The Elven

by Bernhard Hennen

  Farodin threw open the shutters, and they cracked against the wall. He gripped the sill with both hands and vaulted through the window, landing nimbly in front of the house. “Keep your hands off my prize, mortal.” His voice was like ice.

  The blond captain shifted one hand to the pommel of his sword. “You’ve made your entrance. Now leave.”

  “You reach for your weapon? Shall we duel?” Farodin smiled. “I am the queen of Albenmark’s best fighter. Do you really want me as your enemy? I came here to fetch Guillaume, the priest. As you can see, I was in his house. I found him before you did, and I will not let you snatch away my prize. At midday yesterday, he killed an elf. And he will answer for that.”

  “The queen of Albenmark’s best soldier,” the captain mocked. “And I’m Umgrid, king of Trollheim.” The men around him laughed.

  Farodin swept back his hair, revealing his pointed ears. “So you are Umgrid?” The elf tilted his head. “You’re certainly ugly enough for a troll.” He turned in a half circle and looked at the rooftops of the buildings enclosing the square.

  “Anyone not a troll had better leave now. This square is surrounded by elves, and we will not let Guillaume be taken from us.”

  Some of the soldiers exchanged nervous glances and raised their shields.

  “Words! Nothing but words!” shouted the captain, but his voice betrayed his unease.

  “You should ask our permission before you let any of these cutthroats go,” said Nuramon now. He had his sword drawn and was standing in Guillaume’s doorway.

  “Shoot them down!” The captain snatched a crossbow from one of his archers and took aim at Farodin.

  The elf dived forward. He braced against the rough cobblestones with his hands and rolled over his left shoulder, the leap carrying him almost as far as the well. The crossbow bolt grazed his cheek, leaving a bloody streak.

  Farodin kept moving, jumping around, not giving the crossbowmen a stationary target. He landed at the feet of an axe man, who hit him with his shield. The blow knocked Farodin off balance, and he staggered back, bumping against the edge of the well. He dodged to one side, and an axe swinging at his head missed by a whisker.

  Farodin knocked the human’s shield aside with a kick. He drew his sword and, in a backhand swing, slit the soldier’s belly open. The elf snatched the axe from the dying man’s hand. Soldiers were closing in on all sides. Nuramon, in the doorway, was holding off two more. The situation was hopeless. They were outnumbered at least ten to one.

  Farodin sprang from the edge of the well and slung the axe at a crossbowman who was taking aim at him. The axe found its target with a grim crunch.

  The elf dodged another axe, parried a sword, and stabbed one of his attackers in the shoulder over the top of the man’s shield. The soldiers had him encircled now, but they kept their distance.

  “So who else among you wants to die?” Farodin challenged them.

  During the fight, the giant captain had donned a helmet and buckled a shield to his arm. “He is ours,” he bellowed, raising a twin-bladed axe and charging Farodin.

  They came at Farodin then from all sides. He crouched low to avoid the first furious wave. He swept his sword in a low circle. Like a hot knife through wax, it sliced through the legs of any who came too close.

  Something grazed Farodin’s left arm. Warm blood soaked his shirt. Lethal and calm, he fended off an axe blow aimed at his chest, his sword shattering the wooden shaft. The humans moved clumsily, he saw. It was something he had observed often in Mandred. They were courageous and strong, but compared with an elf who had spent centuries mastering the sword, they were like children brandishing sticks. Still, the outcome of this battle was hard to doubt; there were simply too many of them.

  Farodin moved through the ranks of his enemies like a dancer. He ducked under thrusting swords and used his own to parry, returning blow for blow.

  Until he came face-to-face with the blond giant.

  “I’ll wear your ears on a string around my neck,” hissed the man. He attacked furiously with a mighty swing at Farodin’s sword arm, but changed direction in the middle of the swing.

  The feint made no difference. Farodin danced clear of the sword, then kicked the bottom edge of the giant’s shield. With an ugly crunch, the iron-clad top edge of the shield slammed into the giant’s chin. His teeth went through his bottom lip, and he spat blood.

  Farodin spun and kicked the captain’s shield again, knocking it aside. He swung his sword and hit the giant in the face with the flat of the blade.

  The captain staggered back. Farodin caught him, pulled the helmet off his head, and set his sword at the man’s throat. “Enough! Stop now, or your leader dies!” the elf cried in a loud voice.

  The soldiers fell back. An unnatural silence settled over the square, broken only by the groans of the wounded.

  Nuramon moved away from Guillaume’s house. His leather helmet was smeared with blood.

  “We’re pulling back to the temple!” Farodin shouted to him.

  “You’ll never get out of Aniscans alive,” growled the captain. His tone was threatening and loud enough for his men to hear. “The bridge is guarded. Every road is sealed. We came prepared for the healer to cause trouble. Surrender, and I promise you a quick death.”

  “We are elves,” replied Farodin calmly. “Do you really think you could stop us?” He waved to Nuramon, and his companion retreated inside the portal of the temple together with two priests.

  Guillaume was as pale as a corpse. During the battle, he had simply stood and watched. He was so clearly incapable of hurting anyone.

  “You are bleeding, elf,” said the blond soldier. “You’re flesh and blood, like me. And you can die like me. Before the sun goes down, I’ll drink wine from your skull.”

  “For a man with a sword at his throat, you seem remarkably confident about the future,” Farodin said as he retreated slowly, backing toward the high temple gate.

  The crossbowmen around them reloaded.

  Farodin thought of Mandred and the rest of their troop. He had left them behind at their camp in the vineyard. Would they come? They must have seen the attack on the temple.

  He threw his prisoner to the ground and jumped through the temple gate. Crossbow bolts whizzed past. Nuramon slammed the heavy oak door and swung the crossbeam into place. Farodin looked at Nuramon’s blood-soaked tunic with concern. “How bad is it?”

  The elf looked down. “More human blood than mine, I’d say.”

  Inside the temple, it was dark and cool. Massive wooden columns rose to the ceiling, which was supported by heavy beams. The temple was a single high room. There was no furniture and no platform on which a speaker might stand. The only decoration was a menhir, half as high again as a man, with intertwined lettering engraved into its surface. The temple walls had been whitewashed and were separated by two galleries that ringed the walls at different heights. Above the galleries, high windows set in the walls let in a feeble shimmer of morning light. Oil lamps burned in niches along the walls, and pale smoke rose from copper incense pans that had been laid in a ring around the menhir.

  The entire construction reminded Farodin more of a fortress tower than a temple. What sort of god was Tjured? Judging by the behavior of his followers, he was certainly no warrior. The two priests went down on their knees before the menhir in the middle of the circular hall. They prayed humbly to their god and thanked him for their liberation.

  “Guillaume?” called Nuramon, who was still standing close to the double doors at the entrance. “Where are you?”

  Guillaume appeared from behind one of the columns. He seemed uncommonly calm, almost enraptured. “You should have let them take me. After that bloodbath, they won’t rest until we’re all dead.”

  “Could it be you have a death wish?” asked Farodin, an angry edge to his voice.

  “Di
dn’t someone send you to kill me, too? What sense is there in fighting for the right to be my executioner?”

  Farodin gestured dismissively. “Anyone who broods on death in a battle can count on losing his life. You’d do better to make yourself useful. Get us to the back entrance. Maybe we can slip out that way unseen.”

  Guillaume spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “This is a temple, not a fortress. There are no back entrances, no hidden tunnels, no secret doors.”

  Farodin looked around in disbelief. Beside the entrance, a spiral staircase climbed to the two galleries. High up, just below the beams supporting the ceiling, curved high stained glass windows with images of priests, recognizable by the deep blue cowls obviously favored by the Tjured sect. Perplexed, the elf gazed at the windows. One of the glazed images showed a priest being pushed into a large pot on a fire. In another, a priest was having his arms and legs hacked off, and a third showed a blue-cowled monk being burned on a pyre by wild men wearing animal skins. Almost all of the windows showed similarly murderous scenes. Now Farodin understood why Guillaume was so calm. To die horribly was clearly the ultimate fulfillment for a Tjured priest.

  A thunderclap snapped Farodin out of his thoughts. Fine dust filtered through cracks in the temple portal. A second thunderclap followed. The heavy doors creaked on their hinges. Farodin cursed under his breath. It seemed the king’s guard had found something they could use as a battering ram.

  “Stop praying and do something useful,” the elf snarled at the two priests kneeling at the menhir. “Get the oil lamps out of the niches. Nuramon, look around and see if you can find a torch. Then everyone get up to the highest gallery. I’m going to get us out of this cage.”

  One of the thick oak planks creaked and split. The door would not hold much longer.

  Farodin drove the priests mercilessly. As they climbed the spiral staircase, they had to bundle their robes to avoid stumbling, like a woman would have to gather her skirts. From the second gallery, they could reach the temple windows, which were set in deep recesses because of the thickness of the walls. When he stretched, Farodin could just reach the bottom edge of the recess. He pulled himself up and into the recess and found himself standing before the image of a priest whose smashed limbs were threaded through the spokes of a wheel. The faces of his torturers looked like masks, and the artist had given no thought at all as to how the colors of the glass could harmonize with the morning light. It was an inferior work, the kind of thing that one with even a little aptitude might improve upon with a year or two of halfway ambitious diligence. Shoddy work like this could not bear comparison to the windows in Emerelle’s palace, which were assembled from thousands of glass fragments. Albenmark’s most talented artists had spent decades working on them, and their masterpieces created a consummate play of light and glass at any hour.

  Farodin drew his sword and smashed the agonized face of the glass priest. The panes shattered, and with a few swift strokes of the sword, Farodin cleared away the lead framework so that he could observe the men attacking them in the temple square below.

  Down in the gallery, Farodin heard the priests lamenting, Guillaume’s voice the clearest among them. “By Tjured, he has destroyed an image of the holy Romuald. We are lost.”

  Farodin took a step back inside the alcove so that he was out of sight of the square. From where he stood, he could see that the tower was encircled by wooden scaffolding. Just a small step below the window was a narrow platform for the stonemasons who worked on the facade. From there, one could move farther along the scaffolding. Farodin looked at the construction skeptically; everything about it looked rickety.

  At one side of the tower was a boarding house for pilgrims. Statues of saints were set in alcoves along its facade. It was certainly more decorative than the tower where the faithful prayed to Tjured. With a little pluck, it would be possible to jump from the scaffolding down to its roof. From there, they could make their way across other rooftops and escape the king’s troops.

  Farodin climbed back down from the window. The priests were waiting for him, their faces stony. Nuramon shrugged helplessly. “I can’t understand them.”

  “What is so hard to understand?” asked a young, red-haired priest. “You have destroyed an image of Saint Romuald. Romuald was an ill-humored man who only found his way to Tjured late in life. Then heathens in the forests of Drusna murdered him. He cursed all who raised a hand against him, and within a year, his killers were dead. The heathens were so impressed that they turned to Tjured by the thousands. It is said that Romuald’s curse continues to the present day. Anyone who damages an image of him should prepare for the worst. Romuald is still bad tempered, even as a saint.”

  Farodin could not believe what he was hearing. How could anyone believe such rubbish? “You’ve done nothing,” said Farodin. “Romuald’s curse is on me and me alone. You don’t need to worry, we—” With a crash, the temple doors split open.

  “Nuramon, go ahead. Lead the priests. We have to climb over the framework outside to the roof of the building next door. One at a time. We’ll be less conspicuous that way. And we shouldn’t put too much weight on the scaffolding.”

  The shouts of the soldiers reached them from the hall below.

  “Pour the lamp oil over the scaffolding when you escape,” Farodin added.

  “Why me?” Nuramon asked. “You know the way—”

  “And I’m better with a sword.”

  Nuramon looked at him, offended.

  “Just go! I’ll hold them off.”

  Heavy steps were climbing the spiral stairs. Farodin took some of the lamps and threw them down the stairs. Then he ripped one sleeve from his shirt and soaked it with oil. He ignited the cloth on the flame of a lamp. The oil was poor quality and difficult to get burning. When it did catch, it gave off thick black smoke. The elf threw the torn sleeve down the stairs and watched as the flames licked at the spilled oil from the lamps he’d thrown. The flames quickly burned the cloth to ash . . . and went out.

  Farodin stared down the stairs in disbelief. Could they have used oil any cheaper? The first soldier rounded the curve of the steps. He raised his shield in alarm, suddenly wavering when faced with Farodin. The men coming behind him shoved him forward.

  Farodin stretched and loosened his muscles. He would show the humans a good fight.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw a group of archers lining up on him from the hall below. Their aim was poor, though. Crossbow bolts thudded into the wooden panels of the gallery, and one shattered a large window.

  Spurred on by the angry shouts of his fellow soldiers, the man with the shield took a big step up the stairs, and slipped on the oil. He fell back heavily onto the steps, taking several of his comrades down with him.

  “Come on,” Guillaume called from the window alcove. “The others are already on the roof.”

  The elf slid his sword back into its sheath. Guillaume took his arm and pulled him up to the alcove. The priest was astonishingly strong for a man so thin. He had helped Farodin up with one hand. Was this strength also part of his father’s legacy?

  A crossbow bolt crunched into the arched roof of the alcove above their heads. From the square in front of the temple, the voice of the soldiers’ commander could be heard. Their escape route had been spotted.

  “You go first,” said Farodin.

  Guillaume hesitated.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “I . . . I’m afraid . . . of heights. When I look down, it’s like I’m paralyzed. I . . . just can’t. Leave me behind.”

  Farodin grabbed Guillaume’s arm roughly. “Then we go together.” He dragged him to the edge of the alcove, and they both jumped onto the wooden platform below the window. The scaffolding shuddered under their impact. His heart pounding, Farodin pressed back against the stone wall.

  A dull thud, and the framework shuddered ag
ain. Somewhere below, a wooden strut gave way and clattered into the depths. Below, near the entrance to the temple, a group of soldiers were holding a heavy beam between them and slamming it against one of the main supports. The idiots seemed oblivious to the risk of sixty feet of scaffolding crashing onto their heads.

  Something below splintered. A jolt ran through the framework. One of the stonemasons’ platforms tilted and fell, breaking several stays on the way down.

  Farodin felt his belly clench painfully. A few heartbeats more, and the entire construction might collapse.

  “Watch out,” shouted Guillaume.

  The elf spun around. The soldier who had slipped on the oil moments earlier jumped onto the platform just behind Farodin and Guillaume. A splintering sound accompanied the heavy man’s landing on the boards. His axe sliced forward in a glittering arc.

  Farodin dropped low, ducking the blow. He swung one leg, trying to hook his foot behind his adversary’s ankle. Suddenly, the entire platform gave way. The elf reflexively grabbed hold of a wooden stanchion even as the soldier, arms wheeling, tumbled into the depths. For a moment, the heavy wooden platform seemed to regain a precarious balance, but it was angled down steeply.

  Farodin’s heart was thumping hard. They had to get off the scaffolding. As if to underline the thought, a crossbow bolt slammed into wood a hand’s width from his head.

  Guillaume had managed to rescue himself along a narrow board connected to a ladder that led down to the next level. Guillaume crouched on the board with his arms wrapped around his knees and pressed himself back against the tower wall. Nuramon and the two Tjured priests were lying low on the roof of the pilgrims’ house to stay out of sight of the crossbowmen in the square. Farodin could see the captain of the guard dividing his men into small squads and sending them out to surround the building. The escape had failed.

  Again, the battering ram crashed into the scaffolding below. A squealing, creaking sound ran through the fragile construction. The platform next to Farodin tilted. The elf looked down apprehensively. If it fell, the platform would slice through a dozen cross-struts like an enormous blade.