Elsewhere: Tales of Fantasy by Terri Windling (ed)

Author:Terri Windling (ed) [Windling, Terri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anthology, Fantasy, Short Stories. Poetry
ISBN: 9780441204038
Publisher: Ace
Published: 1981-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

She returned to The City in mid Sorn, and In Octen her first child, a daughter, was born. The opening of the next year saw Winder an integral part of Islandia and thither in Janvry the queen with her baby at her breast journeyed, and won the people to her, tactfully coming as the wife of their prince rather than as the powerful queen of a nation of which they were a small part. She continued her journeying to work up the warlike spirit, returning in the summer to The City.

The brilliant period of Islandian literature began at this time. Like Athens after the Persians and England after the Armada, an intense period of creativity began. Its tone at first was ardently patriotic, an inspiration traceable to Islandia’s Gloriana far more closely than that of Elizabethan England to hers. Deming and Oury wrote stirring poems full of the epic war spirit in 1330, and stimulated many imitators.

On Janvry 1st the queen found herself ruler of all the lands south of the great range, with her dogs of war ready to loose. The army, under Strale, began to gather in Carran late in 1330. The fleet was already in rendezvous at Miltain.

Leaming that the Karain in Mobono were fast preparing defences at the queen’s command and without waiting till melting snow left open the roads of Miltain, in Febry, both moved. The campaign began badly. The Karain held the narrow passes along the sea, and the fleet was kept back by impossible storms. The queen, furious with delay, went forward to the front, and in Avrilis at Madly amid the army gave birth to her second child, another daughter. The child was premature by some time, and though it survived, it endangered its mother’s life.

As soon as she could move she went to the front, and so inspired her army that in late Maya they broke the Karain lines and poured into the country. Fifty-six years before, Alwina’s legendary great-grandfather had come this road and never returned. Such of his followers as had escaped remembered what they had seen. Except as slaves, no Islandians had ever entered Mobono. Nothing was known of it, except what rumor had to say and a distant view from the mountains to show.

The province thus entered caused extraordinary astonishment It was populous and fertile beyond all expectations, but for all that it offered no resistance. The Islandians were suffered to reach the walls of its heart — Mobono — and the city was ill prepared to stand the siege which was at once begun.

It was apparent that the city was crowded, and that it was doomed unless food could come in. On the land side access was blocked, but to seaward the Karain fleet still moved out and in sailing north to unknown parts for grain. To cut those off required the Islandian fleet. It was slow in coming. The queen, with the army and suckling her second child, sent message after message to her husband. Finally, in Julian, he came and the situation at once changed.

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