Rak nodded. "None would come that way."
"Then learn the route, and rest quietly, for we leave soon after sunset. All being well, dawn will find us on the rim of that carbuncle, looking in upon them."
Gawain studied them all, noting the tension that seemed to fill the air.
"You saw them?" Allazar asked Rak and Sarek, nervously.
"We saw something.” Rak answered honestly.
"Aye," Sarek agreed quietly. "Something which should not be there."
Gawain left them with the map, and after checking Gwyn, found his bedroll and lay down upon it, the longsword close by his right hand. Some time later he heard soft footsteps, and opened his eyes, and watched as Elayeen spread a blanket on the ground next to him.
"I am sorry, mithroth, I did not wish to disturb your sleep."
"I was not sleeping."
She lay down at his left side, a distance of perhaps an inch or two separating them. "The map does not look friendly, and there is a sickness in the air."
"It is a terrible place."
"And Morloch's army is there? In truth?"
"Who else would choose such a place? To them, it is doubtless very much like home. You have not seen beyond the Teeth, Elayeen, as I have. For them, the Barak-nor and the Gorian wasteland, even the farak gorin, are a home away from home. It is how they would have all the lands, and why they must be stopped."
"It will be dangerous?"
"It will."
"Then, mithroth, will you grant me just a few moments, close to you? I have said I will not hinder you, and I shall not. But if you ride into danger, I would spend some time listening to my heart, beating in your chest…"
Gawain closed his eyes, and after a few moments, he raised his left arm, so that Elayeen might draw closer, and rest her head on his chest, and he might hold her. In truth, he did not know what awaited them when darkness fell. And in truth, if death awaited them, a few moments such as these could do no harm.
33. Enemies
Sunset found Gawain on watch, and it fell to him to wake the others. In truth, few of them had slept particularly soundly, except for Sarek, the professional warrior. Gawain tossed a small pebble at the Threlland officer, hitting the slumbering form square in the chest. Sarek slowly opened his eyes, and rose in silence.
Gawain crept down the slope and softly knelt beside Elayeen. She opened her eyes at once, and smiled, and blinked. "It is time?" she whispered.
"Yes." Gawain whispered back.
Elayeen sat up, and then reached out both her hands, holding his face. "Then in this last moment, mithroth, egrith miheth until next we are safe.” She drew him closer, and kissed him tenderly, and then released him.
Gawain's eyes flickered, blue, then black as night, and blue again. He said nothing, and Elayeen rose silently and began rolling their blankets and bedrolls. He left her, made sure the others were awake and quietly making preparations to leave, and gazed east across the unseen tract of farak gorin. A misty drizzle started again, clouds low and dark, and Gawain smiled with satisfaction. There would be neither moon nor stars to give them away.
When they had assembled, and were mounted, Gawain eyed them all critically. In truth, wearing the darkening cloths as they all did, there was not much to see.
"This is the last time you will be able to speak above a whisper." He announced quietly. "Until we return from the Barak-nor. If you've anything to say to me or to each other, say it now."
There was no reply, save for the slightest creaking of oiled leather as riders shifted in their saddles.
"Very well.” Gawain tossed a coil of thin rope to Sarek, and tied the end he yet held to Gwyn's saddle.
Sarek tied his end to his own saddle-horn, and likewise tossed a coil to Allazar, and one by one the group were threaded together like a string of pearls in the darkness. Gwyn turned her head east and south, and then stepped off down the gentle slopes, surefooted in spite of the thick muffling tied about her hooves.
Full darkness, and misty rain, and within moments they were swallowed up by the night, threading their way southeast, until finally they turned due south and headed towards the devastated landscape known as the Barak-nor.
Hours later, the pace uncomfortably slow in order to maintain stealth, dark and jagged shapes loomed up around them, and the acrid earthy stench emanating from the diseased landscape through which they rode assailed their nostrils in spite of the blackcloth masks they wore. The silence was eery and unnerving, and the slightest creak of leather or the scattering of loose gravel beneath a horse's hooves sounded, to them at least, like deafening thunderclaps.
Gwyn suddenly came to an abrupt halt, her great head swinging to the left, ears pricked. The resulting slack in the tether linking Gawain to Sarek brought the Threlland officer to a halt, and rippled down the line while everyone paused and held their breath. Gawain cocked his head, his ears straining to catch the sound that must have so alerted his charger. For what seemed like hours they waited, the breath trapped in their lungs, grips tight on weapons and muscles tensed with nervous energy.
Then a distant sound penetrated the miserable cloud of incessant rain that hovered around them. A steady, repetitive sound which at first defied identification as gentle breezes wafted it away. But it grew louder, and after a few moments more, Gawain, and the rest of them, knew what it was. A cart, its wheels grinding over ore-slag, drawn by a lumbering beast, most likely an ox. It was far off, to their left and slightly behind them, coming from the direction of the Teeth, and soon it disappeared completely, lost behind the countless heaps of slag and spill and the jagged rims of the massive craters around them.
Gawain breathed again, and Gwyn moved off once more. The wagon, Gawain knew, had been heard by all of them, a salutary lesson in the need for stealth, and a powerful reminder that they were now deep in hostile territory. Hostile? It was certainly that, he thought, glancing at the jagged formations around them. And though he himself had no doubts what sunrise would reveal to them all, they must now surely know that the glint of sunlight on steel seen earlier that morning could not have come from some trick of nature, nor from some desperate outland miner rooting for traces of ore in the slag. The cart had come from the Teeth, along the scree, and that could only mean one thing.
More time passed, and Gawain grew used to sitting still in the saddle, only his head slowly swivelling as he scanned the landscape for any signs of movement or threat. In truth, he was pleased with their progress, and felt a curious sense of pride that so far, all of them had maintained the silence.
A sudden tug on the tether from Sarek brought Gwyn to an immediate halt, and once more Gawain tensed. Behind him, and further, behind Sarek, a saddle creaked and the scrape of a boot in a stirrup brought a flood of strange aquamire to Gawain's eyes. Someone had dismounted. Was it possible that they had seen something that Gawain himself had missed? Hastily, he scanned the terrain again as a familiar bubble of nervous energy began to swell and then burst in his stomach.
Then he heard the sound of water trickling onto rocks, and at once he knew what it meant. Allazar! The stupid whitebeard bastard had dismounted to relieve himself! Gawain silently cursed the wizard, scowling, hoping against hope that the sound would not carry through the misty rain. In a downpour, the noise wouldn't attract attention. But here, in this arid and barren landscape, with only a fine mist of drizzle billowing around them, anyone hearing the sound would immediately know it for what it was.