Aelang remained motionless in the middle of the road, peering into the trees on both sides in a vain attempt to assess the truth of Jaldaric’s words. Only Gavor’s persistent cry could be heard, sounding like an ancient funeral knell.
Finally, Aelang narrowed his eyes and swore vi-ciously. Slowly he dismounted. He was a little shorter than Jaldaric, but heavily built and obviously much stronger. Jaldaric stepped back a pace and levelled his sword at the man. Even from his hiding place in the trees, Isloman felt Aelang’s physical confidence.
‘Jaldaric’s in trouble,’ he whispered to Hawklan, but Hawklan seemed to be in a trance.
‘Hand me your sword… carefully,’ said Jaldaric. ‘Then order your… patrol to throw down their weapons.’
Aelang started to draw his sword with his left hand, fearing a hasty response from a nervous archer if he drew with his right. It snagged in his cape and he fumbled with it momentarily. Jaldaric did not move.
The sword came free awkwardly and Aelang casually tossed back his cloak with a flourish and a friendly smile. As the cloak billowed out behind him, he took a long swift step forward past the side of Jaldaric’s sword and, spinning round, struck Jaldaric in the face with his left hand.
The speed and power of the blow, weighted and hardened as it was by the clenched sword hilt, knocked Jaldaric senseless and, without faltering in his step, Aelang bent low underneath him and swung him up effortlessly across his shoulders. Then, with Jaldaric across his back like a great shield, he ran a weaving path back towards his patrol, crying out commands as he ran.
The whole movement was so swift that the arrow destined for him sang through the empty air where he had been standing.
Urssain and the others were less fortunate. All six rose at Aelang’s first move. Three died immediately and the other three, one of them Urssain, were wounded.
Then the archers had to turn their attention to the Mandrocs, who, swords and axes drawn, were running forward. For a few seconds the air was full of the hiss of arrows, the sound of bow strings and the thud of arrows striking home through the leather jerkins which were all that protected the Mandrocs.
In those few seconds, Jaldaric’s prophecy came true, and the quiet Pedhavin Road was littered with over thirty dead and dying Mandrocs. But the remainder charged on, heedless of their fallen comrades. Mouthing a rhythmic, rumbling battle chant they crashed into the trees in search of the High Guards.
Isloman glanced at Hawklan. To his horror, his friend was swaying unsteadily, eyes glazed and unsee-ing. Isloman shook him violently and called his name but there was no response. Before he could do anything further there was a crash in the undergrowth behind him and, turning, he found himself facing two gaping Mandrocs. Terror balled up in his throat, but reflexes he had thought long gone saved him as his club and his great fist swung in two murderous arcs to lay them both out almost before they could react. Two more appeared.
Desperately he pushed Hawklan against a tree and, drawing his sword, turned to face them like a wild animal protecting its young. Within minutes, sword and club left five Mandrocs dead or wounded at his feet, but it was all too obvious he could not hold his position for much longer.
‘Hawklan!’ he shouted over his shoulder as two more Mandrocs closed with him. ‘In the name of pity, there are too many for me. Use your sword. Help me. Help me.’
Abruptly he felt Hawklan jerk to life behind him, almost as if his spirit had suddenly returned from some far distant place. At the edge of his vision he sensed a silent Hawklan moving to his side, black sword levelled. With an eerie squeal the two Mandrocs turned and fled.
Then, still silent, Hawklan glanced around, his eyes grim and intent, as if he were listening. The trees were full of the terrible sounds of battle, underscored by the rumbling battle chant of the Mandrocs. After a moment a look of desperate sadness passed over his face.
‘These lads are lost,’ he said hollowly. ‘We can’t do anything. This way.’
Three Mandrocs appeared in front of them, jaws gaping wide, eyes elated, bloody swords steaming in their hands. Without a pause, Hawklan hacked down two of them with a single terrible blow and impaled the third almost before Isloman could raise his club. Hawklan shouted for him to follow, and then ran off into the trees.
Isloman hesitated, stunned both by the sight of the appalling and bloody carnage that his friend had wrought with such suddenness and apparent ease, and by fear for Jaldaric and his men. But Hawklan returned and seized him with a powerful grip. ‘We can do nothing for them,’ he said fiercely. ‘Nothing. We run or die.’ Then he turned and ran, dragging Isloman behind him like a wayward child.
They encountered several Mandrocs as they fled, but these too fell horribly before Hawklan’s black sword. Scarcely breaking his step, he twisted and turned through them like a mountain stream around rocks, scattering blood and entrails over the sunlit Orthlund woodland. Isloman took in the beauty of his actions and the inexorable horror of their consequences like a helpless spectator.
To the carver, it seemed they ran for an eternity but, eventually, Hawklan slowed and then staggered to the ground, his head in his hands. Isloman slumped down beside him, breathing heavily.
They lay for a long time until some semblance of normality forced itself upon them. Isloman hesitated to look at his friend, concerned at what he would see, but when he did he found the grim warrior’s visage was gone and he had to turn away from the pain that had replaced it.
‘All those young men,’ Hawklan said. ‘Dead. I can’t take it in. What’s happening?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘All of them cut down in a wave of clamouring bloodlust. What were those creatures? They’re like something out of a forgotten nightmare.’
Then he looked in horror at the sword in his hand, still red and steaming with gore. ‘And where did I learn to use this?’
Isloman shook his head, he could offer no answer to that question, but, ‘Mandrocs. I’ve heard of them. They’re from Narsindal. North of Fyorlund. Nasty place by all tellings. I think the High Guards were originally formed to keep them in order, but I doubt any of those lads had ever even seen one.’ He stopped and bowed his head. ‘It must have seemed like a nightmare come true. That awful chanting mob charging on regardless of how many of them were killed-just charging on.’
Hawklan shuddered as some darker memory flitted round the edges of his mind. He searched for something more prosaic. ‘And now they’re serving this King… Rgoric’ he said, half question, half statement.
Isloman shrugged. ‘It would appear so.’
The two men fell silent. High in the foliage above, birds sang out to the spring sunshine, and scufflings in the undergrowth marked the activities of countless forest creatures, lives uninterrupted by the grim swirling thoughts preoccupying the two men. A butterfly landed on Hawklan’s boot, folded its wings and then spread them out luxuriously. It flew off abruptly as a dark shadow glided silently to land where it had lain.
A rather tattered Gavor put his head on one side and gazed at Hawklan. ‘You did well to run when you did, dear boy,’ he said, then he bent his head and fiddled with the straps that held his spurs to avoid Hawklan’s gaze. ‘Very good, these,’ he added, proprietorially, though a little uneasily. ‘Very good. I killed a dozen or so, but I couldn’t save any of the Guards. There were just too many of those things and they didn’t seem to care whether they lived or died.’
Hawklan looked at Gavor, his strange and comical companion-he had killed these creatures too? Then the memory of Gavor’s strange cry returned. It was a death song. That’s what it was. He recognized it now though he could not say from where or when-an ancient death song-an awful warning of terrible vengeance. He tapped his knee and Gavor jumped up on to it. Hawklan smoothed out his iridescent blue-black feathers. A tear ran down his face.