Heroes or Thieves (Steps of Power 2)

by Sherwood, J. J.

  The mahogany chair creaked as he settled back into it, and he slid the completed parchment to his left. He pulled the next one off his stack, scanning it and flourishing his name across the bottom. He pressed the seal of a phoenix into the corner and waved the parchment briefly in the air to dry. Then he discarded it to his left.

  It was a brief glimpse of progress.

  There was a hasty knock from the hall beyond and Sairel pursed his lips, throwing a hand into the air. He had just hushed the external ruckus and now the internal din was ready to be employed. “Can I not work?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.” The door opened and closed promptly to admit a male dressed in dark greens and browns, a silver pin of office fastened to his breast. He was holding a small, cream-colored parchment. “I’m afraid you must read this…”

  Sairel glanced sidelong at the teetering papers on his right and the mound growing on his left. “If I was offered a gold coin for every instance in which those words were uttered to me, I would be richer than all the dwarves of Ryekarayn. Combined.” He waved a hand, beckoning his advisor forward. “Hand it over, Veacerel.”

  Veacerel strode briskly across the room and set the letter down, stamping his finger onto the unmarked and broken seal. “I whisked it away before your father could discover its arrival, but I’m afraid Darcarus seized it first. It’s from Sellemar.”

  Sairel picked up the parchment immediately, flipping open the coarse paper. It was sweeter than Ryekarayn’s, taken from the Maisprings along Sevrigel’s coast. He could still catch the faint scent of the ocean rising from beneath the thin, scratched ink.

  Sairel’s heart tightened. The script lacked the usual elegance of the writer; instead it was swift and jagged, the ink bleeding heavily into the adjacent letters.

  Hairem is dead. General Taemrin and his army have been annihilated. Saebellus has already seized the capital and he marches on his brothers at this hour. Ilsevel says “the reign of kings has returned,” but what she intends to do is far from our True Blood cause.

  All of Sevrigel has come to war. I fear, with Saebellus’ tactics, you shall not be long to feel the ripple of their effects.

  Sairel’s annoyance faded. His grasp tightened as he reread the six short sentences. The words of the song drumming outside the pane clashed with striking relevance. “When did this arrive?”

  “Not an hour past,” Veacerel replied stiffly. “Magically relayed by Tilarus, I assume.”

  Sairel turned to the window. The night god was rising, cloaked in the endless mantle of stars. His eyes swept east, to where Noctem’s darkness engulfed the narrow channel separating Ryekarayn from Sevrigel. “Tell Darcarus his lips are sealed or I shall seal them myself.” He looked down, regarding the letter stoically, but beneath his impassive expression a sea of emotions roiled. It would have been hours—maybe a day—since the letter had been sent. Saebellus was still solidifying his grasp… Yet already Ryekarayn was buckling beneath the mere ripples of war.

  The warlord’s distractions for the human lands were well-formed—as cunning as his strategy that had produced Sevrigel’s defeat: the elven nation would find no aid so long as such diversions remained unbroken.

  Sairel’s grip tightened on the parchment until his fingers grew white. “An empire is emerging from within the ashes of Sevrigel’s ruin. I believe the struggles of Ryekarayn are now intertwined with our brethren’s fate. Aersadore,” he spoke gravely, “is at war.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The war had been lost and Ilsevel had raised a dagger against Alvena’s king. Raised a dagger against her king and slew him!

  And Alvena had run. Beyond the palace. Beyond the city. Beyond even the canyon wall. The days had blurred together and she could not be sure a time had ever existed when she had not run.

  She had left the slimy egress of the True Blood tunnel far behind, and somewhere within its gem-encrusted, gold-flaked walls, her urgency remained to gather dust. Now her ankles were raw; the sleeves torn from Lardol’s shirt had held his large shoes to her tiny feet, but only just!—They popped and clicked away from her every weary step, dragging her further toward the cold, damp, dark of the forest floor where she might finally find respite.

  ‘You need to stop. You need to rest,’ she chastised herself. She certainly could not sustain this ridiculous pace all the way to the coast!

  And to bestow further misery upon her tired and raw body, her hair was wet. A river had intersected her path and she had been forced to flounder her way across stark naked—her shoes and clothes stuffed beside the provisions in her oiled sack. Sellemar had said nothing of such an obstacle between her and the northern route. Admittedly, only the frogs nestled in the mud had spied her climbing awkwardly from the shore, but they would surely spend the whole night croaking about it!

  ‘How could a seasoned warrior like Sellemar forget such a crucial detail!’ Or perhaps it was because he was seasoned that the obstacle never even flitted across his mind.

  The journey would be full of such unpredictable obstacles.

  Alvena huffed. She dropped her sack beside a great oak and stubbornly wiped her eyes with the inside of her tiny wrist. ‘So you have to be strong. Like him. And Hairem. And Erallus. And Lardol.’

  She raised her chin against the gloom of the canyon’s forest floor, but nobody was present to admire her resolve. Abandoning pretenses, she instead shamelessly huddled down into the dirt at the tree’s base and swept great piles of leaves over her body for warmth.

  Those peeping frogs had to have a better idea for survival than she did.

  Next she opened her sack, relieved to find the contents dry, her letter safe, and food with which to sate her ravenous hunger. Sellemar had said the nearest city was only a few days north, but her paltry reserve of provisions would not last that long!

  She stuffed her mouth full—that was about the only thing her rationed meal would fill—and nestled her head into the crook of her arm. ‘I wonder how many bugs are in these leaves?’ she found herself thinking as her eyes closed. ‘How big are they? …Are they beetles? Maybe some of them are spiders?’ Her eyes shot wide. ‘Gods, they could be huge…!’ She promptly wiggled free of the leaves and dirt and hastily smacked the remnants from her nightdress. She shivered with cold and disgust. ‘Ick ick ick!’ She stomped about the tree, taking deep and noisy breaths. ‘Ick!’

  The chilled wind did not wait for her to finish.

  ‘Alvena, you’ll freeze!’ she scolded herself as her skirt batted against her bare legs. She tried to picture Sellemar lying in the dirt, covering himself with leaves for warmth.

  It was impossible to imagine.

  ‘There has to be another way!’ she thought angrily. Why had the gods made those creeping, scuttling creatures?! She shivered, hopping from foot to foot.

  Still… She blew out her cheeks. Sellemar was probably not running about in the wilderness half-naked. She balled her hands into fists and lay back down in the leaves, trying to think about the saltiness of the meat she had just consumed and not the scratchiness of the bug-infested leaves.

  Not long ago, she would have been sleeping with her head on feathers beneath sheets of silk. How fast life could change.

  *

  Alvena yawned, stretching her arms above her head. The sunlight was harsh this morning. It penetrated the chiffon curtains dangling delicately before her balcony doors, piercing straight through her eyelids. She nestled further into her covers, frowning slightly at their scratchy interior. Ugh, and her bed was really uncomfortable.

  She sat up abruptly, her eyes flashing open. ‘By Sel’ari! Hairem! Why didn’t Lardol wake her up?! Hairem was probably wondering where she was—!’ An ancient tree came into focus above her and a chilly bead of dew rolled down her breast.

  She tore her mind immediately from Hairem’s visage, grabbing her sack and withdrawing her breakfast. ‘The food is wonderful, almost as good as palace food. How generous of Sellemar. I love strawberries. I wonder what I
’ll have for lunch,’ she carried on to herself, but it was not long before her enthusiasm dwindled. Was that mold on her bread? How long had Sellemar kept these in his cupboards?! She stuffed it back into her bag. ‘…Gods, I really have to pee…’ Her eyes flitted southward in concern. What if some elf with really really really good eyes looked down into the canyon’s leafless canopy and saw her squatting behind a tree?

  She clasped a hand to her mouth, mortified. ‘Gods, I certainly hope not!’

  She made her business quickly, strutting away and hastily adjusting her nightdress. If she was an adventurer, she determined, she would make sure her party took routes that stopped at towns along the way and was not reduced to stooping behind bushes like common men. ‘Unbelievable,’ she grumbled. How much longer did she have to endure this discomfort? Would Sellemar’s letter truly barter for a ship away from all these trials?

  Forgetting that the parchment had been moved to the sack, she patted her abdomen once.

  “Stop that!” she heard a distant echo of the Common Tongue.

  Alvena’s hand dropped from her dress and she scuttled behind a tree. ‘Who?! I wasn’t doing anything!’ She peered wide-eyed out from around the trunk, her heart nearly leaping from her breast.

  Only a pale, red leaf tumbled out into the surrounding crest of hills.

  ‘Maybe a miner!’ she considered warily. The journey north had brought her close to a new face of the canyon wall and she had heard stories of the excavation for the precious kisacaela housed within. The miners called it “elf’s eye” when they sold it for exorbitant prices on Ryekarayn, claiming homeopathic remedies to every illness under the sun. Lardol used to talk about it. He had an enormous, polished stone in his room that Alvena used to sneak in to admire.

  But perhaps that was why he was so old.

  A musty breeze tugged Alvena’s matted hair free to whip little, knotted twigs against her shoulders. In her paranoia, they felt like little gnarled fingers, tapping her dirty skin, urging her to look around. She snatched her hair and plastered it firmly against her head. She was not afraid. She had heard plenty about humans. Humans were the reason for all the corruption and vices in the world—all that her people valiantly struggled to remain above. But they were slow of wit and body, hardly more than taller, less malodorous dwarves.

  The auburn leaf twirled once and alighted upon a mossy stone. ‘Move along!—You can’t stand here all day!’ She stepped slowly from around the tree and crept up the next hill.

  To her initial relief and subsequent consternation, it was not humans that waited for her. ‘Oh, great. Another river,’ she muttered as she trudged to the murky waters. ‘That’s your second offense, Sellemar.’

  And worse, this one was wider and teeming with little white crests that broke angrily against the shore. She paced down the shoreline, vehemently hoping for a bridge to manifest itself. Maybe the miners needed one to cross the river…

  But a good march later, Alvena had nothing to show for her efforts. How could she reach the coast when she could not ferry herself across the damn river?! Anxiety clutched at her throat and a stinging tear rolled down her dirty cheek. She slapped the underbrush violently and gave the nearest bush an embittered kick. Nothing! Her short journey was an embarrassing—if not predictable—failure!

  ‘Ouchchch!’ she gasped as she tripped on a nearby log that snapped her toe askew. The pain released her well of emotions in full. ‘Damn it! Why her?! Why Hairem?! Why were the gods punishing them?!’ She leaned down to clutch her throbbing toe.

  And stopped.

  A long, sturdy canoe peered out from under a bush, paddles resting in its belly. Alvena’s face lit up. Sel’ari was looking out for her! ‘Perhaps the miners use this?’ she pondered as she heaved it toward the shore with little grunts.

  As the front end slid into the water, the boat twisted unexpectedly in the current and was nearly swept away. Alvena dove into the hull, clambering into the belly… and dropped one of the paddles into the water. ‘Oh no! Did I need both?!’

  With a little bob along the waves, it nodded its goodbye and sailed down the river without her.

  ‘…Oh well…’ she initially dismissed, but the strenuous rowing quickly made her regret her clumsiness. By the time she reached the opposite shore, she wished she had done more at the palace than brush the king’s hair and fold silken shirts. She tumbled onto the muddy shore and scrambled for the bow.

  Her fingers grasped only air.

  Relieved of her weight, the boat too had been wrenched askew in the current of the water. Bobbing its final farewell along the white crests, it sailed off to join the lonely paddle somewhere in the distance.

  Alvena stood in the mud and looked down at the last paddle resting in her grimy hands. She dropped it into the water. It seemed appropriate that all the pieces go off together.

  She turned around and started.

  A short ways into the tree line, staring perplexedly back at her, were half a dozen tanned faces. Brawny… rugged… hairy… They could only be…

  ‘Humans!’ she realized, her spine stiffening.

  “How’s Dane an’ Rulf suppos’ t’ get back now?” a grubby man at the front demanded, but he was quickly shoved into the back of the gawking horde.

  Alvena found herself momentarily stunned, both in surprise and indomitable curiosity. Never had she seen such a variety of shapes and physiques! Some of the humans were lanky and muscular, some burly and broad, others squat and terribly disproportioned. But they all fashioned themselves in dirty cotton garments and thick-soled boots—not at all like the rich men who had stalked about the palace of the king.

  A spindly man in the front struck a sudden grin, his eyes canvassing her slender body.

  Alvena’s curiosity withered.

  ‘They’re just harmless scavengers,’ she assured herself, hastily averting her gaze as though her lack of vision would likewise inhibit theirs. She clutched the sack to her pounding chest and found her feet carrying her swiftly away. ‘Don’t run. Humans are like dogs, Lardol said—they’ll chase you if you run.’

  A malicious voice pursued her, snapping at her heels. “That’s a Sel’ven,” it growled, and she imagined the lips curling into a venomous sneer.

  “Damn bastards,” another rejoined.

  Alvena glanced over her shoulder to find that the humans had closed the distance. The icy wind flung itself urgently against her back and she quickened her pace. Why were they coming closer?!

  “Where do you think you’re going?!” a sweet voice rang.

  But the rest of the men’s faces had grown dark and hard.

  Alvena’s stomach dropped and she broke into a run. Her hair whipped behind her, the little twigs scratching frantically against her neck. ‘Sel’ari protect me!’ she yearned to scream, the massive shoes flapping against her feet. Yet she didn’t dare pause to fling them free. She had to run! She had to reach the coast—!

  A large hand seized her by the shoulder, nearly yanking her off her feet. The humans were terrifyingly fast—not at all as the scholars had depicted them!

  Alvena gave a cry, tugging desperately against his iron grasp. Tension had never been so high between their races that a human would dare lay hands upon an elf!

  Yet the wide fingers tightened, digging into her flesh with jagged fingernails. “Stop your struggling, elf” the human snarled, drawing her close. His breath reeked of something smoked and greasy—concurrently sour and sweet—and Alvena envisioned a rotted carcass roasting over a flame. She tried to wrest her face free of the stench, but his hand swept into her tangled hair and squeezed. “Sel’ven bitch, where do you think you’re going?”

  ‘What do you want?!’ Alvena shrieked, twisting her face into confusion. She struggled to elevate her skull to her tearing roots. ‘Let me go, let me go, let me go!!’

  One of the gangly humans sauntered to their side, rubbing the flaking skin from a sun-burnt ear. “Let this be a personal message for your bastard king!” he raised h
is hand and brought it down across her face.

  “And your bitch queen!” shouted another brute from the trees. A chorus of agreement rallied with his anger.

  Alvena’s lip burst and her eyes welled. ‘Hairem?! What had Hairem—No… Saebellus? Saebellus? Why—?’

  A third human gnashed his teeth together furiously. “Don’t look innocent,” he spat. “We know what you are!”

  ‘What I am?’ Alvena panicked. A fugitive?!

  The first man wrenched her upward, shaking her with violence. “And even if you aren’t no spy—”

  Even as Alvena’s head snapped atop her spine, her fear fell away to bewilderment. ‘Spy?!’

  “—you’re just as guilty as every other fucking Sel’ven—just standing by while they hunt us down. As if right now we didn’t have enough god-damn trouble in our homeland!”

  And before Alvena could decipher his words, the second attacker lifted his fist again, slamming it down across her nose. She felt a rush of blood flood her face, running along the crack in her lips as she opened her mouth to wail. What spies?! What laws?! What hostility had Saebellus and Ilsevel bred in mere days?!

  She tried to shake her head, opening her mouth to protest. She had nothing to do with them!

  But the humans had deduced otherwise. The large man threw her savagely into the dirt, kicking out and catching her in the side. She tumbled across the damp leaves and mud, dashing her hip against a rock. She scrambled toward the water, tears streaming silently down her swollen cheeks, her ribs reeling from the blow.

  ‘The coast… the coast! I have to make it—!’ She plunged her hand into the water, grasping for anything to hang onto.

  A hand caught her ankle, jerking her across the river sludge and flipping her viciously onto her back. The ruddy, bearded face loomed above her, pores gaping, scars snaking over his bulging veins. “You elves nipped the tail of a dragon. We humans aren’t afraid to get our hands sullied with your holy, righteous blood.”

  ‘I didn’t do anything!’ she screamed, flailing wildly for the safety of the white crests. ‘Nothing! Noth—!’ She stilled suddenly, feeling a hand catch the hem of her nightdress.