“No. I am unsure, I must admit. He’s barely a man, a boy really. Let us test him and see how he does. We can reveal his true mission to him later, after we learn more about him,” replied the Flamekeeper. “I can’t read his character. There’s something wild and unpredictable about him. Take charge of him, Rokkman. Then we’ll see.”
“There are others who know. People are already talking.”
“I was so sure that I failed to keep it all a secret. I thought Orlan was still alive. Now all is changed.”
“Someone may reveal something to him.”
“I know. He must be tested, and soon. See to it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Martan’s office was a large room with walls of stone covered with maps and a dozen clerks and as many officers and messengers coming and going with dispatches. Rokkman ushered Clarian in to meet Martan, commander of scouts. Martan looked up and met Rokkman’s eyes with a quizzical look on his face. Rokkman rolled his eyes upward, his mouth set grimly.
Martan studied Clarian for a moment, then turned to a messenger and gave him an order. The messenger hurried out. “Are you ready to fight?” he asked Clarian.
Clarian stared hard at Martan but did not answer.
Just then, Lillan, whose back had been turned, swung around to look at Clarian. Her long, chestnut hair was gathered in the back, her skin was fair, and she had lustrous brown eyes set wide with long lashes. She was almost as tall as Clarian, and her bold face caught his attention, something the long ride from the Grasslands had failed to do.
“I am showing Clarian the castle and then I will take him down to the training fields,” said Rokkman.
All the people in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at Clarian openly.
He felt self-conscious. Why were they so interested in him, he wondered. Why did everyone he meet continue to stare at him, as if evaluating him? He was only a soldier, and he didn’t want to be there at all.
“Why don’t I show Clarian the defenses of the castle? Let him view the soldiers being trained,” said Lillan.
Lillan walked past Clarian, and he turned to follow her. As they passed through the door into the corridor, a soldier whose eyes had been on Lillan turned to another soldier next to him and said, “Did you see how he’s dressed? Right out of the wild frontier! He doesn’t look like much to me.”
Suddenly, Clarian was beside the soldier, a fierce, wolf-like look to his face, skin drawn taut across his scarred cheek, eyes cold, narrow, and smoky. The startled soldier leaned back against a table, his mouth open in surprise.
“On the frontier, men live or die by their words,” hissed Clarian through his clenched teeth. His hand moved down to his hip where his knife was sheathed. Everyone saw the movement of his hand, and the soldier froze, alarm in his eyes. Clarian spun and strode out through the door, past Lillan, who had stuck her head back into the room and witnessed Clarian’s reaction to the taunt.
Lillan hurried and caught up with Clarian, a grin on her face, and led him down a long corridor that opened up to a balcony from which one could look out on the city and far out into the country to the east. They stood admiring the morning sun as it spread a golden glow across the sky and a soft light over the rolling hills in the far distance.
Clarian was still seething but trying to calm down as he took in the rolling green vista of the countryside spread out before him.
Lillan decided not to comment on the incident, and together they watched silently as below them soldiers streamed out from the castle onto the drill fields to begin the day’s training.
“There, far to the horizon, do you see the line of black?” Lillan pointed.
“I think so.”
“That’s the Forest of Darkness. The Maggan are there,” she said, adding, “You’re not at all what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” he asked.
“Someone older and short with bowed legs, thick arms, and crooked teeth,” she said.
Clarian laughed and then Lillan laughed too. Clarian thought it felt good to laugh. He couldn’t remember when he had last laughed at anything. They both became self-conscious. Lillan was wearing a Citadel uniform—blue tunic and blue trousers with black boots. She had a bow and arrow patch high on her left shoulder. Clarian was suddenly aware of his rough clothing.
“Let’s go inspect the troops,” she said. Lillan led the way down several flights of stairs, crossed an inner courtyard, passed out the main gate, and strode around to the north side of the castle until they came onto an open green. There, companies of soldiers were gathered in small units preparing to begin their training exercises for the day. Those near the castle wall were drawing wooden swords and lining up according to the directions of officers to practice sword fighting. Farther away stretched fields where archers were setting up targets, and off to the side, other soldiers were already hurling lances. On the east side, mounted soldiers were galloping through maneuvers, wheeling in formation and then charging with swords waving or lances thrust outward.
Lillan and Clarian stood watching the exercises with great interest. Lillan was particularly proud of the archers. Nearby lines of archers faced distant targets down range, and she pointed out the showers of arrows arcing up and then dropping down into the targets.
“What weapon are you best at?” she asked, turning to him.
“I like archery from horseback,” he said.
“What? Archery from horseback? That’s not what we do,” Lillan shook her head. “We archers are usually on foot and normally stand behind the soldiers in order to shoot over their heads.”
“In the Grasslands, there is no cover of trees when one is hunting, and the grass stands high. So we who live out there go hunting on horses, and when we flush out the game, we race in and shoot from the back of a horse. I thought everyone did that,” Clarian explained.
“I’d like to see that done.”
“I would show you if I had a horse and a bow.”
“We can arrange that. Let’s go.”
With Clarian following, Lillan walked out across the practice fields, cutting between companies. After a good walk, they arrived at the archers’ field. Clarian was thinking he shouldn’t have spoken. The training officers came over to Lillan when they saw her approach. She gave instructions, and one of the officers hurried off to get a horse. Another called a halt to the practice. The several hundred archers gathered round Lillan and Clarian.
Projecting her voice to reach all the archers, Lillan called out, “Archers of the Citadel, this man called Clarian came here from the far Great Grasslands. He will now demonstrate archery from the back of a horse.”
Clarian cringed inwardly at Lillan’s words. She had a smirk on her face. As she was speaking, all activity ceased, and soldiers from the other companies converged on the archery field, until there was an immense crowd of soldiers. High above, from the battlement of the castle, Rokkman and Martan watched the event unfold.
Clarian was amazed by the attention and the large numbers of onlookers. Of course he was used to performing at the harvest fair in a village near the ferry in front of cheering crowds, although they were small in number. And of course, he had performed many times when his life depended on it against the fierce Kobani, who were also horse warriors.
“Place three targets spaced one hundred paces apart on a line across there,” Clarian instructed them.
Several soldiers trotted out to position the targets.
A soldier brought a horse to him. Lillan handed him a quiver and a bow. Clarian tugged at the bowstring, feeling the tension and strength of the bow. The bow was longer than he was accustomed to using. He slung the quiver over his shoulder and practiced drawing an arrow out several times. Satisfied, he stepped to the front of the crowd. He smoothly pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back quickly, set the arrow, drew back in a fluid motion, aimed, and let fly
. The arrow flew high over the target. He repeated these actions, and this time the arrow struck the target in the upper quadrant. He drew back again and released the arrow. It flew in a low arc and struck the mark. A cheer went up from the soldiers. He allowed himself a small, shy smile.
Clarian mounted the horse, urging it forward into a lope and then dropped the reins, keeping his hands free. He pressed with his right knee, and the horse responded by shifting its direction to the left, and then with pressure from his left knee, the horse moved to the right. Clarian showed his satisfaction by patting the horse on the neck.
He rode out about forty paces beyond the last target. Then, wheeling so that he would be crossing parallel across the face of the targets, he kicked the horse into a gallop, his long, brown hair streaming out behind him. Seated without his hands on the reins, he pulled an arrow, notched it, aimed, and shot directly into the target.
Still galloping, he drew another arrow and shot it into the next target and then shot another one swiftly into the third target. He regained the reins and brought the horse back to where Lillan and the crowd of soldiers were loudly cheering.
Standing high up on the castle wall, Martan looked at Rokkman with amazement. “Did you see what he just did?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how it’s possible,” said Rokkman.
Down on the field, a soldier asked Clarian, “Why do you shoot from horseback?”
“Because if you use a sword, you must come close to your enemy, and then it is one-on-one combat, and he may prevail. If you are on horseback, you can move quickly, and you need not come too close to your enemy. You can defeat three enemies or more in the time it takes to fight one by hand. Besides, in the Grasslands you can’t see your enemy on foot because the grass is so high. Only from horseback can you engage.”
“Is this what you will teach us in order to defeat the Maggan?” the soldier asked.
Clarian looked down from his horse at Lillan’s oval face shining up at him as she stepped up to his horse and took hold of the bridle. Her eyes seemed to pierce his being, and he felt warmth spread through his chest, a feeling he had never known before.
“Yes, I will teach you.”
Clarian dismounted and found himself standing close to Lillan. She was not shy, and her brown eyes looked boldly into his. He suddenly felt aware of how scruffy he looked. He might even smell from the mad dash across the country on horseback, the quick wash this morning notwithstanding. Still, he felt camaraderie with these happy soldiers that crowded around him. And he wanted to be close to Lillan.
CHAPTER FIVE
“We’re going on patrol. You will see the Forest of Darkness,” Martan said to Clarian.
In the early hours before dawn, the riders pounded down the dusty road heading northeast. Clarian was beginning to think that no one here rode casually. Everyone seemed in a hurry. If the Maggan were in fact planning to attack in the near future, it was clear that time was critical. He had observed the building of the Karran army, and although they were in greater numbers than he had ever seen in one place, they were far from ready for battle. And he had been told the Maggan could march with even larger numbers in force.
The yellow-white sun rose up high, ushering in the day, beating down upon them. Up on the plateau just ahead of them, the land was dry; Clarian had been told that there had been no rain for weeks. The road left the rolling hills of the city of the Citadel atop its grand hill and dropped down between low hills with clusters of trees on the summits and open spaces between, cultivated by farmers. Animals were grazing in the pastures, and men were working in the fields. Cottages, white-washed and gleaming, were set back off the road, surrounded by trees and outbuildings.
As they rode the farms thinned out. The land became emptier of people and turned into dry, brown, grasslands. Red rocky ridges rose up on either side of the road, which had diminished to no more than a narrow trail. A shallow stream ran alongside the road with occasional small pools of water filled with green rushes. The riders, about twenty in all, slowed their pace, with no more than four abreast as they proceeded into ridge country. Dark-green, twisted scrub trees grew at the base of the ridges and up on the summits. The riders changed horses at a guard outpost and pushed on for another long day.
The evening shadows lengthened, and a reluctant sun dropped to the horizon. The lead rider stopped when they came over a hill, and the group bunched up to look across a short valley carpeted with dry, brown grasses barren of living creatures. At the far side of the valley, the land thrust up into highlands, and there on top of the highlands was a forest, black against the sky.
“There it is!” said one soldier.
The forest seemed to explode up into the sky, so dark that the giant trees, towering a hundred feet or more, looked almost black. The foliage was so thick at the top that it created a canopy that blocked out the sun. Beneath the trees, it was very dark. There was no sound except the heavy breathing of the horses and their shifting hooves on the hard-packed earth. The sun, fading in the west, was partially blocked by dark, rainy clouds looming over the forest.
“Let’s get behind the ridge on this side, out of sight,” said Martan. The riders turned their horses around and rode a short distance before dismounting. When they had watered their horses, they gathered around Martan.
“The Forest of Darkness makes its own weather,” said Martan. “No one knows how far the forest extends.”
Martan motioned for them to creep up to the top of the ridge to gaze at the forest. He turned to speak to Clarian. “I have been in the forest to observe the Maggan a number of times. They are so arrogant that they post no guards here at this entrance to the forest. And you may have noticed that the road is not well traveled. We do not go into the forest. There is no trade between our peoples. They do come out and scout us from time to time at night. They do not fear us. They have moved a large camp of soldiers less than an hour’s ride from here, inside the forest. It’s dark under the trees, but your eyes get used to it after a while.”
“Let’s take a look at the Maggan,” Clarian suggested.
“Not on this patrol. Besides, it will be dark soon, and that is when they arise.”
“Why bring me here if not to show me the enemy? And why do you concern yourself with me anyway? I am just a warrior like so many others.”
“The Flamekeeper has given me orders. That is all I can say. We will camp here tonight.”
“I want to see the Maggan!”
“Not now, Clarian.”
“We need to know their numbers and how soon they could march out.”
“Not tonight.”
The patrol camped without a fire behind a ridge. The horses were picketed close by.
Clarian gazed at the forest with curiosity. He had questions that needed answers. He sensed that the Karran soldiers feared the Maggan. Why? What was in the forest that could provoke such anxiety? And why not creep into the forest to observe the enemy and determine their readiness?
Lillan appeared next to Clarian as he tossed his blanket on the grass.
“They can see in the dark as well as we see in daylight.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“The road leads directly to their camp where they are mustering their army. It’s very dark under the great trees, even during the day. Not much light filters down through the canopy. Only a few scouts volunteer to go into the forest. Most won’t go. They’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“We’ll see.”
Clarian grinned at her and turned to spread out his blanket as she moved away. He wrapped up but lay with his eyes open, unable to sleep. The camp was soon quiet.
Clarian slipped out of his blanket, led his horse out, and walked quietly to the entrance of the forest. He mounted and within moments, he was in a gloom that made it difficult to see at all. It was so dim that it was difficult to see a
t all. He moved his horse along at a quick but quiet pace following the faint road. It wasn’t long before he saw light from campfires in the enemy encampment. He tethered his horse and proceeded on foot, careful to make no noise. He kept in mind that the Maggan could see well in the dark, and he made sure he was screened by the undergrowth beneath the giant trees.
Night had now fallen, making it darker than dark. No starlight or moonlight could penetrate the forest from overhead. The forest floor was strewn with rotting leaves, deadening his footsteps so that he passed almost silently. The wet undergrowth exuded a fetid odor. The road ran uphill on a slight grade and curved around massive black trees trunks.
It wasn’t long before he had a clear view of the campfires through the trees ahead. He stopped to listen: wood being chopped, laughter, and dogs barking. He stalked along the road’s edge toward the camp. The sounds grew louder, and then through the trees, light spilled out from a vast clearing. A great many cook fires were blazing.
Clarian could see the dancing shadows from the fires lighting the trees up to the canopy above, and he could now make out the moving figures in the camp. There were tents—hundreds of them—and campfires everywhere. Dark figures Clarian assumed were soldiers moved from tent to fire and back. Many appeared to be seated. Occasionally, a loud voice could be heard giving orders.
Clarian moved silently and slowly, from tree to tree. There was light foliage between the trees, mostly young saplings poking up, but no heavy underbrush dragging against his clothes or twigs snapping. He pressed up against each tree, almost hugging it. Several huge trees were blocking his way, so he moved to his right. He glided forward and eased in among several saplings that shielded him from the camp. He was about five hundred paces from the nearest campfire. He could make out stacks of weapons, bows, spears, shields, and swords lined up. The camp appeared busy. He wondered what they could be doing that late in the evening.
Clarian suddenly became aware of someone beside him.
“Beautiful morning, don’t you think?” said the figure.
Die for the Flame Page 4