Free The Last Elf of Lanis by K. J. Hargan Page B

large, dark creature.
    Alrhett and Yulenth were paralyzed as a vicious battle began with the white wolf and the black thing. They could only see the bright yellow eyes, and white fangs of the dark beast as Conniker courageously attacked it. Their rending, biting and howls were awful. They moved farther and farther into the forest. Then all was silence.
    “Conniker?” Alrhett called. “Conniker!”
    There was no sound, no movement.
    “We’d best move on, and quickly,” Yulenth said, pulling Alrhett to her feet. “We should find a place to hide far from here. Some place to weather this rain until morning. Then we can head directly for the river and look for the boy. I’m certain we’ll find him alive and weary. Perha ps we can recruit some wealdkin to help us in our search.”
    Alrhett was shaken and silent. Yulenth gently pulled Alrhett along the edge of the Weald.
    They found an expansive, sheltering hollow in a large oak. Yulenth helped his wife in. And then, Yulenth, with his sword on his lap, fell to sleep sitting in front of Alrhett.
     
    Kellabald dragged the litter bearing Haergill’s body as quickly as he could over the fields of the Eastern Meadowland. The open grassy plain was no place to spend the night, too many hungry predators roamed freely. And after encountering the horse riding garonds, Kellabald felt a new unease with the vulnerable openness of the grasses swaying in the hard rain. The dark, storm clouds covered the light from Nunee and the Wanderer, earth’s two moons. It helped to move under the darkness the storm provided.
    Halldora and Wynnfrith trudged behind Kellabald and his burden. They each shouldered a rope tied to either end of the makeshift bier to help Kellabald move as quickly as he could.
    Wynnfrith looked up to see Haergill’s ghost crouching before her, and she stumbled, falling to the turf. The party stopped.
    “He’s there!” Wynnfrith hissed.
    “Who’s where?” Kellabald said as he set down the litter and walked to his wife’s side.
    “Haergill!”
    Kellabald and Halldora peered into the empty darkness.
    “What do you see?” Kellabald honestly asked, knowing full well the reliable power of his wife’s visions.
    “It is Haergill, but it is not,” Wynnfrith exclaimed.
    “His spirit?!” Halldora breathed.
    “I believe it is so,” Wynnfrith quietly said. “He wears dark clothing, a stealthy cloak, and crouches with his spear.”
    The hairs stood up on Kellabald’s neck for he understood instantly.
    “We must drag the litter quickly off the path. I was following the trail we made to Rion Ta in hopes of getting some meat if it remained on the stauer carcass. Now I see Haergill warns us of my folly,” he said.
    The three pulled the bier many paces south of their directly westward trek.
    “Down, and silent. As Haergill has shown us.” Kellabald whispered.
    An instant after the three crouched down in the grass, a phalanx of thirty horse garonds crashed across the meadow in a wedge formation. Every sleeping and secret animal fled before them. The horse garonds were swift and quickly out of sight.
    “We must quicken our pace,” Kellabald said as he shouldered Haergill’s funeral bier. The three carried the body as fast as they could, apprehensively glancing back now and then.
    The rain continued on into the deepening gloom of the evening. It was close to the middle of the night when Kellabald spotted the tips of the dead stauer’s antlers towering above the grass.
    They set down Haergill’s body and drew the swords and daggers they had found at Rion Ta. As they neared the clearing, Kellabald stopped dead in his tracks.
    “I see him now!” He breathed in a horrified whisper.
    “What do you see?!” Halldora hushed.
    “He stands in great battle armor, brandishing his sword with shield aloft. He blocks the way. We may not pass.”
    “Let us wait a moment,” Wynnfrith said.
    The three settled into the grass of the meadow at the edge of the clearing. The wolves