by T. A. Miles
It seemed that Tristus had been forgiven his deadly rage, as he had not—to anyone’s knowledge—actually harmed any of them and had certainly proved indispensable in restoring their health. All but Xu Liang’s. Time would recover him, as it had before. He did not dare to meditate too deeply, but was resting his mind and gradually restoring his spirit when the elf awoke with a start.
Alere found his shirt and dressed himself mechanically, ignoring or possibly forgetting the wound that had left him unconscious for much of the day, and that remained with him in the form of a fading bruise. He didn’t bother with his tunic or cloak. With his lithe torso loosely veiled, he took up Aerkiren and headed for the tent’s entrance.
The elf’s rush of movement, though silent, stirred Tristus, who had climbed out of his smudged and bent armor to allow Taya to care for his minor wounds. Unfortunately, an Andarian cleric couldn’t use his healing art on his own body and—as Taya sternly informed him—even a minor wound could become serious if allowed to fester. The knight had been sleeping on his back, his shirt open, to allow the undressed burn upon his chest to begin healing beneath a layer of disinfecting salve that, according to Taya, worked quickest when exposed to air. In Alere’s wake he rose and emerged into the freezing night air as heedless of his lack of protection against its bite. He brought his sword, the once gleaming blade blackened in some places after his battle with a Fanese pyromancer.
Xu Liang rose shortly afterward and joined the two, who were already in conversation.
“I feel it as well,” Tristus was saying. “You’re right. Something’s amiss. But if not the Keirveshen, then what?”
“There are stories of these lands, told often by gypsies, of things that dwell beneath the snow at night. I myself have heard tales of warriors slain in this region, their corpses cursed by the spell of a necromancer, doomed to awaken and fight once more when blood touches their bones again.” The elf sighed, his frosty breath accurately reflecting his attitude toward gypsy myth. “Superstition, I’m sure, but I have often found that even the most absurd superstition can be based upon elements of truth. And I don’t like this feeling that’s descending upon me.”
Xu Liang closed his eyes and let his spirit reach outward, across the featureless dark terrain. The cold embraced him at once, reaching within as he extended his senses without. He smelled the death from the day’s battlefield and heard the quiet rush of many heavy snowflakes thickening the blanket that already covered the land. He heard nothing of natural life, not a single wolf or a bird...nothing. He began to wonder about things unnatural that may have been lurking in the icy stillness.
Gradually, Xu Liang pulled his senses back in, past the creaking, clanking armor and weapons of the two bodyguards on watch, past the scent of salves and cooling sweat that lingered about the elf and human in front of him. He opened his eyes and said quietly, “There is something out there.”
Tristus looked back at him, but Alere kept his eyes on the darkness beyond camp.
The knight said, “Do you know what it is?”
Xu Liang shook his head slightly, his eyes straying to Alere as he wondered if the elf did know and wouldn’t say. He had done well keeping the power of his blade a secret. Xu Liang was still guessing when he assumed it was Aerkiren’s magic that shattered the enchantment on Xiadao Lu’s armor. He’d not found the time to ask the elf about it.
“What goes on out here?” Tarfan asked. He held a blanket around him and blinked sleep from his eyes. Then he gasped and uttered an oath of alarm.
Xu Liang saw what alarmed him in the same moment. Multiple figures, all of them as pale as the snow and looking as if that snow had given them life, stalked across the darkness, headed directly for their camp. Xu Liang thought of Alere’s story and the drastic amount of blood that had been spilled upon the Flatlands that day.
The elf seemed to recall his own words at the same time, and repeated them softly. “Slain warriors, doomed to awaken when blood touches their bones once more.”
“Some of us certainly gave a fair contribution today, didn’t we?” Tarfan grumbled.
“How could I have known?” Tristus said as he caught the dwarf’s eyes glaring at him.
“You couldn’t,” Fu Ran replied, coming out of the tent with various articles of clothing draped over one big arm. He handed Tristus his shirt of chain mail. “None of us could, so let’s not face whatever those things are half dressed and half asleep.”
The knight stabbed his sword into the snow, quickly buttoning his shirt and taking the linked tunic from Fu Ran. “There’s no time for strapping on all of my armor. I’ll still be half dressed.”
Alere accepted the rest of his layers of white and Tarfan exchanged the blanket about his shoulders for his thick leather jacket. “Here we’re at it again!” the dwarf said. “More danger than I’m used to on an expedition, but it serves me right for traveling with a troupe of rebellious children!”
“Perhaps, when this battle is finished you and Gai Ping can seek solace in each other’s conservative maturity,” Xu Liang replied. “For now we must focus on the matter at hand.”
“You’re right,” Tristus agreed. “But how do we slay ghosts?”
“If they are ghosts,” Alere said.
“Unless you see any relatives in that lot, I vote they are ghosts!” Tarfan spat.
Alere ignored him, speaking to Xu Liang. “That would explain why we haven’t been attacked by the Keirveshen. They fear a spirit that roams without its body because that often means the spirit cannot be quelled.”
“I rephrase my question,” the knight said, reclaiming his sword now that the shirt of closely linked steel covered him. “How do we slay ghosts that can’t be slain?”
“Maybe we should ask them,” Fu Ran suggested, pointing to a pair of riders charging toward the oncoming force. Their mounts were almost too dark to be seen, as were the riders themselves, covered head to toe in armor the color of night. Were it not for the gleaming weapon of one and the wisps of orange-blue flame that trailed the swing of the other one’s sword, they might have gone into battle completely unnoticed. The warriors issued no battle cries and made little sound cutting through immaterial flesh. Even their armor and the animals they rode put forth very little sound.
Everyone watched in amaze. The snowfall had almost stopped for the night, but now it had begun to rise from the earth as the great horses kicked up a veritable storm of their own across the icy carpet.
“It’s them,” Alere said mysteriously. In a moment, he glanced back at the others and offered explanation. “The people who’ve been ahead of us since we left the river canyon. Two riders.”
“Who are they?” Tristus wondered aloud.
“They are elves,” Alere said with no pride nor any perceivable sense of kinship. He almost seemed disgusted, but then he’d yet to generate any warmth at all toward anyone since he’d joined the group.
“Warrior elves? Zaldaine?”
Alere answered the knight in definitive tones of animosity, presumably toward the newcomers, displaying emotion other than eagerness in battle for the first time. “They are landless elves. Nomads once. They used to travel in small numbers and call themselves Seekers of the Flame.”
“What flame?” Tristus asked, again, given in to his stubborn curiosity.
“The flame of the sacred bird they worship, who supposedly restored their slaughtered people from the ashy remains left behind by the armies that destroyed them and their land near a millennium ago.”
“The Phoenix,” Xu Liang whispered, familiar with the creature of legend.
“Yes,” Alere said. He scowled suddenly. “They have been leading us, and I did not see it.”
He stepped away from the others and called for Breigh. The mare came at once, and though Tristus tried to stop him, the white elf mounted and charged off across the snow, toward the elves who were battling ghosts.
“I’m going after him!” Tristus announced, jogging toward their remaining three horses
.
“You must take Blue Crane,” Xu Liang said, and ignored Tarfan’s shocked and protesting sound. “He is faster and will not panic, even in circumstances so strange as these. Go quickly, Tristus!”
The knight obeyed and Tarfan appeared as if he would collapse in his disbelief. He threw his arms up in the air as if to draw up the blood that had drained down into his feet. “Have you lost it, mage? The boy’s killed two horses already and you know damned well you’re in no condition to walk to the end of this journey!”
Xu Liang watched as Tristus bolted away from the camp atop the magnificent gray. He said softly, “Blue Crane will return to me. He was a last gift of friendship, meant to carry me safely on my travels. He does not take his duty lightly, as it was given to him by none other than Emperor Song Bao, whose presence during Blue Crane’s birth served as a blessing upon the animal. In all of Sheng Fan, no horse is Blue Crane’s equal.”
Tarfan was not easily convinced. “And in all this blasted world no menace is equal to Tristus Edainien! I’ll guarantee you that!” When he saw that Xu Liang would not change his mind, the dwarf stomped off to join Taya, who was just emerging from the tent. “But it’s your horse,” he grumbled. “Do as you like!”
“Now what’s happening?” Taya wanted to know.
“Nothing unusual,” her uncle answered with gruff sarcasm. “We’ve only attracted more danger!”
TRISTUS EXPECTED AT least a mild fuss from a horse about to be mounted by a stranger, but, as if he’d heard his master’s orders himself, Blue Crane allowed Tristus onto his back without so much as a snort in protest. The steed took commands as easily, and when he ran, Tristus became filled with a sudden, intense admiration for this spectacular steed. Quick as the wind, light as the air, and with a presence as powerful as the surge of a coming storm. It was only natural that the beast belonged to Xu Liang. Blue Crane could find no more suitable master than an aeromancer. Tristus felt the bond between the two immediately and knew better than to hope he would have any opportunity other than this to ride so fantastic an animal. Even the fair, agile Breigh had difficulty keeping ahead of Blue Crane. The distance between them closed swiftly.
Tristus hollered out when the animals drew near enough for him to be heard. “Alere, you must stop! We don’t want a fight with them if it isn’t necessary!”
The white elf ignored him and pressed ahead, bent on this task as he was on destroying the Keirveshen.
Tristus kept after him, but quickly resigned himself to the inevitable. Alere had rode out here to start a fight and he was going to get one, if not from the Phoenix Warriors, then from the undead soldiers, who were just beginning to take notice of two more playmates. One would never guess he’d been so badly wounded just hours ago. But then, Tristus knew the elf hadn’t been lying about on that pallet all day and most of the night nursing his wounds alone. He’d been nursing his wounded pride.
Tristus had caught the elf’s gray eyes open, staring at the magic sword lying beside him, replaying the day’s battle and what he considered his loss. The thoughts had been clear in his expression, and they were clearer now. Not only had he been struck down by a human, he’d been helped by one as well, reliant on that aid in the moment it had been provided. Drawn as he may have been to the quest, he was afraid of being drawn that deeply into the company. He led an independent life and thrived on that independence, that separation from others. He sought to reestablish the division by facing these enemies alone. Even knowing that he was not welcome, Tristus followed, fearful that the elf would suffer more than a bruised ego if he persisted.
The undead, dressed in layers of transparent clothing and flesh that showed the reanimated bones that carried them, crumpled easily beneath the blows of the two rogue elves. However, as quickly as the reborn warriors fell, their blood-stained skeletons rose again. Where the corpses had been lying, Tristus could not say. Perhaps they’d been buried beneath the frozen earth. Wherever they’d risen from, they had risen with their old weapons in hand, blades of solid, immortal steel. They moved slowly in their strange state, but were certainly no less deadly for their sluggishness. Tristus noticed the dark-clad elves avoiding their attacks and delivering their own with caution, though it seemed pointless.
And then he saw the gleaming spear. He thought instantly of Dawnfire and almost went for the wielder himself, sure he was in the presence of a thief, but then he realized the shaft was black, not platinum; a deep obsidian lacquer that clashed brilliantly with the blazing silver of the serrated blade mounted to the pole. As the blade danced amongst the dead, streams of silver bleeding after it, the ghosts became ice, and bodies that had once been simply knocked down by the other elf’s sword were shattered with a second strike. Flaming crystals scattered into the night and became fizzling embers upon the snow.
As he arrived at the battle, Alere gave his Verresi war cry and handled the undead in his own fashion. The sword Aerkiren painted swaths of its twilight glow upon the darkness, streamers of eerily luminous liquid trailing each strike, spilling from the lethal wounds Alere delivered. The risen warriors fell in quickly fading pools of their own ghostly blood, their bones disintegrating into the snow.
Though he felt a rise of panic every time one of the undead drew near him, Tristus satisfied himself with knocking down any of the cold wraiths that attacked him, waiting for the moment the elves would run out of victims and seek to fight amongst themselves.
ALERE DID NOT take kindly to being toyed with. These two were no random wanderers. There was purpose in their movement, the way they’d avoided being seen, but still managed to leave a trail. Alere would end this foolish game with their burning blood smoldering on the edge of his blade.
As for the knight; he’d grown to respect Tristus since witnessing his skill and did not wish to hurt him, but he would not allow him to get in the way. He’d also heard what the others had said about him and understood now the confusion he’d sensed before while in the knight’s presence. It must have been difficult for a man to harbor such a destructive force, and at the same time to possess one so gentle as that which had mended everyone’s wounds.
And a destructive force it was indeed, to have withstood the magic Tarfan described in his argument with Fu Ran. Without question, the knight was a slave to Ilnon, the God of Vengeance. It wasn’t often that the god’s rage captured a human soul and kept it. They often didn’t survive the encounter. Yet somehow Ilnon had found a reliable host in this one, however unwilling Tristus seemed to be. Alere couldn’t help but to wonder if he pushed Tristus out of this fight whether Ilnon would return the blow.
The thought was put aside by the sudden depletion of wraiths to be dealt with. It appeared that the time to contend with the rogue elves had come.
EACH OF THE elves cut down their final spectral opponents and then faced one another in a triangle of contempt and arrogance the likes of which Tristus had never seen in this world. He’d witnessed the natural hostility between men and elves, and thought he’d felt a bit of it himself when he’d first met Alere, but the potential for hatred between elves was something he’d never considered. It was a thousand fold worse than the vie for power amongst the most conceited priests—the murderous gazes Tristus looked upon now.
Golden eyes narrowed within the sleek black helms as it was evident the newcomers were sizing up the lone mountain elf. No doubt, in their arrogance, they saw an easy kill. And it was not a wonder either, that they had completely factored out the human in his company. But if they’d really been aware of the companions for days, what made now the time to kill them, as opposed to any number of times previously?
Alere said they were leading them. Leading us to where? Tristus wondered to himself.
And then one of the Phoenix warriors spoke. “So now you have seen us.” The voice was a man’s, fitting with the lean, powerful frame the armor scarcely made secret. “Was it really any wonder to you, hunter?”
Alere seemed to take offense with every aspect of the voice, perh
aps worst of all that it formed words in no elvish tongue, but rather a dialect common among men, whose roots lay far away, in Treska. Alere had been using it frequently to communicate with the dwarves as well as with Tristus. In fact, all of the companions, except for Xu Liang’s guards, had simply slipped into using the language most of the time. However, this was no politic way of communicating. This was a deliberate means to insult Alere, who didn’t have to look down his slender nose at everyone for his station in elvish society to be clear. He was no commoner, and clearly did not take well to being treated as such.
The white elf held Aerkiren toward the ground, but it could scarcely be considered a relaxed position. He said, “You can die anonymously, or with your identities given. It makes no difference to me, but you have mere moments to decide.”
Sweet Light of Eris, that was subtle! Why don’t you just spit at them the next time?
Tristus’ hands began to sweat in his gloves while he considered what to do. This was like watching dogs raising their hackles and bearing fangs just before flinging themselves at one another in a ferocious struggle for dominance. Very soon the elves were going to be at each other. Tristus felt very assured of that.
“Ellum sekve, nothdon,” the other Phoenix Elf said. It was a woman, her voice smooth and even, confident as one who is accustomed to being obeyed.
These words, though spoken in elvish, seemed only to incense Alere and he snarled his own response. “Evtol kiel arimve, aven!”
“Tolve kiel?” the male murmured and made a dramatic display of showing Alere his keenly crafted elven blade, fire seeming to trace its razor thin edge.
For some reason this made Alere smile, though it was not an expression that made Tristus feel especially warm or that gave him any hope for the outcome of this meeting.
“WHAT IN THE infernal regions is going on out there?” Fu Ran wanted to know.