Winter's Sword

by Alexandra Little

  “What is that?” Aerik demanded, as was first outside. But I already knew. A band of elves had been spotted trying to find a roundabout way into Tal Anor. In another day, we would be under attack.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Dagnar Queen was making her move early. I had hoped that we’d have all winter, but I had underestimated the elves. Of course they would know how to navigate this frozen place. If Firien could drag one old human through the winter, then a whole company of elvish soldiers could do much better.

  “Come with me,” I said to Aerik, but didn’t wait for him to follow. I nearly tore off the door hanging as I shoved it aside.

  “How many,” I murmured, willing the foulings to show me what they saw. “Where are they…”

  Dalandaras and my father came up to me, their hands on their swords. Ehledrath was not far behind.

  “The animals are restless,” she said. “I can mount a defense—”

  “It would be useless against these enemies,” I snapped, still searching through the foulings’ images of snow and rocks and trees. The scents of snow hares and foxes and pine trees floated around the foulings’ noses, a distraction I didn’t need. But there was a rhythmic thud in their ears, a thud that would have been impossible to sense with human ears, but the foulings could feel it through the rocks of the mountains and the old magic. It was the march of elves.

  “I need Lorandal and Firien,” I said at last. Aerik hurried past me, rushing down to the village. With the help of the dreadwolves keener eyes, I was getting an image of the lay of the land. I had my map somewhere. I felt my tunic, found the poor thing wrinkled but intact.

  The old magic told me many things. I could feel the connection between Tal Anor and Tal Aesiri as sure as I could hear my own heartbeat. But it didn’t tell me what the possible trails were, or how the elves could circumvent Tal Anor to get to Tal Aesiri.

  “My lord,” Tiri came running up behind my father, her breath puffing heavily in the cold. “The colossi have stopped what they’re doing; they’re simply frozen. What’s happening?”

  “Stay at Tal Anor,” I ordered Father. “Use the colossi to form whatever defense you feel you need. They’ll listen to you.”

  Father nodded, and Aerik returned with Firien and Lorandal in tow.

  “Shall I come with?” Ehledrath asked.

  I shook my head. “You’re needed here. But we need the winter horses—whichever are the most rested.”

  “We—the elves—will feel the hooves against the ground,” Dalandaras said. “We will not take them by surprise.”

  “I do not hope for surprise,” I replied. The foulings and dreadwolves had given me an area to search, but it was still wide. “What is here?” I asked the elves as a whole.

  All three elves leaned close, but one by one they shook their heads.

  “It’s a hard path,” Firien said at last. “Even the hardest of us do not like the land there. We’ve had little need to travel it. It is much like the rock at Tal Aesiri, the black rock that sometimes shattered beneath our feet and dropped us down. To traverse there there is to risk broken bones, and sometimes worse.”

  The Dagnar Queen would take it, then. “Why not any other way?”

  “The easiest route is the river,” Firien said. “After that, this path, and after that there are a few other areas, more difficult still, but they could be done. And after that, well, we’d need to be mountain goats, to scramble up such sheer rock.”

  Tal Anor was fortified enough with the mountains, once defenses were built along the river. So these were the areas that I would have to fortify. But how? How was I to get enough black powder made and set…and then what would that do but rearrange rocks?

  Singael. He could be the answer. His prison could be, at least. It had been warded, protected. They had been much like the wards and seals that had kept Adhannor imprisoned and had aided Crowndan and Zarah in their blood magic rituals, but if I could recreate the ley lines somehow…the same forces that had protected his fortress from attack could do the same for Tal Aesiri. It was only a question of how. And what to do with the elves that were coming now.

  Ehledrath returned with the winter horses. They pawed at the rock and snow, their noses heavy with the clouds of their breath. They were eager. Good.

  “Will they sink?” I asked.

  “Not if we keep to the ridge lines,” Firien replied. “But I don’t know the area for certain. Nothing is certain with the old magic, or when elf turns against elf.”

  I let Firien have the map as the tangles of old magic picked a leader among the horses, a mare that was steady but brave, her legs sound and her mane shaggy. I held out a hand, and she came to me, sniffing my fingers before accepting the dominance of the Lady. I blew gently into her nostrils, allowing her to catch my scent. Her acceptance of the Lady was no use if she did not like Eva the human. Winter horses could be…selective. Her ears pricked, but she made no rejection.

  “Have you felt the old magic beneath Winter’s Crown?” I murmured to her. “Is that why you are not afraid now?”

  I swung up into the saddle. The mare held true, even as Annel and Dhreo circled around her. “Come,” I said to the others. “Or do not. I cannot promise that there won’t be killing. If there is, it will be the Lady who does it.”

  I urged the mare northward, to the gap in the mountains and the river that fed into Tal Anor. We had taken a boat, the last time we had passed this way. But the mare was faster. All thought of my sore stomach and and the child that was causing it faded away, until there was nothing but the old magic and the Lady.

  My mare snorted and puffed hard as I drove her onward. I saw every vein within her, every shift of muscle as the old magic filled the beast. I saw every pitfall under the snow, every large rock and hazardous crack and crevice, and guided her to avoid them. I felt the tug of Dhreo and Annel behind me, blurs of fur and magic as they kept pace. Then came Dalandaras on his stallion, galloping no less carelessly than I was in an attempt to catch up.

  “Before nightfall,” I whispered to the Lady and to my mare, and felt the old magic invigorate the beast’s limbs.

  Whether Dalandaras’ beast could keep up, or Firien or Aerik followed, did not matter. This wasn’t going to be their fight.

  I scouted the landscape as we went. My eyes were closed against the icy sting of the wind whipping by me, but I didn’t need them to see. The old magic outlined every rock and tree and flake of snow. Just as surely as the old magic showed the mare the path, it was showing me the best place to weave in ley lines. But what would I do with the ley lines? At Singael’s outpost, they had kept Adhannor from crossing close. Perhaps I could weave them to keep humans and elves out?

  As the trees thinned and the mare tired and the sun threatened to sweep below the mountains, I knew that would be a difficult task. The old magic that threaded through my veins and wound around my heart knew that trying to accomplish such a task would sooner kill me than do what it was meant to do. It would be easier to move the mountains than try to forbid the flesh and souls of so many from crossing into Tal Aesiri.

  Maybe I could move the mountains…

  My mare slowed as, to my right, the rocky outcroppings and the sharp points of the mountains disappeared into a steep slope. The slope was nothing but sheer rock and ice; once slip, and you would keep on falling the thousands of feet down to the valley below. Firien was right—it was too steep here for all but the nimblest of mountain goats, and even then they could get caught by some unseen trap if their hooves broke through the ice and snow pack.

  “Here now,” I murmured to the mare. “Easy does it.”

  When she had slowed to a stop, I found a place for her to the left of the ridge line, where the mountain dipped again and a craig jutted out enough to provide shelter against the blowing wind. She was a good mare; she would stay where the Lady told her to.

  I headed north again, Dhreo and Annel catching up quickly. My ears could hear Dalandaras and the others, not far behind
. If I could hear their gallop, then the elves would be able to hear us right enough. There was a break in the steep slope, where the rocks became almost like steep steps. I could picture climbing up there.

  There were colossi nearby. They had not taken their solid form but remained hidden as watchful spirits. If I needed them, they were there to conjure up.

  “So many of you,” I murmured to them, and felt a swell of something almost like pride come from them. “You’ve found the elves, haven’t you? Show me their heartbeats.”

  I knelt as buffer against the wind and pulled my hood up as, one by one, the old magic of the colossi flowed to me and revealed the heartbeats of the elves. There were dozens of heartbeats, hidden among the stair-like craigs. They were strong, faster than I had felt Dalandaras’ beat, a deep cacophony of drums flowing to me up the slope. For elves, they were well-exhausted.

  Dalandaras’ hurried gait came up behind me.

  “You’re cold,” I murmured, his chill and a shiver breaking through the beating of the hearts. “Rest with the horses.”

  “I go where you go,” Dalandaras replied as he knelt next to me, placing himself as a shield between me and the wind. “Where are they?”

  I pushed my worry for him aside and took his gloved hand. “Do you feel them now?”

  He nodded. “There are enough to stand against the humans. Though if you used the foulings and others…”

  Yes, it would be easy to wipe them all out. I wasn’t certain that I could make it back to Tal Anor, whether under my own strength or even alive, but I could wipe them out. The colossi were willing, the foulings waiting. The elves did not even know that they were surrounded by enemies.

  But as the gallop of other hooves reached my ears, I sensed something among the elves. I knew some of them. I had shared food and camp with them. I stood.

  Nogoriel was down there, andDiriel, and Malarin who had always been angry when I had known him, and Kiril and Lorias. They were all once under Firien’s command, and had helped me defeat Adhannor.

  I sized up the location. It was a strategic weak spot—if I left it was it was. It was a hike true enough. The slope was deceptive, especially to those who didn’t realize that they would have to shovel, not march, their way through the snow pack. I doubted that I could have brought the Winter’s Crown humans this way. A battle on the slope would be difficult. And I was finding it hard to ask elf to fight elf, or even to ask the Lady to fight those who had once been my allies.

  Firien arrived, and Aerik close behind. No, I could not ask Firien to turn on his own men and women.

  “You may as well show yourselves,” I called down the slope, but the human voice was lost to the evening wind. “We each know the other is here,” the Lady came to me this time, flowing out through the old magic and echoing against the mountains. “Show yourselves.”

  Slowly, they did. One by one they raised themselves up from their hiding places among the snow and rocks, and congregated onto flatter land.

  Nogoriel stood at the head of the party, accompanied by fifty or so other elves garbed in wool and fur and leather that matched the mottled grays and whites of the landscape. Had my eyes been purely human, I would have had a hard time seeing them among the patches of gray and white.

  “Fools,” Aerik muttered. “They know the power Eva has; why have they come against her?”

  “I will go to them,” Firien said. “Perhaps I can negotiate.”

  “They probably consider you a traitor now,” Aerik pointed out. “What is the use?”

  “They saw Eva defeat Adhannor,” Firien replied. “That should be enough to convince them that any attack is folly.”

  “They could have chosen to stay with Eva, as you did.”

  “I chose to stay with you,” Firien replied.

  “Enough,” I cut them off. I needed a messenger to them, and Firien was the best choice. But he needed speed, and the horses would not do on the thick snow pack. “Will you ride a fouling if I asked you to?” I said to him, then called: “Dhreo.”

  “You just did,” Firien replied. “If he will have me, I will ride him.”

  I knew Dhreo would allow it as soon as he loped up to us. “Do you think you can convince your former partners to join us?”

  “To ask them to betray their Queen is no small thing.”

  No it wasn’t. “Tell them they have three choices: to join me, to leave now, or to be buried under the largest avalanche they’ve ever seen.”

  “They will not believe you,” Firien said. Dhreo heard the doubt, and growled at the army. “The snow pack is not packed for an avalanche,” Firien explained. “If you shifted all the snow on this ridge you would no doubt dust them well, but it would not be a challenge.”

  “Grip Dhreo here,” I said instead, scratching the back of the fouling’s neck. “It’s like a mane. Do not toss Firien, Dhreo. And Firien,” I added as his hand caught Aerik’s for one quick squeeze. “I will be watching. Let them know I have eyes in many places. Dhreo’s included.”

  He nodded, and swung up onto Dhreo with only a little hesitation.

  “Hold tight,” I said, and then Dhreo took him down to the elves.

  “I hope he can do some good,” Aerik said quietly.

  “Hold me steady,” I said to Dalandaras, and reached through the old magic to Dhreo’s eyes.

  Consuming Zarah had been a cold kick to my stomach, but reaching through the magic to a specific fouling was like being kicked into weightlessness. I didn’t know what to expect, only that the instinct of the Lady knew that I could do it. I felt Dalandaras’ hands on my shoulders but I was not touching the ground. I was almost galloping and yet landing on the balls of my feet. I felt the claws and the bunching of strong muscles in my legs. Dhreo both ran and hopped his way down the side of the mountain. He pulled at the old magic, asking it for guidance for where to step and how lightly. No wonder they could be such ferocious beasts, if they knew what was going to be beneath their claws on the next step before they took the first.

  The heartbeats grew louder and closer. Firien’s hands were tight in the fur, his legs clinging to Dhreo’s sides. Dhreo didn’t like being ridden like a simple horse, but he knew that I trusted him with this task. That was honor enough to negate the insult.

  Dhreo came to a halt on the flattest part of the slope, still twenty feet from Nogoriel. It was as close as the fouling was willing to get, and I was not going to push him closer.

  Whether I saw through Dhreo’s eyes or the Lady’s I wasn’t sure, only that the coming darkness made Nogoriel’s silver features shine. Most of the army she had brought was hooded and covered tight against the cold, their faces obscured to me, but Nogoriel’s flat, wide face was open to the elements, her silver braids tangling in the wind.

  Firien dismounted, and Dhreo took to slowly circling the elf as he would circle me. Dhreo was protecting him, in their own way.

  “Get him out of there before they turn on him,” Aerik said, somewhere distant from my mind.

  “Hush,” Dalandaras replied. “Let her be.”

  “You came,” Nogorel said to Firien. I urged Dhreo to stop his pacing, to go back to Firien so that I could see them clearly.

  “Did you think I would not?” Firien asked in return.

  “Was your Lady watching for us, then?” she said.

  “Do you think she doesn’t?” Firien replied, his hand resting on Dhreo’s head. “She can see and hear us even now.”

  Nogoriel’s eyes went to Dhreo’s and narrowed. If she felt my presence, she indicated nothing.

  “What does she want?” Nogoriel asked.

  “For you to leave her lands,” Firien said. “Or to join her service.”

  “That is not possible,” Nogoriel said.

  “I joined her.”

  “And if she doesn’t survive, and you do, you will pay. Lord Dalandaras will not be able to save you when even he will face the Queen’s wrath.”

  “You saw her, Nogi,” Firien said. “You saw her pow
er.”

  “You know our Queen, Firien.”

  I knew enough of the Queen in that one meeting. She might not have been Ellsmid, driven by vengeance and a thirst for a power that she could not comprehend, but she was dangerous enough.

  “If you cannot do either of those things,” Firien continued. “Then the Lady will bring an avalanche down on you. You will be buried here, and I have no power to stop it. You have trusted me through many things, Nogoriel. So have you Diriel, and Malarin, Kiril and Lorias,” he looked to each of his elves in turn. Dhreo’s ears perked, and picked up the strain of the fight within Firien’s voice, his hope that he could persuade them, the anguish that he may have lost his people’s loyalty.

  “There are times we have gone against orders, and you trusted me to lead you rightly. Can you trust me now? Can you trust me when I say that Eva is the only one who will not use the old magic for her own ends? She could have been another Adhannor, but has not become that. She could have crushed you long ago, but sent me to you instead. Even I can sense that we are surrounded by more than foulings, more than dreadwolves, but they do not attack. Eva is trying to preserve the peace of this place, and to release the spirits. You know she made that promise to them. She is doing her utmost to keep it. Help me help her.”

  For a moment I believed the speech had worked. Dhreo saw as the tension released among the elves, the loosening of hands on hilts and bows, the fall of shoulders, the slowing of the blood pumping through their veins. If the great Firien was on he side of Lady Eva, then perhaps she was not so bad? Could their Queen be mistaken? They followed their Queen without question, but she herself had sown the seeds of doubt when she violated her own thousand-years order to never trespass Tal Aesiri lands.

  Then Malarin, who had not liked me despite fighting alongside me, stepped forward. “Firien,” he said, his voice low but loud enough for all to hear. “You stayed for the human male, not for Lady Eva. You are letting your heart fool you.”

  And all hope that they could be persuaded away easily disappeared.