What Has Gone Before… #3
Later, upon visiting the Tielwald’s house in Skar Magnol, she uncovered the hidden documents he had guided her to, much to the ire of the ever suspicious Vellihr Ilvar.
Making her way back to the Verungyr, she lingered at a book stall in the marketplace, exchanging pleasantries in Ishtan with the proprietor, who hailed from the southern seas.
Elvine professed apologies for lacking the coin to purchase a volume of The Collected Plays of Jeanivere D’Ambrille, a book she knew her mother would find interesting.
At this point, Vahlak Tahrimsturm appeared and purchased the book for her, at a reduced price.
The Tuhlvyr insisted on escorting Elvine back to the Verungyr and, as they conversed, Elvine suspected the Nihlvarian may have more than a passing interest in her.
Reporting this to her mother, she was piqued when Berrine advised her to stoke the Tuhlvyr’s interest, yet, in order to escape she knew they must pursue every advantage.
Returning to the market the following day to pay the bookseller the full price for his volume, she found him vanished.
Retracing her steps, she came into painful collision with an urchin speeding through the throng with a stolen turnip.
It was only when she returned to Lore’s Tower that she discovered the child had secured a coded missive upon her person which guided her to a secret passage in a forgotten wine cellar of the Verungyr.
There she did meet with Gruinskard’s principal servant, a vile and dangerous wretch named Coelnyr.
He told her to bring the Tielwald to the passage in three days’ time.
A boat would be waiting on the northern shore to carry them away.
Conspiring with Aldunna, the Tielwald’s hidden agent in the kitchens, Elvine and Berrine decided to poison Lore with a plate of tarts.
On the same night, Aldunna would bring porridge to the guards in the dungeon, also poisoned.
When the time came, Elvine found Lore’s tower empty.
Leaving the tarts in the hope the queen would partake upon her return, Elvine took up the Spear of the Altvar to spirit it from the stronghold.
She was interrupted by Vahlak’s arrival.
The Tuhlvyr appeared to be unaware of Elvine’s plotting and took an immediate interest in the tarts she had brought.
Before he could taste one, however, Elvine slammed the butt of the spear into the side of his head.
Leaving Vahlak unconscious, she made swiftly for the dungeons.
Making a pretence of visiting her half-brother, she waited for Aldunna to arrive, her tainted supper quickly dispatching the guards.
She had hoped to spare the gaoler, a kindly man with little liking for Lore’s actions, but Gruinskard slew him immediately upon being released from his cell.
“His ears were always too keen for my liking,” the Tielwald said.
Together with Berrine, the four of them fled to the concealed passage in the wine cellar.
Making their way to the coast, the party was greeted by Coelnyr aboard the same fishing boat that had carried Elvine and Colvyn to Skar Magnol.
Crewed by three brothers, Ahlgrun, Kelvyrn and Teryk, the boat carried them into waters befogged by morning mist. Guided by Teryk, who possessed an uncanny facility for navigation without aid of map or compass, they made their way past the Nihlvarian warships sent to intercept them.
It was as they glided close to one of the larger vessels that Elvine heard Lore calling to her: “Come back to me. It’s not too late.
I can forgive.” When she gave no answer, Elvine was assailed by the screams of the bookseller from the market, this blameless man having been captured and put to torture.
As the boat sailed clear of the fog, the screams echoed in her ears as they set course for Olversahl.
In the wintry mountains of northern Nihlvar, Ruhlin and his companions were also seeking to make good their escape.
Happening upon a camp of Travka, dispossessed and landless Nihlvarian outcasts, they found the inhabitants slain save for a little girl, quickly taken into Aleida’s care.
It was clear these people had been murdered by hunters sent in pursuit of Ruhlin’s band.
With hounds tracking their every step, Ruhlin exhorted his friends to greater speed, discarding all burdens in an effort to reach the passage through the mountains promised by Iyaka.
Upon reaching it, Ruhlin realised he would have to surrender to the monster in order to hold off their pursuers so that the rest of the party could escape.
Guthnyr, Iyaka, Sygurn and the Caerith warrior Tuhlan, stood with him while the others hurried into the narrow pass leading to the Morvek dominion.
Yet, as the Nihlvarians drew near, they were set upon by a strong force of Morvek warriors, hunters and hounds all slain in a matter of moments.
The bear, which had been absent for most of the journey, also reappeared and Ruhlin understood that the beast had guided their saviours to them.
The Morvek were members of the Vehlkasa clan, mountain folk with a fierce antipathy towards the Rulchakin, as they called the Nihlvarians.
Nevertheless, Tirohk, the Vehlkasa war chief, guided Ruhlin and his companions to an abandoned mining village where they were permitted to make their home.
An explanation for this welcome was not provided, but Ruhlin noticed that the phrasing of the name Telchak, which Iyaka has given him, was now spoken by the Morvek in a more portentous tone.
Despite the supposed presence of ghosts, unquiet spirits of the ill-fated Nihlvarian miners who once dwelt there, Ruhlin and his friends quickly set about reconstructing the settlement which bore the name Tahrim Kyrn, the place of gold.
Their investigation of the surviving mine shafts revealed no sign of the yellow metal, but did yield a good amount of coal and iron ore.
Sygurn, a blacksmith before he was a slave, used these treasures to rekindle the village forge.
Assisted by Guthnyr, who knew the secrets of smelting steel from base ore, Sygurn soon fashioned a sword.
But it was a poor thing, the blade brittle and likely to shatter.
That is, until Aleida touched it with her gift for shaping metal.
Thereafter, it was the finest weapon, possessed of an edge that never dulled.
Recognising the need for arms, and the favour they would curry with the Morvek, Ruhlin set the village to producing more.
Soon, Sygurn and Guthnyr presented him with a gift, a finely crafted maul.
“We thought it best given what a fecking terrible swordsman you are,” Sygurn explained.
It was as their labours began to bear fruit that Tirohk reappeared, stating that Ruhlin must accompany him to a gathering of Morvek elders to the north.
Realising he had little choice but to accede, Ruhlin went with the war chief, leaving Guthnyr in charge of Tahrim Kyrn with instructions to produce as many weapons as possible.
With only the bear as company besides Tirohk, Ruhlin set forth.
As they journeyed, Ruhlin learned that Tirohk and Iyaka had once been married but she had sundered their union to venture into Nihlvar in search of the means to end her people’s subjugation.
Ruhlin, as Telchak, a long prophesied figure in Morvek lore, would be the means of their liberation.
Ruhlin also came to understand that Iyaka set fire to the slave ship in Speltsaer in order to ensure he would travel to Morvek lands.
Crossing a broad plain where herds of shaggy, great horned cows grazed on plentiful grass, they came to a vast forest Tirohk named as the Teyracha, home to the Teyrak clan who harboured a long-standing enmity to their mountain kin.
They were soon met by Velkar, shaman to the Teyrak, a woman with the uncanny ability to command a pack of wolves that rarely strayed far from her side.
Although clearly suspicious of Ruhlin, Velkar guided them to a large hollow deep in the forest where the elders of the Morvek clans had gathered to pass judgement on the Telchak.
At first, it seemed their suspicion of outsiders and fear of confronting the Nihlvarians would overcome any attachment to prophecy, until the intervention of an aged shaman of the Vulksa clan named Olchar.
Although small in stature and evidently weakened by age, this old man clearly commanded great respect among the Morvek.
His pronouncement that Ruhlin was indeed the Telchak served to quiet the burgeoning discord among the elders.
Yet, in order to put the question beyond doubt, Olchar explained that Ruhlin must now venture into the hollow.
This was a grim place of dark shadows and thick roots where it seemed nothing good had grown for years uncounted.
The Vikra-sah, the Morvek called it, a cursed corner of the great forest from which no Morvek had ever returned.