Kelven's Riddle Book Five

by Daniel Hylton

  Aram looked over and found Boman tending to his men, and checking among them for serious injury. Gaining the Governor’s attention, Aram pointed down the slope. “We need to send aid to those men that are injured down there,” he told him.

  Boman looked down the incline and nodded, but then he lifted his gaze to the tower and hesitated. “Will that thing come again, do you think?”

  Aram studied the tower as well for a moment and then shook his head.

  “It will not,” he answered, for suddenly he understood.

  The Governor was watching him and saw the expression of understanding spread across the king’s face.

  “What was that thing, my lord?” Boman repeated Thaniel’s question of a few moments earlier.

  “It was the grim lord opening his door,” Aram replied.

  Boman frowned. “Opening his door? – to what end?”

  “For me,” Aram said. “To the end that I might go in to him.”

  Boman continued to frown at him, but said nothing further.

  “Do not send a detail down to aid those men upon the slope, Governor,” Aram told him, changing his mind. “I will have Nikolus send horses to their aid. It will be faster, and we may move them more easily out of danger.”

  Nikolus and his troopers were behind him, tending to their dead and wounded. Aram glanced out toward where the bodies of Donnick and Wamlak lay, but found that he could not bear to deal with such sadness at the moment. Besides, there was much that needed to be done for those that yet lived.

  Speaking to Thaniel, Aram moved away toward Nikolus. As he went, he said to Boman, “Leave a large enough detail to aid the surgeons in seeing to your wounded and your dead, Governor – and then begin moving your troops back over the ridge and down into the little valley into camp. I will have Lamont go ahead of you, and Elam will follow.”

  He looked up at the sun. It had slipped barely two hours past mid-day. Had the battle really only lasted less than two hours?

  After commissioning Nikolus to send aid to the wounded that lay down the slope, Aram went along the line, speaking to each commander, giving the same instruction that he’d given to Boman, to organize details to aid the surgeons and then to begin moving in order back across the ridge and down into their camps of the night before.

  At the road, he found Timmon kneeling by the body of his dead mount, weeping, trying to move the shattered pieces of her into a less vulgar version of the wreckage that violent death had made of her.

  Aram sat quietly and watched him at his terrible labor for a time and then he spoke kindly. “When you can – we need to clear the road, my friend, and get the cannon back over the ridge and down into the valley beyond.”

  Timmon nodded without looking up. “I’ll move it out of the way now – I just didn’t want to leave her like this.”

  “I understand,” Aram told him. “I will send a cart this way to bring her out with the rest of our dead.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  After the various commanders, upon consulting with the surgeons, organized sufficient details for seeing to the delicate task of removing the wounded, and the more sorrowful work of removing the dead, the rest of the army formed into columns and filed back through the cut and down the road into the small valley where they made their camp. Timmon, with one cart bearing the gun and another bearing the remains of Bonhie, went in front.

  Nikolus sent men and horses down the slope to retrieve the wounded men that had given chase to the enemy and the bodies of their companions.

  Aram knew that he had to see to the sad removal of Donnick and Wamlak, but first he went toward the east, to see Mallet.

  The big man was drenched in blood, some of it reddish-brown, but much of it brackish, a testament to the many lashers he had slain that day.

  Aram dismounted and grabbed the big man’s hand. “I am very glad to see you alive, my friend,” he said. He embraced Mallet and then glanced behind around the slope.

  “Where is Jonwood?”

  Mallet waved one hand down toward the small canyon to the east. “He and some others are seeing to the wounded from among the wolf people, my lord.”

  Aram nodded. “Thank you for that.”

  Mallet was watching him closely, a look of unease, almost of fear, evident on his broad face. “My lord – is it true? What I hear of Wamlak, I mean.”

  Aram met his gaze and then inclined his head in solemn acknowledgement. “The lashers broke through the line by Donnick. Wamlak went to the aid of his father.” He sighed deeply as his eyes abruptly stung. “I went that way, too, but I was too late. They both of them died. I am sorry, my friend.”

  Mallet convulsed, sucked in a great gulp of air, and began sobbing, burying his face in his hands. After some time, in which Aram stood helplessly by with one hand on the big man’s arm, Mallet drew in a deep, shuddering breath, choking off his sorrow, and wiped at his eyes with blood-encrusted hands. “I loved that man, Lord Aram. He was as good a friend as any man ever had.”

  Aram nodded, gulping down his own grief. “I know this, my friend. I am sorry.”

  The big man turned and glared out across the valley, at the distant black tower. Lifting one hand, he pointed it accusingly. “No one has the right to cause as much sorrow as he has brought us all.”

  “No – he does not have such a right,” Aram agreed. “He never had such a right as that.” He reached out and again laid one hand upon Mallet’s arm. “Help me remove the army from the field,” he said. “And then I will go and visit justice upon him for all of us.”

  Mallet jerked his head around and looked down at him. He frowned deeply. “You are going in there, my lord? Alone?”

  “Yes.” Aram spread his hands, indicating the body-strewn battlefield. “That was the purpose of all of this – so that I might go in unto him and evict him from the world, now and forever.”

  Mallet stared for a long moment, and then lowered his gaze to the ground and nodded. “I guess I knew that,” he admitted.

  Aram looked around. “Leave the bodies of the enemy,” he told him. “See to your wounded and your dead, and send the rest of your men back across the ridge and into the valley.”

  “I will, my lord. What about Wamlak?”

  “I’m going to see about him and Donnick now,” Aram said. “And I have heard nothing of Findaen since all this started. I must find him and know that he is well. Don’t worry – I will make certain that you know where Wamlak may be found once he and his father are removed.”

  Aram turned away then to mount up on Thaniel, but Mallet reached out one large hand and prevented him. Aram looked back curiously at the big man.

  With his free hand, Mallet indicated the tower. “Are you going in there now, my lord? After you see to Findaen and Wamlak?”

  Aram smiled and shook his head. “No. We must get the army safely away before I go in to him. The army must be nowhere near this valley when justice is done upon Manon.”

  Aram turned again, but once more Mallet stopped him.

  “My lord – remember? You told me to be alive when the battle was over.”

  Aram nodded slowly, watching him. “Yes, I did want that of you; I wanted it very much.”

  “Then I say the same to you now, my lord.”

  Aram frowned but gave no answer.

  Mallet lifted his hand toward the north once again. “When you have done with him, and the world is free – be alive, my lord, I beg of you.”

  Aram looked in his eyes for a moment and then looked away, toward the tower of his enemy. “I will do my best, my friend,” he said quietly. Then he turned and once more met Mallet’s gaze. “But just as you did not abandon your post, here, upon this hill, even though it might have easily cost your life – so then, too, I cannot abandon my destiny, whatever the cost.”

  He nodded solemnly. “But hear me, my friend – I do not intend to die.” He smiled in an attempt to break the somberness of the moment and then looked around. “Now – let us get this army sa
fely off this ridge.”

  “I will, my lord.” Mallet agreed. “And you will tell me where I may find Wamlak later?”

  “I will send word,” Aram promised as he mounted up, and then Thaniel cantered away toward the west, to see about the dark-haired archer that Aram had once considered the cleverest man of his acquaintance. And lying near him was Donnick, who had been the calmest and most capable of men. These two men, father and son, would be sorely missed whatever the future wrought.

  When Aram and Thaniel made their way back across what had been the front, now devoid of living men other than surgeons and those toiling at removing the allied dead, Aram studied the long columns of men up near the crest that were moving toward the west and the road that would take them back toward camp, looking for Findaen. Finally, they passed the road and Aram searched the lines of those men beyond the gleaming black pavement that were slowly filing eastward. At last, they came to where the lashers had punched through Donnick’s line.

  Nowhere had he found Findaen. No one had seen him since the battle and Thaniel, though he had tried unceasingly, had been unable to contact Andaran with mindspeak. Aram’s heart grew heavy with every failure at discovering his wife’s brother.

  Bodies were strewn all across the space, thousands of them, lashers, gray men, human men, and horses. Aram directed Thaniel out onto the broad shelf where the line had been before the lashers drove it back and destroyed it, looking for Donnick and Wamlak. He spied a trooper kneeling by a horse. Both were covered with dust and dried blood, the grime of battle.

  The trooper was attempting to move the body of a lasher so that he might get at whatever lay beneath.

  Aram dismounted and moved up behind the cavalryman. “I beg forgiveness for disturbing you,” he said. “But have you seen Findaen?”

  Startled, the trooper turned and looked back, getting to his feet as he did so. It was Findaen. The horse that stood nearby was Andaran. Neither had been recognizable, caked as they were with the filth of the awful fighting that had occurred in this place. Overjoyed, Aram went to his brother-in-law and embraced him, even as Thaniel reproved Andaran.

  “Why did you not answer me?” Thaniel demanded, but he received only a curious look in reply.

  “He was hit pretty hard on his headgear – by one of those big bastards,” Findaen explained to Thaniel. “I haven’t been able to get a word out of him.”

  “It’s good to see you, Fin,” Aram said.

  Fin squeezed his eyes tight for a moment, and nodded. “It’s good to see you, too.” Then he knelt down once more. “Help me get this monster off Wamlak, will you?” He asked.

  Aram knelt down to help him. “I’m sorry, Fin,” he stated.

  Findaen looked over. “Ka’en is right about that, you know.”

  Aram frowned at him. “About what?”

  “That you have to stop apologizing.” Findaen looked around. “None of these deaths is your doing, Aram,” he said, and then he looked out toward the distant tower. “They are his – each one of them – they are his.”

  Though the unhurt and the walking wounded were settled back into camp by the end of that day, it required two more days to gather the more severely wounded into wagons, and to determine which of those that were injured would survive and should be moved, and which of them should simply be nursed into as a painless a death as was possible.

  Then came the long, sorrowful, and painful process of burying the dead, and marking their graves. Summer had come to even this far northern part of the world, and the dead simply could not endure the transport across hundreds of miles southward into even warmer climes.

  They would stay here; their graves would be the monument to their triumph.

  Finally, on the fifth day since the battle, the awful toil was finished; the army broke camp, and accompanied by an unbearably long train of oxcarts carrying the wounded, began winding its way southward through Bracken and toward home.

  48.

  On the evening of that fifth day, after the army had begun its long journey into the south, and the last of the troops had left the small valley and wound up through the hills and descended toward Bracken, Aram motioned to Findaen to follow and then turned away and went back up to the top of the crater rim. A while later he stood on the ridge with Thaniel, Findaen, and Findaen’s mount, Andaran, who had at last regained his inner hearing after the blow he’d received in action. There were no humans or horses or wolves, dead or alive, that remained upon the ridge now except for the four of them.

  They stood in silence for some time, each of them gazing out across the shadowed valley at the gleaming tower.

  There had been no further sign from the grim lord since he had sent the wave of power out from his tower, across the valley, and up the slope, killing every one of his servants upon the valley floor, and bruising and terrifying the army on the high ground above.

  After a time, Findaen looked over. “What now, my friend?”

  When Aram turned and looked at him, Findaen sucked in a startled breath. Since the day of the battle, Aram had been subdued, thoughtful, as the wounded were carefully removed from the field, and the bodies of the dead discovered, identified, and placed into the womb of the earth in the small valley behind them.

  Now, as he returned Findaen’s gaze, Lord Aram’s green eyes once more held that deep layer of cold, hard ice.

  “Now,” Aram said bluntly, “I end it.”

  Findaen let his breath out slowly. “How may I lend you assistance, my lord?”

  Aram smiled a small smile that vanished as quickly as it came. In reply, he went around to Thaniel’s other side and opened a pack that was tied to the back of the saddle. The horse’s armor had been removed and stored in one of the wagons that was even now wending its way south. All that Thaniel wore was the saddle and this one small pack.

  The thing that Aram removed was circular and gleamed in the dim orange light of the hazy evening sun.

  Coming back near Findaen, Aram handed him the object. “This is the crown of the kings of Regamun Mediar,” he said.

  Findaen looked at him with widened eyes filled with concern and suspicion. “What do you want that I should do with it?” He asked.

  “Keep it safe, Fin,” Aram replied.

  “Why do not you keep it, my friend?”

  Aram shook his head. “It should not go where I am going.”

  “Why?”

  Aram looked at him. “I would not want it to fall into the wrong hands,” he admitted truthfully.

  “How?” Findaen asked him harshly, suspicion coloring his tone. “How would it fall into the wrong hands?”

  Aram ignored that. “Just keep it safe. The day will come when I will ask for it to be returned to me.”

  Findaen watched him with narrowed eyes. “Will it, my lord? Will such a day come?”

  Aram shrugged slightly at this, but he was no longer looking at Findaen. He stared toward the distant tower as if his mind had already shifted from that conversation and had become fixed upon something more urgent or compelling.

  “I hope it will, Fin.” He replied to the question, but he did not look over. His hard green eyes were fastened upon the dwelling place of his enemy.

  Findaen watched him and waited, but Aram did not speak further. Several minutes passed. No sound troubled the air upon the ridge, except the soughing of the cool breeze as it sought the heights.

  “Lord Aram?”

  Aram looked at him. The king’s eyes were hard and distant, as if that which occupied his thoughts lay somewhere else, far away, and his features were without expression. But then, after a moment, he smiled a wry smile. “Keep it safe, Fin – and keep the army safe. Make certain that every man is far south of this place – and stays far from this place.”

  Findaen narrowed his eyes. “What about you?”

  Aram was quiet again for a long moment. Then, he gave his brother-in-law the same answer he had once given Thaniel.

  “The Sword will get me in – and the Sword
will bring me out.”

  “Are you certain of this, Aram?”

  Another silence, and then Aram was forced to acknowledge the truth. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I must go in to him; for justice is demanded. Vengeance is demanded. Besides, it is why we came, why so many died here – to open the way to Manon.”

  He waved his hand toward the thousands of dead bodies of Manon’s army that littered the slope and the floor of the valley. “The way is open.”

  Findaen turned and looked northward, but he was not gazing at the tower; his eyes were fixed on something much further away. Something that could not be seen from this desolate ridge.

  “What will I tell Ka’en?” He asked. “If you do not return.”

  “You will tell her that I loved her and thought of her until my last breath,” Aram replied, and then he reached out and gripped Findaen by the shoulder. “But I will return to her, Fin; fear not. How? – I do not know; but I will return to her.”

  He waited until Findaen looked his way once more and then he smiled, though his eyes remained hard and full of ice. “Now, my friend – get to the south; catch up to the army. Make certain that it continues to move south until nightfall. I will see you when I am able.”

  Findaen met his gaze for a long moment in silence and then, still silently, he reached out and took Aram’s hand, gripped it firmly, nodded, mounted up, spoke to Andaran, and he and the horse rode through the gap and went out of sight to the south.

  49.

  Aram and Thaniel stood in the road for a time after Findaen and Andaran rode away, staring ahead at the tower of the enemy of the world. To the west, the sun sank lower until it rested on the tops of the mountains. Its slanted light cast the tower and the city around it into dusky shades of red, like dried blood.

  “What now?” Asked Thaniel.

  “Now I must go in to him,” Aram replied. “I will ask of you, my friend, that you bear me to the edge of the city, if you will.”

  The horse made a deep low sound in his throat. “I will bear you further than that, my lord. If it pleases you, I will bear you all the way into his vile presence.”