City of Jade

15

JOURNEY TO THE EROEAN

EARLY SUMMER, 6E1

On the evening of the seventh day and some fifty leagues after leaving Kraggen-cor, Aylis and the Dwarven warband reached the banks of the Argon River upstream from Olorin Isle. To the south some five leagues away lay the vast forest of Darda Galion. Yet that twilit woodland was not their goal, but Darda Erynian instead, the Great Greenhall lying just across the wide flow. They made camp at the embarkation point of the ferry, for they would cross in the light of the morrow rather than in this day’s darkening eve and its ensuing depths of night.

As they had each sunset along the journey, within a perimeter of Dwarven guards they set up camp and took a late meal of jerky and crue. And by one of the small fires, Brekk turned to Aylis and asked, “My lady, who is this scout we will meet in the ruins of Caer Lindor?”

Her mouth full of the waybread, Aylis shook her head and continued chewing. After a moment she took a gulp of tea and then said, “I know not, for Aravan said nought to me, other than I might find it a pleasant surprise.”

“But, my lady, you are a Seeress. Can you not know?”

“Ah, Brekk, I like to be nicely surprised. Besides, looking into the future is somewhat difficult and shows many paths. To winnow out the true one is not simple.”

Brekk grunted, but otherwise did not reply.

Aylis looked across the water at the island lying a mile short of two leagues downstream. From the northern tip of the isle, smoke rose into the air, for there lay a small cluster of dwellings. “Who plies the ferry?”

“The Baeron, this year,” said Dokan, Brekk’s lieutenant, sitting across the fire from her. “Next year it will be ours to do.-We Chakka, that is.”

“Baeron and Dwarves alternate?”

Dokan nodded. “Aye. Long past, it was the foul Rivermen who worked the ferry, but they were thieves and robbers and worshipers of Gyphon. Rivermen would waylay boats upstream, cast the cargo overboard, and let it float to the isle, where their kith would snag it and take it as their own. They tried to blame all on the Race, a furious set of rapids and rocks where the river pinches down in a narrow canyon twenty-five leagues to the north. But they were revealed for the vile folk they were”-Dokan clenched a fist-“and the Chakka and the Baeron dealt with them.

“Even so, there were among them some who declared innocence, and those were spared, and they then plied the ferry. But during the Great War of the Ban, Rivermen came to Caer Lindor, claiming that Foul Folk had floated downstream and onto their isle and had raided and slain, and they asked for sanctuary in the fortress; it was these very same Rivermen who aided the Foul Folk to overthrow the bastion, long a thorn in Modru’s side.” Dokan paused and ground his teeth in rage over vile deeds done during his distant ancestors’ time. Finally he took a deep breath and said, “After that war came to an end, we Chakka and the Baeron trade off operating this crossing.”

Aylis nodded and then asked, “Is it necessary at all to even have a ferry here?”

Brekk vaguely gestured upriver and down-. “Except for boats, it is the only crossing between here and Argon Ford far to the north, and the Argon Ferry far to the south. We need it for trade, as do the Lian in the Larkenwald and the Dylvana of the Greenhall yon.”

“Just the Dwarves and the Baeron ply the ferry, and not the Elves?”

Dokan barked a laugh, then said, “Skinny Elves? Pah! Might as well send women. Nay, only the Chakka and the Baeron have the strength to manage the ferry.”

Aylis looked at Dokan, with his broad shoulders half again the width of those of a Man, and, even relaxed as he was, still his muscles were like unto iron knots. “But surely the Rivermen were no stronger than Elves.”

Dokan frowned, as if this were a completely new concept. Finally he shrugged and conceded, “Perhaps the Rivermen had among them a few Humans of strength.”

Aylis laughed. But even as she fell silent, from the tip of Olorin Isle, across the waters there came the faint sound of singing, yet she could not quite make out the words. She stepped away from the campsite the better to hear, and long she stood at the water’s edge, listening. Song after song came floating o’er the slow-running river as baritone male and soprano female voices sang sagas of valorous deeds done.

Aylis was yet enraptured by last eve’s singing when the first of the ferry barges floated onto the far downstream landing in the early morning light. Huge Baeron men off-laded mules, and they drew the barge nearly two full leagues up the tow path until they reached the ferry boarding point. As the Baeron secured the ferry to the dock and set a gangway in place, Aylis marveled at the size of these men, all of them towering nearly seven feet into the air, each one as tall as Bair. At a gesture and a soft word from one of the Baeron, Aylis and her horse, along with ten Dwarves and fifteen ponies, embarked, and the gangway was drawn in and the barge then cast off. Baeron rowers plied oars to bear the ferry to a landing on Olorin. They began some five miles upstream from the holm, but the current bore them southward as the men rowed east, the Baeron now and then pausing to gauge their progress, so as to come to ground at the proper place. They eased into a landing on the northwestern brim of the island, and Aylis and the Dwarves then disembarked and rode for the opposite side of Olorin. As they passed through the Baeron village at the northern tip of the isle, lanky children, chattering, tagged after and plied them with questions, and tall Baeron women and huge Baeron men paused in whatever they were doing, as if watching a passing parade. When Aylis and the Dwarves reached the eastern landing they boarded another oared barge waiting there.

As the ferry pushed away, Aylis turned to Brekk and asked, “What happens if by chance we don’t reach the shore? What if we lost our oars?”

“It would be a bad thing,” said Brekk. “Ctor-what you might know as Bellon Falls-lies downstream, my lady. A thousand-foot sheer drop over the Great Escarpment, the entire river pours over. We would be nought but flinders were that to happen.”

“How far downstream?” asked Aylis.

“My lady?”

“How far downstream lies this monstrous fall?”

“Thirty-three leagues.”

“Ah, then, we would have time to swim ashore were the ferry to sink.”

Brekk laughed. “Aye, we would at that.”

Once again Baeron men plied oars, until they reached the eastern bank, some distance downstream from the isle. Aylis led her horse and the Dwarves their ponies across the gangplank to the shore, followed by two Baeron men leading a pair of mules. The drovers hitched the mules to the ferry to begin hauling the barge upriver to the embarkation point well north of Olorin, where it would again be cast adrift into the flow and rowed back to the island for a change of crew and to await the next group of Dwarves.

In all, it took most of the day to ferry the full of the warband across, for the river was wide and much time was spent in towing the barge between the downstream disembarkation point and upstream embarkation one. Aylis and the warband and animals spent the dregs of the day and the full of the night encamped on the eastern shore.

With Dwarven scouts riding ahead, the main body of the band followed and fared easterly through the long, shadowed galleries of the Great Greenhall. Birds sang and flitted thither and yon; insects hummed as they went about their daily business; and now and again an animal bounded across their path or fled crashing away-deer, foxes, rabbits, and such-while limb runners chattered and scolded and scampered above. At last they came to the waters of the River Rissanin. They followed along the banks of this flow, heading northeasterly upstream. As they went, Dokan, riding beside Aylis, said, “Something is passing among the trees to the left and keeps pace with us.”

Aylis turned and looked long, and then said a word. . and gasped.

At her sudden intake of air, Dokan’s hand flew to his crossbow, but he relaxed slightly when she murmured, “Oh, how marvelous.”

“What is it?” growled the Dwarf, his hand still on the weapon.

“ ’Tis a Hidden One, a guardian of the forest, a Woodwer, this one a female, a Woodwife, what the Dylvana call a Vred Tre.”

“I have heard of those you name Vred Tres, but I see nought but a tangle of leaves and twigs and vines,” murmured Dokan, now releasing his grip on the bow.

“That tangle is her,” said Aylis. “She’s making certain that you evil axe-bearers haven’t come to slaughter her wards.”

“E-evil axe-?” sputtered Dokan, followed by a more subdued “Oh, I see.”

The Woodwer tracked them most of the day, yet as eve drew nigh, there seemed to be no sign of her. Nevertheless, at Aylis’s insistence, Captain Brekk commanded the Dwarves to collect only deadwood for the campfires, and to take no axes in among the trees, and to hew nothing whatsoever.

In late afternoon of the second day of travel alongside the deep-running flow, Aylis and the warband came within sight of the ruins of Caer Lindor. On an isle mid the Rissanin flow sat the remains of the fortress, nought but a shambles of tumbled-down granite blocks overgrown with ivy.

Brekk threw up a hand to halt the cavalcade. But in that moment one of the Dwarven fore riders stepped out from among the jumble and into the open, where he gave a piercing whistle.

“Huah,” grunted Brekk. “All is clear.” And he heeled his pony and gestured for the others to follow.

Across a pontoon bridge they rode, to enter the remains, where the hooves of all animals rang upon the stone flag.

Now riding alongside Aylis, Dokan said, “A full Horde of Foul Folk came sneaking down the Rissanin, along the border between the Greatwood south and the Greenhall north, and Caer Lindor was betrayed, her sentries slain by traitors within, by foul Rivermen. They flung wide the gates to the massed Horde hidden among the bordering trees. Into the bailey they rushed and swarmed up to the battlements, seizing nearly all before the defenders mustered. Valiantly the Free Folk fought, yet they were overwhelmed, and but a few escaped. The Horde did not pursue, but instead stood on the walls and jeered, and then Trolls plied great hammers and mauls and rams to destroy the battlements from within. And before a day passed Caer Lindor lay in ruins.”

“What happened after?” asked Aylis, dismounting.

Dismounting as well, Dokan smiled and said, “The Horde had taken a chew too large to swallow, and they choked upon it, for, alerted by the Groaning Stones, the Hidden Ones rallied, my lady. They were enraged that the Foul Folk had encroached upon the Greatwood and stood on the borders of the Great Greenhall. They mustered, I am told: Fox Riders, Living Mounds, Shamblers, Vred Tres, Sprygt, Tomte, Ande-Fey and Peri of all kind. It is said that very few of the Foul Folk managed to escape alive, and most of those who fled the forests ran out screaming in the madness of unbearable fear.”

As Aylis unsaddled her horse, Brekk strode to her side. “My lady, where might this scout be? I see nought but overgrown ruins and find no evidence of a campsite where he might have stayed.”

Aylis took a deep breath and looked about. She then spoke an arcane word and used her ‹sight›. Finally she spoke another word and then said, “I don’t know, Captain. Aravan said the scout would meet us here, but I see no sign whatsoever of any person. I suppose we’ll simply have to wait.”

Brekk grunted and turned on his heel and began assigning sentries and setting about making camp.

In the depths of the nighttide, a whisper awakened Aylis. By the light of the dying embers of a nearby campfire, she saw three small shadows standing at her side. And she used her ‹sight› to see-“Jinnarin! Farrix!”-and one other. Dressed in mottled grey leathers, they were three Pysks, three Fox Riders, three tiny people, two females, one male, each standing no more than twelve inches tall, two of whom she knew.

Nearby, one of the Dwarves, disturbed by Aylis’s exclamation, propped up on one elbow and looked about. But seeing nought of suspicion and hearing nothing of alarm, he dropped back down and once again fell into slumber.

“Aylis,” murmured Jinnarin, tears gleaming in her eyes. “It has been long since last I saw you, my sister.”

Nigh the end of the First Era, some seven millennia agone, on her one and only but very long voyage upon the Eroean , Aylis had sailed with Jinnarin some two years in all in a desperate search for Farrix, Jinnarin’s lost mate. It was during that voyage that Jinnarin and Aylis, in spite of their differences in physical size, had become pledged sisters to one another. As to their mission, along with Aravan and his crew and Aylis’s father, Alamar, they had succeeded in finding Farrix at last, but at great peril, and it seemed only by the grace of Adon had they prevailed. But then the Island of Rwn was sunk beneath the waters of the Weston Ocean, and along with it Aylis and her father vanished from Mithgar, after which Aravan and Jinnarin and Farrix and the crew of the Eroean took their revenge upon the one responsible: Durlok the Black Mage.

“Oh, Jinnarin, Farrix,” said Aylis, keeping her own voice low, “I would hug you both, but I’m afraid I would-”

Farrix, the male Pysk, laughed quietly and said, “Crush us? You probably would at that.”

Jinnarin grinned and said, “Aylis, I would have you meet our daughter, Aylissa, named after you, of course, though mostly we call her Lissa. Lissa, this is your aunt Aylis, or rather your adopted aunt.”

“I know the tale well,” whispered Aylissa. Just under twelve inches tall and with mouse-brown hair, she looked much like her mother, for Jinnarin’s hair, too, was mouse brown, though Farrix’s was coal black. A tiny glitter of some kind of stone on a silver chain hung about her neck and carried a trace of odd ‹fire›. Yet whether it was a token of power or simply something imbued with an unknown essence, Aylis could not say.

“I am so glad to see you,” said Aylis, “but how did you come to know we were here? Was it the Woodwer who told you?”

Farrix again muffled a laugh and shook his head. “Nay, Aylis, ’twas instead a dark bird-”

“Aravan?”

“None other. We thought it was out to snag one of us, a black falcon there in the woods. We readied our bows in case it flew nigh, but it lit on a sturdy limb well up in the trees. Imagine our surprise when in a flash of light it transformed into Aravan. Like to have shocked me silly.”

“Perhaps thinking we might take him for a shape-shifting Black Mage, he remained up in the tree out of range of our arrows until he had explained all and why he had come,” said Jinnarin, taking up the tale.

“A good thing that,” said Aylis, for she knew how deadly were the tiny shafts with their tips of nearly instant lethality.

“Indeed,” said Jinnarin.

“I am so glad he sent you for a visit,” said Aylis, “though I’m afraid the warband and I cannot stay overlong.”

“Not just a visit, my dear,” said Farrix.

“No?”

“Nay.” Farrix then gestured to Aylissa and said, “I would have you meet the Eroean ’s new scout.”

Tiny, brown-haired Aylissa then bobbed a curtsey and smiled.