In Callodon it grew steadily worse. Ramoth guardsmen openly patrolled the roads, armed and intimidating. Callodon guardsmen kept their weapons sheathed, and looked the other way. Gawain was stunned.
At Jarn, he found the main square of the once-thriving market town all but empty. The inn was closed, its windows boarded shut. And when, although so close to home, he stopped to ask after Tallbot of Jarn, he received nothing more than a shake of the head from a frightened woman who scurried off down the street, terrified.
It was as though some dread plague had swept through the town, and all were dead or dying. The small building which had served as the Protectorate of Jarn's headquarters was closed. Gawain knew not what to make of it.
On the way out of town though, he caught sight of a gaunt young man, beckoning urgently from a doorway. Gawain dismounted, and cautiously approached.
"You don't remember me, Serre?" the sallow young man asked nervously.
Gawain started, shocked when he realised that this was the same young man who, less than a year ago, had stood framed in the inn's stable doorway, full of youthful vigour.
"I do, Serre. How is your grandfather, and what has come to pass in Jarn?"
The young man, who seemed old beyond his years, caught his breath, and sobbed. "My grandfather is dead, Serre, these six months past."
"My heart grieves for your loss, Serre, in truth." Gawain said softly. "Yet speak, what of Jarn? When last I passed through here, the town was alive and bustling."
"It lives no more Serre! I fear none of us will!"
"Why? Dwarfspit, Serre, where is Tallbot, of the protectorate? I would speak with him."
"Tallbot is dead. Slain."
Gawain's patience with the young man was wearing thin. "Slain? By whom? Speak, Serre! Speak!"
"By the Ramoth! In the square! He stood against them, and they cut him down. The cobbles ran red with his blood…But he killed two of them before he died, and it was in the name of the king he swore when he breathed his last…"
"What of the king? Does he do nothing?"
"What can we do Serre? The king can do nothing, lest Morloch breathe upon us! Oh Serre! For the mercy you showed my grandfather I beg you, go back whence you came! Flee this place! Flee Callodon and speed your journey!"
The youth hurried away, and was gone. Gawain stood transfixed, astounded. The world was mad. Callodon was mad, and worse, its inhabitants raving, if Jarn was any indication.
"You there!" A sneering voice called.
Gawain turned. Three Ramoth guardsmen approached, on foot, their curved swords glinting in the morning sunshine.
"Well met." Gawain answered, a strangely familiar pulse beginning to throb at his temples as he strode towards them purposefully.
The arrogant swaggers and the sneers faltered.
"Who are you, what's your business here?" One of the guards demanded.
"I am friend to Tallbot of Jarn, an honourable officer in the service of Callodon, foully slain by Dwarfspit vermin scum who looked very much like you, and in his name I claim vengeance."
The three guardsmen blanched and braced, but it was too late. Gawain's sword was out of its sheath as the word "vengeance" was out of his mouth, and the three men lay dead upon the cobbles before the echo faded in the square.
Gawain stared down at them, his heart aching for a man he had barely known. "Make way." he said coldly, and then strode back to Gwyn, mounted, and left the sickly town of Jarn in the dust from her hooves.
Tallbot struck down by the Ramoths, and Callodon does nothing? An officer in the king's own service, yet the crown sits idle in the castletown while Jarn bleeds its life out, and dies slowly at the hands of Ramoth mercenaries.
There was only one place to go, the one bastion of sanity in all of the southlands. Home. Raheen. Gawain cast a quick glance at the sun. In three weeks the banishment was over. In three weeks, he'd be camped at the foot of the Downland Pass, waiting for the dawn that would mark the time when he could scream out his name, and fly up the defile to his family's embrace.
Then tell Raheen of this vile Ramoth cult, and of Callodon's plight, and then Raheen cavalry, the finest in the world, would bring sanity and order back to the lowlands side by side with Callodon's colours for the first time since the Pellarn war.
Gwyn sensed Gawain's anger and determination, and thundered down the forest track where so long ago they had slain Stanyck and his brigand band. Thundered past the spot where Gawain had come across Allyn and his family, and their broken wagon.
The track was empty, and if any brigands remained lurking in the forest, they had the good sense not to show themselves. It was baffling. The rutted track was a main thoroughfare to and from the market at Jarn. To see it so barren and lifeless was unnerving.
Gawain eschewed the roadside inns on his journey ever southward. They seemed cold and uninviting, and ill used. Some were completely abandoned. Instead, he made a simple camp at the roadside, Gwyn asleep on her feet and he sleeping fitfully, his sword in hand and resting ready across his lap.
He was in the saddle before dawn, and as landmarks became increasingly familiar, even Gwyn seemed more and more desperate to reach Raheen, and leave this ominous place behind, a distant memory.
So hard did they ride, they reached the cluster of inns at the foot of the Downland Pass in darkness, in the early hours of the morning. Gawain dismounted, and taking care not disturb any travellers who might be slumbering at the inns, he walked across the grass almost to the exact spot he'd greeted his first dawn in lowland Banishment a year ago.
He sat, chewing on a hunk of dried meat, and reached inside his jerkin for the string on which he'd counted the days. Every dawn since his banishment, he added a knot to the slender threads. Twelve threads in all made up the string, and while Gawain chewed, he counted the knots. It wouldn't do to ascend the pass a day or two early, and were it not for the string it would be easy to make such a mistake.
He counted again, to make sure. Then he counted again, peering at the threads in the shimmering moonlight. It was warm, and salt-laden breezes from the Sea of Hope carried with them a familiar scent of home. How often had he stood on the cliff tops outside Narrat, on the southernmost tip of Raheen? Countless.
Dwarfspit, he'd miscounted. He was tired, and so was Gwyn, but this close to home it didn't matter. He counted again.
Five times he counted, and five times he got the same answer. Perhaps some sixth sense had regulated Gwyn's pace on the journey homeward, or perhaps it was mere happenstance. But when this day's dawn broke, the Banishment would be over. He would fly up the Downland Pass the moment the sun’s rays broke over the eastern horizon.
8. Morloch's Breath
No, Gawain thought after a few hours of fitful sleep, not the moment that the sun's rays break over the eastern horizon!
Now!
Already the sky was taking on the steely grey of false dawn. And Gawain knew that Raheen would enjoy the new day's sunshine long before the lowlanders felt the first of the sun's rays upon their faces. Besides, it would take time to scale the Pass, and if he set off now, he would be rising with the sun, and thus would not break the order of his Banishment.
Gwyn sensed his excitement and bobbed her head frantically. She wanted his weight in the saddle and to be off.
"So be it then, Ugly!" Gawain whispered, patting her neck and playfully tugging her ears. "Time to remind all of Raheen how truly bloated and hideous you really are."
And then he added, gently, "Thank you Gwyn, for carrying me this long year and a day. You were the only thing Raheen I had, apart from myself."