The Eye of the Hunter (15 page)

These were the days before the Ban, and the Foul Folk could range the land in daylight as well as dark, though it was said that even then they preferred to do their deeds in the pit of night.

Vast battles were fought across the face of the world and many were slain.

Riatha and Talar with other Lian ranged along the eastern flank of the Grimwall, warding Darda Galion, warding Darda Erynian and the Greatwood, and warding the open wold between.

It was in the Dalgor March, there where the River Dalgor flows into the mighty Argon, that they met Aravan, bearing his crystal spear, following after Galarun, son of Coron Eiron, Elven King upon Mithgar.

Galarun and his company rode at haste, for he bore with him a mighty token of power—the Dawn Sword. And Galarun was bound for Darda Galion, where he would make the Dusk Ride to Adonar, taking with him the silver sword for it was said to have the power to slay Gyphon, the High Vûlk Himself.

Riatha and Talar and their company of Lian Guardians joined with Galarun, his mission vital beyond compare. Yet
as they passed through the Dalgor March, unexpected fog rolled o’er them, and Foul Folk rose up out from the clutches of the fen and whelmed into them. A pitched battle was fought, and many were felled, Galarun among them.

And when the
Rûpt
were routed at last, the Dawn Sword was gone. Whether it was borne off by Foul Ones or instead had disappeared beneath the mire, none could say.

* * *

In the end, Modru lost, the Battle of Hèl’s Crucible crushing him entirely. With his defeat Adon prevailed, banishing Gyphon unto the Abyss beyond the Spheres.

As well, Adon caused a bright new star to appear in the heavens above, burning fulgently, furiously, rivalling the Moon itself in brightness. A week or so it flared, and when it died, disappearing back into the blackness whence it had the Foul Folk were banned from the light of day, suffering the Withering Death should daylight fall upon them.

Too, Adon reft the burning fire from the breaths of those Dragons who had arrayed themselves against Him, and they became Cold-drakes, their male get thereafter as well. Sunlight was also death unto them, though they did not turn into dust, their Dragonhide proof against such.

* * *

With the Sundering, the Vani-lērihha—the Silverlarks—had disappeared from Darda Galion, had disappeared from the Eldwood. No more were their songs heard warbling down from the lofty branches, sweet songs that Riatha had studied. And when it became apparent that they would not return. Riatha came to live in Arden Vale.

Centuries passed, and centuries more, and in that time Riatha took up silver smithing, music and singing and harping, gardening, the sewing and reaping of grain, stone carv-animal husbandry, painting, weaving, and a host of other skills. She had, after all, forever to learn, and she was just beginning.

Throughout the centuries as well, she would occasionally take a lover into her bed. She was nonetheless a young lady, given at times to lusts and desires and gentle longings, as all young ladies are; too, it must be remembered that this young Elfess would live forever, and still she would be young; it is not, then, unexpected that she would have a
lover or two as each century passed and the seasons fell. Even so, she had not yet fallen in love.

More Wars came unto Mithgar, though most were skirmishes and of little import in the long scheme of things And so Riatha in Arden Vale and Talar in Darda Erynian had little to do with such.

Even the War of the Usurper did not engage their interest, though other Elves were involved—perhaps it was
because
other Lian were involved that neither Riatha nor Talar rode to War, for only a subtle, gentle guidance of Humankind is called for.

At times, however, Riatha
did
take up Dúnamis and fare forth upon some mission or task.

And so, too, did her brother.

But this was to be expected, for the Lian Guardians warded the world, preserving Adon’s creations from depredation.

Yet these ventures Riatha undertook were but way stations along the journey toward her prime destiny. And had she been counting the measure of time, more than four thousand years had passed since she had come to the Middle Plane, some forty-one centuries—or mayhap as many as forty-two or -three, who can say?—had elapsed for her on Mithgar ere the events occurred which ultimately were to lead to the shaking of all creation. But as with the rest of her Kind, she had little noted the passage of time; after all, even though more than four millennia had elapsed, she had just begun her life’s journey, not realizing the critical juncture that she now was beginning to enter.

For the Great Weaver had all this time been gathering together many disparate threads and now began weaving them into the patterns that were necessary to shape the fate of the world yet to be.

* * *

There came a day when a messenger from Darda Erynian fared into Arden Vale, and he bore word to Riatha from Talar. And the slender, golden-haired Elfess looked upon the scroll from her slender, golden-haired brother, and she was glad.

Riatha felt a cold hand grip her heart, and to her came a vision of her brother’s face, a steely glint in his grey eyes.

Two years passed and then another, twelve seasons in all, and no word came to her from Talar. Where he was, what he did, was unknown.

Summer was upon the land, and Riatha and the other Lian Guardians were readying for combat, and her mind was occupied with stratagems and plans. Yet as she took up her sword, she noted Talar’s scroll within the chest. Once more she read it, and again a dread premonition skittered across her heart, but she told herself that it was merely concern for his welfare. She set aside the scroll to finish her preparations, for the Elves of Arden, allied with the Men of the Wilderland, were setting forth this day to purge Drearwood of the Foul Folk who lay waste to caravans and bands of travellers along the Crossland Road passing through the dread forest. Peopled as the Drearwood was with Rucha, Loka, Ghûlka, Trolls, and other such
Rûpt
, it was expected that the campaign would take months.

Too, it was rumored that among the
Spaunen
in Drearwood dwelled one of the last Gargoni, deadly fear casters, as was the
Draedan
of Drimmen-deeve, and the Lian had no Wizards among them to deal with such.

She was just buckling Dúnamis in its shoulder harness across her back when Aravan, bearing his crystal spear, stepped through the doorway of her thatched hut. “Ready?” She nodded, and they stepped forth into the sunlight, where stood their steeds.

Wending past were mounted Lian Guardians, making their way ahorse across the vale and up the face of the western bluff, entering the carven tunnel to pass through, where they would emerge along the northeastern reach of the deadly forest. And into this grim procession merged Riatha and Aravan.

* * *

After the summer of the Purging of Drearwood, autumn came, and Riatha was occupied with the harvest. Still she had had no word from Talar, yet he was a skilled warrior and would not take undue chances. Even so, this was the longest that she had gone without word.

And then came that dreadful day.

Riatha was striding up from the fields, returning from a day of scything, when she was whelmed unto her knees, her skin afire, her heart hammering, a dread horror washing over her. And through eyes not her own, she saw the face of what appeared to be a Man, a narrow, pale, wolfish face with yellow gaze, laughing madly, the face of a fiend.

And in a long-fingered hand was a thin-bladed flaying knife.

Stoke!
came a wordless message.

Pain started at the soles of her feet and lanced up her legs, as if flesh were being stripped from her. She shrieked in agony, her hands covering her face, and other Lian rushed to aid her, yet they could do nought.

Unbearable pain ripped upward, from her feet and ankles to her legs to her thighs as her flesh was rent from her, from her back, from her shoulders and arms, from her hands; then flesh was torn from her forehead and face and neck, ripping down her chest, her stomach. Yawling, shrieking, screaming, she was flayed alive, agony exploding throughout her entire being. Mewling, she fell down and down into a bubbling, blood-red Hèl, her mind erupting with horror and fear and hatred and fury and unbearable pain.

And then she was pierced through, impaled, a hideous instrument bursting outward from her abdomen.

A final drawn-out cry flared silently in her mind:
Stoke…!

And then no more. The pain gone. The horror remaining.

And the hatred and fury.

And Riatha wept and raged and cried out in anguish and desolation. For this was a Death Rede: Talar had been murdered.

By Stoke.

* * *

Three years passed, thirty-eight Moons, and Riatha searched for Stoke.

Along the Grimwall she ranged, listening for rumors of a fiend but finding nought.

But with the onset of winter came a whisper:
Vulfcwmb, in Aven
, it was hissed.
He’s back. The Baron
.

A blizzard raged as Riatha came upon the wreckage of waggons, horses slain. Yet trapped under an overturned wain she found an unconscious Waerling, Tomlin—Pebble.

Their tale is told in full elsewhere and will not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that she bore the wounded Waerling to shelter in Vulfcwmb. There he was revived and told that Vulgs and
Rûpt
had attacked the wains and had borne off his sire and dam, his dammia Petal, and her sire.

Riatha and Tomlin were joined in Vulfcwmb by Urus, a Baeran, who was himself seeking Stoke—Urus’s quest one of revenge also.

Together they managed to find Stoke’s strongholt, but were captured and thrown into a cell with Petal, for she yet survived. The other Waerlinga, though, had been flayed alive by Baron Stoke, the Vulgmaster.

Stoke came to slay them, changing into a great Vulg. But they managed to win their freedom, though it nearly cost them their lives, especially Urus.

Stoke escaped their vengeance that night, and in the shape of a leathery-winged
thing
he flew beyond their fury and into the Grimwall. But they pledged to one another that they would hunt him down, wherever he might be.

Two years passed, and once again rumor of Stoke’s whereabouts surfaced.

They traced him to Dreadholt, but the monster escaped their wrath a second time, though Riatha came within a sword stroke of slaying him ere she herself was nearly slain. Again he went to ground, and they lost his trail.

Seventeen more years passed, and at last word came of mysterious disappearances nigh Inge in Aralan, there along the Grimwall. Perhaps Stoke was near.

Once more the four set out to slay a monster. And there in a monastery above the Great North Glacier in the unstable land near Dragonslair, again they found Baron Stoke.

He nearly escaped, a leathery-winged
thing
again, but Tomlin wounded him with a silver sling bullet, and with damaged wing, down the creature spun and down, landing at last upon the white glacier below.

It was on Springday night, the anniversary of Black Kalgalath’s
death, and the land was wracked by violent shudders. The glacier itself was heaving and cracking, crevasses opening and closing.

Still, they managed to make their way to where Stoke had landed, and when they spread out to search for him Stoke nearly killed Riatha, smashing her senseless with a great jagged chunk of ice. But ere he could behead the Elfess, from the limit of her range Petal hurled one of her silver throwing knives and struck him fair in the upper left arm. Howling in agony, for silver weapons were his bane Stoke took the shape of a Vulg, preparing to leap a yawning crevasse that had opened in the glacier. But just as he sprang, Urus came running and leapt as well, intercepting the fiend, and locked together in combat they plunged down into the black depths below, and the crevasse slammed shut.

* * *

Five years passed, or perhaps it was six, who can say, for Elves keep not precise count as would mortal Man. Riatha returned to the monastery above the glacier, there in the juddering land, her memories wrapped about her, memories of Vulfcwmb and Dreadholt, and of the abbey standing tall and grey and somber before her.

Taking a deep breath, Riatha crossed the stone courtyard and stepped to the closed wooden double doors of the great rectangular building with a central tower jutting up into the dark sky. Drawing Dúnamis, she pushed the left-most panel inward, recalling voices from another time.

Through an empty vestibule and past another set of doors she stepped softly, entering the great open chamber.

At the far end of the shadow-wrapped gallery stood an altar to Adon. Visions of a past time filled her mind.

The Elfess looked up at the balconies above. A tremor thrummed through the floor.