The Coming Storm (62 page)

High King Warric had taken the throne and barely held it in the face of defiance from two of his lesser Kings. Even then, though, for much of the time there had been peace of a kind.

Now Daran sat on that throne and say what you would of him, he was a King to be reckoned with. Not a man of cool temper, but he’d held it long enough and he was still a King of vision.

Peace had held for many years. The purpose of the garrisons were now more a caution than a need, lest any lesser King think he might raise an army of his own. In addition, they also served the purpose of keeping bandits down and lent aid to the Hunters and Woodsmen in dealing with the raids by goblins or trolls.

Or they had.

It was quickly apparent this Commander didn’t feel the need. The garrison had the feel of men and women with little to do but endless drilling, to a purpose they didn’t understand.

They left unsatisfied, neither Ailith nor Jareth able to convince him. This time there was no handy second in command. Jalila he’d largely ignored. He made no secret of the fact he had no love for Elves, although he was too well-bred to say as much, but he certainly hadn’t had a problem eying her.

“They’ll be slaughtered,” Jareth said, in disgust as they rode away.

Jalila shook her head. “How does a man like that get command?”

With a sigh, Ailith said, “Daran High King needs to buy the good will of some of his lesser Kings. To do so he offers their extra sons and daughters, the ones who can’t be used to set alliances among each other or that aren’t suited to other tasks, to such positions as gainful employment. It’s necessary to keep the peace among them.”

It was incomprehensible to Jalila.

Hers was a long-lived but not terribly fertile race. She hoped to find a soul-bond soon, one with whom she could have true sharing but that hadn’t yet come. An alliance though, had given her a son. He rode among the Hunters with his father’s Enclave. It had been hard, though, not to wish she could have born him to a soul-bonded partner. She still hoped to find that one and have at least one child with him as well.

To have so many children one didn’t know what to do with them made little sense.

“We’ve done what we came to do,” Ailith said, “We’ve warned them, it’s all we can do.”

“Well,” Jareth said, “we’ve a long ride ahead between here and the next and at least one night to spend in the open. There’s no inn I know of, nor a town big enough for one between here and there. That’s why the garrison is here at all, to give protection and provide shelter to travelers.”

He didn’t mention it hadn’t been offered.

Nor had Ailith pressed it. She wasn’t inclined to force Jalila to endure the man’s sly glances. He may not have liked Elves in one way but there was something predatory about the way he looked at the tall golden-skinned Elf. Ailith had seen such a look before, had it directed at her a time or two by those who hadn’t known who she was. If Jalila had seen it, she didn’t know what it was or what it meant. Her people had no equivalent.

“Sleeping in the open? We’ve done it before,” Jalila said, with a shrug. “We can again.”

Ailith had been watching the lights in her mind, had found Elon and Colath still making their way south. Now she looked backward for signs of gray and this time she found them. She went cold. They were near the Rift. The trackers had picked up their trail. Theirs and Elon and Colath’s.

She watched, stiffening in the saddle.

“Ailith?” Jalila said.

Holding up a hand, she closed her eyes, the easier to concentrate. The trackers stayed where they were for a time, and then with sinking heart she watched them as they split, a group turning north and another going south.

“We push the pace,” Ailith said. “The trackers are on us. And on Elon and Colath.”

There was no way to warn them but she knew from her dream of them they were being cautious. She hoped it was enough to keep them safe.

Jareth swore softly. “I don’t want to be caught out in the open with them on our trail but I don’t think we’re going to be able to avoid it.”

How close and how fast? Ailith followed the distant figures in her mind, trying to estimate distances. They were still some distance behind and hadn’t reached Crag’s Head.

“We’ll take the chance,” she said, finally. “Try to find a good spot with good cover. They’re not that close that we need fear them on our heels. It does us no good to be tired when we might need the strength. I’ll keep watch for them. If they draw closer, we can make the decision then.”

Jalila nodded. “It’s better not to be tired.”

They found a decent place to camp, sheltered enough that they dared make a fire.

As they moved higher into the mountains and further north the nights had grown colder. Around them the trees shed their leaves in earnest, so the ground was now carpeted in gold and scarlet.

It took three tries before Jalila finally took Jareth’s bedding in hand to find him a decent spot to sleep.

Fire was a risk but it was also a weapon. Boggins and boggarts feared it, though it could attract them as Jalila knew from that nightmarish expedition to the borderlands.

She woke them late.

Something sniffed around the camp. It was too great a risk to leave Ailith and Jareth sleep when she couldn’t determine what it was. It was large but not a bear. There was little wildlife to be seen hereabouts, not even the squirrels that should have been out gathering their nuts at this time of year. It was probably a boggin but it also might not be. Jalila took no chances.

They sat quietly for a while, the three of them, listening with their weapons in hand but eventually it went away. Since she was awake, Ailith scanned their back trail. The gray lights were there but still. Why, she wasn’t sure. Sleeping? She wished she could warn Elon and Colath. She found them in her internal heavens but not their trackers. Those were lost among the myriad lights that clustered in the heartlands. It worried her and ate at her.

“Did you find them?” Jalila asked.

For a moment Ailith didn’t know which them Jalila referred to.

“The trackers?” Ailith replied. “Yes, they’re still. Maybe they still need sleep, too.”

Jalila shook her head. That wasn’t what she’d asked. “You watch. I know you watch.”

“Yes, them as well,” Ailith admitted. “They’re moving south at good speed. Jalila, I can’t find the trackers that follow them.”

“You worry.”

Jareth said, to reassure her, “Elon isn’t going to be taken by surprise easily, nor will Colath.”

She sighed and nodded. “I know but I still wish I could warn them. I know the trackers have their trail. As much as I know Elon and Colath are more than capable and they’ll be careful, I also know trackers took Talesin.”

That was something Jareth hadn’t known.

Jalila went still, too. “I didn’t know. I would have said not to worry. Now I know why you do.”

“That and I haven’t dreamed true.”

That surprised Jareth, though he kept his silence.

“It worries me as well that I can’t see what Tolan plots and plans. I know he does, he must still and I fear that as well.” She shook her head. “I can’t do nothing about either. Jalila, why don’t you sleep? I can take my watch now that I’m awake.”

“Or we can go,” Jalila suggested. “With trackers on the trail? Sooner done, sooner south. We’ll all feel better for it. Perhaps at this next place we can rest our heads behind walls where trackers fear to tread.”

Jareth nodded. “I don’t think any of us will sleep much now tonight anyway.”

Donkellen Castle rose above the trees, surrounded by mountains. It was an impressive sight, with its myriad towers both large and small. The sky was overcast and grim, though, promising rain. They’d had so many fine days  it was a wonder they hadn’t had to deal with it before. At least they might spend it under a roof. With the way the wind blew it promised to be a dousing, and cold. The lights of the castle promised warmth.

It wasn’t until they passed through the trees that they had a good view of the town in tiers below it, draping the mountainside. Houses clung to the hillsides or perched atop cliffs. This place had natural defenses that Crag’s Head hadn’t.

The gates of the town were open, surprisingly. The few homesteads they’d passed had had their gates closed and barred.

With the imminent rain, the streets were nearly empty of all but those with the most urgent business. Folk hurried from one place to another but otherwise it was quiet. Few looked at them and those that did looked quickly away.

They rode up to the castle gates unremarked and unrestricted. Here, too, the gates stood open in welcome.

Ailith, the borrowed circlet from Raven’s Nest settled upon her brow and in full royal mode, was bowed to deeply by the guardsmen at the gate.

“I crave audience with King Gerard,” she said.

“Gerard no longer rules here, ‘tis Braeden who is King now,” the Guard said.

Surprised, Jareth bit back a comment but he was frowning.

Ailith saw him start and gave him a look but shook her head slightly as the guard waved them through. Her eyes went up and he saw the murder hole above. There were listeners. He nodded and waited until they reached the courtyard.

In a quick aside, he said, “Gerard was hale and hearty when last I saw him, his heir would have been Gerd, his second son. His first became a scholar. This one was his third.”

“Jareth,” Jalila said.

While he’d been speaking, she’d been looking around. What few folk there were in the courtyard had an odd, uneasy look to them. There was a nagging sense of familiarity about this place. An odd sense that she’d done this before. It reminded her very much of their visit to Riverford.

He looked at her, followed her eyes.

The stablehands that came out to take their horses had a familiar frightened air.

“Ailith,” he said, urgently.

She’d noticed it, too, felt the quality of the tension in the air but no sense of the source of their anxiety. Having been part of it, she’d never seen it from outside.

“I know,” she said, quietly, and then to the stablegirl who held her horse. “Don’t stable them, child. We won’t be here long.”

Patting Laes, Jalila bade him, “Stay.”

Given the instruction, the Elven-bred wouldn’t move until she returned.

Jareth said, “Should we be here at all?”

Taking a deep breath, Ailith said, “We need to know for certain. Right now we have no more information than you did at Riverford.”

She didn’t like doing it, but she left her longsword with Smoke. One didn’t bear such arms into the presence of a lesser King. Her shortsword was decorative enough to be passable. Her heart pounded.

There were eyes on her, she could feel it.

“Be ready to leave, and quickly, on my word,” she said, quickly, as the chatelaine came forward to greet them.

The man bowed and went to take her name into the Great Hall. Those doors opened only briefly and just widely enough to let him pass and the voices within out. A glimpse was all they could catch of those on the dais, and of the new King.

Young, like Ailith he was barely past his majority, somewhere in his mid-twenties, but unlike her he seemed strangely unformed. Old enough to rule, though, as she was.

Beside him on the Queen’s throne was a woman of extraordinary beauty.

In a way, she had the same striking appearance that Elves had, their confidence but more languid. Raven-haired and blue-eyed, she had skin like fresh milk touched with roses. Her voice carried, soft and musical but oddly uninflected. Too even, too smooth. Not sing-song but there was a flatness to it that sent chills through Ailith.

One glimpse of the Queen was enough. Jareth felt a sudden sharp tug of pure unadulterated lust that shot straight to his groin. The intensity of it shocked him to his core, his mind nearly going blank. The need was instantaneous, something he’d never felt.

He shuddered.

From the corner of her eye Ailith saw Jareth visibly sway. She turned, alarmed. From the darkness of the hallway a dark figure flung itself at Jalila.

“Jalila,” she called, in warning.

The Elf moved quickly, stepping aside from the knife in the hands of the servant. She caught part of his shirt and threw him down the hall.