The Coming Storm (71 page)

Elon knew she couldn’t know it, who hadn’t been raised among them, but somehow she did. The ring was dotted, too, with fall flowers, spicy-scented deep red mums like drops of blood amongst the white.

“Wild magic does what it will,” Ailith said, softly. “This so any who pass shall know this is a sacred place, where blood was shed that shouldn’t have been shed and where some died who shouldn’t have died. Not here and not this way.”

She stood and looked away for a moment.

Elon laid a hand on her shoulder. His blood and Colath’s blood. Colath matched the gesture. After a moment, Talesin, then Jalila, joined them. With a soft smile, Ailith reached out. Jareth took her hand.

A small breath whispered out of her and she closed her eyes as the pain in her heart and theirs was also eased, shared out to all of them.

“Now that,” Talesin said, “was well done.”

He looked at the bright green grass, the white flowers dotted with crimson.

It was a fitting memorial for those who had died here, the ones he’d known, the ones he’d shared it with and those who survived.

He looked to Elon.

“The army marches north,” Elon said, “but it will take some time. I think we’ve earned our rest. Once the battle begins we’ll have no other chance. As much as I would like to return to Aerilann, though, we should head more east to meet the army. We’ll find an Inn or something.”

For a moment, only a moment, Jareth hesitated, and then he spoke.

“I know a place,” Jareth offered. “Only a day’s ride away or so.”

Here in these lower lands, the steep rolling hills with their stretches of forest, the trees were ablaze with color and the temperature was still moderate. They rode at times through showers of golden leaves and the rich scents of fall. At others they passed those at work in the fields, the threshers and the beaters taking in the last of the ripe grain. Others clambered through fruit trees, picking apples. The air was filled with the scents of fall.

It was a lovely little homestead, nestled between the rolling green hills far enough east and far enough south they need not fear much. Yet.

“What is this place?” Colath asked.

With a wry smile, Jareth said, “Home, when I’m here and not at the Collegium, or the High King’s city or haring off on some wild chase.”

Elon gave him a look. There was something in his tone.

“We have had some adventures lately, you must admit,” Jareth said, with a grin, giving him a look.

Inclining his head in acknowledgement, Elon had to agree.

“And we had some experiences in the north.”

It wasn’t time to speak of that yet, by unspoken consent, none of them did.

The couple who cared for the place in Jareth’s absence made sure they had food and drink in plenty and set close at hand, that water was set to heat, baths prepared, and then they left them for their own quarters.

With a little rearranging there was room enough for all but neither Elon nor Colath nor any of the others were much inclined to be enclosed within walls. They took themselves out into yard. Into clean fresh air and sunshine to let it blow the stink of suffering off them.

Elon stretched out on his back on the grass in the sun, pillowing his head on one arm. Taking out his pipe, Jareth pulled out a chair and sat downwind to smoke. Ailith sat cross-legged nearby while Colath leaned a shoulder against one of the pillars that supported the roof of the porch. Jalila sat on the grass with her back against another of the supports, fletching arrows.

Talesin, too, pulled out a chair. “My bones grow too old to recline as Elon does.”

“So,” Elon said, “adventures?”

As the sun lowered in the west the three who’d gone spoke of their trip across the north, into the cold high reaches, the story moving back and forth among them.

“If they know you guess her purpose, I doubt that one will rise to the kingdom’s banner,” Elon remarked, about the wizard Queen.

Ailith shook her head, uncomfortably. “You didn’t see her, Elon. Her beauty is so unnatural and so affective it has to be stolen but it’s such that it has much effect on men. As a distraction, or a source of quarrels, if Donkellen brings his Queen to ride into battle with him it could be a problem.”

“Sadly, Elon,” Jareth said, taking a puff on his pipe, “Ailith might have the right of it. That pretty head was designed to lure men. It worked on me. Pit her King against another and another banner is lost. Men don’t have soul-bonds as your people do.”

The subject of soul-bonds wasn’t something Elon wanted to discuss.

“You’re certain the garrison there will probably fall?”

Ailith nodded. “The commander there is a fool, much like the commander of the garrison by the Rift. Catra is a competent captain but hampered by him. Too many of these assignments have gone to second and third sons and daughters of the Kings, or as sinecures to children of Daran’s secretaries and such. It’s especially true in the north. That’s where the most incompetent were sent, to keep them far away from where they could do any real harm.”

“Will they fight?”

Jalila said, “Any will fight if they must to survive but those folk can barely hold a sword, much less a bow.”

“Of the Kingdoms that are free, most arm themselves and are securing their walls,” Ailith added. “Mornith will have to choose between conquering them or passing them by, with the hope they won’t fall upon his rear. Or Donkellen or the other could launch a conquest behind the lines while the army is occupied.”

She had a good head for this, mirroring his thoughts on it.

“Nor do we know if others have been suborned,” Elon said.

Jareth put in, “No way to safely test it, either. We were almost in the doors at Donkellen before we realized how much was amiss. I doubt Daran knows he has a new King there, a third son who should never wear a crown and doesn’t truly now.”

“We would have missed Riverford completely were it not for Ailith,” Colath pointed out.

With a slight frown, Ailith said, “I wonder if they learned from that mistake.”

“One should never underestimate Mornith, Ailith,” Talesin said.

Very dryly, Ailith said, “I’m learning these days not to underestimate anyone.”

“Wise,” Talesin said, “very wise. As it happens, I’m learning that lesson myself.”

His colorless eyes settled on her and warmth spread through her at the implied compliment.

“So,” Jareth said, curiosity driving him wild, “who exactly is Mornith?”

For a moment Talesin was silent, his eyes on the distant horizon.

In the last light of the setting sun, everything was bathed in a warm golden light but not one of them there didn’t know that wasn’t what he saw.

“We’re never exactly free of our past,” he said, quietly.

No one spoke at the sight of the shadows that moved in his pale eyes, the ghosts of old memories.

With a sigh, Talesin said, “Mornith is the only Elf ever exiled.”

Elon went still, glancing at Colath and Jalila.

Exile? An Elf?

Talesin saw the look and nodded. He took a long, slow breath, released it. “After it was done, no one spoke of it.”

Looking out across the distance, he shook his head. “It was in those dark days after the wizard wars. He was banished for the crime of killing another Elf.”

Elon was stunned. It shouldn’t have been possible for one Elf to kill another, if only for the agony they would feel. It was bad enough in battle, but cold murder such as men did?

It was clearly a painful memory for Talesin.

“After the wizard wars we thought we had done with all that. Mornith was a Halfling we took in toward the end of the wars. Unbeknownst to us, he’d taken up with one of the wizards who practiced dark magic. He killed that one once he learned everything that one had to teach him, and the trick of stealing magic. We truly thought  he’d only killed a dark wizard, not that he had taken that magic on himself. Then he killed another Elf. His First among Equals. It was only luck that we caught him. We managed to overpower him and banished him from the Enclaves. He would be a little older than Elon here now. From the sounds of it he’s continued his habit of stealing magic from others. Few knew about it, the knowledge of it remained with the Firsts of that day and myself. It seems he’s decided to return.”

He shook his head.

Given all they’d been through lately, Elon thought, they should all put such grim things behind them for a time. He needed it for himself, as well.

“We should sleep, most of us have had difficult times lately,” he said. “Mornith, for now, is a problem for another day. And there’s little that can be done about him at the moment.”

The good night’s rest did everyone wonders.

After so much it was no surprise then when Colath and Elon brought out their swords, and Ailith’s with them.

The smile that lit her face when Elon handed them to her was nearly reward enough but he knew there would be more. He needed this, as did Colath and as did she.

They started with the forms, moving through them slowly and gracefully. With nothing demanding their attention there was no need to rush. Each fell in sync with the others. Their graceful movements soothed and relaxed. They had no need to think, simply to do and feel. Their expressions became tranquil as tension drained away, as they merged and the bond flowed easily from one to the other. Finding their balance again, strength to strength, one to the other.

As inevitable as the wind across the fields Elon stepped out, Colath and Ailith flanked him and their swords met. Each movement flowed, longsword to shortsword, shortsword to longsword. The swords rang again like bells, at first slow, and then faster and faster still, until they rang like a gentle carillon. It slowed, sped up, changed rhythm, each shift met by the other two. Slow breath by slow breath, lungs filling, exhaling. It was exhilarating and enthralling, a healing not merely of the body, but of the soul. Repairing the damage to spirits worn by pain, by need, by demand and command. They flowed one into the other.

And at last, as one, they stopped.

For three days they had peace, gathering on the green to sit and to talk, or sit and not talk as they repaired their weapons harness, honed their swords, repaired clothing. Each day the three paced through the forms, flexing muscles abused by demand, changing it now and then, finding their way back once again to each other. In its own way, it was another kind of healing. And not just for them, but those that watched.

On the fourth day, they’d just finished the forms when Ailith suddenly went. Like a compass her head swung north. There was a faraway look in her eyes.

Everyone went still.

Ailith struggled to make meaning of it, of what she saw inside her head, of the lights and the sudden darkness that swept across them.

She rubbed her arms briskly as a chill swept over her in time with the knowledge. Her breath caught.

“It’s begun. Eagles Peak falls.”

It was one of the Kingdoms high to the north that she’d thought was prepared. She swallowed, hard, against the sorrow.

Elon’s heart sank and yet it had been inevitable. Their idyll here was done.

Jareth asked, “How many?”

Letting a breath out, Ailith sighed. Sharp pain pierced her and yet it was heartache only.

It was like watching an eclipse as the shadow swallowed up the light.

She took another shuddering breath. Looked at him. She couldn’t speak. Tried again.

“It falls,” she said, evenly, with slight emphasis on the last word. Her eyes were solemn.

There were no survivors, at least not enough to light the darkness. What survivors there were would be fodder for dark wizards.

It hit them all then, what it was she meant. Folk were dying up there, behind the snow.

Jareth swore softly and pounded on one of pillars.

Colath looked away over the quiet green hills with their scattering of sheep and goats. It wouldn’t be quiet like this for long.

Without a word Jalila gathered up her fletching gear.

As Ailith remembered Eagles Peak it had seemed a pretty little town at the foot of the mountain, with the castle rising high above. All those lives. The lights going out in a flood, a tide. If there were survivors, they were lost in the darkness. Alone.

Elon took her by the shoulders, looked down at into her blue eyes.

“Stop looking, Ailith,” he said, evenly. “You must stop looking. Look away.”

“Elon,” she said, on a shaken breath.

She looked up into his dark eyes, at the compassion there in them, sighed and let it go. She nodded.

A few more days of the forms, of that serene union, was all Elon had wanted. He’d hoped for more time, a few more days of peace. It wasn’t to be. There was no more time and no more peace.

“The army?” he asked.

Ailith turned her head southward and her eyes unfocussed as searching for lights in pattern, a flow like a stream.

“Moving,” she said.

Her blue-gray eyes lifted to meet Elon’s. “They move too slow, Elon. They’ll never reach the north in time.”

It was as he feared.

No one questioned it, like Jalila, they gathered their things.

Talesin turned his horse to face the west.

Elon looked at Jalila. “You can go with him. This isn’t part of our mission. Daran hasn’t called our people up yet.”

Calmly, Jalila looked back at him. She took a breath and thought of her son, riding with the Hunters.

“He will. In the end it doesn’t matter. I’ve been with this and you since the beginning. I’ll see it to the end. My blood-line is secure.”