52. Harper
52
HARPER
C onfirmation arrived the next morning with the return of Korrin’s scouts—Harper and her companions were summoned just after dawn to attend the king. Harper skulked at the back of their group, exhausted and shivering after a long, cold, and sleepless night, haunted by spectres of Saradon and Dimitrius.
The king was especially grim-faced that morning. “Your vision was indeed true. We did not need Vanir to verify.”
Relief and then terror swooped through Harper.
Unaware, Korrin continued, “A great goblin host skulks—thrice our number—massing on the plain before Afnirheim. Though they will retreat into the dark halls with the return of day, they will as surely return when cover of darkness strengthens their daring.”
“We are still to march, Konig?” Jarl Halvar asked what they all dared not to, what was not their place to question. That they would fight, despite the dubious odds of success.
Konig Korrin grimaced but nodded—and Harper let out a shaky exhale. She had not realised that secretly, she had been hoping that battle somehow could be averted, and they did not approach an inexorable conflict. “Aye. I know the lay of the land and the halls of Afnirheim. The scourge of goblins stands little chance when we know when and where to position and manoeuvre. Form up, Jarl Halvar. We march at once. I want every dwarf in position to strike after next dawn.”
A tangle of nerves twisted through Harper. Halvar bowed and departed at once to send runners through the camp with the konig’s orders.
That night, there was no merriment in their new camp. Precipitous cliffs hemmed them into a narrow offshoot of the valley that felt altogether too confining and reminiscent of where Harper and her friends had camped the night Ragnar had been taken. Fires were prohibited once more, lest their position be given away to the scourge of goblins that screeched through the peaks. Their harsh calls ricocheted off the cliffs, until it seemed they came from all directions. Everyone was subdued by the sobering reminder of what tomorrow could bring.
Sleep would not be had that night. Though Harper sat in a tight knot with Aedon, Brand, and Erika between the trunk of a giant tree and a rocky overhang, she did not count herself safe. The rhythmic rasp and scrape of Erika sharpening her twin blades was the only sound from their little group, though the clanking of other metal elsewhere in the camp signalled that she was not alone in her ministrations. Brand had laid out all his weapons—the giant blade none of them could hope to lift, plus a surprising number of knives he had concealed upon his body—on the rough ground before him. He checked them all meticulously, cleaning and sheathing them to check he could draw them all with ease. Harper clutched her dagger—the one Aedon had gifted her what felt like an age ago—and a slim, short blade she had briefly trained with in the dwarven halls. They remained in their scabbards before her.
“Are you all right, Harper?” Brand murmured, pausing for a moment.
“No.” Shame burned a path through her belly as she admitted it. “I want to throw up.” She was terrified, though she did not dare to voice that implicitly.
Brand chuckled quietly. “I understand that. Even for me, the time before a battle is filled with no small amount of apprehension.”
“It’s just…” Just what? Was it the threat she knew they were to meet? The risk to them all? The risk to her friends? To Dimitrius—and herself? Or merely the dark of the night amplifying all her fears out of proportion? “It’s just everything ,” she decided.
“That’s normal. The scouts watch with extra vigilance tonight. We are safe. Tomorrow with the dawn, the threat begins, but we will stand together, as we have always done, and we will weather the storm.” He glanced at his other companions and gave a small smile. Harper knew they had fought together many times before.
“What if we don’t?” she whispered. To voice her worst fears aloud scared her even more.
“Then, Harper of Caledan, an honourable death in battle we shall have had. But I will do all in my power to see it is not so. My time in this life is not done yet. I have more to live for.” His eyes flicked to Erika and back again, almost imperceptible in the dark. Perhaps Harper had imagined it.
“As do you,” he added. “What did Vanir call you? Harper of Caledan, of Pelenor, of House Ravakian, Mother Blessed, and Fated One? The Frelsa ?” He gave her another small smile. “It would seem you are most blessed of us all to survive.”
“I’m not half the warrior you are. Or a quarter. Or even a hair’s breadth,” she said. In the face of death, that threatened to liquify her insides. She could not hold her own in battle—of that, she was deadly certain. Why had she signed up to this foolish venture? What utter madness had possessed her? She clutched the scabbard so tightly her knuckles whitened.
Brand laughed. “We will stand with you, Harper. And sometimes, standing together is the only kind of courage and faith we can muster when the outcome is uncertain, but it is enough.”
His words did not comfort Harper as she tightened her cloak around her and braced against the tree trunk to try and snatch a few scant moments of rest. Tomorrow, the king had decreed—they were to go to battle. Tomorrow, she would see the sunrise. But would she see the sunset?