The Knight: A Tale from the High Kingdom (20 page)

7

They arrived at the spot where the fighting had taken place after nightfall.

There were no more than a handful left with Teogen of Argor.

They were dirty, exhausted, demoralised, some wounded, and riding horses which were spent from fatigue. And still they considered themselves lucky not to have been attacked following the landslide. None would have survived, but that was not part of the Ghelts’ plan. Contrary to what their tracks indicated, contrary to what Orwain and the scouts had believed, they hadn’t divided into two equal groups. After reaching the Fork, only ten of them had gone east to prepare the landslide, while all the others had gone to set up the ambush.

Carefully organised, Ortand and his men had no chance against this ambush. The baron had fallen beneath the first volley of arrows, his throat pierced. After that, some thirty warriors had charged the disorganised horsemen struggling to steady their panicked mounts.

Lorn knew what an ambush was like.

He knew what it was like to set one and what it was like to fall victim to one. He had even experienced, a few years earlier, a Gheltish ambush. The Ghelts he was fighting back then had been threatening the borders of Valmir, three thousand leagues from the Argor Mountains. But it was the same group of nomad tribes. Arriving at the site of the massacre, among the scattered fires, the aligned corpses and the distraught wounded, Lorn recalled the showers of barbed arrows, the battle cries, the warriors who appeared out of nowhere like screaming spectres and, after furious combat, promptly vanished again.

Despite his wounds, Garalt was one of the few still standing. A sentry having spotted them, he advanced towards Teogen and the others, dismayed to see there were only seven of them, including one injured man.

They dismounted in silence.

Lorn and Orwain helped the rider whose ankle had been broken by a boulder to slide down from his saddle. And as the Count of Argor remained silent, taking in the sad spectacle before him, Leister said:

‘The Ghelts were waiting for us. They started a landslide as we were climbing towards the pass.’

Garalt nodded.

He did not have much need to explain the ambush.

‘How many survivors?’ Teogen asked.

‘Seven with me. All wounded.’

‘Ortand?’

‘Dead.’

The count greeted this news with a clenched jaw. Ortand had been his friend and a worthy man.

A soldier with his arm in a sling and a bandaged shoulder came over and murmured a word in Garalt’s ear.

‘It’s Guilhem,’ the Skandish warrior said gravely. ‘He doesn’t have long to live.’

The young knight was stretched out beneath a dead tree, his head resting upon a saddle bag. Livid with pain, he was grimacing and pressing both hands against the improvised bandage that was holding in his entrails. He was shivering next to a fire. Someone had just added wood, but it did no good.

Upon seeing Teogen, Guilhem wanted to sit up.

‘Lie still, son. Lie still.’

The count unhooked his fighting mace from his belt, handed it to Leister, and crouched by the dying man. Lorn remained a few steps back. All that could be seen of his face beneath his hood were the flames reflecting off his dark spectacles.

Teogen took one of the young man’s bloodied hands in his own, huge and filthy.

‘Be brave, son.’

Guilhem nodded painfully.

‘It … It was my first … battle …’

‘Garalt says you were valiant. I’m proud of you. As your father would have been.’

‘You … You think so?’

The count smiled, moved. Tears sprang to his eyes.

‘I’m quite sure of it!’ he exclaimed, exaggerating to conceal his distress.

A faint smile appeared on Guilhem’s lips. He struggled not to close his eyelids. His respiration weakened.

‘You’ll … avenge me, won’t you? Me, and … all the others?’

‘I give you my oath.’

Leister turned round to give Lorn a look of surprise and worry.

‘And I would like … also … for …’

‘What is it?’ asked Teogen. ‘Tell me.’

But Guilhem’s head had already fallen to one side.

He had just exhaled his last breath.

Garalt had established the camp in a spot sheltered from the wind, not far from the site of the ambush, at the foot of a big pile of rocks from where a single man could easily keep a lookout all around. He considered it unlikely that the Ghelts would return, for if they had wanted to eliminate any survivors, they would have done so. But caution was required as the Argor Mountains presented other dangers: from various points in the distance, a wild beast or a solitary wyvern screamed in the night. The wounded who could not stand were laid out as comfortably as possible, close to the fires. The others rested, drowsing a little, but most of them unable to sleep. Off to one side, Teogen, Garalt and Leister were conferring in low voices.

Orwain had volunteered to stand watch.

When his turn came, at midnight, Lorn went to relieve the old knight and found him sitting perfectly still, his wrists resting upon his knees and his gaze lost in the distance. A small stone rolled beneath Lorn’s boot, startling Orwain who spun round, hand upon his sword.

‘It’s me,’ said Lorn.

His face growing expressionless, Orwain resumed his previous position, eyes fixed on the line of black ridges beneath the milky constellations of the Great Nebula. But did he actually see them?

‘I’ll take your turn on watch,’ he said. ‘And the others after that, until dawn.’

Lorn hesitated, then sat down next to the old man. He removed his hood and, with his glasses pushed up onto his brow, looked off in the same direction as the veteran, keeping silent, his mismatched eyes barely blinking.

A moment went by.

Then Orwain said:

‘It was my fault all these men died. Ortand, Guilhem, all of them. I failed. I thought I was cleverer than the Ghelts and I led us straight into the trap they laid for us. I’ll never forgive myself.’

He shook his head disconsolately and repeated:

‘Never.’

He fell silent.

‘How did they know the region so well?’ asked Lorn.

‘What’s that?’

‘The Ghelts. These aren’t their mountains, are they? They’re in enemy territory. So how is it they know them so well?’

Orwain frowned.

‘I … I don’t know,’ he admitted.

‘The trap they laid for us was an elaborate one. They knew you would guess they were heading for the Fork. They foresaw we would take that little-known pass to gain half a day and grow overconfident, believing we had the jump on them. It was very well thought out. But it also proves they knew …’

‘… the pass existed,’ Orwain concluded.

‘Exactly. But how? Do they have maps?’

‘Of this region? I doubt another exists, besides the one Teogen possesses.’

‘Then they had a guide. An Argorian guide.’

‘A renegade,’ spat Orwain, his eyes sparkling with hatred.

Lorn stood.

He walked away without turning round and rejoined Teogen who still conversing with Leister and Garalt. He sat on his blanket, at a slight remove, and listened.

‘Count, it’s madness,’ the Skand was saying, trying not to speak too loudly.

‘We can’t abandon these women to their fate.’

‘We only have eight riders now,’ said Leister. ‘All of them wounded, three seriously. The other five will be hard-pressed just to bring them home.’

‘Meaning,’ added Garalt, ‘It’s just you, me, Leister, Orwain and … Lorn?’

He turned towards Lorn to verify that. The latter nodded.

‘Five men,’ resumed Leister. ‘Against thirty, at least.’

‘Thirty who won’t expect us,’ stressed Teogen. ‘Thirty who believe they’re safe and sound … Besides, I’m not talking about taking them all on. But setting free their prisoners and escaping with them.’

The Skand did not know what else to say.

Leister sighed and tried to make Teogen listen to reason one last time.

‘Count, you know that Garalt and I will follow you and obey you whatever happens. And I know the promise you made to Guilhem … But the Ghelts now have a full day’s lead on us. And we’re all at the end of our strength. We’ll never catch up with them.’

The argument hit home.

Teogen was no imbecile. He knew that Leister was right. Setting off in pursuit of thirty Gheltish warriors did not frighten him. But he was pragmatic, a realist. What good would it do, if they had no chance of catching up with the Ghelts?

It was at this point when Orwain chose to advance into the light.

He had heard everything and said:

‘If you still have any faith in me, I think I have the solution.’

8

‘There were no better wyverners than the Argorians and no better wyverns than the ones they rode. They were born in the most remote mountains. Black-scaled, they could not be tamed by any save the sons of Argor. And not only could the Argorians alone train them, but only Argorian wyverns could be used in war, unfrightened by fire, by steel, or by the noise of exploding powder. Once bridled and harnessed, the great black wyverns were proud and formidable mounts. In the wild, they were the most ferocious and relentless beasts imaginable.’

Chronicles (The Book of the Glories and Defeats of Argor)

They left before dawn and rode for a full day, almost without a halt.

They were now only five.

Five men who – out of honour, courage, duty, folly, or loyalty – had not wanted to give up. Their chances of success were meagre. They were exhausted and would have to fight at odds of six or seven to one.

Laes’s Fault was a deep, jagged wound which split a broad plateau surrounded by high ridges. Travelling through it from one end to another entailed a walk of two to three hours between bare, abrupt cliffs, from which entire sheets of the rock face were flaking off. But these rock falls were not what made crossing the Fault in this season utter madness. It was the wyverns who nested in the cracks of the walls and would attack on sight in order to protect their young.

‘By way of Laes’s Fault,’ Orwain had said, ‘we can reach the Gorlas valley in two days. Perhaps even arrive there before the Ghelts themselves.’

‘But why wouldn’t the Ghelts take this route, too?’ Lorn had asked.

The terse reply came from Leister:

‘Because it’s suicide.’

‘The wyverns make their nests in the Fault,’ Garalt had explained. ‘And it’s the season of First Flight, so the females are more aggressive and more dangerous than cornered lionesses. In the daytime, they may drowse but still remain particularly vigilant. The slightest sound, the smallest movement alarms them and they pounce upon the intruder … A big troop would have no chance of passing without waking them and being torn to pieces.’

‘But a handful of men might, is that it?’ Lorn had asked.

Teogen had turned towards Orwain, who’d simply nodded.

‘Laes’s Fault,’ said Teogen. ‘It’s been a long time since I last saw it.’

They had halted at an overlook point as they were descending from a pass. They sat in their saddles, observing the plateau that Laes’s Fault cut in two and the steep ridges surrounding it, punctuated by elevated peaks and needles. Wyverns were gliding above, coming and going with slow beats of their wings, disappearing within the rift. From time to time, one of them would scream. Its cry, both hoarse and high-pitched, ripped through the silence and prompted a response from one or more other creatures, their echoes mixing and being carried off into the distance, like warnings.

‘We’ll be there tomorrow at noon.’

‘Perfect,’ said Leister glumly.

As evening was approaching, they decided to camp there. They did not build a fire, drank from the same flask and shared some small game that Garalt had killed a short while before, eating it raw. The night was cold, the wind blowing from the north.

They arrived at the entrance to the Fault the following day, shortly after noon. It made a breach in the rocky wall and opened up into a gigantic crack with vertical walls.

Roars and complaints could be heard within, echoing in a sinister and menacing fashion.

Teogen did not insult his knights by asking them whether they were still ready to follow him. He did, however, give Lorn a questioning glance.

The latter nodded.

They tore up their blankets to make rags which they wrapped around the hooves of their mounts and tightened every strap, checked every loop of their kit. They removed their breastplates, spaulders and tassets that risked clanking against one another and only kept on mail or leather. It was no sacrifice on their part. Inside the Fault, the heat would be sweltering.

Teogen entered first.

Followed by Orwain, Lorn, Leister, and Garalt, who closed the march. The crevice was almost always wide enough for them to advance two or three abreast, but they decided to proceed in single file, separated from one another by a few lengths. They feared rock falls and did not want one of their horses annoying or spooking another. All it took was one whinny – or even a loud snort – to alert the wyverns.

They advanced at a walk, in a silence disturbed only by the sinister cries of the wyverns and small falls of stones and dust that ran down the walls in brief, thin cataracts. They did not speak. They were anxious. They pricked up their ears and kept an eye on the heights, watching for the slightest movement. But they soon had difficulty seeing, dazzled by the sunlight and with sweat stinging their eyes. For Lorn, the ordeal was terrible. He squinted behind his dark spectacles and was obliged to put his hood up, beneath which it was stifling. The sun, which had barely begun to descend from its zenith, pounded the rift with its light and heat, turning it into a blinding furnace, a static burning hell in which the air cooked.

It was not by chance, however, that they had decided to cross the Fault at this hour of the day. They inflicted this torment upon themselves for a simple reason: the heat numbed, almost stunned, the wyverns who drowsed at the top of the cliffs. Their vigilance was reduced and they were slow to react. They might not check the origin of a noise if it did not repeat itself. As punishing as this heat was for the men and their mounts, it was their ally. It protected them.

Or at least they hoped so.

His bald head shining with perspiration, Teogen halted after an hour and waited for the others to join him. The rift here was narrow and falling sections of the cliff had obstructed it. They would have to climb their way through the jumbled blocks.

The riders dismounted.

‘I’ll go first,’ Orwain said in a low voice.

The Count of Argor nodded.

Leading his mount by the bridle, Orwain ventured among the sometimes precariously balanced rocks. He did so in careful fashion, taking the time to see where he placed his feet. He succeeded in passing and showed the way for the rest of the party.

The others followed him, one after another.

First Teogen.

Then Leister.

Lorn.

And finally Garalt.

Each of them held their breath, fearful of slipping, of falling, of feeling a rock tip beneath their feet or that of their horse. Those who waited their turn were no less nervous. They raised worried gazes towards the glaring sky each time a stone rolled or a block scraped. The walls looming over them seemed particularly fragile. Entire blocks, from which rivulets of dust spilled each time the wind blew a little harder, seemed to be on the point of giving way at any moment.

None of that happened and all of them felt a great relief when Garalt crossed the rubble pile. His mount only needed to step down from a flat rock. Which it did quite easily …

But in doing so it dislodged a stone, from beneath which a serpent darted forth to bite it in the hock.

The horse reared, whinnying in fear as much as pain. Garalt almost let go of the reins. He had to leap to catch hold of the bridle and somehow managed to calm the beast.

Too late?

The others had frozen, listening for a sound, for a movement, almost afraid to look up. Time was suspended and for a few prolonged seconds they heard only the wind.

After which, a winged form launched itself into space at the top of the cliff.

‘
THERE!
’ exclaimed Lorn.

Then a second, and a third.

‘
INTO YOUR SADDLES
!’ ordered Teogen. ‘
FLEE!
’

All five straddled their mounts and took off at a gallop. The Fault was waking, emerging from its torpor. It filled with strident cries and beating wings. Added to the hooves that beat a furious charge over the dusty ground, the noise was deafening. The horsemen rode flat out, jumping obstacles without slowing down or turning to look back. Their only safety lay in flight. Their worst fear had just come to pass and there was nothing they could do but run. Escape. Exit the Fault before they were caught inside.

And pray that the wyverns, having driven the intruders from their territory, would not pursue them further …

But Lorn was not praying.

Concentrating, he pushed his mount to the limit of its strength. At that instant, it mattered little to him whether it died after it carried him out of this screaming hell, just so long as did. There would be time for regrets, second thoughts and other considerations later. Right now, Lorn was focused on living.

On surviving.

Teogen and Orwain were up ahead. Garalt was level with him. He did not see Leister: so he must be following. Or else he had fallen. It was impossible to distinguish the sound of one gallop from another in the midst of this chaos. But above all, Lorn could hear only too well the piercing screams and the beating of leathery wings approaching. Memories came back to him. Memories of nightmares in a universe of torments and spectres that haunted him night after night, without respite. The commotion of the pursuit became that of an eternal storm whose peals of thunder shook a cursed citadel.

He was afraid.

He felt a pain in his belly.

A cold sweat drenched his back.

The sky filled with winged silhouettes. More and more wyverns emerged from their sleep and took flight, the first ones alarming the neighbours, who in turn woke others and with their cries provoked a contagious hysteria. Instinctively, most of them rose above the Fault: they sought the source of the danger that threatened their colony, failed to find it and – furious, frustrated, worried – challenged one another, quarrelled and sometimes fought. Only a few of them spotted the horsemen at the bottom of the gorge and dived towards them. There were about a dozen chasing them, including one old female whose wingspan was so great that the tips seemed to touch the walls of the crevice when it started to narrow.

Lorn saw Garalt pass him. He spurred his mount mercilessly but it was no use: the horse was slowing, exhausted. Luckily, the end of the rift was in sight. It presented itself, up ahead, at the very extremity of the walls speeding past him, as a breach of dazzling light that led to safety.

Lorn still had a chance.

Despite his faltering horse, despite the wyverns who were gaining ground, he knew he could hope to escape. It would be tight. Very tight, even. But if his mount and his luck both held …

He risked a backward glance.

Leister was still in his saddle but trailed by a few lengths. Behind him, the wyverns skimmed the ground and the cliffs with great, powerful beats of their wings, their maws open and fangs exposed, eyes ablaze.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over Lorn.

He ducked just in time: a wyvern had swept down at him from the heights. It straightened its flight at the last moment and its talons closed on empty space. It screamed in frustration and flew off, wings deployed, carried away by its momentum.

Teogen and Orwain left Laes’s Fault.

Garalt emerged next.

Followed shortly by Lorn.

Then Leister.

They did not halt. They galloped on without slowing down or turning back, only too happy to have escaped from the furnace heat, the screeching noise, the deadly trap of the rift. Most of the wyverns gave up the chase as they rode away from the Fault and the nests, eggs and fledglings it sheltered. They had succeeded, or at least they were starting to believe they had, when the great female wyvern, the last one still pursuing them, struck Leister and pushed him off his mount. Lorn heard his yell and saw him rolling in the dust as the others continued to ride straight ahead.

Lorn made his decision in a fraction of a second.

He called out and, pulling on his reins, forced his horse to rear and pivot on its hind hooves in order to go back in the direction they had come from.

Towards Leister who was drawing his sword and staggering like a drunk.

And towards the old female wyvern who was already coming back.

It made a second pass. Still dazed, Leister saw it at the last instant and could not protect himself. It knocked him over before banking into a tight turn. Leister picked himself up as best as he could. He bravely faced his adversary despite his blurred vision. The world seemed to reel around him. The mountains wavered and he was just barely able to make out the silhouette of the creature as it dived towards him with a scream.

This third pass would be the last.

Leister would not rise again and he knew it. He decided to put all his remaining strength into the only blow he could hope to land against the old female. He could not kill it, but at least he would leave it with a very bad memory of their encounter …

He adopted a defensive stance.

Lorn appeared just as the wyvern was swooping upon Leister, talons first. His horse launched itself into a prodigious leap and passed beneath the reptile’s outstretched neck. Reins held between his teeth, Lorn was brandishing his sword with both hands. He struck. The Skandish steel sparkled and cut deeply. The wyvern screamed. The horse whinnied as it stumbled. Blood gushed forth and Lorn was thrown from his saddle.

The great wyvern brushed Leister and crashed into the earth behind him. Its head bounced to the ground a little further away.

And rolled …

Until it came to a standstill against a rock.

Lorn struggled to his feet, sword in his fist.

Dazed, dusty, bearing a cut on his brow, he gathered his spectacles from the ground and waited for his eyes to adjust.

Leister seemed to be in one piece.

Then Lorn became concerned for his mount. He looked around and saw it: the horse also seemed to be all right. He walked towards it, scrutinising the heights to set his mind at rest.

But the sky was empty.

Alerted by Lorn’s call, Teogen, Orwain and Garalt had taken longer to turn round. They soon arrived. Orwain and the Skand remained next to Leister, while Teogen urged his horse towards Lorn.