Elohl contemplated the sharp crags of the Eleski mountain range one last time as the boat pulled up alongside the short dock on the southwestern shore of the Elsee. Their jutted, snowcapped peaks faced him this morning, free of clouds. Their shining tips shone cold and bright, uncaring of the hardships of men. The morning had dawned glorious, but it had been a miserable night aboard the boat, sluicing rain. Elohl had huddled between the ships’ railing and his pack, trying to stay warm, unable to. Freezing, he’d slept fitfully between rings of the ships bell and shouts of sailors, until the sun finally came at dawn.
Muddled dreams had plagued him in the night. And now, they were half-remembered things as the day shone with sun, in strange contrast to the darkness of his nightmares. In his dreams, a door had loomed above him, snarling with a wolf and dragon fighting. A box, a puzzle, his throat choking with smoke. A steel-eyed man in herringbone leathers, a snarl of contempt upon his face as he broke into Elohl’s mind, dominating and sure. Lake-blue eyes watching it all, wrapping him in their chill tundra silence.
Elohl could still feel her. As if Ghrenna had stood just behind his shoulder, observing his nightmares, reliving them with him. Stepping down the gangplank now, Elohl rubbed a hand behind his neck, working out the kinks that stitched him. The sun was warm on his sodden skin, his breath misting like the vegetation by the lakeshore, putting off curls of steam where the sunbeams touched. Hefting his pack more securely upon his shoulders, he reached up, adjusting his sword for trekking. The touch of cool steel eased him. Something about it was like the memory of Ghrenna. Certain. Practical. Implacable.
Surveying the shore, Elohl noted that there were no wagons to cart him the rest of the way to Lintesh, just as he had expected. The handful of High Brigade who had been aboardship had left the boat at the first inlet, a cart-track through the mountains to Quelsis. Wagons waited at this stop for the Longvalley Brigade fellows, most of whom only served two years. Lord’s sons with a cushy post in a valley surrounded by impenetrable mountains patrolled by the High Brigade, they saw little of the Red Valor. The Longvalley boys were soft, muttering and moaning about the rain. Young faces with hardly a beard to them, they clambered up on the wains as if every bone ached.
But Elohl was a veteran, and hardship was familiar. He’d never had a wagon to cart his gear in the passes and he didn’t need one now. Shaking out his oiled raincloak, he slung it across his pack to dry, re-shouldered his burden, and took to his feet upon the shoulder of the byway. He heard the crack of a whip and a lowing of oxen as the Longvalley wains rolled out. One splashed through the slurried cart-track as it passed, spattering Elohl’s hazel-colored cloak with mud. One by one, the carts rolled by. No one offered the weather-beaten Brigadier a ride, and the teamsters didn’t slow.
At last, they were out of sight and he was alone walking the ruts. Sun flooded down through the scattering clouds, hot already. Signs of late spring were here in the lowmountains. Daffodils and red harlen-bush in bloom. The last of the crocuses gone. Leaves of leatheroak and shudder-maple unfurling past their luminous green and beginning to darken as the warm days dawned.
It would be full summer further down in the King’s City. Something about that thought made heat sear up his throat, clenching his chest. Elohl unbuckled his jerkin halfway and unlaced his shirt to bare his skin, craving the fresh air. His Inkings were plain to view in the dappled sunlight that cascaded down over the road. But there was no one to see him out here, no one to challenge him or call him Blackmark.
A creeping unrest itched over his flesh. Not just his bared skin, but all over his body, like ants devouring him to his fingertips. Elohl halted, gazing around, scanning every bit of verge, every shadow along the byway. But there was nothing, no one. Just a feeling of dread, a sensation of unease.
And suddenly, it hit him. He could see it all, just as it had been. Late summer, the leaves of the trees curling and browned. Cicadas thrumming in his ears. The creaking of the cart’s wheels as it bumped over the ruts. Chafing pain where the iron manacles bit his wrists, his ankles. Watching this very scenery, his heart full of anguish and his mind empty with astonishment. Astonishment and a young man’s consuming fear. That his world had crumbled, that his people were gone, that he was a captive and soon had a choice to make: serve the King as a Brigadier or be put to the sword.
He’d almost chosen the sword.
Elohl’s throat tightened, burning. He pulled his shirt open more, closing his eyes, inhaling deep, fighting for calm. Woods were just woods. A cart-track was just a cart-track. He’d breathed summer air for ten years after that day, and he lived to breathe it still. Nothing had changed. At last, the burning in his chest subsided. He opened his eyes, drawing a deep inhalation, feeling it all smooth back over, his inner lake glassy and placid once more.
Ten years had ended. Ten years were finally over. And now the path left him was to go to Lintesh and face his past, whatever might be found of it now. One hand reached up, touching the leather-wrapped pommel of his sword. The steel cross-guard slid beneath his fingers, smooth and cool.
Ghrenna’s presence rose in his mind. Calm. Controlled.
Elohl took a step forward, and his feet walked him on.
His morning passed, uneventful but for the sighting of a magnificent eight-point buck browsing by the roadside. Just as he was considering stopping for a noon meal of dried elk meat from his pack, Elohl spied a sprawling cottage near the road. A cheery affair with a byrunstone foundation and a wicker-woven porch, smoke drifted from the chimney welcomingly. As Elohl approached, he saw a sigil of Innship on a signboard out front. Halting his stride, he regarded the empty porch. Continuing on, there was no guarantee of an inn further down the road. And though he could sleep rough by the roadside, the promise of a real bed rather than a soldier’s cot or pine boughs, was alluring.
Elohl tromped up. He announced his presence by knocking mud off his boots on the porch boards, as he drew his shirt lacings closed to hide his Inkings. A pretty young woman with a long honey-blonde braid over one shoulder peered through the summer screen, paused, then opened it. Good smells of bread and hearth drifted out to churn Elohl’s belly. She looked him up and down, taking in the state of his worn military gear with an arched blonde eyebrow. “High Brigade?”
“Yes, milady.” Elohl nodded, suddenly conscious of how he must look to her, gruff and worn. For the first time in years, he found himself wishing he had stopped to shave and wash.
“Milady!” She laughed, her pretty heart-shaped face instantly more friendly. He saw the cordage on her wrist relax, heard the hollow thump of a cast-iron pan being set down just inside the doorframe. Her work-roughened hand came into sight, and she ushered him in.
“Not Milady! Goodness, do I look that old? Just Eleshen! Eleshen den’Fhenrir. Well? Come in! Eleshen’s Boarding Rooms, right here. I’ve got mitlass on the stove, though we don’t get many visitors. Those Longvalley lord’s boys never stop, you see, and all I really get are the Elsee fisherfolk and High Brigade fellows like yourself. Though not many of those, either.”
She clucked her tongue and henned over him in a motherly fashion, though she wasn’t any older than Elohl. Elohl slung his pack to the porch, leaving it in the sunshine to dry. He bent to unlace his sodden kneeboots, to leave them out also.
The innkeeper held out her hand impudently. “I’ll set your cloak up on the line to dry. I can take your jerkin and shirt, too, Brigadier. Just give them here, now!” Her hands reached out, trying to undo the last buckles on his jerkin.
“It’s fine, really… I’ll just let them dry as I eat.” Elohl moved her hands away.
But the feisty innkeeper wouldn’t have it. “No, they need drying, you are just soaked through!” Her fingers fussed and Elohl finally relented, letting her help him out of his still-damp jerkin. But when her feisty hands tried to pull his wet shirt from his trousers, he flinched back, not wanting her to see his Inkings and be upset by them.
“No, really, I’ll just l
eave it on.”
She eyeballed him, green eyes cool. “You’re going to take sick in a damp shirt like that, sunshine or no sunshine. Spring isn’t over yet up here. Or have you got the belly-blisters? Let me see, now… I have a salve for that.”
“No, it’s not that, just…”
“Just what? Shuck it, or you don’t eat!”
A flash of irritation lanced through Elohl, resistant of a woman’s fussing, and he blinked. He had forgotten what it was like, to have women in your life. How charming and demanding they could be. This woman didn’t care how often he had starved in a blizzard, rubbing his chest with blue hands to try to keep warm. She didn’t care that he could walk a hundred leagues in three days and still climb to a lookout. She didn’t care how many men had tried to knife him or cut his line, or had stolen in to slit his throat in his bunk.
She won’t care about my Inkings.
Elohl paused, then pulled his wet shirt off over his head. He heard the innkeeper’s sharp breath. When their eyes met, hers were full of pity. She held out her hand for the shirt, and he gave it up. But instead of taking the clothes away, she piled the wet laundry dismissively on a side table and grasped his hand, pulling him towards the fire in the kitchen.
“Sit, please! Please! My hearth is yours. Please, you must not pay for your meal, it wouldn’t be right. You must eat and rest the night. No charge.”
“I'm more than happy to pay... I can afford it...” Elohl murmured, embarrassed at her manner, thinking that he must look penniless with his worn gear and scruff of beard.
“No! No charge. I insist!”
“No, really, a Brigadier's stipend is more —”
“I don’t get many Kingsmen here.” She interrupted, then blushed furiously to the roots of her hair and looked down. Then looked back up, bold. “Please. It's the least I can do for your service. For your real service, I mean.”
Elohl blinked, surprised. Heat flared up his throat, clenching it. It had been a long time since someone had said such a thing to him, and it stung, to hear it now after wanting it so long. And here, in the house of a sweet stranger, he sat wordlessly upon the long bench at the rough table by the kitchen fire, succumbing to a tumbling riot of emotions too thick and fast to tease apart or even respond to.
And when she placed a bowl of mutton mitlass in his hands, he found his hands trembling. She held him, pressed his hands between hers for just a moment. Elohl’s eyes flicked up, meeting hers. And as he watched, he saw his own raw pain reflected in her visage. She flushed crimson at the cheeks and looked down, released his hands. Then bustled away, whisking up his laundry and marching out the back door of the guesthouse.
Elohl heard her singing a lilting march as she pinned his clothes to the line. An Alrashemni war-song. It dove into him, the rhythm a striking of swords on the practice grounds, a pounding of drums around the fire, dancing at the midsummer celebrations in Alrashesh. His chest burned, his throat tight. He watched the innkeeper’s movements through the open window, saw her pat her cheeks and rub her eyes as if she shed tears before stomping back up the porch. Inside, she was all business as if their moment had never occurred. Offering him fresh-baked bread to accompany his meal, she gave him good salt with rosemary and winter pepperberry, and sheepsbutter flavored with thyme. Hunkered by the fire, Elohl watched her as he ate, flooded with memories, wondering about her manner.
But the innkeeper said not another word. She bustled about her business with a quick smile, pouring a tot of ale for Elohl and leaving a flagon of well-water before hustling off to the backrooms. Elohl lifted the ale to his lips, swigging it back to drown a myriad of emotions that tried to surface. But where once drinking had drowned the memories, its effects over time was to simply make him brood, as it was doing now.
The innkeeper Eleshen returned, just as Elohl swigged the last of his ale and his stew. Whisking to the table, she swept up the dishes with a quick smile, then shucked them into the washbasin with a deafening clatter. Washing with gusto, her movements were sloppy and imprecise. Elohl found he couldn’t remain seated any longer. It was habit from the highmountains, taking care of his own messes, and it felt strange to have someone do it for him after all this time. He stood and approached, taking a dish and submerging it, scrubbing with a woven rag alongside her.
“Now, see here! You don’t have to… I mean… that’s not for you to…” Her gaze was upon the dishes, but Elohl saw her gaze flick to his upturned wrists as he scrubbed his dish. She made a small dismayed sound, seeing the twin ragged scars there, one at each wrist. Elohl quickly turned his hands over, still washing, mountain-tanned skin at the backs of his forearms showing now only rope-burns and fighting slashes he’d taken over the years.
“Aeon!” The innkeeper’s cheeks went positively crimson. She shifted her stance in a hasty, uncoordinated way. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to… I mean they were just there…!”
Seeing his self-inflicted scars had upset her. Elohl could feel it, like a wave pulsing from her body. The flustered innkeeper stepped backwards suddenly, still flushing, and stumbled over a wooden stool behind her, falling sideways and upsetting the washbasin. And though he'd had a bit to drink, Elohl’s reflexes were quick as a darting heron. With that uncanny instinct that had kept him alive far too long, he stabilized the washbasin with one hand and caught her around the waist with the other, pulling her close.
The pretty innkeeper’s breath was high above her woven corset and white blouse. Her weight felt good to Elohl; her slender waist fit nicely in the crook of his arm. A need stirred, something denied most of his years in the High Brigade. Cerulean eyes surfaced in his vision, cool, clear. But suddenly, the truth was plain to Elohl. If Ghrenna was alive, she hadn’t come to him. Hadn’t seen his whereabouts in any vision, or didn’t care to search. He was alone in the wilderness and those twin lakes were just that; lakes to drown himself in. Lakes he had drowned himself in for years.
Memories of a woman long gone.
But this woman here, now, was sweet and kind, and she smelled of rosemary bread and lavender honey. Elohl’s nose was in her hair, his lips breathing in scent by her throat. She made a low, obliterated sound, sinking into his body, molding to him like a cloak in the rain. His breath was fast; hers was faster. But Elohl wasn’t a rogue, and he wouldn’t take advantage. He inhaled slow and deep, as he had been taught long ago. Setting the innkeeper Eleshen on her feet carefully, he stepped back.
“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to… you could have been hurt…”
But the words had hardly left his mouth when she moved forward, lips rising to his. His careful calm shattered with the shock of that kiss. How sweet she tasted, how warm she was. Elohl’s arms were around the pretty innkeeper, drawing her close, his heart full of need just as her lips were. And then they were sinking to the kitchen floor, finding a sudden and unexpected sweetness to round out the mitlass and the bright spring sunshine.
Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Sword and Highland Magic Page 5
