Roger Taylor - Hawklan 1 - Call of the sword

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The Call of the Sword

Book One of The Chronicles of Hawklan

Roger Taylor

Mushroom eBooks

“The time of Hawklan is so far in the past that it could be the distant future”

Prologue

In the ninth hour of the Last Battle, Sumeral, warring with Ethriss in ways beyond the knowledge

of men, gazed upon the pitiless slaughter being wrought by the two great armies and, wearying of

it, was overwhelmed with a desire to seize at one stroke His final victory.

Then He left the high vantage where His Uhriel held at bay the Guardians, and with silver sword

and golden axe cut a shining path of gore to the heart of the fray where stood the mortal frame of

His enemy.

For Ethriss had come to the battle unarmed, lest concern for his mortal form distract him from

his greater battle with Sumeral’s dark spirit. In the whirling agony of that day, while the army of

the Great Alliance battled with His demented hordes, he stood alone, ringed only by his chosen

Fyordyn High Guards. An Iron Ring of his oldest and most faithful allies. The least corrupted of

men, and His greatest mortal enemies.

Nine hours they had stood unwavering as His ravening armies had broken over them like

wind-whipped waves. But they were mortal, and they wearied, and at each onslaught they were

fewer, and the Iron Ring shrank inexorably. Now a terrible fear came over them as His approach

was seen, bright like the morning star through the swirling mist and smoke of that awful field.

For He was a glorious and radiant sight in His beauty and power, and all knew that mortal

weapons would turn from His body, armoured as it was with the Power of the Great Searing from

which He had come. And all knew that His gaze alone was beyond the will of any man to

withstand.

But it is said that all things create the means of their own destruction.

So it was now. For in that grim circle was one who was of His creating. Old even then. Made old

by His scornful, dismissive blessing. Old beyond loves and hatreds. Old in implacable resolution

that He would be thrown down this day though it destroy the world.

And as He raised His spear in triumph to strike the blow that would make all His, Sumeral’s gaze

fell upon the face of this one, and eyes He had long forgotten stared fearfully but uncowed into

His very soul.

And He faltered.

In that timeless moment, His protection fell from Him, and His breast was pierced by a true

Fyordyn arrow forged with Ethriss’s skill. Then another and another and another, thick through

the death-stained air like a cleaning summer storm. And with a great cry His mortal body fell, and

turmoil reigned as His Uhriel, bereft of His will, fell before the Guardians, and the earth and sky

and sea were torn from their grasp. So too were scattered His mortal armies.

But in His falling, two things He did. His mortal hand loosed the spear that struck down Ethriss,

and His spirit shrank and vowed and learned and hid in the hearts of His most faithful until some

future time would come. For He knew that His ways lay now deep in the hearts of all men, and

that as surely as He now fell, so He must rise again in the fullness of time.

* * * *

Even the gentle land of Orthlund cowered under that winter. The like had never been known in living

memory. It seemed that almost every day there were dark clouds gathering in the north, like armies

awaiting reinforcements. And when the howling winds brought them and their bloated burdens of snow

relentlessly southward, the Orthlundyn were more than content to surrender their villages to the assault.

Content as they sat and talked and carved in the warmth of their homes, and were grateful for thick walls

and stout roofs, and for the past summer that had given them a fine harvest and locked more than enough

warm days into their flickering radiant stones to warm them through a dozen such winters.

Inevitably though, all things were dominated by this untypical manifestation. No conversation ended

without some allusion to it, and virtually no carving was made during those months that did not enshrine

some aspect of it. In most villages, the Carvers’ Guilds held equally untypical formal meetings. Some to

discuss the new devices that were being discovered to capture the subtleties and richness of their new

land. Some to discuss not only that but, horror of horrors, a rationing of stone, for there was no way into

the mountains to replenish stocks, and even communication between villages had become difficult and

dangerous. It became a time of the miniature.

On the days when it was bright and sunny, the Orthlundyn donned their warmest clothes and wandered

through the snow-filled streets of their villages, revelling in the sight of the white, new-shaped fields, and

their houses, now strangely decorated with bellying white eaves and wind-blown buttresses. And they

would stand in open admiration of the splendour of the mountains – sharp, stern and forbidding in the

tingling air.

The children learned new games and devilments and accidentally stored up bright white memories for

future, balmier times. The wits founded the Snow Carvers’ Guild and filled the streets with strange

creatures and carved likenesses of their neighbours, to the amusement of some and the considerable

indignation of others.

Only at the very heart of the winter did a little concern creep darkly into the lives of these civilized

people. A blizzard blew for seven consecutive days, howling and screaming and so hiding the world that

it was folly to take but three steps from a threshold. Then, as the land was shaped and reshaped unseen,

conversations faded, chisels were laid aside, and eyes turned pensively to hearths to seek stillness and

reassurance in the flickering, summer-stored glow of the radiant stones.

At the height of this storm, high in the mountains where all was impassable, a figure appeared: a man.

Wrapped in a long enveloping cloak with a deep hood pulled well forward, bowing against the pitiless,

biting wind, he moved slowly through the grey swirling gloom.

Occasionally, finding some rocky outcrop, he would stop and rest for a while in its lee, straightening up,

grateful for a brief respite. Then, wrapping his cloak about himself for greater warmth, he would move off

again.

All around him the wind screamed and clattered and echoed through valleys and clefts, bouncing off

ringing rock faces and hissing over the snow, to sound sometimes like the clamour of a terrible battle,

sometimes like the mocking laughter of a thousand tormentors, sometimes like a great sigh. From time to

time the man paused and turned and listened.

That he was lost, he knew. But that was all he knew. That and the knowledge that, for all his cloak and

hood were thick and warm, he would surely soon die in this fearful place if he did not come across

shelter and warmth soon.

Then through the tumult around him came another sound. The man paused as though his own soft

footsteps might obscure it. But it came again and again. Distant and shifting, but persistent. It was a cry.

A cry for help.

The hooded head cast about for the direction from which it came, but the wind mocked him and brought

it to him from every angle, now near, now far. Then for an instant the wind was gone. Dropped to a low

sighing moan. And the plaintive cry rode on it like a distraught messenger, revealing its true self before the

wind returned to rend and scatter it. The man turned and moved forward, ignoring the many wind-born

counterfeits now tempting him elsewhere again.

He soon came upon the caller, a small figure dark in the snow, held fast by the leg in a cruel,

long-forgotten trap. Despite his desperate need and long pleading however, the caller cried out in terror

as the hooded figure loomed out of the gloom towards him. But the man bent down and laid a calming

hand on him.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said.

The metal of the trap was bitterly cold and the man had to wrap his hands in his cloak to prise apart its

heavy sprung jaws. As he strained, the wind blew his hood back and the trapped figure looked up at him

and gave him a name. Then the jaws were open and their captive rolled away with a cry of relief.

The man examined the injured leg closely and grimaced.

‘It stopped hurting some time ago,’ said the victim faintly.

The man nodded. ‘That’s the cold,’ he said. ‘It’s stopped the bleeding too and probably saved your life.’

‘For a little while,’ the figure said weakly.

The man nodded. ‘Neither of us have long, without better fortune,’ he said quietly. Then he looked again

at the leg. ‘But whatever happens, I’m afraid this is lost. It’s almost completely severed.’ And with an

unexpected and powerful twist he tore away the remains of the damaged limb and dropped it into the

snow. Its owner fainted.

Bending forward the man picked up the unconscious form and, angrily kicking the trap shut, moved off

again into the storm.

Slowly, his unguided footsteps took him steadily downwards, across icy rock slopes and through drift

filled gulleys, a seemingly endless pilgrimage towards what must surely be a chill final sleep.

Gradually the terrain softened, but such light as there was began to fade and, unrelenting, the wind

increased, making the man lower his head so that all he could see was the snow before him. Shifting his

burden occasionally he thought no thoughts in his mounting weariness but the placing of one foot in front

of the other, and did not notice that after a while he was once again walking uphill.

Then his journey ended as a sheer, snow covered vertical face appeared abruptly before his downcast

gaze. He looked up and to the left and right, but in all directions it disappeared into the gathering

darkness.

Reaching out uncertainly, as if for reassurance, he placed his hand against the wall and brushed it from

side to side. As the loose packed snow fell away, some of it was pressed into deep crevices etched into

the surface, and he saw that it was not rock, but metal, and intricately carved.

He stared at it for some time, as if waiting. Then, as he watched, his fingers searched out a pattern in the

snow-packed surface and, unbidden, his hand took from his pocket a small medallion and placed it

against the pattern. It clicked softly into place, and so well did it fit that its outlines could no longer be

seen. The man felt an ancient silence stir within him and, bringing his face close to the great metal wall, he

whispered softly.

A thin black vertical line appeared in front of him and slowly he stepped back. The line widened into a

crack and then widened further as the wall revealed itself to be a huge gate.

As its two great leaves swung open noiselessly and majestically, the man, still holding his burden, was

silhouetted against a radiant and welcoming light that rose to fill the courtyard beyond.

Far to the north, a chill and brooding presence stirred also, though uneasily, like one who has heard

floating down the long deserted corridors of his ancient, empty mansion, a soft and feared footfall.

Chapter 1

Anderras Darion was the name of Hawklan’s castle. Situated above the village of Pedhavin, it looked out

over the undulating farm and forest lands of central Orthlund. Its construction showed little sign of age,

though it was known to be ancient and its location was unusual in that its huge bulk sealed the mouth of a

hanging valley. The great front wall bedded deep into the surrounding rock made it appear as if it were

growing from the mountains like a natural outcrop, and its builders had fitted the local rock so cunningly

that no line could be seen where the wall met the sides of the valley, nor where block fitted to block.

Only the Great Gate and the towers rising from and behind the wall marked it as being other than one of

nature’s extravagances.

The Gate was double-leaved and unusually high and, from a distance, appeared to be of timber overlain

with plain polished bronze. However, closer examination showed it to be covered with countless tiny

carvings depicting scenes from a great war and a great peace, and while no one knew what the Gate was

made of, the intricate texture of the carvings was unaffected by both the onslaughts of winters and

summers alike, and by the hands of generations of people who had travelled to see them and marvel.

Carvers from the Guild would climb the steep winding road up from the village: sometimes alone, to learn

again humility in the face of this wonder; sometimes with their apprentices, to sharpen the edge of their

young aspirations. Fathers too would bring their children and read to them the stories enshrined in the

seemingly endless patterning of the Gate, for Hawklan was no severe overlord: he was a healer. And

though his castle overlooked the village, it blended so harmoniously with the mountains that, like them, it

offered not menace, but stability and calm.

Although the Orthlundyn took little interest in myths and legends, on special days the villagers would

picnic and dance on the grass mounds that fringed the foot of the Castle wall and, in token of the long

ages when Anderras Darion was sealed and unassailable, someone would bring a ladder and climb high

up the Gate and, painstakingly running his finger along the carvings for fear of losing his place in such fine

workmanship, would tell the stories that could not normally be told. For even within the height of an

ordinary man, there were stories enough for a lifetime.

Sometimes a blind man would come to the Gate and run his hands over its finely etched and scored

surface, and the villagers would sit spellbound. For always he would tell a story different to the one that

they could see, and always they went away laughing and excited.

Of the many strangers who visited the Gate, one alone lingered in the memories of the villagers. He was a

tiny man and he came out of the mountains on a sharp and frosty day, trailing his tiny shadow in the

wintry sun. He stared at the Gate for many an hour, and ran his hands across it with his eyes first open,

then closed. Then he brought his face close to the surface, gently blew a long humming stream of misty air

at the ornate patterning, and turned his ear to it in rapt concentration. Those standing near say they heard

a faint singing as from a great distance. The little man nodded and sighed, though not sadly.

‘This is a miraculous gate,’ he said to the group of curious children that had followed him. ‘You must

listen to it when the wind blows. And even when it doesn’t. It holds more stories than you can see or feel,

and they are all true.’

Then he went on his way and was never seen in the village again. The children puffed and blew at the

Gate, but heard nothing, and soon forgot the little man, although occasionally, one of them, quieter than

the others, would raise his hand suddenly for silence when a soft wind drifted up from the fields below.

‘Listen,’ he would say. ‘The Castle’s singing.’ But the others would laugh.

To the left of the Great Gate was a bubbling pool, the water from which spilled over the rocks and

tumbled and cascaded its way down to join the river that ran through the outskirts of the village. This

stream was from the valleys beyond the Castle, and its water was cold and clear and sharp. No one

knew how deep the pool was, as nothing would sink in it, such was the uprush of water from it, even in

the driest summer.

Atop the eyeless wall, towers and solid rectangular blocks of buildings grew in a random but not

disordered manner, soaring up and raking back in tiers beyond the sight of anyone standing at its foot.

Only the birds could see all the splendour of the Castle, but such as could be seen by earthbound

creatures filled them with wonder and awe, and sober contemplation of the people who had made it.

There were many skills in the land, but none could pretend to such as had made this edifice.

Anderras Darion gave a benign security to the village of Pedhavin. Its occupant was known and loved;

the wicket in the Great Gate was always open, and the Gate alone was a joy and a wonder and a point

of proud gossip in villages all around. And yet the Castle stood immovable and solid, its walls seeming to

hold the mountains apart: unassailable by stone and ladder, fire and iron. Not even treachery would open

the Great Gate once sealed, while the only other entrance was filled with churning, rushing water and who

knew what else under the Castle’s deep foundations. The valley beyond was lush and fertile, and

surrounded by high crags, made sheer and impregnable by the same skills that had made the Castle itself.

Anderras Darion was a comforting place, nestling in the mountains, like an old matriarch who radiated

security, but whose merest glance could scatter her towering offspring.

* * * *

Hawklan sat alone at a table in one of the smaller dining halls. Size, of course, is relative, and even though

the hall was indeed smaller than many in the Castle, it would have comfortably accommodated several

hundred diners and attendants. In the past it probably had. Hawklan however, was unaffected by his

inappropriate scale in this echoing room. He was slouched back in a carved chair and gazing idly at a

splash of multi-coloured light making its leisurely but inexorable way across the table as the sun shone

through a round window above. Cutting through the dust motes, the yellow ray left the scene enshrined in

the glass resting uncertainly and inaccurately on the heavily grained table.

The window showed a warrior bidding farewell to his wife and child. Hawklan could see the red of the

warrior’s cloak and the blue of his wife’s gown, but the green of the fields in the background did not

survive the sun-carried journey, and the gold of the warrior’s sword mingled with the yellow of the child’s

tunic. Hawklan turned and looked up at the original. He knew that if he walked across the room and

gazed up at the scene he would see that the artist had caught the distress and conflict in the warrior’s face

as his child shied away from his fearsome armour. It was a masterly piece of work that always made

Hawklan want to reach up and embrace the three and comfort them. It also made him thankful that he

had no such conflict to face. He returned his gaze to the tabletop and breathed a sigh.

High in the beams above a feathered ear caught the sound, and a single shiny black eye opened and

turned a gimlet gaze onto the figure below with a businesslike twist of the head. The owner of the eye

was a raven. He was called Gavor.

Spreading his wings he craned forward and, resting on the warm air that filled the cavernous roof, he

floated silently into the void. With barely a twitch of his delicate feathers he spiralled gracefully down

through the sun-striped air and came to rest a little way in front of Hawklan. The landing was not quite as

graceful as the flight, and certainly not as quiet, for Gavor’s wooden leg was apt to give him trouble from

time to time. Not least when he wished it to.

The hollow thud of Gavor’s landing and the regular clunk of his wooden leg made Hawklan lift his head

to look at the approaching bird. It stopped in front of him and returned his gaze.

‘Rrrukk,’ it said. Hawklan did not speak.

‘Rrrukk,’ it repeated. A slight smile flickered in Hawklan’s eyes and spread reluctantly across his face.

‘Very good, Gavor,’ he said. ‘Very good. Your bird impressions are coming on very nicely. You will be

in demand at the next village fair. How’s the nightingale coming along? Is your throat still sore?’

Gavor raised his head with regal disdain.

‘Dear boy,’ came his cultured tones. ‘Such irony doesn’t become you. It really isn’t your style.’

‘I do apologize,’ said Hawklan with patent insincerity, laying a hand on his chest. ‘Please accept my

humblest apologies. I was overwhelmed by the sight of you. May I ask to what do we owe the pleasure

of your august presence at our repast?’

Gavor maintained his hauteur. ‘You sighed, dear boy. You sighed.’

Hawklan looked at the bird quizzically and suspiciously.

Gavor shrugged. ‘You sighed,’ he repeated. ‘There I was. Up in the rafters. Brooding, as it were.

Contemplating the mysteries of the universe. When my reverie was shattered by this heart-rending sigh

soaring up through the hall. “Ah, such pain,” I thought. “My friend and saviour is being crushed under

some unbearable burden. I must help him.” And down I come. And what do I get? Sarcasm – base

ingratitude. There’s friendship for you.’

‘I’m touched by your concern, Gavor,’ said Hawklan. ‘But I didn’t sigh.’

Gavor turned away and started clunking up and down the table, pecking at various morsels left in the

silver dishes. He paused to swallow something.

‘Ah yes you did, my friend. Most distinctly. Mind you, I will admit I’ve never actually heard anyone sigh

before, but I know what one sounds like. I’ve read about them on the Gate.’ He levelled a wing at

Hawklan. ‘And what you produced was a sigh. Quite unequivocally. A sigh.’

He paused and rooted out a piece of meat.

‘Mm. Delicious,’ he said. ‘My compliments to the cook. Loman’s cooking is improving noticeably – for

a castellan.’

‘If Loman hears you calling him a cook, we’ll be eating raven pie for a week,’ said Hawklan.

Gavor ignored the comment. ‘As I was saying,’ he continued. ‘You sighed, Hawklan. A great heaving

outpouring of despair. Almost knocked me off my perch. So I’ve come to see what’s wrong, dear boy.

If I allow you to get away with sighing, you’ll be groaning next, and you’ve no idea how it echoes up

there. I really can’t preen myself if you’re going to assail me with such a tragic cacophony.’

Hawklan laughed. ‘I may concede that perhaps I breathed out rather heavily, but I give you my solemn

promise that I will not allow it to degenerate into groaning. I’ve far too much respect for your feathers.’

‘Huh,’ Gavor grunted, cracking a nut with a shuddering blow of his great black beak. ‘You’ve been very

quiet recently. Not that you were ever particularly raucous. But you’ve been . . . solemn. Sad almost.’

Gavor’s tone had changed. ‘What’s the matter, Hawklan?’ he asked suddenly, with concern.

Hawklan stood up, pushing the heavy chair back as he did. He was a tall man, but lean and spare. His

face looked weathered, yet ageless and relaxed, its dominant feature being bright green penetrating eyes.

It was the combination of these eyes with the angular, high cheek-boned face and prominent nose that

had prompted Gavor to call him ‘Hawklan’ when they first met, twenty years ago, in the snow-filled

valleys to the north. He, Gavor, dying, with his leg caught in an old, forgotten trap, and the strange quiet

man with no memory, who freed him and nursed him to health with magical hands.

Hawklan shrugged his shoulders as he walked away from the table. Gavor, partly mistaking the gesture

and partly to be nearer his friend, glided after him with an imperceptible movement of his wings. There

was no graceless landing here, as his good foot closed gently on Hawklan’s shoulder and his wings

folded to avoid Hawklan’s head.

Hawklan tapped the black beak gently with his finger. ‘You’ve known me too long, Gavor,’ he said.

Gavor cocked his head on one side. ‘As long as you’ve known yourself, dear boy. Now tell all, do.’

Hawklan’s eyes flitted briefly to the round window with its coloured glass picture.

‘Ah,’ said Gavor, catching the movement. ‘A sensitive artist and a sad tale from harsher times. But their

pain is long over, and would ever have been beyond your powers.’

‘Look at it, Gavor. Look at the background. Tell me what you see.’

Gavor jumped off Hawklan’s shoulder, dipped almost to the floor, and then soared up towards the

window, his black plumage iridescent with purples and blues as he cut through the beam of sunlight.

‘What do you see?’ called Hawklan.

‘Fields, dwellings, hills. The closer I look, the more I can see. It’s a remarkable piece of craftsmanship.’

‘What else?’

‘Sky and clouds.’

‘On the horizon, Gavor. In the far distance.’

Gavor turned over in mid-air and flew slowly past the window. A small feather drifted down.

‘Black clouds, Hawklan. Just on the horizon – very symbolic.’

‘Yes, but it’s settled in my mind and won’t go away. Black clouds in the distance. Foreboding. Like

something in the corner of your eye that disappears when you look directly at it.’

Gavor landed back on Hawklan’s shoulder. He knew his friend was not given to self-indulgent flirtations

with matters dark, and he dismissed immediately any intention of teasing him out of his mood. It was,

however, Hawklan who initiated the change.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me it’s Spring, and that I should get a wife?’ he asked.

‘As a matter of fact I was, dear boy,’ replied Gavor with mock testiness. ‘But you’ve spoilt the surprise.’

‘Some surprise. You usually give me the benefit of your highly dubious experience in these matters every

Spring. While you have the wind left, that is’

Gavor shook his head indignantly. ‘I’m a creature of wide but discerning tastes,’ he said. ‘Not to say

stamina. I never lose my wind.’

He saw that Hawklan’s mood was passing.

‘I fail to see why I should allow myself to be distressed by your peculiar lack of interest in such matters,

dear boy. It’s not natural. You’re bound to have gloomy thoughts.’

Hawklan paused and smiled resignedly. ‘Gloomy thoughts I could deal with, Gavor. But vague

presentiments . . .’

Gavor took off again and flew in great arcs around the hall.

‘Hawklan,’ he shouted. ‘You know there’s only one thing you can do with a presentiment, don’t you?’

Hawklan stared up at him, black and shining, flitting in and out of the roof beams and sunbeams. He

swooped down close.

‘Wait, dear boy. Wait.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Hawklan. ‘There is nothing else I can do really.’

‘Of course I’m right, dear boy,’ came the echoing reply from the rafters. ‘Always am. And I’m right

about you finding a woman. Oh, excuse me, a spider.’

There was a brief scuffle overhead, and then Gavor glided into view again. He perched on a high window

ledge and looked out.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘talking of women. Look who’s coming across the courtyard in a hurry. Hair rivalling the

sunshine, mouth like winter berries, and a grace of movement that not even my words can encompass.’

He sighed massively. ‘I tell you, Hawklan, if I were a man . . . or she a bird . . .’

‘Gavor!’ said Hawklan menacingly, interrupting his friend’s lecherous flow.

‘I know, dear boy. Proud father and all that. Gavor for the pot, etc, etc.’

‘Yes. And I’d help him pluck you.’

‘More ingratitude. Well, I fear you’re beyond my aid, so I’m off to the . . . er . . . north tower, I think,

today. To . . . a friend. If anyone wants me I’ll be back later.’ He paused and looked down at his friend

below, his head on one side, as if listening to some far off voice. ‘Wait, Hawklan,’ he said. ‘That’s all you

can do. But watch your back.’

And then he was gone, into the sunlit air; a dwindling black spot against the many towers of the castle

and the blue spring sky.

Hawklan’s brow wrinkled slightly then he smiled and shrugged off the last of his mood. Outside, in the

corridor approaching the entrance to the hall, he heard Tirilen’s light and confident footsteps. He

wondered why she was hurrying, and instinctively straightened his long habit as he walked across the hall

to greet her.

Chapter 2

Pedhavin was a village of several thousand souls, and as such was quite large by the standards of

Orthlund.

It was situated at a crossroads. The River Road ran east to west, starting as a narrow track wending a

weary way over the mountains from the Decmilloith of Riddin, before becoming a wide road to sweep

across Orthlund, and eventually fade away near the banks of the Great River in the west.

The other road ran north to south, and skirted the western edge of the mountains. It was known simply

as the Pedhavin Road; at least, near Pedhavin it was. Elsewhere it bore different names, dependent on

the whims of the local population.

As with Anderras Darion, no one knew who had built the roads, or why; but also like the castle, they

were made by a people with skills now lost. Innumerable small blocks butted together so tightly that the

joints between them could scarcely be seen, let alone felt under the feet. Joints so tight that not even the

most vigorous of weeds could find a roothold.

Not that these two roads were in any way unique. Almost all the roads that criss-crossed Orthlund were

similarly built, and provided a network for travel far beyond the needs of the Orthlundyn. Only towards

the borders of the country did the roads begin to deteriorate, particularly in the west, near the Great

River. But the Orthlundyn rarely travelled, even in their own land, and such deterioration was of no

interest to them.

The houses of Pedhavin were, for the most part, two storeys high, built in stone, and crowned with

low-pitched roofs which jutted out at eaves level like so many resolute chins. They were scattered

indiscriminately about the slopes beneath the castle, forming a rambling maze of little streets and open

squares and courtyards, unadorned by tree or garden.

They all bore a similarity of style, but individually were very different. The inhabitants of Pedhavin were

mainly farming people, as were most of the Orthlundyn, but their passion was away from the changing

mysteries of growth and decay, away from the yielding of grasses and soil. It was carving. Carving in the

hard mountain rock, permanent and solid. Carving with subtle techniques nurtured and preserved by the

Carvers’ Guild, a meritocracy appointed by public acclaim, and the nearest thing the Orthlundyn had to a

public institution. Lintels, arches, thresholds, balconies, walls and roofs throughout Orthlund all bore

testimony to this passion.

In their farming was their shared peace, their common wealth, but in their carving was their individuality,

strong and determined. There was an ancient and watchful patience in the Orthlundyn, and nowhere was

it more evident than in the carvings that festooned the houses of Pedhavin.

* * * *

One day, down the Pedhavin Road and into this quiet village, shadowed and lit by the spring sunshine,

came a tinker, bowed under an enormous double pack, looking like a creature from legend.

While Hawklan sat musing in his dining hall, and Gavor sat drowsily on a high beam, this tinker was

entertaining a crowd on the green near the crossroads.

He was a strange-looking creature, dressed in a tunic that had more coloured patches than original

material, with a similarly tailored cloak and a sharp nebbed hat sporting a prodigious many-coloured

feather. His odd appearance was further enhanced by his posture, with his neck craning forward, one

shoulder higher than the other and a bending at the waist as if he were eternally preparing to pick

something off the ground. His head jerked this way and that, as did his eyes, although frequently head

and eyes went in different directions. His long arms bore long hands with long bony fingers, and all

twitched as much as his head. Then his thin, tight clad legs would bend and flex in such a way that

watchers were inclined to put their hands over their ears in anticipation of the great cracking that their

appearance indicated they might make.

With an elegant flourish he produced a shimmering cloth, and with practiced hands laid it out on the

ground, hopping round it jerkily and flicking out creases here and there. Then another and another,

pausing only to wink broadly at one of the silent, gathering crowd, and to expose two bright white rows

of teeth shining in his brown, wrinkled face. It was a smile that few could resist.

Then he plunged into his voluminous pack and waited for a moment with his arms immersed, sweeping

his smile across his entire audience. With a slight movement of his head, he mimicked their own

involuntary craning curiosity. The adults reflected his smile knowingly back at him and the children

laughed, the strangeness of the man beginning to fade. The Orthlundyn were reserved, but neither

unfriendly nor inhospitable.

Abruptly, there were more flourishes, and even more frenzied activity, and all manner of things started to

appear on the three cloths. As they appeared, so the reserve of the crowd faded further, and as people

started to gossip and point, so the tinker started to underscore his actions with a jerky stream of staccato

chatter delivered in a high creaking voice that seemed to fit his creaking shape.

‘Here, ladies. Laces from the north and the south. Ribbons woven and dyed by the Eirthlundyn over the

Great River.’

He draped the laces around the necks of the women, and whirled the coloured ribbons high and twisting

into the air, as he twisted himself in and out of the crowd.

‘Not many Eirthlundyn left now, but they know how to adorn their women,’ he noted more confidentially

to the men. ‘And, ladies. These perfumes.’

Small crystal bottles appeared from various mysterious pockets in his tattered tunic, and like the ribbons

and laces they were handed around indiscriminately. He looked pensively at one.

‘Such a journey to bring these to you, dear ladies; such a journey as you could not imagine. From rare

hot lands that burned and wrinkled my skin to its present delicate leathery hue. And what it did to my

feet, I must walk on, but we need not dwell on. And my pocket. Ah . . . But I was ever foolish in such

matters, and their women kept so fair and beautiful in that terrible sun. How could I resist? Only the

women of Pedhavin are worthy of such treasures I thought, and here I am with the most subtle and

fragrant perfumes you will ever know.’

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TheCalloftheSwordBookOneofTheChroniclesofHawklanRogerTaylorMushroomeBooks“ThetimeofHawklanissofarinthepastthatitcouldbethedistantfuture”PrologueIntheninthhouroftheLastBattle,Sumeral,warringwithEthrissinwaysbeyondtheknowledgeofmen,gazeduponthepitilessslaughterbeingwroughtbythetwogreatarmiesand,wearyi...

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Roger Taylor - Hawklan 1 - Call of the sword

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