Shadow Dawn

by Chris Claremont

  “Y’see here,” he indicated, motioning for Elora to hunker down beside him as he waved his hand over what was to her an indecipherable mess. “We have footprints between the wheel ruts.”

  “Ah,” she said sagely, ignoring a derisive snort from within the folds of her cloak on her shoulder where Rool was snugly ensconced.

  “A lot of folks walking,” Duguay said. “And off to the side, shod horses, right along the border of the road as well as overlaying some of these signs.”

  “Which means?”

  “Outriders,” Rool replied, for her ears alone. “Fore- and after-guard.”

  “Outriders,” Duguay told her thoughtfully, munching absently on a long stalk of grass. “Together with a fore- and after-guard.”

  “Told you,” said Rool.

  “You’re a hunter, Rool,” she told him in mindspeech. “I expect such insights from the likes of you.”

  “A freight train would have an escort,” she said aloud.

  “But not all these folks on foot. We ever reach the villages along here, it’s my bet we’ll find them empty.”

  “Awfully specialized knowledge for a troubadour, Duguay.”

  “I like wandering, Elora. I like surviving more. On the frontier, a body’s pretty much on his or her own. You’d be amazed at what you can learn, and how it can save you.”

  “Hush,” said Rool suddenly, rising to his full height on Elora’s shoulder, “the lot of you.”

  “What’s the matter, Rool?” she asked.

  “I mean it, Elora. Listen!”

  “For what?” Duguay wondered. “It’s a quiet day but I don’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Plenty of birds and the like.”

  “Be quiet, will you?” Rool snapped, exasperated. “I’m talking to Elora.” Then, to her: “Listen!”

  “To what? Nothing’s here but what Duguay said.”

  “Precisely. I was going to ask the local dryads for information on this convoy. They’re social creatures, they love to gossip. Yon great, thumping, lumpen Daikini there, he might scare ’em off, but I figured word would get about that we meant no harm. Eventually I expected someone to brave our campfire and pay us a visit.”

  “Probably fled my singing.”

  “They fled something, Elora. Use your InSight, tell me if there’s a dryad within view.”

  She did as she was asked and her voice and manner grew very still.

  “There’s nothing, Rool,” she said at last. “As far as Lesser Faery is concerned, this stretch of forest is barren. But why? Where did they go? What are they afraid of?”

  “What’s behind us, I ’spect,” said the brownie. “And what’s ahead.”

  Elora’s brow furrowed.

  “When a war starts,” Duguay agreed, with a nod, “you don’t want to be caught between the two sides.”

  “The Maizan are here,” Elora asked.

  “No,” Rool said sadly. “This is new, this is different, a conflict between Greater Faery and the Daikini Realm as a whole.”

  “It was just a raid,” she protested, but her heart had already accepted the essential truth of what she heard.

  Rool indicated the rutted track, and then the forest about them.

  “They think different.”

  * * *

  —

  From that crossroads, they picked up the pace. The mood had changed and none among them could find desire or determination to win it back, either during their daily hike or around the evening campfire.

  Each morning, Elora sent Bastian forth with a specific purpose, to sweep the way behind for any sign of threat and forge ahead to find a sign of Daikini habitation.

  On the third day, beyond the crossroads, Bastian flashed her a view of a town, a hub community sited mainly to serve as the anchor for all the far-flung settlements beyond, in a locale where there was nothing much else of value. Good timber, true, but the river was too rough to use it to float the logs downstream to any market. Fair terrain for farming, more to serve as subsistence for the town than for export, and with the apparent abandonment of the forest by its caretakers and inhabitants among the Veil Folk, the country would be wide open for a boom in the fur trade.

  What Elora saw through the eagle’s eyes, courtesy of her InSight, was a fair-sized natural meadow that had been expanded fivefold by an aggressive and thorough clearance campaign that left a huge stretch of open ground on every side of the bustling stronghold. The timbers had been put to good use, to form a stockade better than twenty feet tall atop an earth-and-stone-reinforced redoubt that itself rose ten feet above the ground. Within the walls was an open square twice the size of a jousting yard, dominated at one end by a massive, multistoried structure that was hostelry and fortress combined. Ringing the yard were lesser structures, barns whose residents were split between horses and livestock, coupled with an equally extensive smithy. A slaughterhouse and smokehouse were attached to the kitchen, itself an adjunct to a large communal lodge. The storehouses would most likely be underground, since the clearing ran right to the shore of the river, which also probably meant a buried channel bringing freshwater in from the stream to supplement any wells.

  “Now there,” Duguay muttered as she described what lay ahead, “is a castle worth the taking.”

  “I’m certainly impressed.”

  Scattered out from the fort were individual homesteads, structures as stoutly designed and constructed as the stronghold itself, hard by fields of cleared land that were thick with late-summer crops, almost ready for harvesting. Close by the walls stood a circle of wagons, a train of settlers out to make a new life for themselves. Duguay shook his head at the news, commenting that they’d waited far too late in the year to travel, they’d be buried in snow long before they reached any decent land.

  In the meanwhile Elora made her way to the comparative seclusion of a convenient stand of brush and raided her traveling pouch for a change of attire. Buckskin leggings to cover her from hip to ankle, tied to loops that hung from inside the waist of her tunic. Gauntlets for her hands, a wimple to mask every part of her head but her face. At the last a long scarf of patterned muslin, which she wound and draped over and around her skull in desert style until only her eyes were visible. It wasn’t a terribly comfortable arrangement, especially since she’d grown so used to the more casual and open style she’d adopted these past weeks, but altogether preferable to someone catching sight of a crop of silver hair or gleaming argent skin.

  To the outward eye, she now appeared as a Highlander, one of that breed of iconoclasts and loners who roamed the most remote and inaccessible reaches of the globe. In temperament and reputation, they were considered close kin to the Cascani, though they were held in regard more as warriors than merchants. They preferred the solitude of their own kind, and any who crossed their path with malice were as likely as not to lose some major body parts, if not their very lives.

  Elora wasn’t cheating by wearing their colors. During their flight eastward from Angwyn, she and Thorn had spent a turn of seasons among one of their clans. Thorn tended their sick and from them Elora received her tartan-wool greatcloak.

  “Something the matter?” Rool inquired as she stretched and wriggled each leg in turn, then tugged ineffectually at her leggings.

  “They’re tight, Rool. And they’ve shrunk!” The lower hem was meant to rest on the top of her foot, but that left a gap of exposed skin at the top of her thigh. When she pulled the leather to her hip, where it was supposed to be, the bottom rode up past her ankle. Elora muttered something foul.

  “I thought your clothes didn’t do that.”

  “They’re not supposed to. Oh, bother,” she cried, deciding that since she was wearing high boots she’d tie the leggings as snugly to her belt as they’d go. “And the damn boots aren’t that comfortable anymore, either!”

  “Perhaps it isn’t them, ever
consider that?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard. You’re the Royal Highness, you figure it out.”

  She plumped onto her backside and covered her face with her hands.

  “Bollocks,” she said miserably.

  “Well, you wanted to be bigger. Me, I think you’re quite large enough already, but since when did my opinion ever matter?”

  “Why now, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Perhaps because you’re finally running about in a world where you’ve room to grow.”

  “Ugh!”

  “What is your problem, Elora Danan? I’m the one, standing beside a walking mountain, have to shred my throat raw just to say hello. I ride your shoulder still, I’ll most likely suffocate, bouncing up so high there’s no more air for me to breathe.”

  “Don’t talk like such a silly. If I can breathe, so can you.”

  “Someone big as you, figure you’ll use it all up.”

  “Is there any way,” Duguay interjected carefully, from a respectful distance, “I might be of assistance?”

  “I’m growing,” Elora lamented.

  “Oh.”

  “Out of her clothes.” Rool chuckled.

  “Ah. It’s certainly a different look,” Duguay commented as she stepped around the bush and into full view.

  “It’s necessary.”

  “No need to explain, Elora. You’re the right size and apparent age for an apprentice. Any problem with a Highlander hiring on to an outsider to learn a trade?”

  She shook her head. “Highland bards are as renowned as their fighters. I may draw looks but no real questions. Best of all, given the reputation of the clans, no one’s likely to give me any trouble.”

  “Splendid. I’m tired of this load anyway.”

  She’d carried his pack before, it weighed the proverbial ton. As befit her adopted station, she let him take the lead as they made their way to the road. They were spotted the moment they emerged from the treeline. Bastian’s eyes gave Elora a spectacular overhead view of a sentry pointing from one of the blockhouse watchtowers set at each corner of the five-sided stronghold. Its longest wall was the one facing the river, where it would be hardest for any invader to mass his forces for an attack. Someone up there had a spyglass. Sunlight flashed off its lens as it was brought to bear. Duguay paid the distant hubbub no heed as he made his way forward with a jaunty and effervescent step while Elora trudged behind him in the best tradition of a slavey.

  He waved a merry hello to the settlers as he passed their encampment, spinning his cloak out and around with the flourish of a born courtier as he offered so elegant a bow to a clutch of girls playing by the roadside that they scampered away, giggling, to tell their parents someone wonderful had come to town. The menfolk looked on him as major trouble and the smile he offered in return to their warning glares did nothing to reassure them. While Duguay worked the crowd Elora assessed the nearby horseflesh. The traders at the bazaar favored mountain ponies, sturdy short-legged creatures one step removed from mountain goats, built to survive in extremes of weather and terrain. These, on the other hand, were massive, hulking draft animals, half again her height at the shoulder and averaging better than a ton in weight. The herd was all of the same stock, a mixture of duns and chestnuts with close-cropped coats, long manes, and a feathering of similar hair about their fetlocks.

  While the horses were similar, what they pulled here was not. Barely three or four qualified as shipping wagons, the kind used by merchants at the Cascani bazaar to transport their goods. The rest were a mismatched hodgepodge of carts, drays, buckboards, light transports, and other carriages. Some were in good condition, others looked like they’d just come from the junkyard, where they’d been up on blocks for years.

  The same dichotomy applied to the travelers as well. Well dressed, comfortably and practically clothed, these were people of some substance, yet there was a palpable air of apprehension to them, bordering on outright fear. They were folk on the run, from something too terrible to contemplate, much less confront. They were here because they had no choice and they had no faith in these stout walls to protect them.

  “Rool,” she muttered.

  “Not outward bound at all, you had that assessment backward.”

  “The ruts we saw in the road. These could be the wagons, they could be from that other settlement.”

  “Prob’ly heard what happened to the village we found, hit the road that selfsame night.”

  “Look at all their faces—the grown-ups, I mean.”

  “Walking dead, the lot, that’s how they see themselves. Figure they can run where they like, it won’t save ’em. An’ who’re we to say they’re wrong?”

  The sheer excitement of the place, even more than its size, took her aback as they made their way to the main gate. Even though the approaches to the fort were clear, to allow defenders an unobstructed field of fire, a stretch of about a hundred yards or so on each shoulder leading to the main gates was a veritable thicket of tents and stalls, a bazaar in miniature, with wandering entrepreneurs offering all manner of trinkets and gewgaws, souvenirs, talismans, snacks, fortunes, whatever, in such variety and profusion that Elora had to marvel. The scene was thick with customers, which made her assume that this must be a market day. A vendor wafted a length of translucent cloth before a trio of appreciative young women, letting the light play across the shimmering metallic threads woven at random through the fabric, though it quickly became clear they weren’t entranced enough to buy. Seeing Elora’s interest in the fabric, Duguay stepped into that breach, charming both the ladies and the merchant with one of his trademark smiles as he bargained the man down to a fraction of the price that had been quoted before.

  Elora couldn’t help a grin of admiration to watch the troubadour at work, sidling this way and that through the crowd, leaving not a whit of ill feeling in his wake. She didn’t try to follow, there wasn’t space to fit both her and the pack she carried, and frankly it was more fun to watch him from a distance.

  “He’s very good.”

  “He’s paying,” groused Rool. “Doesn’t count at all.”

  “What, you want us thrown out of here before we’ve even properly arrived?”

  “If he was very good, Highness,” the brownie mocked, “it shouldn’t come to that. A good thief—”

  “Such as yourself, I assume, Master Magpie?”

  “I name no names, but a good thief could strip this lot bare and leave them none the wiser.”

  “You don’t like him much.”

  “He flashes too many teeth when he smiles, and he smiles far too much.”

  “A man of good cheer, Rool, where’s the fault in that?”

  “No. He’s a man who’s in on the greatest joke ever told, and he’s the only one who knows it. There’s a difference and it makes me nervous.”

  “Well, I do like him.”

  “You’re young, you don’t know any better.”

  “Thank you, Conscience.”

  “You think this is a joy for me, Elora? Cast as chaperon to a willful, growing, stuck-up—”

  “Am not!”

  “—know-it-all—!”

  “R-o-o-ol!”

  “Nice noise.”

  She made a worse one, the kind of whine that came easily to her in Angwyn, but that now made the both of them laugh.

  Then, as suddenly as if a door had slammed, her laughter stopped.

  “On the notice board, Rool, that proclamation.”

  There was a large, framed rectangle of wood posted between the encampment and the gate, one half listing the general rules and codes of conduct of the stronghold, while the other was for announcements of general interest. It was dominated by a single sheet of parchment, relatively clean still and without weathering, which meant it hadn’t been up for very long.

&nb
sp; A description followed, fairly sparse in details because no one knew how tall she’d grown or how her features had matured (hardly at all, she muttered to herself, in either case). Its key point was that the fugitive could most easily be identified by the fact that she was silver in color, from head to toe. Silver skin and silver hair, like a forging come to life.

  “ ‘Alive and unharmed,’ ” Rool noted. “How considerate.”

  “I like ‘our beloved princess.’ Nice touch.”

  “As is ‘rescue and return.’ Makes a body think he’s doing something noble.”

  “Do the Maizan a favor, get on their good side. It’s beautifully worded. Provides every incentive for playing along and giving them what they want.” She made a face. “Well, no one ever said the Deceiver wasn’t cunning.”

  “Not so impressive a price. He’s trying to get you cheap.”

  “Hardly.”

  “A thousand sovereigns?”

  “Gold sovereigns,” she corrected.

  “Is that significant? I mean, I’m sure it’s a lot to these rustics….”

  “Rool, if he’s using Cascani standards, there are a thousand crowns to a single gold sovereign. Outside of Angwyn City itself, and I assume Sandeni, a thousand crowns will support a major household prosperously for a year.”

  “A tempting sum, is it?”

  “Suddenly I feel like there’s a bull’s-eye on my back.”

  “Move on, then?”

  “Soon as we can.”

  “You realize, I hope, that this is why Drumheller wanted you to stay with Torquil.”

  “Thank you, I’m not wholly dim.”

  “Now there’s a relief.”

  She glared at the brownie. He didn’t appear the slightest bit bothered.

  “I simply don’t want to depend any longer on the kindness of others,” she said slowly. “If that’s all right with you.”