The Coming Storm (25 page)

Her mind spun in a million directions, that nightmare vision from her dream filled her mind and clouded her sight.

The revelations of the night.

Tolan’s voice. ‘She’s Otherling.’

No.

Where to go? Not to Delae’s, that’s the first place…they’ll go.

A chill went through her.

Yes, it would be the first place they’d go. To Delae’s. And her grandmother would be completely unprepared.

Would they go with a soul-eater? Ailith had to warn her. She had to warn her, yes, but she also needed answers. She needed to know the truth. She needed confirmation.

Delae would know.

The dream.

It had been so real.

No dream, not really a dream. A vision. Somehow.

She kept trying to push that thought away but like an animal in a trap it kept circling and circling back. Her breath came in short pants.
No
. She took the thought, crammed it into a compartment in her mind and slammed the door shut.
Mad? If anything should have driven me mad, that last sight, that vision…

No. Don’t think about it
. Close that door and lock it. The same with the other.

Otherling
? She wouldn’t think about it.

Looking around, she saw familiar sights around her. It was half a day’s ride on her own horse. Half a day! How long since she’d slid down the rope? She didn’t know. Not long. Certainly not half a day. Somehow she’d guided Smoke all unknowing to where she needed to go. Her thoughts were a jumble but still she had done it.

She’d known Elven-bred were fast, but this…?

The high wall around Delae’s house rose before her. Smoke didn’t even pause, he cleared it with a small rap of a back hoof. Six feet and he didn’t even hesitate. She barely avoided smacking her face into his neck on the landing.

Across the green, with the short grass muffling Smoke’s hoof beats.

Sliding off his back, Ailith ran to the wide oak doors with their banding of iron.

Banging on it, she shouted, “Delae. Wake up. Delae. Hurry.”

A light blossomed through the narrow window on the side of the house. She banged again.

“Delae,” she shouted. “It’s Ailith. Hurry.”

The door opened to show her grandmother Delae’s face lit by the soft light of the candle. Save for the gray in her hair it was so much like her mother’s face that grief struck Ailith like a fist, driving the breath from her.

No. Not now.

“Ailith,” Delae said, bewildered and half awake. “What are you doing here?”

The voices were different.

Ailith closed her eyes, fought for control.

“Get dressed,” she begged. “Hurry, there’s no time. I’ll explain as you dress. Quickly, please.”

The urgency and fear got through as Delae looked at her granddaughter’s frightened face and nodded. She hurried into her bedroom with Ailith close behind.

“Am I Otherling?”

The words just popped out. Ailith hadn’t meant to say them.

Delae froze, her shocked expression all the answer Ailith needed.

True. The shock hit her. It was true. She couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t accept it. Not now.

“How did you…?” Delae began to say.

“Not now,” Ailith said, shaking her head as much in denial as negation. She couldn’t think about that now. “Get dressed, hurry. They’ll come here first.”

“Who’ll come here first?” Delae demanded but she pulled on clothing, working clothes.

“Delae,” Ailith said, “I’m not mad, I’m not. Please believe me. The guards from the castle are coming. My mother is dead. Selah is gone.”

The words were like blows raining down on Delae’s heart.

Selah
? Her precious baby, beloved daughter. Her life and dreams and solace. Dorovan’s child and hers, though none knew it.

Selah. Dead
? What could Ailith be saying? Delae’s knees went weak.

“What did you say?”

“Mother is dead, Delae. My mother. They killed her.”

The aching need to weep, to release all the fear and the pain and the sorrow seemed too great for Ailith to bear.

“Why can’t I cry?” she wailed, in frustration and grief.

“Oh, dear child,” Delae said, clutching her by the shoulders to shake her hard.

She’d ridden so far and so hard at this time of night. The urgency. If it was all true? Ailith had no time for grief, then, any more than she did. Something was clearly wrong, but there was no time for this.

“Stop it. You can’t because you’re Elven as well as Dwarven. They can’t weep either. Oh, Ailith. I am sorry.”

The shake helped.

Ailith shook her head to clear it. Push it back, all the pain and the fear. That last vision. She was indeed Otherling. It all chattered wildly through her mind. She willed control. Accepted at least some of it, for now.

“How?”

“That’s a long story, sweetling. The short of it is… A moment of weakness, of loneliness. No one knew Selah was Elven, not even me. She didn’t look it, she looked like me. Her mother’s daughter. As with you. Different, yet not. You were Otherling but we didn’t want to know. Your father set the bindings on you but in all other respects you were like any other child. A merry happy baby, a sweet, rambunctious and saucy child. You were so like other children that after a while it was easy to forget you weren’t. As with Selah. When she met Geric and they seemed so much in love, I never gave thought to his blood. Or of what might be in her blood. Of what might happen. Of what it could mean. We protected you the best we could.”

They’d been so in love, her parents. Ailith remembered that. The kisses and hugs, the warm affection. He’d killed her. She scrubbed her hand across her face.

“Why are the guards coming?” Delae asked.

“They’re after me. I saw something I shouldn’t. They’ll know I’d come here. My father will tell them. They would come here even so, thinking I might.”

“Your father…,” bewildered, Delae stared. “I don’t understand.”

“Please trust me but not him. He isn’t the man he was. And Tolan. Beware especially of him should you ever be so unfortunate to meet him. Don’t listen to him. His voice entrances. There’s so much to tell and no time to tell it.”

None of it made sense but Ailith was in such earnest. So frightened.

“So, why am I dressing?”

“You have to leave. They’ll think you know where I am, where I’ll go. I’ve seen what they will do to you if they catch you.”

“What about my people here?”

“They’ll be safe enough, it’s you they’ll want, to get to me. The guards can’t stay forever,” Ailith said. “And what will your people do if they hurt you, too?”

The very thought was shattering.

No more.

She’d lost both mother and father these last months. Friends. Korin. No more.

“Please, Delae. You can hide in the woods and they’ll never find you. You know them too well.”

“Where will you go?” Delae asked. “What about you?”

Ailith smiled a little. “I have friends, they’ll help me. I’ll be safe enough once I reach them.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, quickly. She was certain of.  “Yes. We must go.”

Saddling and bridling her horse was necessary but it took so long. Delae wanted Ailith to put something on Smoke but it was taking too much time. Ailith kept glancing at the surrounding hills, looking for dark shapes against the stars. She and Smoke had made time but not enough of it. It was a half-day’s ride at a trot or a canter. Riding hard? She listened for the drumbeat sound of hoof-beats.

Then they were off and the drumming of their horse’s hooves wasn’t only the sound of their horses. Delae glanced back, to the hill beyond, to the sound of the thunder of many horses’ hooves. So many.

She looked at Ailith.

“When you reach the trees, ride at speed. That’s an Elven-bred, he’ll carry you far. I’ll go my own way.”

“Delae…,” Ailith cried.

“I’ll only slow you down with this old horse. Do it, Ailith. It’s you they’re after. I’ll lose myself in the trees, I promise.”

With that, she set spurs to the horse.

Ailith was right behind her.

Into the trees and then with a shift of knees and reins Delae turned the horse, disappearing among the trunks and leaves in the near moonless night. Trusting to the horse to find its way among them.

For a moment Ailith wanted to follow her, to follow her grandmother. Her only family now. A thousand memories flashed through her mind, both happy times and sad. She couldn’t lose the last of her family, the last of her blood. She couldn’t.

It was her they were after, her they sought. In that Delae was right. If she followed they were both lost.

Where to go?

A voice in her head, deep and steady.

‘
If you must run, come to us
,’ he’d said.

Elon of Aerilann.

It suddenly seemed as if all the stars in the sky blossomed inside her head and heart and soul. A hundred thousand stars. More than she could count. They all had names and some of those names she knew.

One in particular.

Due north, for a while. If the stars in her head were true. Once they’d helped her find a lost child. It was enough for now. It was a direction in which to go.

She was so frightened.

What other choice did she have?

“Run, Smoke.”

Delae had wanted her to take saddle and bridle but they seemed to do well enough without them. Ailith clung to Smoke’s back and prayed Delae would be all right.

Whatever it was Ailith had been going on about Delae wanted to see. She wanted, needed, to know what was happening.

There was a vantage point, a place where she could look down on her house, on the homestead, what had been her home and once her prison, until Dorovan. A place where she could watch the comings and goings and not be seen.

It was a special place. One she’d never shown her daughter or even her beloved granddaughter. Only one other person had ever stood there.

Dorovan.

That house below had been a wretched and desolate place for so long. A husband who’d mistreated her and abandoned her for dicing and drink. It had been sad and lonely until Dorovan, until Selah. They’d brought her such joy, those two, her lover and her daughter. And then Ailith, so bright, so beautiful.
Her sweet Selah, her beloved daughter, was dead
? The thought tore Delae’s heart in two.

Geric had sent to tell her Selah had gone north, something about someone sick.

Ailith seemed so certain, though, so sure. There had been deep grief and pain in her voice.

Then Delae remembered.

Ailith was Otherling. She couldn’t lie. Over the years she’d seen the truth of it so many times. That knowledge drove her to her knees in grief and tears streamed down her face for the loss of her only child. Her only light, made with the only one who had given her joy.

But…there was Ailith.

Fire touched the top of the distant hill, torches to light the night.

A rumble of hooves as they crested the ridge and thundered down the hill, at least ten of them, a few of the riders holding torches high aloft. Sparks trailed behind them. She could barely see their badges in the flickering light of the torches but she recognized them as those of her son-in-law. There were too many to bring back one recalcitrant daughter.

Ailith hadn’t lied, she couldn’t.

Running  with the horses was something else as well, shadowy creatures, large, black and oddly shaped. Another appeared out of the darkness. Its hide reflected the torchlight as if it had been oiled. The riders pulled up in the yard of the homestead, milled around. All were armed. One dropped off his horse, kicked open the door and went inside.