Boltan could not help himself. He burst out laughing. At the same moment, the little human jumped forward and stabbed him in the leg. The elven blade burned like fire. Angrily, Boltan disarmed the youngster, then pinned him under his arm and carried him to the fireplace he’d prepared. He threw the dagger on a pile of bones.
The pup was small but already had a warrior’s heart. He would be sure to tickle Orgrim’s palate.
FAREWELL
We pulled back as far as Eagle Peak, the next fortress after Phylangan. The journey took four days, and in that time, we could see a cloud of ash rising above the lost mountain. At night the sky was red, reflecting the blood of the earth. At times, I felt as if the land itself had brought an end to the war. The only pass between Carandamon and the Snaiwamark was now sealed, and the fortress for which so many races had fought so doggedly was gone. As bitter as the loss of Phylangan was for the Normirga, the humans seemed in equal measure relieved. I had promised Alfadas that I would release them from their service in their homeland. Emerelle would then be brought back from the duke’s village. There would be no peace with the trolls in the foreseeable future, but hostilities would at least pause for a little while. Both sides were exhausted. If the trolls wanted to attack Carandamon, they would have to take a long detour across the Windland or once again tread the net of Albenpaths.
We arranged a feast in Eagle Peak to say farewell to our brothers-in-arms. They were to take sleds and horses with them, and each man was also given a gift when we asked them to return the golden amulets. I knew what they had taken from Phylangan, though the soldier with the missing nose and foul mouth believed I had noticed nothing. Let them keep their loot! Phylangan is gone. No one cares about its gold anymore.
Our feast was drawing to a close when a pale figure appeared at the arched entrance to the Silver Hall. Ollowain, whom we had thought dead, had returned, although there was little enough of the living still in him. His hair was white as frost, his eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, and instead of his cloak he had wrapped a dirty woolen blanket around his shoulders.
He never told me how he escaped the mountain. Most of the time, he was silent. I believe that even his foster son, Alfadas, never discovered what had happened to him.
Ollowain wanted to accompany the humans to the Fjordlands. When the time to depart came, he was once again the flawless white knight. But it was a facade. He still did not speak, and his eyes were abysses.
From The Eye of the Falcon, page 903
The Memoirs of Fenryl,
Count of Rosecarn
HOME
Alfadas’s world greeted him with a slap in the face. An icy wind whistled over the Hartungscliff, driving fine ice crystals with it. The storm tugged at his cloak, and he almost slipped on the ice-caked stone underfoot. It was night, and only a few clouds sped across the sky. The moon was three-quarters full and washed the snow-covered land in ghostly light.
Behind him, more and more men crowded through the gateway. They were too exhausted to celebrate, but their faces showed relief. Few of them had believed they would ever see the Fjordlands again. After the fall of Phylangan, nature had separated the enemy armies. The trolls were reluctant to attack through the network of Albenpaths, and the elves were too weakened. Between them lay an entire mountain range.
Now the time had come to get Emerelle back. She would be the one to make the difference in the war, if she were awake.
The wind eased. Alfadas stepped cautiously to the edge of the cliff. A cloud now covered the moon, and both the fjord and Firnstayn lay in darkness. He could not make out the village at all, and not a single light burned. But it was the middle of the night, and anyone leaving a shutter open in this cold would be a fool. Alfadas envisioned himself entering the smoky warmth of his longhouse: Ulric would leap into his arms, Kadlin would cling to his knees, and Asla would say something pert about him coming at such a late hour. And yet, he would see the love so radiant in her eyes.
He sighed deeply. It made no difference how King Horsa welcomed him, he was relieved to be back. Everything would work out. Alfadas smiled. When he rode to the royal court at the head of his veterans, Horsa would think twice about an unfriendly reception.
He looked across to the low quarrystone wall close to the edge of the cliff. It served as a windbreak for the signal fire, which was kindled if someone needed help or as a warning if anything threatened the village. Alfadas thought of the story his father Mandred had told him. Terribly injured, pursued by the manboar, and close to death, he had dragged himself up the hill. All he wanted was to light the fire to warn his village. He knew he could not make it back down the Hartungscliff and that the creature after him would tear him apart.
Mandred had focused all his remaining strength on getting to the top of the cliff, only to find in his exhaustion that a rockfall had knocked the woodpile over the cliff. In that hour of deepest despair, the magical gateway in the stone circle had opened. Mandred made it through to Albenmark, despite being unconscious. He never knew what had taken him across to the world of elves and centaurs, although sometimes he asserted that it had been a tree: Atta Aikhjarto, an ancient, souled oak. And sometimes, when Mandred was very drunk, he mumbled that he would say thank you to Atta. He wanted to feast with the oak. Alfadas smiled at the memory. When his father said “feast,” he really meant get drunk. Had he ever made good on his mad plan? And where was Mandred now? It would be good to have him at his side. Alfadas’s smile vanished. It had always been that way with his father. When he needed him, he was not there.
He looked across to Ollowain, who was standing close to the gateway. Since Lyndwyn’s death, Ollowain had seemed somehow stooped, though in the eyes of others he stood as upright as ever. His face looked like it was chiseled from stone. The swordmaster stood by the gateway that had opened over the Albenstar and watched the men as they stepped from the nothingness.
I have always been able to rely on him, Alfadas thought sadly. How little had he ever given his foster father in return? He had tried to approach Ollowain about Lyndwyn, but the swordmaster had not opened up. It was not yet the right time.
Would he ever see Ollowain again? The swordmaster had come to take Emerelle back to Albenmark. Once they were down in the village, he would not leave her side again. Did clinging to his duty to the queen dull his pain?
Silwyna came through the gateway. Alfadas turned away and went to the windbreak at the cliff edge. He had been avoiding her ever since the night on the ice, when she had told him so much. They could not become close again. His home was down below. His children were waiting for him. And Asla . . . things would never be the same with her as they had been with Silwyna. He had chosen her to close the wound that Silwyna had opened in him. Now he knew that the wound would never close. Unless . . . He looked back toward Silwyna. She turned in his direction, as if she had felt his gaze as a physical touch. There it was again, the bond that had existed since that night on the ice, as if all the bitter years between had never been.
He could not give in to his desire! Asla had always been loyal to him. He could not betray her. He liked her. He had missed her sharp tongue. She would probably throw some bitter recrimination at him, then throw her arms around him.
No, he would never leave Asla. Not her, and not the children. Silwyna and Melvyn were strong enough to lead a life without him. His love for the elf was like an ocean—endless and extraordinarily beautiful. It showed a new face a thousand times a day and yet was filled with hidden depths and ravaged by sudden storms.
His love for Asla was different, like a crystal-clear stream that had its source among the cliffs by the coast and babbled and bubbled as it rushed along. It was refreshing and without secrets. He knew the spring from which the stream came, and he knew where it disappeared into the sea. Its course was clear and fixed. Alfadas swallowed. He would return to Asla. His heart was filled with love for her, though that love would never be able to erase his need for the ocean.
Silwyna nodded
to him. She had been looking directly at him. Again, Alfadas felt as if she could read on his face every thought that passed through his mind. He must not look at her! With every glance they shared, the bond that connected them grew stronger. It was not right. He turned away abruptly and walked the few steps to the stone wall. His future lay below, on the fjord.
The moon was already low in the sky. Soon, the small village would awaken. If he hurried, he could perhaps kneel beside Kadlin’s bed when she opened her eyes. He remembered fondly the radiant face with which she had so often sweetened the start of a day. Unlike Ulric, she was not yet able to hide her feelings. Sometimes, her moods were as changeable as a spring breeze, and her little face was the mirror of her soul. She was pure and untainted. Still.
Filled with yearning, he gazed into the darkness. Ulric would certainly have pestered Yilvina into giving him sword-fighting lessons. When the biting frost-wind blew from the north and the snow drifted halfway up to the gables, then you were trapped inside the longhouse. Those were days of cozy, comfortable tedium. The thought made Alfadas smile. He hoped that Ulric had not secretly been testing the blade of his elven dagger on the benches, the table, or the legs of the chairs.
Half-burned pieces of wood littered the snow behind the stone wall. Like scrawled runes on fresh parchment, they told a story. For a heartbeat, Alfadas stared at the meager remains of the wood that had once been stacked in layers behind the wall, before he understood what he was looking at. Someone had been there. Someone had warned Firnstayn of impending danger! The signal fire had been lit and had burned, but worse still was that no one had come back up the Hartungscliff to rebuild it.
Alfadas squinted into the darkness. Dark clouds still hid the moon.
What had happened here? Plagued by misgivings, he went to Ollowain and described the situation to him, then asked him to lead the men down to the fjord.
“Do you really think it’s wise to go ahead alone? You don’t know what’s lurking down there.”
“Wise or not, I cannot wait. My family is down there!” Without letting himself get trapped in talk, he turned and hurried off. He knew that Ollowain’s objection was right; the elf was always right.
He began to run. The first section of the descent was very steep, the path treacherous. Sometimes he went knee-deep through the hard-crusted snow, and then it would carry his weight for a few steps.
He slipped, arms flailing, trying to keep his balance. In vain. He pitched headlong into the snow. He picked himself up immediately and ran on, not even bothering to knock the snow out of his clothes.
The trail down felt endless. When he finally reached the fjord, he was soaked with sweat and breathing hard. The cold ate through his clothes. He looked out across the frozen inlet. If he changed course and traveled across the ice, he would cut hours off the time it took him to get to the village. He moved forward cautiously before breaking into a run again. His lungs burned, and his heart hurt with every beat. But his fear hounded him on.
When the clouds parted and the moon appeared, Alfadas saw, in the distance, the collapsed pier. The remains rose darkly from the snow and ice. Beyond it, he could not see a single straight gable. He should have been able to see Kalf’s hut and the crooked boathouse. Erek’s little house, too, with the wooden weathervane on its roof, had been close to the shore. Now it was gone . . . as was the longhouse on the hill a little apart from the village.
Alfadas wanted to scream, but his voice failed him. His breath came in gasps. He sank forward as if someone had struck him in the back of his knees with a club. All the strength drained from his limbs. His eyes wandered over the irregular heaps of snow where houses had once stood. The cold moonlight showed everything now with merciless clarity: blackened roof beams projecting from the snow like the ribs from enormous carcasses. Fallen walls.
Cold ate into the duke’s bones. A light breeze was blowing across the fjord, and fine ice crystals grazed Alfadas’s cheek. Groaning like an old man, he struggled back to his feet. They’re just burned houses, he reminded himself. Firnstayn no longer existed. But his family . . . perhaps they had fled. The signal fire on the Hartungscliff had been set alight, after all, so someone had warned the village.
He looked up to the hill on which his longhouse had once stood. He would find the answer there. Fear and hope found a balance again. Yes, up there he would find the answer.
He trudged up the gentle slope of the shore. He detoured past Kalf’s hut; among the ruins, he saw the curved struts of a fish trap. Broken fishing rods lay strewn in the snow. Winter was playing a capricious game. In places along the collapsed timber walls, the drifts were higher than his head. Elsewhere, the covering of snow was as thin as a linen sheet and barely hid the things scattered on the ground.
Alfadas passed Svenja’s hut. His foot banged against a small soot-covered copper kettle, which rolled away with a light clang. The duke was afraid to climb the hill, afraid of the certainty he might find there. As long as he wandered through the village, he could hope.
He found no bodies in the destroyed houses. Slowly, his courage grew. They had been warned in time! But who in the name of Luth had attacked Firnstayn? Who waged war in the dead of winter? As far as he could tell, the attackers had not been after loot but had put the houses and all that was inside them to the torch, caring only about destruction. What was the point of a war like that?
He looked to the hill again. He could not put it off forever. Only there would he find an answer to his most urgent question: Had Asla and the children escaped?
With a heavy heart, he turned up the little hill. He’d climbed it countless times before, and just as many times Asla had stood between the doorposts, waiting for him, or Ulric had come running through the open door to meet him, squealing with joy, to leap into his arms and almost knock him off his feet.
Now, only the scarred face of the moon stood between the blackened doorposts, and only silence welcomed Alfadas. Tentatively, he stepped inside the ruins that had once been his home. The main roof beam dominated the rubble, surrounded by charred rafters and smashed furniture. The fire had not been able to destroy the beam. Alfadas recalled how they had felled the enormous oak tree in a patch of ancient forest on the other side of the fjord. Hauling it down to the shore had been arduous work, and from there, they had towed it across the fjord with boats. Only when they got it to the top of the hill had they carved from the ancient trunk the beam that would one day carry the longhouse roof.
Alfadas, his mind drifting, ran his fingers over the wood. In places, the charred surface broke away, but nowhere had the fire burned to the heart of the beam. He could still make out most of the twining patterns that he had carved into the wood, the winter three years before.
He eyes roamed over snow and ash. Nothing else had withstood the fire as well as the main beam had. Of the alcoves where the family slept, only outlines remained.
Alfadas drew his sword and poked around among the burned pots and pans. They still lay where Asla had once had her fire. Beneath an upturned bench, he found the wooden horse he had carved for Ulric. The legs and mane were gone. Only the body and part of the head had survived.
Alfadas wiped the blade of his weapon clean and returned it to its sheath. There were no charred bodies. Asla and the children had not been there when the house burned. Strangely, though, that certainty did not give him the relief he had hoped for.
Close to a fallen rafter, he saw one of Asla’s chests. It was blackened on all sides but had not broken apart. He went to it. With some effort, he managed to get the lid open. On top lay a small blue dress. Tears came to Alfadas’s eyes. Awkwardly, with frost-reddened fingers, he lifted the dress out. Kadlin had often worn it toward the end of the summer in which she had learned to walk. Alfadas stroked the fine fabric tenderly. He found a dark bloodstain and remembered the day that Kadlin had grazed her knee on the stones along the shore. At the time, the little girl had hardly cried at all. She had simply got up again and kept going, chasing after all
the miracles that only children on a deserted pebble beach can find. Alfadas recalled the fuss Asla had made because the bloodstain would not simply wash out of the blue linen. Grazed knees were unavoidable, of course. But only a good-for-nothing and a daydreamer, in her opinion, would ever get it into his head to take his daughter down to a stony beach in her best dress.
Alfadas laid the dress back in the chest, then carefully closed the lid. He looked around one final time and left the ruins that now housed only the wind and memories. He climbed down the hill at the back of the house and went to the graveyard. When he saw all the new stones, the fear that had briefly retreated to a hidden corner of his soul leaped out at him again.
He hurried from stone to stone and wiped the snow aside. Most of the new stones were unmarked. On one, he found the image of an animal’s head. It had been scratched only roughly into the stone, with little skill, probably a dog’s or a wolf’s head. Did Ole lie there?
On the final stone, he found a spider, carved with great care. The herald animal of the weaver of fate. The keeper of the threads. Sticks decorated with colorful strips of cloth had been jammed into the earth around the grave.
Sadly, Alfadas crouched beside the snow-covered hill. “Gundar, old friend. Couldn’t the banquets in Firnstayn fill you up anymore?” He tore a strip from his cloak and knotted it to one of the sticks. “I’ll miss arguing with you about the gods. Maybe you would have ended up converting me after all.” He murmured a quiet prayer and wished the priest a good journey through the darkness. Then he stood up and looked over the freshly dug graves. Were Asla and the children here, too?
No, most certainly not! At least Asla’s gravestone would have been marked with a sign of some sort. Maybe an ear of wheat to recall her straw-blond hair or an oak tree as a symbol of her quiet strength. She would never have been buried beneath an unmarked stone. Unless the situation the survivors found themselves in had left them no more time.
Elven Queen Page 24