As they reached a small overflowing streambed, Ewan stopped and held the lantern on high. “Any evidence of past flood-scouring?”
Deyer knelt above the embankment and ran his hand across the wet loam. “Too hard to tell, sir.”
“Then we can only—”
—A distant rumbling interrupted Captain Ewan’s words. Both men looked up. There had been no accompanying lightning flash, but the rumbling grew.
“Run!” cried Deyer, and he turned and bolted upslope, with Ewan on his heels and shouting warning to those above.
But before many could react, a towering wall of water slammed into the encampment.
Trees bent in the deluge, some to snap in twain while others were wrenched up and out from the soil to go tumbling along with rocks and dirt and men and horses and supplies. Animals screamed along with troopers, their shrieks and cries lost in the thunder of hurtling water.
Ewan was caught in the torrent and rolled under to smash against the ground, only to be hurled up and tossed high, and then to be rolled under again, the raging water plunging along the corridor of the vale, carrying all along in its mad rush.
Churning, tumbling, Ewan could only now and again get a breath, and even then he would be slammed to the bottom and the air knocked from his lungs.
But then the whole of the deluge swept out from the vale and into the broad plain, where it fled south and west and east to diminish in depth and force.
But the dell behind yet roared with the outpour as trees and rocks and horses and men were vomited forth from its roiling maw.
Shivering uncontrollably, Ewan managed to limp through the knee-deep flow to a small knoll.
Finding a Seer will be the death of us all.
• • •
SOMETIME DURING THE NIGHT, the storm abated and fell to a drizzle, finally to die. Dawn came, and shivering men and a handful of distressed horses managed to find one another.
Among the survivors were seventeen men—Captain Ewan and Corporal Deyer among them: all had bruises, and five had broken bones—a collarbone, a wrist, an arm, and two with bones broken in lower legs.
As he tended the injured, Ewan commanded Deyer to take the least hurt and ride the recovered mounts to find the other horses.
He then told the remainder to salvage whatever supplies they could and to see about building a fire, though as to this latter, with everything drenched, well . . .
The vale itself continued to flow with the outpour running down from the Grey Mountains, and now and then, floating out along with uprooted trees and broken branches and debris, a corpse would issue forth on the drift: a trooper, a horse, or an animal native to this land.
Altogether, eleven men had died, some by drowning, others by being bludgeoned to death. Of the horses, some of them, too, had perished, some were never found, and some had to be put down because of their injuries.
In all, a sevenday passed before the fit and unfit managed to recover enough and bury their dead and head eastward again, Black Mountain yet their goal.
They left their wounded among the villagers of a small mountain holt named Doku, and, resupplied and with a two-day rest, they pressed on toward the Wizards’ retreat.
• • •
TWELVE MEN ALTOGETHER—twelve survivors—dismounted and led their horses across a sheltered smooth stretch of stone of a wide foregate court embraced by a broad recess. At Captain Ewan’s orders, with their hands on the hilts of their weapons, they spread out as they went. Stepping through shadow, they came to a pair of great iron gates, and runes and another strange script were carved or cast thereon. What they might impart, neither Ewan nor none of his men could say.
“I think these are Dwarven words,” said Corporal Deyer. “I’ve seen their like on realmstones.”
“But this is not a Dwarvenholt,” said one of the troopers.
“I’ll wager they made this though,” said Deyer.
“And the other script . . . ?” asked the trooper.
“Magetongue, mayhap,” said Deyer. “I mean, they do live here, or so I have been told.”
“They had better live here,” said Captain Ewan, “for all it has cost us.”
He then drew his long-knife and reversed it to use the pommel to hammer for entrance.
His effort brought forth a small thunk.
“Thick,” he said.
A side postern in what had seemed to be solid stone opened and an armored figure stepped out and beckoned to them.
It was a Dwarf.
• • •
AFTER HALF A DAY and another of rest and recovery, and after being fed a number of meals to quench hunger and slake thirst, finally Ewan was summoned to a chamber.
“I know why you’ve come, Captain,” said the yellow-robed Mage, a female who looked to be in her dotage. Her hair was white and her sallow skin was age-spotted. With faded brown eyes she studied the warrior, and she smiled, accentuating the wrinkles of her old face.
“Then you know our need, Sage Arilla,” said Ewan.
Arilla sighed and nodded. “I do. Yet, heed, we are not yet recovered from the Great War, and none of us has the
Ewan frowned. “But that was—what?—two thousand years past?”
“Indeed. Even so, we have not yet recouped much of that which we lost.”
“Is there naught you can do to help us?”
“You will need to find someone who yet has the
“We have searched and found no one,” said Ewan. “Our last hope is—”
“Shush,” said Arilla. “I have not the
Ewan sighed but said, “As you will, Lady Mage.”
“Come,” said Arilla, and she stood.
Ewan offered her his arm, for he had seen how she had hobbled into the chamber to speak with him. And together they slowly moved into another room, Dwarven-carved from the solid black stone. Gingerly she took a chair before a modest alabaster table upon which sat a small cedar box, and she bade the captain to sit in a chair opposite. She unclasped the lid of the aromatic wooden case just large enough to hold a silken-wrapped deck of cards. She spread out the fabric—blue with a spangle of stars—and she carefully shuffled the cards. Finally, she said to Ewan, “Captain, think of that which you seek, and cut the deck in twain and place the half to your left.”
Even as he did so, Arilla muttered a word arcane.
Then she stacked the deck right to left.
She dealt out just five cards, making a cross: one in the center, one above, one below, one left, and one right.
Then she looked at the spread and laughed and said, “Go, the one you seek will find you instead.”
“But, I don’t underst—”
“Captain, just go.”
And when the captain had gone, Arilla looked at the cards: in the center, the Mage, upright, aiding. To the left, the Ace of Swords, inverted, opposing. To the right, the Ruined Tower, inverted, disaster. Below lay the Naïf, upright, aiding. And above, the Knight of Swords, also upright, aiding. Arilla sighed. The Tower, opposing, as is the Ace of Swords; how sad. She tapped the Mage in the center. My old friend is back, and he will help them survive.
She penned a quick note on a tissue-thin strip, and then rang a small bell.
A Dwarf appeared.
She handed him the note and said, “Send this by the grey falcon.”
“As you wish, Lady Mage.”
• • •
CAPTAIN EWAN AND HIS eleven men stopped in Doku for rest and respite and to see how bones were healing. Of the five men who had remained there, the lad with the collarbone frac
ture had mended enough to ride with them, but the other breaks had more knitting to do. And so, Ewan told those four troopers to ride when they could, and he added more silvers to the coffers of the village elder to keep the men and their horses well nourished until all had healed.
The villagers were pleased to comply, for, with the village elder translating, the soldiers entertained them with tales of their ventures and told of a world beyond the mountains. The horses, though, did frighten them. Until these men had come, they’d had only ponies in their stables, and these big beasts were like and yet unlike their smaller cousins. That is, if the horses ran amok, why, they could destroy the entire hamlet. Still, as they had been directed by the captain, they had been leading the beasts out on tethers behind the ponies to have a run so that they would maintain themselves.
The village elder tried to dissuade the captain from riding out with the youth who’d had a collarbone break; after all, if they went that way, there would be thirteen riding—surely a bad omen, for it could not be divided by two or three or any number.
But the captain and his men paid no heed, and rode westward the very next day.
• • •
THEY REACHED THE GRAVESIDES of the men who had perished in the flood, and they paused long enough to hold a ceremony. And then, to escape a repeat of the disaster, they dashed west-southwestward across the wide plain between the end of the Grey Mountains and the beginning of the Grimwalls, taking only four days to get far enough away to be out from the worst of the Maw. But the weather held, and their journey was without incident.
They continued west-southwestward, heading for the Landover Road, and as summer continued to wane, they forded the Wolf River—named so, for it flowed out from the Wolfwood, some hundred miles to the north.
On they fared, through Aralan, to finally intercept the Crossland Road just north of the Bodorian Range in Alban.
It was there that the now-sergeant Deyer said, “Captain, I keep having this feeling that someone or something is watching us, but I haven’t seen aught as of yet.”
“Keep a sharp eye out, then, Deyer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And tell the men to do likewise.”
“Aye, Captain.”
As they rode a bit farther, Deyer said, “I’m glad you believe me, Captain.”
“Sergeant, many a time my life has been saved by someone who ‘sensed’ rather than ‘saw.’ So I am not one to question your, um, awareness of an unseen thing. Now, alert the men.”
On they traveled, day after day, and autumn was upon them as they entered the eastern edge of Garia.
Through this land they made their way, and, as they had been doing when opportunity afforded, they stopped in villages along the way to rest and eat and replenish their supplies, including grain for their horses.
But in particular in Garia, Captain Ewan cautioned the men each day to remember their tale that they were mercenaries for hire, and not citizens of the Northern Alliance. And on they rode for the marge between this land and Riamon.
As they approached the slot in the Rimmen Mountains marking the border, a young scout pointed forward and upward above two close-set hills. “Kites, sir.”
“I see them, Avril,” said Ewan, gazing at the circling dark birds.
“Something dead?”
“Aye, but on both sides of the road. Sergeant Deyer, scouts out to see what has them so stirred.”
“Yes, sir.” Deyer sent two men to the right and two to the left. “Caution, lads,” he said, though he was no older than they.
• • •
“GARIAN SOLDIERS,” said Ewan, looking down at the rent garb of the slaughtered men.
“What could have done this?” asked Avril. “I mean, they look as if they were set upon by wild beasts.”
Deyer came riding upslope. As he reached the encampment, he dismounted and glanced at the massacre and said, “It’s the same on the other side, Captain.”
“It looks as if they were trying to flee,” said Ewan, “but were brought down even as they ran.”
“Captain,” called one of the men, kneeling in the dirt, “I think you need to see this.”
Ewan moved to the man’s side and knelt beside the trooper. “What kind of a dog would make a track this big?”
“Not a dog, Lann; a Vulg, mayhap,” said Ewan.
“Oh, Adon. Vulgs? They did this?”
“Pony-sized, Wolflike, but creatures of the Spawn instead,” said Deyer, now standing at hand. “Black as night, they are, and banned from the light of day by Adon.” Deyer took a deep breath and let it out, then said, “Captain, do you think it’s Vulgs I’ve been sensing? Vulgs watching us?”
Ewan shook his head. “If so, then why aren’t we lying slain a hundred leagues arear?”
Ewan stood and stepped back to the heart of the carnage. He paused and his gaze swept ’round the encampment, taking in its set and supplies and weaponry. As Sergeant Deyer stepped to his side, Ewan said, “Well disguised and long term. Bows and crossbows. And in the trees down nigh the turn in the road I see a low barrier; it, too, veiled.”
“’Tis the same opposite, Captain, though offset. I’m thinking that this is an excellent place for an ambush.”
“My thoughts as well,” said Ewan.
“Brigands, thieves, robbers?” asked Lann, getting to his feet. “If so, then mayhap some animals did us a favor.”
“They wear the uniforms of Garia,” said Ewan.
“They could be robbers, still,” said Deyer.
“Or assassins,” said Lann.
• • •
IT WAS MIDWINTER WHEN they reached the toll takers at the base of the road leading up to Crestan Pass, and they discovered the two men who had lost their feet to frostbite had both succumbed to the rot. They debated whether to wait until spring to cross over, but since the Baeron had cleared the way of snow and ice, Ewan decided to push on instead, even though the slopes above threatened avalanche. The captain and his men tied muffling cloth upon the horses’ hooves, and in near silence they slowly rode up and across and down, stopping now and again to give the horses respite . . . or to lead them afoot. And along the way they found another large paw print, as of that of a Vulg.
• • •
THEY REACHED CHALLERAIN KEEP in midspring, and still, in spite of Arilla’s reading, they had not met a Seer.
They rode through the gates and up the winding road, passing under fortified wall after wall.
The council was in session, and Ewan was admitted immediately.
Lord Cavin looked up from the table and said, “Well?”
“My Lord Steward, I am sorry to report the Mages were of no aid.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said someone, in a voice as from afar, and suddenly at Ewan’s side there appeared a man. Nay! Not a man, but perhaps an Elf instead! Seemingly from thin air he appeared: first he wasn’t, then he was.
“Waugh!” men cried and leapt to their feet and swords and knives flashed out from scabbards even as Mayor Hein blundered up from his chair and bolted toward a far door, only to find it locked.
Captain Ewan reached out to take hold of the intruder, but his hand passed through the form.
“Hold!” shouted Cavin, and he smiled at the stranger, neither man nor Elf but Mage instead.
Man height he was, six foot or so, and his eyes held the hint of a tilt. His ears were pointed, and his hair hung down beyond his shoulders, a dark silvery sheen to it; in spite of his hair, he looked to be no more than thirty. He was dressed in soft grey leathers, black belt with silver buckle clasped at his waist. His feet were shod with black boots, supple and soft upon the land. His eyes were as piercing as those of an eagle, their color perhaps grey, though it was difficult to tell in the light of the chamber.
“Welcome, Lord Dalavar,” said Cavin, “or do you prefer
Wolfmage?”
11
Darda Coill
On the island of Kell there is a vast shaggy wood, mossy and riddled with streamlets and glades, its trees huge-girthed and old—oaks, maples, birch, ash, and white pine for the most part, along with a scatter of rowan. Rooted in rich soil and nurtured by frequent rains and warming sunlight, the ancient forest is populated by a race of lithe woodland Elves known as the Dylvana. Unlike their taller kindred, the Lian Elves, the adult Dylvana typically stand somewhere between four foot six and five foot in height. It is said that when Adon created the Lian, His daughter, Elwydd, followed with the Dylvana, the goddess making them smaller and more elusive than their kindred, after which She went on to make the Dwarves. Regardless as to whether this tale is truth or myth, the Dylvana worship Elwydd, and the ones who dwell on the isle of Kell call this ancient wood Darda Coill, which in the Elven tongue of Sylva means Forest Fair, or perhaps Forest Beautiful, in honor of their lovely creator. Elves have lived within this woodland on Kell for uncounted years . . . but when Humans arrived there was a struggle over possession of the forest, a struggle in which the Dylvana prevailed. After defeating mankind, for the most part the Dylvana forbad the men from encroaching upon Darda Coill. One result of this warfare is that the Human Kellians believe the woodland is somehow enchanted, and they adopted the name “coill” into their own language, though to them “coill” meant “forest,” rather than its true meaning of “fair.” Another result, however, is that though in general man does not intrude upon this darda, still the Dylvana did let some Humans—those who had sided with the Elves—to live within the bounds, under the condition that they raise cattle and other livestock, or grow grain and vegetables and additional staples. They were allowed to clear-cut trees to make these farms and to construct the buildings needed for storage and to shelter both man and animal, and to partition the fields with fences, though otherwise logging was forbidden, but for wood for fires, though here, mostly dead wood is harvested. Those cleared plots of land are highly valued, and are passed down through generations. . . .
. . . And on one of those prized farms within that ancient wood . . .
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