The Eye of the Hunter (20 page)

Still, somewhere in the murk a battle raged, clang and clangor and shouts. Again Aravan rode toward the sound trusting to his horse in the treacherous footing. Shapes rose up from the reeds and attacked—
Rûpt
, they were, Rucha and Loka alike—but the crystal spear pierced them and burned them, and they fell dead or fled screaming.

Of a sudden the battle ended, the foe fading back into the cloaking fog, vanishing in the grey murk. And it seemed as if the strange echoing disappeared as well, the muffling gone. And the blue stone at Aravan’s neck grew warm.

“Galarun!”
called Aravan.
“Galarun!…”
Other voices too, took up the cry.

Slowly they came together, did the scattered survivors, riding to one another’s calls, and Galarun was not among them.

The wan Sun gradually burned away the fog, and the company searched for their captain. They found him at last pierced by crossbow quarrel and cruel barbed spear, lying in the water among the reeds, he and his horse slain—the silver sword gone.

Three days they searched for that token of power, there in the Dalgor Fen. Yet in the end they found nought but an abandoned Ruchen campsite, one used less than a full day. “…Perhaps they went back to Neddra,” suggested Eryndar.

At last, hearts filled with rage and grief, they took up slain Galarun and the five others who had fallen and rode for Darda Galion across the wide wold. Two days passed and part of another ere they forded the River Rothro on the edge of the Eldwood forest. Travelling among the massive boles of the great trees, the following day they forded the Quadrill and later the River Cellener to come at last unto the Coron-hall in Wood’s-heart, the Elvenholt central to the great forest of Darda Galion.

Aravan bore Galarun’s blanket-wrapped body into the hall, where were gathered Elves waiting, mourning. Through a corridor of Elvenkind strode Aravan toward the Elvenking, and nought but silence greeted him. Eiron
stepped down from the throne at this homecoming of his son, moving forward and holding out his arms to receive the body. Desolation stood in Aravan’s eyes as he gave over the lifeless Elf. Eiron tenderly cradled Galarun unto himself and turned and slowly walked the last few steps to the dais, where he lay his slain child down.

Aravan’s voice was choked with emotion. “I failed him, my Coron, for I was not at his side when he most needed me. I have failed thee and Adon as well, for thy son is dead and the silver sword is lost.”

Coron Eiron looked up from the blanket-wrapped corpse, his eyes brimming, his voice a whisper. “Take no blame unto thyself, Aravan, for the death of Galarun was foretold—”

“Foretold!” exclaimed Aravan.

“—by the Mages of Black Mountain.”

“If thou didst know this, then why didst thou send thy son?”

“I did not know.”

“Then how—”

“Galarun’s Death Rede,” explained Eiron. “The Mages told him that he who first bore the weapon would die within the year.”

Aravan remembered the grim look on Galarun’s face when he had emerged from the Wizardholt of Black Mountain.

Kneeling, slowly the Coron undid the bindings on the blankets, folding back the edge, revealing Galarun’s visage, the features pale and bloodless. From behind, Aravan’s voice came softly. “He let none else touch the sword, and now I know why.”

Coron Eiron stood, motioning to attendants, and they came and took up Galarun’s body, bearing it out from the Coron-hall.

When they had gone, Aravan turned once again to Eiron. “His Death Rede: was there…more?”

The Coron sat on the edge of the dais. “Aye: a vision of the one responsible. It was a pale white one who slew my Galarun; like Man he looked, but no Mortal was he. Mayhap a Mage instead. Mayhap a Demon. More I cannot say. Pallid he was and tall, with black hair and hands long and slender and wild yellow eyes. His face was long and narrow, his nose straight and thin, his white cheeks unbearded.”

“And the sword. Did Galarun—?”

Aravan’s question was cut off by a negative shake of Eiron’s head. “The blade was yet with my son when he died.”

Frustration and anger colored Aravan’s voice. “But now it is missing. Long we searched, finding nought.”

After a moment Eiron spoke: “If not lost in the fen, then it is stolen. And if any has the Dawn Sword, it is he, the pallid one with yellow eyes. Find him and thou might find the blade.”

Aravan stepped back and unslung his spear from its shoulder harness; he planted the butt of the weapon to the wooden floor and knelt on one knee. “My Coron, I will search for the killer and for the sword. If he or it is to be found—”

Aravan never finished, for the Coron began to weep. And so the Elf put aside the crystal blade and sat next to his Liege Lord, and with tears in his own eyes, spoke to him of the last days of his valiant son.

* * *

Long did Aravan search the Dalgor Fens for the silver sword, to no avail, for no blade did he find. The Great War dragged on, and Aravan’s spear was needed. He fought in battle upon battle, until the Grand Alliance arrayed its surviving Legion against Modru’s Hordes at Hèl’s Crucible, where the War ended.

But still did Aravan clutch unto himself blame for Galarun’s death, and he continued to seek the one responsible, for if he could find that one, then perhaps he would also find the Dawn Sword. Coron Eiron had sketched for him an exact likeness of the yellow-eyed Man, and into his mind, his memory, Aravan burned the image of the killer. As a trader, a wayfarer, as a bard, Aravan travelled across Mithgar, following legend, rumor, and myth, always asking after any who might have seen the pallid one with yellow eyes: Galarun’s slayer.

Centuries passed and centuries, until all told a thousand years had fled, and in all those seasons Aravan discovered neither killer nor sword. Yet in Arden Vale the Dara Rael, the Consort of Alor Talarin, divined a sooth of baleful portent:

Upon hearing of the sooth, Aravan travelled to the Court of Arden to speak with Dara Rael. There in the great hall, hung with bright silks and satins, lambent with yellow lamps glowing in cressets and fires burning on the hearths, redolent with the fragrance of pine and wood spices and foods, Aravan met Alor Talarin and his Consort, the lovely Dara Rael. Fair was Rael, and graceful, with golden locks and deep blue eyes. Dressed in green with her hair bound in emerald ribbons, she looked upon Aravan and smiled. Talarin, too, had yellow hair, though his eyes were green; he was tall and slender, and wore grey trews and jerkin.

Aravan feasted among his kindred that night, and it had been many years since he had come to Court. And though he found joy that eve, still the tormented look deep within his own blue eyes did not vanish.

The next day, the audience he sought with Rael was granted. Aravan and the Consort sat on the banks of the River Tumble, watching the water dashing through Arden Gorge, and they spoke of the sooth.

“Dara, thy words would have it that the Dawn Sword is to be found upon Adonar.”

“Nay, Alor Aravan. The sooth speaks only of a silver sword; it does not name it the Dawn Sword. Still, I think thou must be right, for what other blade would be borne forth from Adonar?”

Aravan looked down at the swift-running water cascading over rocks, its turbulence reflecting the state of his mind. That the Dawn Sword perhaps could be on the
Hōhgarda
defied reason, and he said as much. “If the sword is upon Adonar, why was it not used against the High Vûlk, Gyphon, as it was meant to be? Nay, if the blade is not on Mithgar, then more likely it rests in Neddra, with the
Rûpt
, for they were the ones who raided, who slew Galarun, and then fled; and afterward, the sword was missing.”

Rael, too, was puzzled by the sooth, for although she had voiced it, sooths and redes come at their own behest and
are not summoned; and those that speak them oft are not privy to their meanings. “Then it is thy judgment that Rucha or Loka stole the sword and bore it from this world and unto Neddra?”

Aravan leapt up and began pacing agitatedly. “I know not, Dara. Mayhap so. Their leader, the pallid one, does not seem to be upon Mithgar, for I have searched—lo! how I have searched.

“But heed me, if the sword is indeed to come from Adonar, thy sooth requires a rider of impossibility, for the ways between the Planes are sundered.”

“Not entirely, Alor Aravan. Not entirely. Elvenkind can yet go unto Adonar.”

Aravan stopped his pacing and looked at Rael. “Aye, Dara, that we can do. We can go unto Adonar just as Humankind can come from there to Mithgar. But once at our separate destinations, neither of us can return to the world of the other.

“List, when first I heard thy sooth I bethought that the blade could be borne here by Man, yet any Mithgarian who was upon the High World at the time of the Sundering is long past dead, for they are mortal and four thousand seasons have fled. Nay, a Human could not bear the Dawn Sword from that world unto this. And were we to go to fetch the blade, we would not return. And that, my Dara is why I say thy sooth requires a rider of impossibility.”

* * *

Millennia passed, and Aravan continued to seek both sword and Galarun’s slayer, without success.

In the Fourth Era came the Winter War. And Aravan and a squad of Drimmen warriors crept along the coast of the Avagon Sea, slipping through the invaders’ lines, coming at last unto Jugo, where they stole a small sloop and sailed to Arbalin. There Aravan collected a skeleton crew, and by small boat at night sailed with them unto Thell Cove in Pellar.

Forth from a hidden cave in the cove there came the sleek, swift
Eroean
, For contrary to the tales, the Elvenship was not burning with witch fire, plying the midnight seas, haunted by a ghostly crew, nor had it perished in the suck of a maelstrom. Instead it had been concealed by Aravan in a secluded grot where none would ever look.

Running at night through enemy patrols, back to Arbalin he sailed, where he took on a full complement. And the
Elvenship with its crew of Human sailors and Drimmen fighters harassed the shipping lanes of the Rovers of Kistan, boarding many an enemy hull, conquering the foe thereupon, scuttling ships and War cargoes and setting the surviving enemy adrift.

Aravan was at Hile Bay when in the north the Dimmendark collapsed and the Rovers fled. The
Eroean
gave chase and with her engines of War—ballistas casting balls of fire—sank many an enemy ship, for none could outrun or outmaneuver the swift and nimble Elvenboat.

* * *

After the Winter War, Aravan once more sailed the
Eroean
to the cave in Thell Cove, where again he secreted away the swift, sleek vessel.

Time passed—some six hundred years or so—while Aravan fared across continents, still searching. When returning from Jūng afar, Aravan paused in Darda Erynian, renewing old acquaintances. It was from Vanidar—known as Silverleaf—that he learned of the War of Drimmen-deeve, for Vanidar had been the only Lian involved in the Battle of Kraggen-cor, the name that the Drimma—the Dwarves—had given to that cataclysmic conflict.

It was also from Vanidar that he learned of Talar’s death at the hands of Baron Stoke six hundred fifty years past. Aravan was saddened to hear of Talar’s murder, for he had liked the Lian. He asked after Talar’s sister: “…Riatha, she is called.”

“When last we spoke, she dwelt in Arden Vale,” responded Vanidar, “and may dwell there still. But that was long apast. Then it was I met her as she journeyed unto the Greatwood, accompanied by two Waerlinga, to sing the deeds of Urus. He had aided her in her quest for vengeance for Talar. For thou dost know she is a warrior, and she pursued the Baron, she and the Waerlinga and Urus. After many trials, the four of them finally came upon Talar’s slayer within the Grimwall, and Stoke met his doom on the Great North Glacier…borne down to his death by Urus. Urus himself was slain in that encounter, and that is why she would sing of his deeds.

“Afterward, she said, she intended to return to the Hidden Stand. Whether she did so I cannot say, but that is where I would seek her should a need arise: Arden Vale.”

Some months later, Aravan’s course carried him to Arden
Vale, and he sought out Riatha to extend his condolences They walked among the ornamental gardens, with its still pools among the drifting dappled shadows, stopping now and again to watch the golden fish lazing among the green cress. And they spoke of many things, including Aravan’s quest for the silver sword and vengeance for Galarun. Too, Riatha spoke of Talar and the pursuit of his killer. To Aravan’s surprise came Riatha’s description of Stoke: a Man with pale skin and yellow eyes.
Could this be the one who had slain Galarun?
In the several thousand years of his quest, Aravan had often pursued pallid Men with yellow eyes, only to discover they did not match the image of Galarun’s killer, and to discover as well that they were mortal and could not have been involved in Galarun’s death and the loss of the silver sword, for entirely too much time had passed. But Stoke was different: He was a Cursed One, a shape changer; he was a leader of
Rûpt
, commanding Loka and Rucha and Vulgs; and he had lived many more years than the span of a mortal.

Riatha told Aravan of Rael’s rede concerning the Lastborn Firstborns, of the light of the Bear, and of the Eye of the Hunter. Mayhap the words of the prophecy foretold that Stoke would somehow return from the dead.

“I would join thee on thy mission,” said Aravan at last. “I know not whether Stoke is the one I seek, whether or not he is the one responsible for the death of Galarun, but if he is, then I have need to see with mine own eyes that he is dead. Too, there is the disappearance of the Dawn Sword, and if he took it, then we must discover what he did with it.