After a little wound counting and some awkward introductions, Dirfrin laid a sad hand on Loman’s shoulder. ‘I’m afraid your unit’s been wiped out, Loman,’ he said. ‘We came across the remains of them earlier. I’m sorry.’
Loman cast his eyes upwards, while Isloman dropped his head into his hands.
After a moment, Dirfrin continued. ‘Worse,’ he said. ‘The Morlider have moved in unexpectedly and now occupy this entire area. If you go off on your own, then the weather, the terrain or the enemy will kill you within a couple of days.’
Loman looked inclined to demur, but Isloman laid a hand on his arm and shook his head.
‘Furthermore, I don’t want you falling into enemy hands. They’re none too kind with prisoners and they’ll find out about us for sure, and if that happens we’ll be in even more trouble than we are now. It’s a matter of urgency that we get back to the army and report where the enemy are and in what strength.’
‘What can we do?’ asked Isloman.
‘You’ll have to come with us,’ came the reply. There was some muttering in the strange language that the brothers had heard before. Dirfrin looked angry. He drew a long knife and offered it, hilt first, to one of his men.
‘Well, kill them here in cold blood if you’ve the stomach for it, because that’s the only alternative we have.’ The man lowered his eyes and waved the knife away. Dirfrin returned it to its sheath and Loman and Isloman unclenched their fists.
Dirfrin fixed them with an unwavering stare. ‘Listen carefully, both of you. The Goraidin are the finest fighters in all Fyorlund. Our training’s so hard that not one in a hundred ordinary High Guard will even aspire to it and only one in three of those who do is likely to complete it. I’m afraid all I can offer you is a slim chance or no chance, but you look fit, you’re certainly strong, you’re well-clothed and, looking at your shelter, you’re not stupid. We’ve picked up extra supplies from your dead friends so we’ll take you with us.’ He leaned forward urgently. ‘But we can’t allow you to delay us. We’ll teach you what we can as we go and you’ll have to learn as you’ve never learned before. But understand,’ he paused, ‘you’ll obey any of these men without question, and without hesitation.’ His tone was unequivocal. ‘Too many people, ours and yours, depend on the information we have for us to be jeopardized by you. If you give us any trouble you’ll be killed without compunction. Do you understand?’
Standing on the walls of Anderras Darion, warm in the summer sun, Loman shivered as he recalled Dirfrin’s relentless gaze and grim voice. Looking over the sunlit plains of Orthlund, he nodded his head as he had done that bitterly cold day so long ago huddled in a mountain forest in Northern Riddin.
Now Hawklan wants us to train our own Goraidin, he thought. The request still fretted him. He and Isloman had travelled successfully with the Goraidin. They had learned. They had also taught.
‘Well, at least you’ll have sharp swords now and know how to use the shadows a little more wisely,’ he remembered telling Dirfrin when they had finally parted.
But some of the skills he and his brother had learned disturbed Loman to this day. Countless ways to kill people and to wring information from them. Countless ways to rend and destroy. Yet other things were indisputably fine and made him proud to have been with the Goraidin. Courage, loyalty, sacrifice, the knowledge to survive in the most appalling conditions. He looked northwards pensively. And their actions did save many lives in that bitter war.
Loman breathed out noisily and curled his mouth in self-reproach. He was wasting his time debating this. He had no alternative. He had had no alternative ever since he accepted the necessity of the Orthlundyn arming themselves, if for no other reason than the knowledge that any enemy would be doing the same. He needed no trust in Hawklan to tell him that, nor advice from him about what he should do.
He was Orthlundyn. Whatever had been achieved could, and must, be improved.
He walked along the top of the wall towards one of the stairways. As he strode down the steps, two at a time, he went through a list of names that he realized had been forming in his head over the last few weeks. The names of those trainees who would probably be suitable for special training.
Chapter 26
‘What do you make of them?’ said Isloman discreetly.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Hawklan. ‘But we’ll be very conspicuous if we try to avoid them now. Keep smiling. If they offer us violence don’t resist unless it gets really serious.’
They had been riding openly through the moun-tainous edges of Fyorlund for some days, avoiding villages and settlements as much as they could without actually appearing to do so. Now, however, they had no alternative but to pass through a large village situated at the mouth of a valley which was effectively the only route available. The cause of their concern was a modest but growing crowd of men in the square ahead of them. No women or children, Hawklan noted, and some of the men were carrying farm implements and other tools. Glancing casually around he took in the few side streets running up the valley sides.
These Fyorlund villages are very pleasant, he thought, in spite of the gathering group. Heavy, squat, wooden buildings, vividly painted and decorated with carvings quite different from those of Orthlund. He had remarked on the difference to Isloman earlier as they had started to come upon outlying farmhouses.
‘Wood is wood. Stone is stone,’ Isloman had replied. ‘They sing a different song.’ Then he had laughed and shaken his head affectionately in the way that the Orthlundyn invariably did when Hawklan’s rock blindness became apparent.
The houses of this village were scattered, apparently at random, over the floor of the narrow valley and up its steep sides, the position of each being determined by some local feature in the rock. Some of the higher buildings seemed to be clinging precariously to sheer rock faces and looked to be completely inaccessible. Presumably they were reached by these side streets, thought Hawklan. No escape there.
‘We may have trouble ahead,’ Hawklan said to his horse softly. ‘Be ready to move quickly on my signal.’
‘You have trouble ahead,’ replied Serian. ‘I can smell it from here.’ Hawklan patted his head.
‘Gently through the middle of them all,’ he said to Isloman. ‘Make for that building over there.’ With a nod he indicated a three-storey building in the centre of one side of the square. It dominated the other buildings in the village and was obviously a meeting hall of some kind. On its roof sat Gavor.
The crowd parted quietly as the two men rode through, and Hawklan took the time to study the upturned faces for signs that might help him decide their mood. It was interesting.
There were strong elements of suspicion and fear, and some hostility, but there were some open friendly faces, and a large part of the crowd seemed to be doubtful, or simply curious, though whether curious about them or about what was going to happen, he could not tell. He caught the eye of several members of the crowd and nodded friendly greetings. Tilt the crowd our way, he thought.
Reaching the building he had indicated, he sat back in his saddle with his hands on his thighs and dropped the reins on the horse’s neck. It was an open and relaxed gesture that again should impress the crowd favourably.
However, before he could dismount, a burly, ill-favoured man stepped forward and reached up for Serian’s bridle. The horse craned his neck forward, teeth bared, and the man stepped back quickly. Hawklan leaned forward and patted the horse’s neck as if to calm him.
‘Good,’ he whispered and then sat up. ‘My apologies, sir,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I’m afraid the horse is a little nervous. He’s not used to big crowds.’
As he anticipated, his description of the group as a big crowd caused a little amusement. Some smiles appeared, and the word ‘Orthlundyn’ whispered into the air from various directions, while at the same time those at the front of the crowd eased a little further any from the great black horse.