The Eye of the Hunter

by Dennis L McKiernan

  The land trembled as another quake shuddered through the mountains. Rock and ice showered down, falling into the depths below. The Rūcks drew back from the edge, fearing that the shivering would cast them off the wall or bring down sections where they stood.

  Once more the Hlōk shouted, moving southward, away from the comrades, drawing the searchers with him. Southward, too, receded the clamor of the remainder of the Rūcks and Vulgs and Hlōks on the rim, slowly diminishing as if they marched off in a band.

  As the voices faded, the four cautiously raised up their faces and scanned overhead, seeking foe, finding none. Even so, they remained still, waiting. Time passed, and yet there was no movement above. At last Riatha quietly murmured that it was time, and they unsnapped the harness straps and recovered the jams and cautiously began ascending again, trembling from fatigue and cold, but moving as stealthily as their dwindling strength and skill permitted.

  The Moon had passed beyond the lip of the wall, and they clambered upward in shadow.

  Finally Riatha came to the rim and cautiously peered over. Signalling that all seemed safe, up and beyond the edge she climbed, disappearing from view. After a moment she reappeared and motioned them upward, the rope growing taut as she took up the strain to help.

  As Faeril, then Gwylly, and finally Aravan clambered over the lip and onto the flat, in the near distance before them they saw by moonlight a vast, looming wall of white extending beyond seeing to north and south. The frigid air pouring over the brim and down into the canyon below flowed from this mass. It was the eastern edge of the Great North Glacier.

  With chary eyes they quickly scanned the landscape, seeking foe, sighting none. Yet southward, a furlong or so distant, silhouetting an enormous mass of ice that had calved away from the glacier, there came a faint golden glow.

  All four felt themselves pulled toward the light, as if called.

  Even so, “’Ware,” said Riatha softly, drawing Dúnamis from her shoulder scabbard. Aravan swiftly untied the three climbing ropes from one another, and Faeril coiled and bound them in hanks to be hung from their climbing harnesses. As the damman affixed the lines to her belt and Riatha’s and Gwylly’s, Aravan unslung his crystal-bladed spear. Then the foursome set forth, moving toward the light, Riatha leading, Aravan trailing.

  Faeril loosened her daggers in their scabbards, drawing one of the steel blades to carry, ready for throwing. Gwylly set a bullet in his sling and attempted to swing it about, failing, inhaling sharply with the pain, his injured arm unable to complete the motion. Replacing sling and bullet, he unsheathed his dagger instead and held it in his left hand.

  Steadily they drew near the glow, cautious in their advance. Towering above them to their right loomed the eastern wall of the glacier. Ahead lay the vast chunk that had cleaved away, lying midst the shatterings of its breaking. Round this huge mass of calved ice they fared, Riatha whispering that it was freshly split from the pack. “Mayhap that great cracking and thud we heard…” murmured Aravan. Between calf and parent they stepped, moving toward the golden light.

  Now they could see the radiance before them, shining from the wall of the glacier, brightest at the source, some fourteen or fifteen feet up from the level, there where the he was cracked and crazed, up a slope of shattered ice. Even as they looked, the earth trembled and a mass of frozen shards fell away and slithered down the ramp of glittering scree. Of a sudden, Riatha moaned and rushed forward, clambering up through the sliding rubble, heedless of foe or other danger that might be present.

  “Riatha!” barked Aravan, but she did not stop. Swiftly they scrambled after.

  Riatha climbed to the golden light and called, “Quickly! Aid me!”

  Leading Aravan, Faeril and Gwylly scrabbled up through the slithering mass, coming at last into the luminance. The bulk of the glacier loomed high above, white and glittering, but before them at the top of the ramp, the ice was clear though crazed from the calving, and the light from within suffused the myriad splits and cracks, shining as would the Sun through a fractured glass window. And even as they stood up to their knees in the sliding shatter, stood in that fragmented golden glow—Elfess and buccan and damman, Riatha with the Lastborn Firstborns at her side—overhead the Eye of the Hunter streamed crimson through the sky.

  But neither gold nor crimson caught their sight. Instead it was what they saw in the center of the scattered light: for out from the shattered wall jutted a hand, a large Man’s hand…

  …and the fingers moved.

  CHAPTER 11

  Aravan

  Throughout Eras

  [Past and Present]

  Aravan rode out of the dawn and into Mithgar in the early days of the First Era, coming to the youth and wildness of this new world, leaving behind the stately grade and beauty of ancient Adonar. When he emerged he found himself in a misty swale, the grassy crowns of mounded hills all about. He was not surprised by the cast of this terrain, for the crossings in between are fair matched to one another. But unexpectedly to his ears came the distant sound of shsshing booms. Intrigued, the Elf turned his horse toward the rolling roar, riding southerly among the diminishing downs. Upward his path took him, up a long, shallow slope, the sounds increasing, the wind in his face, a salt tang on the air. And he found himself on a high chalk cliff, the white bluff falling sheer. Out before him as far as the eye could see stretched deep blue waters to the horizon and beyond. It was the ocean, the Avagon Sea, its azure waves booming below, high-tossed spray glittering like diamonds cast upward in the morning Sun. Aravan’s heart sang at such a sight and his eyes brimmed with tears, and in that moment something slipped comfortably into his soul.

  Although Aravan had not before this day come unto the midworld, perhaps he was home at last.

  Enamored of the sea, Aravan settled along that shore, and for a century or more he was content to walk the sands and study the tides, driven as they were by the Moon, influenced somewhat by the Sun. Often would Aravan stand all day on the high, chalky headland, fascinated by the ocean’s shifting hues and shades: the dark, dark blue, so nearly black, of the waters above the deeps; the jade and turquoise and crystal and foaming pearl of breaking waves curling translucent; the sapphire of tides ebbing and flowing. Too, he marvelled at the ocean’s ever changing ways, slow and undulant or wild and thundering, savage or mild, long rolling combers or short chop or mirrorlike smoothness, ever changing, ever changeless, fickle in its constancy.

  A century passed and a century more, and at last Aravan was drawn to see what lay in the waters beyond the distant horizon. He sailed as a navigator with a captain from Arbalin, the island Realm just then coming into its own as a Nation of seagoing traders. Although Aravan had neither maps nor charts of the seas, still he knew as do all Elves the courses of the stars and the Sun and Moon, and so the Arbalina captain signed him on as pilot and taught him what he needed to know: of espying shoals and judging currents; of gauging drift and speed; of the reading of wave patterns, reflecting the resonances of islands standing athwart the ocean streams; of rowing through irons, skiffs towing the ship; of riding out storms with sails reefed partially or in full, the ship tethered to sea anchors cast astern; of masts and sails and sailing, and of making the most of whatever wind there was; of maneuvering asea or in harbors or near docks; of ship’s routine and standing watches; of traders and trading and the lading off and on of the precious purchased cargo.

  A century or two, or perhaps more, he plied the oceans among the Arbalina sea merchants, learning their ways and learning as well the ports of their then limited world: of the Avagon Sea and of the coastal waters of the Weston Ocean, and of the westward course to Atala.

  Too, he sailed on a whaling ship—just once, no more, for he could not abide the slaughter of the lords of the sea. While he was in Diel, a northern port of Jute, the city was assaulted by Fjordlanders, and after the battle the raiders fled from the burning town in their swift Dragonships. The Arbalinians put to sea to give chase, but were quickly lef
t behind by the longboats of the northland warriors.

  Upon enquiry, Aravan was told that no other vessels were as fleet, and that the Fjordlanders sailed their sleek ships to far-off shores, shores of lands unknown to other Nations. Captivated by the speed of these Wolves of the deep and the lure of lands afar, Aravan made his way to that northern Realm, to learn their ways and sail the distant seas with them. After some hesitation these Men of the North took him into their confidence.

  The Boreal Sea was their realm, the Northern Ocean, too, and they sailed with Aravan across these waters, trading, raiding, and exploring.

  West they sailed as well, to the then new lands beyond the blue known sea. Islands of fire and lush lands green unfolded on their long, long voyages. New shores they found and traded for furs with strange-speaking Men, clannish but unaggressive. Too, it was said by the Dragonship crews that Aravan traded with others—a tiny folk, a wee folk, seen riding foxes among white birches in silver moonlight. Whether or not these tales were true. Aravan did not say, yet he did wear a strange blue stone on a leather thong round his neck thereafter, saying only that it was a gift from a Hidden One.

  It was in Fjordland during the long cold winter that Aravan took up the art of shipbuilding, spending a century or so learning the crafting of longships. When he had mastered the ways of the Dragonships, Aravan set out in a small sailboat, plying along the coastal waters to the west and south: down the shores of Jord and Gron and Rian he fared, and around Leut on the Boreal Sea, stopping in ports along the way, learning the shipwright arts each city and yard had to offer. Into Weston Ocean waters he sailed, turning southerly: along Thol and Jute and Wellen, along Gelen and Gothon and Tugal as well.

  And in all these Lands he learned what each had to offer about ships of the sea.

  As he sailed away from each, he left behind fast friends as well as longing hearts, for he was well liked, especially by the ladies, representing to them as he did a strange and exotic male, full of mystery and excitement and hidden danger. Lithe and slender and handsome, he was—some would say beautiful—with his black, black hair and deep blue eyes and high cheekbones. Standing nearly six foot high, he was tall for an Elf, and he had a voice of silver. And his long-fingered hands were made for caressing, as many a Woman discovered, ever desiring more. At times, however, with one last kiss and a soft word, he would make a hasty departure, exiting the way he had arrived, out through a window or down from a balcony, avoiding hostile confrontations with husbands or brothers or the like. His dalliances were many, his loves few, yet none of the ladies involved begrudged him his pleasure—or theirs—and no issue came of his amorous adventures, for matings between Humankind and Elvenkind bear no fruit.

  Among the Men he was popular as well, joining them in their cups and labors. Too, he went sporting with them—not only afield with bow and hound, but also among the back streets and taverns of the towns.

  Yet always he became restless, and eventually some dawn would find him down at the docks slipping away, sailing outward on the tide.

  And gradually he fared back to warmer climes, plying alongside the shores of Vancha and Hoven and Jugo, until he once more was in Arbalin there in the Avagon Sea. In the Arbalina shipyards, he studied their ways, too, mastering that craft as well. Centuries had passed, five or six or more—who can say? for none kept count of them, especially not the Elf, for to him what mattered time?

  At last, aided by Drimmen artisans, Aravan set about building a ship of his own, incorporating all he had learned of the craft. Strange timbers he chose, of teak and blackwood and yew, of oak and larch and cypress, of ash and ebony, and of woods unseen until then, red woods and yellows and whites, and black woods as well as rich browns; and all were treated with oils most precious and rare. Slowly the ship formed, keel, ribs, strakes, wales, decking, cabins; a silvery auger was used to drill holes, and all wooden parts were carefully oiled and pegged together, and neither nailed nor screwed; and caulking was done with a substance most strange, never before seen, or since. Metal alloys from Dwarven forges were shaped into chains and an anchor, and the same alloy was used to make the cleats and other metal parts. And lo! below the waterline the hull was coated with a rare paint into which Starsilver had been mixed. Spidery soft ropes of various gauges formed the rigging, easy upon the hand and strong beyond measure. And as it was assembled, a docksman remarked that the ship would last a thousand years, and Aravan and his Drimmen shipwrights laughed and shook their heads, and one Drimm said, “Nay, Man, not a mere ten centuries, but more, much more.”

  At last it was finished and ready for sea. Neither sterncastle nor fo’c’s’le did the hull bear, but instead it was long and low and slim and rigged for speed. Three-masted, with lofty silken sails, square and triangular both, this was a ship meant to ride the wind as no ship had done before. The Elvenship, Men called her, but she was christened Eroean, an Elven word whose meaning is obscure, though it is thought to be related to the wind.

  Aravan took on a mixed crew of Humans and Drimma, and two or three Waerlinga, and set sail.

  They say he plied all the seas, learning their ever changing ways. It is also said that he sailed the entire world, visiting strange Lands afar, anchoring at times for years, for centuries say some, exploring—for he had the time to do so, being of Elvenkind. Yet it is also said that he oft returned to Arbalin releasing old crew, taking on new, whenever there was a need Too, it is certain that he brought back peculiar and wonderful cargo, unseen heretofore: shell necklaces, unknown gems bolts of silken cloth, and the like; exotic birds, peculiar animals, and visitors from far away; fruits and seeds and beans and grain, spices, teas; jades, ivories, opalescent gems, emeralds, gold and silver; all these and more did the Eroean carry from distant Lands to the insatiable markets of Arbalin.

  And there were maps and maps of the world afar, of continents and islands alike, to the west and south and east and north and all points in between, some wild and savage, others with Nations of their own. How he kept from sailing off the rim of the world none could say, yet he managed to remain alive, bringing ship and crew back to port time and again.

  When in port, Aravan’s crew or Human sailors and Drimmen warriors and Waerlinga scouts would tell of adventures beyond the wildest dreams; of temples and tribes and deadly creatures; of opulent cities and bejewelled potentates and Women and other females of surpassing beauty; of dark jungles and frozen wastes and mountains disappearing into the clouds; of rivers without end and deserts dire and isles like jewels in the sea; of oceans and oceans, boiling and frigid, hideous monsters within; of enchantments and glamours and creatures rare; of abandoned cities peopled by undead beings and living statues and worse; all these and more did they tell, to the delight and awe of the listeners. Around the entire world, they claimed, had sailed the Eroean, but who can believe such? Surely they exaggerated in this boast, as well as in all other of their unbridled imaginings.

  That the Eroean was swift there is no doubt, for she showed her fantail to many a merchant and to many a pirate as well, all sails set to, the braw ship heeling over in a spanking breeze, Aravan at the wheel laughing, the sleek vessel cleaving the waters, leaving a foaming wake aft, for she was an Elvenboat—enchanted, claimed many—the likes of which had never before been seen, nor since, either.

  Two thousand years or three did Aravan fare the world in his Elvenship. Yet of a sudden he stopped, and the Eroean disappeared from the waters of the world. Why? It is not told, though some claim that it was a lost love that caused Aravan to yield up the oceans, while others claimed that the ship was drowned in a maelstrom and Aravan would sail no other. Still others claimed that the Eroean was yet at sea, her rigging burning with green witch fire, sailing ever sailing, haunted by a ghostly crew. Regardless whether one or the other or another of these tales is true, or something entirely different, Aravan left the sea and came unto Darda Erynian to live among Elvenkind.

  But now his ready smile was more subdued, and a tormented look dwelled deep wi
thin his eyes.

  And he bore with him a crystal spear.

  * * *

  Centuries passed, and centuries more, and Aravan learned the ways of woodcraft and renewed his acquaintance with horses and riding. Too, he cultivated crops, and mastered tanning and leather working. Hawking he studied, learning of raptors and of their training—from swift kestrel to golden-eyed hawk to soaring eagle, as well as owls—and though he did not presume that any of these lords of the air would ever be tamed, still he used these savage birds to do his bidding—hunting, fishing, espying game and movement, standing watch. He widened his sphere of study to include other bird-kind—ebon ravens and black crows, bright songbirds, brown woodland thrushes, scintillant hummingbirds, and other birds grey and brown and raucous and timid and yellow and red and black and blue and green and white, birds gaudy and dull and small and large, birds of the sea and forests and fens and fields—and he learned their habits and manner of living and mastered their calls; he studied their structure and the types and shapes of feathers and the patterns of wings, and he deduced much concerning flight and flying.

  All this and more did Aravan take up while living among the Elves of Darda Erynian. Seasons passed uncounted, millennia, yet Aravan was just beginning, the Elf but a step or two along an endless path.

  * * *

  War came, the Great War, and Aravan joined forces with other Elvenkind And they stood athwart harm’s way and opposed the cruel Spaunen running roughshod o’er Mithgar.

  It was during the War that Aravan became comrade to Galarun, son of Coron Eiron, Elfking on Mithgar. And Eiron sent his son on a mission unto the forges of the Mages, there below Black Mountain in Xian. To bring back a silver sword was the charge of Galarun’s Company—an argent blade named the Dawn Sword, a weapon which perhaps could slay the High Vûlk, Gyphon Himself. Galarun was to carry the blade unto Darda Galion, for there in the Eldwood was the chosen place to cross over to Adonar, bearing it where it would be needed: into the very camp of the Elven forces upon the High World.