Worms' Ending: Book Eight (The Longsword Chronicles 8) (31 page)

32. Corridor of Uncertainty

At noon on the 9
^th
of December they emerged from
a copse atop a low hill, and Gawain caught his breath. Stretching before them
was a vista which would have had him sending out dozens of scouts were he
commanding the One Thousand of Raheen on a lowland excursion in the South-halt.
His three companions heard the sound of that sharp intake of breath, recognised
the intensity of the young man’s gaze, and froze, giving him the silence he
needed to consider their next actions.

On his left flank, a river winding south and then sliding in
a gentle arc through a narrow forest of conifers and away to the east. Beyond
that forest the river emptied into a broad lake before it emerged on the far
side and continued meandering roughly due south. An army could be hidden in
those evergreens, and the river and the lake beyond formed a freezing natural
barrier which would be difficult and uncomfortable, though not impossible, to
cross.

On his right flank, a rise, almost a ridge running roughly
north-south, topped by more pines, the trees packed as densely as nature
allowed all such growth unmanaged by kindred hands.

To his front, a broad expanse of open ground, lush and
verdant, with silver ribbons of streams winding here and there. Far in the
distance, more trees, but they were on the horizon which, Gawain estimated from
the height of the hill they were standing on, was twelve miles away.

The effect was of a long corridor of soft and verdant land perhaps
half a mile wide flanked by natural barriers and enticing them to proceed due
south. South, across open land, for a dozen miles, in full view of a pair of
Condavians circling eagerly overhead, or so they seemed to be to Gawain.

“Ven?”

“MiThal.”

“I know it isn’t easy, but do you see anything at all in the
trees on our right and left flanks?”

“No, miThal. Only the trees, and being ever green, their
lights are not dimmed greatly by winter as others have been. I see some smaller
animals, but nothing larger than a timber wolf.”

Gawain dismounted, patted Gwyn on the neck, and strode
forward a pace or two, standing with his arms folded beneath his cloak. From
the trees near the distant lake a hawk rose, speeding up, arrowing towards the
Condavians wheeling over the open space before them. The two broad-winged spies
in the sky were circling in diametric opposition to each other, though when the
hawk was spotted they broke and turned for the west.

Gawain watched them, and wondered if any significance might
be attached to the direction of their flight. Aerial combat began, the hawk
tearing up from below, catching a Condavian’s wing-tip on its first pass and
scattering feathers.

“Is the third Eye still in the north, Ven?” Gawain asked
over his shoulder.

A few moments later the ranger confirmed that the northern
Condavian maintained its distant watch. Allazar dismounted, and moved to stand
beside Gawain, the cloth-wrapped staff held firmly in the kind of woollen
fingerless gloves Arramin would have been proud of.

“It seems peaceful enough, Longsword.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Birds going about their business
undisturbed in the trees and in the air around them, save for hawk and
Condavian. The river, winding lazily through the trees on its way to a
shimmering jewel of a lake, and thence beyond through verdant valleys. What
wouldn’t we have given for such a bucolic scene there in the Eastbinding on our
journey to Urgenenn’s Tower? How many rabbits d’you think dwell down there in
that soft well-watered earth, the grasses green and lush year-round?”

“A great many.”

“Aye. And timber wolves in the forests, and badgers, and
foxes, and hawks and owls, and all of nature’s making bred for idylls such as
this.”

“But?” Allazar whispered. “And there is of course a but.”

“A cavalryman’s joy to behold. What a battle could be fought
here. Whoever held the western ridge could sweep down, and with their enemy
pressed back against the narrow forest, river, and lake, prevail. The only
escape would be south towards the forest on the horizon, or up here to the
north, though the commander holding the ridge would of course despatch a
company to these woods and cut off that retreat.”

“Would Tellemek of Callodon recommend such tactics?”

Gawain smiled. “Any cavalryman worth his salt would take one
look at this landscape and recommend such tactics. The only drawback would be
the going underfoot. It looks to be slow down there, a lot of water on the
surface, a lot of green. Ground’ll be soft, and that would slow a charge.”

“The Tau we face are unlikely to be cavalrymen, Longsword,
and certainly none of them comparable to a Rider of Raheen, as we and they
learned at the widow’s peak hill. Do you suspect an ambush here?”

Above them, the hawk folded back its wings and plummeted
like a stone towards the westernmost Condavian, again tearing wing-feathers
from it as it passed, jinked, and began climbing again for another assault.

“It’s a good place for one. And according to Byrne, the
enemy have riders of Bek’s Greys with them.”

“Yet you yourself have said, the enemy will not risk losing
the sceptre in an all-out battle. Yours was very far from a toothless plan, and
they now will fear killing any one of us who might be the sole guardian of the
sceptre’s location.”

“Yes,” Gawain sighed, “Yes that’s true. But Allazar, I am
what I am. Were I the commander of the Tau, this would be as fine a place as
any for a battle, or for an assault leading to capture. The very fact that I
have seen the threat this geography presents makes me wary of it. I can’t
ignore that. And we are likely a week, perhaps a little less, from the border
with Arrun.”

“A border which is wide indeed, and likely has many places
such as this scattered along its breadth. Our friend Venderrian has seen no
hint of the Tau, and nothing here seems out of place or keeping with the
region. Look! The hawk has struck a fatal blow.”

It was true. The hawk had speared down from the heavens like
a speckled brown thunderbolt and torn open a Condavian’s back. Feathers flew
and drifted, smoke began to plume, and then in a silent explosion of dull
purple smoke, the Condavian was gone, a glittering wire cage bearing the foul
jelly of a Morloch’s Eye tumbling down towards the forest atop the western
rise. Only it wasn’t Morloch’s Eye any more, Gawain knew, it was the Tau’s Eye,
and they were out there, somewhere, watching him.

“Well, I have no scouts but Ven’s eyes, and no One Thousand
at my back. We could spend a lifetime looking for a route south which wouldn’t
disturb my Raheen training in
some
way or other. We’ll descend, and take
the miles between here and the distant forest at the canter if the ground
holds, at the trot if not. The sooner we’ve left this corridor of uncertainty
behind us, the better I’ll feel.”

They mounted, and Gawain took a deep breath, letting it out
slowly while he loosened arrows in his quiver, tested his string, loosened the
sword in the scabbard across his back, and when the others had finished
checking their weapons, Gwyn moved forward and down the slope towards the level
ground below.

“Stay tight and close!” Gawain commanded, and the knot of
four accelerated to the canter, the packhorse dutifully following freely behind
them.

Initially, the ground under hooves was as firm as that on
the slopes, but after a mile or so the three-beat rhythm of the canter slowed
to the two-beat rhythm of the trot, softer earth and puddles of standing water near
the streams making for soggy areas which obliged them to proceed with greater
caution, the horses little trusting in ground that sucked at their hooves.

Their progress was thus stuttering, good for a few hundred
yards, then quickly slowing. Heads swivelled, eyes scanned, and the lone
Condavian circled high above them while the hawk rested from its earlier
endeavours. Gawain’s hackles rose, and he shuddered. To be caught in the open
here would mean disaster. If it meant the difference between life and death,
the horses in their love for their riders would run themselves into the ground
and out from this world heedless of the treacherous regions of boggier land
ground around them. Gawain, obviously, would prefer that not to happen.

He fretted. Gwyn could feel it, and her ears twitched this
way and that as she ran, eyes wide and alert. At their current and varying rate
of progress, it could take an hour and a half to traverse the length of the
corridor and attain the woodlands at the southern end. Assuming those woodlands
weren’t filled with elves of the Tau wearing armour studded with glassy black
gems.

Twenty minutes of riding which to Gawain felt like the
lurching of a wounded man dragging a ruined leg, and the hawk rose up from the
forest to the east on their left flank, and with all the grace endowed by
nature sped towards the Condavian which hovered now to the south as if waiting
for the riders to catch up with it. Gwyn slowed for another boggier patch, then
splashed through the firmer ground of a gravel-bedded stream before picking her
way through the clods and tufts on the other side.

Above, feathers flew, the hawk’s talons buried deep in the
Condavian’s tail, wings dragging and flailing before it tore away, leaving the
great spy in the sky wheeling and trying to maintain some semblance of order to
its flight. But it was struggling, and the hawk seemed to sense it, promptly
climbing into the puffy clouds which hung in the pale azure of a bright day’s
sky before flicking back its wings and diving. Hook-beaked nature’s vengeance
for the insult of dark-made evil’s trespass blasted into the Condavian,
breaking the foul-made bird’s back and tearing flesh and feathers, leaving a
smoking ruin to tumble and immolate, the Eye plummeting.

This time the hawk received no cheers and there were no
fists waving in the air for its success. It didn’t seem to mind though,
disappearing behind the trees of the eastern forest a short time later. But the
victory did fill four hearts with a strange pride, and a strange determination
as they continued south.

Almost halfway down the length of the valley, the ground
became much firmer, an absence of streams, springs and standing water
testifying to a geology which Corax might find interesting but which for Gawain
meant an increased rate of progress, and he even considered allowing Gwyn to
gallop. But Ognorm called a ‘melord’, and Gawain drew them to a halt.

Behind his right shoulder, Venderrian was frowning, and
Ognorm jerked a nervous head towards the ranger.

“Ven?” Gawain whispered.

“I cannot say, miThal, I thought I saw a faint light upon
the ground, yonder.”

Gawain scanned the grasses in the area Venderrian had
indicated, and though he stared, he saw nothing. Blades of grass, rippling,
nothing more, their glossier sides almost silver, reflecting the light of the
day. It
did
look like a light, shimmering, if you stared closely for
long enough.

“And now? Ven?”

“My apologies, miThal. Perhaps I am straining too hard to
see something which is not there.”

Gwyn snorted, ears twitching this way and that, her great
head swinging in an arc as if peering for enemies only her chosen mount could
see.

“We’re all tense,” Gawain sighed, patting Gwyn’s neck. “Come
on, let’s get these last miles behind us.”

Gwyn trotted forward, gaining pace and was about to break
into the canter when a sudden breeze blew up, making Gawain’s eyes water. He
wiped them and blinked and felt his senses begin to scream a warning, as though
a worm had sprung into existence in the empty pit of his stomach. The breeze
grew stronger, and the warning crystallised. The wind was coming from the
south…

“Allazar!” he called, and the wizard, surprised, glanced
across at him.

But then the breeze became a wind, lifting cloaks, whipping
hair, and suddenly it was a gale, and the horses slowed instinctively,
squealing in protest at the sudden buffeting. The gale began to swirl, whipping
all around them, a typhoon in miniature, the wind began to howl, and they were
showered with dirt and spiteful gravel.

Horses cried out and reared up in pain and shock, gravel
stinging such was the force of the wind, and gusts bowled two of them over,
Venderrian and Ognorm tumbling to the ground. Gawain glimpsed the packhorse
running back towards the north, saw two more steeds following it, desperate to
escape the roaring of the hurricane. Gwyn stumbled and squealed a warning, and
Gawain leapt clear, and he screamed for her to run, Gwyn, run to the north!

And then Allazar crashed into the ground in front of him,
eyes rolling wildly, cloth-wrapped staff held firmly in his gloved hands as the
wind howled around them.

Calm, then, and stillness in spite of the roaring of the
wind.

They were in the centre of a perfect storm, all four of
them, their small circle of ground suddenly a haven of peace, a great wall of
spinning wind expanding around them and slowing, debris tumbling from the
twister’s loosening grip, spattering them. To the north, they saw the horses,
safe and running clear.

And they saw rising up from shallow-scooped hollows in the
ground and advancing slowly towards them from shimmering air which had hidden
them from sight three elfwizards, clad head to toe in crystal-studded robes, one
with a staff and two with long rods held out before them parallel with the
ground, and chanting. A hasty glance around revealed another three, likewise
advancing, hemming them in, encircling them, the wind dying away as they drew
closer. The hairs on Gawain’s arms seemed to scream, standing erect and
quivering beneath the sleeves of his shirt.

“Quintinenn!” Allazar shouted, disgusted with himself,
dragging himself up onto his knees and ripping off his gloves and the cloth
from the Dymendin. “They were using Viell-made Cloaks none of us could see and
I could not feel their power through the staff! Stupid stupid stupid!”