When Elu next awoke she had no idea of where she
was. From the sickening jolting of the
cart she knew that Fally was still riding, and from the point of the sun in the
sky she knew it was high afternoon. She
was not sure how long they had been gone from Welle. She was not sure how long Fally had been galloping, or if she had
stopped at all during the way for rest.
For Elu, it was a debate on whether she cared at all or not. With the memory of how she had left the
village a nausea flooded over her. She
did not want to get up.
She was not sure why she did in the
end. It would have been pleasant just
to lie down and sleep again. Just to
lie down and die. But even as she had
lain there on her back, watching the sky, a feeling had surged in her. Mirulas.
He had said he would meet with her in the Rillon Forest. She had no idea of where it was, but it was
the last piece of hope she could cling to.
What was it he had said? Head
east. All right. East.
She would go there.
With both hands she levered herself
up to look over the edge of the cart.
The fields all about were quiet and peaceful. There was nothing amiss.
She had to be far from Welle.
Looking up, she saw the sun directly ahead of her. She shook her head, trying to get herself to
think clearly. Sun. High noon.
Facing towards it. Must be
going…west. South west. Quickly Elu rose and found the reins,
pulling them in. Fally stopped
abruptly, almost as though she was glad for a reason to stop. Slowly, painfully, Elu jumped out of the
cart. Her legs hurt.
Fally was staring ahead of her, eyes
large, wild. There was foam specked on
her mouth, and her hair and coat were matted, thick with sweat and dirt. Wearily, Elu passed a calming hand over her
mane. She wished there were someone to
do the same for her.
“It’s all right,” she sighed to the
tired, frightened mare, “We’ll rest now.
We’re safe. We don't have to run
anymore.”
She lowered her hand and looked
about her. Grass in abundance. A small pond in the distance. Enough for the horse. Not much for her. For the first time she felt the weakness and hunger tremble
through her body, the thrumming pain beating up her arms. Looking down she saw the red traces of burns
from where the Aksees chief had flung her onto the burning heap of hay. They were not serious burns, but the pain
was almost unbearable. The skin had
swelled and wrinkled, and were sore to touch.
Gritting her teeth, she attempted to hold down the pain. She had no salve, no ointment to heal them with. Best to try to ignore it as best she
could. She knew she would not be able
to for long.
Fally was much calmer now. Elu un-tethered her from the cart, and led
her to the pond that she might drink.
When Fally was safely grazing nearby, she looked about for something to
fill her stomach. There were several
blackberry bushes nearby, and some sweetroot plants growing on the banks of the
pond. There wasn’t much for her to eat,
but it would have to do. She gathered
as much as she could for the journey to the forest. Only then did she eat.
The water from the pond was hardly clean, but it would have to do. She drank as much as she could bear. She had no pouch or gourd to carry any water
in. She hoped that Mirulas had time to
think of provisions before he left the village. Or what was left of the village.
A twinge of pain clutched at her belly as she thought of Eldeen and his
wife, and all she had loved and known.
She did not question that Mirulas would escape alive. The possibility that he would not was not
something to comprehend.
Noon was passing when they set off
again, this time heading northeast. Elu
abandoned the cart and rode astride Fally, thinking that it would be too heavy
and cumbersome if they were to travel in haste. It was difficult to keep astride the unsaddled horse. Elu had not had much experience in riding
horses, much less unsaddled ones – she only knew the little that Mirulas had
taught her. After a while her backside
began to hurt from the persistent bumping, and her arms now throbbed with a
sharp, constant ache. But now other
thoughts were consuming her. Already
dusk was nearing. Elu wanted to get to
the forest by dark. Travelling the
plains by night would be almost as dangerous as seeking out Aksees themselves.
The journey was rugged and
exhausting. Fally seemed to be coping
with it well. She was a strong horse,
well used to her master’s handling. But
Elu was tired, miserable and aching.
She had several bruises and cuts as well as burns from the attack on the
village. It was the burns that pained
her the most. She thought longingly of
Mistress Eldeen’s balms in her remedy cupboard at home. Gone, all gone.
It was nightfall by the time that
they reached the outskirts of the Rillon Forest. Elu was not sure whether she would wait outside the forest or go
inside it. Maybe Mirulas was already
there? Fally sorted out the dilemma for
her in the end. Out of sheer exhaustion
the brown mare dropped into a clump of leaves outside the forest entrance and
promptly fell asleep. Watching the act
somehow seemed to bring Elu’s own lassitude back to her. Unable to walk a step further by herself she
lay down, drawing herself up to the warm belly of the mare. In a moment she was asleep.
She woke the next morning to a dewy
frost that bit into her. It was a cold
the likes of which she had never felt before.
Shivering hard she stood up slowly.
Fally had disappeared into the distance to graze. There was nothing to eat apart from the
small store of sweetroot and blackberries that Elu had left. She made a meagre breakfast of them, then
sat and waited. She waited from dawn
till dusk. No Mirulas. She slept the sleep of darkness once more.
By the next morning she had finished
her stock of food. Still Mirulas did
not come. A sort of despair came over
her, one where she did not even feel the hunger gnawing at her stomach. At last she knew she could not go on like
this. She would have to go into the
forest and search for food and water.
Otherwise she would die. And
what use would she be to Mirulas then?
The thought braced her into
action. She called out to Fally, who
came to her from a nearby field. Taking
the mare’s reins firmly in her hands, she led her into the forest. The horse was stubborn. It did not want to go in. Elu tugged at the reins. Despite her weakness, she had to move
on. She could not even remember the
last time she had had a drink of water.
The forest opened up to them, dark
and unwelcoming. The trees were tall,
thick, and dense. Hardly a shred of light
penetrated from the layer of canopy that lay above. The rustle of leaves, of bracken were the only sounds of any
substance Elu could make out, apart from the sound of her own feet and Fally’s
hooves. Nearby, unseen, was the quiet
throb of wildlife. The odd bird
chirped, a squirrel scuttled up a tree.
The sunlight was pallid upon the ground.
Elu hardly noticed any of these
things. The emptiness of her stomach
was clawing at her now; the dryness of her throat scorched her. She was dimly aware of a sharp pain searing
up her arm, but in the wake of her hunger and thirst it hardly seemed
relevant. Food. Water.
Those were the priorities right now.
She did not care that Fally was whinnying agitatedly at her, nor that
the mare was tugging madly at the reins.
It was all she could manage just to keep the mount in order. Her strength would allow nothing else.
She did not think she had gone far
into the forest when she heard it.
Crackling in the bushes, crunching teeth, slavering tongue. She was only vaguely aware that these were
the reasons why Fally had been so disturbed.
It was a bear. It was watching
her, through the break in the trees, observing her every movement with its
beady black eyes. It had been feeding
on a meatless bone that had long gone dry of any marrow, when Elu had stumbled
into its path. Indeed, to the bear this
was a fine catch. A horse and a
human. The girl he could eat now. The horse he would save for later.
The attack was short, precise. In a crash the bear had broken through the
trees and scrub, and had fallen upon them.
Somewhere in the midst of her dazed senses, Elu heard Fally’s screams as
the huge brown creature came for them.
The horse would have bolted, but for Elu’s grip on the reins. For several wild moments they tugged with
one another, Fally to free herself, Elu to hold on, unable to grasp what was
happening. But the roar of the bear
broke their struggle. With a whip of
its strong, clawed arms it ripped into Fally’s side, halting the mare into a
daze of pain and fear. Elu fell back
behind the horse, her arm jerking violently as she attempted to still keep a
grip on the reins. The pain zigzagged
through her, honing her brain to a keenness of awareness that she did not
want. All too suddenly she realised the
predicament she was in. Panic rising
through her, she kept behind the flailing horse, trying to shield herself from
the bear’s assault. It roared, annoyed
that Elu was evading him. With one huge
blow of its arm it cracked into Fally’s skull, laying the horse flat. She lay, twitching and bloody, on the edge
of Elu’s vision.
Run!
Somewhere the order seemed to shout itself into Elu’s brain, making itself
known, run, Elu!
She tried, only to find that her right leg had been caught under Fally
as she had fallen. A mixture of pain
and fear twisted through her gut. She
wrenched at her leg, tried to free it.
It was no good. There was no
strength left in her. The bear could
not believe its luck. Drawn on now by
sheer hunger and desperation, it lunged for Elu, ready for the kill. Elu saw it coming for her, on and on and
on. Could such a moment last
forever? The last few moments before death? Something struggled within her, a twisting
battle between two things. Survival and
acquiescence. Almost she thought she
would give in. A memory snaked up, out
of the darkness. A man, bearing upon
her, bright sword drawn to strike, swinging back to rend the life out of her. Nothing more.
The two moments, the past and the
present, joined together seamlessly. She
was no longer certain whether it was man or bear, bear or man who was falling
down upon her. Instinctively, she
raised her left arm to defend herself.
It was then that she realised that she could not move her arm at all.
Even as the pain ground at her, even
as she was about to give into death, she saw someone, a shadow leap out with a
cry from the underbrush. And then, she
heard a whoosh of air, a thud, a crack, a yowl of horror and pain. As she tried to shield herself with her
other arm, she could hear the skirmish about her, but could hardly see it. The bear upon her had seemed intent on
maiming her before it went down, but then, when the pain in her arm was just
about to get unbearable, she heard an exclamation, another sickening crack, and
then the bear fell dead on top of her.
She lowered her arm, blinked in
surprise. A shadow was standing above
her, but her vision was so fuddled, she couldn’t make out whom it was.
“Shh,” said the someone before she
could speak. The figure knelt down
beside her, appraising her. “It’s okay, the worst is over. It is dead.”
Dead. The word echoed itself in Elu’s mind. Somehow it seemed amusing to her. What was dead? The bear
or her past? She tried to laugh. It hurt.
“Be still,” spoke the voice again,
“You have been through an ordeal. Save
your strength.”
There was no strength left to
save. Elu was only vaguely aware of the
person’s horror as they looked upon her wounds.
“Miss,” came the voice again,
quicker, tighter, “what happened to you?”
The urge to speak brought it
on. A wave of pain she could no longer
hold down. She gave into the flood and
quietly fainted.
A sword. The memory streaked across her mind’s eye like a streak of light
unfolding in the dark. She watched the
blade cut through the blackness of her dream, followed it as it shimmered from
a point of light to that sharp, keen, metal edge. Then the hilt, blood red, somehow connected to the dream
image. She held her breath. A hand.
The man with the sword was
approaching her. She squinted her eyes;
a fear took her that even the darkness had not been able to give her. She knew he was going to kill her. His blade was drawn to strike, but there was
no hostility in his stance. There was
only resolution, as though he thought of this as his duty. He had killed many, many times before. Yet as he neared her she caught something
else in his presence. Horror. It radiated off him in waves. He stood back. The blade lowered. There
was no longer any light.
No! I beg you!
Do not do it!
She didn’t know whether it was her voice or his that spoke.
The memory dissipated as a seed on
the wind. The dream ended, and gave way
to the numb edges of wakefulness. Elu
stirred. The first thing she was aware
of was pain. It was in her body, nailing
through every limb she possessed. But
most of all, it was in her heart. She
felt it like a physical thing.
“Mirulas.”
There was a movement near her. She felt the figure approach her before she
saw it, dimly, on the brink of her bleary vision.
“What is it?” came that voice again.
“What did you say?”
The pain took her again. Slowly, unwillingly, she fell back into
unconsciousness.
The next time she awoke her mind was
clearer. Her sight was more focused,
and the pain was but a dull throb. It
took her a moment to become used to her surroundings. She was lying on a bed, rough, but warm and comforting to her
aching bones. The room that enclosed
her was small; the walls made of strong wood planked together. She sniffed. It was fresh, it was pine.
Somehow, the knowledge of that was a consolation. The furniture was sparse. A rough worktable in the corner, a stove at
the far end of the room, with a fire burning bright. A hob, with a kettle boiling over it. A log of wood for a bench.
Herbs hanging from the ceiling, dried food at the table. There were shuttered windows in the walls,
closed to the outside. Wind howled
against the shutters, making them bang.
She thought she heard the sound of branches grazing against the roof.
“A storm is brewing outside,” said
the familiar voice to her. “Best we stay indoors this night. The winds are fierce.”
At Elu’s bedside sat a young woman,
sewing thread into leather to make a jerkin.
The first thing Elu noticed was that her hands were long and deft as they
wove the strong twine into the tough fabric with an elegance Elu could not help
but admire. The rest of the woman was
unfamiliar to Elu. She was unlike
anyone Elu had ever seen before. Her
skin was dark, almost olive, but there was the tint of autumn leaves there, the
kind of leaves that had not quite given themselves over to the red and golden
hues of the harvest season. The woman’s
hair was black, but as she bobbed her head to look more closely at her work,
the firelight caught tinges of rich crimson and auburn. All her limbs were thin and supple, almost
unnaturally elongated. She was
beautiful, but she had the careworn look of one who had lived all her life in
labour and hardships.
After a moment, when she was
satisfied with her work, she set down the leather jerkin and looked up at Elu.
“How are you feeling?” she asked at
last.
Elu met her gaze. Her eyes were green, gentle and kind. Even to look at them brought the painful
memories back to her mind. Mirulas. Brown haired, green-eyed Mirulas. How long had she been asleep?
“Mirulas,” she uttered and tried to
sit up. Too quickly. With a groan she lay back down again.
“Easy,” the woman leant forward to
support her. “Many of your bones have been bruised as well as your flesh. It will take a time for them to heal. Try not to sit up too quickly.”
“I must go home!” Elu pleaded,
knowing she was being irrational. She
had no home to go to. “No,” she muttered slowly, “I must find Mirulas. He is waiting for me.”
“You will not be going out and
finding anyone, not for a while,” the woman told her kindly. “Rest awhile. Do not trouble yourself.”
“I cannot help but worry!” Elu
cried, frustration bringing tears to her eyes. “Mirulas! He is waiting for me! What if I have left him to starve in the
woods!” She looked up at the woman, beseeching her with her eyes. “Please. Tell me if a man has passed this way. He was meant to be waiting for me by the
forest. His hair was brown. His eyes were…” She paused, feeling the
first waves of nausea flood over her. “…Green.
I promised him I would meet him here.
I cannot disappoint him.”
The woman appeared to be thinking
hard. “A man, you say?” she shook her head slowly. “No, no man has passed this
way, not the kind of man you speak of.
If I had seen him, I would have known.
If he was asking for you, I would have brought him here.”
Despair descended over Elu. She felt the tears begin to well in her
eyes, then fall out, hot and stinging, one after the other. “There must be some
mistake,” she cried stubbornly. “He was meant to be here.”
The woman tried to comfort her,
stroking her arm and rubbing her hair.
But Elu could not stop. The sobs
racked her and choked her, until she was trembling with it. The woman was alarmed. Standing up she went to the fireplace and
poured out some water from the kettle into a mug. As she brought it to Elu the smell of it crept up to her. It was clean and pungent, like menthol. The woman took her head, steadied it, poured
a little of the drink down her throat.
Every few seconds she did this, until the trembling subsided. Elu lay back, exhausted. She was still crying, but the fit was no
longer upon her. The bed was warm and
welcoming. She gave into it, and fell
asleep.
It was dark when she next opened her
eyes. The woman was still sitting
beside her, grinding herbs into a mortar on her lap. She looked up at the ceiling.
The firelight cast flickering shadows out over the grainy planks of
wood. It reminded Elu of a puppet show
she had once watched during a midsummer carnival in Welle.
“How long have I been here?” she
asked the woman quietly. The woman
answered briefly and straightforwardly.
She was an honest woman.
“Five days,” she answered, but her
voice was kindly.
Elu sighed. “Then he is dead,” she
spoke to the ceiling. The woman was
silent. It was as though she knew that
nothing she could say would fill in the gap in Elu’s heart. At last, Elu spoke again.
“Where am I?”
The woman looked up at her with
clear eyes. “You are in my home. We are
in the Rillon Forest, a good half hour’s walk into it.” She paused, and when
next she spoke her voice was grim. “You were lucky I came to you when I
did. A moment later and that bear would
have had you for its dinner.”
“What happened?” Elu asked,
curiosity getting the better of her.
“Nothing much that you don’t
know. I heard your cries from a way
off. It was a lucky thing I had my
walking stave with me. I had only been
out gathering mushrooms. And the horse,
poor thing. If it had not shielded you
from the bear’s first attack you would surely not be here now. If circumstances had been different…” She
stopped and shook her head, not wanting to think on it. Then she looked at Elu questioningly. “And
why were you here, travelling in these woods in such a fearful state? There were burns on you.” She added,
knotting her eyebrows in concern.
A sharp pang twinged at Elu’s
guts. She did not want to think on the
happenings of the past few days, but she told the woman what had happened, as
precisely and succinctly as she could.
When she was done, the woman very surprised and very disturbed.
“Aksees, you say? In groups that large? It cannot be possible.”
“But they were,” Elu insisted
quietly. The retelling had taken more
out of her than she had first thought. “They burned the village, killed the men
folk, and most likely raped the womenfolk.
The children…” She dreaded to think what had happened to the children.
“Probably taken to be sold to the
tûrkals as slaves,” the woman grimaced, grinding hard at her herbs once more.
“They prefer them young. It gives them
more time to instill the cowering obedience they so desire.”
There was a mocking, bitter tone to
her voice. Elu sincerely hoped such a
thing had not truly happened. “I still don’t understand why they did it,” she
sighed, looking up at the ceiling again. “The villages are a source of food and
spoils to the Aksees. Why would they
take so great a band of men and burn Welle to a cinder? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps it is the darkness,” spoke
the woman. She laid aside her herbs,
and went over to the table.
“Darkness?” Elu repeated. She was oddly reminded of something the
storyteller had said. Suddenly, she
wondered abstractly where he was right now, and what he was doing.
“The darkness grows over the plains
of Éadan,” the woman spoke, half to herself, her voice full of foreboding. “I
see it and I feel it. Men fear it, but
the creatures of the dark do not. They
thrive on it; they always have done. It
draws them out, like a pestilence. It
makes them bold and strong. It poisons
what hearts they have. That, I fear, is
the reason for this all.”
She came back, bearing a bowl of
steaming broth in her hands. With a
gentle smile she held it out to Elu.
Instinctively Elu reached out for it with both hands, but was met only
with the sharp ache in her left arm.
She cried out, shocked to the core at the pain.
“It was broken,” said the woman
sadly, “in the fight with bear. I have
set it as best I can, and wrapped it in a poultice. But I am afraid it will take some time to heal. Here, let me help you.” She raised the bowl to Elu’s lips, and she
drank thankfully. The broth was thick
and good, and it tasted of forest herbs and wild mushrooms. She had not realised how terribly hungry she
was. She gulped it down greedily, and
the woman went back for more. She did
not have to ask to know how starved Elu was.
When Elu had eaten her fill, and had
drunk the good clean spring water from the mug that was brought her, she felt
the strength to speak once more.
“Who are you?” she asked of the
woman, curiously. “You do not look like any other creature that I have ever
seen.”
The woman smiled, that kind, gentle
smile.
“My name is Ifith. I am a sephira.”
Ah, Elu thought, a sephira. One of the four great races of Fithandani. But the sephira did not usually inhabit the
northern lands. Their kingdom was
Nithall, far away in the southeast. Elu
remembered tales of those parts from the minstrels and bards that had passed
through Welle. The region was humid and
lush, full of tropical rains and crawling jungles. In the middle of this green and verdant land rose the mountain
called Ithris, and it rose taller and whiter than any other mountain in the
world, like a marble pillar rising into the heavens. When the sephira had first travelled there in the Age of Light so
long ago, their nomad tribes had revered the mountain as being a living link to
the mortals of Fithandani and the gods of Arinfól. Under the orders of their first lord and king, Brinith, they had
carved their great halls into the base of the mountain and made it their
home. There the sephira lived, as they
did to this day, under the boy king Aldarith.
They were an easygoing race, often said to be frivolous and
hedonistic. They had no cares for the
outside world, and ventured not often from their lands. Why then, was this Ifith here in the wild,
so far away from home? The question
intrigued Elu.
“I know what you are thinking,”
Ifith laughed at Elu’s expression. “Why is a sephira here, so far away from the
beautiful green lands of Nithall, scrimping day in and day out just to make a
living?”
“Why are you?” Elu questioned.
Ifith laughed again. But there was a bitter note to her voice,
one that Elu thought she had wanted to hide but had been unable to. “We all
have our reasons,” she spoke finally, “for doing the things we do and being the
way we are. We all have our staves to
bear, however heavy they may be.” She
looked at Elu again, and there was true sympathy in her gaze. “I am sorry for
what happened to you, Elu. It is a hard
thing you have had to suffer. Not many
men have to go through such things in their lifetimes. But I… I share your pain. I know how it is. I will tell you no more than that tonight.”
She turned away, her eyes suddenly
dim, her jaw taut. Only the crackling
of the fire in the grate broke the silence in the room. Elu looked down at her hands. Somehow Ifith’s words had brought the
proximity of her grief back to her.
Mirulas…Perhaps he would come back.
Perhaps he was not dead. Perhaps
he had only missed her, while she had lain unconscious in this bed. Maybe he thought her dead, and was mourning for her as she was mourning for
him. The thought gave her a spark of
hope. Perhaps, when she recovered, she
would go in search for him, she would see whether he really had escaped. There was nothing left for her now. Nothing.
She slept that night, deeper and
better than she had for many nights previously. It was as though the spark of hope that the possibility of
Mirulas being alive had given her a certain peace of mind. But at the back of her mind, the doubts
clung to her like leeches. She tried to
ignore them. Still, the nightmares of
Welle’s demise did not fully go away.
There were burns on her arms. There were cuts on her face, grazes on her
knees and arms, bruises all up her legs.
These would all heal in time.
Even her broken arm would right itself in a few weeks. But her heart – no, something had gone
there. So many she had known, so many
she had loved and held dear to her had died.
Her heart would take longer to heal.
She did not know how long. And
if she knew Mirulas to be truly dead, well then, perhaps it would never
heal. The thought frightened her into
hoping for the best. It was all she
could do.
And so she spent her days in Ifith’s
hut, waiting for her physical hurts to heal.
The days were bittersweet, sometimes almost pleasant. Ifith was a good companion to have. She was friendly and open, spirited and
optimistic. But there was a sombre side
to her that she would not willingly share with Elu. When such moments came to her, she would wander off into the
woods, sometimes for hours. Elu had the
sense not to question her about it.
Some hurtful things were best left unshared. Sometimes, just to hear them uttered made them feel worse.
And so they kept their pains to
themselves, concentrating on filling their days with the idle chatter of
friends and comrades, the drying of herbs and the curing of meats; the stoking
of fires and the telling of tales. There
was a small measure of happiness to be had in these, however
insignificant. Sometimes, distractions
are good, however trivial. It was the
value of these things that Elu first learnt in those long, unfamiliar days.
It was perhaps three weeks since Elu
had first been taken in by Ifith, that the full extent of her grief came to
her. She had been sitting quietly one
evening, looking into the fire, thinking of nothing in particular. Ifith had disappeared on one of her long
walks, and the house was empty. All of
a sudden, she had felt the urge to cry, just for the sake of it. Before she had even worked out what the
feeling was the tears were already streaming down her face and plopping off the
end of her chin and into the fire. It
was a physical manifestation, of all the pains and hurts that she had suffered,
inside and out. She saw old Eldeen, his
tanned face looked down kindly into hers, asking her if she was all right. She had only just awoken to the light then,
like a newborn baby spilling out of its mother’s womb. His had been the first friendly face that
she had ever remembered seeing. In a
way, that first look into his eyes had symbolised the beginning of her new life,
so cut off from the black hole that was her past.
Then there was Mistress Eldeen,
scolding her for burning the sauce for their dinner, and then almost
immediately that memory was displaced by one of her holding Elu tight to her in
her big, ample arms, tears shining in her eyes. That had been the day of her handfasting.
Mirulas. His face hovered before hers like a wraith in mist. Her fiancé, the man she loved, the man she had been pledged to and would have been married to now, if none of this had happened. It was almost too hurtful to think of. Of the two of them, living together in the same house, sitting at the same table, lying in the same bed, sharing their lives as man and wife. She passed him over. She could not bear to think on him any longer.
Each person she had known was
touched over in her mind. No one was
spared. The cowherd, the swineherd, the
little goose-girl not five years old, the milkmaids who would spend their
afternoons gossiping by the well. The
Oak Tree, enigmatic yet somehow comforting.
Even Fally she missed, poor, loyal horse. She had died because of her.
The storyteller.
She did not know why she thought of him. He had not been in the village when the Aksees had struck. He had not died.
By the time that Ifith had returned, Elu was still
sitting silently by the fire, her knees hunched to her chest, her cheeks
stained with tears, rocking, rocking.
Without words Ifith crossed the room and drew her arms about the
trembling girl.
“I know,” was all she could say, her voice broken,
“I know.”
The following days were harder on Elu than the
previous ones had been. Somehow the
grief had become more acute, more fresh in her heart. She rarely talked. Ifith
knew best to hold her tongue, letting Elu take the initiative to speak when she
wanted to.
“Why did you come here?” Elu finally asked Ifith one
night, as they were hewing new staves by the fire. Ifith looked up at her mildly.
“Because I had no choice.” She paused before she
spoke again. “My mother and father brought me here, when I was young. I don’t remember how old I was. Not long after, my grandmother came,
searching for us. She entreated my
parents to return to Nithall. When they
refused, she stayed with us.”
“Why did they leave Nithall?” Elu persisted. Ifith’s face was a mixture of reluctance and
hardness before she next spoke.
“They did not agree with the reign of our king. They were opposed strongly to the way he
ruled his subjects. When he took no
heed of their complaint, they left Nithall.
They saw no future in a land led by a slothful king.”
“You mean the boy king, Aldarith?” Elu asked
eagerly. Ifith simply laughed.
“Hardly a boy king any longer!” She was working hard
at her stave, her knuckles white. “He is a man in his prime now, and if the
rumours are true he is even worse than he was when a young man! I do not wish to return to that place, even
if it were a matter of life and death.
He is an idle man, that one! Let
him rot away in his sumptuous halls for all I care!”
There was a pause, during which Ifith’s hand slipped
and she cut her finger deeply with the shaving knife. She muttered an unintelligible oath before sticking the injured
digit into her mouth.
“What happened to your parents and your grandmother,
if you don’t mind me asking?” Elu spoke up again quietly yet uneasily. Ifith’s face went lax at the question.
“When I was ten my parents lost their will to live
and they died. Only my grandmother was
left to tell me the old hunting ways of the sephira. She nurtured me, as she would have her own daughter. She sacrificed so much for me, for the
memory of my parents – her vigour, her energy and strength, the love of her
king and her country. When she died
protecting me from the attack of a wild boar, I was devastated. I could have killed that thing on my own, if
I had not been so stupid and childish.
But she stood there, right in its path, and told me to run. If she hadn’t…” She paused, and the fire was
bright in her eyes before she resumed. “Well, it taught me one thing. Never to run again. Always to fight to the death for the thing
that one loves.”
Elu was silent.
She was amazed and a little frightened to see the gentleness in Ifith’s
eyes so easily turned to rage and bitterness.
She tried to think of something to say to quell that anger.
“Perhaps you could go back and seek out your king,”
she suggested after a moment. “Perhaps you could try and change his mind, and
make him into a better king. Or maybe
he has changed after all. Your parents’
grudge should not be your own. You were
too young to know any better. Perhaps
if you…”
“Yes, perhaps if I went back there, and grovelled
before him and asked for forgiveness for all my parent’s wrongs, perhaps he
would grant me mercy and take me back into his court!” Ifith cried, standing
up, her eyes sparking flames in her indignant rage at such a suggestion. “Think
you that I would do such a thing, after all he did to my parents! After he…after he…” She stopped abruptly, as
though she had been about to say something that she knew she should not ever
utter. She shut her mouth quickly, but
the anger did not leave her eyes. After
a short moment she swivelled round and left the hut, crashing the door behind
her.
She did not return until long after Elu had retired
to bed. Though Elu had been planning to
apologize, the sound of sniffling made her fall silent and pretend to be asleep. Whatever was Ifith’s secret would now be
best left unsaid.
The first evidences of winter touched the Rillon
Forest. Elu’s wounds had healed, and
her mind was clearer. It was in the
first week of winter that she decided to leave. She told Ifith of her intentions. She would travel to the nearest town, searching for word of
Mirulas’ whereabouts, if indeed he was alive and still in the vicinity of
Éadan. It was not much of a plan, but
it was the only thing Elu had left to turn her mind and body to. The hope she clung to was a small one. Even Ifith could see that, but she did not
need to remind Elu of it. She listened
her out with a neutral look on her face until the end. Then she looked up at Elu squarely in the
eye.
“Elu, are you certain this is what you want to
do? The weather will soon be cold, and
the lands will give way to frosts and snows.
It would be best that you wait for spring to do this, when you can be
certain of a fairer climate and warmer temperatures.”
“No.” Elu shook her head resolutely. “I must leave
as soon as I possibly can. The longer I
leave this, the further Mirulas may travel from me. I cannot allow that to happen.”
“Very well then,” Ifith sighed. “I shall do
everything I can to help you.”
Together they packed some provisions, herbs, dried
meats, sweetroots and mushrooms, things that would not perish easily. A fat pouch of water was strung to Elu’s
belt, as was a purse of a few copper coins.
Ifith had stitched new clothes for Elu, ones comfortable and economical
for travelling. No longer would she
wear the girlish chemises and skirts she had favoured in Welle. Now she wore a soft shirt of white wool, and
over this a tunic dyed red by the scarlet hestberry. Thick warm hose were on her legs, and strong sturdy boots of leather
were on her feet. A cloak of simple
brown wool was slung over her shoulders.
She looked every inch a wanderer from the west.
“A bit of advice, before you leave,” Ifith spoke
when she was ready. “Keep to the track, and do not leave it. There are bears here in abundance, and they
will not fear you in their territory.
If you can, hitch a ride on a poacher’s cart. They usually come here in search of the bear fur, and sell the
pelts down in the town of Grimhabim. I
recommend that that be your next destination.
If your Mirulas has left here, that is the most likely place you will
find him. If you do happen to meet a
bear by unlucky chance, use this.” She took Elu’s hand into her own, and placed
a short dagger into her palm. It was a
small thing, but well worked. The hilt
was carved deer antler, engraved with tiny scenes of forest hunting. Elu took it gratefully, though a part of her
sincerely hoped that she would not have to use it.
“Thank you,” was all she said, as she sheathed
firmly at her belt. She looked up at
Ifith and saw the sadness in her eyes. “Won’t you come, Ifith?” she asked of
the older girl.
“No, I do not wish to leave this place,” she shook
her head firmly. “It is my home now, more than any other. More than that, the darkness grows. The evil spreads, and I feel it in my very
bones. If the darkness reaches this
forest, then I would wish to protect it, and all those that live within it.”
She sighed. “I wish you luck, Elu. I
hope that you will find your man, and will be happy.” It was genuine wish, all the more so because she knew she could
never have either herself. Elu drew her
arms about her and hugged her close.
“I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for
me,” she said softly, “And I do wish you would come with me. But I understand why you can’t.”
Yes, she did now.
She understood now why Mirulas had been unable to leave Welle while it
had been under attack. He had wanted to
protect all those in the village who had been unable to protect
themselves. It was a new feeling to
Elu, but she thought that now she understood it a little better. She hoped he was still alive, so that she
may tell him so.
After all their farewells had been said, it was time
to go. Elu shifted her now heavy pack
firmly on to her shoulder, turned and walked back off into the forest. No point in making this harder than it had
to be. She only turned once, to see
Ifith waving goodbye in the background, next to the comforting sight of her
small hut. For a moment Elu’s heart
failed her: but then, taking all her courage into one, she turned again. It was not long before she was lost to Ifith
in the mass of the brown and closely knitted curtain of trees.