Hugh Cook - The wizards and the warriors

The incoming tide had allowed the Collosnon warship to come right in beside the rocks of the shore.

'There's nobody ashore yet,' said Miphon.

'They won't follow us,' said Hearst. 'We've got too much of a start: they'd never catch us.'

But even as they watched, the ship started to disembark large white animals.

'Horses!" said Ohio.

'They must be dreaming." said Miphon. 'They'll never get horses up that slope.' i don't think they're horses.' said Blackwood.

'I know a horse when I see one,' said Miphon. 'Even at this distance.'

Riders mounted up; a party of twenty turned east to follow the pirate crew, while eight started to make their way up the slope toward Hearst, Miphon, Ohio and Blackwood.

'Those aren't horses,' said Ohio.

'What did I tell you?" said Blackwood.

'They're the size of horses,' said Hearst, 'but they climb like goats. Miphon, what do they look like to you?'

Miphon listened, trying to catch the thoughts of the animals, but they were still far away. Besides, his powers were at a low ebb. He had been forever seasick on their voyaging, and had scarcely been able to practice the meditations at all.

T don't know what they are.' said Miphon.

'Who cares?' said Ohio. 'Let's run!'

Inland, a few leagues south, mountains rose abruptly from a landscape of peat bogs, lakes, pools and tarns: the broken country in between, with its skull-smooth outcrops of grey rock, offered no vegetation of any height. if we can make it to the mountains,' said Blackwood, 'we'll be safe.'

'You go then,' said Hearst, iil make my stand here. With luck I can hold them up long enough to give you a chance.'

'Don't be a fool,' said Ohio. 'For all we know, they'll turn back rather than chase us inland. Come on.'

And they began to run. There was only a light wind; there was no sound of bird or insect. Their feet went soft over grass and the worn-down nubs of rock outcroppings. Jogging south, they wasted no breath on talk.

Arriving at the top of a small bluff overlooking a tarn, they disturbed two gulls, which rose from the dark waters, leaving silent circles spreading ripple by ripple across the surface. The gulls wheeled silently overhead, grey feathers in flight in a grey sky, and then were gone.

The four scrambled down the rock face of the bluff and skirted round the edge of the tarn; underneath grass, mud quaked beneath their weight. Another slope confronted them; up they went.

The hunted men began to feel they were moving in a dream, where there was no end to the cool, odourless air, the black pools, the salt-wind grasses, the silent grey rocks and the grey sky reaching away to the horizon.

Then they heard the white riders hallooing behind them: 'Yo-dar! Yo-dar!'

'Sa-say!'

Then it was no dream any more: it was sweat, heat, strain and gut-wrenching effort as they tried to force themselves along faster. Finally they paused on a high point, panting, faces flushed, limbs shaking with fatigue.

'We can't outrun them,' said Miphon. Hearst drew his sword. 'So it ends, then,' he said.

– So make a stand, song-singer, sword-master, leader of men. Make a stand, Hast, my hero, my brother in blood.

'Lpt's split up,' said Ohio. 'If we separate, one of us might get away, if we run quick enough.'

'You run,' said Hearst. 'I'll take my chances here.' if you take odds like that, I'll gamble against you any time,' said Ohio. 'Don't be a fool: run.'

The riders were having difficulty getting their animals down a slope that was almost sheer, but soon they would be past that obstacle.

'They will remember me as a brave man, at least,' said Hearst.

'I'd rather be remembered as an old man,' said Ohio.

'No chance of that,' said Hearst.

'Yes,' said Blackwood. 'There's still one chance.'

He held up the green bottle which they had been carrying with them, and which they had avoided entering for all these days, believing Elkor Alish to be waiting inside.

'If we go in there, we'll have to face Alish,' said Hearst.

'He's one man, we're four,' said Miphon. 'It's a good idea – the only idea. Come on.' "What's this about?' said Ohio. 'Follow,' said Blackwood.

They left the high point and plunged down a slope, so they were out of sight of the pursuers. Blackwood threw the green bottle so it fell into the dark waters of a tarn.

'Ohio,' said Blackwood, 'Hold my shoulder.'

'Why?' said Ohio.

'Do as you're told.'

When they were all in contact, Miphon, who was wearing the ring commanding the green bottle, turned the ring.

Green went the world.

'The man who rules this rules the world,' said Elkor Alish.

He held the death-stone in his hand; in the green bottle, it could do no harm.

'It's a greater thing for a man to learn to rule himself,' said Blackwood.

'So our woodsman plays philosopher,' said Alish. 'How did he come by such pretensions?'

They could talk freely and without fear: they were in separate halves of a room divided by a wall that was covered with carvings of wizards, warriors, dragons and creatures of the Swarms; a portcullis blocked the only way through that wall.

'Do you think me ignorant?' said Blackwood. 'I remember the council of war in Castle Diktat on the island of Ebonair, the battle of the Bluesky Waters, the wreck of the Dalmanasturn. I remember the Long War, the Empire of Wizards, the court of Talaman. You know what I know.'

Ohio hung back, watching. Miphon stood beside him, letting Hearst and Blackwood do the talking.

'What's this nonsense?' said Ohio. 'There's no castle on Ebonair. The Dalmanasturn is only a children's story. And what and where are the Bluesky Waters? And who was -'

'Listen,' said Miphon. 'Weil explain later.'

Elkor Alish was pacing backwards and forwards on the other side of the portcullis, declaiming in a loud voice: '… then south to conquer. Ancient wrongs will be righted. The battle-banners of Rovac will fly from the towers of the Castle of Controlling Power. The Confederation of Wizards will be broken, destroyed.'

'You're mad,' said Hearst, and meant it.

'Mad?' said Elkor Alish. He laughed. 'No, Morgan, this isn't madness. It's destiny! In me you see the manifest destiny of Rovac. I have proof.'

'Proof?' said Hearst. 'And how did you come by it? From eating the moon and drinking salt water? Or -'

'Ahyak Rovac!' screamed Alish, drawing his sword.

Keen steel glittered in the gloom.

'I see,' said Hearst, 'that you've not yet lost your voice along with your sanity.'

T found this sword,' said Alish, his voice hissing, 'deep in the red bottle.'

'It's a wonder that you can find anything,' said Hearst, 'seeing that you're navigating with your head stuck half way up your backside.'

Alish screamed at him: 'Ahyak Rovac!'

Echoes woke in the gloom of the green bottle. The sword swept toward the portcullis. Metal met metal with a rending scream. Fire blazed white and blue. Five bars of the portcullis, each as thick as a man's thumb, were cut through by that single sword-blow.

'Now bite off your prattling tongue,' said Alish, his voice intense. 'Or use it to name this blade.'

'Raunen Song,' said Hearst, unwillingly.

The sword figured in the Black Blood Legends, the song cycle telling of wrongs suffered by the people of Rovac, and past attempts to right them.

'That is one of its names,' said Alish. 'Arbiter is another – and it has others. But, yes, Raunen Song names it well. Look. See? Rune-writing on the blade. A death-pledge from our yesterdays.'

'Alish,' said Hearst, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. 'We're talking of ancient history. That was a different world. We're born into the daylight, not into the shadowland of memory.'

'You talk treason!'