Many Words

Sif kept to herself, sitting across the clearing from Alfhilde and Hrothgar. She’d spoken a little with all of the others about little things, and played with Jakob a little bit before the baby had gone to sleep. She wasn’t sure how she felt, besides quiet and thoughtful—raw, maybe. Unsteady. Sad, too. She had reason.

It wasn’t a crippling sadness, though, like it had been. She reflected that holding it in had been worse than letting it out. She had worried that the others would look at her and see a burden, if she let them in, but she’d been wrong. She was still getting used to the idea that people genuinely cared for her, and not for anything she brought to the table. She couldn’t remember a time she’d felt safer than when Alfhilde held her while she cried.

An image came to her. She was with Hrothgar’s family—a part of it. They all gathered cozily before a hearth, talking and laughing. She blinked, and it was gone. Shivering, she drew her bedroll tighter. Was that something she really wanted?

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The terrain grew rougher, the trees more twisted, and the soil more rocky as they went. They were in the worst of it, as Falthejn remembered from the march down, and as Hrothgar confirmed. The next day’s march would be over similar land, but it would take them to the edge of the foothills. That would leave them twenty-two leagues from their start at Syderskogholm two days ago, and under ten from the fort at Flodsvadgard, over easier roads. They would gain the fort on the evening of the fourth day, two days away.

They made camp that night in a clearing atop a hill next to the road, hidden from view by a ragged half-ring of bushes toward the road, and protected by steep drop-offs on the other sides. The evening passed quietly, and Falthejn went to bed early, to the murmur of the others’ conversation.

“Why else?” Alfhilde said. “If your fort can’t be held, you leave it.”

“Do the aelfr think the ontr that dangerous?” Falthejn said. “It’s true that they knew more of the world than we do. Their maps show the deserts and the sea past the mountains, things human eyes have not yet seen. I suppose they might have gone south, too.”

“If they give the aelfr trouble, they aren’t all bad,” Alfhilde said reflexively. On a moment’s consideration, she added, “Well, maybe that’s too hasty. They’re just as bad, both of them.”

Falthejn knelt next to the corpse and checks its pockets. He felt a question coming from Sif, and said, “He’d do the same to us.” The aelf carried nothing useful—a flint and steel, an inscrutable object he might have used as a magical totem, but which had no power to it now, a few scraps of paper. On his hand, however—the aelf wore a large ring with a ruby set into it, and Falthejn could feel the magical weight to it. He slipped it off the aelf’s finger and stood. Human magiker notably lagged behind their aelfish counterparts in the field laymen called enchantments. Aelfish magiker wove spirits into objects with a skill and subtlety that human conjurers resented.

“What’s that?” Sif asked.

Falthejn shrugged. “Humans and aelfr work in different ways,” he said. “We may find out this trip—should the need be dire enough, I can probably figure out how to set it off. Otherwise, it might be a mystery for years.”

“Have we any more reason to delay?” Hrothgar asked.

“No.” Falthejn turned away from the unfortunate aelf. “We should move on.”

Two magiker had fought here. The ground was frozen in the middle of a ripple: at a jordsmagiker’s direction, it had flowed like water. Geometric sections of rock protruded from the dirt, dotting the battlefield where the magiker had used it for attack or defense. Scorch marks in jagged patterns showed where a blittesmagiker had called down lightning. One such scorch mark led to the epicenter of the disrupted ground, and there laid the corpse of a man, looking oddly peaceful. Falthejn and Alfhilde approached.

“Do you know him?” asked Alfhilde.

“I should think not,” said Falthejn. “Look closely. This is an aelf.”

Alfhilde leaned over the body, saw the upswept ears, and spat. “Good riddance, then.” She nudged the aelf’s arm with her foot. “Why is he here?”

“We’ve long known the aelfr have hidden holds in these parts,” said Falthejn.

“I have never seen them,” Hrothgar replied. He and Sif stood a few yards back. Sif leaned forward and stood on her tiptoes, trying to see around Falthejn without getting any closer.

“Aelfish illusionists are talented, much more so than our own.” Falthejn shook his head at Sif, then turned back to the body. “Only a few hundred aelfr remain east of the mountains, so far as I know. They keep to themselves, and we cannot spare the magiker to hunt them down as they deserve. I cannot imagine why one might have shown himself.”

Falthejn’s eyes snapped open. The sun had gone down. He turned to the left, where Sif had been sitting, but she was gone. He looked the other way. Sif sat, leaning against Alfhilde, eyes closed. Alfhilde had an arm around the girl. Hrothgar sat on Alfhilde’s other side, holding Jakob. Both had their heads back against the cliffside, and both snored quietly. Alfhilde caught his eye, and gave him a smile and a little wave.

Falthejn dipped his head. He supposed he could tell them all what he’d found tomorrow. He slipped into his bedroll, and, almost instantly, was asleep.

After a few hours, Hrothgar woke Falthejn, and Falthejn kept watch for a few hours before waking Alfhilde. In the morning, they ate quickly and broke camp. Falthejn led the way, Hrothgar, carrying Jakob, followed him, and Sif and Alfhilde, walking together, brought up the rear.

Alone with his thoughts, Falthejn wondered about the nature of his newfound adversary. If he’d managed to link up with the army, he might have compared notes with Ericsdottir, but it seemed increasingly unlikely that either Falthejn’s band or the army would be able to do much more than flee. That was worrying in its own way. Now bridge crossed the Syderskogflod, and the only ford an army could hope to cross came at the end of this road. If the army was a ways to the west, and Falthejn’s band could only just keep ahead of the ontr on the road, he doubted the army, slowed by its size and delayed by a cross-country detour, could make it through without a fight.

He frowned. He might be able to draw the attention of the ontr army, once he’d shepherded his charges to the fort. Perhaps, but he recognized something ahead. A half-fallen tree laid against a stand of its companions, supported by their branches. The reason became clear as they rounded a bend in the road. Even to him, with his experience in such things, the scene, jumbled and confused as it was, took a few moments to make sense of.