Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

With the exception of Gulda, the entire party sat down gratefully on the damp rocks.

‘This is the place?’ she asked.

Loman nodded. ‘We’ve been training all around here, except when we’ve needed to go up above the snowline,’ he said, pointing to white peaks rising above them from adjacent valleys. ‘This is about the centre of the area we’ve been using most of the time. But our problems haven’t been localized. They’ve occurred everywhere we’ve been.’

Gulda looked round reflectively. They were three days from Anderras Darion, and the plains of Orthlund were long behind them. Now they were standing on the wide jagged summit of a mountain that commanded an expansive view of nearby crags and valleys. A precipi-tous cliff face dropped away from them on one side, curving round in two sweeping ridges to join the peak to its lesser neighbours, as if it were resting its broad arms on them. In every direction mountains marched to the horizons. Loman and his chosen companions, Athyr, a veteran of the Morlider War, and Yrain, had anticipated a comparatively leisurely stroll as escort to an old woman and three young children. However, Gulda had confounded them by setting a relentless pace from the very start.

‘How does she do it?’ Athyr whispered as Loman waited by him while he re-fastened his boots. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but she doesn’t even seem to be hurrying.’

Loman shook his head. ‘I’ve stopped thinking about it,’ he said. ‘I’ll be surprised when she does something I expect. Don’t worry. She’ll stop when the children get tired.’

That indeed proved to be the case, but the pause was only to allow the three adults to pick up the three children.

‘Look on it as full pack training,’ she said, chuckling. ‘You’ve had plenty of time to rest these last few days, and I want these boys in good voice when we arrive.’

However, although the final ascent to their present position had involved no climbing, it had been long and steep, and even Gulda had relented. It served as little consolation to the three adults when the boys ran ahead and scurried up the slope well ahead of them, closely followed by Gulda.

As they all rested, Gulda prowled round the summit. After a little while she poked her stick into a small grassy knoll. ‘Here will do,’ she said. ‘Put your weapons here.’

Athyr and Yrain looked at Loman in surprise. ‘What for?’ Loman asked. ‘What are you intending to do?’

‘I’m intending to contact the Alphraan, or at least try to,’ she replied.

Loman glanced round to ensure that the children were occupied. ‘If they’re here, then they may have killed four of our people already,’ he said softly. ‘Do you seriously want us to face them unarmed?’

‘I don’t think they’ve attacked anyone so far,’ Gulda replied, equally softly. ‘I think they’ve just tried to chase people away. We have to take a chance. If we come conspicuously disarmed then they’ll perhaps be more inclined to see us as peaceful.’

‘And the children?’ Loman asked.

‘Whatever happens, they won’t harm them, that I’m sure of,’ Gulda said. ‘Do as I ask.’

Reluctantly, Loman unbuckled his sword belt and nodded to the others to do the same. Taking the collected weapons, he laid the belt knives in the middle of the knoll that Gulda had indicated and arranged the three swords in a neat pyramid over them.

Gulda watched the process with interest.

‘Now the rest,’ she said, when Loman had stood back, apparently satisfied. Loman’s look of innocence barely reached his face before it retreated in disarray and he nodded again to the others resignedly.

Gulda walked around the resultant armoury of knives and other small fighting devices that Loman laid under the three swords, then she looked intently at Yrain.

‘All of them, young lady,’ she said eventually. Yrain held her gaze for a moment, then reached down and pulled another knife out of her boot. Standing up she offered it hilt first to Gulda who took it and laid it with the others.

As Yrain sat down again, she dislodged a large stone. It came to rest near her hand.

Gulda walked over to her and placed her stick on the stone. Yrain smiled up at her, pleasantly.

‘No,’ Gulda said. ‘I commend your thinking and your technique, Yrain,’ she said. ‘And your caring. It’s to your credit that you’ve learned so much so quickly. But no.’ Her stick flicked the stone out of reach. ‘If you want to become a true warrior you must understand that true defence doesn’t lie in your knowledge of how to use weapons but in your knowledge of when to use them.’

She crouched low before the seated woman and looked into her eyes intently. ‘Very occasionally in your life, you may have to fight. Very occasionally, you may have to run away. Mostly however, you’ll have to watch, listen, talk, and above all, learn and understand. While you lean on your weapons or your technique you’ll cloud your mind. You’ll neither see, hear, nor explain, and you’ll certainly never understand. You’ll need both weapons and technique increasingly, and increasingly they’ll fail you.’

Yrain’s brow furrowed. ‘I’m sorry, Memsa,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand.’

Gulda smiled and stood up. ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘Don’t worry. You’re not alone in that, but while you’ve the wit to realize it, you understand more than you think.’

‘But if these Alphraan are dangerous?’

This time Gulda chuckled. ‘Only we humans are truly dangerous, Yrain,’ she said. ‘Believe me, except in extremity, nothing that walks this world willingly attacks one of us other than our own kind. And if the Alphraan choose to meet us they’ll be like nothing you’ve ever known. Try to see them with a true warrior’s vision; a carver’s vision. See them as they are, if you get to see them at all.’

She turned away and called to the three boys, cur-rently clambering amongst the rocks. As they converged on her, laughing, she led them towards the edge of the cliff face and pointed her stick towards the snow-covered mountains.

‘Now young men, in a moment I’ll want you to sing our song,’ she said. ‘Just like we’ve rehearsed. I want you to imagine you’re singing to someone up there, in the snow, so start as loudly as you can then they’ll be able to hear you clearly.’ She leaned forward and placed her arms confidentially around all three.

‘But at the end, as soft as you can. Like you’ve prac-ticed. Watch me carefully.’

Then she returned to Loman and the others. Her voice was low but her tone was unequivocal and authoritative. ‘Whatever happens from now, say nothing and do nothing, except on my express command. Is that clear?’

Loman nodded. ‘Yes, Memsa,’ he said.

She walked back to the boys and settled herself on a rock, her hands folded over the top of her stick. Her eyebrows went up, together with a long finger, and then the boys were singing.

The jaunty tune that had woven its spell through the halls of Anderras Darion rang out into the clear air, still moist from recent rain. It echoed off distant rock faces, bouncing hither and thither to add a laughing shimmer to the busy stillness of the mountains. It was an old, happy tune, rhythmic and lively, and punctuated by hand-clapping in which Gulda, wedging her stick between her knees, joined in with relish.

A snowman made by some children sings of his happiness at the gift of his creation. He watches the children playing, sees the winter festival, sees the season’s many moods, howling and fierce, bright and sharp, until finally a bird arrives to tell him that spring is coming. Gradually he melts, but even as he grows smaller and smaller, he sings continuously of his joy at being and at having been.