A Darkness Forged in Fire

by Chris (chris R. ) Evans

  "The witch turned night into day—surely she can do something about this mud. And tell her to be quick about it. We are losing valuable time." He sat back down, sending a spray of water from his saddle.

  Konowa started to say Visyna would never agree to it, even if she was so inclined, as it seemed an impossible thing, but held his tongue. She had turned night into day, and his father had once slowed a waterfall long enough to allow an elf of the Long Watch to drag an uprooted sapling to safety before it plummeted over the edge.

  "Today, Major," the prince snapped. "Nothing is more important than securing the Star."

  "As is keeping it out of the Shadow Monarch's hands and putting down the rebellion," Konowa added.

  The Prince waved the thought away like an annoying fly. "Yes, of course. Deprived of the Star, the rebellion will founder and die, and the Shadow Monarch will have lost Her chance." He suddenly slapped his thigh and sat up straighter in the saddle. "And I will have saved Elfkyna in the bargain. This is perfect. Major, we must make all possible haste."

  "Yes, sir," Konowa said, touching his heels to Zwindarra's flanks and setting out at a trot back along the column in search of Visyna.

  No one called out to him as he rode by. It would have been simple to believe that it was the rain and exhaustion that kept their heads down, but he knew news of the rebellion had spread among them like wildfire. The pretense that they were going to relieve a garrison manning a tiny mud fort in the middle of nowhere—the regiment led by the very Prince of the realm—was too much for even the dimmest of them to believe. And now that they knew a full-scale rebellion was in the offing, they also knew that their prospect of ever seeing home and hearth again had fallen through the ground, along with their morale. Whether the Prince liked it or not, the troops would have to be told the truth, at least most of it.

  He spotted Jir first, loping alongside Rallie's wagon. The bengar was covered from head to paw in mud, but didn't seem the least bit concerned by it, nor by the numerous bushes and plants that went unmarked as he passed by. The reason perched on top of the canvas-covered wagon dozing in the rain.

  Wobbly appeared to be sleeping it off in the most precarious of positions, teetering forward as if he was about to pitch over and then righting himself with the next sway of the wagon. Jir mirrored each movement, no doubt hoping for an easy lunch. Konowa hoped the pelican had better balance sober than drunk. He'd watched the bird's graceless landing and immediately sympathized with it. He knew what it was like to be a moose among deer.

  He whistled at Jir, who turned his head for a moment, then went back to watching the pelican. Be that way, Konowa thought, slowing Zwindarra to a trot as he came up to the wagon. Visyna sat beside Rallie on the front bench, the two involved in yet another conversation. He reined in Zwindarra and had him walk alongside, deliberately choosing Rallie's side of the wagon. The horse didn't seem the least bit disturbed by the brindos this time, even reaching out his muzzle to sniff at the closest brindo, which flapped its ears in response.

  "And what brings you back our way, Major?" Rallie asked. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Visyna, wrapped in a green cloak with the hood pulled up over her head, did not bother to look at him.

  Women.

  "In light of your recent news, the Prince thinks we need to make all haste to Luuguth Jor. For once, I am in complete agreement with him." He waited, but Visyna continued to look straight ahead. "The Prince has asked, and I know it sounds silly, but he has asked if Miss Tekoy might use her powers to assist the regiment in making better time."

  Visyna finally turned to look at him, pulling down the hood of her cloak. He'd expected anger and was surprised to see a thoughtful expression on her face.

  "What did he have in mind?"

  Konowa looked at Rallie, who looked back at him with a knowing smile. "His Highness has asked if it would be possible to dry the ground underfoot so that we might increase our pace. You know, firm it up a bit so the slogging isn't so tough."

  "All right," Visyna said.

  Konowa had already prepared a comeback and was left momentarily speechless. She had an uncanny ability to catch him off guard. He didn't know why, but he found it more attractive than her looks, as stunning as they were. "I'm sorry?"

  "I said I'll do it," she said, calmly crossing her arms and staring at him. "For once, we are all in agreement. The sooner we arrive at Luuguth Jor, the better. However," she said, smiling at him, "I will need assistance."

  "Absolutely," Konowa said, smiling broadly. Now why couldn't the two of us get along like this all the time? he wondered, ignoring the multiple reasons that suddenly sprang to mind. "Just tell me what you need and you will have it."

  "You."

  "Now wait just one min—"

  "Do you want to get to Luuguth Jor quickly or not?" Visyna asked, making as if to pull the hood of her cloak back up.

  "All right, all right, I'll help, but I'm not doing anything…strange."

  "This is not a carnival trick. Rallie, please stop the wagon," Visyna said.

  Konowa reined in Zwindarra, who took the opportunity to sniff the brindo a little more thoroughly.

  While the brindo and horse were getting acquainted, Visyna hopped down from the wagon and stood in the mud. The last platoon of soldiers marched by, eyeing them curiously, but again, none called out. A pall had settled over the entire regiment and everyone feared to speak loudly. In moments, they were alone as the soldiers struggled through the mud ahead of them.

  "So what do you need me to do exactly?" Konowa asked, trying to be helpful.

  Visyna took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes. "Hold me."

  Konowa's heart sped up. "Hold you?"

  "Hold me."

  "You want me to hold you?"

  "You were in the forest a very long time, weren't you?" Rallie asked, her smile as wicked as a newly sharpened blade.

  Visyna stamped her foot. "We are losing time. Now get off that horse and get over here and hold me."

  Konowa kicked his feet out of the stirrups and jumped off Zwindarra, tossing the reins up to Rallie, who tied them off to the wagon. He walked over to Visyna, still waiting for the catch.

  "Stand behind me, and hold me around the middle. Whatever you do, don't let go."

  Konowa stopped just in front of her. "Look, I know we haven't—"

  Visyna grabbed him by the hand and pulled him around behind her. "What I need at the moment is your strength. What the Prince asks will require more skeins than I can weave on my own. Now, hold me, and do not let go."

  Konowa looked up at Rallie, who was clearly enjoying this. He shrugged and did as Visyna asked, wrapping his arms around her. Her hair danced in front of his mouth. With each breath he let out the temptation to smell it threatened to overwhelm the real reason he held her in his arms.

  "No, not like this. I can feel it even now. You must remove it," Visyna said, pulling away from his grasp. "I cannot do this with that thing touching me."

  "Look, if this is all some kind of elaborate game to get me to get rid of it you can just forget it," he said. His hand reached instinctively for the pouch.

  Visyna raised her hands. "I give you my word you can have it back when we're done. Give it to Rallie if you like, but you must remove it if this is to work."

  Konowa looked at Rallie. "This is no joke. I have sworn to protect this regiment and I will."

  Rallie looked past Konowa to the regiment slowly marching ahead of them. "Then you had best make up your mind—time is fleeting."

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out the pouch, throwing it to Rallie before he changed his mind. Rallie caught it deftly and set it down on the bench beside her. Konowa took a breath and tried to detect if he felt any different. Nothing. He wasn't sure if he was relieved by that or not.

  "Now," Visyna said, pulling his arms back around her, "hold on and do not let go. You will feel…things, but do not be alarmed."

  She brought her hands in front of her face and immediatel
y began tracing patterns in the air in front of her.

  It was mesmerizing. Her fingers moved with supple grace, like swans weaving their necks together in perfect rhythm. The air around them changed, or maybe it was a sound on the air. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck vibrated, and Konowa heard the natural world. He closed his eyes and slowly, tentatively, let his senses flow outward.

  It was a revelation like none he had experienced before. For the first time in his life there was order in the chaos. Everything, all life, made sense. Each living thing had a distinct voice, and each formed part of an infinite web of threads, each unique and yet wholly connected to each other.

  "Oh, my."

  Konowa opened his eyes at Rallie's surprise. Intricate filigrees of light danced in front of Visyna, her fingers tracing ever-finer skeins of glowing thread. The air shimmered around them and Konowa recognized what he had seen back at the edge of the forest when Lorian had found them. Given a hundred years, the best painters in the world could not hope to duplicate the beauty of what he saw, what he felt. It was as if life was a river, flowing through her, through him, both new and very old.

  All too soon, Visyna slowed her hands and the light faded away, and with it, the sense of order and reason to the world around him.

  She finally lowered her hands and stood panting in his arms. He realized his breathing was in time with hers.

  "You can let go now," she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

  He didn't want to. He wanted that feeling back. "I—"

  A bugle sounded from up ahead and Konowa reluctantly released her. Visyna climbed back up into the wagon as chaos reigned again around Konowa and he closed his mind to the world. Rallie tossed him the pouch, which he stuffed back under his jacket. The last vestiges of the natural order burned away as the acorn rested against his chest.

  "Our path will be quicker now," Visyna said, her voice still sounding a little breathless.

  "And filled with more danger, I'm afraid," Rallie said, stepping down from the wagon and walking back behind it.

  Konowa exchanged glances with Visyna, then held out his hand to help her down. She chose to ignore it, stepping down on her own, and the two of them walked back to see what Rallie was doing.

  "Grab hold of this, will you?" Rallie said as Konowa came around the corner. He reached out and took the edge of the canvas tarp and held it high as she directed. Visyna was directed to hold the other side, and Rallie hopped up into the back of the wagon, crawling in between the row of cages. Jir padded around to watch. There was the sound of a lock being opened, and then a rumbling noise that shook the entire wagon.

  Jir was off like a shot. There was the slithering of reins being pulled through and then the sound of hooves disappearing and Konowa knew Zwindarra had bolted as well. A moment later, Rallie backed out of the wagon brushing herself off. "Give a good pull now; Dandy's ready."

  Konowa looked over at Visyna, who shrugged her shoulders. They began pulling. The canvas tarp slid off, much to the annoyance of the pelican, who started flapping his wings and squawking as he was pulled along with it. Rallie lifted the hem of her cloak and removed a large metal flask strapped to one thigh. When the canvas finally came off, Wobbly flapped his way down to sit on the back board of the wagon with his bill open wide. Rallie unstoppered the flask and upended its contents into Wobbly's mouth.

  As soon as the flask was empty Rallie grabbed the pelican by the middle, whispered something to him, and heaved him bodily into the air.

  "Rallie!" Visyna cried, putting a hand to her mouth in surprise.

  Konowa half-expected the bird to come tumbling right back down, but with agonizing slowness Wobbly flapped his wings and started to fly. He appeared confused at first, making one complete circle of the wagon, then he veered to the west, although he still meandered through all points on the compass.

  "Care to tell us what this is all about?" he asked, watching the pelican fly east, then a bit to the north, before doubling back and heading south. Wherever he was going, he was taking the scenic route.

  Rallie's answer was cut off by a shriek from inside the wagon, followed by the appearance of an enormous beaked head covered in fine, ash-gray feathers. The beak, all black save for a tiny silver tip, was more than a foot long and curved like a drukar. It turned its head and stared at them with a pair of brilliant amber eyes. They showed not the slightest inclination toward mercy. A cold warning surged through Konowa's body, but already the threat was gone, as the bird's entire body emerged from the wagon. It shot straight into the sky, a gray and black streak propelled by two silver-colored, sinewy legs. The wagon shuddered and the wind from the bird's ascent blew dirt and straw into their faces. Twenty feet in the air, it opened its wings and they easily spanned the length of the wagon. It beat them once, twice, and was already another fifty feet in the air and angling toward Wobbly. For his part, the pelican squawked and started flapping his wings for all he was worth, leaving a trail of white feathers floating in the wind as he headed due west at a surprising rate of speed.

  "He'll never make it!" Visyna said, her fingers already starting to weave a design in front of her.

  "Have a little faith, my dear," Rallie said, walking over and placing the sleeve of her cloak over Visyna's hands. There was a strange vibration—it suddenly felt as if there wasn't enough air to breathe. The feeling lasted only a moment and then Rallie was sliding her cloak off Visyna's hands and patting her on the arm. "Dandy would never hurt Wobbly; I just like to keep the old sot honest and put a bit of fire under his tail feathers once in a while. Besides, those two have worked together before. They know what they're doing."

  "Care to tell us?" Konowa asked, watching a still-surprised Visyna stare at her hands.

  Rallie motioned for him to start putting the canvas cover back on the wagon. "You remember the dream you had about Martimis?" she asked, lifting up an edge of the canvas and handing it to Visyna, who still seemed a little stunned. "It wasn't a dream, not entirely. Someone has been intercepting my messages, and I have an idea who."

  "What will those two do about it?"

  Rallie pulled a cigar out of her cloak and flicked a flint against a steel bolt head, drawing the sparks into the end of the cigar with a skill that Konowa suspected was more than natural. She took a deep drag and smiled as she exhaled a thick cloud of blue smoke.

  "They'll shine a little light on the subject," she said, cackling with mirth and refusing to explain any more.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  He was drowning. Alwyn struggled to hold his breath, feebly trying to claw his way to the surface. There was a wavering light far above him, while around him cold, black water squeezed in on all sides. It was freezing, and the harder he tried, the deeper he sank. All his energy was being drawn out of his body and he felt progressively lighter and more insubstantial with each stroke. The light started to fade, and he knew he wasn't going to make it. He opened his mouth to let the water in and took a breath. Warm air rushed into his lungs.

  "Jilk norĂŠ grina hee dfir," a woman's voice said.

  Alwyn opened his eyes. At first, he thought he was looking at a pair of polished amber jewels set in the hollow of a tree. A moment later, he saw that they were in fact eyes, and that they belonged to the face of an elf. He brought a hand up, his fingers smearing his spectacles. Well, they were in place. He blinked and looked again. A woman—an elf woman—knelt over the top of him, peering down with all the interest that the major's bengar had eyed him with not that long ago. Her skin was tanned, like the major's, and her black hair was drawn tightly into a braid that hung down over one shoulder of a garment of green and brown. The cloth, if that's what it was, appeared to change even as he watched it, so that leaves and branches danced across her body as she shifted closer to him. It hurt his head to try to keep all of her in focus, so he concentrated on her face.

  That's when the horror of the black elf rushed back to him and he started to scream. The woman reached out and placed a warm hand
on his lips.

  "You are safe, for the moment. The others fled our presence, heading eastward."

  Alwyn took in a few more breaths and allowed himself to relax, a little. This elf was nothing like the creature that had shot him. Unlike the major and Kritton, though, she had both her ear tips. It was then that he realized who, and what, she was.

  "You're an elf of the Long Watch." It was like walking straight into a faery tale.

  "I am." The woman said something again in elvish, her voice carrying through the air like a leaf floating on a stream.

  "What?" It was dark, but somewhere above him a cool light cast its glow through the canopy of the forest. It was the moon. Strange, he thought, that he could see it this well from the forest floor. No sooner had he thought it than the earth beneath him swayed. His stomach lurched with the realization that he wasn't on the ground at all, but high up in the crook of a large branch of a wahatti tree. He carefully turned his head to the side and looked down. The ground was fifty feet below.

  He closed his eyes and wondered if he was dreaming. He opened them again and the elf was still there, still looking at him intently. He noticed a leafy section of the tree was watching him, and then gaped when the leaves moved, revealing another elf. He blinked. This elf, a male, he thought, was festooned with leaves and other foliage. Through the leaves, Alwyn could just make out dark-brown bark, which he assumed served as armor, covering the elf's forearms and chest. What Alwyn had taken for branches turned out to be a scabbarded sword and a long, curving bow held in his hands. Without the moonlight, he never would have seen him, and even then it was only because the elf moved that he knew he was there at all.

  "I told the others that the morhar lives."

  "Morhar?" Alwyn asked, turning away from the second elf. His head was still foggy. Simple questions seemed best at the moment.

  "Tree killer," she said calmly.

  "But I—" He was going to say he had never done any such thing when he noticed again the bow carried by the elf. The image of the arrow sticking out of Alik's throat was still vivid in his mind, as was the pain from the one that had pierced his chest. He instinctively reached for the wound. His fingers touched cool, wet leaves wrapping his entire left shoulder and chest. The physical pain was excruciating, the emotional even worse. "What happened to my friends?"