Darkling Fields of Arvon

by James G Anderson

  "And I you. And you, Broq. Briacoil."

  When Aelward and Broq had gone, Kal went to rouse the others, although he found Gwyn already stirring. Soon they were mounted on their marsh ponies and leaving the valley, heading east into the heart of the Bowstaff Mountains through the grassy straightway gap that lay beyond the last stone hut. In the growing light, they picked their way along the trail, following its serpentine twists and turns as it passed between the peaks to the marchlands. Sometimes it curled around sharp-edged mountain flanks over rocky ledges that fell away into dizzying drops. Sometimes they found themselves balanced on razor-backed ridges, panoramic vistas unfolding on either side. Other times they followed narrow defiles in gorges cut deep into the stone of the mountains. Soon their way began to fall, descending the leeward side of the Bowstaff range, often opening onto alpine meadows thickly carpeted with hardy flowers.

  The charcoal burner had been correct. The trail was easy to follow. Short pillars, stones piled atop one another, marked the way at regular intervals. By midafternoon, after a brief rest beside a small stream, they entered a more wooded terrain with gentler slopes. Still they kept descending, until at length they reached an area where the trail continued level in an easterly direction, but winding southward all the while, through a great hardwood forest free of undergrowth. After they had gone the distance of a league, the trail came abruptly to an end, turning aside through dense woods, doglegging into a huge cavern. To the right ran a low ridge of rock with nothing but empty sky beyond, its edge a precipitous drop. They had reached the lowside post. As soon as they stepped inside it, they saw numerous signs of human habitation: slack-gated wooden animal stalls strewn with musty hay, leather-bound gourds and horse harness, now brittle with age, eating utensils and frayed, crumbling bed pallets, as well as other oddments.

  "This place is as deserted as deserted can be," said Devved, looking about the cavern. He climbed from the back of his pony, picked up a broken-hilted sword and ran his hand along the nicked edges, dislodging a thick layer of dust. "Poor workmanship, too," he added.

  "Now what, Kal? Shall we spend the night here?" Galli asked, standing beside Devved.

  "Puts one in mind of the Cave of the Hourglass," said Kal. "Let's have a look outside."

  Flanked by his companions he walked to the opening of the cavern and mounted the gradual rise of rock that girded one side of it like a breastwork, shielding it from prying eyes.

  "Look at this! What a view!" cried Galli who was first to scramble up to the limit of the rock.

  "Careful, Galli! You too, Gwyn. One wrong step and there'd be nothing left of you but hapless bits of carrion for the vultures and fellhawks," said Kal, who stood on the edge of a sheer cliff looking hundreds of feet down onto a road that snaked its way through a gorge.

  "The Westland Road," Galli said.

  "This way, lads. You're too easy to spot like that. Better to look from here," called Devved. His head bobbed up from a sunken crevice in the rocky surface that sloped at their feet.

  Kal moved towards him and found a rounded portal hewn from the rock, with a short flight of stairs leading to a chamber just below the top of the escarpment, its one side open so that it afforded a clear view of the valley below.

  "An observation post," Kal said.

  "They must have used it to keep from being skylined to onlookers from below," Galli said.

  "As you all just were, yes," said the blacksmith. "It's a perfect spot for smugglers who needed to keep an eye on the road without drawing attention to themselves."

  Gwyn sidled up beside Kal and nudged him, pointing down to the road.

  "Aye, it seems fairly well travelled, doesn't it?"

  "That's not all, Kal," said Galli. "He means that you should mark the travellers themselves."

  "Soldiers . . . ," said Kal, squinting into the distance below. "Aye, soldiers marching up towards the mountains, to the Pass and Melgrun, I suppose. And wagons carrying timber."

  Gwyn nudged Kal again, looked at him with meaning, and pointed to the section of the road nearer Woodglence, which lay to the east, faint wreathes of smoke marking its place on the Winfarthing River.

  "Now I see . . . . Galli, see those two clusters of horsemen? You can see their livery and the pennons . . . ." Kal grew silent and fell to musing as he peered down the valley, his mind drifting back to his school days in the Holding. He could still hear the tone and inflection of Landros's voice.

  Bengonnar's red eagle glides

  Above the Sheerness blue-grey sides.

  The white seabird of Calathros' shores

  O'er a sky-blue ocean soars.

  Cor'gwella's deep, dark woodgreen cloak

  Holds the mighty ashen oak.

  Dowren, clad in purple gay,

  Boasts the mythic Wyvern, fey.

  Ewynek's sea-green capes embrace

  Silver fish in swirling chase.

  Melderenysian russet shores

  Shall host a blue crown nevermore.

  Oakapple Isles' soft sable-stoles,

  Each a silver swan enfolds.

  The Velinthian Bridge, in victory's stain,

  Stretches on Orm's ochre plain.

  Pelogran's sun-goldened heart

  Bears black tools of forgeman's art.

  South Wold wreathed in Radolan mist

  Wears its grey with a sable fist.

  Shining mountain, Tanobar's head,

  Rises silver o'er fields deep red.

  Thrysvar's sons in snow-white mantle

  Bear his swords yet stained from battle.

  And though the least, fair Lammermorn,

  Holy Keep, Arvon's first-born,

  Will ever in his arms enfold,

  In deepest blue, the Harp of Gold.

  "They're clan colours," Galli said at length. "The riders are dressed in colours."

  "Clan colours, yes," said Kal, stirred from his reverie. "The highland clanholdings and keverangs—"

  "Two parties of them, each with a pennon bearer. Yellow surcoats for Orm, or is it Pelogran, and dark red—must be Tanobar, although I can't make out the actual devices. But they're clan colours. I'm sure of it."

  "Orm's is a darker yellow. And if it's Pelogran, it'll be a black hammer and anvil—"

  "Of course! And a shining mountain, Myst-Hakel, silver on the dark red tunics of Tanobar."

  "Your boyhood lessons remembered, too, eh, Galli?" Kal said, looking down upon the road again. "It must be a formal embassy or a state occasion of some kind, something that requires the personal attendance of the thanes and their retainers. It's the only reason they'd be in colours." Kal fell silent. "I wonder . . . ," he continued after a moment and turned away from the opening. "Something's afoot." He turned back to face his companions. "Listen, we've easily a few hours before dark. That's time and enough to slip into Woodglence, gain some sense of what is occurring, and slip out again."

  "Are you mad? The place will be crawling with Gawmage's troops. Besides, we've a long enough journey ahead of us as it is, without making sidetrips to Woodglence."

  "No, it must be done. Who knows but that the success of our mission hangs on the knowledge we gain about the enemy and his designs? It won't take us but an hour there and an hour back on foot. According to Latryk, we're not three or four miles from Woodglence."

  "Listen to Galli, Kal," Devved said. "The place is like to be thick with Dog's Heads. If not Ferabek's Scorpions besides."

  "That much the more danger. Devved's right," Galli said.

  "I didn't say I mind the danger, lad." Devved grinned, crossing his thick arms.

  "Still, there is danger," Kal said, "and we will mind it, Devved. We'll stay on the edge of town, test the waters, and gather what information we may without running any risks."

  Leaving the edge of the precipice, they hurried back to the cavern. There they unsaddled the ponies and watered them at a spring near the entrance, which bubbled up into a pool walled in by four square sides of fitted stone. After taking
their own fill of the water and wolfing down a hasty meal, they put the animals to pasture in a paddock behind a tumbledown fence that adjoined the traders' haven and set off on foot, carrying only their weapons and night pouches.

  Beyond the paddock, the ground folded into a ravine, where they discovered a bleached horse's skull that marked the remains of a trail. The track's broad stony bottom still held back the weeds and brush, even now after many years, making travel easy. They descended the sloping ravine for a couple of miles until it levelled to a flat stretch of woods, which opened in turn onto fields and fencerows. The sounds of lowing cattle could now be heard and the occasional cries of children at play. Ahead of them, the trail dipped down a long hill through a copse to a wide dirt roadway, a scattering of dwellings on either side. These gave way to a dense tangle of streets and buildings crowded around the coiling flow of the Winfarthing River, its glistening waters thick with water traffic.

  Kal's pulse quickened. The Holdsmen stopped in hesitation. They had reached the outskirts of Woodglence. Somewhere a dog barked and a door slammed shut. Then a louder sound rang out in the summer evening air. Devved's face erupted into a smile. It was the familiar clang of hammer on anvil, and it came from one of the buildings nearby, to their left.

  "There, that's a smithy," Devved said, nodding his head in the direction of a low stone building. "There's as good a place as any to get a notion of the happenings hereabouts."

  "Let's have a look, but be careful," Kal said as they moved out onto the road, the hammer blows sounding louder. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and turned to his companions.

  "That sign—what do you make of it?"

  "It's just a shop sign, Kal. I had one myself," Devved said. "In the case of a blacksmith, it's usually the mark he stamps on his work as well."

  "But this one? What does it signify?" Kal said.

  "It looks to me like a bridge," Galli said.

  "Look at the piers of the bridge. What do they look like, if you were to turn them over?" Kal said.

  "What are you driving at, lad?" Devved said.

  Galli considered for a moment, and then his face lit up. "The piers, yes, they look like the points of a crown, a crown laid upside down," he said.

  "I think so," said Kal. "Put the two together and you get—"

  "Crownsbridge! You mean—"

  "Indeed, just that! Crownsbridge!"

  "What are you two on about?" growled Devved.

  "I remember your father telling us about it, Kal," Galli said, ignoring the blacksmith.

  "Devved, Crownsbridge was where the main barracks of the Life Guardsmen were located. Just outside of Dinas Antrum," Kal said. "And the crown like that, wrong side up. A crown overthrown perhaps? The fall of King Colurian? I'd wager this fellow was a Life Guardsman."

  "Either you're a fey dreamer, Kalaquinn Wright, or as Hordanu you see what others don't see," the blacksmith said.

  "Not Kalaquinn. And not Hordanu," Kal said.

  "What are you on about?" Devved asked.

  "Call me Kalestor, or Kal," he replied. "Kalaquinn may be a name that is being hunted. Should anyone ask, my name is Kalestor. And of course you can still call me Kal. I am not Kalaquinn, and I am certainly not the Hordanu. Mind that, Devved, Galli."

  Kal quickened his pace towards the open doors of the shop. The clanging stopped. A man in his late forties, of middling height, slight in build and wiry, looked up from his anvil, his face glistening with sweat. The long fingers of his right hand were clasped around a hammer, while his left hand gripped the tang of a hiltless sword in a pair of heavy tongs, the fire-stained blade smouldering with heat.

  "A fine-looking blade you have there," Kal said.

  The smith considered the men at the door for a moment with wide, coal-black eyes that shone beneath a shock of unruly grey hair. There was a distinct mousiness about the man, Kal decided, that made him seem somewhat ill-suited to his place by the anvil; yet, Kal could see from the forgework that filled the corners of the shop that there was little question as to the man's ability in the trade. The smith closed one eye and, with the other, peered down the length of the blade, examining the trueness of his handiwork.

  "A man needs a good weapon these days," he said.

  "Why so?" said Kal.

  "These are dangerous times. You're strangers here," said the smith more by way of statement than question, a squint of suspicion in his eye as he looked at the visitors to his forge again. "One of you a Telessarian, and the rest of you highlanders by the look of things." He returned his attention to the blade in his hand. "An odd company these days."

  "No odder than a blacksmith in Woodglence who makes Crownsbridge his mark," Kal said.

  The man looked up at Kal and slowly lowered the unfinished sword to the anvil. "What of it, lad?"

  "I'd venture a guess, if I knew no better, that you were once a Royal Life Guardsman," Kal hazarded, holding the man in a steady gaze.

  "And what if I was?" The smith's tone was cold and dismissive, and he lifted the blade's edge to his eye again.

  "Then there would be a bond of sorts between us," Kal replied.

  The smith snorted brusquely. "You've a right strange sense of humour, lad. Why, you weren't even born when I—" His manner grew suddenly more wary, and he placed the blade into the forge's belly and snatched out another, glowing yellow, which he placed on the anvil and fell to shaping with solid hammer strokes amid showers of sparks.

  "When you served? No, but my father was. It was he that served as a Royal Life Guardsman. Frysan was his name . . . from Pelogran."

  The blacksmith laid down sword and tool on the anvil and scratched at his tangled grey mop of hair. His manner had changed, as quickly as fire-angered steel is tempered when plunged in the smith's brine. He glanced up at Kal.

  "I remember a Frysan fellow vaguely. He was probably of the other camp."

  "The other camp?"

  "The king's camp. The true king's camp," the smith said, lowering his voice and looking about him with the air of a conspirator. "In defiance of the Mindal."

  "In defiance of the Mindal?"

  "They were good men, and honourable. Though I'm careful to whom I'd say that. But I've a good sense about you all." He picked up the hammer and pointed it at the men standing in his smithy's doorway. "Aye, I've a good sense about you all. You saw the Crownsbridge and knew it for what it was." He lifted his hammer to strike the steel again, but thought better of it and returned the cooled blade to his forge.

  "Good men, and honourable? That would have been my father. Of the other camp, as you say. He left the service rather than bend to the Mindal."

  A look of pained sadness passed over the blacksmith's face. "I stained my honour. I sided with Baldrick and his lot." He shook his head. "The times were uncertain. I was young and easily swayed. I've spent years now seeking to make amends, siding with those who resist Gawmage and the Mindal."

  "And your name, Master Blacksmith?" Devved asked.

  "Tromwyn Tressilias, born and raised in Woodglence here." The blacksmith smiled, lifting his head. "We're fellow tradesmen, I see. I can tell by your arm, and the eye you have for the forge."

  "A well-placed guess, Tromwyn Tressilias. True and on the mark," Kal said.

  "As was yours, Master . . . ?"

  "Kalestor," Kal said, "And these are my companions, Galligaskin, Gwyn, and Devved, a fellow forgeman to you."

  "I bid you welcome, all." Tromwyn grinned and bobbed his head, setting the disheveled grey thatch atop it to flight. Kal could not help but grin himself, for it was obvious that the expressions of jocundity better sorted with the face and manner of this marchland blacksmith than did those of wariness and suspicion.

  "But what brings you to the door of my forge this fine evening, friends?" the blacksmith asked.

  "We travel through these parts from Pelogran. It was Devved that heard the ringing of your hammer and anvil, and Devved that encouraged us to stop in. We have been travelling by little-trod ways t
hese past few weeks and have had little occasion to learn of the recent happenings in Arvon, though we've seen strange traffic on the roads. Devved suggested that a forge is as good a place as any to gain knowledge of events."

  As Kal spoke, he turned to nod to the big man standing beside him, and, as he did, the edge of his cloak pulled back, exposing the hilt of Rhodangalas. Tromwyn stared at the ornate grip and forward quillion that poked out from cover. Then, blinking, he looked up at Kal.

  "Ah, a fine-looking blade you have there," he said.

  Kal lifted the edge of his cloak over the sword again. "A man needs a good weapon these days."

  "Aye, indeed, he does," Tromwyn said, his brow furrowing slightly. "Indeed, he does." Then, as if coming to some decision, he nodded and met Kal's look, his black eyes wide and glinting in the low light of the forge. "So, travellers from Pelogran in need of a reckoning of the recent happenings in the world at large," he said and smiled. "That's all you need tell me. And if it's a reckoning you want, then there's only one place in Woodglence to be—the Mourning Crown. Aye, that's where I'll take you lot."

  Kal glanced nervously at his companions. The blacksmith caught the look and chuckled. "You've naught to worry you, Kalestor, friend," he said. "The Crown's an inn on the riverside, and its keeper is a good man, loyal, a Life Guardsman, too, or was. Paerryn's his name. Come"—the blacksmith turned back to the brands in his fire—"give me a moment to close my forge, and I'll take you there."

  "Allow me to lend you a hand, Tromwyn," Devved said, stepping to the forge. The marchlander smiled, and the two blacksmiths fell into banter as Galli and Gwyn waited outside, looking at the town lying below them, and Kal paced restlessly, his hand set on the hidden hilt of Rhodangalas and his on mind on leaving Woodglence as soon as possible.

  Less than half an hour later, led by the marchland blacksmith, they left the forge and started down the road into the town.