Fallowblade (12 page)

‘We seek the kings of Slievmordhu and Ashqalêth,’ said they when they came amongst the front lines of their enemies. The captains of the south came to ride alongside them, as guides.

‘These are brave knights,’ the officers said to each other.

To the pavilion of Uabhar went Warwick’s two emissaries, seeking conference, as beyond the mountains the last flares of the sun dissolved into evening mist. Darkness closed in.

Concealed behind earthworks close to the northern battle front, Warwick waited in suspense with his sons and commanders. Ever their eyes turned in the direction of enemy lines, and their mood was grave, their spirits straitened.

‘I would fain be there with them,’ William murmured vehemently.

The battle lull lengthened. Night drew out the hours like thread from a distaff.

Towards midnight a shout was heard from the Narngalish sentries. Two horses were returning across no-man’s-land, but they were riderless. Troopers led the steeds swiftly to the king. From each saddle hung a lidded basket which, when opened, revealed Uabhar’s reply to the request for parley.

When Warwick witnessed the baskets’ contents, his countenance became that of a dead man. Walter gave a cry of horror, and William hoarsely uttered a curse.

Slievmordhu had sent back the severed heads of the two young knights.

Tidings of Uabhar’s crime passed rapidly though the northern ranks and a shout of anger went up from the men of Narngalis. As for the two princes, they drew their swords and, upon the naked blades, vowed to avenge the deaths of the brave envoys.

Lord Hallingbury grimly declared, ‘The situation is clear. Except for the men of the west-kingdom, who are too far away, we are without friends. Only the weathermasters can save Tir now. Let us hope the Storm Lord’s bold rescue expedition will swiftly release them from Uabhar’s dungeons!’

King Warwick made no reply, but a shadow and a bleak coldness lay upon him, as of premature Winter.

William said into the silence, ‘Let a billet be despatched to King’s Winterbourne!’

Day and night, post riders went galloping back and forth along the Mountain Road between the battlefield and King’s Winterbourne, where Warwick’s daughters abided at Wyverstone Castle. The couriers’ task was chiefly to back up and augment the semaphore network. Across the Four Kingdoms of Tir the wooden arms of the semaphore towers clacked and rotated almost incessantly. While men fought and died on the Eldroth Fields, messages were being relayed between the chains of semaphore stations that crisscrossed the countryside, as in peacetime. The difference now was that the signals had been re-encrypted to prevent the enemy from intercepting important information. Asr
ă
thiel herself had delivered the new codes along the King’s Winterbourne-Trøndelheim chain, as she flew her sky-balloon to join the marching columns of Grïmnørsland. When Thorgild’s travelling columns passed within view of any station the signalmen would send word of their progress to King’s Winterbourne, from whence the news was relayed by courier to King Warwick’s encampment. As she journeyed with the army Asr
ă
thiel took it upon herself to ferry tidings and reports between Thorgild and the nearby stations, for her aerostat was swifter and surer than any post rider.

On the evening the two Narngalish knights crossed the Eldroth Fields under the white flag to seek parley, the Storm Lord’s granddaughter, attended by her maid, was floating in the wicker gondola of
Lightfast
above Thorgild’s troops as they marched through the wild country north of High Darioneth. Asr
ă
thiel gazed out across hills and valleys striped with long shadows. The bloom of Summer was on the land and the blowing forests were festive with flowers. Streams leaped noisily down from the hills, and herds of deer grazed on the slopes. Southward reared the jagged rim of the Mountain Ring. Draped in their cloaks of tattered cloth-of-silver, the peaks towered in splendour. The sky-balloon’s shadow danced across grassy meadows sparkling with dew. At last the aeronaut spied the hilltop semaphore station she had been looking for, a collection of low stone buildings surrounding a taller edifice crowned by its two-armed tower. She descended, letting the airy pearl glide smoothly down the currents.

‘What news from the battle front for King Thorgild?’ she asked the signal operators.

‘The fighting rages on at the Eldroth Fields,’ they answered in apprehensive tones. ‘But worse tidings are at hand. The station at King’s Winterbourne sends reports of unseelie tribes on horseback swarming down into Narngalis from the ranges.’

‘Great heavens!’ Asr
ă
thiel was taken aback. She riffled through the written notes the signalmen had provided, her brow furrowed with concentration, concern and frustration. At length she said, half to herself, ‘If there are clues to these mysteries, I can make nothing of them.’

‘Tir is in great danger, my lady,’ said the chief signalman. ‘We are fortunate we have the weathermasters to shield us from any unseelie scourge.’ And he bowed deeply.

‘As we are fortunate we have scrupulous signallers to man their posts, come what may,’ Asr
ă
thiel said, returning the compliment. ‘Now I must hasten back to the king’s encampment with this news. Farewell!’

Asr
ă
thiel guided her aerostat to the meadow where Grïmnørsland’s troops had halted to rest themselves and their horses. King Thorgild and his sons were taking a hasty supper, seated upon wood-and-canvas folding chairs beneath the spreading eaves of a leafy beech wood that bordered the grassland. Gunnlaug sat a little apart from the rest, in the shadow of a gnarled bole, gnawing on a bone and drinking beer.

Thorgild’s commanders gathered around to hear what the weathermage had to say. When the monarch heard her report he let the bread and meat fall from his hand. Foreboding inscribed his ruddy countenance. He shook his head as if gravely discouraged, and his eyes hardened like stones. ‘An unhappy accident,’ he said, in echo of Warwick’s sentiments, ‘that eldritch wights should choose to assail Narngalis at a time of war. Yet,’ he added presently, ‘I am puzzled. I have never heard of the gwyllion riding upon horses.’

‘Neither have I,’ said Prince Halvdan, close at his father’s side. ‘I cannot help but wonder what manner of unseelie manifestation we are confronted with.’

‘I wonder also,’ said Asr
ă
thiel. ‘The signalmen’s notes state that the few living folk who have, from afar, descried these raiders-in-the-mists assert that their mounts are not true horses. They avow they are eldritch steeds.’

She handed the billets to Halvdan, who perused them, saying, ‘I daresay they are waterhorses, then; tame brags or vicious kelpies maybe.’

‘Yet,’ said Asr
ă
thiel, ‘if that is so, then they are unlike any waterhorse I have ever heard of. One witness claimed he glimpsed, from afar, manes and tails that glow like green fire . . .’

Thorgild muttered a curse. ‘Eldritch steeds with fiery manes? This is most strange. It reminds me of a tale I learned at my old nurse’s knee, a tale of daemon horses, the trollhästen. Lanky, lightsome and fell were they, and faster than falling stars, and passing comely. The story was my delight, and I used to dream of having a horse like that, though in vain, for they would never allow themselves to be ridden by mortalkind. As far as I know such steeds have not trod the grasses of Tir for many lives of men. If I recall rightly, only one species of wight ever leagued with the trollhästen, but for the life of me I cannot, at this moment, remember which one.’

His commanders shook their heads and exchanged comments, declaring that they had no recollection of any such tales.

Addressing his eldest sons, Thorgild said, ‘Both of you have studied the records of ancient battles and the archives of eldritch lore stored in the libraries of Trøndelheim. Have you ever read aught about the trollhästen?’

The princes contributed their theories, after which general discussion ensued. Gunnlaug watched his father and brothers over the top of the knuckle of ham on which he was chewing. At the first pause in the conversation he said, ‘What about me, sir? You have not asked me for my rede.’

Thorgild drew a deep and silent breath. ‘What is your rede, Gunnlaug?’

‘I am planning a strategy to win this war. When it is ready I will tell it to you, but in the meantime I take it ill that my brothers should be consulted and not me. All three of us have played war games and trained with the defence forces since boyhood.’

‘You are indeed a man of action, Gunnlaug, but Hrosskel and Halvdan have spent long hours studying the tactics used to win battles of yore.’ The king refrained from adding that although Gunnlaug was indeed a warrior of considerable might and prowess, his team had always lost the mock battles. Their leader was prone to ignore pre-planned manoeuvres and charge headlong with a single goal: to inflict harm upon his opponents. ‘I did not consider that you were much interested in sitting around tables debating logistics. You have always been the hunter, the wrestler, the pugilist.’

‘You have read me wrongly,’ said Gunnlaug, ‘for warfare in every aspect is my obsession, and you should make me a general. I am a better warrior than anyone under this wood—’ he stared meaningfully at Hrosskel and Halvdan, ‘—and were I to lead the troops we would smash our enemies and kick their bloody heads around the field for sport.’

‘I will not use my sons in military positions.’

‘Then you are unwise.’

‘That is enough!’ Thorgild roared, standing up and advancing on his son.

Gunnlaug was on his feet also, holding his ground, daring to bait his father. ‘We need a wise leader if we are to win against this unseelie onslaught. Uabhar is wise, even the druids say so. His might is growing. The druids say he might some day be High King of Tir.’

The onlookers gasped.

Father and son confronted one another, separated by a hand’s breadth. Softly, so that none could overhear, Thorgild said, ‘If you ever utter such treasonous nonsense again, I will exile you.’ They held each other’s challenging stare for a moment, before Gunnlaug dropped his eyes. Throwing down the remnants of his meal he slunk away.

He took a shortcut to his tent by way of a thicket that jutted from the beech wood, keeping to the shadows, but careful to stay within view of the glimmering campfires between the trees. No one overheard him savagely muttering to himself, ‘Fools! The might of Slievmordhu is greater than you bargain for, and shortly you will be forced to learn that at your peril. You ought to be grateful that you have a warrior such as I to defend us against Ó Maoldúin—instead you treat me like a cur. Soon you will come to know my quality!’

Oblivious of his son’s vituperations Thorgild said to the gathering, ‘Now, let us to our beds with no further ado, for early in the morning we must take to the road. If Warwick is forced to weaken his defences by sending troops to defend the north, we have all the more reason to make haste!’

On the lavender-scented linen of the couch in her pavilion Asr
ă
thiel lay wide awake while her maid Linnet slumbered peacefully nearby. The weathermage’s mind was a whirlpool of conjectures, questions and overlapping trains of thought. The questions, in particular, harassed her. Would her grandfather’s rescue expedition be able to free her weathermaster kindred from Uabhar’s dungeons? Were her loved ones hale, or had Uabhar mistreated them? If the ruthless king had slain their guardians, King Thorgild’s Shield Champions, might he not do the same to them? What would the four princes of Slievmordhu think of their father’s unpardonable crime against Rowan Green? Who were the eldritch riders, and what measure of menace did they present? Were they gwyllion, or something else? What if her father happened to return home at this dangerous time, and encountered the unseelie hordes on the road? What if he
never
returned home? What was happening at the Eldroth Fields? Would the Narngalish troops be able to hold out until the Grïmnørslanders came to their aid?

For an instant she wished the urisk could be in the tent with her. His extensive knowledge would be useful; he was sure to know all about those wicked wights. Moreover, she realised in hindsight that she had found comfort in his presence, as if they shared something, perhaps a bond of fellowship derived from both being unlike their own kind. She missed the creature to an extent that surprised her; it was like having a bruise in her side, or maybe even some deeper wound. To soothe the ache she reminded herself what pain he had given her in person—his unwarranted derision of Prince William, for example.

‘Ah, William!’ she sighed, turning over on her pillowed couch, and her thoughts flew to King Warwick’s encampment . . .

In the middle of the night a ragged vagrant limped amongst the Narngalish tents, tripped over a series of guy ropes and was seized by a pair of halberdiers.

‘Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you a spy?’ the guards demanded sternly.

‘By the bones of Ádh, I am no spy!’ said the beggar, quailing and rolling his eyes in fear. ‘I only came to bring valuable tidings and this is how I am treated!’ His accent was unidentifiable; besides which he was practically toothless, and mumbled.

‘From whence do you hail?’

‘I have travelled here from Cathair Rua, and a harrowing journey it was too.’

‘If you are of Slievmordhu, then you are our enemy!’

‘I am not of Slievmordhu. I am a proud Narngalishman.’

‘And a good liar, no doubt! You are a cunning fellow if you managed to slip through the lines of the southerners.’

‘Nobody notices me if I set my mind to it,’ said the beggar, a hint of conceit bizarrely mingling with his abject fear. ‘I bring valuable tidings, I tell you!’