[Amanaduial the archer]

Faerim watched Erenor go, and as the snowfall thickened, her figure faded after a few metres. He watched the space where she had gone until his vision seemed confused and befuddled by staring into the swirling eddy of flakes. The cold, the twisting whirlpools of snow around him, the distant, detached feeling that the snow and his recent encounter with Erenor had brought about...the landscape could have easily have been underwater. The depths of the ocean, beyond any help or worry...

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, the cold air sharp in his respiratory passages, the prickling sensation in his throat reminding him that he was alive. Alive. Maybe others had died, but he was alive... Shaking his head, dog-like, to remove the flakes that had settled on his hair, Faerim rose in a swift movement, brushing them off his shirt and shivering, suddenly feeling the cold through the thin material: apparently Erenor had not felt it as keenly, and her presence had distracted him. A touch of his old humour made Faerim grin to himself – if he died of pneumonia, he’d be having serious words with that elf. Swinging his coat loosely over his shoulders, the boy began to walk slowly to the tent that his parents had been staying in, but the path was a slow one, for, like a child, he tried to walk as quietly as possible, trying to imitate Erenor’s silent step over the snow. So absorbed was he in this childish game that he remained oblivious of the fanged danger that lurked not far off in the snow-quilted landscape – and it was only at the last moment that he saw a immediate and, in a way, worse danger, and the reason he had taken so long to get to the tent: a hunched form, highlighted dimly by the light of the tent behind her, kneeling as if in silent homage to the moon, but shaking, ever so slightly. His mother, weeping.

Faerim did not move for a moment, simply standing motionless some distance from the woman. This was why he had been in no hurry to reach his tent, why the young soldier had sat in the snow watching an ancient elf’s figure receding into the snow until his eyes hurt rather than come back – what was there to come back to? His brother was dead, his father a man who had been distant for most of his life, and his mother… The boy hesitated, not sure whether to approach, wanting to avert his eyes but somehow unable to, embarrassed by his mother’s sorrow: he had not seen her cry before, he realised. Lissi had been a strong figure throughout her sons’ lives, strengthening them with her stubborn refusal to allow the harshness of her life to weaken her in front of them. So to see her so broken down…

Before he could look away, Lissi seemed to gather herself, taking a deep shuddering breath and, after a moment, stiffly rising to her feet like a woman under a great weight – and turned to see her son standing nearby. Her tear-stained face was lit in profile by the soft lamplight from in the tent, and Faerim saw shock and fear quickly blanketed by defiance as she groped to her belt – the strong woman he knew emerging. But the fact that he now knew that it was little more than a mask, however well maintained… Faerim fought the lump in his throat as he stepped forward towards her. “It’s me, Mother,” he replied quietly.

Lissi frowned slightly, her mouth beginning to form a word that Faerim recognised and which bit into his heart more harshly than the cold: Brander. Then, as Faerim came closer, realisation struck and her face softened. She looked away, hastily trying to surreptitiously wipe her face. “F-Faerim…I didn’t see you there, you…you surprised…” she trailed away as Faerim didn’t move, standing silently in front of her, and finally raised her eyes to her son’s face. “Oh Faerim…Faerim, he’s gone.”

Faerim’s voice seemed oddly croaky when he replied. “I…I know, Mother. But Mother, I was there with him and it was a quick death, he would barely have felt it for long-” Lissi was shaking her head, her long dark hair straggling from the wetness of the snow. A sense of dread stole over her son. “What?”

“Your father, Faerim.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Carthor is...gone.” She drew herself up once more, her face pinched as she tried to keep her composure strong. “He went with the king, Faerim. He…he isn’t coming back.”

Faerim stared at her in uncomprehending silence for a moment, then, not trusting himself to speak, he opened his arms; her mask breaking, Lissi’s face crumpled and she fell into her son’s arms. As the snow fell around them, the youth rested his chin on his mother’s head and gently rubbed her back comfortingly as he closed his eyes and allowed a single tear down his cheek and onto Lissi’s dark hair.