Ruins of Gorlan (24 page)

"It's just that, Halt felt Morgarath might be looking for revenge-looking to punish those who fought him last time. And I thought, probably Halt did him the most harm of all, didn't he?"

"That's true enough," said Rodney.

`And I thought, maybe the Kalkara knew we were following them-the Plainsman had plenty of time to find them and tell them. And maybe they were leading Halt on, until they found a place for an ambush. So while he thinks he's hunting them, he's actually the one being hunted. " `And the Gorlan Ruins would be an ideal place for it," Arald agreed. " In that tumble of rocks, they could be on him before he had a chance to use that longbow of his. Well, Rodney, there's no time to waste. You and I will go. Half armor, I think. We'll move faster that way. Lances, axes and broadswords. And we'll take two horses each-we'll follow Will's example there. We'll leave in an hour. Have Karel gather another ten knights and follow us as soon as he can."

"Yes, my lord," the Battlemaster replied.

Baron Arald turned back to Will." You've done a good job, Will. We'll take care of this now. As for you, you look as if you could use eight hours' solid sleep."

Wearily, aching in every muscle and joint, Will drew himself erect.

"I'd like to come with you, my lord," he said. He sensed that the Baron was about to disagree and added hurriedly, " Sir, none of us knows what is going to happen, and Gilan is out there somewhere on foot. Besides… " He hesitated." Go on, Will," the Baron said quietly and, when the boy looked up, Arald saw the steel in his eyes." Halt is my master, sir, and he's in danger. My place is with him," Will said.

The Baron assessed him shrewdly, then came to a decision.

"Very well. But at least you can get an hour's rest. There's a cot in that annex over there." He indicated a curtained-off section of the study. " Why don't you use it?"

"Yes, sir," said Will gratefully. His eyes felt as if he'd had handfuls of sand rubbed into them. He had never been happier to obey an order in his life.

T
HROUGH THAT LONG AFTERNOON, WILL FELT AS IF HE HAD lived his entire life in the saddle, his only respite being the hourly changes from one horse to another.

A brief pause to dismount, loosen the girth straps of the horse he had been riding, tighten those on the horse which had been following, then he would remount and ride on. Again and again, he marveled at the amazing endurance shown by Tug and Blaze as they maintained their steady canter. He even had to rein them in a little, to keep pace with the battlehorses ridden by the two knights. Big, powerful and trained for war as they might be, they couldn't match the constant pace of the Ranger horses, in spite of the fact that they were fresh when the small party had left Castle Redmont.

They rode without speaking. There was no time for idle talk and, even if there had been, it would have been difficult to hear one another above the drumming thunder of the four heavy battlehorses, the lighter rattle of Tug and Blaze's hooves and the constant clank of equipment and weapons that accompanied them as they rode.

Both men carried long war lances-hard ash poles more than three meters in length, tipped with a heavy iron point. In addition, each had a broadsword strapped to their saddles-huge, two-handed weapons that dwarfed the swords they normally wore in day-to-day use-and Rodney had a heavy battle-ax slung at the rear right pommel of his saddle, It was the lances on which they would place greatest trust, however. They would keep the Kalkara at a distance, and so reduce the chance that the knights might be frozen by the terrifying stare of the two beasts. Apparently, the hypnotic gaze was only effective at close quarters. If a man couldn't see the eyes clearly, there was little chance of their paralyzing him with their gaze.

The sun was dropping fast behind them, throwing their shadows out before them, long and distorted by the low angle light. Arald glanced over his shoulder at the sun's position and called to Will." How long before dusk, Will?" Will turned in his saddle and frowned at the descending ball of light before answering. " Less than an hour, my lord'The Baron shook his head doubtfully. " It'll be a close run to get there before full dark then," he said. He urged his battlehorse onward, increasing speed a little. Tug and Blaze matched the increase without effort. None of them wanted to be hunting the Kalkara in the dark.

The hour's rest at the castle had done wonders for Will. But it seemed that it had happened in another lifetime now. He thought over the cursory briefing that Arald had given as they mounted to leave Redmont. If they found the Kalkara at the Gorlan Ruins, Will was to hold back while the Baron and Sir Rodney charged the two monsters. There were no complex tactics involved, just a headlong charge that might take the two killers by surprise." If Halt's there, I'm sure he'll take a hand too. But I want you well back out of harms way, Will. That bow of yours won't make any impression on a Kalkara."

"Yes, sir," Will had said. He had no intention of getting close to the Kalkara. He was more than content to leave things to the two knights, protected by their shields, helmets and half armor of chain mail shirts and leggings. However, Arald's next words quickly dispelled any overconfidence he might have had in their ability to deal with the beasts.

"If the damn things get the better of us, I'll want you to ride for more help. Karel and the others will be somewhere behind us. Find them, then go after the Kalkara with them. Track those beasts down and kill them. " Will had said nothing to that. The fact that Arald even contemplated failure, when he and Rodney were the two foremost knights within a two hundred kilometer radius, spoke volumes of his concern about the Kalkara. For the first time, Will realized that in this contest, the odds were heavily against them.

The sun was trembling on the brink of the world, the shadows at their longest, and they still had several kilometers to go. Baron Arald raised a hand and brought the party to a stop. He glanced at Rodney and jerked a thumb at the bundle of pitch-soaked torches each man carried behind his saddle." Torches, Rodney," he said briefly. The Battlemaster demurred for a moment.

`Are you sure, my lord? They'll give away our position if the Kalkara are watching. " Arald shrugged. " They'll hear us coming anyway. And among the trees, we'll move too slowly without the light. Let's take the chance. " He was already striking his flint and steel together, igniting a spark that set his small pile of tinder smoking, then flaring into flame. He held the torch in the flame and the thick, sticky pine pitch with which it was impregnated suddenly caught and burst into yellow flame. Rodney leaned toward him with another torch and lit it in the Baron's flame. Then, holding the torches high, their lances held in place by leather thongs looped around their right wrists, they resumed their gallop, thundering into the darkness beneath the trees as they finally left the broad road they had been following since noon.

It was another ten minutes before they heard the screaming.

It was an unearthly sound that twisted the stomach into knots of fear and turned the blood cold. Involuntarily, the Baron and Sir Rodney reined in as they heard it. Their horses plunged wildly against the reins. It came from straight ahead of them and rose and fell, until the night air quaked with the horror of it.

" Good God in heaven!" the Baron exclaimed. "What is that?" His face was ashen as the hellish sound soared through the night toward them, to be answered immediately by another, identical howl.

But Will had heard the terrible noise before. He felt the blood leave his face now as he realized his fears were being proven correct.

"It's the Kalkara," he said. " They're hunting."

And he knew there was only one person out there that they could be after. They had turned back and were hunting Halt. " Look, my lord!" Rodney said, pointing to the rapidly darkening night sky. Through a break in the tree cover, they saw it, a sudden flare of light reflecting in the sky, evidence of a fire in the near distance." That's Halt!" the Baron said. " Bound to be. And he'll need help!" He rammed his spurs into the tired battlehorse's flanks, urging the beast forward into a lumbering gallop, the torch in his hand streaming flame and sparks behind him as Sir Rodney and Will galloped in his tracks.

It was an eerie sensation, following those flaming, spitting torches through the trees, their elongated tongues of flame blowing back behind the two riders, casting weird and terrifying shadows among the trees, while ahead of them, the glow of the large fire, presumably lit by Halt, grew stronger and nearer with each stride.

They broke out of the trees with virtually no warning, and before them was a scene from nightmares.

There was a short space of open grass, then the ground beyond was a litter of tumbled rocks and boulders. Giant pieces of masonry, still held together by mortar, lay scattered on their sides and edges, sometimes half buried in the soft grassy earth. The ruined walls of Castle Gorlan surrounded the scene on three sides, nowhere rising to more than five meters in height, destroyed and cast down by a vengeful kingdom after Morgarath had been driven out of his keep and back into the Mountains of Rain and Night. The resulting chaos of rocks and sections of tumbled wall was like the playground of a giant child-scattered in all directions, piled carelessly on top of one another, leaving virtually no clear ground at all.

The whole scene was illuminated by the leaping, twisting flames of a bonfire some forty meters in front of them. And beside it, a horrific figure crouched, screaming hatred and fury, plucking uselessly at the mortal wound in its chest that had finally brought it down.

Over two and a half meters tall, with shaggy, matted, scale-like hair covering its entire body, the Kalkara had long, talon-clad arms that reached to beneath its knees. Relatively short, powerful hind legs gave it the ability to cover the ground at a deceptive speed in a series of leaps and bounds. All of this the three riders took in as they emerged from the trees. But what they noticed most was the face-savage and apelike, with huge, yellowed canine teeth and red, glowing eyes filled with hatred and the blind desire to kill. The face turned toward them now and the beast screamed a challenge, tried to rise, and stumbled back into a half crouch again." What's wrong with it?" Rodney asked, reining in his horse. Will pointed to the cluster of arrows that protruded from its chest. There must have been eight of them, all placed within a hand's breadth of each other." Look!" he cried. " Look at the arrows!" Halt, with his uncanny ability to aim and fire in a blur of movement, must have sent a volley of arrows, one after the other, to smash into the armor-like matted hair, each one widening a gap in the monster's defenses until the final arrow had penetrated deep into its flesh. Its black blood ran in sheets down its torso and again it screamed its hatred at them." Rodney!" yelled Baron Arald. " With me! Now!" Dropping the lead rein to his spare horse, he tossed the flaming torch to one side, couched his lance and charged. Rodney was a half second behind him, the two battlehorses thundering across the open space. The Kalkara, its lifeblood saturating the ground at its feet, rose to meet them, in time to take the two lance points, one after the other, in the chest.

It was all but dead. Even so, the weight and strength of the monster checked the onward rush of the battlehorses. They reared back on their haunches as both knights leaned forward in the stirrups to drive the lance points home. The sharp iron penetrated, smashing through the matted hair. The force of the charge drove the Kalkara from its feet and hurled it backward, into the flames of the fire behind it.

For an instant nothing happened. Then there was a blinding flash, and a pillar of red flame that reached ten meters into the night sky. And quite simply, the Kalkara disappeared.

The two battlehorses reared in terror, Rodney and the Baron only just managing to retain their seats. They backed away from the fire. There was a terrible reek of charred hair and flesh filling the air. Vaguely, Will remembered Halt discussing the way to deal with a Kalkara. He had said that they were rumored to be particularly susceptible to fire. Some rumor, he thought heavily, trotting Tug forward to join the two knights.

Rodney was rubbing his eyes, still dazzled by the enormous flash." What the devil caused that?" he asked. The Baron gingerly retrieved his lance from the fire. The wood was charred and the point blackened." It must be the waxy substance that mats their hair together into that hard shell," he replied, in a wondering tone of voice. " It must be highly flammable."

"Well, whatever it was, we did it," Rodney replied, a note of satisfaction in his voice. The Baron shook his head." Halt did it," he corrected his Battlemaster. " We merely finished him off. " Rodney nodded, accepting the correction. The Baron glanced at the fire, still pouring a torrent of sparks into the air, but settling back now from the huge explosion of red flame." He must have lit this fire when he sensed they were circling back on him. It lit up the area so he had light to shoot by."

"He shot all right," Sir Rodney put in. " Those arrows must have all struck within a few square centimeters. " They looked around, searching for some sign of the Ranger. Then, below the ruined walls of the castle, Will caught sight of a familiar object. He dismounted and ran to retrieve it and his heart sank as he picked up Halt's powerful longbow, smashed and splintered into two pieces.

"He must have fired from over here," he said, indicating the point below the ruined wall where he had found the bow. They looked up, imagining the scene, trying to re-create it. The Baron took the shattered weapon from Will as he remounted Tug. 'And the second Kalkara reached him as he killed its brother," he said. " The question is, where is Halt now? And where is the other Kalkara?" That was when they heard the screaming start again.

I
NSIDE THE RUINED, OVERGROWN COURTYARD, HALT CROUCHED among the tumbled masonry that had once been Morgarath's stronghold. His leg, numb where the Kalkara had clawed him, was beginning to throb painfully and he could feel the blood seeping past the rough bandage he had thrown around it.