Gilly stroked his chin, smiling. “I find it quite soothing.”
“Compared to your incessant sparring, it may well be,” Medwin said sharply. “But for the time being, kindly confine your conversations to pleasantries and necessary matter. Agreed?”
Gilly and Keren looked at each other but before either could speak the wagon lurched to a halt and knuckles rapped urgently on the slatted shutter on Gilly's side of the wagon.
“Ser Medwin,” came a voice from without.
Gilly stood quickly, flipped the latch on the big square shutter then opened it and leaned out into the cold night. The commander of their escort, a city militia captain called Redrigh, sat on horseback before him while beyond the riverbank and all the towering cliffs and slopes of Gronanvel looked dark and ghostly pale in their shrouds of snow.
“What news, captain?” Gilly said.
“Ser Cordale,” Redrigh said. “We're within sight of Vannyon's Ford but I can see fires burning on its opposite bank - ”
“And fighting too, captain,” came Medwin's voice from the roof of the wagon where a skylight afforded a higher view. “How long till we reach the town?”
“At least another hour, ser. Two, most like.”
Gilly stared along the dark, high-sided valley, squinting to make out details from the far-off yellow glows. He was fairly sure that it was buildings that were ablaze but all else was lost in the distance or obscured by the sheer cliffs that hemmed in the great valley of Gronanvel between here and the mouth of the waters beyond Vannyon's Ford. At this point, though, the road passed between the frozen shoreline and steep, densely-wooded slopes but would soon curve south and climb into hilly uplands before joining the gulley that would bring them to Vannyon's Ford.
A finger prodded him in the shoulder. Sighing, he moved back from the open window and gave a mock-graceful sweep of the arm to Keren. She sniffed haughtily and stepped over to take his place.
Medwin was standing four steps up on a green-painted, flaking ladder attached by hinges to the edge of the skylight, discussing the situation with Captain Redrigh. Gilly smiled to himself - after being ambushed on the outskirts of Sejeend, the captain had insisted that the three delegates continued the journey under safer conditions. Gilly had sent forth word of their need through a few local contacts and later that day they found themselves looking over the gaudy carriage. Medwin and Keren had been unenthusiastic, but for Captain Redrigh it was enough that its sides and roof were solid wood and the purchase was duly made.
Gilly returned to his padded stool, retrieved the kulesti from a heaped woollen blanket and was about to resume the restringing when he heard a slight scratching. He frowned. It seemed to be coming from the wall opposite Keren...then he saw it, the dark iron tip of a blade probing between shutter and frame for the latch. Quick and quiet, Gilly wrapped the kulesti in its blanket, stowed it in the nearby corner, then drew forth his broadsword, muffling it on the heavy cotton of his troos leg.
On careful feet he went over to the window and quietly placed his sword point in the gap below the probing dagger. Then with all his might he thrust his blade through the gap, felt it strike home and heard a shriek of agony.
“Ware - ambush!” he roared. Wrenching his sword back, he whirled to grab Medwin's arm and drag him down from the skylight. Gilly heard shouts outside and the thud of feet landing on the wagon's roof, then a snarling, tangle-haired man appeared in the square opening and leaned down with a cocked and loaded crossbow. Keren, having rolled away from the other window, jumped with a small, studded shield which she threw at his face edge-on.
The brigand yelled as blood spurted from his smashed nose. In shock he let go of the crossbow, clasped hands to his wrecked features and rolled away from the skylight, bellowing and cursing. Before another could take his place, Keren leaped up the ladder, pulled the cover shut and twisted the dog latches, locking it in place.
“This is the third ambush we've had to endure,” Medwin said, angrily pushing up his sleeves.
Gilly nodded. “Once might be chance and twice a coincidence, but three times is just bad manners…”
Something began hammering on the ceiling above them. Glancing up, Gilly saw splinter fly as an axeblade bit through the wood. At the same time, a thudding came from the door at the rear while sounds of fighting filtered in from outside.
Keren, who had retrieved her own sword as well as the blood-spattered shield, looked across at them; “Sers, we have visitors.”
“Methinks it time for a hearty welcome,” Gilly said with a grin.
He unlatched the door, threw it open and leaped out into the fray. Torches burning atop the wagon cast a fitful ochre glow on knots of struggling figures. The ambushers looked to have outnumbered the escort but Redrigh's men were giving a good account of themselves. Gilly took on a quilt-armoured man wielding a club and a rapier and found himself fending off a frantic barrage of blows. The brigan had bronze Ebroan charms woven into his braided beard and uttered a string of curses in Hethardic as he fought. Backing away Gilly flashed a grin and replied with a couple of choice insults he had come by in Bereiak a few months before.
The Ebroan warrior glared and spat as his face went red with rage, then he lashed out madly just as Gilly had hoped he would. Ducking the club arm's wild swing, he dodged past and hooked the man's feet from under him. The Ebroan pitched forward onto his face and Gilly finished him with two savage blows to the neck.
Straightening and catching his breath, he saw Medwin subduing one of the brigands with a cold, blue nimbus while elsewhere Redrigh's men were gaining the upper hand. Then he heard Keren shout his name and whirled to see her emptyhanded and running from a pair of determined ambushers. Gilly threw himself after them, but felt something snag his ankle. He went down, gasping as he hit the snowy ground and his sword spun off to the side. Looking back he saw a badly-wounded brigand crawling towards him with a bloody axe in his hand and an evil grin on his face.
“I don't have time to play!” Gilly snarled, snatching up a handful of wet snow and flinging it in the axeman's face. Then he rolled to his feet, aimed a kick at the man's head, then snatched up his sword and resumed the chase.
Away from the wagon's torches the night was ashen. He could hear snapping twigs and footfalls moving back from the shore, and could just make out a pale, snow-patched trail winding off into the encroaching blackness of the forest. Without hesitation he dashed along it, but before long the trail petered out to leave him stumbling among the trees. The depths of the night seemed to flow through the leafless, icy undergrowth, masking the thorns and roots that plucked at his garments or sought to trip him as he followed the faint sounds of pursuit. The enfolding shadows roused his fears which began to people the formless darkness with a legion of horrors. In his mind the clicks and rustles of tiny creatures became the slight movements of enemies poised to take his life, their hands tightening on sword hilts, pitiless eyes sighting along arrows, cruel talons jutting from crooked fingers on hand barely human -
A man's scream shattered it all, an agonised sound that ended abruptly. Gilly felt a rush of exaltation, certain that Keren had dispatched one of her pursuers. The scream had come from directly ahead, perhaps 50 yards away past the solid black flank of what seemed to be a small hill. Then he heard the second brigand call out fearfully for his companion, his shouts turning to ugly promises of what he would do to Keren when he caught her. Then he fell silent, but not before Gilly was able to judge that he was skirting the hill from the right.
Should have kept your mouth shut, my lad, Gilly thought as he started up the hill.
He had taken no more than a dozen steps when a sick dizzyness assailed him. Further on his stomach threatened rebellion, forcing him to pause. Was it something that he ate earlier, or some poisonous miasma welling up from the night-drenched ground? Whatever it was, he was determined in his course so he breathed in deep, swallowed hard anger and pushed on up the slope.
A few steps more and he felt as if he w
as dying, with the air creaking in his chest and his limbs quivering as the strength drained out of him. He staggered against a broad tree in the dark, pressing his face to the damp roughness of its bark, inhaling the cold, moist odours of wood and moss. Then his grip slipped and he fell…
And found himself crouched at the edge of a strange, softly illuminated clearing. Pearly radiance came from the flowers of small bushes scattered plentifully around and between a wide circle of standing stones. His feelings of illness were almost gone, and his senses were soothed by the very faint sound of many voices holding the same note, a sound which swirled and flowed through the air. Yet with his returning vigour came a growing unease.
The hill was actually a flattened rise amid the steep hills banking onto Gronanvel. Everything outside the clearing was plunged in an impenetrable darkness, while at the centre of the stone circle was the lightning-blasted stump of a once-majestic tree, with but a single branch still growing from it. Nearby was a small pool whose waters shimmered with golds and blues. A slight, brown-robed figure of an old woman stood over it, sunk in contemplation. Gilly slipped behind one of the standing stones to observe, brushing against one of the lightbearing bushes as he did so. Immediately, its flowers released a flock of radiant motes into the still air, each emanating a tiny, pure ringing which faded away as they did.
The old woman seemed not to notice, concentrating instead on the slow-turning mass of mist that was rising from the pool. Gilly stared, Keren and her pursuer forgotten. A low note crept into the muted ghostly chorus as the old woman raised her arms before the swirling opacity.
“Great Mane of the World - hear thy servant, Valysia!” she declaimed in a cracked voice. “Show me the dark mysteries, unveil to me the secret paths and seeds of power, give to me the ancient words of making and unmaking - ”
Suddenly she uttered a shocked cry as light brightened within the misty vortex, a burning core which threw off threads and tendrils. Gilly felt rooted to the spot as he watched in fearful fascination. The old woman raised one trembling hand and spoke a string of incomprehensible words then stepped back. The glowing vortex slowed and began to thicken in places, coalescing into a definite shape, something with four legs that set it taller at the shoulder than a man. To Gilly it looked very horse-like as the details grew stronger, except that the ears were rounder and a pair of short, ridged horns protruded at the top of the head…
A thrill of recognition passed through him as he realised that it was a witchhorse.
Pale and restless, the apparition reared with a strange shout of despair then leaped from the pool and began to canter angrily round the clearing. Tenuous wisps of its form trailed behind it and its eyes glowed white hot.
“Who has done this?” it raged. “Who has wrenched me to this place so foolishly and left no way of returning…”
“T'was I, Valysia, o mighty Skyhorse,” the old woman said through tears of joy. “I spoke the words taught me by my father, as they had been passed down generations of priests of the faith…”
“But you closed the way, careless one!” the witchhorse said, trotting over to her. “If the Acolytes or their agents discover my presence, they will not rest until we few survivors are slain, all my herdsisters and brothers, all my children.” The opaque creature towered menacingly over the now-cowering woman. “Enemies are everywhere, even over there behind that stone.”
Hearing this, Gilly stepped into view, empty hands half-raised. “Wait, I'm no friend of the Acolytes - ”
The witchhorse swung its head to look at him and cried, “Betrayer!”
“What?” Gilly said. “No - ”
“I have seen you lead armies of darkness,” the witchhorse said. “Our final refuge hangs between the veils of the Void where fragments of past and future rain ceaselessly all around us. Your face I have seen before.”
“Impossible,” Gilly said, shaken and fearful. “I would never betray my friends and all I've worked and fought for…”
“Only if you remember these things,” the witchhorse said. “But you will forget - ”
“Gilly!”
Across the level rise he saw Keren fall to her hands and knees, retching and coughing. He ducked past the witchhorse and ran across, weaving between the stones. The old woman Valysia glared at him and flung out an accusatory, pointing hand.
“Trespasser! You defile this sacred place with your profane acts.”
Gilly ignored the wizened Skyhorse priestess and rushed to Keren's side, helping her into a sitting position.
“...mother's name,” she gasped, wiping her mouth. “What is this place?” Then she looked up, eyes widening as they saw the witchhorse which was trotting back to the pool, fury in its every movement.
“Now two intruders have seen me, fool, and soon others shall follow them here. You must open a sending door for me - now!”
“I do not know how,” said the aged Valysia, quailing miserably. “I was never taught.”
“I cannot remain here!” the witchhorse shrieked. “I must not! The glamour you set upon this place will fade with the morning, and when it does I shall be revealed to every sorcerous eye and spy from here to the Rukang Mountains.”
“There are caves nearby,” Valysia said. “You could hide - ”
“There are no caves deep enough in all this land,” the witchhorse said grimly. “You must perform a banishment.”
Old Valysia was aghast. “You would be lost in the Void - I can't…”
“You must. You will! Use this tree as your focus.” The creature nudged her with its head. “Do it!”
Trembling, she complied.
Gilly watched the unfolding ritual with an outward calm, but a kind of numbed panic was quivering at the core of his thoughts. The words of the witchhorse kept repeating in his mind - ‘I have seen you lead armies of darkness...you will forget‘...intermingled with Avalti's pain-drenched foretelling…‘an iron fox, eyeless to the hunt…’
A helpless feeling gripped him. I have been chained by the words of others, he thought, and now these words ride me like chattering ghosts.
Across the clearing a faint aura flickered around the tree, and sharp gleams came and went in the lightning-charred gouge that ran up its length. Valysia, hunched over with one arm outstretched, shook her head and let her hand fall. Panting breath wheezed in her small frame.
“I...cannot find the...strength,” she said. “It needs more...than I have to...give…”
“I understand,” the witchhorse said. “And I am grateful for your sacrifice.”
“Oh no…” Keren whispered next to him as the witchhorse pushed Valysia into the gap in the tree. The old priestess was too weak to resist and the start of her scream was cut off when the witchhorse lunged and tore out her throat. The frail figure convulsed for a moment before death took her, and as her blood poured into the tree its surrounding aura flared. In the blood-soaked gap brightness appeared like a long, widening crack.
The witchhorse turned to regard Gilly and Keren with fiery eyes. Gore dripped from its jaws as it spoke.
“With this act I have darkened my spirit, yet yours will become as dark as the womb of the night. I would have made you the sacrifice but I cannot be sure of our places in Time's river, thus you live. I pray that when your end comes it will be full of savage irony and extravagant torment. May you die badly.”
So saying, the witchhorse leaped over the old woman's corpse and straight into the radiant opening in the tree. As soon as it was through and the feathery end of its tail were swallowed by the dazzle, the long gap snapped shut and flames burst from the trunk. The soft glow of the bushes went out like snuffed candles and wind and darkness rushed in from all sides, held back a little by the burning tree. Gilly somehow mastered his shock and tugged Keren to her feet.
“We should wait next to the fire,” he said.
She nodded, shivering in the sudden cold, and followed him over. When Captain Redrigh and half a dozen of his troopers found them, Gilly was sitting by the
pool and watching the flame eat into the heart of the tree stump. In that comforting heat it was an effort to drag his gaze away and focus on Redrigh.
“Are you wounded, ser Cordale?” the captain said.
Only by words, he wanted to say. Only by my fate…
“We are weary, captain,” Keren said. “How is Medwin? Is it safe to return to the wagon?”
Redrigh was a young man with old, experienced eyes. A foe's blood stained one side of his mailed harness and wiped at a cluster of shallow scores on his cheek.
“We killed most of them and drove the rest off, my lady. A lone brigand came at us on the path to this place but I slew him myself.” Redrigh glanced at his sabre, holding each face to the flames. Gilly saw gold light ripple down the blade while a frown crossed the captain's face.
“Medwin is unharmed, but he was seized by a peculiar trance as we were putting the surviving brigands to flight. When he came back to himself he looked stricken, as if by grave tidings…”
Suddenly, Gilly was not listening as a robed figure came stalking out of the darkness towards the tree's fluttering flames. It was Medwin, his expression sombre. All eyes were on him as he joined the group.
“A short time ago I conversed with Archmage Bardow,” he said. “There have been grim happenings near Besh-Darok in the last day…” He paused to rub his forehead. “The unimaginable has come to pass - in the Girdle Hills west and north of the city, where once there were only rocky, grassy slopes, there now sit two evil fortresses, each having thrust itself up from beneath the very hills themselves!”
A stunned silence greeted this news, broken only by the crackling of the burning tree. A sense of foreboding threaded through Gilly's mind and he made himself get to his feet as Medwin continued.
“Thousand of people are fleeing the towns and villages within the compass of the Girdle Hills. There has been no sign or declaration from whatever power is behind this dire invasion, but Bardow has little doubt that the Shadowkings are responsible. No force has yet issued forth from either citadel to challenge the Emperor's rule, yet we have already suffered a terrible loss. Lord Regent Mazaret and several dozen knights were in the hills to the west when the ruinous eruptions took place. A witness saw him subdued and taken captive.”
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