His glittering black spurs sliced effortlessly through the outstretched stem.
Dar-volci tumbled to the floor and, with a cry, scrambled to one side to avoid the gushing stream of venom that flowed from the severed stem. But suddenly the creature was awake and in mortal agony. Its appalling will filled the chamber. There was a terrible cry from the Alphraan, and then the eyes of the birds were bright, horrible, and focused, and their milling chaos malignly purposeful.
For a fearful moment, Hawklan stood motionless, paralysed by the dreadful clamour of the hateful language that came washing into his mind. But as the birds began to converge on him, their very movement seemed to break him free and with a great roar he slashed through the remaining tendrils with one single wind-rushing blow.
The birds swept up the roof of the chamber, as if each part of the creature was seeking to avoid the death that was coming to it from the centre. The sound of their wings beating frenziedly against the unyielding rock filled the chamber, then there was silence, both in the chamber and in Hawklan’s mind, and the birds began falling through the garish globelight like a ghastly, thudding, snowstorm.
Hawklan slid to the floor, shaking.
Slowly other, commonplace, sounds impinged on the silence. Looking up, Hawklan saw Dacu and the others scrambling along the ledges and down the ladders towards him.
Gavor landed on his shoulder. ‘Splendid stuff, dear boy,’ he said, poking him energetically with his wooden leg. ‘Did you see that?’ He extended his wings and uttered a gleeful, ‘Wheee… And with a damaged pectoral as well.’ Then, leaning forward, ‘You all right, Dar?’
‘I think so,’ said Dar-volci standing up and running an anxious foreclaw over himself. ‘That was timely intervention, crow.’
‘My pleasure entirely, rat,’ Gavor said headily. ‘That was a rare piece of tulip wrestling you were doing, but I thought I’d better help when it got a little fraught at the end.’
Dar-volci gave a grunting chuckle, but winced as he dropped back on to all-fours. Hawklan crawled forward and ran his hands over him gently.
After a moment, Dar-volci started to nuzzle his arm and rumble with pleasure. Hawklan smiled. ‘You’ve got the same as I had,’ he pronounced. ‘Bruised ribs. They’ll not be much fun, but they’ll mend in a day or so.’
Then the others were around them, a panting An-dawyr last. ‘Are you all right, Dar?’ he said, crouching down and taking the felci’s pointed head gently in his two hands.
Dar-volci bared his massive teeth in a chattering grin of pleasure and triumph by way of answer, then clambered up the Cadwanwr and draped himself around his neck.
‘Finish that thing, Hawklan,’ Andawyr said savagely, nodding towards the leaking remains of the Vrwystin. ‘I shudder to think what price has been paid to create and keep it, but it’ll take no further toll of anyone or anything.’
With a few strokes, Hawklan hacked the remains of the creature to pieces.
Tybek looked at the pitted surface of the rock. ‘These root things go right into the rock,’ he said. ‘Can it grow again from them?’
Andawyr shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They’re not roots. It’s not a plant. It’s a living, intelligent, creature. Or rather, was. Now it’s truly dead and Oklar’s greater vision is blinded. I doubt he’ll consider it worthwhile to attempt to breed another. All we have to fear now are ordinary mortal eyes spying our travels.’
‘Ah… ’ The faint sound echoed round the chamber. It was weak but it was full of relief at this unequivocal reassurance by the Cadwanwr. Hawklan grimaced in self-reproach at his forgetfulness. ‘Alphraan,’ he cried out. ‘You’re hurt. Let me help you.’
Even through the weakness in the voice, a hint of amusement could be felt. ‘You cannot help us more, Hawklan,’ it said gratefully. ‘We take joy in your triumph over the Vrwystin. It is an old wrong righted and a small repayment for the return of our Heartland. But we were too few and the battle against its will in that awful dream has spent us utterly. We must join the Great Song that will come to fill these mountains as the families spread forth.’
The words, however, were but a shadow of the true content of the Alphraan’s speech. The sounds were rich with both sorrow and happiness, deep gratitude for deeds done, and stirring excitement for unknowable things yet to come. To the hearers it was almost unbearably poignant.
‘Damn you, Alphraan, no,’ Hawklan shouted, run-ning forward towards the middle of the chamber. ‘You mustn’t die. Let me help.’
‘You cannot,’ said the voice, growing fainter. ‘Go now to destroy Him, healer. We’re beyond you. Our parting here is not as your dying though it is both as sad and as joyous. We must go now to ensure that the way is truly marked.’
Fainter still.
‘We could not have gone beyond the mountains, Hawklan. Grieve not. The Song prospers. Farewell, Hawklan. Ethriss’s chosen… Farewell sky prince… felci… blessed felci… light be with you… all.’
And, with a note like the infinitely dwindling reso-nance of a delicately struck bell, they were gone. Hawklan stood gazing round the silent chamber, his eyes glistening in the brightness and his face drawn and pained with the aching emptiness that the parting had left inside him.
No one spoke. For a while, ordinary words would be little more than a desecration of the subtle silence that the Alphraan had left.
Isloman was the first to move. He looked around the chamber, and rubbed his arms nervously. ‘We must go,’ he said in a throaty whisper. ‘This place is bad.’
Hawklan nodded and, slowly sheathing his sword, looked at Andawyr. The Cadwanwr wiped his hand across his eyes and then rubbed his forehead. He looked up at the dark mouths of the tunnel entrance gaping into the chamber.
‘None of these tunnels are natural,’ he said eventu-ally. ‘They run with no regard for Theowart’s will. It’s harder to understand the way.’
‘Let’s just go upwards, then,’ Tybek said urgently.
Hawklan shot him an angry look, but Andawyr shrugged. ‘It’ll suffice,’ he said. ‘Far be it from me to dispute the worth of such promptings. You’ve been underground a long time.’
It took them quite a time to climb up to one of the higher tunnels, having first to retrieve their packs and then to negotiate several ladders which were far from safe. There were also various ledges which Andawyr, in particular, would have preferred to be substantially wider now that he was no longer driven by the combina-tion of excitement and concern that had carried him downwards so quickly.
‘Let me rest a moment,’ he said, puffing with both relief and effort when they reached their destination. ‘I think I’ll know better where to go when I’m free of the light of those appalling globes.’ He looked at Isloman. ‘You say he filled Vakloss with those things?’
Isloman nodded.
Andawyr shook his head in pained disbelief. ‘Your poor people,’ he said to Dacu.
‘I don’t understand,’ Dacu said, slightly perplexed.
‘Nor do I fully,’ Andawyr said, sitting down with a grunt. ‘It’s one of many things we’ll need to think about when this is over.’ He shook his head reflectively. ‘Only He would think to use light as a weapon.’ Then, more positively, ‘Still, you’re free of them now. I doubt their effects were permanent.’
Dacu did not pursue the matter, and a brief hand signal silenced Tirke before he began. Whatever Andawyr did not know, he could not tell. Questioning was therefore pointless.
After a brief rest, they moved on again. Once away from the globes, Andawyr did indeed become more confident in his leading, though it was still obviously harder for him than it had been, and although there were far fewer junctions and branches than before, he paused at each for much longer.
Anxious to be above ground now that their presence would not be so easily detected, the members of the group became increasingly fretful at these delays.
‘It can’t be helped,’ Andawyr said eventually, cutting through the unspoken criticism. ‘These tunnels follow the logic of the men who made them and they ring with pain. I need your help, not your foot-shuffling criticism. You Orthlundyn at least should… ’