cantrev and his brother began the task the earl had assigned.
'See that you tend to your duties, especially as regards that Moonwell. This sorcery disturbs me. It must be disposed of quickly. Pull some of the guards off the mine crews to take care of it. I can spare a few men-at- arms.'
The earl blotted egg from his beard and rose from the table, still addressing Gwyeth. 'Get out to the foremen's stand this morning. I want you to understand what's happening up there.'
Hanrald, already forgotten by his father, turned to Gwyeth. 'And how fares my brother? I trust that your wound heals cleanly?'
'Don't worry about him,' grunted the lord, scowling. 'You've enough of your own to tend to.'
As the earl returned to his chambers, Hanrald went to the stables himself, but instead of taking a light archer's mount for the hunt, he found his loyal groomsman and told him to quietly ready his war-horse for a journey, letting no one know his intent. Then Hanrald returned to his own rooms, there to gather the few items he would need for his ride.
He had debated about his destination, for first it had seemed to him that he must go to Callidyrr. But several factors had changed his mind.
For one, his father rode along that same road, to the same place, and the son intended to keep his mission a secret from the earl-in the same manner, he reflected, as Blackstone himself sought to deceive Hanrald. But Hanrald also knew that the king was absent, and the queen, according to his eavesdropping, slumbered in an unnatural trance, not knowing what occurred around her.
The ranking member of the royal house, he knew, would thus become the princess Alicia, and she would not be found in Callidyrr. Instead, as far as Hanrald knew, she was still up in the Fairheight Mountains. Perhaps she and her companions had been captured by northmen-a thought that chilled him to the bone. The knight of Blackstone felt clear in his purpose: He would go to the High Princess with his tale of treachery.
Some hours later, the earl and a party of guards trotted from the manor, on the road to Callidyrr. Shortly afterward, Gwyeth rode into the cantrev to assemble and detach a small party of men to the Blackstone Moonwell.
As soon as they had left, Hanrald completed his preparations. He donned his armor of burnished steel and even his heavy helmet, though he would ride with the visor of the faceplate raised. His groom had prepared his steed and stood waiting beside the war-horse, holding Hanrald's lance and his stout shield. A cloak of blue cloth covered the horse, matching the knight's silken overshirt.
'Good luck, my lord!' stammered the youth, his face beaming with pride.
'I have gone to hunt a very large stag,' he told the lad, adding a wink. 'At least, that's what you'll say to explain my departure.'
'Aye, Sir Hanrald!' The fellow saluted sharply as Hanrald hoisted himself into the saddle by means of a wooden step. The knight took his lance and raised it. From the tip fluttered a pennant bearing the Blackstone emblem of two swords crossed over a square shield.
On impulse, Hanrald reached up and tore the silken flag away. He cast it to the ground and grinned at the shocked look on his squire's face.
'From now on,' he said, 'I ride under no banner but my own.'
Then he kicked his armored heels, and the ground in the courtyard shook as his massive charger trotted through the manor. A ray of sun somehow poked its way through the tiniest gap in the clouds, and in the squire's eye, Hanrald's armor glinted like silver for a moment before the fog and the rain closed in again and buried him in the haze.
A full day passed before King Svenyird could find time in his busy schedule to interview the princess from Callidyrr. Alicia had enjoyed the time, the morning spent with Brandon, walking through the town. In the afternoon, she went for a stroll along the shore with Tavish and Keane prior to the meeting with the king.
'I wonder what happened to Newt,' Alicia said to them. 'I haven't seen him since that first night in Brandon's camp.'
'I think the little fellow's gone back home,' suggested Keane, his tone indicating that for once the mage thought very highly of the faerie dragon's intentions.
'He'll do that,' Tavish agreed. 'He's not much for large groups of people or journeys to cities and the like.'
'He's not the only one. I haven't had a good night's sleep since we left Callidyrr,' complained Keane as they wandered among great trunks of pine, beside the rocks that lined the shore of Salmon Bay. 'They gave me some boards and a pad to sleep on, but the straw had gone to mold, and I threw it away!'
'It's good for your spine,' teased Alicia. 'You get too hunched poring over your tomes all the time.'
Keane looked down, his face flushed, and the young woman realized that her remark had truly stung him. Why? She didn't know; it was the kind of thing she said to him all the time.
'To the King of Gnarhelm,' said Tavish smoothly but firmly. 'What will you say to him?'
'I'll tell him about the golem. . and I'm sure Brand has already told him about the attack by the archers. I hope to learn if he knows of any other enemies that might deserve the blame for this mischief!'
'Is there no different reason we have come here, then?' inquired Keane, an edge to his tone.
'The princess knows her mind, I expect,' said Tavish, gratifying Alicia. 'Now let's get to the lodge. It's not too many hours until sunset.'
But they found, as they returned to Gnarhelm, that the town was already in an uproar. Rumors raced through the streets, reflected in the looks given to Alicia and her companions as they approached the royal lodge.
'What is it?' she demanded, confronted by the scowl of a warrior from Brandon's band.
'You Ffolk!' he replied, his tone surly but his eyes downcast. 'Word has just arrived. An army, under your king's banner, has invaded Gnarhelm!'
Danrak soared to the north in the body of a white gull, not quite believing that he actually flew, or indeed that his body had changed shape. Gradually, however, he accepted the fact that the talisman of Isolde had worked magic upon him.
He shrilled his delight, a harsh cry that swiftly vanished into the limitless expanse of gray sea. He dove, skimming nimbly above the wave tops, bobbing over each restless, foam-crested swell and then swooping into the troughs, racing with dizzying speed over the deep, gray-black water.
For a time, he flew northward, realizing that he simply needed to extend his wings to glide effortlessly along the eddies of the storm-tossed air. For many hours, past the sunset and through the blackest part of the night, the druid glided and sailed, leaving the coast of Gwynneth as a distant memory.
Dawn came, gray and stormy as ever, and Danrak flew through squalls of rain. Once hail pounded him, but he dove away and escaped with nothing more than bruises along his wings and back.
Finally he passed a rocky shore and veered slightly toward the east. He remembered the talisman from Lorn, and the way it had marked his path when he threw it. First north for a long way, but then the stone had veered to the right. Now, as the coastline passed below him, he understood and banked his own course from north to northeast.
Soon crags of granite marked the ground below him, and these grew and expanded like the tail of some horned reptile merging into a broad, plate-studded back. By midday, the gull reached a range of mountains that loomed high enough to challenge his presence in the sky, rending the overcast with their stone-edged crags.
Now, Danrak knew, he was getting close. He dove, darting along a sheer crest and surprising a snow fox in its deadly pursuit of a quail. The gull swept over a final ridge, and there below him he saw it-the thing he had never seen before in his life, but to which the will and power of the goddess now brought him: a Moonwell, in the verdancy of life.
The small vale in this gray and apparently lifeless range fairly burst with vitality. A grove of tall, lush cedars shaded the lower shore of the pond, where a crystalline stream splashed outward, sparkling even under the cloudy skies.
Silently, reverently, the druid-gull descended through a series of wide circles. Now that he had reached his goal, Danrak was reluctant to land and abandon the magic of Isolde's talisman, for the feather had vanished in the casting of his shape-change, and like the eye of direction, it could not be used again.
