by GJ Kelly
“Edwyn the Third, King of Raheen,” Elayeen said softly, remembering the tale Gawain had told on the way to Raheen, “And the Goth-lord was Armun Tal.”
“Yes, them. Anyway, Thal-Gawain’s sword is obviously enchanted, and yours was likely one of hundreds made in the flames of Ellamas oil and pyre-brick at the ‘gard’s armoury on the outskirts of Elvenheth.”
“Yet it makes no sense.”
“I know, Leeny,” Meeya sighed, and after sheathing her own blades, gazed up at the moon. “Nothing in these eastern lands makes any sense to me. From Firesmiths with foolish names in sheep farms to tiny villages in the middle of nowhere. Where are all the people? All the big towns, castletowns, or cities?”
“Dotted along the coast, in the case of Mornland and Arrun,” Elayeen wiped the shortsword and sheathed it. “They have no love for such big towns and cities as you would see, miMeeya, that’s why there are villages and hamlets and homesteads out here in the middle of nowhere. There has been peace in these lands for a very long time. Even the Ramoth found nothing worth the trouble of building a tower here, and no artisans for the construction, either. And brigands would need a map to make their squalid business worthwhile in these wilds.”
“It’s also why no army of any useful numbers could be raised for the war in the north, and that almost cost these lands everything.”
“Lay the blame for that at Morloch’s door, Meemee, unless you wish to blame the sheep for being eaten by the wolf.”
“You are becoming as single-minded as Thal-Gawain, Leeny.”
Elayeen shrugged, and adjusted her cloak. “Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“I cannot decide whether at this point I should say ‘bah’ or ‘ah’.”
“Say neither, Meemee. Sleep, for tomorrow we face an enemy with a stick almost as big as the wizard Allazar’s.”
“And we’ll nail the bastard to the ground with it the way lady Merrin nailed that short-shanked murderer in Tarn.”
“Let us hope so.”
It took a long time for Elayeen to sleep that night, in spite of the fatigue from running during the day. Her mind was filled with images of Gawain and his story of Edwyn the Third, and her sleep when it came was troubled by dreams of Goth-lords on the wing, and clouds of clawflies.
It was some two hours past noon on March 20th when they rode out of a small copse atop a rise and eldeneyes caught a glimpse of their quarry before the Goth-lord disappeared from view in a dip some two miles southwest of them. The land was becoming more and more folded, hillier, the undulations steeper, streams and river valleys trending south, waters flowing above and below ground towards the distant Lake Arrunmere and the mighty River Sudenstem. Their quarry was moving now at an ambling pace, clearly expecting nothing more troubling than a blister on its journey across the Arrun Southshearings.
Meeya’s expression darkened with hatred for the Goth, but Elayeen was cautious. Her lack of sleep made her unwilling to ride blindly across the dales, and she was loath for the sound of thundering hooves to draw their quarry’s attention. While they waited at the tree line, Elayeen consulted her map again, frowning.
Meeya huffed in frustration, and squirmed in her saddle, making a point of testing the tension of her bowstring. And Elayeen completely ignored her.
“We appear to be at a point equidistant from Lake Arrunmere to the southwest, and the hills of Dun Meven in Callodon to the west. I do not understand this.”
“Nor I,” Meeya muttered.
Elayeen neatly folded the map, stuffed it into her saddle-bag, and turned a frosty gaze on her friend. “Perhaps you have forgotten all your training, Meeya once-Thalangard-now-Ranger. The enemy is out of sight in terrain suitable for his concealment and the setting of an ambush. And you would have us thunder across two miles of open ground, up slope and down dale, blindly into his maw?”
“I’m sorry,” Meeya pouted. “The creature offends me and I want him utterly and completely dead.”
“Then bend your mind to the correct manner with which to obtain your goal. A stealthy approach is called for, not a headlong race into battle.”
Elayeen nudged her horse forward, and the three began a gentle trot down the slope from the copse, and across a broad and shallow stream. When they crested the next rise, the Goth was still out of sight, and they continued, cautiously. Halfway up the next gentle incline, eldeneyes caught sight of their prey, standing atop a rise a mile away. Immediately, they halted, watching closely, only their heads above the line of the ground before them and thus only their heads visible to the Goth had he glanced in their direction. And at that range, he would be unlikely to see them.
“What is he doing?” Meeya whispered, “Sightseeing?”
“I do not think…” Valin began, but then something very black and very small sped across the sky towards the southeast, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
“I like this not,” Valin muttered, eyeing their stationary target.
“Nor I,” Elayeen agreed. “We cannot advance unseen while he stands there. And it would take a long time to work our way around to the north of him”
Something charcoal-grey and very small shot across the sky from the southeast, and seemed to slam into the Goth on the hill. Then the creature turned, and disappeared from view.
“A message!” Elayeen spat, “The vakin Goth has others in these lands to support him! Ride! Quickly, we must close the gap while we can do so unseen!”
So they urged their horses up the slope, but it was difficult to resist the desire to make a thundering charge at the enemy. They knew if they could get halfway up the rise upon which the dark wizard had been standing before he himself had a chance to crest the next before him, they might be able to arrive within bowshot unseen. It was arriving unheard that was their greatest concern.
When they were halfway up the slope from the top of which the Goth had sent his black Dove speeding to its unknown destination, they dismounted, and keeping low, hurried to gain the summit, crawling on hands and knees when they did so.
When they looked down into the broad valley below, they were astonished to see their quarry standing ankle-deep in a stream broader than the Grimehalt at Ferdan, and deeper. Were it any deeper or wider, it might qualify for a name, and be called a river.
“Too far for the bow,” Valin said softly, disappointment in his voice. “And there is no cover for us to use between us and him.”
“He’s left his staff on the ground by his boots, he’s unarmed,” Meeya protested.
“And only thirty feet from it, mihoth, while we are close on four hundred yards from him.”
“We could cloud-shoot on the run, or on horseback, and then take better aim when in range.”
“Cloud-shoot? With dwarf-made curtain rods?”
“He’s not even looking this way!” Meeya protested fiercely, “We could’ve run down the slope and been within range in the time it’s taken us to talk all this nonsense.”
Still Elayeen hesitated. But Meeya was right. The Goth-lord was standing on the west side of the stream, his staff glowing darkly to their eldengaze perhaps eight or ten yards up the bank beside his cloak and boots. The iron mask was facing west, though he did appear from this distance to cast occasional glances to the south.
“Make ready. We run, as quietly as possible. Our range is further than his. If we can come within two hundred yards unnoticed, then we keep going to within a hundred yards before shooting. Stay well apart.”
“And if we are seen, miThalin?”
“We close in as far as we dare.”
“Isst, miThalin.”
“Shed cloaks, straps tight.”
Elayeen glanced across at Valin, but his expression was as professionally inscrutable as always. Meeya’s features were set grim, eyes dark. Elayeen herself was riddled with butterflies and doubt, and though much of that, she knew, was fatigue and poor sleep, some of it was the Merionell protesting this encounter, and the rest was simple fear. They had seen
the furrows thrown up by this Goth-lord’s dark fire, and seen its effect on people and animals. Now they were about to charge headlong towards it, with no cover higher than a blade of grass for protection once he saw them.
She took a breath. “Ready?”
“Isst, miThalin,” came the replies.
“Now.”
And with that, they rose up, and began sprinting down the slope, holding their bows with arrows knocked in their left hands, right arms pumping. Down the grassy incline they glided, feeling the wind in their faces and the sound of it rushing past their ears. Still the Goth stood with his back to them, cooling his feet in the water.
Down, they glided, moving with all the stealth of forest-born hunters closing in upon a timid prey, but this was no deer with nothing but flight for defence. Incredibly, when they were within three hundred yards of the east bank the saw the wizard’s stance change, feet moving wider apart, and then the arms moving, the Goth striking a familiar pose as he urinated into the water.
At two hundred and fifty yards, they saw his knees flex, and his arms moving, re-tightening his belt, perhaps, and their hearts leapt when his head turned slightly, but only to gaze to the southeast again.
At two hundred yards, bored with cooling his heels in the stream, the dark wizard began walking towards the bank, and at one hundred and eighty yards, Meeya skittered to a halt, drew, and loosed, while Valin and Elayeen continued sprinting. They were about a hundred and thirty yards from the stream when Meeya loosed another arrow and began running to catch up with them.
The first of Meeya’s arrows smacked into the bank five yards to the left of the Goth’s staff, and the second, eight to the right. By then, Valin and Elayeen had closed the gap to a hundred yards, and seeing their quarry freeze in sudden alarm brought them to an abrupt halt too, breathing hard, nostrils flaring as they took great breaths and let them out slowly and tried to still their aim. They loosed, the two dwarf-made curtain rods speeding, one of them taking the Goth in the right calf as the dull grey iron of his mask swivelled in their direction.
They heard him cry out in pain and he went to his knees, a third arrow flying harmlessly over his head where his spine would have been had he not dropped to the ground in sudden sharp agony.
Meeya raced past them, down Elayeen’s left side, loosing another arrow as she went while Elayeen and Valin nocked, aimed, and loosed a second salvo before sprinting after Meeya.
Another arrow took the Goth in the left buttock, knocking him flat as he crawled for his staff, but the shafts were a poor substitute for the arrows elves had known and trusted since the age of five.
At eighty yards, all three elves stood in a line, presented their bows, and drew. And the ground to their left erupted, a shadow flashed overhead, and when they looked up from shielding their eyes against flying dirt and gravel, they saw an immense Graken land in the stream, between them and their quarry.
“No!” Meeya screamed with terrifying passion, “No you can’t have him!” and loosed a shot at the Graken-rider.
It held forth a rod, and a grey shield appeared, stopping Meeya’s arrow, shattering it. Valin and Elayeen shot next, one arrow taking the winged lizard in its unprotected left flank as the wounded Goth-lord dragged himself up behind the rider’s upright saddle. The grey shield stopped the second arrow.
“The Graken!” Elayeen shouted, “Shoot the Graken!”
But was too late. The creature was already bounding down the stream, water spraying in great gouts, leathery wings beating.
Meeya screamed again, and loosed again and again, and they thought they saw the Graken-rider struck in the back over the head of the hunched Goth, and two more arrows strike the flying beast in its tail.
And then it was gone, disappearing rapidly into the blue sky to the southeast.
“No!” Meeya screamed again, and fell to her knees. “Come back and die you vakin black-eyed child-murdering vakka! Come back and vakin die!”
She dropped her bow, and wept, and though Elayeen went to comfort her, Valin was on his knees and holding his weeping wife in his arms before Elayeen had a chance even to say Meeya’s name.
Elayeen wiped her eyes, and glanced across the stream. The Goth-lord might have gone, but in his haste to save his life, he had abandoned his staff, and left it lying, surrounded by spent arrows, on Arrun’s good green grass.
oOo
32. What If
“We may as well loiter here for the night,” Elayeen sighed, watching the rabbit roasting over a fire made from shattered pieces of the Goth’s staff, kindled with strips of his cloak. The staff had been of some hard wood, but it was certainly not ancient Dymendin like Allazar’s white staff or the sceptre once possessed by the Toorseneth. It had yielded readily to the axe-hammer Valin had secreted in his saddle-bag, loath to leave the gift from Sarek behind with the rest of their equipment.
“We can begin our ride back to our supplies tomorrow,” she continued. “Our final duty to the Kindred of Fallowmead has been done to the best of our ability. We cannot follow a Graken on the wing.”
Meeya said nothing, and simply stared into the fire, drained of emotion save bitter disappointment. Valin turned the rabbit, and nodded.
“I now have to give consideration to risking our anonymity, and riding for Sudshear to give warning of the enemy’s presence in these eastern lands.”
“To do so would expose you to the Toorsencreed and their agents, miThalin,” Valin’s voice was soft, but the warning firm nevertheless. “And we do not know the location of the lair to which they fled. There are others of the ninety-five abroad in Arrun and in Callodon.”
Elayeen sighed, and shifted her legs around beneath her. “I know. But we still have a duty.”
“Which we may discharge when we arrive at our destination. Word of the Graken-rider and the Goth can be passed to the riders of Raheen, and they, or others, may carry the warning to the southern city.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Valin,” she agreed, feeling suddenly weary. “We have pressed ourselves and our horses hard since leaving Fallowmead. We are all tired. Tomorrow, we’ll go back for our supplies, but we’ll travel at a gentler pace than that which brought us here.”
“You must be tired indeed, miThalin. Did you not say we were at a point equidistant from the hills of Callodon and Lake Arrunmere? If we are so close now to the region wherein the last riders have made their new home, does it make sense to travel all the way back northeast to the camp we made a week ago?”
“We are in no hurry, Valin. And in my packs I left the uniform of the Red and Gold which Rider Maeve of Raheen had made for me. I do not intend to let it rot, forgotten and abandoned for the sake of a few days on our journey.”
“I am sure, miThalin, Rider Maeve could have another doublet made.”
“I don’t care, Valin. I wore it at Far-gor standing next to my king in sight of all the world gathered there. The only other clothes I own are rags fit for nothing but a spindly-legged scarecrow. We are in no hurry now, and there are no habitations twixt us and our belongings. There is no risk in the journey.”
“As you wish, miThalin.”
“Ignore him, Leeny, he’s an elf, he wouldn’t understand.”
“Thank you, Meemee.”
“And you should stop fretting about your legs, we are all much thinner than we were when we left Tarn.”
“You and Valin do not seem the slightest different to my eyes,” Elayeen protested, and she ran a hand down her thigh and around her knee under her cloak. Spindly, she thought, dismayed.
“That’s because we have travelled together all this time and the changes have been so gradual they’ve gone unnoticed. You can’t expect to eat so poorly, spend so much time on the move, and not lose a little weight.”
“A little? My calves are beginning to rattle around inside my boots. G’wain won’t recognise me. He’ll think me some grubby elfin of the ninety-five too long without a bath and become a street-urchin.”
“Is that
why you want to go back for the doublet? So he will know you when he sees you? Leeny, he rode from Tarn to Elvenheth in the dead of winter for you, d’you really think he wouldn’t know you for the sake of a little dirt and a haircut?”
“That rider of the Jurian cavalry spends much of her time in the saddle and she didn’t look like a skinny scarecrow.”
“Which rider of the Jurian cavalry?”
“The one I told you about. Cherris.”
“Her? I thought that had been settled?”
Valin looked up from the rabbit, confused. “I do not understand. Who is this Cherris?”
“No-one,” Meeya asserted, giving Valin a look which suggested he ought to stay out of the conversation and concentrate instead on the cooking of the rabbit.
“It was settled… it is settled. I’m simply saying that the Jurian woman spends a great deal of time on horseback patrol in the wilds and in spite of that, she did not look like a bag of bones on sticks.”
“She probably never had to eat frak in pursuit of a Goth-lord,” Meeya mumbled, and took to staring into the fire once more. “A Goth-lord who escaped through my poor marksmanship.”
Elayeen snorted. “Your marksmanship was not at fault, nor mine, nor Valin’s. Ihoth was right, the arrows made for us by the dwarves in Tarn are good enough for short range and rabbits, but at any greater distance they cannot hold a candle to our own. We were lucky to bring down the Gorian mercenaries at Fallowmead, and shooting into a crowd of Meggen is no challenge.”
“We did well to hit the dark wizard at all,” Valin asserted quietly, “After such a sprint, and with our breathing ragged. It has been a very long time since we practiced such shooting.”
“True,” Elayeen agreed. “Though I’m still not certain we struck the Graken-rider. I think the arrow may have hit the high back of the saddle rather than the rider in it.”
“The rabbit is done.”
“About time,” Meeya mumbled, holding out a battered tin plate for Valin to deposit the roasted rabbit on.
