“Consider,” said Elias, voice as quiet as ever, and as he spoke his hand came to rest on the hilt of his scabbarded sword-a blade no other man alive had touched. “This General Graal cannot be a foolish man. And yet he marches halfway across Falanor to steal the queen; why? What does he gain?”
“He makes me chase him.”
Elias nodded. “Possible. Either chase him, or to undermine your confidence. Maybe both. And yet he has already, so we believe, conquered two major cities with substantial garrisons. So he either has a mighty force to be reckoned with, or…”
“He’s using blood-oil magick,” said Leanoric, uneasy.
“Yes. You must seek counsel on this.”
“There is little time. If I do not muster the Eagle Divisions immediately, the entrapment may not work. Then we’d be forced to fall back…” his mind worked fast. “To Old Skulkra. It is a perfect battleground. And I have a…tactic my father spoke of, decades ago.”
“But if Graal uses the old magick, your plan will not work anyway,” said Elias. “You know what I’m thinking?”
“The Graverobber,” said Leanoric, voice sober, voice filled with dread. “I fear he will kill me on sight.”
“I will go,” said Elias.
“No, I have another job for you.”
Elias raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. He knew his king would speak in good time.
Leanoric pursed his lips, lifted his hands to his face, fingers steepled, pressed against his chin. Then he sighed, and it was a sigh of sadness, of somebody who was lost. He spoke, but he would not meet his friend’s gaze.
“What I ask of you, Elias, I have no right to ask.”
“You have every right. You are king.”
“No. I ask this on a personal level. Let us put aside rank, and nobility, for just one moment. What I ask of you, is…almost certain death. But I must ask anyway.”
Elias bowed his head. “Anything, my king,” he said, voice gentle.
“I would ask you to travel to the Silva Valley.” Leanoric paused, as if by leaving the words unspoken, he would not have to condemn his general, would not have to murder his friend. He sighed. He met Elias’s gaze, and their eyes locked, in honour and truth and friendship and brotherhood. “I would ask to you find and rescue Alloria.”
“It would be my honour,” said Elias, without pause for breath.
“I recognise-”
“No.” Elias held up a hand. Leanoric stopped. “Do not say it. I am a man of the world, and if I may point out, far more seasoned a warrior than you.” He smiled to take the sting from his words. “I trained with your father, and I admired your father; but I love his son more. And I love my queen. I will do this, Leanoric, but feel no burden of guilt. I do it gladly, of my own free will.”
Leanoric grasped Elias, a warrior’s grip, wrist to wrist, and beamed him a smile; a grim smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“I will save the country; but you must save my heart-blood. You must find my wife.”
“It will be an honour, my friend.”
“Bring her back to me, Elias.”
Elias smiled. “That, or die trying,” he said.
After thirty minutes, Elias was ready to depart. He had a swift black stallion, compact saddlebags and his trusted sword by his hip. He looked down at Leanoric, and the few men gathered.
“Ride swift,” said Leanoric.
“Die young,” replied Elias.
“Not this time, Elias.”
“As you wish.”
“Bring her back to me.”
“I’ll see what I can do, my liege.”
He touched heels to flanks. The stallion, a fine, proud, unbroken beast of nineteen hands, needed little encouragement, and with a snort of violence galloped off down a wide cart track, and towards the distance snake of grey: the Great North Road.
Leanoric watched for long, long minutes, long after Elias, his Sword-Champion, had vanished from view. He listened to the night air, to the hiss of the wind, and fancied he could smell snow approaching.
Grayfell, one of Leanoric’s trusted brigadier generals, glanced off into the gloom. “There’s a storm coming,” said the short, gruff soldier, rubbing at his neatly trimmed grey beard. His eyes of piercing yellow met Leanoric’s, and the king gave a curt nod.
“That’s what I am afraid of,” he said.
As dawn broke, Elias stopped by a fringe of woodland and surveyed the Great North Road. It glittered in weak dawn light, wreathed with curls of mist, cobbles gleaming like grey and black pearls. For long minutes the king’s Sword-Champion watched, listening, observing, analysing, wondering. He eased out from cover, and within minutes allowed the stallion his lead so that he galloped along the cobbles, hoof-beats clattering through the early morning air.
Elias rode hard, all day, pausing only in the early afternoon to allow his horse a long cool drink by a still lake. As he stood, stretching his back and working through a variety of stretching exercises taught to cavalry riders, which he usually reserved for before battle, a few eddies of snow drifted around him and he gazed off to the distant northern hills, and saw the white gathering eagerly like icing on a cake. Cursing, Elias continued north, sometimes running the stallion on smooth grass alongside the hard cobbles, sometimes dismounting and walking the beast. He knew in his heart this was going to be a long journey; a test of stamina, and endurance, as well as strength and bravery. Still, Elias thought grimly, he was up for the task.
That night, camping beneath a stand of Blue Spruce, wrapped in his thick fur roll, Elias came awake as snow brushed his face. His eyes stared up at thick tree boughs ensconced in needles, interlaced above him, rich perfume filling his senses, and beyond at an inky, violet sky. Snowfall increased, and with it a sinking in Elias’s breast. The enemy, with Alloria as prisoner, had a good head start. Snow would slow them down; but it would also slow him. He could only pray they were travelling by cart, or on foot; but he doubted it. They’d kidnapped the Queen of Falanor; they would be riding fast horses, hard, to put as much distance between Falanor’s Eagle Divisions and their reckless prize. Once they hit the Black Pike Mountains, Elias knew he was doomed. The range was treacherous, the valleys and narrow passes a labyrinth, and once inside their enclosing wings Elias would have lost the queen…and even if he did manage to navigate to this Silva Valley, what would he find there? A waiting army? A division of grinning soldiers? Damn, he thought. He had to catch up with them before the Black Pikes. He had to rescue his queen before she entered the death-maze…
He started before dawn, filled with a rising panic, and an increased level of frustration.
Elias pushed the stallion hard, too hard he knew, and just after noon as more snow fell muffling hoofbeats on the Great North Road, he spied a village and guided his mount from the cobbles, bearing east down a frozen, rutted track. However, a hundred yards from the collection of rag-tag huddled cottages, he halted. His stallion snorted, stamping the snow.
Something was wrong, he could feel it, and a cold wind blew, ruffling his high collar and making him shiver. Unconsciously, he loosened his sword in its scabbard as his gaze scanned from left to right, then back.
Nothing moved. No chickens clucked in the yards, no children squealed, no people walked the street, or stood on corners with pipes and gossip. Elias narrowed his eyes, and dismounted. Feeling foolish, and yet at the same time fuelling his sense of necessity, he drew his sword and dropped his mount’s reins. He advanced on the deserted village, sword at waist-height, head scanning for enemy…
And who are the enemy, mocked his subconscious?
The Army of Iron? Halting in its mighty conquest of Falanor to annihilate one tiny, insignificant village?
The answer was yes.
Elias stopped at the head of the main street, and gazed out, and down, across frozen mud and fresh new drifts of snow, at the corpses which littered the thoroughfare. Elias squinted. He’d thought of them as corpses, but as he peered closer, now that he thought about it, they seemed more like…