"There, Longsword! And there! I've never seen so many or fatter rabbit and hare!"
"We eat frak, wizard, all the way to Ferdan."
Allazar groaned. "Frak? All the way?"
"Aye. No fires at night. They shine like beacons for all brigands and worse to see."
"Yet it is early evening, and light. A fire would not be seen."
"The smoke would."
"Dwarfspit."
"Frak is good for you, wizard. I like it."
Elayeen and Allazar exchanged a look that spoke volumes.
"What?" Gawain protested. "It is good for you."
Elayeen sniffed haughtily again.
"Ah." Allazar sighed.
Later that night, when they made camp, Gawain produced a hunk of frak and happily pared off a slice and offered it to Elayeen. She shook her head as she wrapped her hair in a black scarf, and then reached into her saddle-bags and produced a large parcel.
Allazar did likewise, and Gawain watched, stunned, as the two of them settled to a meal of chicken and Threlland meatbread. In spite of his mouth watering, he sniffed regally, and set about chewing his frak.
He was still chewing when Elayeen packed the remains of her meal away, kissed him on the cheek, and announced that she would take first watch.
"I'll come back into camp from the east," she said softly, wrapping a darkening-cloth around her face so that only her eyes were visible.
"I'll take the second watch." Allazar sighed contentedly, packing away his leftovers and settling on his blanket.
"Dwarfspit." Gawain mumbled through a mouthful of the leathery spiced frak. "I'll take the third then.”
Elayeen picked up her longbow, tested the string, and then stood before Gawain as she put on her black leather gloves. He eyed her shadowy figure in the gloom, and nodded. She bowed, and turned, and disappeared into the night.
After a pause, Allazar said softly "I envy you, Longsword."
"Of course. You're a wizard, and I'm not." Gawain whispered quietly.
Allazar chuckled sadly, and then sighed. "Are you still troubled?"
"Yes. Though I'm trying to ignore it. It is irritating not knowing what it is I have forgotten, or even if I have."
"It cannot be of moment, then."
"I hope not."
"Well. I shall sleep. And safely. Your Lady adds your nefarious skills to her elven ways, and makes for a formidable watchkeeper."
"Aye. She does." Gawain said admiringly, scanning the horizon around them and seeing nothing.
Their journey was filled with a strange mix of feelings. Comradeship, certainly, and determination for the task ahead, and yet an odd sadness too, as if their destination held the promise of sorrow. In some respects it did, for if Thal-Hak emerged from the trees of Elvendere to join with Juria and Callodon, Elayeen would have to face a father and friends who held her faranthroth, dead, and ever to be treated thus. Gawain felt a rising sense of apprehension, not only from his throth binding to Elayeen, but for himself. He did not know if he possessed the regal command or strength of his father, which would be needed to bond the southland crowns together against their common enemy.
Even Allazar seemed more and more withdrawn as each day brought them closer to the small and lacklustre Jurian town.
Gawain brought them within sight of Elvendere's eastern tree line before turning due south towards Ferdan. He hoped elven patrols might spy them from the trees, and that word of their passage might reach Thal-Hak or Gan-thal. But their proximity to the forest made Elayeen's ordinarily bright mood fade, and she too became as withdrawn as the wizard, and Gawain quietly cursed himself for his error in judgement.
About a week from their destination, Gwyn suddenly pricked up her ears, and lifted her feet, and snorted. Elayeen and Allazar were long familiar with the Raheen charger's uncanny senses and promptly reined in, while Gawain scanned the horizon. Something was approaching.
"A Jurian patrol?" Allazar hoped.
"I do not think so." Gawain muttered, staring south at the dark shapes on the horizon.
"A patrol from Elvendere?" Allazar hoped again.
"No." Elayeen said sadly. "They would not greet me, nor would they trespass Juria so openly, and so far from the trees."
"Callodon's men, then."
"No." Gawain sighed. Then he screwed up his eyes, turned his face to the sky and groaned. "Ah, Dwarfspit and Elve’s Blood!"
"What is it, mithroth?"
"I have remembered."
"What?" Allazar cried, as the distant horses rumbled closer and began resolving into clearer shapes.
"That whitebeard bastard Joyen. He was Eryk's. He would have known our plans to meet at Ferdan. Behold the enemy, dispatched to prevent our arrival."
Sure enough, as the mounted force drew nearer, they could count them, and see their strength. Three Black Riders, flanked on each side by six black-clad warriors, thundering relentlessly towards them.
42. Elve's Blood
"Can we take so many?" Elayeen asked grimly, unslinging her bow.
"We must." Gawain scowled, loosening his blade and swinging his quiver around to hang at his right hip.
"Then while there is time enough," Allazar said hurriedly, "I say with all my heart, I have loved you both, and it is my honour to have served you."
"We're not dead yet, Allazar, remember that old woman and the wisdom you preached on leaving Tarn."
"There are too many." Allazar sighed.
"Elayeen, yours are the Morlochmen. I shall take the Black Riders. Allazar, if we fall, ride like the wind for the trees. You at least may be welcome there."
"Mithroth." Elayeen said, her voice filled with a fierce passion.
Gawain turned to look at her, and she leaned from the saddle to kiss him hard upon the lips. "Eem ithroth, ihoth, ifrith."
"Miheth iheth." Gawain said, and then strung an arrow, placed three more in his left hand, and urged Gwyn forward at the gallop, Elayeen charging forward scarcely a heartbeat later.
Allazar choked, and wiped his eyes, looking longingly at Gawain and Elayeen as they charged forward, and then at the trees in the distance to his right. Then he kicked his heels, and drove his horse forward.
The air was filled with the rumbling thunder of hooves, stilling birdsong and sending rabbits and hares skittering for their burrows. Wind made Gawain's eyes stream, and his heart began to pound as a familiar heat burned in his stomach. He grinned wickedly. The Morlochmen were armed with crossbows, and though doubtless the Black Riders' bolts were tipped with poison, perhaps the more mortal warriors' were not. They would not risk accidental contact with the stuff when loading in the haste of combat.
As soon as the enemy were in range, Gawain let fly his arrow, and was restringing and preparing to throw his second when the whizz of a shaft from Elayeen's bow zipped past his right side. He didn't watch to see it strike its mark, for he was already hurling his second and making ready for a third. Up ahead he heard the screeching death-blast from the Black Rider struck by his first arrow, and then a horrendous whinny and a great crashing. When he flung his third arrow, he saw that his second had struck not the Black Rider, but the horse on which the foul creature had been mounted, and the stricken animal had gone down.
Bolts flew from crossbows towards them, but they fell short. The next ones, though, if the enemy had time to reload, would not be so harmless.
Gawain saw a brief flickering of light, like horizontal lightning, thread its way down his left side to strike one of the Morlochmen's horses in the head. The animal stumbled, and crashed into its companion, and both fell, throwing their startled riders. Another crash, and Gawain watched as the third Black Rider, pierced through the right shoulder by the stone-tipped shaft, fell from his charging horse and slammed into the ground, the grotesque painted mask ripped from the hideous visage moments before the dazzling black blast of liberated aquamire shot skyward.