The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  Dorovan she could have told.

  For all his friendship with her grandmother – she knew it was more than that but it was a good enough description – he wouldn’t betray her secrets unless he felt she should speak. In some ways for her he was a neutral party.

  It didn’t matter, that chance was lost until the next time he came. That could easily be months. Once it had been almost a year. A short time in the long lives of Elves.

  She clattered up the causeway. The gates were open as they often were during the day. The sun wasn’t too low on the horizon, it still cast a warm golden glow. A stable boy came up to take her horse, which she gave up gratefully and with a smile.

  “Thank you, Gellin,” she said, softly.

  “I’ll walk ‘im a bit for you, miss,” Gellin said, ducking his head.

  A bellow startled them both. “Get out!”

  Stunned, horrified, her package cradled in her arms, Ailith spun as Gellin flinched.

  She knew that voice. It was her father’s voice. But he never shouted.

  There he was, though, standing between the entryway doors. His face was red, nearly purple. She’d thought her shock couldn’t be greater than when she’d heard him shout. She was wrong. This couldn’t be her father, this red-faced furious figure in the doorway. It couldn’t.

  He couldn’t be shouting at Tanith, he couldn’t.

  Tanith had been chatelaine at Riverford since before Ailith had been born. In all her years Ailith had never seen her father like this, so angry. She hadn’t known him capable of it.

  All around people stopped to stare, sharing her bewilderment.

  Tanith backed away from the doors in the face of Geric’s fury, then finally she broke and fled, her skirts flying as she ran for the gates. Her hands were at her face and Ailith could tell she was weeping.

  Past shock, Ailith was sick at heart as her father reached out for the doors on either side and drew them shut with a bang.

  “Gellin, take the horse into the stables and brush him down until he’s cool. Go quietly, lad.”

  Somehow, she didn’t think the storm that was her father was passed. Rather than face that uncertain wrath herself she slipped into the castle through the kitchen entrance.

  The cooks all stood frozen, their eyes on the door to the castle interior. They looked frightened. The head cook looked at Ailith with a shaken expression. Ailith shook her head at the unasked question. She didn’t know either.

  Swiftly, she ran up the back stairs with her precious gifts cradled in her arms. When she reached her rooms she thrust them beneath her bed where they would be safe. Why she felt they wouldn’t be safe in her own home didn’t occur to her. She only knew she had to hide them.

  Relieved, she sat on her bed and then realized with fresh fear that someone stood outside the open door. Cold alarm washed through her.

  It was her mother.

  Arms clasped around herself, her eyes wide and staring, Selah stood at the top of the stairs and listened to the brooding, waiting silence below as Ailith did. She was more of a ghost than ever, dressed in a gauzy gray that matched her eyes, she was like a shadow. A softly held breath slowly escaped her.

  Feeling the weight of eyes on her, Selah looked upon her daughter.

  Her thoughts stirred sluggishly, like a too-thick stew, jumbled, with odd bits that floated to the surface. The more she tried to capture a thought, the more likely it was to slip away to disappear within the murk. Somewhere beneath it all lay a terrifying clarity, as if part of herself resisted this apathy and fought against it. That part was terrified, panicked, it struggled against this mindless passivity.

  What was it she’d been thinking? She couldn’t capture it again. It was important. Then she knew but then it was gone again.

  Ailith, looking at her. Her daughter. Looking at her with blue-gray eyes so much like her own but keener, sharper.

  There was something important there, something she’d once known but put aside and forgotten. Like much else these days. She was tired. Ailith. She wasn’t tall like her mother or as big and solid as her father. She had his hair, those thick unruly waves. Her heart remembered a time when it would beat slower and harder in the deep rhythms of love when she looked upon either or both of them.

  Ailith’s father. Selah’s husband. Geric. Once there had been something. A small trickle of fear, fear for Ailith. And grief. A desperate and terrible grief.

  What was it again? What had she been thinking? The sun was getting low.

  Geric.

  It would be dinner soon. Something from the stew of her thoughts tried to surface but then sank below them again.

  “It’s too thick. Get dressed for supper, Ailith. Brush out your hair, it looks wild.”

  Selah walked away as softly as a whisper.

  The incongruity of what she’d said left Ailith even more stunned. What was too thick?

  Now she knew she should have talked to Dorovan. He would’ve known what to do.

  She didn’t.

  Instead she did what she was told. Washed the dirt and sweat away in the basin, brushed her hair out and put on fresh clothes. It was nearly time for dinner. Looking at her bed, thinking of the treasure beneath, she put one hand upon the frame.

  “Please,” she whispered softly, knowing it was childish beyond belief but wanting to believe it badly, “don’t let anyone see what lies beneath but me.”

  Somehow, the gesture, the heartfelt plea, made her feel better, as childish and foolish as it was. Her gifts were safe. She only had to face the threatening storm below.

  That was real, not imagination.

  In the short time she’d been gone things had gotten much worse. She let out a breath. Only a few hours before she could escape to her rooms once more. She understood now why her mother spent so much time behind her own doors.

  Dorovan would be ashamed to see her so cowed.

  With that thought in mind, she squared her shoulders and ran through one of the meditations he’d taught her. Her troubled mind eased a little. Be like Dorovan, still and calm. See and watch and the answers will come. The familiar words of the Elven mysteries whispered through her mind in Dorovan’s voice.

  The table below was set for four. Tolan now sat at one of the places. One look at her father’s expression told her not to question it. Her mother drifted silently to her seat.

  “Tolan is chatelaine,” Geric said, shortly, in a tone that brooked no argument. “He dines with us.”

  He gave both her and her mother a warning look, he would accept no challenge on it, clearly.

  Selah didn’t glance up.

  With a quick glance at her mother, Ailith said nothing. What was there to say?

  Taking their silence for consent, Geric banged on the table for service, something he’d never done.

  The servant who brought the food served her father and Tolan first. Ailith didn’t protest but gave the boy a small smile of sympathy. His eyes softened from their fearful look a little but then he fled the room to bring more platters.

  Saying nothing, Tolan only watched. His sandy eyes roamed over her and her mother, took in the room, all with a small look of satisfaction.

  It was the most silent meal she’d ever eaten in that room.

  Once this had been the time of day when her father and mother would talk about the events of the day, the judgments and rulings Geric had made at court, the state of the crops, news of this or that and so on. Ailith wasn’t excluded. When she’d been younger they would ask about her lessons, her escapades and friends, give her counsel if needed. As she’d gotten older they’d spoken of history, politics and diplomacy.

  She’d stood at her father’s knee as his page while he ruled from the High Seat. Sometimes afterward he would ask her why she thought he’d made a particular ruling and once he’d done so while the complainants were still in the room. It was an argument more petty and childish than some of her friends would’ve had. She’d looked at him questioningly but he’d nodded at her t
o speak. So she’d told them so and her father said he concurred.

  When she’d gotten older, she’d stood at his shoulder to observe and learn, standing as his Heir presumptive.

  To her he’d always seemed fair and just. Of late, though, he hadn’t asked her to come. Many times she hadn’t known he was holding Court until the time was past or it was too late. Only to find that Tolan stood in her place. It was good, perhaps, that neither of them knew how clearly one could hear what went on in the Great Hall if you were in just the right place in her mother’s library.

  It wasn’t good for her. The wisdom of Geric’s rulings had steadily become more arbitrary. Those who knew him for his true self wouldn’t have recognized this man. His Courts had become smaller, less frequent, as folks made fewer demands for fear of what might be said or done in them.

  The food had no taste, it was like paste in her mouth, but Ailith didn’t blame the cook.

  Tolan ate heartily.

  It was a relief to finally escape the room.

  Sitting on her bed, she wished she could weep but her eyes were dry. Her heart ached and she was desperately, terribly afraid. Of what, she didn’t know and couldn’t name. These changes and what they meant, what they could mean. The darkness that seemed to have fallen over this place. When she slept that night she had terrible dreams.

  Darkness, a singular Darkness, flames and blood.

  Colath couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever been so weary and if he was tired, what of the men, Iric and Mortan? They hadn’t the endurance of his folk. Both were thinner in only a few weeks, there were dark hollows beneath their eyes and a dullness to them. Travel bread could sustain you but it wasn’t meant to replace real food and they hadn’t seen such in nearly a week. That had consisted of the one game they had scared up, a solitary rabbit that had somehow stayed hidden in these hills. Jalila had gotten it with one shot. The rabbit hadn’t been large.

  Of other game, they saw only carcasses rotting in the sun. Boggins or boggarts, who loved entrails but not much else.

  They had to get away from the borderlands and soon but that was becoming more difficult with each passing day. The line between the borderlands and the rest of the Kingdoms had blurred. Narrowly missing an encounter with a firbolg, they’d also avoided an ogre and several boggins. They’d spent a day or so upon a tor, looked down the slopes from the rocks at its crown to watch as a troop of boggarts passed below them. Thankfully, they hadn’t picked up on their scent or were so intent on their own quarrels they hadn’t noticed. Without warning a trio of the boggarts had leaped upon another and torn it to shreds. When they were gone a salamander had crept out from the rocks at the base of the hill where it had been hiding and made a fine meal of what the other boggarts hadn’t finished.

  Manticores, they learned, hunted in prides much like some desert cats. The one they’d first seen had likely been a solitary young male, if they held true to that comparison.

  All were far out of their normal ranges and too many in number.

  A firbolg come down from the high ranges you would see once or twice a year, perhaps, after a hard winter. Young boggins and boggarts weren’t uncommon and the reason for the Hunters, most often. The smart ones learned their lesson and fled back to the borderlands screaming their frustration and defiance. Stupid ones died. Kobolds came once a season, maybe. Ogres and trolls once or so every few years. As for goblins, this wasn’t their territory so much as north and east but every few years a new leader would come along and gather them all up for a raid. It would take a small army of Hunters to rout them and send them running back to their own lands again. Never without there being wounded on both sides. Thankfully, they’d seen no trolls yet, nor goblins. So few in number, he and his small party would never have stood a chance against them, not with men in their party.

  It was enough and more than enough, both north and south. Time to go home, to return to Aerilann. It was the how that was difficult, he thought, as he brooded beneath the overhang and stared out into the night. Somewhere not far enough away something screamed at the darkness.

  They’d run across a trail of a number of orcs running before them.

  Behind, of course and in both other directions, was more of the same.

  The orcs, those monstrous, bear-like things with their oddly hinged jaws were more than his small party could face, particularly Iric and Mortan. Despite their protest, he and the two other elves had taken their watch this night. In the end, both men had to admit they were too weary to be useful. What tricks men used to stay alert had long since worn off. They were completely exhausted and both now slept deeply.

  Alic gestured a warning and Colath tensed.

  They’d had many nights like these, startled into alertness by some sign or strange noise. Once they’d had to kill a basilisk looking for a temporary den. Alic had been caught and frozen, to his shame, before the glare in those eyes.

  That was the basilisk’s magic, their method for capturing their prey.

  No shame to him, though, as basilisks here were as common as salamanders – that is, not common at all. They were southeastern creatures.

  Then Colath caught the scent of what alarmed Alic, a faint stinging in his nostrils. A boggart or boggarts and near. He nudged Jalila gently. She rolled over, instantly aware and awake.

  The two men were so deeply asleep they dared not nudge them to consciousness for fear they would cry out. As cruel as it was, it was still much better to press a hand over their mouths and frighten them awake than it was to risk an outcry. He nodded to Jalila to wake Iric, while he went to Mortan.

  Mortan bucked beneath his hand but then his eyes opened enough to see Colath’s face in the dim glow cast by elf-light. Abruptly, he subsided but he looked more alert than he had in several days, the little bit of sleep and fright charging him with energy. It wouldn’t last, Colath knew, beyond a few hours. He hoped it would be enough.

  Tapping his sword, he drew it, so the two men could see it. Nodding, they drew their own.

  With a quick gesture, he sent Jalila and her bow to the back of the tumble of rocks that arched around them. Sheltered there beneath the overhang, she had a good defensive position from which to shoot and to guard the horses. Although Elves could and did run for miles, the men couldn’t and Colath didn’t want to think of any of them afoot in this country.

  Alic stood with Iric on one side of the entry, he and Mortan at the other.

  They waited.

  There was little else to do. Boggarts were dark-skinned and stealthy, to venture out was to risk themselves foolishly.

  A tumble of wood stood where the rocks ended but Colath hesitated to light it.

  Once lit, it would be a beacon for any other creatures that prowled the night. He hadn’t lit it earlier for fear the smell of smoke would draw more than repel. Most of these creatures hated and feared fire but they also seemed to know that where there was fire there were men and Elves. He hadn’t wanted to invite attention.

  If the boggart or boggarts attacked, they might have no choice, depending on how it went. It was unlikely to go well or unnoticed. Typically, boggarts screamed when they attacked, an unnerving shriek that was intended to shatter the nerves of its prey if they were unwary enough to be caught off guard. That shriek alone would often send prey flying from cover. Colath hoped he wouldn’t hear it. If he did, they were in serious trouble. While not as thick-skinned as the manticore, their skin was thick enough to keep an arrow from driving too deeply if the shot was off a hair. The swords of men could glance off if their aim wasn’t true, for that Elven steel worked better. Add long arms, sharp claws and wicked teeth and you had a formidable opponent even for Elves.

  If it came to a real fight, they would have to run. At night, as dangerous as that was. There was no choice. The sounds of battle would carry. Like the salamander they’d watched, there would be those who would be drawn to the noise for a chance at the offal.

  Orcs didn’t see well at night, unlike boggarts. Wi
th luck they would like not stir and the party might get past them.

  An unearthly shriek rang out.

  Instinct warned him.

  He flung himself to one side as a boggart leaped from above, one long arm narrowly missing his head. An arrow from Jalila’s bow flashed by to bury itself in one massively muscled boggart thigh as the thing rolled to its feet and spun.

  It roared in fury and charged, long arms reaching. The horses tried to scatter, blocking Jalila’s next arrow, kicking to defend themselves instinctively. Alic swung true, opening a gash along the thing’s side but taking a brutal backhand that flung him against the rocks as Iric hacked wildly, trying to drive it off. One of the horses screamed as Colath leaped forward to drive his sword straight and true into the boggart’s side as Jalila threw her shoulder against a horse to push it out of her way.

  Free, she had an arrow nocked as Colath and Mortan fenced with another boggart that leaped over the rocks at the entry, ducking and dodging the reach of the claws at the end of the long arms. It shrieked again as Jalila let fly. Flinging himself forward, Alic threw himself back in the fray, although his face streamed blood. The scent of it maddened the boggart, who turned on Alic. Jalila’s next arrow buried itself in the boggart’s back, piercing deeply – nearly half the length of the shaft, as two more scrambled over the rocks.

  Steel rained down on the things as they held them to the center of the ring of stone. Scores of wounds were opened on the creatures. Colath saw an opening and took it when one reached for Alic for the blood on him, exposing its vulnerable underbelly just long enough for him to drive his sword up into it. He dove out of the way of a massive backswing of an arm, claws slashing through the spot he’d just occupied closely enough to snag his shirt. There was no pain. Not at the moment.

  It screamed its defiance, raising its face to the sky.

  “Light the fire,” Colath shouted.

  Startled, Mortan stared, then ran to kneel by the pyre and set flint to steel, sparks flying. The tinder caught and flared.

  Another arrow and the other boggart fell.