by Roger Taylor
The chorus in his head changed. He sensed the Alphraan faltering but, out of the din, a tiny warning whisper darted towards him and, without thinking, he spun round, pressing himself flat against the wall. At the same instant the bud opened and spat out a stream of dark yellow fluid.
He watched in horror as the fluid landed on the floor. It hissed and bubbled for a moment and then sank out of sight into the hole it was dissolving. He tightened his grip of the sword and looked back at the bud. It had closed again but was moving from side to side as if searching.
The Vrwystin's song changed again and Hawklan sensed a subtle stirring amongst the birds.
Still leaning against the wall, he raised the sword to strike off the bud. As he did so, a fine tendril emerged from the wall and wrapped itself around his other hand. He started at the sudden contact and was about to bring the sword down to sever it when he felt it begin to tighten.
With a frantic tug he tore his hand out of the glove. The tendril withdrew into the wall, cutting the glove in half.
Hawklan jumped away from the wall desperately, but when he turned he found himself staring into the mouth of the bud. It had a disgustingly voluptuous quality that both repelled and held him.
It was opening, he knew, but he knew also that his perceptions were racing far beyond the ability of his body to move. He would not be able to respond quickly enough. The image of the dissolving, bubbling rock, rose to cloud his vision and impede him further with its terror.
Suddenly, the bud juddered away from him. Something had seized it. Hawklan heard the familiar snap of closing teeth.
Dar-volci!
Hawklan's mind cleared. The felci had his powerful foreclaws about the stem of the bud and was trying to stretch it out and bite it. His fur was standing on end, his eyes were savage, and his lips were curled back to reveal his terrible teeth as Hawklan had never seen them before. It was an awesome sight.
For all its seeming dormancy, however, the Vrwystin was not defenceless. The stem writhed away from the felci's murderous attack and the bud tried to turn towards him. The movement jerked Dar-volci off his feet and it was obvious that the response was far more powerful than he had expected.
'The tendrils, Hawklan,’ he shouted making another snapping lunge at the twisting stem. ‘Cut the tendrils.'
The bud spat out another stream of fluid which Dar-volci only avoided by releasing the stem and leaping into the air. As he landed he seized the stem again just as it was retreating into the body of the Vrwystin. He tugged at it savagely, but as he twisted round to bite it, his grip slipped and it retreated again.
Hawklan lifted the sword to help in the ensuing struggle, but the felci was twisting and turning with incredible speed, his jaws snapping savagely, while the bud was writhing and spitting in vicious counter-attacks as it tried to withdraw. The combat was one of instinctive animal responses and was far too fast for Hawklan to intervene without risk of injuring the felci.
'The tendrils, man!’ Dar-volci shouted again angrily in a momentary pause.
Abruptly, the Alphraan's voice rang out in a plaintive cry. ‘We are failing, Hawklan,’ it said. ‘It is too strong. We cannot maintain its awful dream. Strike now, in the name of pity...'
Hawklan lifted the sword to hack through the quivering tendrils, but as he did so the Vrwystin's clamour changed again, and the sleeping birds suddenly rose up into the chamber in a swirling shrieking cloud, their blank yellow eyes wide.
The bud also seemed to gain new strength and Dar-volci, clinging onto the stem desperately, began to be drawn inexorably into the body of the Vrwystin. Some of the tendrils separated from the wall and began to wave about as if searching.
Hawklan swung the sword. It cut through several of the tendrils, but Hawklan felt a resistance seemingly quite disproportionate to their thickness and number.
He hacked through another cluster. The screaming of the birds around him intensified, though mingled with it he could now hear the Alphraan's song. Some quality in it, however, told him that while they were still restraining the creature, a dreadful price was being paid, and soon they must fail utterly.
The birds in their erratic uncontrolled flight were beginning to crash into him painfully.
Dar-volci was still heaving on the steadily retreating stem, and swearing profoundly. Suddenly the stem flicked loose making him stagger backwards. As he scrabbled to recover his balance the stem flicked again and coiled a loop around him.
Several of the birds collided with Hawklan simultaneously, sending him staggering.
Dar-volci cried out as the coil began to tighten.
'Pull Dar!’ came a raucous shout from above. Hawklan looked up as he clambered back to his feet, flailing his arms against the blundering birds. Tumbling down from the high ledge was Gavor. He seemed to be falling like an untidy black bundle, but even amid the turmoil part of Hawklan soared at the consummate flying skill of the great raven as his seemingly disordered fall carried him unhindered through the swirling mass of yellow-eyed birds.
With a great cry of pain and fury, Dar-volci drove his back legs into the now pulsing body of the Vrwystin and heaved on the stem with one final effort. Slowly the stem was drawn out. Abruptly, Gavor's tumbling fall became a swooping glide. With his great black wings extended, he arced around steeply to avoid the rock face then, with his legs swung forward, he skimmed past Dar-volci like a rushing wind.
His glittering black spurs sliced effortlessly through the outstretched stem.
Dar-volci tumbled to the floor and, with a cry, scrambled to one side to avoid the gushing stream of venom that flowed from the severed stem. But suddenly the creature was awake and in mortal agony. Its appalling will filled the chamber. There was a terrible cry from the Alphraan, and then the eyes of the birds were bright, horrible, and focused, and their milling chaos malignly purposeful.
For a fearful moment, Hawklan stood motionless, paralysed by the dreadful clamour of the hateful language that came washing into his mind. But as the birds began to converge on him, their very movement seemed to break him free and with a great roar he slashed through the remaining tendrils with one single wind-rushing blow.
The birds swept up the roof of the chamber, as if each part of the creature was seeking to avoid the death that was coming to it from the centre. The sound of their wings beating frenziedly against the unyielding rock filled the chamber, then there was silence, both in the chamber and in Hawklan's mind, and the birds began falling through the garish globelight like a ghastly, thudding, snowstorm.
Hawklan slid to the floor, shaking.
Slowly other, commonplace, sounds impinged on the silence. Looking up, Hawklan saw Dacu and the others scrambling along the ledges and down the ladders towards him.
Gavor landed on his shoulder. ‘Splendid stuff, dear boy,’ he said, poking him energetically with his wooden leg. ‘Did you see that?’ He extended his wings and uttered a gleeful, ‘Wheee ... And with a damaged pectoral as well.’ Then, leaning forward, ‘You all right, Dar?'
'I think so,’ said Dar-volci standing up and running an anxious foreclaw over himself. ‘That was timely intervention, crow.'
'My pleasure entirely, rat,’ Gavor said headily. ‘That was a rare piece of tulip wrestling you were doing, but I thought I'd better help when it got a little fraught at the end.'
Dar-volci gave a grunting chuckle, but winced as he dropped back on to all-fours. Hawklan crawled forward and ran his hands over him gently.
After a moment, Dar-volci started to nuzzle his arm and rumble with pleasure. Hawklan smiled. ‘You've got the same as I had,’ he pronounced. ‘Bruised ribs. They'll not be much fun, but they'll mend in a day or so.'
Then the others were around them, a panting Andawyr last. ‘Are you all right, Dar?’ he said, crouching down and taking the felci's pointed head gently in his two hands.
Dar-volci bared his massive teeth in a chattering grin of pleasure and triumph by way of answer, then clambered up the Cadwanwr and draped hi
mself around his neck.
'Finish that thing, Hawklan,’ Andawyr said savagely, nodding towards the leaking remains of the Vrwystin. ‘I shudder to think what price has been paid to create and keep it, but it'll take no further toll of anyone or anything.'
With a few strokes, Hawklan hacked the remains of the creature to pieces.
Tybek looked at the pitted surface of the rock. ‘These root things go right into the rock,’ he said. ‘Can it grow again from them?'
Andawyr shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They're not roots. It's not a plant. It's a living, intelligent, creature. Or rather, was. Now it's truly dead and Oklar's greater vision is blinded. I doubt he'll consider it worthwhile to attempt to breed another. All we have to fear now are ordinary mortal eyes spying our travels.'
'Ah...’ The faint sound echoed round the chamber. It was weak but it was full of relief at this unequivocal reassurance by the Cadwanwr. Hawklan grimaced in self-reproach at his forgetfulness. ‘Alphraan,’ he cried out. ‘You're hurt. Let me help you.'
Even through the weakness in the voice, a hint of amusement could be felt. ‘You cannot help us more, Hawklan,’ it said gratefully. ‘We take joy in your triumph over the Vrwystin. It is an old wrong righted and a small repayment for the return of our Heartland. But we were too few and the battle against its will in that awful dream has spent us utterly. We must join the Great Song that will come to fill these mountains as the families spread forth.'
The words, however, were but a shadow of the true content of the Alphraan's speech. The sounds were rich with both sorrow and happiness, deep gratitude for deeds done, and stirring excitement for unknowable things yet to come. To the hearers it was almost unbearably poignant.
'Damn you, Alphraan, no,’ Hawklan shouted, running forward towards the middle of the chamber. ‘You mustn't die. Let me help.'
'You cannot,’ said the voice, growing fainter. ‘Go now to destroy Him, healer. We're beyond you. Our parting here is not as your dying though it is both as sad and as joyous. We must go now to ensure that the way is truly marked.'
Fainter still.
'We could not have gone beyond the mountains, Hawklan. Grieve not. The Song prospers. Farewell, Hawklan. Ethriss's chosen ... Farewell sky prince ... felci ... blessed felci ... light be with you ... all.'
And, with a note like the infinitely dwindling resonance of a delicately struck bell, they were gone. Hawklan stood gazing round the silent chamber, his eyes glistening in the brightness and his face drawn and pained with the aching emptiness that the parting had left inside him.
No one spoke. For a while, ordinary words would be little more than a desecration of the subtle silence that the Alphraan had left.
Isloman was the first to move. He looked around the chamber, and rubbed his arms nervously. ‘We must go,’ he said in a throaty whisper. ‘This place is bad.'
Hawklan nodded and, slowly sheathing his sword, looked at Andawyr. The Cadwanwr wiped his hand across his eyes and then rubbed his forehead. He looked up at the dark mouths of the tunnel entrance gaping into the chamber.
'None of these tunnels are natural,’ he said eventually. ‘They run with no regard for Theowart's will. It's harder to understand the way.'
'Let's just go upwards, then,’ Tybek said urgently.
Hawklan shot him an angry look, but Andawyr shrugged. ‘It'll suffice,’ he said. ‘Far be it from me to dispute the worth of such promptings. You've been underground a long time.'
It took them quite a time to climb up to one of the higher tunnels, having first to retrieve their packs and then to negotiate several ladders which were far from safe. There were also various ledges which Andawyr, in particular, would have preferred to be substantially wider now that he was no longer driven by the combination of excitement and concern that had carried him downwards so quickly.
'Let me rest a moment,’ he said, puffing with both relief and effort when they reached their destination. ‘I think I'll know better where to go when I'm free of the light of those appalling globes.’ He looked at Isloman. ‘You say he filled Vakloss with those things?'
Isloman nodded.
Andawyr shook his head in pained disbelief. ‘Your poor people,’ he said to Dacu.
'I don't understand,’ Dacu said, slightly perplexed.
'Nor do I fully,’ Andawyr said, sitting down with a grunt. ‘It's one of many things we'll need to think about when this is over.’ He shook his head reflectively. ‘Only He would think to use light as a weapon.’ Then, more positively, ‘Still, you're free of them now. I doubt their effects were permanent.'
Dacu did not pursue the matter, and a brief hand signal silenced Tirke before he began. Whatever Andawyr did not know, he could not tell. Questioning was therefore pointless.
After a brief rest, they moved on again. Once away from the globes, Andawyr did indeed become more confident in his leading, though it was still obviously harder for him than it had been, and although there were far fewer junctions and branches than before, he paused at each for much longer.
Anxious to be above ground now that their presence would not be so easily detected, the members of the group became increasingly fretful at these delays.
'It can't be helped,’ Andawyr said eventually, cutting through the unspoken criticism. ‘These tunnels follow the logic of the men who made them and they ring with pain. I need your help, not your foot-shuffling criticism. You Orthlundyn at least should...'
His protest was ended prematurely as a massive concussion followed by a rumbling roar suddenly thundered through the tunnel. Dust swirled up from the floor and fragments fell from the roof.
Instinctively everyone reached out to the solid rock walls for support, but they too were shaking, and when after a few seconds the rumbling faded away, one or two of the group were looking decidedly unwell.
'What was that?’ Hawklan said breathlessly, looking at Isloman.
Before Isloman could reply, a warm acrid blast of air blew along the tunnel, carrying with it more dust and fragments.
Hawklan turned again to Isloman when the strange wind had passed.
'We must be near a working face,’ Isloman said. ‘That was a quarrying explosion, but ... I'd have expected to hear people working.’ He shook his head. ‘And it was so powerful...'
More concussions interrupted his conjecture, though they were less severe than the first.
'Never mind what it is,’ Tirke said. ‘Let's get out of here.’ It was a sentiment shared by everyone, but Andawyr pointed in the direction the disturbance had come from. ‘That's the way we have to go,’ he said.
With mixed feelings they set off again. From time to time, further concussions and blasts of warm air struck them, though none were as severe as the first.
'Whatever it is, that's not rock-winning that's going on,’ Isloman said after a while. ‘Something bad is happening.'
As he spoke, they came to the end of the tunnel and found themselves in an open space. The torchlight revealed that it was rectangular and, quite obviously, hand excavated. Several neatly circular tunnels entered it. The air was thick with newly disturbed dust, and the torches carved strange solid shadows through it.
Andawyr walked round pensively as he had at previous junctions. As he did so, two further small concussions shook the chamber, but they echoed so that it was not possible to determine which of the tunnels they emanated from.
'Come on!’ Tirke said urgently, though half to himself. ‘This place is beginning to crush the life out of me.'
'Shut up!’ Andawyr said angrily. ‘I'm trying to...'
Hawklan stepped forward suddenly, raising his hand for silence. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Footsteps. Running.'
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than a figure emerged from one of the tunnels at the far side of the chamber.
It was a Mandroc. Behind it, other figures were emerging into the dusty torchlight.
* * *
Chapter 27
'Armed column approaching, fas
t!'
The shouted message chiming with his own alarmed thoughts, Loman turned towards the look-out.
'Confirm!’ he signalled.
The look-out signalled back. ‘Confirmed. Armed column approaching from the east.’ A single finger directed upwards indicated that the message had originated from the Watch Hall high above.
Loman breathed out. Whoever was coming must at least be some distance away. It was no ambush.
From the east, he mused. It must be Dan-Tor returning after his encounter with the Muster. He cursed himself again for his caution in travelling so slowly along the valley. What damage had that monster done?
He dashed the thought aside. Whatever Dan-Tor might have done to the Muster, he would find that he had no base to return to and a warm reception waiting for him.
He gazed down into the valley below. Hreldar was riding with some of his High Guard. Loman put his fingers in his mouth and blew a penetrating whistle.
The Lord looked up immediately.
'Get your duty companies along the valley at the double,’ Loman signalled. ‘Prepare a pike wall and archers to meet approaching column. Reinforcements to follow.'
Hreldar acknowledged the signal and began issuing orders to his Guards. Loman nodded, well satisfied. Hreldar's High Guard were not the most loved of the regiments in the allied army, but fired by their Lord's peculiarly special loathing for Dan-Tor, they were fierce and angry fighters.
He turned and saw that the look-out was receiving further news from another signaller. He intercepted it. The column had moved out of sight of the observers in the Watch Hall. He swore under his breath. Until the seeing stones there could be repaired, those laid out in the adjacent mountains would be ineffective and only straight line-of-sight observation would be possible.
He signalled to the look-out to find such companies as were ready to hand and have them sent along the valley to join Hreldar. ‘And some of the Cadwanwr!’ he added as an almost frantic afterthought. Then he scrambled down the rocks, commandeered a horse from a bewildered trooper and rode off himself.