The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong)

by Greg Hamerton

  It was worse in the moments of sleep, when the voices took hold of his dreams and created a torture of mockery and confusion. He woke not knowing if those he trusted should be, not knowing if the hungers he had dreamt of weren’t really his, and wondering if the woman he held dear would ever be safe from harm. For in his dreams she had been pursued by a hundred Shadowcasters, and he had led them all to Tabitha Serannon. He had foregone sleep since that first night, and the grit behind his eyes was the evidence of his fatigue.

  He shook himself, realising that he had been caught by the wind’s despair yet again. Today they would succeed in breaching the Wall. He forced himself to spoon some gruel past his lips. He was strong and steadfast. In a moment he would leave the warmth of the tent, and rouse the men to execute his latest plan. The Wall would be shattered, and the rock beneath scaled. He would not be swayed by the Darkmaster’s will.

  He remembered how the wind had begun when he had led his troop past the falls above Fendwarrow. The righteous determination of the soldiers endured during the ride, up until that point. After that, for every step they took, the confidence seemed to slip from their faces as the cold wind gusted tears from their eyes. The ravens flocked to plague them with their desolate cries. The Swords could feel their enemy watching them through the many eyes of the dark birds. But of the Shadowcasters themselves, they saw nothing.

  Thick clouds plagued them in the higher reaches of the mountain pass, a soup of grey vapours that drove a chill damp into their clothes, and rimed their armour with ice at night.

  He had believed himself well-prepared for the battle to take Ravenscroft. Two full troops, of fifty-five Swords apiece, formed his army. Every man bore a Shriek, the whistle that might offer defence against the Morgloth. The men were hand-picked by the Swordmaster for the task—hardened men, experienced men, the kind who kept their blades sharp. He had expected trouble from the Shadowcasters, he had expected fierce resistance at the bridge, or a pitched battle in the vale of Ravenscroft itself. He had not expected the Shadowcasters to break their own bridge down.

  What was left on the far side of the chasm was an insurmountable cliff of ice. It was a giant’s tongue which protruded from the mountain where the landing of the bridge had been. It fell in a glistening sheet as broad as the river to the base of the ravine, where it ended short in ragged, dripping teeth. The men had named it the Wall.

  Getting to the Wall was hard enough, for without the bridge, they first had to descend the sheer cliff where the road from Fendwarrow ended. The rocks were slick with cold moisture. Ropes had been used to build a ladder down the treacherous slope, down to the deep base of the gorge. The river was a raging torrent, sucking at the boulders and spitting at those who walked upon them. The Swords had built a hasty bridge, basic, but strong. Then they had reached the base of the Wall, and their endeavours had become fruitless, and the failures had begun.

  Climbers had been sent to gain the summit and then cast ropes down. They never reached the top. They were the first to die, their hands suddenly finding no purchase on the melting ice, though they had been certain their daggers and spurs were going to be enough. They had landed amongst the men with a breaking sound that left little doubt, and a terrible echo in Garyll’s mind. Failure.

  Garyll had sent scouts back on the trail, to see if they could find another access into Ravenscroft. Half of those men brought back reports of shifting snow, unstable ice, rock-falls and cliffs, terrain that offered no passage even for the desperate. Of the other five, no word returned. Failure.

  Garyll tried to begin a high bridge of his own, but the chasm was too wide to throw a grappling hook across. They managed to catapult a rock with a leash of fine cord to the far side, but it would support no weight. Another failure.

  They began construction of the ladder on the second day, but it was slow going. Trees were found, and felled—the best to be found were red pines, heavy with sap, and over ten men tall. The horses were used to haul them to the chasm, but the day was brief, and the horses had had to be camped a fair way back to Fendwarrow at the only adequate grazing. By nightfall on the second day, the great ladder was an open A-frame only two trees tall, half the height they needed to achieve. As the light faded, it seemed an ever more pitiful attempt against the looming Wall.

  The voices in the wind on the third morning mocked the Swordmaster’s meagre accomplishment without respite. When the Swords rallied to work, they found that the ladder of trees had been consumed. The Wall had swollen over the wooden structure. The ladder was trapped deep within the slick tongue of ice. Garyll would not give up hope. He drove the men to pick at the ice, to break it from the structure from the bottom upwards.

  It was dangerous work, for the ice broke free in seracs that fell upon the men below. Those who worked upon the Wall had to be sent back to the camp regularly to warm their fingers and toes, lest they lose them to the frostbite. New Swords were assigned, despite the obvious lack of progress; by midday they hadn’t reached far into the overhanging teeth of ice. By nightfall, they hadn’t even reached the top of the old ladder, let alone built it higher.

  Failure, whispered the voices. Failure, failure, failure.

  Three days, this the fourth, and still the wind tore through their camp. His thoughts were being led in circles. Garyll set his unfinished gruel aside, and burst from the tent into the light of dawn.

  Today they would breach the Wall.

  The wind had lost its bite. The voices hadn’t ceased, they never ceased, but the leaching effect of the cold was gone. It was like the first day of spring, a change in the seasons, as if the grasp of winter had finally eased in this high pass. Even the driven clouds had receded to the higher peaks. Garyll felt a moment of hope.

  He quickened his pace towards the chasm. It was a short way from the camp to the end of the road, and as he walked, the way became more exposed, ever more a trail scribed thinly over hard, sloping ground. Above, the morning was different from any of the others. The sun shone, defining the peaks with crisp light. The sky was blue. His spirits began to lift. When he rounded the final bend and approached the head of the ropes, he looked to the far side of the chasm, and a thrill coursed through his body.

  Today they would breach the Wall.

  He had expected the ice to have consumed their work again. He had steeled himself for another day of chipping away at the Wall, in the hope of placing at least one more tree on the head of the ladder. Yet what faced him was a gift from the gods.

  The ice had sheared where the apex of the ladder thrust upwards through Wall. A massive portion of the face had split off, leaving a jumble of seracs that littered the rocks at the base, and caused the low rope bridge to lie at an awkward angle. But what remained of the Wall was mostly as it had appeared to them on the beginning of the second day. A few hours with the axes, and the ladder would be clear from its entrapment. They could build upon the ladder today, raise it swiftly. Above the Wall, the access to Ravenscroft beckoned.

  Garyll spun on his heel. They would need five more trees, and all the speed he could muster from the men. For while they worked at the Wall, they were vulnerable to attack from above. He hoped the Shadowcasters continued to play their watching game, but he vowed to be ready if they showed themselves.

  It took the Swords until late afternoon to complete the ladder, but at last the final trunk was hoisted upwards, to be lashed on the uppermost point of the frame. It projected no more than a man’s length above the crest of the Wall. The tip swayed as the binders struggled to secure it.

  There were many ravens watching Garyll from the higher rocks, and many more circling in the sky, soaring along the looming cliffs in the late afternoon breeze. If their calls had not been so hoarse, they might have appeared to be graceful creatures. But their cries were twisted, like the screams of masochists. Their presence set his nerves on edge.

  When the binders raised their thumbs, Garyll didn’t hesitate to sound the charge. The Swords swarmed upwards, spurred by the fear
of being too late to help their comrades above should they meet resistance. The hundred men scaled the ladder like a swarm of ants. Nothing came upon them. Apart from the Swords, the landing was deserted, and the road led onwards, open and still.

  The wind whispered, the river thundered far below. The sun was dying in the western sky, and the peaks were splashed with red.

  Some of the ravens flew away toward the east. Garyll set the march. They had come unto the vale of Ravenscroft, and their presence was announced, of that he was certain.

  The vale was gloomy, cold, and empty. Nothing moved in the jurrum bushes and scattered boulders, except the slowly lengthening shadows. The air was dark.

  They marched.

  A murmur passed through the troops behind Garyll as they closed on the Keep of Ravenscroft. The Keep was an ugly, dominating mass crested with a thorny rim of haphazard spires. It crouched against the feet of the towering mountain. There was nobody to be seen on the battlements, or in the yawning maw which formed the entrance. The ravens were gone. The leaching cold had returned. Yet the sensation of being watched was overwhelming.

  Black earth, black rock, black chips of stone beneath his feet. It was unnatural. The entire vale, all the way up to the spire beside the Keep, was the same dark substrate. Garyll kicked a loose pebble. It seemed to ooze into the ground when it came to rest, though he couldn’t be sure in the failing light.

  “Halt!” he called out. In his own ears, his voice sounded small. His command met silence. The Swords, to a man, had already ceased to advance. Few men would meet his eye when he turned to face their disordered formation. The Swords shuffled into tighter lines, shoulders tensed against the weight of oppression that had swamped them all.

  What am I doing? It will soon be night, and the Shadowcasters will be in the height of their power.

  Garyll shifted his stance as if readying himself to leave, then gritted his teeth when he recognised the source of the fear—the doubting voice whispering in his ears.

  He would not be manipulated by the Darkmaster’s trickery. He had a hundred men with him, and if the Darkmaster expected him to leave, then it was the perfect time to press his attack.

  “Light the torches!”

  The brands were soaked, and sparked with the strike of sword on flint. Garyll selected the ten soldiers best suited to form a rear-guard. They were easy to identify. Their faces shone whitest in the torchlight.

  He clenched the hilt of his sword, and turned to face the Keep.

  Ravenscroft. The hide of the Shadowcasters, the root of all evil in the realm. The Darkmaster had defied the right of the King to rule. They would surrender and swear fealty, or they would meet with the King’s justice.

  A multitude of doubts assaulted him from the darkness ahead, carried on the whispering wind. Garyll knew of only one good response to fear. Face it down, make it surrender. He had been wound too tight by the Darkmaster’s games. He was propelled at his enemy like a bolt from a crossbow.

  “For Eyri!” Garyll shouted as he drew Felltang high.

  “For Eyri!” the Swords echoed. Their voices didn’t carry far.

  They proceeded at a march, three abreast and thirty deep once the rearguard had hidden off the trail. The men loosened their swords, and tightened their helms. Garyll marched at the head, flanked by flaming brands. He kept just ahead of the torches, so that his eyes were sharp. The road bore them into the mouth of the Keep. Ravenscroft’s bowels were icy and dark.

  It took his eyes a while to adjust to the gloom. Twilight had been bright by comparison. There was an unfamiliar scent in the air, a stale smell, like that of an animal’s lair after a period of hibernation. The corridor they marched into was a high tunnel. He commanded a brief halt.

  Silence.

  Garyll led them deeper, wading against the darkness that seemed to thicken with every step. Wave upon wave of despair washed and broke against him. He could feel the fear running through the men, but he forged onward, refusing to acknowledge the Shadowcasters’ power. The impetus of the denial drove him deeper. The air flickered under the torchlight, as if polluted with a current of motes. They were walking into a spell.

  They have too much of an advantage in here.

  At last he realised that his own fatigue and frustration had been used against him. The Darkmaster had anticipated his mood, and had drawn him in by using the resistant thread of his warrior’s courage. Subtle spells pulled his thoughts every which way.

  They would have to fight their way out of this one.

  “Watch out!” shouted a voice far behind him. There was a grinding of metal, a crash of men being thrown against one another, then a deafening boom of something heavy striking the ground. The screams of one man filled the darkness.

  Garyll rushed back along the column of men. A Sword had fallen and was skewered to the ground by a portcullis. The corridor was sealed.

  Garyll cursed his own stupidity.

  “Grab the bars, lift it off him!” Garyll commanded.

  It proved to be useless. The portcullis was too heavy by far, it did not move an inch, even with all the hands they could muster. The portcullis couldn’t be that heavy. It was locked.

  “Be alert, men!” he warned.

  The trapped soldier’s screams tapered off, and he began to shiver. Garyll covered the man’s hands with his own, and gripped until his knuckles were white.

  I chose this man.

  “Bloody stupid way to die,” the Sword whispered suddenly. He looked up at Garyll’s face a moment longer, then he clutched the bars. His legs kicked once, hard.

  “You will pay for this, Ravenscroft!” Garyll shouted to the darkness. Only the echo of his voice mocked him from the shadows.

  “Swordmaster, what would you have us do?” The question came from a soldier on the far side of the portcullis.

  “How many men are you there?”

  Mutters passed away into the distance, then rolled closer again.

  “Thirty, sir.”

  And ten outside, the rear-guard. We are split in half.

  “Retreat to the rear-guard, and form a defensive unit at the mouth of the Keep. Run! There may be a second portcullis!” Garyll shouted.

  Hurried feet stamped away.

  Garyll led the remainder of his force onwards. Better to move, than to be a sitting target. The roof lifted itself beyond the reach of the torch-light. The walls fell away on either side. Openings in what seemed to be a vast circular chamber hinted at further passages.

  Reception hall. Where are the hosts?

  All hell broke loose.

  The air was a flurry of wings. It seemed that a hundred ravens assaulted them at once, causing the Swords to cover their faces. The torch-bearers lost their brands. Running water sounded nearby, a sudden rush as if a dam had broken.

  Blades were drawn around him. The ring of steel sent blood thundering through his veins, but there were only ravens to strike out at. They were easily destroyed upon a blade, shattering to black dust, though Garyll heard an indrawn breath when a bird penetrated someone’s defences.

  They retrieved the brands, but one lay unattended for too long. It guttered, and went out with a sudden hiss.

  Something was approaching, in the cover of darkness. A gurgling, rushing sound. The Swords bunched together in the centre of the chamber, in the low point of the floor’s depression. One man jumped away from an attack of ravens in front of him, and knocked Garyll off-balance. Garyll caught himself by dropping to one knee. There was an unexpected splash.

  Water!

  The chamber had been dry moments before. He stood. Wet feet, in suddenly soaked boots.

  The touch of the Dark is the purest cold.

  If they were in the water when the Dark essence was commanded, they would be caught like flies in honey.

  “Run! Get out of the water!”

  He chose an archway at random and shoved his two torch-bearers roughly towards it, running with them, but when the spell struck his men, almost half of
them were wading against the rising current in the depression. From above, in the darkness, a united command was sounded.

  “Freeze.”

  At least twenty Swords were caught in the trap. They stood ankle-deep in a pool of ice. Some hacked at their feet. Water continued to rush into the chamber, washing over the ice, preparing the pool for a repeat.

  Garyll launched himself back into the chamber. His feet slipped, and he hit the ice hard, sliding through the gathering water on the surface. Together his men hacked at the ice, and pulled a few feet free.

  “Get out, get out, there’s no time!” he shouted.

  “Freeze.” It was impossible to pinpoint where the Shadowcasters were. They seemed to speak from all directions, a hollow, distant sound.

  Another five men were trapped in the ice.

  It was hopeless. The water poured in. One Sword, who had fallen on his hands and knees the first time, was now trapped in ice up to his shoulders. The water touched his chin. The man fought desperately.

  A simple plan formed in Garyll’s mind. Find a Shadowcaster, any Shadowcaster, and demand the reversal of the spell under threat of death. There were three corridors leading from the chamber, and a fourth through which the water poured. The Shadowcasters could be hiding down any one of them.

  “Split up!” he shouted to the few men who were free. “Find any Shadowcaster, force them to cancel this spell. Kill any who resist you. Go!” He dived down his chosen corridor, pulling a torch-bearer with him again. A few Swords followed.

  Garyll ran with Felltang drawn and extended in front of him. If there was anything waiting for him in the dark, better that it met his blade first. He outpaced the torch, and shouted for light. The narrow corridor snaked downwards. Garyll ducked under a sudden overhang. Moments later, the torch-bearer yelped behind him. The torch issued a hiss as it was quenched. Then all was dark.