The Longsword Chronicles: Book 06 - Elayeen

by GJ Kelly

  The Sardor of Dith Halencloyster.

  Elayeen sighed. “What unanswered hope does this simple packet contain would send a child to her doom alone in the wild? Let us see the reason why she died.”

  She turned the packet over, flexed it in her hands to break the simple wax seal, and carefully peeled open the waxed leather folds. Within lay a folded parchment, kept safe from the elements by the waterproofed wrapping Elayeen handed to Meeya for safekeeping while she read.

  “It is a letter,” she said, needlessly, unfolding the parchment, and eyeing the words upon it. “It is written in pencil, the better to re-use the parchment for a reply. Whoever wrote it is poor, and well used to the practicing of thrift, I would say.”

  “What does it say? Valin is wobbling the lamp too much for me to see.”

  “You hold the lamp then, mihoth, I do not wish to rest my arm upon miThalin’s shoulder as you might.”

  “Silly Vali,” Meeya sighed, and took the offered lamp, and without hesitation snuggled closer to Elayeen and put her arm around her shoulders, the lamp shining down onto the page from beside Elayeen’s left ear.

  “It reads thus:” Elayeen began…

  Honured Sardor of the Dith

  The village of Fallowmead that lies in midshearings not far west of comfortless cove by the eastern sea do need your help. There be dark things and monsters in the cove come a week ago by shipwreck in bad storms. More than 100 was counted but some fell off the cliff. We seen we think a wizerd in them and he got to the top of the cliff with one that did not fall off. That one kills our sheep and throes them down to the ones in the cove to eat and others gets give to the wizerd who has made small monsters from them. Those ones in comfortless cove be using the ship wood and roaps to make ladders to get up. If they get up they will kill all of us. We sent Brod Fallowmead on hoarse to Sudshear for help but they got killed so we sent Camran Fallowmead on his mare to Nordshear but he got killed also by a bird. All our hoarse got took for the war but them and one foal that is now a pony and not big yet for any to ride but Kistin Fallowmead who brung this letter to you. Honured Sardor of the Dith we do need wizerds to help us in the village of Fallowmead that lies in midshearings by comfortless cove.

  Elayeen sighed, a very large part of her wishing she had not opened the letter. From her companions’ silence, it was clear they were thinking the same thing. Finally, it was Meeya who asked a question.

  “Where is this cove? Are we close to it?”

  “Pass me my bag there, the small one.”

  With the bag on her lap and a map of Arrun spread out before her, the three elves watched as Elayeen pointed a dirty fingernail at the eastern coastline.

  “It’s there, almost exactly midway between Nordshear and Sudshear, at the very point of this v-shaped bay. Comfortless Cove. It is, I suspect, well named. Where Norist Bay in Mornland is all sandy beaches, the Bay of Midshears is all rocks and cliffs. We are perhaps four days ride from there, if we move quickly and care not for being seen.”

  “Well,” Meeya gave a little shrug. “It’s southeast, which is almost the right direction.”

  “You are very quiet, Valin,” Elayeen announced.

  “I refer you once again to the numbers of the enemy quoted in the letter, miThalin.”

  “Most of which will probably have fallen off the cliff, with any luck,” Meeya sniffed.

  “Or have succeeded in using wreckage from the ship to scale the cliffs. For all we know, the village of Fallowmead is no more.”

  “All the more reason to honour our duty. If a hundred of the enemy and a dark wizard are roaming free here in Arrun, something must be done. It is possible we are the only people in the land who know of this threat.”

  “MiThalin Elayeen, the moment you uttered the word ‘help’ at the end of the first sentence of the letter, any protest I might have made was stilled. Yet I do urge you to consider that a Ranger’s duty is not always to rush headlong into danger and violence. We might ride for Nordshear, and summon aid for Fallowmead there, as the villagers themselves originally attempted.”

  “Yes, and waste a week’s journey travelling northeast, and another week to summon any of the ninety-five in Arrun and raise volunteers, and even more time riding back. Time which could cost many lives. It may even be as Meeya says, the main force might indeed have failed to scale the cliffs, leaving but a dark wizard and a single enemy for us to deal with.”

  It was Valin’s turn to sniff.

  “We have acquired altogether too many habits from G’wain and the wizard Allazar,” Elayeen sighed, turning her attention back to the map.

  “It must have been a big ship,” Meeya mumbled.

  “Yes, and where it was going in this season is a question for mightier minds than ours, Meemee. As is where it came from in the first place. The seas north of The Three Beacons are far too treacherous for navigation, or so it is generally held by mariners. At least, according to lord Rak.”

  “The questions to be considered are,” Valin sighed, “Do we rush to Fallowmead, and if we do so, what do we do when we get there? Assuming of course that something remains of the village taller than a blade of grass. From the letter it would seem the dark wizard is powerful, and somehow has already created from the local wildlife creatures of a kind which we ourselves may have recently seen in battle.”

  “And has at his command a small army of some one hundred warriors, less those that failed to crest the cliffs.”

  Elayeen picked up the letter, read it again, then carefully folded it, and replaced it in its waterproof envelope. “We shall do what all Rangers should. We shall go there, which answers the question ‘do we rush to Fallowmead’. And, once we arrive, we shall use our wits, our senses, and our experience to assess the situation and then form a plan of action, which answers the question ‘what do we do when we get there’. Of one thing we may be certain.”

  Valin and Meeya waited patiently for Elayeen while she folded her map and replaced it in its leather satchel.

  “Leeny?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Some of us seem to have acquired a certain habit from the wizard Arramin.”

  “Oh,” Elayeen smiled sweetly, and gently brushed away the hand Meeya was holding the pocket lamp in. “We may be certain that Fallowmead will receive considerably more aid from us than they would have gotten from the treacherous vakin whitebeards in the Hallencloister had their brave young messenger survived to deliver it to the gates.”

  Valin was awake before dawn, lighting the fire in the pit to warm the remains of the stew. It was cold, but there was no sign of the frost they’d expected, just a sprinkling of dew on the tips of grass and thorn giving the world a fresh-scrubbed aspect which breezes from the northwest helped preserve by carrying away the scent of death from the remains of the pony nearby. They ate quietly, and afterwards, while Meeya was washing the cauldron and their bowls at the stream, Valin and Elayeen set to packing up camp. Elayeen felt a sudden urge to take advantage of Meeya’s distance from them both.

  “Do you still disapprove of my decision to answer Fallowmead’s call, Valin?”

  “I disapprove of any decision you make which endangers your life, miThalin.”

  “Because it endangers ihoth Meeya?”

  “Because it endangers you. Long have Meeya and I served in your ‘gard, and well have we done so, I hope. We have always known, and long ago accepted without doubt or question, the risk such service brings with it. You cannot expect either of us to cast aside long years of service as thalangard and bind ourselves to a strange new duty in a strange new world without some vestige of our old life colouring our judgement.”

  “None of us will ever see Elvenheth again, Valin. Our old lives are gone forever. Such lives as we had were soiled and sullied by the hand of the Toorseneth, and later stolen entirely by Morloch and his insatiable thirst for vengeance. We must all of us set the past aside. I cling with such tenacity to the oath of the Kindred Rangers because it is all I have left of Ga
wain, and soon even that will be taken from me by the Merionell. You and Meeya must embrace the oath for other reasons, not the least of which is your new life together here in the east.”

  “I have watched over you both for too long, miThalin. Forgive me if I continue so to do. We both have, Reesen and I. That was why you sent Reesen to watch over Thal-Gawain, was it not? Knowing that of all the ninety-five who survived Far-gor, only he, and I, and Meeya, love you enough to give up everything to keep ihoth safe for you.”

  Elayeen nodded, her heart beating faster, though whether through fear of such intimate revelations or the discomfort caused by them, she could not say. In the years they had known each other, Valin had never been so open with her.

  “I know,” she whispered. “But Reesen’s love for me could never be anything other than unrequited.”

  “He always knew that. He always will. Just as he will always love you. It has always been enough for him to be as close to you as his duties would permit. You cannot hope to end such deeply ingrained feelings with a command. You cannot hope to end such profound concern for your wellbeing with an oath of service to a strange new cause. For Reesen, as for Meeya and I, only death will end the duty of care we feel to you, and even that might not be enough, if some of the tales of Minyorn are to be believed.”

  “Yet still you would have me abandon my oath and the people of Fallowmead, as you would have had me abandon Fourfields and those who dwelled in the shadow of that hill.”

  Valin drew in a breath, and glanced towards his wife, scrubbing the pot with sand and gravel from the bed of the stream. Then he turned his gaze to Elayeen, and held her eyes.

  She saw sadness in his, and profound concern.

  “I know why you cling to your oath to Thal-Gawain, miThalin, and it is not because it is all you have left of him. You carry much more of him than a simple oath of service.”

  Elayeen felt her heart skip a beat at the obvious reference to the seed she carried, and the decision she must make before August.

  “Then tell me, Valin, if you are suddenly so wise, why do I adhere to the oath, though it jeopardise so much?”

  “You are afraid, miThalin, and with great good reason. I heard the voice of the she-wizard, I heard her words to you at Fourfields, whispered through ages cracked by antiquity, a dead voice uttering a warning across the chasm of time itself by some mystic means far beyond any wizard’s power to comprehend.

  “I heard the words she spoke to you, and for a fleeting moment I felt the terror of them, and thought my blood turned to ice by the numbing absence even of a shadow of compassion in those rasping syllables. I knew then why you would hold true to your oath, and lead us to the summit of Croptop Hill, there to face whatever demons lurked, even if it be Morloch himself ensconced upon a throne of shimmering death awaiting your arrival.”

  Valin stepped closer, but there was no threat in his aspect, or his voice. He moved closer to offer her the support that firm hands upon her shoulders might give, were it not for the fact that his honour prohibited such contact with his queen.

  “You cling to the oath, miThalin, because you fear this is the last ride of Elayeen Rhiannon Seraneth ní Varan Raheen, her final adventure, the first and last time she may choose her own path, and set her own feet upon it, and shine like a beacon with honour and nobility to the end, come what may, before Elayeen is no more, all that she is, and all that she was and might have been, stolen away by a prophecy older than the first days of the world’s making, and the birth of the Shimaneth Issilene Merionell.”

  Elayeen felt a bubble of grief rising in her throat, and knew the truth of Valin’s words.

  “But you are wrong to believe this, miThalin. Elayeen shall no more end with the Shi’ell than did your mother end with you.”

  “What are you two talking about so earnestly?” Meeya called, arms laden with a clean pot and bowls, striding towards them. “And if you think I’m washing all the dishes and packing up my own bedroll and bags, Valdo, you have another think coming.”

  The moment was lost, broken as the silent snapping of a twig, forever. Valin turned to face his wife, bowed, and with a glance at Elayeen announced, “Isst, miheth.”

  Elayeen favoured Meeya with a weak smile and continued preparing the horses for departure. For the first time, Valin had spoken to her as a trusted friend might, unhindered by the subservient courtesy of a thalangard officer which elven protocols demanded. And though he might never do so again, his words had bridged forever the gap between them, and shone a bright light of honesty into a dark place within Elayeen where once only Eldengaze had dwelled. Perhaps, she thought, clinging to a glimmer of a hope, Valin might be right, and Elayeen might not end when summer came. Perhaps.

  oOo

  20. Ugly But Effective

  Springs and streams seemed to emerge at random from the rising slopes ahead of them as they crossed the south-eastern region of Arrun’s Midshearings and approached the area described in the letter; trees sprung up on those slopes, and more sheep seemed to spring up in the verdant valleys. The cliffs surrounding the Bay of Midshears rose high, though the upward climb seemed lessened by the generally undulating nature of the land. It was like climbing a series of steps, hill and valley, but two steps up, and only one down.

  Elayeen maintained what was, in contrast to their comfortable trot south from foothills of Threlland, an urgent military pace, so that by the time the sun began to set on the eighth day of March, they were beginning to become concerned that Valin might have been right, and nothing taller than a blade of grass remained of the village they were seeking but had not found. When they made camp that night, they suffered frak, and in desperation agreed to open one of the few wax-sealed stone jars remaining in their provisions, only to find pickled onions.

  Their watchfulness increased, eldeneyes becoming so accustomed to being summoned that it no longer felt so tiring to switch vision and cast gazes around them, as they did, frequently. It was only while settling in their blankets, Meeya taking first watch, that they caught the scent of cooking and wood smoke on the breezes, and drew some comfort from the knowledge that a community was nearby. Only the nagging question of who it was doing the cooking and what it was they might be eating troubled their sleep.

  Dawn on the ninth found them already in the saddle, and trotting due east with great caution, weapons loose and ready to hand. More trees, tall pines mostly, topped summits of each rise they crested, and the elves were astonished at how far the scent of cooking had carried after sunset the previous night. They were three miles from their night-camp when they emerged from a stand of trees, and looked down the slope past stray clusters of sheep and upon the village in the valley which they assumed was Fallowmead.

  Beyond the village towards the east, an expanse of grassland rising up yet another slope, to yet another copse of trees. Occasional gulls screeched overhead, testifying to their proximity to the sea, and there was a hint of ozone on the breezes before it was whipped away by stronger gusts from the north. The seasons were turning, though slowly, and those northerlies were the last gasps of winter, and fading fast.

  “Perhaps a hundred inhabitants, a hundred and twenty at most,” Valin announced.

  “And smoke from the chimneys,” Meeya noted. “It all seems peaceful enough. Those longer buildings, are they barns?”

  “I believe they are shearing sheds, Meemee. I remember reading something about shearing sheds in the books at Tarn. There are a great many sheep in those pens, I wonder why they are not free upon the slopes?”

  “Something approaches quickly from the northeast. Four somethings, they are now in the dip below the rise near that distant structure.”

  “A shepherd’s hut,” Elayeen announced, and flexed her shoulders, testing the tension of her bowstring.

  “There!” Meeya hissed.

  “Four there are indeed. And they are dark-made. Dogs? I have lost them in another dip.”

  “Not dogs, Valin,” Elayeen grimaced, nocking an ar
row. “We saw such creatures at Far-gor. There! They are coming. By some mystic means they have our scent. Allazar said they were the Yarken, of Tansee, describing them as a mixture of dog, cat, and wolf, created for speed to bring down horses by nipping at their heels. They are made to destroy an army’s fleeing stragglers, or are loosed upon mounted scouts and messengers.”

  “Then it was these creatures which killed Kistin Fallowmead,” Meeya spat.

  “It would seem likely. Dismount, for greater accuracy.”

  “Aim low,” Meeya insisted. “Bring them to their bellies, and let them know a slow death filled with fear, or if fear is unknown to such creatures, filled with pain.”

  Something in Meeya’s tone drew a hasty glance from Elayeen and Valin, and then they slipped from their saddles, and, as the high-pitched yapping and howling of the Yarken grew louder, strings were drawn, and held for the aim.

  The Yarken had the undulating gait of greyhounds, and speed to match. Yet the similarity with that breed of dog ended there. They were powerfully built, broad of shoulder, yet narrow of head and muzzle, needle-sharp teeth in the maw and with paws of a large wildcat, the better to swipe at running prey. With four such beasts howling and yelping towards them, they could only imagine the terror poor Kistin had felt, dismounted, running for her life in her tiny sheepskin boots, clutching her precious bag and the desperate plea for help it contained…

  Three arrows loosed as one took three Yarken low in the chest between the forelegs, Threlland-made steel broadhead points ripping through bone and entrails, tearing gaping wounds through lungs, intestines and organs, ripping the length of the despicable beasts. It was Meeya who won the race to draw, nock and loose upon the last of the creatures, and there was a look of intense hatred on her face when the beast went down, tumbling as the others had, paws and tail flailing.