Elven Queen

by Bernhard Hennen

  The ice glider sped over a bump and was momentarily airborne. Veleif, grinning with delight, let out a whoop! He went so far as to let go of the safety rope with one hand and wave to the troops as they passed. You bastard! Alfadas thought. How would he look, playing second fiddle to their bard?

  Alfadas waved with both arms, hoping that the deck loops alone would be strong enough to hold him. It was an exhilarating feeling! Slowly, though, the sense of speed faded. Could he use a glider regularly once he got used to the speed? Ulric and Kadlin, he knew, would love to go sailing over the frozen fjord on such a vessel.

  The duke looked ahead. They had almost reached their destination. A tall elf on a white horse was waiting for them at the gate of the fortress. His white hair fell to his shoulders, and he wore a long robe the color of fresh cream, but his face looked emaciated. Alfadas had never encountered a man who looked so tired. A guard of honor accompanied the prince of Phylangan. Soldiers in white tunics and long silver chain mail shirts flanked the gate, lining a wide entrance that led into the enormous cavern that had opened in front of the approaching army.

  Ollowain slowed the ice glider and turned the sail off the wind. Alfadas heard hoofbeats, and Orimedes, Lysilla, and Fenryl galloped up.

  “I bid you welcome to the stone garden,” said the elven prince, greeting them with a slight bow.

  Alfadas noted that even men standing far away looked up at the elf’s words, although Landoran had not raised his voice. Maybe it was because of the valley or maybe the elf had worked a spell of some kind. Whatever the truth, Alfadas had the impression that everyone who heard Landoran could understand him, although he spoke in the language of his race.

  “I am grateful to our allies, the humans and centaurs who turned misery and death away from my brothers and sisters. And I mourn with you for your companions who paid for their bravery with their lives. Now enter our bright halls and lay your weary heads to rest. If the day comes when your courage is once again put to the test, then know that the stone garden has never yet been conquered. However strong our enemies may seem, they must first defeat the mountain before they fight us. And what is a troll compared to a mountain?”

  Alfadas silently wished that the prince had managed to put a little more of Lambi’s fire into his speech. Yes, his words of welcome were friendly enough, but they did little to stir enthusiasm.

  He looked around the hall they had entered. Ollowain had already told him what to expect: when they traveled up the glacier to Phylangan, they would come first to the Snow Harbor. Although Alfadas tried to imagine what Ollowain described, he had found it impossible to picture a harbor inside a mountain. Now, as he looked around, his amazement grew, for even in Albenmark he had never seen a place like this.

  The Snow Harbor was a cavern so immense that it was easy to forget that you had stepped inside a mountain. A singular spell the Normirga cast made the roof of the cavern disappear. In its place, an unsteady silvery-blue light flickered like a torch in a storm. The light made men and elves look paler than they actually were, and the breath that stood in bright clouds before their mouths took on an unreal, magical look.

  The floor of the broad hall was a plain of grooved crushed ice, and the distant walls appeared to be covered with hoarfrost and ice flowers. At its northern end stood stone piers where huge ice gliders, as big as ships of trade, were moored. Some had three masts. Their sails were reefed, and long icicles hung from the rigging and yards; these ships of eternal winter looked as if they had not sailed for a very long time.

  Along the piers waited loading cranes with towering wooden cogwheels, and dark openings in the rock may have led to storerooms.

  In the same way that scavenger fish, at times, accompanied sharks, the large ice ships were surrounded by a throng of smaller vessels like the one on which Alfadas had entered the Snow Harbor. Their masts stood as dense as trees in a forest. Alfadas guessed there were almost a hundred of them.

  On the other side of the yawning cavern was a fleet of sleds all sizes and shapes, some so big that Alfadas was at a loss to imagine what beasts could possibly pull them.

  Landoran’s speech was met with solemn silence, but when the refugees from Rosecarn entered the harbor, a din arose that Alfadas only knew from the royal city of Gonthabu, when traders from every land gathered there in late spring. Hundreds of kobolds helped unload the sleds and small ice gliders, and while families were reunited and the elves embraced one another in eloquent silence, more kobolds launched into a musical cacophony of guitars, strange wind instruments, and hand drums. A magician regaled the children with whirling colored lights and was rewarded with squeals of glee.

  Alfadas’s men marched into the great cave with remarkable discipline. The war jarls had organized their respective troops into rows of five and had made sure that each man had polished his weapon. But all their efforts could not conceal the ragged appearance of the allies from the Fjordlands.

  The men looked around in wide-eyed wonder. They found a place close to the ice glider where they were not in anybody’s way. Only Lambi’s men strolled casually around the Snow Harbor. They kept no formation and acted with all the self-control of a mob of seamen finally allowed to disembark among the brothels of a harbor town.

  Alfadas turned to the elven prince, who waited with Ollowain and endured the arrival of Lambi and his men with solemn composure.

  “What is the function of those large gliders?”

  “We used to use them to ferry supplies from Whale Bay to Rosecarn, across the great ice plains. In recent years, however, most of our trade has arrived via Windland and is transported with the centaurs’ yak caravans. The ships have not been used for a long time. Why do you ask, human?”

  “Would you put three of them under my command?”

  Landoran frowned with annoyance. “I don’t know what use you expect to get out of them. You’re welcome to have three ships, but I can’t put any windsingers at your disposal. Right now, they are indispensable, and without one of those sorcerers, it would be irresponsible to take one of the ships out on the plains. You would be at the mercy of winter’s moods.”

  “Then would you let me have a few men who could instruct mine in how to handle one of the ships?” Alfadas persisted.

  Landoran looked him up and down with disdain. “I see no benefit in learning to control an ice glider that will never leave this harbor.”

  “Send me the men, and at the council of war that Ollowain is going to call for two hours from now, I’ll teach you about the tactical approach to a superior enemy preparing for a siege,” Alfadas replied calmly. Miserable bastard, he thought. I can see I’m going to have a lot of fun with you.

  Landoran breathed in and out deeply and straightened his shoulders. For a moment, he looked as if he might lose his composure but then seemed to have himself under control again. “What do you mean? What council of war?”

  Alfadas responded before Ollowain could get a word out. “If I’ve been informed correctly, Lyndwyn has command over Phylangan, though she has not done us the honor of welcoming us here in person. She, in turn, has delegated control of all military matters to Ollowain. As I’m sure you would agree, it is advisable for the commanders of our alliance to meet in a council of war as quickly as possible.” Alfadas knew about the strained relationship between the swordmaster and his father. He gave Ollowain a pleading glance and hoped that he would let himself be drawn into his stratagem. It was crucial that everyone knew who was in charge in Phylangan from the very start.

  “Because you are unable with your own power even to protect yourselves from the cold, by the laws of my people, you are children,” Landoran explained condescendingly. “No adult Normirga will be prepared to fall in with your whims.”

  “We are three races that are supposed to fight side by side, Father,” Ollowain said. “You don’t think it unwise to insist that all the laws of our people apply? How long do you think our alliance will hold if the only words that matter come from adult Normirga?�
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  “The council of war will convene in two hours in the Pearl Room,” Landoran said harshly. “This is no place for a dispute. Only children have so little self-control that they air their differences of opinion in public.” He patted his horse softly on the neck and rode off toward the refugees. Lysilla followed him but looked back at Ollowain and Alfadas with a smile.

  “Arrogant old snake,” Orimedes muttered. “Who does he think is going to protect his precious fortress if we children decide to leave again?”

  “There’s one thing he’s right about, my friend,” Alfadas said. “We should save our quarrels for the war council. It would be bad for the morale of the troops if they saw how united we really are.”

  “Duke?” Count Fenryl had dismounted and was walking toward Alfadas. “I am deeply in your debt. Thanks to you, my wife and child—and all my clan—are alive. There are windsingers among my people, too. I will put them under your command, along with the two cargo ships that sail under the flag of Rosecarn.”

  Alfadas dismissed the offer. “You owe me nothing, nor do I want you to be at odds with your prince on my account.”

  Fenryl was not willing to accept this. “I trust your judgment as a commander. The Normirga have already been driven out once by the trolls. I am certain that it is better for my people this time if someone else has supreme command. You have a plan, don’t you? Tell me what you need, and I will make sure you get it.”

  For a moment, Alfadas thought about whether he should wait for the decision of the council of war. But who knew how many hours they still had before the main army of trolls arrived? Every one of those hours mattered.

  “Find me every windsinger you can. And I need the carpenters and the blacksmiths who made the runners for the ice gliders. Most of all, I need men who are not afraid to face an enemy that will outnumber them a hundred to one.”

  OF WHISKER WAX AND DEATH

  Shahondin watched as the long column disappeared into the cave. Was she here? The tremor in the Albenpaths had drawn him as the human army marched through the void. When he discovered Ollowain, he knew he was finally on the right trail. Where the swordmaster was, the queen would not be far away. All he had to do was follow Ollowain. Sooner or later, he would lead to Emerelle.

  The beast in Shahondin mewled, wanting food. The prince stretched. He was concealed almost completely inside a snowdrift, with only his big head extended. The elf was once again unpleasantly reminded that he no longer had a body of flesh and blood. He had grown accustomed to everything else, but his spectral form annoyed him. There was little left of the beast inside him. Like a feeble glowing spark in a fire that had burned out hours before, only the faintest glimmer of that strange creature’s consciousness remained. For two days, Shahondin had submitted to it to learn from it; then he had all but crushed it out of existence. What did that filthy troll shaman think? That he, Shahondin, prince of Arkadien, would allow a primitive beast to rule over him? He was older than most of the forests of Albenmark. The troll bitch had been able to capture him only because she possessed an Albenstone. If not for that hidden power, she would have ended her days a slobbering idiot. He would have snuffed out her mind the moment she came in contact with his. But that damned stone had acted like an impregnable shield, and he had been forced to submit to her will.

  The beast inside him wailed in its hunger. Miserable thing! A disembodied specter did not need to eat. Taking the life-light of some creature of flesh and blood did not sate him. It merely gave him pleasure. Twice, he had given in to the urge. The first had been a troll sent after the humans as a spy. The second had been an elf woman and her three children. In the driving snow, when the trolls had attacked the elven convoy, he had leaped onto their sled and murdered them all. Killing children was a special joy. Their light was purer.

  But he stayed away from the humans. Without fail, they carried iron, and though it might be no more than a knife or the tip of a spear, something about the way they worked metal was deeply unnatural and disturbed the flow of magic. Shahondin—cautiously, with an outstretched paw—had once touched one of the weapons left behind on the battlefield. He had paid for it with searing pain, as if a blue flame had taken hold in his heart. It had stolen something of the essence of which his magical body was made. The iron of humans could kill him. He had to be on his guard against them.

  Fortunately, he could scent their iron from a long way off. It left a disharmony in the structure of the world. Everything in Albenmark was permeated with magic, and its invisible pattern became distorted wherever a human passed with his iron weapon. Shahondin wondered why the elves did not notice it. It might be that his senses were infinitely finer inside the form that Skanga had forced him to take. He was a creature of magic, bound far more deeply with the magical part of the world than he had been as an elf. This meant that he could protect himself from the humans’ weapons as long as he kept the beast inside him in check. He suspected that the creature, in its craving to kill, would throw all caution to the wind.

  Shahondin thought about the leader of the trolls. An exceptionally capable savage! The prince reminded himself that Orgrim had witnessed Skanga’s transformation of him. The trolls were no threat. They detested iron weapons, or any metal weapons for that matter, yet they were still very good at slaughtering humans.

  The elven prince’s eyes wandered over the looming rock wall. The trolls would pay dearly if they tried to storm Phylangan. Maybe he could help them? It would be easy for him to spread fear in the hearts of the defenders.

  He moved toward the rocks, and his body glided into the stone. Darkness surrounded him. He allowed himself to be led by the network within the magical order and sensed a distortion in it, far above him. The Normirga did not smash their way through stone with force. They reformed it magically, creating tunnels and chambers in the mountain.

  Shahondin let himself rise through the rock, exploring the hidden fortress. A long tunnel had been formed through the face of the cliff that flanked the glacier. The broad outcrops that jutted from the cliff were like towers, with several levels arranged on top of each other. Embrasures there were fitted with wooden shutters, and the shutters had been roughly plastered, camouflaging them, making them all but invisible against the bedrock.

  On the various levels of the towers in the rocky outcrops, the elves had prepared catapults that targeted the ice. A single tunnel connected these positions with one another. Shahondin discovered pulley systems that allowed sections of the tunnel to be blocked with thick granite plates. In other places, deposits of rubble and stone dust had been left. Adding water to the stone dust and mixing in rubble made an easily workable material that hardened quickly. Sections of the tunnel could be filled overnight, and getting through it would take no less effort than burrowing through the bedrock itself.

  The prince, in his spectral animal form, glided out of the rock and studied the cliff on the other side of the valley intently. In the last light of the evening, he made out shadows in the rock, spaced at regular intervals. So that side also has its defenses. If the trolls stormed up the valley, they would find themselves in a murderous crossfire before they even reached the gates of the Snow Harbor. Skanga needed to know this! A thoughtless attack would cost hundreds of lives, maybe thousands. Even the connecting tunnel, which ran close to the surface of the rock, had numerous embrasures where archers could be stationed.

  Shahondin glided back into the rock. He moved around a branching vein of metal ore and avoided the caves and the tunnel. Only occasionally did he venture to look out of the rock but was careful to remain undiscovered.

  The defensive positions were manned mostly by kobolds. It was not unusual to find far more kobolds than elves in an elven settlement, of course. But the longer Shahondin spied out the fortress defenses, the more surprised he became. In Phylangan, the disproportion seemed to be especially pronounced. In the end, he realized that the disparity he saw probably was due to most of the elves being gathered down below in the Snow Harbor t
o give the humans an impressive reception.

  The prince discovered an abandoned storage room in which a few bundles of arrows still lay. He found it more comfortable to be in an open cave, although in reality it made no difference where he was because he had no physical body. Still, he felt uneasy inside the rock walls—it would take quite a long time, it seemed, for him to truly get used to his spectral form.

  He had no intention of inhabiting it long enough to do that.

  Was Emerelle perhaps somewhere in the fortress? The Normirga were her people, after all. Where else would she have fled? And Ollowain was here! Phylangan was the strongest fortress in the north. She would be safer here than anywhere else. On the other hand, this was also where one would look for her first.

  But the answer to another question was more pressing. Shahondin knew that betraying the Normirga would not cause him any sleepless nights, but was it wise to tell the trolls too soon about what was waiting for them here? If thousands of their warriors perished in the crossfire on the glacier, their army would be too weak afterward to do much more damage in Albenmark. But Shahondin also knew that if, by some senseless stroke of fate, Skanga were killed during the battle, he would be trapped in that spectral body forever.

  And how would the shaman react if she realized he had seen the massacre coming and had not warned them? He had no choice: he had to look for Skanga.

  The defenses alongside the glacier had a vital point of weakness. All the supply chambers, troop quarters, and defensive positions were linked by a single tunnel. They were lined up like beads on a string, and that could make them a deadly trap. If one managed to block the start of the tunnel, then all the troops would be sealed off. One only had to find another way into the stone garden and ignore the route up the glacier.