by GJ Kelly
Rak nodded. "None would come that way."
"Then learn the route, and rest quietly, for we leave soon after sunset. All being well, dawn will find us on the rim of that carbuncle, looking in upon them."
Gawain studied them all, noting the tension that seemed to fill the air.
"You saw them?" Allazar asked Rak and Sarek, nervously.
"We saw something.” Rak answered honestly.
"Aye," Sarek agreed quietly. "Something which should not be there."
Gawain left them with the map, and after checking Gwyn, found his bedroll and lay down upon it, the longsword close by his right hand. Some time later he heard soft footsteps, and opened his eyes, and watched as Elayeen spread a blanket on the ground next to him.
"I am sorry, mithroth, I did not wish to disturb your sleep."
"I was not sleeping."
She lay down at his left side, a distance of perhaps an inch or two separating them. "The map does not look friendly, and there is a sickness in the air."
"It is a terrible place."
"And Morloch's army is there? In truth?"
"Who else would choose such a place? To them, it is doubtless very much like home. You have not seen beyond the Teeth, Elayeen, as I have. For them, the Barak-nor and the Gorian wasteland, even the farak gorin, are a home away from home. It is how they would have all the lands, and why they must be stopped."
"It will be dangerous?"
"It will."
"Then, mithroth, will you grant me just a few moments, close to you? I have said I will not hinder you, and I shall not. But if you ride into danger, I would spend some time listening to my heart, beating in your chest..."
Gawain closed his eyes, and after a few moments, he raised his left arm, so that Elayeen might draw closer, and rest her head on his chest, and he might hold her. In truth, he did not know what awaited them when darkness fell. And in truth, if death awaited them, a few moments such as these could do no harm.
oOo
33. Enemies
Sunset found Gawain on watch, and it fell to him to wake the others. In truth, few of them had slept particularly soundly, except for Sarek, the professional warrior. Gawain tossed a small pebble at the Threlland officer, hitting the slumbering form square in the chest. Sarek slowly opened his eyes, and rose in silence.
Gawain crept down the slope and softly knelt beside Elayeen. She opened her eyes at once, and smiled, and blinked. "It is time?" she whispered.
"Yes." Gawain whispered back.
Elayeen sat up, and then reached out both her hands, holding his face. "Then in this last moment, mithroth, egrith miheth until next we are safe.” She drew him closer, and kissed him tenderly, and then released him.
Gawain's eyes flickered, blue, then black as night, and blue again. He said nothing, and Elayeen rose silently and began rolling their blankets and bedrolls. He left her, made sure the others were awake and quietly making preparations to leave, and gazed east across the unseen tract of farak gorin. A misty drizzle started again, clouds low and dark, and Gawain smiled with satisfaction. There would be neither moon nor stars to give them away.
When they had assembled, and were mounted, Gawain eyed them all critically. In truth, wearing the darkening cloths as they all did, there was not much to see.
"This is the last time you will be able to speak above a whisper." He announced quietly. "Until we return from the Barak-nor. If you've anything to say to me or to each other, say it now."
There was no reply, save for the slightest creaking of oiled leather as riders shifted in their saddles.
"Very well.” Gawain tossed a coil of thin rope to Sarek, and tied the end he yet held to Gwyn's saddle.
Sarek tied his end to his own saddle-horn, and likewise tossed a coil to Allazar, and one by one the group were threaded together like a string of pearls in the darkness. Gwyn turned her head east and south, and then stepped off down the gentle slopes, surefooted in spite of the thick muffling tied about her hooves.
Full darkness, and misty rain, and within moments they were swallowed up by the night, threading their way southeast, until finally they turned due south and headed towards the devastated landscape known as the Barak-nor.
Hours later, the pace uncomfortably slow in order to maintain stealth, dark and jagged shapes loomed up around them, and the acrid earthy stench emanating from the diseased landscape through which they rode assailed their nostrils in spite of the blackcloth masks they wore. The silence was eery and unnerving, and the slightest creak of leather or the scattering of loose gravel beneath a horse's hooves sounded, to them at least, like deafening thunderclaps.
Gwyn suddenly came to an abrupt halt, her great head swinging to the left, ears pricked. The resulting slack in the tether linking Gawain to Sarek brought the Threlland officer to a halt, and rippled down the line while everyone paused and held their breath. Gawain cocked his head, his ears straining to catch the sound that must have so alerted his charger. For what seemed like hours they waited, the breath trapped in their lungs, grips tight on weapons and muscles tensed with nervous energy.
Then a distant sound penetrated the miserable cloud of incessant rain that hovered around them. A steady, repetitive sound which at first defied identification as gentle breezes wafted it away. But it grew louder, and after a few moments more, Gawain, and the rest of them, knew what it was. A cart, its wheels grinding over ore-slag, drawn by a lumbering beast, most likely an ox. It was far off, to their left and slightly behind them, coming from the direction of the Teeth, and soon it disappeared completely, lost behind the countless heaps of slag and spill and the jagged rims of the massive craters around them.
Gawain breathed again, and Gwyn moved off once more. The wagon, Gawain knew, had been heard by all of them, a salutary lesson in the need for stealth, and a powerful reminder that they were now deep in hostile territory. Hostile? It was certainly that, he thought, glancing at the jagged formations around them. And though he himself had no doubts what sunrise would reveal to them all, they must now surely know that the glint of sunlight on steel seen earlier that morning could not have come from some trick of nature, nor from some desperate outland miner rooting for traces of ore in the slag. The cart had come from the Teeth, along the scree, and that could only mean one thing.
More time passed, and Gawain grew used to sitting still in the saddle, only his head slowly swivelling as he scanned the landscape for any signs of movement or threat. In truth, he was pleased with their progress, and felt a curious sense of pride that so far, all of them had maintained the silence.
A sudden tug on the tether from Sarek brought Gwyn to an immediate halt, and once more Gawain tensed. Behind him, and further, behind Sarek, a saddle creaked and the scrape of a boot in a stirrup brought a flood of strange aquamire to Gawain's eyes. Someone had dismounted. Was it possible that they had seen something that Gawain himself had missed? Hastily, he scanned the terrain again as a familiar bubble of nervous energy began to swell and then burst in his stomach.
Then he heard the sound of water trickling onto rocks, and at once he knew what it meant. Allazar! The stupid whitebeard bastard had dismounted to relieve himself! Gawain silently cursed the wizard, scowling, hoping against hope that the sound would not carry through the misty rain. In a downpour, the noise wouldn't attract attention. But here, in this arid and barren landscape, with only a fine mist of drizzle billowing around them, anyone hearing the sound would immediately know it for what it was.
Moments later, a boot scraped a stirrup again, and leather creaked once more. Another tug on the line, and a furious Gawain eased Gwyn forward.
Two hours later, or perhaps more, Gawain could not tell, Gwyn stopped again. He peered through the gloom, and saw a dark strip in front of them, darker by far than the gloom all around. He studied Sarek's map in his mind's eye, and then recalled with aquamire clarity the view of the Barak-nor he'd seen from the north-eastern slopes of Threlland. There was nothing for it but to dismount, and investiga
te.
His saddle creaked too, but it couldn't be helped. Gawain crept forward slowly and silently, until he realised he was standing at the edge of a deep dwarfcut trench that ran from east to west, barring their path. It was too deep, and the sides too sheer, for the horses to cross, and jumping it was out of the question, the noise would give them away. He frowned, and muttered a silent oath. The trench couldn't have been seen from the slopes behind them, hidden as it was by the high-walled rims of great craters. There was nothing for it but to ride east or west to its end, and thus go around it. But which direction to take? West would be safer, but would add precious time to their journey. Gawain retraced his steps to his horse, and climbed into the saddle.
When he turned Gwyn east, and began moving off, he received an urgent tug on the tether from Sarek. He stopped, and waited until the Threlland officer loomed out of the darkness and took station by his left side. Sarek leaned over, and whispered:
"Longsword, what means this?"
"There is a chasm, we cannot cross. We must go around."
"To the west, surely? East takes us towards the path that wagon must have travelled."
"West would take too long. We would be exposed at daybreak."
Sarek sat back in his saddle, the conversation clearly over, and Gawain moved off once more.
The rain began to fall heavier in the early hours of the morning, and with it a chill northerly wind to sweep it into them. The journey seemed to take forever, and by the time Gawain determined that they were passing dangerously close to their destination, even his nerves were stretched taught as bowstrings. They almost snapped when Gwyn stopped with a gentle snuffle. He waited, listening to the sound of rain lashing against hard-glazed weedblown rocks. A gust of wind brought the sound closer, and he froze. Another wagon.
Gawain hurriedly scanned their surroundings. The high crater rim, the base of which lay within bowshot to their left, was all that stood between them and the enemy. High above them, unseen, that solitary guard would doubtless still be measuring out his count of twenty. And the wagon was approaching, and at a steady pace.
A saddle creaked, and there was the faintest sound of wood upon wood. Someone was nocking an arrow to a string. Gawain tugged on the tether urgently, summoning Sarek and the rest of the chain forward. When Sarek was close beside him, Gawain leaned out of the saddle and whispered harshly.
"Tell them to stand fast and silent!"
"Aye." Sarek whispered back, and tugged on his tether, summoning Allazar forward.
So the message passed down the line, as the sound of the wagon drew closer still. Gawain looked around him once more. There was still at least an hour to go before dawn tinted the clouds above them, and though he knew where his companions were, he had difficulty seeing them against the high walls and mounds of ore-slag. As the wagon rumbled nearer the rain began to ease off, and he closed his eyes, hoping that the group, Allazar in particular, could hold their nerve and remain still.
One of the horses snuffled, and from the sound of tack, shook its head. Gawain tensed, but still the wagon rumbled towards them without pause. Then, suddenly, the sound faded, as though it had fallen into a deep hole. But there was no muffled crash of the thing striking bottom. Instead, Gawain heard the faintest of sighs from behind him. The wagon must have passed through a breach in the crater rim, and the walls were shielding the noise of its progress. At once, Gawain eased Gwyn forward, leading the group around to the south of the crater on which they'd seen the sunlight glinting.
Finally, as the sky began to take on a leaden hue, he sighted a small mound of ore-slag, and led them to safety behind it. Then he tugged the tether, drawing them in, and dismounted. They huddled together, sitting on the wet and spiteful slag-rock and spill, trying to avoid contact with the cruel tufts of spikeweed that was the only life capable of thriving in these vile surrounds. When dawn broke, the sun was hidden behind roiling gray and black clouds far out over the unseen ocean, and it began to rain again.
Gawain stared at them all, and then up at the crater rim. He pointed at Rak, and at Sarek, and then pointed up. They nodded, although unenthusiastically, standing and checking their weapons. Gawain slipped off his black mask and mittens. There was no need of them now, not now that day had broken.
Without ceremony, Gawain drew his cloak about him, and stepped out around the mound, hurrying as best he could without making sound across the expanse of open ground between the group in hiding and the base of the rim. In no time, Sarek and Rak were at his heels, and they began climbing the slope.
Centuries of weather had washed away the looser spill and left the rim wall compact, and though not completely smooth, the going was far easier than Gawain had expected. No tell-tale rivers of gravel showered down behind them in their wake, unlike the difficult passage up the scree at the Teeth. Halfway up, Gawain paused and looked around. There was no sign of the enemy, and he could just perceive a pair of shadowy figures crouched to the side of the mound staring up at him.
Just short of the top of the rim, Gawain indicated that Rak and Sarek should wait. They nodded, and with a deep breath, Gawain eased himself to his belly, and crawled the last few feet. When he bobbed his head up over the top, he was relieved to see larger boulders and rocks all around the rim, and he eased further up so he could survey all around him. He made out two guards, far across on the northern side of the rim, which was split like a horseshoe. One guard paced at each end of the horseshoe's arms, and they were the sole lookouts.
Gawain shook his head sadly for a moment, recalling the pitiful security at the Ramoth towers. Then he motioned Rak and Sarek up, and crept forward to lay on the rim itself, to gaze down into the crater. He caught his breath, and aquamire tinted his vision. A quiet gasp from each side told him that both Rak and Sarek saw what he saw.
The crater was relatively shallow, but broad, and it would take at least five consecutive bowshots for an arrow to cross its diameter. The floor of the crater was flat, though broken and cracked from summer heat and winter cold and countless rains. Rows of black canvas tents stood in ranks like a company of troops on parade, small trenches cut between them.
"By the Teeth." Sarek whispered. "I count thirty rows of ten."
"Two to a tent, six hundred men at least." Rak gasped. "Forgive my doubt, my brother."
Gawain simply pointed, and they followed his gaze. At the entrance of the horseshoe, another wagon rumbled in, a large one, drawn by a pair of oxen. It came to a halt by a pair of immense iron cauldrons, which were being tended by black-clad figures. From the back of the wagon spilled more black-clothed troops, and with them a handful of people wearing an odd assortment of multi-coloured clothing. These latter were led off to what appeared to be a corral. Wooden gates were opened, the people were thrust in, and the gates closed. Then the black-dressed soldiers simply turned, and walked away to the tents.
"What are they doing? Are they prisoners, those people?” Rak asked.
Gawain gazed down, a sense of dread stealing over him. From their vantage point on the rim, they could look down into the corral, and he could see that it held at least thirty people, huddling together like a herd of frightened sheep.
"I've seen patchwork dress like that before." Sarek mumbled, "I think they're Gorian northlanders. Goat herders, mostly."
"Gorians? Here?" Rak gasped. "Are they allies then to Morloch?"
Gawain shook his head, and turned to Sarek. "Go down, send up Allazar and Elayeen. When they've seen, they can go down, and send back the Thalangard."
"Aye."
"I will go," Rak whispered. "I have seen enough, my brother. Enough to convince Eryk to mobilise."
Gawain nodded, and Rak eased back off the rim. A short time later, Elayeen and Allazar eased forward, side by side, alongside Gawain. Both caught their breath, and stared below in amazement.
"The wagons are leaving." Sarek whispered, needlessly, as a column of ox-drawn carts headed off through the gap in the crater walls and out into the Barak-no
r wasteland towards the distant Teeth.
"Something is wrong with the oxen’s feet." Elayeen whispered.
"Aye." Allazar agreed.
"Shoes, of wood and iron I think, to guard against the farak gorin." Gawain whispered.
"What are they doing by those cauldrons, do they boil the slag for ore?" Allazar whispered.
"I do not think so." Gawain muttered, his eyes dark. "Have you seen all?"
Both Elayeen and Allazar nodded, and sighed.
"Longsword..." Allazar began, his breath hesitant, apologetic.
"Later." Gawain hissed. "Go down, and send up the thalangard."
After a final lingering glance at the enemy encampment, Elayeen and Allazar slid back from the edge, and down onto the slopes.
"Is it possible to continue south, and regain Threlland's hills, or must we go back the way we came?" Gawain muttered.
"We must go back the way we came."
"The quicker the better."
When the thalangard eased onto the rim and gazed down in astonishment, movement from below froze the breath in Gawain's chest.
"Something happens." He hissed.
Something was indeed happening. Though there had been no sound, no trumpet call or bell or drum, black-clad troops were emerging from their tents, two at a time. They stood motionless until all were assembled, and then with breathtaking precision they manoeuvred, marching together, forming columns and ranks, and finally coming to a halt in the large clearing which lay between their tents and the great cauldrons still busily tended by their comrades.
"Breakfast, I imagine.” Sarek muttered.
"Aye." Gawain agreed, his voice flat and chilling. "Look there."
Sarek and the thalangard followed his gaze. Four of the soldiers moved away from the cauldrons and strode to the pen in which the Gorian prisoners were huddled. They threw open the gates, strode in, and dragged two out, a man and a woman from their dress. The gate was secured, and the two captives frogmarched to the cauldrons.