by Anne Logston
Chyrie looked soberly at Valann.
“It is perhaps best that Naura goes back to her people,” Valann said. “Here it would be painful for her to see other women bear.”
“What are you talking about?” Rivkah asked puzzledly.
“Nothing of significance,” Chyrie said quickly. “Will Sharl be returning tonight?”
“I hope so,” Rivkah said, glancing down at her food. “This is no weather for them to be traveling, much less camping. Sharl said they’d come back with the wagons as soon as the troops were settled, but that may take some time in this storm.”
“If the rain slows Sharl and his men,” Valann comforted, “it also slows the invaders.” He shook his head. “It is unfortunate, but I doubt that the Brightwaters, however kindly inclined they may be, will allow two hundred humans to camp within the forest on their lands, nor yet supply them with food and wood for fires.”
“We’ve solved the firewood problem, at least,” Rivkah said, brightening slightly. “Come and look.”
Val and Chyrie followed her to the closest of the hall’s two fireplaces. To their surprise, the fire there was fueled not by wood, but by stacked blocks of some plant material, judging from the smell.
“It’s peat, cut from the Dim Reaches,” Rivkah explained. “Sharl had men cutting it even before we left for Cielman. It has to be pressed and dried before it can be used, but the cutting and pressing is simple labor, and it can be dried quickly with such a simple spell that even apprentice mages can handle that job. A great load of black rock arrived, too, only two days ago—our very first ship trade. There’s plenty for the forges, and in a pinch we can burn it in our fires, too. The peasants are saving and drying droppings, too, from the horses and livestock, and bringing it to the city.”
“How can we be of help?” Valann asked. “No elves will likely arrive until the wagons return, and there is no need to wait for Dusk’s call, for Chyrie will feel it.”
“You exhausted yourselves yesterday,” Rivkah said doubtfully. “Perhaps you should rest today, especially Chyrie.”
“If I need not fly a hawk across the Heartwood, to me that is rest,” Chyrie said wryly, taking another piece of bread to sop her stew. “We are a folk not accustomed to sitting idle while others labor. Surely there is some small help we can give, and there are few in the rooms above us who could not perform some tasks to be of use.”
“It’s hardly weather for a strong man to be laboring outdoors, much less pregnant women and children,” Rivkah said slowly, “but surely there’s light work that can be done indoors. What do you suggest?”
“The Brightwaters, as Sharl said, are skilled at making nets and lines for fish and eels,” Valann said. “Let them continue to do it. Even the children can assist in that. I have seen many of the elves carving bows and arrows; let them work with your weapons-makers to improve the quality of your own bows. Even those with few skills can sort feathers for fletching arrows or whet blades. I am not as skilled as Jeena in herb-craft, but I know many healing salves and potions that can be made against future need. Chyrie is skilled at drying and potting foods for later eating; she can instruct your people in such preparations that there will be more food in the city.”
“You’re right,” Rivkah said, chagrined. “Sharl and I didn’t realize we were neglecting a work force under our very roof. Let’s go put your friends to work.”
To Rivkah’s surprise, she found the elves not only willing, but eager to find tasks to occupy their time. Even the oldest elf could fletch and tip arrows, and many of the women, early in their pregnancy or simply known to be fertile, could exceed most human women in strength and energy. The Brightwaters, down to the youngest child, showed themselves to be every bit as skilled at making and mending nets, fish traps, and lines as Valann had said, and could turn almost any small scrap of metal into sharp barbed hooks as well.
The storm actually worsened, rather than slackening, and Sharl, Jeena, and Loren, together with nearly fifty more elves, returned late that night, all of them thoroughly soaked but happy. Loren and Jeena were enthused by the possibilities of elven and human magic, each very different in nature, being used to complement each other. Sharl was pleased that the Brightwaters had received him kindly and were even glad of his troops camped near the forest, providing a human wall between them and the invaders.
Unfortunately, he told Rivkah, the Blue-eyes were adamant in resisting any contact with either the humans or other elven clans. The Brightwaters’ envoy had come running back from their lands, arrows whistling after him. Worse, the Blue-eyes had made a raid on Longear lands, stealing a good quantity of their preserved food and killing two Longears. This attitude, Jeena added, was far from isolated; many clans who had refused to join Rowan’s alliance were striking savagely at neighboring clans who had, fearing that the allied clans might join forces against them.
“How can they feel that way?” Rivkah protested. “The storm we created helps every clan in the forest, not just those who are working with us.”
“Remember that we do not use weather magic,” Jeena reminded her. “It is spring, and it is storming. Few elves in the Heartwood would credit you with that.”
“No gratitude is owed to out-kin,” Valann added. “They will not ask you for help, nor thank you for it.” (Any more than we did,) he added in thought to Chyrie.
“You can’t mean to say you still agree with your people that it’s better to fall alone than stand with us,” Sharl demanded.
“It is better to stand with kin than with strangers,” Val said adamantly. “It is better to die free than live enslaved or obligated to another. Our thoughts have not changed.”
“But you’ve been so much help to us,” Rivkah argued.
“You have treated us as kindly as you could,” Chyrie said gently. “But you are not our clan, and this is not our land. We came because our word to do so was given, and because I must protect the lives I carry within me. If we must be here, then it is well to do what we can to ensure that we survive. But given the choice, and only myself to consider, I would return to my kin without a moment’s delay, even to die there.”
Sharl shook his head disgustedly.
“Well, against your will or not,” he said, “at least you’ve made yourself useful, I must admit that, and so have the others. Rivkah told me what you’ve done today. It had never occurred to me, putting pregnant women and children and tottering elders to work, but what they’ve done is amazing. If only more of our people could see what your folk are accomplishing—” He shook his head again silently.
“What?” Rivkah pressed. “There’s trouble, isn’t there? What is it, Sharl?”
“It’s Rom,” Sharl said quietly. “Just when I thought I’d gotten the folk settled down, he’s got them stirred up again. Yesterday when a group of elves arrived at the gate, people were shouting insults at them. A few even threw stones. The guards had quite a time getting them under control so the elves could pass safely.”
“What are you going to do?” Rivkah asked softly.
“What can I do?” Sharl said bitterly. “Arrest him for spreading rumors? Hang him for fanning coals that were already lit? He was one of my best guards, even saved my life. Doria’s dead, Rivkah, and I’m to blame, but Rom sees it as the elves’ fault. I don’t know what to do. I can’t even send him back to Cielman, not past that army. I’ve set him to supervise the guards on the keep’s wall, away from the people and from the gates where the elves arrive. I don’t know where else to send him, unless it’s to the swamp to dig peat like a common laborer.”
“Rom isn’t causing the problem, only aggravating it,” Rivkah comforted him. “The people will come around once they see how willing the elves are to help us all.”
“I doubt if there’s time to change their minds,” Sharl told her. “Even with the rain, it can’t be more than a few days before the advance force of that army reaches our garrison. We could be seeing combat here in a week or less. We’ll be fortunate just t
o finish the fortifications and get the last of the people and the food into the city in time.”
The next days were as frantic as Sharl predicted, even despite the rain that continued to pour down with only short and infrequent breaks. Families arrived from farms to the south and west, bringing wagons filled with every portable item they owned and driving their livestock ahead of them. They were met at the gates by guards who recorded that farm’s mark and the number and type of livestock, which were then herded to the city pens. Any grain or preserved food the farms brought was carefully logged as well, and stored in the large storage buildings Sharl had had built for just this purpose. The families were then directed to lodging and assigned work in the city.
Every available person was sent to work on the still incomplete fortifications, despite the weather. The teams of mages were now supplemented by hand labor, hauling blocks from the stone pits to the wagons with horses and chains, and from wagon to wall. The hand labor went much more slowly, but every block set in place meant one more obstacle between the invaders and the city.
Those who were not working on the fortifications were directed to the Potters’ Guild, where roof tiles were being formed and baked to be used in place of the flammable thatching, or sent to the large open kitchens to dry or pot meat and vegetables. Even the children worked in the stone pits, gathering in baskets the small loose stone chips, which could be heated red-hot in huge caldrons on the walls and poured down on the invaders below.
The rain-soaked city seemed to have fallen into frantic and muddy chaos, and indeed there was a certain air of fearful hurry about the workers; but Sharl could consult his records and determine how many blocks had been set on the wall, how many barrels of pickled fish had been stored, or how many score arrows had been tipped and fletched on that day, and how many people could be moved from the pottery sheds to the nets for the next day.
Contrary to Sharl’s prediction that the wagons he had brought back contained the last elves who would come to the city, elves continued to arrive. Guards had to be diverted to escort duty; while most of the city folk accepted the elves’ presence and even admired their willingness to help with any task they were set, there were still many who hurled insults, if not rocks or offal, at every elf they saw. The elves now worked only in the keep or its grounds, or in places where there were guards watching.
The elves’ quarters grew crowded, but no one complained; Sharl, frantically busy, did not notice the state of affairs until some of the servants shyly came forward, offering to share their own quarters so that the extra rooms could be given to the elves. There were now so many pregnant females, infants, and sick or crippled elves that Jeena, Crystal, and Lusea, a Gifted One recently arrived from the Black Feather clan, were kept constantly busy, and Valann, Loren, and often Rivkah with them.
There were births almost every day, and sometimes more than one. Rivkah and Loren were horrified to learn that nearly one infant in four was stillborn or “unspoken,” but the elves seemed resigned to it. When Jeena or Lusea quietly carried away the pitiful little wrapped bundles, the mothers would grieve alone in silence for a few hours, carefully ignored by the others and comforted only by the Gifted Ones, then go on with their business as if nothing had happened. None now returned to the forest, however, for with the imminent approach of the barbarian army, it was far too dangerous for a weakened elf to attempt the journey.
Jeena’s own bearing was long and difficult, but she survived, as did her healthy son. She confided in Chyrie that she had felt in her unborn the potential for malformation, but that a careful course of diet and potions, together with carefully applied healing magic, had remedied the problem. Her words came as a relief to Chyrie, especially when Jeena assured her that she had sensed no such problem in Chyrie’s children. Chyrie needed such reassurance, for her unborn children continued to be a heavy draw on her body despite Jeena’s and Valann’s attentions, and she often suffered nausea and, more alarming, occasional dull, tight cramps for which Jeena could find no cause.
Ordered to stay near Val and the Gifted ones, Chyrie quickly found a new way to put her beast-speaking gift to use. She found that when she reached out to the brighthawk to converse with Dusk, she could direct the keen-eyed hawk through the forest in search of rare herbs or fungi to be used in the potions and salves being made by every human or elf with the necessary skills. Jumping from the brighthawk to squirrels, brushleapers, or diggerfoots, the potent plants were easily harvested for the brighthawk to carry back to Chyrie. Even the rare starleaf plant, which could be magically distilled into an incredibly potent healing tincture, could not hide from the keen eyes of Chyrie’s winged or four-footed envoys, and Jeena admitted that several mothers or infants might have been lost but for the powerful potions that Chyrie’s rare ingredients made possible.
Sharl was delighted to see the eagerness with which the elven Gifted Ones and human healers and midwives pooled their knowledge. The elven healers had a marvelous knowledge of every growing thing in the forest or near it that could be used for an almost endless variety of potions or salves. Even the poisons of various plants, fungi, snakes, and insects proved invaluable, and Rivkah was astonished to learn that the same mold that grew on old bread, properly prepared, had almost miraculous curative powers. The human healers contributed new healing spells, surgical techniques, and the strong liquor distilled from grains, equally useful drunk, to ease pain, or applied to wounds to cleanse them. Human woven-fiber cloth, porous, absorbent, and easily produced in quantity, proved a superior replacement for the leather the elves had always used, and could be quickly boiled and reused. The humans also supplied healing potions and powders made from ingredients bought or traded from distant lands, although these were used most sparingly, as there would be no way of replenishing them during a war.
Human healers were astonished to learn that most elven healers were practiced and confident in many kinds of surgery, from the technique of cutting a child from its mother’s belly to removing malignant growths, and were eager to learn to apply this knowledge to their own patients, but Jeena and Lusea were reluctant; it had been quickly discovered that a potion’s effects on an elf and a human often differed, including the sedative potions the elves used for such procedures, and the Gifted Ones feared that those differences might render such treatment dangerous. A request from the human healers induced Sharl to order the corpses of any humans who died brought to the elves for study, but this proved a mistake, as those humans who resented the elves’ presence started a rumor that the elves would desecrate their dead and use the corpses for foul and evil rituals. The families of the dead joined the uproar, and Sharl had to rescind the order.
Five days after the garrison was established at the south edge of the forest, Sharl received a short note via messenger bird that the garrison was under attack. Several tense hours later, a second message followed: The attacking force had been clumsy but savage, and the troops had driven them off with great difficulty. The barbarians had retreated northward, however, and the commander had no doubt they were reporting to a much larger force. If the garrison was to be maintained, more troops would have to be dispatched speedily, as they had suffered heavy losses in the attack. A rider would arrive soon after the message with additional details. A guard indeed arrived shortly after nightfall, soaked, bloody, battered, and utterly exhausted, but he insisted on reporting to Sharl before he would allow the healers to tend him.
Nearly two hundred fur-clad humans, armed mostly with swords and spears and completely without armor, had attacked shortly before midday. They had attacked straight on, no strategy or subtlety, throwing themselves into combat with a strength and ferocity that amazed the soldiers. They apparently had a mage of some sort directing balls of flame at the soldiers, but the garrison’s mage had easily deflected the rather primitive magic. The barbarians had fought with fanatic determination, fearless in the face of superior weaponry; only the fact that the bowmen and crossbowmen had shot down a goodly number as they
approached had allowed the soldiers to gain enough advantage to turn the barbarians away after a bloody skirmish. Of the 250 men Sharl had stationed next to the forest, less than a hundred were still alive, and most of those were wounded to some degree.
Sharl heard the report impassively, then left the guard to the attentions of the healers. He met privately with Val, Chyrie, and Rivkah in preparation for a meeting with his generals, and tersely repeated the guard’s report.
“The site by the forest is too exposed,” Sharl said. “We can’t maintain it without throwing our troops away needlessly. I’m going to order the troops back, and leave only a small camp—a handful of men to watch. It will give us a few hours warning, at least.”
“But what of the border clans?” Valann demanded. “What will you give them?”
“I thought you were only concerned with the Wildings,” Sharl said sarcastically. “I can scarcely get a company around the forest to them in time to do any good.”
Val flushed darkly.
“It is your duty to aid the elves allied with Rowan,” he said coldly. “You are bound to do so. Must I insist?”
Sharl ran a hand over his face exasperatedly.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “All you would be doing is forcing me to send out my troops to be needlessly slaughtered. Your people have the shelter of the forest and the skill to use that to their advantage. My people are completely exposed. The barbarians aren’t going to attack the forest now, not when their forerunners get back and report that they met resistance on that strip of land. The road and the presence of that garrison will let them know, if they didn’t already, that there’s a city nearby. They won’t stop now to bother with the forest; they’ll go for the richer looting at the city. They’ll be coming straight for Allanmere now.”
“Then why did you station your troops there?” Chyrie asked curiously. “Why did you not keep your men in the city and hope that the army would pass by to the east?”
