by Sean Rodden
Noldarion’s good-sized hands balled into fists.
Tielle quickly stepped between the two boys.
“Teller of the Tale!” she hissed contemptuously. “He is half your size, Noll!”
The big lad shrugged. “I’m being generous, Tielle. Fighting people bigger than you makes you stronger, toughens you up. I’ll be doing the haffian a favour.” That false laugh. “Really, I must insist.”
Her eyes blackening, the young Heiress’ left hand slipped a fraction closer to the haft of her sword, but before she her fingers found it –
“Indeed, Noldarion,” interjected a low melodious voice from where the shadows at the edge of Galledine were deepest. “Then allow me to do you a favour.”
All faces turned to the forest.
The voice had come from overhead, several feet above Tielle, somewhere in the lower branches of the trees. The speaker must have climbed one of the outlying oaks. Must have – but no. The soft sound of a branch brushing an arm, the snap of a twig underfoot, and the imposing form of a formidable young Fian strode forth from the concealing darkness of the Gardens.
One stride only. One very long stride.
The youth was gigantic, an entire head and neck taller than Noldarion; his shoulders were wide and sloped, possessed of enormous strength, over which long waves of tawny hair spilled like a lustrous leonine mane. Galledine’s shade cast the Fian’s figure in a dusky grey-green crepuscule from which his eyes glittered icily and his rillagh burned as though aflame. The conspicuous shape of a gargantuan greatsword bisected the black behind the Fian’s broad back, the impressive weapon’s two-handed grip extending over the right shoulder, its tapered tip protruding below the left knee. At his thick thighs, huge hands flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed, repeatedly, overflowing with nervous energy, teeming with warning.
“A-Aru-Aru-ru…” Noldarion attempted, then quickly abandoned the effort, shamed into silence by his own stuttering.
At Noldarion’s flanks, his followers were struck mute and motionless, save the widening of their eyes, the exaggerated heaving of their chests, and the accelerated hammering of anxious hearts.
Tielle’s lips twitched toward a smile, yet they paled and trembled, and the flush in her smooth cheeks was no longer for anger, but for something else entirely.
Chadh still stared at the sand, stirring.
“Do you refuse my favour, Noldarion?” asked Arumarron of Arrenhoth, son of Tulnarron, and Heir to the House of Eccuron. Despite the comely curl of the huge Fian’s mouth and the light tone to his words, the gleam in his eyes held even less humour than had Noll’s earlier laughter. “Do you not wish that I arrange for you to be made stronger? Toughened up? Really, I must insist. I promise that you will find me quite generous with my lessons.”
Noldarion did not reply. No words seemed safe enough.
“Indeed,” mused the Heir to the House of Eccuron. “As I suspected.”
Blue-black stars bloomed slowly within the cold grey ice of his irises. He looked to Tielle, and something softened momentarily in his sharp chiseled features, only to harden again as he returned his regard to Noldarion. The constant contraction and slackening of his hands implied – nay, promised – imminent violence.
“War has descended upon the Fiannar – yes, Noll, battle has begun – and you and your flock of bleating sheep here would play Daradur and Demons with a boy so much smaller, younger, weaker than you? Really? And willfully flaunting your appalling insensitivity, you insult Rothanar, our staunchest ally among the Free Nations, who even now waits to raise her banners and blades in brave defense of our home – of your home. And you…you do…this.”
Noldarion looked down, shuffled his feet. Made another attempt to speak:
“I…I was…I was just – ”
But Arumarron waved the effort aside with a snort.
“Despite the unfortunate inevitability that you are to inherit the House of Cilcannan, good Noldarion, until such time as you are worthy of the title, I suggest that you not speak of what does or does not become an Heir to a high House of the Fiannar. You know nothing of the matter. Nothing. Your behaviour here is beneath contempt.”
Noldarion shivered, gulped aloud. Said nothing.
Arumarron cast him a bemused, quizzical look. Massive hands flexed, relaxed, flexed, relaxed, flexed, relaxed.
“You’re still here, Noll?”
No further encouragement was necessary. The noble Heir to the House of Cilcannan turned and fled, his fawning flock of followers flying with him. Arumarron and Tielle watched them scramble away, and there was little to distinguish the expressions of disdain decorating the duo of otherwise disparate countenances.
“What an ass,” grumbled Tielle, scorn returning the colour to her lips. “Why in the Teller’s Tale is he like that?”
“He is insecure,” rumbled the son of Tulnarron from his terrible height, his hands finally falling still. “His father is a great man, in every meaningful way and then some. Noll knows much will be expected of him, and he worries over his own unworthiness like an anxious dog at a bone.”
“He’s like that,” mumbled Chadh, stir-stir-stirring, “because he likes you, Tee-tee.”
“Noll is an ass because he likes me?” Tielle scowled, mulling the words over. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take that.”
Chadh’s down-turned face secreted what may have been a smile.
“What’s a haffian, anyway?” asked Arumarron, two incredibly long strides carrying him to Tielle’s side, just within the shadow of the trees.
“That fool Noll’s brilliant combination of ‘half’ and ‘Fian’,” Tielle replied, acutely aware of Arumarron’s proximity, and even more conscious of the slight quaver to her voice as she spoke to the tall, strong, handsome, kind, funny, heroic, absolutely perfect Heir to the House of Eccuron. “His genius just shines, don’t you think?”
Arumarron shrugged indifferently. “Well, for a genius he certainly goes about displaying his affections in a most self-defeating manner.”
“She would ignore him otherwise,” suggested Chadh as he stirred. “For some people, any attention is good attention.”
Arumarron peered down upon the boy with the stick.
“I assume one of your parents is not of the Fiannar?”
“My father was the first child born to Teillerian, Master of the House of Mirmaddon,” Chadh related without looking up. “My mother was a Roth of western Uladh.”
“Ah,” mused Arumarron. “I knew your father. Not well, but I knew him. Darthadain and his cousin Accamon visited Arrenhoth regularly. I did not know your mother, but I remember having heard she was a fine woman. I am sorry for your losses.”
Chadh did not reply, just stirred the sand.
Arumarron glanced toward Tielle, who only shook her head. No help to be found there. The huge Fiannian youth returned his attention to the smallish son of departed Darthadain.
“What is your name? What are you doing?”
“Turtles,” came the enigmatic reply.
“What?” Arumarron frowned, his countenance clouding in confusion. “Your name is ‘Turtles’?”
Tielle giggled.
“The sand is packed too hard,” Chadh explained in a small choked voice, as though something was constricting his throat. “They won’t be able to get out.”
The Heir to the House of Eccuron scowled silently at the boy, then cast another enquiring look toward Tielle.
Smiling widely, whitely, the girl shrugged. “He does this.”
Arumarron stared. Blinked. His frown darkened. “His name is Turtles and he does this – he stirs sand.”
Tielle laughed in the sweet, pure way entirely unique to adolescent girls. “Close enough, Heir Arumarron.”
“Indeed,” ruminated the gigantic youth. He watched the smaller boy continue to prod and stir with his stick for a heartbeat, two, three, then sighed heavily, his expansive chest heaving, as though dismissing, dispelling, expelling all interest in the
matter. Arumarron’s cool gaze fixed upon the girl. “Well, it was a brave and noble thing, Tielle of the House of Mirmaddon, stepping in between there as you did in order to protect Turtles from Noldarion and his motley crew.”
“Oh no, Arumarron of the House of Eccuron.” Tielle shook her head, long golden locks cascading incandescently in the nascent morning light. “You have it upside down and backward.”
“Oh?” said the Heir, stepping from shadow into dappled sunshine. “How so?”
Tielle grinned, her eyes wet and glistening, gleaming.
“I wasn’t protecting my little brother from Noldarion,” she stated quietly, the tremor wholly gone from her voice, the flush in her face fast receding. “I was protecting the fool from my little brother.”
The son of Tulnarron looked upon the boy once more, wondering, pondering, a galaxy of black lights burgeoning in the wintry skies of his shining eyes.
Chadh looked up then. Met the Heir’s gaze. Met it, held it.
And Arumarron’s eyes widened, whitened, wildered for that which they witnessed there in the face of that child.
Stir, stir, stir, stir, stir.
Indeed.
The long column of Deathward souls progressed steadily southward upon a broad shelf of limestone that ran along the shore of the Dragon’s Tear. Southward, away from Eryn Ruil and war. Mile after mile, league upon league. Young Fiannian women in full battledress, clad and caped in uniform green, rode fore and aft and to either flank of the company, the brightening light of the morning sun limning their sturdy shields and lofty helms and well-fitted breastplates, setting aglitter their golden rillagha and naked steel blades. Long hair and longer cloaks rippled and snapped in the brisk breeze at their backs; beneath them, majestic mirarra stamped and cantered proudly, manes and fetlocks flowing like silver fire; above them, plain pennants of solid green flapped from spear shafts as would great deltoid leaves in an early autumnal storm.
“The warders of the Green Watch take their tasks seriously,” observed the Seer Sarrane, her strange eyes following the fluid form of a mounted Fiann, a messenger galloping hard, until she lost sight of the young woman somewhere near the head of the column. “Intent, one might suppose, on demonstrating that they are green in name only.”
“The Shield Maiden has trained them well, Seer,” murmured the Lady Cerriste, half-distracted as she was by the tiny form bundled before her in a blanket of fine hogget wool. The infant Aranion cooed up at her from the swaddled saddle and a sleep of misted dreams. Her lips slipping into a soft smile, Cerriste’s nimble fingers reflexively inspected the fastenings of her son’s harness, as they had done countless times since the women and children of the Fiannar had taken leave of their Lord four days earlier. “Their earnest speaks to Caelle’s example and leadership, I should think – and speaks highly.”
“Their earnest also speaks to a heightened anxiety, Lady. Your people are ill at ease and apprehensive.”
“They have cause, sister.”
“We all have cause, C’ris,” Sarrane said softly.
Cerriste peered up and across at her friend, fully attentive once more. Her bright eyes darkened.
“How goes the battle, Sarra?”
“The fighting is desperate, or so it seems,” Sarrane replied, her eyes aswirl with violescent shadows. The mirarran beneath her tossed his regal head, making a mercurial river of his mane. The Seer slid one hand soothingly along the animal’s neck. “But not all things are as they seem.”
“The Southman’s strategy proves sound, then.”
“Very.”
Cerriste nodded, then waited in silence, her next question unspoken yet explicit upon her tight lips.
“Our husbands remain unscathed, Lady,” Sarrane responded casually, “though yours is by far the less gruesome of the two.”
The Lady of the Fiannar sighed softly, closed her eyes briefly. Remembered the ghastly vision of a gore-smeared Tulnarron, suppressed a shiver.
Less gruesome…yes, he would be. My Alvarion is not as… exuberant… in battle as the Master of the House of Eccuron. But then, who among the Fiannar is?
The Lady opened her eyes, lowered them, directed her attention to her infant son once more. Her smile returned, silent and sweet, as Aranion wrapped one tiny hand about an offered finger and gurgled quietly in his sleep.
This…this moment of pure and perfect peace…this is why we do this, my son. For this moment and for many more to come. We do this for you, Aran. For you, for them, for us. For the survival of the Deathward. For our future. That we may endure and know this peace one day. This…this is why we fly.
And the procession came to an abrupt halt.
“Something has happened,” Sarrane said barely above her breath. “Something. I know not what.”
The warder of the Green Watch that the Seer had marked earlier came galloping back to their position in the middle of the company, bent low over her mount’s neck, her hair a fiery wind at her back. Reining her mirarran in before the Lady, the Watcher straightened, lowered her head gravely, and brought a leather-gloved fist to her heart with such enthusiastic force that her rillagh rippled.
Cerriste tapped her own chest. “Report, Watcher Chelyse.”
The young Fiann’s face flushed slightly, her large pale blue-grey eyes a little wider than was usual.
“Lady, the Shield Maiden requests your presence,” she said, a current of zeal underscoring her otherwise clipped, controlled speech. “She would have you see a thing. She awaits you at the Reach.”
“And the thing she would have me see, Watcher?”
Chelyse opened her mouth, clamped it closed, then opened it again.
“I cannot say, Lady. The Shield Maiden did not elaborate.”
Cerriste smiled wryly. Of course not. Why would she? So much the father’s daughter. And the mother’s, for that matter.
“You may tell the Shield Maiden I shall be there presently, Watcher Chelyse.”
The red-haired Fiann’s mirarran snorted.
“Lady, the Shield Maiden instructed me to bring you thither posthaste.”
Thither? Posthaste? Cerriste slid a cynical smile toward Sarrane. “You did say ‘seriously’, sister.”
The Seer’s lips did not move, but a smile glittered in her eerie eyes.
Cerriste looked back upon the eager young woman.
“As admirable as your fervour and passion may be, Watcher, do not disremember who is Lady here. Tell the Shield Maiden I will join her shortly.”
The young warrior blanched visibly, veritably punched her own breast, swung her mirarran about, her cloak a whirl of whipping green. And steed and rider were gone.
“Any thoughts, Seer?” asked Cerriste as the hurried hoofbeats faded rapidly toward the head of the column.
“Only that Caelle is with Mundar of the Wandering Guard, Lady,” replied Sarrane levelly, “and neither would have you hasten without cause.”
The Lady of the Fiannar nodded, her face flat, her eyes flatter. The infant Aranion squeezed her finger with sudden vigour. And ever so gently, she clutched his little hand right back.
“We have stopped.”
“Your powers of observation are impressive, Heir Arumarron.”
The huge young Fian smiled blandly. “You tease me, Heiress.” He made a sigh-like sound. “Most don’t.”
“Most are afraid of you.”
Arumarron grunted. “They have no need to be. Only my enemies need fear me, and I have no enemies among the Deathward.”
“Well, it is said you have a temper…”
“What some call temper, bad humour, whatever, others name lack of patience, and patience is a thing for which I am not known.”
Tielle grinned. “You are your father’s son.”
But Arumarron seemed not to have heard her. His icy eyes were focused southward, past the head of the procession, to where his mother and the Lady had moved to join the Shield Maiden and the Darad. The pair of noble women had ridden in restrained haste, a ce
rtain contained urgency in their steeds’ gaits and etched upon their faces. Something of import had happened. Or at least, something unexpected.
“Indeed,” responded Arumarron at last.
Tielle followed her new friend’s gaze. “What is it?”
But the Heir only shook his head, brows bunching in the bemused manner that had become so endearing so quickly to young Tielle. His huge hands flexed, unflexed, once, twice. Eventually, he returned his attention the bright-eyed Heiress at his side.
“I’m fairly sure that I have it now,” the gigantic youth brooded, standing abreast the mirarran that bore both the Heiress to the House of Mirmaddon and little Chadh. The boy sat behind the girl, arms about her waist, chest pressed to her back, cheek against her shoulder, small oval face turned away as though he was sleeping. “The lad… Turtles… whatever… is your cousin.”
Tielle smiled across to Arumarron, for even though she rode, her eyes were of a level with those of the towering Heir to the House of Eccuron.
“A cousin is the one thing to me that Chadh is not, Heir Arumarron.” She loosed a little laugh. “He is firstly my brother’s son, making an aunt of me despite my delicate youth and our nearness in years. And since Darthy’s – uhh, Darthadain’s – death, my father has faithfully fostered Chadh according to Fiannian law and that of our own House. So he is a brother to me in more than just the fastness of our friendship. A nephew and a brother, then, but not a cousin.”
“Ah, I see,” said the Heir to the House of Eccuron, his gaze moving across the shining skin of the lake to his right. He casually marked the dark jagged mass of a gigantic turtle floating flaccidly some distance from the stony shore, the reptile’s elongated neck and tail slowly undulating just below the surface like two great black serpents. “And then there is the other thing that he is.”
Tielle’s pretty smile faded, and the memory of her laughter was lost.
“Yes. Then there is that.”
“Does it not frighten you, Heiress?”
“No.”
Arumarron watched as the enormous turtle slowly sank from sight.
“I have something of my mother’s talents sometimes, Heiress Tielle,” he said quietly, the deep bass of his voice so very like a velvet thunder. “I saw the thing that Turtles is. But others will not, do not see it. And those few who might see it are unlikely to speak of it.”
