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Fourteen

The night was becoming inhospitable. The brisk spring wind had taken on a fierce edge, wrinkling the moon-silvered channel of the Upper Skell as it left its headwaters at the Well of the Seven Springs. The hoot and cry of unseen owls from somewhere on the Saddle below rode the chill gusts up to where the retreating watchmen turned to join the path across the upland mead from the Well. Diggory grumbled to himself and pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, clutching it at the neck.

Kal found it hard to imagine how Wilum had fared on his own up here in the Enclosure for all those years. And not only Wilum, but all those Hordanus who had preceded him in ages past. As for himself, he was thankful to be in the company of other Holdsmen.

It was a fey place, this Hordanu's Enclosure, not at all what one might think sacred in the sense of good and holy. Strange—his impressions had been so different earlier, when they had emerged from the Stairs of Tarn Cromar onto this sequestered area. Then, in spite of all those tracks of the gathgour that had charged his imagination, an oddly bracing clarity had clung to the place, akin somehow to the crystalline purity of the waters of the Seven Springs that bubbled up from their deep hidden source.

For a moment, Kal's mind turned with wonder to the mighty Dinastor River, which flowed for hundreds of miles through highland and then lowland Arvon, emptying itself at length into Lake Lavengro at Arvon's capital, Dinas Antrum. In a real sense, though, more truly than Deepmere, these Seven Springs were the source of the Dinastor. It was suckled and nurtured here on the mountain heights, well before Deepmere took any part in its forming.

Now even this fountainhead near the roof of the world was infected with a dire corruption, this last hallowed spot, the hidden womb of Arvon's mightiest river, where the power of the Great Harmony had lingered unbroken for so long, even while the rest of the world sank into a spiralling coil of chaotic change. Small wonder, too, that the wellsprings should be tainted, when you thought of what had happened to the Dinastor's stately lowland beauties. Old Sarmel—with a touch of poignant sadness, Kal fell to wondering what had happened to the codger after that last sight he had had of him at the Sunken Bottle—Sarmel was wont to say in a vein of grim humour that in the nether parts of Arvon, where the Dinastor broadened out into a wide deep channel, the river was so sullied with sludge from the huge noisome manufactories and fuming smithies and forges strung out along its banks that you might almost walk dryshod from one side of the river to the other. That is, supposing you could see the other side through the thick pall of smoke that hung over the grimy valley of the Dinastor, once as beautiful as it was broad and powerful. "The loveliest of rivers this, this ribbon-tide of sun-flecked waters adorned by lark-exalted woods and lush and limb-burdened orchards, clinging to verdured pasturelands," Ardiel had described it in one of his more poignant lyric songs.

The wind that moaned through the looming rocks sent a dark cloud scudding across the face of the moon, so that Gwyn, who led the way, was swallowed for a moment by the darkness as if by some black-mawed beast of prey. There was a muffled thud. A volley of intemperate curses vomited forth into the night air.

"Why, it would be you, you bumbling simpleton! You clumsy moron!"

In the blackness, the little cobbler had been knocked flat by Gwyn, but did not catch sight of the others approaching until he had picked himself up off the ground and struggled to his feet. He adjusted his cloak and bustled past Gwyn, who had been left lying in the path. Kal drew near and helped Gwyn stand again.

"Briacoil, Relzor! And what brings you out here all on your own? Is anything the matter? How are things at the Cave?" asked Frysan. An edge was in his voice. The discernible lines of each man's features and frame were muted by the blanketing dark, the clouds still not yielding to the light of the moon.

"Frysan! Everything's fine. No, nothing's amiss. Wilum sent me to look for his brooch, you know, that silver thing in the shape of the harp that he wears whenever he's about something, like the Candle Festival or whatever. He says he thinks he lost it at Tarn Cromar by the Meeting Oak. He's of a mind that it's there. So, that's where I'm off to, and I'd best hurry. So step aside. There's no telling when the Boar and his dragoons might show up at the Tarn, and then where would poor old Relzor be? Aye, where would I be then? And Wilum telling me that he can't send any other man 'cause he can't spare them. And he can spare me, he says, as if my pelt was worth nothing to him," complained Relzor in a swelling crescendo of resentment. "By the welkin, come now, Frysan, make way, I say. I've spent too long already making idle talk with you. Get out of the way now! Let me pass!"

"All right, off with you then, Relzor." Frysan half stepped aside to let the man scuffle his way past them into the open meadow beyond. The moon gently found release from the drift of clouds and lit up the retreating figure, his black cloak clasped tight around him with both hands. A couple of times, he looked back, like an animal chased away from its carrion meal, and then hurried on, limping ever so slightly.

"What do you think, Fry? He's a sly hog-grubbing kind of fellow, ain't he?" Diggory said. "As flustered as a fly in a tarbox, couldn't you just feel it?"

"Aye, that's for certain. I didn't care much for all his chatter. Not his way. It's not like him to pass more than a handful of words, and those as black as tar, Digg. I don't trust him, don't trust him at all."

"Maybe we should have stopped him and taken him back with us," offered Galli.

"Then we'd be raising a fine little hornets' nest," continued his uncle. "Besides, what could he do, the stiff-necked little half-man? If he's off to Ferabek, I say good riddance. I don't know why he ever decided to stay with us in the first place, why he didn't stomp off with Enbarr and Kenulf when he had his chance."

"Puzzles me why Wilum would send the likes of him to look for the pios, if it's been lost," Frysan said.

"Couldn't spare anybody else, I suppose. We'll find out why soon enough, I expect," said Kal, while Gwyn, still groggy, leaned on his shoulder. "He really shook the poor lad's tree. And did you hear him, as if it were all Gwyn's fault? He even—"

Gwyn raised his head and began to pull at the sleeve of Kal's cloak. "We'd better get a move on. Gwyn's in another of his moods."

"I suppose we have small choice but to follow, do we Digg?" Frysan smiled wanly.

At the entrance to the Cave, they were met by Fionna. She was relieved to find her son safe and sound. Gammer had decided to take up station there beside her, awaiting her husband's return as well. The fubsy matron seized him in a huge embrace, gathering him to her bosom like a she-bear, and when Frysan explained how her man had almost been carried off by the gathgour, she placed a fist on each of her hips and grinned at Diggory, who reddened and looked to his feet.

"By the gingers, my smiling Digg. I've been expecting you to end up in the briars one of these days. No better than young Galli, you are. A fine job you made of keeping guard at the Stairs. Why, if me and Fionna was as watchful, this whole cave would be crawling with gathgours and murdering folk of all kinds. But we're made of finer stuff than that, ain't we, Fionna?"

"Ah, stop your talk, Gammer. That's a pretty question to be jabbering, when you've got a hearty trencherman to feed," rejoined Diggory, looking now at his wife with a broad smile.

Gwyn had broken from his mother's attention and disappeared, ambling off into the Cave. All but one of the torches had been extinguished, and the only other light in the main chamber, apart from the feeble shimmer of pearl-drop starlight in the opening of the smoke hole, came from the firepit in the centre of the dry stone floor, reduced now to a few tongues of fire amid a glowing nest of coals, its mounting flames long spent. Gara sat and watched the pulsing embers of the fire, softly singing "Lament for the Children," an old ballad of the Holding which told of two children who lost their way and perished in Darran Wood when it was still a trackless expanse of thick forest, haunted by bear and boar. Some of the adults were crouched around her, too tired to sleep, riveted by the old ballad's melancholy strains.

In the blackness beyond Gara, a woman keened wordlessly. A stark shapeless thing, her voice disembodied, she distilled with hushed choking sobs the sadness that erupted in painful spasms from the very marrow of her being. Exhausted as they were, however, most of the children and a good number of the remaining refugees had already drifted into restless slumber on coarse rush mats, exchanging their present sorrows for the softer world of dream shadows.

Two of the older children, their imaginations kindled, refused to sleep. Spotting Kal and Galli, they rose from their beds to ply them with questions about the cruel gathgour.

"Don't worry, little one. There's not a gathgour in all of Ahn Norvys that's apt to come within a mile of you when you've got this around your neck," Kal assured the frightened girl, lifting off his rowanwood charm to give it to her. The girl's brother, not to be outdone, pestered Galli until he too parted with his sprig of rowan. Leaving Galli to humour the children, Kal turned to search out Wilum.

"By all that's holy, Kalaquinn, come here! Quickly! For pity's sake, you'd better come right this moment. Hurry!" Frysan's shout shattered the air of repose that had settled on the Cave. The distraught voice emanated from the side chamber where Wilum kept his chest of medicaments and simples. A very faint gleam of torchlight spilled over feebly into this side chamber from the main cavern, to which it was connected at right angles by an anteroom that hid it from prying eyes.

Kal made for his father's voice. Close behind him came Manaton, Diggory, and Thurfar, stepping over and around sleeping bodies. Frysan stood in the murky half-light beside the form of Gwyn. The boy was shaking, hunched over Wilum, who lay limp on the hard stone floor. His head lolled, a bloody tangle of matted hair and gore, while his hands and arms lay crossed, as if he had been trying desperately to hold on to something. The sight hit Kal like a bludgeon blow—savage and unexpected. Others came pressing in behind him.

"He's breathing. He's still alive," said Frysan. He had his ear close over Wilum's mangled mouth. "But his breath is shallow. Bren? Bren, go fetch some hot water and a cloth. Let's get him cleaned off. Galli, we need some blankets—"

"Father, the Talamadh, it's gone! Must have been prised out of his hands. And the satchel with all the scrolls and manuscripts. It's nowhere to be seen either—"

"Relzor! By all that's holy, that's what he was about!" Frysan stood and turned away from the crushed body of the Hordanu. "No wonder he was so anxious to keep that cloak of his wrapped closely around himself. You noticed that too, eh Digg?" he said, when the other man nodded his head. "He was favouring that one side. But where did he put the sack? He can't have had that with him." Frysan looked to Diggory, while the stout Holdsman busied himself lighting one of the torches on the wall, adding new brightness to the shadowed gloom of the small cavern.

"Look at Wilum! His eyes!" shouted Kal. The battered man's eyelids flickered in the torchlight. Then with painful slowness, as if infinity were hanging on every syllable, Wilum fought to gasp words through the broken flesh of his mouth.

" 'Relzor,' he's saying 'Relzor,' " Kal said, watching Wilum's lips, gathering up the halting syllables as if they were precious gems. Then, Wilum made a laboured attempt to move his head, to turn his attention to Kal. His words were barely a breath: "Get Talamadh . . . Kal, you now . . . Hordanu . . ." He struggled to frame the syllables, pausing at the huge effort it took even to shape this smattering of words. Then, screwing up his battered face, as if to summon his last stores of energy, he continued, "Hurry . . . pios . . . still have . . . some power . . . same shape." At this, the fingers of his right hand, until now tightened into a fist, eased open with palsied slowness, as if pried apart by hidden hands. The palm that lay open revealed the pios—a small silver brooch shaped like the Talamadh. He had gripped it in his fist, managing to retain it even while being forced to let the Talamadh itself go. His fingers closed over it again.

Then haltingly, in what seemed to be a jumble of ancient and present-day Arvonian, came sounds more like a pattern of exhaled breaths than distinct words: "Fat-ainn . . . Ael-ward . . . Mark . . . Stone . . . Llani-gon . . ."

His eyes closed again, and his breathing relapsed, the exhalations from his mouth so light that they might not have stirred a feather. Marina had entered the cavern, accompanied by Brendith, carrying a bowl of hot water. Gasping at the sight that met her eyes, Marina fell to the Hordanu's side and began, with the tenderest of care, to clean his broken face.

Galli had returned with some blankets and then drifted to the back of the chamber, where it tapered to another passageway that disappeared into the bulk of the mountain. Just before this passageway, pressed against a side wall of the chamber, there was a narrow crescent-shaped hole. From its lip, Galli lifted a patch of dirty cloth.

"Here, come look at this. Relzor must have thrown the satchel down here. Right here . . . I've found a piece of oilskin torn off by a sharp rock."

"The little nointer! Here, Kal, bring over one of the torches, will you? Let's have a look," said Frysan. But the limited light of the torch made it hard to gauge how far down the cache of ancient manuscripts might have dropped. All Kal could see was a black void that, for all he knew, might be two or two hundred fathoms deep. It was impossible to tell.

Kal turned from the opening and spoke to his father in a low voice. "We'd better get going after Relzor, if it's not too late already. The harp. We have to get the harp. If Ferabek gets his hands on the Talamadh, he's won half the battle. And not only that, but there's the Pyx of Roncador."

"Quite right, Kal. Re'm ena, we have to get moving, or that miserable rotter will be the end of us. But, what's this about you and the Hordanu? What does he mean?"

"I'll explain later. Now, we'd better go after Relzor. I'll go, and Galli. The two of us can track him down as fast as anybody. And we both know the Saddle like the palms of our hands. We have to get the Talamadh back."

Bren begged to be allowed to go too. For a moment, Frysan furrowed his brow in thought. "No, Bren, you stay back with us. Any more than two of you on the trail, and we might as well send a herald to announce ourselves. No, Bren, no arguments. Please, believe me, it's best this way." Frysan turned to Kal. "All right, son, enough now. Every moment you linger here brings Relzor that much closer to Ferabek. Get going, run like the wind—just a moment though!" Frysan held up his arm to halt them as they were making to leave. "Do you have your sprigs of rowan?"

"I'd almost forgot," answered Kal.

"Hurry up then. Look into that chest of Wilum's and find what you need."

"Ah good, here's a whole bundle of ash, already strung together," said Kal, rifling through Wilum's collection of herbs. He handed one of the circlets to Galli.

"Now be off with you, but be careful, mind yourselves. And you, Gwyn, you'll be staying here this time." The mute boy's face fell. "Here, you can help us keep watch over Master Wilum, while I rack my mind and try to remember everything I ever knew about herbal remedies, which is not a lot. It would be a good idea, I think, if we called on the services of goodwife Clout. Aye, Digg, we'll be needing your good Gammer."

"She'll be glad to help, I'm sure, Fry. She knows near as much of herbing as Cloudbeard himself, I wouldn't be surprised."

Kal and Galli waited no longer. They flew from the Cave in headlong pursuit of Relzor. Dhu fell to wing from the column where he had perched by the entrance and soared into the night sky above them. They made good time along the path. Kal had grown familiar with the trail and had begun to expect some of the dipping turns and odd-shaped passageways that threaded the rocky defiles. The urgency of their mission lent wings to their feet.

Soon, they reached the three sentries at the Stairs and, in a flurry of words, gave a short account of what had happened at the Cave. The three men grew sombre at the retelling, heads shook slowly, and oaths were muttered under breath. With the benefit of hindsight, Narasin told them that Relzor did seem to bear an odd cunning mien on his arrival at their post earlier. But, thinking at the time that this was just Relzor looking and acting like Relzor, that is, shifty and faithless, he and his sons let him through down the Stairs about an hour ago, glad to be rid of him. After that, even they had second thoughts when they saw him from the loophole, heading along the flagstone walk at a clip.

"I thought it was strange," explained Narasin, "that he pushed off into the woods down the Skellside Path. Why, he didn't even so much as give the Tarn a second's glance, if that's where he says Wilum lost his brooch. Oh, if I had known, I could've planted a nice long goose-feathered shaft in that black carcass of his—"

"We'd better get after him. Briacoil, Narasin. Briacoil, Artun, Garis." Kal broke off the conversation. He and Galli climbed over the stone breastwork and left the three pickets as they ran down the Stairs.

Once Kal and Galli reached the Skellside Path, the headlong speed of their pursuit slowed, for Galli was forced into the stooped stance of the tracker. But the moon's undimmed crescent illumined the distinct impressions of Relzor's hobnailed boots well enough for Galli to follow.

Their way swung and dipped into the hollow through which the path ran. Now the moon's steady light was blocked out by the dense tangle of forest growth. A strong scent of wild mint filled the air, while a spadefoot toad regaled them with a monotonous repetition of bleating. Here Galli had to track by dropping to a crouch and feeling for the contours of the spoor.

"He's turned this way, Kal, up this path."

"Now why would he turn up this way?"

"Probably because he doesn't like this owl-eyed darkness any more than we do. I think if we follow this path it'll take us right up out of this dreary place far quicker than if we kept to the Skellside Path."

They emerged moments later onto a ridge that opened them once more to the sky. From here, the trail kept rising towards Stonehead.

"This is strange, Galli. Why's he going up? There are all kinds of side paths where he could have turned down."

"I don't know. He's a tricky little fellow. I'm certain, for one thing, that he's smart enough to know that we'd be following him down the Skellside Path as sure as day follows night. So, he's likely making his trail as roundabout as he can."

In a while, they reached a point where the path started to descend the mountain, weaving across its flank. Down the trail, they forded a stream, and Relzor's tracks were nowhere to be found on the other side.

"Why, the clever—! He's trying to lose us." Galli straightened and looked down the course of the brook.

"So would I, if I knew it was likely you were the one to be set on my scent."

Galli grunted and began ranging the banks on either side in an attempt to pick up Relzor's trail again. It took him a good quarter-hour to find it about a hundred paces downstream on the near side of the brook, where the tracks doubled back in the direction of the Skell along a dingy and overgrown side trail. After a while, this veered off onto a better-cleared pathway which swung down and ended on the edge of a lofty precipice.

"Look, that's him. Down there." Kal placed a hand on Galli's back and pointed. "He's making for the Grotto of Proclamation! That's the reason he came this way. Of course."

Galli had been so busy reading the signs of Relzor's passage through the woods, that Kal had spied him first, maybe two hundred yards below them, on a grassy ridge that bulged out from the sheer face of the bluff and seemed to end at a magnificent promontory covered almost to the edge by an arching sheet of rock and the bulk of the scarp above. The sliver of moon hung suspended in the sky over the Grotto, casting pale rays onto the landscape below. Relzor drew away from them towards the left and had almost reached the Grotto. He climbed up onto the leading edge and then paused.

"Galli, look, he's going to sound a horn."

"Here, quick, let me stop him," said Galli, slipping the longbow from his shoulder and fumbling at his quiver.

"You're too late, Galli." The deep resonant note of a hunting horn rent the stillness of the night. "Besides, chances are you'd miss him from here and then all he'd have to do is scuttle into the Grotto like a spider and wait for his sting-tailed cousins to come to the rescue." The round tone reverberated up and down the length of the valley ringed by the Radolan Mountains.

"What'll we do?" asked Galli, replacing the arrow he had drawn to his quiver. "It'll take us nearly a half-hour to scramble down there, and by that time the place could be crawling with soldiers. Quick, get down! He's looking up this way."

Kal dropped behind a tree. "That was close. I don't think he saw us though."

"We'd better be quick about this. 'Ain't no time to lose,' as Gammer would say. The sooner we're on the trail, the sooner we'll get our hands on the scoundrel. It's our only hope."

"Wait . . . there must be another way."

"What do you mean? We didn't bring any rope with us to scale our way down, and we can't very well fly down there."

"So where does that leave us?"

"I don't know. Scrambling our way down, I guess. Let's get a move on, Kal."

"Wait—! What did you say? Can't fly . . . We can't fly, you said. No, we can't fly down, but Dhu certainly can." Kal whistled a rising call which drew Relzor's attention. The two shrank back behind the cover of rock and tree, as Relzor peered up at them through the dark. He must have thought it no more than yet another of the odd night sounds that filled the air above the woods of these upland places, for after a moment he turned away again into the Grotto.

At the summons, Dhu alighted on the overhanging branch of a nearby beech tree, hopping from there onto a wind-fallen limb beside Kal.

"Look!" Galli said. "Relzor has laid the Talamadh against the wall of the Grotto. Wants to take a load off his shoulders, while he waits for his rescuers. Doesn't want to go farther into the Grotto either. He'll want to guard his approaches and keep track of friend or foe."

Relzor winded his horn once again at the brink of the ledge out into the night air.

"All right, enough man," Kal muttered under his breath. "You've made your point. Every living ear in the Holding has heard you now."

As if heeding Kal's grumbling command, Relzor swung away and placed the horn beside the Talamadh, then took up station at the edge of the Grotto, pacing it up and down in a nervous half-circle. With his dark cloak wrapped around him and the vivid sharpness of his profile, he looked like some malignant carrion crow under the baleful glow of the moon.

"Listen, Galli. We'll get the better of Relzor yet . . . Won't we, Dhu?" Kal pointed from behind the shelter of a large pine tree straight at the Talamadh. "Now wait, Dhu, wait, 'til he's facing the other way, and then off you go. Fetch me that nice golden harp in your talons, my strong and gentle Dhu, and I shall be forever in your debt."

Just then, a bobbing handful of lights caught Galli's eye, curling up the mountainside and looming larger and more threatening with every passing moment. Relzor had seen them too. His rescue force coming. He moved out to the lip of the ledge. It looked like a long column of Ferabek's soldiers, judging by the distance between the forward torches in the vanguard and those at the rear of the marching line. It would not take them long to reach the Grotto.

"Go, Dhu. Go now," whispered Kal with a gentle stroke of the fellhawk's sleek feathers, releasing the bird into the night. Dhu slipped from his perch, and with a mighty thrust of his pinions, drove himself out into the vagrant crosswinds that played along the dark face of the precipice. Pulling his wings from their full span, he plunged down straight to the Grotto. No sooner had Relzor heard the sweep of Dhu's wings behind him than he turned to see the fellhawk lift himself off into the air, his talons gripped tight around the gleaming harp, the Pyx dangling below on its chain.

Relzor's curses stained the dark night, as he shook his fists at the fellhawk, who wheeled out of the mouth of the Grotto, gaining speed as he mounted the air currents with great wing strokes back to his master. Kal found the man's fury appalling. There was something elemental about it, chilling him like an icy parody of fire radiating from a blazing hearth, strangely cold and numbing. Seething anger fed by an unsated hatred had consumed the little cobbler, sending shock waves into the night.

In a frenzy, Relzor searched the ground for a rock to throw at Dhu. But it was far too late, and for his efforts, Relzor came near to losing his balance and falling over the brink. He followed Dhu's retreating flight.

"He's seen us!" Kal said, as he and Galli abandoned their hiding places to seize the harp surrendered to them by the fellhawk. Now Relzor's wrath became even more manic and hysterical. It was like watching the desperate fits of a bird caught in a well-laid trap of lime. Dire curses and threats further blackened the air.

"Come, we'd better move, Galli. Those torchlights are coming up fast, too fast, and there may be scouts ahead of them." Kal shuddered again at Relzor's anger. What could have so cankered the man's soul? An odd stirring of pity for the misshapen cobbler rose in his heart.

Kal unfixed the chain with which the Pyx was attached to the Talamadh and tucked it in his pocket. "I don't want the Pyx clanging against the harp all the time," he said, then slung the Talamadh over his shoulder, as they began to retrace their steps back up the trail. Dhu went on ahead in short flights from branch to branch, keeping close to his master. Kal thrilled once more to feel the beguiling weight of mystery that clung to the golden masterpiece of Vali's ancient craftsmanship.

"I wonder how they'll treat him, when they find he hasn't delivered the goods," mused Galli, breaking the hush.

"Not too well, I would think, Galli, not too well at all. Ferabek's rewards for success are great, but as for failure . . . I wouldn't want to be in Relzor's shoes right now, after he's summoned every fell soul in the valley and not a cup-of-sneeze to show them, when they've come running to his horn blasts at the Grotto."

"Hush now, Kal. We shouldn't be talking. There's no telling who or what that blasted horn has drawn. You know there may be more Telessarian trackers combing the woods for us."

As it was, their trip in vigilant silence passed without event. Every now and again, when they emerged from the folded hollows of the hills onto a height or eminence of any kind, they could see flecks of light advancing in procession up towards the Grotto of Proclamation along trails they both knew well. Just as they approached the lip of Tarn Cromar, where the Skell spilled down its rock-strewn run, Galli looked back again.

"Kal, look at that." A great creature hovered over the Grotto in the distance.

"Aye, the night drake, but there it goes, I can't see it anymore," Kal said, as it descended into the dimness of the nocturnal horizon.

"It probably landed. What a fearful-looking creature, even from here."

"I feel almost sorry for him, Galli." Kal stopped now beside his companion to catch his breath atop the crest of land that brought them level with the Tarn.

"Who do you mean? Relzor?"

"Aye, Relzor. They're probably feeding him piecemeal to the night drake, I wouldn't be surprised."

"You can't be serious!"

"I am actually."

"Ah! You're too soft, Kal. My heart bleeds for the knife-faced fiend not one little bit. It's not as if he had even an ounce of pity for poor old Cloudbeard or the rest of us. And he's like now to be a murderer too, I don't doubt. Such as him deserves to be hanged from the nearest stout limb."

"Even so, Galli, even so . . . He is a Holdsman, like you and me."

"Not like you and me at all, Kal. He was a Holdsman, and one with a muckworm in his soul."

Kal sighed. "Come, Galli, enough of Relzor. On to the Stairs."

They resumed their trail past the Meeting Oak and veered behind the foot of Skell Force to climb the steps up the cliff face. When they neared the top of the stone steps, a stern voice rang out in challenge. "Who goes there? Is that you, Kal?"

"Yes, Narasin, we're back. Rest easy."

"I thought it was you. Garis said he saw you from the loophole. Says there are lots more lights down below than he saw before, and some strange beast flying through the air. They're coming from the north, he says."

"He's right. It spells trouble, although we did manage to recover the Talamadh. As for Relzor, he's about to be called to account by the Boar, if he hasn't already been, and then, I expect, they'll be come to the Stairs."

Narasin and Artun gave the two a hand over the barricade. Dhu swung low over them and glided to a rest atop the stone on which he had perched before. Narasin cowered and sucked in his breath, looking over his shoulder. "Kalaquinn Wright! I'll never get used to that bird of yours."

"Aye, Nar, that may be, but it's Dhu we've to thank for this," Kal said, shrugging up the Talamadh on his shoulder.

Kal and Galli left the bulwark and made for the lookout, where Garis stood watch, to have a look for themselves at what was unfolding in the night. Narasin and Artun joined them. Kal recounted what had happened at the Grotto of Proclamation.

"So now Ferabek knows exactly where we're all hidden," commented Narasin in a tone of resignation.

"I'm sure he already had his suspicions. Why, there's Enbarr, for one, and we were close enough to the Enclosure when he left us at Tarlynn's Coomb. It was merely a matter of time. As it is, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was an attack by morning."

"Or even before," offered Galli. "What's to stop him attacking at night?"

"Aye, Galli," said Narasin. "We'd be like to suffer more in the confusion of a storming under darkness. It hardly gives us a chance to have recovered even a slight bit from our tiredness, while his troops are many and fresh. I'd say we're in a fine spot of trouble."

"Look," Garis said, "there's somebody down below. He's coming towards the Meeting Oak."

"By the welkin, it's Relzor. There's no other looks like him. But how did he get up so fast? He's making for the Stairs. Ready your weapons," Narasin ordered. "This must be a trick of some kind. Garis, have you got your horn ready? Three blasts—two short, one long—and we'll get our reinforcements, such as they are—"

"Garis, wait!" said Kal. "I see no other movement down there."

"They could be hiding in the woods, and we wouldn't see them, even in daylight," Narasin said.

"All the same, let's hold. What can Relzor do to us on his own? And it doesn't look like he's armed."

Narasin snorted. "That's what we thought before. What harm can that bent little man do to us, we said to ourselves. And look what happened!"

An oppressive silence fell over the men, as they waited, watching. In the blackness, it seemed half an eternity before Kal's ear caught the first harsh scrapes of Relzor's nailed boots scuffling on the stone steps.

"Here he is, I see him," called Artun, who had moved to the barricade, his bow fully drawn. Narasin ran to stand beside him, pulling an arrow from his quiver and bending his bow to full draw as well.

"P-peace. D-don't shoot. Please. P-peace." Relzor cowered behind the stone wall, breathless and pale, entreating them in a terrified stammer.

"What do you want, Relzor?" demanded Kal, who had come up beside Narasin. "What trick are you trying to pull on us now? One step more and you're a dead man."

"Aye, Kal. He thinks we're half-rocked fools, coming back here, after all he's done to put us under," said Narasin through clenched teeth, not relaxing the tension of his bowstring.

"Go on, man!" Kal challenged the cobbler. "What have you come back here for? Out with it, or I'll not keep them from pricking you!"

Relzor bent his head, glancing sidelong up at Kal, and began to wring his hands. "I-I be come . . . to ask you t-to take m-me back in . . . To beg your p-pardon . . . for all I done . . ."

"Will you listen to him? He's come to beg our pardon, as if we was base dullards. Come, Kal, let me dispatch him now, and it'll save us the trouble of a hanging." Narasin raised the bow higher to show his resolve.

"Hold, Narasin! You've got nerve, Relzor. Why should you be coming back here, after all you've done to harm us? You know you deserve a traitor's death. Your lot lies with Ferabek and Enbarr and Kenulf, not with us."

"I c-can't. He'll kill me. En-Enbarr, he told me, Ferabek's not a man to abide failure, bungling, Kenulf called it," responded Relzor, huddled against the wall of the Stairs, shaking like an aspen leaf in a stiff breeze.

"You should have thought of that before you tried to sell us down the river to Ferabek, and him having butchered so many of our clanfellows. And there's you doing the damage yourself to poor old Wilum, who may be dead by now, for all we know. Off with you, Relzor, and count yourself lucky. Re'm ena, but you're tempting me sore. Get out of my sight, before I let slip this bowstring!" ordered Narasin.

"No, wait! Wait . . ." Kal held the cringing figure in a narrowed gaze. "Lower your arrow and ease your bowstring, Narasin. Let him up over the barrier. I see no trickery here, just a man who is naked before his enemies, outdone by his own guile."

The farmer and his son looked at Kal in stark disbelief. Narasin made to object, working his mouth like a fish, noiselessly opening and shutting it. Kal's words carried an unfamiliar weight of authority.

"No, Narasin, Artun, lower your weapons. We won't send Ferabek another corpse. Besides, we might learn something more of Ferabek's intentions. Might we not, Master Relzor?"

"Oh yes, young Master Wright. Oh yes, yes, very right you are, right you are," Relzor spewed the words and snickered his choking mirthless laugh. Then, like a half-starved dog seizing on a bone, Relzor pounced on the opening that Kal had presented to him. "There's much as Enbarr came and spoke to me about. Many's the night, when all of the Holding lay asleep, we'd be planning and plotting this and that and the other . . ." He continued gabbling to himself as much as to anyone else.

Narasin unnocked the arrow from his bowstring, yet kept an eye on the cloaked form of the repentant cobbler. Kal helped Relzor over the wall, while Galli and Garis stared in amazement from the lookout post. Kal searched Relzor for weapons, and then, leaving Artun behind to man the barricade, he and Narasin marched him to where the others waited.

"But Kal, what'll we do with him, the makings of a hawk and a pigeon both, and we can't have the pigeon without the hawk? There'll have to be one of us watching the villain all the time, or someone is like to have his head dented in like Wilum's," argued Narasin. "It'll be like having a ball and chain tied to our legs, weighing us down, and we like drowning men up to our necks in water. The last bother we need is to set a guard on him all the time. Wouldn't it be best to send him back to his paymaster and be done with him?"

"Aye, Kal, I do think that Nar has a point. We're going to need every able-handed man, and woman, I don't doubt, before we're out of this bind," said Galli. Relzor's face darkened into a frown, as the tide of opinion seemed to be turning against him.

"Don't forget," Narasin added, "he's only coming to us because there ain't no other choice he's got. We're Relzor's last and only resort, and I'll wager he figures he can still find a way to turn against us so long as he bides his—"

"Look! There, look! Fireworks, like rockets!" exclaimed Garis, pointing to sparkling streamers of light that rose below them to meet the northern sky, shooting straight up, then fanning languidly into billowing bursts of colour that cascaded down, like a soft rain, until they were quenched in the sea of darkness. It was a strange sight—startling and disquieting, the more so since the moon had just then been obscured by a thick wall of cloud, pitching them into darkness.

"Can you fellows see anything? What's happening?" shouted Artun.

"Galli, you stay here and see what you can see. The rest of us, to the Stairs," commanded Narasin. He, Kal, and Garis stumbled towards the steps. Drawing his shortsword, Kal cursed himself for not having brought any light from the Cave—even just a candle.

Joining Artun, the three crouched at the ready behind the rude defensive works at the top of the Stairs, huddled there, waiting for further word from the lookout, as they peered over the barricade, watching for the telltale signs of an assault. Kal sensed someone come up to him.

"Who's that?"

"It's me, Relzor. What's going on?" whispered a voice behind him.

"What do you care! Get out of the way!" spat Narasin.

Relzor jostled closer to Kal's side, bobbing back and forth, as if on the lookout himself for the terrifying onrush of Scorpion invaders. At Kal's back, he kept up an incessant woeful chatter, peppered with self-pitying sighs and curses. For a while, Kal remained so intent on the danger emanating from the murky darkness that enveloped the narrow Stairs, that he hardly took notice of Relzor. At length, as the impression of imminent danger subsided, Kal became more sensible of the craven little cobbler clinging to him. Irritated and feeling himself violated in some way, Kal was all set to order him back from the Stairs, when Relzor withdrew, slinking away of his own accord.

Presently, Kal's eyes began to pick out more details in the darkness, and, feeling easier, he started to engage in light banter with Narasin and his two sons. With ill-defined misgiving, though. Something was not right. The fireworks were subsiding. They presaged something, he was sure, and that not good.

Sheathing his sword, Kal felt with his fingers for the reassuring curves of the Talamadh, struggling against the impeding baggage of his quiver and longbow, both of which lay slung across his back together with the harp. With a queasy sinking feeling, like a wayfarer who, after a long day's march, turns without thinking to untie the thongs of his scrip only to find it gone, Kal realized that he could not feel the weight of the harp gently tugging against his shoulder.

"The Talamadh! Where is it?" Kal cried, his voice quavering, fighting nausea, cold in the pit of his stomach.

"What do you mean?" asked Narasin.

"The Talamadh—I can't feel it! It's gone!" Kal stripped off his bow and quiver in a frantic search for the harp, as if it were still somehow there, as if it had to be there, lost in the tangled clutter of his weaponry.

"Did you drop it, Kal?" proffered Garis, noticing that Kal had stooped to pick something up.

"The strap's been cut!" Kal held the embossed leather strap that had fallen off his shoulder to the ground. Both ends of it had been cut clean through with a knife. He ran his forefinger along the even surface of the thick hide strap.

"Relzor! He had a knife hidden on him. That's why he was standing here beside me. Where is he?"

"That slinking, two-faced—!" exclaimed Narasin.

"He can't have gone down the Stairs. He must still be up here. We'll find him right enough, Kal," Artun said with bold assurance.

"Galli, quick, come here! I need you to track. Tell me where he's gone!" shouted Kal.

"Where? Who's gone?"

"Relzor, he's stolen the Talamadh again."

"Wait, what's that? Listen, Kal!" Galli called, already running towards the Stairs.

"Enbarr! Where are you? I've got it! Enbarr? Come, tell me, man—I can't see!" Relzor's cries were issuing from somewhere to the right of them, from farther north on the grassy plain, perhaps a hundred yards away or more.

"Here, you idiot! This way, Relzor, quick now or it'll be all for naught!" goaded a second voice that sounded fainter and farther off than the first.

"Why, that's Enbarr! How did he get up here? And without us seeing him?" cried Artun.

"There's something terribly wrong here—Artun, you'd better stay here at the Stairs and keep watch. Garis, have that horn ready so we can call for help from the Cave." Kal peered into the darkness. "We've entered dangerous waters. I feel it in my bones. Come, we must be after Relzor. This way!"

The fireworks had died away now, and somewhere, not too far off, Dhu screeched into a night grown too lightless and indistinct even for his keen eyes.

"For pity's sake, man, hurry! Over here, over here . . ." Enbarr egged on the cobbler, his voice pitched higher and higher, almost shrill. Enbarr sounded closer than before, but still too distant.

The dense cloud banks that had concealed the moon parted and gave way now to thin torn wisps. The faint silvered light broke through once again onto the protruding mounds of rock and rubble strewn along the edge of the field, through which they had been tripping their way. Guided only by the eerie disembodied shouts and the dim commanding presence of a lofty line of standing stones that rimmed the ramparts to their right, they ran. Kal, trailed closely by Galli and Narasin, could see no one, and the voices had ceased, so that they seemed now to be no more real than a dream-fragment in the cool radiance of the moon's resurgent light.

"Where are they?" Kal stopped, flummoxed and panicking. "Galli, have you got a trail?"

"There's something behind that pillar over there," shouted Narasin, pointing to a towering stone nearby, very close to the edge of the plain. They froze as a black creature rose slowly from behind the outline of the stone.

"The night drake! And look, on its back, there's a—No, I see two. Two men on its back!" yelled Kal.

"Aye," Galli shouted, "it's Enbarr and Relzor. See the Talamadh! The fellow in front is holding on to it. That's Enbarr. And Relzor on behind. Can you see? The rotter!"

"Nevermind who it is, Galli. Stop them! Get your bow! Shoot them! We can't let him steal the Talamadh again. We have to get it back, we must, whatever it takes," Kal cried, while nocking an arrow himself. But, there was a quickness to the night drake that belied its imposing size, for, graceless as it was, it seemed to lift with startling ease into the deeps of the night sky, its great wings churning. Then, almost as soon as Kal let fly his shaft, the creature dropped in an almost straight dive down over the edge of the plain, so that Kal's arrow sailed harmlessly into the forest gloom that lay beneath them around the waters of Tarn Cromar, leaving the night drake itself lost to sight.

For a moment, Kal thought that he might have hit the gruesome creature, so fast did it fall from the edge, and so hideous were its wails. But, rushing to the rock-walled ramparts, he cast his eyes out to mark its uneven progress over the treetops below. The thing was clearly not wound-stricken and now flew far out of range of his longbow. Its two riders were intact, leaning back in their saddles, their heads craned in the direction of their hapless pursuers.

A stiff easterly gust blew into the faces of the Holdsmen, as they scanned the dark bosom of the valley below, grimly following the descent of the escaping night drake. Kal thought he heard the staccato cackle of laughter borne back to them by the buffeting breeze.

 

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