Winter's Sword

by Alexandra Little

  “Dalandaras told me you felled the mountain,” Aerik said. “Like Adhannor felled his prison. That was risky, but it worked. Your mother would be proud.”

  I tried to take comfort in the praise, but was more concerned at what Dalandaras had told him. Dalandaras’ face showed nothing, but Aerik would have reacted very differently if my lover had told him that my life had hung by a thread. Or perhaps I had hidden that from Dalandaras a little too well.

  A hawk circled lazily overhead, and then another one. We watched in silence and enjoyed our meal. A raven crowed off in the distance.

  “To think it was once a dead place,” Firien said.

  “Evalandriel has changed it,” Dalandaras said.

  “If we could show this to our people,” Firien murmured in elvish, half to himself. “Then perhaps they would not find it so hard to believe that she should stay the Lady.”

  “It is not our people,” Dalandaras replied in the common tongue. “It is the Queen.”

  “Forgive me,” Firien murmured to Aerik. “I was not thinking.”

  “Besides, they must have already tried to reach here. But with the height of the snows banks, and the currents, they must not have gotten far.”

  Firien nodded.

  “Is this where you mean for Aerlad and the privateers to come up?” Aerik asked.

  “The water is deep enough,” I replied. “If I must prepare for a war, then this will be the front of it all.”

  “Do not look,” Firien said pleasantly as he picked his rabbit to the bone. “But I see one of the Queen’s birds. It will wait until I am alone to land, and will flee if any of you approach it.”

  “Then we must decide on the message,” I said.

  “What is the plan?” Aerik asked.

  “We must go back to Tal Aesiri,” I said. “We may as well tell the Queen that; it’s true enough. But we should also say that the storms are bad, and even I am having trouble traveling. Tell her that the route to Tal Aesiri looks bad, and that you’re not certain that I’ll live.”

  “She may believe that,” Firien replied. “But not the last.”

  “Tell her that bringing down the mountain nearly killed me, and that the foulings guarded me until I had strength to move.”

  Firien nodded. “She will believe that - she does not think a human capable of controlling the old magic like she can.”

  So even Firien did not think that tearing down a mountain had been enough to incapacitate me.

  “I will take a walk tonight, and let the hawk land. I have some parchment, and will attach the message. But what do we do once we’re at Tal Aesiri?”

  “Do you have enough parchment to copy the map again?” I asked.

  Firien nodded.

  “Then I will need another copy of the map. We’re going to go back to Winter’s Crown, and break my father out of jail.”

  “He wouldn’t want you to risk it,” Dalandaras said.

  I nodded. “But I need him with me. And while we’re there, we’re going to drop the map off with some friends of my father’s. If they’re on our side, we’ll tell them how to reach here, to Tal Anor. The old magic will let them through, if t knows they are my friends. And then we’re going to have to prepare for a war.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The journey to Tal Aesiri was shorter than our trek to Tal Anor, but both Aerik and I kept the pace slow. I could have pushed harder, put on the skis and sped ahead of everyone, but I did not dare to. Not when I could still feel the weakness in my body. Not when I wasn’t certain what I was becoming.

  The snow was in patches here, the black twisted rocks showing through. It was a land that Singael had loved, one he had conjured in his mind as a way of hiding from the world. I did not like the place. It was not for any remaining taint of Adhannor’s, nor did I have any fear of the bodies buried here and the spirits that still lingered; I simply did not want the responsibility of ruling over the land. I wanted my ships and beached of Port Darad – I did not want a frozen mountain that had claimed so much blood.

  We came upon the mountain, tall and black. The snow covered the base of it, but tapered off as we reached the summit. A path was easier to find this time, without needing to sneak up on Adhannor. We came to a great plateau of black and twisted rock, its dark shadows broken only with the occasional tree, whose limbs were so dry and gray that you could not tell what kind of tree it once was in life. The mist hung close up here, though it had not when we had fought Adhannor. Slowly, we came to the center of the plateau, and found a great crack that ran through it. The fissure was deep, and from it curled hot steam from the heat of the earth, and the great heat that had come with my defeat of Adhannor.

  It was not a large fissure, and with a good run it would have been possible to jump the side. But there was no need to, now. For as we came upon the middle of the crack the two halves were suddenly merged together by a crater that had both deepened the ravine and forged it together, black rock turning into black and purple glass that had been forged in a clash of old and blood magic.

  We halted near the rim, and could just barely see over into its depths.

  “What is all this?” Aerik demanded.

  “My court,” I replied. “I am wanted.”

  And want me they did. Fouling and dreadwolves, decaying corpses and spirits, and the giant colossi all stood in the crater I had made when I had destroyed Adhannor. Like an amphitheater in the round, they waited for me to take the center stage.

  We had not stayed here long after I had defeated Adhannor – Firien and his elves went to report to their Queen, and I got Father and Aerik down from the high cold of this place. Firien and Aerik were now only truly seeing what I ruled over.

  “Set up a camp,” I told them. “Find a cave for shelter, and erect the tarps over it – I’m sure there are enough crevices here that would do.”

  “And you?” Dalandaras asked.

  “I will attend my people,” I replied. With a deep breath, I mounted the rim and stepped into the crater.

  The creatures bowed as I passed - the spirits of the men and elves that had been killed by Adhannor, the dreadwolves and their tangle of gray fur and wide jaws, more foulings than the five who had designated themselves my protectors. Those five followed me true enough, and sniffed at the living corpses as they passed. The colossi stood there as well, twice as tall as I was, their forms roughly hewn. No bonds of runes circled their limbs now - those had been Adhannor’s, the only way he was able to control the ancient, old race.

  The very center of the crater was simply pure glass, not rocks or rubble, and shards of glass jutted out from it like bolts of lightning. Adhanel stood close to it, the elf spirit smiling her gleaming smile at me. She had gotten her revenge on Singael, and was triumphant that her many-times great-granddaughter was now Lady of all these lands.

  But my mother was not here.

  I thought I had left her at Tal Aesiri, confined by the old magic that had commanded her appearance from the dead in the first place. But she was not in the crowd of ghostly faces that stood before me.

  I cleared my throat; it had gone bone dry. “Who will speak first?” I asked.

  A ghost of a woman stepped forward, an elven woman with hair that cascaded to the ground who wore a glimmer of chainmail. She and her kindred had fought Adhannor for me, and I had promised them their freedom. So far, I had not made good on my promise. It was not intentional.

  “What would you have from us, Lady?” she demanded. She was angry - considering that Adhannor had enslaved her, she had every right to be.

  “I would have nothing from you,” I said.

  There were no murmurs from that, but rather rumblings. Rumblings through the ground and the old magic. The dead could still think, but their thoughts seemed to travel through the old magic.

  “You are late,” she said.

  “I apologize for that,” I replied. “It was not of my doing.”

  Another rumble through my gathered citizens. The Lady? Apolo
gizing?

  I sighed. I could not conduct this as if I were some goddess, holding the power of life and death in my hands. “I never did learn your name,” I said to the woman.

  The woman seemed momentarily stunned that I thought to ask. “I remember little,” she murmured. “But in life I was Fardeth.”

  I nodded. Fardeth. I could handle creatures with names. That was why I had named the foulings, I supposed. “Fardeth, then.”

  “You were destroying the altars,” she said, and though her anger was still there, her voice had chilled to a whisper.

  “Was that how you were trapped, Fardeth?”

  “How else?”

  Oh, this could be delicate.

  I turned away from her for a moment, and circled my glass pedestal in the crater floor, making eye contact with as many of the creatures as I could. “You all ask what I would have from you?”

  The assent came like a gentle wave, the rumbling passing here and there.

  “I bear no demands on the foulings or dreadwolves of Tal Aesiri,” I said. “Only that you do not attack and elves or humans that come within range of you unless you are threatened by them. As to the spirits that are here, and the undead, I will do my utmost to release you as soon as I am able. I have had to undo much of Adhannor’s work, for the safety of peace of all creatures. I have had to destroy the blood altars. I swear that I will find another way to release you from this life. But if you wish to stay, then you may do so. Tal Aesiri is your home, and you are welcome here.

  “However, if any of you, from fouling to spirit, choose to stay at Tal Aesiri, then I must ask that you join with me in its defense.”

  The thoughts came as voices then, the spirits speaking, the undead certainly trying to, the dreadwolves and foulings growling and whimpering in their turn. Only the colossi stood silent.

  I held up a hand, and they quieted. “I cannot hear you all at once. Will you speak for them, Fardeth?”

  The woman glanced around her. “Many of us do not like being here,” she said. “ But we are bound here. Only the foulings and dreadwolves may venture farther. If you are the Lady, what do we need to protect Tal Aesiri from? What do we need protection from?”

  “The world you exist in now is not the world you were created in,” I said loudly, trying to speak to them as I had heard my mother command her men. “I do not know what came before the elves, but when you had to face Adhannor’s destruction there were only swords and bows. They are fierce weapons, true enough, but now there are humans. There is an empire, a great empire to the south of here. That is where I come from. They still use swords and bows and axes, true enough. But there are more weapons - rifles, such as the one you saw my father Lord Baradan fire in the battle against Adhannor. But there are also cannons, and black powder, such things as could blast craters in the rocks as easily as Adhannor and I did. If you think this crater is wide and deep, you have not seen the work that blasting powder can do on a mountain.”

  And I willed the images into them - the images I had seen, of mountains crumbling in search for coal or metals or gems, of the great pits of the miners at Winter’s Crown, of the cannon shot and destruction of ships in the battles I had been in. I pressed these images on them as hard as I could, as hard as I dared, so that they could truly understand what could be coming for them. I pressed them on Ellsmid, of her greed, of the grasping nature I had seen in her eyes, and of the Dagnar Queen and her smashing the glass in rage. I showed them the enemies that could be coming.

  And then I did what I had seen my father once do: admit weakness. “You have gone from having no Lady to having one who cannot control the magic she possesses. I am human. I cannot defend Tal Aesiri alone. Not without becoming Adhannor, and using you by force. That is the one option that is no option, I promise you. I will die to keep you and this mountain free from hands that would use and twist this place as Adhannor once did.”

  I looked back to Fardeth. Anger no longer twisted her face; she was impassive, but considering, her eyes closed as she once would have considered an offer in life.

  “Do not forget your colossi,” Adhanel said quietly.

  I turned to her, and then to the colossi that stood all around me. They were my silent sentries, the guardians of the magic long before the elves had come to the land.

  I turned to the nearest of my guardians. They still had not acquired names – none were given to me, and there were none I could sense floating in their minds. But They almost had faces now, their once rough-hewn shape of spirit and ether chiseling itself into creatures of giants.

  “Humans and elves I can understand,” I said to it. “They are not much unchanged in death from what they were in life. And foulings and dreadwolves are but hounds, and I understand their needs too. But what of you?” What do you wish for? What would you have me do for you?”

  “We serve the Lady,” came their response as one.

  “That is your desire?” I asked.

  “We serve the Lady,” they repeated.

  I could feel my heart breaking. I did not want slaves. I did nothing to earn their loyalty. And yet they were mine to do with as I pleased.

  I reached up to the colossus, and it lowered its face to me, and I touched it. There was almost flesh beneath my fingers, but not quite.

  I released him, and turned slowly to meet all the eyes I could once more. “Will you stand with me?” I asked. “Will you stand with me in defense of Tal Aesiri until I can release you from this bondage?”

  There was no rumble of thought there, no shifting of the old magic in the ground beneath me. But a gentle hum seemed to be in the background as, one by one, they knelt to me again.

  “We will serve the Lady,” Fardeth murmured.

  I nodded, and felt the sting of tears on my cheeks. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  To my surprise Adhanel too knelt. “I serve the Lady,” she said, her eyes cast down to the ground.

  She had been the Lady once, and now relinquished the title forever to me. The threat of tears pressed harder, but they were not there from gratitude.

  Only one figure did not kneel, solitary in the midst of the spirits of dread beasts. It was a corpse of a woman, her tunic and leggings torn, the skin of an arm peeled off, the flesh of the side of her face missing and the skull exposed. The flesh that remained was shrunken inward, drained of life as so many of Adhannor’s victims had been. But her hair was golden, and shone in the rays of sun that came through the mist.

  “Zarah,” I murmured. The bitch. “Still here?”

  She laughed a clawing laugh, drawing in air half through her mouth and half through her throat. Her bottom lip stretched oddly - it hung loose at a corner.

  “Oh yes,” she replied. “Will you release me, too Eva?”

  That was a good question. And too much of a question to answer now. It would have been easy to knock me over with a feather at that moment. “Don’t you think that would be too easy a death for you?”

  “Easy?” she demanded. “Easy! Look at me! I’m rotted!”

  “You were in life,” I said happily, too happily for my own good. “And now that simply reflects on the outside.”

  “Damn you,” she said.

  “You once did.”

  Zarah. I had to deal with Zarah again. The traitorous best friend. It was entirely fitting that she should be left to walk the earth as rotting flesh. It was not so fitting that she was here to torment me once more.

  “Fardeth,” I said sharply, unable to take my eyes from my former friend.

  “Lady?” she asked.

  “Will you be my castellan in this place?” I asked. “Will you hear the worries and ills of those around us now and report them to me?”

  “I will,” she said solemnly. “On my honor.”

  And I had my honor, damn it all. “I promised you all here that I would find a way to release you, and so I shall. All of you,” I repeated. “But take note. That one there was a servant of Adhannor. Watch her; she may betray all of us again.
”

  All eyes, as one, turned to observe Zarah. I did not think a corpse could be cowed, but Zarah shrank back. It was a petty enjoyment, but one all the same.

  I left the crater as I came, to bows and calls of Lady, my faithful fouling pack following me. I told them with as much lightness I could muster to take off, to run, to hunt, to be hounds, and they obeyed, all but Dhreo, who stayed close by.

  The mist was starting to clear off, and I found Dalandaras, Aerik, and Firien as one of the rocky outcroppings around the plateau. They had taken an axe to a tree and gathered wood, and had gotten a fire going. They had found a cave true enough, and were clearing out the rocks they could lift and erecting a tarp for privacy and shelter from any rain or snow.

  Dalandaras came to me first, and hugged me tightly. “I heard your words,” he murmured.

  He wanted to apologize, though the burden was not his. I hugged him back, and buried my face in the fur of his cloak. The sting of tears still threatened, and I wished they would come out, but they did not. “Walk with me,” I murmured.

  He did, wrapping an arm around me and pulling my own cloak tighter about me. “You need to rest still; you are not strong enough yet to shoulder this burden.”

  “I know you would take some of it from me,” I replied. “But I cannot pass it to you. I would not desire you to have it, even if I could give it to you.”

  “Then what is to be done now?” he asked. “After you eat, and after you sleep.”

  I smiled at his care, more for his sake than mine. “I would go rescue my father.” The colossi will come with me, if I need them. But there is another task I must tell you about. I would not have Aerik with me.”

  “You will need all the help you can get in freeing your father,” he pointed out. “You are breaking into a walled town, into a fortress.”

  “I may have help on the inside,” I replied. “Remember when you sensed my thoughts about abandoning Aerik? How I considered leaving him then and there in the snow and cold and left him to his fate?”

  Dalandaras nodded. “You are going to abandon him now,” he stated.