“Hey, wake up,” a strange female voice told me and I opened my eyes to stare into the strangest colored irises, they were a pale purple with streaks of silver that glowed as if they belonged to a nocturnal creature. But, I wasn’t scared of them. She smiled when she saw that I was awake. “Are you hungry? I have some hot tea and biscuits.”
She helped me up by grabbing my shirt front and hauling me up onto my buns. I blushed when I realized I was only in my long johns and covered by a hairy pelt. Bear from the fur that tickled my nose.
“What’s your name?” I asked trying to hold myself up. I looked around, the inside of the cottage was a one-room style with several windows covered with heavy curtains and gauze liners to let in the early morning light. The front door was of hardened oak wood and bolted with a drop board. I was in a bed built along the wall, one of a pair of bunk beds and laying under a red quilt and bearskin. The mattress was stuffed with something firm yet giving and rustled.
“Dried reeds from the swamp,” she answered my unasked question. I pushed myself back onto the edge where I could sit up. She let go.
“You can call me Arianell. Food? Drink?”
“Please. I’m Tob–.”
“Tobias, I know. You told me two days ago.” She busied herself at the fireplace which was roaring away.
“Two days! My horses!” I tried to stand up and found my feet uncooperative.
“Relax. I took care of them, fed, watered and picked them out. That stud is a handful. Sugar? Milk?”
“Please.” I finished my perusal of the cabin. It had an indoor pump, fireplace and stove that used wood to cook with. Counter space along one wall and a sink to wash dishes. Dishes were mounted in plate racks on both sides of the kitchen window. Towels hanging on rock racks near to hand. Everything proclaimed that this was a woman’s domain, clean and neat. Yet, I saw a rifle, bow and quiver near the door next to a scabbard that held an ornately chased hilt. The scabbard itself was a piece of artwork, leather with golden wire and jewels adorning it. I would bet my last meal that the blade would be the finest steel and crafted by a master metalworker from elf lands. “Where did you find hay and feed? Milk and sugar?” I asked, puzzled as I had not seen another horse in the stable. And what had been there was only enough for mine for one night.
She handed me a cup and I took it in mittened hands, handling it gingerly and clumsily.
“My hands?” I was afraid to look, I’d see what frostbite had done to other men caught in the snow. Lost fingers and toes and sometimes, even hands and feet. Noses and ears. It was not a pretty picture.
“I saved your fingers and toes,” she said. “As for feed, there’s a storage cellar and it’s stocked.”
“Oh.” I sipped the tea and my eyebrows rose in surprise. It was the finest black tea I’d ever tasted, even more so than what my father had stored in the tin he had bought back from Gleneden. “What are you doing out here?” I asked draining the cup. She gave me a scone and I bit into the buttery biscuit. Wow, these were really good, sweet and soft with just a hint of currants. “You cook these?” I mumbled around a mouthful.
“Why? Don’t I look like I could cook? I can and hunt, too. Ride and track. What are you doing out in the snow, in the worst blizzard of the season?”
“Looking for stolen horses,” I defended.
“Well, they’re not here,” she returned and handed me a bowl of stew. Rabbit with chunks of thick spring vegetables. I’d eaten three whole bowls before it dawned on me that I was eating spring vegetables in the winter.
“Hey! These are spring vegetables!”
“So?”
“It’s winter. These are fresh.”
“Canned.”
I pointed to a bunch of fresh carrots complete with leafy green tops. “Those are fresh pulled. Still have dirt on them.”
“Some things are not meant for Newlanders knowledge,” she said calmly.
“What?” I stood up and promptly fell down onto the bunk bed whacking my head on the upper story. “Oww!”
“I am a Borderlander, an Oldlander as you call us. We call ourselves the Elassa,” she said and shrugged. I stared. She didn’t look anything like the ugly, evil creatures my grandfather the Warlord had fought against and warned us about.
“But you’re not---,” I shut my mouth. “Why did you save me?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I should have let you die out in the snow and the cold? Really. What kind of person would do that?”
“Are you?”
“Am I what? A person? I’m just like you, Tobias. I breathe, eat, sleep and bleed just like you. What makes me different from you is no stranger than what makes you different from your neighbor or your cousins or aunts or uncles.”
“Then, why did my grandfather go to war with the Oldland–Elassa?”
“Because he wants what is over the Border Wall,” she said softly.
“What’s over the…Border Wall?”
“Magic. Wonderful things. A people who would have given yours access to all they had if only they had asked. Instead, your kind killed ours and drove them all away and took this land from us.”
“You fought us first,” I burst out. “Your kind murdered everyone at Cape Fear!”
“No,” she said sadly. “Your great Warlord torched the town with both our peoples inside. Killed them all because they were living together in peace. He murdered an entire city to prevent any from learning that the Border people were no more different that their own kind.”
“Not true,” I sobbed. “My mother came from there!”
“Your mother? How? I was told that there were no survivors.” Now, it was her turn to be surprised.
“She carried me, my father brought her out, rescued her and I was born two months later. She told me the story, how he sneaked into the city and dressed her like a Hussar and smuggled her out in his platoon. She was visiting her family when the orders came to attack the city.”
“Your mother’s name?” she snapped.
“Maleen Primrose Davenport.”
“Maleén Leanaí Ðæfnρόȓț,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Your mother is the lost Princess of the Tifnéræn.”
“My mother is dead,” I said harshly. “Murdered. They stole our horses, killed my family, my mum and dad. I’m tracking the murderers.”
“They stole your horses to get you alone and vulnerable. To make you follow them,” she said.
“They who? The Lemieux brothers did this. They stole the horses to sell them for money.”
“There is more to this than you think, Tobias Spencer,” she returned. She would say no more on the subject, only pressed me to eat and dress. She had taken my new clothes from my rucksack and stepped outside to take care of the horses while I pulled them on. I dressed in record time not wanting her to catch me naked nor to experience the chill out from under the quilt and bearskin.
I had seen once she’d opened the door, that the snow had stopped leaving on the ground at least three feet and drifts of up to six. The going would be tough on the horses but I wouldn’t push them beyond their endurance.
She came back in and stomped snow off her boots and carrying her own rucksack made of leather shaped like saddlebags. They were fancy, with carved designs on the flaps and bellies with symbols that looked like rune stones. Knots of such intricacies that I was intrigued trying to decipher them.
She threw them on the table. “Your horses are fed. I saddled the stallion for you.”
“Are we leaving?” I asked inanely.
“Yes. You are looking for your horses, remember?”
“What are you looking for, Arianell?” I returned, digging through my pack. She had stocked it with food, medicines, and tea, sugar, coffee and small cakes that looked like flat bread. Dried fruit and a flask of something that sounded thick when shaken. Fresh apples and the carrots I’d seen on the counter. “Thank you. Will you ride with me until we split up?”
She nodded. “We are going the same way, Tobias.”
“How do you know that?”
“Magic.” I saw that she was wearing leather britches, vest and full-sleeved pale yellow blouse gathered at the neck and embroidered with more of those Celtic like knots at the neckline and cuffs. Her belt was of leather with a fancy silver buckle also in the same knot design. Her boots were high and fur lined, laced up the front and of a reddish dun color. They were not made of deer, cow or horse. In fact, I did not recognize what kind of hide they had come from and said so.
“They are made of were-hide. Waterproof, insulated to -60° and tougher than buffalo,” she said.
“Were-hide? What’s that?” I watched as she strapped her scabbard down her back, pulled on a long coat that hugged her from shoulders to waist and then flared out in six panels down her legs. Over that, she placed a hooded cloak of deep blue velvet and lined with a thin fur that looked like moleskin. Last on were her bow, quiver, and gloves made of deerskin. She handed me a pair as well; mine, she said she had cut off and were no benefit in the bitter cold.
I pulled her offering onto my sore hands, amazed at both the softness and warmth of the gloves. “Red deer,” she said briefly. “Known for their cold-insulating fur.”
“We don’t have red deer,” I replied.
“Nor were-hide. Your land doesn’t have a lot of the things ours does. Weres are creatures of magic. Thick-skinned and sly hunters. You wouldn’t want to face one alone and they hunt in packs. Are you ready?”
“Yes.” I bowed to her and gestured she was to leave first as befit a lady yet she held the door open for me.
The horses were saddled and waiting out front. The sun filtered down through the tree branches and bounced off the snow with a piercing clarity that I knew would blind us if we weren’t careful. I flipped the hood of my own greatcoat over my head so that it almost covered my eyes. She handed me a pair of dark lenses in a leather strap and told me to put them on my face. I did so and the sun’s glare was immediately cut so that the shadows became clearer and the glare became darker.
“Sun glasses!” I said in delight. I mounted Diomed and she leaped lightly onto Beau. I noticed that she rode without a saddle or bridle, just a pad on his back that I used under the packsaddle.
“Do you want my saddle?” I asked politely.
“No. The Elassa prefer to ride unencumbered.” She patted the gelding’s neck. “He’s a fine animal. What is his name?”
“Beau. Peony and I’m on Diomed.”
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she told the horse solemnly. “We ride to find your companions. Diomed, take us to your herd.”
The stallion nodded his head and without me kneeing him or picking up the reins, he trotted eagerly through the snow and out of the small yard. She pointed out a narrow trail and we were the first to disturb the pristine white of the new fallen snow. It wasn’t long before both Beau and Diomed were sweating as both broke trail. It was easier for Peony as she got to walk in their footsteps. We traveled for a few hours through silent woods heading lower down the mountain but still following the ridges.
We stopped every two hours to let them rest. When the going got too tough, we dismounted and walked breaking a path for the horses ourselves. That was hard work. I’d been in the hills above the valley where I lived trapping in the deep snow but I’d had the luxury of snowshoes. Walking here was a huge drain on my energy and muscles but Arianell stopped before I exhausted myself.
We made lunch, let the horses eat and rest while we huddled around a small fire and did the same.