The Forgotten War (42 page)

‘We will be with you – that’s six of us and four who arrived earlier. We will stand around you in a circle to protect you from assassins and other targets. You understand mages
are prime targets.’

‘Yes,’ she said airily, ‘that seems to be the case. I will prepare myself for now. Can you call me when it is time?’

‘Of course, my Lady.’ He nodded to her and shut the door.

She lit the lantern and pulled back its hood, letting the light flood into the wagon. She went over to her trunk and fetched her staff, something she had almost forgotten about. Gripping it
firmly, she felt its power comforting her greatly. Opening the trunk, she pulled out the staff’s blade and attached it to its base. She tried some practice swings with it against an imaginary
enemy but only succeeded in upsetting the lantern which swung crazily, throwing light and shade around the wagon’s interior.

‘Behave, you idiot!’ she admonished herself.

That task done, she pulled out her mirror. Her hair had grown long. Taking up a small knife, she carefully cut the offending strands until her hair barely covered her neck. Contorting herself
into various ungainly positions with the knife and mirror, she tidied her handiwork up until her bob looked respectable. Satisfied, she opened her small make-up box. She took some dark powder and
blackened her eyebrows and lashes. She then dusted her lids and around her eyes with a deep-blue colour, then her cheeks ever so lightly with red. She then painted her lips, trying to make them
look even richer and more sensual than they actually were. She flicked her tongue over them and picked up the mirror. Perfect.

Before she had even landed at Tanaren, Cheris Menthur had decided that, if she was going to die, then by Elissa she would look damned good doing it. Picking up her staff, she opened the door and
found Sir Norton by the horses. The light was fading and the stiff breeze carried the scent of warm grass and earth.

‘Actually, Sir Norton, I am ready now. Please show me where I am to stand.’

‘Get the brushwood in the wagon and the lamp oil. Lay it here in front of us.’ Morgan barked out the order; they had very little time. The loping shapes in the
distance were getting bigger all the time. They would be upon them soon. One good thing, though – the creature hanging on the mountain side appeared to have come to a dead end. Its footholds
or handholds had obviously disappeared and it now appeared to be looking around to see the best way to climb into the Saddle. Leon stood next to Morgan, one of his arrows readied. It was one of the
special, double-pronged arrowheads used to fell large beasts.

‘As soon as one gets within thirty paces it’s going to run into this,’ he hissed.

Varen came out, his arms full of brushwood. ‘Where shall I put this?’

‘Along here.’ He indicated the ground in front of Leon. ‘Come, I will give you a hand.’ Hastily he tried digging a trench in the snow, with limited success. Varen dropped
the brushwood into it. Rozgon, Willem and Haelward brought more and did the same. Samson, Morgan and Varen brought out the remainder.

‘The lamp oil, quickly!’ said Morgan.

Varen had it. He started to douse the wood. ‘Shall I use it all?’ he asked.

‘We will probably have to. We don’t want the snow putting the fire out.’

‘Won’t we need some tomorrow?’

‘At this very moment in time, none of us is seeing tomorrow!’

Varen complied; Samson stood next to him with a torch. The monsters were getting ever closer and they could distinguish individuals now, their breath expelled in powerful white jets and their
barking getting louder and louder. They ran on all fours, with great loping strides that ate up the ground. They would be on them in under a minute. The climbing monster had managed to scrabble
down the mountain and joined his fellows in the rear.

‘Willem!’ Morgan called. ‘There are some bandages in the wagon. Tear some strips off them and wrap them round some arrows. He nodded at Samson, who pulled some shafts from his
quiver and held them out for Willem to grasp. ‘There is some brandy in the wagon; soak the bandages in that first.’

‘Give me two minutes,’ said Willem and scurried off.

The ettins were some thirty seconds away. Scenting human flesh, they started lifting their heads to the sky and braying ferociously.

Morgan looked at Samson: ‘Now!’ he said.

Samson lowered the torch to the brushwood. To Morgan’s relief, it caught immediately. A river of flame leapt from one side of the cleft in the rock to the other. He saw the ettins slow
their pace somewhat, as if suddenly hit by doubt.

‘Here’s something else to think about,’ said Leon. letting fly his arrow. It sped through the flame and slammed into one of the creatures, hitting it full in the chest. It
stopped for a second, looking dumbly at the shaft protruding from it. Then it swept its claw against the arrow, snapping it but leaving the head still stuck in its body. It bared its teeth and let
out a howl of pain and anger.

The ettins were finally at the flame barrier and they stopped dead. Although it was in truth a flimsy barricade that could be dislodged with one bold sweep of a great claw, they did not seem to
grasp this. Morgan assumed they had never seen fire before, as they had stopped behind it and just stared, apparently confused.

Willem came out with an adapted arrow; Samson took it and put it to the torch, which he then gave to Willem. The arrow started burning with a blue flame. Samson smiled and loosed the arrow,
hitting a monster full in the face. This time the creature did not howl; it screamed. A cry of agonised terror left its throat. It turned tail and fled, scooping snow over its wounded face. It took
no account of its direction, hitting one rock face, then lurching in the opposite direction only to hit the other. A couple of the remaining creatures were already starting to slowly back off when
Leon fired again. Then Samson. Then Leon.

It was enough for the rest of them. Frightened by the flames, some wounded and burning, they all broke and fled howling this time in fear and desperation. The men cheered their triumph as the
ettins grew smaller and smaller until the night finally swallowed them. Morgan kept watching them till he was certain they had disappeared, thinking all the time that it had seemed a little too
easy. The flames were starting to go out already. He wondered if any of the wood could be salvaged. The wolves started to howl again, a sound he found strangely comforting.

‘Hey,’ said Willem, his cheeks red and a stupid smile on his face. ‘It’s stopped snowing.’

Morgan looked at the skies. A couple of stars were peeking out from behind the cloud; even a ghostly moon could be seen casting its chill glow on to Morgan’s upturned face. He suddenly
felt the cold again.

And the boy was right about the snow.

None of them slept that night. Although only two of them were supposed to be on watch, none of them could rest, the cold and their parlous situation was making them too tense and nervous. The
brushwood fire didn’t last long and they all feared the ettins would notice that and return. All of them kept a constant eye on the pathway, half expecting to see the loping white shapes
appear in the distance, but to their relief nothing else happened all night.

Nothing except the cold, that is. After an hour or so waiting and watching, Morgan realised his hands and feet were numb. Hurriedly, he exhorted everyone to get moving and stamp their feet,
warning them all in graphic terms about frozen digits and amputations. That got them moving soon enough. He went to check on Cedric. Despite being in the wagon and smothered with blankets, his
fingers were stiff and white. He forced some brandy down him and dragged him outside. After that, he gathered some of the remaining brushwood and the tiny quantity of lamp oil that remained and
started a fire. They managed to keep it going till morning, at which point Cedric pronounced himself a lot better before retiring to the wagon to sleep.

Morgan did not let the others rest. They were down to three horses now; one had bolted in fear during the night and he wanted to get out of this damned rock cleft as soon as possible. As soon as
they had devoured a quick breakfast and salvaged the remaining wood they were on their way.

Progress was slow. The snow had frozen overnight and much of it had to be moved before the wagon could be moved. Nevertheless, they noticed that the lip of rock to their right was getting lower
and lower and was now little more than a couple of feet high, low enough for them to see over it into the ever-deepening gorge. They were all sweating hard. There was only one shovel between them,
which Rozgon used while the rest just had their weapons or even their feet, kicking the snow out of the way in great sprays. Sometime after noon they finally left the Saddle behind them and they
were standing again on a broad shelf of rock, with the sheer mountain side to their left and a steep drop to their right. Below them were snow-clad pine woods that sloped down into the gorge, where
they could see a shallow meltwater lake like a thin silver mirror. Evidently it was a little warmer hundreds of feet below them.

‘Two days and we should be as good as out of here,’ said Morgan.

‘Right now, I will be happy never to see snow again for the rest of my life.’ said Rozgon, wielding his shovel with aplomb.

‘It’s the damned cold that gets me,’ said Haelward. ‘I hate the cold.’

‘Last summer you were moaning because it was too hot!’

‘What can I say? I am a heartlander; I like it mild. Mild does it for me.’

‘So there are only about two weeks in a year when you are happy.’

‘Not if it’s raining.’

Rozgon hurled the snow in his shovel at him, hitting him with a white spray.

‘Were you like this in the marines?’

‘Of course, those blasted ships never stay still when you want them to.’

‘And no one was tempted to throw you overboard?’

Haelward laughed. ‘Of course! They were lining up. It was a flogging offence though, so none of them were bold enough to try. They knew I was better with a sword than them as well –
even with the short swords they use for close-quarter fighting.’

‘Well, just keep that sword handy now; I am sure we are not through this yet.’

They could tell they were going downhill now. This heartened them even when it started snowing again. It was just a light flurry and when they looked back at the saddle they could see it was a
lot heavier back from where they came.

‘It will be nigh on impassable back there now,’ said Morgan ‘We have got through with less than a day to spare.’

‘Then perhaps the Gods are with us,’ said Samson.

‘Say that when we have left Claw Pass behind.’

They came to a spot where the mountain bulged out into the path, and traversing it they found that behind it the mountain folded back in on itself, forming a very shallow cave. Delighted with
their luck they decided to set up camp. The wagon would not fit inside so they kept it as a barrier guarding the cave mouth. The horses and the rest of them had enough room to fit inside, where
they lit a small fire. More iron rations followed and then they settled down for the night with two of them on watch at any one time.

It was the dead of night and Varen and Leon were staring gloomily into the fire. The animals, sleeping men, and fire made the cave the warmest place they had been in days and
they were finding it hard to stay awake. Suddenly, though, Varen snapped to.

‘Do you hear that?’

Leon strained to listen. ‘Barking?’

Varen nodded. ‘Ettins – a long way away, but they are still out there.’

‘Should we wake the others?’

Varen thought for a second. ‘Not yet, let them come a little closer first.’

They continued to hear the noises but if anything they got fainter until they finally stopped altogether. Samson and Rozgon relieved them and finally daylight found its way past the wagon and
into the cave.

One more day and they would be almost in the foothills and clear of the pass. This spurred them on and they made much faster progress than in previous days. The night before had not been as cold
and the snow was much easier for even the wagon to move through. There had been a fairly strong wind, though, and occasionally on the path they would come across drifts of snow formed into small
hillocks that they had to move around. Getting the wagon stuck in one of them would not be a good idea.

Samson and Leon, close as ever, were singing the marching song of Saint Rheged, patron of travellers everywhere, quietly at first but gradually increasing in volume as they grew more confident.
Haelward and Rozgon joined in, then shortly afterwards everyone was singing it. The volume was impressive, although the choir of St Kennelth’s Great Cathedral had little to fear from
them:

Cedric explained to Willem how Rheged had been a common man who travelled thousands of miles to bring people the word of Artorus until he was finally eaten by the six-eyed monster Keyanocorax in
the Red Mountains while preaching to the barbarian North Men. The trip over the mountains had been very difficult for the scholar – the cold had caused his joints to stiffen and his shaking
had become a little more pronounced. Even climbing out of his bedroll in the morning had been a major undertaking. But he was not going to tell anyone of this; it was solely down to his folly that
they were all here in the first place. So he would put up with the aches and pains without complaint. It would not be long now.

Willem was sitting at the rear of the wagon, trying to put the books in order. Cedric spoke to him: ‘My boy, I would like to speak to you about a matter that concerns us both.’