The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  Colath sat unsleeping. His eyes looked out into the darkness but only part of his mind was there.

  They weren’t yet truly near the borderlands but given what they had seen here this day he didn’t think they needed to go much closer. A little further west come morning, then south for a time before retracing their steps and scouting to the north. Already he had a sense this would be echoed all along the stretch between here and the mountains.

  Now he knew what it was Elon feared, what his foresight had told him. He needed only proof. Colath would gather it and mark its breadth but he knew it now for truth.

  With caution and stealth they would return and report. With that and a great deal of luck, which wasn’t something in which Elves liked to put their trust. Preparation and skill offset luck. He had no illusions. Not now. A manticore or something very like it. Something out of legend. Boggins or boggarts. What other creatures would they run afoul of? More, of that he was certain and far from the borderlands that were their home. Very far in the case of the salamander.

  Their sleep that night was uninterrupted, if they slept at all.

  As they rode out the next morning, Colath reflected that nights like this were unlikely to be common. It might very well be the last sure rest they had before they returned to Aerilann. All rode with bows or swords near at hand, all alert.

  It would be the last time in a long time before they let their guard down.

  Chapter Two

  A man rode through the castle gates. There was nothing remarkable in that, folk rode in and out of the gates all day but something about him caught Ailith’s attention as she glanced out her window to the courtyard below. There was nothing about him that seemed remarkable. What little she could see was a nondescript man of average height and average weight, sandy-haired, with a tight-lipped mouth. Other than that, there was nothing to indicate alarm or concern. A single man riding alone.

  Still for no reason she could name, she felt this odd frisson, a queer shiver down her spine.

  Not much like her to do it, she shook it off and finished her packing.

  She rolled up a spare set of clothes, a shift, small clothes and boots into her travel pack, tied it firmly and left her quarters with it slung beside her longsword on her back.

  To her delight, she met her father on the landing.

  In hair and perhaps somewhat in stature, she was every inch her father’s daughter. His rich chestnut curls, cropped tightly as hers were not, were their one shared asset. Of average height, Geric was nevertheless built large in all else. A big blunt face, massive shoulders and chest and arms the envy of a blacksmith. Grave by nature, his eyes lit up at the sight of her.

  “Ailith,” he said, fondly, and stopped to drop a kiss upon her brow.

  Smiling, she returned the kiss but reached up on tiptoe to put hers on his cheek. She slid an arm around his to walk with him down the stairs.

  “Off with the Hunters?” he asked, with a glance at her pack and sword.

  She nodded. “Gwillim asked for an extra hand as someone’s reported another boggin loose.”

  “At least it’s not boggarts,” Geric said, his mouth thinning. “Wasn’t there one of those reported only last week?”

  It disturbed Ailith as well, another little disquiet to niggle at the back of her mind.

  “Yes and they had the worst time chasing it down as well.”

  “Something has the borderlands in a tizzy,” Geric said, “perhaps trolls have moved into boggin territory. Let me know how the hunt goes, will you, my dear?”

  “Of course.”

  As his daughter and Heir to his Kingdom, it was no less than her duty.

  Tanith, the castle chatelaine, appeared as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “A gentleman to see you, my Lord, he says he has business he must discuss with you.”

  Geric sighed and gave a rueful smile to his daughter. “It seems I no sooner have a moment free than I’m called away. I’d thought to see you off.”

  With a smile, Ailith hugged his arm.“No need. I’ll bid my farewells to Mother and see myself off.”

  Patting her arm before releasing it, Geric turned to the chatelaine. “Where have you put him?”

  “In your office, my Lord Geric. I thought you’d rather meet with him there rather than the Great Hall. His name is Tolan.”

  “Very good. Thank you,” Geric said, following Tanith with one fleeting glance of regret over his shoulder at his daughter.

  Ailith smiled, shook her head and waved him on before going out to the courtyard.

  If there was one sure place to find her mother on any given day, it was in her herbarium against the walls of the castle where the breeze would carry off the more noxious fumes of some of her decoctions.

  As usual, Selah was intent on brewing some poultice, infusion or such against need, although Ailith was aware of none at the moment.

  Selah’s light-brown head was bent, the long straight hair caught back at the nape of her neck falling nearly to the small of her back.

  There was a serene beauty about her mother that was not so much a matter of feature but of the calm quietness that so marked her. Like Ailith’s own, her features were even and regular with strongly arched brows, a well-shaped nose and clear blue eyes. Many folks remarked that Ailith was much her mother’s daughter in looks, save that Ailith’s features were more defined. Some said more willful while others said more impish, depending on the mood she was in when they caught her. Selah herself so resembled her own mother that some confused them for sisters more than mother and daughter.

  As Queen of a lesser Kingdom, such common labor wasn’t required but Selah enjoyed it and had such a gift for it that no one commented on it. She had a green thumb such as could make nearly anything grow and a sure, instinctive knowledge of which combination of herbs would heal ills. Even the chirurgeons in Riverford town consulted her upon a time.

  Sensing Ailith’s presence as she always did, Selah raised her head, her eyes warming at the sight of her daughter. A woman of reserve, she rarely smiled but when she did it raised both pride and pleasure on those few upon which it was bestowed. Her rare smiles were kept more for her husband and daughter than for any other.

  “Ailith,” she said, her love, warmth and delight clear in her voice. “And dressed for Hunting. So, are you off, my love?”

  For all that both her mother and father were somewhat reticent, a matter of their station as much as their natures, they were a tactile family.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, Selah brushed back a stray strand of hair from her brow and slipped an arm through her daughter’s to lean forward and give her a light kiss on the brow.

  Selah was taller, of a height with Geric, than Ailith now knew she would ever be. Ailith’s majority was fast approaching and her full height had been achieved. A thing of her father’s blood and her mother’s mother but Ailith had long accepted her smaller stature. It affected little. She’d been raised to command and knew how to take it. Her skill with a sword was unquestioned.

  “Yes, we’ll ride out within a candlemark,” Ailith said.

  “What is Gwillim after this time?” Selah asked with half her eye on the poultice she was preparing, her nose flaring slightly at the scent of the herbs.

  Smothering a smile, Ailith knew Selah’s mind was as much there as with her. The scent of the herbs mixed with water or wine, and sometimes other things, told her mother how they blended.

  “Boggart,” Ailith said. “I’d best be going.”

  “Have a care,” Selah said, distracted, as she reached for another pot of herbs.

  Korin, the stablemaster, had Ailith’s horse saddled and ready.

  “Hai, Ailith,” he said, smiling warmly as he led the horse out himself, rather than letting a stable lad or lass do it.

  “Hai, Korin,” she said, gladly herself, taking the horse’s reins.

  Korin was an old friend, having been stablemaster for the castle since she was a small child. He was
the one who’d first taught her to ride. Few of the folk of the castle named her title, as they didn’t to her father or mother unless others were about. The Kings of Riverford weren’t much for standing on ceremony among their own.

  Out of long practice, Korin gave her a leg up, lifting her lightly and easily up into the saddle.

  “Now, you be careful out there, my lady.”

  Raising an eyebrow, amused, Ailith looked down at him. “Now, Korin, when have you ever known me not to?”

  He patted her knee. “Well enough. Still, it should be said.”

  “Thanks, Korin, I shall.”

  As she approached the gate she raised a hand of greeting to Caradoc, the Captain of the Guard, standing high above on the wall. He raised a hand back, nodding greeting in return.

  Riverford was an older castle, a small and simple mott and bailey affair, consisting of one tower and the surrounding curtain wall. There was no forecastle, no tower above the gate, only a portcullis, with a bridge across the moat and the long causeway.

  It was early enough in the year that the moat didn’t have its summertime stench yet, Ailith noted with relief as she rode over it. By high summer it could be unbearable.

  A channel carried water from the river that gave both castle and town their name and sluiced through the moat. Come summertime when the water was lower, the garderobes and slops buckets that emptied into it made the moat reek horribly. Most others seemed to ignore it but it always turned Ailith’s stomach.

  At the end of the causeway she turned toward the Hunter’s and Woodsmen’s camp which was nestled between the castle and the river itself. Some of both were about the chores that such folk needed to do when they were at home – mending tack, honing weapons or training new recruits.

  “Hai, Ailith, fairest of the fair, sweet rose of Riverford, a delight to the eye and the heart,” a voice caroled. “Were it not for my own fair lady, my heart would be yours.”

  Restraining a smile and rolling her eyes, Ailith turned in the direction of the voice.

  “Oh, Gwillim, go on with you,” she said in mild exasperation.

  The leader of the Hunters grinned, sweeping off his hat in an elaborate bow. Difficult to do in the saddle. Tall, lean and rangy, as happily mated as any she knew, Gwillim flattered every woman he met but her in particular, teasing her as always. She was neither fair nor anyone’s definition of a sweet rose. Which he well knew.

  Well used to it, the other Hunters in the party laughed or grinned.

  “Ah, were I not mated…,” he began.

  “Leave off, Gwillim!” she exclaimed, restraining a grin.

  She was blushing. Again.

  Between the others, coin changed hands.

  Sighing with resignation, she guided her horse to Gwillim’s side.

  “Really Gwillim?” she said but he simply smiled and finally she had to laugh. “All right, are we about this?”

  With a quick glance at the others, he nodded, grinned unrepentantly, and led them out to the north and east, sobering somewhat as he got down to business.

  “The reports we have,” he said, “now speak of more than one boggin. So you know.”

  He would’ve briefed the others as they waited.

  Frowning a little, she nodded acknowledgement. “My father pointed out you were off after a boggart just last week.”

  She hadn’t ridden out with them then, having been busy in the town hearing a complaint between two merchants. It had been a tedious and foolish argument but difficult to find common ground between the two to settle. If she’d had to choose between the two, listening to the querulous people involved or hunting the notably vicious boggart, she’d have chosen the boggart over the boredom.

  Gwillim said grimly, “Aye and a nasty one it was. We chased it back into the borderlands but it gave us a difficult time all the same. It turned on us, going after Vi’s horse. She nearly went down.”

  Startled, Ailith said, “A boggart? That’s not like a boggart.”

  Mean and vicious, roughly man-shaped and going about on two legs, a boggart would attack a lone man with no fear but run from a group unless it was cornered or in a pack. Cornering a boggart was a highly dangerous thing to do, as they were quick, had nasty claws and even nastier teeth. Gwillim was too canny to corner a boggart in such a way it would turn on them without having everyone’s bows at ready. A dozen arrows would’ve pierced the thing before it could have turned on them. It had turned on them, then, during the chase.

  “Well I know it. Nothing’s like anything of late,” Gwillim said, worriedly. “Such things are becoming common. I don’t like it but I can put no name to it.”

  Ailith didn’t like it either but something about it made her uneasy.

  It seemed as though, lately, a great many things made her unsettled and she didn’t know why.

  Of a lighter and merrier nature than either of her parents, such disturbance wasn’t her nature. As with her misgivings over the man who’d ridden in that day. There was nothing overt to give her pause, yet she’d taken it. That bothered her. Still, there was little she could do about it, save wait to see if a reason presented itself. For now, she had boggins to consider.

  So she rode at Gwillim’s right and his second at his left and kept her eyes on the land around her for any sign of threat.

  Her worries, she kept to herself.

  There was enough for her mind to consider with her majority now so near at hand.

  Of an age then – a matter of being mature in more than merely years but of soul, heart, mind and body – to make her own decisions. To be named well and truly Geric’s Heir, for good and all. Then…

  A time of freedom for most of her peers and for herself if she chose it. Yet she’d been raised to rule as a servant of the people over whom she would someday reign. At her father’s knee she’d learned much of Kingship, of rule, of law, of war, strategy and battle – although it had been many years since such had been needed. The Agreement that had held together the Alliance between men, Elves and Dwarves had been drilled into her such that she knew it by heart. Each succeeding codicil and clause as well. One didn’t walk away from such lightly, nor did she even consider it. She was Heir to Riverford, Heir to Geric, that was what she’d been raised to be and that was what she was.

  Still, she would be free to take such time away from riding circuit as judge in her father’s stead to see more of the Kingdoms as she’d been longing to do.

  Although she’d ridden out with their own Hunters and the Woodsmen many times, she thought she might do well to ride with those of another Kingdom. Remembering always that she was Geric’s only Heir and couldn’t be replaced. Not that she ever forgot. She would also need to present herself to the High King. She thought she might also like to see the High King’s city of Doncerric again now that she was older. It would do her well to spend some little time among the High King’s Court.

  In a way, such decisions weighed on her.

  Easier to think that perhaps when she returned from the hunt she would go visit her grandmother. It was too much to be hoped she might get some more sword-training too when she was there but she hoped it anyway. Although her skill was better than most, there was still much that she would know. Considerably lighter of spirit at the thought, she enjoyed the banter among the Hunters and shared in it.

  They found the boggins and there were more than one, as reported.

  It took days to hunt them down and two escaped back into the borderlands but two didn’t.

  Weary and frustrated, Gwillim looked at her. “Four of them. Days pursuing them. They led us a merry chase indeed. Last week a boggart. More than a week or so before that, a firbolg. I hope whatever is stirring them up will leave be. It will stop soon, else if that happens too often for too long we’ll be a tired band of Hunters.”

  Again that weird shiver went through her.

  Ailith shook her head, smiling reassuringly even if she didn’t feel it.

  “It will, Gwillim.”

&n
bsp; “An optimist,” he said, with a grin, “that’s what you are.”

  Her eyes twinkling, shaking off her own misgivings, Ailith said with a smile, “Ever and always, Gwillim.”

  Leaving him and the others at their camp, Ailith was more than glad to return to the castle and the bath she was looking forward to there. It would be heaven to sink into a tub of warm water and sluice off the dirt that cold mountain streams hadn’t. She was so looking forward to it she had to sidestep a man coming out of the main doors.

  She hadn’t even sensed his presence, he was suddenly just there, bowing his head respectfully as he hurried past her.

  There was little more than a moment for a brief impression of a thin nondescript man of sandy hair.

  Ailith frowned after him, bemused caught for a moment.

  Catching the blacksmith going by, Ailith said, “Dothan, who is that man?”

  With a quick glance over his shoulder, the burly blacksmith raised his eyebrows and looked at her. “That would be Tolan, my lady. Your father’s hired him to assist him.”

  Startled, Ailith said, “I wasn’t aware my father needed someone to assist.”

  “Neither,” Dothan said, “did anyone else. Sommat impulsive of your father but the man seems efficient enough.”

  Curious now, Ailith wandered back to her father’s office.

  He was bent over tally sticks and bags of coins.

  “Hello, father,” Ailith said, wandering in to give him a kiss on the top of his head.

  Slightly distracted, Geric looked up and smiled. “Oh, Ailith, I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  Amused, Ailith said, “It’s been three days, nearly four.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Geric shook his head and eyed her. “Where does time go? It’s good to have you back, sweetling. I’m guessing you’re for a bath. Tell me all about it at supper?”