‘What are you doing here?’ was the common ques-tion of the two groups, but before it could be answered, a harsh, guttural voice intruded.
‘We must go. This is a bad place. Too near the kill-ing rocks.’ It was the Mandroc and it was addressing Yatsu. Its eyes widened in fear as it pointed toward the tunnel from which Hawklan and the others had emerged, and its voice fell to a terrified whisper. ‘And Amrahl’s… creature… is down there. Hurry, hurry.’
‘Lead on then,’ Yatsu said, lifting his hand for si-lence. The Mandroc scurried through one of the tunnel openings and Yatsu beckoned the others to follow.
‘Follow that?’ Jaldaric said. Hawklan started at the snarling anger in the young man’s voice. As he looked at him, however, the memory returned to him of Jaldaric standing alone in the spring sunshine and facing Aelang and the chanting mob of Mandrocs that was to massacre his friends.
Hawklan took his arm and felt his dreadful fear and rage. ‘Yatsu is commander,’ he said simply. ‘We talk as we walk.’
Jaldaric turned to him, his face riven with torment. Hawklan urged him forward. ‘As we walk,’ he repeated forcefully.
They did little talking for some time however, the route being upwards and the Mandroc setting a fair pace, for all his rolling gait. The concussions and the blasts of air gradually became less frequent and more distant and eventually the pace slowed down. As it did, the questions emerged again.
‘What are you doing here, and why are we following… that?’ Jaldaric asked, nodding viciously at the back of the Mandroc as he spoke.
Yatsu raised a conciliatory hand. ‘That’s Byroc,’ he replied. ‘He’s one of the Ivrandak Garn tribe and he hates Sumeral more than we do.’
Andawyr looked intently at Yatsu as he spoke and then shot Hawklan a look of appreciative surprise.
‘Call it what you want… ’ Jaldaric began.
‘Him, Captain!’ Yatsu said grimly. ‘Him! He’s no more a thing than you are.’
Jaldaric’s eyes blazed momentarily but Yatsu’s stern gaze forbade any further remonstrance.
‘Why are we following him, then?’ Jaldaric managed.
‘Because he’s saved our lives half a dozen times already and unless anyone here knows any different, he’s the only one who can get us out of here.’ Yatsu’s voice was angry.
Hawklan came between them. ‘Are these explosions something to do with you?’ he asked Yatsu.
A white grin displaced the anger in the Goraidin’s grimy face. ‘They certainly are,’ he said. ‘They’re the funeral knell of those stinking mines.’
Mines! Hawklan thought in some surprise. Andawyr had been right, they had moved well to the west of the Pass.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
Yatsu confined himself to a brief operational sum-mary. ‘We’ve been studying them for weeks,’ he said. ‘Even managed to get right inside once or twice. When Lord Eldric told us to destroy them, we sent in a diversionary raid to draw out the guards, sneaked in a group disguised as Mathidrin to open the slave pens… ’ He faltered and his face became pained at some memory. ‘Then we simply set fire to the storage silos. You’ve never seen anything like it. That stuff is appalling.’
‘We?’ queried Hawklan. ‘You three and Byroc here?’
Yatsu’s expression soured. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There were four companies of us altogether. Veterans and the younger ones we’d trained up. There was some hand to hand fighting with the off-duty guards as we were leaving, and we got separated. The others got away, but we were cut off by the fire, covering their retreat.’
‘And Byroc?’ Hawklan asked.
Yatsu frowned. ‘We came across him in a special cage of his own when the fire drove us underground.’ His voice fell as if he did not wish the Mandroc to hear. ‘I think they had him lined up for something particu-larly nasty; he just fell on his knees and grovelled when we released him and he’s no coward, believe me.’
‘And you trust him?’ Hawklan said.
‘He led us to three underground storage units that we never even suspected existed, and helped us fire them safely and get away,’ Yatsu replied. His eyes widened. ‘And you should have seen what he did to the Mathidrin who tried to stop us! Yes, I’m well on the way to trusting him.’
Hawklan nodded. ‘Will he speak to me?’ he asked.
‘Go and ask him,’ Yatsu replied. ‘He’s got a mind of his own, to put it mildly.’
Hawklan strode forward to the Mandroc. He sensed many emotions radiating from the powerful figure as he fell in step beside him; suspicion, fear, anger.
He noticed markings on the Mandroc’s face that he recalled having seen in a book at the Caves of Cad-wanen.
‘Why do you help us, Byroc, Chief of the Ivrandak Garn tribe, Plains Runner, Leaper of the Crags and Chosen Hunter?’ he said.
The Mandroc’s various emotions disappeared under a surge of surprise, but apart from a quick sidelong glance he gave no outward sign.
‘Because they wish it,’ he said, nodding back at Yatsu and the others. ‘But keep the young one from me. He hates like the black ones.’ His voice was harsh and unpleasant but Hawklan judged that to be because he was speaking in an alien tongue.
‘The young one is Jaldaric,’ Hawklan said. ‘Son of a great warrior and chief. His friends were slain by your kind and he himself imprisoned by the leader of the Mathidrin-the black ones. He carries much pain inside, as you do.’
‘Imprisoned?’ Byroc said after a long silence.
Hawklan nodded. ‘Why were you imprisoned, By-roc?’ he asked.
Byroc looked back over his shoulder, his eyes whit-ening, then he opened his mouth and let out a great bellowing whimper of fear that echoed along the tunnel and made Hawklan wince in its intensity.
‘Why were you imprisoned?’ Hawklan pressed. ‘And what frightened you back there? There are few things you would flee from.’
‘I would flee from Amrahl’s creature,’ Byroc said, quickening his pace, and speaking as if the words were being torn out of him. ‘The all-seeing one.’
‘The creature that sees through its yellow-eyed birds?’ Hawklan asked.
Byroc nodded and quickened his pace.
‘It is dead,’ Hawklan said quietly. ‘The raven, the felci, the sound carvers, and this sword slew it. Amrahl’s sight is as yours now.’
Byroc stopped suddenly, causing some commotion behind. He looked at Hawklan, and then at Gavor, and Dar-volci standing on his hind legs by Hawklan. Tentatively the Mandroc reached out towards the black sword. Hawklan drew it slowly and offered it to him, hilt first. Dacu and Isloman edged forward.
Byroc however, did not touch the sword but with-drew his hand and stepped back a little, his mouth gaping to reveal his massive canine teeth. Then he looked at Hawklan again. ‘You… and these… slew Amrahl’s creature?’ he asked, the harshness in his voice softened by awe.
Andawyr stepped forward. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Byroc stared at the Cadwanwr and then stepped back again in undisguised fear. ‘You are one of His kind,’ he said. ‘You wield the Great Harm, and the sword possesses it too.’
‘No, Byroc,’ Andawyr said. ‘I can use the same Power that He does, but it is like… fire or water. Whether I use it for harm or good is my choosing… ’ He screwed his face up with effort and began speaking hesitantly in a harsh, guttural, language.
The Mandroc replied uncertainly in the same lan-guage and a short debate ensued. As it concluded he turned back to Hawklan.
‘I do not understand all these things,’ he said, shak-ing his head massively. ‘Have you truly slain His creature? Do you truly come to oppose Amrahl’s might?’
‘Yes,’ Hawklan said. ‘The creature is truly dead. And many others than we move to oppose Him also.’
There was a low rumbling in Byroc’s throat. ‘I was to be given to it,’ he said. ‘My spirit was to be slowly torn from me and… ’ His voice deteriorated into a low, moaning, howl. Hawklan looked at Andawyr.
‘The Vrwystin exists on many planes,’ Andawyr said. ‘Even we can feel Byroc’s fear. Those parts of the Vrwystin’s nature that are elsewhere feed on such emotions.’
Hawklan grimaced. ‘And the part that was here?’ he asked.
‘That would feed on flesh and blood,’ Andawyr re-plied reluctantly.