by Dan Abnett
The audience took place in the lower hall of Ottryke Manor. Lord Ottryke was generally very hard on trespassers and intruders, but the gamekeeper had piqued his interest. These were no poachers - they had killed nothing. And their campsite was too well organised to be run by vagabonds. There was evidence of well tended horses and of thorough meals with elegant cooking utensils. ‘Strange and wonderful,’ the gamekeeper had described them.
‘Very well. You may leave,’ said Lord Ottryke. ‘Say nothing to anyone.’ And with a wave of his bejewelled hand, he dismissed his gamekeeper.
‘SOMEONE HAS BEEN here again. A human, no doubt,’ said Fithvael, stirring the fire back to life a little after dawn on the third day. ‘We must decamp. We place ourselves in danger here.’
‘No, Fithvael, we will remain. Some human has seen this place, but none has hunted us or attacked us. They think nothing of our being here.’
‘Perhaps they survey us as we survey them.’
‘And if they do, perhaps we can help each other. I wish only to find Niobe or traces of any others of our own kind. We have a duty, you and I, Fithvael. It is too long since we knew what it was to be part of something greater, to have a family and our own people around us. What would you not give to have such a thing again?’
‘I fear your dreams. I fear we are too old, and have been too solitary for too long to do justice to women and offspring now,’ Fithvael said, so low his companion did not hear.
Gilead slept now, even by daylight, when for months he could not sleep during the darkest of nights. Now it was Fithvael’s turn to be wakeful. They were being watched, and he had seen signs that they had been visited; yet Gilead seemed to have no fear of these humans. A character of extremes, the elf felt fear of everything or of nothing, love of life or a passion for death, was shadowfast or comatose.
Fithvael sat beside the campfire, keeping it low lest it give off tell-tale smoke, and kept watch. He spent the day preparing for the next night, without knowing what more there was to find on this estate. He kept watch over his friend and their few belongings. He laid his short sword within reach if he was seated and at his belt when moving around. He lived the day in fear, not of what the humans might do, for they must do something, nor of when the humans might come, for come they would. In his heart he lived in fear of Gilead and of what he might cause to happen to them both.
Dusk drew on, turquoise and amber. Gilead would wake soon, so Fithvael prepared a meal, stirred the fire into fresh life and leaned back against the welcoming nest of roots and bark afforded by the largest tree in the tiny clearing. Gazing into the darkening sky, Fithvael watched blue-grey wisps of cloud crossing the gaps in the leaves high above.
WHEN THEY CAME, as Fithvael had known they would, it was at twilight, that time when a black thread and a white, held equally against the light, both look grey.
Fithvael lay half upright against the tree, his eyelids fluttering and his feet twitching in unquiet sleep. Gilead lay in shelter on his side, well rested, close to waking.
When they came, they did not pour into the tiny clearing on horseback, stamping the ground, rearing their steeds and banging swords against shields.
Fithvael reclined, dozing, nostrils flaring with a new smell, unfamiliar at his time of sleeping. Gilead rolled instinctively onto his back, so that his semi-comatose senses might better hear the new sounds approaching the clearing.
When they came, they came by stealth, parting the leaves and branches of the trees, creeping on near-silent feet into the clearing. They came unarmoured for silence, sporting only the insignia of their lord embroidered on the front panels of their jerkins.
Fithvael took his weight back into his body, breathed one long, slow breath to clear his head and half opened an eye. Gilead gained his feet, hunkered down to keep his shelter; eyes snapped open, one hand, hesitating in mid-air, inches from the haft of his dagger.
They had thought to take the strangers by stealth. But the human scent is strong in the nostrils of an elf, and their footfalls sound loudly in the ears of the ancient folk. Even as an elf sleeps, he hears and smells and feels, and Gilead and Fithvael were no longer asleep.
In the half-blink of a single eye, Fithvael had seen the five men stalking around the clearing, skirting the fire, examining the food cooking there, and looking for the shelter which echoed the shapes of the low canopies of immature trees, and was invisible in the twilight. He knew that Gilead was with him; he could feel his presence, crystal sharp like the edge of an elven sword. Fithvael himself could take out the two men at the west side of the clearing. Gilead would do the rest.
In a matter of two heartbeats, Gilead registered five heavy pairs of feet in his hearing. Two off to the west of the clearing, two more central and one coming closer, to the east of the clearing. Gilead could easily defeat the three humans nearest to him; he knew that Fithvael would be on hand to tackle the remainder.
None of the men spotted the shape of the elf warrior, leaning against the tree, nor could they see the shelter where Gilead lay. The five men thought to wait for their quarry as they skirted the patch of open ground, marvelling at the construction of so neat a fire and the elegant preparation of such a meal. They assumed from this that the men in this campsite would be sophisticated, urbane people; they would be reserved, slow if it came to a fight - and so the newcomers expected nothing more.
Gilead took the first, emerging from the unseen shelter, lunging forward, attacking low. Galeth’s sword rested heavy in its scabbard at his side and his dagger was still in his belt. The warrior elf tackled the short, squat man at the hips, below his centre of gravity, and swung him onto the ground on his back, winding him badly. A well-aimed blow to the jaw laid him out unconscious. To his right, Gilead could hear Fithvael emerge into the clearing.
‘Do not kill them!’ he ordered, and Fithvael automatically put up his sword, always used to taking orders from his faster friend on the field of battle.
As Fithvael floored his first opponent with a flat-handed but powerful blow to the sternum, Gilead was attacking his second, a bewildered young man who instantly dropped the staff he was carrying and waved his arms in alarm in front of him.
‘No! No!’ he cried, his voice high and wavering.
Gilead squatted, swiftly, and took the end of the staff in one hand, swinging it lightly against the back of the boy’s knees and landing him unceremoniously on his rump.
Fithvael grappled with the biggest of the men, but for all the human’s bulk he was also fast, and after seeing the fate of his comrades, was now ready for the elf’s charge. The guard lifted his axe and swung, but Fithvael was still lithe for an old warrior and, ducking, he caught the haft of the long handled axe below the head and set himself into a spin. The force threw the big man off his heavy feet and into the trunk of the tree that Fithvael had, only moments before, been sleeping against.
As he looked up the last assailant was going down. He was the tallest of them, standing almost height for height with Gilead as they circled each other. Gilead made his move, grabbing his opponent’s hand, raising and turning it, taking with it the tall man’s entire body. Lifting him almost off his feet, Gilead ducked under their conjoined hands and threw the human over his shoulder. The man landed on his back; his head whiplashed back and he, too, was unconscious before he even knew what had hit him.
‘How… how did you do that… sire?’ a small voice asked from the middle of the body-strewn glade.
Fithvael and Gilead stood over the only conscious human left in the clearing.
‘How? They are all fighting men with weapons. I’m only beginning… but they…’
The frightened boy stammered and chattered, as the elves stood over him, silent.
Gilead pointed at the insignia.
The elven rune, senthoi, signifying unity, was newly sewn, on the front of the boy’s fresh, starched tunic.
My grandmother told me that the lord still uses one of these old symbols on his crest, although none now rememb
ers what it means or signifies. It’s beautiful, I think.
STILL STANDING OVER the jabbering boy, Fithvael and Gilead uncovered their faces.
‘By Ulthuan…’ Fithvael uttered in his native tongue.
The boy heard nothing more. The two faces and the single, alien voice had taken any remaining sense clean out of his head and he fell backward in a dead faint.
THEY DISMOUNTED IN the courtyard of the manor house and, since the usual watchman for this hour had rode in on the rump of Fithvael’s steed, none dared stop their entry. The boy, Lyonen, was white with shock and he seemed in a daze as Fithvael helped him gently down from the horse they had shared.
Lyonen skittered and skipped ahead of Fithvael and Gilead into the lower hall of the manor, as he felt the toes of Gilead’s striding boots on his heels. The elf companions made no attempt to hide their identities, and as a dozen faces turned upon them silence fell faster and more completely than it had ever fallen in that room before.
‘Guards!’ cried a squat, hawk-faced man, his dark hair streaked with silver. ‘The rest of you leave, now!’
‘You wanted to speak with us?’ Gilead asked the lord, who in his confusion and disbelief had risen, although it was his right as lord of the manor to sit in the presence of any but the highest ranking stranger. After a few moments of bustle, the room was empty save for the guards, who looked on, some pale, others openly gaping at the mythical strangers.
‘I…’ the lord began, glancing behind him to ascertain precisely where his chair was situated, that he might fall into it with at least some assurance. ‘I merely wanted to know who was trespassing on my land.’
‘You sent five armed guards on a stealth mission,’ Gilead observed, a wry smile almost crooking his lips, but kept out of his straight-talking eyes.
‘And you return with only one, and the weakling at that,’ said the lord, with increasing composure. ‘Am I to believe you have killed the others?’
‘Since they had no chance of taking myself and my companion, dead or alive, it seemed a little indiscriminate to slay them on the spot. No doubt they will return when they have nursed their sore heads and regained their sense of direction,’ Gilead returned, enjoying the sparring.
Usually an elf, when he met with a human, came upon someone in need and in awe of the ”fairyfolk”, or someone intimidated and unbelieving, as the lord’s guards appeared to be. This human, however, after taking a moment to compose himself, seemed neither afraid nor awe-struck.
‘I see what you are, elf. But what brings you to my estate?’ the lord came to the point. But Gilead had need of a little more sparring.
‘If you know the history of your homestead, then you know why we are here,’ Gilead answered, gesturing slightly at Lyonen’s tunic.
‘Then it seems we both know the legends that surround this land,’ the lord countered. ‘Perhaps your reason for being here coincides with my reason for sending a stealth party to recover you, rather than killers to finish you. Please, put up your weapons and be seated.’
Gilead nodded to Fithvael and they both passed their weapons to the boy, assuring his continued stay in the room, as they took their seats. And thus the meeting commenced.
As my grandmother told it to me, the last of the elves that had lived at Ottryke, when they knew their time was ended, took most of their treasures to their family tombs and buried them. But that’s just an old woman’s story.
FITHVAEL AND GILEAD were not invited to stay in the manor that night, but their weapons were returned to them and Lyonen returned to the campsite with them. It was he, after all, who had brought the elves to his lord, and his lord had need of their skills.
When they returned to their camp, it was empty of humans and nothing had been touched. Fithvael and Gilead talked long into the night - their youthful guardian watching them solemnly, understanding nothing at all that they said - as the two elf warriors debated the Tightness of what they were to do.
Fithvael was aghast that Gilead would dare sanction the plunder of an ancient elven tomb. On Gilead’s part though, he argued that the ends most assuredly justified the means. If he could possess the documentary treasures of this branch of an elf family, then the price was reasonable enough.
ANOTHER DAY PASSED as Fithvael gathered herbs, replenished their water skins and tended the horses. Lyonen followed everywhere in his wake, watching each task with wonder and curiosity, asking a hundred questions. Fithvael began to warm to the innocent eagerness of the boy, and his terse answers soon became a commentary on what he was doing, and then a dialogue like that between a mentor and his pupil. Even in such simple domestic matters, the ways of the elf were completely at odds with the crude toil that typified a human’s daily labours.
The boy observed the other, Gilead, only at a distance - afraid, not because the warrior was an elf, but because that one kept all and everyone at a distance, even his elf companion. The boy’s loyalties were already conflicted between the master he had grown up to laud and observe, and these wonderful elf-folk who knew so much and seemed so complete.
On the second day following their visit to the manor, Fithvael and Gilead received the lord and his entourage in the camp that they had made on these estates less than a week before. Fithvael heard hooves before dawn, as Lyonen helped him to load the horses and check their tack. Gilead stood firm in the centre of the clearing as he was surrounded by the lord, dressed in a kind of hunting outfit, and five of his guardsmen, clad in drab clothes and cloaks, bearing none of the lord’s insignia. The armed men fooled no one; both elves recognised them instantly as soldiers of the lord, here to protect his interests against all-comers, including Fithvael and Gilead.
‘Welcome, lord,’ Gilead said formally, yet without showing signs of obeisance to this dull, avaricious human. ‘Do we all understand our purpose?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘That I lead you to the ancient tombs of my ancestors in return for any documents we discover there, all other property belonging to you as the current master of Ottryke.’
‘We are in full agreement,’ Lord Ottryke replied. ‘All artefacts of material worth found during this mission belong solely to myself and my family.’
‘Then we are agreed. Let us depart,’ Gilead said, mounting his horse, Fithvael in concert with his every move.
Moments later, Lyonen, with a gasping clumsy effort, also managed to gain his saddle, accompanied by a glare from Gilead, and a tut or two from the lord’s followers.
THE FIRST DAY’S ride was uneventful. The terrain was flat and easy, the steeds sure-footed and confident. If Ottryke’s guards were a little nervous it was only because they were in the company of elves, creatures they knew might have existed in the deepest reaches of the world’s history, but none that they could believe in here and now. As Gilead and Fithvael rode a little in advance of the rest of the party, six pairs of sneaking, wary eyes watched them constantly.
Lyonen, not quite knowing his place, rode sometimes at the back of the guard, unable to converse with men, who days before had thought him worthless and now only feared his connection to the elf-lords. When he forgot himself and his loyalties he chose to ride alongside Fithvael, causing headshakes of disapproval, even consternation amongst his own people.
After an uneventful night under the stars, the second day brought them to the low slopes that signalled the foothills of their mountain destination and the first expectations of danger. The head of the guard squad spoke to the feared elves through Lyonen, who translated nothing and interpreted nothing, but merely repeated his sergeant’s words of caution.
And danger there was.
Gilead came to a dead stop, Fithvael following suit mere paces behind him. Gilead raised his hand to halt the party, but they were only human and the best they could do was shuffle and hesitate and shuffle a little more, coming to a silent stop far too late. Their control of their steeds was clumsy, and it cost them.
The great beast came from nowhere, carried by the scent of human flesh and animal swea
t into the rearguard of the group. As Gilead started to turn to admonish the coarse humans he saw it come, shambling, swollen legs bent; huge, hairless paws low to the ground. Ottryke’s men grappled with the hilts and hafts of their various weapons as Gilead wheeled and galloped from his turn straight past them. His sword already in his hand, leaving a trail through the air that the humans could almost see, Gilead howled a cry of anger and attack. Those guards who had managed to arm themselves started to raise their weapons to face the elf.
Behind them, the last man was already half out of his saddle, kicking furiously with his single stirruped foot at the broad, scarred, naked body of the monster. The bestial chest was the size of a barrel and as hard as rock, and the guard made no impression on his attacker. A bone-clawed fist reached up at him and snapped at his neck, encircling it easily and wrenching him from his terrified mount.
Gilead wheeled his own horse around and his slender elf sword came down hard, slicing into the beast’s back just as he heard the startled cry of a soldier behind him, biting off the barked orders of the sergeant that hung in the air, unheeded. His first blow clove a deep cleft in the brute’s unnaturally curved spine, causing the great beastman to turn, screeching at Gilead and spraying yellow spittle out from between its scabby grey lips and rows of broken and pointed teeth. Throwing its head forward, the beast aimed its jaw at Gilead’s exposed left leg, but before the teeth could connect with the finely muscled tissue there, the elf had plunged his dagger into the hollow of the beast’s broad throat, which spread wider than its narrow, flattened cranium. Black blood spurted from the fatal wound and gushed into the beast’s lowered maw, making it wretch in its asphyxiated death throws.
In the stunned silence that followed, the lord and his guard gathered around the fallen, twitching monstrosity. Fithvael alone made to tend the shaken, but only slightly injured target of the beast’s ravening hunger. Lyonen’s mouth hung open for several moments, and when he finally collected himself he automatically made to applaud the elf warrior, preventing himself just in time.
