Elven Winter

  ALSO BY BERNHARD HENNEN

  The Elven

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Bernard Hennen

  Translation copyright © 2018 by Edwin Miles

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Elfenwinter: Elfen 2 by Heyne Verlag in Germany in 2014. Translated from German by Edwin Miles. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2018.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503949119

  ISBN-10: 1503949117

  Cover design by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative

  FOR MENEKSE AND MELIKE, MY HOME

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  MAP

  THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

  Hunting for the . . .

  THE PACK LEADER

  A QUESTION OF HONOR

  BLOOD

  FIRE AND WATER

  THE CONFESSION

  THE VOICE FROM THE LIGHT

  BENEATH THE PRICKLY SHROUD

  MORNING ON THE FJORD

  THE REED

  THE GIFT OF FREEDOM

  THE ARROW IN THE THROAT

  THE RITUAL

  A NIGHT OF LOVE, ALMOST

  OF STRANGERS AND FRIENDS

  THE CHRONICLE OF FIRNSTAYN

  ROYAL PLANS

  NOT AN EVERYDAY OFFER

  IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT

  THE SAGA OF HORSA STARKSHIELD

  THE SKYHALL

  THE TROLLS’ PLIGHT

  BOARDING RAMPS AND BATTERING RAMS

  THE WRONG BATTLE

  PASSION

  A TALK IN THE NIGHT

  REBELS, FARMERS, AND A FEW GOOD MEN

  THE SMALL COUNCIL

  POLEAXES AND PIKES

  HOME

  THE CURSED ARROW

  GOOD-BYE

  AT THE THRESHOLD

  A NEW WORLD

  THE WOLFPIT

  THE FOUR-LEGGED FORTUNE

  APPENDICES

  GLOSSARY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  “Where are we going?”

  “Always home.”

  —Novalis

  THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

  They will try to kill the queen.”

  The tall, young elf woman looked at Ollowain in disbelief. She seemed to think his words were a poor joke. A smile played on her lips but vanished again when he made no sign of returning it.

  Ollowain knew well how monstrous his declaration must have sounded. Among the people, Emerelle was the ruler, beloved by all. She was the personification of all that was good, the devoted queen of the Albenkin. Yet there had already been two attempts on her life. “Find a place to hide, somewhere you can observe the crow’s nests of the ships around the queen’s liburna. The moment you see anything suspicious, shoot! The slightest hesitation could mean Emerelle’s death.”

  The woman stepped to the edge of the terrace and looked down over the city on the harbor. Vahan Calyd lay on a wide, rocky bay at the end of a tongue of land. It was the largest city on the Woodmer, although few of the Albenkin actually lived there. The palace towers, rising proudly above the simple houses, were rarely occupied. Once every twenty-eight years, the princes of Albenmark gathered in Vahan Calyd to celebrate the Festival of Light together. Then, for a few weeks, the city roused itself from its perpetual sleep. Every even halfway important clan maintained at least one house in the town, although most of the time, it stood empty. And while the princes of the Albenkin vied to outdo each other with the splendor of their palace towers, it counted for little more than vain trumpery and mattered only for a few short weeks every twenty-eight years. The rest of the time, the spacious streets were the domain of the stalking fiddler crabs that strayed into Vahan Calyd from the nearby mangrove marshes. The crabs far outnumbered the servants and the holdes who tended Vahan Calyd—and led an even more leisurely life. Then there were the hummingbirds, terns, and troll-finger spiders that built their nests beneath the eaves of the palaces and lived virtually unmolested for generations, until once again the Festival of Light approached. Then thousands of visitors came to the harborside town and filled its streets, and the fiddler crabs were boiled in enormous copper kettles and haggled for on every street corner. Vahan Calyd spilled over with life when, as today, the night of nights grew near and the most imposing ships of Albenmark assembled in the harbor. It was a festival of vanity, a festival at which the princes put their power and wealth on display for one another.

  Silwyna turned back to Ollowain. She wore her hair combed back and woven into a long braid, which made her angular face look even more strict. The huntress was esteemed as one of the best archers in all of Albenmark, but what mattered more to the swordmaster was that she was discreet, and even more importantly, he knew that if she were on his side, then she would serve no other master that night. At least, that is what he hoped. Silwyna was one of the Maurawan. Her roots lay with the elvenfolk who lived far in the north, in the inhospitable forests of the Slanga Mountains. The Maurawan elves were seen as unpredictable and sly, and most of them made no secret of their contempt for Emerelle and the pomp and ceremony of her royal court.

  “What you are asking me to do is impossible,” said Silwyna calmly, and her eyes scanned the wide harbor once again. More than 150 large ships lay at anchor at the quays. A veritable forest of masts jutted skyward above the waters, and the curious were already clambering up the rigging in search of the best viewpoint for the great festival.

  “Imagine for a moment that you wanted to kill Emerelle just before she received the tribute from the Albenkin princes on the Moonshadow’s quarterdeck. How would you go about it?” Ollowain asked.

  Silwyna looked around. The sun was just dipping beneath the horizon, and the masts cast long shadows landward. Already the first lights were being lit. The ships had been decorated with garlands of flowers, and more and more of the Albenkin jostled on the decks of the ships and around the harbor. Soon it would be all but impossible to move down there.

  Ollowain was running out of time. He had to get down to Magnolia Court, where the queen’s entourage was gathering. Perhaps he could still convince Emerelle not to step out on the Moonshadow’s decks and become a walking target.

  “I would be there.” The archer pointed to a turquoise ship with silver fittings on its hull and superstructure. “The Breath of the Sea. One would have a good view of Emerelle’s grand liburna from there. The ship is far enough away from the Moonshadow to avoid too much scrutiny, and the distance between them is enough to give it a good head start when the chase begins.”

  Ollowain leaned slightly and scrutinized the young elf woman. She is a Maurawan, he warned himself. Tracking down prey was her life. A shudder went through him. Even in his dreams, he would never have thought of his queen as prey. He straightened up. “Why the Breath of the Sea? I’ve been thinking about the ships down there for the last five hours. What you just said could apply to at least three others.”

  “How much do you know?”

  Ollowain avoided her eye. “Very little.” And of the little he knew, he could tell her almost nothing.


  “If someone wants to kill the queen with an arrow, then it is because the assassin will want to escape with their life. Or am I mistaken?”

  “I hope you are not,” Ollowain replied flatly. Everything that had happened so far suggested that Silwyna was right.

  “One could flee easily from the Breath of the Sea.” She pointed toward the galleass, its light turquoise transforming to a pale gray in the twilight. “The other ships are at a distance. They are not anchored close.”

  “That is to allow the galleass to get its oars down. It needs more room to maneuver,” Ollowain explained. Secretly he was annoyed at himself for not thinking of it. He suspected where Silwyna’s thought was going.

  “It could be towed to open waters as easily as any of the sailing ships. If I wanted to kill the queen, I would position myself in the foremast crow’s nest. After the shot, it would be a simple matter to flee across the yard and jump into the harbor. I’d call a dolphin to take me out of the harbor to the mangroves or to a boat waiting out on the open sea.”

  Ollowain could feel the individual droplets of sweat trickling down his forehead. He looked intently at Silwyna. Had he been mistaken, choosing her? She could think like a murderer only too well. Was that only because she was a huntress? She had prepared herself! To the fleeting glance, she seemed to be dressed for the festival, but he saw more in her than just a harmless guest. She was ready to melt away into the shadows of the night. To lie in wait and to kill. Silwyna was dressed in a dark leather doublet embossed with an elaborate design of flowers. Beneath that she wore a black silk shirt and loose-fitting silk trousers. Her face was painted with bandag, the red-brown juice of the dinko bush. Her pale skin all but disappeared beneath the inky pattern of spirals and stylized wolf heads. Even the leather bracer she wore on her left forearm looked at first like no more than adornment. It was certainly true that dressed as she was for the festival, she made a grim impression, but that would surprise no one, because offending etiquette was just what one would expect of a Maurawan. They were the untamed, raised in the forests. It was rumored that they lived with animals. Ollowain considered that to be just talk, but he knew, too, that many thought the tales to be true.

  She suspected something like this, the swordmaster placated himself. After all, it was you who asked her to come with her bow. On the other hand, on a night like this, it was more usual to meet on a dance floor and not on a concealed terrace high in the queen’s palace. At least, not when one was responsible for the security of the queen of Albenmark. Silwyna had suspected that she was being invited to a hunt. And she had dressed accordingly.

  “I will go and take a look at the Breath of the Sea,” she said softly.

  Ollowain pursed his lips in exasperation. So naive! “That is the prince of Arkadien’s flagship. They won’t let you on board. Besides, I don’t think the assassin is there.”

  “I was not planning to ask for permission to board,” she replied confidently.

  Below, at the harbor, the first lights were being set adrift: hand-sized cork rafts on which oil lamps burned.

  Silwyna peered at him; it felt to Ollowain as if she were holding him captive with her eyes. Her irises were a cold light blue ringed by a thin black border. Wolf’s eyes, he thought with a shiver.

  “Tell me what you know! Why would the killer not be aboard the Breath of the Sea?” she asked sharply.

  “I will not discuss it. Go and hunt for me, and in return I will see to it that you travel to the human world through Atta Aikhjarto’s Albenstar.”

  Silwyna smiled ambiguously. “Why do I always make the mistake of getting involved with you pampered courtiers? I know I am not supposed to follow the human into his world. He will disappoint me. I think I must have fallen from the mother tree as a child and smashed my head on its roots. If the Alben favor me, we will meet one day in a forest, Ollowain, and I promise you that you will be more courteous to me then.” She reached for her bow, looked up a final time. “By the way, you have a little sweat on your brow.”

  “Do I?” Ollowain took a linen handkerchief from behind his belt and dabbed at his eyebrows. “Thank you,” he answered tonelessly.

  Silwyna did not give him another glance. She swung herself over the railing of the terrace and surefootedly found the narrow kobold steps, half-hidden by creepers, that led down the outer facade of the palace. She trotted easily down the steep stairway. Ollowain could still see her when she climbed away over the thick roots of a mango tree, but then she vanished in the play of light and shadow below.

  The swordmaster tucked his sweaty handkerchief back into his belt. He looked down at himself critically and tugged his silk doublet straight—he did not want the steel breastplate concealed beneath the thin fabric to be too obvious. Death had an appointment with Emerelle that night. But he would be there to step between them!

  Ollowain’s gaze turned to the towers, enveloped now in eerie lights. He did not like Vahan Calyd. It was said that the Alben had created the first of the Albenkin in that enchanted place. There in the south where the forest and the sea merged into one another and formed an enormous mangrove swamp rather than a coastline, there where borders no longer counted, anything seemed possible . . . even the seasons of the year had been suspended. All there was in Vahan Calyd was heat and humidity. Nothing ever dried out properly. And the shifting phases of the moon were only differentiated by more or less rain.

  Ollowain wiped one hand over his forehead nervously. Most elves learned as children how to arm themselves against heat or cold with a word of power. They could wear a thin silk shirt in the bitter cold of the Snaiwamark without freezing or prance around in magnificent furs there in Vahan Calyd at the Festival of Light without losing so much as a drop of sweat. Ollowain had never mastered that magic. And he perspired—not like the centaurs, whose naked torsos gleamed constantly with sweat in the jungle heat, as if they had oiled their muscles—but occasionally a droplet of perspiration would appear on the swordmaster’s forehead, or he might feel his silk shirt clinging to his damp skin. To sweat was unseemly, and it was unbecoming of the commander of the queen’s bodyguard.

  Soon, at the ceremony, he would be standing at Emerelle’s side. Thousands of eyes would be on him. And he knew that there would be whispering. He hated appearing imperfect in any way. Of the races of Albenkin, the elves were the last created and the most perfect of all. They were flawless, and something as apparently insignificant as sweat on one’s brows was, for an elf, a stigma, as a face half-consumed by pox scars would be for a kobold.

  It had been indelicate of Silwyna to mention the sweat on his brow so directly. But what else would you expect from a Maurawan? Ollowain wished he could have taken any elf but her into his service—would she betray him as she had once betrayed his foster son, Alfadas?

  The swordmaster pulled himself together. It was foolish to waste his time in fruitless brooding. He straightened his sword belt and started down the broad marble staircase that led to the inner courtyard. The queen’s palace was a towering accumulation of intertwined spires. More than a dozen courtyards and terraces ringed the spires like leaves around a stalk. Most of the palace had been built from the blue-white marble mined in the Iolid Mountains. Over the centuries, the roots of lush trees had infiltrated deep into the stonework. They had taken over the towering palace as if it were no more than an artificial rock. Snake fern grew up the walls, and everywhere one looked, delicate orchids flourished between forking roots or grew on sheltered sills where a little humus had collected.

  Emerelle visited Vahan Calyd only once every twenty-eight years. The Festival of Light was celebrated whenever the day of first creation fell on a new-moon night. All the princes of Albenmark celebrated it together. It had once been the custom to elect the king of Albenmark on the night, but Emerelle had now ruled for hundreds of years, and it had not occurred to anyone to question her claim to the throne. To stand for election against Emerelle was hopeless. She was certainly not beloved by everyone, but the princes
of Albenkin were so at odds with each other that none could hope to win a majority against Emerelle. But if something were to befall the queen . . . then a new ruler would have to be agreed upon.

  For anyone who coveted the throne, the Festival of Light was the best opportunity for an attempt on Emerelle’s life. All the princes of Albenmark were already gathered in Vahan Calyd, and they could immediately hold a royal election should anything happen to the queen. An attempt at any other time would make little sense, as it would take more than a year to call the princes together, which would leave plenty of time to weave intrigues and very likely engage in an open power struggle. But if the murder happened during the festival, everyone would be caught unawares—everyone but the one who planned the queen’s death. If a prince were to step forward decisively and confidently in the aftermath, he could win the crown in a single night.

  Who would voluntarily go after the burden of power? It was a riddle to Ollowain. At court, there were rumors of a secret feud between the queen and Shahondin, the prince of Arkadien, and whisperings that his father’s death had been no accident. The queen’s spies had reported that the prince’s family was pointing the finger at Farodin, the banished. They believed that he had carried out the assassination on the queen’s orders. That was absurd, and anyone who knew Farodin could only laugh at such claims. Still, Ollowain had his own spies keeping a sharp eye on the Breath of the Sea, Shahondin’s flagship.

  Were the attacks on Emerelle not about the throne at all? Were they no more than revenge? From that perspective, it made good sense to bring the blood feud to an end during the festival—suspicion would naturally fall on whoever made a subsequent play for power.

  Ollowain strode quickly along a bricked tunnel. Blue light seeped from the stones in the ceiling. The fine hairs on the warrior’s neck stood on end. The air prickled with magical power.

  Thousands of spells were being cast at that moment. Every race and every clan among the Albenkin that had inherited the power was working its magic in that hour. It was a centuries-old competition among the sorcerers, all trying to outdo each other this night. Ollowain thought with horror of the countless opportunities that a skilled sorcerer who was so inclined would have to attack the queen. Three hundred years earlier, his own uncle had died in agony because a spurned lover had snapped her fingers and conjured a swarm of rats in his belly. One word of power was enough to have Emerelle throttled by her own robes or to transform the wine in her chalice into acid. Ollowain had tried many times to persuade Emerelle to confide in a sorceress. The queen needed someone close to her who had no other task than to protect her from magical attacks. But in that particular regard, the queen had proven to be frighteningly obdurate. True, she herself was the preeminent enchantress in Albenmark, and there was probably no one who could match her power. For that reason, she insisted on protecting herself. But at the festival, Emerelle would be distracted by a thousand other things, and a single spell could kill her faster than any arrow.