‘Alphraan,’ Hawklan shouted suddenly. ‘Where are you? I hear you. I’ll help you.’
The sounds shifted. Hawklan called again.
‘Yes. Help us, Hawklan,’ said a voice around them hesitantly. It was set in a jabbering mosaic of anxieties and terrors. ‘Our means fail our will. We will be destroyed.’
‘What do you mean? Where are you?’ Hawklan asked.
‘Follow. Please, quickly. We will guide you.’ The voice dwindled suddenly into a single faltering tone. It led into the blackness beyond the shelter.
Hawklan moved forward but Dacu stepped in front of him. ‘What are you doing?’ he said in alarm. ‘Didn’t you hear me before? You can’t go wandering off in these conditions. Look around you, man.’ He brushed the already thickening snow off the front of his cloak.
‘They followed me,’ Hawklan said. ‘Now they’re dying. I must go to them.’
Dacu placed a restraining hand on his chest. He was about to tell Hawklan that he had a duty to his own kind first, but it died on his lips. ‘It could be a trap,’ he said desperately, turning to Isloman for support. As he did so however, Hawklan quietly side-stepped him and strode off towards the darkness.
‘Stay where you are,’ he said, without turning. So imperious was his voice, that for a moment Dacu faltered. Then he swore. ‘Get your swords,’ he said grimly to Isloman and Tirke, striking the beacon torch that topped the shelter. ‘Gavor… ’ He was about to tell Gavor to follow Hawklan, but the instruction was unnecessary, Gavor was gone. He turned to Isloman. The carver looked at him. ‘Be ready to hit your friend,’ he said. ‘Hard.’
Hawklan held his torch high and Gavor landed si-lently on his shoulder. The sound hung urgently in the air like a guiding rope, but his torch showed tumbled, snow-covered boulders ahead. Carefully, but quickly, he began to scramble over them and soon found himself dropping down into a wide cleft, which so far seemed to have been sheltered from the snow.
Hastily he began to make his way along it, occasion-ally slipping and stumbling on damp, lichen-covered rocks, Gavor fluttering ahead of him. The sound became more urgent.
‘It could be a trap.’ Dacu’s voice returned to him, but he ignored it. The plea in the Alphraan’s voice could not have been other than genuine. And even if it were false, he could do no other than follow such a call. People had already died simply because he existed. He could not risk more dying because of his actions.
That is a weakness, said the dark and cold part of his mind, but he thrust that aside too. As are you, in your blindness, he thought in rebuttal.
‘I’m coming,’ he said, in answer to some new un-spoken urging in the hovering thread of sound.
The floor of the cleft began to rise and the wind began to tug at his cloak, though it carried no snow. He glanced upward, but the torchlight revealed only a little of the ragged uneven rock walls rising above him. It must be narrow at the top, he thought, if no snow has ever fallen into it.
As he looked back down again, a shadow caught his attention. Moving towards it he found it was a cave entrance. And the sound was coming from it. He frowned a little. He was certain he had not noticed it before.
‘Trap,’ came Dacu’s voice again.
Muttering to himself, Gavor flapped up on to his shoulder. ‘Steady, dear boy,’ he said.
Hawklan nodded, then, drawing his sword, stepped inside.
Chapter 26
Loman and Jenna waited and watched, motionless, as the riders moved towards them, eerie in the moon’s pale wash.
Loman grimaced as a catalogue of injuries mani-fested itself. But worse than the injuries was the awful, dispirited silence in which the column travelled.
‘Athyr,’ he said, almost whispering.
The leader started, then halted and looked around. For a moment his face was blank then an uncertain recognition lit his face. ‘Loman? Jenna?’ he said, his voice full of doubt. His tone reflected his appearance and that of the column which had stopped when he did.
No uncontrolled frenzy here, Loman thought. This was the retreat of a shattered force, waiting with timeless patience in the moonlight; ghostly, like ancient warriors sentenced to an eternal penance for some long-forgotten defeat.
Loman rode forward. ‘We’ve come to help you, Athyr,’ he said simply. ‘Are you all right?’
Athyr still stared at him, understanding coming only slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Now.’ He lowered his head.
Loman’s eyes narrowed in response to the pain in the gesture.
‘They let us go, Loman,’ he said. ‘It was… awful. We’ve got injured… and dead.’
Loman heard Jenna’s sharp intake of breath. She came alongside. ‘Who…?’ she began anxiously, but Loman lifted a hand to silence her.
Athyr’s eyes suddenly blazed, ghastly in the moonlight. ‘We couldn’t do anything, Loman. They used us like puppets. They… ’
Loman reached forward and seized his arm in a powerful grip. ‘Later, Athyr,’ he said. ‘Whatever it was, it’s over for now. We must look to our charges.’ He nodded towards the waiting riders.
The look in Athyr’s eyes faded, but Loman saw a tiny flash of light in them that made him start. He looked again and then turned to confirm its source. In the distance, lights blinked from the three hitherto silent signal stations. They were moving very rapidly and their messages were barely coherent.
Once again, Loman rent the mountain silence with a piercing whistle to catch the attention of the nearby station. Then turning to Jenna he said, ‘Tell them to signal central camp to send healers and carriers to meet us, most urgent. And to get Tirilen and Gulda up from the Castle immediately.’ He glanced at the distant lights blinking desperately. ‘And reassure them as well as you can,’ he added. ‘Tell them what’s happening and that we’ll get them relieved as soon as possible.’
His voice was louder than necessary and, as Jenna jumped down from her horse and began scrambling up onto a nearby rock, his horse circled several times, in response to his agitation and his anxiety to bring some sense of normality to this unreal scene.
‘Two dead. Seven very seriously injured, at least two of whom will definitely be doing no more soldiering, if they live. A dozen or more others fairly seriously injured, and everyone else amp;mdasheveryone amp;mdashwith one form of injury or another.’
Tirilen’s voice was neutral, though a deep anger showed clearly on her tired face.
‘And Athyr’s a mess,’ she added, the anger breaking through. ‘Gulda, I haven’t had time to talk to him properly, but I think you’ll have to help him; I suspect he’s beyond me.’
Gulda nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to him a little already,’ she said. ‘He’ll be joining us shortly. We’ll wait for him.’
She looked down and idly poked her stick into the trampled turf that formed the floor of Athyr’s command post. Loman, Jenna and Tybek sat opposite her, watching her silently, while Yrain, who had come with her and Tirilen in their hasty trip from the Castle, sat next to her, head bowed.
The command post was a Summer Festival tent seconded for this special duty, and was incongruously decorated with pictures of bright summer flowers, dancing figures, rolling green meadows and forests, and all the paraphernalia of happy sunlit times. Now, a fine drizzle quietly formed tiny streams of water which ran down the sloping roof to drip steadily onto the ground below as if trying to form an equally tiny moat.
Gulda looked up abruptly and, at the same time, the tent flap was turned back to reveal Athyr, silhouetted against the damp greenness of the valley.
Gulda motioned him in gently.
He was pale and obviously still shocked, but he nodded a tight-lipped acknowledgement to everyone, and sat down next to Jenna.
‘Tirilen’s just given us the casualty figures, Athyr,’ Gulda said. ‘They tally almost exactly with those you outlined last night. You did well.’
Athyr almost winced under this praise. ‘I’d have done well if I’d had no casualty list to prepare,’ he said, his voice hoarse.