The Elven Apostate

by Sara C. Roethle

  She nodded.

  “And the hunters, should they have a Brambletooth amongst them, will sense Zirin’s magic. We need to get them out of there.”

  Rissine shocked him by seeming torn. “Elmerah—”

  He nodded, understanding her dilemma. To fetch her crew, and possibly leave Elmerah vulnerable so nearby, or to leave the crew, and let them deal with Arthali hunters. “Elmerah can take care of herself for now, and Alluin is with her. He won’t let anyone sneak up on them. Now let’s get your crew and get out of here.” He turned to head toward the docks.

  A hand on his shoulder stopped him, and he turned back around, shocked Rissine would even touch him. “I cannot lose her, Celen.”

  “I know, neither can I, but if we’re to flee the port, we can’t just leave your crew to die. Now let’s go.”

  This time, Rissine followed, then quickly took the lead, heading west toward the docks.

  Celen could only hope this wouldn’t prove to be the biggest mistake of his life.

  Rissine

  Every step toward the docks felt like a stride in the wrong direction, but Celen was right, she couldn’t desert her crew just because Elmerah was near. If she’d foreseen finding her sister this quickly, she’d have abandoned her ship and taken her crew with her from the start. She only wanted them ready to sail should she find news of Elmerah somewhere far off.

  Celen grasped her shoulder before she reached the first planks of the dock. Holding back his alleged ally with his other arm, he removed his hand from her shoulder and pointed ahead. “Look.”

  Rissine followed the aim of his finger. A ship far out at sea cut across the blinding afternoon sun. She could not make out the color of its sails, but only so many ships came into port each day. Some days there would be no ships at all. Chances were, this one carried the Arthali.

  An old primal fear, instilled in her when she was but a girl, flared to life. Her mother’s corpse. Elmerah’s tear-filled eyes. “We must hurry,” she rasped.

  Her heart beat steadily in her throat as she made her way down the docks, keeping an even pace, exuding exterior calm. Inwardly, her mind raced over and over that fateful day so long ago, when she was given the choice to save her mother, or her sister. She knew the gathering Arthali could kill her in an instant, could kill her mother, her sister, and anyone else they chose. She’d had no choice then, but she did have one now. She wouldn’t let them take anyone else from her.

  Moving toward the ship, Celen and his little ally followed her lead. She had time, she told herself. She had time before that ship would reach the docks. She could get her crew off the ship, flee to the woods, and warn Elmerah. Together, they could come up with a plan.

  Spotting her, the portmaster approached as if to bar her way. Did he realize she’d lied about her identity? Had the incoming ship given away her ruse? The look on his face said yes, and he’d soon rat her out, if he hadn’t already.

  With malice in her dark eyes, her gait remained steady as she unsheathed her blade.

  The portmaster, but a few paces away, took one long look at her, Celen, and the squirrelly little man behind them, then turned and scurried the other way.

  As she reached the ship, Rissine heard chatter and sensed movement back at the edge of port. The militia lingering there would have seen her draw her blade. Time was short.

  “Zirin!” she shouted, hoping he waited on deck and not below in the cabins. “Now!”

  Zirin and Vessa both leaned over the ship’s railing as she neared. Zirin cast one look toward port, then darted away.

  Confident Zirin would gather her Valeroot crew, Rissine turned around, tightening her grip on her blade, prepared to protect her allies from any militia who dared stand in their way.

  * * *

  Elmerah

  Elmerah reined in her horse, needing silence. “Do you hear that?”

  Alluin’s mount had already halted just ahead of hers. They’d left the other two horses hidden at the edge of the woods. He lifted a pointed ear toward the sky. “Shouting, lots of shouting. Something’s happening at the port.”

  She clenched her reins. “Those cotton-brained fools.”

  “It could have nothing to do with them.”

  “Or everything to do with them.” She kicked her horse’s sides, leaning forward in the saddle as the beast took off like a cannonball.

  She heard hoofbeats over the sound of whipping wind as Alluin’s mount followed hers.

  Idiot, she thought, narrowing her eyes. I’m such an idiot. She should have never let them go, not after what happened with Isara.

  Their mounts carried them swiftly down the road, kicking up a cloud of dust in their wake. She focused on her magic, wanting it fully built and ready to strike, though she’d no idea what she’d find at port.

  The first squat wooden buildings came into sight. She knew little of the port, but surmised the fastest way to the docks would be right through the middle of town.

  Alluin’s horse charged up beside hers as they reached the first buildings bisected by the road. “I know the port! Sharp left up here. The docks are at the northwestern end.”

  “How do you know they’re at the docks!” she shouted over thundering hooves. The few people milling about in the streets took one look at the charging horses and ran through the nearest doorways.

  “Taverns are near the docks! That’s where they would have gone!”

  The sky darkening overhead had her questioning whether she’d summoned her magic too early, but no. She felt it like a deep still well in the pit of her gut. These sudden dark clouds were not her doing. Either a storm had brewed unnaturally fast, or . . .

  “I think Rissine is here!”

  Alluin didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned forward, focused on weaving his horse through the streets and evading any people too slow to get out of the way.

  Elmerah’s horse huffed and grunted with every gallop, giving off heat where she grasped the reins near its shoulders. She let Alluin take the lead, her horse just a step behind, following as he led them through the town and toward the coast. Thunder rumbled, setting her teeth on edge. What in Ilthune’s cursed name was Rissine doing at the port?

  “Just ahead!” Alluin shouted back to her.

  They’d reached the northern end of town, and took a sharp left toward the coast. The docks ahead swarmed with militia. There was one ship already anchored, and another nearing port.

  Beyond the charging militia was Rissine, lit up with circling lightning, keeping the militia back from those who waited beyond.

  Elmerah and Alluin slowed their horses. Behind Rissine were Celen, Killian, and a host of Valeroot elves. Should the militia’s arrows break through Rissine’s lightning, they would be overtaken in a moment.

  She drew her horse to a halt, dismounted, and let go of the reins, freeing the horse to run out of danger. Her magic swarmed upward. “We have to help them,” she panted. The second she loosed her magic, the militia would turn on her too.

  Alluin dismounted, unstrapped his bow from the back of his horse’s saddle, then freed his mount. He reached for the quiver slung over his shoulder. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  “Now that’s what I like to hear.” Magic poured out of her, a more mighty torrent than she’d ever experienced. Fire erupted on the road ahead, blazing forward though there was no fuel save her magic. It cut toward the docks and the militia beyond, just as Rissine’s lightning rained down from overhead.

  In the time of a single inhale, the entire port erupted into chaos.

  * * *

  Isara

  Isara could hardly believe her eyes as lightning seemed to engulf the port. Daemon’s contingent had just crested the rise of the southern road when the horses began to panic.

  The horse she’d been given reared up, struggling against its reins fastened tight to the front of Daemon’s saddle.

  Daemon’s attention was mostly occupied by his own panicked mount, but he found time to shout, “Control your hors
e!”

  All Isara could manage was to grip tightly to her saddle and brace her legs around her horse’s trunk. Some Dreilore approached on foot, and others dismounted all around them, their black leather armor giving them an air of otherness. If she was thrown and knocked unconscious, she wouldn’t be able to help Elmerah, for surely that was who waited at the port ahead.

  The Dreilore lord with their contingent calmly sidled up toward Isara’s horse, grabbed the reins where they met the bit, then tugged her mount into submission. The beast stomped its hooves erratically, but lowered its head in the Dreilore’s grasp.

  In the moment of relative stillness, Isara took a shaky breath, then looked up as the first drops of cold rain speckled her cheeks.

  Now in control of his own mount, Daemon looked to the Dreilore lord. “Take Isara and a few soldiers into the woods and make a wide path around the port. I’ll go with the rest of the contingent to the docks, see if we can’t capture us a Shadowmarsh witch.”

  “No!” Isara cried, kicking her horse’s sides.

  The Dreilore lord reined in her horse, gesturing to some of the soldiers on the road behind them. She swung her leg over the saddle and slid down, but the Dreilore lord was there, looping an arm around her waist.

  “Struggle,” he whispered in his thick accent, “and I will break your legs. You are wanted alive, but not necessarily whole.”

  She winced, cowering at his closeness. She could sense the strength in his arms. She might be able to disable the enchantments on his blade, but she could not fight him.

  Dreilore soldiers closed in around her, most on foot but a few still on mounts. One took her horse.

  The Dreilore holding her tightly barked orders she couldn’t understand, then began dragging her away from the road.

  She pulled away, casting her eyes back toward Daemon, but he’d already started riding toward the port, most of the contingent surging past her in his wake.

  The Dreilore holding her gave a harsh yank, bringing her tight against him, his long white hair brushing her cheek. He dragged her further from the road. She whipped her gaze upward at a deafening peal of thunder. A black line cut across the rolling dark clouds, opening up a wound which gushed rain down upon them.

  Her wet spectacles half-blinding her, and her sodden cloak tangling around her stumbling feet, Isara was dragged into the woods. Dragged away from any chance of warning Elmerah that an entire contingent of Dreilore—with blades and shackles that could nullify her magic—were on their way.

  “Faster,” the Dreilore lord hissed in Isara’s ear as he shoved her from behind. She regretted ever sliding down from her mount, but with the rutted earth and thick brambles of the forest, she’d have been forced to dismount regardless. They’d reached the edge of the storm, finally out of the rain, but thoroughly soaked to the skin. Despite the wall of trees standing between her and the port, she could still hear the sounds of chaos in the distance.

  “You’ve no idea—oof!” He shoved her back so hard she pitched forward, toppling right into prickly brambles. Little thorns snagged her cloak and drew blood on her skin.

  The Dreilore lord and the three others accompanying him all stared down at her, their unusual eyes flickering with burning embers.

  “Move,” the lord ordered, tossing a lock of bejeweled white hair behind his shoulder.

  Stuck halfway sitting in the brambles, she raised a bloody hand to straighten her spectacles. The cut on her palm wasn’t deep, but burned like a bee sting thanks to the mild irritants in the thorns.

  “I’m stuck,” she lied, grasping at the small chance to delay being taken too far away from the port to find her way again. She felt torn in so many ways, and could not deny that now, half of her worry was for Daemon. If he ordered his Dreilore to attack Elmerah, what might she do in retaliation?

  The Dreilore lord reached down, grabbed her wrist, and tugged. She pushed off with her feet, using the momentum to drive her forward, hoping to topple the Dreilore . . . but his grip stopped her dead in her tracks. He squeezed her wrist so hard she cried out, her knees buckling beneath her.

  “Unhand the girl!”

  Isara thought for a moment she imagined the voice, but the Dreilore all turned in that direction. A handful of Valeroot elves and an Akkeri blocked the way back to port. Four elves aimed unwavering arrows at the Dreilore.

  The Dreilore lord raised Isara’s wrist in his grasp, pulling her up on her toe tips, but his words were for the female elf who’d spoken. “Would you like to die this day, elf?”

  Isara watched the elves, wide eyed. She recognized one of them from Faerune, Alluin’s sister, Vessa. Another female seemed vaguely familiar.

  Vessa’s raised bow did not falter. “Do not make me laugh, Dreilore. You are outnumbered, and no one is faster than a Valeroot hunter with a bow.”

  At a nod from their lord, the three other Dreilore drew glowing blades and approached the elves.

  All Isara could do was watch as bowstrings tightened, and the first arrows flew in her direction.

  One of the Dreilore went down quickly, but the other two launched themselves at their opponents.

  Isara’s eyes widened. The Dreilore were so graceful and fast, as if they had muscles that humans and elves did not. One slashed at Vessa with a green glowing blade, nearly disemboweling her.

  With a gasp, Isara summoned her magic, quenching the Dreilore’s glowing blades. It would make their finely honed edges no less dangerous, but there was nothing else she could do.

  One Dreilore hesitated at the sight of his quenched weapon, just a heartbeat, but it was enough for an elf standing further back to send an arrow straight through his heart. The third Dreilore stepped back, now facing the elves on his own.

  “My apologies,” the Dreilore lord holding her painfully aloft muttered, “but you are not worth dying for.”

  Isara fell to the ground, looking up just in time to see a wave of black smoke dissipating. The Dreilore lord was gone.

  She scrambled to her feet, realizing the lord had not been speaking to her, but to the remaining Dreilore now backing away from the elves, almost reaching her. It seemed Egrin had only granted magic to the higher standing lords, and this lord had left his soldier to die.

  He froze as three bows raised his way.

  “Don’t!” Isara cried, already horrified by the two dead Dreilore at her feet. “There has been enough killing these days, and we need to help my friend at the docks.” And find my brother, she added silently.

  Vessa lowered her bow, just slightly, her green gaze on the Dreilore. “Now would be the time for you to flee. Consider yourself lucky.”

  With a confused glance at Isara, the Dreilore turned tail and ran deeper into the woods.

  The elves lowered their bows as they approached. Isara couldn’t fathom how they’d happened upon her, but she was most shocked to see Merwyn, who she’d met a time or two in Faerune.

  Though he leaned on a fine elven cane for support, he reached her before the elves. His sickly skin seemed out of place in the soft sunlight filtering through the trees. “Lucky we found you. Elmerah made us flee—” he hesitated, glancing at Vessa. “But we should not have left her. She could use our help.” He looked to Isara. “Your help especially.”

  His slurred words were a bit difficult to understand. She looked up to Vessa. “What does he mean? I saw the lightning. What’s happening at port?”

  Vessa raked her free hand through her short hair, revealing pointed ears beneath the tousled locks. “We sailed here with Rissine, searching for Elmerah and my brother, but we had the misfortune of arriving at the same time as an Arthali ship. The militia attacked us, and we might have been overwhelmed had Elmerah not arrived. She and my brother are still at the port. I imagine the Arthali ship has docked by now.”

  “An Arthali ship?” she gasped. Vessa made it sound like a bad thing, so they could not be allies of Rissine. That meant . . . “Egrin sent them? Who are they after?”

  “Rissine and
Elmerah.”

  Her thoughts raced. The militia had attacked, Rissine and Elmerah now faced an entire ship of Arthali, and Daemon had ridden into port with a contingent of Dreilore. That entire port was about to be obliterated, and those she cared about would be caught in the middle.

  She clutched a hand to her chest, willing her heart to stop racing. “We must return to the port. Have you any mounts?”

  Vessa shook her head. “We ran all the way here, and we’re not going back. I swore to my brother I would not. He detailed the location of two mounts left behind, but they are to be used for fleeing.”

  “Your brother is going to die if we don’t go back!”

  Vessa flinched like she’d been struck. “I tried to get him to leave, but he wouldn’t leave Elmerah.” Her voice hitched. “He’s chosen to protect that witch ‘till the end. If I return he’ll be watching two backs instead of one, and it could get him killed.”

  Frantic, she looked to Merwyn next.

  He lowered his nearly bald head. “I will follow, but you must run ahead. I will slow you down.”

  She glared at the elves, but it appeared none would change their minds. She’d find the way to port on her own. She could disable Arthali magic and Dreilore enchantments alike. She was the only one who could curtail the bloodshed yet to come . . . if she could make it there fast enough.

  “Fine, Merwyn and I will save them.” She glanced at the small Akkeri, doubting he’d do much good, though she was still glad she didn’t have to go alone.

  She turned, listening for the sound of the distant coast. The Dreilore had not taken her far, she should be able to find her way. Hearing shouts and clangs of steel over the distant crashing tide, she started walking.

  She’d taken a few steps when Vessa reached her side, a look of grim determination on her delicate face. “You’re going to have to run faster than that. We’ll find my brother’s spare mounts.”