Tales of King's Blades 02 - Lord of The Fire Lands

by Dave Duncan

choice--for an atheling must never show fear, no

  matter how dry his mouth.

  "Go home and learn to spin then."

  "No. We both go. Now, Radgar! My

  dad says you're always getting me into trouble and

  if I didn't follow you around all the time he

  wouldn't always be having to switch me!"

  "Oh, it's a sore butt you're afraid

  of?"

  Aylwin's face crumpled. "No."

  Radgar shrugged. "If I'm not back by dark,

  tell Father where I went and why you did not come with

  me."

  Aylwin shuddered. Better death than that! When

  Radgar rode forward, he followed. He always

  did.

  They were wearing only breeches, so the torrent

  of air they met in the ravine made their eyes

  water and threatened to freeze the tears on their

  cheeks. If no one ever went to Weargahlaew,

  then why were there horse droppings on the trail

  to it? Why was there a trail at all? It wound up

  and down and in and out in a labyrinth of fallen

  boulders, but when it suddenly descended to the mouth

  of a cave at the end of the ravine, Radgar was not

  surprised. He knew of many caves around

  Waro`edburh. They were usually long pipes, with

  no branches or bigger chambers, just tubes that

  eventually ended in rock falls. Some were used as

  animal shelters; others made good play

  holes. But now he had another misty memory

  of a dark tunnel leading through to daylight somewhere

  else, and none of the familiar caves did that.

  Aylwin howled. "You can't go in there!" His

  teeth were chattering.

  "Why not? Only girls are scared of bats!"

  "Weargas!"

  "Weargas?" Radgar said

  scornfully. "How can there be outlaws in there?

  What would they eat?"

  How would they see? He dismounted, handing his reins

  to his trusty retainer, and stepped cautiously

  into the cave. There was a draft blowing out of it, so

  his vague half memory of a tunnel was

  probably correct--but he would not tell

  Aylwin about it in case he was wrong. The entrance

  was black as an icehouse and littered with jagged

  pieces of rock fallen from the roof. Cwealm

  wouldn't go in there. If this were Radgar's front

  door, he would keep a tinderbox handy ...

  somewhere easy to reach, out of the rain. ... He found

  it in few minutes, also some old-looking horn

  lanterns and a box of candles.

  "How did you know those were there?" Aylwin

  squeaked.

  Radgar shrugged. "Had to be. Do I light

  one lantern or two?"

  "Two," Aylwin said miserably.

  "You sure?"

  "Course I'm sure!"

  So was Cwealm, when he was granted some light.

  He let Radgar lead him into the tunnel as

  happily as if it were the palace stables. Even with

  this example of model horsiness to follow, the

  normally docile Spearwa gave Aylwin a

  lot more trouble. The passage was more than high enough

  to walk along. Fallen rocks had been cleared

  aside and the worst holes filled in with gravel

  to make a level path.

  "What happens if Cwicnoll shakes while

  we're in here?" Aylwin demanded, his voice

  quavering oddly in the echoes.

  "Perhaps the cave'll close behind us." Now there

  was a skin-shivering thought! On the other hand, it could

  be that falling rocks were all that parents were fussing

  about and there weren't any weargas at all.

  The way curved into total darkness and then

  brightened, returning to daylight at the top of a

  short scree slope within a small, almost

  circular, valley enclosed by high black

  cliffs. The cave was at treetop height,

  providing a view over a wild, shaggy forest.

  Here and there steam clouds promised hot springs,

  but there were no signs of buildings.

  "This is the real Weargahlaew!" Radgar

  explained as if he had known all along what

  to expect.

  Again it was almost-sort-of familiar,

  especially the precipitous path down the slope

  in front of his toes--and he would not even try

  to imagine what might happen to a horse caught

  on there by a tremor. If he injured Cwealm,

  he would never get another horse, not ever. And

  just inside the cave mouth stood three sacks of

  meal, two unopened, one still half full, and also

  a small stack of empty sacks weighted down

  with a rock. The explorers exchanged shocked

  glances.

  "Somebody's feeding the weargas!" Aylwin

  squealed.

  Four lanterns stood in full view on a

  ledge, plus what was certainly another

  tinderbox. Fresh droppings. Cwealm whinnied

  and was answered. Down in among the first trees

  stood a horse. It had been hobbled and left

  to graze, and the pack saddle was still on its back!

  "He's still here!" The fear in Radgar's

  belly was an agony and also a glorious

  excitement. His mouth was so dry he could hardly

  speak, and wonderful shivers ran up his arms.

  "Whoever brought that horse is still here!"

  Aylwin was sickly pale. "Let's go!

  Now, Radgar! Please!"

  "You go. My father must know about this. You go and

  tell my dad--or your dad, I suppose.

  Bring the house thegns! I'm going to stay here and

  keep watch, so we know who the traitor is."

  His trusty thegn put up a few more protests,

  but his heart wasn't in them. It was very

  important to take word back, Radgar said; and

  Aylwin would not be running away when he was ordered

  to go. For once, Aylwin didn't even question his right

  to give such orders. He led Spearwa back

  into the tunnel.

  Radgar scrambled up on to Cwealm's great

  back. Feeding outlaws was an unfri`ed, a

  breach of the King's peace, so he was right

  to investigate. It was a wonderful chance to do something

  interesting and not be punished for it; but even without that

  excuse, curiosity ate at him like a plague

  of mosquitoes. He still had the lingering sense of

  having been here before, so there were two mysteries or

  even three--because Cwealm had obviously known the

  tunnel too. Cwealm had been one of Dad's

  own mounts, but other men in Cynehof had ridden him

  --the hands who exercised him, for example.

  Suppose the traitor turned out to be someone in

  the palace itself!

  The precipitous track down the scree brought

  him to the tiny meadow where the packhorse had been

  left to graze, but beyond that stood real forest--huge

  cypresses and cedars hiding the sky. Very little

  undergrowth could flourish in that gloom, but the ground was

  so hummocky that he could rarely see more than two

  or three trees ahead. The path was clear, going

  up over rocky knolls and down into mossy,

  squelchy hollows. Whenever it divided, he let

  Cwealm choose, hoping he would follow the scent
<
br />   of the traitor's horse--Dad said horses went

  by scent much more than people did--and that seemed to work,

  because sooner or later he would find another muddy

  patch showing hoof marks. There were too many marks for

  just one horse and all going the same way he

  was. He wished he could muffle Cwealm's

  hooves like heroes did in stories, like Dad and

  his men carrying the scaling ladders to the walls of

  Lomouth. ...

  The heavy, soporific smell of the trees was

  achingly familiar, but there was no forest like this anywhere

  close to Waro`edburh. No one would log here because

  there was no way to drag the trunks out. It was

  creepily silent, without wind or birdsong,

  only rarely a distant tattoo from a

  woodpecker or the harangue of a squirrel. A

  couple of times his nose caught the stink of hot

  springs, and once he was close enough to see wisps

  of steam drifting through the trees.

  Then he reined in his trusty steed on one of the

  hillocks, looking down into a puddled hollow with

  no tracks in the mud. "You made a mistake,

  big one! We should have gone the other way at the

  last fork."

  Cwealm raised his great head and twisted his

  ears. The trees muffled sound, but then Radgar

  heard, too--hooves! On the trail he had just

  left.

  "Don't whinny, big one! Please,

  please, don't whinny!"

  Amazingly the big fellow did not whinny.

  Perhaps the heavy tree smells confused the scent,

  but whatever the reason, he stood in silence as a

  horse went by the junction. A fleeting glimpse

  of the rider was enough to let Radgar recognize

  Uncle Cynewulf.

  His initial anger was followed at once

  by dismay--there was no great secret after all! Dad

  would not be amazed and grateful to hear the news that

  somebody was feeding the outlaws in

  Weargahlaew if Uncle Cynewulf was the one

  doing it, because Dad must have ordered him to. As

  tanist he was Dad's main helper and ran the

  shire whenever Dad was away foering or just being

  king somewhere else. That might even explain how

  Cwealm knew the tunnel, although the tanist was

  notorious for always choosing docile mounts.

  So perhaps Dad himself fed the weargas sometimes!

  Obviously there was a secret here that nosy boys

  were not meant to know. He would be a brat, not a

  hero. Aylwin would tip the fish out of the creel the

  moment he got back to Cynehof--unless Uncle

  Cynewulf caught up with him on the road, in which

  case it would happen sooner. Either way, the

  result would be sore-butt time and perhaps even

  take-Cwealm-away time, which did not bear thinking

  about; but when a man found himself in this much trouble, he

  might as well satisfy his curiosity. Radgar

  turned Cwealm around, kicked in his heels, and

  said, "Move, monster!"

  He had ridden about three bowshots along the

  other track when Cwealm let out a whinny that could

  have been heard at the top of Cwicnoll.

  Radgar had not even started to curse him before the

  answer came, and round the next great rock he

  found a treeless hollow wide enough to admit some

  sunlight. It contained a pile of firewood, a

  very small stream, and--at the sunny end--a

  tumbledown thatched shack of poles and wattles that

  blew war horns in his memory. Yes! He had

  seen that shack before, when he was very small.

  The solitary horse tethered there was Sceatt,

  Cousin Wulfwer's usual mount. That was really

  annoying. At seventeen, Wulfwer grew pink

  hairs on his lip and had almost completed his

  cniht training; but he was still only the tanist's

  son, and if he was trusted to keep a secret then

  an atheling should be. Radgar slid to the ground and

  hitched Cwealm alongside Sceatt. They were good

  friends, which explained the whinny. Their owners were not.

  Relations between the cousins had never been warm and had

  recently become extremely strained.

  Wondering why no one had appeared to greet him

  yet, Radgar headed boldly for the shack

  to announce himself, then stopped in his tracks as he

  realized that what was going on in there was very

  probably forlegnes. That was a word he was not

  supposed to know, the name of a game that grown-ups very

  much disliked having interrupted. About a

  month ago Radgar and some friends had caught

  Wulfwer doing the forlegnes thing in the barns and

  had raised the traditional uproar and

  pandemonium, inviting everyone to come and watch.

  Boys being boys and youths being youths, this was not an

  uncommon source of amusement around the palace;

  but in that case it had turned out that the woman was

  another man's thrall, so Wulfwer had not only

  been exposed to ridicule but also required to pay

  a sizable compensation.

  Worse, having guessed that his young cousin had

  been the ringleader--always a safe bet--he had

  waylaid him one evening to administer justice.

  Radgar, who would hold still for a beating from Dad but

  no one else, had flown into one of his infamous

  temper tantrums and managed to kick Wulfwer

  in the eye before a band of house thegns came

  to investigate the uproar and pull them apart. For

  days after that Wulfwer's spectacular shiner had

  prompted his fellow cnihtas to mock him for being

  beaten up by a child half his size. He was

  probably still hankering for revenge. Out here in the

  wilds of Weargahlaew, discretion would be

  advisable.

  As Radgar mulled over his options, he heard

  a voice. It was not a forlegnes sort of

  sound from the hovel. It was chanting, and it came from

  somewhere in the woods nearby. Forget about discretion!

  He went up the bank like a squirrel.

  He approached with care, slipping from trunk

  to trunk until he could peer around one of the

  closest and see what was going on. The open

  space where the enchantment was taking place was a

  flat clearing ringed by trunks like enormous

  pillars. No sunlight reached the ground, and had

  he wandered through the dim space by chance he might not

  have noticed the tiny octogram marked out there

  by lines of black pebbles half buried in the

  loam. At the moment it was obvious because a small

  horn lantern marked fire point, with a pottery

  jug two to the right of it for water point, and a rock

  opposite for earth. There was no easy way

  to designate air or any of the four virtual

  elements, and Dad had told him that even marking

  those three was just a convenience for the mortal

  operators, not something that influenced the spirits.

  What was an octogram doing here in the wilds

  and out of doors? It was minute compared with the one in the

  Haligdom, where prisoners were

  enthralled, smaller even t
han the ones the healers

  used. There was one person inside it and he was neither

  chained up nor lying flat like a patient--he could

  not have stretched out inside the lines of rocks

  anyway. He was squatting on his heels with his

  head down and his arms wrapped around his shins as if

  trying to scrunch himself as tiny as possible. He

  had no clothes on. From the redness of his hair he

  was obviously a Bael. A very big one.

  Much more surprising was the chanter. First, he was

  all alone, although conjurations were always performed

  by eight conjurers, one for each element; and second

  he was running around the outside of the octogram

  instead of standing inside it. Third, he was a very

  scary-looking person indeed, tall and misshapen,

  although he would not stay still long enough to be studied

  properly. Nothing of the man himself could be seen

  inside a long drab robe; he wore a

  baglike hood of brown cloth over his head.

  He must have considerable trouble seeing anything at

  all through the eye holes; and yet there he was,

  lurching wildly around the clearing, wielding a

  staff as tall as himself and shrieking out the invocations

  and revocations in a voice as shrill and

  discordant as a knife on steel. Back and forth

  he flapped, sometimes pivoting on his staff from one

  point to the next adjacent, sometimes lurching

  halfway around the clearing, all the time calling out

  to the various elements and raising puffs of dust as the

  hem of his robe swept the dirt.

  Could this be a real conjuration? What good did

  Cousin Wulfwer think he was doing being shouted at

  by a maniacal scarecrow here in wild

  Weargahlaew? Radgar's skin rose in goose

  bumps. He had watched enthrallments often enough

  to know that this was a much longer and more complicated

  conjuration than that, if it was a real conjuration at

  all. What was going on? Wulfwer's father had

  brought him here and then gone away as if he did not

  want to watch. Radgar was not alone in not liking

  Cousin Wulfwer much--nobody did. His mother had

  been a thrall, and he was surly and sullen, although

  not as witless as most of the thrall-born. It was

  common knowledge that he was having trouble finding a werod

  willing to take him, in spite of his royal

  breeding and his size. Could this ritual be intended

  to un-thrall him somehow? Make him more

  talkative and likable? Smarter? Could conjuration

  give a man a sense of humor? Radgar had