The Wanderer's Tale (22 page)

Then the night grew even darker and more evil as the huge humped leader battered its way in. Massive and deformed, with a mottled and ragged pelt that was riddled with maggots and hung in tatters about its ravaged frame, in its eyes burned the fires of the Abyss of Pandemonium.

It was Paulus, already beset by a particularly large wolf, who was singled out by this night-horror. It swept the wolf aside and leapt upon the grounded mercenary with its jaws opened ridiculously wide. Almost unbelievably, Paulus showed no panic, seeming almost to take everything in his stride. He seized a firm grip on the beast’s windpipe, and while he held the snapping jaws away from his face he delivered several savage kicks to its underside.

Of the three, only the desert man was foundering. Two of the wolves had him pinned on his back, with no chance to get to his feet, and had inflicted several deep and nasty wounds to his hands and forearms as he desperately tried to fend them off.

Over against the cavern wall Finwald and Appa stood side by side, striking back at their attackers from the comparative shelter of an arched opening leading into another section of the cave. Finwald brandished his sword-cane, already bloodied from the deep gash he had scored on one attacker’s shoulder; while Appa now felled his own opponent with one sharp blow of his Crow’s Beak staff to its skull. Clearly he had some experience in dealing with wild animals and, with his cloak thrown back to reveal skinny but wiry arms, he suddenly did not appear quite so frail.

Amidst their struggle to stay alive, Wodeman was leaping about like a mad thing, his arms flailing above his head, his hair flying wild. He chanted and snarled, whooped and whistled, as if caught in the throes of demonic possession. Wolves would hurl themselves at this lunatic only to stop dead before him and cower back, snapping, snarling and whining in confusion, unable to break past the strange spell that warded them off.

But more of the beasts still came loping into the cave, while yet more yammered hysterically outside. The situation was becoming desperate, and Methuselech was in the direst straits of all. With his neck, arms and chest lacerated, his shirt torn and blood-soaked, he was rapidly weakening and crying out in fear.

Bolldhe, too, was in trouble, beset now by three adversaries lunging and feinting on all sides, waiting for him to tire and his defences to weaken. His back against the wall, the traveller was growing more desperate with each wasted effort.

Only Paulus seemed unharried, as yet. Still on the ground with the monster atop him so that no other beast could reach him, the Nahovian was slowly strangling the life out of the wide-eyed, gurgling monster he held scrabbling helplessly in a vice-like grip.

Gapp stared in disbelief, too terrified to move. His companions were locked in mortal combat, while all he could do was cower there and watch them being gradually torn to pieces . . .

. . . At which point he would be alone.

It was this thought that finally goaded him into action. His hand slipped down to the hilt of one of his throwing knives and he felt the smoothness and firmness of its grip. Drawing upon the seed of courage that swelled within him, he yanked the little blade free, aimed it at the nearest wolf, gathered every ounce of fierceness he could muster, and
threw
. . .

It was a desperate shot, but the boy was well practised, and the deadly projectile buried itself in the shoulder of one of Methuselech’s attackers.

Howling in rage and pain, the wolf broke away from the bloodied desert-man, then spotted Gapp and, with a snarl of pure hatred, leapt towards the wide-eyed squire.

Before he even realized what he was doing, Gapp whipped out the shortsword and aimed it before him. A deep, liquid cry broke from the wolf’s throat as it bore him to the ground – then the beast fell away from him lifelessly, the blade thrust into its gullet up to the hilt.

Gapp stared at the quivering animal at his feet in dumb surprise. He had made his first kill!

Suddenly there was a terrific roar as of a mighty wind, and a blinding explosion of golden-red light banished the darkness of the night utterly. A great wall of fire had sprouted from the floor where the barrier of dry firewood had been placed only hours earlier. The sulphurous flames blazed like a beacon, sealing off the cave mouth with a searing sheet of fire. All turned as one to stare at this terrifying spectacle in shock.

All, that is, except Finwald, whose eyes glittered fiercely in the reflected light his spell had ignited.

Immediately the fight drained out of the wolves. They broke off their attack and ran panic-stricken about the cave, snapping at whichever men threatened them, snapping at the flames that held them here, even snapping at each other in their frenzy. Paulus momentarily loosened his grip and the monster tore itself free.

Their assault gone to pieces, they were now easy prey for the humans. Paulus, his deformed features livid with bloodlust, wasted no time in springing over to retrieve his black sword, then falling upon the two panicked beasts nearest him . . .

Nibulus, following the Nahovian’s lead, kicked away the remaining wolf savaging Methuselech so hard that the snapping of its spine was audible. Bolldhe succeeded in ridding himself of his three assailants by cleaving the head of one of them, which sent the other two bolting away from him in such terror that they hurled right through the wall of fire and ran smouldering and howling off into the night.

The remaining predators followed their example, for the choice was clear. Stay here and die or endure the discomfort of a singed pelt for the next few weeks. Even their choking, staggering leader managed to collect its wits enough to hurl itself through the flames.

Screams of agony and rage rose into the night, echoing horribly throughout the gullies and crevices of the Blue Mountains as the fleeing wolf pack sprinted madly down the path, or toppled over the precipice to plunge, burning, like shooting stars in the night sky.

For the next few minutes the cave rang with disorder. The sudden attack had left them all shaken, and in Methuselech’s case only half-conscious. To be awoken to such a vicious attack was bad enough; to be subjected to a display of such arcane magic from one of their own number was downright unnerving. A strange look, almost of sadness, or nostalgia, shone in Finwald’s eyes as he peered out from under the straggling mane of hair that had fallen across his face. He was back in Qaladmir now, the acrid smell of chemicals filling his brain. It would be a while before he was fully back amongst them.

Dazed they were, to be sure, but not over-confused. No one argued as the Peladane barked out a torrent of orders. Paulus hurriedly built a new line of firewood across the cave mouth, in case of a fresh attack. Bolldhe was put on guard just outside the entrance, for clearly he was far more suited to this task than the boy, who remained skulking in the deeper recesses, ‘tending to the horses’. Had he not felled one of Methuselech’s attackers and possibly saved his life, Nibulus might have thrown him out of the cave along with the dead wolves. As it was, he was keeping well out of everybody’s way.

It was a pity, for if he
had
dared to look up at his master he might have noticed a grudging respect in the man’s eyes. Gapp had, after all, notched up his first kill, but Nibulus was not about to let him off too easily. The esquire had seriously failed them, and would therefore strive all the harder to earn his master’s respect. That was just how the Peladane liked it.

But first there was the more pressing matter of Methuselech. Of all the party, only he had received serious injury. Appa and Wodeman busily cleaned his lacerations and applied sutures and bandages, while Methuselech himself lay back, groaning, with his eyes shut fast and teeth clenched stoically. After Appa finished bandaging him, he spread his outstretched hands over the man’s wounds. A faint, orange-yellow glow shone from his palms, and Methuselech sighed comfortably as he drifted into sleep.

‘Maybe you should try this sort of thing occasionally, Finwald,’ the irate priest admonished darkly, ‘instead of dabbling in your firework displays – I thought you grew out of that sort of thing twelve years ago. I’ve warned you before, it’s not right, especially for a follower of Cuna. You play with fire, and fire will end up playing with you . . .’

Finwald responded by dismissing his elder with a wave of his hand. (Some of the others flinched in case some new burst of magic should accidentally fly from his fingertips.) He grinned, and did not retaliate. He did, however give Bolldhe a long, meaningful look, as if to say: ‘Remember! We’re not going to get very far by
healing
our way to Drauglir.’

Nobody noticed the cloaked figures staring down at them.

High up on the ridge on the other side of the gully they stood, a line of watchers, most dressed in grey, and one in yak-skin. Elemental forces surrounded them, tugging frantically at their impenetrable cloaks, and danced around them in a howling discord shrill with the sounds of night. Silent and unmoving, the watchers stared down at the cave and its inhabitants. Had anyone ventured nearby they would have still gone unnoticed, for these were a part of the night itself, intangible, imperceptible – save perhaps for the two glimmerings of reddish light that glowed from deep within the yak-kirtled one’s eyes.

He turned to gaze at the line of watchers alongside him, still and silent as standing stones.

‘Eight weeks old is the game now, Lord,’ finally came a voice that cut effortlessly through the shrieking wind. ‘Two moons since those pieces were set in motion.’

‘Yes, eight weeks,’ he replied. ‘Eight weeks, eight moons, eight years . . . ’Tis of the meagrest importance so early in the quest. It is what befalls them at the very end that matters. Mistakes made now can only be for the good, for they serve as lessons for the final resolution.’

‘But surely it is at the beginning that the direction of all journeys is set. Have you not heard the maxim:
A river cannot flow back on itself
?’

‘A
river
has no choice whither it flows. Bolldhe however is a man of the
road
, so can backtrack at will.’

The line of watchers did not waver. ‘Let us hope for your sake he can, for so far he shows little sign of taking the path you set for him.’

‘He is being led astray,’ Red-Eye protested hotly. ‘Other forces are interfering which I had not envisioned. These are ills I had not foreseen!’

A hiss almost like laughter issued from the vocal watcher’s hood. ‘You mean the sorcerer?’ it whispered gratingly. ‘Indeed, sundry factions have come into play, it would seem. And what does Bolldhe himself make of it? Erce-sent and armed with potent reveries, the Torca comes to lure Bolldhe to the Way of the Earth-Spirit, and already fertile seeds have been sown in his mind. Your man even wonders if he is indeed a tool of Erce. And, look you, his dreams have not yet even commenced!’

But Red-Eye refused to manifest his frustration on hearing the Syr’s galling words. He knew the entity to be totally impassive, yet that hint of mockery in its tones could be sometimes
so
. . . He often wondered if the Skela had been granted a sense of humour by the One that came before.

Refusing to be drawn, he continued: ‘The treachery that lies within the company is as a mormal upon a shinne, and it engenders a humour most adverse in him. He is being lured along as though by a serpent with many heads. Were the mage-priests united to their aims, things might develop as I had planned. But now we have the sorcerer to contend with, and
that
was totally unforeseen.’

‘A mormal upon a shinne,’ the Syr echoed. ‘An unusual metaphor; but who exactly is the mormal? Who is the treacher? Is it the sorcerer, or one of your priests? Or could it be any other of the sundry members of this band of perfidious churls? Indeed, are you so sure that there is but
one
treacher here? You say he is waylaid by a many-headed serpent, but it seems more that he is torn apart like a stag between a pack of wolves. Maybe you will even discover Bolldhe himself is the quisling.’

Finally Time spoke out. ‘The game is but eight weeks old, an insufficient period of testing from which to draw a meaningful conclusion, as you say, but sufficient to reveal to us enough of the psyche of your man Bolldhe. He walls himself off from his fellows, he is violently unpredictable; he knows not what to believe, flitting from one notion to another as a fledgling plays amongst the boughs of springtime. The divide between your priests confuses him, though in truth he does incline towards the reasoning of Finwald. But the Dream-Sorcerer manages to befuddle him, and it is within himself that the most significant problem lies. We know now your true reasoning in choosing this man as your tool, but we fear your judgement is awry. This man clearly cannot find
himself
, and thus cannot hope to succeed.’

Red-Eye turned away to gaze at the cave wherein lay his last slim thread of hope, fraying with each day that passed. Though he said nothing to the Skela, he silently agreed.

There was a movement at his side, and he turned to see that the wolves had returned. Their leader at their head, they padded gingerly towards him upon singed paws, and one by one collapsed at his feet. Though they did not perceive him in any real sense, yet there was a feeling of comfort and sanctuary where he stood. That was reason enough for the dispirited beasts to tarry awhile.

As they licked their wounds, they occasionally glanced in the direction of the warm, fire-lit cave, listening to the dim sound of human voices from within. The leader’s pale eyes were bright with intelligence, and now smouldered with a deep hatred. The sound of its enemies’ voices drew forth a half-audible growl of bitterness. The hunt was far from over, and the new day, scant hours away.