Adrian

by Heather Grothaus

  “I would be grateful,” Adrian accepted. He glanced down at the lad, unable to help but notice again Edel’s subtly pointed ears. He seemed small for one who possessed such a mastery of language. Adrian was not well familiar with young children, but surely this boy could be no older than five or six years. “How old are you, Edel?”

  “Nine winters,” he said proudly. And then, as if he thought it only polite to return the query, he asked Adrian, “How old be you?”

  “Oh, I am very old,” Adrian said in a grave tone as they neared the common, its balefire still blazing. They skirted the edge of the pit farther from the sea cliff before Edel led the way onto a hilly track that cut across the steep slope beneath the castle. The path was edged with low, thick shrubs, their branches too dense to penetrate even without their foliage. “Thirty-three winters.”

  Edel looked back over his shoulder. “Huh! I would have guessed you at least two score.”

  Adrian huffed a laugh. “And I would have guessed you no more than six.”

  But the boy didn’t seem offended, swiping at the brush as if he brandished an invisible sword as he led the way. “I reckon you haven’t seen many elves, is why.” He glanced back again briefly, his eyes going to Adrian’s right ear. “Although one might mistake you for a piece-blood elf, should they see that.”

  “I was injured,” Adrian supplied easily, finding himself unbothered at the mention of his mangled auricle.

  The boy hopped around once more to walk the path backward, and Adrian was impressed at how sure-footed the lad was. “In a battle, I’d wager. Were you shot with an arrow?” He brought up his arms, aiming an imaginary bow, then let his pretend projectile fly toward Adrian’s head with a whistle of air.

  “It was after a battle,” he allowed, “but no weapon did this damage. I was dragged by a horse.”

  Edel’s tilted eyes rounded. “A horse? Have you ever ridden one?”

  It amused Adrian that the boy was more intrigued at the mention of the animal than the punishing torture Adrian had endured.

  “Of course. My father and brother raised horses at our home in England, and I had several of my own by the time I was your age.” Ahead, Adrian could see the face of the cliff growing, it’s rocky side draped with mosses and vines. “Are there no horses on Wyldonna?”

  “Nay.” Edel hopped around to face forward once more, speaking to Adrian over his narrow shoulder. “There used to be. Lots. Mam says before I was born and the island was large, there were herds. They’ve all gone now.”

  Perhaps the castle wasn’t the only thing that was growing smaller.

  Edel turned to the left, up a short incline littered with loose shards of rock. “I’ll have a horse one day, though. When I go to the Outland.”

  Adrian was intrigued. “You’ll leave Wyldonna?”

  “Perhaps when I’m twelve,” Edel supplied musingly, and then quickly looked over his shoulder. “Doona tell me mam, though. Me brothers have all gone, and she thinks me to be the one she’ll keep.”

  “Why do you want to go?” Adrian pressed. “You seem happy enough here, and the Outland can be a dangerous place.” He reached up to touch his ear unconsciously, but he caught himself and let his hand fall.

  “There’s nae future here for me,” Edel said, his tone becoming one of a much more mature age. “Naught left to hunt besides mice and birds. Naught to explore. Only sea, all around. I dream of forests that never end, and deep lakes with fat fishes you can reach in and grab with your very hand.” The boy mimicked the motion before looking back at Adrian, as if for reassurance. “The Outland has many forests.”

  “Parts of it,” Adrian answered faintly, as he had just caught sight of the man—the giant—standing with his back against the side of the cliff.

  Reid had been truthful; his size was nothing compared to the massive individual the elfin boy was cheerfully leading Adrian toward. Adrian guessed him to be no less than twenty feet tall and perhaps five feet across at the chest, over which arms like tree trunks rested. Like Reid, the man’s skin was mottled yellow, and he had the same thick black hair.

  “Then it’s the Outland for me for certain,” Edel said with finality, as if he and Adrian had just decided a very serious matter. The boy raised a hand to the giant and continued walking toward him even though Adrian had stopped while still a good distance away in order to avoid straining his neck. “Good day, Cairn! Man’s come to see the king.” The boy proceeded to clamber atop the giant’s instep, perching on the rounded toe of his boot. He swung his bare feet over the edge, his spindly arms braced to either side of his thighs.

  The giant tucked his chin and looked down at the lad, who appeared no larger than an insect on that massive boot. “Edel,” he said gravely, his voice like an argument of boulders. “You are not to be about the caves alone.”

  Edel tilted his face sideways as he flung out his arm to indicate Adrian. “I’m nae alone; I’m with Man.”

  Adrian thought the grimace on Cairn’s face might have been an indulgent smile. But then the grimace fell away as the giant’s arms dropped to his sides and he regarded Adrian with a grim expression.

  “Good day, Man,” the giant said, and then he bowed stiffly, an act that seemed to take a full minute. “Forgive my insolence. It is rare that Wyldonna is host to such an esteemed guest. I am Cairn.”

  If the short time Adrian had known Reid taught him anything, it was that giants valued courtesy, and so Adrian returned the man’s bow with one of his own. “Adrian Hailsworth, at your service. I beg your pardon for any inconvenience caused by my unannounced arrival.”

  Cairn’s massive hairy eyebrows rose, and Adrian thought he saw a spark of delight in the giant’s eyes. “It will be my supreme honor to lead you to His Majesty. There is no inconvenience—King Malcolm thought perhaps you might call. This way, if you please.” The giant turned smoothly and ducked into an opening perhaps only a foot or two shorter than the crown of his head.

  Such a large opening would require a large guard, Adrian thought to himself.

  Edel went to his stomach with a joyful whoop, spreading his arms and legs wide and clinging to the top of the giant’s boot as he enjoyed the ride.

  Adrian followed the largest and smallest males he’d ever met into the side of the mountain, his vision temporarily disabled by the intense blackness of the cave after the bland fog of the exterior. But after a moment, the torches lashed to the rocky walls inside normalized his sight, and he saw that they were entering a huge terraced cavern whose ceiling was perhaps fifty feet above Adrian’s head. As he followed Cairn to the edge of the corridor, where the floor appeared to fall abruptly away to nothing, the muffled sounds he’d heard outside the cave bloomed into the echoing noise of industry and construction.

  Adrian came to the giant’s side and looked down over the precipice. The cavern began some fifty feet below his boots, the terraces revealing themselves to be wide, spiraling paths carved from the rock itself, winding to the floor of the mountain. The paths were currently populated with the traffic of scores of individuals pushing carts, dragging skids, hefting large woven baskets filled with unknown contents. Hammering and sawing, chopping and crashing sounds wafted up like fragrances, flavored with the familiar shouts and curses of men well into the task of construction.

  And, as Edel had foretold, several afternhangers lounged about the rim, watching the industry below with apathy. Adrian would have been loath to admit his relief that they seemed to pay him little attention.

  From his own perch atop the perimeter, Adrian saw great wooden skeletons spread out across the floor below, some with rigging and ties for ribs, and wide wooden platforms for skulls. Wyldonna’s folk swarmed over the structures like ants, the hundreds of tiny torchlights heating the bowl and sending up the warm glow of steam and sweat. The far end of the basin was devoid of construction, but the stone was crumbled, large chunks of the wall itself fallen away and lying in a heap on the graveled floor.

  In an instant, Adrian k
new what the king had been building.

  Edel’s excited voice drew Adrian’s attention. “Can I help today, Cairn?”

  “That permission is not mine to give,” Cairn said reproachfully, and then he looked down at Adrian. “If you please, Man.” He turned to his right and started down one of the gentle curving terraces.

  Adrian followed.

  It took him several moments to habituate himself to the spiral of the path without almost falling to his death; in that time, he nearly walked off the unguarded walkway twice, and bounced off the mountain’s wall once, the view of the building going on beneath him so intriguing that he could barely take his eyes from it. But there was a rhythm to the curve, how it sloped and turned, and by the time the trio reached the bottom of the cavern, Adrian thought he could have walked it blindfolded, it was so well-engineered.

  Once upon the floor proper, the skeletons grew to massive proportions, rivaling the great Cairn for breadth and height. Adrian followed the giant and elf through a corridor of sorts between two projects, and he found himself turning on his feet, walking backward, craning his head, trying to see all the things at once.

  “Ah, Hailsworth.” The sound of Malcolm’s voice dragged Adrian’s attention back to the floor, and he saw the bearded man back down a short height of scaffolding, his pipe clenched in his teeth. Malcolm tossed the hammer in his hand onto the lowest platform of the scaffold and then brushed his palms together while Adrian approached.

  Adrian took the king’s forearm in his own. “Malcolm. I must admit I’m quite astounded at the enterprise you have hidden away.”

  Malcolm chuckled and released Adrian’s arm to take his pipe stem from his mouth. “We are nae making children’s slings from driftwood, if that was your thought. Or what Maisie would have you believe. Surely it is she who has delayed your visit to my mountain.”

  Adrian did not wish to discuss the king’s sister at the moment, fearing that Malcolm might somehow deduce what had been going on in his castle between the Painted Man and the woman who had stolen his throne. And so he walked closer to the structure from which Malcolm had just come down, running his hand along the base of the machine.

  “I’ve been searching for the treasure of course.” He looked over his shoulder as Malcolm joined him. “Who designed the trebuchet?”

  “I did.” Malcolm drew on his pipe as he gazed with pride along the long throwing arm of the siege engine Edel was currently scaling. “A pair of Wyldonian brothers—duvenets—left the island to try their fortune in the Outland. They didna care for the place. But their time in captivity gained them this knowledge, and together we replicated the machine in plans.”

  Adrian remembered seeing the entry in the bestiary; duvenets were creatures that could supposedly change their shapes into that of a number of beasts—bear, wolf, fox.

  “In captivity, you say?”

  Malcolm nodded. “Aye. They were mistaken for primitives and taken as slaves for an army.”

  “Their distaste, then, is understandable.” Adrian caught a glimpse through the bones of the dormant trebuchet of a dark-skinned man walking along the cavern floor with a bundle of long hewn boards upon his shoulder. The duvenet met Adrian’s gaze and gave an acknowledging nod, which Adrian returned in kind. “I have seen many trebuchets, and this one appears at least equal to if not superior in construction to the best of them.”

  “Your kindness is well-met, lad. In truth, I never wished for a need of such wisdom, though grateful I am of it now.” He glanced at Adrian from the corner of his eye and gave a sly wink. “And I canna say the building of them hasna brought me some pleasure.”

  Adrian chuckled, feeling oddly at home here in the depths of the mountain with this man who should be king, surrounded by a population of beings whose mere existence was largely unbelievable. Adrian thoroughly understood the excitement and satisfaction that could be derived from constructing a thing of your own ingenuity. He realized that he and Malcolm were little more than a pair of overgrown boys, playing about with wooden bricks.

  Malcolm turned to him fully just then, an eager glint in his green eyes. “Are you keen to see it at work?”

  Adrian’s grin widened, as it seemed the king had just affirmed his thought. “Do elves have pointed ears?”

  The king roared with laughter. “That they do, lad! That they do!” Malcolm clapped his shoulder and then turned away and gestured with his pipe toward the ruined side of the cavern.

  Cairn stepped to the edge of the trebuchet from where he had politely removed himself from earshot and allowed Edel to scamper on to his hand so that the elf boy could be lifted to the giant’s shoulder, out of harm’s way. Then they followed Adrian, who now walked alongside the king.

  The workers busied on the engine Adrian and the group approached noticed the king’s imminent arrival and sprang into action at the wave of his hand, rolling the massive frame to the far end of the floor of the cavern. Tall wheeled carts filled with rock were pushed near the rear of the dormant trebuchet, and several workers appeared to assist without direction, obviously fulfilling roles in which they were well-versed. A short, squat being with a long beard and a round cap ran in a humorous, waddling manner up the pathway from the floor, and Adrian would have chuckled at the sight of him until he turned to look down upon the cavern, revealing his scowling, warty face.

  Troll, Adrian realized.

  The troll cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed into the space, “Ready!” The word robustly chased itself in echo, eliminating the need for the man to repeat himself.

  Back on the cavern floor, two more giants had joined the endeavor, one drawing back the launch arm and locking it into place while the other braced the counterweight. A group of trolls began loading the trebuchet with the rocks from the carts.

  Malcolm nodded to the troll still on the path above, and the little man shouted once more.

  “Firing!”

  One of the giants took hold of the rope attached to the brace beneath the counterweight and pulled.

  The counterweight dropped, causing the launch arm to fly forward with an earsplitting crack. The mountain itself seemed to tremble less than a heartbeat later, as hundreds of pounds of rock smashed into the already ruined cavern wall and exploded in a cloud of pulverized stone.

  A cheer went up from the floor, an echoing roar of triumph, and Adrian was not hesitant to add his own voice to the celebration. The engine had worked perfectly, and it buoyed Adrian’s hope for the success of Wyldonna in defending itself against Glayer Felsteppe.

  “Well done!” Adrian said enthusiastically to the king as the giants rolled the spent machine away. The king was smiling broadly and waving his pipe stem appreciatively at the workers who returned to their duties. “How many do you have?”

  “Three,” Malcolm said, with more than a touch of pride in his voice.

  Adrian nodded and shadowed the king as he began walking around the perimeter of the cavern floor. “What else?”

  Malcolm drew on his pipe and looked at Adrian with a frown. “What else? What else do we need, lad? You saw for yourself the destruction of which only one of them is capable. We have three. Felsteppe’s army willna set boot on Wyldonna come the equinox.”

  “They are fine machines,” Adrian allowed. “But I’m certain you will not be surprised when I tell you that I have come to you this day because I have yet to find the island’s fortune.”

  “Nay, I’m nae surprised,” Malcolm admitted.

  “What if Felsteppe does return with the army he promised? On four ships? Six? Trebuchet are undoubtedly deadly in range, but they aren’t terribly accurate at a distance. They are often used by ships when attacking a sea hold, but rarely the other way ’round for the simple reason that there is a considerable more amount of water to hit than ship.”

  “He could arrive bearing machines of his own, is your meaning,” Malcolm said.

  Adrian inclined his head while he winced. “I doubt it. The type of ship that could carry
a machine of such size is almost never taken in the open water for any length. What I mean to say is that you must have other means of defense if Felsteppe brings soldiers to attack Wyldonna.”

  “Nae man can match an elf with a bow, neither for accuracy nor speed. They shall be posted along the cliff with full quivers.”

  Adrian nodded but pressed further. “What else?”

  Malcolm thought a moment. “I supposed les geants could simply overturn the boats.”

  “Good,” Adrian said. “Have they armor?”

  “Armor?” Malcolm repeated. “They’re giants, lad.”

  “Aye. And a single bee’s sting is naught but a nuisance to most. However, if the hive should swarm upon a man who has intentions for the nest . . .” He let his meaning fill in the remainder of his sentence.

  “We’ve nae means to make mail for such beings on Wyldonna,” Malcolm allowed. “I doona know if any forge would exist.”

  “Wood, then,” Adrian suggested. “Shields, helms?”

  Malcolm nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. “There may be time for that yet.”

  “What of the afternhangers?” Adrian said, glancing up at the cavern’s rim. “Surely their viciousness is of use in protecting the island.”

  Malcolm shrugged with an expression of dismissal. “Afternhangers are selfish beasts. Aye, they are bloodthirsty, but they canna be directed. I will speak with their leader, but I wouldna count on their help. Besides—” Malcolm paused to relight his pipe, puffing on it several times before the smoke again swirled around his head. “Unless Felsteppe makes an outright move to attack us, we canna harm him.”

  “You can do nothing against him? Even when he has threatened you so?”

  “He’s asked for our gold,” Malcolm clarified. “And if it should be found and given to him, and he leaves us in peace, that would be the end of it.”

  “But you believe there is no gold to be found,” Adrian said.