Waylander

21

On the mountain pass east of Purdol, two young men ate a breakfast of cheese and bread while swapping tall stories concerning the legendary whores of Purdol Docks. The sun was shining and the taller of the two – a five-year soldier named Tarvic – stood up and walked to the edge of the cliff path, staring out over the desert to the north. He had been pleased to get this assignment; watching a cliff path was a lot less dangerous than defending a rampart.

He was still grinning when an arrow entered his throat and punched up through the roof of his mouth and into his brain.

The second soldier looked round as he staggered back, his hands twitching.

'What's wrong, Tarvic?' called Milis. As Tarvic fell back, his head bouncing from a jagged white rock, Milis saw the arrow and his mouth dropped open. The fear surged through him and he began to run. An arrow chipped him from the rock to his right and flashed by his face. Legs pumping hard, Milis sprinted towards the cave. Something hit him hard in the back, but it did not slow him.

The cave entrance loomed and twice more he was struck from behind, but there was no pain and he made his way into the security of the tunnel. Safe at last, he slowed his pace.

His face crashed into the rocky floor as the ground leapt up at him. He tried to rise, but his arms had no strength. He began to crawl, but hands pulled at him, turning him over.

'The Vagrians are coming,' he said.

'I know,' said the Vagrian, drawing his knife across Milis' throat.

He was alone, as he had always been alone. He sat by the murky waters of a lily-covered pond and stared at his reflection in the silver steel blade of the hunting knife. He knew he was a monster; the word had been hurled at him since the beginning – along with stones, spears and arrows. He had been hunted by horsemen carrying lances, by wolves with sharp fangs and cunning minds, and by the long-toothed snow tigers which came down from the mountains with the winter ice.

But he had never been caught. For his speed was legend and his strength terrifying.

He pushed his broad back against the bole of a willow and lifted his great head at stare at the twin moons high above the trees. He knew by now there was only one moon, but the pupils of his huge eye could never focus as true eyes. He had learned to live with that, as he had learned to live with the other savage gifts nature had bestowed on him.

For some reason his memory was sharper than most, although he did not realise it. He could remember vividly the moment of his birth, and the face of the old woman who guided him into the world from the black-red tunnel of the Void. She had screamed and let him fall and he had hurt himself, twisting his arm under his body and hitting the edge of a wooden bed.

A man entered then and picked him from the floor. He had taken a knife, but another woman's scream had stopped him dead.

For a little while he remembered feeding at the breast of a dark-haired, sad-eyed young girl. But then his teeth grew, pointed and sharp – red blood had mixed with the milk and the girl had cried as she fed him.

It was not long before he was carried out into the night and left under the stars, listening to the sound of hoofbeats fading into the distance. Fading, dying …

Still the sound of hooves on dry earth filled him with sadness.

He had no name and no future.

Yet something had come from the mountains and drawn him into the darkness …

There were many of them, skittering and screeching, touching and pinching, and he had grown among them through the Darkness years, rarely seeing the light of day.

And then, on a summer morning, he heard a lilting cry from Outside echoing down a crack in the rocks and reverberating in the tunnels of the mountain heart. He was lured by the sound and he climbed out into the light. High overhead, great white birds were wheeling and diving, and in their cries he felt his life encapsulated. From that moment he saw himself as Kai and he spent many hours each day lying on the high rocks watching for the white birds, waiting for them to call his name.

Then began the Long years as his strength grew. Nadir tribes would gather near the mountains and pass on to greener meadows and deeper streams. But while they camped he watched them, seeing the children at play, the women arm-in-arm and laughing as they strolled.

Sometimes he strayed too close and the laughter would become familiar screams and the hunters would ride. Kai would run, and then turn, and rend and tear until he was alone once more.

How many years, he wondered, had he lived thus?

The forest in which he now sat had been a small wood of slender trees. Was that a long time? He had no terms of reference. One tribe had camped for longer than most and he had watched one young girl as she grew to womanhood, her hair turning grey and her back becoming bent. They lived such short lives, these Nadir.

Kai stared at his hands. Special hands these, he knew. Slowly he unwrapped the bandage from his arm and plucked out the stitches Waylander had placed there. Blood eased from the wound, then ran freely. Kai covered the gash with his hand and concentrated deeply. A strong sense of heat grew over the area, like a thousand tiny needles probing the flesh. After several minutes he removed his hand … And the gash was gone, the skin supple and unblemished by scab or scar. Removing the bandage and stitches from his leg, he repeated the process.

Strong again, he rose smoothly to his feet and breathed deeply. He could have killed the wolves eventually, but the man had helped him, and given him the knives.

Kai had no need of knives. He could run down an antelope and destroy it with his hands and tear its warm flesh with his fangs. What need of shiny metal?

But they were gifts, the first he had ever received, and the handles were pretty and handsomely carved.

He had owned a knife once, but within a short time it had turned from shining grey to red-brown and had become brittle and useless.

He thought of the giver – the short, small man on the horse. Why had he not screamed and attacked? Why had he killed the wolves? Why had he bandaged the wounds? Why had he given him the knives?

All were mysteries.

Goodbye friend. What did it mean?

Over the years Kai had learned the language of men, piercing the jumble of sounds into linked sentences. He could not speak, for there was no one to listen, but he could understand. The man had said that he was hunted. Kai could understand that.

By beasts and men? Kai wondered why he had made the distinction.

He shrugged and sighed. Strangely he felt more alone today than yesterday.

He missed the small man.

Karnak was asleep on the floor of the great hall, a single blanket pulled across his massive frame. The log fire in the wide hearth had shrivelled to glowing cinders as the Drenai general lay on a goatskin rug, lost in dreams of childhood and the birth of ambition.

Despite their riches Karnak's family retained a puritan streak and early in their lives the children were taught of the necessity for self-sufficiency. Young Karnak had been apprenticed to a shepherd to the north of the family estates and one night, while camped high in the wooded hills, a great grey wolf had stalked the flock. Karnak, at the age of seven, took a stout staff of unshaped wood and walked towards the beast. For several seconds it stood its ground, yellow eyes fixed on the advancing child, then it had backed away and run into the darkness.

When Karnak returned home he told the tale to his father with great pride.

'I knew of it,' said his father coldly. 'But you have lessened the deed by bragging of it.'

For some reason he never forgot his father's dismissal and the scene returned time and time again to haunt his dreams. Sometimes he dreamt he fought off a dozen tigers, and crawled to his father dying of his wounds.

Always the old man responded with icy indifference.

'Why are you not dressed for dinner?' he would ask the blood-covered boy.

'I have been hurt by tigers, father.'

'Still bragging, Karnak?'

The sleeping man groaned and opened his eyes. The hall was silent, yet some sound had disturbed his slumber and now a faint drumming noise came to him. Karnak lay down, pressing his ear to the rug. Then he pulled the goatskin aside and pushed his ear to the stone.

Men were moving below ground … a lot of men.

Karnak swore and ran from the hall, snatching his axe from the great table of oak. In the corridor, several soldiers were rolling dice. And he called them to him and ran on towards the dungeon stairwell. A young warrior with a bandaged arm was just coming up the stairs and Karnak stopped him.

'Find Cellar and get him to bring a hundred men to the dungeons now . You understand? Now!'

With that the general hurled the man from him and raced down the stairs. Twice he almost slipped on the slime-covered stone and then he was into the narrow prison row. The door at the end of the row led to a wide chamber and from the back of this room Karnak could see the rough-hewed entrance to the mountain tunnel. Wiping his sweating palms on his green tunic, Karnak hefted his axe and ran through the torch-lit chamber and into the tunnel. The air was cold here and water glistened on the dark jagged walls. The tunnel was narrow; only three men could walk abreast. Karnak stopped to listen and a soldier walked into him from behind and cursed.

'Be silent!' hissed the general.

From some way ahead they could hear the whispering sound of stealthy footfalls on the rocky floor. Dancing torch shadows leapt from the far walls where the tunnel curved to the left.

Karnak lifted his axe and slowly, reverently, kissed both blades.

The Vagrians rounded the corner – to be met by an ear-piercing scream and a flashing axe of silver steel that smashed the ribs of the leading warrior. Torches were dropped as men scrambled for their swords, then more screams filled the tunnel as the axe swept and scythed the milling men. Booted feet trampled the torches to extinction and in the darkness terror grew. For Karnak the way was easy – he had fought his way in alone among the enemy, and anything he struck was likely to be hostile flesh. For the Vagrians it was a nightmare in which men stabbed comrades, or felt their swords clattering from stone walls. Confusion became chaos and the invaders fled.

Suddenly a short blade stabbed into Karnak's face, bouncing from his left cheekbone and lancing into his eye. He staggered back. The hurled knife fell to the floor and he clasped his hand to his face, where blood gushed from the eye-socket. With a curse he stumbled on after the Vagrians, screaming and yelling, the noise echoing ahead like the rage of an angry giant.

The pain of his ruined eye was intense and the darkness almost total, but still he ran, his axe held high. Ahead the tunnel widened and the darkness lifted slightly.

Three Vagrians, left as a rearguard, ran at him. The first died with his skull split in two. the second followed as the blade reversed and clove his ribs. The third dived at the general, who sidestepped and then whipped up his knee into the diving man's face; his head snapped back and he hit the floor unconscious. Karnak's axe hammered into his back.

He ran on, scanning the rocks for the support ropes and praying the Vagrians had not discovered them.

At the widest part of the tunnel he saw them, looped and partly hidden behind a jutting section of black rock. Moving to his left he lifted the rope and took in the slack. He began to play out the rope as he backed down the tunnel, but the Vagrians had seen at last that only one man faced them and now they came at him with a rush.

Karnak knew he was finished and a terrible anger welled in him. Dropping his axe, he took the rope in both hands and pulled with all his strength. A creaking sound from above gave evidence that the pulleys and winches were transmitting the power.

The Vagrians were now only twenty paces from the straining figure, their yells of rage deafening in the enclosed tunnel. Karnak pushed his right foot against the tunnel wall and tugged hard. A tortured groan came from the roof and a huge boulder toppled above the running soldiers. Then the entire roof gave way and a great crack sliced along the granite wall.

Karnak saw the Vagrians buried screaming under tons of rock and earth. Then he turned and began to run.

Rocks and boulders tumbled about him as he ran on into the dark, then he tripped and fell and something sharp and heavy hit his ribs. He rolled and coughed as swirling dust caught in his throat. It seemed alien and stupid to run into darkness and death, but still he forced himself on. The rock above him exploded and he was swept from his feet, his legs partially buried by rubble. Pulling himself clear, he staggered on until the ground tilted under him and he fell forward.

'Gellan!' he screamed, as the walls closed in and engulfed him. A rock struck his head … more covered his legs and waist. He threw his arms over his face and tried to move. Then something slammed into his forehead and his movements ceased.

For more than a full day and night Gellan had men toiling at the rocks, moving forward inch by dangerous inch, while outside on the walls the battle raged endlessly. Many of the officers were now dead and Gellan had promoted Sarvaj and Jonat to commands of 500 men apiece. The number of wounded had swelled to awesome proportions, and now fewer than 2,000 fighting men held the might of the Vagrian army at bay. But Gellan himself remained in the treacherous tunnel, angrily shaking off the protest from brother officers.

'He's dead – what is the point?' argued one.

'We need him,' said Gellan.

'The roof has gone, man! Every foot we move forward only increases the risk of a further fall. It's madness!'

But he ignored them, refusing to allow their arguments to lodge in his mind where he knew he would be forced to accept their logic. It was a kind of madness, he knew. But he would not stop. Nor would the men. They worked tirelessly, pushing their frail bodies into the blackness, ton upon ton of delicately balanced rock above and around them.

'How the hell will you find him? The men originally with him say he ran ahead. It would take years to dig your way through to the far side – and the ropes were a hundred paces from the first corner.'

'Get out and leave us alone.'

'You are insane, Gellan.'

'Leave or I'll kill you.'

By the second day even the most tireless of the workers had given up hope, but still they toiled on.

'We need you on the walls, Gellan. Despair is growing.'

This time the words got through, lodging where Gellan had no defence.

'One more hour,' he said, hope draining from him. I'll be there with you in one hour.'

The pain from his eye woke Karnak and he tried to move, panic welling in him as realisation struck home that he was trapped … buried alive. Madness surged in him and he struggled maniacally, stopping only when he felt the rocks move above him. He breathed slowly and deeply, fighting for calm.

'Why are you not dressed for dinner, Karnak?'

'A mountain fell on me, father.'

Maniac laughter bubbled from his throat, but he fought it down and began to weep.

Stop it! You are Karnak, his strength told him.

I am a piece of flesh trapped in a tomb of rock, his weakness screamed.

All his plans were finished now and perhaps it was just as well, he thought. In his arrogance he had believed he could defeat the Vagrians, push them from the lands of the Drenai. His new-found heroic status would have guaranteed him leadership of the people. Egel could never have stood against him. Egel had no way with the mob – no charisma. And there were other ways to dispose of political enemies.

Waylander, and men like him, were easy to find.

But now there would be nothing. No purple robes. No public acclaim.

Why, he wondered, had he taken on the enemy single-handed?

Because he had not stopped to think. Dundas had seen through him: a hero who pretended to be otherwise.

Not exactly the death you would have chosen for yourself, Karnak, said his strength. Where was the drama? Where were the adoring crowds?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears, does it make a sound?

If a man dies unobserved, how will his death be chronicled?

'Damn you, father,' whispered Karnak. 'Damn you!'

Laughter shook him. Tears followed. 'Damn you!' he bellowed.

The rock beside him shifted and Karnak froze, waiting for the crushing death. Light fell on his face and a ragged cheer went up from the men. Karnak squinted against the torchlight, then forced a grin.

'You took your time, Gellan,' he whispered. 'I thought I'd have to dig myself out!'