A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Part eight: The New Queen
Chapter 6: Yashkirran

“My deshaar, Yashkirran!” Harrah called him.

Yashkirran opened his eyes and felt himself bound. They were indoors. It was a small northern house, but quite spacious. It smelled of broth. It was warm. He thought, “Is there really a house left in this cursed land that hasn’t been burned by dragons?”

Not far from the front door stood a bald, red-bearded man with small blue eyes, looking at the isters. Yashkirran turned his head and saw Harrah, her hands were tied and her legs too, her back pressed against the wall.

“Harrah?” Yashkirran was surprised. At this time the bald man decided to come closer.

“Yes, deshaar,” Harrah said.

“What the–” he had no time to finish when the bald man hit him in the face with his fist, so much so that Yashkirran almost passed out again.

“You filthy sekkitzak, I’ll cut your balls out–” before she could finish, the bald man hit her as well.

Suddenly the door opened and five men entered, and they dragged in two prisoners. They were a young elf male and a elf female, the arqilunians. Yashkirran recognized them.

“They watched the house for a long time, obviously looking for someone,” said an elderly blue-eyed blond man with a small stubble and long curly hair. He looked intently at Yashkirran. “It’s about the isterses, he’s something special. Or maybe she,” and he looked at Harrah.

Yashkirran wondered to himself, “What were the names of those two bastard elves?”

“It’s the king of Kaushmanashtoon, Yashkirran Vindrick, he’s the reason we’re all in this mess!” said suddenly the brown-eyed elf female with brown hair at the roots and sandy at the ends.

“Yeah, and he killed your beloved, what was her name? Silain, I think–” Harrah began.

“Narrow-eyed vashkhalar! I’ll cut your king’s throat and then piss in his mouth. And you–” Ursuella began.

“Curious,” the elderly blue-eyed man said. “So you have your own story.”

“Since he’s a king,” the young woman came out of the next room, she was a blonde snunorf with big blue eyes, “let’s sell him to the kaushmanashtoonians.”

The men laughed.

“No, dear Erna,” the elderly snunorf said, “I doubt that he is still king, and I doubt very much that they would give a broken guldrat for him!”

“You can sell him to the arqilunians,” the captured forest elf suddenly said. “Let me and my friend go and we’ll make a deal with our kindred.”

“So that later several argiphones would fly here, and trample, ruin the remains of my village?” the elderly northerner asked rhetorically.

“The tukhtaash outlanders come here, you know that?” Yashkirran decided to insert his question. “We barely broke away from the chase. And these tukhtaashes sailed on ships and can turn into dragons!”

“What?” the young snunorf with the reddish hair and the dark green eyes exclaimed.

“They’ll incinerate this house in a few seconds!” Harrah added, smirking.

A gray-haired old snunorf with white hair and a small beard, with bluish eyes, came out of the next room.

“Gunt, Granzfrit,” he said to the elderly snunorf and the handsome young snunorf with blue eyes, curly dark blond hair, and a small birthmark on the right side of his forehead, “scout east to the river. Rudgrit,” he turned to a red-haired, greenish-blue-eyed, middle-aged snunorf with a small beard, “you and your son take the elf to our place and execute him.”

“What?! Filthy creatures! You vile bastards! Don’t you dare...” the elfess screamed and tried to cast a spell, but her tightly bound hands from behind prevented her from doing it right.

“Ursuella, don’t, don’t waste your strength,” the elf said calmly, and the bald red-bearded man walked over to Ursuella, who had started screaming insults again, and punched her in the nose so that she was bleeding.

Harrah laughed.

Gunt and Granzfrit left the house. Rudgrit and his son, who had reddish hair and dark green eyes, picked up the elf male and pushed him out of the house.

“The troradkar is ready, grandfather,” and a blue-eyed young snunorf, about eighteen, with a pleasant face and plump cheeks and lips, came out from the next room, and she was addressing the old man, who was in charge of everything. Yashkirran has already forgotten the taste of northern stew.

“Yes, Eldana, thank you,” the old man replied. He took a chair and sat down with the prisoners, and turned to Yashkirran. “So you are the king–”

“I’ll squeeze your eyes out, skeshdak!” Ursuella shouted.

“Yanbert, Dugvist,” the old man turned to the bald man with the beard and the dark-haired young blond man with green, deep-set eyes, “take her away and execute her too.”

“Let me kill her!” Harrah asked.

Yashkirran looked at Harrah and shook his head. The old man ignored the azdairik woman’s retort and he just gave her an indifferent look. And when Yanbert and Dugvist took the elfess and left, there was only one old man among the men in the room, and there were three young women walking back and forth periodically, one of them, as Yashkirran realized, was the old man’s granddaughter.

“So, king, you and your friend have a chance to stay alive if you can think of anything you can do for me,” the old man said.

“I know how to negotiate with dragons,” Yashkirran said. “My friend and I were taken prisoner by the tukhtaashes, and they want to capture Norvinoria, and their dragons are no friends of dragons with whom I can negotiate.”

“All right,” the old man said, “I’ll take you far away from here, and you’ll summon dragons you can negotiate with.”

“Summon?” Yashkirran wondered. “I don’t know how to summon them.”

“Then you and–” he did not have time to finish, the door flew open, and a bald, wounded man came crashing in with the snow.

“Beloved,” cried a beautiful young woman with dark turquoise big eyes with small freckles and straight dark hair.

“She killed him, she killed Dugvist,” the bald man muttered.

The old man jumped up, grabbed his sword, and ran out of the house. Yashkirran glanced over at Harrah. The three young women and the wounded man remained in the house, and if there was no one else in the house, this was a chance.

“She’s a healer,” Yashkirran lied, pointing to Harrah, who nodded. “Release her, or your friend will die!”

The bald man groaned. The freckled beauty jumped up, picked up her knife, and ran up to Harrah.

“Anrilfira, stop!” the old man’s granddaughter shouted. She was the one with the puffy lips and cheeks. She grabbed the sword that stood with the other swords near the door.

“Eldana, stand back, I swear by Tarragorad, if you don’t stand back–”

“Rilfa!” shouted a third woman to Anrilfira, interrupting her. “If you release the azdairik, she may kill us!”

“Or maybe save my husband,” Rilfa insisted.

The bald man, Yashkirran realized that his name was Yanbert, stopped moaning and began spurting blood.

“Hurry,” Yashkirran shouted.

“I’ll help him, he’s dying!” Harrah played along with him.

Rilfa took a step toward Eldana, who lowered her sword and moved away. Rilfa cut the ropes with her knife and Harrah instantly intercepted the knife, and as usual, which Yashkirran was already used to, made a grab and put the knife to the girl’s throat. The third young woman grabbed her sword, and Eldana raised her own.

“Release him,” Harrah said to Eldana, “or I’ll cut her throat!” And she lifted Rilfa’s chin slightly with the knife to show the snunorfs that she wasn’t kidding.

Eldana went for the knife.

“Eldana, don’t you dare,” said the third young woman, the blonde with the big blue eyes, “if we just stand there with our swords at the ready, they won’t get anywhere, and when others will come back–”

“That’s if they’re not dead, snunorf,” Yashkirran said. “We know those elves, dangerous creatures, we killed two of their friends.” Harrah had already looked around and was herself slowly moving toward the kitchen, holding the girl hostage. “And you see what else is the problem... What’s your name?” he turned to the blonde.

“Ernarina,” the young woman said.

“The problem is, Ernarina,” Yashkirran looked at Harrah, “that if you pull, then–”

Suddenly the bald man coughed again and seemed about to die. Rilfa pushed back violently, and Harrah hit her head on the cabinet, then Rilfa ran to her husband... Harrah rushed after her, but the two snunorf woman blocked her way. The bald man appeared to be dead, and Rilfa burst into tears.

“Harrah, don’t,” Yashkirran said suddenly, when he saw that she was about to attack. He turned to the girls, “Ernarina and Eldana just let Harrah release me and I promise that we’ll leave without touching anyone. You have the king’s word!”

“Kill him,” sobbed Rilfa, “and that azdairik skarkeshuh bitch!” she hugged the dead body of the bald man.

“May your Tarragorad kick you,” Yashkirran said, tired of sitting there and watching the commotion. “Put on your furs and just leave the house if you’re afraid we’ll kill you.”

Harrah was tired of watching this too, and she made a false lunge with her knife, and with her other hand grabbed Eldana by the arm and intercepted her sword, and she dropped the dagger to the floor on purpose, and then turned the girl around and put the sword at her throat. Yashkirran crawled to the dagger.

“Why are you frozen like a coward!” Rilfa barked at Ernarina. “We are northerners, after all!” With these words she picked up the sword that was near the door and moved toward Harrah.

“You are as blunt as your swords!” Harrah said, and sharply slashed across Eldana’s throat, and then without stopping she lunged and struck Rilfa’s sword, she withstood the blow.

“Noooo!” Ernarina shouted, watching Eldana bleed out, trying to say something, or take in air with her mouth.

Harrah made two more lunges towards Rilfa and cut her forearm close to her hand with a powerful blow, the sword and part of her arm fell and blood gushed out, hitting Yashkirran’s face.

Rilfa cried out in rage and pain and lost consciousness.

Suddenly they heard distinctive sounds and a roar.

“Dragons!” Yashkirran shouted.

Ernarina rushed to Rilfa. Harrah began to free Yashkirran’s hands. As soon as Yashkirran was free, he ran right up to Rilfa and quickly cast a spell of fire, burning her flesh that Rilfa shrieked as she regained consciousness.

“Lean on me,” Yashkirran said to Rilfa, “we’re getting out of here now!”

“Deshaar?” Harrah’s eyes widened.

“Take our clothes and run!” Yashkirran ordered her. Harrah obeyed. And the four of them left the house. Part of the small town had clearly been burned before the current dragon attack. Yashkirran noticed dragons hovering in the sky to his right in the distance and burning trees. He looked around. “That’s Aklegskel, isn’t it?” he asked Rilfa.

“Yes,” she replied.

It was almost windless and clear. Silenta was polishing the snow with her light, and it sparkled so much it made you squint.

“Do you have karkhashes?” Yashkirran asked.

“We ate the last one recently,” Ernarina replied.

“It’s a good thing I read a lot,” Yashkirran said to himself as he moved westward on the small trampled path leading into the woods. “Have any of you heard of the legend of Unhagbjor’s path of oblivion?” Yashkirran looked around and saw that the dragons were still to the northeast and hadn’t noticed them.

“Of course,” Ernarina replied, “it’s the legend about The Path of the Ancients.”

“Yes, but no one knows where this path began, right?” Yashkirran asked.

“Deshaar, why did we bring the northerners with us?” Harrah asked, unable to contain herself.

“They meant us no harm, and by the way, you could have tried not to kill their friend or hurt Rilfa.”

“What?” Harrah said indignantly, wrapping herself in the warm cloak. Faintly steam was coming out of her mouth. It was too warm for a northern winter today that the snow was beginning to melt.

“We’re going the right way, aren’t we, to the Tree of Forgotten Dreams?” Yashkirran asked Rilfa, decided not to confront Harrah and ignored her.

“Yes,” Rilfa answered reluctantly, and she continued to lean on him, and he saw her beautiful dark turquoise eyes and freckles, and he wanted her, and he felt bad for his weakness.

“Deshaar, they wanted to kill us. They just took those two elves and decided to execute them without trial, why does my king keep helping the enemy?” there was a sense of frustration and incomprehension in Harrah’s words.

“Would you really kill us?” Yashkirran asked, and looked around, there were no dragons in sight, perhaps the winged beasts had flown further north or east, perhaps the male snunorfs who had captured them had led the dragons farther from home? Well, that’s a good thing, then.

“Yes,” Rilfa said strangely.

“We would have eaten you,” Ernarina added with detached sadness.

“What?!” Harrah burst out again. She stopped Ernarina, who was walking in front of her, “What do you mean, ‘eat?’”

“There is no food left in our forests, no supplies in the village. The messenger birds bring no news from other towns and villages. There were ten of us left,” tears welled up in her eyes. “I want to go back to my father! She suddenly sat down in the snow and roared.”

“Your father is either taking away the dragons now, or he is hiding somewhere, or dead,” Yashkirran said to her. “But if you go back to where the fire-breathing beasts are, they’ll see you and burn you–”

“You have a river nearby, though frozen, but don’t the northerners have the skill to catch fish in winter?” Harrah suddenly asked without a trace of sympathy.

“There are no fish left,” Rilfa said, “we made up our minds that we’d eat enemies, only enemies.”

“But the elves are not enemies to Norvinoria, they are allies,” Yashkirran wondered.

“Deshaar, do you realize that the only reason they’ve come with us to get revenge on us?” Harrah interjected again, preventing Yashkirran from thinking much.

“Finally,” Yashkirran rejoiced when he saw the tree. He walked up to the tree, the snow was knee-deep. The Tree of Forgotten Dreams appeared to be just a very tall frostorel, whose needle-like leaves shimmered even now, trying to show Silenta that not only the star can illuminate everything around.

Yashkirran took Rilfa’s hand away, she sat down on the snow. Harrah kept a close eye on the girls. Yashkirran counted from the tree about seven steps to the south-west, and began melting snow in that area with the fire spell. The melting snow was turning the area into a puddle.

Finally, he was able to replace what he was looking for. Two buttons. He pressed them in the right order, the south button twice, the north button once, then the south button once again and the north button once, and then the south button twice, and the north button three times at the end. And the mechanism began to work. Yashkirran ran away.

The girls stood up in amazement. A huge slab of ground slid away, and a space opened before them, a staircase descended into the depths of darkness.

“Well,” Yashkirran said happily, “let’s try to walk The Path of the Ancients!” He paused, “So the legend says that Unhagbjor walked The Path of the Ancients and forgot why he walked that path, forgot why he did it, and ended up in the realm of the dead, where he became the ruler–”

“It’s a good thing we’re not Unhagbjor,” Harrah said suddenly, and approached the descent.

“Where does it lead to, deshaar?” she asked.

“To the capital of Norvinoria, Frostgarstrad,” Yashkirran replied.

“What?” Harrah was surprised. “I thought that we’d move further to our capital, to Darlaksarash! What’s going on, Yashkirran?” Harrah didn’t even address him respectfully on purpose.

“Harrah, I warned you that I’d go to the north,” Yashkirran’s heart clenched at the memory of Alaidaksinish. Young sand elves, children, charred to death or wounded, they kept popping up in his mind. “I like you, Harrah, you are a worthy azdairik warrior and an excellent sharain. You want to kill those innocent young snunorf women, but we didn’t go to conquer our neighbors to kill them all! And you want to go home, I understand, you think your brother is alive and back in the capital, but as we walked here, you saw towns and villages burned and covered in snow... Maybe the prophecies and the books and the ancient knowledge are false, but something in them turned out to be true. I found this underground passage because I knew about it and read about it. And it turned out to be real! It was in the north that those who fought the dragons were... Harrah, please, trust me and let’s go there.”

Harrah hesitated, but as she glanced across the snowy heath and the woods and hills, she agreed.

“All right,” she said.

And the four wayfarers went down the steps.