by GJ Kelly
Gawain nodded appreciatively.
“When you emerge from the forest,” Tyrane continued, “Word will be sent here, and relayed to Balhaggan to make preparations for your arrival. He’ll be under orders simply to go where you tell him. More than that, he’ll know nothing save that he’s under King’s Orders, and his men too.”
“Which means they’ll keep their gobs and ears shut, tend to their own business, and do whatever you tell ‘em on pain of death,” Brock rumbled ominously.
“It should take you a week or so to make Porthmorl. As soon as we receive word that you’re en route, two patrols will be despatched from HQ, one towards you, to sweep the region ‘twixt the forest and Castletown, and one towards Porthmorl, to clear the path ahead of you.”
“Excellent, thank you, Tyrane.”
“Anything else you need, Raheen?”
“No, thank you, Brock.”
“Message for your lady? I can send word you arrived here safely, at least?”
“No, thank you. I believe she’d rather hear that I’m on my way back to her than learn that I’m still on my way to that city. I’m sorry we can’t stay any longer, it’d be good to spend some time with old friends.”
“Very well,” Brock sighed, “I know a goodbye when I hear one. If you think of anything else you need between here and the west gate, let Tyrane know. He’ll ride with you that far at least.”
Gawain smiled sadly, and nodded to his companions. “You’ll give my best to lady Elspeth, Brock? And make it clear that our prompt departure is no reflection of the warmth of her hearth?”
“I shall, and thank you for the courtesy, Raheen. Perhaps, when the fuss is all over and done, you’ll make a proper visit, and with your lady too.”
Brock held out his arm, and Gawain clasped it, firmly.
“Be careful, lad,” Brock whispered, “If Igorn’s twitchy about the west, it’s with good reason.”
Gawain acknowledged the warning with a stern nod, and then Tyrane was leading them from the apartments and down to the stables, Brock watching them go, and quietly wishing he could go with them.
“The men aren’t expecting introductions, m’lord, they know you, they wear the emblem of the Kindred still, and they know their duty. The tallest there is Joss, the big bloke to his left is Corporal Ekerd, the shortest is Malko, and the one with the red hair is Vinn. Good lads all.”
“Your recommendation is enough for me, my friend. How’s the book progressing, by the way?”
Tyrane smiled. “Well enough, m’lord, and with his Majesty’s blessing. In fact, he’s posted me to the Keep, the better to finish it. He says it’s to be more than just a record of the battle, but also a remembrance to honour those who served there, and those who fell.”
“Good,” Gawain smiled, sadly. “It shouldn’t be forgotten, and nor should they. We all came far too close to losing everything to allow it to happen again.”
“I’ll ride with you to the gate, if you don’t mind, m’lord?”
“No, I certainly don’t mind at all.”
“I shouldn’t be too surprised if you were to see the two lads Rollaf and Terryn again in the not-too-distant future, either. It’s a long ride from the forest to Porthmorl and you’ll need a couple of good scouts in the van, I daresay.”
Gawain smiled. “It’ll be good to see them again. I hope they’ve had a chance to rest after all their work last year.”
Saddles and packs were checked and re-checked, and with memories of a summer’s departure from Jarn in the forefront of Gawain’s mind, the nine who were bound for the forest rode away from Callodon Keep, Tyrane providing escort.
At the west gate in the great but aged curtain wall encompassing the Castletown, Tyrane paused, and eyed Gawain.
“You will be careful there, m’lord? There, where I and the lads cannot go?”
“Yes, my friend, we shall. With great good fortune we’ll be in and out and no-one any the wiser. Besides, it’s the wizard I’ll be sending up that tower to fetch the bloody thing. I’ll be stood a safe distance away cheering him on between mouthfuls of frak and Jurian brandy.”
Tyrane smiled, and adjusted his cloak, and gave a single, brief nod that seemed to carry with it a barge-load of emotion. Then he saluted, as smartly as ever.
“Vex, m’lord. ‘Til next we meet.”
“Vex, my friend,” Gawain returned the salute, and led the nine through the gates, westward, bound for Calhaneth.
oOo
30. Silent Serenity
It was on the evening of February 28th, four days after leaving Callodon Castletown, they made their night-camp in sight of the forest, though it was late and the trees were little more than shadows in the gloom of an overcast sunset. Gawain didn’t want to risk approaching too closely at night, even though Reesen declared the area clear of darkness, and clear of life-lights.
The journey had been made in good humour, the Callodonian escorts sharing with them that informal and relaxed camaraderie known by all who have endured battle together. Those four wore the emblem of the Kindred on their Black and Gold tunics with great pride, though the emblems and the uniforms remained hidden beneath shabby cloaks and grubby leggings intended to give them the appearance of humble travellers, the better to avoid drawing unwanted attention to themselves.
Not that they’d seen anyone at all on the journey. Since they’d left the well-beaten road to Jarn a couple of miles from the west gate and headed northwest, there’d been no-one and nothing to mark their passing beyond goats and sheep.
Now, though, in sight of the forest, they were quiet, and thoughtful. The mundane business of travelling was over. In the morning, the quest for the Orb would begin in earnest.
“Ot soup, miThal,” Reesen quietly announced, handing Gawain a steaming tin mug.
“Arr, mitak, mate,” Gawain smiled in the gloom, accepting the mug gratefully. There’d been a sudden cold snap, heavy frosts and bitter winds which had numbed faces and made noses run.
Reesen’s eyebrow twitched, which Gawain now assumed was the closest that the elf would allow himself to a real smile in the presence of his Thal. Which, the young king decided, was a shame. Of all those in the party huddling near the tiny camp stove and the heat from the faint glow of its charcoal biscuits, only Reesen’s laughter hadn’t been heard along the way. Self-discipline was one thing, but the occasional smiles and fleeting grins the elf had made on the journey were few and far between, and seemed to set him apart from the rest of them.
Not that Ognorm seemed to mind. The powerful dwarf had kept up his tireless stream of vocabulary lessons for all the weeks of their long journey, and Reesen had played the part of dutiful student with such good humour and enthusiasm it was difficult not to like the imposing Ranger in spite of his lack of laughter.
That imposing Ranger eyed the forest again. “No dark, no light. Treesen birds sleep.”
“No big animals?”
“Nai. No biggen no smalls.”
“Odd, innit?”
“Arr. Odd. Edscratchy odd.”
Gawain grinned in the gloom and tried to hide it with his mug. After burning his tongue on the hot soup he smiled and turned to the Ranger, and was sure that the gleam in the Ranger’s eyes was nothing to do with reflected starlight now the sun was well over the horizon beyond the tree line.
“Get some rest, Reesen. Your Sight will be needed tomorrow.”
“Rest, isst miThal.”
And with that, the Ranger returned to the makeshift camp and his bedroll. Allazar had been watching the two young men, and once Reesen was settling for the night, joined Gawain, who was still contemplating the dark shape of the forest.
“A copper for them, Longsword.”
“They’re probably not worth that much. Just wondering whether the horror waiting for us in there will be diminished at all, now that we know what to expect.”
Allazar clutched the staff with both hands, drawing it in to his left shoulder and resting his head against it. �
�It may be, with so little light falling on the Orb these past months. Who knows, perhaps the dread sounds of the city’s death are silenced in winter, when the Orb’s emanations are weakest.”
“I hope so, Allazar. Sometimes I think my head is drowning in a sea of names. I really don’t want to hear Calhaneth screaming again.”
“With the Orb removed from its tower and destroyed, perhaps the city can finally rest, and the peace of the forest bless the ruins with nature’s silent serenity.”
Gawain sipped at his soup, but gave no voice to his scepticism. He knew that while a single person lived who understood the depth of the Toorsencreed’s treachery, there could be no peace for Calhaneth.
“Morloch has much to answer for,” he whispered in the gathering dark, ominously. “For you may be sure he was at the root of elfwizards’ treachery. Raheen gone, Pellarn enslaved, Goria suffering under the yoke of dark oppression, and Elvendere robbed of its future. The whole world robbed of the brightest lights of reason and progress, and such wonders as can only be dreamed of had the promise of the Orb been fulfilled. Calhaneth was a chance to slam the doors in Morloch’s face and bar them against him for all time. Its destruction was a crime against all the kindred races, and there shall be vengeance.”
Allazar shivered, and drew his cloak tighter.
“I think I’ll make a fuss of Gwyn. She’s not going to like being left behind in the company of strangers, any more than she’d like going back in there.”
And with that, Gawain attended to his duties, leaving the wizard frowning, and wondering at the subtle changes in his king’s demeanour since Harks Hearth.
Dawn on the first day of March broke dry and clear, and found the non-descript group of travellers making the most of hot breakfast wine and cold salt-pork sandwiches, save for two of the number, who preferred frak. Packs and weapons were checked, water skins topped up, and when breakfast was done, the campsite was temporarily abandoned for the short ride to the tree line. There, five dismounted, and with a wave and a nod, entered the forest. There’d been no need for words or orders, all requirements had been made perfectly clear before sleep the night before.
The gloom in the forest was familiar to some, not to others, and likewise the musty, damp odour of rotting leaf litter and fungi. Gawain paused a moment, gave a hand-signal, and the five spread out in line abreast, picking their way cautiously further into the woodland, taking great care lest old traps still lay in wait for careless feet beneath a thick blanket of leaf-fall here at the tip of the south-western toe of Juria.
It was slow going at first, caution the watchword, but a mile from the tree line the trees grew taller and further apart, shrubs and brambles and lesser plant life faded, until only mosses, lichens and fungi thrived in the gloom.
It was distinctly eerie, for Jerryn and Ognorm in particular, but seeing the calm concentration on the others’ faces gave them comfort, and they rightly assumed all was as it should be. Except for the lack of animals bigger than mice, voles, and shrews, and they were heard but not seen.
At noon, Gawain called a halt for lunch, and they gathered in a small clearing made by a fallen tree, its trunk scarred by lightning-strikes years ago, perhaps before any of them were born. In a thunderstorm, it doesn’t pay to be the tallest tree in the woods. Spangles of pallid winter sunshine lit the tiny glade, a bright blue sky directly overhead, and there the five ate a frugal meal.
“This is all we may expect, clear to the city,” Gawain whispered. “But we should remain quiet, and watchful. Remember, we would not be made welcome by elves should they find us here. Not that I imagine any of them will venture this far south of Ostinath.”
“No elfs,” Reesen confirmed. The taboo against setting foot anywhere near Calhaneth was, it seemed, still as powerful as ever, though Gawain recalled that the Sutengard had ventured beyond the first Wheel of Thal-Marrahan not so long ago.
“I expected more in the way of undergrowth, my lord,” Jerryn whispered back.
“Not enough light for it to grow,” Allazar explained.
“That bloke Theo must’ve been ‘ard as nails,” Ognorm shuddered, shaking his head, “Or found a way to eat twigs. Not seen much in the way o’ grub since we came in ‘ere.”
“The forest thrived back in Theo’s day, master Ognorm,” Allazar smiled, “It’s only been long centuries of the Orb’s emanations and perhaps creatures of Morloch’s making that have driven the game far from here.”
“Arr, well, he’d still ‘ave to catch it, cook it, and eat it, and with ‘ostile elves on the look-out. Wouldn’t fancy it meself, not without this,” and Ognorm pared another slice of frak from a lump for emphasis.
Allazar nodded sagely, and all of them gazed at their gloomy and inhospitable surrounds, and thought the same thing.
Sleep that night was easier for some than others, though in truth there was little to disturb their peace beyond the rattling of twigs and creaking of branches in the rising wind. A storm was on its way, they could all feel it in the air, and they wrapped up tight against the rain they knew would inevitably follow the chill gusts.
Gawain set a pace as brisk as all necessary caution would permit, bearing in mind their concerns. It was urgent enough to ensure watchfulness and imbue them all with a sense of great purpose, yet measured enough for their passage to be as stealthy as might be expected on such terrain.
Thoughts of hearth and home were abandoned, recalled to mind only in the moments before sleep, and in dreams, if at all. Duty was everything, and infused them, and with it, they all seemed to become much more than ever they had been before entering the woodland. Jerryn, in particular, seemed to glow with life, and purpose, his eyes bright, senses keen and alert, padding wolf-like through the forest.
Gawain recognised that quality in all of them. It was life, glowing brightly, from deep within each of them, the kind of life that shines from the eyes of brave men finally at peace with themselves and moving into danger with trusted comrades at their side.
And shortly after noon on their fourth day in the forest, the way ahead grew lighter, weeds and brambles and ferns began to proliferate, and an angular shape draped in ivy and suckerweed announced the presence of something not of nature’s making. Slowly, they advanced towards it, the King of Raheen taking the lead.
Gawain knelt, drew his boot knife, and flipped over a clod of leaf litter. Nothing, as he’d expected. He glanced up at the shards of grey light flickering through the canopy, scudding clouds high overhead marking the last storm’s passing and shielding the sun from view.
All eyes were fixed upon him where he knelt beside the ancient wall, and he summoned them to him with a gesture.
“It’s noon, or not long past it,” he whispered.
Four heads bobbed agreement, and then Allazar’s eyes widened.
“This is Calhaneth,” Gawain announced solemnly. “And we have not heard the sounds and screams of its passing.”
oOo
31. Into the Heart
“Perhaps, then, the Orb is dormant, and may safely be approached,” Allazar whispered.
Gawain shrugged. “It’s true the sun’s in and out, but the day’s bright enough even with those racing clouds. We won’t know for certain until we get to the centre of the city. Stay close together. Reesen to lead. We’ll take as direct a route as possible, and move quickly but cautiously. Allazar,” Gawain nodded towards Reesen, and for safety’s sake, the wizard translated the orders.
Reesen acknowledged the instructions, and with weapons readied, they moved off. The going would be quicker, Gawain knew, without a blind elfin, civilians, and an elderly wizard in tow, never mind without horses to lead. Ditches and long-collapsed drains and sewers could be jumped, nimbly and quietly. Mounds of buried rubble could be scaled, obstacles rapidly negotiated, and a much more direct path to the centre taken than the first time he and Allazar had been here.
Statues, some intact, others half-buried, added occasional shivers to the eerie silence, speaking as
they did of lives long extinguished, pointing mutely towards toppled walls where once those lives dwelled or found entertainment. For Gawain and Allazar, the sights were similar to those they’d seen before; to the others, they were alien, and filled with foreboding.
Here, on the eastern side of the ruined city, more of the shells of buildings had survived intact, more walls left standing than had been seen in the southern quarter. Gawain guessed that the structures here had been stronger built, more of stone than of wood, dwellings and businesses perhaps of the more affluent, or for elves of status. Yet, all now was draped with suckerweed and lichen, and trees erupted from once-firm foundations, thrusting out their mighty limbs to topple the heaviest of lintels.
Reesen paused, and bent at the hip, moving his head from side to side as if trying to peer around or through an obstacle. Breaths were held, muscles tensed, lips were licked and eyes strained. Then the Ranger moved forward again, signalling the all-clear. A pigeon suddenly launched itself from a bough overhead, its wings clapping as it sped south between the trees.
Avenues between the trees grew broader, and the light grew brighter as the canopy thinned even further. Ahead and to the left, half a statue stood frozen waist-deep in the forest floor, holding up a pitted and lichen-blotched marble horse-shoe, pointing directly towards them. Leave, it seemed to say, Leave now, and take to your horses!
They ignored the silent warning, and pressed on towards the centre. Brambles and weeds, twisted and gnarled, began to proliferate in the brighter light, and seemed to tug at their boots, leaves rustling loudly when a slip or a misstep became briefly entangled. Trees thinned, saplings more in evidence, showing signs of blight and sickness, trunk and branch withered and deformed. Ahead, shapes loomed, pillars of aged blue-stone, columns of white-stone, all mottled with yellow lichen.
Finally, Reesen rounded the end of an immense wall standing proud of a mound of overgrown rubble, and squatted on his haunches, shaking his head in astonishment.