by K. J. Hargan
“Now!” Yulenth commanded. The boulder popped away from the small entrance with a gush of pent up water. Garmee Gamee slipped in the flow and would have been swept to the depths below if Yulenth hadn’t let go of his sword and snatched her from certain drowning.
“You saved me!” Garmee Gamee sputtered.
“And I lost my sword,” Yulenth frowned. “Let’s push on before night falls.”
They raced to traverse the hidden caverns of Byland, with Yulenth ever pulling Garmee Gamee from imminent drowning. Sometimes the water was up to their necks, at other times, only up to their ankles. The white chalk walls of the caverns would crumble under the lightest touch, so it was best to try to move along without reaching out for some surface with which to steady oneself.
The air flowing through the cavern changed to a calmer, more scented smell. It was getting quite dark. Dond stopped and cautiously spoke to the humans with his hands up.
“I think we’re coming out,” Frea whispered.
“About time,” Garmee Gamee whined.
“Be still,” Yulenth ordered.
Dond led the humans through a large crack in a rock wall, out onto a ledge. The night air was freezing. Below, the Bight of Lanis boiled. Up in the night sky, the winter stars shone with amazing brilliance. High overhead, up on the southern cliffs of Byland, the garond army could be seen, readying for war.
Dond led the shivering humans down the cliff face to a clearing between two large stones on the beach. Another gentle looking garond waited. He leapt up with alarm, and then a huge smile spread across his face when he saw Dond.
The two garonds grunted at each other in garondish, with Dond repeatedly pointing at Wynnfrith. The other garond nodded in understanding, and was clearly very excited.
Dond’s friend pulled over a large leather sack.
“Oh, good, dry clothes,” Garmee Gamee whined.
Dond and his garond friend pulled out sections of a slaughtered deer and a rabbit that had been dead for several days.
“Dinner?” Yulenth said with horror.
Then Dond started rubbing the dead rabbit on Wynnfrith, who complied without complaint.
Frea recoiled when the other garond approached with a piece of hacked deer. Dond made sniffing noises at Frea.
“They will smell us,” Yulenth said with a frown, “Unless our scent is covered.”
Garmee Gamee groaned, but all the humans allowed the garonds to disguise their scent by rubbing the dead animal flesh all over their bodies, particularly their hair.
Then Dond draped leathers and furs over the humans. Dond’s friend indicated they should walk hunched over, and Yulenth tried it.
“Bless me if I wouldn’t have mistook you for a garond,” Frea said with a wry smile.
Dond urgently gibbered in garondish and pulled at Wynnfrith to indicate they were in a hurry. Without further delay, the disguised humans were led down the beach of the Far Grasslands through the winter night by the two garonds.
As they shambled down the beach, Yulenth looked up. What he saw made him stop and pull Frea close.
“Are those boats?” Yulenth whispered to her.
Frea looked up at the grassy shore. Inland, not far from the beach, hundreds of ribbed shapes of boats being constructed stood out in black skeletons against the night sky.
“They look like boats to me,” Frea said with worry. Dond quietly grunted and they moved on.
Yulenth could see up higher inland, endless numbers of camp fires twinkling in the night. The garond army. There must have been hundreds of thousands of garonds encamped right at the entrance to Byland. Yulenth shivered to himself and wished he had let Garmee Gamee drown instead of losing his sword.
Frea had a short, thin sword, but Wynnfrith insisted on going unarmed. That meant one, small sword for the whole lot of them. Yulenth frowned to himself. If I didn’t love and trust Wynnfrith, he thought to himself, I’d consider this trip utter suicide.
Dond began to wildly, silently gesticulate, then stopped suddenly in great fear.
Yulenth could see a crowd of garonds gathering close on the beach. They would have to pass very near the growing mob.
Dond and his friend kept their heads down as if they were afraid of being infected or seduced.
A loud crash, and then pulsing drums made both Yulenth and Garmee Gamee stop and turn towards the crowd. In the middle of the growing mass of black shapes, a garond ascended a platform. Torches were lit. Yulenth could see clearly, the lead garond on the platform wore red painted feathers that stuck straight up in a crown on his head. The lead garond had strange, arcane marks tattooed on his body. He appeared to be pampered and well cared for. The crowned garond leader raised his arms and cried to the sky in a religious fervor.
Yulenth could see that the garonds all around the platform were vicious and martial in appearance. They gnashed their sharpened teeth, and hit each other in the face with the passion of a zealot. They seemed to be chanting and pitching themselves into a shaking, aggressive, religious trance. Their bodies flexed with fierce spasms. Yulenth gasped at the growing violence mixed with an ecstatic intensity.
Dond circled back and pulled at Yulenth and Garmee Gamee. As Yulenth scuttled into the darkness with his friends, he could hear unintelligible garondish words chanted in a stupefying rite. The drums beat louder and slightly quicker. Some garonds screamed.
As they got further down the dark shoreline, Dond and the other garond seemed more relieved to be away from the spectacle. Nunee, the mother moon, and the Wanderer, the second moon, rose in the east, climbing up above the rolling hills of the Far Grasslands.
A group of five garonds, all gentle in appearance were waiting on the beach. Dond seemed extremely relieved to see them. The garonds all grabbed a human and hurried them up inland, over the weedy dunes.
In the light of the moons, the passage over the gentle grassy hills was easy and quick. Soon, they crested a hill into a small valley. Down below were what seemed like small weedy hills, but as they approached it became clear they were cleverly disguised tents, covered with sod.
Dond pushed Wynnfrith into the largest tent in the middle.
“Hey! Wait!” Yulenth urgently whispered. But, two burly garonds blocked the way.
“What are they doing to her?” Garmee Gamee wheezed at Yulenth.
“Be silent, or you’re next,” Yulenth said, eyeing the twenty garonds who began to crowd around and examine Yulenth, Frea and Garmee Gamee with suspicion and curiosity.
Frea nudged near Yulenth so he could feel the blade hidden just under her cloak. She looked at the old man with a grim understanding. Yulenth nodded his head and slowly reached for her short sword.
Wynnfrith burst out of the tent.
“My friends! Come!” Wynnfrith gushed. She was flushed and seemed radiant. Then, Wynnfrith jabbered to the pressing garonds in garondish, who were all relieved, some had tears of happiness.
“How do you know garond?” Garmee Gamee asked with fearful bewilderment as Wynnfrith pushed her inside the tent.
Inside, the tent was warm and close, but had a pleasant faint aroma of incense and cured meats. In the middle, a small fire glowed.
At the far end of the tent, an old garond female sat. Her long white hair was platted with many sea shells, and small pieces of bone carved into the shape of animals of the field.
“Sit, sit,” Wynnfrith urged with a knowing smile on her face.
The old Mother Garond shuffled over to sit next to Yulenth. From the folds of her robes woven from coarse grasses she produced a small black stone. She held the stone out to Yulenth.
The stone was cup shaped with a small indent down in the center as if a pole or something could be fit inside. The stone was blacker than anything Yulenth had ever seen. He felt the stone, even though it was a pace away. He reached out to touch it. But the Mother Garond held up her hand.
She pointed at Yulenth, then the stone, and wagged her finger to indicate that he must not touch it.
She placed one hand over the hand holding the stone, then she nodded her head to invite Yulenth.
“I don’t-” Yulenth stammered.
“Put your hand over hers,” Wynnfrith gently said. “But don’t touch the stone. No human should ever touch the stone.”
Yulenth reached out a quivering hand and placed it over the Mother Garond’s hand.
Yulenth felt a shock of power coarse through his body. He felt the power go down through his seated body, down into the earth. It was as if a lightning bolt ran through his every fiber and surged down into the earth.
“Go ahead, Frea,” Yulenth vaguely heard Wynnfrith say, and he felt Frea’s hand on top of his, and then Garmee Gamee’s hand on top of Frea’s hand. He was connected to them. He could feel Frea’s concern and desire to return home. He could feel wave after wave of crippling fear emanating out of Garmee Gamee. But there was also the Garond Mother in his mind.
“Be calm,” the Garond Mother said. “Feel the Stone of the Earth, and you will be safe.” She said it, but it was in Yulenth’s mind. Yet, it was as clear to Yulenth as if she had spoken it out loud.
Yulenth could feel the lines of power pulsing up out of the earth. He was a part of it. All life was a part of these undulating, moving lines of power, reaching out from the core of the earth in spider webs of unseen force. The Ar was called the Stone of the Earth. ‘Ar’ was an old word for ‘heart’, older than Miranei. But the elves, in Miranei, called it Yarta. He could understand Miranei! He could feel the Ar as the one point of real contact in the lines of energy that radiated out from the center of the earth. To Yulenth, he could see the unseeable, the glowing tendrils spiraling out of the center, moving across the sphere of the whole and finding its opposite pole in the black stone. The lines of power could be harnessed and used, dangerous, but possible. The power of the Ar was the power of control. Any other force or energy, no matter how primordial, no matter how elemental, no matter how intense, could be tamed, shaped, and used through the Heart of the Earth. It was also called the Cornerstone by a generation too old to be remembered in any book or lore. He could feel the heart beat of every animal for miles around. He understood every language ever spoken.
Angry shouts brought Yulenth out of his vision.
The Garond Mother quickly wrapped the Ar in a piece of leather and pressed it into Wynnfrith’s hands.
Garond soldiers roughly pulled Yulenth, the other humans and the Garond Mother out of the tent.
The small valley was teeming with vicious garond soldiers. In their midst, menacingly illuminated by torches, the garond with the crown of upright, red painted feathers approached.
“Infidels and humans,” the garond leader said with disgust in garondish. “The Great Dark Lord indeed watches over us.”
Yulenth, the other humans, and all the other gentle garonds were dragged away into the condemning night, amid the howls and screeches of triumph of the evil garond faithful who served Deifol Hroth.
Chapter Fifteen
Eleven Days Past Midwinter
The eight humans rowed their long boat over the choppy, dawning waters. Merebroder happily breached with exhalations of spray, as a family, weaving the surface of the sea. The Bight of Lanis was quickly turning from a black to a dull green. The storm was gone and the sun was rising on a beautiful, crisp day.
“There he is!” The burly, tubby, Bosun called out.
The Captain swung around to follow the keen eyes of his Bosun.
“I see him! Hard a port!” The Captain commanded.
The men on the port side begin rowing backwards, while the men on the right side put their backs into their oars. The long boat veered sharply to the left.
“Hook!” The Captain ordered as he stroked his wildly groomed beard. The Captain stood up in the long boat. His frame was wiry and lean, but the rocking of the boat didn’t bother him at all. The Captain moved with the shifting of the long boat as if he had been born on a ship.
The Bosun, chief of all the various equipment on the ship, readied a long pole with a hook. He held the hooked pole in one hand, and wiped the sweat from his bald head with the other hand.
“Try to get him in one, Bosun,” the Captain admonished.
“Won’t matter if he’s already drowned,” the Bosun said with half a frown.
The long pole hovered over the floating boy, snagged him, and pulled him in.
Arnwylf came to just as he was roughly pulled on board the long boat and thrown to the floorboards.
Arnwylf raised his head. The swarthy men leapt back in fear.
“It’s the Lord of Lightning!” A muscular sailor shrieked.
“I told you I saw him fall from the sky!” Another sailor whimpered.
The Captain whipped out his cutlass and pointed the broad blade in Arnwylf’s face.
“Are you the Lord of Lightning?” The Captain demanded.
“My name is Arnwylf,” Arnwylf weakly said. “I’m from Bittel.”
“Well, Arnwylf Bittel,” the Captain said scabbarding his cutlass, “do you mind telling me how you came to be out in the middle of the ocean?”
Arnwylf sat up and got a good look at the seamen all around him. They had much darker skin than the average human of Wealdland. They had larger lips and beautiful, dark, almond shaped eyes.
“Are- Are you garonds?” Arnwylf sputtered.
The crew burst out in raucous laughter.
“It’s what every one of you pale skin wealders says when you see a true human,” the Bosun proudly guffawed.
“I am Captain Zik Mkichaa,” the Captain said holding out his hand, and smiling a wild and infectious grin.
“I think I’ve drunk a lot of sea water,” Arnwylf said as he gripped Zik’s hand.
“You’ll puke it out shortly,” the Bosun said as he slapped Arnwylf on the back. “I am Myama. It means ‘beautiful one’.”
“It really means ‘so ugly I will puke sea water’,” a sailor called.
Right on cue, Arnwylf turned and vomited over the side of the long boat.
All the crew, except for Myama, were floored with laughter.
“Enough fun, you women,” Zik bellowed, “make for the ship, double time!”
Without complaint, the sailors leaned on their oars and the long boat was soon skimming towards a large ship with red sails.
Apghilis, the highest atheling, or lord, of the Northern Kingdom of Man sat with disgust amongst the commoners of Wealdland.
He had joined a huge mass of humans traveling south to join the army in Byland.
Every human but the reians were headed to Byland.
“Off to the slaughter,” Apghilis said to himself with revulsion.
Pieces of bread were being handed out to every human in the large mob. Apghilis took his piece of bread and simply held it in his lifeless hand.
He had ascended the heights. He had been so close to assuming the kingship of the Northern Kingdom of Man. The boy had undone everything.
He was glad he had killed his father, Kellabald. Apghilis smiled half a smile to himself, and pursed his lips. He hated Kellabald. He would have made him an atheling. He would have showered him with honors. But the stupid reian made up his mind to follow the stupid last request of a coward king, Haergill. He hated Haergill. He wished he could have been the one to put out the light of his life.
But there was still the boy, Arnwylf. He had the Mattear Gram, the sword of power and rank. If he could get the sword from him. Somehow. Then the people would follow him. They would have to. He would unite Wealdland and destroy Deifol Hroth and his garonds. He would reign for a thousand years as a god. Any who dared to face him would be crushed like a garden snail.
Apghilis’ throat hurt.
“Say, aren’t you Apghilis?”
Apghilis stirred from his reverie, and slowly rotated his fat, block like head.
“Hmnt?”
“Aren’t you Apghilis of Man?” Said a filthy, thin man, with a sickening grin on his face.
; “He is my brother,” Apghilis lied. “If you have any quarrel with him, take it up with him, not me.”
“Apghilis was a great leader,” the filthy, thin man smiled. “I wish we had him leading the army. We would most certainly win.”
“Yes,” Apghilis said into his chest, frowning. “I wish that also.”
The winter air was filled with the smoke of many little camp fires. Birds far away on the edge of the Weald could be heard chirping loud, sharp, staccato notes. Wisps of fog curled off the blackened remains of the trees to the north, making it look as if they were once again on fire.
“Are you going to eat your piece of bread?” The filthy, thin man smiled.
Apghilis closed his large, hammy fist over the crust of bread and glared at the man.
The filthy, thin man muttered apologies and scuttled away.
But there was still the boy, Apghilis thought to himself. The boy had beaten him soundly on the field of battle, had humiliated him. A silent snarl crawled up one side of Apghilis’ face. He would love to kill the boy. A sword in the back like his father? No. Both his massive hands around the boy’s throat. His face turning red, then blue. Maybe he would cry and silently mouth his father’s name.
Apghilis shifted his large, fat body around at the pleasure of the gruesome thought.
He smiled to himself and cheerfully ate his crust of bread.
Alrhett was one of the last of the wealdkin to cross over the makeshift bridges of lashed boats that stretched across the Bairn river. Four lines of twenty boats, each securely tied together, rocked against bucking waters.
She carried precious keepsakes and a few baked goods in a large wicker basket. The cakes Garmee Gamee’s had baked for Arnwylf were balanced on top. She thought of eating one once she had crossed the river, but decided it would be better to wait until her grandson was once again home and safe. If he was ever to be found. No, she thought to herself, banish these bleak thoughts.
It was hard climbing from boat to boat, but halfway across, Alrhett got the hang of it.
With almost all the citizens of New Rogar Li across, the soldiers began making round trips, carrying over supplies and weapons.