Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

“You could ask for a hot, scented bath,” Phen said with a chuckle. “Or maybe clothes that don’t smell like goat piss, or a trim of that shrub on your head. There are still scales from the serpent tangled in your hair and probably more than one of those fruit bees.”

Oarly stared at Phen while he hurried up to Hyden’s side. “I cut that blasted serpent in half,” Oarly said. “You should have seen the front end slither down into its hole.”

“He cut off the tip of its tail,” Phen laughed.

Oarly stopped and turned, his face red with anger. “Now listen here, lad, I’ll not be the butt of all your jokes on this fargin journey. I cut right through that serpent with me axe. You seen it. I’m getting tired of… of…” Oarly stopped. There was a loud buzzing in his hair. “Don’t do it, lad!” he warned, but it was too late. Already a cloud of angry bees were swarming out and stinging the dwarf.

“Ah… Phen… stop it, lad…” Oarly yelped as he skipped around and batted at the angry insects. “Help me, Hyden, it fargin stings.”

“After the tricks you played on all of us?” Hyden laughed hysterically as Oarly spun and whirled his arms around. “How could you dare complain or ask me for help?”

Phen stopped laughing long enough to end the spell.

“Bah!” Oarly growled when the bees disappeared. He went stalking away from them.

“Are they always like little boys?” Telgra asked Lord Gregory.

“Aye, they are,” he answered through his grin.

“I see I’m in for a long journey,” Lieutenant Welch commented. “I’ll have to learn to ignore them so I can stay alert.”

“I promise you, Lieutenant,” the Lion Lord said with a look that showed he meant it, “when there are teeth and steel clashing around you, and the blood is flying, there is no better company to be in. From what the High King has told me, they will be jesting in the heat of it.”

The lieutenant looked at the imposing mountain range ahead of them. “Out there, in all of that, I don’t think there will be much to laugh about.” He spoke more to himself than anybody else. “Fools of the highest order, that’s what King Mikahl called them.”

“Exactly,” Lord Gregory said.

“Did you bring my bow, Phen?” Hyden asked.

“Aye. King Mikahl went after it himself. It’s in the hard case along with the texts you requested.”

“Did you find the ones I wanted?”

“And then some.” Phen replied.

Hyden waited until Lord Gregory was talking to Lady Telgra, then asked Phen softly, “Do her people know where she is?”

“No. She wrote a message and I sent riders to leave it in Vaegon’s Glade. It said that she was well.” Phen shrugged. “She doesn’t know who she is, Hyden. She didn’t even know who to send the message to.”

“To the Queen Mother, I’d guess,” Hyden mused aloud.

“How would you know?”

“Who else would you send a message to, if you were an elf and you didn’t know who you were?”

“Aye,” Phen agreed.

“Thank the goddess that Old Condlin took the place of Eldest,” Hyden said. “If my father had been chosen, then Telgra would be in for a long winter.” After a moment, Hyden changed the subject.

“Lord Gregory,” he called back over his shoulder. He had stopped on another ridge. This one was smoother and covered with clumps of green grass still fighting to survive, despite the coming season. Beyond them lay a shallow, rounded valley where more patches of the persistent foliage defied winter. When Lord Gregory, Lady Telgra, and the lieutenant caught up, Hyden pointed down into the valley. “Lord Lion, do you remember this place?”

“Is it where the hellcat set upon us and took Vaegon’s eye?”

“No,” Hyden forced a smile. “That valley is half a mile away.” He looked at the Lion Lord and then the others. “This is where you landed when you fell from its claws, after it carried you off.”

“By Doon,” Oarly said from behind them. “Set a hellcat on me and see what happens to it.”

“Aye.” Lord Gregory smiled down at the dwarf. “I wish you’d been there, Master Oarly. Vaegon lost an eye, and I nearly lost my life.”

“You did lose your life, to hear my mother speak of it,” said Hyden. “She told me you were a swollen lump until midwinter.”

The Lion Lord nodded. “I owe your family much.”

“They are excited to see you again,” Hyden said. “My grandfather thought highly of you. My father, too. They say that the heart of a true lion beats in your chest.”

“Enough already,” Oarly cut in. “Enough reminiscing. Let’s get some of that stew.”

For once, no one argued with him.

Another blast of wind hit them. This time it didn’t seem to pass. For a long while, as Hyden led them in and around the foothills, it pushed at their faces and hissed across the roughening terrain.

“Look, Phen,” Telgra yipped with delight. “It’s snowing.”

Phen looked up to see that it was. Tiny flakes were blowing at them on the wind.

“Just what we need,” Oarly grumbled.

“You haven’t seen anything yet, Oarly,” Hyden laughed. “We’ll see ten feet of it before winter is over.”

“TEN FEET!” the dwarf exclaimed. He looked from face to face to see if Hyden was teasing him or not. It was clear that he wished he was being jested with again. “I’ll be riding on Phen’s shoulders if we’re going to be out in that kind of mess.”

“That’s too close to the surface, Oarly,” said Phen. “That’s where the snow worms will be hunting.”

“Bah!” Oarly said, still waiting for someone to crack a smile and reveal the joke. No one did.

“I’ll be in one of them rabbit holes your folk live in, Hyden,” Oarly said. “I’ll not be roaming around in the snow.”

“When the snow is ten feet deep, we tunnel through it to get from burrow to burrow. You’ll see.”

“What about the snow worms?”

“You cut a giant sea serpent in half, Oarly. What is so scary about some snow worms?”

Oarly didn’t answer, but his scowl was priceless.

They rounded another set of hills, topped a rise, and then started down into a deep, bowl-shaped valley. They were halfway through it when Lieutenant Welch realized they were already in the well-hidden village of the Skyler Clan. Phen saw it plainly on the man’s face.

Only a tiny gray trickle of smoke spiraling up into the sky from a hilltop, and a concealed tunnel-way, could be detected.

Everyone was startled when a man and woman, both near to Lord Gregory’s age, came right out of a hillside and started toward them. After that, dozens of faces began to peer out from hidden shafts and crannies. Phen was surprised to see so many dozens of people there, and all of them with the same long, dark hair and tan skin as Hyden Hawk. Even the girls looked the same.

“An elf?” Harrap Skyler scowled as he took Lord Gregory’s hand.

“Be kind, father,” Hyden said, showing a little unease.

“Yes, Harrap, be kind,” Hyden’s mother told her mate. “If you act like an old goat, I’ll have Hyden turn you into one.”

The tense moment passed. “So far so good,” Hyden muttered to Phen.

Phen realized that he had never once seen Hyden show such open uncertainty until that moment. He pondered the idea as the snow falling around them changed from a light dust into fat fluffy flakes. In just a matter of minutes the entire valley was covered in a thick blanket of white.

Lord Gregory took Hyden’s room in the family burrow. Hyden, Phen, Oarly, Telgra, and Lieutenant Welch shared a larger burrow, one usually reserved for livestock. The three men under Lieutenant Welch bunked in the burrow that Borg had once turned into a stable cavern for the horses.