Elven Winter

by Bernhard Hennen

  The archer slung his arm across her shoulders. “Of course. I would suggest that we talk while we walk.”

  A young elven warrior handed him his sword. Ollowain was trembling too much to get the blade back into its sheath on his back alone. “Where are the others?”

  “Dead.” The elf avoided his eye. “We . . . I . . .”

  Ollowain shook his head tiredly. “Say nothing. Anyone who survives a battle with trolls can count himself brave.”

  Tears brimmed in the young elf’s eyes. “They were so . . . I saw how Marwyn tried to stab one of them, and the sword just slipped off his ribs. And then . . . then . . . the troll . . . with his bare hands . . .”

  “Silence!” Silwyna snarled at the soldier. “Stop whining. Be happy that you’re still alive!” She was carrying Ollowain more than supporting him. As quickly as her burden allowed, they hurried down the steps.

  “What are you doing here?” Ollowain’s voice was reduced to a whisper. Every movement, even to speak, caused him pain.

  “I thought to myself that you are the queen’s swordmaster because you have a special talent for staying alive in situations where others would die. So I followed you.”

  “But how did you . . .”

  “Recognize you?” She laughed. “As a hunter, if I were blind, I’d starve. I saw you go belowdecks with the guardsman. And I saw someone emerge wearing Ollowain’s clothes, but who did not move like the swordmaster at all. You might have fooled others with your masquerade, but when I saw a simple guardsman bring the centaurs and that little boat to the queen, your plan was clear to me.”

  Ollowain tried to expel the pain from his thoughts. He could breathe more easily now, at least. “So you followed us into the cisterns?”

  “A wet centaur has an unmistakable . . . fragrance. I don’t need a normal trail to follow my prey. A scent works just as well.”

  They had reached a dock at the foot of the stairs. Silwyna pointed to fresh scraping on the wood. “The holde actually managed to keep it on course.” She leaned down and picked up a fine splinter. “Let’s hope the hull is still watertight.”

  A dark, watery landscape stretched before them. Smooth black surfaces dotted by low islands. On most of the islands, trees grew, and from their branches hung ghostly white beards. Roots jutted from the mud as vertically as the spears in a pit trap. Fogbanks wafted thickly over the water. There were no lights at all. From behind them came the sound of a horn.

  “They have found the dead. We have to hurry now.” Silwyna pointed to the end of the scrape marks on the dock. “This is where they put the boat back in the water.” She raised her head, sniffing the air like a hunting dog. “They don’t have much of a lead. We will catch up with them.”

  Ollowain needed her help. She lowered him down from the dock until he could hold himself on a pylon. The wood was soft, eaten away by water and time. It smelled of rot. The water itself was lukewarm and felt sluggish, nothing like the water in the cisterns or bubbling from a spring. There was something soft and smooth about it, and also something slimy—it was more viscous than water should be. A rank odor drifted with the fog. Ollowain’s feet sank in the mud.

  Bodies drifted between the pylons of the dock, their faces standing out as pale flecks against the dark water.

  Silwyna and the surviving guardsman slipped down from the dock. They held him beneath his arms, one on each side. Ollowain stared at the young man. He knew his face but could no longer remember his name. He ought to remember the names of his men! He at least owed them that.

  “We will try to swim as best we can,” Silwyna whispered. “Wading in the mud is too loud and too tiring.”

  Ollowain let the others pull him along. The warm water relaxed his painful limbs. Slowly he began to feel better. The moon had disappeared below the horizon. Dawn was approaching. It was the best possible time to escape through the mangroves. The breath of the dying night brought fog with it.

  After a while, the swordmaster was able to swim unassisted. He had been lucky. A few nasty bruises, but that was about all he had suffered. He owed Silwyna his life. Another heartbeat and Urk would have crushed him with his huge stone hammer.

  “They are very close. Hear that?” Silwyna asked.

  Ollowain listened for sounds in the fog and heard a smacking noise.

  “That is the centaurs,” Silwyna whispered. “They must be in shallow water. That way.” She pointed toward a thick bank of fog and swam ahead. Soon she disappeared among the drifting vapors, and Ollowain was guided only by sound. And then he saw them. He had swum so close behind them that he had almost touched the rearmost centaur. The boat was no more than an indistinct form ahead. Gondoran must have ordered the last torch to be extinguished.

  “Orimedes?”

  All sounds stopped instantly.

  “It is me, Prince. Ollowain.”

  “It’s his ghost,” he heard Gondoran whisper.

  “Nonsense!” A shadow broke away from the form of the boat and moved in Ollowain’s direction with smacking, sucking steps. “Swordmaster?” The centaur grasped him by the shoulders and lifted him up. A broad grin split the manhorse’s beard. “Damned good to see you again.”

  Ollowain could not say a word. Pain shot through every limb, and tears sprang to his eyes.

  Orimedes set him down on his feet. “I would never have thought that the joy of our reunion would bring you to tears, my friend!” He clapped Ollowain on the shoulder. “Thank the Alben you made it!”

  “I am not alone,” the swordmaster said slowly through gritted teeth. “An archer saved my life. And one of my men also made it.”

  Together, they waded forward to the skiff. “How is the queen?” Ollowain asked.

  The centaur shrugged. “No change. She does not move—nor does the traitor.”

  Behind them sounded the drawn-out blast of a horn.

  Orimedes lowered his voice. “They’re out here in the marshes, too, the brutes. If not for the fog, they would have found us long ago.” He frowned. “It’s a miracle that you found us.”

  Ollowain nodded. “Yes. Lucky.” He wanted to say as little as possible about Silwyna. The Maurawan did not have a good reputation.

  “We must hurry,” Gondoran pressed. “It’s good to have you back, swordmaster, but the welcome party will have to be postponed. The water is dropping. The ebb tide is on us, and we have to make sure that we get out of the mangrove channels and into the Woodmer. We will only be safe from these accursed trolls out there.”

  “And what if they are not only here in the swamps?” Orimedes asked. “What if they were the ones bombarding us from the sea?”

  The holde let out an incredulous cackle. “Trolls on ships? Who ever heard of something like that? Nonsense, they won’t be looking for us on the Woodmer. Every troll is afraid of the water. As soon as it’s deeper than their chests, they piss in their breeches and turn back. That’s why we have to get out into open waters.”

  “But what about whoever was firing at us from the sea?” Ollowain objected. “Someone is out there who has no fear of the water.”

  Gondoran swiped one hand as if brushing away a pesky fly. “Piffle, all of it! Who knows that we—” He glanced mistrustfully at Silwyna. “Who knows that we’re trying to escape with wounded? By the time the trolls can pass a message to their allies at sea, we’ll be long gone. There’s a burning city between them and the harbor. We’ll make it!”

  As if to prove the holde a liar, a signal horn sounded just then, and worryingly close. The trolls were in the mangroves, certainly. The hunt had only just begun.

  The small party pushed on in silence through the mangroves and mud. Gondoran did everything he could to keep the skiff in the deeper channels between the small islands. Low-hanging branches caught their hair and scratched their faces, and apart from the sounds they themselves were making, all was still. No creature moved. Everything living had hidden away from an invisible menace.

  Suddenly, some distance ahead, Ollowain spi
ed the pale flicker of a flaming torch. For a few heartbeats, it danced in the fog like a far-off will-o’-the-wisp; then it vanished again.

  Ollowain now felt the pull of the tidal currents more strongly. The Woodmer could not be much farther, but the water level was falling at a troubling rate. The winding channels they followed were growing narrower; very soon, they would find themselves grounded in the mud.

  From away to their left, where the sea had to be, came the sound of a horn. The fog muffled its wail, and it was impossible to say how far off their pursuers might be.

  “They’re surrounding us,” Silwyna whispered. “It won’t be long before they have us.”

  Ollowain stared into the darkness. Was that already the first glow of dawn on the horizon? The fog still lay over the mangroves like an enormous shroud over a dying world, smothering everything. The air was ripe with the stink of decaying plants. Even the brackish water seemed dead, and their motion through it generated torpid ripples. Although the swordmaster hated the fog, he knew it was their ally. He feared it wouldn’t be their ally very long, however: the new day would quickly disperse it.

  “How do the trolls know where we are?” he asked the Maurawan.

  “They don’t. They’re hunters, led by instinct, and they will have us before the sun rises. They have left hunting parties behind in the mangroves to intercept anyone trying to escape. Now they are being called together. Were you ever part of a battue, a hunt where dogs and kobolds beat through the bush, driving the prey toward the real hunters? They wait with their pig spears and bows where they know the animals will run. That’s our position, swordmaster.”

  “And how do we escape?”

  “You don’t want to hear it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We leave Emerelle to her fate, and each of us tries to escape on our own. I would make it,” she said confidently. “Perhaps you would, too. The centaurs would make too much noise. The holdes might manage to hide among the roots of the mangroves somewhere. The trolls won’t search there.” She looked at Lyndwyn, who lay slumped beside the mast. “She will die. Even if she regains consciousness in time. She is not able to be one with the land—finding her will take no skill, and as for the other elf woman, your student—”

  “Finding me will take no skill either,” Ollowain interrupted her sharply. “I will be where the queen is.”

  “You won’t be able to stop them, swordmaster. What sense does it make to die for a hopeless goal? Do you believe this to be your way into the moonlight?”

  “This is the way that my honor demands.”

  “Well said,” the centaur prince chimed in. “Send the coldhearted viper away.”

  “Honor?” Silwyna laughed ironically. “It’s easy to see that it was you who taught the human. Alfadas talked as you do.” Ollowain believed he heard a tinge of melancholy in her voice. “You are a romantic, swordmaster. One rarely encounters a man like you among the old. Romantics are always the first to die.” She took the quiver from her shoulder and flipped back the protective cover. “My allegiance to the queen will last as long as this supply of arrows.” She closed the quiver again and released the bow that she had tied to its side. “I fight best alone. I will find a dry place and string my bow. If not too many trolls come, we may meet again.”

  She lifted the quiver and bow high over her head. The water came to her chest. Without turning back, she waded away. For another heartbeat, she remained visible as a vague form in the mist; then she disappeared from view.

  “Who was that good-for-nothing witch?” Orimedes asked indignantly.

  “A stranger,” said Ollowain thoughtfully. Why had Silwyna opened the quiver for him like that? Wasn’t it clear to her that he had seen the arrow in the mast? Or was it perhaps a threat? There were six arrows inside it, and two of them had black-and-white striped feathers, just like the arrow someone had shot at Emerelle. The feathers of a strangling owl. Supposedly, they allowed arrows to fly silently. Assassin’s arrows . . . and for hunters? He gazed uneasily in the direction in which Silwyna had disappeared.

  A pallid morning glow thinned the mist. Three flecks of light moved ahead of them. They looked to be coming up the channel that the small party was following with their boat.

  On a sign from Gondoran, the two holdes that had been poling the skiff forward paused. The lights had vanished in the fog again. But there could be no doubt that they had been moving in their direction.

  “Where did the huntress go?” the boatmaster asked.

  “She’s covering our rear.” Ollowain scanned all around for an inlet, a side channel, or a tangle of roots, anything that might be suitable for hiding the boat.

  “Centaur shit!” Gondoran grumbled. “The trolls won’t let a few arrows stop them. What is your plan, swordmaster? How do we escape them?” The holde looked at Ollowain expectantly. All eyes were on him! But he was no miracle worker . . .

  Again the horn sounded, the same one that had followed them since they had left the water garden. This time it was three short, breathless blasts. Their pursuers had found them, apparently.

  “Your plan!” Gondoran pressed.

  “I release you from your service to the queen, Gondoran. You and your men know your way around the mangroves. You have a good chance of escaping.”

  Now came the sound of hunting horns from all sides. The noose was closing. Ollowain loosened his sword in its sheath.

  “You want to send us away? Just like that? Like cowards?” Gondoran asked in outrage. “Do you think we’re afraid to die? Do you think we’re going to run away now to crawl into a hole like swamp rats and hope the trolls go away? Among my people, we three call ourselves warriors, swordmaster. We can kill all of the trolls if we want.”

  “All of ’em!” one of the other holdes agreed. “We’ll smother ’em under the prickly shroud!”

  Orimedes laughed. “At least you’ve got your hearts in the right place, boys.”

  “This is not a joke,” Gondoran replied solemnly. He tipped his head back and looked up to the thickly intertwined branches atop the mangroves. “Do you have the courage to protect your queen with your body instead of your sword, Ollowain?”

  “What are you planning?”

  Gondoran pointed to a thick growth in a fork in the branches overhead. In the low light, it looked as if the wood was suffering from an abscess. Only on second glance did Ollowain realize he was looking at a nest.

  “Gardener bees,” said the holde quietly, as if afraid the bee swarm above their heads might overhear him. “They tend the flowers in the mangroves. Every bee-folk has its own garden. They drive away everything that comes too close to it.”

  “Ooh, I’m shaking all over! Are you fool enough to think they will scare off the trolls?” the centaur prince jeered. Orimedes drew his sword. “This is what we need. Polished steel, nothing else.”

  “You have never experienced an angry bee-folk, manhorse, or you would not babble on about them so lightly. The gardener bees won’t scare the trolls away. They will kill them. And they will kill us, too, once we have called them. But if you manage to keep your mouth shut when they come, you might just survive.”

  “Why would that be difficult?” asked Yilvina uneasily.

  “You will find out! Nothing here in the mangroves is as deadly as the gardener bees. Not the green tree vipers nor the big sea caimans that sometimes come into the swamps on the rising tide. The bees attack all intruders in their thousands, which is why there are no birds or monkeys here. Nothing. Not even water rats anymore. All of them are dead or have moved to safer territory. And we fishermen only risk going into the mangroves at night, while the bee-folk sleep. If we destroy three or four of their nests, all of the bees will rise. Then the dying starts.”

  “I can’t see how a few bees are supposed to kill a troll,” said Orimedes. “You’re spouting holdeish faery tales.”

  Again, the three torches appeared through the fog. They were much closer now. A few moments more and the trolls would
literally walk right into them.

  “How can we protect Emerelle?” Ollowain asked. He was not ready to give up all hope of saving the queen.

  “By lying on top of her. But she will protect herself best of all. As I said, you cannot move and under no circumstances can you open your mouth. Only then, perhaps, will you survive.”

  “Call the bees, Gondoran,” Ollowain said as he pulled himself into the boat. He quickly covered the queen’s face with a cloth. Lyndwyn’s hand still rested on the queen’s chest. It was moving to see how, even unconscious, she was still trying to protect Emerelle. But he would not let himself be fooled. She was certainly not doing it out of any feeling for the queen, but to save her own life.

  The holdes removed their headbands, and Gondoran took out a small leather sack of pebbles from beneath one of the thwarts.

  “Hey-ho, who do we have here?” The trolls had discovered them!

  The boatmaster placed a pebble in his scarf and swung it in a circle over his head. With a dull crack, the missile penetrated the skin of the nearest nest. Gondoran’s comrades took aim at other nests, their whirling headbands creating a soft hiss.

  Ollowain held his breath. A dark mass billowed from the damaged nest, and then the air was filled with a dull buzzing sound. A gray-black cloud separated from the bees’ nest.

  The holdes calmly fitted new pebbles into their slings.

  The swordmaster kneeled and leaned over the queen protectively.

  A cry sounded from the direction of the trolls. Ollowain saw how the bees reacted to the noise. Just a second before, they had been no more than a dark cloud darting aimlessly among the branches. Now the cloud stretched out, only to recoil a moment later into a thick mass as the entire swarm flew toward the trolls.

  Ollowain exhaled, relieved. In the fog ahead of them, he heard loud curses. Something splashed through the water, but he could see nothing. Two more bee swarms appeared above them in the tangled branches. Suddenly, a huge figure appeared at the side of the boat, flailing its arms helplessly, screaming, stumbling, falling, and rolling in the brackish water. Ollowain recognized the figure as a troll only from its size, for the body of the giant had lost all of its natural contours. Thousands of bees had descended on the troll, transforming him into a formless, twitching mass. The air was filled with their buzzing now, as loud as thundering hooves of massed riders.