‘That isn’t funny.’
‘Sorry. I don’t really know. Starting at the Gardaryn is as good as anything. But if I was you I’d do what the TaiGethen did and muster your people. You have to know who is with you, Pelyn, or you’re going to cause more trouble than you stop.’
‘If I do that I remove my people from the streets and therefore all deterrent against trouble.’
‘I know.’ Methian straightened suddenly. ‘That’s a whole lot of sails.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Take a look. Heading this way from the west. Ten. Twelve perhaps. Not merchants. Not elven.’
Pelyn followed Methian’s gaze and felt her whole body sag.
‘This isn’t getting any better, is it?’
Chapter 14
Combat is the simplest of relationships. Your enemy wants to kill you. Stop him. The rain had beaten down on Auum the whole way up the cliff. An hour’s climb at the very least. Every hold had been a study in concentration, every move a risk greater than the last. Every moment had reminded Auum why he loved the rainforest, loved Yniss’s creation and loved the blessing of strength and agility that Yniss had bestowed upon him.
He lay on the cliff edge with the first vegetation of the rainforest almost within arm’s length and let the rain wash the dirt from his clothes and body. He pulled in great gasps of air and held them, waiting until his temples pounded before exhaling. Here was life. Here was reason enough to desire to save all the elves had built. None should be denied this if they desired it.
Auum sat up with his legs dangling over the drop. Between his feet he could see his boat pulled up on the bank and tipped onto its side against the rainfall. He felt energised but his limbs were tired, like after a three-hour spar with Serrin, the Silent Priest as fast as a TaiGethen. Auum smiled.
A sound to his left and he glanced round. The rain obliterated so much when it fell this heavily. Gyal’s tears were the TaiGethen’s friend. Hard to be sure what it was. Auum moved smoothly to his feet. It could have been a falling tree branch. It could have been the death fall of an animal. His sense of wrong told him it was neither.
Auum was exposed out here on the cliff edge. He ducked under the canopy, letting the dense foliage hide him. The noise had been quite close. An impact of some kind. He stared into the gloom, trying to pick out anything unusual in the chaos of banyan, fig, balsa, vine and moss-covered branches. A hundred shades of green and brown, the shadows of great leaves and a riot of brightly coloured flowers met his gaze.
This was his land. The land of the TaiGethen. That impact did not belong here. Auum moved silently into the forest, leaving the freshness of the cliffs behind him. He tuned to the natural sounds. Monkeys chittering in the mid-branches, birds calling at every level. The rustling of ground beasts. The singing cacophony of insects. All of Tual’s denizens in full cry.
And something else too. A scent, like burned bark but with a bitter edge akin to singed abuta. It came from his right. From where the impact had sounded. Auum crouched. There was movement in the undergrowth and low foliage. The clumsy shaking of leaf and branch. A heavy footfall.
Three men. Presumably one of them had fallen heavily, although the impact had sounded more like something coming down from the branch of a banyan. Auum stilled and tucked into the trunk by which he had stopped. They would come to him and wish that they had not.
Auum could see them. Two were warriors. Leather armour, ungainly swords and daggers. Tall men, violent. And, just behind them, one standing still and wearing very light armour, no sword. He was one of those Auum had heard called “mage”. Dangerous. The mage took a single pace forward and vanished.
Auum blinked, sure the mage must have ducked behind a tree or dropped prone. But if he had, the warriors were ignoring him and moved on slowly, staring beyond Auum or down at their tangled feet. He ignored them, scrutinising instead the foliage at ground level in the mage’s predicted path. Nothing moved.
The air seemed to still, suck inwards almost. It was a curious sensation. The next instant Auum felt an awful pressure in his ears. It slammed pain around his skull. He clamped down on his jaw to stop himself screaming but knew something had escaped his throat.
Auum felt disoriented. His eyesight blurred for a moment. He put his hands to his head, trying to ease the shattering pain. He could hear nothing. He sagged to his knees. He blinked furiously, determined to monitor where his enemies moved. He could see blurred shapes. Too close. Whatever had afflicted him had left them apparently unaffected.
They had seen him. Auum’s head began to clear. Slowly, but it would be enough. His swords were still in their scabbards, his jaqrui pouch closed. He made no sign that he was capable, remaining with his back hard against the tree and his knees drawn up against his chest. The warriors split to come at him left and right. He still couldn’t see the mage.
The warriors closed. Auum saw the set of their bodies and the heft of their blades. They thought him incapacitated. Auum kept his body relaxed and his facial expression pained. He shook his head as if just coming back to his senses. The warriors moved in faster. One slipped on the sodden ground.
Auum drove himself up and forward. He reached over his left shoulder, grabbed a blade and threw it at the right-hand warrior. Immediately, he dropped, rolled left and kicked up, the tips of his toes catching the other warrior in the groin. The man yelled and doubled over, one arm across his stomach. Auum bounced to his feet, grabbed the warrior’s head in both hands and twisted savagely.
Auum turned away from the falling corpse. The other warrior was trying to pull the blade from his gut. Blood sluiced from his mouth and washed from around the wound. Auum heard a twig snap. There stood the mage. Behind his dying comrade. He was smiling. His lips were moving and his arms were reaching out.
Auum sprinted at him. He wasn’t going to be fast enough to stop him. The mage turned his palms inwards, ready to clap them together. He dropped his head to his chest then raised it to look straight into Auum’s eyes. Auum stopped running, choosing instead to send a prayer to Yniss to protect his soul.
The mage jerked forward, almost fell. He made a choking gurgle. He stared at Auum, confusion in his expression, blood running from his mouth. The head of a jaqrui blade protruded from this neck just below his chin. He pitched onto his face.
Not ten yards behind Auum stood an ula. His clothes were tattered and roughly mended in a few places. His face was gaunt. He had the remains of a long beard on his chin and cheeks. Where there was skin, it was covered in cuts and scratches as if he’d tried to shave with a blunt knife. His hair was similarly wild, sticking up in clumps, tangled with twig and leaf and hacked shorter in places and left to grow untamed in others.
But he held himself proudly. His arms were by his sides but his hands were moving, fingers rubbing against his thumbs or into the palms of his hands. His eyes darted here and there and there was a twitch in either cheek. When he breathed his nostrils fluted. Auum watched him move smoothly to the mage and work his jaqrui free.
‘Lucky I can still use one of these.’ He laughed then looked to his right. The humour died. ‘I have never forgotten. I trained when you weren’t watching me. You don’t watch me all the time, do you? No, I thought not. One victory for me.’
Auum watched his saviour walk to the dying human warrior. He knelt by the man, moving his hands away from the hilt of Auum’s blade. He took the hilt in one hand, twisted it, rammed it hard into the man’s body and drew it out slowly, almost reverently. The man slumped to one side.
The wild ula stood up, wiped the blade on the man’s clothing and walked to Auum, offering it to him hilt first. Auum took it and nodded his thanks, still unable to frame his question without it sounding horribly sycophantic in his head. The ula stared at him and shrugged.