Elanraigh

by S. A. Hunter

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Sirra Alaine, how did you find me? Did the Elanraigh show you where I was?”

  The Sirra continued to pace her troop single file along a forest track that twisted through the mossy rainforest. Alaine had told Thera that they had a two day journey ahead before they would reach the fortress of Elankeep.

  Sirra Alaine shifted her shoulders. “The Elanraigh does not speak to us as it does to a Salvai, Lady. No.” She slanted a look to Thera, and then studied the ground as she walked in silence a moment. “The Salvai sensed something was amiss in the Elanraigh, and surmised it must be your party in trouble.”

  Alaine’s brows lifted, “Hnnh. It was a grey wolf who led us to you.” She shook her head. “We felt strange and uneasy at his seeming to seek us. He showed himself soon after we set off to find you. We wondered if he might be half tame, perhaps the friend of some forester or hermit. However, though he shadowed us, he would not come close.

  “We soon learned he had his own idea of the direction we should hold to. His howls would lift the very hairs on our heads if we moved other than the way he wished us to go. We felt finally that he must be sent by the Elanraigh.”

  Grief, like wind across water, stirred the Sirra Alaine’s features. “We came upon your dead, yesterday, and feared you were lost or taken, Lady. But the wolf stayed near us as we gave your folk their death rites, though he would pace restlessly and then disappear from time to time. Immediately after we had sung the Lament, he appeared again to lead us to the tree cave where you lay.”

  “Farnash.” murmured Thera, and her heart swelled with thanks.

  * * * *

  The pale sun shone through the cloud cover on the second day of their march. Thera had to push herself to continue. She had thought they would surely have taken a rest stop at that last small clearing, but the Sirra had pressed on. Her head was beginning to pound from the mugginess of the overcast day.

  I am hot and tired. Nan would have noticed and cared, but Nan is gone. The corner of her mouth jerked down. So. So stop whining like a…a…what was it Shamic called the recruits’ complaints?...the squeals o’ the last suckled piglet!

  Thera grinned at the memory. She began to hum an old marching tune that Captain Lydia had taught her. Her stride lengthened to match that of the Sirra’s ahead of her. Sirra Alaine’s brown, muscular legs worked steadily—ever sure-footed, stepping easily over twisted roots and deadfalls. Thera admired her strength as she mentally tallied the weight the Sirra carried. A bulky pack as well as her sword, bow, quiver, and dagger.

  Thera sighed and shook her head, “I thought I was strong enough to be a warrior. A boyish hoyden, Nan always called me.”

  Her steps faltered as she remembered. Nan’s many sayings would be with her all her life. “Blessings be, Nan.”

  Thera hoped Nan’s spirit would know she was remembered with love.

  Swordswoman Alba, marching just behind Thera, must have heard her sigh. “Be you tired, Lady? We run a path worse than this daily, as part of our drill.”

  Thera turned, and met Alba’s droll grin.

  The Sirra responded without looking around, “You braggart, Alba,” she drawled, “and mightily do you complain about it daily, also.”

  * * * *

  “We should be at Elankeep before dusk,” said the Sirra after they’d marched long in silence. Her voice startled Thera out of a meditative calm induced by the rhythm of their march.

  “We will rest here,” continued Sirra Alaine, slipping her pack from her shoulders and flexing them. “We have made better time than I thought we would.” She bestowed on Thera her almost-smile which was little more than a shimmer of light in the eyes.

  Thera flushed. She was glad she had not held the troop back, though now that they halted, she could barely stand on legs suddenly wobbly as a loosely strung puppet’s.

  Alba, wiping at the sheen of sweat on her brow, passed Thera a water skin. Damp tendrils of Alba’s dark hair corkscrewed around her face.

  “The forest leans close today. I would you had the gift of calling breezes, Lady.”

  Though Alba spoke in jest, Thera paused, water spout halfway to her mouth. But no, she decided, it would not be right to call on the elementals just for personal comfort.

  After Thera finished drinking and returned the water skin to her, Alba sluiced her neck and poured the tepid water over her head.

  “Cythian Hell!” she sputtered, “I’m going to peel off my skin an’ rest my bones in the coldest, deepest part of Elankeep’s springs…” Alba abruptly stopped speaking.

  A great sense of urgency caused Thera to tense, uttering a small sound under her breath. Sirra Alaine was quickly beside her.

  As movement and speech among the troop stopped, Thera strained to read what she yet only sensed. She heard the water dripping from Alba’s hair onto her boots and the sudden cry of a bush skree streaking past them, its wings snapping the air.

  The Sirra, her hand clenched on her sword hilt, whispered hoarsely, “Lady, what is it?”

  “The Elanraigh,” Thera said. “Something’s wrong! I’ve felt something like this before. It was the Memteth, then.”

  The Sirra was gone, moving down the line of her troop. With a hushed efficiency, weapon harnesses were retrieved from the discarded packs; the women shrugging into the leather straps and buckled iron-studded belts. Silent as smoke, four of the troop disappeared to scout the forest around them.

  Thera stood, as if bespelled, awaiting word from the Elanraigh. Alaine, Alba, and four others formed a protective loop around her. Then like the approaching rumble of an earthquake, she felt the Elanraigh’s attention turn to her. A wind bent the top branches of the trees.

  “Memteth! At Elankeep!”

  The Elanraigh’s anger made its words an almost unintelligible burr in her mind.

  Thera was struck with horror. “Elankeep! How many?” she asked.

  The ground shook. “Two ships anchored in the Spinfisher River. They climb the rock face at Bridal Veil Falls.”

  Thera’s mind worked furiously, “How long before they are in position to attack Elankeep?”

  “Before sunset.”

  “Can you stop them?”

  A silence. Thera hung, waiting.

  “Water elements rule there, at the falls. However, they must pass through a grove of Old Ones to reach Elankeep.”

  “Lady, does the Elanraigh speak to you?” Sirra Alaine’s voice penetrated Thera’s preoccupation.

  She grasped the Sirra’s leather-cuffed forearms with the strength of urgency. “It is Memteth! Memteth are preparing to attack Elankeep!”

  A hissed curse broke from someone in the troop.

  The Sirra’s amber eyes locked on Thera’s face. Like wind-tossed flame, they flickered from Thera to the troop behind her, and back to Thera.

  Thera remembered her father’s words, ‘A leader is both heart and head of the people.’ She drew a deep breath and in calmer voice, continued, “The Elanraigh tells me they climb a rock face alongside a place called Bridal Veil Falls. The Elanraigh can do nothing against them there, it is the domain of a water elemental apparently, but they must pass through a large grove of ancient trees before they reach the clearing around Elankeep.

  “What can the Elanraigh do exactly, Lady, to help us?”

  “I do not know,” murmured Thera, dropping her grip on the Sirra’s arms. “I do not know. It pains it to do harm, but it will do what it can.”

  A breeze swirled around her, “Therra. Therra, I will help.”

  “Sussara! Blessings be”. Thera smiled, deeply touched. How fond she had become of this childlike elemental.

  She searched, but could not touch the mind she sought.

  “Sussara, could you find Farnash, the grey wolf?”

 
Sussara swirled joyfully. “Yess! Wise wolf keeps nose to wind.”

  “Tell him we need him. Tell him our clan is in battle against the Memteth.”

  The women’s yellow longbows were strung and strapped across their backs, as were the short, curved swords. Some stretched and flexed, some shifted restlessly, though their eyes continually returned to their Sirra and the young Heir of Allenholme.

  Alaine drew on a tapered leathern helm, reinforced with iron bands. Her eyes glittered at Thera from behind the nasal, as she buckled the waistband of her harness.

  “There are usually a dozen Memteth to a ship. Is that how many you encountered at Shawl Bay, Lady?”

  Thera’s voice flattened. “There were ten on that ship, Sirra, unless they had lost some crew before they encountered us.”

  “Well. So…” Sirra Alaine continued, “The odds be not so bad, providing we get there in time. We are ten of us here and ten at Elankeep. Some of the Salvai’s ladies can draw bow.”

  “We run,” she said to the troop at large. “Our companions’ lives depend on our getting there in time. Pace yourselves accordingly. Remember too, you must arrive with breath to swing a sword.”

  She turned to Thera, “Lady Thera, we cannot wait if you fall behind, or spare any to stand guard over you. We must again entrust you to the Elanraigh.”

  “I will come with you and I will not hold you back, any of you.” Thera’s voice was muffled as she was pulling her red wool tunic over her head. She dropped it beside Alba’s pack. She turned back to the Sirra, her jaw set. “I have fought Memteth before.”

  Thera watched the Sirra’s glance slide over her kidskin Ttamarini garments and touch at the graceful emerald-hilted Sha’Lace dagger at her belt. Heat crept up Thera’s neck under that scrutiny.

  Some emotion Thera could not read, worry or doubt, shadowed the Sirra Alaine’s eyes.

  Feeling impelled to do so, Thera spoke the Liege Lord’s Oath, “I defend this land and those pledged to my care with my heart, my blood, and all gifts granted of the Elanraigh.”

  Blessings be, her voice had not quavered though her heart felt as if it had been wrung.

  Of their own accord, the troop drew blades and with the traditional cry of affirmation, their swords clashed in a salute to Thera.

  Alba cleared her throat, “By the One Tree,” she muttered to Alaine, “it makes me maudlin as an old Sirra at a troop review.”

  “Aye.” The Sirra’s rare smile twisted on the pale scar that crossed her lip.

  Sirra Alaine gave the signal for the troop to move out at a quick march. Alba positioned herself behind Thera. The Sirra observed them all as they passed. A snap of fingers and hand wave sent her four scouts back into the forest. Then their Sirra ran easily to the head of the column, and the small troop lengthened their stride into a steady jog.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They ran in silence. The trail switch-backed upward now and the air was blessedly cooler. Far below, on her left, Thera could hear the rushing of the Elanraigh River. She had fallen behind, even though the women kept to what had first seemed an easy jog.

  Thera tried not to think of Elankeep and what might be happening there. Yet, there came the memory of Nan’s body at Shawl Bay. Her chest tightened. “Oh, Nan!” The last Elankeep soldier glanced back at her.

  So, run then. Focus only on breathing, mind carefully empty of thought. Soon she could see the troop ahead of her, stretched along the upward-climbing trail. The Sirra Alaine and Alba must already have topped the crest of the hill.

  When Thera turned the last bend before the hillcrest, two of the Elankeep soldiers were waiting for her. One offered her a hand up a final tumble of rocks and shale, while placing a finger to her lips in a signal for silence.

  Bracing her hand against a cedar tree, Thera struggled to catch her breath and waited for her vision to clear of dancing sparks. Sirra Alaine saw her and beckoned.

  She crept to where the Sirra and Alba lay at the cliff’s rough edge. They were several horse strides past the edge of the tree line, on a high rocky promontory.

  For the first time, Thera saw Elankeep. It rose above the black sea cliffs like a natural formation of the rocks. Around the keep was boulder-strewn pasture. The grassy apron lay at least five pike lengths below the cliff edge where Thera lay. What Thera had thought were scattered grey boulders, she now saw the bodies of sheep.

  Dark smoke rose from a huge rolled bundle of wood the Memteth had piled against the iron plated oak of the main gate.

  A faint rumbling from the east was Bridal Veil Falls, where the Elanraigh River plunged to meet the Spinfisher. West of the plateau was a sheer drop to the ocean below. At the base of that black-rock cliff, white plumes of surf broke, dissolving into mist and foam.

  She caught glimpses of Elankeep defenders crouched at arrow loops, both in the high round turret of the western wall and spread thinly along the battlement. Two Memteth lay dead or injured beyond care near the main gate. Another twelve or so continued to shoot fire arrows at the pitch-soaked wood piled at the gate and at the defenders on the walls.

  Thera noted grimly that the Memteth avoided taking shelter in the trees.

  They relied on the smoke from the fire to confuse the defenders, and their shields to protect against arrows as they kept to the clearing around the keep.

  “I count only twelve raiders,” whispered Alba. “Where be the rest?”

  The Sirra shaded her eyes against a sudden glare of sun as the clouds broke overhead. “There are only twelve. Lady, does the Elanraigh speak of the others?”

  Thera communed with the Elanraigh, then relayed, “There are ten raiders dead in the ancient grove by the falls.”

  Astonished, both the Sirra and Alba swiveled their heads and stared at her.

  “Ten dead?” Alba’s jaw dropped, and then snapped shut. “Cythian Hell!” she muttered.

  “The Elanraigh says the ancient tree elementals are very powerful and are roused against the Memteth.” Thera added, “Blessing Be.”

  “Hnnh.” Sirra Alaine returned her gaze to the besieged keep. She watched as several arrows shot from the western turret fell abysmally short and wide of their Memteth targets. The raiders jeered.

  “It wonders me that Berta has left the Salvai’s Damas alone to defend the west side.”

  “Berta must be short-handed,” surmised Alba.

  “Hnnh.” Alaine shoved herself back. “It is time we move.”

  She and Alba edged back from the cliff edge and then jogged to the tree line where the others waited.

  “Lotta, Eryn, Mieta, and Rhul,” the Sirra designated each with a glance, “you are the best archers. I would have you remain here.” She glanced sunward. It was riding low in the sky.

  “They will not be expecting us,” said Sirra Alaine to the rest of the troop.“Descend with all haste to the plateau, then spread yourselves out under cover of the forest.

  “Rhul, allow us time to get in position, as you judge it, and then send them a steady hail of arrows until we engage them. Then you must join us as soon as may be.”

  The senior archer nodded.

  “Remember,” the Sirra gathered all eyes, “if you fight hand to hand with a Memteth, they will use their teeth if disarmed.”

  All but the archers rapidly disappeared down the trail.

  Sirra Alaine turned to solemnly regard Thera who determinedly followed her.

  The Sirra sighed heavily.

  “Lady, I would that you remain here. Let those of us trained to fight deal now with the Memteth,” she forestalled Thera’s protest with a raised hand, “you have done well, more than well.” Her voice was low and her gaze somber, “The Salvai Keiris…does not thrive of late.” The Sirra’s brindled brows drew down and she looked toward the black smoke rising against the sky, “she is no
t tranquil of mind, and her body fails now also.

  “I have seen how you put the heart in these,” she gestured after the departed troop. “You commune with the Elanraigh and it treats you as its own. You have the gift of joining, and of reading hearts, I do believe.” As Thera opened her mouth to protest, the Sirra raised her hand in an open-palmed plea, “You are too valuable to put at risk.”

  “Sirra! I will not sit aside and let all the others risk themselves.”

  “Lady Thera,” The Sirra Alaine fixed a stern gaze upon her and it was as if a hand were laid firmly across her mouth. “You do yourself no discredit with any here. You know I am right in this.”

  Thera flashed a fulminating glance over the Sirra and read much. Impatience, yes, but also, disconcertingly, a very genuine concern for her.

  The Sirra’s impassive features would reveal nothing to most observers, yet Thera read that the Sirra burned to be with her troop. Here she was, detained by a headstrong young noblewoman who might choose to use common sense.

  Thera felt her neck warming. Why, I have fought Memteth, and destroyed their ship! A thought came unbidden, As Duke Leon’s daughter, and Heir, I could take command of this troop and have my way.

  Sudden shame overcame her. Thera chewed her lip. I take command? Oh? When I almost killed the sea hawk in my single-mindedness when attacking the Memteth leader? Look at the Sirra, an experienced fighter, who knows how to protect those in her charge.

  Thera folded her arms behind her back, at parade rest, a stance and gesture she unconsciously copied of her father.

  “Then Sirra, at the One Tree we will meet, if not before.”

  The Sirra bowed slightly at receiving the ritual sending and bestowed her rare smile.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sirra Alaine jogged down the path, sliding on loose scree. She leapt a rocky ledge, and disappeared into the trees far below.

  Thera turned and walked back to the archers. Rhul nodded to her, then waved her group forward to the cliff edge. Thera hesitated, and then joined them. Hunkered down behind the lip of rock, the women quietly exchanged words as they checked their weapons.