The Dragonstone (7 page)

“Such was I doing, staring into the flames, when I beheld the horror of the Green Stone….”

B
ordered on the north and east by the Rimmen Mountains, on the south by the River Rissanin, and on the west by the mighty River Argon, there lies a vast forest named Darda Erynian, the Great Greenhall, or Blackwood of old. Through the northern quadrant of this hoary weald runs an ancient east-west trade route, the Landover Road, and along this wooded way merchants and travelers fare. By no other path do common folk journey across this forest realm, for it is said that these woods are…occupied…by fierce Elves and huge men and, worse yet, by the Hidden Ones—all lurking back among the dense green foliage, in the shadows, in the shade. And of the merchants and travelers, caravans and groups, riders and walkers who pass this way, seldom do any stray far from the road, but instead they hie along its length till they are quit of these looming, foreboding woods.

Even in winter when the leaves are fallen and nought but desolate trunks crowd ’round and exposed branches slash at the sky, even then the woods are filled with trepidation, perhaps more so than in summer, for the barren tangle then looks dead and grasping, as if its harsh woody claws would seize any living fool within reach and rend him asunder.

With its whispered reputation it is not surprising that common travelers are apprehensive when passing through the forest; one of its names is, after all, Blackwood, so called because of the dark unease permeating the vast forest. Some say these woods are indeed warded by the Hidden Ones—Angry Trees and Living Mounds and Groaning Stones and Pysks and Giants and other creatures of lore and legend, all with arcane ways of turning
aside those who are unwelcome—and woe betide the unfortunate soul who ignores the warnings and intrudes too far into this shadowy domain, for he will never be seen alive again…or so it is said.

In spite of the lore and legend, here it is the Dylvana dwell, here in Darda Erynian, for the Elves know the truth of these woods.

I
n a green glade in Darda Erynian, Arin sat staring deeply into the flames. She did not hear the remote belling of the stag horns nor the thudding of distant hooves as Rissa and Vanidar and the others reveled in the hunt. Nay, she heard them not, nor was she among them, for her own bow lay beside her—unstrung, unnocked with arrows, unnoticed in her mystic abstraction—for she was attempting to .

For days she had felt the pull of the flames, as if the very essence of fire were calling out to her to seek within and find. And so when the others at the campsite had mounted up, she had waved them on. Now in the solitude of the glade under wheeling stars above, and below the gliding moon, she fed tiny twigs to the small blaze and looked deeply into the flames as a far-off stag ran desperately for its life and belling hunters ahorse plunged behind.

But as to the seer alone by the fire, she was a rarity among Elves, was Arin, for at times she glimpsed events—at hand and afar, past, present, and future—events known and unknown. And for those who are not of Magekind,
any
exercise of what common folk call
magic
is very rare indeed. But Arin’s glances across seasons and spans seemed random and sporadic and very obscure, and they came only when she peered into flames, and even then but seldom.

Arin had heard of only one other Elf who could : Rael, a Lian who currently resided in Darda Galion, the great Eldwood to the south and west. She, too, could glimpse events beyond perception, though it is said she used a crystal as a focus instead of fire as did Arin.

Females, two females among all of Elvenkind, two females who could . Was it that males of her Kind had not the power? Or was it instead that only females among the Elves had the patience? Arin did not know.

She shook her head to clear it of these vagaries, to empty her mind and give it over wholly unto the flames. Yet the vision would not come…and not come…and not come…though the fire beat deeply within her soul.

Arin did not know how long she had been staring into the modest blaze, but she was brought out of her transfixion by the ringing of bugles across the clearing and the drum of approaching hooves. “
Hai roi!
” called a voice as Arin got to her feet, and an Elf rode into the light of the fire—it was Vanidar, known as Silverleaf, one of the Lian. Perin and Biren followed behind with the others coming after. And across the withers of Silverleaf’s horse was draped a stag, slain no doubt by an arrow loosed from Vanidar’s white-bone bow, for it is given to the successful hunter the right to bear the kill.

Stopping his lathered mount with nought but a word, Silverleaf swung his leg up and across the buck and sprang to the ground, landing with the grace of a cat. As with all of immortal Elvenkind, Vanidar appeared to be no more than a lean-limbed youth, though his actual age could have been one millennium or ten or more. He had golden hair cropped at the shoulder and tied back with a simple leather headband, as was the fashion among most Lian and Dylvana. He was clad in grey-green and wore a golden belt which held a long-knife. His feet were shod in soft leather and he stood perhaps five feet nine or ten—more than a full head taller than Arin. In fact, compared to all the Dylvana, Silverleaf outstripped them in height, for Dylvana males typically range from four feet eleven to five feet five, while females span four to six inches less.

Behind Vanidar the others dismounted as well—Rissa and Perin and Biren and Ruar and Melor—their horses sweat-foamed and blowing. The Dylvana were dressed much the same as Silverleaf in their loose-fitting jerkins and close-fitting breeks, though for the most part they favored earth tones—brown and russet and umber—all
but beautiful, dark-eyed Rissa, who wore a deep blue, nearly black.

As he turned to haul down the stag, Vanidar glanced over his shoulder at Arin and flashed her a smile, his pale grey eyes atwinkle. “Thou shouldst have been with us, Ring. ‘Twas a glorious chase. We almost lost him in the grove, but Rissa”—Silverleaf gestured toward the black-haired Dylvana loosening her cinch and pulling off her saddle—“jumped him up and the chase was on again.”

Arin smiled. “Tend the buck, Silverleaf; I will tend thy horse.”

Vanidar hefted the stag ‘cross his shoulders and strode to a nearby oak. He laid the buck down and fetched two lengths of rope. “We didn’t dress him in the field; I’ll bleed him out here.” He stepped back to the stag and squatted, tying the lines ’round the buck’s rear shanks just above the hooves.

By this time Arin had the saddle off Vanidar’s mount and was using twisted grass sheaves to rub the animal down. “Do I need walk him?” she called as she stroked along its left flank.

“I think not,” said Ruar nearby. “We rode at a walk most of the way back…until we reached the clearing.”

Rissa strode past, heading for Vanidar as he looped the lines over a sturdy low limb. “Let me give thee a hand with that,
chieran.
”

Together the two of them haled the stag by its hind legs up off the ground, and it hung there upside down, its rack of antlers swinging just above the grassy loam.

As Arin worked her way ’round to the other side of Silverleaf’s horse, Vanidar unsheathed his razor-sharp long-knife and slit the dead buck’s throat.

Blood gushed out, staining the earth.

Arin glanced over at the scarlet pour, free-flowing blood runneling down neck and chin and onto the sward and into the soil below.

She glanced away from this sanguine sight and looked into the fire at hand.

Her eyes flew wide and she gasped in distress, and harsh breath hissed ‘tween clenched teeth. Horse, stag, Elven companions: all were forgotten as the vision took her.

Tears flooded her eyes and streamed down her cheeks and she cried out in torment, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the Seeing.

And then her mind fled from her and she fell senseless to the ground.

D
ara…Dara…”

Who calls from afar?

“Dara…”

Nearer.

“Dara…”

Closer still.

“Dara.”

Arin opened her eyes. Ginger-haired Biren knelt beside her, concern in his face as he chafed her wrists and said once again, “Dara.” The others stood back, disquieted.

Muzzily Arin nodded in acknowledgment, then struggled to rise, but Biren shook his head and held her back. “A moment more, Dara.”

She took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“Thou didst faint.”

Of a sudden the vision came flooding back. “Oh, Adon, let it not be,” she exclaimed, distress in her voice.

“What?” Perin, Biren’s twin, now knelt opposite, consternation in his pale brown eyes. “What is it that should not be?”

“Slaughter, Perin,” she replied, “bloody slaughter. War sweeping o’er all.” Arin pushed Biren’s staying hand aside and sat up. She glanced at the fire. “I Saw.”

Elves looked at one another, alarm upon their faces, for they all knew the truth of Arin’s visions.

Rissa reached out to take Vanidar’s hand in hers. “Mayhap it is a sight from the past,” she said, hopefully.

“Aye,” said Silverleaf. “Mayhap a war from the elder times, a war long gone.”

Arin shook her head. “It cannot be a past happening, Rissa, Vanidar, at least I think it cannot, for it seems too great to be obscure, and I did not recognize it.”

Melor handed Arin a cup of water, a crushed mint leaf swirling within. She nodded her thanks to the russet-haired Dylvana and drank it down, then reached up and took Ruar’s offered hand and stood. Melor refilled the cup.

“Exactly what didst thou see, Dara?” asked Ruar.

Arin drew a deep breath. “Steeds thundering ‘cross the land, reaving swords slashing down, hacking off legs and arms and heads and gutting the innocent, spilling their intestines out on the ground. Day sky dark as night with the smoke of burning cities. Forests hewn. Fields salted. Rivers running red with blood. Gorcrows and vultures by the thousands feeding upon the slain multitudes, slashing beaks plucking out eyes, rending flesh, gulping down gobbets of rotting meat. Great dark winged shapes wheeling in the sky, flame roaring from their throats—”

Rissa gasped. “Dragons?”

Arin nodded. “Aye, Rissa. Dragons.”

Biren held out a negating hand. “Dragons in a war on Mithgar? This has never been.”

“Mayhap a local war?” conjectured Perin.

Arin shook her head. “Nay, Perin, ’tis more than that, for I have not told all.”

“There’s more?”

“Aye: I beheld a map of Mithgar, a great stain of blood spreading wide, covering the whole of the land.”

Vanidar’s jaw clenched and his hand went to his long-knife. “Then it is a great doom thou hast foreseen, mayhap the doom of the world.”

Ruar sighed and looked at Silverleaf. “Then thou thinkest it is yet to come?”

Vanidar nodded. “Aye, Ruar. I agree with Dara Arin. A war sweeping across the face of Mithgar, a war with Dragons involved, a doom entangling the whole of the world…it has never been.”

“Who would be so mad as to do such?” asked Perin.

All eyes turned to Arin. She turned up her palms in distressed uncertainty, then said, “There is more.”

Ruar’s eyes widened. “More to thy vision?”

“Aye, I have not told all.”

“Then say on.”

Arin glanced at the fire. “Riding in the train of war comes plague, pestilence, and famine, for long after the crush of cruel iron has swept past, tens of thousands will continue to die—nought but skin and bones with great pustulant black buboes bursting forth and spewing out yellow poison. And scuttling among the stricken to feed upon the dead come rats and beetles and many-legged crawlers and other creeping vermin.”

Arin paused to take another drink, and none said aught but waited in silence instead. Melor started to replenish the water, but she shook her head. “There is one last thing central to the vision: a stone…a green stone—”

“A rock?” asked Perin.

“A gem?” added Rissa.

“Hush,” said Silverleaf. “Let her speak and she will tell us.”

“It was pale green, a lucent jade,” said Arin. “Smooth and egglike it was, yet how big I cannot say, for there was nought to judge it against. But I do know that it is key to the vision, for all the other images whirled ’round and ’round the stone, as if it were the eye of a maelstrom, the anchor of the doom.”

Silence fell among them, broken at last by Perin. “How knowest thou that this thing is a stone? Could it not be a plain egg?”

Arin shook her head. “Plain it is not, Alor Perin, nor is it an egg. How I know I cannot say, yet it
is
a green stone.”

They looked at one another, mute in their consternation. Then Melor asked, “Is there aught else to thy Seeing?”

Arin frowned in concentration, and she stared at the ground as if trying to capture an elusive thought. Finally she said, “I am not certain. Mayhap there was more, but my mind fled from the ing and the blackness took me.”

Again silence fell. At last Rissa glanced up at Silverleaf. “What shall we do with this Seeing,
chieran
?” He did not answer but stood pondering, unaware that he had been addressed. Rissa’s gaze then swept across the others, stopping at last with Arin. “Has any a suggestion?”

Now all eyes looked to Arin. She sighed. “We need consult with others: the Dylvana Coron and his Court, the Lian Coron, too. Mayhap someone will know what to do.”

Silverleaf slowly nodded, then said, “There is another we can consult: Dara Rael, for like thee, Dara Arin, she, too, can .”

*   *   *

The next day south they rode, heading for the central glades of Darda Erynian, where the Coron of the Dylvana dwelled. They passed the cottage of a Baeron family—a man and wife, with two daughters and a son—living in the northern reaches of the Great Greenhall. Unlike other humans—nearly all of whom are barred from these woods—the Baeron clans dwell within the bounds of Darda Erynian—as well as the Greatwood to the south—for it is said that in the past they had greatly aided the Hidden Ones and so were welcomed herein. The band of Elves paused long enough for a cool drink of water and they gave the bulk of the stag meat over to the Baeron household as well as the hide, though Vanidar kept the antlers from which he would fashion handles for knives and perhaps other utensils as well. The family received the meat and the pelt graciously, though Baeron are adept at fetching their own game. As the man hung the venison in the smokehouse, and the son and daughters stretched out the hide on a tanning rack, the wife carried-two meat pies to the Elves, which they accepted gladly.