'It appears the people wish to make their judgement now, Lord Eldric,' Dan-Tor said.

Eldric's expression changed to an angry scowl as he turned to look at the crowd. 'Your Mathidrin agitators wish to make a judgement you mean,' he said.

Dan-Tor shrugged innocently. 'My agitators, Lord? More accusations. Doesn't the form dictate that all accusations be stated at the commencement of the Accounting?' His white teeth shone a malevolent sneer at Eldric.

Despite himself, Eldric laid his hand on his axe, but released it immediately as a triumphant red glare flashed from Dan-Tor's eyes.

The crowd, however, had not heard Dan-Tor's provocation and saw only Eldric's angry movement.

Urged on by Urssain's men the localized shouting and scuffling spread through them like a wind-blown fire in gra.s.s. The frustration and confusions of the day polarized the crowd and, as Dan-Tor had intended, brought them rapidly to the edge of riot.

As Eldric turned again to the crowd, Dan-Tor walked over to him quickly. 'We must stop this,' he said urgently. 'There'll be bloodshed again. The people are still unsettled after the riots. There's no saying where it might end.'

Eldric spun round, startled to find his enemy so close. He glowered down at him. 'This is your doing, Dan-Tor. Your men have been stirring this crowd all day. Do you think I'm so blind? And Urssain might as well have used a flag for all the subtlety of his hand signals.'

'I know nothing of this, Lord, I swear,' Dan-Tor replied, his tone sincere and concerned. 'If Urssain's arranged this I'll see he's punished, have no fear. But we must stop it now.'

Eldric's expression did not change.

Dan-Tor scowled as if looking for a solution as the noise of the crowd rose. 'Lord Eldric,' he said anxiously. 'Accept voluntary custody at the house of . . .' He cast about. '. . . Lord Oremson. You surely trust him? And we'll continue this . . .' His voice became angry, as if he were being reluctantly obliged to yield something against his better judgement, 'this . . . matter . . . tomorrow. And for as many days as needs be.'

Eldric thought for a moment. He knew that he had been out-manoeuvred in some way; that Dan-Tor had reached a decision from the crowd's reactions. But the suggestion was reasonable and the crowd was becoming unmanageable. Oremson was an old friend and a staunch Geadrol Lord. It was unlikely he would countenance any treachery whatever he thought of recent happenings. Eldric nodded brusquely.

Reluctantly he found himself joining with his foe to quieten the crowd by urging on them Dan-Tor's suggestion as if it were his own.

During the confusion, Yengar and Olvric, having identified Urssain's men in the crowd, took the opportunity to down four or five of them discreetly.

* * * * Through Astrom, Eldric had asked those Lords remaining in Vakloss not to attend the Accounting.

'When the Geadrol meets again, I'll give you my own Accounting and accept your judgement,' read his message to them. 'For the time being, I beg your indulgence.'

Lord Oremson was thus most happy to welcome his unexpected and battle-clad guest. He himself had much to discuss. He welcomed also the large number of people who had accompanied Eldric, determined to see that the Accounting would not be foreshortened by some act of treachery on Dan-Tor's part.

'I can't offer you beds, my friends,' he told them. 'Although I can give you some food and drink after your long day. And the hardy among you are welcome to rest on my lawns if you wish.' For a little while, there was an almost carnival atmosphere as the people ate and drank Lord Oremson's fare and talked about the day's events. Gradually the late afternoon faded through a soft evening into a purple, star-strewn night and, as the wind fell and the last clouds drifted into stillness overhead, a silence descended on the tree-lined gardens and the people settled to their night vigil. Yengar vanished into the shade guarding an old oak tree, from where he could see both entrances to the grounds. He settled into a deep state of relaxation so that his body could rest and recover from the day's activities while his mind would watch and wait.

As the night deepened, the torches in Oremson's house went out one by one and the low background of conversation from the waiting people gradually faded as they drifted into sleep. Yengar's eyes and ears adjusted to the shadows and the myriad tiny movements of the night. Occasionally there was a cry, a laugh, or a s.n.a.t.c.h of incoherent conversation as some portion of a dream emerged briefly into reality like the tip of a great iceberg. Yengar sank deeper into his own quietness.

At the darkest part of the night, Yengar's eyes picked out a flitting shadow entering the grounds. He knew it for Olvric; only a Goraidin could move like that. He made a low soft night-bird signal to guide his friend. As Olvric neared, Yengar sensed his agitation. A hand signal brought him to his feet and the two of them moved noiselessly and quickly out of the grounds.

Within minutes of their leaving, a large Mathidrin patrol moved quietly into the gardens.

Chapter 45.

Yatsu, though reluctant to lose Serian and Gavor, did not feel inclined to oppose Hawklan in his declaration that he and Isloman should ride with Ordan to Lord Evison's castle. He did, however, insist that two of his own men, Lorac and Tel-Odrel, ride with them.

'They'll gather information that's appropriate to the way the High Guards fight, Hawklan that's what the Goraidin are for. And they'll be able to bring you to Eldric's estate through the mountains save you days of exposed travel.'

Maintaining a steady pace, the five riders came within sight of the northern mountains that separated Fyorlund from Narsindal within two days. Ordan pointed to them. 'That's the northern boundary of Lord Evison's estate,' he said. 'If we ride hard we can reach the castle before evening.'

The two Goraidin looked at Hawklan. Waiting.

'No, Ordan,' said Hawklan, definitely but gently. 'If your Lord's under siege we'll be no help arriving exhausted at nightfall. Besides, five of us aren't going to be able to relieve him. We need to be able toapproach cautiously and leave quickly. We'll keep on steadily and then camp so that we can come to the castle early in the morning.' Then, turning, he intercepted a brief exchange of significant looks between the two Goraidin. 'Is that acceptable, gentlemen?'

Caught thus in their judgement, both men nodded, half apologetically. Isloman smiled to himself.

The rest of the day was spent for the most part in companionable silence as the group rode on through the rolling lands which marked the southern edge of the Lord Evison's estate. They avoided such few villages as they saw, uncertain of the reception they might receive, particularly as the Goraidin were still wearing Mathidrin livery. Their night, however, was restless with even Gavor and the horses fretful and anxious. Hawklan, too, found himself frowning as he lay awake, listening to their disturbed and spasmodic slumbering.

As if wilfully belying their unease, the following day arrived with a soft misty dawn that promised a bright summer's warmth. It did little, however, to lift their spirits as they mounted and continued their journey.

Then, as if in confirmation of their concern, a thin column of smoke came into view, rising over the horizon like an admonitory finger. The group halted and Hawklan motioned to Gavor. Without comment, the bird rose into the sunny air, circled a few times, as if reluctant to leave them, then unhurriedly turned towards the rising smoke.

'That's from a dying fire,' said Lorac quietly, glancing anxiously at Ordan. Hawklan nodded and urged Serian forward into a trot. 'Gavor will warn us if there's trouble ahead,' he said.

As they topped a small rise, the Lord Evison's castle came into view. It was broken and devastated.

The column of smoke that had guided them rose fitfully up from the ruin to be dissipated in the rising morning breeze.

As Serian carried him forward, Hawklan tensed his stomach as if to prepare for a powerful impact.

Gutted by fire, the castle stood like a jagged black crystal mounted in a setting of unpolished granite. But the rock on which the Lord Evison's castle was founded was far below ground. Fertile fields fringed its feet; fertile fields now churned brown, and mottled white and carmine with hacked bodies. The summer breeze cried a sweet, appalling confirmation of the vision to the riders' nostrils.

His own sensations suddenly numbed, Hawklan felt Serian quivering beneath him. 'There are horses dying there, Hawklan,' said the horse. 'Can't you hear them? The humans have been dispatched, but the horses are still dying. Help them, Hawklan.'

The five men dismounted in silence. Round the castle were hundreds of bodies; bodies that had been stripped and mutilated in an orgy of violence. Hawklan felt the blood pounding in his ears, and steadied himself against Serian. For a moment he was overwhelmed by a roaring surge of old memories smashing through whatever had been holding them back to inundate him, like a raging sea storming through ancient sand dunes. But, like the sea, they ebbed as quickly as they had come and left Hawklan only with the knowledge that he had seen this and worse many times before; and would again.

As he recovered, this cruel knowledge contended with the pain of the healer rising within him in a futile howl, but gradually some deeper knowledge told him to harness the two in a grim alliance. Truth was truth, however fearful, and healing had inevitable limitations. Equally, his healing skills in all their forms must strive forward, accepting the pain of knowledge and refusing to become calloused by repeated impact. Ordan vomited. The sound brought Hawklan to himself. He looked at the others. Their faces were grey with disbelief and horror. Then he became aware that among the bodies there were murmurings and scufflings.

Suddenly Gavor dropped from the sky and swooped low over the dreadful field with a terrible cry. For a brief instant, the scene was alive with birds and small mammals fleeing; fear of this vengeful shadow overwhelming their greed. Where they scurried a black smoky cloud rose up briefly.

Flies, Hawklan mouthed to himself. He shuddered. Unbidden, Serian moved forward, stepping delicately between the strewn bodies and severed limbs. Hawklan drew his sword and followed. There were no live humans left here, he could sense that, but he could meet Serian's plea and perform a last healing act for any of the horses that were still alive.

There were only a few and they had already pa.s.sed the worst of their suffering. Hawklan could make nothing of such mutterings as he heard, but Serian bent low over each one and listened intently.

'You're fearful creatures, you humans,' he said when the task was finished. 'Fearful.'

Hawklan had no answer for him. 'Did any of them say what had happened?' he asked.

Serian's tone was one of barely restrained anger. 'No,' he said. 'They were too near the portals to recall such matters without great pain. It's not for you or I to demand such a price. They've played their parts, they must rest now. I commend your skill in easing them over, healer.' Then he walked away to join the other horses.

Hawklan said nothing. There were no words for Serian's response. He turned his attention to his companions. He could not see Ordan, but Isloman and the two Goraidin were wandering among the bodies. Hawklan picked an uneasy path through to them, his boots clogging with bloodstained mud.

Enter the pain, he reminded himself as he neared them.

Lorac looked up as he approached. His eyes were tormented, but his voice was firm and almost formal.

'Goraidin see clearly and accept what they see for what it is.' Yatsu's words came back to Hawklan.

But you must cling to some things at times like this, mustn't you? he thought. Even if it's only the rea.s.surance of your own voice.

'Never seen anything like this,' said Lorac. 'Never. There were some bad things in the Morlider War, but nothing . . .' His voice faltered. 'I keep hoping I'll wake up. Who'd do this to dead men?'

Hawklan looked at him. 'A foe we don't want to meet unprepared,' he said. 'We'll have to close our hearts to the horror of this until another time, Lorac. We must find out everything we can and take it back to the others. Then perhaps these men won't have died in vain.'

Lorac looked at him enigmatically. 'Yes, I know. It's what we're trained to do.' He clenched his teeth.

'It's just . . . I never thought it could be so hard. All I keep thinking of is what I'd like to do to whoever did this.'

Hawklan's voice became harsh. 'It's not as hard for us as it was for these.' He waved his hand over the scene. 'But we and others will end the same way if we don't put our every resource into finding out what's happened. You'll take no easy vengeance on whoever wrought this. Direct your rage towards that, Goraidin.' Lorac's eyes blazed angrily and his fist tightened. Hawklan knew that if the man hit him now, he would be unable to defend himself. But Lorac's rage faded almost immediately. Nothing could flare bright in the stultifying aura of death that hung over the field.

He bowed his head. 'You're right,' he said. 'Our training's all we've got left. We can't do anything for these except learn from them and hope we'll be more fortunate when our time comes.'

A cry interrupted their uneasy conversation. It was Ordan, standing in the shattered gateway of the castle and beckoning them. As they approached he turned and pa.s.sed through a doorway, again gesturing that they should follow. Reaching the door, Hawklan peered into the gloomy interior until his eyes adjusted. A little way ahead, through a mist of smoke and fine floating ash, he could see Ordan cautiously working his way through a maze of fallen and burnt beams. He moved after him, followed by the others.

For several minutes they moved slowly through the remains of a decorated corridor, treading underfoot the charred remains of its ornate ceiling and its fallen wall carvings. The air became increasingly unpleasant, heavy with smoke from the still smouldering debris, and clingingly warm from its stored heat.

Hawklan looked at the others in some concern. 'This is dangerous,' he said. 'These fumes will overcome us if we stay too long.'

When they reached Ordan, he was standing in front of a closed door. His eyes were still wide with shock, but his voice was steady, if hoa.r.s.e. 'The Lord Evison said he had captives,' he said. 'If they're anywhere, they're here.' Then, drawing his sword, he touched two of the ornamental bosses that studded the door. There was the sound of bolts being drawn and, unaided, the door swung open.

Drawing his own sword, Hawklan moved to Ordan's side, but all that could be seen through the doorway was a flight of stairs leading down into darkness.

Slowly, Ordan lowered his sword and bowed his head. 'I'd hoped to see torchlight and trouble,' he said sadly. 'But there's no one alive here. No light, no life.' Sheathing his sword he stepped forward and started down the stairs. Torches flared gently into life as he entered, to reveal a large, stone-arched cellar. The air was cool and strangely pleasant after the stench outside and the choking air in the corridor, but lying sprawled headlong at the foot of the stairs was a body.

Hesitantly, Ordan knelt down by it. When Hawklan reached him, he looked up, his face distraught. 'It's Lord Evison,' he said. 'He's dead.'

Hawklan bent down and examined the body. The Lord's wounds showed that he had obviously died in combat, but he had not been mutilated like the others outside. His hand was clenched tightly around a heavy fighting axe.

'Look, there's someone else.' Tel-Odrel's voice interrupted Hawklan's thoughts. The Goraidin pushed past and ran over to a second body lying some way away. When he reached it, he stopped suddenly.

'Hawklan,' he said softly, beckoning without taking his eyes from the body at his feet.

Hawklan and the others joined him around the second body. It was a large Mandroc, its huge canine teeth gleaming in the torchlight in a malevolent death rictus. It wore battledress: an iron cap with curved cheek pieces and a heavy leather jerkin reinforced with metal plates secured about its muscular body by heavy buckled straps. All this, however, had proved ineffective against the axe blow that had hacked a great wound from the creature's neck to its stomach. 'Only small, but Lord Evison was a powerful man,' said Tel-Odrel. 'Not one to face in extremity.'

No one spoke.

'Mandrocs armed and armoured,' said Lorac softly at last. His voice a mixture of awe and disbelief. He took refuge in his training, 'We'll have to strip its armour. It should tell us a lot.'

Back outside in the sunlight, Ordan's grief abruptly overwhelmed him. Rather to Hawklan's surprise, the two Goraidin were sensitive and sympathetic with the man. He found it rea.s.suring that for all their harsh and brutal skills, they still kept some contact with those qualities that they had sworn to protect.

Something in their training leavened its own brutalizing effect. Truth, perhaps? And yet the very existence of this caring betokened an even greater ruthlessness. They were not allowed the numbing that brutalization brought with it. And the greater the caring, the harder the more brutally they would fight when it was threatened, either in themselves or others. Hawklan's thoughts started to circle mockingly as he began to see images of himself within himself. Lorac's voice broke into his thoughts. He was talking to Ordan.

'We all knew some of your friends, Ordan,' he was saying. He put his hands on the man's shoulders and looked at him earnestly. 'But there was nothing you could have done. You obeyed your Lord faithfully and well. You know that. This happened days ago, probably within hours of your leaving, and your being here would have made no difference. It's not much consolation, but . . .' He left his sentence unfinished.

Turning round, he looked at the gutted castle and spoke to the others. 'They must have been overwhelmed before they were ready. From what Ordan's told us, Evison's force must have been spread out for miles. Either that or he completely underestimated the speed at which his enemy could move. It looks as if they fought their way in to release the captives but Evison locked himself in with that one.'

Hawklan looked around the battlefield, still alive with flies and now slowly being repopulated by the scavengers that Gavor had frightened away. No weapons, he thought suddenly. Not a dagger, not a sword, not even a broken spear shaft. And no Mandroc dead. All had been removed.

Lorac seemed to read his thoughts. 'Apart from that one body, they've left no sign of who or what they were. They just came after him to make sure that no one who had seen them would survive to spread the news.' He wrapped his arms tightly around himself. 'I'm frightened,' he said, unexpectedly.

'You're wise to be,' said Hawklan. 'Soldiers that would do this are not lightly defeated. Evison found that to his cost, and we'll pay the same price if we don't learn.'

'What can we do?' Lorac said.

Hawklan looked at Gavor.

'Whoever did this is long away,' said the raven. 'There's no one about for miles. No one alive, that is,'

he added.

Hawklan nodded then spoke without hesitation. 'Ordan, you go to Eldric's mountain stronghold with that Mandroc's armour. Tell them what you've seen. The rest of us will go north, to see what Evison saw.' * * * *

As the four men rode steadily northwards, none of them spoke a great deal and at night they made a dark and silent camp, each taking turns to stand guard.

Hawklan opened his eyes as Tel-Odrel approached to wake him for his watch period. The Goraidin crouched down beside him as he sat up. 'Something's wrong with Isloman, Hawklan,' he said softly.

'He's restless and he's been muttering to himself on and off all night.'

Hawklan frowned. He had never known Isloman suffer any illness. Moving over to him he laid a hand gently on his forehead. There was no sign of fever, but he could feel a turmoil rising in the man. He frowned again. 'It's probably shock. And grief,' he said quietly. 'We'll all be suffering from it to some degree. I can hardly close my own eyes without seeing those hacked bodies fringing that black castle.'

Tel-Odrel nodded, but there was an uncertainty in Hawklan which worried him.

The following day, Isloman seemed well enough, though he was uncharacteristically quiet, and took no food when he woke. Hawklan watched him anxiously, but he saddled up and mounted without demur, and maintained the pace that was set without complaint.

Even after pa.s.sing the destroyed remains of Evison's troop, it needed no tracking skills to follow the trail of the departed attackers.

'This is how the Mandrocs left Orthlund,' said Gavor. 'As if they were crushing something to death with every footstep.'

Gradually the countryside yielded to the mountains proper and soon they found themselves moving between dark lowering crags. The two Goraidin were uneasy about their vulnerability in such terrain, but Gavor's high-flying vigil enabled them to maintain their pace without any real fear of ambush.

Eventually the route they were following became too rocky and awkward for rapid progress and, feeling that time was against them, Hawklan sent Gavor ahead to see if they were near to any kind of settlement or encampment, or anything else that might be worth examining.

It was dusk when he returned, a shadow sweeping out of the shadows. 'Leave your horses and climb that peak there,' he said, and was gone.

Without speaking Isloman stood up wearily, and began walking in the direction Gavor had indicated.

Hawklan ran after him. 'What are you doing?' he asked anxiously. 'Where are you going? We can't walk up there now, it'll be pitch dark soon.'

But Isloman kept on walking.

Hawklan moved in front of him and held out a hand to stop the carver. 'Isloman, what's the matter with you?' he demanded.

Isloman stopped and looked at Hawklan as if puzzled by this inquiry. 'I have to see, Hawklan,' he said.