Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 4.1

Four

They spent the next week mostly in silence, speaking only at need as they made their way southeast towards the Rangers’ stronghold. On the third day of their journey they stopped outside a small village for supplies. They also sold the wagon, which they no longer needed, since Arden and Argos were now fully recovered. Evénn had entered the village alone, in case there were dragon’s men about, looking for Arden or other Rangers. He had driven a hard bargain for the wagon at the small livery stable, from no need of money, but to allay suspicion through boldness. For a stranger too willing to sell a good wagon at a bad bargain might have something to hide.

The silence of the elf troubled Arden little in itself. The years he had chosen to spend alone in the wilds had made fellowship and conversation rare passages in his life. Usually all the talking he did was to himself, or to Argos and Night; and they did not answer in words. It was only when he visited the Rangers’ stronghold that he knew anything of the free company of others, but with time such visits by him had become quite uncommon. In the last ten years he returned to the Valley only when duty or the Masters summoned him there. On the whole Arden preferred solitude and the exile of his thoughts, his memories, and his bitterness.

When he ventured into a town, he stayed briefly and said little. Though his garb and wolfhound revealed him as a Ranger to all, he revealed himself willingly to none. Some, like the innkeeper at Kinabra, and the other men and women old enough to remember the days before the dragons, guessed much of the life of this infrequent visitor from his countenance and spare words. They knew that hunted men, especially outlaws like the Rangers in these evil days, still yearned for the comfort of comrades. From a distance they offered what they could.

Arden did not deceive himself. He longed for friendship like the rest. Within him was a conflict he could never resolve. He wished to know others as he once had, but feared that gratifying this desire would leave him still more alone when those others also fell. His loneliness bred only loneliness.

So Evénn’s company on the road was as welcome to Arden as his silence. The quiet hours and miles left him to his thoughts. All the once held beliefs of his youth rose from the grave of Narinen to challenge the certainties that had taken their place. With the arrival of Evénn hope beckoned – for if the dragonslayer still lived, what more could be possible – but Arden defied hope. He had once believed in all that Evénn himself professed, and all that his survival into the withered, riven world of the dragons suggested. Arden rejected that world utterly. Suffering had so deformed his heart that even the appearance of a hero out of legend, who had defeated this same evil long ago, could not restore him. Years of doubt and grief, of solitary regret, were not forgotten in a few hours or days.

Evénn had said of the women of the farm that god could heal the hearts of those who wished healing. Yet for thirty years the Rangers had fought a losing battle against a stronger foe, whose numbers were always renewed while the Rangers dwindled through age, accident, and endless war. Theirs was a long defeat, devoid of final hope. They had become ashes waiting only for a last wind to scatter them into nothingness. What heart without hope could wish for healing? And what soul without faith could ask for it?

The little Evénn said in the first week touched on the craft of healing. He had discovered sores beneath the saddles of the troopers’ badly tended horses, and each day he spent some time treating them. He insisted that Arden help. As they worked, Evénn spoke of the gathering and preparation of the necessary herbs, a good store of which he kept in his saddle bags. He also spoke of the herbs’ history and the efficacy of each for various ills, explaining how to apply them and what prayers and spells to use. Beneath the elf’s skilled hands the horses, which had been skittish and unfriendly at first, quickly improved and took a great liking to Evénn. Within a few days they were following him like so many happy dogs at their master’s heels.

“Learning something of this craft will be useful to you,” Evénn often said to Arden during the week. “It is the same craft that healed you and your dog.”

By the ninth day the woods had so encroached on the path that they could no longer ride abreast, or even see Argos and the wolf, who rustled along beneath the dense thickets on either side. Several times the path seemed to end in a wall of dark green leaves. Yet Evénn pushed through without hesitation, never losing the almost invisible trail, which Arden thought was known only to Rangers. Even in the peaceful days before the Fall, few travelers ventured this deep into the woods, so remote from the nearest dwelling of men – the village where Evénn had sold the wagon, now six days’ journey behind them.

That evening Arden and Evénn rested beside their campfire. Above them to the east loomed the Gray Mountains, beyond which lay the last stronghold of the Rangers. All but the highest peaks, already touched with a blaze of snow, were doused in shadow. As Arden sat contemplating those summits and the ascent they would begin towards them the next morning, he listened to Argos and the wolf playing together. They leaped and rolled in the firelight, casting sudden flashes of shadow on the surrounding trees.

In the last week the two of them had become inseparable. They vanished into the gloom of the forest, to reappear again hours later, a pair of unlikely friends, returning shoulder to shoulder from adventures all their own that Arden and Evénn would never know. Not long ago Arden could never have imagined such a friendship, or that he would find himself gazing in admiration at the wolf’s long legged grace, as he did this evening. The wolf was beautiful.

“What is the wolf’s name?” Arden asked in the middle of their meal.

Evénn, seated across the fire from Arden as usual, looked over his shoulder at the wolf and the hound, who ceased their play at once and stared back, knowing that they were being talked about. Evénn turned back to Arden with a smile.

“I don’t know. He’s never told me.”

“Don’t tell me he speaks to you?” Arden asked incredulously.

“No, no,” Evénn replied, gently laughing, “but you know how it is with beasts sometimes. When you get them, you study them and consider what to call them. Then suddenly you know, as if somehow they have told you. That has never happened with him. Mostly I just call him ‘wolf’ and he doesn’t seem to mind.”

“I have never seen a wolf of his kind before. Where did you find him?

“Several years ago on a journey I took, far to the north where the snow falls all the year round, in the place you call the Fields of Winter, I came upon him and his pack one icy morning when the sky was as clear and blue as when the world was young. He was barely more than a cub then, but he walked out from the pack towards me, and has followed me since. He came, though I did not call him. He chose me.”

“What brought you to the lands of snow?” Arden asked. His people rarely went there. “Were you searching for something?”

“I am often searching for something. Sometimes I find it and sometimes it finds me. I don’t always know what it is until I see it, however.”

“I see,” Arden said with a grave nod of his head. “I had always heard that the elves spoke in riddles. Now I know it is true.”

“That’s only because you fail to grasp what we are saying.”

“There you go again.”

Evénn laughed aloud – deeply, joyfully, sadly – and the firelight flashed in his green eyes as he threw his head back in pleasure. Arden had not heard him laugh so heartily before. Suddenly he recalled a lesson that one of his old Masters had taught him, that laughter can reveal all of a man’s life in an instant. Arden asked himself how long Evénn must have lived to have a laugh like that.

“I have also heard,” he said, “that a man’s laugh tells much about him.”

“That is so,” Evénn answered with an sly grin, “and even more so with elves.”

Now it was Arden who laughed.

“Your laughter is bitter, my friend,” Evénn stated flatly.

Arden stopped suddenly.

“I have much to be bitter about,” he replied.

“You do,” said Evénn. “But the world as it is is not your doing.”

“True, but I must suffer the world as it is. What was is beyond recovery.”

“That is always so, with or without the dragons, but we may still change what will be, for both our peoples.”

“I don’t see how.”

“If you cannot imagine it, then you will never know.”

They resumed eating. Between mouthfuls Arden paused, wishing to ask Evénn what he meant, but the habit of despair sealed his lips. He could not ask; he would not hope. The elf said nothing. Arden changed the subject.

“When you mentioned your journey to the north, you said the sky was as blue and clear as when the world was young. Just how old are you?”

Evénn laughed that laugh again. “Well, I am not quite as old as that. Not enough to remember the youth of the world. That was just a manner of speaking. I remember a younger world, but not a young one.”

“So what was it like when the world was younger?”

“You grew up by the sea, did you not? I can hear the accents of the eastern ocean in your voice.”

“Yes.”

“Well, then you know the great tempests that come from the sea in late summer?”

“Yes, of course.”

“How does the world seem the day after one of those storms?” Evénn asked.

“As if the wind and rain had scoured it clean. The sky is more blue, the trees more green, the flowers more brilliant.”

“As if the world were new again?”

“Precisely.”

“That is how the world was long ago,” Evénn said. “Each dawn could have been the first, and each night the stars shone as if newly kindled by god. The world was as if just imagined. It was like the first love of youth fondly remembered in later years.”

Arden winced at that and Evénn saw it, but Arden pressed on.

“So, what happened? Why is it no longer that way?”

“Because everything in the world of elves and men grows and changes, Arden. Some things fade, but others replace them. At least it often seems that way to us.”

“The elves do not grow old.”

“Not in body, as men do, but we do grow old in heart sometimes, precisely as men do. For us it takes much longer. Men seldom live long enough to notice any changes in us, but we do change. Memory and hope, and longing for the things we have loved and lost, can mislead us, just as they do men. We, too, can mistake the differences we see, or think we see, for signs of decline. In lives as long as ours, with memories as long as ours, that can lead to terrible temptation.”

“To what?”

“To attempt to resurrect the world as we remember it, because we think our memories are true.”

“But how?” Arden said, his voice a doubtful whisper.

“There are ways of power to accomplish such ends, Arden, but they are perilous beyond measure. They are better left untried. Succeed or fail, the cost of them is too dear,” Evénn replied sternly. For in Arden’s eye he had caught a strange and eager glimmer he did not like. He had seen that light before, in other eyes. “It is too dear,” he warned.

Arden withdrew his gaze, and lowered his eyes to the fire.

“So how old are you, Evénn?” he asked, when he raised them again.

“I am nearly five thousand years old.”

With these words, the crushing weight of time came down upon Arden. For he could only imagine so much time in the pain of his own life. If he were an elf, he thought, he would have to bear that burden alone through uncounted years, until the ending of the world. What followed next was only worse. For he thought of how long he might have known joy, had he been an elf and the dragons never come. With that much time he might have lived to win Sorrow for his own in the end.

Evénn saw all this in Arden’s eyes, saw it overwhelming him – he had seen this look before, too – and he recalled how Arden had flinched only a few minutes ago.

“I can guess some of what you are feeling,” he said sympathetically. “Mortals always think of their sorrow as never ending, and that the weight of the years must be unsupportable. They gasp at the thought of it, and gasp again when they consider the brighter possibilities of time. But it is not like that. Not quite. There is enduring pain, to be sure, and long joy, but there is also a point of balance between the two that one can find, whether elf or man.

“In a life that spans the life of the earth, we have more chances to attain that balance, but also more to lose it because there is so much more to grieve for. I have seen thousands of your kind die. To miss one you love for a generation seems long to you, and for you it is; but in five thousand years of the sun I have buried countless mortal friends, countless dogs, countless horses – all of whom I loved as you love Argos, and Night, and others – and the memory of them never leaves me.

“And though by nature the elves are deathless, chance and war can kill us, too. To lose those you have loved for a thousand years, and to mourn them for a thousand more – I lost my dearest blood in the first war with the dragons; and when they returned I lost my father and my brother as well. The dragons’ wrath fell hardest on us because we led the fight against them the last time. Now we are almost gone. Those who remain are scattered and hidden. Only a few walk beneath the open sky.”

“Like you?” Arden asked, with a look that said he was thinking of something else.

“Like me. They walk abroad in search of hope.”

“Hope!” Arden scoffed. “There is no hope.”

“If so, then we are all lost, your kind and mine. But if we do not search for it, then we do not deserve to survive.”

“I, too, lost my father and brother in the great war. My brother was with you across the sea. My father died in the fall of our city. They did not deserve that.”

“I am sure they did not. Your people fought bravely beside us that day at Elashandra, but in vain. Together we were a mighty force, but courage and strength were not enough. The dragons and their men were too many and too powerful. Our courage was overwhelmed. No tears could mourn the blood shed that day. ”

“But dragons have been defeated before if the songs are true,” said Arden, but Evénn could see he was still thinking.

“The songs are true, but, if you recall them, you will also remember that the dragons did not fight together then. That was their error, a mistake they did not repeat.”

“Wait,” Arden said slowly, and held up his hand. “You speak as if they are the same dragons.”

“They are.”

“But you killed them.”

“Yes.”

Without a word, Arden leaned forward. His narrowed eyes demanded an explanation.

“The dragons are not like us, Arden, creatures of flesh, blood, and bone, but eternal spirits of great power, who under certain conditions can cloak their majesty in flesh, and enter our world in the guise in which we see them. The bodies they put on, however, are mortal. So they can be slain, with great difficulty, as you know from the songs. Yet the dragons themselves do not die. They merely return to the world of spirits whence they came.

“In the first war, as I said, they did not act in concert; and so with the help of many others we were able to slay them one by one. When they returned thirty years ago they had profited by their mistakes – even evil can do so – and joined together to subdue us to their will, or destroy those who would not submit. That much power gathered in one place, and aided by men they had seduced or enslaved, was too much for the nations of elves and men. Thus we were defeated, and the night of our affliction began.”

“You say they are spirits, but I do not remember learning that.”

“No, that was concealed, lest the misguided or evil later seek to bring them back and benefit from standing by their side.”

“Why would god permit such evil spirits to enter the world?”

“Oh, now you believe in god? Or, do you ask,” Evénn smiled, “merely to reinforce your doubts because there can be no satisfactory answer?”

“We could do without your wit right now, Evénn,” Arden said sharply, stung by the elf’s reproof. “This is too serious for joking. My family and yours, my people and yours have been destroyed by these monsters, and despite what you say of hope and the future and deserving to survive, I see no remedy for this ill.”

“Very well, I shall give you a more serious answer. But forgive my wit. You reminded me of myself. Do you think you’re the only one to taste bitterness and doubt?” Evénn said. His smile faded, and he began again. “Why would god allow such evil? I don’t know. Nor do I know why god would allow plagues and earthquakes. He has never answered me that. But for this world to be ours, we must be free to face its troubles and the consequences of our actions. If god intervened – ”

“Oh, enough of god already, and your musings,” said Arden. His voice now was jagged with anger. “You were right the other night. You do go on, like a scholar in his study, but that world is dead, Evénn, and the boys and girls who sat at the feet of scholars and debated such questions are dead. Where was god when they died? Where has he been the last thirty years? The consequences of our actions? How can the dragons be the consequence of our actions? I ask you, where was god?”

“Where he has always been.”

“And enough of your elvish answers. Riddles and reflections are not what we need. We need to kill the dragons or die trying,” Arden shouted.

He jumped up and stalked off into the forest, followed by Argos.

Evénn sat with his head bowed. He did not watch them go, though the wolf peered into the gloom until even he lost sight of them. Then, with a plaintive moan, he dropped his head into Evénn’s lap.

“It’s all right, lad,” the elf said, lovingly stroking his face. “That took longer than I thought, but that’s a good thing. Now we’ll see about the rest.”

Evénn turned his head slightly, tucking his chin into his shoulder as if listening, but aside from the crackling of the fire there was nothing to hear for a long time. At last he sighed.

“Seek god first in small things, my friend,” he said to the man who was not there.

___________________________

Chapter 4.2

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 3.2

It was twilight when Arden opened his eyes again. The left side of his head burned and ached, but even lifting his hand to touch it made it hurt more. He was lying on his back in a cart, looking up at the sky, his vision too blurred to recognize the stars and tell morning from evening. For a few minutes he remained still, contending with his wound. The sky darkened. The watery stars grew brighter. It was evening, then. Suddenly he smelled smoke, and remembered the farm. Despite the pain seething in his head, Arden sat up and reached for his sword. Gone. Nor was his dagger at his belt.

He forced himself to look around. He was no longer at the farm. The wagon stood in a woodland clearing next to a path that disappeared almost at once into the night shadows of the trees. In the middle of the glade a man knelt beside a small fire, stirring something in a pot. His back was mostly turned to Arden, and between the shadow and the flame he was little more than a silhouette rimmed in light. But in his movements, in the way he leaned forward over the pot and in the slow circle his hand described with the spoon, there was calm and certainty.

Off to the right, out of easy reach and clearly visible in the firelight, lay the stranger’s sword, bow, and quiver. Arden had no doubt the man had placed them there deliberately, a sign that he meant no harm. There was something else, too, a little farther away, a roll of dark blue cloth about four feet long. Arden was wondering what it was when he caught sight of Argos staring at him across the fire, and heard his tail thumping the ground.

“Argos,” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper of joy.

The hound slowly stood up and began limping his way over to him. Arden eased himself to the back of the cart and got out, shifting his eyes from the hound to the man and back again. The stranger never took his attention from the pot. Then the Ranger remembered him. This was the man who had slain the dragon’s men and saved his life, but Arden no more knew who he was than he had before.

He knelt and threw his arms around the dog, but his eyes still rested on the stranger by the fire.

“Oh,” Arden cried as the hound eagerly licked his face and made the side of his head ache. “Thank you, thank you,” he laughed and held the dog still closer, trying to keep the Argos’ nose from his wounds. “Thank you for your help.” The laughter also hurt.

The kneeling figure turned his head slightly, just enough to see the Ranger over his shoulder, then returned to the fire, but not before Arden caught the glimmer of his eyes.

“You’ll find your weapons under the seat of the cart,” the man said. “I did not wish you to wake up and start waving that sword about. You are safe here. I have tended your wounds while you slept. You should both be fully healed in a day or two.”

The stranger’s voice was rich and deep, like the shade of a broad-leafed tree in its prime, with boughs spread wide to catch the sun above, and lend shade to cool the earth below. It was a thoughtful voice, weary and sorrowful, but also resonant with a peace and strength that, again like a great tree, drew sustenance from roots buried far beneath the surface. Arden marveled at it. He had never known peace like that, not even in his glittering youth by the sea.

“What of the farmer’s family?” Arden asked.

“They will live,” the stranger replied. “I healed their wounds, and gave them much gold for that wagon. Their hearts only god can heal, if they choose to be healed.”

“But what of the troopers’ bodies? Others may come and – ”

“No one will find them.”

“ – ask questions,” Arden insisted on finishing.

“No one will find them.”

Arden paused and thought a moment. What the stranger said made no sense.

“But there were seven bodies, not counting the farm animals and the wolves. You’ll never hide all that blood from the wolves the soldiers will bring. They will smell it.”

“They will find nothing, because there will be nothing to find. The good farmer is buried among his ancestors out past the farmhouse. If anyone asks, his widow can say he died in the fire. Which will almost be true.”

“But how?” Arden asked, unhappy and incredulous.

“A minor enchantment, if you must know,” the stranger said with some impatience.

“Enchantment?” whispered Arden, half stunned, half scornful. “Enchantment?”

Then he fell silent. As a youth he had heard tell of such things, and when he was a boy he had believed in them. Sometimes, too, Arden’s Masters had spoken of enchantments as a skill a Ranger far advanced in the training of body and spirit might learn, but none had ever offered to teach them to him; and he had never known anyone to claim such knowledge for himself or seen anyone practice it. Arden did not believe in it at any rate. Who was this man to claim it was real and in his power?

Arden looked around him. His vision had improved as they were speaking. The stars were now sharp and clear in the night sky. He wondered what day it was. How long had he lain unconscious and how far from the farm were they? For one man to bury so many bodies, even in shallow graves, and tend the wounded was no small task. It took time.

He turned back to the stranger, who was still calmly tending the pot which hung over the fire. From time to time he tasted the contents. His back was still to Arden. Then on the other side of the fire, half in darkness, Arden saw a wolf. Unlike the mountain wolves, it was a very light gray, long of body and lean, but with the deep chest that bespoke an ability to run endlessly. Yet it was nevertheless a wolf. If the stranger saw it, he gave no sign. Nor did Argos. Arden rose with difficulty, his head smarting, and went to fetch his weapons.

“It’s all right,” the man said before Arden had taken two steps. “The wolf is with me. He is not your enemy.”

Arden stopped and stared at him. Then he cast a cold eye on the wolf, who sat down and calmly returned his gaze for a moment, but afterwards seemed more interested in what was cooking.

“I have never met a wolf that was my friend,” Arden said, still eying him.

The stranger rose at last, lifting the pot from the fire.

“So now you have,” he replied. “Would you like some stew? I think it’s ready. You must be quite hungry.”

“Yes, I am,” he answered, only now realizing that more than his head ached.

With a smile the man pulled a pair of plain wooden bowls and spoons from a leather pack, and beckoned to Arden to join him by the fire. As he drew near, the stranger handed him a bowl, already warm from the stew within it. Arden accepted it and thanked him. He took a seat halfway between the stranger and the wolf. After glancing hopefully from bowl to bowl to pot, the wolf sighed, curled himself into a resigned ball, and went to sleep. There was something in the wolf’s indifference to his suspicions that amused and mollified Arden, and he turned back to the stranger, whom the firelight now revealed to him.

His hair fell thick and dark about his shoulders. His features were fine, his eyes green. He wore a green cloak much like Arden’s. Beneath a leather jerkin was a dark green shirt that had the sheen of silk. A dagger hung at his belt. Supple brown boots met his breeches, also brown, just below the knee.

“I thought you said you were hungry,” the stranger said, glancing up from his bowl. “Eat while it’s still hot.”

“Sorry, I will. Thank you.”

Arden fell to eating. The first spoonfuls only sharpened his appetite for more of the stew, meat, potatoes, other vegetables and roots in a broth so thick it was almost gravy. A second bowl quickly followed, but all the while Arden studied the stranger with furtive glances from beneath his brows. The stranger kept his eyes to himself while he ate, pausing only to refill Arden’s bowl and pass him water. Even a third bowl did not sate the Ranger’s hunger, as the warm food strengthened and soothed him, but he stopped with three. At length he spoke.

“Thank you for the food. And for my life. I though I was dead when that stone hit me.”

“You very nearly were,” the other replied. “You should have found that fourth trooper and killed him first. Then you would have had a chance.”

“I know, but my mind was on the farmer’s family,” Arden said.

“Little good you could have done them dead.”

“True enough. May I ask who you are, and where you came from just then?”

“My name is Evénn.”

Arden smiled to hear the name. It was an old name, from tales of the distant past. Many songs were sung of an elf hero called Evénn, who had lived a thousand years ago and more, if he ever lived at all. Arden remembered loving those songs when he was a boy, but he had come to believe that they were merely stories, shadows of a world none living could know.

“Thank you, Evénn. I am in your debt. My name is Arden,” he said.

The stranger bowed his head to him, but said nothing more, as if he preferred to leave Arden’s second question unanswered. So Arden asked it again.

“And just how did you happen to be at the farmhouse?”

“I was following you,” Evénn replied after a moment’s thought.

“You were?” exclaimed the Ranger. “For how long?”

“Since you first encountered the dragon’s men at Kinabra five days ago.”

Arden cocked an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Evénn answered. “You were unconscious for three days. That was quite a blow you took. And to answer your next question, I was inside the tavern when you arrived. Had you come in, our meeting might have been less dramatic. Be that as it may, I watched through the window as your confrontation with the dragon’s men unfolded. With great interest. You are a fine bowman.”

“So why did you follow us?” Arden asked, ignoring the compliment.

“I wasn’t going to at first, at least not immediately. You seemed to have the situation well in hand. But then the squadron posted at the south end of the town rode through, followed by another a minute later. That tipped the scales against you. And there are too many of their kind in the world today, and not enough of yours. I have always been fond of Rangers. Long ago one of them tried to do me a good turn.”

“Then there was another squadron of troopers,” Arden nodded. “I thought so. I heard horn calls the first day, and on the second I saw a wolf I couldn’t account for. What became of them?”

“I dealt with them, the wolf and I, that is.”

“The horns were in response to you?”

“Yes. My horse, like yours, is faster than theirs,” Evénn continued. “I overtook them just north of the town. Their comrades were too busy chasing you to turn back and help them. That one wolf did escape us, however. After that I hung back, thinking you might defeat the rest on your own. I followed and waited to see what happened.”

“Your help would have been welcome sooner, you know, since you seem inclined to give it.”

“Are the quarrels of the Rangers and dragon’s men my affair?”

“You did say you were fond of Rangers.”

“True enough, but that fondness does not make your business mine.”

“And yet here you are.”

“I did not think your skill and courage should perish because like a fool you rushed into that farmstead. We all need our errors forgiven and corrected, or who could stand before god?”

Arden sat back and frowned.

“If there is one,” he muttered under his breath.

Evénn heard this, smiled to himself, and lowered his eyes to the fire. Raising his hand, he gestured to the wolf who rose and came to lie down beside him like a dog, like Argos next to Arden. The wolf looked up happily as Evénn stroked his fur. Arden glanced at Argos, who gave no sign that he found anything amiss. Before now the merest scent of a wolf had always caused Argos to bare his teeth and snarl. But not now.

“I have never seen this breed of wolf before,” Arden said.

“Argos and the wolf became acquainted while you slept. Besides, Argos had seen us before.”

“Oh?”

“We came upon you sleeping in the moonlight up on the hill above the farm. Argos did not alert you to our presence,” Evénn added in answer to the question in Arden’s eyes, “because he knew we were friends. Dogs are wiser than we are in telling friend from foe. If your dog takes a dislike to someone, you should mind the dog. We remained close by. When the dragon’s men set fire to the house and fields, I left to investigate. The wolf remained behind. After you went charging off, he came and watched over your hound. They are fast friends now.”

“The more I know of you, the more in your debt I find myself to be,” Arden replied.

“It is nothing,” Evénn said with a wave of his hand. “You intervened to save the smith, though he did not deserve it. We did the same for you.”

“Though I did not deserve it?

“No, because you did. As I said, we all need forgiveness and the chance to learn better from our mistakes. This much I have learned. You may scoff, but it is so.”

“I had no wish to offend you.”

“You didn’t. I have some notion of how you feel. I’ve felt that way myself in the past. You doubt god – many do – small wonder in such dark days. Some think, wrongly, that there can be no god because god does not walk openly among us; some conclude that there can be no god because no god would allow the suffering of the world; some do the same because they have suffered terribly themselves. Still others doubt because god answered their prayers, as he usually does, with a firm ‘no’; and then there are those who doubt because god granted their prayers, and they came to regret getting what they asked for.

“All this reasoning, if you can call it that, is false. To decide that god does not exist because we cannot see him, because he does not behave as we think he should, because he does not grant us our wishes or protect us from ourselves, is not logical or reasonable, or wise for that matter. In the pride of our wisdom we are too often fools.”

Evénn’s last words trailed off into silence, and he stared into the fire, musing. Then suddenly he looked up.

“But enough of that,” he said with a grin. “I’ve gone on too long, haven’t I? It’s a bad habit that comes of years spent alone thinking. No doubt your head hurts enough as it is. Get some sleep. We must start early tomorrow.”

“Very well,” Arden agreed, “but let me ask you one last question.”

Evénn merely looked at him and waited.

“At the farm, you moved so quickly, and I have rarely seen such swordsmanship. Where –”

“My masters were excellent, and I have had much practice over the years. As for my speed, well, time can seem to flow quite strangely to someone who’s taken a sharp blow to the head. That’s all.”

Evénn’s voice was friendly, but there was a finality in his tone that told Arden he was done talking. Though hardly satisfied with this answer, Arden wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down a few feet from the fire, Argos beside him. Evénn meanwhile stood up and walked out beyond the firelight, where only the moon and stars shimmered. The wolf went with him. Arden closed his eyes.

But he did not sleep. His mind was too full of the events of recent days, of this stranger, and his unexpected appearance. Evénn was different. That much was certain. Arden had known many men, learned and unlearned, Rangers that wandered far and alone in the wilds like himself, and townsmen who never left the place of their birth, merchants and craftsmen, farmers and soldiers, but Evénn was unlike any of them.

Clearly he was practiced in war, so quick and skilled with his blade that the first two dragon’s men might as well have been unarmed. Even the captain had managed to parry only twice, with difficulty, driven backwards and clearly overmatched. And the dragon’s men spent too much time in training for them to have been mastered so easily by even a well trained swordsman. Arden was very good, and he might not have prevailed against the three of them together. Evénn had credited much practice and excellent swordmasters. That was all, he had said.

But that was hardly all.

There was also the swiftness and stealth of his movements. Arden doubted that Evénn’s speed was just an effect of the blow he had taken to his head, an illusion produced by his injury. Evénn had been upon the troopers almost before they could move. Somehow on the journey from Kinabra he had passed them by undetected, and then come very close to Arden in the woods without making the slightest sound, which was quite a feat on horseback over ground scattered with the leaves of early autumn. Ranger though he was, Arden did not think he could match those skills without many lifetimes of practice.

Much practice indeed.

Then there was the man himself. Evénn spoke as an elder of many winters would, with decades to reflect on the days and dreams of a long life, yet he appeared younger than Arden; and the world that held up a mirror for the reflections of old men was long dead. In speaking to Arden of doubt he had really spoken of faith, with the fierce assurance of one who discovered god, not in the fire or the whirlwind, but in pain. Nor was it just the man’s words. Arden had seen it in him from the first. In silence Evénn took comfort. But for Arden the world was too full of woe, and all the faith of his youth had burned away in dragon fire the day the Republic fell. That crucible reduced him to emptiness. Its fire did not purify. In silence he found only refuge.

“No wonder he troubles me,” he whispered to the night as he lay with his back to the fire.

And what of the spell Evénn had used, so he claimed, to deceive the senses of even the wolves, and mask the stench of all that blood? Arden had no faith in enchantments. Old men and older tales spoke of such power, but he had never witnessed it. Where was it when the nations of the earth fell? It was as absent as the god he had once believed in. Yet Evénn had been insistent, as confident as when he mentioned god. Arden sensed no deception in him. Whatever the truth was, Evénn believed his own words.

“Who is this man?” Arden thought.

It all made his head ache again. Was he deluded, or dreaming? Was he even now lying unconscious at the burning farm? He had heard stories of strange visions men near death had seen, and he had dreamed many strange dreams himself. But never like this. To be rescued from death by a warrior who appeared from nowhere, who healed his wounds, who spoke of god with the assurance of a prophet, and cast spells to protect them from their enemies, all this belonged in some great song of elder days. It was of course only fitting that this stranger’s name was Evénn, the hero of so many of those songs, a dragonslayer and a healer, but the days of song were over long ago, and the elves had all vanished or died when the war against the dragons was lost. After the Fall the Rangers had sent messengers across the sea to Elashandra, the city of the elves, several times. The few who returned told of a shattered city, ruled by the silver dragon, and occupied only by his men.

“All long ago,” murmured Arden and slept at last.

The next thing he knew, it was morning. Evénn was hitching one of the troopers’ horses to their wagon. Argos and the wolf were nowhere to be seen.

“Feeling better?” Evénn asked when Arden sat up. He gestured at a steaming bowl, which sat atop a rock a few feet from the smothered fire. “I saved you some stew.”

Arden took it and began to eat.

“Thank you. I am,” he answered. “My head hardly hurts.”

“By the end of the day it should not hurt at all, but you should probably drive the wagon while I ride. Your wound will heal more quickly that way.”

“Very well,” Arden acquiesced. He wanted to ride, but with the desire came a pang as he remembered that his horse was dead. Night had been his constant companion for nearly ten years. He was an old friend.

When Arden finished his breakfast, he rinsed the bowl and spoon with water he found waiting in the pot in which Evénn had cooked the stew. Without warning he found Evénn standing above him, hands held out for the bowl, pot and spoon. Arden gave them to him and watched Evénn return to his horse, where he packed them into his saddlebags. Strapped to the saddle was the roll of blue cloth he had noticed last night. In the morning light he could tell the fabric was silk. Something long and slender was wrapped inside, but Arden couldn’t guess what it was. He wondered if he should ask.

Arden stood up and walked over to the horse, while Evénn checked and tightened the cinch. He ran his hand along the horse’s sleek neck. It turned to look at him with large, dark eyes.

“This is quite an admirable horse,” Arden said. “He looks like he could run all day.”

“Much like yours, he can, fast as the wind and enduring as resentment.”

Arden laughed.

“Pity about your horse,” Evénn said. “He was rare. What was he called?”

“Night. And yours?”

“Moonglow.”

“They would have gone well together then.”

Yes,” said Evénn, and they smiled together.

Arden looked across Moonglow’s withers at him. He and Evénn were of much the same height, though Evénn was slightly taller and not as broad across the shoulders.

“Where are we heading?” Arden asked.

“Well,” Evénn said, letting the word hang in the air between them, “you’ll be needing a new horse, won’t you, and a longbow and other gear as well. So, we are returning to your people.”

Arden stared at him in disbelief.

“I cannot bring you there. It is not permitted.”

“Perhaps not, but I can bring you. I know the way.”

“Only the Rangers know the way,” said Arden, alarmed and suspicious.

“Easy, my friend.” Evénn said. “The secrets of the Rangers are safe with me. Didn’t I tell you I have always been fond of them? Your stronghold lies deep in the forest of Tasar at the foot of the Mountain of the Stars, about twelve day’s journey south and east of here. It is reached through a deep gorge that opens into a hidden valley. It is quite lovely there in the springtime.”

“How can you know that? None but the Rangers and their kin have been to the Valley since the war began.”

“I have been there, though.”

“When?” Arden scoffed. “I would have seen you or heard of your coming.”

“It was some time ago.”

“When?” Arden insisted.

Evénn sighed. For a long moment he looked up at the sky with his hands on his hips. Then he looked Arden straight in the eye.

“Before you were born, Arden. Listen to me. I know the way to the Valley. I went out of my way to save you. You know this. If I were not to be trusted, you and all your kind would have perished already.”

Arden watched him closely, weighing his words. He could not contradict him.

“Trust comes hard to us now,” Arden said.

“That must change, or you will never be more than the ashes of what you were; and in the end ashes are always scattered by the winds. Is that what you desire, to vanish on the wind?”

“No.”

“Then let’s be on our way.”

Evénn mounted Moonglow, and moved off at a quick walk. As he did, the wolf and hound emerged unexpectedly from the woods across the clearing. The wolf loped after Evénn, who never looked back. Joined by Argos, the Ranger walked back to the wagon and climbed up into the seat. The hound sprang up beside him. At the twitch of the reins on his back, the horse started the cart moving. Behind them followed the three other troopers’ horses, tethered to the rear of the wagon.

All Arden’s reflections of the night before flooded back into his mind as he drove along the road. Now this man, who looked younger than he did, claimed to be old enough to have visited the Valley of the Rangers before Arden had been born. Traditionally, not even the leaders of the Republic had known its location, and the few who had, seldom visited. But Evénn had described the way there accurately. Clearly he knew where it was.

So much about Evénn was extraordinary. Arden had no other word for it. Everything about him fit together and made sense, but led to a conclusion that was difficult to accept. For it all fit together in a way that suited someone, not from real life, at least not from Arden’s life, but from a heroic tale. It was as if Arden had woken from his wound to find himself inside a song that someone else was singing in a great hall lit by fire. But this was no dream. The only conclusion that Arden could draw about Evénn – that he was not a man at all – was the only one that made sense. Still he did not want to believe it.

For several hours Arden guided the wagon along the narrow path. It ran steadily east through the trees, climbing the low hills that rose and sank before them. His eyes were fixed on Evénn, who rode slowly ahead of him. He sat tall and erect in the saddle, his longbow slung across his shoulders. Still he did not look back. He left Arden to mull his questions and answers alone.

Over and over Arden rehearsed what he had seen, and what Evénn had told him since last night. He measured it all against what he remembered of the old tales. Finally he recalled a detail that would in his mind test the conclusion his mind had come to against his will. He quickened the pace of the horse and soon began to overtake the rider ahead of him. As he drew near, he called out his name.

Evénn stopped and turned.

“You have another question, I gather?”

“Yes,” Arden said.

“I hope you give as much thought to the answers as you do to the questions, my friend.”

“I have done little else today.”

“Well?”

Arden paused.

“Go on.”

“Evénn, tell me, where did you learn to heal as you do?”

Evénn smiled the distant smile of one recalling a cherished face that only memory could see.

“From my mother,” Evénn said quietly.

That was the answer Arden had expected. He took a deep breath before he went on.

“So, then, you’re an elf, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You are Evénn, the dragonslayer.”

“Yes, I am.”

________________________________

Chapter 4.1

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 3.1

Three

Not moving, scarcely breathing, Arden and Argos crouched on the hillside waiting for the enemy they had just heard approaching. How many there were he did not yet know, but he had left six men, four horses, and two mountain wolves alive behind at the ford yesterday. All he surely knew now was that at least some of them were cautiously working their way down the hill towards them.

He doubted they were on horseback, since he had heard none of the sounds that horses make, no heavy footfall of hoof on dirt or stone, no snorting, no jingle of curb chain. Nor had he heard their riders’ spurs. Perhaps they had removed theirs as he had, to move more quickly and silently. The undergrowth was dense near the brook. And at close quarters that could make horses as much a hindrance as a help. But was it the whole party of six dismounted or only some of them? Until the river Arden’s horse and bow had been the great equalizers, allowing him to maneuver at speed and fight from a distance. Yet bow and horse were both lost to him yesterday at the river, though his quiver had already been empty by then.

There was at least one wolf. That he knew from the reaction of Argos, who always bared his teeth and snarled at the least scent of a wolf, as he did not at the scent of men, even the enemy. But while Argos’ nose might tell him if there was one wolf or two, that much he could not tell Arden.

However many of his enemy there were, they clearly knew he was somewhere nearby. Their slow stealth told the Ranger that. Though the trail he and the hound had left coming down the hill was now many hours old, the shifting breeze would have betrayed their presence to the wolves, whose senses were as keen as those of his wolfhound. Arden considered trying to work his way back up hill so he could get behind them and attack them from higher ground, but the hillside was uneven and covered with a full carpet of leaves. Not even he could move so silently through dry leaves that the wolves would not hear him. Several days ago, right after the rains, the leaves would have been wet enough and the brook loud enough to make that possible. But the level of the brook had already fallen and the hot first days of autumn had dried the leaves again. He could only wait for them, and hope that surprise and darkness would be his allies. Soon the night would be even darker, since some clouds had drifted out of the west with the sunset and were drawing near the bright moon.

His sword and dagger he had drawn some time ago, at the first hint of their coming. The weapons now lay crossed on the ground before his knees, his one hand by them, the other on Argos’ head. At times he heard the rustle of leaves and perhaps the sound of a low voice. Once, when the breeze was right he thought he could hear the snuffling of a wolf after a scent. Each time they were definitely closer, less than fifty yards away now. If slow and careful, as they had been thus far, they would cover that distance in less than twenty minutes, measured in a cautious pace or two followed by a long pause while their ears and eyes strained against the night and the wolves sniffed about.

Away behind him down the hill and across the valley, the farm dogs began barking again.

Once more Arden heard the exasperated shouting of the farmer and the slamming of the door. He paid it little heed. Argos’ ears twitched momentarily to listen, but quickly shifted back again, his attention scarcely distracted from the present threat. The clouds covered the moon and plunged the forest into an absolute gloom that would trouble even the eyes of an elf, if elves there still were in the world of the dragons.

Uphill a twig snapped. Arden’s mind came fully to bear on the sound. Not even a muttered curse followed. In the quiet of the night, only the breeze in the trees, the rattling of a few leaves on the ground, and the murmur of the brook could be heard. The troopers were being very cautious. And they were much closer now, twenty yards perhaps. Arden reached slowly down and grasped his weapons. Rising to one knee, he began to calm himself, to ready his body and mind for the sudden spring that would bring him upon his enemies. The chase would soon be over, for him or for them. Possibly for them all.

Again the farm dogs were barking, this time wildly, now joined by the neighing of horses and lowing of oxen. The animals sounded near panic. He heard the farmer shouting, too, but now other voices were added to his, shouting back. Something was very wrong at the farm. Then suddenly he saw it. A dull reddish glare tinged the woods before him, a glare that quickly grew brighter and paled to a lurid yellow. The light came from behind him. The dogs cried out one last time, in pain, and fell silent. Voices carried across the valley floor to him, voices strained with fear and anger, the farmer’s among them. Then it, too, was silenced. Arden glanced briefly over his shoulder, knowing that he dare not look for long, but knowing also that he must. There was fire in the fields, the year’s harvest burning bright and the flames spreading quickly far and wide. The pale grain that earlier in the evening waved in the silver moonlight, reminding him of long ago, now roiled with the yellow waves of a devouring flame. That, too, reminded him of long ago.

It was a trap of course, set to flush out a Ranger and exploit his desire to protect people from the tyranny of the dragon’s men. Arden had guessed wrong. The captain had indeed divided his men, after making just enough show of keeping them together during the pursuit to mislead him. The men above were meant to distract him and keep his attention long enough for the rest of the troopers to reach the valley, where, just as in Kinabra, they could create a situation to which Arden must respond. At the same time he could not simply turn his back on the enemy near him. For even if he could outrun the men, he could not also outrun the wolves. If he fell or if a wolf took him down, he would be finished.

Behind him in the valley voices were raised in screams of pain. No doubt it was the farmer’s family, made to suffer to force the Ranger’s hand. One choice lay before him.

“Go on, lad,” whispered Arden, loosing the hound who could find the enemy in an instant. Behind him rushed Arden, sword in his right hand and dagger in his left. Not twenty feet up the hill Argos collided head on with a wolf and the two fell to the ground in a snarling mass, rolling each other over and over. Almost too late Arden glimpsed the dark form of the second wolf rushing at him from the left. As it leaped high to knock him to the ground, he ducked and stabbed upward with his dagger. The blade found flesh, but the beast’s broad chest struck him in the shoulder as it passed over him, rolling him onto his side. The wolf was now behind him, but howling in pain. Before Arden could rise, there were footsteps quick above him. A shape loomed over him, dully red in the growing light of the burning fields. Arden slashed hard with his sword a foot above the ground, feeling his blade bite deep into bone and through it. The shadow fell screaming to the ground.

Arden rose and stepped over it. The light of the fire was bright enough now to show him a second man less than ten feet away. But he did not advance. He held his sword and dagger before him in a defensive position, waiting for the Ranger to attack him. Off to the right the battle between Argos and the wolf continued still, but Arden could not take his eyes off his opponent, who could swiftly change from defense to attack if his attention wavered. Arden could feel the man’s fear, left alone in the red twilight to face the Ranger who had already slain so many of his comrades, while the dog and the wolf snarled and bit and crashed through the underbrush beside them. Prize or no prize for the Ranger’s head, he had not bargained for this. Then in two quick passes of their blades, Arden’s sword had brought the man to his knees. In the flickering glow the Ranger looked at the troopers’ face as life left it. He was the rider Argos had mauled outside the inn.

A yelp from behind caused Arden to turn. Argos was losing. The wolf, large even for one of its kind, had Argos down on his back and he was weakly trying to fend the wolf’s jaws from his throat. Both glistened with blood.

“No.”

Arden shouted and sprang at them. The wolf glanced sidelong at him, but could not turn from the hound without also exposing himself. With a thrust Arden skewered the wolf through the ribs, the impact knocking him clear of the hound. As the Ranger withdrew his blade, the wolf struggled to rise, only to have Arden leap across Argos and strike his head from his shoulders.

Returning to the dog, Arden quickly checked for any sign of another enemy. He heard the first wolf still whimpering, but there seemed nothing else. He fell on his knees beside Argos.

“Argos, my friend, oh not you,” he cried. Desperately afraid, he held the dog and checked him for wounds. There was much blood.

“Not you, too,” he whispered to him, more quietly now.

It was hard to tell in the scarce light of the flames, but his hands could find no major wounds, no sign of an artery or major vein severed. The hound was covered in blood, but how much was his and how much the wolf’s Arden could not tell. Though no wound he could find seemed mortal, without attention they might prove so. The worst wound was in his right front leg near the chest. He hastened to cut a strip from his cloak to bind it.

In the valley the screaming from the farm began once more, piercing even the roaring of the flames. He looked grimly down toward the flames, and the dog tried to rise. Arden held him gently down.

“No, my friend, stay,” he said to him in a low voice, then muttered to himself, “Again this choice, Arden,” as he weighed his feelings and the needs of others, their lives and their deaths. Quickly he tied off the strip of cloth around the dog’s leg. He bent and kissed the dog’s head.

“I must go to them. Without your help, though, I may not return. Be safe here.”

He then rose and checked the bodies of his enemies. Both dead. The first wolf still breathed. A short thrust of his dagger ended its suffering. With a last look at the dog, he sheathed his weapons and began to run down the hill through the trees, then through the burning fields towards the screaming that grew louder and more shrill the closer he came.

Several hundred yards from the foot of the hill Arden emerged from the flames to find the farmhouse, the soldiers, and their victims. A woman and two young girls, twelve or thirteen years old, were all tied to the fence of the paddock. Their heads hung down, their hair covering their faces. Before them on the ground lay a man face down in a dark, shining pool. Doubtless the farmer. Scattered around the farm yard were the carcasses of animals, dogs, horses, cattle. Behind all blazed the farmhouse and the barn, towering in fire and pouring smoking darkness into the sky.

Silhouetted against the burning house and standing between him and the paddock stood three cloaked figures. Two faced him. The third was gazing into the flames, his back turned. But six men had followed him from the ford yesterday. Two lay dead on the hillside by the brook. Three were here in front of Arden. Where was the last? The Ranger stepped forward, drawing his sword and dagger. The two facing him responded in kind. At this the third figure turned, his hand resting on the hilt of his sheathed sword. He walked forward until the light of a burning hay wagon illuminated his face. It was the dragon captain.

“Ah, Ranger, there you are,” he said calmly, his voice low and gentle, his tone even. “We were curious about when you would join us. I must admit my men were beginning to think you would not come, though perhaps ‘hope’ would be the better word.”

He paused and smiled a brief smile.

“It seems, however, that you were merely detained. Yet what has become of that astounding dog of yours?”

Arden made no answer. Slowly he looked from side to side, peering into the darkness for any sign of the last soldier, straining his ears for the slightest sound of movement. The horns he had heard two days ago came into his mind again as well as the additional wolf back at the pass. Though he had only seen six troopers behind him at the pass and the river, the captain had deceived him before now. Had the captain dared to divide his forces again because he had still more men than those the Ranger knew about? How many men did the captain have left – one or more – and where were they?

Arden took several steps forward to test his enemies’ reaction. The captain merely looked down. His men raised their weapons to the ready but made no other move. Only the smoke and the flames seemed to move. At length the captain looked up again, another smile passing swiftly across his face.

“I can see that you are wondering where my other man is lurking. He is out there, I do assure you, and will intervene if required.”

Arden still made no answer, but noted to himself that the captain had spoken of only one man. Was that the truth or more deception? And what did he mean by “if required?” As if there could be any other end to this than death. Arden saw one of the girls move. She raised her head enough for him to catch the glint of her eyes, and he thought he could hear her whisper to her mother. The Ranger raised his weapons and started towards the nearer of his foes. Still they did not move. Instead the captain extended his right hand towards Arden, palm out in token of peace.

“Ranger, there really is no need for all this violence to go on. As I recall, it was you who loosed the first shot and broke the peace. We had no quarrel with you. It was rather that smith back in Kinabra who gave us trouble.”

“Tell me better lies than that, captain. He is your brother.”

“So he is. I see you know something of me and my ties there. But the law should not bow before the ties of blood, should it? It did not, as you know, in that fallen Republic you Rangers claim to uphold. Nor were Rangers held above the law then.”

Arden remained silent.

“Still,” the captain continued when he received no answer, “I am willing to put an end to the bloodshed of the last two days, and equally willing to forego any vengeance. I am not unreasonable. All that has happened so far, and all this, “ he gestured at the destruction around them, “has been quite distasteful to me. But I must uphold the dragon’s law and ask you to submit to me peacefully. Do so and no further harm will come to these people here, who dared to claim that they had no knowledge of you. Surrender and their suffering will end. You have my word.”

The more reasonable the captain sounded, the more lawful and merciful he claimed to be, the hotter Arden’s wrath became.

“You will kill them all the same if you can,” cried Arden, “whether I yield to you or not.”

“Do you doubt my word, Ranger?”

“I have no doubt of the value of your word, captain,” Arden hissed. “Like the dragon, your master, you speak only to deceive and bewitch.”

The captain sighed and stretched out his arms in a helpless shrug.

“Very well then,” he said, drawing his sword and turning to his men. “Kill the women.”

Even before he finished the sentence, Arden was moving swiftly towards the man nearest him, who poised himself to meet his attack. At the same time the captain also stepped forward. For an instant Arden heard a whirring sound from the shadows to his left.

“A slinger,” he thought as the sling-stone struck the side of his head. His knees buckled and he fell. He struggled to rise, but his sight was dimming under the intense pain. His consciousness began to ebb as he collapsed flat on the ground, fighting still against the pain and disorientation. He must get up.

Then he heard a cry of pain, he thought, from the direction of the unseen slinger. He tried to force his eyes to focus, to hold on to the waking world. To little avail. The world was slipping away from him. But even as the darkness lapped over him, the Ranger saw a figure rush into the farmyard. To Arden he seemed to move more swiftly than anyone could move, running towards the captain and his men. A sword gleaming red in the reflected flames shone in his hands, held high above his head. Almost before they could turn to meet the stranger, he was upon the first of the troopers. As quick as the flash of his sword, he was past the first trooper, who crumpled to the ground behind him, and on to the second – the one the captain had ordered to kill the women – who died just as quickly. As if their swords had no substance, neither trooper had been able to parry a single stroke.

The stranger was now between the women and the captain, who advanced cautiously to meet him. With dreamlike speed the sword swung in a red arc towards the captain. Their blades rang together once, twice, the captain giving ground at each pass, reeling backwards from the force of his opponent’s blows, struggling to keep his footing and balance. At the third pass, a direct thrust almost too sudden to see passed through the captain’s guard as if it were not there. The captain fell sprawling on his back, grasping at his throat. Then he was still.

With a last effort Arden again strove to rise, but his limbs were weighed down by the tide of unconsciousness flooding over him. He saw the stranger turn and look his way. Fire and shadow were all around him, and his eyes shone with a pale blue light. With a flick of his wrist he shook the blood from his sword, and slid it smoothly back into its sheath. Arden opened his mouth to ask him who he was, but the question slipped with him into the dreamless dark.

______________________________

Chapter 3.2

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 2.2

At first light, as he drew near the pass and the shapes of the hills around him gradually emerged from the night, Arden chose the place where he would await the enemy. The path was narrow here, and bordered on the east by a steep, uphill slope. Here old pines had dug their roots down into cracks riven into the rocky mountainside by upheavals long past. Water trickled in their depths. On the west was an even longer and more arduous slope. Not far ahead the road switched back south, bending around a huge boulder, and ascended quickly to the turn that led into the pass. Arden gazed up at that last stretch of road, and saw above him a large rock behind which he could take shelter and shoot down at the dragon’s men.

He nodded to himself and rode up as far as the foot of the pass, where he tethered his horse to an ancient, withered bush that grew in a circle at the last bend in the road. Returning, he sat down on the stone he had spied from below to look over the ground once more. From here he could command the lower road, only about thirty precipitous yards below him, for over a hundred yards until it went out of sight around the boulder. There would be time for perhaps a half dozen shots before he had to fall back. Then the race down to the river would begin.

As he rested and ate, sharing his food with the hound lying beside him, Arden checked his bow and counted the arrows in his quiver, examining each one carefully, smoothing its feathers. Ten remained. But there were nine or ten men behind him and two wolves. Even ten true shots could not kill them all. At least they would have to keep to the road. The hillside was quite steep, with little cover, and thick with old needles that dropped from the pines near the top and made footing unsure. That was something. For a moment Arden pondered the horn calls again. Were there other troopers that he did not know of? He shrugged. He still had only ten arrows.

He ran the feathers of the last arrow through his fingers and considered the deaths tallied by the arrows gone from his quiver. He thought of the ghosts that would haunt him. More and more ghosts as his days grew long. They should not haunt him, he told himself again. For, though the dragon’s men of the first years had mostly come from across the sea, now nearly all were men of Narinen. From cruelty, a hunger for power, or fear, they betrayed their own. They chose to be the greater slaves of the tyrant, winning their bread by destroying and humiliating the people from whom they were born. For this the troopers justly lost their lives. Yet within Arden there was now a place, one no longer buried as deeply as it had once been, where he regretted their deaths.

In his youth after the Fall, he had burned with a hatred that rejoiced in their deaths and took pleasure in slaying them. His thoughts were of blood, his deeds rash, his lust for vengeance unsated. More than once in those days his hatred had nearly cost him his life. His eyes mirrored a grief and rage beyond measure; and many a man took a step backward or glanced away when he saw them. But in the run of years a bitter weariness of this endless war smothered the flames within him. No victory in patience, no healing in slaughter. It came to him one day that, much against his will, the contempt he felt for those he hated had become pity; and his hatred of all but the dragons had grown cold.

And so their ghosts haunted him. They were men, too. They had wives, children, and parents who waited, not knowing that those they loved had lost the day of their homecoming. They would not return. Wives, children, and parents who even now slept and dreamed of them, or gazed out a window at this morning’s twilight and wondered when their men were coming home to them. Never.

This was the end of one hard tale, and the beginning of another more bitter. This was the dragon’s harvest, sown first at his coming, reaped alike by everyone, a harvest of sorrow that Arden forgot only in the timeless press of battle. Yet in that moment of necessity the crop was sown again.

“These were not supposed to be our lives, Argos,” he sighed as he stroked the dog’s head. “They have no more hope than we do.”

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The rising sun found the two of them sitting side by side in the dust of the upper road. Its first rays quickly paled into the clean, golden light of an autumn morning. There had been no sign of the dragon’s men, leaving Arden with no idea of how far behind him they were. Were they hanging back in the hope that he would foolishly think he had escaped, and so lead them to Rangers’ hidden fortress? That tactic was not unheard of, but at the thought of it a sudden, sharp laugh burst from within Arden. Looking up in surprise, Argos shuffled a dubious tail upon the ground.

“They’ll grow old before we lead them home, lad,” Arden said with a wry smile, and rested his hand on Argos’ shoulders. His fingers grasped the thick, wiry coat, feeling the strength concealed beneath it. With a sigh and a final glance Argos lowered his head, and shut his eyes.

Three summers past and three long winters gone by Arden had ridden into the Valley of the Rangers with his apprentice, staying only long enough to report to the Masters, as was required, and declare her training ended. For a few he spared a greeting or a farewell, but most he answered curtly, with a nod and a not unfriendly look. By the time his apprentice left the Masters a half hour later, Arden was already gone. She did not need to ask where he was. He chose the wild seclusion of mountain and forest, and the limitless vistas of his memory. He did not see why he should ever turn back.

Now far away from that hidden fortress Arden and Argos slept by the roadside – the Ranger with his back against the stone, out of sight of the lower road, the hound curled into a tight ball – while the sun mounted the sky above them. The morning wore away. Noon was nearly at hand when Argos growled softly. In an instant Arden was awake and peering around the stone. No one was in sight yet. Getting to his knees, Arden drew out half his arrows and thrust them into the hard earth. He loosened his sword and dagger, though he did not expect the enemy to get that close.

He now made a decision he did not like. With only ten arrows, he could not risk an empty quiver and a half a dozen or more mounted men on his trail. Arden would begin killing their horses. If he could split the dragon’s men into two groups, one mounted, the other on foot, he stood a better chance against them. Even if some riders took their unhorsed comrades behind them, that would also serve him by slowing them all down, or forcing them to divide into two parties, the one swift, the other slow.

Down below a wolf trotted out of the trees to his left and moved cautiously along the road. He was favoring one of his hind legs. Two horsemen quickly followed. Arden waited for the rest of the party to come into the open. There were ten men and three wolves.

“Three wolves? So there is another squad somewhere,” Arden reflected, “but why is one of the wolves limping?”

When they were almost directly beneath him, the Ranger drew his bow. His arrow pierced the flank of the last horse in the line. It reared and threw its rider, then fell screaming to its knees. The horses directly ahead were startled and surged forward. Their riders struggled to control them, while the others turned to see what had happened. Arden heard a voice shouting an order. The two lead riders at once broke into a gallop, making for the turn ahead. The first wolf ran with them. Arden did not have long before they flanked him.

He loosed his second shot at a chestnut mare in the middle of the party and struck her in the neck. As the horse went down, the rider jumped clear. It was the captain. Arden’s third shot hit the haunch of another chestnut, already spooked, further back in the column. The wounded horse veered wildly into the one beside it. Both went off the western edge of the road, and with their riders vanished over the brink of the hill.

Arden now swung to his right to face the lead riders. They had rounded the boulder at the bend in the road and were galloping towards him, one sword in hand, the other drawing his bow. The Ranger’s fourth arrow killed the bowman; his fifth unhorsed the swordsman who flew forward over his dying mount’s head. He hit the ground face down, his sword flying from his grip. As the bowman’s horse raced by, Arden snatched at the quiver hanging from his saddle. His fingers caught the strap for a moment, but the horse was moving too fast for him to hold on. With a clatter of arrows the quiver landed several yards up the road. Arden ran out and tried to reach it, but arrows from the road below drove him back. He turned and dived behind the rock for cover.

Down the road, Argos dispatched the wolf that had come limping up the road at a trot behind the horsemen. The fallen swordsman was on his hands and knees, groggy from the impact, spitting dirt, and fumbling for his sword. Reaching it, he got to one knee.

“Better you had stayed down,” said Arden as he loosed his sixth arrow into the man’s chest. Again the trooper dropped his sword, only to grasp the arrow in his chest with both hands. Looking up, his eyes met Arden’s briefly before he died.

On the road below, three of the dragon’s men steadily plied their bows, striving to keep the Ranger pinned down behind the boulder, while two horsemen raced for the turn to flank him again. Their captain stood boldly in the open, directing his men’s archery, almost daring Arden to reveal himself by trying a shot at him.

“Time to go,” Arden thought and crawled for the far side of the road. There he rose and ran for his horse, keeping low to give the enemy little to aim at. Momentarily he swerved back towards the center of the road to pick up the trooper’s quiver, but a shot from below, well aimed or lucky, struck it from his hand. With arrows singing past him in the air and more riders rounding the turn behind him, it was too dangerous to turn back and try again.

“Come on, dog,” he shouted as he jumped onto his horse’s back. Argos came running, overtaking him before Night reached full speed. He rode up the last stretch of road for the gap at the top, the lead riders and their wolves only forty yards behind him. He could hear the captain below shouting commands to his other men to mount and follow.

In the middle of the pass, Arden reined in his horse and turned, drawing and loosing another arrow in a swift, fluid motion. Another mount fell from beneath its rider. Just then a horn sounded. The second rider suddenly veered, barely eluding Arden’s next shot, and retreated behind a huge old pine. The wolves stopped beside the fallen rider, who lay unmoving on the ground. The captain, it seemed, would not allow his forces to be divided again.

Arden urged Night through the pass. He had to hurry. Though further down the eastern face of the hills was not as steep as on the west, up near the pass the slopes between the winding loops of road were still forbidding. There was no safe way off the road for over a mile. The dragon’s men would soon have their turn at shooting down at him.

Several turns further on he slowed Night just long enough to take a good look back up the hillside. He could see the enemy – two men mounted singly and two double – coming down from the pass. That was a very long shot for them at a fast moving target. Arden doubted they could make it, but they had arrows to spare, far more than the two that rattled against each other in his quiver. So they might try a long shot and hope their luck would serve. In their place he would do no less.

As if reading Arden’s mind, the two nearest troopers raised their bows. Arden set his spurs to Night and moved on. From time to time an arrow or two fell near him, never too close, but never far enough away to be disregarded. He heard them cut through the air, to strike the dirt of the road with a thud, or fix themselves in a tree with a sharp, quivering sound. Finally Arden left the road and found cover beneath the trees. Before long the slopes grew gentler, and he rode faster. He pushed his horse as hard as he dared, knowing his pursuers would do the same. Once they reached the bottom of the valley they would do all they could to catch him on this side of the river.

For centuries a bridge had stood above the ford. The stonewrights of the Republic had built it to unite the lands on either side. Arden remembered it well from his early days here in the west, when he was a young apprentice himself on his first journey with his master. Hewn of stone with pillars set deep in the river bed and on either shore, the bridge spanned the water in two leaping arches of rare grace. All that now survived was the foundation of the central pillar, visible only in the heat of summer when the water was low. The rest had been torn down stone by stone. The moss grown blocks lay scattered along the banks, or jutted from the shallows nearby.

But the ford remained. The crossing was narrow, with deep water above and below and a stiff current, but for most of the year it could be made without too much trouble. Only in the early spring, when the river swelled with melting snow, was it impassable; some years the fall rains also drowned the ford completely, but autumn was only in its first days now, and the rains had not been heavy so far.

Down the hills dusted with falling leaves Arden rode for the river and the ford. He had miles to go yet, with pursuit not far behind him and two arrows to keep them at bay. If his horse threw a shoe, or came up lame, it would cost him his head. So he made haste slowly across the uneven, pathless slopes, uncertain how this race would end. Arden had hoped to do the enemy more harm this morning, but they had been more cautious today than yesterday. Clearly the dragon captain was no fool.

After an hour the heights where the pine and fir grew gave way to the lower slopes crowded with oak and maple. Their leaves, now golden, now red, danced around him in the cool air. At times Arden glimpsed the sparkle of the river miles ahead. Another hour returned him to the lowlands, and at last to the verge of the forest, where he stopped to get his bearings. He gazed out across the valley’s green bottom to the riverbank, and at the abrupt, stony ridge jutting up on the far side. Lines of alder and plane trees traced the course of the many streams that fled down from the hills to nourish the river.

Several hundred yards to the south the road emerged from the woods and curved towards the site of the old bridge directly east of him. Beside the road in the middle of the plain was a solitary cabin, which had stood empty far longer than the twenty five years Arden had known it. Every year less of it survived. Another hole appeared in the roof. A bit more wall crumbled away. What had been windows and doorways were now the gaping wounds of time. Beyond the cabin Arden could see the trees that marked the western bank of the ford a little more than a mile away. Off to his left a herd of deer grazed. They seemed to be enjoying the sun. High above them an eagle glided towards the river. For a minute or two Arden watched and listened, then shook the reins and nudged his horse to a quick trot.

Two arrows shrieked past from his right. A third glanced high off the shoulders of Argos, who yelped and sprang forward, blood glistening in his fur. Arden shouted to his horse and hound. Night answered with a burst of speed, and at a dead run they raced across the plain, south and east in a direct line for the ford. Argos was running full out beside them. Despite the blood, the wound across his shoulders was not deep. His long stride and speed were undiminished.

Somehow the dragon’s men had come down to the south of him and reached the edge of the woods almost as he did. That placed them slightly closer to the ford than he was. They burst from the forest spread out in a line thirty yards across, the better to herd him, the better to shoot him down. And the horsemen held their line as the chase wore on, at a distance from each other but still abreast. On the farthest horse he saw the dragon captain. Behind the riders two more troopers came running from the forest on foot. All the mounted men carried bows.

Soon their arrows filled the air, compelling Arden to push Night to the very limits of his strength and agility. By slight, almost constant, shifts in direction at full speed he sought to defeat their aim, but twice he felt the tug of an arrow snatching at him when it passed through the green cloak that flowed behind him. Once, as he was about to dart behind the cabin, he rose in his stirrups to shoot back at them. He missed his mark, he saw a moment later. All four riders appeared behind him again, flowing around the cabin as inevitably as the years that had left it behind.

But Night proved the swifter, thanks not only to that morning’s rest, but to his great heart and long training. For over a thousand years, back to the days before the Republic began and before the first dragons appeared, the horses of the Rangers had been bred for speed and endurance; and their five years of training before ever a Ranger received one as his mount, only increased the swiftness and stamina of their nature. Countless Rangers had they saved in those centuries, countless messages carried to win a war or save a peace.

In the last quarter mile between the cabin and the river Night drew steadily away, and Argos kept pace at the bay’s side, devouring the earth with his long legged stride. Over fifty yards lay between them and the dragon’s men as they approached the riverbank. The tall grass gave way to a steep shore of rock and mud. The ford was just below. Arden glanced back. In his right hand was his bow; in his left he held the reins and his last arrow, which he would spend as he entered the river, trying his luck before the water ruined his bowstring. That arrow he meant for the captain.

The water splashed around his horse’s knees, and the hound plunged in with a leap. Dropping the reins, Arden turned and loosed his arrow. The captain swerved aside, grinning at the Ranger as he rode. Water now mounted to Night’s breast and shoulders. It came foaming over his back. The current thrust them sideways towards the deeper water, but the horse kept his footing and forced his way ahead. Arden bent low beside his horse’s neck and grabbed Argos by the scruff to keep the river from sweeping him away.

Over his shoulder Arden saw the dragon’s men riding down to the water’s edge, raising their bows. Yet he was already in the deepest part of the ford. In a few seconds Night would reach the slope leading up to the farther shore. Arden strained to hear the sharp twang of their bowstrings, but the river was too loud. Night began to climb. Not two inches from where Arden’s cheek was pressed against the horse’s neck, the shaft of an arrow appeared, its point buried deep in the flesh. The horse screamed and reared, wrenching Argos from Arden’s grasp. Night toppled sideways into the deeper water.

As the river closed over him, Arden kicked free of his stirrups. Looking up through the green water, he saw the sun gleaming above, but the weight of his gear dragged him down into the silent twilight of the river bottom. He rolled over and began to swim. His lungs ached. The current drove him. Blurred green shapes, boulders, seemed to speed past, but he knew it was he who was moving. One loomed up and struck him hard, forcing the air from his lungs. He fought his way upwards. The light above grew brighter so slowly.

Then he broke the surface, gasping for air, and struck out for the shore. For a moment Arden lay flat on the eastern bank, staring at the sky, gulping air into his lungs. He waited for the hiss and pain of an arrow, but nothing happened. All he could hear was the river. Slowly he crawled behind some rocks. His side hurt. There was no sign of horse or hound. Nor did he see the dragon’s men. The current had carried him much further than he thought.

Arden rose and turned to the steep, rocky slope. As he began to scramble upward, Argos dashed up and jabbed his nose in Arden’s face. With a laugh, the Ranger threw an arm around him and hugged him to his side.

“Glad to see you, too,” he smiled, and together they began the long ascent of the ridge. Behind him Arden thought he heard a voice shouting above the din of the water, but he did not look back.

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Chapter 3.1