Expedition- Summerlands

by Nathaniel Webb

  I found myself wishing for some sort of silence or invisibility magic, but that was the domain of white wizards. Scytri was one, though he’d called himself a shaper. And apparently I was a caller; I could only assume that elves followed the white magic/red magic split we did, under different names. Assuming I survived the night, I looked forward to picking Scytri’s brain about it all.

  Guard patrols were few and far between and I couldn’t blame the elves for their apparently lax security. There was nothing out there in the night but the army and even if every human in the Summerlands had gathered at Wyatt Falls to fight back, they would have been outnumbered three to one. The elves had nothing to fear. This was their land.

  I shoved the thought away and made myself refocus on the task at hand. Skirting the edges of the various campsites where elven soldiers lay snoring around burnt-down fires was easier than I’d expected, especially when I passed the pens where the elves’ giant birds of burden squawked and squabbled. Soon I heard the rush of the waterfall. With that to guide me, I covered the last few hundred yards with newfound certainty.

  How much of his life had Magpie spent sneaking around in the dark like this? He said the life of a contract boy was easy, but I had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t giving us the full story. Well, of course he wasn’t. He’d known who we were and what had happened to Jason the whole time, and hadn’t breathed a word of it. A shiver spasmed up my back. The memory of what I’d been about to do when I discovered the truth—purely by chance—made me queasy. What else had Magpie lied about?

  The trees fell away and the waterfall came in sight. The Eldest’s wagons made a semicircle around it, protected by the sheer cliff of Hard Pass at their backs. A few dying fires glowed a muted orange within the ring, but the camp was otherwise still. According to Scytri, the armory wagon was up against the cliff on the right, just behind the one in which Eneri traveled and slept.

  Wonderful.

  The light from the camp was dim enough that I felt fairly invisible as I moved in a low crouch towards the cliff wall. Soon I was within a few feet of the armory wagon and I paused for a minute, breathing as shallowly as I could despite my pounding heart. I heard nothing other than the waterfall.

  The spirit fence, a white circle of salt, stood out in the darkness. It circumscribed the armory wagon without much room to spare, but I had to admire how neat and even it was. Clearly Eneri had had some practice with red magic.

  There was nothing left to do but cross the salt circle and hope for the best. If Scytri was right and humans really didn’t have spirits, then nothing should happen. If he was wrong… I set one foot on the other side of the spirit fence and froze, listening. Nothing stirred in the camp and there was no new sound. I shifted my weight gently forward and brought my back foot across the line as well.

  Something rattled in the darkness. I froze. Was that the click of a boot on stone? The sound of chain mail shifting? A spear bumping a pauldroned shoulder?

  The sound didn’t come again. I wished it would, just to know. But I had no choice: I forced my muscles to move and bring me to the back of the armory wagon. As far as I could see, there was no lock. Eneri had to be extremely confident in his spirit fence and I wondered whether it meant anything that he’d put up a powerful security system to keep out other elves and nothing against anyone else.

  The wagon opened with a sound like a tired sigh. The interior was a deeper shadow against the night, black on blue. I could just make out the shapes of weapons hanging on the walls like prisoners chained up in a gloomy dungeon. Two layers of crates, identical to the ones where the rest of Hearthammer hid, sat in the center of the wagon.

  I reached out and gingerly touched the nearest sword. It didn’t immediately bite me, so I tapped it with one finger at a time while murmuring a few words in Elvish. The spell wasn’t so different from the enchantment I’d used on the surgeon’s knife: it seemed to be asking the warrior spirit within the weapon to show some of its energy.

  The sword began to glow, brighter than I’d expected. I scrambled up into the wagon and swung the door shut behind me, all as quickly as I dared. Another breathless minute passed as I sat waiting for any sound over the rushing waterfall, but none came.

  I looked the crates over. Mostly they were long and narrow, clearly made for spears. One stood out to me, a bit boxier than the others. I took a breath and flipped the top open. Four drones sat stacked inside, their big red buttons only faintly luminescent in the glow of the sword.

  Low battery, I thought. Shit.

  I pulled the first drone off the stack and gave it a hasty look over. It was Magpie’s, I thought, with a bent fin where he’d grabbed it by the disappearing bridge. Definitely not mine. The second and third also didn’t have the pattern of nicks and scuffs I’d gotten so familiar with over the last weeks. Of course mine was at the very bottom.

  Sliding it from the crate was like seeing a long-lost friend. The big button glowed warmly at me. I pressed it.

  The drone leapt promptly from my hands, seeking an angle.

  “Shit!” I hissed. I grabbed it, pulled it down to eye level, and held it there against its struggles.

  “Hey guys,” I whispered. “Miss me?” I tried to look like things were under control, just another heroic adventure. “Did you see the elves? Pretty amazing, right? Okay, here’s the thing. They’re coming to Wellpoint. They have some serious bad blood with our ancestors—long story, I promise I’ll tell it someday—and they’re looking for a fight. I’m their prisoner for now. Look for my feed when we get to Wellpoint, and I’ll—I’ll—” The red light on my drone flickered and died and its buzzing engine whined away to nothing. It went limp in my hands.

  “What is that thing?”

  I looked up. The wagon door was open, and Eneri stood leaning halfway in, his face like a skull in the light of the glowing sword.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Put it down,” Eneri said. “Slowly.” I did what he said, laying the dead drone next to its companions. He watched me with eyes in black shadow. “Good. Now. How did you escape? Did Scytri help you?”

  “Your little elven locks are no match for human magic,” I said. It was a stupid lie, but it was the first thing that came into my head.

  “Hm.” It was more a laugh than anything. “You are no spirit caller, only a fake, a shadow. My children need less help than you. Now come. I expect the Eldest will want to behead you himself. Guards!”

  There was something about the word he’d used to say help. It was more like… tool? Crutch? Implement. When Eneri had stopped my fireball, he’d done it with just a word and a gesture.

  I put my hands up slowly, showing Eneri that they were empty, and as I did began to murmur a rhythmic incantation. My fingers twitched sympathetically, wanting to perform the motions I’d trained so painstakingly to lock in with the words, but if I was right, the motions weren’t needed.

  Time slowed.

  The world blurred out; only Eneri’s face was in focus, almost too sharp. The Elvish words that rolled from my mouth were old, ancient, but comprehensible. I spoke directly to Eneri’s spirit, the soul that burned within him, commanding and beguiling it to be still. This was the hook that had been missing when I’d tried the same spell on Magpie’s hitmen. I could feel it inside Eneri, fighting me, raging against me, falling back exhausted as I drowned it with my will, then roaring up again to rattle the bars of the magical cage I’d made around it.

  A look of absolute hate was frozen on Eneri’s face. It was more than hate; it was disgust. He was looking at me like a dog that had just shit on a brand-new carpet, as though I’d sullied something sacred by using the same magic he did. I could almost see the spirit locked behind his eyes straining to reach out and immolate me.

  I took a slow step forward, keeping my eyes locked on Eneri’s, keeping the words flowing from my lips. He did nothing as I crept closer. For all his hatred and all his power, as long as he couldn’t move, I was safe. Soon I would move int
o his peripheral vision, then slip around him, and then I could back away into the midnight woods and run for my life.

  Something moved in the blur around Eneri’s face, then the wind crashed from my lungs as two armored elves tackled me, slamming me into the stacked crates at the back of the wagon and bouncing my head painfully from a sharp wooden corner. I slumped back, gasping like a beached fish, seeing stars as the world wavered around me.

  The guards grabbed me by the legs and dragged me from the wagon, making absolutely no effort to be gentle. I hit the ground on my back; now the world wasn’t spinning quite so badly and the stars I was seeing were real, but Eneri’s face blocked them out as he leaned over me, and he was smiling as he spat the words of a spell I didn’t know in precise, clipped syllables.

  A shout carried from the forest, an alarm in Elvish. Another sounded, and a third, until the woods echoed with alarms. There was a scrape of metal on metal and a pained grunt, then the noisy clatter of swords meeting.

  “Eneri!” The voice of the Eldest cracked like a whip in the clearing within the circled wagons. Eneri looked up sharply, his spell lost, giving me a moment to catch my breath. My head pounded, but a quick check of my body suggested it was otherwise whole, so I glanced toward the forest to see if I could make a run for it. Instead I discovered the glittering points of two spears an inch from my eyes.

  “Take her back to her cage,” Eneri told the guards. “Make sure it’s locked with blood oak and check her for implements. Then stay there until I come for you—no one else.” His eyes flickered to me. “And watch her.”

  “Eneri!” The Eldest called his name again and the wizard strode off across the yard, his long gold vest fluttering behind him.

  “Up,” grunted one of the soldiers, prodding me with his spear to show me he was serious. I pushed myself onto my knees and the other guard grabbed the collar of my shirt and hauled me to my feet. He patted me down roughly as his comrade watched the forest with narrowed eyes and a half-open mouth. The sounds of fighting had only increased; it sounded like the skirmishing had turned into an all-out running fight among the trees. The guard clearly wanted to join in, and if I was being honest, I couldn’t blame him.

  Who was out there?

  The other guard finished his search and grabbed me by the wrists. Together they marched me back to Wyatt Falls, taking a direct route through the camp. We passed a dozen abandoned campfires and a few straggling soldiers still grabbing weapons and buckling on armor, but nobody stopped us or even seemed to care much who I was. They were all headed towards the fight.

  The town square was similarly abandoned and I didn’t resist as the elves shoved me into my cage and snapped the lock shut. It was made from iron inlaid with blood oak: Eneri had already accounted for my bit of magical skill. Even if I could pick the lock and disable my guards, with the camp on high alert I had nowhere to run, nor could I leave Hearthammer locked away in claustrophobic darkness, no doubt panicking at the sounds of violence around them.

  I slumped back against the bars of my cage, then straightened immediately as a shape appeared from the treeline, running full tilt towards me. My first thought was that it was some member of Hearthammer, wearing the black uniform Magpie had bought, but as he moved into the light I realized it was the black-haired, blue-eyed ranger who’d killed Dahlia in the forest.

  “Linnaea!” he shouted as the elven guards squared up, lowering their spears at his chest. He came at them at a fearless sprint, his black sword in one hand and a splintered wooden shield in the other. The elf on the left lunged, shoving his spear forward as his leading boot slapped the cobblestones with a sharp smack. The ranger rolled his shoulder under the glittering spearpoint and brought his sword up to cut the shaft neatly in two. The elf spat out some curse I couldn’t translate and tossed away the broken spear, then drew his sword in the nick of time as the ranger closed with him, sword tip leading.

  The right-hand elf stepped back, trying to get an angle of attack as man and elf crashed together in a scrape of steel. For a second their swords locked, sending a spray of black paint flaking away as the blades ground together, then the ranger shoved his opponent off and into my cage. I tried to grab his long hair through the bars, but the elf ducked away and aimed a warning cut at my fingers.

  The fight split apart and again the single ranger faced off against two elves. They circled warily, like a trio of caged animals feeling out each other’s strength, neither side daring to get within the weapon-reach of the other.

  The spear-wielding elf shouted and lunged, stealing the ranger’s attention as his companion darted in with his curved sword high.

  “Look out!” I shouted, but it was too late. The gleaming sword bit into the ranger’s shoulder, driving him to his knees even as he deflected the spearpoint that would otherwise have pierced his throat. I winced in sympathy. The elf’s sword came down again and the ranger slapped it away with his own blade, but his reaction was slower with his injured sword-arm.

  I had to help.

  It was possible to do magic without implements. I had proven it by freezing Eneri at the armory wagon. But could I enchant a sword from yards away? Did I need to be touching it to imbue it with magic, or was I really talking to some sort of animistic spirit within the blade that merely needed a little convincing?

  My voice was loud as I called the words of the spell, focusing on the ranger’s black sword. I could feel it listening to me, pushing back against my request that it give up something of itself to win this fight. The combatants ignored me as I began to shout: maybe my voice was lost against the noise of clashing steel and shuffling boots, or maybe they had all just fallen into the total focus of a life-or-death battle.

  A blue gleam flashed along the edge of the ranger’s sword as he raised it to meet an overhand chop from the curved elven blade. The swords met and with a shower of sparks and a noise like a buzzsaw, the ranger’s sword cut the elf’s clean through. The elf barely had time to register shock on his pale face before the ranger flicked his wrist and brought his sword back around to sever the elf’s arm between elbow and shoulder.

  The ranger leapt to his feet, sword twirling in his hand. Two quick slashes cut the other elf’s spear to pieces, leaving him nothing to defend himself with against the ranger’s lunge that pierced his heart and sheared through his chest as he fell dead to the cobblestones.

  The blue-eyed ranger captain approached my cage, keeping one wary eye on the elves as though he wasn’t sure of the limits of their mortality.

  “Leave me in here,” I said as he raised his enchanted sword to chop the lock off my cage.

  “Why?”

  “The rest of my party is still captive. I need to stay to help them.”

  The ranger glanced back at the forest, where the sounds of fighting had died away. “We can free them and run for it.”

  “Trust me,” I said. “We’re safer where we are and we’d just slow your team down.”

  “My men are gone.” The ranger dropped his hand and let the gleaming sword dangle from his grip.

  “Then you can make it out,” I said. “Just disappear. Head south and get to Wellpoint before this army does. Somebody needs to warn them.”

  The Language of Peace

  From my iron cage I watched the miles roll by as the elven army approached Wellpoint. We skirted the Wyvern Peaks by way of Dann’s Teeth, taking the same route so many human adventurers had trod in the last five years. As we crossed the gray landscape of the Battle Plains, the Eldest stopped the column for an hour to kneel and perform what looked like a ritual offering, burying new-forged weapons deep in the chalky dust and calling a long list of names to the sky.

  We skirted the White Chasm without incident and entered the Near Plains. A few elven platoons, all of them with green-painted armor, paused by the blue roses I’d discovered on our first trip out of town. They seemed to be arguing about something, though I couldn’t make out what as my wagon rolled past. Eventually they formed up again and fell
in as the column marched over the gently rolling hills, trampling flat the grass beneath its many boots and leaving a muddy scar a hundred yards wide in its wake.

  The army camped a mile outside Wellpoint and woke early the next morning. Scytri brought me food and water as the soldiers all around me polished their swords and spears, patched holes and replaced weak leather straps on their chain mail, and had their final meal before the battle that now felt as inevitable as sunrise.

  I was desperate to ask Scytri about the rest of Hearthammer, whether they were still safe and sane hidden in their crates, whether he’d been able to let them out for a break last night, but as platoons jogged past and Scytri’s own men ran back and forth spreading his orders, I never got a chance.

  As the chaos of the camp resolved itself into something approaching a battle-ready order, a shout rose up from the rear guard. My heart leapt and for a second I let myself hope that help had come in some unexpected form, but I quickly realized I was hearing the sound of joy rather than panic. Officers called for discipline as scattered soldiers broke off to go running north towards the back of the camp, then came straggling back in ones and twos. I was baffled until I realized that the elves hadn’t returned alone: they were accompanied by gold dogs, which trotted at their heels and in some excitable cases, weaved between legs, yipping and snapping their pincers playfully.

  The elves looked overjoyed to see the monsters. Even Scytri had one and as he passed me he drew a gold coin from under his red cloak and tossed it in the air; the creature at his heels snagged it midflight with its pincers and trotted it back to its master just like a dog with a stick. Apparently, our nickname hadn’t been so far off the mark.

  The officers shouted their men into a neat column at last and the army covered the last mile to Wellpoint, leaving its baggage train behind. My friends were in there somewhere and as my cage rattled along behind Scytri’s men, all I could do for them was hope.