The Longsword Chronicles: Book 06 - Elayeen

by GJ Kelly

  “All of it. When the time comes and the Meggen reach the outermost ends of the V, the wagons, carts, and wool will be fired, and the enemy, avoiding the heat and the flames, compressed and funnelled towards the point, here.”

  Valin, standing on the opposite side of the table, exchanged a flicker of a smile with Meeya, remembering Gawain’s success with such a dishonourable and surprising tactic at Far-gor. Suddenly, for the two elves at least, the situation Elayeen had led them to seemed a little less daunting and a lot less inevitable than it had earlier.

  “How you gonna fire ‘em?” Chert Ardbinder grunted.

  “With flaming arrows, unless you propose another means, Master Firesmith?”

  He shrugged. “I can make up fuse-ropes. Ain’t no chore. They’ll go fast at the touch of a match. Thread ‘em the length o’ yer vee each way, leave you one end fer the match.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Ain’t no chore, lady.”

  “Serre Crellan, we shall need everyone who can walk and who can dig a hole in the ground. Commencing three quarters up from the point of the V, holes big enough for a booted foot to fall into must be dug, in arcs, from each arm across to the other. Start with the furthest line, and work backwards towards the point. At the base of each hole must be fixed a sharpened stake, long enough and sharp enough to burst through the sole and the upper and the foot between.”

  “On my word,” the healer gasped, “That’s nasty indeed.”

  “I myself once stepped in such a trap,” Elayeen announced, “And I agree, they are indeed nasty. The pits should be dug in bands across the V, thus…” and she carved arcs into the table-top. “But the holes must not be well-ordered or equally spaced. If the enemy comes to understand what lies before them, they may avoid the pitfalls completely.”

  Here, Elayeen peppered the lines of the arcs seemingly at random, so that an advancing enemy would not be able to deduce any pattern to their disposition and thus avoid them by counting paces or measuring distances.

  “They must be covered, too, so as not to be immediately visible. Grass matting of some kind, or cloth?”

  “I shall organise this,” Eona volunteered. “Even the elderly ladies of Fallowmead can turn their hands to such work.”

  “It must be done swiftly,” Elayeen asserted. “First the wagons and their incendiary cargo, and then the pitfalls. Once the pits have been dug and spiked, none of us, and especially not stray sheep, must venture out into the V. To do so not only risks the well-being of the trespasser, but also risks alerting the enemy to the presence of the traps.”

  Heads bobbed an acknowledgement.

  “Can all this be done, Serre Crellan? Are you lacking any materials which I have named thus far?”

  “No, lady Ranger. Nothing we don’t already have that can’t be made, and quick at that.”

  “Good. That is the first job of work which needs to be undertaken. Now we may commence to become nasty in earnest…”

  And then Elayeen at first stunned, and then horrified, all of them with her creativity…

  oOo

  25. Ranger Leeny

  “Don’t venture far into the woods, Valin. Just enough to be hidden from view yourself, and enough that you can watch for any patrol or scouts the Goth-lord, if such it be, might send in advance of his army.”

  “Isst, miThalin.”

  “And go around the V. I don’t want you forgetting and falling into any of the traps they’re digging. Do you have food?”

  “I do, thank you, courtesy of young master Arbo.”

  “Good. When you fear your Sight is tiring, return, and Meeya will take your place on watch. Take all three of our horses, too. I like not the glances they have been receiving from certain quarters.”

  “I had noticed,” Valin grimaced. “Keep good watch. Desperate men make for desperate enemies should their nerve fail them.”

  “You need have no fear for us,” Elayeen acknowledged the warning, “The Sight has been enough to let them know they have been well marked.”

  “Very well, miThalin.”

  “And Valin?”

  “Isst, miThalin?”

  “Vex.”

  The elf smiled, touched the emblem covering his breast, and gave a nod of a bow before mounting and leading the two horses out of Fallowmead and up the slope into the distant trees. Many watched him go, and some of those weren’t happy at the obvious precaution Elayeen had taken with the horses.

  “Thal-Gawain would be so proud of you, Leeny,” Meeya sighed, flicking her eyes away from Valin’s distant life-light and back to the villagers working at furious pace on the rise beyond the stream. “Though even he might baulk at some of the tactics you have planned.”

  “Desperate elves make for desperate enemies,” Elayeen smiled grimly. “We are sorely outnumbered, and not all of our new allies here may be relied upon. The ones called Gonvil and Alek have quickly gathered a small group of like-minded villagers to them.”

  “Like-minded imbeciles, you mean,” Meeya said, raising her voice over the sound of sawing and hammering coming from the shed away to their left and behind them, construction well under way on the engines Elayeen had ordered.

  She nodded, watching as the two ringleaders of those who advocated flight strode to Crellan, who was overseeing the deployment of the wagons and hand-carts.

  “They intend to cause more trouble,” Meeya sighed.

  “They have misjudged their headman. His light burns brightly now, and theirs are but pallid shades in comparison.”

  The air was suddenly filled with acrid fumes, but these were whipped away by stiffening, swirling breezes. Elayeen watched as Gonvil pointed, first towards the village and presumably her, and then up to the trees. At once, the portly and jovial Crellan stepped forward, jabbing a vicious finger into Gonvil’s chest, advancing and using that finger to punctuate a stream of words and invective the elves could not hear over the noise of construction and hubbub of frenetic work. Gonvil and Alek backed away, cowed, though when they walked away they spat words over their shoulder at the headman as they retreated.

  Out in the expanse of ground all now knew as ‘the vee’, men, women and children dug furiously with hoe, trowel and spade, while to disguise the spoil from the holes, others scattered dung from the back of a small handcart. Sheep were tethered here and there, the cords tying them to stakes driven into the soft earth thin and scarcely visible from more than twenty yards or so away. The animals didn’t seem to be complaining yet at the activity around them, and contented themselves with grazing. Though it seemed cruel to sacrifice them thus, the villagers of Fallowmead had given up something far more precious in their bid for rescue, and so ignored the few animals which until this day had been counted among their wealth and their livelihood.

  Elayeen’s choice of lieutenants had been excellent. The brightest of lights in the village may have burned in some surprising places, but the six she had chosen laboured tirelessly. Even Arbo, perhaps once considered the runt of the litter in Fallowmead, now wore about him an air of quiet confidence, and seemed to be everywhere… first here, doling out food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, then there, dragging another cart-load of dung up from the tanning-shed to the muck-spreaders, and next yonder, helping to sharpen stakes or fetch more cloth or hay for the pit-coverings.

  Eona had full charge of the women, most of which were digging the pits, and had given terse orders to her daughter to lay out the tables in the tavern for a hospital. The order was a sombre reminder, not that any was required, that Fallowmead’s two healers might soon be needed as none would ever have imagined, at least not before the war in the north had blighted all lands.

  Meeya suddenly and incongruously giggled.

  “What?” Elayeen asked, astonished.

  “Chert Ardbinder.”

  Elayeen stifled a smile, but couldn’t hide it from her eyes. “Stop it, Meemee, and do not laugh. He would be known as a blacksmith in other lands, I think, and they are much respected,
working as they do with fire and iron. Chert Ardbinder is doubtless an ancient and honourable title bestowed upon one whose occupation requires the hardness of flint.”

  “Much good it did the poor man’s father,” Meeya announced through clenched teeth.

  Elayeen smiled sadly. “In truth, climbing the shed roof with a hammer to repair the finials in a storm was not the most sensible act ever undertaken by a man.”

  “No, but it does tell you how much they value the sheds and their contents. These are strange people we fight for, Leeny.”

  “Do you remember the Red and Gold G’wain and I wore at Far-gor?”

  “I do. You and he were beautiful to behold, so attired.”

  “For all we know we’re standing now where the wool used for parts of the garments came from, though most of the cloth is of Arrunwove silk.”

  “I know,” Meeya sighed. “But it doesn’t make them any less strange.”

  “There is the Firesmith now,” Elayeen nodded, and they watched while the man, laden with coils of rope, strode out to the furthest wagon on the northern arm of the V, and set to work laying his fuse and supervising the placement and wetting of the incendiary woolpacks.

  “A pity they didn’t own more wagons and carts,” Meeya grimaced, noting how short was the V in reality as opposed to the lines on the map scratched into the surface of the shearing table.

  “Perhaps they did, but they, like their horses, were taken for the war.”

  “I wasn’t criticising them, Leeny, merely making an observation. Gawain’s V at Far-gor seemed somehow bigger and longer.”

  “And not content with remarking on Fallowmead’s lack of vehicles, now you denigrate my V. Next you will remind me how much better at making speeches G’wain is than I, and how great a general compared to my puny attempts at leadership.”

  “All true,” Meeya smiled innocently. “And his jokes are much funnier, too. Those that I understood, anyway.”

  “Bah.”

  “No no, you should say something like ‘how would you like your head, one lump or two?’ You’re simply not trying, Leeny.”

  “You, on the other hand, are. And sometimes, very.”

  Meeya giggled again. “Well done! Now you’re making progress.”

  They stood close together, smiling, arms folded beneath their cloaks, flicking occasional glances up the slope to the tree line half a mile away and Valin’s life-light shining there. And all around them, the noise and din of preparations for battle.

  “Do we really have a chance now, Leeny? Really?”

  Elayeen shrugged, and felt a wave of wistfulness wash over her. “I do not know, miMeeya. There are almost twelve hours of daylight a day in this season, and we have perhaps three left before sunset. If the enemy works through the night as we must, dawn may bring death with it. If they avoid the V, if they avoid the pitfalls, if they enter the village, then shall we know catastrophe, and Meggen is its name.”

  “And if catastrophe should call, when do we run, and abandon these people to their doom?”

  Elayeen grimaced. “I don’t know. Much will depend on the circumstances come the time.”

  “You cannot turn your back on the Merionell, Leeny, any more than Valin and I can turn our backs on you.”

  “Then I’ll let the vakin Merionell decide whether or when we should run and leave these people to be slaughtered or eaten alive!”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

  She suddenly felt guilty, and did her best to quell the worms wriggling in her stomach. Most of them, she thought, were probably put there by the ancient bitch-wizard Eldengaze. Thinking of the long-dead witch in Gawain’s terms always helped to quell the worst of its effects.

  “I’m sorry too, Meemee. But as far as I’m concerned the Merionell can wait until July, and until then my life is my own. I know my duty. And if I have to flee and leave these gentle people to their fate, I shall. But ever after shall those responsible know a fury greater even than Gawain’s for Morloch! You do not save a people by allowing them to be destroyed.”

  “Yet the old prophecy says that the Shimaneth Issilene Merionell shall restore elvendom, and scythe the darkness like a reaper in the fields. How many lives will he save? None, if he comes not into the world.”

  “Do you see those sheep tethered yonder?”

  “Of course.”

  “They are to die. Put there, by my order, tied to their stakes by the shepherds who once watched over them all their lives, so that an enemy upon the hill will think nothing out of order, nothing remarkable in the bucolic panorama which greets their foul eyes. Sheep grazing, wagons and carts laid aside for the winter, and the villagers all indoors cowering in fear. A dozen sheep or more, a small price to pay for the lives of all Fallowmead.”

  “Yes...”

  “People aren’t sheep, Meeya. The wolves of Issilene will not be reborn into a world which would count one hundred and eighteen good folk of Arrun a small price to pay for their arrival. Not while I still have something to say in the matter.”

  “I know, Leeny,” Meeya said as softly as she could over the noises from the sheds, and there was an ocean of worry in her large brown eyes. “But that’s my Elayeen talking. You don’t know what might happen if you try to defy the word of the Shitheen.”

  “There are three hundred and seventy five names upon the cairn at Far-gor because the Shitheen failed to bring down the farak gorin. They foresaw the need, took the steps they doubtless foresaw would end the war before it began, and yet they failed. Enough lives have been lost as a result of their shortcomings. I shall not stand idly by and watch as another one hundred and eighteen are added to a list of the Shitheen’s making.”

  “Leeny!”

  “Leeny me nothing, Meeya. For reasons known only to their own closely-guarded history, the Shitheen allowed themselves to be decried, traduced, vilified and pushed to the very margins of life in Elvendere by the Toorseneth, the very people they would now have us stand against and the Merionell destroy! They failed to do anything to help themselves at a time when most in Elvendere revered them, and chose instead to commit their salvation to a dim and distant future. Gawain is right to denounce whitebeards, and what is a Seer if not kith and kin to the mystics who have betrayed us all?”

  Meeya was visibly shocked. “How can you, of all elfkind, speak of the Shitheen Issilene thus!”

  Elayeen turned her gaze up to the tree line again. “Just because my mother is descended from them does not mean I must bow my head and bend my knee at mention of their name, Meeya. If any of their blood runs in my veins then it runs thin indeed. I may have listened to all the tales and lessons my mother taught me, but that does not make me an acolyte in their service. We are here, now, and facing peril because of the failings of others long ago. I do not always agree with what mihoth G’wain says and believes, but he is right to rail against the incompetence of forebears who simply threw up their hands and trusted to the future to clean up their mess.”

  Meeya blinked. “You are changed, Leeny. Since you left on your long journey to Raheen, you are changed.”

  “Yes,” Elayeen admitted. “And again, you have the past to thank for that. You should get some rest, Meemee. Valin can’t stay up there alone through the night, his eyes will tire, and I must oversee the preparations here.”

  Meeya nodded, and after a long and deeply concerned stare at her friend, turned, and walked away to a low bench where she sat wrapped in her cloak, and closed her eyes.

  Elayeen was angry, though she seemed to have no target for her ire and no idea what had prompted it. Certainly not Meeya, who had of course been perfectly correct; events had overtaken her since she and Gawain and Allazar had sped south across the plains of Juria from Ferdan, bound for Raheen. Perhaps it was Gawain’s beliefs and distrust of wizards that had begun to shape her own opinions, or perhaps it was, as Valin had suggested, simply rebellion against the inevitability of the duty imposed upon her. Perhaps the anger belonged to
Eldengaze, the she-wizard struggling to bridge the gap of the ages from whatever crypt she’d mouldered in, struggling and failing to make Elayeen run…

  There was a loud thump and a crack behind and to Elayeen’s left, and she swivelled on her hips to look at the shed. Voices were raised, though in frustration and disappointment rather than rebuke or anger, and half a dozen young men ran out bearing axes and a log-saw, turned to their right, and loped away towards the tree-lined slopes to the west. The same slopes where only this morning the Yarken and Razorwing had been destroyed. She yawned, suddenly tired, and smothered it with her hand. Arbo appeared from the gloom of the shed and raced over to her.

  “Test failed, lady Ranger, sapling broke. Fergal sent them out to bring back three more, bit bigger and more springy he said. Won’t be long, we ‘ope.”

  “Thank you, Arbo. How is everything else progressing?”

  The youth seemed to grin sheepishly every time Elayeen spoke his name. “Aye well… pitfalls is going good, they got the first line done and dusted and are on the second now. Covers for they traps goes well, we ‘as to be careful though, don’t want them Meggens seeing ‘em ‘til it’s too late. Chert Ardbinder’s rigging the carts and wagons yonder, and though he don’t like being asked, he did say he were pleased with his work so far and you would be glad of it. Healer Emelda’s got the pub turned into a hospital, not that Gorrick likes it much, but he ain’t got time to complain since he’s also a scourer and helping Gwillam with potash and lime.”

  “And the engines?”

  “Ah well, Fergal reckons he can do ‘em just as you asked, just needs stronger trees brought down from yonder. He reckons it might be ‘cos of the season, sap ain’t risen much yet or something so he said. May I get you something, lady Ranger? Gorrick got good spiced wine at the pub, I can warm some up? Weak mind, but it do taste nice o’ blackberries and apple ‘neath the cinnamon.”

  “Yes, thank you, Arbo,” and again the youth beamed, “But weak, mind. I must keep my wits sharp.”

  “Weak it be, lady Ranger, shan’t be long!”