The Brotherhood (The Eirensgarth Chronicles Book 1)

by Philip Smith

  “Whyeghlah,” Woodcarver whispered, and hit the elf a final time. Paige translated him to have said breathe, and she bit her lip.

  “It’s not working,” Woodcarver said, brow furrowed.

  Paige’s heart leapt into her throat. “Try again!”

  “If it were going to work it would have worked!” snapped Woodcarver. “He’s not responding, but I don’t know why.”

  Paige didn’t even hesitate. Her mind rushed back to her mother’s many lessons in the garden terrace about healing and she moved into action. She shoved Woodcarver to the side and positioned herself next to Dinendale’s neck and shoulders. Placing the heel of one hand over the center of the elf’s chest, Paige thrust her other hand on top and gripped her own hand tight. She locked her elbows to straighten her arms and threw her whole body into a compression, trying to get the elf’s chest to move.

  She did this ten times before dropping her ear to the elf’s lips. No air. He still wasn’t breathing. She placed a clammy palm on his forehead and tilted his head back on her lap, trying to get the airways open. Still nothing. She took in a deep breath and pinched the elf’s nostril closed, placed her lips on his, and breathed out slow and steady, trying to force something other than sickly blue water into Dinendale’s lungs.

  Still nothing.

  She tried again and again, but with no different result. Panic gripped her even harder as she tried for a third time, reverting back to compressions when breathing did not work. She thrusted her clenched fists into his sternum until she could move no more. Tears salted her dry lips, and she collapsed onto his chest.

  No shrieking creatures. No bickering Brotherhood. There were only silent tears falling on Dinendale’s once-warm skin.

  “Did you see that?” Broadsides whispered.

  “What?” Jesnake asked.

  “His face moved! Or twitched. Or something.” Broadsides matted hair dripped down his armor as he squatted closer to his fallen comrade.

  “Your eyes are playing tricks on you,” Duelmaster said.

  “Seeing what you want to see,” Robert said. “You were brave little guy, but it wasn’t enough.”

  “No, this isn’t how this is supposed to happen,” Paige snapped. She pinched the elfs nose again and once again went to breath her breath into his lungs, nearly slamming her fists into his chest as hot tears stung and blinded her eyes anew.

  “Paige,” Robert said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She pumped again teeth squeaking inside her head she was clenching her jaw so tight.

  “Paige!” Robert said more firmly his hand now clamped onto her shoulder. “Enough!”

  Suddenly Dinendale coughed. River water poured out of his mouth, mixed with blood. He took several ragged breaths and a few deep-chest coughs, and then opened his eyes. Paige felt the thumping in her ears subside and she grabbed the elf by the shoulder and pulled him up. Dinendale gasped and rolled onto his side vomiting more murky water and bile as he heaved for air.

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” Robert shouted, taking the cork out of his wineskin and handing it to his friend. Dinendale took a swig and sputtered again, wiping his mouth with the back of his drenched sleeve. He looked up at Paige with his soft brown eyes and a half hearted smile.

  “Hey,” he said weakly.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said, this time tears of joy raining down her cheeks.

  He struggled to sit up.

  “Rest,” Woodcarver commanded, keeping him from rising with a gloved hand. “Just lie still for now.”

  “I’m fine,” Dinendale mumbled. “Not half as bad a scrape as getting this princess out of trouble.”

  “You stupid, stone-eared, moronic, deaf, half-drowned…” Jesnake cried. He stood over Dinendale, eyes blazing. “If you had listened to me, you wouldn’t be in this state!”

  Dinendale looked up at his kinsman.

  “It’s nice to see you too, Jesnake,” he muttered.

  The men snickered.

  “You’re welcome,” grumbled a soaking but bright-eyed dwarf. Paige stood up, then knelt to the dwarf’s height, and gave him a big, tight hug. She didn’t care if it embarrassed him. She was just thankful both of them were safe. She let go, and he looked down at his feet, trying to hide the hot, red blush spreading across his face. The men all laughed, and Twostaves slapped a fist on the little man’s back, nearly knocking him off his feet.

  “I owe you one, friend,” Dinendale murmured to the brave little dwarf. “You saved my life.”

  “No problem,” Broadside growled, looking like a drenched cat.

  “You didn’t kiss me, right?” Dinendale asked the dwarf.

  Paige could hear Duelmaster barely contain a burst of laughter as it came out through his nose like a horse snorting.

  “I will do a lot of things for you, Dinendale,” the dwarf heaved, shaking his black beard free of water like a dog. “But I would sooner shove my face in a Hippophant’s dung heap then put my lips on yours.”

  “It was the princess,” Woodcarver offered, and Paige felt her cheeks flush. “You were unresponsive to any magic, and she jumped in and saved you.”

  Dinendale looked up at her, a new gleam of surprise and admiration reflecting off his brown eyes. “Well, then it appears I am also in your debt, princess.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Paige said, trying to combat the heat rising from her neck, threatening to stain her cheeks. “I would have done it for anyone.”

  “Oooh, ouch. Must not have been that great of a kiss!” Duelmaster jabbed.

  “It wasn’t a kiss. It was… oh forget it,” Paige snapped, stomping up to her feet.

  “Easy, princess. We didn’t mean anything by it,” Twostaves assured.

  Paige rolled her eyes.

  “Well then, seeing as we’re all back in decent spirits, I feel I owe all of you an apology,” said Dinendale, wincing as Woodcarver bound up one of his many wounds with a strip of cloth from his satchel. “I was too proud to trust Jesnake. I was so focused on my own drive that I didn’t heed the signs, nor my friend’s advice.” He paused, breath a little shaky. “Can… can you forgive me Jey?”

  “It’s already forgiven,” Jesnake mumbled.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” said Duelmaster, pretending to ponder.

  Twostaves, who was standing beside him, cuffed him in the back of the head. “That’s not funny,” he said in a deep, un-jovial tone.

  “Stinkbug, it was only a joke!” the dryad said, rubbing the bump on his head.

  Dinendale tried a laugh that became a deep, throaty cough spitting up blood. “Oh wow, that… that isn’t good,” Dinendale chuckled morosely.

  “We need to tend to him,” Woodcarver urged. “Otherwise, we revived him only to die of blood loss.”

  “Can’t you heal all this?” Paige asked.

  Woodcarver shook his head. “If he didn’t respond to a simple breathing spell, he’s not going to take any healing spells, either. We’ll just have to bind the wounds and hope he can gather enough strength to move by tomorrow.”

  “You...could just leave me here,” Dinendale said quietly.

  Paige looked at him sharply. “That’s not an option,” she snapped. “Get that idea out of your head this instant, because it isn’t happening.”

  “I’m just saying,” Dinendale muttered but Twostaves cut him off.

  “I’ll carry you if I have to,” the giant said. “Or we’ll build you a stretcher. Were not going to just let you lay here in the middle of the Wild with winter fast approaching.”

  “Here, here,” Dulemaster concurred. “There’s nothing for it, Din. You’re stuck with us!”

  Woodcarver, Robert, and Jesnake volunteered to stay by his side the whole night while the others took turns sleeping, although Dinendale insisted it was completely unnecessary. Paige sat beside him, determined to stay awake through the night with him, but wound up falling asleep at some point in the blackest part of the night.

  When she awoke, she was lea
ning with her head against the elf’s shoulder.

  “How did you sleep?” he asked.

  “Aw, acorns,” she muttered, undoing the braid out of her hair and holding the leather cord in her mouth.

  “I know my shoulder can’t be that comfortable,” he chuckled.

  Paige shrugged, and tied a braid into her hair binding it with the cord.

  “Your hair looks beautiful,” he commented.

  Paige felt the back of her neck feel uncomfortably hot and prickly, like a bad sunburn had sprung up even in the early overcast gloom of a mountain morning, and she tried to stifle the smile that wanted to tug the corners of her lips.

  “Thanks,” she said dumbly, mentally kicking herself. Thanks. What kind of response was that?

  “Are we ready to go?” he asked, standing uneasily.

  “We are!” Broadside shouted out. Paige grabbed the elf’s shaky arm as he staggered several steps

  “But it looks as if you might need a little help,” she said, gesturing to Twostaves. The giant grinned at Dinendale and patted his broad back. Dinendale looked puzzled for a moment, then realization dawned in his eyes.

  “No. I don’t need to be carried like a child,” he started to protest, and then saw the look Paige was giving him. He stopped himself mid-sentence, mouth still opened in protest. “Okay, then,” he said, smiling weakly. “Twostaves, break out the saddle.”

  Chapter 15

  Raven-Heads

  Paige scrambled up a boulder as fast as she could, trying to keep her moccasins from sliding on the moss. The sun was out today for a change, unlike the last three since they had left the river. Dinendale was walking now with the help of a crutch Woodcarver had whittled out of a tree branch for him, and they were all in much higher spirits the further into the Raychels they traveled. Everyone could feel that they were closing in on their destination.

  “I can’t wait till we get to go downhill for a change,” Broadside huffed as he crawled his way up several boulders ahead of Paige. She stifled a giggle when the sight of him struggling to clamber up the rocks reminded her of a toddler trying to climb stairs on all fours.

  “Well, since our journey has been mostly uphill and our luck downhill,” Duelmaster chirped, “perhaps when we start going downhill our luck will go up?”

  “I don’t think that’s how that works,” Robert held out a hand to Paige, helping her up the next boulder. She took it graciously.

  “Hey Duely,” Twostaves said, “how about a couple riddles? Or jokes? Might help the time pass faster.”

  The rest of the company groaned, but Duelmaster’s face lit up in eager anticipation.

  “Very well,” he said, cracking his knuckles and choosing a punch line.

  “Twostaves,” Robert hissed through clenched teeth, “I am going to hit you so hard, it will make your breakfast come back up and slap you in the face.”

  “Did he have milk for breakfast?” Duelmaster asked.

  “No, just a brick loaf,” the dwarf said.

  “That’s a relief,” Duelmaster said, wiping his brow with his hand. “If Robert did hit him with dairy in his stomach, it could have been an udder disaster!”

  The group groaned, with the exception of the giant, who appeared to find this to be the funniest thing since court jesters.

  “Sweet sassafras, what I wouldn’t give for a glass of fresh, chilled milk right about now,” grumbled Broadside. “Or a nice wedge of sharp cheese on toast!”

  “Oh me, oh my, I could go for a biscuit with tartberry jam,” Twostaves moaned, licking his lips.

  “No use dreaming about that which we haven't got,” Robert scolded. “You’ll only get yourself hungrier and we’re almost out of Impasca meat as it is.”

  It was true. Even with cutting back rations significantly, a troop of eight people was a lot of mouths to feed, and game had become more scarce the further into the Raychels they got. Yet the men always made sure Paige ate first and would refuse nourishment until she had finished her entire allotted portion.

  She had grown very fond of each of them, although she’d never admit that to Broadside or Twostaves. They all treated her as if she were The Queen of Eirensgarth instead of the orphaned chieftain's daughter she was. They all did their best to see that she was taken care of, and the fact that they were helping her at all was still unbelievable. She wouldn’t have traded these friends for a regiment of soldiers.

  When they came to the crest of a small ridge, Woodcarver said, “Let's take a rest. We can spare an hour or so since we made good time yesterday.”

  No one objected as they all dropped their packs and lay about on the pine needle carpet of the forest floor. All except Dinendale, who said he prefered to keep his limbs stretched out.

  “I’ll go down the gully to that other small ridge,” he said, pointing to the next ridge. “Can’t see anything past the trees on it. Might give me a peek at what we’re up against till sundown.”

  “But if anyone needs a rest it’s you!” Paige insisted.

  The elf shrugged. “I’m sure if I need to I can stop between here and there princess. I might even make it to the top before you all have finished your little kip.”

  Paige opened her mouth to protest again, but Duelmaster reached out and touched her arm.

  “It’s fine Din, we’ll catch up with you,” he said with a soft smile.

  The elf nodded and hobbled off on his makeshift crutch, the soft thudding of his boots muffled by the pine needles as he made his way down the gully.

  “He has to be more careful,” Paige insisted, watching the tall elf hobble down the steep ravine. “He’ll drive himself straight into the ground if he keeps this up.”

  “You’ll be hard pressed to stop him, I’m afraid,” Duelmaster said, pulling out a thin strip of jerky and ripping it off with his teeth. “He’s stubborn, he is. Getting him to quit when his mind is on something is like trying to pull a boulder up that mountain with a sled of rabbits.”

  “Has he always been like that?” Paige asked.

  Duelmaster grimaced. “In a way. He didn’t used to have this much of a hero complex, though.”

  Paige thought for a moment. “What changed?”

  The crew sat in silence, no one moving to answer her question. She scanned their somber expressions and looked back to Duelmaster.

  “Duely, what happened?” she asked again. The dryad’s normally chipper, sparkling eyes were filled with an unspoken pain. Paige had never seen this side of Duelmaster, and she felt an ache of empathy poke at a lump in her throat as she swallowed.

  “She might as well know,” Robert said, laying his head back onto his pack and closing his eyes.

  Duelmaster shrugged, taking another ripped morsel from his jerky strip. “There used to be seven of us,” he said softly. “We lost one about two years ago.”

  “What was his name?” Paige asked.

  Duelmaster smiled a sad, somber smirk. “Elathia.”

  “But that’s a-”

  “Aye, a girls name,” chuckled Duelmaster. “Guess it’s fortunate for her she was a girl, otherwise it would have been rough life.”

  Paige let that information sink in while Duelmaster continued his story.

  “Din used to be quite the joker actually, believe it or not,” Duelmaster laughed. “And Elathia was one of the best archers I’ve ever known. She gave Jesnake a run for his money a couple times. The two of them had come north seeking adventure. Somehow we all accidentally wound up friends and banded together. Our goal was to do what we could to help the frontier settlements keep their freedom as the Shahir’s armies pushed west.”

  “Were they close? Din and Elathia?”

  “Oh, they did everything together, those two. Grew up together, you know. She had these eyes: soft, dark brown, almost sable. They were so big and beautiful that they could persuade you to do something you didn’t want to do, like gut her deer for her or weed the herbs.”

  Duelmaster smiled as images of past moments flashed throu
gh his mind. “One day, Elethia volunteered to take hunting duty for one of us. When she didn’t return by nightfall, we went out looking for her. We all figured she must have bagged a heavy one or else gotten lost somehow. Turns out it was neither; we found her broken bow in a trampled area of the forest. Thought it might have been a stampede or a wolf pack, but we found a dead Shauden soldier off the path with one of her arrows in his gullet. Never went down without a fight, that girl.” His voice trailed off before continuing. “We followed that path and found a small outpost several leagues away. We tried our best to plan an effective strategy to infiltrate the small outpost but we took too long trying to lay plans and even as we conspired to break her out, she was taken to the encampment where Aschin was being built.”