The Return of Kavin (31 page)

“I tried not to strike too hard, Prince Kavin,” Zamor said. “But it was most necessary. You were about to leap into the river.”

“I know,” Kavin said. “And I thank you, Zamor. You’ve my leave to do that again, as hard as you like, if that spell takes me again.” He shivered.

“You’re right, Hugon,” Thuramon said. “We should move as quickly as we can. Perhaps there may be another village upriver, and horses; but as it is, we’ll walk.” He swung himself over the rail, lightly, and dropped to the bank. In one hand he carried a heavy sack, which he swung over his shoulder; there, Hugon knew, the Egg of Fire lay secure.

“My ship,” Yorgan said, gloomily, gazing at the burned hole.

“If you’re wise, Yorgan, you’ll patch that with a sail, and set out again,” Thuramon told him.

“Not if there’s any chance to set my hook into that damned demon over there,” Yorgan said, but shuddered. “Oh, curse it… you’re right. If he’s what you say he is
,
I’d have no way to do him properly. It’s bitter in my mouth, it is. Bungt
dead,
and my ship wounded, and not to see the rat’s son dead that did it.” He spat. “But I’ll sail. I will. And good luck, warlock. Kill me that thing, that’s all I ask.”

“If it can be done, it will be,” Thuramon said. “Or he will kill us. There’s no third choice. But we must reach the Black Valley first, and he must do so too.”

The old man swung the sack to his shoulder, and turned to stride away along the river bank; behind him, the others came too.

On the other side of the river, Gann stood absolutely still, his cold, empty eyes fixed on the whiteness of the mist that lay on the river. He could not sense the presence of the
Other
. The mist… sang. It was as if a sound came from it, a low, soothing murmurous chant. He did not wish to move. The sound seemed to make the lance of pain within him duller.

Gann continued to stand, watching the white mist; and the sun moved, across the sky, and downward, into the western horizon. His five companions sat or stood, as immobile as himself.

Then the darkness deepened; and the mist thinned, and vanished, as the light went. Gann moved.

I was tricked, he thought. A hypnotic effect of some sort… indicating a slightly higher degree of technology than I had thought this world possessed. One of them, the natives in that ship, is a man of some skills. That would be logical, if he intends to attempt the operation of the mechanism of the Gate. He, then, is also to be killed, as quickly as possible.

They walked, in single file, along the narrow trail that followed the river; Thuramon ahead, then Kavin, who walked with a strangely stiff air, eyes ahead, as though he could not bring himself to look around.
After them, Gwynna, carrying her share of the provisions and walking with as long a stride as any of the men, and last, Zamor and Hugon.
Zamor whistled happily, and swung the long axe lightly; Fraak, sometimes in the air and sometimes on Hugon’s shoulder, replied to Zamor’s whistled tune with a rippling counterpoint of notes as he flew.

There was no sign of their pursuer yet; Gwynna glanced toward the distant bank of the river, on the other side, and saw nothing moving. Ahead, the remnants of a stone bridge rose from the water, and just beyond it, part of a fallen tower still stood above the trees, roofless.

“Prince Kavin,” Gwynna called. He glanced back.

“The bridge and tower, yonder,” she said. “It looks much like the ward tower on the Brynn, at home. And this great valley… why did your people not return here? There seems to be no reason to fear it.”

Kavin’s eyes were guarded. He flicked a glance toward the bridge, and his mouth tightened.

“You forget, lady, I was no longer with those people, the Doradans, after they reached Koremon,” he said. “Not for long, at any rate. Perhaps they couldn’t bear to return here. There were memories connected with this land that might be difficult to bear.” He continued to walk, silently; then, “That tower was part of a manor called Muronik. I was there many times; a fair hall, filled with good and happy folk.” He looked to either side, where pines grew densely along the trail and up the slope of the river bank. “You can see it. This was farmland, where we ride now.”

It had been so long ago, Gwynna thought. But to Kavin, it was as if it had been yesterday. That must be strange, she thought, as strange as if she were to return to Armadoc and see naught but empty fields, and ancient ruined walls. She shivered at that thought.

“There, ahead of us,” Kavin said, in a low voice as if he spoke to himself. “Only a few more hours journey along the river, and we will come to the falls of Granorek.
And the castle, below the falls… the hold of Granorek.
It was there that the best man of Dorada died a long time ago, fighting the beasts that had been loosed against this land.” He stared ahead grimly. “Loosed by Ess and his servants,” he said.

Behind Gwynna, Hugon heard Kavin’s words.

“A fall?” he asked. “Then how does the river turn above it?”

“Eastward,” Kavin answered. “Yes we’ll have to cross there, and then there’ll be no barrier between us and that one.”

“He is a full day behind us,” Thuramon said, serenely. “And on foot, though he walks swiftly.”

“So are we,” Hugon said, and grimaced. “As both my feet could tell you, if they could speak.”

“And if you used your eyes, master Hugon,” Thuramon said, “you’d look where your feet are walking. There’s a sign
there, that
we may not need to walk much farther, if we’re fortunate.”

Hugon glanced at the trail, and uttered a short bark of laughter.

“Blind, I am!” he said.

There were fresh droppings, and hoofprints on the path; looking carefully, Hugon saw that they were shod hooves, as well. Not wild horses; so much the better.

And then, around a bend, they came out into an open space, and saw the wall. It was made of stout pine logs, topped with small platforms here and there, and with a heavy gate in it. The gate was closed, by a stout wooden door. There seemed to be no movement at all visible; but there was a smell of wood smoke in the air.

“Wait,” Kavin said, sharply. The group came to a halt; Kavin went forward, walking deliberately, till he reached a point midway in the clear space before the walled village. There he stopped, and looked toward the closed gate.

“You, within!” he cried out.

Somewhere inside a horse whinnied loudly. Then, from the wall, a short spear flew, and thudded into the ground at Kavin’s feet. He did not flinch, or step back. He stood, waiting.

“Go away, demon!” a voice cried from the wall.

“I’m not a demon,” Kavin answered. “I am only a man, like
yourselves
!”

There was a sound of argument behind the door. Then, slowly, the door opened, a space wide enough to allow a man to slip out. The man who emerged was a thin, long-legged fellow, in a tunic of skins, with a head of wild hair that stood out like a furze bush. He wore a heavy chain of what looked like gold around his neck, on which a curiously ornamented disk hung, and he looked very frightened.

He came toward Kavin, very slowly and cautiously, step by step; Kavin noted that the fellow’s teeth seemed to be chattering.

The man paused, and stared at Kavin with wide, frightened eyes. He looked deeply puzzled, as he studied the other.

Then he said, slowly, “Are you—you are not the demon, then.”

“My name is Kavin of Hostan,” Kavin said. The man’s eyes widened even more. He turned, and cried out, toward the wall.

“He’s not the demon! He’s a man!” The fellow paused, and added, “He bears the name of Hostan!”

“As you bear the clan-sign around your neck,” Kavin said, as the man turned back toward him.

“We are Hostan, also,” the man said. “I am Gred. But sir, you resemble a certain demon
who
passed this way three days ago.” He stared at Kavin, hard. “Greatly do you resemble him, except the hair… and you do not wear the strange mail he did. But your face is not as his was, either, though much alike.”

Kavin nodded. “I know the creature you mean,” he said. “He pursues us, and will slay us if he can.”

The gate swung open, and revealed a knot of nervous men, holding spears and axes; village houses, from which women peered with frightened curiosity. Kavin called the others to come forward, and they went into the village.

The locals’ nervousness wore off quickly; in a matter of minutes, they were talking freely.

The “demon” had passed, going downriver; and he had casually killed three of the people of the village, apparently for no better reason than that they were overcurious about him.

His followers, demons as well, according to the local view, seemed to have killed a farmer farther up the river, and in the same reasonless manner. The creatures were somehow visibly evil, creating terror simply by their appearance. The folk of the fishing villages had fled already.

It puzzled the villagers greatly when they saw the strong resemblance between Kavin and the “demon”; but they evolved a kind of explanation that did well enough, saying that the demon had merely taken on a man’s appearance, to confuse folk. But before Kavin had been with them for more than a few minutes, they knew him to be of their own blood.

They were descendants of peasants, once peasants of Kavin’s own clan-holdings; their ancestors had hidden, or fled, during the terrible destruction of the valley of Dorada. Then, with a peasant’s tenacity, they had crept back, one by one, and begun to live on their ancestral lands once more. There were only a few of them, scattered widely over the land; but still, Dorada was not wholly dead after all.

“We have many horses,” Gred told Kavin. “You must ride quickly. The demon is terrible; he strikes men down with lightning. If he pursues you, you must go quickly.”

There were horses, the short-legged, muscular little horses Kavin knew well. They were saddled and mounted before another hour had passed, and riding north again, with half a dozen remounts following behind them.

As they came at last to the ford above Granorek, and crossed the river; there was still no sign of the pursuer. Ahead, the land rose in long sweeping meadows toward the mountains, and they rode on toward that range.

Miles behind, Gann strode on, tirelessly. He came to the ford, and saw the muddy hoofprints; he stood, and stared at the distant mountaintops, red in the late afternoon sun. Then he went forward again, steadily.

It was the third day since they had entered the mountains. They had ridden along trails no wider than would accommodate a single horse at a time. Sometimes there were no trails at all, but only precarious scrambling across slopes of loose rock, and snowdrifted gorges to be negotiated with great care. Above them, the huge peaks rose into the cold sky; and everywhere there was snow, though they were by no means as high as the highest ridges.

Thuramon seemed completely certain of the paths he took. Once or twice he consulted notes he had about him; but he seemed to know the way without trouble.

There were
humans living in the mountains, as was
clear from such evidence as burned spots where campfires had been, and the tracks of the elami they rode. But they seemed invisible, even to Fraak’s sharp eyes, when he sailed high overhead.

This time, Fraak saw something more disturbing; he came down, in a swooping rush, chattering his news.

“The bad man!” he said. “He is close! He is walking, fast, in the valley behind us!”

Hugon spurred his horse up, to ride beside Thuramon.

“Master Thuramon,” he said, “that creature behind us. Could we not make a stand? I dislike this constant fleeing. Can’t he be killed at all, or hurt at least?”

Thuramon stared from under thick white eyebrows, and said nothing for a long while. Then, he spoke slowly.

“Yes, he can be killed, like any man. But he wears armor that is proof against most blades and almost any arrow, even a crossbow bolt. And he has the weapon you saw, that he used against our ship.”

“I’ve been considering that,” Hugon said. “Look you; he had more than one chance to let fly with it, yet he missed every chance save one. Now, that’s the way of it with a man who’s got only a few arrows in his quiver. Could it be that his weapon’s the same way, with but a few bolts to it?”

Thuramon nodded. “That’s possible,” he said, musingly. “Yes, quite possible.”

“Another thing,” Hugon said.
“His purposes.
He seems to wish to reach prince Kavin, more than anything else.
But not to slay him, if what you say is so.
He needs Kavin alive, to make this damnable exchange of souls, or whatever it is. Am I right?”

Thuramon nodded. “Yet, he’ll slay any other he can,” the old man said warningly.

“You kept Kavin from yielding to whatever devilish
spell
the creature cast, back there,” Hugon said. “Can you do that again, if need be?”

Thuramon seemed troubled. “I don’t know,” he said. “Not always, I fear. It may be that Kavin himself may have to fight that black glamoring, without help.”

Kavin, just behind them, was listening; his face was set strangely, in a look of cold determination.

“Thuramon,” Kavin called, and the warlock turned in his saddle to look back at him.

“Ahead, there, where the ground is more level,” Kavin said. “Draw
rein
there. I wish to speak with you.”

The horses clattered into the level space and pulled up. Kavin reined his mount beside Hugon and Thuramon, and leaned forward, gripping the horn of his saddle, his head bent for a moment. Then he looked up, his eyes strangely dark.

“There, above, that doubled peak shaped like a wolf’s tooth. You see it? That lies above the Black Valley.” He smiled, without humor. “I should know it well, that landmark. We’re no more than half a day’s ride from the pass that leads inward.”

“We’ve only an hour or two of light left,” Hugon said, glancing up at the sun.

“Use it, then,” Kavin said.
“Waste no more time.
Thuramon, you have the Egg of Fire. The Gateway lies before you. And you need no help from me in binding Ess. Do you, warlock?”