Darkling Fields of Arvon

by James G Anderson

  "This way, Kalaquinn! Come Gwyn! No sign of danger." Alcesidas called, beckoning with his hand for them to join him.

  In a few moments, the three stood just inside the mouth of the cavern, drinking in the freshness of the open air, scanning the terrain outside.

  "A perfect bolt-hole," Kal said, looking back over his shoulder into the murky cavern that served as a portal from the underground world to this open spot perched on the western flanks of the Radolan Mountains.

  "Yes, a most curious natural structure. It serves to hide the entrance to the tunnel," Alcesidas said. "As I mentioned before, the tunnel was built many generations ago, but it was sealed off again as my people forswore the wayward upperworld realms and took to themselves. Sealed off so far back in the history of the hammerfolk that the tunnel itself passed out of common memory, until Meriones's predecessor discovered reference to it in a forgotten parchment."

  "Years ago, when Magan Hammermaster was but a babe, so I am told," Kal said. "It was very clever of the king and Meriones to keep knowledge of the passage such a closely guarded secret, allowing its entrance to remain blocked, inaccessible to friend and foe alike."

  " 'Twas no great secret," Alcesidas said, fetching an uneasy glance at the sky outside, so different from the solid firmament of Nua Cearta. "We have always found it a comfort to know this way into our domain was closed. Surely you noted the fresh stonework as we entered the tunnel. That end was sealed as well, sealed under the order of my grandsire, and has remained sealed, until now, when need has arisen for a straight and sure means of passage to the upperland world." The crown prince returned his attention to the Holdsman at his side. "But know this, Kalaquinn, by the anvil and the forge, as long as you shall live, and your successors after you, this tunnel will remain open, as will my forgeland kingdom of Nua Cearta, in warrant and proof of a lasting friendship."

  Gwyn nudged Kal and pointed to a circular smudge of charcoal to one side of the mouth of the stone chamber. Kal was happy for the interruption. He had begun to grow uncomfortable at the extravagant flourishes of emotion to which the hammerfolk seemed wont. While he appreciated the sentiment's underlying truth, its excesses had become increasingly cloying.

  Kal stepped to the remains of a campfire and turned up its black dust with the toe of his boot. "Someone's laid a fire here, I see."

  "A good two weeks old, it seems, from report of our scouts. No directly pressing threat to us. All the same, 'tis a baleful sign, one which bids us use caution."

  "Indeed, we must, Alcesidas. It is, as you said, a treacherous path from here," Kal said, surveying the slope that fell away before the cave, rocky and precarious. "Open and exposed, in plain view of any lurking foe. Yet, despite the danger of being seen, 'tis well that the body of Holdsfolk went while yet there was some daylight by which they could mark their footing. It looks a more daunting course than was even the Ellbroad Bridge."

  "Aye, there stands not a chance that it could be traversed under cover of night," said Alcesidas, "leastwise not without grave mishap. Especially not with children in company."

  "I hope they are safe."

  "Ease your mind, Kalaquinn. They were well escorted. Lesk and Hannereg, our finest scouts, accompany them. Aided, too, by your own men, Galligaskin among them. Come, let us meet them as planned down below. But I warn you, this, the first part of the way, is the most perilous."

  They stepped outside the shelter of the overhanging rock and for a moment paused to blink at the wavering sun, which hovered near the horizon to their left. Pine forests pricked the flanks of the Radolan Mountains and fell away to hills and plain and the not too distant ocean. Behind them, south by west, these same mountains spread their rugged profiles into the offing in broad ranks that bellied out like a ship's full sail into the hinterland of highland Arvon.

  Once again, Alcesidas took the lead. They ascended first along a rock-strewn path that took them above the cavern that concealed the portal to Nua Cearta. As they climbed, Kal realized that the great stone that formed the roof of the cavern was a smooth, nearly perfect oval slab of rock that jutted from the side of Mount Thyus, supported by the rough pillars beneath it.

  "Perfect for a giants' game of 'a duck and a drake and a halfpenny cake,' " muttered Kal.

  "How is that, Kalaquinn?" asked Alcesidas, looking back over his shoulder.

  "The slab over the cavern there. 'Tis shaped like a skip-stone."

  "If only you were a giant." Alcesidas smiled. "A good name for the place, though. The Skip-Stone."

  Their path now hugged the mountain. Its sides sloped steeply to a cliff's edge that dropped to a tangle of thickets and forest below. This part of Mount Thyus rose barren and without vegetation, except for the wiry tussocks of grass where they trod, a place too lofty and windblown to allow bushes or trees a roothold. Kal kept his eyes fixed to the trail at his feet. The ground was scuffed, the hardy turf bent. It would not take an experienced eye to recognize that a crowd of people had passed this way. He cast a glance at the sky, looking for a cloud in hopes of rain to wash away telltale sign, but there was none.

  The men kept silent as the path wound its way down the stark upper slopes and broadened, losing steepness. Taller grass and low-slung bushes now dogged their steps. In places the ground grew sodden underfoot. Here fresh footprints marred the soft earth. Kal shook his head grimly. Even a blindfolded, city-bred Dinasantrian would be able to read the sign. He found himself haunted by a fleeting shadow of dread, hoping fervently he had made the right decision when he insisted that his people take refuge in the Marshes of Atramar rather than letting them remain in the safe haven they had found in the forgeland kingdom.

  In the fading light, they stopped to survey a quiet vale hidden in an overgrown rift. Running water tinkled lightly nearby. Leafy aspens whispered softly to mottled ranks of birch and fir. Following the murmur of the water, they came to a hill fountain that bubbled from a natural wall of loosely locked stones, spilling into a pool edged with banks of water mint not yet dressed in its pale amethyst bloom. At the men's passing, the bruised herb incensed the night air by the water's edge.

  "Lesk? Are you there?" Alcesidas stopped and called out in a soft voice.

  "We are here, my prince." The ranger emerged on the other side of the pool, from behind a great boulder resting against the crumbling mountainside. By his side was another hammerson scout, likewise clad in green, rendering them both virtually indiscernible in the faltering light of the upland glade.

  "Kal, is that you?" said a third figure, a taller man, who stepped out now close on the heels of Lesk and his fellow scout.

  "Galli! Briacoil! Is everyone safe? Who have you brought with you there?" asked Kal as yet another man stepped out of the gathering gloom.

  "Briacoil, Kal. Galli insisted I come along. Said you might need an old soldier to keep you out of harm's way," Frysan hailed his son. The party of men that had stepped from cover now walked around the small tarn.

  "How goes it, Lesk? All is clear?"

  "As far as we can tell, my prince. But caution is in order."

  "They have been here, Alcesidas," Galli said. "But the sign is old. It would seem that the enemy have abandoned their search for us hereabouts. Still, it would be foolish not to tread carefully in these woods."

  Kal felt Alcesidas's unease abate somewhat at the report, as did his own. The prince had laid aside his bow and helm and now stretched himself prone on a smooth rock that overhung the pool beside the spring. Scooping up the cool water into his cupped palms, he slaked his thirst and sighed contentedly. "Ah, Kalaquinn, a fine mountain-filtered brew. And it goes down better than a draught of the Hammermistresses' choicest bragget. By my hammer, 'tis drink fit for a king!"

  "Or a hammerson prince and heir apparent," said Kalaquinn.

  "I had not thought it would be such hot work getting your precious self out of Nua Cearta," rejoined Alcesidas, wiping the dripping water from his whiskers with the back of his sleeve, rising as he did so from the stone sla
b to make way for his companion.

  "Nor I, Alcesidas. Gwyn and I were hard pressed to keep stride with you. There must be gathgour in your ancestry somewhere." Kalaquinn stepped onto the rock and stooped, loosening an emptied drinking gourd from his belt. Having slaked his thirst, he refilled the gourd and passed it to Gwyn.

  The forgeland prince chewed thoughtfully on bites of a tharf cake he had procured from the highland codynnos slung over his shoulder. He rummaged again through the haversack and produced two more of the rye and barley cakes. He offered these to Kal and Gwyn with outstretched arm, then turned to take his rest on a boulder well-cushioned with moss.

  "Remember, Kalaquinn, if you are ever sore beset and need to return untimely to our kingdom, seek out the Skip-Stone. Could you find the place again, had you not me as your guide?"

  "I think so. Using landmarks as a guide," said Kal, pointing with his tharf cake, nodding back towards the heights that lay east of them. "That bulging nose of rock beneath that icefall—that marks the north face of Thyus."

  "Indeed, Kalaquinn, find Thyus and you will find the Skip-Stone." Alcesidas rose from his rocky seat and stretched his limbs.

  "Well, now, my dear Holdsmen, 'tis time for us to be on our separate ways, else the light shall fail us. I must return now to Nua Cearta to aid Magan Hammermaster in the preparations for his own departure. I am fearful of what fate the future may bestow upon us and our underground kingdom. The times are grown dark, my lord Myghternos Hordanu." Alcesidas, his eyes grown solemn, turned to face the black-haired Holdsman and placed a hand on Kal's arm. "All the same, I know not why, Kalaquinn, but there is something about you and your manner that instills in me hope. I wish it were possible for my path to run in course with yours. To find Prince Starigan. Rekindle the Sacred Fire. And who knows? From there, with the newfound prince for us to hang our fortunes on, we might make a start. We might push aside the darkness, just as Ardiel did, when he was called and when he gathered his comrades around him."

  "I am sorry, too, that duty calls you homewards," Kal said, placing a hand upon the prince's shoulder.

  "And you, too, are called, Kalaquinn, of this I am sure, and you shall have your comrades, too, and would that I were included in their number." The prince turned to address the others. "Now I bid you goodspeed, brothers. May you and your folk prosper!"

  Alcesidas embraced each of the Holdsmen in turn, exchanging warm words. He turned last to Kal, whom he held fast for a lingering moment, then released.

  "Briacoil, my lord prince. May you walk ever held in Wuldor's eye." Kal touched the palm of his hand to Alcesidas's forehead.

  The hammerson prince bowed, then turned away with his two scouts to climb the sloping meadow. At the very moment when he was about to slip from sight into the twilit cover of a copse of alders, he looked back, gave a last wave and an elegant bow from the waist, then turned and was gone.

  Kal followed Gwyn, led by Frysan and Galli, along the well-trodden game trail. The camp of the Holdsfolk had been pitched in the shelter of a broad gully that held an ancient overgrown trackway known as Eyke Sarn, as had been decided by Wilum while escaping across Deepmere. Kal recalled from his study of the ancient maps during his sojourn in Nua Cearta—maps that Galli had hauled over his shoulder out of Lammermorn, and which now rested in the oiled canvas sack in the encampment of the Holdsfolk—that Eyke Sarn twisted its way down from the ruins of an old and no-longer-distinguishable glence. According to Galli, the glence had become the home to a family of hard-working beavers, plaited over with a generous quantity of sticks and mud and stranded in a flooded stretch of bottomland. The remnant Holdsfolk were ensconced in a depression surrounded by alders and brambles just a stone's throw from the beaver pond.

  Evening drew ever closer. The sun threw long shadows across the rough terrain. It cast the pines and spruce spread out below them in a dusky bronze haze. The rising wind, heavy with the scent of evergreen, felt cold on their faces. It rustled through the stand of aspen and birch that girdled the hidden hollow. Above the whispering of the wind, a solitary loon cried its haunting complaint from a lonely alpine lake. In the deepening murk, they clung to the beaten path, entered a thick swath of upland forest, then emerged again onto a high-grassed meadow.

  On the verge of the falling meadow, Frysan came up short and put his hand to his lips, bidding them keep silence. There was movement ahead—a parting of the brush at the edge of a covert that lay below them. Three elk emerged, spooked and running fast, their creamy rump patches fluttering in the breeze. Then, startled by the eddying backwash of man scent that came from the Holdsmen standing uphill but downwind of them, they wheeled and disappeared down a wooded slope below the clearing. Something had flushed the elk from cover.

  Kal felt the light prickling awareness of an unseen presence and carefully unslung his bow, holding it ready in his hands. The others had done the same, each peering into the thickening twilight. No one dared speak. A branch snapped, and something grunted sharply. Thrashing though the woods from which the animals had bolted, a dark shape emerged. The four Holdsmen edged their way towards the partial cover of a large clump of juniper. The figure drew clumsily away from them through the undergrowth that fringed the clearing. Kal marked its progress down the shoulder of the slope.

  The Holdsmen dropped into a crouch and crept closer through the tall grass. Now the figure could clearly be seen, a man dressed in colours that blended with the woods. They stood too far away yet to make out his features. Whoever it was, he showed curiously small concern for stealth. When he did turn to examine his back trail, he did so with clumsy haste. It seemed that he was travelling from the vicinity of the Holdsfolk's camp, although he had not been on the beaten path of the game trail. They dared not call out a challenge, for fear that the man proved to be foe rather than friend.

  The man dipped from sight beneath a crowning ridge. Frysan stayed his three comrades with a commanding hand. They waited a short while to determine whether there were others following in his wake. All remained still. Frysan waved them forward and took the lead in following the man's trail. Their path began to descend rapidly, winding its way around scarps and boulders and dense copses. The fellow was certainly moving fast, slipping from them recklessly through the gloomy woods. An owl hooted fiercely and wheeled in flight across the face of the darkening sky.

  The Holdsmen pressed on in an attempt to gain ground and catch up with the fleeing man. Struggling through briar and thicket, they too were no longer worried about making noise. It would be lucky if they didn't break their necks, thought Kal. All the same, he trusted his father's sure foot, his instinctive feel for the terrain and its pitfalls, even in the declining light.

  In a few steps, they emerged from the trees and undergrowth, as the terrain levelled off in a small clearing before a steeply curved and imposing bluff. The bluff rose dark and immovable from the spine of the mountain, closing off the area before them. Set into this wall was a blacker space, a cave opening, which yawned in the uncertain murk and gave the impression of extending far back into the escarpment. At their feet, a small stream ran past them through the sheltered meadow. It broadened out, as it brushed past the leading edge of the bluff to their left. There, the brook lost itself amid a tumble of rocks that crested the edge of a ragged talus slope at the far end of the cliff face and fell burbling down the mountainside. The man, their quarry, was nowhere to be seen.

  Senses alert, the Holdsmen stepped into the flow and waded carefully through the stream, its ice-cold water tugging at their ankles. Gwyn grunted softly and motioned for them to come and look. He had found tracks on the far bank, tracks leading from the soft soil of the brookside in the direction of the cave. Kal's eyes fixed on the opening in the cliff face.

  He stiffened, sensing an almost imperceptible flicker of movement in the recessed darkness. Something lurked in the veiling shadows. There was a scuffling sound and a faint glint of reflected light that glimmered, disappeared, then gleamed again. Something emerged from
the cave in awkward jerks, a blackness resolving out of the blackness, thickening and taking shape. The thing lurched forward, struggling out of the cave, and Kal could now clearly see leathery pinions that, in fits, half-extended then folded back against a massive black-furred torso. Beside him, Kal heard Frysan catch his breath.

  "The night drake . . ." his father whispered, as the four men dropped to a crouch. At a gesture from Frysan, the men fanned out, each finding what cover he could. A figure sat bolt upright on the creature's back, goading the beast in their direction through the dusk. There was no mistaking the profile; Kenulf was mounted on the night drake, wrestling to stay seated in his saddle as the beast lumbered forward. Kal could hear him talking, but whether to himself or to his terrible mount, he was unsure. It was impossible to make out all that the traitorous Holdsman was saying, but Kal could discern, through the tone of imprecation, certain words and phrases as the impassioned voice rose above the noise of the monstrous creature.

  " Ferabek . . . Enbarr . . . no more . . . I found their nest, I did! . . . me, a fool? . . . Thrag, we catch them, we will . . . Ferabek, when . . . kill them all . . . Enbarr . . . me? No more!"

  Kal glanced at his father. Frysan held a hand raised then placed a finger to his lips. In silence, he reached over his shoulder and drew an arrow from his quiver. The other Holdsmen followed his lead. "Must stop him." Frysan mouthed the words to his companions on either side of him. The creature had lurched clear of the cave opening and now stood erect not twenty-five paces away, its bulk blocking a clear view of its rider.

  "Up, Thrag, up!" the man commanded, his voice quavering. The night drake lowered its immense shaggy head, swaying it from side to side. "Quickly now! To air!" Kenulf cried. The beast blew a gust of steam from its nostrils into the cool dusk air. It pressed its body closer to the ground, then lifted its black muzzle, testing the scents carried by the evening. The creature's long ears lifted, and it took two ponderous steps forward, sniffing to the left and right. The beast was terrifying. Kal's stomach churned cold, his palm slick with sweat on the grip of his bow. Kal glanced at his father again. Frysan remained frozen in place.