. Alas, not me

07 December 2014

The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 1.2


That evening about sunset two troopers, black cloaked and black helmed, stood on guard on the platform above the fortress’ gates. All day they had stood there in the rain, staring off at the mountains, and they were soaked through to the skin. Their woolen cloaks were sodden and heavy, as were their boots. Cold, wet and tired, they longed for the warmth of a fire, their supper, and their beds at last.
“How much longer?” the first one said, his weariness of this day clear in his young voice.
“About an hour, Li,” Aran, the second guard, answered, “same as two minutes ago.”
“Well, I’m sick of this.”
“I’m sick of it, too, Li. Quit complaining, will you? You’re only making it worse.”
“But I’ve been here longer, Aran. So, I’m more sick of this than you are.”
“What? We walked here from the barracks together this morning.”
“No, here at the fort,” Li replied. “I’ve been here six months longer than you have.”
“You sound like my sister. Always complaining,” Aran said, annoyed, and pushed his ill-fitting helmet back up out his eyes once again. After a moment it slid back down.
“Shut up,” Li said. “I don’t want to hear about your sister.”
“What’s wrong with my sister?” Aran asked.
“Nothing,” Li muttered.
“No, I want an answer. Every time I mention my sister, you tell me to shut up, and I want to know why.”
Li glared at him, the rain running off his helmet and down his smooth cheeks. But to Aran it looked as if his eyes were moist as well. Li walked to the top of the steps, peered over the edge of the platform, and glanced carefully around. He turned back to Aran.
“Did you join or were you pressed?” he asked.
“Why? What’s that got to do with my sister?
“Did you join or were you pressed?”
“I joined. Why?”
“Why did you join?”
“Well, for the money mostly. My family needed the money.”
“Well, I was pressed. I didn’t want to be here. My father didn’t want me to be here either. And we didn’t use to be poor, not before, do you see? In the old days my father and grandfather made fine carriages for all the finest and wealthiest people in Narinen. They did excellent work and did very well because of that. Now my father makes wagons and wheelbarrows.”
“So you used to be rich, so what?” Aran said. “What does that have to do with my sister?”
“We weren’t rich.”
“Compared to us you were.”
“Yes, well,” Li said and paused.
“Li, what is it? Tell me. I don’t understand”
“No, I shouldn’t. The corporal will be here soon. We’ll get caught talking on duty.”
“Then come back over here, away from the edge, and we’ll pretend to keep watch. Just like we do every day. It’s not like there’s anything to see out there anyway.”
Li hesitated a moment, then came over to the wall.
“Come on, Li, tell me what it is.”
“Did they press men where you lived?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ve seen the gangs of men that come every year and demand people’s sons and brothers and fathers?”
Aran nodded.
“My family did have some money. My grandfather and father hid it away when the dragon came. His men killed my grandfather and burned his shop because he wouldn’t admit he had any money or tell them where it was hidden. Years later my father began bribing the local governor – a man he’d known since they were children – to leave us alone and keep the press gangs away from us. Every spring my father gave him gold so they would pass us by. For year or two they did.”
“Then what?”
“Then they came, in my eighteenth summer, last year, and gave my father a choice: they could either take me for a soldier, or my sister for a –”
“I get it,” Aran cut him off. “Your father gave them you.”
“Yes.”
“But, Li, you saved your sister.”
“No, I didn’t,” Li shook his head.
“No?” Aran answered, flinching inside, thinking of his own sister.
“No. Three months later they came back and took her anyway. My father wrote me.”
“He put that in a letter?”
“No, he just said she had gone away.”
“Maybe she just got married,” Aran said, offering hope he did not possess.
“No. That he could have written down.”
“I’m sorry, Li,” he said after it had rained on them for a minute more.
“I hate them. I hate the dragon. I’m glad they killed him.”
“Shut up, Li, or you’ll get us both killed.”
Li did not reply, and Aran could find nothing more to say now that the story was told. All he could think to do was stand close by him in silence. Maybe that was enough. They stared off into the growing darkness, darker and more obscure because of the rain. In a few minutes they heard the quick beat of the corporal trotting up the stairs.
“Report,” he said in an official tone as he walked across the platform. He was scarcely older that Li and Aran.
“Nothing, sir,” Aran replied quickly, though Li was his senior. “Not even a bird since the column left.”
The corporal shot him a quick glance, curious and suspicious, then looked over at Li, who kept staring off into the dusk, his face grim and angry.
“What is it, soldier? Speak up now.”
Li did not answer with more than a glare.
“I told you to speak up. That’s an order.”
Again Li did not respond.
“Corporal,” Aran said.
“Not now, Aran,” the corporal answered.
“But corporal.”
“I said not now. What do I have to do –”
“Corporal, someone is coming through the gap.”
Even Li turned to look. Through the dusk and murk of the rain they saw six men, clad in black and mounted, emerging from the shadow of the hills and coming down the Road at a dead run. For a moment they were alone, then another group of riders, a dozen strong, burst from the gap behind them in headlong pursuit of the first group. All were racing for the dirt road that led from the Great Road to the fortress. Two of the foremost pursuers rose in their stirrups to loose arrows at their prey. One of the black cloaked riders fell from his mount.
“It’s our scouts,” Aran exclaimed. “They’ve come back at last!”
“No,” the corporal said thoughtfully as he considered the scene before him.
“Are the others –,” Aran began.
“Rangers,” Li said all in a hush.
“Rangers, yes,” the corporal said, then spun on his heel and hurried to the edge of the platform. “You there, trooper,” he shouted down to a soldier crossing the middle of the grounds. “Yes, Thorn, you. Go get the lieutenant and the sergeant. Now, trooper. We’ve got Rangers coming.”
“Corporal, they’re almost to the turn,” Aran called.
Back at the wall, the corporal saw that another of the scouts had fallen before the Rangers’ bows. Four remained, but the turn from the pavement of the Great Road to the mud of the road to the fort was sharp and dangerous in the best of weather for horses moving as swiftly as these. From the platform they could hear the horses neighing as they slid sideways and struggled to keep their feet under them in the slippery muck. Then the last of the scouts lost his horse from beneath him, and both man and beast fell and went rolling off the road into a ditch. Now the other three pushed their horses’ hearts to bursting, shouting and spurring and lashing them to a final effort. Now the Rangers made the turn, one pausing only slightly to shoot down into the ditch at the fallen scout as he tried to climb back onto the road. Now only four hundred yards lay between the scouts and the gates.
“We must open the gates for them,” Aran cried.
“No,” the corporal answered firmly.
“But they’re our men!”
“No, our men have been gone too long. They’re dead already.”
“But look, that’s Caras in front. Look at his horse’s blaze and four white socks.”
“It’s a trick. They’re all Rangers.”
“But the horse....We must open the gates.”
“Aran,” barked the corporal. “Do you remember the commander’s last words before he left? Didn’t you hear him tell the lieutenant not to open the gates?”
Aran shut his mouth in frustration. Together they watched the horsemen speed closer and closer. The horses’ heads stretched forward on their long necks, the riders bending low over them. Through the rush of the downpour and the drum of the hoof beats, the riders’ voices could just be heard crying desperately for them to open the gates. Aran turned to the corporal.
“But what if – ”
The back of the corporal’s hand struck him down. Aran looked up in surprise, his hand to his mouth.
“Don’t question me again,” the corporal growled, and turned back to the outer wall.
Then they heard the sound of the great bar in the gate being raised. The corporal spun around, his eyes wide, and started for the stairs. He stopped suddenly and looked about him.
“Where’s Li?” he demanded of Aran, who was still sitting on the platform holding his jaw. Now the sound of the hooves and the cries of the riders were loud in their ears. Now came the sound of the hinges creaking as the gates began to open.
“Come on,” cried the corporal, rushing down the stairs and drawing his sword, Aran scrambling to his feet behind him. As they reached the bottom and swung towards the gateway, they could see the sergeant and lieutenant also running towards the gates, their cloaks flapping behind them. The sergeant was waving his arms and shouting.
“No, no, no!”
But the gates were already wide open. The two gatekeepers stood looking dumbly at the sergeant, a puzzled expression on their faces. In the middle of the gateway stood Li.
“Shut the gates, damn you,” the corporal screamed at the gatekeepers. “Shut them.”
“But Li told us you said –” the nearer one said in surprise.
“Shut them!” the corporal shouted and threw his shoulder into the nearer gate.
The gate began to swing, but it was too late. The three Rangers disguised as scouts were too close to keep out. Li, sword in hand, glanced over his shoulder at the corporal, and smiled a smile of vengeance. As he did so, the first Ranger through the gates cut him down, followed by one of the gatekeepers. Now all three of them were inside and quickly slew all nearby. Behind them came the dozen Rangers who had pursued them. With bow, sword, and spear they hunted down and slew the dragon’s men. Within five minutes the fortress was theirs. They shut and barred the gates behind them. The dead were dragged aside.
Baran, the leader of the pursuers, reined in his horse outside the commander’s quarters and dismounted. He handed the reins to Rachor, who stood with Dara, two of Hansarad’s Rangers, at the foot of the steps leading up to the porch. Dara leaned on her spear, surveying the muddy grounds between herself and the gates, and watching the other Rangers moving from building to building in search of food, supplies, and any hidden survivors whom they could not allow to escape. On the other side of the steps, Baran saw Dara’s horse, Faraway, and the chestnut of the unfortunate Caras hitched to the rail.
“He’s inside?” Baran asked her.
“Yes, captain. He’s waiting for you.”
“Thank you. Dara, go make sure the others see to their horses before they get cold. That was a hard ride.”
“Yes, captain.”
“And find out how Falas, Nerun, and Elan are faring. Those falls they took on the ride were almost too convincing. I saw Nerun limping rather badly when she came in the gate. Report to us here.”
“I will, captain,” Dara said and strode off with her spear over her shoulder.
Inside Baran found Hansarad sitting behind the commander’s desk leafing through a stock of papers by candlelight. Hansarad looked up as he entered. The light from the hearth cast Baran’s shadow up the wall behind him and onto the low ceiling, making him look heroically tall and menacing, though he was already a head and shoulders taller than the tallest of the Rangers with them. Hansarad gave him a tired smile, and Baran cocked a bushy red eyebrow at him.
“I’m glad I’m not the commander here with you coming in the door,” Hansarad said quietly.
“You do look good behind that desk,” Baran replied.
“Is that a compliment?”
“No. Have you found anything?
“Nothing yet, really, but I’ve only just sat down. Here is the order summoning most of the garrison back to the City, signed and sealed by Machlor himself,” Hansarad said, proffering the document to Baran, who took and perused it.
“Not much to it, is there?” Baran said. “As if Machlor feared to say more than ‘return immediately.’ I didn’t think anything scared him.”
“That’s what I thought. It’s so terse it makes him sound on edge.”
“Good. It’s nice to see them on their heels for once.”
“Agreed.”
Just then a knock came and Dara appeared in the doorway. Next to Baran she looked almost a child.
“The horses are being tended to as you ordered, captain Baran,” she said. “Elan, Falas, and Nerun are just a bit bruised and sore. Nothing’s broken, though Nerun is quite a sight. With all the mud on her, all you can see is her eyes.”
“Well, there’s plenty enough rain to wash that off,” said Hansarad.
“Anything else, sir?” Dara asked.
“Yes,” Hansarad replied. “I want you and Rachor to go through these papers and everything else in these quarters carefully. See if you can find anything useful.”
He looked at Baran, who nodded.
“Baran and I need to get back outside and see if we’ve have discovered anything. They should have searched the gatehouse and the bodies by now.”
“I’ll help Rachor finish up with the horses and we’ll get right to work in here, captain.”
“Thank you, Dara,” Hansarad said as he rose from the commander’s chair. “And, Dara?”
“Yes, captain?”
“You did well tonight. Everyone did. See to it they know that.”
Baran grunted his approval.
“Thank you, captain. I’ll pass the word,” she said and disappeared from the doorway.
Hansarad and Baran left the building and crossed the compound, the mud sucking at their boots all the way to the gates, where they found the bodies of the slain troopers laid out in two long lines. Some appeared to be sinking into the soft mud, as if the earth were already claiming them for her own. The Rangers who searched the bodies reported that they had found nothing of importance. One of them carried a torch to light the captains’ way as they inspected the bodies themselves. Its flickering light at times made the dead faces seem to move or change expression. Baran and Hansarad were near the end of the first row when they heard one of the new guards at the gates shout for them to be opened.
A minute later three more Rangers rode in and were pointed in the direction of Baran and Hansarad. One trotted over and dismounted.
“What is it, Telor?” Baran asked.
“Our scouts have spotted two men – definitely not soldiers – walking westward across the fields north of the Road. They seem to be in quite a hurry.”
“Where are they?”
“About four miles east of here and maybe two hundred yards north of the Road.”
“Fleeing the City?” Baran said.
“That’s what the scouts think.”
“And you?” Hansarad asked.
“I agree. It makes sense.”
“We’ll have to have a talk with them then,” Hansarad said.
“I understand, captain,” Telor responded.
“Yes, if they’ve escaped from the City, no doubt there’s much they can tell us,” Baran added.
“Shall we bring them in, sir?” Telor asked.
“No, let them come to us. If they’re seeking to escape, they’ll be heading for the mountains. Baran and I will join you shortly back by the gap.”
“Yes, captain,” Telor said with a nod and remounted his horse. With the others he rode back through the gates, which closed behind them.
Taking the torch from the Ranger beside him, Baran told him that he and Hansarad would need two fresh horses from the fort’s stables. The Ranger went off to fetch them.
When Baran turned back to Hansarad, he saw him crouched between the last two bodies at the end of the first row. Baran held out the torch to provide more light.
“Find something?” Baran asked.
“No,” Hansarad replied sadly.
“What is it, then?”
“Some of them are so young, Baran. These two here are scarcely more than boys.”
Baran knelt down beside him.
“Thinking like that will get you killed, Hansarad, or worse, your men. Young as they were, they served the dragon. That makes them our enemy. You and I have both seen many young men and women die on both sides. We’ve killed them, too, and we’ll kill more before it’s done.”
Hansarad shook his head in disgust, not disagreement.
“I know,” he said, and gestured at the dead boy he was crouched over. “This one here, with the peculiar smile on his face, was standing right in the gateway as I rode up. Just as I raised my sword to strike him, he looked back over his shoulder – at what or whom I don’t know. I almost hit him with the flat of my blade instead of the edge.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. As you say, he was my enemy.”
“But seeing him now,” Baran said, “you think that a boy like this shouldn’t be anybody’s enemy?”
“Yes. I’ve never hesitated in combat. It’s thinking about it before and afterwards that I find difficult.”
“What else could war be?”
“True,” he said and stood up.
The Ranger now returned with their fresh horses. They mounted. Looking at the bodies of the two young men one last time, Baran mused for a moment.
“What do you think he was smiling at?” he asked Hansarad.
“I’m not sure I want to know. Let’s go. Those men the scouts spotted should be getting closer and I want to get to the gap well before they do.”
“Agreed,” Baran said and shouted for the gates to be opened.
It was near midnight by the time the Rangers returned with Imlan and Garalf, who were overjoyed to find them in possession of the fortress. They stared eagerly around them as they walked through the gates. They saw two rows of dead troopers with their cloaks cast over their faces, and the proud banner of the dragon – sable with a dragon in flight, embroidered in red silk, his wings spread from corner to corner – trodden into the mire outside the commander’s quarters.
The Rangers led them directly to the commander’s kitchen where they discovered a hot meal waiting, which charmed Imlan and Garalf almost as much as the sight of the corpses and the banner. The two had not eaten at all since leaving the City two days earlier. But no sooner did they sit down at the table than Dara entered with a document in her hand.
“Captain, you should see this,” she said as she walked over to hand it to him. It was a copy of an order from General Machlor which had been enclosed with the order recalling the garrison from the fortress. It directed the troops at Prisca also to return at once to Narinen. Hansarad passed it to Baran, who read it and handed it on to Elénna and Berandan, the captains of the other two bands of Rangers which had met at the Great Road.
“Where did you find this, Dara?” Hansarad asked.
“Rachor is the one who found it, captain. It was on the floor beneath the desk. It must have fallen or been dropped there.”
“Was there anything else of interest?”
“Not so far. We’re still sifting it, but it’s pretty dry stuff, mostly, manifests of goods, weapons, and other supplies for the fort here.”
“Thank you, Dara. Good work.” Hansarad said and turned back to the other captains. “Now we know that the garrison at Prisca will also be on its way to the City. How shall we deal with them?”
“How much is left of that garrison after what happened there?” asked Elénna, captain of the Rangers who watched the Great Road from the south. She was uncertain how else to refer to the events at Prisca. As were they all. For, although two of Baran’s Rangers had risked entering Prisca the day after the battle, they could do little but describe what they had found – three companies of dragon’s men slain, most without a single wound, still ordered by rank and file, as if they had just lain down and died where they stood. Of Evénn and his companions there was no sign. Only they could have told the whole story, but no one knew where they were.
“About two companies,” Hansarad replied. “Baran and I harried them without mercy on their way back to Prisca afterwards. By the time they got the gates shut behind them, they had lost nearly an entire company’s worth of men, but a week later they were reinforced from the City. So they are almost up to strength again.”
“Let Berandan and me go with our Rangers,” said Elénna. It’s over fifty miles from Prisca to the Great Road, and fifteen more from there to the City. Once they come down into the plains, they’ll have nowhere to hide from us.”
Hansarad thought about this until Baran spoke.
“It’s worth considering, Hansarad. The fewer of them get to the City, the better off we’ll be. At best the messenger sent to summon them won’t arrive until tomorrow morning.”
“Yes,” said Berandan, “if we start now we can ride across country and easily intercept them long before they’re halfway to the meeting of the roads.”
“Besides,” Elénna added, “we shall be mounted. Except for their officers, the dragon’s men will be on foot. If they keep together on the road, we’ll be able to ride within bowshot, pick a few of them off, and ride away. And if they leave the road to chase us, they’ll be even more vulnerable.”
“They have bowmen, too, you know,” Baran said. Though in favor of the attack, he disliked how easy Elénna and Berandan seemed to be making it sound. “You’ll all be on open ground, with little or no cover, and they’ll be able to see you coming. It won’t be like it was in the gap.”
“Name one thing we do, Baran,” Elénna replied, “that is without risk. I don’t take the lives of my men lightly.”
“Nor do I,” said Berandan.
“What worries me most,” Hansarad said, holding up his hand to stop their arguing, “is the idea of dividing our forces and putting so much distance between us. We’ll be too far apart to aid each other. And we don’t know yet what Machlor’s plans are, or how many men he has.”
“Then it’s time we asked them, Hansarad,” Elénna said, gesturing at Imlan and Garalf.
“Very well, what can you tell us of the City,” Hansarad said, turning politely to them.
Imlan and Garalf glanced at each other, as if wondering which of them should begin and where. Then Imlan took a deep breath and exhaled heavily.
“Masters,” he began.
“We are not the Masters,” Elénna said sharply. “Only captains. Address us as such.”
“I beg your pardon, captain,” Imlan said, “but Garalf and I are unused to such company. As for the City, I can tell you this. General Machlor’s hand is not as strong as you may think. There are not that many real soldiers in Narinen, and we are keeping them very busy.”
“And how would you know that?” Baran asked. “You’re a cooper.”
“Actually, captain, Garalf is the cooper. I am a joiner and a very good one, too. It’s a craft requiring close attention to detail, and an understanding of how things fit together. Over the years my work has often taken me into the homes and headquarters of the dragon’s highest officers, including the General. Because I’m there all the time, they hardly notice me. They speak as they shouldn’t when I am in the room. So I hear many things. That’s why the others sent me to you, because I could tell you things you would want to know. And I can tell you that the City’s garrison of real soldiers is not what you fear.”
The captains looked at each other, intrigued now and a fresh hunger began to glow in their eyes.
“Please, tell us more, Imlan,” Hansarad said, who knew of joinery himself from his youth in the Valley. With a smile he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap, ready to listen. The kitchen grew very quiet, as even the Rangers tending to the pots on the stove stopped to hear Imlan’s words.
“The regular complement of the garrison of the City is four companies,” Imlan stated.
“Four!” shouted Baran in disbelief. “No, no, there’s got to be more than that.”
“Four companies of regular troops,” Imlan repeated calmly, with Garalf nodding beside him. “One for each gate. But as captain Hansarad just said, nearly a full company of them was sent to Prisca some weeks ago. There are also six companies of watchmen, but they are mostly bullies and thugs, who rely on the terror of the dragon far more than on courage or discipline. And the dragon is dead now. Many of them, too, we killed on the first day, and many others have gone to ground or have fled the City, as we did. But not for the same reason. They are not a force to be reckoned with. They ran as soon as we stood up to them. They will run at the very rumor of you. This is why Machlor sent for the garrisons.”
“This is all very hard to believe,” muttered Berandan.
“Aye, it is,” Baran muttered. “It’s too good to be true.”
“Let me ask you then,” Imlan went on, bristling at their doubts, “if you think you know better, how often you have been in the City.”
“Once, as a boy,” Baran answered.
“Never,” said Berandan.
Hansarad said nothing, but smiled the shadow of a smile at Elénna, who smiled back and inclined her head.
“Then why,” Imlan asked them, “do you think you know the City better than I do? I was born there. I was there before the dragon came, and I am there now that he is gone. For years men like myself and Garalf have been waiting, watching, counting the days and the numbers of the enemy. You know as little of what it is like in there as I know of what it is like out here. Those who guard the gates let few in and fewer out. This is the first time I have been able to get out of the City since the day before it fell. What else have I to do but watch the enemy?
“How many of you Rangers have gotten inside, then out again alive to tell what you have learned? A hundred Rangers is not an army, you say? Perhaps not, but we are not asking you to fight for us. We are asking you to fight with us. But we will fight without you if need be. We do so even now. The enemy’s grip is slipping, captains, and if we push together, they will lose control entirely. Help us fight them.”
With such conviction did Imlan speak that none of them could say anything for quite some time. In their years of outlawry under the dragons, the Rangers had become estranged from the people they lived to protect. So accustomed had they grown to being hunted and betrayed, to being shunned for fear – not of themselves, but of the punishments the dragon’s men inflicted on all caught aiding or welcoming Rangers – that their dealings with them were few and secret. Though the Rangers would fight and die for these people, they did not know them as men and women. And they never expected to hear one speak as boldly as Imlan had done.
“All the more reason,” Elénna finally said, “for us to stop the column from Prisca. It is too late to do anything about the garrison from here, which alone will double the number of regular troops in Narinen –”
“More than double, captain,” Imlan said politely. “A quarter of the regular troops went off to Prisca, and we have killed more than a few.”
“More than double, then,” Elénna said, graciously accepting the correction. “We cannot allow more troops into the City.”
“I agree,” Hansarad said, and looking to Baran and Berandan he could see support in their eyes. “Elénna, Berandan, take your Rangers and intercept that column. Harry them, whittle them down, but do not engage them in force at close quarters. Use your bows and horses and wits. Give them no rest, but drive them forward. And Baran and I will be waiting for you at the meeting of the roads in two days’ time. There we will finish them.”
Without hesitation Berandan and Elénna rose and left the table. Their boots could be heard echoing down the hallway to the front door, as could the orders they began calling out to their Rangers the instant they left the building. When they were nearly ready to leave, Elénna looked up to find Hansarad approaching. She smiled at him and he grinned back in the way that had charmed her since they were children at play in the Valley. Standing close enough so that no one could see, he took her by the hand.  Discretion kept those nearby at the tasks Elénna had assigned them.
"You'll be careful, Elénna," he whispered.
"To do my duty, yes, captain,"  she replied, still smiling and grateful for the cover of night.
"Very well, then,"  he said in a voice more official, but still scarcely above a whisper.  Then he paused and said even more quietly, "just come back."
"I will."
Elénna pressed his hand and let it go, then mounted. She called out to her lieutenant, some yards away, to ask if they were ready.  Once he answered that they were, she turned back to Hansarad, but he was already gone, climbing the steps to the commander's quarters and crossing the porch.  She knew he would not look back.  Back over by the gate, her Rangers and Berandan's were waiting in a column of twos. She joined him at their head and they rode out to begin their journey across country for the Prisca Road.
Back in the kitchen, Hansarad rejoined the others. It was now well after midnight and those who remained decided that rest was what they most needed. They would give thought to their next steps in the morning, but Hansarad stayed in his chair long after the others had gone, watching the Rangers come and go, as they enjoyed their first hot meal in many days.
About what was to come he thought deeply. They had been fortunate so far. The skill and training of the Rangers had won out. They had lost no one and suffered only minor wounds. Surprise had been their ally, but surprise would be difficult to maintain. The dragon’s senior officers in the City and General Machlor in particular would be harder to take unawares, especially if the garrison from Prisca never arrived. That in itself would tell them the Rangers were near, and sometime the next morning the four companies from the fortress would enter the City, swelling the number of regular troops there to as much as seven companies. Not many for a city of that size, but more than enough to hold the gates against a simple assault by a hundred men, even a hundred Rangers.
Much would depend on how effective the rebels in the City had been against Machlor’s troops so far, on how many of his men had been killed or rendered unfit for combat, and on how Machlor saw fit to use them. Would he put them all at the gates? Would he hold some in reserve to reinforce the point upon which the attack fell? Or would he disperse them evenly around Narinen?
The most important question of all, though, was when the other dragons would arrive. It was a thousand leagues and more across the sea to Talor, and it would take time even for a dragon to fly that far. But how long? Perhaps Evénn could say, but Hansarad knew neither where Evénn and the others were nor how to find them. And would the dragon in Talor – the silver dragon was there, Evénn had told him – wait for the other two who were farther away, or was he even now speeding through the darkness alone? If they did not take the City before any of the dragons arrived, there would be no hope of taking it at all. And even if they defeated the dragon’s men, what then? The coming wrath of the dragons would surpass anything Hansarad could imagine, however fresh and bloody in his mind were the tales he had heard of this endless war’s early days. He knew he could not yet comprehend such suffering himself, nor, he was sure, could the rebels who declared they would rather die free than live as slaves a day longer.
“They’ll probably get their wish,” Hansarad muttered to himself ruefully as he tried to rub exhaustion from his eyes. “We will very probably all get their wish.”
“Sir?”
It was Dara’s voice. He looked up at her.
“Nothing, Dara. I was just thinking aloud. Have you found something else?”
“Yes, sir, and I knew you would want to see it. It confirms everything Imlan has told us about the troops in the City.”
He took the document from her hand and studied it. The date on it was three weeks earlier, the seal and signature above it General Machlor’s. It detailed the transfer of a full company of soldiers from the City to reinforce the garrison at Prisca, which had lost nearly four fifths of its strength to a large and well-coordinated attack by outlaw Rangers. Hansarad smiled at Machlor’s weak essay in deception and wondered if the fortress’ commander had also smiled when he saw it. He looked back up at Dara. After thanking her once more, he told her that she and Rachor had earned their rest for the night. They could resume their task in the morning. As she walked out of the kitchen, he heard her calling Rachor to tell him that their day was finally done.
With proof now that Imlan’s account was reliable, a great relief came over Hansarad, and he was finally able to quiet his racing mind. Although he had believed Imlan almost from the first and knew that Elénna did so, too, it had been clear that Baran and Berandan were not so sure, even after Imlan had silenced them. With this information all that would change. Tomorrow they could go forward with greater confidence in what Imlan and Garalf had to say about the rising.
Hansarad rose from his chair and left the kitchen. For a few minutes he stood outside on the porch, breathing in the scent of the rain and feeling the breeze that hinted of the sea. All was quiet in the fortress. Going back inside, Hansarad wandered through several dark rooms. In each burned a small oil lamp that shed only enough light to suggest the room and its furnishings. In a corner between two tall windows he could make out a chair, whose outlines made it look well stuffed and comfortable. And so it was, as comfortable as sleep itself. Hansarad sank into it, pulled off his boots, and let sleep take him. His last thought was of the two boy soldiers lying dead by the gate, one of them wearing an inexplicable smile.

The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 1.1

One

Like ghosts they came from the darkness. Unseen, unheard, they gave the dragon’s men no warning: they struck on nights of seaside fog or summer thunder; they struck in the dark blue of dusk or the gray twilight of morning, to cut a throat, storm a bastion, or fell a patrol in a storm of arrows. Then, cloaked in gray or green or the dragon’s black, they vanished utterly, as suddenly as they had come. Behind them they left dead men, or survivors crippled with despair. No pursuit of the Rangers availed. None could be taken alive. Even of those they killed, the dragon’s men were uncertain. Ghosts had a way of walking the night.
In the four months since the red dragon fell, a war of vengeance had raged, truceless and merciless on both sides. From the City of Narinen the rising had spread as fast as rumor, until all that wide land was in arms. The people rose in hatred and wrath, and the dragon’s men paid in blood for the years of their power. It mattered little to the slaves if their masters had served the dragon out of fear or hunger, out of greed or ambition. No trooper was safe alone or in a small squadron. Nor were their homes and families safe, if no Rangers were present to restrain the people. A generation of the dragon’s malice bred only death.
Even in the first days of the war, Machlor, the dragon’s general in Narinen, had been very hard pressed. His men were stunned and confused by the overthrow of one so mighty as the dragon. Men said the dragonslayer had returned out of the deeps of time, wielding again his ancient sword. They whispered the name of Evénn through the streets and alleys and barracks of the City. At night they pointed to the stars in the southern sky that bore his name, and said that god had set them there as a promise, now fulfilled.
“Who else could have cut down the troopers at Prisca like that, and lit up the winter sky with his power? Who else could have slain the dragon, then vanished without a trace?” they asked.
“Well, where is he then?” some scoffed.
“And where is the dragon? Tell us that.”
There was only one answer. All had heard the dragon’s final cry, and felt their hearts shake off the burden of his life. Even before the soldiers Machlor sent out to investigate had returned, their faces ashen with terror, every man and woman in the City knew what news they were bringing. Within hours the streets of Narinen were running with blood, just as they had a generation earlier. Tiles and paving stones plunged down from the rooftops on the heads of watchmen and soldiers. Bows and swords, long knives long hidden, nearly forgotten beneath floorboards and behind walls, again saw the light. Mobs cornered the watchmen who had long tormented them, and became their tormentors in turn. They put houses and barracks to the torch, and those who fled from the fire they put to the sword. They stormed prisons in search of friends and family last seen entering their doors years before.
By the third day of the war Machlor’s hold over the City had so slipped that he dispatched messengers to recall the garrisons from Prisca and the fortress by the Great Road. Without more men he saw that he could not maintain control of the City until the other dragons came. With more troops he could then make his own reprisals more horrific, and in time the discipline of the soldiery and the savagery of Machlor would begin to tell. But while he waited for these troops to arrive, Machlor sought to kill the bravest and most reckless of the rebels. Yet the restless, fragile order Machlor’s terror imposed by day was broken again by night, and each dawn saw more of the City in flames and more bodies of his men littering the streets. Despite their losses, the people had waited, seething, far too long to be easily or quickly put down again. In his contempt, the general underestimated them.
Narinen indeed now looked much as it had thirty years before, the day after a young sergeant named Machlor first stepped ashore. He had led the storming of the Sea Gate, and by dint of skill and luck he survived to earn his first promotion. For three decades he had served the dragon well. It was he who had tracked the young apprentice Ranger back to the camp at Skia, he who had guided the regiments back to take the camp months later. There he fell before the sword of the elder Hansarad. Fell but did not die. Wounds to which the hardiest would have succumbed in hours somehow made him only more determined to survive.
His talents and relish for cruelty soon caught the dragon’s eye, and for ten years now he had been the commanding general of the City and Land of Narinen. Only the dragon was above him. No man west of the ocean was more powerful, none more like his master in cunning. Long had Machlor studied under the dragon and many were the conversations they had. Often they talked far into the night, seeking new ways to strip the people of hope and grind their pride into dust. In attempting to put down the rebellion, Machlor was as remorseless and vicious as the red beast himself. The rebels were a threat to him, and he did not care for threats. Ambition moved him like lust drives petty men: if he could reestablish control by the time the other dragons came, he might rise still higher.
But Machlor erred in choosing to strip Prisca and the fortress of all their soldiers. For in the chaos of the first days many of the City’s inhabitants slipped away. Most simply fled, rejoicing to be free of the hell the dragon had made of Narinen. Some of the younger ones had never before been outside the walls or seen the mountains and the broad green fields of the coastlands. To them the sea was a mystery, though every day they could taste its salt on the air, and in a storm hear the thunder of its waves on the unseen shore. But not all those who escaped were so simple. They knew the rising could not succeed without aid. And though few of them had ever seen more of a Ranger than a head displayed on a pike, they left to seek them out.
Then on a night full of rain two of these men found themselves surrounded without warning at the point where the Great Road emerged from the gap in the Green Hills. Dark figures commanded them to stand their ground or be slain. From the circle of cloaked and hooded men two stepped forward. Their faces were in shadow, but the glint of their eyes was visible even through the gloom of a rainy night. Several feet in front of them the men stopped. Their proud, still bearing told the City men that these were not servants of the dragon.
“Who are you and what do you seek here?” the first of the cloaked men asked them.
“My name is Imlan,” the first of the City men replied, and gestured to his companion, “and this is Garalf. We are from the City. We have come to seek the Rangers.”
“Why do you seek them?”
“The dragon has fallen, and we are rebels. We need their help,” Garalf said.
“If you are rebels, why do you flee? Why not stand and fight?” came the voice of the other from beneath his hood.
“We are not soldiers, sir,” said Garalf, turning to face him. “I am a cooper, and Imlan here is a joiner. No matter how hard we try, in the end we can only lose. And more of the dragon’s soldiers are on their way to the City, from the fort over there, and probably elsewhere. Just hours ago we hid in a ditch not far from the road while the garrison of the fortress marched by.”
“Even if you win now,” the other asked, “the other dragons will soon come to avenge the one who is dead. How will you fight them?”
“We cannot fight them,” Imlan responded. “We cannot win.”
“Then why fight at all?”
“Because beyond all hope the dragonslayer has returned. Because we will be slaves no longer. So for now we will fight and be free. Whatever comes afterward, comes.”
Rain dripping from their hoods and cloaks, the two dark figures retreated a few steps and stood looking at them. A long pause followed in which both Imlan and Garalf felt that their honesty and worth were being assessed. All around them more and more shadows emerged from the gloom of the rain to stand and await the decision. Imlan thought he could see dozens of them, some closer and more distinct, others farther away, their presence scarcely more than guessed at. Beside almost every shadowy figure stood a tall, shaggy hound. At last the first man to speak came closer and spoke again.
“Imlan and Garalf, you say you seek the Rangers. Well, you have found them,” he said and approached, stretching forth a gloved hand from beneath his cloak. “I command here. My name is Hansarad.”
“Hansarad!” both Imlan and Garalf said in astonishment.
The Ranger laughed softly. In the dark and rain his laughter struck them as a strange thing until he spoke once more. “No, no, it’s my father those tales are told of, and I am not his equal. But all of us here will aid you as we can, whatever the cost.”
“Thank you,” Imlan cried, seizing his hand.
The Ranger laughed again for a moment.
“But the cost will be high,” Hansarad said. “You must know that. We are not an army, only a hundred.”
“A hundred Rangers are worth an army,” Garalf nearly shouted in his joy.
Still holding Imlan’s hand, Hansarad put a finger to his lips.
“Silence is the first rule,” he said, “and if you truly know my father’s story, you know a hundred Rangers is not always enough. Now, both of you, come with Baran and me and tell us what you know.”
“Is … the dragonslayer here?” Garalf stammered suddenly.
“No,” Baran replied. “Evénn and his companions are not here. They have battles of their own to fight.”
“I don’t understand,” Garalf said.
“Their business is with the dragons,” Baran answered.
“Yes,” Hansarad added. “This battle is ours.”

In keeping with the orders they had received from Master Raynall months earlier, Hansarad, Baran, and the other captains of the Rangers who patrolled the Green Hills nearest the City had begun moving towards the Great Road within a few days after Evénn and his companions crossed over the mountains. By the day the dragon fell, four detachments of them, each more than two dozen strong had gathered in the woods nearby. That morning the distant noise of the dragon’s death scream had rolled across the coastlands and through the gap in the mountains which the Great Road followed. On the eastern slopes high above the Road the Rangers’ advanced scouts were the first to hear it echoing off the hills around them. More faintly was it heard by the Rangers still on the western slopes beyond the gap, and their hearts rejoiced before even the messenger sent by the scouts had arrived.
A few hours later the scouts reported the arrival at the fortress of a rider from the City. They saw him coming in great haste down the long straight Road from the Mountain Gate. By the time he reached the fort, his horse was lathered and stumbling from the pace. At the gates the rider leaped from his back and raced inside. Minutes later two other riders departed, racing at a full gallop for the gap into the Plains of Rheith. The Rangers let them pass on their errand, which, as they rightly guessed, was to order the return of the two companies of dragon’s men who were patrolling the road that ran north and south beneath the mountains’ western slopes. Once through the gap, one rode north and the other south, but they did not ride alone. For Rangers followed them under the eaves of the forest.
That night the camp of the southern patrol was overrun. They had marched nearly twenty-five miles in three painful stages since the messenger from the fortress had arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Hours after sunset they pitched camp several miles south of the gap, intending to rest and pass through to the fort the next morning. But in the night their pickets in the fields beyond the camp were lost without word or cry, their sentries fell silently at the camp’s very edge, and the sudden hoof beats of four dozen mounted Rangers startled the sleeping camp into a final awakening. By dawn the crows were gathering to a new feast. The Rangers were long gone.
Three hours later the northern patrol was approaching the turn in the Great Road that marked the halfway point through the mountains. There a naked outcrop of granite jutted from the wooded slopes, so massive that it seemed to buttress the hills and keep them from collapsing upon the lonely road. It was a strait, cold place of many shadows, which even in greener days the dragon’s men had not liked. The trees looked down from their scornful heights, and whispered secrets to each other on the ceaseless mountain breeze. But whether the men of the dragon marched or rode, it was the fear of the watchful gaze of other eyes that weighed most upon their spirits. For thirty years every trooper, every messenger who passed this way was certain he was not alone.
Today they were not mistaken.
A moment before the first of the troopers reached the bend, a flight of several dozen arrows raked the column from behind. Some of the soldiers turned back to face their attackers, but another volley of arrows came down from the trees on both sides, nearly every shaft finding its mark. With the third volley, the last of the officers fell and what was left of the column’s rear disintegrated. Men surged forward, trying to shove their way past the soldiers ahead of them. Horns began blowing in an effort to summon aid from the fort miles away. Their music echoed through the gap, but the only answers that came were from the woods themselves: more arrows and the call of the Rangers’ own horns raised in mockery. The troopers were all running now, casting their arms aside. They fled around the great stone, pursued by the withering rain of arrows, but they found no safety. Scores of arrows greeted them. The morning was quiet once more.
Nearly a hundred Rangers and their hounds stepped from the trees on either side to make sure there were no survivors. Working quickly and with no need for orders from their captains, they replenished their quivers from those of the enemy dead and stripped them of their food, water, cloaks, and helmets. For now the Great Road was secure behind them. It would take over a week for any substantial body of reinforcements to arrive from Elsen, nearly two hundred miles to the west along the Road. Other Rangers would stalk and harry them. No further messengers would be permitted through the gap. The City was cut off from the west, and Hansarad and Baran led their Rangers through the Green Hills to the coastlands where they settled in to study the fortress which blocked the way to Narinen.
After two days of careful observation and discussion among the captains of the strengths and weaknesses of the fort, not much had changed but the weather. For on the afternoon of the first day the rains came again. The fort itself was strong and well situated, difficult to approach unseen or in force, with a still large garrison of four companies. Of this rainy winter even the hardiest of the Rangers were growing impatient, but they continued to stare quietly through it. A half dozen riders left the fortress at intervals to seek the long overdue patrols from beyond the mountains. None returned. After first light on the second day no more were dispatched. That day around noon another messenger arrived from the City. Much to the Rangers’ surprise the gates opened again an hour later and almost the entire garrison marched off at a quick pace for the Mountain Gate thirty miles away. The gray veils of rain soon closed behind them.

The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 3.3


Well after two in the morning the Spindrift came to Inshanar. She approached from the southeast on the last of a long series of tacks necessary because the wind had been blowing straight from the west for nearly two weeks. At least that wind had laid the seas flat as glass and smoothed their path. She was on her way into the harbor when Evénn, concerned by the troubles of the city and the news brought by Torran about the silver dragon and his men, used several lanterns to give a signal agreed upon many years before, which told Auducar not to enter the port itself, but anchor offshore and send in a boat. The Spindrift replied as agreed. Her sails were furled and her crew anchored her smartly by stem and by stern.
A few minutes later a boat was lowered. Evénn and Agarwen watched from the shore as half a dozen sailors rowed her in, with the captain and his coxswain sitting in the stern. The wolf paced back and forth in front of them by the water’s edge. His eyes never left the longboat. To Evénn and Agarwen it seemed that he knew the Spindrift and her boat were coming to take them all away, and that this knowledge did not please him at all.
Soon the bow of the longboat slid a few feet onto the sand, and the sailors sprang out to drag her further up. The captain and his coxswain stepped ashore. While the coxswain remained with the boat and crew, Auducar strode up the beach to Evénn, Agarwen and the wolf, whose cold stare the captain returned at once.
“It took you long enough, Evénn,” he said as he grasped his hand. “I was beginning to think you would never come until I heard about the red dragon. It appears you found what you sought.”
“And more, my friend,” Evénn replied, chuckling. “And you’re late yourself.”
“Perhaps you can command the wind and the tide, Evénn, but I cannot. I have not the skill.”
“It would be perilous with dragons about anyway. Such an enchantment would only bring them all down upon us.”
“Too true, and ships burn so easily.”
“Just so,” Evénn said. “Auducar, this is Agarwen, a Ranger, and one of my comrades.”
“Pleased, Agarwen,” he said and shook her hand, astonishing her with the strength of his grip. “So, Evénn, what is going on in fair Inshanar?”
Before he could answer, the both of them suddenly looked into the city.
“What do you hear?” Agarwen asked.
“Battle. The rebels’ attack on the dragon’s men inside Inshanar has begun. None too soon either. Dawn is but a few hours away.”
Evénn rapidly told Auducar how things stood. The captain listened closely without saying a word, taking in the news being given him. He was tall, taller than Evénn by a head, broader of shoulder and deeper of chest. His long blond hair, which was tied at the back of his neck, looked silver in the moonlight and the deep tan on his face had a dusky tone. He was quite an imposing figure towering over them, and especially over Agarwen, but for all that Auducar seemed friendly and easy to her. At different points as Evénn spoke, he grunted in understanding or approval.
“So where are your horses? You should have let me bring the Spindrift into the docks if you have horses, just long enough to get them aboard and stowed below.”
“Arden and Niall are further down the docks with Rafenor right now, putting them into a barge. They’ll get them to the ship before too long. It was just too risky to bring you all the way in to the docks. Aside from the danger of the dragon, the tide itself will turn against every craft in the harbor at dawn, and there’s no telling if the rebels will stand against the enemy, even with Jalonn there.”
“Jalonn?”
“Forgive me, my friend. Jalonn is the Master of Swords.”
“I suppose you’re right about the danger. Now show me where this barge is. We’ll need some proper seamen on it, not Rangers and dockworkers.”
“Arden and Niall grew up by the sea and know it well,” Agarwen said in their defense.
“Pleasure sailors, no doubt, who haven’t been to sea since they were children,” Auducar scoffed. “No, no, please take no offense, Agarwen. I often speak my mind too plainly for landsmen, but even my cook has been at sea since before their grandfathers were born.”
At that moment the noise of the battle within Inshanar became loud enough for even Agarwen to hear it. She saw the orange glow of fire rising from the streets near the northern gate.
“It’s getting worse,” Auducar said. “I’ll see to those horses.”
“Agreed,” Evénn replied.
For the rest of the night Evénn and the Rangers aided Rafenor and Torran in trying to raise men to fight with the rebel troops. They found it difficult to win more than three dozen or so young men over to their side. As the night wore on and the eastern sky slowly paled, the noise of the battle across the city grew, and more of the northern section was clearly on fire. The battle also began creeping their way. As it did so, more and more people came down to the harbor, leading their children and carrying the goods they had gathered in haste. Some put off in boats or ships of their own, others tried to steal boats or to beg passage. Soon the harbor was full of vessels heading out to sea, east and south, trying to escape.
Out beyond the mouth of the harbor, the Spindrift rode at anchor. The last of the horses was aboard, and her captain watched the people of Inshanar sailing or rowing past into the open sea in overloaded vessels. None dared ask the dragon’s ship, as they thought her, for aid. Most steered clear of her. Auducar looked upon them in pity, and in anger as well because he dared not help them, and so dispel the illusion that he was their enemy. Still he wondered as he stood holding a backstay if any of those in the boats asked themselves why their enemy did nothing to stop or harm them. It made no difference. He could do nothing.
Ashore the Rangers felt equally impotent. Men, women, and children streamed heedlessly past them, hoping the sea would grant them escape just as it had given them a livelihood. With the rising of the sun now imminent, an urgency near panic seemed to gain mastery over them, and nothing anyone said, whether Rafenor whom they knew or Evénn whom they did not, slowed them down in the least. Niall stalked back and forth in frustration. Agarwen vainly continued begging the people near her to stand and fight. Arden, his sword in his hand and his wolfhound beside him, stood in the middle of the main street which ended at the docks. He was looking up that long straight street, remembering another day and another crowd fleeing in terror. The mob flowed around him like a tide ebbing fast around a rock.
From among the crowd Arden picked out a familiar face running towards him. It was a woman, a Ranger, and she was shouting and pushing people aside as she ran. Suddenly he realized it was Dara. Immediately Arden began forcing his own way through the crowd in her direction. Argos went before him growling and baring his teeth to help clear the way. Finally they reached each other.
“Arden, where is Evénn?” she said, panting heavily.
“What is it, Dara?”
“The enemy came early, as Jalonn feared they would. They reached the gate before we did, and have been driving us back ever since. They’re a regiment of the front line, and the rebels are going to break soon. Jalonn sent me. He needs Evénn and the rest of us.”
“Come with me,” Arden said.
They began to run with the flow of the people. Arden kept calling Evénn’s name, hoping that the elf’s keen ears could pick out his voice among the rumor and cry of the crowd. As they came back to the spot from which Arden had first seen Dara, he saw Evénn and the others hurrying towards them.
“Evénn,” Dara said, “the rebels are giving way. Jalonn needs us.”
The elf nodded, glanced long over his shoulder at the Spindrift. The barge was moving away from her. Their horses were now all on board. On the small beach at the end of the street, two longboats surrounded by heavily armed seamen were waiting for them. All was in readiness. Then he looked at Arden and grinned. He unsheathed the sword of adamant.
When they saw the ghostly blue flames flickering down its blade, the crowd slowed and drew back. Briefly Arden thought that they would halt at last, that they would stand and fight. Then from up the street behind him he heard the screaming of first a few, then dozens, then hundreds. It came down the street like a wave, swelling in volume as it rose to its peak. The crowd, already terrified, panicked and ran. Until Arden turned to look, he thought the dragon had come, had stooped on the street and filled it with flame just as he had done that far away day outside Narinen. But that was not what he saw as the sun broke the horizon and flooded the street with its light. He saw a mass of people trampling each other as they tried to escape the battle which was now overtaking them. The rebels had broken.
Arden, Dara, and Argos were nearly swept away by the panicked mob, but they fought their way to the side of the street. Safe in the shelter of an open doorway, Arden and Dara could see the dragon’s men coming around the nearest corner several hundred yards away and advancing slowly towards them in good order. At first little more than that was visible, but as the gap between the swift mob and the soldiers grew wider, a much smaller group, about a dozen men in all, could be made out between the two. They, too, were moving slowly, withdrawing step by step before the oncoming forces. They were in no order, but had held together in the middle of the street. Closest to the enemy were two gray cloaked men with bloody swords in their hands.
“Jalonn and Hansarad,” Dara said, “thank god they’re still alive.”
As glad as he was to see them still alive, Arden was moved with grave concern. Not only were they greatly outnumbered by the troops he could see advancing, but with every moment more of the dragon’s men rounded the corner. As Dara had said, these were no ordinary soldiers. They moved as one. They advanced calmly and relentlessly. They had successfully concealed their numbers from the rebel scouts and anticipated the rebels’ plan to seize the gate by seizing it first themselves. Now they had defeated and broken their enemy and were driving all who remained backwards until they could pin them with their backs to the sea. Arden guessed that other enemy troops were probably approaching the docks on parallel streets to prevent any chance of escape.
He looked to Evénn, who alone could help them now as he had at Prisca, but then as now any enchantment powerful enough to halt the enemy’s assault would only betray them and draw the dragon to them. Evénn was standing where Arden had stood when he saw Dara, the others gathered around him. He held his right hand out in front of him, and, whatever the nature of the spell he cast, the crowd divided as it came near and flowed around them. Beyond him Arden could see that the two longboats from the Spindrift somehow also remained unnoticed by those running desperately up and down the docks in search of some ship or boat to carry them to safety. Was that Evénn’s doing as well?
In another minute the tide of people had run out. None now stood between Arden and the enemy except Jalonn’s small group. As he and Dara stepped out of the doorway, Jalonn glanced over his shoulder at him and nodded. Arden’s eyes met Hansarad’s as well. He and Dara started forward to join them, but were immediately overtaken by Evénn striding rapidly up the street.
“We don’t have time for this, Arden,” he said as he went past.
Behind him were Agarwen and Niall, Rafenor and Torran, and a few others who had taken heart to see the sword unsheathed. Together they went to meet the enemy. Rafenor was on Arden’s left and Dara with her blood-tipped spear to his right. Arden looked into the storyteller’s eyes and saw that he was not afraid. Then he handed Rafenor the Captain’s sword.
“This should be yours,” he said.
“I can’t accept it,” Rafenor replied, amazed and grateful.
“You have no choice. You’ll need a good sword today. And I have this,” Arden said as he unslung the bow.
Arden started running to catch up to Evénn before he closed the gap between him and the enemy. Even now he had almost reached Jalonn and Hansarad. The dragon’s soldiers were thirty yards beyond them. Evénn waved Jalonn and Hansarad aside.
“Go back,” he cried to the dragon’s men as he passed Jalonn’s band.
Scattered laughter from their ranks was their only reply. In answer Evénn swung the sword of adamant once above his head and then down in a great arc which ended with the sword pointed directly at the center of the enemy line. As he swung it, the sword kindled into bright blue flames which leaped like lightning from the blade and struck the enemy. Rank upon rank fell as the sword’s fire cut through them. But the soldiers were many and they were brave. They closed their ranks and quickened their pace.
“Go back,” the elf cried and struck them again.
Arden now joined the battle, standing close to Evénn and loosing arrows at the officers of the enemy. Behind him and to either side Agarwen, Dara, and Niall were shooting down their sergeants and standard bearers. Jalonn and Hansarad took it all in, leaning on their swords to catch their breath and rest a moment. Rafenor and his brother stood with them, waiting with their swords in their hands. The other rebels were spread across the street, also waiting, openmouthed at what they saw.
It was the renewed screaming from the docks which caught Jalonn’s attention. Weary and disgusted he looked back just as the silver dragon’s shadow almost renewed the departed night. Just above the rooftops he loomed, immense in this moment beyond all imagining, and gliding towards them at an incredible speed which made him grow more immense with each second. Hansarad saw him, too.
“Evénn,” Hansarad cried in a voice that tore his throat and could be heard even above the din.
The elf spun about at the alarm in that cry, and springing forward to protect Arden, swung his sword. Blue fire flashed up to meet the dragon. Almost too late. For the dragon alighted on the rooftops beside Jalonn and Hansarad, ignoring them in their impotence to harm him, now that he had the bearers of the sword and the bow before him. The blast of red flame from his mouth was deflected by the sword’s blue flame and continued on up the street to engulf his own troops. Again and again the dragon loosed his flames upon Evénn and Arden until they disappeared behind a curtain of blue and red fire.
Yet the dragon was driving Evénn and Arden back. Jalonn could see that the fires of the dragon were prevailing. The barrier protecting them was weakening, shrinking, failing. This dragon was clearly far stronger than the red one had been. Niall, Dara, and Agarwen were now shooting at the beast, without effect. For now, the dragon simply ignored them. Without hope Jalonn sheathed his sword and grabbed his bow, as did Hansarad also. Both knew these weapons could not harm the creature above them.
Yet in the instant that despair came to Master Jalonn and he notched a useless arrow to his bowstring, something came flying out of the wall of flame. Long, curved, and black it looked against the light behind it. Until it clattered to the cobblestones before his feet, Jalonn could not tell what it was. The bow of Mahar. He dropped his own and seized it. He ran up beneath the dragon, drawing the bow. When the dragon heard him shouting the words of the spell taught him by Evénn, his eyes darted downwards, his head began to swing around, in time for Jalonn’s arrow to strike his throat from below and vanish upward into his skull.
No sound did the dragon utter as light and hatred died from his eyes. He struggled to draw himself up to strike at Jalonn, but the fires within him went cold. He collapsed, caving in the roof of the house directly beneath him. His long neck whipped forward and his head struck the ground. His eyes were wholly dark. He did not move. Jalonn walked over and shot him a second time, and a third. He stood there, hardly satisfied, but convinced the dragon was dead. He heard Agarwen calling him.
“Master Jalonn, come quickly.”
Reluctantly he turned his back on the dragon. He saw Agarwen and the others kneeling in the street, Arden cradled in her lap, her arms around him. Niall had Evénn propped up against him a few feet away. Hansarad was examining Arden, and Dara Evénn. Jalonn rushed to join them.
“What happened?” he asked as he knelt beside Agarwen. “I see no wounds.”
“I don’t know, Master,” said Agarwen, silently weeping. “When you shot the dragon and the flames ceased, the light of Evénn’s barrier disappeared as well. We saw them lying there and went to their aid. But they are scarcely breathing. They do not move. When we call their names, they do not answer.”
“This is beyond me, Agarwen,” Jalonn said. “I do not know.”
“Stand aside there, will you?” a loud voice said in the silent seeming street. “I came as soon as I could,” it muttered.
From the corner of his eye Jalonn saw the captain of the Spindrift for the first time. It was easy enough to guess who he was. Auducar went to Evénn, then to Arden, opening their eyes and staring deep within them. His face grew troubled.
“Who commands here?” he asked, now quietly.
“I do,” Jalonn answered.
“Whatever affects them is grave. I see nothing of life in their eyes. This requires more help than I can offer here. We must get them to my ship and sail at once.”
Auducar waved his hand and a dozen of his crew rushed forward, easily hoisting Evénn and Arden to their shoulders. Jalonn rose and watched them moving rapidly towards the harbor.
“We’ll be under sail in five minutes,” Auducar said and strode off down to the boats.
“Get up now, Agarwen,” Jalonn said and pulled her to her feet. “Niall take the sword and cut that monster’s head off. Hansarad, Dara, you come with us. Who knows if they’ll survive. We’ll need your help in any event. Somehow things just got harder.”

Jalonn surveyed the street once before leaving. Aside from themselves it was nearly empty. The houses along either side of the street for two hundred yards were burning. Not a soldier of the enemy that he could see remained alive. There were no movements, no screams of agony. The bodies lay black and smoking. The west wind blew the smoke and charnel reek in Jalonn’s face. His eyes burned.

The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 2.2


Arden woke up. It was barely mid-morning and already the sun was blazing outside the old house where they had been hiding for several weeks now. Its thick stone walls and deep roofed porches kept out only the worst of the heat. All the rest of it seemed concentrated in this darkened room. After splashing some water on his face and neck, he crossed to a window. He squinted at the white glare of the sun on the clock calm of the sea. The air was heavy with moisture, and a haze lay all along the shoreline, making the port city of Inshanar only three miles to the south almost invisible. It was going to be another sullen, scalding day.
“You were dreaming?” said Evénn, who sat gazing calmly out of another window.
“Yes,” Arden replied and cast a half suspicious glance the elf’s way. At times it seemed to him that Evénn could perceive his thoughts. More than once in the last nine months Arden had awoken to find the elf’s eyes upon him and a thoughtful look upon his face.
“Was it a pleasant dream?”
“Yes and no.”
“Ah, one of those.”
“This dream is always one of those.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No, Evénn, not this one.”
Evénn regarded him curiously for a moment.
“It must have been a special dream then,” he said.
“It is,” Arden answered. “It always is.”
“You’ve had it more than once, then?”
“Every year on the eve of summer since she died,” Arden said and could not conceal his sadness.
“Ah,” said Evénn.
Arden glanced at him and saw that he took his meaning. Then after a moment he asked the question that had long been on his mind.
“Can you read my thoughts, Evénn?”
“What?” Evénn replied, like a man recalled from a dream himself. “No, not precisely. I would have to know you a very long time to do that. Mostly I can glean your feelings, and when you sleep, they are no longer fenced in by your waking mind. I know that as you slept you felt many emotions. At one point I felt the greatest relief in you, as if you had cast a great burden from your heart. Then a few moments later you were suddenly very happy. But what was your burden, Arden, and what was your joy? For that I could not tell.”
“Silence and love,” Arden answered at once, surprising himself.
“How heavy a thing silence can be. It seems to be nothing, but grows only more burdensome as time passes, while love, which seems to be everything all at once, is lighter than air. Worst of all is the silence that seeks to conceal love. Few have the strength to bear that weight of grief.”
“Indeed. And the most joyous of loves is the one that breaks its long silence.”
“Why, Arden,” Evénn said with a smile, “you are beginning to talk like an elf.”
“I speak only the truth, and that we know as well as you do.”
“True enough,” Evénn replied, “but it is also true that just before you awoke you were somewhat troubled and puzzled. What happened then?”
“I don’t know,” Arden answered, wondering if this was the question Evénn had been working towards all along. “Understand: the dream is never quite the same, and I am aware it is a dream while I dream it. But this…”
“Yes?”
“This was very different.”
“How so?”
“For an instant I felt that someone was watching us, or knew we were near and was angry that he could not find us. That was entirely new. But I saw no one and the feeling passed quickly.”
“What do you think it was?”
“The displeasure was so intense, and so full of ill will. I think it was one of the dragons.”
Evénn nodded slowly and emphatically.
“One of them is looking for you, my friend, just as the red one did. The blood of the black dragon which was spilled on you as a boy puts them on the scent. If the one who seeks you finds you, he will also find us. Then they will all come. We cannot defeat them all at once. They are too powerful.”
“Is anything with them that simple?”
“No, surely not, but how their malice will work in this we shall have to wait and see. Be watchful, Arden. Do not underestimate them again. Not even in our dreams can we make the world as we wish it, and the dragons are mightier than we are.”
Pained by Evénn’s remark on dreams, Arden kept quiet. He wondered if Evénn knew just how true his words were, and if in his five thousand years he had learned much of the world of spirits. But life was so different for elves that perhaps death was as well. And how did one who almost never slept know so much of dreams?
“Arden?” said Evénn. “Are you listening to me, my friend? We must continue to be vigilant. You must tell me if anything like this happens in your dreams again. One misstep could cost us everything, us and everyone else.”
“I know,” Arden replied. “I’ll tell you about anything else.”
“Good. I am glad to hear it. I know that it is a strange feeling to think you are being hunted in this way, by a creature who can track you down with only his mind’s eye if you’re not careful.”
“It is. I am used to men tracking me, men I can see and hear coming. And I resent this presence in my mind. My dreams have long been my only sanctuary.”
“Yes, great comfort can be found in dreams. There we can see and speak with those we lost long ago. Life would be unbearable without such a refuge.”
Hearing these words, Arden knew that Evénn understood, that whatever elvish dreams were like, they had this much in common with the dreams of men. It comforted him to know this, for Evénn’s sake, since he had lost his wife and children in the first war with the dragons centuries in the past. If the elf could visit them in dreams as Arden did Sorrow, perhaps that was some small solace for their loss.
“They are hunting for me, too, you know. I can sense their minds reaching out, grasping for mine. So you’re not alone in that.”
“That is good to know, I guess,” Arden answered.
“They’re back,” Evénn said, looking outside.
Arden turned back to the window. Looking from the half-darkness of the room into the glare off the sea blinded him at first. As his eyes adjusted, the stark silhouettes walking up from the beach softened and became Agarwen, Jalonn, and Niall. Argos and the wolf paced along beside them. They had been on patrol all night between the house and the port. They all looked tired and hot. Sweat glistened on their faces, and the tongues of the wolf and Argos were hanging out.
“I’d better get them some water,” Evénn said and left the room, disappearing into the cooler darkness towards the rear of the house. Before long Arden heard Evénn working the well pump in the kitchen. Years of disuse and exposure to the salt air had rusted it, and it screeched as he moved the handle up and down, but the water it drew was cool and uncommonly sweet for a well so near the ocean.
Jalonn opened the door and entered just as Evénn returned. Gratefully he took the cup of water offered to him, then threw off his heavy cloak and sat down against the back wall of the room. Niall and Agarwen, too, accepted water from Evénn, while Argos and the wolf trotted into the kitchen to the bowls which had been set out for them. At this time of day the kitchen, on the western side of the house, was the coolest room. So they did not return, but stretched out gratefully on the cold stone floor.
“Even this far south,” Jalonn said, “it’s early for it to be this hot, and last night was just the eve of summer.”
“Judging by the look of the town,” Niall remarked sourly, “I’d say it’s been rather hot here a few times already.”
“Well, if so,” Agarwen muttered, “it is we who lit the fire.”
Jalonn gave her a sharp look. Evénn sighed and turned back to the window. But Arden grew angry and rebuked her.
“You speak with the tongue of the dragon, Agarwen, as if we were the evildoers here.”
“No, Arden, no,” she said – and the pain she felt at his words showed through – “thousands, tens of thousands, of our people are already dead. Our proudest city lies in ruins. When you and Evénn killed the red dragon, the people danced in the streets. They rose up in all their numbers and found that they were strong. They overthrew or drove out their oppressors. Then they learned that their strength was just an illusion Narinen fell once more and this time it is utterly destroyed.”
“Except for the tower,” Jalonn said quietly, but firmly.
“Yes, Master Jalonn, except for the tower, from what we hear, but I don’t know how many besides us see it as a sign of hope. What they see are the three dragons crossing this wide land, killing and destroying. What they see is more troops landing every week in numbers they cannot combat. And where were we when Narinen fell? While the people there whispered, then shouted, the name of the slayer of dragons, we vanished. Where was the dragonslayer, where were we, when the dragons came again? They are paying a terrible price, and still they fight.”
“That was foreseen by the council,” Arden replied. “We knew this would happen. We could not remain in Narinen, because we could not risk encountering all the dragons at once. The red dragon by himself was nearly too much for us, even though we had the sword and the bow. We need to fight them each alone.”
“I know that, Arden. It’s just that the people’s suffering is appalling. It’s one thing to talk about that in a fortress far away and another to witness. I wish we could do more to defend them.”
“We all wish that, Agarwen,” Evénn said. “In the first war with them the suffering was much the same, and there was nothing at all we could do until the weapons were ready. That took a hundred years of the sun. That was a very long time. In that time, much as now, all we could do was strike at their servants and try not to draw the dragons’ eyes too much upon us.”
“We’re Rangers, Evénn. We’re supposed to protect them. We want to protect them,” she protested. Her shoulders sagged and for a moment she bowed her head in near despair.
“Of course you do,” Evénn said in answer. “So do I, but we will do them more harm than good if we die before the dragons. What will remain to them then?”
“I grew up much farther south than we are now,” Jalonn interrupted, speaking slowly. As always, he had been watching his companions with a careful eye, and now he let the languid accents of his youth draw his words out long enough for them all to turn their eyes to him. “Hot weather puts people on edge. In a summer like this one, even the best of friends must mind their tempers and guard their tongues.”
As he said this he looked directly at Arden, who went over to Agarwen and whispered a few words of apology in her ear. She nodded and grasped his hand briefly. When she let go, they walked away from each other.
Niall frowned as Arden passed him. He had been expecting hard words for some time now, and regretted his part in provoking them. The last four months had been difficult. The importance of their errand compelled them to do nothing while others fought and suffered. This was not the way of Rangers. To stand between the people and evil was their calling, particularly in times like these when fear led men to shun them. Yet again and again on their journey south they had watched villages plundered, farms burning, unequal battles between soldiers and rebels untutored in war. They held aloof, moving swiftly through the woods. Almost every night they saw distant flames rising. The companions moved on.
But for all they had witnessed along the way, it was the beginning and end of their road they found the hardest to bear. At first their progress was easy, and they saw many things fit to lift up their hearts. Everywhere the servants of the dragon were in retreat, hunted, besieged. It was their guardhouses, barracks, and homes that were in flame, a vengeance in full measure for decades of tyranny. Small parties of Rangers appeared from the Green Hills, and the rebels welcomed their aid. The less cautious would have let these events tempt them with joy, but Evénn and his companions were awaiting the storm.
It broke over the City and swept it away. From the ashes of Narinen the dragons came to spread fire across the land. Their soldiers came, too, first the red dragon’s emerging from the fortresses and hiding places in which they had sought refuge, then the silver dragon’s, sailing in from Talor beyond the sea. The rebellion became more desperate, a battle only for those stern and ruthless enough to endure freedom’s bitter cost. Others questioned the wisdom of hope.
The Rangers had pressed on, heading for the port of Inshanar, six hundred miles south of Narinen, where Evénn told them his ship, the Spindrift, visited once a year in the last weeks of spring, in the hope that he would appear with the weapons that might save them all. In the month since they arrived, they had had little to do but wait and watch impotently, unhappily, while the war, which they had started and in which they could take no part, grew steadily more cruel. The heat and the failure of the Spindrift to arrive only made things worse. Agarwen and Arden, Niall thought, were simply the first to voice the displeasure they all felt.
But summer began today and still they waited in this old house by the sea, vainly watching for the Spindrift’s sails to break the horizon. Other ships had come to Inshanar and gone again in the last month. Troops landed a week ago and marched off inland at once. A few small merchant vessels coasted by. But of Evénn’s ship there was no sign.
To all appearances the Spindrift served the dragons as a packet ship, transporting official goods, messages, and couriers back and forth across the seas. In truth her crew was composed almost exclusively of elves, many of whom had sailed with Auducar, her captain in one ship or another for centuries. At least that had been true twenty five years ago, when Evénn, Laindon, and Marek, disembarked here to seek the sword and bow. Through all the years in between, she had sailed again and again into Inshanar, her place as a packet secured through bribery both subtle and immense. Auducar, once his official duties were discharged, would send cryptically bland letters to obscure towns across Narinen. No matter what words he used, there was only one message, that the Spindrift had kept her rendezvous and would return next year. Only last fall Evénn had been sitting by a window in the tavern of a remote western town with Auducar’s most recent letter in his hand. He had just finished reading it, and was wondering if he would ever find the bow, when he saw a Ranger come riding down the street.
That was nine months ago now, and he and the Rangers had been through much together. But in the last few days his companions had begun to question him with silent looks. Even Jalonn had done so once or twice.
“The Spindrift will return,” was all he would say.
Despite his words Evénn was growing concerned himself. Without the Spindrift they could not cross the sea to Talor, where they hoped to meet the next dragon, alone. A longing to see his own people again was also upon him. For twenty five years he had been in Narinen, cut off from all word of home. There was a nightmare of fear, too. He did not know if the dragons had discovered his folk’s hidden sanctuary beneath the mountains, far from the light of day and the forests and seas which the elves so loved. Only at night could they slip out singly or in small groups to gaze upon the stars and nourish their hearts, or spy out the ways of the enemy. There in that buried fortress, if it still existed, the last of the ancient weapons awaited the companions. Once they had the spear as well, they would be fully armed against the dragons.
All through this sweltering day they waited again, but no matter how steadily Evénn gazed out at the horizon, not even the eyes of an elf could see beyond the curve of the earth itself. After Arden’s conversation with Agarwen, they all had little to say. They slept and watched by turns, while Evénn remained by the window. After sunset, Niall, Arden, and Evénn set out to scout southwards, accompanied by Argos and the wolf. They followed the line of the coastal road towards Inshanar, keeping some forty yards to the east of it. By the time they were halfway to the city, they were in the deep, deep dusk just before the fall of night that makes daylight seem a distant memory.
“Down,” Evénn hissed suddenly and threw himself to the ground, where the rest joined him an instant later. They all knew enough to trust his senses in the dark. From behind the roots of a magnificent beech, as majestic as any queen, they lay watching the road. Soon the wolf and hound raised their heads and looked northwards. Shortly thereafter Niall and Arden heard the sound as well. The pounding of hooves coming fast down the road. Someone was riding them hard, desperately so. What message they carried or whom they were fleeing to ride like that in the darkness, Niall wondered. His horsemaster’s ear told him that the horses were near exhaustion. He could hear them begin to stumble a time or two as they approached, then catch themselves. Then they emerged from the night and passed the hiding place, riding full out and looking neither left nor right. At this distance Niall could not make out their faces, though he was sure the second rider was a woman. Their dark cloaks flowed behind them in the wind of their passing. They were armed with swords and bows, but Niall could hear no arrows clattering in their quivers as they swept past.
“Those are Rangers,” he whispered.
“Aye,” Arden replied with worry and frustration alike in his voice.
“Let them pass,” said Evénn. “We must remain hidden. They are being chased.”
The sound of more hoof beats then became clear to Arden and Niall. A dozen or so horses were rushing down the road in equal haste to pursue the Rangers. Presently they came into sight. A pair of mountain wolves accompanied them, and Argos and the wolf growled low in their throats. At the last moment, when the troopers had almost gone by, one of the wolves stopped suddenly and raised his snout to sniff the air. He howled. The column of horsemen slowed slightly and began wheeling to the left in time to see both their wolves dashing from the road straight for a gigantic beech some distance away.
“Damn,” said Arden. “Argos, go.” Rising to one knee, he strung an arrow in his bow, as the hound and wolf leaped out to meet the enemy. The dragon’s men had no clear idea of where they were, and had little chance against three skilled bowmen hiding in the darkness, one with the night eyes of an owl. It cost them more than half their men to learn precisely where the bowmen were, concealed within the great spread of the beech’s drooping boughs. Still fifty yards away, they spurred their mounts forward. Unwise. None of them lived to reach the tree.
From beneath its graceful branches, which touched the ground to sow a new generation of beeches, the companions stepped out to examine the bodies of their enemies. The only sounds were the quick soft footfalls of the troopers’ horses on the wet turf and the jingling of their harnesses. The wolf and hound, their opponents also dead, sniffed about among the bodies. All were dead or nearly so. Arden sighed heavily, not entirely pleased or displeased.
“Any sign of the Rangers, Evénn?” he asked without looking up from the body of the nearest trooper, the last to fall.
The elf was staring off southward towards Inshanar. At Arden’s question he held up his free hand for silence. Then he turned to him.
“Their hoof beats are fading. I can barely hear them now. But they’re still on the road to the port, and they have not slowed down. Their haste is great.”
“It’s good the port is close,” Niall said. “They’ll ride those horses to death before long. Even now they may be ruined.”
“Your love of horses speaks now, riding master,” Evénn replied, a gentle smile clearly to be heard in his voice. “But you are right. Those horses are near collapse.”
“But who are the riders?” Arden asked. “And why are they in such haste? What’s so important in Inshanar that they risk everything on the road? It is reckless.”
“Are they more reckless than we are? We seek to fight fight legends.” Evénn asked, still smiling.
A voice then answered, chanting softly in the darkness:

Reckless they were for recklessness’ sake, to rid all of dragons,
Of harness and chains, and unmake the evil that made them.

Evénn laughed quietly and Arden smiled. They turned to Niall. For the voice had been his.
“My mother’s uncle was Dorlas the singer,” he said. “He was a kind, great-hearted man, and he taught me many songs when I was a lad. How I miss him.”
“In many ways,” Arden said, reflecting how much he still had to learn about Niall even now. He had no idea that old Dorlas was his uncle. That explained the name of his little boy. It also reminded Arden of his friend Hedále, who was supposed to start his apprenticeship with the renowned singer the day the dragons came. “In many ways that tale, your tale, Evénn, is much the same as ours.”
“No, Arden,” he answered, “it is the same. No matter how long the respite, the tale is precisely the same. Though all the great sea sunders us from the lands where I walked with my old companions, our paths are the same. Nothing is ended, nothing begun.”
“My uncle would have said the same,” Niall said.
“What else would a singer say?” Arden answered, drawing a laugh from Niall. “Evénn, can you still hear the horses?”
“No. They have stopped or are gone beyond my hearing.”
“Then we should see if these troopers have any papers on them that might tell us something, and I need to replenish my quiver. It has grown bare of late.”
“Agreed,” the elf replied.
So they quickly searched the fallen riders, gathering food or arrows from them and closing their eyes. With small spells and soothing tones Evénn and Niall coaxed over all the horses remaining nearby. Neither on horse or rider did they find any useful information. After they had done with the horses, they came back to Arden, who was finishing up with the bodies.
“These troopers are the same as the rest we’ve seen recently. They belong to the silver dragon,” he said as he looked up at them and held up a cloak he had pulled from a nearby corpse. He pointed to the small dragon embroidered in silver thread on its breast. It gleamed faintly in the starlight.
“We should change our red dragon’s cloaks for these. There aren’t very many of his men left around here now. The silver are far more common. We will arouse less suspicion. I’ve gathered enough for us all.”
Arden paused again.
“What is it, Arden?” Evénn asked. “What troubles you?”
“I don’t know. Something just tells me we should go after those two Rangers, that we’re supposed to go after them.”
The three of them stood for a time without a word. Then Niall spoke.
“I have the same feeling.”
“As do I,” Evénn agreed. “But where have they gone?”
“Into the port, I would imagine,” Arden said. “Why else would they take the road?”
“He’s right,” Niall said to Evénn, who nodded.
“Well,” Evénn said, “if we’re going into Inshanar, that changes everything. This is no longer just a patrol to scout out the land for threats. Inshanar, as we have seen these past weeks, is in turmoil. No one rules in there, neither the dragon’s men, nor the rebels, nor those who have abandoned the rebellion from fear. More than once the silver dragon has come there, yet he has not destroyed it. Instead he has started fires and watched, as if the disorder and strife please him, and he means to leave the city to destroy itself.”
“We must go in sooner or later,” Niall added. “Your ship will be here soon, Evénn, and we must find those Rangers to learn why they were so desperate to get there. Who knows what news they might bring?”
“True enough,” said Arden, “but Evénn is right. The city is tearing itself apart. Getting in will be easy. The gates have stood open and unguarded day and night these last three weeks. The greater danger lies within. Getting out again by ship or by foot will be more difficult.”
“So we should not go alone, without Jalonn and Agarwen. We must go soon, however. Those Rangers will be in peril. We have talked too long as it is.”
“You two go ahead,” Evénn said. “I’ll go back to get the others.”
“Where shall we meet,” Arden asked, “or shall we wait for you here?”
“No, we can’t wait,” Niall insisted. “It will take at least an hour for them all to return with the horses.”
“Down by the harbor is a tavern,” Evénn said, “called the Dark Lantern. We can meet there.”
“And if it’s closed?” Arden asked.
“Oh, it won’t be,” Evénn said laughing. “The Dark Lantern never closes.” Then he took three of the cloaks Arden had gathered, and he and the wolf ran off.
“He seems to spend a lot of time in taverns. Wasn’t he in a tavern right before you met him?” asked Niall.
“He saw me fighting the troopers through the window and decided to help, eventually.”
“I guess when you’re immortal, you have lots of time to kill.”
“Glad to hear you joking again.”
“Hmmm,” Niall grunted. “And if we stand here too much longer, we may be too late to help those Rangers.”
“Right, let’s go,” Arden answered. “Come on, Argos.”

06 December 2014

The Black Rider, the Fox, and the Elves

Just over the top of the hill they came on the patch of fir-wood.  Leaving the road they went into the deep resin-scented darkness of the trees, and gathered dead sticks and cones to make a fire.  Soon they had a merry crackle of flame at the foot of a large fir-tree and they sat around it for a while, until they began to nod.  Then, each in an angle of the great tree's roots, they curled up in their cloaks and blankets, and were soon fast asleep.  They set no watch, for they were still in the heart of the Shire.  A few creatures came and looked at them when the fire died away.  A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. 
'Hobbits,' he thought. 'Well, what next?  I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree.  Three of them!  There's something mighty queer behind this.'  He was quite right, but he never found out anything more about it.
(FR 1.iii.72)
From the first time I read this passage at eleven years old I have been charmed by it. As I grew older I came to regard it as a last vestigial intrusion of the much more forward and obvious narrator of The Hobbit, the same one who made the rather jarring comment of Gandalf's fireworks that 'the dragon passed like an express train' (FR 1.i.28).  I always smiled to read it or recall it, but I didn't give it much more thought than that.

Until the other night. I had finished the second in my series on Sam and Story, and was reading through the next passages I wanted to examine, when suddenly I heard an echo of the fox's thoughts in an unexpected place.  The next night the hobbits unexpectedly meet Gildor and the Elves in the woods Sam had been asking about:
The hobbits sat in shadow by the wayside.  Before long the Elves came down the lane towards the valley,  They passed slowly, and the hobbits could see the starlight glimmering on their hair and in their eyes.  They bore no lights, yet as they walked a shimmer, like the light of the moon above the rim of the hills before it rises, seemed to fall about their feet. They were now silent, and as the last elf passed he turned and looked towards the hobbits and laughed, 
'Hail, Frodo,' he cried.  'You are abroad late.  Or perhaps you are lost?' Then he called aloud to the others, and all the company stopped and gathered round. 
'This is indeed wonderful!' they said. 'Three hobbits alone in a wood at night! We have not seen such a thing since Bilbo went away. What is the meaning of it?' 
'The meaning of it, fair people,' said Frodo, 'is simply that we seem to be going the same way as you are. I like walking under the stars. But I would welcome your company.' 
'But we have no need of other company, and hobbits are so dull,' they laughed.  'And how do you know that we go the same way as you, for you do not know whither we are going?'
(FR 1.iii.80)

And while I know I have heard (and forgotten) this particular echo before, I think it resonated differently for me this time because of my examination of the next scene in which Sam asks 'Do Elves live in those woods?' First there was the fox on his way through the woods on business of his own, who stopped when he did not have to and specifically noted the strangeness of three hobbits in a wood at night. Then the Elves do precisely the same thing.

This makes me think that the appearance of the sentient fox  -- who is aware of 'strange doings in this land,' who of course does not see 'this land' as 'The Shire' because to him it is not The Shire, and who seems to be a folklore or fairy tale archetype of cunning in Middle-earth also -- is more than merely the vestige of The Hobbit I had long believed him to be.Rather he is another example of how the hobbits have already entered the world of Story without straying at all far from home and without their even knowing it yet.  The fox is a link backwards to the Black Rider who questions the Gaffer right outside Frodo's front door earlier that same evening -- no one knew anything about him and his connection to another world then either -- and forwards to the reappearance of the same mysterious Black Rider in a more menacing way the next day,2 and the arrival of Gildor and the Elves. Much like them, the 'thinking fox,' as he is described in the index (RK 1156), shows that the world is other than the hobbits understand.


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1 In two widely separate passages Gollum is likened to a fox in cleverness. In the first the speaker is Aragorn, who calls Gollum 'slier than a fox' (FR 2.ix.384); and in the second Faramir says that Gollum 'gave us the slip by some fox-trick' (TT 4.iv.657).  Clearly the cunning of the fox is well-established in both the north and south of Middle-earth.  One could not make such statements otherwise.  It would be absurd to imagine that the reputation of the fox was established in any other way than in stories, just as it has been in our world from ancient times.
2 Note how the Black Rider is more frightening when he is near them in lonely places and in darkness (FR 1.iii.74-75, 78) than he was at the door of Bag End (1.iii.69, 75-76). This of course agrees with Strider's description of them (FR1.x.174). See my discussion here.