by Ember Lane
Lincoln watched them all, watched their clear discomfort. A few of the braver ones threw quick glances at him, but none took the knife.
“No one? Will no one fight for their land, their home?” Thremjin demanded.
“You shame us, dark one.” A voice curled around the rock, so soft and delicate when set against Thremjin’s harsh tones.
Lincoln stepped forward. “No,” he said. “You shame yourselves, as I have shamed myself. I should have come to you, introduced myself and asked your permission to share your land, but I didn’t. Thremjin’s right, you should have fought.”
“But you did us no harm,” the words curled out again.
“I could have torn down every tree. Things have to change. I was in Brokenford, and I heard whispers there. War is coming to this land. The aggressor will think the gods favor him, the defender the same, but I’ll tell you this: The gods favor no one. They never have. The time of the elf is done.”
Lincoln’s heart skipped a beat, his mind wondering at the words he had just spoken. He wondered why the knife was still on Thremjin’s palm. He took a deep breath.
“I intend to defend this vale and the valley. I will build one barracks and one training ground here. Its sole purpose will be to defend the fissure. In the valley, they will fill the floor. The calls of the commanders will echo down it.” Lincoln walked to the edge of the plateau. “If you want to help me, then join me. If not, then your fate is in my hands, and I’ll deal with it as I wish.” He hopped off the rock and walked away.
“They won’t come,” Thremjin said, walking in alongside him.
“Too strong?” Lincoln asked.
“You could have slapped them around with a wet crawfish and nothing would have happened. What next?”
Lincoln hesitated, then grabbed Thremjin by the shoulders and turned him. Staring into his narrow eyes, Lincoln wondered why he trusted this elf so. Was it because, in his heart of hearts, he knew this was why he was in this land? Was he here to learn the craft of warfare? “I followed you to find out how I could help Glenwyth, now I seem to have upset every elf in this vale, and I still have no idea how to help her.”
Thremjin laughed and punched Lincoln on the shoulder. “Say, I never got you breakfast. In fairness, you didn’t miss much, bar a platter of fruit. Shall we go sup some ale?”
“And you dodge my question again.”
Thremjin sighed. “I showed you the minute I met you.” Thremjin punched Lincoln straight in the face. Lincoln stumbled back, then his anger took over and he tensed, jumping around and grabbing Thremjin by the throat.
“See,” he said. “I showed you again. You’ve just got to encourage her anger.”
21
Dire News
Glenwyth squared up to Aezal again, holding her staff out hesitantly as if she was unsure whether she would truly use it. Lincoln could see her knees shaking and knew it was not the fear of the fight, rather the fear of the beast lurking within her. Her eyes were wide, and her breaths shallow. Jin was draped lazily over the bow of a nearby tree, already appearing bored with the ongoing exchanges. Aezal swung his staff nonchalantly and took her legs easily away. Glenwyth ate dust again. She pushed herself up and crouched, her manner much the same despite another humiliation.
“No, no, no,” Jin eventually shouted, hopping off his perch. “You’ve got to coax her dark side out. You've got to encourage her anger.”
Thremjin had insisted they use his nickname, and Lincoln had seen why, as the dwarves had struggled to pronounce the full name, and after only a few mugs of ale too. The dark elf had fit in with the dwarves straight away, and even Aezal, who was normally wary of strangers. The few settlers that now frequented the bar had accepted him as one of their own too. It was almost like he’d been part of the group from day one. He’d borne no elf-malice toward Crags either, something that the gnome was not used to. In many ways, Lincoln thought, they were both outcasts. He was pleased the elf had fit in. He had an edge, one that Lincoln knew they would probably need, and soon.
“She’s got to feel rage. Something like this should bring it out.” He walked straight up to Lincoln and kicked him right in the balls. Lincoln doubled over, and his face was then greeted by Jin’s boot. Glenwyth howled in anger, and immediately attacked the dark elf. Jin glanced over his shoulder as she rushed at him and sent her flying with a back kick. Aezal growled, ever protective of Lincoln, and swung his staff at the dark elf. But Jin was wise to that too and rolled straight to his left, kicking out at Lincoln for good measure and toppling the already unsteady man.
Jin sprang back on to his feet, twirled his staff above his head, ready to confront the three of them. A large smirk grew across his face, as if he’d decided he was superior to them all, and was now reveling in it. He received the tip of Aezal’s staff in his gut for his boasting, the warrior having none of his gloating. Jin doubled over, gasping for air. Glenwyth was on him in a flash, her staff cracking down on his back, and her legs then swiping his own from under him. She pounced, pinning him to the ground with her knees, raining down blow after blow until her fists were soon smeared in his blood.
Aezal tried to pull her off. Lincoln forced himself up and staggered over, wondering what the hell had just happened. Glenwyth was raging now, but Jin just stared up at her, laughing. “Let it out, let it come,” he said, as she pummeled him.
When Glenwyth’s rage was spent, she pushed herself off Jin and stumbled away. Her tears soon began to fall, turning to sobs of despair. “What kind of monster have I become?” she wailed.
Jin was a bloody mess on the ground. “What you need to be,” he said.
Lincoln wanted to go to her, to console her, and to keep her safe. But he knew he couldn’t have what he wanted because it just wasn’t turning out that way. He wanted the vale to be his idyllic vision, but it seemed the land was rebelling against that dream. Jin had told him, Crags, and the dwarves too, that he’d come to this land at a time of upheaval. He also remembered Finequill’s words, and Allaise and Pete getting run out of Brokenford. He understood that he had to be stronger.
He walked over to Glenwyth but pulled Jin up instead. They walked away, and he left Glenwyth with Aezal. He helped the dark elf to the tavern, and ale provided the elf’s first aid. The sun had only just risen to start the day.
Bethe came over and Lincoln instructed her on what to build next. He was still hell-bent on upping his resource production, but knew he was through the worst of the pinch points he’d encounter when building a viable settlement. He commissioned a forge, upgraded both the town hall and the warehouse. They decided to build barracks and a training ground on the other side of the warehouse. If the elves came, he wanted to be ready. He held back on everything else and spent the rest of his labor on increasing his resource fields. For the first time, he wasn’t too hindered by a lack of reserves, just lumber running short, but he delayed the start of the warehouse upgrade, and got around that.
Sanctuary was still the poor relation. He spent every resource he had on upgrading its mills, mines, and quarries, apart from affording a marketplace—he gave himself that luxury. Forgarth had moved seventy-five elves into the cottages, and so he was just about breaking even on food. He needed to build that city quick. He needed the stone for the walls. He needed the elves to start pulling their weight.
“Second cities,” he muttered to himself. “Always a pain.”
He left Jin with Crags and ambled off to the academy. Researching quarrying was a priority; every batch of rock would help. The academy was its peaceful self, especially after his morning’s start. The quarrying sheet was on the low table, folded like the others had been. He studied it and smirked at its instruction, no more than a devious way to use wood, leather, and water to split a big rock down. He got his bonus and his gold reward for a first research and smirked at that. The land gave and took away, he was going to just have to get used to it.
Then he felt her arms around him, and her head against his shoulder blade.
“He shouldn’t have done that.”
“But it worked,” Lincoln said, and spun around to face Glenwyth.
“When I saw him kick you…my rage…I just don’t understand it, and you’re encouraging it. Why? Isn’t hate bad? Isn’t anger bad?”
“Have you ever seen where Jin lives? He’s not so apart from you. The difference between light and dark isn’t as big as you think. What if I told you that you could use your anger for good?”
“For good?”
“What sparks determination? Everyone needs a bit of anger to forge good. Anger is the seed of resolve; do not mistake it with evil. Power, that is what you need to fear. You yearn for power over your fellow being, and you should ask yourself why. Is it to harm?”
Glenwyth pushed him away. “It is too early for me to understand.” She turned and walked into the forest. “But I have asked myself this countless times since Jin turned and was shunned, since he killed the ogre; has he done anything evil?”
“Did he do anything evil when he killed the ogre?” Lincoln called after her, and then followed. “Or, did he just do it with a little more passion than those around him? Did he see a best friend in trouble, about to be slaughtered by the ogre and just let loose?”
“I don’t…” Glenwyth said, and reached out for his hand. She said nothing more until they were standing on the stone plateau looking at the ogre’s cave. “Maybe I just need to find my ogre?”
“Maybe.” Lincoln grinned. “Shall we?” He hovered his hand over his sack and called for his staff.
Glenwyth did the same and squared up to him. She countered his every strike, and he hers, and though they fought for a while, neither struck any real blows, neither advanced their craft. Eventually, Glenwyth threw her staff down. “Now,” she said, “now I understand how pointless some things are without anger.”
Drawing out his pipe, Lincoln sat and smoked, wincing with every puff. His nose was clearly still sore. Glenwyth was silent, seemingly contemplating her new thoughts, until she eventually pulled him up. “Something is wrong,” she said, and dragged him deeper into the vibrant emerald forest, the morning’s slanting light filling it with wonder.
As they forged farther in, the trees grew thicker, and the forest’s blanketing canopy began to stifle the sunlight. Looking up, Lincoln saw what he thought was a gigantic bird’s nest, and then another, and another. Gray vines trailed from sturdy branches like discarded ropes, and as he looked farther into the canopy’s gloom, he saw frail-looking bridges sagging between one nest and the next. Lincoln quickly understood what he was looking at; this was the elves’ home. Yet he saw no sign of them, and heard nothing but the chatter of distant birds.
“They’re gone,” Glenwyth whispered, looking up. “I thought the forest was silent, too silent. The elves have gone.”
“Where?”
“What did you say to them yesterday?”
“That they had to fight or die.”
“Then they chose another option. They have fled.”
Sadness filled Lincoln’s veins. The thought his words could cause so much harm was a lot to bear, but Glenwyth pulled on his hand, leading him through the tree village. She began to jog, and then run, ranging brambles biting at his arms and legs, and leaves whipping his face. She scrambled down banks blanketed with brown leaves, leapt across lively brooks, and sprinted along paths trodden into the mud. After a while, they started to climb, and the trees thinned and revealed a giant trunk of a truly magnificent oak that crested the top of the hillock.
She scrambled up the trunk as if it were a mere slope. Halfway to the start of its crooked branches, she looked down at him and appeared to become confused. “You can’t climb?”
“I can, just not the impossible.”
Congratulations! Glenwyth has gifted you the skill Climbing. You have been awarded level 1. Trust in yourself, and you can scale any height!
“Look at the trunk again,” she called down, and then scurried on up it.
Lincoln stared at the scaly bark. Slowly, it revealed its secrets. Previously unseen handholds became clearly defined dark lines, knots became footholds, and the crooked branches turned into pathways. Trusting in the land, he started to climb up. Glenwyth had already vanished into the tree’s leafy canopy.
It took Lincoln a good while to catch up with her, and when he did, he realized he’d reached the tree’s crown. Poking his head out, he looked across the vale and at his settlement, over the lake and at his farms.
“Look the other way,” Glenwyth said. “Look toward the fissure.”
When he did, he couldn’t believe his eyes. A trail of black spilled out from it, meandering into the long grass. At first he didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to hope. But then he screamed and yelped and called out, “Gillian!”
Glenwyth hugged him, a smile gracing her face for the first time that day. She started back down the tree, but Lincoln hesitated as he found out something peculiarly unique about the climbing skill: it was much better on the way up. He tried to edge back down, but could see no handhold, no footholds. Glenwyth’s laughter rang out. “You’re doing it the wrong way round. If you want to use the skill, you’ve got to trust the skill” Glenwyth flipped herself around so that she was facing down the trunk. She scampered off like a squirrel.
Lincoln felt sick just looking at her as she sped down. He took a deep, deep breath. Bit by bit, he turned until he was facing the forest’s floor. He froze, the feeling so, so unnatural. With a shaking hand, he let go of the bark and tried to grab a lower hold, then he moved one of his feet, scraping it along the bark until he found another crevice. Then a hand, then a foot, another hand, another step down. Lincoln grinned and sped up. Hand, foot, hand, foot, but the last time his foot touched only air, and then his other foot broke free. He felt his body slew away from the tree.
“Hang on, this isn’t right,” he muttered to himself, and he began to fall. He crashed into a broad bough, wrapping his body around it. Scrambling to get a handhold, he screamed. Clawing, he slipped off the bough, falling through the air, bouncing from one branch to the next.
“Shiiiiiiiii…” he cried, and grabbed a thin branch. He swung from it, but lost his grip, his hand stripping the ever-thinning branch of its leaves as his momentum tossed him out of the tree. “…iiiiit! He was flying through the air, the peculiar thought that he didn’t have the skill occurred to him. Down and down he plummeted. He thumped into a leafy bank, and grunted as the wind was knocked out of him. Bouncing up, he saw he was flying over the top of the hillock. Landing on the other side, he skidded down its bank, carving an earthy scar in the mud and mulch. With a splash, his momentum deposited him in an ice-cold stream.
Congratulations! You have achieved level 2 climbing. You scrambled up that tree like a natural. For tips and tricks on getting down, please consult Wiki. Note there is no Wiki!
He squirmed around in the stream like a wounded animal.
Damage! You have received 40 damage. To prevent damage, open Flying skill. Note: there is no flying skill.
When Glenwyth’s laughter filled the vale, his humiliation was complete.
Glenwyth cleared a circle on the forest floor and placed some stones around it, building a stack of twigs in its center. She soon had a fire going and coaxed Lincoln’s clothes off him and hung them in front of its flames. Lincoln washed in the stream, then took his deadman’s coat out of his sack and spread it on the ground.
It was then she sat next to him, then she kissed him, and it was then the land coursed through his veins. Though he tried, he felt so much for her, and he gave himself to her knowing she needed him as much as he needed her. Once more, he truly felt at one with the land, like it was part of him, like he was living and breathing it. Nothing was more important in those moments, and after, he wondered if his love for Joan had vanished. But this time, knew it was just different now: a memory to be cherished, a memory to be worshiped, but not a memory to bind him, for it was never a chain. He lay on his deadman’
s coat, with Glenwyth, and looked up through the forest canopy at the bright blue sky.
“We should go and welcome Gillian.”
“If it is her,” Glenwyth said, but Lincoln knew it was, because his every feeling was so acute. He felt it like he could see the rock that laid beneath. It was as though he could sense her very feet treading on his vale.
Then Bethe appeared, out of the blue.
“Aaaargh!” Lincoln shouted.
“Aaaargh!” Glenwyth shouted.
“There you are,” Bethe said, looking them both up and down. “I could come back.”
Lincoln pulled the deadman’s coat over them. “No, it’s okay. Something up?”
“You should get back to the village.”
“I know.”
“You know?” Bethe questioned, her little coppery head inclined in confusion.
“I know a load of folks have spilled through the fissure.”
“Seventy-two, to be precise. They have brought some goats and horses, and I believe a few crates of birds.”
“We saw them.”
“And?” Bethe asked.
“And what?”
“What else do you know?”
“Eh?” Lincoln said, becoming confused.
“Did you know, for instance, that Grimble just visited the stone dwarves and is now rushing back with news? Or did you know that Forgarth is scrambling to address some problem or the other, and now Elleren has been dispatched to consult with you? If you did, I wouldn't have bothered trying to find you, nor will I, next time.”
Lincoln and Glenwyth got dressed quickly, put out the fire and started marching back. “Tell me, Bethe, did it take long to find me?”
“I know where you are all the time as you are in the settlement’s sphere of influence. Even when you are traveling quite fast.”
“So, it didn’t take you long to find me.” Lincoln grinned.