Roger Taylor: The fall of Fyorlund

Gavor ruffled his feathers noisily in the darkness, and for a moment the group stood in an uneasy silence.

Then, cutting through it, Hawklan said almost jaun-tily, ‘Show me Jareg’s horse. I had doubts about whether it would reach Pedhavin alive.’

‘It’s a fine mount,’ said Isloman. ‘Jareg knows his horses and he’s got a real bargain there. He said it livened up considerably after you’d seen it on the way back.’

Hawklan walked across to the three horses waiting patiently by the path and laid his hand on the animal’s nose. It was indeed well again.

The horse spoke to him unexpectedly. ‘I am Serian, Hawklan. And your debtor. I’m whole again through your ministrations and I’m happy to see you returned from the Gretmearc uninjured, if not unchanged.’

Hawklan started. Animals rarely sought to impose themselves on others and it was unusual for one to speak unless spoken to first. However, it did not surprise him that the horse had noticed the changes in him. Certain animals seemed to possess a strange deep vision that harked back through many generations.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I’m uninjured, or nearly so.’ He held up his bandaged hand. ‘Thank you for the warning you gave me. I thought the giving of it would have destroyed you.’

The horse gave the equivalent of a chuckle. ‘It was a powerful hand that was laid on me, without a doubt,’ he said. ‘Even though it was an accident.’

‘Accident?’ queried Hawklan.

‘Oh yes,’ said Serian. ‘I was only caught by the welt of a restraining curse they were using to disguise their monstrous snare. If they’d realized I’d recognized them I’d be in the pot by now.’

Another innocent harmed by traps set for me, thought Hawklan, but he could not forbear smiling at the horse’s remark and he patted his cheek.

‘Still, I’m a Muster horse,’ Serian continued. ‘I don’t succumb easily. Now I’m well again, will you allow me to carry you?’

Hawklan stepped back a little. On the rare occasions he had ridden, it had been he who had asked permission of the horse. ‘Thank you,’ he said uncertainly. ‘But I’ve no wish to burden another animal.’

There was a faint hint of impatience in the horse’s reply. ‘Hawklan, you’ll not catch the Fyordyn on foot, even the way you walk.’

‘There I think you’re wrong, my friend,’ said Hawk-lan. ‘I think I’ll catch them however slowly I travel because they wish me to catch them.’

Unexpectedly, the horse reared a little. ‘Then you’ll need me even more, won’t you?’ he said. ‘If you wish to remain free to release your Tirilen and escape.’

The horse’s powerful personality struck Hawklan almost like a physical force.

‘And besides,’ Serian continued, ‘how could you burden me? I could carry thrice your weight until you fell off from exhaustion and I’d know no strain.’ Serian bent his head forward and his voice sounded strangely in Hawklan’s ears. ‘The Sires within me know you, Hawklan, even if I don’t, and even if you don’t know them. Can you question the destiny that’s brought us together? I blighted by ancient and fearful enemies and in need of a healer, and you floundering in the unknown like a cork in a stream and in dire need of a mount.’

Hawklan seemed to hear the distant trumpet call he had heard when first he picked up the black sword, and the horse’s voice suddenly echoed and thundered in his mind as though they stood in a great chamber.

‘Generations have made me, Hawklan. Generations. It’s your privilege and your duty to ride me just as it is mine to bear you. Not to do so is to diminish us both.’

Hawklan bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t understand. We humans forget our place in the world too often. I’ll ride you gladly.’

‘And I’ll carry you willingly and well, Hawklan,’ replied the horse quietly. For a little while the two stood silent in the moonlit stillness.

When he left Serian, Hawklan went to the other horses and spent some time using his hands to ease the fatigue from them. He spoke to them a little, but they were like most animals-shy and reserved. Their very normality highlighted Serian’s powerful presence, but Hawklan set aside the strangeness of the horse and of their meeting, placing it with the many other mysteries that were accumulating around him.

‘Are they well?’ Isloman’s deep voice interrupted his reverie.

‘Yes,’ Hawklan replied. ‘They’ll be well rested by dawn. We can leave then and make good progress. Now, let me have a look at this gashed hand of yours that I’ve heard so much about.’

Sheepishly, Isloman offered the injured hand. Hawk-lan looked at Tirilen’s neat and characteristic bandaging and felt a lump come into his throat. Bending forward so that Isloman could not see his face he removed the bandage gently to reveal a livid, inflamed scar.

‘It’s getting better slowly,’ Isloman said apologeti-cally, but Hawklan scarcely heard him. A savage tremor passed through him as he looked at the damaged flesh and felt Isloman’s inner strength fighting off its evil. He recognized the tremor as a cry for vengeance against the tinker for the damage he had wrought, made almost unbearable by the poignant touch of Tirilen’s healing skill emanating from the damaged hand he was holding.

Gavor turned and twisted high in the cold mountain air. Looking down, he could see the three figures moving along the winding path: Hawklan, tall, straight and relaxed, looking like part of the animal he was riding, constantly having to check himself from riding too far ahead of the others; Loman and Isloman looking anything but part of their animals, struggling awk-wardly with the mounting discomfort of having been several days in the saddle, and fretting impatiently at what they saw to be their lack of speed.

Every few hours, Hawklan stopped and made them rest. Ostensibly it was for the benefit of the horses but, in fact, it was to calm and relax his friends with words and occasional massage and manipulation to ease tense and tired muscles and stiffening joints. In this way they made as good progress as such a trio could make.

Gavor straightened his wings to rest on a slow-rising air current and, with the occasional movement of his pinion feathers to keep his balance, soared smoothly around in a great circle. Then he put his head down and, tumbling over in an apparent confusion of feet and wings, he looked again at the gift which Loman had brought for him; if gift it was. A pair of long black, glittering sharp, fighting spurs.

‘I’m not sure what they are, but they’re the same metal as the sword, Hawklan,’ Loman had said, fumbling them cautiously out of a pocket and offering them for inspection. ‘I found them near where we found the sword. I don’t know why I’ve never seen them before… ’ He had shrugged in reluctant acceptance of yet another strange chance happening. But all of them had fallen silent when, as if by some ancient instinct, Gavor had picked the spurs up deftly in his beak and snapped one on to each leg.

‘Careful, they’re very sharp… ’ Loman said hastily, his hand reaching out protectively. Then his eyes had opened wide in a confusion of shock and disbelief. The spurs fitted Gavor’s legs perfectly, one even having a special clip to accommodate an irregularity in his wooden leg. Instead of making him look incongruous, however, the spurs made him look formidable, just as the black sword had changed Hawklan’s appearance.

Loman had turned to Hawklan. ‘It can’t be possible,’ he said.

‘But it is,’ replied Hawklan simply. ‘And I’ve no more answers than you have.’ He fingered the pommel of the Black Sword unconsciously.