Shadow Dawn

by Chris Claremont

  “So what will you do?”

  She huffed. “I can’t fight, like Khory. I can’t wield magic, like Thorn. I’m a fair blacksmith, but Torquil’s better. All I know, that I’m good at, are singing and healing. Those I can do. That’s where I’ll have to start.”

  “I’ve heard of some building more with less.”

  “Thank you.”

  Elora circled the mare’s hindquarters, keeping one hand lightly on the horse’s rump so she wouldn’t make the animal nervous while she moved through the blind spot in her vision. Circuit complete, Elora once more stood before the mare, noting that the horse stood higher at the shoulder by better than a head than Elora herself was tall. Blue eyes met brown, in an exchange of looks and an equivalence of mien that was as utterly formal as any court introduction.

  “I am Elora,” she told the mare. Almost immediately she became aware of the name offered in response. It wasn’t that the mare answered—this was a creature whose sentience was defined by the act of being rather than by literal intellect, a mentality structured along wholly different paths than the human mind—but that Elora intuited a simple and obvious truth about her.

  “And you are Windfleet,” she continued, gaining a whicker of acknowledgment and a bob of the head in response.

  She knew the story from both brownies, Rool and Franjean, though she’d never met the horse. Before coming to Angwyn, they and Thorn Drumheller encountered a young Angwyn pathfinder. Together, the four of them and the Pathfinder’s mount faced down a hunting pack of Death Dogs that had been set on Thorn’s trail. In the course of that terrible fight, the mare was mortally wounded. Thorn brought her back from the brink of death, and that struggle far more than the one with the hounds was what inspired him to come at last to Elora’s side.

  For the better part of a decade Thorn had roamed the world, taking stock of all its crippled and broken places, those sites of power which had been destroyed by the same Cataclysm that had claimed Tir Asleen, unwilling—afraid—to accept that he himself numbered among them. Windfleet’s healing was the first active, positive, step he’d taken in that time, the long-overdue reassertion of his proper role in the shape of things.

  “I am honored,” Elora said, bobbing her own head.

  She grasped the pommel and the reins and hoisted her left foot to the stirrup, swinging herself into the saddle with an ease that belied the fact that she hadn’t been on horseback in years. There were some moments of adjustment, as Windfleet settled the new weight on her back and Elora tried to get used to straddling the powerful chest.

  Now, she thought, I know how a wishbone feels.

  She’d been taught to hold the reins in both hands, back in Angwyn for a brief, lost time when the Emperor had seen her as a surrogate for his own lost children: his son, who’d disappeared the night Elora had appeared, and the boy’s twin sister, the Princess Anakerie, who’d run away from home rather than serve as the first of Elora’s Vizards, the guardians of the Sacred Princess.

  The Emperor was a warrior born. It was his wife who actually ran the kingdom while he served ably and well commanding the armies that defended it. Tragically, she had died the night of the Cataclysm and he had been forced to relinquish the duties of warlord in favor of those of Angwyn’s monarch. He tried his best, and wasn’t so bad in the job, but it was painfully much like fitting a cavalry charger between the poles of a dray. The animal may well pull the load but it isn’t the best use of its skills and talents.

  To compensate for those awful losses, he began to lavish care and attention on Elora. With a fondness that surprised her, considering how she came to hate her time in Angwyn, she found herself now remembering how he’d sit her before him on his saddle when she was barely able to walk and trot about the castle’s war yard. She hadn’t been afraid, snug in that seat with him, even when he took the huge animal over some small jumps, and couldn’t wait for the day when he promised to take her riding on a pony of her own.

  That day never came, of course, for the Emperor’s advisers prevailed in their objections, proclaiming endlessly their concern over the consequences to Angwyn should the Sacred Princess be injured during one of these excursions. Or worse, be abducted by some other power among the Great Realms. Or worst of all, escape. She was Angwyn’s prize and Angwyn’s talisman, a gift from the Almighty, cast halfway around the face of the globe itself into the monarch’s very courtyard. She was a treasure beyond price and must be secured accordingly.

  So, a tower was built, adjacent to the palace, and from the day of its completion Elora was never allowed beyond its gates.

  On the ground once more, she led her mare across the sprawling yard to the hitching post in front of the inn. Her leggings were more uncomfortable than ever, which gave her a wry appreciation of the old saw about “sprouting like a weed,” but they were an absolute necessity on horseback, especially in rough country. She’d once more wrapped her head and shoulders in her tartan scarf, and lashed the much heavier greatcloak to her saddlebags and bedroll. True to Duguay’s word, her face and body paint hadn’t faded in the slightest and the dramatic patterning drew more stares now than when she strolled about in costume.

  “Got to go, I hear,” said Luc-Jon from the porch.

  “What can I say? My first solo performance, and next I know, I’m being run out of town.”

  “Aye, truly there’s no justice in world.”

  “ ‘In the world,’ ” she corrected. “Scribes should know their grammar, if no one else.”

  “Pfaugh!”

  “Nice noise!”

  “You should talk, some o’ the ones you’ve made.”

  “Nice manners.”

  “Even more so, back at you!”

  “Children!” remonstrated Duguay, at which point both Luc-Jon and Elora burst into a rampaging fit of giggles.

  “Better take care, Elora, else you’ll make y’r master old afore ’is time.”

  “If I do, it’s no less than he deserves.”

  A volley of hooves on hardpan heralded the approach of their escort, a light patrol of a dozen troopers with a fresh-faced lieutenant to command and a grizzled sergeant to actually run things. The Sergeant was Marn and he greeted Elora with affection. The Lieutenant was in a rush, and obviously considered this “baby-sitting” detail beneath him, so farewells had to be quick.

  “Just my luck…” Luc-Jon began.

  “Damn straight,” Elora told him, stopping him with a finger to his lips before he could say another word. “It’s a young world, Luc-Jon, and we’re a pair of young lives. Anything’s possible.”

  “You believe that?”

  “I know it.” This time, she thought, I’m going to kiss him! And she did. It was as gentle as the first, though it lasted a bit longer.

  He has nice eyes, she thought. He makes my heart race. Her hands rested lightly on his neck and through her fingertips she could feel the pulse of the big vein just beneath the skin and the tips of her mouth twitched in delight at its tempo.

  “I brung you something,” Luc-Jon stammered.

  “You a magician then, to whistle something out of nothing? The only thing I see in your hands is me.”

  “In y’r bag a’ready. From my master’s archives. With permission,” he added hurriedly as she reacted to the thought he might have stolen it.

  Finally they heard a cough from the Lieutenant, apparently the latest in a series.

  “Where’s the puppy?” she asked, more to tweak the Lieutenant than to prolong the moment.

  Luc-Jon shrugged. “Ain’t seen him nor any t’others in his pack all the mornin’. Maybe they’re huntin’ Maizan.”

  “Say good-bye for me, will you?” Elora asked as, with far more outward confidence than she actually felt, she climbed back onto Windfleet’s saddle.

  “You take care,” Luc-Jon called after her as she turned to join the pat
rol.

  “You, too!” she called back to him with a wave.

  The Lieutenant offered a salute to the Commandant, to the colors, to the Officer of the Guard at the gate. They hadn’t even left the fort and already Elora was bored enough to die.

  She’d thought of kicking her mount into a full gallop the moment they were outside, but common sense scotched that notion right away. That’s why there were miles of cleared ground on every side of the fort, so the defenders could see everyone coming or going. In the best of circumstances, she’d only have seconds for a head start and she doubted she could maintain that lead for long. The only way such a bolter would work was with a monstrous huge distraction.

  The wolfhounds gave it to her.

  The patrol was hardly out the gate when the dogs came at them from every side, raising a terrific hullabaloo of barks and snarls, baring fangs with fearsome growls, lunging forward in a stiff-legged attack posture as though they meant to grab the horses by their fetlocks and pitch them over. The horses immediately assumed the worst and their riders, taken by surprise by the attack itself as well as by its ferocity, had no argument for them. The animals panicked, and the men, who should have been trying to calm them, were suddenly left desperately trying to hold their seats.

  They didn’t have a chance. In lightning succession, the entire patrol was unhorsed, the terrified animals charging across the parade ground for the sanctuary of their stables to the jeers and catcalls of watching troopers. Duguay’s horse skibbled in anxiety. It would have joined the others given the chance, but the troubadour proved himself as expert a horseman as he was a balladeer and kept the beast under control. Elora of course was lost, lacking both training and experience, but with her it was Windfleet who saved the day. The mare wasn’t bothered in the slightest by the hounds’ display. She had fought Death Dogs and lived. She knew there was no threat.

  “Bravo, puppy!” Elora called, and without the slightest urging on her part Windfleet shot into a gallop.

  The wolfhound looked indecently pleased with himself as he loped to a small rise past the wagon train’s encampment to watch them go. Behind him there was a wild succession of shouts and curses, yelps of the purely human variety, and then a monstrous huge crash as one of the other dogs, very keen on initiative, streaked from the gatehouse as the portcullis thundered into place.

  Feeling very pleased with himself, the hound lifted his head high and howled, as his ancestors had to tell the Dire Wolves their reign of blood and terror was done, and that now they were faced by foes worthy of the name.

  “Did you see that?” Elora crowed, in between heartfelt prayers that the base of her spine not be pounded to powder. “Did you see what my puppy did?”

  “Very impressive,” Duguay agreed as his mount held pace with hers. “A prince among canines, truly.”

  “He did it for me, bless his heart.” A frantic look over the shoulder. “There’s nobody following!”

  “Not really expecting anyone.”

  “What was that big crash, d’you think?”

  “Portcullis. Not so hard, really. They’re designed to come down in a hurry. All you have to do is release the brake.”

  “Absolutely brilliant.”

  “They’re working dogs, wolfhounds are. Bred for brains as well as brawn.”

  “A whole lot of things in the world are smarter than they appear, Master Faralorn. You simply have to find the way to communicate and comprehend. Is the portcullis broken, d’you think? Is that why they’re not after us yet?”

  “Takes time to raise the gate, though not a lot. Takes time as well to round up another patrol, though not a lot. By then, we’ll be near the trees, if not outright in ’em.”

  “They have trackers, though, and scryscouts.”

  “If they want us badly enough, Elora, they’ll find us. And run us down. We’ve only these animals here, they’ll come with remounts so they can maintain a constant pace and faster. But I don’t think they’ll come.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s been no word from that patrol went haring after the Maizan. If the rumors are correct about the Commandant being told to make a stand, he’ll need every man and every blade.”

  “They are true, Duguay.”

  “I figured as much in the stable. By his lights, if we’re this hell-bent set on suicide, he hasn’t the resources to spare to save us from ourselves.”

  They slowed somewhat once they reached the shelter of the tree line. Open ground gave way to a succession of forest trails, but Duguay didn’t call a halt for the better part of another hour, when they reached the crest of a rise that allowed a surprisingly panoramic view of the fields and the fortress at their hub.

  “Well?” he challenged Elora.

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “From here we still have a decent sight of the fort,” he explained. “It’s not so hard to pretend we got lost if we decide to call this quits. We press on, girl, we cast away that luxury. But if we do press on, we need to know which way to go.”

  “Right.”

  He caught one of her reins, close by the bit.

  “I know what this means to you, I know Ryn’s your friend, but those others you’re counting on, if they shut you out, we’re done here. We go no farther, are we agreed?”

  “ ‘We’?”

  “If I have to hog-tie you, girl, I will. Think now what you mean to those we’ve left behind! That boy, that damnable hound! You talk about being worthy. Well, worth is grounded in honor, and honor in truth, to yourself first of all! And there’s neither worth nor honor nor truth in being dumb. Now, are we agreed?”

  She sat very still and very proud, because it was rare that she was ever spoken to in such a tone and rarer still when she acknowledged the moment was deserved.

  She answered with a small and shallow nod of the head and didn’t realize how truly regal she suddenly looked.

  “Rool!” she called in mindspeech, firing her thoughts skyward like a beacon. “Bastian!

  “I know what Khory probably told you,” she explained. “I know what she told me. I’ll understand if you don’t reply. I hope and pray you will. Please. I beg you. Let me help.”

  She took a shuddery breath and chewed a moment on her lower lip. Duguay’s horse was still a bit nervous, expecting another dog attack any moment, and kept shifting its feet. Windfleet remained totally calm.

  “How long should we wait?” Elora asked.

  Then her eyes went wide and she sagged back in her saddle as if a great and invisible hand had suddenly pushed against her chest. The air went right out of her and Duguay was halfway to the ground to catch her, certain she was about to fall, when she regained both breath and balance.

  “Oh my,” she said, and took a long moment to enjoy the view.

  Bastian soared to the north and west, in the general direction that Elora was meant to travel. Below him was a hedgehog range: old-growth mountains whose majestic summits had been worn away by the passage of the eons and cast in gentler forms, so named because of their general resemblance of those animals. Rool was riding with him, and with his first word, Elora knew she’d made the right decision.

  “Come,” he said, with the finality to his voice of a warrior facing battle.

  “Where, Rool? What’s happening?”

  “Stay merged with Bastian, he’ll show the way. There’s a fast trail, I’ll explain as you go. Be quick, Elora Danan. Be here by moonrise. Be ready to fight.”

  Rool was good as his word and Bastian a superb guide. Once they gained the track he spoke of, Elora merely gave Windfleet her head and trusted the mare not to make any missteps. It proved to be a wild, wonderful ride, even if the young woman spent much of it with her eyes closed.

  Abruptly, shocking the girl’s eyes wide open, Windfleet jerked to a stiff-legged stop. Tension raced with fatigue str
aight through the mare’s body, and from there through Elora’s, with such force and intensity that both sets of nerves were nearly crackling. Duguay felt it, too. He’d pulled his own mount beside her, his free hand clasped tight around the haft of a drawn sword.

  Ahead and above rose a mound. Nothing near as impressive to look at as many peaks she’d seen, that was true of all these ancient mountains. Worn away by the elements of nature as a body is by time, they had all been reduced to the merest ghosts of their original selves. Yet this one in particular possessed a gravitas, a primal weight of spirit, that put the whole rest of this range to shame, and a fair portion of the Stairs to Heaven as well.

  The night of the Cataclysm, not only Tir Asleen was destroyed. As Thorn discovered during a decade and more of roaming the face of the globe, that selfsame malefic force annihilated a score of similar sites, on every continent and on both sides of the Veil, savaging those special places that were the main repositories of arcane energy.

  Once upon a time, this hill would have been among that number, a nexus of the ley lines which sustain all magic through the uncountable eons. But just as with every other physical property of the world, the intersection points that once existed here had moved on, leaving only the residue of that eldritch force, the palest echo of the glory that once had been.

  Windfleet danced sharply on her hooves and laid her ears back flat atop her skull. This was not so much a posture of fear but of readying herself for battle. Flight was certainly a considered option. Brave she was, not stupid. There was a stillness to the air, akin to the gathering of forces before a thunderstorm. It felt supercharged with an infinite number of tiny, invisible lightning bolts that burst over every inch of Elora’s skin, whether clothed or not. Even her hair, short as it was, stood on end. Sounds faded the way they do in terrible cold, when the air becomes too dry to carry noise very far. Yet, paradoxically, Elora felt the beginnings of a wind, not so much the movement of air…

  …but of forces through the air, winding their corkscrew way up from the base of the steep-sided mound.