The Longsword Chronicles: Book 06 - Elayeen

by GJ Kelly

  “Lady Rangers,” he gasped, a little breathless from his obvious exertions. “I have the information I think you require!”

  He passed the parchment to Elayeen, and again she noted it had been written in pencil, the better to be re-used. Fallowmead was not a rich village. On it, with a sinking stomach, she read:

  118 Good people of the village of Fallowmead in the east midshearings

  There being

  19 old foke of 65 years or more

  25 young foke of less than 16 years

  74 foke of years between 16 and 65

  But of these two are with child one is sore hurt and three are not all sound so leaving 68 sound

  She passed the parchment to Meeya, who read it briefly before passing it back without a word.

  “Thank you, Serre Crellan. Tell me, how long does it take to travel to Sudshear from here?”

  Crellan carefully folded the parchment, and tucked it into the pocket of his smock. “We only make the journey in summer, lady Ranger. Before the war come up north, we had six horses, and with them and with hand carts, we made a good journey of it, taking the woolpacks and what sheepskin we tanned and clothes we made. We wouldn’t rush, there’d be no point, since all the villages and farms in the Midshearings would be going too. It’s a big event for us simple folk, taking us and all to Sudshear and back. Might take all of July, there and back. How it will be done this year… if it will be done… call came, you see, and we gave four horse to the war, and wool for blankets and what clothing and boots we already made. They took it all to Nordshear.”

  “Then your sheds are all empty?”

  “For the most part, aye. Not all the sheep were shorn though, when the call came, so we did get quite a few bales o’ wool i’ the grease. But with war and all, and then winter due and no way to take the woolpacks to Sudshear, we scoured all them fleeces and dried ‘em well, the better for pressing and keeping in the hopes of carrying them to market this year.”

  “May we see the sheds? It could be some time before Ranger Valdo returns, and it may aid us to know what Fallowmead has which can be used for its defence.”

  “Aye! Aye this way, lady Rangers, I’ll be glad to show you all!”

  Elayeen and Meeya briefly caught a glimpse of the jolly-faced fellow Crellan Jokdaw had been all his life, until darkness had washed ashore and touched all those who dwelled in the village. He led the way, proud so to do, on the safe ground of a lifetime’s familiarity with all around him.

  Along the way to the immense sheds, he pointed to this cottage or that, this building or that outbuilding, describing those who dwelled there or what was done there and by whom. The occupations he described were rustic and a fair few were not altogether familiar to elves, such as ‘classers’, ‘rousties’, ‘pressers’ and ‘carders’. Nearer the sheds came a rising odour, and not an altogether pleasant one.

  “We do our own tanning,” Crellan explained, “Though not so much of it nor so often that we need a tannery built outside the village. The small shed yonder serves. We also make our own soap for scouring the wool, and that means potash pits. This time o’ year we’d usually be busy about making the soap for next summer, but since most o’ the wool went for the war, we got still got plenty left.”

  The shearing sheds were vast, and filled with long tables, pens, and large wooden structures Crellan explained were ‘wool presses for the baling’. There were stacks of barrels, great open vats, and large woolpacks bound together to form bales neatly arranged at one end. Behind each of the two sheds, in neat ranks, were the carts, wagons, and smaller handcarts which the villagers used once a year to carry their annual yield to Sudshear.

  “Always to Sudshear,” Crellan explained, “It’s that wee bit closer, so we’re on the registry there rather than Nordshear.”

  The tour of the village took two hours, and by its end Elayeen and Meeya knew infinitely more about graziery and sheep-shearing than they had before, which had been absolutely nothing. They were also growing increasingly fretful for Valin’s return. With the cliffs but three miles or so from the centre of the village, he should have been back by now, even allowing for a little stealth on his part. It was a little past noon, and though the evenings had begun to show noticeable signs of drawing out, it was yet early March, and clouds were gathering.

  On the walk back to the horses, the animals waiting patiently by the village well, they spotted a few of the inhabitants scurrying with buckets for their water, remaining out of doors only long enough to fill their containers and scuttle back inside again.

  “It was always such a happy place, was Fallowmead,” Crellan whispered sadly, noting Elayeen’s gaze. “Folk would idle by the well to talk and laugh, the wee ones playing in the square, everyone knows everyone else and though we’d have our ups and downs, we’re all friends as well as neighbours. Now I think the dead have more life in ‘em than any living here. I try my best to keep them all strong, but it’s hard to keep hope alive when you haven’t none yourself.”

  “There is always hope,” Elayeen replied, turning at the well to gaze up the eastern slope and remembering Gawain’s words. “Even when it is of the futile variety, it is still hope.”

  She snapped her eyes, and spotted Valin picking his way through the trees at the same time Meeya did.

  “Valdo returns,” she announced. “Perhaps now we shall learn something of the nature of the threat we face, and which variety of hope we may realistically embrace.”

  “He’s riding fast, Leeny.”

  He was. He was thundering down the hill as though Morloch himself were in pursuit.

  oOo

  23. Go, Now

  Valin’s horse was breathing hard, but the elf himself was not. He dismounted calmly enough, but his expression was fixed and stern. He shot a glance at Crellan, who took the hint and hurried away to the brightly coloured cottage which served as the village tavern. It was difficult to tell whether the grass and dirt staining Valin’s clothes were from his earlier encounter with the Razorwing, or fresh from crawling stealthily upon an enemy. Only when Valin was sure they would not be overheard did he speak.

  “We have perhaps another day, possibly two, miThalin, and we face Meggen and what would appear to be Gorian mercenaries, though there are fewer of the latter than the former. Their platforms are almost complete. At the top of the cliff, the dark wizard now has half a dozen Meggen gathered, and there are crab-like creatures beneath the soil surrounding their encampment. The wizard wears an iron mask, of the kind you described worn by the Salaman Goth.”

  “Can we strike at them before their main force is able to gather on the cliff top?”

  Valin shook his head, but slowly. “The land between the woods and the cliff edge would favour us, it is grassy, but with many windswept shrubs of the hardy varieties. We could approach unseen to within range of our bows, but the wizard has a staff, and would appear to be powerful indeed. Our arrows would be wasted against his shield, while we ourselves would then become the target of the Meggen, and of the crab-creatures.”

  “Aknid of Gothen,” Elayeen sighed, “Which only fire might defeat. It was among the first entries in the wizard Allazar’s book. How many of those things do they possess?”

  Valin shrugged. “My eldeneyes revealed a dozen. The terrain suggests they might move from time to time, taking up new positions around the camp before burrowing just below the surface; it is pockmarked in the vicinity of the camp.”

  “And the enemy below in the cove?”

  “I was able to move unseen to the edge of the cliffs some three hundred yards to the south of their encampment. The ship was large indeed, but broken up by the storm and further by the survivors. Crellan Jokdaw’s estimate of a hundred is exaggerated, though how many they might have lost in the construction of the platforms I cannot say. I saw perhaps fifty all told, including the seven already atop the cliff. It is difficult to be accurate, groups of them move in and out of the wreck bringing out wood for their fires and other sal
vage.

  “The way up for them is precarious, beams and planks zigzagging up the rock face, resting on metal spikes they have salvaged from the wreck and hammered into the stone. But they are close enough now for some to have braved a free climb up the sixty feet of bare rock from the uppermost platform to the summit. The rest must wait for additional beams to be carried up from the shore and secured in place, and then the army will muster.”

  Elayeen nodded, feeling the butterflies in her stomach readying to swarm. “And you estimate the platform will be complete when?”

  Valin shrugged. “I do not know if they work through the night. If they do, they will have mustered by dawn. If not, if for the sake of safety they cease their efforts when darkness falls, then they will muster tomorrow. The Meggen in the encampment were busy roasting sheep over a large fire. I assume to feed their comrades when they arrive.”

  “Leeny, we can’t hope to face such a force and a dark wizard, not with just three bows, and not with any amount of hope.”

  “If we can get close enough unseen, and loose upon the dark wizard, the rest can be destroyed easily enough. The threat in the cove below can be removed simply by dropping a large rock on their parlous platforms.”

  “If,” Valin sighed. “If we had our own arrows and not dwarf-made curtain-rods we might take such a risk, though the crosswind from the sea over the cliffs is at times stiff, and swirling. But we cannot know that the six Meggen at the camp are stationed there, they might only have been there for food. It might be that they patrol wider than these Aknid creatures. The slightest error in aim, a defect in our arrows, the slightest alarm, and the dark wizard alerted to our presence would render himself invincible to the weapons we possess. It is a big stick he carries, miThalin, not the kind of rod we have seen in the hands of Graken-riders.”

  “Yet if we do nothing they will muster, and instead of six Meggen and a dark wizard, we shall have fifty and a dark wizard advancing upon this defenceless village. There are one hundred and eighteen of the kindred here, and every one of them depending on us for their defence.”

  “Then they’ll be disappointed,” Meeya declared. “Even they cannot believe three bows can hold such an enemy at bay, much less defeat it. Only a foolish child could hold such hope.”

  Perhaps it was the sudden memory of the rasping words Eldengaze had uttered which exploded a burst of anger deep within Elayeen, instantly incinerating the butterflies of nerves which had threatened to swarm. Or perhaps it was the simple truth of Meeya’s words, Elayeen did not care.

  “We faced a far greater threat at Far-gor and prevailed, Meeya Thalangard,” she whispered, but her friend refused to be cowed by the warning signs she knew so well.

  “At Far-gor we had wizards, an army, and a farak gorin to aid us! Here we have nothing but sheep, on two legs and on four!”

  Valin remained entirely calm, and his tone was unwavering. “It is true, miThalin. In the north, and with the resources Meeya has listed, we withstood the enemy’s first assault, but with many killed or wounded. We would not have survived their main assault, had not the farak gorin collapsed.”

  Elayeen’s anger threatened to boil over, but she recognised it for the memory of throth and the dark rage Gawain had harboured since Morloch’s Breath had annihilated Raheen. There were times, she knew, when it was difficult to separate her own feelings from the echoes of throth, and from the compulsions rippling down through the ages which even now bade her run.

  But knowing the source of her anger did little to quell it, and she regarded her friends with the fire of unmistakeable ire in her eyes. “Then,” she announced, “We shall make our own farak gorin, here in Fallowmead of the Midshearings! Meeya, fetch Crellan Jokdaw to me.”

  “Isst, miThalin,” Meeya bowed, and if there were any ill feeling in the gesture it wasn’t visible. She strode away towards the tavern-cottage, bow held loose in one hand, the other resting the hilt of her shortsword.

  “They will wish to erase this village and its people from the land, miThalin. It is why they were kept penned by the Razorwing and Yarken. The enemy are behind allied lines, and whatever plans they might have had which took them to the sea have been wrecked along with their ship. They are alone, and desperate, and that makes them even more dangerous.”

  “You saw no sign of Yarken, or any other creature save for the Aknids?”

  “None, miThalin.”

  Elayeen nodded, as much to herself as to Valin, glancing first at the horses and then at Meeya and Crellan striding towards them; the one grim, the other wide-eyed and anxious, hands wiping nervously at his smock.

  “You sent for me, lady Ranger?” Crellan asked.

  “I did, Serre Crellan. The scale of the threat to your people has been assessed. I need to know if your one hundred and eighteen men and women wish to fight for their survival, or simply roll over and die.”

  Crellan’s eyes widened even further, and he licked his lips. “Lady Ranger… I think most would be for running…”

  “There is nowhere to run, as you know.”

  “Aye, I know, and so do they, but that won’t stop them if panic sets in and they’ve a mind to go.”

  “They have no time. It is our belief that the enemy may attack tomorrow, or the next day. If Fallowmead is to have any chance of surviving the next two days, we will need all sixty-eight of your ‘sound’ bodies to aid in the raising of defences. The rest too must do their part.”

  Crellan blinked, and his head bobbed. “I’ll call the village to the shed, and make it it known. Will you be there? There will be questions, doubts…”

  “We shall be there. But before you gather your people I would impose another duty upon the shoulders of the Headman of Fallowmead. It is not one the Rangers can relieve you of.”

  “What do it be, lady?” Crellan whispered, as if bracing himself against an unknown horror.

  “Who is the best rider remaining in the village?”

  “I… old or young, lady Ranger?”

  “The best, age is immaterial as long as they are fit.”

  “That’d be Steffen, then. He’s Brod’s older brother. Steffen’s a wool classer and part scourer. He wanted to try for the north before, but Camran was judged the better and lighter horseman.”

  “Fetch him. Speak to no-one, Serre Crellan, simply go and fetch this Steffen to us if you please.”

  “Aye, very well, lady Ranger…” and Crellan hurried away again, across the square and out of sight down an alley.

  “Valin, please remove what remains of our provisions and equipment from the packhorse, and ready half a cake of frak and a blanket and cape for our rider.”

  “Isst, miThalin.”

  A short time later they saw curtains twitching as Crellan hurried back, bringing with him a tall and lean man in his early forties.

  “This is Steffen, lady Ranger,” Crellan announced.

  “Greetings and well-met, Steffen of Fallowmead. You know the way to Sudshear, I presume?”

  “I do, lady Ranger, but…”

  “Here is the message once carried by Kistin Fallowmead. You will carry it now. Ride for Sudshear, stop only for rest and for the health of the horse along the way. When you reach the southern capital, you must tell the authorities there what has happened here. Tell them that an army of at least fifty Meggen led by a dark wizard is mustering to attack the village, and likely will have begun their assault within two days from now.”

  “I? Lady Ranger, I have a wife and son…”

  “All the more reason for you to hasten to fetch aid. Do you understand your duty and destination, Steffen of Fallowmead?”

  “Yes, but… but may I not say goodbye to my family and friends?”

  “No. There is food on the packsaddle, miner’s cake from Threlland known as frak. Enough for a journey far longer than the one you must now undertake. The packsaddle may not be as comfortable a seat as that to which you might be accustomed, but that too is all the more reason for your haste.

 
“Go, now. You cannot tarry, Serre Steffen. Not even for a goodbye. If any others in the village were to learn of your imminent departure there would doubtless be uproar, and perhaps even fighting to take your place, and you have been named by Fallowmead’s headman as the best rider yet living here.”

  Crellan understood at last the nature of the duty Elayeen had imposed upon him, and understood too the reason for it, and for the haste with which Elayeen was demanding Steffen leave, and now. The portly man seemed suddenly to accept his own fate, and his own part in whatever future remained for the village he had represented since his election as its headman years before.

  Reaching out a pudgy hand and clasping Steffen’s shoulder, Crellan nodded, and spoke solemnly. “Aye, Steffen, she’s right and you know it. With time to think, the likes of Gonvil and Alek would rip you from the saddle and use your head for a footstool to climb up there in your place, and them never rid a horse in their lives. Go. Go quick, Steffen, don’t look back. Go quick for them you love and them you lost. I’ll say your farewells for you, and us’ll keep all safe for your return. Go, now.”

  Stunned, the wool classer and scourer of the humble village on the east coast of Arrun’s Midshearings blinked, and swallowed, and eyed them all. Then he nodded, took the packet bearing the message, and stuffed it into a shirt pocket beneath a thick woollen jumper. He gave them all another look, as if believing it all a dream from which he might now awaken, but they simply gazed sternly back at him. With a sigh, he gripped the cross-frame of the packsaddle, and there being no stirrups, leapt nimbly up and astride the horse.

  Valin handed him the reins, gathered them short, and gave a quiet word of encouragement. Then Steffen drew the horse’s head around, and with a clattering of hooves on the cobbles, gave the nag a kick, and they thundered off down the southern road.

  At once, curtains twitched, doors were flung open, and people began spilling out, gazing in disbelief at the sight of one of their own charging out of the square, onto the gravel-strewn southern track, and away down the valley. Shouts began to ring out, confused and angry faces turning towards the centre of the square, and in the hubbub could clearly be heard accusations and protests against the sudden and unannounced departure of one of their number.