“She certainly has a commanding presence,” murmured Pan’assár, watching Gor’sadén, knowing he was trying not to limp.
“We will ride for home soon and I cannot help but wonder what has happened at court—how much the situation may have deteriorated; whether our forest still has a king. It is time to plan our return, Gorsa.”
“How long before we ride, do you think?”
“Ten days I would say. After tonight’s celebrations, we must study our route back and then leave. The weather is fine enough for the time of year.”
“Ten days. I would not hold you back, Pan.” He wondered if he should step back, allow Fel’annár to leave without him and travel later. But then he wouldn’t be at Fel’annár’s side when he needed him the most: when he met his father.
“You can walk. You can run. You can still fight better than any other warrior I know. Besides, Arané has said you can go, and you have me, for whatever I can do to help.”
“I know, brother,” said Gor’sadén tiredly, raking one hand down his face. “But how am I to teach the boy like this?”
“By teaching him. You could do it sitting down, with my help.”
Gor’sadén’s head shot to Pan’assár, eyes moving from one side of his face to the other. “You would do that for me?”
“And for him. He deserves this. I will no longer hold him back.”
Gor’sadén nodded and smiled sparingly. “Then I will endure my daily torture with Arané. I will see you later, brother. Perhaps we can all just enjoy the evening. I have a feeling that from tomorrow, we will not get many more chances for a while.”
Pan’assár nodded, leaving Gor’sadén to venture inside the all-too-familiar Halls, boots thudding irregularly upon the wooden floor. Yes, Gor’sadén would endure anything, for as long as it took, so that he could continue upon the road he had chosen for himself. To train Fel’annár in the Kal’hamén’Ar. To make of him the leader he was born to be. To accompany him back to a land that stood upon the brink of rupture and perhaps even war.
That night, the newly elevated Blade Master stood high upon the balustrades, where the dead stood frozen in the Dance of Graceful Death. Only he was alive, and he looked down upon the people of Tar’eastór as they finally allowed themselves to celebrate their victory over the Nim’uán. Swirling lights, swaying bodies. The smells of roasting meats and fine pastries, rich wine and heady mead. The merry sights and the cloud of tantalising aromas wafted upwards and Fel’annár breathed them in.
His smile was sparing, indulgent, but his own festive mood would not come. Indeed, he had melted away from the merrymaking to stand here and look down on the world, to cast his eyes upon the ruined forest that had saved them all from the ravages of the enemy.
But dead forests did not whisper.
He listened to the timid voice in his mind, allowed the underlying emotions to seep into his own complex web of feelings. Grief and sorrow, and yet there was no regret, no echo of blame. Only finality.
It had been only yesterday when Fel’annár and The Company had taken to the devastated woods with spades and saplings brought from further afield, as per his request to King Vorn’asté. They had spent the entire day in the company of grateful Alpines, who had eagerly learned how to plant a tree, together with what had seemed to be the city’s entire stock of children.
It should have been done before spring, Fel’annár knew. But then no one had wanted to touch the decomposing carcass of the Nim’uán. The gruesome sight and putrid smell had kept them all away, until a group of brave souls had beaten it down with sticks, wrapped it in filthy cloth and taken it away, off the path and out of sight. They had burnt it. A tainted patch of land no one would approach.
Carefree laughter, excited cries and cheers, merry music and clapping, and Fel’annár’s mind turned away from the Nim’uán and to the Alpine people. They had bided their time, as no Silvan ever could. They had waited for news that Fel’annár would live, that Commander Gor’sadén would not lose his leg. They had waited for Commander Comon to secure the land, and they had waited for the hundreds who had died to be sent on their glorious path along the Short Road to Valley. They had given time for grieving families to mourn, and then, they had heeded Fel’annár’s call for their lost forest to be repopulated.
Fel’annár had then been summoned to speak at the Inner Circle, to answer the questions the captains had respectfully waited to ask. What had happened to the trees? What could he tell them of the Nim’uán? Of the Gas Lizard?
The best scholars had set to studying the Nim’uán’s sword and its many etchings and engravings. There was script, symbols they did not understand, that would, perhaps, give some insight into where the beast had come from. Idernon himself had requested time with the blade, so that he could draw it and take a diagram with him. He wanted to study it, he said, decipher it if he could, and Sontúr had nodded enthusiastically at the challenge. But every time he mentioned it, Fel’annár would frown and Gor’sadén would turn to some other chore.
Finally, with the land secured, the dead mourned and the trees replanted, they had celebrated, and The Company had been honoured with more than thankful eyes and respectful bows. It had been Sontúr to pin the Silver Mountain upon their high collars.
Fel’annár’s right hand reached up to the collar of his own tunic, index finger smoothing over a single sapphire. The king had named it Blue Mountain, the highest expression of bravery; a token of the gratitude of his people for acts of extreme heroism. It had not felt that way to Fel’annár at the time, yet even so, it made his heart swell. He had done his duty—nothing more, nothing less.
His finger moved forwards until it felt the cooler touch of silver. One long strip that occupied the rest of his collar, to the front of his neck. Pan’assár had given him this as a sign of office. The sign of a lieutenant. Silor had worn this and shamed it. Fel’annár swore he would do it justice.
He smiled, breathed deeply, felt the cool air fill his lungs.
He had felt it—the moment he had died. That timeless, breathless moment in which his own end had seemed so clear. He remembered a bone-deep sadness, for himself and his young, soon-to-be-sundered life. It had been too short, full of flighty dreams, few of which had become a reality. Funny. He had felt wise in that moment in which his heart still beat and yet his breath had ceased, lungs inert. His mind—all his memories and all that he was—had concentrated into one pinprick of light, heavy with sorrow, light with hopes for the future.
Questions.
And then he had seen her. She had bent low, and knowing blue eyes gazed down upon him for the first time in the waking world. He had only ever seen her in his dreams.
Aria had surely come to shepherd him upon the Short Road.
That glowing ball of emotions and experiences that was himself had shattered into a thousand shards, not icy cold like death but molten with the heat of life.
It was then that his lungs twinged and a long rush of cool air filled them. The light of his life was back inside him. Even as she smiled, he could feel it slipping into place, wherever that was. No, he would never forget that dawn, for in a sense it was a death—the death of Fel’annár the child, the inexperienced warrior, the resentful son, the angry boy with no father and a dead mother. He had come back a changed elf, for he had seen himself, seen it shatter and disperse and then regroup—differently—inside him.