“This confrontation does no good…” Allazar began, only for Gawain to cut him off with a wave of his hand…
“It’s the wizard I need to take to Raheen, Elayeen, not you!” Gawain asserted, quietly, the softness of his voice almost menacing, the rage and frustration in his chest making his heart pound as he stooped a little to bring his eyes closer to Elayeen’s.
“Then take him there!” she spat, jabbing a slender finger into his chest, driving him back a pace. “We have followed you with blind trust and hope in our hearts all these weeks driven by the conviction that some mighty and noble reason lay at the core of our headlong dash only to find that reason has nothing to do with it at all! And that the sole motivation for this sprint across the plains is nothing more than a wisp of intuition brought about by a dark-made power! A dream would have more substance!”
Another jab of her finger, and another pace forward, pushing Gawain further back, anger colouring both their features now.
“I am no dwarf-maid of Threlland, G’wain, I do not thrive on cold-pressed frak! I am no plains-maid of Juria at home in a featureless expanse with horizons broken by nothing bigger than wild gorse! And I am no horse-maid of Raheen born to the saddle and yearning to spend great tracts of her life galloping aimlessly about the place! I am Elayeen Rhiannon Seraneth ni Varan, daughter of Elvendere, and though you be my bounden heart and I be faranthroth and banished from my homeland forever, I still have family, and friends, and yes a homeland I love, and I would have news of them before I greet the horror of what was once your homeland, your friends, and your family!”
“Then go!” Gawain cried as their conjoined anger reached breaking-point, “Go seek your news in Jarn! Go! And risk all for nothing!”
“Nothing?” Elayeen gasped, “News of my family and friends and homeland is nothing to you? You should need no reminding that the greatest nothingness of all is your destination!”
“Enough!” Allazar cried, clapping his hands together in a futile attempt at diverting their attention from each other, but such was the enthralling nature of the rage that bound them they heard him not.
“Your homeland and family and friends will be as nothing if Morloch isn’t stopped!”
“And you believe a night’s delay will make the slightest Dwarfspit of difference!”
“Enough!” Allazar cried again, though this time when he clapped his hands the sound was like the breaking of an oak, and accompanied by flash of light far brighter than the late summer sunshine.
Elayeen and Gawain staggered back from him, instinctively covering their eyes and turning their heads. It was enough to break the fury that had held them in thrall.
“That’s better.” Allazar sighed. “I am sorry, but such confrontation between you does no-one any good.”
But while the fury was gone, great billowing clouds of anger remained to dim judgement and senses. Elayeen turned on her heel, strode to her horse and mounted, staring down at them coldly. “I am riding for Jarn and for news of our world. If you choose to ride for Raheen then so be it. I shall join you there, if or when I feel like it!”
Gawain simply glowered at her, breathing hard and saying nothing. After a moment’s silence save for the laboured breathing of all but the horses, Elayeen kicked her steed forward towards the woodland track that led to the ill-fated Callodon town.
It was only once his queen was beyond sight that Gawain rounded on Allazar, fuming.
“You expect me to charge after her, wizard, and thus be led by the nose at every turn hereafter, a slave to her stupidity and whimsy!”
Allazar sighed. “No, Longsword. I expect you to remember who you are, and to try to calm yourself.”
“I know who I am!” Gawain asserted, “It’s not I who needs reminding! I never need reminding!”
“Yes, Longsword, it is and you do. You are throth-bound. The anger and frustration you feel is not your own. Nor is it entirely hers. Just as the tender feelings between you are heightened and strengthened beyond the ken of ordinary men and women when the two of you are together, so too are any ill feelings between you. Frustration becomes anger becomes rage becomes fury, it feeds upon itself within each of you and grows into a thing all its own.”
“Dwarfspit! We are so close to Raheen now I can almost hear the cry of the gulls wheeling over the Sea of Hope, and all you and she are interested in is hot food, hot baths and warm beds!”
“Perhaps if the two of you had been able to enjoy those comforts together at least once during these past long weeks this crisis would not have arisen. Your mind is not your own, Longsword. Nor will it be, I fear, until Elayeen is further along the road to Jarn and your frustrations become your own again.”
“Then I’ll add to the distance by taking the easterly path and leave Jarn and whatever frugal comforts it may yet possess to Elayeen, and she’s welcome to them! You and I are bound for Raheen.”
“Until your respective natures are restored, Longsword. At which point, both you and she will remember the dread of athroth and race headlong into each other’s embrace.”
“Dwarfspit,” Gawain exclaimed, climbing into Gwyn’s saddle, “You mean she will remember the dread of athroth and race headlong to me halfway to Raheen. Mount up, whitebeard, we ride hard.”
“We cannot simply leave her, Longsword, you know that.”
“Yes we can! I’ve left her before, remember?”
“And later found her three quarters dead in the circle of faranthroth.”
Gawain stared at the wizard, and Gwyn shuffled nervously, entirely unused to being unsure of her chosen mount’s intentions. Vague and distant memories of Elvendere seemed briefly to poke holes in Gawain’s anger, but Elayeen was still too close and their twinned anger too strong.
“We ride, wizard, for Raheen.” Gawain ordered, and the steely glint in his eyes brooked no dissent.
“Very well, your Majesty.” Allazar sighed, and shook his head sadly, knowingly. The coin which is the reward of youthful passions has two sides, the one glorious, the other tragic, and until the wisdom of the aged is acquired, there’s not much of substance to hold the two apart.
4. Rabbits
Sunset found Gawain and Allazar walking their horses through scrubland slightly to the east of ragged woodlands which formed a physical if not political border between Callodon and the south-western tip of Juria. Ahead of them, the woodlands swung in a lazy arc eastwards towards the far horizon, beyond which unseen they continued their arc until eventually they swung north, like the bottom of a giant letter U. And beyond the bottom of that great curve, still out of sight, rose the plateau which was once Raheen.
Gawain still fumed, or rather simmered, for Allazar was convinced the distance between them and Elayeen was slowly diminishing the throth-born and irrational anger which had separated the two young lovers. But it was not diminished by much.
More than a few times during their thundering passage through the scrub, trending a little further east of south all the while, they had been obliged to stop. Gawain had accused Allazar of deliberately slowing their progress, Allazar had protested of course, but the wizard soon exhausted his flimsy pretexts for delaying Gawain’s flight. There are only so many times in an afternoon one needs to answer a call of nature, especially when a diet of frak and water has been one’s staple for weeks on end.
Eventually though, with dusk turning to darkness, the need for caution overcame stubborn resentment and Gawain declared a halt for the night. They made their usual spartan camp, Gawain performed his usual duties to his horse, and then they sat upon the bedrolls, listening to the sounds of the night.