Worms' Ending: Book Eight (The Longsword Chronicles 8) (30 page)

“Kind to give the warning,” Allazar blinked, “But such
language before young children is unfortunate.”

Gawain shrugged. “It’s just a story, and I may have done the
toothless old bloke a disservice. Perhaps he spoke to them with great courtesy.
But anyway. Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”

“I imagine the children ignore the warning.”

“As well they might, it being uttered by a toothless old
man, stooped and creaking, bony finger wagging. Poke poke poke went the sticks.
And the dog’s ear twitches. But still they ignore the warning. Poke poke poke.
And the dog cracks a sleepy eyelid, regards them coldly for a moment, and in an
instant has an arm in its jaws, shaking the screaming brat like a rag-doll
while all others run screaming for their mothers.”

“What on earth would possess anyone to tell such a story to
children?” Allazar grimaced, eyeing the Condavian as it followed the ranger and
the dwarf further east.

“It’s a good story, what’s wrong with it?”

“What’s wrong with it? Apart from the swearing and the child
being torn limb from limb you mean?”

Gawain sniffed. “It serves two purposes and was a vakin
sight more effective than lowlanders and their wishy-washy
don’t judge a
book by its cover
or utterly uninformative
let sleeping dogs lie
.
There’s nothing like a good arm-ripping-off to drum home the message to leave
other people and their dogs alone when they want to be.”

“And yet you plan now to poke our enemies?”

“No, you beardy clodwit! I’ve had enough of
them
poking
me
. Now it’s my turn to bring some teeth to bear. Besides, we
know two things they don’t know we know.”

“Which are?”

“We know they’re desperate to obtain the sceptre, and we
know they don’t want us crossing the Arrun border. They can’t afford to run the
risk of the sceptre being taken beyond their reach, and any hope they might
have had of us sleepwalking into their carefully-laid ambush is going to be
shaken like a rat in a terrier’s jaws when they see us split up and travel in
different directions. Which they are about to now. Come. The packhorse will be
safe and comfortable here. Let’s ride for the clover woods and see what
happens.”

oOo

31. Sneaky

Nothing happened. Gawain and Allazar rode to the copse which
from the heights on the summit of ridge possessed a vague resemblance to a
clover-leaf, but closer to it than the five or six miles from the ridge was
just another cluster of silvertrees. It wasn’t for an hour after their arrival
and the horses well watered and tended that Gawain uttered a delighted ‘hah!’
and pointed into the sky away to the west.

“What is it, Longsword?”

“A second Condavian.”

“You are sure? It’s not the first returned after its long
loop?”

“I am sure. It’s gliding in from the west. Probably been
circling behind us and these clover-woods where we couldn’t see it for the
trees. The first is still following Oggy and Ven.”

“I still don’t understand how this to-ing and fro-ing will
avail our cause and serve to rip the arm from the Tau in the manner of an old
man’s toothless dog.”

“The dog had teeth, clodwit, it was the old man who was
toothless. How would a toothless dog rip anyone’s arm off?”

The wizard mumbled something, and turned his attention back
to his horse.

“Are you unwell, Allazar?”

“I am perfectly well, thank you.”

But Gawain stepped closer to the wizard anyway, and tried to
sneak a glance at Allazar’s eyes while he worked.

“It is really quite disturbing when you do that, Longsword,”
Allazar protested.

“Do what?”

“That. Trying to look into my eyes even though I am not
looking at you. I have told you I am well.”

“Bah. I am merely concerned that my First Wizard might
become unfit to wreak his special kind of havoc upon our common enemy when the
time comes.”

“I am very far from unfit for such duties. And thank you for
your concern for my wellbeing, surprising though it is.”

“You needn’t look at me like that, either. It’s solely my
kingly concern for the mystic abilities on which we may soon come to rely that
prompts my actions. Not some bizarre attachment as you may be imagining.”

“Of course, and I imagined no such thing.”

“Good. Ever since Ognorm’s winter cold passed I’ve been more
than a little concerned by every sniff and sniffle I’ve heard. I’ve heard
people mumbling about Elayeen’s use of caustic powders and liquids against the
Meggen at Fallowmead, but now I know there’s a much greater misery she could
have inflicted up on them. Could’ve launched a dwarf with a winter cold into
their midst. Surely never has so much foul slime been spat up, coughed up, or sneezed
out of so red a shonk as Ognorm of Ruttmark’s.”

“Yes, it was a rather unpleasant few days. But you need have
no fear for me. Wizards do not catch colds.”

“Really?”

“Really. It is not in our nature.”

“Hmm. It’s not endearing, you know, it’s just another reason
to despise you. Why should you escape such miseries?”

“We must endure other tortures inflicted by our kings.”

“True enough. And, speaking of torture brings us neatly back
to the original subject of our conversation this dank Mornland morn. You have a
better understanding of these things than I, how much false aquamire and how
much effort would it take someone, oh, say an Ahk-Viell of the Toorseneth, to
manufacture a Condavian and an Eye of Morloch and despatch it.”

“Actually, quite a lot… ah.”

Gawain grinned, and then in the blink of an eye became
entirely serious. “They have two advantages, numbers of men and sticks, and
knowing where we are. We have one principle disadvantage, not knowing where
they are. I can’t literally rip off their arm, but I can harry them from afar,
cause them to expend pointless effort and resources, and sow doubt and
confusion in their putrid minds. All it costs us is a day. It costs them much
more.”

“Unless they have resources to spare,” Allazar announced
quietly. “Behold, Longsword, a third Condavian, far to the north.”

Gawain stared back towards the ridge, and saw the tiny black
hyphen high in the sky beyond the great rise. It seemed to be wheeling there,
taking a station in the far distance and coming no closer, as if it meant to block
their retreat. And away to the northeast flew the second, circling above Ognorm
and Venderrian, the two riders now well on their way to the clover-wood and a
reunion with Gawain and Allazar.

“I have a feeling,” Gawain grimaced, “That until the
Toorseneth is destroyed and all its followers with it, there’ll be no shortage
of false aquamire and dark creatures made there for use against wizardkind and
any who oppose the creed. However, knowing how much distance such birds as
those can cover in a short space of time would seem to suggest that the enemy
is quite some way south of us.”

“Is that a guess or a calculation?”

Gawain shrugged. “A guestulation. Famous old Raheen word
describing the art and craft of determining an enemy’s location from limited
information. They’re south of us. Between us and the Arrun border. And I still
do not know why they are so keen to prevent us crossing out of Mornland there.
You?”

The wizard shook his head. “The only reason I can think of
is but a poor
guestulation
on my part.”

“Which is?”

Allazar shrugged. “Perhaps they fear we might enter the
Hallencloister and draw up its gate against them. Doubtless they are not aware
that the chains were all loosed from the wheels and now lay in heaps upon the
great east gate. It would take a small army of men to hoist them and thread
them again through the mechanisms.”

“And we have no such army, nor is there any likelihood of
our raising one nearby. I am worried though. Sometimes I worry Elayeen has
disobeyed my orders, and mobilised Last Ridings, and they now wait with what
reinforcements they may have raised, there at the border of Arrun.”

“I hardly think so, Longsword.”

“No, no, me neither. But I certainly didn’t expect them to arrive
at Urgenenn’s Tower either and there they were. Cherris and Dirs should have
arrived at Last Ridings in the second week of November. It’s what, December the
third today?”

“It is.”

“Well then, allowing for a few days preparation, if E had
left Last Ridings it’d still be another week before she reached the
Hallencloister. No, it would make no sense for the Tau to be concerned about
that. I am seeing dread where there really is none. Elayeen will not jeopardise
herself and our child. There’s another reason for the creed to wish to prevent
our crossing into Arrun. Let’s hope we do cross that border, and thus discover what
it is for ourselves when we’re there.”

“And that it’s a good reason from our perspective,” Allazar
grunted, heaving his saddle back up onto his horse and settling it in place
gently.

“You’re finally getting the hang of it,” Gawain smiled.

“I have had a deal of practice of late.”

“And you haven’t killed a horse in ages. Huzzah for you.”

“Not counting the unfortunate beasts at the battle of widow’s
peak hill.”

“Yes,” Gawain acknowledged sadly, “Not counting those.”

He shuddered, remembering the Surge Allazar had loosed into
the charging horses, and how the animals had crashed into each other in their
panic, and brought each other down in a flurry of tumbling hooves…

When Ognorm and Venderrian arrived the ranger immediately
reported the third Condavian off to the north and Sighting no other lights,
dark or otherwise. With two Condavians now circling over their heads and one
lurking at the edge of normal visibility, Gawain examined the two horses newly
arrived and then declared them fit to ride back to the ridge. This they did,
arriving at least two hours before noon, and there the horses were rested.

It was strange, Venderrian observed, but the northern
Condavian had seemed to retreat from them, and was now no more than a dot in
the clouds to ordinary eyes. However, the two up from the south circled lower
than before, keeping their Eyes fixed upon the quartet through the branches and
twigs of the winter-bare trees. Clearly, Gawain declared, their morning
manoeuvres had rattled the enemy’s confidence.

An hour later, Ognorm was despatched protesting and alone to
the east along the ridge once more, and Venderrian alone to the west. A spot
was chosen in the north for a rendezvous, and it was to that point which Gawain
and Allazar rode at the trot.

And so the game was played throughout the day until, towards
sunset, four Condavians circled above their camp and one loitered much further
to the north.

The following day, all four riders set out with the
packhorse in tow and continued south to the clover-wood, pausing only briefly
to watch a lone hawk harrying the quartet of Condavians following their
progress. By the middle of the afternoon there were but three of the huge black
birds tracking them, the hawk having succeeded in bringing one down for the
insult of their evil passing through its territory. That success had earned the
hawk a hearty cheer and a wave from the riders on the ground, but of course it
paid them no heed.

Nor was it the only hawk they saw on their cautious journey
south. Three Condavians became two on the 5
^th
of December, and two
became one on the 7
^th
. Still the speck in the far north kept pace
and kept its distance, and managed to survive nature’s aerial arsenal. Or,
Gawain opined, was replaced as needed by the ToorsenViell. He was considering
more diversions and shenanigans to confuse the enemy when, as if anticipating
this move, a fresh Condavian slid through the sky from the south, and joined
its winged comrade above them

“Dwarfspit,” Gawain sighed, seeing the sunlight glinting
from the metal harness slung beneath the bird’s great wings. “The bastards
learn quickly.”

They were ten days north of the Hallencloister line and
tracking more and more west of south to avoid the coast and its habitations,
and the land around them was beginning to undulate gently, higher hills and
ridges becoming fewer and further between. The trees which they’d taken to
sheltering in at night were gradually being supplanted by grasses as the
predominant vegetation, the lakes and woodlands of the Mornland midlands slowly
giving way to the scrubby plains of Arrun.

It had snowed in the night, a light dusting of powdery
white, and it was cold, the snow surviving the first hours of pallid sunshine.
Days were short, nights were commensurately much longer, and the solstice,
Allazar noted, was still two more weeks away. If all went well with them, the
shortest day of the year would be celebrated on Arrun’s soil.

“This news does not seem to cheer you, Longsword.”

“I think I’ll reserve my cheer for the day itself, and then
only if we’re in Arrun as you say. Besides, our meandering course and our
toying with the enemy has no doubt added time to our journey. While we might
have expected to cross the Hallencloister line on or near the seventeenth, it
might be some days later now. If it weren’t for the need to draw our enemies
away from our friends I’d prefer to hug the coast all the way to Nordshear, and
thence likewise to the southern capitol of Arrun. As it is, our course now
takes a more south-westerly track, almost directly to the Hallencloister itself
from here.”

“Arr, and that puts us back in harm’s way then.”

“It does, Oggy, it does indeed. And the closer we approach to
the border with Arrun unmolested, the more disturbed is my natural calm. They
know exactly where we are, yet still they do not attack, even with their
superior numbers. My games with them may well have worked even better than
expected.”

“How so?” Allazar asked as they rode at the walk.

“Perhaps they dare not,” Gawain explained. “Perhaps they
cannot take the risk of losing forever the sceptre they seek by simply
destroying us with their overwhelming force. They cannot know that one of us
hasn’t buried or hidden the artefact during our excursions back at the ridge
and around the clover-wood. They cannot know now whether we carry the object
they seek, or not.”

  “Sneaky!” Ognorm blurted, adding a little sheepishly,
“If’n you don’t mind my sayin’ so, melord.”

Gawain smiled. “No. I don’t mind. I do mind that smoke
yonder to the southeast, though. A hamlet or village perhaps. We need to pass
it at a safe distance, and that means turning further west than I’d hoped.
Come, let’s put some miles behind us. Trying to second-guess this enemy is as
fruitless as trying to second-guess Morloch himself.”

oOo