25. Thirty Yards
It wasn’t bad, Gawain conceded, scraping the last of the stew from the bowl before laying it aside and nestling back against the water butts. Allazar, seated at the end of the wagon scraped his own bowl clean then added his to Gawain’s before handing them both with a contented sigh to a smiling Gorian lady. When she had gone, Gawain eyed the wizard.
“Torches, cheering, reinforcements, and rabbit stew. Either I’m dead and in a cruel yonderlife or you really have gone mad. What happened, Allazar? Last thing I remember was a cruel pain.”
“That cruel pain, Longsword, was doubtless the result of a sharp blow from the great hump of the Kraal-beast’s shoulders and its unfortunate impact with your… royal Majesty… when it collapsed dead and you were flung from its back.”
“My lord, Serre wizard,” Tyrane announced, appearing from the gloom at the foot of the wagon. Night had fallen now, and with the meal all but over, torches were being extinguished and people were settling in small groups. The Callodon captain handed a familiar looking bottle to Allazar. Jurian brandy.
“Ah! Excellent, thank you, Captain, I was just explaining to my king the events which occurred in our absence, but perhaps you are better placed to give the briefing.”
“Of course, Serre wizard, though I feel I should point out that the brandy was for his Majesty.”
“Ah.” Allazar eyed the bottle ruefully and passed it to Gawain, who shot the wizard a smug smile before taking a swig and handing it back to the captain.
“Ah.” Allazar sighed again, and the captain relented and handed him the bottle with a smile.
“So,” Gawain sighed, feeling the glow spreading through him. “Explain all, Tyrane. I couldn’t believe what I saw as I ran down the road behind that beast.”
“And we could not believe what we saw running towards us, my lord.” Tyrane shook his head in awe and leaned against the side of the wagon. “But here are the events as we experienced them:
“About five or ten minutes after you and your party turned west into the woods, our Gorian friends were about to begin their first run south along the road when your lady turned to me and announced that something bright was approaching from the southeast. She couldn’t say what, only that it was moving quickly through the woods from the direction of the plains, and that it was bright, not dark.
“So, I held the Gorian runners back, deployed the men, and waited. Not long after that, out from the trees burst a party from Callodon Castle, eight guardsmen and a wizard.”
Gawain stirred, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“Peace, Longsword. The wizard is Arramin, of Callodon, and of the D’ith Sek. He has passed the scrutiny not only of the guards, but also of your lady, and if there were the slightest darkness about him, surely she would see it. Besides, I know him. He’s an old bookworm, spent most of his life in the libraries of Callodon and Juria, an historian. In Brock’s court he was usually only called upon for help with matters concerning old treaties or ancient title deeds.”
“Indeed my lord. He’s also much respected as a teacher and better known for that than wizardry.”
“Carry on,” Gawain sighed.
“It seems word arrived from his Majesty, King Brock, ordering that a trusted wizard be found to carry a message to you at Raheen. This message and duty Queen Elspeth entrusted to Arramin, who it seems, according to reports from the sergeant escorting him, stood by her Majesty, even as old as he is, when that Dwarfspit traitor Uldred attacked.
“Once the wizard and his escort had been apprised of our situation here, he suggested using the horses, rather than our Gorian friends, as a decoy, believing that the bigger animals would possess brighter lights for that dark wizard to see.”
“Quite right too,” Allazar mumbled.
“And, of course, he wanted to try to maintain the impression that our numbers had not swollen by nine men and horses. It seemed a sound strategy, my lord, so I agreed to it.”
“And just how did this bookish and respected whitebeard know exactly where to find us?” Gawain challenged, suspicion clouding his features again as he felt around the blankets for his weapons.
“On their journey to Raheen across the plains, Longsword,” Allazar sighed, lifting the edge of a blanket to reveal the sheathed longsword and Gawain’s other weapons, “They encountered the messenger that Captain Tyrane despatched to the castletown. They naturally exchanged news with each other. Arramin merely estimated the caravan’s rate of progress along the road and adjusted his course accordingly, though even he has admitted some slight surprise at finding everyone here. He had expected to find the road first, and then catch up with us from behind along the way to Jarn.”
“Oh. And then what?” Gawain bent forward slightly, intending to slip his boot knife back into its customary position, but the pains in his back persuaded him to wait a while longer before attempting any more such drastic manoeuvres.
“Your lady was able to keep us apprised of the darkness and its location, though she admitted she had lost site of your party not long after you entered the woods. I of course briefed the wizard Arramin and his escort as to the nature of the danger facing us, and to his great credit, he announced that should the beast evade you, he would stand to the fore and attempt to destroy it, though he had no staff to aid him. One of the lads nipped into the woods and hacked down a sapling and offered it to the wizard, who said it’d be better than nothing.”
“Though not by much,” Allazar mumbled. “Brave old goat would probably have burned his own arms off, and he knew it.”
“And so we proceeded, my lord. The horses cantered down the road, a couple of riders guiding them, there they waited for a time, and then cantered back. And all the while, your lady kindly telling us the darkness hadn’t moved.”
Gawain could imagine the rasping voice of Eldengaze and its mantra, though how the captain managed not to be irritated by it, he couldn’t guess. Years of service in the court of Callodon doubtless endowed the officer with great discretion, if not inscrutability.
“Where is my lady?” he asked, trying to twist around but finding that movement overly optimistic too.
“Yonder, Longsword, at the centre of the western half of the passing-place, where she was standing when we left.”
“I saw her in the wagon, was it this one?”
“No, my lord, the other,” and Tyrane nodded towards the wagon Gawain supposed was behind him on the road. “She took that position much later.”
“How so?”
“She asked the wizard Arramin to help her into it.”
“Oh.”
“But this was later, when the beast began its charge. Here, we just had the horses going up and down the road, the wizard Arramin muttering to himself and shaking his new staff, as though he were practicing to hit someone on the head with it. Your lady was standing where she stands now, my lord, the wizard to her left in the middle of the road, and my men and some of the horses all about.
“Then she turned her gaze to me and said, ‘the beast is loose. It comes.’”
Allazar sighed, and closed his eyes, obviously remembering the catastrophe in the forest. Gawain remembered it too, and in spite of the near-disaster, he felt strangely pleased that in the forest, and here now, the wizard seemed much more himself, and much less the wildly-grinning and frightening wizard of new-found power who had slain the Graken and Jerraman demGoth on the road.
“With your lady tracking the beast,” Tyrane continued softly, “I deployed the wagons one each side of the road in the passing-place, and gathered the men. The orders I gave were quite simple, my lord, all would ride, two to a horse where necessary, and if the wizard Arramin failed to destroy the creature, we would ride hard and fast up the road and then at the clearing ahead, swing off through the trees to the east and the plains beyond.