Roger Taylor - The fall of Fyorlund

Hooves clattering on the hard stone street, and fore-legs dancing high, the horse moved around the Sirshiant. With trembling hands, Sylvriss seized the handle of the staff that was part of every Muster rider’s tackle. It stuck in its loop and her father’s angry voice rushed in on her. ‘Look after your equipment properly, girl. The dangerous attacks are those you’re not expecting.’

The horse skittered to one side and lashed out a foot as the Sirshiant aimed a wild whistling sword cut at its head. The man moved with surprising speed, however, and the hoof barely touched him.

Then, at last, the staff came free, but with such sud-denness that it slipped from Sylvriss’s gasp. Instinctively, she flicked the elusive end and caught the staff boldly as it spun round. The movement looked calculated and confident and the Sirshiant stepped back into a low, crouching stance. Then, taking the sword in both hands, he lifted it above his head and charged forward with a great roar.

Sylvriss watched the attack coming. Judgement in her too, was now the prisoner of battle-fever. She could still flee, it said faintly, but her rage was locked with the Sirshiant’s madness in an ancient mutuality of purpose as intense as that of two passionate lovers. They would not part without catharsis.

The horse stepped backwards and sideways abruptly and the blow missed by a hair’s breadth. Unbalanced by the unexpected lack of impact, the Sirshiant staggered round in the direction of his swing, and the horse ran into him. At the same time Sylvriss brought her staff down on to his head. His iron helmet protected him from injury, but the loud and incongruous clang was ringing in his ears as he hit the ground.

Curling up into a tight, protective knot, the Sirshiant rolled clear of the horse’s hooves as it ran over him. To her horror, Sylvriss saw the man rise, a little unsteady, but with the sword still in his hand and his madness rampant. She charged straight at him before he could recover fully and swung the staff at his head again. He jumped to one side and swung his sword to parry the blow.

The steel sliced effortlessly through the descending wood, and Sylvriss saw her staff shortened to half its length as the weighted end clattered across the echoing stones of the street.

Something deep inside her told her the end was near and a peculiar calmness flowed through her. She felt the swinging momentum of her horse as it turned, and, without thinking, she leaned forward towards her staggering attacker and drove the severed end of the staff at his throat.

The Sirshiant shied away from the blow but the weapon he had just forged drove into his cheek, and he felt its impact smashing teeth and tissue.

The demon in the man burst out in a blood-spewing cry and he drew back the sword for a blow that would have felled both horse and rider. But it was too late. The horse lashed out its hoof and caught him squarely under the chin, breaking his neck and lifting him clear off the ground, to fall spread-eagled on the ringing stones. The broken staff bounced out of his damaged face like a final act of disdain.

The horse reared, and let out a great scream of tri-umph, and Sylvriss heard her own voice, too, ringing with the Muster’s battle cry. She felt her heart pounding and her breath gasping, and for a moment she almost lost consciousness under the conflicting torrents of elation and shame that flooded her.

As she watched the troopers, wide-eyed and fearful, gather up their erstwhile leader, and turn to her for their next orders, Sylvriss realized that the whole incident had taken only seconds. But she knew her life had been irrevocably changed. All things were changed now.

Dan-Tor set little store by the Queen’s escapade. With the Mathidrin tightening his grip on the bodies of the people, and with spies and rumours tightening his grip on their hearts and minds, such antics could not disturb his growing sense of satisfaction. In fact, he was quite pleased in some ways. He had seen the Queen returning, magnificent as ever on her great horse, but with fever-flushed cheeks and strange haunted eyes instead of the glowing vigour she normally returned with to pollute the whole Palace.

I’ll hedge you in, he thought, make you fret and fume until your passions consume you. For your ‘own good’ I’ll curb you and watch you choke on the invisible leash. It would be a small piece of personal indulgence to heighten his pleasure at the change in circumstances.

As for that dolt of a Sirshiant who’d got himself killed, even that had been useful, not to say amusing. It would teach the newcomers to the City that they weren’t dealing with Mandrocs now and they’d have to curb their bloodthirsty ways. More subtly, it would teach them not to underestimate the opposition they might face.

‘Remind them that the penalty for that kind of stu-pidity is death,’ he told his Commanders. ‘In executing the sentence, the Queen merely saved me the trouble. Channel their resentment and loud talk into harder training.’

The need for those words, however, highlighted the doubts that occasionally rippled the surface of his contentment. The people crumbled, torn by doubt and ignorance, just as he had planned over the years. His assumption of the title of Ffyrst had freed him from many of the petty restraints that had so long irritated him, and since the seizure of Vakloss after Eldric’s Accounting, he had begun to feel his progress in measurable strides.

But every now and then, when least expected, there would be a jolt of opposition, like a plough striking a hidden rock: the damage wrought to the Mandrocs by Jaldaric and his patrol; the rescue of the Lords; Eldric returning to demand an Accounting. This latter had worked for the best in the end in that it precipitated the seizure of Vakloss, but it had been perilously dangerous, and Hawklan’s hand could be felt there, surely? Hawklan? Where are you, you demon? Was Eldric’s return but a feint within a feint?

But these were thoughts for darker moments. Al-ready many of the Lords had fallen victim to his wide-strewn lies and some had even joined him in condemn-ing Eldric and the others as traitors. Now he could concentrate on swaying the less gullible to his side. Then, as necessary, he could crush all other opposition by force of arms. But always he must remember that Hawklan too would be laying his traps.

You lose each time we meet, Hawklan. And you’ll not tempt me to my Old Power now. Not now. No slip on my part will awaken you. I’ll bind you yet, for when the Lords are crushed, the game will have slipped from you forever. When they’re exhausted with slaying their own turncoat kin, and their hearts are dead at what they’ve had to do, then I’ll launch my real armies against them.

The thought was comforting. It would be pleasant to see these creatures slaughtering one another again. A fitting atonement for the years their ancestors had made him spend in dark bondage.

‘Patience, patience, patience,’ he said to Dilrap. ‘While we control the knowledge given to the people, events must surely move our way. Ignorance is a vital flux. Melting down the resistance of the people and making them more amenable to our suggestions.’

He stared at Dilrap thoughtfully. Why should I speak thus to this lackey? Why do I even keep him about me now? He’s very useful, but no longer indispensable. Surely not gratitude? It had been Dilrap who engineered the details that gave a gloss of legality to his becoming Ffyrst. Dilrap had diligently rendered himself unneces-sary and totally vulnerable. Dan-Tor narrowed his eyes, and Dilrap, catching the look, cringed visibly.

It came to him suddenly that Dilrap understood him, insofar as any of these creatures could understand him. Dilrap appreciated the subtleties of what he, Dan-Tor, was doing, independent of whether he approved of them or not, independent of whether he realized the ultimate outcome. He understood and marvelled. And envied. Worshipped, even?