The Last Elf of Lanis (5 page)

The garonds were frightened and angry. She could hear them snap at each other in their guttural tongue, and surprisingly, she could almost tell what they were saying. Frea remembered the first time she had seen a garond. It was in her home castle of Ethgeow. She was only eight years old, and the shackled garond was paraded to the center throne room for all to see.
Its
clothes were simple woven fibers, unlike the leather and bronze armor all garonds now wore. The creature fell to its knees and pled in its grunting tongue. The lords and the ladies of the court of Haergill, dressed in fine reds and golds of the realm, laughed and taunted the poor thing.

It seemed to Frea, at the time, that the garond long ago kept saying “Please”, as though
its
people were in great danger.

Frea remembered Apghilis, an atheling, or lord of the court, a beefy man with a fat, square head, and small, cruel eyes, slapping the garond to the grey flagstones of the throne room. Her grandmother led her away as Varknifl and the other vassals of Apghilis pounced on the creature and began to viciously beat it.

As she left, she caught her father’s eye. Haergill sat as though he w
as entrapped in his royal robes. H
is battle crown seemed to be shackling his head. He sat completely still as the garond cried in pain. His eyes darted to Frea, and as she left, she saw the sad, painfully disgust with which her father’s station had ensnared him.

Night was falling and they had covered a great distance. Frea began to realize the garonds who had kidnapped her had not killed her right away for some reason, but she couldn’t fathom why.

The darkness of the night enveloped them. The dark storm clouds blotted the light of both moons, and all was black and shadows. The rain intensified. Lightning flashed behind them and the garond’s horses abruptly halted in fear. Thunder rolled across the meadows.

The garonds loudly grunted at each other in their language, then turned their horses to the left, riding hard to the south. Frea knew they were headed for the river.

Frea felt sick and her stomach hurt. The horse was slick, and she knew she might be killed if she fell from the horse at full gallop. Under the purple, woolen frock she had found at Rion Ta, she wore a small dagger.
Its
sheath dug into her side. The garonds hadn’t taken the time to search her, so she kept the small blade hidden for the right time.

The rain pelted them like small, incessant stones. Lightning flashed again far away. The garonds pulled their horses to a halt. Frea was unceremoniously dumped from the horse. The three garonds pulled on the manes of their horses so that
the horses would lie
down on the wet grass. Then the garonds themselves plopped down on the soaked grass. The garond who stole Frea clutched a handful of her red hair in his meaty hand. Thunder grumbled from far off.

The garonds grunted to each other. Frea identified the three by their facial characteristics. There was Boil, named for an enormous boil on his nose; Drool, because he always did; and Eyebrow, who had one massive, bushy eyebrow. Frea was surprised to find she was beginning to understand their tongue more and more. Boil complained that he was hungry and they should eat Frea immediately. Eyebrow, the one who had a death grip on her hair, and who seemed to be the leader, mentioned something about bringing all red haired humans to the master. Whereupon Drool cursed, and called his fellow garonds unpleasant names. Eyebrow threatened Drool and then they all settled down.

The four of them sat in the pouring rain next to their unhappily shifting horses. A lone, pine tree nearby offered some cover, but the garonds were too thoughtless to use it.

Frea pulled at her captor and pointed at the tree. Drool and Boil stared at Frea then the tree. Eyebrow clouted Frea, and she stayed still.

“Idiot.” She said in garond tongue. Eyebrow looked up, thought
,
it couldn’t have been Frea,
and then
he looked over at Drool.

“You are the idiot,” Eyebrow said to Drool.

“What is it you say?!” Drool half rose.

“Sit down,” Boil said. And the garonds miserably lay down in the battering rain.

Frea was freezing, but also very tired. So much had happened this day, the garonds leading them from Bittel in shackles, then freedom by the Archer, hunting the stauer, empty Rion Ta, the elf, the attack, her kidnapping.

As she drifted on the edges of sleep, Frea thought of her grandmother. She never knew her real name, only the name she had called her in childhood, Miri. Her grandmother had a stern, strong face, a close set of white and grey curls.

Frea remembered finding her mother and an atheling whose face she couldn’t discern in a dark corridor of Ethgeow at night. Bad dreams had driven sleep from her eyes. The Atheling held her mother tightly insisting Haergill would never return from his latest war campaign. Her mother, Halldora, did not answer the atheling, but her eyes were all aflame. The atheling raised his hand to strike her mother.

“Dare you risk a most gruesome death upon your lord’s return?” Miri’s voice rang out like a clarion in the stone corridors.

The atheling did not turn, but released Halldora as though she were a stinging nettle, and strode down the corridor covering his face. Torches were brought and servants gathered. Halldora insisted there was no bother.

Miri found Frea silently weeping in a dark corner.

“You saw?” She said. Frea nodded her head. “And you were afraid for your mother?” Again Frea nodded.

“And there was nothing a small girl like you could do.” Miri gathered her granddaughter in her strong arms. Frea felt instantly safe. “There will come a day, dear daughter of my daughter, when you will have strength to fight, and it may seem strange, but your greatest move against your enemy will be to not fight.”

Frea drifted to sleep with happy memories of the once mighty Ethgeow, grey stone spires, long curling flags of a golden sun on a rich, red field, streaming from turrets, athelings parading in bronze armor, ladies bedecked with white and yellow jewels moving gracefully, a happy prosperous people.

Frea remembered how her father had often asked her to sing for him, and although she was but a child, and made up the tune and words, the music seemed to erase the care and worry from her father’s face like magic. Weeping, Frea fell asleep.

In the cold, wet morning the garonds silently mounted their horses, eyes shiftily watching for enemies. They rode like mad men to the Bairn River, a hungry and grumbling Boil constantly staring over at Frea.

Near the river were flocks of black and white birds that rose into the air with a mournful call of “pee-teeee”. Boil and Drool chased after them, but caught none. Frea thought they were idiotically comedic, but dare not laugh.

When they reached the banks of the Bairn, the river was swollen and wild from the night’s rain. Eyebrow threw Frea from his horse,
and then
the garonds dismounted and howled with rage. Frea dared not run.

“We must ride west at least another day on empty stomachs!” Boil bellowed at Eyebrow.

“Be silent, fool!” Eyebrow bellowed back, with a death grip on Frea’s hair.

Drool circled around to stand by Boil. “She’s not much meat. She won’t be missed.”

Eyebrow murderously growled at this insubordination.

Frea stared out at the white rapids of the Bairn. Without thinking, a song rose out of her. She sang of home, and family, happiness and peace. The garonds stood completely still as if bewitched. The song was mournful, but hopeful and the music in Frea was powerful and enchanting. The refrain ended with, “Peace and love at home.”

“Peace and love at home” Frea spoke again in garond.

The silence was palpable.

Tears welled in Drool’s eyes. Eyebrow stood completely still as if trying to understand the emotions stirring in his heart. But, with a rising scream, Boil lunged at Frea with his bronze clad club. Eyebrow swung around, and with his own club, crushed Boil’s skull with a one, wide stroke. Drool and Eyebrow regarded each other.

“Well?” Eyebrow snarled at Drool.

Frea felt the dagger underneath her purple woolen dress. She could draw and kill Eyebrow with a single slash. But then could she stop Drool? Frea seemed to hear her grandmother speak as though she was standing right behind her. “Your greatest move against your enemy will be to not fight.” Frea dropped her hand from her secret dagger.

“He was an idiot,” Drool spat on the corpse of Boil. “We should ride west along the river.” Drool nervously eyed Eyebrow’s massive, tensing shoulders,
and then
looked down at Boil’s body.

Drool quietly snarled sideways at Eyebrow and mounted his horse. They left the garond’s body on the sandy shore of the Bairn River. The three of them rode on looking for a place to ford the wild and rushing Bairn, as Boil’s riderless horse followed after.

Chapter Six

Rescue and Search

At Rion Ta, Halldora keened over Haergill’s body in the softly falling rain as the evening closed in. Kellabald and Yulenth gathered the garond bodies in a pile to burn for when the rain stopped.

The Archer, the elf, Wynnfrith and Alrhett carefully helped Halldora carry Haergill’s body into a hut in the village. Inside Halldora, Wynnfrith and Alrhett keened in earnest.

Respectful, the others stepped outside into the pouring rain. Rion Ta was a collection of five small huts and a small sized Great Hall only forty paces long, all clustered around the open communal square. The night’s darkness became oppressive with the increasing rain. The large, towering elms and oaks at the edge of the village were black and the forest was deep. All was silence except for the drum beat of the rain on the mud.

“Perhaps we should more carefully search the village for anything else useful,” Yulenth offered.

“A good idea,” Kellabald said with sadness.

“Should we burn the village?” Yulenth wondered. “To keep the garonds from using it as a garrison?”

“No,” Kellabald said solemnly. “Any of Rion Ta who
survives
must have their homes to return to.”

A grim silence of understanding settled on the group.

“We should find something for the white one to eat, so he stays agreeable,” Yulenth said eyeing Conniker, who sat blinking in the rain.

“Wolves can eat bread and other fruit of the land,” The elf said. She turned towards the Great Hall. “Many think they only-“

Suddenly, a brilliant flash of light enveloped the group.

The immediate boom of thunder knocked them to the ground.

Kellabald looked up to see the lightning bolt had hit the elf. In a purple glow, the elf was held suspended above their heads in a sphere of crackling light, sparking as the heavy rain hit the globe of lightning.

“What-!?” Yulenth yelled.

Wynnfrith, Halldora and Alrhett ran from the funeral hut out into the rain.

Hovering above the group, the elf arched her back in pain, her arms spread, head tipped up to the black rain clouds.

The Archer rose and rushed to the ball of light, which held the elf. Yulenth tackled the Archer.

“No!” Yulenth cried, “no one touch it. I have seen men burnt to death by lightning.”

“We must help her!” Wynnfrith said.

“How do we get her out of that thing if it will kill us!?” Kellabald yelled.

The Archer nocked a flint tipped arrow. His arrow flew to the edge of the ball of light and exploded into flaming ash.

“Use a black arrow!” Yulenth said. The Archer hesitated. “For pity’s sake!”

The Archer nocked a black arrow and shot at the same spot, away from the elf. Again there was an explosion of flame, but the black arrowhead fell to the ground glowing red hot. The sphere of electricity slightly dimmed.

Inside the sphere, the elf felt the whole world go white. She knew she might die. She felt the flames of her ancestor’s spirits nearby. She knew she was being held by the Lord of the garonds, held to stop the progress of this group. She wanted to tell them to run. They needed to leave Rion Ta immediately. The pain was all encompassing. All the world was a blinding white.

Outside the cage of crackling power, the group gathered in frustrated urgency.

“What do we do?” Alrhett cried.

“Wait, wait.” Yulenth held his hand to his mouth, his mind working furiously. “The power must go to the earth... as it always does. This has not, through accident or design, this lightning has not moved to the earth. So it needs a clear path.”

Yulenth walked around the elf and her prison, his eyes blazing, his mind worked feverishly.

“Ah!” Yulenth called. “A spear!”

Kellabald moved forward with the spear he held.

“Wait!” Cried Yulenth. As Kellabald’s spear came close to the sphere of power, a finger of light licked out to Kellabald’s spear slamming him back. Wynnfrith ran to his side. He was shaken, but unharmed.

“No, no...” Yulenth puzzled. “He who holds the spear will be killed. Who will hold the spear?” Yulenth turned in a tight circle, furiously thinking. “Ah! The earth will hold it!”

Yulenth leapt to Kellabald’s spear. He held it straight skyward, but a good distance from the ball of lightning encasing the paralyzed elf. “Everyone back!” Yulenth called. With the spear firmly on the ground, he let go and the spear toppled towards the orb of purple electricity.

As the falling spear touched the prison of energy, a pop of light and blast of sound slammed the group to the mud of Rion Ta. The elf fell to the earth in pain, but alive.

The Archer rushed to her side. The others crowded around in concern.

“We must flee. He has garond troops on the way,” she said, then fainted. Kellabald looked around at his wife and the others,
and then
turned to the Archer.

“So we must go our separate ways sooner than I had hoped,” Kellabald said to him.

The Archer nodded in agreement. Cradling the elf, he reached for and pocketed the black arrowhead at his feet.

Lightning flashed again from far across the Meadowlands, followed by the grumble of thunder.

The night grew dark again, both of earth’s moons hidden by the black rain clouds.

“How is she?” Wynnfrith asked.

“The elf is alive, but unconscious,” The Archer said examining the strange creature comatose in his arms.

“Should she be moved?” Alrhett asked.

“We have no choice,” The Archer said rising, holding the stricken elf. “You know the way back to your village,” the Archer said to Kellabald. “And you have the white wolf to guide you to Arnwylf,” he said to Yulenth.

“Then we should build my husband’s funeral pyre back at Bittel,” Halldora mournfully said. “He would have liked it, anyway.”

With haste, a litter was fashioned for Kellabald to drag Haergill’s body.

“May all the good things of life guide you,” Kellabald said to those gathered. They all clasped hands.

Then, the three groups went on their separate quests.

The Archer carried the fatigued elf like a child in his arms, tracking the garonds who had taken Frea.

Kellabald pulled the litter bearing Haergill’s body accompanied by Wynnfrith and Halldora, on their way back to Bittel to retrieve the Mattear Gram.

And, Alrhett and Yulenth led by Conniker, the white wolf, went south to track Arnwylf.

The elf slept in the Archer’s arms. She seemed to have no weight at all. Following the tracks of the horses across the grasses of the Meadowland in the rain proved harder than the Archer had supposed. Several times he had to stop and retrace his steps. The elf was limp and breathing hard as he cradled her.

Carrying the elf reminded the Archer of his two children back in his village, Pelych, in the mountains of Kipleth. He had a daughter of eight and a son of six. Both dark haired and dark eyed like he and his wife. They were noisy and mischievous. Once, his daughter had caught the local cat and chased her brother through the village with the bewildered beast hissing and clawing. A baker dropped his armful of milled wheat as they rushed past. The baker followed after bellowing, only to trip and fall into a set of pottery left to dry for the kiln. The resulting chaos spread from merchant to family to villager. It seemed the whole village erupted into merry madness that day.

The Archer had to stop and fell to his knees weeping.

He held his sobs for waking the elf. After a moment he rose to continue his tracking. But, he had lost the trail again and back tracked through the tall summer grass. The rain intensified. The elf felt hot and feverish. The Archer thought it best to find a dry place and pick up the trail in the morning.

The river would be swollen with the night’s rain, and the garonds would have to continue west, making them easier to catch.

A solitary, squat pine tree spread its sheltering arms in the middle of the green and brown plain. The Archer slogged his way to the tree and found a dry space underneath to set down the elf. Her cloak immediately dried. Her head was hot and feverish, and her complexion very pale. The Archer gently set the elf in a bed of dry, pine needles,
and then
quietly sat next to her.

Staring out at the sheets of rain, the Archer thought of the lonely times after the destruction of Pelych. The men of Kipleth all wandered aimlessly after their return from war and the discovery of their loss. All bonds of civility had been broken. There were Kipleth villages still standing in the North, but the men of the South were all too broken hearted to be other than the faded ghosts of their former selves, wandering to and fro in the mountains.

In such a dark time, the Archer had come across a former lieutenant who also had lost all when they were away fighting the men of the Northern Kingdom. His name was Segerlan, a brave and valiant man who had lost wife, child, and parents. Segerlan had cut his wrists and was bleeding to death. As the Archer held him, his look was of great peacefulness.

“I go to them...” was all Segerlan said as he breathed his last. The Archer burned his body and staring into the flames considered following his friend into the darkness of death.

For two weeks more the Archer wandered the highest mountains of the Kipleth black stone, staring down into rocky chasms. On the fifteenth day, he came upon a group of five garonds laughing and grunting to each other as they camped in a rocky mountain pass. From the shadows, he saw that they carried weapons which were unmistakably from his very home in Pelych, and one garond even wore a cloak which he had given to his wife. He had never seen garonds fitted for battle before. Now he knew who had slaughtered his family and all the people of the village.

The rage that came over him was like a great swirling fire. With his bare hands he tore the armed garonds asunder. Then and there he vowed to extinguish the life of every garond upon the earth.

The very next night he met the blind man who gave him the black arrows. Later he learned how to shoot them.

After that, every day was a repayment of the massacre of his people. He lost count after killing over two hundred garond soldiers.

The Archer faded to fitful sleep, silently weeping and thinking of the smile of his wife. Not more than an arrow’s shot from the Archer and the elf, Frea and her captors bedded down in the grasses of the meadow with their horses in the night’s rain.

Alrhett and Yulenth trotted after the white wolf, Conniker. He moved quickly, and the old bones of Alrhett and Yulenth had trouble keeping up.

Alrhett needed to rest and called Conniker back to them several times. The white wolf circled impatiently with his nose to the ground, as Alrhett and Yulenth sat on the moss and stumps at the edge of the Weald to catch their breath. The rain was hard and cold.

Conniker licked Alrhett’s face, sniffling and woofing.

“That’s all right,” she said to the wolf. “You’re doing a fine job.”

“What? What did it say?” Yulenth asked.

“He thinks he may have lost the scent. Many others have recently tracked through here, he says.”

“Great,” Yulenth said slinking into his cloak. “Perhaps we should just make for Rogar Li and ask for help.”

Alrhett was quiet and thoughtful. “No. We
cannot
go there,” was all she said.

“Well, the boy is not going to get across the Bairn on his own. Perhaps he’ll cross over one of the Three Bridges of Rogar Li. Perhaps we should head for the Three Bridges.”

“No,” Alrhett said solemnly, “We
cannot
ask
hospitality of the wealdkin
.”

A long, strange, whining growl out of the dark stopped Yulenth’s protest. The hair stood up on Conniker’s back.

“What was THAT?” Yulenth whispered.

“What do you see?” She said to Conniker who seemed to be fixated on a point in the dark.

“Garonds?” Yulenth whispered with wide, frightened eyes.

“He doesn’t know,” Alrhett whispered. “He keeps saying, ‘bad thing’”.

“Perhaps we’d best move into the trees,” Yulenth whispered.

“I think that’s where it is,” Alrhett said in a low voice.

Alrhett and Yulenth slowly rose staring intently at the dark sentinels of trees at the edge of the Weald forest. Conniker sidled in front of them lowly growling. A black shape moved amongst the trees.

“Hush,” Alrhett breathed to Conniker.

Then, to their right, th
ree garond soldiers, weaponless
and noisily clicking and snapping to each other, burst through the
underbrush
. They were frightened and out of breath. They stopped to bellow at each other, nearly coming to blows. Then they froze.

A long, dark, undulating shape moved just within the blackness of the shadows behind the trees.

Alrhett and Yulenth cowered in the tall grass watching as the three garonds screamed as long black arms reached out and began to rend them.