"Aye, North Wolf," Alon said. "You let me and my old brother here worry about the sharpness of blades and eyes and such, and you ... well, you just worry about quenching that thirst of yours."
Yasen nodded his head in understanding, and in that moment something akin to true gratitude washed over his dirt-stained body. "Even here on these wild shores, and in this darkened wilderness, home is not far if we look to find it," he said, a bit more sentimental than he had expected.
"Aye," Alon agreed. "Home is where you make it, or so my mother always told us." Alon turned his attention back towards the exposed, white flesh of the massive soldier pine in front of him. "Now, see about telling Gvidus to hurry it up, huh?"
Yasen spurred the Friesian and the two of them rode off with a hopeful eagerness towards the swinging lanterns of the ox cart. "Good day there, Chieftain!" bellowed the round-bellied Gvidus. "How goes the progress of our axe-wielding brothers this fine, black morning?"
"Better now, brother," Yasen said as his horse trotted alongside the ox cart. "Better now." Yasen stared at Gvidus as he rode, almost afraid to ask the question for fear that the answer might not be to his liking. So he raised his dark eyebrows instead, letting their movement ask the question for him.
"Aye," Gvidus said softly. "He is safe alright, though I thought for a moment he would have to relieve Pyrrhus of his other arm to be so."
Yasen breathed a long-anticipated sigh of relief, raising the cold flint to his lips to kiss it in practiced thankfulness. "So it looks as if you will be staying on these wild shores a bit longer now, huh groomsman?"
"Thanks to you, I am," came the muffled sound of the groomsman's voice, out from under the canvas and sackcloth that concealed him. Cal pulled back the covering and, by the faint, violet light of his hopeful illumination, he saw his friend and chieftain riding beside him.
"Did you hear the horns, Yasen?" Cal said a bit nervously. "I fear it means that they have discovered I am no longer held prisoner."
"I fear the same, brother," Yasen replied. "Which means we haven't much time to waste now. Gvidus, pull the cart over there, just to the left of those cutters." He pointed and directed the large driver to where he wanted him to go. "It is there that we must unload our barreled bounty and bid farewell to its rather reckless contents," he said with a playful smirk.
"Aye, Chieftain," Gvidus replied, his eyes sparkling with the self-satisfaction of a sweet-toothed grandfather who had just been caught in the act of over-indulging his little heirs.
They rode in tandem for a few hundred paces before Cal broke the silent pregnancy of the moment. "Yasen?" Cal started, pausing in the lingering emptiness of an unspoken question. The consequences of the hour were heavy on the heart of the groomsman, but there was another pressing matter that vied for his attention.
Yasen looked straight ahead as he rode beside the ox cart, his eyes fixed on the flickering braziers of his woodcutting comrades. "Goran is with her still," he said, gaze unwavering.
Cal breathed a sigh of relief loud enough for Yasen to hear. The woodcutter felt, as he had almost every day since his arrival on these strange and wild shores, the lonely leagues of distance between he and his curly-haired bar maiden. "I thought it was the light that you were seeking, the new light of the THREE who is SEVEN at that … not just the affections of some violet-eyed woman?" Yasen asked, a bit too jealously to wholly conceal.
"Oh, I am, brother," Cal said with a sincere grace. "Never you worry about that, for there is nothing is this wild world that would ever truly sway my heart from its course."
"Spoken easily enough from one who has not had the pleasure of tasting the crimson-lipped sweetness of Aiénor's fairer beauties," Yasen said with a goading smirk. "Mind that you don't find yourself caught in the web of her arms, powerless to seek the light you hope to find."
Cal laughed an understanding laugh, and looked to his bearded friend in hopes that his gaze might convey his true intentions. "It's not that I ... that I don't know what it is that you are warning me of, brother. It's only, well ... that I believe my finding this light, this new light, is somehow wrapped up in finding it with her."
They rode silently together, save for the clopping of the mighty Friesian's hooves and the creaking and cranking of the iron rimmed wheels over the pitted and wild ground. Finally, at the tree line of the woodcutters, they reached two bridled horses that were tethered to the low branches of a young fir tree.
"Looks as if we have arrived, groomsman," Gvidus proclaimed with a jovial twinkle in his eye. "Now, save your elder brother some trouble and help me with these barrels before you leave us this somber day."
"Of course," Cal replied. The kindness of his smile reflected the gratitude of his heart as he and Deryn leapt down from the back of the ox cart to the moss covered ground below.
"I doubt that there is much time to spare, Gvidus," Yasen said sternly. "Seig's men are sure to suspect our brothers in the wake of Cal's disappearance, and I for one would rather see many leagues between us, rather than see him bound in irons aboard that silver ship again."
Gvidus nodded his understanding and sat back down upon his driver's bench, resigned to a sore night's sleep. "Very well then, young groomsman, when you have found your new light, make sure that you come repay your heavy barreled debt to me," he said with a wry smile.
"Indeed I shall, Gvidus," Cal said in return. "Thank you." The gleam in the eyes of the young man made it clear that he was thanking the woodcutter for far more than a reprieve from moving the barrels.
"Seek the light, brother!" The round-bellied woodcutter cracked the reigns on the team of tired oxen, calling back over his shoulder as the cart creaked to life and rolled off towards the line of thirsty woodcutters. "And mind that you find it!"
Cal could not help but smile as he drove away, and he was smiling still when he met the gaze of the two horses tethered to a young fir tree. "Farran!" Cal shouted in surprised glee.
The silver-coated horse snorted and nodded his head in agreeable recognition as Cal ran to his companion and wrapped his arms around his broad, muscled neck. "You are a sight for sore eyes, my friend!"
Farran lowered his large head to rest atop the shoulder of the groomsman, saying without words that he too was glad to see his old friend.
The sound of an aggravated snort came from the large chestnut that stood just a few paces away. "And I am glad to see you too, girl," Cal said with amusement as he stroked and patted her soft, dark coat.
The brass of the guardsmen's horns broke the tenderness of the reunion, like a heavy boot upon winter's first fragile frost. "You will have plenty of time for all sorts of pleasantries later. Now you must leave, before those cavalrymen get here first," Yasen urged. "Come, brother, you have to ride like the wind."
Cal could feel the ground beneath him begin to rumble with the sound of heavy hooves swiftly approaching, and he could see the flickering amber of the knight's torches as they closed in on their position there atop the hilled tree line. He halted for a moment, knowing the wrath that might be in store for his woodcutting brothers if their aid to him was ever known.
"Cal!" Yasen urged, a hard edge creeping into his voice. "You must leave now, for I haven't the stomach to start a war this dark morning."
Cal nodded, and with a single, fluid motion he put boot to stirrup and mounted his grey horse. He took the reins in his hand and fixed his subtle, violet gaze to the north.
"Thank you, brother," Cal said swiftly. "I am indebted to you beyond what I would know how to repay."
Yasen shook his head, brushing aside the dramatic words of his friend. "If it wasn't me, I am sure that Sprite guardian of yours would have done it," he said with a wink.
Cal looked to the faint glowing pocket inside his coat, the blue light reflecting off of the bronzed-armored chest piece and a knowing smile came over his face. "Perhaps you are not far from the truth, North Wolf," Cal said with a laugh.
"I almost forgot!" Yasen said as he reached inside the roll
of canvas affixed to the back of his saddle.
"Gwarwyn!" Cal exclaimed, his voice colored with the hopeful hues of utter relief. "I ... I thought, but how?" he said as he stumbled over his words.
"Never you mind," Yasen cut him off. "Ride, ride now ... ride for the sake of all of us. Seek this new light, my brother."
The shaking of the ground beneath them grew stronger and stronger as the convoy of riders came closer with each passing moment.
"What about Astyræ?" Cal said worriedly. "Where is she? Where did Goran take her?"
"The cave, about a half a league from here," Yasen said as quickly as he could. "The same cave we sent her to before … before all of this. Ride until the ground turns to the stony banks of the creek bed. From there you will have to ride into the forests a hundred or so paces. If they are safe, that is where Goran was told to meet her."
Cal nodded his understanding. He took a last farewell glance at the woodcutters, and then reached out his arm for his friend. "We, by the THREE who is SEVEN," Cal said, looking at the scarred and patched face of his brother.
"We, by the THREE who is SEVEN," Yasen replied. "Now ride!"
Cal leaned close to the ear of his silver-coated friend and whispered his intentions. "Alright, Farran, let's find her." And then, with a spur of his boots, Cal and the two horses took off northward in pursuit of the violet-eyed woman. His heart was anxious, hoping that all of this imprisonment and exile would not be the folly he feared it might be.
Chapter Thirty-Two
THE STAIRS INSIDE THE KEEP of the prison hold spiraled endlessly down into the earthen soil of Haven's underbelly. Michael and Timorets did their best to help the large, wounded schoolmaster as he took slow, pain-inducing steps down into the depths of the keep. Meanwhile, Fryon and his younger brother went before the rest to make sure that the way stayed clear for their escape.
There was not much light here in the dank and musky corridor, save for a single torch that Engelmann had set ablaze with his magic, and the five men were at the mercy of each grimly lit step that they took.
"Argh!" Celrod groaned as he tripped and stumbled, placing too much of his large frame upon his arrow-pierced leg. "How much deeper can one possibly deem necessary when tunneling into the earth of Aiénor?"
"I think it all depends on the depth of whatever it is you hope to tunnel under," Timorets replied rather matter-of-factly. "It is the mighty Abonris, after all ... and I for one have not plumbed its depths, though I doubt it could be much—"
"Bottom!" Fryon called back up to his trailing companions. "We reached the bottom!"
"See," Timorets said with a self-satisfied smile. "Maybe I should have been the schoolmaster."
Celrod just grunted and shook his head in pained disagreement.
"Hurry now, my boys," Engelmann urged the limping three. "I fear that swiftness ..." his words trailed off as if he were listening to some distant but familiar sound.
"You fear that swiftness … what?" Michael said, a bit worried. "Engelmann? What-"
Michael and the rest had finally reached the floor of the stony, mold-covered stairs, and by the glow of Engelmann's torch the six of them caught sight of the hauntingly black entrance to the long-abandoned passageway. As if the idea of the tunnel itself were not unsettling enough, two large, partially closed eyes were carved into the stone structure, crowning its black opening.
"The Menashe," Engelmann groaned quietly as if remembering a deeply painful moment from his youth.
"Look here!" the younger of the brothers pointed between the massive, ocular carvings. "What is this symbol? What does it mean?"
"It is the mark of Kaestor," the schoolmaster said. "The sigil of the house of the mad king."
"Grief shows itself in all manners of form," Engelmann scolded. "And the reign of Kaestor was the pinnacle of sorrow for Haven. See here, what outlines the great tree?"
"It is a tear, is it not?" Michael asked.
"It is indeed, my boy," Engelmann praised him with a sad smile. "For a powerful man who must bury his daughter might foolishly believe that in burying the rest of the world, he might bring her back from the grave."
"It sounds like madness to me," Celrod spoke.
"And indeed it was madness ... though not just madness," Engelmann lamented. "Many prisoners, both criminals and countrymen, walked this path of the forgotten to their senseless doom … vain sacrifices on the altar of a twisted grief."
"Even the mighty Abonris mourns the deeds of this place," Michael said as he felt the droplets of cold water fall and splash against the stone passageway.
"Let us hope that we too will not meet our demise at the end of this tunnel," Fryon mused.
"Aye," said the brewer in nervous agreement as he raised his flint to his lips and kissed it in search of strength.
"Come on, then," Celrod urged. "Enough about the dead in a place like this."
"Do not dismay too much, my friends," Engelmann said as he reached his leathery hands up to catch the tears of the ancient river; the droplets gathered and rolled like quicksilver in his magical grasp. "For perhaps such absurdity might yet have its redemption."
CLANG! The sound of an iron door crashing against the stone above them rang out in the chamber, bringing a startling end to their conversation.
"Quickly now!" Michael said. "They have breached the keep."
The lot of them moved as fast as they could, limping along in the ancient, tear-soaked darkness of Kaestor's Doom by the light of a single torch. The distant echo of boots clamoring down stone stairs urged them further into the passageway, beyond the boundaries of all reason and sensibilities.
"Do you know where this ends?" Fryon whispered from up ahead of the group. "Where the Menashe resurfaces?"
"Probably into the very chambers of the bloody Priest King himself," said Timorets. "Wouldn't that just be our luck, huh?"
"Right now I don't mind where it ends," Celrod said through pain-gritted teeth. "As long as we get there before any more points of the Raven Army's arrows reach our backs!"
"The schoolmaster is right!" agreed the younger brother.
The ground beneath them began to rumble, and the six looked at each other's torch-lit eyes for some kind of confirmation that they were not the only one to have felt the tremors.
"Did you?" Michael asked in a nervous whisper.
"Aye, I did," replied the brewer.
"What was it?" Celrod asked the Arborist. "What kind of hells-" he was interrupted as a large drop of water splashed in his face. "What in the damnable dark?" the schoolmaster recoiled a bit too loudly.
"What?" Timorets asked. "What is the matter, Celrod?"
The ground shook again, this time more violently than before, and the group of six went sprawling to the wet, stone floor. As they did, the distinct sound of something ripping through the air went speedily overhead.
"They are here!" Michael shouted in a whisper.
WHOOSH! An exploratory volley of arrows bounced and pinged off the stone walls of the Menashe.
"Engelmann!" Fryon whispered urgently. "The torch!"
The ground shook again, and this time the tears of the river began to fall in trickling streams of lament, rather than the single droplets of ancient sorrow.
Engelmann breathed his magic over the torch, and the golden flames vanished into a smoky mist of spent illumination.
The sounds of spilling water and scrambling feet urged them to hurry. "What do we do now?" Timorets said as an arrow sailed past him, a mere arm's length from his face.
"We run!" Michael said. "We run, now!"
The groomsman and the brewer helped the wounded schoolmaster to his feet, then they pointed themselves to the blackened unknown and ran as fast as they could manage.
"Where are we going?" Fryon shouted back over his shoulder, no longer careful to be quiet.
"Further in!" Engelmann shouted in reply.
The ground shook even more violently, and once again the six went sprawling against the wet ston
e. Arrows pinged and whizzed recklessly, and the fugitives could not bring themselves to stand. Then, without warning, a most horrifying scream filled the chamber with a wailing lament.
"What is that?" Michael screamed into the utter darkness. "What is that sound?"
The walls shook, and the floor quaked, and the icy-cold blue of the mighty river began to empty itself into the passageway below. Trickles turned into streams, and the horror of the moment dawned on each of them at the same time. The Menashe was going to collapse.
"Engelmann!" Michael shouted as he reached and grabbed for his friend. "Engelmann, what is that sound?"
The eyes of the Arborist opened their heavy lids, and the pale, leaf-green kindness that had once lived in the stare of the old sage was replaced with a dim, blue flame. "It is finished," he whispered ominously.
"What?" Michael shouted against the screams and terror of this maddened moment. "What is finished? What do you mean?"
"The light … it has left us …" Engelmann said, choking back his emotions. "The tree is dead; the great light is extinguished from Aiénor forever." His eyes closed once again, squeezing out the tears that had collected there. The face of the great Arborist crumpled in pain, and a moaning sound of deep lament and anguish escaped his still parted lips.
The ground shook all the more violently now, and they all knew that this pathway of the forgotten would not hold much longer. The raven-fletched arrows of the invading army split the cascading streams of the river's breach, and the rush of wind across the face of the younger brother woke him from his stunned horror. "They … they are coming for us, friends, and I for one did not barely escape the tongues of fire just to suffer the tears of flood or the bite of arrows!" he urged desperately. "We must go!"
"Come on, my brother is right!" Fryon agreed as he grabbed Celrod's arm and pulled him back to his feet.
Michael watched his friend and teacher, crouching amidst the assault of arrows and the invasion of the cold Abonris. "It was their defilement that broke the heart of the tree for good, but it was our complacency that dealt the first blow," Engelmann shouted against the rush of river and whoosh of arrows. "Doom is upon us all now, my dear boy!"
The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2) Page 29