Part 36 (1/2)

'I understand,' he said. 'I know I could be of service to you. But I see other things as well. Besides, I can offer little more than you yourself. You, the Goraidin and, if I'm any judge of Eldric and Varak, a tough crowd of High Guards, together form a powerful nucleus. Many armies have started with much less.'

Arinndier made to protest, but Hawklan raised a hand and fixed him again with a piercing gaze.

'Sumeral's a force beyond human understanding, Arinndier, for all His human form. He needs sway over all mortal peoples and their lands to corrupt the Great Harmony beyond recovery, and He could achieve this with His Will alone if He so chose. Only one thing restrains Him, if He and His Uhriel are awake, then could not the Guardians also be awake, or awakening? The Guardians. His equals in the older, greater, Power. If He expends His Power on controlling humanity then He'll not be able to face the Power of the Guardians. And even if they're not yet awake, the exertion of His will in such a deed would surely awaken them. So He must raise mortal agents and mortal armies to achieve this.'

A sudden chilling knowledge swept over him. Sumeral would be more cunning, more patient than before, and the Guardians must surely be weaker. But less innocent, he thought, in reb.u.t.tal, less innocent, and goaded by a terrible guilt.

Arinndier stared at him almost fearfully.

Hawklan's gaze was unrelenting. 'We must draw on our every ally, and use them where they are most strong. In the end the balance may lie in the thickness of a hair.' He held up his hand, thumb and finger lightly touching. 'So finely balanced,' he said distantly.

'Hawklan, you speak so strangely at times,' Arinndier said, his face anxious. 'What do you know of these things? I don't understand you. You make us sound as if we'll be mere skirmishers in someone else's battle.'

Hawklan's look softened into a smile. 'We are skirmishers,' he said. 'But the mortal battle is ours in its entirety, and if we lose everything will be lost.'

Arinndier still looked fretful.

Hawklan slapped his arm. 'Gather all your forces, Arin. Look to your own estates and those of such other Lords as you can reach. Then send to Orthlund. To Loman at Anderras Darion.' A brief look of sadness pa.s.sed over his face. 'I fear you may have powerful allies there soon.' 'You fear?' Arinndier said. Hawklan waved a dismissive hand, and did not pursue the question in Arinndier's voice. 'Take heart,' he said. 'While you face mortal armies, however foul, however numerous, the war can be won. Gather every resource together and use them well.'

Arinndier seized the straw and reverted back to his concern of the moment. 'But you won't stay and help us,' he said.

Hawklan laughed. 'Remind me in future never to engage a Fyordyn in debate will you?' Then, more seriously, 'I don't have the words for this, Arin, but I'm drawn elsewhere drawn more powerfully than ever. I have to go to the source of this ill. My heart leads me. It brought me here to see the ma.s.sacre of Evison's men and for Isloman to show me the desecration of the mountains. Now it leads me back to Vakloss. Back to my original path. I must find your Lord Dan-Tor . . .'

Arinndier bridled a little. 'He's no Lord of mine, Hawklan,' he said.

Hawklan gestured an apology.

'Could your heart not be leading you into a trap?' tried Arinndier.

'Possibly,' Hawklan said thoughtfully after a brief silence. 'Possibly. But it may be a trap to yield to my inclination and remain here to help you with your army. Dan-Tor holds the answers to my needs. I've no alternative but to seek him out.' Then his face brightened. 'Besides, I've got Isloman and Gavor to watch my back. Take this solace, Arin he'll find me no easy game to hold, no matter what his trap. And time spent pursuing me can't be spent working against you. I may be of greater service in gaining time for you than in helping to organize and train your army. I've told you, you've plenty of good men for that, but none can distract Dan-Tor as I can.'

Arinndier lifted his hands in submission.

'One thing though,' Hawklan continued. Arinndier leaned forward, a faint glimmer of hope in his eyes.

'Let me have two Goraidin to go back to Vakloss with. I'd value their skills and they can report back to you whatever happens there.'

Both Hreldar and Darek a.s.saulted Hawklan's resolution, following Arinndier's capitulation, but with as much success. Darek was prompted to a wry smile. 'See how easily we fall without your leaders.h.i.+p,' he said.

Hawklan smiled broadly and placed an arm around his shoulder. 'Come now, Lord,' he said. 'Would you make me an oath-breaker? Lord Arinndier is witness that I've forsworn debating with Fyordyn. And besides I can tell a fall from a feint.'

But it was Yatsu who struck home, sitting silent in an evening alcove. 'I want none of this, Hawklan,' he said, his face pa.s.sive but pained. 'All the action recently has kept my mind busy, but there are quiet places in this old castle that bring thoughts cras.h.i.+ng down on top of me. Old, long-forgotten memories, Hawklan. Terrible memories. I want none of it.' He looked up, and Hawklan saw his eyes were glistening tears in the soft torchlight.

He sat down by the man and leaned back against the cool stone wall. The air was very still and a low bright moon dominated the sky, silvering the surrounding peaks. It was an evening for celebrating life inquiet joy, but the aura around Yatsu forbade any such ease. Hawklan thought back to the return of Olvric.

When Varak's patrol had reached Olvric, they had expected to find him dead or at least sorely pressed.

As it was, it was the Mathidrin who were in difficulties. Of the six, two had died moving to outflank Olvric, one was unconscious with a serious head injury and another had a broken arm.

Olvric himself had moved to ensure that the patrol could neither advance nor retreat without coming under the lethal fire of his sling, and he was waiting silent and unmoving when Varak's men arrived.

'They'll provide useful information,' Yatsu had said, apparently satisfied after Olvric had reported, but Hawklan had caught the subtle, almost unconscious signs that had flickered between some of the Goraidin.

'You mistrust Olvric,' Hawklan said into the cool evening. Yatsu did not seem surprised at this remark, but just nodded slightly.

'Olvric knows his trade better than average,' he said non-committally.

'But?' said Hawklan.

Yatsu breathed out a long breath. 'It's complicated, Hawklan,' he said. 'I'd trust Olvric's loyalty without question. I'd trust him with my life without a moment's qualm . . .'

'But?' Hawklan repeated.

There was a long silence.

'Our training was harsh brutal, even. It was intended to make us self reliant under almost any conditions, and to weld us into a single fighting unit bound by loyalty and by common suffering.'

Yatsu smiled ironically, though the smile faded almost immediately. 'But what really binds us, binds us beyond any release, isn't our training even though that runs deep. What binds us is a shared horror of the things we saw . . .' His voice faltered. 'And the things we did had to do,' he added softly in reluctant self-justification. 'We're a unit now because only we understand one another. Only we know what it's like to hunt without mercy, and the terror of being hunted the same way. Know what it's like to choose between killing and abandoning your own.'

Hawklan watched the man intensely, remembering vividly his conversation with Isloman as they had ridden north through Orthlund with Jaldaric.

'But Olvric and some of the others relished the life too much,' Yatsu continued. 'When we came back from Riddin, it took most of us months to adjust to peacetime living. For some it took years. Some wandered off into the mountains to find themselves . . . or just disappeared. Some killed themselves. But Olvric . . . he just carried on waiting. Peacetime was just a long wait, a long interval, until the next time.

Somehow, he only lived when he was fighting. Stalking a prey killing it. Did you see those Mathidrin when they came in?'

Hawklan nodded.

'Terrified,' Yatsu continued. 'Not nervous or apprehensive terrified. That's what Olvric and his kind do to people enemies. And he didn't have to kill three of them.' 'Two,' corrected Hawklan.

Yatsu shook his head. 'Come now, Hawklan. I don't need to be a healer to know that that head injury's fatal. It's three dead, without a doubt.'

'What else could he have done?' asked Hawklan. 'He was heavily outnumbered.'

'He knows that wounded men present a greater problem than dead ones,' said Yatsu. 'He had the initiative. They wouldn't have been expecting an ambush. He's a first-rate slinger. He could have immobilized almost all of them and scattered their horses. The killings were superfluous.'

'But you'll use the terror that Olvric's induced to obtain more information than you would otherwise, won't you?' Hawklan said searchingly.

Yatsu's eyes glinted and he grimaced. 'Yes,' he said bitterly. 'I told you I wanted none of it. I'm too old, seen too much.' He took Hawklan's arm. 'That spirit, that worm that wriggles inside Olvric, wriggles in us all. It's in me, I know. I want it far away away in the shadows away from the treacherous old skills for killing and betraying that it feeds on.'

Yatsu's voice was calm and steady. It held no emotional tremor, and its very control chilled Hawklan.

The truth is to be faced, however terrible, he thought again, and here was a man facing it at its worst.

'I've no answer for you, Yatsu,' he said eventually. 'You see the truth of what you say, and it's immutable. But just to see it is to be armoured against many things. Every step we take is a step into darkness, you know that, even for Dan-Tor. He knows the future no more than any of us. Travel with a good heart, Yatsu, don't cloud the present with the unknowable future, and don't be frightened of this worm inside you. Your conscience and your judgement will keep it in hand, have no fear.'