Cadmoryth stirred uneasily. Hawklan leaned forward and took his hand. Urthryn and Girvan watched the healer anxiously, but looking at each in turn he gave a slight shake of his head.
It was a confirmation of what he had said earlier when, found on the beach as the Muster rounded up those Morlider abandoned by their fleeing compatriots, Cadmoryth had been brought to the hospital tent, unconscious and broken.
Girvan turned away briefly in distress, but Urthryn bared his teeth in angry frustration. He turned to leave.
‘Ffyrst.’ Cadmoryth’s voice was weak, but lucid and audible even above the commotion filling the hospital tent.
Urthryn turned and looked down at the fisherman. The man’s eyes were open and clear.
‘I’m here,’ Urthryn said.
‘Ffyrst,’ Cadmoryth said again. ‘Forgive me. So many good men dead… I… ’ His voice faded.
‘Hush, rest, fisherman,’ Urthryn said, but Cad-moryth shook his head and beckoned him closer.
Urthryn knelt down beside the bed and bent for-ward to catch the failing words; his travel-stained tunic soiled the white sheets that covered Cadmoryth’s broken frame.
‘I saw the evil, Ffyrst,’ the fisherman whispered. ‘I could do no other than… hurl myself at it. I forgot my duty as captain of my vessel, forgot my crew. Now… ’
‘Hush,’ Urthryn said again, looking helplessly at Hawklan. ‘You forgot nothing, fisherman. Sometimes a leader leads, sometimes he is simply a tool of the will of his people. Your whole crew saw the evil. You held the helm, but they rowed their hearts out to crush that abomination. The Orthlundyn saw the truth of it all.’ He indicated Hawklan.
Cadmoryth’s eyes followed his movement. Hawklan nodded. ‘It was the will of your crew,’ he said. ‘Your boat leapt at Creost like a hunting animal.’
A brief smile lit the fisherman’s face as he remem-bered that last surging charge to avenge the treacherous deaths of so many on that southern beach. ‘It did, it did,’ he said triumphantly. ‘The Morlider know how to make a fine ship. But so many dead… it burdens me.’
‘Many survived Creost’s wrath, Cadmoryth,’ Hawk-lan said. ‘And you brought him down with your deed. Gave us the day. Broke the Morlider utterly. Who knows how many lives you’ve saved? A good day’s haul, fisherman, a good day’s haul.’
But Cadmoryth was not listening; he was clutching Hawklan’s hand urgently. ‘Who lived, healer, who lived?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know their names,’ Hawklan replied. ‘But they’ve been fretting about outside all the time you’ve been unconscious. They… ’
‘Bring them here,’ Cadmoryth interrupted urgently, trying to rise. The effort however was too much, and he slumped back, gasping. ‘No, wait,’ he said. ‘Wait a moment.’ He lay still for a little while then, momentar-ily, he grimaced in distress.
‘There’s no landfall from this journey, is there, healer?’
Hawklan bent forward and spoke to him softly, placing a hand on his forehead. Slowly the fisherman’s breathing became quieter.
‘Girvan,’ he said after a moment. The Line Leader crouched down by him. ‘Girvan… Tell my wife… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to leave her. Tell her… thank you… for the light she’s given me… ’ His face became pained again. ‘You’ll find the words, Girvan. She liked you.’
Girvan nodded, but could not speak. Cadmoryth patted his hand reassuringly. ‘Ffyrst,’ he said. ‘You’ll look to the needs of my wife?’ His tone was anxious.
‘It’s ever our way, fisherman, have no fear for that,’ Urthryn replied.
Cadmoryth closed his eyes briefly. ‘Thank you,’ he said, then, smiling a little: ‘That was a rare ride you made, Ffyrst. A fine yarn to tell your grandchild when it arrives.’
‘It was fair,’ Urthryn replied. ‘But as nothing com-pared with your great journey.’
Cadmoryth gave a brief breathy chuckle then he lay back and looked up at the roof of the tent.
A timber post with ropes lashed about it rose up by his bed like a mast. Radiant stones filled the tent with their stored summer warmth, and the slowly billowing fabric of the roof faithfully held and returned it, but Cadmoryth’s eyes narrowed and his face tightened as if he were facing a cold, spray-filled wind, and revelling in it.
‘Send my crew in,’ he said to Hawklan, faintly. ‘They’ll tend me now.’
As the three men moved away from the dying fish-erman, Urthryn took Hawklan’s arm. ‘You must rest,’ he said. ‘Our healers and yours are sufficient. You’ve done enough.’
Hawklan looked at him, and then around the tent. It was filled with long rows of wounded. They were lying on a hotch-potch of beds; a few had been hauled over the mountains by the Orthlundyn, and some had appeared silently in the wake of the Muster, but most were rough and ready creations salvaged from the remains of the Morlider camp. It was fitting; most of the wounded were Morlider. They had taken appalling casualties in both dead and wounded at the hands of the Orthlundyn, and the tent was filled with the sound of their collective despair; a dark, disordered chorus of cries and groans, shot through with muffled screams.
Worse, to Hawklan, though, the place reeked of fear and horror. A spasm of anger ran through him.
‘A healer can’t rest while such pain cries out,’ he said, more severely than he had intended. Then, thus triggered, the anger came out as unhindered as it was unjust. ‘But you can, and must. You’re wearier than I am by far. You’ve younger officers who should be doing much of what you’re attempting. Let them do it, they’ll do it better and quicker. We’ve serious problems to discuss when these poor souls have been eased. It’s you who should rest, Ffyrst, not I.’
Girvan took a discreet step backwards.
Urthryn frowned furiously. ‘You’re powerfully free with your orders, Orthlundyn,’ he said barely restrain-ing his own anger.
Hawklan reflected the frown. ‘Fault my logic, Ffyrst,’ he said. ‘Better still, accept the wisdom of your people. Most of them are sleeping.’
Urthryn bit down his reply though it was with an effort. ‘Sylvriss said you were a remarkable man,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk later. When both of us are rested.’
As Urthryn left, Girvan paused briefly by Hawklan. ‘Your remarks were unnecessary, Orthlundyn,’ he said bluntly but without anger. ‘Think about swallowing them later. The Ffyrst is a wise and patient man, but he’s more than tired, he’s exhausted in every way. The journey we made might have been epic, but it was also grim and he left behind much quarrelling and bitter-ness. Then to find the Muster could offer so little at the end… ’
Hawklan nodded. ‘I know,’ he said regretfully. ‘Time and rest will see us all at greater ease. See him settled if you can, then rest yourself.’
When Girvan had gone, Hawklan cast a brief glance towards the group sitting silently around the peaceful form of Cadmoryth. He could do nothing there. He knew that, fisherman all, they were waiting for the turn of the tide that would take their comrade away.
Leaving them to their vigil, Hawklan strode off down the long aisle between two rows of beds. All around him were men, young men for the most part, suffering from fearful injuries. Those with lesser injuries were being treated in other places.
Here were severed and broken limbs; bodies, crushed and mutilated; the terrible gaping gashes and stab wounds made by swords and long bladed pikes. And, like a grim harmony note underlying everything, the thought of what must lie ahead of those who were healed. Maimed, abandoned and alone amongst their enemies.
He caught the eye of a man who in Orthlund might still have been an apprentice carver. He was bearded, but the fluffy blond mass served only to accentuate his fresh-faced youth. From his skull emerged the shaft of an arrow. Hawklan went to him and placed his hands about his face. The eyes slowly looked up at him, but they were blank.
The boy would live, Hawklan knew. Perhaps for a long time, but…
Rest? he thought. Would he could. His body ached with fatigue after the gruelling hours of fighting and then the even more gruelling hours of clearing the battlefield. But he had not lied to Urthryn; he could not rest while so much pain cried out. At their extremities, the warrior and the healer in him had little love for one another and their mutual anger marred him.
‘May I help?’ came a voice as he stood up from the young victim.
Turning he saw first Yengar and Olvric, then the speaker.
All three looked desperately tired. Hawklan sensed the third man for a healer, and his face was elusively familiar.
‘Marek,’ said the man, answering Hawklan’s ques-tioning expression. ‘Healer with the Lord Eldric’s High Guard. We met, or rather, I saw you, when you were… unconscious… at Lord Eldric’s. It’s good to see you whole again.’
‘You were sent with Queen Sylvriss to Dremark,’ Hawklan said, smiling, as he recalled both the memory of Marek’s face from that strange interlude following Oklar’s assault on him, and Agreth’s account of the Queen’s journey. ‘When did you arrive?’
‘An hour or so ago,’ Marek replied. ‘But everything’s so confused we had difficulty finding you.’
Hawklan’s smile broadened. ‘Came with one of the baggage trains, did you?’ he said.
‘Yes, and even that was hard going,’ Yengar said ruefully.
‘We didn’t last two days with Urthryn’s riders.’ He seemed distressed by this failure.
‘Set it aside, Goraidin,’ Hawklan said. ‘That journey will go down forever in Muster lore. It took no small toll of their own. Is the Cadwanwr with you… ’ He cast about for the name.
‘Oslang,’ Yengar said. ‘Yes. And the others are fol-lowing. He’s with Andawyr now, but he’s worse than we are. I doubt he’ll wake up before the rest arrive.’
Hawklan nodded. ‘You two find Dacu then rest awhile, there’s nothing for you to do here. Marek, see how things are, do as your heart moves you, you’re the best judge of your own worth at the moment.’
The Fyordyn looked around the tent and then back at Hawklan. ‘I’m tired through travelling uncomfortably and sleeping badly,’ he said. ‘But I’m sound, and fresh from tending Sylvriss, who in her present condition gives more than she receives.’ Hawklan felt Marek taking charge of him. ‘You on the other hand are almost spent. In a little while you’ll just be another burden. Go and rest.’
Hawklan frowned at Marek’s bluntness, but the healer’s words cut through his weariness and both cleared his vision and gave him the little strength he needed to accept what he saw. He looked about the noisy tent once more and, feeling the awesome weight of pain and fear in the place, realized he had been trying to carry it all in reparation for the part he had played in creating it. That was not healing.
‘You’re right,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve stayed too long. I’ll go for a walk then I’ll sleep-as instructed.’ He tilted his head towards the far end of the tent. ‘The Duty Healer’s over there if you’re going to stay.’
The cold struck him as he stepped out of the warmth of the tent. It was snowing; large damp flakes floating silently and leisurely down through the grey sky. The two Goraidin strode off purposefully towards the Command tent in search of Dacu, and Hawklan turned towards the sea.
As he walked, he let the countless unrepeating pat-terns of the swirling snowflakes fill his mind. Better they than the tangled mass of the thoughts he was still clinging to. He had not started this appalling juggernaut on its life-crushing journey; who could say what butterfly’s wings had? Such threads as he could unravel went back only to that spring morning when a bent and crooked tinker had appeared on the green at Pedhavin, and he could not see even those being woven into any other pattern. Nor, truly, was that pattern an ill one, despite the miasma of pain emanating from the sad heart of the hospital tent. His own words to the dying Cadmoryth returned to comfort him, ‘Who knows how many lives you’ve saved?’
Now, at least, Sumeral’s malice and intent stood plainly exposed; the Morlider were gone, leaving the Muster free to help in the struggle; the Orthlundyn had been tested in battle and their discipline had given them the day against fierce and overwhelming odds. The Cadwanwr too had met some great trial and survived; they would be the wiser for that. A good day’s haul indeed, he thought, even though much of him cried out still at the tragedy that such nets had had to be cast.
The sound of the sea brought him to a halt and he realized that he had walked further from the camp than he had intended. He was at the top of the slope that led down to the remains of the Morlider camp.
The falling snow was already obliterating many of the scars of the battle, though in so doing it was hindering the groups of Riddinvolk and Orthlundyn charged with the task of cleansing the area. Rows of bodies, already covered to protect them from the scavenging seabirds were slowly disappearing under a further, cold, shroud. Stacks of weapons and supplies too were merging anonymously with the whitening terrain.
He became aware of Serian standing by him. The horse had followed him from the camp.
‘How are the horses?’ Hawklan asked.
‘Better than the humans,’ Serian replied. ‘They for-get more quickly. They did well.’
Hawklan patted the horse’s neck. ‘Indeed they did,’ he said. Then, on an impulse, ‘Do you wish to return to the Muster now that you’re home again?’
The horse lifted its head and shook it, throwing a spray of snowflakes into the air. ‘I’m no longer a Muster horse, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘Touched by His evil at the Gretmearc, then redeemed by you. Facing the wrath of Oklar with you. Listening to the sounds of the Alphraan and the song of Anderras Darion. And now all this: charging against Dar Hastuin and Creost as they rode Usgreckan. I am not what I was. And I am possessed by the demon that possesses you. I ride next against Sumeral. Do we ride together still?’
Hawklan looked out over the battlefield again. The snow was not falling quite as heavily, and an onshore breeze was beginning to blow. In the distance the sky was lightening, and here and there small golden swashes of sunlight were glittering on the sea. The horizon was true and straight, undisturbed by any unnatural intrusion. ‘Winter’s ending,’ Hawklan said, swinging up into the saddle. ‘And we ride together still, Serian, to His very throne.’
Returning to the camp, Hawklan made straight for his tent. As he approached, Andawyr came to the entrance. He too looked tired, but his eyes seemed to be brighter than ever.
‘I’ve been chased away from the hospital tent with orders to rest,’ Hawklan said
‘Rightly so,’ Andawyr said unsympathetically. ‘You should listen to your own advice more.’
Hawklan pulled a wry face. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But while I’m confined to quarters will you arrange a meeting of all senior officers-a Council of War-first thing tomorrow morning. And gently with Urthryn, please, Andawyr. My brief meetings with him so far have been a little… fraught… to be generous about it.’
Andawyr opened his mouth to reply but a low, piti-ful moan from inside the tent interrupted him. He turned to let Hawklan enter.
Inside, resting in a small makeshift hammock slung off four poles, lay Gavor. His eyes were closed and he was very still. Curled upon the floor nearby was Dar-volci.
Hawklan looked at his old friend sadly. Andawyr came to his side.
‘It’s bad isn’t it?’ Andawyr said.
Hawklan nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, soberly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before.’
A single black eye flickered weakly, and Gavor ut-tered another low groan.
‘It’s the complications that are doing the damage,’ Hawklan went on, crouching down to be closer to the listless form. His face was lined with concentration, and when he spoke his voice was heavy with concern.
‘You see, Andawyr, after the fall, he began to de-velop symptoms of malingering, but I suspect now that it’s turned into severe and chronic hypochondria. I think it could be terminal.’
The eye opened wide and glared malevolently. Hawklan and Andawyr smiled hypocritically in reply.
Gavor groaned again-loudly. ‘I don’t know which hurts the most,’ he declaimed. ‘The pain of my terrible injury or the cruel indifference of my friends.’
‘I told you. You’ve only sprained one of your chest muscles a little,’ Hawklan said, flopping down on to his bunk. ‘Your pectoral muscle to be precise. A couple of days and some exercises and you’ll be good as new.’
‘You weren’t so callous when you pulled me out of that snowdrift,’ Gavor said, his tone injured.
‘I thought all that blood was yours, that’s why,’ Hawklan answered, closing his eyes and turning his back on the raven.
Gavor chuckled at the memory of his attack on the two Uhriel, then he groaned again. ‘It hurts when I laugh,’ he said.
‘Go for a walk,’ Hawklan said curtly. ‘The amount you’re eating, you’ll soon be too fat for your wings to carry you, sprain or no sprain.’
Gavor’s head shot up indignantly. Then, turning to Andawyr, he said, ‘Would you be so kind as to give me a wing down, dear boy, I’d hate my suffering to disturb our great leader.’ As Andawyr lifted him out of the hammock he added plaintively, ‘I’ll be out in the cold if anyone needs me.’
‘Gavor, clear off, I’m trying to get some sleep,’ Hawklan replied.
Gavor muttered something under his breath and stumped over to Dar-volci. ‘Come on, rat, let’s go round to the kitchens; see if they’ve anything for sprains.’
Dar-volci uncoiled himself, stretched languorously then sat on his haunches to scratch his stomach. ‘Good idea, crow,’ he said, dropping down on to all-fours again. ‘I’m feeling like something medicinal myself. You can do your bird impressions for me as we walk.’
Hawklan turned his head and stared in disbelief.
Slowly through the day, the camp changed, becoming quieter and more ordered as time pushed the nightmare of the battle inexorably further away. Cadmoryth died as the tide began to ebb, as did several of the Morlider. Others lived and died to different rhythms. The snow stopped and the sky cleared, and the day ended with long sunset shadows cutting obliquely through the ranks of tents.
Hawklan slept.
The following day began as the previous had ended, with a clear sky. A brilliant sun shone low into the camp and the snow-covered landscape echoed its light stridently.
A gentle shaking awoke Hawklan and he smiled as he opened his eyes to see Gavor tugging at his sleeve and, beyond him, the sky, blue and unblemished, visible through the slightly opened entrance of the tent.
Then he closed his eyes and lay back, his face pained momentarily.
‘I thought I was at home,’ he said, sitting up and swinging his legs off the bunk. ‘A summer’s day ahead with fields to walk, flowers and blossoms to smell… ’
‘Sorry, dear boy,’ Gavor said repentantly.
Hawklan reached out and a laid his hand on the raven’s iridescent plumage. ‘Hardly your fault, old friend,’ he said, smiling again, then, more matter of fact, ‘How’s the wing this morning?’
Gavor extended it gently. ‘Creaking,’ he said. ‘But better. I think the knees are going though, with all this walking.’
‘Knee,’ corrected Hawklan.
‘Spare me the pedantry at this time of morning, dear boy,’ Gavor said, jumping down from the bunk and landing with a grunt. ‘Just because it’s not there doesn’t mean I can’t feel it. And it’s stiff.’
The statement was definitive and Hawklan did not pursue it.
‘Well, can you manage a walk to the mess tent?’ he asked, standing.
Gavor inclined his head pensively, then with an awkward flapping, bounced up on to the bed and thence on to Hawklan’s shoulder.
He was still sitting there an hour later when Hawk-lan rode across to the nearby camp that the Muster had established. As they approached, a small crowd began to form at the edge of the camp. Gavor started to preen himself.
The crowd, however, seemed to be interested pre-dominantly in Serian, Hawklan himself being greeted with an uneasy politeness.
As on the battlefield, Serian led him to Urthryn.
The Ffyrst’s tent was larger and more elaborate than the undecorated field tents that stood in ranks around it, but not ostentatiously so. An officer of some kind stood outside it; no mean fighter, Hawklan judged, probably a bodyguard, and vaguely familiar.
He dismounted and introduced himself.
‘I saw you on the field, Lord,’ replied the officer eyeing Gavor narrowly.
Hawklan looked at him, ‘Ah,’ he said diffidently after a moment, ‘I remember. I pulled you off your horse, didn’t I?’
The man nodded, then the question burst out of him. ‘You lifted me out of the saddle as if I was a child! I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I’ve never felt anything like it. How did you do it?’
Hawklan laughed at the man’s unrestrained curios-ity, though not unkindly. ‘Don’t concern yourself. You handled your lance well. I’ve had remarkable teachers in my time.’ Then, more seriously: ‘If your wish to learn overrides your sense of indignity at being unhorsed by an Orthlundyn, then you’re halfway there already. If time allows we’ll talk further.’
Before the man could pursue the matter, the en-trance to the tent opened and the figure of Urthryn appeared. He started a little at the sight of Hawklan and Gavor.
The officer saluted and Hawklan bowed.
‘May we speak before the meeting, Ffyrst?’ he said.
Urthryn looked at him enigmatically for a moment, then he nodded to the guard and with a slight bow ushered Hawklan into the tent.
Inside, Urthryn offered Hawklan a plain wooden seat, taking a similar one himself. The two men looked at one another in awkward silence for a few moments.
‘I came to thank you for recalling your people from the pursuit of the Morlider,’ Hawklan said eventually. ‘In the heat of the moment, my asking… lacked tact… as did my conduct in the hospital tent. I know now that you and your people suffered dreadful losses at Creost’s hands in the south. Losses that cried out-still cry out-for vengeance.’
Urthryn was silent for a moment, watching his un-expected guest carefully. He seemed to be struggling with an inner debate. ‘You have a gift for understate-ment, Orthlundyn,’ he said at last, his voice angry. ‘You charge through our ranks on one of our own horses, I note-disarm two of my best men as if they were fractious children, order me to call back the Line from full pursuit. Then you chase me to my bed when you can scarcely stand yourself. Your conduct lacked tact indeed… ’ He stopped suddenly and looked down at his hands. The sound of bustling activity outside filtered into the silence.
When he looked up, his face was distressed but his manner was calmer. ‘Every time I close my eyes, I’m walking through the mangled corpses on that beach. Corpses as far as you can see. Young and old, men and women. And horses. And… seagulls everywhere, screeching and squabbling, I hear them too.’ He put his hands to his ears uneasily. Hawklan resisted the temptation to reach out to him. Such a man, he knew, understood his own pain and needed to face it unaided.
‘If it’s not that, then it’s the relentless pounding of the journey we made, shaking my whole body even yet. Pushing myself beyond all pain and hurt and pulling the others behind me to avenge all that. Riding as Muster riders have never ridden before. And then to arrive and find we were too late.’
His face contorted and he leaned to one side slightly, swinging his arm low as if seizing something. He clenched his fist tight to stop the gesture. ‘I’d like to use those Morlider prisoners in the Helangai,’ he said savagely. ‘Smash and crush them. Let them suffer as we and our kin suffered.’
Hawklan’s eyes widened in distress at this outburst but he said nothing.
The spate ended as abruptly as it had begun. ‘I’m sorry… ’ Urthryn said. ‘You understand, don’t you? To have such things happen to those in your charge can hardly be borne.’
Hawklan nodded.
Urthryn looked at him intently. ‘You owe me no thanks for stopping the pursuit,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s I who should thank you for interceding and preventing an atrocity that would have stained us forever. As for the hospital, well, we were all sick at heart there. I’d hoped, twenty years ago, to have seen the last of such handi-work.’
Hawklan relaxed into his hard chair. Urthryn caught the movement and, for the moment eased of his burden, smiled slightly. Hawklan responded and raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
Urthryn’s smile widened and he scratched his head: another small homely gesture to distance further his recent painful outburst. ‘I’ve never seen an outlander who could sit on one of our camp chain and look comfortable before. But then I’ve never seen anyone-anyone-ride like you did towards that… ’ he waved a hand as he searched for a word. ‘That screeching monstrosity and those abominations riding it.’ He warmed to the subject. ‘It was a pity your arrows didn’t bring them all down. As for your crow… Gravy, here… well… ’
Gavor leaned forward indignantly.
‘No,’ Hawklan said quickly, laughing in spite of himself, and shaking his head. ‘Some wiser impulse guided my aim. If I’d killed their steed I’d have deprived them of the option of fleeing and they’d have destroyed us all for sure. Gavor’s attack panicked both them and Usgreckan into flight. We were fortunate that calmer counsels didn’t prevail.’
Urthryn looked doubtful but did not pursue the matter. His earlier rage seemed to have ebbed totally. It would return from time to time, Hawklan knew; that could not be avoided. But each time, it would be less.
‘Sylvriss was right,’ Urthryn said suddenly. ‘You’re a remarkable man.’ He leaned forward confidentially. ‘Are you sure you don’t have Riddinvolk stock in you somewhere? The Orthlundyn are notoriously careless about their bloodlines, you know.’
‘So Agreth has mentioned,’ Hawklan replied, then, deflecting the conversation, ‘Is your daughter well?’ he asked.
Urthryn smiled contentedly. ‘She was when we left,’ he said. ‘Blooming, in fact.’ His smile became sadder. ‘Despite the news we’d had to bring from the beach.’
‘Perhaps when one of your messengers returns to Dremark, you’d tell her I’m whole again and that I’ll be ever in her debt, and in the debt of her child,’ Hawklan said.
Urthryn looked puzzled and a little suspicious, but he nodded. ‘Well, I can’t pretend to understand what you mean by that,’ he said. ‘But bewilderment is also becoming my normal condition these days. Of course, I’ll send her any message you want.’ Then, standing, he held out his hand.
‘Now we’ve made our small peace, shall we ride to the Council of War together? See if we can make the future better than the past?’
The tent used by the Orthlundyn as a Command Centre was barely large enough to accommodate the many people who gathered at Andawyr’s behest, but eventu-ally everyone found somewhere to sit, stand or lean.
Andawyr, Hawklan, Urthryn and Loman sat at one end facing the others. By common consent, and to the quiet mockery of his countrymen, Dacu found himself given charge of the meeting.
Unexpectedly, Urthryn asked to speak first. There was a profound stillness in the tent as he told of the great gathering of the General Muster and of the terrible destruction wrought on it by Creost’s cunning.
‘Cadmoryth and the fishermen repaired two of the Morlider’s own boats and sailed northward on who knows what impulse. They offered no reason, nor made any debate, they just hoisted sail and left. I haven’t the words to honour them sufficiently.’ He looked down, unable to proceed for a moment.
‘Then Oslang told us we should travel north, and within days we met Agreth.’ He looked across at his adviser. ‘An epic journey also, Line Leader, to be honoured in due time,’ he said. Then, turning back to his audience, ‘All else, you know.’
He paused again. ‘Save this.’ He straightened up. ‘Our loss on that beach all but tore the heart from our people. While the fishermen showed us the way by pursuing the enemy, we celebrated our grief in petty bickering.’ He turned to Hawklan, his face pained. ‘Only one in six of our houses rode to this field; forty or so squadrons. And, thanks to our debating, even we arrived too late to spare some of your people. Others may join us, I don’t know. I’ve sent the news of the happenings here to all, but travelling’s difficult and we left the Moot in great disarray.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You reproach yourself too much, Ffyrst,’ Andawyr said before Hawklan could reply.
‘I’m no longer Ffyrst,’ Urthryn said. ‘I doubt the office can exist in such turmoil.’
Andawyr waved the comment aside. ‘Names, titles, offices,’ he said, almost contemptuously. ‘You are here, Urthryn of the Decmilloith of Riddin, Son of the Riddinvolk. You came to fulfil the duty of the Muster and defend your land, and none could have done more from what I hear. That circumstances prevailed against you was none of your doing. You owe yourself no reproach. We’ve all failed in different ways and paid our different prices before we came to this place. The only crime we can commit now is to drag these failings behind us instead of moving forward. You command the loyalty of your forty squadrons and they’ve been spared for a future time.’
Urthryn opened his mouth to speak, but Andawyr’s hand came up to silence him.
‘With Dar Hastuin by his side, hurt though he was, not ten, fifty, a hundred times your forty squadrons would have prevailed against Creost if Cadmoryth hadn’t struck him down and given us the chance to tear the control of the islands from him. Atelon and I were almost spent when that happened. The fisherman and the bird tipped the balance and gave us the day.’
He leaned back in his seat and spread out his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘And if you’d been with us, how would even your horses have fared when Dar Hastuin’s Viladrien was destroyed?’
Urthryn nodded reluctantly. The Muster’s only casualties had occurred in the panic that ensued when the sight and sound of that awful destruction had reached them. He stood silent for some time.
No one sought to speak.
‘Very well,’ he said eventually. ‘You’re right, Cad-wanwr, though the rightness quiets my head more than my belly. Perhaps time will attend to that.’ He turned to Hawklan. ‘I place myself and my riders at your com-mand. Those who come after must make their own decisions.’
Hawklan bowed. ‘Place them at the command of Loman,’ he said. ‘The army is his. My task is to find and waken the first of the Guardians, Ethriss.’
Urthryn gaped. ‘How…?’ he began.
‘I can answer none of your questions, Ffyrst,’ Hawk-lan said, before he could continue. ‘That would be to destroy us all. Our army will oppose His army, the Guardians and the Cadwanwr will oppose the Uhriel, but only Ethriss can oppose Sumeral and only I can find and waken him.’ He looked at Urthryn intently.
Urthryn turned to Loman who returned his gaze steadily.
‘Loman built this army, brought it through the mountains, fought this battle,’ Hawklan went on. ‘If you’d help us, then you must go with him to Fyorlund and join with the Lords to assault Derras Ustramel itself. If not, then perhaps you’d give us supplies to help us on our way-we’re already woefully short.’
Urthryn swayed, momentarily disorientated by the urgency and strangeness of Hawklan’s words set against the endless, pounding familiarity of his recent journey and the sight of the man-made carnage on the battle-field. Then other, stranger, scenes came to him: the colourful flotilla of empty boats eerily approaching the shore, and the great wave that swept away so many riders and divided the rest into squabbling bands; then the glaring brilliance and tumult of the dying Viladrien, and the fearful screaming of Usgreckan. In some way he could not fathom, he knew that all true choices were gone. And these people had saved his land.
He saluted Loman. ‘Together to Fyorlund and Der-ras Ustramel then,’ he said.
Loman smiled broadly and, standing up, wrapped the startled Riddinwr in a powerful embrace. There was some laughter after Urthryn disentangled himself and rubbed his ribs ruefully.
As though a cloud had moved from the sun, the atmosphere in the Command Tent relaxed and the discussion turned quickly to practical matters.
It transpired that the Orthlundyn’s supplies were indeed now dangerously low. Nor were the Muster much better placed, they also having come there in haste. Such food as was found in the remains of the Morlider camp had been destroyed either by fire in the Helyadin’s attack or by the Morlider themselves as they charged through all that stood in their way to reach their ships.
And there were prisoners, sick and well, to feed and to dispose of.
Hawklan cast an anxious glance at Urthryn as the topic arose, but the Ffyrst gave no sign of a return of his earlier rage. ‘We’ll tend to the prisoners fittingly,’ he said. ‘If the islands are truly gone then it may be a generation before they return but what we do now may determine what happens then.’
Andawyr and Hawklan exchanged glances. ‘What will you do with them?’ Hawklan asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Urthryn admitted. ‘For now we’ll have to make a camp for them of some kind, then slowly settle those that want to stay into different Houses.’
‘And those that don’t?’ Hawklan asked.
Urthryn blew out a noisy sigh. ‘Take them to the south or let them make their own boats and sail away.’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. The smell of that beach and the noise in that hospital tent will be with me forever. We’ll do nothing that might have the seeds of such happenings in them for the future.’
‘And if the Moot has other ideas?’ Hawklan said.
‘The Moot only has authority over the Houses when the conduct of one threatens another in some way,’ Urthryn said off-handedly.
‘This is all we can do now, Hawklan,’ Dacu said, cutting across Hawklan’s next question. ‘We’ve more pressing problems to discuss, not the least of which, after supplies, is how we’re going to get the army and Urthryn’s squadrons up into Fyorlund.’
It was a timely point. The traditional route through the mountains from Riddin to Fyorlund, that taken by Sylvriss and Rgoric’s wedding party many years ago, entered the mountains far to the south and west of their present position. It would be a long dispiriting journey for the weary Orthlundyn.
‘The route we followed when we came through with the Queen could be used,’ Yengar volunteered. ‘It’s due north from here. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be a lot shorter. We have it detailed in our journals.’
The journals were produced and the meeting slipped easily into discussing the considerable logistical problems associated with moving the army and the Muster through the mountains.
Despite his concerns about the dismay amongst the Houses, Urthryn had no doubts about the willingness of the Riddinvolk to provide adequate supplies for the expedition and the ability of the Muster to carry them at least as far as the mountains, thereby considerably easing the Orthlundyn’s burden. It would be no easy task, he conceded, but it could be, and it would be, done.
The mountains, however, presented other problems.
‘This route might be manageable by your infantry and their few horses, but it’ll be too difficult for so much cavalry, especially as there’ll still be a lot of snow about when we get there,’ was Urthryn’s conclusion after Yengar’s notes had been carefully studied.
‘And it concerns me that we know nothing of what’s going on in Narsindal,’ he went on. ‘After what’s happened, we’ve no alternative but to assume that there’s a substantial army up there-or armies-and for all we know, they could be marching down the Pass of Elewart right now. Perhaps the Uhriel didn’t flee, perhaps they simply went for reinforcements.’
‘I doubt it,’ Andawyr said. ‘The Pass is being watched along almost its entire length. We’d have received news if anything untoward had happened.’
Urthryn looked at him paternally. ‘Always assuming that the… brother… carrying the message hasn’t got lost walking through the snow,’ he said. Andawyr pursed his lips and sniffed.
Urthryn beckoned Agreth forward. ‘Get two patrols out straight away. One to the Pass and the caves to find out whether anything’s happening and to establish a message line, the other to mark out the best route to the mountains for the army. And make a start on this supply problem right away.’
As Agreth departed, Urthryn shot a broad, concilia-tory smile at the slightly discomfited Andawyr. ‘Give the patrol whatever messages you need to send to your people,’ he said.
Then he sat back and stared pensively at the charts that had been produced during the discussion.
‘What do you want to do?’ Hawklan asked, knowing the answer.
‘"Want" isn’t the word I’d have chosen,’ Urthryn replied. ‘I don’t think we’ve any choice. We’ll have to go through the Pass and along the southern edge of Narsindal to the Tower to meet the Lords’ army.’
Hawklan agreed.
‘It’s a long journey, through territory that’s hostile enough without having an actual enemy in it,’ Dacu said. He indicated Yengar and Olvric. ‘One of us will have to go with you. We’re the only ones here who’ve ever ridden the Watch.’
‘And one or more of us,’ added Andawyr.
Urthryn smiled and bowed in acknowledgement. ‘All we need now are more riders,’ he said resignedly.
The following day marked, for most, the true end of the battle on the unnamed beach. The dead were buried. More correctly, they were honoured; burial of the Morlider dead had been under way almost continuously since the actual fighting had ended.
They were laid in great pits just below the storm line of the beach. Toran Agrasson, shocked at the betrayal of his people by Creost, and bemused by the treatment he and the other prisoners were receiving at the hands of the victors, organized the grim work. ‘We give our dead to the sea,’ he said, sweating as he hacked at the frozen ground. ‘But so many so close to the shore… ’ He shook his head. ‘They’ll rest easy enough here, touched by the sea when the winds blow fierce and strong.’
Apart from Cadmoryth and his crew, the only Rid-dinwr to perish was the young boy who had died under his sledge. He was carried back to his village by Hawklan and Urthryn, and laid to rest under a snow-laden tree. ‘He used to sit in it with his friends for hours in the summer,’ said his distraught grandmother. ‘What am I going to tell his parents, Ffyrst?’
Urthryn took her hand. ‘I’ve no words for the death of a child,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘For whatever comfort it gives, the healer here tells me he didn’t suffer. And he was helping Riddin’s true friends fight a cruel and treacherous foe. There are worse ways to die. In due time we’ll honour his name in the Lines, but… I’m sorry.’
He was very silent as they rode back to the camp, speaking only once. ‘For all I know, Creost may have killed his parents too,’ he said bitterly. Hawklan did not reply.
The Orthlundyn chose a small hillock overlooking the sea for the burial of their few dead. Isloman recovered a large rock from the shore and polished it smooth to serve as a simple, unmarked headstone in the Orthlundyn tradition. Hawklan stood for a long time staring down at the stone after the others had left.
‘There’s no answer,’ Gavor said into the long silence.
Out of the many expressions of sadness and grief that day, that for Cadmoryth and the other fishermen was the most formal. Usually a fisherman was buried as the Orthlundyn had chosen, in some spot overlooking the sea. However, those who died at sea were, like the Morlider, given to the sea.
‘But they should not be slid quietly into the cold waves, they should be sent the old way,’ was the will of the surviving fishermen. In the lore of the fishing communities it was said that before they had come to Riddin they had been a great seafaring race and that the greatest among them in those times were sent to their final resting places in a blazing ship.
Practicalities however, seemed set to confound them, turning their grief into angry frustration. There was no pitch, little kindling and, above all, no boat to tow the burial ship away from the landward embrace of the tide.
‘I knew him a little,’ Oslang said. ‘Will you accept my help?’
Thus the Orthlundyn, Riddinvolk, Cadwanwr and Morlider gathered in ranks on the shore to watch the funeral of the men who had pitched themselves against Sumeral’s cruel agent and both won and lost.
Gently, the fishermen laid out the bodies of their comrades in the remaining ship, each saying such farewells as moved him.
Girvan Girvasson helped them.
As he stood looking down at Cadmoryth’s pale dead face, the memories of his time with the fisherman and his wife flooded over him. He wanted to say ‘thank you’ for the quiet welcoming warmth that had pervaded almost its every moment, but his throat tightened around the words. His face strained, he took something from his pocket and looked at it for a moment, turning it over gently. Then he bent forward and placed it between Cadmoryth’s stiff fingers. It was the fisher-man’s pipe.
Saluting, Girvan turned and left the ship. He was the last.
As the Line Leader joined the others, two of the fishermen removed the gangplank and cut through the mooring ropes.
Then Oslang stepped forward and opened his arms as if to embrace the vessel.
Slowly, from no wind that any other could feel, the pennant at the ship’s masthead began to stir, the sail began to fill and, as if some unseen crew were manning it, the ship started to move slowly forward, its timbers creaking and its sail flapping, almost joyously, like a freed bird.
There were no other sounds save the sea itself. Even the gulls were silent.
As the ship moved out to sea, a flame flickered into life amidships, then one at the stern, then another and another. Soon it was blazing from end to end.
But the flames consumed nothing, nor would they until the time was fitting. This was the gift of the Cadwanwr. The Morlider ship would carry its brave and cruelly killed crew out across the endless ocean and into legend.
As it dwindled into the distance, its bright beacon flame shone like starlight in the tears that ran down Girvan Girvasson’s cheeks unchecked.