The Elven

by Bernhard Hennen

  Mandred turned away in disgust. “Why are they doing that? You said they were supposed to present him to their king.”

  “Guillaume was no longer presentable after he fell off the roof,” said Farodin, his voice cold. Then he pressed his mouth shut until it was no more than a thin, bloodless line.

  “The crossbow bolt that hit him was meant for Farodin,” said Nuramon in a flat tone. “I—”

  “Guillaume wanted to die,” Farodin interrupted him angrily. “You know that. He wanted to go out and give himself to those murderers.”

  “To save us,” replied Nuramon. “I’m not accusing you of anything. Between Emerelle and Cabezan, Guillaume saw no room to live anymore. All he had left was the choice of how he wanted to die. When the soldiers picked up his body, they flew into a rage. They desecrated his body and hung him from the tree.”

  “And now they’re going to come for us,” said Oleif, who was still standing by the window.

  Mandred glanced outside and let out a curse. The man he’d knocked unconscious in front of the building had come to. He ran onto the square, shouting and pointing at the house where they were hiding. “All this talk about goddamned morals. I should have just slit the bastard’s throat.”

  Farodin reached for his sword, which lay beside him on the table. “They would have come for us in any case.” He turned to the priest who had treated his wounds. “Thank you, mortal. Go and find your fellow priest and hide. We won’t be able to protect you much longer.” He tried to stand, but his wounded leg would barely carry him.

  Mandred thrust his shoulder under Farodin’s arm, supporting him.

  “I need no help,” Farodin muttered.

  Mandred let him go. The elf stood on his own feet. Swaying, but still, he stood. “It makes no sense to fight here. Let’s try to get to the horses. If they haven’t replaced the guard at the bridge, we might still be able to escape.” He waved Oleif over to him. “Help Nuramon. He’s less prickly.”

  “Don’t go out through the door,” the red-haired priest suddenly said. “I . . . want to thank you, too. My brother Segestus . . . I don’t need to look for him. He is long gone. There is another way out. Follow me.”

  Mandred looked to Farodin. “We’ve got nothing to lose,” said the elf. “Bolt the doors. That will hold them off a little while. What kind of route was it that Segestus took?”

  Without answering, the priest lit a lamp and led them from the kitchen into a pantry. The room was fully stocked with amphorae in every conceivable size and form. From the ceiling hung hams and smoked sausages.

  The priest led the way. Mandred hung back a little and stuffed two large sausages inside his tunic. They were setting off down an unknown path, trying to escape, and Luth only knew when they would get a chance to eat something decent. He would have liked to have taken an amphora of wine as well. The god Tjured must certainly be of some importance if his priests were able to keep up such a well-stocked larder. Strange, thought Mandred. He had heard of Tjured for the first time only two weeks earlier, but that could no doubt be explained by his ignorance.

  The young priest led them to a low arch. Beyond that was a stairway that led deeper, and from there, they found their way into a room that contained huge barrels. Mandred’s eyes widened. He had never in his life imagined having to look up to barrels. They stood in rows along the walls on both sides, and ahead of them, the cellar disappeared into darkness. There was an entire lake of wine stored down there.

  “Naida’s tits, priest, what do you do with all this wine? Bathe in it?” asked Mandred.

  “Aniscans is a town of vintners. The temple often receives gifts of wine. We trade in it.” He paused, looked back, and silently counted off the barrels they had passed on his fingers. Then he waved them onward and finally led them between two high barrels. Hidden in the darkness was an opening into a low tunnel.

  “Some say there is a second town hidden beneath Aniscans. They mean the great storage vaults of the winemakers. Many of these chambers are connected by tunnels like this. If you know your way around down here, you can go from one end of town to the other on a rainy day without getting your feet wet. But you can get hopelessly lost as well . . .”

  “Well, at least you wouldn’t die of thirst,” said the jarl.

  The priest looked at Mandred in discomfort. Then he ducked and disappeared into the tunnel.

  Mandred pulled his head low between his shoulders but still banged the roof of the tunnel several times. The weak light from the lantern was almost completely blocked by those ahead of him, and he found himself feeling his way along in the gloom. The air down here was stuffy, and an acidic odor hung in the air. Soon, he had the feeling that they’d been on the move for hours. He counted his steps to distract himself. At three hundred thirty, they reached a second vault filled with barrels.

  The priest led them through it to a stairway, and they climbed up through a hatch that opened into a sunlit courtyard. “Where do you need to go now?”

  Mandred blinked in the light and took a deep breath of fresh air.

  “Our horses are tied up in a courtyard. It’s a big place next to a small square, and all the windows facing the square are walled up,” Oleif explained. “Can you tell us how to get back there?”

  The priest reddened. “A house with walled-up windows?” He cleared his throat in embarrassment.

  “Something wrong?” asked Mandred. “I was wondering why they’d turned a house into a fortress.”

  Again, the priest cleared his throat. “It’s . . . because of the tavern on the other side of the square. The publican built a special bar up on the second floor. Anyone who wanted to drink there had to pay a copper more for a jug of wine.”

  “And?”

  The priest writhed in embarrassment. “From the bar, one had a good view into the windows across the square.”

  Mandred was slowly losing his patience. “And what was over there to see?”

  “It is a house . . . where lonely men go. From the bar, one could see what went on in the rooms. And that was why the owner walled up the windows.”

  Nuramon laughed out loud and, a second later, pressed his hand to the wound on his hip. “A brothel. You left the horses at a brothel, Mandred?”

  “In the courtyard of a brothel,” said Oleif, who had also turned red. “In the courtyard.”

  “I bet it’s the only brothel in town,” added Farodin. “And you found it without even trying.”

  Mandred could not understand what was so funny about the situation. “I didn’t know anything about it. There’s the workshop of a respectable tradesman in the courtyard. That’s all I saw.”

  “Of course,” replied Farodin with a grin. “Of course.”

  Mandred looked at the two elves in amazement. The battle and Guillaume’s terrible death . . . it must all have been too much for them. They’d cracked. It was the only way he could explain this strange outburst of mirth.

  “You know your way around here, priest. Show us the shortest way to this . . . brothel,” Mandred said.

  The young man led them along narrow alleys and through hidden yards. Occasionally, they heard the shouts of King Cabezan’s soldiers close by, but they were not seen. Mandred was starting to feel that they should already have reached the brothel when the priest abruptly stopped and signaled to the others to be quiet.

  “What’s the matter?” hissed Mandred, and he pushed his way to the front. Cautiously, he looked out onto the square. They had reached their goal, but there were seven soldiers standing in front of the tavern opposite the brothel. A scrawny tavern girl was serving them tankards of beer and wooden plates piled high with cheese and bread.

  “Doesn’t Luth love twisting the strings of fate into knots?” Mandred sighed. He turned to his companions. “I’ll distract the soldiers. You get to the horses. What about you, priest? Do you want to escape with us?” />
  The young man considered for a moment, then shook his head. “I have friends here. They will keep me hidden until the scum are gone again.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be seen anywhere near us,” Mandred said. “Thank you for getting us this far. You should go and find those friends now.”

  “What are you planning, Father?” Oleif asked. “You don’t intend to take on seven men alone, do you?”

  Mandred stroked the rune-covered blade of his axe. “There are two of us. You just make sure you get Nuramon and Farodin to the horses as quick as you can. If you can at least make it to the edge of town, you might get some help from Ollowain if you run into trouble.”

  “What about you?” asked Nuramon. “We can’t just ride off and leave you behind.”

  Mandred waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll get out of here one way or another. Not even the manboar was able to finish me off.”

  “But you shouldn’t . . .”

  Mandred was through listening to his friends’ objections. The soldiers searching for them might appear at any moment. The time for words had passed. He gripped his axe more firmly and strolled out into the square.

  “Hey, lads,” he hailed. “Am I glad there’s something in this town to drink besides grape juice.”

  The soldiers looked up in surprise. “What’s your business here?” asked a soldier with stringy hair and a stubbled chin.

  “I’m a pilgrim, on my way to the Temple of Tjured,” said Mandred. “They say there’s a healer there, a real miracle worker.” He stretched. “This gout is turning my fingers to claws.”

  “The priest Guillaume, you mean. Poor bastard died this morning trying to heal himself.” The soldier gave a spiteful grin. “We’re just having a little wake.”

  Mandred had nearly reached them. “Then I’ll drink to his memory. The man—”

  “There’s blood on his axe!” one of the soldiers shouted.

  Mandred charged, knocking down the man in front with a swing of his axe and ramming his shoulder into a second man’s chest, causing him to fall. A sword blade grated noisily over the mail shirt he was wearing but did not penetrate it. Mandred wheeled around, blocked one attack with his axe, and hammered his fist into a soldier’s face. A thrown hatchet breezed past him. The jarl pulled his head down and charged again. No armor was able to withstand the deadly double-sided blade of his axe. Like a reaper in the wheat, he cut the soldiers down. Suddenly, he heard a shout of warning. He turned around.

  From one of the side alleys, more soldiers with their bull-headed shields suddenly came storming into the square. Oleif stood directly in their path while Farodin and Nuramon hobbled to the brothel courtyard to try to escape.

  Mandred broke away from the soldiers still standing and ran to his son’s aid. Oleif moved with the grace of a dancer. As a fighting style, it looked effeminate, Mandred thought, but he had to admit that none of the soldiers were able to break through the lethal whirl of Oleif’s long sword.

  Fighting side by side, father and son were slowly forced back to the entrance of the courtyard. When they were in the archway and could no longer be attacked from either side or behind, the king’s soldiers pulled back.

  Mandred and Oleif pulled the heavy gates closed and dropped the solid crossbeam into place. Gasping for breath, the jarl sank to the ground. With his left hand, he toyed with one of the braids in his hair. “I forgot to count,” he murmured wearily.

  His son grinned lopsidedly. “I’d say at least three. Plus the two on the bridge makes five. If you keep commemorating the men you kill like that, you’ll soon be needing new hair.”

  Mandred shook his head. “Thinner braids will do it.” Grunting, he hauled himself to his feet.

  Nuramon and Farodin were at the horses. The elves would be useless if it came down to fighting their way out of the town.

  A bald, scar-faced man appeared in the doorway that opened into the courtyard. Mandred had rarely seen a man so ugly. His face looked as if it had been trampled by a herd of cattle. “The horses have been watered and fed, warrior,” the man called to Mandred. “Now I would thank you to get out of my place.”

  “Is there another exit?” Mandred asked.

  “No doubt there is, but none I would show you. You go back out through that gate, same way you came in. There’s no shelter here for anyone running from the king’s guard.”

  Oleif took a threatening step toward the doorway where the man stood, but Mandred grasped his arm and pulled him back. “He’s right. I’d do the same in his shoes.” The jarl tilted his head back and looked up to the windows. Two young women were watching what was going on down in the courtyard with curiosity.

  “Is this place really a brothel?” Mandred asked.

  “Aye,” answered the scar-faced man. “But if you ask me, you boys don’t have time to dally with any girls, warrior.”

  Mandred untied his purse from his belt and weighed it in his hand. Then he tossed it to the man. “There’s a chance your house here will suffer some damage in the next few hours. But we might be able to spare it that . . . will you open the gate for me when I ask you to?”

  “If it means I never see any of you again, you can count on me.”

  “Then wait by the gate.” Mandred turned to his son, and a grin spread across his face. “You were right. I really do leave all my money in brothels.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Forget it. Help me.” They went across to the shed, and Mandred swept all the wooden shoes from the bench. The bench top was oak, three inches thick. Mandred stroked a hand over the speckled wood. “The rules of a siege are simple, my boy. There are the ones inside the walls. They sit around and wait for something to happen, then fight back as well as they can. And there are the ones outside the walls. They always have the advantage, because they decide what happens and when. I think it’s time we turned those rules on their head.”

  Oleif looked at him but did not understand what he meant.

  Mandred stuffed several of the carpenter’s chisels and knives in his belt. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you that you’ve turned out pretty well . . . even if it was Ollowain who taught you.”

  “Do you think we’re going to die here?”

  “No true warrior should die in his bed.” There was so much he still had to say to his son, but time was not on their side. Suddenly, his mouth felt like dust. “I . . . I wish we’d been able to spend one summer together in Firnstayn. It’s only a simple village. But in its way, it’s lovelier than anything I ever saw in Albenmark.” He swallowed. “I bet no one ever taught you fly-fishing when you were with the elves. In late summer, the fjord is full of salmon . . . Enough chatter. Let’s not give the men out there any more time to regroup. Now they’re spread out through the town searching for us, and we might still get through.” He hauled at the workbench. “Damn, that’s heavy.” He glanced back at the two elves.

  “They’ll be no use to us in a fight. And with two riders in the saddle, the horses are too slow,” he said, then hesitated. “I’ll stay here . . . I’ll slap my mare’s rump the moment we get through the gate. Once she takes off, Nuramon will have his hands full just trying to stay in the saddle. He won’t be able to try any heroic nonsense. Maybe he’ll make it out of town that way.”

  Oleif drew a deep breath. Then he nodded. “I’m staying with you. May the gods stand by them in their search for Noroelle. Their lives have a goal . . . but I don’t even know which world I’m meant to be part of.”

  Mandred threw his arms around his son. “I’m proud to have ridden at your side . . . Alfadas,” he said, his voice half choked. It was the first time he had called him by his elven name. For a few heartbeats, overcome by emotion, neither man moved. Then they walked together back to the horses.

  Nuramon, downcast, looked up as they approached. “Do you have any idea how we can get out o
f here?”

  “Of course.” Mandred hoped that his grin didn’t look completely put on. “We give them a good clobbering, smash some skulls, and ride away at our leisure. But I fear that riding two to a saddle would be a little cramped.”

  Farodin chuckled quietly. “Delightfully straightforward. A true Mandred plan.”

  “Isn’t it?” The jarl went to Nuramon and helped him into the saddle. “Stay on the horses, or you’ll just be in the way.”

  When the two elves were mounted, Mandred and Alfadas returned to the workshop. Between them, they heaved the massive bench and carried it in front of them like a huge shield.

  “I have one last thing to ask of you, my son,” said Mandred.

  Alfadas’s face was contorted with the effort of holding the heavy bench aloft. “What?”

  “If we get out of this alive, then stop using that toilet water. That’s for women and elves, and it keeps Norgrimm far from your side. Best not to go into battle without the goodwill of the god of war.” Mandred jutted his chin toward the gate. “Open it, scar face.”

  The owner of the brothel jerked the crossbeam free and shoved open the two heavy gates.

  “For Freya!” Mandred bellowed at the top of his lungs as they charged.

  Crossbow bolts rattled against the bench like hail. Pressed close to the wood, the two men stormed blindly out onto the square until they ran into a group of soldiers. The heavy bench sent five men sprawling.

  Mandred quickly looked around. What he saw shook him to his bones. At the windows all around them stood crossbowmen, reloading as fast as they were able. The alleys leading onto the little square were barricaded and manned. And the troop of soldiers they had rammed were on their feet again and pulling back quickly, clearing the firing line.