At first the wizard looked puzzled, so Gawain pointed to the cloth and then at the wizard’s head. Allazar understood. His robes were filthy enough not to draw too much attention, but the wizard’s white hair was clearly visible in the gloom. Gawain’s own blond hair and clothing was still caked in the filthy mud of the quagmire from the day before.
Here in the depths of the forest, the pearl-like lustre of the Dymendin staff Allazar carried seemed to reflect the gloom around them, unless by some magical means the wizard had contrived to dim its former whiteness. In any case, Gawain didn’t care, as long as the staff wasn’t seen by the enemy until it issued a lightning-tree big enough to destroy the Kraal.
Then, to Gawain’s surprise, the wizard tossed the darkening cloth back, and smiled. Then he took one hand from the staff, made a gesticulation in the air before his face, and Gawain the guardsmen gaped as what looked like ink all the colours of the forest around them ran from the wizard’s head to boots, leaving Allazar almost perfectly camouflaged.
Stringing an arrow tight in his right hand, Gawain pointed straight towards the northeast, and silently rose to begin the hunt in earnest, but not before casting two more astonished glances at the wizard. Less than twenty minutes later, they heard Gorian voices. Gawain signalled a halt, and then with simple hand signals, deployed the guardsmen wide to his left, bringing Allazar up between himself and the men of Callodon. When he was satisfied with their disposition, he raised his arrow, and watched as the guards silently fitted heavy steel-tipped bolts to their crossbows. Another glance at Allazar, who drew a deep breath, and then nodded, hefting the staff a little, and then Gawain eased forward, moving one tree at a time towards the enemy.
“…what the threken Tal are they doing then?”
“I don’t know, Aldayan, why don’t you go and ask them! I’m simply telling you what I’m seeing through the Jardember!”
“But why would they be moving up and down the road?”
“Maybe it’s not a road after all. Maybe it’s the lake on the map and they’re fishing or something,” Brayan offered quietly. “Who cares? It’s getting darker, they’re not going anywhere tonight.”
“I care,” Aldayan muttered darkly. “The threken Kraal keeps shifting its threken head this way and that and I’m the threken idiot has to hold the chain. Eight threken times now! It’s driving the Kraal mad and me with it.”
Gawain eased forward to the next tree, and cautiously peered around its broad trunk. The Kraal seemed to be standing obediently still, the chains running out either side of its iron collar taught but the four big men holding them not straining. Three squatted idly on their haunches well clear of the beast, and Darimak parGoth stood a little further beyond them, tossing the Jardember from one hand to the other like a ball.
Glancing to his left, he saw Allazar creep into position behind a tree, and watched as the wizard’s eyes widened in shock at the sight of the Kraal’s enormous horror. Gawain waited, patiently, calmly. When he felt certain the guards were in position, he stole another glance around the tree. No-one had moved.
“It’s threken Darimak’s fault,” Aldayan complained again, bitterly, but keeping his voice low enough not to alarm the Kraal.
“How can their moving back and forth along the road possibly be my fault, you witless oaf!”
“Their running up and down ain’t your threken fault, parGoth, but you’re the one keeps lifting up the threken charred ember and confusing the threken Kraal!”
Gawain stole another glance to the left. Allazar was watching the proceedings, his eyes flicking back to the immense beast, but perhaps some kind of sixth sense made him look to his right, into Gawain’s eyes. A quick flick of the head, and Allazar looked to his left. The guardsmen were kneeling, crossbows to shoulders, targets in their sights and fingers on the triggers waiting for wizard’s assault.
Allazar leaned back hard against the trunk of his tree, and took another deep breath. Turning his head to his left, he gave a single nod to Gawain, who adjusted the sword on his back and tightened his grip on his arrow.
“There he goes again!” Aldayan spat.
Darimak parGoth lifted the Jardember high above his head, one-handed, and began a brief chanting. “The group is moving quickly south again,” he announced, and the Kraal’s head twitched a little, as though the great eye was fixed upon the refugees a mile away, running briskly down the road towards Raheen.
Allazar chose that moment to grip the staff two-handed and charge from behind his tree into the small clearing. It was entirely the wrong moment.
24. Contact
Gawain watched the catastrophe unfold, observing the events dispassionately as if time itself had slowed. Allazar broke from behind the cover of his tree, his face contorted into a fierce grimace, the Dymendin staff gripped two-handed and parallel to the ground, its business end swinging towards the Kraal.
Darimak parGoth stood rooted to the spot, almost on tip-toe, holding the Jardember high and balanced on his fingertips, his back to the wizard and the drama behind him. The three Gorians squatting on their haunches had been staring at the parGoth, and the four chainsmen were standing watchful at their duty, or rather three of them were. One was gazing with undisguised contempt towards the dark wizard.
At the very moment Allazar summoned forth a blazing lance of white fire, the Kraal twitched its massive head to bring its one-eyed focus back to the northernmost group on the distant road, and then back again to the group running south. The twitch was enough.
No plan ever survives contact with the enemy, flashed through Gawain’s mind, a dignified, retired cavalry captain had told him over dinner during training, you must always be prepared to be creative.
The searing blast of white fire from Allazar’s staff began ripping a furrow through the soft dark earth of the forest floor, chewing its way towards the Kraal. But the twitching of the great beast’s head jerked the chains radiating from its black collar, and Aldayan, sullenly watching the parGoth instead of attending to his duty on the chains nearest Allazar, was yanked off balance and stumbled into the path of the white fire now halfway across the clearing.
At once, the wizard heaved up on the staff, sending the crackling lightning blast away to the left of the Kraal and uselessly up into the trees. Lightning forked and streamers flickered here and there, shattering boughs and trunks, debris small and large raining down into the clearing and the forest beyond. The Kraal jerked its head again, snatching Aldayan off his feet completely, sending him flying headlong, still clinging to the chain, into the gaping maw and the razor-sharp rows of black teeth within. Aldayan was bitten clean in two before he had a chance to scream. The second chainsman on Gawain’s side of the beast had been jerked to within range of the Kraal, and another flick of its head drove the single horn clean through his body before a third flick sent the man’s remains tumbling far into the gloom over the beast’s back.
Crossbows twanged, bolts struck home, and two of the idle Gorian guardsmen simply fell face-first into the ground, while the third, seemingly oblivious to the attacks around him, lunged instinctively for the chains now slithering unattended across the forest floor.
Allazar, summoning another blast of white fire, unleashed it towards the Kraal, where it struck the black aquamire-infused iron collar, bursting it into pieces, before once more raising the white lightning into the trees as the panic-addled Gorian dived for the chains and into the line of fire between the wizard and the beast.
The Kraal, now loose and with blood in its mouth and flesh in its gullet, tossed back its head, closed its great eye, and gave a single, chilling call, Kraaaaaaaaaaaaahl!