Chosen of Nendawen Book 001 - The Fall of Highwatch

by Mark Sehestedt

  “You mean Lendri,” said Hweilan. She’d seen what the queen had done to Lendri. Or had others do for her.

  The solemnity in his gaze dropped, and for a moment he looked … not contrite. Something told Hweilan that this one probably wasn’t capable of such an emotion. But perhaps … sad?

  “Hweilan, I must ask your forgiveness. Perhaps if I had warned you what to expect, things might not have … gone as they did. You must understand, I wasn’t sure of you. Why you were traveling with an outlaw, why despite your rugged clothing you obviously had not lived a hard life in the wilderness, and you being … Other.”

  “I’m not like that!”

  Menduarthis didn’t flinch at her shout. Instead, he locked eyes with her and said, “You are. I’m sorry if that is upsetting for you, but it’s the truth. Somewhere—some way back, I suspect—you have an ancestor who was … well, let’s say, from beyond.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “Mad, bad, glad, sad—all boiled into one. That’s me. But it doesn’t change the truth.” He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “All your life, you have dreamed, but not like others. Sometimes—not always—you dream true, of things past, things yet to be, and things far away. You can sense the truth—and the lie—in people. And your eyes itch.”

  Hweilan snorted. “My eyes itch?”

  “An expression of the uldra. It means you are discontented. Always. No matter how happy your surroundings, how much you are getting everything you want and need, you’re never satisfied. Your eyes are always on the horizon, wondering what might lie beyond. Others might see rain coming to water the grass. You wonder from what distant seas the clouds came. Others wonder at the beauty of sunset. You wonder on what lands it is rising. Others fear the moon and the night. You lie awake, wondering if there is a way to make them fear you.” Menduarthis smiled. “Am I close?”

  Hweilan took a long, slow sip from her goblet, then looked away. “I’m not like you.”

  Menduarthis chuckled. “Well, you aren’t nearly as good a liar as I am, that’s for certain.”

  “You never answered my question.”

  “I have yet to answer many of your questions, as I recall. Which one do you mean?”

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “I’m no seer, but if you mean what is Kunin Gatar going to do about you … I don’t know. When she was …” Menduarthis cleared his throat and looked down, obviously finding the subject uncomfortable. “When she was sifting your mind, she found something …”

  “Something that surprised her, you said.”

  “Hmm, yes, well … I’m not sure ‘surprise’ is the best word. Truth be told, you scared the frost out of her tightest orifice.” Menduarthis pushed his bowl and goblet aside, leaned forward, and dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “She was sifting your mind, Hweilan, like a miser might sift through an old sack of coins, hoping for gold. Like dwarves dig through dirt, hoping for shiny rocks. And she found something. Something that knocked her on her arse.” His voice dropped further so that she had to strain to hear it. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. Why should anything in my mind scare her?”

  Menduarthis stared into her eyes, and she could sense him searching her for the slightest flinch, the barest sign of an evasion. “Hm,” he said at last. “Well, that is why you aren’t sharing your friend’s fate, I expect. “Someone else has a claim to her,’ she said. No idea what that means?”

  Hweilan looked away and searched her memory. “They wanted me for some reason,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “On … on the day Highwatch fell, the traitors sent someone after me. A horrid slug named Jatara. I don’t know why. But the other day in the woods, that pale man who came after me—”

  “The Frost Folk?”

  “Yes. Kadrigul. That was Jatara’s brother, and he was screaming at the … the other thing, screaming at him that he wanted me alive.”

  “Why do you suppose that is? You’d be easier to carry off dead.”

  “I have no idea. Kadrigul and Jatara serve Argalath. Some sort of half-Nar shaman. Spellscarred. Makes my skin crawl. But he somehow wormed his way into the good graces of the captain of the Highwatch guard. I … I have reason to believe that they were the ones responsible for …” Hweilan took a deep breath, choking back tears. “For Highwatch.”

  “Hm,” said Menduarthis. “Well, it does sound as if this Argalath is up to something. But a Nar shaman? That wouldn’t even make the queen twitch. She’d give him no more thought than a horse brushing a fly off its rump.”

  She could sense the truth in much of what he was saying, but still …

  Someone else has a claim to her.

  But that wasn’t all that had been said.

  She is to live, then?

  I very much doubt it. But she isn’t mine to kill.

  “Who is Nendawen?” said Menduarthis. He was watching her intently, and he grinned when her eyes widened at the name.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Is that a riddle?”

  Menduarthis sat there a long time, staring at her, then said, “I was wrong. You are a better liar than I thought.”

  “It’s no lie! I don’t know who Nendawen is. Where did you hear it?”

  “You talk in your sleep.” His grin widened.

  “I …” Never heard of him, she’d meant to say, but something stopped her. Some feeling like an unremembered dream.

  “What?”

  “I … don’t know. Can’t remember.”

  “Lendri never mentioned Nendawen? Never?”

  She thought a moment, then said, “No,” sure of it.

  Menduarthis chuckled, but it sounded more in disgust. “That flea-bitten little bastard,” he said. “How much do you know about your friend Lendri?”

  “I just met him. He … he saved me. Told me that he is some sort of blood brother to one of my grandsires. He offered to help me.”

  “Help you?” Menduarthis snorted. “Help you what?”

  “Bring vengeance to those who killed my family.”

  “So you went with Lendri, hoping he would help you kill several hundred Creel and Damarans?” Menduarthis shook his head.

  Hweilan scowled. “Well, for one who used to lie awake wondering of ways to make the moon and night fear her, several hundred Creel doesn’t seem like much.”

  Menduarthis threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, Hweilan, I did misjudge you! Ah, well, the gods favor children and fools, they say. Why not both in one?”

  Hweilan stood so fast that her chair fell over behind her. “I’m no fool, and I am no child!”

  All jollity left Menduarthis’s face. He pursed his lips, and for just an instant, he reminded Hweilan of her Uncle Soran, disapproving and in the midst of a scolding. “You’ve called me mad several times,” he said. “Do you know the true madness of a madman?”

  “What?”

  “He thinks he’s the only sane man in the room. The truly sane? They know we’re all a little mad, deep down. So pick up your chair and sit down. There’s a few things you need to know about your little elf friend.”

  Hweilan stood there, glaring down at Menduarthis, wanting nothing more than to smash that smug look off his face. Her chair still lay on the floor behind her.

  “Why should I believe anything you say?” she said.

  Menduarthis spread his hands and rolled his eyes. “Why should you believe anything Lendri says? You listen, try to understand, then you make up your own mind. You don’t want to believe me? As you wish. But at least hear what I have to say. Now, please, sit. I like to sit while I drink, and I hate looking up at someone when I talk.”

  Hweilan picked up the chair, though she placed it back up a few feet from the table and sat with her legs in front of her and her arms crossed.

  “Your … friend”—Menduarthis twisted his lips round the word—”Lendri. Well, I’d call Kunin Gatar warm and cuddly before I’d call that pup a liar. He holds the
truth like a dwarf holds his last copper. But he has a talent for telling you only what he wants you to know and holding back more. A lot more.”

  “He admitted he killed …” She couldn’t recall the name.

  “Miel Edellon. Bah.” Menduarthis waved his hand as if shooing a fly. “Good riddance to that one. I told you Lendri’s no liar. He did us all a favor when he ripped that throat—though I’ll admit our beloved queen hasn’t been in the best of moods since. But that isn’t what he’s hiding from you.”

  “What then?”

  “What’s he told you of Nendawen? What’s he told you exactly?”

  “Nothing. Never mentioned it.”

  “No?” Menduarthis’s brow creased. “You said his name in your sleep, Hweilan. More than once. If Lendri has never told you, let me tell you now. The Vil Adanrath call Nendawen the Hunter. He’s some sort of demigod or some such to them. Not a greater god, but he is … what you might call a very, very powerful spirit. Something primal.”

  “A powerful spirit … hunter?” Hweilan snorted. “Sounds like a bard’s tale.”

  “Nendawen is a hunter, girl. But not only of swiftstags or bear. Nendawen’s favorite prey walks on two legs.”

  “He hunts men?”

  “Men, elves, dwarves … whomever finds his disfavor, or sometimes whomever just happens to fall in his path. I’ve heard stories …” Menduarthis shuddered, though to Hweilan it seemed affected.

  “You’re saying he’s evil?”

  “Evil? No. I don’t know that Nendawen even thinks in those terms. No. Nendawen is … primeval.”

  Hweilan smirked. “He’s old and woodsy?”

  “You have to understand, Hweilan, your world … your cities and walls and castles and fires that keep out the night. Your wizards waving their wands and warriors strutting with their swords on their hips … they think they’ve tamed the world. Made it serve them. And maybe in their little cities and towers they have. They’ve tamed it by keeping it out. By hiding. But there are powers in the world that were ancient when the greatest grandfathers of men still huddled in caves by their fires and prayed for the gods to keep out the night. These older powers … they don’t fear the dark or the things that stalk in it. They revel in the dark. They are the things that stalk it. You speak of good and evil. When a wolf pack takes down a doe, are they evil? When a falcon takes a young rabbit, is it evil? Or are they merely reveling in their nature?”

  “You’re saying Nendawen is some sort of beast?”

  “Nendawen is to beasts what Kunin Gatar is to snowballs.”

  Hweilan laughed, but Menduarthis did not join in her mirth. He simply sat there, looking at her, as grave and solemn as she had ever seen him.

  “How do you know all this?” she said.

  He shrugged. “I’ve been around awhile. A long while. I was here when little Lendri came here like a little lost puppy. I was here before he and Miel Edellon had their falling out, and I used to have to listen to Lendri pine away.” Menduarthis rolled his eyes, very much the mischievous little boy again, and did a very impressive imitation of Lendri’s accent. ““O, I’ll never see my people again. I’m so alone. Woe is me!’”

  Hweilan scowled. “You shouldn’t mock him.”

  “I know him,” said Menduarthis, “better than you, most likely. He’s earned a little mockery from me. And I know all about his people. Your people, too, you Vil Adanrath. An impressive lot of savages, I’ll grant you. And that’s saying something, considering the company I keep. Lendri could be the most impressive savage of the lot when he set his mind to it. But I’ll tell you this. In the entire time I knew him, Lendri only mentioned Nendawen a few times. But every time Lendri spoke of Nendawen—every time, Hweilan—he sounded fearful as a scarecrow dancing round a bonfire. I’ll say it plain: Lendri is using you.”

  “Using me?” She looked at Menduarthis. He was an admitted liar, but she could see no sign of it in him now. “Using me how?”

  “I’m not sure. But I do know that the lands sacred to Nendawen were less than a tenday’s walk from where we found you. If Lendri is taking you to this Nendawen—someone that terrifies him, and gives even Kunin Gatar serious pause—it can’t be good.”

  “I could use powerful friends right now.” Hweilan said it barely above a whisper, more to herself than him, but he heard it.

  “I’m sure. But are you sure this Nendawen is a friend? Kunin Gatar …”

  She watched him, waiting for him to finish, but he simply looked away and took another drink.

  “What?”

  “You heard her.”

  “‘She isn’t mine to kill,’ “said Hweilan, and then she and Menduarthis said at the same time, ““Someone else has a claim on her.’”

  They sat in silence for a while, listening to the fire crackle in the hearth.

  “You think …” Hweilan said at last. “You think this Nendawen has a … a claim on me? What does that even mean?”

  “I don’t know,” said Menduarthis. “But I know someone who does.”

  “The queen?”

  “Lendri.”

  Hweilan’s eyes went wide, and she stared at Menduarthis. He wasn’t joking, wasn’t playing with her mind. At least not that she could see.

  “You still haven’t answered the one question I most need answered,” she said. “What does the queen intend to do to me?”

  “At the moment, nothing. She told me to get you out of her sight and left it at that. I think she’d be quite content if I took you back where we found you and left you to freeze or starve. But the more tormenting Lendri riles her up, the more time she has to think about it …” He pursed his lips and stared into his empty glass. “You want my advice? Let me take you out of here. Tonight. Right now. Take you far away from the queen, far away from Lendri.”

  “To where?”

  “Wherever you want.”

  She sat, watching him, looking for the slightest hint of insincerity or double meaning. She saw none. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  “Why are you helping me?” she said.

  “Truth be told?” He chuckled. “I’m bored.”

  “You’re bored.”

  “As a river stone. I’ve been here too long. People like you and me, Hweilan … we’re like the wind, never happy unless we’re passing on. Put the breeze in a bottle and it’s just dead air. I’m starting to feel dead. The queen gives me a long leash, to be sure. But a hound on a long leash is still leashed, and mine has been chafing a long time now.”

  “Then why haven’t you left?”

  “I’m sworn to the queen. Her hound, remember.”

  “The queen would release you from your oath? You, her faithful hound?”

  He leaned over the table again, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Well,” he said, “I did say far away from the queen. And, I might add, fast. If we’re going to go, best we go quickly. Her arm is strong, but her reach isn’t infinite. Besides, I know a few tricks.” He shrugged. “And the uldra like me. If she ordered the Ujaiyen after me, they’d scamper off. But I don’t think they’d look very hard.”

  “Ujaiyen?”

  “Kunin Gatar’s scouts and hunters. Mostly uldra and their tiger mounts. A few eladrin besides. Bunch of simpering, high-nosed frill shirts. They’d be glad to be rid of me.”

  “So why now?” said Hweilan “Why … me? Why break your oath to help me? I can’t believe it’s just boredom.”

  “You’re the best chance I have,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I told you. I think our dear queen is just a little bit afraid of you. At least right now. Give her time to get over it … well, as I said, best go soon. And now would be best.” He gave her the mischievous boy smile again. “Before I change my mind.”

  Hweilan put her elbows on the table and stared into the glowing vapor fuming out of the goblet. She made a show of considering it, but in truth her mind was already made up. A fool’s plan, perhaps. But that might be the onl
y type of plan that stood a chance of working.

  “One thing,” said Hweilan.

  “Only one? You’re easy.”

  “I’m not leaving without my father’s bow.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  KADRIGUL STOPPED, HIS CHEST HEAVING, HIS BREATH pluming out from him in a spray of frost. Cold as it was, sweat drenched him, and his heart was beating like war drums.

  No sounds of pursuit.

  Had he lost them?

  After the duel, he had run back the way he came, then begun zigzagging every which way. Taking paths at random. Leaving the paths and squeezing his way between the great shards. Fearing at any moment to feel one of the thorn-covered vines tightening around his throat.

  The little creatures had pursued him, the sounds of their footfalls like a small stampede. But they hadn’t called out. Not in fury at seeing their companions killed, or even to signal one another. They ran in silence. Like animals. That was the worst.

  But he’d lost them. So it seemed.

  Kadrigul’s left shoulder was still bloodied and sore from the fight, but none of the cuts were deep. He slowed to a careful walk, his eyes searching every shadow. The snow before him was unmarred, and none of the creatures’ glowing eyes watched him from the dark.

  He was hopelessly lost. Fleeing the creatures, he felt sure he’d run at least half a mile. But from the outside, the entire structure had seemed half that size at most. Much as he hated to admit it, he regretted not heeding the Creel’s warnings. Sometimes cowards feared for a reason.

  The path widened, but unlike the wide area where he’d fought the creature, the spires did not lean outward, open to the sky. They leaned inward, forming a haphazard roof, and as the path began a gentle slope downward, Kadrigul felt as if he were walking down a hallway.

  The path ended at a strange archway. It was tall and wide enough for an entire column of cavalry to have ridden through, but here the great shards looked almost like thorn-covered trees, twisting and turning into the archway.

  Beyond was an open area, a sort of hollow in the midst of the structure, only slightly larger than the main hall of Highwatch. More arches covered other paths across the way. In the midst of the open ground was a pool of sorts, but rather than water or ice, it seemed to boil over with a sort of frosty vapor that gave off a bluish glow—bright enough that it muted the light from the stars above.