by Roger Taylor
Hawklan looked out over the battlefield again. The snow was not falling quite as heavily, and an onshore breeze was beginning to blow. In the distance the sky was lightening, and here and there small golden swashes of sunlight were glittering on the sea. The horizon was true and straight, undisturbed by any unnatural intrusion. ‘Winter's ending,’ Hawklan said, swinging up into the saddle. ‘And we ride together still, Serian, to His very throne.'
Returning to the camp, Hawklan made straight for his tent. As he approached, Andawyr came to the entrance. He too looked tired, but his eyes seemed to be brighter than ever.
'I've been chased away from the hospital tent with orders to rest,’ Hawklan said
'Rightly so,’ Andawyr said unsympathetically. ‘You should listen to your own advice more.'
Hawklan pulled a wry face. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But while I'm confined to quarters will you arrange a meeting of all senior officers—a Council of War—first thing tomorrow morning. And gently with Urthryn, please, Andawyr. My brief meetings with him so far have been a little ... fraught ... to be generous about it.'
Andawyr opened his mouth to reply but a low, pitiful moan from inside the tent interrupted him. He turned to let Hawklan enter.
Inside, resting in a small makeshift hammock slung off four poles, lay Gavor. His eyes were closed and he was very still. Curled upon the floor nearby was Dar-volci.
Hawklan looked at his old friend sadly. Andawyr came to his side.
'It's bad isn't it?’ Andawyr said.
Hawklan nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, soberly. ‘I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before.'
A single black eye flickered weakly, and Gavor uttered another low groan.
'It's the complications that are doing the damage,’ Hawklan went on, crouching down to be closer to the listless form. His face was lined with concentration, and when he spoke his voice was heavy with concern.
'You see, Andawyr, after the fall, he began to develop symptoms of malingering, but I suspect now that it's turned into severe and chronic hypochondria. I think it could be terminal.'
The eye opened wide and glared malevolently. Hawklan and Andawyr smiled hypocritically in reply.
Gavor groaned again—loudly. ‘I don't know which hurts the most,’ he declaimed. ‘The pain of my terrible injury or the cruel indifference of my friends.'
'I told you. You've only sprained one of your chest muscles a little,’ Hawklan said, flopping down on to his bunk. ‘Your pectoral muscle to be precise. A couple of days and some exercises and you'll be good as new.'
'You weren't so callous when you pulled me out of that snowdrift,’ Gavor said, his tone injured.
'I thought all that blood was yours, that's why,’ Hawklan answered, closing his eyes and turning his back on the raven.
Gavor chuckled at the memory of his attack on the two Uhriel, then he groaned again. ‘It hurts when I laugh,’ he said.
'Go for a walk,’ Hawklan said curtly. ‘The amount you're eating, you'll soon be too fat for your wings to carry you, sprain or no sprain.'
Gavor's head shot up indignantly. Then, turning to Andawyr, he said, ‘Would you be so kind as to give me a wing down, dear boy, I'd hate my suffering to disturb our great leader.’ As Andawyr lifted him out of the hammock he added plaintively, ‘I'll be out in the cold if anyone needs me.'
'Gavor, clear off, I'm trying to get some sleep,’ Hawklan replied.
Gavor muttered something under his breath and stumped over to Dar-volci. ‘Come on, rat, let's go round to the kitchens; see if they've anything for sprains.'
Dar-volci uncoiled himself, stretched languorously then sat on his haunches to scratch his stomach. ‘Good idea, crow,’ he said, dropping down on to all-fours again. ‘I'm feeling like something medicinal myself. You can do your bird impressions for me as we walk.'
Hawklan turned his head and stared in disbelief.
* * * *
Slowly through the day, the camp changed, becoming quieter and more ordered as time pushed the nightmare of the battle inexorably further away. Cadmoryth died as the tide began to ebb, as did several of the Morlider. Others lived and died to different rhythms. The snow stopped and the sky cleared, and the day ended with long sunset shadows cutting obliquely through the ranks of tents.
Hawklan slept.
The following day began as the previous had ended, with a clear sky. A brilliant sun shone low into the camp and the snow-covered landscape echoed its light stridently.
A gentle shaking awoke Hawklan and he smiled as he opened his eyes to see Gavor tugging at his sleeve and, beyond him, the sky, blue and unblemished, visible through the slightly opened entrance of the tent.
Then he closed his eyes and lay back, his face pained momentarily.
'I thought I was at home,’ he said, sitting up and swinging his legs off the bunk. ‘A summer's day ahead with fields to walk, flowers and blossoms to smell...'
'Sorry, dear boy,’ Gavor said repentantly.
Hawklan reached out and a laid his hand on the raven's iridescent plumage. ‘Hardly your fault, old friend,’ he said, smiling again, then, more matter of fact, ‘How's the wing this morning?'
Gavor extended it gently. ‘Creaking,’ he said. ‘But better. I think the knees are going though, with all this walking.'
'Knee,’ corrected Hawklan.
'Spare me the pedantry at this time of morning, dear boy,’ Gavor said, jumping down from the bunk and landing with a grunt. ‘Just because it's not there doesn't mean I can't feel it. And it's stiff.'
The statement was definitive and Hawklan did not pursue it.
'Well, can you manage a walk to the mess tent?’ he asked, standing.
Gavor inclined his head pensively, then with an awkward flapping, bounced up on to the bed and thence on to Hawklan's shoulder.
He was still sitting there an hour later when Hawklan rode across to the nearby camp that the Muster had established. As they approached, a small crowd began to form at the edge of the camp. Gavor started to preen himself.
The crowd, however, seemed to be interested predominantly in Serian, Hawklan himself being greeted with an uneasy politeness.
As on the battlefield, Serian led him to Urthryn.
The Ffyrst's tent was larger and more elaborate than the undecorated field tents that stood in ranks around it, but not ostentatiously so. An officer of some kind stood outside it; no mean fighter, Hawklan judged, probably a bodyguard, and vaguely familiar.
He dismounted and introduced himself.
'I saw you on the field, Lord,’ replied the officer eyeing Gavor narrowly.
Hawklan looked at him, ‘Ah,’ he said diffidently after a moment, ‘I remember. I pulled you off your horse, didn't I?'
The man nodded, then the question burst out of him. ‘You lifted me out of the saddle as if I was a child! I've been thinking about it ever since. I've never felt anything like it. How did you do it?'
Hawklan laughed at the man's unrestrained curiosity, though not unkindly. ‘Don't concern yourself. You handled your lance well. I've had remarkable teachers in my time.’ Then, more seriously: ‘If your wish to learn overrides your sense of indignity at being unhorsed by an Orthlundyn, then you're halfway there already. If time allows we'll talk further.'
Before the man could pursue the matter, the entrance to the tent opened and the figure of Urthryn appeared. He started a little at the sight of Hawklan and Gavor.
The officer saluted and Hawklan bowed.
'May we speak before the meeting, Ffyrst?’ he said.
Urthryn looked at him enigmatically for a moment, then he nodded to the guard and with a slight bow ushered Hawklan into the tent.
Inside, Urthryn offered Hawklan a plain wooden seat, taking a similar one himself. The two men looked at one another in awkward silence for a few moments.
'I came to thank you for recalling your people from the pursuit of the Morlider,’ Hawklan said eventually. ‘In the heat of the moment, my asking ... lacked ta
ct ... as did my conduct in the hospital tent. I know now that you and your people suffered dreadful losses at Creost's hands in the south. Losses that cried out—still cry out—for vengeance.'
Urthryn was silent for a moment, watching his unexpected guest carefully. He seemed to be struggling with an inner debate. ‘You have a gift for understatement, Orthlundyn,’ he said at last, his voice angry. ‘You charge through our ranks on one of our own horses, I note—disarm two of my best men as if they were fractious children, order me to call back the Line from full pursuit. Then you chase me to my bed when you can scarcely stand yourself. Your conduct lacked tact indeed...’ He stopped suddenly and looked down at his hands. The sound of bustling activity outside filtered into the silence.
When he looked up, his face was distressed but his manner was calmer. ‘Every time I close my eyes, I'm walking through the mangled corpses on that beach. Corpses as far as you can see. Young and old, men and women. And horses. And ... seagulls everywhere, screeching and squabbling, I hear them too.’ He put his hands to his ears uneasily. Hawklan resisted the temptation to reach out to him. Such a man, he knew, understood his own pain and needed to face it unaided.
'If it's not that, then it's the relentless pounding of the journey we made, shaking my whole body even yet. Pushing myself beyond all pain and hurt and pulling the others behind me to avenge all that. Riding as Muster riders have never ridden before. And then to arrive and find we were too late.'
His face contorted and he leaned to one side slightly, swinging his arm low as if seizing something. He clenched his fist tight to stop the gesture. ‘I'd like to use those Morlider prisoners in the Helangai,’ he said savagely. ‘Smash and crush them. Let them suffer as we and our kin suffered.'
Hawklan's eyes widened in distress at this outburst but he said nothing.
The spate ended as abruptly as it had begun. ‘I'm sorry...’ Urthryn said. ‘You understand, don't you? To have such things happen to those in your charge can hardly be borne.'
Hawklan nodded.
Urthryn looked at him intently. ‘You owe me no thanks for stopping the pursuit,’ he said quietly. ‘It's I who should thank you for interceding and preventing an atrocity that would have stained us forever. As for the hospital, well, we were all sick at heart there. I'd hoped, twenty years ago, to have seen the last of such handiwork.'
Hawklan relaxed into his hard chair. Urthryn caught the movement and, for the moment eased of his burden, smiled slightly. Hawklan responded and raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
Urthryn's smile widened and he scratched his head: another small homely gesture to distance further his recent painful outburst. ‘I've never seen an outlander who could sit on one of our camp chain and look comfortable before. But then I've never seen anyone—anyone—ride like you did towards that...’ he waved a hand as he searched for a word. ‘That screeching monstrosity and those abominations riding it.’ He warmed to the subject. ‘It was a pity your arrows didn't bring them all down. As for your crow ... Gravy, here ... well...'
Gavor leaned forward indignantly.
'No,’ Hawklan said quickly, laughing in spite of himself, and shaking his head. ‘Some wiser impulse guided my aim. If I'd killed their steed I'd have deprived them of the option of fleeing and they'd have destroyed us all for sure. Gavor's attack panicked both them and Usgreckan into flight. We were fortunate that calmer counsels didn't prevail.'
Urthryn looked doubtful but did not pursue the matter. His earlier rage seemed to have ebbed totally. It would return from time to time, Hawklan knew; that could not be avoided. But each time, it would be less.
'Sylvriss was right,’ Urthryn said suddenly. ‘You're a remarkable man.’ He leaned forward confidentially. ‘Are you sure you don't have Riddinvolk stock in you somewhere? The Orthlundyn are notoriously careless about their bloodlines, you know.'
'So Agreth has mentioned,’ Hawklan replied, then, deflecting the conversation, ‘Is your daughter well?’ he asked.
Urthryn smiled contentedly. ‘She was when we left,’ he said. ‘Blooming, in fact.’ His smile became sadder. ‘Despite the news we'd had to bring from the beach.'
'Perhaps when one of your messengers returns to Dremark, you'd tell her I'm whole again and that I'll be ever in her debt, and in the debt of her child,’ Hawklan said.
Urthryn looked puzzled and a little suspicious, but he nodded. ‘Well, I can't pretend to understand what you mean by that,’ he said. ‘But bewilderment is also becoming my normal condition these days. Of course, I'll send her any message you want.’ Then, standing, he held out his hand.
'Now we've made our small peace, shall we ride to the Council of War together? See if we can make the future better than the past?'
* * * *
The tent used by the Orthlundyn as a Command Centre was barely large enough to accommodate the many people who gathered at Andawyr's behest, but eventually everyone found somewhere to sit, stand or lean.
Andawyr, Hawklan, Urthryn and Loman sat at one end facing the others. By common consent, and to the quiet mockery of his countrymen, Dacu found himself given charge of the meeting.
Unexpectedly, Urthryn asked to speak first. There was a profound stillness in the tent as he told of the great gathering of the General Muster and of the terrible destruction wrought on it by Creost's cunning.
'Cadmoryth and the fishermen repaired two of the Morlider's own boats and sailed northward on who knows what impulse. They offered no reason, nor made any debate, they just hoisted sail and left. I haven't the words to honour them sufficiently.’ He looked down, unable to proceed for a moment.
'Then Oslang told us we should travel north, and within days we met Agreth.’ He looked across at his adviser. ‘An epic journey also, Line Leader, to be honoured in due time,’ he said. Then, turning back to his audience, ‘All else, you know.'
He paused again. ‘Save this.’ He straightened up. ‘Our loss on that beach all but tore the heart from our people. While the fishermen showed us the way by pursuing the enemy, we celebrated our grief in petty bickering.’ He turned to Hawklan, his face pained. ‘Only one in six of our houses rode to this field; forty or so squadrons. And, thanks to our debating, even we arrived too late to spare some of your people. Others may join us, I don't know. I've sent the news of the happenings here to all, but travelling's difficult and we left the Moot in great disarray.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I'm sorry.'
'You reproach yourself too much, Ffyrst,’ Andawyr said before Hawklan could reply.
'I'm no longer Ffyrst,’ Urthryn said. ‘I doubt the office can exist in such turmoil.'
Andawyr waved the comment aside. ‘Names, titles, offices,’ he said, almost contemptuously. ‘You are here, Urthryn of the Decmilloith of Riddin, Son of the Riddinvolk. You came to fulfil the duty of the Muster and defend your land, and none could have done more from what I hear. That circumstances prevailed against you was none of your doing. You owe yourself no reproach. We've all failed in different ways and paid our different prices before we came to this place. The only crime we can commit now is to drag these failings behind us instead of moving forward. You command the loyalty of your forty squadrons and they've been spared for a future time.'
Urthryn opened his mouth to speak, but Andawyr's hand came up to silence him.
'With Dar Hastuin by his side, hurt though he was, not ten, fifty, a hundred times your forty squadrons would have prevailed against Creost if Cadmoryth hadn't struck him down and given us the chance to tear the control of the islands from him. Atelon and I were almost spent when that happened. The fisherman and the bird tipped the balance and gave us the day.'
He leaned back in his seat and spread out his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘And if you'd been with us, how would even your horses have fared when Dar Hastuin's Viladrien was destroyed?'
Urthryn nodded reluctantly. The Muster's only casualties had occurred in the panic that ensued when the sight and sound of that awful destruction had reached them. He stood
silent for some time.
No one sought to speak.
'Very well,’ he said eventually. ‘You're right, Cadwanwr, though the rightness quiets my head more than my belly. Perhaps time will attend to that.’ He turned to Hawklan. ‘I place myself and my riders at your command. Those who come after must make their own decisions.'
Hawklan bowed. ‘Place them at the command of Loman,’ he said. ‘The army is his. My task is to find and waken the first of the Guardians, Ethriss.'
Urthryn gaped. ‘How ... ?’ he began.
'I can answer none of your questions, Ffyrst,’ Hawklan said, before he could continue. ‘That would be to destroy us all. Our army will oppose His army, the Guardians and the Cadwanwr will oppose the Uhriel, but only Ethriss can oppose Sumeral and only I can find and waken him.’ He looked at Urthryn intently.
Urthryn turned to Loman who returned his gaze steadily.
'Loman built this army, brought it through the mountains, fought this battle,’ Hawklan went on. ‘If you'd help us, then you must go with him to Fyorlund and join with the Lords to assault Derras Ustramel itself. If not, then perhaps you'd give us supplies to help us on our way—we're already woefully short.'
Urthryn swayed, momentarily disorientated by the urgency and strangeness of Hawklan's words set against the endless, pounding familiarity of his recent journey and the sight of the man-made carnage on the battlefield. Then other, stranger, scenes came to him: the colourful flotilla of empty boats eerily approaching the shore, and the great wave that swept away so many riders and divided the rest into squabbling bands; then the glaring brilliance and tumult of the dying Viladrien, and the fearful screaming of Usgreckan. In some way he could not fathom, he knew that all true choices were gone. And these people had saved his land.