by GJ Kelly
The world had changed, almost beyond recognition now. Even Morloch feared it, and was rebelling against the very chaos he himself had stirred into motion. Morloch’s legacy, worms’ ending, chaos and strife.
It called to mind the verse of the Arathalaneer which Venderrian had recited. How did it go? Dark days old are come, dark days new are born, in war and strife and rising dread, dark days new are born, and shadows, ‘til arrives the reaper.
A day of surprises. Morloch’s last desperate pronouncement, reaching out with what power he had remaining to him to declare, almost at the border with Arrun, I shall not fade! The greatest fear of tyrants everywhere: ending in obscurity. Such men, such wizards too, would spend all their people and all their wealth for the building of monuments, holding death as nothing, but obscurity the greatest of agonies. Obscurity lasts forever for those who die in it, and for the desperate, infamous and evil acts allow the dimmest of lights to be seen for a brief moment, in the futile hope perhaps of eclipsing for a time the brighter lights of those whose lives they claim.
Surprises. The Toorseneth had a new Cloak which, unlike the archaic Cloak of Quintinenn, Gawain could not see. It seemed to Gawain to date the legacy of the circles in the Hall of Raheen, his father’s hall. Certainly Allazar and Arramin had been surprised by some of the advances the Viell had made. It simply added to the urgency of his desire to return to Last Ridings; their enemies had Cloaks and black gems which could evade even the Sight of the Eldenelves, and that meant Elayeen and all their friends were vulnerable.
Surprises. The look on Kanosenn’s face had been priceless when Gawain unleashed the strange aquamire upon the binding and the Viell. It had been something of a surprise to Gawain too, though of course insight and the pulsing rhythms in the sword and in himself had shown him his power before he used it. He had been filled, after all, with the same energies the Viell were using for the binding, but much more than they were able safely to wield, and that power subtly altered by the longsword and its mystic runes.
But that power was gone now, gone the way of the worms, ended in a thrilling release of the something which had charged him, which Sighted elves could see within him. Perhaps his arms too were healed now from the lingering effects of the Shadow of Calhaneth, but the only way to know for certain would be if they remained insensitive to the presence of Viell energies and false aquamire. He might never know, now. The Ahk-Viell Kanosenn needed no such false aquamire to strengthen his abilities here in these lands, and if no reinforcements were waiting nearby, all the lesser Viell in Kanosenn’s force had been destroyed.
Gawain decided he didn’t like surprises, not that he ever really had. They should not have been caught in Kanosenn’s trap, just as they should not have been trapped in the crater of the volcano in the Eastbinding. But with the ending of the worms came also the certainty that now was the time for men to grasp their own destiny, and thus, when they were back in Last Ridings, it would be Captain Hass and his invaluable lessons, and not insights born of dark energies, which would help to guide Gawain and his people.
First, though, came the ending of Kanosenn. Let Insinnian sweat behind the throne of Juria wondering when next Gawain might sneak over the walls of Castletown. Let the lordling Consort wonder what became of his Commander of Retribution. Let the Toorseneth wonder, too, how it came to pass that so strong a force could be so utterly annihilated by so few.
Gawain stood, and so silently did he rise that not even the leather of his saddle creaked for the loss of his weight upon it. He took another turn around the camp and his sleeping comrades. His sleeping friends. Tomorrow they would ride not for safety and home, but for vengeance, and to strike a blow in the name of the oaths they had taken, for friends lost, and friends they hadn’t met yet. The Toorseneth had much still to answer for, after all.
oOo
35. Pink
It was birds responsible for revealing the Ahk-Viell’s camp to Gawain and his hunters, though none bearing a mystic Eye borne aloft. Rather, it was the frequent pinkpinkpink! calls of alarm from disturbed blackbirds, and their regularity, which caught Gawain’s ear.
They had followed the trail left by the three crystal riders, staying well to the west of it, and were unsurprised when, an hour or so before noon, the trail swung more to the east and towards a copse beside a river, quite probably the same river which had flowed into and out of the lake to the east of the corridor of uncertainty. The southern forest at the end of that broad corridor of land was far behind them now, and though it had seemed vast before the brief battle of the binding, it had been in reality smaller than the forest in Last Ridings.
Those percussive calls of alarmed blackbirds told of a regular patrol disturbing the birds with their passing, and the frequency of the calls spoke of a small perimeter walked most likely by a solitary watchman. Gawain had eased them well to the west, had left the horses, and together the four had sneaked and slunk and made their stooped and hasty way across scrubby ground and were now squatting behind a thorny shrub.
Kanosenn, or one of his underlings, had chosen a poor camp. Tents there were in abundance, and the few survivors were now hurrying to bring them down and bundle them up, making a hasty pile of them at the tree line. The tents had been pitched in an area of clear ground with the copse to the north, and on the west bank of a sharp meander in a river. The bend in the flow carried the waters briefly westward before looping slowly back to the southeast, so that camp was nestled in the crook of that bend, fast-flowing water to the east and all the way around to the south.
Though the river might well be shallow enough for a crossing without the need for horses to swim here, its waters were swift and bitterly cold. True, it served to protect the camp’s eastern and southern flanks as it looped around, and presumably elves had believed nothing bad could come at them from the west, which was the only unobstructed direction anyone could approach from. But…
But, Gawain smiled his grim smile, protection on three sides also meant the enemy had nowhere to run but north back into the trees and thence all the way to the forest they had left behind, or south or east across the freezing river. They could of course run straight towards attackers running at them from the west, but Gawain felt it unlikely given the nature of those attackers, one of whom, after all, bore an urgent message for the elves from King Eryk of Threlland, and another who bore a big white stick and was anxious to use it.
There would be no surprise here, though. A clear hundred yards of open land dotted with clumps of weedthorn lay sprouting from the well watered grasses between the four hunters and their quarry. Seven elves in all, and one of them Kanosenn. Why they were so intent on breaking the camp instead of simply abandoning it and continuing their running south, or west for Juria, Gawain didn’t know. Perhaps it was some folly by the elfwizard, a form of scorched earth, denying the enemy the succour of tents and blankets and camp comforts. One of the elves was already dousing the growing pile of waxed canvas coverings with a container of what looked to be ellamas oil.
In truth, there really was little else in the camp but the small one-man tents and the short poles and guys used to erect them. They would serve to keep a soldier dry in the night while in bivouac, and keep the worst of the wind from chilling bones, but little else.
Pinkpinkpinkpink! came the alarm call again, the lone guard circling through the trees of the copse as Gawain suspected, the better to peer out to the north lest an enemy approach from that direction. Clearly, Kanosenn expected no pursuit, or there would be greater watchfulness, and no delaying with the tents; the lone watchman was probably just a sop to warriors and what training they might have had in Elvendere.
Two riders were hurrying about the business of watering all seven of the horses and filling canteens and water skins, one was on foot patrol in the copse, and the rest busy with the destruction of the tents while the Ahk-Viell leant on his staff at the riverbank and stared into the waters.
Delaying here at their former campsite was a mistake, a
nd Gawain began to understand even without strange aquamire to give him insight. Perhaps some archaic tome on military tactics written by a fool who had never engaged in them might have advocated such folly as denying a pursuing enemy the comforts of tents in winter. Perhaps, after a thousand years of isolation, such archaic tactics, and yes, cavalry formations such as those advocated by Tellemek of Callodon, might still seem current and effective to elves unfamiliar with advances made in lowland warfare over the centuries. Gawain tucked away the observation, convinced it might be an important one.
The last of the tents was simply kicked over and trampled, the frustrated elfguard gathering up the stiff canvas and in a tangle of thin ropes manhandling it to the pile.
“When that lot goes up there’ll be a great deal of smoke,” Gawain whispered. “And the breezes as ever in this season are from the north. Stand ready. When it’s lit, we’ll charge.”
“On foot?” Allazar whispered.
“Tired? Or are your poor old bones creaking today?”
“It is a lot of ground to cover, Longsword.”
“Not really. They have nowhere to go. A blazing pile of waxed and oil-drenched canvas in the trees to the north, freezing water east and south. That leaves only one direction.”
“Aye,” the wizard nodded, and gripped the staff, “Ours.”
“Take a slight lead, Allazar, and raise your Shield should any arrows be loosed our way. We run as silently as we can. No battle-cries. With luck we’ll steal a few yards closer to them before we’re seen. Ven?”
“MiThal?”
“Shoot those wearing crystal garb first. I don’t want them hiding from your Sight in the smoke or in the trees. You may loose the moment we are seen.”
The ranger smiled. “Yes, miThal.”
“Oggy?”
“Melord?”
“Hurl what arrows you will wherever you will once Ven starts shooting.”
“I might stick an ‘orsey, melord,” Ognorm whispered dejectedly.
“You might. Or you might stick a bastard would’ve watched you die in agony with a smile on his face yesterday.”
“Arr, now you put it like that then...”
“Allazar?”
“Longsword?”
“If they’re not shooting back at us when they come within your range, by all means do whatever you like.”
“Thank you.”
“Remember, it’ll be smoky. Stay together. I don’t want any confusion concerning friend or foe. Anyone in doubt?”
None were.
They waited.
A hundred yards away, one of the elves gave a whistle. It was low, a signal to the watchman in the trees, but foolish nevertheless. Poor discipline. Gawain imagined these were likely common Eastguard, elven warriors good with the bow and the sword but not thalangard-trained. More used to long, idle watches near the tree line overlooking Ferdan and Juria. Common elvish soldiery isolated from the world a thousand years and as unaware of the stupidity of whistling signals in enemy territory as they were of the Toorseneth’s long centuries of betrayal.
The watchman emerged from the trees, gave a wave to indicate an all-clear, and Kanosenn gave up his solitary pondering of the waters of the river and turned around to face the camp, pausing only briefly to cast a glance westward. He made a shooing motion to hurry the men of the Retribution along (and Gawain smiled again when he thought of the name the fools had been given) and climbed into his saddle, adjusting his dark robes, small white spots marking the myriad places where once dark stone gems had been affixed to the material.
The hunters braced, weapons readied, breath becoming shallow and rapid, hearts pounding, and watched as an indolent elfguard strode to the heap of oil-soaked tents and struck a firestone on a hunting knife as if he would hurl the shower of sparks into the incendiary pile. Three attempts it took, and then with a great whump! and a fierce blue flame, the oil took.
Almost at once a great plume of greasy black smoke began to belch from the heap, enveloping the unfortunate elf who wasn’t quick enough on his feet to avoid it. The smoke wafted across the empty campsite, and at once, Gawain sprinted from cover, his companions with him.
The smoke made a catastrophe of any plans the elves might have had for a peaceful and efficient departure from their old camping ground. It billowed, and clung low as it wafted through them. It also widened the eyes of the four hunters sprinting quietly towards them and sent a frisson of alarm through Gawain; it was much denser than he’d expected.
But the breezes came and went as breezes do, and while the elves were still uttering curses and coughs and blaming the fool who’d lit the pyre instead of themselves for building it upwind, patches of clear air allowed one of the elves to spot the threat charging towards them.
“Arangard!” he screamed, pointing frantically at the four wild men rushing in from the west, “Arangard!”
But even as the warning was fading and the elfguard was desperately dragging his bow from his saddle, Venderrian, sprinting, leapt into the air, drew, and shot the rider of the Tau in the back, the arrow drilling clean through the left shoulder blade and out through the heart and ribs. The rider had been wearing a crystal-coated tunic.
Gawain hurled his arrow the moment Venderrian’s feet hit the ground, the ranger drawing another arrow on the run. Ognorm’s cast was a heartbeat behind Gawain’s. Ognorm’s arrow thudded into the thick leather of a rider’s saddle, Gawain’s hit the rider in the right side just below the shoulder, shock sending the elf tumbling off his horse before another billowing cloud of smoke engulfed the target.
Venderrian leapt and shot again, and again hit the mark, killing the gem-studded guardsman who’d so disturbed the local blackbirds that they’d betrayed the campsite to Gawain. They’d sprinted fifty yards now, the gap closing rapidly, and a corner of Gawain’s crystal-clear mind noted that the ranger was leaping into the air before shooting to give a certain stillness to the aim which sprinting impacts of boots on the ground would otherwise disturb. And that was certainly not in some archaic Callodon manual of warfare.
He hurled another arrow, and saw it speeding towards its mark, unstoppable, and then another roiling mass of smoke drifting across clearing from the burning waxed canvas. Ognorm threw an arrow, and then drew Nadcracker, and Gawain drew his sword. For the briefest moment, he saw Allazar’s Shield flare and an arrow shatter against it, and then the Shield was a great Surge and hurled into the smoke, sending great vortices ripping through the fug, bowling over horses.
Chaos ensued then, on all sides. No plan survives contact with the enemy rang in Gawain’s ears as the clash of steel from his left told of Ognorm encountering the rider who’d been knocked off his horse by Gawain’s arrow. A sickening thud followed, and told of Eryk’s message being well and truly delivered.
The crackle of lightning and the stomach-wrenching squeal of a horse cut dreadfully short, and then a great splashing from the south of the camp, from the river.
The sound of Venderrian’s bow, another shot loosed, the cry of a stricken elf and the splash of a body falling into water.
A dark shape lurched through the smoke towards Gawain, one hand waving as if to clear the belching smoke from in front of its face, the other clutching a short sword. Gawain swung, and heard the thud of an arrow’s impact just before his blade cut the elfguard open from shoulder to hip.
More splashing, another crackling blast of white fire, and then a gap in the smoke revealed the scene, although briefly. It also revealed Kanosenn and a rider of the Tau on horseback emerging from the freezing waters on the eastern bank of the river, and Allazar rushing to launch white fire at them from the western side. Venderrian loosed a shot, but Kanosenn had already raised his shield behind him, and the arrow, and Allazar’s white fire, were harmlessly spent.
Allazar screamed, a stream of curses in the wizards’ tongue Gawain thought, but the two survivors of the ambush were thundering southeast, and beginning a slow arc which would eventually swing them around to a
more westerly direction. Five elves of the Tau were dead, and a horse. Gawain summoned Gwyn with a whistle, cleaned his sword, and while they waited for their own horses to arrive in answer to the call, set about salvaging arrows, food, a couple of warm blankets, and setting loose the four surviving horses once of the Tau.
“The Ahk-Viell escaped,” Allazar glowered.
“They’re not easy to kill when they’re forewarned,” Gawain declared. “Was it you loosed fire and killed that poor horse?”
“No. It was the Ahk-Viell loosing it blindly through the smoke towards us. The days of Zaine are ended, Longsword, for a wizard to unleash his fire blindly thus, heedless of who or what it might strike.”
“You’re the Sardor, Allazar, it’s for you to decide whether or not the D’ith adhere to ancient tenets. Knowing as we do that no other breed of wizard does should make it a little easier to tell friend from foe when it’s dressed in robes and sandals and carrying a big stick.”
“It is far from the season for such garb.”
“Indeed it is. And if those two scum of the Tau don’t freeze to death after their charging through that river or stop to light a fire to thaw out, then they have a good start on us. We’ll keep to the west of them, keep pressing them south, and run the bastards into the ground.”
“They’re on the east side of the river,” Allazar pointed out.
“Yes. And we’re on the other side. I’ve no intention of plunging through that icy flow like they did. At some point, they’ll have to cross it again, or keep going south until it disappears into the ground or into a lake. They have no friends here in Mornland, nor in Arrun. That river is, for now at least, our ally; they have to turn west and cross it again sooner or later, and we’ll be waiting when they do.”
oOo