Darkwalker on Moonshae, page 23
When the party finally emerged from the corridor in the rock, a warm breeze caressed the prince’s face, carrying fragrances that made him think of Brigit’s warning about the beauty of the valley. The sun spilled its lifegiving heat onto his skin and spread a comforting warmth through his body after the clammy morning ride.
Nearby, a waterfall trilled across rocks with a musical tinkle. The sound was so delightful that he would have halted Avalon to listen if he held his own reins. He felt his throat choke with sorrow, and tears sprang to his eyes, as the soul-soothing sound faded into the distance.
Now he heard the wind rustling through leafy branches with a pleasant sigh. The branches whispered with a seductive tone, and birds trilled a calling song. They crossed a bridge, hoofs clattering on the wooden beams like the chiming of a massive bell.
The sound arose so rich and throaty that the prince forcibly pulled back on the stallion’s mane, for he could not bear to ride on. Someone tugged firmly upon the reins, however, and he was carried unwillingly forward. Weeping unashamedly, he tore at the blindfold frantically, but the heavy cloth was wrapped tightly around his face. In anguish, he turned his head to savor the last, hypnotic sounds arising from the bridge.
Suddenly he heard, again, the musical chimes of a waterfall. This one sounded larger than the other, and its notes carried more force and a wider gamut of tones. If such a thing were possible, the prince thought, these sounds were even more beautiful than the other.
He made up his mind. Never again would he know happiness in the mundane world. His future lay here, in Synnoria, whether or not the beauty of the place would drive him mad. He swung a leg across Avalon’s back and started to drop to the unseen ground below.
A jangling noise struck him in the face like a bucket of ice water, stopping him just before he let go of the horse’s reins. Dissonance crashed into his ears again, and still a third time.
“No!” he cried. “I can’t hear the waterfall!”
But the jarring notes continued—the strings of a harp, plucked without tuning or harmony. Dimly, the prince heard other voices raised in protest, but the chords kept coming. Painful to the ear, absent of any musical worth, they only served to mask the sounds of the lovely waterfall.
The prince recognized the sound, if not the tone, of Keren’s harp. “Stop!” he ordered. “Stop that instrument!”
Futilely, he shouted at the bard, railing against Keren until his voice grew hoarse. And all the time, Keren played the harp loudly and constantly, so that he and his companions could not enjoy the sounds of the waterfall, and the trees, and all the things that made Synnoria so …
Seductive.
Suddenly the prince stopped shouting and felt very foolish. His resentment toward the bard quickly changed to gratitude, for he knew that without the timely sounds of the nearby harp, he would have leaped from the saddle, determined to spend the rest of his life listening to the distant harmonies in Synnoria.
The prince could still hear the waterfall in the background, but the sound now arose only as minor accompaniment to the music of the bard’s harp. Keren soon ceased the tuneless strumming and began to play a little ditty, quite profane, about an amorous barmaid. The tune displayed none of the mastery and craft that the prince had heard on other occasions, but it was such a simple and catchy melody that Tristan could not get it out of his mind.
For the rest of the day, the bard strummed his harp and sang the simple little song. The others joined in, occasionally, as his voice began to crack and waver. Yet the chords he struck from his harp never wavered in their clarity. Tristan felt no regret when cool walls again pressed in from either side and they entered a region of deep shadows. He knew that the seduction of Synnoria now lay behind them.
Finally Brigit called a halt, and the sisters removed the blindfolds. Once again they found themselves in a narrow canyon, surrounded by sheer rock walls. Canthus jumped against Tristan, licking his face as the prince dismounted. With a squawk, Sable settled to the limb of a scraggy tree that somehow grew in the barren cleft. Robyn swung quickly to the ground, then weakly leaned against her horse. Daryth and Gavin dismounted stiffly, while Pawldo leaped from his pony to kiss the ground. “I’ve had enough sorcery to last me the rest of my life!” he declared, lacking his usual vigor.
Keren remained mounted as he slung the harp over his shoulder. With a pained look, he held up his obviously stiff fingers. The fingertips were cracked and bleeding.
“It’ll be a few days before I want to play my harp again,” he admitted.
“Thank you,” said Robyn as the bard finally dismounted. She stepped to his side and kissed him on the cheek. “Without your harp, I would now be a permanent resident of Synnoria.”
“I agree,” said Daryth, while Pawldo nodded. Gavin grunted, noncommittally, and turned to look back, toward Synnoria.
“Let’s camp here,” suggested Brigit. “It’s all downhill to Corwell. With luck, we’ll make it in two more days.”
The captain of the sisters turned to Keren. “That,” she said with a rare smile, “was a very impressive performance.”
Exhausted, the prince collapsed into his bedroll, delighted, for a change, to leave their safety to someone else. He quickly fell into a deep sleep, and dreamed of trees that sang a vulgar song about a tavern wench.
The army camp sprawled along the shore of a formerly clear mountain lake. The green fields along the lake had been churned into a sea of mud by the tread of thousands of booted feet. The waters had turned brown and dirty.
Grunnarch looked over his camp with ill-concealed unease. It had taken the force more than two days to cross through Dynloch Pass, and he knew that he had fallen behind schedule. Near the summit of the pass, a sudden rockslide had claimed the lives of a hundred of his men. To lose a hundred with a single blow was a bitter pill. And finally, the army of Firbolgs that was supposed to meet him here was nowhere to be seen.
At least his men, famished and exhausted from the grueling passage, would be able to rest for a few hours and eat a hot meal at this camp. The druid Trahern had assured him that the passage back into Corwell presented far less of an obstacle than did the pass they had just crossed.
Thoughts of sustenance reminded him of another cause of unease, the Bloodriders. They seemed to suffer from the fatigue of the march as much as any of the other men, but they showed no inclination, at the end of the march, to eat, drink, rest, or any of the other activities that insured recuperation. Instead they stood or squatted in their own area of the camp, waiting with barely concealed impatience to strike out on the trail again.
“Perhaps,” thought the Red King grimly, “they now survive on blood!” He avoided entering the Bloodriders’ camp, preferring to remain near his own tent. Accompanied by Trahern, the druid, he watched his army slowly recover its spirit.
A commotion at the edge of camp attracted his attention. With Trahern at his side, Grunnarch hurried toward it. A young warrior ran up to him, pointing toward the forest.
“Firbolgs, my lord! They’re coming this way!”
Grunnarch saw a band of perhaps five dozen Firbolgs trudging toward him. They moved listlessly, as if they were the remnants of an army. Indeed, many of them wore stained bandages over moist wounds. The Red King was not prepared for the filthy appearance of the Firbolgs, nor for their smell. The odor preceded them by several hundred yards, carried by an unfortunate breeze, and was offensive even by the northmen’s uncritical standards.
“This is the army?” Grunnarch muttered in disgust, looking at Trahern. The druid, too, seemed puzzled.
“I expected a much larger band” he admitted. “Though they do look formidable, those that there are.”
Indeed, the Firbolgs, even in this condition, looked like fierce fighters, with powerful legs and arms. Their low, sloping brows made them look very stupid, which was a quality Grunnarch praised in his soldiers. But they looked decidedly useful.
The largest of the creatures gestured the others to halt, and approached Grunnarch and Trahern. He stopped before them, and the king realized that the brute was not as tall as he had first seemed. He towered perhaps a couple of feet over Grunnarch’s head, no more.
“Groth,” grunted the creature, chucking a squat thumb at its barrel chest. “Corwell,” he added, pointing to the southwest.
“I am Grunnarch the Red, commander of this force,” the king declared. The Firbolg only looked curious, spreading his hands.
“Grunnarch,” grunted the king, pointing to himself, and then turned to the druid for help. “Can you talk to him?”
“I can try,” Trahern said, sounding reluctant. He grunted something short and harsh at the Firbolg, and the creature replied loudly, making violent gestures in the air. Then the Firbolg turned its back and stalked away.
“He says they had some trouble with humans,” explained the druid. “He also says not to bother him.”
“That’s great!” Grunnarch spat. “A lot of help they’ll be, I’m sure!”
Trahern shrugged. “We cannot know the nature of their role in the Iron King’s plan. It is better not to question.” The druid walked slowly back to his seat by the fire.
Grunnarch cast an angry look after the druid. He wondered, briefly, how Thelgaar had convinced the man to betray his land and his goddess. He looked back at the Firbolgs, who were claiming a great section of the lakeshore as their own. His army was demoralized—nervous about the presence of both the Bloodriders and the Firbolgs. This land—Myrloch Vale—seemed to sap their spirit. The king grimaced as he remembered his own nightmares. Nevertheless, Grunnarch knew that he had passed the point of no return. His force was committed to the plan, and he would do his best to lead it into the battle that Thelgaar had described to him so long ago.
Grunnarch and his army slept that night on defiled ground, haunted by bad dreams. Many struggled to remain awake, no matter how many hours till the dawn.
The next morning, a serpentine column of troops snaked away from the lakeshore toward the low pass that Trahern indicated. If they could make good time, the druid assured Grunnarch, they would be astride the Corwell Road by nightfall.
Above the marching army, the day started ominously. Heavy clouds gathered along their route of march. Even before the last troops marched out of the camp, the rain began to fall.
Genna Moonsinger, Great Druid of Gwynneth, knew of the army violating the sacred protectorate of Myrloch Vale. She watched, brokenhearted, as her animals died before the merciless invaders. She noted with revulsion that a band of Firbolgs had joined the northmen. She felt the earth itself recoil from the tread of the Bloodriders.
Genna had no army to send against the invaders. In the body of a little sparrow she observed the sprawling encampment along the lakeshore. She was not emotional, but part of her wanted to rain a shower of rage against the enemy.
Yet the great druid was not without recourse. In another guise, that of the tiniest of mammals, the shrew, she slipped into the camp at nightfall. Seeking the tent of the leader, she listened carefully for several hours to meaningless and offensive debate.
Finally, however, she learned what she sought: Grunnarch’s objective.
The northmen would march south, into Corwell, instead of continuing their sacrilegious march through Myrloch.
The Great Druid resolved that the raiders would be hampered every step. The rest of the night was spent in preparations, as she raced with dawn to work her own brand of sorcery. Steam climbed from the surface of every body of water within the radius of her power. Winds bent from their natural path, seeking and collecting clouds in the sky.
All night, her powers increased the weight of water vapor hanging above the camp, and the path, of the northmen. Gray clouds dropped low over the mountain valley, and the pressure of heavier clouds above forced them lower still.
As morning began to gray the eastern sky, Genna finished her spell. As the northmen broke their camp and began their march as yet unaffected, the great druid smiled patiently, for hers was not the magic that strikes in a single, dramatic blow.
The rain began as a light sprinkle, annoying the marchers but causing no great impediment. Soon it was a steady shower, making footing treacherous on the narrow trail. More and more marchers passed over that stretch, churning it into a morass of mud. Finally, the showers became a downpour, washing out sections of the trail and creating a bottomless mire of the lowlands.
When four of the Bloodriders, horses and all, collapsed and disappeared into a frothing torrent that had, minutes earlier, been a splashing brook, Grunnarch could deny the signs no longer. Cursing the ill favor that seemed to accompany his expedition, he ordered the army to bivouac until the storm subsided. And with this order went the realization that he would not reach the Corwell Road that night.
The great wolf loped steadily across the moor, ignoring the passage of time. The moon set, and the sun climbed into the sky, but still the great creature ran with steadfast purpose. Finally, Erian reached the area where the Pack had spent the night.
From here, the trail led eastward. Sniffing eagerly, Erian conjured clear images of hundreds of yearlings and pups, of an old male, gamely keeping up, of a bitch in heat. And one scent, finally, his supernatural nose identified. The largest male seemed to lead the Pack, but Erian knew himself to be larger, and stronger.
He started along the trail, still loping. He intended to conserve his strength for the encounter, and knew that the great population of wolves would travel far more slowly than he would alone. And indeed, the spoor grew steadily fresher as he followed the trail.
The wolves had taken a winding path, leading through shallow mountain valleys and over low ridges. Sometimes they passed through forest and thicket, while other times the Pack broke onto the open moor.
Finally Erian reached the top of a low hill and saw the Pack below him. Thousands of wolves nearly filled a small valley, where the Pack was in the process of crossing a shallow river. Many wolves, having already made the swim, shook themselves or rested on the far side. Others bobbed steadily across, swimming resolutely against a mild current.
His bloodshot eyes glittered with hate as Erian searched among the wolves, seeking the big male. Finally, he found him, still lolling comfortably on the near bank.
Raising his face toward the sun, Erian howled, a long wail that ululated through the valley, and pulled the attention of every wolf to the great beast standing atop the hill. Erian howled again, masterful and evil, as the wolves cringed.
The big male, he noticed, bristled aggressively and began to move forward, but even his bearing bespoke fear. Erian loped down the hill, arrowing straight for the big male. The other wolves scampered out of his way, then turned, intent on watching the fight.
Erian grinned with pleasure. “Now, my wolves,” he thought, “your master has arrived.”
Again the companions awakened early, this time driven to activity by the icy breath of the high mountain air. The barren canyon provided no wood for a fire, so they gulped a cold breakfast and mounted.
As Tristan swung into the saddle on Avalon’s broad back, Brigit and another knight rode up alongside.
“This is Aileen,” introduced the captain. “She is very familiar with these valleys. I suggest we send her ahead to scout for signs of the enemy.”
Aileen, the prince saw, had masked her shining armor with a woolen tunic of green, earthen tones. Instead of a lance, she carried a bow, along with her slim sword. She smiled and nodded to the prince as he met her eyes.
“That’s a good idea. Arrange a rendezvous for this evening, with alternate sites if we get held up.” The prince wondered if the raiders’ army had left Myrloch Vale yet. Perhaps, even now, the army lay across Corwell Road.
Once again they had entered Myrloch Vale, and this time Tristan enjoyed his surroundings. For the rest of the day, they descended through a series of rocky canyons and valleys, which soon gave way to sparse groves of cedar, and then thicker forests of spruce and aspen. The beauty of the mountains, and the pristine purity of the wilderness, made the day pass swiftly for Tristan, who found himself enjoying the land in his kingdom for the first time.
By late afternoon, they left the higher elevation permanently behind. Their trail followed a meandering river through many flat, flower-filled meadows.
“This is the place Aileen described,” cried Brigit, pointing to a jagged finger of rock jutting from a small clearing. “She’ll meet us here at sunset.”
They broke to form a small camp there. Shortly after dark, the green-clad scout slipped into camp.
“There’s no sign of them in front of us,” she reported. “They must be farther north. It’s strange—I saw an awful thunderstorm up there. It just hung over one place for the whole day. If they got caught in that, they’ll be moving very slowly tomorrow!”
“Excellent!” said Tristan. “With a good day tomorrow we should beat the northmen to Corwell Road. We can at least warn the refugees!”
“Yes,” agreed Robyn. “But then how do we stop the northmen?”
Grimly, the prince acknowledged that he, as yet, had no plan. And none of his companions had any ready solutions either.
For a moment they lapsed into silence, glumly realizing the depth of the problem. Suddenly, a bush rustled across the camp, and they saw a faint movement.
“I mightta known I’d find you here!” The gruff voice, bursting from the darkness, brought the group to its feet. Canthus, with a growl, leaped from the fireside to face an approaching figure.
“Finellen!” cried Robyn, as the others gaped at the approaching dwarf. “What are you doing here?”
“Those dolts did you a big favor when they invaded Myrloch Vale,” Finellen replied, pointing in the general direction of the northmen’s army.
“How did they do that?” asked the prince, confused.
