The Unknown’s reaction had been much more than just desire to see a family saved, though, and that fact worried him deep in his soul. He should have been thankful he had a soul to feel worried but he wasn’t. Too much within him was still wedded to the Protectors and despite the relatively short time he had spent as one of them, he lamented the loss of the brotherhood. Even after six years and more, he had to accept it was a loss he would always feel and that was something he had not yet been able to fully come to terms with.
And they were coming again. They were close. He could feel them and had told Ilkar so the day before. He couldn’t describe to Ilkar the clash of emotion it sparked within him. The joy of being near them and the tragedy of their existence linked with the exclusion he felt now his soul was again his own. That was the most acute pain for him. He would always be able to feel them but he would never again feel the oneness that, despite its dreadful reality, the Soul Tank bestowed. He wondered if they could feel him too.
He looked over at Ilkar and Denser, sleeping under the hasty and inadequate shelter of leaf, branch and leather they’d created. He’d been glad for Ilkar last night. His sense had stopped a catastrophe. The Unknown had wanted to go after Hirad but Ilkar had stopped him doing that too. The elf thought Hirad would turn up in the camp come dawn. The Unknown wasn’t so sure.
The rain had stopped at last but the wind was cold and whipped through the trees, chilling him as he sat by the fire. How they needed Hirad, now more than ever. After he’d calmed down, Denser had agreed to Commune with a contact in Korina to pass a message to Diera. All that he’d heard was yet more bad news.
The contact was preparing to leave the city as, apparently, were tens of thousands of people, fleeing inland. Two days before, after an unceasing torrent of rain, the tide had risen along the estuary and, fed by run-off from the hills and mountains and whipped up by gale force winds, had kept on rising.
The docks were under water, as were all of the low-lying areas in the estuary basin. Further up into the centre of Korina, conditions were better but the waters were still rising. The Unknown’s house had been in the estuary basin. The contact had no idea of the level of casualties in the city but knew The Rookery still stood and still served its patrons. He had promised to deliver The Unknown’s message there.
All The Unknown could do now was pray his wife and son were still alive and under Tomas’ welcoming roof.
He wanted to saddle his horse and ride to Korina now but knew he couldn’t. If he wanted to save his family and friends, he had to get Denser to Lyanna. Hirad was central to that. The big warrior rubbed his hands over his face and shook his head, cursing himself for his actions.
It wasn’t until the man walked into the camp that he realised the watch he had been taking had been nothing more than an excuse to sit in the cold and damp, and disappear inside his own mind.
‘Nursing a problem, Unknown?’
‘You could say,’ replied The Unknown after looking up to see Darrick walk in, leather cape around his shoulders, sword scab-barded at his waist, dark rings about his eyes. He must have ridden most of the night. ‘Sit down. I’ll put some water on for coffee.’ But that wasn’t why Darrick was there.
‘I don’t think we’ve got time for that,’ he said.
‘No,’ said The Unknown. He looked hard into the woods but could see nothing but the shadows of trees moving in the wind as the sun gradually pierced the clouds that threatened more rain. ‘Bring many with you?’
‘A couple of hundred.’
‘You were quiet,’ The Unknown smiled.
Darrick nodded and almost chuckled. ‘Well, we didn’t ride right in, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Two hundred, eh?’ The Unknown glanced again at his sword lying in the mud of the wood. ‘That’s probably enough.’
‘I thought so.’ Darrick walked around in front of The Unknown and stood across the fire from him. ‘I thought you deserved overwhelming odds to help you make up your mind.’
The Unknown looked up into the General’s eyes and saw the guilt painted there like the mark of plague on the front door of a stricken house.
‘So what do you want?’
‘To stop The Raven getting killed needlessly.’
‘Really?’ The Unknown raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes, really.’ Darrick scratched at his forehead with a leather-gloved hand. ‘Look, you’re in the middle of something bad and I don’t think you fully understand how Dordover sees the stakes.’
The Unknown felt a flash of anger. ‘Let me assure you, we know exactly how Dordover sees everything. That’s why we’re with him, trying to get to his daughter before anyone else.’ He jerked a thumb at Denser.
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘So Ilkar keeps saying. Only, it is that simple. Denser asked for our help. We’re The Raven, so we helped him. He’s one of us and he says he can save her and Balaia with her and that’s enough for us.’ There was silence. The Unknown could see Darrick understood but couldn’t do anything about it. His loyalty was to Lystern and, through them, Dordover. ‘So where are you planning to take us?’
‘Arlen.’
‘Well that’s fortunate. We were headed that way ourselves.’
‘I know. But you aren’t doing anything when we get there.’
‘Prisoners?’
‘Something like that.’ Darrick looked away.
‘Funny how things change, isn’t it?’ said The Unknown.
‘Not really,’ said Darrick. ‘Now, are you going to wake them or must I?’
The Unknown smiled again. ‘I’ll do it. You know how fractious mages are if woken suddenly. Have you already got Hirad?’ He saw no reason to hide the barbarian’s absence. Darrick wasn’t a fool.
But Darrick just bit his lip and gazed down at the ground. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we were too late.’
‘Good old Hirad,’ said The Unknown. Hope flickered again but Darrick extinguished it.
‘Unknown, you don’t understand. We tracked him all right but we were there second.’ He wiped his gloved hand through his matted curls. ‘Gods, how do I say this? The wolves were already closing in when the scouts arrived. I’m sorry.’
Arlen eschewed his horse in favour of marching through his town accompanied by twenty of his guard in a very obvious show of strength. There were faster routes to the Lakehome Inn but Arlen wanted as many people as possible, friends and enemies, to see his intent.
So, with the sun trying to warm a cloudy day and dry the streets that had been swept once again by unseasonably heavy rain, Jasto Arlen strode from the gates of Arlen Castle. Walking quickly up the wide, stone-chipped avenue between his private gardens and the barracks, he turned right on to Market Approach, a meandering street that linked the town to the north trails. Market Approach was peppered by cross-streets the whole of its length, while to the east, increasingly sumptuous merchant and shippers’ houses culminated in the magnificent Park of the Martyrs’ Souls. To the west, south of the barracks, the silk and fine goods market and the playhouse fronted a less affluent quarter including Arlen’s castle workers’ cottages and tenements, the stables and the plain but most important Temple of the Sea.
Arlen headed straight down Market Approach, a slightly sloped, cobbled street that opened out into Centenary Square, which housed the main market, selling everything from food to weapons to fine carved furnishings, and ringed all round with eating houses, inns and even the odd gallery. This early, the square was only just beginning to fill but word would spread quickly and Arlen felt his anger rising further. His was a well-formed, prosperous town built on hard work and a tight business ethic. No one would be allowed to change that.
Waving at his townspeople and trading greetings with anyone he knew, Arlen turned right out of the square to walk through poorer tenement streets into the long-nicknamed Ice Quarter where the trawler men had traditionally lived and cold-stored late-landed fish before selling catches in the dockfront fish market each mid-morning. Arlen walked past the iron foundry and fish market on his way to the dockside, taking in the empty harbour that housed the fishing fleet and the first of the deepwater berths, before turning left and walking past an attractive, sleek elven vessel, obviously just tied up, and stopping finally at the doors to the Lakehome Inn.