Plague of Shadows

by Howard Andrew Jones

  "What was that all about?" he asked the wizard.

  Kellius looked up from the blade of grass he'd been studying. "I can't be sure."

  "You can guess, though, right?"

  "Possibly." The wizard's eyes drifted back down to the grass, and Renar was readying to ask him if there was something especially fascinating about it until the magic user cast it aside.

  "I think," Kellius said, "that Elyana had been about to pry, then let Vallyn know that she had decided not to inquire further."

  "I still don't understand."

  Kellius shook his head and grinned. He provided no more answers, though.

  They'd been up half the night and ridden half the day, and Renar had decided that he now understood the full meaning of fatigue. By the time they crossed into the foothills he discovered that every muscle in his body ached. He felt weary down through to the bone.

  He could tell Elyana was weary herself, but the elf held herself straight as she gazed back the way they'd come. Renar could see nothing in the foothills. His eyes flicked up to the peaks looming ahead of them, their jagged lines sheathed in snow and ice. It was cool even in their long shadows. How cold would it be along their slopes?

  Elyana permitted no fire, and they were reduced to eating some rations Vallyn had liberated from the stables. The Galtan wine the bard had also filched was delicious enough that Renar offered a toast in its praise. He was answered by all but Drelm, who announced the drink lacked fire.

  They ate in silence for many minutes. The horses stood with heads bowed, cropping the grasses lazily. They would need seeing to before bed, and Renar sighed at the thought.

  "They're still following," Elyana said.

  Vallyn shrugged. "We've really annoyed them. I killed a Gray Gardener, Kellius here burned down their guillotine, and we had the bad taste to escape in the process. That's sure to kick them into a gallop."

  "You shouldn't have done that," Drelm told the wizard.

  "Peace, Drelm," Elyana urged. His dark look fixed on her, but he looked away and took a long swig from his own wine sack.

  "I'm glad Kellius burned down the guillotine." A hint of passion had crept into Elyana's voice. "I wish he could have truly destroyed it."

  "What do you mean?" Renar asked. "He did destroy it."

  "There's souls trapped in the guillotine blade, boy," Vallyn said tiredly. "Every person ever killed by the blade. Burning down the wood will set the Galtans gnashing their teeth and get some carpenters paid for a few days, but they'll just build a new one. The blade can't be destroyed short of some kind of magic ritual."

  "Oh." Kellius sounded disappointed.

  "I thought it fine work, Kellius," Elyana told him. "You have a sense of style."

  "Oh," he repeated, brightly this time. "Thank you, Lady."

  "How did you get away?" Elyana included Renar and Vallyn in the question with a sweeping gesture.

  Renar answered her, knowing a surge of pride. "Vallyn raced into the room where we were ..." His voice trailed off and picked up lamely, "...talking with some priestesses." Renar exchanged a quick look with Kellius. The wizard reddened, but said nothing. It wasn't as if anything had happened, as much as Renar had hoped it would, and he tried to stop his own face from flushing. "Vallyn told us the Galtans were coming. Then he cast this fabulous spell that opened a hole in the air. Kind of, I guess."

  "What sort of spell was that, anyway?" Kellius asked. "That was very skillfully done."

  Vallyn bowed his head. "It was nothing. A little something I picked up. I wish I'd known it back in the old days, Elyana."

  "What does it do?" she asked.

  "It's a kind of teleportation spell," Kellius said, sounding impressed.

  Vallyn laughed, clearly pleased. "It allows me to open a passageway between my current location and another place within a few hundred feet. It can't take me nearly as far as your lost ring did, but it's safer. It got all of us out."

  "How did you know the Galtans were coming?" Drelm asked gruffly.

  Vallyn shrugged. "I have a friend in the temple." He tapped a point between his pectorals and they heard a dull clunk, perhaps a charm hidden beneath his shirt.

  Renar shook his head and let out a low whistle. "One thing's for sure: I see why you hate the Galtans so much. They're a little crazy, aren't they?"

  "Boy," Vallyn told him, "you don't know the half of it."

  It was good to see the camaraderie growing between them. Elyana allowed herself a faint smile as she watched the others fall into easy banter. The bard shifted smoothly into a story about their old days in Galt. Drelm, though, seemed nearly immune to any feelings of good fellowship. He stood, walked to her side, and crouched down.

  "How long until they catch up to us?" he asked. Always he sounded as though he were making a demand rather than seeking to have a question answered. If nothing else, she would have hoped their little venture had cemented his trust.

  "They're half a day behind," Elyana replied. "They're likely to have remounts, but once we're negotiating passes, it won't make much difference." That's why she'd pushed them so hard today. Luck was with them—only two of the horses had gone lame. They'd be left behind, but there were still enough animals to carry them forward.

  Renar had given his attention over to them. "I thought we were on the border with Kyonin," he said. "Won't they be afraid to cross it?"

  "Galtans will cross any border in defense of liberty, boy," Vallyn said, then added, "Bastards."

  "Don't the elves kill anyone who crosses into Kyonin?" Drelm asked.

  Elyana felt all eyes upon her as she answered. "We will be on its border, but not in Kyonin proper."

  "I hope the elves appreciate the distinction," Vallyn quipped.

  Elyana was exhausted beyond her normal resources, and allowed the others to take the first watches. She sat back against a rock, cleansed mind and spirit, and rested, letting her mind wander in a disconnected way that led soon to a dreamless sleep. When Kellius woke her before dawn she wasn't precisely refreshed, but she felt better. The stars shone white and cold from on high, and a frigid wind swept down off the mountaintops.

  Even the wizard could see the campfires in the plain below, four leagues closer than Elyana would have guessed. The Galtans were less than a quarter-day behind, now.

  "They must be riding their beasts to ruin," she said.

  "Could it be sorcery?" Kellius asked her.

  "How do you mean?"

  "A potion. A special feed. Something to keep their horses going so long. So far."

  "That sounds expensive," Elyana replied. "And awfully well prepared. I have a hard time imagining it."

  Kellius nodded his homely head. "Perhaps you're right."

  As she marshaled her grumbling companions and got them moving in the cold hours of the early morning, though, the wizard's words got her to speculating. Could he be right? After all, their group had destroyed a guillotine, or at least its scaffold, and it might be that the Galtans were determined to punish them for that slight alone.

  Daylight found them deep in the foothills, riding up toward a narrow pass between two rocky heights. The old map had depicted a clear way through and Elyana had no other choice but to believe it.

  Over the next hours they worked their way into the cold heights, and the wind swirled and danced, thick with little flecks of snow, as they walked their horses along a path worn away to little more than a goat trail. The earth was still too warm at this altitude for the snow to accumulate, and it melted as it hit the ground.

  By evening they had passed the gateway peaks, riding a high trail with a steep right drop. Elyana wished she'd stopped an hour back, before the trail narrowed, but she kept forward. She trusted Persaily's footing well enough to stay mounted, but the others all led their horses, concerned that the beasts
might misstep and send them plunging into the canyon a mile below. From time to time Elyana looked back to check their progress. All but Drelm hunched shoulders against the cold. They needed a rest, especially the wizard, who stumbled every few steps.

  It was another hour before they reached a miserable little stopping point, a gently sloped shelf of snow-swept rock some forty paces wide. It didn't matter that the wind whipped through like the shriek of a thousand angry spirits—there was room enough to set up their tents.

  Most of them snatched only a little rest in between shivering. An hour before dawn Elyana finally gave up and got everyone moving. Drelm was the only one of them not sluggish.

  On they wound, tired folk leading worn-out animals along that high, cold trail. As the sun rose, they saw hawks flying free and clear above. The birds could wing away from trouble, or seek a better angle in the wind. Elyana and the rest had only the one angle, blowing ever east through their clothes, their skin, and seemingly their bones.

  Elyana led the way, forcing them on more by example, feigning some measure of Stelan's iron constitution. The breaks they took that morning and afternoon had to be while kneeling against the side of the cliff, only inches from the deadly drop to the river glittering below. The horses dug at the occasional clumps of green stuff thrusting out from between frozen stone and snow.

  Finally, come the late afternoon, Elyana rounded a sharp corner and saw that the trail was sloping down, and that the path widened before them into a broad flattened space ringed by the wall of the mountain. She let out a little cry of triumph, encouraged Persaily to move past, then turned to tell the others. Only then did she see they were under attack.

  Three translucent humanoid figures hovered ten feet out from the drop. Each was formed entirely of whirling currents of air. Their heads and upper limbs were indistinct, their lower bodies changing at the waist into twisting dust devils. One swept a lengthening, swirling arm at Renar.

  Elyana had battled fire elementals and even faced a kind of beast shaped of black earth, but she'd never fought an air elemental. She did not think arrows or blade could harm them.

  Drelm gamely swung an axe at one who struck at Renar, but the blow passed through it. The elemental sent a gust of wind roaring into the half-orc. He teetered precariously on the edge of the drop.

  Elyana called out to the captain's horse. The frightened beast understood and bit down on the flailing half-orc's arm, then trotted forward, pulling the surprised guard captain to the cliff wall, where he grabbed hard to an exposed tree root.

  The other horses took this as a sign to be followed, and pushed into the men in front of them. Elyana shouted at them to hold position, but the animals hurried on, too frightened by the commotion to heed her. One bowled right into Renar, who threw himself against the cliff wall. The horse stepped into the side of his boot. The wind carried Renar's curse away.

  Farther back, Vallyn produced his lute and vanished in a sparkle of golden motes.

  Elyana sidestepped the oncoming horses and completely missed the fourth air elemental coming up from behind. A gust of wind from its arms set her stumbling along the edge. Below her loomed a drop of more than three thousand feet, and while she had earlier been dreaming of green lands and fair rivers, she hoped not to reach them this way.

  An iron grip closed around her wrist, and a great heave slammed her back into the cliff. It was Drelm, fresh blood still staining his arm from where the horse had bitten. Renar's horse plunged from the ledge, screaming. Renar hung determinedly to a root in the side of the cliff even as an air elemental blasted at him with both arms.

  Kellius was working a spell, but Elyana could not hear his words. He did not complete whatever he planned, for one of the elementals tripped him with a blast of air. The wizard struck the cliff wall and then bounced off. He reached frantically for the stone of the mountainside, and missed. Arms whirling, he tumbled backward off the ledge.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Mountain and the Vale

  Elyana had a brief glimpse of Kellius dropping to the glistening river far below, and then the elementals swirled toward her. There was only brief time for anguish, and then she had to focus solely on her own survival. Drelm had a firm and painful grasp on her shoulder as he himself clung stubbornly to a thick knob of rock. One of the elementals leveled both arms and sent winds surging into their faces. Elyana turned her head, blinking against the snow and grit blowing into her eyes. Drelm's grip tightened on her and she realized he must be afraid he was losing his hold.

  Suddenly Vallyn glittered into existence at her side, cradling his lute. She snatched at him with her free hand. The force from the elemental's constant wind tore at his instruments and pushed his hair back over his receding hairline. Teeth gritted, the bard swung a hand down to his strings ...

  And then she and Drelm and Vallyn stood upon the stone beside the horses.

  "Get Renar!" Elyana told him. There would be time for thanks later.

  Vallyn swept his hands across the lute. The wind carried all but a tinkling hint of the melody away from her. The bard vanished to reappear beside the young knight, still clinging with both hands to the mountainside. Vallyn strummed again, reaching out to touch the boy at the last minute, and then both reappeared behind Elyana.

  The elementals quit their cliffside attack and drifted on toward Elyana's new position. She yelled for her people to back toward the snow-covered boulders, hoping there might be a cave against the mountainside.

  As she scanned their line of retreat, a tall, lean figure stepped from behind a large rock so suddenly he might well have appeared by magic. He was garbed all in white furs, and his ungloved hands glowed with a nimbus of sparkling white energies. Where a moment before had been only a rocky highland dusted with snow Elyana now saw more than a dozen men, similarly clothed. Three moved to gather Persaily and the other horses. The rest of the strangers raised arrows against beautifully carven bows.

  "Elves," Renar said, and glanced to Elyana for confirmation.

  Their hoods hid their ears, but Elyana knew the boy was right from the shape of their faces and their large eyes, not to mention their height. The matter was obvious, just as it was obvious from their solemn, fixed faces that the natives were none too happy to see visitors.

  The elven wizard shouted to the air elementals in a fair, musical language and the beings retreated from him, then sped away into the upper air. In a matter of moments they were lost to sight behind the mountains.

  Immediately thereafter the wind lessened its roar, and Elyana could hear the question of the wizard as he turned to face her.

  His words came swiftly, and she had to pause to think about their meaning. "Cousin," he said sternly, frosty vapor rising from his lips, "who are you, and why have you brought strangers to our land?"

  Elyana bowed her head once. While she knew the elven tongue, it had been long since she heard it.

  Before she could answer, the elves tensed. Their heads swiveled to the right along with their bows.

  Kellius floated up over the edge and lit upon the ground as lightly as a bird, though he panted heavily. He looked just as surprised to see the elves as they were to see him.

  "He is with us," Elyana said quickly, before the tightening bowstrings could loose arrows.

  "Flying spell," Kellius said weakly. None of the elves looked especially amused. Their leader turned to Elyana with narrowed eyes.

  "What are they saying?" Drelm growled.

  "Instruct your beast that he is to remain silent," the leader told Elyana.

  "He asks you to be silent," Elyana translated. "Cousin," she told the wizard, "we do not bear you any ill will. We do not mean to trespass—"

  "What greeting is this?" The leader stepped closer, peering at her. He was the first person in a long while with the height to stare Elyana down. His face was long and sharp,
with a thin, refined nose and arched white eyebrows almost the same color as the furs that clothed him. His eyes were a clear, light brown. "You are of the blood, are you not?" he demanded. "You have come to my land, so you announce yourself to me by name and family."

  Elyana bowed her head to him. "I am Elyana. You must forgive my manners, cousin. I was raised by humans after the death of my parents, and I did not learn the ways of my own people until I was much older."

  "I more fully understand," he said. "What is your family name?"

  "Sadrastis."

  He nodded once. "Elyana is not a traditional name."

  "I keep it in memory of the human woman who raised me."

  Again came that stare, and a slight inclination of the head that might have been acknowledgment. "I am Alavar, a Sentinel of Elistia. My magical guardians are deadly. You were fortunate that we had detected your coming so that I could reach you before they did. It was a near thing."

  "I thank you."

  He accepted this with the barest of nods, then took in her comrades with a single glance before facing her once more. "Why do you come into my lands with humans and an orc?"

  "He is but a half-orc," Elyana answered quickly. She'd thought that would be obvious. Alavar's frown deepened at her correction. "We seek aid for an ailing friend, father to that child, baron to these twain." She indicated Kellius and Drelm.

  Alavar's lips narrowed pensively. "Humans are unwelcome in our lands; orcs are to be shot on sight. What am I to think of you, who travel with them?"

  "I do not care what opinion you hold of me," Elyana said, which raised both of Alavar's eyebrows. "These humans have risked life and blood to ride with me, and so has the half-blood."

  "The orc."

  "A half-orc, through no fault of his own."

  "An orc is an orc through no fault of his own," Alavar said, as though explaining an obvious matter to a child.

  The elf's tone struck a sour note with her. "His name is Drelm," she told him, "and he is captain of the baron's guard. He has risen far in the esteem of my friend the baron because he has worked hard to follow the path of Abadar."