Autumn lengthened over the plains of Éadan, bringing with it storms even darker and even fiercer than the country had known for many a year. The summer of Elu and Mirulas’ handfasting ceremony was left far behind, and was almost forgotten as the rain lashed across the fields and flattened the crops. There was a big to do over the first reaping over the wheat and barley in old Eldeen’s plots, and half a dozen cows were lost one night during a particularly brutal storm. Some said the bad weather was down to the gods being angry at the poor sacrifices that had been offered to them the year before; others said there was evil abroad that was creeping slowly over from the north. Whatever the truth of the matter, the people became frightened; and a great many of them took to their houses and would not venture out until the skies had brightened.
During the beginning of September,
the attacks began. It did not really
surprise anyone. There had been too
many rumours of Aksees and trolls banding together to rob villages of their
grain and cattle. These were losses
that Welle could not afford. Many of
the men gathered together to watch over the granaries and fields in groups at
night. There were skirmishes with the
raiders at least once a week. The folk
were not sure how long they would last until the winter came and the weather
was too treacherous for the many attacks to be planned on the outlying
villages. Until then, their situation
was precarious. The Aksees especially
were strong and hardy. They could stake
out a village for many nights on end without tiring. If such an attack faced Welle, the village would surely be
doomed.
There was not much lore that existed
on the Aksees. What men fear, they
loathe to ponder on. What they hate,
they do not seek to understand. It was
said that during the War of the Sundering, the black magics of the tûrkals and
their queen, Tolminäre, had opened the gateway between hell and the earth. From the blackness of their abode had come
the demons, led by the Demon King Mensilbord, to aid Tolminäre in her war
against the armies of Light. During the
war, it was said that many of the demons ran amok over Éadan, killing men and
raping women. From their loins were
created the Aksees, the spawn of demons.
Hideous and larger than a five-year-old infant at birth, they had torn
from their mothers’ wombs and killed her in childbirth. That was the cruelty and wickedness of the
demons. Yet most agreed that the women
would rather have died than see themselves bear a demon child.
After the War of the Sundering,
Mensilbord and all his kind were banished from the earth by the six Elder
Mithlonei, the Guardians. But the
Aksees were left behind to wreak havoc upon the inhabitants of Éadan. Their numbers were never large, but they
were brawny and fierce. They were dark
and leathery of skin, taller than mortal men by two heads. Their eyes shone like green fire, and their
teeth were like fangs, lined with blood and spittle. They were filthy, base creatures, knowing nothing of culture or
manners. They lived only to rob and to
gorge, and to pass on these loathsome deeds to their offspring. They were abominations, caricatures of
humanity. They opposed all that the
mortal races stood for. It was said
that only the hot breath of a dragon would destroy the Aksees once and for
all. But dragons had long been known to
be extinct.
The forced separation after the
handfasting was a lonely, hard time for Elu.
She and Mirulas were forbidden to have any more contact than the
strictly formal or superficial. Elu
didn’t mind this all too much – after all, it was only to last three months –
but the separation grated on Mirulas’ nerves, and several times Elu feared that
he would break down the door of his own house just to have a word with
her. She had never known him to be an
impatient man, but then he had been apart from her for eight years of
self-professed self-denial. The thought
of it made her feel a little queer. She
tried not to imagine what it would be like to have feelings for someone that
long and not be able to do anything about it.
On her part, her feelings for Mirulas were much younger, much
fresher. They were pleasant to her, but
not a source of discomfort as they seemed to be to Mirulas. She could wait. She was a patient creature.
Still, it was lonely, and this was compounded by
the strange revelations that had come to her the night of her handfasting. Something in her mind and her heart had
changed; there was a restlessness inside her that she could not tell. It had first awoken in her when that strange
storyteller had spoken to her of the War of the Sundering and the Age of
Twilight; but she realised that it had lain latent within her for a longer time
than that. She did not know what it was
that so troubled her. All she knew was
that her dreams had grown longer, and darker.
Most nights she awoke sweating and gasping for breath, desperately
trying to quell the screams forming in her throat. But she never remembered the content of her dreams, only that
they seemed to be shrouded in an impenetrable darkness. As for the storyteller, he had not been able
to shed any light on them at all. He
had left Welle early the next morning, as swiftly as he had appeared. Elu did not dare to go back to the old Oak
Tree. She was still not sure whether
she was imagining the words it spoke to her, but it frightened her. She wondered if she’d ever be able to walk
by it without blanching again.
No one save those who knew her best
knew how much these nightmares pained Elu; and there were few who knew her well
enough to see the hurt in her eyes. Old
Eldeen saw it often, but when he asked Elu she would not tell him of it; and
Mirulas knew her best, but he was not permitted to converse with her. These were difficult times for the young
couple – Elu had no one to confide in, and Mirulas was distressed by the
anxiety he saw in his fiancée’s eyes.
Even he could sense a deep change in her, and it troubled him to the very
core of his being.
Autumn crawled on, and the three
months since the handfasting were nearly at an end, and the auspicious months
of harvest were beginning to hold sway.
Autumn was the time of Aanstide, a celebrating of the time when the
Elder God Aan was first said to have entered into the world of mortals and
given it light. Naturally, wedding
preparations and the general festivities took over the villager’s minds. But there was a sombreness to their thoughts
that none could deny. In the last week
before the wedding there were two attacks made by a small band of Aksees. Much of the food preparations for the
celebrations were stolen; four cows were driven from their fields, and eight
sheep. To many, this was a bad
omen. Mirulas was pressed by several of
his friends to postpone the wedding until the winter months when the Aksees
would abandon the western most plains of Éadan, but he would hear none of
it. He was going to marry Elu at the
appointed time, come rain or shine, Guardians or Aksees. Elu was wise enough to keep her mouth shut,
but she went about that last week looking paler than usual. Mirulas was dismayed to see the anxiety upon
her face. If he had had his way he
would have comforted her in any way he possibly could, but he could not, not
without a reprimand from his father, and another three month wait until their
marriage. Tempers were frayed and
spirits were down. The usual jovial
atmosphere of the wedding feast was nowhere in evidence.
Elu busied her mind by walking out
alone in the fields most days, seeking solace.
The weather was becoming steadily more unfriendly. It was odd for September. There was the occasional storm, granted, but
not for days on end. And where was the
rich golden sun? Why were there so many
clouds gathering from the north? In the
end Elu only wished to hide from them.
She found herself seeking refuge under the Oak Tree one morning, where
her sight of the grey clouds would be blocked out under its thick canopy. Almost as soon as she was safely ensconced
there she reached out to touch the aged, grooved bark. Nothing.
There was nothing. She almost
heaved a sigh of relieve. Perhaps she
really had been imagining it all.
“It’s peaceful here, isn’t it?”
Elu started and turned. Mirulas was behind her, looking
half-sheepish and half determined. Elu
turned her back on him again, blushing, annoyed that he should have crept up on
her unawares.
“You shouldn’t be here Mirulas,” she
warned him quietly, trying not to look as if she was talking to him, “If anyone
sees us our pledge will be denounced before your father.”
He moved forward then, put his own
hand up against the bark. For a moment
he was silent and she thought wildly that perhaps he had heard it too. But after a moment he turned and smiled
wanly at her. “I would not have come here unless I had not seen the trouble in
your eyes,” he replied softly. He
hesitated between staying where he was and moving in further towards her. “You
have not been yourself of late, Elu.” He said it almost sadly.
“It’s nothing,” she answered
shortly, half surprised that he had been watching her so closely. But of course he had. He was her husband-to-be, after all. And she knew that she could not lie
convincingly to him. His face alone was
testament to that. Despite all, she was
touched. “Oh Mirulas, I can’t help thinking that this is all some terrible
mistake. Maybe we should not be wed
after all.”
The look that crossed his face
almost broke her heart. “Then you do not want us to be married, Elu?” he
finally asked her, his voice wavering despite all his efforts.
“Of course I want us to be married!”
she was quick to reassure him, “But there have been so many terrible things
happening to us recently. The Aksees
have been plundering us dry. I know
that there’s hardly anything left in the village for the everyday things, let
alone for the wedding. And I know that
many of your friends are saying that it means it will be bad for you to marry
me. They think it means I will be a
barren wife.” Her voice shook even as she
said it. She hadn’t realised that she
had been so upset about it. Of course
she had been trying to cover it all with her pride.
Mirulas was horrified to see the
tears in her eyes. “Let them say what they want!” he raged, “I will not have
them slander you because of this! It
has been a hard season this year, ‘tis all.
How dare they say such things about you! It’s nothing more than superstitions!”
His fists were balled, clenched
tight. For a moment Elu was afraid he
would run back down the hill and strike someone. Hardly thinking, she caught him by the arm quickly. “Mirulas,
don’t hurt anyone! They don’t say it to
hurt me. It is only that they care for
you, and want the best for you.”
“If they did they would not say such
things about you,” he spoke with gritted teeth. Then he looked at her, and his green eyes were clear and bright.
“Elu, I love you so. Pay no mind to
what those fools say. Whatever happens
we shall be married, and I shall make you as happy as you shall make me. And I shall make sure that all see it.”
She smiled, but she knew that the
smile did not reach her eyes.
“All right. I’ll pay no mind to what they say. And we shall be married as soon as we
possibly can.”
He looked back on her, and she
thought she saw pity in his eyes. But
he took her hand and squeezed it briefly before letting go of it.
“I must leave now Elu, before we are
seen. But it shall not be long before
we are able to be together once again.” His eyes were bright with expectation.
She nodded. “I love you, Mirulas,”
she told him as he left. He only turned
once to smile at her. When he was gone,
Elu sighed and rested her forehead against the trunk of the Oak Tree. It supported her, old but vast and
strong. It seemed to hold her in its
own energy, in its own aged power.
Without even thinking about it she reached out into the grooves and
lines of the bark with her own consciousness, felt it meld and sink into the
depths of the wood. For a moment she
felt the very substance of its being, the sinew of twigs and branches, the
twitching of leaves, the rivers of sap that channelled across its wizened
body. Almost she saw the many things
this tree had witnessed from its youth to its prime to now, its twilight years. Memories of scarred battle plains, of bloodied
bodies littering the fields, of fires blazing through cities and towns and
villages, of dark clouds shot with red gathering over the plains, blocking out
the light, the light of the Spheres…
I
have seen many things. And I see not
love for this boy in your heart.
The words snapped the briefness of the contact that they had
shared. Elu opened her eyes to find
herself sprawling on her back, staring up at the dark canopy of fleshy leaves
above her. The images flashed through
her mind like a slideshow: war, blood, bodies, flames, clouds, darkness…
She lay on her back, eased her heaving chest, but did not dare to close her eyes. It was then that she realised that the Tree was older than anyone had ever before suspected.
The next morning Elu awoke to a cold
foreboding, not remembering whether she had dreamed or not that night. The day before had seemed almost like a
dream itself. She vaguely remembered
helping Eldeen secure the cows in his field for the night, and helping Mistress
Eldeen to prepare the evening meal. The
only memory that stood out to her was the brief connection she had shared with
the Tree. It troubled her. She did not want to think on it.
Rising slowly she dressed, stoked up a fresh fire in
the glowing embers that were left in her hearth, and boiled a kettle of water
for some tea. When she had made her tea
she sat by her table and stared despondently into the cup. It was so unusual for her to feel like this. True, she had never been an outgoing or
flamboyant woman, and had never cared for the frivolities and amusements that
the other young girls of the village did.
And though she was quiet and at times introverted, she had never been
melancholy as she was now. Ah, but what
did she know? There was a part of her
life missing, one that she did not remember.
What had she been like then, she thought ruefully?
She tried to recall that part of her
life she had no memory of. She tried to
reach out into the remotest corners of her mind; she tried to seek the thing
she had lost. Nothing came. It was as though it had been cut off from
her, severed from her being even as a limb.
Why then should she care for it now?
Because it haunted her. She tried to pinpoint the moment when it had
first begun to. That, she could easily
remember. It had been the day of her
handfasting ceremony to Mirulas, when the storyteller had come to Welle and
spoken to her of all those awful tales.
Why awful? Because they had disturbed
her. And what was it that he’d said to
her? I think that here you will be safe.
Involuntarily, a shiver ran down Elu’s spine. Not for the first time a feeling came to her, that she was not
safe, that she never would be. She did not even understand what the feeling
meant. All she knew was that that was the foreboding feeling that was
consuming her.
Outside a flash of lightning darted
across the skies and was shortly followed by a deep crack of thunder. The clouds were thick and ominous, gathering
over the crest of the western hills.
More thunder rumbled, and it seemed to sound over and over, unnaturally,
galloping over the fields like a herd of wild horses. A bitter smile chilled itself across Elu’s lips. At first she felt as if the weather was
matching the feeling deep inside the pit of her stomach. Then, she understood. Something was deeply wrong.
In a moment Elu was out of her
cottage and racing out onto the dirt track.
From the amount of people that were running out of their houses, it
looked as though she was not the only one who had heard it. Raising her head, Elu looked wildly up to
the pitch clouds looming over the horizon.
Lightning skidded across the grey backdrop, lighting up momentarily
before it was replaced by darkness and a low crack that reverberated into the distance. That
was thunder. The sound that was coming
over the hills was not.
It took a split second for panic to
descend over the village. To Elu, it
was like watching a slow moving puppet show.
It was almost as if the villagers were being grabbed by strings on their
backs and were being hurtled about the place.
Women were grabbing their children and pushing them frantically into the
house, men were clutching staves and pitchforks and brandishing them
wildly. It took that strange moment of
slow motion for Elu to realise what she already knew. The Aksees were coming; and it was the stamp of their feet she
had heard, grumbling over the hills like thunder.
Something took her then, something
indescribable and wild. She could
hardly think before her body had moved and she was running away. She did not know where she was running to at
first. It could have been back into her
house, to cower and hide; it could have been into the fields, to run away from
the impeding attack. It could even have
been to pick up a weapon, and drive away the monsters she knew were coming to
raid her village. But it was neither of
those. She was racing up the dirt track
to the house where Mirulas was staying.
In this darkest of moments, all she could think of was him.
Already the Aksees were pouring down
the hill and towards the village entrance.
From the stories of the village men, Elu had always been given to
believe that the darker creatures of the world did not band in great numbers or
force. There were too few of them, and
they cared not for camaraderie, nor the safety of groups. They were lone scavengers, hunters,
wolverines. At best they grouped in
fours or fives to plunder the small and unsuspecting villages throughout Éadan. What was frightening to Elu was that there
was a great band of Aksees marching down the hill, perhaps twenty or thirty;
and not only were there Aksees, but also trolls and goblins, ghouls and
werewolves. It was not a small gang
that was coming for their harvests. It
was a small army. And were they here
for harvests or for more? Were they
here for blood?
All these questions and realisations
pounded through Elu’s brain in a flash, but she could not heed them all at
once. As the enemy smashed into the
small group of men that had lined up to defend their beloved families and home,
she only knew one thing. That Mirulas
must not join them.
It seemed an age before she reached
the house, and when she did she found the door ajar. Crashing through without knocking, she stood in the hallway,
calling out wildly.
“Mirulas! Mirulas! Where are
you! It’s Elu, Elu is here!”
There was no answer. Wild with terror know, deaf to the clash of
steel and the cries of pain that echoed outside, she dashed through the house
like a mad thing, over-turning tables and chairs as she did so.
“Mirulas!” she called, the panic
rising in her voice.
“Elu!” She heard him then,
distinctly, from a room on the top floor.
His bedroom. Racing there she
opened the door and saw him by the bed, pulling a leather jerkin over his arms
and buckling it firmly. On the bed by
his side lay a short, rusted sword.
“No, Mirulas, you mustn’t!” she
cried in horror, understanding immediately what it meant.
“I must,” he spoke grimly, not
looking at her. “My father has gone down, and I must join him. This is our village.”
“No!” she cried, clutching onto his
arm, forgetting all protocol, all rules in that one moment. “I beg you not
to! You do not know how many are out
there! There are thirty, maybe
more! You will not be able to stop
them!”
For a moment, doubt took him, then a
spasm of pain crossed his face. There
were not more than thirty menfolk in the whole of Welle. Suddenly Elu realised that his father had
been amongst the line of men who had joined to defend the village as the enemy
had first attacked. To her dismay
determination set his face, and his mouth was straight. Revenge was tight in his jaw.
“Then I am the village elder,” he
breathed, half to himself, “and I shall not let them take Welle!”
Desperation took her then, cutting
through the coldness of her fear. She
clung to his arm, trembling like a child, looking up at him with pleading
eyes. “No! You cannot go! They will
kill you! How can one man stand against
them, when so many have died already?
Mirulas, I beg you!”
He looked down upon her, and she was
surprised to see the calm pity in his eyes.
She had never seen anything so resolute in his face before, so noble and
steadfast. “You do not understand Elu,”
he spoke softly to her, as though speaking to a child. “This is my home, I was
born here and I was raised here, and if I must die here then so be it. Elu, you have no recollection of a home, you
do not know what it is to feel its roots in your heart. My home may be no more than a humble
village, but it is my home, and those people out there are my people. I must protect them.”
She shook her head wildly, tears
pricking her eyes. “No, Mirulas, please!
I love you! And if you love me
in return, you would understand that I cannot let you go down and fight! I could not bear to lose you!”
“Elu,” he had finished buckling his
belt to his side, and now he took her by both hands and looked her steadily in
the eyes. “Elu, you know that I love you.
That is why I protect you now.
Think you that I would run away from the women and babes in this
village? No, I shall not. Would you marry a craven, Elu? Would you be my wife knowing that I had sold
the lives of our women and children?
No, Elu, that is what I could not bear.
Please, I must do this.”
Elu was silent. She knew then that it was impossible to stop
him. Even as he stooped low to kiss
her, she felt the knot bundle in her throat and the hotness sting her
eyes. She could not cry now, not after
everything.
“I go,” he determined softly, and in
a moment he had left her. She followed
him, out of a feeling she did not know.
Fear? Desperation? Love?
Love? Words, thoughts, memories,
experiences flowed in and out of one another, brief, spontaneous. For a moment she almost thought she
remembered her past. But it was only the
terror of this moment, when she knew she would truly lose him.
Carnage met her outside the
door. Already the slain were strewn
about the street, women and children were either cowering in corners or crying
by the bodies of husbands, fathers, brothers.
Several of the fires had been set ablaze by Aksees carrying flaming
torches. Welle was being
destroyed. Straining her eyes she
looked for Mirulas. There she saw him,
at the old well, fighting off a group of Aksees with a band of men who were
still living and still able to fight.
He was strong and wielded his sword with an expertise that many of the
other men did not have. The lines of
vengeance were written all over his face, but the Aksees were tougher, wilder,
and more experienced. They cared not
for courage or revenge. They swept
aside blades and axes with incredible ease.
It was like swatting down flies.
Mirulas didn’t stand a chance.
She had to save him!
She stumbled forward, smoke filling
her lungs, choking on the rancid mixture of burning and blood. “Mirulas!” she called, over and over. It was the only word she was aware of.
“Mirulas!” Suddenly her foot hit
against something hard. A body, stiff,
unyielding. She retched even as she
connected with the floor. The pain of
her grazes hardly touched her. She coughed
violently. The stench was
unbearable. All about her was
smoke. She could no longer see Mirulas.
“Mirulas!” she called out again,
weaker, “Where are you?”
The only sound to reply to her calls
was the deep grumble of laughter. She
looked back over her shoulder, felt the grasp of a rough, calloused hand
against her ankle. Someone was lifting
her up, upside down, laughing at her attempts at modesty as she strove to keep
him away from her skirts. It was an
Aksees, a big, strong one. He was
different from the others; there was a crude feather bobbing in his matted,
greasy hair, and a studded belt flashing about his waist. It was too dirty to catch the light of the
flames.
“What have we here?” he rumbled,
lust filling his voice. “A pretty little woman, eh?”
She struggled to free herself,
kicking and clawing at him. He simply
dodged her flailing limbs and chuckled deeply.
“Feisty, aren’t we! Well, I like a woman with some spunk. How’s about I teach you a lesson in manners,
eh?”
He threw her back down against a
pile of half-burning hay, not caring if she was burnt. Pain seared through her arms as the fire
touched her and she shrieked out loud with it.
The next moment she felt the heavy weight of him against her, his heavy
hands grasping her arms, holding her down.
She knew then without a doubt what his intentions were. A terror gripped her as no other terror
had. Not this! Anything but this!
“Mirulas!” she screamed.
Somewhere out of the chaos he
answered her. It was almost like a
prayer answered in a nightmare. She saw
him emerge from the smoke, his face contorted in rage and grief. The swing of his sword, glinting in the
light of the flaming village. The blood
spraying upon her as the Aksees fell dead before her. The next moment Mirulas was before her, rolling the body away.
“Elu, it’s all right, I’m here.”
She wept then, the sobs shuddering
through her body as the tears forced themselves out of her eyes. “He was going
to…He was going to…” she began, but the thoughts were too horrible even to
voice.
“I know,” he shushed her, cradled
her tenderly against his chest. Then he
drew back and helped her to stand.
There was a grim look on his face. “Follow me,” was all he said.
She followed him back to Eldeen’s
burning house, and holding her hand he led her round the back. There, hidden by a large stack of building
stones, was waiting his horse and cart, tethered to the structure. The mare’s eyes were wide and bright with
fright as it saw them approaching, but Mirulas calmed it with a small pat on
its thick neck. First he undid the
tether. Then, with a strength Elu did not know he had, he swept her off her
feet and bundled her into the cart with one fluid movement and looked back up
at her.
“Fally will take you out of the
village without any trouble,” he spoke quickly, sharply. “Take the reins once
you’re out onto the plains. Head west,
for the Rillon Forest. Don’t stop until
you get there.” He paused, took her hand and pressed his lips to it. “Good bye, Elu,” he spoke softly, his eyes
bright. Something flopped inside of
her. Her heart.
“You’re not coming?” she choked.
“No Elu, I explained why I can’t,”
he spoke patiently, but it was almost as if the words would break at any
moment. “But wait for me at Rillon. I
will meet you there. Until then…”
His words were cut off by the sudden
shout of an Aksees voice hollering round the corner. “That’s the one! That’s
the dog that killed our master! Take
him!”
In a moment they were upon him. With a slap of his hand he sent Fally galloping. With a jolt the cart heaved into motion, and
Elu was sent reeling back against a sack in the corner. When she was able to get on her knees again,
and look out over the edge of the cart, almost all the village was lost to
smoke and flame. The last she saw of
Mirulas was the blade of a sword, cleaving through the air. She was not sure whether it was his, or his
attacker’s.
On Fally raced, half out of fear and
half out of duress. The jolting of the
cart was enough to make Elu want to vomit.
There was a new kind of screaming, ringing in her ears. Her stomach lurched.
I
die! I die!
She managed to find the strength to peer over the edge of the cart
again. Up on the hill, the Oak Tree was
burning. She felt it reach out for her,
felt the flames twisting as though through her own body, felt the singing of
leaves, smelt the carrion smell of blazing bark. She sank back into the sack she had landed on. Her mind danced and leapt in the flames that
consumed it. Her body went limp. Somewhere in the middle of it all, she
thought she swooned.
The last thing she was aware of was
the Tree’s long life coming to an end, as its consciousness snapped from her
own, even as a twig snapping from the branch that fed it. The sharpness of the loss was something she
thought she would never feel again. In
the pain of it, she was finally lost to darkness.