CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“The chemar,” the scarred warrior murmured. “Aiyah, they are a disturbing new development. The Eld only recently began using them, and they stink of witchcraft. We have destroyed all those between our position and the river. But we appreciate the warning.”
Rain eyed the other man with speculation and an unsettling sense of confusion. Dahl’reisen walked the Shadowed Path. They were corrupt and untrustworthy… and yet there was something about this man… “Do you have a name?”
The dahl’reisen’s eyes flickered with surprise. Fey did not ask dahl’reisen their names. Dahl’reisen were the dead—nei, worse than the dead, they were the dishonored.
“I am Farel.”
Celieria ~ Orest
The sky over Orest was on fire. The screams of tairen and dragons rent the air.
Great jets of searing flame and smoke boiled like demonic thunderclouds, turning the sky a sickly orange.
Hundred-fold weaves kept the flames from burning most of the city, but the ramparts of lower Orest were scorched, parts of the stone walks littered with the seared rubble of bowcannon and the smoldering heaps of ash that had once been men.
Two dozen bowcannon were still operational, surrounded by thickets of dense, protective weaves that the Fey opened to let the cannoneers fire, then sealed again once the shot was off.
The tairen darted in and out of the Faering Mists using the magical barrier for cover, soaring out to launch an attack and draw the fire of the dragons so the cannoneers could load and launch their ice shot, which exploded on the slick, superheated dragon scales like water dropped in a vat of hot grease.
Three of the great beasts had fallen, their broken, bloody carcasses draped over the city’s walls and rooftops, but the victory had not come cheaply.
“My Lord Teleos! Look!” One of the general’s aides pointed to the east. An army was marching towards Orest, banners waving the familiar blue and gold of Celieria and an equally familiar gold gryphon on a field of red. “It’s Lord Polwyr!”
Teleos fixed Fey eyes on the approaching army, and the tension in his gut didn’t ease until he saw the familiar face of his neighbor and friend, Griffet Polwyr, heading up the column, riding his favorite white warhorse.
“Thank the Bright Lord. He must have seen our signal fires. Quickly! Open the eastern gates and wave him in. Tell the cannoneers keep those dragons off him while his men cross the field.”
Eld ~ The Heras River
A fog had moved in, blanketing the Heras in thick whiteness.
Long black barges emerged from the mist as the dahl’reisen band approached the banks of the river.
Dark sails snapped in an unnatural wind, and the shallow boats skimmed rapidly across the swirling current, steered by an unseen hand.
Along the Eld shores, dahl’reisen slipped like shadows through the trees, their numbers—nearly five hundred strong—moving swift and silent.
Still holding Ellysetta, Rain struggled to keep up, and his steps fell heavily on the ground.
With more Mages advancing rapidly on their heels, Farel had barely taken the time to strike the chains off the manacles clamped to Rain’s ankles so he could run rather than hobble to the river’s shore.
His gait was awkward, the barbs from the sel’dor missiles shredding his flesh with every step.
His body poured constant energy to heal the muscles even as they ripped against the barb’s sharp edges, and the pain was so consuming, he’d had to separate his mind from his body.
As they hurried down the steep hillside to the water’s edge, the black boats beached themselves on Eld soil. The dahl’reisen leapt aboard without pause and pushed off.
Rain had to admire the practiced economy of motion. These dahl’reisen moved like a swift, honed blade, each man acting as a seamless part of the whole. Even without their impressive invisibility weaves, they could no doubt strike without warning and disappear before anyone could summon a defense.
He clambered aboard the last boat and took the seat Farel indicated.
Ellysetta’s head lolled back against his arm, her bright hair spilling down to the boat bottom in a fall of wild spirals.
Her lips were parted, her breath whispering through in shallow gasps.
Around him, dahl’reisen cast furtive glances filled with curiosity and longing and envy.
How long had it been since they’d seen a Fey woman?
Since they’d stood even half a league from one?
He drew Ellysetta more closely against his chest. His flat gaze met the others, warning them off as the boat pushed away from the shore and turned, heading for the other side.
“You are the Brotherhood of Shadows,” Rain said.
“Did Gaelen vel Serranis send you to rescue us?” Of course, it had to be Gaelen.
The reckless, rock-headed lu’tan would have done anything to save Ellysetta, even send dahl’reisen for whom coming within a mile of a Fey woman was an act punishable by death.
Farel’s eyes flickered. “What do you know of Gaelen vel Serranis?”
“I know he leads a band of dahl’reisen he calls the Brotherhood of Shadows. He came to Celieria several months ago with reports of Mages returning to power and the Eld gathering an army.”
“You cannot have captured him. You would have ordered his death for approaching his sister.”
“Aiyah, I would have.”
“Yet he still lives.”
“He does.” Rain was not about to tell the dahl’reisen that Ellysetta had restored Gaelen’s soul.
They might be Gaelen’s comrades, they might have rescued Rain and Ellysetta from certain doom, but they were still dahl’reisen, Fey outcasts who had chosen life on the Shadowed Path over sheisan’dahlein, the honor death.
They were what Gaelen had been before Ellysetta restored his soul, honor-lost warriors capable of committing the most heinous of all Fey crimes—even murdering a Fey woman.
Rain had not forgotten that Gaelen had originally come to Celieria City to kill Ellysetta because he believed she was Vadim Maur’s daughter.
Instead, Ellysetta had restored Gaelen’s soul, and he’d bloodsworn himself to her protection.
“You confuse me, Tairen Soul.”
Not half so much as I confuse myself. Rain sighed and pressed his lips to Ellysetta’s brow. She had entered his life and tilted all his certainties into questions.
“We would have saved her regardless of Gaelen’s commands,” Farel announced abruptly. “She is Fey. We may have lost our path, but we still own enough of our souls that we would not have allowed a fellana to fall into Eld hands.”
Rain looked up. Farel was watching Ellysetta.
There was no mistaking the helpless adoration, the naked longing.
No Fey woman had ever claimed Farel’s soul, yet still he could not help but love them.
It was plain on his face that even now, even dahl’reisen, he remembered the dreams of every Fey boy and man for a truemate, he remembered the untarnished beauty and limitless love of Fey women.
He might want to blame them for his banishment, but he could not.
“Beloved of us all,” Rain said quietly.
“The gods have mercy upon us.”
With another man, Rain would have laughed at the familiar rejoinder. But he could not laugh with a dahl’reisen whose only hope of mercy had perished long ago.
The boats reached Celierian shores under the protective blanket of mist, and the dahl’reisen disembarked as quickly as they had boarded. As the last man leapt to dry land, the boats dissolved and shrank, becoming the fallen trunks of trees littering Celierian shores.
“The Mages will likely follow us,” Farel said. “And not necessarily by the river. We slay them where we can, but the Eld have thoroughly infiltrated the borders. The north belongs to Eld, and only now does Celieria begin to know it.”
“So Gaelen warned us months ago, but few believed him.”
Farel nodded, but this time silenced any bitter reply he might have made. “Gaelen told us to keep you safe until he arrived, so you’ll be coming with us.”
To one side, a dahl’reisen emerged from the mists leading a black ba’houda horse. “Can you ride, Tairen Soul? It’s either this or we carry you and your mate on a pair of litters. We cannot afford to let you slow us down.”
“I can ride,” Rain said. Flamed if he would let some dahl’reisen cart him about like a decrepit mortal.
It wounded his pride to allow Farel’s men to lift him into the saddle, but better that than allow the dahl’reisen to touch Ellysetta.
When the ba’houda actually moved, more than his pride hurt but he gritted his teeth and bore it, clasping Ellysetta tightly against him as they galloped through the Celierian hills.
Every so often, a small squad of dahl’reisen would peel off from the main group and lope away in some different direction.
Decoys, Rain presumed, sent to befuddle any followers and to erase the signs of passage of the main party.
The dahl’reisen operated with impressive precision.
Which wasn’t all that surprising since all dahl’reisen were seasoned Fey veterans with many centuries of training and warfare beneath their belts.
Once, they had been among the best warriors of the Fading Lands.
Rain was grateful for the dahl’reisen weave that kept Ellysetta unconscious.
Between the sel’dor in her body, his own burning pain, and the presence of the dahl’reisen, she would have been screaming in torment.
And with his arms around her—his body pressed against hers, their shared pain would have formed an agonizing harmonic.