The Way of Edan (The Edan Trilogy, #1)

by Philip Chase

But such was not meant to be.

So far, by waiting in alleys or crossing the street, she had been able to avoid the priests. She was far more powerful than any of the six she had spotted, which meant they could not feel the gift in her unless they got close.

Sequara threw down her basket as she gazed at her assailants and gritted her teeth. I must not fail. Her mind slipped into the realm of origins, and as she thrust her arms forward, the air around her shifted and leapt alive with a current of energy. The priest must have sensed her power awakening, for his grin disappeared and his eyes widened. He was right to fear. She was strong enough to call forth almakhti, or what the barbarians named wizard’s fire. He began his counter spell, but she ignored him since she knew the gift was far stronger in her. Too late, priest.

“Alakathon indomiel ar galathon anrhuniae! Vortalion marduniel im paradon khalghoniae!” As soon as Sequara shouted the song of origin, a jagged blue bolt of concentrated energy crackled from her extended fingertips and streaked toward the priest and soldiers, casting their forms into eerie light and inky shadows. It forked and exploded. A violent blue-white flash split the air and writhed in snaking currents around the screaming soldiers and priest, whose spell the energy shattered, and their bodies flew backward.

They were all in Oruma’s hands now, and they would remain so until Anghara gathered their energy for the next birth.

Her work was here in the present, in the world of forms.

The thing in his mind was sleeping again, a hiss of breath sliding along the edges of his consciousness. He tried to make sense of the moment when the mysterious shard of the elf’s presence awakened and pierced his being. Its energy was so vast that it broke the priest’s power over Rudumanu and Hraedflyht as if flicking away a moth.

He decided he had not. Somehow, he convinced himself, he would have known. At any rate, Urd had been right. There was a vast amount of power in him. There were moments when what he might do with it intrigued him, but his fear of it was greater. It’s not my power. It’s not me at all. It’s more likely to control me than I am to control it. What if it takes over?

“Hwitwater tumbles down from the Hemeldowns and runs through the Northweald, where she slows till she widens into the Folkmere, right here. Hwitwater’s a rough, foamy sort. Not like t’other one. The Withweald runs soft. Her waters’re clear, even blue in hue. But the two mingle in the Folkmere, which runs out as the Folkwater. Now, Folkwater winds all the way to Birch Bay and joins the Great Sea with no end. I been all over these rivers — been a riverman since I was a lad.” He favored them with a toothless grin.

The only purpose left to him was to go to Ellond, where Urd told him to find the wizard Galdor. Perhaps this man could teach him to control the monstrosity that the elf put inside his mind. There was even a sliver of hope – one he hardly dared to acknowledge – that Galdor might be able to rid him of his curse.

As soon as Imharr asked for a table, the burly innkeeper smiled. “We’ve a spot for you. You’ve come a ways?” “Yes,” said Imharr. “You’ve the speech of Markmen.” “That’s right,” said Dayraven. “Markmen always welcome at my inn,” said the innkeeper with a nod.

On the left shoulders of their grey kirtles they wore the king of Torrlond’s ensign: a white-capped silver mountain with a gold crown over it on a blue background. The soldiers wore the kirtles over their linked byrnies, though one had a corselet of overlapping steel plates and a costly shield with a brass ensign of Torrlond set in the middle. This same man had two red stripes over the ensign on his sleeve and a red crest on his helm, by which Dayraven guessed he held a higher rank. All the soldiers had removed their steel helms of a conical shape with long nose guards, but they wore their swords at their sides. Their round linden shields painted with the king’s ensign rested against a wall near their table.

The presence of the elf susurrated in his mind.

Such lore sparked Dayraven’s imagination, but he was unable to forget one uncomfortable fact. Awareness of the presence of the gift in the man tingled in his mind. He recognized it as something he had always felt in Urd’s company, though it was far more muted in Osfrid.

Finding courage from some unknown place, he decided it was time to stop running. “As a priest, you have . . . what folk call the gift.” Imharr tensed and sat up straighter. Osfrid nodded and smiled at Dayraven. “Yes. But I think you don’t need me to tell you that.” “Then you . . . sense it in me as well.” The priest laughed. “The same way a man senses the sun when it’s daytime. As soon as I walked in, I felt it all around you. I don’t know how you can contain it all. Never have I felt the presence of the gift with so much strength. I confess, that’s the real reason I came here to join you.”

“A calling?” “One must hear Edan calling to devote his or her life to Him.” The priest took another drink before gesturing toward Dayraven with his mug. “There are those with the gift who are not priests or priestesses of the Way. Some who follow the old gods become wizards or witches, and there are those who are powerful in sorcery in the east and in the south — there such sorcerers and sorceresses worship their two gods. And then there are some who never learn to use the gift. They live their lives as normal folk, never realizing or caring about the power dwelling in them. There always were such folk, and there always will be.”

The Eternal will be the inheritors of Edan’s kingdom, and it’s a priest’s duty to bring that kingdom to fruition by bearing witness to it.

“How do I know Edan is calling?” “You’ll know. When the time is right, you’ll know. The important thing is to be patient and listen. You have the gift in greater measure than in any I have ever met, but as for how Edan is speaking to you . . . Well, that’s a matter for you to decide, and no one else.”

The strengthening storm agreed more and more with his mood, and the rain did not dampen his imagination. Thunder rumbled in the sky. The horses whinnied at streaks of lightning flashing and forking over the wide landscape. Like slow waves of a vast sea the meadows rolled. Never had Dayraven beheld so much open land, and it seemed to hold out some unspoken promise to him. Here was where the gods dwelled and strove. A grim beauty pervaded it. When the lightning flashed, for an instant it illuminated the plains and infused them with a vibrancy that extended to him.

Emerging from the rain like an apparition, a dozen riders shot into view with a terrible din of hooves and shouts and yelps. They wore dark cloaks and hoods. The brigands the priest Osfrid warned them about back in Dunham.

A tide of muscle and steel surged toward the Dweorgs.

Dayraven gazed mesmerized and unmoving. Three choices presented themselves: run away, stand by and watch, or do something. The first two he dismissed as cowardly, so he steeled himself and shouted the first thing he could think of: “Stop, in the king’s name!”

Blood and brains spewed out onto the mud before the body followed.

One brigand dodged a thrust and arced his sword toward a soldier’s neck. Trailing the blade, a sticky rope of blood spattered from the gash, and the soldier’s body went limp. Another brigand parried a blow with his sword and plunged a dagger in his other hand into his attacker’s eye so that it disappeared up to the hilt.

Fourteen bodies lay in the mud, and red puddles collected around them.

The full of extent of his folly grew apparent to Dayraven. The fifteen remaining soldiers and two Dweorgs approached behind their commander. They did not look pleased.

Dayraven backed up a pace. His hand fumbled toward Sweothol, which lay in its baldric under his cloak. At the same time, the shard of the elf’s presence in his mind stirred with a sharp breath. Shit. Not now.

The Dweorg held up one palm and smiled. “That’s a matter we Dweorgs can address once we return to Etinstone. Weaponsmithying was our trade, after all. We’ll see to it they have the proper gear.”

Imharr sighed and glared at the lieutenant. “A drowning man takes hold of whatever comes in his grasp. Seems we have little choice.”

The man held up a palm and grinned. “No need to get touchy, boy. Right. Imharr and Dayraven, in joining the Mercenary Company of Etinstone, do you swear by whatever god or gods you follow to be faithful to Torrlond’s king and serve him in whatever cause he sees fit to employ you, and to obey his officers, who represent his person, unto death or until such time as he or his representative releases you from his service?” The bored monotone in which the lieutenant recited the oath suggested he had said it many times before.

Dayraven and Imharr turned around, their only remaining company for the moment the two stout Dweorgs. These two stood with their arms crossed, watching their fellow soldiers disappear in the rain. They were well more than a head shorter than the average man of the Mark or Torrlond, the taller being at least two inches under five feet. But Dayraven had no doubt about the strength in their broad bodies after witnessing the smaller one’s axe stroke. On their heads they wore solid helms with cheek guards and ornamentation in the form of bronze dragons breathing fire as interweaving knots. Dark lines and dots like some form of writing marked the length of their pale, hairy forearms, which resembled squat tree branches.

color. A web of wrinkles surrounded the large brown eyes above his broad nose, and in them Dayraven perceived warmth, kindness, and sorrow. “I’m Gnorn,” he said with a deep bow, “and this is my brother, Hlokk.

As bodies disappeared beneath mud, Dayraven wished he knew some fitting words for the occasion. Someone in the world would grieve for them. A mother, a father, a brother or sister, a child. For someone, their deaths would bring home how fleeting the world was. Moments before, their flesh had contained their lives. The elf-shard brushed against his awareness and whispered in his mind, seeming to say that death was cold and lonely. When they packed the last of the soil in place, they wiped their muddy hands on the grass.

Before long, as dark day gave way to darker evening, they came to the inn.

Lieutenant Ludecan came from behind them, and the one called Wonred lifted his spear. The lieutenant smiled at the Dweorgs as well as his two newest recruits. “We rise early on the morrow and head back to Etinstone. On the march back, see to it you keep clear of the rest of the men since they don’t wish to ride with you. Once we arrive in Etinstone, you have a day of leave for the Day of Edan. Do as you like until the mustering. Just be sure you arrive on time.” He looked at Dayraven and Imharr. “You will report to me before the mustering to present yourselves with the proper weapons and gear. Your Dweorg friends will make sure you’re equipped. Any failure on your part, and I’ll make good on my earlier threat. Understood?”

After changing into spare clothes from their packs and leaving their wet ones to dry in their room, Dayraven, Imharr, Gnorn, and Hlokk emerged in the common room. The din of conversations quieted. Many guests and soldiers stopped talking and stared at Dayraven’s two new companions. Some scowled and muttered half heard curses about Dweorgs, but after some time they ignored them and went back to their talk. The four of them found a small table of their own in a corner of the smoky room, where a large fireplace crackled and a couple dozen soldiers ate, talked, and gambled among other guests. Near their table was a window. The rain hushed and pattered on the thick glass. Warm and dry, Dayraven listened and sagged into his chair.

“a chance at great deeds so their names will last a few years longer.” Gnorn paused a moment to shake his head. “My brother Hlokk and I fight for a way out.”

Grimrik, as Dayraven knew from a map in one of Urd’s books, lay some hundred leagues as the crow flies north and east of where they were now. The peoples of Eormenlond feared and respected the Thjoths, the tall and fierce folk of Grimrik. Only their love of fighting, stories told, surpassed their lust for seafaring. The Thjoths spoke a language different from the Northern Tongue, yet somehow like it, making the words harsh and outlandish. Urd once told Dayraven the Thjoths came hundreds of years before from the Wildlands far off in the east and were kin of the tribes of savage Ilarchae living there. He said to Gnorn, “Yes, we’ve heard of it. Many say its people, the Thjoths, are hard and warlike.”

Before them, for more centuries than your people or even the Andumae can remember, we Dweorgs of the Fyrnhowes dwelled there.”

“Nearly two hundred winters ago, the Thjoths broke out of the Wildlands in the east. They raided the coasts of Ellond and Torrlond, and then a leader of theirs called Dragvendil lusted for a new kingdom for himself. At first he turned towards Ellond, but he found King Froda too strong when they met in battle at sea.”

Dayraven shook his head. “I don’t understand.” The thick wrinkles framing Gnorn’s mournful eyes deepened as he smiled gently. “We wish to end things with dignity.” In response to Dayraven’s stare, Gnorn continued. “There aren’t enough women-folk among us, and none are eligible for Hlokk or me according to our customs. We can have no children, and we’ve nothing to live for. Rather than linger feebly with our ignoble lives in Etinstone, we wish to die with honor, in battle. Among our people, it’s the noblest way to part from this world. Then we can join our ancestors, since there aren’t enough of the living.” Hlokk looked down at the floor as his brother finished speaking. Dayraven gazed at Gnorn for a long moment. “It’s a sad tale.”

Dayraven indeed felt a strange connection with the two Dweorgs. They were his fellow exiles and, for the moment, companions in arms. “Fate is what brought us together, it seems.” “You needn’t remain, you know.” Gnorn looked around the room. As he lowered his voice, the others leaned forward. “Lieutenant Ludecan will have the exits to the inn guarded, as well as the stables. It would be unwise to attempt to leave now, and on the ride south there will likely be little chance. But once we’re in Etinstone, we can find a way to get you out safely. Before anyone knows you’re gone, you could be miles from the city on your way to wherever you were going.” “But Lieutenant Ludecan . . .” “For all his talk of hanging, neither Ludecan nor anyone else will have time to hunt you. War is coming.”

Imharr gazed at Dayraven for a while. His face was grave, and Dayraven knew he weighed the possibilities in his mind. At length, he sighed. “Aye. For now, we stay with the company.” He looked at Gnorn. “If you don’t mind, we’ll tag along with you two for a spell. But the first chance we get without getting you into trouble, we’ll be gone.”

Gnorn smiled. “Then it’s settled. Tomorrow, we journey to Etinstone. But I suggest we get some sleep now since we’ve been told we leave early.”

This city, his city, the largest and grandest in all of Eormenlond, held about one hundred thousand souls, or one in sixty of Torrlond’s people. Nothing like the conglomeration of life beneath him had ever existed in Eormenlond before, and no other kingdom could boast anything like it. It was fitting. No king like him had ever existed in Eormenlond before, for he would unite all the kingdoms under his rule.

His palace was the center of it all, and was not his royal person, the direct descendant of Folcwalda and living embodiment of his lineage, the reason for Sigseld’s existence? In his sacred body dwelled the royal house of Torrlond, the heart of the kingdom, on which all else depended and around which all else revolved. His noble ancestors had performed great deeds. Why should he not enjoy the fruits of them?

Nearly nine hundred captains of Earconwald’s vast and invincible army crowded the hall.

However, he had tucked away enough knowledge about their weaknesses and desires to play them off against each other. His spies in all their households kept him well informed, and he allowed their informants to remain in his, sometimes feeding them false information for the purpose of manipulating the dukes. It was an often deadly game over which he enjoyed firm control. None of them were cunning enough to rival him.

In front of an oak chair to the throne’s left stood the Supreme Priest Bledla in his plain white robe, stern and austere. And here before me is the most dangerous one of all, thought the king. Someday that blade will try to cut me, but I’ll be ready.

But one captain among those of Etinstone — conspicuous by his great height and large, muscular build as well as his light blond hair and beard — only grinned as if he found the whole spectacle amusing. The king remembered that man. The savage from Grimrik. Strange fellow.