Roger Taylor - The fall of Fyorlund

‘Thank you, Loman,’ said Hawklan. ‘Go with Tirilen back to the village. When you meet Ireck, tell him what’s happened. Whatever happens, Gavor will bring you news.’

There were tears of bewilderment in Tirilen’s eyes as she watched and listened. Hawklan took her face between his hands.

‘You and I are healers, Tirilen. We have to enter into other people’s pain. We have above all to see the truth no matter how painful it is. Your father spoke the truth and you know it. I have to seek out this Dan-Tor for all our sakes.’

Child and woman conflicted in Tirilen’s face.

Hawklan continued. ‘You’ve tended your uncle’s hand very well. And you did good work on that tortured heap outside the village. You’ll be the village healer until I return. Don’t be afraid.’

He reached into a pocket for something to dry her eyes with, and drew out the cloth that Andawyr had wrapped around his arm. It was some days now since it had fallen from his arm to reveal it sound and whole again.

‘Take this,’ he said. ‘It has healing powers of some kind. Powers of weave and voice. You might be able to find out more about it in some of the books at the Castle.’

Tirilen took the cloth with a watery sniff then wiped her eyes boyishly with the back of her hand.

‘You’ll be all right,’ she said, half statement, half question.

Hawklan nodded. ‘Tend to the village,’ he said. Jal-daric reached out and, with a slight gesture, gently extinguished the torch that had been illuminating the tent. The change in the lighting was barely perceptible. Fyorlund torches adjusted themselves to the natural light.

‘Dawn,’ he said.

‘You’ll find our horses nearby now,’ Hawklan said to Loman and Isloman. ‘Serian will have led them here as I asked him. Time for you to go.’

He looked at the brooding Isloman and intercepted a brief exchange of looks between the Carver and his brother.

‘What are you two up to?’ he asked suspiciously. Isloman’s dark look cracked into a smile, increasing Hawklan’s suspicion. ‘Hawklan,’ he said. ‘You’re too naive to be let out on your own, as is this young man here.’ He jerked a thumb towards Jaldaric. ‘You’re both going into nothing but trouble, and someone’s got to look after you. Fortunately I don’t have a castle to attend to, and I don’t have to take orders from anyone, so I’ll come with you. I could do with a change.’ He rubbed his damaged hand. ‘Besides, I’ve one or two questions of my own for this Dan-Tor.’

The dawn was flooding the clearing, pink and misty, as the Guards broke camp. Loman and Tirilen turned and gave a final wave before their horse carried them out of sight into the morning haze.

Hawklan and Isloman walked slowly through the dewy grass towards their horses. Gavor, sitting on Hawklan’s wrist, flapped his wings restlessly.

Two days later the patrol was moving briskly and steadily northwards. The sky was pregnant with great swollen clouds waiting to shed their watery burdens and send them cascading down on to the cowering land below. A boisterous west wind shouldered them into towering indignant mounds as it strove to push them eastwards over the mountains.

Jaldaric wrapped his cloak around himself and looked upwards. ‘Quite a conflict,’ he said. ‘I think we’re due for a wetting soon.’

Hawklan was gazing into the grey mass accumulat-ing overhead. Since he had seen the Viladrien sailing over Riddin some inner need had constantly drawn his eyes upwards in search of another, and his mind had been filled with a tumbling host of questions. What kind of people could live in such a place? And how? What must it be like to be at the mercy of the winds and to float through great turbulent clouds like those now broiling overhead? How must the world below seem? He had looked down from the tops of high mountains to see patchwork fields and forests, but from the height of these cloud lands…

His imagination foundered. But the darker note that had come to taint so many of his thoughts of late would sound. ‘Enemy dispositions,’ it tolled, ‘you would see enemy dispositions.’ It saddened him, so at odds was it with the haunting beauty of the Viladrien and its barely audible, singing wake.

Jaldaric’s comment brought Hawklan’s mind back to earth. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think some of that water up there is about to start its long journey back to the sea.’

Jaldaric looked at him, puzzled.

Hawklan smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I agree. It’s probably going to rain.’

And, as if so commanded, a slow tattoo of great raindrops started to speckle the dusty road at their feet. Jaldaric turned in his saddle and looked enquiringly at his men. There was much shaking of heads and gestures to continue the journey. Cloaks were fastened and hoods pulled up. The patrol slowed to a walk.

Admitting defeat, the wind dropped and the rain came down triumphantly in a shifting vertical down-pour, reducing visibility all around to a few hundred paces. Hawklan stared down, hypnotized by the coronets of spray bouncing off the road, a mobile and patternless web flowing over the almost imperceptible geometry of the ancient stone blocks.

The noise of the rain was sufficient to drown the sound of the horses’ hooves, and such conversation as there had been guttered out in the face of this opposi-tion. Each rider withdrew into himself, and the patrol became an indistinct and introverted procession moving silently through the hissing rain.

Hawklan became aware of Isloman by his side. He raised his eyes from the glistening road and looked ahead into the greyness. Over the past two days he had seen an unexpected change come over his friend.

After the abduction of Tirilen, Loman had discarded the gruff irritation he brought to his daily duties, and had become more voluble and straightforward. Isloman, by contrast, had become quieter and had discarded in turn much of his bluff heartiness. The two brothers had moved towards one another during the crisis. An understandable reaction, thought Hawklan. Such an event must necessarily blow away the dust that daily routine laid over their real selves.

But now Isloman seemed to be oscillating between elation and troubled concern, as if two parts of him were wrestling for command of the whole.

To Hawklan it seemed that the change began after the High Guards questioned Isloman about his brother’s knowledge of the Battle Language, and his own part in the Morlider War had become known.

The Orthlundyn volunteers, though small in num-ber, had made a considerable impression on the High Guards of the day and, by now, had almost entered Fyordyn legend. To be in the presence of one and, for some of them, to have actually been hit by one, brought out an almost boyish excitement in the young men and for a while they plagued Isloman with questions. Even the surly Esselt and his cadre showed an interest.

Now, in the grey rain, Isloman’s posture showed that he was troubled again and, even though Hawklan could not see his face under the deep hood, he knew that it was pensive and lined.

‘You’re riding better,’ he said. ‘How are your aches and pains?’

Isloman started a little at Hawklan’s voice, and then craned forward almost as if to catch the words as they fled into the distance.

‘Oh fine,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I’m remembering how to ride again. And I’m easier in my mind now that Tirilen’s safe.’

Hawklan picked on the word. ‘I think you’re re-membering more than how to ride, aren’t you?’ he offered.

Isloman nodded. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ he replied. ‘Talking to these young lads about the old days has brought back things I’d rather had stayed forgotten.’