'That's lucky,' he said. 'Just one skin. These others will be easier.

But, for all his confidence and skill, it took him several minutes to pull free sufficient blocks to make a gap large enough for the men to pa.s.s through and sweat was running down his face when he had finished.

Hawklan had Arinndier and Dacu lifted through the gap before he roused them, and then the silent race was on again. As Isloman replaced some of the blocks, he caught a glimpse of lights in the distance.

'They're here,' he whispered urgently to Yatsu.

Yatsu nodded. The Mathidrin had obviously moved through the house slowly, as he had hoped, fearing ambush after finding the bound householders. With luck they would continue to do so through the dark and complex roof s.p.a.ce. Then Isloman's replaced blocks would be no slight obstacle. Each one had made two of Yatsu's men stagger. But time was still against them, and he could not begin to a.s.sess what deployment would be happening down in the street. They could simply be running towards disaster. He dismissed the thought. It served no useful purpose even if it were true.

All too soon, however, the thought presented itself again as another wall blocked their path. This was indeed the end of the long row of houses and once again three of the men disappeared into the blackness behind them.

Yatsu looked at the wall then, beckoning Isloman, moved to one side until they were both crouching in the eaves. Hawklan saw Isloman nodding and abruptly, over the sibilant cautious breathing of the waiting group, there was a sharp, brittle crack, and a bright jagged splash of light fell into the gloom, dimming the torchlight and illuminating a myriad scurrying dust motes. The whole group stood motionless in this new twilight. Yatsu's hand went up, unnecessarily, for silence and his head turned slightly as he listened to the sounds that were entering through the gap at a more leisurely pace than the sunlight. Apparently satisfied, he nodded to Isloman, who quietly removed more tiles. Yatsu picked up several pieces and put them in his pouch. 'There might be archers out there.' Hawklan heard him say. Cautiously, and a little incongruously, Yatsu stood up and peered out of the opening. As he reappeared, a crash sounded flatly through the roof s.p.a.ce, followed rapidly by another and another, each more distant than the last.

Isloman's blocks had been located and were being prised aside.

Then came a brief frantic scuffling.

Three figures came running silently out of the darkness. Yatsu raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

'We let three get through before we killed them, then we killed two in the gap,' said one. 'Left them all skewered on their own swords and wedged there. That'll slow them down.' Yatsu nodded and turnedhis attention back to the others. 'Quickly, form a ladder. I can't see the alley, but we'll have to go over the top.'

Two men climbed through the gap in the roof and Isloman followed them.

Yatsu beckoned Hawklan urgently. 'Get Arinndier and Dacu across first,' he said. 'We'll fetch the other Lords.' Hawklan looked out through the gap and felt his knees start to buckle. He deduced they were above the archway at the end of the alley, but he could not see it, nor the storeys above it. He could see only the pitched roof that topped it. It was not too long, spanning the narrow alley as it did, but it was some distance below where he was standing and it fell away very steeply from its pointed ridge down into the alley. A chasm whose base he could not see.

'Quickly, man,' said Yatsu, as he hesitated in the gap. The two Goraidin had clambered down on to the roof and, with one sitting on the shoulders of the other, they leant against the wall to form a human ladder down on to the ridge. Isloman was standing slightly bow-legged, straddling the ridge at the far side, where it continued past the high wall of the opposite building to form a valley in which they could move in comparative safety, and unseen from below.

Without allowing himself the luxury of any further thought, Hawklan levered himself through the opening and gingerly slithered backwards down the roof and down the two men until his feet touched the narrow ridge. Cautiously he looked up and saw Dacu being lowered down the same route. He reached up and caught the man's belt as he was released. But Dacu was a Goraidin and, injured though he was, needed little help. He twisted round Hawklan and scuttled along the ridge almost before Hawklan realized what he was doing.

Arinndier, however, proved more of a problem. Fit as he was for his age, he was no Goraidin, and he was a big man. Hawklan heard the two men breathing heavily as they took his weight, and saw feet shifting on the sloping tiles, and hands gripping the wall as they struggled for a better hold to accommodate the unbalanced fumblings of the injured man.

As he touched the roof, he lurched backwards and, staggering into Hawklan, fell heavily across the ridge. A substantial groan escaped his gagged mouth, and his eyes dosed in pain, but he was safe enough. Hawklan was less fortunate. As he staggered to regain his own balance, one foot skidded from under him and sent him sprawling forward. His left hand reached out for the ridge, but fell short.

As he watched his hand sliding over the tiles, he felt the narrow alleyway at his back luring him down with a dark siren song. A fearful screeching filled his ears as his fingernails dug into the hard tiles seeking purchase in their tiny blemishes to slow his slide. He saw Arinndier's eyes opening in horror and Isloman starting forward with appalling slowness.

Abruptly he felt his feet slide over into nothingness and an eerie calmness came over him. Now will come all my answers, he thought, but reflexively the fingers of his right hand found an open joint between two tiles and drove themselves into it ferociously. For a fraction of a second this stayed his slide, then his left wrist was seized in a powerful grip to stop it completely.

Seeing Hawklan fall, Isloman had seized the ridge with one hand and flung himself after his friend. Now he dragged him up the slope and unceremoniously draped him over the ridge next to Arinndier before pulling himself back up. 'Stay there,' he whispered unnecessarily.

In the few seconds that he lay there, gathering his wits, Hawklan realized the Goraidin were retrieving Arinndier and shepherding the Lords over him. As he tried to stand up, two pairs of hands gripped himand dragged him the remaining short distance to the comparative safety of the valley gutter on the far side of the alley.

'Are you all right?' asked Yatsu casually, as he stood looking alternately after the rest of the party departing along the roof and at the hole in the roof they had just left.

Hawklan glared at him balefully. 'No, you . . .' he began, but was checked partly by the flicker of a smile on the Goraidin's face and partly by a cry from behind. Turning he saw a Mathidrin emerging from the hole. He was calling to attract the attention of others, presumably below.

'After the rest, quickly,' said Yatsu, ushering Hawklan along and at the same time reaching into his pouch. Looking round after a few paces, Hawklan saw the Mathidrin ducking rapidly from sight, then he saw Yatsu's arm swinging forward and a large piece of tile go flying through the hole. The second one, he presumed.

'Every moment counts,' said Yatsu, by way of explanation as he came up to him. 'We've got a good chance if they don't spot our first few turns. These roofs spread a long way.'

'I'll gain us some more then,' said Hawklan and, putting his fingers into his mouth, he gave a long penetrating whistle that echoed round the surrounding rooftops and down into the street that fronted the houses they had just left.

It seemed to the trooper who was guarding the horses there that the large black stallion they had found bowed its head as if listening and then spoke to the others. But he did not survive to tell of his impression: a blow from Serian's flailing hoof dispatched him instantly, and the Mathidrin troopers scattered in panic as the horses galloped screaming from the street.

Chapter 39.

Dan-Tor's satisfaction grew apace. So, Hawklan, he thought, you'd hunt me? Me of all creatures. And hunt me to my own lair. He smiled as he arranged the recent events into their new pattern. With Urssain's report of the rooftop escape it was clear beyond doubt now that Hawklan had used disaffected High Guards to start the rioting and effect the release of the four Lords from the Westerclave.

He felt almost jovial. True, Hawklan had eluded him yet again, and the High Guards had shown themselves to be resourceful and terrible fighters, but a bloodied nose would do the Mathidrin no harm, and the benefits that would accrue from Hawklan's error would be considerable.

Only one solitary stain of unease marred his grim rejoicing. Hawklan's reach was far longer than he had imagined. Had not a survivor of a border patrol caught in the rioting reported escorting Hawklan from the border to the City in the guise of an envoy from Orthlund, with a message for Lord Dan-Tor?Before the rioting!

The stain spread and clouded his thoughts. Hawklan had moved subtly, silently, and with great cunning in his preparations, and had erred in his plan only because he, Dan-Tor, had seen the play and joined the game. Indeed, Hawklan's strategy in attacking what he saw as the source of his troubles, and his tactical skill in planning and launching the attack while seemingly absent, showed him to be a dangerous enemy.

Safe from the use of the Old Power because of my own doubts about your true nature, healer, he thought, and now increasingly alert to your peril as a man how deep have you penetrated unfelt into my side, you green-eyed thorn . . .? Dan-Tor set the thought aside. No matter how difficult the task, Hawklan would have to be brought down and bound. Well bound.

But still softly. Very softly.

'Urssain.' Dan-Tor ended his musings abruptly as the spectre of his own Mathidrin patrols rose in front of him.

The waiting Commander snapped to attention.

'This man, Hawklan the Orthlundyn I know him. He's dangerous and very able. While he guides the Lords they'll be difficult to find and, once found, their taking will be expensive. We've too much to do with our City force consolidating the success of the last few days, to have them wasted in a futile search for these renegades which could only end in conflict.'

He stood up and levelled a baleful gaze at Urssain. 'There are reasons why the man Hawklan must not be a.s.sailed. We'll lay a lure to draw back the Lords, and if perchance they're discovered they can be taken, but . . .' Dan-Tor's cold eyes flickered suddenly red and it seemed to Urssain that they filled his entire soul. He caught his breath as if fearful what his least movement might unleash. 'Understand,' said a voice through Urssain's terror. 'And make sure that every last one of your men understands. If found, Hawklan is to be offered courtesy and respect. If he is offered violence or even threat of violence, the perpetrator can look to a death longer and more awful than his wildest nightmares as can those with him.'

When a shaking and fearful Urssain had left, Dan-Tor sat down and closed his eyes leisurely. Now he was satisfied. Now began the real fall of Fyorlund. Now it pa.s.sed the point beyond which it could not recover by its own resource. Years of careful corrosion had done their work. As he tightened his web of fear over the country, the weak, the craven, the appeasers, all those in whom the darker side of humanity dominated, would be squeezed to the surface as out of some weeping sore, to spread the infection even further. Soon Fyorlund would crash down like a great tree, leaving a carca.s.s as host and home for the scavengers who would overrun it. The death knell of Fyorlund would be the birth cry of the new order.

And all sooner than had been planned.

Although the presence of Hawklan disturbed this flow, there was an irony in the balance of events. A longer delay, and Fyorlund would have been weaker, but Ethriss, wherever he lay, might have been nearer waking.

Dan-Tor nodded to himself. There was always a price to be paid. It would differ from one time to another, but paid it would have to be. And when all was finished it would be measured in time only. A mere blinking of the eye to the eternities that were to come.

Beyond the houses from which Hawklan and the others had escaped lay a rambling patchwork roofscape of plains, peaks and valleys as elaborate and varied as any ice-broken mountain range. The group scurried and scrambled across this strange terrain, invisible to the street watchers and overlooked only by a black dot circling high in the summer sky above them. Eventually they were able to drop down into the disused upper storey of one of the many public buildings that littered Vakloss.

The presence of so many Mathidrin on the streets and the shock of the previous days' events kept manypeople to their homes, but daily needs and the innate and ma.s.sive momentum of normal commercial activity had brought more than a few out automatically and, moving cautiously down through the building, Hawklan and Yatsu found themselves looking down from an internal balcony on to a busy trading hall that by its very activity seemed to be trying to scour away the recent horrors.

Hawklan shook his head as he looked down. 'I don't know whether to be happy or sad to see such a sight so soon after what's happened,' he said.

'Think about it later,' Yatsu said sharply. 'We've still got to find a way out of the City.' He cast his mind over his charges. The Lords were sufficiently unkempt to pa.s.s perhaps for labourers or craftsmen, although Arinndier and Dacu were wilting noticeably. However, the Mathidrin uniforms that he and the other Goraidin were wearing were soiled and scuffed and would inevitably attract attention, as would the foreign clothes worn by Hawklan and Isloman. 'It's too dangerous,' he said. 'We're too conspicuous.

We can't risk the Lords being recognized in the streets, or running into any patrols. We'll have to wait for darkness. There are plenty of empty rooms upstairs.' Hawklan made no argument with this conclusion.

'Twilight will be the time to move. Before the globes come on.' For the few remaining hours of daylight, they rested in an empty storeroom high in the building.

'Not too palatial, Lords, I'm afraid,' said Yatsu apologetically. 'Nor too fitting for an Envoy from Orthlund.'

Hreldar flopped on to a pile of sacks. 'It has a door that opens, Commander Yatsu. That's all the palace we need.' Darek and Eldric signalled their agreement with this sentiment, but Arinndier was asleep. He was lying on the wooden floor next to Dacu, both of them resting on makeshift sackcloth pillows.

Hawklan was sitting by them, leaning on a rough wooden pillar. He looked pensive.

'Are they all right?' asked Yatsu.

Hawklan nodded, then smiled. 'Yes,' he said. 'Dacu's body has a resilience that would be the envy of many a man half his age, and the Lord Arinndier's strong and fit for his years. But they'll need rest and careful attention to recover quickly.' Yatsu looked up at the faded and cracked ceiling. 'There'll be precious little rest, and only such attention as you can give them, healer,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

'I'msorry, Yatsu,' Hawklan replied. 'I understand. I didn't mean to burden you further.'

They lapsed into an easy silence and Hawklan looked round at the others.

Once they had decided to wait, the urgency that had been driving them evaporated. Routinely, the Goraidin had examined the escape routes from the building, agreed watches, and then settled themselves down in various places about the storeroom. To a man they were now asleep.

Yatsu caught the look on Hawklan's face and smiled. 'Goraidin see clearly and accept what they see for what it is, Hawklan. They cling to nothing. Not place, object, person nor time. That way lies turmoil, and in turmoil lies fruitless death. Death of the spirit, death of the body, death of love. Only by letting go of what we value can we retain it. I'm sure you understand that, whoever you are.'

Hawklan laid his hand on Yatsu's arm by way of reply. The man's words seemed like a timeless thread of hope and wisdom stretching back through countless generations.

The sinking sun shone in through a small, high window. Looking at the sleeping figures around him, mistyin the half light, Hawklan felt he might be in some Orthlund barn, tired and satisfied after a hard day's harvesting. He focused on the silent motes hovering in the sun's yellow beam and allowed himself to sink into the deep calm pervading the room. The countless tiny lights reminded him of the stars deep in the handle of his sword.

He did not sleep. Instead he seemed to float among the myriad lights, just another speck amongst the uncountable. Strange images and sounds floated by him. Calm at first, a forgotten memory of a time when all was radiance and song, an eternity of time, an endless unfolding into richer and more beautiful patterns. Then a wave of unease, slight and distant, rippled the patterns. A faint clarion call sounded and, with an appalling suddenness, horror and darkness engulfed him as he battled, weary in every fibre of his soul and body, against the endless waves of an unseen enemy that must inevitably triumph. He was choking on his despair and guilt.

Hawklan jerked upright, his eyes wide and sweat slicking his forehead. The sudden movement caused a flurry of eddies in the watching motes and they twisted and darted in the now-reddening light as if trying to escape. Through their dance, Hawklan saw the figure of Andawyr, transparent yet strangely solid in the softly swirling air, and radiating that same embattled weariness and despair. His head was bowed but, as if hearing an unexpected sound, he looked up suddenly and gazed directly at Hawklan. For a moment he stared in disbelief, then a faint hope flickered in his eyes.

'How did you come here, Hawklan?' he said, his voice strained and distant. 'Help me.' His hands reached out in supplication. Unhesitatingly, Hawklan leaned forward and took them. He felt the healing spirit flow through into the figure as if into some terrible wound.

'Ah,' came Andawyr's voice again. 'You're here and not here, just as I'm bound and not bound.

We've hope yet . . . Seek out the Cadwanol and the Guardians . . . His power holds me in thrall . . .

Waken Eth . . .' The figure vanished abruptly and for an instant Hawklan felt a terrible chill seize his hands.

'What are you doing?' a voice hissed in his ear. Turning, he saw Yatsu's alarmed face staring at him. It seemed to be at once very close and very distant. 'What are you doing?' Yatsu repeated.

Hawklan turned to indicate Andawyr, puzzled by Yatsu's question. But the figure was no longer there, although he could still feel the healing flowing from his hands. He blinked in surprise and, as he did so, his head suddenly cleared and he was alone with Yatsu in the storeroom again.

He was half inclined to ask Yatsu if he had seen Andawyr, but he knew it would be to no avail. Whether it was dream or vision, he did not know but, whatever it was, it was for him only to see. He lowered his outstretched arms.

'Just dreaming,' he said apologetically, with a faint smile. 'Just dreaming.'

Yatsu's face, however, indicated that something more urgent than his strange companion's eccentricities was troubling him. 'What's the matter?' Hawklan asked.

'I've been out,' Yatsu replied. 'The Mathidrin are posting Dan-Tor's response to our escapade everywhere.'

'Well?' said Hawklan.

Yatsu looked quickly at the others still lying asleep, then he whispered in Hawklan's ear. Hawklan's eyes opened wide in horror. 'That's beyond me to advise,' he said after a moment. 'You know your own country and the value of these people to it. What will you do?'

Yatsu, however, had clearly made up his mind. 'The Lords mustn't know. Especially Eldric. I'll take the consequences. We must get them out of the City immediately and away to their estates to start raising some real opposition to this man.'

Hawklan looked at him, unable to ease his burden. It had been no error on Eldric's part to accept this man as Commander.

'It's a choice of evils,' Yatsu said. 'No choice really.'

'What about Dacu and Lord Arinndier?' said Hawklan.

Yatsu looked at the two figures on the floor. 'Also no choice,' he said. 'They can't stay here. I can't leave them with any of our friends here, it's too dangerous. They'll have to travel with us. It'll be easier, the further we get from the City. Will you come with us?'

'How long's the journey?' Hawklan asked.

Yatsu shrugged unhappily. 'Anything from one to two weeks, it just depends. Conditions are changing so quickly.'

Hawklan was torn. He was loath to leave the two sick men to face such a journey, but he was loath also to become involved in what was surely to be a protracted and b.l.o.o.d.y dispute between Dan-Tor and the Lords. He had come here to confront Dan-Tor for his own reasons, which, though still ill-defined, seemed more urgent than ever now. Then, there was the renewed urgency of Andawyr's appeal. Go to the Cadwanol. Waken Ethriss.

A cold calculation came into his head. Let the Fyordyn fight. What better protection for Orthlund than their neighbours torn with civil strife? He crushed it angrily. Orthlund would not be served well by neighbours who had fallen into corruption and he sensed that Fyorlund now stood precariously balanced.

The least movement could have consequences that would spread forever.

'I'll come with you, Yatsu,' he said simply. 'Isloman and I must face Dan-Tor at some other time, when he is weaker, or we stronger. I need to know more about you and your people. Fyorlund is perhaps Orthlund's only defence against Dan-Tor's corruption and, at the moment, you are Fyorlund's. I'll help you all I can.'

There was open, honest relief on Yatsu's face. Hawklan's heart went out to him. Here indeed was a man who would be more cruel than his enemy, but who would seek no violence and would stay his hand in victory.

Chapter 40.

Dan-Tor pursued his leisurely walk around the Palace grounds. It was a rare moment for him. A pivotal moment. It had the stillness of a pendulum at the height of its sweep. For a little while there was nothing he could do. For a little while he must sit and wait on the actions, the responses, of others.

It was not a circ.u.mstance he relished. To sit too long was to release thoughts that should be foreverbound. Constrained as he was against the use of the Old Power, the True Power, it was better by far to be scheming, manipulating, subtly betraying, weaving his own patterns into the Great Design that was His, each tiny st.i.tch imperceptibly bringing nearer the whole, as a wind carves its will into a rock over the centuries.

Dan-Tor consoled himself with the knowledge that masks and cunning could soon be dispensed with, at least in part, and knives could be sharpened and used. Now was a time of harsh and sudden reality.

As if echoing his thoughts, the setting sun emerged from behind a cloud and glared across the expansive gardens, dazzling the eyes and throwing long dark shadows which melted down the solidity of the trees and ornaments and cast a strange new landscape of their own.

But mine will be more permanent, he thought. Neither pa.s.sing cloud nor turn of the planet will change it.

A towering figure loomed ahead of him in the yellow-white glare, and he had to move into its shadow to see more clearly. It was the Queen, sitting motionless on her favourite horse and staring into the distance.

Even in stillness she had a harmony with the animal that irked him.