by K. J. Hargan
Chapter Six
Rescue and Search
At Rion Ta, Halldora keened over Haergill’s body in the softly falling rain as the evening closed in. Kellabald and Yulenth gathered the garond bodies in a pile to burn for when the rain stopped.
The Archer, the elf, Wynnfrith and Alrhett carefully helped Halldora carry Haergill’s body into a hut in the village. Inside Halldora, Wynnfrith and Alrhett keened in earnest.
Respectful, the others stepped outside into the pouring rain. Rion Ta was a collection of five small huts and a small sized Great Hall only forty paces long, all clustered around the open communal square. The night’s darkness became oppressive with the increasing rain. The large, towering elms and oaks at the edge of the village were black and the forest was deep. All was silence except for the drum beat of the rain on the mud.
“Perhaps we should more carefully search the village for anything else useful,” Yulenth offered.
“A good idea,” Kellabald said with sadness.
“Should we burn the village?” Yulenth wondered. “To keep the garonds from using it as a garrison?”
“No,” Kellabald said solemnly. “Any of Rion Ta who survives must have their homes to return to.”
A grim silence of understanding settled on the group.
“We should find something for the white one to eat, so he stays agreeable,” Yulenth said eyeing Conniker, who sat blinking in the rain.
“Wolves can eat bread and other fruit of the land,” The elf said. She turned towards the Great Hall. “Many think they only-“
Suddenly, a brilliant flash of light enveloped the group.
The immediate boom of thunder knocked them to the ground.
Kellabald looked up to see the lightning bolt had hit the elf. In a purple glow, the elf was held suspended above their heads in a sphere of crackling light, sparking as the heavy rain hit the globe of lightning.
“What-!?” Yulenth yelled.
Wynnfrith, Halldora and Alrhett ran from the funeral hut out into the rain.
Hovering above the group, the elf arched her back in pain, her arms spread, head tipped up to the black rain clouds.
The Archer rose and rushed to the ball of light, which held the elf. Yulenth tackled the Archer.
“No!” Yulenth cried, “no one touch it. I have seen men burnt to death by lightning.”
“We must help her!” Wynnfrith said.
“How do we get her out of that thing if it will kill us!?” Kellabald yelled.
The Archer nocked a flint tipped arrow. His arrow flew to the edge of the ball of light and exploded into flaming ash.
“Use a black arrow!” Yulenth said. The Archer hesitated. “For pity’s sake!”
The Archer nocked a black arrow and shot at the same spot, away from the elf. Again there was an explosion of flame, but the black arrowhead fell to the ground glowing red hot. The sphere of electricity slightly dimmed.
Inside the sphere, the elf felt the whole world go white. She knew she might die. She felt the flames of her ancestor’s spirits nearby. She knew she was being held by the Lord of the garonds, held to stop the progress of this group. She wanted to tell them to run. They needed to leave Rion Ta immediately. The pain was all encompassing. All the world was a blinding white.
Outside the cage of crackling power, the group gathered in frustrated urgency.
“What do we do?” Alrhett cried.
“Wait, wait.” Yulenth held his hand to his mouth, his mind working furiously. “The power must go to the earth... as it always does. This has not, through accident or design, this lightning has not moved to the earth. So it needs a clear path.”
Yulenth walked around the elf and her prison, his eyes blazing, his mind worked feverishly.
“Ah!” Yulenth called. “A spear!”
Kellabald moved forward with the spear he held.
“Wait!” Cried Yulenth. As Kellabald’s spear came close to the sphere of power, a finger of light licked out to Kellabald’s spear slamming him back. Wynnfrith ran to his side. He was shaken, but unharmed.
“No, no...” Yulenth puzzled. “He who holds the spear will be killed. Who will hold the spear?” Yulenth turned in a tight circle, furiously thinking. “Ah! The earth will hold it!”
Yulenth leapt to Kellabald’s spear. He held it straight skyward, but a good distance from the ball of lightning encasing the paralyzed elf. “Everyone back!” Yulenth called. With the spear firmly on the ground, he let go and the spear toppled towards the orb of purple electricity.
As the falling spear touched the prison of energy, a pop of light and blast of sound slammed the group to the mud of Rion Ta. The elf fell to the earth in pain, but alive.
The Archer rushed to her side. The others crowded around in concern.
“We must flee. He has garond troops on the way,” she said, then fainted. Kellabald looked around at his wife and the others, and then turned to the Archer.
“So we must go our separate ways sooner than I had hoped,” Kellabald said to him.
The Archer nodded in agreement. Cradling the elf, he reached for and pocketed the black arrowhead at his feet.
Lightning flashed again from far across the Meadowlands, followed by the grumble of thunder.
The night grew dark again, both of earth’s moons hidden by the black rain clouds.
“How is she?” Wynnfrith asked.
“The elf is alive, but unconscious,” The Archer said examining the strange creature comatose in his arms.
“Should she be moved?” Alrhett asked.
“We have no choice,” The Archer said rising, holding the stricken elf. “You know the way back to your village,” the Archer said to Kellabald. “And you have the white wolf to guide you to Arnwylf,” he said to Yulenth.
“Then we should build my husband’s funeral pyre back at Bittel,” Halldora mournfully said. “He would have liked it, anyway.”
With haste, a litter was fashioned for Kellabald to drag Haergill’s body.
“May all the good things of life guide you,” Kellabald said to those gathered. They all clasped hands.
Then, the three groups went on their separate quests.
The Archer carried the fatigued elf like a child in his arms, tracking the garonds who had taken Frea.
Kellabald pulled the litter bearing Haergill’s body accompanied by Wynnfrith and Halldora, on their way back to Bittel to retrieve the Mattear Gram.
And, Alrhett and Yulenth led by Conniker, the white wolf, went south to track Arnwylf.
The elf slept in the Archer’s arms. She seemed to have no weight at all. Following the tracks of the horses across the grasses of the Meadowland in the rain proved harder than the Archer had supposed. Several times he had to stop and retrace his steps. The elf was limp and breathing hard as he cradled her.
Carrying the elf reminded the Archer of his two children back in his village, Pelych, in the mountains of Kipleth. He had a daughter of eight and a son of six. Both dark haired and dark eyed like he and his wife. They were noisy and mischievous. Once, his daughter had caught the local cat and chased her brother through the village with the bewildered beast hissing and clawing. A baker dropped his armful of milled wheat as they rushed past. The baker followed after bellowing, only to trip and fall into a set of pottery left to dry for the kiln. The resulting chaos spread from merchant to family to villager. It seemed the whole village erupted into merry madness that day.
The Archer had to stop and fell to his knees weeping.
He held his sobs for waking the elf. After a moment he rose to continue his tracking. But, he had lost the trail again and back tracked through the tall summer grass. The rain intensified. The elf felt hot and feverish. The Archer thought it best to find a dry place and pick up the trail in the morning.
The river would be swollen with the night’s rain, and the garonds would have to continue west, making them easier to catch.
A solitary, squat pine tree spread its sheltering arms in the middle of the green and brow
n plain. The Archer slogged his way to the tree and found a dry space underneath to set down the elf. Her cloak immediately dried. Her head was hot and feverish, and her complexion very pale. The Archer gently set the elf in a bed of dry, pine needles, and then quietly sat next to her.
Staring out at the sheets of rain, the Archer thought of the lonely times after the destruction of Pelych. The men of Kipleth all wandered aimlessly after their return from war and the discovery of their loss. All bonds of civility had been broken. There were Kipleth villages still standing in the North, but the men of the South were all too broken hearted to be other than the faded ghosts of their former selves, wandering to and fro in the mountains.
In such a dark time, the Archer had come across a former lieutenant who also had lost all when they were away fighting the men of the Northern Kingdom. His name was Segerlan, a brave and valiant man who had lost wife, child, and parents. Segerlan had cut his wrists and was bleeding to death. As the Archer held him, his look was of great peacefulness.
“I go to them...” was all Segerlan said as he breathed his last. The Archer burned his body and staring into the flames considered following his friend into the darkness of death.
For two weeks more the Archer wandered the highest mountains of the Kipleth black stone, staring down into rocky chasms. On the fifteenth day, he came upon a group of five garonds laughing and grunting to each other as they camped in a rocky mountain pass. From the shadows, he saw that they carried weapons which were unmistakably from his very home in Pelych, and one garond even wore a cloak which he had given to his wife. He had never seen garonds fitted for battle before. Now he knew who had slaughtered his family and all the people of the village.
The rage that came over him was like a great swirling fire. With his bare hands he tore the armed garonds asunder. Then and there he vowed to extinguish the life of every garond upon the earth.
The very next night he met the blind man who gave him the black arrows. Later he learned how to shoot them.
After that, every day was a repayment of the massacre of his people. He lost count after killing over two hundred garond soldiers.
The Archer faded to fitful sleep, silently weeping and thinking of the smile of his wife. Not more than an arrow’s shot from the Archer and the elf, Frea and her captors bedded down in the grasses of the meadow with their horses in the night’s rain.
Alrhett and Yulenth trotted after the white wolf, Conniker. He moved quickly, and the old bones of Alrhett and Yulenth had trouble keeping up.
Alrhett needed to rest and called Conniker back to them several times. The white wolf circled impatiently with his nose to the ground, as Alrhett and Yulenth sat on the moss and stumps at the edge of the Weald to catch their breath. The rain was hard and cold.
Conniker licked Alrhett’s face, sniffling and woofing.
“That’s all right,” she said to the wolf. “You’re doing a fine job.”
“What? What did it say?” Yulenth asked.
“He thinks he may have lost the scent. Many others have recently tracked through here, he says.”
“Great,” Yulenth said slinking into his cloak. “Perhaps we should just make for Rogar Li and ask for help.”
Alrhett was quiet and thoughtful. “No. We cannot go there,” was all she said.
“Well, the boy is not going to get across the Bairn on his own. Perhaps he’ll cross over one of the Three Bridges of Rogar Li. Perhaps we should head for the Three Bridges.”
“No,” Alrhett said solemnly, “We cannot ask hospitality of the wealdkin.”
A long, strange, whining growl out of the dark stopped Yulenth’s protest. The hair stood up on Conniker’s back.
“What was THAT?” Yulenth whispered.
“What do you see?” She said to Conniker who seemed to be fixated on a point in the dark.
“Garonds?” Yulenth whispered with wide, frightened eyes.
“He doesn’t know,” Alrhett whispered. “He keeps saying, ‘bad thing’”.
“Perhaps we’d best move into the trees,” Yulenth whispered.
“I think that’s where it is,” Alrhett said in a low voice.
Alrhett and Yulenth slowly rose staring intently at the dark sentinels of trees at the edge of the Weald forest. Conniker sidled in front of them lowly growling. A black shape moved amongst the trees.
“Hush,” Alrhett breathed to Conniker.
Then, to their right, three garond soldiers, weaponless and noisily clicking and snapping to each other, burst through the underbrush. They were frightened and out of breath. They stopped to bellow at each other, nearly coming to blows. Then they froze.
A long, dark, undulating shape moved just within the blackness of the shadows behind the trees.
Alrhett and Yulenth cowered in the tall grass watching as the three garonds screamed as long black arms reached out and began to rend them.
Conniker’s eyes blazed, and his growl was fierce. “Silence, wolf,” Alrhett commanded.
All was quiet. The garonds were dead, and a quiet crunching sound could be heard through the hard falling rain.
Alrhett reached out and grabbed a good handful of Conniker’s bristling mane. Then, the crunching stopped, and the long, huge, slithering dark shape was moving once again amongst the trees.
With a howl, Conniker violently pulled away from Alrhett and launched himself directly at the large, dark creature.
Alrhett and Yulenth were paralyzed as a vicious battle began with the white wolf and the black thing. They could only see the bright yellow eyes, and white fangs of the dark beast as Conniker courageously attacked it. Their rending, biting and howls were awful. They moved farther and farther into the forest. Then all was silence.
“Conniker?” Alrhett called. “Conniker!”
There was no sound, no movement.
“We’d best move on, and quickly,” Yulenth said, pulling Alrhett to her feet. “We should find a place to hide far from here. Some place to weather this rain until morning. Then we can head directly for the river and look for the boy. I’m certain we’ll find him alive and weary. Perhaps we can recruit some wealdkin to help us in our search.”
Alrhett was shaken and silent. Yulenth gently pulled Alrhett along the edge of the Weald.
They found an expansive, sheltering hollow in a large oak. Yulenth helped his wife in. And then, Yulenth, with his sword on his lap, fell to sleep sitting in front of Alrhett.
Kellabald dragged the litter bearing Haergill’s body as quickly as he could over the fields of the Eastern Meadowland. The open grassy plain was no place to spend the night, too many hungry predators roamed freely. And after encountering the horse riding garonds, Kellabald felt a new unease with the vulnerable openness of the grasses swaying in the hard rain. The dark, storm clouds covered the light from Nunee and the Wanderer, earth’s two moons. It helped to move under the darkness the storm provided.
Halldora and Wynnfrith trudged behind Kellabald and his burden. They each shouldered a rope tied to either end of the makeshift bier to help Kellabald move as quickly as he could.
Wynnfrith looked up to see Haergill’s ghost crouching before her, and she stumbled, falling to the turf. The party stopped.
“He’s there!” Wynnfrith hissed.
“Who’s where?” Kellabald said as he set down the litter and walked to his wife’s side.
“Haergill!”
Kellabald and Halldora peered into the empty darkness.
“What do you see?” Kellabald honestly asked, knowing full well the reliable power of his wife’s visions.
“It is Haergill, but it is not,” Wynnfrith exclaimed.
“His spirit?!” Halldora breathed.
“I believe it is so,” Wynnfrith quietly said. “He wears dark clothing, a stealthy cloak, and crouches with his spear.”
The hairs stood up on Kellabald’s neck for he understood instantly.
“We must drag the litter quickly off the path. I was following the trail we made to Rion Ta
in hopes of getting some meat if it remained on the stauer carcass. Now I see Haergill warns us of my folly,” he said.
The three pulled the bier many paces south of their directly westward trek.
“Down, and silent. As Haergill has shown us.” Kellabald whispered.
An instant after the three crouched down in the grass, a phalanx of thirty horse garonds crashed across the meadow in a wedge formation. Every sleeping and secret animal fled before them. The horse garonds were swift and quickly out of sight.
“We must quicken our pace,” Kellabald said as he shouldered Haergill’s funeral bier. The three carried the body as fast as they could, apprehensively glancing back now and then.
The rain continued on into the deepening gloom of the evening. It was close to the middle of the night when Kellabald spotted the tips of the dead stauer’s antlers towering above the grass.
They set down Haergill’s body and drew the swords and daggers they had found at Rion Ta. As they neared the clearing, Kellabald stopped dead in his tracks.
“I see him now!” He breathed in a horrified whisper.
“What do you see?!” Halldora hushed.
“He stands in great battle armor, brandishing his sword with shield aloft. He blocks the way. We may not pass.”
“Let us wait a moment,” Wynnfrith said.
The three settled into the grass of the meadow at the edge of the clearing. The wolves had eaten nearly half the giant animal. It was then that Kellabald noticed the groups of long slashes on the dead beast's haunches. No wolf made such a mark. At the moment Wynnfrith gripped his arm in fear, he saw what she saw. Five meadow lions, yellow eyes sparkling, waited on the other side of the clearing for fresh meat to inspect the dead stauer.
Slowly and as quietly as possible the three crept back to Haergill’s body and continued on to Bittel.
Walking all night, they finally reached their former home. They cautiously approached the village of three modest huts hidden amongst an island of trees, but all was deserted and silent.
All their possessions had been broken and strewn about. A great search had taken place.
It had stopped raining and the morning sun began to break on the weary, hungry, tired three.
“Perhaps they found it.” Kellabald moaned.
“I do not believe so.” Halldora said introspectively. “He hid the sword well. I do not believe it would be so easily uncovered.”
“Then, let us give your husband his honorable funeral and then search for ourselves,” Wynnfrith said to Halldora.
The three found dry wood and built a pedestal for Haergill. Some of his royal robes were found, and they dressed him in red and gold. Then they lit the fire.
As Haergill went to his ancestors, Wynnfrith and Kellabald held Halldora, who quietly shook with tears.
After a time Halldora spoke. “They always recited three riddles to each other. Haergill asked me to never question, but I understood the riddles held the key to the hiding place of the Mattear Gram.”
“I shelter you from rain and sun,
Warm you when the cold days come,
With arms outstretched, old and grooved,
A leaning friend, I can’t be moved.
To the silver traveler I have no end,
I’m the mother winding round your friend,
As long, as far, as distant lands,
Pick me up; I’m not in your hands.
I build the castle, and then tear it down,
I count the minutes without a frown,
I’m found by the score under land and sea
And what you seek is under me.”
All three stared into the dying flames. Then they all saw him at once.
“Do you-?”
“It’s him!”
“My husband!”
Haergill was dressed as a simple villager of Bittel. His specter was peaceful and content. He raised his arm and gestured. He seemed to speak and point. But no sound could be heard.
“The Mattear Gram! Show us the sword!” Kellabald shouted.
But the ghost faded.
“Yes,” said a deep, snide voice coming from behind a three. “Show us the sword.”
Kellabald, Wynnfrith, and Halldora turned to find they were at the mercy of a high atheling of the Northern Kingdom of Man, Apghilis.
