Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

“Having him peel potatoes won’t stop what’s been set in motion,” Rallie said. “Unless the oath is broken, he will end his life. Eventually, I fear that most of them will, one way or another. You know this.”

Konowa took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Resentment, anger, insubordination-these he could deal with from soldiers under his command. But this? Yes, none of the soldiers had bargained for this, but they were soldiers and they would obey. Without that single tenet no army could function, and no empire could survive. To break the oath now would be to weaken them when they needed their strength the most.

“We’ll find my elves, Rallie, we’ll find them and I’ll set things right.”

“I hope you do, Major. One of my sreex couriers found us the other day. It brought news of events in Calahr. Apparently my readers and a good many citizens of the Empire at large have been following your exploits with growing enthusiasm. The Iron Elves are the talk of Celwyn and a thousand villages and roadhouses throughout the lands. The orc drums are even reported to be carrying the story, though you are not portrayed in as flattering a light as in my accounts.”

Konowa tried to imagine it and failed. Did people not have their own lives to live? “The orcs care?”

“Absolutely,” Rallie said, her eyes shining at the very thought. “Everyone does. Things have gone so far that the One-Eared Donkey in the dwarf quarter of Celwyn now has a drink dubbed the Iron Elf. The exact ingredients are a closely guarded secret, but they say it’ll take you to the beyond and back…eventually.”

The idea that people read about their exploits galled Konowa. “This is a joke to them? Men are dying out here.”

“Come now, Major. When have things ever been any different? Somewhere in a distant land, elves, men, dwarves, and even orcs are always dying while back home others go to work, or the pub, and home to their wives, or at least somebody’s wife. Would you really trade your life for theirs?”

The thought of trudging to a job in a mill, or a foundry, or even worse, an office with a desk and quill and ink bottle was enough to set Konowa’s stomach on edge again. “No, but there are times when I wish my life could be simple like theirs. Where things are clear. You know the right course to take and your mistakes don’t cost lives.”

Rallie’s laughter startled a couple of seagulls perched on the railing farther down. “Simple, my dear Major, is definitely not a word I would use to describe anything about you. And lives are lost every day in the “simple world,” more, I wager, than are lost on a battlefield. But what happens out here has repercussions far greater than anything that happens back in Celwyn. And that’s why you’re out here, and not back there.”

Konowa grunted. “I take it the same can be said about you. This isn’t exactly a sightseeing expedition we’re on. It’s hard enough for young men let alone someone as o-” Konowa suddenly found himself staring into a pair of eyes with very little humor in them, “-oooccupied with affairs of state as you.”

Rallie held his gaze a beat longer and then smiled and turned back to watch the dock. “You are a charmer, Swift Dragon. Why am I out here risking life and limb when I could be at home tucked under a nice warm shawl? The answer is simple. You. Them, the Iron Elves. The Prince. The Shadow Monarch. All of this. And of course, the Stars.”

Konowa instinctively looked to the sky, but all he got for his troubles was wind-whipped rain in his face. He wiped his brow and squinted up at the clouds and tried to see a glimmer of a star in the night sky beyond, but the weather remained obstinate and he gave up.

“That’s a subject I’ve noticed you haven’t written much about in your reports back home,” Konowa said. “Everywhere you go, there are legends about Stars of power. Even the orcs have them. But for all that, no one really knows anything.” He shifted his position on the railing and looked again at the dock. Still no sign of the harbormaster.

“There’s little to know and even less to write about,” Rallie said, perhaps a bit too quickly. “The Red Star fell and Elfkyna was saved. Rumors abound, of course, but thus far only one Star has seen fit to return.”

Something was nagging at the back of Konowa’s mind, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. “You know more about this than you’re letting on, don’t you? The myth of the Red Star in the east proved to be true, which means the other Stars must be real as well.”

Rallie paused to look around them before speaking. “That is an assumption based on a solid supposition.”

Konowa scratched his head. “I’m not sure, but I think you just agreed with me. You do know more about this. You welcomed back the Star at Luuguth Jor almost as if you knew it.”

Rallie huffed. “How old do you think I am, Major? There might be a few creases in my carrying case,” she said, pointing to her face, “but do you really think I am that ancient?”

Konowa held up his hands in surrender. “It’s just that, well, you’re a witch,” he said, adding hurriedly, “in a good way. Aren’t you?”

“Am I a witch, or am I good?”

Konowa decided it was best to stop talking and merely nodded.

“Yes,” Rallie said.

Konowa walked his brain around that answer for a moment and concluded it was best to leave it be. He tried another tack.

“So do you know where and when the next Star will fall? Knowledge like that would be worth its weight in gold.”

“A hundred times over, no doubt,” Rallie said. She smiled and began pulling her cloak tight around her. The wind still whipped spray off the waves though the Black Spike rode at anchor with the solidity of a stone castle. “The gulf between what I know and what I think I know remains vast at this juncture, and until I can fill in some of that chasm with good, hard facts, I prefer to keep my own counsel.”

“And that of my mother and Visyna,” Konowa said, knowing he sounded petulant and not caring. The three women had become known, and with some affection, as “Which Witch is Which” by the soldiers.

“Not even the Prince presumes to intrude on the deliberations of three women of certain…abilities,” Rallie said.

Konowa knew danger when it spoke softly. “My apologies. You just have no idea how frustrating it is to be kept in the dark.”

Rallie tapped her upper lip with her finger and opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. A moment later she tried again, but Konowa could tell she had changed her mind about something.

“Trust me when I say this, Major. You’ll soon know more than you wish you did. Now,” she said, turning to leave, “I really should retire. We’re going to have a very busy morning.”

Konowa was tempted to ask if that was another veiled vision of the future, but he needn’t have bothered. He considered recent history and concluded that if something could go wrong for him, it most certainly would.

White sails dotted Nazalla Bay in all directions, as if a flock of geese had descended during the night seeking refuge from the storm. Konowa stopped counting ships after thirty and began hacking at a wooden beam with his saber until the splinters erupted in frost fire. It took the next couple of minutes of furious stamping to put them out.

Sheathing his saber, he went looking for the Prince. Rallie, Visyna, and his mother intercepted him on the main deck and blocked his path. Konowa wasn’t in the mood. He picked up his pace to walk through them, but the looks of the three women were enough to halt his charge. As angry as he was, he wasn’t prepared to challenge three women of their very specific abilities. The realization had him clenching both fists so hard that his hands shook.