by Jim Galford
“I stopped being one of our kind long ago,” he admitted, inclining his head back toward Feanne. “I’m one of them, whatever that means. I go where they go. Feanne couldn’t keep me away if she tried.”
Lorne’s shoulders sank, but she nodded in understanding.
“I had to try,” she told him, reaching up and touching his cheek affectionately. “I know you love her, but there is something to be said for finding your own kind.”
“I agree,” Estin replied, taking her hand away. “I found what I needed in Feanne. I’m sorry. You need to find your own kind somewhere else.”
Turning, Lorne hurried away, her long tail vanishing up the stairs well after the rest of her. Distantly, Estin heard her leave the house, even as Phaesys came down the stairs to join the others.
Shaking his head at the strangeness of the conversation, Estin headed back toward the study, where Feanne was watching him. Oria continued to pace angrily.
“What was your decision?” asked Feanne, placing the knife against one of her finger-claws. She was taking great effort to appear calm about the entire discussion, though the knife did not budge, as though she had forgotten it. “I need to know if I am doing this without you.”
Estin knelt in front of Feanne and then realized that Oria was standing directly behind him. For the first time, he wondered if his daughter might attack him. She was angry enough, but Estin had to believe she was just standing closer than intended.
He looked to Atall, who avoided his eyes.
“I go where you do,” Estin promised Feanne, taking her hand. Tugging the knife free of her grip, he set it aside, feeling safer for having done so, though he knew that was foolish, given that she would use her claws or fangs if she was angry enough. “I made that choice long ago. She cannot change that.”
Smiling in relief, Feanne looked past Estin at Oria.
“I believe your daughter wants an answer to that female’s other claims,” Feanne told him, her voice venomous at the mention of Lorne. “Whether true or not, you did well in getting her out of here when you did. A little longer and I would have raced Oria to strangle her with her own tail.”
Estin checked over his shoulder and found Oria standing rigidly, practically fuming with anger. She did look quite ready to attack him, though she had calmed somewhat since Phaesys had begun standing at her side.
“Nothing happened,” Estin told Oria firmly. “I freed her from a slave camp and she came with me after that. Your mother is the only one I have eyes for, likely to the end of my life, whether I believed her alive or dead.”
Feanne added to Oria, “If he thought me dead, I cannot be angry if anything did…”
“Nothing did,” Estin repeated. “I am yours until death. That has never been in doubt.”
Slowly, Oria’s temper faded, but she still appeared upset. Sitting down with a grunt, she picked up her mother’s knife and began sharpening her own claws, which were already respectably sharp, while Phaesys watched her quietly.
“If she speaks to me again as though she is more than a stranger to this family,” noted Feanne, smoothing her clothes calmly, “I will tear out her intestines and beat her with them. I will not feel bad about this, either. Am I understood, Estin?”
“Clear as always,” he told her, grinning.
Deep down, Estin hoped that Feanne was being overdramatic, but he had to wonder.
*
At sunset, Estin huddled with the small group they had brought to investigate Arturis’ cave again. They waited quietly, half-buried in the sand, as the light faded. If there were guards at the cave entrance, Estin had not seen any indication.
Lorne and the kits had left with a large group two hours earlier, heading toward Marra’s inn for shelter until morning. The parting had been tense between Lorne and Estin’s family, but the separation of the kits from their parents had been truly difficult. Feanne and Estin had watched the kits until they had vanished into the distance and then watched Lorne’s highly-visible tail as a marker until that too was gone. Deep down, he wondered if he would ever see the children again. If not, he hoped that they would be safer wherever they ended up.
Minutes later, Sirella had returned to the home, demanding that they depart immediately for Arturis’ cave. She seemed both eager and anxious about it, which fairly matched how Estin felt.
He had begun to doubt the wisdom of attacking the man’s army directly, just for a chance at stealing maps that might get him halfway home if he was lucky. That concern had nagged at him the whole way across the desert to the hills alongside the cave.
“Almost time,” Sirella whispered, sliding out from under the canvas sheet she had covered herself with to blend into the sand. “Everyone, get ready to move.”
Two elves got up beside Sirella, unburying stacks of equipment that Estin did not fully understand. He knew these two women were Sirella’s explosives team, but he had learned little else about them or how they did their work. Neither had been willing to talk to anyone but Sirella and whenever he or Oria had tried to get a look at the equipment they had brought, both women would cover the bags and glare until Estin looked away again.
To Estin’s other side, Oria, Atall, Feanne, and Phaesys climbed out from under their own sheets, shaking off sand as they got to their feet.
“What do you expect in there?” asked Sirella, still keeping her voice low as she wiped sand off of her sword. “I want to know how bad this is going to be.”
Estin shrugged. “A few hundred corpses were in there last time,” he told her, making sure the others were listening too. They all were watching him as he spoke. “None were active. That could easily have changed since then.”
“This place is close to where we were underground a while back,” Atall noted, drawing a surprised look from both Oria and Phaesys. “Took me a while to get my bearings, but this might be connected to the tunnel we collapsed. If so, there are ghouls down there, too.”
“Now that sounds more interesting than a bunch of inanimate corpses,” laughed Sirella. She checked her sword, then resheathed it. She had done that a dozen times, as though it might sneak away when she was not looking.
“We’ll go in,” she told the other elves, though she had told them the plan at least twice that Estin had heard already. “You two set the explosives up top to collapse the whole place. Give us fifteen minutes after we go inside. If we’re not out, drop the whole thing. I want everything down there buried until our grandchildren’s names are forgotten.”
The older women nodded and scooped up their equipment, hurrying across the sand toward the entrance to the cave. They disappeared near the entry door and even Estin could not find where they had gone.
As he watched the women run off, Estin noticed that the northern horizon was still lit somewhat brighter than the rest of the desert. Squinting in that direction, he saw the faint flicker of either a fire, or mists drifting along the sands. He had yet to see a fire outside the city, so he had a pretty good guess which of the two it was.
A quick check of the others’ faces told him no one else had noticed.
Estin gauged how far away the mists were and guessed that even if they were moving in their direction, it would take an hour or so for the mists to reach them, based on how fast the ones back in Altis moved. He opted not to worry the others and kept his mouth shut. Hopefully, they would all be long gone before the mists arrived.
“Everyone ready?” Sirella asked of the remaining people. “Or does anyone want to grow older, risk free?”
The group just stared back at her, waiting.
“Not the most lively bunch,” she mused, then motioned toward the door set into the desert hillside. “I was hoping for cheers or battle cries or something.”
Estin took the lead immediately, running down the steep hill into the valley where the door lay. Just a step behind him, Feanne ran along, followed by the others.
Sliding on the sand as he tried to stop at the doorway, Estin found that nothing had changed si
nce his last visit. The door was still closed, though a bit tilted from the way he had slammed it. Sand had covered the bottom of the door and blown in through the cracks around it.
“He hasn’t come out this way,” Estin told the others, grabbing the door and trying to open it. The heavy stone door would not budge. He had managed to wedge it against the stone frame.
“Let me, dad,” Atall offered, waving the rest of the group aside. “Breaking things is my specialty. If we have to close this again, I’ll have to use something else. The door won’t be useable anymore.”
Estin and the others backed away as Atall centered himself in front of the door.
Placing his hands against the smooth surface of the door, Atall closed his eyes. His mouth moved slightly as he incanted some form of magic and then he rapped his knuckles once on the stone. A second later, the whole door collapsed into rubble, raising a cloud of dust as the tunnel was opened.
“Nice work, kid,” offered Sirella, staring into the tunnel with a big grin. “I like it when we have a whole group of capable people. I need to bring all of you the next time we raid Corraith.”
Again leading the way, Estin stepped into the dark tunnel. It was even darker than he remembered, but he went slowly, keeping his tail straight out behind him for the others to follow.
Fear gripped Estin’s stomach the farther he went. This felt foolish, but he could see no other way. Once Arturis animated the bodies in this cave, he would be unstoppable. He still might win in the end, but destroying this force would slow him down for months.
Estin only hoped he had made the right decision in coming back here.
Chapter Twelve
“Departure”
A child will always try to remain a child for as long as they are allowed to get away with it. I was no different. Those of you reading this are likely exactly the same, whether you want to admit it or not. It’s our nature, and I believe the same applies to children of any generation and species…except dwarves.
Even knowing I wanted Phaesys, I was not about to change who I was or how I interacted with anyone. There was no reason to in my mind. I thought that he was going to love me no matter who I was, no matter what happened.
It was a while before I learned that some things can put a burden on even strong feelings, or shatter them completely, though I should come back to that.
Change within ourselves comes when a child is forced to see the harsh reality of our world and what it will mean if they don’t grow up. Either that, or they die or suffer in some other way. Even then, it is not immediate.
In Eldvar during that time, death was the most likely outcome of not learning the lessons presented to you. Either you saw what you needed to do to keep yourself and others alive, or you died violently and were left to join the undead armies.
Not to say that things have become what they once were. There is the constant threat of war coming down on us again, but it is certainly safer than it was then. You will probably not believe me, thinking that this is as bad as it was when I was younger, but I can say that you are safer here and now than I was back then.
One would think that watching my mother nearly die would have been enough to slap some sense into me, but my father had saved her—and me—yet again. I had gotten used to that and practically expected him, or someone else, to save us all whenever things went badly. By that point in my life, I had even added Phaesys to the list of those I knew would prevent anything truly awful from happening.
I didn’t see that I had to be ready to fight on my own, or be capable of saving others. That just wasn’t my role, at least in my own mind. That was what heroes like my parents did, not children like me.
Will I ever forget what happened? No. It will be burned into my mind until I die, repeating itself in my dreams each night. I will, however, forgive myself. Someday. Not today.
At times, it feels like I owe it to him to not forgive myself. Somehow, it makes all the pain worthwhile if I have someone close at hand to blame.
I’m sure he would be furious if he knew I still dwell on that day, but he’s not here, is he?
Creeping into the dark uneven tunnel behind her father, Oria kept one hand on Estin’s tail like a sort of guide rope. How he could see anything baffled her. It was so dark that she put a hand in front of her face and could not even tell it was there.
The tail led Oria around a sharp turn, after which light began to grow again, soon giving her enough to see by. Even in the better lit area, Estin took his time, gradually approaching a place where the passage widened considerably and she felt comfortable releasing her father’s tail.
Estin gestured to the group to stop and stepped out into the larger room, looking around. Apparently seeing nothing, he waved them on.
Sirella did not continue, whispering to Feanne, “I’ll wait here, just in case. I want the exit to stay clear. Getting boxed in with explosives above us won’t be good for anyone.”
Cocking an eyebrow, Feanne nodded at Sirella and motioned Atall and Oria to continue the last few steps to where the tunnel opened out into the room.
Oria glanced back at Sirella, who waited in the hall, pacing back and forth between the walls, one hand on her sword’s hilt. The woman had become nervous so abruptly that Oria wondered if there was something more going on. She soon realized that the elven woman was watching the cave walls with something approaching terror. The woman was scared of the close spaces, from what Oria could tell.
Slipping around the lip of the wall, Oria stared in amazement at the larger chamber, Sirella forgotten. She had long thought that Desphon’s little crypt network was unique, but this place appeared nearly identical. Had the contents of the room been different, she could easily have mistaken it for the main meeting chamber. A glance at Phaesys told her that he was thinking much the same as he looked around quizzically.
The room’s shape and size was quickly forgotten as Oria began looking at the rest of the place. The massive stinking piles of dried corpses off to one side and the carefully-tended, similarly corpse-laden pedestals to the other side made her wonder if Arturis was just crazy, rather than malicious.
“Over here,” Estin told them, pointing at a small altar-like table in the middle of the room. “I’ll grab it and we can go. One minute and we’re on our way back to Sirella.”
Oria wandered around the entrance as Estin walked away from the group, trying not to be quite as rigidly nervous as her brother or mother. They were standing at attention just inside the main chamber, watching Estin in baited fear. She wanted to stay loose and ready for anything.
Turning as she walked, Oria noticed a line of crushed rock back near the entrance to the room they had just come through. She took several steps back, trying to figure out why debris from the ceiling would have fallen only in that one area. It seemed out of place, having fallen in such a straight line along the entryway. When she looked up, she could see little of the ceiling, dark as it was.
Behind her, she heard Estin say, just loud enough to hear, “I can see the book. We’re in luck.”
Approaching the passage, Oria froze as a man-sized figure stepped from the darkness, having been hidden to one side of the hall they had just come out of. Though she could not see any of his other features, the whites of his teeth shone in a grin, even from the shadows.
“He’s here!” Oria screamed, backpedalling.
Stepping almost casually into the dim torchlight, Arturis walked along the wall. He left the exit entirely unguarded, as if daring them to run.
Phaesys was at Oria’s side almost instantly, keeping his sword aimed at the Turessian. Feanne stepped to her other side, flexing her fingers in the way she often did before using her magic. Nearby, Oria could hear Atall moving as well, though she could not see what he was doing.
“I received the strangest notice from an old friend that you would come back,” said Arturis loudly, addressing Estin. “Wildlings are nothing if not predictable. I am so pleased you brought more of your kind, so I
can exterminate the bunch of you at once. That is, unless you wanted to accept my offer, though their lives are still forfeit.”
The man stopped walking, lifting his hooded head to stare at Feanne. Slowly, a smile spread across his face.
“You, I remember from Varra’s memories,” he said, pointing at Feanne. “Ah, now I understand. You’re the elusive wife of the rodent who now seeks to steal from me. No wonder I had so much trouble hunting you down.
“To think I killed all those gypsies just because of a rumor that they had another creature like your Estin. I had hoped it was you. All along I should have been looking for a fox. Astounding how many deaths you’ve caused by not letting me gut your family from the beginning. We could have ended this months ago.”
“Oria,” whispered Feanne, barely moving her mouth. “Take Phaesys and your brother and run. The rest of us can probably slow him enough for you to get away.”
“Stay where you are, slave,” Arturis called out to Estin. “Please do not try to join the others. If you move from that spot, I will kill them before I come for you. If you stay right there, they can run away while I tear off your arms. Strange as it is, I believe that will motivate you.”
“We go together, mom,” Oria whispered back. She looked over at Phaesys to see if he heard them, but his eyes were locked on Arturis. “All of us. We need to get to dad and then run. The way’s clear, so we just have to worry about magic.”
Everyone held their position, watching Arturis as the man moved slowly along the wall. Each step he took was carefully measured. The only time his pace deviated was when he would step over an outstretched limb of a corpse piled too close to the wall.
“Wildlings…” mused the man, clasping his hands behind his back. “I’ve conquered three lands for the Turessian Empire and fought untold numbers of nuisances. This is the first land where wildlings have managed to even draw my attention. Usually I just concern myself with the orcs.”
Oria watched him, waiting for the moment he drew far enough from the entrance that they could run. Just a few more steps and even Arturis could not move fast enough to stop them. She had to find a way to get to Estin, but the rest of them could probably already escape.