One by one, the Thillrians pushed their ways out of their tents. They were shrouded in grey and black tunics, looking much the same as the sky, and they greeted the dour day with nothing but complaints.
“Bread and rocks again for breakfast,” spat one. “There’s no fire in all Thillria that’ll catch in this.”
“My socks have gone and drowned,” groused another. “Another hour, and my feet’ll rot right off.”
A third Thillrian, brawniest and surliest of the lot, stretched his massive arms and scowled skyward. “Why chase this wench anyhow?” he rumbled. “If she’s gone to Nightmare, the Uylen will have caught her. Like as not, she’s already staked to a tree with the wind blowing over her bones.”
The rims of his eyes smoldering from lack of sleep, Rellen plowed into the Thillrians’ midst. “Her bones?” he fumed.
“Aye,” the huge Thillrian grunted. “Tender meat for the Uylen, she’ll be. What of it?”
Quick as the wind, Rellen punched the big man square in his bearded chin. The big Thillrian toppled into the grass and clutched his broken face, red rivers streaming between his fingers. Four of his comrades tore long daggers from their sheaths and made a black ring around Rellen. “Hadryn!” one shouted. “Wake up! We’ve us a Grae to kill!”
Watching from a distance, Garrett crossed his arms and glared across the lot of them. “I would not, were I you,” he warned. His blade was still in its sheath over his shoulders. But these men are no fools. They all know what would happen.
Scowling, three of the Thillrians backed away. Rellen slapped the dagger from the grasp of the one who remained. “The next Thillrian who speaks of Ande, I will bury,” he seethed. “So go ahead; say something. Talk about the Uylen or jest about which of you will have her first. I will kill all of you if I have to.”
No, thought Garrett. You will slay one, and I the rest. But none of it will bring us closer to her.
Hadryn emerged from his tent. His black Thillrian locks were tousled and his beardless cheeks damp with dew, but otherwise Orumna’s young servant looked unperturbed. “Are we at war?” He raised a brow at the toppled Thillrian, who hunched in the grass collecting a puddle of blood in his palm.
“The Grae struck me,” the big man glowered at Rellen. “Have his neck, or I will.”
“And that one there.” Another of the Thillrians jabbed his finger toward Garrett. “Thinks the one of him can fight the eight of us.”
Hadryn walked leisurely through the wet grass. “Seven, you mean.” He regarded the big, bleeding Thillrian. “And yes, Lord Croft could butcher the lot of us if he wanted. We’d be saplings under his sword, we would, if half the stories are true.”
Hollow praise. Garrett watched, but said nothing. We should be on our way. Instead we stand and talk.
Rellen stood in the middle of it all, the wind catching his tunic, a storm brewing in his gaze. “You keep poor company.” He scowled at Hadryn. “When do leave to find Ande?”
“Ser Gryphon, do be kind to the men,” Hadryn said calmly. “They were wrong to laugh, but you are very quick to anger. And you needn’t fear for your lady. She is well, I promise. When we find her, if any injury worse than a splinter or brush barb troubles her fairest flesh, my neck is yours to stretch.”
“Yes, I know.” Rellen ground his teeth. “But you have no way of knowing. She could be murdered. She could be lost. She could be…”
“She is none of those,” said Hadryn. “Trust and see.”
Rellen shot a look of warning at the Thillrians sulking behind Hadryn. “Today is our third day out. I have none of Saul and Garrett’s patience. If we have yet to find her by midday tomorrow, my sword will run scarlet, enough to paint these fields. I will start with those men over there.”
Hadryn frowned. “I remind you, Ser Gryphon, your lady followed Jix freely. When we track her down, you’ll find no harm has come to her. She may even be displeased at the interruption. As we’re fast closing on Shivershore, you’ll see soon enough.”
After a breakfast of hard bread, cold tea, and oat wafers devoured in grave silence, the riders broke camp and set off southward into the endless grass. The split-lipped Thillrian brooded atop his stallion, haunting Rellen with his red-rimmed gaze, but never daring to say a word. Hadryn steered his mount in the heart of the column, the only cheerful soul among the many. As ever, Garrett took up his position in the rear of the column. His black warhorse wounded the wet earth wherever it stepped, and from the vantage of its saddle he tracked all sights before him.
Grass, endless and wet. He watched the pale blades writhe beneath the wind. Fields, fallow and full of weeds. The sky, a graveyard of grey clouds. Look at us. Saul wishes he were home with his books. Rellen’s heart has gone cold. Perhaps they were right. We never should have come here.
He rode. The grey morning gave way to a greyer afternoon. His sword kept its steady rhythm against his shoulder, and his black tabard leapt with the wind’s every tug. No matter his worry for Andelusia and distrust for all things Thillrian, he felt at peace in the crisp, dreary day.
For every so often, he glimpsed Ona.
The young rider, shrouded in her cloak and cowl, wended her way through the grass ahead of him, keeping her distance from the other Thillrians. He glimpsed her peeking back at him, and each time she did, his breath quickened. Her dark eyes invited him and her lips whispered words he wished he could hear. The soldier in him bade him not to look, but the man beneath could not help it. I should be hunting for Ande, he scolded himself. But here I am, distracted.
The Thillrians kept a brisk pace. Hadryn kept them moving. Garrett knew they would never catch Andelusia before she reached Nightmare, for in every village they passed, the farmers and maids and shepherds said the same:
“Not seen a woman in these parts. Not today nor any other day.”
“King’s men, you say? A girl with fiery hair? No. No one like that. We’d remember if we’d seen such travelers.”
“No one goes to Shivershore, don’t you know? Save for you unlucky sods.”
And so Garrett went on, watchful for Ona, wary of the southern horizon, and waiting for Rellen’s ever-darkening mood to boil over. The heart of Thillria was a far different realm than Graehelm’s prairies. The fields stretched far and wide in every direction, but its grasses were pallid and withering rather than strong and green. Farmsteads were few and far between, while the only roads were rutted lanes carved between fields by wagons and ox-borne carts. This is no Mormist. He felt out of place in such an ugly, gloomy realm. For a mountain topped with snow, I would sell my sword and give up my horse.
The hours, blended by the crawling clouds and endless grassland, passed without event. Rellen kept his distance from the Thillrians. Saul rode wordlessly. Late in the day, the winds weakened, and evening came swiftly thereafter.
At dusk, Hadryn slowed the column and called out for everyone to gather. “Come, lads!” the tireless Thillrian shouted. “Lift your weary eyes. We eat and sleep like kings tonight.”
“We should not sleep at all,” Garrett heard Rellen grumble. “We should go on.”
“And we shall,” replied Hadryn. “Tomorrow.”
Rellen set a stare like a blade on Hadryn’s back, but the Thillrian paid it no mind. The clouds began to break and the early stars punctured tiny holes in the dusk-mantle, and Hadryn seemed emboldened. As the last of the sunlight smoldered red in the sky, he led the column around a gray-watered pond and halted at the edge of an orchard. The orchard seemed out of place in the sea of Thillrian grass. Columns of sweet-smelling trees encircled a village lit by dozens of lanterns, an oasis in an otherwise desolate realm.
“The village of Rose,” announced Hadryn. “Growers of the most succulent apples in all Thillria.”
No guards watched over Rose. Hadryn led the way through a wide-open fence and down a path between the trees, and no folk arrived to slow him. The village in the orchard’s heart seemed a world apart from the rest of Thillria. Its thirty dwelling
s were built of grey stones and amber logs, which Garrett guessed had been imported from some distant corner of Thillria. Lanterns hung from picket fences, casting warm lights upon a lawn too green for autumn. Enticing smells drifted from most of the houses’ windows. Supper. Garrett felt his stomach groan. Ande did not come this way, but it may be a worthy detour.
Hadryn dismounted and marched his white stallion off the path and into the village heart. The Thillrians did the same. “Hallo!” Hadryn plucked a lamp from a fencepost. “Where is everyone?”
To Hadryn’s call, a dozen maids and men opened their doors and emerged into the night. Peaceful folk, Garrett observed the maidens’ bright smiles and the men happy from a hard day’s work. And we, save for Hadryn, the dour invaders.
The folk of Rose crowded around Hadryn as though he was their king. “Hadryn!” They pawed at him. “So long since your last visit! How good to see you again!”
“Better to be back!” Hadryn embraced them all.
“We thought you’d gone and died!” said a lad in an apple-stained apron.
“Aye, we heard a rumor,” trilled a pretty maid with very un-Thillrian flaxen hair. “We’re glad to see the Uylen didn’t eat you.”
“No, no.” Hadryn laughed with them. “The Uylen would not like the taste of me. I’m all skin and bones, with no meat to spare.”
While the Thillrians watched with smirks, Hadryn and the people of Rose were all smiles. Oblivious, Garrett recognized. Simple people with simple minds, and all the happier for it. Were we all so fortunate. From his saddle, he looked to Saul, who sat exhausted atop his horse, and then to Rellen, who burned in bitter silence. He even looked for Ona, but she was gone, lost in the shadows, and waiting to see whether I will go to her.
In short order, Hadryn made arrangements for the night. He spoke his requests to Rose, and the villagers poured out of their homes, all of them willing to help. Some brought food and drink, while others led the horses away into a fenced yard. As darkness claimed the world, three maidens and the lad with the apple-stained apron led Garrett and the rest to a clean, high-roofed barn, replete with cots, troughs of clean water, and waiting suppers of stew, fruit, and cider wine.
In his private corner of the barn, Garrett sat to supper on a prickly square of hay. The food the people brought him was simple fare, but surprisingly delicious. The stew was hot, the cider strong and sharp, and the apples possessed of otherworldly sweetness. He might have spent longer doubting Rose’s hospitality, were it not for his hunger. I should slip away in the night to find Ande, he told himself while he ate, but the way to Shivershore was a mystery to him, and Andelusia’s tracks had been destroyed by the rain. And so I must wait. And watch as Rellen rages.
As Garrett knew would happen, Rellen finished his supper before the others and went directly to Hadryn. Rellen’s face was damp and pale, his eyes wild from lack of sleep. He is not the man he was, Garrett knew. His heart is broken and his trust betrayed. Would that I could help him, but he will not listen to me.
“Three days now.” Rellen stood before Hadryn, the lines in his neck as taut as bowstrings. “Three days and no Andelusia. Here we are, prancing about your precious heartland, and she is still out there. I have tried to be patient, but you leave me no choice. At dawn tomorrow you will tell me the way south. Saul, Garrett, and I will go without you.”
Ever calm, Hadryn drained his cup of cider and regarded Rellen as a worried father might his wayward son. “I am sad it has come to this,” he said at length.
“I doubt that,” said Rellen. “You say you want to help us. You say your King gave you his blessing, but all I hear are Thillrian lies.”
“You don’t understand.” Hadryn’s smile died upon his lips. “I thought Jix would bring her here, but the people say otherwise. They haven’t seen her. She is farther along than I thought.”
“You mean farther along to Shivershore?” Rellen snorted. “You mean your men might be right. She might be dead already.”
Hadryn shook his head. Garrett swore he saw the young man shudder, as though the idea of losing Ande pains him as much as it does Rellen.
“No, not dead.” Hadryn waved Rellen’s suggestion off. “What I said before still holds true. I wager my life on it. We may be a bit farther behind her than I hoped, but we will catch her, and she will be alive. The longer you stay with me, the better our chance of reaching her.”
“Reaching her before what?” Rellen’s hand strayed to his sword pommel. “Before Jix slays her? Before he seduces her with more of his lies?”
Hadryn stood and brushed the straw from his pants. He seemed hardly the same man as a moment ago. His eyes were filled with shadows, and he looked through Rellen, rather than at him. “Reckless, you are,” he said, and all the room listened. “Tonight you will sleep in your cot like the rest of us. In the morning you will ride with me and my men, not alone as you so gallantly claim. It may take one day to catch her, maybe three, but she’ll be alive no matter. You will see her again, and you will say to yourself, ‘Why did I ever doubt Hadryn? Why was I so consumed with doubt?’ If these things are untrue, then you may bludgeon me until the Shivershore soil and I cannot be told apart, but such a day will never come. Your beloved is alive.”
Rellen stood trembling before Hadryn. The barn fell into unfathomable silence. He will tear out his sword and strike Hadryn down, thought Garrett. Or he will walk away and go to bed.
Rellen chose the latter. When he did, every man exhaled.
Years ago, before the wars and deaths had stripped Rellen’s heart from his chest, Garrett would have gone to him. I would have counseled him. Garrett sat in the shadows as the Thillrians dimmed their lamps and crawled into their cots. I would have walked him off the ledge and reminded him he is a hero. He would have listened then. He would have heard me. But not tonight. And perhaps never again.
As he lied upon his cot and gazed into the rafters, darkness claimed the barn. The last Thillrian snuffed his lamp, and afterward the only light was that of Saul’s candle as he lost himself in his books. Garrett heard the Thillrians begin to snore. One by one, he sensed them plummeting into sleep. All except Saul and Hadryn...and me.
He laid awake deep into the night. He heard the wind buffet the barn’s walls and the Thillrians’ cacophony of snores, but little else. He thought to rise and slip with his sword into the orchards for a midnight spar against the shadows, but it was then he sensed someone drawing near. He closed his eyes and felt the woman gliding through the dark. He sat up in his cot and felt her two fingers press against his mouth. Ona, he knew. As silent in the night as Ande. He saw her well despite the darkness. She was garbed in her heavy cloak and earth-soiled pants, and her hood was down. Her nose looked like a pearl in the blackness, and her scent, so like rain, washed over him.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered. She knotted her fingers with his and tugged him to his feet. No one else heard her, nor will they.
“Come with me,” she said. “I spoke with the wind. It asked you and me to walk with it.”
He thought to deny her, but words failed him. She tugged him quietly out the barn door, across the village lawn, around the white pickets, and into the orchard, and he did not resist. For the first time in his life, he was without the wisdom to make sense of what was happening. I do not know this woman, he thought as she pulled him deeper into the night. But most of me wants to.
Twenty trees deep into the orchard, she stopped. The clouds were gone and the moonlight spreading in pale pools between the trees. Ona let loose of his hand and backed a step away, drinking a long gaze of him, convincing me she is real.
“Your friends would be angry that I took you away,” she said. “Lord Gryphon especially. I had to sneak you out.”
“And so you have.”
“I have much to ask you.” She pulled back her cowl. Hers was a face as comely as any flower, though in the darkness her eyes were a mystery. “To me, you are a legend. They say you are the destroyer of Furyon and the savior
of Graeland, but I have always wanted to know the real you. I want to know the man behind the sword.”
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