by GJ Kelly
“Break it, then.”
“I do not know that I can.”
Gawain shrugged. “And you won’t know until you’ve tried. Dwarfspit, Allazar, you carry the White Stick. Use it.”
“I shall try,” the wizard nodded, though he appeared entirely unconvinced, and entirely alarmed by the seal and its portents.
He rolled his head and flexed his shoulders, tested his knees and hips, and then set his expression grim as he strode towards the gate once more. Again, he braced himself and held the staff like a battering ram, and swung it against the oak. Again there was a deafening boom which reverberated from within the walls, and again a bright flash which threw the wizard back.
But this time, Allazar was prepared, and though he stumbled a little, he moved with the force propelling him, and kept his feet. He eyed the end of his staff, glanced at his companions, then took three paces more towards them before turning, and yelling at the top of his voice, charged the gate.
It would have been comical were it not for the fact that this was the Hallencloister and Gawain wanted entry to it. Another deafening boom which threatened to afflict them all with headaches such was the intensity of the sound. But this time, instead of a simple bright flash, those observing caught a brief glimpse of a mesh of intertwined lightning crackling all over the immense portal. But then they became busy trying and succeeding to break the flying wizard’s fall as he dropped into them from a height of about five feet.
“Would one of the smaller gates be easier?” Gawain asked solicitously when Allazar had dusted himself down and regained his breath.
“No,” the wizard grumbled, clearly angry. “If anything they would be harder, the seal smaller and thus, being more compact, more difficult to break.”
“I was only asking in the hope of sparing you further flights and us the risk of broken limbs catching you when you land.”
“I am angered by the seal, Longsword. You don’t seem to understand the significance of it. This is the D’ith Hallencloister! Never would it be sealed against wizards of the D’ith. Never. Something is very wrong here and no matter what other reasons we may have for gaining entry to the ‘cloister this,” and here he pointed vaguely behind him towards the immense gate, “This trumps all of them!”
With that, Allazar spun on his heels, and mumbling beneath his breath, advanced upon the sealed portal once again.
“Dar me enthra!” he screamed again, and again hammered at the oak with his staff. And again. And again. And again.
For a full hour, Allazar went toe to toe with the east gate. He would pause, take a drink, wipe his hands and his staff the better to maintain a tight grip upon the Dymendin. Once, he even paused to fish out the remains of his sodden lump of sugar-mint, stuffing it into his mouth and later spitting out small pieces of the paper wrapping.
Each time he attacked the gate he was knocked back by the opposing force of the seal binding it shut, but each time he remained upright, and each time, it seemed to those watching his labours, the flash of the mystic seal seemed a tiny bit dimmer, the opposing force a tiny bit weaker, and the booming that echoed from within a little louder.
And that was why none of them, not even Gwyn, heard the arrival of riders behind them until it was too late for them to take any measures to avoid them. Too late to do anything, in fact, but turn slowly when a harsh voice called to them:
“Stand fast there!”
oOo
10. Dilemma
Gawain closed his eyes and sighed, muttering a familiar curse under his breath. He turned around slowly, swivelling to the left so his right hand and arm were momentarily shielded by his body from view. Long enough to wrap the bead of his arrow-string around a shaft in the quiver hanging low just behind his right hip, and then he struck what he hoped was a casual pose, resting his hands on his hips.
Seven riders. Two clad in grey, five in brown and green holding their bows canted across their saddles, arrows nocked to strings and held in place by a finger of the hands firm on the grips, but strings not yet drawn.
“My lord!” a distinctly feminine voice gasped.
“Rider Cherris,” Gawain replied, smiling tight-lipped. “I am glad to see you again. I know not your companion’s name?”
“Corporal Dirs,” the man replied. “Royal Jurian Cavalry. You likely don’t recognise me, m’lord, though I rode under General Bek.”
“Yes, I recognise you, Dirs. Bek gave you charge of the cordon party around the stores tent where I met with Martan of Tellek on our last night-camp before forming the line at Far-gor. You and Rider Cherris both wore the emblem of the Kindred Army then. Now I see only a circle of cut stitches on your tunics where those emblems once were worn with pride.”
Dirs blinked, smiling briefly in astonishment at Gawain’s memory, and then he glanced down at the mark on his chest where the emblem had once indeed been proudly displayed.
“Orders from her Majesty,” Dirs grimaced. “The Kindred Army is no more, she says, and the wearing of its emblem is… inappropriate.”
“And you, Raheen, are arrested, your liberty forfeit, by order of Hellin of Juria, and Insinnian, Crown’s Consort of Juria, and by order of Thallanhall.”
So sneered one of the Toorsengard elves, all of them wearing the mark of the Tau emblazoned at the hem of their capes, and on their boots, and saddles.
“You kept better company when last I saw you, Corporal Dirs,” Gawain grimaced, and leaned forward to spit, his eyes fixed on the elf who’d spoken.
Allazar drew alongside him to his left, Ognorm to the right, and Venderrian, glowering and tense, to the left of the wizard.
“Our new friends from the great forest,” Dirs announced. “We’re on long-range patrol, m’lord, with orders to keep an eye on the border with Callodon. We were riding that way and made a night-camp to the southwest when we heard thunder rising from the Hallencloister and came to investigate.”
“Ah, then yours would be the smoke I saw earlier. Did you set fire to a tree or something over there? I thought a hamlet must’ve sprung up yonder, so much smoke did we see rising there.”
It was Cherris’ turn to grimace. “Our new friends fired wet gorse-wood with elf-oil to cook their breakfast, my lord. They’re not at all used to life here on the open plains.”
“These criminals must be taken at once to Juria, Corporal!”
“Shut up, Darin,” Cherris sighed, wiping a lock of wet chestnut-brown hair from her face. “Corporal Dirs commands this patrol and you with it.”
She glowered at the elf, who held her gaze with an expression of such fierce distaste that Gawain suspected this was not the first time Cherris had put the Toorsengard in his place.
Gawain took the opportunity to slide his arrow a little further from the quiver, tightening the turn of string around the shaft just in front of the fletching. From the corner of his eye he saw Ognorm’s hands, thumbs looped in his belt, slide slowly further apart, the left towards the hammer hanging there, the right towards the Meggen mace snug in its customary position.
“Alas, m’lord, our new friend is right. Her Majesty gave a general order to all her forces under arms. Should you or your lady be found on Jurian soil, you’re to be taken to Castletown, and handed over to the Thallanhall.”
“And do you mean to obey that order, Corporal, here on the cobbled road of this, the D’ith Hallencloister?” Allazar’s voice carried a chilling edge.
Sparks fizzled and danced on the end of the Dymendin, Gawain could see their brightness in the dull light of the overcast day. So could the elves before them.
“My lord,” Cherris swallowed, and fidgeted in her saddle. “We have a duty.”
“Yes you do,” Gawain agreed. “And it’s not to the orders your queen has given you, but to the people you stood for at the line. We have urgent business here in the Hallencloister and we shan’t be delayed, diverted nor detained from it.”
“No-one’s come this close to the place in over a year, m’lord,” Dirs glanced
nervously at the massive portal behind the four companions, and then up at the ramparts. “And the ‘weed that sprang up here gave everyone an excuse to give the place an even wider berth.”
“It’s why we came to investigate the sounds, my lord,” Cherris smiled, though weakly, “None have been heard here for so long. Even the air on the plains nearby is eerie and still.”
“Has there been no answer from within, m’lord?”
“None, Dirs. And that is why we cannot be diverted from our purpose. We must know why the gates are shut, and why none answer the call.”
The Jurian corporal squirmed in his saddle, and flicked a glance at Cherris as if for support.
“My lord, we have our orders. Perhaps if you were to assure us of your consideration after you have received an answer, either to your knocking or to your questions, I and my patrol might wait for you below?”
Tension suddenly seemed to ratchet up a notch, and Dirs shifted in his saddle again. Gawain did not envy the Jurian’s dilemma.
“I can assure you of my consideration, Corporal Dirs. I can also assure you that I have no intention of surrendering to elves of a foul creed whose stock-in-trade is the betrayal of the kindred races.”
“I have heard enough of this childish Eastlander stupidity! I have my orders! The dwarf may do as he pleases, but the man, the wizard, and the elf traitor…” Darin trailed off, and Gawain smiled, and took half a step forward.
“Cat got your tongue, Darin, elf of Toorsencreed and Eastguard?” he asked, his voice dropping in tone and volume, and utterly menacing. “Your friends of the Tau should know, I suffer no-one to draw string or steel against me. That is the way of Raheen, and I am Raheen.”
With that, Gawain drew the arrow slowly from his quiver, and held it in both hands before him, casually prepared for hurling. Darin’s eyes began to bulge, the elf pinned by Venderrian’s Sight the moment he had swept his eyes down the line of the four companions and uttered the word ‘traitor’.
“Dirs, Cherris, move away from these elves. Friends of Juria they most certainly are not. We shall discuss your orders like civilised people once the threat to myself and my friends is diminished, one way or the other.”
“Darin?” another elf asked in alarm, clearly hoping for orders. None were forthcoming.
“You will tilt your bows and allow the arrows you have nocked to fall at your feet,” Gawain commanded. “If you move against us, you have seen your last Eastland dawn. Cherris, Dirs, move away, please. You stood at Far-gor, you’ve seen the White Staff at work, and know only too well how poor is his marksmanship.”
Blinking, Cherris and Dirs regarded each other for a moment, and at another hissing shower of fizzing sparks from Allazar’s staff, eased their horses, high-kneed, some twelve feet away from the five elves, away to Gawain’s right.
“He looks about ready to burst, Ven,” Gawain announced, gazing at the one named Darin, the elf’s face crimson as an over-ripe tomato. “Release him.”
At once, the Sight-stricken elf clutched his throat, veins bulging like cords, and gasped for breath, eyes bulging wide.
“Don’t do it, Toorsengard!” Gawain cried at Darin’s nearest companion, whose right hand was inching across his thigh towards the string of his bow.
“Take them!” Darin gasped aloud, reaching for his own string.
“Stand down!” Dirs and Cherris screamed together.
But it was far too late to halt the scene unfolding before their eyes. Whether it was hubris drove the elfguard Darin to give the order or genuine loyalty to his superiors, it mattered not. What mattered was the fact of four mounted elves instantly drawing string against Gawain and his companions, the fifth Sight-stricken and attempting to do likewise while gasping for breath.
Gawain’s arm was already cocking back as a prelude to throwing, the elf Darin his target. Ognorm’s hands were dragging hammer and mace from belt-loops, knees bending and head going down ready to charge forward. Ven had pinned another of the elves and was presenting his own bow, arrow nocked in a blur.
But Allazar won the race, flipping the staff horizontally and raising a broad and shimmering shield before them all, into which four elven longshafts slammed and shattered, all of them aimed at the wizard. Venderrian loosed, but his own arrow shattered harmlessly on the back of Allazar’s shield, which then seemed to tighten from a disk into a large ball, only to form a Surge which sped across the ten yards of clear cobbled road to slam into horses and elves both.
The chaos that followed was brutal, horses going down, tumbling and squealing, sending riders sprawling. One elf, the Toorsengard Venderrian had pinned before Allazar loosed the Surge, was crushed beneath a horse rolling over and kicking in panic to regain its feet. The others were no less fortunate.
Gawain hurled his arrow, which struck Darin in the left shoulder as the kneeling elf, still clutching the remains of a broken bow, ducked away from a charging horse and tried to rise to his feet. Pain brought with it an awareness of his situation and he looked up to see the King of Raheen sprinting across the cobbles, drawing a long black blade which hummed and seemed to crackle alarmingly as it swung downwards. Darin had just enough time to grasp the hilt of his own sheathed shortsword before Gawain’s blow landed, smashing through the elf’s skull and down through his chest, killing him instantly.
Venderrian drew his bow a second time and shot an elf laying dazed on the cobbles clean through the heart, while a sickening thump and great arcing spray of blood and grey-pink matter told of Ognorm’s mace finding its mark in the back of a fourth elf’s head. Gawain braced, hefting the bloodied black blade high and staring to the left at the last of the unnamed elves even now rising to his feet, sword in hand and staring wide-eyed at the wizard towering over him… a wizard who simply poked his long white staff into the elf’s chest, and blew him asunder with a sharp concussion and the briefest of flashes.
Gawain didn’t have to look into Allazar’s eyes to know a dangerous light was burning there. Instead, he turned his gaze to Cherris and Dirs, the two riders of the Grey stunned by the speed and ferocity of the violence before them and struggling still to bring their horses to rest as five other startled animals skittered and scattered on the cobbled road around them.
Cherris caught Gawain’s gaze, and blanched. For his part, he saw the wet brown hair plastered to her pale face and neck, saw the emotions cartwheeling in her wide brown eyes, and promptly relaxed, bending to wipe the blood from his sword on a cape bearing the mark of the Toorseneth. He sheathed the sword, and after a glance at his comrades, fixed Cherris and Dirs again.
“We’ll discuss your orders like civilised people,” Gawain announced, “Just as soon as you’ve rounded up the horses and tended to them. There’ll likely be bruises from the wizard’s rough treatment, and they’ll need tending.”
“Aye, m’lord!” Dirs gasped, instantly grateful for an order which would remove him from imminent threat and delay any decision he and Cherris might need to make in respect of Hellin’s standing orders.
“Take the horses yonder, halfway to the gate further along the wall. They may be less disturbed by the noise of the wizard trying to break into this place. Allazar, when we’re all clear of this bloodied ground, the Rites for the Fallen if you please. I like not the mess they’ve made. It offends me as much as they themselves did.”
After the hasty rites were done and nothing but ashes stained the wet cobbles where five elves of the Tau had been slain, Gawain and his three companions gathered near the gate, eyeing the two Jurian riders examining and tending to the horses Allazar had bowled over with his Surge.
“We have slain allies of Juria, Longsword,” the wizard sighed, the light in his eyes faded and his voice melancholy. “There is no knowing the extent of the repercussions.”
“Arr, and them two are Grey Riders, mates who stood with us at Far-gor. I ain’t much keen on goin’ against ‘em, melord. Not much keen at all.”
“They’re honourable, and loyal to Juria, not
to Hellin. We’ll worry about how next to proceed after we’ve broken the seal on this vakin gate. We didn’t come this far only to surrender meekly to a couple of RJC long-rangers and hand ourselves over to Hellin and the Toorseneth.”
“It’s precisely because they are honourable that we and they face a dilemma, Longsword. If they were any less so, they might abandon all care for Hellin’s orders and ride away. Perhaps even with us, to Last Ridings.”
“It is their dilemma,” Gawain agreed, “And not really ours. Ours is breaking through the seal. I think you’re being far too gentle with this vakin gate, Allazar. Time to call forth the tree of lightning, and blow the bloody door off its hinges.”
“Alas, were it only so simple. The seal is cunning and like most armour, absorbs and deflects the power applied to it. But it is weakening, and that is encouraging.”
Gawain looked sceptical, and with grunt, nodded for the wizard to resume his battering, and drew the others away towards the two Jurians, leaving Allazar to it. They’d only gone a few yards when another boom of thunder sounded from the gate, and echoed eerily within the walls of the Hallencloister.
“How are the horses?” Gawain asked quietly, arms folded, when they arrived at the cobbled area where the animals had been taken.
“Some bruises, my lord,” Cherris announced, her voice a little tremulous. “As expected.”
He nodded, and swivelled on his hips to glance at the grassy expanse on the far side of the road. “Come, we’ll lead them yonder, they can graze and rest. Cobbles don’t make for the gentlest of surfaces for hooves to rest upon. We can talk there, away from the din the wizard is making.
The Jurians nodded, still nervous, and still clearly pondering their dilemma. At the verge, Gawain and the others helped unsaddle the animals, and removed the bridles too, allowing the horses to wander freely on the broad expanse of grass.