by Roger Taylor
Girvan laid his pen on one side and looked around the fisherman’s cottage that was serving as his tempo-rary headquarters. It was echoing with the muffled sounds of the storm raging outside, but it was warm and friendly, though, with its low open-beamed ceiling and enormous clutter of seafaring relics and ornaments, it was very different from the traditional Riddin dwellings he was used to being billeted in. Then again, it only reflected the fisherfolk themselves; they too were warm and friendly, but different; in some ways not Muster people at all, though on the whole they pulled their weight fairly enough. There was always that reserve about them; a quiet, inner strength. Ironically, it made them particularly good with horses, but they didn’t seem to have the relish for the animals that the Riddinvolk normally had.
After his several weeks watching the sea and sharing a little of the lives of these seafolk, Girvan felt he was beginning to understand this stillness. A rider had a partnership with his horse and a knowledge and regard for his land. But the sea was different. True, there was respect and knowledge, but there was also fear… no, not fear… more a dark, deep insight. There could be no partnership of equals between man and sea. It was brutally indifferent to those who rode and harvested it, and its power was awesome. Yet it was this very indifference that gave the seafolk such a grim measure of their true worth.
Girvan glanced covertly at his host and hostess. They were sitting on either side of the wide fireplace which was aglow with clucking radiant stones. The wife was working patiently at a delicate embroidery, while the husband sat sucking on a long-dead pipe, staring into the fire. Strange habit, smoking, Girvan thought. It was no horseman’s habit for sure, yet somehow it added to the fisherman’s aura of calm preoccupation.
As if sensing the Line Leader’s observation, the man spoke, without turning from the fire. ‘This is a bad storm, Girvan Girvasson. It has an unnatural feel to it.’
Girvan sat up and looked at the man intently, notic-ing as he did so that the wife had stopped her sewing. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked simply.
The man did not reply immediately but took his dead pipe from his mouth and stared at it as if for inspiration. He shrugged a little unhappily. ‘It has an unnatural feel to it,’ he repeated. ‘It blows too long, too hard. It has no rhythm… no shape.’ He looked up at the watching Line Leader. ‘It carries the wrong smells,’ he concluded.
Girvan looked down at the note he had just been penning. It was a routine report to Urthryn at Dremark. ‘This pounding storm has an oddly unnatural quality about it,’ he read. He had been on the point of deleting this eccentric and seemingly irrelevant observation, but if this man, with his deep knowledge of the moods of the sea, had sensed something untoward, then he too must be content to let his instincts guide him.
The name Creost hung unspoken between the two men. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘I’ll send to Urthryn immediately and tell him our feelings. Let him and Oslang make of it what they will.’
The fisherman nodded, then stood up. ‘Where are your men?’ he asked.
Girvan looked a little surprised. ‘In their billets I imagine,’ he replied.
The fisherman nodded again. ‘Come along,’ he said, reaching for his voluminous waterproof coat that hung behind the door.
‘Where?’ Girvan asked.
‘To rouse your men, and our own,’ the fisherman answered. ‘We must go to the high banks and cliffs and do our duty.’
Girvan hastily scribbled a note to complete his re-port and, sealing it, placed it in his pocket. ‘What can we possibly see in this weather?’ he said.
The fisherman shrugged. ‘We belong out there, Line Leader,’ he said. ‘Not in here. We should be listening to what the storm tells us.’
Girvan cast a longing glance at the fire, then reluc-tantly scraped his chair back and stood up. The fisherman smiled as he followed Girvan’s gaze.
‘Keep the hearth warm, my dear,’ he said to his wife, laying an affectionate hand on her shoulder. Then, throwing the Line Leader his cloak, he beckoned him towards the door.
Outside, the storm was fully as bad as it had seemed from the inside, the wind being all the more cutting for the near-freezing water it was carrying. Underfoot squelched the chilly remains of the earlier snowfalls which refused to thaw fully under this icy onslaught. Used though he was to many weathers, Girvan could not forbear grimacing. The fisherman did the same. ‘I’ve ridden out some foul weather in my time, but never anything like this. Come along.’
Soon a small crowd of fishermen and Muster Riders were huddling in the lee of the village’s meeting hall. There was little cheery banter. Girvan used his authority with the Riders.
‘Yes, I know we’d all rather be sat by these kind folks’ firesides, but if both Cadmoryth and I feel something’s amiss, then we must get out into the storm and listen. We are on duty, and we maintain the discipline of the Line, for all we’re on our feet. Is that clear?’
There were some desultory murmurs of agreement which Girvan knew was as near as he was going to get to enthusiasm that night. He felt in his pocket for the report to Urthryn.
‘Lennar,’ he said, peering into the group. The girl shuffled forward, a shapeless dripping mound of unwillingness, and Girvan thrust the document out to her. ‘You’re duty runner tonight if memory serves me. Mount up and get this to the Ffyrst as quickly as you can. Move inland. Don’t take the coast road. And I want you to tell the Ffyrst when and where this weather changes. It’s important. Do you understand?’
‘No, but I’ll do what you say,’ the girl replied, brightening a little at the prospect of riding away from this benighted and chilling place where the land seemed to be almost as wet and cold as the sea. She took the report from Girvan and, with a brief farewell to her friends, scuttled off into the storming night.
‘Where should we go?’ Girvan said, turning to Cad-moryth.
The fisherman answered without hesitation. ‘Out along the cliffs,’ he said. ‘It’s an onshore wind, there’s no danger, and there’s the best view by far.’
Girvan nodded. ‘Not that there’ll be much to see,’ he said.
‘Nevertheless, we’ll see whatever’s there,’ the fish-erman replied.
The path to the cliff top was steep, though not very long, and the untidy procession slithered up it in comparative silence. Once at the top, they spread out in a ragged line, fishermen and riders paired off and staring into the howling wind.
‘I can scarcely keep my feet,’ Girvan shouted, catch-ing hold of Cadmoryth for balance as a powerful gust struck them both.
More used to such conditions, the fisherman grinned and took hold of Girvan’s arm to sustain him. But his concentration was out to sea. ‘This is wrong,’ he said anxiously, his face close to Girvan’s. ‘I feel it more than ever now. This is no natural storm.’
‘Then it’s Creost’s work,’ Girvan said, though the strangeness of his own words made him feel disorien-tated. ‘Could the Morlider sail on us under cover of this kind of weather?’
Cadmoryth shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ he said. ‘Certainly, no one would choose to sail when it’s like this. It’s different if you’re caught in it by accident, then you have to sail, but only from wave to wave, enough to keep afloat. You can’t look to sail to any greater purpose than that.’
Girvan scowled, painfully aware that he could not begin to think in terms of sea warfare. If Creost could indeed cause such a storm, what would be the reason for it. Was it simply to clear the sea and the shoreline of watchers? If so, it had been singularly effective, but then, as Cadmoryth had indicated, who could bring boats ashore and land men in such conditions?
A shout interrupted his reverie. Turning, he was surprised to see the lights of a rider cautiously negotiat-ing the steep path. He stepped forward to meet the newcomer. It was Lennar.
‘What’s the matter?’ he shouted, half concerned, half angry that his messenger had returned.
Lennar bent forward, water cascading off the hood of the l
arge cape that some fisherman had lent her. ‘The storm faded away, barely a mile inland,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d want to know before I rode on.’
Girvan patted her arm. ‘Wait,’ he said, then, placing his fingers in his mouth, he blew a penetrating whistle and gesticulated to the nearest watchers. ‘Get back to the village, mount up and head north to where the cliff drops straight into the sea,’ he said to one pair. ‘And you go south,’ to another. ‘Take care, but be as quick as you can.’
‘What are we looking for?’ one of the men asked.
‘Just find out what’s happening to the weather,’ Girvan answered. There was an urgency in his voice that forbade any further debate, and the riders left quickly, like Lennar, only too happy to be away from this awful blustering watch.
Within the hour, both parties were back, however. The weather in the north and south was calm.
Girvan showed no emotion when he heard the news, but he felt his stomach churning as if he were about to vomit. ‘Give me the report,’ he said coldly to Lennar. Dutifully, she handed it to him.
Crouching down to shelter the document from the rain, Girvan wrote for a few minutes, then re-sealed it and returned it to Lennar.
‘Take someone with you,’ he said. ‘Full speed, maximum care. Take remounts.’ Then, turning to the newly returned riders, he said, ‘Raise the local Lines.’
‘What’s happening, Girvan?’ said Lennar, her face pale in the torchlight.
‘Just ride, girl,’ Girvan replied. ‘As well and as quickly as you can.’
As Lennar and her companion made their way care-fully back down towards the village, Cadmoryth turned to Girvan. ‘Behind the storm comes the Morlider?’ he asked.
‘I can see no other reason,’ Girvan replied. ‘This is the only stretch of shore for miles where boats could land. And where the cliffs become too steep, north and south, the storm abates.’
Cadmoryth wrapped his arms about himself and moved forward towards the cliff edge.
* * * *
Abruptly, the storm was over. Girvan and the other watchers stood motionless on the cliff top. Tentatively the Line Leader lifted his hand to his head, as if unable to believe that the awful noise had indeed ended.
Below them, the sea, its recent demented fury for-gotten, broke prosaically over the long shoreline of the broad bay, and to the east, a clear cloudless sky lightened. But where a dark sea should have met the watery yellow sky with a sharp, clear edge, ominous ragged silhouettes waited. Girvan felt his chest tighten with fear. He screwed up his eyes in an attempt to see more clearly.
‘It’s them,’ he heard Cadmoryth say needlessly. Morlider islands! Swept close inshore under cover of the storm.
Girvan looked at the fisherman. ‘How far away are they?’ he asked, reaching out for something normal.
Cadmoryth frowned. ‘Perhaps only half a day,’ he said softly after a long silence.
Girvan’s body was shaking and uncertain with the ceaseless battering it had received through the night, but Cadmoryth’s simple statement started a trembling moving through it that was quite another response. Half a day! He pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his bulky waterproof cloak, and turned to one of his men nearby.
‘Take two riders and make full speed to the Ffyrst. Tell him the Morlider are here, perhaps half a day off-shore. The local Lines have been roused and we’ll start evacuating the local villages immediately. We’ll be ready to give them a welcome, but… ’ He left the sentence unfinished.
As the man ran off, Girvan turned to Cadmoryth. ‘Your people had best get to horse, fisherman,’ he said gently.
* * * *
It was not unusual in Orthlund for the days following the Feast of the Winter Festival to be characterized by widespread inactivity.
This year was only different in that lethargy reached almost epidemic proportions, with further snowfalls conspiring with over-indulgence to impede all forms of physical effort.
Orthlund’s great healer fared little better than his charges for the first few days, but towards the end of the week the relentless clump of Gulda’s stick prowling the corridors of Anderras Darion began to remind him, and others, of the virtues of diligent application to useful tasks.
It was not, however, the immediate threat of Gulda’s caustic presence that galvanized Hawklan abruptly, nor the knowledge that the spectre which had avoided the feast was still there to be faced. It was an Alphraan voice speaking softly in his ear.
‘Hawklan, come quick,’ it said, simple and clear, though in a tone filled with nuances of terrible urgency.
Hawklan jerked into wakefulness and screwed his eyes tight as the torches, sensing his awakening, burst into life.
‘What is it?’ he managed, swinging out of bed almost without realizing it, and sleepily groping for his clothes.
‘Come quickly,’ the voice said, more urgently than before.
‘Where?’ Hawklan said, as he began to struggle with buttons and buckles.
‘Follow. Bring your sword,’ came the reply, and the sound that had guided him and his companions through the tunnels in the mountains rang out again in his small, spartan room.
‘Where?’ Hawklan insisted, a little more firmly.
There was a brief pause, then, ‘Into the mountains. Come quickly.’
‘Into the mountains!’ Hawklan muttered to himself in some exasperation as he pulled off his tunic and reached for several layers of more appropriate clothing.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Are we being at-tacked? Has someone been hurt?’
‘No, but come,’ said the voice. ‘Before the wind changes. It is most important.’
Hawklan stopped dressing and scowled at this en-igmatic reply. ‘I can feel that,’ he said, his exasperation mounting. ‘But I need to know where I’m going, and for what, so that I can take supplies. I don’t know how you survive in the snow, but humans tend to die very easily.’
The sound faltered. ‘Supplies are being prepared,’ the voice said after a moment.
Briefly, Hawklan considered further interrogation but rejected the idea; urgency was humming all around him. He nodded and began dressing again. ‘Waken Loman and Isloman,’ he said.
‘They have,’ came the voices of the two brothers simultaneously. Hawklan started and glanced around involuntarily to see if they had both entered his room unheard, although he knew they had not. Carrying their voices thus was a device the Alphraan had not used before, but he chose not to remark on it; the unspoken sense of urgency was growing.
‘What about Gavor?’ he said, dragging on his boots.
There was a slightly embarrassed pause in the sound. Hawklan looked up.
‘Wake him!’ he shouted. ‘A little profanity won’t hurt you.’
Before any reply came, there was a knock on his door.
‘Come in,’ Hawklan shouted, irritably. The door opened and Isloman walked in, fully dressed for a long trek through the mountain snow and looking not dissimilar to a large jovial bear. ‘Loman’s packing supplies,’ he said by way of greeting.
Hardly a minute from his bed, Hawklan rebelled. ‘What in thunder’s going on, Isloman?’ he demanded.
Isloman shrugged. ‘I know as much as you do,’ he replied. ‘They woke me and Loman up and just told us to start getting things ready. Two or three days they said-perhaps. But they seemed so anxious about something we didn’t feel inclined to argue.’
Hawklan’s irritation could not sustain itself. Some-thing serious had happened beyond a doubt. He nodded. ‘Are we going to be allowed to eat before we start on this errand?’ he asked, buckling on his sword.
Isloman grinned and patted his pocket. ‘Apparently we must eat as we walk,’ he said. ‘Although the amount you put away at the Feast should keep you going for another three days at least.’
Hawklan raised a menacing forefinger. ‘That is a calumny, carver,’ he said. ‘Delicate and discerning are the words you were searching for to describe my appetite.’
Isloman gave a nod of ironic agreement. ‘Would you like some help with that belt?’ he offered.
Within the hour, the three men had left the village and were heading up into the mountains following the Alphraan’s guiding sound. Daylight was easing its way through a uniformly grey sky and, as it became brighter, so the snow-covered mountains came increasingly into view. They were magnificent, spreading into the misty distance like a jagged frozen ocean, though all three travellers knew that for all their beauty the winter mountains held dangers far greater than those to be encountered in summer.
The sound pulled them forward relentlessly, but Hawklan reproached their unseen guide. ‘We’re travelling as quickly as we can,’ he said. ‘The going’s difficult. Too fast and we’ll be exhausted very quickly, and if one of us falls and is injured then we’ll never reach wherever it is you want to go. We’re trusting your guidance; you must trust our pace.’
There was no reply, though the guiding note seemed to become a little more patient.
Some while later they were joined by Gavor, who landed clumsily on Hawklan’s head.
‘I hope someone’s got a reason for all this,’ he said in the manner of a strict schoolteacher roused from a clandestine slumber.
‘Ask your little friends,’ Loman said.
Gavor studied the grey sky. ‘We’re not speaking at the moment,’ he replied with haughty indifference. ‘Their intrusion was most… inopportune.’
All three men laughed. ‘They can’t be all bad, then,’ Loman said.
Gavor glowered at him indignantly and then gave a martyred sigh. ‘It’s very difficult coping with people so lacking in delicate sensibilities,’ he said. Then, thrusting a wing in Hawklan’s face, he said in an injured tone, ‘Look, dear boy. All my stars have gone.’
‘Thus passes the glory of the world,’ Hawklan com-miserated insincerely. ‘But I’m sure all your friends love you for what you are, not your vulnerable exterior.’
