by Paul Collins
‘Agreed.’
‘Now go.’
‘Folk have been tortured to death for even thinking about talking to the Preceptor like that,’ Gilvier said as they watched the Preceptor and his two lindraks ride away down the cobblestone street.
‘I’ve already endured torture because of his stupidity and ambition,’ Fa’red replied testily. ‘Tell me, Bradant, is there anyone who knows the trails of the Algon Mountains better than you?’
‘In all modesty, no.’
‘Would you be prepared to set off, alone, in pursuit of three thieves?’
Gilvier raised the sword that he was wearing a handspan clear of its scabbard, then let it drop.
‘I am a master of the mountain trails and a proven leader of men, Fa’red my friend. I am not a lindrak assassin, honed to be shot at by my King’s enemies.’
‘Even to become governor of D’loom and all Skelt lands to the north? Then again, since the death of Count Juram, there is also a vacant place among the nobility.’
Gilvier blinked. As Fa’red had judged, he too had his secret ambitions, ambitions that he had probably renounced by now. Fa’red had stared down the Preceptor himself, and the Preceptor had been flanked by a pair of lindraks. Then he had sent him away with orders for the governor of Skelt. If he could do that, he could probably make good this wild promise as well.
‘First tell me who I am up against.’
‘A serving wench at the Boar and Bottle saw Daretor leave the port during the fire that destroyed the smithy where Thull’s body was found. With him was a youth called Zimak Broagar, a local boy of about fourteen years who excels in kick-fist fighting and who carried messages between Thull and me. The third was a runaway Nerris -sian novice monk called Jaelin Halvet, who has been about D’loom for a sixmonth and worked as a scribe in the market. Daretor, you know of, and together they killed Thull.’
‘So what chance do I have if you insist that I travel alone?’
Fa’red held up his second dragonlink.
‘This will supply you with an inexhaustible army of warriors, all willing to die for you.’
‘What sort of warriors?’
‘Why the very beasts of the forests and the birds of the air, Gilvier. Will you go?’
Gilvier held out his hand and Fa’red tossed the dragon link and gold chain to him.
‘The fugitives have over a week’s start, but that is no matter. Stay here until the Preceptor returns. I’ll have him scribe up some papers that will get you across any border and excuse all but the most gross of crimes. When you are within a half-mile of them the link will glow, as will their mailshirt.’
‘And I am to return the mailshirt to you?’
‘No, you will go on to the great mountain city of Dremari in Passendof, and then to the Valley of Clouds in Baltoria. Harvest the dragonlinks that are in use there, and then return them all to me.’
‘You seem confident that these links are where you say they are.’
Fa’red’s cheeks ballooned into a smile. ‘Wherever there are miracles, Gilvier, rest assured the links hide behind them. The Valley of Clouds reeks of link magic.’
Chapter
10
It was some weeks before Jelindel, Zimak and Daretor reached the Chasmgyle Bridge, deep within the Algon Mountains. They began to cross, but stopped at the midpoint. They watched the waterfall and the torrent below. Fed by melting snows higher up in the Algon Mountains, the Marisa River was in flood.
Highlights from the ruddy sunset gleamed on the water as Daretor turned stiffly in his saddle and pulled out a bundle from his left saddlebag. It was heavy with an armourer’s hammer, tongs, chisels and files.
‘Ah, what are you doing with the armourer’s tools?’ asked Zimak.
‘Throwing them away,’ replied Daretor.
‘What? Are you possessed? They are very good tools, and worth many argents. We may need them.’
‘It is a matter of honour, I must throw them into the river. I’ll gather the scattered links of the mailshirt together, but I will never use the stolen skills of another warrior. I need no tools, for I’ll melt the mailshirt and loose links down to a single lump so that such a dishonourable crime can never happen again.’
‘But Daretor, the tools are innocent! If you want to reject them, sell them or give them to me.’
‘No, Zimak, this must be a sacrifice.’
‘Well sacrifice them to me – No!’
Daretor heaved the tools over the log railing, and they watched the sack dwindle to a speck and hit the raging brown torrent with a splash that blended into the turbulence in a moment. The warrior’s hand dropped to his axe, and he patted the head as though it were a faithful hound.
Jelindel dismounted and stood staring over the railing, awestruck. She had never been beyond D’loom in her short life, and even the mountains had been breathtaking for her. In D’loom the mountains had been a ragged line on the distant horizon, only visible on clear days.
‘That was so stupid; it was such a waste!’ Zimak ranted as he joined her at the railing.
‘Zimak.’
‘Yes?’ ‘This is the greatest thing that I have ever set eyes upon. Shut up, and don’t spoil it.’
The bridge was a quarter mile from a mighty waterfall that plunged more than a thousand feet into the gorge then poured past below in a muddy tumult. Mist from the falling water drifted through the sunlight, forming ever-changing rainbows, while the continuous rumble was like the breathing of some dragon bigger than the mountains themselves.
For once in his life Zimak was lost for words.
Jelindel had seen sketches and paintings of the famous gorge and waterfall, but nothing could have prepared her for the vertical torrent itself. It had been one thing to study maps and known world atlases, but it was quite another to be really standing there.
Daretor had been across the bridge once before, and was lost in thoughts that he did not voice.
‘Everything has been a wonder since leaving D’loom,’ said Jelindel. ‘Looking out across the cold, bleak beauty of Dragonfrost Plain, the estuary forests of the Marisa River with their floating villages, then the first of the Algon Mountains, and now this.’
‘I – I feel as though I want to take it with me,’ said Zimak.
‘A good look is all that we can take,’ Jelindel said wistfully. ‘Even the sketches that I have seen give no idea of what it’s like to stand here. Henceforth I shall use books only to point to things that I should see and do for myself, not as knowledge for its own sake.’
They remounted and rode across to the other side and were soon in among the mountains. Most of the traffic was in the opposite direction and consisted of refugees from the recent outbreak of fighting with rebels in the mountains of southern Passendof. Jelindel had been wearing the mailshirt as they rode, because she was the least proficient fighter of the three of them and so most in need of a mailshirt’s protection. She wore a sheepskin coat over the top of it.
Two hours past the Chasmgyle Bridge Jelindel noticed coppery light radiating from beneath the loosely laced sheepskin. She hurriedly drew the lacings tight to smother the glow from the mailshirt’s links.
‘It’s glowing,’ she announced nervously.
‘Already?’ exclaimed Zimak. ‘What incredible luck.’
‘Not luck,’ said Daretor. ‘I expected there to be someone else with a link hanging about near Fa’red, waiting for a chance to snatch the whole mailshirt. I was apparently right, and now he’s closing in.’
‘We could call them linkriders,’ suggested Jelindel.
‘What’s a linkrider?’ asked Zimak.
‘In refined chivalry, a lady who wears the chainmail link – the lenx – of a warrior going into battle is called a linkrider. Because she wears the link, she rides in spirit with the warrior: they are together through the link.’
‘Tch, chivalry’s boring,’ scoffed Zimak. ‘All that twaddle about adoring maidens from afar. If it was me I’d just give ’em one
when I got close enough.’
Jelindel winced. ‘Be that as it may, linkrider seems a good name for those who wear the links from this mailshirt.’
‘An apt word,’ agreed Daretor.
‘They’ll have a master’s skills and some sort of weaponry,’ Zimak reminded them.
‘True. According to Thull, and verified by your own estimate of missing links, there are five warriors in search of this thing,’ said Daretor. ‘Five warriors who are almost certainly unfit to wear it or the rings that they hold.’
Zimak said nothing. He rose in his stirrups and scanned the rugged terrain.
‘Am I any better?’ Daretor asked Jelindel. ‘Why be invincible? To gain wealth? To gain power?’
‘You ask me?’ said Jelindel. ‘I’m sixteen, and a mere scribe.’
‘You’re a scholar.’
‘But not a philosopher. Nonetheless … perhaps the linkriders wish to use the mailshirt’s powers to solve problems best solved by one’s own efforts. Will you be unselfish in the use of its powers if you ever have them within your grasp?’
One of the many refugee families was ahead on the road, travelling towards the Baltorian border. A man and woman led a scrawny donkey that pulled a cart piled high with bundles. Three children trudged wearily behind it.
‘You proved your generosity by helping me,’ said Daretor. ‘It is time to put my own heart to the test.’ He took out the purse with Thull’s eleven gold coins and tossed it to the ragged father as they passed. ‘Buy a new life,’ Daretor called cheerily.
Moments later the family began calling incredulous thanks after the trio.
Zimak reined in sharply. ‘That money was to be shared equally among us!’ he said angrily. ‘I’ve a mind –’
‘Yes?’ Jelindel cut in. ‘If it’s so important to you, go back and take it from the refugees,’ she dared.
Zimak cursed silently. ‘One gold oriel is a hundred silver argents,’ he grated. ‘That’s 1100 silver argents to those beggars.’
‘Ex-beggars,’ amended Jelindel. As they rode on she drifted away to her own thoughts for a time.
Daretor also slumped into a pensive mood. Five links to go, five deadly duels – no, six duels, and the battle with temptations to wealth and power would be unceasing until they could destroy the complete mailshirt. For the present it was needed to draw the other links to itself, he reasoned. But when it was complete it could be melted down, sunk in the ocean’s deepest chasm, or pitched into the mouth of a live volcano, to be lost forever with its cargo of deadly skills.
‘The glow is fading,’ Jelindel reported, peering up the sleeve of the sheepskin coat.
‘Good, I’m not in the mood for a fight,’ grumbled Zimak. ‘I’ve got saddle sores. It’s hard to feel like a heroic warrior on a dangerous quest when you’ve got saddle sores.’
Try having saddle sores with Reculemoon in the wrong phase, Jaelin thought to herself, rubbing her abdomen.
‘We’ve crossed the gorge, so how far is this first Passendof town?’ Zimak asked.
‘Just ahead. We’ll reach it by noon tomorrow,’ said Jelindel, hoping that she was reading the map correctly.
‘Just as well,’ said Daretor. ‘Being on the open road with the mailshirt means being a target, even if it is concealed.’
They rode on in silence for a while, now more alert and nervous. Daretor’s bronzed face scowled while he thought. The mailshirt had begun to glow, then had faded. If they were approaching another warrior carrying a link, it would be glowing steadily brighter. The other had to be behind them and following at a cautious distance. They were definitely being stalked.
They kept guard all night, sleeping by turns, but although the mailshirt continued to flare up to a faint glow from time to time, nothing larger than mosquitoes attacked them. The mosquitoes put up a spirited attack, however, and even those who were not on guard did not sleep at all well. With the dawn they ate their breakfast of wild nuts, dried raisins and grainbread.
‘The village is about five hours’ ride from here,’ Jelindel said as she studied the map yet again.
‘I’m for staying there a few days,’ said Zimak. ‘I was damn near eaten alive by mosquitoes last night. Tch, look at this now, ants in the dried meat.’
‘It’s not the season for mosquitoes,’ Daretor commented. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time cutting wood in the mountains, and this is not the time of year for mosquitoes to bite.’
‘Wonderful, I’ll scribe them up a calendar,’ said Jelindel sleepily as she scratched at the swellings on her arm.
A hill thrush suddenly swooped, snatching a crust of bread out of Daretor’s fingers.
‘Damn!’ he snapped, and the other two laughed. Jelindel had been scratching in the dust with a twig. She picked up something and scraped at it with the blade of her knife. Pushing back the sheepskin’s sleeve, she compared what was in her fingers to the silvery links of the metal fabric.
‘What do you have there?’ asked Daretor.
‘It seems to be a link of mail dropped by someone in times past. It’s about one til in diameter, and fits within the links of this mailshirt quite neatly.’
‘I noticed that the mailshirt’s links were a bit larger than is usual,’ said Daretor. ‘Smaller links give greater density of metal and so more protection. Larger links mean that the mailshirt is completed more quickly, however. This one has larger links, but many are doubled at key places for extra protection.’
Jelindel undid the coat’s lacings and began counting the links across the middle of the mailshirt, and lengthways. She did likewise with the sleeves, then scratched some figures in the dust.
‘One hundred and twenty links around by seventy long, all doubled, makes nearly seventeen thousand links. The two arms are fifty links around and seventy long, that’s about seven thousand. As well, the shoulders and neck are doubled doubles, and there is the hem … perhaps another six thousand links. I estimate that thirty thousand links make up this mailshirt,’ she concluded. ‘The pattern is unflawed, except for one shoulder where five links of the doubled doubles are missing.’
‘Do you feel anything at all while wearing it?’ asked Zimak, as he had already done dozens of times over. ‘Any magical aura or somesuch?’
‘Yes, but just a very slight … well, it’s hard to describe. The feeling is very distinctive, but unlike any other. It’s a prickle and shiver all in one, perhaps.’
‘I’ve felt nothing, and neither has Daretor.’
‘Are you sure you have felt nothing, Daretor?’ Jelindel asked.
‘If every link robbed a warrior of his abilities, then many warriors must have suffered this past thousand years,’ growled Daretor, ignoring the question. ‘Innocent warriors robbed of their honestly gained skills. That thing is an abomination.’
‘It may have other properties,’ reasoned Jelindel. ‘It could be a force for good. You might be jumping to the wrong conclusions –’
‘No! It’s an affront to the honour of every warrior that ever lived. Only the most base of cowards would even think about wearing a link lost by some god and using its powers. It’s sacrilegious.’
Jelindel felt the tension in the air and nervously tried to defuse it. ‘A knight who dies by a peasant’s scythe dies in dishonour, but the scythe can still be used to harvest wheat.’
This caught Daretor off-guard. He ran his fingers through his hair, then sat forward with his hands clasped and his shoulders hunched.
‘Tell me then, what else can it do?’ he asked.
‘I do not know; I merely suggested that other uses might be possible.’
They ate and talked for a few more minutes. A hill thrush swooped on Zimak and pecked him hard on the crown of his head. He shouted out in surprise and flung a handful of gravel after the bird. Daretor watched with interest rather than mirth.
‘The bird that stole my crust before has just been sitting on a rock ever since, looking at us,’ Daretor point -ed out as Zimak sat rubbing his head. ‘It has not
taken a single peck out of the crust. From my years as a woods-man I can also say that hill thrushes never attack people.’
‘But some other birds do,’ said Jelindel. ‘There were piebalds at home in the, ah, monastery garden. They were very aggressive at nesting time.’
‘Piebalds, weetels and chang-hoos all attack when humans or animals get too close to their nests, but never hill thrushes. Jaelin, look out!’
Jelindel ducked and threw her arms up as another hill thrush attacked. There were five birds perched on the rocks around them now, and others were circling.
‘Magic, perhaps,’ said Daretor.
‘There are some enchantments that control animals,’ Jelindel agreed. ‘We may be too near the place of power for some hermit mage. The mailshirt could be disturbing his magical auras. It does have a subtle presence.’
‘Time that we were going,’ advised Zimak.
They saddled up the horses and strapped on their packs but as Zimak tried to mount, his stallion suddenly reared and plunged, striking out with its hooves. As the three travellers backed away, the stallion herded the mare and gelding back down the trail and out of sight. Zimak began running after them.
‘Leave them! You can’t outrun horses,’ Daretor shouted.
Zimak shook his fist at the empty trail, then turned and came back to the campsite.
‘Something frightened them, something that only horses could sense,’ Daretor concluded.
‘Some enchantment, or a beast?’ asked Zimak.
‘I know most beasts of the mountains, and I definitely know all beasts that are big enough to frighten a horse,’ said Daretor. ‘I have seen no traces of them, so I can only say that an enchantment is to blame. The nearby linkrider may be a mage.’
They began walking to the next village, but their progress was slow. The trail was steep and rough, with many washaways slashing it and rockslides piled high to slow them.
Whenever they stopped to rest they were attacked by midges, horseflies, ants and birds. They did not reach the village until early evening.