Now Mabon tipped Dave a surreptitious wink and continued. “In any case, this isn’t a sprint, my young hero. This is a long haul, and for that you need Rhoden staying power. None of your Dalrei brashness that fades as the hours roll by.”
Tore didn’t bother to reply. Instead he tore up a handful of long grass and threw it at Mabon’s recumbent figure. The wind was against him, though, and most of it landed on Dave.
“I wish I knew,” said Levon, walking up, “why I continue to spend my time with such irresponsible people.”
The tone was jocular, but his eyes were sober. All three of them sat up and looked at him gravely.
Levon crouched down on his heels and played idly with a handful of grass stems as he spoke. “Aileron does want to make Gwynir by tonight. I have never been this far north, but my father has, and he says we should be able to do it. There is a problem, though.”
“Which is?” Mabon was grimly attentive.
“Teyrnon and Barak have been mind-scanning forward all day to see if they can sense the presence of evil. Gwynir would be an obvious place to ambush us. The horses, and especially the chariots, are going to be awkward, even if we keep to the edges of the forest.”
“Have they seen anything?” Mabon was asking the questions; Dave and Tore listened and waited.
“After a fashion, which is the problem. Teyrnon says he finds only the tracest flicker of evil in Gwynir, but he has a feeling of danger nonetheless. He cannot understand it. He does sense the army of the Dark ahead of us, but far beyond Gwynir. They are in Andarien already, we think, gathering there.”
“So what is in the forest?” Mabon queried, his brow furrowed with thought.
“No one knows. Teyrnon’s guess is that the evil he apprehends is the lingering trace of the army’s passage, or else a handful of spies they have left behind. The danger may be inherent in the forest, he thinks. There were powers of darkness in Gwynir at the time of the Bael Rangat.”
“So what do we do?” Dave asked. “Do we have a choice?”
“Not really,” Levon replied. “They talked about going through Daniloth, but Ra-Tenniel said that even with the lios alfar to guide us, we are too many for the lios to guarantee that a great many of us would not be lost in the Shadowland. And Aileron will not ask him to let down the woven mist with the army of the Dark in Andarien. They would move south the moment that happened, and we would be fighting in Daniloth. The High King said he will not permit that.”
“So we take our chances in the forest,” Mabon summarized.
“So it seems,” Levon agreed. “But Teyrnon keeps saying that he doesn’t really see evil there, so I don’t know how much of a chance we’re taking. We’re doing it, in any case. In the morning. No one is to enter the forest at night.”
“Was that a direct order?” Tore asked quietly. Levon turned to him. “Not actually. Why?” Tore’s voice was carefully neutral. “I was thinking that a group of people, a very small group, might be able to scout ahead tonight and see what there is to see.” There was a little silence.
“A group, say, of four people?” Mabon of Rhoden murmured, in a tone of purely academic interest.
“That would be a reasonable number, I would guess,” Tore replied, after judicious reflection.
Looking at the other three, his heartbeat suddenly quickening, Dave saw a quiet resolution in each of them. Nothing more was said. The rest period was almost over. They rose, prepared to mount up again.
Something was happening, though. A commotion was stirring the southeastern fringes of the army. Dave turned with the others, in time to see three strange riders being escorted past them to where the High King was, and the Aven, and Ra-Tenniel of Daniloth.
The three were travel-stained, and each of them slumped in his saddle with weariness written deep into his features. One was a Dalrei, an older man, his face obscured by mud and grime. The second was a younger man, tall, fair-haired, with a pattern of green tattoo markings on his face. The third was a Dwarf, and it was Brock of Banir Tal.
Brock. Whom Dave had last seen in Gwen Ystrat, preparing to ride east into the mountains with Kim.
“I think I want to see this,” said Levon quickly. He started forward to follow the three newcomers, and Dave was right beside him, with Mabon and Tore in stride.
By virtue of Levon’s rank, and the Duke’s, they passed through into the presence of the Kings. Dave stood there, half a head taller than anyone else, and watched, standing just behind Tore, as the three newcomers knelt before the High King.
“Be welcome, Brock,” Aileron said, with genuine warmth. “Bright the hour of your return. Will you name your companions to me and give me what tidings you can?”
Brock rose, and for all his fatigue his voice was clear.
“Greetings, High King,” said the Dwarf. “I would wish you to extend your welcome to these two who have come with me, riding without stop through two nights and most of two days to serve in your ranks. Beside me is Faebur of Larak, in Eridu, and beyond him is one who styles himself Dalreidan, and I can tell you that he saved my life and that of the Seer of Brennin, when otherwise we would surely have died.”
Dave blinked at the Dalrei’s name. He caught a glance from Levon, who whispered, “Rider’s Son? An exile. I wonder who it is.”
“I bid you both welcome,” Aileron said. And then, with a tightening in his voice, “What tidings beyond the mountains?”
“Grievous, my lord,” Brock said. “One more grief to lay at the door of the Dwarves. A death rain fell for three days in Eridu. The Cauldron shaped it from Cader Sedat, and—bitter to my tongue the telling—I do not think there is a man or woman left alive in that land.”
The stillness that followed was of devastation beyond the compassing of words. Faebur, Dave saw, stood straight as a spear, his face set in a mask of stone.
“Is it falling still?” Ra-Tenniel asked, very softly.
Brock shook his head. “I would have thought you knew. Are there no tidings from them? The rain stopped two days ago. The Seer told us that the Cauldron had been smashed in Cader Sedat.”
After pain, after grief, hope beyond expectation. A murmur of sound suddenly rose, sweeping back through the ranks of the army.
“Weaver be praised!” Aileron exclaimed. And then: “What of the Seer, Brock?”
Brock said, “She was alive and well, though I know not where she is now. We were guided to Khath Meigol by the two men here with me. She freed the Paraiko there, with the aid of Tabor dan Ivor and his flying creature, and they bore her west two nights ago. Where, I know not.”
Dave looked at Ivor.
The Aven said, “What was he doing there? I left him with orders to guard the camps.”
“He was.” The one called Dalreidan spoke for the first tune. “He was guarding them, and was going back to do so again. He was summoned by the Seer, Ivor… Aven. She knew the name of his creature, and he had no choice. Nor did she—she could not have done what she had to do with only the three of us. Be not angry with him. I think he is suffering enough.”
Levon’s face had gone white. Ivor opened his mouth and then closed it again.
“What is it you fear, Aven of the Plain?” It was Ra-Tenniel.
Again, Ivor hesitated. Then, as if drawing the thought up from the wellspring of his heart, he said, “He goes farther away every time he flies. I am afraid he will soon be like… like Owein and the Wild Hunt. A thing of smoke and death, utterly cut off from the world of men.”
Silence once more, a different kind, shaped of awe as much as fear. It was broken by Aileron in a deliberately crisp voice that brought them all back to the Plain and the day moving inexorably toward dusk.
“We’ve a long way to go,” the High King said. “The three of you are welcome among us. Can you ride?”