Swords Over Fireshore

by Pati Nagle

  Eliani watched as the rest of the shield-bearers shuffled backward through the gate, then dropped their boards along the side that remained closed and hastened to where she stood. Felahran pulled off a glove as he joined the party, revealing a bloodied finger.

  Eliani stepped to him. “You are hurt! Let me see it.”

  “Just a nick.”

  He showed her his hand. An arrow had sliced through the glove across one knuckle. Eliani took his hand between hers and heat flared at once in her palms, the healing that she still scarce understood. She had little chance to focus on it; a thundering of hooves drew her gaze to the gate.

  The horses screamed in terror and pain as they came through the gate, arrows striking the animals and the guardians who rode and led them. Six horses and two riders cleared the gate, but the last rider's horse reared just inside, stumbled on the darkwood boards, and fell.

  “Jhathali!”

  “Taharan, no!”

  Vanorin grabbed at the guardian's arm but failed to catch him. Eliani watched in horror as Taharan ran back through the gate, unprotected.

  “Taharan!”

  Birani's voice was wild with anguish. Eliani caught the guardian and held her, terrified of losing yet another of her party.

  Taharan dropped to his knees beside the fallen horse and rider. Arrows hammered into him, jerking his body with each blow until he fell across the horse and moved no more.

  Tears sprang to Eliani's eyes and she gasped with grief. The screams of the last two horses rose from within the wall.

  The horses that had escaped had run well down the road before the two riders were able to halt them. Vanorin gave orders in a stern, low voice, moving the party southward to join the horses. They halted still within sight of the gate, which remained open.

  Everyone moved to tend the animals and the riders, all of whom had been struck by arrows. Eliani could not help glancing toward the gate now and then, though she knew the alben would not venture out in daylight to close it.

  She pulled arrows and bandaged wounds, work she had done often as a guardian, oddly soothing in its familiarity. None of the wounds was serious, though one horse was badly lamed.

  As she used her healing gift to ease the riders' pain, she listened to the others around her. Their voices murmured in quiet grief. Someone was sobbing; a female.

  Looking up, Eliani saw Birani curled against the base of a tree. Felahran knelt beside the guardian, but she pushed him away.

  The healing warmth faded from Eliani's hands. She gave Mihlaran a reassuring smile, then stood and walked over to Birani.

  ”Stand up. I need you.”

  Her voice sounded harsher than she intended, though she had not meant to be gentle. Birani looked up at her, blinking, her cheeks mottled with weeping.

  “Stand up.”

  Anger flashed in the guardian's eyes as she obeyed. Eliani led her to the horse that was least injured, caught the reins and held them out to Birani.

  “Ride for Woodrun. You will overtake Revani.” She collected another mount's reins. “Take this horse for her, and get word to the town as swiftly as you can.”

  Birani wiped at her face, looking sullen, but she mounted and took the reins. The horses moved forward in response to her command.

  Eliani watched them out of sight. Vanorin came to stand beside her.

  “That was well done.”

  The kindness in his voice made Eliani catch her breath on a sob. But for her stubbornness, Birani would have needed no distraction from grief.

  She had sent Birani south not only to give the guardian occupation, but to ensure that the sacrifice of Taharan and Jhathali was not wasted. Woodrun would be alerted the faster to the alben threat. Though important, this did not seem worth the loss of two of her escort.

  Warmth spread across her brow; Turisan, asking to speak. She returned the signal for “wait.” She was not ready to tell him of her folly.

  Othanin came to stand with her and Vanorin. Eliani glanced at him, frowning to hold back her grief.

  “It is the hardest part of being a leader.” Othanin's voice was barely above a whisper, not meant to be heard by the others. “To live with the consequences of one's decisions.”

  Eliani swallowed, blinking. She must learn to make better decisions, then.

  She looked around at the escort, seeking someone who needed help, but all had been cared for. Turning her attention to the horses, she frowned at the one that was lame.

  “We cannot burden that horse. It will slow us, but ... I would not abandon it.”

  “My lady, it might be best to send all the horses to Woodrun.” Vanorin looked at Sunahran. “Three can ride, with one leading the lame beast. The rest of us will find another way.”

  Eliani frowned. “Why?”

  “I would have you away from the road, my lady. The alben will send pursuit as soon as darkness falls.”

  “But the road is the only way through the forest!”

  Othanin coughed. “That is not quite true. My lady's people know the ways of this wood, game trails that can be traveled. I would like to contact her in any case.”

  Eliani caught her breath. He meant the Lost, the folk of Ghlanhras who had fallen victim to the alben's curse and gone into voluntary exile. His lady, Kivhani, had become their leader after becoming afflicted.

  “How can we find them? Did you not say that they have no settled home?”

  “We exchange messages at a place not far from here.”

  He said it so calmly, yet Eliani knew that some ælven would consider his maintaining contact with the Lost a betrayal of the creed. She began to feel a greater respect for Othanin, who at first had seemed weak and indecisive. She was beginning to understand just how difficult a governor's choices could be.

  She turned back to Vanorin. “Then none of us should take the road. Let us all go to the Lost.”

  Sunahran came forward, traded a glance with Vanorin, then bowed before her. “Allow us to serve you in this way, Lady Eliani. The horses will have difficulty following game trails, especially the lame one. Allow me to take the road, and the alben will waste their efforts pursuing. If need be I will turn the lame horse loose; they will not bother with it. I will ride to Woodrun.”

  “And I!” Cærshari hastened to join him.

  Vanorin nodded. “One more to ride, then.”

  Mihlaran stepped forward. “I will.”

  Eliani misliked this plan, but to continue protesting it would be disrespectful to Vanorin. She yielded, and listened to him give instructions to the riders. She, Luruthin, Vanorin, and three others would go with Othanin.

  She stepped aside and signaled Turisan. At once his anxiety filled her.

  We are out of Ghlanhras.

  Did you find them?

  Yes. She looked at Luruthin, sitting at the base of a darkwood, hugging his knees. I will tell you of it later. We are about to set forth.

  Yes, you should get as far from Ghlanhras as you can.

  That is our intent.

  She bade Turisan farewell, then went to Luruthin, taking up the sword he had asked her to hold and offering it to him. He did not hear her at first, and when she laid a hand on his shoulder he flinched before looking up at her.

  “Are you hurt, cousin?”

  He paused too long before answering. “No.”

  He stood, took the sword, and walked away without a word. Eliani's heart was heavy as she looked after him. He moved to stand by Othanin, as if anxious to be away from Ghlanhras.

  Well, and so were they all. Eliani bade farewell to the riders, promised to meet them in Bitterfield if not Woodrun, and followed Othanin southward.

  Shalár heard running footsteps and raised her head. Someone was coming along the passage toward the audience chamber where she stood. A hunter; he ran along the aisle toward her and dropped to his knees at her feet.

  “Bright Lady, the ælven governor and the Stonereach have escaped.”

  “What?!”

  “The æ
lven broke through the roof and overwhelmed the guards. They let in the sunlight ...” He drew a gasping breath before continuing. “They took the two ælven out through the roof.”

  “Search the city.” Shalár grimaced; the hunt would be difficult until nightfall.

  “Bright Lady, the search was begun at once. There was fighting at the gates. They escaped that way.”

  Shalár turned away so as not to vent her anger on the hapless messenger. She wanted to go out and search herself, but even if she shielded herself in the heaviest leathers she had, some sun would reach her. She could not risk any harm to her child.

  She was angry, but there was nothing to be done now. They were gone. Until the sun set, she could not send pursuit.

  She disliked feeling trapped in her own city. That must be amended, somehow.

  She thanked the hunter and sent him away to rest. She could tell by his khi that he had been sun-poisoned despite his heavy cloak and hood.

  Soon more of her people came to her, reporting that the ælven had let sunlight into other parts of Darkwood Hall, hampering their ability to move through the palace. Annoyed, she ordered that the damaged parts of the roof be repaired, then summoned Torith. He came to her in the audience chamber and knelt before her.

  “Choose two hunting parties to leave at sunset. One to pursue the ælven southward, and a smaller party to take the north road and search the shore.”

  Torith nodded. “As you will, Bright Lady.”

  He rose, bowed, and went off to do her bidding. Shalár walked across the dais to the large darkwood chair that was plainly the governor’s. Hers, now. She sat there, brooding.

  She needed a way to move about Ghlanhras even in daylight. She wanted watchers at intervals around the city wall, and they would need shelter. Covered platforms, perhaps. And some way for them to come and go from the hall, otherwise they would be cut off from her during the day.

  A covered pathway—or a completely enclosed passage, perhaps—must be made between the hall and each of the watch posts. She needed someone to organize this construction before the ælven returned in force.

  How long might that be? Long enough, she hoped, for Yaras to return with more of Clan Darkshore. Her handful of hunters were barely enough to hold the city, not enough for what she wanted to do next, which was to carry the fight forward to Woodrun.

  Her lips twisted in a mirthless smile. Woodrun was where the ælven had gone, no doubt. If she could get to them there, she might take back her prizes. She cared little about the spineless usurper who had called himself governor of Fireshore, but the loss of the Stonereach angered her.

  He was hers. He was useful. So few of her people conceived, and those who managed to conceive with ælven always had strong children.

  Shalár paused, her hand going to her belly, her thoughts to the spirit that would enter the body growing there. The child had long been silent, but she felt its presence nearby. For a moment she was gripped with a strange desire to apologize for the loss of its father.

  Folly. The child was hers, and the sire was unimportant to its future. This child would grow to be a leader of Clan Darkshore, and would see them achieve a new prosperity in their homeland.

  Midrange

  Rephanin’s soul was spread across the valley, tied to each spark of ælven khi by the task that had brought him here. Ehranan shone brightest for him, closest in thought though not in flesh.

  Rephanin had all but forgotten flesh. His own lay in a guarded tent well south of the battle. The flesh of others, of the hundreds of the ælven in the valley, he tried to ignore, for there was much pain there, and much fear.

  Marovon, move twenty of your guardians up that slope to your left.

  Ehranan’s voice sang in his mind, even as it rang through him to every guardian on the field. This was his gift as he had never before made use of it. He could not speak over great distance, but he could speak to any ælven nearby, and in this war he was the conduit for Ehranan’s commands.

  He sensed the twenty guardians moving, cutting off a group of kobalen trying to cross the ælven’s flank. A small ripple in the seething cauldron of the valley.

  Kobalen dead lay everywhere, black-furred corpses piled in the river and along its bank, heaped in ghastly rows across the valley that marked the ebb and flow of the battle over the last few days. Now the ælven were moving, pressing north on both sides of the Silverwash.

  In the valley’s bowl to the west of the river the ælven’s main force pushed steadily forward, forcing the kobalen back toward the pass. Another army hastened through the forest along the eastern bank, gathering within the trees at the outpost near the north ford. Ehranan was with them. Soon he would lead them across to fall upon the kobalen from behind.

  So long had he been Ehranan’s voice to the ælven warriors that his awareness was spread like a net among them, each individual ælven a knot in the web. They moved as one, obeyed as one the commands of Ehranan, who watched and thought for them all.

  A strange elation filled him, a sense of the army’s power as his own. Despite his passive role, he knew none of this would have happened as successfully as it did without his aid. The theory had been proven. Mindspeech was a powerful tool for an embattled army, therefore a powerful weapon.

  How strange to think of oneself as a weapon. Rephanin was disturbed by the idea. As one who had tried—not always with success, but always with sincerity—to keep the creed, it seemed ironic that he should now become a tool of widespread destruction of life.

  There was no choice, of course. They must fight or be overwhelmed, so they fought.

  Make ready.

  Ehranan's voice rang in his mind, and through him to all the armies. A tension rose in the khi of the ælven as the hundreds across the river braced to move, took firm grip upon sword or bow, and turned their gaze westward. Their silence was a heavy weight within the wood.

  To Rephanin it seemed even the trees watched. Their slow, dull, constant khi—the foundation of the forest—was more alert than usual. All living things awaited the outcome of this conflict.

  Among the ælven west of the river, those engaged in fighting the kobalen, the reaction to Ehranan’s command was anticipation, hope. If all went well, their ordeal would soon be over.

  Forward.

  Ælven warriors poured from the wood, streaming across the ford, thigh-deep in water that was cold and fouled with kobalen dead. The army had taken no water from the river since the battle began.

  Reaching the western bank they spread across the valley, silent and swift. If any kobalen saw them they raised no alarm.

  Swords to the fore, archers behind. Prepare to loose a volley on my signal.

  The warriors crossed the river. Ehranan’s voice in thought rang out with the force of every ælven’s will.

  Now!

  Arrows vaulted through the air, a chorus of high-pitched voices singing doom to those below. They rose over the heads of the waiting sword-bearers, sailed in a high arc across the battle-littered ground, then fell with deadly effect among the kobalen, who shrieked and turned to see the new threat behind them.

  Again! Loose!

  A second volley rose and fell, scattering the mass of kobalen. They were fewer than they had been when they had first crossed the mountains, though they still outnumbered the ælven.

  Loose!

  With the third wave of arrows, kobalen broke from the fight and began to swarm up the steep mountainsides to the west. Some ran into the river and were swept away by the deeper waters below the ford. Some ran north toward their attackers, shrieking their anger, fitting darts to their throwing sticks as they ran.

  Charge!

  A cry rose from all the ælven as swords were raised and the line of warriors moved to meet the foe. Rephanin had a fleeting sense of his hand gripping a sword hilt, felt an echo of Ehranan’s racing heartbeat as he advanced with his army.

  Bright sparks of pain or surprise or bewilderment lit across the field as ælven were struck
by kobalen weapons, wounded or killed. Rephanin tried to hold himself apart from them, tried to let the points of anguish fade against the greater glow of elation from the ælven armies.

  The trap had worked; the kobalen were broken. All that remained was to hunt them down or drive them west into the cold winter grip of the Ebons.

  Midrange Pass lay to the north of the northern army, out of the kobalen’s reach now, and in any case it was blocked with snow. A cold death would be the fate of kobalen who ran westward and tried to struggle across the unforgiving mountains to their homeland.

  Many did so. Many others tried the river. The few that managed to reach the eastern shore were picked off by ælven archers.

  A few hundred maddened kobalen persisted in fighting, besieged north and south by the ælven. They fought ferociously, eager to cost the ælven as dearly as they might. A group of them broke through the northern army and scattered, some running across the ford, some escaping into the pass.

  They would have to be hunted down, Rephanin agreed with Ehranan’s fleeting thought. Highstone, Alpinon’s chief city, was less than a day’s ride to the north. The folk there were aware of the kobalen threat—indeed, some of the warriors on this field were from Alpinon’s Guard—but it would be better to prevent any kobalen from reaching them.

  The fighting dwindled as the last few kobalen on the field were slain. Rephanin drifted, waiting for Ehranan to give more commands. As fear and tension drained away, a great weariness overcame him.

  Captains to me. Where is Phaniron?

  On the field, some warriors began to tend the ælven dead and wounded, seeking out fallen friends and comrades, while the rest gathered around Ehranan. The army made no cry of triumph.

  Rephanin let commands of a more mundane nature wash through him. Companies were sent to harry the kobalen who had run west, to begin clearing the river of kobalen dead, to gather wood for pyres.

  Rephanin let it all pass over him. There was an ache within him, and he could not find its cause.

  Night was coming on a cold wind. He preferred the night; when at home in the magehall in Glenhallow he was a night-bider, taking his rest by day. It had been so long now since he had rested at all that he had no will to try to find his flesh and ascertain its needs.