Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

‘Have they posted any sentries?’ Isloman asked.

‘No,’ said Gavor.

Isloman looked at Sylvriss and then along the length of the outcrop that barred their way. She nodded.

As they entered the woods, the sounds about them changed. The wind trapped in the trees could reach them only fitfully, and the steady fall of the rain was replaced by intermittent cascades of large drops splattering noisily on to the forest floor. The rich, damp scents of the woodland rose up to greet them, but its quiet peacefulness was lost in the heightened tension that the two riders felt as the trees and undergrowth constricted their paths for escape.

‘Their camp’s a little way ahead,’ whispered Gavor after they had gone for some distance. ‘Dismount, and follow me.’

Carefully the little group wended its way after Gavor through the pathless trees. He would walk, then glide up on to a branch to look around, then sit on Isloman’s shoulder. They trod as gently as the damp undergrowth would allow; soft shadows in the forest’s dawn twilight.

‘How much further?’ Isloman whispered as their slow progress began to irk him.

Gavor shushed him. ‘I can’t see them from here, but we’re about level with them now,’ he whispered. ‘Be quiet.’

Isloman nodded apologetically, but even as he did so, the random sounds of the forest were broken by a sudden swift rushing, and an arrow passed in front of him to thud into a tree just to his right.

Involuntarily he crouched low and drew his club, but another arrow passed over his head to join the first, and a voice said. ‘No. The next one will kill you.’

Dilrap stood alone at a window high in one of the palace towers. Below him lay the City, hitherto an unchanging and deeply familiar sight which, he mused sadly, was like the face of a well-loved friend, often seen but rarely noticed; giving security by virtue of its seeming immutability rather than by its actual appearance.

Now, like so many other things in his life, it was changed, and changed radically, and he realized that another small prop had been removed from him. With each such he knew that he had the choice of toppling or developing the strength to stand unaided.

The great arched gateway at the front of the Palace had stood, like the Palace itself, for untold generations, solid and purposeful, welcoming friends and deterring ill-wishers. Now it was gone utterly, and in its place was a jagged gap in the courtyard wall. The broken and torn stonework that marked the edge of Oklar’s fury had seen neither rain nor sun since it was first laid, and seemed now fresh and raw, like a new wound, standing bemused and vulnerable at its sudden and violent exposure to a new age.

That destruction, however, dwindled into insignifi-cance when seen against what lay beyond it, for two great swathes of ruin diverged out from the gateway and cut across the City, each running as true and straight as the flight of an arrow. Nothing stood where these lines ran, and marking their edges was a tangled skein of twisted and crumbled buildings whose foundations had been shaken and torn by the sudden destruction of their neighbours.

It seemed to Dilrap that only the curve of the hill on which Vakloss rested had protected the outer reaches of the City, for in the distance he could see damaged roofs and spires topping buildings that were otherwise unhurt.

From his eyrie, he could see that the two great ruts were alive with activity as countless tiny dots scurried ant-like over the mounds of churned earth. He could not see, but he knew what they were doing. They were searching. Searching for friends and loved ones suddenly wrenched from them. Searching for strangers whose cries could be heard in the wreckage. Searching for anyone.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head. After his unexpected escape from Dan-Tor’s vicious spleen and his subsequent conscription by Urssain, he had retired to his high room to calm his mind further and to order his thoughts. Now he knew that he must immerse himself in organizing the resources that would be necessary to rescue and repair the City and its terrified people; both for the present and the future.

The more active and conspicuous he became, the more he could ensure the continuity of the values that were at the heart of the old ways, though even as he had the thought, he realized that that same activity and conspicuousness would tie him to the new ways forever in the eyes of the people. He could not achieve the one without incurring the other.

Further, to be transparent to the people in his inten-tions was to be transparent to Dan-Tor who would end the matter without a moment’s thought, while to be hidden from Dan-Tor would mean being misunderstood by the people amp;mdashand this would be to court death at their hands should they ever triumph.

He hugged himself tightly. His head told him to take the horse that was prepared for him and flee through the chaos while he could. Flee anywhere away from these appalling choices. But both his heart and his promise to the King told him he must stay. He was the King’s Secretary. He could not abandon either the people or his duty. Here, near to Urssain and Dan-Tor he could be of some use. Anywhere else, even with the Lords, he could be of none. He had no other choice open to him that he could take and later look back on without shame and regret.

Taking a final look across the damaged city, he turned away from the window and, closing the door gently behind him, left the quiet little room.

As he descended the tower stairs he could hear only his own soft footfall and the hiss of his robes, but as he opened the stout wooden door at the foot of the tower he was almost overwhelmed by the uproar. It was worse than when he had left Urssain. People were milling everywhere. Injured, panic-stricken, lost, frightened. Whatever attempts, if any, were being made to restore some semblance of public order, they were obviously proving ineffective.

And these people don’t even know the King is dead, he thought.

Pushing his way through the crowd he finally reached the main entrance. A strong gust of wind blew dust in his face and, as he wiped his eyes, he felt the grim reality of the scene he had just been watching from the comparative detachment of the tower, high above. The size of the gap where the main gateway had stood, and the solidity of the walls through which it had been torn were awesome, and he had a fleeting impression of the power that must have been exerted to work such damage.

The power of the Uhriel was referred to often enough in old sagas, but as he stared at the gaping hole that had once been the towering, seemingly immovable gateway arch, with its huge carved timber gates, the impact on Dilrap far outstripped any literary flights of description. Was it truly possible that one living creature could have done this? he thought. In his mind he saw Dan-Tor, lank and malevolent. How could a frail human frame contain such power?

However, as his gaze moved on and he found him-self looking along the pathways that had been cut through the City, his speculations faded, numbed by the monumental scale of the destruction.

To his horror he found that for all the pain it im-plied, the sight was eerily beautiful; two long straight avenues reached out relentlessly across the City, arrogant in their certainty and confidence and tapering elegantly into the distance to reveal the countryside beyond.

Dilrap frowned at this unexpected and unwanted response and reminded himself of the human price paid for this new architecture. Then, equally unexpected, came the thought: Why was this done? What, after all these years had so enraged Dan-Tor that he had revealed his true self and released such destruction? What could he have feared that demanded such a response? A lone man with a bow? An Orthlundyn assassin? It couldn’t be possible; the very phrase was a contradiction in terms. But even as these thoughts occurred to him, so did at least part of the answer. Whoever or whatever had faced Dan-Tor, it had been strong enough to stand and split that appalling power like a piece of kindling, and then, seemingly, escape. And if such destructive power as Dan-Tor had wielded could be contained within one man, could not also the power to resist it?