The Tsurani hit the goblins like a battering ram, bowling over the forward ranks, sending their dying bodies crashing backwards, while Kingdom troops swarmed in on the flanks.
The slaughter was horrifying: within seconds a score of goblins were dead, or gasping out their last breaths and the rest were running in panic back down the hill.
Asayaga emerged from the ranks, a grin lighting his features as he staggered up the last few steps of the trail to stand before Dennis.
‘Stupid creatures, you would think the same trick would not work twice.’
Dennis nodded in agreement.
Asayaga looked past him and his features dropped. ‘The trail. What now?’
‘We go up into the rocks.’
‘I thought there was a pass?’
Dennis did not reply.
From further down the mountain it did indeed look as if there was a pass, but that had only led them though the first layer of the mountain range; this higher second barrier had been concealed beyond. It was territory he had never ventured into and even Gregory had seemed a bit off-balance at first when they had glimpsed the higher range beyond. Only Tinuva had pushed onward without comment.
‘Where are the elf and the Natalese?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? So what are we to do?’
‘I told you, we go up into the rocks.’
‘And I thought the goblins were stupid. You lead us up here? Better we had never crossed the river.’
‘I didn’t ask you to come along on this,’ Dennis snapped. ‘You could have stayed on the other side of the damned river for all I care. We’re here, this is it, so get used to it!’
‘That is your answer, Hartraft? If we survive this day, tonight, at sunset, we settle things. I will not march another day with you if this is what your leadership brings us to.’
‘Fine then, at sunset, damn you.’
‘Might I interrupt?’
It was Gregory.
Dennis looked up at him, not sure if he should be glad or start swearing about the fix they were in.
‘We have the trail.’
‘Where does it go?’ Dennis asked.
‘That’s just it,’ Gregory replied. ‘I’m not quite sure.’
‘I thought you knew these mountains?’
‘I never said that. You’ll recall I said I might know a way, but I’ve never been up this far before. The one pass I was certain about was the road leading up from the bridge held by the Dark Brothers.’
Dennis stood up wearily. ‘If this involves any more climbing …’ he grumbled.
Gregory had already turned his horse, pausing to look back down the side of the mountain. ‘We’d better move sharply. They’re deploying out.’
Dennis looked over the edge of the steep slope and saw dark figures moving outward, all of them dismounted. There were hundreds of them, and this time the moredhel were joining in. It is simple enough, Dennis realized, now that we are pinned down they simply spread out, don’t attack frontally, and go to sweep around the flanks, then close in.
Several of his men were throwing rocks and shouting angry taunts, but most were too far gone with exhaustion to react, simply falling in behind Gregory and Dennis because that was what they had always done. Gregory led the way, the trail running flat and parallel to the mountain for fifty yards then turning sharply around the flank of a massive boulder.
As they turned the side of the boulder Dennis felt a gust of cold wind and looking straight ahead he saw a narrow cleft. There were mountains several hundred yards beyond, but it appeared as if the slope ahead dropped straight down.
Once past the boulder Gregory stopped and dismounted, motioning for Dennis to follow. After another dozen yards the trail turned again and Dennis felt his stomach knot up. A few more paces and it was a vertical drop of five hundred feet or more. He had always hated heights and instinctively he backed up.
‘Well that’s just great,’ he gasped. ‘Now what, we jump?’
‘Look,’ Gregory said, pointing forward and to their left.
The trail, clinging to the north side of the canyon continued onward for a hundred yards, and then ended at a rope bridge that spanned the chasm.
‘What in the name of the gods?’ Dennis asked, for once caught completely off guard and willing to admit it.
‘Tinuva remembered there had been a trail here, and long ago a bridge, but it was destroyed a hundred years or more ago. Someone’s rebuilt it.’
‘Where is Tinuva?’
‘On the other side. He already signalled back that the trail continues on. This is the way out,’ Gregory announced with a grin.
Dennis nodded, swallowing hard as he eyed the spindly-looking bridge which was nothing more than two ropes for hand-holds and two more beneath with uneven boards as a narrow walkway.
Asayaga was suddenly at his side, grinning. ‘What are we waiting for?’ he announced. ‘Let’s move.’
Dennis nodded, and without comment followed Gregory who continued to lead his horse.
‘You’re not going to try and get that beast across are you?’
‘Tinuva got his across.’ Even as he spoke, Gregory removed his cape and folded it over the horse’s head, covering his eyes.
Dennis said nothing more as the Natalese scout reached the bridge and without hesitation stepped forward, the bridge sagging and groaning as the horse followed.
‘Space the men about ten feet apart, I’m not quite sure how much this thing will hold.’
‘You with a horse, we’ll figure it out,’ Dennis replied, watching as Gregory crossed the bridge, ambling along as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
A cold wind whistled through the canyon, causing the bridge to rock. Backing up against the wall of the narrow trail, Dennis ordered the lead men to get across and one by one they started.
Gradually the two commands crossed, until finally there were only half a dozen men left by the boulder, one of them Asayaga’s one-eyed Strike Leader who started shouting.
‘They’re closing in,’ Asayaga announced. ‘It will be tight.’
Asayaga shouted for his sergeant to move and the last of the men raced along the narrow, icy trail, Dennis watching nervously, expecting to see more than one slip and plummet to his doom.
Asayaga pushed the last of his men on to the bridge then turned to Dennis.
‘After you, Hartraft.’
‘You first,’ Dennis growled.
‘Afraid?’ Asayaga asked with a grin and then his features changed in an instant, shield going up.
An arrow slammed into it and Dennis crouched down behind the barrier as two more arrows winged in.
‘Now!’ Asayaga cried and he jumped on to the bridge and started to run, urging the men ahead of him to move.
Dennis followed, making the first thirty feet without slowing.
Looking back over his shoulder he saw five black clad archers coming through the cleft by the boulder, and spreading out along the trail. Behind them were heavy infantry, shields raised.
The archers were already drawing their next flight of arrows and Dennis continued to run, oblivious to the swaying of the bridge.
An arrow painfully creased the back of his leg. The man in front of Asayaga shrieked, clutched at his side and pitched over. His motion caused the bridge to sway violently and for a second Dennis thought that one of the ropes had been severed and the structure was collapsing. The Tsurani soldier fell and Dennis watched in horror as the man tumbled head over heels, shrieking in pain and terror, his cries growing fainter until finally they were silenced, cut off by a sickening thud as the soldier’s body burst on the sharp rocks five hundred feet below.
Dennis froze, clutching the ropes, feeling as if his legs were about to give way.
‘Come on!’
He looked up. It was Asayaga.
Another arrow snapped past and he took one step, then another and was finally running again. Men on the far side of the gorge were shou
ting, cheering them on, the two captains running, arrows whispering to either side, the only thing saving them the gusty winds of the canyon which threw the arrows off their course.
He plunged the last dozen feet up the slippery path and gladly took the hand of Gregory who pulled him up the last few feet.
Turning, he looked back across the canyon. Black-clad troops swarmed on the other side but none were foolish enough to dare to venture on to the bridge in spite of the urging of their commanders to press the attack.
For several minutes the two sides traded insults and gestures, Dennis watching as the Tsurani made strange motions with their hands and fingers and shouted what were obviously the foulest of insults.
Finally, Gregory pulled out his hatchet and started to cut at the ropes. In another minute the bridge collapsed.
Asayaga came up to Dennis’s side.
‘Do you know where we are?’
‘No.’
‘Now what? If you don’t know, why did you let him cut the bridge?’
‘Do you honestly think we can go back that way?’ Dennis asked wearily.
Asayaga looked across the gorge and finally shook his head.
Their men were already moving out, following the trail, having grown tired of taunting their tormentors. On this side of the chasm, the trail sloped downward and was well worn, a pleasure after the gut-straining climb. Turning a corner the chasm on their right disappeared as the trail weaved through a field of boulders and then dropped down into a broad open path. Dennis and Asayaga stopped in wonder.
Before them was a broad open valley, its upper slopes cloaked in heavy fir trees, a rich and fertile land which seemed to stretch onward for miles. Above the treeline high jagged peaks rose like guardians, hemming the valley in on all sides. Dennis sensed this valley had not been touched by war and that for the moment it meant safety and rest.
He looked over at Asayaga who stood as he did, in silent awe. Then their eyes met and both wondered what the other was thinking.
Bovai stood in silence, watching as the last of his foes disappeared.
He had heard rumours of this place but had never seen it. He turned to his tracker. ‘How do we catch up to them?’ he snapped.
‘We can’t.’
‘What do you mean we can’t?’
‘This gorge cuts through the mountains for miles in either direction. Even if we go down into it, you can see it is vertical on the other side. They’ll leave a watcher, one man alone could stop all of us.’
‘So we ride around it.’
‘That’s just it, sire. It’s miles or more around till we find another way, if we can find it. Another storm on the wind and even now the passes might be closed.’
‘We find it!’
The tracker sighed inwardly, but let no expression betray his feelings. He looked at his master and nodded. ‘First back to the bridge, my lord. That is the way.’
Bovai looked at the fallen span, as if willing it back into place. He knew that they were in alien lands. He stared at the mountains before him, as if committing them to memory forever. To the east, arching off along the northern side of the valley he saw below, he knew the Teeth of the World rose up, impassable for the most part. On the other side would be the great Edder Forest, home to the barbaric glamedhel. The moredhel of the Northlands were no less bold than his own clan, and they gave those woods wide berth. Bovai cast his eyes to the southern peaks that ringed the other side of the valley and realized that even if another pass existed from the Kingdom, the hills around it would be alive with stockades and castles garrisoned for the winter by men from Yabon and Tyr-Sog.
Back to the bridge, and along the Broad River, around the Edder Forest, and seek a pass in the mountains through the winter snow. Bovai knew it might take months to find another way into this valley.
One of the trackers said, ‘My chieftain?’
Quietly, Bovai replied, ‘Someone got into that valley, years ago, so that they could be on the other side of this gorge, and take the rope thrown from this side. That means there must be another way.’
The tracker nodded.
‘Back to the bridge, and we start looking for that way.’
Bovai looked at his troops. He knew questions would be asked around the fires this night. Victory and vengeance had to be won, no matter how long it took, otherwise he knew with a grim certainty he would be dead at the hands of his master. Murad would brook no insult to his clan, and when he learned it was Tinuva who ran with the humans …
Bovai nodded once, and turned, leading his men back through the narrow gap in the rocks. Best not to think of Murad discovering Tinuva’s part in this until the moment when he could present the Paramount Chieftain with both Hartraft’s and Tinuva’s heads.
Past freezing and injured goblins he strode, his mind lost in dreams of bloody vengeance, and none who saw his expression doubted for a moment that the chase was not over, but was merely postponed.
• Chapter Ten •
Valley
THE VALLEY WAS RICH AND FERTILE.
The high mountain peaks which surrounded it blocked off most of the snow so that the tall grass in the pastures was still exposed and stood nearly waist-high.
The stream they were following bubbled over rocks and swirled into eddying pools and more than one of his men exclaimed how they saw fish just waiting to be caught. Even for the unpractised eyes of the Tsurani, game signs were abundant and all were commenting on the fact, pointing out the does grazing in distant fields, wild mountain goats and the tracks of bear and elk.
Dennis asked, ‘How can this place exist?’
Tinuva knelt at the edge of the stream and said, ‘Feel the water.’
Dennis did as he was bid and exclaimed, ‘It’s warm!’
Asayaga knelt next to him and after he had plunged his hand into the water, said, ‘I would not call this warm, but it lacks the icy bite I would expect from melted snow.’
‘Exactly,’ said Dennis.
Tinuva pointed to the north-west. ‘Above us lies Akenkala, a volcano. In my youth she spewed liquid rock and filled the sky with smoke that lasted for more than a year.’ He stood up, wiping his hand on his tunic. ‘She sleeps now, but there is still fire within her.’
‘Which heats the water running down into this valley,’ said Asayaga.
Dennis looked around. ‘The air here is warmer than it is to the south, in Yabon.’
Asayaga nodded. ‘It is a wondrous place.’
‘The bounty of this place is beyond anything I’ve seen,’ said Tinuva. ‘We passed orchards as we scouted.’
They resumed walking. The men were not lulled by the relative kindness of the environment. They were still in enemy territory, and it would be foolish to expect whoever lived here to be a friend.
For they knew someone live here.
They had yet to find a single person, but the valley was clearly inhabited. They had passed three farmsteads, constructed of heavy logs, all of them still intact. In the fireplace of one the fire was still smouldering and in the barn a dozen chickens were to be found in a coop.
As the afternoon progressed the men became more and more uneasy at the eerie silence, the sense that they were walking through a realm of ghosts.
Tinuva and Gregory had ridden ahead and Dennis finally called a halt, moving the men up towards the treeline to rest, but forbade them to light fires. The afternoon sun, however, was relatively warm and in the still air it was actually rather comfortable. Soon nearly all the men had drifted into an exhausted sleep, including Dennis.
Brother Corwin was quietly tending to the wounded, seeing to their comfort, working with skilled hands to clean an arrow-wound in the arm of one of Asayaga’s men, who wandered over to watch.
The priest deftly bandaged the wound, laid out a blanket for the soldier to rest upon and stood up, wiping his hands. He saw Asayaga watching.
‘All these men have been pushed beyond the limit,’ Corwin said slowly, speaking in the manner one does whe
n talking to a foreigner and is not yet sure of his skill with the language.
Asayaga grunted and said nothing in reply.
‘Even the men without hurts need several days with a roof over their heads, plenty of hot food and sleep. If I could get the wounded into shelter I think I could save all of them as well.’
‘Perhaps there is something ahead,’ Asayaga ventured.
‘This is a strange place. It’s on no map.’
‘You have a map?’
‘Ones I saw in the monastery,’ Corwin replied quickly. ‘I studied them before coming up to join the army.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘Many places, but from Ran originally. Why?’
‘Just curious. How far from here?’
‘A month or more by caravan.’
‘And this is your first time in battle?’
‘No,’ said the monk, obviously not wishing to repeat his personal history. ‘I’ve seen a scuffle or two. I joined the order late, I was in my thirties when I got the calling to serve.’
‘Why?’
‘You are full of questions, Tsurani.’
Asayaga smiled. ‘It is my job to learn. I understand there was some trouble regarding you. You didn’t start with this unit, they found you and as a result a close friend of Hartraft was killed.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I have ears, I listen when the Kingdom troops talk. They all speak of it.’
‘Two of my brothers and I were coming up to join the army. We got lost. My brothers were captured by one of your units. I fled and stumbled into Hartraft’s company. I ruined a surprise attack they were planning and in the chaos that followed Hartraft’s closest friend and advisor was killed.’
Asayaga nodded thoughtfully. ‘Which unit of my army?’
‘How am I suppose to know? You all look alike to me.’
‘You all look alike to me, except for the Natalese scout. Which unit?’
‘I don’t know. Why?’
‘If Hartraft destroyed one of the units of my army I’m curious to know.’
‘It all happened so quickly,’ Corwin said slowly, as if the memory of the incident was still painful. ‘One moment the forest was empty, the next Tsurani troops were everywhere and I ran.’
The Complete Legends of the Riftwar Trilogy Page 18