The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  One swing, though, was enough, one hard swing against the chain with the soul-eater on it, clutched in Tolan’s hand.

  It flew through the air and crashed against the far wall.

  Free. Elon had his swords in his hands in one motion and the strength and will to use them. As did Colath.

  Colath snatched up his and turned.

  The surviving trackers leaped for weapons they’d discarded for better entertainment. From outside there were shouts. Alarm. The other trackers.

  Tilting her head, Ailith listened to the sounds from above.

  Advancing on her, Tolan looked at her narrowly.

  She smiled a sweet and lovely smile, triumphant.

  Elon saw it and his breath caught at the sight of it. She was beautiful.

  “No, Tolan,” Ailith said, fiercely, “I didn’t come alone. I brought company.”

  Tolan roared and attacked, his face melting as his hands sprung claws inches long.

  He snarled at her as Ailith threw up her swords to guard herself.

  Ailith!

  Tolan, you will pay, Elon thought, crossing the room in a few long strides, Colath at his side once again.

  “It’s not me you should worry about, Tolan,” Ailith said, her swords braced as the dark wizard’s claws raked for her face. Her gaze went over his shoulder as Elon advanced and she smiled in welcome. “It’s him.”

  She threw herself backward, out of harm’s way.

  Tolan’s eyes widened. He spun and ducked as Elon swung.

  His claws were poor weapons against an angry Elven master swordsman with his swords in his hands.

  Tolan had no time for spells or magic, Elon made sure of it.

  The Dark wizard darted away, grabbed one of the trackers and slit the man’s throat even as he snatched for the tracker’s swords. He spun with them in hand, barely in time to meet Elon’s attack.

  A moment, only, for Ailith to draw power, a little more strength from the earth, enough to carry her for a little longer.

  The other trackers leaped to protect their wizard but Colath was in the way and then so was Ailith beside him.

  At his side once more, they two guarded Elon’s back. The bond between them hummed, shimmered, as their swords clashed and rang in the music of the swords.

  They all heard it, joining them once again.

  With his stolen Elven strength from that stolen Elven life he’d taken, the eel-like speed Tolan had stolen from the basilisk and the blood magic he’d raised at Elon and Colath’s expense, Tolan was strong and quick. The problem for Tolan, Elon knew, was that all of it was stolen, it wasn’t his nature. Nor had he ever sparred as Elon had, with two of the best swordsmen he knew, Colath and Ailith.

  Tolan rained blows on him as Elon parried, learning the dark wizard’s measure and gauging his strength and speed, looking for weaknesses.

  A gesture from Tolan.

  Hot irons flew across the room. Elon evaded, dropped his shoulder, rolled and ducked away from the onslaught as he parried Tolan’s attack. He dropped his guard a little, drew Tolan in. Tolan’s blade flashed in answer. Elon slipped backward, caught it. Tolan was good but Elon knew it was only a matter of time.

  In fact, it would be now. Swords rang as he drove Tolan back.

  A discordant hum of magic distracted him.

  The far wall shimmered even as Colath took a tracker’s head.

  Tolan called for his Lord. Elon had him nearly cornered. If that one came through though…

  “Colath, take them,” Ailith cried, feeling the magic before running another Tracker through, then she sheathed her swords and ran to the wall.

  She braced her hands against it, reached desperately for the power to will it to stay stone. Dwarven magic and Elven magic. Otherling magic. Her magic.

  Against Mornith’s.

  She could feel Mornith pound against it, battering against her will. It took all of her resolve and strength to hold, to battle him back.

  Elon felt the magic, both the discordant opening of the Door and the sweet whisper of Ailith’s magic as she willed it shut, and held.

  She was vulnerable, though, her back undefended.

  Colath was almost finished with the other trackers.

  Outside there were shouts and screams.

  The Door was the only escape and Ailith the only barrier to it.

  Elon saw Tolan make the break. The Dark wizard darted backward. The tip of Tolan’s sword swiped across Ailith’s back. She arched away from the pain but held even as Elon caught Tolan’s blade with his own, forced it up and away.

  Desperate, Tolan spun and Elon drove his short sword up under Tolan’s ribs.

  Hissing, the Dark wizard staggered backward as Elon ripped his sword free.

  Tolan looked at the black blood pouring from him in shock.

  It didn’t last long.

  In one swift slice of his longsword Elon took his head.

  The last tracker fell to Colath’s blade.

  Just as abruptly, the Door to the South shut. Mornith was gone.

  Turning, Ailith sagged against the wall and then slowly slid down it to sit, leaving a small smear of blood behind her. If it hurt she gave no sign of it.

  Wearily, Elon walked over to join her, settling down on the floor beside her.

  “Ala, Elon,” she said and then added in Elvish, “I told you I would come.”

  “Ala, Ailith,” Elon said, in his own language, “I’d hoped you wouldn’t but I’m not sorry you did.”

  “If it had been the other way around, you would have come for me.”

  “True,” he admitted.

  “I could do no less.”

  No, she couldn’t, it wasn’t in her any more than it was in him. As they both knew.

  “Ala, Ailith,” Colath said, settling down on her other side. “That was well done.”

  “Thank you, my friend. I’ve had good teachers. I would that I could’ve come sooner. I would Heal but I don’t have the strength left.”

  There were burns, cuts and bruises on them that made Ailith’s heart ache.

  Elon touched her cheek where the purpling bruise was.

  “It would seem you have your own hurts.”

  She smiled, wryly, and echoed his words from Raven’s Nest with a shrug. “It’s nothing, it will heal.”

  He smiled back, remembering the last time it had been said. He regretted as well not having the strength yet to soothe or Heal it himself.

  There was a sound on the stairs leading down to this place – footsteps.

  Ailith shook her head at their start.

  “It’s all right,” she said, softly.

  Jareth, Jalila and Talesin were followed by Elves from Aerilann, all of whom looked at the three by the wall with relief and more than a little shock.

  None of the three were unmarked. Both Elon and Colath had more than their share of cuts, slices and burns, while Ailith had collected a few more bruises, a wound to the head and her shoulder had reopened.

  The Elves took in the scene, the dead trackers, Tolan, the instruments and the blood grimly.

  Some remembered another time like this one all too clearly.

  The Elven Healers settled quickly by Elon and Colath, to ease their pain and Heal their wounds. Lend them strength.

  They wouldn’t and didn’t touch Ailith.

  It pained Elon and Colath both, but though Elon might be First among equals at Aerilann, he couldn’t ask them this.

  Leaning over a little to be a little closer to Elon, she whispered, lifting an eyebrow in question, “Perhaps it’s best not.”

  He looked at her and remembered how he’d discovered the truth of her. There was that.

  “I think I would rather take that task on myself,” he said, gently.

  Ailith smiled.

  Much of her own pain eased with the Healing of theirs but, being free of their own made them far more aware of hers.

  There was pain in her shoulder and the bruise on her face ached.

>   Elon couldn’t ask the Healers to break the code, although he would’ve made exception here, as was his right as First, but there was the danger of her nature being discovered. Even without it, it would raise too many questions if he did.

  Just the same, Elon thanked the Healers and the others that had come but told them he couldn’t yet return and sent them back to Aerilann.

  With none to see but those who wouldn’t care, he laid a hand to Ailith’s face, to the bruise there.

  She closed her eyes as relief washed through her, a surcease of pain, along with some of his strength and his gentle harmony. Which gave her the most ease she couldn’t say. For the first time in days, though, her shoulder didn’t pain her. It had been healing but it had pained her. The trackers reopening the wound hadn’t helped.

  “Well,” Colath said, “at least Tolan is gone.”

  Elon saw the look Ailith, Jareth and Jalila exchanged.

  With a sigh, Ailith said, “That Tolan is gone. There are others in the north, two that we know of. I fear Mornith will simply switch horses in mid race.”

  That name pierced Talesin like a blade.

  “Ailith,” Talesin said and his voice sounded gravely concerned, “how do you know that name?”

  She went still as she remembered Tolan telling her he would take them, Elon and Colath, and then the terrible things he’d had done to them. Remembered watching. Her heart wrenched.

  Sitting so close, Elon felt her shudder. He laid a hand on hers, as did Colath on her other side.

  With a glance first to him and then to Colath in thanks, she answered, “Tolan Summoned me to tell me he was going to take them, Elon and Colath. He wanted me to know, to anticipate. The Door to the South was open and Mornith was in it. I’ve heard him speak before but I never understood much. It always sounded like I should but I couldn’t.”

  Before, so she could anticipate.

  More and more, Elon was glad the man was dead. No one should glory in a true death but that particular life was well ended.

  “Was there anything else?” Talesin said.

  The rest of it came back, parts she hadn’t understood then but did now.

  “He said this is only the beginning, that he was returning.”

  “Ah,” Talesin said, going still.

  “Who is he, Talesin?” Ailith asked, looking into his ageless eyes.

  Looking around at the walls, he took a breath and shook his head.

  “This is not a place to discuss such things.”

  Elon said, “We should leave this place, anyway, I mislike it.”’

  “I can’t imagine why,” Ailith murmured as she looked at the overturned braziers, the chains and instruments of torture.

  Elon gave her a look.

  She smiled in return and shrugged.

  Three sets of hands reached out, three sets of hands clasped and pulled them to their feet, Jareth to Ailith, Talesin to Elon, Jalila to Colath.

  Elon laid a hand on Jareth’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you, old friend. That was well done.”

  With a smile, clasping Elon’s arm, Jareth said, “It’s good to see you as well. As for being well-done, it was Ailith’s plan.”

  “As I said, I’ve had good teachers,” Ailith said, “and I learn from my mistakes.”

  Talesin said, “So long as you survive them, you’ve won.”

  Reluctantly, Elon found the piece of tattered Elven-silk and wrapped it once more around the soul-eater.

  “Talesin,” Ailith said, “how far underground should that thing be so it would be safe?”

  He looked at her. “Far enough no plow can turn it up.”

  “Do you need it any more, Elon?”

  He shook his head. “I loathe having to carry it.” It was clear in his voice how very much he detested it.

  “Then leave it,” she said, gently. “You shouldn’t have to bear it.”

  He looked at her for a moment, at the clarity and warmth in her eyes, and left it where it lay.

  Up and out of the hole, they climbed the stairs out of a long forgotten castle dungeon.

  At the top Talesin looked up and around as if he remembered what had been here once and didn’t like it. Nothing remained of what had once been save a dark hole in the earth.

  Nearby Faer, Chai and Smoke cropped grass with the other horses. No one questioned or explained how the horses had got there, they simply were.

  “Wait,” Ailith said, as the others started toward the horses.

  It felt right.

  She dropped to one knee. There was no one but them to see. She threaded her fingers through the browning grass. Once again, she reached and the earth answered. Her heart seemed to soar.

  There was the sound of a deep groan, a burst of dust and then the hole in the earth was gone as if it had never been.

  “So they can never use this place again.”

  “Wild magic,” Jareth said.

  She shook her head, looking up at them and smiled sweetly.

  Looking at that brilliant smile, at the fading bruise and her tattered clothes, Jareth’s heart broke.

  “No, Jareth, that was a thing of the earth and the Dwarves. This is wild magic.”

  From where her fingers curled in the turf a rush of green spread across the open space where a castle had once stood. The air freshened to springtime sweetness and a perfect fairy ring of flowers appeared, such as marked the graves of Elven dead. The ones who didn’t pass to the Summerlands but waited to return again.

  Elon knew she couldn’t know it, who hadn’t been raised among them, but somehow she did. The ring was dotted, too, with fall flowers, spicy-scented deep red mums like drops of blood amongst the white.

  “Wild magic does what it will,” Ailith said, softly. “This so any who pass shall know this is a sacred place, where blood was shed that shouldn’t have been shed and where some died who shouldn’t have died. Not here and not this way.”

  She stood and looked away for a moment.

  Elon laid a hand on her shoulder. His blood and Colath’s blood. Colath matched the gesture. After a moment, Talesin, then Jalila, joined them. With a soft smile, Ailith reached out. Jareth took her hand.

  A small breath whispered out of her and she closed her eyes as the pain in her heart and theirs was also eased, shared out to all of them.

  “Now that,” Talesin said, “was well done.”

  He looked at the bright green grass, the white flowers dotted with crimson.

  It was a fitting memorial for those who had died here, the ones he’d known, the ones he’d shared it with and those who survived.

  He looked to Elon.

  “The army marches north,” Elon said, “but it will take some time. I think we’ve earned our rest. Once the battle begins we’ll have no other chance. As much as I would like to return to Aerilann, though, we should head more east to meet the army. We’ll find an Inn or something.”

  For a moment, only a moment, Jareth hesitated, and then he spoke.

  “I know a place,” Jareth offered. “Only a day’s ride away or so.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Here in these lower lands, the steep rolling hills with their stretches of forest, the trees were ablaze with color and the temperature was still moderate. They rode at times through showers of golden leaves and the rich scents of fall. At others they passed those at work in the fields, the threshers and the beaters taking in the last of the ripe grain. Others clambered through fruit trees, picking apples. The air was filled with the scents of fall.

  It was a lovely little homestead, nestled between the rolling green hills far enough east and far enough south they need not fear much. Yet.

  “What is this place?” Colath asked.

  With a wry smile, Jareth said, “Home, when I’m here and not at the Collegium, or the High King’s city or haring off on some wild chase.”

  Elon gave him a look. There was something in his tone.

  “We have had some adventures lately, you must admit,” Jar
eth said, with a grin, giving him a look.

  Inclining his head in acknowledgement, Elon had to agree.

  “And we had some experiences in the north.”

  It wasn’t time to speak of that yet, by unspoken consent, none of them did.

  The couple who cared for the place in Jareth’s absence made sure they had food and drink in plenty and set close at hand, that water was set to heat, baths prepared, and then they left them for their own quarters.

  With a little rearranging there was room enough for all but neither Elon nor Colath nor any of the others were much inclined to be enclosed within walls. They took themselves out into yard. Into clean fresh air and sunshine to let it blow the stink of suffering off them.

  Elon stretched out on his back on the grass in the sun, pillowing his head on one arm. Taking out his pipe, Jareth pulled out a chair and sat downwind to smoke. Ailith sat cross-legged nearby while Colath leaned a shoulder against one of the pillars that supported the roof of the porch. Jalila sat on the grass with her back against another of the supports, fletching arrows.

  Talesin, too, pulled out a chair. “My bones grow too old to recline as Elon does.”

  “So,” Elon said, “adventures?”

  As the sun lowered in the west the three who’d gone spoke of their trip across the north, into the cold high reaches, the story moving back and forth among them.

  “If they know you guess her purpose, I doubt that one will rise to the kingdom’s banner,” Elon remarked, about the wizard Queen.

  Ailith shook her head, uncomfortably. “You didn’t see her, Elon. Her beauty is so unnatural and so affective it has to be stolen but it’s such that it has much effect on men. As a distraction, or a source of quarrels, if Donkellen brings his Queen to ride into battle with him it could be a problem.”

  “Sadly, Elon,” Jareth said, taking a puff on his pipe, “Ailith might have the right of it. That pretty head was designed to lure men. It worked on me. Pit her King against another and another banner is lost. Men don’t have soul-bonds as your people do.”

  The subject of soul-bonds wasn’t something Elon wanted to discuss.

  “You’re certain the garrison there will probably fall?”