by Roger Taylor
‘No more than I already have,’ Thyrn replied, his voice unsteady. ‘There were images – sensations – that I’ve no words for. It was terrifying, and it was vast.’ A memory returned to him. ‘Like those birds we saw when we were riding along the shore. Individual birds, but so many they were like smoke in the distance. This was the same, but much bigger – as though birds were filling the entire sky, shrieking and screaming. I sensed a malevolent power trying to unleash itself, to wreak destruction on everything. But something was restraining it. Something about Vashnar.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘It needs him. He’s… a key. Something that will release them.’
‘Them?’
‘Them, him, it – all these things. That’s not important; it’s the extent of it all I can’t convey to you.’ He looked out beyond the fire. ‘I was dwarfed by it far more than I am by these mountains.’ He took several long breaths to calm himself.
‘Are you sure this wasn’t all just a dream?’ Adren asked tentatively. ‘You had a very peculiar experience yesterday.’
‘It was no dream,’ Thyrn said categorically and without any resentment at the question. ‘It was real, and it was part of everything that’s been happening. And it’s only by clinging to you here, for support, that I can keep the real horror of it all at bay.’ He clenched his hands together painfully. ‘It knew I was there,’ he said, his voice cracking. His eyes widened in fear again. ‘It’s me who’s in their way. They’ll have to destroy me to take Vashnar.’ In a desperate flurry, he made to stand up but both Endryk and Nordath restrained him.
‘You’re safe here,’ Endryk said but he had to keep repeating it and he was almost shouting before Thyrn seemed to hear him and became a little calmer. ‘Whatever it was you experienced, it has no power out here.’
Adren, who had been watching Thyrn intently, leaned across to him and echoed Endryk’s words. ‘Whatever it was you experienced, it had no power over you in there, did it?’ she said, emphasizing the last two words with a jabbing finger. ‘It might have frightened you half to death, but if it knew you were there, and you were in its way, why didn’t it do anything?’
Gradually Thyrn’s panic began to slip away and a realization dawned.
‘You’re right,’ he said, half to himself, his eyes becoming shrewd and angry. Endryk and Nordath cautiously released him. Endryk shot Adren a grateful look.
No one spoke for a while, then Thyrn said, ‘I need to think about this again, quietly. Get it clearer in my mind. I’m sorry I disturbed you all.’
‘You’ve nothing to apologize for,’ Endryk said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Go back to bed. It’s some time to dawn yet. We can talk again in the morning. Things usually seem less intimidating in the daylight.’
‘Don’t say a word,’ Adren said to Rhavvan when Thyrn had returned to his tent.
‘All right, all right, I know,’ Rhavvan blustered. ‘I like the lad as much as you do – he’s grown on me, especially these past few days. But it’s difficult, this Joining business. It makes no sense. It was bad enough accepting the idea that he and Vashnar were somehow in contact in his head, but now we’ve got monsters out of who knows where coming to haunt us.’ He waved his hands helplessly. ‘How can we be sure he’s not just going quietly mad after all?’
‘I suppose we can’t be,’ Hyrald said eventually. ‘He’s young and he’s unusual, and what’s happened of late could push anyone over the edge. But if he is mad, it’s not like any other kind of madness I’ve ever seen, for what that’s worth. We’ve all seen him change from being an irritating burden to becoming one of us – someone we could rely on, someone who pulls his weight. Nordath understands more about being a Caddoran than any of us, so I’m quite prepared to accept his word that Thyrn and Vashnar have become tangled together in some way. But this last business, and him wandering off like he did, meeting little old men that none of us saw, hearing him speak in the night… it’s straining matters for me.’ He gave Nordath an apologetic look.
‘It’s all right,’ Nordath said. ‘I understand how you feel. I don’t know what’s happening either. But I do know that whatever it is, Thyrn believes it absolutely. There was no mistaking his fear when he woke up, or when he was talking to us.’
None of them disputed that.
‘What do you think, Endryk?’ Rhavvan asked, still subdued.
Endryk was staring into the fire. ‘My stomach says, yes, it’s all true. My head says, I don’t know. I told you – I’ve seen such powers used before by men, which were far beyond anything I could begin to explain. And I know that there are old and fearful forces which are ignored or dismissed only at appalling risk – to everyone.’ He looked at Nordath. ‘As you’ve already surmised, it’s because of that that I’m here. I’ve been through my own insanity and I’m loath to condemn Thyrn.’ He tapped a burning log absently with his boot. ‘I think we’ve no choice but to give him the benefit of the doubt – to accept his tale, and support him as much as we can. One way or another it’ll resolve itself.’ Suddenly he bared his teeth and his eyes shone, feral and frightening, in the firelight. ‘One thing’s for sure. If we ignore him, and he’s telling the truth, it’ll be the last mistake we ever make.’
No one spoke, but all eyes were on him. Then, the fearful mask was gone and he stood up, himself again. ‘Anyway, it’s my duty spell now, isn’t it?’ He slapped Rhavvan on the back heartily. ‘Don’t look so glum, Rhavvan. Whether in the end we’re going to face your Vashnar and his thugs, or dragons and wild beasties, we’ve still got tomorrow to get through – food, walking, training.’
The remainder of the night passed off without incident. Rather to his surprise, Nordath found that Thyrn was already asleep when he returned to his tent. He was less fortunate himself and woke the next morning bemoaning the fact that he had ‘only just got off’.
The preliminaries of the day were completed in comparative silence, albeit more strained than usual, and they were sitting eating before Thyrn spoke.
‘I’m sorry about last night, but I was very frightened. Thank you all for helping me.’
This brought a variety of awkward and dismissive mutterings which ended with Rhavvan asking him how he felt now.
‘Still frightened,’ he replied, causing a momentary pause in the meal. ‘But I’ve been going over what happened. Thinking about it.’ He cleared his throat nervously. ‘I’m assuming that I’m not going mad – that something in my Caddoran nature hasn’t gone askew and is leading me astray, as it were. But if that’s so, then I have to say that something far worse is happening than just the Death Cry being proclaimed against us, or whatever it is that Vashnar’s up to with his Tervaidin Wardens.’
His voice was compellingly calm and no one was eating now. He looked up at the surrounding peaks, forbidding and enclosing against an overcast sky. ‘Somewhere, not far from here, I think – there’s a place that’s… significant… in this business. I think I was being drawn to it yesterday. Maybe if the old man hadn’t stopped me, I’d…’ His expression became preoccupied and he paused. ‘I told you I could feel part of Vashnar with me all the time.’ He looked at Rhavvan. ‘I know that’s difficult for you to understand, but it’s so, nevertheless.’ He turned to the others. ‘Now there’s something else. A call. A sign. Voices. Something to draw Vashnar here.’
‘What do you mean?’ Hyrald asked.
Thyrn shrugged. ‘Just that. I can feel it – hear it, if you like. Whatever it was that reached out to Vashnar last night needs him to be closer – physically closer. The call that it left is for him to follow. And he will – even I can feel its compulsion. And it will bring him here.’
‘Here? Right here?’ Hyrald’s finger pointed directly downwards.
Thyrn shook his head. ‘No. Just into these mountains – but somewhere not too far away. As I said, I think perhaps I was being drawn to it myself yesterday.’ He caught Rhavvan’s eye. ‘Don’t you think I know how crazy all this sounds?’ he protested angrily before Rhavvan could say anythi
ng. ‘Don’t you think I’d rather we just broke camp and plodded on towards Arvenshelm in the hope that sooner or later I – we – would get a fair hearing in a Warden’s Court, or something; that everything would be seen to be a regrettable misunderstanding; that we’d all be allowed back to our old lives as though nothing had happened?’ Rhavvan made to speak, but Thyrn ploughed on. ‘Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I am going insane. I don’t know. How could I tell? I don’t feel insane. And what I’m sensing, for all it seems to be beyond reason, feels as real as this plate.’
Rhavvan managed to interrupt him as he paused for breath.
He echoed the conclusion that Endryk had offered the previous night. ‘You’re right, it does sound crazy. And more than once I’ve thought you might be crazy yourself. But this whole business has been crazy from the start. And no matter what we all think of one another we’ve no alternative but to stick to Endryk’s advice and work as a team if we’re going to stand any chance of getting out of this. If it’s any help, you might be having crazy thoughts, but you neither look nor sound mad and, like Endryk told you last night, none of us think you are. The least any of us will give you is the benefit of the doubt – innocent until proved guilty, if you like. There’s no denying you were a pain in the beginning, but you’re one of us now.’
His large hands reached and engulfed Thyrn’s.
Adren’s eyebrows rose and she seemed to be weighing a tart response to this bluff admission, though in the end she remained silent. Endryk spoke as Thyrn eventually extricated himself from Rhavvan’s grip.
‘You were going to tell us something else about this call to Vashnar that you heard.’
‘Am hearing,’ Thyrn corrected. He hesitated. ‘Something inside tells me that I should follow this call myself – move towards what seems to be the heart of all this.’
Endryk stared at him uncertainly, then, ‘That’s your judgement, Thyrn. I couldn’t begin to advise you. But we’ve no route planned and if this call takes us south or west, I can’t see why we shouldn’t go wherever you want.’ He looked round at the others, seeking their consent. No one disagreed, though there was concern in all their faces. He voiced it. ‘But don’t forget we’re as bound up in this as you are. You are one of us now. Don’t shut us out. Don’t wander off on your own again. And if anything else strange happens to you, don’t nurse it to yourself… spit it out straight away.’
‘I will,’ Thyrn agreed.
A little later they were trudging towards the rocky head of the valley. Thyrn had wanted to clamber up on the ridge again but Endryk had been unequivocal about not dividing the group. ‘We stay together and we go where the horses can go,’ he insisted. ‘Not every valley’s going to be as bleak as this, I hope, but generally, hunting around here’s not going to be good and, apart from the horses carrying our equipment, if the worst comes to the worst, we can eat them.’
This brought an indignant denial from Adren, which Endryk brushed aside with a curt, ‘You will when you’re hungry.’
Reaching the head of the valley they found themselves overlooking another; wider and less intimidating than the one they had just travelled. Its floor and lower slopes were verdant and lightly wooded, and in the distance they could just make out the glint of a lake.
‘Quite a contrast,’ Hyrald said, glancing back.
Endryk nodded then looked at Thyrn. ‘Which way do you want to go?’ he asked.
After a moment, as if it were being lifted by some external force, Thyrn’s right arm slowly rose. ‘Along this side,’ he said.
‘South-west,’ Endryk confirmed, looking at the pale disc of the sun trying to make its way through the clouds.
Then Thyrn’s arm stiffened. ‘There,’ he said. He was pointing to a distant peak rising solitary above its neighbours. ‘Yes, there, definitely.’
‘We’re not going to reach that today,’ Endryk said. ‘If tomorrow.’ He frowned.
‘What’s the matter?’ Rhavvan asked.
‘Oh, nothing,’ Endryk replied with a shrug. ‘It’s just a sour-looking thing. Grey, dead. Quite different to all the other peaks around here. It reminds me of something but I can’t think what.’
They set off at a leisurely pace. At Endryk’s suggestion they moved down for a while on to the lusher valley floor where they were able to replenish their supplies. Apart from a great many grasses and plant leaves and roots, they also brought down several plump birds, Thyrn actually killing one with his sling, albeit not the one he was aiming at. The others confined themselves to their bows, the Wardens in particular vying strongly with one another for the position of best archer, a competition that Endryk emphatically refused to adjudicate on except in so far as their clamour scattered their prey.
The strange events of the previous day behind them and their immediate destination agreed upon, their mood was good, though, just as the watery sky occasionally darkened and threatened rain, the underlying grimness of their position was never far away from their thoughts.
‘What if we run into more valleys that are like the last one?’ Adren asked edgily. ‘No vegetation, no animals – just rocks.’
Endryk was matter-of-fact. ‘When we’re in places like this, we gather what we can, store it as well as we can, and then we live on it for as long as we can. If we come on hard times, we ration ourselves, then we go short, then we go hungry. But throughout, we keep putting one foot in front of the other. And we don’t burden the present with an unknowable future.’
‘I was only thinking ahead,’ Adren protested indignantly.
‘No, you weren’t. You were beginning to mither, as my mother used to say.’
‘Mither?’
‘Fret, fuss, fume, bite your nails, for nothing.’ This caused Hyrald and Rhavvan some amusement but Adren’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
‘If you’re going to think ahead, then plan properly,’ Endryk continued. ‘Don’t forget, this range isn’t that wide, and a fit, determined person can last a long time without any food at all.’ He turned, and seeing her expression, gave her a provocative look. ‘And, of course, we’ve always got…’ He patted his horse.
‘Stop that!’
It was a command and a menacing finger that had deterred more than one Arvenshelm miscreant from continuing with his misdeeds. Catching the full force of it, Endryk laughed and held up his hands in insincere surrender.
When they stopped to eat, however, Thyrn was unusually sombre. After a few mouthfuls of his meal, he stood up and with an, ‘Excuse me,’ he took a sword from one of the horses, unsheathed it and began performing a basic cutting exercise that, following Endryk’s teaching, Adren had shown him.
The others watched him in silence for some time, their anxiety growing in proportion to his intensity. Eventually, in response to a silent appeal from Nordath, Endryk went over to him. Thyrn turned to face him, the sword in a guard position.
‘What’s wrong?’ Endryk asked.
Thyrn frowned, then said, ‘My distance. If I want to cut you, I’m too close. If I want to lunge, I’m a little too far away.’
Amusement broke through Endryk’s concerned expression, and, chuckling, he shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant, but you’re quite right – well observed.’ He took a pace back and said, ‘Cut!’ bouncing his hand off the centre of his forehead to indicate the target.
Thyrn craned forward a little, as if not understanding the instruction. Endryk repeated it. ‘Cut, now. Quickly.’
‘But…’
‘Do it! Now!’ Endryk clapped his hands loudly and stamped his foot with a movement that made him seem to be advancing. Thyrn’s sword shot up and, his face screwed into an apologetic and fearful rictus, he stepped forward and swung the sword down alarmingly towards Endryk’s head.
Without any apparent haste, Endryk stepped quietly to one side of the descending blade, looped an arm around Thyrn’s shoulder and placed his other hand on the now lowered sword hilt. As Thyrn made to snatch the sword back, Endryk made a slight movement which arch
ed Thyrn backwards and slipped the sword from his hand. The whole movement was so seemingly casual that it drew spontaneous approval from the bemused watchers.
With the same ease that he had disturbed Thyrn’s balance, Endryk restored it and returned the sword to him.
‘Not bad,’ he said, leading him back towards the others. He looked at him seriously. ‘I’ll teach you what you need to know from now. But remember what we agreed. Don’t keep anything to yourself. What’s the matter? Why this sudden need to put sword practice before food?’ He handed Thyrn his plate and motioned him to sit.
‘I don’t know,’ Thyrn said, picking at his food. ‘It’s very strange. I hadn’t really noticed it until we sat down but there’s something about this call I can feel that is making me think that I’m walking towards a fight of some kind.’ He looked at Endryk. ‘Where would I get a feeling like that from? I’ve never been in a fight in my life.’
‘I wouldn’t hazard a guess,’ Endryk replied. ‘But there’s a high risk that this entire venture will come to blows before it’s finished, you know that. That’s why we’ve been preparing ourselves.’
Thyrn rejected this suggestion unequivocally. ‘No. That, I understood. This is different. It’s as though a part of me I never knew about has suddenly appeared. Something that’s just said, “No – no further”, and has planted its feet in the ground in defiance. It’s there whenever I think about last night. And when I sense this call inside me.’
Endryk looked to Nordath for guidance but received none. Thyrn abruptly seized his arm.
‘Teach me how to fight,’ he said desperately. ‘Teach me what I need to know to be a warrior like you. Please.’
Endryk made a half-hearted effort to free his arm but to no avail. For the first time since they had met him, he seemed to be violently disturbed.
‘I can’t,’ he said, finally freeing himself. ‘Not just like that, in a few days. It takes years. Besides, I’m no warrior. I’d have probably been a saddler like my father if…’ He faltered again. ‘I’m just someone who’s been taught how to fight should he need to. We all were. It was the way of my people – the tradition. We were taught fighting skills and many other things. Not to fight – we had no enemies, as we thought – but to be self-sufficient, independent, self-disciplined, yet still part of an ordered and peaceful society.’