Deanna showed Avea the thrall spheres, told her about them as she had Tall and Ray earlier. She finished by saying, “It was the only way I could protect him.”
Avea touched Deanna’s shoulder. “You did well, granddaughter. You’ve proven you are a friend to our cause. You’ve proven the Endweller blood runs through you.”
Deanna looked up into Avea’s eyes. “Granddaughter? Endweller?”
“Truly, you’ve your mother’s eyes, your mother’s heart and cleverness. You are of the line,” Avea said, cupping her hand under Deanna’s chin. “You don’t know how much it sorrows me that this is our first meeting. How I wish it could’ve been otherwise.”
“Grandmother,” Deanna said, almost inaudibly, as she hugged Avea.
Their sudden joy was a relief to Tall. He grinned and edged away, hoping to talk privately with Ray. Tall and Ray had only walked past the tent, a few steps into the darkness, when Deanna let out a high-pitched scream that brought them running back.
Tall saw the cause of alarm immediately. “Calm, calm,” he shouted as he ran. “Nothing to fear, Deanna. They’re friends.”
Tall sank to his knees, wrapped his arms around Horn Eyes. Ever Hunger, Big Feet, Bent Snout, and the others were so happy to see him, they bowled him over. He rolled and frolicked with them, hooting happily as they playfully nipped at him. Then they calmed, and backed away strangely.
It took Tall a moment to realize they were opening a path. What he didn’t expect to see next was a pair of slithers. He wrapped an arm around Hazard and smiled up at Ray, who had his hand around the other slither.
“A friend of yours?” Tall asked.
Ray said, “His name is True.”
“Your choosing companion?”
Ray nodded. He didn’t say anything for a time as he focused on True. Finally, he said, “Quite the brood you have. It’s amazing. If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I would not believe it. The smoot was right about you doing something no other had ever done.”
“It is you,” Tall said, “who has done something no other has ever done. You’ve run out your long path, survived the Stone Land when all others gave you up for lost. We can return home now with no heaviness in our hearts.”
Avea, with Deanna at her side, said, “Not over, not home, not just yet.” She looked up into the sky expectantly. A moment later Tall heard a rush of air. He followed the sound with his eyes, and soon Rhyliath’s form was bursting into view from the dark sky. The resounding thump of Rhyliath’s landing, the soft rustling of his wings settling after his landing, followed, but was broken by his raucous crooning. The roar was filled with anguish and sorrow but triumph as well. It said I have returned, I have fought and lived.
Alkin slid off Rhyliath’s back with a sluggishness Tall had never seen before. Ray was at the other’s side immediately, Tall after a slight delay. Tall and Ray walked Alkin to the fire. Deanna started to check Alkin, but Alkin waved her back. “Rhyliath first,” he said, but it was the only thing he managed to say before unconsciousness took him.
Panicked triage followed. Avea assessed Rhyliath’s injuries. Deanna, Alkin’s. Avea shouted, “Deanna, to me.” The two talked heatedly. Avea said, “Ray, Tall, remove Alkin’s armor and do your best. Bind, stop the bleeding where you can. Deanna and I look to Rhyliath.”
Avea and Deanna worked on Rhyliath, whose head was slumped on the ground.
Tall and Ray removed Alkin’s heavy leathers and boots. “Why not home?” Tall muttered to himself as he worked to bind wounds as quickly as possible. “Some plan, some victory.”
Ray surprised Tall by answering. He said, “No plan is perfect. No victory without sacrifice.”
Tall started to say, “It was all for nothing,” but Avea spoke over him, as she came from seeing to Rhyliath. She said, “Only master soldiers serve prefects and equites. Those men were the best of the east and west, and this night, they are broken and defeated. It may not have been the plan, but it is as it is.”
Tall couldn’t help himself when he shouted, “At what cost?”
Avea looked down at bloodied Alkin. “He’ll live,” she said. “There’s not a wound that’s fatal.”
“How can you know this?” Tall said. “You haven’t examined him.”
Deanna, who must have finished with Rhyliath, held the spheres over Alkin. She said, “It is true. All those wounds, and not a one that’s more than superficial. It’s a miracle.”
“It’s no miracle,” Avea said. “Know this, where you see despair, I see hope. This was not just a victory, but a great victory. Our lost seer is returned to us, and we’ve now a tree singer as well.”
Tall balled his hands into fists and shook himself. “Grandin’s dead,” he said. “His men are dead with him. I want nothing more than to go home.”
“And then what?” Avea asked. “What will you do when the wizard’s next at your door?”
“I’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Tall said. The expression on Ray’s face said he wasn’t sure what to say or whether he should side with Avea or Tall.
Avea helped Deanna wrap a cloth around Alkin’s right leg. “Believe me when I say you won’t have a chance to ‘deal with it’ when the wizard’s at your door. It’ll be too late. You’ll have missed any chance you had.”
“I want to go home,” Tall said, his voice breaking.
Ray said nothing, but his eyes said he wanted nothing more than to go home too.
“Let the boy go home,” said a voice out of the darkness.
Tall and Ray looked up at the same time, and both gave shouts of hurray and surprise when Grandin and two of his men walked into the camp. All were wounded, but already bandaged. Grandin’s left arm was in a sling, and one of the others had a makeshift crutch.
“Grandin, Delkan, Stytuk,” Ray said as he greeted each in turn by clasping their forearms.
Ray and Tall escorted Grandin, Delkan, Stytuk into camp. The pleased look on Avea’s face as she watched the undermountain men take seats around the fire was one Tall wished he could paint and keep. He never wanted to forget that look, that expression of absolute esteem and glee, that was in her eyes.
Bonus Excerpt From
The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches
by
Robert Stanek
The Kingdoms and the Elves
of the Reaches
Crying out into the darkness, alone, afraid and drenched in sweat, Vilmos awoke. His thoughts raced. The whole of his small body shivered uncontrollably. Opening eyes and uncurling his huddled form from a corner, moist with his own perspiration yet still cold from the night’s chill, was a slow, time-consuming process.
“It was only a nightmare,” Vilmos whispered to reassure himself—a nightmare like no other. In the dream he had used the forbidden magic once too often and the Priests of the Dark Flame—opposers of all that is magic and magical—came from their temples to slay him.
Vilmos stood uneasily and dipped trembling hands into the washbasin beside the bed. The cool water sucked the hurt from his eyes and mind and gently began to soothe and awaken his senses as nothing else could.
Carefully he dabbed a wet cloth to the corners of his eyes and only then did he become something other than the frightened boy who in his dreams huddled into the forlorn corner because of the sense of security it gave him to know his back was against the wall and that nothing could sneak up on him from behind.
Only then that he became the boy of twelve whose name was Vilmos. Vilmos because it was a trustworthy name. Vilmos because it was his father’s name, who was named Vilmos because it had been his father’s name. Vilmos, the Counselor’s son.
Readying for the day’s chores, he tried to push the last of the dream from his thoughts, but as he leaned down to rinse his face once more in the cool water of the basin it was as though he was sucked into the water and when he opened his eyes, he was in a different place. In this place, there was no moon or stars, only boundless lines of fire cutting into the ebony
of the heavens.
At his feet lay a dirt road and ahead beyond a crossroads was a forest of dark trees. The dark trees, glowing with an eerie radiance, called to him. Puzzled, Vilmos clutched his arms about his chest and followed the dirt road toward the strange light in the distance.
Beyond the crossroads was a long stretch of empty road. Vilmos hurried. As he approached the forest, the shadows grew long despite the glow in the treetops. It was within these shadows that Vilmos saw a mass of black darker than all the rest. Slowly the mass took form and it was only as he stumbled through the great ruins that he saw someone sitting within the folds of the great shadow. When the figure looked in Vilmos’ direction, two thin beams of light radiated from eyes the color of a silver moon.
Stare as he might, Vilmos could only see the strange eyes within the folds of the figure’s hood. He asked, “Is this a dream?”
“If a dream, it is a waking dream.” The voice seemed to be that of a man.
“Who are you?” Vilmos asked.
“You can call me ‘Shaman’.” The shaman stood. Vilmos was surprised to find he could look directly into the shiny eyes without looking up. The strange eyes, hypnotizing and dazzling, danced as the shaman regarded Vilmos, and then the shaman took Vilmos’ hand. The hand in Vilmos’ seemed a piece of hardened leather and not the hand of a man at all.
Vilmos repeated, “Who are you?”
“Who I am is not important at the moment.” The robed figure lowered his hood to reveal childlike features riddled with lines that spoke of ages past and of hardship. Although few of the ancient ones ever ventured into the kingdoms, Vilmos had read about them in the Great Book. He knew in an instant the figure was a gnome and kin to the mighty dwarves who lived in the bowels of the earth.
The shaman raised his eyes to the fires etched in the skies and then waved his hands one over the other until a glowing orb of brilliant white appeared. Within the orb was a face, the face of a woman young in her years, though still older than Vilmos. Her cheekbones were high and rosy. Her eyes were green and her hair, long and black. In a way she was strikingly beautiful, yet there was such sadness in her eyes and this sadness cut into his heart.
“Who is she?” Vilmos asked.
“A princess and the one you seek,” whispered the shaman. For an instant, tension and pain was evident on the shaman’s face, and then a new figure appeared within the orb. “Take a long look, Vilmos. He is of a race swept from the world of the seeing long ago. Their legend is recorded in the Great Book of your realm, yet few ever knew the truth of their disappearance. Change is sweeping the land, all the lands, and the kingdoms of elf and human are no exception.”
Vilmos beaded his eyes, his heart filled with hatred. “Elves are our sworn enemies.”
The shaman grabbed Vilmos’ shoulders and shook him violently. “Remember the faces. The two and the one will be drawn together as are the winds clashing against the fourth unseen. Your dreams will bring them.”
As he spoke, the shaman turned to the forest. “The land called Ril Akh Arr and within dwell the shape-changing beasts of the night. Be forewarned, they come for you, for the princess, for all who would stand in the way.”
The shaman paused to suck in the heavy air, and then wheeled his hands in a great circle. Just then, shadows swept through the skies blocking the fires of the heavens and the ground beneath Vilmos’ feet shook violently. “This place is called Under-Earth and you, Vilmos, are the second. The first was taken from me before I could reach her.”
Vilmos was puzzled. Were the stories true? Dare he ask the question that was on his tongue?
The shaman sighed. “My kingdom and people were taken away so many years past I cannot recall the day.”
“Your kingdom?”
The shaman grabbed Vilmos’ hand, the grip numbing as he drew a jagged blade from a scabbard at his belt. As he spoke, he dug the blade into Vilmos’ palm. “Elves, gnomes and humans are all very real. I will come for you, Vilmos. When I do, the dreams end and the journey begins. Remember the faces and forget not that the fourth can blow across the mountaintops. Remember there was another before you and that they reached her before I did. Now return to your affairs. Listen to the one who will lead you to me.”
The shaman paused. The shadows directly overhead now blocked out all light from the fire-streaked skies. As a great hand reached down from the heavens to grab them, the shaman hurled a brilliant green orb at Vilmos and spoke a single word, “Awaken.”
Vilmos blinked and found he was leaning over the water basin beside his bed, water and blood dripping from his upturned hands. He shook his head, blinked again. In the other room, he heard his mother calling him.
The aroma of fresh-baked black bread and honey cakes pungent in the air about the kitchen, mixing with the growling of his stomach, made him aware of an enormous hunger. The night had been unbearably long and he had not eaten since supper of the previous day.
“Late again. You’ll sleep your life away. Already an hour past first light,” said his mother. She stood in front of the hearth. The words were not meant to be harsh, nor were they taken thus. They were a standard greeting.
“I know mother, I am sorry,” replied Vilmos, tossing gnarled hair to one side surreptitiously, hair that should have been combed. He started to hurry away.
Wood for the hearth could be gathered easily from the brambles on the edge of the thick woods near the outskirts of the village and it was to this place that Vilmos started to go, but the outside air this morning was chillier than usual and it sent a shiver racing down Vilmos’ back. It carried with it sadness and a sudden flood of remembrance. In the back of his mind, Vilmos knew the real reason he watched his mother so closely. One day he would indeed be sent away, far away, because one day the dark priests would come for him.
Vilmos returned to the house to collect his short cloak. As he ran through the kitchen he stopped beside his mother. Rising up on the tips of his toes, he gave her a single peck on her cheek. For an instant, a smile broke her tired face and fondly she touched hand to cheek.
“That’s better,” Vilmos shouted to no one in particular as he ran outside, slipping the sleeves of his shielding cloak into place. He could endure the cold now, and in a way, the memory as well.
“Hurry, breakfast!” shouted Lillath after him, while unconsciously raising a hand to her cheek once more where soft, young lips had touched. Vilmos looked back only for a moment to see this and to catch her eye. She added as he dashed away, “Remember to be careful… Remember what happened to the girl from Olex Village.”
Complete Magic Lands Books 1 & 2 Omnibus Page 27
