Chapter Two
The Winter Travelers
Darith Wayam would return home from his hunt to find his hearth gone cold, his wife gone without explanation, and a small pile of silver pieces on his counter. He was quite upset that the hearthfire, the heart of any true tavern in his estimation, had been allowed too die.
Miles away, Avera clung to the neck of a horse far larger even than the cart-horse her husband had purchased two years before. She didn't have a lot of experience with riding and she was tired, sore, and beginning to regret coming along. Thedrun's men had left in the pre-dawn hour, and for most of the morning she had ridden with her head laying on the warlord's chest, feeling wanted and appreciated in a way she hadn't in too long. When they stopped for a short rest around noon, it was as if they had crossed some invisible border. Thedrun and his men were all tense. She was loaded onto one of the empty horses rather than riding with the leader, and told to keep her hood up, her cloak closed, and her mouth shut.
Avera watched for the next few hours as the men rode in silence, each of them with their hands on a weapon hilt, save for the one in the blue robes. He clutched his staff as he always did, and didn't look at all distressed. When the group finally broke again, Thedrun and a young man dressed in gray separated from the group, making their way stealthily toward the North. Confused by the change in demeanor, Avera sought out the robed man. In her experience, Wizards knew more than most.
"Pardon, Sir..."
"Edmar. You may call me Edmar. I do not approve of feigned social status. We are equals, now."
Avera wasn't quite certain what the man was talking about, but she nodded thankfully nonetheless. "I was wondering, why does everyone seem so concerned these last few hours?"
Edmar considered her for a moment. His gray eyes were kind, very unlike those of Thedrun. The orb that hovered over his shoulder shuddered, and Avera immediately recognized it as a reaction to her question... the orb was chuckling at her. "Elves, Miss Avera. After the Godfall and the Long Freeze, the elves claimed these lands as their own."
"We've had elves as travelers at the Inn, Sir... Edmar... and never gentler or more polite folk have I known. I see fear in the men's eyes."
Edmar nodded and looked out over the frozen plains. "There are elves, and then there are elves." Drawing his hood down, he revealed that, despite the fully beard he sported, he had the pointed ears of an elf. Half-elves weren't uncommon, but never before had Avera known one to hide his heritage. "The elves that kidnapped my Mother and brought her back pregnant seven months later certain were not beings of gentle nature. Neither, I'm afraid, are these. Usually they do not bother travelers so long as they keep to the road, for fear of reprisals from the Golden Knights who dwell in Daernguard to the North. But in winter... one can never tell."
Avera was starting to feel worried herself. Suddenly she saw shadows shifting all across the plains, and heard sinister whispers in every piping of the wind. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her chest, and wished they'd light a fire so she could get warm. "Can I ask where we're going?"
"You can ask, but I'm afraid I don't know, and neither does anyone else except Thedrun and possibly his apprentice, Kahmar." Edmar pointed to a small, swarthy man with a pair of scimitars at his sides. Kahmar rode without any cloak or hood, his face and hands exposed to the weather. Just by looking at him, it was easy to tell he was a man for whom appearing strong was very important. "The one Thedrun took with him is our youngest member, and best scout, Miv. The two Dwarves," he gestured, pointing them out "are twins, Ash and Grit Thunderlock. Better engineers you'll rarely meet and strong warriors to boot. My fellow half-elf is Kurwid, formerly a member of the South Port Thieves Guild. And that, Lady Avera, is us... the Blades of Wolfden."
"Wolfden?"
Edmar smiled broadly and gestured randomly. "If luck be with you, you may yet see."
Thedrun stalked across the ice, axe in hand. He couldn't see Miv, and he took that as a point of pride. His people were all very skilled at their jobs, and that was why he took care of them as he did. He wasn't yet sure why he had brought the woman, Avera along. It had been a long time since he had found any woman quite as sexually gratifying, but that alone wasn't enough to make him bring along a tenderfoot on this kind of journey. While he was wrapped in confused memories of her smell and her willing compliance, he almost didn't notice the arrow until it was too late. A line of blood appeared across his cheek as he barely side-stepped on time. That damned woman was going to be the death of him. He wanted to shout out to warn Miv, but he dared not give away that he wasn't alone in case the elves hadn't yet spotted him.
Wild Elves were experts at stalking and ambush, even in the barren winter terrain. Thedrun was equal to any warrior in the field with an axe in his hand, and a great commander of men. But he had to rely on the eyes of his scouts before he could know where to strike, so he slowed his heart rate and kept an eye out in all directions for incoming attack. Wild Elves weren't known for closing to melee while they still had arrows in their quivers. After a moment, Thedrun heard the piping of a Winter Fox to the East... Miv's signal. That was the direction of the elves. Without attempting any form of misdirection, Thedrun charged headlong through the knee-deep snow.
The Wild Elves, snow in their hair, camouflaged expertly, smiled wickedly, feeling they had found easy prey. As their sharp shooter rose to fire an arrow into the heart of their enemy, a gleam of gray bolted seemingly from nowhere, and suddenly the white snow was wet with crimson. A dagger stuck from the throat of their friend as he spiraled and fell, his life leaking out into the snow and easily marking the elves' hiding place for the charging warrior. The battle was on...
A mile away, Edmar and Avera continued talking when suddenly Edmar shoved Avera to the ground roughly. She was about to protest when she saw that an arrow was suddenly protruding from the wizard's chest, where a moment ago it might have penetrated the back of her head. Ripping the arrow out, Edmar hissed "Stay down! They've found us."
Avera could see the others spreading out, protecting the horses from incoming arrows with a near religious fervor. A moment later the rain of missiles ended. "Are they... gone?
Edmar didn't answer. Instead he grimly packed some strange smelling black powder into the wound the arrow had made, and ignited it with a whispered word and a flare of fire from his fingertip. The stuff in the wound popped and fizzled, and Avera smelt burned flesh... but the wound bled no more. His wound sealed, Edmar grasped the orb that usually hovered near him and gazed into it. "Oh hell." With a word and a gesture, he sent a ripple through the snowy field to their south, the direction the arrows had come from. It looked like waves washing toward a beach, and forty feet from their position, the wave had swelled to forty feet high and froze there, a wall of ice. "That won't hold them for long. Hide. Now."
Avera dove for a nearby snow-bank, burying herself, but she could not bear to be completely blind during the battle, so she left enough of a hole so that she could see what was happening. She had never seen a fight with anything more than fists in her life, and had certainly never seen the magic of a wizard used as anything more than entertainment!
Edmar made his way over to the others, and it was clear that the Southerner Kahmar was in charge now that there was battle. He held a scimitar, the handsome curved blades supposedly favored by the men of the Southern Ports, in each hand, and he ordered the others with a smooth confidence that spoke of his training with Thedrun. The two dwarves gripped strange devices such as Avera had not seen before, but would come to know as "crossbows" while the young thief had seemingly disappeared entirely.
The elves crested the wall of ice and snow, and Avera gasped. She had never seen elves such as these. Those she had known had been elegant, even beautiful, with flowing blond hair and glassy blue or green eyes. They had dressed in finery or silvery-metal chain armor, and carried themselves with great dignity. These were dark-haired, with weathered skin and eyes that gleamed with battle-lust. They wore animal hides as armor, and most of their skin was covered with tattoos. They shouted in a language foreign to Avera, but she understood it to be a battle-cry all the same.
The dwarves' weapons sang out, and elves died. Kahmar dashed to the forefront, engaging the lead elf in a swirl of deadly blades against the elves spear. The two fighters were both agile and lean, and their dance was almost poetic, were it not for the blood flung about by the occasional cuts they laid against one another. Even in the midst of his fight, Kahmar was shouting orders, and the others were obeying.
As the elves swarmed, the dwarves dropped their crossbows and drew out great two-handed picks, striking without hesitation. Compared to the agile Kahmar, the dwarves were all ferocity and brutality, driving the points of the picks through flesh and bone, and pulling their weapons back viciously. The two fought as mirrors of one another, protecting one another's backs as they battled. Of Kurwid, she saw only flashes, appearing momentarily to strike a lethal blow and then disappearing into the fray once more.
But it was Edmar who was most fascinating to watch. He gestured and called out in myriad arcane tongues, his voice growing ragged and harsh from his conjurations as the elements themselves became his servants. When he was attacked, ice, dirt, and rock from the earth itself would leap up to block away blows. Fire and light cascaded from his hands and his floating Orb, lashing out at anyone foolish enough to get too near to him. When he had a moment, he would turn his attention to his allies, using magical force to turn aside a potentially deadly blow, or knocking an elf to the ground with a well timed burst of lightning. The way the men worked together was a testament to their brotherhood and long practice.
