Roger Taylor: Valderen

‘And Rannick?’ Marna shouted, reaching out and shaking Gryss’s shoulder as if he were some inattentive child. ‘Is he dead?’

Gryss pointed. ‘No. He rode off. It was awful. Didn’t you hear him?’

Marna straightened up and gazed at the blazing gateway, flame-shadowed lines of pain and doubt etched deep into her face. Then she leaned forward again and put her arm around Gryss’s neck dragging him off balance with a passionate embrace.

‘Tell my father I love him, and I’m sorry,’ she said, then with a loud cry she drove her heels into the horse.

Before Gryss could protest, the four horses had leapt past him and were charging towards the burning gateway, Marna frantically urging them on. He found voice only as he saw them silhouetted against the flames lighting the gateway.

‘Marna! No!’ he cried, though his voice cracked as all four horses leapt the blazing remains of the cart and disappeared into the brightness beyond.

Scarcely a horsewoman, let alone a jumper, Marna released the rein leading the other three horses, and clung on to her own mount with both arms as it leapt through the gateway. The impact of the landing jolted her, but the sight that greeted her set such discomfort at naught. The light in the courtyard was brighter than a summer’s day, and it seemed that not one part of the castle’s stonework was free from the clamouring flames. The heat was suffocating and terrifying. She felt herself gasping for breath.

Even as she gazed about her, the walls of one of the buildings collapsed with a ground shaking impact, amid a triumphant roar of flames. Somehow she recovered the leading rein of the three horses before their burgeoning panic overcame whatever will it was she had inspired them with. She gazed around desperately, calling out at the top of her voice. But she could hardly hear herself above the din.

Her horse spun round and round and began to rear, almost unseating her, but she managed to cling on to both it and the rein of the others. She could feel the heat scorching her skin however, worse than anything she had ever known through working too long in the summer fields, and it came to her that she had commit-ted a folly that would probably kill her.

But despite the awful scream forming inside her, she couldn’t leave. Not yet. Surely, they couldn’t be dead. Not such people…

Then through the glaring heat she saw four figures come tumbling out of a doorway. Without any bidding from her, the horses turned towards them. Faces blackened, and clothes smouldering, the four warriors clambered on to their horses, Levrik mounting Marna’s horse and taking the reins. She offered no resistance.

As she looked at the gateway however, she saw that the flames were all around it and that it was changing shape.

She knew that Levrik’s horse was driving forward, urged on by the enigmatic soldier’s cold unhindering will and she was aware of the other three beside them, moving as one. But as they galloped towards the gate it seemed to her that it was retreating from them, so slow was their progress. Then they were leaping over the remains of the burning cart, and the air was full of the sound of the blazing stones of the great arch crashing down behind them.

The cold night, with its scents and its normality, folded itself magically about her. Many hands reached out to support her as she slithered down from the horse, but she struggled free from them.

‘Which way did Rannick go?’ she heard Levrik ask-ing.

A hand touched her shoulder. As she turned, an arm encircled her neck and she felt her hot cheek pressed against an even hotter one. It was Aaren, leaning down precariously from her horse.

‘Bravely done. Bravely done,’ she said simply, her voice hoarse with smoke and her eyes shining wet in the light of the burning castle. ‘We’re in your debt.’

Before Marna could reply, however, she had pulled away, and the four were galloping off into the darkness.

Derwyn peered into the darkness at the men around him. The sound of the horns had succeeded in extricat-ing most of them from the carnage of the camp but, dimly lit by the distant glow of the campfires shining through the trees, they were milling about him in considerable disorder. Their behaviour vividly reflected the emotions that were tumbling through him: a numbing mixture of shock, fear, and choking guilt; and an urge to flee from this now terrible fringe of the Forest, back to the safety of his lodge and the ways he knew and had always known. Yet, it was combined with an equally powerful urge to charge back amongst the men who had done such harm, to work some dreadful vengeance on them.

But, despite this turmoil, the qualities that had made him the quiet leader of his people were subtly asserting themselves, calming the ancient racial frenzy in which he and his men had tried to hide from the alien strangeness of the quest that Farnor had brought on them. In its wake came a clearer, if no less troubling, knowledge. Warrior he was not, nor any of his men. But they were hunters, and their ancient ancestors had been warriors. It was surely not beyond their resources to find some way of dealing with these intruders?

It occurred to Derwyn briefly that, Farnor’s assess-ment of these men having been so fearfully accurate, his assessment of the creature was probably no less so, and that they might indeed find themselves contending with it as well as Nilsson’s men. And, of course, there was the man, Rannick, with his mysterious powers.

With an effort, he set the thoughts aside. One thing at a time. He had first to bring his men back into some semblance of order. Standing high in his stirrups he bellowed out, ‘Be quiet, all of you!’ His powerful voice rose above much of the noise, but he had to call out twice more before it was quiet enough for him to speak and be heard.

He wanted to ask who had been injured, who killed, who had gathered around the frantic horn calling, who scattered into the trees, but a panic-stricken voice nearby focused his thinking sharply. ‘This is dreadful. Let’s get away from here while we can.’ It was a young voice, but echoes of it sprang up in the darkness.

His eyes reflecting the distant lights of the camp, Derwyn turned grimly towards the speaker. He could not allow time for the leisurely niceties that normally decorated their decision making.

‘No!’ he shouted. ‘Maybe it was a madness that drew us into that reckless charge, but it would be a greater madness if we forgot our duties as Valderen. If we fly now, how can we ever look to the protection of the Forest again? And how could any of us sit at peace by our hearths knowing that we betrayed both our ancient obligations and those who’ve just fallen to these outsiders?’ He waited for no reply. ‘Like it or not, we’re warriors now, and we stay here until this evil’s been driven from the Forest.’

‘It was that black-haired devil of an outsider who brought this on us,’ someone shouted.

Derwyn pushed his horse forward in the direction of the voice. ‘That black-haired devil was chosen to visit the most ancient, I’d remind you,’ he replied furiously. ‘It was he who warned us about these people, if we’d had the wit to listen. And without him, who can say how much harm they’d have done before we knew of them?’

There was no answer. Derwyn seized back his peo-ple.

‘Melarn,’ he shouted. ‘Take a dozen men and move back towards that camp, carefully. We need to know what they’re doing.’

Nilsson leaned forward earnestly, hoping to catch some indication of what the distant shouting meant, but it was too far away and there was too much noise about him. The blasting horn calls that had drawn the riders back into the trees had startled him. Were there reinforcements out there? Was there indeed some infantry force making its way towards them right now? And, again, who were these people?