A Darkness Forged in Fire

FORTY-THREE

T he rain finally stopped, and in its absence, a heavy fog shrouded the night around the black forest. Few of the soldiers knew what a sauna was, but all on the scouting parties outside the ring of trees understood the effect. Sweat and fog mixed, turning their skin slimy with heat. Rubbing one's hands against a sopping caerna did nothing to improve the grip on a slick musket, the bare metal already blossoming with the first tinge of orange rust.

But it wasn't the wrath of a nitpicking sergeant that worried them. Scouts were coming back in with reports of something in the east that the soldiers on the outer piquets could hear for themselves.

An army was approaching.

Konowa stood on one of the short wooden docks that jutted out into the river and peered into the mist. It was still too dark to see anything beyond a few hundred yards, even with the benefit of elvish eyes and a full moon trying to shine through the fog. He stepped to one side as a group of soldiers brushed past carrying an elfkynan kios , which they took to the end of the dock. With much grunting and cursing they lifted it down onto several other kios that had been lashed together and then planked over, creating a thin, precarious bridge that stretched across the river. It was a tenuous lifeline at best, but it would allow the outlying soldiers a quicker return after doing what they could to slow the advance of the enemy.

He felt something brush against his leg and looked down to see Jir standing beside him. "Get back up to the fortress," he said, gently ruffling the fur on the bengar's head. Jir looked up at him for a moment, growled softly, then slowly padded away, but not before lifting a leg on the edge of the dock.

The sound of soldiers working drew Konowa's attention back to the far side of the river. Over the fall of hammers and muffled oaths the sound of the rebels approaching could be heard. Konowa tried to force his senses out beyond the river, but found he could not. He placed a hand over his heart and tried harder. The temperature around him dropped and tiny shards of frost glistened from his cloak, but still he was unable to detect more than a vague presence. He gave up and turned his back to the river, staring hard at the reason.

The trees now rose more than ten feet in some places, their gnarled branches crooking back on themselves to interlock with the trees around them. Their growth appeared to have stopped, but Konowa knew better. Within the ring of trees, his senses were clearer than they had been at any time in his life. Even now the roots were twisting and stabbing their way deeper into the soil, deeper even than their branches reached skyward.

The dock began to shake, and Konowa knew without looking who it was.

"Getting a bit nippy around here, sir," Private Hrem Vulhber said, saluting as he came to attention in front of Konowa. It took a moment for Konowa to pull his stare away from the trees. When he did, he saw that Hrem was staring at the trees, too.

"The Prince's choice of uniform leaves something to be desired, I'm guessing."

Hrem shrugged, his massive shoulders lifting and falling. He absently brushed at his caerna, still staring at the trees. "I'm more worried about them trees."

"As am I, Private, as am I. How are the troops holding up?" Konowa asked, trying to smile.

Hrem nodded toward the far side of the river and the sound of the elfkynan army. "We can handle the natives easy enough. I was riding rear guard on a wagon train a few months back when we were attacked by a couple hundred of them. Two volleys of musket fire put the fear in them and they ran like rabbits. They're brave enough, and there's no denying they would just as soon see the back of the Empire from their land, but they're not stupid. With those cannons we found in the fortress, we'll more than be a match for them. But they aren't going to be our main problem, are they?"

It marked just how absurd their position was that the impending attack of a substantially larger rebel elfkynan army should be considered a secondary concern. But it was.

"No, I suppose they won't," Konowa said, choosing to play it straight. He reached up and laid a hand on Hrem's shoulder. "But I'll tell you this, I won't let this regiment be destroyed. Not now, not ever."

Konowa had expected the soldier to nod, maybe even voice his agreement. Instead, Hrem gently shrugged his hand from his shoulder. "That's what worries us."

It was insubordination, pure and simple, but the way Hrem said it gave Konowa pause. Before he could ask for an explanation, Hrem bent down by the edge of the dock and grabbed something from the water. When he stood up again he held his hand out, palm up. A little crab no bigger than a silver coin stood there, its tiny claws waving in the air to ward off danger. It was futile. A moment later the crab was enveloped in black frost, then consumed by a dark, cold fire.

"Can everyone do that?" Konowa finally asked, looking around at the other soldiers still working on the makeshift bridge.

Hrem flexed his hand and dropped it back by his side. "Maybe, I don't know. A few of the lads went to see the witch and she told them it was a kind of cold fever and that it would go away in a few days. She did some kind of spell to hurry up the healing and told them it was best not to try it again or, um, stuff might fall off."

"Oh." Konowa wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry.

"They're simple lads for the most part," Hrem said. "They'll go along with that for now. Sometime soon though you're going to have to explain to them, to all of us, just what being an Iron Elf really means."

Konowa was about to say he wished he knew himself when the sound of running boots and shouts of alarm came from across the river. The acorn cooled appreciably and his senses immediately heightened. He ran forward, drawing his saber as he did so, Hrem at his side bringing his musket to bear. They met a soldier hurrying across the makeshift bridge, bent over in obvious pain. His uniform was torn and he was breathing heavily.

The private lifted his head as Konowa approached and struggled to give his report. "They're here, the elfkynan army is here."

There was the unmistakable crackle of musket fire from the far side of the river. He saw the familiar shower of sparks out of the corner of his eye-contact had been made.

"One of their patrols must have stumbled into one of ours," Konowa said, sheathing his saber and looking at the group around him. He spied a corporal he didn't know by name and pointed to him. "You, report that we have made contact, though I'm sure they heard the muskets, then have the two cannon brought down to the river. Private Vulhber and the rest of you are with me."

Without waiting for a reply, Konowa headed back to the dock leading six soldiers. His eyes were more than capable of seeing the precarious planking that had been laid down over the kios, but he knew the soldiers behind him would not be so fortunate. He turned to tell them to light a torch and saw that Hrem was already lighting a lantern he had found on a pole near the dock.

When Konowa reached the other side, the first thing he noticed was the heat. It was like diving into a hot spring. The air was thick in his lungs and he coughed and wiped his brow. As he put his foot down on the far bank, his senses blurred, and the clarity he had known within the ring of trees vanished.

"Major!"

Konowa unbuttoned his cloak, took it off, and waited for a jogging Lorian to come to a halt in front of him. "How many?"

Lorian saluted. "It was a cavalry scouting party, maybe twenty, twenty-five. Hard to say in the dark, but it looks like we dropped about half of them. I managed to wrangle three horses, one slightly wounded, but no prisoners. We suffered no casualties."

"Show me."

Lorian led him and the six soldiers on a dirt path through knee-high grass for a couple of hundred yards. The night sky had an eerie glow to it, and it occurred to Konowa that he had no idea what phase the moon was in. From the degree to which visibility improved the further they moved away from the mist surrounding Luuguth Jor, however, he guessed it was probably full.

"There," Lorian said, pointing to a squad of soldiers kneeling in a line to either side of the path. From a distance, the wings of their shakos created the appearance of a row of vultures perched on rocks. They had built a makeshift wall with a few fallen branches of wahatti trees and an overturned kios, its hull so rotten that its only protective function could be to their morale.

Konowa motioned for Vulhber and the others to stretch out the line on either side and walked forward on the path to where the first body lay just twenty yards away. Other dark forms dotted the grass, some much larger than others and obviously horses. Konowa stopped himself. Better not to assume anything. He tried to search the area with his senses, closing his eyes momentarily and trying to recall what it had felt like when Visyna drew on the living skeins around her. Everything was jumbled, not that it really mattered. He could hear the sound of the main body of the elfkynan army fanning out in front of them, probably no more than half a mile away. Already the surviving cavalry scouts would be reporting that they had made contact. An attack was not far off. He opened his eyes and knelt to examine the body.

The elfkynan lay on his back, his arms raised over his head, his mouth and eyes open in surprise. He wore a simple pair of thin blue cloth pants, the bottoms wrapped tightly around his calves with red puttees. His feet were bare, as was the custom of most elfkynan. Instead of a jacket, his chest was covered by a length of white cloth wrapped up and over one shoulder, the fabric stained with blood still dribbling out of a copper-coin-sized hole where a musket ball had punched through his heart. The cloth was held around his waist by a broad, flat belt of jute fiber adorned with bits of gems and polished pieces of wood. His headdress lay a few feet away, a wide-brimmed hat of woven grass. Konowa looked around and realized what was missing.

"Where's his weapon?"

There were a few coughs and shuffling of feet, and one soldier bent and retrieved it from the grass. "A mioxja," Konowa said, taking it from the soldier. It was beautiful in its simplicity. Two blades of razor-sharp jimik grass were tightly bound to the end of a three-foot-long section of willow. It was more bladed whip than spear.

"Is that all they have?" the soldier who had handed Konowa the weapon asked. "I mean, it's just grass and twigs tied together. I've known blind beggars with canes who were more dangerous." A few of the soldiers laughed and voiced their agreement.

Konowa pointed to the grass hat a few feet away. "Pick that up and hold it out from your body. You might want to cover your face; I haven't tried this in a while."

The soldier looked a little startled, but did as he was told. He had no sooner held the hat out than Konowa snapped his wrist and flicked the mioxja. The soldier yelped, let go of the remaining tiny section of hat, brought his hand up to his mouth, and blew on his fingers. This time, the laughter was more subdued.

"Never underestimate your enemy," Konowa said, throwing the weapon to the ground and grinding the blades into the dirt with the heel of his boot. "A mioxja in the hands of a skilled warrior can flay a soldier alive with a couple of strokes. In the unlikely event that they get through our musket volleys, don't lean back. Close the gap and get right into them."

"What about the trees then, and the Shadow Monarch, sir?" the soldier who had held the hat asked. He had a weasely look about him, thin and conniving.

"Never mind that, Zwitty," Lorian barked, glowering at the private.

Konowa held up a hand. "It's a fair question. The answer is I don't know. The elfkynan are the enemy before us, so that's who we will fight."

The answer satisfied most of the soldiers, but not Zwitty. "What if the Shadow Monarch gets that Star everyone is talking about? What if She uses it to turn them into more monsters? Then what do we do?"

Konowa shook his head. "Bayonets and musket balls are cure enough for that. Keep your head, and they'll lose theirs. They'll attack at ceh-gwadi, " he said, staring into the distance. "The ears of the morning. It's a herdsman thing. It's the time of day when the ears of the brindos can first be seen against the lightening sky. Until that happens, they'll keep their distance. They fear the spirits that roam in the dark and believe if they are caught, their souls will be lost forever. So they'll wait until dawn to attack."

"But what-"

"No more questions!" Lorian said, looking hard at Zwitty. He shifted his halberd to hold it in both hands. "Save your breath for when you're going to need it. Back to your posts, and I don't want to see the glow of a pipe or I'll be flaying the stupid bugger with ten of those mojas, and the dumb bastards to either side of him who didn't stop him. Now move."

The soldiers melted away, the sound of their boots stomping through the grass receding quickly.

Konowa followed them, passing through the makeshift line and taking the path back toward the river. When they were out of earshot he stopped and motioned for Lorian to stand close. "On edge?"

Lorian grounded his halberd and let out a sigh, slumping his shoulders as he looked back toward the front. "This is utter madness. The elfkynan aren't stupid. Once they realize we're trapped, they'll cross the river to either side and surround us. We don't have supplies to last more than a couple of weeks, maybe a month if we slaughter the brindos and muraphants."

"They won't have the luxury of starving us out," Konowa said, wiping at the sweat on his brow. His breathing was labored, as if he had just run a mile, not walked a few hundred feet. He needed to get back within the ring of trees and the cooler air. "The Star is a lodestone to them. It's why this forest is here, why we're here, and why they're here. They've taken up arms in open rebellion against the Empire. They can't afford to wait for the Imperial Army to turn back from the orc border and move north."

Lorian lifted his chin. "Or for the maker of this hellish forest to come back."

It wasn't a topic Konowa wanted to discuss. Fragments of dreams kept racing through his head, none of them pleasant. "As I said, we'll deal with the enemy before us for now. I want you focused on delaying the elfkynan on this side of the river. Throw out a skirmish line at first light and have them pick off leaders and shamans if they can see any. Draw the elfkynan straight on, but whatever you do, don't make a stand. Keep falling back to the river. We don't want them trying to outflank you."

Lorian nodded. "With the horses we took, I could do a scout of my own and see just what we're facing."

"You're not in a cavalry regiment now. If you get cut off out there, we have no way to come get you. Keep it simple, no heroics. Just make contact, get them interested in coming straight on, and fall back."

Lorian didn't look convinced, but agreed. "We'll make it back, Major."

"See that you do, and bring the elfkynan with you. I'll have a surprise waiting for them when they get to the river."