“Yet you’re confident you can deal with it should it attack.”
It was Allazar’s turn to shrug his shoulders, and he made much of shifting the Dymendin staff from one hand to the other. “I have been gifted with the power of a D’ith Sek, Longsword, perhaps even more. And fate has delivered us a Dymendin staff with which to focus that power.”
“And if it’s another Salaman Goth, who’s had centuries of practice with a stick as opposed to your what, four days? What then?”
“Ah.”
“It is not a Graken. It moves on foot.”
“Thank you, Eldengaze.” Gawain said quietly, and this time, he knew precisely the name he had used. And again, Elayeen made no comment or protest.
Allazar, however, did, reaching out to grasp the young man’s left arm just above the elbow and to whisper harshly into his ear.
“Longsword, do you know what you just said?”
“I do, wizard.” And Gawain shrugged his arm free of the wizard’s grip. “You will be responsible for my lady when the column departs. I’ll watch you leave from behind this mound of gravel. If Eldengaze sees the darkness following you all, raise your staff above your head. If the darkness does not move, we’ll know it’s me that it’s tracking and no-one else.”
“You? How would it be tracking you?”
“I don’t know, you’re the one with the stick, you tell me.”
Guardsmen of Callodon, their horses now well watered and fed, moved quietly on the track, checking weapons and packs and straps, and mounting up not far from where the three of Raheen stood.
“Longsword, the staff gives me no power at all, you know that,” Allazar spoke quietly and urgently, “And the knowledge of the elders seems only to come to the fore when it is needed and not before. I cannot say what manner of dark-made evil awaits you out there any more than you can.”
“I’ll know soon enough. If it moves off with all of you I’ll simply wait until you’re out of sight and earshot, then move out and swing around behind it.”
“Alone? This is madness, Longsword, you’ve seen the Graken and the Grimmand, and they are only two of the evil creatures it is within Morloch’s power to create. Come away with us, let us make all haste for Jarn and reinforcements…”
Gawain spun on his heel, anger darkening his features into a dangerous scowl and his voice ripping across the road, filled with regal ire.
“I am not some apprentice stable-hand to be cowed by visions of the fading ruin that is Morloch! Nor shall I allow myself to be made by your advice a witless idiot fleeing from unseen and nameless enemies! I am Gawain! Son of Davyd, King of Raheen! And I run towards my enemies with the name of my land and my people ringing clear in their ears to the very last step, be it theirs or mine!”
Allazar backed away a pace, then another, before brushing into Elayeen. She still had her face turned towards the southwest, and she neither moved nor spoke. She was, to her credit, carrying her bow, the bottom of the curved weapon resting correctly and lightly on the top of her boot. Silence but for the noises of the woodland seemed to lend even more weight to the power of Gawain’s words.
“Move on.” Tyrane’s voice drifted down the track, and with a sudden great crunching of wheels and boots, the train moved off.
Gawain glanced over his shoulder, and he saw the captain sitting in his saddle, erect and proud at the side of the track as the wagons passed slowly by, gathering speed, the Gorians determined to continue their jogging pace. Gawain nodded a brief salute, and Tyrane responded with a formal and sincere Callodon salute in return before turning away from the passing-place and cantering to his usual position at the head. Gawain had already told them he might be gone some time, days perhaps if needs be. And that when he returned to rejoin the group, he would do so from the southeast; anything approaching from any other direction would not be him, so they should act accordingly.
“Do you have no words for me?” a hollow voice grated.
“What words I may have are for my lady’s ears, not yours, Eldengaze. Go with the wizard. Watch the darkness. Tell him if it moves, so he can send me the signal.”
Elayeen simply nodded, still gazing out to the southwest. Allazar stared in despair first at her, and then at Gawain.
“Madness,” he said again, and led Elayeen to her waiting horse. Not once did she look towards Gawain.
He watched them go without another word. He watched Allazar guide Elayeen’s horse past the wagons to the head of the train, and then, with the mound of gravel between him and the darkness which even now Elayeen turned to face, he waited. Even from this distance, her blank expression made him shudder. A hundred yards further down the road, he saw Allazar lift his staff high above his head, the great white Dymendin rod glinting in the sunshine. The darkness, whatever it was, had begun moving too.
21. Hunting
He peeled another slice of frak from a damp and muddy lump taken from a damp and muddy pocket, and chewed, thoughtfully. Ahead along the road he saw Gwyn turn and look towards him briefly, bobbing her head sadly before turning and moving off to catch up with the rearguard once more. It always upset her when Gawain went off on his own, and he understood why.
The one constant in the two years since first he left his homeland had been his horse-friend. Only twice before, that he could remember, had Gwyn baulked at moving forward into danger. The first time had been on the plains after leaving Elvendere, when Morloch had made his first appearance, shimmering in the air before them. Gwyn hadn’t liked that at all and frankly neither had Gawain. Hardly surprising the horse should back away from something so far removed from their ken as that ghastly apparition had been. But she’d barely uttered a snort of derision when the image of the festering and weakly Morloch had appeared before them on the road two short days ago.
The second time had been at the Keep of Raheen, when she had seemed paralysed beneath the vault of the entrance by some unseen force while Salaman Goth’s Graken had advanced. There was obviously something about Grakens that horses really didn’t like… Gawain smiled grimly. There was something about them he didn’t like either.
Insects buzzed and chirped all around him, and birds settled and chirped after being disturbed by the passing of the caravan. Perhaps that was what the dark thing was tracking, he thought, the sudden fluttering of birds as the column crunched or clattered down the road. Crows especially, he noted, flapping up through the highest boughs and out into the open sky above, circling until the din of travellers had passed far enough away to pose no threat before they floated back to their branches.
He watched the shadow of a stick he’d poked into the soft and gritty dirt, chewing frak and listening to the sounds of the column fading, moving slightly, just a step, gauging the distance of the column and the distance of the thing in his mind’s eye, keeping the great mound of gravel between it and himself as best he could. Just in case it made any difference.
Of course, he conceded, and had said as much to Tyrane earlier, it could all go horribly wrong. The thing might detect him and change direction, head straight for him and pick him off. And there would be no silver-haired Eldengaze to warn him. But Gawain didn’t think so. Besides, if Morloch had been serious about saving him for last, well then, Gawain would have nothing to fear as long as the second-to-last of Callodon were still in the neighbourhood. Tyrane had smiled at that. Humour in the face of imminent catastrophe is so much more seemly than pointless wailing, don’t you agree, Captain? And Tyrane had.
Soon, sooner than he’d imagined, the gravel-crunching of the caravan’s progress along the road and the gentle rushing of the unseen stream to the east merged until finally, Gawain was sure that only the sound of running water and woodland noises tickled his ears. He strained them, yet heard nothing which he could assert with any authority came from the caravan. Glancing again at the shadow of the stick, he moved further around the gravel mound.