‘Only small, but Lord Evison was a powerful man,’ said Tel-Odrel. ‘Not one to face in extremity.’
No one spoke.
‘Mandrocs armed and armoured,’ said Lorac softly at last. His voice a mixture of awe and disbelief. He took refuge in his training, ‘We’ll have to strip its armour. It should tell us a lot.’
Back outside in the sunlight, Ordan’s grief abruptly overwhelmed him. Rather to Hawklan’s surprise, the two Goraidin were sensitive and sympathetic with the man. He found it reassuring that for all their harsh and brutal skills, they still kept some contact with those qualities that they had sworn to protect. Something in their training leavened its own brutalizing effect. Truth, perhaps? And yet the very existence of this caring betokened an even greater ruthlessness. They were not allowed the numbing that brutalization brought with it. And the greater the caring, the harder-the more brutally-they would fight when it was threatened, either in themselves or others. Hawklan’s thoughts started to circle mockingly as he began to see images of himself within himself. Lorac’s voice broke into his thoughts. He was talking to Ordan.
‘We all knew some of your friends, Ordan,’ he was saying. He put his hands on the man’s shoulders and looked at him earnestly. ‘But there was nothing you could have done. You obeyed your Lord faithfully and well. You know that. This happened days ago, probably within hours of your leaving, and your being here would have made no difference. It’s not much consolation, but… ’ He left his sentence unfinished.
Turning round, he looked at the gutted castle and spoke to the others. ‘They must have been overwhelmed before they were ready. From what Ordan’s told us, Evison’s force must have been spread out for miles. Either that or he completely underestimated the speed at which his enemy could move. It looks as if they fought their way in to release the captives but Evison locked himself in with that one.’
Hawklan looked around the battlefield, still alive with flies and now slowly being repopulated by the scavengers that Gavor had frightened away. No weapons, he thought suddenly. Not a dagger, not a sword, not even a broken spear shaft. And no Mandroc dead. All had been removed.
Lorac seemed to read his thoughts. ‘Apart from that one body, they’ve left no sign of who or what they were. They just came after him to make sure that no one who had seen them would survive to spread the news.’ He wrapped his arms tightly around himself. ‘I’m fright-ened,’ he said, unexpectedly.
‘You’re wise to be,’ said Hawklan. ‘Soldiers that would do this are not lightly defeated. Evison found that to his cost, and we’ll pay the same price if we don’t learn.’
‘What can we do?’ Lorac said.
Hawklan looked at Gavor.
‘Whoever did this is long away,’ said the raven. ‘There’s no one about for miles. No one alive, that is,’ he added.
Hawklan nodded then spoke without hesitation. ‘Ordan, you go to Eldric’s mountain stronghold with that Mandroc’s armour. Tell them what you’ve seen. The rest of us will go north, to see what Evison saw.’
As the four men rode steadily northwards, none of them spoke a great deal and at night they made a dark and silent camp, each taking turns to stand guard.
Hawklan opened his eyes as Tel-Odrel approached to wake him for his watch period. The Goraidin crouched down beside him as he sat up. ‘Something’s wrong with Isloman, Hawklan,’ he said softly. ‘He’s restless and he’s been muttering to himself on and off all night.’
Hawklan frowned. He had never known Isloman suffer any illness. Moving over to him he laid a hand gently on his forehead. There was no sign of fever, but he could feel a turmoil rising in the man. He frowned again. ‘It’s probably shock. And grief,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll all be suffering from it to some degree. I can hardly close my own eyes without seeing those hacked bodies fringing that black castle.’
Tel-Odrel nodded, but there was an uncertainty in Hawklan which worried him.
The following day, Isloman seemed well enough, though he was uncharacteristically quiet, and took no food when he woke. Hawklan watched him anxiously, but he saddled up and mounted without demur, and maintained the pace that was set without complaint.
Even after passing the destroyed remains of Evison’s troop, it needed no tracking skills to follow the trail of the departed attackers.
‘This is how the Mandrocs left Orthlund,’ said Ga-vor. ‘As if they were crushing something to death with every footstep.’
Gradually the countryside yielded to the mountains proper and soon they found themselves moving between dark lowering crags. The two Goraidin were uneasy about their vulnerability in such terrain, but Gavor’s high-flying vigil enabled them to maintain their pace without any real fear of ambush.
Eventually the route they were following became too rocky and awkward for rapid progress and, feeling that time was against them, Hawklan sent Gavor ahead to see if they were near to any kind of settlement or encamp-ment, or anything else that might be worth examining.
It was dusk when he returned, a shadow sweeping out of the shadows. ‘Leave your horses and climb that peak there,’ he said, and was gone.
Without speaking Isloman stood up wearily, and began walking in the direction Gavor had indicated. Hawklan ran after him. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Where are you going? We can’t walk up there now, it’ll be pitch dark soon.’
But Isloman kept on walking.
Hawklan moved in front of him and held out a hand to stop the carver. ‘Isloman, what’s the matter with you?’ he demanded.
Isloman stopped and looked at Hawklan as if puz-zled by this inquiry. ‘I have to see, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘Stay with me, you’ll be all right.’
Hawklan still sensed the great turmoil in his friend, but no sickness. He gave a resigned sigh and, stepping aside, signalled the others to follow.
The peak, however, was no easy walk, especially in the meagre light offered by the stars and a thin moon. Isloman seemed to have little trouble, but several times the others had to call out softly to him to slow down a little as they carefully negotiated areas of shattered rock and steep rubble-strewn slopes. At last, after several hours of leg-aching trudging they reached the summit.
Unusually it was not the rounded grass dome that characterized most of the smaller mountains, but a jumbled mass of jagged rock. This, however, did not deter Hawklan and the two Goraidin from flopping down gratefully when they reached it.
Isloman had not seemed to be hurrying, but he had set a relentless pace. As they rested, he wandered fitfully over the summit, turning round and round repeatedly, like a weather vane in a gusting breeze. Finally he stopped and stared straight ahead. Then slowly he raised his hand and pointed out into the night. ‘There,’ he whispered, as if fearful of being overheard.
Hawklan stood up and carefully walked over to him across the uneven rocks. ‘What?’ he asked, following Isloman’s gaze. ‘What is it?’
But Isloman did not reply. Instead, he wrapped his arms around himself and slowly sat down.
Hawklan bent down to him. ‘Isloman, what’s the matter?’ he said. ‘What’s happened? What’s out there?’
‘Leave me alone,’ came the faint reply through the darkness. ‘Leave me alone.’
Instinctively Hawklan reached out to his friend, but he felt the man’s agony before he touched him. Abruptly, Isloman ‘s powerful arms swept up as if to dash Hawklan aside but, just as suddenly, they slowed and gently pushed him away. Hawklan stood up and looked down at him, puzzled and uncertain.
‘Is he sick?’ It was Lorac at his elbow. ‘He could have picked something up around those bodies. They’d been there some time… ’ His inquiry tailed off.
Hawklan shook his head. ‘No. It’s nothing like that. It’s something deeper. Don’t worry. I’ll stay with him.’ He turned round and looked out into the night in the direction Isloman was staring. ‘You rest. We’ll see what the daylight shows us.’