A Del Key® Book Published by The Eallantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2002 by R. A.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc. New York, and simultaneously in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
www. delreydigital. com
Endpaper maps by Laura Maestro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 0-345-4)041-7
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition: May 2002
10987654321
CONTENT
Prelude
PART ONE
TO THE EDGE OF DARKNESS
1. First Blood 9
2. The Blood of Centuries 22
3. Walking with Purpose 32
4. Details, Details 38
5. Conflicting Responsibilities 49
6. The Iron Hand of Yatol 57
7. Tymwyvenne 65
8. Trial of Faith 96
9. Dark Solitude 106
PART TWO
GRASSES IN THE WIND
10. Kin and Kind 129
11. The Sash of All Colors 143
12. Pragmatism and Patience 150
13. Never the Horse 155
14. As Graciously as Possible 165
15. Expanding His Horizons 173
16. Her New Family igQ
17. The Grim Reality 288
18. Baiting the Hook 202
PART THREE
ENLIGHTENMENT
19. The Play’s the Thing 223
20. Parallel Journeys 236
21. The Relief of Resignation 245
22. A Chill Breeze on Leathery Wings 253
23. What Agradeleous Wants… 260
24. Ancient Enemies 274
PART FOUR
THE DRAGON OF TO-QAI
25. The Walkaway 297
26. Playing to Their Weakness 306
27. Ghost Town 319
28. With All the Weapons at Her Disposal 334
29. Exacting a Promise 346
30. One Angry Cat, One Clever Mouse 358
31. Her Winter of Discontent 371
32. Hit and Run? 378
33. The Dragon Ruse 385
34. Sacrilege Revealed 392
35. Head-On 401
36. Defensive Position 410
37. To the Bitter End 417
Epilogue 434
PRELUDE
rynn Dharielle looked back over her shoulder repeatedly as she slowly paced her pinto mount, Diredusk, along the descending mountain trail. Though she had only been on the road for a half hour beyond the edge of Andur’Blough Inninness, the enchanted elven valley, the ridges that marked the place were already lost from sight. The mountainous landscape was a natural maze that had been enhanced by the magic of Lady Dasslerond of the Touel’alfar to be unsolvable. Brynn had marked the trail well along her route, but she understood that she would have a hard time finding her way back - even if she were to turn about right then.
This was the first time Brynn had been out of that misty valley in a decade, and she truly felt as if she was leaving her home. The Touel’alfar, the diminutive, translucent-winged elves of Corona, had come to her when she was a child of ten, orphaned and alone on the rugged and unforgiving steppes of To-gai, far to the south. They had taken her in and given her food and shelter. And even more importantly to Brynn, they had given her life purpose. They had trained her and made her a ranger.
And now they were sending her home to find her destiny.
The young brown-skinned woman crinkled her face at that thought, as she continued to stare back along the trail behind her, to the place that she knew to be her real home, the place she would likely never see again. Tears misted in her almond-shaped brown eyes, the sparkling eyes of a child, still, though so much had they seen. Already she missed Aydrian, the fourteen-year-old who had shared some of her training. Many times, Brynn had found the boy to be exasperating, often infuriating. But the truth was, he was the only other human she had seen in these last ten years, and she loved him like a brother.
A brother she would likely never see again.
Brynn shook her head forcefully, her raven hair flying wildly, and pointedly turned back to the trail heading south. Certainly leaving the valley was a sacrifice for Brynn, a dismissal of the trappings and the companionship that had made the place her home. But there was a reason for her departure, she reminded herself, and if the pain of this loss was the greatest sacrifice she would be expected to make, then her road would be easier by far than anyone, herself included, had ever imagined possible.
Her future was not her own to decide. No, that road had been laid out before her a decade before, when the Behrenese Yatol priests and their armies had tightened their grip on To-gai, had abolished almost completely the last remnants of a culture that had existed for thousands of years. Brynn’s road had been set from the moment Tohen Bardoh, an orange-robed Yatol priest, had lifted his heavy falchion and lopped off her father’s head; from the moment Tohen and his lackeys had dragged off her mother, eventually killing her, as well.
Brynn’s jaw tightened. She hoped that Tohen Bardoh was still alive. That confrontation alone would be worth any sacrifice.
Of course, Brynn understood keenly that this journey, this duty, was about much more than personal gain. She had been trained for a specific reason, a destiny that was bigger than herself. She was to return to the cold ‘~ and wjndy steppe? of harsh To-gai, the land she loved so much, and find those flickersj>fXvhat had once been. She, little Brynn Dharielle, just over five feet tall and barely weighing a hundred pounds, was to fan that flicker into a flame, then feed the flame with the passion that had burned within her since that fateful day a decade ago. She was to find the To-gai spirit, to remind her fierce and proud people of who they truly were, to unite the many divided tribes in the cause against a deserving enemy: the YatoMed Behrenese, the Chezru.
If the plan went as Brynn and the elves hoped, then Brynn would be the harbinger of war and all the land south of the great Belt-and-Buckle Mountains would be profoundly changed.
That was the hope of Lady Dasslerond, who rarely involved herself in the affairs of humans, and that was the burning hope of Brynn Dharielle. Liberation, freedom, for the To-gai-ru would avenge her parents, would allow them to sleep more comfortably in their graves.
„We will move down to the east, along that open stone to the tree line,“ came a melodic voice from the side and above. Brynn looked up to the top of a boulder lining the rocky trail to see a figure far more diminutive than she. Belli’mar Juraviel of the Touel’alfar, her mentor and companion, looked back at her with his golden eyes. His hair, too, was the color of sunlight, and his features, though angular, with the high cheekbones and pointy ears characteristic of all of the Touel’alfar, somehow exuded gentleness.
Brynn glanced back once again toward the land that had been her home.
„Keep your eyes ahead,“ Juraviel remarked. „Andur’Blough Inninness is no more to you than a dream now.“
„A pleasant dream,“ Brynn replied, and Juraviel grinned.
„They say that memories often leave out the more terrible scenes.“
Brynn looked at him hard for a moment, but when he started laughing, she understood his meaning well. Indeed, there had been many hard times for Brynn in Andur’Blough Inninness, under the tutelage of the often-stern elves, including Belli’mar Juraviel - though he w
as considered by his kin to be among the most kindhearted of the people. Particularly Brynn’s early years in the valley had been filled with seemingly impossible trials. The elves had pushed her to the very limits of her physical and emotional being, and often beyond those limits - not to break her, but to make her stronger.
And they had succeeded. Indeed they had! Brynn could fight with sword and bow, could ride as well as any of the people of To-gai, who were put on the back of the sturdy ponies before they could even walk. And more importantly, the Touel’alfar had given her the mental toughness she would need to hold true to her course and see it through. Yes, she wanted revenge on Tohen Bardoh - indeed she did! - but she understood that such personal desires could not supersede the greater reason for this journey. She would hold fast to the course and the cause.
Juraviel left that part of the discussion right there, and so did Brynn, following the elf’s gaze to the sloping stone facing he had indicated. Brynn frowned, not thrilled with the angle.
„Diredusk will have trouble navigating that,“ she stated. She looked back to her pinto pony, who stood calmly munching grass and seemed not to mind the saddlebags he carried, full of foodstuffs and bedrolls for the pair.
Juraviel nodded. „We will get him through. And once we cross under the canopy of the trees, the ground will be softer under his hooves and the trail will slope more gently.“
Brynn looked down to those trees, rows of evergreens neatly defined by elevation, and frowned again. The ground down there didn’t look very level to her.
„We will be out of the mountains soon enough,“ Juraviel said, seeing her thoughts clearly reflected on her pretty face.
„Sooner if we had gone straight to the east, then turned south,“ the irascible Brynn had to say, for she and Juraviel had spent the better part of the previous week arguing about this very topic. Considering what Brynn had been told about this mountain range, which ran more north-south than east-west, they certainly could have gotten to flatter ground more quickly by heading to the east.
„Yes, and then poor Diredusk would be running swiftly until he dropped from exhaustion, or until the goblin hordes caught up to us. Or until he mired down in the mud,“ Juraviel said, again with a chuckle. That had been his argument from the beginning, for the lands immediately east of the mountains were far from hospitable, with goblins and swamps and great areas of muddy clay.
„A Touel’alfar and a ranger, afraid of goblins,“ came Brynn’s huffing reply.
„A Touel’alfar wise enough to know that danger is best defeated by avoiding it altogether,“ Juraviel corrected. „And a ranger too proud and too stubborn to recognize that her body, though hardened by our training, is not impervious to a goblin spear! You have heard of Mather, uncle of Elbryan, great-uncle of Aydrian. ‘Twere goblins that struck him down.“
Juraviel started to turn away, and so Brynn took the opportunity to stick her tongue out at him. He looked back immediately, catching her in the act, and just sighed and shook his head, hardly surprised. For surely Belli’mar Juraviel was used to such playful behavior from this one, named by many of the Touel’alfar as the most irreverent - and irresistible - of any of the humans they had ever taken in for training. Brynn saw the world differently from most humans, and had done so even before falling under the demanding influences of the Touel’alfar. Despite the darkness that had found her at a young age, she-^^mained the one with the brightest and most sincere smile, the one willing to solve any problem thrown her way through cun-ning~andL wit as mucra as through disciplined training.
That wasliie^^harm of Brynn Dharielle, and also, to Juraviel’s thinking, it was the strength that would carry her through this, her ultimate trial, where sadness and guilt loomed large in places unexpected.
If anything could.
PART ONE
TO THE EDGE OF DARKNESS
/ cannot begin to explain the tremendous shift that has come to Caer’alfar since the demon Bestesbulzibar left its stain, its growing rot, upon our fair valley. For centuries, we of the People have lived in relative seclusion, peaceful and content. Only the rangers knew of us, truly, and a select few of Honce-the-Bear’s ruling families. Our concern with the ways of the wider world ended with the potential impact any happenings might have upon us. Thus the rangers, while protectors of the human settlements on the outskirts of human civilization, were also our link to that world, our eyes in the field.
That was enough.
Bestesbulzibar has apparently changed all of that. Curing the time of the DemonWar, I was. assaulted by that demon, while transporting some poor human refugees away from the goblin andpowrie hordes. I would have perished in that battle - perhaps I should have! - except that Lady GaSStefoncTamved and took up my battle. She, too, would have perished, but she used her magical emerald to take us back to the place of her greatest power, back to Andur’Blough Inninness, just outside of Caer’alfar. There, Dasslerond drove the demon away, but not before Bestesbulzibar had left its indelible stain upon our fair land, a mark enduring, and growing.
I believe that if Dasslerond had understood the cost, she never would have brought us all back to the valley, that she and I would have died on the field that day.
For then we would be gone, but Andur’Blough Inninness would live on.
That rotting stain has done more than change the complexion of our fair valley, it has changed the perspective of Lady Dasslerond. The Touel’alfar have existed by remaining on the outskirts, passive observers in a world too frenzied for our tastes. We do not involve ourselves in the affairs of humans - how many times have I been chided by Lady Dasslerond and my peers for my friendship with Elbryan andjilseponie?
Now, though, Lady Dasslerond has assumed a more active role outside of Andur’Blough Inninness. She sends Brynn south to free To-gai from the Behrenese, mostly because the nomads of To-gai will prove much more accommodating and friendly toward our people should the demon stain force us out of our home. In that event, we would go south, through the Belt-and-Buckle and across To-gai, to another of our ancient homelands, Caer’Towellan, where perhaps our brethren still reside.
Still, despite the potential gains should that event occur, I am
surprised that Dasslerond has sent Brynn Dharielle to begin a war, human against human. If we were forced to journey southward, we could do so, I am certain, whether the To-gai-ru or the Yatol Chezru Chieftain ruled the steppes. But Lady Dasslerond insisted upon this, as much so as on anything I have ever witnessed. She is truly fearful of the demon stain.
And so she undertakes her second unusual stance, and this one frightens me even more than the journey she has determined for Brynn. She took }ilseponie’s child, unbeknownst to the mother. She took the child ofElbryan and Jilseponie, right from its mother’s womb! True, her action saved the lives of both Jilseponie andAydrian that dark night on the field outside ofPalmaris, for had not Dasslerond intervened to drive away the demon-possessed Markwart, both humans would surely have perished.
Still, to raise the child as her, as our, own…
And the manner of that upbringing scares me even more - perhaps as much as the reason for the upbringing. Lady Dasslerond has plans for Brynn, but they pale compared to her goals for young Aydrian. He will be the one to deliver Andur’Blough Inninness from the demon stain, at the sacrifice of his own blood and his own life. He will become the epitome of what it is to be a ranger, and then, when that is achieved, he will become Dasslerond’s sacrifice to the earth, that the demon stain be lifted.
She has foreseen this, my Lady has told me, in no uncertain terms. She knows the potential of her plan. All that she must do is bring Aydrian to the required level of power and understanding.
But there’s the rub, I fear. For Aydrian Wyndon, raised without the gentle touch of his mother or the love of his father, raised in near seclusion with harsh treatment and high standards from the moment he was old enough to understand them, will not he complete as a man, let alone as a ranger. There w
as a side to Elbryan, the Nightbird, beyond his abilities with the sword and his understanding of nature. The greatest gift ofNightbird, the greatest strength of the man Elbryan, was compassion, was a willingness to sacrifice every thing for the greater good. Nightbird’s gift to the world was his death, when he threw his wounded form fully into Jilseponie’s final battle with the demon-possessed Markwart, knowing full well that he could not survive that conflict, that, in aiding Jilseponie, he would be giving his very life.
He did that. He didn’t hesitate, because Nightbird was possessed of so much more than we of the Touel’alfar ever gave to him - because Elbryan the Nigh third was a man of true character and true community.
Will the child raised alone and unloved he as much?
This is my fear.
- belli’mar juraviel
chapter
* 1 *
First Blood
T
hey were out of the mountains now, and the going was smooth and easy. Diredusk most of all seemed to revel in the softer and flatter ground, the powerful pinto pony striding long and eagerly under Brynn’s expert handling. True to his noble To-gai heritage, the pony could trot for many miles before needing a break, and even then, he was quickly ready to be back on the trail, straining against Brynn’s hold to travel faster and faster.
For Brynn, riding along quiet forest trails on a late-spring or early-summer day was about as wonderful as things could get, and would have been perfect - except that with every passing mile the young ranger’s eyes turned back less and looked forward ever more eagerly. She couldn’t enjoy the ride as much when the destination was all-important.
Belli’mar Juraviel rode with the woman at times, Diredusk hardly feeling the extra weight of the diminutive creature. The elf typically sat in front of Brynn, turned to face the woman and lying back along the pony’s powerful neck. He didn’t speak to Brynn much along the trails, though, for he could see that the woman was falling deeper and deeper into thought about the destination awaiting them. That’s what Juraviel wanted from the young woman; that’s what the Touel’alfar demanded of the ranger. The goal was all-important, because Lady Dasslerond had said it was, and nothing else should clutter Brynn Dharielle’s mind - not the fragrance of the summer forest awakening fully, not the sounds of the songbirds, not even the sparkle of the morning sun on the dewy grasses and leaves.
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