Kell's Legend

will.”
    Leanoric grasped Elias, a warrior’s grip, wrist to wrist, and beamed him a smile; a grim smile, but a smile nonetheless.
    “I will save the country; but you must save my heart-blood. You must find my wife.”
    “It will be an honour, my friend.”
    “Bring her back to me, Elias.”
    Elias smiled. “That, or die trying,” he said.
    After thirty minutes, Elias was ready to depart. He had a swift black stallion, compact saddlebags and his trusted sword by his hip. He looked down at Leanoric, and the few men gathered.
    “Ride swift,” said Leanoric.
    “Die young,” replied Elias.
    “Not this time, Elias.”
    “As you wish.”
    “Bring her back to me.”
    “I’ll see what I can do, my liege.”
    He touched heels to flanks. The stallion, a fine, proud, unbroken beast of nineteen hands, needed little encouragement, and with a snort of violence galloped off down a wide cart track, and towards the distance snake of grey: the Great North Road.
    Leanoric watched for long, long minutes, long after Elias, his Sword-Champion, had vanished from view. He listened to the night air, to the hiss of the wind, and fancied he could smell snow approaching.
    Grayfell, one of Leanoric’s trusted brigadier generals, glanced off into the gloom. “There’s a storm coming,” said the short, gruff soldier, rubbing at his neatly trimmed grey beard. His eyes of piercing yellow met Leanoric’s, and the king gave a curt nod.
    “That’s what I am afraid of,” he said.
    As dawn broke, Elias stopped by a fringe of woodland and surveyed the Great North Road. It glittered in weak dawn light, wreathed with curls of mist, cobbles gleaming like grey and black pearls. For long minutes the king’s Sword-Champion watched, listening, observing, analysing, wondering. He eased out from cover, and within minutes allowed the stallion his lead so that he galloped along the cobbles, hoof-beats clattering through the early morning air.
    Elias rode hard, all day, pausing only in the early afternoon to allow his horse a long cool drink by a still lake. As he stood, stretching his back and working through a variety of stretching exercises taught to cavalry riders, which he usually reserved for before battle, a few eddies of snow drifted around him and he gazed off to the distant northern hills, and saw the white gathering eagerly like icing on a cake. Cursing, Elias continued north, sometimes running the stallion on smooth grass alongside the hard cobbles, sometimes dismounting and walking the beast. He knew in his heart this was going to be a long journey; a test of stamina, and endurance, as well as strength and bravery. Still, Elias thought grimly, he was up for the task.
    That night, camping beneath a stand of Blue Spruce, wrapped in his thick fur roll, Elias came awake as snow brushed his face. His eyes stared up at thick tree boughs ensconced in needles, interlaced above him, rich perfume filling his senses, and beyond at an inky, violet sky. Snowfall increased, and with it a sinking in Elias’s breast. The enemy, with Alloria as prisoner, had a good head start. Snow would slow them down; but it would also slow him. He could only pray they were travelling by cart, or on foot; but he doubted it. They’d kidnapped the Queen of Falanor; they would be riding fast horses, hard, to put as much distance between Falanor’s Eagle Divisions and their reckless prize. Once they hit the Black Pike Mountains, Elias knew he was doomed. The range was treacherous, the valleys and narrow passes a labyrinth, and once inside their enclosing wings Elias would have lost the queen…and even if he didmanage to navigate to this Silva Valley, what would he find there? A waiting army? A division of grinning soldiers? Damn, he thought. He had to catch up with them before the Black Pikes. He had to rescue his queen before she entered the death-maze…
    He started before dawn, filled with a rising panic, and an increased level of frustration.
    Elias pushed the stallion hard, too hard he knew, and just after noon as more snow fell muffling hoofbeats on the Great North Road, he spied a village and guided his mount from the cobbles, bearing east down a frozen, rutted track. However, a hundred yards from the collection of rag-tag huddled cottages, he halted. His stallion snorted, stamping the snow.
    Something was wrong, he could feel it, and a cold wind blew, ruffling his high collar and making him shiver. Unconsciously, he loosened his sword in its scabbard as