“Yes. Tolan has been busy it seems. In exchange for their service, they’re granted enhanced strength and endurance and the opportunity to indulge their basest desires. The wizard gets the benefit of the blood and pain. They’ll follow. They’re excellent hunters, by sight or by smell, that’s one of the gifts given to them. If the opportunity arises, they’ll try to capture any they may. For return to their master. It’s not a pleasant journey.”
His eyes intent, looking down the trail as the riders that followed behind them disappeared into the shadows of the trees, Elon said, “So, he tries for stealth this time, where brute force failed.”
“Likely they’ve been waiting, having tracked you this far. My Veil would have hidden your trail and kept them out,” Talesin said.
Jalila suggested, “We could outrun them, our horses can outpace theirs easily.”
“Perhaps,” Elon said, “But then we push the horses when we might need their strength later. Now, we know where they are. If they are the trackers Talesin says they are, they’ll find us again anyway. Better the enemy you can see than the one you can’t. “That is if Ailith can keep watch on them from time to time?”
“As much as I can and I’ll tell you if I can’t.”
She did.
Three days of it and the effort and tension of it was wearing on her. Always, always, those shadows were behind them, those gray images, despite Elon’s efforts to throw them off the trail. It was a futile effort, in the face of Talesin’s knowledge but they had to try.
Once Ailith lost their pursuers among the many lights that thronged around them in a small town and the fear she wouldn’t find them again left her shaken and unnerved. There had been too many bright lights overshadowing the gray ones. It was with relief that she had found them again amongst the other travelers on the road.
“They seem not to want much company or others don’t want theirs,” she commented. “There’s distance between them and anyone else.”
Jareth said, “If they’re the kind of men who enjoy violence for its own sake, you wouldn’t want to travel near them, either.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Ailith,” Colath said. “We’ve been some time in the saddle, would you need to stretch your legs?”
He tapped his shortsword.
“If those that follow wish to watch, perhaps we’ll give them something to see.”
Forms and exercise. The thought of both lightened her heart and eased some of the fear and awful tension. If nothing else, she’d be able to work out some of the tightness that held her neck and shoulders in such a grip.
She grinned. “My pleasure.”
They set camp on the crest of a hill looking down upon a wide valley below. There was no visible sign of the trackers.
“Are they still there?” Elon asked.
Ailith nodded. “That ridge over there to the south. On the far side. Behind the trees.”
His dark eyes settled on her.
“Don’t tire yourself too much with Colath,” he said. “If you would also spar with me?”
That set a sparkle of anticipation in her eyes. “I don’t think Colath will mind much.”
“Colath,” Colath said, “won’t mind at all.”
It would do Elon some good as well, Colath thought, to exercise some of the demons that rode him of late. He’d been too quiet, too tense, since they’d left Talesin’s vale.
Settling in with his pipe, Jareth nodded to Talesin, “This will be something to watch.”
“Ah,” Talesin said, in satisfaction, as Ailith and Colath began the forms.
It was in a way like watching water flow. Each movement made was smooth and graceful, the patterns slow to allow muscles to warm as they shadowed each other, one tall and fair, the other smaller and a little darker. They followed the patterns, each step precise. In time, the tension in them gradually dropped away, their faces became more serene, as they were lifted out of themselves and became more at ease with the world.
There was about the forms a precision and intricacy that Colath loved, as each step trained body and mind so the movements became instinctive. Strike, block, parry, one motion flowing smoothly and effortlessly into the next and the next. Muscles moved and blood flowed.
Like a mirror, beside him Ailith matched him step for step, turn and spin. Her swords rose and fell in rhythm with his own.
Drawn by the simple movements, by the ease it offered his soul, Elon slid into the flow of movement as if it were inevitable and all three drifted effortlessly through the intricate patterns, the rise, fall and flow. They moved as one to create a web of grace and steel. It was like a meditation, as three minds merged and each understood instinctively where the other went. Each anchored the others.
To those who watched the smooth graceful movements were entrancing, soothing, drawing them into a spell of peace, of calm.
It felt to Elon as if he’d been troubled for far too long, this shadow of darkness hanging over him, but now he shared it out to the other two, as was only right.
Watching, it had been impossible for him not to feel the draw, the serenity and harmony it offered, impossible not to join them, although it had been long since he’d practiced the forms.
There had been so much to take his attention, first the negotiations with Daran, delicately avoiding the traps in which Daran tried to catch him, and therefore the Enclaves with him. So peace had been made, and then the Alliance forged, the Agreement written, the Council Chamber and building designed and built. In the midst of all that there were the affairs of the Enclave to be tended to as well. A generation of time for men but only a small fraction of his long life, yet it had dominated it. That fragile peace had been too important.
Once he and Colath had done the forms together regularly, in harmony with each other, restoring the connections between them, one to the other.
That was the other purpose of the forms, as a type of meditation, a reconnection of body and soul.
As he stepped into the pattern beside Colath, Elon realized it had been so long it seemed he’d forgotten how calming they were, how they centered him. He shook his head at himself.
Nor had he realized how much he needed to find the balance within again.
A connection opened within him and the empathy flowed from him to Colath to Ailith and back again, smoothly, bonds being forged and reforged, a new connection made, a piece falling into place. Shift the pattern, change the sequence and it ran from one to the other just as smoothly. A sense of immense peace settled over him, sure knowledge and confidence. Another piece of his life had fallen into place. Look to his right and there stood Colath as always, dependable, sure, the rock on which he could lean at his need. To his left now was, Ailith, her light spirit and joy an ease to his soul, as true and as sure.
To Ailith it was as if some part of her had been missing, some emptiness she hadn’t known was there was filled and yet she hadn’t even known it was there.
Here it was.
Like the sky above her head and the air she breathed, there was Elon, his will and knowledge an anchor to hold her steady against the raging tide of fate.
Colath was at her side, so strong, so sure, as solid as the earth beneath her feet.
With a sigh, Colath was caught up with them, the missing pieces of his soul fell into place, settled and took hold. A feeling of rightness, of belonging, of which he was the foundation, the rock on which they stood.
Talesin watched as the balance was struck and forged. Mind, heart and soul, all three. Grace, power and skill. He nodded, understanding now. He waited. The moment was coming, he could feel it.
A different kind of magic.
Walking quietly, Jalila went to join him, her eyes intent on the three who paced through the forms. As many times as she’d watched others do them, as many times as she’d done them herself, she’d never seen anything like this.
Absolute harmony, like one soul with two shadows. Which was the one? Which was the shadow?
&nbs
p; Without missing a beat, Elon stepped away, Colath matched him and Ailith turned so they faced each other. Their swords met and rang, the patterns, the rhythm, still holding but now in point, counterpoint. Elon to Ailith to Colath. No questions, no doubt, no fear. He’d known somehow that it would be like this, had felt it, had heard the sound of steel ringing in his ears and had needed to hear it in life. To hear this. This music, like a balm to his soul.
Her voice hushed, Jalila said, “This I’ve never seen.”
“If I weren’t watching,” Jareth said, as he joined them, awed at the flash and glitter of razor-edged Elven steel on steel. “I would have said it wasn’t possible.”
Talesin smiled faintly.
“This,” he said, “is magic.”
True magic, the magic of heart and soul and mind complete.
Swords chimed, rang against each other, gleamed in the light of the lowering sun. Each had its own tone, its own note. Elation, joy, completion, flowed from one to the other and the next. Faster. Breaking away from the forms they moved fluidly with the change, never doubting that one or the other would know and respond. It was uplifting, ecstatic, a joining of one to the other. Their eyes were on each other, gazes flashed from one to the other, seeing the light, feeling the joining, knowing they’d found that which had been missing. The final piece. The sound ran like an arpeggio, it formed like a chord, their swords rang on it each, singing. The chord became one note, one sound, running from one sword to another, it lifted them and filled them up.
As one, the rhythm began to slow to a soft tolling as they slowed and then stepped back.
For a moment the three of them stood there in the last golden light of the sunset and looked at each other.
Peace. They’d found harmony, a true joining of spirits.
The sun was nearly set, the light fading from the sky, radiant.
Taking a slow but deep breath, Elon let it out just as slowly, then nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll do that again.”
“I’ve missed it, old friend,” Colath said, contented, “and gained something new.”
His pale eyes settled on Ailith.
Her eyes shone, the glow still on her face.
To her surprise, Ailith found she couldn’t speak, nod, she was too overwhelmed.
For a moment they could only look at one another, then, as one, they let out a sigh and went to rejoin the others.
Jareth suddenly remembered his pipe as Jalila turned back to dinner, as Elon and Colath set out the travel tents and Ailith laid out their bedrolls.
Watching, Talesin nodded slowly. Even better. There were the three and the five, both. For whatever happened between the three, the others weren’t excluded or forgotten, each had their place, their role, the circle wasn’t yet complete, only the heart of it had been found.
They settled by the fire, shared out the food.
Reluctantly, Elon brought his thoughts back to the task at hand. “Do they still watch, Ailith?”
This time it was easier for her to find them. A little surprised by that, she nodded.
“Still among the trees.”
As they had the nights before, they split the watch, with an eye to the division of talents. Colath, Jalila and Talesin took the first, sword, bow and wizard.
Night settled over them, the stars glittered in the hazy sky. The days of summer had started to wane, far above the Loom had begun its journey to the west.
Looking up, Elon had the sudden sense of how short the time was, how little of it they had left before a truer Darkness fell. It loomed over him but not as heavily as it once had. They hadn’t set a fire, it would have been foolish to give the trackers a good light to see by but he could see Colath on the other side of the camp clearly enough, his pale hair marking him.
Not far away Ailith lay, resting he knew but not asleep. They’d purchased travel gear for her, so now she had her own and didn’t need to share. Both she and Jalila clearly missed the camaraderie, the closeness between them. The waxed cloth of her shelter spread above her head but although her eyes were on it he knew she didn’t see it, she saw the trackers, the gray stars caught on her internal sky.
This had been hard on her, stretching her nascent magic to its limits but she didn’t complain. Nor would she, he knew. This she and she alone could do.
His mind went back to that exhilarating moment when their swords met, to the ringing vibration of her sword as it struck his, of his on Colath’s, that circle coming around to find him again. It still filled him with a sense of completion. In all his long life, he’d never imagined such a thing, nor heard of it. Yet it had happened and he was the lighter for it.
The peace of that moment of pacing the forms followed him down into rest. Sleep took him, sure in the knowledge that Ailith’s watchful eyes kept guard in one way and Colath, Jalila and Talesin warded another.
A hand on his arm woke him gently.
Ailith, her features a pale blur in the darkness.
“They move.”
It had finally come, the moment for which they’d waited. The moment when the trackers decided to make their move.
Every sense alert, he nodded. “Where?”
“They circle the ridge to come up on the back side.”
“All right.”
Colath, Jalila and Talesin still sat as they had been when his eyes closed but he could see they were alert and aware. Too, Jareth’s eyes were open and watchful as his senses picked up the growing tension.
When it came, the silence and speed with which the trackers moved shocked him. Even with Talesin’s history and Ailith’s warning, it was almost not enough. The trackers had counted on surprise but not found it but even so it was a near thing.
They leaped out of the darkness from all sides, three of them went after the sentries, one to Jareth and two to Elon, another to Ailith. Jareth got his sword up barely in time but Ailith was there a second later, even as she spun away from her tracker’s thrust. If the trackers seen the sparring, they’d missed the point of the display, and either judged her as the smallest and the weakest or else they’d been given orders not to kill her.
Sweeping the tracker’s blade away, Ailith smiled. There was no pleasure in it, it was a warning instead, and satisfaction. Finally, at last, at long last, she could fight back against those who had done harm to her and hers.
From the corner of her eye she saw Elon as he caught one blade on his longsword, the other blade on his shortsword to turn it and spun out from between both.
Beyond this one that she herself faced, who looked at her now through glittering narrowed eyes, she could see Colath face another. Jalila leaped to cover his back as she faced her own assailant.
Not surprisingly, Talesin’s sword had cleared his scabbard and just missed cutting one of the trackers in two.
This one smiled back, his lips skinning back from his teeth like a wolf’s but he was no wolf. His teeth though were very sharp. It was clear he thought he would enjoy this.
At the first clash of swords, as Ailith felt the strength in it, she knew this would hold some little contest.
All right, so be it.
He had strength, reach and speed but no skill. He meant to batter her into submission. More fool he.
She had traded swords with the best now, had rung music into the air with Elon and Colath, this one wouldn’t best her. He rained blows down on her but she absorbed the force and redirected it while she searched for that flaw, that opening. Spotting one, she played for it, to open a stinging wound on his arm. Another and she pinked a notch along his ribs.
Embattled, Jalila gritted her teeth. This one had strength and speed nearly the match of her own for all he was man. She was an Elf, however, and while the sword wasn’t her weapon of choice, she’d been raised with one in her hand. She could hold him off but she couldn’t get in a killing blow for all she tried.
With steady skill, Elon beat the men back, pushing one then the other steadily beyond the point where Talesin fought. Step by step,
he drove the trackers back.
“ ‘Ware,” Jareth called in warning and tossed a mage-light into the air.
Instinctively, Jalila’s opponent looked up at the sudden burst of light.
Hearing Jareth’s call, Jalila was prepared. The opening was there and she took it, a quick flash of sword across the tracker’s midsection.
He yelped and jumped back, startled and shocked.
As if at a signal, hard pressed by the defenders the trackers broke off and leaped away, to disappear once more into the darkness.
“Ailith?” Elon asked.
“Going back the way they came,” she said. “Back to their horses and at speed.”
“Running?” Jareth asked.
Waiting for a second, she shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Talesin shook his head. “It’s unlikely. They’re essentially cowards. It’s more likely they’ll regroup, rethink and try something different. A direct attack didn’t work, they met more opposition than expected.”
“Not tonight, I would think,” Elon said. “They need to lick their wounds a time. I know I put a mark or two on one.”
Considering it, he looked at Talesin. “In the morning, you go ahead, we’ll stay long enough to be certain none of them follow you. We need to get a warning out. No Elf travels alone, not any longer. We won’t give Tolan any more victims to his magic. The strength and speed of these may have come from other means, but we take no chances, and give him no precious lives, no weapons he can use.”
An intake of breath, a surge of memories, Talesin nodded grimly. He should have seen that for himself.
“How much farther to the lands of the Dwarves?” Elon asked Ailith, as he tried to visualize the distances. He rarely needed to come so far east, even as part of his duties as either advisor to Daran or as a member of the lower Council.
“Two more and part of a third,” Ailith said. “At this speed.”
They had to give Riverford, with Tolan in control and on the hunt, a wide berth and that made things more difficult.
The Coming Storm Page 34