Cory Herndon - The Fifth Dawn

“It feels less and less like home all the time.”

“Hey, cheer up. Manacles,” Slobad said, waggling his eye brows with the exact opposite of subtlety. Slobad could pick the locks on a set of manacles. Glissa had no doubt about that at all. But how were they going to escape standing on an open terrace in the middle of the village? Still, she silently wished him luck.

Glissa felt she had run out of options. She had to prove her innocence, for Lyese’s sake if not her own. The crash of a gong signaled that the judges had assembled, and they called the trial to order.

“Okay,” Glissa said, “judges. Silver-hair’s got to be Lendano. He’s one of the oldest elves in the Tangle. I don’t think he’ll fall for any tricks. You know Yulyn, and … I’m not sure. I don’t recognize her. She’s no elf. That looks like one of the Sylvok druids.”

“Sylvok?” Slobad asked. “Looks pretty elfy to Slobad.”

“They’re human. But Viridia hasn’t had high-level contact with the Sylvok in years. They keep to their part of the Tangle, and so do we.” She grimaced. “They’ve always given me the creeps.”

The gong sounded a second time, followed by a familiar, gravelly voice that reverberated in the natural amphitheater. Glissa brightened a bit at the faint sound of metal scraping metal. Slobad was wasting no time working on his bindings. She hoped he could be subtle enough to do them some good.

“Who accuses this Viridian elf?” Yulyn bellowed. “Step forward, and face the accused.”

Yulyn referred to a piece of parchment and called Banryk to testify. Glissa heard heavy footsteps approaching her from behind, and a needle-sharp spear tip pressed into her shoulder, right behind her heart. She smelled sour, fermented gelfruit oil-a simple, abundant intoxicant the Viridians brewed called nush-as he leaned in close to her ear.

“Quiet,” Banryk whispered. “Or I skewer you, then cut up the goblin while you’re bleeding out.”

Glissa seethed. At least they hadn’t seen Slobad fumbling with his manacles. She was sure that would have created a little stir.

“We will have order,” Yulyn said. “Who accuses this woman?”

“I do,” Lyese said, stepping to the witness platform.

“Of what crime do you accuse this Viridian elf?” asked the Sylvok judge. Her voice was soft, almost elven, but her humanity was unmistakable. Her green robes glittered like sheets of jade.

The human’s presence was baffling. How bad had things gotten in the last few weeks, Glissa wondered, if the Viridians had to rely on human elders to judge her? Had her people and the Sylvok formed some kind of hasty alliance in the face of the leveler threat?

“Murder. This Viridian killed my parents,” Lyese continued.

“Did you see this act?” Yulyn asked. “How was the crime committed?”

“I had gone for a walk,” Lyese said, her voice strong, clear and tinged with bitterness. “To pick moon’s breath flowers. I was only gone for an hour.” Lyese’s voice trembled slightly, but she held her composure.

“And when you returned?” Yulyn asked.

“There was blood everywhere,” Lyese continued without faltering. “The levelers-”

Glissa heard a gasps from the crowd at the mention of the hated constructs.

“The levelers had my mother and father, and were cutting them to pieces.”

“Where was the accused?” the Sylvok asked, “Surely she, too, was … attacking them?”

“I didn’t see her at first. I tried to fight the levelers, but there were too many. And,” Lyese added, “I was too weak then. They took my eye, but I escaped with my life.”

“I’m confused,” the Sylvok woman continued. “When did you see the accused attack your parents? It sounds to me like she was lucky the levelers didn’t find her.” Glissa could hardly believe her pointed ears. This human was defending her against her own people.

“I saw her when she came back to my home, and led them away!” Lyese shouted, her composure breaking at last.

“Lyese, I wasn’t leading them,” Glissa said, “I didn’t know-”

“The accused will have the opportunity to speak in her defense when she is called,” Yulyn interrupted. “There will be no further outbursts, or this tribunal will immediately find the accused guilty. Is that understood?”

Glissa nodded. She wanted to scream.

“Very well,” Yulyn said. “The witness may continue.”

“I got out of the house, but I couldn’t just leave. I didn’t know what else to do,” Lyese said. “I saw Glissa head in, and when she came out the levelers were following her. And she had my mother’s ring.”

The ring. Glissa’s last piece of her mother, which she’d recovered at the grisly scene. And it was still on her finger, a damning piece of evidence.

“Does the accused still have this ring? Do you see it?”

“Not from here. Her hands are tied,” Lyese said.

“Banryk,” Yulyn ordered, “Bring the accused to the witness platform and unlock her manacles.”

“What?” the thuggish guard blurted.

“We must see her hand, Banryk,” Yulyn said. “We can’t do that if it’s tied behind her back. Don’t make me ask you again.”

Banryk seized Glissa’s bound wrists in one meaty hand. He yanked upward roughly, wrenching the elf girl’s shoulders and sending her half-stumbling forward. Banryk jerked back on her wrist before she could fall, but though this helped her keep her footing it sent more pain through her hyperextended shoulders. “Forward, prisoner,” he growled.

She felt a key slip into the locks on her manacles, and the metal bands slipped off. Banryk still held one wrist in his hand, and he leaned in again for another nush-scented whisper. “Try something. Please.”

“Present your hand for inspection,” Yulyn called. Glissa raised her free hand, the one on which she wore her dead mother’s ring.

“Yes, that’s it,” Lyese said, and Glissa could hear one last, faint hope die in her sister’s heart. “That’s my mother’s ring. How could you, Glissa? It’s just a ring! Why?”

“The witness will not address the accused!” Yulyn bellowed, raising his voice for the first time. “We will keep order in-”

“Yulyn,” said Lendano, his gentle, musical voice sounding out of place in this grim court. “This is ridiculous. Such a trial, in such a time of trials. Our numbers are now few. We have had to strike alliances with the humans just to protect ourselves. It is obvious to me that this girl did not command the levelers. No one commands the levelers. They are a force of nature.” Glissa felt an unexpected surge of hope. “Glissa?” Lendano asked, turning to her. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Glissa hardly knew where to begin. So much had happened since the night the levelers came and turned her world upside down, but soon her story came spilling out in a torrent. She told the tribunal and the assembled elves-and, now that she was looking for them, a few Sylvok as well-everything that had happened to her in the past few weeks, from coming home to find her house in shambles and her family dead, to her first encounter with Slobad in the leveler cave, all the way up to the destruction of Kaldra and the creation of the new green moon. She told them of the strange lands she’d visited outside the Tangle, lands most Viridians had never seen: the Glimmervoid and the noble leonin that lived there; the cancerous Mephidross, filled with creatures undead and worse; the Quicksilver Sea, where dwelt four-armed vedalken who enslaved the local human population; and the Oxidda Mountains, where the goblins of Slobad’s tribe dwelled in tunnels surrounding the Great Furnace.

She did leave out some details, especially concerning serum. She also skipped over some things she just wasn’t ready to talk about yet-Bosh’s connections to Memnarch, her own vengeance-driven slaughter of the vedalken mage Janus, and her repeated mercy toward Geth, the master of the Mephidross. Some things were better left until after the trial.