“If you gentlemen wouldn’t mind dismounting,” the Captain repeated again, with great patience, and with a slight tilt of his head indicated the two dozen well armed guardsmen still holding their crossbows rock-steady, fingers resting lightly on the triggers.
Gawain gave Allazar a nod, and they dismounted. Gawain put up his arrow, and flipped his wrist to stow his string. Captain Tyrane watched closely, and then strode forward to stand in front of Gawain.
He looked first at the young man’s eyes, then at the pommel of the longsword slung across his back, again at the Raheen bowstring wrapped around his wrist.
“I am ordered,” Tyrane said quietly, “To ask you this: Which was the first meal you had with our King, and where?”
If Gawain was surprised by the question he didn’t show it. “Breakfast,” he replied, “At the guards’ headquarters outside of Callodon castletown, after I fired the Ramoth Towers at Stoon and at Jarn.”
Captain Tyrane looked simultaneously relieved and worried, and called over to his men. “As you were! Secure the road, lookouts to their posts.” Then to Gawain he added, “My apologies, my lord. King Brock’s instructions were quite specific.”
“Again, Captain, how is possible such specific instructions arrived before I and the wizard Allazar?”
Tyrane frowned, and glanced at the wizard in surprise before answering, nonplussed. “Carrier pigeons, my lord. Between Ferdan and castletown.”
“Ah.” Gawain coughed. “Something we had no use for in Raheen…”
“Quite so, Sire,” Allazar interrupted graciously, “Tell us Captain, what other news from the world?”
“News? Alas nothing specific. We’ve been here some time, effectively cut off save for a two-weekly supply wagon from Stoon. We heard brief accounts of some kind of wizard’s uprising at the Council meeting in Ferdan, and then our orders to secure the Pass arrived. We’ve heard little since then. Stoon is all but abandoned now, little more than an inn and a store for farmers. Most of the local folk moved to Jarn. We have a force at Jarn holding the other end of the road, and the northwest is well guarded. Shall we go inside my lords, our supplies are good, we have hot food and ale a-plenty, and the lads got the heated baths stoked. I’m sure we can find fresh clothes too.”
Gawain and Allazar noted the crisp uniforms about them, and the well-scrubbed officers wearing them. They were suddenly keenly aware that their own appearance must be appalling, very far removed from that expected of a King and his Wizard.
Gawain coughed again. “Very good, Captain. I think we shall avail ourselves of your facilities. Perhaps you could notify your watch-keepers, I am expecting my lady to arrive from Jarn, perhaps later tonight, or tomorrow morning.”
“I shall, my lord. This way, if you please…”
Two hours later and Gawain, King of Raheen, sat alone with his wizard, sipping warm Callodon ale and working his way through a slab of roast beef with hot vegetables. They were dressed in plain and rather drab clothing recovered (“liberated”, the Captain had put it) from an inn-keeper’s rooms in one of the empty premises at the outpost while their own soaked in a soapy tub. And the hot bath had worked miracles on both of them.
“Doubtless,” Allazar had remarked, “We not only look a trifle more respectable, but are now less offensive to our vanguard’s nostrils too.”
“Why didn’t I know about these ‘carrier pigeons’, Allazar?”
The wizard shrugged, sawing another hunk of beef from the slab on his own plate. “I doubt you needed such speedy communications in Raheen, Longsword. Certainly the dwarves don’t need them, neither do elves, nor Mornlanders nor indeed anyone in Arrun. They were developed long ago when Callodon and Juria faced each other off so often there was every likelihood of a real fight actually happening. The pigeons helped prevent such accidental outbreaks of war. And occasionally helped to start one.”
“Ah.”
Allazar shrugged. “They’re not altogether reliable, and the messages they carry tedious to cipher and decipher lest they be intercepted and read by unfriendly eyes. But they can be handy in emergencies. If it’s any consolation, Longsword, I had forgotten about them myself and like you was thinking our Captain Tyrane a liar and a Morlochman until he mentioned them.”
“They could be useful though, later, to hold our forces together at the farak gorin.”
Allazar grunted and shrugged again while he chewed. Once he’d swallowed he stabbed a roast potato and said quietly: “The pigeons will not have gone unnoticed by those at Ferdan, Longsword, and I’m sure that the military minds there will make of them what they will. With luck, since our good Captain was deployed here, more will have arrived in Callodon with news of recent events, and with luck your lady will be able to advise us all as to how the world fares.”
Gawain didn’t answer.
“You do mean to wait for her, Longsword?”
“Only until dawn, wizard. If she hasn’t arrived an hour before sun-up, we’ll go on ahead. We can make use of the stores the Callodon guard have stockpiled, oats for the horses, and water skins. Enough for a day or two at The Keep. No longer than that.”
“You’ll forgive me for remarking that this seems harsh, especially in light of our current security. Will Elayeen not be offended to arrive and find you gone?”
“I hope not. I shall leave a note for her in the care of Captain Tyrane if it’ll make your expression more like you’re chewing roast beef and less like you’re chewing a wasp.”
“Your parting was hardly on the best of terms, Longsword. Here you can rest together, alone and in peace, there’s no need to hurry with the Pass held safe.”
Gawain nodded his agreement, and then his regal inscrutability failed him. For a fleeting moment, Allazar saw great sadness sweep like a shadow across the young man’s face. “In truth, Allazar, I would not have Elayeen see the ruin that was my home. For her, it still exists as it once did for me, in tales and songs, all green and lush, and thrilling with life. And I’m afraid, Allazar. I am terribly afraid.”
“I have never heard you say such a thing, my friend! Elve’s Blood and Dwarfspit, what could possibly strike such fear into the heart of the Longsword warrior who braved the Teeth and Morloch himself?”
Gawain drew in a deep breath, took another gulp of ale, and when he put down his tankard and looked at the wizard, it was with a blank expression of kingly self-control in his steel-grey eyes.
“You saw how our frustration and anger nearly consumed us when it was twinned on the border with Juria. My heart was shattered by the visions of my homeland which greeted me a year ago and those visions haunt me still. Do you think I could bear such heartbreak again if it be twinned and magnified by throth, and Elayeen’s sorrow for me and my people?”
Understanding at last, Allazar reached across the table to grasp Gawain’s forearm. “I shall write the note advising your lady to await us here, Longsword, if you wish. It may seem less… personal, if I choose my words wisely.”
“Thank you, Allazar. I would be glad if you did. Though I will append some words of my own I think.”
“Good idea,” the wizard agreed, “Even if it’s only three of them.”
After the meal, Allazar went off in search of paper, pen and ink, and Gawain tended to the horses. Gwyn was unsettled, and Gawain knew why. So close to home, yet there was no home awaiting them atop the Pass. Once he’d reassured her, he set about acquiring the supplies they would need for their brief stay at the ruined Keep of Raheen. Food for themselves was of course frak, and Gawain could easily imagine the wizard’s dismay at that after such hearty fare at the inn. Food for the horses was oats, and nose-bags were found in the abandoned stables. Water was the heaviest and most essential item, and Gawain took care to fill more water skins than would strictly be necessary, remembering with a sudden shudder the vile brown-white ooze that had been the Styris at the Farin Bridge.