Arc 1: Chapter 22: The Oradyn

Arc 1: Chapter 22: The Oradyn

The elves brought us deep into the Irkwood. So deep, in fact, that I suspected we drew very close to the border of one world and the precipice of another.

I knew the signs. The trees grew taller, and less quiet. More Wil-O’ Wisps and wraiths began to gather, their ethereal voices intermixing to form a ghostly ambiance. The shadows sunk into depthless pools of liquid shadow, and light clung to the woods from no apparent source, as though it grew as moss or mushrooms might, or gathered in lambent springs.

It might have been beautiful, but there was a dreadful alien quality to the hidden realm. My eyes were tormented by confusing shapes, overwhelmed by half-heard sounds or phantom scents.

I focused on the elves who’d taken us captive instead. They were unearthly in their own way, but in a manner I was at least somewhat familiar with. “My companion needs that arrow taken out,” I said. “It’s hurting her.”

Catrin was being guided along by two elven warriors, both clad in light armor of a pale metal inscribed with intricate patterns like overlaid leaves. What was visible of the bodies beneath were tightly bound in strips of cloth, as though they were mimicking the mummies of ancient human kings. Each held one of the dhampir’s arms in an ungentle grip. She shivered violently, her flesh pallid and coated with a thin sheen of sweat. Her form seemed nearly liquid, shifting from the mildly pretty young woman she usually resembled to the ghastly creature I’d glimpsed the night before, then back again. The bane-metal arrow remained embedded in her left shoulder.

The one leading the band was a tall elf clad in armor fashioned of a pale blue starmetal, beautifully made, with a horned helm revealing nothing of the face beneath. A faerie knight wrapped in moonlight. They had been the one to shoot the dhampir, and the towering warbow in the elf’s hand quietly hummed with sorcery.

The elf knight turned an eye that shone like distant starlight from the depths of their helm’s eye slits on the changeling. Though I couldn't see it beneath the helm, I could almost imagine immortal lips curling into a sneer.

“The half breed will live. The azsilver tortures the dark spirit in her, but it is bound in her tightly as any living mortal’s essence. Her fate is for the oradyn to decide.”

That word took me aback. Oradyn was an elven word for one of their military commanders. It meant something close to captain, but had a deeper meaning than mere rank. A champion. A hero of their people.

My trepidation grew teeth.

They hadn’t taken my axe. None of the elves seemed willing to touch it, but neither had they allowed me to put it away beneath my cloak.

“You are the bearer of Faen Orgis, mortal, and our lord will see as much when we bring you before him.”

“If he isn’t too distracted by the smell of you,” another had added. They’d all laughed, and that preternatural sound had been pain on my mortal ears.

I ignored their jibes, instead considering the weapon I held. Faen Orgis. The Doomsman’s Arm. It was the first time I’d heard the Axe of Hithlen’s true name since it had been given to me along with my penance.

We were brought deeper into the heart of the Irkwood until we reached a great manorhall. It was built atop a low cliff where a waterfall fed a forest stream, rising among the trees like a fragment of the moon. Light seeped from the very stone of the hall, obscuring the spaces within as much as any amount of gloom might have. It was nearly too bright to look at, but my eyes began to adjust as we drew closer — or some trick of distance made the light fade into something more subtle — until I could make out more details of the building.

It reminded me of the Gilded City. I could see similarities in the painstaking detail of the craftsmenship, in the way each pillar or overhang blended seamlessly with the whole. Every coiling arm of ivy, each fragment of glowing moss that clung to the lower walls, even the branches of trees tall as castle towers seemed a deliberate part of the structure, as though the forest had grown itself in accordance with the maker’s vision rather than the other way around. Platforms mingled with curling boughs to form a complex series of walkways encircling a central structure capped by a crystalline dome.

We were guided up a switchback formed of smooth jutting stone along the cliff until we reached the entrance to the manor, which was doorless. Living wood entwined around supporting pillars on either side of an arch more than ten feet in height. Wisps chased us like carefree children as we were pressed inside the manor, whispering nonsense syllables in voices like little bells.

And there were wraiths too. Many of them. Though the great hall that formed the central core of the structure’s interior was nearly empty, shadows filled every wall and corner as though reflecting a great congregation. They murmured, sullen, their voices just barely on the edge of hearing and beyond the edge of understanding. A sullen chorus.

If I go on so long, understand I say less than a fraction of what there was to say about that house of immortals. It’s always the way with such. And this was a single small house in an isolated domain, a shadow fragment of the great haven men call Elfhome, which itself is a faded replicate of even older, more fabled places.

I have said much less than I could.

“Big man?”

I glanced aside and saw that Catrin had managed to open her eyes somewhat. Her guards held her up, and I suspected without them she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own.

Elven spirits grew larger as they aged, until their shells of flesh and bone could no longer contain their own aura. I guessed this elf was very old. Not the oldest I’d met, but no youth either.

He’d be powerful, and maybe a touch mad. Most of the older Sidhe were.

“I am Oradyn Irn Bale,” the elf said. “Lord of this haven, one of few left from your order’s failure. It is my judgment which will pass here, not that of the Lady Eanor.”

I wanted to show him my empty hands, but I was still holding the damned axe. I settled for keeping it at my side, my grip loose, as nonthreatening as I could be. “I am bound to the service of the Choir, not just to Eanor alone.”

Irn Bale snorted, his marred lips twisting with contempt. “I know who you are, Alken Hewer, Headsman of Seydis, and why you are here. Do you even know the lineage you pretend to? The thought of a mortal man holding that title twists my gut, and you dare to enter these woods uninvited, trample grass which has grown undisturbed since before your brutish kin first benighted these lands, claiming such ancient names?”

I swallowed my frustration and took a step forward. Guards moved to stop me, but their lord made a cutting gesture with one hand and they remained at bay.

“I am honorbound to this duty,” I said. “It wasn’t one I chose, wasn’t one I sought — it’s a penance. I’m trying to atone for my failures. Lord Irn Bale, the man known as Orson Falconer is—”

“Your treacherous order lost any claim it had to honor ten years ago, when they let Tiir Ilyasven burn.” Irn Bale’s voice was cold as glaciers. He used the Sidhe word for the city humans called Elfhome — The Haven of the Falls. “There are even rumors that some among the Table assisted in the murder of the archon. It is difficult to pick apart the truths from the babblings of those scorched wraiths who managed to escape the city’s destruction...”

“I would be willing to give you my own account,” I said, cautious of my tone but wanting to say the words through gritted teeth. “But I am here for a purpose, and every moment I am away puts more people at risk, and raises the chances our enemy might learn my purpose and take precautions.”

Irn Bale shrugged. “That is no moment to me. You mortals spread like flies, and you’re always in a rush. Another can take up this burden.”

“And if Orson Falconer strikes at you?” I challenged him. “His allies already murdered the Troll of Caelfall.”

Irn Bale’s marred face hardened. His scars exaggerated the small show of anger, making it seem a devil’s snarl.

Another figure at the elf lord’s side stirred before he could say more. In a moment of shock, I realized I’d missed their presence entirely — they’d been sitting within the tangle of roots that made up one section of the throne, so still and unassuming they’d blended with it.

They — he or she I couldn’t tell — was a tall, rake thin elf dressed as a minstrel might, in brightly dyed garments of forest green and sunburst yellow, a lumpy hat shadowing lean features. Their long hair was blue-black, like the Oradyn’s. They leaned toward the elf lord and murmured something, then caught my gaze. They had mismatched eyes. One was shadow blue, the other molten gold.

Irn Bale calmed, though with obvious reluctance. “I am aware of this misdeed. The old sentinel was my friend... The baron will answer for his death. His crimes, however, are not why you stand before me now.”

He pointed a finger at the weapon in my hand. “That arm does not belong to you. You will surrender it.”

I closed my eyes, swallowing the sigh that wanted to escape my lips. This was what all this theater had been leading to — the old captain wanted the weapon of power I carried. Everything else was minor in his eyes, a fleeting problem for a passing season.

I watched him in silence a moment before lifting the axe. The weapon softly hummed with magic as potent as any that clung to the elder wood and ensorceled stone all around me. It had been forged long ago, far in the west, wrought of strange alloys for a grim purpose.

I held the axe out, letting it rest on my upraised palms. The elf’s eyes narrowed, the fey light in them subtly changing hue with the motion. Sea blue to venom green.

“I never wanted this,” I told him, meaning it. “It’s been nothing but a burden.”

Irn Bale nodded sharply. “Then I shall free you from it.”