by R. J. Grieve
Elorin was just beginning to think of using the commotion to slip away, when to her horror another band of Turog emerged from the trees behind her and rushed over to see what the fracas was about. They too stopped to see the fun, hooting and yelling with the rest.
Elorin’s hiding place was now virtually surrounded by Turog. She cowered down further into the undergrowth, drawing dead leaves over her as cover. The only possibility of escape was when the fight was over and they moved on. Frustratingly, the two combatants appeared to be fairly evenly matched. She could hear the clash and thud of their weapons and the shouts and jeers of the onlookers but the two sturdy, bowlegged creatures doggedly banged away at each other - and looked capable of doing so indefinitely. Elorin leaned back against the tree-trunk, trembling a little at the thought of what they would do to her if they found her, aware that her hiding place had only held muster because they were distracted by the fight. Suddenly a roar of approval went up from the crowd. She peeped round the tree in time to see the Turog with the axe hold up the severed head of his opponent. She looked quickly away, her heart beating faster. Now, surely they would go.
But they didn’t. Night had almost fallen and in the gloaming she could see that they were preparing to stay the night where they were. Blankets were being unrolled, fires lit and cooking pots produced. For one dreadful moment she wondered if the severed head was going to go into the pot but the victor was still keen on showing off his prowess by carrying round his trophy impaled on a spear. Several times Turog in search of firewood passed close by her, so close that she could smell their rank odour and see their yellow eyes. The others gathered round the pot, clearly keen on whatever revolting mess they had cooked in it, all grunting and barking in their own language.
As the darkness became complete, Elorin could see other fires studding the forest. A large body of Turog had been moving through the forest in small, dispersed groups and now had stopped for the night, infesting the area with their presence. Elorin could hardly believe her misfortune. If she waited until daylight they would certainly find her. Her only option was to wait until they were sleeping and then slip away under cover of darkness, giving the other watch fires as wide a berth a possible.
After consuming their food with evident relish, one by one the Turog fell into their blankets. Two guards were posted but thankfully they sat by the fire, their heads nodding. Quietly Elorin stood up and stretched her cramped legs. Then keeping a wary eye on the dozing guards, she glided through the trees, using the cover of the broad trunks until the firelight faded to a glimmer. No yell of discovery followed her. No sounds of the upheaval of pursuit. All was quiet. She stood behind a broad beech tree and risked a quick look back towards the fire. There were other watch fires glittering between the trees to both right and left but if she charted a course directly between them, all might yet be well.
Suddenly, she sensed, rather than saw, a movement behind her. A black shadow loomed out of the darkness and something grabbed her from behind. A hard hand clamped over her mouth and a powerful arm caught her round the waist, imprisoning her.
Chapter Fourteen
The City by the Shore
She started to struggle but a voice said quietly in her ear: “Don’t struggle and don’t make a sound.”
A familiar voice.
She found herself released and turned to face her captor.
“Celedorn!” she gasped, and had only just the presence of mind to keep her voice low. She gripped him by the shoulders as if to convince herself that he was real. He was looking more than usually barbaric. Several days dark growth of beard and torn and muddied clothes did nothing to add to his charms. But it scarcely mattered. The fact that she had another human being with her, filled her with a sense of relief so profound that she could find no words to express it.
“How did......?”
He placed his finger to his lips and leaning close, murmured: “Later. You were going in the wrong direction. You were heading deeper into the Turog encampment, not out of it. Follow me as quietly as you can.”
She picked up the basket that she had dropped in her surprise and followed him. Dressed as he was in his customary black, he melted into the darkness with the greatest of ease. He moved silently through the trees with a smooth, catlike grace that she found difficult to emulate. Despite the fact that his shoulders had felt reassuringly solid beneath her hands, she still half wondered if he was some kind of apparition, so unexpected was his presence. Her mind turned over all sorts of ideas but she was completely at a loss to account for his presence.
They were approaching one of the fires. The ground surrounding it was scattered with sleeping Turog, lying randomly like fallen leaves. There was no sign of any guards. The flames flickered their lurid light over the supine forms. To Elorin’s horror, Celedorn stepped over one of the unconscious Turog and signalled impatiently for her to do likewise. Heart pounding, she followed him, threading her way gingerly between the sleeping figures. For the first time she noticed that Celedorn’s sword was in his hand and knew that any unfortunate Turog that awoke, would not live long enough to call for his companions. One stirred and muttered in its sleep. Celedorn froze beside it, the tip of his sword just an inch from its throat but it didn’t wake. When they cleared the camp he did not stop but led the way rapidly into the dark silence of the forest.
When she caught up with him, Elorin said fiercely: “What are you trying to do? Scare me to death? You stepped right over them! If one had awoken I dread to think what would have happened!”
He shrugged indifferently. “We were surrounded. It was the only way out.”
“But......”
“If I had told you I was going to lead you directly across their camp, would you have come?”
Suddenly her anger evaporated and she gave a soft chuckle. “Very likely.”
She thought she saw the faint glimmer of a smile in response but then he raised his eyebrows sardonically and remarked: “Besides, for a moment back there I thought you were almost glad to see me.”
She wisely ignored the provocation and finally asked what she had been burning to ask. “How do you come to be here? I assumed you would be back at Ravenshold by now.”
The black brows drew together in the expression of displeasure she remembered well.
“I would indeed have been back at Ravenshold, if, just for once, you could do as you are told. But no, instead of staying with me as I had ordered, of all the stupid thing you could have chosen to do, you had to go onto the bridge.”
“It wasn’t by choice,” she snapped.
“It wasn’t by intelligence either,” he riposted.
Realising that she was going to lose that argument, she said: “That still does not explain why you are here.”
“I am here,” he explained in the voice of one goaded beyond reason, “because a few moments after you made your spectacular dive into the Harnor, the portion of the bridge I was standing on also gave way and I had little choice but to follow suit.”
She gasped, appalled by what he had told her. “I’m sorry. You were only on that bridge because you were trying to save me. Forgive me, Celedorn, you could have been killed.”
For once he looked a little nonplussed, as if such a direct apology disarmed him.
“Like you,” he continued, “I was swept down the river. I lost my hunting knife in the water and I nearly had to abandon my sword, as it was dragging me down, but I managed to get hold of one of the many logs in the river and it kept me afloat. I washed up in the same bay as you.”
“How did you know?”
“Your footprints were in the sand and I also found this in some brambles.” He withdrew a scrap of blue fabric from his pocket. “I set out to find you but you were following a rather erratic course and twice I lost your trail.”
“It was you!” she suddenly exclaimed.
“What do you mean?”
“You passed an open glade with a fallen obelisk in it that first night, didn’t you
?”
He nodded.
“I was hiding by the stone. I saw you - at least I didn’t know it was you. You are what has been tracking me. You are the one Kerrea warned me about.”
“Who is Kerrea?”
“She is a spirit of the woods.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
She held up the basket. “Explain that!” she said triumphantly, pleased for once to get the better of him, but her expression grew a little doubtful. “Kerrea said you had blood on your hands.”
“Very likely,” he replied sourly. Then comprehension dawned. “Oh, I caught a trout if that’s what she means. Is there food in that basket?”
They sat down at the base of a tree to share a meal and she told him of her meeting with Kerrea. He was obviously ravenously hungry but was restrained with the food, realising that it would have to last. She had been silent for a while, watching him eat.
“Why did you follow me? Why did you not just try to save yourself?”
He looked up, a hard expression in his pale eyes, his scars giving a wicked cast to his countenance. “I do not lose what is mine,” he declared flatly. “You are still my prisoner.”
She leaped to her feet, staring down at him angrily.
“I am not! The moment I fell from that bridge, I ceased being anyone’s prisoner.”
“That is only your opinion.”
“I had forgotten how aggravating you can be.”
“And I had forgotten what a handful you can be,” he retaliated. “Where were you headed anyway?”
“The Bay of the Pearl-Seekers. There might be fishermen from Serendar there.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you have said yet. If we are going to get there in one piece, you had better learn some obedience.”
She glared at him. “I was managing perfectly well before you came along.”
“Oh really? I take it that those Turog surrounding you were a figment of my imagination?”
Suddenly the fight went out of her. Her shoulders sagged and she sat down again, somehow a gesture of defeat.
If he felt any compassion for her, he didn’t show it but merely remarked: “We should get going now. I’d like as much distance as possible between us and those vermin before daybreak. Then we will find some place to rest for a while.” He stretched tiredly. “I haven’t slept in three nights. A few hours sleep wouldn’t go amiss.”
He led her swiftly through the forest, heading relentlessly northwards. Occasionally he stopped and listened intently but he rarely spoke. Even when the grey light of dawn arrived, he did not stop. The daylight lifted a soft blanket of mist from the ground that floated mysteriously between the trees at knee-height, giving the impression of wading through a softly drifting sea of cobwebs. He halted abruptly.
“I don’t like this mist. I can’t see the ground. The Turog, as you know, have a nasty habit of digging pits to see what they can catch. Perhaps this would be a good time to rest.”
She shivered. “It’s getting colder. I suppose lighting a fire is out of the question?”
“It’s too great a risk.” He looked at the sky. “The wind is rising and I can smell rain in the air. We must find somewhere that gives shelter.”
A little river had cut a mossy gully through the rocks on which the trees grew. A steep slope strewn with last autumn’s leaves, led down to a jumble of mossy boulders through which the stream gurgled and chuckled. The sides of the gully were rocky and after questing about for a while, Celedorn found what he was looking for - a shallow indentation in the rock face just deep enough to be called a cave. It was not ideal, but adequate to shield them from the worst of the wind and rain. Dark clouds rolled above the treetops and a few heavy drops fell. The dry leaves swirled and scurried nervously before the freshening breeze.
“This will have to do,” he said. “The heavens are about to open and there is no time to look for anything better.”
They shared some oatcakes in the shelter of the overhang and she told him more of her conversation with Kerrea.
“I thought the spirits were just a legend,” he remarked, “just tales from the Chronicles of the Old Kingdom, but no one really knows what still exists in the Forsaken Lands. They stretch for hundreds of miles north of the Harnor and no one has ever explored them and returned to tell the tale. It is rumoured that here and there, fragments of the Old Kingdom still exist in defiance of the Destroyer, but I think it unlikely. At least our path to the bay of Skerris-morl will not take us very deep into these lands. Our main problem will be to avoid the Turog. I suspect that the ones we encountered last night were on their way to join the army facing your Prince. Eskendria has never encountered such a threat. Not since the fall of the Old Kingdom has such a horde been gathered. I would guess that your Prince is on his way to Serendar to try to re-forge the old alliance of the Three Kingdoms. Eskendria cannot stand alone - not this time.”
“Yet you do nothing to help.”
He looked at her coldly. “I kill any Turog within my reach. That is enough. I would not lift a finger to help the King of Eskendria though he pleaded with me on his knees.”
She looked at him curiously, sensing that there was more behind that remark than there appeared to be, but she dared not question him, for he had retreated from her into some cold, bitter place where she was not permitted to follow.
She turned her face up to the sky. “Look, it’s started to rain. I’m going down to the river to wash my hands before the rain becomes heavy. I’ll be back in a moment.”
She left him sitting, dark and brooding, under the overhang and climbed down the steep bank to the river. When she returned he was asleep, stretched on his side with his head pillowed on his arm, his left hand resting lightly on his sword hilt. The grey eyes were closed and she realised for the first time, that under the ragged, black beard and fierce scars, he looked tired. She sat down beside him and watched as the raindrops falling beyond the cave thickened to a steady silver curtain, hissing down, washing soil and leaves down the slope to the stream. Still he slept, his breathing deep and even. After a while the hypnotic effect of the rain and the lack of sleep of the night before, took their toll and her eyelids began to droop. She curled up beside him, reassured by the safety of his presence and gave in to slumber.
When she awoke the rain had stopped. It was utterly dark and cold and somehow she sensed that she was alone. In panic she reached out her hand but it encountered nothing but the basket. The thought flashed through her mind that he had abandoned her. A gust of cold, damp air blew into the shelter, bringing with it the musty smell of moist earth and leaves. A black shadow suddenly appeared at the entrance to the cave. She gasped with fright but Celedorn’s voice greeted her out of the darkness.
“Don’t panic. It’s only me.”
“Where did you go?”
“Up into the forest above to see if there was any sign of Turog watch fires. So far we are in luck. The cloud-cover is dense tonight, so the moon is hidden and there is no possibility of travelling in the darkness. It’s as black as pitch out there. I nearly missed the cave on the way back.”
He sat down beside her.
“I wish you wouldn’t disappear off like that,” she complained.
She saw a flash of white teeth in the darkness. “I’m flattered that you missed me.” On receiving only a discouraging silence in response to that sally, he added: “I thought I’d be back before you awoke.”
She hugged her knees, trying not to shiver. “I’d give anything to be warm again.”
“Come here,” he commanded and she sensed him hold out his arm in the darkness. She peered at him suspiciously. Interpreting her reaction despite the darkness, he snapped: “I realise that the idea of coming within a yard of me fills you with repugnance but it will at least give you some warmth. Besides, I don’t actually bite.”
“No,” she replied, moving reluctantly closer, “but you do bark.”
She felt his arm go around her shoulders and made no resista
nce as he drew her against him.
His solidity and warmth were reassuringly human in the cold, eerie darkness and after a little while she relaxed enough to lean her head against his shoulder.
They sat in silence staring into the darkness, listening to the soft patter as the wind shook raindrops from the trees, for the moment no dissension between them.
The King of Serendar was expecting the arrival of Prince Andarion and consequently he was greeted with the full splendour due to his rank. As the Eskendrian delegation descended from the gentle hills towards the broad coastal plain, they could see that Sar-es-Marn - the City by the Shore - was decked out in all her legendary beauty. The city was situated in the curve of a wide bay, its houses and towers gleaming white against the backdrop of intensely blue sea. On a slight promontory, the citadel’s massive white walls rose sheer to the crenellated battlements from which flew the golden pennant of Serendar.
Andarion halted the convoy to look his fill, glad of the fact that his arm was no longer in a splint. King Orovin was younger than Eskendria’s king, only in his forties, but already he had a reputation for cunning. Andarion knew his arguments must survive keen scrutiny. The King already knew the reason for his visit and the chances were that he had already made up his mind on the issue. Eskendria and Serendar were traditionally allies, linked not only by their geographical proximity but by trade, culture and marriage. But lately there had been a certain coolness emanating out of Sar-es-Marn: nothing really tangible but a slight chill in the air, a slight unwillingness to co-operate. Eskendria had tackled Celedorn alone because King Orovin had prevaricated when asked to help. The problem of the mountain brigands was mutual to both countries, but without exactly refusing the request, the King had been frustratingly elusive until Eskendria could wait no longer. Vaguely, Andarion wished that his brother was by his side. Sarrick’s common sense and practicality were always reassuring. In contrast, Relisar was of little use, always with his head stuck in a book, always off on some flight of fancy. What Andarion had to achieve could not be brought about by spells or incantations. What he needed was a strong, solid military alliance.