Hawklan laughed. ‘Remind me in future never to engage a Fyordyn in debate will you?’ Then, more seriously, ‘I don’t have the words for this, Arin, but I’m drawn elsewhere-drawn more powerfully than ever. I have to go to the source of this ill. My heart leads me. It brought me here to see the massacre of Evison’s men and for Isloman to show me the desecration of the mountains. Now it leads me back to Vakloss. Back to my original path. I must find your Lord Dan-Tor… ’
Arinndier bridled a little. ‘He’s no Lord of mine, Hawklan,’ he said.
Hawklan gestured an apology.
‘Could your heart not be leading you into a trap?’ tried Arinndier.
‘Possibly,’ Hawklan said thoughtfully after a brief silence. ‘Possibly. But it may be a trap to yield to my inclination and remain here to help you with your army. Dan-Tor holds the answers to my needs. I’ve no alternative but to seek him out.’ Then his face bright-ened. ‘Besides, I’ve got Isloman and Gavor to watch my back. Take this solace, Arin-he’ll find me no easy game to hold, no matter what his trap. And time spent pursuing me can’t be spent working against you. I may be of greater service in gaining time for you than in helping to organize and train your army. I’ve told you, you’ve plenty of good men for that, but none can distract Dan-Tor as I can.’
Arinndier lifted his hands in submission.
‘One thing though,’ Hawklan continued. Arinndier leaned forward, a faint glimmer of hope in his eyes. ‘Let me have two Goraidin to go back to Vakloss with. I’d value their skills and they can report back to you whatever happens there.’
Both Hreldar and Darek assaulted Hawklan’s resolution, following Arinndier’s capitulation, but with as much success. Darek was prompted to a wry smile. ‘See how easily we fall without your leadership,’ he said.
Hawklan smiled broadly and placed an arm around his shoulder. ‘Come now, Lord,’ he said. ‘Would you make me an oath-breaker? Lord Arinndier is witness that I’ve forsworn debating with Fyordyn. And besides I can tell a fall from a feint.’
But it was Yatsu who struck home, sitting silent in an evening alcove. ‘I want none of this, Hawklan,’ he said, his face passive but pained. ‘All the action recently has kept my mind busy, but there are quiet places in this old castle that bring thoughts crashing down on top of me. Old, long-forgotten memories, Hawklan. Terrible memories. I want none of it.’ He looked up, and Hawklan saw his eyes were glistening tears in the soft torchlight.
He sat down by the man and leaned back against the cool stone wall. The air was very still and a low bright moon dominated the sky, silvering the surrounding peaks. It was an evening for celebrating life in quiet joy, but the aura around Yatsu forbade any such ease. Hawklan thought back to the return of Olvric.
When Varak’s patrol had reached Olvric, they had expected to find him dead or at least sorely pressed. As it was, it was the Mathidrin who were in difficulties. Of the six, two had died moving to outflank Olvric, one was unconscious with a serious head injury and another had a broken arm.
Olvric himself had moved to ensure that the patrol could neither advance nor retreat without coming under the lethal fire of his sling, and he was waiting silent and unmoving when Varak’s men arrived.
‘They’ll provide useful information,’ Yatsu had said, apparently satisfied after Olvric had reported, but Hawklan had caught the subtle, almost unconscious signs that had flickered between some of the Goraidin.
‘You mistrust Olvric,’ Hawklan said into the cool evening. Yatsu did not seem surprised at this remark, but just nodded slightly.
‘Olvric knows his trade better than average,’ he said non-committally.
‘But?’ said Hawklan.
Yatsu breathed out a long breath. ‘It’s complicated, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘I’d trust Olvric’s loyalty without question. I’d trust him with my life without a moment’s qualm… ’
‘But?’ Hawklan repeated.
There was a long silence.
‘Our training was harsh-brutal, even. It was in-tended to make us self reliant under almost any conditions, and to weld us into a single fighting unit-bound by loyalty-and by common suffering.’ Yatsu smiled ironically, though the smile faded almost immediately. ‘But what really binds us, binds us beyond any release, isn’t our training-even though that runs deep. What binds us is a shared horror of the things we saw… ’ His voice faltered. ‘And the things we did-had to do,’ he added softly in reluctant self-justification. ‘We’re a unit now because only we understand one another. Only we know what it’s like to hunt without mercy, and the terror of being hunted the same way. Know what it’s like to choose between killing and abandoning your own.’
Hawklan watched the man intensely, remembering vividly his conversation with Isloman as they had ridden north through Orthlund with Jaldaric.
‘But Olvric and some of the others relished the life too much,’ Yatsu continued. ‘When we came back from Riddin, it took most of us months to adjust to peacetime living. For some it took years. Some wandered off into the mountains to find themselves… or just disap-peared. Some killed themselves. But Olvric… he just carried on waiting. Peacetime was just a long wait, a long interval, until the next time. Somehow, he only lived when he was fighting. Stalking a prey-killing it. Did you see those Mathidrin when they came in?’
Hawklan nodded.
‘Terrified,’ Yatsu continued. ‘Not nervous or appre-hensive-terrified. That’s what Olvric and his kind do to people-enemies. And he didn’t have to kill three of them.’
‘Two,’ corrected Hawklan.
Yatsu shook his head. ‘Come now, Hawklan. I don’t need to be a healer to know that that head injury’s fatal. It’s three dead, without a doubt.’
‘What else could he have done?’ asked Hawklan. ‘He was heavily outnumbered.’
‘He knows that wounded men present a greater problem than dead ones,’ said Yatsu. ‘He had the initiative. They wouldn’t have been expecting an ambush. He’s a first-rate slinger. He could have immobilized almost all of them and scattered their horses. The killings were superfluous.’
‘But you’ll use the terror that Olvric’s induced to obtain more information than you would otherwise, won’t you?’ Hawklan said searchingly.
Yatsu’s eyes glinted and he grimaced. ‘Yes,’ he said bitterly. ‘I told you I wanted none of it. I’m too old, seen too much.’ He took Hawklan’s arm. ‘That spirit, that worm that wriggles inside Olvric, wriggles in us all. It’s in me, I know. I want it far away-away in the shadows-away from the treacherous old skills for killing and betraying that it feeds on.’
Yatsu’s voice was calm and steady. It held no emo-tional tremor, and its very control chilled Hawklan. The truth is to be faced, however terrible, he thought again, and here was a man facing it at its worst.
‘I’ve no answer for you, Yatsu,’ he said eventually. ‘You see the truth of what you say, and it’s immutable. But just to see it is to be armoured against many things. Every step we take is a step into darkness, you know that, even for Dan-Tor. He knows the future no more than any of us. Travel with a good heart, Yatsu, don’t cloud the present with the unknowable future, and don’t be frightened of this worm inside you. Your conscience and your judgement will keep it in hand, have no fear.’
Yatsu did not reply.
Hawklan spoke again. ‘We may be pawns in some great game played by powers beyond us. But if we can’t feel the strings that control us, then we’re free. We must use what faculties we have to the full and celebrate the gift of life as best we can. To do otherwise is to do the enemy’s work for him.’
‘I know that,’ said Yatsu quietly. ‘I’m not a starry-eyed cadet.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘I was just giving my thoughts to the evening, to get rid of them. I’ll do what I have to do. Like you, I’m a right piece in the right place, and my real avenues of movement are heavily circumscribed.’
In spite of himself and his protestations to the Lords, Hawklan said, ‘Do you need any help?’