Illera's Darkliete: A Coming of Age Fantasy

by Gail Gernat

  With a blood-curdling scream, the dragon stooped, spitting fire at the group on the ground. One of the wolves leapt high into the air, catching the reptile by the edge of one wing. The wolf fell flaming to the ground, its cries of agony joining with the dragon’s.

  Horrified, Illera rushed to it. It licked her hands as it died. Tears streaming down her face she shooed the rest of her animal protectors into the screening trees and ran, dodging the gouts of flame the dragon hurled at her, screaming a warning before each one. Lark and Raven ran at her side.

  Second moon was eclipsed by another larger shape.

  “Now what,” gasped Raven, springing to one side as burning spit flew by. “All we need is a second dragon.”

  Lark craned his head around, “Not another dragon, griffin maybe.”

  Illera stopped, panting for breath as the dragon rose to meet the other animal. She could see it clearly in the moonlight, silver and shining. The wide white wings carried a body much like that of the lion, with the long tail tufted in feathers. The sharp eagle’s beak was night black and gleaming in the pale moon rays, and its crown of thick feathers made it seem more massive than it actually was. The four feet were taloned with tools every bit as sharp as those of the dragon.

  They met in mid-air, the white griffin and the fiery dragon. The griffin flipped over, presenting a barrier of claws to the oncoming dragon. It was moving too fast to turn and raked one wing and one side of itself on the griffin’s claws. The dragon flapped madly, trying for height, but with lazy sweeps of its pinions, the griffin ascended above it. It stooped on the dragon, which dodged, plummeting towards the trees. The evil voice shrieked in the background. The dragon snaked its head around and spat at the griffin. The bird merely shrugged aside in the air, and the fire flew harmlessly past it. The dragon zoomed up from the tree line, screaming, spitting fireball after fireball at the griffin. With one high piercing cry, the griffin turned on a wingtip and positioned itself over the dragon. It drove all four sets of talons into the dragon’s spine. The dragon snapped its head backward, but before it could spit, the griffin drove its beak into the reptile’s throat. The dragon spasmed in its death throes in the claws of the griffin.

  Leisurely, the bird descended, depositing the dragon at Illera’s feet. Lark and Raven faced the creature with swords but she walked to it and reaching up she caressed the pristine feathers and sang to it. The bird lowered its head and stretched its wings one after the other. Illera gave it a final caress, and it launched itself into the air and vanished into the moonlight. She turned to the dragon.

  It looked smaller in death, battered and hopeless. Illera removed the tight metal collar with the barbs that cut into its neck and hurled it into the darkness of the night.

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” she told it as she caressed the feelers into place, “But at least now you are free.”

  She began to sob. Lark and Raven sheathed their swords and approached her warily.

  “It’s okay,” Lark ventured, “It’s all over now.”

  Illera shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand why you are crying for a dragon?” Raven told her. “It was trying to kill us.”

  “No,” she contradicted, “it wasn’t. It was the person controlling the dragon who was trying to kill us. It only wanted to be free, to live in peace. Didn’t you see how it fought against that control?”

  Lark shook his head while Raven nodded, “Yes, it screamed before it shot fire at us. It was warning us, wasn’t it?”

  Illera nodded, the tears streaming down her cheeks. Raven took her in his arms and held her.

  “What are you?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, as her sobs become hiccups.

  “Could you call our horses?” he asked. “That is if the dire wolves and lions haven’t eaten them.”

  She nodded, but rested against his chest, trying to make the sorrow drain away so she could continue.

  Chapter 6

  A night bird sang somewhere; lost in the gold and silver dappled darkness; a mournful, haunting rise and fall of liquid notes. A soft night wind blew cool through the pines and spruces whispering an accompaniment. In the far, far distance, a pack of wolves sang to the sky. Illera trudged unheeding of the special beauty of the night, following Raven and Lark, concerned only with putting one foot ahead of another.

  Raven halted so suddenly she bumped into him. Putting a hand on her shoulder to steady her, he held a finger to his lips for silence. She listened hard. The crackle of flames teased her ears, and she caught a faint wisp of smoke on the breeze. Peering around Raven, she could see a tiny flicker to the right, down a steep slope. A hint of movement in the shadows drew her eyes to Lark slipping from shadow to shifting shadow until she could no longer track his movements.

  Raven eased her back until they were sheltered under the wide drooping branches of a giant white spruce. Illera placed her back against the trunk and slid to the ground.

  “Are you tired, my Lady?” Raven whispered.

  “Bone weary, Raven, bone weary. I miss Madean. It’s like a toothache that won’t give me any rest or peace.”

  The branches rustled as he sat down beside her.

  “When I first went to Korul’s castle I felt like that. Except it wasn’t the country, I missed as much as my mother and all the horses. If Lark hadn’t been with me, I don’t think I could have stayed.”

  “You love your mother very much don’t you?”

  She could hear the smile in his voice as he answered. “More than I can tell you. Maybe you’ll get to meet her once you become Queen.”

  “I think I’d like that. Tell me about her?”

  He laughed soft and low. “I don’t know what to tell you. What does a son tell about his mother? She is the King’s horsewoman, and she takes care of the breeding herd. I’ve seen her ease a colt from its mother’s body when everyone else had given up on both of them. I can’t count the number of foals she’s raised herself when something happened to the mare. I think one of my earliest memories is sharing my bed, well it was just a pallet of straw on the floor, with a long-legged bay filly. A lion had killed her dam, but mum rescued the little one and brought it home. She’s just an incredible woman.”

  “It sounds that way. What about your father?”

  His voice hardened. “My real father? I don’t know who he is. If I ever find out, I think I’ll kill him for what he did to my mother.”

  “Why?”

  “He left her. She has two sons, and he leaves. And he took her without wedding vows. She never told us about our father, just that we were special by birth. That’s all she ever said, Lark and I were special because of him. She must have loved him dreadfully to flout all the customs of the land for him and still, when he abandoned her, never say a bad word about him. But that’s the kind of woman my mother is, the warmest heart in all of Frain.”

  “Does it hurt not to know your father?”

  Raven rose, and paced the single step to the downward sweep of branches and peered out. Turning, impaled in a shaft of silver light, he stared at her. Illera saw the turmoil on his brow and the hard glint in his eye. He shook his head.

  “It makes me angry, what he did to my mother. I don’t think I want to know him.”

  Illera sighed. “I want to know my mother. She left on my first birthday.”

  Raven sat beside her again. “Your mother left you?”

  “Yes, when I was one year old. I don’t remember her, only the picture that hangs in the great hall of Seven Spires. You asked me who or what I am. I really don’t know. I know I look like her, but what else of her there is in me, I can’t tell you. I never knew her, and it hurts. I think that’s why I can’t stand to see anything else hurt, because my abandonment is always with me.”

  Raven put an arm around her shoulders. “Well my Lady, we are both half-orphans, and they say the gods care for orphan children.”

  “Does that mean that the
gods care halfway for us?” She smiled, a small quirk of the lips.

  Raven started to laugh. The branches whipped aside, and Raven surged to his feet sword drawn.

  “Sit down, you great fool,” snapped Lark. “You are making enough noise to attract an army from Sorwelk.”

  “Sorry, Illera and I were talking…”

  Lark cut him off. “Enough. There are about five hundred Shul down in the hollow, all armed to destroy. I think they are hunting us. Ashera’s promise of gold has well and truly come back to haunt us, and now those beasts will be on the Lady’s trail until they are satisfied and Targ’s coffers are filled.”

  “We better move out. Which way?”

  “They look to be heading northeast. That’s the logical place to look for Illera as Korul’s castle is that way, so if we head straight north and swing back to the castle in an arc, we should avoid them.”

  They slipped from the shelter of the tree and moving as silently as possible kept the declining moon on their left. Illera could not imagine how many miles passed beneath their feet as the night wore away. When the right-hand sky was brightening, Raven called a halt, and they crawled into a nest cupped in the exposed roots of a towering pine. A chuckling stream bubbled through the forest a few steps from their hiding place. Lark carefully swept all their tracks into anonymity with a fallen branch. Sleepily, Illera called a blue jay. It perched overhead and kept watch for them. Tumbled together in a heap, they slept the day away.

  She opened her eyes to a fuchsia and gold sunset streaking the sky. The bluejay was prancing up and down her body, uttering harsh little strangling noises. It fluttered to her hand, and she sang it her thanks before it winged away into the brilliant heavens. Raven had her enclosed in his heavy arms, and one of Lark’s arms was around her hip and stomach. She squirmed out of Raven’s embrace and carefully lifted Lark’s torpor weighted limb. Scrambling to her feet, she made her way to the brook, hearing her stomach rumble as she drank her fill. She leapt the sparkling span and wandered through the woods in a short circle, picking cones, leaves, and fungus. When her skirts were full, she returned to the hollow under the pine. Raven and Lark were gone. Gathering twigs and bark, she started an insignificant fire and sat down to wait.

  The twilight settled in gentle layers on the forest. Illera divided her gatherings into three portions and ate her own, hunger making short shrift of politeness. The brothers were still missing. She spent her time as the night darkened the world around her calling the horses. She was deep in concentration, trying to reach out to the animals when Lark burst into her consciousness. He seized her shoulder and shook her, snapping her head back and forth.

  “Where were you?”

  Stunned, Illera just looked at him. His mouth was drawn down at the corners, and fury smoked from his eyes.

  “Where did you go?” he demanded again, giving her a little shake.

  Illera pulled herself away from him and stiffened herself to her full height. “I was attending nature and gathering food. If you are hungry, there is your portion.”

  She pointed at a small heap of pine nuts, watercress, dandelion leaves and fungi beside the fire. His breath whooshed out of him, and he plumped down on the ground beside the miniscule fire.

  “I’m sorry, Illera. You had us scared to death. Raven is still out there looking for you. I don’t think I’ve been that worried since the rattler nailed my brother.”

  “A rattler nailed your brother?” Illera sat on her side of the fire. “That sounds interesting. Tell me about it, please.”

  “Yes, well, he was a hair-brained fool of a kid, always scaring our mother half to death. Well, one day he went out to try to find this mare that was missing, and he found her all right. On the side of a cliff, just past a nest of rattlers. Wasn’t smart enough to leave the horse and get help, no he had to jump the snakes and try to ride the mare out over them. Of course, he didn’t make it, one of them bit him on the ankle, right above the boot. But, being Raven, he managed to get to the horse, jump her over the nest and down the cliff to our mother. I’d never seen my mother so worried. Sat up with him for three days, dose after dose of snakeweed she poured down him. He survived though. You have to give him that, he’s tough.”

  “Thanks for telling my embarrassing stories,” floated a sarcastic voice out of the dark.

  Raven followed, striding into the faint circle of light the fire provided. Illera and Lark laughed. The brothers ate their handfuls of food.

  “I called the horses,” Illera told them.

  “What do you mean?” Lark arched his brows upward.

  “I called them, asked them to find us. If we wait here, they should come.”

  Lark waved his hand through the air, brushing her remark aside. “That’s superstition. We have to get moving; the Shul are in the forest.”

  Raven agreed, nodding his head. “We can’t move that much faster with the horses. The trees are too thick, so we should keep moving.”

  Illera sighed. “I really did call them, and they have all the gear. It would be nice to cook something to eat.”

  After dousing the fire, they rose and walked northward. Lark laughed.

  “Why don’t you call a rabbit and we can kill that and eat it?”

  “I don’t call animals to me for their destruction. It’s not like that.” She halted and glared at him.

  “You mean you can’t.” The squire laughed.

  Raven contradicted, “I wouldn’t say that about the Lady, Lark. We’ve seen some powerful strange things.”

  “Then I challenge you. Call something and tell us before you do so we can be sure that it is really you doing it.”

  “What do you want me to call?”

  “Oh, let’s make it a good test. Call an elk. A bull elk, with a large rack.”

  “I can’t control the size of the animal that answers,” Illera warned him.

  She stopped walking and called, a silent mental effort. They resumed the march, Lark smiling, triumphant. A short distance ahead, they heard a rustling in the bushes. The squires drew their swords, but Illera stepped forward and began to sing. With great majesty, the largest elk they had ever seen stepped forth from the darkness. Its antlers stretched to the sky and the feeble rays of first moon reflected from the dark pools of its eyes. The brothers stood mesmerized as the huge animal lowered its head and sniffed Illera’s outstretched palms. It raised its head and bellowed. Two more bull elk strode from the shadows, lesser animals, but still magnificent. Illera sang to the three of them. She thanked them audibly for coming and waved the squires forward to continue on their journey, the three great beasts crashing through the brush ahead and on either side of them.

  In an awed whisper, Lark told her, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Where did you learn to call animals? Can you call people?”

  “I never learned to call them, I’ve always known how to do it, and I’ve never tried to call people. I don’t know if they can hear.”

  “I knew you could do it,” Raven whispered. “You did it with the dire wolves and the griffin. You’ve called the magpie before too. I told you, Lark; the Lady is special.”

  The lead elk stopped, snorting. The travelers halted. Voices drifted to them from the dark. One of the elk at their side harried them to a thick-growing grove of berry bushes. They crouched as low to the ground as they could get. The deer stationed themselves on either side. The giant lead deer bounded off at an angle as six armed humans raced into the clearing.

  “Just an elk,” called one of the men.

  “Keep lookin’. Th’Lord’ll have our hides if’n we don’ find ‘em.”

  The soldiers scurried off into the night.

  Illera and her two escorts waited for long dark minutes. First moon crept high in the sky shedding golden light softly on the forest and its inhabitants. One of the bulls snorted and began to move north again. The trio arose and followed in silence, sobered by the thought of two groups hunting them.

  They trudged along as firs
t moon descended and disappeared behind the trees, second moon following closely in its wake. An explosive snort from the elk on the left halted them. Illera heard swords whispering from their sheaths. Another snort broke the stillness of the night. They heard hooves pounding the earth in a cadence, one-two, one-two. Raven, crouched close to the ground, snuck forward, slipping from tree to tree. Lark drifted after him, and Illera followed. The taller trees gave way to a moonlit clearing carpeted with short, wiry grass and wildflowers, their colors dimmed by darkness. The elk hid in the shadows of the forest, but a moving shadow danced in one spot in the middle of the clearing. Illera spotted Raven from the corner of her eye sliding across the little meadow, sword at the ready. Closer and closer to the blackness he came, sword high, ready to cleave flesh and bone. She turned her eyes back to the darkness dancing a piaffe, a suddenly familiar shadow.

  With a cry, she lunged around Lark, screaming at Raven to put his sword away. Lark seized her by the waist and swung her back into the sheltering trees just as the shadow gave a ringing neigh and Raven’s sword began its descent. Illera screamed with anger and fought against Lark, pounding and kicking backward. She dropped through his arms and scrambled through his legs back onto the meadow. The darkness rushed at her, swerving to a stop at her feet. She hugged the big black animal, murmuring soothing words and stroking his trembling muscles. Looking up she saw Raven standing in the middle of the meadow, sword point down, buried in the sandy loam. It looked as if it was the only thing holding him up right now.

  “Abbadon?” questioned Lark, running a hand over the big animal’s shoulder. He snatched his fingers away as the horse snapped at them.