Roger Taylor - Into Narsindal

The road, however, seemed a bleak defenceless proposition.

‘Can’t we make a raft of some kind?’ Tirke offered.

Byroc crunched a bone noisily. ‘Everything sinks in the mud,’ he said. ‘Everything. Byroc knows. Black ones, stinking Dowynai Vraen.’ He made an ominous slurping sound. ‘They all sink. And the water flames, and the air burns and chokes. If you want to enter His place, you must use His road.’

There was a long silence. On their journey they had passed several deserted slave camps and on the occasions that they had seen the road it had apparently been deserted. It was as if the whole of Narsindal had been emptied of everyone save themselves. But still, they had encountered one patrol, and there must surely be others. The road was too exposed. The risk of discovery while using it was far too high.

But now Byroc left them no choice.

Hawklan looked around at the group. They were none of them in the best condition. Andawyr, being the oldest and least fit, was suffering the most, not least because he seemed to be bearing some kind of increas-ing burden as they moved nearer to Derras Ustramel. The others were suffering mainly from fatigue brought on by a combination of reduced, and dubious, rations, their long journeying, and the grim, depressing terrain. Time was against them.

‘We must move soon, too,’ Andawyr said unexpect-edly, his words echoing Hawklan’s thoughts. ‘Something is happening.’

‘What do you mean?’ Hawklan asked, concerned at some note in the Cadwanwr’s tone.

Andawyr screwed up his eyes and craned forward as if he were trying to hear some solitary voice amid a babble. ‘Forces are gathering,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’ Hawklan repeated.

Andawyr shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘His Will is… moving now… I think perhaps the army is drawing near.’ He looked at Hawklan intently. ‘We must destroy Him soon, very soon. Or He will destroy everyone. We must leave now.’

Hawklan felt Andawyr’s bright eyes burning deep into him and it seemed that the path before him was becoming narrower and narrower.

‘Very well,’ he said slowly. ‘This is no more than you’re all trained for. We must truly be Helyadin and Goraidin. We must move through the midst of our enemies without them seeing us, and slay Him in His own lair.’

Byroc drew the Mathidrin sword he had taken dur-ing the fighting at the mines, and squinted along its edge. ‘Amrahl is mine,’ he said. ‘If He would be chief of all the tribes, then He must face me.’

One or two were about to reply, but Hawklan shook his head at them. ‘Whoever reaches Him must slay Him,’ he said. ‘Who can say what part we’ll all play at the end? But use my Sword to do it. Use your own weapons for our lesser enemies.’ He held out a beckoning hand towards Byroc’s sword. The Mandroc looked at him for a moment, and then handed it to him. Hawklan passed it to Isloman, indicating its turned and chipped edge.

Isloman nodded, and drew out a sharpening stone. Within minutes, the edge glinted and shone in the low torchlight, and so did Byroc’s eyes as he received it back. As he hefted it menacingly, he bared his teeth in a predatory grimace.

‘Almost as good as Loman could do with such poor metal,’ Isloman said. ‘Even though I shouldn’t say it. Anyone else?’

When the party broke camp, there was not an edged weapon amongst them that did not bear the touch that had sharpened the chisels of Orthlund’s master carver.

They abandoned the shelter and everything else that was unnecessary and, still following Byroc’s lead, set off silently into the damp, grey, mist.

It was a cold, grey morning that dawned on the allies’ camp two days after the Goraidin had brought the news about the army waiting for them. They had reached the central plain that same day and marched across it through the next. Except for occasional flurries of spiky, thorn-laden vegetation, it was featureless and drab terrain and, despite its openness, it offered no relief from the dank atmosphere that had pervaded their journey so far.

‘Another reason for speed,’ Loman mused to Eldric. ‘A long campaign in this place would sap the morale of even the finest soldiers.’

Eldric agreed. ‘It took no great subversion by Dan-Tor to engineer the abandonment of the Watch,’ he said ruefully.

There were no Mandroc attacks during the two nights they camped on the plain, though in the latter part of the second a long line of twinkling lights appeared on the northern horizon.

Eldric drew in a long hissing breath as he watched them. Yengar’s words kept returning to him. ‘Three, perhaps four times our number.’ One purpose of the Mandroc raids became clear to him. Hitherto, they had been creatures of terror in legend. Now they had been shown to be just such, in real flesh and blood. Oslang had pronounced that their reckless disregard for their own lives was probably due to their being possessed by some unholy religious fervour but that did nothing to allay the terrifying prospect of facing them in open combat. And so many of them!

Worse, lurking in the mists of Eldric’s thoughts, was the question: how many more of the enemy might be lurking in the mists of this benighted land?

Wilfully he repeated to himself Loman’s words to Urthryn. ‘We have bows, pikes and, above all, disci-pline.’ For a while before the dawn, his mood oscillated between fearful depression and exhilaration until, seemingly by accident, his hand touched the small carving that Isloman had given him as he and Sylvriss had prepared to leave his mountain stronghold.

He sat down and looked at it quietly in the subdued torchlight of his tent. It had such depth and, as he moved it slightly, so the image of Hawklan riding Serian seemed to move, or rather, to become alive. And yet it was only a few scratches on a piece of stone. In his mind he saw again Isloman astride Serian, supporting the unconscious Hawklan. ‘… and I only had my knifepoint… ’ the carver had said.

A few scratches, yet… so much; the wisdom and skill of generations.

He slipped the disc back into his pocket and found his mind full of the battle for Vakloss; how the army had force marched across Fyorlund to travel to the heart of its enemy like an arrow, and how, like the point of that arrow, he and his cavalry had crashed through the broken militia straight towards the distant figure of Dan-Tor.

His wavering concerns vanished and, though still fearful, he became calmer. Stepping outside his tent he went to join Loman on a small watch-tower. Together they stood staring out at the lights filling the distant horizon.

Then Loman turned to him. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked simply.

Eldric nodded and took out the carving. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve just won the hardest part of my battle. Now we go straight for their heart.’

Loman took the disc and looked at it for a long moment.

‘One day, I think my brother may look at this, and the one he gave the Queen, and say that for all their simplicity, they’re his finest works,’ he said. Then he smiled. ‘But then, as he’d doubtless remind me, I’m no great judge of carving,’ he said mocking himself gently. ‘Suffice it that he tells us now that he’s here with us, and Hawklan, and Serian.’

Then the camp was alive with activity.

The Goraidin and Helyadin came and went with their information about the enemy behind and the enemy ahead.

The cavalry-Muster, High Guard and Orthlundyn-checked their weapons and their horses and became one-more or less.

Tirilen walked among the healers in the hospital tent and, from somewhere, found a quietness to help them face the bloody ordeal that must come. Gavor’s feather, wilted and worn now, still adorned her green gown.