The Inheritance

Chapter 6

Like the hound who guarded her, Elansa lifted her face to the wind, the chill blowing not from the south now but from the west. It carried the scent of pine trees and snow. Fang pricked his ears, and Elansa filled up her lungs with that perfume: the scent of home. Nearby stood Brand and Ley. The elf had his back to the wood. Past him lay a stony flat known as the Notch for its wedge shape. Elansa traced the sketch of stone fences that lay on the land. Someone had farmed here once. Perhaps outlaws or goblins had driven them out.

Ley pulled up the hood of his cloak against the cold and said, "We saw the wagons, Brand. North on the road that runs alongside the edge of the wood. Two drivers, teams of four stout horses. The wagons aren't covered. We saw the weapons. Long sword-lockers, and we couldn't see what's in there, but we could see the shafts of lances and bows with the strings wrapped round. We saw quivers stacked like logs, filled fat. No place for warriors to hide in those wagons.

"We’ve been in the forest, and there's no one-birds, saw some deer-just the forest. Tianna went in as far as the glen-" He held up two water bottles, fat and dripping. "Plenty of that. I think they must have had some good rain or snow."

Brand looked past the elf, away across Stagger Stream. Not much water ran there, but Elansa knew this stream didn't have its source in the White-rage River. The head of this stream lay in the north, but farther west in the stonelands. That, she had heard Brand say, must be blocked by rock-fall.

"It's all right," Ley said. "Just the forest and the wagons coming."

Elansa turned away; hoping no one could see the blood move to her cheek, the flush of hope rising. It might be the outlaws saw only two wagons and their drivers, but she knew-it had to be!-that Keth wouldn't simply trust the ransom and his wife to two drivers. He would be here. Somewhere he was here, waiting to take her home. And before he did he would kill every one of these bandits.

She looked around, but carefully, as though she were but casting down her glance, perhaps afraid. In fact, she looked to see where weapons were-the knife in the belt of Arawn, Dell's bow and quiver, Brand's sword, Char’s throwing axe. On the ground, carelessly left beside the limping stream where it had been used to gut fish, someone's knife lay. Dull light wavered fitfully on the edge of the blade. In two strides, Elansa could have her hand on it. She didn't move. She simply marked it and looked away.

A small dusting of snow gathered white in the cracks between the rocks. The hounds that accompanied the outlaw band went with heads low, licking the stones. Over Ley's shoulder, Elansa saw Tianna standing. The woman faced the forest. Her hair blew back in the wind, a pale pennon of silver. Again, Elansa was struck by the elven look of her-the elegantly canted ears, almond eyes, silver hair. She stood taller than an elf, though, and there was something about her features, a lack of refinement perhaps, a coarseness that put Elansa in mind of humans. She looked away, as from someone’s shame.

"Half-elf," Char said. He cocked his head, his one good eye narrowed. "Bother you?"

Wind blew, grit flew, and Elansa smelled snow on the air. She thought the question impertinent from a dwarf whose own kin did not like to see their blood mingled with other races.

"It is disgusting," she said, and she didn't care who heard her. Soon it wouldn't matter. Soon Keth would come and fetch her home. No one seemed to have heard her, or if anyone had, no one cared.

Brand snapped an order, a simple word-"Spread!"-and his outlaws melted away into the stoneland, their dun clothing making them nearly invisible. The hounds padded beside, and Fang kept close to Char and Elansa. She did not look at the knife. She did not look at Char. She walked, a step, another, the knife gleamed. One more step, and she fell, hard to her hands and knees, crying out and hoping her cry sounded no less hopeless or weary than any other the dwarf had heard her make.

Char never looked around. "Fang," he said, and the dog hung back to make sure she wouldn't bolt.

Neither did she, but beneath her right hand lay the forgotten knife, once used to clean fish. She slipped it quickly into the sleeve of her blouse. Making noises to sound like distress, she climbed to her feet, the dwarf and the dog none the wiser. At Char’s command she went behind a tumble of boulders, great stones rolled out from the mountain a long time ago when the gods visited cataclysm upon Krynn.

"Stay," Char said, as he would have to the hound.

She did. From her vantage behind the pile she could see the road, rough and rocky. Upon it traveled two wagons, dust billowing behind. The horses struggled with the weight they pulled and the difficult road. Elansa held her breath, and she thought she heard one of the drivers call encouragement to the beasts. Gray-cloaked, she couldn't determine whether they were man or woman. That they were elves she only knew because they were her ransom-bearers.

Noiselessly, Brand slipped around the corner of the stones and dropped down beside Char. "Keep her here," he said, never looking at Elansa. "And don't trust her to the dog. Do it yourself."

"Aye, I got ’er. Don't worry."

The dwarf didn't have a hand on her, but Elansa could not doubt that should she try to break and run he'd drop her in her second stride, his throwing axe buried between her shoulders. She kept very still, feeling the blade of the knife against the skin of her forearm.

Brand stood, jerked his head, and Arawn stepped out from hiding onto the road. Together, the two walked toward the wagons, swords drawn, a fighting distance between them. Elansa’s heart beat hard, her eyes stayed fixed upon the wagons and the drivers. The wind changed, and she smelled the horses. She heard Brand shout:

"Hold! Right there!"

Horses snorted, harnesses jangled. One of the drivers called in Elvish to her team or to her companion. Elansa shivered, knowing the voice. Lindenlea! Her every muscle tensed, ready to leap. One-eyed but quick-eyed, Char grabbed her hard from behind, yanking her off her knees and onto the stone.

"Don’t," he said. "Fastest way to die."

She sat still, jarred and clinging with awkward fingers to the hidden knife. As though in despair, she drew up her knees and buried her face in her arms. Beneath her filthy green cloak, she let the knife slide into her hand and closed her fingers round the bone handle.

I will kill you first, dwarf. In her mind, she snarled.

But when she looked up again, nothing of what she thought or truly felt showed on her face. She composed her expression into one of anxiety and fear, arranging mouth and eyes into flinching as though she were an artist sculpting.

Kill you first, she thought, turning her face, only briefly, toward Char to let him see what she wished seen.

Horses snorted. One whinnied. Another of the drivers called out, a curse that humans might think was meant for the poor weary beast. "Stinking bastards," is how that would have translated into Common. Elansa’s heart beat hard again, slamming against her chest. That was how Prince Kethrenan addressed Brand and Arawn, though the two certainly did not know it.

The time had come. Now she would go free, now home, or-no she wouldn't think of the alternative. Now she would go free. Now she would go home.

In Common, Kethrenan called, "Where is your master, churl?"

She could not see them, prince or outlaw, but Elansa had been enough in Brand's company to know that he'd have shown no sign of anger at the address. In her belly fear slid like snakes. She had seen this man prepared to kill with no second thought, she had seen him hand over a goblin to death with no other consideration than to wonder whether he might take greater satisfaction doing the killing himself.

Soft, in her most secret heart, she prayed to gods Outlanders did not think existed. She prayed to soldier gods, and she prayed to her own Blue Phoenix.

Keep my husband safe. Hold him safe. Oh, take me home-!

"Get down from the wagons," Brand called.

Hidden, she saw nothing, and it seemed that all the world had fallen still, holding its breath.

"Get down!" She heard the rattle of shod hooves on the stony road and imagined the light leap of elves leaving the wagons. "Now, you-over there. You-the other side." A breath-held moment; someone didn't move, then: "Char! Show ‘em what we've got!"

Char kicked her, hard in the small of the back. "Get up."

She stumbled to her feet, her hands still hidden. Char shoved her, and almost she turned, snarling. He kicked her to her knees. Char took a fistful of her tangled, tarnished golden hair. He yanked her head back, as Ley had pulled back the head and exposed the naked neck of a goblin soon to die. Her purloined knife fell from her grip. Laughing, the dwarf kicked it aside. Coldly, he pressed his own knife to her throat.

On the road, Kethrenan stepped away from the wagon. When he was told, he stripped himself of the knife at his belt and the sword on his hip. Lindenlea did the same, their gestures quick and careful. These things they handed to Arawn, and in the handing off Elansa saw the jeweled grip of Kethrenan’s oldest sword. They had been wed with that sword as part of his marriage gear, polished and honed and gleaming in a tooled scabbard at his hip.

Brand gestured them farther from the wagons, splitting them up-Lea to the far side of one, Keth to the far side of the other. A great silence seemed to creep out of the forest, a stillness even of the wind. Char’s blade pressed the soft flesh of her throat, too close. One thin warm line of blood ‘slid down her neck.

"Dearest gods," she whispered, the muscles of her throat moving against the knife.

"Ah, hush that," the dwarf said, but not roughly. "He’ll let y’ go if yer man is minded to play fair with us. Brand doesn't break his word for spite. Just for good reason."

Brand jerked his chin at Keth. "Lead the teams forward, both."

Keth shook his head. "I was told this is to be a fair exchange, the weapons for the princess." He didn't look past Brand. He kept his eyes on the outlaw. "Bring her down."

"No. She stays where she is. Pretty much there's nothing you can do whether we hand her over or not, but if you hand off the ransom, I will hand off the woman. And don't bother asking how you can know if I will. You can't. I suppose you just have to trust me, don't you? Just like I trusted your master to have enough regard for his wife's life to send only two with the ransom."

Keth and Lea said nothing.

"Now," Brand said, his voice gone cold, "bring the wagons."

Keth did as he was told, like any hostler taking horses from the stable. The prince put himself between the two teams and took hold of the cheek strap of each of the horses on the near side. He led them, talking stable-talk, the language of whisper and the click of tongue against teeth.

The sound of a hawk screeched across the silence. The horses startled, and Arawn threw back his head a second time. His long dark hair was caught by a sudden breeze as he signaled the outlaws again. Like rocks come suddenly alive, they unveiled from their hiding places, coming out from behind boulders, rising up in their stone-colored clothing. Silent, they ran, men and two women used to the rough ground, leaping stones and rocks, making for the wagons.

Without looking away from Keth, the elf he thought was a prince's lackey, Brand snapped, "Dell, take one wagon. Ley, get the other."

All her muscles tense and aching, Elansa watched as Dell and Ley each took a team from Keth and climbed aboard a wagon. The clucking sounds they made to the teams, the rumble of wooden wheels on stony earth, shivered along Elansa’s nerves. Char’s hand tightened in her hair, but she felt the blade of his knife move a little away from the throat.

"Up," he said, low in her ear. "No nonsense, just get up."

She did, and as she rose his knife pressed against her side, tracing the tender space between two ribs to let her know where it was. "Organs in there, missy," he said. "Kidney or liver or spleen, eh? You don't want to risk those. Stand still."

She did, still as stone, and the wagons began to move. On the road, Keth stood alone, between the outlaws and Lindenlea. He looked at Brand, who nodded.

Char’s knife moved, withdrawing.

Kethrenan took a step toward Elansa, and Brand took one to block his way. "No," said the outlaw. Behind his back, he gestured to Elansa: Come ahead. She stood a moment, trembling. Char pushed her, a hand in the small of her back.

One step she took, another, and suddenly all her muscles tightened to run. She held herself to tame steps, knowing that if she moved too quickly her running might be misinterpreted.

Keth lifted his head. His eyes met hers and held her gaze. She felt as though a tether stretched between them, a thin line to guide her home if only she went carefully and never let go.

"Come, princess," he said, speaking as though he were the lackey the outlaws imagined him to be. Lindenlea moved, a small restless shifting from one foot to another. Keth held out his hand. "Come to me, my lady."

Wagons rumbled on the road. Ley snapped long leather reins across the rump of one of the horses, and another of the team snorted. Eyes on her husband, Elansa walked, and all the while felt Brand's eyes on her. The skin between her shoulders itched. She wanted to turn and look at him, but she dared not. She felt it: He could snatch her back in an instant.

In the silence, every rustle of clothing seemed loud as wind in the trees. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the forest. Home. Beyond the Notch lay all the dark shadows gathering. No light dappled on this cloud-thick day, and yet it seemed the shadows were not all of a tint. Neither were they as insubstantial as might be thought. A dull gleam betrayed a secret, the slide of pale light on an ill-concealed blade. Elansa’s heart jumped. Keth saw it.

"Come," he said again, gesturing now with his hand. "We're soon home, my lady."

And his eyes, gone suddenly cool and stern, said, Come. Come ahead. Don't look around, just come to me. She did, never taking her eyes from his, not even when she was but a reach away from him. His fingers touched hers, and she drew a shaking breath. In his eyes she saw cool command turn to fury as he took in the signs of her captivity-the hunger, the pallor of her skin, bruises and cuts, her ripped and filthy clothing. He lifted his head, just that, but she knew the gesture. She knew what Prince Kethrenan looked like when he was surveying his choices, picking his ground.

Home, she thought; I am going-

Every nerve in her body leaped alive, screaming. In her bones-at the very marrow-she knew an agony, both phantom and real. A scream wound from the forest, terrible and high. Another followed, and out from the woods an elven voice filled with rage and fear shouted, "The wood is on fire!"

In her heart, Elansa heard the agony of living trees as fire licked up their trunks, seared their barkish skins, and gnawed to the milky heart of each limb it grasped. In her woodshaper's soul she felt the anguished, burning echo. She had no voice to cry the pain, from her throat could come no sound that trees could make.

Shadows at the forest’s edge sprang to life, full-voiced with elven war cries. Warriors armed with swords burst out of the wood, but they were only half of the prince's force. The others stayed behind, for they had expected to meet foemen in the borderland, but they had found enemies in the forest. Goblins, wielding fire and steel and shrieking like things from nightmare, fell upon the elves.

Seeing the elven warriors, seeing the goblins, Brand shouted, "Bastard! You set goblins on us!" Almost in the same moment, Keth roared the same accusation. Neither heard the other. Elansa heard them both, their voices small amid the death cries of trees.

"Arawn!" Brand roared.

Lindenlea shouted, "Warriors! To your prince!"

Battle-storm screamed around them. The howls of the goblins, the shrieks of the killed, and rage, rage. In one sudden moment of clarity Elansa saw that the goblins and the elven warriors were matched forces. She saw the outlaws and knew they would be crushed between them. She thought, Good! And she saw one of the bandits-Arawn it was, with his long dark hair blowing back-lift a sword to defend himself. He held Keth’s sword, and Elansa thought, Let the goblins kill him!

Keth's hand tightened painfully on Elansa’s wrist. He yanked her toward him, got his arm around her, and looked for haven for her. The forest was no place to go, and they could not follow the wagons.

Lindenlea shouted, "Keth!" and he let go of Elansa to snatch from the air the sword his cousin had flung. Not his good old sword, but a sword, lent by a warrior to a prince. Lindenlea laughed, a mad-minded war cry as she flourished her own borrowed weapon. She pointed north where four elven warriors broke from the rest, running to receive the princess.

They ran to meet the sudden escort, Elansa and her husband. It wasn't a far distance, and no one came near who didn't taste Kethrenan’s borrowed blade. All around, elves let loose their war cries. Outlaws shouted curses; one screamed in death, another did, and a third. The stench of seared flesh mingled with the smoke of Qualinesti burning. The cries of elves and humans and goblins sounded like the cries of beasts in the slaughter pens. No one but Elansa heard the heartbreak of the forest, the death of trees.

On the road, Ley cried commands to horses, again the snap of leather on broad rumps. Dell shouted curses, and Brand turned, his hostage forgotten. He bellowed, "Ley! Dell! Stay with the wagons! Get them out of here!"

A pack of goblins came boiling out of the forest. No elves followed, no man or woman of the half of Kethrenan’s force that had stayed behind.

The goblins ran, long eyes ablaze with killing lust. Orange hides and red hides, and sickly greeny-brown, all of them acted like a shield wall, swords high to protect the hobgoblin who ran in the middle of their pack "For Gnash!" they yowled. And when they fell, their bodies filled with elven arrows, with shafts from an outlaw’s quiver, others came and took up the cry. "For the Great Gnash!"

Gnash brandished a staff, an old, crooked length of bleached cedarwood. Unadorned, it looked too dry to be considered even for kindling. The hob howled a word like a curse, and fire shot from the head of the staff, a great gout of flame shaped like a long arm reaching. It grew a hand, as broad as a goblin is high. Orange fingers of licking flame closed around two fighting, an elven warrior and an outlaw. They burst afire, screaming as the flames that killed one fed the fire that killed the other. The arm divided, two limbs ranged out from the staff, and the sound of the hob’s glee was the sound of madness as these reached out to grab elves and humans in fiery clasp.

"The hob!" Lea cried. "Get the hob!"

Hearing her voice, Elansa turned even as she ran. She couldn't help the need to look. Turning, she stumbled, staggering into Keth. As though Lea’s cries were commands for the outlaws, one of Brand's men nocked an arrow to his bow and drew. He'd not got his elbow up before a goblin’s dagger took him in the throat. But others had heard the order. Elven arrows buzzed, black shafts against the fiery wall of the burning forest, taking down one goblin after another. As quickly as these fell, that quickly did others appear, and the arms of fire reached and ranged, groping for the archers.

Keth dragged at her, pulling, and the four warriors waiting to receive her ran, swords out and ready. "Take her!" the prince ordered. "Keep her safe!"

It was on the lips of one to say the prince could count on them, he could know his wife safe. Elansa saw the very words forming as a sharp whistle pierced the frenzy, and something low and swift came leaping. Char’s hound flung himself at Keth, eyes blazing. It sank its fangs into Keth’s leg, then darted away as Keth stumbled. Fang raced back and leaped again. Great jaws closed around Keth’s wrist, and Elansa smelled blood and the stench of the hound’s breath. Despite his will, Keth’s grip on his sword broke. Elansa stood alone between the hound and her husband who shouted, "Run! Elansa! Run!"

Run! Run to the elven warriors-she didn't have to ask or wonder. She must run home. Running, Elansa saw a warrior’s eyes go wide, his mouth open to cry out a warning too late. The weight hit her hard from behind, the breath of the hound scorched her neck, its teeth grazed the flesh of her shoulder even as Brand's big hand grabbed her and dragged her to her feet. He yanked her hard around, cursing the dog, cursing her, cursing. Swift, a blade flashed, again a honed edge pressed against her throat. He did not shout Hold! as he had before. He needn't have. At the sight of his blade against her throat, the elven warrior fell still.

He was Cressin Oaktrue. Elansa knew him and all his kin.

His eyes on Cressin, Brand grabbed Elansa round the waist and pulled her hard to him. On her neck, his breath felt like the hound’s, steaming in the cold air and smelling of killing. Fang and his kindred loped across the stony road, the pack like five shadows gliding across the ground. From Fang’s muzzle blood dripped, one, two, and three small scarlet spots blossoming on stone, a prince's blood. This Elansa saw as Char whistled again, calling off the dog and taking its place at Brand's back.

"Now you decide," Brand said, leaving Cressin to the dwarf and speaking to Kethrenan. "Prince, what do you want-the life of your little princess or the deaths of all of us?"

Keth's eyes blazed with fury.

Cressin cried, "Shame!"

The rumble of wooden wagon wheels on the south-going road sounded like low growling. The weight they carried had increased: outlaws rode in the back of each. Outlaws ran jogging beside and behind. In this way the wagon filled with weapons rolled right out of the battle. If any elf or goblin saw it going from the battleground, none could do a thing about it, for they had engaged, the two forces, and would not disengage now.

"Like it or don’t," Brand said, his voice filling with a dark kind of satisfaction, "we’ve got the weapons, prince, and we have a pretty shield to keep us safe while we take what's owed from the bargain."

Brand pressed his blade against Elansa’s throat, better at it than Char had been. He drew no blood, but Elansa knew his knife-wielding habits. He'd slit her throat if he thought that would be satisfying.

Kethrenan, who knew how to look into the eye of a foe and reckon him, understood what Elansa did. As soon as she saw her husband know the truth, she knew herself lost. Again.

"Let him kill me," she moaned, the words hardly passing her lips, pressed back by the blade. "Don't let him take me, Keth!"

Kethrenan’s eyes held hers, and it felt as if all the years of her life passed in that moment. He would not cause her death. He could not. Brand laughed, the sound of a gambler who has wagered well.

A cry rose in Elansa’s breast, right to her throat, past the steel blade pressing. She let it die, unvoiced. To fling back her head and scream would have been to slice her own throat. She could not do it, for all she'd asked Kethrenan to let it happen. Neither could she whimper or plead. She was an elf. She was a princess.

And so the outlaw took her away. Brand of the stonelands had the princess once more. A cry did sound for her, though, against the rage of battle, the war cries and the death screams of elves and goblins, long and loud and filled with terrible rage. It followed her, winding through the barren land, the sound of Kethrenan cursing.