Gawain crossed the circle, drew the Sword of Justice from the home-stone, and without even thinking about it, slipped it into the sheath behind his back.
“Now,” he announced, squatting down beside his companions. “I will take Allazar and put him on his horse…”
“Compindathu, Longsword!” Allazar called out, as though Gawain were deaf, or a foreigner, or thirty feet away, or all three.
“I will put Allazar on his horse, miheth,” Gawain repeated, and then come back for you. I’ll carry you, Gwyn has carried us both before a much greater distance than our journey now.”
“I can ride, G’wain.” Elayeen said, her voice weak.
“Yes, you can, once you are healed and we are again in the lowlands. Please, Elayeen, wait for me here, I’ll be back in a moment. Come Allazar.”
“Compindathu, Longsword!” Allazar called out again, and allowed Gawain to help him to his feet, and shakily, across the Keep to the waiting horses. It took some manhandling to get Allazar into the saddle, for he wouldn’t relinquish the staff for a moment.
“Wait here.” Gawain commanded, and tied a trailing rope from Allazar’s reins and looped the free end over the horn on Gwyn’s saddle. Then he went back for Elayeen.
She was standing, silently, nursing her injured hand and looking so fragile, a pale and broken shadow of the glorious elfin thalin who had charged in from the north and shot Salaman Goth clean through from the saddle at full gallop less than a day earlier. Gawain choked back a surge of emotion and simply swept her up into his arms, and carried her in silence to Gwyn.
Once mounted, the trailing rope to Allazar’s steed secured, and Elayeen safe in his arms, he stared long and hard at the Circle of Justice, the runes glowing faintly. Then he looked up at the broken thrones, and the ghosts of all the great kings watching there.
There will be no breach at the Teeth, he thought at them, grimly, not for at least another thousand years. Morloch is bound again. Yet there is no joy in this victory. There is only pain, and loss, and no justice for any of us here.
With that, he allowed Gwyn to step through the great archway, out into the bright morning sunshine, which Elayeen could not see.
But for occasional incomprehensible cries from Allazar, swaying precariously in his saddle and clinging to the staff, and but for the clopping of hooves upon the bleached cobbled track that was the Downland Road, they rode in silence. Elayeen, cradled in Gawain’s arms as she had been when Gwyn carried them both on their epic journey to Threlland from Elvenheth in midwinter, closed her sightless eyes, and seemed to sleep, though Gawain could tell by her breathing she was awake.
At the Farin Bridge, Gawain slowed, eyeing the powdery remains of Salaman Goth’s guardstones, shattered into dust, possibly by the great wave of the Circle of Justice, or perhaps destroyed when the dark wizard died, Gawain did not know. He only knew it mattered not, for he doubted, and with great conviction, he would ever cross the Farin Bridge again. The knowledge did not slow him for long, and once safely across the narrow bridge he picked up the pace again.
When later he paused to water the horses, Elayeen stood quietly, her good hand buried in Gwyn’s mane while Gawain busied himself with his duties. And she made no protest, and said nothing, when Gawain swept her into his arms again.
For Gawain, the journey was a nightmare of silence and desolation and a new grief. He had seen, in the reflection of his boot knife in the Keep, the black braid in his own hair bleached blonde again, and there was a hole deep within him where once Elayeen’s heart beat in his breast. He couldn’t feel her now, within, and he knew by her silence she could not feel him.
No longer did memories of Raheen and images of his earlier life drag his eyes this way and that along the road, no longer did he burn with the outrage at the complete devastation Morloch had inflicted upon his land and his people. Now, there was just the mumbling wizard behind him, and his beloved curled silent in his arms, and the great gaping hole in their lives that the circle had ripped from them. One memory, a recent one, pressed in on him, and brought silent tears to his eyes, the sound of his own voice echoing around the walls of the Keep:
“I can feel your apprehension, mithroth, and I know you would leave here, and make haste for Elvendere and Shiyanath. I will not ask you to do this, nor would I command it, even in sight of the cracked and broken thrones above us and the ghosts of all the great kings who once sat there.
“But the very fact that Morloch would rather see me dead than stand in this circle is all I need to know to make me do so, and gladly.”
Finally, as Gwyn unerringly led them and the rider-less horses across the barren market square of Downland and on to the slope leading to the Pass, Gawain called out, his voice breaking:
“We begin the descent, keep calm and all will be well.” And then, softer and more like a prayer than words of reassurance, “All will be well.”
“Compindathu, Longsword!” Allazar shouted again, and glancing over his shoulder Gawain could see the wizard looked a little steadier in the saddle, though still distracted, as if hearing other voices on the path.
Gawain allowed Gwyn free rein and she welcomed it, following the path well-taken closest the wall of the cliffs, furthest from the bitter edge overlooking Callodon. When they rounded the bend halfway down and the sparkling blue waters of the Sea of Hope hove into view, Gawain shut his eyes to blot out the sight of it.
What Hope? He thought. My lady cannot see, my wizard her friend is half mad, and the greatest gift an elfin lady can ever hope to share with her husband has been rent asunder. Her Hope was to see her homeland again, her friends and family, to see them safe once more before the coming war at the farak gorin. What hope now of that?
And my Hope? What was my hope? To destroy Morloch? Morloch yet lives, though his plans to breach the Teeth are shattered like the bodies of those minions who laboured long upon them.
What was Allazar’s Hope? Freedom and Justice For All? Was that the great hope that shone in his eyes in the centre of the circle as he leaned smiling upon the black staff of Salaman Goth, now bleached a lustrous pearl-white? How can it be so, if no-one can understand his words and his life is spent only half-aware of this world?
What was it I said? ‘If our stepping into this circle should unleash some wild and dread power which annihilates utterly the evil yet lurking beyond The Dragon’s Teeth, I would do so in an instant.’
Gawain sighed, and opened his brimming eyes, to gaze upon the bereaved and slender form of his lady love.
If I had known the price of unleashing that wild and dread power, and that the evil would yet lurk intact beyond The Dragon’s Teeth, would I have been so quick to pay it?
Near the foot of the Pass, Gawain saw Captain Tyrane marshalling his men, clearing the obstacles which had been laid to deny an enemy passage to Raheen, a needless defence now. The captain also clearly guessed that something was seriously awry with the Crowns of Raheen and their wizard, for a guardsman wearing the white sleeves of a battlefield healer stood in readiness, and a litter had been brought to a makeshift mustering point where the ground levelled at the base of the cliff.
“We are almost there, my love,” Gawain whispered, “Soon there’ll be hot food, and hot baths, and warm beds.”
But Elayeen gave no answer, made no sound, and simply lay quietly in his arms.
At the foot of the Pass, Tyrane and a handful of men advanced to steady the horses, to help Allazar from the saddle, and wait with dread etched upon their faces as Gawain gingerly dismounted.