Worms' Ending: Book Eight (The Longsword Chronicles 8) (7 page)

Miheth Gawain, take care. These elves all bear the symbol
you call Tau, and are loyal to the Toorseneth. A few also are soldiers of the Eastguard
re-deployed now that the threat to Elvendere’s western border is believed diminished,
if it ever truly existed. Thus, Thallanhall must have given its blessing to the
disposition of these elven forces in Juria; provincial governors would not be
permitted to act alone in such a manner. The alliance between Hellin and the
Toorseneth is being strengthened by Thallanhall, unwittingly perhaps, but
beware, you are welcome neither in Juria nor in Elvendere. Word of your
destruction of Urgenenn’s Tower is already in Sudshear and travelling quickly
north by ship. Perhaps it is already known in Hellin’s Hall, and therefore at
the Toorseneth.

I have learned that Ognorm is preparing to leave Last
Ridings to accompany you on your journey north, so I must rush to pass this to
him before he crosses the river. He is said to be heartbroken by your departure
without him, given that he was sent by our friend Eryk to watch over you. Be
kind to him, Gawain. I know you meant no offence either to him or to Threlland,
but sometimes, miheth, your ignorance of the ways of other lands causes ripples
of which you often remain completely unaware. Expect to be chided for this and
for other reasons on your return.

Take care, miheth. I like not the threat of this
new-spawned Grimmand. If the wizards of the Toorseneth can conceive of such foul
creatures and make them proof against the fire of wizard Allazar’s staff, perhaps
they might conceive of such creatures and make them proof against the Sight
which is so effective at detecting such evil.

Know that your queen and your son await you; be utterly
ruthless towards those who would prevent your safe return to us and our love.

I am your queen, your lady, your Ranger Leeny, and all
things you would have me be.

E.

Gawain sighed, re-read the last few lines again, and folded
the letter.

“Trouble, Longsword?”

“It would seem Hellin of Juria learned a thing or two about
the wielding of power after all.”

oOo

7. Fwi-end

Five days later and the October winds which had their eyes
watering almost every mile of the way suddenly died, and the air became eerily
calm. It was early evening, chilly, and though there were still perhaps two hours
or more light left in the day for safe travelling, Gawain called a halt and
made camp behind a broad clump of gorse, which he hoped might serve as a
something of a windbreak should the blustery gales rise again.

“By my estimation,” Allazar declared, heaving his saddle
from his horse and dumping it unceremoniously on the ground, “We are perhaps
two days south of the Hallencloister line.”

“That would explain the strange calm in the air about us,”
Gawain replied, examining Gywn’s hooves. “Elayeen spoke of this region as being
uncommon eerie where the weather was concerned when she passed this way earlier
this year.”

“It is hardly uncommon eerie, Longsword,” Allazar sniffed,
“People have ascribed all sorts of nonsense to wizards which no amount of power
could possibly achieve. Affecting weather is one of those things.”

“Arr, ‘tis odd though that the wind died like that.
Edscratchy odd, eh Ven?”

“I cannot say, friend Ognorm,” Venderrian replied, “I am
unfamiliar with these lands, and seldom were such gales experienced either in
Minyorn or in Elvenheth.”

“Arr. Well, I ain’t from around ‘ere neither, but the land’s
all flat hereabouts and there’s nought like hills or mountains to still a
breeze so sudden. It’s like we tromped into a hole or summink.”

“There is no hole here either, master Ognorm,” Allazar
smiled. “It is merely an effect of nature’s making, like the eye of a storm,
perhaps a region of calm air created by vortices induced by geography more
distant than we can see.”

Ognorm sniffed, and his bushy eyebrows shot up. He stood
holding his saddle as casually as the others might hold a bag of buttered
muffins, his cloak hanging loose like a square sail from those broad shoulders
of his. “Arr well, lifter and shifter I be, Serre wizard, and eyes I got. I
know
there’s no hole, it weren’t meant to be taken literal.”

Gawain grinned to himself, and satisfied that Gwyn was
comfortable and in good health, fished a lump of frak from his pocket and
wandered clear of the gorse to survey the land around them. There wasn’t much
to see, in truth. They’d avoided occasional homesteads and a few hamlets, but
seen no sign of any larger settlements along the way. Better land for farming
or grazing lay to the west on the plains of Juria or to the east nearer the
coastal plains of Arrun.

He thought of Kistin Fallowmead, recalling the dampness in
Elayeen’s eyes when she had described burying the child, and the tears flowing
when she had described the pitiful possessions that had meant so much to the
poor young girl. This was a lonely place to die, pursued by Yarken of the
Tansee. A lonely place to die by any means.

But, in spite of Allazar’s protestations and the continuing
good-natured banter still passing back and forth between the wizard, the dwarf,
and the elf, there really
was
something unsettling in the air. It was as
though the breezes were trying to sneak unnoticed past the Hallencloister lest
they incur the displeasure of the wizards within those high walls.

Elayeen’s warnings still sat snug and dry in their waxed
leather packet, tucked into an inside pocket of his tunic. They were very close
here to the Jurian border, though few of that land would ever lay claim to the
Hallencloister and the rise upon which it had sat for millennia. Citadel and
enclave in darken days of old before Morloch’s rising, citadel and centre of
wizardly learning which had trained and loosed Morloch upon the world, and
later worked to bind him beyond the Teeth. For centuries wizards had been
raised and educated there, then turned out into the world, and while most people
had welcomed them and their knowledge and power, all knew well Gawain’s
feelings on the matter, and those feelings had been shared in numbers growing
rapidly since Kings’ Council at Ferdan.

Gawain felt distinctly uneasy, and not just for the sudden
stillness of the air around them. The Hallencloister was an immense walled
fortress with not one but four stone-built keeps any one of which would be the
envy of any castletown in the lowlands, and probably in the Empire too. With
the walls manned by a guard raised and maintained for its common defence, and
filled with whitebeards of all ranks well able to provide for its mystic
protection, it would seem like madness even to contemplate assailing gates shut
against the world. Which perhaps explained why no-one ever had.

But still the images swam from strange aquamire mists when
Gawain closed his eyes to ponder his ever-decreasing box of worms. Few there
were now of those wriggling clues and portents, and the manner in which the
Hallencloister filled his musing suggested that none were anywhere near as
important as the fortress-college some two or three days ride away.

And what would he do if no answer came when he knocked upon
those mighty gates? What would he do if the reply he received was a curt
‘bugger off’ the like of which Brock himself had once received at Harks Hearth
far to the south? Elayeen had asked him the same question, in the small hours
of their last night together. He’d had no answer for her then, and all the days
of his journey had revealed to him no answer along the way.

“What say you, Longsword?” came a quiet call from the
wizard, repeating himself to cut through Gawain’s reverie.

“What say I to what?”

“There are rabbits, yonder…”

“No. No fires. Elayeen warned us of elven patrols riding
with the Greys of the RJC long-rangers. I don’t want to embarrass the friends
and allies who served so nobly under Bek’s command at Far-gor by having to
shoot the Toorsencreed out of their saddles beside them.”

Allazar looked shocked. “Do you think it would come to that?
If we encountered such a patrol? Technically, we have to cross Juria’s land to
achieve the Hallencloister…”

“We all have reason to despise those who bear the mark of the
Tau, Allazar,” Gawain announced, rejoining his companions and unpacking his
bedroll from his saddle. “They are without doubt enemies of all the kindred,
and their convenient alliance with Hellin of Juria reduces that enmity not one
jot. The madness of her grief does not excuse the Toorseneth’s sending of seed,
spore and now spawn against good people of these lands.”

“Made some good mates in them grey riders o’ Juria,” Ognorm
mumbled sadly.

“As did we all, my friend. And I still hold them all as
such. They are hardly to blame for the misfortunes imposed upon their land by a
queen made harridan fool and dangerous by heartbreak.”

“Yet if they should stand to the fore in support of
Toorsengard, miThal?”

Gawain paused, and thought. “We shall cross that particular
bridge when we come to it, Ven. I would prefer to honour Bek’s memory by
drawing neither string nor steel against the Greys of Juria. But I shall
neither die nor surrender for that memory should they draw string or steel
against me.”

“I cannot imagine the mood in Hellin’s court,” Allazar
sighed. “All those who stood at Far-gor did so knowing Elvendere betrayed all
these lands, and that only the one hundred and twelve Kindred Rangers who rode
out from the Morrentill with us possessed honour enough to risk all alongside
us there. Now to see Hellin wed to a boy who kept himself safe far from the
war, and to see others who hid within their forest now openly bearing arms in
their towns and villages… it beggars belief.”

“This Serat must be an orator of some power,” Gawain
grimaced, “Though he didn’t strike me as especially remarkable when we
encountered him in the forest.”

“Doubtless he had his orders to remain polite,” the wizard
agreed, “Though he bore the arrogance of the Viell in both manner and speech.”

“Not all the thalangard there that day were Toorsengard,
miThal,” Venderrian said softly. “There are yet a great many loyal to
Thallanhall, if not to Thal-Hak himself, who know nothing of the treachery of
the Toorseneth.”

“Hmm,” Allazar frowned, and scratched the white stubble on
his chin. “Then Thal-Hak took precautions to ensure his words were conveyed
accurately, and our parting observed by at least
some
independent
witnesses. It would explain why our lady’s possessions were handed to her by
Serat without interference or examination.”

“Then let’s hope we don’t encounter any of the Toorsengard
on our journey to the Hallencloister. If word got back to Thallanhall that we’d
slaughtered a bunch of their Eastguard there’s no telling what the
ramifications might be. Keep good watch, Ven. I’d prefer to hide from them than
risk a confrontation once we’re on Jurian soil.”

“MiThal.”

“These should be gentler times,” Allazar complained,
plopping heavily onto his blankets. “The battle won, the canyon in the north
gaping, and an ancient evil beyond the Eastbinding destroyed at last. Yet here
we sit, discussing in tones most serious the very real risk of combat which
might spark off a blaze of open conflict with brave allies.”

“There
you
sit, you lazy goit, the rest of us are
still on our feet. Did you so much as check your horse’s hooves before hurling
your backside onto your bedroll?”

“Ah. Apologies…” Allazar raised the staff and made to heave
himself up with it, but Gawain relented.

“Don’t bother, I’ll do it. You warm your tired old bones and
talk our ears off while the rest of us work to make a respectable camp.”

“I’m not
that
old, Longsword.”

“That’s a matter of perspective and opinion,” Gawain drew
his boot knife and began making a drama of scraping mud from hooves, though in
truth the ground hereabouts had been firm enough and the going good.
“Especially since you refuse to tell anyone precisely how old you really are.”

Allazar sniffed, and drew a small paper packet from his
saddle-bag. The contents were clearly sticky, and he took great care while peeling
back the paper.

“What’s that?” Gawain asked, “Not the remnants of another
ancient honey-bar?”

“No,” Allazar declared haughtily. “It is the remnants of a
bag of mint-sugars kindly given to me by steward Arbo for the journey. Alas,
with the rains we had, they got damp, and now it’s one big lump of mint-sugar.”

“He gave you mint-sugars?”

“He did.”

“He didn’t bloody give me any,” Gawain protested,
recognising the deftness of the wizard’s distracting them yet again from the
question of his age.

“He appreciates the value of a wizard,” Allazar declared
happily, prising a piece off the sticky lump and popping it into his mouth.
“Ann heef fwi-end ov you.”

“He’s frightened of me? Why? I haven’t given him the shadow
of a reason to be frightened of me.”

Ognorm shuddered theatrically, shaving a slice of frak from
a lump.

“At least we ain’t got one o’
them
things after us,”
the dwarf sighed. “Couldn’t sleep in my room at ‘ome without a light on, lest
that shadow-creature followed me all the way back to the ‘mark.”

“Aye,” Allazar agreed, “It was a foul creature indeed.”

“D’ye think it’s dead, Serre wizard? That thing?”

Allazar shrugged. “In truth, I know not. Without the Orb to
sustain it, perhaps it withered and died.”

“Arr, unless it knew how to swim, and followed us clear out
to sea, and sits there now at the bottom o’ the ocean, wrapped around that
chest.” Ognorm’s voice dropped, and he sat, frak and knife in hand, drifting
into memory. “When I told ‘is Majesty the tale, there in his own rooms sittin’
by the fire, and ‘im hanging on the words, he wept that Threlland’s honour was
restored. That such a beast could be born of a thing made by a dwarf… by the
Teeth that were hard even for a king to bear.”

“The shadow-creature wasn’t dwarf-made, Ognorm,” Gawain
sighed, and gave Allazar’s horse a pat on the neck, content now for its
well-being. “It was the Toorseneth made it by corrupting the virgin device Theo
of Smeltmount constructed.”

“Arr well, I spose it was, melord, come to that. But it’s no
end of relief to me and me king both to think o’ that foul creature dead and
gone.”

Gawain flicked a glance at the dwarf, and at Allazar, and
then turned his attention to his own bedroll and the resumption of his meal.

“Oh now there’s a sign a trouser-brick’s a-coming! I bin
with you a long time, melord, and know summink of yer ways. You don’t reckon
that shadow-thing is dead an’ gone, do you?”

Gawain paused, eyeing his frak while he sat cross-legged on
his blankets. Then he cocked his head to the right, to where the dwarf sat
between himself and the wizard. “There were other devices tested in Elvendere,
Ognorm. All of those failed too.”

“And all of them doubtless also corrupted by Viell of
Toorsen’s Tower,” Allazar sighed.

Ognorm blinked several times, and his bushy eyebrows rose
and fell. He eyed the knife and frak in his hands, took a deep breath, and let
it out in a long and heartfelt sigh.

“Bugger.” He said, and fell silent, speaking not another
word that night.

oOo