left at Whendrak and all fails. Stop him.'
Still the old man did not move.
Ivaroth lowered his voice further, his black eyes peering relentlessly into the dark void of the hood. ‘If we do not win this land, then my own kind will kill me, let alone the enemy. And without me, you'll not be able to reach the places beyond or the other place you're so anxious to find.'
The blind man seemed to ponder for a moment, then he looked up and turned towards the fleeing messenger. Slowly, reluctantly, he raised his hands, as if reaching out to him.
A low rumbling filled the air, and the riders at the top of the hill found themselves struggling to control their mounts as the ground beneath them began to shake.
The rumbling faded, or rather, retreated. Watching the distant rider, Ivaroth saw a swathe of destruction following after him. Soil and turf, shrubs and plants were torn up and thrown bodily aside as if by some unseen giant hand. The messenger reached the top of a small incline and looked over his shoulder briefly.
Then he disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Ivaroth's eyes shone with satisfaction.
'Mareth Hai!'
Ivaroth turned round sharply at the alarm in the voice, but before he noted the speaker, he felt the old man leaning against his leg.
Then the mentor and dark angel, who had brought him this far, slithered to the ground.
Chapter 37
The atmosphere in Ivaroth's camp was tense and uneasy. What should have been a raucous celebration of the destruction of the Rendd reservists was dampened by Ivaroth's fury at the losses they had sustained.
But Endryn knew that the fury, justified though it might have been, was not what it seemed. In reality it was a transmutation of the fear that had struck Ivaroth when the old man had collapsed.
Pacing up and down his tent, he tried to push the memory of the fear in Ivaroth's eyes from his mind as, yet again, it returned to torment him. He could not remember ever having seen Ivaroth afraid before. Even when they were children together, it had been Ivaroth, the younger, who had been the leader, riding the wildest of the horses, taking the hardest of the falls, sneaking close towards the camps of hostile tribes, and unflinchingly, contemptuously even, accepting whatever punishments the adults had meted out from time to time.
Endryn wiped his brow. Two questions bayed at his heels. Who else had seen the look in the Mareth Hai's eyes and, worse for him personally, did Ivaroth know that he, Endryn, had seen the look?
He had flicked his eyes away from Ivaroth's face on the instant, and turned them to the collapsing man, for fear of Ivaroth's dreadful response to the witness of such weakness, but …?
And who was this old man, with his blind white eyes and his flesh-crawling presence, to induce such a reaction in Ivaroth? The oft-asked question rose to displace Endryn's immediate concerns. It came now with an urgency more pressing than ever before. Not that he had ever dared to ask it. Such few as had, had received no answer other than Ivaroth's terrifying black-eyed gaze, and those foolish enough to misinterpret this and to press their inquiries had died for their pains.
Yet it should be addressed, with the camp seething with rumour, their advance halted without any reason being given, and the Mareth Hai sitting, unapproachable, by the cot of the grotesque companion he had brought out of the wilderness.
Part of the answer he knew: the old man was power-real power. Not for him the noisy conjurings of the swift-fingered shamans to gull the superstitious. His was a way of dark, watchful silence that would not grace such antics even with contempt; the way that went straight to its goal and crushed anything that stood in its path. An ancient, a … Endryn's mind hesitated at the word … a magical power; one beyond all understanding.
Yet, though he had no understanding of this power, Endryn was well content to accept the evidence of his own eyes and be grateful that he stood near to the man to whom the command of it had seemingly been granted.
He could not begin to guess at the bargain that Ivaroth might have made to make this creature his own … if that indeed was the case. But now, as mysteriously as he exercised his power, the old man had been stricken; over-reached himself in some way perhaps, as he sought to destroy the fleeing messenger.
And now the great drive south was halted. The camp idle and the men festering.
With each passing day there was the risk that random refugees who had avoided their patrols and scouts, would reach Bethlar or Serenstad and reveal what was happening. He must do something. He was Ivaroth's closest confidant. The ties that bound them were rooted strongly in their pasts, they should protect him.
He took a deep breath as he reminded himself that Ivaroth had killed his own brother.
Still, family was family, these things happened. He and Ivaroth were saddle companions. That was different …?
Composing himself, he went to the door of his tent and, after a brief hesitation, yanked it open and strode out into the cold wintry gloaming.
'Sirs, sirs. Please, sirs…’ The two riders had seen the woman bustling along the track which crossed the field, but were nonetheless surprised as, arms waving agitatedly, she almost hurled herself in front of their horses.
She was middle-aged and stout, and her flushed face and heavy breathing confirmed that she had not run anywhere in many years. Her shoes were soiled with mud and she was wearing no cloak or gown to protect her from the cold weather. What was presumably her good house pinafore was crumpled and grimed.
Without pausing, she seized the bridle of the nearest rider; the younger of the two, a man with a round, worried face which, for all he was no boy, had a touch of innocence about it. She leaned heavily on the bridle for support. ‘Please help me, sirs. I don't know what to do,’ she managed to gasp out eventually.
The man bent forward and laid his hand on her shoulder gently. ‘Quietly, mistress,’ he said. ‘What's the matter? Have you been attacked?'
The woman hesitated, taken aback by the man's heavy foreign accent. Then she looked into his face intently and seemed to reach the conclusion that she could still seek his help.
'No, sir,’ she said, a little more calmly. ‘But I've a hurt man at my cottage, and my husband's … over the fields … and the man needs help. He's raving something terrible. And I can't even ride to the village for a physician.'
Without waiting for an answer, she started to lead the horse towards the track she had just run along. The two men exchanged a brief glance, and the older man nodded.
Keeping pace with the woman's anxious tugging, they soon found themselves passing alongside a carefully cut hedgerow draped with drop-laden cobwebs. Passing through a gateway they came into the garden of a farm- worker's small cottage; it had the high-pitched, thatched roof and broad, overhanging eaves typical of the area.
'This way,’ she said, releasing the horse and bustling off towards an already-open door. The two men dismounted and followed.
The woman had disappeared into a room off the small hallway as they entered, but her whereabouts were revealed almost immediately.
'Oh, you shouldn't be out of bed,’ came her anxious voice. ‘It's bitter out there. You'll catch your death with that fever. Lie down, please…'
'But I must reach Viernce … Warn them … The horsemen … It's following me … tearing the ground…’ the speaker gave a brief, fearful scream. ‘…run … run … I must…'
The second voice was a man's but it was weak and barely coherent. The two men stepped quickly into the room. The woman was trying to prevent a young man from rising from a bed. His tunic and trousers were obviously a uniform of some kind, but they were soiled and torn and his face bore signs of a futile attempt to wash mud and blood from it. His eyes were wide with fear.
'Oh sirs, he's been like this since he woke up,’ the woman volunteered, vainly trying to push the man down. ‘Ranting about a message and something chasing him. I can't handle him, clean him up, or…’ She shrugged and
