When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

  Jermayan did not stop running until the green shadows of the Flower Forest had replaced the bright glare of the Winter City outside.

  “One hopes that your flight this morning was all that you hoped for from it,” Magarabeleniel said, stepping out from behind a tree. Here in the Flower Forest, she had exchanged her furs and robes of winter’s white for garments that echoed the browns and greens of the winter forest—for the Flower Forest was in leaf at every season.

  “I did what I had intended to do,” Jermayan said, “but it is with regret that I must say I was unable to bear your word to Chalaseniel, for Ancaladar and I found ourselves to be of unbearable interest to those flying rats that plague your city.”

  Unexpectedly, Magarabeleniel laughed. “Jermayan, you malign rats! Their skins have a hundred uses, they are loyal, they make good pets—and one may even eat them if one is starving. None of these things is true of those creatures—even when we kill them, the stink is nearly unbearable, no matter what we do, so that even in death they strike at us. As for Chalaseniel, I shall send riders to him tonight, if I can.”

  “Perhaps you have more to tell him than you know,” Jermayan said.

  “The Lady of Lerkalpoldara knows all that transpires on the Plains of Bazrahil,” Magarabeleniel assured him. “It was my nurse’s first teaching, when I was scarcely old enough to follow the talldeer. Come. We will take tea, and you will tell me what I am presumed to know already.”

  SOON Jermayan was settled in her tent—a much smaller tent, tucked among the trees, but no less the House of Sky and Grass for that—with a cup of hot tea in his hand. It smelled of honey and new-mown hay—an odd tea to drink in the depths of winter, but no one in the Winter City thought that they would live to drink the teas of summer in their rightful season. They spoke for a few minutes about the weather—not idle pleasantry for a tent-dwelling people—and Jermayan learned that Tanarakiel believed that the clear weather would hold for some days yet. How long she could not say, though surely four or five.

  “A blessing and a curse, that, both—but clear weather for your flight, at least,” Magarabeleniel said.

  “A flight I must make soon, but before I go, I would see you safely upon your way. This morning I have opened the Gatekeeper, and the road to Windalorianan lies clear. I would counsel you to take it while you may, and if you would take it, you must go soon.”

  There was a long pause after such blunt speaking. Magarabeleniel gazed off into the distance, seemingly entranced by the muted glow of light on the bronze trunk of an alyon, and the winter-gold carpet of moss at its feet. In spring the bronze of the alyon’s bark would warm to copper, the moss brighten to green, and the forest waken to even more vibrant life.

  Were any of them here to see it. If, in fact, the forest itself were here at all.

  The death of a Flower Forest was rare, but not unthinkable. The Flower Forests themselves were but the remnants of the great Elven Forests which had once covered the mountains of the east, where now there was little more than sparse grass and a few stunted trees—where anything would grow at all. The forests had been re-seeded before—and could be again, if Lerkalpoldara’s was lost.

  But the thought of destroying it lest it be defiled by the Enemy was heartbreaking.

  Jermayan realized that without noticing he had been straining to hear the sounds of birds, for even in winter the Flower Forests were filled with them. Many had no other home. But there was silence in the trees.

  “There are no birds, Jermayan,” Magarabeleniel said softly, seeing his face. “Even here.” She took a deep breath. “This is my word to you: We will cross the pass. I do not know how many of us will survive the journey, for I know the creatures of the Enemy will not wish to lose their prey, but it is a chance at life, at least for some, and we will take it.”

  THE winter days were short this far north, and a few hours after dark, Ancaladar returned.

  He was not alone.

  “Ancaladar has told me that the Gatekeeper is clear and we may all leave—if we do not mind fighting off Coldwarg, shadewalkers, and herds of serpentmarae,” Chalaseniel said, appearing in the doorway of the House of Grass and Wind. He did not sound as if the prospect dismayed him particularly.

  Though he had been dressed for riding with the herd, it was still not sufficient protection from the cold of the high sky, but though he looked chilled through, he also looked like someone who had received unexpectedly good news—as indeed he had.

  Chalaseniel was co-Viceroy of Lerkalpoldara, Magarabeleniel’s brother—reckless where she was prudent, optimistic where she was dour, impetuous where she was cautious, cheerful where she was bleak. Or so the Elves judged them; Jermayan suspected that humans would see little difference between the siblings’ behavior at all.

  “I have sent the word among the herd-riders. They must bring the talldeer and the horses here as fast as they can, as many as the can manage and still come quickly. We will go as soon as they arrive and the beasts can be set to harness.”

  If Magarabeleniel was surprised at her brother’s unlooked-for arrival, or at his presumption of knowing her mind, she did not show it. “We will burn the forest before we leave,” she said calmly, as Chalaseniel went to change his wet and frozen riding leathers.

  When he returned, she poured tea, and Chalaseniel seated himself beside Jermayan.

  “I See you, Jermayan, son of Malkirinath, Elven Knight, Ancaladar’s Bonded,” he said formally, now acknowledging Jermayan’s presence.

  “I See you, Chalaseniel, brother of Magarabeleniel, Viceroy of Lerkalpoldara,” Jermayan returned, equally formally.

  “You have our gratitude for this,” Chalaseniel said simply. “And now, there is much to do.”

  “Much has been done,” Magarabeleniel said. “Elodiane and Tanarakiel oversee the preparation of sledges to carry the tents. Lauryoneth and Sarimarel check to see that the harness is strong and will not break, for we dare not stop to mend it this side of Windalorianan. If we can pass the Gatekeeper, the Enemy can do so as well, unless he is sealed again.”

  She glanced at Jermayan, the unspoken question plain in her eyes.

  “Sealed or unsealed, Lady—and I confess, I am not certain if I am able to seal the pass again—your mountain passes will not stop the creatures of the Enemy from going where they will. They are creatures of Shadow, who thrive upon the dark and the cold.”

  Magarabeleniel gave a faint shrug. “Then we shall pray for Leaf and Star to favor us, and hope that Windalorianan will look favorably upon us, despite the plague we bring with us.”

  “It is a plague that will be everywhere in the Elven Lands soon,” Jermayan said grimly. “The ancient subject-races of the Enemy—Ice Trolls, snow giants, duergar, goblins, and the like—might need the help of the Shadowed Elves to cross the ancient Elven land-wards, but either the monsters of the Enemy’s breeding needed no such aid, or they had been smuggled in long since.”

  “Three days to reach the mountains, another day to reach the pass itself,” Chalaseniel said, and now the lightness was gone from his voice. “I think they may toy with us at first. That will give us a day, perhaps two. Then they will begin to attack in earnest. Shadewalkers do not range so far from their home dens, but neither Coldwarg nor serpentmarae have dens, and both will be eager to hunt us.”

  “If they hunt us, then we shall hunt them,” Magarabeleniel said grimly. “They are beasts out of Shadow, but they can be killed, and we have arrows enough for all of them. The weather will hold—Tanarakiel says it will, if the herds arrive no later than tomorrow night, and hard cold makes good running. A chance for any is better than no chance for all.”

  There was no possible argument with that.

  THE herds of which Chalaseniel had spoken arrived in the middle of the next day. Their arrival was heralded by a great disturbance among the Deathwings, which dove upon them, over and over, in an attempt to pluck the riders from the saddles, or, failing that, blind the herd animals so that they would pani
c and become easy prey.

  But the Elves of Lerkalpoldara possessed many moonturns of experience with their winged enemy. The herd-riders swung from their saddles to the sides of their mounts, firing upward past their horses’ shoulders with the short horseman’s bow as they clung to their saddles with crooked knees.

  Those on the walls fired the Elven longbow, and behind the head of each arrow was a round ball of oil-soaked wool. These they lit from a brazier just before launching their shafts, and shot flaming arrows into the sky. The Deathwings dissolved instantly upon death into a puddle of foul-smelling liquid—and in life, as Jermayan discovered now, they burned like dry hay, if you could only set one properly alight.

  Jermayan stood just inside the wall, waiting.

  It would do the herds no good to arrive and be trapped outside the walls. Nor would the walls be of any use for protection against the four-footed enemy if they had a hole knocked in them.

  “Now,” Ancaladar said, his voice a whisper in Jermayan’s ear though the dragon soared far above.

  Jermayan cast his spell. Several yards of wall … vanished.

  The herd-riders surged through with the mixed herd of horses and talldeer—quite enough animals to fill the empty enclosure that had once held the Winter City, but, as Jermayan knew from talking to Magarabeleniel and Chalaseniel, many of the animals were intended as bait, to draw the attentions of packs that would follow them for as long as possible.

  When they were all through the gap, Jermayan cast another spell, and the wall remade itself again. The two simple spells rippled through his mind easily, and though they were followed by a surge of weakness, it was not as bad as Jermayan feared it would be. His strength was returning rapidly, and with it, he gained new hope for victory in the fight to come.

  His task complete, Ancaladar soared off above the clouds, where the Deathwings could not follow—for there certainly was not room for him and the livestock within the walls below.

  IN the wait for the animals to arrive, much had been accomplished, most of it unthinkable in any time other than this. Many of the smaller trees of the Flower Forest had been cut down to clear a space for the Lerkalpoldarans to work. The carts which carried their tents in summer had been converted to sledges to move the same tents over winter’s ice, for they would need their protection on the journey. Everything that was not essential would be left behind, to be burned along with the Flower Forest. But that left an entire city of clothing, food, tents, and weapons to move.

  Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel had decided that their best hope of avoiding immediate ambush was to leave at dusk. The Deathwings would probably depart then, and even starlight on snow would give the Elves enough light to see by over the first part of their journey.

  But many will die. Perhaps all, yet with more hope than if they did not make the attempt. And there is no chance to fly anyone to the Crowned Horns now, even if they would go, for the baskets for the journey were to have been made here, and now there is no time for that, Jermayan thought.

  Talldeer, Jermayan discovered, were not quite like deer at all. They were beasts nearly as large as horses, superbly adapted for the cold. They had the split hooves and small flat heads of deer, but their antlers were enormous, far heavier and thicker than those of the small red deer of the south. They produced wool like sheep, which was the majority of the wool the Lerkalpoldarans used for their rugs and tents.

  The talldeer were also the primary draft animal used on the Plains of Bazrahil, and now, as Jermayan watched, the Lerkalpoldarans began to harness them in hitches of twelve. No reins or bridles were used, only traces and collars. Normally the talldeer wagons followed the rest of the herd, or if necessary the hitch could be led by someone holding the headstall of the leader.

  “Oh, they will run when the herd runs—and the herd will run, with riders to goad it,” Elodiane said, seeing Jermayan’s expression. “You should be grateful you will be in the heavens far above, on the back of a nice, safe dragon.”

  It was hardly the way Jermayan would think of it himself, but at the moment he was grateful that he would not be either one of the sledge-drivers or one of those who were mounted. That would be most of the Winter City’s population, whose task it would be to drive the supply wagons and the herd of remounts onward as fast as possible, across a landscape which afforded no cover, no place where they could rest and recover from the assaults that would surely come.

  The herd-riders switched their saddles to fresh horses as the talldeer were harnessed, and more horses were saddled. These were not Vardirvoshan-bred destriers, but they were magnificent animals for all that, strong and fast, bred to work and to run beneath the sky.

  Many of them were carrying packs as well, for the co-Viceroys had made plans within plans, and in the ultimate extremity the Lerkalpoldarans would flee on horseback, abandoning the talldeer and the sledges as a further sacrifice to the Coldwarg, carrying with them nothing but food for the horses. It was better to arrive in Windalorianan starving and in rags than not at all.

  By sunset everything was ready, and the space within the walls of the Winter City was uncomfortably crowded. The life of an entire city had been packed into thirty sledges, and its citizens, save for those who still watched the walls, sat their horses like the most disciplined of cavalry.

  “I shall remain to light the forest,” Magarabeleniel said, her voice soft with grief.

  “No,” Jermayan said. “I shall do that. And if you are prepared, I shall open the wall once more.”

  “I think it would be best,” Chalaseniel said. “It grows… crowded here, cousin. And I have never liked walls overmuch!”

  With a gesture, Jermayan caused a section of wall to vanish. It was only a small spell, and he was grateful to see that each time he called upon his Magery it came more easily. Riders began streaming through the gap at once, followed by sledges and the herd of free-running talldeer and horses. As soon as there was space, the sentinels came down from the walls to claim their own mounts, and followed the others. The cries of encouragement and whistles of the herders were soon dimmed by the wind.

  Jermayan looked up into the sky. The clouds had fled with evening, and the sky was dark blue, showing the first stars of night. A darker shadow blotted out those stars, and then Ancaladar landed.

  “Mucky,” the dragon said fastidiously, lifting first one foot then the next.

  “It was a great many animals in a very small space,” Jermayan said apologetically, gathering up Ancaladar’s harness. Once the dragon was harnessed, they were quickly aloft.

  “So far, so good,” Ancaladar said, glancing down at the refugees. They formed a dark line against the snow, nearly a mile in length, and were obviously running flat-out. He’d better tell Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel to rein them in soon, or they’d simply exhaust their beasts now, and they had scores of leagues yet to travel.

  But there was another task to complete first. He and Ancaladar turned back toward Lerkalpoldara.

  Fire was the simplest and easiest spell, the first learned by any Mage, no matter what Path they followed. With Ancaladar’s power to draw upon, Jermayan could burn air, or rock.

  How much simpler, then, to burn that which was meant to burn?

  He reached down.

  The entire forest came alight at once, every tree bursting into flame in the same moment. The heat rolled out from it in every direction, melting the ice around the forest and exposing the winter-parched grass on the ground beneath. It was brighter than the sun of the dull winter’s day; it was summer ripped out of its proper season and chained to earth, and it roared with the injustice of it, a constant sound almost like falling water. The heat created an updraft that Ancaladar had to fly around, just as if the furnace air were a pillar of marble that had suddenly sprouted out of the ice.

  In moments the grass exposed by the melted ice had baked dry and begun to kindle, though the melting snow around it would keep the grass fire from spreading far. The constant trickle of melt into the f
ire made steam, and added a high hissing sound to the deep roaring note of the burning. The wind blew the smoke sideways, but the steam swirled above it, the two billows silver and black.

  But no amount of snowmelt could save the forest from its fate. The trees were blackened now, their leaves gone, their remaining branches skeletal. It was impossible to tell what had been vilya, what alyon, what namanar and orchad and lemuri. The forest floor was ash that swirled and danced in the wind caused by the burning. All that existed was the red-gold of fire.

  The radiant heat had begun to melt the walls of the winter city as well. They glistened like soft custard, running with water, their tops already humped and shapeless. The inside of the walls curved outward now, as if they, too, were attempting to escape the heat of the burning forest, and a fan of water poured out through the gap that Jermayan had made in the wall, softening the riders’ tracks in the snow. The water froze again to ice as it spread farther from the fire.

  As Jermayan watched, a portion of the standing wall around the Winter City collapsed under its own now-uneven weight. Now more and more of the wall began to collapse, melting away from the edges of the central gap.

  The trees of the Flower Forest, wasted away to cinders by the conflagration, began to fall into the flame. The sound of their collapse was not audible above the roar of the burning, but each one that fell released a dense cloud of gold and white sparks that swirled on the updraft. They fell into the ragged pennon of smoke and steam. The center of the forest, where the heat had been greatest, was already gone entirely, and the trees that surrounded that center had been sharpened by the flames to spearpoints. Their crowns were gone, toppled away into the inferno. Their smaller branches had been burned away entirely and the larger ones had been set afire, burning where they grew until they were consumed entirely or had burned through close to the trunk, leaving the weight of the branch to fall free into the fire below. Now all that was left was a ragged forest of spikes, their broken and uneven points jabbing into a sickly orange sky.