Mordraud, Book One (5 page)

Aris
was no longer thrashing.

When his sight returned,
Varno found he was clinging to the Aelian. The floor was thick with blood. He lifted the other’s head. A long sharp earthenware shard was sticking out of the nape of his neck. His green eyes stared lifelessly, swollen with disgust.

Those two emerald
spots burnt through his eyelids, branding themselves into the human’s soul.

Varno
hurried to Eglade with great effort. He sighed in relief. She was still alive. She awoke, trembling in his arms and, even before seeing the Aelian’s body laying face-up on the floor, understood what had happened. The house was a mess. Blood was everywhere.

They
didn’t need to speak to decide on what to do. They had no choice now.

Eglade
gathered together what little she could take with her in such haste, and did all she could not to look at Aris’s still body. It stared at the ceiling with its face overwhelmed by a mask of distorting detest. Eglade wept and murmured something in her tongue, perhaps an apology for what had happened, or maybe just a long and yearned-for goodbye.

To her house, to her land.

To her people.

Varno
and Eglade fled into the night, enveloped in a silence heavy with pain and fear.

The cool breeze slid in through the half-closed window shutters. A blade of reddish light painted faint reflections on the bases of the pans hanging on the wall, above the washbasin with the dishes. Eglade had just finished making the dinner: a stew with vegetables she’d picked that morning from their patch behind the house. Outside, a dog’s barking broke the silence of crickets and foliage fluttering in the wind.

‘
Varno should be back from the village soon,’ she thought with a smile. Her hand subconsciously slipped down to her belly. It wouldn’t be long now. He’d be with them any day now.

Her son kicked in eagerness to be born
.

Six years had passed since their flight into the
night. They’d left the Aelians’ forest behind them and had trekked for days, following the most secluded and winding paths. They’d managed to get far enough away before Aris’s murder was discovered. But they didn’t know where to go. Varno had merely a handful of coppers in his pocket. He’d hunted what little he’d managed to catch with his bare hands to provide for her. She’d never eaten so many squirrels in her life. He was extremely nimble at grabbing them, she mused, moved by the memory.

As she deserted the only place s
he’d ever grown to know, Eglade wept miserably. She’d dreamt many a time of travelling in the outside world, but only in her imagination. She never thought she’d actually find herself outside her tiny and pointless realm, with a Khartian, on a quest for a new home for them. When she spoke out loud about that period, she felt like she was narrating an improbable fairytale.

“
We walked so long...” she murmured. Varno had no precise destination in mind, she even less so. They’d simply gone on moving, avoiding the villages, the taverns and any place frequented by the Khartians. He was constantly tormented by the idea that somebody would notice her. She’d cut a strip off her cape to make a scarf she could tie around her hair. He never slept, except for the rare times he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. He’d watched over her for countless nights, his sword ready on his knees. He’d used more energy and marched harder than when he’d gone to war. It had been tough, terribly tough. But it had also been the most exciting moment of their lives.

Fear, sorrow, curiosity and wonder.
Eglade had never experienced so much all at the same time. Each day was new, and full of hope. Each night, she and Varno would steep their dreams in everything they would do and achieve, together.

The first predicament to deal with was finding a home. They solved this one when they came to a circle of rubble near an anonymous
village, many weeks’ walk from the battlefield where he’d been injured. They’d had to cross Cambrinn’s mountains, hiking along the most inaccessible paths to avoid the defence posts manned by the rebels of the east, who had set up the most northern front of the war in that area. They’d stopped at the first quiet settlement to draw some water from its well. Combing the zone, Varno had uncovered the remains of an old abandoned dwelling. Far enough away not to attract attention, close enough to the village to avoid feeling too cut off. They were a great distance from the Aelians’ forest, on the eastern slopes of the cluster of mountains dominated by Cambrinn, the fortress once under Cambria’s control. But above all, they were inside the Rebel Alliance territories. About north-west of Eld, the fiefdom helming the resistance against Loren’s Imperial Lances.

Varno
was convinced the best option was not to side with anyone, but to stay near the area governed by Elder, the nobleman leading the rebels. Although they were in one of Cambria’s enemy territories, those lands were of no particular strategic interest, nor did they stand in the path of likely Imperial attacks. Cambrinn, behind them, was a brake on Loren’s army, in this wearying war of position. It was much safer and simpler to live there as outcasts, rather than as free citizens within the Empire. The regions dominated by the ancient Aelian capital were heavily policed by guards and tax collectors – something that would have made it difficult for the pair of them to mind their own business and live in peace.

And so they
decided to settle. Varno had managed to erect a sort of tent beside the ruins, by amassing old canvases and ropes collected from the traps he’d come across in the woods, and he’d soon set to rebuilding the tumbledown house. He had also started working as a woodcutter for a carpenter in the village, to scrape together some meagre earnings, and every coin of his wages was used to purchase materials and builder’s tools. It had taken months, but in the end he’d succeeded in shaping a few rooms covered by a makeshift roof.

From that
moment on, they added the rest piece by piece.

‘
We’ve got a vegetable patch, a woodshed and three lovely large rooms...’ Eglade considered, proudly. Getting used to Khartian life hadn’t been that hard. It wasn’t so different to that of her people. She would get the dinner ready, see to the chickens and the vegetable garden, and pick medicinal herbs in the woods to make some infusions to sell down in the village. She would go there herself, even though Varno had emphatically objected to her desire for contact with other humans.

“
And if they found you out?” he’d protested, deaf to her proposals.

“
With a shawl, a long dress and a bit of care, nobody will notice...” she’d repeated to the verge of exasperation, until one day Varno finally relented. Very reluctantly.

Time had proved
Eglade right. Apart from her intensely blue eyes, she looked like any other woman when she covered her copper hair with a headscarf. Extremely beautiful, yes, but there was nothing truly out of the ordinary about her. In the meantime, he’d found employment working the land, then as a blacksmith. It wasn’t much money, but it was enough for them and the life they’d chosen.

The only ingredient
missing was a child.

Odd
ly, however much passion they dedicated to the task, Eglade failed to fall pregnant. She, who perceived time’s passing differently to Varno, had never seen this as an obstacle. But for him it was becoming a tragedy.

“
Maybe we can’t have children...” he repeated over and over, desolately.

“
Why ever not?! You’re always saying the Khartians and the Aelians are not really that different...”

“
Yes, in many aspects, but not all of them! Look at you: you’re still a young woman, with no marks, no blemishes – nothing. I’ve already got a few wrinkles on my forehead...”

“
Then we’ll have to try more often... and for longer!” she would always say, with a mischievous little smile. A love of life that was hard to resist.

After long and
zealous efforts, Eglade was finally expecting. It was 1603. The pregnancy had exceeded the natural term for humans by a few months. Varno was increasingly concerned and puzzled. But luckily there wasn’t long to go, it seemed. Eglade knew, she could feel the birth was drawing closer.

And she also knew she was carrying a boy.

Varno came into the kitchen and hugged her, fondly caressing her stomach. The sun was dipping behind the trees, while a hint of moon grew on the horizon.

“
Each time I look at you, here in this house, I ask myself what made you want to flee with me that night.”

Eglade
didn’t answer straight away. She was observing the trees at the edge of the garden, reflecting on how similar her new world was to the one she’d deserted in following Varno. Yet, no Aelian seemed ready to accept that simple fact. There weren’t different worlds, there was no wall separating them. The Aelians failed to realise they’d been cheated by themselves, by the terror of something they hadn’t seen with their own eyes: the Endless Night,
Ealon Sial’nar
as the Aelians called it. The event that had destroyed their empire, leaving the way free for domination by the Khartians, Varno’s people.

“
Don’t you know what to reply? Are you already tired of living with me?” Varno asked her, squeezing her hips. A twist of unwelcome fear hovered in his words.

“
No, I was just thinking that coming here with you was more natural than I would have believed,” Eglade answered, transfixed by that warm moment, with Varno behind her and the last of the day’s sunlight filtering through the window. “I suffered in the beginning, of course I did... I was afraid... Then, gradually, I realised there was nothing for me to be homesick about. Two separate worlds don’t exist. We’re the ones who invented them, by hiding ourselves away... and you, by forgetting about us. We hoisted up a wall between our peoples. We built it with our fears, and sealed it with hatred.”

“
I’m the one who should be saying romantic things, and instead...” Varno muttered apologetically. “But I’m ignorant, I’m not like the Aelians...”

“
Say nothing more,” Eglade broke in, turning in his arms. “Comparisons mean nothing. I love you, Varno... and I like you as you are, even though you’re always worrying the opposite is true. I liked you the instant I met you, because you managed to convey to me how much you cared about living. I too wanted to feel that same passion for my own life, yet I realised I’d been born to resign myself to a senseless exile. I was born to merely await death. You’ve given me so much... I came away with you, because I wanted you. And I wanted this house and this child...”

Eglade
moved her hand to her stomach.

“
You can’t even begin to imagine the boredom of never being able to do anything different, except waiting for something to happen,” Eglade sighed gloomily to herself.

“
I was tired of feeling bound by a limit I failed to comprehend.”

Varno
stood in silence for a moment, enjoying the sensation of his fingers on Eglade’s belly. A simple emotion – just the sort he liked.

“
And if I were to tell you I’m happy to live with you... simply because I love you?!” Varno exclaimed, laughing, bending forward to kiss her. Eglade returned the kiss, but had to pull back at once, startled. Varno stared at her in concern.

“
Can you stay home off work for a couple of days?”

“
Why?” Varno inquired, holding his breath.

Eglade
took his hand and placed it beneath hers, just at the height where the tiny heart was beating, muted and distant like a war drum.

“
It won’t be long now. Not long at all.”

Varno
nodded, inebriated on delight. And perhaps a glass of wine too many, drunk in the village before returning home. “Have you decided what you’d like to call him?” Eglade asked.

“
What do you suggest?”

S
he considered for a moment. She had a name in mind, but wanted to hear what he thought too. She liked the idea of calling him after her grandfather. A good Aelian. Famed for his intelligence and sophistication.

“
Dunwich... What do you think?”

“
Hmm... Dunwich,” he repeated, savouring the word like a tasty morsel. “Dunwich, son of Varno... It sounds a bit eccentric, but... I like it!”

“
So that’s settled!” she burst out, throwing herself into an awkward sort of embrace hindered by her belly.

“
Our son will be called Dunwich.”

***

Eglade hadn’t been wrong. The next night she brought a male child into the world, without the need of assistance. As handmaiden to the older women, she’d helped at many births, and it was quite easy for her to put into practice for herself the arts she’d learnt: she knew which herbs were right for soothing pain, and which could relax the muscles.

The baby w
as born strong and healthy. At just a few months, he already had a thick mane of black hair and two alert bright blue eyes, which shone like his mother’s. He didn’t look much like Varno, except for the colour of his hair, and this was the source of not minor sadness for his father. The beauty and elegance of his features came from his mother, yet he lacked that unreal perfection that would have made him a true Aelian. Dunwich was almost entirely Khartian.

Right from the first years of the
child’s life, what was instantly obvious to Varno was his incredible swift mental development, paired with a slothly growth. Well before he could walk, he’d already learnt to speak both Cambrian and Aelian fluently. Eglade also taught him to write, draw and make calculations, and Dunwich seemed to pick it all up so quickly that even she was astounded.

“
But are all your people’s children smart?!” he asked her one day. He was watching Dunwich in amazement as the baby struggled to crawl across the floor while reciting off by heart a story his mother had taught him a few moments earlier.

“
When they’re young maybe, but I couldn’t say... No, an Aelian usually takes a long time to grow, and to learn to speak... not to mention to write...”

“
Is that why time doesn’t seem to pass for him? Could it be your blood?”

“
Maybe. But he
is
growing fast, compared to the normal rate for my people... It must be due to the Khartian he has flowing in his veins,” she’d replied, as surprised as he was.