"I have already told you, Longsword. I have sworn to Brock of Callodon, and to myself, that I would aid your cause. I am not, and never have been, your enemy."
"Good. You see, you are learning to be a true whitebeard. Most men would simply have said 'I am your friend' and have done with it."
Allazar still looked utterly dejected. "To which you would have replied that just because you haven't killed me yet, doesn't make me your friend."
"More wisdom."
"I thank you."
"Thank me by watching all around, and not just that wall yonder. I shall relieve you in two hours."
Gawain began to slither backwards, but froze when Allazar turned wide and mournful eyes upon him.
"Longsword…I did not know. How could I have known?"
Gawain shrugged, and his eyes flickered briefly. "You are a wizard. You tell me."
Elayeen cast him a nervous glance when he slithered to the bottom of the mound, but Gawain simply nodded, and then moved off, loping stealthily across the blasted landscape. He made good use of the heaps of spoil and slag, hollows and deeper pits, working his way slowly northward towards the opening in the great horseshoe-shaped crater wherein Morloch's eastern army lay bivouacked. He was convinced that there would be a heavier guard, a stronger watch, a greater force overlooking the stronghold than a mere two pairs of eyes high up on the rim.
But he found nothing, which was both a relief, and extremely curious. Perhaps this army was complacent, trusting entirely in Morloch's arrogance and apparent invincibility. But they must have felt the ground shake, seen the vast snaking column of liberated aquamire coiling up to the sun, and known, or at least guessed, that disaster had struck in the Teeth. Even so, there was no sign of Morloch watchmen beyond the solitary figures patrolling above the entrance to the crater. Not on the Threlland side of the camp, anyway.
Gawain lay quietly on the wet slag-rock, peering through tufts of spikeweed, hoping to see something, anything, which might provide some hint of the army's plans. Riders, perhaps, bearing messages. More wagons. Anything. There was nothing. Just incessant rain, and the barren, devastated landscape of the Barak-nor.
At least his suspicions with regard to the thalangard had been confirmed. And his suspicions with regard to wizards in general, and Elvendere's in particular. It seemed as though the coming war was opening on two fronts; the northern line against Morloch's army, and a more insidious and amorphous front against the concealed intent of a hidden whitebeard agenda. At least Allazar's horror on learning of the enemy's hideous diet was genuine; no-one, not even aged royalty with generations of regal inscrutability ingrained, could fake such a reaction. Never, in the combined history of the southern kingdoms, had so vile an act been conceived, much less perpetrated.
Gawain sighed, and tried to quell his own rising stomach. Strange aquamire might give him clarity of thought, but it did not render him immune to revulsion. It was only his rage up on the rim that had held it in check. Rage against Morloch, and the foul creatures sent across the Teeth to hold the farak gorin when the breach was made and the floodgates opened.
Only one thing gave him cause for a degree of relief. The black-clad workers he had seen attacking the northern slopes of the Teeth were driven by aquamire, and thus required little in the way of food. The revolting ritual seen this morning seemed to indicate that the troops already in the southlands were not similarly driven, and could be considered in some respects more vulnerable than their comrades beyond the Teeth.
He sighed again, and cast another furtive glance all around. Still no signs. There were hours yet until nightfall, but while his lonely vigil might well be providing him with time to consider all that had happened, it would doubtless be worrying his friends back at the camp.
Friends? Gawain considered for but a moment. Yes. Inasmuch as they were not enemies. The thalangard had proved themselves duplicitous. Sarek had displayed unexpected weakness, Rak was struggling with a horror that fell far beyond his diplomatic and gentler inclinations, and Elayeen… Elayeen needed Gawain to live that she might live, and self-preservation was the strongest of instincts. As for Allazar, he was still a wizard.
For a fleeting moment, the word 'cruel' seemed to blaze in Gawain's mind. But he snuffed it with strange aquamire. The enemy were within sight; the watchman atop this side of the rim could be seen, just, every twenty counts. This was no time for tender thoughts or gentle emotion. They had seen what they had seen, and must carry that information to Eryk of Threlland, and Brock of Callodon, and to all the royal crowns. There would be time later for Gawain to permit his vision to be clouded again by that dread disease which had so recently afflicted him. After the kingdoms had united, and smashed these black-clad vermin back into the Teeth from whence they came.
Gawain glanced up, counted, and then moved off, picking his way back through the acrid landscape until, an hour later, he reached the mound where he'd left his companions. He stood for a moment, temporarily robbed of all comprehension. They were gone. All of them. The horses, too.
35. The Hunted
Gawain knelt, and scanned the ground. Small puddles had formed in the shallow indentations that the horses' hooves had left in the spoil, and here and there he could see faint impressions of boot-prints. All of them seemed to be heading off to the west, towards the hills that had been sliced open and left to rot.
He frowned, and his eyes darkened. He scurried up the mound, but there was no trace of Allazar or his sopping blanket. No sign of anything. He clambered back down again, and studied the ground once more. Then with a final glance around, he dashed across an open stretch of slag-rock to a shallow crater, and worked his way cautiously around its low rim. Where the ground was softer spoil, the indentations of muffled hooves could just be made out as a trail of tiny rain-filled pools. Further around the rim, on the western side of the small excavation, the trail wound its way towards another high mound of spoil.
Gawain crouched low, surveyed the route, and loped off. Behind the mound he found more tracks, and further on he froze. Approaching the trail he was following were another set of tracks, deeper, and more clearly defined. He stooped, and stared at them. Shod hooves, the horses heavy, the prints deep. Three horses, in line abreast, had approached from the south, intercepted the trail left by his friends, and were following them just as Gawain was.
He worked his way through the shattered landscape, always on the trail. He imagined it must be Sarek that was leading the way, for the trail wound and threaded its way through mounds and craters so that natural cover always lay between them and the high-walled enemy encampment falling further behind in the east. The rain began to fall heavier, and Gawain paused beside a large boulder to cut a strip from a lump of frak in his pocket. He had no water, and the small lump of frak was the only food in his possession. Apart from his weapons, all his other supplies and belongings were on Gwyn's saddle.
Whoever was following his companions, or rather hunting his companions, had maintained a steady pace. The deep prints left in the spoil were evenly spaced, and the word 'relentless' flashed in Gawain's mind. Allazar must have spotted an enemy patrol approaching, and Sarek must have deemed it safer to abandon their temporary camp rather than risk discovery so close to the enemy stronghold. But the plan hadn't worked, and the patrol had cut across their trail.
Gawain swallowed his frugal meal, and loped off, keeping low and moving as fast as he could without making too much sound. Slowly, the trail swung north, heading out of the Barak-nor towards the farak gorin. But at this rate of progress, it would be dark before they reached the relative safety of their last campsite on the slopes. And, of course, the three pursuers would know that too. Gawain had no idea how close the hunters were to their prey, and he knew that his comrades were tired, and thus likely to make a critical error of judgement in their haste to flee this dreadful land. What he didn't know was why his friends hadn't simply set up an ambush, as they had been taught, and eliminated the threat that was so relentlessly tracking them.