The Wanderer's Tale

by David Bilsborough

  ‘A mormal upon a shinne,’ the Syr echoed. ‘An unusual metaphor; but who exactly is the mormal? Who is the treacher? Is it the sorcerer, or one of your priests? Or could it be any other of the sundry members of this band of perfidious churls? Indeed, are you so sure that there is but one treacher here? You say he is waylaid by a many-headed serpent, but it seems more that he is torn apart like a stag between a pack of wolves. Maybe you will even discover Bolldhe himself is the quisling.’

  Finally Time spoke out. ‘The game is but eight weeks old, an insufficient period of testing from which to draw a meaningful conclusion, as you say, but sufficient to reveal to us enough of the psyche of your man Bolldhe. He walls himself off from his fellows, he is violently unpredictable; he knows not what to believe, flitting from one notion to another as a fledgling plays amongst the boughs of springtime. The divide between your priests confuses him, though in truth he does incline towards the reasoning of Finwald. But the Dream-Sorcerer manages to befuddle him, and it is within himself that the most significant problem lies. We know now your true reasoning in choosing this man as your tool, but we fear your judgement is awry. This man clearly cannot find himself, and thus cannot hope to succeed.’

  Red-Eye turned away to gaze at the cave wherein lay his last slim thread of hope, fraying with each day that passed. Though he said nothing to the Skela, he silently agreed.

  There was a movement at his side, and he turned to see that the wolves had returned. Their leader at their head, they padded gingerly towards him upon singed paws, and one by one collapsed at his feet. Though they did not perceive him in any real sense, yet there was a feeling of comfort and sanctuary where he stood. That was reason enough for the dispirited beasts to tarry awhile.

  As they licked their wounds, they occasionally glanced in the direction of the warm, fire-lit cave, listening to the dim sound of human voices from within. The leader’s pale eyes were bright with intelligence, and now smouldered with a deep hatred. The sound of its enemies’ voices drew forth a half-audible growl of bitterness. The hunt was far from over, and the new day, scant hours away.

  FIVE

  The Valley of Sluagh

  ‘WE SHOULD BE IN sight of the Northlands by tonight, I think.’

  Wodeman was perched high on a rocky outcrop above their path, his face lifted to the sky, sniffing the air. Ahead, the path wound away for a short distance before disappearing up into a narrow cleft, and was then lost from view. To their right, a scree-covered slope rose up to a distant ridge. Behind them, somewhat obscured by the dust of their passing, the path fell away down the steep pass that had brought them here, so high up amongst the Blue Mountains’ highest peaks. And to their left the ground simply dropped away down a sheer cliff face, affording them the most stunning panoramic view of purple and blue mountain peaks, of pale, sun-flecked bluffs down which cascaded countless waterfalls, and steep, pine-forested slopes sweeping down towards dark shrouded gullies, all stretching from one end of the horizon to the other in one wide sweep of breathtaking wild beauty.

  All day they had travelled up here along the highest level of the path. Here, their route was at its steepest and most dangerous, often deteriorated to such a state that it was almost undetectable, whereupon they had to trust to their own instinct to find their way forward. Sometimes broader, sometimes narrower, but always covered in loose rocks or blocked by falls of boulders, the path wound its arcane way northwards, along knife-edge ridges that fell away steeply on either side, up funnel-shaped passes that echoed eerily the sharp crack of stone impacting on stone, halfway up cliffs upon ledges that were so narrow as to be almost non-existent, and through dark gullies that rose sheer on either side, their confining darkness softened only dimly by the band of daylight from high above.

  A strange silence pervaded the whole region. The air was thin and unnourishing. Up here they had come to a place that was too high even for the mountain-goats. It was as if they had ventured into a world so elevated and so removed from the rest of the world that life and movement, even sound, just did not occur here, were things alien and unwanted. Every rock and crag seemed to be listening, glaring down at the puny little invaders in stony silence. Every clattering, clumsy step they took was magnified tenfold in this unfriendly place, and the company was feeling very ill-at-ease. They did not talk. They slowed their breathing. They picked their way with deliberation and care. But still their subdued racket went on, filling the void of stillness to mark their passage more conspicuously than any beacon.

  Occasionally they would spy dark cave mouths high above them, where no path could run, out of which thin lines of smoke wound lazily into the sky. Pillars of rocks placed crudely one upon another stood by like sentinels, pagan and ancient. The place smelled of dragons, gryphons and ogres. All conversation ceased, and they wasted no time in going on their way.

  The attack the previous night had shaken all of them badly. An assault by wolves outside winter was unnerving enough in its strangeness, but it was the creature leading them that had scared them most of all.

  ‘Leucrota,’ Paulus had explained. ‘They prowl around our villages at night, attracted by the smell of our tree-hung corpses. But our dead are not for their sort, and if we catch them we purge their innards with hot coals.’

  Leucrota were a legend Bolldhe had already heard of in northern lands. Normally solitary creatures that could be found skulking amongst the headstones of graveyards, hungrily digging up newly or not so newly interred corpses. He had hoped he would go to his own grave without ever encountering one and, remembering Paulus’s deft handling of the monster, he made a mental note never to antagonize the Nahovian.

  Wodeman scrambled down from his vantage point to land lightly upon the track below. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘unless my nose deceives me, we should get to look upon the lowlands before sunset – but only if we get a move on.’

  This announcement was met with tired but grateful smiles of relief from all. The Blue Mountains were undeniably beautiful in their way, but right now it was a beauty they would rather appreciate from lower down.

  Nibulus regarded the sorcerer quizzically. ‘You can smell the lowlands from here?’

  ‘Of course!’ Wodeman chuckled. ‘The smell of the marshlands is unmistakable. If you and your ancestors had spent less time shut away in your smoky halls and stony castles, and more out in the real world, you might be able to smell the lowlands too.’

  Nibulus laughed. ‘Remind me to berate my ancestors when I meet them in the next world, and may you be standing there with me when I do so!’ He clapped the sorcerer roughly on the shoulder, almost knocking the wind out of him.

  Everyone was noticeably happier; their mood up until now had been very tense and uncommunicative. The thought of further attacks from wolves or ogres remained uppermost in their mind, with scant cover, up here amongst the peaks, from any dreadful winged beast that might swoop on them from above.

  And if that were not enough, the problem of Methuselech’s injuries was becoming crucial. He had received some serious lacerations the previous night and, had it not been for the combined healing powers of Appa and Wodeman, he might well have died. Whilst Appa had knelt over the groaning man and poured out his most heart-wrung and brow-sweating petitions to his deity, Wodeman had enlisted the young esquire to help in his herb-searching.

  ‘Greyboots,’ he had urged, ‘do you know of the plant athelsfut?’

  ‘Gapp had stared at the shaman blankly.

  ‘It is a small, dandelion-like species, to you maybe just a weed, with a thin, wispy ginger growth of seeds that can easily blow away on the wind.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Gapp replied excitedly. ‘In Nordwas we call it young-man’s-beard.’

  ‘See if you can find some,’ Wodeman urged. ‘It may help to slow Xilva’s bleeding.’

  The herb had been found, the infusion prepared, and the monotonous praying continued. Yet still, a day later, Methuselech remained doubled over in pain as his wounds healed over, and the forced
ride through the mountains was cheating him of the proper convalescence he so urgently needed. His normally healthy, brown face was now a sickly grey, and he spent most of the time slumped listlessly over his mount, allowing the horse to pick its own way after the others.

  But now Wodeman’s news at least made him smile. The priests, too, forgot their differences of the past day and beamed at each other in friendship and solidarity. Even the taciturn Paulus temporarily put away his disagreeable aspect and chuckled in anticipation.

  Only Bolldhe was unmoved. He remained apart from the company at their rear, gripping the haft of his broadaxe anxiously, while rueing such eagerness to consider their mountain trek as good as over. They could still be several days away from actually leaving the uplands, and anything could happen to them between now and then. He himself had travelled through more mountain ranges than he could remember and, despite what the others believed, he realized they had been lucky to encounter so little trouble so far.

  As they mounted their horses again to set off through the cleft, Bolldhe nervously glanced behind him. He could not be sure, but he thought he had caught sight of something moving back there. With a shake of his head, he spurred his horse on to rejoin the company.

  About two-thirds of the way up a sheer cliff that must have been over a thousand feet high, the path took them in a series of twists, turns, rises and falls towards the final ridge that curtained their view of the lowlands beyond. The craggy line of purple rock, hazy in the mid-afternoon heat, looked tantalizingly close, but they were all aware of the dangerous drop to their left. And the path ahead looked dangerous; they had needed to pick their way carefully over its unsure surface for the last mile or so, and from what they could make out ahead, it did not look as if it were about to improve for a long way. Soberly the company continued, well aware that this would not be a good place to get caught in.

  Suddenly a cry of alarm went up at the rear from the ever-vigilant Bolldhe. ‘The wolves! They’re right behind us.’

  There was an instant of stunned silence, then a flurry of activity. Nibulus squeezed his bulky horse past the other steeds to get nearer to Bolldhe, while the rest of them twisted around on their mounts to stare back down the track.

  ‘Not possible!’ Finwald breathed. ‘After last night, they would not dare . . .’

  ‘Very possible,’ Bolldhe corrected him. ‘These are mountain-wolves, and have been known to track and pull down a Rock Dragon. And the Leucrota won’t have forgot its defeat; it won’t leave us until we are dead.’

  Sure enough, the distant shapes of fleeting wolves could now be made out behind them, occasionally flitting out of the shadows of the cliff into the evening’s softened light. They were about a mile away, but moving fast.

  ‘Xhite,’ Nibulus cursed softly. ‘That’s all we need . . .’

  His veteran’s eyes swiftly and expertly surveyed their position. The path they followed was narrow indeed, and forced them to ride single file. This would have suited the big warrior fine if the cliff that rose up to their right were sheer, for he could have held the wolves back single-handedly, going one on one. But the cliff was not sheer, though too steep for their horses to climb, and also too steep to allow him to try out his Thresher. It was not too steep for wolves, however, and while the men and horses were strung out in a line, the wolves would be able to approach and attack them broadside, driving them against the edge of the path and the awful drop below.

  Lacking the manoeuvrability, speed and numbers of their pursuers, they would be overwhelmed. If he were to do anything to prevent that, the Peladane would have to act fast.

  ‘Xilva!’ he called out to his friend at the other end of the line. ‘Lead everyone further on, as fast as you can, and don’t stop till I catch up with you. But Paulus and Wodeman, I’ll need you two here.’

  It was the best he could think of under such duress.

  ‘Good luck, Fatman,’ Methuselech called back, spurring White-horse unsteadily forward along the rocky path. Zhang, bearing Bolldhe, did not wait to be told and, on his nimble, trowel-shaped hooves scrambled along the steep bank of scree to overtake all the other horses that were now hastening after Methuselech. The slough-horse felt no remorse whatsoever at leaving the Peladane’s hated, fancy warhorse to the mercy of the rapidly approaching wolf-pack.

  In the same instant, Paulus and Wodeman were ranged with Nibulus. Paulus dismounted now and crouched a few feet up the bank, covering Nibulus’s flank, his sword drawn and waiting eagerly. Though normally unwilling to risk his life on behalf of others, he was nevertheless gratified to have been acknowledged as the most skilful fighter among them. He and the Peladane had fought side by side on previous occasions, and though there was not much love between them, there was at least mutual respect; they were both expert killers, and together they could be deadly.

  And apart from all that, the mercenary was just itching to choke the life out of the wolf-pack leader. He still had a score to settle there.

  Wodeman had already anticipated how his services would be required, and positioned himself just in front of the two warriors, facing back the way they had come.

  ‘Take your time Wodeman,’ Nimbus instructed. ‘We’re right behind you. Why not do something scary, like that fire-wall thing Finwald did earlier?’

  Wodeman glanced back at him sharply. ‘I don’t know anything about such “fire-wall” stuff,’ he protested. ‘I’m a sorcerer!’

  Nibulus leaned forward menacingly on his saddle, ‘It’s just all magic, isn’t it? What’s the difference? If you can’t do something decent like that, then what bloody use are you to us?’

  Wodeman let out a slightly mad whimper of a laugh, unable to decide which appalled him more: the vengeful pack in front of him or the stupidity of the Peladane behind him. He had always known the man’s sort were ignorant, but this . . . ?

  ‘I will do the best I can,’ he replied. ‘Watch, and stay absolutely still.’

  The two warriors patiently did as they were bidden, and Wodeman slowly drew himself up to his full height. With eyes closed, he breathed in the cool mountain air, held his breath for a few seconds, then gradually released it from his lungs.

  Nibulus and Paulus looked at each other doubtfully as the wolves drew closer. Yet the sorcerer did not appear to be doing anything much to avert them.

  . . . the inward contemplation of silence . . .

  Then a slight wind began to stir from the path before them, carrying with it the snarling rumour of the nearing pack, hungry with the promise of blood. Wodeman yet remained as still as a tree, the only movement about him being the wind-ruffled stirring of his wolf’s-head cloak, and the slight flickering of his eyelids.

  . . . the stilling of the soul . . .

  The pack was now dangerously close. As the warriors readied their swords they could count at least a dozen of the beasts leaping nimbly towards them, with many more visible in the distance. Still the sorcerer stood ramrod-straight against the increasing breeze that swept through the gully.

  Paulus, his coat snapping in the wind, cast a black look at the mounted warrior at his side. ‘I truly hope that your faith in this shaman is well-founded, because he seems to be cutting it a bit fine for my liking.’

  Nibulus ignored him, biting his lip.

  . . . the submergence of the consciousness, all essential for the evocation of magic . . .

  Then, just as the first of the wolves, led by the Leucrota, bounded into clear view, Wodeman held out one hand and began to rotate his extended index finger rapidly before his face. A low, whistling moan rose from deep within his throat, blending perfectly with the sound of the wind that had nearly turned into a gale.

  All that could be heard now was its sudden shrieking as it whipped up dust and billowed out their cloaks. The air gradually became alive with inhuman voices that drowned out all other sounds. Nibulus held an arm up to his face as Wodeman concluded his somatic entreaty to the elements.

  Suddenly, with only scant seconds be
fore the pack reached them, a dark shape appeared between the men and their adversaries – a conical vortex of dust that manifested itself out of the very air to block the path.

  Just then the Leucrota leapt straight for Wodeman’s throat . . .

  Up ahead, Appa and Gapp were desperately coaxing their ponies on with promises, threats and copious amounts of cursing. Far beyond rode Finwald on the fleeter-footed Quintessa, following Bolldhe, whose impatient mount, Zhang, kept trying to squeeze itself past Methuselech, still in front.

  Through slitted, wind-moist eyes the southern mercenary tried to focus on the path ahead, but with each jolt of his stumbling horse, pain was clouding his vision. Trying to control the jittery Whitehorse was becoming an increasingly impossible task, and he felt he was slipping into a dream-world in which time slows down almost to the point of stopping, its passing marked only by each heart-jolting scare as both horse and rider nearly slid over the edge.

  Bolldhe, however, was intent on saving his own skin, one thing in his life he knew he was an expert at.

  Zhang needed no coaxing and indeed was given free rein by his rider, who trusted his mount completely to get them both out of this one. The slough-horse was bred to this sort of landscape, and knew far better what he was capable of than did his rider. Enthusiastically, and of one mind, both man and beast set about putting as much ground as possible between them and their doomed companions, unhindered by any scruples of guilt.

  And then they spotted about a score of ravening wolves massing ahead of them also, leaping down the path towards them.

  At about the same time that Bolldhe realized the whole company was trapped Methuselech went stumbling blindly onwards, oblivious to Bolldhe’s shouted warnings. Nibulus and the rearguard meanwhile were still fighting for their lives.

  Wodeman had successfully invited the Air Elemental amongst them, but from then on his control of the situation began to slide. Before it had time to comprehend its rashness, the Leucrota had launched itself headfirst into the very midst of the whirlwind.