Blenholme; nor had he sought to impress the aloof king who was obviously his natural father. Up until now.
‘Cal,’ the prince said at last, ‘I’ve decided that we’ll stop here for a time while you do your best to find further signs of these strange creatures. I need better evidence than your tale of claw-marks and a churned-up mass of mud if I’m to report this to Lord Stergos and the Sovereign. None of the wizards at Count Timberton’s fort mentioned giant worms amongst the beasts we should beware of.’
‘Most wizards don’t know,’ Zorn said. ‘Those that know, don’t believe. Gang of fools.’ He cocked his fur-capped head. ‘Mind you, worms were all supposed to be dead.’ He pulled off another chunk of dried meat and champed it noisily. ‘Guess I’ll take a hike along the riverbank. See what I can see. Should be safe enough. But don’t any of you lot go wandering off into the trees.’
He ambled away.
‘Insolent whoreson,’ Vra-Erol muttered. ‘Wonder if he could be right about the dragons?’
‘I’ve also kept alert to our surroundings,’ Vra-Odos said. ‘I detected no creatures save the wildlife we might expect to find. If the Morass Worms do exist, I can only conclude that our windsenses and the gammadion sorcery of our Order are inadequate to disclose their presence.’
‘You could be right, Brother,’ Erol said. ‘They might possess uncanny shielding talent of their own, as do some of the Salka.’
Sir Stenlow gave a slow whistle. ‘Then…if there be numbers of the things lurking in this wilderness, it could explain the great mystery of why the Salka advance has stalled!’
The others stared at him for a long moment, speechless.
Dyfrig clapped the knight on the shoulder. ‘Well said, Sten! You may have hit on it exactly. Our guide thought the worms died off centuries ago. Perhaps the Salka invaders believed the same thing – until a throng of the bastards popped up out of nowhere and gave battle around Beacon Lake. And won.’
‘We must be absolutely certain this is true,’ Vra-Odos cautioned, ‘before passing the information on to the Sovereign. Even then –’ His mouth twitched.
‘There is a problem with credibility,’ Dyfrig conceded with a sigh. An idea came to him. ‘Vra-Erol, you were unable to scry anything of the Salka position from our previous campsite. But since then, we’ve come over a high ridge into more level country. Might it be possible to oversee something useful from here, provided there’s no intervening high ground between the river and Beacon Lake? You might catch some sort of glimpse of the Salka and their presumed antagonists.’
‘One could try.’ The veteran windsearcher was dubious. ‘The overview, if there is one, would be indistinct. Perhaps useless to our purposes. We had hoped to discover whether the Salka plan to hibernate near Beacon Lake and resume their march in spring. Signs of that would be too subtle to ascertain at this distance. We are still over thirty leagues from their estimated position, nearly at the limit of my perception. Any landform blocking the line of sight would muddle the wind-picture significantly.’
‘Please try anyhow,’ the prince urged.
‘To increase the chance of success, I could climb one of the taller trees.’
Sir Stenlow regarded the dignified alchymist with surprise. ‘You’d be able to manage such a thing, Brother Erol?’
A disdainful smile. ‘I work for the army. I’ve climbed more trees than you’ve had hot dinners, boy.’
Dyfrig and Vra-Odos laughed. The prince said, ‘Speaking of food, we’re overdue for our own cold lunch.’
They found reasonably comfortable rocks to sit on and opened their packs. By the time they finished a brief meal of hardbread and ham, Calopticus Zorn had come back into view, trotting at a fair pace. They were relieved to see that nothing seemed to be following him.
The prince rose and called out. ‘Ho, Cal! What did you find?’
Maddeningly, the trapper slowed to a deliberate walk. His long face wore a superior smile. As he drew closer, they could see that he was carrying a good-sized bone.
‘More worm sign,’ he declared, handing his evil-smelling trophy to the prince, who accepted it without demur. ‘See them teeth marks? This is a big brown bear’s upper armbone. Found a stripped carcass by following the carrion stink. Skull crushed like an egg to suck the brains.’
‘But couldn’t the bear have been attacked by a tundra-lion?’ Dyfrig peered doubtfully at the deep gouges. The bone was at least several days old. ‘I admit these wide-set marks are persuasive, but –’
‘That don’t convince you, lord prince?’ Calopticus Zorn rummaged in his capacious belt-wallet. ‘Maybe this will.’ He held up an object that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight like a thick dagger-blade smoothly carved from topaz. ‘Bastard broke it off in the bear’s skull. Hardheaded beasts, bears.’
‘God’s Truth!’ Vra-Erol exclaimed, seizing the thing from the trapper. ‘Look at the size of it! Half a foot long or I’m buggered, and bits of tissue still clinging to the cracked root.’ He turned to Dyfrig. ‘No man can gainsay this. We have our proof, and we must hasten back to Boarsden to show it to the Sovereign and his generals.’
‘Not before you climb that tree,’ the lanky prince said. ‘Give the tooth to Brother Odos – and come stand on my shoulders.’
The Sovereign of Blenholme and his most trusted adviser rode side by side along the crumbling dike track of the River Malle below Boarsden Castle. They were accompanied by two knights from the household of their host, Duke Ranwing.
The Didionite nobleman had done his best to dissuade his guests from making the excursion, pointing out that the bridge at Boar Creek had been destroyed and portions of the dike itself washed away by a powerful spring flood. Repairs were still incomplete because so many of the dukedom’s ablebodied men had been called to arms against the Salka. Unsaid was the fact that the troops, along with over thirty thousand other warriors of Didion, Cathra, and Tarn, had cooled their heels at a vast encampment near Boarsden for over a moon because no one knew what the invaders were going to do and the leaders could not agree on defensive strategy.
‘Surely Your Grace and Earl Marshal Parlian would better enjoy a boar hunt in the marshes,’ the duke had urged. ‘It would be my honor to accompany you –’
‘No thank you, my lord,’ Conrig said in a tone that was courteous but brooked no argument. ‘I’ve no stomach for pig-sticking today. My old friend Beorbrook is all the company I need, and you yourself are no doubt occupied with preparations for tomorrow’s great reception and betrothal feast. We’ll go out by ourselves and view the historic spot.’
‘But you must not ride alone, Your Grace,’ Ranwing Boarsden protested. ‘The dike track is dangerous.’
He would have given them an escort of a dozen knights, but Conrig insisted that only two would be permitted. With one warrior leading the way and the other trailing, and both well beyond earshot, the king and the earl marshal set out to see the spot where the infamous tragedy had taken place so many years earlier.
It was now mid-afternoon on the day before Conrig’s three sons were scheduled to arrive at Boarsden for the betrothal ceremony. The sky was overcast and mist already rose over the marshy bottomlands below the castle’s knoll. The air had turned chilly, although the autumnal equinox was still several days away, and dew hung heavy on the seed-plumes of the reed beds. A few small flocks of buntings and ducks took wing as the horses passed by. Out on the wide River Malle, covered barges laden with corn, the stoutly built flatboats of fur-traders, and narrow rafts of timber were being guided downstream to the populous valley settlements and the shipbuilding cities of Didion Bay.
‘See over there, sire,’ Beorbrook said, pointing ahead, ‘where the rivercraft have pulled up along the opposite shore? That’s where the great whirlpool lies. Boats and rafts must go carefully around it, then negotiate the long stretch of rapids