Chapter Eight
On the plains of Epona
Lore, sitting on a brown mare, watches from his vantage point on a low bluff overlooking a favourite waterhole of the herd. Stretching out across the undulating grass plains are over five hundred land horses, sturdy creatures with a steady temperament. A small herd as herds went out on the prairies but, now there is only him to look after them, Lore is glad of the modest number. He tries not to think about what his twin sister Kyna might be up to but keeps his eyes firmly focused on the waterhole. Just in case. There had been rumours swirling among the camps and auction paddocks of raiding parties of Naxen men emerging from waterholes to snatch horses from under the noses of the herders. Of whole herds swallowed up by rivers under their control and of prairie encampments being devoured by sink-holes and mud slides engineered by them. Even the prairies are shrinking, grassland giving over to swamp, an inexorable rising tide of disaster for the horse tribes of Epona. Talk too, of bigger fears, the return of the Dragon King Nixor from his long exile. The rise of the Naxen under his command. All rumours and whispers sending panic like wildfire through the horse herders.
Farther down the shallow vale the waterhole nestles in, a spring rises, forming a shallow bog before gradually merging into a stream, cutting a channel through the plains and forests, until it widens its way, rushing towards the city of Hall Mead, home of the Queen's Hall and the Great Hall. Hall Mead stands near the confluence of this torrent called the Silver Ribbon and the slow, wide Quagmyre, the great marshland river from the Naxenlands. At Hall Mead the rivers merge and then plummet the thousand feet from the prairies, forests and marshland plateau to the deep oceans of Epona. Hall Mead was built around the fabled Gate of the Twins, a circular pool of spring water deep in the heart of the city. The Hall of the Queen, a sprawling palace of stone and wooden halls all interconnected with corridors, cloisters and courtyards had been built around this sacred pool first for defence then, centuries later, as the city grew, as a palace for the Horse Queen.
As children, all horse herders heard the tales of a gateway leading through pool to the Twin Stars and on to other worlds. The stories of Nixor the Dragon King who tries to lay waste to the Horse lands of Epona, who devoured all the Kelpies and Pegasai and who was vanquished by the brave Queen of Epona to a planet far, far away was one of Lore's favourite childhood stories. The thought it could all be true and not just a children's bedtime story fills him with fear for his sister. Was she too, travelling with the Queen through the gate to a different world across the skies? Lore sighs a deep sigh and his horse whinnies softly in reply. He strokes its mane and then whispers to it, 'Ask the Spirit of the Kin to keep Kyna safe for me, Castan.' The horse nods in reply, whether acknowledging its name or the request, Lore cannot tell but it comforts him all the same.
In the marshes of Naxenland
Gryst wakes with a coughing fit, phlegm sticking to his gills and clogging the airways to his lungs. He coughs violently, bringing up a plug of mucus and gillslime and wiping it from his gills with a greyish, warty hand. Gryst can remember a time when he woke without the curse of gillslime, when his joints didn't ache from the cold and when his eyes still burnt firebright like Nixor's rage. But sixty years of living in the marsh pit he called home had taken its toll. He rises from his shallow reed bed and submerges himself in his water bath, glad to close the air passages to his lungs and feel the warmish marsh water flow over his gills again. The Naxen possessed both lungs and gills, plus an extra protective eyelid they could see through while swimming underwater and while few still had webbed feet, hands or a dorsal fin, many, like Gryst still had vestigial silver scales running down their spines and mottled grey skin. He blows a fine trail of bubbles as he exercises his aching body, swimming quickly to his breakfast, stashed in his underwater larder. The horse flesh is rubbery and old, beginning to leather in the brackish water and Gryst does his best to chew a through a few lumps and then gives it up as a bad job. He surfaces again and climbs ashore, feeling his lungs fill with the misty air of a damp morning on the marshes of the Naxenlands.
He hauls a large bundle of items, wrapped in a woven waterproof reed cloth from the marsh and unwraps a tight-fitting body suit of green reed cloth that he pulls on, shivering slightly in the cold air. He selects his largest horse harpoon and slings it over a shoulder, then bundles up the rest and lowers it back under the water. Time to head to the river Quagmyre and the raiding shoal he boasted he could lead straight to the Gate of the Twins once they reached the Hall of the Queen. Gryst almost rued the moment he let the moonwine loosen his tongue last night. The Naxen War Council were keen for more volunteers and the moonwine had flowed freely at the Spawning Holt. It was a fool's errand to try and breach the gate. To try and free Nixor from his distant tomb. But Gryst hadn't lied, he did know where the Gate of the Twins was, had spent many a night in his youth swimming through the wells and water ducts of Hall Mead. Once they reached the Hall of the Queen, he could find the pool easily. And maybe, if he is lucky, he would have a heroes' death and not this slow rot he was being consumed by.
By the time he reaches the meeting point on the river bank a large shoal of Naxen men are assembled and waiting their orders. The War Councillor pulls Gryst close to him and whispers, 'You better not have lied Gryst, because this is a one way ticket through the gate, we'll only return triumphant under the flames of Nixor, the Dragon King or not at all. So, if you lie, tell me now and I'll run you through with your own harpoon.'
'I tell the truth, Garble, I know the way to the gate.' Gryst pulls away irritably from the young leader and slides into the middle of the shoal as they form ranks on the riverbank. As one, they dive, row after row, into the deep waters of the Quagmyre, swimming in formation downstream, barely a bubble breaking the surface as they glide by.