Just after sunset a lone horseman stopped at (what he did not know was called) Raven Overlook, where the road to Trelaninth Castle meets the ridge and the river Nimmanen becomes visible, and dismounted. The horse bowed its head in exhaustion as the rider, with two sheathed swords on his belt and dressed in chain mail, surveyed the darkening landscape. Clouds hid the moon and stars, but both shores of the Nimmanen teemed with glowing campfires, a thousand shimmering points of light, as if a city had materialized in a moment. In horror and wonder the rider took in the scene before him. Never in history... he thought; never in history had such a host been assembled, with the Jazan hordes and the Tuvelain legions welded together by that titanic figure whose name rang through the world, Vandiruk. This was the enemy, the noose around his country's neck, and he felt a patriot's hatred for them, yet he felt, too, a thrill of privilege to be able to witness it. Never in history.
Tarl had awoken that morning amidst birdsongs and golden rays of sunshine, amidst a field of flowers and next to cool water-- a dream of bliss. It had taken him a long time to remember where he was, what his quest was, even, so it seemed now, his own name and station and past. And when he did remember it seemed not to matter. Or no, maybe it did matter, but for a new reason: it mattered because it enhanced his wonder that he, being who he was, disgraced and bloodstained as he was, could look on these things at all, could enjoy them, could feel their peace and life flowing into him and through him and take him up into their peace and life, could carry him along like the bubbles in the stream. Gone was the agony of remorse. All that was left of it was his one last duty, his penance, and that lay heavy upon his heart, that cast a shadow over his new joy, and yet... No, it was no dream of bliss around him, it was waking, he was at last beginning, just beginning, to awake. But that terrible confession was required of him, lest all be revoked.
And another dim memory had come back to him, this one wild and strange, spun of the inky-black darkness of the forests of the night and the ghostly luminosity of moonlight, colored with the desperate earthy strength of the gallantest steed he had ever ridden, and the monotonous clatter of hooves on the cold road, and the unquiet breezes rustling the canopy of the majestic trees, on and on and on until time itself seemed to melt away and there was only this, this night ride, and he seemed to glide like the clouds above him, driven by invisible chariots across the face of the moon... For Tarl had ridden hard from Pinehaven. Only once before had he ridden so hard. It was across the desert that time, with an arrow deep in his shoulder, delirious with pain, cruelly beating his exhausted horse, hating every yard of the journey. That was after he rode with the posse that had killed Gammon Brole, the famous outlaw, and there had been bad blood between him and the posse leader, because he, Tarl, had put the first arrow in Brole as well as the mortal sword blow and had a right to claim half the bounty as the principal slayer, and Jad Nezirbane, the leader of the posse, wanted to deny him credit. It had come up around the campfire the night before that Tarl and Jad were, unbeknownst to them, on opposite sides of an old, half-forgotten feud between their two families. Tarl was ready to die of his wounds before re-igniting the feud or surrendering his bragging rights for killing Gammon Brole, and so he had ridden away before Jad, whose temper was rising, dealt him a mortal insult. Then as now, the moon had lit his way, and the stillness of the night enfolded him, but then he had ridden for the sake of his pride, and his soul was bitter unto death, and he had been without knowing it hating everything and above all the beauty of the night that surrounded him. Now all was changed. A wild freedom filled him and exalted him, he was one with mysteries of the moon, and he loved every muscle in the horse's body, every stone in the road, every leaf that rustled overhead, he forgot everything past and future in a rapture of love, and yet it was as if an arrow had pierced him again, for the intensity of the feeling that filled him was like agony, only it was pleasurable, or at least, though at times the beauty and wonder and exhilaration were hard to bear, he would not have traded it for anything that could be bought with gold. But what a horse he had! Mile after mile and hour after hour it trotted or galloped onward into the night, heedless of the risk of breaking a leg in the dark, as if it had made all Tarl's own urgency and courage its own; even when Tarl stopped it to drink from a stream, it seemed eager to hurry on. Its endurance exceeded any he had ever known, exceeded it twice over, yet at last the noble beast began to struggle, and it was time to change horses, and Tarl stopped at a stables and beat the door with his fists to wake the slumbering owner. A candle was lit in the darkness. There were voices: he thought he heard a grumbling old man being won over to generous curiosity by the bright voices of young women. The wooden door creaked open.
"Good evening, sir," he had said. "Forgive me for waking you but I am in a great hurry. I can pay you well for your trouble." And Tarl shook a bag of gold coins he had pulled from his saddlebag. "I need a horse, a fast horse."
"Come in, sir," said the old horse-trader somehow slowly. His hair was greying; he had dressed himself in trousers and a shirt but sleep was still in his face. And around him his three daughters, hair straight brown, straight gold, and golden curls, each a little taller than the next, shining simple faces that looked up at him with such openness and good will as if they had all just fallen in love with him. "Come in, sir -- girls, light the candles -- sir, may we give you something to eat, oatmeal -- or just bread and water if you're in a hurry."
"No need to light the candles," said Tarl, but they had already been lit. "I'll be here but a moment-- yes, bread and water, thank you-- but show me your horses, I'll give you ten Castence guilders for a fast one..."
"Are you going to fight Vandiruk?" asked the old man. And at this question all three girls' eyes were fixed on him in expectation.
"Yes."
"I ought to come with you. Someone has to fight. Poyn has sent no one to defend us."
"You have your daughters to look after."
"How can I look after them if the kingdom is overrun by the legions and the hordes? We're leaving here, we're fleeing, I don't know where to. Is even Poyn safe now? They say there's a revolution there. For thirty years I've built this place. I wish I could fight for it. But how can a man fight against one hundred thousand? I wish I could ride with you..."
The girls had heard their father's distress and flocked to comfort him. "Father, you can't ride with him, look at him, he's much too fast for you," said one. "The knights will defend us, father. Anduir will defend us. Don't be afraid, father," said another.
"I have ridden from Poyn in four days," said Tarl, and as four pair of eyes stared in amazement, he added, "I don't think you can keep pace with me, old man. And anyway, look after your daughters first. There will be time to fight, I fear. But this is a job for desperadoes, like me."
"He's so strong and brave, he'll put Vandiruk to flight all by himself!" exclaimed the eldest of the girls, and she seemed-- but in the candlelight it was hard to tell-- to leap into the air with excitement. "Come back to see us and tell us how you'll beat him!" she said.
Tarl found his gaze caught by her lovely face, her intent eyes, and her beauty pierced him to the heart, so that he had spoken for a moment like a madman. "If I do," he said, "will you give me one kiss for my reward?"
Her face lit up with surprise and delight. "Oh yes!" she said, and her lips prepared for his kiss as if he were to do it then. But her father gave Tarl a reflexive glance of reproach until Tarl's eyes froze him with a significant stare. There's no harm in it, for we both know I'm not coming back, was spoken silently and understood, and a seriousness settled over the two men which the girls did not perceive. Tarl resumed his banter with the girl, saying:
"Then I'll fight for you." And to the horse trader: "Let me see your horses then."
"This way, sir," he said, leading, "but I'll take no money from a knight on his way to fight Vandiruk."
"I have no need of it where I'm going."
"I insist nonetheless."
"Well, all right then. I'm glad, then, that the horse I'll give you in exchange is a good one, the best a man ever rode I believe. I'll not feel that I've cheated you..."
And in a moment he was on his way again, clattering down the moonlit road, between the trees, beneath the starry dome of the sky, his heart brimming over with wild exhilaration. But before the night was out his stamina gave way at last, and he tied his horse and lay in a field and slept and woke and rode on and now here he was, overlooking the legions of Tuvel and the hordes of the Jazan steppe, and from the depths of memory there came back to him thoughts of his boyhood, when he had ventured out into the lonely hills around the castle Astamraz, with a sword in hand, and his imagination had supplied a thousand knights under his command and ten thousand enemies to stand against them, and he had enacted, stabbing bushes and trees and rocks which his imagination had made men, many mighty battles, many heroic victories, and among them one that had taken place here, on the hallowed ground in the valley before him: the last stand of Calillus.
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