by GJ Kelly
Eventually though, with dusk turning to darkness, the need for caution overcame stubborn resentment and Gawain declared a halt for the night. They made their usual spartan camp, Gawain performed his usual duties to his horse, and then they sat upon the bedrolls, listening to the sounds of the night.
At length, it was a mumbling and truculent Gawain who broke the silence:
“I suppose in the morning you will demand I take us back northwest to Jarn and Elayeen.”
Allazar simply regarded the young man in the gloom.
“I suppose you think that because she and I are throth-bound we can’t bear to be apart for more than a few days or nights. Well you’re wrong. And before you even consider pointing out that my life inevitably ends with hers you’d do well to remember she is a thalangard-trained warrior and more than able to fend for herself. And she has my arrowsilk cloak, if she has the sense to wear it.”
Again, Allazar said nothing.
“Besides which, I’d know if she was in any danger.”
Allazar made a show of rearranging his saddle for a pillow, laid down, and pulled his grubby cloak about him.
Gawain drew the longsword from its scabbard and laid it on the ground beside him, before leaning back against his own saddle. “She’s probably stuck in some rat-infested drafty ruin of a barn on the outskirts of town hoping against hope that the straw she’s laying on isn’t home to a host of fleas and wishing she’d had the basic common sense to see that I’m right.”
Far off, an owl hooted, and seemed to be answered by the high-pitched squeaks of a flock of nightcrakes flapping overhead in search of the nocturnal flying insects that were their food.
“Are you asleep?” Gawain asked, amazed and disgusted at the same time.
“No, Longsword,” Allazar sighed. “After so long on the open plains, I find I am now being kept awake by unfamiliar whining noises.”
“It’s just the night birds.” Gawain mumbled, before staring at the wizard suspiciously. But it was dark, and clouds obscured the stars, and like the wizard’s pretexts for stopping or delaying their journey since lunchtime, Gawain couldn’t really prove anything. “I’ll take first watch,” he mumbled, and soon he heard the wizard’s deep and rhythmic breathing.
About an hour later, a sudden feeling of calm washed over him, followed immediately by a brief sense of contentment. And then Gawain’s head cleared like waking from a confused dream, and with a mixture of relief and renewed truculence, he simply knew that wherever Elayeen was, she was not sleeping on a bed of fleas in a rat-infested and drafty ruin of a barn.
When dawn broke next morning the sun found the King of Raheen observing his morning remembrance of The Fallen, while Allazar quietly saddled his horse. After a few moments of respectful silence, Gawain slung his sword over his shoulder, checked the cinch of Gwyn’s saddle, and mounted.
“No, wizard.” He announced firmly.
Allazar feigned confusion. “Longsword?”
“In answer to the question you were trying not to ask, no, we do not ride for Jarn. We continue on to Raheen.”
“Ah.”
“Though we shall lessen our pace. I daresay Elayeen will wish to catch us up before we get there.”
“Ah.”
“And no, again, any resentment I may feel is my own. Since she and I both slept last night, the anger has abated.”
“Ah.”
“Is that all you intend to say between here and Raheen? Ah?”
“I was merely attempting to gauge your humour this morning, Longsword. Since the strange aquamire left you so astonishingly at Ferdan, there is no darkening of your eyes as a harbinger of doom to warn of your ire.”
“My humour is fine.”
“And your lady?”
Gawain looked sheepish. “Judging by the way I felt briefly when you woke me this morning I’d say my lady found her hot food, hot bath, and warm bed for the night.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t press your luck, wizard.”
“I would have imagined, Longsword,” Allazar grunted, dragging himself up into the saddle and eyeing the gathering clouds, “That the thought of your lady washed clean of the grime of almost two months summer travelling and smelling sweet as a new-mown spring meadow would have you flying to Jarn with not even Morloch himself strong enough to hold you back. Especially since it was doubtless your enforced… separation… for so long on this journey that certainly sparked the throth-bound rage which almost entirely consumed you both.”
“It’s because of Morloch’s strength we’re headed south in the first place.” Gawain mumbled, and allowed Gwyn to move off slowly, away from Jarn and towards Raheen. Eventually, after a few hundreds yard, he turned and caught Allazar wearing a sad expression.
“Do you really think that’s what caused it? Our not being with each other, in that way?”
“I think,” Allazar said quietly, drawing his horse alongside Gwyn, “I think that much has happened in your young lives, much of which no-one could have prepared either of you for. I think it is astonishing that you have coped with the horror and tragedy as well as you both have. Clearly, you draw strength from each other, and that is good. You have both suffered beyond imagining, and though you have more friends than either of you realise, you truly only have each other.
“After all, Longsword, you have both lost your homes and all you held dear, all the dreams and expectations of your respective childhoods shall never now come to pass. For you, Raheen is gone utterly. For Elayeen, it is perhaps worse, or perhaps not, only she, and you, could know; Elvendere and all she holds dear remains intact, but is denied to her just as surely as Raheen is denied to you.
“Small wonder then, that you should both draw strength from each other. And all of that is without the throth which has bound your very lives together. You both have had no pause, no time to come to terms with events, no respite save a few nights between battles at Ferdan. It is hardly a surprise, therefore, that since propriety has demanded a… seemly distance… between you and your perfectly natural desires, your frustrations should grow.
“And as I said, the throth not only magnifies the good between you. It magnifies all passions, including the dangerous ones. It is my fault, I think, I should have recognised the danger weeks ago, and given you both a night’s respite from my company. But I was self-absorbed, trying to understand all the ramifications of the battle at Ferdan. And you and she seemed comfortable enough with your quiet conversations all this time.”
“Oh so it’s your fault? Why am I not surprised?” Gawain grumbled.
“Perhaps it is.” Allazar sighed. “But we can still turn aside from this course, Longsword. Join Elayeen in Jarn, take time to be with one another, heal any rift between you and allow all of us to recover our strength before going on to Raheen. As you said, you would know if she were in any danger, and it would seem she isn’t?”
“No,” Gawain conceded, “No I can’t feel any sense of alarm. But nor can I ignore the sense of urgency that demands I take you to Raheen. I know I cannot explain it, Allazar, I know it makes no sense, and I know I have no right to expect you or Elayeen to place such blind faith in me when I can’t explain it even to myself, much less to you. All I know is that Morloch fears me, and that Raheen holds the key which will unlock the reason for his fear.”
“Yet you wounded him sorely, and in so doing bought the time needed for Rak to work his diplomacy.”
“I know, Allazar. And I know you yearn for news from Ferdan as much Elayeen did, and as much as I myself yearn to be with her. But still, my instincts have served me well since the first day of my banishment from Raheen two years ago. And I must trust them. They tell me Elayeen is safe, and that it would be better for the two of us to be apart, for now at least. And that we must press on. ”
And press on they did, though at a pace much kinder to themselves and their horses, moving further from the edge of the woodlands and out into the scrubbier land where better grass for the animals was to
be had. From time to time they paused for rest or to drink from shallow streams that criss-crossed these hinterlands, seeing only the occasional wild goat, hare and rabbit, all of which evinced a look of enquiry from Allazar and a shake of the head and an offer of more frak from Gawain.
Not having much to talk about, and neither seeming to mind the silence of the other, they traversed the scrub for three days before Gawain turned slightly west, into the trees, and deeper into the forest of southern Callodon. It was there, in the lingering heat of a sultry autumn evening, they made camp to the rumbling of thunder rolling in from the east.
“I hope Elayeen remembered my cloak,” Gawain muttered, propping his saddle at the base of a large pine and wrapping Gwyn’s blanket tightly around himself against the rain he knew was following close behind the thunder.
“She has left Jarn?” Allazar asked, surprised at Gawain’s seeming sensitivity to his lady’s whereabouts.
“I think so. For a while I didn’t know, I think we were too far from each other. But now I think she’s headed in our direction.”
“And still you feel no alarm?”
“No. And I suppose now you’re thinking ‘I told you so’, and that I was foolish to imagine spies and assassins and all manner of peril along the way.”
Allazar sniffed dramatically. “I would never dream of making such a childish remark, Longsword, I am slighted you should think so poorly of me.”
Another peal of thunder drowned out Gawain’s response, but the wizard could see the glint of humour in the younger man’s eyes, and that filled him with a comforting warmth in spite of the approaching storm.
The rain, when it arrived, was torrential, and cold. The two sat on their saddles, wrapped in their horse-blankets, hoping to keep their bedrolls and other meagre possessions as well as themselves dry while the thunderstorm raged around them. It was a futile hope, of course, and when dawn broke hours after the storm had abated the pallid sunshine found them both shivering and sopping wet.
The ground underfoot squelched as they trudged miserably and uncomfortably onwards, picking their way through the debris and undergrowth on the forest floor until, around noon, the trees began noticeably to thin, and they came upon an abandoned charcoal-burner’s workings and cabin. There, grudgingly, Gawain decided to pause awhile.
The log cabin had been abandoned for years, and had suffered accordingly, but it still possessed a functional stone hearth and chimney, and in a corner, in an oaken bin bound with rusting iron straps, a goodly amount of charcoal. Gawain made no objection when Allazar filled an iron scoop and dumped the load into the hearth, and with more than a few muttered words and a great deal of prodding and poking, the wizard finally coaxed the fire into life.
They changed into damp and uninviting clothes from their packs while their sopping ones dried before the almost smokeless hearth, and while the ‘laundry’ dried, they sat in the sunshine outside the cabin.
“Oh look,” Allazar said softly, gazing across the clearing past the disused piles of turf and abandoned logs, “A rabbit. And we with a fire.”
“You just don’t stop, do you, wizard? You seem obsessed with rabbits. From Threlland to Ferdan, oh look, rabbits, and from Ferdan to here, oh look, rabbits.”
“I believe your lady put it quite well, Longsword. Something to do with not being a dwarf?”
“Hmmmf. It just so happens I like frak. But you’re both right, I’ll admit it, if Morloch’s minions were waiting for us it’d be in Jarn, and we know they’re not there, or they’ll be at the Downland Pass, and we’re not there yet.”
With that, Gawain went into the cabin and returned with his quiver of arrows, then sat back on the log, an arrow strung in hand, and waited for another rabbit to put in an appearance.
“Typical,” Allazar muttered, “The one time you’re unarmed, the rabbit appears. Then you scare it away by fetching your arrows. And now there are none. We are doomed to end our days with nothing more than soggy frak to mark our passing.”
“Call yourself a wizard,” Gawain countered. “Took you ages to light a simple fire and now you can’t even pull a rabbit from a forest, never mind a hat.”
“Shhh!” Allazar hissed quietly, “To the right, beyond the woodpile, at the base of the tree.”
“I see it.” Gawain replied, slowly shifting his weight and just as slowly drawing his arm back.
“You were saying about forests and hats?”
“Shut up.”
“Good, aren’t I?” Allazar smiled, haughtily.
Gawain’s arm was a blur, the string snapped and the arrow sped across the clearing, only to slam into the tree trunk four inches to the left and high of the rabbit’s startled ears. In a bound, it was gone into the undergrowth.
“Dwarfspit!” Gawain gasped, stunned by his own inaccuracy.
“Oh dear.” Allazar agreed.
“Dwarfspit!” Gawain exclaimed again, “Thirty paces, no more, twenty-five maybe! I was six years old when I last missed a shot like that!”
“Well,” Allazar sighed, standing up and stretching his legs. “Eight weeks without throwing so much as a party must take its toll on one so highly trained as yourself, Longsword. Pity really, for we had so many opportunities for you to keep your arm and eye in shape on our journey across the plains.”
“Dwarfspit,” Gawain repeated, staring in disbelief at the still-quivering fact of the shaft buried in the tree.
“Soggy frak for two it is then. I shall check on our clothes, Longsword, knowing our luck of late I wouldn’t be at all surprised should they suddenly burst into flames at the unexpected sight of a charcoal fire.”
“Keep that fire glowing, wizard,” Gawain asserted sternly, flipping his wrist to bring his bowstring back into its customary place. He slung the quiver over his shoulder, plucked another arrow from it, strung it, and said “There’ll be rabbit for lunch if I have to hurl my sword at the furry little bastards.”
Allazar chuckled quietly as he watched the young man lope off into the trees. Perhaps Gawain had been right, after all, and a short time apart from Elayeen had been necessary to realign some internal compass shared between them. Certainly the young king’s sense of humour had returned. And he would need it soon. When they emerged from the forest, less than three days from now, the table-topped mountain of Raheen would be in clear sight before them.
oOo
5. Raheen
Gorged on rabbit, nuts and berries, it was a much happier Allazar who followed Gawain out of the forest and on to a rutted track two days after their brief sojourn at the charcoal-burner’s hut. Dry of clothes and better fed they certainly were, and in much better humour too. Gawain had come close to irritating the wizard intensely with his near constant archery practice on the move, but the wizard understood that while Gawain was bringing his skills back to their peak, he wasn’t dwelling on the horror which lay ahead, or on the absence of Elayeen.
The horror which lay ahead was Raheen, and there, in the south, reaching up into the clear blue sky, was the mighty plateau, the majesty of the mountain belying the utter devastation Morloch’s Breath had wrought upon its once verdant and fertile summit.
“Fresh tracks,” Gawain declared, gazing down at the rutted track from the saddle. Even the Raheen charger seemed reluctant to go further, as though some equine memory whispered even now of the bleak and complete devastation ahead, the ashen remains of which the horse had witnessed a year before.
“Was there not a market at the Downland Pass?”
“There were inns, and a smithy, a few resting places where merchants and travellers would pause before ascending to the top, or after coming down. And an outpost of Callodon guards, who used to patrol the forest road between here and Jarn to the north. Though not very effectively.” Gawain added as an afterthought.
“Perhaps those who once lived there have now returned?”
“For what reason, Allazar? There’s no Raheen. There’s no-one to trade with, nowhere to journey to except the cliffs
at the Sea of Hope.”
The wizard frowned. “Then perhaps you were right, and danger awaits us at the Downland Pass.”
“Indeed.”
“Should we wait for Elayeen, Longsword, before continuing on?”
Gawain glanced back to the north, his eyes following the track where it swung slightly west through the forest. He remembered the first time he took that path, his fateful meeting with Allyn, honest farmer of Callodon, and Lyssa, his red-haired daughter, and wife Karin. His first encounter with lowlanders, and with brigands, and the Ramoth at Jarn…
“No,” he answered at length, moving off down the track, towards his mountain homeland looming in the distance. “She’s much closer now I think. Besides, if Morloch’s minions do await us ahead, I’d rather face them knowing she’s safe and protecting our rear.”
Allazar was clearly unconvinced, but Gawain politely ignored him, concentrating instead on Gwyn, and the track ahead. It would be Gwyn, he knew, who would most likely be aware of any threat before he himself recognised it, and certainly before the wizard knew anything of it.
Their progress was steady but cautious, Raheen looming higher above them with every step. Then the forest ahead thinned and gave way to the more rocky terrain that marked the boundary between the lowlands of Callodon and the highlands of Raheen. Above them, they could clearly see the grooved path that was the upper end of the Downland Pass, ending its winding journey at the summit. Gawain paused.
“Around that bend ahead are all that remains of the Callodon outpost, the inns and stables and hostelries.”
“And still neither sight nor sound of danger, Longsword. Do you suspect ambush?”
Gawain shrugged. “It would be easier for them to wait at the top of the Pass and simply drop rocks on our heads if that was their intent. But those are the fresh marks of wagons, and horses.”
Allazar agreed. Someone, or rather some people, were ahead of them, and likely at the outpost.
“Well,” Gawain sighed, checking his weapons and stringing an arrow, “We won’t find out just sitting here.”