The Unnamed Blade (Book Two of The Horns of Elfland)

Chapter Fourteen

The night was dark and chill, a million stars gleamed through the still air, the milky glow of the starstream spread in a wide band across a blue-black sky; the Hunting Cat was overhead, pointing to the Western Star; the light from the almost-full moon threw inky shadows of the two dragons, six Elves and Ierreth onto the smooth rock face deep inside the crater of the long-extinct volcano.

– Go, said Ierreth to the Elves. Your little ones will be quite safe. When I left them, Sienne was telling Dinithu a story about a bear and a honey-tree. Jekavi is making a new boat. They are content.

Farinka laughed quietly, and looked over towards Jevann. –Any feelings? she asked.

– Difficult to describe, answered Jevann. I feel the beginning of a legend.

– Not the beginning, Jevann. A continuation, added Louka. I feel it, too. I didn't know precog was catching, she added, laughing up at him.

– It's not; it's inherent, said Jevann, putting an arm around her shoulders and meeting her gaze with his own. It just requires practice.

– So when will I see what I need to see? asked Nemeth, smiling.

– You will only ever see what it chooses to show you, said Jevann. The problem then is interpreting it.

– Come,said Hlammaeth.It is time to leave. We do not fly in daylight. The Sea-Elves will know we are flying – but humans have not seen us for centuries, and I would rather keep it that way; at least for a while.

Farinka vaulted onto Hlammaeth's broad neck behind Nemeth, with Sherath jumping lightly up behind her. Hlammaeth turned his head towards the other dragon.

– Are you ready?

– Yes.

– Hold tight, Children of Shiannath, said Hlammaeth, spreading his wings and springing up into the air. He spiralled upwards out of the crater, the great wings beating slowly and almost silently in the darkness; Ymbolc drew level, on their left, with the moonlight picking out the outlines of Tarke, Louka and Jevann.

– Oracle awing in spring? suggested Farinka to Sherath.

– See what I mean? he countered. It sticks with you, doesn't it?

They flew carefully, watching their shadows speeding over the ground beneath, careful to keep those shadows away from the villages and towns so that their shapes would not be silhouetted against the moon; they flew swiftly, and within a short while were over the open sea.

Farinka looked down, seeing first two, then three, then twenty or more Sea-Elves following the shadows across the water, the moonlight catching in bright flickers on their satiny backs as they jumped. She felt the dragons' Awareness fan down towards the water, the Sea-Elves' Awareness remained locked with the dragons' and the Elves'; a mind-fused D minor chord which reverberated and modulated eerily through the ether, into a C major, then G minor, then B flat major and back to the original D minor; then repeated again. The chord was supplemented by whale-songs, carried up to them through the Sea-Elves' Awareness in a haunting echo of their own mindmusic, filling out the harmony with a melody of their own. Farinka's mind fizzed down into and focussed on the melody, knowing it was familiar, and trying to place it.

– They are with us, said the Sea-Elves. They know you are flying. Where are you going?

– Nahrsalk,replied Hlammaeth.

– The Bondmaker, whispered the Sea-Elves.

The mindmusic washed through Farinka's memories, finding for itself something within those that they developed into a compelling repetitive echo of. She smiled; laughing both at herself and at the aptness of the memory.