The Dragonstone

CHAPTER 31

Leading the horse, Ann and Aiko walked down the stony way, fog curling about them and swirling after as they passed through the mist-laden air. A mile they went and a mile more and onward, until in all they covered just over a league, and at last they came upon the runaway steeds, horse and pony nibbling on new spring grass at the foot of a modest slope of slow-melting snow banked against the north face of a great sheltering boulder. The animals looked at Arin and Aiko as if asking "where have you been?" Cooing softly, Arin gathered them in.

As the Dylvana fed the steeds each a cup of grain, Aiko transferred the salvaged goods from her horse to the pony. Shortly they continued onward, Arin and Aiko now mounted.

Down through the blowing mist they rode, the cloud thinning as they descended, until only vague tendrils grasped at them, and soon even these were gone. Another league they fared and the pass debouched onto wide grassy plains. They had at last ridden down from the clouds to come to the Steppes of Jord.

They set up camp in the lee of a hillside at the foot of Kaagor Pass. They had just built a fire to have some hot tea when the rain began to fall.

The next morning, thoroughly drenched, Arin and Aiko studied the map. They decided to follow an old road alongside the Grey River, then cross over to Arnsburg and rest awhile, after which they would push onward, fording the Judra into Naud where they would turn north and follow the banks of that river through Naud and Kath to Fjordland, where they would turn away easterly to ride to Morkfjord within, the entire route some six hundred miles altogether.

"If we press," said Arin, studying the way, "we should arrive within a month."

North they started, bearing slightly west, following the road down from Kaagor Pass as a thin dawn mist seeped up from the dank ground, and within two leagues, just this side of a thicket straight ahead, they sighted a fork in the road-one route turning westerly toward Jordkeep, the other bearing northward to Arnsburg. Yet as they came toward the split, a chariot drawn by four horses abreast rumbled out from the copse, two riders within, one driving, one bearing a spear and buckler. The two-wheeled war-wagon trundled to the junction, where it stopped and waited.

Arin glanced at Aiko. "What says thy tiger?"

"She whispers only caution, Dara."

"As I, too, thought," said the Dylvana.

Arin turned her attention back to the chariot and the warriors within. The wagon itself seemed made of wood and covered with a hide-armor of sorts. The wheels were large, the iron rims wide, the better to run over rough ground. A cluster of spears-perhaps ten or twelve in all-stood to the right side and rear, and Arin could see what she deemed was a readied bow racked on the right-side hand rail.

As they rode closer, Arin turned her attention to the warriors: they were women, tall and fair, fierce warrior maidens of Jord. Steel helms they wore, dark and glintless, one sporting a long, tailing gaud of horsehair, the other bearing wings flaring. Fleece vests covered chain-link shirts, and long cloaks draped from their shoulders to ward away the icy chill of the early morning mist.

They looked proud and hard, standing as they did, their weapons at the ready, their visages resolute and framed by coppery hair, their clear eyes flinty as these strangers came into the realm of the Vanadurin. And when Arin and Aiko reached the juncture…

"Stanse!" commanded the spear-wielding warrior, speaking in a tongue neither Arin nor Aiko knew, yet the meaning was clear and they halted their steeds.

"Hva heter Da? Hvor skal dufra? Hvor skal du hen?"

"We do not speak thy tongue," said Arin, casting back her hood.

The warrior maidens' eyes widened slightly at the sight of an Elf. The charioteer holding the four-in-hand said, "My Lady, these are suspicious times, for the realm of Jord is at war. Hence we need know your names and where you are from and where you are bound."

"At war?" asked Arin.

"Aye. With the Naudrons." The maiden waved a hand vaguely to the east.

Now Aiko cast back her own hood, and again the eyes of both maidens widened, for never had they seen a yellow-skinned person before.

"I am Dara Arin of Darda Erynian. My companion is Lady Aiko of Ryodo. We are bound for Fjordland."

The charioteer spoke rapidly, translating Arin's words to the other.

"Hvorledes kommen de til den Jordreich?" asked the warrior holding the spear.

The driver turned to Arin. "How did you come to the Jordreach? Surely not…" She glanced up the road at the col.

Arin turned and waved a hand toward the Grimwall. "Through Kaagor Pass."

"Umulig!" snorted the spear bearer.

"That cannot be!" declared the charioteer. "There is a vanskapnig-a monster-living there."

"The monster, the Troll, is dead," said Arin.

"Dod? The Troll is dod?”

"Aye," replied Arin. "We slew it: by five-bladed throwing-star and bow and arrow."

"Now it is I who will say impossible!" proclaimed the driver.

Aiko shifted in her saddle and her hands went to the hilts of her swords. Her voice came low, dangerous: "Call you my Lady a liar?"

"Aiko, no!" snapped Arin. "These are allies. And we are now in their realm. -Show them the eye."

Reluctantly, stiffly, her glare never leaving the eyes of the offending warrior maiden, Aiko dismounted.

The chariot driver murmured a word to the other maid, and that warrior grudgingly leaned her spear away.

Aiko then turned and stepped to the pony and undid the grain sack holding the Troll's eye. She moved to the fore and squatted, setting the sack to the ground and unwrapping the grisly orb.

Both warrior maidens gasped, and a string of words rattled between the two. At last they turned to Arin and Aiko, and the driver said, "We apologize for our doubt, Lady Arin, Lady Aiko, but such a thing has never been."

"We were guided by the hand of Fortune," replied Arin, "else we would not be here speaking with ye."

"Where is the Troll?"

"We left it lying where it fell," growled Aiko, hardly mollified, wrapping up the eye again. "It's not as if we could have hauled such a monster down from the heights on the back of our pony."

Now the charioteer laughed. "Of course, how foolish of me to ask." She turned and translated for the other, and then both broke out in laughter.

"Come," said the driver, smiling. "Come to our camp, and we shall all have some tea and celebrate your astounding deed."

"I would not entangle myself in the disputes of men," declared Arin.

"Nor I in wars I know not," said Aiko. And north and west they fared.

A week they rode and another, and the stench from the rotting Troll's eye became unbearable. And so in a small Jordian hamlet, they sealed the putrescent orb in melted beeswax and honey in a tarred leather bag tightly wrapped.

The days had grown long with the coming of summer, and finally the solstice arrived. And a full moon shone down on Arin and Aiko as they stepped out the Elven rite of celebration, the Dylvana singing and guiding the Ryodoan through the intricate paces of the stately sacrament.

On the twenty-fifth day of June they forded the lower Judra, and over the following two days they rode north until they came to the sheer cliffs above the Boreal Sea. Now they turned along the coastline and rode east-northeast as the surf pounded below, the horses and pony clattering along shieldrock bared in an earlier time.

On the twenty-ninth of June they came to a mighty fjord and turned inland to reach its far tapered source, and they rode up onto mountainous slopes, canted land where their journey was slowed.

The air grew colder the higher they went, and in the twilight of the following day they rode past the foot of a glacier, where small blue flowers nodded in the wind. It was now the thirtieth day of June, and morrow night would mark a full year since Arin had had her vision. And as this penultimate evening fell, they espied the lights of a town down by the water's edge.

Arin gazed at her map and nodded, then turned to Aiko and said, "Let us go down and find a suitable inn…"

They had come to Morkfjord at last.