by B. V. Larson
Tomkin shrugged. “This is none of my affair. My part of the bargain is already complete. Word has gone out.”
Brand felt his anger rising, but Myrrdin tried to calm him. “It is no matter, Brand. There could be no faster way to get to your relations. A wisp could fly there in a single night. It might not work, but then again, it may.”
Shaking his head, not trusting Tomkin an inch, Brand walked away to talk to Telyn. She still sat upon the wall top, fashioning something up there in the darkness.
“It looks like Tomkin has had the last laugh on us again,” he called up to her. “What are you working on, Telyn?”
She made no reply for a moment, and then she lifted something white up in her hand. He frowned up at her, but before he could ask about it, she tossed it down to him. He fumbled with it for a moment, and then lifted it up into the light cast by the distant fire to examine the object. It was a candle, a rolled taper of white wax. It had an odd smell to it…then he knew.
“More witchery?” he hissed up at her. “Is this what you’ve been up to all this time?”
Her soft laughter came down from the darkness. “Oh Brand, you really must drop some of your prejudices. After all, you do bear a living axe on your back!”
Brand frowned at the thing and held it pinched between his thumb and forefinger as one might a dead rat. “What’s it for?”
“It’s a beacon,” said Telyn. “The same as before. It’s to guide the army of the Haven to us.”
Brand snorted. “The army of the Haven? It doesn’t exist.”
“Well, I know of one of its best soldiers.”
Brand smiled and tossed the candle back up to her. She caught it deftly. It felt good to be free of the thing. “But the last one called more than we bargained for. Might that not be the case here, too?”
“Possibly,” admitted Telyn. “But Myrrdin and I have been working together on it. He’s been teaching me things about the craft that should greatly improve the results.”
Brand nodded, not liking the sound of it. He sighed. “I should go back to the others.”
“Yes,” she said. There was an awkward silence, and Brand felt the fool. He wanted to tell her all sorts of silly, emotional things, but he didn’t.
“Take care,” he said, turning to leave.
“Brand?”
“What?”
“I think of your kiss all the time.”
“And I think of yours,” he said, smiling in the dark. Then he left her and rejoined the others who argued over the best way to mount a defense of the ruins.
Chapter Six
Oberon’s Daughter
“Let us assume that help is coming,” said Corbin. “That means that we are under siege. The charm may or may not hold until our reinforcements arrive, so it makes sense to continue preparing for an assault.”
“Exactly,” said Myrrdin. “There are a few things I can do to aid us, but I need help.”
“Name your needs, wizard,” said Gudrin.
“I require many fresh shoots of hardy plants,” said Myrrdin. “Sapling trees, young ferns and vines would do the best. I need all that we can gather.”
“You plan to wield Vaul,” said Brand. “We will gather all that we can, but it is dark and this land isn’t terribly lush.”
“Yes, you must carry torches and go in pairs,” said Myrrdin. “Please don’t stray far from our defensive position, such as it is, and come back at the first sign of trouble.”
“I’ll go with you, Brand,” said Corbin. Brand nodded and smiled, it would be good to work alongside his favorite cousin once again.
“Hold, Brand,” said Myrrdin, lightly touching his arm. “I have another task for you. One of greater import.”
“What is it?” asked Brand.
Myrrdin waited for a moment as the others broke up and headed out into the darkness. Gudrin and Modi formed one team, while Corbin and Telyn formed the second. Tomkin remained to tend the fire. He cast occasional glances at them. The firelight reflected from his glass-like eyes.
“Even if I wield Vaul and our band stands together, I don’t think we can face the Wild Hunt. In the coming hours you will have to wield the axe, Brand,” Myrrdin told him. “You will go feral as surely as did Dando if you aren’t properly attuned by then. Therefore, there is no greater need for us than that you gain mastery of the axe.”
“How do I do this?”
“Unfortunately, it is the Faerie that will decide that.”
“What!” said Brand loudly. He glanced toward Tomkin and found that he was staring back at him. He lowered his voice. “I’m lost then!”
“Not necessarily,” said Myrrdin. “In any case, you must try.”
“What do I do?”
“There is a Faerie mound within the walls of Castle Rabing. It is an ancient place, Cairn Browyyd, it is called. You must locate it, out to the west of the fallen keep. It is said that four great human kings lay dead beneath the earth there, and in their noble death they have opened a path for the Faerie. Like all the mounds, it is a spot they can gather when called and ignore the normal rules of movement—and the magic of wards.”
“I must go there?”
“Yes,” said Myrrdin. “You must walk nine times widdershins around the mound, following the path of the Faerie.”
Brand blinked at Myrrdin. Part of him could not believe he was even contemplating such an act. To summon the Faerie, to invite them to join him at one of their mounds—this was a mad thing, sorcery. Only witches and short-lived fools attempted such nonsense.
“Am I to dance with them?” he asked, his voice querulous. “I—I am not like you, Myrrdin. I couldn’t dance with the Faerie and survive.”
“I don’t know what will be required of you. It is never the same thing twice with the Shining Folk.”
“Shouldn’t I take a second? Isn’t that what you said I should always do with the axe?” asked Brand.
“Normally, yes,” said Myrrdin. He smiled. “I’m pleased that you have been heeding my words. But for this task, you should go alone. Your friends can’t help you on this journey.”
“What if Herla is summoned? Could he be the one that is called to the mound?”
Myrrdin frowned. “Possibly, I don’t know. I doubt he would come. Things are going his way now, he has no need to take such risks. More likely, you will meet with the idle and curious among them. Hopefully, they will not be unpleasant…”
Brand thought to himself that this seemed a faint hope, but he said nothing. “I suppose I will set out, then.”
“Yes, time is of the essence.”
Their eyes met, and each knew that they may not survive the night. “Thanks for your help, Myrrdin,” said Brand. He moved to walk past him.
“Often,” Myrrdin said, grasping his arm one last time, “often, it is the way of the Faerie that a wager must be made. You must make the wager, and it must be made wisely, to achieve what you desire.”
Brand slipped through the gap they had left in the archway where the grille didn’t quite meet the stone and he found himself alone outside the walls of the gatehouse. The stench of the swamp wafted with the cool night breezes. Mists chased one another across the face of the gray-shrouded moon overhead.
He headed for the ruins of the main keep. To the westward side of the ruins he found Cairn Browyyd. The grassy mound was bare of trees, vines and shrubs, as always seemed to be the case with such places. He approached the place without hesitating and soon found the ring in the grass that circled the mound. He set his boots to the path and walked widdershins around the mound. On the fifth time around, it seemed to him that the moonlight had brightened. The breezes are sweeping away the mists, he thought.
As he completed the seventh circuit, the moon was brighter still, and he knew in his heart that he had never seen it so bright. All the world around him was lit by the silvery light. He didn’t dare to look up at the swollen, gibbous moon that surely hung overhead. Like a great baleful eye in the heavens, it had taken
notice of him, one particular insect crawling around this sensitive spot upon the night shrouded world. As he completed the eighth circuit, the breeze died and the world seemed to hold its breath.
As he walked the last circle around the mound, his head slowly filled with lovely sounds and smells. Hot, fresh honey and spices seemed to boil beneath his nostrils. Rippling music played in the distance. It grew harder to place one foot ahead of the next, but still his boots went on, seemingly of their own accord.
His gaze, fixed down upon his boots, fell upon shining cloth of a radiant garment. He looked up slowly to see who he had answered his call. He faltered and almost fell. It was the Shining Lady.
He opened his mouth to speak, but words were far beyond him. Hers was the unearthly beauty of the moon and the stars. Telyn was crude and simple beside her, flawed in a thousand ways. Compared to her ethereal beauty, all human women were as animals: gross and unrefined.
She smiled at him and her arms floated forward to poise, ready for his embrace. Brand’s knees threatened to buckle, but he kept his feet. Hot desire flooded through him. He took a single step toward her.
Vaguely, he became aware of others that moved around him, but he had eyes only for the Shining Lady. Wisps flittered and swooped. Slit-eyed goblins scuttled about the crest of the mound. His back felt the prodding of what was perhaps one of the elfkin. It poked at him with its finger and doubtlessly laughed. He imagined that the elfkin joked with its fellows, but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered but the White Lady.
He took another step forward, and now he knew that he would embrace her, that he would lie with her. Her eyes told him that he wouldn’t be refused, that he would know more pleasure than any man of the River Folk could ever comprehend. The fact that her embrace meant death was nothing.
The elfkin prodded him again, more insistently this time. He rolled his shoulders, trying to evade it. He didn’t turn away, he remained fixated by his Lady. He took another step. He reached out with his hands and his fingertips almost met hers. An electric thrill ran through him. Sweat flowed from his hair down into his eyes and burned them.
The elfkin rapped upon his shoulder now, rudely. It all but drove its fist into his back. Brand snarled, but could not, would not turn from his Lady. When he had her in his grasp, he vowed, he would strike the blighter down with his axe.
His boot swept forward again. Now his fingers touched hers, and he knew expectation and tension that he had never felt before. Her lips curved to form the inviting shape of an open-mouthed kiss. He began to fall into her embrace.
The elfkin struck him. Hard. It rapped him on the skull so hard that for a moment, it seemed that his vision faded out. Purple splotches of color and pain marred the vision before him.
Enraged, he knew there was nothing for it but to act. Thinking not at all, he wheeled, snarling, and reached up to grab the haft of the axe. He lifted it out of the stifling knapsack and it flashed, shining brighter even than the giant moon overhead.
There was no elfkin there. A few wisps floated curiously about, but the nearest creature that could have struck him a blow seemed impossibly far from him. Confused, Brand turned back to the Shining Lady, who still rode foremost in his mind.
She too, was gone. This horrible fact all but broke his mind, then. Tears sprouted from his eyes. His knees gave out and he fell upon them, weeping.
He heard a twitter, then a giggle. “You stole her!” Brand screamed. Raving, he lurched up from the ground. He didn’t need the axe to urge him into a lumbering charge.
The Faerie gave way before him as he reached the top of the mound. They circled him, dancing away as he came close and laughed at him in childish voices.
The manlings and wisps danced about him in a circle, dodging his rushes with glee. Spittle ran from Brand’s mouth, his eyes bulged from his skull and only hoarse croaking sounds came from his throat. Fully in the grip of the berserkergang, he charged at first one flittering shape then another, axe upraised. He didn’t slash and cut at them, but always kept the weapon high and ready.
Sure that no mortal man could catch them, the Faerie played the game, expecting him to collapse in a shivering heap. None accounted for Ambros. Perhaps they didn’t truly know what it was that they faced.
The axe waited for its moment, and when it came, the Eye of Ambros winked, as brightly as a stroke of silent lightning. Blinded, one of the scattering figures dashed the wrong direction, and Brand struck. The axe cut the creature in twain. It tumbled to the grassy mound like a stricken child.
Gasping, Brand halted. The Faerie were gone.
He blinked at the dark world around him, uncomprehendingly. It took a hazy length of time for his eyes to fall down upon the small corpse at his feet. He gazed at it in growing horror.
It was an elfkin maiden. A beauty not so perfect as the Shining Lady, but much more innocent and child-like. Letting fall the axe, Brand gathered up the corpse and clutched it. He wept to see such a lovely creature in death and to know himself as her killer. He found that a lock of her spun-silver hair had been shorn off and lay in the grass. He grasped the lock, brought to his lips, and felt its light, feathery touch.
“Why?” asked a voice from behind him.
Brand cringed with guilt. “I lost my temper and my mind with it. One of them kept poking and prodding at me!” he said, hating the whining sound in his voice.
“None of my folk touched thy person.”
“But, I felt…” Brand trailed off and realized the truth with new horror. It had been the axe itself. There had been no elfkin poking at him. The axe had prodded him and rapped his skull just as it had in the past, trying to warn him about the Shining Lady. In his charmed state he had become enraged and misdirected his wrath toward the Faerie.
“Thou hast taken from me Llewella, one of my own daughters. I request repayment of this debt,” said the voice.
Without turning, Brand knew the voice to be Oberon’s.
Unbidden, the image of Myrrdin came to his mind. He recalled Gudrin’s story about Myrrdin’s youth, so many centuries ago. He felt he understood the moment that Myrrdin had met with the farmer, bearing the man’s dead daughter in his arms. He hung his head in shame. When he could speak, he nodded to acknowledge the debt. “Tell me what you want.”
“The Axeman will grant my wish?”
Brand felt some of his composure return. He felt distant from himself. He touched the silvery lock of hair that reflected the liquid moonlight into his eyes. “Tell me what you want,” he heard himself say.
“Thou art wiser than when last we met. I request a small thing.”
“The return of Lavatis,” said Brand.
“Wiser, indeed wiser,” said Oberon, as if to himself.
“I need something as well,” said Brand quietly. “I need to be attuned to my accursed, but beloved axe, so that I might never strike down another innocent.”
Oberon laughed. He laughed long and loud, he laughed until tears burst from his eyes and the world rang with the sound, but there was no mirth in it. “One debt of blood is not enough!” he cried. “He commits murder upon my family, Llewella’s body is not yet cold before him, but still he asks for a kindly boon!”
“I would not want to repeat tonight’s mistake,” replied Brand.
Abruptly, Oberon stopped laughing. “That is not a matter to be decided by me, Axeman, but rather by thee.”
“Why do you call me Axeman?” asked Brand. Finally, he turned to face Oberon. He looked so marvelously young. He was the father perhaps of a hundred generations of his folk, but still his body was that of a young teen. The light of the overlarge moon reflected from him, so that his smooth skin seemed a luminescent white.
“Are you not the Axeman? Did you not wield Ambros tonight, and then set it aside unaided?” asked Oberon, almost in a whisper.
“Yes, but only after slaying with uncontrolled bloodlust,” said Brand.
“There! The proof is in thy own words! Thou art the axe’s master, child. For no
ne, young Axeman, can set aside the axe unaided, save for its master.”
Brand blinked at him. He looked down at the axe. His hand trembled as he reached out and grasped the haft of it. To his surprise, his mind did not leave him. His thoughts were rougher than before, but they were still his own.
* * *
Telyn had been restless in Brand’s absence. None of the party had been idle, but Telyn found the waiting very hard indeed. She felt each hour tick by since Brand vanished upon the Faerie mound. The ticking was extremely difficult to endure. The pain of separation took her by surprise. She’d always been a free spirit, and was unaccustomed to pining away for anyone. She’d liked boys before, but had never felt great anguish at their absence. Out of sight, out of mind, that’s how it had always been with her.
She had to admit to herself her feelings for Brand had grown curiously over these last weeks. She had not been an innocent before…but with Brand, matters had taken a more serious course. She even wondered at moments if they might marry one distant day—should they both survive this perilous time.
Overwhelmed by an urge to do something, she slipped out of the camp in the midst of the night when Brand had vanished upon the mound. She did not intend to follow him—to spy on him. But she had to admit to herself, she wanted to do precisely that. She kept thinking about what might have happened to him. That he was only a mooncalf river-boy, one who was even more sheltered in the ways of the world than was normal for citizens of the Haven. Could he really stand up to a pack of the Shining Folk, even with his fancy axe? What if he were lying upon the mound wounded, bleeding out his lifeblood into the grasses? No one would be there to hear his weak cries. They might come look in the morning to find his cold eyes staring into the bright sun, with dew droplets forming on his motionless lashes.
Telyn had to go look for him. She could not help herself. Confident in her own skills of stealth and flight, if not fighting, she slipped away over the crumbling walls and crept out of the circles of light formed by the fires. She ran lightly across wet grasses and did not halt until she stood at the foot of the mound.
