Avriel’s eyes opened with a flash and the two stared at each other for what felt to Whill like hours. Finally she spoke in Elvish, letting her blade fall to the side.
“Will you join me?”
He took up the spot next to her without a word, sitting cross-legged as she did. Her eyes traveled from his sheathed sword to his eyes and back again. She smirked. “The way you first stormed over here, I assumed you had pressing business.”
Whill was taken aback. “Um, well, yes, but…what were you doing just now?”
She eyed Whill for a moment, and the scrutiny made Whill slightly uncomfortable.
“I was just resting, a form of what you would call sleep. We elves have different ways of recuperating, as I’m sure you are aware.”
“Were you using the energy within your sword?”
She seemed to ponder this. “Not in the way you would imagine. You see, I am not injured, and so I did not call upon the stored energy of my blade. Rather I was seeing how much energy I have used in the fight and in the healing that followed.”
Whill frowned. “You were seeing how much energy is left?”
She sheathed her sword and turned slightly to regard him. “There is much you do not know, and many questions, no doubt. But for now I need to ask you a few things, if you don’t mind.”
He shrugged, wondering what in the world an elf such as Avriel would need to ask someone like himself. “Ask away.”
She took a much more serious demeanor. “Do you know what you were doing when you fought the Draggard today?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you not aware that you did not fight as a mere man-pardon the expression-but rather showed the technique of…certain elves?”
Whill was at a loss. He remembered the fighting vividly, and knew he had done quite well, but he did not know what she meant. “I do not know what you ask me.”
Avriel looked frustrated. “You are a mortal man endowed with the powers of elves. You should not have been able to use those powers until you were rightly taught. But you healed the boy on the ship, you saved the infant child from death, and you healed yourself within the dwarf mountain with your father’s sword.” She did not let her gaze waver. “Whill, did you not notice that your blade felled the Draggard a bit too easily? I watched you from afar, as did my brother. You cut through their scales as if it were cloth, does that not seem strange to you?”
Whill let his gaze fall to the ground as he contemplated her question. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he had killed the Draggard with comparative ease. He had not been afraid, as he had been on the ridge with Roakore. He had been angry, so he assumed his rage had fueled his fighting. Now he knew that had not been the case.
“So what are you sayin? That I used the energy within my father’s blade, as the elves do?”
She shook her head. “No, Whill. What you did is forbidden by the Elves of the Sun. What you did today is a practice of the Dark elves.”
He regarded Avriel with disbelief. “I couldn’t have, I-”
“With your first kill you stole the life energy of the beast before you, and the second, and so on. Each came easier; each of your enemies’ deaths gave you more strength, or rather gave your father’s blade more strength. You did not let that power lie idle-you used it, and to devastating effect. You killed well over thirty Draggard today. And still your father’s blade holds within it the life force of many of the beasts.”
Whill was at a loss. “I didn’t mean to-I didn’t want-I mean, I didn’t know. I did not consciously do the things you speak of.”
Avriel eyed him for a moment and finally smiled. “I know, Whill. But you must understand. it is the way of the Elves of the Sun only to use our own energy, or that which is rightly given. To take from another in such a way is not our practice. It is a path that can only lead to evil.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The collection of the dead continued throughout the night and into the morning. No one slept, even those who could have. For demons newly born see dreams as a playground, and with sleep can only come the remembrance of screams, blood, death.
The morning sun shed light upon a village in ruin. Every building had been burned to the ground, save the town hall. The ground was so red with blood in some places it looked as though the earth itself were bleeding. The bodies of men, women, and a few unlucky children littered the village, all covered with cloth, awaiting the pyre.
So with the rising and settling of the sun upon its midday perch came the burning of the deceased. Hagus the barkeep was among them, along with more than a hundred Eldalonian soldiers, and hundreds of villagers. The survivors-hundreds of widows and children, and a few lucky men-made a wide circle around the great pyre. Some hung their heads, while others looked to the heavens proudly. All wept. Someone in the crowd took up the Eldalonian funeral song as the flames were lit, and quickly the song was taken up by all. As the words rose to the heavens, and the voices of the many women and children grew stronger, tears found the eyes of the watching companions.
Rest now, my love, till we meet again
Under the tree of the gods, I’ll see, my old friend
Rest now, my friend, your work here is through
Until my song is sung, when I shall be with you
Wait for me, love, and watch over me
Help me to remember what kind of person to be
Life may bring pain, like a cold winter rain
This sorrow will be mine till we meet again
The song went on and was taken up by not only the companions but also by the two elves. It went for the customary seven verses, and ended with the throwing of many flowers into the great Pyre. Rhunis stepped forward with shimmering eyesand spoke for the dead.
“Today we say farewell to the many good people who died defending those they loved. We say farewell to true heroes. In a time when that word is spoken too freely, we see firsthand its intended meaning all too clearly. The spirits that rise from the ashes this day are heroes by right and by deed. For none cowered before the nightmare that closed in on this fair village this day’s eve. None failed in their duty to kin and country; none ran when to do so would have saved them. No! They fought on, against all odds, and against the most terrible foe imaginable.”
He walked the circle of the pyre as he spoke, looking every woman, man, and child in the eye. His voice was heard by all as the fire burned fiercely behind him.
“So when someone asks you of the one you lost, you tell them they fought and died valiantly in the Battle of Sherna, and you speak those words with your head held high. For they lived life as we all do, but they died heroically, which is more than any man can ask. We all, every one of us, will die; that is inescapable. But will we be remembered-will we accomplish immortality through deed or through song? No, all of us will not. But did they, these spirits that fly free this day. Will they be remembered?”
Rhunis circled faster as he spoke, his words becoming louder with each sentence. The shimmering eyes of men, women, and children stared back at him. The tears of each, Whill noticed, ran down faces bearing smiles. Together as one, on Rhunis’s last word, they answered, “Yes!”
“Indeed yes!” Rhuis cried. “They will be remembered by those whom they saved; they will be remembered through song throughout the ages by all. So this day, weep for your losses, weep for fear of an uncertain future, but do not weep for the spirits before you. They have achieved the greatest of all seats in the afterworld. Smile for them now, and be proud!”