Worms' Ending: Book Eight (The Longsword Chronicles 8) (35 page)

“They’re on the east side of the river,” Allazar pointed
out.

“Yes. And we’re on the other side. I’ve no intention of
plunging through that icy flow like they did. At some point, they’ll have to
cross it again, or keep going south until it disappears into the ground or into
a lake. They have no friends here in Mornland, nor in Arrun. That river is, for
now at least, our ally; they have to turn west and cross it again sooner or
later, and we’ll be waiting when they do.”

oOo

36. Pursuit

“Is it possible the Ahk-Viell is using some mystic means of
keeping them moving so well?” Gawain grimaced, the question born of
frustration, and the frustration born of two days spent riding a parallel
course with their quarry and keeping them in sight, the river always meandering
between them.

Allazar shrugged. “There are chants for aiding natural
healing, you have seen me perform them yourself. But I know of nothing which
the Ahk-Viell might use to keep horses fit and moving.”

“Vakin Dwarfspit, I’m tired of following their progress
through the fluttering of disturbed birds and their putrid specks moving across
these easy lands of lower Mornland. Soon we’ll be in the higher reaches of
upper Arrun and still they haven’t turned west.”

“They know we are here, and they don’t wish to be caught in
the river should they try to cross it.”

“And we know they’re not travelling by night, Ven’s Sight
would have alerted us to that.”

“At least they too have avoided habitations, though not many
of those have we seen.”

“True. It’s the twelfth today, isn’t it?”

“Of December. Yes, Longsword. And before you ask, the moon is
next full on the seventeenth.”

Gawain glanced up to the southwest, the moon hanging well
above the horizon more than three quarters full and shining brightly. A clear
night, and bitterly cold northerlies making a misery of it.

“You’ve felt nothing through the stick?”

“Nothing,” the wizard confirmed.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Gawain protested quietly, pacing
back and forth, frost on the grass crunching under his boots. “Tomorrow’s the
thirteenth then. Which means we’re what, three or four days from the
Hallencloister line, or thereabouts?”

“Thereabouts,” Allazar agreed, “Our route has been a winding
one, but swifter these last few days. If we were closer to the Jurian border
than we are here on Mornland’s centre line, it might be easier to judge. The
landscape around the Hallencloister is quite familiar to me.”

“Then we’re perhaps only a day or two from the border with
Arrun, which, according to Captain Byrne, the Toorseneth is anxious for us not
to cross with the sceptre in our possession. And we’re not.”

“We’re not what, Longsword?”

“We’re not on the centre line of Mornland, and haven’t been
for days. Our path has taken us further and further west of it for some time
now.”

“Ah.”

“How did you make that map of Ramoth towers? Your navigation
is appalling.”

“The map of the lands was made from memory of lessons in the
Hallencloister, and the towers marked thereon during my travels and from
discussions with fellow travellers and traders of the various guilds. It wasn’t
intended to show every hill, dale and waterway.”

“Pity. If it’d had this river on it, we might have a better
idea where we are in relation to Arrun’s border and the Hallencloister.”

“We may well have a better idea tomorrow. The rise we saw on
the horizon is probably the last great rise before the descent into Arrun
begins.”

“Aye, true. The midland hills and woodlands are long gone
now. Gorse and hawthorn abound here, heralds of Arrun’s plains approaching. To
think Elayeen made this journey, and might have camped near here, alone with
Meeya and Valin.”

“Arr,” Ognorm sighed from his blankets. “What a lady she be!
If’n you don’t mind me sayin’ so, melord. Sorry.”

“No, Oggy, I don’t mind at all. She is. Still,” Gawain
finally sat on his saddle on the freezing ground and ceased his fidgeting,
“Whether it’s the last rise of Mornland we ascend tomorrow or not, we know one
thing for certain sure.”

“What’s that, melord?”

“Water doesn’t flow uphill. Tomorrow, those two bastards we
pursue run out of river, or must cross its freezing flow if they mean to
continue their journey. And that, my friends, is a comforting thought before
sleep.”

What wasn’t comforting the next morning was driving sleet
which made their onward progress a miserable trudge blown by vicious gusts from
behind, Venderrian assuring them all that their quarry was still within range
of his Sight and still moving steadily south. And what was even more
discomfiting was the discovery that the river which had separated hunter from
prey swung not to the east across the Ahk-Viell’s path, but to the west across
theirs, the flow broadening, branching, following for a mile or more the foot
of the rise before them until it sank from sight in a quagmire and disappeared
below ground.

Gawain wasn’t prepared to risk horse or rider crossing the
freezing, boggy ground, and so in haste and in great discomfort, they rode wide
around the bitter obstacle and lost three hours of their pursuit before they
were able to attain the slope of the rise. It was a stomach-wrenching frustration
of a setback, and given their poor mood and the foul weather, it seemed to them
that nature was conspiring against them in favour of the Toorseneth.

On the summit of the rise, Venderrian announced that he
could glimpse dim lights south of their position, though he had to squint
against the sleet numbing his face and making his Sighted eyes water. The enemy
had taken advantage of their delay and favourable geography and begun to swing
west, the one direction Gawain did not wish them to take.

When the hunt had begun, Ognorm had asked why their goal had
changed from getting the sceptre to Elayeen at all costs, to hunting down an
elfwizard and his escort. Gawain had explained that destroying the so-called
Retribution sent against them by Insinnian before word could be sent west would
spare reinforcements pursuing them all the way back to Last Ridings, and sow
doubt and fear in the hearts of the despised creed sufficient perhaps to quash
any plans the enemy might have had for a direct assault on Last Ridings.

And that was why Gawain drove them on through the sleet and
down the slope on the southern side of the ridge. In spite of the poor
visibility inflicted by the weather, he knew that stretching before them now
were gently undulating plains which marked the blurred region between lower
Mornland and upper Arrun. The border between the two lands was nearby, and
when, an hour later, Venderrian shouted over the wind that the dim lights were
a little brighter and were now further to the west of them, a burst of optimism
had Gawain altering their course sharply west too.

It was possible, he imagined as they pressed on with the
hunt, that the Ahk-Viell had misjudged the distance between them, and perhaps
overestimated the delay imposed by the westward flow of the river. Perhaps, he
thought, the elfwizard had assumed the river to run due west along the foot of
Mornland’s last rise broad and deep as ever, and that no-one in their right
mind would attempt to cross the freezing flow in this weather. Turning west as
the enemy had was shortening the distance between them and their pursuers.

But not by much. Enough for renewed optimism to add strength
to the grim determination which kept them moving, weaving this way and that
around great blisters of gorse and hawthorn which proliferated around them, and
enough for Gawain to trust his own instincts when darkness began to fall and he
dismounted, leading them all on foot in single file, his own boots testing the
ground before hooves safely followed the path he found.

They were still a week from the winter solstice, the sun had
set on this the thirteenth day of December behind the thick, low overcast in
the mid afternoon, and Gawain refused to give up so many hours when even the
packhorse was fit enough to continue for hours at the cautious walking pace he
was obliged to take. With Venderrian’s eyes to warn of living dangers, his
concern was entirely with the ground and its safety, and so he trusted
instincts, and kept his head bent to the task.

The sleet died in the early evening, becoming a faint
drizzle which did little to wash away the patches of sludgy ice which had
formed in sheltered hollows between the higher blisters of growth on the
scrubby terrain. Still they trudged on, the slightly more clement weather
permitting them to eat on the move. Then, perhaps two hours before midnight, a
slight click of a tongue brought Gawain to a halt, and he turned, and waited
while they gathered about him.

“MiThal,” Venderrian whispered. “We are very close to them
now. They have stopped and made camp I think.”

Gawain dragged the sopping blackcloth scarf from his face
and whispered his reply. “How close, Ven?”

“Perhaps less than a mile. But there is more. I think a saw
a grey light in the sky to the southwest. It is why I signalled the halt.”

“Grey?”

“Yes.”

Gawain’s heart sank. “How far?”

“I cannot say, miThal, the weather and the darkness, I
cannot say for certain. It was at the extent of my range.”

“Vakin Dwarfspit,” Gawain sighed. “They have made a Graken.”

“And it patrols nearby,” Allazar whispered, “Perhaps to
prevent our crossing into Arrun.”

“And
that
is why the vakka Kanosenn has fled this way
instead of turning west for Juria after Morloch’s attack!” Gawain gritted his
teeth against a stream of invective directed entirely at himself. Of course
there would be a reason, and likely one which strange aquamire might have seen,
though Gawain himself had not.

“We could have at ‘em in the dark, melord. Kick the ‘spit
out of ‘em while they’re sleeping?”

“Aye, Oggy, we could if one of them wasn’t an elfwizard with
a big stick. Knowing our luck this day we’d walk into a ring of Viell-grey
Aknids, or worse.”

“In truth,” Allazar whispered, ice crystals frosting his
unkempt beard, “He’s no fool, and will have any number of mystic watchkeepers
set about him.”

“Ven, do you think you can fix his position so we can circle
around, and place us between our quarry and the region where you saw the
Graken?”

“Yes, miThal.”

“Good. Take Allazar’s place behind me, you can guide me from
there and I’ll swing us around. We’ll put ourselves on the other side of them.
They can walk into our trap for a change.”

Two hours later they settled between a pair of immense gorse
bushes, and tended to the horses, feeding them well from the dwindling packs
and treating them to warm dry blankets while they themselves slept huddled in
wet ones. It was a miserable end to a miserable day, and the only saving grace to
be found amongst the miseries they’d endured was the knowledge that their
efforts had placed them unseen and unnoticed in the path their quarry would
doubtless take in the morning, and thus hopefully see an end to the pursuit and
the beginning of a swift ride home.

Gawain woke to an increasing pressure on his chest which he
couldn’t quite fathom. It was freezing cold, his left hip ached, and he was
curled like an infant in blankets which crackled when he moved. The pressure
continued to build, and when he opened his eyes the world was a silver-dusted
wonderland and the pressure, he saw, was coming from Allazar’s frost-rimed
Dymendin.

Memory flooded in with consciousness, and he did his best to
rise silently, trying hard to ignore the aches and pains in limbs and joints held
motionless for so long, not daring even in sleep to move lest cold air find its
way in under the blankets.

But the blankets crackled, the hood of his cloak crackled,
and when he sat upright, blinking, he realised dawn was breaking on an
astonishing spectacle. During the night, temperatures had plummeted, and the
gorse bushes between which they had taken shelter were now perhaps double their
original size, each branch and twig coated in ice which had sprouted crystal
buds and limbs of it own, pure white. The grass around them was a glittering
field, each blade adorned with its own sparkling white coat.

Ice crystals clung to beards and hair and eyebrows,
especially poor Ognorm’s, the dwarf having all the appearance of a bizarre and
wizard-made ice-man. The horses too were unimpressed, ice clinging to their
manes and tails, frost-rimed blankets testifying to the bitterness of the air
around them. Overhead, the sky was a clear silvery grey, sunrise approaching
quickly.

Gawain remembered the reason for their camp, and rose
swiftly, ignoring the shooting pain in his hip when he did so. His first
thought then was for Gwyn, but she seemed untroubled, dragon-breath pluming
from her nostrils. His second was for the sword, and he grasped the freezing
hilt and after a brief struggle, loosened the blade in its scabbard. He’d held
it close in the night, after all, and it hadn’t welded itself to its sheath.

A quick glance at the others, and a questioning look for
Venderrian. The ranger pointed to the northeast and shook his head; the enemy
hadn’t moved. Then the elf made a circling motion with his finger and shook his
head again. Nothing.

A breakfast of rock-hard frak or freenmek, hasty relief
behind one of the bushes, and breaths blown on hands and fingers while they
waited, Allazar not daring to use mystic energies to provide warmth in the camp
this close to a staff-bearing enemy who might feel such use. When fingers were
warm enough for work, they shook out the ice from horse-blankets, brushed it
from coats, manes, and tails, and saddled their mounts, taking great care in
the still air to limit the inevitable sounds of their activity.

Still Venderrian gave no indication that the enemy had
stirred, even when the pale and sickly-looking sun dragged itself over the
horizon as if it were a yawning teen reluctant to rise until the afternoon. But
even the pallid light was dazzling, reflecting as it did from the ice all
around them, the glare making them squint while they packed away their camp.

Venderrian unwrapped his bow carefully, a long strip of fur
keeping the wood safe from winter’s overnight ravages, a simpler waxed cloth
wrap likewise protecting the string which he tested carefully before scanning
the heavens again and turning his gaze northeast once more. It was half an hour
after sunrise when the ranger gave a slight hiss of alarm, and indicated motion
in the enemy camp. All eyes turned in that direction, and all of them gave a
gasp of surprise when a bright white light shot into the air from the enemy
camp, circled at incredible speed, and then simply winked out.