Nancy Berberick - The Inheritance

Cold wind caught her breath as Elansa ran onto the second wall. Char, still on the heights of the Tharkadan, saw her and called out.’ She didn't hear what he said. Neither did she stop to look at him. Out on the plains she saw what Brand had described: two armies running fast. Even at this distance, she saw each was making a run for Pax Tharkas. Without doubt, the elves would reach the fortress in good time to hold the ground before the first wall.

Char called again, and again Elansa didn't look around. Looking for a way down to the first wall, she realized there was only one. Once, a long time age, there had been two, each tower having access to the wall from the lower regions. She could not go down into the deeps of the East Tower, but she could try the western tower.

The cold winter wind at her back, singing in her ears, Elansa ran along the second wall until she found the door into the West Tower and the long stairway down. She pulled on the door, and almost yanked it from its ancient hinges. Pale light ghosted in behind her as she ran down the stairs, making her best guess about how far she must go before she found the way out to the first wall.

She didn't hear Char’s warning cry, and she didn't know that a shadow slipped along the second wall and into the stairwell behind her.

In the gray light and shadows, Elansa ran, not bothering to count the flights down. The door she wanted was the last she would find, for none other would lead out. There were no levels beneath the first wall.

Her breathing sounded loud in her ears, and in her heart she wove a prayer to Habbakuk, her Blue Phoenix. The sapphire talisman grew warm on her skin, pulling to the beat of the blood in her veins. The beloved rhythm carried her, and she ran to the beat of her heart and a god's magic. In her mind she saw not the damp, glistening walls of an ancient tower. She saw a phoenix with wings wide spread, head proudly lifted. She heard not the echo of wind in the closeness but the triumphant cry of the phoenix, the god rising from the ashes of its own pyre. Life from death, spring from winter, fire from ash and ever the world turns from darkness into light, from despair into hope again.

It was a time before Elansa realized that the breathing she heard echoing in the tower, the panting from running, was not only hers.

Elansa stopped, heart pounding. She listened, her own breath held, and heard it. The understanding struck her like a blow. Someone had followed her.

A rough curse grated in the silence. She knew the word. Whoever was following her spoke in Common. Her heart pounding against the cage of her ribs, she recognized the voice. Arawn had followed her. Elansa pressed herself against the stone wall. Cold moisture soaked her shirt, the stone-sweat chilling her.

She listened to him breathing. She knew he was still, and then she knew he moved again. She didn't hear his footfalls. He was too quiet, but she heard his breathing coming closer, step by step. Down and down, nearer, and the closer he came, the harsher his breaths sounded. She smelled him now, the rank sweat, and when she looked up, she saw him as a darker form in the blackness of the stairwell, outlined in the red glow of his life force.

Elansa bolted. She clattered down the stairs, not caring if she made a racket. She wanted speed. Discovered, Arawn had no more need for stealth and silence. He, too, wanted speed, and he had more than she. He caught her on the next landing and slammed her hard against the stony wall. Grunting, he pinned her arms against her side, kneed her in the belly, and laughed when the shock of the blow drove the air from her lungs.

It was the only sound he made but for the harsh rasp of his panting breaths.

The weight of him held her as he clawed at her shirt, tearing it at the neck. Her head hit the wall as he forced a kiss, his lips rough and cracked with cold. She tasted blood, then she drew blood. When she bit him, he growled and shoved her harder against the wall. Holding her pinned with his shoulder, he ripped her shirt wide.

Struggling, Elansa tried to knee him but could not move. Raging, she tried to scream, and could make no sound that wasn't lost in Arawn’s own mouth. He shifted his pressure, shoving his shoulder against her neck, freeing a hand to loose his trousers. In that instant, light flooded the stairwell, cold and gray and damning.

"Bastard!" The cry echoed down the stairwell. "Whoreson bastard!"

Elansa heard the whistle of something heavy sailing through the air. Arawn jerked against her, and then he fell, sinking to his knees and toppling over. Booted feet thundered on the stairs. Her name echoed in the stairwell, from a voice so ragged with rage she would not have known who'd come to her aid if she hadn't seen what had killed Arawn. A throwing axe was sunk between his shoulder blades.

Shuddering, Elansa backed away from the wall, her shirt hanging in rags, icy wind running down the stairs to touch her with cold fingers. Suddenly unable to breathe, she stared at Arawn, then she stared at Char. The look on him frightened her as much as the body at her feet. He looked at her, and she didn't think he was seeing her. He looked at Arawn, dead, and she knew he was seeing someone else.

His brother, killed by his hand. And what had become of his wife, the woman who had betrayed him with his brother? She had not asked Brand. Remembering his grief, the remorse he tried to burn away with the fire of drink, Elansa was afraid to know the answer.

"Char." She crossed her arms over her breasts, with her two hands clutching her shoulders. "Char; I-"

I am not the woman who betrayed you with your brother. I am not she and have no part in your grief.

She said nothing like that. Simply, she said, "Char, I'm cold."

Startled, the dwarf looked up. He drew a long breath then snatched his cloak, the ragged wool, from his shoulders and held it out. Shaking, she took his cloak and covered herself as best she could.

"Girl," he said, his voice rough. "What are you doing here?"

Elansa looked past Arawn, down to the place where the door to the first wall showed dark in the wall. "I have… I have something to do." She began to shake harder, and then she forced herself still. "Char, I have to go out to the wall."

The dwarf put his foot in the small of Arawn’s back and yanked out his axe. He wiped it clean of blood on the corpse, and then looked up at Elansa. His one eye shone in the dim light. Like obsidian, she’d once thought, and bright.

She told him, as best she could and with spare words, why she'd come. "Whatever it is down there, it-they-whatever it is, Char, goblins are dead of it. We don't know if they came in from the hob’s army, or if they are from somewhere else. They died cursing in their own tongue, though. They were goblins, no doubt. Whatever killed them isn't finished."

She lifted the phoenix, holding it in her hand. Cries drifted up from below, voices Char knew well. With battle cries, hazing shouts, and mockery, Brand's outlaws engaged an enemy.

"Brand is driving whatever it is out into the courtyard between the first wall and the second. I… I will use the magic, as I did in the caves."

He cocked his head to get a better look at her. She felt herself judged, weighed in his look.

"Brand and I have made promises. Believe me, Char. You must believe me."

Whatever Char saw, he trusted. "Come on then," he said, kicking Arawn’s corpse over the side. He nodded in satisfaction when it hit the floor with a sickening thud. "Come on. We'll go to the wall."

He went before, she followed behind, and all the while she tried to find her way back to the magic. She could not even think of the words of a prayer. Something had fled or been driven from her, and all she could think of was the pressure of Arawn’s shoulder against her throat, his hands on her right before they dropped to tug at his trousers. She heard her own breathing as rasping, and when Char stopped her, his hand on her arm, she pulled away from him.