I.

he palace was surrounded by greenery, set with bubbling fountains, erected by the sea shore overlooking the wide waves. On a high portico the masters of that country, called Janissia, sat anxiously, eating their midday meal, their eyes fixated on the yellow sails seen on the watery horizon. Seeing the approach of his enemy, King Junis regretted the locale, farseeing though it was.

“Only Boriado can save me,” he told his queen.

Queen Lavrora was his sister. His wife, Avoodis, stood by pouring wine into his cup before retreating to her seat.

“You’re such a fool,” Lavrora told him. She leaned against a sandstone pillar. “I warned you the Magilli were capable foes. We might have married into their line and strengthened our naval reach.”

“Only another horse would marry you, that’s the trouble with your plan,” Junis replied.

“You’re right about one thing. Only Boriado can save us,” said Lavrora, ignoring her brother’s taunt. “With our northern legions we could easily wipe out the Magilli here, or even on their shores. But would your new generals follow Boriado again? That’s what I wonder.”

Junis paced, inattentive.

General Ganden’s face was imperturbable through all this. His dismissal, Lavrora mused, would make not a whit of difference to their current predicament. The new First General had grown accustomed to being privy to the king’s favor. He sat composedly on the couch next to Avoodis, his fingers entwining with hers behind the pillows. This was not all they had entwined recently. Eventually he would be killed over the affair, he knew this, but at present the infamy it would bring his name delighted him as much as Avoodis’s attention.

“No messengers today, still?” Junis looked to his sister at last. She shrugged.

“Ganden! Find me Master Pellorin,” Junis said.

“Pellorin?” Ganden asked. “But I have already put him at the ready—the enemy fleet will burn as soon as they are within range of our ballistas. There is no doubt about that.”

“No, I want him for something else,” said Junis. He was an oversized man with a deep brow— all his worries were etched upon them.

“At once, then,” said Ganden and departed down the steps.

Pellorin had become Lead Archer at a young age. His whitening hair belied his physical strength. Beside him were his select men who, like himself, were arrow-like: sharp and quick. All but the two apprentices were as skilled in their craft as their master. They stood attentive.

“Ganden,” Junis addressed his general. “If as you say the Magilli will sink as soon as they are in range, you will be the most praised man in my realm. Your face will be stamped upon the doiga. I will curse the memory of General Boriado.”

“You already curse it,” Lavrora said.

“There is no doubt, my king,” Ganden repeated.

“But as you have often told me,” Junis continued, “a plan for another day is a plan well made. You must not take it too harshly—for I am sending Pellorin to retrieve Boriado from his exile.”

Lavrora showed surprise, but nodded agreeably.

“No indeed, my king. There is no measure too far to ensure the kingdom’s welfare. Once we burn the Magilli fleet, what better than to restore Boriado?”

“What better indeed?” said Lavrora.

“In that case, with your advice, and with yours too, dear sister-queen, I am entrusting everything to Pellorin,” said Junis.

“Why send our best? It’s just a search,” said Lavrora.

Junis paused to consider.

“Pellorin, did you not fight alongside Boriado in the Findisi Campaigns?”

“What you say is true,” said Pellorin.

“My lord,” interrupted Ganden. “Perhaps, on the chance things go wrong, we should have two dozen horses ready.”

“What would we do with two dozen horses?” Junis looked truly annoyed.

“Well.” Ganden prepared himself. “For retreat.”

“Retreat— what good would that do us? Can’t you see their whole nation is upon us? Should we join Boriado in his exile? ‘Hello, my man, good mud-house you’ve made here, mind if we join?’ ”

They waited for his next words.

“No. I have been a fool. But if there is a chance yet to turn the tide, it will be a slow and deliberate venture using our northern forces. Boriado knows all the roads. He built most of them. Send messengers to each of the provinces—a whole parade of messengers! If we fall it is your duty, Pellorin, to remain at large, until Boriado returns. And I pray he forgets his punishment.”

Ganden remained imperturbed, standing behind the archers. Junis seated himself by Avoodis.

“Master Pellorin, who is best suited to lead the artillery in your absence?” he asked.

“My son, Ganilo” said Pellorin.

Ganilo was there. He stepped forward.

“Ganilo, you are now Chief of Artillery,” said Junis. “Whatever you may need Pellorin, do everything quickly and be gone before the sun is set. Ganden, everything we must do to prepare—is there anything left to be done?”

“There is no doubt, my king. All is set,” Ganden assured him. “Every trained archer we command. The royal legions are approaching apace. Our satellite legions are ready upon the roads, ready for signal. The citizenry, as far as they might be told, are expectatious.”

“All so rosy. So prepared. Doom-filled. Pellorin, be gone already!”

he city’s great towers saw far, its broad ramparts were filled with a thousand archers. Junis’s raids on Magilli camps the year before had been one of his more foolhardy ventures. Capturing their outpost islands was feasible at the time, but unlike other peoples, the Magilli proved capable of violent retribution. 

Their fleet was nearly in range of the artillery. Pellorin had perfected these missile projectors, an effective weapon that could be moved. Large mounted crossbows with a range of bolts lined with combustible powders that caught fire when they struck their mark.

Panicked, the first command to fire came too early. There was a whipping rush of air from the ramparts as Janissian ballistas fired, but the volley landed safely in the water. Ganilo shouted to his lieutenants. The next fire volley hit its mark. Shot after shot. One enemy warship’s deck caught aflame, only for it to extinguish quickly.

How could this be? Ganilo’s mind rushed through the possibilities, but in vain. There were so many— yellow sails reached beyond the horizon.

Ganilo fled, going up to the highest ramparts and found the highest point of a tower. The shore below was filled with metallic specks—Janissian soldiers poured onto the shore from the inside the city gates. Off the fleet ships came the wild enemy.

ar up on the high roads, Pellorin and his hunters drove their horses hard, passing endless soldiers marching down to the city. More came after them, the messengers, following them or diverting onto other highways. There was little doubt Janissia was to fall to the enemy. The war might last days, but the capital city was doomed. Pellorin, looking back, filled his heart with duty. 

The hunters descended into the Fallanfir valley as the sun burned gently across the wide sea behind them; onward into the forest regions, across to the barren lands, and then to Galda, the city of many travellers.

 

II.

he general stumbled on the road, inhaling and choking. A drink might save him now, or be his last drop. A year and twenty days he had spent in exile. Water in the roots had saved him more than once but broken his sword in the digging. The remaining hilt of it clanged dully against the pebbled road. The wind ceased, and he looked upon the barren land.

Nothing. No—there on a windswept hill was a copse, dried to the bone. A dried riverbed separated it from where he stood. Nothing resembling a puddle remained of the river’s coursing strength—it had vanished as if into legend. He crossed its length as easily as he would the royal courtyards he’d left behind. He leaned to rest against one of the whitened trunks, only for it to give way against his weight. It landed with a crash, reminding him that the sounds of nature had been silent for many days. Only the dulled scrapings of his sandals, stolen from a beggar, had accompanied him. He laughed weakly at this thought, watching as the tree tumbled into the empty riverbed.

There was no recourse for his misery, so he continued.

The fourth day after his last meal the general ceased crawling forward and lay face-forward in the hardened ground. This, he was sure, was to be his last moment in the world.

Someone gripped his shoulder and turned him to face the sky. Black-haired with angular features. The step-sister of fair maidens. His ragged, bearded face was pulled close to hers as her fingers pried his eyes open.

After a day of sleeping in her rattling cart, pulled by two pathetic donkeys, he found himself recovering at her campfire. There was a gentle, warm brushing of wind, but none of the dust. They had arrived in a greener country. His fever had been jettisoned from his body. A clammy unease still lingered inside him, but the heaving dryness had been relieved.

“Boriado, the exiled general,” said the woman. “I shaved your beard, only to recognize the face stamped in relief on the doiga. You are he.”

“I have no money,” said the general defensively.

“I have none either,” she said.

The general felt his face for the missing hair. Little tufts of beard remained below his jawline. His feminine benefactor was dressed in layers of overworn dresses, some falling apart at the shoulder, broken ends flapping or knotted together. Her hair was thrown in a great mane. Among the concubines she would be deemed hard-edged. There seemed little softness about her, except now when she bent over him to place food in his lap.

Boriado’s throat burned with dehydration, but he managed to ask her name.

“Annavis,” she said. “You can help me when we reach Galda. I have healing medicines for others who may need my help. You see, I have no money.”

He nodded agreeably. She had saved his life.

The two donkeys, though thin and weather-beaten, were happy creatures as they carted the travellers. The man, the donkeys observed, would walk next to them rapping their backs. This was unnecessary, but they enjoyed the vegetables he scrounged for them in the fields.

As for the two humans, it was a good bargain for both of them to fall in together. He knew a great deal about edibles and was a fair cook. Shaven properly, his face was revealed to be handsome though hardened. She found him endearing in his simple determinedness. They wandered a little while without hurry in the countryside outside Galda, where both hoped to rebegin their fortunes.

hey spent the night in embrace, lovers suddenly. Their lives had met through chance—or else, fated through the long-winding road of life. The deities favored purpose and fortitude, but were given to capriciousness. Boriado’s wife, for all he knew, remained faithful even now, but he could not fault her for taking another husband. His seven children continued their studies at school—they would be reciting pieces of rhetoric and history at supper. That life was too far away.

“King Junis,” Boriado said to Annavis. “I must beg his forgiveness.”

“No,” said Annavis. She put a hand to his temple. “You must forget them forever.”

Boriado shook his head. “Junis must forgive me. The punishment has long exceeded my misdeed. How quickly my life was taken from me.”

“There is not even a village that can receive you, except perhaps after Galda,” said Annavis.

Boriado wondered about her words. Nowhere that royal legions had a presence had he dared ask for alms. Banishment allowed that he could be arrested by any official, low or high, and re-punished for his crime, or banished from that precinct. But in many towns he’d meet people whose abrupt kindness had saved him.

“What do you propose, that we wander forever until death?” he asked.

“I would prefer it,” she said. “Wandering is my purpose. I will find what I like one day, and stay…”

He snorted, annoyed, but she laughed.

“There is only one place we may travel to with great purpose,” she said at length, stroking his hair and he hers. “A soldier told me the name of it many years ago. I told him we would go together, but he was killed in battle.”

“What was the name he told you?” asked Boriado.

“En-dor,” said Annavis. “Unexplored, at least by Janissians. This stink-hole we call a kingdom is a dirty speck. In En-dor there are natural riches, space to begin a real life.”

“How would it be known to be such a splendid place if none have seen it?” he asked.

“Many have come and gone from there,” she insisted.

“And left it, back to this stink-hole, as you call it,” he said. “It’s simply unknown land. And dangerous. I’ve been to the edge of it. There is nothing there of value. Perhaps, in some unimagined future, there may be reason to pave a road to En-dor, but there is nothing for us there.”

Nevertheless as they made love that night, En-dor was in their hopes. From the gentle pastures of Janissia to the far eastern mountains, Boriado had conquered the world for his king. Junis and his war council would never triumph again without him, but Annavis had set his heart to new fortunes. The road to En-dor, he thought, pressing his lips up0n Annavis, and saw the dark-haired princeling of his future.

 

III.

n the road to En-dor there are people who, though conquered, live without care of King Junis. Galda are the lesser frontier towns conquered but ignored. Soldiers posted in these distant towns made themselves at home, marrying quickly so that there was little difference left between a Janissian, Couluvili, or Findisi.

People took notice of the couple who came into their midst in the late morning. The man was haggard but sturdily built. The woman was a type well known: raven-haired with heavy-lidded eyes. Her dress was adorned with bits of jewelry. She wore a belt hung with herbs. Easily-led hearts were her captives— stable boys and hapless officials. The man who carried her belongings now was entirely different from her usual sort, and this was the thing most noticed as the couple ambled up the grassy road into the busy city.

The Galdan customs official gave them a long look.

“Names?” asked the official.

“She is Annavis. I am called... Olber,” said Boriado.

“Where do you travel?”

“To En-dor,” said Annavis.

“The wild. Very well. How long in Galda?”

“A week, or longer,” said Annavis.

As she spoke, the official began to study her companion. No fool, he recognized the visage behind the beard of the general.

“I know you, perhaps” said the official, his tone bland.

Boriado looked to Annavis momentarily.

“Perhaps,” said Boriado. “I have never been here before.”

“No— no, you are not him. I was mistaken. Carry on,” said the official, ushering them through the wooden gate.

They entered and were ushered to an enclosed lawn where travellers, and other riffraff, made encampment. The two sat eating from the last bits of their food. He spat out every other bite he took. The meat was worthless. His health had improved to the point that bad food now turned his stomach.

“Olber?” asked Annavis, after a while during their meal.

“The name of an old friend,” said Boriado. “We should use new names here. Although I cannot steal kindly Olber’s name from him.”

t last they decided she would remain Annavis, and he would use his boyhood name, Erlandus, after his great-grandfather. If the right people looked for him, they would know him by that name.

The pair were no beggars. Annavis knew her remedies and there were many ready to receive her aid. Erlandus split trees for promised recompense, and he was happy to have a purpose.

“What did you do before coming here, Erlandus?” asked Jarvis, his present employer. Jarvis was a sturdy type who held the position of magistrate’s accountant. They had met in the market where Annavis sold her herbs. Now he and Jarvis worked together to add a wing to his house, a room for Jarvis’s expected child.

Jarvis’s question had come up too many times. Erlandus cursed the repetitious nature of men’s inquiries. Jarvis, he expected, had heard rumors of the exiled Boriado’s arrival in Galda. There was no denying word had got out.

“I was an archer in Junis’s army,” said Erlandus. He decided to couch the true version. “My family was killed during the war with the Findisi. I have worked as a laborer across Janissia for many years now.”

Truthful enough this sounded to Jarvis. The story was compelling, but Erlandus spoke haltingly, each sentence labored as if to conceal some deeper truth.

“Erlandus is a rare name,” Jarvis observed.

It was, but it protected him all the same.

“And Annavis? She is your wife?” asked Jarvis.

“She is,” said Erlandus simply, though untrue. Annavis would play along.

They continued their work until there was little light, sawing new planks. Every pull of the saw seemed to give greater way to Jarvis’s strength, who sensed Erlandus’s thoughts were uneasy, though he could not penetrate their meaning.

Two weeks Erlandus worked, far longer than he and Annavis had planned to stay. He was paid with food, mainly, and some few doiga that he used to buy a long-knife. Annavis often slept on a cot in the wife’s room. Erlandus continued to sleep under the overhang, and would visit the stables, feeding Jarvis’s three mares, and the two donkeys.

ncreasingly, Erlandus suspected his employer had no intention of paying him a full amount. Annavis prepared the wife with all her knowledge of midwifery, but also was not paid. The wife, in her way, was devoted to Lafira, deity of birth-giving. Boriado had not seen such devotion to the deities since he had left Junis’s court. Every day the wife would pick myrtles from her garden and lay them about, singing praises to Lafira. Jarvis, too, was devoted to his favorite gods. More than that, Jarvis spent much time with his wife and Annavis together, discussing the deities. Annavis cared nothing for such talk, but she had a nurturing bent toward the wife.

“Do you know who Islav-Enro is?” Jarvis asked Erlandus one day, as though remarking on his lady’s piety. They had walked with her as she placed her myrtles about.

“Deity of good luck,” said Erlandus.

“Push-pull. Fickle, isn’t she?” said Jarvis.

Erlandus laughed and continued work.

“I’m called to attend the magistrate’s house,” said Jarvis as he broke from their work. He counted up the sun’s position. “I shall return before dark, so have no fear of finishing all the cutting yourself.”

Jarvis looked at Erlandus directly, again studying his thoughts.

“Have no regrets for the work you’ve done for me, good friend. I know how little I’ve paid you, but I mean to make it right before you leave.”

Jarvis left down the work path and Erlandus waited until the man was well and truly out of earshot before following him. Erlandus stood behind a bush and observed. Jarvis promptly entered his own house. His wife exited with her children. A servant closed the door behind them and they left. Erlandus, after a brief time, approached the door.

The wilderness had washed away many of his sensibilities. Eating manners certainly. Bathing was often not possible, nor being kempt—but those were small graces, unimportant to his day-to-day life. All that was cumulative to his experience—his education, training, the circumspection of courtly speech—had evaporated. But the dignity of his courtly upbringing and bearing he would not betray.

He entered the house, coldly aware of the scene inside. Wicked surprise was on Jarvis’s face, as he turned half-naked to see the intruder. But then fear was in his eyes as his lowly employee reached out, gripping his neck as in a firm vice. Jarvis’s body crashed against the wall, bereft of spirit.

There was little to see of Annavis’s expression in the dark room, but she quickly got up and gathered her belongings. The storm-cloud of Erlandus’s brow was new to her—the first expression of protection for her. His actions were against her own devising, but she threw that aside and followed him.

They took only their belongings and went through town along the mainway. Jarvis’s family were returning home, idyllic in mood as they plucked flowers and ambled leisurely on the other side of the way.

 

IV.

he road to En-dor means first the road to Galda. It was here that Pellorin learned of the inconspicuous couple who never begged for alms, who travelled out by the northeast road, suspected of murdering their employer one month before. There was little use to stay in Galda.

They came upon the farmlands—long stretches of high fields that obscured the horizon. The farmers were very intrigued to discuss with them any news from beyond Galda, but none had seen the travellers they sought. They divided their forces for a while, each hunter skirting the fields, searching for evening campfires. Now as they came together again they rode upon the last farmhouse, whose caretakers were a gentle old couple.

“None too many people come our way, unless it’s a neighbor,” said the farmer. “Market town’s out just that way, though. Water the horses at the creek below.”

“We’ve traveled a hundred miles on our journey,” said Pellorin. “Would you find it favorable to care for our horses while we camp? We can recompense you for the service.”

“Aye, wouldn’t mind at all,” said the farmer.

The hunters camped above the creek for some days, in a copse on a hill, overlooking the farm. They used their days to hunt—each man possessed two bows: a great longbow, and a shorter one for hunting. Rabbits were abundant, and so rabbits were their meat. Each hunter tended to their arrows. When an apprentice broke a point, it was his to repair. Stone could be found easily enough with some skill, but bronze points were never used.

hey took their horses and their leave of the farm, travelling seven days in complete silence upon the road. They sat encamped near a brook some ways up from the road. The old military roads had finally converged with the deep forests that were the beginning of the edge of Janissia.

Pellorin broke the seventh day of silence.

“Companions, my friends, I must plead your forgiveness, finally near the end of our known path. This, and a little more is the farthest I have ever travelled. We must now keep care when we meet strangers, or answer their questions. We are now many fortnights of travel from the capital. The people here, though subject to King Junis, and though they claim loyalty to him, have little regard for our laws. We must be cautious.”

One of his lieutenants ventured to speak of their mission. It was Lattyr, loyal, but often impatient. Pellorin knew his words before he spoke them.

“What of the travellers? If they travel this far, they are lost to our true purpose. Would it not be wise now to turn back, to join up with the legates, who now must be marching south?”

Pellorin was silent. But for Junis’s direct instructions he would have turned back already.

“What must be done by the legates can be done by the legates,” replied Pellorin. “It will take some time to plan, and then march to retake the capital. In your evergreen restlessness you invent new tasks for yourself, assuming your job to achieve everything. But we have our mission, the most important one—Boriado must lead those legions.”

The lead hunter looked on the faces of his archers: Lattyr; Alf and Ceren, the apprentices; Yal, Mantius, Merelmo, Terenz, Killik, and Balo— the best there were with a bow, but their eyes were filled with unknowing.

here were homesteads, very few, that they passed in open parts of the wood. Their inhabitants—trappers, mainly—made little effort to greet the hunters, and instead the men, women and children stood stock still, watching them, blank faced. One day the hunters made camp, comfortably distant from their human dwellings, and took turns retiring their exhausted bodies. It was dusk, and the smoke from their fire dissipated quietly into the elm tree branches above. It was a surprise to them that anyone should have seen their fire. But it was so, and Pellorin himself, gray beard dripping with water from his gourd, got up to meet the mounted strangers in the twilight. 

The riders had treaded lightly indeed on the path to find the camp.

The other hunters woke to attention at the disturbance, as their own horses nickered at the visitors. They were helmeted warriors, wholly unlike the simple people of the wood. Their insignias, glanced by the firelight, were not recognizable from any of the royal legions. Pellorin could not make out the faces of these men under their visors.

They remained mounted, surrounding the hunters, armed with short-spears which each man brandished.

“Who are you?” demanded Pellorin. “Why do you accost us at our hour of rest?”

“We would have killed you from a safe distance before, in the daylight,” said their leader. His voice was low. “It is your luck we have not killed you now.”

“In royal lands, to what effect, except to invite arrest for a crime?” said Pellorin.

“Not so wise to invoke Junis’s name here,” said the leader.

Pellorin wondered if this could be General Boriado. A man such as he could command such loyalty even after exile, if he desired.

Lattyr drew his bow suddenly and fired—a truly remarkable shot—and the leader cried out as the arrow pierced his forearm. Lattyr was dead in moments, slain with a stroke by one of the mounted warriors. All was chaos as each side drew their weapons. The riders had shields also, and these were effective enough in the dark against hastily-drawn bows. The ensuing altercation was blindness for all as the fire was kicked and scattered, but finally the hunters were forced to drop their weapons at a draw.

“Enough, or you will die!”

The leader leaned in his saddle, gripping his arm around the arrow. 

“I did not come here to murder you in your sleep. But for the sake of my own troop’s safety, you will come with us. Take their horses!”

They marched on foot, between the mounted warriors, in a low creek in the dark.

“Where’s Pellorin?” asked Alf.

“Dead,” said Ceren, the other apprentice.

And so he was, pinned by a spear in his chest under the elm, now miles behind them.