Renown of the Raithlin: Book One of the Raithlindrath Series (20 page)

The lòhren-fire faltered and went out. Aratar was
spent, but Lonfar felt his strong hands on him as the lòhren picked him up and
lurched back toward the fortress. It was hard to believe that an old man could
have such strength in his bony arms, but lòhrens were always surprising.

They passed by the broken body of Carangar and then
neared the portcullis, which was opened. It was dark inside, and with a loud
clang the great gate closed behind and they were safe. Of the six who had made
the venture, only they had survived.

Aratar laid him down and staggered back as lòhrens
came to help.

“I’m sorry,” Lonfar said. “My plan failed.”

Aratar’s face was grey with fatigue. He rubbed it
and shrugged.

 “Do you think so? We were never likely to kill him.
But we’ve wounded him, and we’ll see if it makes a difference in the end.”

****

The next day Lonfar stood on the battlements. He was
tired and weak. His burns throbbed, and he felt like he was being stabbed each
time he moved, but the lòhrens had given him a drink infused with elendhrot that
eased the pain. They had also applied honey from the moors to his skin, which
soothed and healed. His chest would carry scars for the rest of his life,
however long that may be, but at least he was alive.

Aratar stood beside him. He must have been in just
as much pain but showed none of it.

“It begins,” he said ominously.

And it was true. Lonfar felt cold as he watched. One
after another, elùgroths emerged from the birch wood and slowly gathered about
their leader. That dark figure moved gingerly, and Lonfar watched in grim
satisfaction. His wounds troubled him, perhaps even badly.

Lonfar counted them as they came. There were eleven.
With their leader, they totaled twelve, and there was power at their command to
unnerve an army.

It was hushed on the battlements. The lòhrens
watched silently and gave no indication of their feelings except by their very
quietude. Aratar looked on stoically, and Lonfar felt a surge of unexpected
affection. This man had risked his own life to save him. He had also done
everything he could to protect Lòrenta, and it was not his fault that he was
outmatched.

Pain washed over Lonfar, and he felt despair for the
first time in his life. It was crushing. It made him think that all he had ever
done had been for nothing and that he might as well have never lived. He
regretted using the Raithlin knives even though he knew he was justified in
doing so.

The elùgroths discoursed solemnly for some time.
They were alike, black-robed and tall, their wych-wood staffs ominous with the
threat of elùgai.

After a while their discussion broke up. They sat
cross-legged and formed a wedge that pointed at the fortress. Their pallid
hands rested easily on the dark staffs in their laps, and they soon began to
chant. Their words were beyond hearing at first but grew louder and clearer
until they soared over the battlements. Lonfar had never heard the language
before. It was harsh and guttural, but it swelled with slow and sure power.

“They’re already connected to the Morleth Stone,”
Aratar explained, “but wherever it is, and whatever energy they’re
transforming, they’re making the binding deeper before they call on the stone’s
powers.”

Lonfar looked at them with mounting desperation. He
searched for some way to fight, but nothing came to mind. To just wait and
watch went against all his instincts, but to attack again was folly. He swept
his eyes over them once more and noticed something that intrigued him. He made
sure of it before he spoke, uncertain of its consequences, but hope fluttered
in his heart.

“Aratar . . .” he said.

The lòhren turned to him.

“I counted eleven as they arrived. And their master
makes twelve.”

“Yes,” the lòhren said. “It’s their number of
power.”

“But there are only eleven in the wedge.”

Aratar’s eyed widened, and he spun back and looked
over the battlements. After a moment his hands went white and trembled where
they gripped the stonework forcefully.

“Yes!” he shouted.

Lonfar was heartened by the lòhren’s excitement.
“There,” he said, pointing over the battlements. “The master sits in the shadow
of the trees with his back against a fire-blackened trunk. He’s not chanting
and isn’t part of the wedge. What does it mean?”

Aratar gave him a fierce smile. “It means that your
plan was successful, and my brothers didn’t give their lives for nothing. The
elùgroth leader isn’t linked to the Morleth Stone. His power and skill, the
highest of them all, won’t be added to their sorcery.”

“But what effect will that have?”

Aratar shrugged. “It’s hard to say. This much is certain
though – it’ll take them longer to achieve their purpose.”

Lonfar took heart at the lòhren’s words. They had
defied those who would destroy them and struck a blow of their own. There was
yet hope, however little, and he would not despair. It was not the Raithlin
way, and sword or no sword, he was a Raithlin and would remain one all the days
of his life.

He sensed a change in the air over the next few
hours. It grew cooler. The colors of the moors and the woods became muted, and
he felt something pressing at him and enveloping the fortress. The horizon
blurred and dimmed with a greyness that was not fog.

Aratar looked at him. “Do you feel it? It’s the
spirit world cutting us off from life.”

Lonfar gave no reply. Nothing could be added.

Lanrik rolled over on the hard ground. He wanted to
sleep, but his Raithlin cloak was uncomfortably damp, and his boots, which he
dared not take off in case Mecklar and Gwalchmur found the camp and attacked,
were cold and clammy.

The travelers had stopped by the edge of a
willow-rimmed tarn. It had been drizzling for days, and everything from the
misty tops of the trees to the root-bound soil was saturated.

He curled his knees up to his chest but still
shivered under the cloak. There was no fire. Aranloth might have been able to
start one but had remained true to the lòhren principle of using lòhrengai only
at need.

For over a week, they had ridden hard and kept the
northern bank of the Carist Nien in view. The lands they journeyed through were
lush and green. Aranloth said the sea was only some fifty miles away, and its
influence caused heavy rainfall between the coast and the river.

They were further away from the sea now, in the
hills of Lòrenta, but the rain had followed. Of the enemies that pursued them
there was no sign. This only served to worry Lanrik more. He knew Mecklar and
Gwalchmur would not give up and would be somewhere in the surrounding
wilderness. Ebona was also on his mind. He had rebuffed her, and she was
obviously a dangerous enemy.

They had lost sight of the river when they reached
the hill country and started toward the interior of Lòrenta. Aranloth led them
unfailingly, for this was the land of the lòhrens. They had lived here since
long before the founding of Esgallien or any of the eastern cities, and while
they wondered all over Alithoras they always returned. Aranloth rode with
lingering glances at the misty hills and wild moors, yet his love of the land
had not slowed his pace.

The area around the tarn was uneven, and the dank
soil was strewn with rocks and moss-covered boulders. Some places were crowded
with green bracken while others were darkened by stands of gloomy willow trees.
Their long branches drooped over the stagnant pond and dripped slow beads of
water onto its scum-crusted surface.

Lanrik had woken Erlissa when it was her turn to
keep watch and had tried without success to sleep. He pulled part of the
Raithlin cloak over his head so that he could no longer see the low clouds scud
across the dark sky or feel the fine drops of rain on his face.

Eventually he went to sleep with one hand on the
hilt of the shazrahad sword. Though he was asleep, his mind remained strangely
alert, and he could think rationally. Everything was vivid and clear. His
dreams were dark though, and when he felt himself plunge from a great height,
he desperately tried to wake himself up.

He fell with a crash that should have broken his
body, but instead his dream-self surged upright. He was in the deep bottom of
the tarn, but it was now empty of all water. Far above the willow trees still
dripped, yet the beads of moisture had turned to blood. They dropped onto the
parched soil near his feet and also ran in long rivulets down the woven roots
in the walls of the pit.

Stepping back, his boots crunched on the ground. He
turned to look and saw that the bottom of the tarn was littered with ancient
bones. Scores of carrion crows perched atop skulls, their plumage velvety-black
against the bleached surface. Fat-bodied adders lay coiled in the shadows and tested
the air with long tongues. Far away on the fells, he heard wolves howl and then
the answering echo from rocky crags within the lonely hills.

He looked up at the rim of the pit and searched for
a way of escape. Crows had replaced the leaves of the willows. There were
thousands of them, and they hung upside down from the branches and made them
lurch and sway. Instead of the rustle of leaves, he heard only their croaking,
and when they opened their beaks drops of blood dribbled from the sharp tips.

A disembodied voice cried his name. The crows with
him in the pit flapped their wings and hopped from skull to skull while the
adders uncoiled and hissed.

It was Lathmai, and her words stabbed into his
heart.

When will you fulfil your oath?

He fell to his knees.

Why have you betrayed me?

He clamped his hands to his ears.

I want blood. Blood! Blood! Blood!

The hair on his head prickled. The willows leaned
over the tarn as though sealing the entrance of a tomb, and the wolves howled
again. They were closer than before, and he knew they had his scent and hunted
him. His heart thudded wildly in his chest, and he drove himself upright and
ran along the base of the pit. He stumbled over rocks and bones while the crows
swarmed up and battered his face with their black wings.

The roots of the trees writhed, and their tips broke
through the dry ground beneath his feet. They snatched at his ankles. He
suddenly sensed his body in the camp and felt it thrash beneath the Raithlin
cloak. There were hands on him too, but in the tarn he was on his feet and
leapt and dodged. He attempted to climb the side of the pit, but everything he
gripped turned to dust in his hands. He fell back and ran once more.

This time he heard the pound of hooves behind him.
He turned and was frozen by the horror of a white mare that towered over him.
She was fleshless: a creature of bone, sinew and tattered hide.

The mare reared, and her bones creaked and rattled.
She snorted silently, and the stench of rotted flesh filled the air. The bones
in her long neck lengthened, and she lunged and nipped at him with the sharp
incisors at the front of her skull. He found the will to move and leapt back,
thinking the mare would chase, but her teeth merely clicked together, and she
stayed where she was. Her head turned though, and she eyed him with one of the
empty sockets of her long skull.

She drummed the hoof of a foreleg against the
brittle bone and rock of the dry tarn bed, and he heard Ebona’s voice in the
sound.

“Die! Die! Die!”

The words grew clearer with each beat, and even as
he listened in terror the dark walls of the tarn began to cave in and fill the
pit. Dirt and bone-dust clogged his nose, and he could not breathe. He was
being buried alive.

Hands gripped his arm and shook him urgently. He
screamed and his eyes flicked open. The misty stars were above, and Erlissa was
leaning over him.

“Wake up!” she yelled.

Her fingers dug into his flesh, and she continued to
shake him. He gasped and shuddered as he drew in ragged breaths of clean air.
He was drenched with icy sweat, and his tunic and hair were dank. Slowly his
breathing returned to normal, and Erlissa loosened her grip but did not let go.
There was something in her look that he had never seen before. It was worry.
Deep worry. She had appeared less disturbed in the shazrahad’s tent or during
any of the moments of danger since then. She felt for him, and her care blazed
unguarded in her eyes.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He shivered. “It was a nightmare.”

Drawing calmer breaths, he spoke again. “I dreamed
of . . . Lathmai. Then things got worse. It all seemed so real.”

Erlissa rubbed his arm soothingly.

“It was so
real,
” he repeated.

Aranloth stood behind her, the oaken staff held
tightly in his hand, and he also looked concerned. Lanrik realized that he must
have made a lot of noise in his sleep, maybe even screamed before Erlissa had
managed to wake him. He felt ashamed.

He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to relax.
The hilt of the sword in his hand was burning to the touch, but he did not let
it go. Somewhere in the nearby hills the wolves howled excitedly. He had heard
them in his sleep, and the nightmare still felt real. He tried to shake off the
feeling, but with inexplicable clarity he knew the wolves hunted them in truth.

He staggered to his feet and drew the sword.

Erlissa stepped back. “What is it?”

“The wolves!” he said.” They’re hunting us!”

“It was just a dream, Lan.”

She stepped slowly toward him again, but he shook
his head adamantly. “No. I feel it. They’re coming for us. That part of my
dream was real.”

“Wolves aren’t likely to attack a group of people,”
she said reasonably.

Lanrik gritted his teeth in frustration. He could
not make her understand; he did not understand himself, but he knew it was
true. Aranloth peered at him closely then wheeled around to face the night.

“It may be as he says,” the lòhren stated with his
back to them. “I feel Ebona’s touch in this. Get the horses and tether them
near the edge of the tarn.”

They did as Aranloth asked, and then waited. The
horses were secure, and no harm could come to them from behind. Standing in
front of them they looked outward into the darkness. The howling increased
until it seemed the hills were alive with wolves.

“The spirit of Ebona cannot come into the camp,”
Aranloth said. “Yet even so, she might have found a way into Lanrik’s dreams.
Sending nightmares is one of her skills.”

Erlissa looked concerned. “Can she hurt him that
way?”

“Not really. For all her power and wisdom she can be
spiteful though, and distressing him would have been her main purpose. Yet if
so, it was foolish. Her mind would have been linked to his in order to do it.
And just as some of his thoughts would be open to her, some of hers would be
open to him, and he might have discerned her plan. Especially now that he
wields the shazrahad sword and the lòhrengai in it.”

Lanrik did not know how he knew. It might have been
the sword or something else, but he
knew
the wolves were coming. By the
time he spotted the first one the last remnants of his nightmare had slipped
away, and he was ready to fight.

“There!” he pointed.

They all saw it. A great white wolf padded toward
them from the darkness and surveyed them before retreating into the night.
There were scuffling noises, and soon dim eyes appeared all about them.

Several wolves ventured into view. They were smaller
but just as white as the first. Deep ruffs of fur encircled their necks, and
compared to the wolves Lanrik had seen in Esgallien they were heavy and of a
more rounded body shape. Their muzzles were short, and their ears were thick
tufts of fur rather than long and pointed.

“They’re strange wolves,” he said.

Aranloth did not look at him and kept his gaze on
the shapes moving about the perimeter of their camp.

“They’re not the wolves of Lòrenta,” he replied.
“Around here they’re lean and grey like most in Alithoras. And as Erlissa
suggested, they avoid people. These come from the cold mountains of Anast Dennath,
a haunt for evil creatures, some of them otherworldly.”

“They’re a long way from home, then.”

 “Yes,” agreed the lòhren. “Which means they’ve been
called here.”

“Ebona?” Lanrik said.

The lòhren did not have a chance to answer. One of
the wolves raced sleekly toward them over the rock-strewn ground.

Aranloth lifted his staff and stabbed lòhren-fire at
it. The animal dodged and turned back swiftly into the darkness.

Lanrik took a tight grip of his sword. He knew Ebona
was behind the attack. The blade had given him sensitivities, and he had felt
her presence in the nightmare. He thought of Lathmai. Was her apparition also
Ebona’s doing? Had she seen into his mind and found what most troubled him? His
hands trembled with anger, and when the wolves rushed he strode forward to meet
them.

Lòhren-fire seared the night, and the shazrahad
blade flickered with its own killing light. The wolves howled and yelped but
seemed driven beyond reason and continued to attack until there was a pile of
white bodies. Only the great white wolf that must have been the leader of the
pack was left.

Lanrik charged toward it as it leapt at him. His
blade sang through the air and cut through the thick rough of fur about its
neck. He could feel ùhrengai in the creature’s blood, and it flowed up through
the sword and into his body. He felt dizzy with power.

The corpse thumped to the ground, its snow-white
coat red with blood. He looked at the dead animal and laughed. The urge left as
suddenly as it came, and he turned his face to the sky, greying with the coming
dawn.

“Ebona!” he screamed.

All the frustration and anger he felt flooded his
voice, and his arms and legs trembled. When he turned back to the others, he
saw that Aranloth leaned on his staff and surveyed him watchfully. Erlissa,
wide-eyed and white-faced, dragged her gaze away from his eyes and refused to
meet his glance anymore.

He realized that the sword was changing him. He
would do anything to have Erlissa look at him as she used to, even cast the
blade aside and go back to being his true self. But the hilt was warm and
comforting in his grip, and he felt its strength infuse him. He would need it
when he finally fought Mecklar and Gwalchmur. That he would do so was beyond
doubt. He must fulfil his promise to Lathmai, whatever the cost. Without a
word, he wiped the blade clean and sheathed it.

They did not speak as they broke camp in the growing
light. Quickly and efficiently, they packed up and left the willow-rimmed tarn
behind. Lanrik tried repeatedly to catch Erlissa’s glance, but she looked
steadfastly ahead. After a while, he gave up and used the silence to think.

He noticed that Erlissa, however unwilling she was
to look at him, had no such reluctance when it came to Aranloth. She stared at
him often, and her eyes bored into him angrily. The lòhren pretended not to
notice. He rode calmly, finding the easiest paths through thickets, dells and
meadows. He took them up onto the high moors and always knew exactly where he
was going and the quickest way to get there.

It was a lonely and wild land. The drizzle soon
ceased, but grey clouds hung low and oppressive in the sky. Occasionally the
horses disturbed quail, and the drab colored birds burst into flight like
arrows thrumming from a score of bows. Hares, crouching and hidden, stayed
still until they were nearly trodden, then zigzagged away at speed while
agile-winged kestrels hovered and banked in the air, studying all below with
eyes that saw everything.