Waylander Read online

  'An interesting weapon,' observed Dardalion.

  'Yes, made for me in Ventria. It can be very useful; it looses two bolts and is deadly up to twenty feet.'

  'Then you need to be close to your victim.'

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  Waylander's sombre eyes locked on to Dardalion's gaze. 'Do not seek to judge me, priest.'

  'It was merely an observation. How did you come to lose your horse?'

  'I was with a wornan.'

  'I see.'

  Waylander grinned. 'Gods, it always looks ridicu­lous when a young man assumes a pompous expres­sion! Have you never had a woman?'

  'No. Nor have I eaten meat these last five years. Nor tasted spirits.'

  'A dull life but a happy one,' observed the warrior.

  'Neither has my life been dull. There is more to living than sating bodily appetites.'

  'Of that I am sure. Still, it does no harm to sate them now and again.'

  Dardalion said nothing. What purpose would it serve to explain to a warrior the harmony of a life spent building the strength of the spirit? The joys of soaring high upon the solar breezes weightless and free, journeying to distant suns and seeing the birth of new stars? Or the effortless leaps through the misty corridors of time?

  'What are you thinking?' asked Waylander.

  'I was wondering why you burned my robes,' said Dardalion, suddenly aware that the question had been nagging at him throughout the long day.

  'I did it on a whim, there is nothing more to it. I have been long without company and I yearned for it.'

  Dardalion nodded and added two sticks to the fire.

  'Is that all?' asked the warrior. 'No more questions?'

  'Are you disappointed?'

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  'I suppose that I am,' admitted Waylander. 'I wonder why?'

  'Shall I tell you?'

  'No, I like mysteries. What will you do now?'

  'I shall find others of my order and return to my duties.'

  'In other words you will die.'

  'Perhaps.'

  'It makes no sense to me,' said Waylander, 'but then life itself makes no sense. So it becomes reasonable.'

  'Did life ever make sense to you, Waylander?'

  'Yes. A long time ago before I learned about eagles.'

  'I do not understand you.'

  That pleases me,' said the warrior, pillowing his head on his saddle and closing his eyes.

  'Please explain,' urged Dardalion. Waylander rolled to his back and opened his eyes, staring out beyond the stars.

  'Once I loved life and the sun was a golden joy. But joy is sometimes short-lived, priest. And when it dies a man will seek inside himself and ask: Why? Why is hate so much stronger than love? Why do the wicked reap such rich rewards? Why does strength and speed count for more than morality and kindness? And then the man realises . . . there are no answers. None. And for the sake of his sanity the man must change perceptions. Once I was a lamb, playing in a green field. Then the wolves came. Now I am an eagle and I fly in a different universe.'

  'And now you kill the lambs,' whispered Dardalion.

  Waylander chuckled and turned over.

  'No, priest. No one pays for lambs.'

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  2

  The mercenaries rode off, leaving the dead behind them. Seventeen bodies littered the roadside; eight men, four women and five children. The men and the children had died swiftly. Of the five carts which the refugees had been hauling, four were burning fiercely and the fifth smouldered quietly. As the kil­lers crested the hills to the south a young red-haired woman pushed herself clear of the screen of bushes by the road and led three children to the smouldering cart.

  'Put out the fire, Culas,' she told the oldest boy. He stood staring at the corpses, his wide blue eyes blank with shock and terror. The fire, Culas. Help the others put out the fire.' But he saw the body of Sheera and groaned.

  'Grandmother . . .' muttered Culas, stepping for­ward on shaking legs. Then the young woman ran to him, taking him in her arms and burying his head against her shoulder.

  'She is dead and she can feel no pain. Come with me and put out the fire.' She led him to the cart and handed him a blanket. The two younger children -twin girls of seven - stood hand in hand, their backs turned to the dead.

  'Come now, children. Help your brother. And then we'll be going.'

  'Where can we go, Danyal?' asked Krylla.

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  'North. The general Egel is in the north, they say, with a great army. We'll go there.'

  'I don't like soldiers,' said Miriel.

  'Help your brother. Quickly, now!'

  Danyal turned away from them, shielding them from her tears. Vile, vile world! Three months back, when the war had begun, word had reached the village that the Hounds of Chaos were marching on Drenan. The men had laughed at the news, confident of speedy victory.

  Not so the women, who instinctively knew that any army revelling in the title Hounds of Chaos would be bitter foes. But how bitter few had realised. Subjugation Danyal could understand -what woman could not? But the Hounds brought more than this; they brought wholesale death and terror, torture, mutilation and horror beyond belief.

  Source priests were hunted down and slain, their order outlawed by the new masters. And yet the Source priests offered no resistance to any govern­ment, preaching only peace, harmony and respect for authority. What threat did they pose?

  Farming communities were burnt out and destroyed. So who would gather the crops in the Fall?

  Rape, pillage and murder without end. It was incomprehensibly savage and beyond Danyal's ability to understand. Three times now she had been raped. Once by six soldiers - that they had not killed her was testimony to her skills as an actress, for she had feigned enjoyment and on each occasion they had let her leave, bruised and humiliated but always smiling. Some instinct had told her that today would be different and when the riders first appeared she had gathered the children and fled to the bushes.

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  The riders were not seeking rape, only plunder and wanton destruction.

  Twenty armed men who stopped to butcher a group of refugees.

  The fire is out, Danyal,' called the boy Culas. Danyal climbed into the cart, sorting out blankets and provisions left by the raiders as being too humble for booty. With lengths of hide she tied three blankets into rucksacks for the children, then gathered up leather canteens of water which she hung over her shoulder.

  'We must go,' she said, and led the trio off towards the north.

  They had not moved far when the sound of horses' hooves came drumming to their ears and Danyal panicked, for they were on open ground. The two girls began to cry, but young Culas produced a long-bladed dagger from a sheath hidden in his blanket roll.

  'Give me that!' yelled Danyal, snatching the blade and hurling it far away from the road while Culas watched in horror. 'It will avail us nothing. Listen to me. Whatever they do to me, you just sit quietly. You understand? Do not shout or scream. You promise?'

  Two riders rounded the bend in the road. The first was a dark-haired warrior of a type she was coming to know too well; his face was hard, his eyes harder. The second was a surprise, for he was slender and ascetic, fine-boned and seemingly gentle of counten­ance. Danyal tossed her long red hair over her shoulder and smoothed the folds of her green tunic as they approached, forcing a smile of welcome to her lips.

  'You were with the refugees?' asked the warrior.

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  'No. We just passed that way.'

  The young one with the gentle face stepped care­fully from the saddle, wincing as if in pain. He appro­ached Danyal and held out his hands.

  'You need not lie to us, sister, we are not of that ilk. I am sorry for your pain.'

  'You are a priest?'

  'Yes.' He turned to the children. 'Come to me, come to Dardalion,' he said, kneeling and opening his arms. Amazingly they responded, the little girls first. His slender arms touched all three. 'You a
re safe for a little while,' he said. 'I bring you no more than that.'

  They killed grandmother,' said the boy.

  'I know, Culas. But you and Krylla and Miriel are still alive. You have run a long way. And now we will help you. We will take you to Gan Egel in the north.'

  His voice was soft and persuasive, the sentences short, simple and easily understood. Danyal stood by, transfixed at the power he exerted over them. And she did not doubt him, but her eyes were drawn to the dark-haired warrior who still sat his mount.

  'You are not a priest,' she said.

  'No. And you are not a whore.'

  'How would you know?'

  'I spend my life around whores,' he answered. Lifting his leg over the pommel of his saddle he slid to the ground and approached her. He smelt of stale sweat and horseflesh and close up he was as terrify­ing as any of the raiders she had known. Yet stran­gely she viewed the terror from a distance as if she were watching a play, knowing that the villain is terrible but comforted by the thought that he cannot

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  leave the stage. The power in him encompassed her without threat.

  'You hid in the bushes,' he said. 'Wise. Very wise.'

  'You were watching?'

  'No. I read the tracks. We hid from the same raiders an hour back. Mercenaries - not true Hounds.'

  'True Hounds? What more do they need to do to serve their apprenticeship?'

  'They were sloppy - they left you alive. You would not escape the Hounds so easily.'

  'How is it,' asked Danyal, 'that a man like you travels with a priest of the Source?'

  'A man like me? How swiftly you judge, woman,' he answered equably. 'Perhaps I should have shaved.'

  She turned from him as Dardalion approached.

  'We must find a place to camp,' said the priest. 'The children need sleep.'

  'It is only three hours after noon,' said Waylander.

  'They need a special kind of sleep,' said Darda­lion. 'Trust me. Can you find a place?'

  'Walk with me aways,' said the warrior, moving some thirty feet down the trail. Dardalion joined him. 'What is the matter with you? We cannot saddle ourselves with them. We have two horses and the Hounds are everywhere. And where they are not, there are mercenaries.'

  'I cannot leave them. But you are right - you go.'

  'What have you done to me, priest?' snapped the warrior.

  'I? Nothing.'

  'Have you put a spell on me? Answer me!'

  'I know no spells. You are free to do as you please, obey whatever whims you care to.'

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  'I don't like children. And I don't like women I can't pay for.'

  'We must find a resting place where I can ease their torment. Will you do that before you go?'

  'Go? Where should I go?'

  'I thought you wanted to leave, to be free of us.'

  'I cannot be free. Gods, if I thought you had put a spell on me I would kill you. I swear it!'

  'But I have not,' said Dardalion. 'Nor would I if I could.'

  Muttering dark curses under his breath, Way-lander walked back to Danyal and the children. As he approached the girls clutched Danyal's skirt, their eyes wide with fear.

  He waited by his horse until Dardalion was with the children. 'Anyone want to ride with me?' he asked. There was no answer and he chuckled, 'I thought not. Follow me into the trees yonder. I will find a place.'

  Later, as Dardalion sat with the children telling them wondrous tales of elder magic, his voice softly hypnotic, Waylander lay by the fire watching the woman.

  'You want me?' she asked suddenly, breaking his concentration.

  'How much?' he asked.

  'For you, nothing.'

  'Then I don't want you. Your eyes don't lie as well as your mouth.'

  'What does that mean?'

  'It means you loathe me. I don't mind that; I've slept with women aplenty who've loathed me.'

  'I don't doubt it.'

  'Honesty at last?'

  'I don't want any harm to come to the children.'

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  'You think I would harm them?'

  'If you could.'

  'You misjudge me, woman.'

  'And you underestimate my intelligence. Did you not seek to stop the priest from aiding us? Well?'

  'Yes, but . . .'

  'There are no buts. Without aid our chance of survival is next to nothing. You don't call that harm?'

  'Woman, you have a tongue like a whip. I owe you nothing and you have no right to criticise me.'

  'I don't criticise you That would suggest I cared enough to improve you. I despise you and all your loathsome brethren. Leave me alone, damn you!'

  Dardalion sat with the children until the last was asleep, then he placed his hand on each brow in turn and whispered the Prayer of Peace. The two girls lay with arms entwined under a single blanket, while Culas was stretched out beside them with his head pillowed on his arm. The priest concluded his prayer and sat back exhausted. Somehow it was hard to concentrate while wearing Waylander's clothes. The blurred images of pain and tragedy had softened now, but still they kept Dardalion from the upper­most pathways of the Road to the Source.

  A distant scream pulled him to the present. Some­where out in the darkness another soul was suffering.

  Dardalion shivered and moved to the fireside where the young woman Danyal was sitting alone. Waylander was gone.

  'I insulted him,' said Danyal as the priest sat opposite her. 'He is so cold. So hard. So fitted to the times.'

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  'Yes, he is,' agreed Dardalion, 'but he is also the man who can lead us to safety.'

  'I know. Do you think he will come back?'

  'I think so. Where are you from?'

  Danyal shrugged. 'Here and there. I was born in Drenan.'

  'A pleasant city with many libraries.'

  'Yes.'

  'Tell me about your days as an actress,' said Dardalion.

  'How did you ... oh yes, there are no secrets from the Source.'

  'Nothing so magical, Danyal. The children told me; they said you once performed the Spirit of Circea before King Niallad.'

  'I played the sixth daughter and had three lines,' she said, smiling. 'But it was an experience to remember. They say the King is dead, slain by traitors.'

  'So I have heard,' said Dardalion. 'Still, let us not concentrate on such things. The night is clear, the stars are beautiful, the children sleep dreaming sweet dreams. Tomorrow we will worry about death and despair.'

  'I cannot stop from thinking about it,' she said. 'Fate is cruel. At any moment raiders may run from the trees and the terror will begin again. You know it is two hundred miles to the Delnoch range where Egel trains his army?'

  'I know.'

  'Will you fight for us? Or will you stand by and let them kill us?'

  'I do not fight, Danyal. But I will stand with you.'

  'But your friend will fight?'

  'Yes. It is all he knows.'

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  'He is a killer,' said Danyal, lifting her blanket around her shoulders. 'He is no different from the mercenaries or the Vagrians. And yet I hope he comes back - is that not strange?'

  Try to sleep,' urged Dardalion. 'And I will see that your dreams are untroubled.'

  That would be nice - and of a magic I could warm to.'

  She lay by the fire and closed her eyes. Dardalion breathed deeply and entered once more into concen­tration, summoning the Prayer of Peace and pro­jecting it silently to shroud her body. Her breathing deepened. Dardalion released the chains of his spirit and soared into the night sky, twisting over and over in the bright moonlight, leaving his body hunched by the fire.