Spellbreakers (41 page)

And mingled with all her different longings was also
the memory of the time she had spent with Hawkeneye.

Had it been all it real?
Or a dream?
She could not
tell, except that at the end, she had felt full of love, full-throated, singing
love for him. It should not make sense. She didn’t know him at all, and yet,
she had loved him.

She could not make head or tail of any of this, so she
tried to stick to the most logical and conservative outlook. Thinking things
through, that was what she was good at. She must save her kingdom, and when
things were back in order, she’d marry a suitable candidate, probably not an
elver, any elver. She’d be a queen and reign wisely and justly ever after.
Ljung was probably not part of it. Why would he leave his forests to come to
Escarra with her? Perhaps he might come for Daria. And then she’d lose them
both. They’d have each other.
She, just a cold throne.
She thought her heart would break with love and uncertainty about it all.

She opened her mouth to speak, and he looked up and
interrupted her.

“As I see things, we’d better pack up and walk south
as soon as it is light tomorrow. It is a long trip to Nevraan, and if we dally
any longer, it might be too late in the year for you to take ship back home. If
you are stuck in Nevraan for the winter, you might never manage to bring him to
Escarra in time for the Challenge. The winter storms can make the Narrows
impassable already at the beginning of
November,
and
the harbor might well be ice-bound until mid-spring in a cold year. If you want
to be on the safe side, you’d better not waste time.”

She looked at him beseechingly and made as if to talk
again, but he shook his head.

“That doesn’t matter, now. You must finish what you
started, first. You came here to bring him back home. You still have a long way
to go. Your quest is not over yet. When it is, and you are free, you can think
about all the rest. No point breaking your head about it now.”

****

Later, she walked out of their shelter. The old black
dragon lay on his side on the ice, immense and terrifying even in his death.
Leal could not resist stroking his long neck, his fearsome claws, each as long
as her forearm. His head was hidden by a scaly ice mound.
The
lindworm, lying where their last crash had landed them both in the snow.
The frozen water dragon lay over his dead foe in a sinuous heap of perfect,
flawless ice, pale blue and transparent in the low sun. His open jaws were
edged with white hoarfrost, the memory of his last breath. Leal patted the pale
blue head, then she walked out over the ice, where a tall figure stood alone,
looking away south.

He was dressed in a collection of spare clothes from
Ljung’s pack and a couple of blankets, and his hair was a mass of windblown, tangled
locks, but even so, he managed to look composed and self-possessed. He was very
different from the body she had embraced in the crypt.
Stronger
and younger.
Not the smooth blond elver boy she had last seen before the
dark waters closed over them, but neither the old, shrunken, lined old man he
had been at first. He was hale and strong, broad-shouldered. His very long hair
was fine and straight, bright silver-white, and his skin was almost as pale,
but only a few lines marked the corners of his eyes and mouth, and they were
lines of laughter. His eyebrows were dark with silvery threads and made his
grey eyes deep and piercingly bright.

He was beautiful in a stately, ice-pale way, as if the
cold was still part of him. Perhaps it would always be. Perhaps it had always
been. Perhaps that’s why
she
had loved him.

But he was haggard and red-eyed. He was perfectly calm
now, but calm like a man who has cried long and hard, and is wholly spent. His
lips were blue with cold, and there were purple shadows under his pale eyes.

Leal shyly took both his hands in hers, and after a
moment of hesitation he returned her grip, gently.

“I remember your face,” he said. His voice was deep,
hoarse and broken now with grief, but as he talked the vaguest smile flickered
on his lips. He sniffed, and drew himself up, pulling himself together. He was
even taller than Ljung, a whole head and
more taller
than Leal.

“And I yours.
Was
that a dream?” asked Leal quietly.

 
“I don’t know
how to call it. It was not ... here. But if it was a dream we were dreaming
together, I think.” He hesitated, and gave her a long considering glance.

She felt her face go red to her hairline. He truly
smiled then. When he did, he didn’t look so far away and majestic, but almost
like the merry boy she had last seen before the darkness engulfed them both.
Even his reddened eyes had an impish twinkle, and she laughed, finally.

He smiled again, and then spoke quietly.

“Listen,” he said, “I know that you did what you did
to break the spell. I am very grateful. But that does not mean that you are
beholden to me in any way because of what we shared. I do have a debt. I know
why you came all this way. I will help your kingdom with whatever skill I have.
But that is all. This is not a fairytale. You must not feel bound to me. If
your heart would rather be bestowed elsewhere, you must feel free to follow
it.”

Leal stared at him and took a long, long breath. She
felt suddenly liberated by a burden. Their hands were still joined. She
caressed the back of his hands with her thumbs absently.

“Thank you. I never quite understood why the enchanted
princess must always marry the first man who comes along and kisses her. Or he
her.”

He smiled again.

“But however,” she said thoughtfully, “Please do not
think it was just for the Challenge, and the spell. I mean, it was at the
beginning, but...”

He watched her gravely, although a hint of a smile
still curved his lips. He freed his hands and stroked her forearms, in a quick,
almost shy caress, strange in a man so imposing.

“I know. But it was in another place, another ...
world. Do not dwell on it. Love should have nothing to do with spells or
enchantments. If it doesn’t arise naturally, it’d better not happen at all.
Believe me, I know.”

He smiled again seeing her somewhat discomfited
expression and squeezed her shoulder briefly. “One day, perhaps, it will happen
again, the right way, and I will be glad of it if it does. But now is not the
time,” he said.

He bowed to her, then turned and walked back to their
dragon-shelter.

****

In the morning, they set out towards the moors. What
little luggage they had, their blankets, the food they had left, some few spare
clothes, was loaded on Daria’s black unicorn.

“That was the worse prank ever,” she said scornfully,
tying the last little bundle on the makeshift packsaddle she had improvised.
The horse still stood high and proud, but no taller than an ordinary war horse.
He still was black and glossy, but there was no trace left of his horn except
for a rosette of twisted fur in the middle of his forehead. He was very tame
and even meek, almost apologetic, as if embarrassed to have let her down.

“He’s still a splendid stud, and remarkably
sure-footed,” said Ljung patting his proud crested neck. “And a unicorn would
be a bit flashy in public, don’t you think?
A tad vulgar,
even?”

“Whatever,” she said, setting off with the
un-glamoured unicorn on the lead rope. “Catching a unicorn would have made my
name in all the western kingdoms. I could have been stable mistress of any
castle I chose. I might have known, mind.
After the trick
with the dog.
I am amazed that that one there was a real dragon and it didn’t
shrink down to some ugly black lizard.”

“That was fortunate, as it turned out,” said Hawkeneye
softly, and she turned to look at him. She smiled a somewhat nervous smile and
nodded.

They were all a bit nervous about him.

He was clearly a lot stronger after a hot dinner and a
night of sleep. Still pale, but all elvers were pale-skinned, and according to
Ljung, he was of a northern elver race even whiter than the rest. The redness
had gone from his eyes. He had recovered his own clothes and weapons from the
ice palace, and was dressed in the strange patchwork style of the elver
hunters, in the same winter colors they were wearing. But whereas they wore
long hooded parkas, Hawkeneye wore a silver grey and white great cloak, with
bits of silk and bits of fur of polar foxes and white feathers all fluttering
around him. The cloak made him look even taller and more imposing. His long
black bow stood out strangely in all the whiteness, as did the scabbard of his
sword. He had brushed out his long pale hair, and done it up in a thick braid
that left his face free and crowned his head like a crest, and then flowed free
down his shoulders.

He was remote and grimly determined, every inch the
last Warlord of the Elverlaen. Leal was both proud of him and shy. He looked
like he could save a kingdom today, but he had been more approachable, more
lovable yesterday. He was as aloof as a cold star in the winter night sky,
today.

They had walked less than a mile from the dead dragons
when Ljung raised a hand to stop them.

“Something is following us,” he said. He nocked an
arrow. So did Hawkeneye.

Away behind them a small black dot was growing in the
snowy whiteness. It came closer and closer, fast at first, then hesitantly.

It was the former
garmr
, now just a very gaunt black wolfhound with tawny-gold
eyes. He peeped at them beseechingly from the corner of his eye, with his head
lowered, wagging his tail hopefully. Ljung lowered his bow and quietly put away
his arrow.

“Fine then,” said Leal. “You come with us. But you’ll
have to earn your keep. No passengers on this trip.”

The dog smiled, like dogs do, and ran around them,
bouncing and wagging a merry tail.

“I will call him Amber,” said Leal cheerfully.

****

They reached Elverhjem one evening, just as the sun
was setting in a shimmering haze of fluttering leaves. Autumn had come in the
northern kingdoms, turning the beech trees to copper and the birches to gold.
Only the dark fir trees stood unchanged, timeless and severe in the sea of
fiery autumn colors all round.

As the sky darkened and they drew closer to the
scattered town, lights blazed up among the trees, green and yellow and blue.
And before they met any people, drums thundered up in the trees around them,
slow, and deep, like a march.

As they walked further in the city, the drums followed
them, and people walked out to meet them in awed silence, more and more
numerous as the rumor spread and the drums beat ever louder in the gathering
night. Then the drone of bagpipes joined the drums. The sound was so deep that
is seemed to come from the earth itself.

Finally a tall dark haired woman walked forward and
sang a strangely powerful song in a language Leal and Daria could not
understand. Every stanza was closed by a chorus of male voices, which was soon
picked up by the public surrounding them. Even without understanding the words,
it was heartbreakingly moving.

Leal and Daria watched in awe, wondering what the song
meant. Ljung stood silently, a bit apart from Hawkeneye. The tall pale warrior
listened with his head high, and his eyes blazing with pride, and something
else. Anger perhaps?

Finally the song ended, and the woman, like a herald
who is done with some long recitation, bowed deep to Hawkeneye and withdrew.
Behind her the three Elders advanced.

“Welcome back to Elverhjem, Kjetil Alversen
Haukka-Silma’a. It is a happy star that brings you back to our midst.”

“It was a brave heart and her good companions that
brought me back to your midst, Geir Geransen,” he said, and to her complete confusion,
Hawkeneye took Leal’s hand and lifted it high up, as if in victory. A cheering
went up from all the elvers around them. Leal blushed to her hairline and
stammered some thanks. Daria murmured soothing words to her horse, which had
spooked at the cheers. Ljung looked down at his feet from behind a tangle of
dark hair.

The Elders nodded solemnly.

“Their deed will be honored in many songs. Will you
take your place in the Elders’ Ring now, Haukka-Silma’a? Weighty matters await
your wisdom and courage. The Elverlaen needs you once more.”

Hawkeneye frowned.

“I am sure it does. But I have a debt of honor to pay.
Surely Princess Leal and her people deserve more than a few elvren songs? We
will have horses ready tomorrow at dawn if you please. I will go and champion
Escarra in this Challenge. Within a year I will be back, and take my place in
the Ring.”

Gerdrun opened her mouth as if to protest, but
Hawkeneye just bowed deeply, gestured to his companions to follow and walked
off into the night. The Elders watched them go in uneasy silence, but many
elvers followed them with soft words of wonder and blessings. Their old friend
Ingri met them and made them welcome trying not to stare too curiously at the
tall Warlord.