Roger Taylor: Into Narsindal

He walked to the entrance of his tent and stepped out. The eastern sky was lightening, and the camp was very quiet. The guards on the palisades were motionless silhouettes.

A noise made him turn. It was Serian. He reached up and patted the horse.

‘We have some tales to tell,’ he said.

The horse nuzzled him affectionately. ‘Where’s Gavor?’ he asked.

Hawklan looked down, unable to speak at first. ‘Later,’ he said unsteadily. ‘All our telling later, Serian. Take me to the battlefield.’

Hawklan did not speak as the great horse took him to the edge of the dreadful killing ground, and as they came there, he dismounted.

A yellow sun was beginning to rise, throwing long anxious shadows across the scene. Small lakes of water stood here and there, golden among the muddy, tousled ground, and slowly the shapes of slaughtered Mandrocs and men began to be distinguished. Numerous small hillocks became horses, and tall sparse grasses became spears and swords. Hawklan walked among them silently, Serian following behind him delicately.

Birds circled and squabbled overhead; animals scur-ried away briefly as they approached, then returned to their feasting when they had passed. Old revellers at an ancient banquet.

‘Would that this horror could pass down through legend as vividly as the tales of courage and splendour will,’ Hawklan said.

‘It could not have been avoided,’ Serian said. ‘This does not compare to what would have been had He prevailed.’

Hawklan remembered the vision Sumeral had shown him. Beyond words in its endless, beautiful, perfection. It had seemed to become empty and futile in the light of Ethriss’s will, yet…?

He walked on. Serian was right, he knew, though amid such carnage, the knowledge made his spirit no less heavy. A dreadful price had been paid, but a great evil was gone and the energy that had gone into its destruction could gradually be harnessed to the work of healing. Yet such a bargain was wrong. Such a savage accounting should never have come about when simple vigilance would have prevented it. Ethriss’s greatest and most flawed creations must strive ever to know the measure of their imperfection or seal such bargains thus always. How the future, near and far, would learn from this event would depend on its telling now, but the greatest protection for all could lie only in the truth, no matter how awful.

And, Hawklan thought, awful it would be-must be.

He looked around. Among these bodies would be people he knew. Eventually he would learn their names and carry the burden of his own grief and remorse and that of his friends and their families. Yet he could grieve now only for the one whose death he did know of. That of Gavor, his companion since he had awakened in the snow-filled mountains, indeed, it seemed, his awakener.

Gavor, irreverent and hedonistic, yet faithful and true. Gavor, tormenting Loman, practicing his bird impressions, gliding high in the sunlit mountain air, tumbling and laughing just out of joy at being. The true spirit of Ethriss and a fitting steed for him at the last.

He looked up in the hope that among the birds swooping and squabbling there, perhaps one of the black silhouettes might be his old companion. But he knew that nothing could have survived the onslaught that had destroyed even its own creator.

Suddenly, one of the birds swept low to land nearby. Hawklan stepped forward, heart lifting, but it was only some raucous Narsindal crow and it flapped away noisily as he came near. Sadly, he mounted Serian and turned back for the camp.

He had travelled only a little way when frantic cries reached him.

‘Whoa, whoa, dobbin!’

The voice was unmistakable. Hawklan spun round and looked up again into the crowded air.

‘Down here,’ came the irritated response.

Hawklan looked down. A short distance away, the familiar form of Gavor appeared, stumping awkwardly through the corpses.

Hawklan dismounted and ran towards him. The raven was dirty and bedraggled and not at his most endearing. ‘That’s the last time I give a lift to any of your friends, I can assure you, dear boy,’ he declaimed indignantly. ‘I’ve never had to fly so fast in all my life as when I had to get out of that place.’

Hawklan picked him up gently.

‘Ow, ow, ow,’ Gavor protested. ‘Be careful.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Hawklan asked anxiously.

Gavor was still indignant. ‘I’ll tell you what’s the matter,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve bust my chuffing pectoral again. I’ve had to walk all the sodding way and my feet are killing me.’

Hawklan looked at him. ‘Bust your pectoral,’ he echoed scornfully. ‘Don’t get technical with me, bird. I’ll do the diagnosing, you just stick to the flying.’

Gavor snorted. ‘Where are you going to drag us off to next?’ he asked crossly.

Hawklan looked out across the grim, seething, bat-tlefield.

‘Home, I think, Gavor,’ he replied. ‘Home. Back to the light. Back to Anderras Darion.’

And So…

Many events occurred after the Last Battle of the Second Coming which cannot be told here.

Sylvriss returned with her triumphant raggle-taggle squadron and relieved a harassed Oslang of his noisy burden.

The heads of Creost and Dar Hastuin were retrieved from the shattered causeway at Lake Kedrieth and then burned together with their bodies and those of their awful steeds, so that all could see their destruction and know of it. Their ashes were scattered to the winds so that none could so easily worship them again.

The body of Oklar was not found, and Hawklan, looking into Serian’s eyes, sought no answer.

Gulda was not seen again, though the Alphraan sang of her journeying south, past Anderras Darion, giving her a name that no human could truly hear.

Tirilen and Hawklan tended the injured and sus-tained also the healers in their great pain.

Gavor developed hypochondria again for a while.

Under Loman’s leadership, and through its deep discipline, the army of the allies had lost but a few hundred dead while their reckless enemy had lost countless thousands. Each of the dead was remembered then, and through the years, but all who had been there remembered that day every day of their lives thereafter.

‘There is no healing for this, any more than there is truly for any hurt,’ Hawklan said. ‘Time will blur and cloud the memory of the pain, but your lives cannot be as they were. Make of it a learning and you will become whole, and worthy teachers for your children. Cherish it as a grievance and you will twist and turn through your lives seeing only your own needs, betraying and burdening all around you.’

To Urthryn and the Lords, he said, ‘Sumeral’s teach-ings are deep within us. Only in the light of knowledge and truth can we truly see and understand them. You must begin the Watch again, but to study and learn about Byroc’s people and their tortured land. Let Orthlundyn, Riddinvolk and Cadwanwr ride with you and let Narsindalvak become both a fortress and a repository of learning. Let its great seeing eyes see all things.’

Gavor glided along the unseen paths that came and went among the sunlit towers and spires of Anderras Darion. His black shadow leapt nimbly from wall to roof to keep pace with him. Far below, the villagers were preparing for the spring Festival and, in one of the castle’s many halls, Hawklan sat idly watching a splash of sun-carried colour move across a table, and pondering the worlds that Sumeral had shown him.

Gavor dipped agilely and disappeared under a broad over-hanging roof.

He landed with consummate elegance on a shady, twig-strewn ledge and stood for a moment by a nest hole presenting his best side in silhouette against the blue sky. Then he turned and peered through the drowsy motes hovering in the half-light of the nest.