“Thaniel is my comrade, the son of Florm, the lord of horses. He it is that brought me here quickly when we were told of your peril.”
The four men gazed at Thaniel in open-mouthed amazement. Nikolus shook his head. “I wondered what that great beast was, my lord. I had heard of horses, when I was a boy, in stories and fables.” He looked at Aram. “I thought they were only legends.”
“No, Nikolus. They are a real people – a very great people. Much of our future depends on our alliance with them.” He studied Thaniel a moment and then looked at the four men. “Would you like to meet him?”
Nikolus stared. “May we?”
“Of course.” Aram turned and walked a distance away toward the horse; so that it would not seem to the others as if by his actions he was summoning a mere lieutenant. “Thaniel, my friend.”
Thaniel looked up. “Are you ready to leave, Lord Aram?”
“In a moment, yes.” Aram hesitated a moment as the horse watched him. “Would you object to coming over to meet these men, my friend?”
Thaniel looked toward Nikolus and his companions. “If you wish it, I have no objection, my lord.”
“They may very well become soldiers that will go into battle with others of your people, Thaniel.”
The horse chuckled as he came up over the rise from the river. “You do not need to persuade me, Lord Aram. I am at your service. I will go wherever you wish and meet whomever you desire that I should meet.”
Aram watched him come and slowly shook his head. “No, Thaniel; that is not the nature of our relationship. We are comrades, you and I – brothers in arms. I ask this as a favor.”
Thaniel stopped and gazed at Aram, his large eyes gleaming beneath the mesh of the eye guards of his gold-trimmed black armor. “Lord Aram, my father told me once that the day will come when you will be a king, like the kings of old. I did not need him to tell me this. I know you. Of course you may command me.” His voice was calm and deliberate, but firm. “I told you, my lord; the path that you are on – it leads to liberty for all, and I will bear you to the end of it. That is my fate and I welcome it. Now, my lord, let us meet your friends.”
The four men, and the other villagers around them watched in awe as the great, metal-covered beast strode into their midst. Thaniel’s body was shielded by the black armor everywhere. Even his ears were protected by pointed triangles of steel, and his eyes looked out through black mesh. Overlapping, gold-trimmed layers of black steel hung down his legs, molded to his form, ending in rounded plates across the tops of his hooves.
Across the steel plate that covered his chest there was a row of four sharp spikes, each about six inches long, that extended forward and obliquely to the sides, just high enough off the ground to rend a man’s arms from his body during a violent passage across a battlefield. All that showed of the great horse’s body was his long, flowing tail, and a bit of black mane that extended above the two opposing plates of steel that lay along his neck.
He stopped, facing the four. “Greetings, friends of Aram, lord of the city of kings. I am Thaniel, his trusted servant.”
Aram saw Nikolus and Timmon start and their eyes go wide as the horse’s voice penetrated their minds. Flinneran and Oskus, however, seemed deaf to it, unaffected beyond the extent of their amazement at Thaniel’s powerful presence. Nikolus looked at Aram in astonishment. Aram grinned.
“Don’t be rude to my great friend, Nikolus. Answer with your mind – he will hear you.”
Nikolus turned to Thaniel, hesitated for a moment, and then seemed to strain to make himself understood, uncertain of the means of communication. Timmon, on the other hand, grinned broadly at this novel experience, and though Aram could not hear what he said to the horse; Thaniel’s answer illuminated the quickness of the man’s mind as he responded first to Nikolus, and then to Timmon.
“I am pleased to meet you as well, Nikolus.” Thaniel said. Then he turned to Timmon. “Yes, there are others of my kind. I have no doubt that you will meet them whenever Lord Aram wishes it.”
Flinneran and Oskus stood uncertainly, as if they heard distant voices, but could not discern words or meaning. Aram wondered, as he watched Nikolus and Timmon ply the horse with questions while the others stood silent and unsure, how common the ability to use mindspeak would be with his people, and whether problems would arise among those without the gift. The thought struck him that perhaps only those with an affinity for horses would also possess a talent for communicating with the great animals.
Just then a brilliant single ray from the rising sun shot into the sky above the hills to the east. He looked up and then turned to Nikolus.
“Thaniel and I must go now. We will scout to the west and guard against enemies. Use your time well, Nikolus. I want these people moving east by dawn tomorrow.”
Nikolus bowed his head slightly, still overwhelmed by the wonders of the last few minutes, but – as a result of those wonders – with an even deeper respect for Aram in his manner. “We will be ready, Lord Aram, I assure you. We will not waste a minute.”
Aram nodded, climbed up on Thaniel’s back and he and the horse turned and went across the bridge onto the narrow dirt track that wound down the canyon to the northwest. As the morning sun peered above the hills to the east, the people of the village stood still and watched the tall, dark-haired man in the unearthly armor and the great metallic beast that carried him fade into the shadows of the canyon.
Thirteen
Here and there, scattered rays of the rising sun were just finding their way into the winding canyon as Aram and Thaniel negotiated the mounds of dirt and rock that periodically lay across the road where Nikolus had attempted to close off access to his village the previous year. Below the road to their left, the willow-lined stream bounded downward over and through jumbled rocks and boulders, pausing occasionally to rest in deep, clear pools. Pine and spruce clustered along its banks, and their pungent scents filled the morning air.
Thaniel paused as he gauged how best to negotiate one of the berms of earth and rock. “My lord, perhaps you should send for Jared now.”
Aram stared at the back of the horse’s head. “How – did you know my thoughts?”
Thaniel swiveled his head. “It is logical, my lord. Those people cannot possibly carry enough provisions to get them across the mountain and into your valley. It will easily take two weeks, maybe more. Many of them are weak as well, and the children of your people do not do well when sleeping on the ground, especially when the weather is still cool. But my people can move them across in a matter of days.”
Aram nodded. “I know; I had thought of that.”
“But you have not used the Call.”
“No.” Aram admitted. “I want to save those people, but there are complications.”
Thaniel crossed the mounded earth and rocks and got onto the smoother track beyond. “What troubles you, Lord Aram?”
Aram sighed. “It is this, Thaniel. If the servants of Manon track those people, as is very likely, they will find the hoof prints of your people in the soft earth of the sand hills and they will know that many horses are in alliance with men. I’m not sure that I want Manon to know this. As you so wisely said, my friend, it is best not to educate our enemy, even unintentionally.”
“Some things can not be hidden from the enemy’s eyes for long,” Thaniel answered evenly, “no matter how important it is that they are hidden from him. And I must confess that my thoughts were of the weapon from the mountain, not of the alliance between our peoples. But, my lord; how important are the lives of those men and women and children? That is the essential question.”
Aram thought about it for a moment and then nodded his head in decision. “I told you, Thaniel, you are as wise as your father.”
He reached under the armor on his chest and pulled the small silver cylinder free. Holding it to his mouth, he blew three short blasts. His own ears heard nothing, but Thaniel shivered momentarily as if struck by an icy wind. Aram looked do
wn at him. “Well,” he said, “it cannot be altered now.”
“This is true of so many things.” Thaniel agreed.
They followed the road as it wound through the canyon for nearly a mile until it reached the point where the canyon ceased to exist as the steep walls that the stream had cut through the hills to either side fell away with the diminishing of those hills and a vast wide valley opened up in front of them. Here the road that ran through the canyon intersected with another at right angles. This second road ran away both to their left and to their right along the south side of the wide, grassy valley. To their left it ran back to the southwest and the valley gradually broadened out in that direction.
The other way, to their right, it ran northeast for a short way and then turned almost due north and went across the valley to a dark square of earth and a small rectangle of gray huts that signified the presence of another of Manon’s villages of slave farmers. But the dirt road ended there. For the moment, this was the edge of Manon’s empire, not the limit of his reach, but the limit of his absolute control.
Through the center of the valley, shining like silver in the morning sun, ran a wide looping river; the same stream, Aram was certain, that had its beginnings in the wild, timbered regions of Camber pass, far away to the northeast. Also bisecting the valley in a relatively straight line, even to the point of bridging the loops in the river, ran an ancient road. The road that crossed the hills to the north of Aram’s valley, that he and Thaniel had turned away from to go down through the sand hills the day before, intersected with that road somewhere up the wide valley to their right.
Aram studied the dirt in the road for tracks but could see no clear evidence of their quarry’s passing. “Which way did they go, Thaniel, do you think? Down the valley or across to that village?”
“Home.” Thaniel answered shortly. “They were frightened – they will go home.”
Aram nodded. “I agree. They will run to safety.”
After studying the village across the way for a moment and seeing no sign of unusual activity, Aram and Thaniel turned left on the dirt track, toward the southwest. The men they were chasing would have run from the terrifying danger behind them – from the fierce man on the great black horse – and their instincts would have driven them west. Aram felt strange gazing upon this road and the surrounding countryside for the first time – because it was the second time he’d been here. Nine years earlier, he and Decius had been trundled up this road inside the vile, stinking hell of one of Manon’s slave transports.
The tracks of the road were sandy like the hills along whose sides it ran, and relatively smooth. If they stayed on this path long enough, Aram knew, eventually they would stand at the eastern edge of the great plains and could look to the west where, six hundred miles or so across that vast flat land, he had been born thirty-two years ago and had spent his youth dreaming of freedom. Now he had a different dream – to someday see everyone in the world that still labored in the foul chains of the enemy walking free.
Thaniel broke into a ground-consuming canter as they went west. The world seemed still and undisturbed. It was Aram’s hope that he could get Nikolus’ people across the ridge north of the great black mountain and down into his valley before Manon or his servants knew where they had gone. He intended to find the men that had escaped them last night and silence them, as well as determining if there were others of Manon’s minions about.
As the road wound through the corrugations in the hills, it sometimes cut into the soft dirt of those hills, forming places where the road ran between banks of compacted sand. The road looped inward along the indentions in the hills where small streams descended toward the valley floor and swept out around gentle points where the spines of sandy ridges pushed into the valley. It was generally out on the points that the road cut through the sandy slopes, forming high banks to either side and sometimes creating blind corners.
At midmorning, just as they rounded one of these corners where the compacted sandbanks of the cut rose above Aram’s head on either side, they ran headlong into a company of lashers, coming up the road on the run. The lashers – there were at least a dozen – were moving in a tightly packed group and were prepared for battle, their long pikes held before them at the ready.
Two of the pikes caught Thaniel high on the shoulder. One of the points of steel, by virtue of sheer bad luck, found a seam between two pieces of the layered metal, slipped through and found flesh. Thaniel roared in pain. The horse staggered under the onslaught of the enormous beasts and went down, hurling Aram headfirst into the banked sand of the cut.
Aram rolled to his feet and reached for the sword but found razor-sharp points of steel slashing at his face and chest. Stupidly, he was not wearing the hood. He ducked and tried to slide sideways but one of the pikes caught him a solid blow to the side of his head and another impacted his left arm below the shoulder. Pain flared, hot and violent, from both points of contact. But with the pain, there erupted inside him also a torrent of cold fury.
The sword slipped free. Thaniel was to his left, in the turn of the road, struggling to get upright as the lashers’ steel probed the horse’s armor for weaknesses. Blindly, Aram swung the sword in a wide arc. He felt no impact, but when he rose to his feet and turned to face his attackers, two were dead, their bodies heaped in steaming ruins and one other was staring in confusion at the stump of his arm, where brackish blood spewed.
But the other lashers came on and to his left, three had pinned Thaniel to the sand of the road. Their intent was that the horse should die quickly so that they could all converge upon the man. The sword began to hum as it turned and flashed in the sun. Flame began to twirl and shimmer along its length. Aram moved toward Thaniel even as his own assailants attacked. Despite the pain in his head and left arm, he was not afraid for himself, but a rising terror that they would kill Thaniel spurred him to act to save his friend.
He leapt away from those lashers that assaulted him and drove the sword at the three surrounding Thaniel. The blade passed into and through the body of the nearest lasher. The massive torso seemed to melt. At the same time, a sharp point of steel drove into his back, knocking his breath from him even as he dove at Thaniel’s remaining assailants, striking at them with the glowing blade. He saw the lashers collapse, shrinking beside the thrashing legs of the horse as he fell on his face and rolled, trying desperately to keep the sword from piercing the earth, or injuring Thaniel, even as he hoped to avoid the probing steel of his enemies.
Looking up as he rolled over, he saw through the dust and noise and confusion of moving forms and jabbing steel, the large dark bulk of Thaniel grow in height and breadth as the great horse regained his feet. Thaniel lunged away down the road as Aram also came upright. There were six or seven lashers facing him now, the remnant of the company, and they closed fast, their pikes held at varying angles as they charged. He could no longer see Thaniel.
There were too many and he was hurt, stumbling. Holding the sword like a shield between his body and the steel of his enemies, he tried to run up the bank and get clear of the sandy cut. His left arm was nearly useless; knots of pain on the point of his shoulder and at the back of his arm rendered it immobile. On the steep sand he found it difficult to hold his feet and swing the sword effectively. There was a roaring in his head, growing louder second by second. The lashers formed a wide semicircle around him, avoiding his flashing sword, looking for an opening to pin him to the bank and kill him.
The roaring grew louder. The huge forms of his enemies came on. Aram blinked his eyes against the noise. It grew until he felt his head would burst.
Then he saw the lashers look to their left – his right – just as the roaring reached a crescendo and they tried frantically to turn their pikes down the angle of the road. An instant later, an enormous black shape exploded in their midst, knocking them flying, driving them to the ground, rolling over them like the storm surge of a dark and violent ocean.
Thaniel had return
ed.
The great horse had not run away as the lashers had believed, leaving them to collect their prize of the man their master wanted above all others. Thaniel had simply got clear of the clumped company of beasts and had then turned and charged. The roaring inside Aram’s head came from Thaniel’s mind. The big black horse had given himself over to rage. He plowed into the clot of massive horned beasts just as they closed on Aram; some he simply ran over, trampling them to earth; others on the periphery of his tangent screamed and howled in pain as the spikes on the horses armor sliced through muscle and bone with the violence of his passage. He crashed through the lashers and went several paces beyond. Then he wheeled and charged again.
Aram made the most of the opportunity provided by the great horse’s actions. Wielding the flashing sword with his good right arm, he jumped off the bank, staying clear of Thaniel’s path as the horse came on again, and began cutting the confused and crippled lashers down, one by one. Most had been disarmed in Thaniel’s initial charge and all were disoriented and frightened by the sudden turn of events.
Finally, there was just one lasher left standing. Terrified by the deterioration of the situation, the beast turned away and fled down the road but Thaniel caught him and ran him down, rearing and pounding with his great hooves. Aram came up and with one stroke of the sword, finished him. After making certain that they were all dead, and sheathing the fiery blade, he stood gasping for breath, his mouth hanging open, and looked at Thaniel.
“That was a near thing.”
“Yes.” The horse agreed. His voice sounded oddly constrained.
Aram watched him for a moment, and then he noticed the flow of red seeping from between the two overlapping plates of armor on the horse’s chest and running down his left foreleg.
“You’re wounded, Thaniel.”
The horse shuddered under his armor and blew great flecks of foam from his nostrils. “It is not serious, my lord. The point went straight in. It is painful, but there is no permanent muscle damage, though it will no doubt be sore for a few days. You are wounded as well, my lord – there is blood on your head and I can see the white of bone under your hair.”
Kelven's Riddle Book Two Page 20