I can’t wait! I can’t wait! I can’t wait! he buzzed to himself, his whole body tingling with agitation.
‘I’ll show you . . .’ came a voice from behind him.
Gapp froze. It sounded like his brother Ottar, the eldest of seven boys in his family.
‘Get it away from me . . .’ the voice murmured again, this time quieter but loaded with venom. Yes, definitely Ottar.
Gapp turned, and stared across the line of blanketed brotherhood that lined one side of the loft. He located the hulking mound wherein lay – somewhere – the source of that disturbing voice.
Sleeptalking! Gapp breathed in relief, and, in absolute silence now, picked up his little white belt, lowered himself through the trapdoor, and slunk away from the stuffy dormitory to the lower storey.
When he had safely reached the stone floor of the cottage he hurriedly donned his belt, making sure all its accessories were secured: his simple sling and its missiles, four little throwing knives, the small leather pouch that contained his boxwood reedpipes and, most importantly, the scabbard which held his hand weapon – a shortsword with the badge of the Wintus clan embossed in the centre of its hilt. Then, pausing only long enough to take one last look at the bittersweet familiarity of the hovel that had been his home for the past fifteen years, Gapp slipped outside.
He lowered the latch noiselessly behind him, then sprinted away.
Done it! he screamed within his soul as he tore off down the lane towards Wintus Hall and, with an uncaring hardness that can only be excused by youthfulness, did not care if he ever saw that house or its occupants again.
Being the youngest of seven brothers had never been easy. All his life he had lived as the underdog within those walls, derided by his merciless brothers and virtually ignored by his parents. His folks did the best they could, of course, their hide being only just big enough to raise the food necessary to support a family of nine. But having no prospect of earning the dowry that a daughter would have secured them was ever a disappointment to his parents, and as the youngest and last attempt, Gapp was somehow the most resented for this.
‘Ash-boy’, they called him, and had given him the most menial of tasks. So it had been the greatest relief to Gapp when he had finally caught the eye of a noble Peladane in need of a squire, none other than Master Nibulus Wintus himself.
Not that this had gained him any more respect from his family, of course. To his parents he was still, and forever would be, a silly little boy, and to his brothers a complete prat.
‘You’ll see,’ he had muttered defiantly against their indifference to his new status, and now he had informed them he was being taken along on the ‘Finwald Quest’. ‘You’ll see.’
But they didn’t. So now he left without even a goodbye from them.
Gapp was the first to arrive at their rendezvous in the stables of Wintus Hall, while the others of the company were still being levered from their beds by big-fingered servants. The farewell banquet, to which everyone save Gapp had been invited, had been so lavish that it would be weeks before they would get all the gravy off the ceiling. He therefore set to, helping the stable-boys ready the horses. He started with his own pony, Bogey, then proceeded to his master’s magnificent warhorse, Hammerhoof.
There was a lot of work to be done before their departure, and the stables were soon a wasps’ nest of activity. Gapp had soon worked up a good sweat, so when a large platter of bread and goat’s cheese was brought to him he enthusiastically dug in, grateful for the chance to sit down.
It was only while he was munching away that he noticed for the first time the odd looks the other servants were giving him. Normally he was treated as just another employee. But on this particular morning he began to feel their eyes lingering on him. Such attention was a new experience for him, and he risked returning their glances. There was an odd mixture of pity, jealousy and even goodwill in their eyes.
A few of his friends presently wandered in and sat themselves down next to him. They too seemed unsure how to behave on this unprecedented occasion. Every apprentice in town had been allowed the morning off work to watch the grand departure, with the joyous prospect of getting in at least two hours of hard-core stone-skimming before they must return to their labours. But eventually, finding nothing further to say, after a brief mumbling of farewells they sloped off.
The bread and cheese suddenly tasted dry and hard in his mouth, and it was as much as he could do to force it down past the sudden lump in his throat. Up until now, he had only felt excitement at this, his first adventure, his first time out in the real world. But now, having said his last goodbyes, a sudden crushing sadness sprang up from nowhere and settled in the pit of his stomach.
Aware of a moistness around his eyes, he breathed in deeply, straightened himself up and tried to smile.
Stupid, he cursed himself, and got straight back to work, the last crusts of his breakfast forgotten.
Meanwhile, Appa trudged up the country lane, leading his cow Marla over to Tommas’s father’s place. In his right hand he gripped her halter, in his left a sprig – no, more like a bouquet – of her favourite herb-grass, Weba. In his eyes he held back – but only just – a well of tears.
His sheep he could bear to part with easily, but Marla . . . She seemed to sense that they would never be seeing each other again.
Ah, bitter was their parting . . .
And finally, after two agonizingly slow hours of waiting around, did the party finally set out for Vaagenfjord Maw. A single bugle sounded a shrill fanfare to alert all who might be standing along their route leading through the streets of Nordwas, and to cue the commencement of the Quest.
With a mighty bellow from Nibulus’s throat, the fully armoured Peladane waved one gauntleted fist in the air for all to see, then brought it down as though signalling the start of a race. For him it might as well have been, as he spurred his huge warhorse forward in a headlong gallop that scattered the suddenly panicked but nevertheless grateful crowd like rats in a barrel.
Methuselech followed, gleaming in red, white and gold, and matched in splendour only by Whitehorse, the superb beast upon which he rode, the golden bells on its reins jingling merrily.
Behind these two leaders came Paulus, looking like a grey-and-black shadow upon the brown mare he had purchased three days earlier; Bolldhe was, as ever, on his faithful slough-horse, the broadaxe slung at its side, while Finwald rode his black steed Quintessa, whose trailing mane strikingly resembled the long black hair flying out from beneath its rider’s priestly hat.
And finally, not even trying to keep up, came Gapp on Bogey and Appa on a pony his temple had managed to scratch up for him.
Wodeman, surprisingly or not, was nowhere to be seen.
Onward the company rode, surrounded by cheering. There was a brief anticlimactic pause near the main gates as a young woman of arresting comeliness, yet with marked firmness of jaw, stepped out right in front of the Peladane’s horse and brought him to an ignominious halt. Nibulus cussed, rummaging about in his saddlebags, and brought forth a small clutch of zibelines which he hastily shoved into her outstretched hand. With a final, slightly embarrassed nod to her, he recommenced his heroic progress towards the town gates.
Through the gap in the stockade wall they galloped, kicking up great sods of mud into the faces of the last of the crowd of well-wishers. Up the road beyond, winding its way through hedged enclosures, they thundered on and on until they resembled mere motes moving slowly towards the distant hills. Then, with the Peladane’s last cry of uncontrollable elation drifting back upon the breeze to the smiling crowd, the magnificent seven dwindled into the distance, and were at last swallowed up by the North.
FOUR
The Blue Mountains
GAPP SHIVERED AND PULLED his cloak tightly around him, shielding himself against the elements. Though soaked heavy with rain, and caked with mud around the hem, at least the garment did something to keep the weather off him as he huddled beneath the partial
shelter of an overhanging rock. Freezing droplets dripped from the matted strands of hair clinging to his forehead, trickling through eyebrows and his stinging eyes behind his steamed-up spectacles. Elsewhere they trickled down his neck and into the diminishing warmth beneath his shirt, like an army of frigid insects seeking drier places to hide in. He was wet and miserable, and even his clothes smelled of damp.
He was not the only sufferer – even his master’s proud, green Ulleanh clung dejectedly around his armour; and all seven of them now crouched under the overhang beside the mountain path, equally smelly, silent and miserable.
As he gazed down at the foggy valley below, beyond the line of horses that waited gloomily but patiently in the rain, Gapp wondered how many miles now lay between them and Nordwas. They had been travelling for two weeks solidly, and in all that time had passed through only half a dozen hamlets. In each one they had traded for food, using copper and silver coins, or small amounts of scrap iron, medicines, spices and other luxuries that so rarely passed that way.
In between these settlements they would sometimes spend the night in abandoned post-houses. In the old days, when Nordwas boasted an important caravanserai on a great trade route, such makeshift post-houses had been set up at regular intervals between the villages to accommodate the king’s messengers and passing merchants. Since then they had fallen into dereliction, but their musty and forlorn shells still offered partial shelter for the weary travellers.
‘Welcome to the Darklands, young man,’ Nibulus had remarked to his esquire after leaving the first of such primitive villages. ‘Feeling more at home, ha-ha?’
‘Not all that dark, really,’ Gapp had replied, not sure what his master was going on about.
Nibulus chortled. ‘We’re now beyond the borders of Pel-Adan’s own realm and these people here are all of your own stock, Aescals every one of them. As I said, welcome home to the Darklands.’
To be honest, most of the group were so far feeling fairly good about the whole enterprise. As visitors, they were accorded great respect and treated with friendliness, hospitality and much curiosity. At each village they would be invited in to share large earthenware bowls of heady fermented gortleberry, and offered baskets of sweet black bread for their journey.
In all that time Wodeman had not yet been seen. It appeared he would not be joining them on the quest after all – and nobody was in any hurry to go and look for him. Till, on approaching the latest hamlet, down a rutted path wending tiredly through the woods, the sorcerer had suddenly dropped from a tree to land in front of them. He had said not a word, just regarded them in turn, then gestured for them to follow him.
Nibulus had already guessed the reason for this unexpected appearance. The settlement they were about to enter was too northerly even for the Aescals. A tiny cluster of miserable dwellings right on the very edge of civilization, it was inhabited entirely by Wodeman’s own race.
‘Be on your guard,’ Paulus warned them, uncaring that Wodeman walked right by him. ‘These people are huldre – fey – and not to be trusted.’
‘Fey?’ Nibulus snorted.
‘Fey,’ the Nahovian affirmed. ‘But they will not come near if we bear iron, for it is anathema to them.’
The company glanced at Wodeman. ‘It’s true,’ the Torca confirmed. ‘If you attack us with iron weapons, we can die.’
Nibulus laughed along with the others.‘Whose idea was it to bring him along anyway?’
That’s the trouble with the Torca, Nibulus considered. No respect for their betters. Like all Peladanes, he was half amused and half irritated by the Torca’s complete inability to kowtow respectfully.
As they rode into the village, their first sight of the inhabitants they came across caused more than a stir amongst the riders from the South.
‘Is that green skin they have?’ Nibulus inquired, making no effort to disguise his distaste.
The men who were gathered in a small group in the road to watch the arrival of the strangers were attired only in ragged kilts and a kind of fleece wrapped about their shoulders. The jewellery hanging round their necks was heavy, crude and wrought exclusively of bronze, in strangely disturbing designs, while numerous strings of brightly coloured seashells were suspended garishly from their kilts. But it was the sickly green pallor of their skin that drew the eye so arrestingly, and it was only when the company got closer that they realized these men were actually covered in runes tattooed in long spirals encircling both torso and limbs.
As Nibulus rode past, he leant over to inspect one more closely, peering as un-self-consciously as the old man who stared back.
The Peladane marvelled. ‘Are those the names of all his girlfriends? The degenerate old goat!’
‘I’d have a care how you speak,’ the shaman warned. ‘Those are the names of enemies he’s slain.’
Nibulus’s unvoiced admiration was doubled.
This was a time of great activity for the Torca, for they were reaping the first orrnba-seed harvest of the year. They wailed crack-voiced incantations as they slashed with bronze sickles, accompanied by their shamans, who flicked sacred water from their ring-elongated fingers onto the crop as it was cut. And at night the village really came alive, for it was then that the threshing took place. The Torca believed that seed which was threshed under the silver light of the waning moon would be blessed by the spirits.
This village actually had a hostelry, of sorts: the Grey Dog Inn. Here the company stayed the night, and made the most of the occasion by draining an ancient firkin of Rynsaka, the only cask of ale found in the place. On the urging of Wodeman, they stayed locked in their loft during the darkest hours of the night, while he himself joined his people in celebrating their secret pagan rites.
As the travellers lay abed in their stalls they listened fearfully to the otherworldly sounds of the final stage of the harvest, the winnowing, being performed outside. This was left to the care of Erce; the crop was laid out upon reed mats on the village green and, while hedgehogs screamed like Mandragora and danced like Trows in the woods nearby, a twisting wind swept through the village and whisked the husks away. Candles were immediately afterwards placed in wooden shrine-huts beneath the deodars, by way of thanks, and then the real celebrations commenced.
Wodeman had explained to them that they were particularly fortunate to pass through at that time of year for, during the harvest, violence and ill manners were forbidden, wishing to appease the spirits. The only hints of excess were the frenetic dancing of the villagers, the savage carousing of the hedgehogs nearby, and of course the ritual sacrifice of a couple of enemy marauders, who were strung up on tree-boles and pierced through all over with long thin rods of sharpened hazel. These last were inserted so as to avoid rupturing any vital organ, and to come out intact the other side.
‘A skilled priest might manage to implant as many as fifty hazel-rods one by one into a victim ere he dies,’ Wodeman had assured them, ‘or just one long rod running from bottom to top, like a spitting roast. In fact, in times past, in the Seter Heights where my people originated, they would even eat them alive off the sacrificial pole! Anyway, enjoy your rest.’
The night had continued heavy with blood, savagery and all sorts of weirdness, and to the wayfarers who lay curled in their bedrolls in the Grey Dog it seemed as though they had strayed into another time and another world.
But that had been a week ago. Four days later they had begun to climb the Blue Mountains, and the change of terrain had been complete as field and pasture gave way to wild upland, across which only a single ancient and ill-kept track snaked its way.
Since their departure from the hamlet they had seen no evidence of humankind at all save for the rough and rocky path upon which they travelled. Gapp could not imagine who had constructed it, or why; there seemed to be no people in these mountains. Were they really, as Nibulus claimed, using the same road Gwyllch’s Peladanes had taken all those years past? If so, it looked as if no one else had used it in all the interven
ing years. The only creatures that dwelt here were elusive mountain-goats that could be heard clattering amongst the stony slopes above, or occasionally seen peering down at them from inaccessible rocky heights.
He had never known anywhere as lonely and remote as this, and it was certainly not what he had imagined before they set off. Gapp had always pictured the Blue Mountains as a wild region of lofty crags and snow-capped peaks, where adventurers stood atop high ridges with their swords raised to salute the dawn; where sorcerers practised their arts in stony castles perched at crazy angles on the tops of crags; and where gryphons leapt out of the inky blackness of their caves to attack and devour fair maidens.
Well, it was wild, that was for sure, but now, sitting here in the wet with no hope of dry shelter for weeks ahead, the magic of the wild had wholly lost its allure for Gapp Radnar. The young traveller was saddle-sore, aching all over, soaked through and had begun to shiver violently. He was sick of the blandness of their rations every day, sick of the rain that drove straight into his face no matter what direction they took, and sick of the way the meagre pauses they took never seemed to provide him with any comfort or relaxation until the very minute just before they had to resume their journey.
He was beginning to realize just how much he loved his humble home, his parents, even his brothers; he yearned for warm, dry clothes, soft blankets and hot food. Before setting out, he had imagined himself gloriously as a brave adventurer, but now all he felt like was pathetically human.
Many a time he was tempted to complain, but the silent grimness of his companions always quelled this impulse. Bolldhe and Wodeman were clearly not men to appear weak in front of, and even his master and Finwald, with whom he was better acquainted, seemed to have changed. Gapp was beginning to see how hardship robbed men of their usual warmth and turned them into sullen, quick-tempered bullies.
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