The Longsword Chronicles: Book 03 - Sight and Sound Read online

  They paused for a while, the discovery of the road to Calhaneth giving the opportunity of a natural break for lunch before resuming a journey now made easier and somewhat faster, the broad avenue through the ancient trees unobstructed and allowing them to ride once more. And ride they did, with Rollaf and Terryn three hundred yards ahead of the rest of the group led by Elayeen, flanked by Kahla and Jaxon as before. Gawain remained at the rear, behind the packhorses.

  When sunset forced them to camp for the night, there was much less tension in weary eyes than there had been at dawn. Elayeen had seen nothing of the darkness of the day before, and the sense of relief at that was almost palpable. Gawain, though, refused to allow them to relax their guard.

  “There’s still been no sign of any of the larger woodland creatures that should be thriving here. Whatever it was my lady saw yesterday may well be responsible for that. Stay alert, and speak softly. Sound will carry a long way down this avenue.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, my lord,” Arramin announced, “We may expect to find the remains of the baths and boarding halls that marked the outer boundary of Calhaneth. There, scholars and students travelling to the city would rest, and bathe, to be cleansed and refreshed for their arrival at the city outskirts next afternoon.”

  “I doubt such luxury awaits us,” Gawain murmured. “Not after ten centuries.”

  “Indeed, my lord. Yet the condition of the buildings and baths may speak to the condition of what remains of Calhaneth, though naturally the baths and boarding halls would have been untouched by the great conflagration which consumed the city to the north.”

  Tyrane frowned in the soft gloom of moonlight filtering through the canopy overhead, light which seemed to catch Allazar’s Dymendin staff to pool in the middle of their small camp. “I am still astonished, Serre wizard, that no knowledge remains of the fire or what caused it. I know it was a long time ago, but there must have been survivors, and records of events?”

  “Alas, Captain, if such records exist I have not seen them. Perhaps they do, in some corner of the D’ith Hallencloister, but times being what they are, I fear they may as well not exist at all. There have been other catastrophes throughout history, sudden, and in some cases so complete that little if anything remains of the events and the people who succumbed to them, save for such relics as may survive the aftermath. Ruins, shards of pottery, fragments which tell us only that lives were once lived there, and were ended there.”

  Gawain sat on his saddle at the edge of the camp. He knew only too well of one such event and its aftermath.

  “The passage of time erodes memory, ink fades long before pages crumble to dust. Just as wind and water slowly wear mountains down to molehills and rivers cut chasms into rock, so time wears away the traces of all of us. How many thousands travelled this very road upon which we sit, a road now buried beneath the centuries? What did they learn at Calhaneth, and how did the knowledge they gained there change the world and bring about the days of our own lives?

  “It is held that Zaine himself once said: Each life is a book, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. We cannot know how the words of our own life will touch others, but must hope they do so kindly. Better to be a happy footnote in another’s book, than a forgotten name graven on a crumbling pedestal.”

  And with the small group of men and women pondering the words of their own lives, the watch was divided, and they slept their second night in the forest in the middle of what had once been the road to Calhaneth.

  It was before noon, on their third day in the forest, when Elayeen stopped suddenly, her gaze fixed to the northwest. Everyone knew what that meant, even before the rasp of Eldengaze confirmed their worst fears.

  “Something dark approaches. Far off.”

  Tyrane recalled Rollaf and Terryn with urgent hand-signals, and Gawain eased forward.

  “It has stopped,” Elayeen tilted her head a little. “Now it moves away to the west.”

  They waited, nerves taught, ears and eyes straining.

  “It has passed beyond my sight.”

  Breaths were let out, shoulders eased, grips on weapons relaxed. They waited in silence for what seemed like an age, before Gawain softly ordered the resumption of their advance along the Calhaneth road.

  Two hours later Rollaf, scouting ahead on his own, held up a cautionary hand, and they slowed to a halt again. Ahead, some five hundred yards away in the gloom, long shapes loomed each side of the road. Elayeen confirmed that ‘nothing dark’ was visible to her there, and so Gawain and the two scouts dismounted, and ran cautiously ahead of the rest to ensure that nothing which wasn’t ‘dark’ was laying in wait there either.

  There was a fresh smell of clean water in the air, which surprised Gawain a little. He’d expected to find the baths long-since filled with forest detritus, or at the very best little more than stagnant slime-filled ponds. But beyond the stone-built boarding halls either side of the avenue, they found a broad expanse of dozens of large and small pools, lined with and surrounded by pale blue-stone, and discovered to their amazement water still flowed, cascading softly through chains of pools connected by shallow channels before disappearing into some clever and unseen subterranean drains.

  The halls were still recognisable too, stone-built roofs and walls punctured by the trees growing through them, and upper floors long since collapsed. But it was the baths which gave Arramin cause for quiet enthusiasm. The water was warm to the touch, the pools and paving between them intact and almost pristine thanks to the constant and gentle flow of water. They were still fully functional, and that held out the hope that the great water road of the Canal of Thal-Marrahan would be too.

  “They are precisely as the books described, my lords!” he gasped, gazing in delight at the dozens of shallow pools. “Of course, the screens which would have separated the ladies’ baths from the men’s are long gone, but, save for the dilapidation of the halls, the baths are much as they would have appeared all those centuries ago!”

  By the time the waters had cascaded into the lower pools it was quite cool, cool enough to drink, so water skins were replenished, a frugal and hasty lunch taken while the horses were watered and fed, and after some silent contemplation of the ruins around them, they mounted to continue their journey.

  But then Elayeen froze, standing with one foot in the stirrup, facing northwest again.

  “Something dark approaches.”

  “Dwarfspit,” Gawain sighed, and in silence, they waited.

  “It continues to approach.”

  Gawain strung an arrow, and Elayeen dismounted, retrieving her bow from Kahla and nocking a longshaft to the string.

  “It continues… now it has stopped.”

  “How far?” Gawain whispered, the woodland noises broken by the sound of Callodon crossbows being cocked and bolted.

  “Half a mile, perhaps more. Bigger than a man, smaller than a horse. More than that I do not see.”

  Gok!

  It was a guttural, explosive sound, far off to the northwest, akin to the call of a pheasant. But no pheasant would live so deep in the gloom of these woodlands and horses’ ears pricked nervously.

  Gok!

  Gawain glanced at Allazar. The wizard’s face was ashen, his eyes wide.

  “What is it, Allazar? What makes that sound?”

  “That is the call of a Kiromok of Sethi.”

  “What manner of creature is it? Can we fight it, or do we run?”

  “When the Sethi had seen how effective their creation the Grimmand had been, they worked to create a successor even more terrifying. This they called the Kiromok. It is a creature of aquamire, like its predecessor, and like the Grimmand, it may be killed by burning, a wizard’s fire, possibly drowning, or, if there are sufficient kindred forces available, hacked to pieces. Its terror lies in the fact that it can adopt the colours and shades of its surroundings so completely, it cannot be seen except as a shimmering in the air when it moves.”

  “I see it. I have it fi
xed,” Eldengaze asserted.

  “It was used to deny territory to an enemy, or to wreak havoc within a large encampment. Simple arrows and steel will not avail us, Longsword.”

  “Perhaps we can persuade the bastard into one of the pools and hold it under,” Gawain muttered darkly, “Would fire-arrows work?”

  “Not unless the Kiromok were drenched in oil. Or the arrows were tipped with burning Ignisium.”

  “Which we as civilised people do not possess,” Tyrane grimaced.

  Gok!

  “More’s the pity,” Gawain muttered darkly. “These things cannot be seen, in truth?”

  “I see it. I have it fixed.”

  Allazar flicked a glance at Elayeen. “In truth, Longsword. Except as a shimmering when they move, and they move quickly. Their weapons are their stealth, strength, speed and claws, much the same as the Grimmand.”

  “We’ll form up here, with all the pools between us and this Kiromok. If we can’t see it, we can certainly see it splashing through the water.”

  “I see it. I have it fixed.”

  “Yes, Eldengaze, so you’ve told us. But your arrows will be useless except to mark it as a target for Allazar’s white fire. If you miss, the rest of us might not if we can see its traces in the water.”

  They moved, quickly and quietly, leading the horses and keeping them to their rear, the dozens of bathing pools between them and the Kiromok of Sethi.

  Gok!

  “Has it moved?” Gawain whispered.

  “No. It is motionless.”

  “Allazar, wider to the left if you please. Kahla, Jaxon, to the rear.”

  Gok!

  “It is moving towards us once more. Slowly.”

  “How big were these things, Allazar?”

  “Seven feet tall, similar to a man in shape and form. A yard across the shoulders. The head is small, not in proportion to the rest of its form. It hunts by sight, sound and scent. Starved of food, its aquamire becomes unstable, and is liberated, destroying the creature in the process.”

  “Could it explain the lack of larger animals?” Tyrane asked, trying hard and failing to imagine an invisible creature stalking them.

  “It would need to have been here a very long time,” Gawain muttered.

  “It has stopped.”

  There was a long, uneasy silence, marred only by birdsong and the occasional clattering of a twig falling from the canopy.

  “It is moving again. More to the east,” Elayeen shifted her weight a little, her gaze tracking the creature.

  “Must’ve heard us milord,” Rollaf whispered. “Now it’s shifting to find our scent.”

  “Aye,” Gawain agreed, “We and the horses are the biggest things by far moving in this forest.”

  “Breeze is up from the road, it’ll make its way there milord.”

  “Aye,” Gawain agreed again, and shifted his weight too, watching the direction of Elayeen’s gaze carefully as she continued to track the Kiromok. “Ease around to the west a little.”

  Gok!

  “It is on the road. Three hundred yards, perhaps a little more.”

  They stood in line abreast, facing north along the great avenue through the forest, and saw nothing. Elayeen stood slightly to the fore, of course, the better to use the eldengaze unobstructed by the life-lights of the others. Allazar wide to her left, his staff held poised, Arramin to his left, his stick held likewise, its makeshift fabric strap dangling and stirring a little in the gentle breezes. Rollaf was of course quite correct, the breezes swirling through the forest found easy passage north along the avenue.

  Gawain stood back from the wizards and Elayeen, in the large gap between her and Allazar. He had a clear throw across the pools should he need it. To his left, Tyrane, ready to shoot through the gap betwixt the wizards, and to his right, Rollaf and Terryn, silent, crossbows ported across their chests, eyes scanning for movement.

  Gok!

  Gawain frowned. The call seemed much quieter somehow.

  Gok!

  Louder than the first.

  Gok!

  Quieter.

  “Dwarfspit, there are two of them!”

  Gok!

  “It moves again, to the west. Now I see the other. Distant, moving rapidly towards us on the road.”

  “The first has stopped a hundred yards from the road,” Eldengaze rasped with a disconcerting lack of emotion. “The second moves towards us, half a mile perhaps.”

  Gok!

  Gok!

  The calls closer together now.

  “I have not read Morloch’s Pangoricon, Allazar, will this Kiromok creature cast a shadow in the light of Aemon?” Arramin whispered, the end of his stick amplifying the slight tremble in his hands. Gawain couldn’t tell if it was fear or age which gave the stick its motion.

  “There are no recorded instances of a Kiromok of Sethi casting shadow, though their shape has been seen viewed from a low angle against a backdrop of moonlight or starlight,” Allazar recited, then added hastily, “Though it couldn’t hurt to try.”

  “I have them fixed,” Eldengaze rasped.

  “What is the light of Aemon?” Gawain whispered, for everyone else’s benefit as well as his own.

  “It is a pure light, my lord, a cold light once thought to keep creatures of darkness at bay and to banish them to the shadows beyond its range. It is a benign light, unlike Aemon’s Fire, which destroys. I am really rather good at the light of Aemon my lord, having used it to read by so many times.”

  Gok!

  Gok!

  “And are you really rather good with Aemon’s Fire?”

  “Alas.”

  “The second has slowed. It has stopped on the road, perhaps three hundred and fifty yards. The first is a hundred yards to its right.

  Gok! Gok!

  The calls so close together now they were almost simultaneous.

  “The second moves to the east.”

  Gok!

  Gawain’s heart sank. “Dwarfspit.”

  “There is a third on the road. Distant. Perhaps a mile, moving rapidly. The second has stopped, a hundred yards east of the road.”

  Gok! Gok!

  Gok!

  “They’ll probably come straight for us,” Allazar asserted. “They move fast, their greater height means longer legs, their greater physique means more power in a sprint than any of the kindred races can hope to match.”

  “Can you get all three with the staff?”

  “I must.”

  Gok!Gok!

  Gok!

  “Rollaf, Terryn, try to hit the one on our right, your bolts won’t stop it but will mark the target for Allazar.”

  “Milord.”

  “Tyrane, you’ll have the one on the left, my lady’s arrow will help mark it too. I’ll take the one in the middle, at least until Elayeen can stick another one into it and Allazar brings his lightning to bear. Kahla, Jaxon, you’ll have to try to keep the horses together and calm. Not easy I know.”

  “The third approaches the line and is slowing.”

  Gok! Gok! Gok!

  “It has stopped. They are in line abreast at three hundred yards, a hundred yards between each of them.”

  “Stand ready,” Gawain ordered quietly. Three hundred yards, for creatures which could sprint faster than the fastest of men or elves, was not very far.

  Insects buzzed. Birds chirped and fluttered. Water gurgled gently in the pools, and leaves slowly turning in the approach of autumn rustled in the breezes.

  Gwyn snuffled. Horses snorted and shifted their weight, leather creaked.

  Elayeen stood poised, an arrow nocked to string but not yet drawn, the tip of her bow resting on her left boot, broken fingers and their pain ignored by the firmness of a grip ready to take the strain of the draw and the shock of recoil when the arrow was loosed.

  Insects buzzed. Birds chirped and fluttered. Water gurgled gently in the pools, and leaves slowly turning in the approach of autumn rustled in the breezes. And Gawain felt the t
ension rising.

  Breathing. Waiting. Watching.

  “What are they doing?” Gawain whispered.

  “Nothing,” came the grating reply of Eldengaze.

  A sparrow plummeted like a stone from a bough above and behind them, and fluttered gently to rest on the wet stone path where a thin sheet of water trickled between two pools, and after drinking, puffed up its feathers and began to bathe, splashing and chirping happily. A second joined it, and then a third and a fourth, until a noisy host of dozens were chattering and splashing about the edge of the pool. Minutes ticked by, and then, as if at a signal, and with a great thrupping of wings, the flock launched itself skyward and was lost in the forest.

  Sunlight streamed down through the gap in the canopy left vacant by the absence of trees at and around the pools, and through this, Gawain caught sight of puffy white clouds moving slowly to the north.

  “Allazar?”

  “Longsword?”

  “What are they doing?”

  “I do not know. They are possibly asking themselves the same thing about us.”

  Insects buzzed. Birds chirped and fluttered. Water gurgled gently in the pools, and leaves slowly turning in the approach of autumn rustled in the breezes. Gawain’s heart began to hammer in his ears.

  Gok! Gok! Gok!

  “Brace,” Gawain whispered.

  “The first circles to the west, the second to the east, the third has not moved.”

  “Dwarfspit! They’re moving to outflank us!”

  Sure enough, the arc through which Elayeen had to swivel her head to keep track of the two flanking Kiromok was growing larger.

  “How deep is that centre pool?”

  Terryn sprinted across the baths, skirting around the stone edges and leaping nimbly until he was in the middle of the patchwork of pools. He looked into the centre pool, and then held his hands one above the other a distance of some eighteen inches.

  “Move, quickly, get into that centre pool! Leave the horses!”