The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  There weren’t many rocks here. It took her two tries to get up on Smoke’s back, weariness, her wounds, or the weight of the swords throwing her balance off.

  Where? The sun was shining but so were the stars that spangled her mind.

  She knew where. As she’d known where to find that little boy so long ago.

  Turning Smoke’s head in that direction, she said, “Set your own pace, horse.”

  He did. A long, smooth, ground-eating canter.

  For a time, Ailith thought she slept sitting up on his back, for when her eyes opened it was getting dark. She found a place, a small tumble of stones thrusting up out of the grass on the rise of a hill where they could rest.

  The howling woke her in the moonless night. At first the sound made her shiver, it was so lonely. She wasn’t afraid. They were only wolves. Even if they caught the scent of the blood on her and Smoke, they would be wary. She’d faced hellhounds and boggins of late, what were wolves to that? For all of that there was something reassuring in their cries. They wouldn’t be howling with borderlands creatures about.

  As soon as the light was bright enough, they were off. She felt little rested, both hungry and tired. The sun seemed too bright and her head pounded. The wounds in her thigh and shoulder throbbed dully. Smoke’s even canter of the day before was a little off, as he favored the wound in his hindquarters. The country had become more mountainous, the hills steeper. She found a road she knew, little more than a track that led the way she wanted to go.

  There was a traveler’s shack along it somewhere.

  It was a small stone building kept stocked by the Hunters and Woodsmen and by those who wandered these roads and byways. An emergency shelter in case of storm, a secure retreat as well. Food. Simple food, rough food. Honey, travel bread and flour, in crocks sealed with wax and hung from the ceiling so rodents and insects wouldn’t get them easily. A rain barrel outside for water. Wood for a fire.

  She coaxed Smoke inside and barred the door. An ogre might get through that door but not much else. She ate half the travel bread with honey, although she wanted more.

  The nights were cool up here in the mountains, even in the summertime, so she built a fire against the chill.

  Then she collapsed on a pallet on the floor and slept.

  Shivering woke her.

  The wound in her thigh didn’t look good, the slashes had turned dark red and angry-looking. Despite the pain, she washed it and the one in her shoulder as well as she could. Ailith couldn’t imagine what they looked like but it felt as if they were on fire, they burned furiously when she cleaned them. There was an odd shimmery haze around everything. She knew she was ill but there was nothing for it but to keep going.

  Smoke, too, looked off but his head came up as she walked toward him and he seemed willing enough. She used the rain barrel to mount him.

  No canter today. Instead an uneven trot.

  “Just a little while longer, Smoke. Almost there.”

  Even so the little village was a surprise.

  She hadn’t expected such this far up. Even riding with the Hunters, she didn’t think she’d ever been here before. It was little more than a collection of simple stone cottages surrounded by a wall. The wall was made of stones, rough stones that had been dug from the earth as they’d plowed the thin earth.

  Colath saw rider and horse first and froze.

  He looked again.

  “Elon.”

  Something in Colath’s voice caught Elon’s attention.

  He’d been talking with the Hunter Gwillim about what had been happening up in these mountains, about the affairs in Riverford. It had taken time to find them, tracking them from village to village, watching for them as they rode, hoping to see them.

  He looked up.

  Colath’s tone alerted Jareth, too.

  Jalila caught the silence and looked up from the painstaking work of fletching new arrows.

  Colath stared past him him.

  Standing, Elon turned.

  The horse limped, his head bobbing. Elon knew that horse. It was its rider, though, that held Elon’s eyes. That held all their eyes.

  Ailith. Alive, aware, her back straight and chin up.

  The heaviness that had hung over him lifted.

  Movement caught Ailith’s eye. Elon, getting to his feet. Looking past him she saw Colath and Jareth. Jalila. Gwillim, too, stood, turned around.

  He was safe. Elon had kept his promise.

  She smiled, the pure pleasure of the sight of those familiar faces lifting her spirits. The rush of relief was like a balm to her soul and her wounds.

  “Look,” Ailith said gaily to the horse, “who we’ve found.”

  She made an effort to sit up a little straighter, put her head up.

  “I’ll be damned,” Jareth said, softly, in amazement.

  She’d done it.

  Stepping in front of the horse seemed the only way to stop it. Elon caught the horse’s halter. Patted its neck and looked up at its rider.

  Ailith grinned at him, “Ala, Elon. I told you I would come back safely.”

  The Elven greeting surprised him.

  He answered her the same way.

  “Ala, Ailith. So you did,” he said, looking at her.

  The others gathered around.

  “Hai, my lovely lady,” Gwillim exclaimed, “the fair, sweet rose of Riverford, light of my life but for my wife, how glad I am to see you. I see you’ve forsaken your majority party for a better cause.”

  There is something wrong here, he thought in that same instant, and his heart stuttered in his chest.

  Smoke looked unsteady, his head lowered even though he’d been doing nothing but walking. He favored his right rear leg.

  His rider looked none too well, either.

  While Ailith had never been one for going about in elven-silk and laces like some heirs, she had always kept herself neat. Her hair was always coming loose but she’d made an effort to keep it controlled. Some effort had been made but it seemed half-hearted. She was paler than was her wont and color bloomed too brightly in her cheeks.

  He looked at her more intently.

  Ailith grinned as she looked down at Elon, who was giving Gwillim a bemused look.

  “I told you he does that,” she said to him, wryly, and then to Gwillim, “I thought I might bring you your horse back, Gwillim.”

  Already it seemed as if the burst of energy that had run through her at the sight of them was draining away. She sighed wearily. She was so tired and she hurt.

  “So you have and I thank you,” he said, taking a sharper look at her. “Ailith?”

  Elon noticed it, too.

  Her face was too pale, her eyes too bright and there were dark circles beneath them.

  “Ala, Ailith,” Colath said, stepping to her other side.

  There was a bit of rag tied around her thigh. It was stained a dark brown.

  “Elon. She’s hurt. Ailith, what happened?” Colath touched the rag.

  She took a deep breath and then let it out in a long, tired sigh.

  “Ala, Colath. I found some hellhounds. Or rather, they found me.” A bright pang of grief speared through her. “They killed Delae.”

  Jareth gave her a sharp look, her eyes were stark and too feverishly bright.

  Alarmed, he said, “Get her down, Elon. Colath’s right, she’s hurt.”

  “Wait,” she said, as Elon reached up to give her a hand.

  It was getting hard to keep her eyes focused, he kept swimming in and out of focus. She sighed, a sharp gust of breath.

  “I have to tell you something. So much to tell you.”

  Elon saw the battle she fought against weakness, illness and exhaustion.

  His voice was gentle.

  “It will wait,” he said.

  She looked at him intently, her steel-gray eyes hazy, and tilted her head in question.

  “Will it?”

  “Yes.”

  Another deep sigh. Her eyes drif
ted closed.

  Elon caught her as she slid bonelessly from the horse into his arms and lowered her to the ground.

  She was so small and so light, there seemed to be nothing to her.

  Jareth got down on one knee beside them.

  Pushing the horse away to give them room, Gwillim saw the slashes on Smoke’s hindquarters. Sharp pain pierced him at the sight of those wounds.

  Stroking his nose instead, he said, “You did good, you great silly beast.”

  He’d brought her back alive.

  With a flick of his knife Jareth cut the rag, flinched and jerked his head away.

  The smell was bad. Five ragged slashes. The wounds had festered, as the wounds of hellhounds would. Not all the creatures of the borderlands were poisonous, although some were. Hellhounds weren’t but while they preferred fresh meat they would eat carrion, too. Ripping and tearing at it with teeth and claws.

  He looked at Elon.

  The wounds were bad, Elon could feel it in the heat that poured off Ailith’s small frame, could see it in the sweat that darkened the temples of her sun-streaked chestnut curls. Seeing the suppurating slashes in her thigh only confirmed what he sensed through Healing.

  Some of the villagers gathered, watching from a careful distance. These folk seldom saw any but Hunters and Woodsmen. Much less Elves. They’d eyed Elon and the others warily from the moment they arrived.

  “Let’s get her inside,” Elon said, lifting her carefully into his arms, trying not to cause her more pain.

  Gwillim had a house here that he’d made a headquarters. Trying to stop the flood of creatures from the borderlands he’d given up standing in the lead, instead sending men where they were required from this one central location. It wasn’t large but there were three rooms, a large front room and two at the back. It served well enough.

  Elon carried Ailith into the room they’d all shared the last nights and laid her on the only bed.

  His mouth tightened. Even in a faint, she moaned and twisted when he touched her shoulder. He could feel the heat there, too.

  “There’s more, Jareth. Colath, we’ll need hot water. Jalila, we’ll need you.”

  It was painstaking work, cleaning those wounds but it had to be done first.

  Elon never gave a thought to not Healing her.

  She hadn’t come so far to fall to the wounds from a hellhound. The wounds themselves were bad and would have given pause even to one of his own people but they wouldn’t have been fatal. Were it not for the festering. The poison was in her blood, now, although her body fought it, bringing the fever with it. He couldn’t Heal her until the wounds were clean, else a small pocket of corruption live on to plague her.

  Jalila undressed her carefully, trying not to disturb too much those places that were hurt.

  Drifting in and out of awareness, to her and their astonishment, Ailith tried to help.

  Cleaned, the wounds looked worse not better, Elon thought, as he examined them.

  Streaks of blue and red beneath the skin of her leg had been hidden beneath dried blood and dirt. The gashes on her shoulder were deeper. A black bruise on her shoulder and another on her hip told of a fall.

  Hellhounds, she’d said.

  Plural.

  At least two. One would have been enough.

  The horse, though a cull, was Elven-trained to fight such things. With an experienced rider on its back. Which Ailith was not.

  Elon shook his head in amazement that she’d survived at all.

  Settling beside her on the bed, Elon brushed the hair back from her face and then laid a hand gently on her shoulder. Extending his awareness, he sought to tune himself to the rhythms of her, to the beat of heart and the hum of nerves. In some ways it was like playing music, searching for the harmony within himself and her, finding where their ‘voices’ matched.

  Those of the race of men had always felt discordant to him as if they ran to a minor key. With Ailith, it was different. It was like hearing the lilt of a flute matching her harmony to his melody. A fine mesh, surprisingly easy. It was as if she met him part way, all unknowing. Less like attuning himself to the measure of men and more like to that of his own people. The poisons seeped away, muscles knitted and flesh merged. He knew she was exhausted and that she hadn’t eaten in some time but those were ills more easily cured by rest and food once she awoke.

  Sitting back, he looked down at her face, thoughtfully.

  The light of the setting sun through the narrow window bathed her face in its warm glow.

  She looked healthier for it.

  “How is she?” Jareth asked.

  Absently, Elon said, “She rests. The wounds are Healed.”

  With a sigh of relief, Jareth nodded. “I’ll tell the others.”

  Elon let him go, settling back into a chair by the end of the bed.

  Her swords and bow had been stacked here in the corner. He picked up her longsword in its scabbard, laid it across his knees. Drew it to trace the runes that had been carved in it.

  Elven work. A Named sword. Her name.

  Ailith.

  In the old tongue, her name meant Light.

  Some part of him went very still.

  “Jareth says she will be well,” Colath said, quietly from the doorway and then saw what Elon held. “I noticed that, too. How did she come by them. The bow as well. Whose work? Do you know?”

  It looked familiar but Elon couldn’t place it. It was fine work, someone had taken a care with them, as they should. The hilt would fit no other hand but her small, strong and fine ones.

  Elon shook his head. “I’ll stay with her a while, make certain she rests easily.”

  Colath had expected no less. He set a candle on the shelf.

  With a nod, Colath said, “You’ll need this then.”

  Elon nodded, but scarcely noticed.

  Normally Healing drained him but not this time.

  Despite the poison in her blood.

  Thoughts, fears and random speculations wandered through his mind as he watched her sleep.

  Jalila’s long, strong fingers fit feathers to arrow, each movement precise and careful. It was fascinating to watch, Jareth thought. Sighting down the length of the shaft, making sure the fletching was just so, she saw him watching.

  “It’s much like making jewelry, which I also do, as it requires the same touch. Set the fletching just so or the arrow won’t fly true, or bend the metal carefully so that curve is smooth. Much the same,” she said.

  Colath, too, was doing maintenance, honing his sword in smooth, rhythmic strokes.

  The Hunter, Gwillim, was out at the shed by the side of the house taking care of the horse. It had sustained its own wounds on Ailith’s flight here.

  A sudden surge of warmth rose from the base of Jareth’s skull to the top of his head, not the warning tingle of magic in use but a sign of magic all the same. It came from the other room but it wasn’t the same sensation he had when Elon Healed.

  No, this was different. It didn’t feel threatening but it was curious all the same.

  Frowning slightly, he went and opened the door to the other room.

  Magic.

  Elon felt it like a gentle breeze drifting over his skin.

  He turned his head to look at Jareth as the wizard stepped through the door, his dark eyes concerned, his mouth set.

  There had been a sound like music that Ailith couldn’t quite hear and then the terrible heat and burning pain had faded and gone away.

  Darkness had washed over her, taking her down into sleep. Into dreams. Her grandmother, fragments of old memories. Men talked around a hearth, speaking whispers and plots, terrible things. A Hall, dark and dripping blood.

  A voice that sank and rose.

  The Door, opening.

  “No,” she said and awoke, shaking like a leaf, pushing backward to fetch up against the wall. Half in the dream still and half out.

  Someone, there in the darkness. Moving.

  The light of
the candle lit familiar dark eyes.

  Elon, rising from the chair, saw her shy away from him a little before her eyes cleared and she recognized him.

  He put her sword aside.

  “Ailith,” Elon said, as he settled on the edge of the bed.

  The look in her eyes gave him a chill.

  Wide, dreaming awake, her pupils were huge and dark. He knew that look.

  An awful certainty settled over him. It nearly broke his heart.

  She drew in a breath, slowly, fighting for calm.

  “I dreamed,” she whispered.

  It was still there before her eyes, that Door. The image overlaid the darkened room around her.

  “Of what?” Elon asked, as his heart sank. Magic, a very special magic.

  “Darkness and fire.”

  Her voice was dreamy, a seer’s voice.

  Ailith could still see it. The light of the flames in her mind danced on those dank and dripping walls. Her breath came short.

  “A Door. It opens South, to lands of Darkness, heat and fire. A voice speaks words I cannot ken. I’m so afraid and the Door is opening…”

  Her eyes on Elon, Ailith clearly saw him and yet in another she didn’t.

  Jareth knew that look well, had seen it a time or two. Ailith, a fledgling wizard? How had they missed her?

  That didn’t explain the worry in Elon’s eyes, though, or the tension in his body.

  Her words did. Her breath came in short gasps.

  “I fear what lies behind it. I’ve seen this before. I’m so afraid. The darkness and the fire. It comes from the south but it will burn through the north ‘til the snow comes down red. The Door opens.”

  Her breath sobbed in her throat but her blue eyes were dry.

  She reached out to steady herself or to hold something at bay.

  Instinctively Elon put a steadying hand beneath her elbow.

  It was so rare to touch another not of his race and he’d done it for her several times now almost instinctively. An empathic race, the touch of skin to skin revealed too much to his people. As it did now.

  The contact seemed to break the hold the dream had on her and she relaxed, gripping his arm tightly for balance.