King's Last Hope: The Complete Durlindrath Trilogy Read online

  Aranloth laughed, but it was as though at a grim jest rather than with humor.

  “There’s only one problem with that,” he said. “I cannot leave the city. Between me and the other lòhrens, we are just enough to hold the elùgroths at bay. Should one of us leave, you would be dead within the week. Should I leave, you would be dead within the day. No, O king, I wish to, but cannot undertake this quest.”

  Gilhain did not answer for a moment. There was silence while these words sunk in. At length, he glanced at the lòhren again.

  “If neither you, nor another lòhren can go, then perhaps some other brave soul might attempt the deed?”

  “That may be,” Aranloth said. “Yet it would be a brave soul indeed, for while the words of power may be learned, as even any lòhren on the wall would need to be taught them, even one of them would likely die. It takes more than magic to survive in that place. To ask such a thing of a person without a lòhren’s training, without their power, is to ask them to risk their lives for less than the slimmest chance of success. I say this to you truly, not even an army would suffice to fulfil this task, even if you could spare the men. The many can die just as easily as the few, and the way in the tombs is long and dark. It takes a certain kind of courage that few possess, perhaps only one in an army of ten thousand men, and then luck besides. Make no mistake. Words or no, the harakgar do not permit anything to leave the tombs: not a diamond as big as your fist nor a fragment of broken pottery. The words alone will not be enough.”

  Gilhain shook his head. “Then we’re caught in a dilemma without hope.”

  Aranloth let out a long sigh. “In a dark place yes, but not totally void of hope. There might yet be a way, but if it is attempted, it will likely mean death to the person who goes, and certainly it will leave me with reduced power just when I need it most.”

  “What is this way then?” Gilhain asked. “For it’s death to carry on as we are. We all know that.”

  5. The Fate of the Kingdom

  Aranloth did not answer straightaway. It seemed as though he still debated something within his own mind, and this troubled Brand more than anything, for the lòhren was usually swift to assess a situation and to make a decision.

  “If I cannot go, but someone must go, then we have to choose a person to go in my stead – if we can find anyone willing. As I said, in such a quest one person might avail as well as an army, for it’s not by mere numbers or swords or courage, but rather by strength of will that the harakgar can be survived, and the quest be accomplished, if it can be accomplished at all.” He leaned back in his chair, sifting through lore in his mind that Brand guessed few, if any, in Alithoras possessed.

  “And the harakgar are not the only danger,” he continued. “The enemy beyond our walls is cunning. Those who command know that I have learned of the staff. They will guess my next move – to seek to break the second half in order to reduce their power, and they will be watching. The breaking of the staff is their greatest fear, not only because it will undermine their power here, but because they hope one day to recover it. If both halves are drawn together again their power would be increased. And the elùgroths’ hope is my fear.”

  He seemed as though he would say more of that, of the intentions of the enemy, but instead he carried on with things directly at hand. It did not matter, for Brand knew as well as everybody what the elùgroths and the armies that they commanded sought: the total domination of all of Alithoras.

  “One alone, or a very small group,” Aranloth continued, “might slip away from the siege and avoid the watchfulness of the enemy. Even so, it would take much luck, and there will be need of magic ere the end to face the harakgar if the person gets that far.”

  Gilhain sat back and crossed his arms. “But you said yourself that you cannot go, and neither can any of the lòhrens. So, there is no one with the skills that you require.”

  Aranloth pursed his lips. “There is no one with the skills. And yet even an unskilled person can wield a lòhren’s staff as a weapon. To be sure, they could only summon a fragment of the power that a lòhren might, for most of a lòhren’s power comes ultimately from inside themselves and not the staff. But when a staff is used the magic takes hold of it, becomes infused into the wood, and has a life of its own. That residual power is only a small help, but on such small chances, and what a person makes of them, often rests life and death, success and failure.”

  The king was thoughtful. “Such a person would have to be special. Their courage, wit and luck must be unmatched.”

  “So it must be,” Aranloth said, exchanging a veiled glance with Gilhain, “for the fate of the kingdom would be balanced on their life and every choice they made. It is a great burden, and I would trust few, if any, to bear it.”

  “I also,” Gilhain said. “Yet there is one in my realm who has proven their resourcefulness. One who has shown loyalty beyond question. And one that luck favors. So far, anyway.”

  “Who?” Brand asked. There were several he could think of that might match that description. Lornach seemed the most likely. But he did not wish to see his friend go on such a dangerous quest, nor did he wish to lose one of his best Durlin at a time when they were needed most.

  There was a long silence. Aranloth looked at him with his typical gaze: eyes that had seen a thousand tragedies. The king looked at him with his usual wolfish keenness. For a while Brand did not understand, and then he realized that they were talking about him.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said in a low voice.

  “We’re deadly serious,” Gilhain said.

  “But I have no powers against sorcery, and no affinity for magic. Aranloth’s staff would be nothing more than an ordinary weapon in my hands.”

  “I will teach you the words needed to subdue the harakgar,” Aranloth said. “And the staff will respond to your touch. It will give something of its powers, though how much and in what form I cannot say.”

  “You said yourself that those powers would not be enough. You said that even a lòhren might not have the strength to escape the creatures in the tombs.”

  “I said that other virtues are needed also. Virtues that anyone could have, though few do, whether they’re lòhrens or not. You have those qualities,” he paused, his expression thoughtful, “and maybe you will surprise yourself if you use the staff in need. It will be more than a prop for tired legs. You will be able to tap into something that few others could, and in truth, if I cannot go, only you would I trust in my stead. I will give my staff to no other. Nor would I trust such a quest to anybody else.”

  Brand hesitantly reached out, looking at the same time into Aranloth’s eyes for permission, and took the staff in his hand. It felt comfortable and balanced in his grip. He put it down again.

  “It feels good in my hand, but as a weapon of timber and nothing else. I don’t lightly say no to you, Aranloth. You’ve helped me so much. Your counsels are always dark, but profitable. But I must say no. As you trust no one else for this quest, neither do I trust anyone else to guard the king. Not as I do. I cannot go.”

  Gilhain stirred. “And if I, as your king, command you, will you not then go?”

  “No,” Brand said without hesitation. “My place is by your side.”

  The king gave his wolfish grin. It was not the reaction Brand expected.

  “Well, I will not command you,” he said. “Even kings do not lightly order those who serve them to face likely death. And yet I say this to you. Well have you guarded me. But time is running out. Not even you can protect me forever. If the staff isn’t destroyed, Cardoroth will surely fall. It may well fall anyway, but the outcome is then less certain. These are facts. If you would protect me, you must take up this quest, but you should go of your own free will, though with my blessing. If not, then you shall stay, and we will die and fight the great dark together when it comes for us. What do you say?”

  Brand did not answer. He knew it was death to stay, death if the power of the elùgroths was not br
oken. But this strange quest, to a place that he did not know, there to pit himself against powers beyond him, that was death too.

  In the silence that now held the room he heard from afar the sound of battle renewed at the walls. It was a dim echo of screams and clashes of arms, of hurtled missiles against the walls. In his mind he imagined the rush of the enemy, the swift flight of hissing arrows, the throwing up of ladders and knotted climbing ropes, and the death that followed. He had seen battle. He was expert at it, in all the ways to protect himself and kill an enemy. He had seen battle, and he did not like it. If nothing was done, he would see it one day in the streets, and then the palace, and then finally, if he was still alive, at bay somewhere with the king. He saw that in his mind also, and he did not like it either.

  Brand bowed his head. Neither the king nor Aranloth spoke. At length, he sighed and looked at them again.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Though I see little hope in it, yet it is better than the certainty of defeat.”

  Gilhain straightened. A strange look came over him. It was one of hope renewed.

  “Against the raging swords of the enemy who would bring darkness,” the king said, “you shall be a sword of light! You are the one hope that we set against many despairs. You are become Cardoroth’s champion in her darkest hour.”

  Brand slowly shook his head. “But I wasn’t even born here. Many in the city would be happy to see me leave and never return. It may be Cardoroth’s darkest hour, but I’m not her champion. The men on the walls who defend us each day, they are each and every one of them Cardoroth’s champions.”

  The king rested a hand on his shoulder. “Many begrudge your rise in my service. You’re a foreigner, and they do not like that. You are young, and they do not like that either, but I read the people of the city better than you do. This is truly our hour of deepest peril, and as king and guardian of each and every life in this realm, I choose you for our hope. And should you return to this city, should it still stand, you will see that there is more love for you here than you think.”

  Brand was not so sure about that. He knew that the people he dealt with on a daily basis, the lords of the realm and the commanders of the army, had little love for him. They begrudged the respect the king showed him, and they would prefer that one of their own received it instead of what they considered a wild man from the tribes of the Duthenor. And yet the ordinary people seemed to like him. For the king, and for them, he would do his best to live up to the Gilhain’s hopes.

  “Let’s assume I can retrieve this broken staff,” he said, turning to Aranloth. “It’s a thing of power. I have seen the one half, and it’s filled with sorcery. How can such a powerful artifact be destroyed?

  6. A Chance at Life

  Aranloth shrugged. “Sometimes you over think things. The staff is made of timber – it’ll burn.”

  The lòhren looked at Brand with sudden intensity after his casual words. “But you must remember this at all cost. Do not destroy the staff within the tombs. It will enrage the harakgar beyond any hope of escape. Their sole purpose, their very reason for existence, is to protect all that is laid to rest there. If you reach the outside again, that is the place to start a fire. The harakgar are bound to the tombs. They cannot take one step beyond them, and nor should you until the staff is destroyed, for the elùgroths must not have a chance to reclaim it.”

  “None of this is going to be easy, I suppose,” Brand said.

  “Not much in life ever is,” Aranloth replied. “Listen though!” he said. “I will teach you the words that might make it possible. Without them you will die. With them, you might lull the harakgar’s powers just enough for your other talents to make the difference between life and death.”

  The lòhren leaned in close and whispered. He said words in a foreign tongue, harsh and strange. Brand guessed it was the very language of the Letharn themselves, a tongue now dead, unspoken by all except Aranloth and those like him. Though it would not surprise Brand if Aranloth, alone in all the many lands of Alithoras, knew this lore.

  When he was done the lòhren leaned back and stared into his eyes.

  “Burn those words into your mind. Forget them and you are a dead man.”

  Brand nodded. Having learned them, he would not forget. There were only two now who knew them, for so well kept was their secret that Aranloth had even whispered them in the presence of a king. But if Gilhain was offended, he did not show it.

  Aranloth leaned in close again. “Whisper them back,” he said.

  Brand did so. He repeated them several times until the lòhren appeared satisfied.

  “Do not forget!” he commanded. “Recite them when you wake. Recite them when you prepare for sleep. Make them flow through your mind like the blood that surges through your veins, or when you stand in the tombs you will be utterly defenseless against the harakgar, and sword and staff and even luck will avail you nothing. Do not forget!”

  Brand had no intention of doing so, but he was surer of his sword as a weapon than any words. Yet he was not stupid, and the manner of the lòhren convinced him of their need.

  “How shall I find my way to the staff?” he asked. “The tombs are vast, you say. It would be best to take the swiftest route.”

  Aranloth took up a quill left from the king’s meeting with the army commanders.

  “I’ll draw you a map and teach you the way. It may be that necessity will drive you to venture a different path, either on the way in or out, so I’ll include several. There are many however – the ways of the tombs are myriad. And it’s a dark place, full of fear and nameless things. Don’t stray from my paths, or else you’ll wander in there, alone in the dark, until you lay yourself down to die among the already dead.”

  Brand watched as the lòhren drew the map and offered instructions and descriptions of the various things he would see. He memorized this also, for he trusted better to his memory of the lòhren’s words than to a map. He noticed as well that he drew this in front of the king, and that Gilhain listened with interest. Brand supposed the map was useless without the words to lull the harakgar, and that reaffirmed for him their importance. Still, even the sendings of the elùgroths had proved vulnerable to a blade, and he guessed that the harakgar would be put to the same test. In steel he trusted rather than magic, and it had never let him down yet.

  “So much for the tombs,” Aranloth said. “But you must get there first for any of this to matter. Before you came to Cardoroth you wandered in the wild lands. But you never went far to the south?”

  “No. I crossed the Careth Nien, the Great River, far to its north when it was ice-bound. I wandered in the shadow of the mountains to the north, for something there lured me, but the winter bit cold, and I was pursued at the time, so I headed south to warmer climes and Cardoroth, rumor of which has reached even the Duthenor.”

  “Well, from here,” the lòhren said, “you must journey due south. It’s some fifty leagues or more to another river, this time the Carist Nien. When you reach its banks turn east and follow it to the land of the Angle that I described. That is the place where the river splits in two. You’ll not miss it. The waterfall there, and other things, are remarkable. That is a journey nearly as far as the first leg. In all it’s some three hundred miles. A long way to travel on foot, but there’s no way to take a horse out of the city. If you would shorten the journey, you must find a mount on the way, if you can. But the lands all about are controlled by the enemy, though no doubt most are with this army that besieges us. You’ll not find help along the way, but I can’t rule it out altogether, for there are other strongholds that resist the enemy. But they are along the coast – too far east for you to go. Still, the lands are wild and much may happen between here and the Angle.”

  “Clearly there’s a way to escape this siege, albeit without a horse,” Brand said. “Where is it?”

  “We’ll meet at dusk at the West Gate. From there, we’ll show you the way.”

  “But the enemy is most heav
ily concentrated on our western wall, and the Angle is to the south.”

  “That may be,” the king said. “But the only way out lies westward.”

  Brand did not like it. Westward lay the shadow-haunted pine forests around Lake Alithorin. He had been inside them, more than once, and he was not keen to go back. Every time he went there he came near to death.

  “For now,” the king continued, “we have said all that can be said and made what decisions that could be made. It’s best for you to rest. Prepare what equipment and food you would take, though it cannot be much while traveling on foot, and then rest while you can until dusk. It’ll be a long night, and you’ll be glad of some sleep now when the time for escape comes later.

  Brand stood up. The king shook his hand.

  “This is no easy task we have set you,” Gilhain said, “but do not think that either I or Aranloth would send you if we did not trust in the fact that you might achieve it. And if the worst happens, for either of us, then know this. From the wild lands you came to us, young, brash, confident – and a complete stranger. You leave now as Cardoroth’s champion, and the friend of the king. Fare well, and if we do not meet again, know that nothing lasts forever. So my people often say, but we say also this: the sun is warm when it shines, and memories endure a lifetime.”

  Brand did not answer. But he gripped the king’s arm in the warrior’s handshake, and then turned and left. But from the doorway he spoke again.

  “We’ll meet again, Gilhain,” he said quietly. “I swore an oath to protect you, and I fulfil it now in a strange way. So are the turns of fortune. But I think I’ll return to this city, and to you, my king. When I do, we shall share our stories, for I think we’ll both have much to tell.”

  Gilhain turned to the lòhren when Brand had gone.

  “What fortune swept him into my realm?” he asked.