“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” she whispered.
“I do.”
“William, I’m… I’m scared of something.”
“What?”
“That as my abilities develop… as my responsibilities here increase… I won’t be allowed to have time for you.”
“We are together every night. Surely nothing would change that.”
“I don’t know. Anneli said that female rulers of Lanion often don’t marry or have children. It would take them away from their duties too much.”
“You are not the queen.”
“No. But the way she talks, I may eventually be called upon to serve the Lanosh just as much as she does. She hasn’t said it, but I wonder if she’s training me to take her place. I try not to think about it, but I can’t help it.”
“If she is, do you want that?”
“No. I’m not a queen, William. I’m a peasant girl from Fenhold Village. I thought I’d work the fields and dig peat until I died. Before you showed up and led us into the Hobswood, the biggest thrill of my life had been an overnight visit to Reevesby. I don’t belong here. Not really.”
William stroked her arm. “But you are here. And I’m here with you. Anneli wouldn’t be training you like this if she didn’t think you could do it. And no matter what your responsibilities end up being, I will never leave your side.”
He waited for her to reply. “Do you believe that?” he added when she didn’t say anything.
“Yes.”
He arched his neck and kissed the top of her head. “Good. Go to sleep now. You’ve had too much wine, and everything will be clearer in the morning.”
Chapter Thirteen
Snow Sprites
Faric took a step, and his leg sank two feet into the snow. It would have gone deeper if he hadn’t caught his balance. He cursed as he extracted himself then turned around and shook his head at his scouts. “It’s no use. Last night’s snow fell heavily here, and from the look of that sky, we’ll see just as much tonight. I’m afraid this is as far south as we’ll get until the thaw.”
Arric nodded at his cousin. “Then we return to that thicket a mile back? The one with the rocky overhang within it?”
“I think that’s the best place to wait out the winter. The dense trees will keep us concealed, and the overhang will keep most of the snow off of us. We still have a few weeks during which we can move about to hunt and watch for Dourosh in the area, but learn this terrain well—it will be our home for the season.”
The scouts began moving back the way they had come, and Faric fell into step beside Arric. “Anneli contacted me this morning,” he said. “She says the first snow fell in Lanion. They observed the Winter Solemnity.”
Arric sighed. “I of course knew there’d be a Winter Solemnity this year and not a festival, but it makes me sad to miss it either way.”
Faric nodded. “Your parents were no doubt thinking of you.”
“Yes. I wonder if Anneli invited them to the palace, seeing as how you and I are both absent.”
“She didn’t.”
Arric chuckled. “It’s just as well. I doubt they would have gone if she had invited them.”
“You do know that your brother never would have become king, don’t you? Even if Anneli hadn’t been shown to have a stronger affinity, he would have been too far down in the line of succession by the time we needed a new sovereign.”
“It’s not just that.”
“I know.” Faric looked at his cousin’s face. He looked a lot like his elder brother, dead five years now. “If not for Anneli, he would have just qualified to be trained in the palace instead of becoming a scout like us.”
“I never understood why they blamed Anneli and not any of the others who tested better than him.”
“Because she’s the one who ultimately became queen. And, as family, she was someone they knew… an immediate focus for their grief. There’s little logic to such things. I’m only glad you never shared their resentment of Anneli. Or of me. And I’m glad you agreed to join me out here. The bitterness between our families has kept us apart for too long, and it’s been my privilege to get to know you again.”
Arric smiled and clapped his cousin on the arm. He was about to speak when a cry of surprise and a commotion from up ahead had them drawing arrows from their quivers. They were nocked to bowstrings even before the two cousins could see what was happening.
Ahead, Morrick, one of Faric’s scouts, was on his back in the snow, his arms and legs splayed. Faric looked for blood, but not seeing any, he slackened his bowstring slightly. Then he saw Morrick’s attacker. A small white shape whisked past another of his scouts on crystalline wings, making him swat at it with his hand. He made contact, and a puff of sparkling ice crystals burst out from the creature. Faric knew it was unharmed, though. Snow sprites could reform at will as long as the air was cold enough.
He grimaced as another sprite flew toward him and Arric. The lithe, nude, feminine form was a lie—a trick to make men less likely to attack them—but he knew better than to let a snow sprite touch him. Using his bow like a club, he whisked it through the air at the oncoming sprite. It dodged the swing and shifted course toward Arric. Arric also tried to swipe at the sprite, but he also missed, and the small creature hit him squarely in the face, exploding in a shower of ice crystals. He went down.
Faric made a quick spin to see if there were any more nearby then dropped to his knees next to Arric. His cousin was grinning stupidly as he looked up at him.
Faric lightly slapped Arric’s cheek. “Snap out of it!”
It took only a few moments for Arric to regain his senses, and when he had, he blushed. “I never thought I’d be susceptible to a sprite’s magic.”
“They’re elemental creatures, Cousin. They tap into the magic of the earth directly.”
“Even so.” Arric got up and retrieved his bow. “I didn’t know this was sprite territory.”
“Nor should you have. We’ve mapped the regions where sprites are most active in the areas we frequent, but we know little of the creatures that live this deep in the North Woods.” He looked ahead to see that Morrick had also recovered, and the other scouts were moving back toward them. “Of course, this means we can’t winter beneath that overhang. Now that they know we’re here, the sprites won’t leave us alone. And as generally harmless as they are, we can’t afford to be befuddled by their magic should real danger come along.”
“Real danger… like a snow troll?” Laeock said.
Faric grunted. The creatures were among the rarest in the Great Forest. They lived solitary lives, and a decade or more could pass before a single snow troll encountered another of its kind. Encounters with people were even rarer, since they shunned the inhabited lands farther south. Neither Faric nor anyone he knew had ever seen a snow troll, but their viciousness was legendary. More often than not, arrows and sword blades would catch in the creatures’ thick white fur, making them incredibly difficult to kill. Clawed hands and long arms made them deadly to anyone who got too close, which was easy to do since they could almost seamlessly blend in with the snow. During the other seasons they inhabited the mountaintops, the only place where their thick coat of fur wasn’t a liability. During the winter, though, they came down from the mountains to hunt.
“They’ve been seen as far as the edge of Lake Dranith,” Arric said. “We’ll be well within their territory unless we move even farther to the west.”
“No,” Faric said. “Too far west and we risk being in the thick of the Dourosh. We still don’t know what they’re doing here in the North Wood, but there seem to be a lot of them. If we travel five miles or so, we should be distant enough that the snow sprites won’t follow. They don’t like to roam too far from their home territory. As for the snow trolls, we’re not likely to encounter any no matter where we winter.”
“Five miles in which direction?” asked Morrick.
Faric looked west then east. After encoun
tering the remains of General Vahlik’s camp by the lake, they’d moved northeast. Finding nothing, they had turned south again as the winter began to descend upon them, hoping to wait it out where the snowfall would be lighter. Aside from the rocky overhang, there hadn’t been any good places to make a winter camp. He knew from his maps that to the east, the land was relatively flat until one reached the foothills of the mountains. But to the west the terrain was rockier, more rugged. They’d have a better chance of finding shelter—maybe even a cave—if they went in that direction.
He nodded toward the west. “As long as we don’t go too far, we shouldn’t be in much more danger of encountering Dourosh than we are here. We’ll stay away from the lakeshore, though. All signs point to repeated Dourosh activity in that area, which makes sense since the forest is thinner there. And west will take us a little farther from the mountains for those of you worried about snow trolls.”
He grinned, but the corners of his mouth dropped as he heard a buzzing sound, like the flight of a large insect. He whipped his head around. Three snow sprites were arcing around one another but so far keeping their distance from the men. All sprites—snow, water, fire—liked to tease people. But even though their touch only befuddled the mind for a few minutes, more than one careless Lanosh had found accidental death while under their spell.
Arric held up his bow, ready to defend himself. “Damn those little… that overhang was perfect.”
“We’ll find something else just as ideal,” Faric said. “They want you to react, so just try to ignore them. If they see that we’re leaving, they might decide their fun is at an end.”
The six men began moving, each keeping his ears attuned to the rapid flutter of the sprites’ wings. The little creatures buzzed by them twice before finally disappearing from sight.
Faric breathed a sigh of relief. With enemy soldiers in the North Wood, they couldn’t afford to be distracted by trivialities. He looked ahead at the rolling banks of snow then at the sky once again. The dark clouds stretched as far as he could see; there’d be no escaping from this storm. They could last a handful of nights without shelter, but eventually the cold would begin to weaken them. If they couldn’t find any natural shelter they could build one, but it was best to not do anything that could draw unwanted attention. Surviving would be difficult enough without any further contact with the enemy. It was likely they’d also hunker down until the thaw, but as more snow began to fall, he had a feeling that he hadn’t seen the last of the Dourosh for the winter. Whatever they were doing in the North Wood, he didn’t expect a little snow would slow them down.
Chapter Fourteen
The Western Road
They numbered thirty-five in all. The party seemed too large for Penny’s liking. After all, weren’t they supposed to travel to the old capital without being detected? As they gathered in the courtyard in front of the main entrance to the palace, she brought up her concerns to Anneli.
“As our soldiers moved west,” Anneli said, “they avoided Eranion, but there were signs of heavy Dourosh activity near the city. At the time, though, it would have been folly to try and attack them there, where they could easily find defensible positions. Now, with winter here, there’s the hope that they’ve moved out into the forest where game will be more plentiful. Those still in the ruins will be cold and weak.”
Anneli checked the strap on her horse’s saddle. “So while I hope for little resistance, I dare not go with any fewer than these thirty, the best of my palace guard. But like you say, too large a force could attract the attention of every enemy for miles around, and we can’t have that either. But however many Dourosh we encounter, we cannot fail to reach Lanioc’s crypt and recover his sword.”
This last statement brought the weight of responsibility down on Penny’s shoulders. She could not fail to recover the sword. The rest of them—Anneli, Stephen, William, Owen and the thirty palace guards—could not help her once she took the first step inside the crypt. Anneli had said she would assess the ward and other protections around the crypt when they reached it, but she was not hopeful that, lacking the spark of magic within her, she would be able to enter with Penny.
Penny let the magic flowing up through her boots comfort her as she thought about her unique gift. Anneli had said that including her, Lanioc and Dourok, only four people since Lanioc’s time had had that spark—four people who not only drew magic from the earth but also inherently had it within them. These thoughts carried her up onto her horse and through the outer gate of the palace. She had scarcely left the grounds since the siege of the city, and now she was traveling to the heart of the Great Forest, to the old capital where Lanioc himself had once reigned.
William came up beside her as they rode through the western gate of Lanion. The bodies of the dead were gone, but it was still clear that there had been a battle. The earth was still upturned, the ground still black where the bonfires had been lit to dispose of the dead Dourosh. She was glad when they traveled beyond it and into the countryside where the Dourosh had passed but only briefly. With the crops now harvested and the ground fallow for the winter, the damage from their passage was not as apparent as it had been a few months earlier.
They had been riding in silence for an hour before William finally spoke to her. “You’ve been deep in thought.”
She turned to him and smiled. “I have.”
“What about?”
“When we first entered the Hobswood, everything seemed like a dream. And thinking back on it, my memories of the things that happened are vague. I think it’s because it was all so strange and new. I didn’t know how to take it in. Now, since studying the history and geography of the Great Forest, I’m going out into it for the first time. I’ll understand what I’m seeing now, but that somehow makes me sad.”
“I’ve been learning as well. Yes, the wonder may be gone, to some extent, but understanding is better. This is a dangerous place. It’s a miracle we survived as long as we did before Faric found us. And reading about something is not the same as witnessing it. I feel we will have enough wonder for a hundred lifetimes.”
He smiled. “You know my family’s lands are in the north of Emberlyn. County Carlyle is quite tame—rolling green hills as far as one can see, much of it given over to cultivation. The land is dotted here and there with coppices which, as a boy, seemed deep and mysterious to me, but in truth, none of them couldn’t be crossed in under an hour. Still, my friends and I played in those coppices, imagining we were exploring the dangerous and forbidden Hobswood Forest we’d heard about.
“Well, when I was twelve, my father had business in Finchfield, to the west, where the Upper Deerford and Lower Deerford rivers meet. The road from the town of Carlyle to Finchfield begins innocently enough, over those rolling green hills and past those coppices, but as one travels west, the hills give way first to a marshland—not as deep or large as the Bleaklands of course—and then to old, thick growths of forest. The change is immediate, as the trees grow right up to the edge of the marsh but not beyond. One is among mossy hillocks one moment and among the trees the next.
“When our carriage entered that forest, that was the moment I first felt real fear. It wasn’t the fear of childhood imagination, it was the fear of knowing I was in a place my father could not control… a place I could not understand. It was terrifying but thrilling at the same time.
“We stopped at a coaching inn amongst the trees, in a clearing barely large enough for the inn, the carriage house and a small paddock, and I spent that night in a second story room, watching the window, convinced that at any moment some creature would burst through it and attack me.”
Penny laughed lightly. “You didn’t really believe that?”
William shrugged. “I did. But ten years later, the next time I traveled from Carlyle to Finchfield, I stayed in that very same inn—alone this time—and I had no fear at all. It was because I had understanding. I knew what creatures were in that forest, and I knew that the wolves and be
ars were unlikely to come near the building. Was my second night at that inn less interesting? Certainly. But I preferred it. Knowing I was safe did not make the forest less beautiful or the scent of the trees less intoxicating. I was not sad to lose my wonder, because it was replaced by a true appreciation for what I was experiencing.”
“I think I understand what you’re saying,” Penny said. “I should let my new knowledge about the Great Forest enrich what I see, not make it seem mundane.”
“Yes.”
She reached over and touched his arm. “Thank you. I will.”
She turned her eyes toward the mountains rising up on either side of the road they were on. The river running to their left had carved a path through those mountains, and for a moment she was taken in by the beauty of the landscape. It was hard to believe that this land had been at war for two thousand years, but once they left the valley and traveled through the pass, she knew it would become all too apparent. She heard a horse near her right and turned. Anneli was on her other side.
“That pass itself will be dangerous,” she said. Again, the queen had been looking into Penny’s mind. She no longer found it uncomfortable and was glad she didn’t always have to say everything she was feeling.
“The road,” Anneli continued, “runs up right next to the river, and the path is quite narrow in places.”
“Why not defend it?” William asked from Penny’s left.
“We did in the past, but the Dourosh attacked it so regularly that a posting there was considered a death sentence. When we stopped sending soldiers to guard the pass, we discovered that the Dourosh were reluctant to travel beyond it. The valley is Lanosh territory, and unless they are in large numbers, bands of Dourosh rarely enter it. They fear our strength in spite of Dourok’s corruption. Perhaps it has to do with proximity to the palace, where one of the magical objects that Lanioc created is stored. They can still feel his power across the generations.”
The Lion's Crypt (The Emberlyn Chronicles Book 2) Page 8