Nancy Berberick - The Inheritance

Home, she thought; I am going-

Every nerve in her body leaped alive, screaming. In her bones-at the very marrow-she knew an agony, both phantom and real. A scream wound from the forest, terrible and high. Another followed, and out from the woods an elven voice filled with rage and fear shouted, "The wood is on fire!"

In her heart, Elansa heard the agony of living trees as fire licked up their trunks, seared their barkish skins, and gnawed to the milky heart of each limb it grasped. In her woodshaper's soul she felt the anguished, burning echo. She had no voice to cry the pain, from her throat could come no sound that trees could make.

Shadows at the forest’s edge sprang to life, full-voiced with elven war cries. Warriors armed with swords burst out of the wood, but they were only half of the prince's force. The others stayed behind, for they had expected to meet foemen in the borderland, but they had found enemies in the forest. Goblins, wielding fire and steel and shrieking like things from nightmare, fell upon the elves.

Seeing the elven warriors, seeing the goblins, Brand shouted, "Bastard! You set goblins on us!" Almost in the same moment, Keth roared the same accusation. Neither heard the other. Elansa heard them both, their voices small amid the death cries of trees.

"Arawn!" Brand roared.

Lindenlea shouted, "Warriors! To your prince!"

Battle-storm screamed around them. The howls of the goblins, the shrieks of the killed, and rage, rage. In one sudden moment of clarity Elansa saw that the goblins and the elven warriors were matched forces. She saw the outlaws and knew they would be crushed between them. She thought, Good! And she saw one of the bandits-Arawn it was, with his long dark hair blowing back-lift a sword to defend himself. He held Keth’s sword, and Elansa thought, Let the goblins kill him!

Keth's hand tightened painfully on Elansa’s wrist. He yanked her toward him, got his arm around her, and looked for haven for her. The forest was no place to go, and they could not follow the wagons.

Lindenlea shouted, "Keth!" and he let go of Elansa to snatch from the air the sword his cousin had flung. Not his good old sword, but a sword, lent by a warrior to a prince. Lindenlea laughed, a mad-minded war cry as she flourished her own borrowed weapon. She pointed north where four elven warriors broke from the rest, running to receive the princess.

They ran to meet the sudden escort, Elansa and her husband. It wasn't a far distance, and no one came near who didn't taste Kethrenan’s borrowed blade. All around, elves let loose their war cries. Outlaws shouted curses; one screamed in death, another did, and a third. The stench of seared flesh mingled with the smoke of Qualinesti burning. The cries of elves and humans and goblins sounded like the cries of beasts in the slaughter pens. No one but Elansa heard the heartbreak of the forest, the death of trees.

On the road, Ley cried commands to horses, again the snap of leather on broad rumps. Dell shouted curses, and Brand turned, his hostage forgotten. He bellowed, "Ley! Dell! Stay with the wagons! Get them out of here!"

A pack of goblins came boiling out of the forest. No elves followed, no man or woman of the half of Kethrenan’s force that had stayed behind.

The goblins ran, long eyes ablaze with killing lust. Orange hides and red hides, and sickly greeny-brown, all of them acted like a shield wall, swords high to protect the hobgoblin who ran in the middle of their pack "For Gnash!" they yowled. And when they fell, their bodies filled with elven arrows, with shafts from an outlaw’s quiver, others came and took up the cry. "For the Great Gnash!"

Gnash brandished a staff, an old, crooked length of bleached cedarwood. Unadorned, it looked too dry to be considered even for kindling. The hob howled a word like a curse, and fire shot from the head of the staff, a great gout of flame shaped like a long arm reaching. It grew a hand, as broad as a goblin is high. Orange fingers of licking flame closed around two fighting, an elven warrior and an outlaw. They burst afire, screaming as the flames that killed one fed the fire that killed the other. The arm divided, two limbs ranged out from the staff, and the sound of the hob’s glee was the sound of madness as these reached out to grab elves and humans in fiery clasp.

"The hob!" Lea cried. "Get the hob!"

Hearing her voice, Elansa turned even as she ran. She couldn't help the need to look. Turning, she stumbled, staggering into Keth. As though Lea’s cries were commands for the outlaws, one of Brand's men nocked an arrow to his bow and drew. He'd not got his elbow up before a goblin’s dagger took him in the throat. But others had heard the order. Elven arrows buzzed, black shafts against the fiery wall of the burning forest, taking down one goblin after another. As quickly as these fell, that quickly did others appear, and the arms of fire reached and ranged, groping for the archers.

Keth dragged at her, pulling, and the four warriors waiting to receive her ran, swords out and ready. "Take her!" the prince ordered. "Keep her safe!"

It was on the lips of one to say the prince could count on them, he could know his wife safe. Elansa saw the very words forming as a sharp whistle pierced the frenzy, and something low and swift came leaping. Char’s hound flung himself at Keth, eyes blazing. It sank its fangs into Keth’s leg, then darted away as Keth stumbled. Fang raced back and leaped again. Great jaws closed around Keth’s wrist, and Elansa smelled blood and the stench of the hound’s breath. Despite his will, Keth’s grip on his sword broke. Elansa stood alone between the hound and her husband who shouted, "Run! Elansa! Run!"

Run! Run to the elven warriors-she didn't have to ask or wonder. She must run home. Running, Elansa saw a warrior’s eyes go wide, his mouth open to cry out a warning too late. The weight hit her hard from behind, the breath of the hound scorched her neck, its teeth grazed the flesh of her shoulder even as Brand's big hand grabbed her and dragged her to her feet. He yanked her hard around, cursing the dog, cursing her, cursing. Swift, a blade flashed, again a honed edge pressed against her throat. He did not shout Hold! as he had before. He needn't have. At the sight of his blade against her throat, the elven warrior fell still.

He was Cressin Oaktrue. Elansa knew him and all his kin.

His eyes on Cressin, Brand grabbed Elansa round the waist and pulled her hard to him. On her neck, his breath felt like the hound’s, steaming in the cold air and smelling of killing. Fang and his kindred loped across the stony road, the pack like five shadows gliding across the ground. From Fang’s muzzle blood dripped, one, two, and three small scarlet spots blossoming on stone, a prince's blood. This Elansa saw as Char whistled again, calling off the dog and taking its place at Brand's back.

"Now you decide," Brand said, leaving Cressin to the dwarf and speaking to Kethrenan. "Prince, what do you want-the life of your little princess or the deaths of all of us?"

Keth's eyes blazed with fury.

Cressin cried, "Shame!"

The rumble of wooden wagon wheels on the south-going road sounded like low growling. The weight they carried had increased: outlaws rode in the back of each. Outlaws ran jogging beside and behind. In this way the wagon filled with weapons rolled right out of the battle. If any elf or goblin saw it going from the battleground, none could do a thing about it, for they had engaged, the two forces, and would not disengage now.

"Like it or don’t," Brand said, his voice filling with a dark kind of satisfaction, "we’ve got the weapons, prince, and we have a pretty shield to keep us safe while we take what's owed from the bargain."

Brand pressed his blade against Elansa’s throat, better at it than Char had been. He drew no blood, but Elansa knew his knife-wielding habits. He'd slit her throat if he thought that would be satisfying.