Roger Taylor - The waking of Orthlund

‘Trap,’ came Dacu’s voice again.

Muttering to himself, Gavor flapped up on to his shoulder. ‘Steady, dear boy,’ he said.

Hawklan nodded, then, drawing his sword, stepped inside.

Loman and Jenna waited and watched, motionless, as the riders moved towards them, eerie in the moon’s pale wash.

Loman grimaced as a catalogue of injuries mani-fested itself. But worse than the injuries was the awful, dispirited silence in which the column travelled.

‘Athyr,’ he said, almost whispering.

The leader started, then halted and looked around. For a moment his face was blank then an uncertain recognition lit his face. ‘Loman? Jenna?’ he said, his voice full of doubt. His tone reflected his appearance and that of the column which had stopped when he did.

No uncontrolled frenzy here, Loman thought. This was the retreat of a shattered force, waiting with timeless patience in the moonlight; ghostly, like ancient warriors sentenced to an eternal penance for some long-forgotten defeat.

Loman rode forward. ‘We’ve come to help you, Athyr,’ he said simply. ‘Are you all right?’

Athyr still stared at him, understanding coming only slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Now.’ He lowered his head.

Loman’s eyes narrowed in response to the pain in the gesture.

‘They let us go, Loman,’ he said. ‘It was… awful. We’ve got injured… and dead.’

Loman heard Jenna’s sharp intake of breath. She came alongside. ‘Who…?’ she began anxiously, but Loman lifted a hand to silence her.

Athyr’s eyes suddenly blazed, ghastly in the moonlight. ‘We couldn’t do anything, Loman. They used us like puppets. They… ’

Loman reached forward and seized his arm in a powerful grip. ‘Later, Athyr,’ he said. ‘Whatever it was, it’s over for now. We must look to our charges.’ He nodded towards the waiting riders.

The look in Athyr’s eyes faded, but Loman saw a tiny flash of light in them that made him start. He looked again and then turned to confirm its source. In the distance, lights blinked from the three hitherto silent signal stations. They were moving very rapidly and their messages were barely coherent.

Once again, Loman rent the mountain silence with a piercing whistle to catch the attention of the nearby station. Then turning to Jenna he said, ‘Tell them to signal central camp to send healers and carriers to meet us, most urgent. And to get Tirilen and Gulda up from the Castle immediately.’ He glanced at the distant lights blinking desperately. ‘And reassure them as well as you can,’ he added. ‘Tell them what’s happening and that we’ll get them relieved as soon as possible.’

His voice was louder than necessary and, as Jenna jumped down from her horse and began scrambling up onto a nearby rock, his horse circled several times, in response to his agitation and his anxiety to bring some sense of normality to this unreal scene.

‘Two dead. Seven very seriously injured, at least two of whom will definitely be doing no more soldiering, if they live. A dozen or more others fairly seriously injured, and everyone else amp;mdasheveryone amp;mdashwith one form of injury or another.’

Tirilen’s voice was neutral, though a deep anger showed clearly on her tired face.

‘And Athyr’s a mess,’ she added, the anger breaking through. ‘Gulda, I haven’t had time to talk to him properly, but I think you’ll have to help him; I suspect he’s beyond me.’

Gulda nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to him a little already,’ she said. ‘He’ll be joining us shortly. We’ll wait for him.’

She looked down and idly poked her stick into the trampled turf that formed the floor of Athyr’s command post. Loman, Jenna and Tybek sat opposite her, watching her silently, while Yrain, who had come with her and Tirilen in their hasty trip from the Castle, sat next to her, head bowed.

The command post was a Summer Festival tent seconded for this special duty, and was incongruously decorated with pictures of bright summer flowers, dancing figures, rolling green meadows and forests, and all the paraphernalia of happy sunlit times. Now, a fine drizzle quietly formed tiny streams of water which ran down the sloping roof to drip steadily onto the ground below as if trying to form an equally tiny moat.

Gulda looked up abruptly and, at the same time, the tent flap was turned back to reveal Athyr, silhouetted against the damp greenness of the valley.

Gulda motioned him in gently.

He was pale and obviously still shocked, but he nodded a tight-lipped acknowledgement to everyone, and sat down next to Jenna.

‘Tirilen’s just given us the casualty figures, Athyr,’ Gulda said. ‘They tally almost exactly with those you outlined last night. You did well.’

Athyr almost winced under this praise. ‘I’d have done well if I’d had no casualty list to prepare,’ he said, his voice hoarse.

Instinctively, Jenna’s hand rose to comfort him, but a gesture from Gulda stopped her.

‘I’m the judge of what’s well done and what’s not, Athyr,’ Gulda said, her voice stern. ‘According to those I’ve managed to speak to, it could have been much worse. Your tactics were good and you got your people out in good order when they could easily have panicked and spread themselves all over the mountains.’

‘With a pinch of awareness I could have avoided it all,’ Athyr said.

‘With a pinch of awareness, we’d none of us be here today,’ Gulda said, suddenly angry. ‘We’d have smelt the presence of Sumeral at His very wakening, and crushed Him and His creatures before He could leach so deep again into the world.’

Athyr began to protest. ‘Loman managed to… ’

Gulda cut him short. ‘Loman was lucky,’ she said, still angry. ‘Perhaps because of his awareness, or perhaps because the Alphraan chose him to make a point. Or perhaps because the Alphraan attacking camp three were less absorbed by their own rightness.’

She leaned back in her chair and waved the end of her stick in a series of small circles.

‘Round and round it goes, Athyr,’ she said. ‘We don’t know what happened, do we? We’re probing these… people. Probing to learn about them. And any probe gets blunted in use. Correct, carver?’

Athyr rounded on her. ‘They’re not tools out there,’ he said, pointing towards the door. ‘They’re people. Some of them are my kin. A lot of them are my friends, and all of them are amp;mdashwere amp;mdashmy responsibility.’

Gulda leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands folded over the top of her stick. She spoke slowly, her voice soft, but very powerful: ‘They’re both people and tools, soldier. Don’t think otherwise. You shape them, sharpen and hone them, care for them, and then when need arises, you use them. You use them as you’ve prepared them amp;mdashas they’ve prepared themselves amp;mdashto be used, and you use them thus before someone else smashes them.’

Athyr’s eyes narrowed. ‘You blunt a tool when you use it,’ he said savagely.

‘Then you re-sharpen it,’ Gulda snapped, reflecting his manner back at him.

‘But it’s changed, isn’t it?’ Athyr said, barely holding his ground against Gulda’s response, but before he could continue, she waved her hand around the small assembly. ‘We change all the time, Athyr,’ she said, less harshly. ‘And we’ve all been damaged, blunted, by what happened. You because you could do little or nothing to stop what was happening and realize now that your very arrival may have worsened matters. Loman and Jenna because they saw what you didn’t see, but didn’t tell you. Yrain, who conceived this idea. And me who agreed with it and underestimated the power, the control, and the will, of the Alphraan.’