Days Of Light And Shadow

by Greg Curtis

  Juna was good at subtlety. It was from him perhaps even more than his father that Iros had learned diplomacy. The art of the gentle word correctly placed. So odd in a man who had once been a weapons smith. But after he had first been hired to look after the guards armour, he had slowly risen through the ranks to become the castle’s steward, and his father’s right hand.

  He had also become family, if not by blood. And seeing him standing there before him, hair white with age, skin heavily wrinkled by years in the sun, and a small pot belly forming from too much sitting, brought back something of home to Iros. His family was dead, but still with Juna standing there, he still had something of them remaining.

  “Of course Juna.” He wanted to stay there and grieve. Just as any man would. But he had no time for that. He had no time for anything. He was now Lord of Drake. His word opened the coffers of the province for whatever needed doing. His seal allowed things to be done that no others could authorise. And his name gave the people hope. Above all else they needed hope.

  He only prayed that he could provide that hope. For whatever time he had left.

  “You know that I am ill?” It shouldn’t even have been a question. Even a blind man could see the sickness that racked his body. And the steward had surely received the reports of the guards who had brought him home.

  “Of course my Lord, I will send for the physicians.”

  “No.” Iros shook his head and then wished he hadn’t when the fire burst into life between his every vertebra.

  “I will see them later. For now there is another matter that you must attend to. You must send forth to see if my cousin Heriot still lives, to find him and bring him here.”

  “My Lord!” The exclamation was torn out of the steward’s throat. Juna was no fool and he understood exactly why he asked it of him. But still Iros could see the pain and disbelief written on his long face. He had not realised that it was so bad. That the line was so close to its end. Plans had to be in place for when it did finally end. Centuries of Drake family history, would soon be closed like a book. There had to be a new book ready to be opened before then.

  “I will see to it immediately.” And he would. Juna had spent his entire life in service of the province. He had served his father and his grandfather before him. And he had done all of that with never a thought of reward or glory. Only the reward of service. There were few men who could claim such honour, but Juna was one of them.

  But soon Iros knew, Juna would have to serve another Lord of Drake. A lord who had not only never been in line to become one, but who would never have wanted the job. For all his loyalty and dedication, he would be hard pressed to turn Heriot into a proper lord of Drake. And that was if he still lived. The family had lost track of his second cousin years before. He could be dead too, another victim of the war.

  “Is it so bad?” Juna stared at him as he whispered the question, his eyes almost seeming to tear up, and probably with good reason. In the previous months he had already lost three dear friends. Family in sooth. Juna was not of Drake blood but he was family. He had been with him his whole life.

  “Worse. I’m sorry.” Juna’s always long face fell even further as Iros told him the sorry truth and he wished he didn’t have to. But he had to know. He had to be ready. If he fell early then someone had to be there to hold the land together until his cousin could arrive.

  “But who knows? Maybe the physicians will be able to do something.” He doubted it though. He just had to give his friend hope.

  “For the present though, I will do my duty for as long as I can.” And that was something the steward would understand. They were both creatures of service. Still how long he continued wasn’t important just then, and he wanted to change the subject. There was still a question he had to ask. One thing he had to know, even if he didn’t want to.

  “How did …?” Iros’ voice failed as his throat choked up for a moment and it was difficult to get the words out. But Juna understood him perfectly.

  “It was the beginnings of the war. We had heard word of it, but little more, and we dared to hope that it would pass us by. But it didn’t and we weren’t ready.”

  “A mother with a dead child in her arms was the first true word we received, and when she arrived in the great room with her baby in arm, it shocked your parents to their core.”

  “The elves had attacked Lower Wold, and they had killed everyone. Men, women, children. It was as if a great darkness had come over them, an evil of the demons themselves. They had killed from afar with their bows and then marched through the small farming town making sure that none survived. Five hundred men at arms we were told, against a town of maybe a thousand, with only a few town guards to protect them and no warning. They stood no chance.”

  “The woman and a handful of others survived by hiding deep within the copper mine. And then when they returned to the surface, it was to find the elves gone, their families dead and their town burnt to the ground.”

  “It was then that we realised the terrible truth. That this was not a war of conquest or political advance. It was purely of murder. The elves were on a campaign to kill all the people. That they would not respect any of the normal codes of conduct. And they did not.”

  “Pigeons were sent with haste and patrols without number dispatched to bring warning to the nearest towns. Men were called to arms. And at the same time your father gave the command to evacuate all the smaller towns nearest the border. They could not defend themselves and he could not protect them all. We simply didn’t have the men.”

  “Then he too set forth, riding with his patrols, knowing that the people would not readily abandon their homes. Julius knew that his word and his presence both would be needed to convince them.”

  “So for a week or more he rode, sending back word as he could, and scores upon scores of villages and smaller towns were emptied out, their people sent fleeing for the larger and more northerly towns of Greenlands.”

  “Then word was received that the elves weren’t just attacking towns. The towns were often already empty giving the enemy only the satisfaction of burning them. But they were also wandering through farms and crofts, trappers huts and logging camps, killing all that they found, burning everything behind them. They had even attacked temples, monasteries and sanctuaries. The most sacred of places, the most pure of hearts, all defiled.”

  “Your mother became concerned about the convent school of the Sisters of Silene, as she knew it was directly in the path of the advancing elves. She rode out and though it was against her instructions, her daughter, rode with her. Luella was ever a wonderfully stubborn girl. And when she believed that she knew what was right she would not be swayed.”

  “After that things become unclear. But somehow your father must have heard of her actions, and ridden for her. And at the same time the elves had advanced further than was known. One of their advancing patrols caught them while they were still packing the wagons and loading the children on to them.”

  “There were no survivors.” Juna stopped for a moment and looked down at the ground as if wondering if he should continue. This was surely not easy for him. Eventually though he carried on.

  “Riders found them later. All of them. One hundred and sixty children, fifty sisters, fifty men at arms, all dead. Their bodies looted. The school and temple burnt to the ground.”

  “A week after that the first wave found our gates, and our old broken walls. Fifteen hundred elves with longbows against maybe as many guards and two dozen cannon. They were held back, that time, but at a terrible cost. Maybe a thousand of our people died that day. Maybe as many of theirs as well.”

  “The second attack we were better prepared for, our defences stronger, but they had three thousand men at arms. Only the fortune of Duran Timos himself saved us. They broke through our lines, poured through the gaps in the walls, and there was fighting in the street. Terrible fighting.”

  “Street by street, house by house they advanced, losing men at every
step. We had lined the roofs with archers, all the towns folk who could hold a crossbow. But where they went they killed. The old and the young, the infirm, women and children. They left no one alive. Three maybe four thousand fell that day, though the attack was beaten back. And almost no elves survived.”

  “They fought to the very end. They did not retreat even when they had lost. And when we had won through we could only take maybe a hundred and some prisoners. Most of them had fallen, wounded, and were captured as they lay in the arms of Sandara’s darkness. None of them when they awoke, showed the slightest sign of remorse. None surrendered And all of them attacked the very physicians attending them. They had to be restrained.”

  Juna stopped for a moment and let his gaze return to the distant gardens. His tale was done Iros knew, but he had not yet finished. He was just working up the courage to speak the rest.

  “They are still in the town prison, still the same. The only thought they seem to know is hatred. The unreasoning fury of the Wrath Demon.”

  “What sort of evil is it that can so completely corrupt a soul? What darkness can make a man kill even an innocent baby?”

  “I don’t know.” And yet even as he answered his old friend, Iros had the image of Finell in his thoughts. A spoilt child, hurt terribly, and so very angry. Maybe that was all the evil it took.

  “All I know is that we must be ready for it when it returns.”

  “My lord?” Juna looked shocked as he asked the question, and worse than that he looked ill. Almost as ill as Iros felt.

  “This peace that we have secured, it is not one to last. It is merely to grant the high lord enough time to regroup. While I lay on the floor of Finell’s throne room and he thought me lost to the dark mistress, I heard his shameful plans. His hatred for us is also beyond reason, and his only advisor is a creature of blackest heart. Finell sacrificed his own cousin for merely a reprieve. For the chance to find a way through our cannon.”

  “In time, be it a month or a year or even two, he will send forth his armies again, and Greenlands will stand once more alone, stuck between the two kings. We must be ready for that day.”

  “My lord!”

  “And first I must send this message to King Herrick. He must know this truth.” Iros gestured as best he could to the guards.

  “The library.”

  As the guards half carried him away, Iros did not know that other ears were listening. That while her attendants unpacked, Sophelia had been seated on the balcony to her new quarters overlooking the graves, hearing everything that was spoken between him and Juna. And he did not know of the tears that flowed down her cheeks at his words.

  But if he had, he would have known that they were words that she had to hear regardless. She had to finally accept of her cousin’s evil. And of his complete betrayal of her and her family. She had to accept the truth.

  Chapter Forty One.

  Dura was worried when she finally reached her house. Though she’d planned on visiting her parents when they’d returned to Leafshade, it would have been later, after having done her chores for the day. But to arrive back in the chapter house after months in the saddle and find her cousin knocking on her door less than an hour later with an urgent message for her to return home, that was worrying.

  Naturally she’d done as asked, apologising to the captain for her hasty departure, and all but running home. She did not look as calm and unhurried as she normally did. As was expected of her people. Fortunately some things were forgiven rangers. And even more fortunately the family home, the one they’d retreated to after the loss of the family stud, was in the commercial part of the city. While there were watchmen all around, there were also traders, shopkeepers, innkeepers and customers all around. Many were of the outsider races, most of the rest low born and of mixed blood. A little more hustle and bustle was expected on this side of town, especially when the cider and mead were flowing. No one had paid her any great attention.

  At the front door she stopped for a moment, straightened her clothes and knocked. The family and the house might have fallen on hard times, but her parents still expected some basic things of her. However, she didn’t wait to be asked in, simply turning the handle on the polished ash door and pushing.

  Inside the house there was no entranceway or waiting room. There were no servants to open the door, greet her and show her through to her family. Those days were gone. Instead the front door opened directly to the sitting room, and her family gathered around the threadbare couch that was the best of the fine furniture they had left. But that gave her a perfect view, and it took only a heartbeat to see the problem. Allias, their one time stable hand and now general servant, the last one they had left, was lying on the couch, bleeding.

  He’d been bleeding for some time she realised. The buckets full of sodden, blood soaked rags testified to that. And the swollen face, bruises just beginning to shine told her that he’d been beaten. Maybe that morning, maybe even the previous day. It wasn’t that uncommon in Leafshade these days. Not for those of outsider blood. But the level of violence still shocked her.

  He was a small lad, even for a gnome. Slightly built and of absolutely no threat to anyone. Yet it looked as though someone had started smashing him with a mace. Several heavy blows to the side of his face, and more from the looks of the bandages around his chest, to his body. Blows that she suspected had if not broken them, then at least damaged some of his bones.

  It didn’t take a sage to realise who the culprits were. There’d been reports of the watchmen in their pitch covered armour strutting the streets for months dishing out beatings to anyone they didn’t like the look of. Usually for no reason. They didn’t need one. The simply seemed to enjoy the act.

  “Sellin?” Her little sister was sitting with him, green eyes red with tears, as she bathed his wounds.

  “They caught him this morning as he was returning from the market with food. A dozen of them. Not a hundred paces from our door.” She looked up at her, a question in her eyes. “He wasn’t doing anything.”

  “Of course he wasn’t doing anything. You don’t need to do anything to be attacked by those foul creatures.” Her father had entered from the kitchen with more bandages, and he dropped them off by Allias before rushing over to her and wrapping her up in his arms.

  “I’m glad you’re here sevelly.” It was good to be back in his arms, and even to be called a baby squirrel again as he had when she was a child. But there was still something in his voice that worried her. She could hear the deep soothing tones he always used whenever he was breaking in a horse. Reassuring the animal even as he prepared to spring an unwelcome surprise on it. Somehow she suspected he was about to tell her something unpleasant.

  “Father.”

  “They caught a full dozen this morning. Those black clad demons simply caught them in the market place and started beating them. For no reason save their own dark pleasure. It has been the same every day for months.” Months she realised, while she had been away. Riding or training, she’d hardly spent any time in the city of late. He didn’t mean to criticise her choice to become a ranger, but she felt the sting anyway.

  “I didn’t know it had become so bad.” Even to Dura it sounded like some sort of excuse.

  “Worse. Allias here is lucky. He’ll recover. Several others this morning were killed. Beaten to death as they went around their normal business. Others were dragged off to that underworld they call a prison. They will not return.”

  Beaten to death! In Leafshade! Once, not that long ago such words would have been unbelievable. Such things unthinkable. Now they were only too real. Maybe she had been spared a lot by taking the cloak. Maybe her family hadn’t been. Dura let her father’s arms loosen as she pulled away from him, and went to Allias. She was shocked by what she saw up close. By the terrible damage that had been done to him, and simply because he was an outsider she guessed.

  He was a good lad who had never done anyone any ill. Who surely could never have done any
thing to warrant such terrible treatment. He had come to their House as a stable hand three or four years earlier, back when they had still had a stud. At the time he had simply not wanted to go into the family business. His family had a small weaving loom in their home in Tarason and they made some rather fine carpets and wall hangings. He had wanted to learn a new craft, and at the time as she recalled his parents had had misgivings. Horses were big creatures. They could kick and buck. They’d been worried for their son.

  They could never have imagined this.

  “We need to get him home.” And for him she thought, home was the best place. Because if he stayed here she thought, things were going to get worse. There was a reason the markets were slowly emptying out. And it wasn’t just the humans that had fled. All of the outsiders were leaving, few returning. And Leafshade was slowly dying without them and the business they brought.

  “We will.” Her mother placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “In the morning we’ll bring him back to his family.”