by A. Giannetti
“This is a rich land,” said Elerian admiringly to Anthea.
“It has supported our people for centuries,” replied Anthea, “ever since the first days when we came out of the east.”
“Where in the east?” asked Elerian curiously, for the maps he had seen in his youth had shown only blank space beyond the eastern border of Tarsius.
“The histories do not say,” said Anthea, “but the legends claim we came from Outside, through a magical gate.”
“I would like to see such a gate some day,” said Elerian thoughtfully. “When I was an apprentice mage, my old master told me that the Goblins were also thought to have entered the Middle Realm through a gate.”
“It matters little where they came from,” said Anthea. “They are here and they threaten our land and our lives.” She was silent for a moment and then said quietly, “Dacien told me the story of your adventures last night. It seemed a hero’s tale.”
“But I do not look like a hero,” said Elerian, finishing her thought.
“You are rather old and battered looking,” said Anthea lightly. “People expect their heroes to be young and handsome.”
“Is that what you also expect?” asked Elerian curiously.
Anthea turned and gave him an enigmatic look. “The handsomest men in the realm have sought my hand, and I have refused them all.”
“Perhaps you admire bravery then, instead of appearances,” said Elerian, hopefully.
“Merula is one of the bravest men in the kingdom, but I have refused him too,” said Anthea looking away.
“What do you admire then in a man if not looks or courage?” asked Elerian curiously.
“I admire nothing,” said Anthea lightly. “I have never seen a man who pleased me and never expect to, for I am no longer young.”
Elerian smiled to hear Anthea describe herself as old but said nothing, for her answer seemed calculated to tell him plainly that he had no chance to win her affection.
“At least she is honest,” thought Elerian to himself, “both in her opinion of me and of my chances of winning her hand.”
They had ridden far by now and had drawn near to the foothills of the mountains on their left. When Elerian looked that way, he saw the mouth of a great canyon that reached far back into the heights. High, barren cliffs rose up on either side of the entrance to the canyon, but the floor of it was covered with a dense forest made up of mighty trees. A small stream, about twenty feet wide, flowed out of from under the trees and wound its way south across the plain.
“What is that place?” asked Elerian, for the ancient trees in the canyon had instantly aroused his interest.
“That is the Troll wood,” said Anthea. “It has a sad history.”
“Let me hear it then,” said Elerian, who found himself entranced by her clear voice.
“Many years ago,” said Anthea, “after the fall of Fimbria, an Elf who had escaped the destruction of that land sought refuge with my people. We had close ties with the Elves in those days, and they had occasionally visited our land before. The refugee’s name was Dymiter. He was a powerful mage, but he had suffered a grievous injury during the war against the Goblins. With the permission of Duvianus, who was the king at the time and who was also my great grandfather, he was allowed to build a refuge deep in those woods, for he wished to be near trees. My grandmother was a great healer and became his nurse. After a time, they fell in love and were married. They had one son whose name was Alethius.”
“She is part Elf,” thought Elerian in surprise. “She is a half blood like me.”
“Dymiter never recovered from his wounds,” continued Anthea, interrupting his thoughts. “He eventually died in the home that he had built deep in these woods. My grandmother refused to leave the home they had shared together and died soon after of grief. Alethius left his home and assumed the kingship after Duvianus’s death, for he had left no other heir. The dwelling deep in the forest remained empty for a time until a Troll came down out of the Tertulus, crossing the plains at night as they sometimes do. He took Dymiter’s home and these woods for his own. No was able to kill him or drive him away, and at night, he sometimes ventured out to raid our flocks or to take a herdsman. Even though the Troll has not been seen for years, no one comes near here anymore.”
They had drawn closer to the entrance to the canyon while Anthea told her tale. The trees that filled it immediately aroused Elerian’s interest. This was an old forest and many of the trees were wider than a man was tall. Their thick, twisting roots were covered with drifts of old leaves and patches of tall ferns. The thick canopy formed by their massive branches and masses of leaves blocked the sunlight, and there were deep, mysterious shadows between the tree trunks, even though the sun shone brightly on the plains. Ordinarily, Elerian would have been eager to explore the mysterious groves before him, but having heard Anthea’s story, he now eyed the canyon suspiciously, not liking to be so near to the haunts of a Troll.
“We should stay away from this place if it is a Troll wood,” he said to Anthea. “I would as soon not encounter a Troll again.”
“Where and when in your past did you encounter a Troll?” asked Anthea in surprise.
“In Ancharia,” said Elerian. “He wanted to invite me to dinner.”
Elerian laughed at the puzzled look on Anthea’s face. “I was to be the main course as well as the guest of honor,” he said dryly.
“Another adventure,” said Anthea, shaking her head. “And yet you seem so inept. How did you ever survive?” she asked, exercising her sharp wit once more at Elerian’s expense.
“What became of your grandfather?” asked Elerian, once more at a loss for words, for on no account could he tell if she was serious or just mocking him once more.
“He ruled well and lived to be very old,” said Anthea. “Everyone says that the Elven blood running through his veins gave him his long life. He passed his longevity down to his son, for my father is sixty five years old and looks like a young man of thirty. Tell me about your family,” Anthea commanded Elerian.
“I am a foundling,” said Elerian sadly. “The man who raised me found me wandering in the forest when I was but five years old. To this day, I do not know for certain who or what I am. My foster grandfather thought I was one of the Eirians, as does Ascilius,” said Elerian hesitantly and immediately regretted it, for Anthea burst out laughing at his words.
“Your grandfather was doubtless being kind. As for Ascilius, I must warn him that his eyes are no longer trustworthy,” said Anthea. “Only a blind man would mistake you for an Elf. The old tales say that they were the fairest race in the Middle Realm.”
Elerian winced at her words. Her face was turned away from him, and again, he was unsure if she was serious or having fun at his expense.
By now, they had come to the edge of the shallow stream that issued out of the canyon. It was clear as glass, flowing over a hard gravel bottom littered with many stones, both large and small. Anthea rode across, the water reaching only as far as her mare’s fetlocks. Elerian followed on Enias.
It was past noon now. A short distance beyond the stream, they came to a solitary oak, growing on a low knoll several hundred yards from the edge of the forest covering the floor of the canyon. From the top of the hillock, Elerian could see for a long distance in all directions.
“We will stop here,” said Anthea imperiously. “I have brought food and wine a meal.”
Elerian cast a nervous glance at the Troll wood. “Perhaps we should move farther from the canyon,” he suggested.
“There is nothing to be afraid of,” said Anthea in an amused voice as she dismounted and took down the pack fastened to her saddle. “Everyone knows that Trolls shun the light of the sun.”
Elerian groaned to himself. “Now she thinks I am a coward as well as a fool,” he thought to himself.
He dismounted and watched as, moving with a lithe grace, Anthea spread a white linen cloth from the pack on the ground and set out cheese, bread
, and sliced meat as well as a leather sack of pale wine and two silver cups. She and Elerian sat on the oak’s huge, knotted roots to eat their meal while the horses grazed on the lush grass growing under the tree. Despite the peaceful setting, Elerian kept a sharp eye out for danger, for the image of the lion that he had slain the day before remained fresh in his mind, as did the memory of Anferth, the Troll that he had encountered in Ancharia.
Anthea suddenly began singing a sprightly song. She had a clear, silvery voice, and Elerian listened spellbound.
“What is that song?” he asked when she stopped singing.
“It is one that we sing as we travel,” said Anthea. “We have many such. They help us pass the time on long trips across the plains.”
“Teach me the words,” said Elerian, half expecting her to refuse.
Anthea gave him a surprised look, but she sang the song for him again.
“Sing it again,” said Elerian with a smile, and when she did, he joined in with his own voice, deeper than hers but just as clear and true. As their voices rose and blended together, both were entranced, momentarily forgetting their surroundings. When the song ended, Elerian came back to himself with a start. Anthea also abruptly came back to herself.
“Who would have thought that such a plain bird could sing so well,” she said to Elerian in a playful voice.
Elerian did not reply. He had suddenly noticed that Enias was standing with his ears pricked forward, facing south toward the open plain. When Elerian stood and looked in that direction, he saw a large pack of wolves, drawn into a semicircle, creeping toward them through the grass. They were coal black in color, not the gray of the plains wolves.
“Canigrae, possibly with lupins in their midst,” said Anthea calmly. She had also risen to her feet and was now standing beside Elerian’s left shoulder. “They must have come down out of the Nordaels.”
Anthea’s mare suddenly scented the black hunters and bolted in panicked flight, heedless of Anthea’s cries to stop. The approaching pack ignored her as she passed through their ranks, running west toward the war camp. The whole attention of the Goblin hounds seemed firmly fixed on Anthea and Elerian. Seeing that they had been discovered, the canigrae began to run silently toward the knoll, jaws gaping and red tongues lolling over white teeth.
“Enias can carry the both of us, but it is already too late to make a try for the plains,” thought Elerian to himself as the stallion drew close to him, standing nervously by his right shoulder. The approaching canigrae were already closing ranks. A shield spell would not protect Enias’s quick moving legs. It would only take one slash of their jaws to cripple the stallion as he ran through the pack, which would spell doom for all three of them.
“Draw your sword,” said Anthea steadfastly from his left. “There is no running from them now. We will fight them with the tree at our backs.”
Elerian heard the sound of steel rasping on leather as she drew her sword and felt a surge of admiration for her bravery. Rather than risk her life, she might just as easily have tried to climb into the tree behind them.
“There are too many of them for us to stand against them,” he objected quietly. “Even if I cast a shield spell, they will drag us down one at a time, for I cannot protect all three of us completely if we are moving about. The way behind us is still open. Let us mount Enias and ride into the canyon while we still can.”
“The canigrae would soon overtake us there,” replied Anthea impatiently. “There is no place for a horse to run in that dark place. We must make a stand here,” she said stubbornly.
With the pack drawing close, there was no time left to argue.
“If we stay here, we will be torn apart,” thought Elerian to himself.
He leaped lightly onto Enias. Seizing the back of Anthea’s leather tunic with his left hand, he swung her up in front of him on Enias’s withers with an effortless motion of his right arm. She attempted to break free, but he circled her arms and shoulders with his left arm in a grip that she could not break for all her slim strength. Guided by Elerian’s silent thought, Enias whirled around and fled toward the canyon with the first of the pack snapping at his heels. They were close enough that Elerian could hear their hoarse breathing and eager snarls as they sought to close the gap between them and the stallion.
Like the mouth of a net drawn ever tighter, the half circle closed around Enias.
“Faster, Brave Heart,” shouted Elerian. “They draw close!”
Enias lengthened his stride, skimming low over the ground as he put forth all his speed. He reached the edge of the wood an instant before the circle closed around him. One of the canigrae on Elerian’s right made a last desperate leap, missing Enias’s straining gray haunch with its fangs by the width of a knife blade as Enias disappeared between the trees rising across the entrance to the canyon like a green wall.
THE CANYON
There was a fair amount of space between the trees in the canyon, and the nearest branches were nearly thirty feet in the air, but there were also numerous roots snaking across the ground, forcing Enias to slow his pace drastically. Behind the stallion, the canigrae drew close, fiery eyes glowing in anticipation at the thought of spilling warm blood.
“We cannot escape, you fool,” said Anthea furiously to Elerian over her left shoulder, her eyes almost black with anger. “They will pull us down in a moment. We will die running instead of fighting,” she said bitterly, as if the manner of her death was all that mattered to her.
“Until we are cold and dead, there is always hope,” replied Elerian softly. He continued to maintain his hold on Anthea, fearing that she would leap down from Enias and face the Goblin hounds behind them alone at the first opportunity.
As if in response to his thought, Enias unexpectedly emerged onto a narrow, leaf covered track leading deeper into the canyon. With open ground before him and no roots to trip his feet, Enias picked up speed, fairly flying over the ground. The trees on either side of the narrow forest track became a blur to Elerian and Anthea as Enias once more showed the pack behind him his heels.
The canigrae howled in disappointment as their quarry drew away from them, but Elerian knew the Goblin hounds would not give up the chase. With their keen noses, they would follow Enias’s scent trail. Unless there was a way out of the canyon, Elerian knew that he and Anthea and Enias would eventually be trapped again.
As the doleful howls of the canigrae faded into the distance, Elerian slowed Enias. The track seemed in fair shape, but a single hole or rock could spell disaster for the stallion.
“I hope you realize this is probably a Troll road,” said Anthea scathingly, her eyes bright with suppressed anger.
“It has all the signs of being one,” said Elerian in a calm voice.
The track had swung close to the stream that flowed down the center of the canyon, and an idea that might save all three of them suddenly came to Elerian. He let go of Anthea and slid off Enias’s back onto the ground. Anthea immediately leaped lightly down beside him.
“You have come to your senses I see,” she said approvingly. “We can fight them here with the stream at our backs.”
Anthea’s sword gave a deadly whisper as she cut the air before her, and her eyes gleamed with anticipation for the coming battle.
“She is as bad as Ascilius,” thought Elerian to himself, “always ready to fight to the death.” Ignoring Anthea for a moment, he took Enias’s head between his two long hands and looked steadily into the stallion’s dark eyes.
“Wade down the stream until you come to the open grass,” was his silent thought to Enias. “Wait there until I call.”
Elerian sensed the stallion’s reluctance to leave, but Enias obeyed his command, grudgingly entering the shallow stream. With many a backward turn of his head, as if hoping that Elerian would change his mind, he began to follow it south toward the open plain.
“He will not get far,” said Anthea accusingly. “You should have let him stay with us.”
“E
nias will be fine,” said Elerian quietly. “We will distract the pack while he makes his escape.”
“Draw your sword then,” said Anthea in a clear, steady voice. “Even now they approach.”
Elerian slipped his sword, still in its sheath, from over his shoulder and cast it onto the ground. His dagger followed the sword.
“Have you lost your wits,” asked Anthea harshly, “or has fear unmanned you?”
Raising his right hand, Elerian said, “Do not be afraid, no matter what happens.”
Casting a transformation spell, he watched with his third eye as a small golden orb flew from his fingertips. It struck Anthea in the chest and, at once, spread to envelope her from head to foot in a mantle of golden light. Anthea saw nothing of the spell, but her sword fell to the ground as her fingers vanished. Her dagger followed, falling from her belt as her shape flowed into unaccustomed lines. A moment later, a sleek black panther stood before Elerian instead of the fair Tarsian maiden, blue eyes wide and thick tail nervously lashing her silky flanks.
Elerian cast a shape changing spell on himself, and a moment later, his own figure flowed into the shape of a gray panther, the form that he favored above all others.
“Take a moment to grow used to your new shape,” he said to Anthea in a rough, snarly voice. “The pack will be here soon.”
Anthea sheathed and unsheathed her long claws, then took a few hesitant steps. Instead of the fear or confusion Elerian had expected, her deep blue eyes glowed with excitement.
“Does nothing frighten her?” wondered Elerian to himself.
“Where did our clothes go when we changed?” Anthea asked curiously when she noticed that their clothes were nowhere to be seen.
“When I first became a shape changer, I found that I had to leave my clothes behind,” explained Elerian. “Rather than chance wandering through the countryside in my skin if some mischance befell my clothing, I constructed my spell in such a way that my clothes were sent away through a portal and then brought back when they were needed.”