Dan the Adventurer, page 24
part #2 of Gold Girls and Glory Series
“They will expect you to shout cries for mercy,” Dan said, “but you will shout battle cries. They will expect you to rain down bribes and sacrifices, but you will rain down arrows and spears. They will march onto this meadow without even considering that the elves of Fire Ridge might dare to resist them. And we will pound them with the Fist of Fury!”
At the back of the crowd, a cluster of young elves hooted and pumped their spears overhead.
“Never again will Roderick’s Raiders force young men to serve the Duke of Harrisburg,” Dan said. “Never again will they steal away your women and children to sell them as property, like livestock at auction. Never again will anyone look upon the elves of Fire Ridge as weak and fearful creatures.
“We will not surrender. We will not appease. We will make our stand. We will fight. We will kill those who wish to kill us. And when the battle is over, the world will know that great warriors have returned to Fire Ridge!”
Dan held his sword aloft, and the courtyard roared to life. The elves and gnomes pumped their weapons overhead, chanting, “Fire Ridge! Fire Ridge!”
40
Holly Goes Home
A high stone wall surrounded the great delving tree at the heart of the grove.
To a visitor, the grove within the grove would seem like a cluster of huge trees, but in reality, the thick trunks all belonged to a single tree.
The great delving tree sat, millennia old, in the shade of its thick canopy, receiving a steady flow of energy from the forest for miles and miles around. Its tremendous root system was like a humongous brain. The roots stretched out for miles to tie into the root systems of other trees and groves, causing them to extend and entwine their root systems with those of still more distant trees and groves. The roots of the delving tree read the energy and health of these many trees, carried that information back across the miles, insulated by soil and stone, and delivered the state of the forest to the tremendous delving tree.
Many thousands of years earlier, the grey elves had built their community around the delving tree. The druids of the grove prayed to the sun and stars and moon, the wind and earth and water, to all the trees and stones of the forest, to every plant and stream, leaf and windblown seed. But towering over these entities, just as it towered over the forest, was the delving tree.
The druids focused their prayers on the great tree, which in turn powered their spells, gave the druidic council its all-important delving power, and connected the grey elves forever with their past. For here among the uppermost, partially exposed roots of the great tree, the grey elves entombed their dead.
They lay their corpses upon the ground, and within days, the bodies disappeared beneath a shroud of moss. As the dead elves’ physical remains melted into the ground, the roots absorbed the life force and consciousness of the deceased. This fed the tree, which in turn powered the people.
Over the generations, the great delving tree had melded with the elves of the grove. Its energy was their energy. Its past was their past. Its life was their life.
Holly waited beyond the wall, as custom demanded, for her father to finish mourning. She paced back and forth, growing more impatient with every passing second. She had been here for several hours already, wracked with worry.
Had Dan and Nadia made it safely to Fire Ridge? Where were Roderick’s Rangers? How long before the army of slavers reached Fire Ridge? And how could she possibly convince her father, the Iron Druid, to help hundreds of strangers and a daughter he had exiled?
If she couldn’t convince her father to send soldiers immediately to Fire Ridge, Dan, Nadia, Ula, and the red elves would die.
She, too, would die, because with or without her father’s help, she would return to fight alongside her husband and sister-wife. Lily, too, would likely join the fight—and die, if their father refused to help.
The Fist of Fury would pound anyone in front of it, but the weapon was fixed to its position. After the initial clash, Roderick’s Raiders would shift their attack to other sections of the wall. Once they broke through, a thousand bloodthirsty mercenaries would flood the fortress with only one mission: kill everyone.
Growling with frustration, Holly stopped her pacing and turned toward the door. She needed to talk to her father now, or his decision wouldn’t matter. Fire Ridge could be destroyed while she waited for her father to emerge from the grove within the grove.
Yes, she needed to speak with the Iron Druid now. Unfortunately, interrupting someone’s mourning was strictly forbidden.
Her father had already been mourning for weeks. This session alone had lasted for days. Despite his formidable strength and the intimidation he engendered, the Iron Druid had been a loving son. Doting, even. His mother’s death had nearly felled him.
How long might he continue to mourn if left undisturbed? Another hour? All night? Days? There was no way of knowing—and with dawn rimming the Eastern horizon in bloody hues, Holly was out of time.
“Oh to Hades with it,” Holly said, threw open the door, and entered the grove within the grove.
Beyond the wall, everything changed. The air was cool and damp, rich with oxygen, and redolent with the good, earthy smells of bark and moss and old loam. Within these walls, time seemed to stop. The vast canopy above blocked out the sky, eliminating day and night. The world beneath the canopy dwelled in perpetual twilight, lit by the soft blue glow of luminescent spore that twinkled like the countless stars of a vast constellation spread throughout the dark moss sheathing the great trunks and carpeting the forest floor.
Holly followed the stone walkway through the wide mossy spaces between the huge trunks, heading toward the center of the grove, where the greatest of deceased elves were entombed. Here she would find her father, mourning his mother and no doubt hoping to receive some whisper of affirmation from his dearly departed.
To either side of the path, oblong hummocks rose from moss. These were the dead, and like the forest floor upon which they had been lain, they were covered over in dark moss glittering with twinkling points of bright blue spore.
When her ice-cold fingers began to tingle, Holly realized that in her panic she had been nearly hyperventilating. She took a deep breath and shook out her hands.
Beyond this last row of trees, she would find her father. In fact, was that his voice she could hear faintly now? Was that soft moaning the voice of her father’s pain?
It was hard to know here in the heart of the grove. The air was never really still, never really silent.
As a young child, she had once sneaked alone into the grove within the grove. This transgression had thrilled her, but her excitement soon shifted into fear when she heard the voices.
At first, she’d mistaken the sound as the sigh of some passing breeze. But her subconscious mind had registered something, and Holly had frozen on the path.
Voices.
She had stood there, trembling, as whispering voices swirled around her like a breeze of words. So many words! Hundreds of faint voices all speaking at once. Speaking so softly that the words lost their shape, blurring into vague exhalations infused with loss and doomed to misunderstanding.
Holly the little girl had panicked, sprinted away, and never spoken of the experience to anyone.
You can do the same thing now, she thought, pausing just outside the heart of the heart. You can turn and run and wait for your father outside the wall, as you should.
But those were the thoughts of Holly the girl.
Holly the woman asked, And how many miles would Roderick’s Rangers march while I waited outside like a frightened little girl?
She took a deep breath, said a prayer to the great tree surrounding her, asking for the strength to do what she needed to do, and strode into the circular space at the center of the delving tree, the heart of the heart.
She paused again, struck by the sight of her father.
He kneeled with his back to her, weeping softly before a mossed-over hummock and another, smaller object just disappearing into the moss, the head of her grandmother.
“Mother,” the Iron Druid wept. He didn’t look powerful or stern now. He looked old and frail and broken. “Mother, please speak to me.”
This raw moment filled Holly with sorrow and shame. Seeing her father kneeling there, hearing the pain of his private words, she was again tempted to flee. It wasn’t too late. She could still—
But no. Dan and Nadia needed her.
“Father,” Holly whispered.
The Iron Druid leapt to his feet with astonishing speed. His eyes were red from crying, his cheeks streaked in tears. Seeing her, his face convulsed through various emotions. His pain-filled eyes lit up at the sight of her, and he almost smiled. His mouth wriggled and he blinked. Then iron returned to him as his face hardened into a mask of fury. “How dare you interrupt my mourning?”
Holly went to one knee and bowed then rose again before answering. “I’m sorry, Father, but I need your help.”
“I sent you away.”
“And I’ve come back. You know me, Father. I wouldn’t have returned if I didn’t need you.”
“You’ve come to your senses, then? Did the human cast you off for some other amusement? They’re children, all of them.”
Anger sparked within Holly, but she tamped it down. It would be impossible to argue the character or wisdom of her nineteen-year-old husband against her thousand-year-old father. Besides, that wasn’t her fight. Not today. “I need you to call the grove to arms.”
Bitter amusement curdled her father’s facial expression. “Call the grove to arms? Has an army of woodsman descended on the forest to steal away our trees? Has a legion of arsonists invaded our—”
“No, father,” she interrupted. She didn’t have time for his sarcasm. “An army of slavers is marching on Fire Ridge.”
For a second, he stared down at her haughtily. She and her siblings favored the angular, fine-boned features of her mother’s people. Her father, on the other hand, had a square jaw, a boxy face, and dark eyes set predatorily close to his hawk-like nose. He kept his hair short and wore no ornamentation. His robes, like the hair at his temples and the irises of his hard eyes, were iron gray.
In rare moments like this, when anger broke through his default stoicism, she could see her brother Briar in him.
“Fire Ridge,” her father said, his voice cold and mocking. “Isn’t that the ancient fortress that’s fallen into ruin, along with the entire red elf culture? The crumbling home of the once tyrannical elves who have long and thankfully been fading toward extinction? A people we once feared and hated? A people we don’t even pity as their last ember winks away into darkness? That Fire Ridge?”
Wrestling with anger, Holly said, “Yes, Father. That Fire Ridge.”
“Then why in Hades should I care?” the Iron Druid thundered.
“Because Dan and Nadia are there, defending the elves!”
“Ha!” her father barked cruelly. He shook his head, a look of disgust coming onto his face. “You had such promise, Holly. I really thought that you, of all your siblings, would be the one to carry forth our proud druidic heritage. But—”
“We can talk about my path later, Father,” she said. “This cannot wait. We need your help now.”
Her father’s eyes flashed dangerously. “I expelled you from the grove. Now you return without my pardon, interrupt my mourning, and demand that I sacrifice grey elf lives in a battle that has nothing to do with the grove?”
“Dan is your son-in-law now, Father, like it or not. And Nadia is my sister-wife.”
“Enough!” he shouted with an impatient wave of his arm. “Even if your human plaything survives this absurd engagement at Fire Ridge, he’ll die of old age tomorrow. The so-called sister-wife as well. The lesser races are insects. Born one day, they swell rapidly to full size, buzz loudly, sting a few people, and die.”
“I love them!”
The Iron Druid snorted derisively. “Let us not talk of your girlish mistake. You have returned. That is enough. I will forgive you, and you will forget these children and return to your studies. And not at that infernal distraction of a university. Here, in the grove, under my direction. We will return you to your proper path, and one day a few hundred years from now—”
“No!” Holly shouted. “This is real, Father. I love them, and we need your help. With your help or without your assistance, I am returning to Fire Ridge to fight by their side. If you love me, Father, come to our aid.”
The Iron Druid stared at her with hard eyes. “You do not know what you ask. The grove is neutral. We are neither good nor evil. We do not involve ourselves in the affairs of men, unless it is to protect and preserve the forest. So it has always been and so it shall always be, the great tree willing, from the Long Before to the Last Tomorrow at the end of time.
“If we involved ourselves in these concerns, we would violate our neutrality, disrupt the enduring balance, and endanger our grove. Yes, I love you, Holly. More than you could ever know. But even for you I will not betray my duty, our grove, and grey elves past, present, and yet unborn.”
Tears filled Holly’s eyes. “Father, please. Roderick’s Raiders killed Nettle! And now you’ll let them kill me?”
“Yes,” her father said, staring into her eyes. “Yes, I will let them kill you if you ignore my advice and join that fight.”
Holly was too horrorstruck to speak.
“The grove will not involve itself in these affairs,” her father said. “The grove will endure, as it has always endured, as a force of neutrality and equilibrium. This is my final word.” And with that, he turned his back on her.
“Father…” she whimpered and fell to her knees. Not to beg. Her father had spoken, and nothing would change his mind now. She fell beneath the crushing weight of the full knowledge that she must now head off to die, forsaken by grove and family, alongside her husband and sister-wife, all while her father and his army remained safely within the walls of their magical sanctuary.
There was nothing left to say. Nothing left to do except to summon the strength to rise and walk away… forever.
“Son,” the air whispered.
Something shifted in the moss between them.
Holly and her father stared down at the withered face of her grandmother. Behind its blue-spangled veil of dark moss, her grandmother’s head whispered, “Child.”
“Mother?” the Iron Druid said, falling to his knees beside the face in the moss.
“The grove,” the head whispered. “Danger. Death. Destruction. Unless. Child.”
Countless voices whispered across the mossy ground, echoing her, “Child, child, child.”
The Iron Druid, streaming tears again, said, “Mother, what do you mean? What child? What do you want me to do?”
“Child,” the head said again. “Grave danger. In time. Death of the grove.”
“What danger?” the Iron Druid asked. “What child?”
“Child, child, child,” the voices whispered.
“A special child,” the head said. “Conceived in blood, born in war, raised in fire. The savior yet unborn.”
“What do you want me to do, Mother?” the Iron Druid asked again.
“Save the boy.”
“The boy? You mean the child? The unborn savior?”
“No,” the head said. “Save the boy. The human.”
“Dan?” Holly said, hope sparking in her chest.
“Yes,” the head said.
“Yes, yes, yes,” the voices whispered.
“Save Dan and save the child,” said the head of Holly’s grandmother. “Go to Fire Ridge.”
The Iron Druid stared down, struck speechless.
The head said, “Holly must promise. Must pay the price.”
“Price, price, price,” the dead whispered from all around the heart of the grove.
“What price?” Holly’s father asked.
“I don’t care what it is,” Holly said. And she didn’t. She would rather die and go to Hades with a broken back than abandon Dan and Nadia. “I’ll pay the price. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it, whatever it is.”
And her grandmother told them what Holly needed to do to secure the help of the grove.
Holly nodded, blinking away tears. She thought of Dan, of Nadia, of the future she had planned. All gone now. All flames and ash.
Holly lifted her chin. “All right,” she said with a sniff. “I’ll do it. I vow this upon my life and my blood before my ancestors living and dead, here within the heart of the grove. I will do it.”
41
Black Fires Burn Again
“Heave!” Dan roared, and hauled down on the rope as hard as he could. Around him, elves hollered, throwing themselves into the effort.
Dan’s exhausted muscles strained, dragging the rope backward yet again. Overhead, pulleys worked their magic, lifting the huge log off the ground and raising it vertical again, the pointed end jutting skyward. Workers surged forward, guiding the flat end of the log into the deep ditch they had dug in front of the makeshift main gate.
When one of the elves had initially shared Ula’s idea, Dan had wondered if there had been an error in translation.
Tear down a section of the palisade fence? Was Ula serious?
She was.
And not just any section. Ula suggested that they pull down the palisade that ran in front of the fortress, in plain view of anyone entering the meadow. She wanted to knock down the outer wall directly in front of their weakest point, the slapped together main gate that could never withstand a direct assault.
This was an insane idea. They had worked so hard to repair the palisade. Why would they pull it down and expose the chink in their armor?
But then the warrior woman had explained her reasoning.
Had they fixed the entire palisade, it would have served its purpose. Fragmented as it was, however, the outer fence would only work against them. Roderick’s Raiders would hide behind it, using the thick timbers to shield their staging area, and then pour through the gaps.
