Gilden-Fire Read online

finally halted the company. The darkest facets of the night seemed to flourish under the trees; and though the Ranyhyn were still able to make their way, the Bloodguard could not see well enough to avoid any ambush which might lie ahead. Yet he felt an odd reluctance when he gave the command to settle the company for the night in a small open glade. He did not like to remain at the mercy of the Forest.

  In Grimmerdhore the night was proof against the swarms of fireflies that hovered and darted through the woods. They blinked and danced like beacons for the myriad denizens of the dark - they flew around in a brave enchanting display - but they were effectless, made nothing else visible. When the Lords went to sleep on a flat mossy rock, and the Blood guard. spread out over the glade to stand watch, their security was marred by the fireflies. Those lights stiffened the darkness, walled it up. They drew the attention of the Bloodguard, and so helped to conceal everything else At last, Korik and his comrades were forced to watch with their eyes closed - to rely on hearing, and smell,

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  and the touch of the ground under their bare feet.

  The next morning at the first night-thinning of dawn they resumed their progress. At first, Lord Hyrim was inclined to talk, as if he wished to dispel the enshrouding gloom. For a pretext, he took his horsemanship: he claimed in defiance of his obvious difficulties that it had improved. On that and related subjects he rambled through the dawn as if the rest of the company were listening to him spellbound. But gradually his speech became frayed like his robe, and as the sun rose he faltered into silence. Despite the sunlight, Grimmerdhore's mood was darkening around them; and he could no longer pretend he did not feel it.

  As they approached the heart of the Forest, they were drawing closer to the source of Grimmerdhore's inarticulate Ire.

  By noon, the mood of the Forest dominated everything. Even the familiar creatures of the woods had fallen into a silence of their own:

  no bird-calls, no chattering or scurrying, no noise of life lifted itself up against the prevailing

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  dumb passion of the trees. Instead, something. new came into the air - something musky and. mephitic. It irritated Korik's nostrils like the smell of burning blood, made him want to jerk his head aside as if to avoid a blow. Lord Shetra barked softly, 'Wolves!' and he knew that she was right. Their spoor hung in the air as if there were a great pack running just ahead of the Ranyhyn.

  The smell troubled Brabha. He shook his mane, shorted angrily. But when Korik asked the old Ranyhyn if the wolves were nearby, Brabha indicated with a toss of his head that they were not. Then Korik urged the company ahead until it was moving as fast as Lord Hyrim's inept seat permitted.

  Throughout the afternoon, they thrust constantly deeper into Grimmerdhore's distress. After a time, the reek of the wolves stopped growing, and as a result it lost some of its immediacy. But the mood of the trees suffered no such diminution. Rather, the company seemed to be riding into a deepening sea of emotion. Though the lingering consciousness of

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  Grimmerdhore had been reduced to hebetude by time and the ancient slaughter of the One Forest, it was slowly taking heat, mounting toward outrage. In the evening, the breeze stiffened, lifted up the murmurous language of the trees and gave it a tone of execration - as if Grimmerdhore were struggling against slumber, against the inflexibility of wood and the chains of old time, to utter a root-deep hatred. When the riders stopped for the night, the darkness, and the smell of the wolves, and the strangled howl of the trees clung to them. And there were no fireflies.

  Korik gauged that they were halfway through the Forest.

  'But all in all,' Lord Hyrim said in a tone of hollow cheer, 'we have been fortunate. Grimmerdhore is dismayed in good sooth. Yet it is in my heart that this dismay is not the pain of the Despiser's presence. It is not his armies which lie before us, but rather some other instance of his malice.'

  'And by that we are made fortunate?' Shetra asked tightly.

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  'Of a surety.' Hyrim tried to summon his wonted playfulness; but his tone failed. 'We are but two Lords and fifteen Bloodguard. Against an army we are doomed. But perhaps we will suffice to flee this smaller ill.'

  In response, the stiff Lord glowered at him without speaking; but her heart was elsewhere.

  She and Hyrim lay down, attempted to sleep. But the mood of the Forest grew, seemed. now to gain virulence with each passing moment. Both Lords had given up rest and were on their feet staring into the dark with the Bloodguard when the first glimmer of light appeared north of them.

  As they watched it, transfixed, the light became stronger and sharper, spread a hot orange glow through the trees. And with every brighter surge of glow, the Forest increased its silent cry of horror, outrage.

  'Fire!' Lord Shetra gritted fiercely. 'By the Seven! A fire has been set. In Grimmerdhore!'

  - Call the Ranyhyn Korik commanded. Strike camp. Take formation. We must shun this peril.

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  Gasping, 'Melenkunon abatha!' Lord Hyrim ran toward his mount. An instinctive energy possessed him, and he struggled without help onto the back of the Ranyhyn. Clutching his staff, knotting his other hand in the mane of the horse, he turned toward the fire.

  Lord Shetra followed him in an instant. She vaulted onto her Ranyhyn, sprang forward, plunged through the underbrush after Hyrim.

  - Halt them! Korik shouted. I will have no more Kevins. The mission must not fail!

  He leaped astride Brabha and galloped after the Lords. But he saw through the fire lit woods that he would not catch them in time. Shetra rode well; and the Ranyhyn bearing Hyrim displayed fine skill by keeping him in his seat.

  Korik shouted after them, commanding them to stop with all the metal of his personal strength.

  Lord Hyrim made no response. He crashed through the woods as if he were oblivious to caution. But Lord Shetra wheeled her Ranyhyn once. Immediately, Korik reached

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  her side. Sill and Runnik flashed past in pursuit of Hyrim.

  'The mission is in our hands,' Korik snapped to Shetra. 'We must flee this peril.'

  'And let Grimmerdhore burn?' she almost shrieked. 'We would cease to be Lords!'

  Slapping the Ranyhyn with her heels, she raced after Hyrim and his pursuers.

  Korik followed her with the other Bloodguard. He demanded the best speed Brabha could manage through the trees. Ahead of him, Lord Hyrim crested the hill and dropped out of sight, dashing straight into the glow of the fire. But he was no longer alone. Sill had joined him, and Runnik was only one stride behind.

  Moments later, Korik topped the hill with Shetra, Cerrin, and the other Bloodguard galloping beside him. Before them was a wide, almost treeless valley shaped like a bowl. The fire raged in its bottom. And around the conflagration capered a score of black forms.

  Ur-viles.

  They were burning a huge Gilden.

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  As the company charged down the hillside, Korik could hear the surrounding Forest's choked effort to scream.

  He bent low over Brabha's neck, urged the Ranyhyn faster. Ahead, he picked out the loremaster of the ur-viles. It whirled its tapering iron stave and slapped power in a black liquid at the tree. At each new burst of fire, it slavered gleefully. But when it saw the approaching company, it barked a command at the other ur-viles. The whole group dropped its rapacious dance and sprinted away to the north.

  Lord Hyrim ignored them. He went right to the fire, tumbled from the back of his mount. When he hit the ground, he fell, then rolled and bounced up again. Standing almost in the blaze, he held his staff over his head with both hands and began shouting words of power.

  The next moment, Shetra rushed past him after the fleeing ur-viles. Like an angry hawk, she swooped across the bottom of the valley and started up the northern slope. Korik and the other Bloodguard hurried behind her as she closed on her prey.

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  At a sharp call from the loremaster, the ur-viles turned to fi
ght. Instantly, they formed their close fighting wedge, with the loremaster at the point. In this formation, they could focus all their combined power through the loremaster's stave. As Lord Shetra attacked, the wedge lashed out at her. Her Ranyhyn jumped aside to avoid the loremaster's black thrust; and momentum carried her past the wedge.

  Before the ur-viles could react, Korik sprang from Brabha's back. He dove over the Loremaster, crashed like a battering-ram into the centre of the wedge. Pren, Tull, and three more Bloodguard followed him; and their force scattered the ur-viles, breaking the concentration of the wedge.

  But these attacks still left the loremaster untouched. While Shetra wheeled back to the battle, the loremaster threw power into the air with its stave and gave a raw barking cry like a signal. As he fought, Korik looked about him for hidden enemies.

  Then Lord Shetra charged again. Holding her staff by one end, she chopped savagely at

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  the loremaster. It caught her blow with its stave; but without the wedge behind it, it could not match her. With a hot blue burst of force her staff split the iron stave. The loremaster fell, crushed by the backlash of the concussion.

  During the blast, Korik received an urgent call from Sill. He completed his last blow, then left the remaining ur-viles to the abundant strength of his comrades and spun away to look around the valley.

  Down at the bottom of the bowl, Lord Hyrim was laboring strenuously to save the Gilden. In a voice shrill with strain, he summoned the Earthpower to his aid. And he was making progress. In answer to his invocations, water bubbled up from the grass around the tree - already it was deep enough to touch his ankles - and the fire gradually sloughed away from the broad limbs, dropped down as if the tree were shrugging off of cloak of flame.

  Still, the process was hard, slow. Hyrim sounded exhausted, and he had not subdued a quarter of the blaze.

  But that was not the meaning of Sill's

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  shout. After one brief glance at Hyrim, Korik saw the other peril.

  There were wolves standing shoulder to shoulder around the entire rim of the valley.

  They were poised and silent, gazing intently down into the bowl: their eyes reflected the fire, so that the valley seemed ringed by a thousand red pairs of waiting fireflies. But even as Korik scanned them, took a rough estimate of their numbers, the leader of the pack threw back its head and gave a long high yipping howl.

  Brabha returned a furious neigh, as if he were answering a challenge.

  It affected the wolves like a tantara. At once, they broke into a hungry growl that pulsed in the air like the turmoil of seas. And they started down into the valley at a slow walk.

  - A trap, Cerrin said. We have been snared.

  Korik called to Lord Shetra, then bounded onto Brabha's back and pelted down the hillside toward the tree. The rest of the company followed him instantly. As he reached the fire,

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  he ordered the Bloodguard into a defensive formation around him. To Lord Hyrim, he shouted, 'Come!'

  Hyrim did not turn his head. With sweat running down his cheeks and a wide intensity like obsession in his eyes, he kept working for the tree: he invoked water as if he were heaving it out of the ground by main force of will, vitalized the tree's resistance to flame, and now pulled at the fire itself, drawing it slowly tongue by tongue, away from the branches. But through the slow beats of the lillianrill chant he wove for the Gilden, he hissed to Korik, 'It must be saved!'

  - This task consumes him, Sill said. He urges the mission to go without him.

  - He will be slain, Korik snapped.

  - Not while I live.

  - You will not live long.

  - That is the way with him, Sill shrugged silently.

  Korik had no time to debate whether or not he should desert one Lord for the sake of the mission. He did not intend to make that choice.

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  Summon or succour. Swiftly, he threw himseff from Brabha, stepped in front of Hyrim. He would not allow the son of Hoole to commit suicide. Almost wincing at the way he was forced to violate his Vowed service to any Lord, he shouted into Hyrim 's concentration, 'Will you sacrifice the Giants for one tree?'

  The Lord did not stop. His eyes reflected the fire with a ferocity Korik had never seen in him before. He seemed to be sweating passion as he panted, 'The choice is not so simple!'

  Korik reached out a hand to wrest Hyrim away from his mad purpose. But at that instant Shetra barked, 'Korik, you forget yourself!' and cast her power like a shout to Hyrim's support. The sheer force of their combined exertion made Korik recoil a step.

  The wolves were almost upon them: the bristling growl filled the air with the sound of fangs.

  Briskly, Korik marshalled his comrades arnund him on their mounts. The Ranyhyn champed and snorted tensely, but held their

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  positions against the stow advance of the wolves.

  Together, the Lords gave a wild cry; and the light of Gilden-fire fell suddenly out of the night.

  As darkness rushed back into the valley, Hyrim stumbled against Korik, nearly fell. Korik half threw the Lord to Sill, who boosted Hyrim up onto

  his mount.

  Shouting the company into motion, Korik leaped for Brabha's back. The next moment, the leading wolves attacked. But with a heave of their mighty muscles, the Ranyhyn started together toward the east. In close formation, they struck the springing wall of the wolves - and the wall broke like a wave on a jutting fist of rock. The Ranyhyn surged through the pack, shedding wolves like water, striving to gain speed. At first their head-on charge threw the pack into confusion. But then the wolves chasing them came close enough to leap onto their backs. Pren and four other Bloodguard in the rear of the company were about to be engulfed.

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  Lord Shetra slowed her mount. Reacting instinctively, the Bloodguard parted behind her, let her drop back beside Pren. As the flood of wolves came toward her, she swung her staff at them. The blow knocked down the first beasts and set flame to them, so that they flared up like tinder. The following pack jumped aside from the sudden fire: the rush was momentarily broken.

  In that respite, the Ranyhyn reached full stride. Plunging to keep away from the fangs, they laboured up the slope. The pack raged at their heels; but they were Ranyhyn, swifter even than the yellow kresh. By the time they topped the valley's rim and thundered back into the closed woods, they were three strides ahead of the pack.

  Then through the depths of Grimmerdhore the Ranyhyn raced the wolves. Korik could no longer see as well as the horses, so he abandoned to them all concern for the direction and safety of the run. Unchecked, they dodged deftly through the night as if they were riding the wind. But still the Forest hampered them,

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  interfered with their running, prevented them from their best speed. And the wolves were not hampered. They swept along the ground easily, passed through the woods like a black tide, When they gave tongue to the chase, they did not break stride.

  The gap between the pack and the company shrank and grew as Grimmerdhore thickened and thinned. Through one tight copse Pren and his clan-kin had to fend off wolves on both sides. But fortunately the terrain beyond was relatively open; and the Ranyhyn were able to restore the gap.

  During it all - the dodging, the surging pace, the unevenness of the ground - Lord Hyrim clung to his seat. He was kept there by the proud skill of his mount. And the other Ranyhyn aided him by choosing their ways so that his horse had the straightest path through the trees. When he observed this, Korik applauded silently, and his chest grew tight with admiration, in spite of the other demands on his attention.

  Still the race went on. The Ranyhyn

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  pounded through the Forest with growing abandon, discounting the safety of the company more and more for the sake of speed. As a result the riders had to hold their seats when they were lashed by branches, wrenched from side to side while the horses evaded looming
trunks. But the savage pursuit of the wolves did not abate. Clearly, the will which drove them was strong and compelling; and Korik guessed that a powerful band of ur-viles remained in Grimmerdhore - a force which used the wolves just as it had used the Gilden and the other ur-viles. But such thoughts were of no value now. The wolves were the immediate danger. Hundreds of ravenous throats howled: hundreds of jaws gaped and bit furiously, as if they were too eager to wait for the raw flesh of the company. The Ranyhyn gave their best speed - and the pack did not fall behind.

  Korik was revolving desperate solutions in his mind when the company broke out into a broad open glade. Under the stars, he saw the ravine which cut through the centre of the glade across the company's path. It was an old dry

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  watercourse, deeply eroded before its source turned elsewhere. And it was far too wide for the wolves: they could not leap it. If the Ranyhyn could manage the jump, the company would gain precious time.

  But when the wolves burst out of the woods, they broke into hard howls of triumph. In a few strides, Korik saw his danger: the ravine appeared to be too wide even for the Ranyhyn. For an instant, he hesitated. In his long years, he had heard the shrieking of horses far too often. He knew how the Ranyhyn would scream if they shattered their bones against the opposite wall of the ravine. But their night-sight was better than his: he could not make this decision for them. He silenced his fears, shouted to his comrades:

  - Let the Ranyhyn choose! They will not err! But ward Lord Hyrim!

  Then Runnik reached the ravine. His mount gathered itself, seemed for an instant to shrink, to coil in on its strength - and sprang. Already it was too late for the rest of the riders to stop; but Korik kept his eyes on Runnik,