Gawain blinked, and dragging his astonished mind back to the hunt, allowed himself to breathe again. About the immense creature’s neck and shoulders was a loose black iron band shaped in the manner of a horse collar, at least three inches thick, and it, like the chains hanging from it, swam with aquamire. Four chains, two each side, and a man at each of them. And they were big men, too, all of them, including three standing well clear of the Kraal and the chains that seemed to give them a measure of control over it. The last man of the eight, though, was obviously the one named Darimak, and from his black clothing now dirty and frayed, and from the way he held aloft a familiar looking carved ball of black wood, this short and weaselly Gorian was a dark wizard of some kind. Though, from the way the big men of the guard spoke to him, not a very powerful one.
“They are still resting.” Darimak declared with great authority, and lowered the Jardember.
“Mmo Ffit,” one of the other guardsman muttered through a mouthful of food. It looked to be some kind of Gorian equivalent of frak, though cut into small slabs or bars rather the familiar round Threlland cake that Gawain enjoyed.
“Be silent!” Darimak cried aloud, and it was a mistake. The sudden and unexpected noise clearly startled the Kraal-beast.
It lifted its head a surprising distance given its size, its one great eye closed, and the great gaping maw opened to reveal rows of black, shark-like teeth. Kraaaaaaaaaaaaahl! came the sudden deafening call, a short-lived but blood-numbing explosion of sound.
For the briefest moment, Gawain thought he saw the flash of a whitish line between the back of the creature’s lower jaw and the immense armour plate of the beast’s chest, just in front of the iron collar as the jaw closed and the head lowered, the single eye opening once more. The Kraal swung its head towards the north-east, the direction of the caravan, and it lurched.
At once, the two men on the Kraal’s right took up the sudden slack on their chains, and the three men who had been standing idle dropped their food and dashed to add their strength to the chains on the beast’s left side. It took all five men on Gawain’s side of the creature to prevent it breaking loose and charging away through the forest.
“Hold it! Hold it!” Darimak screamed, and held aloft a short rod of what looked like iron, and began chanting. His screams only upset the Kraal more, and again it lifted its head to issue its deafening call.
Kraaaaaaaaaaaaahl!
Again, but this time watching intently, Gawain saw the white streak appear between the armoured plates at the beast’s throat. That white streak, and the great black eye, and perhaps the broad flaring nostrils, were the creature’s only apparent weaknesses that he could see.
After a more urgent chanting, thin and wispy streamers seemed to snake, smoke-like, from the short rod Darimak held aloft, winding against the gentle breeze swirling through the trees until they touched the Kraal’s black collar. Then, like a rope snapping taught, they straightened, and the beast at once sank to the forest floor with a low groan. Gawain felt the impact of the beast’s collapse through the trunk of the tree he was clinging to, and again marvelled at the weight of the creature; at least ten times Gwyn’s weight, he estimated, more rather than less.
“Dammit, Darimak, you threken idiot!” Brayan spat, advancing on the wizard. “How many times d’you need to be told before you finally learn to keep quiet with this thing around! You know how threken hard it is to get the beast on its feet in this soft earth once it wakes from your spell!”
“Hold your tongue and show some respect, Brayan of Eastguard! This entire mess is your fault! Take the Kraal-beast south and then east across the river Ostern and loose it upon the town of Jarn in Callodon! Those were Jerraman demGoth’s orders, simple and direct from Morloch himself! More than ten days since then we’ve been wandering in this miserable forest because you’re too stupid to fetch a trustworthy map!”
“You’re supposed to be this mighty Darimak parGoth, this great wizard in the making! Jerraman demGoth’s pet-keeper and fetch-body more like! If you were so threken clever, oh mighty Darimak, how come your ball of coal didn’t show us the mountain of Raheen until we almost ran into it?”
“It’s thanks to the Jardember we’re able to follow those witless fools to their town! If we’d followed your worthless map any further we’d be drowning in the salt-marshes!”
“You don’t even know it’s people we’re following, never mind to a town! Let’s just loose it now and have done!”
“Of course it’s people! And where else would they be going, fishing in a lake according to the pitiful threken map you bought! From a Pellarnian, you imbecile! Understand this, all of you! You’re here for your strength in holding the beast, not for the brains you don’t possess! Do your job, hold that beast in check, and when the Jardember shows me and the beast’s great eye the bright lights of a Callodon town and not the feeble glowing of some spitwad Eastlander trading party, then, and only then, shall we loose it! Unless you want to explain to Morloch himself why his orders weren’t obeyed!”
“Morloch,” Brayan spat something onto the ground, and brushed at the dirt on his bar of food, “You say that like he’s watching. You’re a miserable parGoth, only demGoths and above get to wear an eye and there’s some who say those eyes are too weak and too old to see much of anything now. And that charred ember of yours can’t see more’n a mile worth a spit.” And for emphasis, Brayan spat again. “By the time we get anywhere near a threken Callodon town we’ll have followed Karayan into the Kraal’s gob or been cut down by Eastlander guards.”
“You will follow orders. All of you. And if you really want to see what kind of misery a parGoth can inflict upon you pissant Kraal-fodder chain-pullers, just keep trying my patience.” Darimak flexed his right arm, the short rod of iron still clenched in his fist, and a dark ball of smoke began to form around it, similar to the much larger and far more threatening spheres the dark wizard had conjured on the Jarn road.
“You just remember this, parGoth,” Brayan hissed, flexing his own considerable muscles. “Once we let that beast loose on the Eastlanders, we’ve got a long walk back home, and you’ve got to sleep sometime along the way.”
The Kraal groaned, long and low, and began to stir. The air was filled with the clink of chains, bars of food stuffed hastily into pockets, powerful frames braced against the struggle they all seemed to expect.
While the Gorians’ attentions were fixed upon the waking Kraal, and the wizard moved well clear to raise the Jardember and look to the northeast again, Gawain slid down the back of the tree and withdrew. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the beast and its struggles while it regained its feet, and he needed time to think.
Minutes later, and still within earshot of the Gorians’ struggles with the beast, Gawain sank to his haunches, his back against a tree. Allazar had been right, or rather the knowledge of the elders given to Allazar had been right: the Graken and the Grimmand were only two of the evil creatures it was within Morloch’s power to create. And the Goths, too, that much also was obvious. The Kraal could now be added to the list. But in spite of the dreadful size and nature of the beast, there was the surprise pronouncement the dark wizard had made. The order to loose the beast on Jarn had been given ten days ago.
But for an unknown Pellarnian cartographer yet resisting the Gorian Occupation, Jarn could well have been destroyed before Gawain and Allazar had arrived at the foot of the Downland Pass. It may even have destroyed Elayeen, had she been there at the time. The thought sent a cold chill the length of his spine; he and Elayeen had been throth-bound a week ago, if she had died, he himself would now be dying a slow and wretched death.