Elven Queen

by Bernhard Hennen

  He looked down to where the long rows of the dead lay at the edge of the snowfield. If he hadn’t refused Dumgar’s orders, he might very well be lying among them, he thought grimly. He knew he had to get away from the Duke of Mordrock—Dumgar’s follies were becoming increasingly deadly.

  Orgrim watched Birga pull a small dark-haired human out of the snow. The fellow was still struggling. The shaman turned him over and pushed a knee into the middle of his back. With one hand, she pressed his head down. In the other hand, she held a small bone knife. She cut the man’s throat, and his struggles grew weaker.

  Curious, Orgrim went to the shaman. The man’s blood fanned out on the snow in small rivulets that crossed and recrossed before seeping away completely. Birga looked thoughtfully at the pattern the blood left behind.

  “So what secrets is the future hiding from us?” Orgrim did his best to sound offhanded, but he was not particularly successful. He found the old hag’s blood rituals unsettling.

  Birga gestured sharply at him for silence. She turned the human onto his back. Where his neck had been, the warm blood had left a hole in the snow. “Disaster gathers from the north,” the shaman suddenly said. She pointed to the dark clouds on the horizon; they had barely moved at all in the course of the day. “The wind will turn and bring arrows with it.”

  Orgrim hated it when the shaman spoke in oracles. In retrospect, you could read almost anything into her words. “What do you advise me to do?”

  “Take your men and go into the mountains. Follow the humans. There is a woman you have to find. Their leader.” Birga let out a short, barking laugh. “They call her Duchess. Her blood is of great power.” The shaman glanced down at the bloody pattern in the snow at her feet. “Unlike this.”

  Orgrim observed the distant clouds. “How am I supposed to find her? When the storm comes, it will wipe out their tracks.”

  Birga looked up to him. Dark eyes gleamed behind her leather mask. “I knew that you would go if I told you, so I went to the woman’s hut. Kneel before me!”

  Orgrim obeyed. He did not like the shaman, but he hoped that she would speak for him when Dumgar made his allegations to the king.

  Birga took a leather band from around her neck. The band had a single golden hair wrapped around it. She loosened the hair carefully and rubbed it into a small ball between her thumb and first finger. “Open your mouth, Orgrim.”

  She laid the small pellet on his tongue. With her rag-wrapped fingers, she stroked the duke’s eyelids. The thin ragged fabric stank of decay. Birga murmured something unintelligible, then slapped Orgrim lightly on the forehead. “You will find the human’s trail even if it is hidden beneath the snow or mixed with a hundred other tracks. She can’t escape you anymore!”

  “But if I take my men and abandon the rest of the army, I will look like a coward.”

  Birga slapped his forehead a second time. “Use your brain, Duke! Tell Dumgar that you’ve seen the wisdom of his words and that you’re ready to toe the line. The puffed-up fool will be only too glad to accept your offer to take your men into the mountains and hunt for meat for the return journey.”

  “And what are you going to do, Birga?”

  “I’ll come with you. I want the woman myself. She has a courageous heart.” The shaman clucked her tongue.

  Orgrim thought of the promise he had made to the tyrant. He looked to the north. The wind had turned. Dark clouds were fast approaching.

  HOPE

  Alfadas had gathered the leaders of his small army around him: the veterans of the bloody days at Phylangan, and a pair of young jarls who had joined them two days earlier with their mounted troops, survivors of King Horsa’s final battle. Brave men. Alfadas knew one of them, Jarl Oswin, from previous campaigns but now did not trust him. Oswin and his men had fled trolls once. Alfadas planned to lead them personally the following day.

  The council of war took place in the open air. The men had pushed the sleds from Phylangan close together to give at least some protection from the wind. Torches were jammed into the snow, their flames dancing. At dusk, the storm reached them, its icy gusts sweeping across the fjord. Apart from the sleds, they had no protection from the tempest.

  Alfadas took his sword and pointed at one of the small hills that Ollowain had formed from snow, a model of the pass that led up to Sunhill. Two small branches marked the positions of the palisades on the reindeer trail, and a few gray stones showed where the village lay.

  With the tip of the sword, he indicated the higher of the two branches. “Our fathers and brothers are fighting here.” He had to shout to make himself heard over the howling of the wind. “Our childhood friends. They’re defending women and children and shedding their blood for us.” The duke glanced at the young man that Lambi and the scouts had picked up on the fjord at midday. “Report on the battles, Olav.”

  The woodsman’s voice was firm as he described how the defenders had held the first palisade for three days. Alarm and pride filled Alfadas when he heard how Asla had stood among the fighters on the wall-walk. His Asla! The way Olav told the story, it was mainly thanks to her that the fighters had held on as long as they did.

  “The trolls’ losses were so severe that they did not dare attack again for two days, although the second palisade is smaller and weaker. Last night, as I crept down the reindeer trail, things were still quiet.”

  The tip of Alfadas’s sword moved down to the start of the pass trail. “Here, beside the ruins of the first palisade, the trolls have their camp. I have to believe that the defenders have held the pass for another day, but their situation is dire. They need us. From here, it’s more than three miles to the trolls’ camp. With a little luck, they will have pulled their sentries back because of the storm. Maybe we can take them by surprise. We break camp before dawn. We need to be in sight of the pass by first light.”

  “What if the storm hasn’t passed?” asked Mag.

  “We fought a battle in the Snaiwamark in a snowstorm. Have you forgotten how the trolls fled before us then?” Alfadas looked at the men around him, one by one. That battle on the ice had not been particularly successful, but they would not repeat the mistakes they’d made that day!

  “Olav says that the defenders are at the end of their rope. Every hour counts. For their sake, we cannot let a storm slow us down. And it looks as if the trolls have no catapults this time. They did not fire on the palisade, at least.”

  Alfadas drew a thin line in front of the pass. “This is where you’ll position the crossbowmen, Mag. You’ll be behind them with the spearmen. You have command in the center of our battle line. If the trolls still haven’t noticed us when our lines are in place, then we’ll call them with our horns. Pull the crossbows back when the trolls get within forty paces. I’m relying on the line of spearmen not to break when the beasts hit you.”

  “We’ll hold out, just as the men on the palisade held out,” Mag replied grimly. “You might find the ice covered with our bodies when the battle’s over, but none of my men will have a wound in his back. You can count on us, Duke!”

  Alfadas drew a second line in the snow. “Here on the left flank is where our archers will be. Veleif, you’ll have command there.”

  The skald looked at him in shock. “I’m no warrior, Duke! I can’t do that.”

  Alfadas laid his left hand on his breast. “Battles are decided first in the hearts of the fighters. You know what it means to stir hearts, Veleif Silberhand. Make my archers too proud to run away.”

  He turned to Lambi. The jarl seemed aggrieved. “And where am I supposed to go? Aren’t I good enough anymore to kick a troll in the ass? Aren’t you ever going to forgive that thing with the doors? I . . .” He shrugged. “The elves won’t miss ’em. I wish we’d pinched a few more.”

  Alfadas could not stifle a smile for long. He liked the jarl—about whose nose one does not speak, he thought—very much, and for him their quarrel in Phylangan was long forgotten. “You and your cutthroats will be right here.�
� He carved a circle in the snow just behind the crossbows and spears. “You will wait there, at the ready. The moment the trolls charge Mag and his spearmen, you attack them from the flank.”

  Lambi grinned. “They’ll piss on their own big feet when we grab ’em by the balls tomorrow.”

  “Don’t just grab them. Tear them off!” Alfadas’s hand sank to Ulric’s dagger, which he carried in his belt. “Tear them off,” he repeated quietly.

  He could not think about his son now, he warned himself silently. His desire for revenge would muddle his thoughts. Alfadas looked across at Silwyna. She’d arrived no more than an hour before, astride a stallion nearly dead with exhaustion.

  “The Maurawan will still join us?” he asked warily.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “The trolls desecrated the forest. My people want vengeance. More of my brothers and sisters have followed your call than I dared hope, more than a hundred. Never before have so many Maurawan been moved to battle beyond our forests. They know about your battles in Snaiwamark. You have a good name among my race. They are coming for you, not for the queen.”

  Alfadas looked doubtfully toward the north, then he pointed to a small hill on the right flank of the battle lines he’d sketched in the snow. “This is where I need the Maurawan archers. I don’t have enough fighters to reinforce our right flank.”

  “Where will you be in all this?” Lambi asked. Until now, Alfadas had always fought in the front line of his battles. And he knew that, among his troops, there was a running bet about which of them he went into battle with the most.

  “I’ll be with the riders.” The duke drew a small circle behind the hill. “Here.”

  “But you’re too few!” Mag said in dismay. “There’s hardly twenty of you. The trolls will mow you down if they hit our right flank.”

  “I trust the Maurawan. They will hold this hill for us.” Alfadas smiled, although he was filled with doubt. He knew better than anyone how unreliable the forest folk could be. They had only come through the Albenstar on the Hartungscliff at midday, and most of them had not come on horseback. He looked uncertainly at Silwyna.

  “They are treetop runners,” she said in the language of her race.

  Was his doubt so plain to see?

  “No one can move through the woods like we Maurawan. They will be on the hill tomorrow morning. I’ll go now to take them the news. Trust me.”

  Her final words struck him like a dagger to his heart. Alfadas straightened himself. “With most of you, I’ve journeyed far. It may be that, tomorrow, some of us will not survive. I want you to be under no illusions. Our chances are not good.” He pointed to the map in the snow. “When the trolls break through the second palisade, there will be another massacre. They’ve already spilled too much blood. Tell your men that I am ordering no one to be in this battle. I only want those beside me who want to be there, the way it was back then, on the shore at Honnigsvald. Tell all of them. Do not appeal to their conscience. Just say it, then go to bed. The night is short, and whoever fights with me tomorrow will need all their strength.”

  “My men are villains and cutthroats,” Lambi said, visibly moved. “So you can count on us to be there in the morning, when there are throats to be cut. We’re not the kind to let you down.”

  “I know it,” said Alfadas wearily. He raised his hands to stop the others from interjecting. “I trust all of you. I know that all of you standing here in this circle of torches will be there tomorrow. But give me the time I need now, the few hours of night that remain. Leave me alone with my memories and prayers.” With that, he left the circle of his officers and moved away, walking by himself, as had become his habit in recent nights.

  Finally, his steps led him to Blood. They had found the dog that afternoon, more dead than alive, in a snowdrift on the shore. His fur was matted and stiff with ice. And yet, despite exhaustion and a broken leg, Blood had tried to drag himself on when Alfadas approached.

  The duke had spent almost an hour with the dog. He had brushed the ice out of his fur and fed him with small pieces of dried meat. Now, Blood was tied to one of the sleds with a heavy rope. When the dog saw Alfadas, he barked and tried to jump to his feet.

  “Easy, fellow. Easy. I know what you want.” Alfadas kneeled beside him. “You want to take me to Kadlin, don’t you? Be patient for one night. Tomorrow I’ll go with you.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  Alfadas did not need to turn to know who was standing behind him. It had surprised him that Ollowain had not said a single word during the council of war.

  “Are you sure you want to live? Your battle plan is sheer folly. I was there when the young woodsman talked about the trolls. He said there were four or five hundred of them. Your veterans may be brave, Duke, but you’d need four of them for every troll you need to defeat. If you fight tomorrow, they will all die. Think of Asla and Kadlin,” Ollowain warned.

  Alfadas stroked Blood’s ragged fur. “I think of nothing else. They would not have sent the dog if they were not in grave danger.”

  “Don’t start fooling yourself now, my friend! Asla does not even know that you’ve returned. Why would she send the dog?”

  “She can sense that I’m on my way to her,” Alfadas replied angrily.

  “You’re talking yourself into believing that, and you know it. There’s only one logical reason why Blood is not with your wife and daughter anymore.” Ollowain grabbed Alfadas by the shoulders. “Don’t close your eyes to the obvious! Don’t lead your men to their deaths to save those already lost!”

  “They’re alive!” Alfadas pushed his friend away. “They’re behind the second palisade, and they’re waiting for me. You don’t have to fight tomorrow if you’re afraid. The Maurawan will be there. They are the key to victory. Maybe Orimedes and his centaurs will make it, too. Lysilla must have found him long ago.”

  “You know I’m not afraid of death,” said Ollowain sadly. “But a commander in the field who fills his battle lines with hope instead of troops . . . yes, that scares me. Still, I will be there with you tomorrow, my friend. If you will not look after yourself, then I have to.”

  Alfadas turned to the south. The gusting storm had eased, and it was starting to snow. “They are out there somewhere,” he said softly. “And they need me.”

  SHE’S LYING IN FRONT OF YOU!

  Ollowain looked out along their battle line. All had come, although Alfadas had allowed them to decide for themselves. Or perhaps because he had?

  He gazed off to the right, toward the hill. The Maurawan had not appeared. Even Silwyna had not returned. But the trolls . . . the trolls were there. And though it did not look like five hundred, there were certainly enough of them to cut the humans to pieces.

  Alfadas, stony-faced, sat astride the gray stallion that Count Fenryl had given him as a parting gift. It was too late to retreat now.

  The trolls were advancing in a disorderly mob toward the right, in the direction of the unoccupied hill. If they reached it, they could outflank the humans’ entire battle line.

  Alfadas drew his sword. Forcing a smile, he turned to his tiny troop of cavalry. “It seems we’ll have to make up for our elven allies from the forests.”

  The metallic clacking of crossbows sounded. Dozens of bolts slammed into the side of the trolls’ formation. Warriors stumbled, screamed, and fell, but the advance on the hill did not slow. The giants put so little store in the humans’ abilities that they did not even carry the massive shields that Ollowain knew from their battles in Phylangan.

  The archers under Veleif’s command fired salvo after salvo but were too distant to inflict much damage.

  Alfadas raised his sword over his head. “Forward, men! You were beaten in Horsa’s last battle. Show the world that you’re the bravest of the brave today!” Without turning to see who would follow him into this hopeless battle, Alfadas let the gray feel his spurs.

  Ollowain brought his stallion level with Alfadas’s steed. None of the other riders st
ayed behind. They were twenty facing hundreds. The elf smiled thinly. He had no doubt which way this fight would go.

  The horses made slow progress in the deep snow—the trolls would reach the hill first. Ollowain saw Mag react to the changed circumstances and try to swing a unit of spearmen toward the hill. In moments, the formation was hopelessly muddled. Lambi’s men turned with them, but the spearmen were now blocking their path. With their advance toward the flank, the trolls had managed to bring the humans’ entire battle line into disarray.

  Ollowain drove his stallion onward. Another fifty paces and the trolls would reach the top of the hill. Another salvo of crossbow bolts brought down several of their warriors. The massive fighters roared battle cries at the humans, promising death and carnage.

  Without warning, a wave swept over the crown of the hill. The snow curved upward, and slender white-clad figures emerged from their cover. Ollowain recognized Silwyna among them—the Maurawan! They let their arrows fly point-blank. Almost all the trolls in the first row fell, and those crowding from behind tumbled over the fallen. A second salvo destroyed any semblance of formation in the trolls’ attack.

  Ollowain could hardly trust what his eyes told him. The Maurawan must have taken up their positions on the hill during the night. They had dug hollows in the snow and covered them with their white cloaks and furs, then let the snow do the rest—it had filled their tracks until there was no sign left that anyone had set foot on the hill.

  The trolls were slow to recover from their initial shock. But, determined not to give up on victory, they charged against the storm of arrows.

  “Forward!” Alfadas cried wholeheartedly. “Attack the flank! Don’t let our brothers-in-arms from Albenmark take all the glory!”