Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

Farnor gave a defiant shrug. ‘But still…’

Yengar met the young man’s pained gaze, then looked skywards. ‘All right. I can see it’s something that’s troubling you. We’ll do as you ask. We all know what it’s like to receive a beating. Things like that do harm that lasts a long time. We’ll show you what we can. A few tricks and a little thought will soon have you feeling more confident in yourself.’ He became serious. ‘But I meant what I said about you before. Warrior’s not a word I’d choose, but you have the heart of what you need already; a profound determination to survive. Without that, weapons, fighting skills, they’re all worthless.’

He cast a glance at Marna. ‘It must be something in the water in that valley of yours. Now we have two pupils. However…’ He looked at Farnor significantly. ‘While I might possibly be able to give you the benefit of ten years of thought about conflict and violence in ten days, when it comes to learning how to fight and all that that involves – including such matters as talking your way out of problems, like Gryss, and surviving out here – then I’m afraid you have to go the long way.’

‘I understand,’ Farnor replied, a little nervous now that his request had been granted. ‘When can we… start?’

Yengar raised an eyebrow and his previous laughter returned. ‘We’ll start right now,’ he said. ‘Here’s your first and most important lesson in self-defence. Remember it well.’ He leaned across to Farnor and placed a confidential arm around his shoulders. Farnor bent towards him keenly.

‘Don’t swing a stick at Gulda again.’

Laughter floated into the rain-soaked air as the small procession wended its way along the valley.

A little later, the rain stopped and the clouds thinned to reveal streaks of blue sky and occasional shafts of sunlight. Coming to the end of the valley they stopped to rest the horses and to eat. And to decide where to go next, for the valley opened into an even broader one running north and south.

‘Pick a gap,’ Yengar said to Farnor as they surveyed the peaks along the far side.

Farnor looked at him blankly. ‘Where are we going?’

Yengar smiled. ‘Second rule of self-defence – ask questions like that before you set out.’

Farnor scowled at him.

‘They’re like this all the time,’ Marna said, her mouth full of a large Valderen pie. ‘And they laugh a lot – except him.’ She waved the pie at Olvric who inclined his head slightly towards her by way of reply. ‘Their main rule of self-defence is keep inventing new rules to make sure everything your students do is wrong.’

‘To make sure your students understand that everything they do can always be done better,’ Yengar intervened.

‘See what I mean?’ Marna declared with heavy fatalism.

‘Even so, it’s a good question,’ Jenna said. ‘Where are we going now? We were going to go to Vakloss, to give our accounting to the Geadrol, but…’ She indicated Farnor who shifted uncomfortably as all four turned to look at him.

‘Anderras Darion,’ Olvric said flatly, turning back to the strap on one of the panniers that he was repairing. ‘Gulda will be there.’

Farnor felt an uneasiness pervade the group momentarily. Yengar ended it by looking at the others for any sign of dissent.

‘It’s there or the Cadwanen,’ Jenna said. ‘There’s no one at Vakloss who can answer his questions. And the quickest way to the Cadwanen will be past Anderras Darion anyway.’

‘We’ll take you to Hawklan’s castle then, Farnor,’ Yengar said. ‘He’s the best man to advise you from there.’

‘And Gulda?’ Farnor asked. ‘Will she be there?’

Again he sensed the uneasiness.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, unable to prevent the question. Without any apparent signal, everyone was standing and preparing to set off again.

‘Gulda has a way of… gravitating… towards trouble,’ Yengar told him, as they began leading their horses down into the valley. ‘To be honest, from what you’ve told me I don’t think she’d have left you in the Forest unless she’d some other more urgent errand in mind.’ He made an effort at a reassuring smile. ‘Still, that’s all conjecture, isn’t it? We’ll find out if she’s there soon enough. All we need bother ourselves with at the moment is which gap you’ve picked for us to go through.’ He pointed across the valley.

‘I don’t know,’ Farnor protested in some alarm. ‘Don’t you have some way of telling which is the best way?’

‘Yes,’ Yengar said pensively. ‘It’s called guessing.’

It took them the rest of the day to cross the valley. Apart from a search for a shallow stretch by which to cross over an otherwise fast and turbulent river, the journey was without incident and they camped near the top of a col which they had agreed looked, ‘as good a way as any’.

Alone in his tent Farnor pondered the events of the day from his first nervous encounter with Olvric. It had been good, he decided, though the sense of some hidden darkness when Gulda was mentioned disturbed him a little. Still, these people were soldiers and by all accounts they had fought in a bitter war long before they came in search of Nilsson and his men. There were probably many things that they would not wish to share with either him or Marna. Then he realized that this was the first time since his parents had been killed that he had lain in a bed and felt both security around him and a future ahead of him. He was looking forward to it as he drifted into sleep, his thoughts fragmenting and scattering into disjointed nonsense.

Then he was wide awake, with fear crawling through every part of him.

Farnor started upright, his heart pounding. It took him a little time to realize that the strange noise rasping through the tent was his own breathing. It took him even longer to bring it under any semblance of control, for the fear he had woken to was still with him. At one point he was tempted to call out, but something stopped him. Slowly it came to him that the fear was not fear. It was more like the response he might have had to fingernails drawn down glass. And it was familiar.

Then there was fear.

This was how he had felt when, as he had confronted Rannick and his terrible familiar, a gash through this reality had been torn to reveal the myriad worlds beyond. As the memory returned, so now, as had happened then, he found part of himself reaching out to make right this affront – a part that he did not understand and that seemed more to be controlling him than he it. His helplessness brought fear of another kind. Not least because a struggle developed. Some power was opposing this other part of him!

Then, abruptly, the struggle was over. The gash was gone, as was this inner self. Everything was whole again.

He was leaning forward supporting himself on one arm as though, with opposition removed, he had stumbled forward. And he was shaking violently.

What had happened?

A nightmare?

No.

The feeling had been real, without a doubt, but what it had meant he had no idea. This time there had been no vision of the rent through into the worlds beyond. There had been just the darkness of the tent all around him. Nor had it been so intense. But it had been the same, without question. Except that this time something had opposed whatever it was in him that sought to right the injury.

Again he was tempted to call out but again he forced himself not to. Whatever had happened, it had definitely passed and, welcoming though his new hosts had proved to be, it was unlikely they would take kindly to being wakened in the middle of the night by what they would almost certainly consider to be a nightmare. For he doubted that he would be able to describe the incident adequately.