The White Robe (71 page)

Whilst they had been enjoying the comforts of the inn they’d had the chance to analyse what had happened during the battle at the two bridges. It had started with Tissian asking him what he had seen and how he could improve his battle tactics if they were ever in a similar situation again. He remembered the battle at the first bridge quite clearly and they discussed if Tissian had changed from bolt bow to knives at the right time or should he have waited longer. His memories of the second bridge had been far less detailed, mainly because he had spent most of the time stretched out on the grass being sick and wishing he could die. From there the conversation naturally went back to the first bridge and the explosion.

Something had happened to him at the bridge, but when he tried to put it into words, the memory of it disappeared. That is why Tissian had suggested that they recreate the bridge so he could put himself back in that position and perhaps recall what it had felt like to release so much power. So far it hadn’t worked. He had spent several days staring at the pile of wood but so far nothing had happened. That wasn’t exactly true. He had become bored and irritated, angry and frustrated and for one fleeting moment he had felt something stir inside of him. Unfortunately it had gone before he’d been able to grasp hold of it and the feeling had never returned.

Now he had almost given up. It was like the rest of his magic; if it was there inside of him, it was buried so deeply that it was impossible to find. He wondered if his father had the same problem. Strangely he hadn’t thought about his father until now. For all his life he had thought that Jonderill, the protector and warrior, had been his father but he wasn’t, it was a magician. Coberin the white. He wondered what Coberin had been like, he didn’t know much about him, or did he?

Callabris had talked about him, and so had Sadrin, so he tried to put the pieces together, to build a picture of his father. Coberin was Callabris’s younger brother whose explosive magic felt like plunging into icy water. He remembered Callabris telling him that it had taken his father three summers to bring his magic under control which had weakened him when he became older. He also had a strong aversion to weapons. Jonderill chuckled to himself, they had more in common than he had thought. His laughter faded as he thought about the few other things he knew about him.

Coberin had served King Duro, but had betrayed him to his brother. He’d had a wife, his mother, but he didn’t know anything about her, and he had died violently at the hands of Tallison. It was Tallison’s fault that he had no past and no father to guide his magic, and it was Tallison’s fault that his magic was buried so deeply that he might never be able to touch it. He looked up as Tissian came to stand in front of him, a look of concern on his face. Whether it was for himself or him he wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter, his mind was made up; he knew what it was he had to do.

“We leave for Sandstrone in the morning.”

*

Perhaps coming through the Crosslands Gap had been a mistake. They had heard men talk about it when they had stopped at the inn high on its hillside on the other side of the Blue River and had thought that people exaggerated. They were wrong; the place was as nasty and as treacherous as people had said it would be. It was caused by a freak of nature allowing the river to become wide and shallow. Whilst it was bound on the Tarbis side by high banks of clay there was only shale on the Sandstrone side resulting in there being no boundary between the river and the land. The Blue River spread and soaked into the ground forming a huge bog interspersed with sheer-sided stone islands big enough to take a horse but not an easy place to make an overnight camp.

The other thing which made Crosslands Gap such an unpleasant place was the tall cliffs which formed the outer rim of the Stone Hills. Constantly and without respite, apart from a few hours of darkness, the sun blazed from a deep blue sky burning the rocks and radiating heat out across the marsh like a baker’s oven with the door open. Water, red with acid, ran from fissures in the rock adding to the river water, so that instead of the Stone Hills offering a distant refuge, the land at their base was a swamp of stinking pools and sucking quicksand. Above all of that flew the insects, some as big as sky flyers but most of them no bigger than tiny flecks, which made their way into eyes and ears and nose and between clothing to suck blood.

Some enterprising person had marked a safe passage across the gap using long, brightly coloured poles which were supposedly sunk into the bedrock beneath the sucking mud. They had been warned though that the poles had been known to move depending on the flow of water from the Blue River or the Stone Hills or both. There was also a rumour that the savages who inhabited the deserts of Sandstrone came down the cliffs at night to move the poles around. They then sat on the high cliffs above and laughed as travellers disappeared into hidden gullies of deep water or were sucked down into the quicksand. Other rumours said that the savages moved the poles, so that travellers would leave the gap through narrow canyons in the Stone Hills where they would wait in ambush, taking their captives alive for sacrifice to their evil god, Talis.

Jonderill and Tissian had ignored the two pieces of advice which the innkeeper had given them; firstly, not to cross the gap into Sandstrone and secondly, not to go into Sandstone at all, which was full of bloody savages. They were now regretting not taking at least the first piece of advice. It had taken them two days and a night to cross the gap, during which the only rest they had been able to take were a few minutes standing on one of the stone islands which was just big enough to take their two horses, if neither of them moved. All the time they travelled within touching distance of each other, Jonderill’s magic kept the insects at bay, but once they separated by more than an arm’s length, Tissian and his horse became the focus for every insect in the swamp.

It had taken them longer to get across the swamp than they had anticipated. This was partly due to Tissian’s horse pulling a hamstring climbing onto one of the stone islands and partly because they were certain that the poles had moved during the dark hours they had spent crossing the gap. They could, of course, have been turned around in the night despite Tissian guiding them by the stars, but when the sun rose again like a fiery ball, the poles were further south than they remembered. For the rest of the day they had kept watch for laughing nomads sitting on cliff tops, but the only life they had seen were two giant raptors gliding over the distant hills and swarms of biting insects.

Now they were camped in a small gully with cliffs towering up on either side and a track leading east into the direction of the open desert. It wasn’t an ideal location, but they had been too tired to go on and find somewhere better. At least there was a small spring with drinkable water flowing from it, and some shelter from the cold night winds. It had been their intention to enter the Stone Hills further north and skirt along the edge of the desert until a firm plan of how they were going to achieve their objective came to them. Instead the land was leading them east and so far, they had found no way to change direction.

It was still dark when Tissian shook Jonderill lightly on the shoulder, his form barely discernible against the shadowy rocks. In the darkness he could hear the horses move restlessly and Tissian’s horse pawing nervously at the ground.

“Master, there are people about.”

Jonderill sat up and peered into the darkness. When he had finished his watch everything had been quiet but the horses were now clearly unsettled. “Where are they?”

“Above us I think, around four or five of them on the top of the northern cliff.”

“Do you think they can get down to us?”

Tissian shook his head and then realised that Jonderill wouldn’t be able to see it in the dark. “No, I don’t think so but they might have bows or spears. I think we should get out of here as soon as we can.”

“Now seems a good time.”

Tissian nodded again and held out his hand to haul his master to his feet. In the dark it took longer to saddle the horses than usual so the sky was just starting to change colour as they led their horses east, the clatter of their hooves echoing against the stone walls. By the time the sky was light enough to ride, the gully had opened out into a wide canyon with side passages leading off it. It reminded Jonderill of the maze in Wallmore only with eyes and much more dangerous. They tried one or two of the north facing side gullies, hoping that they would allow them to change direction, but one led to a dead end, and the other was blocked by a recent rock fall. Tissian spent some time trying to find a way over or around the barrier but came back shaking his head.

“There’s no way we’re going to get past there, it looks like someone has levered down half the cliff face and it would take days to clear a way through.”

“Did you see any signs of life?”

Tissian looked searchingly up at the top of the cliffs before he answered. “There were no hoof prints or footfalls but the dust was still settling and I thought I saw movement high up on the rocks.”

Jonderill nodded. “Me too, a quick flash of light which looked like the sun reflecting off a blade.” He frowned in concern and started to feel fear rising within him. “What do you suggest we do?”

Tissian looked back the way they had come and then in the opposite direction, further down the canyon. The track they were following ran straight for a short while and then twisted to the right and out of sight. “We could go back, but I guess whoever is following us will have that way blocked off too. That makes our best bet to go forward down the canyon and ride straight through whatever they have waiting for us.”

He turned and lifted his armour from behind his saddle and started to prepare himself for battle. Jonderill knew how well Tissian could fight, but they had no idea of the size of the opposition they would be up against. “How about making a stand here?” he asked.

Tissian pulled his body armour over his head and replaced his baldric. “We’re too exposed, and I’ve no way of protecting you from archers or spears.”

He pulled on his wrist shields and then held out his arms whilst Jonderill strapped his armour in place, being careful to keep away from the hilts of his knives and swords and trying desperately to think of a way out of the situation. It was times like this when he wished that he was a soldier, as he had always wanted to be, and not a helpless magician that needed to be protected. He waited, his fear growing all the time, as Tissian wrapped the steel-studded, leather skirt around his thighs and loaded his bolt bow.

For once Tissian didn’t smile. “Pull your hood over your head, master, it will give you some protection and keep behind me. When I shout ‘ride’, go as fast as Sansun will take you. The goddess willing, I’ll meet up with you later.”

He mounted his horse and led the way down the canyon without looking to see if Jonderill was following, his bolt bow in one hand and spare bolts in the other. The canyon was silent as if the stone walls themselves were holding their breath; the only noise the steady clopping of the horse’s hooves and the stones shifting beneath their feet. They reached the last dozen paces before the turn in the canyon and Tissian shifted in his saddle, bringing up the bow and resting it across his arm ready to fire. He drove his heels into his horse’s sides and it leapt forward with Sansun just a nose behind, galloping at full stretch as they left the shadows of the canyon and burst into the searing brilliance of the open desert.

Tissian shouted a warning and yanked on his horse’s mouth bringing him to a slithering halt in the burnt orange sand, the bolts from his bow already released and embedded in their targets. Behind him Sansun swerved sideways to avoid the collision, sending a spray of sand in every direction. Jonderill clung on, half blinded by the glaring light and not able to take in what lay before them. There were at least a hundred men spread in a semi-circle and mounted on huge war horses. They were dressed in dark flowing robes and armed with long, curved blades. He had seen the likes of them before in his nightmares, in Maladran’s probing and in Sadrin’s searching. He knew who they were and what they would do to him if they caught him.

His fear peaked and his magic exploded in a concussion of power which beat at the ears and made the ground heave beneath him. Sansun reared in panic and threw him from his back and next to him, Tissian leapt to the ground to protect him, leaving the two horses to bolt. The ground heaved and rippled outwards in rings around them sending up choking clouds of dust and sand and cracking the rock behind them. Jonderill staggered under the uncontrolled release of power, hollowed out and deafened by the noise. Next to him Tissian regained his balance, planted his feet firmly on the shuddering ground and raised his bow waiting for the sand storm to clear.