Soon they came to the diamond-shaped grove, the spruce and pines blanketed by snow but the ground about the grove blown bare by the wind. Symphony pulled to a stop and the pair slid down.
Pony went right up to the horse's face and stared hard into one dark eye.
Her breathing would not steady; there was something too primordial, too untamed and uncontrollable, about this beast, something fearfully strong. And yet she had come through the ride unscathed, breathless with joy and excitement.
She had come through the ride!
She turned to Elbryan, who was walking to the glade, and followed him. He disappeared through the thick branches; Pony paused when she got to that spot, considering the implications, considering her own feelings.
The young woman shook her head defiantly, then looked back at the stallion, who reared and whinnied, as if to prod her on. Untamed, uncontrollable, fearfully strong, he embodied the feelings that bubbled at the edges of Pony's thoughts, threatening to overwhelm her.
She pushed through the thick branches into a small clearing, where Elbryan crouched, the first flickers of a fire already starting before him. Pony watched him as he worked, blowing softly, turning sticks.
Untamed, uncontrollable, fearfully strong. The thoughts stayed with her, repeated in her head like a warning, like a temptation. She clenched her fists at her sides, chewed the corner of her bottom lip again, and stared hard at this man, no more the boy she had known and yet so much that boy with whom she had shared her youth.
She feared those few memories she had not yet uncovered, and yet, looking at Elbryan, she knew that she would soon face them.
She walked over to him and he rose, the fire burning. Face-to-face they stood for many seconds, for minutes, staring in silence at each other.
Then he moved for her, his lips drawn to hers, and she gave a slight gasp, expecting black wings to rise up all around her, expecting a scream to reverberate within her mind. But then he was there, against her, his lips brushing gently over hers, softly, softly, and all she felt was him, and all she heard was his soft breathing and his slight moan.
The kiss became more urgent, and gradually Pony's fears melted away, swept up in the sudden torrent of passion that overcame her. He kissed her hard, and she kissed him back, tongues entwined, lips pressing hard.
And then they were apart, Elbryan staring at her, locking her deep in his gaze. His hand came up and unlaced her cloak; and she let the garment drop without protest, cool air on her skin. Then he reached for the buttons of her shirt, and on and on until the last layer of her clothing fell away. And she was not ashamed, not embarrassed, and no black wings of horrors past swept up about her.
Elbryan pulled off his own cloak and shirt and stood bare to the waist before her. They moved closer, the hairs of his chest just brushing her breasts, little tingles shared. With his prompting, she lifted her arms high above her head and he locked his fingers about hers.
Then he broke the hold and began to run his hands down her arms, slowly and, oh, so gently, the tips of his fingernails just grazing her soft skin. Down came his hands, past her elbows, across her arms, and then around to the back, to her shoulder blades and to the base of her neck, so softly and gently, fingertips just lightly brushing.
She felt the electric pull of those fingers, the tingle that made her want to pull them in closer — and yet, she knew that if they were pulled in closer, their teasing tingle would be no more. Her head went back, mouth opened as she basked in his stroke, as his hands went down her back, so gently, to the top of her buttocks and then brushing about, to her hips and past her hips. Again with his prompting, Pony turned and melted back into his strong embrace. He lifted one hand to push her. hair aside, and gently kissed the nape of her neck, the soft kiss turning slowly more urgent, a harder kiss, a gentle bite, and when she cooed quietly, a harder bite still.
"Do you feel me?" he whispered into her ear.
"Yes."
"Are you alive?"
"So alive."
"Do you want me to make love to you?"
Pony paused, searching for the threat of terrible memories. She recalled her wedding night, glanced down at the glowing fire as if it were some enemy or some forewarning. But this was different, the young woman knew, different from Connor. Stronger.
Untamed, uncontrollable, fearfully strong, her mind recited. And right, she silently added. So very right.
"Yes," she answered quietly.
They sank down to the ground together, onto the still-warm cloak, and there they were, caught in the present and encircled by their past. For Elbryan, it was the culmination of his youth, where every waking thought had led him to this point with this woman, his soulmate, his Pony. This moment, so many years in the waiting, was the marker of the end of that relationship with the girl, the beginning of the new and deeper relationship with the woman. Now he was a man, and Pony a woman, and all the love that had brought them to this moment came crashing together with their bodies. He was happy to the point of giddiness, and yet he was vulnerable suddenly, so vulnerable, for if anything happened to Pony, if he lost her now as he had thought he had lost her before, then a rift would be torn in his heart that would never mend, then his life ever after would be without meaning.
For Pony, that moment in the grove was the denial of blackness, a dark barrier torn down and thrown away, the harsh memories overwhelmed by the gentleness, the love, and the warm memories of her youth with Elbryan: the time when he had pulled her hair and she had laid him out flat; the times when his friends had teased him, but he'd stood up to them, not denying his feelings for the girl; their long talks and walks on the northern slope; that moment on the slope when they shared in the vision of the Halo; that moment on the ridge when they first kissed — yes, that moment of the kiss! — and this time, it did not end in blackness and screams, but went on and on, kissing and touching, feeling each other wholly. They had shared lives and were bonded by common memories, by love lost and love found, and though they hadn't been together in years, they each knew everything about the other, the truth of the moment.
They lay together for a long time afterward, nestled in their cloaks, saying nothing, staring at the fire. Elbryan got up once to add wood to the fire, and Pony laughed at him as he hopped about, naked, his bare feet stumbling on the cold ground. She pulled the blanket tight about her when he returned, not letting him in.
But her smile gave away her true feelings, the warmth of it egging Elbryan on until he tackled her and fought with her, and then he was under the blanket again, their bodies pressed together, and for Pony, all the world was spinning once more.
Untamed, uncontrollable, fearfully strong.
Later, he was above her, looking down at her in the light of the low fire.
"My Pony," he whispered. "How empty was my life, so empty that I had not the heart even to recognize the hole in it. Only now, when you have returned to me, do I understand how empty it had been, how meaningless."
"Never that."
He nodded, denying her words. "My Pony," he said again. "The colors of the world are returned to me."
Then he closed his eyes and kissed her.
The night deepened about them, the wind moaned through the trees and those few birds that braved the northern winter whistled. Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled, and another took up the song, and for Elbryan, the music was sweeter now than ever before, than even in those years he had spent in the enchanted elven forest.
He fell into a most contented sleep, but Pony did not. She lay awake all the night, Elbryan close to her, Elbryan one with her. She thought of Connor and her wedding night, of the black memories that had swallowed her. Unconsciously, she rubbed the palm of her hand, burned once so long ago by glowing embers.
Now, for the first time, Pony saw those memories clearly, heard the screams of Dundalis, saw the fires and the carnage, saw Olwan die in the grasp of a giant, and in her mind, she crawled again under the burning house, into the darkness.
<
br /> Only this time, they were just memories and not threatening black demons.
This time, with Elbryan beside her, with Elbryan a part of her strength, she could face them and accept them.
Teats streamed down her cheeks, but they were honest tears for the loss of Dundalis; when they were gone, when the moment of grief at long last was past, Pony hugged sleeping Elbryan close and smiled, truly free for the first time since that moment on the ridge, since the moment of her first kiss.
CHAPTER 37
Catch of the Day
"Damn me," the skinny, nervous man whimpered, skittering away from the noose trap and from the ugly humanoid creature hanging from it. "Damn me, oh, damn me! Cric! Cric!"
He realized soon enough that his screaming would only bring in more of these creatures, if any were about, so he slapped a hand over his own mouth and tumbled down to the field, his free hand moving to one of the many daggers on his broad shoulder belts. He found little cover, however, for though the grass was tall, it was sparse, with only a few blades sticking up through the blanket of light snow.
A few moments later, Chipmunk breathed a little easier as a bald, lean man rushed into view, his sword at the ready. "Chipmunk?" Cric called softly.
"Chipmunk, are ye here?"
Chipmunk scrambled to his feet and ran for his friend, tripping and falling several times on the slippery ground.
"What do ye know?" Cric asked him repeatedly as he stumbled to approach.
Finally, Chipmunk caught up to his friend, but he was too excited to explain in words. He hopped up and down, pointing back across the field to a small copse of trees.
"Our trap?" the bald man asked calmly.
Chipmunk nodded so rapidly that he bit his tongue.
"What'd we catch something?"
Again the wild nod.
"Something unusual?"
Chipmunk was in no mood for any further questions. He grabbed Cric by the arm and shoved him ahead in the direction of the copse. Cric straightened and, seeing that Chipmunk would not be following, just shook his head and went alone to the trap.
A minute later, there came a howl from the trees and Cric ran from the spot nearly as quickly as had Chipmunk.
"It's a g-goblin!" the tall man sputtered. "A damned goblin!"
"We got to get Paulson," reasoned Chipmunk, to which Cric only nodded and ran off, the skinny man in close pursuit.
They found barrel-chested Paulson, their leader, sitting, relaxing against the sunny side of a wide elm, his ragged boots standing off to the side, his dirty toes wriggling near a small fire. The pair slowed as they approached, knowing that to disturb Paulson usually meant a slap on the head.
Cric motioned for Chipmunk to approach the man, but Chipmunk only motioned back.
"State yer business," Paulson demanded under half-closed eyelids. "And yer business better be worth stating!"
"We caught something," Cric remarked.
Paulson opened his eyes and rubbed a hand across a face that was more scar than beard. "Good pelt?" he asked:
"No pelt," said Chipmunk.
"No fur," added Cric. "Just skin."
"What?" Paulson sat up straight and reached for his boots. "Don't ye tell me ye hanged a man now!"
"Not a man," said Chipmunk.
"It's a damned goblin!" spouted Cric.
Paulson's face went suddenly grave. "A goblin?" he echoed quietly.
Both men nodded eagerly.
"Just one?"
Again the nods.
"Ye damned fools," scolded Paulson. "Don't ye know there's no such thing as `just one' goblin?"
"We should go home,`' said Chipmunk.
Paulson looked all around, then shook his head. Cric and Chipmunk were fairly new to the area, having come north a little more than three years before, but Paulson had lived on the border of the Wilderlands for most of his life, had been living just outside Weedy Meadow when the goblin raid had flattened Dundalis. "We got to find out how many," he replied, "and find out where they're heading."
"Aw, who's to care for the folk o' Dundalis?" asked a frightened Cric.
"They never cared any for us."
"Yeah," added Chipmunk.
"It's more than for them," said Paulson. "For ourselves. If goblins're coming hard, then we'd be wise to go south for a bit."
"Can't we just go south then, anyway?" asked Cric.
"Shut yer mouth and keep yer sword ready," Paulson ordered. "Goblins ain't so tough — it's their numbers ye got to fear. And their friends," he added grimly, "for goblins and giants get on well."
The other two were trembling.
"But all we got to do is see them afore they see us," the burly man went on. "Might be that there's a bounty on goblin ears."
That seemed to catch the pair's attention.
The three went back to the trap first, Paulson unceremoniously cutting the goblin down, then slicing off its ears and putting them in a pouch, pausing only to note that the creature was surprisingly well armed for one of its kind and that it wore an insignia on its leather jerkin, a black emblem of a batlike creature on a light gray background. Paulson didn't think too much of it, figuring that the jerkin was stolen anyway.
"Not been here more than a few hours," Paulson announced, after a quick inspection, of the body. "If this one traveled with friends, then they're likely still about." The creature's tracks through the copse were not hard to follow, but any marks it had made on the open field beyond had been erased by the wind.
Still, just by the direction from which it had entered the copse, the trackers could make a reasonable guess about where it had come from, and so they set off quickly across the field and into the forest.
Chipmunk found the first goblin sign — three sets of tracks with one branching back the way the three men had come, the other two moving off down a different fork in the trail.
"Well, now we're outnumbering them," Paulson said wickedly, the big man never fearful of a fight.
Less than a mile on, they spotted the goblin pair, resting amid a tumble of rocks on a forested hillside. Paulson drew out his large sword and motioned for Cric to go in at his side, while Chipmunk was to go to the higher ground around to the right, getting an angle for his dagger throws.
"Hard and fast?" Cric whispered.
Paulson considered the words, then shook his head. He held Cric back, hiding behind some scrub, while agile Chipmunk worked his way into position.
Then Paulson started out, slowly, pacing evenly and calmly toward the goblin pair. He and Cric were within a dozen strides before the goblins spotted them, and then how the creatures howled!
They jumped to their feet, one producing a long, iron-tipped spear, the other a well-fashioned short sword. Paulson was surprised that these two, like their dead comrade, were so well armed and also that their jerkins so closely resembled the one on the dead goblin, even down to the emblem. The large man's knowledge of goblins simply didn't reconcile with this sight before him.
Nor did the goblins act in any manner that Paulson would have expected. He and Cric came on fast, but only one goblin, the spear wielder, jumped out to meet them, blocking the way, covering its companion's sudden retreat.
Both swordsmen came in fast; the goblin swished the spear back and forth, the weapon's sharp tip scratching Cries arm and holding him at bay. Paulson stepped inside the range and caught the spear by the shaft and rushed up its length, quickly and efficiently embedding his sword deep in the creature's chest.
"Two more ears!" Cric laughed, but Paulson wasn't thinking along those lines just then.
"Get him, Chipmunk!" he called.
The fleeing goblin angled up the hill, and Chipmunk moved to intercept, sliding to his knees and sending a pair of daggers spinning at the goblin. The creature managed to dodge one, but the other caught it on the hip and hung there:
The goblin squealed but hardly slowed, even when Chipmunk's next blade stuck deep into its shoulder.
Then the goblin was out
of throwing range, and Chipmunk fell in with Paulson and Cric, taking up the chase. Tall Cric was by far the fastest of the three and he forged ahead, gaining steadily on the goblin as it scrambled down the back side of the hill, then over the wooded floor of the next valley. The creature went up over a rise, Cric in close pursuit, and Paulson howled out for his companion to "take the damned thing down!"
Cric went up to the top of the hill, eager, sword ready, and then, to the surprise of his two friends, he skidded to a stop.
When Paulson and Chipmunk caught up to him, they understood his hesitance, for there, in a wide valley below the ridge, loomed the largest army that any of the three had ever seen — and both Cric and Paulson had spent a few years in the Kingsmen. All the valley was filled with tents and campfires; a thousand, thousand forms milled about down below, most seeming about goblin. sized, some even smaller, but with a fair number of fomorian giants among them. Even more surprising to the three men were the war engines, a dozen at least, great catapults and spear-throwing ballistae, and huge corkscrew devices, obviously for burrowing through fortified walls.
"How far south were you planning to move?" Cric asked Paulson.
To the barrel-chested man at that moment, Behren seemed a distinct possibility.
"I'm knowing that ye're up to something no good!" the centaur roared. "An assumption I'm sure to make every time I glance upon yer ugly faces!" Bradwarden had heard the stirring in the small ramshackle but and, upon investigation, had found the three trappers packing their gear, stripping everything from the shack walls.
The three men glanced nervously at one another. Even huge Paulson seemed a small thing indeed when standing before the eight-hundred-pound centaur — and the creature's demeanor at that moment made him even more imposing.
"Well?" boomed Bradwarden. "Have ye an explanation?"
"We're leaving, that's all," said Chipmunk.
"Leaving?"
"Going south," Cric added, ready to concoct an appropriate lie, but when Paulson glared at him, the tall, bald man went silent.
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