Whispers of War: The War for the North: Book One

by Sean Rodden

  “That is a tale I would gladly hear over and again, Shield Maiden.”

  But then Caelle’s smile faded and her eyes clouded, the brightness of their light shadowed in a darkness of doubt, or of foredoom.

  “Let us pray, then, that some survive these troubled days to tell it.”

  And she withdrew her hand.

  “Shield Maiden?”

  The Fiann sighed, a heavy sound, weary with old sadness.

  “When the Fiannar came to the western shores of this world, they soon discovered that evil was not unique to First Earth, that the Second Earth, too, was beset by powers of Darkness and Shadow. And though the Fiannar set themselves against this evil with all their might, they could not vanquish it. Verily, only with aid of allies old and new could they hold the forces of Shadow at bay and keep safe the lands of noble Men, so that these good peoples might grow unhindered into power of their own.”

  “And what is this evil, Shield Maiden?”

  But Caelle shook her head.

  “That, Ambassador,” she lowered her eyes, “is not my tale to tell. But I will say that for twenty centuries have the Fiannar held vigil over the lands of the Free Nations – for twenty centuries have we held in check the tide of evil that would overwhelm this world. But evil now comes with new strength to find the Fiannar greatly weakened, and their friends far and few.”

  “Nearer and more than you might think, Shield Maiden.”

  Caelle raised her eyes to meet Axennus’ concerned and empathetic own.

  “There are powerful evils at work upon this Second Earth, Ambassador. The red wind that would have taken us below the Westwall was but a taste of these.”

  “But the ill wind did not have us, Shield Maiden.”

  Caelle’s smile was a cynical one.

  “Truly spoken, Ambassador. But, as you have deduced, war follows hard upon the heels of the red wind. And the Fiannar are few and – despite your own fealty – their friends fewer.”

  “But surely the Fiannar are strong, Shield Maiden,” protested Axennus softly. “The blood of the Athair is yet potent in the veins of your people, so much so that some retain powers of mindsight and soulshield. And you yet have the service of the mirarra and the throkka and, I surmise from the size and depth of tracks I have seen here in Galledine, the warokka. And the Daradur, I have learned, are no mere legend. And what of the Athair, Shield Maiden, what of the fair folk of Gavrayel? Did they not come to Second Earth? And forget not the Free Nations of Men that would answer your call for aid.”

  The Shield Maiden raised an eyebrow.

  “Forget?” She then frowned. “Nay, the Fiannar do not forget, Master Ambassador.” She paused in meaning and something much like melancholy. “But we are forgotten.”

  “Ah, dear sweet Shield Maiden. Fine friend, fair and true. At long last have you spoken false.” Axennus took her gently by one wrist, guiding the flat of her palm to come to rest upon his breast. “The realm of possibility does not provide for the forgetting of a people that can produce beauty, grace and strength such as your own.”

  Caelle’s large round eyes dampened, and her full lips curved into the most felicific of smiles, bright and brave and ever so beautiful. The beat of Axennus’ heart was warm against her palm.

  “Do you know no despair, Southman?”

  “Despair, Shield Maiden?” Axennus ran a hand through his long free-flowing hair. His hazel eyes danced with humour, care and kindness. And in their depths kindled the fires of something more. “Despair is the doom of fools.”

  Caelle looked away.

  As is love, my dear friend.

  But she left these last words unspoken.

  8

  THE GUARDIAN PEOPLES

  “Alone and apart,

  we each represent one of the Four Elements:

  The Athair are Air; the Fiannar, Water;

  Earth be the Daradur.

  But combined and together we are Fire.”

  Aeline, Queen of the Folk of Gavrayel

  There was a storm in the stone.

  The thunderous thrumming in the root-rock of Raku Ulrun was precise, pure, purposeful. The hidden halls of hammer-hewn stone pulsated with power, and an invisible fire burned fierce and insistent in the hot heart of the mountain.

  Rundul had been called, had been summoned. He had been beckoned to become one with the earth – flesh and bone and sacred soul. He was to be sent into the strange subterranean sleep of the urthrust, the deep dark slumbering of being so like the reunion of soul and stone that was Daradun death. And, because he was a Darad, he could not refuse.

  The great war-axe of rugged Rundul of Axar would be sorely missed when war came to Doomfall.

  The shadows on the marble of the river road were long and lean as Tulnarron approached Druintir, the grim-faced Master riding tall and terrible at the head of the rumbling Host of his House. His long black hair flew behind him like death pennons in a wild wind, and the cast of his eye was cold and dark. Riding between the rippling furls of the Golden Strype and the House of Eccuron’s own Crimson Fist, Tulnarron slowed the gait of his sweat-slicked mirarran beneath Defurien’s sky-defying Colossus, giving the monument to his people’s Father little more than a cursory glance of reflective and reflexive respect.

  Defurien’s wars were in the past.

  Tulnarron’s yet awaited him.

  A little more than two days had passed since Tulnarron’s threescore Fiannar had departed the blood-steeped slopes of Fongar ur Piruth, flashing westward across the plains in a blur of grey and silver. And with the passing of every league their numbers had swelled, as warriors of the House of Eccuron answered the calls of horn and heart, racing from north and south and east, under sun and star, to the beck and back of their beloved Master. A day into their wild ride, their ancestral halls at Arrenhoth well behind them, the Host of the House of Eccuron numbered in their hundreds. Another day still, and greater than half a thousand warriors, men and women dark and dour and dangerous, followed the Crimson Fist along the marble road to the carven city of their noble Lord Alvarion.

  War was coming to Druintir.

  And Tulnarron, Master of the House of Eccuron, was come to war.

  “Will you not go to him, mother?”

  Violet mists orbited the grey of Sarrane’s irises as she watched her husband ride the silvery streets of Druintir amidst welcoming roars and songs of war. The weeks of separation from Tulnarron had been long and many. And oft lonesome. Such was the price of duty, of service.

  “Nay, Arumarron,” she answered quietly. “The people need him more than do I this day.”

  Her voice, like her gaze, was misted.

  Young Arumarron nodded solemnly.

  The Seer peered upward – for though the mother was tall, the son was taller, and was taller even than the father – into Arumarron’s eyes, and saw that he did not, in fact, understand. But she did not expect him to understand. Such insight would come only with age, with wisdom.

  Her son’s face was so very young. A boy’s face, for a boy he truly was. His features were smooth but not soft, a masterpiece of lines and planes and facets, hard and handsome. And although his frame and musculature was that of a very large and powerful man, Arumarron was yet some moons shy of sixteen years. His hair was wild and wavy, somewhere between the midnight black of his father and the morning blonde of his mother, one stray shock partially veiling his youthful visage. And his eyes were a deep dark grey speckled with silver, tempestuous heavens decked with stubbornly sparking stars.

  “So Arrenhoth is abandoned, lost, and not a blade to be bloodied in her defence,” complained the young Heir to the House of Eccuron. His smooth-skinned countenance achieved a scowl. “Is the Rock of Arren not good ground?”

  “The Lord and Lady believe the Seven Hills to be better ground,” replied Sarrane. “Your father would seem to concur.”

  Arumarron pondered for a moment beneath a dark and thoughtful frown.

  Then, “The enemy can only appro
ach Eryn Ruil from the east,” the boy considered, “whereas at Arrenhoth they might surround and besiege us from all sides.”

  The Seer nodded. The boy’s grasp of war lore had ever been impressive.

  “And should we have remained at Arrenhoth, a portion of the enemy army could keep us at bay behind the walls,” continued Arumarron, “while the main body marches upon Eryn Ruil, thus removing the House of Eccuron from the defence of the pass. We would become irrelevant…inconsequential.”

  Sarrane nodded once more. Quite impressive.

  And then the lad grimaced as though a thing sour or bitter had offended his palate. “And Eryn Ruil provides us many avenues of retreat, should the need to withdraw from the field arise. Arrenhoth offers only a high walled place where we might make a glorious last stand.” He paused, glowered stormily, then added emphatically, “The Daradur would not have abandoned the Rock of Arren. And they would give no thought to routes of retreat.”

  Sarrane smiled inwardly, though her face remained rigid. She had glimpsed her son’s destiny and knew that greatness awaited him, a greatness that would exceed that of his father and rival that of Eccuron himself. She needed no power of precognition to know this – a mother’s intuition might often surpass the sight of a Seer. But she knew also the legend of Arumarron of Arrenhoth was yet in the earliest stages of its formation. The telling of her son’s tale had only just begun.

  “The Daradur do not die in the manner that we die, my son,” Sarrane advised quietly, the violet of her eyes aswirl. “We should not aspire to live as they live.”

  Arumarron absorbed this, comprehended this, but obviously did not entirely agree. He remained silent, however, silvered eyes aglitter as he watched his famed father’s proud parade along the streets of the city, cloak and Crimson Fist billowing brusquely behind that mighty warlord, greatsword upthrust and gleaming in the thickening eventide. Arumarron saw a living Colossus, a prince without peer.

  “Mother, I intend to fight this coming war.”

  Violet whirlpools swirled. “We have spoken on this, Arumarron.”

  “Even so.”

  Sarrane sighed, a wistful, weary wind. So much the father’s son.

  “Lord Alvarion will forbid you.”

  “I will petition Father to persuade him. He has the Lord’s ear.”

  Far less than do I, my son.

  “Very well, Arumarron. Make your request. And we shall all three of us abide the Lord’s word and speak on this no more.”

  Arumarron smiled. His chest swelled.

  “Agreed, mother.”

  And having caught Tulnarron’s bright eye, Arumarron bade farewell his mother and moved to greet his father. And man and child embraced then, rillagh to rillagh beneath the Crimson Fist, Master and Heir, father and son, pride upon pride.

  The Host of Arrenhoth roared.

  And Sarrane turned silently away.

  Rundul was become the Earth, and the Earth Rundul. His flesh was stone, his bones ferric ore, his blood molten magma. He was one with holy Mother Earth, was the fire in her veins, the surge of her heart, hot and wild and full of power. He hurtled northward through ground and granite with mind-crushing velocity, his essence an unbodied rage in the rock, oblivious to and uncaring of all but the compelling call of his summons.

  For indeed Rundul had been summoned. And poignantly aware of the need for utmost haste, his caller had reached through stone and space for him, pulling the great Daradun Warder into the earth, then drawing his being northward, body and soul, as water would be drawn from a well.

  Such was the caller’s command of Maiden Earth.

  Such was his power.

  They moved across the golden grasses of the Miramarch with the grace of ghosts, elegant and ethereal, like spirits from a realm of wind and whispers. They were tall and fair and of boundless beauty, and light like the starshine of night shone forth from their eyes, for their very souls had been formed of the white words of the Teller. They were borne through the gloaming upon equine creatures from another time, another world, of ivory coat and golden mane, stepping in gallantry, in glory. And about the wondrous party was the music of Light, surreal and soundless, but shaded with a subtle sadness, a melody of melancholic memory arising from the hopelorn harp of dreams.

  And though they were but one score and four, power emanated from them like the soft white warmth of a northern summer dawn, a radiance discernable by the soul, if not visible to the eye. The mirarra of the Miramarch whinnied in reverent welcome of them, and those blessed among the Fiannar that saw them pass did fall upon bended knee with bowed head and handheld heart, as though before very princes of the Earth.

  And princes of the Earth they were, in sooth – for they were nobility of the Neverborn, exalted of the Undying. They were the Light of the World.

  So came the Sun Lords of the Athair to Druintir in Lindannan.

  Far beneath the nethermost foundations of ancient Druintir, well below the deepest delvings of the Fiannar, a fluid form flowed from the stone, molten and mercurial. Then condensed. Solidified.

  Became mighty Rundul of Axar.

  Consciousness, awareness swept into the great Daradun warrior, a burning wind, soulfire. His hot heroic heart pounded within him, crashing against his breastbone like a hammer on an anvil. His spirit thrilled and soared. He had endured the peril of the urthrudd, a trial long considered the domain of the uldwar alone. His massive chest swelled, iron muscles flexing. Mother Earth had found him worthy. Worthy and unwanting.

  The shame branded upon his back by the kuarok’s massive mace might now be more easily borne.

  The first stars of the northern night sparkled softly in their sable sea, their light falling through the spray of the Silver Stair to the pale stone of Druintir, shimmering there like the luminous soul of a dead man about his own moon-bleached bones.

  Axennus Teagh, his cerulean cloak wrapped around him against the chill, gazed down upon the marble city from a lofty terrace near its centre. His chain of office glittered argentine in harmony with the nightlight. Sounds drifted up to him from the stone streets below – the clear, strong voices of the Fiannar, emotive, uplifted, and here and there the music of joyborn laughter. The Ambassador thought it strange for such sounds to have come from a people so dour, so stony of heart. Stranger still beneath the whelming shadow of war.

  A subtle fragrance on the wind whispered to him that he was no longer alone, that Caelle had returned to him from an errand to the Lady of the Fiannar. Her scent was near and soft, floating on the night like petals on water. Axennus had neither seen nor heard Caelle return, but even had the night not carried her sweet scent, he would have sensed her there at his shoulder, slightly behind him and to the right. In Galledine he had come to realize that he had become wonderfully attuned to the lovely Shield Maiden of the Fiannar. Attuned and attached. Below Doomfall, she had been in his soul. And in his soul she had remained. He would have known her presence in a faceless crowd of thousands.

  “Your people are lighter of heart than they were, Shield Maiden,” Axennus observed, not turning, for he wanted the Fiann to know he was aware of her unseen, unheard approach. He could feel her smile.

  “They have cause, Master Ambassador,” came Caelle’s smooth velvet voice at his shoulder. “Tulnarron, husband to Sarrane and Master of the House of Eccuron, is come to Druintir with the greater part of the Host of his House beneath his banner. Ancient Arrenhoth, ancestral estate of the line of Eccuron, is emptied. Five hundred swords gleam in Druintir tonight that did not do so this past day. And more will come.”

  Axennus felt her gaze upon him. He turned then to meet those blue-specked eyes of grey and the face from which they shone. Caelle’s appearance had altered, he noticed. The summer gown of the afternoon discarded, the Shield Maiden was clad again in plain green and grey riding garb, and her golden rillagh burned across her breast once more. From one hip dangled her long-bladed sword, from the other her small silver shield. But her mouth wore the same blithe smil
e with which Axennus had become so familiar, and of which he had become more than fond.

  “Master Tulnarron was expected, surely.” The Ambassador’s breath misted slightly in the night. “There is more to your people’s risen mood than the return of a wayward son.”

  “Oh?” Caelle’s eyes sparkled. “You are an astute and perceptive man, Ambassador Teagh – that much is certain. For indeed, others have come to us in this dark time, others that were not expected so soon, offering words of wisdom and – it is our hope – swords of valour to aid my people in their plight.” She paused, gazing into Axennus’ eyes. “You are thinking the glorious Athair, those who were never born and do not die, are in Druintir this night.”

  “Indeed, Shield Maiden,” Axennus replied, smiling wryly, “the reading of words on another’s mouth is a thing readily explained, but the reading of another’s thoughts is a different thing altogether, a thing of both wonder and witchery.”

  The Fiann’s laughter was light and melodic.

  “Little wonder and less witchery, Ambassador, unless the arts of observation and deduction have been branded sorcery in secret, and the secret not shared with me.”

  Axennus chuckled, folded his arms about his chest, and leaned back against the stone rail of the balcony.

  “Or mayhap I am more transparent than I like to believe.”

  A little laugh. “Mayhap, Southman.”

  “So the Athair have come, then?”

  But before Caelle could give answer, a sharp shout arose from the streets below, a cry of both wilderment and welcome, swiftly followed by another, and another, until a hundred voices, a thousand, rose in crescendo into the silvered night.

  Axennus Teagh turned and watched an enthusiastic throng of Fiannar move toward the nearby bridge whence the initial call had come. He then cast an enquiring look to the Shield Maiden.

  But Caelle simply smiled and shook her head.

  “Nay, Southman, this welcome is not for the Athair. The Undying are come already, as you have guessed, and enjoy my Lady’s hospitality at this very hour. Moreover, my people’s welcome of the fair Athair would be less…exuberant, for the Undying are a folk much reserved.”