by Ellyn, Court
The hour was late, indeed, for all the windows were shuttered and dark. The lamps on the corners of lanes and alleys burned low as their oil dwindled. A swinging sign painted with a rat drowning in a foaming tankard announced the local tavern. Longbeard Angson pounded on the door. “Rouse, you sleeping sods!” he called up at the windows. A light flared, disappeared, reappeared in the downstairs window, and an old man in a nightcap showed up at the door with a meat cleaver. Seeing the crowd gathered outside his door, he stammered, “What in the Abyss—?”
Angson jabbed a finger at Rhoslyn. “This is Her Grace, the Duchess of Liraness, His Lordship’s lady, and she needs—”
“Ha!” the proprietor crowed. It was no wonder he doubted the sergeant’s word. The duchess looked like a pea planter who’d had a tussle with a litter of piglets. The falcon sigil on the soldiers’ surcoats and Jaedren’s, too, were masked under thick mud. “And I’m the Black Falcon, eh? What’s your game, man? Who the hell are these people gallivanting about in the middle of the bloody night?”
“I just told you,” Angson roared.
Rhoslyn laid a hand to the sergeant’s arm, and he stepped aside. Her smile was as sweet as Nelda’s honey-glazed cinnamon buns. “Goodman, er?”
“Manders.” The old man leaned away from the earth-caked woman, who he surely thought was mad, and tucked the cleaver behind his back.
“Yes, Goodman Manders. Listen to me, and listen well. Ilswythe is under attack. His Lordship is away at the King’s Convention, and these people, his people, are in my care. If you will look over there,” she added, pointing toward the southern hills, “you will see the fires our attackers have set. Ilswythe may be burning to the ground. Now, in my lord-husband’s name, I am requisitioning your fine establishment for the shelter of his people. They need ale and baths and beds, at His Lordship’s expense, of course. In the meantime, you will run and wake every man in Bransdon and see that they are gathered in the square, fully armed, in half an hour.”
Old Manders glanced between the duchess, the halo of the distant fire, and the faces of the refugees, his mouth moving with wordless doubt.
“Move it, move it, move it!” bellowed Angson, hand going for his sword haft.
Lights flared in windows across the lane.
Manders scrambled to set down his candle and his cleaver and raced away through his neighbor’s turnip patch. A moment later a bell, presumably hanging in the town square, clanged like mad. Rhoslyn ushered her people into the tavern. The keeper’s confounded wife saw the muddy children in the light of the bobbing lanterns and threw her hands over her plump, round cheeks. In no time she had the refugees filling the tables in the common room and bread rounds sliced and buttered and mugs of ale foaming in a row along the polished bar. Jaedren was so tired that he slumped into the table nearest the window and laid his head on his arms. Etivva tried to put a thick slice of bread in his fingers, but his stomach was full of fear and sadness. What if the ogres broke through the gate and found the tunnel? What if scouts saw the humans climb out of the ground under the oak tree? They might show up outside the tavern any time. How were these blind villagers supposed to protect anybody?
While the men shuffled back outside to join the gathering villagers, several of their women and children clustered near the bar to tell the keeper’s wife their version of the attack, none of whom, in Jaedren’s opinion, knew what they were talking about, but he hadn’t the enthusiasm to correct them. Others sought out Etivva and asked for the Mother’s comfort. The shaddra prayed with them, but in the end she had to admit that she didn’t know why monsters had attacked them.
Jaedren made himself gnaw the stiff bread and dug into his sackcloth for the apple and cheese Nelda had given him. He stared at the apple’s red skin a long time before he realized it reminded him of the heads he’d seen rolling in the streets of Ilswythe village. Red on the road, red in the water. If only he had shouted louder, shouted sooner. He tucked the apple back into the sackcloth.
Outside in the lane, the townspeople grumbled and shouted. Sergeant Angson explained over and over why they’d been awakened. Nael grunted agreement, and when Rhoslyn was satisfied that her people had been put at ease, she went to the threshold and raised her hands. “Listen! The sergeant speaks the truth. The true name of our enemy remains a mystery. Until we know who has ordered this attack on our refuge, you must prepare for the worst.”
Jaedren nudged Etivva. “Should I tell them about the ogres?”
“What do you think you should do?” she asked softly.
“They won’t believe me.”
“Then do not trouble them with it. They will find out soon enough. Removing the blinders from their eyes need not be your burden.”
Rhoslyn added, “Messengers are to spread word that all town militias are to arm and be ready for His Lordship’s call. It is also critical that we get word to Thyrvael immediately. I have reason to believe that the dwarves can offer us special aid in this matter. Ilswythe’s people are to be made welcome until they can return to their own homes. I myself will ride tonight with Sergeant Nael to Drenéleth and deliver this message to the highlanders.”
Jaedren and Etivva exchanged a glance. Across the table, Lura reluctantly gained her feet. Esmi squeezed her hand and whispered, “Goddess go with you.”
Jaedren scrambled out of his chair. He wasn’t about to be left behind with these frightened farmers.
“Sergeant Angson will remain here to ensure my orders are carried out,” Rhoslyn went on. “You will obey him as if he were Lord Kelyn himself. Now, who runs the livery?”
Peeking around the doorpost, Jaedren glimpsed a dark-bearded, balding man raise a finger and shoulder his way closer to the tavern.
“I will need three horses—” Rhoslyn began, but Jaedren tugged her sleeve. Etivva placed her hands on his shoulders. Instead of holding him back, the gesture was meant to imply that she too would accompany the duchess. “Er, five horses.” Rhoslyn reached for her pearl earrings. “Here.”
“No, Your Grace,” said the stableman, waving his hands, “take the mounts. They are not worth such fine baubles.”
“They are not lame?”
“No, ma’am! I would not disgrace myself, but—”
“Then take this payment. I … I cannot promise the horses will be returned.” Knowing that even the duchess feared axes waiting in the hollows and lurking behind the hedgerows somehow made Jaedren feel braver. He would see Her Grace safely to Drenéleth, whatever it took.
The “horses” amounted to two drays and three mules. The mules stubbornly fought the order to run, but finally decided they better keep up with the herd as soon as the plow horses started to leave them behind. They agreed only to a jouncy trot that bruised Jaedren’s arse, and though the animals had halters, they had neither proper bridles nor saddles. Etivva worried that she wouldn’t be able to walk the next day, and Lura would have liked to complain too, but as the duchess’s handmaid, she was far too disciplined and kept her mouth shut. Sergeant Nael rode the second dray and trotted ahead, a torch held high. Rhoslyn jested, “I wish Carah were here to see this. She’d have a tale for the Ladies’ Riding Society.”
Jaedren knew this road. It stretched out north-by-northeast, a pale winding ghost that echoed the path of the Avidan River. He had traveled it last year when Eliad invited his family to visit the lodge and hunt the snow elk. Lesha had squealed at the sight of the mountains all shimmery with snow. That was when Da agreed to let Jaedren stay and be Kelyn’s squire. Even though Andy was eleven, he cried the morning Mum and Da made him ride home with them. Jaedren still felt bad. Squiring wasn’t so hard. Well, except for sword and riding practice. He wanted to write to his parents and tell them Andy should be allowed to squire, too. Maybe he would, when he got to Drenéleth. And Da was probably at Bramoran with King Arryk anyway. Maybe he would stay when the convention was over and Jaedren could ask him in person.
Far away to the east, the soft gray light of dawn grew under the clouds t
hat cloaked the summits of the Drakhans. Jaedren glanced back toward Ilswythe and saw a plume of smoke rising over a line of andyr trees.
Throughout the morning, the road climbed higher into the foothills. The snowy spire of Mount Drenéleth provided a beacon. Though Jaedren’s arse was numb from sitting on the mule’s spine for so long, the mountain remained small and unreachable.
“Won’t Eliad be at the convention?” he asked the duchess. The mule tried to pause and tear leaves from a shrub on the roadside. Jaedren tugged the halter rope and dug in his heels, much good it did him. His arms ached from fighting her. “You don’t have to taste every bush you see.”
Showing pity, Sergeant Nael took the halter rope and led the mule along behind his dray.
Rhoslyn rubbed a knot in her own shoulder. “Even Eliad isn’t so irresponsible that he’d disobey Valryk’s wishes. Which means it’s our task to convince the highlanders living on his lands that our need is urgent.” She shook her head, uncertain. “Maybe we should’ve ridden to Thyrvael ourselves. It’s twice as far, but it’s a stronger holdfast. Kelyn would’ve preferred that, I think. During the last war I built ships. I’m not familiar with retreat. If I chose badly I suppose we’ll know soon enough.”
The overcast sky remained the same color of gray at midday as it had at dawn. It was their bellies, not the sun, that told them when to stop and rest. “As slow as these animals move,” Nael said, voice soft and expressionless, “it might take us the rest of the day to get there. We shouldn’t stop too long, Your Grace.”
“Agreed.” Rhoslyn tethered her dray under a broken elm. Down in a hollow on the east side of the road, a spring trickled from under a jumble of broken boulders, and a streamlet cut a path toward the Avidan. This far north, the great river tumbled in a wild, white froth, its voice an eternal, distant roar.
The cold water breaking fresh from the ground cleansed the mud from their faces and refilled their waterskins and slapped the weariness from their eyes. Lura untied each of the food bundles and portioned out enough bread and cheese for everyone. Etivva reclined on her elbows in the grass and said, “Did I tell you how I lost my foot?”
Jaedren hadn’t had the audacity to ask.
“I was fleeing then, too.” Her smile was wistful, fond. “Lady Alovi and I had traveled across Leania to seek King Bano’en’s aid. It was at the beginning of the last war. We hoped to convince the king to send his army east to help Lord Keth, but that was not to be, not at the pleading of a desperate woman. That is not what decides kings, it seems. On our way home we were ambushed by Fieran envoys. They wanted to take us hostage, drag us all the way to Brynduvh with them.”
“Brynduvh isn’t so bad,” Jaedren tossed in. He’d been there lots of times with Da and Andy.
Etivva chuckled. “It would have been very bad for us, back then. I remember it was raining so hard, like it has been the last few days. To intimidate Lady Alovi into obedience, one of those wretched men cut a gash across my ankle. That is all he could reach, tucked into the shelter as we were. But our guards did not know that Lady Alovi was no timid rose. No, she was the wife a warrior, and she had to be stout of heart to endure the fearful days he was away at war, to raise his sons—”
“To put up with him all those years,” Rhoslyn snickered.
“This lady,” Etivva went on, “had an arrow hidden in the folds of her skirt. The next time our guard crawled inside our shelter she drove it through his eye! Out we sprang and ran into the rainstorm.”
“Did they chase you?” Jaedren remembered to close his mouth.
“Oh, yes, but not too far. Even grown men fear to enter the Gloamheath. We ran into the bogs, and long after those men gave up, we kept running. Those waters were septic with disgusting things and soon I was limping along in terrible pain. By the time we made it to safety, my poor foot had, well, it was rotting off and the surgeons had no choice but to lop it off. What do you think about that?”
Even Sergeant Nael’s lip curled in disgust. Lura choked on a bite of cheese. Jaedren laughed. “Ew, that’s grosser than Andy coughing up gobs of yellow stuff.”
Etivva tossed back her shaved head and laughed, too. It felt good to stop being afraid for a while, and he guessed that was why his tutor told the story in the first place. “Now, what was that song the bard sang about our escape?”
Jaedren groaned. “Boy, do I remember that song. My stupid sister sings it all the time. Or she used to. I hope she found something else to sing by now or Mum might stab out her ears.”
“Sing for us!” Rhoslyn pounded the grass as if it were a tabletop in the Great Hall. “Sing, sing!”
“Aw, Your Grace, you’re kidding, right?”
“Better you than us, Master Bard.”
Jaedren squirmed in protest but climbed to his feet anyway. Maybe they needed a song after all the screaming. Da called Mum his ‘wren’ for a good reason, and she said Jaedren’s voice wasn’t bad either. Andy’s was raspy from coughing all the time and would start changing soon anyway, but Jaedren’s was still fine and clear. The bass of the distant river and the sharp, high staccato of the furred crickets played along. Face as hot as a brand, he began:
From gray mists ran the eldritch mare,
Seaspray white and eyes aglow
With fairy light and fire aflare
That told of Magics long ago.
On her back rode Lady Fair
O’er Gloamheath’s baleful—
One of the drays whinnied. A mule brayed and tugged against its tether. Aster pulled a lock of Jaedren’s hair. In an instant he was searching the hollow with Veil Sight. Nael whipped his sword from its sheath as he scrambled to his feet. “Everybody mount up,” he ordered.
They ran up the hill to the elm tree where the animals were tied, taking no time to gather the food or water. At the top Jaedren stopped and shrieked. Four ogres surrounded by pulsing gray lifelights ran across the meadow, straight toward them. The ground shook with each footfall. Axes glinted over their shoulders, but the ogres did not draw them. Small red eyes pinned Jaedren. He grabbed a handful of the mule’s mane to pull himself up, but the animal bucked and flung him onto the roadside. An enormous hand studded with yellow claws reached for him. “Aster!” he screamed and crab-crawled away, but the ogre snagged him by the hair. A blue light flashed past, whirring angrily. Jaedren lurched, tore the hair from his scalp, and rolled free. Sergeant Nael leapt over him, swinging his sword blindly. A massive fist struck him in the chest and sent him sprawling into the grass.
Jaedren raced after his mule, but an ogre grabbed the halter and with his tusks ripped out the animal’s throat. The mule brayed and kicked and collapsed. An arm as thick and knotted as a tree trunk swept Jaedren off his feet. The stench of dead animals gagged him, and someone was screaming his name.
Sergeant Nael roared, picking himself up with sword in hand, and charged. He managed to draw a stream of dark orange blood from one of the ogres before another grabbed his skull like a melon and squeezed. Red on the road.…
Jaedren kicked and punched and bit into that rancid green skin, but the ogre held him fast. “Help me!” he screamed, reaching for the ladies, but what could they do? Rhoslyn’s face was red with sobs as she called for him, searching, searching, unable to see him. Etivva had the dray’s halter in hand and dragged the duchess away. The mules didn’t need any incentive to flee the stench and the panic. If they bolted the right direction, the ladies might make it to safety.
A bright white lifelight engulfed Jaedren’s vision. A beautiful shimmering face grinned at him. This wasn’t the elf he’d seen at Ilswythe. This one wore suede and supple leather that let him move fast on foot. His curling hair was almost dishwater brown. “Gotcha, avedra,” he said, voice like velvet.
“Nuh-uh,” Jaedren grunted, pushing against the ogre’s arm locked about his ribs. “Aster will sting you to pieces until you let me go.”
The elf raised a glistening silver box that hung from his finger like a lantern. Inside, a hummingbi
rd’s voice screeched in agony or rage or both. “Is this Aster?”
Jaedren reached for the cage, but the Elari snatched it away. “You stupid elf,” he shrieked. “You’re hurting her! If you don’t let us go, Thorn Kingshield will kill you!”
Pearly fingers popped Jaedren across the cheek, then grabbed him by the jaw. Hard gray eyes stabbed like ice picks. Jaedren tried to look away, but the fingers didn’t let him. “We have plenty planned for Thorn Kingshield, and he’s not going to like any of it.” The elf turned to one of the ogres. “Give me the basin.”
Jaedren didn’t care what the elf did with grimy old water in a bowl; he squirmed and kicked as he watched Rhoslyn, Lura, and Etivva gallop away. None of the ogres bothered chasing them. Of that he was glad. They rode over a hill and out of sight. Only then did Jaedren yield.
~~~~
24
Near the place where the winds of the world gave way to the cold hard stars, Rashén Varél soared. Fires lit the rounded belly of the horizon and it was toward the fires that he bent his flight. The light of the father moon washed his silver skin crimson, and as he dived lower, lower through banks of cloud, water gathered on his wings and streaked them like racing tears. He was not susceptible to cold, but the feel of the rain delighted him. It had been too long since he had been permitted to taste the air of the Realm of Flesh. He had missed it more than he realized. Pungent odors of earth and leaf, musk and rain mingled this night with the stench of blood, smoke, and fear.
He skimmed through the lowest layers of the clouds, though he was not worried about being seen. The humans had more urgent troubles tonight; there would be few stargazers and dreamers left among them. When the sun rose, the people of the Northwest would count their dead and the sky would fill with the sound of keening.
