Varlarsaga Volume 2 - Recovery

Chapter - 37 Bayondir of Indlebloom

‘We were too hasty by halves and a curse upon us for it,’ whispered Elvra, standing watch at the base of a wide-girthed oak.

‘For that, I take full blame,’ murmured Silval Birdwing from a branch high above, as he urgently traced the wooded slopes, hoping for some sign of the others. ‘It was I who said, "We will not leave you," and yet here we are, parted from the rest.’

Elvra shifted her stance, allowing her drawn bow to travel the radius of the dark trees. ‘And I followed you until the gark thickened on the hill-side and I was forced to give ground. Then I went straightway to where we had left Master Corin, but he had vanished and I was driven from the spot at once.’

‘You could not tell in which direction he fled, or if he had been taken?’

‘There was no time,’ she replied, as Silval swung down, landing softly beside her.

‘Then we may only hope that he is safely with Falnir and Dalen.’

‘Yes, though where now are they? We have been forced far from the dale by our pursuers.’

‘Too true,’ Silval agreed. ‘Now it is high time to go back. We have lost the foul ones, I deem, though hound-maggots they be. If we are to come to our companions we must be swift or they, of need, may wander far.’

Through the failing light the two elves set off, making no sound as their feet felt the way over twig and stone with certainty and speed. The moon showed its frosted face over the rim of a distant ridge, casting a clear light through the still-armed trees.

‘Here is the place, of that I am sure,’ whispered Elvra, as she ran her slender fingers across the hummock of flattened grasses where they had all together crouched that afternoon.

‘Yes, my path I took there,’ murmured Silval, pointing at invisible traces with elf-sighted surety.

‘And I this way,’ she replied, indicating the gorse to her left.

Silval spent a time bending close to the earth, then slowly rose, ‘Yarchh, the fetid smell of gark and ympari fill my nose. They have overtrampled everything else.’ He turned to the slope. ‘Up there a way, went Falnir with Dalen, Pitrag and his dragon-pet; that much we know.’

Elvra cast about, searching carefully with eye and hand. ‘It appears...yes...Master Corin and Bimmelbrother made off in haste down there, though much is confused. The nugobluk have passed here too, before or after, I do not know. All at the same time perhaps.’

‘Do you think they have Avarhli and our dear cat?’ wondered Silval, hushed.

‘Perhaps,’ she replied, then, ‘No, no! Here...a tuft of fur... twigs broken....crushed leaf. They were hurrying...in great danger...come...ohh this gark smell is strong, cutting across the trail... but here! Quick!’ She motioned Silval to her as she slipped soundlessly downslope.

Silval followed in her footsteps, the soft rustle of their passing but a hint in the night.

They came upon two dead goblins, the second still pinned to the tree by Corin’s arrow. Here they halted whilst around them the night waited. Silvery moon-light filtered over the cool-scape and nought else moved. The grotesque gark, hanging on the arrow, grinned deathly at them from its bent-sit position.

‘And so, Avarhli passed this far, that much is clear,’ whispered Silval.

Elvra nodded in silence and hurried on. Then suddenly she paused and turned about, ‘Hie, hie! Through this way. See, master Corin shrank beneath this foliage and down, down and back again, see. They were in dire peril it seems; forced this way, then that, until these trees sheltered them.’

The pair stood amongst a group of sorbis, the white flowers gleaming in the moon shine. ‘Here is the place where Avarhli paused a moment,’ said Silval, bending to mark the spot.

‘And here,’ answered Elvra, ‘are hoof-prints coming, standing awhile and leading off up the dale: two horses, running swiftly away.’

‘Carrying Avarhli with them, for his trail ends at theirs,’ whispered Silval, kneeling at Elvra’s side.

‘There is no sign of struggle ?’

‘Nay. Methinks he was willing enough to ride with them.' The elf twitched at the bow-string across his breast. ‘What should we do for the best, I wonder? Falnir and the others are still to be found...’ He ceased in mid-sentence at the nearby song of a blackbird. It was soft and clear, and lasted but a moment before the silent night returned.

‘That blackbird is so true of song as to win a mate,’ smiled Elvra.

‘And what should I look like, sitting at nest or flapping about after fodder for hungry chicks all day?’ cried Falnir, stepping from behind a tree.

‘Oh Elloræ Brother, glad we are to see you safe.’ Silval laughed out loud. ‘Yet pray tell, where are the others?’

Falnir’s face grew serious, ‘If only I knew, dear friends. Of master Corin and Bimmelbrother I have seen nought, I myself having been pursued and hunted far and wide.’

‘But what of Dalen and the ymp?’ Elvra asked, concerned.

‘I cannot say for sure, though I fear for the pixie. The nugobluk came upon us without warning, so I sent Dalen and Pitrag on whilst I held them at bay. Fortunate was I that men on horseback appeared at that instant. The diversion was enough to allow me to slip through the enemy’s clutches, yet I was not swift enough to catch Dalen Tree-heart before his path cut that of more gark coming down from the hills. What took place there I have no notion. I had but moments to search before the nugobluk were after me, and away I went with a hop and a jump until I managed to lose them.’

‘This is grave news,’ said Silval. ‘And what are we to do now? We must take sharp counsel and choose aright in this wild country.’

‘I have more to tell,’ went on Falnir. ‘ In my seeking, I looped around to the further side of the dale and thence back here. On the way, I chanced upon a man, badly wounded; swooned but alive. It seems he had dragged himself beneath the bushes before fainting, and so was missed by his companions. He is quite nearby.’

Elvra took a pace forward, ‘ We had best go to this man and see what can be done.’

Silval nodded. ‘Yes let us, since it is useless to stay here when we could be of aid. And perhaps we may learn something from him. Lead the way Falnir.’

The three elves stole quietly out of the trees and along the cleft of the dale until they came to a tangled clump of undergrowth wherein lay the unconscious figure of the man. He had been gashed in the right cheek by a goblin blade, and a cruel bruise swelled on his temple; perhaps sustained in the fall from his mount. His fair hair was matted with blood and his face was a sickly, greenish colour.

After some effort from Elvra, in which she bathed his wounds with water from her flask and fashioned a compress of yarrow leaves to staunch the bleeding, he began to show signs of recovery. By and by, he opened his eyes a-flutter, and looked up into the faces of the elves.

‘We mean you no harm,’ said Silval, in the Renish speech, as the young man gave a sudden start and winced in pain.

At last he managed to sip a few drops of water, and gasped out his name, ‘I am Bayondir of Indlebloom Vale. My Lord is Menkeepir, who dwells in Mendoth city. Take me there and he shall reward you,’ he added weakly, sinking back and closing his eyes.

‘He is too ill to move this night,’ murmured Elvra, gently soothing his brow.

‘Yea, even if we knew where Indlebloom Vale was,’ nodded Falnir.

And Silval said, ‘There seems nought much more we can do till the morning comes. Best stay and care for him, Elvra, whilst Falnir and I go searching.’

So it was agreed that Elvra should stay with Bayondir as Falnir combed the hills about for sign of Dalen and the imp, and Silval followed the trail left by the horses that had carried Corin and Bim away. The pair departed, leaving Elvra to sit motionless in the night’s shadows, beside the shallow-breathing figure.

Eventually, the sky swept up into morning, and with it came a fair day filled with birdsong. About Elvra, the shadows paled and vanished. She laid her slender fingers to the man’s forehead, cooling it with her touch. Bayondir stirred and awoke; his eyes, as through a mist, finding hers. They did not speak; just held each other’s gaze, until he drifted away again into sleep.

A tiny shrew crept out from her nest and scurried about in search of food and lining. Elvra smiled and beckoned the creature to her. It came at once; innocently and trustingly, scampering up her arm and onto her shoulder, where it perched, wiping at its whiskers with minute paws. The elvess laughed softly and brushed the little animal’s coat with a delicate motion. Then, with a twitch of its head, the shrew darted away and was gone and in that instant Elvra drew the blade at her thigh and shrouded herself in leaves.

‘You cannot be stealthed upon or caught unawares, fair maiden!’ said a chirpy voice from the trees nearby. It was a round and merry-go voice, and Elvra knew it at once.

‘Tree-heart! Pecht Dalen, come forth and tell me of your witherings!’

‘I have been far and wide, and deep in danger,’ grinned the pixie, as he nimbly cleared the bole of a fallen tree and scampered into Elvra’s waiting arms, where she lifted and embraced him, then set him down, saying, ‘Well, at least one sheep has returned to the fold. I was somewhat forlorn having only this swooned man for company. Silval is away northward, and Falnir is even now searching high and low for sign of you and that black ymp with his serpent creature.’

‘And Falnir at last tracks you down,’ muttered the elf in a low voice, appearing amongst the trees and throwing his hands to his hips in mock consternation. Then, joining them, he laughed cheerfully, clapping Dalen upon the shoulder, ‘Now tell us of your erring way, you worrisome rascal.’

‘Pursued and near skewered was I,’ squeaked the pixie, ‘ what with running in and out between the legs of those trampling nugobluk much of the night. Once, a gark snapped me up as if I were a rabbit and I saw his black hacker set to send my head adrift from my body, and I took such a fright that I twisted loose from the horror. Then I spent a time inside the front door of a badger’s earth, the badgers were out hunting; damp and odorous it was too, yet suitable for my purpose. Oh my! It was all fear and shivers till I was sure they had passed. Then I made back as best I could follow any path, and so came to you, sweet maid.’

‘And what of the ymp?’ asked Falnir.

Dalen shook his red-mopped head. ‘At one moment Pitrag and the dragling were with me, and in the next they had vanished. Yet the ymp could not have feared the nugobluk; after all, he is of their kind.’

Elvra nodded, ‘So it seems we have seen the last of Pitrag and Sgnarli.’

‘Yea,’ sighed Falnir, ‘and I had almost begun to think them tameable.’

‘About as tameable as the wind,’ snorted the pixie; though secretly he too felt a twinge of something like loss. ‘Still,’ he hurried on, dismissing the thought, ‘of more import, where are master Corin and our good Bim-fur?’

‘Perhaps we should speak together as we travel,’ suggested Elvra. ‘I think it wise not to tarry longer here, since between us the man we can bear. Let us follow Silval, the sooner to come by him.’

And so it was resolved. Dalen scampered ahead to spy the going, whilst Elvra and Falnir, for all their elvish slightness, managed Bayondir, who drifted in and out of consciousness.

At near noon they met Silval returning swiftly along the dale, and there halted to rest.

‘It is good that you decided to follow,’ he said. ‘We have a way to go, even to the point where I turned back.’

Elvra plucked a mushroom from the foot of a tree and offered it to the elf, ‘And where, pray tell, was that?’

‘Well, I tracked the pair of horses until they left these wooded slopes and came to open land. Further on it seems they were met by more riders, though that was difficult to rede, since much was muddled by the pawings of others: wolves and goblins. Still, it appears that the horsemen fled north across the open plain, pursued by the hordes, towards the mountains that lie beyond.’

At this, Bayondir stirred, croaking through his pale lips, ‘That is so, fair youth, the lands of my Lords are far within those mounts. The vale of Indlebloom and Mendoth city itself await, if you will but heed my directions.’

Silval smiled, ‘It seems we have few choices. We can quit all here and return to our own kind far to the south, or follow Corin Avarhli.’

‘We cannot abandon this man in the wilds,’ protested Elvra.

‘Of course we cannot,’ laughed Silval. ‘At the least we shall take him near enough to the dwellings of his own folk for him to come there in safety. One thing is sure, somewhere ahead, between the riders and us, roam the nugobluk and their wolf packs. That way lies danger.’

The elves toiled on for the rest of the day, pillowing, half carrying the man. Silval took the main burden, his lithe, bent back cushioning Bayondir, whilst Falnir lifted his legs and Elvra sprinkled water over his burning brow. Dalen became the scout-pixie, scuttling from bush and tree, ever watchful.

In late afternoon they crossed the wide, trampled plain, keeping to the trail of the night before, and into evening they reached the trees, growing lush and strong at the feet of the mountains. Here they rested, for Bayondir was still light-headed, and even the staunching poultice that Elvra applied eased the pain and discomfort but gradually. Much of the time he seemed delirious, yet at intervals he revived, recalling all that had befallen him.

Later that night they journeyed on, taking great care to travel silently, wary as they were of the dangers that abounded. Whether fortune favoured them they did not know, though when the morning dawned they had chanced upon no more than a startled vixen with her two cubs, and a few night owls. The trail of the horsemen was not difficult to follow, muddied as it was by wolves and goblins, for the way of the pack was the way of the prey.

All that day the party climbed deeper into the mountains. Then, toward sunset, they spied the smoke, billowing clouds of sooty grey, rising in columns away to the north-east.

By the time Dalen Tree-heart came scurrying back to them, the elves were already prepared, bows drawn, at the foot of a tree, where above, deposited in a forked cleft, lay Bayondir.

‘I have seen them! The nugobluk!’ squeaked the pixie. ‘From the ridge above there is a wide view of the lands beyond. It is there, near the summit of a hill not far off, that the fires burn. Men and horses are gathered there, fending off the flames as best they can, whilst below the goblins dance, feeding the blaze and jeering at the besieged. There are some bigger creatures with them, tearing up saplings and hurling them into the red-tongues. Dreadful fierce they appear: twisted and shaggy, like huge bears.’

‘They are trolls come out of the mountains,’ called Bayondir, struggling to climb down from his perch. ‘Oh quickly, help me good folk. Those horsemen are my kindred come a searching, I’ll wager. I must get to them at once!’

‘And die with them?’ Silval enquired, as the elves steadied the swaying man. ‘There is nought, by the sound of things, that we can do to save them, short of the foolishness of throwing away our lives in the attempt.’

‘There are many more of the enemy this time,’ said Dalen. ‘Come see for yourselves.’

In a short time the party managed to reach the wooded crest, Bayondir limping and leaning his weight upon Falnir and Silval; stumbling in his haste to gain a view of the beleaguered folk.

‘They are my people, there is no doubt,’ he muttered, whilst the collar of fire drove the figures of men and their steeds further towards the summit, and scores of goblins ringed the lower reaches, darting into the coals to hurl their bone spears. ‘It is too late to do anything but watch,’ Bayondir added bitterly, wringing his hands together.

‘I am afraid so,’ answered Silval, watching the attack with steady eyes, ‘for although we were many we could not come there in time.’

But even as the elf spoke, a commotion broke out upon the further side, nugobluk and several monstrous trolls came pouring round the shoulder of the hill; at first it seemed to add to the swarming numbers, yet then it was plain that they were fleeing downslope.

Behind them, riding hard, came a band of armoured men: plumed helms streaming in the wind, long spears lowered. The goblins before them faltered, some held their ground and were ridden down, the rest broke and ran. Taking heart, those horsemen above began boldly racing their steeds through the flames to join with their rescuers. Yet even then, the enemy steadied in their retreat and turned to fight; slowly halting the charge of the riders by sheer numbers. Trolls uprooted saplings and flailed at man and horse, unseating many, and soon those afoot were desperately fighting hand to claw with goblin, imp and troll.

But as it seemed the tide was turning and the nugobluk gaining the upper hold, a second band of riders, some four score in strength, drove against the rear of the enemy from below. They came out of the western dale, flashing amongst the trees, catching wolves and goblins unprepared where they massed to the attack upslope.

Now there came a fierce battle, until the foe, hemmed between two fronts, gave way and took to their heels to left and right, clawing a way out, leaving only the scattered dead. The fire burned unabated on the knoll’s summit whilst the victors gathered their riderless horses and tended the wounded.

At this unexpected turn of events, Bayondir managed a joyful croak, ‘They have beaten them off! Oh great hearts of Indlebloom!’ Then, turning to the elves, he went on, ‘Somehow I must come to them, good folk, if you will but carry me the way; for I do not think that I can yet stand unaided. Though if I have to, I shall crawl.’

‘There is no need for that,’ Silval answered. ‘ You are with friends who will not leave you stranded in the wilderness. Though we may be hard pressed to catch them before they ride on. And remember, we must be wary, these mountains are thick with the enemy, and they would welcome us into their clutches. Maybe the darkness will be our ally, yet the new moon is risen there away.’

‘Let the shadows be our path then,’ suggested Falnir.

‘Ay,’ Elvra nodded, ‘ and let us hope that path leads to safety and news of Corin Avarhli, not into some evil den.’

‘Perhaps our march may not prove so lengthy after all,’ said Dalen who was still watching. ‘Look, the horsefolk are on the move.’

This was true enough, and as the elves gazed out from the ridge, they could just discern the riders winding in close array down through the dim trees and into the gloom of the forest floor. It appeared that they were heading in a direction that should bring them a little westerly of where the company now stood, so hastily the elves, supporting Bayondir, made off in a line that would intercept them.

They travelled as swiftly as was possible, though the still night and the wounded man allowed more noise than Silval liked. And indeed, it did not go unnoticed. As they neared the spot where they guessed the riders would pass, Silval called them to a sudden halt. ‘Hush!’ he whispered, in a voice so low that Bayondir took it to be the stirring of some roosting bird. ‘I feel that something is wrong. We are not alone.’

And even as he spoke, a great shadow loomed up, detaching itself from those of the benighted trees.

‘It is a mountain troll,’ whispered Bayondir horrified, as the huge bulk shuffled into the moonlight.

At once Elvra touched her fingers to his lips, signing him to silence, whilst they waited motionless.

The troll bowed its shaggy head, swinging from side to side as if searching the thickets, then took several plodding steps forward. Surprisingly, it moved with little noise for such a brutish, ungainly creature, as it swayed there, its long arms and great clawed paws dangling beyond its knees. The light of the moon fell across its face, though the orbed eyes were hidden pits beneath heavy, protruding brows. Dark patches of hair crowned its massive, domed head and sprang in tufts upon the hanging jaw where two long incisors; yellow-boned and knife sharp, dripped saliva from the gaping mouth. It gave a grunt, ‘Errgh,’ and shambled a little to one side. Then, without warning, the troll pulled up and spun sharply about.

For an instant Bayondir and the elves thought they were discovered, but even as Elvra prepared to draw her bow and Silval’s hand tightened upon the hilt of his sword, there came a distant drumming of hooves, and the troll lumbered away amongst the trees.

‘That will be your kinsmen,’ smiled Elvra, taking Bayondir’s hand.

‘Quick now, or we may yet miss them,’ said Silval after stooping and placing an ear to the ground. ‘They are quite close. Come, this way.’

And the company hurried off in the direction the elf indicated, Falnir and Silval supporting Bayondir between them.

Soon the party came to a rough-beaten track that wound through silent trunks of ash, and there they waited as the sound of approaching horses drew nigh. In a short time the riders could be made out, cantering down the overgrown pathway like distant phantoms of shadow.

Silval and Falnir, upon either side of Bayondir, took a position directly in their road, whilst Elvra and Dalen remained hidden amongst the trees.

When the horsemen sighted the three figures standing, huddled together in the thin moonlight, they drew rein and came to a standstill some little way off. It was not until Bayondir raised his arm and hailed them, calling, ‘Ho! Men of Indlebloom, folk of my people, it is I, your kinsman, Bayondir of Mendoth City. I am with friends who have saved me from the evils of the wilds,’ that the riders moved forward. Peering down from the saddle, the leader gave a muffled exclamation before lifting his visor to reveal a stern, scarred countenance.

‘Mendor, my Lord,’ cried Bayondir, reaching up to clasp the other’s hand. ‘Thank goodness you have found us!’

Chapter 38 [next]