The Crystal Chalice (Book 1) (34 page)

 “Let it go, Celedorn,”
Relisar called after him, but he paid no heed.

 The top of the slope
where the others were standing, gave them a spectacular view of the chase along
the valley. The Turog, being of the smaller variety, was quick on its feet, and
terror lending it wings, it fairly flew along the valley floor. Celedorn
increased his pace, and to those watching, it seemed that the tree-trunks
flashed past him. He shot between them, slowing his pace for no obstacle. He
crashed through undergrowth and leaped over fallen logs, his long stride
gradually overhauling his quarry. Finally he came within sword’s length of it.
The Turog in the act of casting a terrified glance over its shoulder, tripped
on one of the tree roots and fell headlong. In a flash Celedorn was upon it.
Driving the heel of his boot hard into the leaf-mould to check his speed, he
swung round and drove his sword mercilessly into its chest impaling it to the
ground.

 When he came back up
the slope, still out of breath, he was met by an outraged Relisar.

 “Why did you kill it?”
he demanded. “It was no threat. It was clearly terrified and had even thrown
down it weapons. Why did you not let it go? That was an act of sheer cruelty.”

 Celedorn directed a
long, dark look at him but surprisingly said nothing. Turning silently away, he
began to clean the blood off his sword.

 It was left to Andarion
to reply. “What Celedorn did was necessary. We cannot let even one of those
creatures return to report our presence to its masters. It is only secrecy that
protects us, and once our presence is known, the Turog will be sent in their
hundreds to hunt us down. We cannot fight them all, Relisar, not even with a
swordsman of Celedorn’s calibre in our company.” He turned to Celedorn, his
expression very serious. “It was as well for me that the Turog appeared when
they did, for I was in severe difficulties. I apologise for those things I
said. I was being stupidly provocative. I also admit to being out-classed when
it comes to mastery of the sword.” After a moment’s hesitation, he held out his
hand. “I think that we should put our differences aside - at least until we
reach Eskendria.”

 Celedorn stared at the
hand, clearly astonished. Everyone waited, breath held tensely.

 “If you wish to finish
what we started, I will accommodate you,” said the Prince, his hand still held
out.

 Celedorn’s face was
rigidly uncompromising for a moment, then suddenly something seemed to relax in
him and he reached forward and gripped the proffered hand.

 A collective breath was
released. The Prince grinned. “In future, if we are in a fight, I want you on
my
side.”

 Celedorn gave a twisted
smile in response. “I noticed you were not doing so badly yourself.”

 “That’s praise of no
mean order,” explained Elorin, but her intervention focused Celedorn’s
attention upon her.

 “As for you,” he said
acidly. “If you insist on getting involved in fights you would be better
staying out of, I suppose I’ll have to teach you how to defend yourself.”

 “
Will you
?” she
exclaimed with such childlike enthusiasm that everyone laughed.

 “Now to business,”
Andarion said decisively. “We must hide these bodies. The longer they go
undiscovered, the more distance we can put between this place and ourselves.
Celedorn, I think you should go and dispose of the Turog you killed in the
valley? We will deal with the ones up here - and,”  he added with a glance at
Triana, “that means everyone.”

 However, Elorin ignored
instructions and went down the valley with Celedorn. He was a little subdued,
saying nothing to her. When they reached the body, Elorin remarked: “He did not
apologise to you because he is afraid of you. You know that, don’t you?”

 He did not immediately
reply but pushed the body with his foot and watched it roll down to the foot of
the slope.

 “Yes, I know. Your
Prince has courage, he is also magnanimous. Perhaps Eskendria will finally get
a king worthy of her when he ascends the throne. I was a fool not to see that
he is as unlike his father as night from day.”

 Unable to resist,
Elorin ventured: “You
know
the King?”

 “Oh, I know him,”
replied Celedorn at his driest. “But I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell
Andarion that.”

 He descended the slope
and began to kick leaves over the body. Elorin followed him consumed by
curiosity.

 “Why?”

 He looked up from his
task. “Some things are better left unsaid. I have knowledge of the King that
the Prince lacks, and it would only do him harm to hear it. Besides, it all
happened a long time ago.”

 “Clearly you have not
forgotten it.”

 He directed his gaze
down the valley, his eyes distant, as if he looked much further than the wooded
glen. “No,” he replied quietly. “I have not forgotten.”

 When they returned, the
others had hidden the remaining Turog bodies. Triana was standing to one side,
looking pale and nauseous after such close contact with the gory remains, but
she said nothing, aware that a complaint would bring down Celedorn’s biting
sarcasm upon her.

 Although it was
beginning to get dark, it was decided that they must continue travelling.

 As they left, Triana
came up to Elorin and handed her back her arrows.

 “Relisar took them from
the bodies but I cleaned them for you.”

 “Thank you.”

 “When you picked up
that sword and fought the Turog, I......well....I nearly died from fright.”

 “I nearly did the same
myself, because I was completely out of my depth.”

 “You are very brave,”
commented Triana wistfully.

 Elorin laughed.
“Celedorn would have another word for it.”

 “You are not even
afraid of him! The Prince told me about how you had been held hostage by him.
How can you not fear him?”

 “Well, I did at first,
but I’ve got to know him now.”

 “He terrifies me,”
Triana confessed. “The way he looks at one with those cold eyes and the way he
can cut one into ribbons with sarcasm, and yet I have seen you answer him back
and you get away with it. I wouldn’t have the nerve.”

 “You should try to.
Celedorn, for all his faults, is not a bully. He respects courage. That’s why
he took the Prince’s hand after the fight, because he knows that even though
the Prince was losing the fight, he was not afraid and would not have given
in.”

 Their journey that
night was slow and difficult in the intense darkness beneath the trees. They
tried to travel as silently as possible, in case there were more Turog patrols
in the vicinity. Celedorn brought up the rear, making sure they left no
evidence of their passing, because as soon as the bodies were found, it was
inevitable that the Turog would set out to follow their trail. Relisar tried
his patience to the limits by blundering along, snapping branches and crowning
his ineptness by tripping over one of the many twisting roots and bringing
Triana down in his fall. Triana, the breath knocked out of her, came off with
something unladylike which raised Celedorn’s opinion of her immensely.

 By dawn, the Prince led
them down into a narrow ravine which cut through the trees like a tunnel. A
brackish stream slid over exposed dark rocks, slippery with moss and scaly
lichens. Hart’s tongue fern sprouted from crevices, thriving, despite the dim
light created by the dense canopy up above.

 On Celedorn’s
insistence, they waded upstream for about half a mile to throw any possible
pursuers off the scent.

 After resting for an
hour on the damp, uncomfortable rocks, they continued their journey upstream
until the ravine began to broaden and the trees thinned to allow dappled
sunshine to penetrate the green gloom. Soon the trees had thinned to the extent
that sunny glades began to appear and larger open spaces resembling meadows
occurred. Here, waist-high buttercups grew in such abundance amongst the lush
grasses, that crossing them was like wading through a lake of gold. The
afternoon grew warm and sultry, filled with the hypnotic hum of bees busy in
the flowers. The breeze whispered softly across the treetops without descending
to disturb the warm, still clearings. The stream was now broad and flat,
rippling over shallow pebble beds, darting sparkles into the air and casting
nets of shimmering, golden cobwebs onto the trunks of overhanging trees.

 Elorin caught up with
the Prince. “Relisar and Triana are tired after getting no sleep last night.
Could we make camp here for the evening?”

 Andarion, a little
weary himself, readily agreed. They then made the amusing discovery that when
each member of the company sat down amongst the buttercups they completely
disappeared from view in a private, golden-walled chamber. It was Elorin’s
misfortune to be on guard and to stop herself falling asleep, she stood up,
arising above the sea of buttercups. Although the rest of the company was close
by, the only one who was visible was Celedorn, asleep at her feet. He was
basking in the sun, as warm and comfortable as a cat, but as always, he slept
with his hand resting lightly on his sword-hilt and she knew that the tiniest
sound out of the ordinary would have him instantly awake.

 She left her companions
asleep in their flowery bowers and crossed to the stream. There she seated
herself beneath a tree on a rising part of the bank that gave her a good view
across the buttercup meadow to the denser forest beyond. The golden cobwebs
flickered over her face, birds chirped sleepily in the branches of the tree and
butterflies danced their foolish dances over the surface of the flowers. A
great and ancient peace descended on her. Never had she dreamed the Forsaken
Lands could be so beautiful or tranquil, and vaguely she began to suspect that
the spirit of the Old Kingdom had not entirely died. It still lingered subtly
in the fields and woods.

 She watched as the sun
sank in the sky, leaving the stream within the cool shadows of its banks and
lighting the tall grasses on the far bank from behind, with shades of dusky
cinnamon and honey. A slight movement from the meadow attracted her attention.
She stiffened but it was only Andarion arisen from sleep and approaching her,
wending his way between the buttercups. He sat down beside her with a contented
sigh. The peace that lay on the world around them, also lay on the souls of the
two companions and they sat in silence watching the sun, reluctant to disturb
the stillness with words.

 At last when the sun
had almost gone and the midges began to dance like feathery motes of light,
twirling back and forth, around and around, the Prince finally broke the
silence.

 “This is not my image of
the Forsaken Lands,” he said softly. “One feels that danger is a million miles
away. The events of yesterday seem only like a bad dream.”

 “It would not seem so
if you had not defeated the Turog.”

 “The victory was not
mine, it was Celedorn’s. I have never seen his equal with the sword. Having
seen him fight the Turog, I now know that he could have killed me at any time -
and yet I am not accounted without skill with the sword. If he had not been
with us, we would all have ended up lying on the cold earth with our throats
cut.”

 “Does this mean you
have changed your opinion of him?”

 “To some extent. He is
still a brigand who has preyed on my country and that I cannot forgive. He is
arrogant, provocative and difficult to understand but he is no coward and.......well,
strangely, I feel that if he is on one’s side he can be trusted. He has his own
strange, erratic code that means that if he gives a commitment he will not
break it.”

 Elorin agreed. “You are
right. He would not abandon me at a moment when we could both have died, even
though I begged him to do so.” She smiled whimsically. “Or perhaps the
explanation is that he is just stubborn.”

 “Perhaps.” The Prince
sighed. “But he and I both know that this truce between us lasts only as far as
the Harnor.”

 The object of their
conversation had awoken and was standing up to stretch, when he noticed the two
figures by the river sitting close together in the mellow light. He stood
watching them for a long time, his expression inscrutable, but made no move to join
them.

 When the Prince left
Elorin and returned to the camp, he walked past Celedorn who said nothing but
directed a long, hard stare at him. The Prince did not betray the fact that he
had noticed the look, but crossed to Relisar and sat down beside him. The old
Sage was sitting cross-legged with his nose stuck in a book and did not
immediately acknowledge the Prince’s presence.

 “What’s the matter with
our friend?” Andarion asked softly, nodding discreetly towards Celedorn.

 Relisar looked up and
stared across the camp to where Celedorn was unpacking things from one of the
bags. “You must make allowances for him,” he replied quietly.

 “Why?”

 The old man hesitated,
then said reluctantly: “He is in love and is finding the emotion difficult to
deal with.”

 “
In love
!”
repeated the Prince incredulously. “With whom?”