Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

With a martyred and dignified sigh, Gavor left.

A few minutes after his departure, the party found itself at the foot of a much steeper incline. Dacu dismounted.

‘We’ll have to lead the horses from now on,’ he said. ‘Be careful. Slow and steady will get us there. Rushing could kill us all.’

Slow and steady, however, was their only alternative, as the men had to make several journeys up and down each section of the incline to help the struggling horses. Hawklan took his guidance from Serian.

‘This is difficult, Hawklan,’ the horse said. ‘They’re good nags, but they’re getting frightened and it’s sapping their will.’

‘Reassure them,’ Hawklan said.

The horse chuckled. ‘Only humans lie, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘We’re much simpler souls. We only see the truth.’

Hawklan smiled at the reproach and patted the horse’s neck. ‘Goad them, then,’ he said. ‘There’s nowhere else we can go except forward.’

Gavor floated down out of the greyness. ‘My, you have been working hard, haven’t you?’ he said to the four men, who were steaming almost as heavily as the horses.

‘The weather, Gavor,’ Hawklan said, glowering at him.

Gavor became more serious. ‘Not too good, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘This mist is local, but it’s widespread and it’s not going to clear. The clouds are dropping. It won’t be long before the snow reaches us.’

Dacu was unsurprised. ‘If our information’s correct, this incline should ease after a while, then we’ll have to start searching for the gully. Let’s hope our luck holds for a little.’

As if in mockery of this prayer, a solitary snowflake tumbled silently out of the mist to land softly on his arm. Dacu looked up. Black against the grey sky, like the vanguard of a great host, more flakes twisted and turned purposefully towards him.

‘Let’s move,’ he said quietly.

For a further hour they struggled up the rocky slope, the horses slipping and slithering as the snow thickened around them, slowly obscuring the uneven ground.

‘I can’t see any army making its way over this lot,’ gasped Tirke at one stage, as he and Dacu heaved one of the pack horses back on to its feet.

‘Armies can get over anything when they want to,’ Hawklan said, overhearing the remark. ‘Mountains and rivers are obstacles only to the will, and only the will falls before them.’ Dacu looked at him strangely. What quality was it in this man that made him at once so approachable and so frightening? He realized that at times he felt before Hawklan as he had when he first saw this mountain looming ahead of them, far bigger than he had imagined, and dominating their way forward, utterly oblivious in its ancient patience to their fleeting needs.

Yet Hawklan was also the opposite. He was wholly concerned with the needs of others.

As if catching his thoughts, Hawklan reached down and extended his hand to help Tirke over an awkward boulder. As they climbed, the snow began to fall more heavily and visibility became very poor. Gradually, however, the slope became less severe and eventually the horses were able to walk unaided.

Dacu halted and, crouching down, ran his gloved hand through the snow. ‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘Fresh on top of old. We’re up in to the permanent snow now. We’ll have to start looking for the gully.’

He peered into the silent grey anonymity around them.

‘Should we camp and wait to see if the snow stops?’ Tirke asked.

Dacu looked up at the sky. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘This is well set in and there’s a lot of daylight left yet. We must keep moving.’

‘But if we miss the gully, we could wander anywhere in this,’ Tirke said. ‘Up on to the mountains to the west amp;mdashanywhere.’

‘True,’ Dacu agreed, walking over to one of the pack horses. ‘But we’re also too exposed here. If the wind starts blowing it’ll reduce what visibility there is, and give us some real problems. Not to mention problems for the horses. We’ll have to keep moving if only to find better shelter.’

Isloman, knowing what Dacu intended, put a hand on Tirke’s arm to forestall his next concern. ‘Don’t worry, Tirke,’ he said. ‘You’ll enjoy this. It’ll be a chance for you to build snowmen again.’

‘Here’s a present for you, Tirke,’ Dacu said.

Tirke looked at the proffered object suspiciously. It was a spade.

‘You do the digging and I’ll do the hard work amp;mdashthe thinking.’ Dacu smiled broadly and pulled a small book and pen from his pocket. ‘Later on, we’ll change round and… Isloman and Hawklan can do the digging.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll take here as base amp;mdashbuild a big one.’

For the rest of the day, the group wandered me-thodically to and fro through the silence of the steadily falling snow, building cairns of snow under Dacu’s instruction to mark their passage. Dacu compacted a portion on each cairn and made a mark on it which he duly recorded in his book.

‘It’s just a simple grid,’ he explained to Tirke. ‘It’ll suffice in this light, and these cairns should survive a day or so, with luck. At least we won’t wander too aimlessly. The rest depends on good luck.’

Good luck, however, seemed to desert them, and although they came upon several rock faces and clefts through the day, none seemed to lead anywhere. As the light began to fade, the search became one for shelter.

‘This’ll have to do,’ Dacu said wearily, lifting up his torch and peering around a cluster of large boulders lying at the foot of a rock face. ‘It should be out of the wind if it picks up, and there’ll be space enough for the horses behind the shelter.’

When the shelter was erected, Dacu permitted the issue of extra rations. ‘It’s been a hard day,’ he said. ‘And I don’t think they’ll be getting any easier. Time for a little self indulgence, I think.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Gavor.

But it was difficult for the group to maintain any feeling of light-heartedness. All were tired and dispirited from the rigours of the day and the gentle tapping of the still falling snow did little to reassure them about the morrow.

‘What are we going to do?’ Tirke asked drowsily when they had all doused their torches and were drifting into sleep.

‘Search, or wait and search,’ Dacu said simply. ‘It depends on the weather.’

‘But if… ’ Tirke began.

‘No ifs, it’s too long a word,’ Dacu interrupted. ‘To-morrow we search, or we wait and search,’ he repeated. ‘Now, we’re well fed, and we’re warm. All we can do is rest. We know the decisions we’ll face in the morning and there’ll be time enough to debate them then. For now, go to sleep.’

Tirke muttered some vague protest, but his body had anticipated Dacu’s command, and the muffled comment was only in response to some random shape floating in the pattern of his dreams.

Despite his tiredness however, Hawklan lay awake in the darkness, listening to the breathing of his friends and the occasional whistle or snort from Gavor. How long had he lain, and in what unknown darkness? he thought. How long before he had found himself wandering in the snow-filled mountains on his way to Anderras Darion?

But as ever, no answers came. Why should they? He would wake here in the morning and have no memory of either going to sleep or being asleep. For all the awareness he would have of the passage of time, it could have been a single night or ten thousand years. At least here I’ll remember the previous day, he thought. The deep silence within him did not stir.

Knowledge had come to him while he lay immobile in Isloman’s care after Oklar’s assault, though he had no recollection of its coming. He found he had knowledge of the ruling and commanding of people, and of the many arts of war. And there was a knowledge that he had striven through his life to acquire these arts. Yet the knowledge was like a dying echo. The true sound was denied him still, and the names and the faces, the deeds, all the memories that should have been central to this life, were missing.