by Ben Galley
Bile rose in Elsie’s throat. This was her fault. She’d denied Dronithir’s offer of legionaries out of mistrust and run on without as much attention to the land, or time to prepare as she needed.
She tried to loose arrows as she moved. A few hit their mark. Not enough. Yet the dragons never did find her. The green leathers might be doing the trick. That, and her blood was boiling up so high that any fear she might have had was burnt away.
Yet when four dragons emerged from the reeds ahead of her, she knew the game was up. They’d seen her plain as day and were splashing through the shallows, swords raised, faces wrought in battle fury.
Elsie stopped running. She and her hunters hadn’t stopped all the dragons, but they’d blunted the edge of this flanking force, so it might not be the cause of their main army’s defeat. Or it might just delay that defeat by a minute or so. Either way, she was done.
The hard cap on her head itched. She ripped it off, letting the cool air soothe her skin and gently lift her hair.
She dropped to one knee; nocked an arrow; took aim. She’d take one of the bastards at least, and the closer they were, the better the chance her arrow could thump through their thick plate.
Then a new sound resonated across the marshes. A sharp howl, wolf-like but far more melancholy. The howl of the cu-sih.
Elsie supposed the hounds couldn’t pass up so much free meat just lying out for them. The dragons would reach her before the third howl came. That was good. She didn’t want to die frozen in fear.
Dozens of glowing emerald eyes came into view and began moving closer to her. She heard them coming from behind as well, even as the dragons charged from the front.
Elsie loosed her arrow. It thudded into the closest dragon’s waist and sent him backwards into the water. The other dragons carried on, now ten paces away. Something - several large somethings - tore past her, whipping up her hair. A cu-sih leapt over her, its hot belly brushing the top of her head.
The great green beasts swarmed over the dragons, three on one, biting at their exposed hands, necks and heads.
Elsie found she was frozen in place, though from shock rather than fear. The hounds didn’t seem to care she was there. As strong as they were, the dragons were stronger still, and once their initial shock wore off they began to fight back, gutting several dogs and tossing others bodily from them.
Elsie’s mind snapped back into focus and she took the chance to pick off one dragon, even as more hounds issued from the tall grass. Their howling renewed, echoing for what seemed a mile around.
Hunters were running with cu-sih by their sides, pursuing dragons desperately trying to regroup with one another. Elsie counted the hounds in the hundreds, and those were the just the ones she could see. Such a pack was unheard of, and would have been a danger to any settlement in the marshes, including Torridon.
For today, at least, the dragons were the common enemy; the common invader. For today, they would hunt together.
Elsie heard talk of Dronithir’s duel with Norbanus the moment she returned. Already men spoke of it in hallowed tones, each incarnation of the tale growing wilder than the last. When she met the prince himself, he had little to say on the matter.
“It is over,” was all he said. He seemed to have lost his spirit in the aftermath of victory. He spoke to her of making amends, of returning east and insisting his father make reconciliations. He’d help construct a giant fortress in the Dales, where he had landed, to deter against future dragon invasions and prove how much he wanted their two peoples to move forward in peace.
Elsie waved him off. She didn’t want to hear it. “I’m going home now,” she told him. This seemed to grieve him further, but he nodded and offered his hand. She took it again, if briefly, and had the fleeting hope for Dronithir that he would move on from his anger and woe. She intended to, and all her thoughts turned to the little boy waiting in the crannog out from Torridon’s shore.
When Elsie and Balliol returned to town, it was as if nothing had changed. The buildings stood as they always had. The smokehouses billowed their fishy fumes. Only a thinning of the crowds marked the war that had been, for the empty rooms behind closed doors could not be seen.
On that day, the sky was charcoal-grey and a drizzling rain kept most indoors. Yet Elsie couldn’t help but beam as she moved through the streets; to the shore of the loch, onto the crannog’s bridge, to the door of the Heath family home. It swung inwards without her needing to knock.
A servant with a haughty northern accent decreed, “Lord Heath will be with you shortly. He asks that you await him in th—”
But Elsie hurried right past, near-sprinting through the long curving corridors to Aleck’s room. She found him asleep in his cot. At least, she assumed it was him. He was bigger now, of course, with more hair upon his head. The Heath crest was stitched upon his clothing.
She just stood there, feeling dumb and awkward and in the way. Should she wake him? She desperately wanted to wake him, and hear him laugh. But she knew she shouldn’t and something about reaching out for him felt wrong, as though she, of all people, did not have permission.
“Elsie,” someone whispered sharply from the doorway. From the accent, she thought it was the servant again, but it turned out to be Lady Heath, approaching with her nose high and her lips tightly pressed. “What are you doing, girl? You’ll wake him.”
“I… I…” Elsie struggled to speak. Inwardly, she cursed herself. She’d fought dragons, and won. What was so difficult about this?
Aleck stirred. He opened his big blue eyes, yawned, looked at both women, one to the other and back again. He tilted his head quizzically at Elsie, then fumbled around, gripping the posts of his cot and pulling himself to stand.
So, she had missed that first moment already.
Elsie couldn’t take it anymore. She started forwards, fully intending to pull him out of the cot, hold him close and never let go.
Aleck cried out sharply and fell back, hands flailing in front of him. He began to wail, his face puffing up all red and angry. Elsie froze mid-stride. He was looking at her as though she were dangerous.
Because he does not know me.
Lady Heath scurried to the cot. Aleck’s relief broke across his face like sunshine after a storm. “Mamma,” he squeaked, reaching out to Lady Heath.
Elsie’s back hit the wall. She hadn’t realised she’d been stumbling.
Another voice spoke lowly from the doorway. “Elsie,” Lord Heath said. She did not turn. “Elsie, come with me. Come on, now.”
What happened next came in a blur. Heath’s words sounded slow to her, as though passing through treacle. They burned as though branded on her skin. He had passed Aleck off as his own to the other nobles, a late miracle bestowed upon his wife, and timed so tragically with the death of Roy. The nobility had bought it. So that would be that. And it would be far, far better for Aleck to grow up without the stink of bastard around him. Far better for the family, too. Elsie… well, Elsie just didn’t fit into all of that.
Heath’s final gruff apology was followed with a bag of gold thrust into her arms. Elsie let the bag fall with a dull thud and left, too weak to protest. Her worst fear, her very worst fear, had come true.
She staggered outside, drunk on grief and confusion, only stopping about a hundred paces from the town gates, and only because a rough hand took her by the shoulder.
“Elsie, lass, don’t go.” It was Marshal Balliol, his hair slick against his aging face.
Elsie nodded. “I don’t know where to go.”
“I do,” Balliol said. “Look at me. C’mon.” She did, and he gulped. “You dropped your bow.”
Elsie blinked and saw her bow in his free hand, splattered in mud. When had she done that?
Balliol sighed, his great shoulders rolling heavily. “I knew what Heath was up to. I knew but I didnae want tae say. You had eno
ugh to be getting on with.”
Elsie nodded again.
“I’m sorry, lass. But there’s hope yet.”
“Hope?”
“Aye,” Balliol said, pointing towards the open gates. “See that Chevalier there? He’s come to make us an offer.”
Elsie must have walked right past him before. Now she was slowly coming to, she did see the mounted knight clad in steel from head to foot, his horse caparisoned in rich fabric that most families couldn’t have sold themselves to afford.
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said and had half-turned when Balliol caught her arm.
“I think you’ll want to hear him out.”
They trudged back to the gates, and Elsie was surprised when he trotted halfway out to meet them. He didn’t have the grace to get down from his horse, though.
“Huntress Elsie?” the Chevalier said.
She raised an eyebrow. “Speak.”
“Our king requests your presence in Brevia. Hunters have proven useful in the recent war, and a more formal organisation of your kind is clearly favourable. Your name has repeatedly reached his ear, and he hopes you will be instrumental in building the institution.”
“Useful?” Elsie said. She could hardly believe the man’s arrogance. Without the hunters, humanity would have been crushed months ago.
“Indeed,” the Chevalier said, perhaps not registering her tone. “And you, Marshal Balliol. Do you accept the king’s invitation to the post of General?”
“That desperate, is he?” Balliol laughed.
The knight did not respond.
Balliol cleared his throat. “Aye. I accept.” Elsie threw Balliol a reproachful look. He shrugged. “What? D’you expect me to turn it down?”
“You’ll just leave?” Elsie said. “Just like that?”
“It’s a good lot for me,” he said. “And though I was on Heath’s side at first, I’m not sure I like what he’s become. What he’s done. You deserve better than this.”
Elsie considered as best she could with her head still swimming. She might as well have been making the choice after two sleepless nights. Yet what choice did she have? She could keep wandering the way she’d been going to who-knew-where, throwing her possessions into the swamp, trying to rid herself of her memories until there was nothing left. But it wouldn’t work. She’d carry this day with her always, but it would be no help to Aleck if the dragons returned and they were unprepared. Perhaps if she rose high enough, she could speak to the king on the matter.
Or maybe it would be best to let him go. Heath was right, after all. It would be better for him not to be raised with folk whispering behind his back.
The Chevalier sniffed. “What say you, huntress?”
Elsie made up her mind. She grasped her bow, pulled it from Balliol’s grip and slung it over her shoulder. “Tell the king that Captain Elsie is on her way.”
The End
From the Author
Dear Reader,
I sincerely hope you enjoyed Elsie’s story. This collection is themed on ‘lost lore’, the forgotten stories from our main series worlds. The events of Elsie’s tale are set about 700 years before my series, The Dragon’s Blade. This war between humans and dragons is well remembered by those living in the present day. Dronithir becomes a legend, but not Elsie. Her tale is lost to time, but her impact is nevertheless huge. The hunters grow into a major force for humanity and though the two races unite against a new threat, bitter memories from past conflicts remain.
My main series switches the perspective to that of the dragons, specifically their prince, Darnuir. He is arrogant. Scornful. Full of pride. And cares nothing for the damage he’s doing to the faltering alliance against the demonic forces of the Shadow. He thinks himself invincible - right up till a mortal wound forces him to undergo a dangerous rebirthing spell, leaving him a helpless babe in human hands.
He has to uncover the secrets of his past, seek redemption for his sins, and rally the disparate races if they are to survive.
Only Darnuir can do this. For he’s the last member of the
royal bloodline and only he can wield the Dragon’s Blade…
If such a fast-paced epic sounds like your kind of reading, then you can follow the links below to Amazon.
Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WRVZLJ2
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WRVZLJ2
For those taking the plunge into The Dragon’s Blade, you have my thanks and I hope you enjoy!
Michael R. Miller
9
The Prisoner
Phil Tucker
Enderl had never felt so alive. Alive, and terrified, elated and wanting to puke. His whole body thrilled as if he were about to lay down with a woman, yet before him lay only a battered tower and a meadow trampled into mud. About him stood grim, powerful men beneath the standard of the Black Wolves. His sword was weightless in his hand, and he felt his soul swell within him, an incandescent ecstasy. This is what it means to be alive, he thought. To stand with blade in hand, prepared to kill for the glory of the Ascendant.
Orin the siege master let out a warning cry, and Black Bess’ neck swept up, followed by the equally long sling from whose cup flew a dozen muddied heads. Enderl’s guts cramped as he watched the heads sail through the slate-gray sky, turning and tumbling to bounce pathetically off the tower’s ruined face. Some of them, however, found their mark and flew inside.
“Listen close,” said Ser Haug, his voice a breathy whisper. The gaunt knight closed his eyes and held up a finger, as if stilling conversation so that he could better hear. Moments later the cries of rage and dismay floated across the muddied field to Enderl’s ears. Anguish. Raw and terrible.
“Picture it,” said the knight. “Cooped up in that tower after three weeks’ assault. Ankle-deep in your own waste and filth. Rats pulsing along the edges of the walls. The reek of wounds gone bad. The taste of despair held back but for one, solitary hope.”
Enderl stared fixedly at the tower. The silence that followed the cries ached with its own bleak import. They finally knew that no help was coming. No reprieve from this siege. The tower was battered nearly to the point of collapse. Had the head of Lord Jauris’ son sailed through a hole to land at his father’s feet? Was the man even now cradling that bloodied horror?
“Movement at the portcullis,” someone said.
This was his moment. His chance as their future leader to set a pious example. Enderl stepped forward, breaking ranks, and lowered to one knee, sword before him.
“What the Black Gate’s he doing?” asked one of the Wolves.
Enderl closed his eyes and pressed the crossguard to his brow. “Life obeys no dictum,” he said loudly. “Life defies. It spites. It glorifies and rewards.”
“He’s fucking praying,” said a knight off to his right.
“It is our privilege to live,” said Enderl, face burning. Would any of them join him? Couldn’t they hear the beauty in the words? “And we can expect no more. Of all the dross matter in the world, we are gifted with life, and for that we must be eternally grateful -”
A clod of dirt hit the back of his head. Shock filled him like the flash of lightning, and he overbalanced and fell forward. Laughter, raucous like the cries of crows. Enderl pushed himself upright. He felt helpless with fury. Should he continue praying? Turn and curse them? Tears filled his eyes, mortification, and he suddenly felt just like the child they no doubt saw him as.
Shaking, he pressed the crossguard to his brow once more. “We must be eternally grateful, even as we are crushed, as we are broken, as we are maimed and crippled and felled by violence or old age.”
The squeal of rusted metal filled the air, and the Black Wolves roared. The portcullis was rising like the skirt of a withered hag grimly intent on displaying her goods.
“For the Blac
k Wolves!” roared Ser Berchold. “For Lord Kyferin!”
Enderl scrabbled to his feet, but Wolves rushed past him like boulders rolling down a mountain. Shoulders slammed into his own, and he fell to his knees in the mud.
Gasping, furious at himself, he wrestled free of the mud’s grasping suck and ran after the Wolves. His father had promised him the vanguard for his first battle; now here he was, back with the damn squires!
Enderl lengthened his stride and ran after the knights, armor clanking, his youth finally paying dividends as he caught up with those at the rear. The tower loomed above them, and screams and the clash of metal sounded from the front.
The charge slowed, stopped. Enderl hesitated, then jogged along the back of the massed Wolves, trying to find a crack through which to reach the front line. Screams, harrowing and visceral. The Wolves before him heaved back and forth like the tide, connected somehow in the heat of battle, attuned to each other, pushing forward to crush their enemy.
An enemy knight broke through the far-right flank. He staggered forward, blinking, his helm dented, the visor knocked askew so that Enderl could see the man’s pale visage. Eyes a shocking blue, bloodless lips beneath a florid mustache. A tall man, powerful, twice Enderl’s age, his blade nocked and bloodied.
Kill him. Cut him down!
Instead, Enderl extended his sword so that the trembling tip rested at the man’s throat. “Do you yield, Ser Knight?”
The man blinked again, swayed, and made no answer. Had he not heard? Enderl repeated himself, shouting now over the din of battle. “Do you yield?!”
To Enderl’s horror, he saw tears gather in the knight’s eyes, saw them brim and then overflow. The knight let his blade fall and nodded.
“Then I declare you my prisoner, and on your honor as a knight, command you to offer no further resistance.” There was more to it, but the lines fled his mind. This man was his. Who was he? How much would his ransom be worth? “Move to the back and wait for me there!”
The knight staggered past Enderl, who turned, heart hammering, and saw that the battle was over. The Wolves had closed into a tight fist around the last remaining survivors, and were hacking them apart like mindless butchers cutting down swine.