Tanis the shadow years

8

In the hope of diverting Kishpa's throughts, Tanis quickly gave his attention to the quivering Scowarr. "Where is your good humor, my friend? Isn't laughter born out of fear?" The funny man looked at Tanis balefully before replying, "I'm getting so used to being scared that when I feel safe it scares me." Yeblidod giggled. Scowarr brightened at the woman's reaction. "But now I'm starting to feel better," he added. "Where are the two of you going?" asked Yeblidod, a plump, sweet-looking dwarf. She gestured around her at the meadow, flowers waving in the light breeze, the rising sea crashing in the background, the shouts of elven residents of Ankatavaka thin in the distance.

"We're going nowhere in particular right now," Tanis answered evasively, "but what of you? Where were you going with your cart before you tried to rescue us?"

The woman pointed out over the cliff to the ship anchored in the village harbor to the south. "Mertwig is delivering our son and many of our belongings to that boat. I was to bring the rest. You see, we live outside the village, and we can't protect our house. Mostly, we just want our boy to be safe from the fighting."

"You should be going, too," scolded Kishpa. "It isn't going to be safe here when the humans mount their attack. You're setting a bad example for Brandella."

Tanis nearly jumped at the sound of the woman's name. She was here. But was she leaving on that ship in — the harbor? Kishpa had noted the half-elf's sudden movement, Tanis could see; the wizard was giving him a curious glance. But Yeblidod rattled on, drawing the mage back into conversation with her when she said, "Oh, Brandella makes up her own mind. You know that. Nothing I do, one way or the other, will have any effect on her."

"Nor anything I do, either, it seems," complained the wizard. "You know it will go hard with her if the village falls. A human woman living among elves…" He let the thought remain unspoken. "By the gods," he went on, frustrated, "I wish both of you would take that boat out of Ankatavaka so Mertwig and I could fight with clear minds. As it is, the odds are much against us."

Correctly interpreting Tanis's raised eyebrow as a question, Kishpa continued to the half-elf and Scowarr, "Since the winter of sickness, I am the only magic-user left in the village, and I am still not fully trained. Worse, our scouts say the human army outnumbers our fighters by at least six to one. Isn't it better that the women, the children, and the very old ones should be safe at sea when the siege begins in earnest?" he pleaded.

Yeblidod countered, 'Those who want to go should go. But Canpho says I can help him with the healing. You know that the healer will need all the help he can get." She continued, her mild alto growing strident for the first time, "As for Brandella, she is good with a longbow- better than most. She will do the village far more good fighting here than she will marooned on a ship out in the sea. Besides," the dwarf concluded simply, "she and I are willing to take the risk."

Kishpa looked put out, but Tanis was relieved. Brandella intended to stay. But where was his father? He wouldn't leave until he'd found the man. His father most likely was with the massing human army. It wouldn't be until the battle was joined that the half-elf would have a chance of spotting him-and how easy was that going to be7

Tanis felt himself slipping into melancholy.

"You seem unhappy," said the dwarf, her small, delicate mouth creased into a frown. "Just moments ago you were saved from certain death. You even chided your human friend about his somber face. And now, for no reason that I can see, your face crumbles into sadness."

Tanis tried to marshal a smile, but Yeblidod seemed unconvinced. "KishpaI" she called out, a sudden grin crinkling her emerald eyes. "Perhaps one of those spells you've collected will cheer him. Why don't you try the one that makes his toes sticky?"

Kishpa laughed. "You like that one?"

"Oh, yes," she cried, an eye on the half-elf. "When you used it on Mertwig, I had him dust the floor with his bare feet."

Kishpa adopted a jovial tone. "You see? I keep telling you my spells aren't completely useless."

Tanis didn't know what to make of this. "A spell to make someone's toes sticky?" he asked. "What's the point?"

"None," Kishpa replied, a broad smile creasing his thin face. "I just collect spells that are stupid, foolish, and- so Yeblidod often says-useless. I've got one," he said, warming to his subject, "that takes the white out of snow. Another will provide a black mustache to everyone within a one-mile radius, be they man, woman, child, or even animal." He gestured from horizon to horizon and turned the sweeping gesture into a bow.

Tanis chuckled despite himself. Scowarr, on the other hand, appeared unwilling to encourage anyone's humor but his own. Instead, the humorist studied the ship riding the waves in the harbor to the south.

"Have you ever used the mustache spell?" asked Tanis.

"What? And gotten run out of Ankatavaka?" Kishpa threw his head back and roared with laughter at the thought of the entire elven village wearing mustaches. Facial hair was a rarity among elves.

Yeblidod and Tanis joined the laughter, while Little Shoulders Scowarr waited for the right moment to spring a joke of his own. When the others finally quieted, he said, 'There was this farmer who had a daughter-"

"Quiet!" ordered Kishpa, cutting Scowarr off in mid- sentence. "Listen!"

Over the sound of the thrashing sea came the thunder of drumbeats. The four grew somber.

'The human army is advancing," said Tanis.

"I shouldn't have spent so much time here," Kishpa spat out angrily, his mood instantly dark. "I'm needed on the battlements, and I waste my time here saving two who care nothing for my village."

'That's not true," Tanis said defiantly. He had to get into the village if he was going to find Brandella and his father. If it meant taking sides in the war, then that's what he'd do. "I've fought humans before, and I will fight them again," he declared. "I told you I'm loyal to those who call me friend. You saved my life. I will fight by your side to protect you and those you care about. And so will my friend. Isn't that right, Scowarr?"

"Me?" The slender human looked shocked. His voice squeaked. "Fight?" He grew pale.

Tanis nodded sharply. Scowarr hastened to recover, casting nervous glances at the wizard whose magic had rescued him from a deadly tumble into the sea-and whose magic, presumably, could reverse the process just as easily. "Yes, of course, without question," he gibbered. "Just give me a sword. A stick. Anything you say."

"Very convincing," said Kishpa, his voice dripping sarcasm. He turned partially away from the half-elf and the funny man, speaking to an obviously embarrassed Yeblidod. "Of course, all our elven allies will be delighted to have a human they do not know fighting side by side with them." The mage whirled and began to stomp off through the wildflowers.

Tanis sidestepped to intercept Kishpa's passage; the mage glowered. "A matter easily addressed," the half-elf said. "We'll bandage his head as if he were badly wounded."

"You can cut up my last shawl for the bandages," volunteered Yeblidod in a soothing voice, seemingly anxious to resolve the dispute.

"Scowarr's clothes are already so tattered that they could just as easily be elven as human," Tanis continued, ignoring Scowarr's wounded look. "Besides, his stature is such that, once his head is covered, no one will doubt that he is elven-just as long as he keeps his jokes to himself," he added pointedly, glancing in Little Shoulders's direction.

The mage looked at Yeblidod, out to sea, and back at the village, where the sounds of a populace preparing for defense shivered through the moist air. Then he shrugged. "We'll need anyone who will fight. Bandage him on the way," Kishpa said. "Come now. We'll be needed on the barricades."

The truth of his words could hardly be doubted. A mere fraction of an instant passed between the utterance and the moment when Tanis, Kishpa, and Scowarr found themselves on the battlements surrounding the village of Ankatavaka. The dwarven woman was nowhere to be seen.

Neither Kishpa nor Scowarr nor any of the elven defenders who surrounded them seemed either surprised or perplexed by the newcomers' sudden appearance. Tanis's first thought was that Kishpa had cast a spell that had sped them to this place. Yet the half-elf had heard no uttered words of magic nor any mention of a spell. His head spinning, Tanis finally realized that the old mage, fighting for his life on a sandy beach three days west of Solace, probably had forgotten his frantic rush from the seacliff to the village nearly one hundred years earlier. Once forgotten, it was as if the journey had never occurred, at least to the mage.

There was no time, however, to dwell on such riddles. The drums of the massed human army sounded insistently. From his vantage point atop an overturned wagon blocking the main street of the village, Tanis saw them coming. Thousands stormed out of the woods and into the open meadow that led to the village. From their ragtag uniforms and undisciplined charge, they seemed more like a huge mob than a well-trained army. Unfortunately, the elven defenders who manned the barricades were no better trained than their human enemy.

Tanis quickly studied the village defenses. He was appalled. No water brigades stood by in case of fire. No reinforcements waited in reserve in case a section of the barricade was breached. No one was assigned to gather arrows shot over the barricades by the enemy.

Even as Tanis scanned the barricades, so did Kishpa. But unlike the half-elf, the mage searched for a single face. "Where is Mertwig?" he exclaimed. "Has anyone seen him? Is he all right7"

"The old dwarf said not to start the fight without him," an elf by the main gate called back with a nervous laugh.

"Old?" bellowed a craggy-faced dwarf who lumbered down the street toward the main barricade. "Who said I'm old?"

When the dwarf reached the barricade, he stopped and stared at the strangers. He looked questioningly at Kishpa, who glanced at Tanis and Scowarr and nodded his head as if to say, "I know them; don't worry."

Mertwig shrugged. "I'm coming up," he said.

While the dwarf climbed the battlement, Kishpa turned and stared at the oncoming human army. He stood atop the barricade like a red-robed beacon of indestructible hope. The elves behind him looked to him as their savior; the humans who were fast approaching looked to him as their principal target. Despite Kishpa's one-quarter-elven blood, it was obvious which side held his sympathies, his loyalty, even his love.

"I hope your magic is strong," Tanis called up to Kishpa. "This village isn't prepared to withstand a long siege."

The mage didn't appear to have heard him. Kishpa was mumbling dark words. The conjuring had begun.

Tanis waited for something dramatic to happen. The only thing that changed was the proximity of the attacking hordes. The humans, in need of new lands and weaned on distrust and hatred of everything and everyone unlike themselves, surged forward. Soon they would be in longbow range.

Kishpa continued to chant, his eyes closed, his arms in constant motion, his skin seeming to glow with a faint silver aura, perhaps caused by the changing light of the early afternoon sun. A fast-moving dark cloud hung low in the sky.

The front ranks of the human army stopped their charge, knelt with their longbows, nocked their arrows, and sent them flying at the barricades… and at Kishpa.

Tanis immediately leaped from behind his cover and grabbed the mage around the knees, knocking him off his feet as a storm of arrows ripped through the air above them. The two of them rolled heavily down the side of the wagon and thudded to the ground on the inside of the barricade, landing in a heap of dust.

More than a dozen elves, led by the dwarf, Mertwig, rushed to help Kishpa up off the ground. He shooed them away, telling them to get back to their posts. "I suppose you think this settles your debt with me," said the mage to Tanis.

Tanis felt his lips tighten in the face of the mage's implacable air. "In time of war, there is no such thing as a debt for saving a life," he said with dignity. "It is one of the duties of a warrior to save the lives of his fellow soldiers; one should not keep score of such things."

"You have character," said the mage, mollified.

Tanis decided candidness was his best tactic. "It will do me little good if your magic doesn't work," he said, keeping his gaze locked on Kishpa's. "And I fear your spell- casting has had little effect except to draw several hundred arrows in your direction."

Kishpa barely suppressed a laugh.

"Do I sound like Scowarr?" Tanis asked.

"No," the mage said. "But you are unintentionally funny. Look over the barricade, and judge my magic anew."

Tanis scrambled up the side of the overturned wagon and gazed out over a marsh of mud and slime. The sky above the open field had turned black with heavy rain clouds, which poured down a deluge that was blinding in its intensity. In a matter of minutes, the field had turned into a swamp.

The elves cheered. Many left their positions on the north and south sides of the village perimeter to congregate on the eastern barricade and enjoy the spectacle of Kishpa's magic and to create their own special brand of rainfall: arrows that sprayed down upon the helpless humans in a deadly shower.

The human army was being decimated, and the charge from the east had been stopped cold. But while the larger human force was mired in mud and blood, a second force attacked virtually unseen from the south. The cries for help from the beleaguered elven defenders who had stayed at their posts went largely unheard over the roar of seeming victory on the east.

Without thinking, hundreds of elves watched the enemy become mired ever deeper in the east while others raced to do hand-to-hand battle with the humans who had breached the eastern wall and were entering the village. Tanis knew that the greatest danger wasn't from those humans. "Follow me!" he shouted to any elf who was within earshot. "We must take back the southern barricade. Whoever controls that wall will control your fate."

They were a small band of elves against an evergrowing number of humans. Tanis saw that Scowarr, bandages flapping around his head, was silently running to the attack alongside him.

"I know what you're thinking," Little Shoulders rasped as he ran. "You're thinking, 'Why isn't he making jokes now?' Well, I'll tell you why: When you're in deep water," he said, "the best thing to do is shut your mouth."