Nightborn

by Anders, Lou

  “Thianna?” Karn smiled. “Well, she’s big. Really big. Really, really big. She’s tough. She’s pretty loud. Very loud, actually. Brash. Kind of bossy. She’s sort of a hit-it-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of girl. She won’t back down in an argument, no matter who’s on the other side of it, even a dragon. She’s a little touchy about her height, though.”

  “About being tall?”

  “No, no. She loves being called ‘tall.’ Don’t call her ‘short,’ though. Not unless you like broken noses. And if you want to get her to do something and she doesn’t want to, just suggest she can’t. Then stand back and watch her go.”

  “Is she a gamer, like you?”

  “Nah. She’s not much good at board games. She likes ball games better. Violent ones, particularly. She is a really good snow skier.”

  “Ah.” Nesstra nodded. “Are you a good skier too?”

  “Not particularly, no. She also likes to wrestle. And no, I’m not big on that either.”

  “So you two don’t have a lot in common?”

  “Not in terms of interests, no.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you actually like her very much.”

  “Are you kidding?” Karn exclaimed. “She’s my best friend in the whole world. I’d do anything for her.”

  Nesstra was silent again. Karn recalled how she’d reacted the previous time he’d mentioned his friendship. He didn’t know much about wood elves, or elves in general. Maybe they thought about these things differently. Still, the young wood elf was certainly proving a friend to him now. Was it all gratitude? A debt for his assistance against last night’s attackers? Or was she so lonely? He understood being away from home in a city of strangers. Karn put a hand in his pocket, felt the parchment that Mr. Oak had given him.

  “Why don’t we call it a day?” he said, feeling only slightly guilty about not trusting her completely.

  “You’re upset?” she asked.

  “No. I just want to be alone for a bit. I can meet you back at Fosco’s tomorrow.”

  —

  Karn stood in the northernmost tip of the city, in the shadow of the ancient Gordion walls, a high guard tower to his back and the door of a three-story half-timbered house before him. In his hand he held the parchment. Leflin Greenroot’s name was scrawled on it, with an address and the words Come tomorrow night at sunset. Come alone.

  The words were written in the Common alphabet. He read Common better than he spoke it, but he suspected that he read it even better now thanks to the dragon’s touch.

  Karn waited until the sun dipped behind the wall. The first star of evening gleamed overhead.

  He knocked on the door.

  There was a noise inside. Karn wondered what Leflin Greenroot would look like. More important, how should he explain why a boy from Norrøngard had come so far to see the wood elf? For that matter, why had Thianna written this elf’s name down at all? Was he a friend, a contact, an ally, or an enemy? Maybe knocking on the door wasn’t the smart move. Maybe this was a trap. Maybe…

  The doorknob turned. The door opened. Smart or not, the move was made.

  A wood elf stood in the entranceway, and Karn gasped.

  “Hello, Karn,” said Mr. Oak.

  “You’re Leflin Greenroot!” Karn gasped.

  “When I said that Leflin Greenroot didn’t want to talk to you,” said the mahogany-skinned wood elf from the night before, “I knew what I was talking about. Leflin Greenroot, at your service.”

  Mr. Oak, or rather Mr. Greenroot, stepped aside to allow Karn to enter his home.

  Karn found himself ushered into the main living area of the house. A staircase presumably led up to bedrooms, and a kitchen could be seen through a doorway. The rest of the ground floor was given over to a combination den and library, with several comfortable chairs, a large table, a writing desk, and shelves and shelves of books and scrolls.

  “I’m something of a historian,” said Greenroot when he saw Karn’s interest in his library. “Isn’t that what’s brought you here—delving into the past?”

  “I told you before,” said Karn icily, “I’m looking for my friend.”

  “You played an interesting game last night, I’ll give you that,” said Greenroot. “You were clever enough to win, but you chose to be kind. That’s what you did, isn’t it?”

  “Beating that smug Svartálfar seemed to mean more to Nesstra than to me.”

  “Hmm. I doubt I would have kept my word if you had just beaten me, but what you did was unexpected.”

  “So you’ll keep your word now?”

  Greenroot considered. “I promised you answers. Are you sure you want them?”

  “I have to find Thianna.”

  “She isn’t here.” The wood elf gestured around as if inviting Karn to look for a giantess hiding among the furniture.

  “But she was?” asked Karn, never taking his gaze from Greenroot’s.

  “No. She tracked me down at the Windy Willows, just as you did, and was coming to see me, but she never arrived.” Karn’s expression darkened. “And so you follow her footsteps. And here you are. With dark elves for enemies. And you know what she was searching for.”

  Karn understood that Greenroot already knew what Thianna and Tanthal were after.

  “Tell me about the Horns of Osius,” he said.

  Leflin Greenroot sighed. “I suspected that’s why your friend was calling on me. Buried secrets should stay buried. I’d have told her that.”

  “Please, it’s all I have to go on.”

  “Very well, have a seat. We’re going to take a trip into the past.”

  —

  “You know, of course, of the Gordion Empire that lasted for over a thousand years and fell nearly a millennium ago. But how much do you know of the empires before?”

  “Before?” asked Karn.

  Greenroot snorted. “I thought as much. It was not a human empire and so you aren’t taught it. But there was a great civilization, greater than any that has followed it.” He pulled a scroll case from the wall and unrolled a large map upon the table. Karn saw the familiar shape of the continent of Katernia, but few of the country names matched the ones he knew. Greenroot pointed to a large territory marked out in gold leaf paint. “An empire of the Light Elves ruled much of the civilized world, and you humans existed only in the shadows of that light.”

  Karn bristled at “you humans” but kept silent.

  Greenroot continued. “But weeds grow wherever a garden is untended.” Greenroot pointed again. “There was a tribe of humans living on a small island called Talsathia, south of what is now the island continent of Thica.”

  “Thica?” said Karn, recognizing the significance of that place. “Thianna’s mother came from there.”

  “Interesting,” mused the elf, tapping a finger on the map in thought. “Interesting to be sure. As you’ll see. Now, it was in Talsathia, using a mystical forge, that a human known as Osius crafted three magical horns.”

  “Three? Oh no, don’t tell me there are three of these?”

  “That bothers you?”

  “Yes, it bothers me!” exclaimed Karn. “One was trouble enough.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way.” Greenroot studied Karn in a way that made him feel the elf was judging him. Again. “But yes,” he said. “There are three and only three. These horns, as I believe you know, gave Osius mastery over serpents. Using their power, he gathered and enslaved the Great Dragons. And the rule of the Dragon King began.

  “The war of the Dragon King versus the Light Elves was fought for many years, and I could tell you stories about it until the moons set and the sun rose, but that is for another time. For now, I’ll just say that, though it was not destroyed, the Light Elf Empire was crippled.”

  “Score one for the weeds.”

  “Hmmm.” Greenroot made a face. “Perhaps. But then, at the height of Talsathian power, the Great Dragons rebelled. The dragons struck a blow against their masters and sank the island of Talsa
thia, carrying the forge and its secrets beneath the waves. The reign of the Dragon King was over.

  “You remember my comment about weeds and untended gardens?”

  “How could I forget?” said Karn. “It’s such a flattering image.”

  “Well, certain human tribes on the continent were now free of Talsathian dominance. They picked at the remains of the Light Elf Empire. They grew into what would eventually become the Gordion Empire. Not as fine an empire as the Light Elves, but the last great empire this continent will see. Unless you count the Uskirians, and I do not.”

  Karn didn’t care about Greenroot’s prejudice, only facts.

  “But what happened to the horns?” he asked.

  “Rumors of powerful artifacts from doomed Talsathia abounded.

  “One horn, it was said, traveled to Thica. It was used there for a time, then lost to history and found again. And then recently lost.”

  “It went to Norrøngard.”

  Greenroot raised an eyebrow at this.

  “Don’t worry,” Karn told him. “Believe me, it’s gone.”

  “You are sure about this?”

  “Oh yes. Thianna fed it to a dragon.”

  “A dragon?”

  “Like you said, that’s a story for another time. What about the other horns?”

  “Very well.” Greenroot nodded. “One horn, it is said, remained submerged at the bottom of a sea in sunken Talsathia. I think we can discount it for now.

  “But one horn eventually traveled to the Gordion outpost of Castrusentis. Its bearer died without successfully mastering it. Recognized as valuable and dangerous, the horn was hidden away from the world. But a clue to its location remained. Over time, the story of the Horns of Osius passed into legend, and the outpost of Castrusentis evolved into a proper city—the city of Castlebriar.”

  “Castrusentis was the Gordion name for Castlebriar,” said Karn. “And the clue—‘First to a Castle in the Briars.’ ”

  “So you know the riddle?”

  “Yes, but why leave a riddle behind if you want something hidden?”

  “Because riddles both preserve a meaning across the centuries and ensure that only those qualified to understand can actually decipher them. But as to your friend Thianna, I suspect she found something.”

  “Found something?”

  “Yes. Something she was bringing to me for my opinion. Do you have that something?”

  “I don’t have anything.”

  Greenroot placed a hand on Karn’s shoulder. The weight of that hand didn’t seem friendly.

  “She didn’t send you an object? Are you sure? She didn’t leave it for you to find? Tell me the truth, boy. This is important.”

  Karn thought about the golden statue of Cybelle on the bedside table. But that was a trinket. Not an ancient artifact or mysterious map.

  “Nothing. She gave me nothing. She didn’t pass anything along to me. All I have is the riddle.”

  Greenroot seemed perturbed. Karn felt he should say something.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Thank me?” replied the elf. “For what?”

  “For helping.”

  “I’m not telling you this to help you, boy. I’m telling you the horn’s story to warn you away. So that you will give up. What’s hidden should stay hidden. There are those who prefer such things remain out of the world—secret organizations that exist to ensure that they do. It’s possible your friend fell afoul of one of them. You have to understand, their concerns are huge in scope.” He swept his arm out to indicate the map of antiquity again. “They consider the good of the world, across centuries and millennia. They don’t take prisoners. If your friend fell into their hands, they would eliminate her.”

  Karn scowled. “She isn’t dead.”

  “If she has been captured by the forces I speak of—or an opposing force—”

  Karn hammered a fist on the table. “You don’t know Thianna. If she’s been captured, then you should feel sorry for her captors.”

  “We’re getting tired of playing games with you.”

  Yelor the dark elf couldn’t help himself. He reached up to touch his swollen nose, wincing at the jolt of pain. The hateful girl had broken it during their last session. The Underhand senior officer assigned to Castlebriar was fairly certain that prisoner interrogations were supposed to be more painful for the prisoner. Sadly that wasn’t proving to be the case here.

  “Maybe if you played them better you wouldn’t be so tired,” snickered the frost giantess, annoying as ever.

  Thianna Frostborn was standing in the middle of a dimly lit room. All the furniture had been removed and everything cleared away for several feet around her. The dark elves were taking no chances.

  The ropes that she had snapped on her first escape attempt had been replaced with thick iron chains. Yelor was squinting through a blackened and puffy left eye as a result of that incident.

  The chair that she had splintered into little more than kindling wood on her second escape attempt had been replaced by an actual tree trunk. The trunk was nailed securely into the floor and ceiling. Yelor’s twisted ankle throbbed at the memory.

  If they didn’t get answers out of her soon, he was going to be black-and-blue from head to foot.

  “Listen, you infuriating child,” said Yelor. “All you have to do is tell us where the key is, and then this can end. I promise you.”

  The Underhand officer hated the pleading in his voice. He hated this assignment, hated being so long aboveground in this hot southern land, where the only elves apart from his own team were ugly tree lovers.

  Yelor looked at the trunk to which Thianna’s arms were bound. At least there was a certain satisfaction in his choice of hideout. It was hardly the place a wood elf would ever come, with their love of living trees.

  “We will find the key eventually,” he said, striving for calm. “If you help us now, you will not only spare me days of aggravation, but you will spare yourself a difficult ordeal.”

  Thianna appeared to consider his words. Then she hung her head and mumbled something underneath her breath.

  “What is that?” Yelor asked.

  Thianna mumbled again.

  “Come, girl, I can’t hear you.”

  The mumbling continued.

  Yelor exhaled in exasperation. She was secured with chains, after all. He shouldn’t be so afraid just to approach her. She was only a girl, even if she was a big, brutish, violent, and uncouth one.

  He brought his ear close to Thianna’s mouth.

  “Now, what is that you are saying?”

  “Skapa kaldr skapa kaldr skapa kaldr skapa kaldr,” she chanted.

  She lifted her head, grinning triumphantly.

  Crraaack!

  Too late Yelor realized that the half giantess had cast some sort of frost spell on her iron manacles. Brittle with hoarfrost, they shattered like icicles, and her two oversize fists hammered painfully into either side of Yelor’s slender head.

  “Good night, sleep tight,” the girl laughed in his face. As the floor rose up to meet him, Yelor realized that he would have two new injuries from this, Thianna’s third escape attempt.

  —

  Thianna didn’t bother trying the door. She knew they barred it behind Yelor each time he entered the room for one of their sessions. She only had moments to batter it down, but fortunately they’d provided her with a means.

  She walked around to the other side of the tree trunk and put her shoulder to it. A quick, hard heave, and the trunk tore loose from the ceiling. It crashed into the door, shattering the wood and tearing it from its frame.

  The frost giantess leapt through the ruined opening. A guard lay unconscious amid the debris. She took his sword. He didn’t seem to mind.

  Then another elf was on her.

  She didn’t have time for fancy moves. She met his blade with so much force that it was knocked from his grip. The sword was flung across the room to stick, quivering, into the wall. The
n she struck him in the face with the pommel of her own sword, and down he went.

  The room she was in was long and rectangular. A great circular saw hung in a wooden frame over a pit. The tree trunk made sense now, as did the background sound of running water she realized had been ever present. The dark elves had hidden her in a lumber mill. This was the second floor. A doorway for the removal of sawn logs and a staircase leading down were at the far end of the room.

  Unfortunately, several more dark elves were coming up those stairs.

  “Come on, fellows,” Thianna greeted the dark elves, flicking her sword in invitation. “Nothing easy is worth doing.”

  —

  Thianna burst out into the evening air. Several dark elves trailed in her wake. Two of them were trying to grapple her to the ground. She’d left a couple more out of commission inside. An elbow shoved into a chin freed her of one of her assailants. She stomped on the other’s foot.

  Temporarily unencumbered, she looked around. The lumber mill had several buildings. The stumps of felled trees stretched before her. It looked as if she was south of the Westwater River, but not far from Castlebriar. She saw the city to her right, on the other side of the water.

  Good, she thought. I’ll be back there in no time.

  Someone was approaching from the road to the city. Another elf. About her age, she judged, but hardly her size. Just a slip of a girl.

  “Stop her,” groaned a wounded elf from inside the mill.

  The girl suddenly had weapons in her hands. Long, slender darts.

  “You can’t be serious,” Thianna said.

  For answer, a dart flew at her head.

  Thianna reared back and just managed to bat it away with the flat of her sword. She almost didn’t see the second dart until it was too late. She flung herself aside. It missed her by less than an inch.

  “Stop that!” the giantess roared. She swung her sword at the little elf. And missed.

  “You’re fast, I’ll give you that,” said Thianna.

  The elf grinned. But only for a second. Then she had two more darts in her hands. She held them like long stilettos.

  The two girls circled, sizing each other up.

  “You can’t do much damage with those little needles,” said Thianna.