Darkling Fields of Arvon

by James G Anderson

  Meriones lifted an eyebrow at Kal and nodded his assent. "There is wisdom enough in your words," he said. "While all people of Ahn Norvys are now your people and in your custody, the remnant folk of Lammermorn, being the remnant of the folk of Lammermorn, have a particular and uniquely important role to play in the unfolding of things. Their fate is without a doubt inexorably tied to yours as the Hordanu. They are the remnant of the chosen of Ahn Norvys. You must make ready to go, now that the people are rested. Their path must take them out of Nua Cearta, and you must lead them hence."

  "And where am I to lead them? Where shall I go?"

  "What did Wilum tell you?"

  "Not enough," Kal said with a dark chuckle.

  "If Wilum was half the mentor to you that I suspect he was, then he would have made it plain to you. Did he not?"

  "Yes, but how am I—"

  "Trust in yourself. And trust in your office. Steel yourself, Master Kalaquinn, my lord Myghternos Hordanu, and take but the first step upon the path that lies before you. Every journey, even the most difficult and dire, is taken one step at a time."

  "So, what lies before me?"

  "Indeed, what lies now before you?

  "The Marshes of—"

  Meriones lifted his hand to stop Kal, and gently shook his head. " 'Tis best that you do not tell me. Tell no one but your closest and most trusted companions. 'Tis far safer that way. The fewer who know, the fewer can tell."

  Kal sighed, then lifted his head and squared his shoulders. "Then I shall make ready to go."

  "It must be so," Meriones said.

  "Yes, yes. I must confer with Magan Hammermaster."

  "And soon. And, if you have not yet done so, you must recount the events that have befallen your people, all of them, before time dulls the edge of your remembering. Such is your bounden duty as Hordanu, to append your own narrative to that of your forebears in the Chronicles of the Harmonic Age, particularly as that age begins to falter. I shall return the texts to you immediately."

  "I thank you, Meriones, heartfully, that you bring me to mind of my duty."

  "But, my lord Hordanu, while you are duty-bound, be not bound by duty. Rather, embrace your fate freely, unhesitatingly and unflinchingly, with all the passion that is proper to your youth and innate disposition. Kalaquinn, be Hordanu. Study your Lay of Investiture. The ancient texts may expose the past, but this"—Meriones tapped the page in Kal's hand—"this illumines your future, and that, I believe, of all Ahn Norvys. But enough for the nonce. I have said my piece, presumptuous as it may have been of me to speak my mind. My thanks to you for hearing me. Now, come, let us to Sterentref."

  Five

  Dusk was falling in Nua Cearta as the small party meandered back across the training grounds to where the great bird was perched. They had separately enjoyed the sleepy leisure of a summer's afternoon, but come the evening, Magan's curiosity had brought them together again. The field of arms lay deserted. The air was filled now with the ringing of the crossed swords of mirthful wit. Much to Kal's amusement, the hammerson king and his bard once again heaved and parried the blows of good-natured jest—Magan's keen jibes were each well met by the staid, almost morose, constancy of the stern-faced bard. The king had proven to be an incorrigible tease. Kal had grown comfortable in his presence; indeed, he found he had become quite fond of both Magan and his advisor.

  A keening cry rose above their banter.

  Meriones stopped short and held back King Magan, gripping him by the sleeve.

  "Hark! What is this?"

  "Fear not. 'Tis only Dhu," Alcesidas said, evidently amused at the look of alarm etched across the bard's face. "But his cry is changed. Something is amiss?"

  "You have a good ear, Alcesidas. You will make a fine and attentive master to Dhu. He grows restless on his roost and desires to be quit of it. Come, let us to him quickly."

  Again the fellhawk shrieked—a short, piercing note, importunate and insistent. Kal broke into a jog, leading his companions across the rest of the training ground. Soon the bird came into view, bobbing on its perch, half lifting dark wings from its sides, shrugging its shoulders as if giving air to a bemused consternation over its state of confinement. Again, Dhu tilted his head to the dark void above and emitted another shrill cry.

  "Upon my hammer, Kalaquinn, you were right. One tunnel wolf would have been enough," said Alcesidas, breathless behind Kal as they eased their pace and approached the fellhawk.

  On the ground before Dhu lay the stripped corpse of one of the two great tunnel wolves. White bone, stark in the ghostly, faltering light, protruded from beneath a tattered pelt. The second carcass remained largely untouched. Already it had begun to spoil and attract flies.

  "It is as I said. He will glut on fresh meat but leave the rest as carrion. All the same, he must have been famished, else he would not have eaten as much as he did. But now he grows restless and desires to take up the hunt on his own." Kal reached up and ran his hand down the fellhawk's chest, croodling to him softly. Dhu stooped his head and caught one of Kal's fingers gently in his curved beak.

  "Yes, Dhu, yes. All right, then. You shall have your freedom."

  The Holdsman bent his hands to the nearest of the jesses, even as King Magan and Meriones caught up and rejoined them, remaining at a distance beyond the range of Dhu's traces.

  "By your leave, Sire," Kal said, glancing over his shoulder at the king leaning heavily on his staff, "now that Dhu knows that tunnel wolf must be his quarry, I shall set him free to roam the vaulted skies of your kingdom."

  "You may do as you see fit, my lord Hordanu." The king nodded his assent. The fellhawk cried again and, spreading its wings, flapped twice, straining upwards, ungainly on the crossbar.

  "Easy, Dhu. Stay yourself. You must give me a moment yet to unbind you."

  Alcesidas stepped up to the perch and began to stroke the fellhawk, speaking gentle words of reassurance.

  "Many thanks, Alcesidas. Re'm ena, but you do have a way with this bird." In the growing gloom, Kal's fingers fumbled at the knots that bound the leather traces to the jesses.

  "There, we are done. Now, on your way and good hunting, Dhu. Go on now. Off you go . . . You must step back from him, Alcesidas, else he will stay fixed to that post as surely as if he were still bound to it." Kal laughed.

  As Alcesidas moved away, the fellhawk unclenched his talons from the crossbeam and lifted himself into the gloaming with great wing beats. Alcesidas and Kal both shrank back instinctively, brushed by the billowing wind from Dhu's wings. So, too, did Magan and Meriones.

  "The wingspan, Sire, 'tis a wonder. 'Tis wide enough to easily compass three, nigh four hammersons standing one upon the other, and to spare." Meriones's head rose back, as did the others', marking the black form's mounting progress. They watched Dhu climb gracefully through the twilit sky and wheel away above the field of arms in the direction of the borderlands, until at last he faded into the growing darkness and could be seen no longer.

  "What excitement this fellhawk of yours will stir in Nua Cearta, Kalaquinn. 'Tis good that our people are well warned," Alcesidas said.

  Meriones still stared after the fellhawk, long lost to sight, with knitted brow and tightdrawn lips. Turning to Kal, he said, "My lord Hordanu, are you certain that yon monster will molest neither folk nor flock?"

  "Rest easy, my good bard. No harm will come to them, of that you may be assured. As for the deer in His Majesty's royal chase . . . Well, I can offer no surety that—"

  "How so? What mean you?" King Magan raised his voice in dismay.

  "Fie, Kalaquinn! 'Tis a poorly turned jest at Magan Hammermaster's expense," the prince said in a tone of feigned disapproval.

  "It would seem our good Hordanu knows you all too well, Sire," said Meriones, the hint of a smile playing across his face. "I doubt me not but that Queen Almagora has plied him with endless tales of your deeds as a huntsman. Or, at the very least, her deeds as a huntsman's wife, striving in valiant effort to break her hus
band of his—what would she say? . . . Obsession? Compulsion? What say you, my lord prince? . . . His passion?"

  Magan chuckled at the jest, then grew suddenly quiet at a thought.

  "Mayhaps my erstwhile deeds as a huntsman, should there be no more game," he said. "Who knows but that the tunnel wolves have already emptied my chase?" As quickly as a puff of summer cloud blots then unmasks the sun's bright face, the king's anxiety passed, and his tone lightened again. "And doubtless, my lord Hordanu, you are not wholly unaware how dear to my heart also are the pleasures of mead." The king winked and placed a hand on Kal's arm, smiling broadly. "Come, let us back to Sterentref, and to the Alechamber. 'Tis fit—our meed, one might say—that we should raise a bumper or two and slake our thirst."

  That evening, in the cosy confines of the Alechamber, panelled in oak and dimly lit by half-shuttered avalynnia and a small fire in the hearth, it was Magan himself who regaled them with tales of his exploits in the King's Chase. Frysan and Galli joined them there, as did Gwyn. The other Holdsmen and a collection of hammersons sat talking in knots around the small hall. Narasin's voice lifted above the drone of conversation in point of some practice of husbandry, while Thurfar evinced by animated gesture the art of the archer at the butts. In a corner, Devved leaned his heavy frame on the thick oaken board in front of him as he bent his head to one side, attentive to the talk, no doubt of smithcraft, that engrossed the three hammersons with whom he sat.

  Kal slowly drank in the whole of it, his gaze shifting among the assembled folk. A depth of cheer took possession of him. He sighed contentedly, lifted his tankard and pulled at the ale's warming spice. He returned his cup to the table and his attention to the prince beside him. Alcesidas's bearded face broke into a beaming smile. He thumped Kal on the back, then slammed his fist on the table. Meriones broke midsentence from the story he was telling as he and his listeners turned to look at the prince.

  "A song!"

  The room grew quiet at the disturbance.

  "A song! Come, Master Kalaquinn, you who art Hordanu, sing us a song to dress the meat of our merriment! A song, I say!"

  "No . . . no, Alcesidas—"

  "What? No? What say you, friends?" Alcesidas pushed himself up from the table and stood leaning on his knuckled fists. "Shall we have a song? What say you?"

  The room erupted in clapping, laughter, and calls for Kal to sing.

  "Come, my lord Hordanu, what say you now?"

  Kal rose slowly from his seat with mock weariness and discomfiture, and again the hall burst into acclaim. Then he lifted his hands.

  "Very well, very well, if you insist. What shall I sing?"

  The question elicited a series of suggestions from the gathered Holdsmen—some met with cheers, some with abuse, all of which seemed to amuse the hammersons to no end. From the opposite side of the Alechamber, Diggory guffawed loud and long, giving vent to a mirth that could be matched only by the king's. Kal smiled and winked and again raised his hands in an attempt to quell the boisterous crowd.

  "I shall sing . . . I shall . . ." He paused, twice interrupted, then began again. "I shall sing for your pleasure a finely turned lay . . . as I am, after all, Hordanu—"

  A fresh chorus of cheers arose amid the clank of raised tankards. Kal laughed.

  "It is a lay in the mode of our upperland home," he said and waved a hand to forestall yet another round of approbation. "And while it may not, truth be told, befit the royal company in whose august presence we find ourselves this evening"—Kal nodded to the king and his sons beside him—"I think it more than befits the occasion. It is a lay wrought in the tongue of our native Clanholding of Lammermorn, and yet I have little doubt that you, our fine hammerfolk brothers, who have proven yourselves so adept at acquiring mastery of all our upperland skills, shall find little difficulty in tuning your ear to its tune and training your mind to its meaning—"

  "Less talk, more song!" a voice broke out from the crowd.

  "Yes, yes, yes. So we come to it. Galligaskin, a beat, if you please."

  Galli began drumming his hands upon the table as Kal made his way to the centre of the room.

  "Faster, Galli! 'Tis a jig!"

  "But you said it was a lay," someone cried.

  "And so 'tis. I am Hordanu—I sing only lays. Faster, Galli!" Kal winked, grinning at his friend.

  The rhythm of the drumming increased in speed as Kal began to tap his feet from toe to heel and turn in a slow circle, his hands upon his waist. Soon the cadence was caught up by clapping hands and stomping feet.

  Kal raised his voice and said, " 'Tis a lay . . . 'Tis the 'Song of The Three Maidens.' "

  Diggory practically squealed his delight as he giggled. "Aye, 'tis my favourite," he said, looking around at his tablemates. "The three bonnies! How I do love them!"

  With that, while his feet flew, and all about him his fellows clapped and whistled, Kal began to sing.

  "Three damsels come daily, to me they sing gaily,

  Three maids of whom I've had my fill!

  Three beyond compare—the one, she is fair,

  And one dark, and one darker still.

  "The fair one is bitter, the darker, her sister,

  Is heavy, the third carries a bit.

  By these three I've been ruined, made many-a-day truant,

  From good work, and good reason, and wit.

  "Yet I laugh, 'Ah, my pretties, 'tis such a sad pity,

  Ye've robbed me of wife, house, and purse!

  I've nought ye t'offer from out my life's coffer

  Save for my good heart and my mirth.

  "And it saddens my heart, that by nature's cruel art

  I'm not framed as I ought to be,

  With but one mouth and two hands, I'll ne'er fully command

  At one time the lot of you three!'

  "Ah, this my dire state! And this my grim fate!

  But I am resigned to my lot.

  One after another, they'll help me recover,

  For I am a merry old sot!

  "So come, fellows, and hearken, by the tun or the firkin,

  For I know that you know beyond doubt

  That nought brings as good cheer as good comp'ny and beer!

  So let's drink to Ale, Porter, and Stout!"

  In the last line of the song, Kal snatched a clay mug from the hand of a nearby hammerson, raised it in salute, then drained it to the lees. The song thus ended, the fluid rhythm of Galli's drumming was soon drowned in cheers and applause. Kal bowed, restored the now-empty mug to its laughing owner, and then returned to his seat. He was met by the enthusiastic praise of Magan, Meriones, and Alcesidas, together with Magan's other son, the young prince, his own father, Frysan, Galli, and the others at table with them.

  Soon another song was sung, then another, and so an exchange of song ensued between hammerson and Holdsman, each sharing the hearth-spun wealth of his world with the other. Alcesidas was pressed into singing, albeit with little reluctance on his part. Even Magan sang a snippet, a ditty that won him a loud tribute of praise, certainly due more to his rank and the influence of an evening's ale consumption upon the assembly than to the merit of his performance. Meriones demurred from singing, insisting that the tenor of the dirges he knew would ill fit the blithe spirit of the evening.

  Songs eventually gave way to tales, and tales to talk. Magan returned to reliving memories of the chase as the night wore on, and Kal listened with interest.

  It had been some weeks since the king had indulged himself in the hunt. The King's Chase was bodeful ground now, too dangerous to tread, given over to the tunnel wolves, for it was a naturally enclosed area of dense forest and thickets that delved the mountain beyond the very borderlands of Nua Cearta, full of dens and hollows. In its remote wildness, it was the perfect place for breeding game, but also a natural haunt for the tunnel wolves.

  The company had thinned as people took their leave by ones and twos of the king and his party. The eyes of those who remained grew heavy-lidded,
and the banter fell off. Heads nodded with weariness. Finally, as he returned for a second time to the story of a near-fatal encounter with a boar, even Magan found himself unable to fend off a yawn. This provoked a succession of gently stifled yawns around the table.

  " . . . there is not a beast more fearsome than was that one," Magan went on, "not even your vaunted Boar, Ferabek, my lord Hordanu—but, alas, clearly I have turned bore unto my guests." He yawned again, his words becoming laboured. "The time has come, methinks, to adjourn this audience."

  The king struggled to his feet. Turning, he noted the vacant space beside him on the bench. "I see that Meriones has already slipped away. Ever the wise man, he."

  Gwyn, who had fallen asleep, his head nudging a tankard on the table, had to be roused and helped to his feet.

  "Come along, lad. Give me a hand with him, will you, Galli?" said Kal.

  With sluggish steps the men left the hall and sought their bedchambers, eager now for nothing but the softness of pillow and sheet and sleep.

  Six

  Kal had risen early, prompted by a nagging restlessness, well before the first blush of dawn light rose from the avalynnia scattered throughout the underground realm. He had tossed and turned, unable to fall back to sleep, staring into the darkness until he finally resigned himself to climbing out of bed and dressing. Fumbling in the darkness, he managed to unshutter an avalynn lamp, then dressed himself and moved to the window. He drew back the curtains and looked out into the utter blackness of the Nua Ceartan night, a blackness punctuated by nothing more than a handful of pinprick lights scattered throughout the city spread beneath him. The upperworld landscape, he knew, would be bathed tonight in the soft silvery glow of a full moon; but here, the impenetrable inkiness veiled everything and seemed strangely suffocating to him. Kal pulled the heavy curtains closed again.