Gawain shrugged. “I and my lady are the crowns of Raheen, and you are the First and Keeper of The Stick. There’s a fourth, but he’s busy in the north.”
“A fourth?”
“Martan of Tellek. I believe he swore a kind of oath of fealty to me, out on the farak gorin.”
“Ah.”
“There are strange shapes on the road before us.” Elayeen announced softly, her head tilting this way and that, trying to identify them.
“Oh. Alas, miheth, these are the remains of the scouts sent two hours in advance of us.”
“Oh.” Elayeen sighed sadly. “There are dark-made marks along the road before us too, and some of the boughs above us are broken.”
“They had no chance.” Allazar sighed, “This Graken rider from the west must have laid the guardstones at Morloch’s orders, recently, and waited nearby for their alarm. Morloch would have known, the moment the great wave struck the Teeth, he would have known Longsword had survived Salaman Goth and would most likely be passing this way sooner or later. The rider simply rained destruction upon the scouts from above the trees, thinking perhaps one of them was Longsword. Then he landed his beast, perhaps to check upon the identity of his victims before using the Jardember, to notify Morloch.”
“Yes thank you for your thoughts, Allazar, but we are riding head on into what looks like a twin of Salaman Goth who, if you remember, very nearly destroyed us both and would’ve done but for my lady. It’d be comforting to know what range and power that creature has.”
Again, as if reading from a book, Allazar announced: “The Graken is mostly harmless, Longsword, though it has a nasty bite. It feeds on the wing, swooping down to take small animals like sheep, goats, pigs, and in the absence of anything else, people, simply biting the middle from them as it continues on its way. It is employed by the dark enemy as a means of rapid travel, more than as a weapon.”
“I meant the creature on the beast’s back.”
“Ah. Well, we shall soon discover the limits of its power. I see no Dymendin staff in its hands, do you, my lady?”
“No.”
They closed to a hundred yards, and then slowed to a halt. The rider on the back of the Graken shuffling slowly towards them did indeed appear very similar to Salaman Goth, seated upon a high-backed chair of a saddle, wearing a winged iron mask identical to Goth’s. As the distance between them closed, Gwyn and the horses became more and more nervous, and in spite of their riders’ wishes or intent, backed away, eyes wide and white-rimmed with fear.
“Hai, Gwyn,” Gawain tried to calm her, but to no avail. With each yard the Graken gained, Gwyn and the horses backed away, keeping the distance between them almost a constant. Gawain remembered how at the Keep of Raheen, Gwyn had seemed paralysed with fear when Salaman Goth had arrived.
“We should proceed on foot.” Gawain announced. “Whether it’s the Graken or the rider, even Gwyn cannot bear to go closer.”
To the complete astonishment of all those watching, the three of Raheen backed away from the advancing Graken, dismounted, and led their horses to the relative safety of the rough ground at the edge of the road. No sooner had they set foot back on the track, than the Graken let out a piercing shriek.
“Do you have a plan, Longsword?” Allazar asked quietly at Elayeen’s left.
“Actually I was hoping you did.”
“Ah.”
“I trust this is not mere bravado on our part, Gawain.”
Even Allazar flinched at the pitch and timbre of Elayeen’s voice when she spoke. She stood at an angle to the axis of the road, the bow hanging loose in her left hand, facing the lumbering monster wheezing and snorting its laboured way towards them, her features set in the blank and chilling expression of the eldengaze. To the wizard and Gawain, it was as though a statue crafted in ancient times had spoken from beyond the void.
“Do you see it well enough to stick an arrow in the Graken’s head?” Gawain asked.
Elayeen simply raised the bow, nocked an arrow, and drew the full length of the shaft. The rider on the back of the beast some sixty yards from them in turn lifted what looked like a slender stick some three feet in length, holding it horizontally before him.
“That is no Dymendin staff.” Allazar said, frowning, as if trying to identify the device the dark wizard was holding.
Elayeen loosed the string and gasped once again at the pain of the bow-shock jolting through her fingers. The arrow sped true, but this close they could see that the black smoke-like shield the rider produced from his wand-like stick was no simple disk as Salaman Goth had used, but a great bubble, which also encapsulated the Graken’s head. The shaft struck the shield, flared briefly, and its ash fell harmlessly on to the cobbles.
“Did I hit it?” she asked, her voice her own once again.
“No,” Gawain muttered, “This wizard’s shield is larger than one we encountered at the Keep.”
“A rod of Asteran!” Allazar announced triumphantly, as though he had solved all the great mysteries of life.
“Is that good?” Gawain asked, a rising sense of great disquiet beginning to balloon in his stomach. “Or does that mean we run for our lives?”
“It is a poor substitute for Dymendin wood, Longsword. Poor indeed.”
“Elayeen, can you manage another shot?”
“Isst.”
“Then draw your bow and shoot, aim at the Graken’s head or neck.”
Gawain tightened his bow string about his own arrow and made ready to throw. Elayeen raised her bow, paused, and fired, and as soon as the rider conjured his black smoke shield, Gawain hurled his arrow.
Elayeen’s shaft flared into ash, and as before, the shield disappeared. Allowing Gawain’s arrow to slam into the Graken’s neck, just behind its jaw. It shrieked in pain and shock, and shook its scaly head and neck as a dog might shake itself of water, trying to rid itself of the source of its pain.
“Did I hit it?” Elayeen gasped.
“No miheth, but I did. You cleverly shot the window out for me.”
“That dark wizard has never seen a Raheen arrow-thrower before, Longsword!”
“I’d hoped as much. Nor had Salaman Goth, it’s probably why his own shield didn’t encompass his beast’s head at the Keep.”
The dark wizard raised his rod high above his head, and streamers of black lightning crackled towards them from each end, falling harmlessly short. But then a black ball seemed to form and solidify around each end, as though the iron-masked wizard were lifting a dumb-bell.
“Back.” Gawain said instinctively, and the three retreated several more yards down the road.
Suddenly, the dark wizard jerked his arm as if throwing his stick at them. The two dark balls detached from the rod, flying towards them, again falling short upon the stony track some fifteen yards away. They struck the road with a mighty report and blast, and Gawain barely managed to twist himself to his left and put his body between the blasts and Elayeen. He felt the splinters of shattered stones and gravel pepper his back and sting like needles up the back of his legs, painful but harmless. But that debris would not be so harmless had it struck eyes, especially a pair as beautiful and unnervingly wide as the hazel-green elfin ones now staring at and through his own.
Allazar simply held his staff vertically before him, and a shimmering in the air halted the spiteful shards of rock which would otherwise have peppered his face.
“Are you hurt, E?” Gawain whispered.
“Nai.” Came the cold reply of eldengaze.
“I think it is now my turn.” Allazar said, and Gawain tore his eyes away from his lady to stare at the wizard who, incredibly, was smiling.
It was a cruel smile though, the smile of a vengeful warrior about to rid the world of an evil, the smile Gawain himself must have worn a hundred times or more during his long year smiting the Ramoths and firing their towers. The kind of smile Gawain had worn when he had plunged the Sword of Justice into the dark lens in the cavern beneath the Dragon’s Teeth.