The Wandering Fire Part 25

"We warned them at Celidon," the woman said. "Lydan and I will ride now toward Brennin. We alerted the High King with the summongla.s.s last night. He should be on the Plain by now, heading for Daniloth. We will cut him off. Where do you want him to ride?"

Ivor found his voice amid the sudden babble of sound. "To Adein," he said crsiply. "We will try to beat the Dark Ones to the river and hold them there for the High King. Can we make it?"

"If you go now and very fast you might," said the one called Lydan. "Galen and I will ride to Aileron."

"Wait!" Ivor cried. "You must rest. Surely the raithen must. If you have come all the way from Daniloth..."

The lios had to be brother and sister, so alike were they. They shook their heads. "They have had a thousand years to rest," said Galen. "Both of these were at the Bael Rangat. They have not run free since."

Ivor's mouth fell open. He closed it.

"How many do you have?" he heard Cechtar breathe.

"These two and three others. They do not breed since the war against Maugrim. Too many of them died. Something changed in them. When these five are gone, no raithen will ever outpace the wind again." Lydan's voice was a chord of loss.

Ivor gazed at the raithen with a bitter sorrow. "Go then," he said. "Unleash them. Bright be the moon for you, and know we will not forget."

As one, the lios raised open hands in salute. Then they turned the raithen, spoke to them, and the Dalrai saw two comets, golden and silver, take flight across the darkening Plain.

In Paras Derval, Aileron the High King had just returned from Taerlindel. On the road back, he had been met with word of the summongla.s.s alight. He was just then giving orders for an army to ride. They had too far to go, though. Much too far.

On the Plain, Levon came up to his father. Mabon of Rhoden stood behind him.

Ivor said to the Duke, "You have been riding two days. I cannot ask your men to come. Will you guard our women and children?"

"You can ask anything you must ask," said Mabon quietly. "Can you do without five hundred men?"

Ivor hesitated.

"No," said a woman's voice. "No, we cannot. Take them all, Aven. We must not lose Celidon!"

Ivor looked at his wife and saw the resolution in her face. "We cannot lose our women, either," he said. "Our children."

"Five hundred will not save us." It was Liane, standing beside her mother. "If they defeat you, five hundred will mean nothing at all. Take everyone, Father."

She was not wrong, he knew. But how could he leave them so utterly exposed? A thought came to him. He quailed before it for a moment, but then the Aven said, "Tabor."

"Yes, Father," his youngest child replied, stepping forward.

"If I take everyone, can you guard the camps? The two of you?"

He heard Leith draw a breath. He grieved for her, for every one of them.

"Yes, Father," said Tabor, pale as moonlight. Ivor stepped close and looked into his son's eyes. So much distance already.

"Weaver hold you dear," he murmured. "Hold all of you." He turned back to the Duke of Rhoden. "We ride in an hour," he said. "We will not stop before the Adein, unless we meet an army. Go with Cechtar-your men will need fresh horses." He gave orders to Levon and others to the gathered auberei, who were already mounted up to carry word to the other tribes. The camp exploded all around him.

He found a moment to look at Leith and took infinite solace from the calm in her eyes. They did not speak. It had all been said, at one time or another, between the two of them.

It was, in fact, less than an hour before he laced his fingers in her hair and bent in the saddle to kiss her good-bye. Her eyes were dry, her face quiet and strong, and so, too, was his. He might weep too easily for joy or domestic sorrow, or love, but it was the Aven of the Dalrei, first since Revor was given the Plain, who now sat his horse in the darkness. There was death in his heart, and bitter hate, and fiercest, coldest resolution.

They would need torches until the moon rose. He sent the auberei forward with fire to lead the way. His older son was at his side and the Duke of Rhoden and the seven Chieftains, all but the Oldest one at Celidon, where they had to go. Behind them, mounted and waiting, were five hundred men of Brennin and every single Rider of the Plain save one. He forbade himself to think of the one. He saw Davor and Tore and recognized the glitter in the dark man's eyes.

He rose up in his saddle. "In the name of Light," he cried, "to Celidon!"

"To Celidon!" they roared with one voice.

Ivor turned his horse to the north. Ahead, the auberei were watching. He nodded once.

They rode.

Tabor deferred quietly to the gathered shamans, who in turn deferred to his mother. In the morning, following the Aven's instructions, they set about moving across the river to the last camp in the very corner of the Plain, where the land began to rise toward the mountains. The river would offer some slight defense, and the mountains a place to hide if it came to that.

It went quickly, with few tears, even from the very young ones. Tabor asked two of the older boys to help him with Gereint, but they were frightened by the shaman's face and he couldn't really blame them. He made the hammock himself, then got his sister to carry Gereint with him. They forded the river on foot at a shallow place. Gereint showed no awareness of them at all. Liane did well, and he told her so. She thanked him. After she had gone, he stayed a while with the shaman in the dark house where they had set him down. He thought about his praising Liane, and her thanking him, and of how much had changed.

Later, he went to check with his mother. There were no problems. By early afternoon they were all in the new camp. It was crowded, but with the men gone there was enough room in a camp built for four tribes. It was painfully quiet. The children weren't laughing, Tabor realized.

From the slopes of the mountain east of the camp a pair of keen eyes had been watching them all morning. And now, as the woman and children of the Dalrei uneasily settled in to their new camp, all their thoughts far away, in the north by Celidon, the watcher began to laugh. His laughter went on for a long time, quite unheard, save by the wild creatures of the mountains who did not understand or care. Soon enough-there was plenty of time-the watcher rose and started back east, carrying word. He was still laughing.

It was Kim's turn to lead. They had been switching after every rest period since they had left the horses behind and begun to climb. This was their fourth day, the third in the mountains. It wasn't too bad yet, here in the pa.s.s. Brock had said that the next day would be hardest, and then they would be close to Khath Meigol.

He hadn't asked anything about what would happen then.

In spite of herself, she was deeply grateful for his companionship and as deeply admiring of the stoic way in which he was leading her to a place more haunted than any other in Fionavar. He had believed her, though, had trusted her when she said that the ghosts of the Paraiko were not roaming with their bloodcurse in the mountain pa.s.s.

The Paraiko themselves were there. In their caves. Alive. And, in some way she still hadn't seen, being held.

She looked back. Brock was trudging st.u.r.dily along just behind, carrying most of their gear: one fight she'd lost. The Dwarves were even more stubborn than the Fords, it seemed.

"Break time," she called down. "Looks like a flat ledge where the trail bends up there." Brock grunted agreement.

She scrambled up; had to use her hands a couple of times, but it really wasn't too hard. She'd been right, there was a flat plateau there, even bigger than she'd guessed. A perfect place to stop and rest.

Unfortunately, it was occupied.

She was grabbed and muzzled before she could scream a warning. All unsuspecting, Brock followed her up and within seconds they were both disarmed, she of her dagger, he of his axe, and tied quite securely.

They were forced to sit in the middle of the plateau as the large level s.p.a.ce gradually filled with their captors.

After a little while another figure leaped up from the trail along which they'd been climbing. He was a big man with a matted black beard. He was bald, and had a green tattooed design etched into his forehead and his cheeks. It showed beneath the beard as well. He took a moment to register their presence, then he laughed.

No one else had made a sound. There were perhaps fifty figures surrounding them. The bald, tattooed man walked commandingly into the center and stood over Kim and Brock. For a moment he looked down at them. Then he drew back a booted foot and viciously kicked the Dwarf in the side of the head. Brock crumpled, blood pouring from his scalp.

Kim drew breath to scream, and he kicked her in the side. In agony, retching for air, she heard him laugh again.

"Do you know," the bald man asked his companions in a gutteral voice, "what the Dalrei have done down below?"

Kim closed her eyes. She wondered how many of her ribs were broken. If Brock was dead.

Save us, she heard within her mind. The slow chanting. Oh, save us.

There had been a time when Dave hadn't regarded any of this as his concern at all. That had changed, long ago, and not because of any abstract awareness of the interwoven threads of all the worlds. It had been Ivor and Liane, his memories of them as he'd ridden south to Paras Derval a year ago. After the terror of the Mountain, it had been the presence of Levon and Tore beside him, and then it had been battle by Llewenmere, when men he knew had died-slain by loathsome creatures he could not help but hate. There had been brothers found in Pendaran Wood and, finally, there had been Jennifer and what had been done to her.

It was his war now too.

He'd always been an athlete and had prided himself on that as much as surviving the rigors of law school. He'd never let himself get out of shape and, in the season after their return home when they waited to go back to Fionavar-for Loren to come for them, or Kim to have her long-sought dream-he had worked his body harder than ever before. He'd had an idea of what might lie ahead. Dave was in better physical condition than at any point in his life.

And he had never ached so much in every muscle and bone, or been more brutally exhausted. At any point in his life.

They had ridden through the night, by torchlight until the moon rose and then by its shining. He had been in the saddle from Paras Derval the two days before that, too, riding at speed. But that speed, for which Mabon had gently chided Levon, was as nothing compared to the headlong night ride of the Dalrei, north behind their Aven.

He'd wondered about the horses during the night and even more now as the sun rose on their right-wondered how long they could sustain this killing speed. They did, though, they kept it up, pounding over the gra.s.s without rest. They were not raithen, but every one of the horses had been bred and trained and loved by the Dalrei on this open prairie, and this was their finest hour in a thousand years. Dave stroked the streaming mane of the stallion he now rode and felt a great vein pulsing in its neck. It was a black horse-like Aileron's. Who, Dave prayed, silently, was riding his own black not far behind them now, alerted by the lios alfar.

It was Levon who made his father stop before the sun climbed overhead. Who ordered them all to stretch and eat. To walk their horses and let them drink of the waters of Rienna by Cynmere, where they had come. Men falling down with utter fatigue could not fight a battle. On the other hand, they had to win the race to Celidon and to Adein, if they could. Dave chewed some meat and bread, drank from the cold waters of the river, did his knee bends and flexes, and was back up in the saddle before the rest time was done. So too, he saw, was every other man in the army.

They rode.

It would be the stuff of legend and of song if any generations came after them, to tell old stories and sing them. Sing the ride of Ivor, who rode to Celidon with the Dalrei behind him through a wild night and a day to meet the army of the Dark and to battle them on the Plain in the name of Light.

Dave let the black have its head as he had for the whole journey. He felt the churning power of its strides, unflagging even now, despite the weight it bore, and he drew grimmer resolution yet from the heart of the horse that carried him.

He was close behind the Aven and the Chieftains when they saw the lone auberei come streaking toward them. The sun was over to the west now, starting down. Ahead of them the single auberei stopped, then expertly turned his horse and began racing along with them in stride with Ivor's grey.

"Where are they?" the Aven screamed.

"Coming to the river, even now!"

Dave drew a breath. Rakoth's army had not reached Celidon.

"Will we beat them there?" he heard Ivor cry.

"I don't know!" the auberei replied despairingly.

Dave saw Ivor rise up in his saddle, then. "In the name of Light!" the Aven roared and urged his horse forward. Somehow, they all did. Somehow the horses increased their speed. Dave saw Ivor's grey hurtle past the auberei who were leading them and he threw the black after it, feeling the horse respond with a courage that humbled him. A blurred thunder on the Plain they were, akin to the great swifts of the eltor themselves.

He saw Celidon whip by on their right. Had an impression of standing stones much like Stonehenge, though not fallen, not fallen yet. He glimpsed, beyond the stones, the great camp at mid-Plain, this heart of the Dalrei's home for twelve hundred years. Then they were past, and flying, flying to the river in the waning of the afternoon and, seeing Tore, beside him, loosen his sword, Dave drew his axe at last from where it hung by his saddle. He caught Tore's eye; their glances held for a second. He looked ahead for Levon and saw him, sword drawn, looking back at them as he rode.

They cleared a rise in the land. He saw the Adein sparkle in the sun. He saw the svart alfar, hideous green creatures he knew, and larger dun-colored ones as well. They were beginning to wade across the river. Only beginning. Ivor had come in time. A thing to be sung forever, if there should be anyone to sing.

For there were very, very many foes coming to them. The Plain north of Adein was dark with the vastness of Rakoth's army. Their harsh cries rang in the air: alarm at the sight of the Dalrei and then high, mocking triumph at how few there were.

His axe held ready, Dave raced down behind Ivor. His heart lurched to see the ranks of the svart alfar part to make way for urgach mounted upon slaug, and there were hundred of them, hundreds upon hundreds, among thousands upon thousands of the svart alfar.

He thought about death. Then, briefly, of his parents and his brother, who might never know. He thought about Kevin and Jennifer, of the two brothers with him now, of the slaughter by Llewenmere a year ago. He saw the leader of the urgach, the largest of them all, saw that it was clad mockingly in white, and with his heart and soul he hated it.

"Revor!" he cried with all the Dalrei, and, "Ivor!" with all of them. Then he reached the Adein, weariness gone, blood frenzy rising like a flood, and there was war.

They did not cross the river; it was the only feature of the level gra.s.slands that gave them any edge at all. The svart alfar were small, even the dun-colored ones, and unmounted; they had to wade across Adein and up its banks into the swords of the Dalrei. Dave saw Tore sheath his blade and draw his bow, and soon the arrows of the Riders were flying over the river to wreak death on the other side. Only in pa.s.sing did he grasp this, for he was in the midst of chaos and spurting blood, wheeling the black horse along the bank, hammering the axe down again and again, scything, chopping, once stabbing a svart with it when there was no room to swing. He felt the svart's breastbone crack under his thrust.

He tried to stay close to Levon and Ivor, but the ground was slippery with blood and river water, and then a cl.u.s.ter of the urgach came between on the terrifying, six-legged slaug, and he was suddenly fighting for sheer survival.

They were being forced back from the river; they could not stand and fight level with the urgach. The Adein was running red with blood now in the waning light, and there were so many svart alfar dead and dying in the stream that the living ones were crossing over the bodies of the dead behind the urgach and the slaug.

By Dave's side, Tore was fighting with a sword again. A tall warrior from North Keep was next to him, and desperately the three of them tried to hold close to the river, knowing how they would be overrun if they fell back too far. An urgach crashed up to Dave. He smelt the fetid breath of the horned slaug; the black horse wheeled sideways without command. The heavy sword of the urgach whistled past Dave's head, and, before it could come back, Dave leaned forward and with all his strength buried the axe in the ugly, hairy head. He jerked it free and lashed a backhand blow at the slaug even as the urgach slid like a tree to the bloodied ground.

A kill, but even as he drew breath, he saw another of the huge creatures angling for him, and he knew he could not keep this up, he could not hold this line. Tore, too, had killed and was desperately turning to face another slaug-mounted foe. The svarts were crossing the river now in numbers, and with a sickness in his heart, Dave saw how many were yet to come, and that they were using knives and short swords to cut open the Riders' horses from below.

Incoherently, he screamed, and as his battle rage rose up again, he kicked the black horse to meet the first oncoming slaug. He was in close too fast for the startled urgach to swing its sword. With his left hand Dave raked savagely at its eyes, and as it howled, he killed it with a short swing of the axe.

"Davor!" he heard. A warning too late. He felt pain lance through his left side and, looking down, saw that a svart had stabbed him from below. Tore killed it. Dave pulled the dagger free from his ribs, gasping. Blood followed. There was another urgach coming toward him, and two more beyond Tore. The North Keep man was down. They were almost alone near the river-the Dalrei were falling back; even the Aven was withdrawing. Dave looked at Tore, saw a deep gash on the other's face, and read bitterest despair in his eyes.

Then, from over the river, north where the Dark was, he heard the sound of singing, high and clear. Dave turned as the urgach hesitated and, looking, caught his breath in joy and wonder.

Over the Plain from the north and west the lios alfar were riding to war. Bright and glorious they were, behind their Lord, whose hair shone golden in the light, and they sang as they came out from the Shadowland at last.

Swift were their horses, pa.s.sing swift their blades, fierce was the fire in the hearts of the Children of Light. Into the ranks of the svarts they rode, sharp and glittering, and the foot soldiers of the Dark screamed with hate and fear to see them come.

The urgach were all on the south bank now. The terrible giant in white roared a command, and a number of them turned back north, trampling scores of the svart alfar, living and dead, as they did.

Shouting with relief, ignoring the flowering pain in his side, Dave hastened to follow, to kill the urgach as they withdrew, to claim the riverbank again. Then, by the water, he heard Tore say, "Oh, Cernan. No!" And looking up into the sky he felt joy turn to ashes in his mouth.

Overhead, like a moving cloud of death, Avaia descended, and with her, grey and black, darkening the sky, came at least three hundred of her brood. The swans of Maugrim came down from the unrelenting heavens and the lios alfar were blotted by darkness and began to die.

The urgach in white screamed again, this time in brutal triumph, and the slaug turned a second time, leaving the lios to the swans and the emboldened svarts, and the Dalrei were beleaguered again by overmastering numbers.

Hacking his way east toward where Ivor-still riding, still wielding his blade-had also regained the river, Dave saw Barth and Navon fighting side by side near the Aven. Then he saw the huge leader of the urgach come up to them and a warning shout tore from his raw throat. The babies in the wood, Tore's babies and his own, the ones they had guarded together. The sword of the giant urgach crashed in an arc that seemed to bruise the very air. It cut through Barth's neck as through a flower stem, and Dave saw the boy's head fly free and blood fountain before it fell into the trampled mud by Adein. The same sword stroke descending sliced heavily, brutally, into Navon's side, and he saw the boy slide from his horse even as he heard a terrifying sound.

He realized that he had made the sound. His own side was sticky with blood. He saw Tore, wild-eyed with hate, surge past him toward the urgach in white. He tried to keep up. Three svarts barred his way. He killed two with his axe and heard the other's head crack open under the hooves of his black horse.

He glanced north and saw the lios battling Avaia and the swans. There were not enough. There had never been enough. They had come out from Daniloth because they would not stand by and watch the Dalrei die. And now they were dying too.

"Oh, Cernan," he heard someone say, in despair. Cechtar's voice. "This hour knows our name!"

Dave followed the big Rider's glance to the east. And saw. The wolves were coming. Both north and south of the river. And leading them was a giant animal, black with a splash of silver between his ears, and he knew from what he had been told that this was Galadan of the andain, lieutenant to Maugrim. It was true. The hour knew their name.

He heard his name. From within.

Not the summoning of death as the Dalrei believed; not the call of the final hour. Absurdly, the inner voice he heard sounded like Kevin Laine's. Dave, he heard again. You idiot. Do it now!

And on the thought, he reached down and, bringing Owein's Horn to his lips, he sounded it then with all the strength that was left in him.

It was Light again, the sound, and the Dark could not hear it. Even so, they slowed in their advance. His head was tilted back as he blew. He saw Avaia watching him; saw her wheel suddenly aloft. He listened to the sound he made and it was not the same as before. Not moonlight on snow or water, nor sunrise, nor candles by a hearth. This was the noon sun flashing from a sword, it was the red light of a burning fire, it was the torches they had carried on the ride last night, it was the cold hard glitter of the stars.

And from between the stars, Owein came. And the Wild Hunt was with him, hurtling down from far above the swans, and every one of the shadowy kings had a drawn, upraised sword, and so too did the child who led them.

Into the phalanx of Avaia's brood they flew, smoke on flying horses, shadowy death in the darkening sky, and nothing in the air could withstand them, and they killed. Dave saw Avaia leave her sons and daughters to their doom and flash away north in flight. He heard the wild laughter of the kings he had unleashed, and he saw them circle one by one over him and raise swords in salute.

Then the swans were all dead or flying away and the Hunt descended on Fionavar for the first time in so many thousand years. Galadan's wolves were fleeing and the svart alfar and the urgach upon slaug, and Dave saw the shadowy kings wheel above them, killing at will, and there were tears pouring down his begrimed face.