Worms' Ending: Book Eight (The Longsword Chronicles 8)

by GJ Kelly

  “Don’t, G’wain, please,” he heard her whisper, and he felt and heard her desperation. “Just hold me. Don’t make this a good-bye. Don’t make it impossible for me to let you go, I could not bear Eldengaze to return and rob me of this night.”

  Gawain felt a bubble growing deep within him, felt it rise, and swell, and burst like a maroon in a chest too feeble to contain such love as he felt for her, and he wept silent tears, and held her to him in an embrace no force in sight of sun or moon, mystic or common, could ever hope to break.

  oOo

  4. Tomatoes

  Dawn found Gawain at the quay, he and his companions quietly waiting for Morkel the ferryman to heave the great raft across the southern flow of the Sudenstem. On the far bank, Reef and Lyas watched from the rail of the corral, joined there by half a dozen horses which the young dwarf, now apprentice horse-master, tended twice daily. Up the path to Gawain’s right stood the new guardhouse, little more than a sturdy hut which afforded warmth and shelter to the two guardsmen within, but today those two, both dwarves of Sarek’s Rangers despatched by Eryk of Threlland, stood outside, thumbs in belts, watching the goings-on.

  “An auspicious day, Longsword, and something of a miserable one, too.”

  Gawain, arms folded, swivelled on his hips to glance at Allazar. In truth, the day had dawned grey and drab; an unpleasant dampness, neither mist nor rain, seemed to hang in the air, making exposed skin feel clammy and chill.

  “Perhaps it’s brighter over at the Jarn Gap, and Igorn’s advance across the Ostern will be uneventful.”

  “Perhaps,” Allazar grumbled. “Though autumn is well upon us. It is a depressing season, in spite of what the girlish might say concerning the colour of woodland leaves. All the bare-legged hopes and dreams of summer are gone, cloaks like prisoners are dragged from their languishing in closet and chest and shown the dull light of day for the first time in months, and over the horizon advances winter like an army of dried up old men, grey and white and cold.”

  “And a cheery ‘good morning world’ to you, too. Did you not sleep well?”

  “No,” Allazar confessed. “In truth, I didn’t sleep much at all.”

  “Nor I,” Gawain sighed. “And you, Ven?”

  “I slept well, thank you, miThal. I was prepared for a mid-range patrol later in the week, and so needed to make few additional arrangements for this journey.”

  “Excellent. The wizard and I will probably fall asleep in the saddle on the way to West Forkings, so it’ll be up to you keep us going in the right direction.”

  “MiThal.”

  “His Majesty is of course joking, Ranger Venderrian,” Allazar yawned, “It is a trait with which you will become rather familiar on our way to the Hallencloister.”

  “I have learned much already, Serre wizard, since the tower in the east.”

  “Hmm,” Allazar mumbled again, eyeing the ferry now halfway across the river, “Yes, you were there with us. Lately I have been concerned with other matters, and allowed that recent adventure to slip quietly into history.”

  Gawain snorted. “Or you’re simply old, age advancing like winter and all that. I’m surprised you could forget Urgenenn’s Tower after so short a time. Its horrors and those preceding it are yet fresh in my mind.”

  “It’s not that I’ve forgotten it, Longsword, simply that I was engaged in important matters which pressed to the fore, and in so doing, pushed the business of our recent quest to the back of my mind. Where, I might add, I would be happy for it to remain. I liked not that tower, nor the Eastbinding itself, come to that. A dreadful place.”

  “Which?”

  “Both.”

  Gawain nodded, and decided to grant Allazar a little peace, at least until they reached the south bank of the river. Farewells back at the hall had been short, breakfast hasty, their departure made almost in silence so as not to rouse the entire settlement. Elayeen had seemed almost grateful for the speed of their leaving, though Gawain knew she would suffer the threat of Eldengaze until the river had been crossed, and he beyond recall. Only then would the threat abate, allowing her to relinquish her hold over her emotions. He had felt her turmoil all night, and envied not the emotional tightrope walked by ladies in the months before motherhood. She was probably even now atop the watchtower on Crown Peak, casting her Sight through the mist, watching for his departure.

  A quick glance to his left showed the ranger casting a Sighted watch of his own around them and above them in the air. Venderrian was, Gawain knew, a good choice. At Urgenenn’s Tower the elf had shown himself to be efficient, effective, and fiercely loyal to the Ranger’s Oath.

  Elayeen had further described Venderrian as ‘vengeful’ where the Toorsencreed were concerned; it had been wizards of the ToorsenViell who had interfered with Venderrian’s plans to marry his childhood sweetheart, she also of Minyorn Province. The Toorseneth had exerted its influence to bring about the sweetheart’s marriage to a minor official in a neighbouring province, and thus ended all Venderrian’s hopes.

  Worse still, the lady herself was said to have died in childbirth, an uncommon though not entirely rare event in the forest realm. Elayeen now believed the arranged marriage, and possibly even the demise of the lady Venderrian had loved, was the result of the Toorseneth’s secret labouring to prevent the return of the Sight to elfkind.

  When Elayeen had revealed that information, Gawain suddenly began to appreciate the power of Minyorn’s traditions, and the reason why so many of the ninety-five were of that southern region of Elvendere. It also explained why Venderrian had practically flown up the steps and in through the gaping void of the portal of Urgenenn’s Tower, there where the vengeful elf had hoped to wreak havoc upon an ancient enemy in the name of all of his kind. Alas poor Ven, Gawain thought, I and Allazar got there first.

  “Murnin’ melord,” the ferryman’s gruff voice declared as the craft bumped ashore. “Just the three of ye this murnin’?”

  “Aye, Morkel, just the three of us. And a damp and dreary morning it is too,” Gawain replied, suddenly feeling Allazar’s melancholy.

  “Allus is, melord, this time o’ the year. Cider-makers’ll be busy, though, and we’ll all be glad enough o’ their labours when them perticuler barrels come upriver.”

  “Any news from the Forkings?”

  “Nah, none but the usual. Wool’s been and gone to the registers. Harvest celebrations mostly done, crops mostly in, stores bein’ laid up. Beggin’ yer pardon, melord, I’ll heave away?”

  Gawain nodded his thanks, and the wiry ferryman took to his work, calloused and leathery hands heaving on the wet rope, dragging them across the flow under watchful eyes on both banks of the river.

  Reef stood with his arms folded, some five yards from the landing when the ferry bumped ashore on the south bank. He was trying his best to look inscrutable and watchful, Lyas behind him with a bucket of oats fresh from feeding the horses in the corral. But he failed. Gawain could see the disappointment in the big man’s eyes, and perhaps too a little anger at being left behind after their adventures together in the east.

  But he saluted, formally, and Gawain returned the salute, and climbed up into Gwyn’s saddle. With a polite thank you for the ferryman and a polite refusal to enjoy the beer in the barrels within the staging post, the three riders turned to the west, and began the ten mile journey to the riverside town of West Forkings at the canter.

  The bustling sprawl of the town was larger than Gawain had imagined from his viewing of it by boat or from a distance on the far side of its southern brassica fields, those fields now pregnant once more with late-season varieties of that green and leafy vegetable. It was his first visit to the place, though Allazar had been here before, long ago when Brock had sent him out to map Ramoth Towers.

  The first thing Gawain noticed was a complete absence of defences of any kind, and the second thing he noticed was a complete absence of any kind of orderliness to the place. Dwellings surrounded storehouses, animal pens s
tood side by side with workshops, taverns next to merchants and eateries next to metalworkers. The town had grown without thought to planning, and was even now expanding to accommodate a growing settlement on the north side of the river.

  The whole town, he thought as they trotted down a broad dirt road, was a conflagration in waiting, and the sounds of Calhaneth’s death sprang unbidden in his mind’s ear. It was no wonder the fire-watch remained alert at all times, and if the Graken-riding ToorsenViell had struck in the heart of the place rather than at the river’s edge, West Forkings might well have suffered the same fate as that dread city in the south.

  It was early, folk were hurrying about the day’s business, and although their passing was of course noted (not every day was a king, an elf and a wizard bearing a white staff seen riding through the town after all) none of the residents would dream of hindering their progress, nor risk delaying the trio even for the time it would take to return the courtesy of a greeting. Beaming smiles of recognition were abundant though, and told Gawain all he needed to know about the folk of West Forkings and their feelings for all those who dwelled in Last Ridings.

  “We must pass through the main market to the western track,” Allazar announced, nodding at the sprawling, noisy agglomeration of stalls and people ahead of them, “And thence beyond the docks to the Northside Ferry. Once we’re beyond the market, the way will be clearer, and quieter.”

  “We’d best dismount then,” Gawain declared, noise rising the closer they approached to the throng.

  “A good idea,” the wizard agreed, “Just keep heading west, should we become separated.”

  “Stay together!” Gawain commanded, “The sooner we cross the Sudenstem the sooner we can achieve our destination. Take the tail of the horse in front if needs be, but let’s not lose each other in the crowd.”

  And crowd there was. Hundreds of stalls manned by hundreds of vendors selling thousands of goods to residents, merchants and visitors alike, goods for trade up and down the busy river. Wares from Callodon and Mereton on Lake Arrunmere going east to Sudshear and thence north by ship. Wares from Mornland and Threlland going west. Rich cloths and tapestries and woollens, their vendors vying for attention with sellers of food, wine, spirits, boots and shoes, knick-knacks, gewgaws, pots, pans, kettles, weapons, books, tools and bolts of fine-woven cloth of all colours. Get yer luvly big tomarter, two coppers a pahnd! Get yer luvly big tomarter!

  Shouts, wares advertised, laughter, good-natured and cheery, word long since spread of the destruction of the flying threat from beyond the Eastbinding, the monster which had seeded evil south of the fields and dropped fire from the sky, its dark masters slaughtered, and its hidden lair destroyed beyond all hope of reconstruction. And here, working their way almost anonymously through the happy throng of Arrunfolk and Callodonians going about their daily lives, three of those who’d removed that threat, and destroyed utterly the dark stronghold beyond the mountain range.

  Gawain was astonished. He’d never seen anything like this, not on the scale of West Forkings’ immense market. Astonished, and suddenly both happy and sad at the same time.

  Happy, immensely so, for here was life, and good folk living it, the war in the north forgotten, fear of the Graken abandoned, Morloch defeated, and all about them the simple joy of simple people simply living. Get yer luvly big tomarter.

  Sad, for all those who had fallen along the way, those who would no longer know the simple pleasure of biting into a ripe fruit, or hear the laughter and cheery calls of the marketplace. Friends made and friends lost, and friends he never met, robbed of all things, including the sights, sounds, and smells all around him here in the heart of West Forkings.

  At first, it didn’t seem right that the simple joys of life could go on like this, as though the Battle of Far-gor had never happened, as though all those lives had never been lost at all. But it was for precisely this reason, simple folk living their lives in peace, that so many had fought, and so many had died. The thriving marketplace was a monument to the sacrifice of all The Fallen, and though the people thought of it not in such terms and likely never would, it was every bit as sacred as any name-inscribed stone or weather-beaten pedestal might be.

  Jerryn had been right, Gawain knew now as they pressed their way through towards the western edge of the market. There was no debt owed to the dead. They did not fall who fell in battle in expectation of posthumous honours or names inscribed in some hallowed place. There are names aplenty scrawled on walls or carved in tabletops of taverns the lands over, owners long forgotten, lives large or small long ended. Those who fought and fell did so in expectation that those they left behind would continue living, not forever in sorrow and hollow-hearted grief, but living their lives in full, and knowing all the joys of a life made possible by the sacrifice.

  And then anger came again, anger at the threats yet skulking in the dark places of the world, which even now schemed and lurked unseen and unknown to these good folk, plotting their ending. That was why Gawain, and Allazar, and Venderrian were passing through the thinning stalls in sight of the western track, glimpsing the great riverside warehouses on the docks ahead and to their right. Just beyond those warehouses, past the steady stream of wagons, hand-carts, and pedestrians with their baskets and barrows, the ferry which would take them to the north bank of the unbroken Sudenstem, there to ride for the Hallencloister, and the answer to the reason why those threats yet lived unopposed by the D’ith.

  “Mithal!” Gawain heard Venderrian calling him over the noise on the busy road. “Mithal!”

  He turned, and saw Venderrian pointing wildly towards a knot of people and wagons making their way into the market behind them, a group that had passed them on the right-hand side of the road while Gawain was making his way out along the left.

  “Ven?”

  Allazar looked alarmed, and clutched his staff and his horse’s reins both, a cloak already dusty and grubby-looking covering his robes.

  “Wearing blue! A cape with a blue hood! Darkness, miThal!”

  Gawain’s stomach lurched. A dark wizard, here, in West Forkings, and moving slowly eastward?

  “Where!” he cried, “Where!”

  Ven pointed again, frantically, and Gawain caught the briefest glimpse of dark blue in amongst the pale greens and browns of farmer’s garb, and then it was gone into the crowd.

  “Dwarfspit!” he cried in disgust. “Are you sure, Ven?”

  “What kind of darkness?” Allazar demanded.

  “Grimmand I think!” Venderrian declared. “A man except to eldeneyes!”

  “Vak!” Gawain spat. “Leave the horses, they’ll care for themselves!” And with a flourish, he drew the longsword, the black steel of the blade humming, at once drawing gasps of alarm from both the wizard and the ranger.

  And then he ran forward into the crowd, eyes scanning for a man in a blue cape and hood, who might be Grimmand, sent from the west against Last Ridings.

  “Make way!” Gawain shouted, “Make way!” and images of other drawn swords marching into a market shouting the same order flashed unbidden into his mind. Ramoth mercenaries, marching with their emissary into Jarn Square, long ago…

  Only here, there was no Tallbot of the town’s guard standing for his king and for his neighbours. Here, there were startled people, some frozen in shock and gaping slack-jawed, others scurrying to clear a path, all staring, all suddenly fearful, the joy of an otherwise dreary morning shattered by another threat to their humble and peaceful existence.

  “Make way!” Allazar shouted, and his voice carried, sweeping forward chill and cutting as though on a breeze preceding thunder.

  Gawain, sword drawn, skittered to a halt, a barrow heaped with apples blocking his path, the owner terrified, eyes wide and white and fixed upon the black steel and the tall warrior that had been charging towards him.

  Venderrian dashed around the man, and Gawain followed suit, leaving Allazar to negotiate the obstacle.

  “Left miThal!
” the elf pointed with his right hand, his bow and a nocked arrow held in his left.

  “Don’t shoot Ven!” Gawain shouted back, “Don’t shoot unless it’s clear!”

  Cries of alarm spread around them, rushing in advance of their pursuit like ale from an overturned tankard, faster than they could run, faster than anything which might be done to stop it. Panic followed, people starting to surge out of the way, pressing back, a ripple of fear racing outwards from the disturbance in their midst.

  More glimpses of blue… a dress here, a bonnet there, a hat, a coat, the canopy of a stall selling carrots and cauliflowers… and Gawain gave up looking. Venderrian possessed the Sight. He could see what other eyes could not, and though Elayeen had described as ‘stressful and likely to cause a headache’ the constant switching between normal vision and the Sight of the Eldenelves, the ranger had no choice in such a crowded place. People and his quarry he could see clearly enough with that Sight, but stalls, wagons, barrows, baskets and bundles he could not.

  More commotion, this time from behind, and Gawain risked a glance over his shoulder, where he saw Gwyn trotting high-kneed and snorting, leading the other two horses, following close behind. He smiled a grim smile. It had been a long time since he and Gwyn had faced danger together like this, and the Raheen mare was watching over her chosen mount’s back.