Song Of Mornius

by Diane E Steinbach

  Slabs of ice and weathered shale crunched in the heavy silence, collapsing under the weight of the sleds. It was the third day, and they were crossing below the summit of the endless white peaks. Panting for breath, Gaelin winced at the ache in his lower back and hips.

  Abruptly Terrek reined in his horse. He turned in his saddle and squinted, his tired eyes surveying the line of dispirited men. “We rest here!” he called.

  With a grateful sigh, Gaelin dropped from Duncan’s rump. Pain stabbed through his ankles as his feet hit the ice, and the muscles above his knees spasmed. He limped with Mornius to the rocky debris below the ledge and plopped onto the rubble, reclining against the layers of stone.

  Wren Neche, clad in black armor signifying his status as a guard, strode toward him. A thin scar running from his temple to his chin twisted his lip forever into a fierce expression. Not once had Gaelin seen the young man smile, yet his manner was welcoming as he knelt, unstopping his flask and handing it over.

  Gaelin took his time sipping the hill-folk ale as he savored Wren’s company—a man he sensed was close to his own age. He recognized the taste of the beverage in his mouth, a sweet brew known as “roy” that had been popular in Kideren. He swallowed and then sighed, enjoying the bite of the alcohol in his throat. From the corner of his vision, he saw the new guard slide off his pack, the scar stretching the left corner of his mouth down. Gaelin recalled what Terrek had said about Caven Roth, how he had implied that other people in the company had suffered, too. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Wren glanced at him and shrugged. “You’re not the only one having trouble. Terrek’s wise to let us rest, even if it delays us a bit.”

  “No.” Gaelin gestured to Wren’s disfigurement. “If we’d known each other sooner, my staff could have healed that.”

  As Wren’s fingertips explored his scar, water gurgled overhead, trickling red across the shale from the glacier above them. Unable to meet Wren’s stare, Gaelin averted his gaze, the guard staying his hand when he tried to return the dented container. “You keep it,” Wren said. “I have another and I don’t need two.”

  Wincing at the pain in his temple, Gaelin hooked the metal flask to his belt. He staggered to his feet and then hesitated, shaking the snow from his cloak. Braced on his staff, he scanned the people around him. A few of the warriors were sprawled in the drifts beyond the ledge, while most clustered together, huddled beneath the stony shelf.

  Terrek waited out in the open, standing apart from his men, his back bent while he tended to his mount. Approaching him, Gaelin noticed Duncan’s drooping head. “He looks tired,” said Gaelin when Terrek glanced over.

  “He’s hungry,” Terrek said, rubbing a salve deep into the animal’s hoof he held lifted and propped against his knee. “And cold. I need to get him to where I can dry him off and throw on his blanket. We’ll make for those trees and break camp for the night.” He pointed and Gaelin peered through the mist, glimpsing the outline of branches below.

  “See the fog?” Terrek said. “No wind.”

  “How long do you think until we get there? How many—” Gaelin broke off when Duncan lipped at his friend’s hair.

  Chuckling, Terrek caressed the horse under his grayish mane, then quickly sobered. “A few hours, if the weather holds. Threats like that”—he jerked his head at the murky horizon— “could spell our deaths, and Tierdon’s.”

  Gaelin lurched forward a few paces with his staff and halted, mesmerized by the advancing clouds. “What you said about . . .” He paused.

  “About what?” asked Terrek.

  Gaelin, watching the distant mountains darken one by one, spoke over his shoulder. “Something you told me earlier about your father. You said he was hard to bear when you’re hurting, and that’s why you’re here. Why were you hurting?”

  He risked a glance at Terrek. The commander’s expression was thoughtful as he ran his hands down the animal’s sturdy legs.

  “I lost a good friend.” Terrek patted the horse and then straightened. “She was a neighbor of ours. My brother, Camron, adored her. He thought of her as his big sister. But to me she was more.

  “Felrina Vlyn was the brave one who always had to go first in front of us boys. Things change, I guess. A cleric from Erebos’s cult came to Kideren seeking converts. She was bored with her life, and so she was taken in. I tried, but I could not dissuade her. I think she expected us to follow her again, but we didn’t.”

  Gaelin turned, observing as Terrek worked his way around Duncan’s wide rump to the animal’s opposite side.

  “The priests strive to convince people that the Destroyer will free them from the elves’ control,” Terrek went on, “and that their god is going to make them a new Earth. Felrina’s a bright woman, but Erebos got into her head. So she left with them, bragging to us about how she was going to save humanity—and she took her mouse of a father, Nithra, with her.”

  “So now she’s your enemy,” said Gaelin.

  Terrek nodded. “I guess so. I have to believe one day she’ll be forced to see the truth, and when that happens”—his jaw hardened—“I fear for her.”

  Hoping to change the subject, Gaelin motioned to Terrek’s horse. “My legs can’t take his back anymore. I need to walk.”

  Calmly Terrek appraised him before stooping to tighten the frozen girth. “You’re still not well. You’ve been frail since Heartwood.”

  “What about the sleds?” Gaelin asked, pointing. “You let me ride in one after the battle, remember?”

  “That was a wagon. Those sleds aren’t meant to carry people. Sitting there alone, you’d freeze to death.”

  Gaelin jumped back when Terrek mounted, avoiding Duncan’s restless hooves. Behind him he heard the grunts of the warriors climbing to their feet and hurrying to re-form their line.

  “What I need is for you to recover.” Terrek reined the horse in close and leaned over to thrust out his gloved hand. “Now climb up. It’s time to go.” Catching Gaelin’s upper arm, he lowered his voice. “You’ll do as I say now. Or do you want to stay sick?” His grip tightened, and Gaelin was dragged off the ice—to dangle in Terrek’s strong grasp.

  Gaelin’s face burned as the men around him laughed. He pulled himself onto the horse, settling his weight on the green-gold pad that extended beyond the saddle.

  For a moment he sat still, breathing hard and clenching his staff, feeling the horse’s wide haunches tilt beneath him. All at once something snapped, a blistering anger blurring his sight. Desperately, he pulled against Terrek’s sudden grasp on his belt, struggling in vain to lift Mornius enough to dismount.

  Terrek backed his horse under the lone bluebark pine jutting from the cliff. Gaelin yelped when, with a heavy thump, the branches gave way, dropping their snowy burden upon him. He yelled and sputtered, the coldness chilling his neck as Duncan leapt forward.

  “That’s the same thing I did to Terrek,” said a gravelly voice at his back, “when he was a boy. You won’t have the luxury to ride much longer. Appreciate it while you can.”

  Gaelin tensed, recognizing the man leading his dappled gray horse. “I did detect a slight limp,” Captain Vyergin said, stopping beside them. “It’s the right foreleg.”

  Terrek nodded. “Duncan’s cracked his hoof. I don’t think it’s bad, but he—”

  “I see it,” said Vyergin. “You used my salve. Good man. Once it dries, it will form a nice patch. Just keep him off the ice.” Stroking his gelding’s thick neck, Vyergin met Gaelin’s regard. “You don’t get to be a savage anymore, my lad. If you want to remain here among us, show some respect.

  “Let’s hope he makes it to Tierdon!” Vyergin called to Terrek as he hurried with his horse to join the men.

  Gaelin shot a glance over his shoulder at the captain, then gripped the cantle with his thighs, the muddle of his thoughts interrupted by Duncan’s lumbering start. He heard the crunching of hooves and booted feet as the warriors followed—the hissing runners of the sleds when, with prote
sting squeals, the ponies hastened by to again pack the trail.

  Gaelin let his mind wander. He watched the sun bury itself behind the ridge to the east, and the red-tinged darkening clouds. After what felt like hours, the horse stumbled to a halt beneath his aching thighs and turned.

  “No fires,” Terrek announced with a glance at his men, his words drawing a groan from several raw throats. “We’re too exposed out here. Gather blankets. We’ll pitch half the tents and pack ourselves in. We may not sleep, but at least we’ll stay warm.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  FELRINA, PERCHED ON the lowest ledge in the watery chamber, spun away from the pool’s black depths. “Tierdon?”

  Her voice echoed down the adjoining tunnels. Confronting her leader, she lifted her staff, tilting its Blazenstone. “You haven’t the balls for it, Mens. And anyway, the Masterswords would stop you. They have a powerful friend—the winged creator of Tierdon.”

  Snorting, Mens picked at a sore on his jaw. “The Eris elves focus on one thing now,” he said. “They care for the trees. They don’t even teach the Talhaidor anymore. They have humans doing that.”

  “No.” Felrina grimaced. “The history preserved at Tierdon is precious to them.” She closed her eyes, attuning her ears to the lapping sound of the water. She could sense Arawn’s spirit drifting toward her below the surface of the tarn. The former enslaver of the giants was listening, considering in silence their every word.

  She scowled at the swirls of oil on the water, the remnants of fat from the many humans she had formed into dachs. Mens is changing, too, she observed. The old magic he wielded feasted on his flesh like a coiled and hungry worm. His attempts to master the bloodstone mounted atop his staff was slowly taking his life.

  While I remain as I am. She examined her arms, what little of herself she could see under her flowing robes. After he dies—she risked a glance at her superior—I would be leader.

  “If I conquered Tierdon,” Mens went on, “if I had my winged horde pierce its heart, think of the message that would send to the elves!”

  Felrina nodded. His voice sounded wet to her ears, his inhalations wheezing in his bony chest.

  “The elves would fear me, and your precious Terrek would cower at my feet! I’d make him grovel to you, Felrina, and beg for his life!”

  Mens’s wide black eyes caught the light from across the room, the smoking torch held high by her faithful apprentice. Something about his expression tugged at her, conjuring thoughts of the future Erebos planned. “If you succeeded, we would . . .”

  “Yes!” Mens tossed his head. “We’d finally get our world, created by Erebos for humans alone with no elves to answer to!”

  Felrina studied him. She doubted very much he would live to see that day. Even now, he was nothing but bones, his skin stretched taut over his skull. Yet he was animated by the thought of more killing.

  “All you think about is war.” She glanced at the lanky figure next to the torch. Respectful as always, her apprentice, Gulgrin, peered back. “We can’t do anything without food, and our suppliers have refused us. Without their tithe, how will we survive the winter?”

  Mens humphed. “That’s your problem. If the croppers aren’t so willing, confiscate their animals and hoarded goods. Seize them, too, while you’re at it. You can make them into warriors for me.”

  If only I could! she thought. I hate begging, and the farmers know it, but if I lose them to Mens, we’d have nothing to sustain us.

  “What about later?” she said. “When the grain stores are empty and there are no sleds bringing us more? How will you fight if your warriors are starving?”

  As her leader bit his lip, she frowned, recalling the deep-thinking man he had been when she had first met him. For a moment, she ached for the younger Mens, for the sane human being who had persuaded her to leave her home in Kideren.

  “They won’t go hungry,” said Mens. “Not if you give me what I need. I’ll feed them the croppers if I have to.”

  “Feed them the . . . ?” She caught her breath.

  “Why does that shock you?” he asked. “What do you suppose happens to the captives I consider unfit for the altar? Do you think I send them on their way? We can’t keep prisoners if we’re short on provisions ourselves, and my forces must be fed. If the farmers won’t cooperate, give them to me, Felrina. I’ll put them to use.”

  “I just assumed you found some way to . . . get rid of them.”

  “Indeed I have,” Mens said. “First I ram hooks through here.” He jabbed his thumb into the skin beneath his chin. “And out the mouth. Then we dangle two or three at a time above my fighters. The blood gets the creatures excited, until the prisoners drop, their jaws ripped from their skulls.”

  “No!” Felrina covered her mouth, but the cry had already escaped her lips. As her Blazenstone staff flared beside her, she paused and clutched at her stomach beneath her robes.

  He nodded at her reaction. “It’s a waste, to be sure, but since most are still alive when my warriors begin to feed, Erebos is also strengthened by these deaths. He’s always there. If you want the truth, I think he does something so the prisoners don’t bleed out.”

  “So the process takes time,” Felrina said in a tone of feigned approval. She winced at the dryness in her throat. “Good. But doesn’t that deprive us of fodder for our communions? There are fewer for you, too, for . . . the work it is you do, and for the poisonings in our dungeons. These are the deaths that benefit Erebos the most. We can’t afford to—”

  She stopped, cringing when a shadow fell over them both. Darkness took shape above her, a dragon unfurling its massive wings. “Erebos is here!” she hissed.

  “He senses your distress, my dear. As do I. You know, Felrina, sometimes I think your heart’s not in it,” Mens told her. “Every day we achieve so much. Where is your enthusiasm for your work?”

  She tipped back her head, spreading her arms as she searched the granite ceiling for her god. “Great Lord, believe in me, for I do believe in you and our objective here. I just feel we ought to rethink—”

  “So be creative!” Mens gestured to the pool’s flat calm. “You have a warder’s power at your command, and Arawn’s skill. Make better dachs. Design them so they don’t need food, and then we wouldn’t have to worry, would we?”

  Felrina glared at him. “Don’t be absurd. I can reshape the bones and skin into wings, but I cannot change what the internal organs do. Even Arawn has limits.”

  Mens averted his eyes from her staff’s bright flame, the conduit to Erebos’s power that he so openly craved. Again she glanced up, watching as the dragon’s oppressive silhouette faded into the rocks.

  “The point is I need better warriors.” Mens thumped the granite floor with his bloodstone staff. “If you don’t produce them soon, Felrina, I will indeed feed the croppers to my dachs. And once I’m finished, I’ll test how long you can hang by your jaw. Do you hear?”

  She nodded, her sweaty hands tingling.

  Chapter 10

  AVALAR FELT HER pulse quicken in her throat as she ventured into the shadow of the elven city below its crystal domes. She craned her neck, staring at the top of Tierdon’s winged entrance. Joined at the tips and wrought of agate-veined marble, the feathered symbol of freedom created a stylized archway.

  She smiled despite herself. Awed as she was by this glimpse of elven architecture, she could almost ignore the tumult she caused when she strode between the gate’s open doors, the humans crowding to see her.

  As Tierdon’s denizens pressed in close, she reached for her sword, her fingers clenching its pommel. Inhaling deeply, she glanced over the many gawking faces, the townsfolk around her gaping upward. Exhaling, she laughed, her amusement bubbling from her lips before she could stop it. Teasingly she mimicked her audience’s rudeness, goggling back openmouthed at the curious horde.

  Her response prompted a snicker from the mob, and Avalar found its source, a youngish man with doe-soft brown eyes, smiling at her
. She stumbled as his gaze called to her heart, unraveling her fear and mistrust.

  Taking a knee, she marveled at what she spied behind his eyes, the power of his soul transfixing her. “What are you?” she asked.

  He swept her a bow and grinned, his ruddy tail of tied-back hair flopping forward alongside his neck. “The museum’s curator, at your service, my dear. I’m Camron Florne. Did the elves summon you?”

  Avalar considered his flawless skin with its downy hint of a beard. Small freckles dotted the bridge of his nose, fanning out across his cheeks.

  “I called myself,” she told him. “I seek the Masterswords’ academy. Do you know of it?”

  “Of course I do,” he said, and as he smiled, Avalar noted how easy it was for his handsome features to do so. She cleared her throat, seeing the people around them begin to disperse. She had come expecting trouble, a confrontation at the very least. Never had she imagined she would find an ally so soon.

  The young man reached to grip her thumb. “Would you care for an escort?”

  Avalar curled her fingers around his knuckles. “Surely, I am not the first giant you have seen. How else could you be so fearless?”

  “Fearless?” He laughed. “Are you kidding? I’ve always wanted to meet a giant. You’re like the heroes from the old Earth comics I’ve read. We have a collection of them I can show you.”

  “And you!” Avalar snatched a shaky breath. “I begin to see why the elves have given humans their aid.”

  “Oh really?” Camron’s laughter was strained. “Well, I don’t. We had our world, and our greed destroyed it. We were doomed long before the warders’ battle brought us here.”

  Avalar released him and stood. “Mayhap,” she said, “in time, your kind will learn from its mistakes, as we giants have. No species is perfect, Camron Florne. Not even the elves.” She grimaced at his puzzlement. “Hear me now. I have questions as well to ponder and answers I must learn. Perhaps you may teach me ere I go. You are unlike the others here. The vibrations I feel . . . If I block my sight, it is almost as though you were a giant.”