Egelric gives Druze a knife

Egelric sat alone on his stump. He had no horse and he had no dog. Nor did he have a sword; he was armed only with a guardless dagger that Matilda had pressed on him at the last minute. He had warned her that the creature would only steal it in the end anyway. But he hoped to learn something from it before then.

He had thought that he was beginning to grow hardened to the horror of it all. He had met the elf face-​​to-​​face three times now. But hours of silent watching in the cold and still of the night had brought back all of his fear. His palms were wet, his mouth was dry, and a feeling of dread coiled and uncoiled itself in his stomach like a wakening serpent.

The fear had always caused him to do the wrong thing. This time he must not forget what he intended to say. He must not be so rash. He must not allow the creature to intimidate him.

It was late September; the hunter was far above the eastern horizon at the hour he meant to keep, and now he was followed by the unicorn and the little dog. “Well,” Egelric said to himself with a low laugh, “perhaps a wise hunter comes with steed and hound after all.”

The sound of his voice in the night reminded him how small and alone he was, and he cowered down into his heavy cloak. He had not called for Druze yet, but he would now. The hunter had climbed high enough. He had waited long enough.

“Druze!” So small and alone!

With his broken rib and his bruised throat and his butchered horse he had bought the lives of two men. Druze had not killed since June, when Egelric had been away. But it meant that the people were beginning to grow heedless. The King and his lord had not been able to convince all of the peasants to come shelter in the church or one of the castles. He did not think that many would venture out in the night, but he was not sure that Druze would not break into a hut. He needed to find a way to put a stop to this.

“Druze!”

He had taken a deep breath and was about to call a third time when he thought he heard a rustle in the fallen leaves.

He rose slowly, listening for any sound that might rise over the din of the wind in the trees, and taking deep breaths of the piney air in search of that familiar odor of death.

But once again, Druze was upon him before he knew of his coming.

The elf leapt with grotesque grace onto a fallen trunk and stood staring down at him with such a look of disgust that Egelric briefly wondered whether the living looked as revolting to the dead as the dead to the living.

He waited for the elf to speak – or to attack – but he stood perfectly immobile, without even the nearly imperceptible breath-​​sway of a living creature, which Egelric first noticed now by its absence. There was only the wind stirring his hair.

“Druze,” Egelric said at last. “I must speak with you.”

“How is – my girl?” the elf panted.

“I must speak with you.”

“How long – until she is – a woman?”

“I must speak with you, Druze. I won’t be distracted.”

“How many – years?”

“Druze!” Egelric shouted.

The elf leapt down from his perch on the fallen tree and stalked up to him. Egelric took a step backwards despite himself.

“You’re right. I know. She is – six years old. Can I wait – ten years? I may take – her sooner.”

Egelric held his sleeve up against his face, unable to bear the stench of the air that came roiling out of the creatures lungs. “I won’t be distracted,” he repeated. “You can’t have my daughter.”

“I thought – that we would – trade?” Druze wheezed with a look of ludicrous disappointment. “A daughter for – a son?”

“Never.”

“Then what use – have I for – your son?”

What did this mean? Was Finn in this monster’s hands? But he must not be distracted. “I didn’t come to talk about my son.”

“But I did.”

Egelric ran his hand down the long spike that was the dagger beneath his cloak. “Where is he?”

“Where is – its son?” the elf wheezed thoughtfully.

Egelric shook his head. He must not be distracted. “Druze, we want you to stop this. We have done nothing to you.”

“You!”

“Druze, please tell me. Why are you doing this? Who are you? Where do you come from?”

“No talk!” the creature snarled, and Egelric stumbled back another step.

“We must talk,” Egelric said softly, calmly, as he would to settle a skittish horse. “Were you in the crypt beneath the castle?”

“Where is its – sword?” Druze panted. “It thinks I – may not – hurt it!”

“I won’t hurt you, Druze. I want to help you.”

“Help! You do not – fear me. You think I – may not – kill you. But I might – hurt you. It would be – a sorry – accident!”

Egelric turned away, trying to breathe, but the elf grabbed his face with his powerful fingers and whipped his head back around.

“There are worse – things than death! If you come – again next moon – I shall make – you wish I – could kill you!”

Egelric staggered backwards into the road. There was no talking to him. There was only hate in him. He could feel the scratches from his nails beginning to burn on his cheeks.

Druze followed after him, shaking with his hideous chuckle. “You do – fear me! Clever man!”

“Druze, talk to me! Have we done something to hurt you or to anger you?”

“You!” he sneered.

“Did someone hurt you long ag – ” Egelric’s phrase was cut off by a fist striking his throat.

The unbreathing elf patiently watched as he gasped and choked, doubled over.

When at last he could breathe again, he swallowed painfully and stood, wiping his mouth and the tears from his eyes with the back of his sleeve. But his head still swam. It was too horrible – too impossible to understand. What had he done to earn the creature’s hatred?

Druze took a breath at last and panted, “You mock me – with your – ‘hurt’. I don’t think – you know – what the word – truly means.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Druze,” Egelric said, trying to speak calmly again.

“But I want – to hurt you!”

“No.”

“Yes! Yes!” he panted eagerly.

“Oh, Druze!” Egelric cried in desperation. “What did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so?”

Druze tilted his head thoughtfully, and then a slow smile spread across his pallid face.

“I don’t – hate you,” he said.

The elf’s cold hand shot out to grip Egelric by the neck, and the pain of that thumb digging into the cleft between his jaw and his ear brought tears to his eyes again.

“I don’t – hate you,” Druze whispered, gently brushing a tear from Egelric’s cheek with his other hand. “I love you.”

And he bent his head and kissed Egelric on the mouth.

Egelric’s hands scrabbled against the elf’s chest and neck, trying to push him off, but he was held fast by the throat, and Druze was far stronger than he.

When Druze finally flung him away, he went staggering and retching over to a tree and leaned heavily against its trunk, listening to the elf’s panting laughter behind him.

It was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. He hadn’t the courage. He hadn’t the strength.

He was only a farmer. He never should have taken his hands from his plow. He never should have turned away from the straight back-​​and-​​forth tracks of the plow. He should have followed behind his two oxen all the days of his life, his hands on the plow.

He looked up to the plow in the sky, dragging low against the northern horizon at this season. He had been a fool to take his eyes from these stars. He had been a fool to sit watching the hunter rise, as if the hunter had anything to do with him. He was only a farmer.

“It doesn’t even – want to fight,” Druze wheezed just behind him.

Egelric spun around, his hands up to defend himself.

Druze only laughed. “Where is its sword?”

Egelric pushed past him and stumbled back out onto the road. He could not talk to him any longer. He only wanted to go home. He wanted to see fire and light again, and living people, the people he loved.

But who would defend them if he could not? And what would they think of him if they saw him now, whimpering in the road like a whipped and motherless puppy?

Druze followed after him, grinning. “Where is its – grandfather’s – knife?”

“Where is it?” Egelric asked weakly, stopping and turning back to the elf. There was his grandfather, too, to disappoint.

Druze chuckled. “Should have – left it – with your woman.”

A feeling of chill dread went tingling down Egelric’s back and into his arms and hands. “What do you know of that?”

“We have eyes.”

Egelric suddenly remembered Matilda’s dagger in his cloak. He would not have the creature so much as think of Gunnilda.

“I wanted to give that knife to my son,” Egelric said warily.

Druze laughed. “But I did!”

“You did?” The surge of hope that his son still lived was quickly overwhelmed by horror at the thought of that tiny child coming face-​​to-​​face with this monster. His hand crept slowly to the dagger.

“I gave him – the knife,” the elf laughed, “just as I gave – the knife to – your horse!”

Druze flung up his hands in surprise.

Without a guard to protect it, Egelric’s hand came slamming up against the cold, slippery wound, and he felt the wind chilling his wet fingers as Druze stumbled backwards and fell away.

It was only a moment later, when he felt the ache in his throat, that he realized that the dreadful cry he had heard had come from him and not the elf. Druze lay silent and still at his feet.

Egelric knew this time that he had not killed the creature. He would need to go for help now, and they would need to find a better way to dispose of the body so that it would not rise again in one month’s time.

Nevertheless it had been a very satisfying thing to ram twelve inches of steel up under its ribs. He hoped that, even if the dead could not die, they could at least yet feel pain.