The Crystal Chalice (Book 1) (16 page)

 Suddenly, she sensed, rather than saw, a movement
behind her. A black shadow loomed out of the darkness and something grabbed her
from behind. A hard hand clamped over her mouth and a powerful arm caught her
round the waist, imprisoning her.

 She started to struggle but
a voice said quietly in her ear: “Don’t struggle and don’t make a sound.”

 A familiar voice.

 She found herself
released and turned to face her captor.

 
“Celedorn!”
she
gasped, and had only just the presence of mind to keep her voice low. She
gripped him by the shoulders as if to convince herself that he was real. He was
looking more than usually barbaric. Several days dark growth of beard and torn
and muddied clothes did nothing to add to his charms. But it scarcely mattered.
The fact that she had another human being with her, filled her with a sense of
relief so profound that she could find no words to express it.

 “How did......?”

 He placed his finger to
his lips and leaning close, murmured: “Later. You were going in the wrong
direction. You were heading deeper into the Turog encampment, not out of it.
Follow me as quietly as you can.”

 She picked up the
basket that she had dropped in her surprise and followed him. Dressed as he was
in his customary black, he melted into the darkness with the greatest of ease.
He moved silently through the trees with a smooth, catlike grace that she found
difficult to emulate. Despite the fact that his shoulders had felt reassuringly
solid beneath her hands, she still half wondered if he was some kind of
apparition, so unexpected was his presence. Her mind turned over all sorts of
ideas but she was completely at a loss to account for his presence.

 They were approaching
one of the fires. The ground surrounding it was scattered with sleeping Turog,
lying randomly like fallen leaves. There was no sign of any guards. The flames
flickered their lurid light over the supine forms. To Elorin’s horror, Celedorn
stepped over one of the unconscious Turog and signalled impatiently for her to
do likewise. Heart pounding, she followed him, threading her way gingerly
between the sleeping figures. For the first time she noticed that Celedorn’s
sword was in his hand and knew that any unfortunate Turog that awoke, would not
live long enough to call for his companions. One stirred and muttered in its
sleep. Celedorn froze beside it, the tip of his sword just an inch from its
throat but it didn’t wake. When they cleared the camp he did not stop but led
the way rapidly into the dark silence of the forest.

  When she caught up
with him, Elorin said fiercely: “What are you trying to do? Scare me to death?
You stepped right over them! If one had awoken I dread to think what would have
happened!”

 He shrugged
indifferently. “We were surrounded. It was the only way out.”

 “But......”

 “If I had told you I
was going to lead you directly across their camp, would you have come?”

 Suddenly her anger
evaporated and she gave a soft chuckle. “Very likely.”

 She thought she saw the
faint glimmer of a smile in response but then he raised his eyebrows
sardonically and remarked: “Besides, for a moment back there I thought you were
almost glad to see me.”

 She wisely ignored the
provocation and finally asked what she had been burning to ask.  “How do
you come to be here? I assumed you would be back at Ravenshold by now.”

  The black brows drew
together in the expression of displeasure she remembered well.

 “I would indeed have
been back at Ravenshold, if, just for once, you could do as you are told. But
no, instead of staying with me as I had ordered, of all the stupid thing you
could have chosen to do, you had to go onto the bridge.”

 “It wasn’t by choice,”
she snapped.

 “It wasn’t by
intelligence either,” he riposted.

 Realising that she was
going to lose that argument, she said: “That still does not explain why you are
here.”

 “I am here,” he
explained in the voice of one goaded beyond reason, “because a few moments
after you made your spectacular dive into the Harnor, the portion of the bridge
I was standing on also gave way and I had little choice but to follow suit.”

 She gasped, appalled by
what he had told her. “I’m sorry. You were only on that bridge because you were
trying to save me. Forgive me, Celedorn, you could have been killed.”

 For once he looked a
little nonplussed, as if such a direct apology disarmed him.

 “Like you,” he
continued, “I was swept down the river. I lost my hunting knife in the water
and I nearly had to abandon my sword, as it was dragging me down, but I managed
to get hold of one of the many logs in the river and it kept me afloat. I
washed up in the same bay as you.”

 “How did you know?”

 “Your footprints were
in the sand and I also found this in some brambles.” He withdrew a scrap of
blue fabric from his pocket. “I set out to find you but you were following a
rather erratic course and twice I lost your trail.”

 “It was you!” she
suddenly exclaimed.

 “What do you mean?”

 “You passed an open
glade with a fallen obelisk in it that first night, didn’t you?”

  He nodded.

 “I was hiding by the
stone. I saw you - at least I didn’t know it was you. You are what has been
tracking me. You are the one Kerrea warned me about.”

 “Who is Kerrea?”

 “She is a spirit of the
woods.”

 “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She held up the
basket. “Explain that!” she said triumphantly, pleased for once to get the
better of him, but her expression grew a little doubtful. “Kerrea said you had
blood on your hands.”

 “Very likely,” he
replied sourly. Then comprehension dawned. “Oh, I caught a trout if that’s what
she means. Is there food in that basket?”

 They sat down at the
base of a tree to share a meal and she told him of her meeting with Kerrea. He
was obviously ravenously hungry but was restrained with the food, realising
that it would have to last. She had been silent for a while, watching him eat.

 “Why did you follow me?
Why did you not just try to save yourself?”

 He looked up, a hard
expression in his pale eyes, his scars giving a wicked cast to his countenance.
“I do not lose what is mine,” he declared flatly. “You are still my prisoner.”

 She leaped to her feet,
staring down at him angrily.

 “I am not! The moment I
fell from that bridge, I ceased being anyone’s prisoner.”

 “That is only your
opinion.”

 “I had forgotten how
aggravating you can be.”

 “And I had forgotten
what a handful you can be,” he retaliated. “Where were you headed anyway?”

 “The Bay of the
Pearl-Seekers. There might be fishermen from Serendar there.”

 “That’s the first
sensible thing you have said yet. If we are going to get there in one piece,
you had better learn some obedience.”

 She glared at him. “I
was managing perfectly well before you came along.”

 “Oh
really
? I
take it that those Turog surrounding you were a figment of my
imagination?” 

 Suddenly the fight went
out of her. Her shoulders sagged and she sat down again, somehow a gesture of
defeat.

 If he felt any
compassion for her, he didn’t show it but merely remarked: “We should get going
now. I’d like as much distance as possible between us and those vermin before
daybreak. Then we will find some place to rest for a while.” He stretched
tiredly. “I haven’t slept in three nights. A few hours sleep wouldn’t go
amiss.”

  He led her swiftly
through the forest, heading relentlessly northwards. Occasionally he stopped
and listened intently but he rarely spoke. Even when the grey light of dawn
arrived, he did not stop. The daylight lifted a soft blanket of mist from the
ground that floated mysteriously between the trees at knee-height, giving the
impression of wading through a softly drifting sea of cobwebs. He halted
abruptly.

 “I don’t like this
mist. I can’t see the ground. The Turog, as you know, have a nasty habit of
digging pits to see what they can catch. Perhaps this would be a good time to
rest.”

 She shivered. “It’s
getting colder. I suppose lighting a fire is out of the question?”

 “It’s too great a
risk.” He looked at the sky. “The wind is rising and I can smell rain in the
air. We must find somewhere that gives shelter.”

 A little river had cut
a mossy gully through the rocks on which the trees grew. A steep slope strewn
with last autumn’s leaves, led down to a jumble of mossy boulders through which
the stream gurgled and chuckled. The sides of the gully were rocky and after
questing about for a while, Celedorn found what he was looking for - a shallow
indentation in the rock face just deep enough to be called a cave. It was not
ideal, but adequate to shield them from the worst of the wind and rain. Dark
clouds rolled above the treetops and a few heavy drops fell. The dry leaves
swirled and scurried nervously before the freshening breeze.

 “This will have to do,”
he said. “The heavens are about to open and there is no time to look for
anything better.”

 They shared some
oatcakes in the shelter of the overhang and she told him more of her
conversation with Kerrea.

 “I thought the spirits
were just a legend,” he remarked, “just tales from the Chronicles of the Old
Kingdom, but no one really knows what still exists in the Forsaken Lands. They
stretch for hundreds of miles north of the Harnor and no one has ever explored
them and returned to tell the tale. It is rumoured that here and there,
fragments of the Old Kingdom still exist in defiance of the Destroyer, but I
think it unlikely. At least our path to the bay of Skerris-morl will not take
us very deep into these lands. Our main problem will be to avoid the Turog. I
suspect that the ones we encountered last night were on their way to join the
army facing your Prince. Eskendria has never encountered such a threat. Not
since the fall of the Old Kingdom has such a horde been gathered. I would guess
that your Prince is on his way to Serendar to try to re-forge the old alliance
of the Three Kingdoms. Eskendria cannot stand alone - not this time.”

 “Yet you do nothing to
help.”

 He looked at her
coldly. “I kill any Turog within my reach. That is enough. I would not lift a
finger to help the King of Eskendria though he pleaded with me on his knees.”

 She looked at him
curiously, sensing that there was more behind that remark than there appeared
to be, but she dared not question him, for he had retreated from her into some
cold, bitter place where she was not permitted to follow.

 She turned her face up
to the sky. “Look, it’s started to rain. I’m going down to the river to wash my
hands before the rain becomes heavy. I’ll be back in a moment.”

 She left him sitting,
dark and brooding, under the overhang and climbed down the steep bank to the
river. When she returned he was asleep, stretched on his side with his head
pillowed on his arm, his left hand resting lightly on his sword hilt. The grey
eyes were closed and she realised for the first time, that under the ragged,
black beard and fierce scars, he looked tired. She sat down beside him and
watched as the raindrops falling beyond the cave thickened to a steady silver
curtain, hissing down, washing soil and leaves down the slope to the stream.
Still he slept, his breathing deep and even. After a while the hypnotic effect
of the rain and the lack of sleep of the night before, took their toll and her
eyelids began to droop. She curled up beside him, reassured by the safety of
his presence and gave in to slumber.

 When she awoke the rain
had stopped. It was utterly dark and cold and somehow she sensed that she was
alone. In panic she reached out her hand but it encountered nothing but the
basket. The thought flashed through her mind that he had abandoned her. A gust
of cold, damp air blew into the shelter, bringing with it the musty smell of
moist earth and leaves. A black shadow suddenly appeared at the entrance to the
cave. She gasped with fright but Celedorn’s voice greeted her out of the
darkness.

 “Don’t panic. It’s only
me.”

 “Where did you go?”

 “Up into the forest
above to see if there was any sign of Turog watch fires. So far we are in luck.
The cloud-cover is dense tonight, so the moon is hidden and there is no
possibility of travelling in the darkness. It’s as black as pitch out there. I
nearly missed the cave on the way back.”

 He sat down beside her.

 “I wish you wouldn’t
disappear off like that,” she complained.

 She saw a flash of
white teeth in the darkness. “I’m flattered that you missed me.” On receiving
only a discouraging silence in response to that sally, he added: “I thought I’d
be back before you awoke.”

 She hugged her knees,
trying not to shiver. “I’d give anything to be warm again.”

 “Come here,” he
commanded and she sensed him hold out his arm in the darkness. She peered at
him suspiciously. Interpreting her reaction despite the darkness, he snapped:
“I realise that the idea of coming within a yard of me fills you with
repugnance but it will at least give you some warmth. Besides, I don’t actually
bite.”