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I could not help but wonder, did we look the same to them?
Tasks and Remembrance
Far from home we die
Wife and child left behind
We may scream, but do not whisper
For our ashen Lord hears all.
—Gurukhun the Subtle,Marching Song
We did not linger there, for which I was grateful despite my weariness. Even Arn did not want theorukhar’s small skin full of acrid drink.Smells like griping, she said, and put her arm about my waist until I could walk without help.
We wended westward and only slightly north, as quickly as Arn could drag me. It would have been a sparkling, cheerful new-winter day except for the mist and the knowledge of what had occurred before dawn. When he deemed it safe enough, Efain finally told us of the battle in an undertone.
He spoke of those who raised the alarm, and of the battle upon the causeway—Aeredh had been among the first to arrive, and Eol, roused from slumber, was at his friend’s side amid waves oforukhar. The wolves of Naras fought with the Elder; Curiaen and Caelgor joined battle as well. There had seemed some hope, the great doors closed fast at terrible cost, almost upon Eol of Naras’s very heels… but then the ram appeared, and when Krog seemed unable to finish its work the great wyrm arrived.
Lost in the North amid Elder and liches, neither Arn nor I thought his tale embellished to any degree, even the actions of his clearly beloved captain.
We were not hungry yet; yesterday’s winterwine still filled us. Still, I kept a sharp eye for anything herb, berry, or bark to serve as food later. They had bows; we could hunt, and would not lack for fire. Still, it worried me, and so did the infrequent, unnatural sounds in the thinning fog.
Near the nooning only faint patches of vapor hung between the trees, and there were many stealthy noises usual in a winter forest on a bright day—birds and foraging creatures shaken from lethargy by the light, attempting to find prey or grazing despite the sudden flow of time and cold into their land. The ice-coated leaves were not falling so frequently, and we worked along a hillside in single file. At the bottom was a much easier path an enemy would find just as acceptable, so we went quiet as mice along the harder way, hoping the columns of trees would hide us. Tangles of bracken appeared wherever theseidhrprohibiting undergrowth had weakened, a thin glistening layer of freezing turning thorns into diamond arrowheads and vine-branches into glass rope.
And we found other bodies.
Three small groups of deadorukharlay in tangled heaps, stiffening as the cold covered them with its cloak. The Northerners searched the corpses, finding nothing of use; the marks upon them were of Elder blades and queerly blackened, for those scorch the flesh of the Enemy’s servants when they burn blue during battle. One carcass had a broken arrow lodged in his throat; it could not be wrenched free, but the fletching was of Elder craft as well.
The dead seemed, to our companions, stragglers or warriors on patrol duty. Efain said it was unlikely the army that had broken Nithraen would take this route; they would either return straight northward to whatever newly created pass through the Marukhennor’s ice-pinnacles they had used before or strike more southerly after leaving shattered silver-and-stone gates. If they did the latter, they would soon find the broad, ancient west-running road to a different kingdom’s borders—Dorael, a name conjuring old sagas even Idra had only half believed.
Just after the sun began its daily descent we found a larger band of ash-pale dead, and the battle here, though small by comparison to the city’s breaking, had been fierce indeed. Some of theorukhar’s wounds bore no black-crisp burning; the Northerners’ relief was palpable. At least one or two of their comrades had survived and were still fighting, but there were worrisome signs as well—drying blood upon an ice-sheathed tree-trunk, where a wounded man had leaned to rest. I did not yet know how Elder bled, but the marks were notorukharichor either. Torn strips of black Northern cloth showed an attempt at bandaging had been made, scraps left behind as unsuitable. All the arrows, even the heavy spine-fletched ones of the Enemy’s make, were gone.
Which meant the survivors had bows as well, a happy chance unless they mistook us for the Enemy’s servants. Not that there seemed much hope of finding anyone but moreorukharin this quiet, freezing forest.
Karas took the lead now, his proud knifelike nose all but twitching, and we set off at a quicker pace. My legs were heavy, and the cold intensified as undergrowth thickened. Whateverseidhrkept the woods of Nithraen unstained had no clear border in this direction, simply fade-fringing into more natural effects. I could see no sign of passage; nor could Arn, but the Northerners became fractionally less dour.
Gelad caught my elbow as ice-freighted thorns threatened to tear my mantle; the slope was unforgiving and it took a careful step to cut across instead of slipping downward. “Do you need rest?” The words were barely a murmur, ready to be lost amid the stealthy bustle of a winter forest on a bright day.
“I am well enough, merely clumsy,” I whispered in return, grimly determined not to slow them or Arn further. “Who do you think it is?”
“Elder.” He caught himself, glancing down at me. “You are so quiet, my lady, we forget you do not know our ways. At least a dozen Elder, maybe more. One or two of our kind, though that is difficult to tell—the Firstborn with them are covering their passage much as Aeredh did for us.”
Was that what his singing was meant to do?It would be a goodseidhrto learn, if I could manage to arrange the lessons. I nodded, and his hand fell away once he was sure of my footing. “Do you think…” My throat was very dry; I muffled a cough before I could speak again. “Do you think Soren survived? He was behind us.”
He glanced again at me as if startled; his eyes were blue as my mother’s but not so deep. “He has his task, as we have ours. Don’t worry for him.”
“Ah.” I nodded, seeking to appear brave—or at least, unsurprised. At least he seemed disposed to speak, so there had to be little danger of being heard at the moment. “What was his task?”
“Don’t know.” One shoulder lifted and dropped as he moved, feline instead of wolflike, and though the sigil upon it opened wolf-jaws wide in song, the rest of the emblem had a watchful cast. “Our sole concern is you—and your shieldmaid, naturally. Efain to lead us free of the city, and Karas to find the path. He has a gift for it, you see.”
For the wolves of Naras to call one of their own a great pathfinder was thought-provoking indeed. “And what is your task, son of Aerenil?”
“Merely to lend my sword, my lady. Or to die in your stead, should it be necessary.” He studied me sidelong, placing his boots without looking and making no noise at all. The dust in his hair had turned to clay, slicked down with mist-moisture. “You remember my father’s name.”
“Of course.” How did one respond when a Northerner saidto die in your stead? Arn did not speak so, for all her duty is to guard. She knew very well it was my task to keep her from Hel’s lands, or to go with her if we met a foe too large for our combined might to vanquish.
An event which seemed more and more likely indeed the farther we traveled. I had never thought of our compact in such stark terms at home.
