The Elf and the Amulet

by Chris Africa

  He glanced back to see how Nita was faring, but Nita and Samuel were no longer with them.

  19: Separated

  One minute Nita was close behind William and Andrev; the next, a Northman was using his horse's imposing size to force her off the path. Her horse stumbled, found its feet, and shot off toward one of the shacks. Just when she thought they would crash, the horse turned again taking them on an even narrower route and forcing the Dalatois to follow.

  "I'm right behind you," a familiar voice yelled, and relief flooded her. She looked back over her shoulder to see Samuel followed closely by a Dalatois who towered over the two of them.

  There was nothing to do but ride. She leaned close to her horse’s neck and said, "If you’re a racer, now’s the time to show it." She loosened the reins and dug in her heels, and they flew like the wind out of one alley and into another. Nita was so turned around she couldn’t have found a gate if it was right in front of her.

  The road widened, and suddenly Samuel was beside her, between her and the Northman.

  "Go right here," he said, directing her back to one of the main streets. It turned out to be a prudent choice; the Dalatois lurched from his seat with two arrows in his chest and one in his neck.

  Samuel grinned and looked up at the rooftops. "We keep in practice, even when we aren’t having invasions. Come on. We can easily make it to the postern from here."

  Immediate danger past, they reined their mounts to a trot, giving them a break. Nita’s horse looked like it could still run halfway across the city again, but Samuel's horse was lathering at the bit and had begun to slow.

  "Who says you're no racer?" Nita cooed at the bay.

  "What's his name?" asked Samuel.

  "Erise Own Luck, according to Jared." The horses may have done all the work, but she was sweating like she'd run a mile on her own two feet.

  Samuel laughed. "Seems appropriate. I don’t know what else to call what just happened."

  Nita wrinkled her nose. "Well, I think it’s a horrible name, and I’m going to rename him as soon as I can think of a new one."

  Shouts and cries behind them had not let up. Nita tried not to think of what might be happening to the people because she had decided to visit their city.

  "I don’t even know why," she said aloud.

  "Why?"

  "Why the Northmen are after me," she finished. "I don’t know what they want."

  "Maybe the messenger was wrong. Maybe the Northmen are after your friend Chassy or that William fellow. He seems like the shady type," Samuel suggested.

  "He’s not shady, he’s just mysterious," Nita defended.

  She thought of William’s curly golden hair, dreamy blue eyes and broad shoulders. It was enough to make any woman melt. Maybe that was why Andrev and Chassy didn’t like him—they were probably just jealous. By contrast, Andrev was rail thin, stooped from hunching over his books all the time, and always unhappy-looking. Chassy was just a dirty, average boy, who would rather shave his head than comb his hair (and in fact, had done so more than once).

  "Well, if it’s not you, then it must be one of them," Samuel said. "If I were you, I’d be considering carefully who I could trust."

  Nita slowed her horse abruptly. "That sounds like good advice. Why should I trust you, Samuel Heike?"

  Samuel gave her a crooked smile. "Maybe you shouldn't. But right now, I am all you’ve got."

  20: Across the River

  "Andrev!" Chassy called.

  Andrev glanced back once, twice. "Where's Nita?" he yelled.

  "I don’t know."

  "I'm going to double back and look for her." Andrev started to move away, but William deftly snagged his reins and held their horses close.

  "If you split off now, they'll hunt us down one at a time," he shouted. "We'll find her later."

  Chassy felt like half a coward admitting it, but William was right. A guard's son would know the city well. If she wasn't safe with Samuel, there was nothing Chassy or Andrev could do for her.

  The glow of fire basked the city in an eerie light, morphing their shadows into monstrous shapes that hunted them alongside the Northmen. Stars and moons had disappeared behind a vast cloud of smoke.

  "Where are we going?" Chassy asked.

  "Fishermen’s gate." William turned his horse down another side street they may or may not have already tried. Chassy couldn’t tell one from the next. The streets themselves were little more than alleys. The homes were all equally dark, narrow, and crowded on both sides with indistinguishable shacks.

  A puff of smoke lifted, and he could see that they were approaching the fishermen’s gate, which appeared to be unguarded. A guard's dead body dangled from the wall by one leg trapped between broken stones. The gate swung crooked from one hinge, the entrance just wide enough for one person at a time. They galloped through the narrow opening and pulled up short when half a dozen guards drew swords in front of them.

  "We’re not the ones you want. There are three Northmen coming!" Chassy said.

  The guards looked at each other, then broke and fled cursing in different directions. Chassy shook his head in disgust. And he had thought himself a coward! Delayed by the width of their horses, which were too broad to fit through the opening, the Dalatois dismounted and raced toward them on foot.

  Chassy followed William and Andrev through deserted neighborhoods of lean-tos built against the inner city wall by the fishing folk. A couple of quick turns and they were standing at the ferry dock.

  "I’m closed for the evening," growled the owner, lifting a wineskin to his mouth. His half-closed, bloodshot eyes told Chassy he’d had more than one wineskin tonight.

  "How much?" William insisted, tossing a handful of coins on the ground in front of him. The portly man eyed the coin and took another unsteady drink. This time, he almost poured the wine into his nose.

  "How much?" William's sword was tucked neatly under the ferryman's chin. Chassy remembered that position and did not envy him, but the ferryman just looked slowly up the blade and met William's eye.

  "Twice that for fine folk such as yourself," he slurred. "Whas all that noise about, up-city?" He waved a hand toward the way they had come from.

  "Big tavern brawl." William tossed another handful of coins, then took his horse onto the barge, motioning Chassy and Andrev to follow.

  "This here barge don’t take horses. That would be upriver some." The ferryman hoisted his substantial body out of the dirt, catching a hitching post to keep himself upright. Chassy wondered if it was such a good idea to get on any kind of transportation with this man at the post. Apparently, beggars could not be choosy.

  "For the gold I paid, you'll take a rabid wolf if I say so," said William, "or I’m cutting this barge loose."

  The ferryman scowled and lumbered onto the barge. They were beyond jumping distance when their pursuers finally caught up, pulling short at the edge of the river. They seemed to be arguing about something, but Chassy couldn't hear them. By the time the barge reached the other side of the river, the Dalatois had disappeared.

  "We can’t travel the roads," William said after the ferryman pushed off to cross back to the other side. "We’ll be too easy to find."

  "Then why did you insist on bringing the horses across? What are we going to do with them?" Chassy wondered.

  "We’ll release them in the woods. They’ll eventually find their way to a village. Better than leaving them back across the river with giants and Northmen."

  After all William's threats to the ferryman, they left their horses on the other side of the river and struck out into the woods on foot. Chassy pushed through the thick undergrowth, hacking here and there with one of his daggers. William was taller, but slimmer, and he left a little path for Chassy to follow. All three of them had tears in their breeches from plowing through the brambles, but Chassy also had a hole in his right foot from stepping on the thorn of a Dragon’s Tooth Tree. Had the Dalatois been able to follow, he would never have escaped.


  "Stop cutting branches," Andrev complained. "Do you want to lead them right to us?"

  Chassy looked back at the crushed and broken forest behind them. "We’re not exactly light on our feet."

  "They'd have no trouble finding us even if we were wood elves," William said without looking back. "If they can smell their prey halfway across a city like Sunoa, being the only humans in this wood makes us an easy target."

  "How long before we can rest?" Chassy asked. "My foot is starting to swell."

  "We have a long walk, and I'm going to push you until you can't go anymore. Our best bet is to head back toward the river, take a ship south a bit until we lose them, then come back north on foot."

  Chassy looked at Andrev. The river only flowed north, toward the ocean. How could they take a ship south. "Won't the river just take us back to the Nareeth?"

  "Not past the Divide," William said. "The runoff from the mountains flows both north and south there. We'll embark on the south side."

  Their progress became slower as the day dragged on, until finally Andrev was half supporting Chassy. He was also the only one of the three who hadn't lost his pack in the fray, so they had a meager meal of dried sausages and bread. They rolled under some low branches to sleep, and William had to drag him out in the morning. It was not until the second stumbling day of their journey in the wood that Chassy remembered Lyear and groaned.

  "It’s going to take us days to catch up to him now, if we ever do," he complained.

  "Who?" asked Andrev and William.

  "Our friend," Chassy said.

  "You mean, your 'not friend'," William said. "Can we at least give him a name, so we can talk about him normally?"

  "Lyear," Chassy blurted, and Andrev stepped hard on his good foot. "Ouch!"

  "Lyear it is. That sounds elvish, if you don’t mind my saying. Have you ever met any elvenkind?"

  "I just made up the name," Chassy said through clenched teeth, glaring at Andrev.

  "Have you ever met any elves?" Andrev asked.

  "Oh yes, I met a large group of them once. Not far from here, in fact." William handed Andrev his pack and took Chassy's weight on his own shoulder. He seemed to have no problem supporting Chassy, or at least he didn't grunt the way Andrev did.

  "Well, tell us about them," Chassy said when it appeared William would say no more.

  "There’s not much to tell, really. We were using the northern advantage of the Teal—that’s what it’s called when you take the river north of the Divide—to travel to Sunoa when an unexpected storm hit, temporarily grounding us. We found an elf trapped under a downed tree, and we helped lever it off." To their surprise, a large group of elves had caught up with their injured friend, and quickly surrounded the humans, demanding that they move on promptly.

  "I’ve read they aren't the grateful sort," Andrev said.

  "It isn’t that they’re not grateful, they simply consider themselves above us." William grinned. "Maybe they worried that I would carry off one of their fair maidens as a prize for my heroic deed."

  Chassy couldn't tell whether that was supposed to be a joke. Silly as it sounded, he still half expected William to demand Nita as repayment for helping them through the Blackwood.

  Finally, after two full days of walking, William allowed them to rest. Even this was a test of their endurance, ripping from them the final bits of strength. The brambles disappeared, the trees began to thin, and finally they broke through to the foothills of the Yellow Mountains. It was nothing more than a trickle of rocks with a few scrub pines clinging tenaciously, the mountains themselves rising ominously in the background, but the climb set Chassy's foot pounding so that he thought it would explode.

  "Where are we going?" he groaned.

  "I remember this place," William said. "Here it is."

  The top of the first hill was cratered just enough that the three of them could safely tuck in their heads and not be seen from a distance. Along with the brush and trees surrounding them, Chassy thought they would be safe from casual view.

  "As defensible a position as any," the merchant said, letting go of Chassy's arm. "Down you go."

  Chassy slid into the dip, and dizziness overtook him.

  "I think I’m going to be—" He turned, heaved out the few bits of sausage he had managed to choke down earlier, and passed out.

  21: Captured

  "Are you sure we’re going the right way?" Nita asked for the fourth time.

  They had crossed the River Teal in the night and were now making their way to Char via a barely discernible road that was almost a footpath. The paved road would be the first place the Dalatois looked for them, Samuel had argued. Nita knew she was annoying him by questioning his sense of direction, but he always seemed to be looking around, like he wasn’t quite sure where they were.

  At least the path wasn’t too stony, and the forest was delicately pretty and alive with birds. If the Dalatois had chased her back into the Blackwood, Nita might have put herself at the mercy of the savages.

  Through the night, either the chill or the excitement had kept her awake. Now, with smoke rising in the distance behind them, a hazy sun clearing the horizon ahead, and her friends nowhere in sight, she was starting to feel the exhaustion. They walked for a while to give the horses a break, but occasionally she found she was leaning precariously in the saddle.

  "I have to rest," she said finally.

  "Not yet. We're almost there." He said it in that monotone voice he had been using with her all night.

  "Are you mad? Char’s a decan from Sunoa at the least." Nita worried that the strain had been too much for him, that he was a little touched in the head.

  Samuel studied a strange carving on one tree. "Not to Char. To a place I know where we can rest."

  "Alright, but it better be close or I’m going to drop and leave you to carry me," she warned.

  Samuel's hideout was a cozy nest beneath several towering evergreens, with the horses tied as inconspicuously as possible in the middle. They had to crawl far under some low hanging branches to reach it, but once inside it was soft and warm.

  "How did you know this place?" Nita asked.

  "I came here when I was a boy. Believe it or not, I was always running away from my weapons instructor. All my father ever wanted was for me to join the guard," he said, leaning back on his hands.

  "And?"

  "And what? I never wanted to be a guard."

  "What do you plan to do with your life then? I’m going to manage my family’s inn one day." In that moment, Nita knew that she could do it herself, even if everyone else thought she needed a man by her side. "If you could do anything, what would you do?

  "I don’t know. I’m just not good with weapons." He looked at his hands as if they were foreign objects.

  "Maybe that’s because you skipped weapons instruction," Nita teased, but Samuel was serious.

  "No, it started when I was very young. My younger brother was using a dagger before I could hold it without cutting myself."

  "Because he’s good doesn't mean you're bad," Nita said.

  "I’m bad, trust me. But it’s more than that. I don’t enjoy it like Darrick does. I want more," Samuel said. "I want to own a stable and breed racehorses."

  That was the last thing she heard before she fell into a welcome sleep.

  In Nita’s dream, she was being dragged from under the scented bower of fragrant pines by Northmen. Her hair caught in some branches, pulling painfully.

  "Ouch! Stop!" Her struggles were futile.

  She opened her eyes. A catchpole like the one her father used to capture raccoons without injuring them pinned her arms to her sides, and Samuel was standing a few paces away, face miserable.

  "I’m sorry, Nita," he said.

  "Shut up, boy." An eagle-eyed Dalatois used a horsewhip to nick Samuel's cheek. The Northmen was wearing a strange head covering of flat clay beads strung together. "You were supposed to bring three. Where are the others?"


  I’m not dreaming, Nita realized. This is really happening. Perhaps twenty Northmen crowded around the little tree where they had sought shelter. A hundred yards away gathered scores more Dalatois—maybe even hundreds—their horses stretching far into the distance. Nita shuddered.

  "Three you promised us! One we have. Where are the other two?" The man in the beaded cap brought his whip to bear again, bleeding Samuel's other cheek.

  "I don’t know!" he cried, falling to his knees. "I don’t know where they are. We were separated!"

  "Samuel!" Nita took a step forward, but her captor jerked her back, knocking her off her feet. "What’s going on? What did you do?" She tried to get back to her feet, but steady backward pressure on the catch pole kept her scrambling.

  "I tried, Nita! I tried to get us out!" Samuel’s voice was frantic, and moving in the opposite direction.

  Nita opened her mouth to demand an explanation, but a sharp pain in her cheek caused her to cry out instead. Her own captor towered above her; his horse overshadowed them both. A mere look demanded her silence.

  "Unclothe and shave these heathens," said the leader.

  "No!" Nita's outraged cry was cut short by another sting, which she now realized was from the whip he carried. This time blood ran down her neck. If she continued to draw his ire, she would barely be able to talk, much less scream.

  "High One, the girl should remain clothed. It is a Southern custom, that unclothing her would unduly shame her in the eyes of her kind." A bald Dalatois woman flowed to the front of the crowd. She was so much the same color as her horse that the skin of her bare legs seemed part of the animal.

  "And a Southerner's hair is her pride," added another. Nita's head swiveled. This one looked the same as the other, down to a small white scar on her right shoulder.

  "This is foolishness. What is this prisoner to you?" ask the leader.

  "She is nothing to me. But it is our custom to honor those who have shown only honor, is it not?" said the first woman.

  "She has shown us nothing," the leader said.

  "She has shown that she is a brave and daring rider," the scarred woman said.