Elven Winter

by Bernhard Hennen

  They had approached to within a hundred paces of the island. Two trolls holding torches stood at the entrance to a rocky bay. The waters close to the island were swirling—reefs seemed to protect the bay like a ring wall protected a castle.

  The boat began to rock in the surging sea. Spray hit them in the face. The boatman swung the tiller and brought the ship’s boat onto a course parallel to the reefs. They were heading now toward one of the mertrees, standing like a watchtower at the northern end of the entrance to the bay.

  “We can’t get through here!” the boatman cried desperately. “The tide is already on its way out. The water is too shallow to get into the bay. It will rip out a hole in our bottom.”

  Orgrim saw that the channel was calmer close to the tree. “Try it over there!”

  The boatman shook his head. “Root thorns! They’re just as dangerous as the coral.”

  “Maruk, let Orgrim take the helm!” Skanga ordered.

  The boatman looked at Orgrim with hate-filled eyes but rose from his place in the stern. As Orgrim pushed past him, the other hissed, “Probably planning to sink a boat every night, aren’t you, bigmouth?”

  Orgrim tried not to let anything show, but Maruk’s words had cut deeply. Why hadn’t he just kept his bright ideas to himself? This was not his boat. If the boatman didn’t have the guts for a difficult passage, it was none of his business. Now he’d brought the boatman’s problem onto his own head. And he could not afford another failure.

  He took his place on the helmsman’s thwart in the stern and laid his right hand on the tiller. The dark wood nestled comfortably into the palm of his hand. Orgrim closed his eyes and tried to become one with the boat and the restive sea. He felt the way the waves gently lifted the hull.

  “Oars flat!” he commanded, his voice resolute.

  Two dozen men were staring at him, and the faces of most of them were not friendly. The boatman was obviously popular with the crew. At least, more popular than the stranger who’d come along for the ride, a stranger known for stupidly losing a ship.

  Orgrim shifted all of his concentration to the waves. In the cold seas of the north that he had sailed with the Rumbler, every seventh wave rolled in with more power than those before it, but they were in another world here. This sea might have a completely different rhythm. Now! The boat was lifted more strongly. He turned it into the wave and began to count.

  “What’s he waiting for?” muttered one of the oarsmen.

  Don’t let them shake you, Orgrim thought. Four. He looked ahead to the narrow passage. The moon shining like a lantern in the sky made the shadows of the night look so much deeper to Orgrim. He could see individual root thorns, but where their boat would pass, the thorns did not form a closed circle. Someone had breached the mertree’s defensive ramparts. The elves had had to get into the bay themselves, after all, and Orgrim could not imagine that the little imps would be content to wait until the tide was at its highest. That did not suit their overbearing ways. They had cut a path for themselves, no doubt about it! “Ready! Row!” he commanded.

  And they would have set a trap, too, said a soft voice in the back of his mind. That kind of treachery was among the elves’ most characteristic traits. Orgrim peered ahead into the darkness. Was something there?

  “You don’t care for the passage now that you’ve got the helm?” Skanga asked.

  Orgrim felt his belly squirm. The last thing he needed right now was the shaman’s ire. His hand closed more tightly around the tiller. “Power!” he commanded the oarsmen.

  The trolls heaved on the oars with so much force that the boat actually seemed to jump forward. Orgrim steered past several root thorns. They were closer to the rocky shore now, the air filled with spray and salt, but the tide tugged at the fragile vessel like a huge hand. They had almost reached the calmer waters of the bay when Orgrim saw what he had been fearing. A last row of thorns. A passage had been cut through the mertree’s roots as far as this final obstacle. Orgrim had been counting the rhythm of the waves the entire time. Would the seventh wave lift the boat high enough to clear the thorns?

  “Hold water! All back!” he ordered the trolls. They could not make the attempt too soon. The oarsmen put their backs into it, but the tide slowly pulled them backward in the channel. Orgrim looked behind him. There it was—a fine line coming toward them from seaward. Another moment . . . they could not be too far from the barrier of thorns when the wave took them.

  “Ready . . . Row! Go!” The oarsmen hauled with all their might, fighting the power of the ebb tide. The boat rose on the swell until it was riding on the crest of the wave. Orgrim knew it could only last for one or two heartbeats. Their boat was too heavy and too long to stay on the crest. He held his breath. They slid across the thorny barrier. A nerve-curdling scraping noise came from below. Orgrim could feel the rear third of the hull settle on the thorns, and for a moment it felt as if the ebb current was trying to pull them back to sea. Then the next wave came through, and the boat creaked and came free. Orgrim thought the hard wooden thorns had slit open the hull along the length of the boat. A dry cracking sound announced a broken plank. They glided into the calm waters of the small bay. A few more oar strokes and they glided up the narrow, sandy beach.

  A group of trackers was there to meet them. They raised Skanga onto their shoulders and carried her up the beach.

  “You did that nicely, whelp,” the shaman praised when she was back on her own feet again.

  “Your boatman would not have done it any worse.” Orgrim had no desire at all to insinuate himself into Skanga’s good graces. “He knows the boat better. He probably could have cleared the roots completely.”

  “Don’t belittle your own actions. Those who envy you will do that for you. Don’t play into their hands, whelp. And now, come! You will do exactly what I tell you and not ask any foolish questions.”

  The leader of the trackers joined them, a beefy fellow. A little shorter than Orgrim, he had a broad chest adorned with thick decorative scars in the form of a falcon. Except for three braids, the tracker had shaved his head smooth. The braids fell over his right shoulder and were decorated with falcon feathers. His skin in the moonlight looked gray green and was sprinkled with light dots. The look in the tracker’s eyes was strange. They radiated a benevolent warmth that Orgrim had noticed before only in the eyes of females. No doubt the tracker had had to stomach his share of ridicule for it in his life. Pale scars on his arms and legs showed that he was not one to avoid a fight. On his upper right arm, half-hidden by the braids, four bloodless weals told of a fight with a cave bear. No, thought Orgrim, whatever his eyes may look like, he has little in common with our well-protected womenfolk. Even if one of them insisted in a moody moment on going hunting, she was always shielded by so many warriors that nothing could happen to her. The tracker was different. Orgrim reckoned him to be the kind of man happy to retreat alone into the wilderness.

  Their guide led them to a series of tracks a short distance from where they had landed the ship’s boat. “There was a centaur, a kobold or holde, and three elves who could walk alone,” the tracker explained. “Their skiff is over there. A strange vessel. There are wooden slats in the hull that can be taken out, but I have no idea what they’re for. Perhaps to sink the boat quickly if they were in danger?”

  Orgrim recalled what he had heard the day before about the elf queen’s peculiar sedan chair. He glanced at Skanga. The old shaman’s face had something wolfish about it. Her head stretched forward, she looked like a predator picking up a scent. No doubt she, too, had heard about the queen’s sedan.

  “When did they get here, Brud?”

  “Early afternoon, when the tide was highest.” The tracker pointed to the dark entrance to a cave. “They camped over there. The coals were still hot when we arrived. I would say we missed them by an hour at the most.”

  The shaman stroked her wide chin. “Did you send the ship back immediately?”

  “Yes, Skanga. Just as you
ordered. There’s a tunnel that leads from the back of the cave to a place of power . . . We did not enter it, but you can see it well enough from the tunnel.” The tracker made a sign meant to ward off spirits. “The rock glows in there. It is an eerie place. There is only one way in. The iron shoes of the centaur left faint marks on the rocky floor, so at least he went back to the place of power and did not return. It’s as if the mountain swallowed him. And the others with him, too—they left no trail on the rocks, but we’ve searched the entire island while we waited for you to arrive, Skanga. There is no one here. We will take a look at a few coastal caves that you can reach only at low tide, but I am certain our quarry is gone.”

  Brud led them into a low cave. Orgrim had to duck low not to bang his head on the soot-blackened ceiling. Brud pointed to the fireplace and to two shallow depressions in the sand. “Two of them were lying here. I suspect that they are traveling with two casualties who are not able to walk unaided. That would make seven altogether.”

  “A magical number,” Skanga murmured. “A strong alliance. Not to be divided.” The shaman crouched beside the smaller of the two depressions and ran her fingers through the sand. Orgrim wondered if she were able to talk to the grains of sand. The shaman’s gaze was unfocused. She seemed to have forgotten everything around her. Were her lips moving? Was she casting a spell?

  Suddenly, Skanga started. With her clawlike fingernails, she picked something out of the sand that looked like a small piece of a wilted leaf.

  “What is it?” Brud asked.

  Skanga smiled and rubbed her discovery between her fingers. “A small piece of burned butterfly wing. Take me to that place of power and have the oarsmen bring in the elves and the chest from the boat.” With a long sigh, she straightened up again. “Oh, Brud. This is Orgrim. I am considering making him pack leader on the Wraithwind.”

  The tracker glanced briefly at Orgrim. “I’ve heard of him” was all he said.

  Orgrim cursed silently. Oh, everyone had heard of him! Had heard of the hapless pack leader whose ship had been sunk by the elves. He wished he were lying on the bottom of the sea with the Rumbler. The thought of becoming pack leader on the Wraithwind did not cheer him. Far from it. That was no command. That was demotion to lickspittle of the moody shaman. He had to put himself out of her reach, and the sooner the better!

  “Orgrim?” She waved him to her. “We’re going to take a look at this place of power now, where our quarry disappeared into the rocks. You are not afraid, are you?”

  The troll straightened his shoulders, knocking his head lightly on the roof of the cave. “I have steered my ship through the void. Why should I fear a cave?”

  “Why indeed . . .” Skanga chuckled in a way that sent a shudder through Orgrim. “Just a cave, isn’t it? What could happen in a cave?”

  Orgrim found reason to regret his words faster than he ever would have dreamed. Brud led them into a tunnel in which they all had to stoop. They were surrounded by white stone. At first, they needed torches to see their way, but the stone soon changed in the most uncanny way—it began to glow from the inside. The boundary between stone and air seemed to blur. The rock turned from white to a translucent blue, the color of the sky on a clear summer’s day. But it was still there, as Orgrim painfully discovered when he forgot to keep his head down. He could see far into the rock. Golden veins traced paths in the luminescent stone, all leading toward a point that lay somewhere at the end of the tunnel.

  The more Orgrim looked at the veins in the stone, the more he felt that they were softly vibrating. As if they were alive. The hairs on his neck rose. The thought that he was in the middle of something living scared him. It was as if they were being eaten. With every step he took, he could better understand Brud’s not wanting to enter whatever cave lay ahead of them at the end of the tunnel. Was it some kind of stone stomach? Would nothing remain of them but a stony belch, echoing back down the tunnel to the beach, the moment they crossed the threshold of the cave?

  Orgrim berated himself. Skanga would never risk coming this way if some deadly peril was lying in wait, unless . . . had she protected herself with her sorcery?

  All there is at the end is an Albenstar, Orgrim tried to convince himself. A magical place, certainly, but not a place of immediate danger. It was a gateway that led to the paths of the ancients. He knew what that was like! He had sailed his ship safely along an Albenpath! Except that the gate at sea had looked completely different. There had been nothing ahead of them until Skanga had created an arch of steam that shone in all the colors of a rainbow. It had been huge, big enough for even Branbeard’s ship to pass through, with many paces’ clearance between the top of the masthead and the vertex of the arch.

  Orgrim’s steps grew more uncertain. He could still vaguely make out the floor of the cave, but even there the stone had become almost transparent, and he had the feeling that he was walking through the sky. Beneath him lay a bottomless abyss, and all around he could see through the rock walls and beyond to the moonlit sea.

  Magical tripe, said the troll to himself. Something the elves came up with to unnerve trolls like me. But he would not make it so easy for them. Defiantly, he set his jaw and gritted his teeth and promptly knocked his head on the tunnel ceiling again. He locked his eyes onto Skanga, who walked directly ahead of him.

  Finally, the narrow tunnel widened, and they stepped out into a large cave, where black veins entwined with the gold like braids inside the transparent rock.

  “Put the elves over here,” Skanga commanded the oarsmen. “And bring up the chest.” Brud and his trackers did not set foot in the cave. Did they know better? Orgrim wondered. He looked around curiously, noticed a strange prickling sensation on his skin, the kind he felt just before a summer storm. An unpleasant metallic odor filled the air, mixed with the smell of salt, kelp, and the sea.

  “I want Maruk here!” The shaman had opened the wooden chest and taken out a chunk of chalk. She began to draw a large circle on the cave floor, around the two elves. Shahondin and Vahelmin twisted uselessly against their bonds. Blank fear was in their eyes. Did they know what Skanga was planning?

  “Make yourself useful, whelp!” Skanga pushed the chalk into Orgrim’s hand. “Go over the line one more time. It doesn’t have to be pretty or regular. It just can’t have any gaps. Do your best!”

  Orgrim did as he was told, keeping in mind her instruction not to ask any questions. He carefully traced over the chalk line while Skanga drew a second, smaller circle with red chalk. Then, from the chest, she withdrew jewelry and clothing crafted from some delicate fabric. The items smelled burned, a smell that banished the odors of the sea from the cave.

  “You thought you could make fun of Branbeard, didn’t you?”

  Orgrim looked up in shock, but Skanga was not talking to him. She was talking to the two gagged elves.

  “You think we trolls are stupid. You planned to deceive us. It would never occur to you to offer us your help if you were not damned certain that you could swindle us. But I saw through you, Shahondin. This is not, for you, just about killing Emerelle, as you told us. You wanted her crown, too. Even now you have not given up that dream.”

  The elf managed to rise to his knees. Half-choked noises penetrated his gag.

  “No. I heard enough from you earlier. But you know what? You will be a loyal and self-sacrificing servant to Branbeard and me. You will hate us. More than Emerelle. And yet you will do everything to fulfill my wish.” The old crone giggled. “Courage failing you? Believe me, in your wildest dreams, you could not imagine what I am planning to do with you and your son. You will find Emerelle for me. I will transform you into perfect hunters.”

  Skanga leaned forward and sniffed at Shahondin’s hair, but her expression was disappointed. “You don’t even smell of fear now, elfling. Odors don’t stick to your kind, do they . . . that is, unless you ornament yourselves with them. I feared as much. But they like strong smells. They are drawn to them, as the smell of blood att
racts sharks from far and wide to the harbor of Vahan Calyd.” She turned around. “Ah, Maruk. There you are.” The boatman stood indecisively at the cave entrance. Skanga beckoned him inside. “Come here and join the two elves for a moment. Make sure they don’t slide around too much and wipe away any part of the circle.”

  The shaman inspected Orgrim’s work and nodded with satisfaction. “Good work, whelp. Now get the candles you find in the chest and set them out here, wherever you think fit. Candles are always good when one is dealing with the darkness, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Oh . . . definitely,” Orgrim replied hesitantly, wondering if Skanga had gone mad.

  The shaman took a small leather flask from one of the folds of her patchwork robe. She emptied its contents in a single draft, puffing out her cheeks as she did so. Then she sprayed a mist of dark-brown juice over the two prisoners from between her pressed-together lips. “Better like this, pretty elves. Cod liver oil and seal blood. Now you smell like something, elfling. All I have to worry about now is how to tell you apart in the future.”

  Orgrim had fetched the candles, but he found nothing with which to light them. Brud and the seamen with the torches had retreated. “Skanga?”

  The shaman silenced him with an impatient gesture. “Just put them out. I’ll take care of everything else later. Don’t disturb an old woman when she finally has a little joy in her life.” She stroked her gnarled fingers over Shahondin’s face. “You must be hundreds of years old, elfling. Yet your face is as smooth and flawless as a virgin’s tits the first time she bleeds. I have always envied you elves that.”