He smiled at the whimsy of the thought, but was surprised again to find a parental fear swimming in its wake. What if I’ve not taught this child well enough? What if it should wander too far and become not a source of hope and light for the future, but some fearful monster.
The intermittent cries of the following Morlider, abusive and savage, ended his reverie. He looked around at his companions, their breath steaming and streaming behind them as their horses carried them through the cold morning air. It had better turn into a fearful monster, he concluded acidly. That was what it had been born for.
They rode on in silence for a while, with the Mor-lider column following them steadily and in good order. Eventually the Helyadin who had galloped ahead, returned. ‘Dacu has the message,’ he said to Hawklan.
Hawklan thanked him and looked around the white landscape. He could see nothing untoward other than the dark scar of the Morlider column, but he knew that Dacu and the other Helyadin would be watching their progress and relaying the information back to the waiting Orthlundyn army. In confirmation of this, Isloman hissed, ‘Message,’ and inclined his head towards a small cluster of trees in the distance. Hawklan looked up in time to see a torch flickering briefly.
‘What did it say?’ he asked.
Gavor sighed conspicuously. ‘Flashing lights,’ he muttered loudly with monumental contempt. ‘I don’t know why you don’t let me do all this message carrying.’
Hawklan had placed Gavor under the same injunc-tion as Andawyr; faced by men, the army must learn from the start to fight and live without the peculiarly valuable aids that those two could offer. ‘Soon you’ll have to leave them, then what will they do,’ he had said, adding by way of consolation, ‘Your time will come, have no fear.’ But the raven had taken the restraint with an ill grace and for the most part had been in a pro-found sulk ever since.
Hawklan’s jaw tightened at Gavor’s tone. ‘We’ve had all this out as you know full well,’ he said, in spite of a promise he had made to himself earlier not to rise to Gavor’s goading, adding, a little petulantly, ‘Besides, we have Creost and Dar Hastuin nearby somewhere and, if you remember, you tend to make a bad first impression on Uhriel.’
Gavor met the sarcasm with a dignified inclination of his head then, muttering something profane under his breath, he related the message, though with great distaste.
‘"Two more columns leaving the camp. Same size as first", flash, twinkle, flash,’ he said.
Hawklan favoured Gavor with a malevolent look, then threw a mute appeal to Isloman. Unsuccessfully trying not to laugh at this exchange, the carver nodded a confirmation.
Hawklan thanked him over-courteously, while Ga-vor whistled tunelessly to himself and looked with exaggerated interest about the snow-clad countryside.
A rumbling series of thunderclaps sounded an end to the interlude and once again Hawklan found himself gazing upwards into the concealing blank greyness of the sky. He felt an unreasoning anger at his ignorance about the Drienvolk. Had he known more about them, perhaps he would have been able to offer Ynar guidance at their brief and perhaps crucial meeting.
With his anger, however, came a deepening of his resolve. The Drienvolk were fighting the same war. The only help he could give them was to win his own battle. The Orthlundyn had resources beyond his reckoning and they looked to him to use them to the full. With that trust came the obligation to commit himself as fully to them as they had to him. They would not falter unless he did and, outnumbered or not, he must lead them forward until Creost and the Morlider were defeated, whatever the cost.
‘Riders ahead,’ Loman said.
They were Athyr and Yrain. Both were as unkempt as Hawklan and the others, though under their ragged clothes Hawklan knew they too would be armed and armoured for the task ahead.
Athyr’s face was stern and determined, and he waited on no invitation to speak. ‘I think the only way we’ll draw enough of them out of the camp is to bring the three columns together and then attack them with just enough infantry to make them send back for reinforcements. If we keep increasing our infantry and gradually easing them back, then they’ll probably send for more and more until… ’ He banged his fist into his open palm.
Hawklan looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded.
‘Loman?’ he said, turning to the smith.
‘I doubt the Memsa could have done much better,’ Loman said, smiling a little. ‘I certainly can’t. We’ll have to think as we go, anyway.’
‘Battle stations, then,’ Hawklan said simply. ‘Take command, Loman. Isloman and I will ride as observers with Andawyr and Atelon and… my… their… bodyguard. You know the final dispositions. Wait for my signal if we don’t meet again.’
Reaching forward, he took first Loman’s hand in both of his, and then Athyr’s and Yrain’s. ‘This will be our day,’ he said looking intently at each in turn.
As the three galloped away, Andawyr said quietly, ‘I wish I shared your certainty.’
Hawklan turned to the Cadwanwr. ‘You do, An-dawyr,’ he said. ‘You do.’
Andawyr’s eyes widened as the force of Hawklan’s personality seemed to become almost tangible around him. Whatever power lay in this man, he realized, was freely given to all who had the will, the courage, to accept it; its light illuminated his own resolves and, more alarmingly, his own dark skills with a fearsome clarity.
‘Why didn’t you take command yourself?’ he heard himself saying.
Hawklan eased Serian forward and Andawyr fell in beside him. ‘The Army’s a weapon of Loman’s forging,’ he said. ‘Loman’s and Gulda’s. He understands its heart far better than I ever could. He belongs here. I-we-belong elsewhere.’
Gavor flapped his wings noisily and then shook his wooden leg violently. ‘Can I at least go and watch, dear boy?’ he said, with forced politeness. ‘I’m getting cramp standing here.’
Hawklan looked at him suspiciously before conced-ing, ‘Go on,’ with reluctant indulgence. ‘But take care.’
Released, Gavor launched himself from Serian’s head and, after dipping briefly, began to climb purpose-fully until he was high above the cold landscape and the insignificant dots that were moving about it in their deadly game.
To the east the grey sky dwarfed the hazy Morlider Islands, and even the ugly stain that was the huge camp along the shore was diminished. A little to the west of the circling raven, the Orthlundyn camp blended with the terrain to become almost invisible.
It irked Gavor to be just a spectator to these mo-mentous happenings, though he understood the wisdom of Hawklan’s judgement. However, free now to travel the ways he knew, it soon occurred to him that sooner or later Hawklan would be the focus of trouble and that there would be plenty to do then, with no reproach to be offered. The thought made him chuckle conspiratorially to himself and in an excess of glee he tumbled over and, shaking his wooden leg threateningly at the clouds above, laughed to himself.
Hawklan looked up at the black figure gliding in smooth sweeping arcs and occasionally faltering and dropping vertically.
He smiled. It was good to have such a friend, who-ever he was.
‘Let’s find a high place of our own,’ he said to his companions.
As the morning proceeded, Hawklan moved his group to and fro for reasons that Andawyr could not always discern but which seemed to keep them fairly clear of the increasingly heated activity while enabling them to observe much of it. He began to see the truth of Hawklan’s comment about Loman and the army. No messages came to Hawklan asking for advice or help, yet frequently Andawyr saw Hawklan nodding approv-ingly at some manoeuvre by the skirmishers who were harrying the Morlider columns.