The Orb And The Spectre (Book 2) (18 page)

   "Yes." Leth peered around the door. Galry and Jace were in the chamber beyond, lounging at a window. Jace glanced around, saw her father and ran towards him, arms outstretched.
"Daddy!"

   He stepped forward and took her in his arms. "Thank you, Cascane. That will be all."

   The governess curtsied again. Her cheeks were pale, her nose red, eyes moist. "I'm so sorry, sir," she said quickly, then turned, sobbing, and hurried away. The guard followed her.

   "Daddy, what is in here?" asked Galry, pushing past his father into the study, the door of which Leth had left open.

   "It’s not for you," said Leth.

   "I want to see. I have never been here before."

   Jace pointed. "Let me see! Let me see!"

   She wriggled against Leth and he put her down and she shot through the door. Leth followed them in.

   "What is this?" asked Jace, rushing around in wonder, gazing at everything. "And what is this? And what is this?"

   "What is all this blue?" Galry asked.

   For the first time Leth became aware of the colour in the chamber. Something of the blue mistiness of Orbelon's world seemed to have escaped into his study, noticeably toning the air.

   "And you, Father, you are surrounded by it," said Galry. "Is it magic?"

   Leth looked at his hands. Sure enough a blue aura clung to them, enhanced, it seemed, by the vague blueness that hung in the air. He felt vaguely discomforted.

   "Daddy what is this?" asked Jace. "It is lovely. What is inside?"

   "Jace, no!"

   She was at his desk and had the blue casket in her hands. In his distraction he had neglected to put it away.

   "Put it down!"

   "I want to see inside."

   "
No!
"

   It was too late. His little daughter freed the catch and opened the lid. Leth was lurching forward, hand outstretched to stop her. The world flashed sudden blue. He staggered forward a few more paces. Galry was crying out in sudden alarm. "I can't see! I can't see!"

   Leth grabbed Jace, who was also rubbing at her eyes. Her hands were empty now. He turned. Galry had his hands over his eyes, shrieking. "I can't see!"

   Leth sprang to his side and hugged him close. "It’s all right, Galry. Don't be afraid. It will pass in a moment."

   He stared around him, into the endless blue, at the high, high walls that were never close nor far away. The children, their vision gradually clearing, gazed also.

   "Where are we?"

   Galry, trembling with fear, began to cry. Jace, perhaps too young to grasp so much, just stared wide-eyed.

   Leth stood, holding them both.
"Orbelon!"

   There was no reply. He waited a short time, infinitely fearful,
then called again. "Orbelon!"

   The silence moved around them. Leth felt inklings of the soul-chilling fear he had felt when first entering this lonely place.

   "
Orbelon!
"

   "Daddy, can we go back now?" said Jace.

   Leth took a few paces forward. "Orbelon, where are you? Answer me!"

   But Orbelon did not answer. Leth recalled his words of a short time ago: 'a few moments later and you would not have found me'.

   What had he meant?

  
"
Orbelon!
"

   Had he left? But Orbelon himself had said, 'How can I leave myself?'

   Yet there was no response. No matter how Leth called. Nothing except the silence of the endless blue. As if the god had indeed forsaken its world.

   And if the god was not there to raise the staff of freedom, there was no way to leave.

EIGHT

I

   Duke Hugo of Giswel waited edgily in the pre-dawn dark. His mind was alert, he was convinced he was doing the right thing, but his gut had knotted with tension. It was the waiting.
Waiting for sufficient light. Straining through the silence, never knowing. That was what was so unbearable.

   Over the previous days he had observed
Karai movements minutely. The cordon of enemy troops surrounding Giswel Holt had diminished significantly. Elements had made off northwards; there had been no further attacks by the deadly slooths. The force that remained was powerful, but the cordon was not so tight as to prevent Hugo's spies from stealing from the castle and bringing back up-to-date intelligence on Karai numbers and movements. Hence Hugo was informed about the massive encampment beside the Whispering Lakes a league or so to the north. It was here that Prince Anzejarl's main army rested, and the troops that were leaving the force outside Giswel Holt were marching to join it.

   Hugo had become convinced that Anzejarl's army was making ready for a major push north to assault Enchantment's Reach. The numbers left outside Giswel Holt were sufficient to contain Hugo's men and a deterrent against any large-
scale  offensive action on his part, but Hugo now believed he had identified an area of weakness. His agents had reported that to the east of the castle the Karai were stretched thinly a short distance forward of an area where it appeared a tunnel was being mined. From the rear that area was virtually undefended. A determined charge by sufficient mounted soldiers, launched from close quarters, could smash through the Karai forward defences. Hugo's men could then continue the assault onwards to the tunnel area. With success they could cause great damage while incurring minimal losses and, with infantry protecting their rear, withdraw safely back to the castle.

   Hugo was acutely conscious of the need to buoy the spirits of the people and troops of Giswel Holt. They had been cooped up in the castle for days now, with the
Karai siege troops sitting patiently and quietly outside, doing nothing but watch and wait, as though never doubting that Giswel Holt was soon to fall. There had been two slooth attacks initially. Casualties were relatively light, damage minimal, and there had been nothing more for some days now. But the fear those attacks had engendered was insidious, corroding the will of the folk of Giswel. Something was needed, a drama that would boost morale and show the audacious Karai to be not invulnerable.

   Hugo had thought about it long and hard. His plan ran counter to his cousin, King Leth's orders, but Leth was not here, nor could he know the precise circumstances. Communications between Giswel Holt and Enchantment's Reach had recently ceased: the risk of carrier pigeons being shot down or caught, their messages read by the enemy, was too great. But Hugo had persuaded himself that, were Leth at Giswel Holt, he too would not let this opportunity pass.

   Hugo's remaining dilemma had been one of timing. Should he wait for the main Karai army to depart, or strike now? On the face of it the latter seemed unwise, likely to bring the retributive wrath of the entire Karai force on his head. But there was no way of knowing how quickly Anzejarl intended to march north, and in the meantime the Karai might spot the flaw in their defence and plug the gap. Hugo reasoned that, in effect, were Anzejarl to throw his full weight against Giswel Holt, he would ultimately be no more nor less effective than with the siege force now in place. He could not smash the castle by force, at least not quickly. He was more likely to starve it into submission, whilst battering and undermining it over many weeks. So Hugo opted to strike without delay.

   He knew he lacked the manpower for a decisive blow, but believed that this way he might make the
Karai stumble a little in their course. He had to do something. Let Anzejarl know that he was not facing a passive enemy, and also reassure his own people that he, their Duke, did not fear the Karai.

   The methodical approach of his enemy unsettled him; their silence was unnatural. No jeers and taunts were thrown from the host outside Giswel Holt's walls; at night no campsong drifted from around their fires. Just silence, sentinel and grating. A massed, ordered silence that preyed upon the nerves.

   So Duke Hugo had crept forth in darkness from a concealed sally port beneath Giswel Holt's eastern wall. Twenty knights and fifty heavy horse had accompanied him, with one hundred footsoldiers following in support. The horses' hooves were muffled, the men carried much of their armour wrapped in cloth to prevent noise. Now the cloth and muffles were removed, mail and plate donned. The fires of the Karai twinkled through the trees, the closest less than fifty yards away. Just a short while longer, enough for the oncoming dawn to reveal the precise location of their quarry and salient features of the land around.

   Duke Hugo mounted his horse. He could discern the silhouettes of the thick tree-trunks around him, dense and opaque, tendrils of grey mist wreathing ghostly between. He glanced around, to the knights on
either side of him, the heavy horsemen and invisible footsoldiers beyond. All were looking to him for the word. His throat was dry, his palms damp. The pre-dawn was without a sound. He raised his helmet and placed it upon his head, adjusting neck and cheek-guards for comfort. There was a hint of glimmering pale gold light low at his back through the trees. Ahead he made out the dim shapes of Karai tents across the rough bare ground beyond the trees. Hugo unsheathed his sword and held it aloft. He drew back his lips, glanced about him once more to be sure his men were ready, then roared, "Forward for Giswel, for Enchantment's Reach! Forward for freedom! Charge!"

   They galloped forth in two columns, each of two files, fanning out once they broke free of the trees and weaving between the sharpened stakes and caltraps the
Karai had laid for defence. Hugo's spirit soared; he felt his fear, smelt it in his sweat. The din of his charging men was deafening. Karai guards were coming alert now, rushing to meet them, but in disarray, without formation. He swung his sword, brought it down to take a Karai head from its shoulders. More came at him. It was the first time he had met them face to face. He took in their white, wrinkled visages, grim set but emotionless and still mute as they fought, as his men ploughed into them, striking them down. It was too simple. He thundered past a tent. Two Karai rushed at him with spears. He brought the first down with another blow, swerved his horse to avoid the second, twisted about in the saddle, struck once, twice. A fountain of blood spurted high and the Karai slipped writhing in death to the ground.

   The air was thick now with the clamour of conflict, the screech of steel on steel, the yells of Hugo's men, single staccato barks of command and occasional laboured grunts from the
Karai. Hugo peered about him as he surged on. His men were in the thick of it, hacking, stabbing from their saddles, while the footsoldiers came from behind, pouring a bloody wave into the enemy. As far as he could see the scene was the same.

   To his left a knight was in difficulty, hemmed in by four or five of the enemy. Hugo swung around and charged. A
Karai fell to his blade, then a second. The knight broke free, spun his mount and barged a Karai warrior to the ground.

   "Onward!" yelled Hugo.
"Before they can swamp us! Yaaah!"

   The knights and horsesoldiers of Giswel pounded on, through the basic camp, striking down any who came against them, making for the slope behind. From there it was a short gallop to the right, through a small copse beneath the lee of a low cliff,
and down again to the area of excavations that marked the mouth of the tunnel the Karai were constructing, presumably in an attempt to undermine Giswel Holt's walls.

   Hugo risked glancing back. The infantry were fully-engaged, most of the horse troops had broken free. Bodies littered the ground,
Karai and human, but many more Karai. Now, as planned, he veered right, followed by three quarters of his mounted force. The remainder, following the battle-plan devised the previous day, spun about and charged back down the slope to put themselves among the Karai who were running from east and west to aid their stricken comrades.

   Hugo grinned, his sword high. It was all going so well!

   An arrow sighed past his head, then another. He ducked low to his horse, urging it to its best speed, shifted his shield to his right shoulder. He had anticipated archers and knew his men would be relatively exposed on this brief stretch. But there could be relatively few bowmen, visibility in the pre-morn was still restricted to less than thirty yards, and the copse was just a short way ahead. That and the cliff would provide cover until the men of Giswel Holt charged down to the mine. There they would be among Karai again, and no arrows could fly.

   He reached the trees, their welcome dark shade enclosing him. They were sparsely spaced, there was hardly need to slow his pace. His knights were with him, his ears filled with the thud of their horses' hooves, the jangle of harness and armour. Fleet dense shadows pounding through the sombre wood. He roared his ebullience, rejoicing in the kill, the savage splendour of his bloodied blade. So far as he could tell he had lost but a handful of men.

   He veered towards the cliff. A little way further on it broke onto a grass slope. Then the mine at its foot. . . .

   At that moment Hugo knew that something was wrong.
Little more than a fleeting impression at first, an awareness of something moving between the trees. Then a grey shape, darkly mottled, swift and bulky. Another, and another. He heard a cry to his left, and a sound of something not human. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed one of his knights upon the ground with his mount. A monstrous shape was upon him, pounding him with massive fists. Then another knight went down, two of the things leaping upon him.

   Something sprang out of the cliff face into Hugo's path. He swerved, striking out with his sword. He just had time to see the bestial face, lank powerful limbs and overlong body, then his blade struck into thick grey flesh. The creature emitted a dismal howl. With difficulty Hugo wrenched his weapon free.

   Now others were dropping from the trees and high rock. Their roars filled Hugo's ears. He knew bewilderment, an awful sinking feeling in his gut. The cries of his men, the terrified screams of their horses pierced him like barbs. A pair of the troll-things were careering towards him. He tried to veer between them. One reached out long arms to seize his horse's head, yanked it around. The horse fell, catapulting Hugo from the saddle.

   He hit the ground hard, rolled, came up kneeling, his vision fuzzed, a throbbing, blazing pain in one shoulder. A troll rushed at him, raising two arms, hefting a cudgel. Hugo lunged, piercing its belly. The troll bellowed its agony and twisted away, its movement wrenching Hugo's sword from his grasp. He stood as another troll swung its cudgel. He blocked the blow with his shield but the force of it sent him staggering backwards. Now Hugo felt panic for the first time.
Terrible, cold, clamouring. Another horse was felled close by, its rider slamming into the earth and lying still. Hugo ran to him and seized his fallen sword. He whirled, striking out at random. A mighty cudgel blow hammered into his shoulder. With an agonized yell he tumbled to the ground, somehow managing to keep hold of the sword, his whole being vibrant with pain. A gigantic troll towered over him, swiping with an axe. Feebly Hugo raised his shield, but his arm was numbed and would not obey him. The troll's blow came around inside the shield. Hugo staggered to his feet, stared uncomprehendingly at the stump of his arm where it ended above the elbow, rhythmically pumping the bright fountain of his lifeblood.

   Weakly, he raised his sword, struck at the troll, became aware through a haze of terror that his blow was wild, that he was
faint, his legs would not support him. He was on his knees, the world rotating in a blur of greenwood and hazy red. Something colossal rammed him, sent him flying, now beyond pain, rolling, coming to rest upon his back. He was cold, very cold. The troll was upon him. Strange, he no longer feared, was more fascinated. Its hideous grey face, long canines bared, sinking into his belly. There was another troll now. He was a feast. And cold; ripped and flung, unbearably cold.

   The world was turning strangely white. He struggled to regain his feet, against the unbearable weight pressing down, glimpsed the blood spraying from his arm.
His head sagged back, too heavy to bear. The creatures feeding on him and he wanted. . . he wanted. . . . He cried out his awful final distress. He stood in a wide green meadow dotted with wildflowers. A figure was before him, her arms wide.

   Hugo frowned, confused.  "Mother, why are you here?"

   He was glad to see her, though he did not understand. It had been so long. Years. He was a boy again.

   "Mother, it is dangerous."

   She shook her head, smiling warmly, delighted at the sight of him. Such a long, long time. . . . She came towards him. He had never thought to see her again. He did not understand, but he knew there was no danger now. He was glad. So glad. He ran forward to leap into her open arms.

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