by Curtis, Greg
For the longest while he sat there holding her hand as she stared around the room, taking in everything he was telling her, making sure, until finally he felt her relax. But even then she refused to lie back down, turning around instead so that her legs hung off the edge of the couch and her spine leaned into its back and she could stare directly at him. He guessed she had some questions for him. Before she could ask them however, he lifted a glass of the now very cold fruit juice to her mouth and made her take a few sips. She needed the fluids and the strength that the juice could give her.
With the light coming from the lamps on his table and the moonlight from the window, he could once more see how beautiful she was, and it took his breath away. Even still covered with mud, he had cleaned her face as best he could but her hair was still plastered with it, he could see the natural elegance of her people and the grace reflected in her high cheekbones and narrow chin. Her surprisingly full lips as they sipped on the juice spoke of passion, something he wouldn’t have normally thought of in an elf, they were such an intellectual, cultured and civilised people. But her eyes, dark and large in the poor light, they showed her heart, and he knew above all else that this was a woman who cared deeply. That concern for her charges, that spoke to him, and he knew then as he held the mug to her lips, that he would not let her down, no matter what. He only hoped that she saw that determination in him.
Few would he knew, least of all surely an elf maiden. Those who knew him, and there were few of them, too often thought him overly cold and angry, bitter, someone who had turned away from much of the world, though none knew why. He chose not to speak of his past even to those whose company he had learned to welcome. Those who didn’t know him would surely see a dangerous man, maybe even a brigand. His manner of dress, his weapons, and the permanent scowl that he was occasionally accused of wearing, would all see to that. But at least she didn’t try to pull away.
“The wolves?”
“They’re gone, dead, all of them, and the werewolf that led them. I made sure of that. Now drink up.” Despite the fact that she didn’t want to, he managed to persuade her to drain the mug knowing it would do her good, and it did. He could almost see the strength returning to her in front of him as the juice did its work. It should, it had several powerful spells of vitality on it and a lot of restorative herbs.
“And my arm?” For good measure she lifted it up, testing it out and staring at the bandages, and in the process threatening to send the blanket falling away once more and his thoughts with it.
“I’ve tended to you, drawn away the infection, sewn up the claw marks, and put some hot demon ginger salve on it to help with the healing and keep the fever and poison demons away. It will scar, but they will be clean, straight scars not great welts and I have another salve that will help with that as well. When your own healers tend to you I’m certain the scars will become no more than thin lines and they won’t restrict your movement. In time you will be fully recovered.” Of course that was only physically. Emotionally he still had no idea how bad the trauma was that she’d faced, if she’d lost anyone close to her, the children hadn’t been able to tell him much of such things, and just as terrible, to an elf a scar was a mark of shame, or so the bard’s tales had it. At least though, the scars would only be on her arm. Many elves would choose death over a scarred face so the stories went. Of course he had no true idea of elven ways, he’d always been less than a diligent student in the classes on customs of other peoples, and had probably forgotten most of what he’d been taught in the ten years since he’d left.
“Thank you. I am in your debt.” He heard her say it and for a moment was pleased by the gratitude, then a heartbeat later he was worried. For an elf to acknowledge a debt was a serious thing so he understood, and a life debt more so. Goodness only knew how she thought she might have to repay him later.
“You owe me nothing good maiden. I do only what is right and proper, and what has to be done. But if you have the strength I could use a few answers if I am to keep you safe and get you safely home. The children could tell me little of what happened to you, to Gunder. Only that there was an attack. That soldiers and great beasts appeared in the city itself and began killing everyone, that you fled in a wagon along the main road heading for Calibra with thousands of others, but that a few leagues back you were attacked again.”
“Yes.” She seemed somehow less than eager to answer him, and whether that was because she didn’t want to think about it or because she didn’t trust him, he didn’t know. Or maybe he’d insulted her by denying her the debt, he had never been too able in dealing with personal matters even when he had been a Guild wizard with teachers constantly working on his behaviour, and that was when dealing with other humans. Since living alone this past decade his meagre skills in such things had undoubtedly become poorer.
“Is there any more of the juice?” She held out the empty mug and he took it from her, glad that she could find the appetite even if she was using it to avoid his question. Good food would help her heal, and she would need her strength for the coming days. They all would.
“Of course good maiden. But there is also still some broth on the stovetop, spiced rabbit and vegetable, and it should still be warm. It will bring you strength for the morning, and if what the children have told me is true, you will need it. We will need to leave here tomorrow and you will have to be as fit as you can be.” They all would. Already he knew that his home wasn’t safe, not even hidden as deep as it was in a dense forest with no trails leading to or from it, and warded as it was. Beasts as well as soldiers were overrunning the land, and sooner or later he feared so too would they overrun his home.
As he went to the stove and poured a ladle of the thick broth into the mug, heating it with a spark from his fingertip he watched as his patient started rearranging herself on the couch, using cushions to make herself more comfortable as she sat up straight, and wrapping the blankets more securely around her shoulders to prevent any more accidents. It was a disappointment in many ways but also a relief and it made it easier for him to return to her with the mug in his hands.
“Drink this all up.” He handed her the mug and was pleased as he watched her slowly drain it in front of him, even thanking him for it. Maybe his skills in the kitchen weren’t that pitiful after all, or maybe it was simple politeness. The children were all remarkably polite as well, even Petras, and the chances were that they had a good teacher who was concerned about such things. Elves from what little he knew of them, cared deeply about manners, believing them the cornerstone of a good life. They also believed that those who did not mind their manners showed no respect for those they dealt with, or themselves. It was important he knew that she not see him as ill mannered.
“I’m sorry about your vest by the way. It was badly torn and drenched in blood and I had to cut it from you to treat your injuries. I don’t think it can be saved. But in the morning you can wear one of my bush shirts, though you may have to tuck it in a little.” Tuck it in a lot in truth. He might be a wizard of a sort, but he was human, tall even among his own people, and he was a woodsman used to swinging an axe and his shoulders were broad in proportion to his height. She and her older sister could probably both wear it at the same time and still have room left over for another. On the children they looked like tents, but that was still far better than the alternative as far as he was concerned.
“It does not matter, but thank you. In the morning we will have to leave, and you as well I think, just as you have said. I did not mean to bring trouble to your door, but I did and this land is no longer safe.” She couldn’t look at him as she said it, and he imagined it was guilt that made her suddenly shy, but she had no reason for it and he couldn’t let her imagine that she did.
“I know all of that good maiden, and I also know that you are not responsible. From what the children told me, and that which I saw out in the forest, I know we all have to leave and that it has nothing to do with you. Perhaps I have known it for so
me time as I felt the changes in the forest all around me, saw the smoke from the fires in the distance, but chose not to heed them. Regardless I will gladly escort you to the border of Calibra if that’s where you’re heading, and I have already had the children start packing. But before then I would like to know who it is that is driving me out of my home, who it is that has earned my enmity, and who is chasing you as well.” There was silence for a while after that, as she stared at him and he suspected saw very little. Her thoughts were all turned inwards, her heart filled with pain and in the firelight he fancied he could just see the beginning of tears forming. He did not interrupt her, knowing that she would tell him in time.
“The soldiers wore the livery of the Vardan Regency, and some of the other refugees on the road said that they had come all the way from Whitney where the beasts had already torn the northern towns and cities apart, just as they are doing here. So they must have come from the Regency, torn their way south through Whitney and then carried on through northern Gunderland.” She didn’t sound convinced he noticed, and he could understand why.
“Vardan? How is that possible?” And more importantly since he believed her and therefore it obviously was possible, how much further could the Regency soldiers keep driving through their land? Already to reach Gunderland they’d apparently had to tear the heart out of Whitney to the north, and now they were in Gunderland having come through the Liligoth mountains and having raised the city of Gundar, and now a matter of only days later apparently, were carrying on their murdering ways heading further south. He was a wizard and therefore not well versed in matters of warfare, but surely no army no matter how powerful, could continue marching forwards, sweeping all before it, forever. They had to slow down, if only for supplies and to replace those who were killed and injured. Yet even trying to solve that riddle of course was putting the cart before the horse as he still had to wonder about the other perhaps more important question, why.
The Regency again was at peace with all the nearer provinces, and making a tidy living from trading with them. Why would they risk centuries of prosperity? And what wizards would have supported them in such an endeavour? They surely couldn’t be a part of the guild to be involved in such dark magic and war. It was insanity, and yet he didn’t doubt her.
“I do not know. Nor do I know how they entered the city, or even why. The first we knew of an attack the soldiers and the beasts were already inside the walls, killing and burning everyone and everything, with never an alarm being raised.”
“The guards did their best even caught by surprise, and they killed a lot of the beasts and a few of the soldiers while the rest of us huddled in our houses and schools, hoping that solid wooden doors would be enough until the battle was over. They weren’t always, there were so many of the enemy, and many people were pulled out of their homes and into the streets screaming, the doors and walls torn apart by the soldiers. More were killed as their homes were set alight with the people still inside, screaming. Men, women, children, they didn’t care who they killed.”
“I have never witnessed anything so barbaric and wicked as what those soldiers did that day. I pray to the Goddess I never will again.” He believed her, without hesitation, the simple look of horror and pain in her eyes, and the tears finally trickling down her cheeks, was enough to convince him of her words. It was only that it didn’t make sense that bothered him. Not only that it had happened, but why. Why would soldiers do such terrible things? He didn’t understand that any more than she did.
“Though they walked like men the soldiers were surely too evil to be human. Men and women, the old and the young, the sick and the priestly, those who posed them no threat at all, they killed them all. It made no difference to them if they could fight back. The enemy slaughtered everyone that they could get at, and they laughed as they did it, terrible howls like that of moon crazed carrion dogs that filled the air. The streets ran with innocent blood, the air was foul with its smell and the ash from the fires was so thick that it choked the lungs, while they laughed as if it was the most glorious joke and we huddled in fear and prepared our escape, never even knowing if we would get the chance.”
“They did more than that too, things that I would never wish the children to know. They ate the fallen, a crime of which I have never even heard before, not even in the tales of the bards. But more than a few we sighted from the highest windows, casually chewing on the limbs of people as they went about their terrible work.” Cannibalism? Marjan was having a hard time believing that, and yet looking into her eyes, seeing the horror still living there, he knew Essaline was speaking the truth. The very thought sent shivers down his back, and it made the ache in his heart grow ever greater as he thought of his family again, somewhere in the city, in the midst of that terror.
“I don’t pretend to understand that evil. I don’t want to. But what I do know is that when we fled Gunder seven days ago, after the guards had finally brought us all a brief respite in the fighting as they drove the enemy to the other side of the city, the city was in ruins, half eaten bodies were everywhere lying in the streets, and the fires had spread out over half the city. The soldiers and their beasts were already calling much of the city theirs, if only because there was no one left to fight them, and they were coming for the rest. There were no soldiers left at all near us, and the barricades and fortifications had been pulled down and burnt.”
“There was little fighting remaining near us, except of course for the Magic Guild where the battle still raged furiously and where the enemy concentrated their attack. The beasts and soldiers could make little impact on even its gates, and there it was said, it was the enemy whose bodies littered the streets.” That made sense to Marjan. There was strong magic in the guild and a lot of very powerful masters. They were not the sort of people to be pushed around either, not by a mere army, and they were allowed to defend themselves, especially against beasts. Besides if Gunder had been so terribly attacked and the people harmed, then they had a responsibility to defend them. They might not be permitted to take the war back to the enemy, but that was not the same as destroying those who attacked their kith and kin.
“We were one of the last to take to our heels, and when our chance came we had to hurry and so mistakes were made, but then schools with hundreds of children are not simple things to move at the best of times. Each master was responsible for half a dozen children, and we hurriedly divided them up as best we could on the basis of where each group wanted to go, and where each master was from.”
“Because I am elven as are several of my charges, we took the road south for Calibra where many of us have kin. Dorian should have travelled southeast with Master Farsus, but somehow in the confusion he got left behind and had to come with us, while Petras’ clan hold is in the Regency itself. He cannot go home and we hoped that the elders of Calibra might grant him shelter. He is a good lad and from a good family.” Somehow Marjan had no doubt that the elves would grant the lad shelter, he had no doubt because Mistress Essaline had no doubt despite her words.
“It was a slow journey, but at least the guards and the wizards bought us some time to leave, and so tens of thousands of refugees had already fled and many more were still fleeing the city with us, heading mainly south and west, the two directions which we had believed were safe, and for a few days we thought our pain was over. Of course that was before the enemy chased us, attacked the thousands of refugees on the roads leading out of the city, two or three days ago. They came once more in numbers the battle for Gunder apparently finally lost, and they came only to kill. Now nowhere and nothing is safe.”
“After that, or really during the attack, we fled into the forest, hoping to stay out of the reach of the soldiers, along with thousands of others. The screaming and the panic were terrible and people were running up and down the road for as far as the eye could see. Even after, in the supposed safety of the forest, we were not safe as we could hear the beasts giving chase, and so we had to keep running.”
>
“I had hoped that with my knowledge of woodcraft I would be able to lead the children to safety through them. But many of the beasts are now calling the forests home just as they surely called the city theirs. The wolves are only the beginning of the beastly army, and behind them are packs of hell boars, wild cats, sabre bears, trolls and many more. Creatures stranger and more vicious than I had ever imagined. The wolves being fleet of foot and with such stamina are probably simply the fastest of the hunters. They were on us within a day, and we had to take shelter within a cave.”
“The cave though was a prison, and we were trapped inside it with no food and water for a full day, while they prowled around outside, waiting. Petras had fixed the rock so that it wouldn’t move and so they couldn’t get in. Then they left, or seemed to, and I thought it was my chance to head to the stream for some water. I’d hoped they’d given up, I should have known better. It was a trap, though wolves even dire wolves are not supposed to be able to do such things. I had scarcely got half way when they were upon me and I had to run back. After that things became a little vague.” Marjan could guess what had happened after that even if his patient clearly didn’t want to as she glossed over her injury as something unimportant, and he told her what she needed to know.
