Part 9 (2/2)

'Really, dear boy,' came the reply from above. 'Crow. Tut tut. No need to be personal. Your little brother's influence, I suppose.'

Then he soared in a great circle over their heads laughing to himself. The sound was infectious and Hawklan laughed quietly. 'There's a paradox for you, Isloman. It takes a bird to put our feet back on the ground again.'

Isloman replied with a formidable grunt and the two men rode on, the silence between them now a little easier and more companionable.

Shortly afterwards, strange noises could be heard overhead. Hawklan's face a.s.sumed an expression of mock pain, and Isloman slumped noticeably.

'He's practicing his bird impressions again,' said Hawklan plaintively.

Isloman looked up. 'There are times when life seems to be just one burden after another,' he said.

A faint voice came down to them. 'Thank you, thank you, ladies and gentleman. Now the nightingale . . .'.

The first village they came to was Little Hapter.

As Isloman had foreseen, the people came out to meet them. Hawklan knew many of them, and they acknowledged his greetings courteously enough, but there was a general air of preoccupation about them that was unfamiliar, and it was around Isloman that they all gathered. Hawklan looked at the growing crowd, and for the first time in twenty years felt that he was not one of these people. There was nothing hostile in their att.i.tude, or even unpleasant, but something had disturbed them at a level which heightened his position as an outsider and drew them to look first to their own kind.

Sensing it was a time to listen and learn, he was content to let Isloman answer their questions. He wanted to ask, 'How did you know?' but he knew that no answer would be forthcoming. Their responses to the news of the Mandrocs and the fighting ran the gamut of shock, alarm, and anger, as might be expected, but though these were sincere, Hawklan felt that the deeper shadows in the Orthlundyn were eased by the light of knowledge, however bad, and he felt himself brought back into their circle again.

He was inclined to dismiss the feeling of being an outsider as being over-sensitivity on his part or perhaps even a little residual shock, but he examined it again and found it true. There had been a strange but definite mood in the crowd as they turned initially to Isloman. One that he had never seen before. He set the thought aside for future consideration. It seemed to be important in some way.

Then he was with Isloman, sharing equally the centre of attention, and it was agreed that one of the elders should accompany them to Anderras Darion to discuss the matter thoroughly with elders from other villages.

So it was as they pa.s.sed through each village on their southward journey Greater Hapter (the smaller of the two villages), Astli, Perato, Oglin, Halyt Green, Wosod Heath, Lamely Bend and others the response was always the same. The people knew that something horrific had happened. They knew. And always their darkness eased a little when they learned the truth.

Hawklan had never known the Orthlundyn to be a simple folk. Each year he had lived with them he had learned to respect more and more the sophistication and deep wisdom that lay in their apparently simple life; their natural awareness of balance and order, of freedom within discipline, their respect for each other's freedom. A respect that had made him welcome and left him unquestioned in all his years with them, despite the mystery of his sudden appearance and his acceptance by Anderras Darion. Now, however, a force was at work deep within them that he had never known before, never even suspected.

Abruptly he felt lonely and lost, and woefully inadequate to serve these people who seemed now, in some way, to be looking to him for guidance.

With the pa.s.sing of each village their little party grew and, as most of the newcomers were old, their progress necessarily became slower. Gavor chuckled to himself from time to time as he looked down on the raggle-taggle parade wending its painstaking way along the old road, through the Orthlund countryside, boisterous with new growth and life.

'A fine strapping army you have there, O mighty Prince,' he gloated, landing with wilful awkwardness on Hawklan's shoulder and steadying himself by sticking his wooden leg in Hawklan's ear. Hawklan glowered at him and Isloman shook with silent laughter.

It was Gavor's irreverent clowning that had prevented the little cavalcade dropping into corrosive introspection and fretfulness, but Isloman found it difficult to equate this Gavor with the one who had filled the sky with an ancient death song and then slit the throats of Mandrocs with his murderous black spurs. Spurs of the same metal as Hawklan's strange sword. Spurs found by his brother near where the sword had fallen. Spurs that fitted his ridiculous wooden leg.

Isloman stared thoughtfully at the pair riding just ahead and to one side of him. Occasionally Gavor would hop on to Hawklan's head and extend his great s.h.i.+ning wings in a luxuriant gesture and, to Isloman, the image of his old friend changed briefly from travel-stained and weary healer to a haunted,haggard leader, battle-wearied and a long way from what he loved, a terrible helm on his head and a black slaying sword by his side.

Eventually the distant towers of Anderras Darion came into view and, in spite of himself, Hawklan began to find it increasingly difficult to maintain the leisurely pace that the older people needed.

Gavor found it quite impossible and, as the party prepared to leave Tulhavin, the last village before Pedhavin, he appeared, meticulously groomed and carrying a particularly obnoxious morsel in his beak.

'I'll tell them you're coming,' he spluttered out of the side of his beak, then, as if an afterthought, 'Then I'd better see my friends. They'll be missing me.'

Shaking his head as he watched the black shape dwindle urgently into the distance, Hawklan turned to Isloman. 'I'll be glad to see familiar faces around me again,' he said. 'And familiar things.'

Isloman nodded and looked at his hands. 'Yes. I've been too long away from my rock. All this has awakened too many old memories.'

Hawklan looked at him seriously. 'I've no idea what's going to happen, Isloman, but I'm certain that we'll only get a brief respite at the Castle. I fear there's more than old memories being awakened and my heart tells me we're on the verge of journeyings and events that'll offer us no rest in the future.'

Isloman leaned forward and patted his horse's head with his great gentle hand. 'I know,' he said. Then, enigmatically, 'Everyone knows.'

Hawklan did not reply.

'We still have to seek out this Dan-Tor,' continued Isloman. 'And I can't avoid the feeling that when we do it'll only be the beginning of more trouble.'

'Rrisss awake.'

The voice sounded distant in Hawklan's head, whispering with an unrelenting urgency. He turned sharply to Isloman.

'What did you say?'

Isloman shrugged. 'I said it'll probably be the beginning of more trouble.'

Hawklan shook his head irritably. 'No, no. After that.'

'Nothing,' said Isloman.

'Thriss . . .'came the voice again or voices. There was a quality in the sound that could brook no delay. It was the same sound he had heard in his dream in the mountains and it drew him irresistibly. He stood in his stirrups and looked around desperately.

'There it is again,' he said, steadying Serian, who had become restless under him.

'I heard nothing,' said Isloman. 'It's the wind in the trees.' 'Sssss . . .'again, but fainter, as if carried away by the wind, or as if the caller were tiring.

'There,' cried Hawklan excitedly. 'Right there.' He pointed. 'Right ahead of us. Over the hill.'

Isloman watched his friend's agitation in amazement. He was about to say that he could hear nothing when Hawklan bent down over his horse's head.

'Now, Muster horse, let me see you gallop,' he said, and with a shake of his proud head, Serian leapt forward.

Momentarily dumbfounded, Isloman stared after the thundering horse now rapidly receding into the distance with its rider's cloak flying wildly behind him. Then, coming suddenly to his senses, he shouted to the group to wait until he returned, and urging his horse forward, he set off at full gallop after his friend.

Chapter 14.

Serian carried Hawklan to the top of the hill effortlessly. There, Hawklan reined him to a halt and looked along the road ahead. In the distance the towers of Anderras Darion shone in the morning light like great jewels crystallized in the ancient mountains, but the road in front of him dipped down into a wooded hollow untouched by the sun, and isolated tree tops protruded through a thick mist like saplings and shrubs in the snow.

Hawklan felt a surging excitement.

'Ethriss. Awaken,'came the voice, or was it voices? Strong at first, seeming almost to echo from the distant towers, but fading rapidly.

'No!' roared Hawklan at the top of his voice. 'No!' And driving his knees into the horse he urged him forward at full gallop down into the mist.

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