Gilead's Blood Read online

  Above everything, he hated himself for coming near them and among them. He had saved them, though they little knew it. He had saved them and it had cost him everything.

  Still they continued, daily, southward.

  AT FIRST THEY had buried themselves in the deep of the forests, avoiding the humans, keeping to themselves and looking only to the landscape.

  ‘Tor Anrok survived…’

  Fithvael had heard Gilead murmur it a hundred times a day.

  ‘Tor Anrok survived, all those years. How many other fastnesses and refuges of our kind might be out there? Niobe spoke of her home… Talthos Elios. We will find it if it still stands.’

  Fithvael’s brow would furrow with the pain of watching Gilead on his hopeless quest in this human desert. There were no elves here. There had been no elves here for centuries past. This place was human, so human that the elf was almost a myth, a story told by old men to wandering bards, and by bards to taverns full of wide-eyed, incredulous men and women.

  In those first weeks after Niobe was lost, Gilead spoke of looking for her himself. Fithvael had barely the heart to point out the futility. Instead, they looked for any and all signs of elven life. Gilead would see breaks in the landscape that reminded him somehow of the trace of Ulthuan. A low, flickering fire would burn in his eyes and he would dismount, leaving his horse for Fithvael to secure, bent only on what he had seen, or on what he thought he had seen. He would trample through thick undergrowth, scarring his boots and gloves on the spikes and thorns that grew there. He would wade to his thighs in heavy, brackish water with its foul smelling blue and green scum. He would study every stone and rock that stood out from the landscape, looking for signs of their kind. Looking for signs that were not there. That, perhaps, had never been there.

  Then Fithvael would watch as the light died and the blank, hollow expression returned to Gilead’s face.

  Gilead ate only when Fithvael prepared food and forced it upon him. He drank only when his friend offered a full flask. He slept not at all. And if Fithvael slept, he would wake to find Gilead staring into the purple night, living his waking nightmare, wishing only for death or for love. Wishing only for an end. It was as if they were right back at the ruin of Tor Anrok, before Betsen Ziegler’s cause had roused Gilead from his wasted misery.

  They found nothing.

  With every day that passed, with every new landscape they searched, Gilead’s desperation increased. He no longer simply examined the streams and rocks and changes in the patterns of the land. He tore and rampaged and desecrated and plundered the land for every clue. He ripped his hands and his clothes, covered himself in filth and stench, and time and again he fell to his knees, his lank, matted, sweat-streaked hair falling across his face, his body wracked with fatigue.

  ‘Galeth!’

  Fithvael heard him cry the name and a cold fist would clench in his gut. Gilead cried out in his delirium. Only on the best of these worst of days would he cry Niobe’s name.

  Fithvael watched and waited as Gilead became more distant, more desperate, thinner and increasingly delirious. He watched and he waited for the time when Gilead would open his eyes and his mind and see that there was nothing here for them. There were no elven relics, no elven homes and there were no elves. This was no place for them to find a home with people of their own kind. This was no place for them at all.

  Fithvael had seen the decline before. After Galeth, after the decade-long quest, Gilead had returned home to find that he was the last of his people. He had not only lost his brother and ten long years of his life, he had lost a little of himself, a little of his sanity, and the rest he had buried in a thousand indolent, self-absorbed days and many hundred flasks of liquor. Tor Anrok had crumbled around him, crumbled with him, and been lost.

  But with the loss, a tide had turned. Gilead had found a new fight and then another, and with every new cause he fought came the possibility of his death and an end to the pain. Gilead had left Tor Anrok and Gilead was the last of his line. Everything was gone.

  Fithvael saw now that Gilead’s quest was a vain attempt to restore what he refused to see was lost forever. But as he watched Gilead weaken into madness, destroying his mind and body both in his futile struggle, Fithvael knew that there was no turning from this path.

  THE TWENTIETH DAY passed, and the thirtieth, and the lush greens and golds of the days changed to the deep, burdensome hues of the dying season. Gilead saw nothing, but Fithvael recognised the pattern as surely as he recognised the lines coming to his own face. The nights fell faster and lasted longer, but it mattered not to Gilead, whose personal darkness enveloped him more with every passing day.

  Fithvael reckoned they were fast approaching the fortieth day since leaving Ire’s fastness when, riding again, as they had every day, Gilead abruptly wheeled his steed around in the shaded clearing they had reached. Fithvael thought they were to stop, that for once Gilead might ask for food or drink or some other sustenance. Gilead wheeled again… and again. Fithvael watched his friend make small circles, skinning the clearing of its low grey carpet of fragrant sage and camomile. The circles became smaller until Gilead demanded his steed turn on its hind legs, like a show horse in a parade square.

  ‘GALETH!’

  The ground shook with the confused horse’s heavy hoof-falls. The air shook with the anguished bellow. Foaming at the mouth, the horse began to ooze long threads and patches of sweat along its flanks and down its neck.

  Fithvael drew closer, his own horse pawing the earth and tossing its head with a frightened whinny.

  That veteran warrior and faithful friend dismounted and, leaving his horse to trot to a safe distance among the trees, he hunkered his body down into itself, making himself small and unthreatening, and took slow steps towards the unified, terrified, obsessed creature that was Gilead astride his steed.

  Drawing low beneath the horse’s neck, Fithvael reached out a tentative, ungloved hand and began to make soft, reassuring noises. Not to Gilead, but to the horse.

  ‘Hsssst there. Gentle down, gentle down.’

  Sliding his feet slowly forward, Fithvael tentatively rested his hand on the damp, cold neck of the animal as it twisted away from him in its ceaseless quest to tighten the circle it was stamping in the earth.

  Fithvael ducked as the horse travelled, bringing his hand up again and again to touch the animal. His breath came soft and even, like no breath at all compared to the snorting, flaring hot nostrils of the troubled beast.

  Finally, after a dozen or more passes, time began to slow for Fithvael as he focussed on his task. With every pass he rested his hand for longer on the horse’s shoulder or flank, until his hand held contact there, travelling over the beast’s trembling, flinching muscles. With every turn the tossing of the horse’s head lessened, the tension in its neck fell away, and finally Fithvael was able to take the slackening rein and bring the weary animal to a slow, rocking pace, and then to rest.

  Gilead sat in the saddle, completely upright, the stains of his own sweat seeping through his heavy clothes and smearing a darkening V down the back of his scarlet cloak. Sweat ran in long runnels down his cheeks and fell in heavy droplets from the lobes of his pointed ears. Everything that made Gilead himself was lost to Fithvael in that moment. He stepped in front of the bow-headed animal that Gilead still straddled and looked up into a face that he no longer knew, into eyes that he no longer understood. Gilead failed to meet the test. Failed to meet his friend’s gaze. Failed.

  Still holding the reins firmly in one hand, lest Gilead repeat his madness, or find some new horror to perpetrate on his loyal steed, Fithvael moved to the side of the horse. He took a firm grasp on Gilead’s boot. He shoved hard, releasing it from the heavy leather stirrup. Then, lowering his centre of gravity, he slid his feet shoulder-width apart, and braced himself.

  Fithvael took a deep breath. Holding it, he cupped Gilead’s boot in both hands. Gilead did not move. Freeing his breath in a great, resounding gasp, Fithv
ael launched Gilead clean out of his saddle and onto the ground with a heavy thud and a heavier winding. Standing and brushing off his hands on the sides of his tunic, Fithvael caught his breath.

  ‘That was for the horse,’ he said.

  FITHVAEL TORE HANDFULS of long feathery grass from around the bases of the trees across the clearing. When he had a generous fistful he folded the grasses over in his hand to form a firm, but gentle brush. He stroked the long, slender nose of Gilead’s steed with one hand, while grooming the neck and shoulders of the beast with his makeshift tool. The horse whinnied lightly and thrust his nose into Fithvael’s armpit, breathing regularly now after its ordeal. After working his way thoroughly down both sides of its neck and shoulders, the elf cast aside the used grass, now moist and brown, and began the process again. With fresh grasses, the veteran swordmaster worked his way down the steed’s slender forelegs, moving slowly, resting one reassuring hand on the beast all the time, whispering soft noises as he worked.

  The animal was exhausted and made no protest as Fithvael began to remove the saddle, working straps and the reins, buckles and fastenings. He could smell the sweet elven sweat of his companion mingled with the sour aroma of the horse’s fear. As he lifted the saddle, Fithvael sighed. Around thick, whitening sweat-marks he saw deeper, red abrasions. The smell of freshly stripped, raw flesh filled the air and fat, black flies began to swarm toward the bloody, bruised areas on the horse’s back.

  With two short clicks of his tongue, Fithvael summoned his own horse from the shade of the trees. It trotted toward the elf and beast, ignoring the heap of flesh, armour and rags that still lay, catatonic and foetally curled, in the middle of the clearing.

  From the saddlebags on his own horse, Fithvael took boxes and flasks of pungent waxes and oils. He sat on the spongy, moss-covered earth beneath the spreading canopy of a tree and set to work, grinding and pounding using his dagger hilt and a large flat stone he had found in the undergrowth. The two horses stood nearby, nuzzling each other and finding solace in the new-found tranquillity. Fithvael gathered leaves from the ground and scraped the papery red bark from a young tree with his dagger. The air was filled with a sappy fresh smell, mixed with the aromatic musk of well-prepared oils. As Fithvael carried his preparation across the clearing to Gilead’s steed, flies buzzed and flitted away from the little wooden bowl cupped in his hands.

  Fithvael spread the ointment on the saddle sores, thanking his old gods far away in Tiranoc that his healing extended to elf and beast alike.

  The thought made him hesitate and he cast a frown towards the figure that had once been his friend and master, still and broken on the earth.

  FITHVAEL SPENT THE rest of the afternoon tending to both of the horses, finding clean water for them and to refill his flasks, and putting them out to pasture among the trees. Relieved of their tack and riders, both horses by turns grazed the undergrowth and paced quietly together. For weeks they had rested only after dark and they felt the relief of a break from the daily monotony. Yet they seemed solemn to Fithvael, watching them at a distance.

  The elf warrior made camp, foraged for food and the herbs he would need, roughly cleaned his garments with some of the water he had collected, and as the purple evening spread above him, he built a small fire.

  Gilead still did not move. The only sounds were those of the forest all around and the horses resting nearby. Fithvael savoured the solitude all the more, knowing that he must break it soon.

  Hours passed and the daylight moved slowly on as Fithvael ate and pondered his next move. He could not go on with Gilead’s madness. He needed a plan of his own. The veteran swordmaster doubted, still, that Niobe’s home, Talthos Elios, might be found in the south, where for so long humans had lived and reigned. Yet he could not refute that Gilead had sufficient cause, in the first instance at least, to make this journey deep into human territory. If it was so, then south they would proceed, but they must find new ways to trace the old ancestors. The landscape had given them nothing but grief and despair. The landscape had brought on Gilead’s madness; a blight consumed his sanity and was never deep beneath the surface of the cheerless, austere elf-lord.

  Earlier, in the mauve twilight, Fithvael had thought to leave his master, who no longer deserved his love and trust and obedience. He put the thought from his mind. Their history was too long, too entwined, and Gilead could not survive alone here, not now.

  By the last indigo shadows of the evening Fithvael was minded to waken his companion, but the peace was too complete, too sweet without him.

  The night came, turning the clearing black, save for the yellow, opaque light around the fire. Fithvael rose and strode over to look down on Gilead, still curled, not moving, but with wide, open, depthless eyes. Old habits and deep-seated loyalty caused the old swordmaster to throw a horse blanket over his semi-conscious friend, but with all that had passed, no amount of fellow feeling could take away the pleasure of his relaxed solitude, and Fithvael left his companion a while longer.

  The elf sat through the dark of the long night, watching the fire, glancing occasionally at his friend. By dawn he was preparing the potions and poultices that would bring Gilead out of his strange non-sleep and restore a consciousness that Fithvael could only pray might be undisturbed by the obsessed, delirious behaviour that had grown and matured in the weeks since Niobe had been lost.

  WITH THE FIRST strands of daylight marking the horizon with an ochre haze, Fithvael rose and crossed to where Gilead lay. He touched the deep, smooth brow of his friend and tilted his head. He drew his bowl of restorative before Gilead’s sightless eyes and then tipped it to his lips. Much of the thick, herbal infusion ran away along Gilead’s vice-tight jaw, and Fithvael tilted the elf’s head further; if the potion was to work, it must first be imbibed. Two or three spoonfuls made it past Gilead’s drying lips, but bubbled back, warm and clear and brown. There was no swallow reflex.

  Fithvael began again, tilting Gilead’s head on its rigid neck and massaging his exposed throat to promote the swallowing action. Perhaps he had left it too long.

  After several minutes, just as Fithvael feared he would have to make more of his potion, Gilead finally gasped a choking gulp. His closed throat gurgled and his neck stretched in a reflexive spasm that showed suddenly in his eyes. Tears came to the corners of those languid, rolling orbs.

  His coughing fit at an end, Gilead jumped wordlessly to his feet and cast about him, eyes staring at his unremembered surroundings.

  ‘You are safe, old friend,’ Fithvael said softly. ‘A minor episode, nothing that a few herbs could not treat.’

  Gilead said nothing, but lunged his head and body around in circles, his feet spread apart in an aggressive, attacking posture. His hands searched for the hilt of his blue-steel longsword, which, thank Ulthuan, lay safely in his saddle’s scabbard.

  Fithvael rose, approaching his over-wrought friend. ‘Calm yourself, Gilead. You only need a little rest. Sit with me a while.’

  Gilead flailed at him, waving his arms and thrusting one leg out in an uncoordinated kick that all but swung him off his feet.

  ‘Have no fear! It is I, Fithvael, your faithful friend and companion. I would do you no harm.’ He stood tall, walking slowly closer, knowing he had nothing to fear from Gilead’s exhausted body, wary only of his master’s deranged mind. The potion had done its work on the form of the elf, but perhaps not so much on his spirit.

  ‘Galeth!’

  With the return of the doleful cry Fithvael’s face became stony hard and steel came to his eyes. Enough was enough.

  Fithvael drew the short dagger from his belt, the one he had used to collect leaves and scrape bark, and with both hands drawn up and away from his body he made a charge at his erstwhile friend.

  ‘Galeth is dead!’

  ‘Galeth is dead?’

  ‘You are dead!’

  ‘Gilead is dead?’

  Fithvael lunged at Gilead with his open, empty hand, more to ward off his fri
end than attack him. Gilead went wild.

  He kicked at Fithvael’s open hand, turning his body close to the old elf’s. His four-fingered hand struck out to grasp Fithvael’s wrist, but his reach was too short, or too clumsy, and he took the blade of the paring knife firmly in his grip. Fithvael looked down as ribbons of blood, seeming black in the dawn light, streamed from Gilead’s hand. But Gilead felt nothing.

  Fithvael let go his grip of the knife’s turned bone handle, brought his arm back in a short but powerful swing, and connected his bulging knuckles with Gilead’s jaw. There was a screech of teeth sliding too tight against each other and the harsh sound of bone on bone. Fithvael shook his hand out with the pain of the blow, but Gilead remained standing, whirling rather, dervish-like and manic.

  ‘Don’t make me hit you again, Gilead,’ Fithvael spoke, almost to himself. ‘For I will, if needs be.’

  Fithvael had no need to approach Gilead again, for this time it was Gilead that charged, in a bolting, uncontrolled lurch, head down, feet almost losing their hold of the dew sodden ground. Fithvael turned just before Gilead’s crown would connect with the veteran’s gut. The veteran swordmaster took Gilead’s neck in the crook of his elbow instead, wrenching and turning, pulling the elf off his feet and dropping him on his back in the sappy grass. The scent of bruised camomile filled Fithvael’s nostrils. Gilead reached out for the older elf’s legs.

  Finding himself suddenly on his back, Fithvael hollered, ‘Enough!’

  But Gilead was nowhere close to having enough. He fought as if for his very soul, in a savage, daemonic way that made Fithvael cringe back. Relieved that Gilead was weak and ill-coordinated, he merely blocked and defended himself against the flailing arms and legs. But only seconds into the brawl he knew that Gilead would go on until exhaustion overtook him - or until Fithvael broke him. Gilead had a long way to go to be sound of mind and body again, and exhaustion now might kill him. Yet Fithvael feared that, with just one more blow, he might kill the elf himself.