by GJ Kelly
“This much we know from the letter, Serre Crellan. We need to know what has happened since you sent to the Hallencloister for help.”
Crellan shrugged. “They been building platforms and such, trying to get out. It’s called Comfortless Cove for a reason, ain’t no way out, ain’t no comfort to be had there. ‘Cept water running off from cracks in the rock I spose. See, there’s a reef out in the sea. In a big storm a ship or a boat can get carried over the reef, and blown ashore, but when the sea calms to normal, if still it floats, it can’t get back out again for the rocks. No way for men to climb up the cliffs, neither, so it was thought.
“Long time ago, so they say in Sudshear, according to ancient history, they used to sail them that had plague in small boats to the cove, and put ‘em ashore. Leave ‘em there, they would. Villagers from here would toss ‘em a sheep or two and lower food on a long ropes in a metal basket. When the basket come up with food still in it, they knew all them in the cove were dead. Next storm would wash the bodies away.”
Crellan shuddered, almost theatrically. “Eerie place, always has been. We watched ‘em for a while, wondering what to do, whether to send to Nordshear or Sudshear for advice on whether to feed ‘em or not, when bugger me if two of ‘em didn’t appear on the top! Well, we knew one of ‘em had to be a wizard to get away with that trick. No-one in history ever got up out of there without ropes thrown down from the top, and we ain’t got ropes that long nor strong for it today.”
“And since you sent the letter?”
“Aye, well. They begun tearing up the ship for planks for platforms and ladders and such, and fires too I reckon, for we seen smoke when first we dared get close enough to look. Once the wizard was up though, and his mate, big bloke, never seen a bloke like him, strong too, well… they set to killing the stray sheep and chucking ‘em over the edge to their mates below. We had us a meeting, and decided we weren’t no match for a wizard that could get out of Comfortless Cove, and called for volunteers.
“Brod went first, south, and that’s when we first seen that bloody great sword-bird thing swooping down. He’d barely got a mile along the valley before it killed ‘im. Cut ‘is head off, Brod never even seen it coming, I reckon. Then it came around and did for the poor ‘orse. Same thing happened to Camran two days later, when we hadn’t seen the bird for a while and thought it gone.”
“And since you sent the letter?” Elayeen repeated, trying desperately not to clench her teeth in frustration at Crellan’s relating of information they already possessed.
But she could see the toll that weeks of fear had taken in the portly man’s eyes, in the lines of the crows-feet and the perpetual frown all the villagers seemed to wear. Their nerves were stretched taught as bowstrings, and Crellan had carried the weight of all their fears on his utterly unprepared shoulders; talking was lightening his load, he was passing the weight of responsibility onto hers, whether he knew it or not.
Crellan nodded. “Aye, we sent the letter. First we thought if we could somehow get to the trees up there to the west, we could then go onwards on foot. Asked for volunteers to give it a go. You seen Olli there earlier, Kistin’s father, with Allis his wife? He always used to win the annual footrace, though that were back in his younger days, mind. Used to run out to the cliffs and back for the fun of it. He got halfway up the hill before the sword-bird took any notice of ‘im. He kept going, and it swooped. He reckoned he couldn’t have made it to the trees afore it got ‘im, so he turned back. Almost made it too, he did, but the bird had a go at ‘im, and got a slice of his leg. He crawled back, bleeding bad. Only just recently the healer let him get back on his feet and up and around, poor bugger.”
Elayeen waited, knowing Crellan was far from finished.
“We tried a few times, but soon we saw there was a limit. The sword-bird would let folk get just about half a mile from the well, far enough to keep the sheep mostly together, but if anyone went further than that, down it come, and it didn’t matter if you ran back, once it decided to go for you, it’d go for you. Wait, here comes Arbo with the food. I hope you like pie?”
“We do, Serre Crellan,” Valin announced, “We do.”
The youth, pale and skinny, held a large tray, what muscles and sinew he possessed straining with the weight of its load, flagons of ale and large, golden-brown top-crimped pasties, the pastry crisp, flaky and warm to the touch.
“Made fresh this mornin’,” Arbo mumbled.
Elves mumbled their thanks, the poor frak of breakfast instantly forgotten, the sight and smell of the fresh-baked meat pasties too powerful to resist.
“It was Arbo found a way out beyond the bird’s range,” Crellan nodded at the youth. “Him being a stick of a thing crept low along the stream, bird couldn’t see ‘im for the sheep on the banks and when finally it did, couldn’t get at ‘im for the banks either side.”
“Wanted to go all the way,” the youth shrugged. “Ma wouldn’t let me, said it was too far a walk to ‘Allencloister or Sudshear.”
“Aye,” Crellan agreed. “Go on now, off with ye, Arbo, you can come back for the flagons when our friends are finished with ‘em, we’ll leave them on the wall o’ the well here. Be off, lad.”
Arbo nodded, and hurried away, the wooden tray under his arm. Elayeen watched him go while she took another bite of the pasty, relishing the tang and texture of seasoned meat and vegetables.
“He’s a good enough lad,” Crellan sighed, “But you’d find more meat on a sparrer and he’s too soft-handed with the sheep to be a shearer worth a spit. But it were he who found the way out. His ma was right, too. It’d be too far to go afoot. Others tried the stream but were spotted and got driven back at the end of it, and then wee Kistin said her Grandma Yoolie had told her they could do it on Lala’s back. Lala was the name she gave to Brod’s pony.
“At first, we smiled, and tried not to laugh. Her Grandma Yoolie, the real one, died when Kistin was but a babe at the tit. Her Grandpa carved that little wooden figure you buried with ‘er, and painted it, and gave it to Kistin when she were not more than her brother’s age now, coming up to four. Told her that Grandma Yoolie asked him to make it for her before she died, and that she would always be watching over her. Carried it everywhere after that, she did, and talked to it like it really was Grandma Yoolie.”
There was a long pause at that, and then Elayeen washed down her meal with a draught of bitter ale, and asked Crellan to continue.
“We thought about it though, all that day, and all that night. It made sense, in a horrible way, trapped as we were, here in our own village. Trapped, just as you found us. You can’t imagine how horrible it was, for all of us. We’re good people, simple folk, all we’ve ever done is raise our sheep and lived in peace...” Crellan trailed off, and sniffed. “But then Arbo tried again, thinking to ride the pony himself.
“We saw how quickly he got to the end of the stream well away from the village, and how if he’d been smaller, ‘e might have made it all the way out and up the rise to being safe in the trees… but it saw him, and once it seen ’im, he had no chance. Had to come back, see? Had to come back before the sword-bird got ‘im or the pony. There was only one pony in all Fallowmead, only once chance.”
There’s only one Borbo in Fourfields… a young girl’s voice echoed in Elayeen’s mind.
“Other kids were too young or too old, too big or too scared, too smart or too stupid to try. There was only Kistin. She kept saying she’d could do it, that her Grandma Yoolie said she could do it if she went fast and low… and we let her…” Crellan’s voice faltered and his eyes began to water. “Oh by the Teeth and Morloch’s Breath we let her go!”
Those still within earshot bowed their heads at that, and wiped their own eyes, and turned away, dragging their heels in shame to their homes.
“We let her go,” Crellan repeated, sniffing loudly and wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. “And at first we rejoiced! We seen her off, all of us, her ma and her pa and wee brothe
r, and all us of gathered here in the square with her and the pony and its wee little saddle, and she beaming all the while. We gave her the letter… I gave her the letter… and asked if she knew what she must do. Go low and go quick and then ride like the wind! she said. She took her picture-book her Grandma and Granpa made for her before she were born, and her wee flowery purse her ma had made for her birthday, and put the letter in that with her doll to watch over it… then off she went… and all of us calling good luck Kistin, go low and go quick Kistin, speed your journey and keep you safe, Kistin…”
Again, Crellan wiped his eyes.
“Bird didn’t see ’er. Sheep were all along the banks of the stream like some ghost of a shepherd drove ‘em there. All the way she went, low and quick, then up the hill, leaning forward, arms ‘round the pony’s neck. Bird was way yonder in the north when it spied her, but by the time it was anywhere close she was up the slope and in them trees where it couldn’t go after her.
“And we cheered! We cheered and shook hands and clasped arms and hugged each other like it was New Year’s all over again! She gave us such hope, that little one. Such hope… Then, two days later, we seen the dogs come out the trees to the east, and circle around, down to the stream, and take the scent, and start running. We knew then, all of us, what we’d done.” Crellan’s voice dropped to a whisper, and he no longer bothered trying to wipe his eyes.
“We knew what we’d done,” he repeated. “We’d killed an innocent, all of us, sent one of our own wee children out there to die all alone, in hopes of saving our own miserable wretched and worthless lives. We knew it when the dogs come back. We knew it when we seen you kill them dogs, and when you killed the sword-bird, and not a single wizard of the ‘Allencloister with you. That’s why none of us wanted to come out. That’s why us all hid in our homes. None of us wanted to come out to meet the truth of what we done.”
oOo
22. Sixty-Eight Sound
Elayeen sighed. With the Razorwing patrolling a perimeter of some half a mile from the well at the centre of the village square, there was nothing Crellan or anyone else could tell her about the enemy’s progress since the letter had been written and despatched. The only person to have left the village in all that time had been the child who had borne the message, and who had died keeping it safe.
She turned to Valin. “We need to know how much time, if any, we have.”
“Understood.”
“Observe and report, Valdo. Do not engage the enemy unless you cannot avoid an encounter.”
“I understand. How far is the cliff where this dark wizard sits above the shipwreck cove, Crellan Jokdaw?”
“Up the rise, through the woods. Woods is broad, half a mile at least, then grass and scrub another couple of miles or so to the cliffs. All of it uphill beyond them woods, too. You’re going alone, Serre Ranger?”
“I am. Unless you wish to accompany me?”
“No… no my place is here. Now that you’re come and the bird and dogs are dead, I have to try to keep folk calm. There’s nowhere to run, see? If they come for us, and we’re caught in the open… we got old folk, and babes in arms…”
Valin, deadpan, simply turned to nod a salute to Elayeen, shared a quick and meaningful glance with Meeya, and then mounted. Without a word, he rode out of the square, hooves clattering on the cobbles as he went, taking the eastern road to the slope. Meeya moved closer to Elayeen in response to the look in Valin’s eye; he had passed Elayeen’s care to her in his absence.
“What is to stop the enemy force simply ignoring Fallowmead and advancing north or south?” Elayeen demanded.
“Nought,” Crellan replied, wiping his eyes and trying to regain some kind of composure and dignity, though whether anyone in the village would possess the latter quality again, only time would tell, and he, and all of them, knew it. “But if they’d wanted just to leave us alone, they wouldn’t have sent the bird and them dogs, would they?”
“No, they would not, Serre Crellan,” Elayeen admitted, putting her flagon on the wall running around the well and folding her arms under her cloak. She looked up, watching as Valin’s horse sped up the rise and into the trees cresting the slope, and then they were gone from view. “How many dwell here in Fallowmead?”
“We’re one hundred and eighteen all told.”
“Do you have weapons?”
The portly man, perhaps at one time a jolly fellow of the kind beloved of innkeepers everywhere, shook his head. “Got but one crossbow and one stonebow, for occasional rabbit and pigeon pie. We’re a gentle folk, as I said.”
“Yes, I understand. You have a healer?”
“Two, though one is the daughter of the other and young at it, but she has been well-trained and strictly so, that she might pass the examinations in Nordshear, which she did with notable success.”
“And those able to fight, should it come to it?”
“Not sure I know what you mean by ‘able’, lady Ranger, we’re but graziers, mostly.”
“Fit and able to wield a weapon in defence of their lives, or the lives of those they care for,” Meeya announced, and from her tone, Elayeen knew her friend was struggling to control her patience and temper.
“We got all ages here, lady Ranger,” Crellan looked dazed, “Old folks and infants… I’d have to do a count but…”
“Serre Crellan,” Elayeen said quietly, “It may be that within the next hour a horde of enemy warriors descends the eastern slope intent upon the complete destruction of Fallowmead and all its inhabitants. You already understand the futility of attempting to run into the wilds to escape their attentions. Now we need to understand what we have with which to defend this village and its people.”
“Aye…” Crellan sighed. “Aye, lady Ranger, I understand. If you will give me but a few moments, I have the village records nearby in my house, yonder, I can tell you everything you need to know from those? I just need a moment or two…”
“Of course, Serre Crellan. Ranger Meemee and I shall be here.”
The headman nodded, unsure how to take his leave with appropriate respect, and then, eyes wide with worry, he simply hurried across the square to a cottage whose walls were a bright and cheerful yellow, the door painted green.
“If the enemy attack, Leeny, we have nothing here to defend us. We should not have come. Nor should we stay.”
Elayeen flicked a stern glance at her friend, and then leaned back against the wall girdling the well. “We do not yet know whether an enemy remains to threaten this place, nor do we know its numbers, nor its intent. The villagers have been imprisoned here since they sent for aid, and the strain of that has all but broken them. You should not be so quick to judge them, Meemee.”
“Yet you heard their headman. They knew what they were doing when they sent that poor child to her doom.”
“Yes they did, but only after the death of two of their number and the loss of their only horses. We have not the slightest comprehension of their lives, having never lived such a life ourselves. And we cannot imagine the depth of their desperation. Look around you, miMeeya, look at their dwellings. Even their workplaces are gaily painted and decorated. These were once a happy people, filled with the joy of simply living their peaceful lives, facing nothing more terrifying or perilous than a recalcitrant sheep at shearing time. And then they come face to face with a dark wizard, and with Razorwing, death and misery.”
“And shall come face to face with worse, if that enemy has found a way to scale the cliffs.”
“Yes,” Elayeen agreed, and drew in a breath. “But until Valin’s return with facts, we must learn what we can about this place, and what may or may not be useful for its defence should the enemy exist and be bent on Fallowmead’s destruction.”
Meeya remained unimpressed. “Dark wizard could’ve managed that by himself,” she mumbled.
“Not with only one warrior to keep him safe, and not with a small army marooned in the cove. It would not have taken the risk.”
&n
bsp; “Yet it’s powerful enough to create Razorwing and Yarken from sheep and whatever wildlife it found nearby.”
“True. Are you trying to frighten me?”
Meeya sighed, and pouted a little, and then cast a gaze around the square. “No. Though if Vali says we have more than a week before the enemy escape the cove, then we should all leave, and quickly, and make for Sudshear.”
“A week? It would take us a week on horseback at an urgent pace. On foot, with the elderly and infirm, and babes in arms?”
“Dwarfspit. Why don’t people in these eastern lands have horses?”
Elayeen shrugged. “Perhaps they did, but sent them all to Ferdan for the war. Or saw them slaughtered by a Razorwing closer to home.”
Meeya fell silent, and remained watchful. She was frustrated, and Elayeen understood only too well the reasons why. Evading Morloch and the Toorsencreed had been easy, or so it seemed. Fate, however, had begun to heap danger upon their plates far beyond any they might have expected before leaving Tarn. There was no apparent reason for a ship full of an unidentified enemy to be anywhere near the rugged and treacherous coast of Arrun at any time of year, much less at the end of winter and in the middle of March gales. What business it had anywhere along kindred coasts defied Elayeen’s abilities to deduce.
Again, she felt the stab of Gawain’s absence. He, she felt sure, could understand in an instant the meaning of the shipwreck and the enemy’s intent. Perhaps, she thought, it had been sent with the intention of arriving in Norist Bay in Mornland, before Far-gor? A diversion, or Morloch’s opening of an unexpected eastern front to provide support to the main army descending from the north. Perhaps. She would know more, she hoped, when Valin returned from his reconnaissance. Now, though, it was Crellan Jokdaw, headman of Fallowmead, hurrying towards her, a leaf of parchment clutched tightly in his hand.