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

by GJ Kelly

  “Arr, so we are in a hole then,” Ognorm sniffed, beaming.

  “Hardly a hole, master Ognorm,” Allazar grumbled.

  “Lights, miThal,” Venderrian declared, shattering the bucolic calm.

  “Where?”

  “Distant, to the northwest.”

  Gawain shifted in his saddle. The D’ith Hallencloister stood proud of the horizon perhaps fifteen miles or so due west of them, its silhouette beginning to blend into the darkening skies behind it.

  “Which way are they going, Ven?”

  “South, I believe miThal. It is difficult to say, they are at the extent of my range and fading quickly.”

  “How many?”

  The elf shrugged. “More than five, miThal, less than a dozen. I am sorry…”

  Gawain held up a hand to still the apology. “There’s no cover here but low shrubs. We’ll have to do the best we can. From their perspective it’s darker here to the east of them, and they don’t have the Sight to aid them. We may have escaped their notice, and being in something of a hole in the land has put higher ground behind us.”

  “Heh,” Ognorm beamed at Allazar, and sniffed.

  “Dismount. We’ll walk to that patch of imp-brush and rest there until dawn. If those were Greys out of Castletown on long range patrol, they’ll be bedding down soon too. There are no villages or habitations nearby for them to take shelter in and it’s getting too dark now to risk horses even in such open land as this.”

  “Odd though, melord, riders patrolling these parts. Wouldn’t have thought anyone would want to get too close to the ‘allencloister.”

  “Perhaps Hellin hasn’t entirely lost her mind, and since it was a wizard of the D’ith killed her father before her very eyes, is making sure none of the whitebeard weasels sneak out from there again. If so, it’ll make our business there that bit trickier.”

  “Arr. Though if it be the Greys we all know and love, melord, they’ll likely lend us a hand with the knockin’ on the doors.”

  “Can you see any lights within the citadel, Ven?”

  “No, miThal. It is much too far.”

  “I suspect even close to, the walls are so thick that Ranger Venderrian’s Sight will not be able to penetrate them. Do not forget the mystic nature of its construction, Longsword.”

  “They’ll have that Blue Guard on watch on the battlements, if they’ve any sense at all. They’ll be in plain sight of ordinary eyes, never mind Ven’s.”

  “True,” Allazar agreed, wrapping his cloak tightly about him. “And we in sight of them long before you knock upon their doors.”

  “Me? It’ll be you doing the knocking, wizard, you’re the one with stick, beard and robes.”

  “Me?” Allazar squeaked. “If they recognise me they’re liable to drop molten lead upon my head. I am not one of the Hallencloister’s favourite alumni, Longsword, and never have been. It would be better if you were to knock, Zaine’s first mandate would prevent them from dropping anything on yours.”

  “They have the Blue Guard, clodwit, I doubt any of Zaine’s mandates would prevent them from dropping something unpleasant on me.”

  “Ah.”

  “Besides, you have Barugon’s Shield to protect yourself.”

  “Baramenn’s Shield. Much good it’ll do me if a master of the D’ith Sek decides to end my days.”

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, melord, but you do have a plan for when we get there?”

  Gawain blinked.

  Allazar blinked.

  Ognorm eyed Venderrian, who raised his eyebrows and gave the most discreet of shrugs.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, melord, but you do have a plan for when we get there? I only ask again ‘cos I thought p’raps my voice ‘ad failed me or you’d suddenly gone deaf.”

  “Of course there’s a plan, Ognorm,” Gawain declared. “When we get there, Allazar will ride up to the nearest gate and ring the bell.”

  “Arr. Well that’s all right then, melord,” the dwarf sniffed, “Glad to know you ain’t suddenly gone deaf, too.”

  “Any further sign of the riders, Ven?”

  “No, miThal.”

  “Glad you ain’t gone deaf neither, Ven mate.”

  “We could always send master Ognorm up to ring the bell, Longsword,” Allazar muttered, eyeing the fading silhouette of the distant citadel.

  “I doubt even Nadcracker would make a dent in doors such as you’ve described,” Gawain declared, lifting Gwyn’s saddle clear of his horse-friend. “Besides, if they haven’t cut the grass in a while they might not see him from the vantage of the battlements. No, it’ll be you gets the honour, Allazar, you’ve got those robes, that beard, and a stick which together are a cunning disguise and make you at least look like a wizard if nothing else. We’ll need a good watch this night, now we know other riders are in the area.”

  “Rain later,” the wizard sighed.

  “Aye,” Gawain agreed as the moon faded behind the clouds again, “That misty muck Tyrane doesn’t like. It’s a dislike I’ve come to share.”

  “Shall we employ darkening cloths, miThal?”

  Gawain eyed the skies and their terrain. “No, I don’t think there’s much point. With nothing but imp-brush to hide behind and with our horses standing tall, we’d be seen by anyone we allow close enough to be a threat. We’ll sit on the saddles and sleep in our cloaks though, the better to make a quick and quiet departure in the morning.”

  Later, while they sat wrapped in their cloaks waiting for rain to dampen spirits and clothing, it was Allazar who spoke again concerning the inevitable events they knew awaited them all.

  “If they don’t admit us, Longsword, what then?”

  “You’re worse than a dog with a bone, Allazar. We had no clue what awaited us when we left Ferdan for Raheen, yet still you made the journey with nothing but the usual complaints about not being able to roast rabbits along the way.”

  “That was a little different.”

  “We had no idea what awaited us in that city in the south of Elvendere yet still you greeted the prospect of Arramin’s route with equanimity, and trusted implicitly in the old boy’s navigation.”

  “Arramin is brilliant, and he is not here,” Allazar mumbled.

  “We hadn’t the faintest hope of victory at Far-gor yet there you stood, and again, when we returned to Calhaneth for the Orb and faced once more the unknown, just the usual ‘oh look, rabbits!’ every five minutes. Even when we set off for the Eastbinding not knowing whether we’d actually find Urgenenn’s Tower there or what we’d do if we did, still it was nothing but ‘Look! A rabbit!’ and the only grumbling came from your stomach.”

  “That too was different.”

  “Different how? In each case we had no idea what the outcome might be, only that the journey must be made.”

  “It was different, Longsword, because we faced the unknown, and trusted in ourselves and in you to overcome any obstacles encountered along the way.”

  “Oh, so now you don’t trust me?”

  “Now, we do not face the unknown. I know what we face. I lived there, and I learned there. I know the walls, how high and impenetrable they are, and have walked them many times. I know the gates, and how heavy the mechanisms needed to move them. I know the brethren. Those gates would not have been sealed without good reason. If they refuse us entry, we shall not enter. Not by any means you or I can hope to devise.”

  “Then, beardwit, if we are refused, and if the place is as indomitable and impregnable as you believe, then we shall return to Last Ridings, there to make our home, knowing that at least we tried our best. But not until we’ve tried our best may we so do.”

  Allazar fell silent, then, and lowered his head, drawing the hood of his cape over his white hair. Gawain pondered the wizard’s question, and his answer, drawing up his own hood against the first fine mists of dampness drifting over them and presaging the heavier drizzle yet to come. Just as the wizard always managed deftly to avoid questions concerning his true age,
Gawain had succeeded in circumventing other, perhaps more discomfiting questions recently. Most of them had come from Lyssa of Callodon while listening to some of his tales.

  What if Martan’s web hadn’t brought down the whole of the farak gorin? she’d asked. Why didn’t you die when you were shot with a poisoned bolt? What if the Shadow had gotten into the blockhouse with you and Loryan? What if you’d died when you struck it with your sword? What if it’d been you who stood on the Spikebulb…

  So many wide-eyed questions, and all of them neatly evaded, until finally Gawain had chided her, gently of course, saying that the job of a chronicler was to make a chronicle of events which had happened, and not waste time, ink, and paper speculating on those which hadn’t.

  Sometimes, in the dark hours, such questions robbed him of sleep awhile, as they did now. But Allazar had a point, which was all the more annoying for the fact of its veracity, and so too did Ognorm. There was no plan. The only plan Gawain had had when he left Elayeen and Last Ridings was quite simply ‘go to the Hallencloister and ask them why.’ Why had the D’ith abandoned the kindred? Why had the D’ith allowed the rise of the Viell unopposed? Why had Urgenenn’s Tower been left intact, and later left inhabited by the Viell? Why…

  Here and now, though, with misty rain swirling in the dark all about him, it was Allazar’s question that kept him awake a little longer. Not until we’ve tried our best shall we return to Last Ridings. A nifty evasion worthy of any whitebeard weasel. But Gawain knew, as images of the Hallencloister swam through the mist of impending sleep, that if the best they could do was knock on the door, ring the bell, and bugger off when told so to do, then Lyssa of Callodon would have a very short tale to tell of Raheen’s assault on the D’ith citadel, and it would earn her small beer indeed in any hall she was brave enough to tell of it.

  Dawn broke as dawn does for the weary, slow and cheerless, and the drizzle remained incessant, obscuring the Hallencloister from view on the far horizon. It had been an uncomfortable night for horse and rider both, and the silence which accompanied their preparations for leaving the last night-camp before attaining the home of the D’ith spoke volumes, both for their mood and for the amount of sleep they’d achieved in the night. None dared speak, lest the protests escaping their lips provoke ire, kingly or otherwise.

  Breakfast was likewise pitiful, shavings of frak hastily pared beneath cloaks in the hope of keeping the lumps dry, but such hopes were of course futile in the all-pervading drizzle, and merely added to their frustration. After that, they simply mounted, bones, muscles, and joints aching, and with a nod of ‘all clear’ from Venderrian, they set off at the walk and then quickened the pace to the trot, due west.

  After ten miles or so and with no adverse reports from the elf ranger, Gawain surprised them all by sighing aloud and leaping nimbly from the saddle, running alongside Gwyn. His back ached, his hips and knees ached, his everything ached, and though at first it hurt, soon the heat of motion and exertion began to lubricate his muscles and joints. After another mile he was moving freely, and though soaking wet with his cloak flapping uselessly behind him, he felt much better.

  Allazar and the others declined his encouragement to join him in running off the rigours of a miserable night, and sighing theatrically, he leapt back into the saddle with a practiced agility which left the less accomplished riders in awe of his grace. He was about to attempt good natured ribbing of the wizard when Venderrian called them to a halt.

  “Strange, miThal,” he announced, peering through the gloom ahead. “Darkness on the ground ahead, but shapeless, and pale.”

  “Pale darkness?” Ognorm muttered, “Blimey, Ven mate, what’s pale darkness when it’s at ‘ome? If’n you don’t mind me asking.”

  The elf shrugged. “I do not know.”

  “Allazar?” Gawain asked.

  The wizard blinked, and shrugged.

  “Oh well there’s a helpful opinion from a wizard,” Gawain muttered. “How far ahead of us is this strange pale darkness on the ground, Ranger Venderrian?”

  “Five or six hundred yards, miThal.”

  “We’ll advance slowly then, and see if we can identify it, if it’s above ground.”

  “An’ if it’s below ground, melord?”

  “Then the wizard can poke it with his stick.”

  They’d gone about three hundred yards, advancing cautiously, when Gawain and the others caught a familiar odour on the breeze, faint, since the dampness in the air was dragging the scent to the wet Jurian grasses here on the plains.

  “Something aquamire-made has been destroyed here,” Gawain announced softly.

  “Aquamire liberated, certainly,” Allazar agreed, frowning, and sniffing.

  It wasn’t until they’d advanced almost to the limit of Venderrian’s estimate that the reason for the ‘strange pale darkness’ and the stronger, acrid whiffs of liberated aquamire became apparent.

  “Flagellweed, dying,” Allazar announced, wiping rain from where it dripped off his eyebrows. “It must have been sown in the spring, or the summer, perhaps even all around the Hallencloister.”

  “We’re still a good three or four miles from the place, why in sight of the sun would the Viell wish to seed such a wide circle?”

  Allazar shrugged. “Perhaps they dared not approach too close to powers which would oppose them.”

  “Why seed it all? Flagellweed would be no obstruction to the whitebeards in the citadel, and why would anyone in their right minds wish to approach the place with its gates closed and barred against the people of these lands?”

  “Perhaps it was laid to prevent the child from Fallowmead summoning aid and thus alerting the Hallencloister to the presence of Pelliman Goth?”

  Gawain favoured the wizard with a sceptical look, and surveyed the scene before them. What might once have been a band of Flagellweed broad enough to deter any incursion by man or beast unable to summon white fire now lay limp and mouldering like week-old cabbage leaves rotting on market cobbles. A slight fizz off to their right, and they glimpsed a puff of purple smoke, dragged to the ground by the rain and gone in no time.

  “It’s poppin’ off all over the place,” Ognorm sniffed, “Manky stuff. Is it safe to cross like that, Serre wizard?”

  Allazar wrinkled his nose as another rotting ‘weed fizzled and was gone.

  “I would not wish to ride a horse across such a stretch of land so afflicted,” the wizard replied after a little thought. “The ‘weed will have lost all of its sting, limp on the ground and rotting as it is. But the aquamire it contains is unstable, larger drops of rain are all that is needed to cause the spontaneous liberation we are seeing. For a horse to step on such mouldering debris might cause a nasty burn.”

  “Can you burn us a path through it?” Gawain asked, “Such larger drops of rain as you’ve described are few and far between, and if anything, the drizzle is getting lighter; you can almost see the shape of the citadel on the horizon through it now.”

  It was true. Although great clouds of fine and misty rain swirled in the gentlest of breezes and made for a grey and wet curtain hanging between them and the horizon, they could glimpse from time to time the rise far ahead, and their destination atop it.

  “I can, Longsword, but this close to the Hallencloister, I fear it would announce our presence as clearly as the knocking of a door or the ringing of a bell.”

  Gawain shrugged. “It would announce your presence, and since you’re the one who’ll be doing all the knocking or ringing, I doubt it matters whether they know we’re coming before we get there or not. I don’t really want to sit here hoping for heavy rain while watching what rain there actually is diminishing. Clear a path for us Allazar, and let’s be on our way.”

  “I shall.”

  Allazar dismounted, and trudged forward, and Gawain caught a glimpse of the wizard unconsciously rubbing the small of his back. He smiled, grateful that his running earlier had relieved the sore relics of his own miserable night.

&nb
sp; Nearing the edge of the broad band of Flagellweed, which seemed to extend to the north and south for miles, Allazar held the White Staff horizontally before him. If anyone had expected white fire to clear their way, they were perhaps disappointed. The wizard simply loosed a wave of Baramenn’s Surge at a slight angle downwards before him, the force of the wave striking the rotting ‘weed much harder than large raindrops might and stimulating at once the liberation of their aquamire.

  Thus, Allazar advanced, clearing a path perhaps fifteen feet wide before him, through which Gawain and the others advanced on foot, leading the horses carefully as they went.

  By the time they’d crossed the field of ‘weed, Allazar was actually smiling, and seemed to have forgotten the aches and pains of a night spent trying to sleep sat huddled in a cloak on a wet saddle on the ground.

  Gawain grinned at the wizard, and handed him the reins of his horse. “If you’re expecting a compliment for finally doing a wizard’s work, you’re in for a disappointing time.”

  “I have learned well the lessons of the past, Longsword,” Allazar smiled, “And am merely grateful to my king for his not slapping me on the back of the head for taking so long to clear the path.”

  “Actually, I was coming to that,” Gawain beamed, and as the wizard turned to climb into the saddle, slapped him on the back of the head.

  Venderrian blinked back his astonishment, Ognorm chuckled and gave the elf a wink before dragging himself up into the saddle, and they set off once more.

  When they were perhaps two miles from the Hallencloister, they stopped, and eyed their destination. The misty drizzle had eased, but it was cold, and chill, and the heavy overcast sky promised no relief from the drab misery of the day, and no hint of sunshine to burn away the heavy atmosphere.

  “I see what you mean about the slope,” Gawain announced, “We must have been on it for miles, but so gentle is it we hadn’t noticed.”

  Allazar nodded. “Master Arramin would tell you that a long time ago, it was established by calculations that the flat and level ground within the Hallencloister is almost five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and three hundred of those are above the average level of the plains of Juria and Arrun.”