There was a long silence, then Dar Hastuin spoke, his voice hissing and shrieking like the winds he rode. ‘What creature are you to know such ancient names and to speak of the Great Heretic thus in our presence?’
‘No creature, Lords,’ the figure replied. Then slowly it reached up and raised the visor. Loman could not see the rider’s face.
‘I offer you redemption, my Lords-or death,’ the voice said. For a moment, Loman saw the two Uhriel become once again men; powerful men, ever seizing, ever fearing, but faced now with that which they had been ever fleeing.
Then the vision was gone.
Neither Uhriel spoke, but both suddenly raised their swords and charged towards the lone figure.
‘We were great warrior kings… before.’
Oklar’s words returned to Loman vividly as he felt the ferocity and power of their charge. No man could stand against such force. He and his two companions would have been brushed aside like chaff for all his strength and their skills.
Usgreckan rose from the ground, shrieking, its huge wings throwing up clouds of spray. Creost’s steed crouched low like a great serpent.
Unexpectedly, Serian leapt forward to meet them. It was a seemingly reckless response to such an attack, but as the protagonists closed, Serian suddenly twisted to one side and the unknown rider struck Usgreckan a blow on the neck that half severed it.
With a terrible cry, the creature crashed into the ground sending its loathsome cargo tumbling among the heaps of dead and dying.
The fall, however, had little or no effect on the Uhriel, and as Serian turned, it was to the sight of Dar Hastuin clambering atop the bodies and shrieking as if the dying Usgreckan had entered his soul. His clawed hand reached out towards the rider who immediately dismounted and strode towards him.
Dar Hastuin screamed again at the approaching figure in some strange language, then he fell silent and the two were face to face, sword to sword-both quite motionless save for the whirling mass of Dar Hastuin’s clawing hair and the rain running from the rider’s armour.
The brief timeless stillness was filigreed about by the sounds of the battle around them and the clamour of Creost recovering control of his mount following Serian’s sudden avoidance. Loman watched, wide-eyed and intent. Then he started suddenly, as did Yengar and Olvric, though both were subtle and experienced swordsmen. They had seen scarcely any movement by either combatant, but now, without either threat or feint and in what seemed to be the flicker of an eye, Dar Hastuin was impaled on the rider’s sword.
His awful scream began, but petered out almost immediately, and the rider was lowering him to the ground amid the other dead, with a strange gentleness.
As his mind fought to recall the beginning and end of this almost unbelievable slaying, Loman saw that Creost had recovered and was charging again; silently and towards the rider’s back.
He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but his responses felt slow and leaden, and even as he heard himself cry out, the rider was turning to face the onslaught.
To Loman’s horror, however, the rider did not move back from the path of the charging creature, but stepped in front of it. Loman’s warning shout was still leaving him as the rider’s sword cut the creature’s throat and then swung round to deliver an upward lunge on Creost’s unguarded side. The bloody sword point emerged from Creost’s shoulder and he was torn from the saddle, such was the force of the blow.
With four strokes the rider had slain the two Uhriel and their steeds.
Then the rider struck two more terrible blows, mounted, and turned Serian in the direction in which Oklar had fled.
Hawklan ran on and on, supporting the hobbling Andawyr.
It seemed to him that since he had used the sword, everything was slipping from him and great forces were converging on him. He ran along Sumeral’s road through the bleak mists of Narsindal, but he did not know where he was running, or scarcely why.
Some voice within him propelled him forward faster and faster.
And despite his pain, Andawyr propelled him also.
Skittering footsteps caught up with them. It was Dar-volci.
The sight of the felci apparently unaffected by the mounting horrors of their journey made Hawklan feel calmer.
‘Where’s Gavor?’ he gasped.
‘No idea,’ Dar-volci replied. ‘I saw him deal with a few Mandrocs then I got a little involved myself and I didn’t see him before I left.’
Hawklan grimaced with self-reproach. In his own turmoil he had forgotten the others fighting to protect him.
‘What about the rest,’ he asked.
‘Still fighting when I left,’ Dar-volci replied. ‘I thought I’d be more use here than there.’
They ran on in silence, until Andawyr slithered to the ground.
‘I must rest,’ he said desperately.
Hawklan stared into the mist. There were no sounds of pursuit, but still he felt a driving urgency.
He bent down and took Andawyr’s ankle, but the Cadwanwr snatched it away.
‘No,’ he said. ‘The pain focuses my mind so that I can remain where I am and perhaps still hide us from His will. Go on with Dar-volci, quickly before I’m overwhelmed.’
He reached out to stroke the anxious felci.
‘I won’t leave you,’ Hawklan said. ‘What’s happen-ing? Why’s everything suddenly so… fraught, so… desperate?’
‘I don’t know,’ Andawyr said. ‘You used the sword. I can feel terrible things happening somewhere. I can feel my brothers. I can feel the Uhriel. And other things too-the Guardians, perhaps. But no pattern, no shape. Just a chaos and disorder with you at its centre. Only He seems to be steadfast-watching, waiting. Go!’
Hawklan peered along the mist-shrouded road. Its silence and stillness were bizarrely at odds with his own whirling inner confusion and Andawyr’s almost frenzied declamation.
Then, unceremoniously, he swept Andawyr up on to his shoulder and set off again. There was a brief protest from the Cadwanwr, but it foundered against Hawklan’s patent resolution.
As Hawklan ran, he felt again as he had felt earlier, that he was climbing some interminably long and increasingly steep slope. Eventually he came to an exhausted halt.
‘No more,’ he said slumping. ‘No more.’
Andawyr slithered down and stood in front of the despondent healer. He tried to smile encouragingly, but desperation leaked through and swept the smile aside.
‘Lean on me,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m fresher now.’
‘Hush, both of you,’ Dar-volci said suddenly.
Hawklan bent his head forward. There were still no sounds of pursuit. ‘What…?’ he began.
‘Hush!’
Then into the silence came the soft lapping of waves.
Andawyr seized Hawklan’s arm and, limping heav-ily, dragged him to the side of the road and down the embankment.
A line of dark, glistening waves came into view. Andawyr stopped and, hopping unsteadily on one leg, looked at the grim turbulent surface that disappeared into the mist.
‘We’re here,’ he said, his voice alive with a mixture of fear, disbelief and excitement. ‘We’re here. The causeway across Lake Kedrieth. We’ve reached His lair undiscovered, and His every resource is still turned towards the battle.’
Hawklan felt his confusion fall away. They had suc-ceeded. Now, whatever the outcome, his journeying was truly near its end. Soon he would come face to face with the monstrous author of all the foulness that he had come upon since that fateful spring day when a twitching sharp-eyed tinker had pranced his spider’s dance on the green at Pedhavin.
He helped Andawyr back to the road.
‘Across this causeway to our enemy, Cadwanwr,’ he said softly, loosening the black sword in its scabbard.
Andawyr nodded and ran the palms of his hands down his soiled robe as if preparing for some heavy task.
As they moved forward they began to pass aban-doned carts and wagons; anonymous hulking shadows in the mist.
Then, abruptly, one of the dark shapes rose up in front of them. Hawklan cried out and drew his sword. Dar-volci chattered his teeth and snarled.