by Anne Logston
“How long has Valann been making pictures on you?” Doria asked, fascinated, her fingers picking idly on the small lute she carried.
“He began the night we were mated.” Chyrie chuckled. “He said he would make two vines to climb up my body—one for him, one for me. He began very, very late that night, and by that time, I was too weary to feel the prick of his needles.”
“Can you fault me for that?” Val smiled. “It had been a trying time for me. We had promised to mate a decade before,” he said in answer to Rivkah’s curious look. “But Chyrie had not yet passed her trials of adulthood, and we could not couple. And because she had not passed her trials, and was a beast-speaker as well, her mind was yet too open to thoughts around her, and so we lived apart from other Wildings to protect her. The night Chyrie passed into womanhood, that very night we were mated, and I vow she did not stand upon her feet for a hand of days.”
“How old were you when you were—mated?” Rivkah asked Chyrie.
“It was the first year of my third decade,” she said. “I was slow in reaching my womanhood. Too slow,” she added ruefully, “for myself as for Valann.”
“Third decade—” Sharl’s brow wrinkled. “And how old are you now?”
“I have eight decades and four years,” Chyrie said. “Valann has thirty-one decades and six years.”
“Thirt—” Romuel gaped openly. “You’re over three hundred years old? Rivkah told us elves lived centuries long, but I never believed it.”
“Thirty-one decades is not so old,” Valann said defensively. “Our Eldest had eighty-four decades, and Rowan must be near that.”
“You all look like children to me,” Sharl grumbled. “How can anyone tell?”
“The length of hair,” Valann told him, touching the coil at the back of his own head. “I saw that Rowan’s braid was quite long, and Dusk’s, as well. And they had both beaded their braids, and only a Matriarch or Patriarch—an elf of fifty decades or more—may do so.”
“But—” Doria gestured at Chyrie’s short hair.
“That is a tale.” Chyrie chuckled. “Once, not long after we were mated, I was out gathering plants when a bear charged upon me. It would not heed me, though I tried to calm it, and I realized it had the foaming-mouth sickness. There was no time to flee but up the nearest tree. The bear, however, was not too sick to climb after me, and I slipped and fell from the branch I was on—but my hair caught on the limb, and there I hung dangling as that bear climbed toward me. I had to cut through my hair with my knife before I could drop to the ground and escape.” She did not finish the story—that she continued to keep her hair short so that when they met other elves, if they stared, Valann could believe it was puzzlement over her short hair, not Val’s unusual hairy face and body.
Valann ruffled the short curls affectionately and glanced at Sharl. “How old are you? In humans it seems impossible to tell.”
“I’m twenty-six years of age,” Sharl said. “Rivkah is nineteen. Romuel is some forty years or so, and Doria is a little younger than that.”
“Why, it is no wonder you do not couple, then,” Val said amazedly. “You are but children, not of an age to breed. But then—” He glanced at Rivkah, but a quick thought from Chyrie silenced him, and he returned to his work.
“None of us are children,” Rivkah said, blushing fiercely. “Girl-children become women at thirteen or younger. But our lives are shorter, less than a century.”
“You see, that is why they litter like rabbits,” Chyrie told Valann. “They must be dying constantly. Soon there would be none if they did not breed in huge numbers. Certainly they must couple more among their own people and in their own place than they have done here.”
“All this,” Sharl mumbled through gritted teeth, “is unimportant.” He spread out the map Rowan had given him. “Valann, do you think we can cross the Blue-eyes’ territory in one day’s ride?”
Val sighed and put down his needle to take the map.
“If we ride quickly and do not delay,” he said, “we should be able to pass. We are not far from the Longear border. But it will rain again tomorrow. If it should storm as it did before, we will be hard-pressed to pass completely through Blue-eyes lands.”
“Allanmere is less than half a league from the forest’s edge,” Sharl said. “We can easily reach it if we can just wind through this last distance.”
“Rain will render my spell less effective,” Rivkah objected. “I can make us invisible to the Blue-eyes’ sight, but they’ll see the tracks our horses make in the mud. A storm would cover our sounds, though,” she mused, “and wash away our scent, if their noses are as sharp as Valann’s and Chyrie’s.”
Chyrie looked up surprisedly at Val, then touched her own nose.
“Our noses are not sharp,” she protested. “They are shorter than your own.”
“I’m sorry,” Rivkah said, changing to the human language. “I was careless with your language. I only meant that your sense of smell is much keener than ours.”
(Apparently, or they would forever be vomiting from their own foul stench,) Chyrie thought to Valann, who diplomatically said nothing.
“Home,” Doria sighed longingly. “I want a loaf of hot bread and butter and a mug of ale as deep as my arm is long.”
“A proper bed and two days to sleep,” Romuel said wistfully.
“A hot bath and fresh clothing”—Rivkah smiled—“and a big fire in the fireplace.”
“Good solid stone all around me,” Sharl agreed, “and, please Evandar, sensible folk to deal with. Well, wish on, my friends, and may your eagerness urge you on faster tomorrow. We should all get what rest we can in preparation.”
Val had scowled once at “sensible folk,” but he quietly put his needles and pots aside, running his hand over the new vine on Chyrie’s shoulder and healing it.
“Go on to our tent,” Chyrie told him, glancing at Rivkah. “I will not be long.”
Rivkah, too, remained at the fire after the others had retired, moving to a closer seat where they could talk quietly.
“You have not yet told him,” Chyrie said. “Is that why you do not couple with him, fearing he will see the signs upon you?”
“Your wits are as keen as your nose,” Rivkah said wryly. “I’m afraid to tell him. So much troubles him already. Finding out he’s going to have a bastard child won’t help.”
Chyrie shook her head at such an odd dilemma; then her face cleared.
“Go and couple with the man Romuel,” she said, “and many other men when you return, and then Sharl can believe that the child is not of his seed.”
Rivkah stared amazedly at Chyrie, then laughed until she had to knuckle tears out of her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I know you mean well, Chyrie, but trust me when I say that it would trouble Sharl much more if he thought I had lain with other men than him, and even more yet if he thought I was pregnant by another man.”
Chyrie scowled.
“I think I will not like your city,” she said, shaking her head again. “The Mother Forest made males to make seed and females to bear it, and the planting of such seed is a joyful act. Why must that be such a difficult thing for humans? If I could fill my belly so easily as human women, I would see myself truly blessed.”
“Chyrie—” Rivkah hesitated. “Have you ever thought that your child—children—might not be fully elven?”
Chyrie looked down at the ground.
“I have thought upon it,” she said. “Valann says that like may only breed with like, but I know he is troubled as well. Only the passing of time will show us the truth. I pray only that my children will be healthy and whole, and whatever the Mother Forest has seen fit to make them, they are a precious gift to me.”
Rivkah reached out to cover Chyrie’s small hand with her own.
“Your courage shames me,” she said. “I’ll tell Sharl now.” She turned and walked out of the light of the dying fire.
There was another flut
ter of movement in Chyrie’s belly, and she laid her hand on it, pensively.
“A precious gift,” Chyrie repeated softly. “May I be strong enough to bear it.”
She stood and walked slowly back to their hidden tent, where Valann’s warmth waited to comfort her.
Chapter Eight
“Can you get the horses to go any faster?” Rivkah shouted over the thunder.
Chyrie shook her head, and Valann shouted back in answer.
“They are already sliding in the mud,” he called. “They dare go no faster on this trail.”
Chyrie slumped back tiredly against Valann, letting him hold her up. She had sent the brighthawk ahead to scout the trail until the rain became so heavy that the bird rebelled; since then she had enlisted whatever squirrels or deer she could coax out of their various shelters, and she was dividing her attention between her makeshift scouts and the horses. Never before had she attempted to so jump from one animal’s thoughts to another, and it was horribly difficult and disorienting. Sometimes she lost all sense of who was truly Chyrie, and it took the strength of Val’s familiar thoughts to pull her back.
It was well after midday by her estimation, although by the darkness it could be midnight instead, and they had been forcing the quickest pace the horses could manage since first light. At first she and Valann had demurred to be concealed by Rivkah’s magic, but Sharl had answered logically that if they were visible, then they might as well all be. Chyrie might still have argued, but Val reluctantly sided with Sharl, saying that Chyrie’s unborn children must not be endangered, and Chyrie had given in.
Rivkah had cast her spell before they left Longear lands. Chyrie herself felt no different, and when she looked back she could see the others clearly enough, but there was a tingly feeling in the air around her, and to her amazement, when she looked through the eyes of her hawk or other animals, the trail was empty but for the branches that mysteriously bent aside and the tracks that appeared, as if by magic, in the mud.
The mage herself looked pale and wan this morning. Sharl was quiet and drawn, and ignored Rivkah steadfastly except to give her sharp-voiced orders, never looking in her direction. In petty revenge, Chyrie had had the hawk fly over him once or twice and drop its waste upon him.
Twice already they had passed Blue-eyes patrols. The Blue-eyes were not fools, and they had loosed arrows and spears at the invisible travelers; Blue-eyes, however, had little knowledge of horses and could not gauge their targets, and so far no one had been struck except for a slight graze to the rump of the packhorse. The horses were quickly tiring, however, and there was no way to tell how much forest yet remained to cross. Valann and Chyrie had taken the lead, since their sensitive eyes could more readily find the trail in the darkness.
Chyrie cast out desperately with her mind and found the brighthawk. She had to promise it a fresh rabbit at the soonest possible opportunity, but at last it soared above the canopy of the forest, striking out westward, diving occasionally as the lightning became too threatening.
What the brighthawk saw both encouraged and dismayed Chyrie. They were indeed near the western edge of the forest, and not far beyond that was the human settlement Sharl called the city of Allanmere, perched on the edge of the Brightwater River almost at the edge of the swamp. It was a frighteningly large collection of stone heaps of varying sizes—presumably dwelling places of some kind—surrounded by an enormous stone block wall, only partially completed, and that was in turn surrounded by a deep water-filled ditch. Strange and unfamiliar animals moved through this “city,” and the sheer number of stone huts indicated an unthinkable number of humans living therein. At the northwest corner of the city was one stone structure larger than the rest—so unthinkably large, in fact, that Chyrie wondered if it was not actually several houses built one atop the other.
The brighthawk was as eager to abandon the place as Chyrie, and it quickly retreated back into the trees to land and dry its feathers. Chyrie sighed and, with some difficulty, fit herself back into her own body. There would be no more need for scouts now.
She was too tired now to speak aloud, but she silently told Val what she had seen, and he turned to shout back to the others. He had no more than gotten the first few words out, however, when an arrow whizzed by perilously close to his face, and a perfect rain of them followed immediately—apparently the sound of their voices had let the Blue-eyes know how far from the ground to shoot.
There was nothing Val and Chyrie could do but be silent and make themselves as small as they could on the back of the horse and ride on; the humans all had shields, behind which they crouched as they rode, but Val and Chyrie had none. Doria cried out as an arrow sank into her unprotected leg, and Val and Chyrie’s horse trumpeted as another creased the top of its neck. A perfect rain of Blue-eyes arrows followed the sounds, and Chyrie heard Valann gasp. Before she could turn, however, an arrow thudded solidly into her hip, and more frightening still, another grazed her belly; instinctively Chyrie bent forward on the horse, pulling Val with her, protecting her unborn children with her own body and Valann’s. She heard another scream from somewhere behind her, and she silently begged the horses for more speed; suddenly the forest parted ahead of her, and then they were in the open field, the horses gaining new strength from the firmer footing and sight of home.
Sharl’s horse thundered past them, the human lord now without his shield and clutching his shoulder, from which a broken spear shaft protruded, but Chyrie had no thought at the moment except for her mate.
(Love, do you live?) she thought anxiously, and was reassured as Val tightened his arms around her.
(An arrow only grazed my cheek,) he thought back. (The woman Doria, however, was sorely hit, if I saw correctly.) He did not touch the arrow in her hip, but Chyrie felt his healing sense move through her. (Can you ride, love, long enough to reach the human village?)
Now that her desperate fear for Val was gone, Chyrie could feel the grinding pain of the arrow tip rubbing against bone. A slow burning was spreading outward from the wound, and she remembered, knowing Val did also, that many clans poisoned their battle arrows.
(I can ride as long as I must,) she thought firmly. (It is but a short distance, and I think the man Sharl has ridden ahead to see us welcomed with all speed.)
Rivkah was shouting something at them, signaling for them to drop back behind her. Chyrie slowed their horse to let Rivkah pull ahead, realizing that regardless of what Sharl might be doing ahead of them, better if a human led them into this human city.
Lightning flashed again, illuminating the broad plain brilliantly. Suddenly frozen with wonder despite their pain and fear, Valann and Chyrie stared at the huge space around them, and the same thought flashed through both minds.
(How large the world is!)
Another flash lighted their way, and they saw with mixed relief and dismay how close the city was. From the air, Chyrie had not realized just how tall the half-built wall was—in the places where it appeared completed, it stood at least five times as high as the horses’ heads.
There was a gate set into the wall they were approaching, but it stood open now, and Chyrie gaped again as she realized that the huge wall was a third as thick as it was tall. Sharl was waiting for them just past the gate, in the center of a crowd of humans, some armored and some not, all talking excitedly.
Rivkah reined her horse to a stop at the gate, motioning to Valann and Chyrie to do the same. Romuel followed close behind, carrying Doria—an arrow protruded from her left side, just below the ribs, in addition to the one in her leg—and behind him, Doria’s horse and the packhorse. The humans came running to take Doria and to help Rivkah and Romuel from their horses, but when they saw the elves, they fell suddenly still and silent, a few drawing weapons.
“These elves are my guests,” Sharl shouted over the thunder and rain.
Those humans with drawn weapons slowly sheathed them, but they still stayed well away, jumping back when Valann ripped out an arrow that had h
it the saddlebag behind him, then slid down from the horse. Rivkah hurried forward to take Chyrie and carry her gently to Sharl, where Doria already lay on the muddy ground.
“The arrows are barbed and must be cut free,” Val told Rivkah. “The spear is not, but I believe all are poisoned.” He touched the tip of his tongue to the head of the arrow in his hand, then grimaced. “Karsha berries. It is a slow poison and not difficult to treat.”
“There are mages at the keep,” Sharl said, pressing a cloth to the wound in his shoulder, “but it’s across the city. It’ll be quicker for us to go to the mages than to send for them.”
“Doria doesn’t have time,” Rivkah said, gently probing the area around the arrow. “And I exhausted my magic protecting us.”
“Valann—” Sharl began, but Val ignored him, carefully cutting the leather away from the arrow in Chyrie’s hip.
“Hurry,” Chyrie panted. “The poison must not spread to my womb.”
“No!” Romuel seized Valann’s shoulder. “You have to heal Doria! She’s dying!”
Valann threw Romuel’s hand off, not sparing the energy to reply. He glanced at Chyrie, his knife ready, and she nodded; without further delay, he sliced deeply into her hip.
Romuel reached for Valann again, but his hands froze, shaking, as the geas restrained him. He turned to Sharl, his face purple with rage. Rivkah chanted desperately, trying to raise some last wisp of magic, but to no avail.
“Do something!” Romuel shouted. “Chyrie can wait for help. Doria can’t.”
Chyrie ground her teeth as Val cut deeper, both of them ignoring the humans—Chyrie from pain, Val from concentration—and with a last searing cut, the arrow came free. Immediately Val pressed his hands over the wound.
(It was deeper than I thought,) he told her, even as his healing power flowed through her. (This may speed your children more, if what Dusk said was true.)
Chyrie might have told him as much; she could feel her belly swelling, as if her unborn children sucked in his healing magic like water, and the small lives within her moved fiercely, almost hurting her. But as soon as she felt the burning of the poison subside, she pushed his hand away.