The Unchosen: Book One of The Queen Beyond

by Simon Markusson

  He had his own problems as well, though he hoped they wouldn’t turn as bad as Alwarul’s. He remembered the woman he’d seen appear out of nowhere outside Silverstream, and he shuddered. But he was gradually becoming convinced that his rather disturbing experiences the last few days could be attributed to such simple things as weariness and an unwise diet — a passing condition if he could only correct his habits. Remember to be rational when things seem strange, and you’ll not feel as embarrassed after the spell has passed. Damn me if I’ll go childish with fear again. I’ll bloody keep my wits from now on. Shadows and winds don’t scare me.

  The roads led away along patterns of settlements and acculturation, but the knight took them cross-country instead, first through light woodlands and then through denser forests along winding game trails. A quicker way, he assured them, yet they also had to be wary of rocks and roots. It was darker beneath the trees, and the air was heavy with the scents of moss and sap.

  “We’ll continue until we’re at the other side,” Sir Conrad informed them from ahead. “Then we’ll enter the first grasslands of the Harp. Two more days after that, and we’ll reach Richard’s Defense. The longer part of our journey will be through Rurhav, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes,” Alwarul said, riding up to him with his courser. “But we are quite confident in our course, Sir Hardae.”

  “So you are,” the knight observed. “Do not misunderstand me. I am little worried by the perils of the Savage Hills. Of course, if it happened that you were all slain, the countess would be displeased with me.”

  “Are ye suggesting that we aren’t able to deal with such a simple matter as moving through some lawless lands, eh?” Molgrimin sounded insulted. “If that is what ye’re saying, then why don’t ye have that sword out, and I’ll show ye displeased.”

  The knight turned to give the upset moinguir an odd look while the squire grinned sheepishly at his side. “Calm yourself, moinguir. Fighting you is the last thing I’d wish to do.”

  Molgrimin harrumphed, but he seemed pleased with what he understood as submission. Nathelion thanked the gods that the knight had phrased himself so.

  They passed the evening in the saddle, and the sky darkened. By then, they kept a strenuous silence as they rode. When Tim whispered something to his knight mentor, everyone noticed it. Nathelion did not hear what precisely had gotten the squire so flustered, but Sir Conrad spoke up, sounding annoyed. “Have you become a child again, Tim? One who is afraid of the dark makes for a poor knight.”

  The squire hushed down, undoubtedly regretting having shared his thoughts.

  “What?” Nathelion asked. “Did he see something?”

  “Goblins and trolls, no doubt,” the knight guessed. “For I can say with some certainty that no bandits would lie in wait along this path.”

  Luckily, your squire hasn’t heard Alwarul’s stories, Nathelion thought. That would leave him sleepless.

  “To tell ye truly,” Molgrimin said quietly by his side. “I’m not liking what’s in the air much either.”

  “And why is that?” Nathelion asked, expecting to hear some tiresome ghost story.

  “Don’t ye feel it, lad?” the moinguir replied. “There is a strangeness to this night.”

  Nathelion looked about casually, refusing to be anxious. Suddenly, though, the hushed darkness seemed to fill with threats. “It’s a bit spooky, but so are many nights when you let them. Especially out in the woods. It’s all in your head, though. Everything is the same except for the darkness.”

  “Aye,” Molgrimin said, his orange eyes glimmering. “The darkness.”

  Nathelion sighed. It was impossible to have an ordinary conversation with the moinguir. Yet he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable himself. I’m just weary.

  Alwarul had begun to seem strangely restless, too, turning his head this way and that as if trying to catch a scent or a sound. The trees swayed in the winds, their branches making sounds as if unseen watchers sniggered cruelly in the shadows. And above, the dark clouds lay as heavy as a ceiling.

  “Look, Tim, we are fortunate,” the knight said ahead of them. “Here, we reach the end of this kobold-infested forest. Hopefully, they shall not follow us.”

  They did indeed ride out of the shadows of the crowding trees, emerging at the top of a steep incline going down to grassy fields. The grass looked ashen gray in the darkness. In the distance, hills rose and fell away, crowned with shadowy thickets that whipped violently in passing hales.

  “We go no farther,” Sir Conrad declared, dismounting. “Not tonight. We’ll have our fire beneath these trees and hope we’ll be safe from rain. Tim, see to my horse.”

  Molgrimin remained mounted a bit longer than the others. “I think we should continue,” he grumbled, loud enough for Nathelion to hear.

  “And why is that?” Nathelion asked the dwarf, carrying down his saddle to prop it against a stone. When he gathered some feed from one of the bags, Skull did not wait for him to offer it up before taking it from his hand. “Hungry, are you?” he asked the horse, smiling.

  “Why?” Molgrimin asked back, still in the saddle of his golden yilval. “Something is coming. Nay, it is pouring in. Are ye not worried, lad?”

  “You really take after Alwarul,” Nathelion said in a way that wouldn’t make for insult. The old man was efficiently taking care of his own new courser a bit away from them, out of earshot. Alwarul looked wary, however. So did the horses, Nathelion noticed. They neighed anxiously, giving up the odd whinny while taking some restless steps in the chill. Even the golden yilval tossed her head a bit, her mane rippling and shimmering, and Molgrimin grudgingly dismounted to calm the steed. All the animals seemed unsettled except for Skull. The night-black destrier gave a few snorts, but those seemed more angry than afraid.

  Sir Conrad sat down on the thick roots of a pine and began sharpening his longsword. “Tim, make a fire. I can’t bloody see,” the knight said when his squire finished with the horses, and the boy went swiftly to collect firewood.

  Nathelion took the opportunity to treat himself to some lovely bread, chewing it down hungrily with a few sloshes from his waterskin. Molgrimin put his saddle down next to Nathelion’s and joined him for the meal. “Aren’t you going to tie your horse?” Nathelion asked when the dwarf was seated beside him. He himself had made sure to tie Skull’s reins to a sturdy-enough branch. The yilval suddenly whinnied and galloped away among the trees, its astounding agility letting it hop nimbly over the uneven ground until tree trunks and darkness hid it from view.

  “Not a horse,” Molgrimin said without showing any sign of worry, chewing on some salt beef and a bit of a loaf. “Meriehse comes back.”

  “You let your horses go free?” Nathelion asked, incredulous.

  “Not horses, Nathan,” the dwarf repeated. “Ye’d be surprised to learn how smart the yilval are. Ye can hardly call them animals. Deviously clever. Aye, and wiser than most men I’ve met. They’ll lead ye to water if they like ye, and show ye what roots and herbs will help ye. And they’re quick to notice danger, too. Among my people, there are plenty of charming stories of the yilval told to the children. And most are true as well, or at least could be.”

  “Your mounts are truly that tame?”

  “Nay!” The moinguir laughed at him. “Not tame at all, I’m telling ye. There’s no breaking the yilval to the saddle. Horrible thought! They aren’t wearing it unless they want to themselves. Friendship must be forged, and then it must be kept. A yilval that has taken a liking to ye will carry ye, and they never abandon their riders in peril. Ye’ll find no braver creatures than the yilval.”

  Nathelion smiled at that. “Then you have found a fitting mount.”

  Molgrimin’s grin broadened. “Aye, aye. In Kast-Harnax, it is commonly said that the gods knew what they were doing when they placed us both in the mountains. The yilval have been grazing outside our dwellings fer as long as we can remember, and their golden herds are more precious to us than all the gold w
e dig from the rock.”

  The dwarf looked up when the squire made a sound of complaint. Tim had gathered a large pile of dry sticks and branches, and he sat crouched next to it with a pair of flints. It seemed he had encountered problems getting them to spark, though.

  “Let me show ye how to do it, lad,” Molgrimin said, and he rummaged for a bottle of some beverage in his pack. “Waste of good drink,” he complained, but he spilled some drops over the pile of wood. After swallowing the rest and tossing the bottle aside, the moinguir crouched down next to the squire and took the flints. Molgrimin needed to strike the stones together only once for sparks to rain down in a shower over the pile, and soon, the fire burned strong. The moinguir held the flints out to the squire, but when Tim was about to take them, one fell from Molgrimin’s hand and into the fire. “Cursed be it!” the dwarf exclaimed, looking into the flames for the lost flint, but the fire already prevented anyone from retrieving it. “Ah, I can see it.”

  Nathelion frowned when Molgrimin rolled up his sleeve. “What are you...” He had no time to finish his sentence before he found himself staring.

  The moinguir reached his hand right into the fire to dig out the stone he’d dropped, the flames enveloping his arm. The dwarf happily handed the stone over to Tim again. “It isn’t hot yet.”

  Nathelion was as mute as the squire. He couldn’t have put his hand in the fire. I must have seen wrong. He must have...somehow found a space between the flames.

  But before he had time to finish the thought, the dwarf proceeded to take his piece of salted beef and thrust it into the fire, holding it in the flames with his bare fist. Now Nathelion gaped.

  “How do you do that?” Tim asked with a marveling voice. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  Molgrimin chuckled. “This? This is just warmth, boy. How could it hurt? Ye might as well hurt yerself on a soft piece of fur as a fire.”

  “But...fur doesn’t turn things to ashes!” the youth exclaimed. “How come you don’t burn yourself?”

  The moinguir shrugged. “My kind is of the fire and of the cold both. It’s how it always was. Aye, I can’t see how else it would be.”

  “Tim, don’t sit there and chat!” Sir Conrad called. “You have some time to practice now. Do that.” The squire got up without question and walked away to work with his sword beneath the closest trees upon the slope — only throwing a few glances back at the dwarf.

  Nathelion couldn’t remain where he sat either. He rose and walked over to Molgrimin by the fire, needing to see the wonder up close. “That’s impossible...”

  Molgrimin grinned proudly. “Aye, and ye are impossibly tall as well. Many creatures in this world seem strange to each other. Impossible, now, that’s just a small perspective.”

  Nathelion looked at him and then at the fire again. “But it should consume your flesh just as it does the branches. And your beef.”

  “Oh!” Molgrimin noticed that his food was blackening. He pulled it out of the fire and snuffed the flames that lingered on it. The meat was already covered in a black and unsavory crust, and the moinguir shook his head. “Well, that hardly makes fer a good meal,” he said. “Still food, though.”

  Nathelion was certain that he wouldn’t have been able to eat it himself.

  “But nay,” Molgrimin said after he’d swallowed the food. “The moinguir won’t burn before rocks do. Saying it ought to be different doesn’t change anything.”

  “But that life can withstand such heat, any life, that’s...”

  “Bloody fortunate for us,” Molgrimin finished for him. “Deep in the mountains, where our hottest forges burn, aye, where hâlor is melted and shaped, there, ye can’t walk if ye don’t withstand heat. Only the moinguir can go there. Only we can shape that invaluable metal in the red light of those rivers of molten rock. Wood catches fire from the very air, as does any kind of fabric, and the smiths are clad in special alloys that resist monstrous heat. Aye, but that is where we make our finest craft. In the depths of Kast-Harnax, we forge the weapons of legend.”

  Nathelion didn’t know what to say, or even what to think. “Is it true that you can conjure gold with a hymn?” he asked, ready for anything at that moment.

  Molgrimin laughed. “Nay, that is a story, of course. But we need not conjure it, for we can find all the precious veins in all the hardest mountains. And we shape gold as skillfully as we cut precious stones, and all the rulers of men yearn for things of our making. Our smiths make yers seem like clumsy apprentices just starting out with the hammer.”

  “Incredible,” Nathelion breathed. “But how does anyone ever afford it, then, when you already have all that gold?”

  “Of course, when we trade with yer kind, it is not precious metals that we seek in return. Favors, most often, and they are handed out eagerly. Aye, and our mountains are always left undisturbed.”

  There truly are some odd things in this world. It made Nathelion uncertain in many ways. He would need to profoundly reassess his idea of reality. Bloody hell, what more insane things will be revealed as true?

  “Nathelion,” Sir Conrad suddenly called, pulling him out of reflection. “Come over here. Show Tim your technique again, if you would.” The knight was still caring for his sword, but Tim was not avoiding his scrutiny.

  Nathelion got up heavily, feeling reluctant even when he knew that it was too late to get out of the role he had fallen into. He showed the squire the motions until Tim mastered them admirably. I’ll get him killed, teaching him this. But he was not relieved from his task even after the squire could perform that treacherous technique, and his guilt grew when Sir Conrad insisted that he teach the boy another parry and attack.

  “Using only one weapon this time.”

  Nathelion again worked rapidly to find some maneuver that would seem feasible, and he soon modified the first after a fashion. This time, he would strike away his opponent’s sword and then whirl while stepping in to have his blade follow around and come slashing from the same direction.

  Nathelion demonstrated it, surprised at how swiftly he could perform the motions. Sir Conrad nodded to himself while Tim practiced.

  “Blademaster, have a seat,” the knight said, though he did not stop honing his blade. Nathelion sat down on a stone next to the man. “I always thought it sound to learn what I could from different warriors. It helped me much in Rurhav, knowing how the barbarians fought,” the knight said, still looking at his blade. “You’ll find a kind of simplicity there, more brutal yet clean. The barbarians are dauntless, and their recklessness becomes a great advantage to them whenever they face folk who value their lives more. What is a feigned attack to one who would not worry about a real one? You’ll find no dance with the barbarians. You’ll find an ugly melee ended quickly, one way or the other. I once saw a big barbarian engaged in combat with a knight who had excelled in the training court of Castle Sacrifice. This was in a skirmish, south of the river Druhm — if you know where it lies — in the northwest of the Hills, just off the coast. Regardless, the barbarian was a huge man, roaring as he swung a long-hafted axe that seemed in his hands like it could cleave a boulder. The knight was young, but he knew to wait for the savage and did not rush into the reach of that axe. He did well — he read the barbarian well, that is — and when the anticipated attack came, he stepped aside from the blow, dodging it. The barbarian did not back away after a missed swing but instead tried to bash the knight with his axe again. Now the knight had his chance to parry, though, for this blow was slower and less forceful than the first. He did it so well that he cut off the axe head from the handle and then moved in to stab his sword straight through the barbarian’s gut.

  “That would have been the end of it against any other type of warrior, and the knight did indeed believe himself victorious. But the savage roared as before, drove the axe handle through the knight’s unprotected eye, and then pulled out the sword from his stomach to continue fighting with a blade that was drenched in his own black blood. He died a while later
— from the wound. But not before he had slain two other good men who did not know what kind of warrior they faced.”

  Nathelion was silent at that, unsure of what to say. “So, this is why you wish me to show Tim how I fight?”

  “I will not have him fight like you,” the knight confessed bluntly. Nathelion couldn’t help but feel relieved at that. “Indeed, to execute the techniques you suggest in combat...that would take a demon, not a knight.” Sir Conrad gave Nathelion an uninterpretable look. “I saw your speed, so perhaps you are that demon. But not everyone is blessed with such restless muscle. For Tim, though, it will be good to know what to watch for if ever he has the misfortune of facing someone who is indeed master of your strange tactics. Or if he faces someone fool enough to try them without being a master.”

  Nathelion looked down, but he turned the gesture into a thoughtful nod. “Fair enough,” he said. “And I assume you shall teach him to take advantage of this knowledge?”

  “I will,” Sir Conrad said, unabashed. “I teach him the way of fighting that has kept me alive. I have faced stronger men than myself, Nathelion, quicker men, men with better weapons, and men with more skill. And still, I live, while they do not.”

  “Because you fight simply?” Nathelion wondered.

  “Because I fight in the way that is demanded of me,” Sir Conrad said. “Yes, I approach the engagement simply, without tricks and without show — eyeing my opponent in search of their strengths and their weaknesses while trying to hide my own. And if I am right in my judgment, if I come to know my foe quickly enough, then I win. So far, I have been successful.”

  “I’m sure,” Nathelion said. “The countess vouched for your prowess.”

  Sir Conrad barked a laugh at that, though it held little warmth. The man’s face retained its hard edges even under the smile, and his eyes did not change at all. Suddenly, it seemed to Nathelion that the knight accompanying them might indeed be more dangerous a man than he had at first thought.