“Thank you, miheth.”
“I am sorry, my lady,” Allazar mumbled a contrite apology, “I had forgotten.”
“There’s no need,” Elayeen smiled, her gaze fixed upon the small group Gawain had described. “It is quite wondrous to be surrounded by so much life after the outpost. The whole world is sparkling and alive with light.”
“It’s difficult to imagine what you are seeing, E.” Gawain sighed.
At that, she smiled, and thought for a moment. “Think of all the trees and all the bushes and brambles and grass dusted with winter frost and glistening in the morning sunshine. Then imagine all the trees and bushes and brambles and grass suddenly gone, leaving just the twinkling frost. It is quite beautiful.”
Allazar nodded, his own expression mirroring the awe Gawain himself felt. “They say that the sight possessed by the Eldenelves was a wondrous thing in those elder days.”
“Why did it fade, Allazar?” Elayeen asked, “It must have passed into myth so long ago that even I hadn’t heard of it before.”
Allazar shrugged and swallowed another bite of his sandwich. “In truth, my lady, it is not known. Perhaps the reasons for its use faded, and like muscles not exercised, the ability weakened and was finally lost.”
“Then the Eldenelves had normal sight as well as this… other?” Gawain asked, hopefully.
“Yes,” the wizard confirmed, “And they were able to use that sight as we might focus near and then far. I have every reason to hope that in time Elayeen will regain her normal vision too. In elder tales, books speak of men ‘being pinned in the gaze of an elf’, while first the elf looked at you as other men do, and then upon your inner light. I imagine it could feel very unsettling, as though one were being judged.”
“Hmm.” Gawain muttered, remembering the slight disquiet he’d felt before they’d left the outpost.
“That is a lady, is it not, now stroking the horse’s head?” Elayeen asked, frowning.
“Yes, miheth, why, is something wrong?”
“Could you fetch Jaxon? I should like to ask him a question.”
“Do you see a shadow?” Allazar asked quietly, and a single sparkle of light fizzled briefly atop the staff he now held a little tighter.
But Elayeen shook her head, her face still puzzled. Gawain did as she bid, and moments later Simayen Jaxon stood before her, and he was clearly delighted to be so.
“My lady, how may I serve?”
Elayeen smiled. “The lady there, speaking with one of the guardsmen at the head of the horses?”
“Yes, my lady?”
“Who is she?”
“Ah, she is Simayen Ameera. A weaver and planter. She was tythen to Daffyd, a leather-man, not long before we fled. Daffyd was killed on the journey, by that Grimmand creature.”
“Tythen?” Gawain asked.
“Yes,” and Jaxon laced his fingers together, “Tythen, together, a man and a woman.”
“Ah. Married. When a man and a woman are bound together.”
“Yes my lord. Tythen.”
“She is with child.” Elayeen stated as much as asked, her head tilting a little, her gaze still fixed upon the woman.
“That is her hope and belief, my lady.”
Elayeen smiled. “It is more than a hope or a belief, Serre Jaxon. She carries a light within her own. You must all take care of her, her child will be the first of you all born in the freedom of these eastern lands.”
Jaxon grinned happily. “We shall, my lady.” And with that, he took his leave, and hurried to tell Ameera, and then everyone else, the tidings.
“You should be careful, my lady,” Allazar smiled. “Or soon word will spread of a silver-haired elfin she-wizard and a great queue of women anxious for answers to the same question will beat a path to your door.”
“I will be careful,” she grinned, “But my biggest concern for now is getting back on my horse. The horse I can see, the stirrups I cannot.”
“Here, let me,” Gawain announced, walking with her to the steed.
“My king is becoming gallant.” Elayeen said softly, for his ears alone as he guided her boot into the stirrup.
“No,” he replied cheerfully, “Simply availing myself of every opportunity to dazzle you with my brightness. It’s a long way to Jarn and holding your pretty booted ankle is about all I can hope for between here and there.”
“Really? I had hoped for a little more,” And Elayeen, one foot in the stirrup, suddenly threw her arms around Gawain’s neck and kissed him, a little clumsily at first it was true, but robbing him of breath nevertheless. Then just as suddenly, she released him, and thrust herself up into the saddle.
“My queen is becoming a taverner’s wench, brazen and sly as any vixen.” Gawain gasped, beaming happily.
“It’s a long way to Jarn,” she smiled down at him, and through the warmth that had spread through him during their embrace, Gawain felt a slight shiver tickling at the back of his neck at her gaze, and thought he understood what the old saying about being ‘pinned’ had meant.
Two hours further along the Jarn road, which, though it undulated here and there ran almost arrow-straight through the woodlands at this point, Elayeen suddenly stiffened, and stood upright in the stirrups, gazing as best she could over the heads of the officers in the vanguard.
“Trouble?” Gawain asked.
“Call a halt, G’wain, let me look.”
“Hai, Tyrane, hold fast.”
The column came to an abrupt halt, the Captain raising his arm and making a signal with his hand. Elayeen, with Gawain and Allazar flanking her, moved forward through the vanguard, and she stood once more in the stirrups, her head swivelling first to the left, then to the right.
Gawain tensed, and watched Gwyn’s ears closely, but his horse-friend had given no signs of alarm since leaving the outpost. Indeed, the Raheen charger seemed a little nonplussed at coming to a halt on such a long and open stretch of road.
“We should move forward a little, but slowly.” Elayeen said, settling back in the saddle.
Before Gawain could say anything, Tyrane raised his hand, his fingers flashed a signal, and they began moving again, cautiously. Gawain cast a quizzical look at the wizard and got one in return.
They’d moved perhaps five hundred yards as quietly as it was possible for any large group of men, wagons and horses to travel on a stony sun-baked track when Elayeen, still slightly ahead of them all, stopped again and held up her right hand to signal a halt. The gesture was immediately repeated by the Callodon captain and it was plain to see who it was currently commanding the movement of the column. And she was plainly concerned.
“Elayeen.” Gawain said softly, scanning the woods in spite of Gwyn’s complete calm.
“Darkness,” she replied, her voice quiet but hard. “Either side of the road. Within bowshot.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Mine.”
“Three hundred yards or thereabouts?”
“Yes.”
“Moving?”
“No.”
“Hold here, Captain,” Gawain ordered quietly. “The wizard and I will advance.”
Again, Tyrane relayed the orders by hand signal, and the entire column sat saddle or stood in silence, tension mounting.
Gawain and Allazar dismounted, and once again Gawain rested his hand lightly upon his lady’s booted ankle. She gazed down at him, her expression blank, her eyes strangely cold and piercing.
“Watch us closely, miheth. If the darkness you see moves, don’t call out, just put an arrow into it. I doubt Allazar and I could hope for a clearer warning than that.”
“Isst.” Elayeen acknowledged, her voice hard, and drew an arrow from her quiver, nocking it by feel, before turning her gaze to the north.
Gawain felt a shiver run the length of his spine, then he let go of her leg and moved forward. “Stay here Gwyn,” he whispered to his horse, and then with Allazar beside him, they moved quickly and quietly down the centre of the road.
After a hundred and fifty yards, according to Gawain’s judgement, he drew the longsword and slowed to a cautious walk. He eyed the wizard briefly, noting the firm grip on the staff in Allazar’s right hand, and the tiny specks of light twinkling at its ends. Allazar noted the look and Gawain made a gesture, easing the wizard further to his left, widening the gap between them.