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

by GJ Kelly

  Gawain opened his eyes, and raised them. From the corner of his right eye he saw the Graken gliding silently, swooping. This time, the line of five riders did see the darkness in his expression, and blinked, and horses instinctively took a faltering half-step backwards.

  “No more bluster,” Gawain declared, and horses snorted, eyes white and wide. “You shall have nothing from me but death, and those of your creed shall have nothing from the Sceptre of Raheen but terror and destruction. So it is said. So it shall be.”

  And he reached up, and grasped the hilt of his sword. The pulsing energies within him flared, and the steel began to crackle as he drew it from the scabbard. Behind him, he heard Ognorm and Venderrian gasp and throw themselves flat onto the ground, covering their heads.

  To his right, he saw three Graken, wings outstretched, levelling out from their swooping dives, iron-masked riders leaning forward over the winged lizards’ necks, Rods of Asteran outstretched and black smoky spheres forming on their ends.

  “You! Should have! Run!” Gawain screamed, and loosed his fury, drawing the crackling, sparking longsword and whirling it once around his head, feeling the strange aquamire boiling within him.

  Above the ridge, balls of black fire fell, blasting great holes in Mornland’s lush slopes, and blasting great holes in the close-gathered formation of men, elves and horses gathered there.

  Gawain gripped the sword two-handed and swung it in a mighty circle, screaming the name of his lost and beloved land loud over the rolling concussions of the fireballs on the slope and the screams of men and horses four hundred yards away.

  With the scream came an immense release, a great writhing snake of grey fire pouring from the tip of the blade like a mystic lash, and Gawain whipped it around, revelling in the outsurge of power, revelling as the lash ripped through the puny wisps of energy in the binding, revelling as it ripped through the chanting Viell, laying them open, bursting crystal-coated robes and chests asunder, making smoke of staves and rods and the hands and arms that held them.

  He spun on his heel, the lash extinguished, and gazed with raw hatred and fury at the five stunned riders before him. The wreckage of six of the ToorsenViell smouldered in a circle about him, and Kanosenn gaped in terror.

  “Allazar,” Gawain hissed through clenched teeth, as the three Graken wheeled around to make another diving run at the scattering survivors on the ridge, what few there were left from the first assault.

  “I am he,” a distant voice rasped, and the wizard, tear-stained eyes blazing, drew himself up, and turned to face the five.

  “Run,” Gawain told them in a soft voice which seemed to carry for miles.

  Allazar raised the White Staff, a growl of a chant growing from deep within him. A sharp pulse of something swept forward from the Dymendin, and the black stone gems adorning the elfwizard’s robes and the crystal riders’ armour, and all of those on the horse-blankets beneath them, thousands of them, shattered into clouds of black dust, momentarily enveloping those mounted in a dark and choking fug. Allazar began another chant.

  Kanosenn fled. His escort fled. South, the horses ran, south down the corridor of uncertainty as an immense tree of lightning surged into the sky, its roar deafening, and then it was gone, the air rich with the smell of bleach and ozone. Gawain could see Kanosenn holding aloft his own staff, a rippling shield defending his own back, his riders ignored.

  Allazar strode forward, thrust out the staff, and another immense torrent of white fire chewed a trench in the soil, ripping towards the fleeing riders as the staff was raised, only for the lightning to flicker and dance harmlessly behind them as they rode out of the wizard’s range.

  Venderrian leapt to his feet, and loosed a shot, and a rider of the Tau passing behind Kanosenn at that moment took the shaft in the back and fell.

  “Hold, Ven,” Gawain ordered, and the stunned elf did as he was bid.

  Gawain nodded towards the Graken landing just out of range near the carnage black fire had wrought on the slopes, the other two circling and swooping and dropping fire upon the few survivors galloping for the safety of the trees. The Graken settled, took two paces forward as it folded back its wings, and it uttered a screeching cry which seemed to those who heard it a victory celebration. The rider raised a Jardember, and Gawain stood poised, the sword silent now in his hand.

  The air shimmered between them and the Jardember, and an image, faltering but recognisable nonetheless, formed a circle from which a familiar face peered.

  “I! Am! Morloch!” he cried. “I! Shall! Not! Be! Diminished! I! Shall! Not! Fade!”

  And the image diminished, and faded, and the Graken-rider stowed the Jardember, the creature taking to the skies to join its comrades, the three winged beasts rapidly disappearing into the north past the drifting plume of smoke which had been Morloch’s Condavian, it and its Eye no longer needed.

  Allazar turned to face Gawain, and the light of Eldenbeard blazed, flared, and faded. “We cannot allow them to return to Juria,” the wizard announced. “There they would raise reinforcements, and come at us again.”

  “True enough,” Gawain agreed. “The riders of the Grey are no more now than wreckage scattered upon the ridge. Kanosenn would lay the blame for that at our door should he return to Insinnian. Are you well enough to ride, Ognorm?”

  “Arr melord!”

  “So be it. We’ll mount, and take a westerly course, and keep our quarry running due south to the border with Arrun. That’s our destination too, after all.”

  Gawain gave a low whistle, and Gwyn, leading the other horses, heard the call, and began the trot back towards them from the north.

  “Are you well, Allazar? The binding did no lasting harm?”

  “I am, and it did not. I am sorry, Gawain. My stupidity led us into near disaster. If I had held the staff unwrapped and bare-handed, I would have felt the vibrations of new Cloak the Viell clearly now possess…”

  Gawain shrugged away the apology and shook his head, and eyed the blade. It was still dark grey, vestiges of strange aquamire still swimming therein, but there was no grey mist now when he closed his eyes. He was empty, though the blade itself yet retained some of the dark energies of false aquamire. He sheathed the sword, and eyed them all, feeling the pulse of life returning to normal, his fury leaving him almost bereft, but relieved, and resolute.

  “I am sorry too, miThal. I should have paid more attention and called a halt when first I thought I saw a light.”

  Gawain shrugged away that apology, too. “And I ignored my own instincts, and mistook Gwyn’s signals for a reflection of my own. We live, and thus we have learned from our mistakes.”

  “Morloch, melord,” Ognorm blinked, “I don’t understand it. Was he on our side?”

  Again, Gawain shrugged, and adjusted his cloak. “No, Oggy. As ever he serves his own foul interests. You heard him. It was his hatred of himself planted the madness in Toorsen’s mind. He rebels now against his own ending. That is why he followed us, and sent what last servants he could muster against the creed here. To prevent them ending all wizardkind. To prevent his own demise. Come, my friends, here are the horses. We have some hunting to do. And henceforth?”

  They eyed him expectantly.

  “Henceforth we trust our own instincts and those of our friends.”

  oOo

  34. Worms’ Ending

  There was nothing to be done on the slope of the western ridge. Of the thirty-one men and horses who’d been standing there in tight formation when Morloch’s Graken-riders had attacked, only three riders and four horses had managed to escape unharmed into the trees. There were no wounded, elves, men or horses, to spare further misery; such was the devastation wrought upon them from the air.

  They found the rider-less horse standing wide-eyed and sad in the gloom some fifteen yards within the tree line with six others, presumably those once ridden by the dead Viell of the failed binding. And there they paused awhile to remove saddles and tack, Gawain calming the
distressed animals while Venderrian helped himself to a travelling cannister full of elven arrows and Allazar liberated saddle-bags of freenmek and honey-bars which he shared with the elf ranger and stowed on their packhorse. The elven horses were loosed, and seemed grateful to depart the scene, and were last seen riding towards the eastern trees and the lake beyond, far from the smell of blood and torn, gaping earth.

  After that, the four of Last Ridings picked their way through the pines atop the ridge as quickly as they could, emerging on the western side still with three hours of daylight left in the day. To their surprise, the tracks left by the three elves who’d fled the Graken attack swung south, and so the pursuit began, continuing until it became too dark to risk the safety of the horses.

  Venderrian, of course, would have trouble detecting those three survivors, their dark stone-encrusted garb remained intact. But this was southern Mornland, the ground softened by winter rains, and neither Gawain nor the ranger had any difficulty reading the tracks left by their quarry.

  “Finding that bastard Kanosenn should be a lot easier,” Gawain declared softly, eating frak and ignoring entirely the sounds of delight Allazar was uttering with each bite of fresh-liberated freenmek the wizard took.

  “Arr melord,” Ognorm quietly agreed. “Without them black gems to hide ‘em, they won’t be so keen to ‘ang around, not with me mate Ven’s peepers pointed right at ‘em.”

  “Why do you think they are heading south, Longsword?”

  Gawain shrugged. “I suspect they may have made a camp that way, and then advanced when they saw through the Condavians’ Eyes which route we were taking. I imagine they kept a good distance south of us the whole time, and adjusted their course east or west as we did. Theirs was the advantage, with their spies in the sky.”

  “But melord, how did they know we’d take that long stretch right through the middle o’ their wizards?”

  Gawain grimaced in the gathering dark. “They didn’t, until we began the final approach to it. The main force doubtless waited nearby with the Ahk-Viell watching through the Condavians until we were almost in the trap, then the elfwizards advanced through the trees and down the slope.”

  “It would not have taken long for the Viell to scoop out those hollows in which they hid,” Allazar agreed. “And nothing more mystic needed for the task than a shovel. It was a cunning trap.”

  “And one we should not have walked into. But, hey-la, we prevailed.”

  “Arr, and with that black-eyed barstid’s help an’ all. Thought we were done for fer sure when Ven spotted them Grakens. So then, Morloch’s having a pop at the Toorsenspits now too, melord?”

  “Yes, so it would seem. Doubtless what few spies he has left in these lands told him of Kanosenn’s force and their purpose. One thing Morloch would not wish to see is the sceptre back in the hands of the Toorseneth, there to be used against his wizards as well as ours.”

  “Arr well, if’n you don’t mind me sayin’ so melord, it’s all a bit confusing.”

  “That’s the nature of chaos, Oggy. If we’ve made enough luck this day, then the elfwizard will expect us to run from the danger he represents, and won’t be looking over his shoulder until we’re there tapping on it.”

  “We ‘opes.”

  “We do. I doubt he’ll expect us to pursue, though. He still has the advantage in numbers over us, and with three of Morloch’s Graken dropping death from the air, Kanosenn will probably expect us to be in hiding or running from them, too. He won’t have heard Morloch’s words. Won’t have seen the Graken retreat. He was too busy running southwest and for the cover of the trees there.”

  “A pity Morloch’s Grakens did not finish him,” Allazar glowered. “But we must stop him turning west and sending for reinforcements.”

  “True. But he’ll be expecting us to regroup, as he is likely doing. Then he’ll move south, and perhaps send a rider with a call for reinforcements to the west. He may even send up another Condavian, if he has the means with him to create one. The Toorseneth is desperate for the sceptre, and anxious to stop us crossing into Arrun.”

  “All I need to know,” Ognorm declared, shuffling on his blankets, “Is that they squinted at you sideways, an’ I’ve got a message for ‘em from me king.”

  The forthright declaration earned a smile from them all, and then Gawain nodded.

  “Get some sleep, my friends. We’re up before dawn to continue the hunt.”

  “May I speak with you for a few moments, Longsword?”

  “Of course.”

  Gawain stood, and they walked a short distance from the makeshift camp leaving Ognorm and Venderrian settling for the night until their turn on watch came.

  “If it’s another apology for this afternoon’s entrapment, don’t bother,” Gawain said quietly.

  “I wanted to explain,” the wizard sighed, his head beginning to hang. “The binding… it draws all mystic energy out into the vortex… the swirling mist you saw. In the centre, a wizard is utterly powerless, even one of Morloch’s strength…”

  “Allazar. There is no need for explanation. We’re all familiar with the word ‘binding’ and what it means, whether it’s of the mystic variety or not.”

  Still the wizard looked distraught, numb hands clutching the bitterly cold Dymendin. “It is important to me that you understand, Gawain, important that you know my tears were of rage and frustration…”

  “Vakin idiot. Did you think I could possibly imagine otherwise? D’you think we could have travelled so far together without me learning something of your strengths and weaknesses?”

  Allazar looked suddenly sheepish. “I wasn’t aware I had any strengths worthy of my king’s attention.”

  “Bah. You’re the only one can wield the White Staff, just as the sword feels light as a feather in my hands so too the stick in yours. You’re sure the binding hasn’t left you feeling weak and sobby-sobby like a girly in a playground with her pony-tail fresh pulled?”

  The wizard smiled. “I am sure.”

  “Good. You’re the Last Sardor, and people will have certain expectations of you, you know. It wouldn’t do to be seen as anything other than a flinty-lipped fish-eyed fryer of darkness and fount of pointless knowledge.”

  “Knowledge is never pointless, Longsword.”

  “Indeed. That’s the answer one would expect from a wizard. What moon rose on the third day of December?”

  The wizard blinked, and frowned, lips moving silently in astonishment before he answered.

  “It rose unseen with the sun, a new moon. Why do you ask?”

  “What possible point is there to such knowledge?”

  “It permits one to calculate that the next new moon will occur on the first day of January. I am confused, Longsword, is the moon important?”

  Gawain blinked. “I was using your knowledge of the state of the moon a week ago as an example of pointless knowledge. Who cares what moon rose a week ago?”

  “Anyone wishing to know what moon rises tomorrow.”

  “And now you are no longer feeling weak and sobby-sobby, my task here is complete. Unless there is something else?”

  “There is one thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “Thank you.”

  Gawain eyed the wizard in the gloom, and nodded. “Bah. Just because I haven’t killed you yet, doesn’t mean you’re my friend. It’s a good start, though. Do you know any spells or mumbles for warming up sticks? You’ll be bloody useless to us with your hands frozen to that one. Or worse, frost-bit black fingers in a neat pile on the grass beside you when you wake up.”

  Allazar blinked in surprise again. “Actually, d’you know, I really hadn’t thought about such a thing. I believe I do.”

  “Then use it, clodwit. And get some sleep. I don’t mean to waste much time on pleasantries when we catch up with the enemy. I’m anxious for a warm bed and the warm embrace that awaits me there in Last Ridings.”

  “There is one thing you may now be certain of, my fri
end,” Allazar whispered sadly. “There will be nothing pleasant when next I confront Kanosenn of the Ahk-Viell. What retribution there shall be, shall be none of his commanding. What watch shall I have?”

  “The last, before dawn. You’re the only one of us with the pointless knowledge of what hour the sun will rise tomorrow, so wake us all half an hour beforehand, would you?”

  “I shall. Good night, Longsword.”

  “Good night, Allazar.”

  Gawain patrolled a small loop around their camp, waiting until he was sure they were all asleep before he sat on his saddle, sword across his lap, and cloak drawn tight. It was cold. And he did miss Elayeen. It was all well and good Captain Hass and his warnings against weaker moments on watch, but the fact of the matter was, Gawain was tired, and he felt cold, and empty.

  Gone was the grey mist of strange aquamire, nothing remaining of it now but faint stains shifting as if alive in the steel of his blade. No visions swam from grey mists to haunt him when he closed his eyes. No worms wriggled and vied for his attention. Today had been an ending, as Kanosenn had said. But it had been the worms’ ending, not Gawain’s. Now he had no aquamire clarity. Now he was, quite simply, Gawain again.

  It was cold. His breath was pluming and he noticed it, and wrapped a black scarf around his face and head, and drew up the hood of his cloak. Steaming breath on watch, and Captain Hass would be disappointed with him. Anyone could be skulking in the dark. Brigands. Toorsenelves. Morlochmen. Jurians perhaps, loyal to Insinnian’s stewardship of the throne. He strained his ears, listening for sounds that shouldn’t be there but were, and sounds that should be there but weren’t. Hearing none, he slowly scanned the gloom around the camp, noting silhouettes of trees and shrubs on the horizon, wondering if the enemy they were pursuing had camped in the distant copse some hours’ ride to the south.

  It had been a day of surprises, not the least of which was the recognition of the profound friendship he felt for the wizard. Allazar. A whitebeard. Well, he thought, the world was changing, and there were few enough whitebeards in it. And had he not left Corax in Last Ridings, to watch over Elayeen? What greater sign of his changing attitudes towards wizards could there be than that?