Elven Winter

by Bernhard Hennen

  “It’s all right. Your son just wants to get to know me.” Silwyna strode along beside them as they followed a narrow game path through the woods. The trees were bright with autumn leaves, and every breath of the breeze made thousands fall. Red, purple, and gold rained down around them. The forest was celebrating a final time before the long months of darkness and storms began.

  Alfadas was surprised at how patiently Silwyna answered all his son’s questions. She had changed. From the outside, there was nothing different . . . or was he the one who had changed? Was he looking at her with different eyes? There was a time in which he had hated her. She had taught him what it meant to suffer. And despite everything, she was still close to his heart. Just seeing her was enough to revive all the long-buried feelings.

  “Grandfather says there are elves who can run through the trees like squirrels,” said Ulric. “Is that true?”

  “My father-in-law is a talkative old man,” Alfadas apologized.

  “It seems to me that the boy knows more about Albenmark than you do, although he has never seen the wonders of my world.”

  “Oh yes. Grandfather knows so many stories!” Ulric cried enthusiastically. “When Papa isn’t home, he comes every evening and tells us all about the queen and the elves, about my grandpa Mandred and the manhorses and the trolls.”

  I have to have a word with Erek, thought Alfadas angrily. There was a reason he did not tell the children about Albenmark, regardless of how much Ulric pestered him about it. He did not want to plant any longing for that distant world in their hearts. Unlike him, it was not their lot to spend half their days gazing up at the stone circle on top of the Hartungscliff, dreaming about a world that they could not reach by themselves.

  “Would you like to find out for yourself what it’s like to run through the treetops, Ulric?” Silwyna asked.

  “Would you take me with you?”

  “If you trust yourself to ride on my back. And only with your father’s permission, of course.”

  Alfadas sighed. How could he refuse now? The Maurawan looked at him with her wolf’s eyes, and he had the feeling that it would mean a lot to her to climb through the trees with his son. Did she perhaps envy Asla her children? The jarl recalled some of the less pleasant stories that were told about the elves. About how they stole children . . . would Silwyna ever do something like that? There had been a time when he believed that he could read her eyes, that he knew her. Now he knew better.

  “Please, Papa! Say yes,” Ulric pleaded.

  “I’ll see you down by the fjord,” he finally grumbled. Back then, the elves had not come for him without a reason. His own father, Mandred, had sold him to Emerelle. Silwyna would take good care of Ulric.

  She handed Alfadas her bow, quiver, and hunting bag, which she had slung over her shoulder. Ulric clambered excitedly onto her back. He slung his legs around her hips and his arms around her neck.

  “Don’t tell your mother a word about this little excursion,” Alfadas warned him.

  Ulric grinned conspiratorially.

  “Don’t worry, nothing will happen,” said Silwyna in the language of her people. “I will bring him back in one piece.”

  It was a strange feeling to see Ulric depart with the elf woman . . . the same woman that Alfadas had once been in love with to the point of madness. She ran into the forest with the boy and had vanished in seconds.

  Slowly, the jarl turned his gray down the slope toward the fjord. It took him almost half an hour to reach the water, and Ulric and Silwyna were already waiting for him. His son came running toward him, beaming broadly, although he also looked a little pale. “We passed a squirrel,” he shouted. “And we saw tons of nests. Silwyna talked to a raven.”

  Alfadas pulled his son up onto the saddle again and returned Silwyna’s weapons. Something seemed to be weighing on her. “You have raised a good boy,” she said, but nothing more.

  An hour later, they reached the ferry and crossed the fjord to Honnigsvald. The three brothers that Alfadas had met the last time were nowhere in sight. Instead, a garrulous old man rowed them across in a small skiff. Surreptitiously, Alfadas glanced down into the dark waters. Deep beneath their keel, he saw a silver shimmer: hundreds of fish swimming north.

  A large crowd had gathered on the other shore, and a tall, thickset soldier with his hair cut very short was standing on a block of stone, addressing those who had answered the king’s summons. Alfadas knew the man. It was Ragni, one of the king’s bodyguards. The soldier waved to him.

  “Here comes the duke. Look at him! That is what a champion looks like!”

  Everyone turned. Alfadas recognized a few old hands in the crowd, companions from past campaigns. But there were also men among them who carried scythes, hammers, or axes that had been forged into makeshift weapons. Impoverished farmers, day laborers, messengers, craftsman who had lost their businesses. Young men, too, in search of adventure. The three brothers from the ferry were also there. This was no army. It was a gathering of the hopeless, those who no longer had anything to gain in the Fjordlands under aging King Horsa.

  “Will they all listen to you, Papa?”

  “I certainly hope so.” Alfadas swung out of the saddle, handed the reins to Silwyna, and said in her language, “Take the boy over there to the forest. I don’t want him to hear what I have to tell the men.”

  Silwyna nodded. Alfadas looked at his “army,” hardly more than seven hundred men, he estimated. One group of warriors was particularly conspicuous because they stood there in chains. A black-haired man, his nose slashed deeply and recently by a sword, was the most unmistakable among them. Another familiar face, thought the jarl. “Well, Lambi. More trouble with the women?” All around, the men grinned.

  “If the king had sent women to ask me to come here, then this would not have been necessary.” He raised his hands so that the others could see the heavy iron rings with which he had been chained up. “Release me, Alfadas. Let me go, and I won’t tell the greenhorns here what a winter campaign means.”

  “If I let you go, I’ll be losing half the fighting strength of my army,” Alfadas replied airily. “And we don’t want this splendid squad to go the same way as your nose. Want to tell me how that happened?”

  “The king’s bastards caught me in my sleep!” He pointed to Ragni. “And that gutless bastard was in charge of ’em.”

  “He resisted the king’s order,” Ragni shot back. “He provoked us. His goods have been confiscated, and if he stays here, he’ll be hanged. He should be grateful to Horsa that he’s even allowed to go with you.”

  “And why are you here, Ragni?”

  “Horsa has made me a war jarl. When I return, he’s promised me a farm of my own. I’m here to be your second in command.”

  “So be it!” The crafty old devil got you cheaply, Alfadas thought. He climbed up onto the rock beside Ragni so that all the men could see him.

  “All those who have fought in battle, raise your sword arm.” The result was a crushing blow. Not even one in ten raised his hand, and a large proportion of the experienced warriors had been taken there in chains. Those men would never take orders from Ragni, and the paupers would only halfheartedly follow a man who had been won over with a title and a promise of land. He needed more lieutenants, and he had to set an example to give his troops more reason to stick together.

  “Think you can climb up on this rock with half a nose, Lambi?”

  “Yeah. And I’ll even kick you in the ass up there if you say another word about my nose, Duke!”

  Alfadas reached out his hand and pulled Lambi up onto the rock. “I’d like to introduce all of you to Lambi, about whose nose one does not speak, as one of your war jarls! I know him to be a good fighter and a wise leader. Listen to what he says when he is not swearing—it could save your life one day.”

  “I would not say that I’m a good choice,” Lambi said, with no effort to speak any softer than usual. “You’re all welcome to hear it: I promise our duke that
I will clear off the first chance I get. Anyone who voluntarily goes to Albenmark to fight gigantic trolls must be out of his mind!”

  Alfadas clapped him on the shoulder. “As you can all see, our new war jarl is a man who likes to speak frankly. And he has earned a frank answer. You will go down in history as the first war jarl in the Fjordlands to train his men in chains and to be led to the battlefield in chains. But putting that aside, you can take my word for it that Lambi is a man you can trust, as long as you don’t lend him money, leave him alone with a woman he likes the look of, or stupidly turn your back to him.”

  Some of the men below them laughed, presumably those who did not yet know Lambi and thought he was joking. “Mag of Honnigsvald, come up here and join us. You, too, will be one of my war jarls.”

  The young ferryman was clearly unimpressed at his promotion, but his two brothers pushed him forward. When he finally stood on the rock beside Alfadas, Mag’s face was bright red. He stared out at the crowd like a mouse staring at a cat.

  “As you can see, Mag is a man of few words. Some of you may be asking yourselves what it is about this young man that will make you listen to him. The answer to that is simple. Look at his face. See the half-moon he carries!”

  Mag swung around and glared at Alfadas. Unbridled fury filled his eyes. “I will—”

  Alfadas ignored him. “All of us have to learn to be men like Mag. For me, the half-moon he bears is not the mark of a thief’s shame; it is a badge of honor! He was branded because he stole bread for himself and for his brothers. He knew the risk he was taking. He knew he did not have the strength to escape if he was caught in the act. And still he did it. I want you to be like him! I want you not to shy from any peril to help your brothers in arms. If every man in this army can find that courage, then some of us might even manage to return from Albenmark in one piece.” He let his eyes scan the motley crowd before him. “I will not try to deceive you. Apart from a few outstanding soldiers like Lambi, you are all here as volunteers. When you follow me to Albenmark, perhaps one in ten will survive. Maybe all of us will perish there. I cannot even promise you that you will get rich there. We will be fighting trolls, and those monsters do not hoard treasure, but they will eat you alive if they get their hands on you. No doubt all of you have heard stories about the elves, about their unearthly skills, about how no man can defeat them in battle. That is true. Tomorrow, I will show you an elf woman. Among her people, she is considered an incomparable archer and a poor swordswoman. And yet I can guarantee that standing in front of me today, there is not more than one or two fighters who can match her with the sword.”

  “I bet I could beat her black-and-blue if you took my pretty bracelets off!” Lambi shouted.

  Some of the men laughed. Alfadas was satisfied. Men like Lambi always found followers quickly. “All right, my friend, I’ll take that bet. If you can defeat the elf Silwyna in a practice fight, then I will take away your chains and you can take to your heels. But remember that the king has promised you a hemp necklace if you don’t go to Albenmark.”

  “I know Horsa as a man who promises much and delivers very little. If I am stupid enough to let his bailiffs catch me a second time, then I’ve deserved no better than the noose. But if your dainty elf manages to beat me—because I lose myself in her beautiful eyes and forget to fight, who knows?—then I promise you I will not try to flee as long as we are in Honnigsvald.” Lambi reached down and grabbed his crotch with both hands, swinging his hips in a circle. “Where are the skalds? The story of Lambi and the elf girl will be better than any hero’s saga! What do you say, Duke, do we have a bet? Or would you rather hide your delicate elf maid away from a real Fjordlander?”

  Alfadas reached out and grasped Lambi’s proffered hand. “I hope that you are an honorable man, at least when it comes to a bet.”

  Lambi grinned broadly. “I promise you this: you will find out.”

  Rebels, farmers, and a few good men—what an army, Alfadas thought. What an army. They had a right to know what they were facing. That much, at least . . . “Tomorrow, you will see how elves fight. You will be impressed. But these same elves, whom hardly any of us can match, have already lost many battles with the trolls. They fear them as a terrible enemy. One troll has the strength of four or five men, and anyone who makes the mistake of trying to parry one of their blows will be smashed to pieces. They know no fear. If five of you are able to fight in a group and protect one another, then you might just be the equal of the troll. The brutes are almost twice as big as us. Winter’s bitter cold does not bother them at all, and they are fighting to get back their old homeland. Sending us to Albenmark is like throwing a child into a bear cage, turning your back, and coming back the next day to see what has happened.”

  None of the men were laughing now. They were upset, scared. Some stared at Alfadas with gaping mouths. None had expected a speech like that.

  “For today, you are dismissed,” said Alfadas. “Think about what I have said. I will not be disappointed in those who do not return here tomorrow. You are not cowards, but rather have proven your wisdom. But for those who do return, think tonight about how we puny humans can kill the trolls. Keep this in mind: once a troll is standing in front of you, you are dead. Now go.”

  “You will be waiting on an empty beach tomorrow,” said Ragni angrily. “What the hell was that? The king will be angry when he hears about it.”

  “I don’t believe the duke will get rid of those men so easily, Ragni,” said Mag. “I know these men. They know what miserable lives they lead in the Fjordlands. Even a tiny chance of getting rich is more than what they have here.”

  If Mag was right, thought Alfadas, then it was very possible that even more men might be standing on the shore next morning, ready to decamp to a new world. He had to find a more drastic way to show them what would happen. Finally, he turned to the young ferryman.

  “Do you think you can come up with a dozen steers in the next few days? I would gladly buy them. We ought to provide at least part of the provisions we will need ourselves and not leave everything up to the elves.”

  THE SMALL COUNCIL

  Where is Lyndwyn?”

  No one replied. The Small Council of Phylangan had gathered in the pavilion by the Mahdan Falah. None seemed to feel personally addressed by Ollowain.

  As the silence dragged on, Landoran finally took mercy on him and answered. “She is otherwise engaged. She wishes you a pleasant trip.”

  “How am I supposed to go without her?” the swordmaster asked in annoyance. Lyndwyn had not shown her face for ten days. Not since she had made love to him. That memory awoke a sweet torment in Ollowain. Had she really loved him? Or was that, too, only part of a sophisticated plan? She actually seemed to be recognized as the ruler of Phylangan. Ollowain had discovered that on her orders, every other Normirga settlement in the Snaiwamark had been abandoned. All elves who could contribute to their defense remained in Phylangan. The rest were sent to the stone palaces on the Carandamon plateau. It was a wise decision to give up settlements they could never properly defend and to gather their forces in one place. Ollowain had expected her to ask for his advice—he was her military adviser, after all. Supposedly . . .

  But he had not seen her at all.

  Ollowain again looked into the expressionless faces. The council enjoyed demeaning him, throwing his flaw back in his face! “I cannot open the gateway. Without Lyndwyn, I cannot enter the Albenpaths. Tell me how I am supposed to bring the army of humans here if she does not help me?”

  “You are not meant to bring the humans here, but to take them to the Slanga Mountains,” Landoran corrected him in his most infuriating tone. “In twenty days, Lyndwyn will open a gateway to the Albenstar close to Firnstayn. She will accompany you and the humans safely back here. Until then, you will have to make do with Lysilla’s services. She is an experienced sorceress. Together with Ronardin, she will assist you in preparing the humans for their arrival in Albenmark and for the war.”
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  “It is not in Emerelle’s interests for the Albenstone to stay here. I demand its return!”

  Landoran raised his eyebrows disapprovingly. Even as a child, Ollowain had hated that disparaging gesture.

  “I don’t think you can decide what is or is not in Emerelle’s interest, especially as the queen has not been informed about the specific circumstances. If she were here, she would endorse what we are doing.”

  Ollowain was stunned. Landoran’s reply, as spokesman of the council, far exceeded even his usual arrogance. The swordmaster knew his father well enough to know that resistance just then was pointless. Landoran would not hesitate to have him arrested if he rebelled against his decision.

  “I submit to the wisdom of the council,” Ollowain lied unctuously. When he returned, he would have an army behind him. Even if it was only an army of humans, they represented a force that Landoran could not simply override.

  For a moment, Landoran seemed surprised. Then he regained his composure. “I will see to it that your departure can take place as soon as possible. You will have a horse and armor from us so that you can properly represent the Normirga people.”

  Ollowain nodded. During their escape, he’d had to give up his armor. As a warrior, he ought to wear more than just a shirt, even if all the armor signified was vanity—against a troll’s mighty blow, no armor could protect him.

  “We have sent messengers to most of the Albenkin. If elves, centaurs, lamassu, and all our other brother races support us in our fight, we will easily defeat the trolls.” Landoran smiled thinly. “The human offer, militarily speaking, is doubtful, but it is priceless from a diplomatic standpoint. By supporting us, they shame the other races of the Alben, which means that they might conceivably form the core of a major alliance.”

  Ollowain was growing increasingly warm. He felt droplets of sweat forming on his forehead. The air in the Skyhall seemed strangely oppressive, although that seemed to make little difference to the members of the council. Or was he the only one who felt it? Blasted sorcery! He would not put it past his father to make the pavilion hotter just to humiliate him. Standing there covered in sweat before the most ancient elves of the Normirga was almost as embarrassing as if he could not stop himself from wetting his trousers. They were turning him into a child!