by Anne Logston
(A good thought,) Dusk replied when Chyrie relayed the message. (I will send our best poisons, and their antidotes as well, and also salves and potions. The Dawn’s Edges say they will send their Gifted One, as she is a ripe female. She is an exceptional healer and known to be well versed in plant lore, both poisons and medicines. What of the weapons the lord promised?)
(Some mages have arrived here, but the weapons for our people have not yet come,) Chyrie told him. (I will see that they are sent to the forest as soon as they arrive.)
(Then I will contact you again as new tidings arrive,) Dusk thought, vanishing from her awareness.
Chyrie quickly told Val what Dusk had relayed to her, and Valann frowned in consternation.
“Sharl said we could expect the barbarians to arrive in less than two months,” Chyrie said. “But why do they attack now?”
“These are but small advance groups,” Valann said thoughtfully, “such as the one Sharl and his people pursued into the forest. But it may well be that they will arrive sooner than expected. Sharl must be informed of this.”
“Now?” Chyrie sighed, clinging to Valann.
“Are you not wearied by your conversation with Dusk?” he asked, grinning.
“No, for it is he who sent his thoughts out, as I did this morning,” Chyrie said. She ran her hands down Val’s skin, warm in the water. “Must we go now to warn Sharl?”
“He said he was going to meet with his advisers,” Val said, nuzzling the back of her neck. “Perhaps there is no need for us to rush immediately to him.”
Chyrie turned to him, then grimaced when her belly interposed itself between them.
“Soon I shall be too heavy and round to couple,” she groaned.
Valann laughed.
“Not so very soon,” he said. He lifted her with one hand, taking advantage of her body’s buoyancy in the water. “And should you become too heavy, then we must simply find another pool of water.”
He tossed her suddenly away from him, letting her splash resoundingly into the deeper water, and she emerged sputtering; before she could protest, however, he covered her mouth with his.
“Two days,” Sharl groaned. “I had no idea they’d start arriving so soon. Nothing’s prepared. Where am I going to put all those elves?”
“We can’t put them anywhere except the keep,” Rivkah said unhappily. “The people are too hostile.”
“Our room alone would hold many,” Valann said reasonably. “We are not like your people, to desire so much empty space and solitude, and we do not require raised beds for comfort. A few rooms such as ours would likely hold all the clans will send, and this is the safest place in the city for them.”
“My advisers are in an uproar,” Sharl said grimly. “This is moving too fast for the people. Some of them will likely flee westward, abandoning their lands and the city. They have reason to hate the elves, and this sudden invasion, if you will, is going to cause problems. I thought I’d have more time to ease them into it. I’ll have to have a gathering in the square and address the people as soon as I can arrange it, tomorrow if I can.”
“Perhaps news of an alliance with the elves would reassure them,” Rivkah mused. “There’s been some unrest simply because of that hostility. I’ve heard folk talk of leaving for that reason alone.”
“Why would they leave?” Chyrie asked, surprised. “This is their home.”
“You don’t understand,” Sharl told her. “Most of the people haven’t really had time to settle here. They came for the promise of good land and the possibility that one day this would be a prosperous trade city. It’s all a gamble to them. There’s no assurance to them that the city will be here for their children, no promise of continuity. Why shouldn’t they gamble on another, more established city?”
“That is the question you must answer for them,” Valann said patiently. “You brought them here, believing this would be a great city, and they believed because you did. You must make them see that you still believe, and they will believe with you. If you wish them to stand firm and put down roots in this soil, you must show them that you, too, will do so. Do you understand?”
Sharl frowned, then slowly nodded.
“I think I do,” he said. He turned to Rivkah, sighing.
“I’ve always been better with swords than words,” he said. “And I’ve never been skilled in dealing kindly with people. I’ve always relied on you for that. Will you stand with me tonight?”
“Of course.” Rivkah smiled, taking his hand.
“And tomorrow,” Sharl said slowly, grinning crookedly, “when I can arrange for a priest, will you stand with me as my wife?”
Rivkah’s smile faded, and the color drained from her face.
“You can’t mean that,” she said. “It would ruin your chance to make a marriage alliance with another city.”
Sharl shook his head.
“The alliance we need is with our forest neighbors,” he said, “and I want you to help me get it. It’s your choice, Rivkah. I couldn’t ask for a stronger High Lady at my side. But whatever you decide, I’ll declare your child my heir. I owe the people of this city that much hope.” He took her hand. “And I owe you much more than that.”
Valann groaned, utterly disrupting the mood. Sharl and Rivkah glanced irritatedly at him.
“You speak as if you were making a treaty,” he scolded Sharl. “Tell her you love her and then put her on the floor and prove it.”
Sharl looked back at Rivkah, raising one eyebrow challengingly.
“Well?” he said.
Rivkah laughed.
“Very well,” she said, forcing her face into a more serious expression. “I’ll marry you, Sharl, whenever it can be arranged. But I’ll not be tumbled on a cold stone dining-hall floor for the servants’ amusement. And you must meet with your captains to tell them the news, and arrange a town meeting tomorrow. I’ll start dispatching messengers to the farthest farms.”
“They will make a fit pair,” Valann said disgustedly as he and Chyrie left Sharl and Rivkah to their planning. “They both would rather talk than couple, even on the night they pledge to be mates.”
“And now we will likely get no evening meal,” Chyrie sighed, “and I am very hungry.”
Val chuckled.
“You have eaten five times today already,” he said. “Those young ones are more ravenous than a bear after his winter’s sleep. Come, we will find the place where their food is prepared and get our own meal.”
Rivkah had not shown them the kitchens, but the elves had only to follow their noses, reasoning correctly that if the lord ate hot food in the dining hall, the place where that food was prepared could not be too distant.
Valann and Chyrie, accustomed to preparing food and seeing it prepared over open fires, could never have imagined a place like the kitchens. The barrage on their senses—smells of numerous foods and smoke, the confusion of numbers of humans hurrying here and there, and the clamor of noises—almost made them retreat, but curiosity and hunger were stronger, and they marched boldly in.
Preparations for dinner were in progress, and at first the humans were too busy to notice their guests. When the first woman shrieked and dropped the bowl she had been carrying, however, all work stopped, and the humans stood staring in silence at this unexpected invasion.
“We would like food,” Valann said, a little uncertainly.
Several of the humans glanced worriedly at each other, and a few murmured together; finally one of the younger males nerved himself to come forward.
“Do you wish your dinner in your quarters?” he said very slowly and rather loudly, as if to make himself better understood.
“Why carry it so far?” Val asked, surprised. “We will eat here if there is a place for us.”
There was another moment of awkward silence, then hurriedly servants rushed to clear off space at the end of one of the tables, while others brought platters, goblets, and bowls. This time Val and Chyrie allowed the servants to pile u
p cushions for them to sit upon, for sitting on the table would have obviously taken up their work space.
“This is good food,” Chyrie said cheerfully, reaching for a second joint of fowl. “I admit it surprised me, how fine human food can be.” She looked dubiously, however, at the wine. “Have you any beer in this place?”
The young man who had spoken to them quickly poured tankards of cellar-cold beer, and the humans rather self-consciously returned to their work, not without frequent glances at the elves. By the time Valann and Chyrie had had their fill, the wary glances were occasionally interspersed with amused and even proud grins at the enthusiasm with which the elves attacked the food, and the uneasy servility had been replaced by a kind of jovial competition over whose preparations found the most favor with their guests.
As Valann and Chyrie expected, there was no invitation to join Rivkah and her teacher; Chyrie speculated that hopefully Rivkah’s teacher was being similarly neglected. They took advantage of their quiet evening to pay another visit to the bathing pool, and then took some wine—their own—and a couple of furs to the top of the watchtower Rivkah had shown them. They had been afraid that there might be night guards on the watchtower, but there were none; either they were all occupied elsewhere, or Sharl did not yet see the need for constant vigilance actually within the city.
They made themselves a comfortable seat on the wall in one of the cut-out niches, lining it with the soft fur, and settled there, one behind the other. From this height, the city seemed to sparkle with lights. The glow of fires in the streets and at hearths, torches, and lanterns all produced the illusion of a swarm of fireflies settling over the buildings.
“It is beautiful,” Valann admitted, wrapping warm arms around Chyrie. “Look, they have created their own forest—a forest of stone and light.”
Chyrie leaned back against him, enjoying, as always, the feeling of his hard chest against her back. The city was beautiful by moonlight, but it was a beauty that troubled her—a forest, yes, but of cold, dead stone. Fireflies, yes, but not living things. Despite the huge number of lives in this city, the city was a dead place feigning life.
“I do not want my children born here,” she murmured. “Not in this place. Please promise me that.”
“Yes, they must be born in the forest.” Valann kissed the back of her neck. “And you should be among our own people when your time comes upon you in any wise, although I fear no healer in the forest knows any more than I do about bringing two children at one birthing.”
Chyrie felt a gentle tug at her mind and looked toward the forest, recognizing Dusk’s touch. Her keen night vision picked out the approaching owl, and she gasped—-this was a great-grandfather owl, absolutely huge. There was no question of holding out her arm for this gigantic bird; Valann and Chyrie scrambled off the wall and stood back to give it room.
The ancient owl was so pale a gray as to be almost white. It did not land, but flapped ponderously down close to the top of the tower, dropped a packet, and rose laboriously again, this time making a circle of the city. Chyrie knew that in this darkness, there was little danger among the night-blind humans that one might try to shoot it, and doubtless Dusk wanted his own look at the human city.
“It is the map he promised,” Chyrie said, unfolding the skin. Many more clans had been marked from the preliminary map they had seen in Rowan’s hut.
Val was silent for a long moment.
“I have thought on this,” he said. “Do you think we are wise giving Sharl this map? From it he will know the location of each of the clans, something we have kept hidden even one clan from the other for so many centuries. He can guess our numbers as well. Should we trust the humans with this knowledge?”
Chyrie gazed worriedly at the map. The Wilding marker seemed very visible, very prominent on the map. She thought about how few the Wildings were, how vulnerable they were there at the edge of the forest, easily accessible, bounded by hostile clans who would slay them if they tried to flee deeper into the forest.
“It is too late for caution,” Chyrie said slowly. “Rowan did not conceal her map from the humans, and we ourselves showed her where to mark Wilding upon it. Now we can betray only out-kin. We must trust in the geas to protect us after this conflict, should these humans have an inclination to make use of this knowledge.”
“What you say is true. We will give him the map, but not at this moment.” Val rolled the skin again, and they resumed their cozy seat on the wall, watching the great owl turn back toward the dark blur of the forest.
Val rubbed his cheek against her short curls. “I know why you never let your hair grow, love.”
“Because it is cool and easy to care for.” Chyrie laughed, shaking her head so that her hair danced over Valann’s face. “Because I enjoy tickling your nose.”
“Because I am blessed with the kindest mate who ever took pity on a man embarrassed by his overabundant fur,” Val corrected. “But let it grow, love, if you wish, for in but a few months our kinfolk will be staring at our two children, and they would not see us if we were dyed blue.”
“What of one dyed every color the Mother Forest has ever created?” Chyrie teased, pushing up the sleeve of her tunic to display his latest rainbow-hued butterfly. “Am I not your silent boast of the extent of your gifts?”
“It is yours I envy,” Val said, in a tone so serious that it surprised Chyrie. “The wild blood in you is what first drew me to you, love. Sometimes through you I feel as though I touch the Mother Forest Herself.”
“Do you?” Chyrie turned to him and smiled. “At this moment I only wish you would touch me.”
Valann slid from their seat and lifted her carefully down to the waiting furs.
“Nothing”—he smiled back—“would please me more.”
Chapter Twelve
Cyrie shivered and stepped uneasily closer to Valann. She could never have imagined so many humans in one place. Massed together there in the marketplace, they looked like an army.
Sharl waited for the angry shouting to die down before he continued.
“These elves are only envoys,” he said. “There are whole clans in the forest who are joining us as allies. Other clans who refused are changing their minds. There are still some who do refuse, but we’ll work with the clans willing to help us. It is still my hope to forge a lasting peace with the elves, and it isn’t a vain hope. My journey through the forest, and these envoys at my side, they prove it.”
“They’ve killed many of us,” a man shouted, “including your own guard. Why should we trust them?”
“As I said, there are certain clans still hostile to us,” Sharl said. “They are angry at us, just as you would be angry if someone came onto your land and stole your livestock or trampled on your crops. The forest is their land, and when we hunt there, we are taking their livestock, the food from their children’s mouths. When we cut down the trees, we’re taking their shelter and their protection. They’ve only protected their land, just as I want to protect ours.”
A thoughtful murmur ran through the crowd, but another man stepped forward, and Chyrie recognized Romuel.
“If we can’t hunt or cut timber,” he shouted, “how will we survive? We need game and fruit to store against a siege. We need wood to build some of the fortifications, for our very homes, for fires. We can’t go on burning dung and river drift forever.”
“We’ll burn peat,” Sharl said. “I’ve had men cutting peat at the swamp’s edge for many months now. We’ve been burning it in the keep, and it burns well. Not hot enough for a forge, but wood doesn’t burn that hot, either. For that we’ll need black rock from the north, and I’ve already bargained for a large load to arrive within days. We’ll build your homes from stone, as we’ve been doing, and stone won’t burn down if our enemies shoot a fire arrow into it.”
“And what of food?” a woman called. “We can’t eat stone. If the city is besieged, we’ll starve, and now you say the elves are sending more mouths for us to feed.�
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“The elves who shelter here will bring their own food,” Sharl answered. “There’s still good hunting on the plains west of the river, and there’s fish in the Brightwater. I’ve been told that the elves who come to us will earn their keep helping us to fish and hunt, those who can, and even standing as bowmen in battle. Some are healers, and others have other magic they will use on our behalf. Some have skills they will teach us. They’re a brave folk, and I’m proud to have them stand beside me.”
“And how do you know they won’t turn on us?” the woman demanded. “How do you know they won’t take our city themselves, once they have a foothold in it?”
Sharl chuckled.
“I’ll let them answer that themselves,” he said, pushing Valann and Chyrie forward.
Chyrie gaped, shocked to silence, but Valann faced the woman squarely.
“We have lived in the forest century upon century,” he said. “Had we wanted a stone city, we could have long ago built one. We do not wish to live here anymore than you wish to live in the water like a fish. And we will not turn on you because we do not wish to trade one enemy for another. We wish only to protect our people and keep our homes, even as you do. Even those clans who will not ally with humans would not harm any of you, if you would keep from their lands and leave them be.”
“I’ve met with the leader of the elven alliance,” Sharl said. “She’s a wise leader and has dealt with me fairly and honestly, and I believe she will continue to do so.”
“And what if you fall?” a man shouted. “What will become of us then?”
“Then my lady will lead you,” Sharl said, “and after her, my heir.” He seized Rivkah’s hand and pulled her forward. “This very hour we will be wed on the steps of the keep. I will give you a High Lady, my people, and I will give you an heir. What will you give me? Will you give me the loyalty you swore when I brought you here?”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then a “Yes!” came from somewhere near the back of the crowd. Another joined it, and another. Slowly the cry built, as resolution replaced the doubt and anger on the people’s faces. Some joined hands; others lifted their children high, and finally most of the crowd were cheering. Valann and Chyrie hurriedly retreated to Sharl’s carriage before the humans swarmed upon Sharl and Rivkah, lifting them over their heads and carrying them, laughing, to a wagon full of hay and tossing them in. Dozens of humans clustered around the wagon, pulling it toward the keep.
