Song of the Scar: The Red Horn Saga: A Prelude Read online

  The Song of the Scar

  J.R. Mabry

  [String 642]

  Isherwood, an Elf World

  The accused jutted out his chin as the soldiers drew the black oil bag over his head. Myrddin Eildithas was a lean fellow, like most elves. Unlike most elves, however, he had thick, strong arms, corded with muscle. Captain Tinlef Lurya knew that the condemned elf could, had he chosen, snap the bones of the eildilla attending him. He would not even break a sweat.

  Lurya looked to his right and nodded. He had hand-selected a team of archers for the execution. They were his best bowmen. It was not conceivable that any one of them would miss. The condemned would die quickly, for the captain was confident that more than one of those arrows would pierce the heart.

  He was about to give the signal when his lieutenant, Arun Miraven, approached on horseback. He reigned back as he got close. Lurya’s nostrils twitched at the smell of sweaty horse. “Can we speak?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Now?” Lurya scowled, but when Miraven nodded, he gave the signal to the archers to relax their strings and stand at parade rest.

  Miraven dismounted and the two elves walked a short distance from the company. “What is so important?” Lurya snapped.

  “We cannot do this,” Miraven said. “It isn’t just.”

  “It is not for us to decide,” Lurya said. “The king has condemned him to die. He has ordered us to carry it out. That is all there is to it.”

  “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

  Lurya studied Miraven’s face. His wiry hair betrayed that the lieutenant had some Gray Elf blood in his lineage. His skin was slightly darker than Lurya’s own, and his nose broader. But upon that face, Lurya saw struggle, and it was a struggle he shared. “Granted.”

  “If we carry this out, we are no better than the Contradeign. If we kill him, we kill a good and noble elf, a brave and loyal elf.”

  Lurya did not disagree with this. He had seen Eildithas in battle, and few could match him. His very name meant “noble soldier.” The captain had seen the elf charge into the fiercest melee in order to rescue a comrade, even if he had to carry him out on one shoulder while hacking away at the enemy with his sword arm. He had seen it more than once.

  “It pains me as much as it does you. But there is nothing for it. King Eoche has ordered it—”

  “King Eoche is wrong,” Miraven interrupted.

  “Lieutenant, I advise you to ward your tongue or you may have the honor of standing before the firing squad next.”

  Miraven looked down. “If we kill one of our best eildilla, the Contradeign win a victory over us this day.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Let us petition the king for mercy—the whole regiment.”

  “Are you so eager to taste Eoche’s wrath?”

  “Are you so eager to abandon justice?”

  “If the king says it, it cannot be unjust.”

  “That is precisely the kind of lie that would keep me up at night.”

  Lurya’s eyes widened. His lieutenant was edging dangerously close to insolence. He opened his mouth to chasten him, but then closed it. The officer had asked leave to speak freely, and the captain had granted it. He could not condemn him for it now. But enough was enough.

  “Your objection is noted, Lieutenant. And I thank you for it. And now you must stand aside and allow me to do my duty.”

  “Your duty is wrong.”

  “This conversation is at an end, and we shall return to the propriety you owe me as your captain.”

  Miraven looked down. “Yes, sir.”

  Lurya nodded and turned, striding back to where the archers waited. None of them met his eyes. They were good eildilla, brave soldiers, obedient and ready. “Draw!” They drew.

  “Does the condemned have any last words?” Lurya called out, loud enough for all on the plain to hear.

  “May the oyarsu favor us in battle,

  to bring an end to those who oppose what is right..”

  Lurya instantly recognized the words. It was a hymn, traditionally sung on the eve of battle, a blessing for the troops.

  “May they make my arm strong,

  to fight injustice and protect the weak.

  May fear rush into the hearts

  of those who stand against us,

  like a sudden spring

  that floods the dry plain…”

  A lump rose into Lurya’s throat. The elf was not condemning those who condemned him. He was not cursing those who carried out the order. Instead, he was blessing them.

  This is wrong, the thought bubbled up from deep within him. His lieutenant was correct. He hesitated, uncertain what to do.

  Let him finish the hymn, the voice in his head advised. So he relaxed and listened, allowing the words to wash over him, to bless him, perhaps even to absolve him.

  “May the killing stroke be quick and true. May we bless our enemies with the kindness of a swift death.”

  Lurya bit at the inside of his lip. It was a most apt selection. Lurya wished Eildithas could see his eyes, could see that his message had been received. But it was not proper to remove the black, oily bag mere seconds before death. The captain swallowed and raised his hand. He could see the arms of some of the bowmen trembling from the strain. He said a silent prayer that their aim would indeed be true.

  Just then one of the men cried out in alarm. Lurya jerked his head toward the sound, furious at the outburst, especially at such an inopportune moment, a sacred moment. The elf’s mouth was open, his eyes were wide, and he pointed at the sky. The captain followed the direction of his arm, turning and looking up.

  An angry red streak appeared in the sky, a great gash torn open in the vault of heaven. Lurya blinked, and then rubbed at his eyes, uncertain just what he was seeing. The streak was so far off as to seem small, and yet its span was as wide as the sun in its descent.

  “It is an omen!” one of the eildilla cried out.

  Lurya gave the signal to the archers to relax. Relieved, they shook their bow arms and looked to the sky themselves. Lurya looked back and forth, from his soldiers to the streak to the condemned elf. He hesitated.

  “It is the hand of the oyarsu!” Miraven called across the plain. “Beseeching us to cease this injustice!”

  Lurya did not reprimand him. The same thought had occurred to him. He felt very small, as if suddenly he was not a mighty commander, but a miniscule observer of cosmic events. He looked back at the ragged crimson tear in the sky and then jumped as the sound of a distant roaring filled his ears.

  “Look!” another of his elves called out. A trail of black smoke intersected the omen in the sky now. A tremendous boom shook the ground beneath his feet, like the firing of many cannon all at once. He crouched, struggling to remain on his feet as the ground beneath him bucked. A searing flame tore across the sky, far nearer to them than the crimson streak. It flashed past, directly above their heads, and then roared out away from them, leaving a billowing trail of fire and smoke. A moment later Lurya was knocked from his feet by an earthquake. The horses screamed, and several of them fell, kicking and rolling, their eyes wide with terror.

  And then, a moment later, all was quiet.

  “What is happening?” called the condemned elf from where he had fallen to the dirt.

  No one answered him. Lurya rose to his feet, unsteady, his arms out, ready to help his balance should the earth shake again.

  But it did not. Lurya’s eyes travelled along the line of smoke and saw that whatever had roared past them had crashed to the ground and was even now emitting great clouds of smoke and ash.
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  Lurya sensed someone very near him and glanced over to see his lieutenant at his elbow. His eyes were wide and his lips taught. “We must investigate this,” he said.

  The elf was thinking more quickly than he was, Lurya realized. “And what of our duty here?” he asked.

  Miraven met his eyes. “Elves die every day. This…whatever this is…this does not happen every day.”

  Lurya could not dispute this.

  “It looks not to be far,” Miraven noted. “Should I take a party?”

  Lurya’s brow furrowed as he thought. “Nay. We do not know what that was, nor whom—nor what—we might encounter. A company’s strength is in its collective force. We shall all go together.”

  Miraven nodded. “Shall I command the march?”

  “Do it.” Lurya nodded, but it was as if he was watching himself from afar, or in a dream. It wasn’t until he was astride his horse that he felt some sense of normalcy return. Even so, he could not help but look repeatedly over his shoulder at the streak in the heavens, sometimes to see if it was still there, but most often just because it was ominous and unsettling. No rending of the sky can be good, he thought. But then another notion emerged. The sight reminded him not so much of a ripping, as of paper, but of the tearing of flesh. That is what it is like—a wound, he thought as he rode, and in his belly he knew the truth of it.

  Dr. Tunar Illianar turned the brass doorknob to the sound of screams. “Gods,” he muttered, and quickly dropping his bag he rushed past the foyer into the front room. He skidded to a stop when he saw his maidservant Ariis on her knees, kneeling before his daughter. Dafe was squirming in a chair and letting out so great a wail that Tunar grit his teeth against the pain.

  Instantly, he summed up the situation. Dafe had a large scrape on one knee, and Ariis was trying to tend to it, bless her. Yet Dafe was a strong-willed child at the best of times and was not making it easy.

  Despite the noise, he let out a sigh of relief. No one is being tortured by brigands, he thought, trying to calm his nerves. No one is being gored by oxen. Other than a scraped knee, all is well.

  His hands were shaking, and he stuffed them into the pockets of his quilted doublet to quiet them. It could easily be otherwise. His wife had died at the hands of thieves many years ago. He had arrived too late to save her. The thought that he might arrive too late to save Dafe one day haunted him. Indeed, it was the very stuff of nightmares.

  He closed his eyes briefly, willing his nerves to calm. He was an elf of some stature, an academic, a philologist to be precise—an expert in languages. In the past couple of years, the natural philosophers at court had begun to collect and interpret signals from the æther. It was a kind of code employing alternating short and long bursts of distortion as a means of communication. But it was from another world. It was Tunar’s work to decode the messages and render them in the language of the Silnadin. Thus far, he had gleaned that the alien creatures called themselves hu-man, and were from a place they called Hearth. They appeared to be vaguely elf-shaped, but were tragically short-lived.

  After about a year of listening, Tunar had gleaned enough of their language that the natural philosophers could respond with messages of their own. A lively burst of communication had grown up between their worlds. It was all anyone at court was talking about, and for an expert in languages, it was a very exciting time. His services were much in demand, so much so that he had little time for the classroom—and even less time for his daughter. He told himself that all he did was for her—to keep a roof over her head and warm food in her belly. Yet he was aware that in all his time at work, he was missing out on so many moments like this. He waited for a break in the wailing and touched his maidservant on the shoulder. “Ariis, let me see to this.”

  Ariis looked over her shoulder at him, her face betraying her confusion.

  “If I can’t tend to my own child’s wounds, I shouldn’t call myself a father,” he explained.

  She stood and shook out her skirt. “I’ll see to supper, then. It’s probably burned by now.”

  He waited until she had left the room before kneeling before Dafe. She was a little more than six years old now, and smarter than she often let on. As soon as Ariis had left the room, she’d stopped wailing. Her eyes were large, unsure what to make of the sight of her father on his knees. “We got rid of her, didn’t we?” he whispered.

  Dafe’s eyes got even bigger, then she smiled, bringing her hand to her mouth. She sucked on her fingertips. It was infantile but adorable.

  Tunar pointed at her scraped knee. “How did you get this, then?”

  He looked up at her and watched her assessing him. Was she afraid he might be angry? He smiled at her with as much compassion as he could muster. She relaxed, and he could see the precious pointed tips of her ears poking through her unruly blonde hair. But she did not answer him. He did not expect her to. She had not said a word since her mother had died. Screaming she did in plenty, but not speaking.

  “We must clean this, or you will get sick. Do you understand?”

  Dafe said nothing. She only blinked. Sometimes Tunar wondered if perhaps she was damaged in some way, some physical way. But the doctors all assured him that she was perfectly healthy. She is damaged in the mind, he thought to himself, but then banished it. He could not stand to think such things, much as he feared they might be true.

  Tunis took stock of the materials Ariis had laid out on the floor. A damp, clean rag, a pot of ilia oil, some bandages. He nodded, content with his supplies. He continued, “It will hurt a little bit—but only a little bit. Can you be a brave little elf?”

  She pressed her lips together grimly, but nodded.

  “Good.” He picked up the rag and began to dab at the blood seeping through the scrape in her knee. She grimaced and flinched, so he tried to distract her. “Your skin is very important, you know. You should never go out in the morning without your skin. Do you know why?”

  She looked very surprised at this news. It was working. “Because, silly, if you go out without your skin, there will be nothing to hold your blood or organs in. You’ll bleed all over everything, and Ariis will be very cross with you. Can you imagine, leaving blood all over the furniture?”

  Dafe giggled at the thought, ghoulish as it was.

  “No, no, no, that wouldn’t do,” he went on. “The skin is our most important protective organ. Look here,” he pointed to her other knee, which was dirty but unhurt. “So long as your skin is intact, wee beasties cannot get in.”

  He leaned over and picked up one of her stuffed animals, a toothy spider, and began to attack her good knee with it. She squealed and squirmed.

  “But if we get hurt, like this here,” he pointed at the scrape, “there is an opening in the skin and the wee beasties will rush in!” He made the spider hop up and down near the wound. “And then they will begin to eat us from the inside out. Nom, nom, nom!”

  Dafe squealed again, with mock fright and delight.

  “So be very careful to keep your skin on, and not to make any holes in it, yes?”

  She smiled at him and nodded.

  “Good girl. All right, this is ilia oil, this will feel good, but it will tingle.”

  He was amazed at how still she sat for him as he applied the oil, and then placed the bandage. He wound it around her knee, not too tightly, and then sat back on his haunches. “There. Not too tight, is it?”

  She flexed the knee, assessing it. She shook her head.

  “Good. Off with you, then. See if you can help Ariis with the table.”

  He felt a welling of emotion as she rushed from the room. Of all the many things he had done that day, none had been more important than this. He sometimes wondered whose job was truly the most prestigious—his own or Ariis’?

  He remembered that he’d dropped his bag outside when he’d heard Dafe scream, and he opened the front door to collect it.

  And that was when he saw it—a bright red streak in the sky, like nothing he had eve
r seen before. “What in the three kingdoms…” he wondered aloud.

  Arun Miraven was an elf of strong opinions that often caused his captain to chafe, but Lurya had to admit he was an able leader. The elves under his command had packed their gear quickly and efficiently and were on the road within mere minutes of his order. Lurya looked behind him and saw the company marching in strict formation, the line of eildilla disappearing behind lush and verdant hills. Lurya relaxed and mentally left the soldiers in Miraven’s care.

  He wondered about Eildithas, the man they’d come out from the city to execute. He looked back again and saw the condemned elf about twelve paces behind him. The blinding bag had been removed, but his hands were still bound behind his back. His face was not angry or defiant. Instead, he looked interested, curious. Looking forward again, Lurya allowed himself to share in that curiosity. The plumes of smoke had lessened, but were still clearly visible, and he had no trouble following them, despite the obfuscatory nature of the hilly terrain.

  They marched for the goodly part of an hour. Then, cresting a hillock, Lurya found himself looking out over a wide plain. A mysterious object had cut a swath through the grasses before its impact with the soil had finally brought it to rest. Two trails of smoke still wafted from it.

  Miraven called the eildilla to halt and rode up beside him. “What is it?”

  “I cannot tell,” Lurya said.

  “A meteor?”

  Lurya nodded. “Does a meteor smoke as this does?”

  Miraven shrugged. “I know not. I have never seen one before.”

  “Then we must get a closer look. Onward.”

  Miraven signaled a march, and Lurya guided his horse down the hills onto the plain, heading directly for the object. In less than half an hour, he was close enough to feel the heat of it. He dismounted and stood about a stone’s throw away, studying it.

  He would have been hard pressed to articulate what he saw. It was larger than most houses. It also appeared to be made of metal. There were sharp angles to it, and clean lines, such as do not appear in nature. He began to circumambulate the object, pausing only to let Miraven catch up.