by Matt Heppe
Morin’s hand fell to the floor. “Not lifeless. Just weak.”
“This has happened to you before?”
“Cragor plays with the Orb, but does not control it yet. He explores its power and sometimes cuts it off. I go days or weeks fully touched by the Orb, but then he pulls its grace from me and I am helpless.”
“You have no warning?”
Morin croaked out a laugh. “Would I be helpless on the floor if I had known?”
“It is the same for all of the eternals?”
“I have only spoken with a few. And it is the same for them. We live in fear.”
Nidon thought back to a battle he had been in four months ago. A giant urias had struck him so hard with a war club it threw him five strides. And when Nidon struck the ground he had been unable to move, his hip immobilized with pain and dazed from striking his head.
And all around him had been varcolac and Rigarians and all Nidon could do was lie there, feigning death until his men fought their way to him. Never had he been so helpless and afraid.
“Fear. I’ve never heard that word from you before,” Nidon said. “And never thought I would.”
“Gods, you don’t know the half of it. When Helna’s grace is upon me my power increases tenfold. I am as great an elementar as ever existed.” Morin’s voice was quiet, and he paused to take a shallow breath. “But I cannot use it for fear that in an instant I will be as weak as an infant. And as vulnerable.”
But he thought the risk worth it to come to me tonight. Nidon knelt on the floor near Morin. “Are you uncomfortable? In pain?”
“Not pain as you know it. I feel… anguish that Helna’s grace has been taken from me. I feel weak and humiliated. I fear everything. How is that for an answer?”
“How long will this last?
“Will you help me?” Morin asked, ignoring Nidon’s question. “Will you find Boradin? Only he can save us.”
“I will do it.” Nidon said. But I don’t do it for you.
Chapter Thirteen
Hadde and Calen set off after the Idorians well after dark. She hadn’t wanted to start so late, but Calen had insisted that she rest. She had soon fallen asleep, and Calen hadn’t awakened her until late.
“We’ll strike them tonight,” Hadde said, leading the way with Quickstep at a trot. “We’re behind them. I don’t think they’ll expect us to come from that direction.”
“You shouldn’t draw your bow, Hadde. You’ll only aggravate your wound.”
“Is that what you think?” She turned and glared at him. “Maybe we should go home and let them keep my daughter. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you wouldn’t have to feel guilty about being afraid to kill them.”
Calen’s face darkened. “At least I have a conscience. I think you like killing.”
“Dromost take you, Calen! I hate every moment of it. I’d happily live the rest of my life without killing another person. I do it because I have to. I do it because you won’t.”
Calen rode on in silence. “I can do it.”
“Can you? Because I can’t do this alone.”
“I will do it. I know I have to.” Calen looked away from her as he spoke, his voice distant.
“What’s wrong with you? You killed a Kiremi two years ago when they raided our village. You fought well.”
Calen didn’t respond for a while. Hadde glanced at him to see if he had heard. “I know you didn’t like seeing the Idorian in pain near Long Meadow,” she said, “but it wasn’t like it was your first.”
“I’ve never killed anyone,” he said, finally looking at her. “I never killed the Kiremi. Fend said I did and I never corrected him,” He bowed his head. “I let everyone believe it because I wanted to seem brave.”
Hadde paused at the knowledge. The fighting had been confused, and an archery fight in the woods even more so. “My mother saw you loosing arrows,” Hadde said.
“When you and Belor sent me to warn Long Meadow, I was alone and terrified. The closer I got to Long Meadow the more I feared I would be shot in the back. I ran as fast as I could and as I entered the village I screamed as if the veden were at my heels with fire-whips.”
“But you joined in the fighting after they’d been warned.”
Calen choked out a laugh. “No. I loosed a few wild arrows at shadows. I hit nothing.”
“You shot at the Idorian near Long Meadow.”
“I killed his horse, and even that was luck. My eyes were closed.”
Hadde stared out into the forest ahead of them. The Idorians were still ahead of them, but how far? She thought back to the fight with the patrol in the gully near Long Meadow. Calen had been behind her and she had never seen him take aim or loose his arrow. It had been a very close shot. He very easily could have made it with his eyes closed.
“That’s why you shot the horse in our ambush?” Hadde asked. “You didn’t want to kill a man?”
He didn’t reply.
“You have to separate yourself from what you are doing, Calen. You’ve hunted animals. You’ve killed. You don’t think about their pain.”
“Animals don’t have words or emotions or families. Not like we do. I wish killing came more easily for me. Like it does for you.”
“It’s not easy for me.”
Calen snorted.
“Is isn't.” But the words rang hollow to her. Once it had been hard. But it had become easier. She didn’t want to kill. It gave her no pleasure. She wished she could never do it again. But there was only one death that truly tortured her. It was the Kiremi boy she had killed when the Kiremi and varcolac had raided Long Meadow. Or is it two now? She thought of the boy she had shot as he charged her just days ago. But it didn’t have the same impact. Because he had been attacking? Or because she no longer cared?
She hadn’t wanted to kill either of them. She had even drawn and stopped before loosing the arrow that killed the first. But she had loosed it, while Calen hadn’t. She had done what needed to be done to save Long Meadow. And she would do anything to save Enna, Maret, and Orlos.
“If you can’t shoot a man, you are little use to me here,” Hadde said. It came out harsher than she meant, but she couldn’t help her anger. He was endangering her Enna. Anyone else in the village would have come with her, but she had picked Calen.
“I can do it, Hadde.”
Hadde softened her tone. “Your telling me you can do it is no good to me. I need you to kill Idorians. We need to slow them, to make them feel hopeless. In a few days they’ll be in Salador and I don’t know how we’ll save Maret and the children then.”
“I will do it,” Calen said. “What… what is our plan?”
Hadde met his gaze and nodded. “We will attack in the night and kill some of their sentries. And then we’ll get ahead of them before they depart in the morning. They’ll reach the plains today, and move faster when they do.
“We just have to keep harrying them. We kill men and horses and keep them up all night so that they are fatigued and injured and slow. And then my father and the other Landomeri show up and we force the issue.”
“You hope they show up.”
Hadde stared off into the forest. “They will.”
They rode on in silence for a time.
Even at night, tracking seventy horses was easy. Hadde’s only fear was pursuing too quickly and riding into the sentries or an ambush. With each passing heartbeat she grew more nervous. She knew the Idorians might camp without fires. And if they were quiet, and their horses were on the opposite side of the camp as Hadde and Calen approached, the two hunters could be in great danger.
A few men with cocked crossbows would end the hunt in moments. She hated that they could sit in hiding, motionless, their crossbows ready to shoot. No movement, no draw would give them away.
In the end it was the Idorians who gave themselves away. They had lit cooking fires and made no effort to conceal them. She pulled Quickstep up short when she realized how close they were.
Hadd
e slid off her saddle, Talon in hand. Calen followed her example. Bent low, the two hunters slipped closer to the camp. It was not full dark, the sky was clear and a half moon gave off enough light so that even the night-blind Idorians might see them.
“There, a sentry,” Calen said.
Hadde followed Calen’s gaze. The man stood by a tree, but was facing the wrong direction. He was looking into the camp, distracted by something going on there.
But what was happening? She motioned for Calen to wait, while she crept closer to the camp. The sentry never turned. A second sentry, more alert, stood behind another tree twenty strides to Hadde’s right. Even if she wanted to loose an arrow at him, he was too well protected by the tree.
From her new vantage point Hadde could see well into the camp. She spotted Maret standing near a group of men. It was dark, but Hadde could see that Maret held both children. She thought she could make out Baron Grax, but he was partially obscured by others.
Maret was talking to one of the men, but it was too far to hear any words. She didn’t appear in immediate danger. Two more men joined the group and Hadde’s view of Maret and the children was blocked. Enna was so close, but there was nothing Hadde could do. There were too many Idorians, and they all still wore their armor. At least the children appear unharmed.
Hadde crept back to Calen. The nearby sentry had returned his attention to the woods, but was not looking in their direction. “We’ll take this one,” Hadde whispered. “If he falls silently we’ll try for another. If he doesn’t we’ll run. There’s another that way. Thirty strides.”
Calen stared off in the direction she mentioned and after a moment nodded. Hadde checked her nock and gave her bow a flex.
“No,” Calen said, “I’ll do it.”
“We both should, to be sure he goes down.”
“No, your wound. You watch the other one. See if he notices.”
“One arrow, Calen. A clean shot.”
He wet his lips and nodded. “You see the other?”
“He’s there. Behind his tree. Not looking this way. Go ahead.” Hadde heard Calen shift his weight behind her and start to draw. But he didn’t loose. “Did he move?”
Calen didn’t say anything. Hadde looked away from her tree and glanced at Calen. He had sunk back to his knee, staring at the sentry.
“Now, Calen. This is too dangerous.” He still didn’t move. “I need you to do this. Maret, Enna, and Orlos need you to do it.”
He drew a deep breath and bit his lip, but still didn’t draw.
“I’ll do it,” Hadde said.
“No, I will.” He took another deep breath and raised himself to a crouch as he drew. He stood there, muscles quivering under the strain of full draw and then he loosed.
Hadde was drawing even as Calen’s arrow left the string. He had flinched, but his arrow flew truer than she expected and struck the Idorian in the shoulder. Hadde ignored the pain tearing at her side, and loosed her own arrow. The arrow punched through his mail and aketon and into his chest. It didn’t go deep, but it went deep enough.
“Heg! Heg!” the Idorian gasped as he clutched at the shaft. He staggered back and toppled to the forest floor choking.
“Syn!” Hadde’s eyes snapped back to the second sentry’s tree. He peered out from behind it, staring in the direction of his companion. “Syn, duo los?”
Hadde loosed a second arrow. It struck the man and he fell, but he quickly scrambled behind his tree. “Garde! Garde!” he shouted.
“Let’s go!” Hadde said and they ran for the horses.
A crossbow bolt flew into the forest, not well-aimed, but close. More shouts rang out in camp. Hadde’s wound stabbed her with each stride.
They reached the horses together, but Hadde’s faltered as she tried to mount. The pain in her side was an agony as she tried to pull herself up. Calen was suddenly beside her, pushing her up into the saddle. And then he vaulted into his own saddle and they were off.
They rode hard from the camp. If the Idorians had anyone mounted, they were too slow to take up the pursuit. Hadde reined in after they had ridden a dozen or more arrowflights. “We’ll rest soon,” she said.
Calen didn’t reply. He stared into the forest, back toward the Idorians.
“You did it,” she said. “You shot one of them.”
Calen shook his head. “I missed.”
“Your arrow struck him in the shoulder. I saw it.”
“We were twenty five strides away and he wasn’t even moving. I failed again.”
Hadde turned Quickstep and rode closer to him. The forest was silent in the deep night, with no hint of dawn yet to appear. But Hadde knew it was close. The forest held closely to the dark until full sun shone down upon it.
“It isn’t an easy thing to do, Calen, but you did it. And I know you don’t want to, but you’ll do better if you need to do it again.”
“If?” He put his face in his hands and bent forward in the saddle. “You know there will be a next time.”
“We do what we have to.”
“I would have been sick except I was too busy running.” He rubbed his face and looked up. “I don’t make much of a hero.”
“I’m not asking you to be a hero. We have a task before us. We have to do it. And when my father arrives with the rest of the Landomeri, our task will be at an end.”
Calen sat up straight and stared off into the woods. “Wolves,” he said. “Close.”
Hadde peered off in the direction Calen was looking. Thirty strides away eight wolves appeared in the darkness. Quickstep whinnied in fear.
Hadde drew her bow from its case. Would they attack, as they had the Idorians? If they did, she feared she and Calen wouldn’t be able to fend them off. She couldn’t risk harm to either of them or their horses.
“We’ll have to kill them, before they attack,” Hadde said. Something streaked past her face. She gasped and pulled back, thinking at first that someone had loosed a crossbow bolt at her. But then a bird trilled from a nearby branch.
A spirit bird. Or was it the spirit bird?
The bird cawed at her as she rode past, and then it streaked past and landed on another branch ahead of her. The bird’s call was not an alarm. It was insistent, but not distressed.
Hadde glanced at the wolves, but they didn’t seem to even notice the two riders. She frowned at the strangeness of it. Curious, she reached to pull an arrow from her saddle quiver.
The spirit bird screeched at Hadde and dove at her. Hadde pulled back as the bird flew past her face. The bird didn’t relent until Hadde shoved the arrow back in her quiver.
“What do we do, Hadde?” Calen asked.
The spirit bird flew to a branch to their left and called the same insistent call again. The wolves sat, staring at the two hunters.
“The Great Spirit is helping us,” Hadde said. “She is sending the animals to help us.”
“You are certain of it?”
Hadde nodded, her certainty growing. “The spirit bird is guiding us. The wolves and the boar attacked the Idorians. The Great Spirit doesn’t want to lose Orlos.”
“When you came back to us with Maret you said that the Great Spirit spoke to you in a Spiridus Glade. Did she speak to you again?”
Hadde shook her head. “No. But this isn’t normal. Wolves don’t behave this way. An angry boar will attack, but twice in one day animals attack our enemies? Look at them.” She pointed to the wolves. “That’s not normal.”
The spirit bird called to them again. “We’re supposed to follow,” Hadde said.
Calen glanced at the wolves and then at the spirit bird. “I think you’re right.”
“Come on.” They rode toward the spirit bird, but as they approached, it flew to a more distant perch. The longer they followed the more certain Hadde was that they were doing the right thing. The Great Spirit had something in mind for them.
They rode through the rest of the night, only stopping once to feed and water the horses. Hadde was exhausted
, as was Calen. As dawn approached she caught herself falling asleep in the saddle more than once. Calen was no different. Always the wolves kept pace with them.
As the sun rose, the spirit bird led them into a sheltered ravine. Everbloom and fern grew on both banks of a cheerful brook tumbling down a stony hill. It was as beautiful a place as Hadde had ever seen in Landomere. The scent of the everbloom washed over her, driving away her pain and raising her spirits. For the moment everything seemed possible.
“A spiridus glade,” Calen said. A smile lit his face.
Hadde paused and thought about it. “I think you’re right. Gods, but I am tired. I wish the bird would let us make camp.” She laughed. “I must be exhausted if I’m taking orders from a bird.”
“She’s gone,” Calen said.
Hadde looked around. He was right. The spirit bird had disappeared. “The wolves are gone as well.” A moment of fear gripped her. “We didn’t imagine that, did we? The wolves and the spirit bird?”
“No, they were real.” Calen twisted and turned, searching for the wolves.
“We’ve come a long way. I hope we weren’t led astray by some foolish imagining. That bird was leading us, right Calen?”
“I’m sure it was. And those wolves were with us, not hunting us.”
“But where are they now?”
“I don’t know, Hadde. But all I want to do is rest. I’ve had enough. Our horses as well.”
“But why were we led here?”
“She’ll return,” Calen said. “The Great Spirit is with us.”
“I hope you’re right. For now, let’s make camp.”
It took Hadde very little time to find enough wood for a small fire while Calen cared for the horses. The Idorians were too far away for them to be a danger and the bows had been strung far too long. A half day unstrung, drying by the fire would do them good.
“A treat,” Calen said as he returned. He held out a linen cloth filled with sweetberries.
Hadde smiled. “Where did you find them?”
“Near the horses.”