by Robert Ryan
17. Not for Nothing
Brand remembered the words of Aranloth. The staff will help you. He had no magic of his own, yet the staff did. His question was, how much did he trust the lòhren? For surely he could not attack the beasts with his blade. He would need more than that to survive against them.
Kareste still looked at him questioningly, unable to guess what he was about to do. He sheathed his blade, shook off his pack and smiled at her fiercely. The thrill of battle pumped in his veins. And then, without warning, he turned and leaped from the boulder into the very midst of the hounds.
The girl screamed. It was a sudden cry of shock and fear. It pierced the air and brought all eyes to her. All except for Brand’s.
He landed lightly, even as the hounds turned toward him. He spun among them, smelling their fetid breath and hearing up close their throbbing growls. The very earth beneath his boots seemed to thrum to their deep-throated rumbling and the padding of their massive paws.
But he did not wait for them to attack. They were as shocked as Kareste had been, and that was the moment of opportunity he hoped for. Fortune favored the bold.
Aranloth’s staff sang as he swung it. With all the strength of his will he brought it down upon the skull of the nearest beast. To his surprise, there was a flash of magic. It sputtered to life, and he felt a strange power tingle through his body and flare in the timber. After a faltering moment, as though of a kindled flame that might yet be snuffed out, it roared in a fury of fire that blazed like the sun, though the light was silver, shot through with blue.
He nearly dropped the staff. The hound leaped in pain and surprise. It landed, stumbling and disorientated. With a howl it thrashed in rage as fire caught in the great ruff of fur around its neck, sending curls of putrid smoke into the air.
The beast shambled away, howling and rolling in the grass to try to put out the flame that burned it. The other hounds held back, growling. A moment they studied him, uncertainty in their eyes.
That moment was all he needed. He was off, sprinting straight at the horsemen. He saw from their faces that they did not believe what he had just done. With luck, it would take them a few seconds to realize what he would do next.
All was caught in a net of confusion and surprise, and he was at the center of it. But the hounds, after their initial reticence, bounded after him. Brand feared they would reach him before he could accomplish his true aim, but just then he heard a wild yell from behind.
Kareste had left the safety of the boulder, and with the hounds before her, oblivious to what she did, she sprayed blasting fire among them.
He saw the streaking light flicker all through the air, heard the yelps of pain and noticed the pounding chase falter and grow disordered.
Before they grasped what was happening, Brand was among the horsemen. Their steeds were wild with fear, both from the nearing beasts and the sudden flame. They bucked and kicked and screamed with fright.
Some of the men lifted their swords, and the bright blades flashed as they swept toward him. But he was fleet of foot, and they must also try to control their mounts and avoid falling.
He blocked a vicious cut that came too near, but this time Aranloth’s staff did not flare with lòhrengai. It seemed that only the sorcerous beasts triggered it, or something else entirely. But he needed no magic. He was better skilled at fighting than these warriors, and he knew exactly what he intended, whereas they were still in shock at being attacked in the most unlikely circumstances.
He waited for just the right moment when the weight of one of the horses shifted and the rider was fighting for balance, and then he struck with the point of his staff, thrusting the man from his saddle to land with a heavy thud. In a moment he had dislodged yet another rider.
He ducked beneath a wild slash, and then grabbed the loose reins of the nearest riderless horse and jumped into the saddle.
The mare bucked and kicked, but he held on. He realized that it was not trying to dislodge him. Rather, it lashed out in fear. For the hounds were among the riders now. Some aflame, but all maddened and confused. And all driven by their sorcerous instinct to attack.
The Azan men that he had pulled from their horses came to their feet, but they were too slow to realize their danger and react. The hounds were upon them, driven by pain and frenzy, and they pounced at what was nearest to them.
The Azan screamed. The hounds mauled them. Blood spurted and bones cracked. It was too much for the remaining Azan. They kicked their mounts into a gallop and fled.
Brand struggled with his horse, but he managed to direct it away from the hounds and toward the second riderless horse. This spun and kicked, catching one of the hounds that mauled the men. He heard a thud that could only mean cracked ribs, and then the second lot of reins was in his hand and he was off.
He galloped back toward the boulders. Kareste was running toward him, ash-blond hair trailing in her wake and green-brown eyes on fire. Smoke curled from a swathe of burnt grass at her feet, and one of the hounds lay there, dead. It was a blackened thing. Fire smoldered in the deep fur at the ruff of its neck, but it had been burnt away from the rest of its body. Everywhere bright red blood seeped from the charred skin.
Kareste grabbed the reins of the second horse and mounted. Behind him, Brand heard a gut wrenching scream and a vicious snarl. The Azan were dead, and the beasts would now turn back to their proper prey.
They wheeled the horses round to face their enemy. The hounds looked at them. Blood smeared their snouts. Their lips curled back and low snarls rumbled in their throats.
At the same moment, Kareste lifted her hands and Brand his staff. Lòhrengai sprang to life, streaking across the gap and smashing into the beasts. It knocked two of them off their feet, concentrated on one and drove it back, rolling and tumbling until it lodged against a low bush.
Leaves flared. Fur caught alight. A frenzied series of yelps turned into a suddenly human wail. With a final blast of lòhrengai both beast and shrub burst into billowing flames like a bonfire.
The other beasts stood their ground. Brand pointed the staff at them and spurred his horse forward. This was become too much for them, and they turned and fled, racing back down the slope and into the cover of the trees.
All was still now atop the slope except for the burning shrub and what lay beneath it.
Brand looked at Kareste. She returned his gaze. They were both silent. Sweat dripped from them, cold on their skin although the sun shone warmly from the clear blue sky.
At length, Kareste nudged her mount closer and spoke.
“Not for nothing did Aranloth choose you. And though you distrust magic, there is more to you than meets the eye. Mine at least. Aranloth, obviously, saw more clearly. But still … you are mad.”
He smiled at her again, filled with exuberance.
“Maybe so. But I’m alive, and if you want to stay that way – follow me!”
That his words were an echo of her own were bound to annoy her, but he did not care. She deserved that little rebuke, not that anything mattered now except that the quest might still be fulfilled.
He gathered up his pack and they sped off, both riders and mounts happy to leave the slope behind them. It stunk of sorcery, death and fear, and it would take many days of open air and bright sunlight to make it otherwise.
The long strides of the horses made easy work of the hill, which soon angled downward, and they pounded to its bottom and then raced away even faster on the level ground beyond.
Of the hunt, Brand did not yet see any sign. But it would regroup. Others would join and strengthen it. The pursuit would not falter, for the trail it must follow was clear and scent was no longer needed.
The beasts could be killed. That was heartening. So also was the fact that he and Kareste were now mounted. That would lengthen the chase, but he did not doubt that sooner or later their enemy would catch up with them. That did not matter so much, even if there were elùgroths next time, so long as he first obtained Shurilga
r’s staff and destroyed it. If he accomplished the quest, nothing else really mattered. He just hoped that Kareste had left him by that point. Alithoras was vast, and they would not pursue her if they found him first.
18. A Great Darkness
They rode warily but with great speed. The sun arced above them, bringing ever greater warmth and light to wash away some of the horror of their encounter with the beasts.
But Brand knew he would never forget the hounds that looked at him with the calculating eyes of a man. Worse, he guessed that it was not the last time that he would see them, or their kind.
He felt fear and determination in equal parts. Fear, because the creatures were made of evil and bent on his death. Determination, because such atrocities should not be allowed to walk Alithoras. The elùgroths and the dark powers at their command must be stopped. Fate had given him an opportunity to help with that, and it was more important than his personal goal among the Duthenor. And, in the end, what helped Cardoroth also helped his own people, even if they did not know what he was attempting, nor ever would learn of it.
They rode and rested and rode again. The day passed, and night came after with a shimmer of stars. Yet darkness did not stop them. On they went, oftentimes walking the horses to give them relief, at other times just urging them forward at a gentle trot. But ever they went on, striving toward their goal.
And their goal he now thought it, for though the danger and obligation to reach the tombs was his, Kareste had shared in the risk so far and become a companion rather than a stranger met along the way. She had stood by him when he needed it, and he would do the same for her. Loyalty was like trust, he thought: swiftly earned but impossible to regain once lost. But she had both his loyalty and his trust.
Brand studied her as they traveled, but she veiled herself and her thoughts. Not lightly did she give her own trust, and even less easily did she make friends. Yet the abrasiveness that was in her when they first met was gone. Something had made her angry then, perhaps that she helped the cause of the lòhrens even when they shunned her. But now the two of them were getting to know each other, and he did not think that she held anything against him any longer.
He scratched the skin of his forehead beneath Aranloth’s diadem. There metal ornament was warm to touch, and he wondered for the first time what power it held. For it seemed to him that he had greater insight into Kareste’s thoughts and motives than he would have expected. But he did not really believe that any lòhrengai could do that. Such intuition as he had came through his experiences, both the good and the bad. No artifact could substitute for that. Life must be lived, people known through both good and hard times to understand why they did what they did. No diadem could replace that, no matter if it was imbued with magic.
Well into the night they finally slept. And a deep slumber it was, for pursuit or no, hounds or not, they must rest. Yet they woke with the dawn and sped away again.
The lands they now travelled seemed strange to him. He had heard rumor of them, and had it described to him by Aranloth, but still the country was different from what he knew. There were few trees, and what hills there were marched far away and seemed bare rather than choked by tree and bush. He guessed it likely that he had become the best travelled of all the Duthenor that ever lived, for his feet had trod the eastern side of the Great River, led him up north to the verge of the northern mountains that lured him so, and now he rode south into lands beyond the dominion of Cardoroth. He supposed they were still Gilhain’s lands, yet the king was far away, as were his soldiers, and if any people lived here they were brave homesteaders, recking little of kings and cities, and trusting in the hidden ways of forest, hill and valley to hold them safe from enemies.
“You haven’t been here before?” Kareste asked him.
Brand shook his head. “Aranloth told me something of the area, but that’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not. So in case we get separated, I’ll tell you what I know.”
She was silent for a moment, deciding best how to describe things. Then she pointed with her long right arm.
“Quite a few miles to our right is the Great North Road, made by the Halathrin long ago. It’s still a good road, and it runs straight and true.” She glanced at him. “You must have crossed it further north when you came to Cardoroth.”
He nodded, and she continued. “The road drives deep into the south, much further than we’ll go. It reaches to the crossings of the Carist Nien river, and even well beyond that to the Careth Nien, more than a hundred leagues away, nigh to the borders of the forest realm of the Halathrin. Also to the right, beyond the Great North Road, are the hills of Lòrenta. There stands the keep of the lòhrens – secure against enemies, sorcerous or otherwise, though few guard it. It isn’t protected by swords, but by powers older and stronger than iron and steel.”
She shifted in her saddle and swept an arm out to the left. “Some fifty miles that way lies the sea.”
Of the sea, Brand had heard many stories. But he had never seen it. Vast it must be if Lake Alithorin was as a puddle beside it, as some in Cardoroth had told him. Yet pearls he had looked at once, on a necklace of his mother’s, and they were said to come from it. And once a twisted shell which had come from some strange creature. His father had held it to his ear and told him that the strange sound he heard, the soft and undulating roar, was the sound that the great waters made as they surged and flowed. Well he remembered those words, though he was very young, and he wanted to see the truth of it.
Kareste went on with her description, and he listened, entranced by her every word.
“When we reach the Carist Nien, if not sooner, we must turn east and follow it in that direction, toward the sea. Thence we’ll come at length to the Angle – the home in ancient days of an empire that crumbled to dust ere either Camar or Duthenor wandered out of the dark into the brighter lands of the east and founded chieftainships and after realms.”
As she spoke, her words evoked the history and the wonder of the land, but he sensed also that forces were at work within it. The lòhrens and their allies on one hand, and the elùgroths, elugs and Azan on the other. Far to the south was the home of their enemies, beyond the Careth Nien, beyond green Galenthern, which was but a rumor to him, beyond the Graèglin Dennath mountains that tales of legend spoke of, and then, in a far country, Grothanon, whence the great powers of the enemy dwelt.
Of other cities that lay between he had heard some names: Faladir, Menetuin, Camarelon. But there were once other cities, fallen to the enemy, as also would Cardoroth if his quest did not succeeded. If it did, then perhaps they had a chance, for the wiles of the king were great, and many bold hearts wielded swords with hope and defiance.
They rode ever on. Kareste was often quiet beside him, withdrawn into some world of her own. What troubled her, he did not know. Perhaps what surely followed after them. Perhaps what lay ahead. Maybe something else entirely.
And then on other days she was suddenly happy, as though the sun burst through clouds on a rainy day. He was not sure what to make of her, but he was growing to like her better and better. Certainly, she was unlike the girls of his homeland, and unlike the girls of Cardoroth as well.
A great darkness lay behind her, and he guessed her life had not been easy. That she hid much, he knew, but he trusted her more and more. He supposed, thinking about things honestly, that it would seem to her that he also hid much. So he did, and she did not press him, so the least he could do was offer her the same grace.
But one day, when a gray veil of drizzle covered the land and she seemed talkative, he asked her a question. She would either respond or not, and he would not press her.
“You’re not from Cardoroth,” he said. “Where do you come from?”
She hesitated, deciding whether or not to answer him. She was, he guessed, coming to like him and more inclined to talk. So he hoped, but at the same time the thought was unsettling.
“Am I not from Cardoroth?” she answered.
“Well, perhaps not, although I did live there once. But before that, long before that, some few people from that city sought out new lands, well away from the rule of the king – not the current king, and the trammeled ways of stone and gate and city streets. They trekked north, settling at last along the Alith Nien river that feeds Lake Alithorin. There they fished and tilled the fertile soils to either side of the river. It was a good life, but a hard one. But the fish were plentiful, and the harvests of grain and fruit were good. Thus also, dwelling where they did, they became skillful with boats – the crafting of them as well as the using of them. But there were hunters among them too, for meat was ever scarce even when the crops were good.”
Her horse picked its way through some broken rocks and she gave it free reign to do so, absent-mindedly watching the ground as she spoke.
“And the hunters travelled far, seeking ever new lands where the game was less shy of men and the hunting that little bit easier. They strayed even under the shadow of the northern mountains, Auren Dennath as they’re called in the Halathrin tongue, and some few followed ridges and dim forest paths, hunting higher and higher, ever nearer to the snow-mantled peaks.”
He listened to her as she spoke, feeling once again that tremor of excitement that shivered his body when he heard the name of those mountains, Auren Dennath, the high lands that he had seen from a distance but never climbed. But he asked her no questions about them, fearing to interrupt, for she spoke so seldom of anything that mattered to her, and he felt also that what she said now touched on the darkness that lay behind her. Especially since he had wandered over the lands on either side of that river before coming to Cardoroth, and had never met any people nor seen sign of them.
“Fair they thought those mountains, and the hunting was good, so more and more of them went there. But after a time, none returned. So it happened that my people were discovered, for elugs dwelt there of ancient days, though not in great numbers. Yet their roaming bands were enough. They gathered together one wet autumn, and falling upon our folk slew them – men, women and children. Only a handful lived. Of these, I was one. And I too would have died save for Aranloth.” She shuddered. “I was very young. And very scared. Too young to remember much, and too scared to want to. But I’ll never forget the fire and smoke and great lights, and Aranloth standing there, alone and unaided, defying a band of elugs. They retreated, and he scooped me up and took me to Lòrenta. There were none that I knew there, either young or old, for the few others who survived went to Cardoroth.”