Andawyr looked at him impatiently. ‘How could I know?’ he said, a little more sharply than he had intended. ‘He’s not attacking us for sure, you’ll not need me to tell you when he does that.’ Then, repenting a little, ‘He’s exerting Power in some way… wrongly, but not… against anyone… not destructively.’ He brushed his hand across his face as though irritated by morning spider threads. ‘It’s probably to do with preventing the islands from moving.
He paused thoughtfully, then leaned across to Ate-lon and spoke to him softly.
Another, loud, roll of thunder interrupted this con-versation and made everyone look upwards. Hawklan suddenly felt his flesh crawl. He had not felt such a sensation since he had approached Vakloss to confront Dan-Tor, but this, though fainter, was in some way far worse.
‘The Drienvolk are suffering,’ he said to Andawyr.
‘We can do nothing,’ Andawyr reiterated. ‘Look to your front; to the enemy you can fight.’
Hawklan pulled his mind from the invisible torment high above him and looked again at the smoking camp and the gathering men. As he had expected, the appearance of riders on the skyline had caused some commotion, and angry voices were now reaching him above the ubiquitous sound of the sea.
‘Have your bows ready,’ he said, nudging Serian forward.
‘Let’s see if our estimate of their temperament-and range-is correct.’
The small party began moving down towards the camp, two of the Helyadin discreetly falling in on either side of Andawyr whose horsemanship would be decidedly uncertain if as they anticipated, they were obliged to leave quickly.
As they neared, someone shouted an order, and the abuse that had been directed at them died down unexpectedly. Abruptly, some of the Morlider broke ranks and spread out in a line to face them. They were archers, silent and waiting. Their bows were lowered, but their arrows were nocked, and the manoeuvre was executed with some efficiency. Hawklan redirected his group a little to approach the other side of the column. There was another order and archers appeared on that side only.
Hawklan stopped and examined the watching men. ‘Loman. First impression. How do they compare with the Morlider you fought?’ he asked.
‘Badly,’ Loman answered tersely. ‘From our point of view. Somebody’s really knocked them into shape. The ones we faced would have been charging at us in a mob by now.’
Hawklan nodded. ‘Stay here. We have to make sure they keep coming after us. I’m going forward to see if I can provoke them a little. Be ready to run quickly.’
Gavor flapped his wings in anticipation but as Hawklan was about to move forward Tybek rode past him and at the same time Loman surreptitiously leaned across and took Hawklan’s reins.
Caught unawares by these movements, Hawklan looked from Loman to the retreating Tybek open-mouthed. Loman casually handed him his reins back. ‘Don’t make yourself conspicuous, Commander,’ he said, his tone slightly mocking. ‘You have a bodyguard now.’
In spite of the mounting tension in the group as Tybek neared the silent column, Isloman, riding on Hawklan’s other side, chuckled at the expression on Hawklan’s face. ‘We thought it was best not to tell you,’ he said.
Hawklan was about to answer when Tybek stopped. He was some distance from the archers but, Hawklan judged, within range.
Hawklan found he was making himself breathe quietly and deeply.
Tybek stood in his stirrups and slowly looked over the waiting column. His manner was arrogant and he offered them no preamble.
‘We visited you last night, Morlider, to let you know what will happen if you choose to stay,’ he shouted. ‘Go back to your islands. We want no fighting but there’ll be nothing but pain and death for you if you remain.’
For a moment there was no response, then a short, stocky figure stepped forward out of the front rank. He cocked his head on one side and looked at Tybek narrowly.
‘We’ll put up with the pain and death, horse rider,’ he responded. ‘After all, it’s going to be yours, not ours.’ Jeering laughter rose up from the waiting column. The man continued. ‘We’re not here to debate, we’re here to take this country. If you’ll take my advice you and your scruffy mates’ll turn your nags round and not stop riding until you’re on the other side of the mountains. It’ll be a month or two before we get over there.’ His followers endorsed this remark with vigour and obscenity.
Tybek waved the din aside airily. ‘Don’t mistake us for what’s waiting for you out there,’ he said, pointing back up the slope.
The stocky man clapped his hands and then folded his arms. ‘That wouldn’t be… horses… would it?’ he said, laying a mocking and ponderous emphasis on the word. ‘It’s nice to know you’ve got one or two left. We thought they’d all gone south.’
More laughter greeted this remark. Someone shouted. ‘Fresh meat at least, lads!’ The stocky man smiled and gave Tybek an apologetic shrug.
‘It seems that horses don’t worry us like they used to,’ he said. Then his face changed, the smile vanishing. ‘Anyway, my men are getting cold standing about like this. We’ll have to be on our way. We’ve a camp to find and burn; a murdering sneaking night thieves’ camp. If there’s horses-or riders-in it, so much the better.’ His voice rasped with a viciousness that was like the drawing of a sword. Tybek made his horse shy and prance as if it were startled, surreptitiously using the movement to edge it backwards and preparing it to turn and run.
‘Get Andawyr out of here, now,’ Hawklan said ur-gently.
‘The rest of you get ready to move in and help Ty-bek.’ Before the Cadwanwr could protest, the two Helyadin were quietly leading him away.
Still affecting to be having difficulty in controlling his horse, Tybek was continuing his debate. ‘You’ve been warned. If you’re too stupid to learn from a little warning like last night’s then take your chances against a full Line of the Muster.’ He pointed back up the slope again. ‘We could use the practice.’
He paused and curled his lip. ‘And if anyone should know about sneaking, murdering thieves, it’s you, you fish-stinking scum.’
‘Shoot him down,’ roared the Morlider, rising more to the sneering contempt in Tybek’s voice than to the words. But as the Helyadin turned his horse again, he brought his own bow up and released an arrow at one of the extended lines of archers.
Then, urging his horse forward up the slope with his knees, he turned in the saddle and released a second arrow at the other line.
It was an ineffective assault, both arrows falling short, but it was so sudden that it caused a brief hesitation in the two lines and when they had recovered and released their volleys, Tybek was at the limit of their range.
‘Our bows have a longer range,’ Loman said with some considerable satisfaction as Tybek caught up with the now retreating group.
Tybek glowered at him, his face flushed. ‘Wonder-ful,’ he said caustically, adding, rhetorically, ‘Did I volunteer for that?’
Loman laughed and patted him on the back. ‘You did, and you did well,’ he said.
As they rode on, one of the Helyadin galloped ahead with the information about the approaching column and its archers while the others maintained a pace that drew them away from the Morlider only slowly.
Hawklan looked at Tybek. A mixture of exhilaration and disbelief lit the young man’s face, but there was also a new, stark, knowledge, in his eyes. The knowledge of the awesome reality of facing someone who was seeking to kill him. Tybek would be different ever after.
The sight and the thought took Hawklan’s mind back to the conspiracy that had silently provided a bodyguard for him and sent Tybek out on the danger-ous impromptu mission that he himself had casually been about to take. The Orthlundyn army was also changing, beginning to become an autonomous whole. It had learned what it needed of him and it would protect him whether he willed it or not; within certain limits it would not hesitate to constrain him for its greater good.
It occurred to him briefly that perhaps, after all, what he imagined to be leadership was no more than the pressure he exerted against such constraints. It was an uncomfortable thought and he did not dwell on it for, rather to his surprise, in thinking about the army, he found himself experiencing the unexpectedly turbulent emotions that he had seen in many a parent’s eye as they watched their offspring grow. Happy to see their child learning and achieving, yet sad to see it moving out and away on paths of its own choosing, increasingly less dependent on that which had been for so long the centre of its life.