Nuramon nodded.
“Could this get any worse?” asked Farodin abruptly.
“If we do what the queen asks, we will free Noroelle. But she will hate us forever, and we will have to live with that. So no. How could it get worse?”
“I’ll get my things” was all Farodin said. Quietly, he left the room.
Nuramon stood at the window and looked up to the moon. Noroelle’s hatred, he thought sadly. It could, in fact, be worse. It could be that she falls into despair and loses whatever hope she has left, because the men she loves have killed her son. Fate—or Luth, as Mandred called it—was leading them along a painful path indeed. There must come a time when happiness would return.
It wasn’t long before Farodin came back. They waited in silence for the human and soon heard voices in the passage outside.
“It’s revenge. Blood for blood,” said Mandred.
“Revenge changes nothing. My mother is dead. What does Noroelle’s son have to do with that?”
“He’s also the son of the Devanthar. The guilt for the blood his father spilled has passed to him.”
“That is utter nonsense,” protested Alfadas.
“That’s what the elves have taught you. In my world, a son takes his father’s word. And you will do just that.”
“Or what?”
Nuramon and Farodin looked at each other. Suddenly, there was a deathly silence outside.
“What are they doing?” Nuramon asked quietly.
Farodin shrugged.
The door flew open. Mandred’s face was bright red. “I’ve brought my son along. He’s honored to be joining us.”
Farodin and Nuramon reached for their packs. “Then let’s go,” said Nuramon.
Alfadas was waiting outside the door. He avoided Nuramon’s eye, as if ashamed of his father.
Quietly, they made their way down to the stables.
A light still burned down there, in spite of the late hour. A bow-legged stable hand opened the door as if he had been waiting for them. He was not alone. Four elves in long gray cloaks were standing by the horses. They were equipped as if for war, all wearing light mail tunics, all well armed. Their leader turned around to face them, a thin smile on his lips. He looked at Mandred.
“Ollowain,” the mortal groaned.
“Welcome, Mandred,” the warrior replied before turning to Nuramon. “I see you have already chosen fellow hunters for yourself. That will boost our fighting strength.”
Alfadas was surprised. “Master.”
Mandred winced as if a horse had kicked him between the legs. Nuramon knew what Mandred thought of Ollowain. Another cruel twist of fate that this particular warrior had schooled his son.
Nuramon stepped forward. “Were you chosen by the queen?” he asked Ollowain.
“Yes,” Ollowain replied. “She said we should wait here and be ready to ride. She knew you would not lose any time.”
“And did she tell you what our assignment was?”
Ollowain’s smile vanished. “Yes. To kill the demon child. I cannot know what is going on inside you, but I can imagine how bitter this path must be. Noroelle was always good to me. We must see in the child not Noroelle’s son but the son of the Devanthar. It is the only way we can carry out our mission.”
“We will do our best,” said Farodin.
Ollowain introduced the elves waiting with him. “My sentinels, the best guardians of the Shalyn Falah. Yilvina, a whirlwind in battle with two short swords.” He gestured toward a diminutive elf on his left. Her hair was short and blond, and she returned Nuramon’s look with an impish smile.
Next he introduced Nomja, a tall warrior woman. She must have been very young, with something childlike still in the lines of her face. She leaned on her bow as an experienced fighter might, but the pose looked rehearsed.
“And this is Gelvuun,” he said, gesturing to the warrior who wore a long sword buckled in a sheath on his back. Gelvuun returned Nuramon’s gaze without expression, but this came as no surprise. Nuramon had heard of him before. He had a reputation as surly and morose, a hard case. It was said there were trolls more sociable than Gelvuun. But no one would dare tell him that to his face.
Ollowain went to his horse and took the long-handled axe hanging from the saddle horn. In a single, flowing movement, he turned and flung it toward Mandred.
Nuramon’s heart missed a beat. Then he saw with relief that Mandred caught the axe in midflight. The mortal ran his hand over the double-bladed weapon almost tenderly and admired the intertwined elven knot work decorating it.
“Nice workmanship.” Mandred turned to his son. “This is what a man’s weapon looks like.” He wanted to return it, but Ollowain shook his head.
“A gift, Mandred,” said Ollowain. “In the human world, one must be ready for trouble at any time. I’ll be interested to see if you fight any better with an axe than you do with a sword.”
Mandred whirled the axe playfully in the air a few times. “A well-balanced piece.” Suddenly, he stopped spinning it and raised the axe head to his ear. “Hear that?” he whispered. “It’s calling for blood.”
Nuramon felt his belly tense. Had Ollowain perhaps gifted the mortal a cursed weapon? Nuramon had heard grim stories of swords that had to spill blood whenever they were drawn. They were weapons of wrath, forged in the worst days of the first troll war.
An oppressive silence had settled over the group. Apart from Mandred, it seemed no one else could hear the call of the axe, but that might mean nothing.
Finally, Alfadas went to one of the stalls farther back in the stable and saddled his horse. His action broke the spell of silence.
Nuramon turned to the stable hand. “Did the queen have horses prepared for us?”
The goat-legged stable hand pointed off to the right. “Standing right there.” Nuramon could hardly believe what he saw. It was his horse.
“Felbion,” he shouted and strode across to the stallion.
Farodin, too, was surprised to see his brown again. And even Mandred said, “By the gods. There’s mine, too.”
They led the horses to Ollowain. “How is that possible?” asked Nuramon. “We had to leave them in the Other World.”
“We found them at the stone circle above the fjord. They were waiting there for you,” Ollowain explained. He looked to the stable hand. “Ejedin has looked after them well. Haven’t you?”
“Course I have,” replied the faun. “The queen herself was even here, and more than once, to see to the horses.”
Nuramon took the appearance of their old mounts as a good sign for their mission. Even Farodin’s mood seemed to lift.
Nuramon had noticed that Farodin seemed extremely cool toward Ollowain. It was not a matter of distaste, though, as with Mandred. Perhaps it was that Farodin no longer trusted Emerelle as he once had and was therefore suspicious of Ollowain as her servant.
A silvery dawn was breaking as the small troop led their horses out into the courtyard. All was quiet in the palace. The only ones who would see them ride out were the guards at the gate. The contrast with their last departure could not have been greater. Then, they had left as heroes, in broad daylight. Now, they crept away like assassins.
The Saga of Alfadas Mandredson:
The First Journey
In that same winter, and side by side, Mandred and Alfadas left the dominions of the Albenfolk. The father wanted to be sure that his son was worthy to succeed him. And so they left, and with them went the elven princes Faredred and Nuredred, and together they sought adventure wherever it may lie. They shied from no fight, and anyone who stood in their path rued it before the first blow fell. Alfadas followed his father to places where no Fjordlander had ever set foot before. But Torgrid’s son was prone to fretting for the well-being of his own boy. He taught Alfadas how to fight with the axe, but seldom allowed him t
o put his skills to the test. And if ever the danger seemed too great, Mandred set his son to watch the horses or the camp.
A year passed, then Alfadas said to Mandred, “Father, how can I ever learn to be like you when you shelter me from every peril? If you live in fear that something might befall me, then I will never become jarl of Firnstayn.”
Thereupon, Mandred saw that until then, he had deprived his own flesh and blood of any prospect of glory. He asked the elven princes for counsel, and they told him that he should set his son a test. That very night, Mandred slipped away and climbed a steep and dangerous mountain. Reaching the summit, he rammed his axe into the ice there and returned to the valley without it.
Next morning, he spoke to Alfadas and said, “Climb that mountain and bring back what I hid up there.”
Alfadas set off along the path that Mandred had showed him. Hardly had the boy turned out of sight when a great fear came over Mandred, for the ascent was full of hazards. But Alfadas strived up and up and discovered a cave close to the summit. Inside, he found a sword buried in the ice. He took the sword and climbed on to the summit to enjoy the view, and there, he found the axe of his father. He left it where it was and returned to the others in the valley. They were more than a little surprised to see the unknown blade. Mandred, though, grew angry. “Son, that is not the weapon I hid up there.”
Alfadas replied, “But Father, the only weapon hidden up there was this sword. Your axe was jutting clearly from the ice on the summit. Had I an eagle’s eye, I could see it from here. That is how much it was hidden. You gave me the wrong goal, but you showed me the right path.”
Mandred had to climb the mountain once more to retrieve his axe, and he came down again grumbling. When Faredred and Nuredred explained to the son of Torgrid that in Alfadas’s sword, they recognized a blade from Albenmark, Mandred’s wrath dissipated, and he was proud of his son. For this sword was worthy of a king.
Alfadas decided that in the future, this sword would be his weapon, because Luth had given it to him. He said to his father, “The axe is the weapon of the father, the sword that of the son. So will neither father nor son ever have to measure himself against the other.”
They continued their journey, but Mandred still doubted his son. Shortly, they passed through a mountain range. It was said that a troll lived there in a cave. At night, they heard the sound of hammering and thought the troll was trying to frighten them. Faredred and Nuredred determined to climb down and kill the monster, but Mandred held them back. To his son, he said, “Go and find the troll. I will judge you on your actions.”
Alfadas went down to the cave of the troll and found him inside, standing at an anvil. The troll spied him and raised his hammer. Alfadas lifted his sword and threatened the troll with it, saying as he did, “Part of me sees an enemy and says, strike him down. Another part sees the smith at his work. Decide which one you would rather be.”
The troll chose the former and attacked, but Alfadas eluded the blows of the hammer and let the troll taste the steel of his blade. Then the troll yielded and said, “My name is Glekrel. If you spare my life, I will give you a gift fit for a king.”
Alfadas did not trust the troll, but when the monster fetched a suit of elven armor and presented it to him, Alfadas was overjoyed and threw off his own armor to try on the new. Before he was outfitted again, the troll attacked. The young warrior was enraged at this treachery and hacked off one leg of the troll. He took the elven armor as his own and went on his way. This very armor is even today in the king’s possession as a reminder of those early days. Even the trolls know the story, for Glekrel survived and told them what Mandred’s son had done to him.
The next morning, Alfadas returned to his companions. And when Mandred saw his returning son, he was once again proud to be his father, for Alfadas now truly looked like a king.
Then the companions passed through the regions of the south and came across a wide sea and mighty kingdoms. They performed great deeds, and their names even today remain on the lips of those who live there. Once, they fought back a hundred warriors from Angnos to rescue a village that reminded them of Firnstayn in its early years. Another day, they rid the Fortress of Rileis of its ghosts. In many a duel, Alfadas proved himself a skilled swordsman, able to stand beside Faredred and Nuredred. In this way, two more years passed, until Mandred and Alfadas, out of friendship with the elven princes, followed them to the town of Aniscans, where the princes went to search for a changeling.
FROM THE ACCOUNT OF KETIL THE SKALD
VOLUME TWO OF THE TEMPLE LIBRARY OF LUTH IN FIRNSTAYN, PAGE 42
The Healer of Aniscans
Three years had passed since they left Albenmark, and still not a day went by that Nuramon did not discover something new in the human world. The languages, in particular, fascinated him, and he learned a great many of them. At the same time, it surprised him how difficult it was for Mandred to learn them. Alfadas, whom Mandred persisted in calling Oleif despite his son’s reluctance to accept the name, also found new languages difficult. Growing up among elves seemed in this case to be of little benefit. Strange, these humans.
The search for Noroelle’s son had so far been fruitless. They had crossed the broad forests of Drusna; had passed through the kingdom of Angnos, ravaged by war; had spent moons searching among the far-flung Aegilien Islands; and had lately visited the kingdom of Fargon. It was a green and fertile land, a land that wanted the people to come and conquer it, as Mandred never tired of saying. In recent years, many refugees fleeing the war in Angnos had gone there, and they took their beliefs with them. Some of the few inhabitants who had lived there for generations encountered the newcomers with curiosity, but others saw them only as a danger.
The companions had followed many trails. Their only hope was that the son of an elf and a Devanthar possessed magical powers. If he made use of such a gift, he would surely attract attention. People would talk about him. Based on this, they had tracked down every story they heard of magic or miracles to its source. They had been disappointed every time.
While their search demonstrated the endurance of the elves and Alfadas, as the years passed, Mandred grew more and more impatient. Many times, he drank himself into a stupor, as if wanting to forget that a human lifetime might be too short to search for a demon’s child.
It came as a surprise to Nuramon that Alfadas, unlike his father, but very like an elf, maintained his calm throughout. He even put up with Mandred’s lessons with a patience that bordered on self-sacrifice. Alfadas seemed to have inherited little from his father, except perhaps for his pigheadedness. For even after three years, Alfadas refused to recognize the axe as what Mandred called the queen of weapons, which visibly pleased Ollowain.
A new spring was in the air as they came down from the mountains to the town of Aniscans, chasing a clue. Nomja, Yilvina, and Alfadas had become good friends and were at times wont to forget the seriousness of their mission. Gelvuun remained a loner, rarely opening his mouth. Farodin had once told Nuramon that the trolls had knocked out all of Gelvuun’s teeth and that was why he never said a word. Nuramon still did not know if Farodin had been joking.
Of them all, it was Ollowain who never lost sight of the duty laid upon them. He constantly pushed them to spend no more time than necessary in one place and to move on the moment a trail had petered out.
Farodin, by contrast, took every opportunity to get away from the group. He was always the one who volunteered to scout the trail ahead. Sometimes Nuramon got the impression that Farodin was not searching for the child but was secretly keeping watch for something else. Perhaps he was even trying to hinder their journey to avoid the need to kill Noroelle’s son.
Mandred rode at Nuramon’s side. Together, they led their small troop down through the hills to Aniscans. The human, whose friendship Nuramon had accepted in the ice cave, often entertained the others with the things he said and did and, for a short time,
made the elves forget the reason behind their journey. And though the fun was often followed by the realization that finding what they were seeking would mark the start of a lifetime of suffering, Nuramon was glad of Mandred’s talent for lightening the mood.
“Hey, remember the time we ran into that gang of bandits?” asked Mandred with a grin. The human perceived time differently than the elves did. A year, and he was already reminiscing. It was strange, as the feeling that they had been through a lot over a long period of time had also passed over to Nuramon.
“Which bandits do you mean?” replied Nuramon. They had encountered several, and most had just as quickly turned tail and fled.
“The first ones,” said Mandred. “The ones who really put up a fight.”
“I remember.” How could he forget the raiders from Angnos? He and the other elves had been wearing their hoods up, and at first glance, it was not at all clear that they were Albenkin. For the bandits, that discovery was a rude awakening, but they had stupidly shown no inclination to give up the fight. They thought they had the upper hand based on sheer numbers. They quickly learned a painful lesson in the difference between quantity and quality.
“Now that was a fight.” Mandred looked around. “I’d love to run into a few cutpurses lurking in these woods.”
Nuramon said nothing. Mandred’s wish could only mean one thing. Alfadas would have to steel himself for another practice session that evening. Mandred just could not stop himself from trying to interest his son in the axe as a weapon. But Alfadas had shown his father often enough that he was more than a match for him with the sword. The times that Mandred was defeated by his son, Nuramon could never be sure of the older warrior’s feelings. Was he proud or offended? And there were times when Nuramon wondered whether Mandred surreptitiously held back in their battle practice, for fear of injuring Alfadas.
They crested a hill and had a clear view over the river valley below. Nuramon pointed to the city on the western shore. “Aniscans. We can finally put the wilderness behind us.”
The Elven Page 22
