The Longsword Chronicles: Book 01 - King of Ashes

by GJ Kelly

  "She lives, Meeya, all is well. Come, it is safe, these are my friends, we shall take you to Elayeen."

  Gawain glanced at the guard standing helplessly with warm blankets, and ushered him forward.

  This time, the elves accepted them, and when another stepped forward with Jurian brandy, a gentle nod from Gawain was all it took for Meeya and her husband to drink.

  "Mihoth, Valin." Meeya announced, her cheeks flushing with the effects of the brandy, indicating her husband.

  The elf bowed slightly, and Gawain held out his hand. "Mifrith Valin. Well met."

  The elf took Gawain's arm, and bowed again.

  "Come, let's to Tarn, and a warm fire."

  "Serre," Captain Sarek stepped forward, and then beckoned one of his men forward carrying two elven longbows, "We should like to return these to your friends."

  Gawain smiled, and Sarek smiled back. Meeya and Valin had clearly 'surrendered' to the Threlland patrol, and when their weapons were handed back to them, they were bemused.

  "Threlland ifrith, Meeya." Gawain smiled.

  "In truth? They will not kill us?"

  It was the Threllanders turn to look bemused.

  "In truth," Gawain smiled reassuringly at the shivering elves wrapped in their blankets. "They will not kill you."

  They mounted, and began the long climb up the western slopes. News of their arrival had not preceded them, and the weather meant that the marketplace was quiet when they rode into the town. Hooves clopped on icy cobbles, and the patrol drew back a respectful distance while Gawain led the way to Rak's house. At a nod from Gawain, Captain Sarek dismounted, and strode forward.

  "Best you knock, Sarek, and make your report."

  Sarek looked confused for a moment, but nodded, turned and knocked. The door was opened by Rak himself, and he looked momentarily alarmed on seeing Gawain seated on Gwyn over the Captain's shoulder. Gawain's heart sank. He was still not welcome.

  "My Lord," Sarek bowed. "On patrol, we came across two elves, who are friends of Longsword and his Lady. They are here."

  Sarek stepped back, and indicated the two elves still mounted, still wrapped in blankets.

  Rak's eyes widened, and he turned and called into the house. "My lady, fetch lady Elayeen, she has visitors!"

  Gawain indicated that Meeya and Valin should dismount, and they did so, still bemused and still nervous. Rak stepped forward to greet them, noting their dishevelled state. Merrin hurried down the hall, Elayeen close behind her. For a brief moment, Elayeen's eyes locked with Gawain's. His heart stopped, he caught his breath; she was radiant, her eyes bright and alive and for a fleeting moment, full of joy...and then they clouded, and she glanced down.

  "Mifrith Elayeen!" Meeya cried, and rushed forward.

  "Meeya!" Elayeen gasped, and in moments the two friends were hugging one another. "Valin!" Elayeen cried, and the elf smiled broadly, and bowed, and stepped forward.

  The air was filled with elven joy and their lilting language as they babbled happily at each other, and then Merrin and Rak were ushering them all into the house and out of the cold. Sarek received a brief commendation from Rak, and Gawain a brief sorrowful shake of the head, and then the door was closed against them.

  Sarek mounted, and ordered his men back to barracks.

  "Thank you, Captain." Gawain sighed. "You and your men handled them well, with tact and compassion."

  Sarek nodded his thanks at the compliment. "Did they truly think we would kill them, Serre?"

  "They did. For them to have left Elvendere at all is a wonder. For them to have come to Threlland is a miracle."

  "Then it must be on a matter of great importance for them, believing that they faced death in so doing."

  "Aye." Gawain thought ruefully, "Great importance indeed."

  "Well, Serre. Honour to you."

  "And to you, Captain."

  Sarek saluted and rode away, leaving Gawain to watch while Lyas, the groom's apprentice, led the two shivering elven horses away to the stables. Gwyn snorted.

  "No, Gwyn. There's no room for you in the stables now." Gawain sighed, "No room for me in the house. And no room at the inn. Come then, Ugly, let's up to the Point while it's yet light."

  Gwyn clopped away from the house with a snort, and Gawain did not look back. He dare not, for he knew Elayeen would not be there smiling up at him. But he dared hope it might be true, and did not wish to prove it a lie by turning his head.

  At the Point, he dismounted, and sat upon a boulder, the longsword drawn, its point pressed into the frozen ground while he rested his chin on its pommel. The view was disappointing. Where before, in Autumn, the farak gorin stretched dark brown and shimmering clear to the horizon and the base of the Teeth, there was nothing but a white blanket of snow as far as the eye could see. Gawain wondered briefly whether Morloch's army had abandoned their assault on the north side of the mountains. He doubted it. Doubtless they were hammering still, chipping away relentlessly, dying of cold and exposure, yet driven by aquamire and the thirst for fresh supplies of that evil substance...

  For two hours Gawain sat there, wrapped in his cloak, his hands on the pommel and his chin on his hands while Gwyn grazed on tufts of grass where it lay protected against the snow at the base of the trees around them. He thought of the plans he had already set in motion. Briefly. Mostly he thought of Elayeen, and how fresh and full of life she had looked...

  Gwyn snorted.

  "I know, you ugly nag, I'm not deaf. Even I can hear a whitebeard stumbling through the snow."

  "Longsword! I was told I would find you here!"

  "You were told correctly, Allazar."

  The wizard was breathing hard, and he sighed aloud when he sat on the boulder next to Gawain.

  "Depressing view. Do you search for the enemy? Is there any sign?"

  "Yes, no, and no. I came here to think."

  "Ah."

  "You say that so knowingly sometimes, wizard."

  "It is but an exclamation signifying...something. However," Allazar gasped, his breath pluming, "I bring news of our two surprise guests."

  "I thought you might. What drove them to make so perilous a journey, and to a land they fear more than any other?"

  "They were sent by your Lady's brother, it seems."

  "Gan?"

  "Yes. Since your departure from Elvendere, Thal-Hak has restored order, and quelled the unrest your actions caused. But it is not good for Elayeen."

  Gawain closed his eyes and sighed. "How so?"

  "She is declared faranthroth. Dead to all who knew her. She is, in effect, banished from her homeland. The news has soured the joy she felt on seeing her friends, I fear."

  "Why did they come, Allazar? It is cruel, if this is all they came to say. She suspected this already."

  "No, it is not all they came to say. Gan, and I suspect from what I heard Thal-Hak too, loves her dearly, and would know if she truly survived your rescue of her from the Faranthroth circle. To that end, the thalangard have made this journey. This Gan is something of a diplomat too, I suspect, for he has sent these two in secret. If they return, in the spring, bearing news that Elayeen lives and is well, then all elves will come to know that Threlland is friend to Elvendere. It is a great step forward, Longsword, in uniting the kingdoms. That they came at all is a sign of their great trust in you.”

  Gawain sighed, and opened his eyes, and stared at the Teeth. "For a moment, when she looked at me, I thought she would rush into my arms. But then she turned away, Allazar. She turned away."

  "Longsword, do not torture yourself so."

  "How can I not?"

  Allazar shook his head, at a loss for words for a moment or two. "She knew you had left Tarn, yesterday. 'Where has Traveller gone?' she asked me, 'Does he ride into danger once more?' I told her you did not, that you were visiting an ailing friend nearby. 'He is a man of duty,' she replied, 'and keeps his promises'. So you see, she has not abandoned you, not that she could if she tried. She is ithroth."
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  "Those were her exact words? In truth?" Gawain asked, his eyes downcast.

  "Yes...her exact words. What ails you, Longsword?"

  "She called me Traveller. Before, she called me 'mithroth'."

  Allazar fell silent for a moment. "It means nothing. Truly."

  "To me, Allazar, it means everything.” Gawain stood, and sheathed the longsword as he gazed out at the Teeth. "Sometimes," he whispered, "I think I hear him laughing at me."

  "Who?"

  Gawain nodded at the mountains. "Morloch."

  Allazar stood, and reached out, and then hesitated, and then patted the young man on the shoulder. "If he lives, Longsword, as I believe he does, it is not his laughter you hear, but the distant screams of rage, and loss, and pain... and utter helplessness."

  "As perhaps he once heard mine, and may yet again."

  "You are tired, and cold, my friend. Come. Let us to the inn. Hot food, warm ale, and good company await us there."

  "And still there is no word from the crowns?"

  "None. Come, let us go. We can speak of it later."

  "No. You go, Allazar. I have more thinking to do, and it has been too long since last I slept beneath the stars."

  "You'll freeze!" Allazar exclaimed.

  Gawain shook his head. "I have a warm cloak. A good bedroll on my saddle. Stone arrows, steel, and plenty of wood. Frak, and Jurian brandy. I cannot face the crowd at the inn, not this night."

  "Then I shall stay too." Allazar said.

  Gawain turned a wry smile on the wizard. "Be careful, Allazar, one day I might say yes to the ill-conceived offers you blurt on the spur of the moment."

  "Ah."

  "Indeed. But the thought is appreciated."

  Allazar smiled, and shook his head, and then turned back to the path that led down from the Point to the town. Already it was gloomy, the light failing, and he hurried once he realised Gawain had no intention of calling him back.

  Gawain watched the wizard go, and then set about making a hasty camp. He gathered wood, lit a small fire using the boulder as a wind-break, and spread out his bedroll. Then he unsaddled Gwyn, and settled on the blankets, gazing at the mountains as evening closed in. In truth, he had much to think about.

  For one thing, the elves Meeya and Valin were thalangard. Royal honour-guards. In the close-knit provinces of Elvendere, they would be missed. And with the whitebeards' tight grip on power within that land, tighter than anywhere else in the southlands, it was difficult if not impossible to conceive that Gan would be able to despatch two thalangard officers clear across the Jurian plains without the wizards' knowledge.

  Gawain frowned. He knew there was a greater importance attached to the arrival of Meeya and Valin, but every time he struggled to discover the significance, Elayeen's eyes filled his mind...Traveller, she had called him. Traveller, and not mithroth.

  A cold breeze rustled branches and whistled, making the flames from his fire dance and crackle.

  "Do not laugh at me, Morloch. I said I would come for you. I keep my promises."

  Gwyn snorted, and Gawain chuckled. He hadn't meant to speak out loud. Perhaps he truly was going quietly mad. Once, when Gawain had found his brother mooning around an empty chamber at Raheen's Keep, he had asked "Brother, what ails you?"

  "I am in love." Kevyn had replied.

  "Oh. So why do you look like a man whose favourite dog just died?" Gawain had jibed.

  Kevyn sighed. "Love is an illness, brother. It drives men to childish folly, acts of great courage, the peaks of paradise, and the depths of despair. It is at once maddening, and sobering. Blessing, and curse."

  "Don't come too close to me then, brother, I have no desire to succumb to such a dread disease."

  "You will, G'wain. You will."

  As darkness fell, Gawain sighed, remembering. "Yes, my brother, I did."

  He prised a chunk of frak from a cake and began chewing, enjoying the taste and the texture of themeat more than he would like to admit. Threllanders regarded the pressed and cured meat a cheap staple to be endured by miners long underground, a convenient necessity. Gawain liked it though. If Raheen still stood, the cavalry could march on it for weeks without the need for foraging...But Raheen was gone, and so too the cavalry...

  Thinking about Raheen drove Elayeen from his mind for a moment. Morloch was not dead, and it had been Morloch that had destroyed Raheen, not the Ramoths. Gawain felt a familiar coldness grip his innards, like the handshake of an old friend. He pictured Raheen in his mind's eye, as it was now, dust and ashes and barren. Morloch had done that. Purely to prevent the high plateau becoming a bastion of hope in the coming attack. And to replenish his aquamire, so much of which he'd used to fill the lenses on both sides of the great chasm beneath the Teeth.

  The Teeth. All that stood between Morloch's army and the complete destruction of the southland kingdoms. Gawain had seen across the mountains, knew what lay in store, and more. He knew things he had yet to tell his friends. But that could wait. For now, he needed to feed the chill in his heart. It ached less, that chill, hurt less than Elayeen's sharp distance.

  A breeze, cold and damp, swept in from the north, and made the fire roar and throw out a shower of sparks. Gawain watched them, wondering, as Elayeen faded from his mind and Morloch flooded in to take her place.

  Martan's words came back to him. They'd have an easy route up their side, not so easy coming down on ours. Like the sparks that flew from the fire in the breezes, Gawain thought. If that dark army did manage to breach the Teeth, the great wall of mountains would not suddenly burst asunder like a dam at all, there'd just be a steady flow from the breach, spreading out like a stain, or like a shower of sparks...

  You vex me, Morloch Gawain thought. Why go to so much trouble? A relatively small force of archers at the base of the breach could pick off the dark soldiers as they clambered down the mountainside. None would live to set foot on the farak gorin, much less the plains of Juria...All thoughts of Elayeen were suddenly driven from his mind completely, and a new, cold clarity washed over him. The only archers worthy of the name this far north were the elves. Dwarves used short curved bows for hunting game, but could never hope to draw a longbow or a yard-long shaft. They were miners. Strong, tough, and tenacious. Fearsome in battle with hammer, axe, and shortsword. But that meant hand to hand combat, and against black riders, they would stand no chance.

  If the Teeth were breached, only elven archers could stem the flow before the trickle was allowed to pool on the scree and form ranks, muster into an army...Gawain suddenly rose from his blankets, and gazed out into the darkness, towards the mountains in the gloom, realisation dawning.

  The Ramoths had never penetrated Elvendere. Why not? The whitebeards there, particularly the Morloch spy Gawain had slain at the circle of Faranthroth, had done their level best, and succeeded too, in preventing Gawain from learning the meaning of elven throth. Prevented him from remaining in Elvendere, prevented his union with Elayeen, would rather have seen her dead. Why?

  Morloch had appeared to him on the plains almost at the moment Gawain had left the forest. How had Morloch known where he was? The whitebeard had shown him, that's how, using the dark aquamire lens around his neck. The black riders Morloch had despatched to kill Gawain had never penetrated Elvendere's forest. Why not?

  Gawain paced as the familiar chill spread through his chest. What do you want? Gawain had asked that wizard...to see you gone from Elvendere... Why?

  Why? And now thalangard had arrived in Threlland, though the whitebeards taught the elves that dwarves would kill elves on sight. Why? Who would profit from keeping Elvendere and Threlland apart? Who would profit from keeping Gawain and Elayeen separated, Gawain, who had travelled all the southlands, and knew that Threllanders bore no animosity towards the elves, and Elayeen, a royal crown of Elvendere? Who would profit?

  Morloch.

  Gawain paced, chewing frak, sipping Jurian brandy. Morloch's power, before the destruction of the Ramoth lens,
had been staggering, incomprehensible. It made the combined magic wielded by all the whitebeards south of the Teeth look like party tricks. With aquamire, Morloch had devastated Raheen. Burned a tunnel through the mountains which had for millennia stood guardian between the southlands and Morloch's dark home. Burned a tunnel through the mountains which prevented his magic from touching the seven kingdoms, until aquamire, and until his servants had crossed the great rift beneath the Teeth. Gawain knew Morloch now. And he knew wizards.

  In the early hours, sleep elusive, Gawain drew the longsword, and waved it idly, the blade swishing as he wielded it, deep in thought. Morloch vexed him. Gwyn snuffled, and backed away to the trees as Gawain paced and swung the blade.

  There was a patch of virgin snow beside the boulder, and Gawain gazed down at it, then idly swept the blade down, cutting a long straight line in the snow. He paused, looking at the mark. Then, frowning, and using the longsword like a patrol captain drawing a map in the dirt with a stick, he drew in a jagged row of teeth, the mountains. Then a deep U, the Jurian plains, with Callodon at the bottom. To the west, on his map, he scraped at the snow, marking Elvendere, running the length of the U's left arm. And in the East, he marked Threlland, and Mornland, and Arrun, running parallel with the U's right arm.

  He paused again, frowning, and then began pacing once more, for hours, eyeing the map in the snow each time he passed it by. The sky began to take on a steely hue, false dawn. Still he swung the sword absent-mindedly, still he paced, and eyed the map. Then he paused again, and with the blade sideways on, scraped a broad channel across the top of the U, representing the farak gorin.

  Dawn broke, and he closed his eyes in remembrance. It had been a long time since he'd spent such a quiet time alone, outdoors, and although his cloak was damp and the sun weak, he smiled grimly as the first rays of sunshine sliced through the gaps in the trees and warmed his face. Then his eyes snapped open, and he stared at the map he'd drawn. There was a gap, between the farak gorin and the line of jagged teeth he'd scraped in the snow. The scree.

  His eyes flicked to the left of the map, and with a swish of the blade drew in the northern reaches of the Gorian Empire. To the right, he did not know. He did not know if Threlland sloped gently down to the coast, or dropped in sheer cliffs like Raheen to the ocean below. Or if Mornland's borders ran all the way up the east coast to the Teeth themselves. Then, as birdsong faded, the world seemed to take on a black tint...