by R K Lander
Borhen complied with the silent command.
Slowly, the three Alpine recruits regained their feet, staring all the while at Fel’annár in something akin to horror, not even aware that a crowd had gathered behind them. One cradled his wrist while the other rubbed his shoulder. Borhen though, simply sneered, touching his forehead and checking his fingers for blood.
“You see,” said Fel’annár lightly as he approached Borhen until his face was but inches from the now completely serious Alpine. “I told you I would not hit you,” he said with a subtle smile, and then stalked past the seething elf, nodding at Idernon and Ramien.
As they walked back to the barracks, Fel’annár said nothing at all; the recruits though, had exploded into excited chatter, gesticulating wildly as they spoke of wrist controls and how to unbalance your opponent. The news would not take long to travel back to their commanding officer and Fel’annár would surely be in trouble, yet the days passed by and still, nothing had happened. Fel’annár had not been summoned to Lainon’s office and the recruits had simply followed their routines, albeit the atmosphere in the barracks had changed. Before, there had been hard work and camaraderie, but now, there was excitement, especially amongst the Silvan recruits.
Fel’annár had inspired them and Idernon smiled, for he had, in some small way, become a leader—the leader he had always known resided inherently in his dear friend, latent—until now.
Chapter Four
Princes of Ea Uaré
“…and so, Or’Talán of Tar’eastór rode to Ea Uaré and was proclaimed King, for the Silvans were accepting of him and he in turn, loved them well. He ruled and died upon the dunes of Calrazia and his son, Thargodén, took the throne. Brave and strong, our new king took a noble Alpine lady as his queen. She gave him two sons and a daughter before departing for Valley: Rinon, Handir and Maeneth. Lord Band’orán, brother of King Or’Talán never seconded the rightful king, his own nephew, and began a new movement, one that sought to bring Alpine splendour to the forests of Ea Uaré. It was then that our land became divided …”
The Silvan Chronicles, Book III. Marhené
***
Far away, towards the North and the troubled lands, a blood-curdling scream turned into a hoarse wail, waves of agony piercing the very souls of those that tried to help the warrior. But there was no hope; this, Rinon knew, even though he was not a healer.
And so, he sat there, looking down upon his life-long friend, his own uniform torn and stained. Reaching out with a bloodied hand, he clamped down desperately against the shoulder of the writhing warrior.
Let it stop, he begged to himself, let the suffering stop – it is enough – it is too much.
But Rinon knew that it wouldn’t, as did the healers who watched on helplessly – another commander, another broken family. The warrior’s breath shuddered to a halt as another wave of excruciating torment wracked his frame and it seemed all the muscles in his body tensed involuntarily, lifting him for a moment from the soiled bedding. Spittle flew from his lips, as another howl of brutal agony swelled in his chest and then split the heavy silence once more. Tears welled in Rinon’s eyes as his hand pressed bruisingly against Har’Sidón’s shoulder, eyes unwilling to register the mangled flesh and shattered bone, the ruined remains of his legs.
How could it be, he asked – that one so skilled and powerful – could be reduced to this? He had laughed and cried with this warrior. Had witnessed his troth, saved his life, drank cups with him. How could it be that he lay here now, upon the borders of Valley, screaming and writhing – incomprehensible agony his last, bitter taste of life.
Let it stop – please- let it stop. It is enough…
Another cry escaped the broken captain but this time it was weaker, his voice failing, mouth frozen wide, eyes open yet unseeing – glazed, absent.
Healers were atop him, around him, pressing him down but Rinon’s eyes were anchored on his friend’s face, watching as Har’Sidón’s head lulled to the side, the muscle beneath Rinon’s hand softening.
“Har…” his own voice broke, eyes welling in crushing pity and sudden panic for his friend was slipping away in the wake of ill-deserved suffering.
A hand shot up and latched onto Rinon’s collar, pulling him down with surprising strength until Rinon’s face was inches from that of his dying friend. But no words passed Har’Sidón’s lips for his breath had caught in his throat and would not be loosed, eyes bulging in sudden surety and utter terror.
Rinon watched through a watery haze as the immortal light in his friend’s eyes slowly petered out, leaving them dull and blind, eyelids drooping half-shut as his chest shuddered, and then was still.
The healers froze, hands hovering over cooling flesh, watching as Rinon’s head fell heedlessly against the smooth forehead of Captain Har’Sidón, commander of the Northern patrol of Ea Uaré.
Rinon slowly moved back until he looked down on his friend’s lifeless form and even though he cried, his jaw clenched and his eyes sharpened until they were piercing shards of ice.
“We will leave you for a moment, my Prince,” came the soft voice of a healer, his strong hand squeezing Rinon’s shoulder in sympathy before moving away.
Rinon’s mind showed him his friend’s bride, his children, eyes begging for answers yet how could he tell them of the horrific death their father had suffered? How could he tell them that he had been caught and mauled by Deviants, that they had bitten into him like starved bears – not for food but for the sheer, perverse pleasure of wrenching shrieks of agony from his friend. He would not and he suddenly wanted to laugh bitterly – what was the expression? Ah yes – ‘he died honourably in battle.’ He had died honourably, but questions would surely ensue. They would want to feel the balm of reassurance that he had not suffered, and Rinon would spare them from the cruelty of truth.
Rinon’s eyes slipped to the right at the rustle of rich fabrics at his side.
“Rinon,” a flat yet commanding voice.
“My King,” replied Rinon, Crown Prince of Ea Uaré, eyes lingering on the ruined form of Har’Sidón before turning to his father, who was already staring back at him, expression unreadable but his eyes – his eyes were those of Har’Sidón – dull and blank, unfocussed even though he lived; dead eyes, set in the face of one whose will had faded many years ago, an elf that had shut himself away from the world, even from his own children. Was it for shame? Was it the loss of his queen? His own, inherent weakness or the battle he was slowly losing with Band’orán who was ever driving a wedge between the different races of Ea Uaré.
Rinon despised him for even then, while bitter tears lingered in his own eyes, his father’s eyes were as dry as the northern sands. Unfeeling, frigid, lifeless.
Rinon schooled his features with little success, nostrils flaring and eyes glinting. With a curt nod, he turned on his heels and left amidst the saddened stares of the healers, and Thargodén was left alone before the evidence.
His land was at war.
He was a failing king.
***
Prince Handir sat in the family chambers of the royal suite, high above the bustling courtyard below. A book on Deep Silvan lore sat open on his lap and on any other day, it would have held his interest; but today, his mind found itself elsewhere and so he closed the heavy tome, a little too hard, sending a plume of dust into the afternoon rays of sun. It was a testimony to how little this book had been read in recent times, he mused sadly.
He sighed, his warm, blue eyes turning to the window and focusing on the activity below.
He saw warriors and craftsmen, tutors and healers, statesmen, lords and ladies, all decked in rich finery as they glided over the courtyard—tiny from this height yet close enough to see their predominantly blond hair and pale skin. But Handir’s eyes did not focus on any of them, for today his thoughts were for himself and what tomorrow would, inevitably bring.
He had studied long and hard, had excelled in history and strategy, practiced the art of rhetoric and logic until Councillor Aradan had been thoroughly satisfied, for Handir was the king’s son and so it was not enough that he be good, the royal councillor had argued. One day, the boy would counsel his own, royal father, their monarch no less; he could not afford to be anything less than perfect.
Few royal councillors had made a name for themselves, mused Handir. Not that that was his utmost priority for it was not, yet neither was he adverse to the idea of notoriety; indeed Lord Damiel of Tar’eastór came to his mind. The Alpine had earned fame for his skills of negotiation—what Handir would not do to meet him, to ask him, to observe and to learn from him. It seemed an impossible task, for Tar’eastór was so far away across the Median Mountains, and the road so treacherous—and Handir was no warrior.
He huffed to himself then, for what was he thinking? His father would never let him go. The second prince of Ea Uaré had long ago decided it was better to say naught of his dream and thus believe it was possible, rather than ask and have it cruelly quashed under the pretence of keeping him safe.
Aradan had driven him hard enough, he reckoned, and Thargodén had done nothing to stop him, but whether that had been fuelled by the desire for his son to excel, or simply the fruit of indifference, Handir could not say. The fact was that the culmination of his studies would come tomorrow, when he would take the test, and should he pass, he would become Councillor Aradan’s apprentice, a man of state.
The thought set his stomach to fluttering and an onerous weight settled in his chest. He was nervous, despite his best attempts to remain aloof.
His eyes returned to the present, and then strayed to his elder brother who stood before the magnificent, full-length window, as rigid as the stone wall beside him. He moved not an inch and it seemed to Handir that he was not real, a painted portrait, a moment frozen in time, until a strand of silver hair danced around his temple and brought him to life.
His hands were clasped tightly behind his straight back for Rinon was always alert, always ready, his head high and his frosty, blue eyes dangerous and forbidding. He rarely smiled, rarely touched anyone in affection. He was as fiery as the desert sun, as cold as the southern glaciers, and just as ruthless.
That rigid, unfeeling face that now stared out over the Evergreen Wood had not always been there and where now it defined who the Crown Prince had become, once that extraordinary face had been kind and soft. Handir still remembered when they had played and laughed and both parents had basked in the love and pride they had for their three children. It was what had held his parents together—their children—Handir reminded himself.
His eyes wandered sideways of their own accord until they latched onto a portrait that hung on the far wall—his mother, the departed queen. Those days of happiness were brutally swept aside one strange day when she had announced her departure to Valley. Rinon and Handir had been adults, and Maeneth only barely past her majority. Still, all three were old enough to read between the lines, to see beyond their mother’s lame excuses which they simply had not understood, still did not. It had been the trigger for their great uncle’s machinations, his vision of an Alpine-ruled Ea Uaré, where the days of glory in their homeland of Tar’eastór would be lived here too, in foreign lands, despite the native Silvans.
The love the three siblings had once lavished upon their mother turned sour, for how could she leave her children? What terrible thing had been done to her that she would turn her back on them in search of her own happiness, away to Valley?
But leave she had and Thargodén had become numb. Band’orán was ecstatic.
The royal children had shouted, then pleaded, begged their father for the truth behind their mother’s departure but he would not yield. Their frustration slowly turned to disdain, to rejection and the loss of affection, and only the passing of time had tempered it, putting it into perspective and making it bearable for them at least.
Of course, scandals such as these were never kept secret for long, and sure enough, the three siblings came to hear the rumours—heard them and believed them, for they made sense and their father’s silence seemed all the proof they needed.
Their father had erred, had been unfaithful to their mother and she, unable to understand or condone, had simply left. It hurt because her own feelings of betrayal seemed to have been much stronger than the love she had held for her children. It had stung and each had reacted in their own, unique way; Rinon with hatred towards a father that had turned cold, Handir with sorrow and frustration. Maeneth had been sent away to distant relations in Pelagia, home of the Sea Elves.
Handir was lucky for the friendship he shared with Lainon, his ex-bodyguard. The Spirit Warrior had taught him much, had supported him in his times of need when his cold brother would not, and his father cared not, caught as he was in his own web of shame and sorrow.
His thoughts were interrupted, for the king had arrived, and his mind was no longer free to wander.
***
There was a deep, hollow rumbling in the distance, a sound Thargodén knew well—it was the sound of warriors rushing home, hooves thundering over the ground, spurred on by desperate riders. It would be an incoming missive, or a patrol returning with injured warriors. There were other possibilities – an attack, a battle, another death.
Ea Uaré was gradually falling into full-scale war to maintain its northernmost territories, which were slowly but inexorably being lain to waste by the Sand Lords from Calrazia, pushing southwards into Ea Uaré. As a result, they were driving the Deviants from their abodes on the mountain slopes to the North-east, and into the southern forests. If it hadn’t been for the Sand Lords they would have stayed there in their caves, scavenging for food and water for although their mission to the Source had failed and they had become Deviant, Valley always seemed to draw them, keep them in the mountains that bordered Tar’eastór, the ridges and ranges that shielded that place of mystery.
The battleground was no longer referred to as the northern borders but the Xeric Wood or the Crying Lands as the Ari’atór would say, for the battle that raged there was not only one of arrows and blades, but one of sheer will, the utter determination of the Deep Silvan foresters. Their only weapon was their woodcraft, their innate connection with the forest and their unparalleled knowledge of Aria’s creation. Brave elves settled purposefully close to the areas in conflict and attended the trees as best they could, bringing saplings with them to repopulate those areas where they had been indiscriminately felled or simply burned carelessly. Some called them pilgrims, while others thought them foolhardy, for they prolonged the inevitable, they said, and taxed the king’s warriors for these foresters were no fighters, at least not in the traditional sense.
The Deviants were becoming more numerous, bolder, more ruthless as they were forced out of the mountains, and so, Thargodén had ordered his commander in general, Pan’assár, to muster as many soldiers as he could and assign them to the Eastern and Western quadrants.
To the land in conflict—the North—he would send his most experienced warriors for it was said the Deviants were organising themselves, establishing a seat of power, slowly coming together into some semblance of social order. Thargodén believed it, they all did, although the Alpine purists would not openly recognise it for to deny this truth worked in their favour—using it to discredit the Silvans and their brave stand.
Band’orán. He was a fool, a dangerous fool.
The noise was louder now and Thargodén’s eyes began to make out the figures galloping through the forest on the City Road. It was the Western Patrol he realised and as he strained his eyes, he saw the foremost rider rode double, an elf sitting before him, his body jostled this way and that, helpless in the rider’s desperate embrace.
Perhaps it had been Sand Lords, he mused, or Deviants. It was not easy to be close to them he knew, still remembered. Thargodén
had killed many in his time as a warrior prince before kingship had utterly changed him. He had hunted them in their caves, even the females and the children. Dark memories, things he wanted to forget and yet how was that even possible? How could something as disturbing as Deviants be forgotten? They were rotting bodies with eternal souls and bitter hearts that turned heartless for they were broken and angry, and the face of any elf was enough to send them into a frenzy of hatred and unparalleled violence. It took a strong mind to fight them, to not think too much on what they had once been, of the dream they had shared to never die.
‘Strange,’ he thought as he looked out over the Evergreen Wood, for such darkness, such cruelty and defilement to be rampant there in the North and yet here beyond the forests of Ea Uaré lay this woodland paradise that was protected with everything they had, even by denying passage to any living thing save for the Silvan Foresters that nurtured it.
Thargodén, Alpine ruler of the Great Forest Belt stood upon the very tip of the mighty overhang, the Great Plateau that jutted out from the carved rock of his fortress kingdom, a platform that seemed almost to hang over the forest canopy, and any who stood upon it were thrust into its wild greenness, as if they floated upon a carpet of the living earth, poised from above to marvel at its wonders.
The overwhelming vastness of the forest rolled away majestically before him and into the horizon, until it softly kissed the snow-covered peaks of the Pelagian Mountains beyond, and a cool breeze gently lifted his silver locks, reverently almost, revealing his sharp, chiselled features, an Alpine silhouette of strength and nobility.
Yet there was no joy upon this singular face, no happiness sparkled in his eyes, no emotion at all save for the blank stare of an ancient Lord, a king of elves who ruled over his subjects and secured their lands but enjoyed none of it for himself, for everything he had been, his very source of motivation, had left—gone from his side.