by Ben Galley
However, Elsie wouldn’t wait idly for them. Elsha had held out for peace, and look what had happened to her. Dronithir’s arrogance would be his own downfall here if his dragons turned hostile. A single road through the lower mountains was large enough to accommodate a legion and it would narrow their marching column to be deadly thin.
By the time the hunters finished prepping that valley it had become a corridor of death. These gruelling efforts focused her mind, and the dull ache that followed brought on restful sleep.
Yet on a few of those nights - when the world went quiet, and darker thoughts would rise - Elsie nearly did give in. Many times she walked alone on overgrown paths far from Farlen, weighing up whether she should simply start running like Dronithir had. She could run back to Torridon, to her son; she could take him with her, north to the new town on the loch’s northern shores, or further still to the rocky Hinterlands. Each time her feet took her closer to the marshes, closer to running, yet something always drew her back.
Right now, Aleck’s need for her to fight outweighed her need for him.
Time passed, and light snows heralded Dronithir’s legion. Boreac hunters had joked that their mountains had only two seasons, and now Elsie witnessed white flakes falling alongside orange leaves.
Those in Farlen, hunter and civilian alike, held their breath. The dragons came to the feeble town gates and Elsie readied her ambushes. Then, just when she thought blood would flow, he returned.
Dronithir descended from the mountains, neither half-starved nor turning blue from the cold. Rather, he seemed more radiant and mighty than he had before his departure. A brilliant natural shine lit his eyes and skin, and at his waist there hung a sword where there hadn’t been one before.
“A mighty Blade sent by the Gods,” he announced, holding it high for all to see. “Norbanus has lost his way. Humans are not our enemy. Only the true Shadow is. We will right his wrongs. And we will avenge those fallen in vain. Those we loved.” His voice faltered on his last words, but his dragons cheered regardless.
He turned expectantly to Elsie, his hand outstretched as though hoping she would join him in a rousing speech. Once again, she found herself without much of a choice. Something had happened to Dronithir in the mountains, something she couldn’t explain, but it wasn’t mysticism which made her lower her bow.
Those tears he’d shed before leaving had been real, as was the hurt she could see still deep in his eyes, shine or no. It could all be a trick, but she doubted dragons were capable of such subtlety as deception. Brute force and loud words were their forte. And if his grief was true, and she suspected it was, then he’d want revenge just as badly as she did. He’d want a swift end to this war, and a plan already began to formulate in her mind. With luck, she would be home before the moon cycled the skies.
Elsie was not ready to take his hand, but she did smile, and she let his dragons enter unharmed.
Part 3
At a vantage point high above Farlen, Elsie sat on a flat cut boulder, feet dangling over the edge. An unhindered view of the Cairlav Marshes lay westwards where fauna floated brightly in pinks and reds above the morass.
Her breath rose in bursts of steam as she recovered from her hasty climb and tugged at her collar. The Boreac hunters were better prepared for this weather, and she’d secured a fur-lined cloak from them. The hardened green leathers sat wrapped and unworn under her bed.
The chill of the mountain air was starting to bite again when she heard heavy boots crunching over snow and small stones. Dragons were too fast on their feet for their own good. She steeled her nerves, clenched her jaw, and turned to face him.
Dronithir too wore a heavy cloak, though this one in the crimson favoured by dragon officers. Unlike her, he was not short of breath.
“Come. Sit,” Elsie said, before he could say anything. Looking perplexed, he sat beside her. She let the silence sink in, wondering when he’d grow impatient. To his credit he waited quite some time. A gust of wind sent her hair into a flapping mess about her face, bringing the scent of mountain pines along with it.
“This land is wild,” Dronithir said, once the wind subsided. “Harsh and untamed, but very beautiful for it.”
Elsie let him go on, wondering where he was going with this.
“Across the sea to the east, we dragons live in a city of gold, in a warm land of plenty. Many never leave because of it, and know little of the world beyond.”
“Are you trying to say you came here for sightseeing?”
“No. I came to conquer. I came for glory. My father is ill, and I had not yet proven myself in battle. Dragons expect their kings to lead from the front. Another Blade, like the one I now possess, the Dragon’s Blade, is passed down my bloodline. I had to earn the right to it, but we’ve not been at war with the Black Dragons since I was a boy. Perhaps that is why Norbanus roused us to this pointless cause. Maybe we just needed a fight.”
Elsie frowned. “Is this supposed to make me like you?”
He shrugged. “You’re the one who asked to meet and yet did not speak.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her plan sounded good in her own head, but it was one thing to think it and another to voice it. This wasn’t what she’d trained for; her tutor in the wetlands hadn’t taught her battle plans, nor diplomacy.
“Do you hate me?” he asked bluntly.
Elsie had to consider that. “Hate is a strong word. Mother said there was no point in hating anything or anyone. ‘If you dislike them that much then they’re not worth the energy’, she’d say. I don’t hate you. But I hate what you and your kind have done. It haunts me. It will haunt everyone living for the rest of their lives.”
Dronithir shifted uncomfortably. “Elsha told me you lost someone?”
“Did she?” Elsie said, unable to mask the shake in her voice.
“That would have been at the… at the battle,” Dronithir said. He hung his head solemnly. “Not that you could call what happened a battle. Your king was foolish to meet us head-on, even mounted as they were. The men were brave.”
Elsie closed her eyes. “Stop”
“I… I laughed during it,” he said, his voice strained. “Laughed at how easy it was. Thousands and thousands of dead. All that life, ended. And for what? What did I prove by killing those weaker than myself? Nothing.” His voice broke. “You might not hate me, but I hate myself.”
Elsie bit her lip. She almost felt sorry for him. “Well, these Gods of yours must like you enough.” She looked to the round pommel of his new sword, poking out from beneath his cloak. Her pulse quickened and she gulped, struggling to raise the courage to ask her burning question, though he would surely think her mad. And if she asked him, and he said it was impossible, then the ember of hope in her would die, and she didn’t want to face that darkness yet.
“Is that sword truly magical?”
Dronithir pulled back the cloak covering the hilt. It looked such a plain thing, in truth: a simple steel handle, a grip wrapped in black and gold cloth.
“It has granted me power, yes,” Dronithir said. “Though those who understand call it Cascade energy. I finally appreciate what they mean by it now.”
“And can this magic, can it—”
“It can’t,” he said.
It was as if a white-hot knife had scored her chest. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“I do,” he said. “It is also what I wished. The first thing I tried. But it cannot be done. They’re gone, Elsie.”
The ghostly knife seared and plunged into her stomach.
She felt sick.
Getting to her feet, she paced, breathing hard and wringing her hands as though burned. With her back to Dronithir she wiped a tear. Just the one.
“I’m putting all my energy towards stopping Norbanus,” Dronithir said.
Without turning, Elsie sa
id, “Will you kill him?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I want to go home,” she found herself saying, louder and rougher than she’d intended. She turned to face the Prince. “I want to get back to my son before I miss any more. So,” she sniffed with a great heave, “when do you intend to march?”
Dronithir raised his eyebrows. “Is this why you called me here? I must admit, I hadn’t formulated a plan.”
“Aren’t you incredibly powerful now?”
Dronithir grunted, got to his feet and pulled out his new sword. The metal of the blade was unique, a substance Elsie had never seen before; a mixture of gold and steel, with a grainy quality of stone and groove lines of bone. He raised the sword high overhead, concentrated on something for a moment, then brought the blade down and cut the boulder cleanly in two.
Elsie gasped and took a step back. The sword was undamaged.
“The Champion’s Blade grants me great power, yes,” Dronithir said. “But Norbanus has a similar Blade, and I alone cannot take on his four legions when I have but one. Twelve thousand against three is not the best of odds.”
“We hunters fought against worse,” Elsie said.
“You have an idea?”
“Don’t wait,” Elsie said. “Don’t let him settle, or gain the lie of the land. Draw him out and choose where to fight him.”
“A child could have told me as muc—”
Elsie raised her hand. “Don’t interrupt. We draw him into the marshes, where his numbers count for less and hunters can pick off his men.”
“And you think he’ll fall for that?”
“If he’s half as arrogant as you, running in yourself with only a dozen others, then yes.”
Dronithir pressed his lips into a fine line. “If we find a suitable location, and if Norbanus blindly enters the swamps, and if your hunters can largely remain out of sight—”
“I already have a location in mind, and you’ve first-hand experience as to how effective we are.”
“Your people can hide, move with silence, and strike with precision. It’s impressive. Many of my men thought Norbanus was right about you, and you had some power of the Shadow within you. Bog devils, we began to call you. But we can still smell you. And in a great battle, I do not think your kind would be able to hide entirely from our noses.”
“Smell us?” Elsie said. She cast her mind back to the ambush of Dronithir and his men. “You found me before I could take my shot. Turned to look right at me. You could smell me?”
Dronithir nodded. “Dragons can smell fear, or at least we believe it to be fear. On humans it is most potent. When you are afraid, we can smell it. A sweet fragrance, and the more afraid you are the sweeter it becomes. When I found you, the smell was sickly.”
“The cu-sih,” Elsie mumbled to herself.
Dronithir didn’t seem to hear her. “I’m willing to try, if you are. I don’t think either of us have much choice, given this path we’re on.” He extended his hand.
Elsie eyed his open palm like she would a bog rat’s bloated corpse. A stubborn part of her did not want to take that murderous hand.
“I don’t think I can forgive what you’ve done,” Elsie said.
“I can understand that.”
Elsie nodded, then stepped forwards and took his hand, squeezing as hard as she could, even though he wouldn’t feel a thing from it. “Let’s go hunting.”
Elsie had a location in mind. Near Loch Minian’s south-eastern point there was an elevated patch of land wide enough for Dronithir’s legion while being covered on each flank by deeper waters. She and Elsha had used it as a camping spot once when on patrol.
Norbanus reacted as they anticipated, marching west to meet Dronithir’s defiance without his supply lines fully in place. Still, he held the advantage. Scouts reported Norbanus was pushing his legions hard, and dragons pushing themselves would make quick work of the distance. With humans slowing down Dronithir’s pace, Elsie feared their forces wouldn’t be ready in time.
When they reached the area late one evening, it was perhaps a day ahead of Norbanus. Rather than create their usual defensive campsite, the dragons were reduced to sleeping on damp ground under the stars.
Elsie barely slept herself. She thought of preparing traps, but there was little time. And though Dronithir’s legion would cover the ground in its entirety, his men would be thinly spread. One break in the line and they’d be doomed.
Dawn rose, and with it news both good and ill. Marshal Balliol arrived, leading a hastily scrambled militia of common spearmen from the Cairlav Marshes and the Golden Crescent.
“Lord Heath’s formal requests to the Great Lords fell on deaf ears,” Balliol announced, “but these poor buggers gathered at Torridon anyway.”
Elsie could hardly deny the help, and as rough, rag-tag and ill-equipped as they looked, she could hardly claim to have been better prepared herself when Heath sent her east to war. Their spears were long and sharp, and their addition would make their ranks far deeper. Their odds improved, if by a little.
The bad news came shortly after. Norbanus had sent a flanking force north, small enough to move quickly, and large enough to be a concern to their rear.
“I will go,” Dronithir proclaimed boldly. But Elsie had already selected the hunters to go with her.
“No you won’t,” she told him in a tone which offered no rebuke. “Who else will fight Norbanus?” He nodded gravely and offered her luck.
In the quiet minutes before their departure, Elsie found a scrap of land among the reeds that she might call her own. This was the crucial moment; the moment of a hunt where the beast knows you’re there and either flees beyond reach or turns to charge. Norbanus was charging and they would need every stroke of fortune to survive.
She’d brought the hardened green leathers with her and unwound the knot of the string. She stripped off to her undershirt right there in the bogs and strapped on each piece of custom leather, swatting at the midges swarming to her bare skin.
The leather felt good once on, fitting snugly to her, the streak of greens seeming to move with the swaying reeds. There was even a hard-topped cap she could hide her hair under. Strangely, she felt more at ease now that their final battle had come. Either way, it would be over. If she lived, she’d be home with Aleck; if she died, maybe she’d see Roy again.
She closed her eyes, listening to the whistle of the wind, smelling the tang of the water, feeling the damp air cling to her skin and her warm breath rise past her nose.
Find Roy again? What was she thinking? He was gone, and though there were clearly strange powers at work, they weren’t here to help her. It was down to her. And she would go home. Maybe she’d bring back a dragon helmet as a present for Aleck.
And on that more encouraging thought, Elsie opened her eyes, gripped her bow, and strode back to her waiting hunters.
“Don’t be afraid,” Elsie told the survivors. It sounded cheap, seeing as she could taste the blood trickling from her brow. Her right side burned, and her legs felt like they were about to fall off. “We won. Remember that,” she told them.
They looked to her with wide, half-disbelieving, half-mad-from-exertion eyes. Of the sixty hunters and huntresses she’d taken on this mission, over twenty had fallen. And they had been some of the most experienced, buying the rest of them precious time. Over a hundred dragons had gone down, but once they closed that gap—
“Listen,” she said, fighting for breath. “They can smell your fear, and they’ll find you. They rely on it, so don’t give it to them. They should be the ones who fear us. We can strike unseen. All their strength can’t stop an arrow, just like a boar or a silver mountain wolf. Wild beasts plaguing our lands can die, and dragons die just the same.”
There came a sudden increase in splashing and growling as dragons forced their way across the terrain. The
heads of everyone in the group snapped to face the direction of the enemy, hidden from view behind a wall of towering stems.
Elsie recovered first and signalled for the group to break. They scattered in a now well-practised dash. Elsie followed them, leaping a small pool and entering the dense foliage at a sprint, fighting through the sharp pains in her chest.
There was another island of dry grass not far away, which she’d marked earlier as a good spot for an ambush. Dragons liked to regroup on these drier patches, so there the hunters might—
A scream split the world from her right.
Arrows whizzed unseen.
And a ring of swords slashing reeds sent her diving to the muddy earth. She tucked her head into her chest and lay still as a board as two pairs of feet stomped closer. They must have been barely an arm’s reach away. Blades of cut grass and reed fluttered down to tickle her nose. Just as she thought her heart might explode, the dragons passed by.
Elsie let out a shuddering sigh, unaware she’d been holding her breath. Back in a crouch, she scampered along; when the dragons sounded more distant, she began to run.
They weren’t going to make it to the ambush site.
This dark thought had just left her mind when she burst into a clearing and saw a gold-clad dragon, bearing that unusual yellow symbol upon his shield, standing over a young hunter with his sword raised high. Elsie shot him through the back. The lad got up shakily and gasped his thanks.
Elsie was already moving again. He ran one way, she the other.
Perhaps she ought to have found some way to better disguise her hunters as well. Moving at speed, the hunters stood out painfully in their plain brown leathers. And in a purely physical contest, dragons were never going to lose.
Across a larger pool, she saw a dragon tackle a hunter in a blur of gold and pulverise the man’s face with a single fist.
