by GJ Kelly
His mother, though, would understand her son's turmoil. There would be no preaching, no platitudes. Just an understanding look that would say "It is right that you live, and wrong that others should strive to see that you don't. Be a friend to all, except to those who would be enemies, and if they should choose to be the latter, be utterly ruthless that you may return home, to those who love you."
There were those, Gawain knew, who had in the past regarded Raheen with envious eyes, and there were those who yet did so. In the past, when dark wizardry inspired evil acts, there were even those who, like Stanyck the brigand, "liked what they saw" and tried to "take what they like". The Fallen had sacrificed all in those dark days to keep Raheen safe, and who was Gawain to give up meekly, and allow some filthy brigand to rob him of his life, and thereby offend the ghosts of those who died so long ago that Raheen might be free, and prosper?
As for the guardsman, and the confrontation with the Ramoth, well.
"Your pardon, Serre," a young voice called from the inn's stable door, "Are you the friend who aided my grandfather this day?"
Gawain turned, and looked at the young man framed in the sunshine at the threshold. "I did nothing, but stand by an honourable guardsman about his duty."
"Then you are the friend who aided my grandfather. My thanks, Serre, from all our family."
"Your thanks are misplaced, Serre, and should rightly go to the king's officer."
"Tallbot? Why? It's his job to protect us."
"Not his job, Serre, but a duty, which he carried out with honour at the risk of his own life. I think you wrong him sorely."
The youth, not much older than Gawain himself, looked down at the straw and shuffled a little, shame-faced. "My apologies, Serre, but you are not of Jarn, and do not know Tallbot as I do."
"Ah. You have grounds to dislike your town's guardsmen I see."
The youth shrugged. "They are guardsmen."
"And you are young, and have felt their hand on your arm I'd wager."
The young man shrugged, and grinned, and nodded.
"Well then. You have paid the wages of your deeds, and they have done their duty, in the king's name. Today that duty spared your grandfather further assault, and it was this Tallbot who would've paid for your kin's liberty with the highest coin any man can give, be he king or commoner. I still say, your thanks are misplaced."
"I still thank you, Serre." the boy turned to go, but paused and added, "But I shall thank Tallbot too, when next I see him."
"Soon, I shouldn't wonder, he'll be returning to this inn to speak with me before long."
The youth nodded, and wandered off into the street.
"You're an ugly creature, Gwyn.” Gawain grinned, adding a final few strokes of the brush on the horse's mane. "Eat some oats, you brute, I doubt you could become any fatter and uglier on them."
And with that the prince left the stable, and went into the inn for food and ale.
It was quiet inside, just a few customers. The lunchtime rush was over, and there were a few hours yet until the market and shops closed for the evening. Gawain took a table in the corner of the large room, and sat down to a meal of roast beef and potatoes. What few patrons there were treated him to some curious glances, but then politely ignored him.
Tallbot the guardsman returned to the inn two hours later, and didn't seem in the slightest surprised to find Gawain sitting quietly waiting for him.
"Well met friend traveller.” Tallbot greeted him.
"Well met. Will you sit?"
"Aye, thank you. My name is Tallbot, friend. And I release you from your bond. You are free to go on your way."
"Thank you, Serre Tallbot. I am called Traveller, for that is what I am, and what I do."
"Then I have known your name all this day, yet known it not. I found the scene as you described, and have it from a fellow guardsman that a farmer by the name of Allyn presented himself at our post this afternoon, and described the events just as you did yourself."
"He was kind to do so."
"He seems a good man. There are fewer and fewer these days. Now Serre, I have but one more duty to perform in this matter, which I fear an honourable young man such as yourself might find distasteful."
"If it is duty, Serre Tallbot, you must proceed."
"There is bounty to be paid, if you would have it. Three gold crowns, for the brigand Stanyck and his outlaw band."
"I have coin of my own, Serre Tallbot, and would not profit from such events."
"As I thought. Yet duty obliged me to tell you."
"There are, I'm sure, worthy causes to which three gold would be put to good use."
"There are. I shall see that they do, Serre Traveller. Evening approaches, and the nearest village is a good many hours ride. Will you stay in Jarn tonight?"
"I think I shall."
"A wise decision I think, since the route north out of town will take you by the Ramoth tower, and after today I do not think it would be well for you to pass that way except in broadest daylight."
"They are strange people. How will it go with you, after today's confrontation?"
Tallbot shrugged. "Word has been sent from the post to the Commander at Callodon castle. I stand by my duty, and whatever comes of it."
"I was thinking more of the Ramoths rather than your king's reaction to the news."
"They know the limits now. If they choose to cross them again, then so be it. The whitebeards may advise the king to do nothing, but the king is his own man and if his peace is threatened, there's not a wizard in the land will stay his hand."
Tallbot stood, and extended his hand, and Gawain rose to take it.
"I'll bid you safe journey, friend Traveller, wherever your road takes you."
"Thank you, friend Tallbot. Honour to you."
"May I offer a word of caution?"
"Of course."
"It is said that the Ramoth emissaries have some dark means of communicating with each other. I know not how, or even if it be truth. If it is, then you may be sure that word of your part in today's confrontation will spread before you. You might do well to avoid the Ramoth, wherever you come across them."
"I go north and east, to the black hills."
"It matters not where you go, friend. This snake-headed curse is everywhere. Good journeys, Serre."
"Honour to you."
oOo
3. Wandering
Tallbot, guardsman of Callodon, had been right. Everywhere Gawain travelled, he came across the Ramoth. Smaller villages, and those hamlets that were far from the larger towns and castle towns, escaped the ugly snake-towers the Ramoth erected in the larger places, but few escaped wandering Ramoth disciples who seemed to roam at will throughout the six downland kingdoms.
Gawain neither avoided them nor sought them out for confrontation in his slow but steady journey north and east. He had hoped, when he journeyed out of the kingdom of Callodon and into the land of Juria, that he would find that kingdom free of Ramoths, but it was not so.
Besides, he knew, if the Ramoths were spreading south from the Dragon's Teeth like spilled black wine on a tablecloth, if anything their presence and influence would increase the further north he travelled.
When he reached the broad expanse of the Jurian plains, the sight of so much verdant and unbroken grassland filled his heart with sudden sorrow; homesickness for Raheen. But here, in Juria, it was beef that languished on the rich grasses, not proud Raheen horses.
The plains marked a turning-point on his travels. From here, he could guide Gwyn to the north-west, and thus towards the southern tip of Elvendere's mighty forest, or north-east, towards the high black hills that were home to the dwarves.
For a while he simply sat, feeling a little sorry for himself and his lack of real adventure since Jarn, months ago, and feeling homesick. Nights were drawing in, summer was slowly fading, and he still had eight more months of his Banishment to endure. He stared hard due north, but no matter how he strained his eyes, the Dragon
's Teeth were still invisible, far below the horizon.
"Well, Gwyn. What's it to be? Elves or dwarves?"
Unhesitatingly, Gwyn set off, heading to the north-west, towards distant Elvendere. Gawain smiled. Gwyn hadn't made the decision on her own, he knew. He'd never seen an elf, and since Kevyn had (although not in Elvendere), he felt obliged to try. And if elves guarded their land as jealously as Allyn had asserted, perhaps like Raheen it would be a land untouched by Ramoths and their despicable towers.
For a full month Gawain rode slowly and deliberately, occasionally stopping at a hamlet or farmhouse, seeing far more cows than people on the Jurian plains. Only when the boiling green forest began to bubble up on the horizon, marking the southern tip of Elvendere, did people and homes begin to proliferate.
When he came upon what was clearly a well-used track, Gawain followed it, and was surprised to find it led to a fortified town. A great palisade wall, formed from whole trunks of trees, surrounded the town, and even from a distance it was an impressive sight.
But on drawing closer, Gawain's military eye spotted the flaws in the security, noted the lack of guards on the walls and gates, the dilapidated air about the place, and wondered why it had been built in the first place.
They were still a day or two's ride from Elvendere, and though elves might protect their land as vigorously as the Raheen or any other kingdom, they were generally considered a peace-loving and noble people, not given to war and certainly unlikely to attack a Jurian outpost.
When Gawain rode through the wide open gates of the town wall, he still found no obvious answer for the fortifications. The town was much like any other, although the buildings were all of wood and none of stone. There was a market square, inns and shops and dwellings, people going about their business just as they did in any of the downland kingdoms.
He spotted a guard lounging on a bench close to what looked like an official building, and so he dismounted and wandered over to the lacklustre figure.
"Good day, Serre," Gawain called.
The guard looked up, and shrugged, clearly bored. "Good day."
"What town is this? I am a traveller, recently out of Callodon, and know not this place."
The guard snorted. "This is Ferdan. You're in Ferdan, fortress town, barracks to the Royal Jurian Foresters of his majesty's army."
"Royal Jurian Foresters?"
"Aye. Hard to believe isn't it, friend traveller recently out of Callodon? Seeing as how most of Juria is flat open plains. But west lies the border with the Gorian empire, which is marked by forestland. And we, the Royal Jurian Foresters, are charged with keeping that part of the border safe. Our glorious mounted cavalry take care of the rest of the border, where there are no trees. Answer your question?"
"After a fashion, Serre, yes it does. I thought the forest in the distance was Elvendere."
"Bits of it is."
"Bits of it?"
"Follow the track that runs past the gates you just came in. It'll take you to the forest. The road then swings due west, straight towards the empire. All the bits of forest south of the road are Jurian territory. All the bits to the north are Elvendere territory."
"I've heard the elves guard their lands jealously."
The guard slouched, and yawned, and shrugged. "Wouldn't know about that. Never seen one."
"You're a Royal Jurian Forester, and never seen an elf?"
"No, I'm a Royal Jurian Forester who's spent the last two years guarding these offices and answering every simpleton's question that comes through that gate. Anything else I can do for you, traveller recently out of Callodon, or may I return to my duty?"
Gawain stared at the indolent man, thought twice about saying anything further, and simply turned away. In the market, he bought some dried beef and bread, and then headed out through the gates without wasting a moment more in the lacklustre town of Ferdan.
Instead he turned north along the track, and deciding that Gwyn needed to stretch her legs after weeks of slow wandering, he settled into the stirrups and allowed her to gallop away from the apathetic town.
By nightfall, he'd reached the point in the track where it swung sharply west, and still hadn't seen anyone. No sign of Jurian Foresters, no patrols, no travellers. He paused a moment, and as moonlight began bathing the forest in a shimmering silver light, he dismounted and set up camp some three hundred paces from the tree line. Elven bowmen were good, but three hundred paces would test even their famed bows.
Gawain made no fire though. He simply removed the saddle from Gwyn's back, spent the best part of an hour tending her after her hard run, and then settled onto his blankets, cloak drawn around his shoulders, to eat his frugal evening meal.
It would be a chilly night, he knew. The moon was full and bright, the stars sparkling and twinkling, not a cloud in the sky. Autumnal leaves were already blowing in the breezes and it wouldn't be long before winter's breath left its silver traces on the leaves and grasses before morning sunshine melted it away.
Gwyn seemed more alert than usual, though she gave no alarm of imminent danger or approach. Gawain watched her, moonlight sparkling in her blue eyes and shimmering off her blonde mane and tail. Something in the air, perhaps, reminding her of home? There were forests in Raheen too, and many a night spent under the stars like this.
Too many. Gawain remembered how he'd wasted the two weeks after his birthday, camping out in the forests, galloping around during the day, testing his hunting and tracking skills. The guard at Ferdan had irritated him. In Raheen, foresters were proud and noble warriors, intimately in tune with life in the woodlands, able to move through the trees without sound.
They could track anything, hunt any prey, animal or human. If a detachment of Raheen Foresters were assigned to guard this border, all Juria could sleep safe in their beds knowing that no-one, not even a Gorian praetorian, could slip through unseen and unchallenged.
Gawain sighed, and drew a small brown bottle from his pack. One thing the Jurians could do, apart from farm and raise beef, was make brandy. He popped off the cork, and took a small swallow from the bottle, holding the burning liquid in his mouth while he put the stopper back in and packed it away again. Then he swallowed, revelling in the warmth that flooded through him as the brandy, like liquid gold, coursed its way to his stomach.
One swallow would keep the chill of winter at bay for a day. Two would keep you warm for a week. Three, and you wouldn't care what season it was until the next one came around, assuming you actually came around yourself. So he'd been told by a jovial and red-faced merchant in Juria's castletown, weeks ago. Gawain believed him, as he settled down to sleep, sword close at hand.
He woke suddenly, shot a glance at Gwyn, and then looked for the moon. Dawn was still hours away. Gwyn was staring at the Elvendere side of the forest, ears pricked forward and alert, and she bobbed her head once in that direction.
Soundlessly, Gawain rose. After so much practice it took minutes to pack his belongings and saddle the horse, and then he was mounted, an arrow in hand and string tight around the shaft ready for throwing, as Gwyn padded slowly and cautiously towards the tree-line.
Gawain frowned. He knew that if Gwyn had sensed the slightest threat, she would be far more restless, charged with aggressive energy. Instead, she was moving slowly and deliberately, cautiously perhaps, but not stealthily, towards the trees. With every step, Gawain expected to hear the sighing whizz of an elf arrow, but none came.
Ten paces from the tree-line, Gwyn stopped, and stared into the darkness beyond. Gawain listened, cocking his head this way and that, as the horse's ears did likewise.
Then he heard it. A small sound, feeble and sibilant, like a gasp or a sudden intake of breath…
Gawain dismounted, unstrung his arrow and replaced it in its quiver, and with a deft flip of his arm wrapped the string back around his wrist. Then he stepped forward, listening.
Another gasp, coming from the trees a few paces beyond an old oak. Gawain held his hands out a
t his sides, showing that he carried no weapons. As he stepped to the side of the tree, he caught his breath, and froze.
oOo
4. Elvendere
She was laying on the ground, long blonde hair shimmering silver in the moonlight, her slender back to him but her head twisted, staring at him over her shoulder. She was, Gawain thought, the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
But it was apparent that she did not feel the same way about him, and as he stood rooted to the spot, awestruck and filled with wonder, the elf was reaching with outstretched fingers for her bow, which lay on the ground just inches from her grasp.
Gawain stared for a few more moments, and then realised what was happening. The elf was hurt, her right calfskin boot trapped in some sort of hole in the ground, and the gasps that he'd heard were of pain and anguish. Even now, as he couldn't help his eyes admiring the sweep of her leg from her knee to the short green deerskin skirt, she was struggling to reach her weapon.
"Peace, my lady," Gawain said softly, "I mean you no harm."
She stared at him, dark eyes wide with fear and glistening with tears, and then tried once more to regain her weapons.
Gawain stepped forward carefully, testing the ground ahead of him with his booted feet before trusting his weight to the undergrowth. It must be a very clever trap that would catch an elf, he thought, and with all his own forestry skills, he was not so arrogant as to believe that he could pass unharmed where an elf had not.
It didn't take long. Twice the ground gave way to reveal a small pit, at the bottom of which sharpened sticks waited to pierce any unwary foot that fell upon them. And all the while she gasped in pain, trying in vain to arm herself. Gawain moved around her, and knelt by her bow, and the dagger laying beside it he had not seen until now. She was facing him, hand outstretched, and her tear-filled eyes showed the depths of her despair.