. Alas, not me

03 November 2014

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 13.1

Thirteen

The day was no less cold than the night, but the early morning sunshine which filtered through the leaves above them was welcome nonetheless. As the twilight blossomed into dawn and dawn into morning, the shadows of the trees, bushes, stones, and slopes that had been merged in darkness parted from each other and took on the shapes they owned in the daylight. Still seated beside Agarwen, Arden watched the night go. The flush which the dawn had imparted to her cheeks faded, and she looked pale from the loss of blood. He had not moved since Jalonn and Niall had left hours ago. Now they were visible to him, unmoving and barely detectable through the bushes on opposite sides of the hollow.
Periodically he had checked Agarwen, to make sure she was no worse. The last time she had seemed stronger than before, which gave him some comfort. Yet today they would have to remove the shaft of the arrow that had brought her down. They would also have to leave this place. The road was far too close. Sooner or later troops would come down it searching for them, and they needed to be far away when that happened. With the dragon at Prisca, the soldiers would not hesitate to enter the woods. The lives taken there last night were not his concern: the magic was. For, whoever could cast a spell so devastating posed a threat to him. And the dragon would know that only an elf lord could master so much power.
Arden was reckoning how long it would take the other two companies stationed at Prisca, but absent on patrol yesterday, to return. They had passed one of them going north on the Tusk road two days ago. Hansarad had told them they patrolled as far as twenty five miles north of Prisca. He also said they never moved very fast, unless the commander of the garrison was with them. Given that, they were likely to be returning to Prisca today. The patrol that went south towards the Great Road had farther to go and had left Prisca a day before the other patrol. They, too, might well return today. If so, sixty to one hundred and twenty more soldiers would be arriving at the town sometime this afternoon. Surely the dragon would allow them no rest when they did. It was also possible that the dragon had flown over the mountains to speed them along.
Just then Arden saw Master Jalonn approaching him. His face was drawn and his eyes weary. Arden knew that he looked no better himself. Niall was likely the same, though he would surely bear it more cheerfully than they. It was his nature. Niall was a reed that bent before the wind.
“How is she?” Jalonn asked.
“Still sleeping, but her heart and breathing seem stronger than they were.”
“Evénn is still sleeping as well, I see,” he said.
“He stirred briefly a couple of hours ago when the wolf came to join him. Otherwise he has not moved.”
Jalonn nodded, but his concern was as plain on his face as his exhaustion.
“We must get away from here, Jalonn,” Arden said.
“I’ve thought of little else all night. We shall have to draw the arrow first. Soon. I hope Evénn is up to it.”
“This is only the second time I have ever seen him sleep. During our entire two weeks’ journey to the Valley he did not sleep that I could tell. So I believe he will recover more quickly than any of us can imagine.”
“True, but you only saw the effects of what he did. I watched him do it. This is no ordinary weariness of body and mind on him. That power came from much further within him, as if he drew on his life’s essence to summon it.”
“And afterwards,” Arden frowned, “he helped us with Agarwen before he was ready.”
“I know,” Jalonn answered, “but too much is at stake, and we are at risk here. The dragon will be about, keen to find the enchanter who cast that spell. Soldiers will follow soon.”
“This afternoon or this evening at the earliest is my guess. I can’t see how they can get back much sooner.”
“Much depends on Hansarad and Baran. They will try to slow the enemy down if they see them hastening back to Prisca. We may also assume that by now the dragon has extracted from the innkeeper all that he knows. So he will know we came from the west and were heading east. There will also be a record of our entering from the west to confirm that. I doubt he will aid his soldiers to the west of the mountains if he knows we are on this side. He will hunt for us.”
“You’re right,” Arden said. “He will leave them on their own rather than be drawn in the wrong direction.”
For a few minutes they were quiet. Arden sat as he had all night and Jalonn crouched on one knee beside him. Many years had passed since they had been abroad together, and the thoughtful look on the Master’s face as he considered the day to come was like an old friend to Arden. He had seen it often when they were both what the world called young, though he remembered it mostly from all the months they had spent on their own together, trying to make their way from the City to the Valley, always hiding, often hunted. Through ruined cities and burnt out villages, through mountain forests charred bare by dragons’ fire and along sandy shores, they had fled and fought their way first south, then west beyond the mouths of the Rheith.
At length they came to Sharilas in the lands of Jalonn’s birth, where winter was as warm and moist as late summer in the City, and the trees, hung thick with moss, seemed to droop from the heat. The dragons and their men had not been there yet. And while the enemy stormed westward across Narinen, sacking and destroying every town or city which did not submit at once, this fair land was still untouched.
There Arden and Jalonn, having slipped beyond the reach of their foes for a brief time, found a respite they had not expected after months of flight and the small victories of mere survival. Two weeks they rested in Sharilas, regaining their strength and healing their bodies, before Jalonn decided it was time to continue on west and north towards the Gray Mountains and Plains of Rheith, where winter and the dragons’ men awaited them. In the fullness of spring they came at last into the Valley of the Rangers. Their journey had taken them nearly two years.
Now, as if closing a great circle begun long ago, he and Jalonn were on their way back to the City to face the danger they had once escaped. Each of them privately weighed the situation, assaying all the risks the day before them entailed, and how much more perilous the road before them had become because Evénn had unleashed the power within him. Argos and the wolf, who had both awakened when Jalonn joined Arden, kept looking from one man to the other, waiting for them to reach some decision.
“Well,” Jalonn finally said, “we can wait no longer. Whatever else the dragon and his men will do, they will be coming, together or apart. We must wake the elf.”
“Agreed,” Arden replied.
The wolf seemed to grasp their intention. He sat up. Gently he nuzzled Evénn’s cheek and licked his face once or twice. The elf stirred and opened his eyes. With one hand he reached up for the wolf’s head; with the other he rubbed his eyes. Jalonn glanced at Arden.
“At times I think that wolf understands every word we say,” he said.
“Would it surprise you so much, Jalonn,” Evénn said though a yawn, “to learn that the creatures of this world are more intelligent than we guess?”
“Arden,” Jalonn said, ignoring the question, “I’d say you were right. He’s definitely himself again. Wake up, Evénn. We’ve much to do today.”
“Just so,” he replied, as he got up and came over to check Agarwen. He laid his head on her breast, holding one hand up for silence. His eyes were closed as if listening with all his attention. A long time he knelt over her, but just when Jalonn and Arden were wondering if he had fallen asleep again, he lifted his head and leaned back, a look of satisfaction on his face.
“She is much better this morning. Her wounds concerned me gravely last night, but the bleeding has stopped. She is strong and means to live. Arden’s herbs and enchantments have done the rest.”
“Can she be moved?” Jalonn asked with some urgency.
“Not yet. That shaft must come out first, or all Arden’s work will be undone.”
“Then let’s get to it. Time is wasting.”
“Where is Niall?” Evénn asked.
“On watch,” Jalonn replied.
“Then, Arden,” he said, turning to him from Jalonn, “please, go tell him that we shall be occupied for some time, and bring me my sword.”
“It is there, by the tree, where you left it.”
Evénn looked at it and smiled slightly.
“So it is, of course.”
“Why do you need your sword?” Arden asked.
“You shall see. Go speak to Niall.”
Arden stood up and left. His legs and back were stiff with weariness and sitting on the ground for so long. He forced his unwilling legs to go numbly on. When he came back, Jalonn was sitting cross-legged with Agarwen’s head in his lap. His hand rested on her brow. Evénn sat beside her, one of his legs stretched out beneath her to raise up and support her back and shoulders. The blankets and her cloak were thrown back, revealing a jerkin and shirt caked with dried, brown blood. Evénn removed her jerkin and carefully peeled her shirt away from her shoulder, and with his fingers probed around the broken shaft of the arrow. She moaned in her sleep. Jalonn stroked her head and hair.
“Arden, come here. I need you,” Evénn said without looking up. “Place yourself here, behind her left shoulder. I shall push and you will pull. You have done this before?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Jalonn, wake her.”
“Agarwen,” Jalonn called her name in a voice kinder that Arden had ever heard him use. “Agarwen.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“Master Jalonn,” she said, somewhat taken aback.
“Agarwen, it is morning. We are about to remove the arrow. You must not cry out. We are in danger.”
“I understand.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
With that Evénn pushed the arrow through her shoulder while Arden pulled on it from the other side. It came out easily, followed by blood, which was not fresh, but thick and almost congealed. Agarwen’s back arched and stiffened as she fought the urge to cry aloud. Her eyes blazed and she bared her gritted teeth; a low growl escaped her throat that made the dog and wolf shy away. Then she went limp, breathing heavily.
“Put your hands over her wound and say the words of the spell now,” Evénn told them.
As Arden and Jalonn began whispering the words, they pressed their palms on her wound, Jalonn to the front and Arden the back. Evénn picked up his sword and unsheathed it. He looked up and his eyes met Arden’s.
“We must seal the wound,” he said simply.
“But how? We have no – ”
Then he saw Evénn run his hand back and forth along the flat of the blade, first on one side, then the other, muttering a few quick words so low that Arden could not catch them. Almost at once the last three inches toward the point began to glow red. Evénn smiled at him.
“Like so,” he said. Then he leaned over Agarwen once more. “This is going to hurt far more than the arrow, but I know you can bear it.”
Agarwen, staring at the glowing tip of the blade, did not look so sure. There was a touch of fear in her fierce eyes, but she took a deep breath and nodded emphatically to Evénn. At once he pressed the flat of the sword to her flesh, which smoked and charred around the blade. Agarwen gasped and clapped her right hand hard over her mouth. Her eyes were screwed shut and her cheeks wet. A few seconds later – an age and more for Agarwen – the elf removed the blade and peered at her burnt flesh.
“Good. Now for the other side.”
“Good?” Agarwen hissed as Jalonn and Arden rolled her onto her side. Evénn repeated the process.
When it was done, they carefully let her back down again, leaving her on her right side and placing blankets beneath her head for a pillow. Jalonn and Arden stayed with her while Evénn went to fetch a salve from his saddlebags. He dabbed it as delicately as he could on the wound. She twitched at every touch.
“Well done, Agarwen,” Evénn said when it was over. “I have known great warriors of elves and men who could not bear so much so well. Now sleep for an hour. The worst is over.”
But Agarwen was already unconscious. Evénn wiped his sword and sheathed it.
“She must rest for an hour. You should get some rest while you can. Niall, too. I shall stand guard.”
“You are recovered?” Jalonn inquired.
“Enough for now.”
“And Agarwen?”
“She will be able to ride, though it will be painful. We will have to go slowly today. She is weak. We need a place to hide until she regains her strength.”
“How long?”
“A week or two, with proper tending and rest. It will be quite some time, though, before she can draw her bow effectively.”
Jalonn thought about this, then said “I think I know a place, if I can still find it after all these years.”
“We can discuss that later. Rest for a bit now,” he said and walked off in Niall’s direction.
The wolf followed, as did Argos at a nod from Arden. Moving over and propping himself against the tree where Evénn had slept, Arden leaned back his head. He let out a great sigh of relief and was asleep almost at once.
When Evénn called him, it seemed he had just shut his eyes. Through the trees he checked the sun and knew that he had slept closer to two hours than one. As he climbed to his feet, he still felt stiff and tired. It would take more sleep than that to refresh him after yesterday, and they had a long day ahead of them today. Agarwen was sitting upright nearby. Though pale, she looked less deathly than before. Beneath her cloak and jerkin he could see she was wearing a fresh shirt.
“How do you feel?” he asked her.
“Better than I would have thought,” she replied. “For a while there last night I thought I was going to die. I thought we were all going to die. Thank you for caring for me.”
“You would have done the same for me.”
“Evénn says you saved my life, that you show a talent for the healing of others.”
“Evénn says many things,” Arden answered. He turned his face away to conceal that he was blushing. At the same time he wondered if the elf meant something by the healing of others.
“We let you, Niall, and Master Jalonn sleep longer. You seemed to need it.”
“We did, but we also need to leave this place.”
“I know. I’m ready to go.”
“How well do you think you can ride?”
“Better than last night at any rate. Several times I thought I would fall from my horse.”
“We had you lashed into the saddle, but I am still surprised you didn’t, especially during your charge down the road.”
“Well, we had to get off the road, and I didn’t know if I had the strength to stay in the saddle much longer. But I was confident Bufo would get me there.”
“It’s a good thing she is sure-footed.”
“I have ridden her so often in the mountains and up and down the rocky hillsides near the Valley that I doubt a mountain goat could outpace her on a slope.”
“Training is everything, I suppose, as the Masters say.”
“They are usually right about such things, you know.”
“They are indeed,” he replied, thinking again about the now clear wisdom of their counsels of patience and faith.
When he said nothing more, Agarwen said, “I had very strange dreams last night.”
“Oh? What about?” he asked, remembering his own dream.
“I can only remember two clearly, and I can’t tell you exactly when I had them, but I believe the first came when we were riding down the mountain road. I was drifting in and out until Evénn cried that the dragon was coming.”
“What did you dream?”
“I dreamt I was in a large dark room with the dragon,” she said, startling Arden. “What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing. I’m just surprised, is all. It sounds like a dream someone would have in a story.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it? That’s just what I was thinking a few minutes ago, but, you could say, we are in a story.”
“I guess you could, but one no one will ever hear it told unless we succeed.”
“Of course we’ll succeed,” she said, as if he were being foolish. She smiled at him. He shook his head and smiled back.
“You should do that more often,” she added.
“But what of the dragon in your dream?” he asked, ignoring her.
“I couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see me, not yet, but I knew he was searching for me. I could feel that. He told me he could smell my blood, that I was going to die soon, that he was coming for us. I knew if I answered him, he would find me. I did not want that. I kept thinking of what Evénn said about never speaking to them or looking them in the eye. Somehow it seemed like more than a dream.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s difficult to say, exactly. It felt like I was actually there, wherever he was, or maybe that he was somehow in my mind with me, and I was perceiving where he was because he was in my mind. That makes little sense, I know.”
“What of your other dream?” Arden asked after pondering her words for a moment.
“I dreamt of the sea.”
“But you have never seen it.”
“True, but you and Niall and others have told me of it often enough, and I have read much in the library about it. From the time I was little I have been eager to see it. I remember that you once told me that you dreamt of the sea almost every night. And last night for the first time ever I could smell the salt in the air as we came down the mountain.”
“Yes, we spoke of it.”
“Did we? I don’t recall that.”
“You were barely awake at the time.”
Jalonn came up to them.
“If you two are done talking, it is time for us to go,” he said, holding out his hand to help Agarwen to her feet. She took it and he pulled her up. She tried to make it look easy, but clearly she was in great pain. “Arden,” he added, “pack up these cloaks and blankets. Make sure we leave no traces.”
“Yes, Master Jalonn,” he answered, getting up himself.
Without delay he gathered up the cloaks and blankets which had furnished Agarwen a bed, and packed them up behind the horses’ saddles. When he was finished, the others mounted and headed off south just below the ridgeline. They had taken care to conceal every bit of bare metal they could, lest it gleam in the sunlight and betray them. They stayed out of sight beneath the trees as they rode, at times going far out of their way downhill to avoid crossing any open areas where they might be seen from above. The dragon could fly overhead at any time, and his sight was far keener that any elf’s.
Once they were gone, Arden scoured the hollow for any sign that they had been there. Fortunately, the ground was too hard from the cold for any footprints to remain. Still he looked carefully for any branches that might have snagged a bit of wool from their cloaks or been bent by momentary carelessness. He cleared away the horses’ dung and cast it down the steepest, barest slope he could find. It took an hour, but at last he was satisfied that no trooper and likely no hunter could have told they had been there. Agarwen’s bloody shirt and cloak had been packed away, as had the first bandages he had used to dress her wound at Prisca. Perhaps a mountain wolf could sniff them out – there had been some with the patrol they had passed on the Tusk Road – or maybe the dragon himself. But the hollow was narrow and deep, full of brush and surrounded by tall pines. He doubted the dragon could get down there, and he guessed that Evénn could fool the wolves here as he had done before.
All the time he remained in the hollow, though, he could not help but wonder whether Agarwen’s dream of the dragon and his own were merely a coincidence or whether they meant something more sinister. He recalled the sudden piercing glance that Evénn had cast at him last night in the tavern, when, under the influence of the dream, he had spoken as with certain knowledge of the dragon. What Evénn had told him on their first journey together, that the dragons had perhaps whispered to the elf lords in their dreams and so deceived them into summoning them, came back to him now. There was no denying that the dragon had been aware of all the power Evénn had unleashed last night; and if from the world of spirits the dragons could enter the dreams of elf lords, they could surely enter them in this world. After much thought, Arden could only confess that he did not have an answer. Perhaps Evénn could say more. Considering the look he had received from him, Arden was sure that the elf would ask him about what he had said in the tavern before too long.
Arden pulled the bow of Mahar from its boot on Impetuous’ saddle, hung it across his back, and rode off after the others. He knew they would be following the ridgeline, as Niall had suggested last night. He also knew that he could find them even if no one else could. Argos trotted beside him as he made his way through the woods. Now and then Arden stopped to examine the ground for signs of their passing, more as a precaution against any pursuit later in the day than because he needed to do so. With an hour’s head start, and with the steep and uneven slope he had to cross, he would not overtake them until they stopped for the day. When that would be, Arden had no idea, since Jalonn had said nothing of their destination, or whether they would reach it today. Most likely it was a small camp, secluded in some hollow or ravine, which Baran’s Rangers used when on this side of the mountains.
So Arden rode on for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, keeping himself within the deep shadows of the pines. Sometimes the terrain compelled him to walk, lest he risk injury to his horse. In places the ground was loose and rocky, the result of endless tree roots cracking and breaking the stone hills through long ages. The pines were huge and thick up here. Their height and girth made him feel like a child wandering between the legs of giants. They soared higher even than the tall towers which had once stood above the Hall of Kings in the City. One of those towers had been broken by the dragons the night the City fell. Whether the other still stood he would soon learn.
The snow was also less on the eastern façade of the Green Hills, covering the summits but not below them. Only the greatest and coldest of storms which sailed across the Plains of Rheith, burying the flat lands and shallow rolling hills there, ever managed to bring their snows over to the coastlands. Once they overtopped the mountains they met the warmer air from the sea and their snows became rain, which kept the mountains, hills, and plains to the east green even in winter. Arden could recall but one week in a winter of his youth when it was cold enough for snow to fall. Even then it did not endure long, but fled away with the swift return of the more moderate airs from the sea. Much to his and his brother’s disappointment.
The hours passed slowly. Since meeting Evénn he had seldom been alone except on the long rides he had taken outside the Valley on the pretext of training his new horse. After all the years in the wilds, with horse and hound his only comrades, solitude was almost his natural state. His companions’ absence comforted him. It restored the rhythm of a life in which the hours unfolded like the slow seasons of childhood. There was a certainty in silence that no friendship could match. Yet over the last few months Arden had also grown to enjoy the talk and the company, the shared labors and the exchange of glances, all he had so long shunned for fear and sorrow. Those feelings were no less potent than before, but, had he gazed into a mirror as he now gazed into the quiet forest, he would have seen more reflected than the image of his pain. As content as he was to ride alone today, he also looked forward to the evening.
About an hour before dark, Arden began scanning the ground ahead of him to make sure the company had not turned aside unexpectedly. Every few minutes he also looked back north and west in the direction of Prisca. The sun had dipped below the mountain tops to the west less than a half hour ago, and the eastern slopes and coastlands were already deep in twilight, but higher up the blue sky still reflected the translucent gold of the late afternoon. It was some time before Arden saw him, so far aloft and distant that only a glint of red revealed him. The dragons had flown as high the morning they had come to Narinen. Had Arden not been present that day, he would not have known what to look for.
Slowly he slipped the bow of Mahar over his head and shoulder and pulled an arrow from his quiver. He wondered whether even an enchanted bow, fortified by the words of a spell, could send an arrow so high. May be, but Arden’s faith was not strong enough to risk it. Failure meant catastrophe. Even if the dragon did not see the arrow, he would hear the words of the incantation as Arden spoke them. He would know where Arden was. That might draw the dragon in, bringing him closer to the earth, where the bow could surely reach him; but knowing that an enemy had the bow and the words of power with which to use it could also drive him away. Arden’s position would still be known to him and the ability to take the beast by surprise would be lost. It was too dangerous. Arden chose to wait.
Yet as he crouched amid the gathering shadows of the mountains and trees, Arden perceived that the dragon was descending slowly, so slowly that none but a patient watcher would have seen it. He was also heading in Arden’s direction, coming south between the summits of the Green Hills and the ridge along which he and the others were traveling. With the speed of his flight he would soon fly almost directly overhead.
An age passed between the beats of Arden’s heart as he watched the dragon come. To cover the distance between where Arden had first seen him soaring far to the north of Prisca and the road itself, took him perhaps five minutes. So another minute or two would be all he needed to reach Arden. Here was the chance he had waited all his life for, to exact one measure of justice for Sorrow, for his father and brother, for his friends and for his people. Closer and closer the dragon came. Now he was halfway between the Prisca Road and Arden. Soon. The time would be soon. He found his heart racing, a mixture of anger, fear, and exhilaration coursing through his body and mind. But in the center of all these emotions there was also a calm place within him from which he saw everything with clarity. He studied his hands. He was not trembling.
Abruptly the dragon pivoted and wheeled back to the north in a great circle. Back as far as the road he flew, catching the light of the sun with each beat of his wings. Near the road he circled above the ridgeline, quite close to the hollow where they had hidden the night before. To Arden it appeared as if he had caught some trace of the magic they had used to treat Agarwen, a fading echo of their presence that could not escape a dragon’s senses.
He continued there for a few minutes, soaring now aloft, now stooping low. Arden waited to see what he would do. Rising above the mountain peaks the dragon still glittered in the rays of the invisible sun. When below them and skimming over the tree tops of the ridge, he grew dark and nearly vanished in the twilight. But Arden never lost sight of him. Finally the dragon broke the circle and resumed his flight southwards, climbing once more, but no longer high enough to catch the sun. He was dark against the northern sky. He was coming straight at him now. Arden’s doubts fell away. He notched his arrow. To keep his mind calm and clear, Arden commenced the litany of the Rangers.
“Look upon the sun and the stars. Know that god made them….”
He could feel the excitement ebbing from him as he repeated the words slowly to himself. He compelled his mind to turn the images of the litany over and over again. He was trying to pace himself, so that the dragon would arrive just as he reached its end. That would keep him from beginning the incantation too soon, and alerting the dragon to his presence. But the moment of the dragon’s arrival and the litany’s last words were fast converging.
Halfway through he heard an owl calling. One of the others was near. Jalonn appeared on foot and crouched down next to him. Arden held a finger to his lips.
“The dragon is coming,” he whispered.
“I know. That’s why I’m here. You mustn’t shoot.”
Arden was astonished. For a few seconds could not reply.
“Why not?” he asked slowly.
“We aren’t ready. Evénn says he is not yet strong enough to face the dragon.”
“Master, I have the bow,” Arden hissed. “I know the words. This is – ”
“The best chance we’ve ever had?” Jalonn asked him urgently, one hand grasping him by the wrist. “I know. So does Evénn, but he begs you not to shoot. Even against the full might of the bow, the creature is not powerless. If you do not kill him with the first shot, things will go ill with us. Once the bow is revealed, everything will change. We must be sure.”
Arden glared in frustration, looking rapidly from Jalonn to the dragon and back again. In seconds the dragon would be above them.
“Please, do not shoot. The time is not yet.”
In Jalonn’s voice there was steel as well as sorrow. Arden relented. He drew up his hood, and hung his head in bitterness. With a howling rush of wings, the beast passed overhead. As he receded into the south, Arden began the litany again. Jalonn left him be. He knew what it meant for Arden to stay his hand.

____________________

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 12.2

Agarwen lay unconscious on a nearby table, her wounded shoulder just off its edge. His eyes caught the red gleam of the arrowhead against the dark wood of the table’s apron. Niall was bent over her, working to stanch the flow of blood. His bare, wet hands glistened. A grave dissatisfaction marred his face.
“Arden, good, you’re here,” he said. “Come, tell me what you think.”
“How is she?”
“Well, the arrow missed the artery or she’d be dead already, but she’s lost a lot of blood. If only Evénn were awake.”
Arden glanced over at the elf, who was slumped in a chair about ten feet away. Then he set about examining Agarwen’s wound. Reaching around behind her, he traced the shaft of the arrow up from its barbed steel tip to her back. Her warm blood coated his fingers. A small pool of it had collected on the floor. He looked at her lips and into her mouth, and was relieved to find no blood there.
“It’s missed her lung, too. That’s good,” he said, trying to sound hopeful, but he was as desperate for Evénn’s skills and knowledge as Niall was. “Have you tried rousing Evénn?”
“No, I’ve been too busy with her.”
From the corner of his eye Arden saw the innkeeper and a pair of women peeking through a doorway behind the bar. They ducked out of sight as he turned his head towards them.
“They’re so terrified by what Evénn did that they’ve been quite helpful,” Niall said without looking. “They’ve brought me cloth for bandages, hot water to wash the wound, everything I’ve asked for. Can’t say I blame them for being scared. Arden, if we don’t stop the bleeding soon, it will be too late.”
“Get me the herbs in Evénn’s saddlebags. I’m going to see if I can wake him. If I fail, I’ll have to try some healing spells he taught me on our way to the Valley. And Jalonn also needs you outside.”
“Very well,” Niall answered. He did not want to leave his friend. “Give me half a moment.”
With Niall gone, he looked over at Evénn, who appeared more tired, drained actually, than anyone Arden had ever seen.
“Well, it’s a small comfort to know,” Arden almost shouted at him, “that there is something that wears you out, my friend. But now is not the time for sleeping. Agarwen is hurt, and we cannot stay here long.”
Evénn stirred slightly when Arden spoke to him, as if his voice had reached him, however faintly.
“Evénn,” Arden yelled. “Wake up. I need you.”
The elf murmured a few unintelligible words. Arden looked at him, then around the room. Evénn was too far away for Arden to reach him without leaving Agarwen unattended, but on the next table there was a full mug of ale. He needed only step away from her for an instant to set his hand on it. Despite his concern for Agarwen, he could barely suppress a grin.
“Well,” he said to the elf, “what do you expect when you pass out in a tavern?”
With that he darted over, seized the mug, and stepped quickly back. He gulped some down, then threw the rest in Evénn’s face.
“Evénn, wake up!” he shouted again. “Agarwen needs you. Her wounds are beyond me.”
Evénn stirred and his eyes blinked open. It took him a few seconds to focus. Then he shifted his gaze to Arden and Agarwen, but he was clearly exhausted and fighting to remain awake. He forced himself to lean forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.
“Tell me how she is,” he said groggily.
“Bad. The arrow struck her just below the joint of the collarbone and shoulder, coming steeply downward. The point came through her back. She’s lost a lot of blood, but she’s still alive.”
“We’ll have to leave the arrow in her for now. Did you bring my herbs?”
“Niall is getting them.”
“Good. Put them in hot water and wash the wound with them. Use the spells I taught you. I’ll say them with you, but I haven’t much strength.”
Just then Niall returned with Evénn’s saddlebags.
“I brought everything,” he said, looking back and forth between Evénn and Arden.
Arden dumped the bags out on the table beside the bowl of steaming water. He soon found the herbs he remembered Evénn using on him. He held them up for the elf to see.
“These?”
“Yes. Now into the water with them, quick as you can. No, not all, save some for later. Stir them a little.”
“Will they help much?” Niall asked hopefully.
“Yes. She’ll be able to ride – slowly – in an hour or so.”
“We don’t have an hour,” Arden protested. “The dragon felt your spell. He’ll be here soon.”
Niall and Evénn both gave him a sudden, very intent look.
“Just so. We’ll tie her into the saddle, then,” Evénn said, but in his eyes there was a question he did not ask.
“I’ll go help Jalonn,” Niall said and left, glancing sidelong at Arden as he went.
“Can you ride?” Arden asked Evénn as he stirred the herbs and water.
“Yes. Now wash her wound, Arden. Quickly.”
Arden carefully poured some of the liquid over Agarwen’s shoulder, rinsing away the blood. As tenderly as he could he washed her wounds front and back. Joined by Evénn, he whispered the words of the enchantment. In less than a minute the flow of blood slowed and stopped. Agarwen began to breathe more easily.
“Cut the shaft and the arrowhead off now, Arden,” the elf said, “but leave enough for us to get a grip on later.
He had nothing to cut them with, and could not leave her to go searching for shears. So with his dagger he notched the shaft of the arrow on either side and snapped both ends off. Agarwen gasped in pain and opened her eyes. Her right hand seized Arden’s wrist.
“Forgive me, Agarwen. It had to be done,” he said to her gently.
For a few seconds she glared at him, her eyes wide and her breath coming hard. Then she relaxed her grip and her breathing slowed. She turned her head and saw Evénn, who was still reciting the words of the spell.
“Why aren’t we dead?” she asked Arden.
“I’ll explain later,” Arden replied, “or maybe Evénn will. I don’t know.”
She smiled weakly at the concern for her she saw on his face.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Without a word her eyes told him that she thought him mad to ask.
“The herbs will ease your pain soon,” he said, “and you’ll begin to feel stronger now that the bleeding has stopped. You’re lucky to be alive. Once we get somewhere safer, we’ll attend more thoroughly to your wound.”
“Give me a minute and I’ll be ready,” she said, trying, and failing, to sit up.
Arden smiled at her courage – she always had been brave – but said:
“Not just yet. You must rest for a bit and recover your strength. Lie still. Let the herbs and the enchantment do their work. I’ll tell you when it’s time to go.”
Arden pressed her hand and let it go. Evénn was by now sitting upright in his chair. He looked better than before, but still weary. Their eyes met. Evénn was again scrutinizing him as he had when Arden mentioned the dragon. Only now that he was more awake his gaze was more penetrating, as if he was trying to read something within Arden to explain his words. It made him uncomfortable. He was annoyed that he had let slip into the waking world what he had seen in the dream.
“Can you watch over Agarwen while I go outside?” Arden said. “Jalonn and Niall will be wanting to know her condition, and yours.”
“Yes,” he answered, pushing himself to his feet, “I can attend her. We’ll speak later.”
Arden nodded, still feeling uncomfortable, and went outside. Niall had the horses saddled. He was checking and retightening their cinches when Arden came up to him. Niall lifted an eyebrow.
“She is awake,” Arden reported. “The herbs have stopped the bleeding, but she’s very weak and in a great deal of pain.”
“That’s a relief,” Niall sighed. “We’ve been friends for a long time now.”
“She is made of tough stuff, Niall. Once we have gotten her out of here, and Evénn has recovered enough to tend her, she will be better.” Arden paused. “I would miss her, too.”
Niall cocked his eyebrow again.
“Not like that,” Arden said sharply.
“How long will you mourn the dead, good Arden?” Niall thought as he turned back to the horses. Aloud he said, “What of Evénn?”
“He is regaining his strength. Where’s Jalonn?”
“He and Argos went off to investigate the tower right after I brought you the herbs. They should be back soon. The wolf and I have kept an eye on things.”
“Have you seen anything?”
“No, out here only the wind moves and breathes. It’s been quiet.”
Arden surveyed the street again. How could Evénn do this, be this powerful, and still be no match for the dragons? Yet all the power wielded by Evénn’s father and the other elf lords who had summoned the dragons back from the world of spirits had been unable to withstand them; and the strength of all the elves led by Evénn and his brother, joined to all the forces sent from Narinen, had availed nothing. As dangerous as Evénn was, the dragons were more perilous still.
Jalonn’s return from the tower was signaled by the arrival of Argos, who picked his way through the bodies in the street to reach Arden and Niall. The Master was not far behind.
“They’re all dead in the tower, too,” he said. “What of Agarwen and Evénn?”
Arden explained.
“Well, the two of them better hurry,” Jalonn said. “It’s been an hour since Evénn did this, and I’m surprised the dragon isn’t here already. Bad enough to be trapped in this narrow street against men.”
Arden and Niall were just turning towards the tavern when the door opened. Evénn came out with Agarwen leaning on him, her right arm around his waist. Neither looked strong. Jalonn and Arden went to assist them. Agarwen’s eyes were no more than half open.
“Arden,” Evénn said, “go get your horse and hers. We’ll need you to stay by her and keep her in the saddle.”
“Just get me on Bufo’s back, and I’ll be fine,” Agarwen insisted as Arden left to get their horses.
“There’s a time to be brave, lass, and a time to be smart,” Jalonn said gently. “Be smart now, and let us help you.”
When Arden returned riding Impetuous and leading Bufo, Agarwen allowed Jalonn to help her into the saddle, but shook off the hand Arden placed on her shoulder. As she did so, she winced. The torchlight did nothing to color her wan face.
“My thanks to you all,” she murmured, “but – Master Jalonn, what are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t fall off,” Jalonn said as he tied her into her saddle.
“That’s hardly necessary.”
“I say it is.”
Even through the fog that seemed to surround her, Agarwen recognized the hushed finality of Jalonn’s tone. She fell silent. She was too weak to argue even if there had been any point in it. The strength she had summoned to walk out of the tavern on her own was almost gone. Everything required so much effort, and she had to stay awake. So she focused on Evénn, who was climbing onto Moonglow’s back just in front of her. His movements were stiff and slow, like those of a tired old man too proud to ask for help. With a nod of his head, he thanked Niall for bringing him his weapons. He sheathed his sword and hung his bow over his shoulder.
Last of all he took from him the sword of adamant, still hidden in its blue silk wrapper. Now he uncovered it and wore it openly across his back. As he carefully folded the silk and slipped it into one of his saddlebags, he looked up and down the street. There was a cold expression on his face. Agarwen’s eyes followed his, and for the first time she became aware of the dead. She stared at them with a sleepy fascination. She did not hear Evénn when he spoke.
“The dragon will be hunting us now,” he said. “We must be on our way, but some of these soldiers’ cloaks might prove useful.”
“We already took some,” Jalonn answered.
“Then let’s put this slaughter behind us.”
Niall rode over with Jalonn’s horse, but Jalonn took a moment to go to the tavern door. He pulled it shut, then laid his hand in the center of the door, his palm flat against it. They could hear him speaking under his breath. When he was finished, he stood there briefly, as if waiting. He then mounted his horse.
“That should do it,” he said.
“A spell of binding?” Evénn asked.
“Yes. That innkeeper and his women may have helped us, but they did so out of terror. They’re not our friends, and they’ll be eager to prove that to the dragon when he comes and puts a greater fear upon them. Better they do not see where we go. They know enough about us as it is.”
The companions moved through the ranks of the dead, which an hour earlier had been living men determined to kill them, men who never doubted that so many would overwhelm so few. The high point of the pass was not far up the street from the tavern, and they reached it just as they left the last of the corpses behind. Here they saw several dead soldiers face down – unlike all their comrades whose sightless eyes stared heavenward – who had fled in terror of Evénn’s light. None had gone more than a step or two before it overtook them. But even when the companions left the last body behind, the thought of them weighed heavily.
“My god, Arden,” Agarwen whispered sleepily, “my god.”
The horror in her voice was something he recognized, just as he knew there was no reply he could make. Until tonight Agarwen had never seen so much death before. He had envied her that. The bloodstained skirmishes and single combats she had lived through were cruel enough without the added memory of such slaughter. Late or soon, a price had to be paid that no hatred of the enemy, no argument of necessity or justice could lessen. The heart hardened. Youth and laughter were lost in silence. There was no other way. Arden remembered.
Yet Agarwen was as brave as he had always thought. Despite the horrors of Prisca and the pain in her shoulder, which every step of Bufo on the hard stone road magnified, she rode on without complaint. Arden stayed beside her on her right. For her sake they could go no faster than a quick walk, but even Agarwen thought their pace dangerously slow. Several times Arden heard her impatiently muttering Jalonn’s name or his own, and once he caught the word ‘searching.’
Once they were through the pass the road fell away swiftly before them, winding down and down across the mountainside. Jalonn immediately sent Niall ahead with Argos and the wolf to find a way to escape into the forest, but every glance over the low stone curb that guarded the edge revealed only slopes that were too steep to risk in the dark with two nearly unconscious riders. Niall was soon far ahead and out of sight. He was gone for what seemed a very long time.
In his absence they crept downward, feeling naked and conspicuous. Every time the moon peered between the racing clouds it seemed bright as the sun at noon. With each ringing hoofbeat they expected a dark shape to plummet from above and fill the night with fire. Arden scanned the gray and black skies, striving against the night to glimpse a moving shadow, as much as he did the next bend in the road ahead for some sign of Niall. But all he saw were the pines looming on the slope above them, the glimmer of the white road beneath their feet, and everywhere else the empty air. Where was Niall? Where was the dragon?
Then the wind began to rise. From the soft breeze just graced with salt which he and Niall had detected coming through the pass earlier it exploded into a cold gale that swirled and hissed through the pines around them. Up ahead Jalonn raised his hand for them to halt. A sudden gust pushed Arden a couple of steps sideways. He nudged Impetuous back close Agarwen, and took her by the arm. Jalonn glanced quickly across the sky, and turned back to Evénn, who had momentarily shaken off his exhaustion and was gazing upwards. He gripped the hilt of the sword of adamant, though he had not yet drawn it.
Arden was just beginning to reach for his bow, which he wore slung across his back and shoulders, when Agarwen once again shrugged his hand off. She had been quiet for so long that he looked at her in surprise, but now she was sitting upright with Bufo’s reins held firmly in her right hand. Her eyes were wide open, and in them was a defiant, lying look that declared she needed no assistance.
“You’ll need both hands for that,” she growled, trying to sound fierce and assured, but her pain was choking her words.
Agarwen bowed her head then, and her hood concealed her face from him. She sidled Bufo away, to give Arden room to move. He grabbed his bow, fitted an arrow to the string, and waited. But Evénn gave no sign. At length he let go of his sword, and they set off once more. It was just the wind. Before long Evénn was nodding with exhaustion again. Arden frowned and slipped the arrow back into his quiver, but he did not shoulder his bow. Agarwen rode quietly beside him. Niall still did not return. The wind dwindled back to a steady breeze out of the southeast.
“Arden,” Agarwen said to him after a while in a voice that was small and full of sleep, “the air here tastes of salt. Is that the sea? I’ve never been so close before.”
Arden smiled to himself. In her weakness, she sounded again like the little girl he had known many years ago in the Valley, long before she ever became his apprentice. In those days she followed the younger Rangers about, pursuing them with endless questions about the world abroad, beyond the Valley where she had been born and which was all the world she knew. They had been kind to her and humored her. They told her tales – even Arden did so, since she showed so particular an interest in the sea that he loved – but every time they stretched the truth a bit to tease her, her sharp mind saw through their lies. Then she would laugh and refuse to believe them.
Now, while they hastened slowly down this dark road and the stars wheeled across the sky toward midnight, it was this little girl’s voice that spoke through Agarwen the Ranger. The innocence and curiosity in it were as charming now as they had been twenty years ago.
“Yes, Agarwen, that is the sea,” he answered fondly. “In the morning you may be able to see it, depending on where we end up tonight. The scent on the air and the morning sun dancing on the waves are the best parts of life. Of mine anyway.”
“Maybe it’s just my wound, but I feel like I’m in a dream, or waking up to an older, purer world.”
“The sea does have that effect, but you have lost a lot of blood, you know. Don’t talk. Save your strength. We may have far to go tonight.”
“All right, but with my lungs full of this air, I feel stronger than I did before.”
“Hush now, Agarwen. Rest if you can.”
She said no more and they continued downward. Before long the stars told Arden it was nearly midnight, and Niall finally returned, clattering up the road with Argos and the wolf running before him. He turned his horse and fell in beside Jalonn.
“I have found a way off the road. I thought I remembered one, but it’s been so long. It was much farther off than I thought.”
“How far?” Jalonn asked simply.
“About two miles below us – by the road, that is – there is a spot. It’s difficult going at first, but it leads to a ridge which we could ride south along without too much trouble. We could find a place to camp there. It should be secluded enough.”
“That’s where we’ll go then,” Jalonn replied, “but we must go faster. I don’t want that damned creature to catch us when we are nearly back in the woods.”
Arden looked at Agarwen, who nodded.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
“You were my apprentice, Agarwen, and are my friend. So, I’ll worry.”
They moved faster now, pushing their horses almost to a trot. Niall dropped back and rode on Agarwen’s left, close enough to help her if she faltered. But she did not, though from time to time they heard her groan or inhale sharply through clenched teeth. They ignored those signs of pain. Even if they could slow down, she would never agree to do so, or admit that her wound could conquer her will.
“It’s just ahead, scarcely three hundred yards away on the right, just before the road switches back to the north again,” Niall said, then rode forward to point it out to Master Jalonn. But as he passed Evénn, the elf suddenly pulled Moonglow off to the side and halted. His bearing changed instantly, and his hand rested on the hilt of the sword.
“He’s coming,” he said in a voice of warning. “The dragon is coming now. Hurry. Ride for the woods.”
Even before Arden could look at Agarwen, she had set her spurs to Bufo, who leaped forward into a full gallop. Already she was nearly ahead of Jalonn, whose horse had barely started moving.
“Reckless,” Arden muttered fiercely as he urged Impetuous after her, but Evénn and Moonglow were already at a run and overtaking her. Arden, Niall, and Jalonn rode on their heels. Soon they reached the next bend in the road and plunged into the trees.
Once out of sight of the road they slowed their pace to a walk. They had little choice. For the undergrowth was thick around them and the path they had to trace would have been obscure even in daylight. All but Agarwen dismounted and took their horses by the reins. Niall went on before them. A few hundred yards into the trees they came to a small hollow which climbed steeply downward at first before leveling off. Here Evénn signaled to them to halt. Niall and Arden helped Agarwen from her horse. She was groaning with pain.
“We will hide here for now, until the dragon passes over,” Evénn whispered, but as he did so he looked over at Agarwen. “Arden, tend her wounds. We must be silent as the dead.”
Arden went to Agarwen who was sitting hunched over, willing herself to silence, afraid to betray them. When he knelt before her, she raised her face to him, but deep in the hollow among the trees and the brush he could not see her eyes. For that he was grateful, since he was sure she had re-opened her wound in the jarring race downhill. Had she been able to see his face, she would have known how anxious he was. Then Arden touched her wounded shoulder and knew his fears were justified. Her entire left side was soaked in blood. Much more of that and they would lose her.
Returning to Impetuous he fetched the skin which he had filled with the mixture of water and herbs before he left the tavern. Kneeling again, he opened her tunic and shirt and delicately pulled back the bandages. When he poured the liquid over the wound, back and front, he could feel her flinch and stiffen. Her right hand tightened on his shoulder. Through it all she made no sound. But as he unthinkingly opened his mouth to begin the words of the healing spell, she let go of him and pressed her fingers softly against his lips for a moment, silencing him. Then her hand dropped away and she slumped forward into his arms. He held her briefly, her head resting on his shoulder. As carefully as he could he laid her down on her right side, and checked her heartbeat and breathing. They were weak, but constant. He threw his cloak over her to keep her warm. Niall came up behind him with her bedroll and his own, slipped them beneath her head, and went away. They had done all they could for now.
Down in the hollow the still air was cold and damp as only the sea air can be. High above the wind hissed through the pines. Arden stayed with Agarwen, while Niall and Jalonn stroked the horses’ heads and necks to soothe and quiet them. They were restive after a long day’s work pulling the wagon up the mountain road and from that last dash down it into the woods.
At the lip of the hollow Evénn stood wrapped in his cloak, almost invisible unless he moved or looked their way and Arden caught the dim night glimmer of his eyes. The wolf sat next to him, cocking his head from side to side listening to the night sounds of forest. Argos lay down between Agarwen and Arden, who reached across him at short intervals to take her by the wrist, counting time to himself by the beating of her heart. They could only wait.
Then Evénn lifted his hand to signal them that the dragon was close by. Arden looked up, but there was nothing to see. The forest canopy was too dense for even the brightest star to shine through, and the moon had disappeared westward beyond the mountain. Yet somehow Evénn could tell that the dragon was overhead, just as on the road he had known he was approaching. Arden wondered if the dragon felt the presence of Evénn as well, and if, as the dragon searched, their minds touched each other.
After some time, Evénn lowered his hand and came back down the slope.
“The beast has gone,” he said in little more than a whisper. “He’s certainly reached Prisca by now. For the moment we are safe. I think.”
No one needed to say that they should get deeper into the woods, away from the road, but they all knew Agarwen could go no further. They had guessed as much even before Arden told them that her wound had reopened in the final rush to escape the road. Evénn came and listened to her breathing and heart, and carefully probed her shoulder. After a few minutes, he sighed in dissatisfaction.
“If I weren’t so tired, I could do much. But I can still help her a little, I think, so she can sleep in peace until we go. Tomorrow I’ll be able to do more, and we can have that shaft out.”
“She would not let me use the spell,” Arden said.
“She was wise, with the beast so near. Yet it may cost her. Help me now with the enchantment.”
In his voice Arden could hear his concern for Agarwen and his frustration that he could do so little. As the two began murmuring the words Evénn had taught him, Arden became aware that Niall and Master Jalonn were standing behind them. Niall said nothing, but he could hear Jalonn softly repeating the spell with them. Arden was surprised. He had not known that Jalonn possessed a knowledge of healing, but this was just one more of the lessons he had recently learned about the swordmaster. There were probably many things the Master of Swords must know that he himself did not, and others that he might have learned from the Masters over the years, had he not refused to believe, then disappeared into the woods for months or years at a time. Yet they had answered his stubbornness with patience, just as they had waited for a chance against the dragons to make itself known. He saw that patience like theirs required faith.
When the enchantment was done, Evénn sighed again, this time with exhaustion. His one hand still held Agarwen’s wrist and his other was pressed lightly upon her shoulder over the wound. Eventually he looked up at Arden.
“That will stop the bleeding,” he said, “provided she is not disturbed again. We must keep her as warm as possible until morning, or this cold will drain the life from her.”
“I’ll get our blankets,” said Jalonn and walked away.
“You’ve done well this night, Arden,” Evénn said. “Without you she would already be lost.”
Arden did not answer. Jalonn returned with the blankets, spreading some over Agarwen, and with Arden’s help slipping others beneath her. As dark as it was, Arden could see how gentle he was being. Before he left he tucked the last blanket up under her chin as if he were tucking in a child. From Niall, a father of four, Arden would have expected this tenderness, but not from the Master of Swords.
“How different we all could have been,” he thought.
“What was that, Arden?” he heard Niall ask.
“I was just thinking.”
“Oh, I thought I heard you say something. You stay with her. Jalonn and I will stand guard. You know, I think Evénn is already asleep.”
Arden looked over. Evénn’s back was to the tree behind Agarwen and his head had sunk down on his breast.
“He doesn’t seem to do much of that,” Niall whispered cheerfully, and when Arden did not reply, he said, “They’ll be all right before long. Then we can get on with this.”
Arden grunted in reply. Niall left to join Jalonn. Arden pulled his cloak tightly about him and drew up his hood. He shivered. The night was cold and dawn hours away.

_________________________

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 12.1

Twelve

The voice was that of the garrison commander, who strode quickly up the street towards them. A dozen guards were at his back; by his side the sergeant they had met at the gate hurried to keep up on his much shorter legs. At the first sound of the commander’s voice, all the soldiers moving anywhere on the street also halted to see what was happening.
Evénn stopped with the tavern door half open, directed a quizzical look at the lieutenant, then turned to face the commander. He raised his eyebrows in the polite inquiry of surprise, but otherwise remained entirely relaxed. Jalonn, still as death, looked on with apparent disinterest. Arden stood watching with his arms folded across the back of the wagon’s seat, and his head propped upon them. One of Arden’s hands was out of sight. Agarwen was next to him, her back to the wagon. Niall moved slowly among the horses, speaking to them quietly, keeping them calm. The commander came to a halt a yard from Evénn.
“Is there some misunderstanding, commander, that I can clear up?” Evénn said with all courtesy.
The commander did not at first respond. Instead he looked at the sergeant, who nodded vigorously.
“He’s the one, sir,” the sergeant said. “There can be no doubt.”
The officer peered at Evénn, assessing him carefully from head to toe. He studied his face most of all.
“What is it, commander?” the elf said. “I cannot answer when you ask me no questions.”
“What is your name, merchant?”
“Gallen, sir. I deal in the treasures of the far north, fine furs and amber.”
“And where is your commission?”
Evénn pulled back his cloak precisely as before and again produced the document, which the commander read with some care, and a frown.
“And who are the Laindon and Marek I also see named here?” he asked. His eyes scarcely left the page, as if he felt the ink and formulaic words of the commission had more to reveal than the merchant.
“My father and uncle, respectively,” Evénn replied, his voice falling, “both long deceased.”
“Tell me, merchant Gallen,” he said. “How is it that one as young as you has a commission as old as this?”
“Oh, that. Sir, I can answer only that everyone in my family enjoys a youthful appearance that belies their years. The day my father died many years ago, he looked no older than I do this evening.”
The commander did not seem persuaded.
“But, commander,” Evénn went on when he saw this, “if there is some question about the validity of my commission, or about the goods I carry, we can easily remedy that. As for the one, I shall gladly wait here with my people until you can send to the City and confirm my commission with General Machlor; as for the other, please, I invite you to examine my wares yourself. As the briefest inspection will reveal, there are indeed furs in the back of my wagon.”
The officer ignored Evénn’s words and turned once more to the sergeant, who had never taken his eyes from the elf, but the Rangers heard the invitation to inspect the wagon quite clearly. It was Evénn’s way of telling them that he believed their ruse had failed.
“Well?” the commander said to the sergeant.
“He lies, sir,” the sergeant said with some force, which caused Evénn to open his mouth to protest.
“Silence, merchant Gallen, if that is your name. My sergeant has served here for many years. More than twenty five in fact. And he has the most uncanny memory for people and their faces. He is a surprisingly perceptive man, you see, and I have come to trust his word when he assures me of something. A little while ago he reported to me a very interesting tale: that a man had come to the gate this evening whom he remembered passing through twenty five years ago; that this man had not aged a day; and that he carried a merchant’s documents, when before he had a courier’s; and that a soldier accompanied him who looked for all the world like a Ranger. Intriguing, don’t you think? I thought so. I though it worth my attention.
“So you will stay here and we will inspect your goods, as you suggested, but not just as you suggested. You and your companions have many questions to answer. Oh, and the woman you have tried to pass off as a boy will also be questioned, though in a different fashion.”
Evénn looked at him impotently, his eyes wide, his mouth open, as if protest were beyond him. He played his role to the last.
“Lieutenant!” the commander barked.
“Yes, sir.”
“See to the wagon, and take the girl.”
“Yes, sir.”
The lieutenant slipped away from Evénn and walked over to the wagon. As he passed Agarwen, he paused and yanked back her hood. For a moment it seemed to her that he regretted what he thought was coming. Then he pointed at her and walked on. Several soldiers started forward. A few chuckles of relish were heard from the crowd of soldiers gathered to watch. At the rear of the wagon the lieutenant undid the lashing of the canvas cover. Arden glanced at Jalonn and saw the corner of his mouth rising, though he never took his eyes off the soldiers before him. His face was placid, his posture relaxed.
Then the lieutenant lifted the tarp. He bent to look within and his eyes widened in horror as Argos and the wolf silently sprang at him. He went down onto his back when Argos struck him in the chest, the hound’s teeth already closing on his throat, stifling his cry of panic and terror.
As the commander and sergeant began to turn around in surprise at the noise, a long knife flashed out from beneath Evénn’s cloak and buried itself in the commander’s heart. Before the sergeant could turn back again, Evénn had pulled a short sword from behind his back and cut him down with a swift slash to his throat. At the same instant Jalonn sprang to his feet, unsheathing his sword and striking in a single movement. The four soldiers in front of him lay bleeding on the cobblestones, their swords as yet undrawn.
One of the soldiers grasped Agarwen by the shoulder just as Argos struck the lieutenant, but she seized his hand in both of hers and twisted it away, bringing him to his knees in pain. At the same moment with a cry of rage Arden swept his sword from its hiding place and brought it down, severing the soldier’s arm at the elbow. With his other hand he tossed Agarwen her blade, then ran a second trooper through with his own. Agarwen darted forward to engage the other soldiers, while Arden turned back to grab the blade of Niall who was ducking in and out through the horses to elude the four soldiers who were after him. Two circled around the back of the horses, two to the front. But at a word from Niall, Graymane and Impetuous kicked out their hind legs, striking one of his attackers in the head and the other in the shoulder. The impact hurled them to the street. Arden called Niall’s name and threw him his sword, with which he made short work of the other two troopers.
The combat spread like fire. Jalonn and Evénn, aided by Argos and the wolf, were already engaging the other soldiers on the street. More of them had fallen, but now the shock of the sudden attack was gone. All the dragon’s men had their weapons drawn and knew they were facing dangerous opponents, not helpless merchants. A horn rang out in alarm down the street; other horns farther away were taking up the call. More and more soldiers came running from their barracks and guard houses. From the tavern, too, they spilled, with swords in hand, to answer the alarm.
First dozens came, then scores, until nearly the full complement of three companies, one hundred and eighty men, had arrived. They filled the street on both sides of the companions. More officers appeared, and saw the slaughter the companions were inflicting on the first soldiers present, who were attacking their enemies piecemeal and paying for their lack of discipline. The officers strove to impose order on the masses of others who hastened up behind them in confusion. They quickly recognized that Evénn and the Rangers were more than a match for individuals and small groups. They knew their duty was to guard the pass and hold Prisca; and they resolved to overwhelm these Rangers – as they now knew they must be – with their numbers in the narrow street. With troops approaching from both directions, the Rangers were trapped. There were no side streets here, and the way through the pass or back to the other gate was cut off. And so they drew their men up in order of battle. They would soon have these Rangers, their wolfhound, and their wolf. As the ranks formed, the few soldiers still engaged with the Rangers fell back.
The street grew quiet but for the sobbing of several wounded troopers. In the stillness before the next action, Evénn walked over to the wagon and drew out the sword Arden had seen him wield the night they had met. He rejoined Jalonn, who now sat astride Moonglow in the middle of the street. He looked calmly at the soldiers before him. The wolf paced back and forth in front of Moonglow. The way they had come was entirely blocked by nearly a hundred men.
On the other side of the wagon stood Arden and Argos, Agarwen and Niall. They, too, looked placidly upon the closed and uniform ranks of their enemy, who stood between them and the pass, between them and the dragon. The swords, spearheads, and armor of the soldiers opposite them shone redly in the light of the many torches the officers had ordered brought up to help dispel the night. The cobblestones were shining with blood.
No voice broke the silence. An hour passed for every minute they stood there. Every building in the town must have been emptied. The tavern keeper stood at his door for a moment, watching, his women peeking over his shoulders, but then he stepped back and closed the door. The sound of its bolt shooting home in the lock seemed quite loud. Agarwen looked around her. Niall and Arden stood on either side of her, motionless, their blades like hers dark with blood. Argos sat in front of Arden, licking his chops.
She had been surprised by Arden’s explosion of rage when the soldier had touched her. Though they had spent three years together in the wilderness and had fought together before, this was the first time she had ever seen him react like that. Yet after his initial outburst, the fury with which Arden fought had become cold and ruthless. Was it the memory of Sorrow lying dead in his arms, and the thought of what her killers might have done to her first that moved him so?
When she had been his apprentice, he had protected her as much as he could, but it had never seemed more than a master’s concern for his apprentice. Otherwise he had been friendly but distant, courteous but always reticent about his life and how he felt, beyond his hatred of the dragons. Or had his fury come from the recognition that, with the failure of their ruse, all else might be lost as well? She did not know. Nor, as she stood there waiting for the battle to begin, would she let herself consider other possibilities that flitted through her mind. Neither of the others looked at her, but she heard Niall whispering underneath his breath a spell to keep the horses calm.
Behind them someone moved at last. She could hear the sound of heavy boots taking a few steps on the cobblestones. Then a voice spoke, to her ears a harsh, grating voice. She glanced over her shoulder past Evénn and Jalonn, where she could see the figure of a short, burly man.
“My name is Ransor, captain of the garrison. I am now the commander here. Surrender. There is no escape.”
“Not likely,” Niall muttered nearby, and to Agarwen it seemed an apt enough response to both of the officer’s last statements. When Ransor received no other reply, he continued.
“I say again, surrender. Despite your skills, you will all die when I order my men to advance. Doubtless you will slay many of us – your own countrymen – perhaps even me, before the last of you falls. But fall you shall. I have seen it happen before. I was at Skia. We defeated you then. We shall do so now.”
At the officer’s mention of Skia, Agarwen saw Jalonn stiffen. He nudged Moonglow around to face the man and moved a couple of steps forward.
“Listen to me, captain,” he said in a fell voice. “I, too, was at Skia. My name is Jalonn, and I am the Master of Swords. I stood beside Hansarad when we cut a path through you that night, and I do not recall your face. Perhaps if you turned around, I might remember your back. Now get out of our way and live to tell your master I was here.”
Ransor said not another word. He had retreated a step when Jalonn named himself and Hansarad. He then turned his back to Jalonn and re-entered the ranks of his soldiers. As he did so he flung up his hand. Horns rang out loud and clear, echoing down the stony ways and off the walls of the town. The first three ranks of his men on either side of the companions began to advance. After two steps they charged with a huge shout that was taken up by those behind them. So loud was their cry it nearly drowned out the winding of the horns. They came at Evénn and the Rangers in a rush. The companions leaped forward to meet them in silence, all except Jalonn who raised his own battle cry in a clear voice that pierced even the din of his enemies’ voices.
“Hansarad for Narinen! Hansarad in the darkness!”
If swords alone could have won their escape from Prisca, none of the enemy could have withstood them. But this was not the chaos of a camp or city being stormed, where there were no lines, only a swirling confusion of small combats everywhere: this was a pitched battle of more than one hundred and fifty soldiers in ordered ranks advancing as one and under discipline against five who were penned in a narrow street. Every gap that Evénn and the others tore in their lines was filled in an instant as Ransor continually fed more men into the attack, giving his enemies no respite and crowding them into a smaller and smaller area.
When the companions were finally compressed into a tight circle around the wagon, Arden glanced up at the tower to see an arrow appear from the shadows above – without doubt from the watchers in the tower: it struck Agarwen in her left shoulder as she whirled and danced among her opponents’ swords, dodging and deflecting their blows while she slipped inside their guard and killed them. Their swords could not find her but the arrow did. Agarwen fell. Her sword clattered on the slippery stones beside her. Then Arden was there, standing astride her body and striking down two troopers who were about to kill her. And as he defended her, he wielded his sword with a fury redoubled.
But the arrow that struck Agarwen down was not the last to come from the tower. Others followed and only the constant movement of the companions defeated their aim. Some narrowly missed. Some hit the soldiers of the dragon who kept pressing the Rangers and stepped forward to attack at the wrong moment. From the corner of his eye, Arden saw one arrow strike the side of the wagon where he had stood a second before. Another, by chance, was deflected by the blade of Niall’s sword as it neared his throat.
This was the end. They could not last much longer. The thought was bitter in Arden’s heart, more than all the sorrow and memory it had known these thirty years, more than the rage it had felt when Evénn told him the elves had betrayed them all. And Arden cried out in a voice whose force seemed to tear his throat and lungs.
“Evénn!” he cried out, not knowing why he called him, but over the shouts and the clash of steel the elf heard him.
A moment later Arden felt his skin begin tingling, then a light grew behind him. He saw it shining on the swords of his opponents as he parried them and cut and thrust in return. He saw it gleaming on their faces and in their eyes, fierce with all the passions of life and death in battle. He saw it lighting up the stone walls of the buildings lining the street behind them. He saw it sparkling in the granite blocks of the library tower which loomed over the town. But it was not the red and gold light of the soldiers’ torches or the flames of the dragons he had seen at the Fall of the City. It was as if a vessel filled with centuries of moonlight, long hidden in a place of shadows beneath the earth, had been brought forth and uncovered. From it shone a silver radiance, splendid and pure, to rout the darkness and render it harmless. From second to second the light waxed brighter and stronger, until he heard Evénn shout out words in a language he did not understand. Then there was an explosion of searing brilliance.



When Arden opened his eyes, he found himself lying on a stone floor. Far off a pair of braziers full of smoldering coals hinted at a wall, and at times things he could not see glimmered dull and red in the meager light. Turning the other way, he saw up high a grayer darkness, as of moonlight seeping through thin clouds. After staring at it for a while, he could just descry the peaked line of the opposite wall, where the roof should rest, and above it the momentary gleam of stars in the shifting narrows between clouds. Apparently part of the roof had fallen in at some point. Wherever he was, it was much too large to be called a room, but he doubted that any building large enough to contain such a hall still stood in Prisca. If ever one had. It was very quiet and very cold. He did not like this at all.
Rising to his feet, Arden resolved to find the nearest wall and follow it until he discovered a door. After no more than a few steps, he noticed the room began to grow minutely brighter. Yet it was not the coals burning at the end of the hall that made it so. It was not the brightness of firelight at all, but like the light he had seen in Prisca. It waxed for a few seconds, then flashed brightly, allowing him a glimpse of windows high in the walls. It also revealed what was glimmering in the darkness: gold, more gold than he had ever imagined, lying in heaps everywhere, piles of coins and plate and chalices and furniture, works of art and statues.
One object he saw nearby he recognized. In that instant of radiance he had seen it standing on a broad dais reached by three wide steps. A high-backed chair of carved wood, inlaid with gold and ivory. He gasped at the sight. For he knew beyond all doubt what it was: the throne of the kings of Narinen, which his father had taken him to see when he was just a lad. No man had sat upon that throne for over a thousand years. Arden stood in the Hall of Kings.
Someone moved behind him and he spun around. At first he saw nothing. The hall was once more plunged in shadow; the white light did not flash again. Poised there, quiet, still, ready to spring at his unseen companion, Arden waited for him to move again. By and by he became aware of another sound, very faint, of someone breathing softly, not as one asleep breathes, but with the utter calm of perfect meditation. He kept waiting.
A long time he stood there. Or so it seemed. Minutes or hours were indifferent in this place of silence, unimportant, without reckoning. Slowly, slowly a new light grew in the Hall of Kings, unlike that of the braziers or the white light that came from outside. It was a dull, reddish, hellish glow. It added no gleam to the profusion of gold scattered around him. At most it was an intimation of light suggesting a presence directly in front of him, where he heard the sound of breathing. Then two eyes opened and looked at him. Arden knew them. Long and long ago he had looked into them. Large and red as blood in sunlight, the slit pupils a bottomless black. The malice and derision in their glance struck him like a blow.
“Here we are again, brave boy,” a voice said. “You have all done well to come so very far, but things are different now.”
Arden did not answer. He reached for his sword, only to find he had none. Then the eyes closed and except for the light of the braziers the hall was as dark as before.
A hand grasped his shoulder and shook him, startling him awake. He sat up and found himself on the street in Prisca. Kneeling over him was Master Jalonn, who gazed at him curiously and with some concern. In his left hand he held a torch. Argos sat beside him, looking dismayed.
“Easy, lad,” Jalonn said. “Come back to us now. Are you injured?”
“My sword – ”
“Easy. No need for that now,” Jalonn answered, picking up Arden’s sword and handing it to him.
“No?”
“Listen, Arden,” Jalonn said emphatically.
Arden listened, but the clamor and tumult of battle was gone. Arden stood up and looked about him. He was still beside the wagon, surrounded by the cloaked bodies of the dragon’s men, but beyond the small circle lit by Jalonn’s torch all else had changed. Where before all the street had been filled with rank upon rank of soldiers pressing forward, stillness and silence now prevailed. All the way up the street to the opening of the pass at the foot of the tower, and back down the street the way they had come, the men of the dragon were laid out on the ground, their ranks unbroken, still clutching their weapons and torches, most still too far away to have faced the swords of the Rangers and Evénn. None were moving. They lay like a field of wheat flattened by a great and sudden wind. The wolf wandered among the bodies, sniffing them. Arden took it all in with a glance and a gasp. Even at the Fall of the City, Arden had seen nothing like this.
“My god, Jalonn,” he stuttered, “what happened here?”
“I don’t rightly know, Arden.”
“I remember seeing a light. Then I heard Evénn cry out.”
“Yes, it was Evénn. He summoned some power the like of which I have never seen. When Agarwen fell – ”
“Where is she, Jalonn? She was right here.”
In the torch light he saw a dire expression cross the Master’s face.
“Her wound is grave.”
“Where is she?”
With a toss of his head, Jalonn indicated the tavern, the door of which now stood open.
“Niall is tending her in there.”
“Niall? Where is Evénn?”
“Unconscious.”
“Was he wounded?
“No. Well, not by any weapon of the enemy at least,” Jalonn said, and there was wonder in his voice. He looked at Arden as if he did not know what to tell him next. With a grimace of frustration, he went on.
“When you called his name, he looked your way for an instant, but when he turned back again, there was fury in his eye, and … and a light began to grow around him. It almost seemed to emanate from him. The dragon’s men stopped dead when they saw that. They were not expecting an elf lord, I imagine, and they stared at him in doubt and terror. He threw back his head and cried out in the ancient language of the elves, the language of their lore and all their mightiest enchantments. At that moment the light became unbearably bright and flooded out from him like a wave. The troopers were closer to him than I was, and the light struck them just before it did me, but I saw them fall before it like men caught in some overwhelming torrent. Then I fell, too.
“When I awoke, Evénn was on his knees, his sword beside him, and the wolf standing guard. I went to him. He was untouched, but the spell had taken all his strength. His eyes were open, but his gaze was elsewhere. I tried to rouse him, but he only sank down further and lost consciousness. He is also in the tavern, with Niall and Agarwen.”
“Are the soldiers all dead?” Arden asked.
“All of them, from what I can tell.”
“How did we survive?”
“I don’t know. But since the innkeeper and his women also survived, I would guess Evénn was able to direct the main strength of the enchantment at our enemies and spare us. Though how he could do so is beyond me.”
They stood side by side for a moment, just looking. The night was full of corpses, and pale, dead faces beneath the moon. Their ranks were so straight they appeared to have been laid out by some caring hand for burial. The light of the fallen torches flickered on their armor and weapons. He felt that he might have just stepped out of the Hall of Kings into this street, but he was not still dreaming. This was a horror of the waking world. Arden sighed. The aftermath of battle was always so lonely, as if the departure of the bereft souls of the dead created a void that pulled on the spirits of the living.
“I must go to her,” Arden said.
Jalonn nodded.
“Send Niall out if you can. I’ll start saddling the horses, but we must go soon. We cannot dally. The dragon will have felt that spell, and the City is not far from here as the dragon flies.”
Arden headed for the tavern. Jalonn’s final words made him consider telling him of his dream, but he dismissed the idea. There was no time for that anyway.
“It was just a dream,” he told himself as he went through the door.

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