Heritage Of The Xandim

26

STORMFLIGHT

At nightfall Corisand waited in the stable yard with Aelwen and Kelon until the other grooms had taken the rest of the horses into the tunnel entrance. Once they were safely out of sight, Aelwen crossed the yard and ducked into the smaller stable, emerging with Taryn and Alil, each laden with bulging saddlebags and with blanket rolls strapped behind their saddles. To Corisand’s surprise, she also saw another mare, the very flashy (in Corisand’s opinion) strawberry roan named Rosina, who was laden with packs and tied to Taryn’s saddle with a long tether.

Kelon raised his eyebrows. ‘You want to take a packhorse? Aelwen, are you sure about this? An extra animal to control could be a dreadful liability while we’re trying to escape.’

‘I wasn’t thinking so much about a packhorse as a brood mare,’ Aelwen replied. ‘She’s just been to the stallion, Kelon. I thought if we could manage to take her with us, we could continue the line of Hellorin’s horses in Tyrineld, or wherever we end up. We would never leave Taryn or Alil behind, but from a breeding point of view, where’s the advantage of having two stallions and no mares?’

Kelon considered briefly, then nodded. ‘It’s worth a try. Come on, then. We’d better hurry.’

They set off, Kelon leading Corisand in front, while Aelwen came behind with the other horses. Behind the stables was a low cliff where the hillside fell away steeply, and set into the face of the escarpment was the entrance of the tunnel. Steadily they began to climb up the wide, curving way, and as he led Corisand on, Kelon looked over his shoulder and grinned. ‘I notice you just happened to choose that precious pink mare of yours.’ With her coat a mixture of deep fiery chestnut and white hairs, Rosina did seem to have a rosy blush. Aelwen scowled at him. ‘She’s a very good mare, and I think her colour is beautiful. Do you have a problem with that?’

‘Me? Not a bit,’ Kelon chuckled. ‘I think Corisand does, though.’

Corisand did. When she saw Aelwen with Rosina, she felt an unanticipated pang of jealousy and, even while castigating herself for being stupid, she couldn’t resist turning her head to put her ears back at the other mare.

Aelwen chuckled. ‘Would you look at that? Still, it won’t be a problem to us, as Corisand isn’t coming. I would love to take her, but even if Tiolani had not been riding her tonight, we’d never be allowed to get away with Hellorin’s own mare. They would hunt us to the ends of the earth.’

Kelon shrugged. ‘Besides, what would be the point of taking her? She’s just rejected every stallion in the place. Ouch!’ He jumped. Corisand had nipped his arm.

All the time they had been talking, they had been climbing within the underground passageway, moving up through the hillside beneath the city. The walls and floor of the tunnel had the smooth, perfect look of any structure that had been carved out by magic, though the floor was covered with a thick layer of sand, to prevent the horses from slipping. The ceiling arched high above, leaving lots of headroom. The lamps, filled with captive lightning, crackled and buzzed as they cast their brilliant bluish light across the passage, and the ozone smell tickled the nostrils of horses and riders alike.

Eventually, Aelwen halted the other horses in the shadowy mouth of the tunnel, and let Kelon and Corisand go on ahead. They emerged into the courtyard before the palace, with Kelon keeping a firm grasp on the mare’s bridle. Corisand discovered a very different scene from the last Wild Hunt she had attended. Everything felt wrong tonight, and out of place: the mildness of the evening, with its scents of sun-warmed vegetation, the luminosity of the summer sky, with a golden crescent moon overhead, and some ominous-looking banks of dark cloud forming on the western horizon. It was all so different from the crisp, frosty air and velvet blackness of a winter’s night. Beyond the city, the soft, rounded outlines of leafy treetops marked the forest, instead of the intricate lacework of winter-bare boughs.

Even the hunters themselves had changed. Gone was the atmosphere of anticipation; gone was the savage joy. On previous Hunts the courtyard had been brimming with excited, chattering Phaerie, but now only a grim handful remained, the weaker of them held to their purpose by fear of Tiolani, and the stronger - mainly those who had lost friends or kin in the ambush - filled with a merciless, driven sense of purpose, desperate to find more wild humans on whom to wreak their revenge. There was no sense of pleasure here any longer - only the vicious desire to hunt, and maim, and kill.

A sudden silence fell across the courtyard, and Corisand looked up to see Tiolani standing alone at the top of the steps. She too had changed out of all recognition from the excited young girl with nothing in her life to worry her save acquitting herself well on her first Wild Hunt. Now she had aged and hardened.

Corisand, with her Windeye’s senses, could perceive the aura of darkness that surrounded her; could smell the miasma of bitterness and bloodlust and hate. The mare shuddered and, for a fleeting instant, felt unprecedented doubt. Would it really be wise to cross this dangerous, unpredictable creature whose very sanity was in question?

Then her head came up, and her pride took command.

I am Corisand. I know things, O daughter of Hellorin, that you could barely imagine. Your father might have bested me when I was a dumb beast and knew no better, but you will never master me!

Kelon led Corisand forward as Tiolani descended the steps, and all eyes were upon them as they met. A silence had fallen in the courtyard. With a curt nod to the stony-faced head groom, Tiolani went to put her foot in the stirrup. Corisand laid back her ears and sidestepped.

‘Hold her, you fool!’ Tiolani, in temper, lashed out at Kelon with her whip, and a red line opened on the side of his face. Corisand smelled the blood, and felt the slow boil of building anger within her. You’ll pay for that, she thought, but for the present, so as not to get Kelon into more trouble, she decided to stand quietly and let Tiolani mount. Kelon let go of the bridle and stepped well back out of range, and Corisand felt Tiolani’s legs clamp her in a vicelike grip and her hands tighten on the reins, ready to deal with any trouble. Smirking to herself, the Windeye stood, meek and obedient as the gentlest old nag, and listened to the murmurs of surprise, coupled with respect for Hellorin’s daughter, that were running round the courtyard. How had Tiolani mastered her father’s untameable horse with such ease?

With a great show of obedience, Corisand let Tiolani turn her to face the assembled Phaerie. ‘Let us ride,’ Tiolani cried out in a ringing voice, and activated the flying magic that was the heritage of the Forest Lord’s line. Instead of the glittering splendour of Hellorin’s spell, however, his daughter’s magic emerged as a faint greenish, luminous mist that clung to the horses, hounds and riders, giving them an eerie, eldritch pallor that resembled corpse-light. Corisand sensed the difference immediately. This flying spell, lacking the practice and polish of Hellorin’s long lifetime, was raw and brutal, gnawing painfully at the life-energies of the recipients to fuel itself. No wonder my people have been coming back so exhausted from Tiolani’s Hunts, the Windeye thought furiously. Does she not realise what she’s doing? Does she not care?

As the hounds took off, Tiolani spurred her into the air in their wake. Still Corisand chose to bide her time. She was far too close to the city to make her move yet - and in the meantime, she had to admit that it felt wonderful to fly again. Moving easily through the warm summer night, the Wild Hunt was heading southward once more, veering towards the south-eastern boundaries of their kingdom and, with every league they flew, coming closer to the lands of the Wizards. Tension and excitement made her heart beat faster. Soon now, soon. With her equine vision she could see almost all the way around her, and as she gained height, she kept an eye out behind her for Aelwen and Kelon. Only when they were well on their way could she act.

Aelwen, standing with the three laden horses in the shadowy tunnel mouth, watched Kelon walking back to her, and felt a searing rage at the sight of his bleeding face. Damn that Tiolani! How dare she? As he approached, she pulled him into the shadows with her, and dabbed gently at the whip cut with a corner of her cloak, feeling her anger flare even higher as he winced. ‘That little bitch,’ she muttered. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’ll live,’ he muttered. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Look - she’s starting.’

Aelwen peered out of the tunnel to see Tiolani sitting on a curiously placid Corisand, her hands upraised as she summoned the flying spell. She shuddered as the sickly green glow began to spread out across the riders of the Hunt. ‘Ugh! I don’t much fancy that crawling all over me. Do you remember Hellorin’s flying magic, Kelon? All the sparkle and the shimmer, and the glorious colours against the winter sky. It was so beautiful.’

Kelon nodded. ‘All the same, just at this moment I prefer Tiolani’s enchantment. If we had picked up Hellorin’s flying magic, we’d have been visible for miles, but this spell is so dim that we’ll just fade into the background once we’ve put a little bit of distance between the Hunt and ourselves.’

‘Here it comes!’ Aelwen gripped Kelon’s arm tightly as the magic spread across the courtyard, entering the tunnel mouth and flooding across the two Hemifae and their mounts. Neither of them had been subjected to the flying spell before. It took them completely by surprise. Aelwen felt a cool tingling as the magic passed over her, covering her from head to foot in the spectral green glow - then suddenly she staggered, clinging to Kelon’s arm as a wave of weakness overwhelmed her. There was a loud buzzing in her ears, a blizzard of brightly coloured spots before her eyes, and the world swirled dizzily around her. She could feel Taryn tugging on the reins and neighing shrilly in distress, and was dimly aware that the magic must be affecting the horses in a similar way.

Aelwen gasped, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples. She wasn’t sure at that moment whether she could even stand upright, let alone pull off a daring escape. She was not to know that Hellorin’s flying spell, refined by long years of practice and reinforced by the colossal strength of the Phaerie Lord himself, would not have affected her this way. Tiolani’s magic, however, was not strong enough to power itself throughout the long hours of the Hunt, and must therefore feed instead upon the energies of its subjects, as Corisand had discovered already. And because Aelwen and Kelon had never been part of the Wild Hunt, they’d had no chance to build up an immunity to the magic.

The worst of her torment was short-lived, however. After a few moments, the spell stabilised, the world stopped whirling and those dreadful feelings of nausea and weakness receded into the background. Aelwen looked at Kelon. Beneath the translucent green haze that covered him, he was white as a ghost. ‘How are you feeling?’ she whispered.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed himself away from the wall against which he had been leaning. ‘Well,’ he said softly, ‘at least now we know why our horses are coming back exhausted every time.’

‘They’re leaving.’ Aelwen gestured towards the courtyard. The Huntsman and his hounds were already aloft, and the horses and riders were climbing steeply into the air as they followed, with Tiolani at their head. Her face was set and grim, and her eyes were bright and savage with bloodlust. Aelwen and Kelon watched them soar and dwindle until they were nothing more than a glowing speck in the distance, then turned and looked at one another.

‘This is it,’ Kelon said. Warily he crept out into the courtyard once more, scanning the windows of the palace for people looking out. After a moment he beckoned to Aelwen, who led the horses out, trying to stay in the shadows beside the high wall. In a trice they were mounted, and Aelwen quickly fastened Rosina’s tether to her own saddle.

‘Come on - quick,’ Aelwen whispered.

‘Er . . . How do we start?’

They looked at one another in consternation. How, exactly, did one get airborne? Aelwen frowned, trying to remember what the hunters had done. ‘It was as if they were putting their horses at a jump, then they just . . . went.’

It was Rosina who solved it for them. The mare had taken part in the Wild Hunt several times before and, having been held back while her herdmates set off without her, she was desperate to follow. Tugging at her tether, she suddenly bounded forward and Taryn followed, taking with him an unready Aelwen who, preoccupied with trying to work out how to get aloft, had let her attention wander. Before she had time to gather herself, she felt a tremendous lurch and heave that made her lose a stirrup. When she looked down, she was no longer on the ground.

Aelwen groped frantically with her foot until she recovered the missing stirrup. Then, to her everlasting shame, she did something that she had not done since she was a little girl learning to jump high fences. She twisted both her hands in the stallion’s long, black mane, shut her eyes tightly and hung on with all her might.

With her eyes closed, things felt better. Taryn might have been galloping uphill on the ground, on any normal day. After a moment or two she gained enough confidence to open her eyes, and looked around anxiously for Kelon. Fortunately, Alil had followed the other horses, and was running easily along on Aelwen’s right, while Rosina matched Taryn stride for stride on her left, at the extreme limit of her tether. Aelwen gave Kelon a watery grin. ‘At least we’re up here,’ she said in mindspeech, to save having to shout against the whistling wind. ‘But by all Creation, that was scary! I very nearly wet my pants.’

Kelon’s mental voice sounded shaky. ‘You’re not the only one. But now we’re up here, it’s not so bad. It’s just like riding normally on the ground - as long as we don’t fall off.’

Aelwen looked down at the treetops, horribly far below, and felt her stomach tighten at the thought of falling. ‘Let’s definitely not do that,’ she agreed. But to tell the truth, he was right. Riding up here was perfectly easy - if you didn’t think about what lay below. She glanced back at Eliorand as it receded into the distance. It looked beautiful, and she felt a pang at the thought of leaving it. Her home was back there, and her beloved horses. Her friends, her grooms, her memories . . . All her life before this night was far away now, and being left further behind with every passing moment. She gritted her teeth and looked ahead. ‘It’s not your home any more,’ she told herself. ‘It’s a nest of vipers, and you would have died, had you stayed.’

Kelon broke into her thoughts. ‘I’ll lead the mare for a while, if you like. Then you can relax and enjoy the view.’

Aelwen rolled her eyes to the heavens. ‘Wonderful,’ she said, but was happy to hand over the lead rope. ‘As long as you’re sure that being seen with a pink horse won’t damage your masculine dignity.’

‘Well . . . I can make a concession this once, since there’s no one to see me up here.’ Kelon grinned as he attached the rope to the pommel of his saddle. After the dangers of their escape, it felt good to break the tension a little. ‘Better change direction,’ he said, growing serious once more. ‘The horses are trying to follow the Hunt. That’s the last thing we want.’

‘You’re right,’ Aelwen said. ‘We need to lose some height, too. We’re a bit conspicuous all the way up here.’

The Hunt had set off in a south-easterly direction, so the fleeing Hemifae turned their horses towards the south-west.

‘Perfect,’ Kelon said.

Aelwen nodded. ‘If we’re going to Tyrineld, this is a much better direction.’

Getting their mounts to lose height was a little more tricky, but after some trial and error they discovered the knack. Descending was a lot more terrifying than the ascent, and Aelwen, looking down into the forest through the dizzying void of empty air, was hanging on to her horse’s mane once more, and gripping Taryn so tightly with her knees that her legs were aching by the time they levelled off just above treetop height. It felt much better down here, the trees giving the illusion that it wasn’t far to fall. Aelwen loosed her stranglehold on the mane as she finally began to relax and enjoy the ride.

‘We’d better go as far and as fast as we can while the magic lasts,’ Kelon said. ‘Hopefully, we can put enough distance between us and the Hunt to give us time to find a hiding place when we’re finally forced down.’

Suddenly Aelwen went icy cold all over. ‘How will we know when the spell is wearing off? We never thought of that.’

Kelon looked at her in horror. ‘It lasts about ten hours, doesn’t it? So we shouldn’t have to worry till after sunrise?’

‘When Hellorin cast the enchantment, it lasted ten hours,’ Aelwen said. ‘But we’ve already seen that Tiolani’s magic is different, and it’s definitely weaker. We can feel it sapping our energy all the time to feed itself. We’d better be careful, Kelon. I don’t think we’ll suddenly lose the magic and go plummeting to the ground, but I wouldn’t want to stake my life on that.’

‘Maybe the horses will know instinctively when the spell is wearing off, and they’ll head back down,’ Kelon suggested.

‘For all our sakes, we’d better hope so.’

They rode on for a moment in an unpleasantly thoughtful silence, before Aelwen spoke again. ‘Thank providence there’s still no sign of pursuit. It looks as though we got clean away, though I’m amazed that no one saw us leave the courtyard.’

‘It was supper time at the palace,’ Kelon replied. ‘Probably no one was looking out of the window. Apart from Tiolani and her bunch of die-hards, nobody is much interested in the Hunt any more.’

Aelwen frowned. ‘As soon as she comes back we’ll be missed, though. Do we go down to the ground and look for somewhere to hide? Or do we simply try to get as far as we can, and hope we’ll be able to outrun them?’

‘She may notice we’ve run long before she returns to Eliorand. It will only take one of the Hunt to look back, and we’ll be in trouble.’

‘You have a masterly talent for understatement, Kelon. That cloud bank could hide us. Possibly.’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t like the look of it at all, though.’

But no matter that she didn’t like it, Aelwen suddenly found herself out of options. Across the skies, she heard a cry go up. The Hunt had seen them.

For an instant, Aelwen’s blood froze in horror, her heart dropping like a stone. Then, she yelled ‘Go!’.

Aelwen and Kelon plunged towards the cloud. Because they had no experience of flying, they did not understand the dangers of heading into such a storm. Nevertheless, as their approach took them closer and closer to the black and turbid agglomeration, Aelwen felt the tightening of fear in her belly. The wind was rising to a howl and the temperature dropped rapidly. They could clearly see the blue-white flicker of lightning as it darted about inside the cloud. The Horsemistress frowned. How would the horses fare in such a maelstrom?

But the Hunt was now in full cry behind them, the great hounds closing the distance fast.

Suddenly the cloudbank was upon them, and they were swallowed up by darkness. Aelwen was flying blind in a maelstrom of titanic forces that hurled Taryn about as though he was an autumn leaf, not solid horse-flesh. It took all of her skill to stay on his back, while the thunder made a deafening assault on her ears, and the lightning flickered and sizzled around her while she tried not to think of metal stirrups, and buckles, and Taryn’s bit. She was soaked right through her clothes, and so cold that already she was losing the feeling in her hands and feet. Desperately she called Kelon’s name, but the howling gale whipped her words away. She switched to mindspeech. ‘Kelon, Kelon, are you there?’

‘I’m on the ground.’ Kelon sounded dazed. ‘I got into a downdraught, and it just pushed the horses out of the sky. Where are you?’

‘Up here in the storm,’ Aelwen replied tersely. She needed all her concentration just to stay on Taryn’s back.

‘Get down, quickly,’ Kelon urged her.

‘What in the name of Perdition do you think I’m trying to do?’

Desperately she wrestled Taryn downwards, using every trick she knew to force the exhausted stallion to fight his way through the violence around them. Sometimes the wind seemed to be trying to help them, but more often, it picked them up and hurled them back the way they had come, so that they had a constant fight to regain lost ground. It seemed to take forever, but somehow they made it to the treetops at last, which deflected the wind enough to let them get down.

She only just managed to spring clear as Taryn went crashing into the undergrowth, stumbled and fell. Aelwen, frantic in case he had hurt himself, scarcely felt her own bruises and scrapes as she tore herself free from the spiny bushes and rushed to examine her mount. He could easily have broken a leg . . .

Taryn was shocked and shivering, and Aelwen was forced to settle her own nerves before she could begin to calm him. Groping in the gloom, she felt her way down each of his legs in turn, trying to discern whether he was putting his hooves firmly on the ground, or lifting them in pain. This time he might have been lucky. As far as she could tell in the darkness, he didn’t seem lame, though she would have to wait until daylight to lead him and see his gait, to be absolutely sure.

Aelwen’s thoughts turned to Kelon, but there was no reply to her frantic queries in mindspeech, though she tried for a long time to reach him. ‘He’ll be too far away, that’s all,’ she told herself stoutly, but she worried nonetheless. Had the Phaerie found him? Had he been attacked by some wild beast?

There was nothing she could do about it. Aelwen knew that she must concentrate on her own survival at this time. In the morning, when it was light, maybe she would be able to find Kelon somehow. For the present, all her energy had to be directed towards getting herself through the night. She was cold, exhausted, soaked and hungry - and the food was with Kelon, on the packhorse. The forest was a wild and frightening place that night, with lightning sizzling down through the trees, the gale screaming in the treetops and the thunder ripping the air apart overhead. The trees tossed and creaked, bent right over by the force of the storm, and occasionally there was a loud crack as a branch broke off and went crashing to the ground. Aelwen was aware of her perilous position beneath the trees, but there was nowhere else to go. She would just have to shelter here, and hope that her luck held out.

Everything seemed hopeless to Aelwen. It was dark, wet and freezing; she had lost her companion, and she had no food. She was still in danger of being hunted down by the Phaerie, the forest was full of dangerous wild animals and she was far from the edge of it. She hated not having a plan of any kind. ‘But that’s only temporary,’ she tried to comfort herself. ‘I have the rest of the night to work something out.’

I hope.