The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains (20 page)

“I see, it is not my concern truly.”

“That it is not, nor mine, well spoken father---“ Cristoff was cut off.

“So that I am a widow, presumed dead, yet still a queen with a bastard in my belly, so what of it then?” Her anger, from the changes, the pain, and the recent traumas in Harlaheim spoke before her mind did.

“My queen, no one thinks any of that of you. They know of Richmond the Second, I know of him and what he did. I will honor you and my brave cousin’s child, with my last dying breath. May Alden strike me down if I ever fail in that.” Cristoff knelt and kissed Rosana’s hand, still the queen, yet much like him, in exile. He knew how that felt, all too well.

“Well spoken, my lord.” Garret, feeling tension and emotion with all of these nuances, found very little to say between these two nobles.

“I know, I know. I am sorry, to both of you, forgive me.” The once queen walked away, toward the carriage arriving, and leaving Cristoff on a knee. She knew the slight would not go unnoticed by some, yet she could not hear those words nor feel that sentimental kiss again, not so soon after Savanno’s death. It was too much.

“Is the queen well? Why does she need a carriage, sire?” Leonard galloped up, his steed whinnying and pulling up on hind legs.

“Upset stomach.”

“Dizzy spell was all.”

Cristoff and Garret spoke together, then sighed, again having blundered in different responses. Sir Leonard looked to them both. “Very well then, I will see her to the carriage and resume my routes. Father, my Lord.” He nodded twice and made slowly toward the queen.

“
We must keep this quiet, for her sake
.” Cristoff whispered.

“
Truly, yes, indeed
.” Garret had one weakness that they both noticed, and it was subtlety in emotional situations, especially with women.

“Mount up father, we must carry on northwest for two days, then head west around the bluffs, and then on to Gillian. Pull yourself together now and eat something, you look famished. This journey is far from over, you may be delivering the queen’s child by roads’ end. You will need your strength.
Hhiiyyaah!
” Cristoff galloped ahead on his brown steed, armor shining in the midday sun in Shanador. He thought of what had possibly happened in Saint Erinsburg, if anyone remained and if they survived. He dismissed that thought, like so many others, trying to think only of the immediate future.

Garret rubbed the short groomed dark hair on his head, straightened his tabard and adjusted his swordbelt. Mounting his horse, he prayed, face up to the sky.
Father, my lord and God Alden, bless this company if it be your will. None of this would I be able to be a part of, to spread your love here, would that I stayed in Harlaheim. Thank you for your words, your courage, and your direction. Would there be anything else I need know, make me thine channel for your will to be done on the earth as it is in the clouds, Amen
.

Garret smiled as his horse caught the lead with Cristoff. His grin of enlightenment could not be disguised, he looked as if he simply had the answers and knew the way. He nodded to his lord and friend.

“What is it? Are you amused at our little situation, my good priest?” Cristoff laughed, seeing joy in the father as they rode, it gave him peace for some unknown reason. He had always loved God and the church, yet this man seemed more than all of that, yet humble in that fact.

“Well out with it then, it is like you hold some secret from me.”

“I do indeed.”

“Come now, enlighten me father.”

“Are you certain?”

“Well yes, Garret, what is it then.”

“It is a boy.”

Garret trotted ahead, face to the sky, having felt the words of Alden inside him once again, for whatever reason that He only knew.

Kendari III:I

Kivan River, Swamps of Kar Nossos, Northern Harlaheim

“Fight thine enemy, and kill thine foe, give them blade and steel, and woe. Yet if thine brother bleed, the Gods will see, for a kinslayer cursed you be
.”---Poem on the tomb of Uinaeas Calfitires, last King of the elven city of Stillwood. Circa 11 B.C.

The river boat veered around another banyan root that had grown curious as to the middle of the river Kivan. The silence and the sloshing of poles and oars were making every different noise of the swamps that was heard into possible dread for the men. Every time an owl hooted, a wolf howled, or something took flight or swim, the small crew of three in their fisherboat jumped. They would think of the bag of platinum they had been paid, and think of running for it afoot back to safer ground when light graced them once more. Then they remembered their passenger. He had dark green eyes that penetrated, grim elven features, dark black hair and swirls of some obsidian birthmarks or curses upon his whole flesh and face. He toyed with his two longswords often, and could hear and see nearly everything they did. They knew he did not sleep, and when he did he awoke as if nightmares plagued his every drifting thought. They feared this
Kendari
, more than the swamps, so they carried on north through Kar Nossos.

“Would that the sun would give us some attention here, we would move a bit more steady.” The older man, Reanier, scratched his gray beard and adjusted his floppy hat of old curled leather. He pushed again with his long pole, keeping another root away from his boat.

“Aye, slow goin’ brother, slow and treacherous tis in these parts. We are well past any good fishing waters here. Could be home with a woman in the sheets, better than this marsh for sure.” Luc Lefty, nicknamed due to the missing fingertips on his right hand, held the rudder with his feet propped up on their crates of pickled dinner.

“
Ssshhh. The dead ones be hearin you with all that chatter, keep it low for Alden’s sake
.” Boersin was an ox, at least half they said, his arms and shoulders like small barrels. The long mustache he twirled and tugged when not rowing oars was the only hair on his head, yet even that stood from time to time under the light forsaken canopy, deep in the swamps where men knew not to ever go.

“If the three of you made any more noise, I would buy minstrels to put melody to the constant voices that surely echo to anything within earshot. If there was anything hunting us here, they would have no trouble hearing, or smelling, the three of you. I paid for the best men to take me upriver, not to endure a social session from frightened fishermen. So be silent.” Kendari still had his eyes closed, stretched out on the floor of the boat, his cloak rolled into a pillow, hands on the hilts of his blades underneath.

It had been four days he surmised, in the dark of the swamps with these three he found north of Saint Erinsburg in a small washed up fishing village. The armies of King Richmond and his knights had not waited long for the return of Florin, only an hour. He had heard the screams of horror from a distance as they first viewed the carnage he and Nareene had left in Bradswellen castle. The burning started within the hour, yet he was long out of sight in the night, and Nareene was back in whatever layer of hell she had come from, so he thought. That very night, it began.

First his chest ached, below the spot that Nareene had branded him over four centuries ago. Then it itched and became warm in flashes, as if she were trying to make him feel what she felt through the realms of the damned. Kendari thought he was simply imagining it, having some sort of twisted guilt for plunging Cristoff’s holy blade through her chest in Bradswellen castle. Then he noticed the next day, that his flesh was rashed and peeling there, yet the circled star of red remained underneath the dead skin. Like the small hole in his abdomen from the placing of the Nadderi curse, this too was a memory that would never let him forget.

He felt tired, beyond his elven six centuries, the need for actual rest coming every few days now instead of every few weeks or months. When he tried to sleep, the visions of transparent faces of elves covered in blood danced to his every sleeping moment. Flames erupted, swords clashed in his mind, women screamed, and Nareene was there, always laughing, always there. He would awake in sweats, fatigued and worn as if he had been fighting rather than resting. Animals seemed to stare at him in silence when he passed, where normally they would take flight. The trees and grasses simply were, not as the haunting warnings to others upon his presence. The world felt dead, or that he was dead and no longer part of the world, at least not for long. The foreboding feeling of emptiness only worsened, and then he decided.

“Where is it you are heading again, painted one?” Reanier looked back to their passenger, one that had paid one hundred Harlaheim platinum coins for the trip, enough to buy five boats and his own crew for each. Those green menacing eyes looked right back.

“
North
.”

“I can see that, been following the Kivan River for four days here, elf. But after it leaves Kar Nossos, into Kivanis, what then? Continue to the Soltaic Ocean?”

“I will be disembarking from your noble vessel one day past the Gualiduran border, that is all.” Kendari tried to rest again, these humans had the lives of boring moles and their attempts at conversation interested him just as much.

“Not much there anymore, mostly controlled by the northerners from Altestan. Or the Caberrans, Kivanis is all in league with whoever. Either way, dangerous ground for one with pointy ears. They don’t be liking your kind in those parts. Hear they kill ya and sell the ears and such.” Reanier received nods from Luc Lefty and Boersin.

“Many have tried, and all have died. I do not fear humans much, keep that in mind. Where I am going, there are no men, there is no one living at all, so your concern is unnecessary.” Kendari glared at Reanier, seeing the hairs on the back of the old man’s neck stand a bit.

“You are a spiteful one, and ye have a sharp tongue. Not that I don’t appreciate the coin, but if you care ta live long, best watch your words a bit, elf.”

“Is that a threat, fisherman? I enjoy threats.”

“No, not from me or mine, just a word to the wise from someone perhaps a bit older is all.” Reanier did not like the look of this one, it had been weighing on him the last few days.

“I am over six hundred years old, so keep your words. And since you are so inquisitive,
that word means curious in means of questioning by the way,
I am
not
going to live much longer, hence this little journey of mine. Now cease your chatter, or I will cease
you
rather quickly.” Kendari had no bloodlust, it had been dry sometime, yet his nerves could not handle the constant irritation he felt from these men, especially the would-be wise one, Reanier.

“You are going to die then? Where at?”

“He needs a sweet woman is all to balance out all his bitters.” Luc Lefty piped in, always with something about women.

“
Ssshhh!
” Boersin slowed the oars, a turn in the river ahead.

Kendari stood, no sleep forthcoming now that his tensions had rose. He looked at the same flat water, black and dark. Overgrown moss tails hanging from every enormous tree that crept over them. No sunlight, just canopy overlapping more dark green and shadowy canopy in the morass of banyans, willows, and twisting marsh forests. The smell was mold, moist thick mold and clinging fogs that carried the brackish aromas of more mold. Only the break for pickled something, poor watered down wine, and dried horsemeats could momentarily alleviate the monotony of Kar Nossos.

“I am going to my homeland, I do not need a woman, nor any warnings about where elves are liked or no. I am heading to Stillwood, and not returning.” Kendari felt his face without emotion, his passion for anything long gone, he had done it all.

“Stillwood? Never heard of it. Is it an elven city?” Reanir cast a glance at the cursed one so empty of life and care for anything.

“It was, long ago. A city of rituals and tradition, a secret city in an enchanted woodland. It was called Essiddor back then, but now it is a cursed place, known as Stillwood.” Kendari’s thoughts drifted, to the trees, the circle of stones that once was, and to the days before his curse. He knew all the faces in his dreams, they were elves he had known, elves he had killed, long ago.

“So you are to die where you were born then, is that an elven tradition?” Reanier kept conversation going, feeling the tensions dwindling.

“
Ssshh!
” Boersin stopped the oars again, looking upstream, squinting in the dark with only slivers of white and green moonlit reflection from the water to assist him.

“I know nothing of traditions, besides ones that I despise.”

“
Ssshh!
”

“Is that all your big bald friend can say? I do not want to discuss anything, yet when I can finally stomach a talk with the three of you, he insists on silence.”

“
Sshhh
, something stirs in the water, over there. It is moving this way.” Boersin stood slowly, reaching for a woodaxe from next to the crates and barrels.

“Alligator perhaps, maybe a large snake is all. What is the concern?” Kendari drew his blades regardless, seeing Luc Lefty grab for the lantern and Reanier draw a machete from under his worn fisherman coats.

“Could be swampeyes, a troll, could be anything this far out.” Reanier let the lantern get closer to the bow of the boat before he peered over.

“What in the seven hells is a
swampeye
?”