On they rode easterly, along the Landover Road, now running parallel to the Skarpals in the south. And as they rode, there were signs all about that the summer was beginning to wane as farmers in their fields harvested grain and drovers with dogs rounded up livestock and herded them down from the mountain meadows and toward their winter pastures. And at these signals of the passing seasons Arin fretted, for she had had her vision on the first day of July, and now it was nearing September. She chafed at the pace she and her comrades maintained, yet they could go no faster for they had to spare the horses and mules. And so past ripened crops and fresh-cut fields they rode, and herds coming down from the mountains, and all the while Arin wondered if the terrible doom were rushing pell-mell toward them all and if it would fall ere she or any could do aught to avert its horror, if indeed it could be averted at all. And slowly the miles receded behind them as they crept across the face of the world.
Late in the evening of September thirteenth they finally arrived at Vorlo, the city along the west bank of the River Venn. And across the water on the opposite shore lay the realm of Aralan.
They spent that night and all the next day and night in this border town, resting and replenishing their depleted supplies, just as they had in Bridgeton, some eight hundred and fifty miles and thirty-four days behind. Eight leagues a day they had been riding, twenty-four miles each dawn to dusk, and another three hundred thirty or forty leagues lay before them, a thousand miles or so to Darda Vrka. Arin sighed. Surely we could have reached Rwn ere now, but for the rovers’ blockade. Damn the Kistani pirates!
The following morn they led their animals down to the Vorlo Ferry, and across the river they fared and into Aralan. They followed the Overland Road another mile or so and then veered off to the left, heading northeastward across the open land, riding parallel to the River Venn, whose distant headwaters lay in the far-off mountains of the Grimwall. On the way to the Venn, down from these stark heights course a multitude of streams which converge in the vast Khalian Mire, where the turgid waters slowly ebb southward to ultimately seep into the Lesser Mire whose outflow in turn becomes the River Venn. And alongside this waterway rode the Elven band, at least for the next several days, for they were not bound for either the mires or the Grimwall, but for the Wolfwood instead.
Two weeks or so did they keep the valley of the Venn in sight, the trees along the river vale gradually changing color as the summer slowly waned. Deliberately their course and that of the channel diverged, till at last they could see the river vale no more as into the heart of Aralan they fared, still heading northeastward, following Rissa as she led them toward Darda Vrka.
It was during these same two weeks that the autumnal equinox came and went, and on the eve of the day when light and dark exactly balanced one another, near mid of night and in the western light of a yellow gibbous moon, the Dylvana and Silverleaf solemnly paced out the Elven rite celebrating the harvest and the turning of the seasons.
They dressed in their very best leathers and took their starting places, Darai facing north, Alori facing south, and then singing, chanting, and pacing, slowly pacing, they began a ritual reaching back through the ages. And enveloped by moonlight and melody and harmony and descant and counterpoint and the rustling brush of leather, the Elves trod gravely…yet their hearts were full of joy.
Step…pause…shift…pause…turn…pause…step.
Slowly, slowly, move and pause. Voices rising. Voices falling. Liquid notes from the dawn of time. Harmony. Euphony. Step…pause…step. Arin turning. Rissa turning. Darai passing. Alori pausing. Counterpoint. Descant. Step…pause…step….
When the rite at last came to an end—voices dwindling, song diminishing, movement slowing, till all was silent and still—Darai and Alori once again stood in their beginning places: females facing north, males facing south. The motif of the pattern they had paced had not been random, but had had a specific design, had had a specific purpose, yet what that purpose was and is, only the Elves could say.
Comforted somewhat by the ancient ritual, Arin glanced at the starlit sky—the pale yellow moon had fallen nigh the western horizon, having covered a quarter of the spangled vault in its silent journey downward during the arcane dance. Its movement only served to remind her that time was irretrievably flowing into the past.
On the eve of the sixteenth of October they sighted the Skög, that hoary forest in the northern extent of Aralan. Autumn had fully come upon this woodland, for its leaves were now all golden and shimmering in the crisp wind blowing down from the distant Grimwall Mountains. And this wind carried with it the hint of the winter to come, and, gauging by the shag the horses and mules had taken on, it would be a brutal season.
Arin and her companions rode along the forest flank for nearly eight days as the gilded leaves turned scarlet and the nights grew even more chill, but at last they came to the margins of Darda Vrka.
Led by Rissa, they had reached the Wolfwood at last, and somewhere within they hoped to find Dalavar the Mage.
CHAPTER 17
Bounded on the north by the towering Grimwall Mountains, on the east by the swift-flowing Wolf River, on the south by the rolling plains of Aralan, and on the west by a broad, open stretch of prairie reaching across to the Khalian Mire, there lie two vast timberlands, joined flank to flank by a wide strip of forest running between. They are the Skög and Darda Vrka, and together they span four hundred miles west to east and two hundred and fifty north to south.
It is said that the Skög is the oldest forest in Mithgar, and perhaps this is true, for the Elves call it by no other name. They do not even call it Darda, but merely refer to it as the Skög. And so perhaps there is something to the tale that the Skög is the eldest…yet joined as it is to Darda Vrka, it is difficult to separate the age of the two.
Yet of the twain, it is Darda Vrka, the Wolfwood, captured forever in the songs of bards: songs which fill the very soul to the brim with a longing for the times of legend; songs that bring a glitter to the eyes of all who hear; songs of the Wolfwood where beasts of the elden days once and perhaps yet may dwell: High Eagles, White Harts, horned horses named Unicorn, Bears that once were Men, and more, many more of these mystical, mythical creatures…the forest ruled o’er by great Silver Wolves— the Draega of Adonar—or mayhap the Wizard some say dwells within. Aye, it is the Wolfwood bards sing of: a wide forest, an ancient forest, an enchanted forest, a warded forest shunned by those who would do evil.
But the bards neither sing songs nor tell tales of the ancient, hoary Skög, nor speak a word of who or what dwells deep in the shadows therein.
CHAPTER 18
Rissa rode splashing across a swift-running stream and in among the gold and scarlet of the trees, Arin and the others following, and over the next two days they fared north and east, seeking the heart of Darda Vrka, covering forty miles in all. And yet by no earthbound sign could they tell that a Wizard lived herein, though for those same two days high in the cerulean sky above and nearly beyond the eye to see a snow-white falcon circled and circled, always overhead.
“Dalavar’s eyes, I would imagine,” said Biren when he first spied it.
“Dost thou really think so?” asked Perin, shading his brow and peering upward.
“It never stoops,” replied Biren. “Besides, when hast thou ever seen such a bird? White as the driven snow. Falcons are never such, save gyrfalcons.”
“Mayhap ’tis a gyrfalcon.”
“I think not, brother. It seems too small and too far south. Too, if it were a gyrfalcon, this time of year its plumage would be grey, neh? And this one is white.”
“Ghostly, one might say,” added Perin.
“Dalavar’s eyes,” repeated Biren. “Mayhap we’ll see him on the morrow.”
“Mayhap,” agreed Perin.
And onward they rode, following the others into the Wolfwood, while overhead a pale raptor soared.
* * *
Early next morn Arin on watch kicked up the smoldering ash
and added twigs and broken branches to the newly exposed embers. As small ruddy tongues began licking over the laid-wood, she glanced through the morning fog toward the dimly seen mere at hand, where the mist rose up from the water to coil outward among the surrounding trees and envelop the entire woodland in its obscuring silvery clasp. Taking up a kettle, she stepped to the edge of the clear pond and filled the vessel with limpid water. She heard a splash off somewhere in the fog. Another of those delicious fish…or a frog. Behind her she heard a mule grunt and one of the horses snort. In a handful of running steps she was back at the campsite, where she roused the others.
“Tsst,” she hissed, “something or someone comes.”
“Where away?” whispered Vanidar, taking up his silver-handled white-bone bow. There was the soft scrape of steel as the other Elves drew weapons. Tethered to a line strung between two trees, the horses and mules edgily shifted about, their eyes wide and ears upright, their focus an unseen point across the mere.
“Yon,” breathed Arin, pointing with her chin toward the pond as she doused the growing campfire with water from the kettle, the ruddy coals softly sissing and adding steam to the mist as they were quenched. “Something opposite caused a frog to jump. And the horses are uneasy. Something steals upon us.” Arin set aside the kettle and took up her quarterstaff.
“This is Darda Vrka,” hissed Rissa in protest even as she moved to a position along the defensive perimeter, her sword in hand. “Nothing evil should be about.”
Silverleaf nodded, stabbing his long-knife into the earth before him, the weapon in easy reach, and he nocked an arrow to string. “Nevertheless, chieran, ’tis better to—”
“Yon,” breathed Melor, using his spear to point through the fog to the right of the mere. “They come.”
Obscured by the mist, blots of darkness slipped among the trees and toward the campsite, dense fog swirling about their vague forms.
Arin stared at the oncoming shapes and cocked her head and focused, as if she were looking into the flames of a fire—a trick of sight which had led her on more than one occasion to espy something otherwise hidden. But as surely as water quenched flames, the mist defeated her.
“Over here,” sissed Ruar, gripping his saber and pointing to the left. “More come.”
Horses and mules snorted and pulled back against their tethers.
“How many altogether?” hissed Vanidar.
“Four. —Nay, five…six,” responded Ruar as the shapes in the mist drew closer.
“And six here,” added Melor, taking a step or two outward. “They move as a pack and trot on four legs and are—”
“Draega!” called Rissa in glee as one of the great Silver Wolves could clearly be seen at last. Each as large as a pony, they came trotting out from the mist and into the campsite, their mouths grinning and tongues lolling over glistening white fangs.
Sheathing her sword, Rissa clasped the first of the great Wolves about the neck and buried her face in its soft white fur; it suffered the embrace in silence.
As Biren and Perin calmed the snorting horses and grunting mules, altogether twelve Draega gathered ’round the campsite.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Arin turned to set aside her quarterstaff, when there came a flickering in the corner of her eye, yet when she looked, nothing was there. A trick of the fog? As she had done before, she cocked her head and focused, attempting again to
Six feet or so in height he was—taller than most Elves—and as with all of Magekind his eyes held the hint of a tilt, and his ears were pointed, though less than either Dylvana or Lian. His hair was long and white, hanging down beyond his shoulders, its sheen much the same as Silver Wolf fur, though somehow darker; in spite of his white hair, he did not look to be worn by age. He was dressed in soft grey leathers, black belt with silver buckle clasped at his waist. His feet were shod with black boots, supple and soft upon the land. His eyes were as piercing as those of an eagle, their color perhaps grey, though it was difficult to tell in the mist. At his throat was a glimmer of silver, mayhap an amulet upon leather thong, and to Arin’s eyes it seemed to gently glow.
None of the other Elves seemed to note him at all, and in fact looked everywhere but at him. The Draega, though, seemed to know he was there, for now and again one or another would glance at the Mage as if expecting a command, and then look away when none was forthcoming.
He looked straight at Arin and smiled. “Do you see me, hear me?” At Arin’s nod, his smile broadened. “Then you must be a wielder of the wild magic.”
Rissa at last released the Wolf and looked up and about. Not finding who or what she sought, she turned to the animal at hand and said, “Thou must be one of Dalavar’s. Where then is thy master?”
“I am here—” said the Mage.
“Vada!” cried Ruar, startled—as were all but Arin—for seemingly from thin air a Wizard appeared: first he wasn’t, and then he was.
“—yet no master of these Draega am I,” continued Dalavar. “Instead I would name them my friends.”
Recovered from her shock, Rissa stepped forward smiling and embraced the Mage. “’Tis meet to see thee again, Dalavar Wolfmage.”
The Wizard smiled down at her and returned her embrace. Then he looked at the others questioningly.
Rissa turned. “Dalavar Wolfmage, vi didron enistor: Dara Arin, e Alori Vanidar, Ruar, Melor, e Perin e Biren.” As Elves and Wizard canted their heads to one another in acknowledgment, Rissa turned back to the Mage. “We come on a mission of some urgency and seek thine aid.”
* * *
The sun had burned away the morning mist during Arin’s telling of her vision. Slowly Dalavar shook his head when her tale came to an end. He took a sip of his bracing hot tea while the Elves waited in silence. They sat in the campsite, and all about Draega lay but for the three on perimeter ward. At last Dalavar said, “I know nothing of this green stone.”
Perin and Biren groaned together, and Arin sighed, crestfallen.
The Wolfmage turned up his hands. “It has been long since I have stepped from these woods…long since I’ve conferred with my Kind. Yet this I can say: if there are those among the Free Folk who know aught of such a thing as this green stone, you will find them at the Mageholt of Black Mountain.”
Silverleaf tilted his head. “Not at Rwn?”
Dalavar grunted. “Ah yes, Rwn too. It is a place of much lore, for there sits the Academy, and the libraries are extensive.”
“Libraries?” asked Arin.
“Yes. At the Academy of Mages in the city of Kairn on the west coast of Rwn.”
“Hmm,” mused Arin. “Would that we could have gone there.”
“The blockade,” growled Ruar.
“Kha on all Kistani!” spat Rissa.
Dalavar raised an eyebrow. “Blockade?”
Ruar nodded. “Aye. They hold hostage the Straits of Kistan.”
Dalavar sighed. “So the humans are still at it.”
Ruar nodded, and Silverleaf added, “As bad as mankind is, the Spaunen are worse. At least there is some hope for the humans, but for the Rûpt…—Let me tell thee of their latest vile deed.”
“Vile deed?”
“Aye: the Felling of the Nine.”
* * *
They spent a sevenday with Dalavar at his cottage in a central glade: resting, for they had journeyed far with little letup, and the horses and mules needed time to regain vigor. Too, they replenished their supplies from Dalavar’s stores, for they had spent awhile out on the open plains, where there were few crofters and no villages to speak of. And during this time they told Dalavar what news they held, for the Magus had not been out in the world for nearly a hundred seasons. In turn he told them of the Wolfwood and of the creatures therein, but what he said is not recorded, and the Elves spoke to no one thereafter regarding his words.
And while they rested, the forest changed in color from gol
d and scarlet to russet and bronze and umber, and when it rained, barren branches were left starkly behind here and there.
On November third, one hundred and twenty-six days after Arin had had her vision, she and her companions said good-bye to Dalavar and set out for Black Mountain, the Wizardholt in Xian. And as they fared through the forest, a pair of Draega padded nearby, while brown leaves fell all around, the two Silver Wolves trailing, leading, and warding on distant flanks.
In midafternoon of the following day, Arin and her companions splashed out across a river ford and left the Wolfwood behind. Dalavar stood back among the barren trees and watched them ride away, and at his side sat a single Silver Wolf. When the Elves passed beyond sight ’round the flank of the hill, the Wolfmage turned toward the Draega beside him. “Come, Greylight, let us run.” A dark shimmering came over Dalavar, and then two Silver Wolves loped away toward the heart of the wood as snow began to fall.
CHAPTER 19
Light!” Ruar shouted the single word to Arin riding double behind, his voice barely heard above the howl of the blizzard.
Arin slipped back the cowl of her cloak and peered over Ruar’s shoulder. Ahead up the mountain vale she, too, could see a flicker of yellow light glimmering through the shrieking darkness. Turning to the others strung out behind and barely glimpsed in the hurling snow, she beckoned to them and pointed ahead and called out, “Lantern-light! Mayhap a village!” but her words were shredded by squalling wind and lost in the yowl.
Struggling, up the vale labored the six horses, deep drifts barring the way. The seventh horse, Arin’s, lay dead a hundred miles and twelve days arear; even farther back, nearly five hundred miles, were the corpses of the two mules. The mules had been blizzard-slain, having broken away from the campsite and gotten lost in the second of the howling winter storms. Their corpses had been found three days later when the blast had finally expired. Arin’s horse, on the other hand, had simply collapsed and died; her heart had given out as she had labored in the deep snow left behind by another blizzard and another. And now the fifth winter blow whelmed upon the Elves, and they struggled through the thundering dark to find shelter….
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