The Last Elf of Lanis (28 page)

“Who did? Why?” Alrhett asked.

“It is not known,” the messenger replied. “But, all the people of Alfhich and refugees on the eastern side of the Holmwy are now traveling north to cross at Tyny. But, even there is trouble, for the men of Reia control the bridge and will let no one cross to the west.”

“Why would they do that?” Meybonne asked in wonder.

“The general of Reia, Haerreth, has all his troops crossing from the west to the Eastern Meadowlands,” the messenger replied.

“He means to compel all to fight, if they want to or not,” Alrhett said with a frown.

On the messenger’s heels another appeared. “Great Queen of the Weald,” he said, “Deifol Hroth is in Wealdland and it is believed he is headed for Lanis and the elvish city, Lanis Rhyl Landemiriam. The messenger who was following him was badly burned and died of his injuries moments after he relayed his report.”

“Thank you,” Alrhett said, dismissing the messengers. “I must see all the captains of the military again at once,” Alrhett said to Prensy, who curtsied and then hurried out.

About
mid-day
, the festivities began in the capitol, with music and dancing. High above, in the palace, Alrhett met with Stralain, and thirty military captains.

“Our choice is clear,” she told them. “We
cannot
sit by, thinking we are safe and well here in the Weald. The question is, do we pursue Deifol Hroth in Lanis, do we join Haerreth in Tyny, or do we wait to surprise the garond army from behind in the Eastern Meadowland. I am not inclined towards the latter venture, as I believe, from reports, that the garond army is strong enough to fight a flanking army with ease. I think the human armies stand the best chance, united in their strength. Haerreth of Reia may be eager for battle, but I do not think he is so wrong in his course.”

Alrhett paused, then continued, “
Also
, I do not believe this Ravensdred for one instant, so his offer of peace should be rejected outright, as the lie it most assuredly is.”

The captains each gave their opinions, but no consensus was reached. Alrhett thanked them all, then she prepared to attend the feast.

The ramps and wooden walkways of Rogar Li were jammed with merry, colorfully dressed citizens happy to have their queen once more among them.

The dancing, music, and contests of strength and skill continued into the evening, when Alrhett was to be symbolically recrowned.

As the night darkened, Summeninquis, with a sour face, officiated over the coronation. As he held her crown aloft, the smaller moon moved out of its orbit with a terrifying noise. All the citizens of Rogar Li screamed and fled to their houses. The armies were organized and sentries alerted for any imminent attack. All was quiet the rest of the night.

In the early, dark part of dawn, a soldier pounded at the doors of the palace.

“Come at once!” He cried.

Alrhett and her friends gathered themselves and followed. The soldier led them down to the Bairn River, where in the still bright moonlight of Nunee, the mother moon, near the burnt ruins of the Three Bridges, they could see many hundreds of garonds busily moving about in the darkness of the southern shore. Their cauldrons of fire and weapons of war were being moved about in silence.

“What are they doing?” Alrhett asked Stralain.

“We’re not sure,” he said. “We don’t think they have boats. They can’t swim. They can’t possibly be trying to build a bridge.”

Alrhett turned to the trees at the edge of the Weald. “Hello?” She called. “Is anybody there? I need some help.”

Two, dark brown, night birds swept down from the trees to land on her outstretched hand.

“Please go across the river and tell me what you see,” she told them. “No detail is unimportant.”

The dark birds both nodded their heads and winged away into the night. The stillness of the evening was unnerving. The garonds busied themselves with a quietness that was fearful.

The two birds swept back to Alrhett loudly chirping.

“Are you sure?” She asked. “Thank you, tell all your friends immediately,” she said to the birds. Then she turned to the captain, and said with urgency, “Stralain, everyone must flee Rogar Li at once.”

“But why?” The captain asked.

Before she could answer, hundreds upon hundreds of flaming arrows spurted across the still black, dawn sky, from the southern shore, into the dry, dry trees of the Weald.

Chapter Seventeen

From the Weald to Tyny

The flames swept into the trees of the forest with a supernatural fury. All that Alrhett, the captain, and the soldiers on the north bank could do was run for the city.

“Alarm! Alarm!” A soldier cried. Sentries, who banged on metal gongs, sending the klaxon throughout the city, answered his call.

“Evacuate!” The call went up. The sleepy citizens of Rogar Li were perplexed, rubbing their eyes with waking queries. But the billows of smoke flying in from the south shocked everyone into action.

“To the west!” Alrhett cried. “Leave all possessions! Make sure you have all your children and elderly! Flee with only your lives!”

Alrhett ran for the Great Library with the Stralain close on her heels. She banged on the great, ornate doors of the library.

No answer came.

“Break it down,” she ordered the captain and his soldiers. They put their shoulders into it, and knocked the door down on their second try. Alrhett ran to the back chamber where the Nostacarr was sound asleep amidst the tumult. Alrhett shook the Master of the Library awake.

“What, what?” He sputtered.

“Take two books each,” she ordered the Stralain and the soldiers. “Whatever he wants, but only two books each. Then leave immediately. Do not tarry!”

Alrhett ran from the library to the palace as fast as she could. She met Meybonne, Prensy, and Kindoll at the front gates.

“Are there any others inside?” Alrhett cried.

“No,” Meybonne answered.

“Come with me,” Alrhett led the women down to the library where the soldiers, in defiance of her orders, were holding armfuls of books.

“Grab two books only,” she cried to the women, who quickly clutched the nearest books. “Now, out! Out of the city!” Alrhett said as she pushed the Master of the Library out onto the ramps of the city. The city was emptying at a good pace. The citizens of Rogar Li trotted as fast as they could in an orderly way.

Alrhett moved with the great crush of people as the smoke thickened in massive brown billows. “Don’t push!” She cried. The flames could be seen moving quickly in the tops of the distant trees.

“Keep moving west!” Alrhett ordered. “But don’t go down to the river, the garonds will be waiting there with archers.”

“The garonds have archers now?” A citizen moaned.

“Keep moving!” Alrhett said. “Parents watch your children.”

As the people moved farther away from the city it became easier to move quickly through the forest.

“Look!” A citizen cried.

Alrhett looked back to see massive houses and halls falling in flames. Rogar Li was destroyed.

“Don’t look back again!” Alrhett ordered. “The flames may catch us yet.” The thousands of people were organized on the run by the army, and a count was made.

“I
cannot
be absolutely certain,” Stralain reported to Alrhett as they trotted to the west. “But it seems all the citizens of Rogar Li have been accounted for.”

“If no souls were lost,” Alrhett mused, “then it will have been a miracle.”

“But, we have very little food,” the captain frowned, “and no one was able to open the armory before the fire reached the city.”

“It seems,” Alrhett said with soberness, “that we will join Haerreth in Tyny after all.” The Weald was dry and the fire raged all morning long. The fire was ever on the people’s backs, and the smoke poured through the woods. Frightened animals bolted every which way in the tangles of the timberland.

“Will it never stop?” Meybonne said with fear.

“The Weald has needed rain for many years,” Prensy said as they jogged for their lives.

“And the snow is late,” Kindoll said with worry.

“We will be safe if we can just reach the Eastern Meadowland,” Alrhett reassured.

Alrhett motioned Stralain near. “Have all able soldiers carry children or the elderly,” Alrhett said. “We may move quicker.” The captain saluted and jogged away to spread the order.

The great fire seemed to be spreading north faster than to the west, so the smoke began to diminish. The dawn was breaking through the hazy trees. The people had soot smeared faces, and were weary and terrified. Children were too stunned to cry, as soldiers, their arms painfully aching, heroically carried the little ones.

Moving farther west, Alrhett saw Nostacarr, the old Master of the Library being carried on the captain’s back. Alrhett winked and smiled at him to keep his spirits up. He stared back with a blank, disbelieving face.

At Rion Ta, the small town at the edge of the Weald, four garonds miserably sat in the town square. They all had arms and were in a nasty mood, spoiling for a fight.

The garond facing east rose with a satisfied smile. His companions roared with delight for they knew he had spotted a human coming out of the Weald.

Then, from the Weald, came all the humans who lived in the forest. The garonds stood in dumbfounded shock as the fifty humans became a hundred, and in an instant became several hundred. The garonds started to turn to run, but it was too late. Thirty, boiling angry wealdkin soldiers descended before the garonds could get beyond the edge of Rion Ta. They were soon hacked to pieces.

“Wait! Wait!” Alrhett called. But the garonds were already slaughtered. “It would have been good,” Alrhett said, “to have gathered what information they held.” The captain of the army glared at the over eager soldiers.

“Rion Ta” Alrhett said. “It has been barely seven days since I was last here. Captain, organize the people. Make sure no one was left behind. Feed the children with what we have.”

The captain saluted, and ordered his men. Alrhett looked out across the meadowland. It was only half a day to Tyny, but the wealdkin would be exposed out in the open fields. And, they were poorly armed. Behind them, the Weald was a billowing tower of brown smoke.

“Rogar Li and the kingdom of the Weald is gone,” Meybonne said as she sat in the dust of Rion Ta. Her daughters comforted her.

Alrhett looked all around at the thousands of people of Rogar Li and its neighboring towns, huddled together, covered in soot. Despair began to settle on the wealdkin. The tears and cries began to run through the people like a wild fire.

Alrhett rose in fury. “Stop it!” She boomed. “Stop your tears immediately!”

A calm fell on the citizens as they turned their tear stained, dirty faces to their queen.

“We are brokenhearted to have lost Rogar Li,” she said plainly, looking out into the sea of eyes. “But, do you think that city stood, majestically, where it stood, a thousand years ago? Somebody thought, here, here I will build.”

Alrhett paused to gather herself.

“We will never let go of that spirit, the spirit of the first of the wealdkin. They said ‘build’, and we will, by all the gods above, we will build again.” The people looked up, and their faces were all beautiful like little children.

“It will not be the Rogar Li that we knew,” Alrhett said, standing tall and proud like a lioness. “But, we will return and build a Rogar Li to rival the old city. It will have all the beauty of the former city, but all the promise of the future.”

The citizens of the Weald were all crying, not out of despair, but crying for the hope they held onto with all their might.

“Let us go to Tyny,” Alrhett plainly said, and then she turned to walk west. The people rose and followed her.

In western Tyny, about
mid-day
, Kellabald huddled in fear. He moved among the great crowd of soldiers making their way across the bridge, over to the Eastern Meadowland. He carried the Mattear Gram wrapped in a cloth. He had been able to evade the men of Kipleth, and Apghilis and his army in the mists of the night.

He mingled in with the hundreds of soldiers milling, ready to cross over the Holmwy River. It would only be a matter of time before he was discovered. The soldiers were mostly the men of Reia, but there were very many from the Northern Kingdom of Man. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he simply asked
someone
to lead him to Healfdene, the king. Would they take the sword? Could anyone be trusted? Kellabald was hungry and tired, and didn’t know what to do.

The strange sign in the sky troubled him. How could Apghilis have known that the smaller moon would move out of its path in the night sky? Unless, he was consorting with whomever had done this terrible thing. The event was all the talk of the soldiers. Many said it was the work of the great Lord of Lightning, Deifol Hroth. Kellabald’s heart was very troubled. He had seen Apghilis working with the garonds at Bittel. It must be true. How else could he have known? Had Apghilis sold his very soul to this devil incarnate? For what? Power?

“Watch where you’re walking friend.”

Kellabald caught himself as he nearly stepped into a soldier’s campfire. The soldier caught Kellabald as he tripped.

“Ha, ha,” a soldier with a large black mustache said. “You’re worried about your little woman at home, aren’t you, friend?”

Kellabald simply nodded his head.

“Where’s your platoon? Who are your men?” He asked.

“I am originally from Reia,” Kellabald truthfully answered.

“Oh,” the soldier said pulling at his mustache. “No wonder you’re lost. These are all men of Man,” the soldier said using the short name.

“I am Forgrebbe,” he said extending his hand. “I’m really of no tribe. My family lives out in the Middle Wastes.”

“I am Kellabald,” he said, accepting his handshake.

“Eat,” Forgrebbe said. “You look hungry. A hungry soldier is a lousy soldier,” he laughed.

Kellabald ate a small plate of a stew made with some waterfowl. It was delicious.

“You have a sword,” Forgrebbe said, trying to take a peek at Kellabald’s bundle.

“It’s nothing,” Kellabald said clutching it to his chest.

“You should let me sharpen it,” Forgrebbe said. “A dull sword may lose you your life.”

A great noise went up as hundreds of men of Kipleth arrived.

“The archers of Kipleth,” Forgrebbe frowned. “The combined army thinks that they will be the great difference in the coming battle.”

“You do not think so?”

“If the garond army is a large as they whisper,” Forgrebbe said stretching, “we will have to kill fifty garonds each. Hmmph. Well, I’d best check with my commanders. Watch my camp for me, will you Kellabald?”

Kellabald nodded. He felt some measure of safety with Forgrebbe. He would ask him about the king of Reia, and how he could find him, when he returned. The soldiers of Kipleth kept pouring into western Tyny until they
outnumbered
any other army. There seemed to be a buzz amongst the soldiers, but Kellabald was too nervous to leave the little camp to find out what was the news. He feared, greatly, the news would be about him and the Mattear Gram.

“Healfdene is here!” A soldier cried. Kellabald’s head snapped up as a murmur went through the whole garrison.

In the middle of the camp, a platoon of brightly armored soldiers marched, flying the flag of the Green Hills of Reia, a white wolf on a field of bright green. In their midst a robust, older man with a red and white beard, dressed in golden armor, a head taller, happily marched towards the bridge over the Holmwy.

“Healfdene. Healfdene!” Kellabald cried, but the mass of soldiers shouted and pressed him on all sides. The parade was past and over the bridge in a matter of moments.

Kellabald looked all about for Forgrebbe. He didn’t like leaving his new friend’s camp unattended, but he had to catch Healfdene and give him the sword.

“Did you see him?” Forgrebbe called as he approached.

“I must speak to him at once!” Kellabald said. “Thank you for your hospitality, but I must leave.”

Forgrebbe whipped out his sword and held it before Kellabald. “You are not leaving for anywhere,” Forgrebbe said.

Kellabald was puzzled for a moment, but then he saw Apghilis and a platoon of men following behind Forgrebbe. Kellabald felt the Mattear Gram leap from the cloth, and into his hand.

“Run”, he heard it clearly say. Kellabald parried Forgrebbe’s sword with a mighty blow, and then Kellabald turned to run.

“The Mattear Gram!” A soldier who recognized the sword exclaimed.

Kellabald ran through the camp towards the bridge. He would not strike any soldier. It would be murder. The men clutched at him on all sides.

A large group of archers from Kipleth gathered at the foot of the bridge, ready to cross. Kellabald ran right into their midst. The Kipleth men grabbed Kellabald and held him tight. They tried to wrest the sword from his hand, but it was if the sword was part of him, and they could not.

Apghilis strode up. “Somebody run him through,” he said.

A soldier of the Kingdom of Man drew his sword, which was a mistake as the Kipleth men also drew their swords in response. All Apghilis’ men drew their swords, but they were surrounded by hundreds of soldiers from Kipleth with swords at the ready.