The Longsword Chronicles: Book 01 - King of Ashes

by GJ Kelly

Gawain gazed at her, the hazel-green eyes wide in her pale face. "You have not offended me my Lady. But there is no time now for tender looks or soft words. I would rather you looked to the trees, and the farak gorin, and at every place where danger may threaten, than at me. I did not bring you out of Faranthroth and Elvenheth to see you fall to a Morloch watchman in this bleak landscape."

  "Then I have squandered our time together, and in turning you away from me, I robbed us both of the tender moments I yearn for now."

  "Such moments we may know again, one day. But not while Morloch threatens the land. And not while the lives of all of you depend upon me. Now, there is another lesson I would teach you, and our companions."

  Gawain drew out more darkening cloths, and in moments he had all but disappeared from Elayeen's sight. Only his silhouette was visible in the gloom, and he was standing close enough to touch. He reached out, and took her hands, and slipped dark mittens over her slender fingers. Then he carefully tied a mask in place over her face.

  "Can you see?" he asked.

  Elayeen adjusted the mask a little, and whispered "Yes."

  "Then take my hand. Stay close, speak not, and tread as softly as ever you would on the hunt in Elvendere."

  With that, he led her up the slope, picking his way through boulders and trees, working his way around behind their companions. From time to time, Elayeen paused, unsure of her footing in the darkness. But Gawain guided her unerringly, and she neither slipped, nor made a sound beyond her gentle breathing.

  "Where are they?" Meeya asked, her voice carrying clear through the night, though in truth Gawain and Elayeen were but ten paces away, in the trees behind the camp.

  "Perhaps it is wiser not to ask." Rak said quietly. "It is good that they should spend time together, in peace. They have had little enough either of peace or of time with one another since Lady Elayeen's recovery."

  Elayeen squeezed Gawain's hand a little, but he did not return the gesture. With the darkening mittens on, there was no throth contact between them. Gawain eased two paces closer, slowly, stealthily, easing Elayeen forward with him...

  "Aye." Allazar sighed. "I would I had dragged Longsword down from the Point that night. Until then, he was filled with love. Now he is become hard as the Teeth, and sometimes as cruel as the farak gorin."

  "You must not blame yourself, Allazar, how could you have known? My heart aches for them both. Of all men, surely Traveller has earned the right to peace, and the joys that love brings."

  "My Lords," Sarek admonished quietly, "I am made uncomfortable by this talk. The Longsword commands here, and I would not hear such personal conversations."

  "My apologies, Captain, for our thoughtlessness." Rak apologised sincerely.

  "And I am uncomfortable sitting thus. Longsword is more than capable of taking care of himself and his Lady, but we must post a watch. I shall take the first, and if our elven friends will take the second?"

  "I will take the second." Meeya said softly, "And Valin the third."

  Gawain let go of Elayeen's hand, and silently drew the longsword. A moment later his blade sat upon Rak's shoulder.

  "It is too late for a watch, my friends. You are all dead."

  Elayeen stepped into the camp, and removed her mask.

  "By the Teeth, Longsword!" Allazar gasped, "Will there be no end to your startling lessons?"

  "There will be, wizard, when you are dead, or I can no longer surprise you thus.” Gawain sheathed his blade.

  "You are skilled in such matters." Allazar grumbled. "I doubt the enemy will be."

  "And my Lady Elayeen? Would you say she is skilled in such matters? Yet she could have slain you all with very little help from me."

  "I shall take first watch." Sarek grumbled, his face sour. "As I should have the moment we made camp."

  Gawain watched the officer stride off into the darkness, sword drawn.

  "I believe you have offended our Captain's pride." Rak said.

  "A small price to pay if it makes him more alert. You should be grateful for that while you sleep."

  "Yet, this is not hostile territory."

  "Neither was Raheen." Gawain sighed as he sat on his bedroll.

  Elayeen sat beside him, pressing as close as she dared, and when Gawain did not pull away, she rested her head on his shoulder.

  "And," Gawain continued softly, "Neither were the plains of Juria, that night when first we met, friend Rak."

  "True." Rak sighed. "I thank you for recalling the horror."

  "I kept you alive then. I will not return to Lady Merrin without you now."

  Lightning flickered briefly far to the west, the drizzle fell heavier, and in time, they slept.

  oOo

  32. Barak-nor

  After ten days and nights, the small group of elves, dwarves, and the human whitebeard, had learned much from Gawain. And most of it they learned with distaste, for the lessons were ignoble, devious, and downright dishonourable. During the day, Gawain would move ahead, and lay in wait. Not once did they spot him before he launched his ambush. He sent the others ahead too, including Allazar, that they might practice the foul art of ambush like cowardly brigands. That, according to Gawain, was something that wizards should be good at.

  Allazar was good at it, in truth. But Gwyn was not fooled by the whitebeard's magic, and Gawain was able with her acute senses to detect the wizard and to plant a shaft within inches of his head in the tree where Allazar stood all but invisible.

  At night, all were tasked with leaving the camp and trying to penetrate its watch and defences. At this, the wizard was hopeless. Whilst he could not be seen, Gwyn always alerted them, and the whitebeard seemed incapable of walking silently. The thalangard and Elayeen improved in leaps and bounds, and armed as they were with longbows would have been able to approach within range easily to pick off their unsuspecting targets. But by the eighth night all in the party had learned to dress in darkening cloths, and to make use of protective cover in their camps. No targets were thus presented. More, they followed Gawain's lead, and smeared their faces and hands and hair with dark mud.

  Soon, Gawain took to leaving Gwyn a good distance from the camp, so that his companions would not come to rely on the charger's uncanny senses and unerring alerts. That made life on the route along the northern slopes of Threlland very interesting indeed.

  Gawain had to admit that they were improving, and slowly becoming what he disparagingly called "somewhat effective". Against Ramoths, he said, they would make fine longsword warriors. Against Morloch's army, he offered no opinion, for he grudgingly admitted that he himself had no experience against such a force.

  Still they moved ever eastward, parallel with the farak gorin and the Teeth. And by the time they reached the Mallak Spur, a great rock outcropping that plunged from the high Threlland hills down to the farak gorin, all except Allazar could be relied upon in matters of security. Not that Gawain truly trusted any of them, and Allazar's principle weakness was his lack of weapons and his lack of desire to use any even if he'd had them.

  Once they'd rounded the Spur, a difficult passage which touched upon the farak gorin itself, Gawain called a halt, and they made an early camp.

  "From this point forward," Gawain announced quietly, "There are no more lessons. I shall ride ahead, and survey the land. When we swing south towards the Barak-nor, we must all of us take great care. If Morloch's men still trickle in from across the farak gorin, we may find ourselves with the enemy before us and behind."

  "If enemy there truly be." Rak pointed out. "But it is wisest to assume the worst case."

  "It is." Gawain asserted.

  "No more lessons then?" Allazar said quietly.

  "No more lessons. If anyone lurks in the shadows, it will not be me testing you, so kill."

  "It may be a Threlland miner." Sarek said softly.

  "Or a Morloch watchman. If you stand and shout 'who goes there?' the answer you receive might be a yard-long shaft in the chest."

  A s
tillness settled over them. If before, any of them had thought Gawain was playing a game with them, now they knew he did not. It was unheard of to shoot blindly into the dark at an approaching stranger, who might be a helpless traveller in need of aid or food. What Gawain was ordering them to do ran contrary to all civilised principles. It was one thing to practice stealth and the foul arts of brigandry and assassins, quite another to leave the classroom and then shoot to kill without question.

  "This does not sit well, my brother." Rak sighed.

  "Neither will news of your death, should I have to deliver it to your Lady and your son." Gawain said, his voice deliberately cruel. "You doubt the presence of Morloch's army in the Barak-nor. Very well, that is your choice. That is why we are here, to prove or deny its existence. But ask yourself this, friend Rak, and ask Captain Sarek: Who would venture here from across the farak gorin, and what Threllander would choose to dwell in the regions of the Barak-nor?"

  Sarek shrugged. "I can think of none."

  "Very well," Rak sighed, conceding to Gawain's argument.

  "I will scout ahead and around." Gawain announced. "Sarek, take first watch. When I return, I shall come in to camp from the eastern path, near the edge of the farak gorin. Anyone approaching from any other direction will not be me. You know what to do."

  Nods, from all of them.

  "I shall leave Gwyn, and go on foot. Pay heed to her signals, if any."

  Gawain cast a quick glance at the pallid sun setting dimly through hazy clouds in the west, and then turned eastward, striding off purposefully.

  He walked for the best part of an hour, scanning the landscape around him, using the cover of trees on the gentle slopes as cover lest prying eyes would observe him across the glistening farak gorin. There was little sound, beyond the breezes and the rustling of evergreen branches. Few birds, fewer animals, though he did see signs of hares and rabbit. It was odd, but when the breezes from the north died down, there was a curious, almost acrid, earthy scent to the air, and it was neither pleasant nor welcoming.

  He remembered the visions he had seen when he'd smashed the Lens of Ramoth...thousands of black-clad men and women attacking the Teeth with hammers. Such relentless tenacity would make for fearsome warriors, and he secretly wished that Rak would be proven correct in his doubting Gawain's assertions. But ahead, perhaps another hour's stealthy walk through the trees, the Black Hills gave way to a vast pool of bitchrock that stretched as far as the eastern cliffs and the ocean beyond. Soon, they would swing south, and to the Barak-nor. And when they did, the going would be slower, taxing the patience and nerves of men, women, and horses. Gawain could only hope that his lessons had been well and truly learned.

  As he made his way back to the camp he wondered at the landscape that lay before them on their journey. Rak and Sarek both seemed keenly ashamed whenever the name Barak-nor was spoken. It sounded a harsh and cruel place, perhaps almost as forbidding as the farak gorin. But it could not be worse than Raheen.

  Gawain felt a little pleased that when he was thirty paces out from camp, he heard the creak of bows drawing, spaced widely apart. He paused, and squatted, and waited. No challenge came, no shafts were released. Silence, until Gwyn's gentle snuffling carried through the night air, and bows creaked as strings relaxed. Gawain stood, and strode quietly into camp.

  Again he squatted, and began to cut a strip of frak from a lump while he whispered his instructions. "Tomorrow before dawn, I and Sarek and Rak will move ahead to survey the land. The rest of you must remain alert, and take cover. We will no longer be able to travel so openly in daylight."

  "Did you see anything?" Rak whispered.

  "Nothing. I will wake you before dawn. Who has the watch?"

  "Valin is higher up the slope." Elayeen said softly, "And I have the next watch."

  Gawain nodded in the gloom. "At daybreak you must muffle the horses' hooves. Move around the point, and settle on the slopes facing the Teeth. Do not proceed around the track to the south until we have returned. Understood?"

  Nods, and no denials.

  Gawain looked around for his bedroll, and spied it laying beside a boulder, next to Elayeen's. Without hesitation, he strode over to it, laid down, and within moments was asleep.

  Dawn found Gawain creeping through the trees with Rak and Sarek, almost to the point he'd reached the previous night. When the sun rose, it shone brightly, and Gawain sighed as he closed his eyes. He would have preferred a sky full of dense black thunderclouds, not a sparkling parody of summer before spring had arrived. Not now.

  Gawain paused, and sniffed the air. Again, the acrid earthy scent, until it was lost on the breezes. He glanced north, out across the farak gorin, looking for signs of movement. There were none. He raised his hand, and the others moved off again, quietly, chirped on their way by feeble and sparse birdsong.

  An hour later they halted once more, and Gawain shielded his eyes with his hand against the glare of the early morning sun. He held his breath, staring at the broad expanse of shimmering brown bitchrock that seemed to flow all the way to the distant horizon. Then he turned his head to the south, and let out that breath in a long, silent oath.

  Before him lay a landscape beyond imagining. Where Raheen was a flat and featureless plain of ash, the Barak-nor was a ghastly pock-marked wasteland of craters and tiny mountains of jagged glazed rubble. When Gawain turned his gaze to the hills slightly to the southwest, he stared in disbelief. It looked for all the world as though a giant had cut a vast chunk from the Threlland highlands, leaving a sheer cliff where once gentle slopes had run down to the plain beneath them.

  He scanned the landscape, agog, taking in the tiny dwarfmade mountains of jagged ore-slag, the glazed remnants of the great fires that had melted the metal from the ore. Nothing moved, but some of the craters he could see were deep, perhaps as deep as the great rift beneath the Teeth. He couldn't tell, for most were rimmed with high walls of spill and slag, and even had he stood upon the top of the hill that had been sliced in two, he doubted he could have seen into all the craters.

  Sea-breezes occasionally wafted in from the distant ocean, vying with the northerly downdraft from the Teeth. They carried a fresh hint of salt air, but they were ephemeral, and in their aftermath Gawain was assailed by that strange acrid and earthy odour. It was as though the great gaping wounds in the land were festering, and the odour spoke of decay and infection. The scene below him was awful, almost volcanic, and when Gawain glanced over at Rak and Sarek, he saw them slumped against trees, eyes downcast and brimming with shame and loathing.

  A glint, in the distance, too brief for Gawain to locate. He stared at the general area, to the southeast, and waved a hand to attract Rak and Sarek's attention. They caught his movement, and followed his gaze. Again, a few moments later, a glint. Sunshine reflecting off metal. Gawain frowned, and began silently counting. When he reached twenty, the glint sparkled once more. Again he counted. Twenty, and then another glint. Gawain smiled grimly, and eyed the terrain once more, and motioned Rak and Sarek to him.

  "A watchman." Gawain whispered.

  "More likely a trick of the sun, shining on ore-slag." Rak sighed.

  "No. Every twenty counts. A watchman on patrol, walking, turning, walking, turning. See."

  They watched, and counted, and Sarek nodded in agreement.

  "Do you doubt me now, my brother?" Gawain asked, his voice flat.

  "We must see them all, my friend, for Eryk to believe us."

  "Do you know an easy route there?" Gawain nodded towards the sloping sides of the great crater from which the regular glints of sunlight flashed.

  "No." Rak sounded pained. "I have never set foot on the Barak-nor. I know of no-one who has. I saw it once, as a child, from the top of the hill. My father brought me here, for my education."

  "A harsh lesson."

  "Our ancestors did this. This is their legacy. We are not proud of it, Traveller. That is why no-one ventures near. It is too painful."

  "T
hen look long and hard, my friends, for that is what lays in store for all the southlands if Morloch is not defeated."

  They sat for an hour, Sarek drawing a map on a roll of calfskin, and on every count of twenty, a glint from the top of the far distant crater wall, until the sun moved too high for the reflection to reach them.

  "He has a tedious duty, that one." Sarek muttered.

  "Yet maintains it without pause or deviation." Rak agreed.

  "That is the nature of our enemy. They are fixed in their purpose. Relentless. Oblivious to personal discomfort. I daresay that watchman will continue that duty until he drops dead in his tracks, or is relieved."

  "Still, we must see them all, for Eryk's sake."

  "Aye. Are you done, Sarek?"

  "I am."

  "Are you confident that the map will guide us unerringly to that place?"

  Sarek glanced at his map, and then out across the Barak-nor. "Aye."

  "Then let us return to the others. We must all commit this map to memory, and then rest. An hour after sunset, we set out into that foul landscape."

  Rak sighed, and nodded, and they set off.

  The rest of the group had followed Gawain's instructions to the letter, and were encamped in the trees on the slope of the point facing the Teeth. From the campsite, the farak gorin could be seen stretching away to the east, but nothing of the Barak-nor could be seen. Perhaps it was just as well.

  Gawain cast a critical eye around them while they gathered expectantly. The horses had been tethered in the trees, bedrolls laid up the slope behind the trunks of tall evergreens so they could not be observed from the north.

  "Sarek has drawn a map, you should all study it well. An hour after sunset we set out, down onto the plain and around the point to the Barak-nor. The terrain is uneven, and difficult."

  Sarek unrolled the map and they squatted on the damp earth to study it, as Gawain pointed out the route.

  "It is essential that the horses' hooves are muffled. And once we set foot on the Barak-nor, we shall not speak, except in whispers a hair's breadth from ears. We cannot take the chance of alerting the enemy. This is our goal..." Gawain pointed to the great crater Sarek had drawn. "The watchman we saw is positioned overlooking the north and the west. We must move around then, here, to come upon them from behind. I doubt they will have set a watch on the land towards the coast."