Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 14.1

Fourteen

One week later, on the morning of the thirteenth day after they had reached Baran’s eastern camp, the companions at last prepared to resume their journey. Despite early progress, Agarwen’s shoulder had taken longer to heal to Evénn’s satisfaction than they had hoped. Until she showed herself able to use her left arm without pain and regained a fair measure of her strength, he refused to pronounce her fit to continue. No one chafed more at the delay than she did. It was only yesterday, finally, that Evénn declared her well enough to fight.

“We leave in the morning then,” Jalonn said, with no sign of the impatience he felt.

Yesterday had also seen a hawk arrive in the camp, bringing word from Master Raynall. It was one of the dozens he had sent forth with the same message in the hope of finding the companions at one of the established camps, even one so meager as Baran’s. The bird had settled onto Jalonn’s outstretched arm, just as he had been trained to do. Jalonn removed the message from its protective sheath on the hawk’s leg, deciphered it, and read it aloud:

“Day 30. Dragon south much of winter. Else Hall of Kings. South postern unwatched, corridor partly blocked. Arden knows it. News dearly bought. Remember god. R.”

“The thirtieth day,” Jalonn said, as he reckoned the days since they had left the Valley. “Let me see. That would be two days before we reached Prisca. I wonder if he’s heard news of that yet. Nevertheless, his message at least explains why the dragon took so long to arrive. He was off to the south somewhere. That was our good fortune.”

“Then why did Agarwen and I find him in the Hall of Kings?”

“In dreams all things are possible, Arden,” said Jalonn. “And the Hall is his usual dwelling. It is where he receives his tribute and his slaves. He chose to be seen there.”

“At all events,” Evénn said, “the City and the Hall are where we must seek him until we can gather more news. I am guessing that by ‘south postern’ the Master means the door by which you escaped, Arden.”

“He must,” Arden replied. “Besides the South Gate there’s no other entrance on that side.”

“That’s true,” Niall added. “But guarded or not, getting to it unseen will be difficult. The ground south of Narinen has always been open fields; and the last time I was near the City, all the greenery that once grew between the foot of the walls and the road had been cut down. A pity. For the walls were ringed in yellow roses. But it’s been many years since I was there.”

“Nature is stubborn and ruthless, Niall,” Evénn said. “Perhaps they have grown back.”

“Perhaps,” he responded, “but even so, even if there is cover at the foot of the walls again, we’ll still need to get close unobserved, or it will all be for nothing. And from what Master Raynall’s message says, we may not be able to get our horses inside. So we’ll need to leave them somewhere.”

“I did not foresee bringing the horses in with us in any event,” Jalonn remarked. “The magic of the dragon lies heavy on the City. It will smother all minor spells of stealth and concealment, and an incantation strong enough to counter it would only reveal us to him. So we will be unable to conceal ourselves by that means. We can cross the City more swiftly and more safely without them. We shall have far to go also, if we come in by the postern door.”

“Why is that, Master Jalonn?” asked Agarwen.

“Think of the design of the City, Agarwen.”

“I see,” she said after a moment’s reflection. “The Hall of Kings fronts on the north side of the square. To arrive unseen we must circle around to the north and approach it from the rear.”

“Exactly. But first things first. For now we need only worry about getting to the postern.”

The next morning they set out, riding south and slightly east, working their way slowly down the high ridge. The camp of Baran lay midway between the scholars’ town and the wide gap where the Great Road crossed the Coastal Range, in all a distance of some fifty miles. The City stood southeast of them, across nearly forty miles of fertile coastlands which rolled down from the uplands and foothills beneath the mountains. Through the dark trunks of the pines they could often see the City as they descended into the wooded valley which was nestled between this ridge and the last line of hills before the plain. Despite the destruction of the siege and a generation of neglect, she still shone in the morning light as she had always done, her walls high and white amid the fields of green. Beyond the walls, beyond the pale ribbon of the strand which they could glimpse at times through the hills beside the shore, the sea glittered golden to the far horizon.

Gone were the many banners that had once lined the City’s walls and gone were the many towers behind them, all but one. Narinen's pride had fallen before the dragon, but still she shone for them, half in sunlight, half in memory. All morning she was in view if they would just lift their heads from the ground before their horses’ feet, and let the light and warmth of the sun strike their hooded faces. But though they stole many a glance that way, especially Arden and Niall who saw their home before them, and Agarwen who had never before seen the City, they did not tarry in their course to gaze at greater length. Nor did they speak. Each conversed with his own thoughts or memories of Narinen.

For Evénn, who had first visited Narinen more than eighteen hundred years ago, long before the dragons first came, that inner conversation passed from kings and queens, to dogs which had barked at him in the street as he walked by, to seeing the foundations of those very walls being laid stone by stone. What were for him remembrances of times and people, for the others was the history of ages long gone, set down in scrolls and books or rehearsed in song. Jalonn thought mainly of his service with Mahar in the last months, and tried to call up every detail of the City’s streets and ways. Arden and Niall recalled their glad childhood and its end. It made them feel both old and young. Of Narinen Agarwen herself had no memories but those she borrowed from history and song and the stories told by Niall and, more rarely, by Arden. So she tried to summon up all she had learned over the years.

Not long after noon as they were about to lose sight of Narinen behind the hills to the east and enter the valley, Agarwen slowed and cast the last of many glances across the miles of fields. She remembered that Arden and Niall usually called the City her, which was the custom of those who dwelt here between the Green Hills and the sea.

“She is beautiful still,” Agarwen said, breaking the spell of silent hours. “How she must have shone in her day of glory.”

“Narinen has always been lovely,” Evénn said.

“And the day of her glory is yet to come. You will see it, Agarwen,” Arden stated with all certainty.

“So be it,” Niall intoned, as if in response to a prayer.

“So be it, indeed,” Jalonn muttered up ahead.

“The one tower you see there, Agarwen,” Evénn said, “is the east tower of the Hall of Kings. That is where we shall find the beast.”

“The other tower was broken in the siege,” Arden added.

“Aye,” said Jalonn with unexpected passion. “I saw it fall. The silver dragon swooped down upon the tower with great speed. He came from the east and struck it just as they did when they shattered the gates, but those towers were built in ancient days by the Builders of the Kingdom, with the aid of the elven stonewrights of Talor, whom Evénn’s father sent to assist us.”

Jalonn paused as he said this and looked over his shoulder at Evénn behind him.

“I remember the day,” Evénn nodded, “the emissaries of your king, Saereth, arrived in Elashandra and came before my father to ask for our aid. Five centuries had passed since your people had crossed the sea. We heard little from you in those years during which you were spreading across this land. You had grown much in that time, though a short while it seemed to us. We rejoiced that you still remembered our old friendship. My father gladly granted Saereth’s request. Many of us returned across the sea with your ambassadors and we marveled at the mighty works in stone your people had already taken in hand. I was there to witness Narinen’s walls and the towers of the king begin rising.”

“It must have been wondrous to behold,” Jalonn replied, “but to see the western tower withstand the dragon was a thing of terror and beauty. Around and around the tower he whirled, striking it a dozen times and more. In his last few attacks he soared far aloft and vanished into the smoke, and I began to think that the craft of our two peoples had defeated him. It was but a brief hope in an hour of despair. For always he returned, stooping upon the tower with such awful speed that even from my vantage point atop the Sea Gate he was little more than a blur of silver. In the end there came a mighty crack, and a dreadful pause, and the tower collapsed upon itself. A cloud of dust and smoke boiled outwards, and I lost all sight of the center of the City. The rain began soon afterwards.

“Later that afternoon there was a break in the rain for a little while. I looked up from my place by the Sea Gate – your father was near me the entire time, Arden – and briefly I could see as far as the square. The eastern tower was still there. No beast was attacking it. After that I did not see it again until I came to the square shortly before dawn. But in that instant when the veils of smoke were parted, I knew that they had given up, that there was one thing that day which defeated them. I recalled the history of the towers and how your people, Evénn, had helped us build them long ago. That this tower survived seemed to me a prophecy: only the work of men and elves together will defeat the dragons. Well, the tower stands, and we are here. The time has come.”

“Well said, Master Jalonn,” Evénn said with a smile. “May all your prophecies prove true.”

But Jalonn was done talking, his only answer a backward glance and half a smile. Yet the unaccustomed ardor in his voice had lifted their hearts and hopes, so that they felt they could still see the City and the tower gleaming far off in the sunlight. They had all heard Master Jalonn speak of the Fall before, but always as a soldier, analyzing troops and tactics. None, including Arden, had ever heard him speak like this.

By now they had descended to the narrow valley floor, where in the deep shade of the ridge they splashed along through the shallows of the stream that ran at its base, gathering in all the waters of every rill and brook that leaped down the slopes on either side of them. For the rest of the day they followed it south, listening to its voice grow louder with every mile and watching the eastern ridge sink down towards the plain, until in the dusk they came near the valley’s end and made camp. They set a watch and lit no fire.

At first light Jalonn climbed the last slopes of the ridge to relieve Niall and see what the dawn held in store. The land lay veiled in a thin morning mist. Below him the stream, having escaped the confinement of the valley, widened and slowed as it bent its course eastward around the foot of the hill. Further away to the south he thought he could make out the line of the Great Road, beyond which rose the ghostly watchtowers of a fortress. The glint of moving steel there told him that other eyes besides his own looked out across the rolling green plains; and doubtless there were others whom he could not yet see, scouts and patrols hidden by the fog and folds in the land. He remembered how open and welcoming those fields had seemed when he first came here long ago. Not so now. In a few hours the mist would burn away, and anyone moving there would stand naked before the watchers in the fortress.

Jalonn could not allow that. Even before their battle at Prisca had raised the alarm, he had never intended to travel the last miles between the mountains and the City by day. But he wished to remind himself of the land before attempting to cross it by night, and perhaps also to catch in the young dawn some reflection of what had been lost before the light of day could burn it away. He smirked to himself at this self-indulgence, and dismissed it from his mind as he settled in to watch the welcome mist over the land slowly dissipate. Darkness was their ally now as much as their enemy.

Hours later the others came to join him, leaving the wolf and Argos to guard the horses. Now that they were here, it was necessary to discuss how they could best approach the City and complete the first task of their errand. The time to cast all in the balance was at hand.

“Our first need is darkness, which we must use to come near the darkness of our foe,” Jalonn was saying. “As it chances – ”

“If chance you call it,” Evénn interrupted.

“Yes, if you call it that. The moon is now waning. In five days she will be new again. That is the night we must come to the City. If we enter just before midnight, we will be able to reach the Hall of Kings three or four hours before the sun rises, perhaps sooner if all goes well.”

He looked at the faces of the others to see if any of them wished to speak. None did.

“Arden,” Jalonn continued, “you are the most familiar with the south postern. What can you tell us about it?”

“There’s little to tell. You have all heard me speak of it before. It is three hundred yards east of the South Gate. The doors at either end and the corridor in between are wide enough for two on foot or one on horseback. The passage is straight and about forty feet long. What blocks it and how difficult that will make getting through, we won’t know until we get there. And get the door open, mind you. Maybe it is unwatched, but it is certainly not unbarred. The dragon may despise us, but his men fear us. They will not be so lax as to leave the back door open.”

“True,” Jalonn replied. “As I recall, there are bolts securing the outer door, but no lock?”

“Yes, the outer door can be opened only from within. There are three long bolts of steel in the door, which is made from planks of oak six inches thick.”

“To break the door by force or enchantment is out of the question. Either would serve to alert the enemy to our presence. We might as well knock on the gate.”

“Excuse me, captain, we’re here to slay the dragon. Is he at home this evening?” said Niall in a low but playful tone, which earned him a searing glance from Jalonn.

“Amusing, Niall, as ever,” he said.

“I beg your pardon, Master, but let’s get down to it. At least one of us has to get inside the City to unbolt that door. I can think of only two ways in right now, through one of the gates or over the wall.”

“I’ll go,” said Arden.

“No, I think not,” Jalonn replied with some authority.

“It’s all right. I’ll go,” Arden repeated.

“No, Arden,” Evénn said. “You won’t. I agree with Master Jalonn here. You bear the bow. It would be unwise to send you in with it, and equally so to part you from it. We cannot risk losing either of you, let alone both. It also appears that the dragon knows who you are and can find you with his mind. For that reason it is too perilous to send you.”

“Precisely,” Jalonn agreed.

“I would tell him nothing,” Arden said, quite bitterly.

“Not willingly, perhaps, but you might have no choice. Indeed you might not even know what he was gleaning from your mind as you slept.”

“Nothing,” Arden growled the word at them.

“I am sorry, Arden,” Jalonn said. “You cannot be the one.”

Arden glowered at them both, but knew they were right.

“That would make me the logical choice,” Niall said, with a sympathetic glance in Arden’s direction. “I’ll go. When shall I start and when shall we meet?”

“We’ll meet you at midnight on the night of the new moon, five days from now. When you leave depends on what we are going to do about the horses, and how long you think it will take you to get in,” Jalonn answered him.

“Well then,” asked Niall, “what shall we do?”

“I have an idea,” Arden said, still angry, “if you wish to hear it.”

“Go ahead,” Jalonn responded.

“I’ve been considering this for some time, since I guessed we would have to approach our business this way. Do you remember the house where you found me, Jalonn?”

Niall stared at Arden in surprise, then exchanged shocked glances with Agarwen. A pained frown flitted across Evénn’s face. Jalonn’s expression did not change. He needed no reminder, but he paused before answering.

“Of course,” he said.

“I think it could be,” he hesitated, “useful to us. Beneath the house and gardens was a vast, strongly built cellar. Its walls and floor were of brick, and stone pillars held up its ceiling. It is probably still there, and I think we can get in.”

“But how, Arden?” Evénn asked. “You said the house was destroyed. Isn’t the cellar door buried in the ruins?”

“There were two entrances, my friend,” said Arden, “one in the kitchen, but the other was on the far side of the low hill between the gardens and the sea. Even in those days, when the grounds were well tended, the holly bushes which grew near this door made it hard to find, if you didn’t know where to look for it. After – after all this time the holly has no doubt grown over the door. Inside there will be room enough for us and our horses. With a little luck we may even find provisions.”

Arden stopped for an instant, grimaced, then went on, with an irony that made Agarwen wince.

“And Niall also knows where the house is.”

Jalonn’s eyes shifted to Niall who was sitting to his right. His head was down, his eyes fixed on the ground. Arden had never before openly acknowledged this connection between them.

“Niall?” he said, his eyebrow raised.

“I know the house.”

“Arden,” Jalonn said, turning back to him, “are you sure of this?”

“It’s the best way, Jalonn,” Arden replied. “I would’ve suggested it even if you had sent me into the City. I know how the … people who lived there would feel about it. They were strong and lovers of their homeland.”

“So they were,” whispered Niall.

“Then I think it will serve us well,” Jalonn went on. “It is about two miles from the City and three of us already know it.”

He looked at Agarwen and Evénn, who both nodded their assent.

“It is settled then. We shall meet at the south postern door on the night of the new moon, six nights from now. Since the City is only thirty miles from here that will leave us ample time to get into position. Niall your route to the City will be more direct, but it may take you several days to find a way in. The gates and walls will be closely guarded, and the dragon’s men will have their eyes open. You must avoid conflict if you can. I am sure the beast has not forgotten us.”

“I’ll need a night to get close enough to study the situation. If all else fails, I am sure I can get over the wall.”

“That will be a last resort,” Evénn said. “Anyone attempting to scale those white walls will be clearly visible even at night; and you will not be able to see if any guards are above you.”

“True, but guards patrol in patterns.”

“Yet patterns may be broken,” Jalonn said. “Attempt that way only if no other offers itself.”

“Agreed,” Niall answered.

“You will also need a place to hide once you are there.”

“Those will be plentiful. Though many still dwell in the City, no more than half the houses are occupied if the reports are true, and there are also many empty stores and warehouses.”

“We shall leave that to you then. As for ourselves, our route will be more complex. We must cross the Great Road once more, then circle around towards the coast. It will probably be best if we went much farther south and came at the house of Gwinlan from that direction.”

“Didn’t there used to be a small bridge over a river just before the Prisca road joins the Great Road?” Evénn asked.

“Yes,” Arden replied. “This very stream will lead us there. It wanders along not far from the road before it is forced to turn by the hills and crosses under the bridge. From there it flows south and east to the sea. Near the road the banks are high and steep, which will help conceal us for some distance.”

They resolved that Niall would leave well after dark, and the rest of them would begin their circuitous route to the south the following night. Niall spent the remainder of the day sorting through his gear to decide what was essential for him to take. The less, the better, he thought, so he could travel more quickly. Aside from his weapons and some food, he settled on a coil of rope and a small grapnel he kept in his saddlebag. He just might have to climb the wall after all.

Throughout the day the others took turns watching the road. A steady flow of troops on foot and horseback moved up and down it in both directions. Occasionally a lone horseman hastened by, bringing news or orders to the fortified camp which guarded the mountain gap. It sat just to the south of the road not five miles from them, with walls of gray stone crudely cut and fitted. Four tall wooden towers full of watchful eyes rose above it, one at each corner. The ground on all sides around it was bleak and bare. Not a thing grew there but the chevaux de fries and sharpened stakes embedded in regularly spaced pits, which gave the camp an added layer of defenses. There was constant movement along the single dirt road which branched off the Great Road and led to the camp's massive gate.

“Just what army are they expecting to appear to assault that place?” Arden asked Evénn late that day as they sat upon the southernmost hilltop taking their turn on guard.

“The dragons distrust each other as much as they fear those they oppress. The one they think they can control with terror and cruelty, the other they know they cannot.”

“Even though they have worked together for more than a generation?”

“Even so,” the elf replied. “To you that is a long time, but not to them. And the evil cooperate only out of necessity. Each of them knows the drive to dominate which his own heart cherishes, and reads the same lust in all other hearts, dragons or not. In the case of each other, they are correct, but they cannot imagine that we are not like them.”

“They believe we wish to replace them ourselves?”

“Yes.”

“But surely they know that this did not happen after you overthrew them,” Arden protested.

“Ah, but they think that only a balance of terror can maintain the peace, and that if we made no attempt to conquer as they did, it was because we feared to try.”

“It was bad enough,” Arden said thoughtfully, “when I thought the dragons were like us, creatures of the flesh. Then I met you, and you taught me what the dragons really were. Ever since that night I’ve wrestled with the thought that beings of spirit – the firstborn of creation who saw the face of god – can be dominated by such a desire to do evil. It baffles me.”

“But they are like us, Arden. We are beings of spirit just as they are, and malice has ruled elves and men all too often through the ages. Good and evil are choices at first, before they become anything else.”

Until darkness fell, with the promise of rain in the gray laden clouds which had been rolling in from the west all day, they watched the troops come and go like so many ants. In the gloom several smaller groups slipped out of the gate and rode off in different directions. It was too dark and they were too far away for Arden to make them out clearly, but he could hear Evénn murmuring to himself as he counted them.

“Scouts,” he said after peering at them for a time. “Six groups of twelve. One is headed directly north, but should pass to the east of us. We’ll have to keep our eyes on them.”

Soon it began to pour. It was the cold soaking rain that can fall for days on end by the sea in the heart of winter. There was a certain peace in its calm persistence. On a hot summer’s evening it would have been soothing as well, bringing ease and comfort after the swelter of the day, the sort of rain that elicits a sigh of relief, a delight to see and hear and feel upon the face. It could make the old feel young again. Yet this was no summer night on which the earth herself needs cooling. It was the cold dark of mid-winter, and only the embers of wrath in Arden’s soul kept his spirits from becoming as sodden as his cloak.

After an hour the scouts approached out of the darkness. They stopped at the foot of the hill where Arden and Evénn sat wordlessly watching them. All the scouts paused, listening to the night, heads bowed and cocked to one side or the other, except for the last of them, who seemed preoccupied and uncomfortable. He patted his mount’s neck disconsolately from time to time, or suddenly peered upward as if his glowering displeasure could stare down the rain. The rider was heavily cloaked and hooded, and facing the wrong way for Arden to be able to see him clearly, but something in his manner and the pale, beardless blur of the face which he raised to the sky convinced Arden that he was little more than a boy.

Eventually the scouts moved on. Though darkness and rain swallowed them up almost at once, Evénn continued to stare in the direction they had gone.

“At least it rains on them, too,” Arden said at length, still thinking of the last rider.

“That is god’s way,” Evénn answered quietly.

“One of us should follow them,” Arden said after a moment.

“I’ll go. Jalonn will be here to relieve you soon. You return to the camp and tell Niall what we have seen. I’ll be back before he leaves.”

As soon as he spoke, he rose and hurried after them. The wolf went with him. Argos remained beside Arden. Soon the elf was out of sight. Arden sat waiting for Jalonn, staring into the night, but there was no more to see. Jalonn came less than a half hour later. Arden apprised him of the scouts and the other forces which had been using the road, and returned to the camp to seek out Niall.

He found him sitting quietly beneath a tree, as much out of the rain as could be. Agarwen was beside him, resting a friendly hand on his shoulder and chatting quietly with him about the days to come. In their voices he could hear their friendship, which was warm and open and often playful. It had been many years since Arden last knew the savor of such contact. He had shunned it. Now, as he drew closer to them, he realized with a pang that he envied and feared them.

For years he had told himself that to slay the dragon would content him; and if it cost him his life to do so, his life would well lost. But he did not want to bear home to Niall’s wife and children the news that husband and father lay dead on some shore or mountain and would not come home again; or to tell Agarwen’s father, old Ramas, the chief carpenter and woodwright of the Valley, who had always been kind to Arden as a boy, that his hope of grandchildren had proved false and his fears for his daughter’s fate as a Ranger true. Their lives were hard enough and their worlds so narrow already. And Arden knew that for his own sake, too, he did not want to lose his friends. Not now. Not again.

He told Niall all he had seen while on watch, and that Evénn would soon bring more news of the scouts. He cautioned him that there were certainly many such parties of scouts across all the coastlands and approaches to the City. Without his horse he would be much more vulnerable if discovered. He thought he could see Niall smiling at him in the darkness as he said this. Niall patted Agarwen’s hand and stood up.

“You should join Jalonn on guard,” he said to her. “It’s time you started shouldering some of the burden around here. After all, what’s an arrow in the shoulder to a Ranger?”

“Well, it’s painful, but less so than that pun,” she replied.

“May you never know a worse pain,” Niall answered and embraced her. “I’ll see you when the moon is new.”

“But it will be dark.”

“I’ll get by.”

“Keep your head up,” she said.

“You mean down.”

“Right,” she said, her voice conveying sadness and amusement equally. “God guide you.”

When she was gone, Niall and Arden began to shift their camp and horses up the ridge and out of the valley, lest the scouts cross the hills and return south along the stream. Evénn came back in the midst of this and leant a hand. Afterwards he passed on to Niall what he had learned by following the scouts for several miles.

“For the most part, these are no ordinary troopers on patrol. For all their care, they move with stealth and speed. Be careful of them.”

“For the most part?” Niall asked.

“Well, there is one with this detachment who doesn’t seem eager to be there, perhaps a new recruit on his first patrol. You saw him, Arden?”

“I saw him.”

“I’ll be careful then,” Niall murmured. “It’s time I got going. I might need several days to find a way in.”

They both nodded at him. Niall wrapped himself in one of the black cloaks they had stripped from the dead troopers at Prisca, and shouldered his pack. He clasped Arden’s hand briefly and was gone. Arden and Evénn hoped they would see him again soon and thought of the next days. Finally Arden sat back against a tree and went to sleep.

______________________________

Chapter 14.2

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 13.2

Night fell. Arden and Jalonn stayed where they were for another hour. About halfway through they heard wings above them once more, this time heading north towards Prisca. Arden watched him go as he had watched him come, only now he could descry nothing but the beast’s shadow as it blotted out the stars. When the hour was over and the dragon long gone, they stood up. Arden slipped the arrow in his quiver and slung the bow over his shoulder again. Then Jalonn led him to the camp the others had made. It was not far. As they drew near Jalonn called in the voice of an owl. Another voice responded and Niall came forth to meet them. He patted Arden gently on the shoulder as he went by without a word or gesture to acknowledge him.

In the camp they found Evénn sitting beneath a tree, the wolf lying beside him. Agarwen was asleep a few feet away. In the turmoil of the last two hours he had nearly forgotten her.

“Rest and eat, Arden. The last two days have been difficult,” the elf said softly and looked up at him, “but Agarwen is much better. I think she will soon be out of danger.”

Arden could find nothing to say. He felt the release of a burden of worry, but he was so angry at Evénn and Jalonn for bidding him not to shoot the dragon when he had the chance that it robbed him of words. It did not matter that they were right; it did matter that she was better. Without a sound he spun away from Evénn, pulled his bedroll from Impetuous’ back and tossed it on the ground. After he unsaddled and fed him, he lay down himself, drawing his cloak and blanket tightly about him. In a few minutes weariness overcame frustration. He slept deeply and without waking till morning.

---

The full memory of yesterdaythe was upon him before he opened his eyes again. The pain of it was overwhelming. He lay motionless for some time, trying to tell himself that obedience was the first part of duty, but he often found virtue a cold comfort in the light of dawn. Once more he rehearsed the litany in his mind and sighed when he completed it. His heart was elsewhere.

“So, you’re awake,” he heard Agarwen say.

Her voice sounded stronger. He rolled over to face her and sat up. She was sitting in a patch of sunlight that had somehow made its way through the pine branches thick above them. She looked better as well. Color was again brushing her cheeks, which no longer had the ashen hue of death in them. Niall and Jalonn were sleeping on either side of a nearby tree. Evénn was gone, along with Argos and the wolf. Their horses stood saddled.

“Thank you for all you did for me, Arden. I know I said that yesterday, but Evénn says you saved my life, and I think it bears repeating,” she said warmly.

“You’re welcome,” he said in spite of the mood that was on him, “but it was Evénn who saved you.”

“Last night must have been difficult,” she said, changing the subject.

“Oh?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t pretend you don’t. Not shooting after waiting so long.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“But that’s often the hardest thing, isn’t it. The time will come, Arden,” she said. Reaching down, she lifted a small wooden plate of food from the ground and offered it to him.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, that has to be a lie. Help me eat this, will you?” she said conspiratorially, and took a quick look around. “Ever since I woke up several hours ago, Evénn has been cramming me full of food, and saying I must eat. But if I eat another bite of this crusty bread and salt pork, it won’t be my wound that kills me.”

“Very well, then,” he replied with a slight smile, his mood improving with resignation. His three years in the woods with her told him that she would brook no refusal. A few bites taught him just how hungry he was. In no time he had finished all the food on the plate.

“Perhaps later today,” he said, “I’ll be able to provide us with something fresh, if we can find a place where it is safe to build a small fire. These woods were once full of game.”

“You sound hungry now,” Agarwen replied.

“I suppose I do. Where is Evénn?”

“He went off with the lads nearly an hour ago. He kept watch all night by himself while the four of us slept.”

“Sounds like he’s himself again.”

“He seems to be.”

“We’ll need to move again soon. I’ll start getting things ready.”

“I can help,” she said, trying to rise.

“No, you can’t. You sit there.”

“I hate sitting by while others work.”

“Nevertheless. You are my apprentice and you will do as I tell you.”

“That was years ago. I don’t call you Master Arden anymore,” she smiled up at him.

“Just do as I say, Agarwen. Please.”

She laughed at him.

“You were more convincing back then,” she said and laughed again, but her laughter made her wince. She put her hand to her shoulder and closed her eyes until the edge of the pain grew dull.

Arden strapped his bedroll behind Impetuous’ saddle. He did the same with hers, then began to assess the camp, looking for signs of their presence that would have to be removed. As he was moving about, first Jalonn, then Niall awoke. Jalonn was on his feet in a moment and packing. Niall sat and stretched.

“I miss my bed,” he said.

“Then you’ve grown soft in your cottage with your family,” Jalonn replied in a low voice. “It is too long since you have been abroad.”

Niall looked from Jalonn, who had not turned away from his work, to Agarwen, with an exaggerated expression of shock on his face. She tried not to laugh.

“You Rangers from the City always were a bit soft,” Jalonn continued dryly. “Isn’t that so, Agarwen?”

“I have always found them so, Master Jalonn,” she answered earnestly, but with her eye on Arden.

Niall lay back down, dramatically flinging his arm over his face. Then he jumped up with a grin and began his own preparations to leave. All was ready when Evénn returned several minutes later. Jalonn went to Agarwen and helped her to her feet. He looked her over.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” she replied.

“Let’s go then. Niall, help Agarwen onto her horse,” he said as he walked off to mount his own. Niall stayed behind to make sure they had left no traces behind them. Today their journey was briefer than yesterday’s. As Arden had guessed, they were making for a place where Baran’s Rangers camped when on this side of the mountains. As with all the camps used by the Rangers these days, it was remote, but Jalonn found it without too much difficulty in the early afternoon. It lay on a broad shelf about halfway down the eastern side of the ridge. Here there were no caves or hot springs. An overhang deep enough to hide them from above and a dense screen of firs all around were all it had to offer, but it was sufficient for Jalonn to allow that a small fire before dark would safe.

Arden left camp at once to set snares for rabbits. Evénn accompanied him at first, but went off in search of herbs to replace those he and Arden had used to treat Agarwen’s wound. Several hours later they returned carrying both. By that time Niall had caught up to them and was busy with a fire he built of pine needles and cones along with all of the dry wood he could find. While Agarwen slept and Jalonn kept watch from the edge of the shelf, Arden dressed the rabbits and began roasting them over the fire. Evénn separated his herbs and warmed some water to prepare more medicine for Agarwen.

Just as it was growing dark and nearly time to put out the fire, Arden declared their meal ready. Evénn woke Agarwen and removed her bandages, which showed little sign of bleeding. He washed her wounds back and front with the herbs and water, applied more salve to the burns, and bound her shoulder with fresh bandages. Though she flinched a time or two, Agarwen made no sound.

“There,” Evénn said, as he tied the ends of the bandage together, “that should do it.”

“You did not use the enchantment.”

“No,” he replied, “with the dragon so close and looking for us, that would have been risky. From what Arden told me this afternoon, the dragon caught a hint of the enchantments we used yesterday morning. Besides, you are doing well enough without them, for now. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day it will be safer.”

“If you are done there,” Arden broke in, “the rabbit is ready. You should eat it while it’s still hot.”

“It smells good,” Agarwen said, “and I am hungry for something more savory than I had this morning.”

“But you just had a fine venison stew, not above a week ago,” said Niall, “and already you want more than the simple fare of Rangers in the wild?”

“Yes, I do,” she answered, and bit into a piece of rabbit.

“And I thought Rangers from the City were supposed to be soft,” he said. “But you don’t hear Arden and me complaining, do you?”

He looked to Arden.

“Not a word,” Arden said.

“What do you say now, Master Jalonn?” Niall turned to him and asked.

“I might have to revise my opinion. You are all soft.”

“Oh, let’s just eat before it gets cold,” Agarwen said.

Arden smothered the fire and they all sat down to eat. Evénn and Jalonn stayed farther off, keeping their eyes on the woods and sky while they ate. Argos and the wolf were particularly friendly and attentive, receiving bones and bits of meat from each of the party for their kindness. The meal passed without speech, a sure sign of hunger. Soon after they were done, Agarwen was asleep again, and the others divided up the watches of the night. Evénn tried to persuade them to let him keep watch alone, so they could rest while they had the chance, but they refused to consider it. Still, except when he took a moment to check on Agarwen, Evénn remained to keep each of the others company in turn.

In the morning, as he was tending Agarwen’s shoulder, Evénn informed them that the dragon had passed overhead twice between midnight and dawn, flying high and fast beneath the clouds. Once he turned and circled, but otherwise he did not linger. Evénn also told Agarwen that she would not be ready to travel except at need for at least a week, and he could risk no more spells until the dragon gave up his search for them. When she balked at the delay, Jalonn silenced her by immediately agreeing with Evénn. A look from him made clear he would endure no contradictions or protests from her. So they settled in for at least a week’s stay.

The days passed quickly, for they were not idle. Each day one or more of them would leave the camp to scout out the woods and mountains around them, looking for any signs that the dragon had sent troops into the woods. Two days after they had reached the camp, Niall and Arden retraced their steps all the way back to the road. When they returned the following day to report that they had discovered nothing, their news was welcome. A greater relief would have accompanied it, were the dragon not still patrolling the sky above them night and day. Once or twice he came so near their hiding place that they thought they had been found out, but it was not so. Their spirits inched higher, but still they spoke in hushed voices and watched the skies.

When Jalonn was in camp he constantly practiced with his sword, beginning with the most rudimentary of fencing exercises and moving on step by step to the most advanced. To do so took hours, but he never seemed to tire or grow bored. If anything, the discipline and labor of progressing from form to form was for him another kind of meditation. Niall, Arden, and Evénn all joined him in turn whenever they were present, though as a rule there were never more than two in camp with Agarwen. At times there was only one. If he was present at the Time of Reflection, Jalonn also made a point of leading Agarwen and usually Arden in meditation. For beside the days he and Niall were gone, Arden was always there at that hour, following the meditation while he prepared the day’s catch of rabbit over a small fire.

By the sixth day they had gone two days straight without sighting the dragon. Evénn had seen him last flying towards Narinen high up in the evening after sunset. None of the others were able to pick him out against the blue gray sky. This led Evénn, who was also pleased at how quickly Agarwen was healing, to renew the healing enchantments along with the herbal treatments, three times a day. In a stream nearby he had washed her bandages and shirt, so she could have a clean dressing for her wound and a clean shirt to go over it every day. The shoulder was still sore and hurt if jostled, but the pain had become bearable. Several weeks would pass before she could draw her bow properly, but the elf predicted that she would be ready to travel and wield her sword in perhaps a week.

That day Arden was in camp alone with Evénn and Agarwen. The rabbits were about half done and Evénn had just finished dressing her wound. Nine days had come and gone since Prisca, yet Evénn had said still nothing to Arden about the events of that night or about Arden’s statement in the tavern about the dragon. More than once the two of them had left camp together to patrol or hunt, and each time Arden had expected him to raise the subject, but he had always confined his remarks to the matters at hand. Given his reaction that night, Arden regarded his silence more and more curiously as the days went by. That afternoon Arden made up his mind to raise the subject himself. The day was unseasonably warm, with the smell of the sea strong on the light breeze. Such days had always given him a sense of well being when he was young; and that, combined with his growing preoccupation with Evénn’s silence, led him to speak.

“Evénn,” he said without looking away from the fire, “there is something we need to discuss.”

“Yes,” the elf replied from behind him, “I have been waiting for you to mention it.”

“Me? Given the importance you seemed to attach to my words, I had expected you to ask.”

“I do think your words important, but I have been observing you.”

“I don’t understand. Why have you been observing me?”

“To see if you were under the spell of the dragon.”

“What?” Arden was stunned and turned away from the fire to stare at him.

“What?” said Agarwen. “Stop speaking in riddles, the both of you. Why would you think that? What did Arden say?”

“Yes, why?” Arden added.

“The night we were in Prisca, when Arden came into the tavern he said to me, with the greatest assurance, that we must make haste because the dragon had felt my spell and would come to Prisca. In only two ways could he have come by such certainty. Either he had a vision of the dragon while he lay unconscious in the street or he had a dream.

“If a vision, he was in great peril since the dragon could have seen him as well; if a dream, the danger was less – since it might have been just a dream – but still grave because beings of spirit can visit us in our dreams. Either way, the beast could have bewitched him and used him to find or kill us.”

“Dream or vision, I don’t know which it was, Evénn,” Arden said. “I only know what I saw. It was enough to leave me convinced – that night at any rate – that the dragon knew that I at least was there.”

“Wait,” Agarwen interrupted. “You saw the dragon that night, too?”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded.

“Because I was taken aback by your dream, and because you were wounded and we had to hurry.”

Evénn had watched this exchange in stony silence, a look of concern on his face.

“More importantly, Arden,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me? The simple fact that Agarwen also experienced something in a dream or vision should have told you how important it was.”

Evénn paused, but before Arden could answer he continued.

“Now tell me what you saw, Arden. Then you, Agarwen.”

Arden described what he had seen while Evénn listened closely.

“You did not speak to the dragon?” he asked.

“No.”

“But you did look into his eyes.”

“Yes.”

“And you say he knew who you were?”

“He called me ‘brave boy’ just as he did thirty years ago.”

“I remember that from your story. He said nothing more than you have told us? Think, Arden. We must be sure.”

“No, that was all.”

“I see. If it was only a dream, that could explain how he knew you. Our dreams often give life to our fears. If more than that, it means he somehow knows more than is good for us. Now, Agarwen, tell us what you saw.”

Again the elf attended carefully to her words.

“But you did not see or speak to him?”

“No, it was as I have told you.”

“It would be strange if these were both merely dreams,” Evénn said. “This is quite disturbing.”

He stood up and paced back and forth for some minutes, immersed in thought. Arden went on tending to their supper. Agarwen watched the late afternoon sunlight at play in the shade of the trees. Arden frowned.

“Evénn, if you thought my words so important, why didn’t you ask me about them at once?”

“If you were enspelled, you would have lied, but your deeds would betray you. So when you didn’t approach me, I wasn’t overly concerned by that. You are a Ranger, solitary and silent by training and inclination, long accustomed to keeping secrets within you and rolling them over in your mind, while you await the fitting time to disclose them. You might then wait before speaking, but were you under the dragon’s sway, again your deeds would speak before you did. So I waited and I observed.”

“And?”

“You came close to using the spell of healing while the dragon was near. That alarmed and perplexed me. Was it a lapse of judgment born of anxiety for Agarwen, or was it a trick of the dragon that used your concern for her life against us?”

“Would I have told you that if I were bewitched?”

“Perhaps not, yet even then you did not seem to grasp how narrowly we avoided catastrophe that night. Do not mistake the cunning of the dragons, Arden. They can influence their victims in ways both subtle and gross. They can cast an obvious, irresistible spell that subdues the will, as the black dragon did to Conn, or make an imperceptible suggestion that nudges you along a path you were already inclined to follow, as they did with my father.

“So just because the black dragon enchanted Conn and sent him directly off to kill others does not mean that the red would do the same. The black himself might have used Conn differently if the circumstances or his mood had differed. The red could have set you to kill us if it suited him, or to betray us by action or inadvertence. He could twist your concern for a wounded comrade or your desire for vengeance in order to lead you into error, just as the dragons misled my father and the elf lords by whispering to them in their dreams. Their hearts’ desire was to do good and they did not understand that the power of the dragons was perverting that longing. Conn knew he was under the beast’s influence; my father and the others did not. Yet they were all equally powerless. That is why, since I was already anxious about you, I sent Jalonn to you that day. I knew the dragon was nearby, and I feared you would shoot at him if he came close enough.”

“How did you know where he was?”

“I saw him, just as you did, though fortunately much sooner.”

“And what if I hadn’t heeded Jalonn?”

“He would’ve killed you the instant you raised the bow.”

Evénn sighed and looked at Arden with regret. Arden shrugged.

“So Master Jalonn knew of your concerns?” said Agarwen quietly after a few moments.

“As did Niall,” Evénn answered. “He also heard Arden’s words at the tavern, and told Jalonn immediately. We began watching you with great concern that very night.”

“So, I suppose I’ve never really been alone since then?” Arden asked.

“No, one of us was always at hand. Even that day, Niall hung back to keep an eye on you.”

“All this mistrust only strengthens the dragon,” Agarwen said. “If we are so suspicious that we are prepared to kill each other to protect our errand, is he not already winning?”

“You are right, Agarwen,” said Evénn. “It does make him stronger. But our errand is more important than any of us. No one can be allowed to imperil it. You are wrong, however, to ask if the dragon is already winning. The dragons won long ago. There is no ‘already.’ Our hopes are small, and if we fail there will be no one to take our place. The dragons will prevail until the ending of the world.”

“Maybe, Evénn, maybe,” she said,” but maybe you are the one who lacks faith now.”

The elf smiled grimly, but did not answer.

“So what do you think now?” Arden asked. “Are you still of the opinion that I could be under the beast’s spell?”

“No,” he replied. “When you heeded Jalonn and did not shoot, it cost you dearly, I know. I doubt you would have yielded or suffered so, had you been bewitched.”

“That was a week ago, yet you have continued to say nothing.”

“We had to be sure, my friend.”

Arden shook his head, half in disbelief. “I suppose I would’ve done the same, had I suspected you,” he said after a moment’s thought.

“You had better, if ever you do.”

“So, then,” Agarwen said, “what did we see that night? A dream or a vision?”

“The coincidence suggests that you truly saw the dragon and did not merely imagine him.”

Agarwen considered his words. Until today her dream had seemed just that, no different than any other dream she had ever had, but she had never – oh, how could she put it? – so nearly shared the same dream with someone else. To think of that gave her pause.

“I have two questions,” she said. “First, why could the dragon find Arden at all?”

“Most likely because he has the black dragon’s blood on him. Somehow it marked Arden; and when the red dragon bent his thoughts our way, it allowed him to perceive and recognize him.”

“But you’re not sure?” Agarwen said.

“No, Agarwen, I’m not sure. How could I be? Almost no one who gets that close to a dragon lives to tell of it.”

“Lucky me,” Arden scoffed.

“Yes, lucky you,” Agarwen answered him sharply.

They looked away from each other, disquieted.

“What is your second question, Agarwen?” Evénn asked, studying them both.

“Why didn’t the dragon cast a spell on Arden when their eyes met?”

“I cannot explain that. It’s a mystery to me.”

“Could his hatred of the beast have shielded him?”

“No, precisely the opposite. Arden’s hatred would have helped the dragon. Powerful emotions like that expose and reveal the mind. They do not protect it.”

“There is another thing I do not understand,” Arden said. “The dragon said to me that things were different now. What did he mean?”

“It’s hard to say. He might have meant that my use of so great an enchantment had betrayed our presence.”

“But you don’t think so.” Arden asked after a pause.

“No, I don’t. I believe he means that they are different this time. In the first war each of them was so concerned to establish his primacy over the others that they fought with each other more often than they attacked us; and when they came for us, they did so alone or at most two of them together. That is one of the reasons why my city never fell to their assaults, and why we had the time to create the weapons with which to destroy them. For we soon learned that if enough elf lords were gathered in one place and joined their strengths, we had the power to hold the walls of Elashandra against them.

“This time the dragons acted as one from the very first, and things were different. Almost all the mightiest elf lords were slain in a single stroke, and with them fell the world. Without the ancient weapons and the combined prowess of the lords, we had no hope of resisting all four dragons together. Not even for a little while. Some day if we are spared I will tell you that tale of the desperate, bloody valor shown by your people and mine on the plains east of Elashandra thirty years ago.

“Nevertheless, the beasts fought and conquered together, and did not war on each other even after defeating us all. Some strange bond exists among them this time, whose precise nature has so far escaped me. Yet its significance is all too clear. Our world has come to dust and ashes because of it. My guess is that the beast was alluding to this.”

“But there is no way of knowing,” Agarwen said.

“No,” Evénn shook his head.

“Not yet, you mean,” Arden added.

“Hmmm,” Agarwen sighed. “Conversations with you make my head ache, Evénn. They seem to raise a new question for each one they answer.”

“Perhaps supper will help,” Arden said, bringing her and Evénn their food. He smothered the fire at once and made sure it was out. “At least it will help your head. I am taking some food to Niall and Master Jalonn,” he said and left them alone. They began eating as they watched Arden walk away. He still had not returned by the time she was finished. For a few minutes she gazed thoughtfully in the direction he had gone. Then turned to Evénn.

“Were you really worried he had fallen?” she asked.

“We all were.”

“You were all wrong.”

“As it turns out.”

“No, you were wrong even to suspect him. Arden would not fall.”

“Would not?” Evénn said, so incredulous at her words that he nearly laughed. “None of us is safe from the dragon’s power. You underestimate them if you think so.”

“And you underestimate Arden. I know it sounds, well, innocent, even foolish, of me even to say so, but Arden would not betray her.”

“I hope he has a choice if it comes to that.”

She hoped so, too, as the evening closed in around them and Arden did not return. In the failing light Evénn’s face had the expression of one trying to make sense of a puzzle that defied scrutiny. She was about to ask him about it when the wind shifted and strengthened. It came hissing through the pines, gently tossing their boughs, and bringing with it the heady scent of salt. Her wound and the seclusion of their camp had until now allowed her only the merest glimpse of the sea. That very morning the mists clinging to the mountain slopes had parted to reveal a gleam of gold along the rim of the world. Now in the dusk, with her head full of the lush air, Agarwen strained her ears and reached out with her mind in the impossible hope that somehow from miles away she might catch the sound of the waves on that shore.

One night nearly five years ago now Arden had told her that the wind in the trees sometimes reminded him of that sound. The two of them had been lying in camp and staring up at the stars of the Great Wake when he said it. He was quiet for a moment, and then quite unexpectedly began reciting a long poem about Narin’s ship as it sailed through the darkness the night before he first sighted this wide land. His journey across the ocean west of Talor had been long and resolute, rich in the discovery of islands whose existence had been unknown or but dimly guessed from the tales of lost mariners. Now he was sailing empty seas no man or elf had ever travelled, and Narin’s heart wavered, longing for wife and home, and a life that seemed to have vanished away.

When Arden was done, he said that the stars glittering above them in the sky were the same as those which had shone down on Narin; and, like the Great Wake, his ship’s wake stretched out glowing behind her, back and back into a dark past without horizon.

“So, tell me of the sea,” Agarwen had said to him eagerly. Although it was not the first time he had quoted poetry – he carried a small book of it in his pack – never had she heard such passion in him that was not anger; and hearing it moved her. So long a pause followed that Agarwen feared she had offended him by asking for more; that this breach in Arden’s wonted reserve would close and scar proudly over; and that the keen, lively voice which spoke to her from beyond the years would lapse back into silence.

Arden sat up and turned towards her. She could feel his eyes upon her. She did not know if she wished she could see them. Then all at once the sea came pouring out of him: the sweet tang of salt water; the green curl of a sunlit wave; the vanishing caress of foam; the wash of the breaker on the sand; the snap of a sail turning through the wind’s eye; the slap of a wave against the bow; the music of water along the side; the exaltation of racing down the wind in a quiet world; the majesty of a storm upon the shore; the peace of floating just at the surface, rising and falling on the swell, eyes shut to the sun.

Yet for all the rapture in his voice there was something he did not express, something she could not quite detect, though she knew it was there. He hid it in the silence beyond his sunlit love of the sea. For in every tale he told he was alone, as if summer wind and sun and glittering waves were the sole companions of his youth. That he could reveal and withhold so much in an hour’s conversation only made him seem lonelier.

“What troubles you, Agarwen?” Evénn asked her.

She came back from her reverie. It was fully dark now. She could no longer see his features, but the disquieting spectral glow of his eyes told her he was looking at her.

“Me? I was just about to ask you the same question. You look puzzled. What is it?”

Evénn paused, as if considering whether to answer her question or press for a reply to his own.

“I am,” he said at last. “Arden has twice looked into the eyes of the red dragon and come away unscathed. The first time I understand. He was a boy beneath the dragon’s notice. But this time, despite all his contempt for the beings of this world, the dragon would have known he posed a threat and sought to ensnare him. Why didn’t he?”

“I have found,” Agarwen responded, “that riddles are often better left alone. The more we puzzle over them, the more difficult they become.”

“Indeed. Perhaps you are right. The abbot at the monastery where I stayed said as much to me once. Let us speak of something else.”

“Well,” she said with a laugh, “only an elf could call seven centuries at a monastery a ‘stay,’ but at the risk of making my head hurt even more, I have two more questions for you.”

“You are curious,” he said, as a smile crept over his face. “What is the first?”

“Why can the dragons perceive some enchantments and not others?”

“Do you know any spells?” Evénn asked.

“No, none besides those you taught us for the bow and the sword. The Masters say I am not yet ready to learn them.”

“Then you need to understand something of their nature. Enchantments draw on the power that is immanent in the world and in the souls god gave us. It is always there. Our eyes see it, our ears hear it. Yet we do not perceive it. The ten thousand petty things that make up our lives conceal the fullness of reality from us. The words of an incantation draw back this veil. Through them we can touch that power, harness it, direct it. But in doing so we also make it easier for others to see.

“As beings of spirit that have become incarnate the dragons are more sensitive to the world around them than we are, but even for them it is difficult to discern one small spell in the midst of so much power. It is like hearing the sound of one pebble in an avalanche, or seeing a single tree in a distant forest. From far away only a mass of trees and undergrowth is visible. Picking out a single bush or sapling is impossible until we are close by. By contrast a mighty tree that is far taller than those around it stands out, even from a distance. The lesser spells of healing, or of stealth and concealment, for example, employ only a minute portion of the world’s power. The dragons can only sense them for what they are if they are nearby.”

“So that is why we could not use the healing spells when the dragon was hunting us.”

“Yes, and it is also why he felt them when he flew over the hollow where we drew the arrow from your shoulder. He was close enough to tell the difference between the raw strength of the world and its more focused form. Though hours had passed since we’d been there, he could perceive it like a distant echo.”

“And that is also why he knew of your enchantment at Prisca,” she said. “It was like the giant tree towering above the forest.”

“Precisely. It was obvious to him, just as it was to us.”

“I think I understand now. Thank you for explaining.”

“And your second question?” Evénn asked.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. I shall answer it if I can.”

“Why weren’t we all killed by what you did?”

“All spells can be guided to a greater or lesser degree. It depends on the power of the words and the strength of the one speaking them. When we disguised the horses to look like cart horses, you could still see their true appearance, couldn’t you?”

“Yes, if I looked hard at them.”

“That was because the incantation was not directed at you. In the same way, you can see the Valley, because you know it is there and have lived, as it were, within the enchantment. To those who do not know the Valley is there, it is hidden entirely.”

“Could the dragons see it?”

“If by chance they flew directly over the Valley, I daresay they would feel something, but the words that protect the Valley have been at work for so many centuries that they have merged with the power of the world. Yet, if the dragons went there on purpose, knowing what they were seeking and where it should be, they would in time pierce the veils of magic which protect the Valley.”

“I pray that day never comes.”

“As do I, but to continue with your other question, I was able to focus the incantation on our enemies, just as with the horses. That is why you were affected, but survived.”

“That must have been difficult, to control that much power so exactly.”

“It was. Preventing it from killing everyone was a large part of what exhausted me.”

“And the other part?”

“A great deal of my strength was required to make the enchantment work at all.”

“When you taught us about the bow and sword, you said that the words would enable us to unleash their full might. Would it have been different if you had held the sword of adamant?”

“You are perceptive as well as curious, Agarwen. The answer is yes. I could, shall we say, have aimed more precisely.”

“But the dragon would have known we had the sword.”

“Just so. They all would have known, and they would burn these mountains down to find us.”

As she considered his words and remembered the slaughtered soldiers in the streets of Prisca, Agarwen grew quiet. She had come to understand the difference between the magic in the songs which told of the battles of Evénn and his old companions with the dragons, and the brutal reality that the people in those songs had to suffer. She had known Evénn as a friend and a teacher, a trusty comrade on their quest, as she liked to call it. Yet his normally serene and affable bearing cloaked a terrible strength and a will to use it that she found daunting. Niall, Arden, and Master Jalonn, all were dangerous men, and Agarwen was long accustomed to such company. She, too, was dangerous, practiced in the weapons of war and ruthless in wielding them when she had to be. Yet Evénn was more perilous than any of them, far more.

“Evénn,” she said after much thought, “sometimes you frighten me.”

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Chapter 14.1