The Drake flared his mighty pinions into the chill air, stretching them to the fullest and then folding them partway back as he slithered to the lip of the foreledge and stopped. Before him, a sheer wall plunged down the dark face of the mountain, driving into rocky slopes far below. Behind him, stone rose up toward the rim high above. Yet Kalgalath did not stop to admire the grandeur all about him; his mind was occupied with other thoughts.
Great muscles rippled and bunched, and with a roar that crashed over and again among the frozen crags and caused snow and rocks to avalanche down into the depths below, Black Kalgalath leapt into the air, immense leathery wings beating, driving him upward into the cerulean sky.
And when he was high above the clawing Grimwall, west he turned, west, vast dark pinions hammering, a massive wicked blackness striking toward the heart of Jord.
CHAPTER 26
Mid and Late Fall, 3E1602
[The Present]
“Oh!” Elyn exclaimed softly, and Thork turned, his “eyes following her gaze back across the river into Wolfwood. The Dwarf looked yet saw nought but trees with leaves fluttering in the gentle zephyr, for the Wolfmage and Draega were gone. Turning back to the Warrior Maid, Thork cocked an eye. “I thought I saw. .” she began, then fell into a silence.
They rode easterly league upon league, neither saying a word, the silence a chill uncomfortable wall between them. Even when they stopped to eat and feed the steeds and to rest and take care of other needs, still they spoke in but monosyllables. Each was still hurt, feeling both as betrayed and as betrayer, for it was but this morning that each had discovered that the other was after the Kammerling-the Rage Hammer, Adon’s Hammer-for no other weapon would accomplish that which must be done. And both knew that when this necessary-this vital-mission was accomplished, such a weapon could then be used in the struggle between their two Folk. And so, they regretted ever having met one another, no matter what they had come to feel, and now wanted only to be alone. Yet they also had been told by the Wolfmage that neither one alone could hope to succeed in securing this token of power, for destiny and prophecy ruled o’er talismans such as these, and the prophecy concerning the Kammerling told that two were needed-One to hide, One to guide-and both Elyn and Thork had a role to play, in spite of being enemies, in spite of. . other things. And so, in a silence stretched taut between them, easterly rode the twain, for easterly lay their goal.
All day they rode thus, and when evening began to fall they encamped in pines alongside a burbling stream dashing out into the open wold. Thork made a small fire, while Elyn rubbed down both Wind and Digger, using handfuls of long grass pulled from the slopes, and then curried both beasts.
As the two warriors sat and ate jerky, the Sun sank below the horizon and darkness came creeping upon the land. Finishing his meal, Thork got to his feet and washed his hands in the stream and turned to his weaponry. He cocked his crossbow and laid in a quarrel, and set his axe at hand, and lay his cloth-covered shield and metal warhammer within easy reach. Then, turning to Elyn, at last he broke the silence: “Now we shall see if that silver nugget truly wards us, for the dark is full upon us, and if Andrak sends evil after, then it will not be long ere we will know it.”
Elyn, too, prepared for combat, spear, bow and arrow, saber, and long-knife at hand, yet she seemed preoccupied all the while. And she stood across the fire from him and at last she spoke her mind: “Thork, secrets lie between us, and bar the way before us. Now is the time to lay them bare if we are to go onward together as the Wolfmage has said we must.
“We have fought together side by side against the forces of darkness, and at times back to back. We have fought on even when it seemed that there was no hope of surviving. I have taken wounds meant for you, and you have taken mine. A better comrade I could not ask for.
“I know that a common foe has thrown us together, regardless of our own choosings, yet you go against all that I had thought of your kind, and I do not see how this can be.
“These past weeks I have wondered how you could be such as you are: honorable, steadfast, worthy.” Elyn paused, looking not at Thork, but studying her hands instead. When she continued, her voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “And I wonder at your care for me, a companion-nay! an enemy-met upon the road. For there is this thing that lies between us: our Folk war with one another.
“When I set out upon this quest, I thought to turn the Kammerling against your kind in the end. And you have admitted as much to me. Yet I cannot partake in a mission where the thing I seek will be, might be, turned against me and mine.” Now Elyn’s voice was filled with emotion, with hurt, with the thoughts of things remembered. “Already have we, have I, been greatly wronged by your Folk, and I would not have that happen again.
“Yet my destiny seems somehow bound up in yours.
“And now we go into a danger beyond reckoning, and all doubt must be expelled ere we come to the final testing.
“Ere now I have deliberately hidden my questions, treading on nought but safe ground. But the time has come when we must say what is true and what is not, for I can have it no other way.”
She glanced at Thork for the first time since beginning, yet now it was he who could not meet her gaze, and instead stood looking down at the fire. Even so, he nodded, twice-short, jerky movements.
“Who are you?” Elyn’s voice quavered, verging upon tears, knowing that if he answered, there would be no turning back. Yet there was nothing that could have prepared her for his response.
Looking her directly in the eye, Thork answered, his words slow and measured, ringing like knells of doom upon a funeral belclass="underline" “I am Thork, son of Brak, brother of Baran, DelfLord of Kachar.”
With each word, Elyn listened in growing horror, stunned, and when the last word came, without warning she hurled herself at him, fists flailing, crying, “Murderers! Killers! You slew my brother! You slew my brother! You slew my twin!”
And her clenched hands struck Thork in rage, but he did little to protect himself, fending with his forearms, turning his face to one side. Yet at last he clutched her unto himself, hugging her tightly. And for a moment she struggled, but then she locked her own arms about him and for the second time in her life she wept as would a lost child, all the fury gone from her, nought but desolation left within.
And Thork held her and comforted her even though he now knew who she was: Elyn, daughter of Aranor, King of Jord, sister to Elgo, Sleeth’s Doom, Brak’s Slayer, Thief. And a great look of anguish swept over Thork’s face.
The next day they continued their easterly ride, again saying little, for each had much to ponder. Some two hours after setting out, at their second rest stop of the morning, Elyn at last broke the silence between them, noting a red hawk circling in the high blue sky. “Redwing,” she muttered, following its flight.
“Eh?” grunted Thork, peering ’round.
“I said Redwing.” Elyn pointed, Thork’s gaze following her outstretched arm. “It is like my hawk, Redwing, raised from a chick.”
They stood and watched the hunting pattern of the raptor, and every now and again the Sun caught upon the outstretched wings just so, and burnished copper flashed in the sky. “So like your red tresses, Princess,” said Thork quietly, not realizing that he spoke aloud, until-