19. In the Neighbourhood
Dawn the next day was miserable. Rain and the wind which had whipped it through the trees had lashed them in the night, and few managed an untroubled sleep. Those that did were mostly Gorians, and, it seemed, Allazar, whose aspect appeared somehow brighter and more serene than anyone’s had a right to be while their meagre supplies were being doled out for a frugal breakfast.
The sun rose unseen behind a thick blanket of grubby-looking cloud, and Gawain met it with his customary remembrance, one he’d let lapse of late. But this morning he added the unknown Callodon scouts to his traditional daily respects while Elayeen spoke quietly with the wizard. She had said little to him beyond a brief and courteous greeting punctuated with a somewhat formal and even briefer kiss before unwrapping herself from his cloaked embrace and walking off into the trees and shrubs to the area set aside for ladies’ modesty.
After his remembrance, Gawain ate damp frak and eyed the camp. Tyrane and his sergeant were moving through the men, seeking a volunteer from the guard to ride hard and fast to the castletown away to the northeast on the plains beyond the woods. Thus far, none of the men seemed particularly anxious to leave, and while the sergeant smiled a secret smile at each shake of the head the Captain received from his men, Tyrane looked both proud and annoyed. His men had seen the remains of their comrades on the road yesterday, seen the three of Raheen stand against the darkness and prevail, and none wanted to weaken the caravan’s escort by acting as a simple messenger.
Finally, his search for volunteers fruitless, Tyrane held a brief conversation with the sergeant before an unlucky guardsman, small of build and stature, was selected and ordered to undertake the mission. To him Tyrane handed a large leather wallet containing reports of recent events. No sooner than the guardsman now despatch-rider had received a few sympathetic slaps on the back from his comrades, he mounted and rode off east through the trees, away from the Jarn road and the caravan.
Breakfast over, the column re-formed once more, and set off at a brisk pace. Elayeen rode close to Allazar, the two of them conversing quietly, and to add to Gawain’s general discomfort, they spoke in Elvish, a language Gawain knew very little of in spite of his wife’s efforts at teaching him.
At around mid-day the column paused to distribute food for lunch, and to permit the Gorians to change places in the wagons. Elayeen was deep in conversation with Allazar, and even though none of the Callodonians except perhaps for Tyrane could understand the Elvish tongue, they too gave the pair a noticeable space. Tyrane was an officer educated in the Court of Callodon, and it was entirely possible that the Elvish language was familiar to him.
From time to time during her conversation with Allazar, Elayeen fixed Gawain across the track with her eldengaze, and each time she did so, Gawain felt more and more discomfited by it. The pause was a short one, a brief respite from the relentless trudge, enough to water and feed men and horses before they set off again.
Here and there they passed the remains of small shelters previous travellers along this road had erected and used to pass a night on their journey to and from Raheen. The shelters were falling into disrepair now, unattended for so long. Gawain remembered the first time he’d taken this road, more than two years ago now, in the first days of his banishment. He remembered his second journey along it too, covered in the foul white ash which had clung to him and to Gwyn, the dread remains of his home and his people.
In the middle of the afternoon, and Elayeen and Allazar still deep in their private conversation, the head of the column passed the junction of the road with the track that led east through the woods to the abandoned town of Stoon. Gawain remembered it vaguely, mostly that track had been a blur while Gwyn had ridden hard to get him there. The Ramoth tower at Stoon had been the first to fall to Gawain’s vengeance. Now though, on a cloudy and damp autumnal day, the track merely told Gawain that the train of wagons and people were moving much more slowly than he had a year ago, when he and Gwyn had made Stoon from the outpost in half a day.
“My lord,” Tyrane announced quietly from behind and to Gawain’s left.
Gwyn slowed almost to a halt, leaving Allazar and Elayeen riding side by side to move ahead while Tyrane eased alongside Gawain.
“Captain?”
“I saw you noting the track to Stoon. The town was small enough in its hey-day, but in truth there’s not much there now. With the loss of Raheen and no trade to be had there, the town all but died. The farmers scratch a living out on the plains and still make use of the inn there, and there’s a trading post for goods brought in from Jarn. That’s all. Else it would be simple to take our Gorian friends there and for you to head straight for Elvendere.”
Gawain smiled weakly, and nodded. “I was thinking much the same thing. But in truth, Tyrane, events in the north are out of my hands and have been since the Council met at Ferdan. It’s just the not knowing what’s happening in the world, the lack of news. It’s frustrating. Besides, after yesterday’s events I’d be as reluctant as your messenger was to leave now.”
“They’re good lads, my lord. I thought I might have to resort to unpleasantness to get one of them to take the reports to headquarters. And in truth, they do seem to take some comfort from your being here, ever since that apparition kindly announced he was saving you until last. They’re of the opinion that being in the neighbourhood of second-to-last isn’t too bad.”
Gawain chuckled. “Morloch’s minion made a fair attempt at destroying me first yesterday. Still, it’s nice to know I’m appreciated for something, I’d thought it was just my lady’s presence which commanded their best attentions.”
“And the wizard’s, my lord, since he destroyed that dark enemy in such spectacular fashion.”
“Not so loud, Tyrane,” Gawain grumbled, “He’s bad enough to live with as it is.”
“In truth, my lord, he did seem much less, what’s the word, imposing, when first we met.”
“Yes I know. I think it’s the new stick that lends him an air of gravitas.”
“I spoke with Simayen Jaxon yesterday. He said he and his people had never seen a wizard such as the First of Raheen. They’d heard that any wizards as might be in the empire were all in the walled city of Zanatheum, in the service of the Emperor.”
“Then let’s hope the Emperor had better service from them than the kings of our lands, Tyrane.” Gawain said softly, easing Gwyn back a little more, perhaps subconsciously increasing the distance between Allazar and Elayeen and themselves.
Tyrane nodded, and glancing ahead at Allazar’s back, said softly: “I lost friends at Callodon Castle, when the wizard Uldred of the D’ith Sek turned. I’d only just received my orders from King Brock despatching me to hold the Pass. I was well on my way back to headquarters to gather the men, so I was not there when the wizard refused a challenge at the inner curtain wall and attacked. From the reports I received later, the wall guard shot him in the back and a gatekeeper hacked his Dwarfspit head off with a ceremonial halberd. That black hearted bastard Uldred killed twenty six good people of Callodon, most of them common petitioners, women and children among them, while trying to get into the Keep. It was there that Queen Elspeth was holding the day-court in King Brock’s absence. In the face of such treachery I am glad, my lord, that we have a wizard such as yours on our side.”
“Yes,” Gawain muttered, also eyeing Allazar’s back. The wizard and Elayeen were smiling happily, Allazar making gestures with his free right hand as though describing the movement of a fish through water, and then perhaps the leaping of a salmon.