by GJ Kelly
"By the Ramoth! In the square! He stood against them, and they cut him down. The cobbles ran red with his blood…But he killed two of them before he died, and it was in the name of the king he swore when he breathed his last…"
"What of the king? Does he do nothing?"
"What can we do Serre? The king can do nothing, lest Morloch breathe upon us! Oh Serre! For the mercy you showed my grandfather I beg you, go back whence you came! Flee this place! Flee Callodon and speed your journey!"
The youth hurried away, and was gone. Gawain stood transfixed, astounded. The world was mad. Callodon was mad, and worse, its inhabitants raving, if Jarn was any indication.
"You there!" A sneering voice called.
Gawain turned. Three Ramoth guardsmen approached, on foot, their curved swords glinting in the morning sunshine.
"Well met." Gawain answered, a strangely familiar pulse beginning to throb at his temples as he strode towards them purposefully.
The arrogant swaggers and the sneers faltered.
"Who are you, what's your business here?" One of the guards demanded.
"I am friend to Tallbot of Jarn, an honourable officer in the service of Callodon, foully slain by Dwarfspit vermin scum who looked very much like you, and in his name I claim vengeance."
The three guardsmen blanched and braced, but it was too late. Gawain's sword was out of its sheath as the word "vengeance" was out of his mouth, and the three men lay dead upon the cobbles before the echo faded in the square.
Gawain stared down at them, his heart aching for a man he had barely known. "Make way." he said coldly, and then strode back to Gwyn, mounted, and left the sickly town of Jarn in the dust from her hooves.
Tallbot struck down by the Ramoths, and Callodon does nothing? An officer in the king's own service, yet the crown sits idle in the castletown while Jarn bleeds its life out, and dies slowly at the hands of Ramoth mercenaries.
There was only one place to go, the one bastion of sanity in all of the southlands. Home. Raheen. Gawain cast a quick glance at the sun. In three weeks the banishment was over. In three weeks, he'd be camped at the foot of the Downland Pass, waiting for the dawn that would mark the time when he could scream out his name, and fly up the defile to his family's embrace.
Then tell Raheen of this vile Ramoth cult, and of Callodon's plight, and then Raheen cavalry, the finest in the world, would bring sanity and order back to the lowlands side by side with Callodon's colours for the first time since the Pellarn war.
Gwyn sensed Gawain's anger and determination, and thundered down the forest track where so long ago they had slain Stanyck and his brigand band. Thundered past the spot where Gawain had come across Allyn and his family, and their broken wagon.
The track was empty, and if any brigands remained lurking in the forest, they had the good sense not to show themselves. It was baffling. The rutted track was a main thoroughfare to and from the market at Jarn. To see it so barren and lifeless was unnerving.
Gawain eschewed the roadside inns on his journey ever southward. They seemed cold and uninviting, and ill used. Some were completely abandoned. Instead, he made a simple camp at the roadside, Gwyn asleep on her feet and he sleeping fitfully, his sword in hand and resting ready across his lap.
He was in the saddle before dawn, and as landmarks became increasingly familiar, even Gwyn seemed more and more desperate to reach Raheen, and leave this ominous place behind, a distant memory.
So hard did they ride, they reached the cluster of inns at the foot of the Downland Pass in darkness, in the early hours of the morning. Gawain dismounted, and taking care not disturb any travellers who might be slumbering at the inns, he walked across the grass almost to the exact spot he'd greeted his first dawn in lowland Banishment a year ago.
He sat, chewing on a hunk of dried meat, and reached inside his jerkin for the string on which he'd counted the days. Every dawn since his banishment, he added a knot to the slender threads. Twelve threads in all made up the string, and while Gawain chewed, he counted the knots. It wouldn't do to ascend the pass a day or two early, and were it not for the string it would be easy to make such a mistake.
He counted again, to make sure. Then he counted again, peering at the threads in the shimmering moonlight. It was warm, and salt-laden breezes from the Sea of Hope carried with them a familiar scent of home. How often had he stood on the cliff tops outside Narrat, on the southernmost tip of Raheen? Countless.
Dwarfspit, he'd miscounted. He was tired, and so was Gwyn, but this close to home it didn't matter. He counted again.
Five times he counted, and five times he got the same answer. Perhaps some sixth sense had regulated Gwyn's pace on the journey homeward, or perhaps it was mere happenstance. But when this day's dawn broke, the Banishment would be over. He would fly up the Downland Pass the moment the sun’s rays broke over the eastern horizon.
oOo
8. Morloch's Breath
No, Gawain thought after a few hours of fitful sleep, not the moment that the sun's rays break over the eastern horizon!
Now!
Already the sky was taking on the steely grey of false dawn. And Gawain knew that Raheen would enjoy the new day's sunshine long before the lowlanders felt the first of the sun's rays upon their faces. Besides, it would take time to scale the Pass, and if he set off now, he would be rising with the sun, and thus would not break the order of his Banishment.
Gwyn sensed his excitement and bobbed her head frantically. She wanted his weight in the saddle and to be off.
"So be it then, Ugly!" Gawain whispered, patting her neck and playfully tugging her ears. "Time to remind all of Raheen how truly bloated and hideous you really are."
And then he added, gently, "Thank you Gwyn, for carrying me this long year and a day. You were the only thing Raheen I had, apart from myself."
Then he swung up into the saddle, and they moved quietly towards the bottom of the pass. No stirring from the inns, and Gawain frowned when he realised he should hear horses from the corrals. But they were empty. He shrugged.
But at the Pass, he paused by the empty guardhouses. There should be a contingent of Raheen border guards and their Callodon counterparts here, challenging him at the trestle barricades…
There were none. With a rising sense of trepidation and a dry mouth, he stared about him as Gwyn weaved through the trestles, and began the ascent. She was sure-footed, even in the gloom, but seemed to pick her way cautiously, almost hesitantly. Gawain urged her on with a quiet word for the first time in his memory.
It must be a joke, he thought. A practical jest, dreamed up by Kevyn…on the day of Gawain's return, we'll all pretend not to notice…We'll all hide and when he gets to the top…
By the time they were two thirds of the way up, the sky to the east was blooming a ruddy orange, as if a distant conflagration was engulfing the Sea of Hope. Gwyn's ears pricked this way and that, as if she were straining to hear some expected call. She probably was, for there would be herds of Raheen horses atop the plateau. Summer was often the season when most steeds chose their mounts.
With every step Gwyn took, it seemed, the sky lightened. Gawain knew he must be patient, and allow the horse to set her own pace. Not for nothing had Raheen remained unconquered in centuries without the use of dark magic. The Pass was barely wide enough for two horses to cross each other safely.
Nearing the crest was a sharp bend, and Gawain paused as the first rays of sunshine blazed over the horizon like an immense broadsword sweeping the land. He turned his face to them, offered a brief remembrance to The Fallen, and then allowed Gwyn to follow the bend in the track and begin the last gentle ascent to the top of the plateau.
Something, Gawain knew, was very wrong. This last slope ran broad and gently, and almost arrow-straight to the top of the plateau. Gwyn stepped out, breaking into a trot briefly, but then slowing again, her own confusion mingling with her rider's. When they had left Raheen a year and a day ago, there had been a large shed at the
top of the track wherein, by agreement between Raheen and Callodon, all goods and travellers in and out were recorded and examined by the border guards.
The shed was not there. It had stood there for longer than Gawain could remember, painted bright red and gold on one side and black and gold, Callodon's colours, on the other. Now it was gone.
Gawain's heart beat louder in his chest. A stiff salt breeze whipped in from the Sea of Hope that lay sparking in the distance, and Gawain thought he saw a fine white mist flurrying at the top of the track. Still Gwyn maintained her slow advance, her gaze swinging this way and that.
Then Gawain urged her forward, and in a sudden bursting gallop, they rushed to the top of the Downland Pass, and came to an abrupt halt.
Gawain could not believe his eyes. This was a dream, he thought, some cruel nightmare from which he'd wake at any moment, and find himself still camped at the foot of the plateau…
But it was no dream, and as Gwyn let out a short whinny of confusion and bobbed her head, Gawain took a single choking breath, and eased her forward onto Raheen's hallowed soil.
But there was no soil. There was nothing. For as far as the eye could see, nothing but a fine white ash covering the land like the dust of ages in some derelict building.
There should be a copse of tall silvertrees half a mile dead ahead. There was nothing. Just a relentless expanse of ash. There should be bustling inns and a guardhouse, trading posts and warehouses all around him. Nothing. Ash.
Gwyn advanced slowly again, her head swinging this way and that just as Gawain's did, tiny clouds of white dust enveloping her hooves as she walked. The bustling market town of Downland had gone, completely and utterly, and in its place, a layer of ashes.
Contours in the land were recognisable, but alien. The cobbled road that led from Downland, south-west through villages and farmland all the way to Raheen castletown, was clearly visible as a shallow depression in the stark white blanket before him. Even the ruts in the track, worn by the wagon-wheels of centuries, were plain to see.
But all around…all around, where there should be rolling green and verdant lands, hamlets and villages, travellers and traders, trees and bushes and houses, all around, nothing. But ashes.
Gawain's heart hammered, his eyes fogged with tears, and abject terror clutched his innards like an iron fist. Gwyn let out a long, shrill whinny, and then fell silent, head and ears scanning as if expecting a reply.
"On Gwyn, on!” Gawain cried, and the horse launched into a headlong charge down the cobbled track, a cloud of dust in her wake.
It was a charge born of terror and Gawain hunched forward over Gwyn's neck, wind whipping the tears from his eyes as the horse's mane lashed his face. Onward, practically flying, the world was reduced to nothing but ash and wind and the sound of her hooves smashing on the cobbles like glaciers shattering…
Onward, for an eternity. Gawain saw but did not believe the foul and sluggish river idling below them as they thundered over the Farin Bridge. The water was a rancid white-brown ooze, where once it rushed pure crystal towards the far western falls. It was only perhaps a mile further downstream of this vile discharge that Gwyn had chosen Gawain, the young prince sitting fishing in the sunshine with a nameless old man…
Onward, the terrain unceasingly white, and were it not for the blue sky it would be easy for horse and rider to lose their senses, blinded by the unrelenting sameness of it all. Contours, visible only by the shadows they cast. Not one tree. Not one blade of grass. And total silence, save for the sound of their furious charge towards castletown…
Castletown! The Keep and The Great Hall! Gawain hastily wiped his eyes on his sleeve and stared ahead. Far away, on the horizon, a familiar shape. Tiny, at this distance, but Gawain knew it as he knew his own hand. The Keep, rising tall and proud. The horse, her eyes straining to find something familiar in this awful, empty landscape, saw it too, and incredibly, her pace increased…
Raheen! Was all that Gawain could think. The name, and all it meant. Home. Family. Friends and people. Towns and villages. Forests, lakes, rivers and streams. All the verdant beauty, every tree he'd climbed as a child, every stone, every field, every blade of grass on the hallowed soil that had borne his weight for eighteen years.
Raheen! Everything he was, everything he'd ever known. The face of every man, woman and child he'd ever seen.
Raheen! Gone. Everything. Utterly.
Except for the Keep, looming closer in the distance! The Keep had endured for countless centuries. Surely nothing could harm those mighty walls?
Gwyn was slowing, and some small part of his mind knew why. This thundering charge, this eternal gallop through an unrelenting and devastated landscape had taken hours to bring them this close to home. A year and a day ago, so very long ago, and it had taken hours to reach the Downland Pass before daybreak. She was running her heart out, and was killing herself.
Raheen! Blazed in his mind. Gwyn and himself. In this desert of ash, they were all Raheen, except the Keep, and Castletown…
He tried desperately to crush the terror that held him like a vice, tried to find reason in this nightmare world around him. He had to slow Gwyn.
No sooner had he thought the words, the horse's desperate charge subsided to a gallop, and then reluctantly eased to a canter. They had reached the walls surrounding the outskirts of Castletown…
But there were no walls. Just rubble, hidden under a sheet of vile white ash. They were not built strong like the Keep! Gawain thought. They'd been little more than a gesture, a mere symbol to express a concept, that Castletown would be a bastion, a last refuge against attack. But everyone knew there would be no attack. Raheen was impregnable. One way in, and the same way out.
The Keep was built stronger. But even now, from a distance of perhaps three miles, Gawain could see that it stood not proud and tall and arrow-straight, but seemed to lean at a terrible angle to the horizon.
The world was white and blue, and The Keep was all that stood apart from the two, neither of one nor the other.
Tears welled and streamed unnoticed down Gawain's face as they neared his home. Great rents were visible in the battlements, and the once grey and shimmering stone was blackened and scorched. No flag fluttered gracefully from the top tower. No one-eyed old soldier proudly stood guard there, where so many years ago Gawain had peeped over the walls, waiting for horses.
Nothing. All around, just small bumps and swellings in the white sheet where once the tall stone buildings of Castletown had stood. Far off, far up in the blue, seagulls wheeled and screeched to each other. Down here, down in the whiteness, nothing but The Keep, tilted, ruined, blasted.
The great iron gates lay shattered, visible only as a criss-cross pattern under the ash-sheet. The vast wooden doors were gone. In the courtyard, nothing. The stables, where Gawain had groomed his horse on his last day in Raheen before the Banishment, were gone.
Gwyn's hooves, clopping on the hidden cobbles, seemed to hesitate again. The building she'd come to know as her home simply wasn't there, and let out a low whinny which echoed mournfully from the scorched walls surrounding them.
Gawain patted her neck, and eased her forward, up the steps towards the gaping hole where once vast oaken doors gave admittance to the Great Hall.
It was light inside. Sunshine streamed in through rents in the walls. The Great Hall was cavernous, even when filled with people, which it wasn't now. There were no low tables, no benches. No proud banners, no flags and no rich tapestries. Nothing but ash.
Ahead stood the three thrones of Raheen, marble, scorched and cracked. No velvet cushions to soften their edges. Gwyn stood in the unfamiliar surroundings, and let out another low and heart-breaking whinny, and slowly sank to her knees in the dust, head down, breathing for all the world in great sobbing gasps.
Gawain slipped from the saddle and stood, head bowed, tears streaming, his hand resting lightly on the animal's head.
In this once mighty room, he had last heard his giv
en name spoken. By his father, mother, and brother. Who would speak it now?
No-one. Ever.
Something glinted dully as Gawain knelt beside Gwyn, and for a few moments his heart leapt, believing, hoping, he'd seen movement, something alive. But when he looked up, there was nothing. Until he realised that a slender shadow, somehow familiar, was being cast in the white-strewn floor.
He stood, and approached the thrones, his booted footfalls echoing, a sad parody of his proud gait a year and a day before.
The Sword of Justice, coated in ash, stood before the thrones. Gawain gasped, and marvelled, and wiped away the tears that blurred his vision. Smothered in the ash that clung to everything, he hadn't seen it until now.
He blew on its handle, ash flew, and the familiar pommel glinted in the afternoon summer sunshine streaming in through shattered windows and broken walls.
His hand trembled when he reached out to touch it, to confirm its reality, and he knew that if he grasped thin air instead of the hard leather grip, he would go mad. But the sword was real. It had endured, where all of Raheen had been blasted to ash.
He drew it from its slot in the marble floor, and hefted it. The Sword of Justice. He'd hefted it thus on the day of his Banishment. The last day he'd seen Raheen, before this…this something had annihilated his everything. Apart from himself and Gwyn, this was the only thing Raheen left in the world of white and blue, of dust and sky.
He raised its heavy blade, both hands about the handle, and gave a single, choking cry:
"Raheeeeeeeeeeen!"
And then fell to his knees, and wept, his heart shivering into a thousand cold shards within his chest as total loss enveloped him, chilling him to the very marrow in spite of the warmth of summer noon.
Later, the tears spent, he stood, clutching the longsword. He turned a full circle, as if the ghosts of all Raheen were assembled around him, and if they were, then they would have known despair, for Gawain's expression was terrible to behold.