“A pleasant dream,” Brynn replied, and Juraviel grinned.
“They say that memories often leave out the more terrible scenes.”
Brynn looked at him hard for a moment, but when he started laughing, she understood his meaning well. Indeed, there had been many hard times for Brynn in Andur’Blough Inninness, under the tutelage of the often-stern elves, including Belli’mar Juraviel—though he was considered by his kin to be among the most kindhearted of the people. Particularly Brynn’s early years in the valley had been filled with seemingly impossible trials. The elves had pushed her to the very limits of her physical and emotional being, and often beyond those limits—not to break her, but to make her stronger.
And they had succeeded. Indeed they had! Brynn could fight with sword and bow, could ride as well as any of the people of To-gai, who were put on the back of the sturdy ponies before they could even walk. And more importantly, the Touel’alfar had given her the mental toughness she would need to hold true to her course and see it through. Yes, she wanted revenge on Tohen Bardoh—indeed she did!—but she understood that such personal desires could not supersede the greater reason for this journey. She would hold fast to the course and the cause.
Juraviel left that part of the discussion right there, and so did Brynn, following the elf’s gaze to the sloping stone facing he had indicated. Brynn frowned, not thrilled with the angle.
“Diredusk will have trouble navigating that,” she stated. She looked back to her pinto pony, who stood calmly munching grass and seemed not to mind the saddlebags he carried, full of foodstuffs and bedrolls for the pair.
Juraviel nodded. “We will get him through. And once we cross under the canopy of the trees, the ground will be softer under his hooves and the trail will slope more gently.”
Brynn looked down to those trees, rows of evergreens neatly defined by elevation, and frowned again. The ground down there didn’t look very level to her.
“We will be out of the mountains soon enough,” Juraviel said, seeing her thoughts clearly reflected on her pretty face.
“Sooner if we had gone straight to the east, then turned south,” the irascible Brynn had to say, for she and Juraviel had spent the better part of the previous week arguing about this very topic. Considering what Brynn had been told about this mountain range, which ran more north–south than east–west, they certainly could have gotten to flatter ground more quickly by heading to the east.
“Yes, and then poor Diredusk would be running swiftly until he dropped from exhaustion, or until the goblin hordes caught up to us. Or until he mired down in the mud,” Juraviel said, again with a chuckle. That had been his argument from the beginning, for the lands immediately east of the mountains were far from hospitable, with goblins and swamps and great areas of muddy clay.
“A Touel’alfar and a ranger, afraid of goblins,” came Brynn’s huffing reply.
“A Touel’alfar wise enough to know that danger is best defeated by avoiding it altogether,” Juraviel corrected. “And a ranger too proud and too stubborn to recognize that her body, though hardened by our training, is not impervious to a goblin spear! You have heard of Mather, uncle of Elbryan, great-uncle of Aydrian. ’Twere goblins that struck him down.”
Juraviel started to turn away, and so Brynn took the opportunity to stick her tongue out at him. He looked back immediately, catching her in the act, and just sighed and shook his head, hardly surprised. For surely Belli’mar Juraviel was used to such playful behavior from this one, named by many of the Touel’alfar as the most irreverent—and irresistible—of any of the humans they had ever taken in for training. Brynn saw the world differently from most humans, and had done so even before falling under the demanding influences of the Touel’alfar. Despite the darkness that had found her at a young age, she remained the one with the brightest and most sincere smile, the one willing to solve any problem thrown her way through cunning and wit as much as through disciplined training.
That was the charm of Brynn Dharielle, and also, to Juraviel’s thinking, it was the strength that would carry her through this, her ultimate trial, where sadness and guilt loomed large in places unexpected.
If anything could.
I cannot begin to explain the tremendous shift that has come to Caer’alfar since the demon Bestesbulzibar left its stain, its growing rot, upon our fair valley. For centuries, we of the People have lived in relative seclusion, peaceful and content. Only the rangers knew of us, truly, and a select few of Honce-the-Bear’s ruling families. Our concern with the ways of the wider world ended with the potential impact any happenings might have upon us. Thus the rangers, while protectors of the human settlements on the outskirts of human civilization, were also our link to that world, our eyes in the field.
That was enough.
Bestesbulzibar has apparently changed all of that. During the time of the DemonWar, I was assaulted by that demon, while transporting some poor human refugees away from the goblin and powrie hordes. I would have perished in that battle—perhaps I should have!—except that Lady Dasslerond arrived and took up my battle. She, too, would have perished, but she used her magical emerald to take us back to the place of her greatest power, back to Andur’Blough Inninness, just outside of Caer’alfar. There, Dasslerond drove the demon away, but not before Bestesbulzibar had left its indelible stain upon our fair land, a mark enduring, and growing.
I believe that if Dasslerond had understood the cost, she never would have brought us all back to the valley, that she and I would have died on the field that day.
For then we would be gone, but Andur’Blough Inninness would live on.
That rotting stain has done more than change the complexion of our fair valley, it has changed the perspective of Lady Dasslerond. The Touel’alfar have existed by remaining on the outskirts, passive observers in a world too frenzied for our tastes. We do not involve ourselves in the affairs of humans—how many times have I been chided by Lady Dasslerond and my peers for my friendship with Elbryan and Jilseponie?
Now, though, Lady Dasslerond has assumed a more active role outside of Andur’Blough Inninness. She sends Brynn south to free To-gai from the Behrenese, mostly because the nomads of To-gai will prove much more accommodating and friendly toward our people should the demon stain force us out of our home. In that event, we would go south, through the Belt-and-Buckle and across To-gai, to another of our ancient homelands, Caer’Towellan, where perhaps our brethren still reside.
Still, despite the potential gains should that event occur, I am surprised that Dasslerond has sent Brynn Dharielle to begin a war, human against human. If we were forced to journey southward, we could do so, I am certain, whether the To-gai-ru or the Yatol Chezru Chieftain ruled the steppes. But Lady Dasslerond insisted upon this, as much so as on anything I have ever witnessed. She is truly fearful of the demon stain.
And so she undertakes her second unusual stance, and this one frightens me even more than the journey she has determined for Brynn. She took Jilseponie’s child, unbeknownst to the mother. She took the child of Elbryan and Jilseponie, right from its mother’s womb! True, her action saved the lives of both Jilseponie and Aydrian that dark night on the field outside of Palmaris, for had not Dasslerond intervened to drive away the demon-possessed Markwart, both humans would surely have perished.
Still, to raise the child as her, as our, own …
And the manner of that upbringing scares me even more—perhaps as much as the reason for the upbringing. Lady Dasslerond has plans for Brynn, but they pale compared to her goals for young Aydrian. He will be the one to deliver Andur’Blough Inninness from the demon stain, at the sacrifice of his own blood and his own life. He will become the epitome of what it is to be a ranger, and then, when that is achieved, he will become Dasslerond’s sacrifice to the earth, that the demon stain be lifted.
She has foreseen this, my Lady has told me, in no uncertain terms. She knows the potential of her plan. All that she must do is bring Aydrian to the requi
red level of power and understanding.
But there’s the rub, I fear. For Aydrian Wyndon, raised without the gentle touch of his mother or the love of his father, raised in near seclusion with harsh treatment and high standards from the moment he was old enough to understand them, will not be complete as a man, let alone as a ranger. There was a side to Elbryan, the Nightbird, beyond his abilities with the sword and his understanding of nature. The greatest gift of Nightbird, the greatest strength of the man Elbryan, was compassion, was a willingness to sacrifice everything for the greater good. Nightbird’s gift to the world was his death, when he threw his wounded form fully into Jilseponie’s final battle with the demon-possessed Markwart, knowing full well that he could not survive that conflict, that, in aiding Jilseponie, he would be giving his very life.
He did that. He didn’t hesitate, because Nightbird was possessed of so much more than we of the Touel’alfar ever gave to him—because Elbryan the Nightbird was a man of true character and true community.
Will the child raised alone and unloved be as much?
This is my fear.
—BELLI’MAR JURAVIEL
Chapter 1
First Blood
THEY WERE OUT OF THE MOUNTAINS NOW, AND THE GOING WAS SMOOTH AND EASY. Diredusk most of all seemed to revel in the softer and flatter ground, the powerful pinto pony striding long and eagerly under Brynn’s expert handling. True to his noble To-gai heritage, the pony could trot for many miles before needing a break, and even then, he was quickly ready to be back on the trail, straining against Brynn’s hold to travel faster and faster.
For Brynn, riding along quiet forest trails on a late-spring or early-summer day was about as wonderful as things could get, and would have been perfect—except that with every passing mile the young ranger’s eyes turned back less and looked forward ever more eagerly. She couldn’t enjoy the ride as much when the destination was all-important.
Belli’mar Juraviel rode with the woman at times, Diredusk hardly feeling the extra weight of the diminutive creature. The elf typically sat in front of Brynn, turned to face the woman and lying back along the pony’s powerful neck. He didn’t speak to Brynn much along the trails, though, for he could see that the woman was falling deeper and deeper into thought about the destination awaiting them. That’s what Juraviel wanted from the young woman; that’s what the Touel’alfar demanded of the ranger. The goal was all-important, because Lady Dasslerond had said it was, and nothing else should clutter Brynn Dharielle’s mind—not the fragrance of the summer forest awakening fully, not the sounds of the songbirds, not even the sparkle of the morning sun on the dewy grasses and leaves.
And so they rode quietly, and sometimes Juraviel leaped from Diredusk’s back and fluttered up to the branches of the trees, moving to higher vantage points to scout the road ahead.
Their evenings, too, were for the most part quiet, sitting about a fire, enjoying their evening meal. In this setting, with little stimulation about them, Brynn would sometimes tell Juraviel stories of her homeland, of her parents and their small nomadic tribe, Kayleen Kek. On one such night, with Andur’Blough Inninness a hundred miles behind them, the woman became especially nostalgic.
“We always went to the higher ground in the summer,” she told her companion. “Up the sides of the great mountains in the range you call the Belt-and-Buckle, but that we called Uleshon Twak, the Dragon Spines. We’d camp so high sometimes that it was hard simply to draw in sufficient air. You’d always feel as if you couldn’t catch your breath. Every step seemed to take minutes to execute, and a tent in sight might take you an hour to walk to. I remember that at times blood would run from my nose, for no reason. My mother would fret over me, but my father would just say that the high-sickness could do that and it was nothing to bother about.”
Juraviel watched her as she continued her tale, her head tilted back so that her eyes were staring up at the night canopy. It wasn’t starry that night, with thickening clouds drifting in from the west. The full moon, Sheila, shone behind those clouds, sometimes seeming a pale full light, other times disappearing completely behind a dark and thick blanket.
Brynn wasn’t seeing it, any of it, Juraviel knew. She was looking across the years as much as across the distance. She was seeing the crisp night sky from a camp of deerskin tents nestled among great boulders on the high slopes of the Belt-and-Buckle. She was hearing her mother’s laugh, perhaps, and her father’s stern but loving commands. She was hearing the nickers of the nearby To-gai ponies, so loyal that they didn’t need to be tethered, as they protested the sparse grasses at the great elevation.
That was good, Juraviel knew. Let her recall the feeling of the old days, of her life before Andur’Blough Inninness. Let her remember clearly how much she had lost, how much To-gai had lost, so that her calls to her people to reclaim their heritage would be even more full of passion and conviction.
“Do they still go to the high passes?” Juraviel prompted.
Brynn’s expression changed as she lowered her gaze to regard the elf, as if one of the clouds from the sky had dropped down to cross over her fair features. “I know not,” she admitted somberly. “When I was taken by your people, the Chezru were trying to establish permanent villages.”
“The To-gai-ru must walk the land with the creatures,” said Juraviel. “That is their way.”
“More than our way. It is our spirit, our path to …” She paused—unsure, it seemed.
“Your path to what?” the elf asked. “To heaven?”
Brynn looked at him curiously, and then nodded. “To our heaven,” she explained. “There on the high plateaus. There in the autumn valleys, full of the golden flowers that bloom to herald the cold winds. There by the summer streams, swollen with melt. There, following the deer.”
“The Chezru do not see the value of such a life,” Juraviel noted. “They are not a wandering people.”
“Because their deserts are not suited to such a lifestyle,” said Brynn. “They have their many oases, and their great cities, but to wander through the seasons would not show them much beauty beyond those defined enclaves. Behren is not like To-gai, not a land of differing beauties in differing seasons. Thus they do not understand us and thus they try to change us.”
“Perhaps they believe that in giving villages to the To-gai-ru, they will be showing the To-gai-ru the path to a better life.”
“No,” Brynn was answering before the elf even finished the statement, and Juraviel knew that he would elicit strong disagreement here—indeed, that was his goal. “They want us in villages, even cities, that they might better control us. In villages, they can watch the clans, but out on the plains, we would be free to practice the old ways and to speak ill of our conquerors.”
“But the gains,” the elf said dramatically. “The stability of existence.”
“The trap of possession!” Brynn was quick to argue. “Cities are prisons and nothing more. When they run correctly, they trap you, they make you dependent on the comforts they provide. But they take from you—oh, they take so much!”
“What do they take?” There was an unintended urgency to Juraviel’s tone. He could tell that he was getting to Brynn, driving her on, which was precisely his duty.
“They take away the summer plateaus, the mountain wind, and the smell … oh, the scents of the high fields in the summer! They take away the swollen rivers, full of leaping fish. They take away the rides, the ponies charging across the open steppe. Oh, you should hear that sound, Belli’mar! The thunder of the To-gai-ru charge!”
She was breathing hard as she finished, her brown eyes sparkling with energy, as if she were witnessing that charge—as if she was leading that charge. She finally came out of her trance a bit and looked to the elf.
“I will witness it,” came Belli’mar Juraviel’s soft and assuring answer. “I will.”
Their road remained fairly straight south over the next few days, and Brynn was under the impression that they had but a single goal
here: to get to To-gai and begin the process of liberation.
That’s what Juraviel and the others had told her, but the elf knew that he and Brynn had other things to attend to before beginning the long process of placing Brynn at the front of a revolution. Brynn Dharielle had been trained in the rigorous manner that had produced rangers from Andur’Blough Inninness for centuries, but, as fine as that training might be, Juraviel knew that it had its limitations. Even the most difficult trials—for Brynn, one had involved shooting targets from the saddle and at a gallop—were without the greatest of consequences, and hence, without the true understanding of the disaster that could be failure. For failing a test in Andur’Blough Inninness could mean humiliation and weeks of intense corrective training, but failing a test out here would likely mean death. Brynn had to learn that, had truly to appreciate all that she had to lose.
And so, on that morning when Belli’mar Juraviel took note of some curious tracks crossing the soft ground in front of them—tracks so subtle that Brynn didn’t even notice them from horseback—he allowed the woman to move obliviously past the spot, then studied the trail more closely. Juraviel knew the tracks, had seen them many, many times during the days of the DemonWar, when he had traveled beside Nightbird and Jilseponie battling Bestesbulzibar’s minions. The tracks were like those of a human, a young human, perhaps. But those made by shod feet revealed a poorly crafted boot, and those made by bare feet showed a telltale flatness in the arch and a wide expanse at the toes narrowing almost to a point at the heels.
Goblins. Moving east and in no apparent hurry.
Juraviel looked up and studied the area, even going so far as to sniff the breeze, but then he smiled at himself and shook his head. The tracks were probably a day old, he knew. These goblins were likely long gone.
But he knew the direction.
To Brynn’s surprise, Juraviel announced that they had to turn to the east for a bit. She didn’t argue, of course, for he was her guide, and so with a shrug, she brought Diredusk in line behind the moving elf. When that day ended, the pair had put twenty miles behind them, but in truth, they were no closer to the steppes of To-gai than they had been the previous day, something that Brynn surely took note of.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 117
