with preparations for the grisly task that lay ahead of the village… on Valin’s advice, a pit was to be dug, the enemy remains thrown in and burned with fire and with lime before burial.
But the pit and the cremation could not take place on the slope in the vee. Instead, makeshift carts would need to be made, quickly, and the remains taken well to the south, where any decay could not contaminate the waters of the stream or the village’s well. It was waters running down the slope from the eastern cliffs which fed springs and streams, and which were the source of their well.
The mood was sombre, the night had been quiet and spent in reflection. At sunrise, Arbo had served the elves breakfast, down near the line where they had kept an uneasy watch by the machines in case Aknid came in the dark, or lest some other evil was loosed upon them in vengeance by the fleeing wizard. Meeya was still a little sullen at Elayeen’s rebuke, and Valin was simply Valin, quiet and professional.
Now though, Ranger Leeny regarded the simple folk before her, standing by the well at the centre of a village which had survived against all odds, folk no longer simple, no longer innocent of the world and its horrors.
“We must leave, Serre Crellan,” she announced, adjusting her cloak and the bow slung over her shoulder. “Thank you for the supplies Fallowmead has provided. They will be most welcome.”
“Aye, well, it’s the least we could, lady Ranger. Us all will sleep sounder in our beds knowing that foul wizard is running low and fast, pursued by you, and not coming for us in our sleep.”
“You know what must be done?”
“Aye, we do,” the portly headman sighed, “First we’ll remove the mess yonder across the stream, then later, some of us will go out, and if they platforms in the cliffs are still there, drop rocks on ‘em and send ‘em down into the cove. Sea’ll wash ‘em all way, in time. Then when all’s done, we’ll go and we’ll fetch wee Kistin home where she belongs.”
“Then farewell, Fallowmead. It is our hope that you will in time forgot the horror of what was done here, but should you not, that you always remember it was done not just for all in Fallowmead, but for all gentle folk of Arrun. When the forces summoned by Steffen arrive, be sure tell them all that took place here, and the courage of all who stood before the enemy, and prevailed.”
“I shall, lady Ranger, though I reckon none of us all will ever forget what we done.”
“No,” Elayeen agreed, sadly, “I do not think any of us shall. There is another part of the Oath of the Kindred Rangers which some have suggested might serve in place of a farewell or a goodbye, the words slightly adjusted thus: ‘Live well, and be happy, for the sake of the kindred we shall do no neither.’ We must go now, we have a duty to prevent the darkness that fled the battle touching other lives as it touched yours.”
“Buttercakes, lady Ranger!” Arbo called as Elayeen mounted. “I made ‘em fresh for you both!” and the callow youth held up a sack. “Though, there be no jam fer the tops…”
Elayeen forced a smile, and reached down to take the sack, tying it to the horn of her saddle. “Thank you, Arbo. Remember how well you served the people of Arrun, and always remember, your light shines bright, and has been seen by others.”
The young man, tears welling, nodded, and tried for a smile, and then stepped back and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
Elayeen eased her horse forward, and with Meeya and Valin following, took the east track down to the line, and swung wide around the north side of the vee up towards the woods, leaving Fallowmead and its people behind them. They didn’t look back, which, of course, was as it should be.
Once within the gloom of the trees they slowed of necessity and called upon the Sight, wary of Aknid, though no trace of the crab-like creatures was found until they arrived at the remains of the Meggen camp above Comfortless Cove. Nothing remained of the creatures save bleached white shells, thirteen of the
m, lying together in a heap.
“Were they burned in the fire?” Meeya asked above the gusts whipping in over the cliffs.
“I do not believe so,” Elayeen regarded the stone-ringed campfire and its charred sheep-bones some distance away. “The shells are intact, and there is no scorching. I believe that once their purpose had been fulfilled, the Goth somehow took back the aquamire with which he made them.”
“Then we must remain wary of more creatures during out pursuit of the wizard,” Valin announced, and stepped down from his horse to walk close to the edge of the cliffs, peering down into the cove below.
Elayeen and Meeya joined him there, though nervously. The scene below was astonishing, and a testament to the tenacity of the Meggen. What was left of the wrecked ship lay shattered on the rocks and sand, timbers and ropes and all manner of debris; and zigzagging wildly up the almost sheer cliffs towards them, beams and planks resting precariously on makeshift spikes driven into the rock by main force.
“I would rather have attempted the building of a raft,” Valin announced, above the wind. “And risked the reef.”
Out to sea, they could see the rocks clearly, the Bay of Midshears festooned with jagged peril. The sea, though, was calm, displaying nothing of the raging power they had witnessed in the north near the Three Beacons.
“It is blue-grey,” Meeya smiled, “Where it is not white by the rocks.”
“It takes on the colours of the sky, I think,” Elayeen agreed. “It is why the Sea of Hope shines so blue in summer. G’wain told me it did not look very Hopeful when viewed from the cliffs of Narrat in midwinter.”
They stood there for some time, watching gulls hovering above and below them on the winds, some of the birds sliding very near to them, hovering close enough for the elves to marvel at the colours in their bills and eyes and how they even used their webbed feet in the air to steer themselves this way and that.
The gulls wheeled around them for some time, even when later they rode south along the windblown shrubby land between the cliffs and the woods to the west, and then the elves swung further inland, to pick up the dark wizard’s trail.
“Do you think we left Fallowmead rather abruptly?” Meeya asked while they ate lunch on the move, the horses walking. They animals were carrying much more than they’d been used to, now that the packhorse was well on its way to Sudshear with Steffen on its back.
“I think they were glad to see us go,” Elayeen answered after swallowing a mouthful of fresh-baked meat pie. “And we cannot risk allowing the dark wizard to gain too great a lead, even on foot as he is. I also think I am glad to leave them behind. They did not seem to understand why it was necessary to do what we did. Like denying that the battle was coming, they now deny the necessity that drove us to such tactics. It was as though our departing would take away all that is evil in the world from their lives, and leave them as they were before the shipwreck and the darkness it carried blighted them.”
“You can’t blame them for wishing their lives to be as they once were, Leeny,” Meeya said softly. “Nor for the shame and disgust they felt on seeing the havoc their efforts wrought upon the enemy. The Meggen are evil and raised by the wizards of Gothen, we know this, and they’re barbarians who thirst for blood and death, we know this too. But they are men, nonetheless. It is hardly surprising such gentle people as the folk of Fallowmead might feel as they do in the aftermath of such a battle.”
“As you yourself did?”
Meeya sighed. “I took service in the cadets when I was no older than Kistin Fallowmead, as you well know. We were trained with honour, to be honourable, and well prepared to engage in the kind of combat that is generally regarded as honourable. You surely can’t expect Valin and I to set aside years of training, years of instruction, and years of service to Thallanhall and simply shrug our shoulders at such horror as we saw yesterday. Saw, and inflicted.”
“We face an enemy which thinks nothing of corrupting nature and raising the foulest of creatures against us, nothing of infiltrating our honourable ranks with Grimmand and Kiromok, and shrugs its shoulders at the utter annihilation of an entire kingdom.”
“All true,” Meeya agreed, wary of inflaming Elayeen’s ire again. “But are we not supposed to be better than they are?”
“It is difficult to be better than your enemy when you are dead and they yet live to destroy lands and people you hold dear. Remember Croptop Hill in Mornland, Meemee, and remember Raheen. Moral high ground makes for grand cemeteries when you face an evil enemy, and the first requirement for the debating of ethics is to be alive so to do.
“I am glad you are alive to protest against the tactics I employed. I am glad Fallowmead survived to feel guilt and shame at hurling fire, lime and lye into the faces of an enemy bent upon devouring them. And I am glad that Kistin Fallowmead, age ten, did not die in vain clutching her precious message and her doll, her legs ripped from under her and her throat ripped out by the Yarken of Morloch’s Pangoricon. I may not be proud of what I had to do at the Battle of Fallowmead, but glad I am still to be here, and at liberty to have this discussion with you.”
There was a long silence, Valin casting a gaze about them, all three eating, walking alongside their horses. Finally, Meeya took a breath.
“I understand, Leeny, I do. But I fear the Battle of Fallowmead may linger long in the memory of these eastern lands, and may come back to haunt you.”
But Elayeen was unmoved, and after wiping crumbs from her lips and hands, turned to face her childhood friend.
“If you think these eastern lands will find memories of the Battle of Fallowmead troubling in years to come, imagine how they will feel when the Shimaneth Issilene Merionell walks among them.”
Meeya stood blinking in sudden surprise.
Elayeen drew herself up into the saddle, and over the creaking of leather as she did so, she and Valin thought they heard the word ‘oh’ breathed into the brisk Arrun air.
oOo
30. Chickens, Mice and Voles
By sunset on that first evening out of Fallowmead they had found the dark wizard’s trail, though alarmingly the creature himself was still far beyond their sight; it soon became clear he was following in the footsteps of the eleven former residents of the village who’d fled south before the battle. Those who’d run were taking no precautions to cover their tracks, and neither, it seemed, was the dark wizard.
The three elves continued their pursuit for as long as it was safe so to do. But with the moon rising and setting almost simultaneously with the sun, and the terrain uneven and impeded by heavy growths of shrubs as well as occasional stands of trees, darkness meant walking, leading the horses for safety, and then finally stopping for the night.
Their evening meal, taken late, was cold meat wraps, almost lovingly sealed in waxed paper parcels, and doubtless prepared by Arbo given the care that had gone into their manufacture. These were followed by buttercakes, even Valin partaking. The cakes would not last long before becoming dry, crumbly, and stale. That was their excuse, anyway.
Finally, the meal consumed, they settled, watchful, and until Meeya broke the silence, speaking almost in a whisper.
“I cannot believe how quickly the dark wizard appears to be moving. I had thought to encounter him today, and shoot him full of arrows from a good safe distance.”
“Our progress has been slow and cautious, the horses laden with supplies as well as ourselves, and we cannot blunder at speed across such terrain as this; we can’t be sure that the Goth has no means of evading our Sight.”
“True,” Meeya sighed. “You don’t think he has some kind of spell that lets him run as fast as a horse, do you?”
Elayeen smiled. “No.”
“How can you be sure, Leeny?”
“He’d have charged down the slope at Fallowmead and brought his staff to bear on us. Black fire would have made short work of the engines, and us with them.”
“A fair point, I suppose. But being a coward, preferred in
stead to make his charge unopposed to the south. He might have thought the shearing sheds full of warriors of the Kindred Army, given the reception his Meggen encountered.”
“Whatever his reasons, he is following the coast southeast to Sudshear. And we must end him before he reaches that destination.”
“Did Crellan Jokdaw make mention of any other villages along this coast, miThalin?”
“No, Valin. He indicated that those there are between here and the southern capital are much further inland. It’s a week of fast riding from Fallowmead to Sudshear. Steffen and the packhorse have another five days before they reach the city and can raise the alarm.”
“I still cannot believe how fast the dark wizard is running,” Meeya announced sullenly. “He must have some kind of running spell.”
The moon had been new the day before, and what tiny sliver there was of it on the morning of the twelfth rose above the eastern horizon about ten minutes before the sun came up. The elves themselves had been up and about and had breakfasted perhaps thirty minutes before either of those heavenly orbs rose, and were already securing packs and saddles and making ready to resume their pursuit of the dark wizard.
The tracks they followed maintained a generally south-easterly course some five miles inland of the cliffs, and in the soft ground in the regions of spring and stream it was perfectly obvious that the refugees fleeing Fallowmead were following the same unmarked path taken by Steffen on the packhorse. And that the dark wizard was following both.
Elayeen regarded those tracks on the ground where refuges and dark wizard both had paused for water, while her own horse, and her companions’, drank from the same stream as those who’d gone before. Valin dismounted, and filled their water skins.
Elayeen looked across at Meeya, and shared her friend’s concern. The dark wizard had made no obvious stop for rest during the night, and his pace was remarkable. They could clearly see the imprint of his staff in the boggier ground by a small spring feeding the larger stream which followed a slight valley between two verdant slopes.
