by K. J. Hargan
"Ronenth!" She screamed. She didn't know if she dared to use the Ar as Wynnfrith had. Ronenth might be burdened with two unconscious women, better to stay awake and use her sword.
Frea watched as Ronenth seemed to draw the paricale in closer circles, drawing the garonds in closer to him. Frea almost couldn't even see the glaf boy for the battling, swarming garond bodies pushing in on him.
"Ronenth," she whispered as she quickly unfurled the sails, trying to keep her eyes on him.
Then, Ronenth burst out with a mighty, circling stroke that cut thirty or more garonds all around him directly in half at the abdomen.
In the midst of the blood splattered explosion of carnage, Ronenth leapt out, and sprinted for his sailboat, his paricale whirling over his head in short loops.
Frea could see Ravensdred clearly now. The huge garond war general was also sprinting towards the humans attempting to escape his land. Ravensdred carried a strange, black weapon, a huge sword attached, by chains to a metal ball, attached to a large horn, which he spun over his head, ready to strike when he got close enough.
Ronenth splashed into the water and dumped his paricale into the boat.
Frea reached over the glaf boy, and with her sword, skewered a garond just behind him. She dragged Ronenth into the boat, just as a weak breeze filled the sails.
The sailboat bobbed over the surf. The three humans aboard had made it to the open ocean.
In the surf, Ravensdred loosely held his stilled, limp weapon.
"You won't get far!" Ravensdred bellowed at the fleeing humans. "Then I can finally finish off the last vermin of the glaf race."
Ronenth started for the gunwale as though he meant to jump overboard. Frea had to pull him back into the boat.
"We are safe now," Frea whispered to Ronenth. "You saved us."
"No," Ronenth was suddenly stilled with fear.
Frea followed his gaze around to the southern horizon. The sea was filled with long boats full of garonds furiously rowing towards them.
"They will be on us in moments," Ronenth whispered in horror. In a panic, he pulled at the sails trying to trim them to get more speed out of the boat.
Frea looked over at Wynnfrith, who was still unconscious, laying sprawled in the bottom of the sailboat, and still clutching the Heart of the Earth.
Frea had to pry Wynnfrith's fingers open to get to the black, cup shaped stone.
The contact was urgent and shocking. Frea understood why Wynnfrith had been knocked out. The Ar seemed to be matching the severity of the need to the level of power coursing through the lines of energy connected to the stone.
Frea steadied herself. She felt the crackling fingers of power undulating all around her. The Ar's energy was different as it moved through the water of the ocean. The energy was intensified and moved in huge billowing arcs of power. She thought the waves of earth energy looked like upside-down clouds in the sky, but moving quickly through the suspension of the ocean. She was frightened that if she tried to move the water, she would swamp the small boat. She could see sparkles of energy, like bright pinpoints, far down in the water, fish.
Bands of color, greens and blues swept by. Frea wasn't sure what they were, but guessed they had something to do with the energy waiting to be tapped in the sea. The large bands of humming color reminded Frea of dreaming. It seemed as if she were in a dream, yet awake. But she was afraid of the power of the ocean. It was too big, uncontrollable.
Then, as if somehow prompted from some Hidden Hand, a memory came to Frea. She remembered when she was taken by garonds at the deserted village of Rion Ta. A shape of wind had saved her from being killed by a starving garond that had wanted to eat her. Had she generated that wind, that intense, human shaped vortex?
As Frea contemplated the past, a wind began to pick up.
Frea instantly knew she was creating the wind with the help of the Ar. She looked up and saw the energy of the Ar, invisible to the naked eye, pulsing through the sky, in every direction, great curtains of power, pale yellow and transparent gold, slowly rippling across the expanse of the heavens. She needed only to think, and the wind would follow her command.
"Are you doing this?!" Ronenth yelled as he tried to control the whipping sails.
Frea opened her eyes and saw that the sailboat was skipping over the sea, sails filled with a strong wind. The garond long boats were far behind.
"Can you ease up?" Ronenth yelled as a rope pulled him off his feet. "Just a little?"
Frea let go of the connection to the sky through the Ar. The wind immediately died down.
"That was astounding," Ronenth breathed.
"I think this stone enhances whatever gifts you may possess," Frea said staring down at the Ar. "Once I moved the wind, I think. But this..."
"A woman who moves the heavens," Ronenth smiled to himself.
"Ronenth," Frea softly said.
"Yes?"
"Thank you for saving Wynnfrith and me," Frea said with eyes downcast. "But I am for Arnwylf. He has my heart always and forever."
"I know," Ronenth bravely said, smiling through the emotions he held back. He looked away to the ocean to keep from bursting into tears. "I've always known that you and Arnwylf were meant to be together. You can't fault me for falling in love with you."
"Oh, Ronenth," Frea touched his stubbled cheek. "There is someone for you, someone wonderful. I just know it. You fell in love with the qualities I possess. There is some girl out there for you, with similar qualities. Maybe right under your nose. Now that you know what you want, it will be so much easier to see her, when she comes to you."
Ronenth just silently smiled, and stared out at the sea, stoically, bravely, keeping his pain to himself.
The water was placid and a deep green, as if it enjoyed the small boat skipping over its surface, content and kind, like a large dog when its belly is scratched.
Frea held the Ar and let her mind once again connect to the sky. The wind gently filled the sails. The billowing swirls of energy, invisible to the common eye, were beautiful, and Frea felt a natural connection to the stretching expanse overhead. She smiled to herself. She was quickly learning how to control her new found power.
Chapter Nine
The Empty City
Arnwylf splashed ashore to Wealdland. He looked back at the Kryial, Zik's magnificent ship. It's three red sails suddenly filled with a violent wind. Even from a distance, Arnwylf could see the sailors struggling with the sails. The long boat that Zik and his sailors had used to bring Arnwylf to shore bounced away from the hull of the ship, empty and lost, too late to bring it back up aboard, fortunate that Zik and his crew had just climbed out of the landing craft.
The wind was hard and strangely consistent, blowing from the east. For some reason Arnwylf thought of Frea, and the vortex that seemed to kiss him in Harvestley over a year ago.
Night was falling, and a few stars twinkled in the east through the heavy, roiling cloud cover. The evening had a chill to it that portended danger.
The beach was quiet. A light drizzle began. All the shadows deepened with the falling night, and the heavy, black clouds overhead.
Arnwylf could see the dark shape of three figures far down the beach running towards him. Garonds? No, the gait was upright and easy. Humans.
Arnwylf waited for them to come to him, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Arnwylf saw the three, thin, raggedy humans stop when they got close enough to recognize that Arnwylf was armed. They seemed to counsel together, then approached slowly.
Arnwylf could see, as they neared, that there were two men and a young man probably about seventeen summers old, the same age as Arnwylf. All three were too thin from starvation.
When the three men got close enough, they stopped again to counsel. The young man seemed emphatic and excited, pointing and gesturing. Then they turned back to Arnwylf. The young man stepped forward.
"Are you Arnwylf of Bittel?" The young man called, then began a fit of coughing from
having to exert himself.
"I am," Arnwylf called back, still cautious.
The three humans were suddenly ecstatic. They ran to Arnwylf with hops of joy.
"They said you died!"
"They said you were taken by the sea!"
"But the sea has given you back!"
"Lord Arnwylf was too fierce for the sea!"
"Quiet, please! Quiet!" Arnwylf tried to calm the men.
"He can help us!" The shorter of the older men said.
"Yes, he can help us!" The taller said.
"Help you do what?" Arnwylf asked.
"We are starving," the younger man said . "We sought to leave Wealdland by any remnant of Byland that was left. But the New Sea is too large, too deep."
"We have been trying to catch a horse that travels this beach," the taller of the older men said.
"If we can catch it..." the younger man said.
"You can eat it," Arnwylf said with thinly veiled disgust.
"There it is!" The older, and taller man exclaimed.
From the other direction, an equine shadow danced along the edge of the shore, a silhouette of prancing grace in the falling night, set against the white foam of the crashing surf. The long, wild hair of the dark shape streamed in the wind off the ocean.
"I do not approve of eating horses," Arnwylf said.
"We are starving," the shorter, older man said.
"It is coming right to us!" The younger man said.
"Arnwylf!" The horse whinnied.
Arnwylf stared into the darkening gloom. The horse was tan yellow, with a black mane. He knew this beast very well, and could hardly believe his eyes. It was the horse he stole from the Great Garond Encampment, when he rescued Frea from Ravensdred, over a year earlier.
"Boldson?" Arnwylf called.
"Make them go away!" Boldson neighed, raising up on his hind legs, and kicked his front hooves in fear and nervousness.
"Are you talking to the horse?" The younger man whispered in awe.
"I have animal speak/hear, like my mother," Arnwylf plainly said. "It is my horse! He is afraid of you. Stay here."
Arnwylf left the three men, and strode towards the horse that pawed at the sand and tossed his head in excitement. As soon as Arnwylf was close enough the horse affectionately buried its muzzle in Arnwylf's hair, and nickered with relief and happiness.
"I found you, I found you," Boldson quietly said.
"It has been too long, old friend," Arnwylf said patting the horse's muscular neck. "I worried about you every day, after I sent you and the other horses out onto the Meadowlands."
"You did the right thing," Boldson said. "You couldn't feed us at the old fortress, and the garonds would surely have eaten us."
"How did you know to find me here?" Arnwylf said.
"I dreamt it," Boldson nickered.
"Horses dream?"
"Our dreams are true, unlike humans," Boldson muzzled. "No one dreams as well as a horse, except, perhaps, the People of Light."
Arnwylf swung himself up onto Boldson's back.
"Do not be afraid," Arnwylf said, and he urged the stallion over to the starving humans. Arnwylf pulled a leather pack from his shoulder and threw it to the ground.
"There is dried meat and bread," Arnwylf said to the men. "There is no leaving Wealdland. We must fight for our lives or lose them. Where are the human armies encamped?"
"Every human, but a few such as ourselves, waits outside the citadel of the Dark One, near the River Syrenf," the older man said.
"They say, they wait for their doom," the older, but shorter man said.
"They wait for hope and opportunity," Arnwylf said. "I expect to meet you three at the encampment in two days. Do not disappoint me."
"You will not go with us?" The younger man asked.
"I must go to Rogar Li," Arnwylf said, and turned Boldson to gallop away at full speed.
"But Rogar Li is cursed!" The young man called, but Arnwylf was gone and had not heard the warning.
Arnwylf knew that the Bairn River was impossible to ford anywhere but farther west. And, with Byland gone, and the icebergs that clogged the mouth of the Bairn gone, he might be able to ford the river's mouth with Boldson's help.
Night was still and clearing, with huge gray clouds tumbling through the evening sky, pushed by the odd, ever present wind. Nunee, the mother moon, full, slowly paced the sky, turning everything a lovely light blue.
The Wanderer, the second moon, skittered its erratic path through the heavens, becoming small and pinpoint at its zenith, and then rushing at the earth as though it was going to fall into the ocean. It would follow its strange course several times every night. When the Wanderer came close, its mountains and craters were terrifyingly easy to see on its lunar surface.
The sea to Arnwylf's right, as he skirted Harvestley by traveling along the beach, was black and placid. Lines of foam topping the waves stretched back into the horizon in parallel sets that merged into the black edge where the sea met the sky.
The white cliffs on Arnwylf's left rose in pale, jagged knives of chalk that glowed in the moonlight. The beach was flat and empty, easy for Boldson to run as fast as his speeding legs could carry Arnwylf.
Eventually, as the stars rotated through the black of night, and the heavy clouds blew away, the chalk cliffs became shorter and shorter. Zigzagging paths were etched along the face of the white cliffs. Arnwylf considered leading Boldson up into Harvestley, but the going was so easy on the beach, he discarded the notion.
"We are close to the river now," Boldson called back to Arnwylf.
"Go up the river for a while," Arnwylf said to the horse.
The sand stretched out wide and swampy where the river emptied into the New Sea. Trees, ravaged from the massive wave that flooded the land only three moonths ago, stood at tilted angles like the jutting, defeated spears of the dead on a battlefield.
The river was wide at its mouth. The line of trees on the northern bank was a faint smudge of black in the distance. The Bairn River was much wider than Arnwylf remembered.
"Do you think you can swim it?" Arnwylf asked the horse.
"I can try," the horse nickered. Then the horse seemed to examine the ground. "What is that?"
Arnwylf looked down and noticed large, slithering tracks in the mud on the banks of the river that led out to the water. Several massive, snaking bodies were obviously moving in and out of the river.
"Some large water beast," Arnwylf spoke truthfully. "If you do not want to try, I will understand."
"Am I not Boldson?" The horse said as a matter of fact. Then the yellow tan horse with the black mane splashed into the river.
Arnwylf held on tightly to Boldson's mane as the river was swift. He could feel the horse thrusting its mighty legs against the steady, persistent current trying to push them out to the New Sea.
Arnwylf swung onto the side of the horse and kicked his legs.
At least I can help as much as I can, Arnwylf thought. The water was cold and brackish. The smell of the muddied, fresh water being cleaned as it flowed into the salt water of the New Sea was curiously heartening to Arnwylf, almost as if the earth itself were on his side.
The bobbing wreckage of a massive, drowned tree floated directly at them. Boldson kicked harder to just avoid colliding with the huge, arboreal flotsam. Boldson had to turn directly facing the river to avoid the floating tree, and spent valuable energy swimming without any gain.
Arnwylf had reasoned that the river would push them downstream, and that was why he asked Boldson to go upriver a bit, but they just passed the edge of the mouth of the river on the northern banks. Arnwylf saw, with alarm, the beach on either side of the river. They were drifting out to sea.
"Harder!" Arnwylf cried, and kicked harder himself.
He could feel the current of the river relenting, as the horse and human swam for the shore just north of the river's mouth.
Arnwylf allowed himself to slide onto the horse's back as they
neared the shore. The horse slogged up on the muddy beach north of the river. Arnwylf was so cold, he could barely feel his legs. Boldson's head drooped with exhaustion. Water flowed from his black, soggy mane.
"That was hard," Boldson softly muttered.
"But you did it," Arnwylf smiled and patted the horse's neck. "Do you want to rest?"
"I would rather walk," the horse replied. "I will dry quicker, and warm my body."
"I agree," Arnwylf said and slipped off the horse's back, to walk beside his dear friend.
The northern banks of the River Bairn were quiet. The trees became straighter and larger the farther west they walked.
Eventually the song of crickets and night birds began to fill the evening with chirps, clicks and calls.
"You may ride, if you like," Boldson offered, tossing his head with vigor.
"If it is no bother," Arnwylf said. The coldness of the water had tired his human legs more than he had thought it would.
"We can go faster," the horse replied.
Boldson held still, and Arnwylf heaved himself onto the horse's back. They proceeded at a brisk trot. Moonlight streamed through the thickening woods with fingers of muted pale, yellow light.
The forest of the Weald was as Arnwylf remembered, dense, tangled and filled with mystery. Ancient oaks, that had survived the Great Fire the previous year, reached twisting, turning arms out to the canopy of wild vegetation. Numerous pines thrust their black trunks straight up to the heavens like massive, spreading spears. However, the brush and shrubs that normally covered the forest floor were sparse and weakly leaved. The woods seemed thirsty and sickly, to Arnwylf.
Boldson came to an abrupt halt.
"What is it?" Arnwylf whispered.
"Did you hear that?" Boldson softly nickered.
"Your ears are more sensitive than mine."
"Something large, in the woods," Boldson muttered.
Arnwylf slowly drew his sword. "Let us continue," Arnwylf said. "We're very near Rogar Li. The city will offer some safety."
Boldson continued with a slow, cautious walk, slowly turning his head from side to side, large black eyes wide. Arnwylf wasn't sure if he also heard something large pacing them in the dark depths of the woods. Boldson slowly broke into a canter. A loud crash of splintered wood surprised both man and horse.
