The Legend of Elsbeth - Chapter 16 & 17

A bedtime story

Winter was in full swing when the Shadow died.

It all began when they ran across a bloody scene, a small deer that a wolf pack had torn apart limb from limb. A newcomer had arrived on the scene, and the scene was chaos, the wolves baying and snarling, and the newcomer emitting low growls and snarls as it sprinted back and fort, first at one wolf, and then another.

“What is that?” Elsbeth said. “Some kind of bear?”

“No,” the Shadow said in awe. “That’s a giant wolverine.”

“It doesn’t look so giant,” said Elsbeth. “It’s only about the same size as one of the wolves.”

“Those wolves have already lost,” the Shadow said, stringing his bow and gesturing to Deirdre to do the same.

“Wolverines are normally the size of a cat,” he said. “And they can take on creatures many times their size. Here, let’s step back a bit. We’ll let it do some work for us, but once all the wolves are dead, we take it out.”

The wolverine was a brawler, tumbling and wrestling with one wolf and then another. It was so fast that a flurry of claws and bites descended on first one wolf and then another, sending them whimpering away, and even as three more wolves would move in on it from behind, it would sprint in first one direction and then another, faster than the eye could see, first getting away from the enemies and then sizing one up and rushing it in the face, grappling with it, rolling and flipping about, covering its bodies in cuts and bites as if it were being attacked from all sides at once. Finally, three wolves were dead, and the rest of the pack left, tails between their legs.

With two twangs, the Shadow and Deirdre sent two arrows directly into the wolverine. It growled and looked at them, walking a bit closer as they cocked two more arrows. And then it lunged.

The Shadow let loose an arrow but it went wide, and the wolverine was on him, kicking and clawing and biting his face and his underbelly, tussling and wrestling with him in the snow. He drew out his huge knife and began swinging at it, but it kept moving and shifting positions, constantly all over him and nowhere. Deirdre shifted her aim, again and again trying to get a good shot that wouldn’t hit the Shadow, and Elsbeth likewise stood over them with her sword raised, but everything was happening so fast she couldn’t even register it. She cowered a little in fear, realizing that this creature was a force of nature that she could never hope to overcome if it turned on her.

And then there was a minuscule pause—and twang—Deirdre sent an arrow directly into the creature’s eye. Suddenly it was still.

They pulled the wolverine off of the Shadow. He was clutching the inside of his left arm, and blood was everywhere.

***

That night, they had tended to all the Shadow’s wounds, cut up the wolverine meat, made it into a stew, and feasted on it that day and the next. The Shadow developed a raging fever and shook due to the cold.

The second night, Deirdre and Elsbeth slept on either side of him, which Elsbeth made them swear they would never tell anyone about. The Shadow understood, but Elsbeth had to explain to Deirdre why this fact would be considered scandalous, and the explaining of such things turned Elsbeth’s face beet red. But there was no doubt in her mind that in the cold and wet, with no fire, and battling a fever, the Shadow had no chance of making it without all the body heat he could get.

As for the Shadow, he had slept during the day, but couldn’t sleep during the night.

“Elsbeth, Deirdre…” he said. “Are you awake?”

“Yes, Shadow.”

“Yes.”

“You have to consider what might be necessary for your survival. To eat.”

“Ugh,” they both said.

“We just ate!” said Deirdre. “For the first time in weeks, I’m not hungry.”

“Yes but you will be soon,” the Shadow said. “It’s very likely. Today’s the first time we ran into any game bigger than a squirrel in over a week. How long will this last?”

And he left it at that.

The third day passed much the same, and despite them tending to his wounds, it was obvious he had gangrene.

Deirdre cornered Elsbeth, out of earshot of the Shadow. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just angry,” she said. “Very angry. Do I have to lose him too? And the same damn way I lost Cailean? Life is pointless!”

“It’s not any more pointless whether he dies or not,” said Deirdre. “Just harder.”

“The worst part is it reminding me of Cailean, how he died. It’s like—I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t exiled him, that he wouldn’t have gotten wounded, and he wouldn’t have died.”

“It was your right—your duty, as liege—to take that into your hands. No one faulted you. It was expected for you to kick him out.”

“He was out there all alone because of me.”

“He was out there because of himself. He did what he did.”

“Yes. But…I did what I did too.”

And with that, Elsbeth secluded herself and wouldn’t speak of it any more.

That night, the Shadow couldn’t sleep again.

“Elsbeth, Deirdre…” he said. “Are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, Shadow.”

He cleared his throat. “I’ve never told anyone my story.”

There was a long silence.

“Would you listen?”

“Oh. Of course,” Elsbeth said, a bit shocked. She never thought the Shadow would reveal anything of himself.

Deirdre’s tone was almost reverential. “I would be honored.”

Chapter 17

“I was born in a small village, high up in the cliffs of Drivern. Perhaps not unlike your own homeland, Deirdre, only we didn’t have cloven feet with which to traverse it. My name was Sgàile, meaning: a shadow. For even then, I loved to cling to the shadows in the rocks.

“My people went to war with your father, Elsbeth. It was a stupid war on our part, and almost all my people were wiped out. My mother died in front of my own eyes. I almost escaped detection, but your father found me, Elsbeth. He was there on the battleground, looking around in the wreckage for something of value, I think. And he took me in. He noticed how good I was at hiding; no one else saw me in the rubble. And so he immediately was taken by an idea. He covered me in a cloak and took me back to his castle and raised me in secret.

“Your father knew that people would despise me if they knew my origins, so he had me raised by Visgald.”

Elsbeth started. “I thought no one else knew about Visgald.”

“Oh yes, I knew. Hide one secret by placing it with another, your father said.”

“Sorry, who’s this Visgald character?” said Deirdre. “Am I missin’ something?”

The Shadow and Elsbeth exchanged glances. After an awkward silence, Elsbeth looked at Deirdre directly and said, “I am trusting you with a great secret of our kingdom. Visgald is the king’s secret assassin, who hardly anyone in the world knows exists. He lives in secret passages, between the walls of the castle, spies on the king’s guests, and pops out from the shadows to do his dirty work when necessary.

“You lived in the passages too?” she said to the Shadow, incredulous.

“Oh yes. ’Twas he that taught me my letters, and the numbers, and diction.

“And he also taught me how to disarm a man, how to strangle, how to poison, what herbs were good for what. How to fight with the dagger and the sword.

“I was a violent and rebellious youth, barely manageable, sometimes not manageable at all. I loved Visgald and yet made life very intolerable for him at times; I was a wild buck, a loose cannon, always going down to taverns and the docks and getting into brawls. They tried to raise me right, but it’s like there was a beast inside me fighting to get out. 

“So when I became a man, I thought I knew what to expect. But the king surprised me. He freed me to go wherever I would. It was quite strange. I assumed I was his, that I had to serve him, but he just set me free. He said to me: ‘Shadow, you’re waiting for something that’s not going to find you here. You need to find it. But if you ever do, and you want to return, there’s always a place for you at my side.’ And he gave me a horse and a sword and set me free to be on my own if I wished, which I very much did. I thought this was freedom.

“So I wandered for a time, all over the lands of men. For a time I was angry, and I knew not why. I drank and caroused in distant lands and got in many a fight in the mead halls of the Northmen. But after a time I came to my senses and realized, the more that I ran from the darkness inside, the more I would actually be devoured by that same darkness. The only way to overcome the darkness was to face it and venture into it.

“So I returned home, and sought your father out. I don’t know why. But I told him that I had resented him all these years because he led that attack against my people that killed my mother and all my friends. I told him that I never wanted to speak that truth aloud all these years because I was afraid to be ungrateful: after all, he had taken me in, given me shelter and food, and jointly raised me with the Visgald all these years. How could I resent him? It felt wrong.

“But as I had traveled abroad, I had found that I was eaten alive with a burning rage that would not go out. And I realized the source of it, this rage had been burning since I was a small boy. And I had to tell him about it to be free of it. So there it was.

“I finished speaking, and your father got up from his throne, and came and kneeled before me. ’Please forgive me,’ he said. ’I did what I believed I must for the good of our people, but I know that can never take away your pain. I have hurt you greatly, and for that I am responsible. I will be forever in your debt, and if there is ever a way to repay you, I ask only that you let me know it, and it will be done.’

“I couldn’t believe it. At this, I wept great tears, and hugged my lord. Everything changed then. I never asked him for anything in terms of repayment—which would have been absurd anyway—for once he said those words, my pain was released and was done.

“I dithered for a time in the citadel thinking what I would do next in life, but I realized the only man I really trusted to work for was the king. So I told him so, and asked to be sworn in as his servant. He would not do so, but accepted my service as his son. He said that it is different to serve a king as a son than a servant; only if I was his son would I feel free to make decisions in his stead, and that was what he wanted. I told him that I had many skills that the old assassin had taught me, and I would be glad to put many of those skills to use to help him, but that I didn’t want to kill anyone in cold blood any more. He respected that and always has. I became his spy and informant in the shadows, helping the king see into far away and dark places that he otherwise could not go, and I have served him this way ever since.

“Elsbeth,” he said, coughing up blood, violently heaving now, each breath coming shallower still, “Elsbeth, only one piece of advice. I have lived my life in the shadows. Still, I never thought I would be sent into a forest with a darkness so thick. Elsbeth, there is a trick to walking in the shadows. You might think the trick is to let one’s eyes adjust to the dark so you can see in it.”

He coughed for a time and then caught his breath.

“But that comes naturally, that is no trick. No, the trick, Elsbeth—”

He wheezed again.

“—is to never forget your memory of the light.”

And with that, he died.

Feedback

How does it feel to have just Elsbeth and Deirdre left? What did the Shadow’s story make you feel? Did anything confuse you or feel unbelievable?

Story Insight

I wish I could say I came up with the idea of an assassin who lives in the castle walls and spies for his king all on my own. No, that idea is ripped off from Robin Hobb’s book Assassin’s Apprentice. I found it fascinating and fitting of the themes of medieval life in so many ways that I decided to allude to it in this story, using this kind of origin as a motif for the kind of person the Shadow is.

Also, wolverines are fascinating beasts. Look them up. They can kill things that weigh ten or twenty times their size.

Book of the Week

This week I reviewed The War of Art, my favorite book on writing of all time. I’ve been massively inspired by this powerful book and wish everyone who aspires to do hard things would read it and go forth to fulfill their destinies and do what God has made them to do. Read more here.

What’s Going on in My Life

Gretchen and I are packing and if all goes well, will have moved out of our house and into our RV by the end of this week. Many people have been helping us and several more are coming to help us move this coming Saturday.

The picture this week is of our house one year ago when a snow flurry of wonderfully luscious large flakes was coming down on our house. We are grateful for this house that has served us so well these last 7 years and will miss it. Even more so, we will miss all the relationships we have had with so many people during our time living here in Middle Tennessee.

We are so grateful for all of the ways we have been so blessed by an abundance of different people in different ways in this season. All the help in terms of prayers, muscles, advice, and well wishes warm our hearts.

We will still be around the area for a little while, saying our goodbyes. We plan to have a big get-together that everyone is invited to.

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Until next week!