by Roger Taylor
Then, without further farewells, the trio divided.
Once well clear of his two companions, Jaldaric gave his horse its head, and as it carried him rapidly homewards, he cursed and swore and wept—at the savagery he had seen, at the savagery he had felt, and at his own impotence to control or assuage either.
In the village, the only sound was the gossiping crackle of the burning cottages. A light breeze tumbled an occasional fallen leaf along the road, and the birds, gathering for their morning crumbs, began to land amid the carnage and wander about curiously.
* * * *
Eldric put his hands to his head. ‘I can't believe this,’ he said. ‘It can't be true.'
Jaldaric, travel-stained and weary, looked down at him, but did not speak.
'They just rode into the village and hacked people down—for no reason?’ Eldric asked pointlessly, knowing the answer.
Jaldaric nodded.
Eldric slammed his hand on the table, then stood up, kicked his chair back, and walked over to the window.
Jaldaric looked at his father's back and then at Yatsu, still sitting at the table, eyes fixed, unseeing, on the plans spread before him.
'I don't know whether I did the right thing, coming back myself.’ Jaldaric said hesitantly, to break the difficult silence. ‘Perhaps I should have waited for Hrostir myself—sent the trooper back with the news ... ?'
His father waved his hand dismissively without turning.
'You did right,’ Yatsu said, answering on Eldric's behalf. His voice was controlled but uneasy, and his face was pale. ‘You'd no alternative but to bring back the news personally; and straight away.'
His eyes met Jaldaric's. ‘You were also right not to intervene,’ he said. And the look on his face said, I understand your pain. The pain of watching.
Eldric turned to his son and, looking him up and down, nodded in self-reproach. ‘You're tired, Captain. Go and rest,’ he said. ‘You've done well. If anything comes to you that you've not mentioned, you can tell us later.'
'I'd rather go back and help,’ Jaldaric said anxiously.
Yatsu's reply was unequivocal. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘You're too tired. Go and rest. That's an order. Hrostir will be looking after things, and we'll send someone from here as well.'
Reluctantly, Jaldaric saluted and began walking to the door. As he reached it, he turned. ‘I don't think I'll be able to sleep,’ he said quietly. ‘When my mind goes quiet it fills up with ... the sights ... and the sounds. I don't think I dare close my eyes.'
Yatsu stood up and walked over to him. ‘Only time is going to help you with that,’ he said softly, but holding his gaze. ‘But go and talk to Hylland. He'll help you relax if nothing else.'
Jaldaric searched the Goraidin's face, childlike for a moment. ‘Why would anyone do a thing like that?’ the young man asked. ‘And where could they have found people—Fyordyn people—to do it?'
'We'll all think about the why,’ Yatsu answered immediately. ‘It's important.’ Then, meeting Jaldaric's eyes with the compassion of a man faced with killing a favourite animal. ‘As for the people.’ He hesitated. ‘Those seeds are rooted in us all. Oklar merely tills the soil.'
Jaldaric's face wrinkled in pain and doubt.
'There's no easy answer, Jal,’ Yatsu said, then, slapping the young man's arm gently, ‘Go and find Hylland.'
When Jaldaric had left, Eldric and Yatsu looked at one another. Eldric's face was pained and questioning.
'He's coping,’ Yatsu said in reply to the unasked question.
Eldric turned away from him. ‘It's easier to face things yourself than watch your children face them,’ he said. ‘And so much has happened to him over these last months.'
Yatsu nodded sympathetically. ‘He's coping,’ he repeated. ‘Just like we all did in our time. And he's your son. He'll come through.’ The two men's eyes met. ‘Just like we all have.'
Reluctantly, Eldric the father set his concerns aside for the moment and turned to face the new reality of the struggle for Fyorlund.
'Innocent people slaughtered,’ he said. ‘I can hardly believe it. And for no reason!'
'Not for no reason, Lord,’ Yatsu said, almost irritably, as he sat down at the table again. ‘You know that. Dan-Tor has never done anything for no reason. The patrol was too large and orderly, the deed too foul, and Ledvrin too far from Vakloss for it to have been some piece of ... random savagery by a few Mathidrin troopers. Besides, we know Dan-Tor keeps the Mathidrin well fettered and, from what we hear, they in their turn control the Militia. This deed was coldly done, and done for some very specific reason.'
'What, pray?’ Eldric said, bridling a little at the rebuke in Yatsu's tone.
Yatsu looked at him. ‘I think you know full well, Lord,’ he said.
Eldric sat down heavily and leaned forward. Idly he picked up an ornamental pen intricately carved with an abstract scrolled pattern.
'It might be a probe,’ he said slowly. ‘To test our response. But a lesser contact would have served that purpose.'
Yatsu watched him.
'It can only be a lure,’ Eldric went on, his face grim. ‘A lure to draw us out from our estates and towards Vakloss.’ He laid the pen down gently and, leaning back in his chair, let his hand fall unheeded on to his sword hilt. ‘To start the war,’ he concluded softly. ‘Civil war.'
Yatsu made no comment and, for some time, the room was silent except for the subdued hubbub of the castle's routine daily activity percolating through the stout wooden doors.
'No overtures for negotiations,’ Eldric mused, half to himself. ‘No formal messengers riding to and fro under flags of truce. Just a simple, “See how I massacre your people, Lords. What will you do now?"’ He scowled angrily.
Yatsu frowned in return, as if Eldric's talking were disturbing him, but he did not speak. Eldric looked at him. ‘And if it is a lure,’ he said, ‘and we don't respond? He'll probably sack more villages, massacre more people. More and more, until we do respond.'
Yatsu nodded. ‘It's strange that he's not attempted to treat with us,’ he said quietly, still frowning.
Eldric snorted. ‘The ... creature ... realizes we know that any treaty signed with him would be worthless,’ he said.
Yatsu tapped his thumb nail on his teeth. ‘Something's wrong,’ he said pensively.
'You've an unexpected capacity for understatement, Commander,’ Eldric said acidly. But the Goraidin made no response. For an instant, as his own anger bounced back on him from Yatsu's stillness, Eldric felt the man drawing about himself all his training and experience, like an impenetrable shield, behind which he was ruthlessly converting his horror at Jaldaric's news into a spear to drive at the heart of Dan-Tor's intent.
'Even given what you say about our distrust, he could talk to us,’ Yatsu said quietly. ‘Make treaties. Break them later and dredge up excuses to blame us. We know he could make very effective use of such a device to persuade more of the Lords and the people of the justice of his action. He could strengthen his position considerably. Yet he hasn't.’ He turned to Eldric. ‘Instead, he resorts to this ... barbarity ... which precludes all debate, and can only draw us forth in battle.'
Eldric flicked his hand out. ‘Where he can destroy us,’ he said. But even as the words left his mouth, Yatsu was shaking his head.
'He could have destroyed us any time,’ he said. ‘You yourself pointed that out weeks ago. That's why we sealed our borders tight. So that we'd at least have warning if he approached. But he hasn't made any attempt to come east.'
'He is wounded,’ Eldric said tentatively. ‘Perhaps the journey would be too difficult.'
Yatsu shook his head again, slowly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don't think so. He's no normal creature. According to Dilrap, the arrow's still in his side and the wound's bleeding continuously, yet it seems to cause him neither pain nor discomfort for the most part. And we hear he's been touring his domain, both by carriage and on horseback. He could have moved on us at
any time.'
'Perhaps...’ Eldric began.
Yatsu motioned his Lord to silence. ‘In his place, I'd either undermine us gradually by protracted negotiations, blackening our name in the process, to consolidate my position with any waverers, or I'd walk in and destroy us without any preamble.’ He closed his eyes. ‘And yet he does neither.'
He was silent for some time. Eldric waited.
'Now, for some reason, he's in a hurry to do battle,’ Yatsu began again, pensively. ‘He must be, to resort to such an atrocity.'
'He might have done it just to blacken our names, as you put it,’ Eldric said, risking interrupting the Goraidin's train of thought, in spite of himself. ‘He's a master of calculated rumour.'
Yatsu shook the idea off casually. ‘No, it would be too risky. There's still enough truth floating about in Vakloss to prevent something as bad as this being believed wholesale. It's as likely to work against him as for him. No, he's done it to draw us out quickly. He is in a hurry, yet he doesn't use his power.'
His eyes widened slightly. ‘He can't use it,’ he said slowly, as if carefully placing the centre stone of a delicate arch.
Eldric looked at him narrowly. ‘Guesswork, Goraidin,’ he said after a moment. ‘For all we know he may just be taunting us. Luring us out for some spectacular destruction in front of the City to demonstrate his power, his indisputable authority.'
Yatsu leaned back in his chair and looked at him, more relaxed. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Dan-Tor thinks as we do; the Goraidin. He takes no unnecessary risks. His whole progress through the last twenty years shows that. Painstaking, silent, hidden. No indication of his real nature—his real power. He's an assassin, a poisoner, not a berserker. Look what he did to you at the accounting.'
It was an unexpected blow and it sent Eldric's mind reeling back to that long, bitter and frustrating day. Dan-Tor could have seized him by force with the power he possessed, but he had chosen to wear him down relentlessly and then seize him when he was away from the crowd, by a combination of silent treachery and overwhelming armed force. That was Dan-Tor's way without a doubt.
'He wouldn't choose open battle if he could choose any other way, would he?’ Yatsu continued. ‘He actively abetted the running down of the High Guards over the years, because he wanted no pool of battle skills waiting to face his Mathidrin when the time came. He even mooted disarming the people at one time, if you remember.'
Eldric started. It was a memory from long ago. Dan-Tor had slipped it into a debate in the Geadrol, but had retracted it hastily and with some ineffective humour in the ensuing icy silence. What kind of a person would even think in such terms and aspire to guide a free people? On reflection, Eldric identified this incident as the beginning of the slow suspicions that were to build against this tall, lank manipulator.
Yatsu concluded. ‘With his Mathidrin, this ... Militia...’—he curled his lip as he spoke the word—‘and perhaps even a few High Guards, he has a substantial numerical advantage, but he knows that facing us would still be risky even in conventional fighting; we're better trained than most of his troops, and nearly all our senior officers are battle-tried.’ He leaned forward. ‘And he must realize that we'd not come forward in conventional battle array, with closed ranks of infantry and cavalry ready to be scythed down like corn at a wave of his hand. He won't know we've been training in small group formations, but he'll know we'll come some other way; some way that's never been done before! How much greater the risk to his troops therefore when that initiative is ours? Yet he chooses it!’ Yatsu stabbed out his final words. ‘He would not willingly accept such odds, Lord. He needs to defeat us quickly, and he can't use his power against us.'
Silence hung between the two men.
'It sounds plausible,’ Eldric said reluctantly after a little while. ‘Even obvious.'
Yatsu shrugged. ‘The obvious is invariably the hardest thing to see,’ he said.
'And if you're wrong?’ Eldric asked.
'Harder decisions have been made on less information,’ Yatsu replied simply. ‘But we'll all discuss it as usual. Perhaps someone else can arrange the facts differently. Not that it matters if they do. Independent of what we think Dan-Tor's reasons were, he's left us no alternative but to attack him in force, and soon.'
'Not necessarily,’ Eldric said, seemingly surprised at this conclusion. ‘We could increase our patrols. Change from observation to active response and deal with his patrols one at a time as they appear.'
Yatsu walked over to a map hanging on the wall and, after a brief search, placed his finger on a small dot. ‘Ledvrin,’ he said, looking at Eldric. Then, sliding his finger to the edge of an area criss-crossed with coloured lines, ‘The limit of our effective patrol area.’ He shrugged. ‘It's too far. And where would we stop?’ His finger danced from dot to dot across the map. ‘We're stretched to defend our own borders, and he could move against any of these villages. There was nothing special about Ledvrin.'
Eldric sighed and looked down at his hands. ‘I know,’ he said resignedly. ‘I was just clinging to a few last moments of peace.’ He slapped his hands on his knees as he stood up to join Yatsu. ‘However, that, as you say, we must all discuss later. For now, you and I must send the news to the others and arrange for help to be sent to Ledvrin.'
* * * *
None of the four Lords or the assembled Goraidin and senior High Guard officers found serious fault with Yatsu's conclusions. The massacre at Ledvrin could only be a challenge to the Lords to march on Vakloss, but none could hazard why Dan-Tor was suddenly in such haste or why he was unable or at least unwilling to venture forth and use his appalling power against them.
'We consider him still as a man just because he walked amongst us locked in that same fragile frame that houses us all,’ Darek said. ‘But he isn't; or is scarcely so. He's Oklar, the first of Sumeral's Uhriel, the remains of a man who was corrupted eons ago by the gift of almost absolute power. His powers are beyond our comprehension, and so probably are his thoughts. Let's keep our minds straightforward and open, and not burden ourselves with what will almost inevitably be futile speculation.'
'It'll help if we can understand...’ Arinndier began.
Darek held out his hand, fingers extended. ‘I, above all, accept that, Arin,’ he said. ‘But how can we begin to understand how a single hand could contain power enough to destroy a city? For that matter, how can we even understand a ... man who is unaffected by an arrow permanently embedded in his side; an arrow whose wound bleeds continuously and never heals? He isn't a man, and we bind ourselves when we think of him as such. He's a monstrous creation. Every facet of his existence is alien to us.'
'It's irrelevant, anyway,’ Eldric intruded brusquely before Arinndier could reply. ‘Human or otherwise, all we can concern ourselves with is his deeds. It seems reasonable to assume he's constrained in some manner from using this ... power of his, but if he isn't, if indeed it's some ghastly taunt, then at least our small formations may save many of our men.'
'These small formations may also cost us lives if we meet only conventional battle arrays of infantry and cavalry, and the men can't re-form quickly enough to face them,’ Arinndier said, expressing the doubts that many of them held about the strange new fighting techniques they were trying to develop to protect themselves from Dan-Tor's terrible power. ‘Part of me says we should be waiting until we know more, and until we've done some larger exercises to test our precious new theories.'
'And if there's another Ledvrin while we're waiting, Arin?’ Darek asked.
'He couldn't do that again,’ Arinndier said, his face haunted and doubtful.
Yatsu spoke. ‘My heart says he could, Lord, and that he will. But even if my heart is wrong, we can't risk such another deed. We're the protectors of the people—their servants. We can set our own lives into the balance during battle, and those of the men who've chosen to follow us, but the whole reason for our existence is the protection of the helpless. Their li
ves must be kept above such calculations.'
Arinndier's face darkened. ‘I need no lectures on my duty, Commander,’ he said.
'Listen,’ Eldric said authoritatively, raising a hand to silence Arinndier and nodding to Yatsu to continue.
'I'm speaking to clarify my own thoughts, Lord,’ the Goraidin said, directly to Arinndier. ‘I offer no one any reproach. But if we don't stand where those villagers stood, we see nothing.'
Arinndier's eyes narrowed.
Yatsu continued. ‘If the people are to be kept from risk, then we must move to protect them immediately,’ he said. ‘And the only way we can protect them against any such further attack is by a wholesale assault on the perpetrators. Morality, duty, and personal inclination aside, that's a straightforward statement of our logistical position, and it's beyond debate.'
Arinndier glanced down at the various documents that had been hastily prepared for the meeting. Even a casual study showed the impossibility of using extended patrols to defend the myriad villages that adjoined the eastern estates.
'It seems that both circumstances and our duty pinion us, Commander,’ he said slowly. ‘I was wrong to think of delaying.’ He looked straight at Yatsu. ‘It occurred to me that to rush headlong into battle, ill-equipped against an enemy of unknown power, would be to risk defeat and thereby jeopardize the people further, but your reminder was timely; I had indeed neglected to stand where the villagers stood.’ He shook his head. ‘My fear clouded my vision. Fear of ordinary combat is bad enough, but fear of this ... Uhriel and his terrible power ... is another. Yet we have some measure of it and we've bent our minds to the problem and trained our men, as best we can. It may prove insufficient, but sadly, I fear that only accepting combat—accepting the risks which are ours to accept—will really teach us further.'
Heads around the table nodded in agreement and Yatsu bowed. He turned to Eldric. ‘May I say something further, Lord?’ he said.
'Yes, Commander,’ Eldric replied.
