“Here,” he replied. “Place your finger here.”
So began a long vigil for Ka’en. Over and over, she leaned close to the old wolf’s head and whispered into his ear, “Gorfang; this is your mistress. Come to me – I need you. Come to me.”
This went on throughout the afternoon and evening of that fifth day and well into the night, until Aram insisted that she come to bed. In order that they could stay near the invalids, Aram had fixed up the bed in the anteroom off the hall and he and Ka’en slept there. Deep in the night, he awoke to find her gone.
Rising quickly, he went out into the hall, where the previous night’s fire had burned to coals and the torches flickered low.
Ka’en was with Gorfang, kneeling with her head close to his, calling him home.
The sight of his heavily pregnant wife kneeling upon the cold stone in the wee hours unsettled him. Still, after considering it, he left her untroubled. Going to the fire pit, Aram replenished the fire and then went around and replaced the torches. After observing Ka’en bending fervently to her vigil for another moment, he went out through the arches and gazed eastward at the horizon. Along the jagged tops of those far mountains, the sky glowed very softly pink. Day was coming, but it was yet some hours away.
Going back into the hall, he left Ka’en alone and went to the fire pit where he started a pot of kolfa brewing. The pleasant aroma soon filled the hall, and just as Aram rose to offer a cup to Ka’en, he heard her crying and speaking low. Fearing the worst, he hurried toward her. She looked up with streaming eyes when he was still a few feet from her.
“He’s awake – and he’s thirsty. Will you bring water?”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Aram quickly fetched water to her and then watched as she dribbled the life-saving moisture, a bit at a time, into the old wolf’s mouth. He knelt down close to her just in time to hear Gorfang speak for the first time in days.
“I am cold, mistress.”
Aram got quickly back to his feet. “I’ll bring a blanket.”
From that day on, as Ka’en spent her days attending to the injured, she devoted much of her time, as much as she could spare from the others, to Gorfang. Day by day, the faithful wolf gradually improved and the day finally came when, to Ka’en’s immense joy, he raised his head. It was only for a moment, and he lay quickly back, but it was the surest sign so far that he would strengthen and recover.
No other lives were lost, though there were many of the injured, like Gorfang, whose convalescence would unquestionably last for some time.
Aram and the men worked to dissemble the dragon carcass and remove it from the great porch, while others were assigned to find and bury any victims still undiscovered around the valley. Failing to discover a better means of segmenting the carcass of the monstrous beast, Aram employed the Sword of Heaven to reduce the steel-like bones and the remaining bits of flesh to manageable pieces. Then the horses that had no objection to climbing up to the porch were harnessed and worked to remove the sections of carcass to the edge where they were tumbled down into the passageway between the porch and the defensive wall.
Searching northward along the flanks of the mountain, Aram found a rocky promontory away from any arable ground, below which there were no springs that arose from the base of the mountain. He didn’t want the carcass, if in fact it decayed further, to despoil the earth or the water courses of the valley. Satisfied that the spot he’d found would suit that purpose, he and Thaniel worked with several of the horses to remove the remains of the dragon from the deep passage and away from the city.
After this project was completed, he went down the valley, past the ruined town with its harvest of fresh graves, and looked upon the other beast. It had crashed onto the low ridge between the two rivers just downstream from the crossings. It was completely consumed by fire; no flesh remained. Following a thorough examination of the carcass and its final resting place, he decided that it could probably do nothing further to contaminate the river, and he rode back up the valley, leaving it where it was.
The last days and weeks of summer wore away, and autumn approached. The day finally came when there were no invalids inhabiting the hall. Even Gorfang, though still weak and unsteady on his feet, was at last moved from the great hall to Aram and Ka’en’s home, where he spent the remainder of his convalescence resting before their fire.
Nikolus and Timmon had returned to the valley to repair the damage done to Ka’en’s home by the dragon, and Gorfang entertained himself by watching those two men climbing among the rafters over the great room of the mansion on the city’s second level.
Finally, as the last days of summer passed into the pages of as yet unwritten history, everything that could be done had been done. The men and horses left the valley and went home, most returning to the fortress where they would spend the few remaining days of that summer, the imminent fall, and the winter. Andar, newly come from the east and having been informed of the astonishing events in the valley to the north, sent word by Kipwing that the last of Seneca had arrived in Wallensia, and that he would be honored to meet with Aram when Aram could find the time to come south.
Satisfied that the valley was secure once more, Aram finally consented to let Arthrus bring Eoarl, Dunna, and Ka’en’s friend and nurse, Cala, into the valley. Muray, true to his word, was upright and walking, albeit with difficulty, and declaring that he would return to his regiment before the winter.
One morning soon after they’d arrived and the last of the men had gone over the green hills and into the south, Ka’en awoke to discover that Aram had risen before her and she went in search of him. She found him standing on the great porch just before dawn, gazing into the north.
Hearing her light footstep behind him, he turned toward her. “I will be away for a time today,” he stated without preamble,” but I will return before sunset.”
The look in his eyes chilled her.
She stopped, gazing at him, and caught her breath.
For some time, she had seen the same change in him that had been witnessed by Findaen and others. He was still kind and gentle with her, loving and attentive, but his eyes held a layer of cold, hard ice in their green depths that had appeared on the day he slew the dragons and had never melted away.
She watched him for a long moment. “Where are you going?”
He shook his head shortly. “Up the road a short way,” he said. And then he repeated, “I will return before sunset.”
His demeanor told her plainly that he wished to be gone, on to whatever task he had appointed for himself, but she found that she could not yet release him.
“What is wrong, my love?”
He frowned, though his eyes remained cold, and devoid of emotion. “Wrong?”
“Something troubles you,” she suggested.
His laugh was short and harsh, and still his hard eyes gave her no clue as to his mood. “Troubles me? Yes, my love, many things trouble me these days.”
“Aram – you’re not going to –?” Her voice broke as the thought that had abruptly come to her rendered her unable to continue.
He studied her with those cold eyes. “To – what?”
She swallowed and managed to speak her fear. “Go to face – him?”
“Yes,” he replied, but then his eyes softened and he smiled a small smile. “Oh, yes; I am going to go to him and I will exact payment for that which he has wrought here, and then he will meet justice.” The smile went away. “But not today – soon, but not today.”
She drew in a breath of relief. “Then where are you going?”
“To do what I must,” was his enigmatic answer. He waved a hand around the valley. “There are no enemies about. Kipwing has gone into the north to watch, and all the hawks between here and the land of Bracken have been placed on alert. Gorfang can walk on his own now. If anything threatens this valley, Cree will know and will warn you in plenty of time to get under the mountain.” He paused and looked thoughtfully down the valley, toward the res
ting place of the dragon that lay between the rivers. “But the wolves of Vallenvale are gone, and I think that there were only the two of those others.”
He turned his head and looked the other way, into the north, and his voice took on an undertone of controlled fury that frightened her. “And I mean to destroy him before he can conjure more.”
She made to speak, but he looked at her, held up his hand to prevent her, and then came close, taking her in his arms. He held her tight for a long moment and then released her, and turned for the stairway.
“I will be home before sundown,” he repeated.
After he dropped down the stairway out of sight, she went across the stone bridge and watched him mount up on Thaniel, who was waiting upon the great avenue, already saddled and ready to go wherever it was that Aram meant to go.
67.
As Thaniel cantered down the avenue toward the junction, Aram turned his head around and looked up at Ka’en, standing atop the wall. He held up his hand and kept it there for a moment, until she returned the salute. Then he turned away from her and he and the horse went on to the junction, where they turned to the left, and went toward the north along the ancient pavement.
When they had gained the road and turned northward upon it, moving into the forested foothills, Aram looked down at the back of Thaniel’s head.
“Move at a good pace, my friend – one that you can sustain, but that will get us quickly along. I want to go a good distance today.”
“Where do we go, Lord Aram?”
“North,” Aram replied, but he did not elaborate.
Thaniel broke into a ground-eating gallop and was silent for a time. When he finally spoke, the undercurrent of desire in his voice was unmistakable.
“Do we go to bring justice upon Manon?”
“No, we do not – not yet. Soon, my friend, but not today,” he repeated the words he’d spoken to Ka’en. “He took your parents from you, and he tried to slay my wife. I will tell you this – there will be no long war as once we thought. There will be no strategy of years, no tactics of moving frontiers one mile at a time. No – none of that. You and I, Thaniel, will go to him very soon, and we will bring judgment upon him. Soon, but not today.”
“Then why do we go north – if today is not the day of judgment?” Desire dissipated, and gave way to disappointment in the horse’s tone.
“To send a message,” Aram replied.
Thaniel considered this arcane statement for a few moments, then, “To Manon? Why a message? Why not go all the way to his tower and destroy the evil one?”
“There are things that must be done before we go to him,” Aram replied. “I will likely not return from that meeting,” he stated bluntly, “and there are tasks I must make certain have been accomplished.”
He went silent for a long moment; then…
“And I would like to hold my child before I go,” he said, softly.
Thaniel did not respond but just kept driving into the north across the stone laid down ages ago by Aram’s forebears. When they came to the junction where the connecting road went up along the long, timbered ridges to the left toward the sandy hills and the long valley beyond, Aram spoke one word, “Left.”
Up they went, as the sun climbed toward mid-day, and the timber gradually thinned from the tops of the ridges.
At last they came to the summit where the road began its descent toward the distant long valley, and the hills to their left dropped slowly in the direction of the abandoned slave village far off to the southwest. The other way, to the northeast, those same hills climbed toward Camber Pass above Vallenvale.
“Here,” Aram said. “Halt here.”
Thaniel slowed to a stop, wheezing from the exertion, at the place where the road crested the ridge and fell away toward the distant, unseen valley.
Aram let his gaze reach out for the far horizon, for the distant peaks barely seen above the intervening earth, away off to the north. There was a faint smudge, a dark, misty stain, just visible low in that far-off sky.
He drew the Sword.
Behind him, the sun was high in the southern sky, just then passing through the top of its arc across that cloudless firmament. Undiluted sunlight flooded down upon him.
The Sword roared to life.
Aram let power flow through the blade unchecked. As lightning leapt from the tip of the Sword and sizzled and crackled in the clear sky, he stood tall in the stirrups and stared with eyes of green granite into the northwest.
“Look across the miles, Manon, vile enemy of the world,” he said, and his tone was harsh and hardened with fierce determination. “Look across the miles and see me. I am Aram, son of Clif, who was slain by your servants. I am the son of Joktan, whom you slew with your own hand. I am the blood of my fathers, arisen from the earth to bring judgment upon you. I am coming to you and then – I swear this by the deaths of my fathers – you will trouble the world no more.”
He stretched his arm out, lifting the Sword high, filling the sky with fire.
“Look across the miles and see me. See me. I am coming.”
End Book Four
Kelven's Riddle Book Four Page 57
