Across the Face of the World (35 page)

The next day they forded a wide, stony river that came down from the Grossbergen. The hills began to draw in close, pinching the Kljufa from both sides, until the water ran white and turbu¬lent. The day was grey and the height of the mountains on either side could only be guessed. Ahead of them came a roaring that reminded Leith of the Gloum Stair, the waterfall on the Torrelstrommen, only here in the hills the noise echoed all around them.

'This is the Lower Clough, the first of the two gorges of the Kljufa,' Kurr told them. He pointed ahead. 'Look to your left. See the road? The gorge is so narrow, the road had to be cut out of the mountainside itself. See there? The road has a wall and a roof.'

The old farmer had remembered correctly. Leith could see a groove, perhaps four hundred yards in length, cut into the side of a spur that rose vertically from the river. It looked like a tunnel with only one wall, open to the river a hundred feet below but hemmed in by rock everywhere else. Leith could only marvel at the mighty accomplishment of the road-builders.

The Westway began to wind up towards the roofed road. The noise of tortured water grew louder. Leith looked down, startled: the Kljufa seemed to emerge from the very rock, fountaining up from a dry bed! Yet as he lifted his gaze, he could see the river clearly further upstream. What was this?

As they entered the roofed road, the mystery was solved. Leith risked a further glance over the sheer cliff to his right. There he saw the mighty river enter a vast whirlpool, water spinning faster and faster, disappearing down a huge hole only to emerge as a fountain a hundred yards or so further downstream. The rock in between was perfectly dry, so that one could walk across the riverbed without getting wet; though such a journey would gain the traveller nothing, as another vertical wall rose on the other side of the river. The sight was breathtaking, the sound beyond belief; loud enough, it seemed, to split the very rock. He turned to the old farmer.

'The Maelstrom,' the old man shouted. 'One of the wonders of the world.' Leith could hardly drag his eyes away from the sight.

Then came a frantic cry from Perdu at the head of the Company. Two figures in grey stood at the far end of the roofed road! As Leith watched in horror, they drew their swords and advanced towards the Company.

The travellers turned in panic. Trapped! Behind them were two more grey figures, swords menacing. They were cut off, with nowhere to run. The ambush was perfect.

The Bhrudwans were perhaps two hundred yards away, walking faster now. 'Stand back to back!' Farr shouted. 'Draw your swords! Strike the first blow!'

'Shouldn't we charge one of the groups?' Kurr asked, his voice thin and breathless.

'No! That's just what they want us to do! Let them come to us!'

'Join me, Leith!' cried Wira. 'Together we will repay these men for their evil deeds!'

Wide-eyed with panic, Leith did as he was asked. He drew his sword, pitifully small in comparison to the wicked curving blades wielded by the Bhrudwans. Only a hundred yards away now. He could see their faces. They were smiling.

At that moment something brushed past Leith, knocking him to the ground. Wira shouted, then cursed. Leith picked himself up in time to see Wisent, with Stella clinging to his back, charging at the Bhrudwans behind them. 'Run! Run!' Farr shouted. 'After her!'

The warriors in front of them halted in amazement. The Bhrudwans behind stopped their advance, then turned and ran from the charging beast. Stella urged the great animal on. As he drew close to the enemy she rolled to the right, placing herself next to the wall, holding on to the aurochs' mane for all she was worth.

One of the Bhrudwans turned and struck at the beast with his sword. Whether the blow landed, Leith could not tell. Wisent bored straight into the unlucky warrior, knocking him sideways. For a moment the Bhrudwan scrabbled at the edge of the precipice, then he fell into the river with a cry. Almost immediately the Maelstrom pulled at him. Frantic now, he tried to escape the clutches of the vortex, but inexorably it drew him in. Leith saw him disappear into the Maelstrom's maw.

Ahead Wisent gained on the other warrior. The Bhrudwan was now caught in his own trap: there was nowhere for him to run but straight ahead. The huge beast bore down on him. Stella urged the aurochs forward. Faster he went, but not fast enough. With a last effort the Bhrudwan emerged from the roofed road and scram¬bled up the rocky slope at the side of the spur. A moment later Wisent, with Stella still holding on tightly, flashed past him.

A few seconds after that, the rest of the Company emerged, Leith and the others running as hard as they could. Leith turned and looked up. The Bhrudwan was high up on the slope, foot braced against a large rock. 'Look out!' shouted Leith. The Company stopped in their tracks as the first rock crashed down on to the Westway.

'Keep going!' Farr shouted. 'There is still danger behind us!' He was right; the other two warriors were close behind, running for all they were worth, having recovered from the shock of seeing one of their fellows taken by the river. Hal and the Haufuth, the last of the Company, scurried past the entrance to the roofed road, dodging rocks as they came.

Ahead, Stella had managed to halt the rampaging charge of the huge aurochs. She turned, ready to repeat the strategy. In a moment Farr and Wira were past her, followed by the others.

Leith watched his brother in amazement. Hal used his crippled leg like a staff, throwing his weight forward whenever he landed on the stiff right leg. In this fashion he was little slower than the Haufuth.

The Bhrudwans halted, realising their peril. Then they turned and retreated down the roofed road, rejoined by their fellow warrior, who had scrambled down from the slopes above. In a little over a minute they had vanished from sight.

'Let's go after them!' Farr cried.

'No!' Perdu answered emphatically. 'Wisent is hurt.'

There was a large open wound on the animal's left flank, extending down from his shoulder.

The blood flowed freely. Perdu grabbed clothing from his pack and ran to a small freshet at the side of the road. He soaked the clothes in the water, then used them to try to staunch the wound. Wisent appeared not to feel any pain. The light of battle gleamed in his eyes, and his mouth foamed with excitement.

Wira turned on Stella. 'That could have been you!' he said, pointing to the animal's flank.

'But it wasn't,' the young woman replied, a fierce light in her eye. 'We taught them a lesson, Wisent and I.'

Kurr shook his head. 'Amazing!' he said. 'I couldn't believe it when I saw you on the back of that mad beast. I would not like to have been in your way!' He laughed. 'What made you think of doing that?'

'I don't know,' admitted Stella frankly. 'Just an impulse.'

Leith looked at those eyes. They contained the same laughter that he had seen on the night of the Midwinter Play. He could not fathom them then; neither could he now. Perhaps it is courage, he thought. Certainly I would never have attempted such a thing.

Hal took a sharp needle and some stout cord from his pack. While the others kept a lookout in case the Bhrudwans returned, Hal stitched the gaping wound closed. It took a long time.

'Will he be able to go any further?' Stella asked Perdu.

'It will take more than a sword cut to stop Wisent,' the Fenni replied. 'That was a foolish thing to do,' he added, but there was a smile on his face. 'I wouldn't have believed that anyone who is not Fenni could have ridden an aurochs like that. But he likes you, doesn't he?'

Stella held her hand in front of Wisent's face. The great animal licked her. 'Yes, he does. And I like him.'

The Company once again went forward, this time much more carefully. 'We can't afford to be surprised again,' Farr commented. 'We were lucky this time.'

'Lucky?' his brother said. 'No; we were saved by the pluck of a beautiful woman.' He turned to Stella and smiled. She cocked her head and smiled back. Leith turned away.

The travellers passed through the roofed road without further incident. Beyond they found a straight stretch of road which lay deserted. After a few miles without a bend, the road curved grad¬ually to the left, away from the river. The walls moved further apart, and the river quietened down; they were through the Lower Clough, and the Bhrudwans were nowhere to be seen.

Where are my father and mother? What has been done to them? Now that Leith had seen the enemy face to face, the fate of his parents had turned from vain imaginings to frightful reality.

Like the others, the boy from Loulea had brushed against something evil and it had changed him, marking him like the dirt from the bark of the trees beside the Loulea village pond. Just by being close to the Bhrudwans he had become unclean somehow.

Six weeks they had been on the Westway, and finally they had seen the warriors they pursued

- though for moments only. They had vanished again, as quickly as they had appeared, to Farr's disap¬pointment. No one else spoke, though no doubt they all wished they could confront the Bhrudwans. Leith tried to act disappointed, tried to hold back the relief that flooded every part of him. Relief, but disappointment too, for now he knew beyond doubt that he was a coward. His fear of death had outweighed the need of his parents.

He tried to feel sorry, but mostly he felt reprieved.

ROLEYSTONE BRIDGE

HEMMED IN BY CRUEL mountains, pressed forward by anxiety for their loved ones but held back by fear of their implacable foes, the Company tracked slowly northeast in wary pursuit of the Bhrudwans. Early each morning Wira or Farr would scout the road ahead, searching for the enemy's abandoned campsite of the previous night, then would return to lead the travellers forward with caution. Three days passed in this fashion, until the crossing of the Jawbone Mountains was nearly complete. It was now late February, and the worst of winter was behind them - or so they reasoned.

On the fourth day out from the Maelstrom the wind turned to the north. Originating above the vast snow-covered wasteland of the Vollervei, the gale whipped icy rains down the mountain-walled valley of the Kljufa. For a while they continued trudging stubbornly into the sleet; then, one by one, the travellers faltered. Hal's crippled leg cramped up, making it difficult for him to keep pace with the others. Kurr's joints were on fire: as he walked his bones rasped together, as though they had been drained dry. Stella lost all feeling in her hands and feet, but clenched her teeth and i ried to continue. It was only when she stumbled and fell that the others realised her danger. After seeking shelter in the lee of a south-facing ridge, they discovered that her toes were numb and in danger of being frostbitten. She whimpered with pain as the Haufuth rubbed the circulation back into her feet, while the Storrsen brothers hurriedly set a fire.

'We can go no further with the girl like this.' Farr shook his head with frustration. With every moment the Bhrudwans and their captives moved further away. To have come this far only to be beaten by the weather! Worse, the Mjolkbridge man suspected that some of his fellow travellers were not as keen to confront the hated Bhrudwans as they made out.

'I could go no further anyway,' the Haufuth replied. The cold had seeped into his bones, and a deep weariness had settled upon him, dampening his spirits. 'I need a rest. A day's rest here and maybe we can make better time.'

Each member of the Company voiced his or her concern at the delay, but secretly each one was glad. The fear of the road, and what might await them at its end, had been mounting steadily as they had travelled across the highlands of Firanes. Muscles tensed and hearts raced as they approached every bend in the road, the crest of every hill, in anticipation of sighting their quarry. The prospect of any lessening of the tension, even for just one day, seemed like a welcoming fireside at the end of a long journey.

'Chances are the Bhrudwans won't be going far in this murk,' Wira said optimistically. No one believed him. In their heart of hearts, they imagined the raiders forcing Mahnum and Indrett, and Parlevaag the Fenni woman, on through the driving rain. Their suffering must be terrible.

One by one the travellers changed clothes and drew close to the fire. For a while conversation was light-hearted, with talk of the upcoming spring in the lowland vales, but gradually discussion came around to their present situation.

'How much further will we have to go?' Stella asked, her ques¬tion addressed to no one in particular. The Haufuth continued to work away at her feet, the rubbing relieving most of the pain.

'I don't know,' he said. 'Far enough so they have forgotten about us. Far enough so we can catch them unawares.'

'But close enough so we still have some strength left with which to fight!' Farr added.

Wira laughed. 'You'll always have the strength!' he teased his brother.

'Well, it's what we're here for,' Farr responded, uncomfortable with Wira's comment.

'Will we ever get close enough to do it?' Leith asked.

The Haufuth considered a moment. 'We've caught them once; we can catch them again. But Farr is right, we cannot wait forever. It may be time to take a few risks - but, then again .. .'

He tailed off, absorbed in his thoughts.

'Can we catch them before we get over the Jawbone Mountains?' Leith asked again.

'We're nearly through them already,' said Kurr. 'Somewhere close at hand is Roleystone Bridge, where we cross the Kljufa River; from there the Westway follows the south bank until we pass through the Portals—'

'But when do we climb over the mountains?'

'Were you not listening when I explained this yesterday? There is no climb. The river cuts a path right through them. All we have to do is to follow the river.'

'How could the river have cut through these mountains?' Leith waved his arm at the steep hills, their flanks mist-shrouded, their lops buried in cloud. Nothing seemed less likely.

'How would I know?' The Haufuth became irritated by the persistent questioning; he wanted time to think, time to evaluate the options before him.