His army.
Distant shouting met his ears. He turned back to the field, and leaped to his feet when he did not immediately see the mander. Then he spied it by the river – a break from its usual mindless loping up and down the same line. Maybe it had seen a fish it now wanted to destroy?
The shouts continued for a while, but Bel was unable to pinpoint their source. Eventually they died off, and the mander returned to its pacing.
‘Blade Bel?’
Bel glanced about. ‘Ah, Gerent Brahl. How goes it?’
‘Quite well,’ said Brahl, sitting down at the dormant fireside. ‘Our mages have poured spells into the river, and we think we claimed quite a few lives before they worked out what was going on. So it will make any of them thinking about a nice cooling swim think twice.’
‘Good work,’ said Bel, as if it had been his idea.
‘No word yet from Fahren?’
‘Only to reiterate that he’s working on the problem and we should wait for him to arrive.’
‘I see,’ said Brahl. ‘Well, we shall continue to pick away at them, then. I’ve sent raiding parties circling around to the south, with orders to attack any likely targets bringing up the shadow’s rear.’
‘Excellent,’ said Bel.
‘I tell you, though,’ said Brahl, rising, ‘I look forward greatly to the end of that creature. Then we can have an honest advance.’
‘Soon enough,’ said Bel, hoping he wasn’t wrong.
As Brahl moved away, Bel grew bored again quickly. Where was Jaya? Even as he had the thought, she emerged from the army to make her way across the grass, her flame-red hair wetly slick down her back.
‘Gone for a bathe?’ said Bel.
‘Yes. Something you should attempt one of these days.’
‘Very funny.’
‘I wasn’t joking.’
Bel sighed. ‘Well, you try sitting out in the sun day after day and see how you smell.’
‘As I have said,’ remarked Jaya, ‘there are others who watch – enough of them for you to steal away to the river for a time. At the very least a man such as yourself should have no trouble ordering a tub hauled to him.’
‘True enough,’ acceded Bel. ‘Anything to break the monotony.’
‘Good,’ said Jaya, ‘because I have already organised it.’
Bel nodded. ‘And if you were at the river, did you happen to see the mages casting their spells?’
‘I didn’t. Had to go quite far upstream to get any privacy – damn soldiers everywhere.’
•
Slowly afternoon turned to evening. Querrus awoke, and relit the fire. A tub arrived, and a procession of servants carrying buckets to fill it. At Jaya’s insistence Bel got in for a scrub before they both retired to their tent, leaving Querrus to keep a lookout. Bel had to admit he felt better for being clean, and soon he was resting more peacefully than he had done in days. As he was teetering on the verge of sleep, he heard a cheeping from his pack. He rolled over to fish out the golden bird carving, and touch the scroll on its leg.
‘Hello Bel,’ came Fahren’s voice, sounding drained. ‘I have …well, I suppose you could call it good news, though it troubles me to call it that, and perhaps it will trouble you to hear. I am about to leave the Open Halls, and I have with me an old friend. There’s no easy way to say this …it is Elessa Lanclara.’
‘What?’ said Bel, sitting up and staring at the bird, as if it would answer him itself.
‘She has been …returned to us, by the will of Arkus, in a sense.’ Fahren’s sigh was audible in the steam. ‘Although it was my hand that raised her from the ground.’
‘Why?’ said Bel, still dumbfounded.
‘We need her,’ continued Fahren, as though responding to Bel’s question. ‘It is her legacy upon which the shadowmander is built. Only she has the power to end it.’
‘Does he mean she is …. undead?’ said Jaya with a shudder.
Bel frowned, experiencing an odd mix of emotions – he had never heard of anyone being resurrected in the name of the light , but on the other hand it was welcome news that there was a way to defeat the mander.
‘We will be travelling as quickly as we can,’ said Fahren. ‘I shall send another message when I have a better idea of our progress. Stay safe until we arrive, please.’
The steam hissed out. Bel stared at the bird for a moment longer, though he could barely see it in the dark of the tent, then placed it back inside his pack.
‘Strange tidings,’ he muttered, easing back down.
‘I thought we did not raise the dead?’ whispered Jaya.
‘No,’ said Bel. ‘We don’t. But, well …Fahren has always been so condemning of the practice that if he has allowed it, there must really be no other way.’
‘Well,’ said Jaya uncertainly, ‘it is a means to a very great end, I suppose.’
As Bel lay thinking about Elessa, he abandoned hope of a restful sleep – but he must have found it anyway, for sometime before dawn he was roused by Querrus’s excited voice just outside the tent.
‘Blade Bel! Blade Bel!’
‘What is it?’ he answered, sitting up to rub his eyes. By his side Jaya groaned and rolled over.
‘It moves!’ said Querrus.
In a flash Bel was wide awake, another and he was outside the tent. It was still night, with maybe just a touch of lightening in the north. As he searched the field for the darker patch that would delineate the mander, he could not see it anywhere.
‘When?’
‘Just now,’ said Querrus, leading Taritha over. ‘Away to the west, over the river – moving very fast indeed.’
‘Then we shall have to be very fast too,’ said Bel, swinging onto Taritha and reaching down to haul the mage up behind him.
Jaya poked her head out of the tent. ‘Can I do anything?’
‘Inform Brahl,’ said Bel, and slapped the reins down hard. As Querrus channelled power into Taritha, she lurched underneath them, picking up pace quickly.
‘Much as you can!’ called Bel.
They angled towards the bridge that lay across the river halfway between the two armies. There came shouts from the enemy as they were spotted, but they reached the bridge a moment later, sped across its fifty paces or so in a couple of breaths, and raced out onto the grassy plains on the other side.
‘Which way?’
Querrus paused, and for a horrible moment Bel thought he may not be able to sense where Losara had gone. Then he pointed.
‘Towards Ortem!’
‘Give it everything you have!’
Taritha all but flew across the ground, until the wind in Bel’s face was stinging his eyes. He forced them open, sweeping his gaze across the land before them. There, away in the distance, was a dark shape moving, ahead of which sped two smaller ones.
‘He is powering a horse while he flies along after,’ said Querrus. ‘Would that all mages could fly as he does! But the division of his power may allow us to catch him.’
‘I don’t want to hear any of this “may”! If we cannot get ahead in time, the mander will make short work of Ortem.’
‘I am not as powerful as the Shadowdreamer, Blade Bel.’
‘Are you giving up?’
‘Blazes, no.’
‘Then shut up and concentrate.’
Ahead they saw the lights of a village, and the shape that was the mander broke towards it. A moment later and Losara veered wide, forcing the mander to give the village a wide berth.
‘He dares not slow,’ said Bel. ‘He must know we’re here, and wants to get to Ortem first.’
‘Yes,’ said Querrus. ‘The capital of Tria is a more tempting target than a few farmers.’