Wanderer

by Nancy E. Dunne

  “Stop.” Gin’s voice seemed to resonate inside of Dorlagar’s head, and for a moment, he thought he had imagined it. “Come no closer, Dorlagar.”

  “Gin? Where are you?” he said, eyes scanning the arena. Dorlagar quickly recited a spell that would magically improve his vision and his eyes began to tingle in the quickly growing darkness. “Why the formality?” He rubbed his right arm. The price of the increased vision.

  “I know what you did, Dorlagar,” Gin’s voice said. Dorlagar still could not find her, and a prickly fear began crawling up the back of his neck. “I know what happened at the human outpost.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dorlagar demanded, blatant annoyance in his voice. “Come out here, Blueberry! Stop playing games.”

  Gin’s normally tinkling laugher was maniacal and cold as it assaulted his ears. “Games? Hardly. We have moved beyond games, Dorlagar,” she said. Dorlagar turned around to see the wood elf seated on her steed Beau, directly behind him.

  “There you are,” he said, taking a step toward her. The tip of her sword hovered just inches from his chin.

  “Far enough,” she said. “Recognize the sword? You gave it to me, if memory serves. Fitting that I should bring it here today.”

  “Gin, what is going on?” Dorlagar growled, his patience growing thin. “Why are we here? After all this time with no contact, why do you greet me this way? What happened at the outpost that upset you?” Risking the point of the sword piercing his throat, he moved as close to her as he could, and even placed a hand on Beau’s neck. The horse whinnied a greeting but was silenced by a subtle jerk on his reins from his mistress.

  “My parents were murdered there,” Gin said through gritted teeth. “They were devoted servants of the All-Mother and Orana, good and decent people. They were druid healers, saving countless lives from the evil forces that mean to throw our world out of balance and into darkness.”

  Gin took a deep breath before she continued. “They were on a mission there, acting as healers for a group devoted to the right side of the Forest Wars, when their group was attacked by a throng of horrible creatures. There were too many of them to overtake, so the group began to run to safety. My father began preparations as they ran to teleport the group to safety, but a young knight blundered into his path.”

  Dorlagar’s breath caught in his throat. A memory came rushing into his consciousness, a memory of a time many seasons ago when he had gone out hunting alone. He was traveling through the mountains, and had sought refuge at the human outpost, hiding from bandits and killing local beasts for food. He remembered in that moment the trials of finding shelter where none would take him in, living from meal to meal, not knowing which one would be his last. He remembered sitting by his small fire one particular night and thinking of his sister, Raedea.

  When he was still a young man, a letter had arrived at his guild house. He could remember how he opened it with shaking hands after seeing the seal of the Temple of Isona on the front. He could remember the smell of the parchment and the faded brown color of the ink. One sentence graced the page, written in a swooping longhand script. “To inform Dorlagar, only living relative of our dear Sister Raedea Dawnshadow, of her untimely death, we hereby set our great seal of the servants of the Temple of Isona.” That one sentence, however, had seared Dorlagar to his core and driven him to journey out alone, in search of the details of her death. He had sworn on his blood, drawn by his giant sword, that he would drive that sword through the heart of every servant of Isona he met until one could tell him the story of his sister’s demise.

  Now, standing in the arena and staring at Gin, Dorlagar felt an icy coldness grip his heart. Numbness spread throughout him, and when he raised his eyes to meet Gin’s, an equally bitter gaze met his. “Tell me more, Druid,” he said, his eyes narrowing as he took a step back from her sword. “Tell me how your dear parents met their end at the hands of one of my kind.”

  “Not one of your kind, Dorlagar,” she said, spitting his name through her still clenched teeth. “You. My parents were running for their lives, still healing their group members as best they could with bandages and spells. My parents cast the transportation spell that would evacuate the group to safety, but just as their images began to blur my mother heard a cry for help from behind her.” Again, Gin had to stop a moment and take a deep breath to keep her emotions from overwhelming her. “She stepped out of the magical circle that she had created to see my father bent over the form of a young man, dead from the look of him, with beasts advancing on them at top speed. My mother did what she could to fend off the creatures. However, she used all of her magical energy to perform the teleport spell. They took up weapons and fought off the beasts in an effort to preserve the poor soul’s corpse and drag it to safety. They should have left it there to be eaten by the scavengers, so that I would not have to look upon it now.”

  Gin lowered her sword so that it took aim at Dorlagar’s heart. “But you see, the young man wasn’t really dead. Being a practitioner of dark magic, he could feign death so convincingly that he could ward off attackers.” Dorlagar met her gaze, his own cold and steeled. “My father was torn in half by the beasts and my mother left bleeding to death. It was then that she saw, through the haze of near unconsciousness, the corpse of the young man spring to life, laughing at its good fortune to be alive. Only one member of that party survived, a kind woman who was too far away from the magical circle. She tried to save them, but they were too far-gone, beyond her healing abilities. All she could do was take shelter and flee once the beasts were satiated and left.” Gin sheathed her sword a moment and removed one of her gloves. She held out the hand that bore the fire emerald ring that her elder brother Cursik had given her a few nights prior.

  “Cursik!” Dorlagar hissed. He had given the ring to the ranger in exchange for food and a warm fire. Cursik had been an occasional companion of Dorlagar’s during the past months, but he knew nothing much of the ranger and his dark elf mate. Dorlagar’s eyes searched the ground suddenly, making a mental list of what he would do to the male if ever their paths crossed again. His eyes glowed red as he imagined Cursik’s corpse at his feet. “Still, the ring proves nothing,” he said, not raising his eyes.

  “Cursik told me to whom this ring belonged, Dorlagar. He recognized it, as did I when I saw it, because it belonged to our father,” Gin said. Dorlagar clenched his fists…Cursik was Gin’s brother. Of course he was. “I should hardly have been surprised that you looted my parents’ belongings before you even knew for sure that my mother was dead, for you did the same to me under the tree city.” Dorlagar looked up at Gin. “You didn’t even wait around to see, did you?”

  “How…she was dead…if what you say is true there is no way your parents could have survived, so how can you be sure it was me?” he demanded, trying to recover his blunder of admission.

  “The woman left behind saw you take my father’s sword from his hands. She heard you claim it in your name,” Gin said, her voice choking in her throat periodically as she spoke. “Members of her party came back when it was discovered she did not magically transport with them, but by then it was too late. They found the woman that had been left behind and she led them to my parents.” Gin raised a tiny hand to her mouth a moment, and regained her composure. “Cursik told me your tale when he gave me Father’s ring, the one YOU took from his dead hand.”

  Dorlagar stared at Gin, his mouth gaping. Before him was the woman who had found the soul he had buried deep within him. She had coaxed out of him the man he had once been, and she had taught him more about love and faithfulness than any companion he had ever known.

  Memories flashed before his eyes of her charging into battle, her silvery eyes boiling with anger. Her screams of rage at enemies that had cut him down to near death rang in his ears. The remembrance of the feel of her tiny hands on his skin as they healed his wounds, once cool and soothing, now burned like white-hot coals. All along, he had marveled at her fierce devotion not on
ly to her companions but also to him, a dark knight, a servant of the evil she was sworn as a druid to keep at bay.

  Lost in his confusion, he did not see Gin slowly dismount from Beau’s back. He did not notice the tenderness with which she stroked the pony’s nose and paused a moment to breathe in the smell of his fur. The sound of the magical horse’s whinny as it faded away brought Dorlagar back to reality, and he now gazed down at Gin as she stood before him, sword drawn. “Now, I will avenge my parents’ death, Dorlagar, or I will die in the attempt,” she said in a low voice. Her hands trembled slightly, causing the tip of the blade to quiver. “If my time with you has taught me nothing more than this, I have learned the sweet taste of revenge.”

  “This is a fight you cannot win, Druid,” Dorlagar said as he shoved the last bits of his soul back down into the cold place where he had carefully buried it years before, the pain at seeing her like this taking up space next to his memories of his sister. “Surely you know that.”

  “I know only that my parents died at your hands, Dorlagar,” she said, her voice steady and low. She raised her sword toward him, the customary way to begin a duel. “Now you will die at mine!” Gin charged at Dorlagar, throwing down her shield and using both hands to swing the ebon blade at his chest.

  Her blow landed well, and Dorlagar stumbled back a few feet. Instinctively he began reciting his spells of magical combat, and Gin soon felt as though she was being turned inside out. She fell to her knees.

  “Stop this, Gin,” Dorlagar said in a commanding tone. “I have no wish to kill you, and it is not the way of the Druid to seek vengeance.”

  “No magic,” she said in a choking voice. “I will kill you with my blade alone, no spells.” She rose awkwardly to her feet and charged at him again. This time Dorlagar managed to raise his sword to the level of hers and dodge her blow. He stepped back from her, still not advancing with his weapon but also not assaulting her with magic. Gin stumbled but recovered, and landed a well-placed slice across Dorlagar’s cheek.

  The dark knight howled in pain, and then without consciously realizing he was speaking, cast a spell on Gin as she ran at him for a third time. She froze in her tracks, grasping at her chest. Her blood seemed to boil in her veins, and she collapsed into a heap at his feet. Dorlagar wiped the blood from his face as the spell’s reverse effect filled him with renewed health and advanced on her, sword raised. Gin managed to thrust her blade upward as he drew close to her, sinking it into the flesh at his knee just where his greaves tied. Through the blinding pain in his leg, Dorlagar slammed the hilt of his sword into Gin’s back, and in doing so ripped her hands from the hilt of her blade and pummeled her into the stone floor of the arena. She lay still for a moment, assessing damage and reciting a spell to regenerate her body and allow her to stand back up and continue to fight. Nevertheless, it was slow going, and Gin found that she was still in a great deal of pain.

  Dorlagar quickly removed the blade from his leg, no longer feeling the pain as shock settled in on his body and mind. He tossed her blade to the side, finding himself smiling at her defeat. In other battles, Gin’s healing magic would have been washing over him at this point, healing his wounds and restoring him to health. This time she could not even heal herself.

  Gin raised herself up on one arm and then slowly dragged her knees up until she was on all fours. With aching slowness, she rose to her feet and faced Dorlagar. Her hands, first at her sides and then thrust out toward him, began to glow and sparkle, and then it seemed that electricity crackled between her fingertips. She recited loudly words in Elvish that he did not understand, and suddenly a bolt of lightning rose up from the ground to meet one rocketing down from the heavens, trapping Dorlagar in between them. He staggered but somehow managed to keep his feet as another bolt raced up his spine. The third bolt nearly drove him to his knees, but gave him just enough time to lunge at Gin, catching her tiny neck in his massive hands. He lifted her off the ground, his grip tightening on her windpipe, and felt the familiar rush of adrenaline as his prey’s life drained through his fingers like sand.

  Gin locked her eyes on his. She could not speak, and felt the suffocation of his fingers closing on her windpipe. His image swam before her, and her struggles soon slowed. Just before her eyes rolled back into her head in death, they widened with surprise as Dorlagar dropped her in a heap on the ground. He staggered away and collapsed as well. “I told you,” he said, “I have no wish to kill you.” Gin coughed and sputtered as her lungs filled with precious air.

  “And I told you,” she said through gasps, “that I know only to kill you… or to die trying.” She pulled herself along the ground closer to him, managed to get herself into a kneeling position, and then stood shakily. Gin recited the words to heal herself, and felt the pain in her throat and lungs melt away. She looked up at Dorlagar, as he stood over her, his eyes blood red. “I suppose it is magic then, is it?”

  Dorlagar smiled down at her. “There is still no way for you to win, Blueberry,” he said, enjoying the pain in her face at the use of the old nickname.

  “We…shall see,” she said, slowly rising to her feet. She began chanting aloud, in Elvish, and Dorlagar felt roots rise from the stones and tangle around his legs. He remained, watching her in amusement. It would be the work of a moment to remove those roots, and she knew it as well as he did.

  Gin took a few steps back, and cast her healing magic once again. The color returned to her cheeks as she met his gaze. Next, she spoke the words of a different spell in a loud voice, and a swarm of stinging insects formed in a dense cloud around Dorlagar’s body. The dark knight roared in pain as the hundreds of insects stung him repeatedly. Through the haze of his pain, he saw Gin sitting in front of him, watching the bees sting him…and smiling. Her eyes were cold and distant…not unlike his own. The last fragments of his heart froze at that very moment, and he summoned up the deadliest spell he possessed.

  “Die, wood elf!” he screamed as he channeled the magic directly at her. Gin leapt to her feet, but felt the magic pierce her armor and sear through her left shoulder. Her world seemed to spin and blur as she collapsed to the stone floor, grasping madly for the phantom weapon that had dealt incapacitating blow. The roots fell away from Dorlagar’s feet and he ran to her, pleased with the damage he had inflicted.

  Gin was still for a long time, but finally she was able to curl up into a ball on the ground. In a hollow voice she said, “You have bested me, Dorlagar.” She swallowed painfully before she continued to speak, her voice barely a whisper. “I have not avenged you, Mother and Father, rather I have failed you.” Slowly she lifted her head and looked up at Dorlagar. “Finish it,” she said. “I have not the strength to fight you.”

  Dorlagar stared at her a moment as a switch seemed to flip deep in his heart, and then, on unsteady legs, he walked out of the arena without saying a word. He closed his eyes and winced as he heard Gin screaming at him to come back, calling him a coward and several other things in her language that he was sure were not flattering. The irony of this situation juxtaposed with him calling for her as she left Calder’s Port was not lost on him, and he began to run across the landscape, heading far away from the sound of her voice.

  Back at the arena, Gin beat the stone floor with her fists, screaming for the coward to return and finish what they had started. When she realized he was truly gone, she let loose sobs that had been stored carefully away since Cursik had told her of her parent’s demise. She lay on the ground for a long time, even after her tears had dried, and again assessed damage. Her strength was returning, and she drew herself up until she was on all fours.

  Finally, she found herself able to stand, and she tore at her armor until she stood in her tunic and short pants, the rest of her things flung about the arena floor. A blast of icy air enveloped her, and soon she felt Beau’s soft nose nuzzling into the back of her head. Gin turned to face her beloved magical pony, and throwing her arms around his neck, she buried her face in his silky mane.
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br />   “I didn’t think I’d see you again, boy,” she whispered. Beau whinnied softly, and Gin smiled at him. “You’re right, another day. We’ll finish this another day.” She gathered her things and stuffed them into her packs that Beau willingly carried strapped to the saddle. As she swung up into the saddle, she pulled the sword from the pack and lifted it above her head. A long ride back home might be what she needed to clear her head, but it would not clear her conscience.

  “This is not over, Dorlagar. Only blood flowing will end it,” she swore. Urging Beau to movement, he flew like the wind out of the arena, bearing her away from Calder’s Port and the humans of the settlement, and toward her home in the forest. She had been right to leave the life she had led with Dorlagar behind, but it would not truly be over for her until one of them was dead.

  Thirteen

  The passageways leading through the lower mountains were long and dark. Gin’s footsteps echoed off the walls and, every so often, they were followed by the scampering sounds of the creatures that made these caves their home dashing past her. She was thankful that they recognized her as a potential threat and left her alone. Her brow furrowed as she continued her trek to the great desert, her mind and heart heavy.

  “I failed you, my parents,” she murmured aloud, cringing slightly as her voice bounced about in the air. “I failed to kill the dark one that killed you, and I fear now that it is only a matter of time before he returns to kill me.” Swinging her blade absently at her side and occasionally scratching it along the walls, she sighed loudly. “I will not fail to honor you in death, however,” she said as she turned the corner toward the exit that led to the desert. The passageways, built by the dwarves many centuries prior in an effort to avoid the creatures that dwelt on the surface while traveling, were just short cuts between the different topographical areas of the world. Gin stopped in the opening that led out of the tunnel and looked up at the night sky, again thinking of her parents. “I will not dishonor you again. That I swear.”