Avalyne Series 02: The Easterling (8 page)

The ogre uttered a guttural sound of agony
before he tumbled forward, landing on the ground with heavy thud as Aeron stepped out of his path. Upon collapsing, the creature sent a cloud of dust up in the air while his blood created a pool of slick, darkness beneath him. Face down, against the dirt, he moved no more but the Prince was far from done.

Melia watched as
Aeron strode purposefully towards the second ogre who was still occupied with removing the arrow in his back. The Prince’s eyes were no longer blue but almost black, like the blood dripping form his sword. Melia followed him, picking up his long bow because her own crossbow would do little against the ogre’s hide. She ripped an arrow from the creature’s dead comrade and shadowed Aeron, in case he needed the help.

She
did not think he would need it.

After their playful flirtations
, it was difficult to believe that this handsome Prince was a thousand years old and had fought more battles than she could possibly imagine. In Eden Halas, he had hunted spiders and during the Shadow War, led the elves to Astaroth. As she saw the glare in his eyes as he stalked his enemy, she could well imagine him as the battle hardened warrior. Especially after he delivered the killing blow.

The
ogre’s head came away from its body, spinning in mid air before landing in the fire, trailing embers as it rolled over the charred wood and across the ground. Melia turned away from the grisly scene because no matter how much she thought she was inured to things, carnage still had the power to make her flinch. Aeron exhaled deeply after the body of the ogre fell, displacing leaves and dirt when it landed. The strength that had carried him this far faltered and he sank to his knees again, the sword falling from his hand.

No sooner than he had
sunk to his knees was Melia on the move.  She hobbled towards him, not realizing until now that her hard landing had twisted her ankle badly and it ached as she tried to walk. She knew that she was probably sporting a large bruise on the side of her face but it seemed incidental to the fact that his face had contorted into a grimace of pain. Melia remembered the sound of bone breaking under the shield and knew that it was possible that he was seriously injured. His manner certainly indicated it.

‘
You're hurt,’ she lowered herself next to him, clutching his arm to keep him from landing on his face.

‘
Not badly,’ he lied.

‘
Fool!’ she snapped at him. ‘You are in agony! I see can see it in that face of yours. Now move your arm and let me look.’

Aeron
reluctantly allowed her to pull open his tunic and hissed in discomfort when the cold night made contact with his sensitive skin. He knew he was not severely injured but he was in pain. The ogre’s shield was made to break bones and bearing the brunt of it had certainly earned him a few breaks. He knew he was careless in letting the creature come up behind him but at the time, all he could think about was Melia.

All rational thought had fled his mind in the desperate attempt to save her with Aeron understanding most intimately why Arianne had crossed the Frozen Mountains to face Syphia herself. The idea of her own safety had become secondary
in comparison her love for Dare and the same compulsion drove Aeron when he charged to Melia’s rescue. How could he think about his life when hers might be lost? He had lived a thousand years, long enough to experience life with its infinite possibilities. In comparison, hers had hardly begun and he could not endure the thought of it ending before it had really began.

Or more correctly, before
they
had even begun.

‘
You have broken bones,’ Melia announced unhappily as she examined his side and saw the discoloration of his pale skin. She had never seen an elf so exposed before and had to marvel at the softness of their skin to the touch. Her fingertips grazed the swelling along his side and knew he needed at least a day of rest before they could even think of resuming their journey to Tor Iolan. Even the speed elven recovery could not overcome the injury he sustained this night.

While she should have been annoyed by this delay, Melia found that she was simply grateful that he still lived. When she had seen him battered by the ogre, the despair she felt at his possible loss stabbed at her more than she could possibly imagine.  Furthermore, sh
e knew exactly why he had allowed himself to be harmed this way. He was trying to protect her and while she did not know what to do with that yet, she did know she felt just as strongly about his life.

‘
I will manage,’ he replied bravely.

‘
You will manage nothing if you do not rest,’ she snapped in annoyance at his stubbornness when she lowered the tunic down once more. ‘We will now move camp a little further downstream where its safer. All this blood is going to bring wolves or something worse upon us.’

‘
Perhaps I should have let you seduce them after all,’ he grimaced when he tried to move.

Melia laughed softly and smiled at him warmly, taking his arm in hers to help him
to his feet. ‘Perhaps you should have. You would have been better for it.’

‘
Well never let it be said that the Prince of Eden Halas does not suffer for a lady's virtue,’ Aeron grunted as Melia helped him to his feet.

‘
I am not a lady,’ Melia reminded as she led him toward the boat whose spine was pressed into the shale embankment. ‘I am just a watch guard.’

‘
You are a watch guard for certain,’ Aeron agreed, wondering why she found it so necessary to hide behind the title, ‘But you are also a lady.’

‘
Well this lady will have you remain here,’ she said firmly as she made him sit down next to the boat so that she could pack up their campsite. ‘Remain still please, while I gather our things?’

‘
I did not know that you cared so much,’ Aeron teased, needing to regain his wounded dignity by placing them on familiar ground again. Better to flirt with her than tolerate this wholly unacceptable situation where she needed to attend to him like a little boy.

‘
I do not care at all,’ she pretended to turn up her nose at him but a sly glance and little smile told him that she was indulging in the play as much as him. ‘I just need you to guide me to Tor Iolan so I should at least ensure that you are well enough to make the journey.’

‘
And here I thought I was starting melting your heart,’ he winked at her though it was difficult to remain quite so charming when the pain in his side ached so much. ‘Have I not suffered enough to prove myself?’

‘
Just stay where you are,’ she ordered with more than a hint of exasperation creeping into her voice as she walked back to the campfire. ‘I shall be back soon.’

Aeron
watched her go and found that in his pain, he tended to be wicked and called out of after her. ‘No farewell kiss?’

Melia did not sleep well.

This much Aeron had learned about the watch guard by the
second night of their journey.

After
their encounter with the ogres, Melia rowed them further down river and upon finding a safe place to camp, moored their vessel so she could tend to his wounds. She was no healer the way Arianne was but she knew enough to relieve some of the pain he was experiencing following his battle with the foul creatures. Once she had ensured that he was comfortable for the night and he had done crowing over how much he enjoyed her fussing over him, she took some rest herself.

He
woke to the scraping friction of fabric against the ground. By there nature, elves did not require as much sleep as men. They were able to endure long periods of wakefulness but this was a practice used only when necessary and certainly not when injured. Melia insisted he sleep when they settled at their new campsite and despite offering protest, eventually Aeron succumbed to exhaustion and pain to catch of hours of complete slumber.

The sound that brought him out of
his sleep had an urgency to it that forced his unconscious immediately awake. It did not take him long to discern the cause was Melia. She was tossing restlessly under her blanket. She rolled onto her side towards him where a gleam of moonlight illuminated her face and revealed genuine fear in her expression. Whatever she was witnessing in her dreams was clearly disturbing and he debated whether or not he ought to intrude upon her slumber by rousing her from its unpleasantness.

Fortunately, he had only a brief moment to debate this when suddenly she sat upright with a small gasp. For a few seconds, she sat in place, panting hard as her mind came to grips
with the realisation that she was free of the nightmare. It took her even longer than that to realise she was not alone and Aeron had witnessed the whole event.

If
this thing between them wasn’t so new, Aeron would have gone to her and offered his shoulder in comfort. However, they were far from that point in their relationship to make so intimate a gesture. It alarmed him to see the fear in her eyes because he could not imagine what she saw in her dreams to inspire such vivid nightmares. She was not a woman who scared easily and yet as he watched her, wide eyed and almost on the verge of tears, he wished she would confide in him so that he could help.

‘
Melia, Are you alright?’

Melia jumped at the sound of his voice and she
stared at him as if she had forgotten he was there at all before she wiped the tears from her damp cheeks. It broke Aeron’s heart to see her tears but his inability to comfort her was not as worrying as seeing one of the strongest women he knew reduced to this state. For an instant, he saw the vulnerable woman beneath the watch guard. The one who felt things more profoundly than she would most believe.

‘
Yes,’ she answered slowly, wishing he had not seen her so exposed and felt a flush of embarrassment at being caught in such a vulnerable state. ‘I am fine.’

‘
You do not sound it,’ he stated genuinely concerned. ‘That must have been a terrible nightmare.’ He remarked tentatively, hoping it would lead her to tell him what was plagued her.

‘
It is nothing that I have not dealt with before,’ she replied, her voice almost a whisper.  

‘
Do you often have such fearful dreams?’ He prodded gently though he suspected she would be reluctant to speak of them.

‘
Of course not,’ she shrugged. ‘Everyone has nightmares. Do elves not have such dreams?’

Aeron knew she was lying but let it pass because she had a right to her privacy.  Besides despite their obvious attraction, they did not know each other
long enough for her to trust him with something so personal.

‘
Yes, we do,’ Aeron answered recalling a few terrors in the dark that had awakened him the way she had a short time ago. ‘There are times when I dream of the demon we encountered in the catacombs of Iridia,’ he confessed.

‘
Demon?’ Melia looked at him, her eyes round with wonder.

‘
During our attempt to free Iridia,’ Aeron explained, telling her the tale of the Nameless.

They called it the Nameless because none of them had seen its like before.

The Nameless was encountered when the Circle journeyed through a secret entrance into the Starfall Mountains of Iridia. They were on their way to gathering of the dwarf clans to discuss their participation in the alliance against Balfure when they encountered the beast awakened by the Shadow Lord.

Its  savagery was such that it was hard to believe such a thing could live outside of nightmares. The beast had lain in wait beneath the bottom of a fissure the dwarves called Unending Well, gaining sustenance from the poor victims using the steps carved into its wall to travel to other parts of the mountain.

Far larger than a wyvern, it possessed four elongated necks as thick as columns and when raised to their full height, almost touched the roof of the cavern. Each of those sightless heads were little than large mouths full of serrated teeth that the beast used to snatch its prey with the speed of a cracking whip. More often than not, only an abrupt scream was all the warning anyone was given being crushed by powerful jaws. 

It had taken everything they had to kill it, with Tamsyn forced to bring down the cavern walls to bury it under tonnes of rock. To this day, Aeron did not know if it still lived, trapped beneath the earth, waiting for someone to release it and on occasion, he dreamed of it. The violence of those memories could be considered nightmares. 

Aeron's voice was soft as his mind drifted back to days when their purpose was clear and the enemy so well defined. There was something freeing about knowing one's course with such certainty that nothing else seemed to matter and except the fate of his friends in the Circle. Until they had scattered to the winds to follow their own destines, Aeron did not realise how dearly he missed the camaraderie they afforded each other.

Melia saw the
longing in his eyes and felt sad for him. For the first time, she wondered if elves kept to themselves because it was too hard to be friends with races that they would almost certainly outlive. How hard was it to be the ones always left behind to mourn? Seeing his pain and hearing of his nightmares made her dreams less terrible.

‘
Arianne said that Dare was almost lost at Iridia. Was this when?’ She asked, having heard something of the tale during the quest to Sanhael.

Even now, the moment made Aeron shudder. When the enormous neck of the Nameless had struck the wall along which the steps they were travelling, great chunks of rock had broken off and rained down upon them. Dare had been knocked off his perch and only Aeron’s quick reflexes had caught him before he had plunged to his death.
.

‘
Yes,’ he answered her. ‘He almost fell to his death but I caught him in time. Until that moment, I do not believe any of us knew how much we needed him to hold us together. If he had died, the alliance would have gone with him.’

Melia could well believe that.
King Dare had a way about him, a sincerity and unwavering belief in people that transcended race. He saw the races of Avalyne as a whole not separate parts limited by boundaries. He had shown the Western Sphere how strong they could be together and if he had died then, the fragile alliance would have shattered.

‘
I was ready to tie him up and send him to the safety of Halas after that,’ Aeron uttered a short humourless laugh. ‘Anything to keep him safe. After losing Braedan, I did not wish to bury another friend.’

‘
Braedan?’

‘
Before Celene and Kyou joined our circle, it was Braedan and I that followed Dare when he began visiting the people of the Western Sphere to rally them against Balfure. Braedan was the son of Braelan who ruled Sandrine for Balfure. His father was a brute but Braedan had a good heart and he believed that Dare could save us. When the Disciples chased us down seven years ago, I sent Dare into Barrenjuck Green while Braedan and I led them away. Braedan pretended to be Dare and the ruse worked, they were led enough astray to allow Dare’s escape. Unfortunately Braedan and I were separated and they were able to capture him. ‘

Melia did not need to hear the rest of this tale
for she knew it already. Braedan had no more survived the interrogation by the Disciples than Keira Furnsby had. How sad it was that they had lost two friends that night. The only difference being that with Braedan, there was a body to bury. They still had not found where Syphia had left Keira in the old wood.

‘
I like to think my father died in the same manner, fighting to the last to defend the people he cared for,’ she said quietly not looking at him. ‘I was so accustomed to him going off to fight one war after another that it never occurred to me that one day he would not return. He was the only who loved me for what I was and when he gone, everything in my world changed.’

Neither spoke for a few minutes as they thought
of the loved ones gone from this world and shared in silence the sadness that only strengthened the bond between them. Since her father died, Melia had shared nothing about him to anyone because no one had cared enough to ask. After being alone for so long, it was difficult to reach into one's soul and find again the things she buried so deeply. She had not spoken of her father since his death and the years of loneliness that followed made her forget just much she truly missed him.

‘
How are you feeling?’ She asked in wishing to dispel the melancholy that had settled over them.

‘
As if I have battled ogres,’ he answered through a groan when he made an attempt to ease back into his sleeping place to make an attempt at rest.

'
We will rest tomorrow,’ she spoke gently but there was force enough in her words to indicate that she would broke no argument on this matter.

‘
I am hardly in the position to say otherwise,’ he replied as he saw her nestle into her bedroll as well.

‘
Good,’ Melia said with a little smile as she closed her eyes to sleep, ‘perhaps there is some use for the ogres
after
all.’

*****
*

It was not long before she was tossing and turning again,
the demons plaguing her unrelenting in their torment of her slumber. Aeron rose from his sleeping place and crossed the circle of campfire light between them. Stretching out next to her, he brushed his hand against her dark hair and began to sing an elven song that his mother Syanne used to lull him to sleep as a child. He continued to sing softly into her ear as he stroked the strands of jet against his palm and drew a little smile across his face when he saw that she had stopped her restless tossing and drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

****
**

Melia appeared to remember nothing of his efforts on her behalf the next morning
but she her spirits were bright and cheerful, attributing her mood to a good night’s sleep. The day of rest aided Aeron's recovery from his wounds and though he still ached, he was well enough for them to resume their journey the following morning.

In truth, he
did not wish to linger out in the open indefinitely. After battling ogres, Aeron could not be certain that other remnants of Balfure's army were not roaming the banks of the Yantra River. While he was recovered enough to be on the move, if something more formidable than ogres appeared out of the darkness, he was not confident on his ability to defend them both in his current condition. The only safe place at present seemed to be on the river.

Although Melia would have taken exception to knowing that he felt it his duty to protect her when she was more than capable of doing it herself.

They travelled for five days up the Yantra River and it was five days that Aeron found extremely enlightening.

He learned Melia’s father was a distinguished
commander of the Nadiran army and she left behind a large family to journey west. Despite their demand she marry, they were not a cruel people, simply rigid in their ways. While he could understand why she had fled, he also knew that she missed the aunts and cousins left behind.  Aeron had laughed when she revealed that she had pretended to be male during her first years in the west, until she unwittingly revealed her gender during the battle of Cereine. The captain who accepted her as one of his own soldiers, cared little for her gender only that she could fight.

He in turn told Melia of his family, of his mother Syanne
to whom he was closest to and while he cared for his brothers Syannon and Hadros, they had little in common. More complicated was the relationship with his father Halion and Hadros, who did not hold with his liking of the outside world and his consorting with other races. While Dare was an inconvenience they tolerated for the sake of Syanne, neither of them could understand why Aeron chose to spend time away from Eden Halas now that the war with Balfure was done.

Ironically, despite
being worlds apart in race and culture, both Aeron and Melia appeared to be fleeing from their families for the same reason.