The Archer From Kipleth (Book 2) (25 page)

As Yulenth got up to the flat boulder where Dond, Wynnfrith, and now Frea disappeared, he found Garmee Gamee staring into a black crevasse, hidden by the edge of the large flat boulder at the entrance.

“Well?” Yulenth urged.

“I’m not going in there,” Garmee Gamee cowardly said.

“Come on,” Yulenth gently urged. “The garond knows what he’s doing.”

As they wiggled through the long, high crack in the cliff, Yulenth could hear the sound of many rushing waters.

Inside, a labyrinth of rushing pools of water gushed through rock caverns illuminated by numerous cracks in the face of the cliff.

“Byland is as hollow as a rotten oak,” Garmee Gamee said with fear.

“This way!” Wynnfrith called from a short distance ahead.

“Its why the surf is so furious,” Yulenth said to himself, reasoning that the water from inside Byland was rushing up from hidden vents beneath the shoreline of the Bight of Lanis. He carefully climbed along the edge of splashing pools of rapid, white water. The water was fresh, not salty. It was obviously from the Great Lake of Ettonne, swilling ominously over their heads. Garmee Gamee slipped every other step and Yulenth had to constantly keep an eye on her.

The rock inside the honeycombed cavern was mostly whites and creams, with some veins of gray granite. The shafts of light penetrating from the dying day turned the water a translucent, light blue.

A thought struck Yulenth.

“We have to get through this before the sun sets,” he called ahead to Wynnfrith. “Otherwise we’ll be completely in the dark.”

Dond seemed to affirm Yulenth’s concern and jabbered in garondish to pick up the pace.

“Yaah!” Yulenth yelled as a merebroder popped its bottle-nosed head up from one of the pools. The smooth skin of the cetacean was a placid gray. Its eyes were large and black, and its muzzle wore a perpetual smile. It seemed to float and regard Yulenth with one black eye, then it bobbed down into the water. Yulenth saw it pop up in a pool higher up.

“This is how the merebroder get up to the Lake of Ettonne!” Yulenth exclaimed.

“Arnwylf’s story,” Frea agreed.

“What’s that?” Garmee Gamee asked as she slipped into a boiling torrent.

“We’ll tell you all about Arnwylf’s adventures once we get through this thing,” Yulenth said as he lifted Garmee Gamee out of the rushing rapid.

The garond began to call to Yulenth with desperate grunts. Yulenth waded through the flowing pools up to where the garond and Wynnfrith were pushing against a rock. A large boulder had fallen down across the next egress. Water surged out in strong sprays from all around the boulder.

“Everyone!” Yulenth called, and all the party leaned against the huge rock, but it didn’t budge.

“Its too late to go back,” Frea said with frustration.

“We can’t stay the night here!” Wynnfrith cried.

Yulenth chewed a knuckle, his mind racing furiously.

“A lever!” He cried. Yulenth drew his sword, and wedged it into one side.

“Everybody push from this side,” Yulenth cried.

The whole party gathered on the side where Yulenth had worked his sword into the gap.

“Now!” Yulenth commanded. The boulder popped away from the small entrance with a gush of pent up water. Garmee Gamee slipped in the flow and would have been swept to the depths below if Yulenth hadn’t let go of his sword and snatched her from certain drowning.

“You saved me!” Garmee Gamee sputtered.

“And I lost my sword,” Yulenth frowned. “Let’s push on before night falls.”

They raced to traverse the hidden caverns of Byland, with Yulenth ever pulling Garmee Gamee from imminent drowning. Sometimes the water was up to their necks, at other times, only up to their ankles. The white chalk walls of the caverns would crumble under the lightest touch, so it was best to try to move along without reaching out for some surface with which to steady oneself.

The air flowing through the cavern changed to a calmer, more scented smell. It was getting quite dark. Dond stopped and cautiously spoke to the humans with his hands up.

“I think we’re coming out,” Frea whispered.

“About time,” Garmee Gamee whined.

“Be still,” Yulenth ordered.

Dond led the humans through a large crack in a rock wall, out onto a ledge. The night air was freezing. Below, the Bight of Lanis boiled. Up in the night sky, the winter stars shone with amazing brilliance. High overhead, up on the southern cliffs of Byland, the garond army could be seen, readying for war.

Dond led the shivering humans down the cliff face to a clearing between two large stones on the beach. Another gentle looking garond waited. He leapt up with alarm, and then a huge smile spread across his face when he saw Dond.

The two garonds grunted at each other in garondish, with Dond repeatedly pointing at Wynnfrith. The other garond nodded in understanding, and was clearly very excited.

Dond’s friend pulled over a large leather sack.

“Oh, good, dry clothes,” Garmee Gamee whined.

Dond and his garond friend pulled out sections of a slaughtered deer and a rabbit that had been dead for several days.

“Dinner?” Yulenth said with horror.

Then Dond started rubbing the dead rabbit on Wynnfrith, who complied without complaint.

Frea recoiled when the other garond approached with a piece of hacked deer. Dond made sniffing noises at Frea.

“They will smell us,” Yulenth said with a frown, “Unless our scent is covered.”

Garmee Gamee groaned, but all the humans allowed the garonds to disguise their scent by rubbing the dead animal flesh all over their bodies, particularly their hair.

Then Dond draped leathers and furs over the humans. Dond’s friend indicated they should walk hunched over, and Yulenth tried it.

“Bless me if I wouldn’t have mistook you for a garond,” Frea said with a wry smile.

Dond urgently gibbered in garondish and pulled at Wynnfrith to indicate they were in a hurry. Without further delay, the disguised humans were led down the beach of the Far Grasslands through the winter night by the two garonds.

As they shambled down the beach, Yulenth looked up. What he saw made him stop and pull Frea close.

“Are those boats?” Yulenth whispered to her.

Frea looked up at the grassy shore. Inland, not far from the beach, hundreds of ribbed shapes of boats being constructed stood out in black skeletons against the night sky.

“They look like boats to me,” Frea said with worry. Dond quietly grunted and they moved on.

Yulenth could see up higher inland, endless numbers of camp fires twinkling in the night. The garond army. There must have been hundreds of thousands of garonds encamped right at the entrance to Byland. Yulenth shivered to himself and wished he had let Garmee Gamee drown instead of losing his sword.

Frea had a short, thin sword, but Wynnfrith insisted on going unarmed. That meant one, small sword for the whole lot of them. Yulenth frowned to himself. If I didn’t love and trust Wynnfrith, he thought to himself, I’d consider this trip utter suicide.

Dond began to wildly, silently gesticulate, then stopped suddenly in great fear.

Yulenth could see a crowd of garonds gathering close on the beach. They would have to pass very near the growing mob.

Dond and his friend kept their heads down as if they were afraid of being infected or seduced.

A loud crash, and then pulsing drums made both Yulenth and Garmee Gamee stop and turn towards the crowd. In the middle of the growing mass of black shapes, a garond ascended a platform. Torches were lit. Yulenth could see clearly, the lead garond on the platform wore red painted feathers that stuck straight up in a crown on his head. The lead garond had strange, arcane marks tattooed on his body. He appeared to be pampered and well cared for. The crowned garond leader raised his arms and cried to the sky in a religious fervor.

Yulenth could see that the garonds all around the platform were vicious and martial in appearance. They gnashed their sharpened teeth, and hit each other in the face with the passion of a zealot. They seemed to be chanting and pitching themselves into a shaking, aggressive, religious trance. Their bodies flexed with fierce spasms. Yulenth gasped at the growing violence mixed with an ecstatic intensity.

Dond circled back and pulled at Yulenth and Garmee Gamee. As Yulenth scuttled into the darkness with his friends, he could hear unintelligible garondish words chanted in a stupefying rite. The drums beat louder and slightly quicker. Some garonds screamed.

As they got further down the dark shoreline, Dond and the other garond seemed more relieved to be away from the spectacle. Nunee, the mother moon, and the Wanderer, the second moon, rose in the east, climbing up above the rolling hills of the Far Grasslands.

A group of five garonds, all gentle in appearance were waiting on the beach. Dond seemed extremely relieved to see them. The garonds all grabbed a human and hurried them up inland, over the weedy dunes.

In the light of the moons, the passage over the gentle grassy hills was easy and quick. Soon, they crested a hill into a small valley. Down below were what seemed like small weedy hills, but as they approached it became clear they were cleverly disguised tents, covered with sod.

Dond pushed Wynnfrith into the largest tent in the middle.

“Hey! Wait!” Yulenth urgently whispered. But, two burly garonds blocked the way.

“What are they doing to her?” Garmee Gamee wheezed at Yulenth.

“Be silent, or you’re next,” Yulenth said, eyeing the twenty garonds who began to crowd around and examine Yulenth, Frea and Garmee Gamee with suspicion and curiosity.

Frea nudged near Yulenth so he could feel the blade hidden just under her cloak. She looked at the old man with a grim understanding. Yulenth nodded his head and slowly reached for her short sword.

Wynnfrith burst out of the tent.

“My friends! Come!” Wynnfrith gushed. She was flushed and seemed radiant. Then, Wynnfrith jabbered to the pressing garonds in garondish, who were all relieved, some had tears of happiness.

“How do you know garond?” Garmee Gamee asked with fearful bewilderment as Wynnfrith pushed her inside the tent.

Inside, the tent was warm and close, but had a pleasant faint aroma of incense and cured meats. In the middle, a small fire glowed.

At the far end of the tent, an old garond female sat. Her long white hair was platted with many sea shells, and small pieces of bone carved into the shape of animals of the field.

“Sit, sit,” Wynnfrith urged with a knowing smile on her face.

The old Mother Garond shuffled over to sit next to Yulenth. From the folds of her robes woven from coarse grasses she produced a small black stone. She held the stone out to Yulenth.

The stone was cup shaped with a small indent down in the center as if a pole or something could be fit inside. The stone was blacker than anything Yulenth had ever seen. He felt the stone, even though it was a pace away. He reached out to touch it. But the Mother Garond held up her hand.

She pointed at Yulenth, then the stone, and wagged her finger to indicate that he must not touch it.

She placed one hand over the hand holding the stone, then she nodded her head to invite Yulenth.

“I don’t-” Yulenth stammered.

“Put your hand over hers,” Wynnfrith gently said. “But don’t touch the stone. No human should ever touch the stone.”

Yulenth reached out a quivering hand and placed it over the Mother Garond’s hand.

Yulenth felt a shock of power coarse through his body. He felt the power go down through his seated body, down into the earth. It was as if a lightning bolt ran through his every fiber and surged down into the earth.

“Go ahead, Frea,” Yulenth vaguely heard Wynnfrith say, and he felt Frea’s hand on top of his, and then Garmee Gamee’s hand on top of Frea’s hand. He was connected to them. He could feel Frea’s concern and desire to return home. He could feel wave after wave of crippling fear emanating out of Garmee Gamee. But there was also the Garond Mother in his mind.

“Be calm,” the Garond Mother said. “Feel the Stone of the Earth, and you will be safe.” She said it, but it was in Yulenth’s mind. Yet, it was as clear to Yulenth as if she had spoken it out loud.

Yulenth could feel the lines of power pulsing up out of the earth. He was a part of it. All life was a part of these undulating, moving lines of power, reaching out from the core of the earth in spider webs of unseen force. The Ar was called the Stone of the Earth. ‘Ar’ was an old word for ‘heart’, older than Miranei. But the elves, in Miranei, called it Yarta. He could understand Miranei! He could feel the Ar as the one point of real contact in the lines of energy that radiated out from the center of the earth. To Yulenth, he could see the unseeable, the glowing tendrils spiraling out of the center, moving across the sphere of the whole and finding its opposite pole in the black stone. The lines of power could be harnessed and used, dangerous, but possible. The power of the Ar was the power of control. Any other force or energy, no matter how primordial, no matter how elemental, no matter how intense, could be tamed, shaped, and used through the Heart of the Earth. It was also called the Cornerstone by a generation too old to be remembered in any book or lore. He could feel the heart beat of every animal for miles around. He understood every language ever spoken.