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merlinscribe_libraryThis chapter is about a third as long as the other two, which means I will need to pull back material from chapter four to become a part of it. But I need to get the book written first before I get into the detailed revising and polishing.
CHAPTER THREE: HARVEST MOON
Listen, child, and I will tell you a tale that is both true and real. Long ago, in the morning of the world, when there was nothing but Jer-a-kalaliel itself, nine stars looked down from the sky and saw the beautiful land we live in. And they were so enchanted by its beauty that they fell from the heavens. And where each one fell to the ground was the most beautiful place in Jer-a-kalaliel, and because it was so beautiful, great Flower Forests grew up where each of the nine stars fell down.
--FOLKTALE
Stormchaser poked him awake, making Runacar, still dream-muddled From Melisha's visit of the previous night, think for a moment he was in his own bed in Caerthalien Great Keep, and one of his siblings had let his hunting dogs into his bedchamber for a prank.
But the Wulver was not a dog—or even a wolf—no matter how much he superficially resembled one. Stormchaser's fur was of a sort of dun-grey shade, long and impeccably-groomed, darkest along his back and over his face. His ears were large and upstanding, and his teeth were long and sharp...and there ended the resemblance to any dog ever whelped. For his muzzle was blunt compared to that of a wolf, and his dark amber eyes were knowing and merry. He did not have paws: his forelimbs ended in hands that were nearly Elven, and his hind paws so nearly resembled feet—clawed feet—that their prints in soft earth might nearly be taken for those of a child. With open hands, Stormchaser could hold a dagger or a cup and do all the things that required hands. With those hands closed into fists, he could outrun a deer.
"Good morning good morning good morning!" Stormchaser caroled, wrestling with the still-groggy Runacar. "It's a beautiful day!"
"You'd say that if it was raining," Runacar responded, dislodging Stormchaser with a mighty shove. "Or blizzarding."
"Those are good days too," Stormchaser agreed, sitting back to regard Runacar with interest. "All days are good and beautiful, and no two are alike. Isn't it wonderful?"
Runacar muttered something indecipherable. Stormchaser wasn't the only one to come to his pavilion in the morning. Sometimes it was Flary or one of the other Fauns. Sometimes it was one of the Palugh—he wasn't sure whether they were all exactly alike, or whether the one he usually saw simply gave a different name each time he asked. He had no idea how all of them arranged things among themselves. Maybe they diced for the privilege of waking him. It was possible.
Seeing his expression, Stormchaser laughed, and bounded out of the tent. It was still dark outside; the sun would not rise for a candlemark or more. It took Runacar little time at all to wash and dress, put on his boots and buckle on his sword, roll up his bedding and set it atop his campaign chest (the one familiar thing in all of this, even though the device on its enameled shield was not Caerthalien's), and carry his slops-bucket out to dump it in the nearest midden-pit (having some idea by now of what the streams and rivers and lakes were home to, he winced inwardly for every war-camp he'd known that just dumped its effluvium into the nearest body of water and called it good). After that he would grab his breakfast, eat it as he fed and saddled Varuthir, and go off to conduct a short practice session with his cavalry while the camp was being dismantled and packed.
And then, once again, they would march.
But today he had something much beyond the usual concerns—and even beyond the joy of seeing Melisha again—to occupy his mind. (No wonder the Hundred Houses had thought unicorns to be a myth. They could never have slaughtered the Otherfolk with such abandon if the Unicorns had been among them. But that wasn't the point, really. The point was her story.) She'd said the first time they met that she was going to tell him a story. He'd thought then that it would be something about the Darkness—something useful about the Darkness, like an explanation of why it hadn't killed everybody centuries before Runacar had been born—but instead it was a history lesson—if not an outright wondertale—of something else entirely.
It really didn't make his people—by whom he meant both Woodwose and alfaljodthi—look particularly good. Or particularly clever, given that they lost the war they'd been fighting so completely that they ran off to...
Here.
He tried to imagine the distance they'd traveled, but though he'd travelled farther than most komen—all the way to the Grand Windsward, during the Little Rebellion—he'd never been east as far as the shore of Greythunder Glairyrill. He tried to imagine as much land beyond that as stretched from the Western Shore to the Grand Windsward, and then a whole ocean beyond that, and more land at the other side.
He couldn't.
How many had come? How big had their ships been? (Runacar tried to imagine a ship so large that it could hold even a taille of horses, and failed.) Had they known Jer-a-kalaliel was here when they sailed?
If they had not, they must have been truly desperate.
As desperate as he was now.
#
That night Runacar conscientiously forced himself not to rush through either the drilling or the lecture that came afterward. At least he was spared one worry: his aerial scouts might still not be willing to cross the Mystrals, but now that their army had reached Vondaimieriel they could fly high enough to see both ends of the Dragon's Gate. Vieliessar had not yet reached it.
Only give me another sennight, and I can be there before her. He did not ever again wish to experience something like the ground-shake when the Sea Folk had toppled Daroldan Keep—not to mention the fighting that came before it—but both the Minotaur Earthdancers and the Bearward Spellmothers agreed that they could do something to close the eastern side of the Dragon's Gate. Or at least narrow it.
Once that was done—and Runacar saw no reason not to seal the Dragon's Gate once and for all—he'd need to do something about the Southern Pass as well, he supposed. (At least it was narrow to begin with.) But that would have to come after the battle with the High King and her forces was won, because the Lightborn would certainly be able to sense magic worked on that scale, even if it wasn't theirs. And if they did, any element of surprise Runacar might have would be squandered. Surprise was another weapon, and his army had so few of those.
He tried to console himself with the knowledge that even trained destriers would be hard to control if they were charged by a vanguard composed of Gryphons and Bearwards both, but it did little to keep his thoughts from turning down their well-worn—and useless—track. He had no idea at all of the size or composition of the army coming west, and no matter how badly his own force was outnumbered, they dared not let Vieliessar cross the Mystrals.
And if she has the same infantry she had at First and Second Mangiralas, her archers will cut my vanguard to pieces. And what will I do then? Three-quarters of my army has never been on a battlefield in their lives, and no Storysinger's tale can take the place of having been there….
He forced himself not to think of that either. What would come, would come.
At least Runacar was nearly confident enough in the abilities of his cavalry and infantry by now that he was thinking of having them practice with the irregular troops—the other Folk of the Land, at least, for he was out of touch with the Folk of the Sea and could not imagine any way his aerial forces could work with his ground forces. But there was more to his army than Woodwose, Centaurs, and Bearwards, so perhaps some simple maneuvers, to teach the cavalry to watch what was underfoot and the infantry what it was like to have to navigate around running horses—and Centaurs. Anything he could do to minimize the shock and the horror with which he knew the Otherfolk (even those who were veterans of the Western Shore campaign) would greet combat would help.
Not enough, but it would help.
#
Melisha was not waiting for him in his pavilion by the time Runacar finally got there that night. He was trying not to care, when he looked up and saw a silvery spark in the distance. He picked up his cloak from where he'd tossed it, and swirled it around his shoulders once more as he strode to meet her.
It was still before midnight, though that was late enough for an army that rose before dawn and marched through every candlemark of autumn's light. He'd had time to get used to how quiet and dark the night was without keep and castel and farm to illuminate it, but despite so many Wheelturns of familiarity, the nighttime hush still struck him as unnatural. He could have wished that he'd thought to bring his lantern, but this was familiar terrain and the stars gave light enough.
Melisha stood at the edge of a stand of old trees, radiating a silvery light as if she were the moon brought to ground. Cattle had browsed away the lower branches of the trees when those were young and tender; the reaching branches that had survived formed a canopy above Runacar's head, and there was no risk that he'd hit his head on a branch he couldn't see.
"No bedtime story tonight?" he asked when he reached her.
"That depends on where you're going to sleep," the Unicorn replied. Her face was not built to display emotions, but he heard them in her voice. She was smiling, somehow Runacar knew.
"Wherever you wish," he answered grandly, swirling his cape in a low courtly bow.
Melisha snorted. "My wishes aren't being consulted here," she said. "If they were, we wouldn't be fighting a two-front war." She knelt gracefully, settling with her legs tucked neatly beneath her, her tail curved over her flanks. How someone who looked so much like a deer could remind Runacar so much of a cat was clearly another Unicorn mystery.
"Against the Darkness as well as the High King," Runacar said, seating himself beside her, his back to the trunk of one of the great trees. "Speaking of whom, how do you know she's marching west? The Gryphons haven't seen a thing."
"They don't cross the Mystrals."
"They don't need to, if they fly high enough—as you well know."
"Unicorns can't fly," Melisha pointed out.
"But they evade questions very well," Runacar answered promptly. "What do you think I'm going to do, go tattling to Leutric?"
"That's the least of my worries," Melisha said. She stretched out her neck until her head was resting on Runacar's knee. He reached out cautiously to rest a hand on the silky silvery fur.
"A little higher," she said. "My ears itch."
"You should have arranged to be born with hands," Runacar said mildly. He discovered that the ears of Unicorns itched in much the same way the ears of horses itched, and there was silence for a time.
"So what are you worried about most?" Runacar said.
"Everyone and everything dying," Melisha said. "Out of all the possibilities there are, only one leads through to our survival. And it is…improbable."
"The Otherfolk and the High King's people making common cause," Runacar said, and Melisha made a wordless sound of agreement. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't think that's even possible. If it was just her, then yes, I'd say your folk had a good chance: the High King is mad, and if she enlisted Landbonds in her army why not Otherfolk? But her princes won't allow it."
"And she can't compel them?" Melisha asked.
"Not in this," Runacar said. "I'm sorry. You didn't see the Western Shore Campaign, but you must have heard tell of it."
"Which leaves your solution: slaughter every one of her people."
"Except the children," Runacar said. "And hope Leutric will give up this great weapon to one of the Woodwose. And hope that one of them can wield it."
"That's a great deal of hope," Melisha said, sighing.
Runacar said nothing. Do you think I want to kill these thousands upon thousands of folk? To slay the whole of her army will be horror enough, but then I have to seek out every soul who was not on the field and end them in cold blood, for all that they've never offered me harm. And let me miss just one—warrior or child, it matters not in the least—and all of you will die, for if my people know one thing well, it is how to hate and how to avenge.
The silence stretched.
"So the Elves sailed into the unknown west," Melisha said, and it took Runacar a moment to realize she was taking up her story where she had left off. "And when they came to the shore of the Sea of Storms, the King spoke to the captains of those ships that had survived the voyage and ordered that every ship be dragged ashore, and when they had been unloaded of their horses and their precious cargo, every ship was set afire."
"Why?" Runacar asked, startled. He'd been lulled by the sound of her voice until this turn in the story.
"So that no one could turn about and sail back to where they had begun, my darling," Melisha said sadly. "The King well knew the anger he had roused in the folk over whose lands he had ridden in conquest, and thought it more than possible that they would follow him and his people even to the edge of the world, did they only know where they had gone. And it was for just that reason that—when the ships had burned to ashes, and the ashes had been scattered—he sent his people marching west. And they marched for a very long time."
"They'd fall into the Glairyrill eventually," Runacar pointed out.
Melisha snorted. "They would, if they had known where they were going, and had gone in a straight line, but they did neither of these things. Perhaps, if they'd had magic—"
"Where were their Lightborn?" Runacar asked.
"If you go on interrupting, you will never know the end of the tale," Melisha said, tilting her head so that the end of her horn brushed against his shoulder. "They had no Lightborn, nor any other kind of sorcerer. They had no magic at all. Some say it was for the lust of what others had that they began the great far away wars. And that may be so, but I do not know."
Runacar drew breath to ask another question, and then changed his mind. Wondertales didn't have to make sense, after all.
"Ah, the beginning of wisdom," Melissa said into the silence, and Runacar chuckled. "And so they went on for many years, following their great herd of horses, and the good grass, and the turn of the seasons. And at last, after a very long time, they came to the shores of a great river. And what do you suppose they saw there?"
"Water?" Runacar guessed. "Ow!" he added, as Melisha poked him.
"People," Melisha continued serenely. "People such as those their greatfathers had fought against—though the Elves knew as little of that as did these new people they met."
"Did they fight?" Runacar asked warily, when Melisha did not seem inclined to continue.
"No," she said at last, and he could not tell whether it was joy or sorrow or just weariness in her voice. "They did not fight. Not then."
"So—" Runacar began, but Melisha was getting to her feet.
"That's quite enough for tonight," she said. "It's late, and you should sleep. I'll tell you the next part another time."
She walked beside him until he was within sight of his tent, then turned away and began to run, vanishing into the night so quickly that she might never have been there at all.
And for the next four days, Runacar did not see her at all.
#
"I will see you flayed alive and your still-living body set out in the field as food for crows!" Vieliessar snarled.
All know her father was Serenthon Farcarinon, yet too easily we forget that her mother, Nataranweiya, was of Caerthalien, Thurion mused. Yet none who saw her in this hour would doubt, for Glorthiachiel's temper was a match for Bolecthindial's, and she is the image of them both...
"Then you must find a field and a tanner to do the work," Lady Helecanth said imperturbably, "and that must wait upon your safety."
"You were not to come back," Vieliessar said, still furious. "Not for any cause!"
"And yet the Silver Swords can do more good here then elsewhere," Master Dandamir said steadfastly. "That we met the commander of your guard on our way to you is good fortune indeed."
Vieliessar drew breath to speak again, but Helecanth forestalled her. "I bring you glad tidings, my lord. Your heir and your daughter both live, and are even now being carried to safety."
"Then we must join them as soon as we can," Vieliessar said tightly, and turned away to mount.
#
The Endarkened had not yet returned. Master Dandamir had thought it more prudent to let the Lightborn precede them, than to ride among them and court an Endarkened attack upon the Silver Swords, and so the scattered Green Robes had passed them and reached the foot of the Pass Road nearly two candlemarks before. There were only a few stragglers behind the High King's party now: the wounded, and those whose mounts had been lost or lamed. They dared not tarry to allow them to catch up. The setting sun had already painted the Tamabeth Hills with blue and violet, but even though the pass and the mountains that surrounded it were still a blazing vault of gold, night was falling.
And night belonged to the Endarkened.
The Silver Swords and the High King rode on in a silence borne of weariness, as if they were anything other than what they were. As if the world had not ended and its corpse was not being devoured by handbreadths. As if Vieliessar, and Thurion, and Runacar had never been born, and fought, and hated.
They reached the Pass road and began to climb.
Now Vieliessar could look back across the long shadows of the hills and forest below. No light shone anywhere, and the mist was already beginning to rise, giving the landscape a truly ghostly appearance. The moon rose, a slender crescent, and with its rise, the last of the day's warmth departed. For so much of her life Vieliessar had taken the simplest things for granted: a dry bed and a warm fire, and soup to drink by the fireside. The reality of these things had been taken from her one by one, and when they were gone, even the possibility of them was taken, until such homely comforts seemed like legends out of the most distant past, miraculous and unattainable. The chill wind was soft with moisture, and she shivered at its touch.
"They're coming," Thurion said softly.
At his words, she realized it was not cold and exhaustion, but nausea that made her shiver. She looked toward the eastern sky, but there was nothing to see but the first pale stars of evening.
"Master Dandamir," Vieliessar said quietly. "The Endarkened come. It is for you to say how we will go."
"Ride ahead, my lord King," he answered. "Lady Helecanth with you. If we do not follow, discover Githachi, who has charge of the Prince-Heir, and say to her that she is the last of the Silver Swords. She will know what must be done."
"May the Starry Hunt take you into its care, and defend you while you live," she answered, low. "Make ready," she said to Helecanth, and cast the spell upon their horses that would make them run at the ravall until they died.
#
The wind whipped past her face, chill and cold, and Vieliessar pressed her face into her destrier's neck, trying to give him what aid she could. The ravall was a floating gait, but the pounding of the great heart between her knees told her this floating ease was dearly bought. The horses slipped and skidded as they reached each turn; at each switchback Vieliessar could look back and see the Silver Swords, Thurion with them—to lure the Endarkened to him if he could—their horses moving at a walk to spare them for the battle to come.
And it was a battle Vieliessar must hope would come, for the Endarkened could so easily ignore the Silver Swords, even with such bait, and fly onward to attack Vieliessar—Lightsister, High King—and her single companion.
They passed out of twilight and back into full sun, and abruptly the air was warm once again, the rocks around them radiating the day's heat. The horses were gasping for every breath, their sides heaving like a blacksmith's bellows, their coats dark with sweat. But still they ran. Closer and closer she and Helecanth came to the pass itself, and just as Vieliessar thought they would make it, that she and her people would once more survive to mourn their dead, a sound came upon the wind that meant utter disaster.
The sound of war horns, calling her army to battle.
#
CHAPTER THREE: HARVEST MOON
Listen, child, and I will tell you a tale that is both true and real. Long ago, in the morning of the world, when there was nothing but Jer-a-kalaliel itself, nine stars looked down from the sky and saw the beautiful land we live in. And they were so enchanted by its beauty that they fell from the heavens. And where each one fell to the ground was the most beautiful place in Jer-a-kalaliel, and because it was so beautiful, great Flower Forests grew up where each of the nine stars fell down.
--FOLKTALE
Stormchaser poked him awake, making Runacar, still dream-muddled From Melisha's visit of the previous night, think for a moment he was in his own bed in Caerthalien Great Keep, and one of his siblings had let his hunting dogs into his bedchamber for a prank.
But the Wulver was not a dog—or even a wolf—no matter how much he superficially resembled one. Stormchaser's fur was of a sort of dun-grey shade, long and impeccably-groomed, darkest along his back and over his face. His ears were large and upstanding, and his teeth were long and sharp...and there ended the resemblance to any dog ever whelped. For his muzzle was blunt compared to that of a wolf, and his dark amber eyes were knowing and merry. He did not have paws: his forelimbs ended in hands that were nearly Elven, and his hind paws so nearly resembled feet—clawed feet—that their prints in soft earth might nearly be taken for those of a child. With open hands, Stormchaser could hold a dagger or a cup and do all the things that required hands. With those hands closed into fists, he could outrun a deer.
"Good morning good morning good morning!" Stormchaser caroled, wrestling with the still-groggy Runacar. "It's a beautiful day!"
"You'd say that if it was raining," Runacar responded, dislodging Stormchaser with a mighty shove. "Or blizzarding."
"Those are good days too," Stormchaser agreed, sitting back to regard Runacar with interest. "All days are good and beautiful, and no two are alike. Isn't it wonderful?"
Runacar muttered something indecipherable. Stormchaser wasn't the only one to come to his pavilion in the morning. Sometimes it was Flary or one of the other Fauns. Sometimes it was one of the Palugh—he wasn't sure whether they were all exactly alike, or whether the one he usually saw simply gave a different name each time he asked. He had no idea how all of them arranged things among themselves. Maybe they diced for the privilege of waking him. It was possible.
Seeing his expression, Stormchaser laughed, and bounded out of the tent. It was still dark outside; the sun would not rise for a candlemark or more. It took Runacar little time at all to wash and dress, put on his boots and buckle on his sword, roll up his bedding and set it atop his campaign chest (the one familiar thing in all of this, even though the device on its enameled shield was not Caerthalien's), and carry his slops-bucket out to dump it in the nearest midden-pit (having some idea by now of what the streams and rivers and lakes were home to, he winced inwardly for every war-camp he'd known that just dumped its effluvium into the nearest body of water and called it good). After that he would grab his breakfast, eat it as he fed and saddled Varuthir, and go off to conduct a short practice session with his cavalry while the camp was being dismantled and packed.
And then, once again, they would march.
But today he had something much beyond the usual concerns—and even beyond the joy of seeing Melisha again—to occupy his mind. (No wonder the Hundred Houses had thought unicorns to be a myth. They could never have slaughtered the Otherfolk with such abandon if the Unicorns had been among them. But that wasn't the point, really. The point was her story.) She'd said the first time they met that she was going to tell him a story. He'd thought then that it would be something about the Darkness—something useful about the Darkness, like an explanation of why it hadn't killed everybody centuries before Runacar had been born—but instead it was a history lesson—if not an outright wondertale—of something else entirely.
It really didn't make his people—by whom he meant both Woodwose and alfaljodthi—look particularly good. Or particularly clever, given that they lost the war they'd been fighting so completely that they ran off to...
Here.
He tried to imagine the distance they'd traveled, but though he'd travelled farther than most komen—all the way to the Grand Windsward, during the Little Rebellion—he'd never been east as far as the shore of Greythunder Glairyrill. He tried to imagine as much land beyond that as stretched from the Western Shore to the Grand Windsward, and then a whole ocean beyond that, and more land at the other side.
He couldn't.
How many had come? How big had their ships been? (Runacar tried to imagine a ship so large that it could hold even a taille of horses, and failed.) Had they known Jer-a-kalaliel was here when they sailed?
If they had not, they must have been truly desperate.
As desperate as he was now.
That night Runacar conscientiously forced himself not to rush through either the drilling or the lecture that came afterward. At least he was spared one worry: his aerial scouts might still not be willing to cross the Mystrals, but now that their army had reached Vondaimieriel they could fly high enough to see both ends of the Dragon's Gate. Vieliessar had not yet reached it.
Only give me another sennight, and I can be there before her. He did not ever again wish to experience something like the ground-shake when the Sea Folk had toppled Daroldan Keep—not to mention the fighting that came before it—but both the Minotaur Earthdancers and the Bearward Spellmothers agreed that they could do something to close the eastern side of the Dragon's Gate. Or at least narrow it.
Once that was done—and Runacar saw no reason not to seal the Dragon's Gate once and for all—he'd need to do something about the Southern Pass as well, he supposed. (At least it was narrow to begin with.) But that would have to come after the battle with the High King and her forces was won, because the Lightborn would certainly be able to sense magic worked on that scale, even if it wasn't theirs. And if they did, any element of surprise Runacar might have would be squandered. Surprise was another weapon, and his army had so few of those.
He tried to console himself with the knowledge that even trained destriers would be hard to control if they were charged by a vanguard composed of Gryphons and Bearwards both, but it did little to keep his thoughts from turning down their well-worn—and useless—track. He had no idea at all of the size or composition of the army coming west, and no matter how badly his own force was outnumbered, they dared not let Vieliessar cross the Mystrals.
And if she has the same infantry she had at First and Second Mangiralas, her archers will cut my vanguard to pieces. And what will I do then? Three-quarters of my army has never been on a battlefield in their lives, and no Storysinger's tale can take the place of having been there….
He forced himself not to think of that either. What would come, would come.
At least Runacar was nearly confident enough in the abilities of his cavalry and infantry by now that he was thinking of having them practice with the irregular troops—the other Folk of the Land, at least, for he was out of touch with the Folk of the Sea and could not imagine any way his aerial forces could work with his ground forces. But there was more to his army than Woodwose, Centaurs, and Bearwards, so perhaps some simple maneuvers, to teach the cavalry to watch what was underfoot and the infantry what it was like to have to navigate around running horses—and Centaurs. Anything he could do to minimize the shock and the horror with which he knew the Otherfolk (even those who were veterans of the Western Shore campaign) would greet combat would help.
Not enough, but it would help.
Melisha was not waiting for him in his pavilion by the time Runacar finally got there that night. He was trying not to care, when he looked up and saw a silvery spark in the distance. He picked up his cloak from where he'd tossed it, and swirled it around his shoulders once more as he strode to meet her.
It was still before midnight, though that was late enough for an army that rose before dawn and marched through every candlemark of autumn's light. He'd had time to get used to how quiet and dark the night was without keep and castel and farm to illuminate it, but despite so many Wheelturns of familiarity, the nighttime hush still struck him as unnatural. He could have wished that he'd thought to bring his lantern, but this was familiar terrain and the stars gave light enough.
Melisha stood at the edge of a stand of old trees, radiating a silvery light as if she were the moon brought to ground. Cattle had browsed away the lower branches of the trees when those were young and tender; the reaching branches that had survived formed a canopy above Runacar's head, and there was no risk that he'd hit his head on a branch he couldn't see.
"No bedtime story tonight?" he asked when he reached her.
"That depends on where you're going to sleep," the Unicorn replied. Her face was not built to display emotions, but he heard them in her voice. She was smiling, somehow Runacar knew.
"Wherever you wish," he answered grandly, swirling his cape in a low courtly bow.
Melisha snorted. "My wishes aren't being consulted here," she said. "If they were, we wouldn't be fighting a two-front war." She knelt gracefully, settling with her legs tucked neatly beneath her, her tail curved over her flanks. How someone who looked so much like a deer could remind Runacar so much of a cat was clearly another Unicorn mystery.
"Against the Darkness as well as the High King," Runacar said, seating himself beside her, his back to the trunk of one of the great trees. "Speaking of whom, how do you know she's marching west? The Gryphons haven't seen a thing."
"They don't cross the Mystrals."
"They don't need to, if they fly high enough—as you well know."
"Unicorns can't fly," Melisha pointed out.
"But they evade questions very well," Runacar answered promptly. "What do you think I'm going to do, go tattling to Leutric?"
"That's the least of my worries," Melisha said. She stretched out her neck until her head was resting on Runacar's knee. He reached out cautiously to rest a hand on the silky silvery fur.
"A little higher," she said. "My ears itch."
"You should have arranged to be born with hands," Runacar said mildly. He discovered that the ears of Unicorns itched in much the same way the ears of horses itched, and there was silence for a time.
"So what are you worried about most?" Runacar said.
"Everyone and everything dying," Melisha said. "Out of all the possibilities there are, only one leads through to our survival. And it is…improbable."
"The Otherfolk and the High King's people making common cause," Runacar said, and Melisha made a wordless sound of agreement. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't think that's even possible. If it was just her, then yes, I'd say your folk had a good chance: the High King is mad, and if she enlisted Landbonds in her army why not Otherfolk? But her princes won't allow it."
"And she can't compel them?" Melisha asked.
"Not in this," Runacar said. "I'm sorry. You didn't see the Western Shore Campaign, but you must have heard tell of it."
"Which leaves your solution: slaughter every one of her people."
"Except the children," Runacar said. "And hope Leutric will give up this great weapon to one of the Woodwose. And hope that one of them can wield it."
"That's a great deal of hope," Melisha said, sighing.
Runacar said nothing. Do you think I want to kill these thousands upon thousands of folk? To slay the whole of her army will be horror enough, but then I have to seek out every soul who was not on the field and end them in cold blood, for all that they've never offered me harm. And let me miss just one—warrior or child, it matters not in the least—and all of you will die, for if my people know one thing well, it is how to hate and how to avenge.
The silence stretched.
"So the Elves sailed into the unknown west," Melisha said, and it took Runacar a moment to realize she was taking up her story where she had left off. "And when they came to the shore of the Sea of Storms, the King spoke to the captains of those ships that had survived the voyage and ordered that every ship be dragged ashore, and when they had been unloaded of their horses and their precious cargo, every ship was set afire."
"Why?" Runacar asked, startled. He'd been lulled by the sound of her voice until this turn in the story.
"So that no one could turn about and sail back to where they had begun, my darling," Melisha said sadly. "The King well knew the anger he had roused in the folk over whose lands he had ridden in conquest, and thought it more than possible that they would follow him and his people even to the edge of the world, did they only know where they had gone. And it was for just that reason that—when the ships had burned to ashes, and the ashes had been scattered—he sent his people marching west. And they marched for a very long time."
"They'd fall into the Glairyrill eventually," Runacar pointed out.
Melisha snorted. "They would, if they had known where they were going, and had gone in a straight line, but they did neither of these things. Perhaps, if they'd had magic—"
"Where were their Lightborn?" Runacar asked.
"If you go on interrupting, you will never know the end of the tale," Melisha said, tilting her head so that the end of her horn brushed against his shoulder. "They had no Lightborn, nor any other kind of sorcerer. They had no magic at all. Some say it was for the lust of what others had that they began the great far away wars. And that may be so, but I do not know."
Runacar drew breath to ask another question, and then changed his mind. Wondertales didn't have to make sense, after all.
"Ah, the beginning of wisdom," Melissa said into the silence, and Runacar chuckled. "And so they went on for many years, following their great herd of horses, and the good grass, and the turn of the seasons. And at last, after a very long time, they came to the shores of a great river. And what do you suppose they saw there?"
"Water?" Runacar guessed. "Ow!" he added, as Melisha poked him.
"People," Melisha continued serenely. "People such as those their greatfathers had fought against—though the Elves knew as little of that as did these new people they met."
"Did they fight?" Runacar asked warily, when Melisha did not seem inclined to continue.
"No," she said at last, and he could not tell whether it was joy or sorrow or just weariness in her voice. "They did not fight. Not then."
"So—" Runacar began, but Melisha was getting to her feet.
"That's quite enough for tonight," she said. "It's late, and you should sleep. I'll tell you the next part another time."
She walked beside him until he was within sight of his tent, then turned away and began to run, vanishing into the night so quickly that she might never have been there at all.
And for the next four days, Runacar did not see her at all.
"I will see you flayed alive and your still-living body set out in the field as food for crows!" Vieliessar snarled.
All know her father was Serenthon Farcarinon, yet too easily we forget that her mother, Nataranweiya, was of Caerthalien, Thurion mused. Yet none who saw her in this hour would doubt, for Glorthiachiel's temper was a match for Bolecthindial's, and she is the image of them both...
"Then you must find a field and a tanner to do the work," Lady Helecanth said imperturbably, "and that must wait upon your safety."
"You were not to come back," Vieliessar said, still furious. "Not for any cause!"
"And yet the Silver Swords can do more good here then elsewhere," Master Dandamir said steadfastly. "That we met the commander of your guard on our way to you is good fortune indeed."
Vieliessar drew breath to speak again, but Helecanth forestalled her. "I bring you glad tidings, my lord. Your heir and your daughter both live, and are even now being carried to safety."
"Then we must join them as soon as we can," Vieliessar said tightly, and turned away to mount.
The Endarkened had not yet returned. Master Dandamir had thought it more prudent to let the Lightborn precede them, than to ride among them and court an Endarkened attack upon the Silver Swords, and so the scattered Green Robes had passed them and reached the foot of the Pass Road nearly two candlemarks before. There were only a few stragglers behind the High King's party now: the wounded, and those whose mounts had been lost or lamed. They dared not tarry to allow them to catch up. The setting sun had already painted the Tamabeth Hills with blue and violet, but even though the pass and the mountains that surrounded it were still a blazing vault of gold, night was falling.
And night belonged to the Endarkened.
The Silver Swords and the High King rode on in a silence borne of weariness, as if they were anything other than what they were. As if the world had not ended and its corpse was not being devoured by handbreadths. As if Vieliessar, and Thurion, and Runacar had never been born, and fought, and hated.
They reached the Pass road and began to climb.
Now Vieliessar could look back across the long shadows of the hills and forest below. No light shone anywhere, and the mist was already beginning to rise, giving the landscape a truly ghostly appearance. The moon rose, a slender crescent, and with its rise, the last of the day's warmth departed. For so much of her life Vieliessar had taken the simplest things for granted: a dry bed and a warm fire, and soup to drink by the fireside. The reality of these things had been taken from her one by one, and when they were gone, even the possibility of them was taken, until such homely comforts seemed like legends out of the most distant past, miraculous and unattainable. The chill wind was soft with moisture, and she shivered at its touch.
"They're coming," Thurion said softly.
At his words, she realized it was not cold and exhaustion, but nausea that made her shiver. She looked toward the eastern sky, but there was nothing to see but the first pale stars of evening.
"Master Dandamir," Vieliessar said quietly. "The Endarkened come. It is for you to say how we will go."
"Ride ahead, my lord King," he answered. "Lady Helecanth with you. If we do not follow, discover Githachi, who has charge of the Prince-Heir, and say to her that she is the last of the Silver Swords. She will know what must be done."
"May the Starry Hunt take you into its care, and defend you while you live," she answered, low. "Make ready," she said to Helecanth, and cast the spell upon their horses that would make them run at the ravall until they died.
The wind whipped past her face, chill and cold, and Vieliessar pressed her face into her destrier's neck, trying to give him what aid she could. The ravall was a floating gait, but the pounding of the great heart between her knees told her this floating ease was dearly bought. The horses slipped and skidded as they reached each turn; at each switchback Vieliessar could look back and see the Silver Swords, Thurion with them—to lure the Endarkened to him if he could—their horses moving at a walk to spare them for the battle to come.
And it was a battle Vieliessar must hope would come, for the Endarkened could so easily ignore the Silver Swords, even with such bait, and fly onward to attack Vieliessar—Lightsister, High King—and her single companion.
They passed out of twilight and back into full sun, and abruptly the air was warm once again, the rocks around them radiating the day's heat. The horses were gasping for every breath, their sides heaving like a blacksmith's bellows, their coats dark with sweat. But still they ran. Closer and closer she and Helecanth came to the pass itself, and just as Vieliessar thought they would make it, that she and her people would once more survive to mourn their dead, a sound came upon the wind that meant utter disaster.
The sound of war horns, calling her army to battle.
