The Wandering Fire Page 5

  And everyone knew what had followed when mild, wise Tulger of the eighth tribe had risen in his turn to say, simply, “Not since Revor have the nine tribes had one Lord, one Father. Should we have an Aven now?”

  “Yes!” the Gathering had cried. (Everyone knew.)

  “Who shall that be?”

  And in this fashion had Ivor dan Banor of the third tribe become the first Aven of all the Plain in a thousand years, his name exploding in its turn from the holy place.

  They all showed it, Navon thought, pulling his cloak more tightly about him against the keening wind. All of the third tribe partook of both the glory and the responsibility, and Ivor had made sure they had no special status in the distribution of labours.

  Celidon would be safe, he’d decided. No wolves would enter there as yet, risking the deep, ancient power that bound the circle of the standing stones or the House that stood inside them.

  The eltor were the first priority for now. The animals had finally made their way south to the country by the River Latham, and thither the tribes would follow them; the hunters would circle the gathered swifts—though the name was a mockery in snow—and the camps would be on constant alert against attack.

  And so it had come to be. Twice had the wolves ventured to attack one of the protected swifts, and twice had the racing auberei gotten word to the nearest camp in time to beat back the marauders.

  Even now, Navon thought, pacing from north to south along the wooden outer wall, even now Levon, the Aven’s son, was out there in the bitter cold on night duty around the large swift near the camp of the third tribe. And with him was the one who had become Navon’s own hero—though he would have blushed and denied it had the thought been attributed to him by anyone. Still, no man in any tribe, not even Levon himself, had killed as many wolves or ridden so many nights of guard as had Torc dan Sorcha. He had been called “the Outcast” once, Navon remembered, shaking his head in what he thought was an adult disbelief. Not any longer. The silent deadliness of Torc was a byword now among the tribes.

  His tribe had more than its share of heroes these days, and Navon was determined not to let them down. He peered keenly into the dark south, a fourteen-year-old sentinel, and not the youngest either.

  But youngest or not, he was first to see and hear the lone auberei come galloping up, and it was Navon who raised the alarm, while the auberei went on to the next camp without pausing to rest his horse.

  It was, evidently, a major attack.

  A very major attack, Torc realized, as he saw the dark, fluid shapes of the wolves bear down on the huge swift that the third and seventh tribes were guarding together. Or trying to guard, he amended inwardly, racing to Levon’s side for the hunt leader’s orders. This was going to be bad; the wolves were in force this time. In the growing chaos he rose up in his saddle and scanned the swift: the four lead eltor were still roped and held, an ugly thing but necessary, for if this enormous, mingled swift were to take flight then chaos would become hopelessness. As long as the leaders stayed, the swift would hold together, and the eltor were horned and could fight.

  And they were fighting, he saw, as the lead edge of the wolf attack reached them. It was an unholy scene: wolf snarls, the high-pitched cries of the eltor, the lurid, weaving torches the Riders bore in the darkness, and then eltor blood on the snow again.

  Rage threatened to choke Torc’s breathing. Forcing himself to stay calm, he saw that the right front edge of the swift was undermanned, and the wolves were racing around for it.

  Levon saw it too. “Doraid!” he shouted to the hunt leader of the seventh. “Take half your men for the near flank!”

  Doraid hesitated. “No,” he said, “I have another idea. Why don’t we—”

  At which point he found himself pulled from his horse and hurtling into the snow. Torc didn’t stop to see where he fell. “Riders of the seventh,” he screamed over the noise of the battle, “follow me!”

  Tabor dan Ivor, bearing a torch for his brother, saw that the hunters of the seventh did indeed follow. His heart swelled, even amid the carnage, to see how the reputation of Torc dan Sorcha enforced obedience. No man on the Plain had a more defiant hatred of the Dark than the black-clad Rider of the third tribe, whose only concession to the winter winds was an eltor vest over his bare chest. His aura was such now that the hunters of another tribe would follow him without a question asked.

  Torc beat the wolves to the flank, barely. He and the Riders of the seventh smashed, swords scything, into the wolf pack. They cut it in two and wheeled swiftly to knife back the other way.

  “Cechtar,” Levon said, cool as ever. “Take twenty men around the other way. Guard the lead eltor on that side.”

  “Done!” Cechtar cried, flamboyant as always, and raced off over the powdered snow with a group of Riders at his heels.

  Rising as high as he could in the saddle, Tabor almost fell, but he balanced himself and, turning to Levon, said, “The auberei got through. I see torches coming from the camp!”

  “Good,” said Levon grimly, looking the other way. “We are going to need them all.”

  Wheeling his horse to follow his brother’s glance, Tabor saw them too, and his heart clenched like a fist.

  There were urgach coming up from the south.

  The savage creatures were mounted on beasts such as Tabor had never seen—huge six-legged steeds, as monstrous as their riders, with a viciously curved horn protruding from their heads.

  “We seem to have a fight here,” said Levon, almost to himself. And then, turning to Tabor with a smile, he said, “Come, my brother, it is our turn.”

  And the two sons of Ivor, the one tall and fair, the other young yet, nut-brown and wiry, hurled their horses forward towards the advancing line of the urgach.

  Try as he could, Tabor couldn’t keep up, and Levon soon outdistanced him. He did not ride alone though, for angling to intercept his path, low on his flying horse, came a Rider in black leggings and an eltor vest.

  Together Levon and Torc raced directly towards the wide line of the urgach. There are too many, Tabor thought, trying furiously to catch up. He was closer than anyone else, and so saw what happened best of all. Thirty paces from the advancing urgach, Levon and Torc, without a word spoken, suddenly wheeled their horses at right angles, and racing across the line of the huge, six-legged steeds, fired three arrows each at dazzling speed.

  Six of the urgach fell.

  Tabor, however, was in no position to cheer. Churning fiercely forward in Torc and Levon’s wake he suddenly found himself galloping with only a torch in his hand right at the line of monsters.

  He heard Levon scream his name, not very helpfully. Swallowing a fifteen-year-old’s yelp of apprehension, Tabor angled his horse for a gap in the onrushing line. An urgach, hairy and huge, changed course to intercept him.

  “Cernan!” Tabor cried and hurled the torch even as he swung himself under the belly of his horse. He heard the whistle of a sword where his head had been, a guttural roar of pain as the flung torch struck hair and flesh, and then he was through the line and riding away from the fight over the wide sweeping beauty of the white Plain under a waxing moon and all the stars.

  Not for long. He checked his horse and turned it, reaching for the small sword slung from his saddle. There was no need—none of the urgach had come after him. Instead they smashed viciously into the terrified eltor and then, hewing and carving the screaming animals like so much meat, they swung, en masse, and hit the left side contingent of Dalrei with a brutal force. There were reinforcements coming—Tabor could see the torches streaming towards them from the camps in the distance—but they were not going to be enough, he thought despairingly, not against the urgach.

  Levon and Torc were speeding to attack again, he saw, but the urgach were deep within the mass of Riders, their gigantic swords wreaking havoc among the hunters while the wolves, unimpeded, ran wild through the eltor.

  He heard hoofbeats behind him. Sword raised, he spun his hor
se frantically. And a glad cry escaped his throat.

  “Come on, little brother!” someone shouted, and then Dave Martyniuk thundered by, an axe of Brennin held high, a golden Prince racing beside him and thirty men behind.

  Thus did the warriors of Brennin come to the aid of the Dalrei, led by Prince Diarmuid and by the one called Davor, huge and fell, wrapped in battle fury like a red halo under the waxing moon.

  Tabor saw them crash in their turn, these trained soldiers of Diarmuid’s band, into the nearest wolf pack, and he saw their swords descend in silver sweeps and rise again, dark with blood. Then they hit the massed phalanx of the urgach with Torc and Levon, and brave Cechtar beside, and over the squeals of the dying eltor, the snarl of wolves, Tabor heard, rising above the torchlit carnage, the voice of Davor cry, “Revor!” once and again, and he was young in the tidal wave of his relief and pride.

  Then, suddenly, he was young no more, nor was he only a fifteen-year-old newly called Rider of the Dalrei.

  From his vantage point behind the battle scene and on a slope above it Tabor saw, off to the east, a dark mass approaching very fast, and he realized that the Dalrei were not the only ones to be receiving reinforcements. And if he could see the urgach at such a distance, then there were very many, there were too many, and so.

  And so it was time.

  Beloved. He formed the thought in his mind.

  I am here, he heard instantly. I am always here. Would you ride?

  I think we must, Tabor sent reply. It is time for us, bright one.

  We have ridden before.

  He remembered, would always remember. But not to battle. We will have to kill.

  A new note in the mind voice: I was made for war. And to fly. Summon me.

  Made for war. It was true, and a grief, but the urgach were nearer now, and so.

  And so in his mind Tabor spoke her name. Imraith-Nimphais, he called, on a cresting of love, and he dismounted from his horse, for on the words she was in the sky above him, more glorious than anything on earth, the creature of his dreaming.

  She landed. Her horn was luminous, a silver such as the silver of the moon, though her coat was deep red as had been the moon that gave her life. And where she walked, the snow showed no imprint of her hooves, so lightly did she move.

  It had been a long time. His heart full as with light, he raised a hand and she lowered her head, the single horn grazing him like a caress, that he might in turn caress her head.

  Only each other, he heard, and he sent back affirmation and acceptance. Then: Shall we fly? she asked.

  He could feel the straining desire run through her, and then through himself, and he said aloud, “Let us fly, and kill, my darling.”

  And Tabor dan Ivor mounted himself upon the flying creature of his vigil, the double-edged gift of Dana that was to bear him, young as they both were, into the sky and away from the world of men. And Imraith-Nimphais did so. She left the ground for the cold wide heavens, carrying the Rider who alone of all creatures had dreamt her name, and to the men below they were as an unleashed comet between the stars and the Plain.

  Then Tabor said within, You see?

  And: I do, she replied.

  He turned her to where the urgach were riding to the battlefield, and they came down upon them like a killing light. She changed as they sped down, and with her shining horn she killed once, and once more, and many, many times again under the guidance of his hand. And the urgach fled before them and they pursued, slaying, and the wolves broke and fled also, southward away, and the Dalrei and the men of Brennin cheered, amazed and exultant to see the shining thing from heaven come to their aid.

  She heard them not, nor did he. They pursued, killing until her horn was sticky and clotted with blood and there were no more of the loathsome creatures of the Dark to slay.

  And finally, trembling with weariness and the shock of aftermath, they came down in a white place far from blood and Tabor cleaned her horn with snow. After, they stood close together in the wide silence of the night.

  Only each other, she sent.

  Only each other at the last, he replied. Then she flew off, glittering, and as dawn broke over the mountains he began the long walk back to the camps of men.

  Chapter 5

  “The first battle is always the worst,” Carde said, moving his horse towards Kevin so no one else would hear.

  The words were meant to be reassuring, and Kevin managed a gesture of acknowledgment, but he was not prone to be dishonest with himself and he knew that the shock of battle, though real, was not his deepest problem.

  Nor was it envy of Dave Martyniuk, though honesty compelled admission that this was also a part of his mood now, just after it had all ended, with the electrifying appearance of the winged, shining creature in the sky. Dave had been extraordinary, almost terrifying. Wielding the huge axe Matt Sören had found for him in the Paras Derval armory, he had roared into battle, outpacing even Diarmuid and wreaking violent havoc among the wolves while screaming at the top of his lungs. The big man had even gone one-on-one with one of the enormous, fanged brutes they called urgach. And he had killed it too; blocking a vicious sword thrust, he had launched a backhanded sweep of the axe that had half severed the creature’s head and sent it tumbling from the back of its giant steed. Then Dave had killed the six-legged horned beast as well.

  And Kevin? Quick, sharp Kevin Laine had been his torchbearer at the time. Oh, they’d given him a sword to fight with, but what did he know about fighting wolves with a sword on horseback? Staying on the plunging horse was challenge enough in the screaming inferno of that fight. And when he had gained enough space to realize how utterly useless he was, Kevin had swallowed his pride, sheathed the sword, and grabbed a burning torch to give Dave light enough by which to kill. He hadn’t been too good at that, either, and twice had been nearly felled himself by Dave’s whirling axe.

  They had won, though, this first real battle of the war, and something magnificent had been revealed in the sky. Kevin clung to the splendour of that image of the winged unicorn and tried to lift himself enough to share the triumph of the moment.

  Yet it seemed that someone else wasn’t happy; there was a confrontation taking place. He and Carde edged their horses closer to the knot of men surrounding a husky brown-haired Rider and Torc, Dave’s friend, whom Kevin remembered from their last days in Paras Derval.

  “And if you ever do so again,” the brown-haired man was saying loudly, “I will cripple you and stake you out in the Plain with honey on your eyes to draw the aigen!”

  Torc, impassive on his dark grey horse, made no reply, and the other man’s blustered threat fell fatuously into the silence. Dave was grinning. He was sitting his horse between Torc and Levon, the other Rider Kevin remembered from their last time.

  It was Levon who spoke, quietly but with immense authority. “Doraid, be done. And hear me: you were given a direct command in battle, and you chose that moment to discuss strategies. If Torc had not done what I asked you to do, the wolves would have turned the flank of the swift. Do you wish to explain your action here or before the Aven and the leader of your tribe?”

  Doraid turned to him furiously. “Since when does the third tribe command the seventh?”

  “It does not,” Levon replied with equanimity. “But I command this guard, and you were there when that command was given me.”

  “Ah, yes!” Doraid sneered. “The precious son of the Aven. He is to be obeyed, and—”

  “One moment!” a familiarly inflected voice snapped, and Doraid stopped in mid-word. “Do I understand what happened here?” Diarmuid continued, moving into the ring of Riders. “Did this man refuse a direct order? And is he complaining about it now?” The tone was acid.

  “He did,” Torc spoke for the first time. “And he is. You do understand correctly, my lord Prince.”

  Kevin had a blinding attack of déjà vu: an innyard to the south, a farmer crying, “Mörnir guard you, young Prince!” And then something els
e.

  “Coll,” Diarmuid said.

  “No!” Kevin screamed and launched himself in a flat dive from his horse. He hit his friend, Diarmuid’s big lieutenant, with a tackle that sent them both flying to land with a double crunch in the snow among the stamping horses of the Dalrei.

  He was about a half second too late. There was another man lying in the snow, not far away: Doraid, with Coll’s arrow buried deep in his chest.

  “Oh, hell,” Kevin said, sick at heart. “Oh, bloody hell.”

  Nor was he eased to hear a chuckle beside him. “Nicely done,” Coll said softly, not at all discomfited. “You almost broke my nose again.”

  “God. Coll, I’m sorry.”

  “No matter.” He chuckled again. “I was half expecting you, in fact. I remember you don’t like his justice.”

  No one was even looking at them. His wild leap seemed to have been utterly pointless. From where he lay on the ground, he saw two men face each other in the ring of torches.

  “There were enough Dalrei dead tonight without adding another,” Levon said evenly.

  Diarmuid’s voice was cool. “There will be enough dead in this war without our risking more by allowing what this man did.”

  “It was a matter then for us, for the Aven, to decide.”

  “Not so,” Diarmuid replied. For the first time he raised his voice. “Let me remind you all, and better now than later, of how things are. When Revor was given the Plain for himself and his heirs, he swore an oath of loyalty to Colan. Let it not be forgotten. Ivor dan Banor, Aven of the Dalrei, holds that title in the same way that Revor himself did: under the High King of Brennin, who is Aileron dan Ailell, and to whom you swore an oath of your own, Levon!”

  Levon’s colour was high, but his eyes never wavered. “I do not forget it,” he said. “Justice is still not served by arrows at night on a battlefield.”

  “Not so,” Diarmuid said a second time. “There is seldom time in war to serve it any other way. What,” he asked softly, “does the Law of the Dalrei invoke for what Doraid did this night?”