by GJ Kelly
Nightcrakes. The occasional distant squeak of a bat, and the less common flutter of leathery wings. A goat or a sheep, bleating, far off. The sound of his own breathing. And a snort from Gwyn…
Gawain froze, and slowly bent his knees to stoop low behind a thorny shrub, ears straining. Nothing. He crept low, retracing his steps back to the campsite, saw the wizard and Ognorm both under the blankets, neither moving. Gwyn was standing nearby, the other horses close to her, all of them staring with ears pricked towards the southeast, the direction they’d be taking when it was light enough and safe enough for travelling.
Gawain knelt, and felt for a pebble, and then realised it was too soon even for Ognorm to be sleeping. Not even the dwarf could spark out so quickly after settling down for the night. Gwyn’s ears twitched, and she bobbed her head. Something, they knew, was out there in the silvery gloom. Slowly, Gawain eased an arrow from his quiver, and strung it.
Movement from the camp, and he watched Allazar and the dwarf slowly sitting up, peeling back blankets, moving so slowly it was almost painful to watch. Painful, yet curiously it filled Gawain with deep professional pride; the wizard and the dwarf were very far removed from the humble D’ith pat and lifter and shifter they used to be. He watched as they rose to a crouch, Allazar with the business end of the Dymendin sliding forward to point towards the unseen threat, Ognorm with Nadcracker in one hand and a strung arrow in the other.
Gawain judged it was perhaps half an hour until midnight, and this judgement was based entirely on the pointless knowledge Allazar had imparted on seeing the moon earlier in the day. That half-moon hung low in the sky to the west now, perhaps an hour or more from setting. Late indeed for travellers to be roaming the wilds of the Southshearings. He crept back towards the camp, feeling suddenly rather exposed on his own with nothing behind him but open grassland and a starlit sky. Better to stand with his friends, with a tall shrub to the rear.
Gwyn snuffled again and her head followed her ears to the southwest.
Gawain cursed under his breath and held up two fingers, jabbing one to the southwest, and then to the southeast. Allazar shifted a little in response, the staff pointing in the general direction of the new target, leaving Gawain and Ognorm facing the southeast, and the old one.
The other horses followed Gwyn’s movements, ears swivelling, heads swinging, and then, without a word of command Gwyn began to move, gently nudging the other horses, forming an equine wall between the three of the kindred and whatever it was advancing from the more westerly direction. The movement wasn’t lost on any of them, for the horses’ eyes were wide, they were afraid, yet drawing strength from Gwyn and placing themselves in harm’s way to protect their riders.
For a fleeting moment, Gawain thought he glimpsed a shadow in the southeast a hundred yards or more away, flitting from low shrub to low shrub, moving not towards the camp as might be expected, but towards the west and the unseen threat advancing from that direction. For a moment, he considered turning his head to the left to ask Venderrian what his eldeneyes revealed, but then he remembered that the ranger was no longer with them. Gwyn served now as their eyes and ears, and though her sight was a far cry from a ranger’s her hearing was wondrous.
Noise, then, a distant padding from the southwest, which began to accelerate and then became a rapid but light drumming, something large and powerful was racing towards them, a large dog perhaps, or a wolf. Instinctively, Gawain and Ognorm turned slightly to their right to face the threat with Allazar as the noise grew louder and a dark shape sped towards them.
Allazar snapped on a brilliant cone of Aemon’s Light, and for half a heartbeat they saw a grotesque, jewel-studded and immense wolf-creature almost half the size of a horse sprinting towards them around the wall of squealing horses before the white flash of an arrow took it in the neck, and then Allazar was rushing forward and the horses rushing out of his way, and Aemon’s Light became Fire with a scream of ‘Vex!’ and great streams of lightning rent air and ground alike.
The creature burst asunder, and its remains billowed purple smoke before the lightning extinguished. Gawain fumed, entirely robbed of his night-vision, and with another unseen stalker to the south of their camp.
“Vex!” came a call from the dark.
Allazar raised a Shield of Baramenn, and eased back to the campsite to stand before his two blinking companions. “Who calls the battle-cry of the Kindred!” he shouted, his voice mystic hard.
“I, Ranger Kiran! Is that you, Serre wizard, and miThal and Serre Ognorm the dwarf with you?”
“It is,” the wizard called, “Advance, Ranger Kiran, and be seen!”
From behind a distant bush they saw a figure stand, and walk slowly, arms held wide, towards them. Again the wizard shone a Light, and they saw the familiar figure of the elf striding towards them, bow held easy in his left hand, right hand empty. The light promptly winked out, and the ranger advanced to the camp using the Sight, his ordinary eyes robbed of night vision now too.
“Dwarfspit, Allazar, now none of us can see a vakin thing!” Gawain protested.
“Apologies, Longsword, but I thought it wisest to despatch the Seekmaw of Tansee and illuminate the newcomer rather than allow the beast to gnaw on my leg and a stranger to advance upon us.”
“My Sight is unaffected, miThal,” Kiran announced softly, his lilting voice quiet and respectful.
“Let’s hope so, Kiran. Your eldeneyes are probably the only ones left working. How came you here?”
“I have been stalking the beast for some time, miThal. It took a station to the north of West Forkings, and has been roaming a wide circle since. Wizard Corax says they are sent to hunt wizards in the wilds of Arrun.”
“And stone-studded as they are cannot be easy even for a Kindred Ranger to see,” Allazar sighed.
“Yes, Serre wizard, that is true. Your lights shine brightly, though, and attracted my eyes as well as those of the Seekmaw creature.”
“Then you used us as bait?” Gawain asked, replacing his arrow in its quiver.
Kiran gave the slightest of shrugs.
“Never mind,” Gawain smiled, “It was well done. Your shot found the mark before the wizard incinerated the creature.”
“And alas,” Allazar declared, “Unless the shafts of Ranger Kiran’s arrows be of Dogwood, it would take many arrows to bring the beast down.”
“Are they so made?” Gawain asked.
Kiran drew an arrow from his quiver. It was in two parts; the main shaft was cedar, but this was fitted to a socket of Dogwood in which the steel of the arrowhead was set.
“Serre wizard Corax has all mid- and short-range patrols so equipped, miThal, ever since reports of these creatures first arrived. I have two such arrows with me now, and six more of the Dogwood heads in my pack.”
“Excellent.”
“MiThal… where is Ranger Venderrian? His light is not within range of my Sight.”
“He fell, Kiran. He fell in battle near the Hallencloister.”
The ranger nodded, sadly, and replaced the arrow in his quiver.
“What news is there from Last Ridings, Kiran? Is my lady well? Is all well there?”
“All are well, miThal. Though there is grave concern for your well-being, there being little news of you since two Jurian riders delivered dread word of the Hallencloister’s fate. Since then, rangers have arrived from Juria to swell our ranks, and our patrols are increased. I am certain miThalin will explain all when you are returned to the hall, miThal. If you wish to sleep, I shall stand watch. The creature was nocturnal for the most part, and so I am accustomed to ranging in the dark and am not tired.”
“Thank you, Kiran,” Gawain acknowledged, “Your Sighted eyes will be welcome on watch this night, especially with such creatures as those loose in these friendly lands. What are your orders?”
“Simply to roam the north side of the Sudenstem mid-range, and seek out and destroy any darkness which might venture this way. I shall gladly escort you to
Last Ridings if you so wish, miThal.”
“I intend to avoid West Forkings, and swing around the end of the northern branch of the river, and enter Last Ridings from the east.”
“Then you will require escort only as far as the wetlands. The eastern approaches now are well-patrolled and guarded. MiThal, Last Ridings has drawn to it many newcomers, and miThalin has ordered the eastern reaches well watched.”
“Good. Very good.”
“I shall patrol wide around your camp so as not to disturb you, miThal. By your leave?”
Gawain nodded, and returned the ranger’s salute. Then he asked again, hurriedly:
“You’re sure all is well?”
“Isst, miThal. All is well.”
But there was a sadness and great concern in the ranger’s eyes when he turned away and strode into the darkness to his unseen horse and to begin his patrol, and Gawain had seen it.
“What in sight o’ the moon was that thing charging at us, melord?”
“That, master dwarf,” Allazar interjected, “Was a Seekmaw of Tansee. A foul creature dark-made, part wolf, part hound, part jackal, all relentless hunter. Its aquamire senses guide it to its prey, and its prey is whatever its foul masters intend to be hunted and destroyed. A creature of the Tansee, it mocks nature. Morloch’s minions in elder days loosed them in wild spaces, to seek out and destroy kindred scouts or spies, leaving an advancing army blind to what might lie ahead of them. Once it has its prey in range of sight and senses, it hunts it to destruction. The jaws when clamped upon an enemy do not let go, and its saliva aquamire-made is a poison.”
“That one was made by the Viell, and wore a coat of black crystals intended to the defeat the eyes of our Kindred Rangers,” Gawain grimaced, reluctantly settling on his blankets as the horses went about the business of sleeping.
“It was,” Allazar agreed, taking to his own hastily-vacated bedding. “I doubt the Viell were able to manufacture a means of adhering the crystals to the creature’s fur, much good it would do them if they did. The Seekmaw will shed their heavy winter coats come spring.”
“Friend Kiran reckoned wizard Corax reckons them things were sent for wizards.”
“It would seem so, Oggy,” Gawain agreed. “And the Seekmaw beast made a bee-line arrow-straight for Allazar.”
“Aye, that it did melord, that it did.”
“The significance of that is alarming, Longsword. It would seem to indicate that the Toorseneth believes Last Ridings a place to which wizards might congregate.”
“Or set out from, bound for other places. It’s late, and my mind is slow. We’ll consider the deeper implications of the Seekmaw later. But it seems to me, if those grotesque and really rather huge creatures are fixed upon the devouring of wizards in the wilds of Arrun, it would explain why the Toorseneth would not wish their mystic forces to cross the border. I expect that to a Seekmaw’s aquamire eyes, all wizards look alike.”
“Indeed, Longsword, they would doubtless be fixed upon staff, rod, or wand, and the energies of the wizard holding them. We at least now have something of a definitive answer for the reason why the Toorseneth wished to claim the sceptre before we left Mornland.”
And so they settled, the camp falling silent, a faint odour of aquamire liberated lingering in the air about them. Gawain struggled to cling on to his train of thought, knowing Allazar was correct in assuming a profound significance in the presence of a foul-made hunter in the wilds around Last Ridings, but without strange aquamire to feed a worm and keep it wriggling, he promptly fell asleep.
oOo
40. Stories
Two days after their encounter with Kiran and the Seekmaw of Tansee, they swung around the wetlands marking the end of the first northern branch of the River Sudenstem. It was here the branch disappeared below ground, Corax of the opinion that the waters rejoined the main southern flow much further to the east.
Kiran’s Sight proved a great comfort in the aftermath of the Seekmaw’s attack, and so it was a little discomfiting when the ranger announced that he would leave them to continue his northerly mid-range patrol that second night following their meeting. However, the ranger declared the region south and east of the wetlands to be firmly held by Last Ridings, and that a short-range patrol would doubtless oversee their progress towards the forest which marked Last Riding’s eastern border.
In discussions with Allazar and Ognorm during pauses and rest breaks for the horses, it was generally decided that the wolf-like creature of the Viell’s making had been sent long after the failure of their crystal-coated Grimmand to attain Last Ridings and wreak havoc therein. Since the Toorseneth could not possibly know what had happened to their poorly-named Retribution in the north, and had likely sent many such creatures into the wilds as a bane against travelling wizards, there seemed very little likelihood of the Seekmaw having been despatched specifically to waylay Allazar.
Doubtless, assassins would be used against those wizards yet living in towns and villages east of Elvendere and Juria, and to the south in Callodon, too. And should any think of fleeing to the wilds, or of running to the sanctuary of the Hallencloister, the Seekmaws of Tansee would be waiting, aquamire eyes thirsty for the light of wizardkind, and jaws hungry for the blood of the D’ith, or any other wizard their senses detected, including the Viell of the forest realm.
On the night of January 10th their camp was approached by Ranger Yago, who signalled his presence long before he approached through the miserably incessant drizzle which had plagued them all day. Yago confirmed Kiran’s earlier assessment that ‘all was well’ at the New Hall of Raheen, and also that there was much concern there too. Yago seemed delighted at finding himself watching over his Thal, but that delight was instantly tempered by the news of Venderrian’s loss.
When the ranger took his leave to patrol out to the edge of his short-range domain, the three companions sat drenched upon their saddles, wrapped in cloaks and eschewing sopping blankets, and sipped hot loofeen together for what might be the last time on their journey. Allazar had become quite the dab hand at heating a pan of water, a task any Master of Sek would of course have learned while still a D’ith Met, a rank Allazar had not attained, nor would now.
There was little to be said, in truth, which hadn’t already been spoken along the way. They were wet, cold, and too excited this close to the hall to have any thought of sleeping, and so they sat, in close companionship, quietly mourning the loss of Venderrian and the ending of the quest for answers to the vexed question that had been the Hallencloister.
“Glad it’s done, sorry it’s over,” Gawain sighed.
“Arr. Know the feeling.”
“I suspect a hot bath will wash away any melancholy we might all be feeling on this, the eve of our journey’s ending.”
“Arr. ‘Ot bath, ‘ot food, and a warm pint in The Orb’s Ending.”
“Alas. I expect my lady will have other ideas in mind to occupy me tomorrow, Oggy. You’ll have to have a pint for me.”
“I shall, melord. Two, you having a kingly thirst an’ all.”
Gawain snorted. “Aye. But I doubt Reef’ll be buying them. I don’t think I can give his free beers to a proxy.”
“A free beer, wasn’t it, Longsword?”
“No, it bloody wasn’t. It was free beer. I know, I was there when it was said y’know.”
“I believe I shall defer to our lady’s judgement, in this as in other matters.”
“Beardy goit. I’ve a good mind to command you not to shave your beard or cut your hair. People will have expectations of what a Sardor should look like.”
“Expectations which I fear must be somewhat moderated.”
“And speaking of expectations, April fast approaches. After that there’ll be no sleep for me for months unless it’s alone and in the down-below. And that’s assuming E’s still talking to me after my being away for so long.”
“Glad I ain’t in your boots, melord,” Ognorm snorted, “If’n you don’t mind me sayin�
�� so, that is.”
“No, I don’t. And in spite of all my practicing of Lord Rak’s expression of delight and surprise while on lonely watches of a night, I suspect no amount will spare me the lash for the delay in our homecoming.”
“Arr. Well, melord, should you find yerself evicted from your hall and in need of company me an’ the lads will be in the warm o’ the snug at the Ending, and a bucket o’ the good stuff ready for you.”
But Gawain noticed the shadow which seemed to have wiped all expression from Allazar’s face as soon as the subject had turned to expectations, and the anticipation of the new arrival come the spring.
“Are you all right, Allazar? You’ve been increasingly morose the nearer we’ve drawn to my hall.”
“I am not aware of such a decline in my mood, Longsword.”
“I am. Apart from our discussions concerning the Viell’s enormous wolf-creature you’ve been silent and withdrawn.”
“I am tired, I think. We all are. And the ending of an adventure such as we have endured together these past months is a drain on all our emotions I think.”
“Orsey-kek,” Gawain declared. “And there’s no Jurian brandy in our cups this night.”
Allazar sighed, and blinked, and stared into his battered tin cup, swirling the dregs of the steaming liquid therein.
“Want me to bugger off for a bit, melord? In truth there’s a big bunch o’ convenient bushes back aways and this loofeen seems to be having an effect.”
Gawain stared at the wizard, whose eyes now seemed filled with dread as well as profound sorrow.
“Thank you, Oggy. Perhaps Allazar will feel at greater liberty to speak to his king while you’re busy with nature’s calling.”
“Arr melord. I’ll wander off then, and be back once matters’ve taken their course.”
Ognorm stood and drained his cup, putting it carefully back on his saddle before adjusting his hood against the rain and disappearing into the bushes a hundred yards or so to the east of the camp.