Renown of the Raithlin: Book One of the Raithlindrath Series (7 page)

She looked at him directly and must have guessed his
trend of thought.

“You know who I am now, don’t you?”

He nodded. The orphaned girl had become famous as
well.

“You’re known as the Seeker. You find things for
people – things that no one else can.” He did not mention the rumors that she
was adept at lòhrengai, the power of the lòhrens.

“That’s why I was taken. The enemy wanted to use my
talent.”

“At least you’re safe now.”

Erlissa smiled. “Thanks to you, but I have more to
tell yet. Gwalchmur took me across the ford at dusk and out onto the wilderness
of the plains. I thought I knew fear then, but it was nothing compared to what
I felt when he led me to an elùgroth.”

She paused and struggled to control her emotions.
“His menace was beyond description. He questioned me and I dared not give false
replies. He wanted me to join their order, to become an elùgroth. I told him it
would go against everything I believed in to use my talent to harm people, and
that it would defile the legacy of my parents. He pressed me over and over
again until I thought he’d kill me. But he didn’t. He said I’d join them in the
end, and he put an elùgroth cloak on me and made me carry a staff that stank of
death. He placed a hangman’s noose over my neck to remind me what would happen
if I continued to refuse. Then he ignored me.”

She looked to the ground as though she did not want
to continue. “You told me that the Raithlin stationed on the plains had been
slain by an elùgroth. I knew that already. Gwalchmur and the elùgroth took me
with them as they did it.”

She blinked away tears. “Evil was done that night
and the next several – dark sorcery as I have never seen and cruelty beyond
imagination. Even Gwalchmur would have fled – if he dared.”

Erlissa held her arms loosely by her side, but
Lanrik saw that her hands shook. She had witnessed things that no one should
ever see and had lived in fear for days.

Gathering herself, she spoke once more. “Even that isn’t
the worst of it.”

Lanrik had a sudden sense that she had been building
to this moment.

“After the killing I was taken to the army and left
in the shazrahad’s tent. I heard his meetings with the army captains. They went
to no trouble to prevent it because they didn’t think that I would ever return
to Esgallien.”

She looked as though even she could not believe what
she had heard.

“The army marching on Esgallien isn’t the only one.
The free cities of the east are being attacked by several more, and the
Halathrin to the west also. There’s a string of armies coming up from the south
and attacking simultaneously.”

It was the greatest offensive by the enemy in
hundreds of years, and Lanrik wondered if there were traitors elsewhere. If one
of the other targets fell the enemy might be able to form a base from which
they could attack Esgallien from two sides.

“Even that’s not all,” continued Erlissa. “The free
north is in peril, and the armies will try to capture whatever they can. But in
the end, it’s all a ploy. The greatest opponents of the enemy have always been
the lòhrens. They’ve walked among the races of Alithoras and spread knowledge,
offered council and united us all. And they’ve always combated the dark sorcery
of elùgroths. They’ll come now to help, and leave their home in Lòrenta
vulnerable. The history of the centuries, and the knowledge of nations are
stored there. It’s the repository of their collected wisdom, and while they’re
drawn to the south a dozen elùgroths are heading north to destroy it.”

Lanrik’s mind reeled. If the lòhrens were broken a
power of great good would be extinguished from the world. How much harder would
it be for the free north to oppose the enemy? How long could they survive
without the uniting influence of lòhrens and the lòhrengai they wielded to
oppose sorcery? Suddenly he had a realization that all that he knew and loved,
the Raithlin, his city and its people, were just a small part of a greater
whole that the lòhrens had nurtured for thousands of years.

 “Lòrenta might be emptied of lòhrens,” he said,
“but it’s rumored to be guarded by lòhrengai.”

“That was discussed with the shazrahad,” Erlissa
said. “The elùgroths will use an artefact of power. The Azan dared only whisper
its name, but I think they called it a Morleth Stone. Many elùgroths were
involved in its making, and several of them died. It will act as a conduit of
elùgai, to accumulate then focus it under the combined will of the dozen
elùgroths. The shazrahad had great faith in it. He was confident Lòrenta’s defenses
would be overcome, the fortress destroyed, and all the lòhrens eventually
hunted down.”

Just as it had been urgent before to slow the army,
Lanrik knew it had now become imperative to return as swiftly as possible to
Esgallien.

“The lòhrens have to be told in time for them to
protect themselves.”

“True,” Erlissa said. “But what of slowing the
army?”

Lanrik considered the situation. His first
responsibility was to Esgallien, but he had discharged it. Mecklar had begun
with a half-day head start, and that lead had now increased. The army should
have long since commenced to march but did not show any signs of doing so. The
tents were still standing and the soldiers milling around. It would be some
time yet before it could begin, and when it finally started the things he had
done would continue to hinder it. He was satisfied that he had achieved his
goal and fulfilled one of his promises to Lathmai.

His duty now was to see Erlissa safely back to the
city so she could give her information to a lòhren. There were several in the
kingdom, so they would not prove difficult to find.

It was time to move once more, and they mounted the
horses. Lanrik looked at the army; it was too far away to see anything
significant, but it remained stationary. He felt satisfied, but then he saw
something that sobered him.

“Look,” he said.

As they watched, a column of six riders separated
from the host and moved across the plains. It was the pursuit he feared. Their
tracks would be visible and the column was heading in their direction. They
must decide where to flee: straight back to Esgallien or elsewhere? To
Esgallien was the obvious choice, but the Azan had rested during the night, and
he had not slept for over a day. He must sleep soon, and he saw as well that
each of the riders led a spare horse. They would nurse their mounts, but
Erlissa’s and his own would get no respite. Consequently, their chance of
keeping ahead of the pursuit was small. He glanced at Erlissa and read the same
understanding in her face.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“We can’t out run them,” he confirmed, “so we must
hide instead.”

 She looked about uncertainly. “Where can we hide on
the plains?”

Lanrik made a sweeping gesture. “All about us is
open space, but scattered here and there are woods and swamps. The woods are
small and can be searched, even by riders. The swamps, on the other hand, are
thickly timbered and treacherous. They’re no place for a horse, let alone a
column of riders. In a swamp we’ll have some measure of safety, and there are
paths of sure ground for those who know the way. If we can elude the search for
a while we’ll be able to leave when it’s done and still beat the army to
Esgallien.”

“I take it you know such a swamp and its ways?”
Erlissa asked.

Lanrik did not reply. His attention was on the
column, and at its head was something that he had not expected. Even at this
distance he could see that the lead rider wore a scarlet headdress. This meant
that the shazrahad himself was leading the pursuit.

He realized it had now become a personal feud
between them. The shazrahad had lost face, and the only way to regain
credibility would be to personally recapture his prisoner. He could not kill
her, for the elùgroth wanted her alive, but he could inflict innumerable punishments.
Then he must show that the army’s misfortunes were not caused by a ghash, but a
man: a man that could be captured and publicly executed. Also, the shazrahad
had lost his sword, and it was probably handed down through generations as a
family heirloom.

He looked at it for the first time in the light of
day. The scabbard was decorated with gold thread and scrollwork depicting a
great hunt. At the end of the hilt was a ruby, red as blood, and when he drew
it the sword shimmered with the typical appearance of a pattern-welded blade:
strong, flexible and sharp edged. It was inlaid with gold and script that he
could not read and was a sword such as even the king of Esgallien would never
have seen.

Thinking of all the things he had done to the
shazrahad it was no wonder he had come after him personally. It would further
contribute to the disorganization and slowing of the army, but it also meant he
would pursue them unrelentingly. Even in a swamp they would be lucky to elude
capture, and he knew better than most that swamps had dangers of their own.

The stench of the swamp reached out tendrils before
they entered it and clutched at them tightly when they passed its threshold.
There was no breeze, except in the tops of the trees, and the air was humid and
heavy.

They followed a twisted trail, firm but slick with
mud, which wound deeper inside this new world. It was dark under the trees, the
half-light a haunt of owls and far off unidentified noises.

They dismounted and led the horses. Lanrik chafed at
the delay, for to bring word to the lòhrens too late would be a disaster. He
was cautious though, because getting killed would mean it never reached them at
all.

Tree roots stuck out in knobs and tangles, and the
leaves of overhanging limbs dripped with moisture. Grey moss trailed from high
branches like the groping hands of ghosts. He knew some of the trees: willow,
aspen, ash, elm, birch and oak, but some of these were different from home, and
there were still others for which he had no name.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Erlissa said.

He searched for the right words to describe his
feelings.

“It’s different.” He looked around as he spoke, but
his glance, ever watchful for snakes, did not stray from the path for long.
“But think how strange it’ll be for the Azan – they come from a land of deserts
and dry mountains.”

They neared a scum-covered pool that reeked of
decay, and Erlissa crinkled her nose.

“I suppose the Raithlin have a name for this place?”

He did not want to upset her, but she had shown that
she could deal with the truth.

“It’s called Dead Man Swamp.”

“You’re joking?”

He scraped black mud of his boots. “I’m afraid not.
The Halathrin explored these lands long before our ancestors established
Esgallien. They found a corpse deep in the interior. The water level was
dropping during a dry time, and the body was partially exposed. Whoever it was
hadn’t died well.”

“How did they know that?”

“The mud of the swamp preserves flesh. They couldn’t
tell when he died – a week or a thousand years previously, but his arms were
flung up, hands clawing, and his head upturned with gaping jaws.”

“He drowned?”

“They though he fell, or was cast, into a pit of mud
from which he couldn’t climb.”

Erlissa slapped at a mosquito on her arm. “I thought
we were the first people to settle these lands?”

He shrugged. “So most of us think, but there was at
least one person here before King Conhain came.”

Far ahead in the deeps of the swamp something
bellowed. It was the harsh and drawn out hawing of an aurochs, the call they
use to communicate over long distances.

“Apart from the risk of drowning in mud, what else
is dangerous here?”

“The first rule,” Lanrik said, “is to look where you
walk. There are plenty of snakes, but the one to watch out for is the black
adder. Its bite can kill, and they’ll often not move until you step on them.”

“Anything else?”

 Lanrik shrugged. “The wild cat. They’ve been known
to attack a person if cornered or hungry, but mostly they stay away.”

“Charming,” Erlissa said.

They continued and it became darker as the afternoon
waned. The rain turned to drizzle then ceased. It grew warm beneath the tree
canopy, and flies swarmed around the horses until they swished their tails and
flicked their ears constantly.

Ducks called suddenly. The urgent noise was stifled
by the thick growth, but Lanrik pinpointed its origin to somewhere along their
backtrail.

He paused and listened for a moment, but though he
heard nothing further, he knew what it meant. “They’re following.”

 “Should we move off the trail?” Erlissa asked.

“To leave the trail is to die,” Lanrik said. “The
aurochs have made it, and the ground is firm. Elsewhere, you could walk a mile
or sink in moments.”

“But if we stay on the path won’t the Azan just
follow?”

“I hope so. We’ll lead them into the heart of the
swamp and beyond, and when we’ve taken them through its twists and turns we’ll
go where they won’t be able to follow.”

Erlissa waved a persistent fly away from her face.
“What’s going to stop us from getting lost?”

“The Raithlin know how to find their way, and there
are methods to pick a route, even in such a place as this. Besides, I’ve been
in this swamp before.”

Erlissa had no other questions and they moved on.
The brief afternoon warmth faded, and the path narrowed until they had to lead
the horses in single file. Other paths branched off, but Lanrik kept to the
original. To their right stagnant ponds had become increasingly frequent, and
turning another bend, they formed a watercourse. The flow of water through
reeds and rushes was still sluggish though.

Night came on suddenly and Lanrik, with great care,
led them a little way off the trail.

“To leave the path in the dark, even just a little,
is dangerous,” he said “We’ll not be able to move around during the night, but
I don’t think the Azan will risk pushing on either.”

Erlissa nodded and Lanrik was impressed that she had
not complained even once about the flies or smells. They were in danger, from
both their enemies and the swamp, but she did what was necessary without fuss.
It was a pity they seemed totally different types of people. Her disappointment
in him when he had told her of his intention to kill the shazrahad still stung.

Night fell as if someone had cast a blanket over the
swamp and suddenly extinguished all light. At the same time, the mosquitoes
that had been a nuisance before swarmed around them in living clouds. A vast
cacophony of noise arose; there was croaking from countless frogs, some with
deep booming calls, and others with high-pitched screeches, but all were
incessant. Crickets chirped and small animals rustled the undergrowth while
they hunted. Occasionally, there came the desperate squeal of the smaller
falling prey to the larger.

Water dripped from leaves; it ran through reeds and
rushes with a slow hiss, and it plopped and splashed as creatures moved in the
watercourse. Everything was damp, including the ground the two travelers sat
on, and there was no chance of a fire.

Lanrik shared his water flask and some of the
packages of food he had taken when separating from Mecklar. It was a cold and
frugal dinner, for the supplies were not intended for two people.

Erlissa took a sip of water. “It must take years to
learn the Raithlin skills,” she asked.

He yawned, weariness settling over him like a cloak.
It had been a long time since he had slept.

“It does,” he said, “but most of us have a
background from childhood that helps. Many grow up hunting and tracking, and a
lot were taught since their early days by relatives who are, or were,
Raithlin.”

“What about you?” asked Erlissa.

Lanrik hesitated. He did not normally talk about
this, but he and Erlissa had shared danger together, and he liked her, even if
their attitudes were worlds apart.

“My uncle taught me,” he said. “Conrik was a
Raithlin for many years.”

“Is he still one?”

“Not any more,” he said.

“Why not?”

Lanrik let out a long sigh. “He was once among the
best of us. The older Raithlin say he was offered the position of Lindrath and
that he could have led them all. The king made the offer, though I never had a
chance to talk to my uncle about it.”

“What happened?”

“He declined. The king demanded to know why, but my
uncle gave no reason. The older Raithlin say Murhain, in a great fury,
commanded him to explain. My uncle, who rarely kept his opinions to himself
anyway, told him the truth. He said that he had no desire to enforce Murhain’s
will or impose the changes that he intended. He told the king that he did not
think he respected the Raithlin, and that he had no understanding of what they
could achieve or how to use them.”

“He spoke like that to the king?”

Lanrik shrugged. “So I’m told. He went too far, but
there was a strong feeling in our ranks along those lines.”

He hesitated and looked at her closely, wondering
how much he should say.

“There still is,” he added. “Anyway, Murhain was
enraged and challenged him to a duel. Conrik laughed at him and walked away.
The king called him a coward, but my uncle only laughed louder and said that he
had no wish to kill a fool.”

An owl hooted somewhere in the distance, and Erlissa
cocked her head to listen. She ran her hands through her hair and shook it out.

“Would your uncle have killed him?”

“I think so. There’s no doubt that he was a better
swordsman. He was one of the finest in the kingdom, and Murhain is only
competent at best. Conrik always said that you shouldn’t draw a sword unless
you had no choice, but having done so, it was a weapon of death and best used
to that end quickly.”

He could not see what her expression was in the
dark.

“The world would be a better place without swords.”

Lanrik agreed with the sentiment but thought the
reality of the situation was obvious. “Yet they exist and some people won’t
hesitate to oppress others for their own gain. If the oppressed don’t take up a
weapon to defend themselves, then the few will always dominate the many.”

The shadow of the owl passed overhead as it sought a
better perch from which to watch for prey.

“What happened to your uncle after that?”

“No one knows for sure. The story is that on his way
home that night he started a drunken brawl with some of the Royal Guard in an
alley. He killed two of them but the third escaped. He fled and the king
pronounced a death sentence, but he was never found, and how he escaped the
city has always been a mystery. The gates were closed, and the Royal Guard
searched relentlessly.”

“That’s a sad end,” Erlissa said.

“It brought much shame to the Raithlin,” Lanrik told
her. “It also shamed our family. Perhaps that’s why the Lindrath chose me to demonstrate
our skills to Mecklar. It was an opportunity to redeem our name.”

Erlissa was silent for a while, seeming to decide
whether to speak.

“You said it was a
story
that your uncle got
drunk, but no one knows for sure.  It seems that you carry shame, but you have
doubts that you should.”

Her perceptiveness surprised him. The shame of the
events was great, but so too was the uncertainty.

“When my uncle was outlawed his friends tried to
find out what had happened. The only witness was the guard who’d escaped. The
king gave his judgment after speaking to him, but his identity was kept secret,
and no one else ever heard his evidence.”

Lanrik paused. Some would consider what he was about
to say as treason.

“It’s whispered among the Raithlin that the king ordered
some of his guards to provoke trouble and kill my uncle that night. It’s even
said that the king disguised himself as the third guard – but who knows the
truth?”

He had spoken the words, perhaps words that should
not be said, certainly words that had never been uttered outside the circle of
the Raithlin before. Erlissa was silent for a long while.

She finally reached out and touched his shoulder.
“You’re not the simple Raithlin you give the impression of being. It’s not
enough for you to use your sword for the protection of the kingdom. I think
you’d risk everything, even confront the king himself, to discover the truth of
things. You must have loved him.”

Lanrik was shocked. Erlissa had voiced what had only
been a vague idea growing in his mind. Could he use his success in delaying the
elug army as a shield to press Murhain for answers? Was that a part of her gift
as a Seeker? Or was it the gift of female intuition? Whatever the case, he had
somehow revealed more than he had intended. But he was tired. Tired of the
shame that his family had to endure, tired of the danger and stress that had
been ever present the last few days, and most of all just now, tired from lack
of sleep.

He did not answer her, and she did not seem to
expect one. Tomorrow would be another long day. He lay down to sleep, and
Erlissa did likewise, but the sound of her breathing slowed and grew regular
long before he found the rest he needed.

It was a troubled night. A freshening breeze cleared
away the showers then stilled, allowing a clutching mist to rise from the
sodden earth. The cacophony of frog and cricket rose and fell in tune with some
unfathomable rhythm of the swamp. There were strange creakings and mutterings
from tree trunks, and insects crawled, swarmed and bit.

Daylight finally seeped into the swamp. They ate a
cold and miserable breakfast, and then carefully guided the horses back to the
path. A horse neighed along their backtrail, and Lanrik knew the shazrahad had
pushed hard and gained ground on them, but he did not mind for the land was
treacherous, and to move at speed was foolhardy.

The track now divided frequently into others. These
were like cave entrances formed of tree and fern, but the tunnels soon
disappeared into mist and half-light. He made no attempt to hide their trail:
he wanted the Azan to follow them deep into the swamp.

A grey heron, giving its croaking call, coasted over
the treetops. Its long neck was retracted, and its wing-beat slow and
ponderous. They looked up and watched it, for the canopy of leaves was giving
way, and bright sunlight streamed through the gaps.

The trees, which had crowded round them since they
entered the swamp, receded. They turned a final bend and a new landscape
opened. A lake, steaming with mist, stretched out before them. It was a
thousand paces long and nearly as wide. Innumerable ducks and waterfowl swam
its waters.

On the far right trees marched right up to its
shore, but the left was covered in sand and beyond that a green plain of grass.
On this, Aurochs and deer grazed in the distance. White egrets, elegant as
always, were prolific. Many of them stalked the ground on long legs while they
searched for food, but great numbers roosted in the far fringe of trees.