Jermayan seated himself in the forward saddle with a great deal more grace, and pulled the riding straps tight. But they didn’t take off at once. Instead, Ancaladar trotted quickly through the trees, to Kellen’s initial puzzlement. At last he figured out the reason.
Of course. He can’t just jump into the air. He may be able to land straight down, but in this wind, he needs more room than there is here to get into the sky. Kellen made sure his own riding straps were tight. Having experienced several of Ancaladar’s takeoffs, he had no desire to fall off, especially in this weather and at night.
Soon they reached an area where there were fewer trees, and Ancaladar spread his wings, springing into the wind. The force of the storm spun him like a kite, and he used its power to pull him into the sky, rising in a tight swooping spiral. It seemed to snow harder the higher they went, until suddenly the snow was gone, and darkness was replaced by light: the brilliance of the moon and the stars. Beneath them, the clouds looked like the snow-covered landscape.
“We have paid a heavy price for victory this day,” Jermayan said quietly, as Ancaladar leveled off.
Petariel. Gesade. So many of those Kellen had ridden with, fought beside, dead or terribly wounded in these last battles. And how long until Idalia, Vestakia, Jermayan and Ancaladar, were added to the list? Everyone he knew, everyone he loved…
“Yes,” Kellen said, tightly. The last thing Jermayan needed was a display of emotion when he himself must be feeling worse than Kellen. He must have known his friends and fellow Knights for—a century, at least! These were Elves who should have been spending the next several centuries contemplating their gardens, practicing their arts, making beautiful things, and perfecting themselves. And now—now they were gone.
“We must take what comfort we can in having won,” Jermayan said somberly. “For the consequences of defeat are too great to bear.”
But are we winning, Jermayan? Kellen looked at his friend’s back, heard the weariness and near-despair in his voice, and did not ask his question aloud.
—«♦»—
THE following day, Kellen, Vestakia, and Keirasti met with Adaerion to discuss the best way of ridding the caverns of duergar. By now both their units had been brought up to full strength again, as Redhelwar reconfigured the hard-hit skirmishing units, and formed new ones.
The blizzard still hammered the land. The pavilions of the cavern camp were all half-buried in snow, and ropes had been strung between them to allow people to find their way between them. Without that, there was every chance of becoming lost, even in the few feet that separated one pavilion and the next.
“Kindolhinadetil has opened the archives at Ysterialpoerin to Redhelwar, so we now know something more than we did of the habits of duergar. They are not accustomed to luring many victims at one time, so if you approach them in force, at least some of you should be safe from their call, and able to attack them while the others are held in thrall,” Adaerion said.
“But our light will drive them into hiding, as it did the last time we entered the caverns,” Keirasti said.
“You will not have light,” Adaerion said. “The Wildmages have worked upon this problem since we understood we would have to hunt duergar. They have crafted Darksight hoods—enough for both your troops. They will not render you invisible as tarnkappa would, for we now know that would be useless, but you will be able to see your prey and approach him in darkness. And Artenel’s artificers have made you spears and nets, which will be of more use against these creatures than your swords.”
“So we can hunt them,” Keirasti said with grim satisfaction. “But it would be pleasant indeed to hear how we will find them.”
“The Crystal Spiders will tell us,” Kellen said. “They’re as eager as we are to free their home of what they call Dark Ones. They said they would give us aid. If we go into the caverns—past the village cavern—I think they’ll come out and speak with us.”
“All that remains is getting there,” Keirasti said. She glanced at the doorway of Adaerion’s pavilion and winced faintly as the wind shook the fabric vigorously.
“We might as well move into the caverns until we’ve cleared them,” Kellen said reluctantly, although the last thing he wanted to do was to move underground. “The big chamber near the entrance would do for a base camp. If we light up enough of the caverns—I can cast Coldfire on the walls, or Jermayan or one of the other Wildmages can—we’ll be safe from the duergar. And we won’t have to keep coming back and forth through the snow.” The camp was a mile away from the cavern mouth—close enough in ordinary winter weather, but not something he wanted to ride through twice a day in a storm. And it would be warmer underground as well; so much of their energy was being wasted in keeping warm that everyone was exhausted.
“A reasonable suggestion,” Adaerion said, with equal reluctance.
“Will the Crystal Spiders be able to tell you when the caverns are… empty?” Vestakia asked, speaking up for the first time.
“I’m not sure,” Kellen admitted. “They’re not very much like anything we’ve ever seen before, though they’re not Tainted. So when they say the caverns are empty, that’s when I’d like you to check and see what you feel.”
“Nothing, I hope,” Vestakia said. “But… you did say they could talk to each other, didn’t you? That the one lot in the trapped caverns talked to the ones here?”
Kellen nodded, frowning faintly in puzzlement, wondering what she was thinking.
“Well,” Vestakia said, “once the cavern is clear, maybe someone should find out just how far away they can talk to each other. Because the weather’s getting so bad now—if these storms keep up—that Jermayan and Ancaladar and I won’t be able to fly to search for the next Shadowed Elf cave, but if there are Crystal Spiders living in all the caves in the Elven Lands, and they know everything that goes on in their caves, and they all talk to each other, maybe they can tell you where the next cave you need to go to is.”
Everyone stared at her. It was such a simple, practical, obvious solution that none of them had thought of it. And it would save them an enormous amount of time—and danger to Vestakia.
If it worked.
“That is an excellent notion, Lady Vestakia,” Adaerion said with grave enthusiasm. “It is certainly something we must try, once the caverns are safe to enter.”
Kellen felt a sense of relief. Not so much at the thought that Vestakia wouldn’t be in constant danger—though that thought was never far from his mind—but at the thought that, if her plan worked, she would no longer be completely irreplaceable.
“Well,” Kellen said, “once we’ve gotten rid of the duergar and you tell us the caves are clear, I’ll introduce you to a bunch of giant glowing spiders and you can ask them yourself. How would you like that?”
Vestakia grinned at him. “Better than flying around for sennights freezing my… feet off, to tell the truth! And spiders certainly won’t care a bit what I look like, so we won’t have to persuade them that I’m not Tainted!”
—«♦»—
KELLEN and Keirasti moved their troops into the caverns. When the blizzard blew itself out, they barely noticed—their days had settled into a wearying, hideous routine as they searched the caverns, hunting duergars. With the dark-sight hoods the Wildmages had made for them, they could approach their prey in darkness and still see and hear one another, and the Crystal Spiders kept their promise, letting them know where to hunt.
The creatures had approached them eagerly as soon as they had ventured past the now-empty Shadowed Elf village. Remembering what Idalia had done, as soon as he saw them approach, Kellen pulled off his gauntlet and held out his bare hand.
The enormous spiders had climbed over him eagerly, until he was covered in them. Though they looked as insubstantial as thistledown, the whole swarm of them was surprisingly heavy. One of them walked out on his arm, and settled its body in his palm.
: You return.: He heard the voice in his mind. It tickled faintly. :
Now we can help. You hunt the Black Minds. We know where they are.:
Show me, Kellen thought.
Pictures appeared in his mind—parts of the cave system he hadn’t seen yet. They were blurred, impossible to decipher.
The Crystal Spiders must have sensed his bewilderment, for the pictures ceased. : We will take you—near. And then you will know.:
Know? How? Kellen thought in bewilderment.
:You will know,: the voice in his head repeated.
The carpet of spiders ebbed from his body, and the Crystal Spiders began to scuttle away with surprising speed.
“We follow them,” Kellen said to the others.
Soon enough he understood what the Crystal Spiders had meant. After they had followed the Spiders for a while—being careful to mark their trail at intervals in order to find their way back—two of their party simply dropped their weapons and began walking forward.
“Rhufai!” Reyezeyt said sharply. “Janshil!”
“Let them go,” Kellen said quietly. “They’ll lead us right to where we need to go.”
The first kill was easy: though the duergar held ten of them spellbound at the end, it didn’t seem to understand that it was still vulnerable. The others rushed forward, confusing it, and Kellen and Keirasti spitted the duergar on their long wooden spears. In death it dissolved instantly, filling the cavern with the same gagging sweet-sick stench Kellen remembered from his first duergar kill.
It was the last time their hunts were to be this easy. The duergar seemed somehow to be able to silently communicate with one another. Once Kellen and the Elven Knights had killed the first one, the others seemed to understand there was a need to hide.
And if they could not hide, attack.
—«♦»—
“WATCH him! Watch him!” Kellen shouted. His voice echoed eerily in the vastness of the cavern.
A dozen of the Elves stood like sleepwalkers. The duergar was backed into a small alcove just off a larger chamber deep within the mountain. It crouched and snarled, revealing a mouth filled with formidable teeth.
Then it sprang at the entranced Elves.
Keirasti barely blocked its rush toward the helpless ones, sweeping it back toward the alcove with the shaft of her heavy spear. Then she, too, dropped the spear, sinking to her knees in a daze. The weapon clattered to the ground as she fell beneath the duergar’s spell. Some of the first victims were rousing now, as the creature turned its powers on other prey: Kellen, rushing forward to attack, found his way blocked by Seheimith and Nironoshan. He thrust them aside, but by then the duergar had released them and claimed others.
Seeing its way blocked only by those who were powerless to hinder it, the duergar bounded forward, away from Kellen and toward the freedom of the deep caves.
Kellen hefted his spear and threw.
It did not go in as deeply as he hoped, but it broke the monster’s concentration. The Elves carrying the net rushed forward, flinging the net over the creature and trapping it. Seconds later, it was dead.
“Not as bad as it could have been,” Kellen said, relieved.
“At least this time no one died,” Keirasti said tightly. When one of the creatures had bitten Tildaril—one of her command—there had been no time for Kellen to even try to Heal him. Tildaril had died in seconds, screaming in agony as armor and flesh had boiled away from the bite like smoke.
They left the net and spears where they were. They were useless now that they’d come into contact with duergar blood.
“Let’s find the next one,” Kellen said.
As he’d expected, the Crystal Spiders appeared almost immediately. Once the duergar had begun to hide, the Crystal Spiders had needed to lead Kellen and the Elven Knights closer each time.
Kellen knelt down and removed his gauntlets. As they had each time before, the Crystal Spiders swarmed over him, nestling into his outstretched hands. The long furlike bristles that covered their bodies tickled his hands, as if they were as much cats as spiders.
Each time they touched his mind, the contact became easier, though Kellen always had the impression that he baffled them as much as they confused him. If Vestakia went ahead with her plan, and tried to get complicated, detailed information from the Crystal Spiders, she wasn’t going to have an easy time of it.
: Dead. Webs, eggs, babies. All safe now,: came the voice in his mind.
You need to show us where the next one is, Kellen thought back, forming the silent words carefully.
:All safe now. All safe.:
Kellen sighed mentally and tried again. The Crystal Spiders weren’t stupid. They were just… alien. Where is the next Black Mind that we need to kill?
There was a pause. He felt a riffling through his mind, as he did whenever the creatures were trying especially hard to make him understand something.
: There are no more. Not here.:
“Not here,” Kellen said aloud. If the Spiders made a distinction between “here” and “not here,” maybe that meant they were able to sense the other caverns, and the “Black Minds” there.
There are no more Black Minds in these caverns? We have killed them all? he thought back.
: All dead. All. Webs, eggs, babies, all safe,: came the reply once more.
Good, Kellen thought back. That’s good. I want to bring a friend of mine to talk to you—about other Black Minds, in other caverns. Will you talk to her?
He sensed confusion and uncertainty, then a long pause, as though the Spiders were conferring among themselves. Or perhaps they were simply thinking— in all the times he’d talked with them, Kellen had never decided whether they were one group-mind, or separate creatures.
: She will kill Black Minds?: the Spiders finally asked.
She helps us kill Black Minds, Kellen answered. Yes.
: Then we will speak with her,: the Spiders answered.
Thank you, Kellen thought at them, as the mass of Spiders flowed off his body and scurried away into the dark.
He got stiffly to his feet—it was cold in the deep caves, a constant damp chill that made his bones ache—and looked at the others.
“They say that one was the last,” he said.
“Good. I am tired of sleeping in a cave,” Keirasti said simply. “And I am tired of wearing a bag over my head. Now we can go back.”
They gathered their remaining weapons and headed for the surface.
—«♦»—
DESPITE the warmth of the bodies packed around him, Cilarnen was cold, though he knew he was lucky not to be freezing. He was thirsty, and as the bells passed—he still reckoned time by the standards of the City, even if no one around him did—he began to be hungry as well. How long were they going to be trapped here?
Tarik had told him—the man had eventually introduced himself—that the Elves they’d been riding to meet would probably come looking for them soon. Cilarnen hoped so. It would be a cruel jest on the part of the Light if the people coming to aid the Elves were slain, not by the enemy, but by a storm Called by one of their own people.
In addition to everything else, being packed in so closely with a bunch of Wildmages was uncomfortable in a way Cilarnen couldn’t quite define, like being forced to listen to an annoying sound, or a ringing in your ears that went on and on and wouldn’t stop. But there was nothing to be done about those things, and so he resigned himself to being miserable. And he hoped—if it came to the unthinkable worst—that at least Kardus would survive, and take his message to Kellen.
AS it happened, Tarik was quite right. Late the next day, Cilarnen was roused from an uncomfortable half-doze by shouts and the violent shaking of the wagon. The tarpaulin at the back was hauled away, and light, snow, and fresh arctic air streamed into the cramped confines of the wagon.
“Ah,” Tarik said with satisfaction. “Rescue.”
The others clambered out of the wagon, and through the snow-tunnel at the foot. Cilarnen simply sprawled where he was, luxuriating in the absence of the Wildmages. It was as if som
eone had finally stopped banging on a sore tooth. At the moment he didn’t care if he stayed here and froze.
“Cilarnen? Come.” Kardus was leaning into the wagon, looking worried. “A rescue party has found us. They will take us to their camp. It will be a long cold journey, and we must travel through the night, but better that than to remain here.”
For a moment Cilarnen thought of telling Kardus to go on without him, that he was fine where he was, but he realized that that was ridiculous. He’d freeze here, and his message would go undelivered. He had to go on, for Armethalieh’s sake, if nothing else.
Everything hurt as he crawled across the floor of the wagon toward Kardus. The Centaur lifted him down and carried him through the snow as if he were a child, and Cilarnen was too weak to protest.
To Light A Candle ou(tom-2 Page 81
