The Eye of the Hunter

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Aravan smiled at Gwylly’s apt turn of phrase. “Aye, that I do.”

  Faeril looked up into Aravan’s face. “But what about the child—the Child of the same—what does that mean?”

  Aravan laughed. “Ah, wee one, did we know that, then the world would be at our feet, for our sight would be clear beyond that of all other beings.”

  * * *

  They forded the Hanü the next morning, faring southward toward the slot between the Bodorian Range on their left and the Skarpal Mountains on their right, the terrain rugged, their progress slow. Through foothills and craggy tors they rode, among wooded land canting this way or that and pitching up and down, and at times they had to dismount and walk, occasionally backtracking to find an easier way. Often they had to stop and give the steeds a rest. And their travel was not aided by the weather, for it rained that day and all the next, and the slopes became slippery and at times too slick, too loose, for the horses to traverse, though perhaps the mules and ponies could have gone on for they seemed more sure footed.

  The following day the skies cleared, though the rain-soaked soil was yet a hazard. In the afternoon of the day after, they came down a steep grade and to the banks of a river. It was the Venn, having swung through its wide westerly arc and south, flowing on its own journey down to the Avagon Sea. And they had come to its course once again. Across the Venn lay Garia to the west; on this bank, Alban to the east; mountains before and mountains aft, and a river threading southward between.

  Down the Venn rode the five, along the river’s edge, at times on the bank, at times in the water along a shallow shore, following the meandering watercourse, for it was easier than riding through the steep flanking tors. Water cascaded from the mountains, braw streams leaping down the slopes, plunging, shouting in waterfalls, churning into the waters of the Venn. And whenever the comrades rode a distance in the crystal stream, Gwylly would cast out a hand-held line baited with nought but a daub of crue; even so, he managed to catch three fish this way, Faeril laughing in delight.

  Urus and Riatha rode in enchantment, for it seemed to them that nature itself recognized their trothplight, for the days were cool and the nights warm, and it was as if the birds caroled paeans of joy for their ears alone. And even the animals of the forest and of the river appeared to celebrate their love, pausing to look at the Elfess and the Baeran and to be seen by them in return: otters mudsliding; beavers in their ponds on dammed-up tributaries, slapping water as the two rode by; stags standing nobly, bounding away; squirrels chattering above in the trees…. What a wonderment! Idyllic. Serene. The woes of the world banished…. Or so it seemed to the lovers.

  Though Aravan rode in silence.

  Seven days they followed the river, but on the eighth they left its bed, for again the Venn swung on a westerly arc, and the five cut cross-country through the foothills of the Bodorian Range, striving for direct route to the port city of Thrako. Yet once again the weather turned and wild spring storms raged, thrown against the land by the Avagon Sea. Two days they spent against a high stone bluff, sheltered under a shallow overhang, while the wind and rain lashed at them and huge strokes of lightning crashed near, great blasts of thunder whelming in after. It was all they could do to keep the animals from bolting, and they got little rest.

  After the storm, they camped for two days, recovering. But on the third day’s dawning, once again they took up the journey, wending down through the hills and tors, following vales and streambeds, following the paths of least resistance. Even so, the way was formidable, and there were full days they traversed but ten miles or so. Yet onward they struggled, at times riding, at other times leading their mounts through thickets and briars and up steep hillsides and back down again, riding left and right to find ways down bluffs and up, and ways to pass beyond canyons. Often they speculated that perhaps they should have continued following the River Venn even though it did swing wide westerly, for surely that easy route, though longer, was swifter. But they did not turn back, for now they were deeply committed, and Riatha’s map showed that soon the way would ease. At last the hills began to diminish, and their course took them down toward a broad plain. South they continued, now veering westerly, as out onto a rolling land they came, arcing for the port town some hundred or so miles distant.

  That night when they camped, Riatha and Aravan sang Elven songs and spoke invocations, and all stepped the slow, stately dance to a chant by the Elfess—Aravan Gwylly, Faeril, Urus, and Riatha herself, all moving to her cant, celebrating the summer solstice.

  Over the next three days, they began to see signs of civilization: farms, herds of sheep and cattle, growing fields of grain, roads and tradeways, steads, cotes, shacks, occasional hamlets.

  At last they came unto Thrako, a port town of some five thousand—a massive city to the Warrows.

  It was the twenty-fourth day of June.

  * * *

  Twenty days they waited ere catching a ship bound for Caer Pendwyr. A coastal freighter, from Hovenkeep, it was the Orran Vamma, Hovenian meaning “Golden Dolphin,” though the round-bellied craft was a far cry from the sleek-swimming denizen of the sea. It reminded Faeril of the Fjordlander knorr the Hvalsbuk—the Whale’s Belly—and she smiled at the thought, noting that Gwylly was smiling, too. Yet the Orran Vamma would transport them and their steeds to Hile Bay in Pellar, landing at the port of Pendwyr.

  And so it was that on the fourteenth day of July they boarded the ’Vamma and set sail for Pellar.

  * * *

  The Orran Vamma wallowed and broached its way down the coast, stopping it seemed at every port city along the shore, offloading cargo, onloading cargo, Captain Ammor, a large, laughing Man in his fifties, trading and buying and selling.

  Slowly, slowly they progressed, if progress it could be called. Down the coast of Garia and through the straits past The Islands of Stone, a place where it was said that nothing grew and arcane stone figures stood, some folks claiming that ’twas sorcery that had graved them, others claiming that they were carven merely by water and wind. Regardless, these isles had a sinister reputation, for in times past, they had been the lair of many a pirate, striking out from the hundreds of inlets between.

  Past the narrow channel to the Inner Sea they wallowed, not sailing into the great body of brackish water, neither fresh nor salt, but faring onward in the coastal waters of the Avagon Sea.

  Along the shoreline of Southern Riamon they sailed, stopping now and again.

  It was during this part of the journey that Gwylly and Faeril discovered why Aravan brooded. During a starlit summer night, as buccan and damman strolled the deck, they came to the bow of the Orran Vamma, and there stood Aravan and Riatha, the two speaking low to one another in the Elven tongue.

  “[…Vio alo janna…] I am simply saying, Riatha, that he is a mortal Man, and as such, tragedy will surely come unto ye both as he—”

  “As he grows old and I do not.” Riatha’s voice was bitter, her eyes filled with despair. “Aravan, Aravan, dost thou think that I have not considered this? It has bedevilled me for more than a thousand years!”

  Aravan took her hand. “I know, Dara. I know.” He fell silent for a moment, then continued, “Thou art like unto a jaian to me, Riatha, and I would not see thy heart shattered.”

  “As was thine own at Rwn.” Her words were an observation, not a question.

  Bleakly, Aravan nodded.

  They stood a moment longer, the water shsshing against bow and hull. At last Aravan spoke again: “There is this, too, Dara: There may come a time in our pursuit of this yellow-eyed monster that thou must choose ’tween thy love’s life or death, and the lives or deaths of others—the Waerlinga, you, I, to name them—those likely to be in jeopardy. At Rwn, I chose one way. How wilt thou choose. Dara? How wilt thou choose?”

  As Aravan released Riatha’s hand and strode off from her, Gwylly and Faeril shrank back into the shadows. Riatha stood at the bow and watched the phosphorescent waves before them, and what she t
hought, neither buccan nor damman knew. After a moment they, too, crept away, leaving the Elfess standing a lonely vigil.

  * * *

  At last they came to the coastal waters of Pellar, and finally unto Hile Bay, ringed ’round by high sheer cliffs, towering upward a hundred feet.

  As they sailed into the harbor, the city of Pendwyr could be seen above, its buildings ranged along the lengthy, steep-sided headland sheltering the bay. At the tip of the headland, separated from it by no more than fifty feet, stood a tall, sheer-walled stone island, its surface on a level with that of the city, a castle occupying the heights—Caer Pendwyr. Beyond the island holding the caer stood two more plumb-sided islands towering up nearly as high, and it could be seen that buildings were thereupon, but what they housed could not be discerned, and none aboard spoke of their purpose.

  The Orran Vamma docked alongside other coastal freighters in mid-afternoon. Faeril and Gwylly, Aravan, Riatha and Urus, and the ponies, horses, and mules were offloaded as dusk fell across the bay.

  Slowly they made their way up the cliff-side road to the city of Pendwyr, taking rooms at the Silver Marlin.

  It was now the tenth day of August.

  They had begun their journey on Springday Night, one hundred forty-two days ago, travelling from the Great North Glacier in the far Grimwalls unto this inn in Pellar, nearly three thousand miles in all. Yet their purpose for coming here had not been achieved, might not be achieved, for it depended upon a boon yet to be granted in the High King’s castle a mile or so away, and relied upon redemption of a pledge made by a child of ten a thousand and thirty-seven years past.

  CHAPTER 27

  Pendwyr

  Summer, 5E988 to Autumn, 5E989

  [The Present]

  Gwylly came instantly awake. What was that?

  The buccan did not recognize his surroundings, for he was in a broad bed, and the room did not rock and sway.

  Again came the light tapping on the door.

  “Unh,” he groaned. Trying to sit, he found his arm trapped under Faeril, the limb totally asleep, and he had to pull his entire body away to get free. When he had struggled to an upright position, his eyes swept the chamber. Oh. The Silver Marlin. No wonder it doesn’t rock and sway. It’s not the Orren Vamma …thank Adon.

  One arm dangling uselessly, Gwylly slid out of bed and staggered to the door, opening it to find Aravan standing there.

  The Elf smiled. “’Tis dawn.”

  Without saying a word, Gwylly stumbled back to the bed and tried to get in again; with only one arm he struggled to clamber up into the great four poster, a full Man-sized bed and him nought but a wee Warrow. Aravan boosted him up, and. Gwylly fell over, rolling and then lying on his back, his good hand massaging his sleeping arm.

  Beside him, Faeril opened her eyes.

  Aravan threw wide the drapes. Pale morning light filled the room. “Come, wee ones, we don’t wish to be last to the caer. Petitioners will line up shortly, and we must needs arrive early to get a hearing this day.”

  “Ow! Ow!” yipped Gwylly.

  Alarmed, Faeril bolted upright, scrambling ’cross covers to the buccan’s side. “What is it, Gwylly? What’s wrong?”

  “Ooo,” he moaned. “Pins and needles, love. My arm was asleep and now wakens.”

  Relieved, Faeril plopped facedown on the bedding.

  Aravan crossed the floor, heading outward. “I’ll see ye adown shortly for breaking our fast.”

  “Elves,” growled Gwylly, “never sleep!”

  Grinning, Aravan stepped from the room and closed the door after, turning toward Riatha and Urus’s chamber.

  Faeril slid backwards off the bed. “Come, my buccaran. Aravan is no doubt correct. If we would see the Steward…”

  Within a half hour, Faeril and Gwylly joined Aravan in the common room of the Silver Marlin, the Elf just now being served, the maid bringing a large platter of breakfast eggs and rashers of bacon and helpings of bread and honey. Too, there was a pot of hot tea with milk on the side. As the three were lading up their trenchers, Riatha and Urus joined them.

  Aravan smiled at the glum looks on his companions’ faces. “’Twas a merry time last night, neh?”

  Staring at the Elf, Riatha slowly shook her head in ‘wilderment. “How thou canst down glass after glass of brandy, Aravan, and yet be chipper in the morn, I’ll not know. Some arcane secret gained from years at sea, mayhap?”

  “Akka! No secret to it, Dara—I’ve not yet been to bed.”

  Urus choked on his tea, but managed to swallow most of it ere he burst out in strangled laughter. “Arcane secret!” he wheezed, coughing, grinning sideways at Riatha as she pounded him on the back. “Some secret!”

  * * *

  The Sun had just cleared the horizon as they strolled toward the distant caer, the summer day promising to be clear and warm. A southerly ocean breeze swept gently across the headland. They passed through a city made primarily of stone and brick and tile, stucco and clay, the buildings for the most part joined to one another, though here and there were stand-alone structures. The narrow streets and alleyways twisted this way and that, the cobblestones of variegated color. Shops occupied many first floors, dwellings above. Glass windows displayed merchandise, the handiworks of crafters: milliners, coppersmiths, potters, jewellers, weavers, tanners, cobblers, and the like.

  The city was beginning to come awake, a few storekeepers sweeping the flag walkways before their shops, light traffic trundling, waggon wheels and horses’ hooves clattering on cobble.

  “Stone and brick,” Faeril commented, her eyes taking it all in. “It seems as if only the bright-colored doors are made of wood.”

  “Lack of water,” said Aravan when Faeril remarked upon it.

  Gwylly looked up at the Elf. “Water?”

  “Aye. Water…or the lack of it, I should say.”

  The buccan swept his arm in a wide gesture. “But there’s an ocean surrounding.”

  “But no wells, Gwylly. No wells.”

  Noting the looks of puzzlement on the faces of the Waerlinga, Aravan explained. “Fires need a lot of water for putting them out. A wooden city with buildings this close”—he waved at the surrounding structures—“would flare up like a tinderbox, were there to be a conflagration…”

  “They could store seawater in tanks, barrels,” offered Faeril.

  Aravan nodded. “They could, but store fresh instead…and use it for cooking and drinking, washing and bathing.”

  Gwylly looked about. “Where do they get their water?”

  “Wells yon,” replied Aravan, pointing in the general direction of the plains beyond the headland.

  “Too, they catch and store the rainwater that runs from the tile roofs,” Riatha added, nodding at the ingenious gutters channelling water into the buildings, where stood waiting vats to collect it.

  Faeril looked at Gwylly. “Not much of a place to build a city,” she commented. “No water.”

  Aravan smiled down at her. “Thou art correct, wee one, yet it was not meant to be a city.” He held up a hand to forestall her questions. “At first, ’twas merely a fort, yon”—he pointed at the caer—“easily defended ’gainst invaders, though long sieges would eventually prevail o’er the defenders.

  “The city came after, growing bit by bit over the centuries, till it is as ye see it anow.” Aravan fell silent, and they strode onward, drawing closer to the caer.

  In spite of the ocean breeze, an effluvia of middens rode on the air, and now and again a heavy drift of noisome odor surrounded them, raw and rank. Finally Gwylly wrinkled his nose. “Ugh! What is that?”

  Aravan glanced at Riatha, but it was Urus who answered. “Humanity, Gwylly. Humanity. Whenever this many people are crushed together…”

  They continued onward, passing through several market squares, for the most part just beginning to set up business for the coming day. Even so, it could be seen that some would sell a variety of goods, while others seemed to specialize: fi
sh, fowl and meats, vegetables and fruits and grain, cloth and woven goods, flowers, and the like.

  Past shops and stores, past restaurants and cafés, past inns and taverns, past large dwellings and small squares, past hospitals and chirurgeons, herbalists, tea shops, smiths, stables, jewellers, clothiers, tailors, cobblers, greengrocers, past every kind of shop and merchant that Gwylly and Faeril could even imagine and some they hadn’t, past them all went the five. And for the most part, these shops and businesses were just beginning to stir.

  As the comrades came into the vicinity of the caer, the buildings took on a different aspect, the face of government—a great courthouse, a tax hall, a constable station with jail above, a firehouse, a library, a census building, a hall of records, a cluster of university buildings, and other such.

  At last they came to a wall, and warders stood at the gate. Several petitioners were lined up waiting, sitting on the stone benches provided.

  Called forth by the guard, the gate captain was clearly taken aback by the appearance of Elves at his station, but it was the Warrows who astounded him, for throughout the ages they had rarely come to Pendwyr, and in fact had taken on an aura of being a legendary Folk.

  “Well, I’ll be…” he breathed, then realizing his station, gruffly said, “State your business.”

  Urus answered. “We have come to speak with King Garan, to redeem a royal pledge.”

  The captain looked up at the huge Man towering above him. “The High King is in Challerain and will not return for another seven weeks.”

  Aravan smiled. “The Steward will do for now.”

  * * *

  “Adon, what a tale!” The speaker was Leith, Garan’s cousin and Steward in Pendwyr when the King was away at Challerain. Leith was a slender, grey-haired Man in his fifties, with the eyes of a hawk, some said. “What say you, Lord Hanor?”

  At Leith’s side sat a huge-girthed Man of perhaps forty, with dark brown hair and eyes. Advisor to the Steward and High King alike, Hanor steepled his fingers. “I won’t mince words, m’Lord: were this tale to be borne by anyone other than Elves and Wee Folk, in Jugo we would call into question either the sanity of those who told it, or their honesty.”