Roger Taylor: Caddoran

Draferth cleared his throat apologetically. ‘I have ancillary motions for acceptance, Most Worthy Striker,’ he said.

Bowlott gave him a curt nod.

‘I further move that the Death Cry be rescinded and the Tervaidin disbanded, pending the outcome of a formal Moot Inquiry.’

There was now complete silence in the Hall.

With a draining effort, Bowlott stood up. ‘Under the authority vested in me by the Treatise on the Procedures for the Proper Ordering of the Moot, I declare the motions of the Worthy Senator accepted. Proceedings tomorrow will be confined to determining the constitution of the formal Inquiry which will look into the substantive content of the motions.’ He took hold of the hourglass which stood by the Throne and laid it on its side. Then he struck the floor with his staff. It was not easy, for he was leaning on it heavily. Krim’s cough barked through the crowd as he moved forward to escort him from the Hall. His eyes flared as they took in the damage wrought to his handiwork as a result of Draferth’s eccentric intervention. It was too much – he would have to speak to Bowlott immediately!

Two Tervaidin officers, who had been watching from one of the lower balconies, left quickly. Some spectators on the balcony above them left also.

Once Bowlott had gone, pandemonium broke out again as Senators rushed variously to leave the Hall, remonstrate with Draferth, and generally regale anyone nearby with what they had all just witnessed.

Draferth, flushed but hesitantly triumphant, was amongst the last to leave the Hall. As he went through the main door, a Tervaidin officer stepped forward to bar his way. At the same time, two Tervaidin Troopers moved to stand either side of him.

For a while, as Hyrald and the others moved along the valley, the peak that Thyrn had indicated as his goal disappeared from view behind a ridge. The sun kept breaking through the clouds fitfully, promising a warm and pleasant journey, but constantly failed to fulfil it. Its uncertainty seemed to pervade the group.

Gradually the valley turned and the mountain slowly came into sight again. Even to the Arvens, unfamiliar with mountains, it looked odd. Hyrald spoke the common thought.

‘It looks out of place,’ he said. ‘Almost as though it’s just been dropped there, blocking the valley.’

‘Or pushed up from underground,’ Nordath added.

Endryk just looked at it unhappily.

‘What’s the matter?’ Adren asked him bluntly.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It still reminds me of something but it won’t come to mind.’

‘Bad or good?’ Adren pressed.

‘Not good,’ Endryk replied, urging his horse forward.

As they rode on, Endryk gradually dropped back behind Thyrn so that he could watch him.

‘Can you still feel this… call?’ he asked him after a while. Thyrn nodded. He massaged his stomach nervously. ‘Clearer than ever. It’s drawing Vashnar here, I’m sure.’

‘Perhaps that’s no bad thing,’ Hyrald said with an air of grim resignation. ‘On the whole I think I’d rather face Vashnar out here, now, than in Arvenshelm in two or three months’ time or worse.’

Rhavvan was less sanguine. ‘If he’s coming, he won’t be coming alone, that’s for sure,’ he said. Endryk signalled that they should dismount and walk.

‘This has always been a journey into unknown regions, in every sense of the word,’ he said, patting his horse’s neck. ‘One without a destination. Now, if Thyrn’s instincts are telling him true, the destination might be coming to us.’ He looked round at his companions. ‘I think you’d better decide how you’re going to greet your former Commander if you do meet him. And you’d better decide what you’re going to do if he’s got the likes of Aghrid with him.’

His remarks were greeted with a silence that lasted for some time.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Hyrald said eventually. ‘But where will you stand in all this?’

‘By you,’ Endryk replied without hesitation. ‘As listener -or arbitrator, if I can. But I’ll fight with you if you have to and fly with you if you need to. The only thing I won’t do is surrender.’

‘We’re already in your debt far more than we can repay.’

‘How can friends be in debt? Besides, you’ve no measure of how much I owe you, starting my life for me again. In any case, I dearly want to know what’s been going on here. I’d be loath to leave without some kind of an answer.’ He looked at the mountain ahead of them. ‘And that place is bothering me.’

‘And if Vashnar’s coming? If we meet him?’ Rhavvan drew them back to Endryk’s stark advice.

‘I think Endryk just answered that,’ Adren said. ‘We’ll fight if we have to, and fly if we need to, but we’ll start by keeping him at arm’s length and talking and listening.’

Rhavvan pursed his lips. ‘Bow’s length, I think,’ he said grimly.

‘Could you put an arrow into Vashnar?’ Endryk’s question was stark.

Rhavvan met his gaze. ‘If he picks a fight and we can’t avoid it, yes.’ He was unequivocal. ‘Ever since he sent Aghrid and those Tervaidin after us. And I’d ride into Arvenshelm with his body across my horse and take my chance with my own kind.’

Endryk’s expression was unreadable. ‘And you?’ he asked Adren.

Hyrald spoke before she could answer. ‘We might not know what’s going on, but we’re all wiser than we were by years,’ he said. ‘We grasp the reality of our position. We’ll do what we have to, to survive.’

Endryk’s expression remained impassive as he studied each of them in turn. ‘Yes, I think you would,’ he said sadly. ‘I apologize. I just didn’t want to risk leaving the question unasked.’

As Endryk had foretold, it was not until the next day that they came to the mountain. The impression that it did not belong there grew as they drew nearer. It had the look of something completely lifeless, and while vegetation and trees had grown quite a way up the valley sides so far, the mountain ran right down to the valley floor like a grey scar, quite devoid of any hint of green.

Endryk curled up his nose and looked at Thyrn who pointed straight ahead.

‘I think not,’ Endryk disagreed, staring up at the looming peak, ominous against the overcast sky. ‘Let’s go up on to that shoulder and see what’s on the other side.’ Thyrn raising no objection they began the ascent.

The climb was no steeper or more rugged than any of the others they had encountered, but the horses became peculiarly troublesome, whinnying and pawing the dull rock. Nals, too, was quieter. Tail drooping, he hung back with the group instead of trotting well ahead as he usually did.

When they reached the shoulder, it was to see a valley of jumbled red-grey rocks stretching south ahead of them. It was unlike anything they had seen before. As with the mountain itself, there was no sign of vegetation. Endryk grimaced and let out a soft sigh of recognition.

‘There was a place I came across years ago that was like this – the Thlosgaral. A bad place.’ He shivered. The response disturbed his listeners.

‘What was the matter with it?’ Adren asked anxiously.

‘It was bleak, desolate, devoid of anything living – anything you and I would consider living. Yet there was an aura about it. I can’t explain it properly. People worked in it, mining crystals of some kind, I think, to sell in a city nearby. Men, women, children. Desperate, dirty, aching work. I spent one day and one night there and then took the advice someone had given me: I got out and went round it. If it didn’t kill me, bandits might well, they told me. I didn’t believe them until I found out that the whole place moved.’