The Eye of the Hunter (79 page)

Beneath, they found a cistern, water seeping from the stone of the mountain and running in. Too, there was an underground passage leading back toward the mosque. Urus scooped up water in a cupped hand and smelled, then tasted it, nodding.

“Now we have all we need to leave this place behind,” said Aravan. “Water. Food. Camels.”

Riatha turned to the Elf. “Back by way of Nizari? Then across the Karoo? It will be dangerous.”

Aravan agreed. “Thou art right, Dara: in the Red City they seek our death, and we are not likely to slip past unnoticed, even at night. Instead we can turn west from here and fare into Hyree, then head north along the west flank of the Talâk Range, posing as caravaneers. Northward, too, is the port of Khalísha along the Avagon Sea, where we can book passage to Pellar.”

Riatha held up a hand. “If we go into Hyree, we will need guises, for if they are readying for a
jihad
, they will take us for spies lest we hide our nature.”

Aravan nodded, glancing at Urus. “Then let us get on with it,” said the Man.

They bore water to the camels and let them drink their fill. Then fitted them with tack and laded them with waterskins and food and cargo taken from the store of plunder.

When that was done they took apart the paddock fence, stacking the poles into a funeral pyre, covering over all with silks and satins.

And they washed Gwylly, cleansing him of blood, and clothed him in his Elven leathers and laid him thereupon.

During these ministrations, Aravan walked away, the Elf with tears in his eyes. Yet there was something he had left to do.

He bore with him his spear and a cask of oil and a heavy maul and paced to the third building. A foetor, a miasma
hung upon the air, and he could hear the squeal of an angered beast behind the closed doors. He flung the portals wide, letting the day shine inward; an enraged scream chopped to silence, the Hèlsteed now dead, fallen into ruin.

Aravan clutched his amulet and nodded, all chill now gone from the stone. He strode to the front entrance of the mosque and flung the remaining portal wide, the bronze door fetching up against the inner wall with a massive
dnng!

Inward he stalked, past the Troll bones and into the main chamber, daylight streaming after. To the north archway he went, and there in piles of dust he retrieved steel throwing knives, shoving them into his belt.

Next, Aravan went to the central dais and down the spiral stair and into the chamber of death where Stoke lay. He thrust Krystallopŷr into Stoke’s torso, the spear burning through the heart. Then he jerked the golden, steel-bladed impaling stake free, and with the iron maul he hammered it to ruin upon the stone floor. He dragged the shards of the wooden door to the center of the room and flung Stoke’s remains thereon, head and body. Then he poured oil over all and set the heap afire, the dry wood exploding in flames and burning furiously, Stoke’s corpse blazing up, skull afire, the heat searing. “Mayest thou burn forever in Hèl,” gritted Aravan.

As he left the inferno behind, he took up the Ghûlk’s head by the hair as well as the cruelly barbed spear, and back up the spiral steps he went, coming to the daylight. And there the Sun turned the Ghûlk’s head into dust, the spiked steel collar clanging to the stone.

“Now, Gwylly, it is finished.”

* * *

When Aravan returned, he gave the knives over to Faeril, and he cast the steel collar and barbed spear of the Ghûlk to the foot of the funeral pyre, the shaft broken in two, the Elf saying, “The weapon and armor of his enemy should lie at his feet.”

Faeril, weeping, placed Gwylly’s sling in his hand, a silver bullet in the leather. Then they poured fine oil over the silks and satins and wood.

At last all was ready, and Faeril gave her buccaran one final kiss. “I love you, Gwylly,” she whispered, choking on her grief.

She stepped back, and Urus, bearing four torches aflame, handed one to each of them.

And together, standing at the cardinal points and weeping, they ignited the pyre.

And with voices of silver, Riatha and Aravan sang Gwylly’s soul up into the sky.

* * *

They rode out through the gates, a long string of camels behind. As they passed beyond the walls, a white dove flew past, winging northward. “An omen of safe passage,” murmured Aravan. “Let us hope it is true.”

Down the switchbacks they rode, toward the canyon below. And just ere they entered, Faeril, riding before Aravan on an improvised saddle, looked back toward the mosque. A pillar of grey smoke climbed into the sky, turning gold as it emerged from mountain shadow and ascended in the morning Sun.

Her vision blurred with tears, Faeril whispered, “Rise up, my love, rise up to Adon on the golden wings of fire.”

Late Winter to Early Autumn, 5E990
[The Present]

N
ortherly through the canyon they rode, stone rising steeply to either side, hemming them in, binding them. And even though the gorge twisted and turned, wrenching left and right, still they moved at a goodly pace, for they wished to be free of the gulch ere nightfall some nine hours hence, the opening into the pass forty or so miles ahead. For the most part the caravan jogged in silence, the riders lost in their thoughts, though now and again a camel would
hronk
an idle complaint. There were eighteen camels in all, fifteen bearing light loads of cargo, three bearing riders, all bearing water. Aravan with Faeril rode in the lead, five camels trailing after. Next came Riatha and finally Urus, five camels in each of their trains as well. And northward through the twisting canyon they passed as the day first waxed then waned.

They had ridden some four hours or so, the Sun having passed overhead, when Aravan held up his hand and called back to the others, “The stone grows chill.”

Onward they went, Faeril’s heart racing, but then, “It’s daylight,” she said. “Surely we have little to fear.”

“Aye, Faeril,” responded Aravan. “There will be no attack unless they have Men among them—a most unlikely coupling.”

Onward they rode, passing by a dark opening in the eastern wall, a crevice cleaving the stone. “There, I ween,” said Aravan, pointing. “There is their bolt-hole.”

Faeril looked into the shadowed slot, but it twisted away beyond seeing. “How far have we come?”

“Some seven leagues.”

“Twenty-one miles,” reckoned Faeril. “Then this is where the Ghûl and the Hèlsteed stayed when first you and Urus saw them, and the place where last night the Rūcks and Hlōks did run.”

“Aye, Faeril, I deem thou hast the right of it.”

On past the crevice they went, Aravan’s blue stone growing warmer as they rode away.

“I feel we are leaving a task undone,” said Faeril, “a pest hole that needs to be cleared out and stoppered up.”

“Mayhap, wee one. Yet the
Rûpt
are now leaderless, not the threat they once were. Left alone they will hide in the mountains and squabble among themselves.”

“Do you mean, Aravan, that the raids will stop?”

“Nay, Faeril, raids will yet occur, though infrequently, and with much less success. For without a cunning mind to guide the
Spaunen
, travellers and steaders and dwellers in towns have much less to fear.”

* * *

Four more hours they trotted northerly, debouching at last into the pass, leaving the gorge behind.

Leftward they turned, westerly, riding toward Hyree. An hour of daylight remained, yet when evening fell, they did not stop, for they wished to put more distance between themselves and the Rūcken bolt-hole.

And so they rode onward, twisting among the mountains of the Talâk Range, stars shining overhead. The gibbous Moon rose, glancing rays from the yellow globe casting long shadows. And as if impelled by the pale beams behind, eighteen camels pressed westerly.

* * *

They made camp at mid of night, there in the depths of the pass, some seventeen leagues beyond the bolt-hole, some fifty-one miles in all.

As Riatha changed the dressing on Aravan’s wounds, Urus studied by firelight one of Riatha’s maps. “This day alone we have travelled seventy-two miles or thereabouts—a pace the camels cannot sustain.”

Aravan groaned. “Nor can I sustain such, Urus, at least not my backside.”

Riatha tied off the last of Aravan’s bandages, then turned to Urus.

“We will not press nearly as hard in the days to come,” continued Aravan, rolling down his sleeve, “now that we are well free of the gorge.”

Urus grunted. “I make it nearly one hundred fifty miles till we leave the pass, and then I measure another thousand or so to the port of Khalísh.”

“Remove thy shirt,
chieran
,” ordered Riatha.

Urus unlaced his jerkin and pulled it over his head.

“Aye,” said Aravan. “Another month of travel should see us to the sea.”

Urus nodded in agreement, as Riatha unbound the bandage on the Baeran’s shoulder. Only a faint pink line showed where Urus had been wounded. In the other two places—wrist and rib—not even a line showed. “Thou art wholly healed, Urus,” breathed Riatha, wonder in her eyes.

Urus grinned. “’Tis my nature, love.”

Riatha turned again to Aravan, handing him the salve and bandages, pulling off her own jerkin. As the Elf changed her dressings, he said, “On the morrow, thou and Faeril need don the garb thou didst find in the plunder at the mosque. And I will ready my own ruse, Urus likewise. Then should we come upon any soldiers, they will not know that we are aught but what we claim: caravaneers.”

Aravan looked at the others, Urus and Riatha in accord.

But Faeril sat to one side, gazing at the fulgent Moon, tears running down her cheeks, the damman thinking of other times, other places…other Moons.

Thinking of Gwylly.

* * *

The next morning, Riatha and Faeril donned
thōbes
, the black veiled garments hiding Faeril’s jewel-like, tilted eyes and Riatha’s Elven eyes, hiding as well Riatha’s golden hair, the robes covering from head to foot so that nothing showed except the hands, as is the custom for females of the desert.

For Aravan’s part, he lightly stained his face and arms and hands to an ecru brown, and he wrapped a headband about his brow, capturing his pointed ears beneath his black hair, the cloth ready to pull down over his eyes. He donned a white
kaffiyeh
, the headdress held in place by a beaded
agāl
. Last, he cast a light blue
jellaba
over his shoulders, the cloak long and flowing.

Sun-bronzed, Urus used a stain to darken his hair and beard, and he replaced his iron morning star with a wide-bladed scimitar, sliding the curved weapon down through a broad blue sash about his waist. He fitted a blue turban ’round his head, pulling the face cloth into place.

Now all was ready, and they set out to fare through Hyree.

* * *

Late on the fifth day after leaving the mosque, the caravan came down from the pass and into the Sultanate of Hyree. There at the outlet was a small garrison, manned by border guards. Two warders stepped from the roadside station and halted the camel train.

[“What news from Nizari?”] queried the guard, speaking in Hyrinian. [“How does the city fare?”]

[“The city endures,”] responded the blind caravan master, his wholly veiled daughter sitting before him, [“growing rich on the tolls they charge.”]

The other soldier walked the length of the train, looking over the goods as if to see what the caravan bore, glancing up at the
thōbe
-clad wife, then passing beyond. [“Any trouble at the haunted gorge?”] he called.

[“None,”] replied the caravan master. [“Of course, I paid dearly for an escort from Nizari to see me well beyond.”]

[“Did you see any strangers on horses? Three Men and possibly two children? Or perhaps two Men and a Woman? Or the graves of children?”]

[“Why, no,”] replied the blind one, gesturing at his bandaged eyes. [“But then, I see very little.”] He broke out in laughter.

The other soldier snorted, smiling. [“Khassim, you have the brains of an ass. That happened a Moon ago. Those fugitives are either gone or dead by now.”]

[“We were told to ask,”] protested Khassim. [“We were told to ask.”]

[“Then stop, I tell you. No one can live near the notch through even a single night, much less an entire Moon. They are no doubt dead, slain by the monster of the haunted gorge and eaten long ago.”]

The blind master turned in the direction of his mute bodyguard near the rear of the train. [“Jula,”] he called, signalling with his hands, [“find suitable gifts for these fine soldiers.”]

Within a fraction of a sandglass, the caravan moved onward, the soldiers behind admiring their new
kaffiyehs
, trading the headdresses back and forth, trying to select between silken white and holy blue, using each other as a mirror.

* * *

Northward fared the caravan along the western flank of the Talâk Range, this side of the mountains covered with greenery, for here the crests stole the rain from the sky, leaving for the most part nought but dry winds to blow on beyond, out over the mighty
Erg
, over the sands of the vast Karoo.

On the third evening of the northerly trek, Aravan sat with Riatha, the two speaking softly in the moonless night.

Aravan added a branch to the low-burning fire. “Dara, once apast as we sailed down the coast to Pellar, I asked thee who thou wouldst defend if it came to a choice—thy lover, or those mayhap more in need…. Riatha, twice, mayhap thrice, thou wert put to the test, and each time didst thou leap to the defense of the Wee Ones. I beg thee to forgive me for my doubt.”

Riatha shook her head. “Thou wert right to question, Aravan. For I did not know myself until came the time….”

She glanced over at the sleeping Baeran. “Ah, would that I had known then that Urus takes wounds with little lasting effect. It would have saved me much consternation.”

Aravan, too, looked at Urus. “Dara, how old wouldst thou say he appears?”

“
Aro
, Aravan, I am no judge of a mortal’s years.”