by Eden Winter
“My lady, we haven’t much time,” the werewolf said.
“Don’t you think I’m aware?” Dende snapped back. She almost stopped to offer an apologetic glance at the wolf man, but she continued to walk in somber silence.
‘Did elves and werewolves know each other?’ Adam thought to himself. He couldn’t recall Kainen ever telling him about any encounter with werewolves.
“I want to move as quickly as I can. I must make sure his majesty is being well taken care of first. And I must…” Dende started. They had made it to the king’s chamber. Dende had been dragging the king’s mighty sword with her, and as delicately as she could, she placed it on one side of the king’s bed. They lowered the king onto his bed next to his sword and removed the stretcher from underneath him. He hadn’t stirred once, but Adam had been checking frequently to see if the king had been breathing.
“And I must keep Adam informed,” Dende finished when the king was safely on his bed. Adam hadn’t noticed how cold it was in the king’s chamber until that moment. There was nothing but stone around him. The fire that had been burning in the fireplace was almost out. There was nothing but dying embers crackling in the fireplace and cold all around them, and Adam could sense that the tears were coming. He refused to show any kind of weakness around Dende. She barely liked him as it is.
“We don’t have much time. We have sent for some nurses to care for the king. I have sent for my father to bring some blue lava to sustain him, and the scales and crushed spine of a mermaid and some herbs from the forest to later revive him. They may keep him alive, but they will not save him,” Dende was speaking almost too quickly for Adam to comprehend.
The other three soldiers who had carried the king were already working on adding more wood to the fire.
“But what happened?” Adam said once more. He was exhausted. He had been awake for days waiting for the king, and it had finally caught up to him.
“The golden strings of the wraiths,” Dende said. “Two of them had captured the king. His soul was being fought for, and so much of it was lost that it’s a miracle we managed to save him at all. You must stay here. You must learn from my father, and you must be here when the king awakens. He will want to see you.”
“What will save him, Dende? You said that what your father will bring is gonna keep him alive, but what is it that will save him?” Adam asked. He didn’t want to sound as frantic as he was. His eyes traveled the room, checking the king’s breathing and then ensuring the fire had been relit, looking to see if the werewolves had any answers, and then to Dende who had been the only one willing to speak to him.
“Something that we cannot get here,” Dende said.
“Where can we get it?” Adam breathed.
“Well, I plan on going to retrieve it. It is to the southernmost part of the forest. It is the only thing that can save the king, and it must be done. This journey may take me a month, and that is all the time we may have to save him,” Dende said. Adam stopped darting his eyes around and finally settled on Dende. Did she sound… afraid?
“The forest? What’s there?” Adam asked. He couldn’t believe how little he knew about the realm that he lived in.
Dende looked at the wolf with the brownish-gray fur. He was standing closer to the entrance of the king’s chamber as if he was ready to leave. The other wolves were on the three sides of the king’s bed, keeping watch over him.
“What is it that you need from the forest?” Adam asked the question again.
Dende took a big swallow, and her almost-white eyes stared at Adam so fiercely that he felt it was possible for him to catch on fire. Dende finally opened her mouth to speak, afraid of what she was about to say, probably more afraid because what she feared in her mind would possibly soon become her reality.
“I don’t want to upset you. I just want to understand. I know you don’t like me…” said Adam.
“I don’t have to like you, my Lord,” Dende spat. “The only thing that I have to do is to protect my king. Your constant questions are preventing me from doing just that.”
Adam’s shoulders hunched. She was right. Every time he asked her a question, she had to stop to answer him when she could be on her way to retrieve whatever it was that she needed from the forest.
Dende let out an agonized sigh. She hadn’t meant to snap at him, but it was true that she never had positive feelings about Adam. She rarely had positive feelings about anyone. Dende trusted so few that anyone around her could be a potential threat. She needed to keep her wits about her at all time.
She glanced over at Adam who was now quiet. He was gazing at the king and holding his hand. Dende raised her eyes to the ceiling and then closed them. She had to tell him something. He clearly cared about the king if he was this involved in his recovery.
“Ragana,” Dende said. Adam looked up at her, not knowing what it was that she was talking about.
“In order to save the king, we will need the help of the witches.”
Chapter Six
The Knight and The Rook
For the first time in her life, Dende was worried. Truly worried. She had waited for her father to arrive at the king’s chamber before making her way into her own home for new armor, arrows, other weapons, and potions. Her father had already blessed everything that she had owned, and she knew that she was a brilliant warrior. If anyone was going to save the king, it would be her.
She only hoped that it would not come down to a battle. She refused to bring an army with her. Yleinen no doubt protested on their journey back to their citadel, but he was far too weak now to stop her or consider following. Besides, Dende knew that Yleinen would be needed in the kingdom. King Kainen had not yet woken up for him to tell Dende that she was making a big mistake. He would have tried to convince her that in time he would recover and she would not need to risk her life. But she knew that she did. She knew that Yleinen was wrong, and if the king woke up then he would have been wrong too.
Both men were brave; she had known that since they had been children. Brave, but inept in some cases.
If Dende had taken an army with her like Yleinen had suggested, an army would seem like a threat to the cave trolls and the witches. They would all be wasting precious time trying to convince the other that either they meant no harm, or in fact they meant to kill everyone in their sights. Besides, how many were needed to carry a witches’ potion back to the citadel?
This was something Dende felt she had to do alone. Even though she would have preferred to go by herself, she still needed a guide to lead her to the forest. She was probably the fiercest warrior among the mountain elves, but she had not braved going into the southernmost part of the woods by herself. She had always wanted to trek through and discover a cave troll or a witch, but when she was a young elf, no one had been brave enough to go with her, and her father Guiden scolded her fiercely for even attempting such a thing.
Her father had told her that witches were nothing to be trifled with. They possessed a magick that not even Guiden had been able to understand. As one of the oldest elves, he was perhaps one of the few elves—if not the only elf—that had encountered a witch and lived to tell the tale. He was old enough to remember a time when the witches had not become secluded, but it was still long after the witches’ allies from the volcanoes had become extinct.
The taboo of the place and who resided there had made Dende all the more curious, and that curiosity had turned into a slight fear as time went on.
Dende eyed the companion who lumbered behind her. Siluman was leading a horse of his own and occasionally sniffed the air around him to take in his surroundings. She wouldn’t need an army with a fierce werewolf as a companion. He was probably the size of both of their horses combined.
Siluman and three other werewolves had been the ones to save them on the beach. It was still a blur to Dende. She was sure the battle would have been lost, but the wolves had come out of the forest and started to attack the wraiths. It was Siluman himself that had
saved the king. The wraiths and the sea creatures retreated.
There weren’t that many elves on the beach left alive. Of the original one hundred that had gone with the king through the woods, up the coast, and to Queen Veri’s castle, a mere seventeen had returned to the army that was awaiting them on the edge of the valley.
“The moons have almost waned…” Dende was terrible at trying to make small talk. She had been raised as a knight and knew few things other than how to wield a weapon, how to track, how to read those around her, and how to make a few potions and spells that her father had taught her. He had never showed it, but Dende could tell that her father was disappointed she had chosen to become a knight rather than a shaman like he had done.
“Can you choose to remain a wolf man once the suns arise?”
“I must remain as a wolf during the cycles of the full moons,” Siluman said. He looked up at the sky. There was a large full moon directly above them. It was close enough that the world around them was almost as bright as the day. The moon behind it had begun to wane, and the moon even further behind that was a barely visible crescent.
“Once the large moon is no longer full, I return as a man, but I can transform into a wolf for a short period of time until the next full moons in the next month.”
If they continued this way, it would take almost two weeks to travel around the western edge of the forest, along the mountains, and then to the caverns where the cave trolls resided. Dende had not yet come to a decision of whether she wanted the cave trolls to become aware of their presence or if she preferred to sneak into the forest before reaching the caverns in order to meet with the witches directly.
“And which part of yourself do you prefer?” Dende asked. She was walking beside Siluman as they descended the mountain. Once they were safely on flat land, she was going to ride as quickly as she was able to. She could not lie and say that she hadn’t been weakened by the battle, but where anyone else could have complained, Dende was ready for whatever came next. Her father Guiden had said it was because she was so stubborn, but Dende told him that it was because she was loyal and dedicated. He couldn’t deny that.
“What part of yourself do you prefer?” Siluman challenged. “Do you prefer the eyes that you use to see, or your hands that carry your arrow and bow? And what about your legs? The part of me that is man is as much a part of me as that which is wolf, and I do not prefer one or the other.”
“I’m sorry,” Dende said.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, my lady,” Siluman replied. His voice was still so deep in this form. Dende knew that in just a few days he would return to his human form. She wasn’t sure what to expect of him then.
“You may call me Dende,” she said. She could feel her brown cheeks becoming hot. No one had called her their lady before, but Siluman had since when they had first met in the forest. That felt like a lifetime ago. So much had happened, and so much had been lost.
“Yes,” Siluman said with a gruff nod. His horse huffed beside him. The creature was carrying a large satchel of armor and weapons for when Siluman had returned to human form and would be able to wear them. Dende wasn’t sure if he even knew how to use a sword, but she was certain there was no way he knew anything about archery. Archery was almost a natural gift of the elves.
“And why did you ask me to follow you on your quest into the forest, Lady Dende?”
Dende didn’t feel like correcting him. She was almost flattered that he still wanted to call her ‘lady.’
“You are the one who met us in the wood. Last I had known, the wolves were in allegiance with the vampire queen. You protected us in the forest, and you saved us by the sea. I could not go with another elf; they would have been too afraid and would demand that a whole fleet join us. But you… You were the one who saved the king himself. Either that means you are extremely noble, or that you have an agenda that I have not quite pieced together. If I can trust you, then you may live. But if this is part of a bigger plan to destroy the king and my people… then you will be the first to die.”
Siluman laughed, and Dende shot him an angry look. Nothing she said had been funny.
“Lady Dende, if that were the case, I would have let you and the king die right there on that beach. Why prolong his agony or yours?”
Dende hadn’t quite thought of that. She had taught herself to be skeptical of everyone. There were only a few elves that she had trusted with anything.
“It’s possible that you needed to come to our kingdom. Once there, you would have proven trustworthy to my people. Going now to the forest may bring a brief friendship with the trolls and the witches of the wood. The more allies, the more easily it is for the vampire queen to destroy the realm.”
Siluman tilted his head slightly, as if to say that that was a possibility. He still looked like he was smiling. Dende was able to tell by the look in his eyes.
“And what does the queen have to gain from destroying the realm? Every faction of this realm has lived in a tense sort of peace since the incubi and succubi died out. The volcano-dwelling elves, as well,” Siluman pointed out. He was not being completely honest with her. He knew that Queen Veri had asked him to protect King Kainen once he reached the forest, but Siluman did not know for what reason. She wanted to protect the king on his journey to her castle, but after she had met with Kainen, he had said that it did not matter that he lived or died when he was making his way back to his own kingdom. To Siluman, that meant that whatever qualms she had had, she had them with King Kainen directly. There was no immediate risk to the elves or any of the people in the other kingdoms—at least not yet.
Siluman did not want to speculate, and he wasn’t going to share his thoughts with Dende. She seemed worried as it was. The best that he could do now was to help her on her quest and save her king.
“Sometimes, one’s gain simply means the destruction of the others,” Dende said. She was right about that, but she also didn’t know Queen Veri at all. Siluman did.
“Why would your king request a meeting with the vampire queen?” Siluman asked.
King Kainen had said nothing about his meeting with the vampire queen. Dende had asked him, but he had only warned her not to ask him again. There was an urgency now, and Dende needed to know what had been said. If there was a war coming then only the king himself knew about it, but she needed him strong so that he could lead his people. If the vampire queen was readying an army, then they were more than likely already on their way to the elves’ kingdom by now. There was not much time to prepare or to act. Dende’s goal was to save the king in order to save everyone else.
“Siluman, I believe there is something that our rulers are keeping from us. I do not know if it is something to fear or something to prepare for. Regardless of which, I am one who always likes to prepare.”
“You would make a marvelous ruler, Lady Dende,” Siluman growled. One side of his snout raised in what Dende could only assume was another smile. A few of his teeth and his large fangs were visible, yet Dende wasn’t afraid of him at all. She smiled back at him despite herself. She was softening towards him—more than she cared to admit.
“And if you are not the leader of your wolves, then I would hate to know of any wolf more noble than you or one who is as fit to rule.”
Siluman thanked her, and the two continued in silence. They were approaching the foot of the mountain. This was where their real quest began.
“Once we are at Kulmahamma, we will set up camp there for the remainder of the evening. We won’t be able to rest for long, but we will need our strength,” Dende said.
Siluman wasn’t familiar with this side of the realm, but he knew that the Kulmahamma Mountain was the shape of a fang. He had been able to see it even when he was living in the forest. He looked to his right and saw a mountain with a peak that was slanted like an upside-down fang. He nodded once to tell Dende that he understood.
They did not speak again until they had reached the foot of Kulmahamma.
> *****
“Lady Dende, Lady Dende, wake up.”
Dende groaned but didn’t turn over. She had become so weak on the journey, and all she wanted to do now was rest. She hadn’t fully recovered from the battle by the coastline, and now she was four days into her journey with Siluman to find Ragan of the witches.
“Lady Dende, please, we don’t have much time.”
Dende’s head jerked upright suddenly. This voice was unfamiliar to her. Her hand was wrapped around the handle of a dagger that she kept on the left side of her armor. Her eyes opened, and she turned her head to see who it was that was speaking to her.
“S-S-Silu?” she asked. Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips after she spoke and blinked several times to adjust to the light of one of the rising suns.
The man standing over her nodded and offered her a kind smile. His hair was not quite brown and not quite gray and was cut surprisingly short. It did not fall down his face or even go below his ear. Siluman’s eyes were a bright forest green with a burst of orange, and his jaw was thick and cleanly shaved. He must have done it while Dende was still asleep. He was already dressed in armor that Dende could now see was a bit small in some parts. Even in the form of a man, Siluman was large.
“You told me to wake you once the light of day had come,” Siluman said. With a grunt, he helped her to her feet. Their camp was small. They never wanted to draw too much attention to themselves. To be honest, Siluman was now grateful that he could actually ride his horse and not run on all fours alongside of it.
“Where are we going from here, Lady Dende?” Siluman asked when Dende was more awake. She was already packing her things and putting them in her satchel. She looked up at the suns to gauge the direction.
“I’m not sure. What would be wise to you?” Dende asked. She was growing to trust Siluman more and more as the days went on. It felt good to look into a face that was almost like hers.
“You mean, if we travel through the forest now or continue to go along the mountains until we reach the cavern?” Siluman said. He said it more as a statement than as a question.