Luthiel's Song: The War of Mists

by Robert Marston Fannéy

  “We don’t have time to fight her!” Mithorden cried. “The fires!”

  “Leave me!” Ecthellien yelled.

  Before anyone could speak another word, dragonfire was upon them. Mithorden held his sword up and the light at its tip filled the globe with brilliance—walling out the flames. It surged over them, but was flung back.

  Then the dragon was on the ground before them, claws ripping rock and stone.

  I will eat you.

  Dragon eyes shimmered with hunger and Luthiel knew Narhoth would never give up the hunt. Not until she drank her blood, cracked her bones.

  “You will not have her!” Ecthellien cried. He leapt from Othalas’s back and pointed his sword at the dragon. “Stand aside!” With his left hand he pulled a dagger from its sheath. Give me your hand, he thought to her.

  There was so much force in Ecthellien’s thought that she extended her arm immediately. Hot pain erupted from her hand as Ecthellien expertly cut it. She cried out, but before she could draw her hand back, Ecthellien slid the blade of his sword over her wound. Blood flowed and from it a golden light seemed to rise up, wreathing Ecthellien and his sword. Then he sprang away from her rushing toward the dragon.

  “Liel! Named and marked! Rune of Luthiel! Give me strength to defend her!”

  Ecthellien collided with the dragon and the crash, for an instant, drowned out the fires’ roar. Ecthellien’s sword flashed—once, twice. Where it fell dragon scale shattered. The dragon, whose eyes for the first time were drawn away from Luthiel, struck back. Fangs flashed and a great clawed hand lashed out. Ecthellien leapt aside.

  Luthiel drew her hand back. On it was a cut in the shape of a rune. Golden blood spilled from it, covering her hand.

  He marked me!

  Without another thought, Luthiel drew an arrow. Blood spilled from her hand and onto the shaft. Tipped in Marim, the arrowhead gleamed blue.

  Blue for my mother!

  Blue for her moon!

  Blue for water!

  Water for fire!

  She sang it all in a rush as the arrow seemed to leap from her hand and onto her bowstring. The bowstring felt light as wind itself beneath her fingertips and the arrow flew from it, then disappeared into the dragon. A shudder passed over Narhoth as she let out a terrible cry. The sound of it made Luthiel’s ears feel as though they crumpled and then were made to turn inside out. When the dragon faced her again, Luthiel could see the arrow protruding from a bloody eyelid. It gathered for a lunge and Luthiel fumbled with her second arrow.

  I don’t have time.

  Othalas was faster. She felt him tense beneath her. There was a sudden scrambling and a jolt that almost flung her from the werewolf’s back. The world seemed all a blur of fire and rock. When her eyes grew clear again she saw that the wolf had, in a few great bounds, taken them around the drake’s left flank. They were rushing up the path toward the Lilani! The dragon lurched but was unable to spin fast enough to follow the wolf. Fangs snapped, claws cut but each met only air. Then the great beast rolled, turning so her spines faced them and lashed out with her tail. Luthiel could see it, large as a wall, rushing toward them. But again, Othalas was faster. He gathered himself and, stretching his great legs, leapt through the air at the last moment. Both tail and spines passed beneath them.

  “Hold fast!” Mithorden yelled.

  Luthiel, who still held her bow in her left hand, was forced to grasp with only her right. They landed hard and she felt herself falling. Then, Mithorden’s hand was on her back. Holding her down. She looked up. In a few bounds, Othalas had carried them to the spire’s far side. Luthiel watched on in terror as the dragon turned to follow.

  Suddenly, there was a loud cry of Luthiel! Luthiel! and she saw Ecthellien rush forward, striking the dragon on its flank. A long gash appeared and blood fell. The dragon screamed and drew back, clutching at its wound. Luthiel felt its gaze leave her. But her dread came back when she saw it turn on Ecthellien. A deep rumble sounded in its throat. It reared, spreading its wings wide. A shadow fell over him. Beneath it, he looked tiny and alone. Then it crashed down on him—biting, tearing, spewing fire.

  “No!” Luthiel said. “We can’t leave him!”

  “We must!” Mithorden yelled back at her. “The fires!”

  As they climbed the spire, Luthiel could see them joining together in a great blaze. Even the air was beginning to burn as columns of flame stretched up to the sky.

  “The firestorm is upon us!” Mithorden shouted. “Let the Vyrl fight!”

  Ecthellien’s sword flashed, breaking Dragon scale. Narhoth cried out. Still the mighty fangs snapped and still Ecthellien leapt aside. From the pits flames belched and a cloud of smoke rose up.

  She could no longer see him.

  “Ecthellien!” Luthiel yelled.

  Then they were on top of the rock. All around them the lands burned. The light hurt her eyes. She saw the pool, untouched by fire. Two bounds brought them plunging into it. This time the change was instant and the chill welcome as balm.

  A Companion Lost

  They rose up from a scarlet pool. Above, Silva shone in fullness and Merrin waned gibbous. Othalas collapsed and she rolled on the ground choking and crying.

  “He’s gone,” she sobbed. “He’s gone.” But more terrible was the unspoken thought—

  It was my doing. My anger caused this.

  Mithorden put an arm around her. For a time he just stood there, letting Luthiel cry on without saying a word.

  “If he is, then we should honor him by not giving up.”

  “Could he survive?” she sobbed. “The fire, the dragon?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied grimly. He pulled a jar from his steaming pack and motioned to her.

  “Come here, you’re burned.”

  He smoothed the cool stuff over patches of her burned and blistered skin. It tingled and some of the pain dimmed.

  “I was afraid something would happen. The moment you mentioned Cauthraus, I dreaded going there. And now, Ecthellien’s lost. We should never have come!”

  She grabbed Mithorden and looked him in the eyes.

  “The way was guarded. You didn’t know?”

  Mithorden met her gaze, his bright eyes flashing. Gently but firmly, he lifted her hands from his robes.

  “All ways were guarded,” he said in a soft voice. “And no, I didn’t know. I feared it.” He looked away and then spoke more firmly. “We may see worse things than dragons before the end.”

  “Worse things than dragons?” Melkion grumbled. “Not all dragons are like Narhoth. It’s her kind that made the elves fear dragons in the first place.” He landed on the ground beside her and ran his tail-tip through her hair as he hissed. The sensation was oddly soothing. She glanced at the dragon and was shocked to find fierce concern in his eyes.

  “Here, I’ll give you a chance to do some good,” the sorcerer said, placing the balm beside Melkion. “Smooth this on her hurts.”

  He handed her one of his waterskins. “Drink too.”

  Melkion dabbed his tail in the fair-smelling stuff and began spreading it over her burns. She lay still, allowing the dragon to tend her, taking small sips of the hot water. Her throat was raw and cracked. The water stung terribly as it went down. Mithorden stood quietly by with his arms crossed. He glanced at the werewolf who’d sprawled out on the ground, taking long, deep breaths.

  “Luthiel Valkire,” Mithorden said. “I will not have you speaking this way. Do you think Ecthellien would have put himself at such great risk only to see us give up now? We are here for a reason. And there is still hope. If not for Ecthellien, then for Elshael and Ahmberen, and for elves too. Do you understand, Luthiel?”

  She shook her head and guilt flooded into her.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “The terrors he allowed! I couldn’t understand. Now he’s gone.”

  “I remember what you said,” he replied. “Do you think now, that he’s earned his forgiveness?”

  Luthie
l shrugged struggling with herself. “I—sometimes I can’t believe I’m even trying to help them. When I saw the Widdershae—” she broke off, shuddering at the memory. “It gave me a glimpse of what the Vyrl did long ago. Of what they did to children too. Can you ever forgive that?” She looked back at Mithorden, anger and grief waging a silent war inside her.

  “Most Vyrl did not choose their madness,” he said. “They are a fallen race. When the eldest of them decided to serve Gorthar, their descendants fell under a curse. One wrong choice that echoed down through the ages, leaving no Vyrl or other dreaming race untouched. Before your father came, Ecthellien never had a chance.”

  For a moment, she looked into Mithorden’s sad eyes. She saw her grief reflected there and had to look away.

  “The Vyrl did what they thought they had to,” Mithorden continued sadly. “To survive.”

  “How could there ever be an excuse?” she said, shaking her head again. The scenes of Ecthellien facing the dragon flashed through her mind alongside the terror of the Widdershae feeding on elves. One did not fit with the other. Yet the Vyrl was a part of both.

  “How would you have him make amends?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, barely holding back the tears. “I just want him back.”

  Mithorden nodded grimly. “It is a hard, hard thing, Luthiel,” he said more softly. “Ecthellien is guilty of terrors. And he fought to save us from the dragon. What does he deserve? Blame or forgiveness?”

  “Blame?” Luthiel croaked, looking up at the sorcerer.

  “Yes blame,” he said firmly. “That’s your choice Luthiel. To blame or to forgive.”

  Luthiel took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. With the loss of Ecthellien, she felt as if something had been ripped out of her. There was hope for good in the Vyrl. She’d reawakened it. And now, for Ecthellien, there would never be another chance.

  “How can I judge?” she said at last. “To me, he is a hero. To the world a monster.” She let her head fall into her arms and started crying quietly. “I miss him! Curse him! I miss him!”

  Mithorden put a hand on her shoulder and let her cry for a few minutes. A sad smile slowly spread across his face. “I’m glad you can forgive him,” He said at last.

  Luthiel lifted her head. “How do you know?”

  “Because you miss him.”

  Luthiel blinked, then slowly nodded. A part of her was still angry with Ecthellien but the other part wanted him back, wanted him to have the opportunity to make amends.

  “It is hard.”

  “It is the best and most difficult thing you will ever do,” the sorcerer replied.

  “I just wish I had another chance with him,” she said.

  Mithorden looked away. “At least you can do for Ahmberen and Elshael what you would have done for him.”

  Luthiel nodded sadly, then glanced at Othalas who was lying on the ground, panting.

  “Poor, brave Othalas,” she said. “I cannot imagine how he bore us even as the poison was running through him. Do you think he will live?”

  Mithorden smiled.

  “It would take more than Widder venom and a hard run to kill that wolf,” he said.

  “I wish we could stay with him, for tonight, at least—to give him comfort.”

  Mithorden shook his head. “We will—he’s coming with us.”

  “But he’s too weak to walk,” she said.

  “Not yet, I think,” the sorcerer replied.

  Mithorden stood.

  “We’d best be moving. If the drake survived, then she may come after us. Othalas!”

  The werewolf grumbled but managed to stand. The smell of blood rose off him and Luthiel shuddered at how gruesome he looked. Yet he stood and walked regardless.

  Mithorden picked up the jar of balm and put it back into his pack. He held his hand out to her. She took it and soon she was standing on her feet again.

  It hurt to walk; her blistered and cracked skin protested with each step, but she made her way as best she could. She followed the sorcerer down an animal trail. Melkion landed on the werewolf’s head, perching there instead of on Luthiel’s shoulder, which was covered with splotches of burned skin. He settled down into the fur and looked warily about.

  The werewolf didn’t even seem to notice.

  Slowly, and painfully at first, they made their way away from the Lilani. The pool dropped out of sight as they plunged through a dense patch of woods and made their way into a grassy area beyond. If anything rose up from the Lilani that night, neither she, dragon, werewolf nor sorcerer heard it.

  The silence in her mind with the Vyrls’ absence was like a hole in her head. She felt surprised at how lonely she was without their thoughts. It made the loss of Ecthellien that much more unbearable. She kept thinking things and expecting those thoughts to be heard or expecting to hear the whisper of thoughts in return. When she was in the Vale with them it was as present to her as a heartbeat. But now there was nothing.

  She remembered longing for such solitude. Now she feared it.

  In a haze of exhaustion and pain, Luthiel walked on. Occasionally, she would lean against Othalas for support. But it seemed the great wolf was faring worse than even she. When she touched him, blood oozed up through his fur and stuck to her hand in greasy clumps. He walked with an awkward gait, as if afraid of breaking something inside him.

  The smell of blood filled the air. Having ridden on the bloody werewolf for so long, both she and Mithorden were covered in it. She wondered if she would ever get its stink off of her.

  I bet we make a gruesome sight, she thought wryly.

  But worse than the pain, the blood, the exhaustion, or her worry for Othalas was her grief for Ecthellien.

  “No one but the Vyrl and I will mourn him,” she whispered. “But he is as great a hero as any I’ve heard named in legend.”

  “What’s that?” Melkion hissed.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “I miss him too,” Melkion whispered.

  She nodded, walking on in silence.

  A Secret Return

  The land rose and fell gently. Here and there she could see wild flir-bug bulbs glittering among the trees. She let her hand trail through a velsoph, sighing as its soft petals brushed her sore fingers. Above her, the three sisters shone down—Merrin’s blue crescent seemed to smile, and the pair of Lunen and Silva glistened like white and silver coins among a diamond blaze of stars. The ribbons of summer’s night threaded on through midsky and then fell away eastward, lit by strange flickers and soft glows. Their shadow sides trailed into the north where barely-visible fingers of blackness edged the night. In the Vale, she could seldom see much more than moons at night as the mists would obscure all but the brightest stars. But here the sky had depth and she felt she could reach out and touch the luminaries. Luthiel smiled at the sight despite herself. There was a sense of home about these woods, this sky, and she knew as much as felt that she was traveling through some part of the Minonowe.

  As they crested one of the gentle rises she caught a glimpse of a sparkling river to the south. It dipped east then west before disappearing between the arms of two hills.

  “Is that the river Rendalas?” she asked.

  Mithorden nodded. “We’re north and east of the Vale. It and the Mounds of Losing stand at our right shoulder. The elves have gathered away from the hills and the Widdershae webs.”

  “How far to the Vale?” she asked.

  “No more than a day’s march.”

  Luthiel felt her skin prickle. It was closer to the spiders than she liked.

  They continued on into the night and she descended into a state of numbness. Her body hurt in more places than she could count and the silence in her mind seemed to gnaw at her. After a while her sense of desolation lessened as she became aware of the peaceful wood. A small brook trickled beside her, leaves whispered a lullaby, her feet made soft crunching sounds in the underbrush, and great wolf’s feet plodded beside her. The sounds lulle
d her and soon she began to feel her eyes shutting. There was peace—more than she’d felt since leaving Flir Light. She began to wonder about sleep and sighed as they passed a comfy patch of moss beneath a whispering willow.

  “Here, this will do nicely,” Mithorden said suddenly and turned away from the path.

  “Where are you going?” Luthiel asked, a bit startled by the sorcerer’s sudden change of direction.

  “We’re getting close to the elves. I don’t want to be found looking like we’ve been bathed in blood. They may forgive me. But if they saw you—” he motioned to her shredded and bloodstained clothes.

  She laughed nervously. She’d been so worried about escaping the Vale she’d barely had time to get used to the idea that she was coming home.

  “I guess I don’t look very nice.”

  “You look like something scraped off Othalas’ better side,” Melkion quipped, pointing at Othalas’ rump with his tail.

  “Careful, dragonfly, I saw that,” the werewolf grumbled. “Wouldn’t want to end up squashed by the big nasty wolf.” Othalas shook his head and the motion seemed to take Melkion by surprise as he almost fell off. The dragon hissed, flared his wings, and scrambled to gain purchase on the wolf’s matted fur.

  Luthiel grinned. This was the first time she’d heard the wolf talk in hours. She felt relieved to hear his voice. To her ear, it sounded a bit more like the old Othalas—not so muffled and gurgling as before.

  “So how are we going to clean up?” she asked.

  “I smell water.” Mithorden stretched out his hand and parted some branches. Beyond lay a pool glimmering under the moonlight. The water was clear and little flower petals danced on its surface. Luthiel pushed her way in front of Mithorden.

  “I’ll go first,” she said with a smirk at Melkion. “I don’t particularly like resembling something from a werewolf’s backside.”