Along the path they went, and as they strode down they heard the horn of a sentry signalling the arrival of strangers into the gorge. Down the path and among the pines they went, to come at last to the central shelter. An Elf took Jet and led him away as Tuck and Galen were ushered inside. Vivid colors and warmth and the smell of food assaulted Tuck’s senses as they entered the great hall, lambent with yellow lamps glowing in cressets and fires burning on the hearths. Bright Elves turned as the strangers entered and silence reigned as the Elven leader stood to greet them, his consort at his side.
Tuck and Galen doffed their cloaks; their quilted goose-down outer clothing was shed, too. And there before the assembly came two bright warriors, Tuck’s armor silveron and Galen’s bright red. And Galen looked at the Warrow “Princeling” and smiled a broad grin, receiving a smile in return, for neither had seen the other in aught but bulky down, and now they both looked the part of warriors.
And as they strode to the dais, Elves murmured in amaze, for visits to Arden by Men were rare, but here come among them was a jewel-eyed Waerling.
“My Lord Talarin,” said Duorn in a voice all could hear, “I bring to you Prince Galen, son of Aurion King, and Sir Tuckerby Underbank, Thornwalker Waerling of the Boskydells.”
Talarin bowed, a tall slim figure with golden hair and eyes green, dressed in soft grey. He turned to his consort. “Prince Galen, Sir Tuckerby, this is the fair Rael.”
Tuck raised his eyes and his heart was filled with wonder, for here was a beauty like unto that of the Lady Laurelin. Fair was Rael, and graceful, too, yet where Laurelin’s hair was wheaten and her eyes pale grey, Rael’s locks were golden and her eyes deep blue. Dressed in green, she was, with her hair bound in ribbons. And she smiled down at Tuck, and his sapphire eyes sparkled.
“You must eat and drink and spend some days with us,” said the Elfess, “and rest from your journey.”
“Ah, my Lady, much as we would like, we cannot,” responded Galen. “Yes, tonight, perhaps, we will eat and drink and be warm, and rest under your guard . . .”
“And take a bath, too, please,” interrupted Tuck, his head bobbing.
“Aye, and bathe, too, if we may,” continued Galen, smiling. “But on the morrow we must leave at haste, for we are on the track of Ghola, and north we ride.”
“On the track of Ghûlka?” exclaimed Talarin. “Prince Galen, ere you set at our board, there is someone you must see, for it may bear upon your mission. Follow me.”
Talarin strode quickly down the length of the hall and out the doors and across the snow with Galen and Tuck in his wake. As they crossed toward another building, Tuck heard the sentry’s horn announcing another arrival and looked up at the gorge wall to see a horse bearing an Elf clattering swiftly down the distant path. But Tuck’s attention was drawn to Lord Talarin’s words:
“He was found three ’Darkdays past,” Talarin said as they walked, “lying in the snow, wounded and fevered, cut upon the brow, perhaps by poisoned blade. He would have frozen had my patrol not happened upon him. His horse had borne him toward the entrance to the gorge, and he was not far away. But he had fallen from the saddle and lay among the rocks—for how long, I cannot say—and he was nearly dead.
“But he, too, mumbled of Ghûlka, and now at times he rages, fevered; even so, he might bear you news, though he has not awakened.”
Into the building Talarin led them, and down a central hall of doorways. Tuck’s heart was racing, and a great sense of foreboding filled his being. Ahead a door opened and an Elven healer stepped into the corridor. “Lord Talarin,” the Elf greeted the Lian leader.
“How fares the youth?” asked Talarin.
“His face is flush with heat, yet I deem the fever has begun to break, for he is at times no longer racked with chills, and he will waken soon.” The Elf’s eyes slid over Tuck and Galen, wonder in his gaze, but he spoke on to Talarin: “Yet he has been near death, and trembles with weakness. His strength will not return for a fortnight or two, and then only if the herbs the Dara Rael used can throw off the poison of the Rûpt blade.”
“I would that Lord Galen sees him, for it may bear upon the Prince’s quest,” said Lord Talarin, and the healer stepped aside, opening the door.
With Tuck’s pulse thudding in his ears, into the candlelit room they quietly stepped. There in a bed lay a young Man, his face to the wall, and he was weeping.
Galen spoke softly to him, anguish in his voice: “Igon.”
And as Tuck’s hopes crashed down around his heart, Prince Igon turned his face to that of his brother: “Galen, oh, Galen,” he wept, “they’ve got Laurelin.”
~
Tuck sat numbly on a bench against the wall, as Lord Galen held Igon to him, and tears streamed down the faces of all three, yet the look upon Galen’s visage was grim to behold. The candles cast a soft yellow glow over the room, and Lord Talarin stood by the door, his eyes glittering in the light. But then Galen gently lowered Igon unto the bed, and called for the healer, for the youth’s fever had flared again, and the young Prince had swooned.
As the healer stepped to the bedside, there came the muffled steps of someone striding hard down the hall, and Talarin stepped into the corridor. Tuck heard the faint sound of hushed voices, muted by the door, and then into the room came Talarin, and another Elf was with him, dressed in stained riding garb. Tuck looked up: “Lord Gildor!”
Galen turned his bleak face to Lord Gildor’s, and the Elf gripped something tight in his fist.
“I come bearing woeful news, Galen King.” Lord Gildor held out his hand closed upon a token, and Galen reached forth to take what was offered: a scarlet eye patch. “Aurion Redeye is dead.”
~
Tuck sat stunned and he could not seem to get enough air to breathe, and he no longer could see through his tears.
Galen spoke at last: “My sire is slain and my betrothed is taken captive, and my brother lies wounded by poisoned blade. And Modru’s dark tide drowns the Land. These are evil days for Mithgar, and evil choices am I given.”
“Galen King,” said Lord Gildor next, “for all of Mithgar, you must ride south to lead the Host against vile Modru’s Horde.”
“North! Ride north!” Igon cried, starting up from a fevered dream, his wild eyes unseeing. “Save the Lady Laurelin!”
Thus Ends
Book One
~
The Dark Tide
Book Two
~
Shadows of Doom
“. . . it is the way of our living that is testament to our spirits, and perhaps the way we die . . .”
~Tuckerby Underbank
February 1, 4E2019
1
Captive!
Nearly two days ere the Dimmendark came unto Challerain Keep, the Lady Laurelin was borne away south in the last caravan. Slowly, the waggon trundled down from the mont, and the Princess wept silently while her chaperon, Saril, eldest handmatron, chattered about inconsequential trivialities and complained about the discomfort of the wain. What the Princess needed at this moment was to be held and soothed and to have her hair stroked, although even this would not heal a heart in despair, for only time could serve that end. Yet Saril appeared unaware of the weeping damosel’s needs, seeming not to sense the quiet anguish of the maiden as she looked with tear-blind eyes out through the open flap and back at the passing hill country—though the handmatron did give over a linen kerchief to the Princess when Laurelin could not find her own.
Onward the wain groaned, last in the line of a hundred waggons, along the south-bearing Post Road. Down through the foothills they wended, and out upon the snowy plains. At last Laurelin’s weeping subsided, yet now she knelt upon blankets at the tailboard and looked ever backwards toward the Keep and did not speak.
Time passed and slow miles rolled by to the flap of the canvas cover, the creak and jingle of single-trees and harness, the plod of horse hooves, an occasional command of the driver, and above all the grind of axle and iro
n-rimmed wheels turning upon the frozen snow.
In midafternoon the train pulled up a long hill, snowy slopes to either side. Laurelin’s gaze held still to the north, toward the distant fortress. Finally her wain topped the crest and started down the far side, and Challerain Keep could be seen no more.
“Oh, Saril, I’m afraid I’ve made a sodden mess of your kerchief,” said Laurelin, turning to her companion and holding forth the crumpled linen for the other to see.
“La, my Lady, worry not,” said Saril, reaching forth and taking the cloth. “Oh, my: It is wet, isn’t it: Why, there must be enough tears in here to last several years.” She held it out and away, a thumb and forefinger grasping one corner. “We’d best spread this out, else the cold will freeze it into a lump hard as a rock.”
“Well, then, perhaps we just should let it freeze that way,” replied Laurelin, attempting a smile. “Then it can be used as a missile in some warrior’s sling and flung at Modru.”
At the mention of the Enemy in Gron, Saril made a swift gesture with her hand, as if scribing a rune in the air to ward off the presence of the Evil One. “My Lady, I think it best not to mention that name, for I hear that even the speaking of it draws his vileness down upon the speaker as surely as iron is drawn to lodestone.”
“Oh, Saril,” chided Laurelin, “now ’tis my turn to say ‘La!’ for what could he want with Women and children, or the oldsters and the lame?”
“I don’t know, my Lady,” answered Saril, her matronly features apprehensive, glancing over her shoulder as if someone may have been creeping up from behind, “yet mine own eyes have seen the lodestone reach out with an invisible hand to snatch the iron, and so I know that is true; thuswise there’s no reason to believe that the other isn’t just as true, too.”
“This I would say, Saril,” responded Laurelin: “Just because the one is so, it doesn’t mean that the other follows.”
“Mayhap not, my Lady,” answered Saril after a bit, “but just the same, I would not tempt him.”
They spoke no more of it, but Saril’s words seemed to hang like a silent echo in the thoughts of Laurelin the rest of the day.
~
Just at sunset, camp was made some twenty-two miles south of Mont Challerain. Although the train had paused several times along the way to tend the horses and stretch the legs and see to other needs, still it was not the same as being out of the waggons and encamped for the night. And now that the train had stopped for the eventide, Laurelin walked the full length of the caravan and back, some two miles in all, speaking to oldsters and young alike, buoying up spirits, and she passed Prince Igon doing the same.
When at last the Princess returned to the fire by her waggon, Saril had prepared a stew over the small blaze. Wounded Haddon sat on a log near the warmth, eating, his arm in a sling but his appetite ravenous, though his features were pale and drawn.
“My Lady,” he said, startled by the Princess’s sudden appearance from the darkness, struggling to gain his feet, but Laurelin bade him to sit.
“And now, Warrior Haddon,” said the Princess, taking up a bowl of stew and a cup of tea and seating herself beside the soldier, “speak to me of my Lord Galen, for I would hear of him.”
And long into the night, Haddon told of the forays, skirmishes, and scouting missions that Galen’s One Hundred carried forth in the bitter Winternight to the north. And as the warrior spoke, Lord Igon came to the fire to take a meal, and so, too, did Captain Jarriel, ever present at the side of the Prince. Igon’s eyes sparkled in the firelight as he heard tell of the probing in the Dimmendark to find Modru’s Horde:
“Along the Argent Hills we rode, and to the Rigga Mountains,” said Haddon, his eyes lost in memory, “but nought did we find: Modru’s myrk hid all. North we turned, toward the Boreal Sea, and at last our search bore fruit—though bitter it was—for the vast Horde we found, and it moved south along that dire range, coming down the western margins of the Rigga. From dark clefts and deep holts within those grim crags they came swarming, and their ranks swelled as they marched.
“Vulgs were with them, running their flanks, and we could not raid, for those dark beasts would sense us from afar and give the enemy warning ere we could close with the Spawn. King Aurion named them aright: Modru’s curs.” Haddon paused as Saril, whose eyes were wide from listening to the tale, refilled the warrior’s teacup.
“Messengers were sent to Challerain,” continued Haddon, “to tell the King of the Horde.”
“None arrived,” said Igon, grimly, shaking his head.
“Then they were cut down ere they could do so, my Prince,” responded Haddon, and he held forth his sling-bound arm: “As the Vulgs slew Boeder, and nearly me, they must have hauled down those sent to carry word to the Keep.”
“Prince Igon tells me you spoke of Ghola,” said Captain Jarriel.
“Aye,” answered the warrior, eyes deep in craggy face lost in reflection. “Ghola there are, and upon Hèlsteed. Many was the time they pursued us, but Lord Galen always gave them the slip, e’en in the snow. Wily is the Prince, clever as a fox. We would wait till ’twas right to strike, when there were no Vulgs about, and when some o’ the Spawn would be separated from the Horde. Oh, then we’d lash into those pockets like bolts from Adon’s Hammer. Back we’d jump, with Hèlsteeds after, but Lord Galen’s black steed would fly to the north and us right behind. Onto the trampled snow we’d ride, our tracks mingling with and lost within the wide wake of the very Horde we’d struck. Along this beaten swath we’d run a ways, soon to slip aside to hide among crags or bracken or hills, and watch the Ghola race by while we were concealed by the very Enemy’s own dark myrk.”
“Say you that their sight is no better than ours?” Prince Igon seemed surprised. “I had thought that all night-spawn could see well in the dark.”
“I don’t know how well they can see in ordinary dark, but Lord Galen says that the Shadowlight baffles their eyes as well as ours.” Haddon drank the last of his tea. “This I do know: Mine own sight never reached beyond two miles in the Dimmendark, and at that distance I could see but vaguely: the movement of the Horde, many Ghola racing upon Hèlsteeds, and at times a mountain flank: only these could I see from afar. Even things nearby in that shadowy glow held little detail for me; color is lost beyond a few paces.” Prince Igon nodded his understanding, for he, too, had spent time in the Winternight.
“I hear that Elven eyes see beyond those of all mortals,” said Laurelin. “Perhaps their sight pierces even the shadow of the Dimmendark.”
“Mayhap, my Lady,” responded Haddon, “yet strange eyes indeed would it take to see afar in that myrk.”
Strange eyes. An unbidden image sprang into Laurelin’s thoughts, for suddenly she pictured Tuck’s wide sapphirine gaze looking into her own, and she wondered about the jewel-eyes of Warrows.
~
The dawn found the horses being harnessed to the waggons by some, while others ate the last of their breakfasts. Laurelin aided the healer in putting salve and a fresh bandage on Haddon’s slashed arm, and the healer pronounced him fit enough to lay his sling aside, “if you treat it gingerly. We cauterized some that night, you know, with a red-hot blade to stop the worst of the bleeding, and we applied a gwynthyme poultice to hold off its effects till the Sun rose. It’s the burn we’re ministering to now, and the healing of the gash, for daylight and Adon’s Ban have destroyed the Vulg venom.”
Soon all was in readiness, and at the calls of the escort’s horns the train got under way once more, continuing on its southerly course along the Post Road, away from Challerain Keep and toward the Battle Downs and Stonehill and beyond.
All day the waggons jostled and jounced over the icy way, and Laurelin found the brief hourly stops a welcome relief from the juddering, swaying wain.
She saw little of Igon, for he along with Captain Jarriel rode at the fore of the train to be first to receive word from the far-ranging horseborne forward scouts of the caravan escort.
Bu
t Saril kept the Princess company, and they whiled away the afternoon hours in conversation, though in the morning they had played zhon, a tarot of omens gamed often at court. Yet instead of the pleasant time at cards she had expected, the more they played the more uneasy Laurelin became; and even though the suit of Suns was filled with nought but bright portents, still her eyes sought only the four of Swords and the Dark Queen, her heart lurching at the turn of each card. At last she bade Saril to lay aside the deck, for Laurelin had lost the joy of the game.
~
In midafternoon of the next day, as was her wont, Laurelin sat at the rear of the wain peering out through the canvas flap and back at the passing countryside, and rolling hills began to rise up from the prairie as the caravan approached the northernmost margins of the Battle Downs. Many pleasant miles had passed by, when suddenly her eye caught the movement of a running horse, and she heard the sound of a horn: it was the rear scout, riding hard to overtake the train. Soon he thundered past, urgent horn ablare, snow flinging from the steed’s pounding hooves as he flew southwest toward the lead waggons, and Laurelin’s heart thudded in her breast and she wondered at his haste.
Time passed, and again the Princess heard that tattoo of hooves; horses beat past: Igon, Captain Jarriel, and the scout raced north, their cloaks streaming behind as they flew back along the caravan’s track. They veered from the Post Road and galloped to the top of a hillock where they reined to a stop. Long they sat without moving, looking to the north, back in the direction of Challerain Keep now far beyond the horizon. Laurelin gazed at their dark silhouettes shadowed against the afternoon sky, and once more her heart raced, and she felt a deep foreboding. And there was something about the way the trio sat, and then she realized: How like the ancient woodcarvings of the Three Harbingers of Gelvin’s Doom they look; and a grim pall fell upon her breast, for that was a tale most dire.
At last Igon and Jarriel turned and plunged back down the snowy slopes, leaving the rear scout behind upon the hill. The horses cantered toward the slow-moving train, overtaking it swiftly. Jarriel rode on to the fore as Igon drew Rust up to the tailgate of Laurelin’s wain. She threw wide the flap and raised her voice above the rumble of axles and wheels: “What is it: What see you to the north?”
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