Mortalis dw-4

by Robert Salvatore

  And with that, the elf skittered off into the forest. In truth, he had nothing left to prepare-he would find his supplies along the road-but he wanted to minimize his contact with any potential plague carriers, his friends included.

  Bradwarden's song went on for a long, long time, and so in tune was it with the natural surroundings that Juraviel hardly noticed when the last delicate notes drifted into nothingness. But when he did register the silence, the elf knew that it was time for him to move, and quickly.

  He went back to the hillock, and took comfort that Bradwarden, who never seemed to sleep, wasn't about. Up he went, to find Roger snoring contentedly beside the orange embers.

  He found the gemstones, as expected, in Roger's belt pouch-a ruby and a soul stone, a lodestone and a graphite, and several others-and wasted no time in pocketing them. He did glance back once, stung by a pang of guilt-Roger was his friend, after all-but then, remembering who he was and the needs of his people, the needs of the people, he moved swiftly down the hillock and untethered the horse, then walked off into the dark forest.

  "Way before the dawn, by my countin'," he heard Bradwarden's voice soon after, for though Juraviel could easily have gotten away from the region without being noticed by anyone, the centaur included, Bradwarden could certainly track a horse.

  "The sooner I begin, the sooner I find my home," Juraviel replied calmly.

  The centaur came into view a few steps down the trail behind him, and started to catch up, but Juraviel held up his hand, motioning for Bradwarden to stay back.

  "What're ye about, elf?" Bradwarden asked.

  "I am in a hurry, as I explained," Juraviel replied.

  "No, it's a bit more than that," Bradwarden reasoned. "The Juraviel I know doesn't refuse an offer of a drink with his friends."

  "I had preparations-"

  "The Juraviel I know would be askin' his friends for help, then, if his preparations were so important," Bradwarden interrupted, as he came forward a few strides. "The Juraviel I know wouldn't have left Pony and Belster on the road, but would've spent the extra couple o' days walkin' with them, whatever his lady Dasslerond might be needin'. So what're ye about, elf? Are ye to tell me or not? "

  Juraviel thought on that for a long moment. "You take care, Bradwarden," he said in all seriousness. "On the road south, I heard rumors of the rosy plague."

  "Oh, by the demons, ye say."

  " I know not if there is any truth to those words-more likely, they were the utterances of a gossiping fool and nothing more," the elf went on. "But I can ill afford to take the chance, any chance, of bringing the plague back to my people."

  Bradwarden shook his head in frustration, but then looked at Juraviel and nodded.

  "You take care of Roger and Jilseponie, as well," the elf said. "I fear that if the rumors of plague prove true, then this might be the last time I see you-any of you. Know that if the land becomes ill with plague, the Touel'alfar will secure our borders and none will leave for many years."

  Again, Bradwarden merely nodded.

  "Farewell," Juraviel said.

  "And to ye," Bradwarden replied, and Belli'mar Juraviel left him there, in the forest that suddenly seemed all the darker.

  Pony and Belster arrived in Dundalis right on schedule, the portly innkeeper driving the wagon and Pony riding Greystone. What a splendid sight she seemed to the folk of the Timberland community, many of whom owed their lives to the heroic deeds of this woman in the days of the demon armies. The whole town turned out to see the pair, cheering; and Pony, though embarrassed, felt indeed as if she had come home.

  And leading all the cheers was Roger Lockless, his smile so wide that it seemed as if it would take in his ample ears.

  "We've been waiting and waiting," he explained. "Belli'marJuraviel told us that he found you north of Caer Tinella, but I had hoped you would arrive sooner, give that strong horse of yours a bit of a workout."

  "An easy road, for we've nowhere else we need to be," Pony answered. "Just as I prefer."

  Roger's expression was curious for just a moment, but his smile soon returned. " No one built upon the foundation of the old Howling Sheila," he explained. "We knew that you'd return."

  "Olwan Wyndon put down that foundation," Pony answered, her voice somber. How well she remembered that particular place! When the monsters came to sack Dundalis, when Pony was but twelve years old, she had crawled under that foundation to escape the swords and spears and fire. She had emerged after the carnage, to find that all of the town, all of her family and all of her friends, were dead or missing. She and Elbryan alone had survived the catastrophe.

  But Dundalis had been rebuilt, and that foundation had supported yet another structure, Bolster's Howling Sheila tavern.

  And then Dundalis had been sacked again.

  The memories showed Pony the best of human spirit, the resilience, the ability to fight on and on. Why wasn't she now feeling that way? Where was her fighting spirit, her willingness to accept the losses and rebuild everything?

  Perhaps some things could not be recovered, she mused, staring at the foundation and wondering if perhaps she should not have come back to this place. Here was the legacy of the Howling Sheila, a foundation of cold stone; and out there, not so far away, was another legacy, a cairn of cold stone.

  "Are you all right?" she heard Roger ask, but it seemed to her as if his words came from far, far away. "Pony?"

  She felt his hands on her shoulders, and only then understood that her shoulders were trembling, and that she was clammy and weak.

  Then Belster was there beside her, holding her arm to support her.

  Pony reached deep inside and shook away the fit. "I should have eaten more at breakfast," she said to Belster, smiling sheepishly.

  The innkeeper looked at her and politely nodded, but Pony knew, of course, that he had seen right through her little lie. Belster had come to know her so very well over the last year, and he understood the source of her distress.

  "Fetch some food!" Roger called to the townsfolk. "As fine a meal as we can prepare." He started to point out a couple of men to set to the task, but Pony put her arm on his and held it low. "Later," she said.

  "Nonsense," Roger argued. "We will prepare the finest-"

  "Later," Pony said again, more forcefully. "I have something I must do."

  "Are ye sure, girl?" Belster asked, and Pony turned back to face him, took a deep breath, and nodded.

  "I'll start setting up, then," Belster said.

  "Roger will help you, I am sure," Pony, who wanted to do this thing alone, replied, and she looked to Roger again and patted his arm, smiling.

  Then she went to Greystone and pulled herself into the saddle. She headed out of town at a swift trot, up the north slope, then walked the horse slowly down the fairly steep incline into the pine groves and the thick white caribou moss.

  When she came out the other side of that dell, she had Greystone at an eager canter, running through the forest.

  "She's knowin' the woods as well as any," Bradwarden insisted when a frantic Roger came to him later on, wailing that they had to find Pony. "As well as any human might," the centaur corrected with a sly wink.

  "She's been gone for hours," Roger explained.

  "And I'm thinkin' that she'll be doin' many o' these little rides out alone over the next few weeks. Can ye no' guess where's she's gone to, boy, and can ye no' be figurin' why she wanted to go there alone? "

  Roger looked at him curiously at first, but finally a light of recognition came over him.

  "You are sure that she's all right? " he asked.

  "I'd be worryin' about any monsters that might've found the girl," Bradwarden said with a hearty chuckle. "Ye gived her back her gemstones, didn't ye?"

  Roger's expression spoke volumes to the perceptive centaur.

  "What're ye thinkin', boy?"

  "I don't have them," Roger admitted.

  Now it was Bradwarden's turn to wear the confused expression. "Ye s
aid ye did," the centaur protested. "Ye even showed 'em to me!"

  "I did have them, but they're gone!" Roger tried to explain.

  "Gone?"

  "I had them a few days ago, but I woke up one morning to find my pouch empty."

  "Ye're sayin' ye lost a clutch o' magic that could flatten a fair-sized town? " Bradwarden cried. "Ye lost a clutch o' gems that a hunnerd merchants'd willingly give over all their gold to get their hands on? "

  "I had them, and then I did not," Roger insisted.

  "And ye didn't think to say anythin' when the thief might still be about? " Bradwarden roared at him.

  "I think I know who took them," Roger replied quietly. "Well, we'll go and have a talk with the…" The centaur stopped, catching a hint of what might be going on here. "When d'ye say ye lost the damn things?"

  "Three mornings ago."

  "The night after…" Bradwarden paused and shook his head. It made no sense. Juraviel? Their elven friend stole Pony's gemstones?

  "Either Juraviel took them or someone else stole up the hillock that night after we had gone to sleep," Roger insisted.

  Truly, Bradwarden had no answers for that. He knew well enough that no one had come up that hillock to steal from Roger. And yet, unless the man was lying, those gemstones had disappeared on that very night-the very night Belli'mar Juraviel made his hasty retreat from the region.

  "It might be that them monks found a way to magically come and get the damn things," the centaur said unconvincingly, for both he and Roger knew well that if there was such a manner of retrieval, Father Abbot Markwart would surely have discovered it and used it to get the cache of stones back a long time ago.

  "I don't even know what to tell Pony," Roger admitted.

  "Has she asked for them? "

  "No."

  "Is she even knowin' that ye got the damn things? "

  "I don't think so."

  "Then tell her not a thing until she's askin'," Bradwarden advised. "I'm thinkin' that the girl's got enough weighin' down her heart at this time."

  "More than you know," Roger replied. "I was talking with Belster earlier and he told me all that Pony walked away from in Palmaris. They offered her everything, the barony, the abbey. Everything. And she just walked away."

  Bradwarden eyed the man and marked well his tone. "And ye're thinkin' she chose wrong? "

  "After all we went through?" Roger replied, his frustration creeping into his voice. "After all the fighting and all the dying? After Elbryan gave his very life for a better world? And we could have that world, we-Pony could make it all worthwhile."

  "I'm seein' a new side o' ye, to be sure," the centaur remarked, and that set Roger back on his heels a bit.

  "I fought alongside everyone else," the man protested when he got his bearings back.

  "Never said ye didn't," Bradwarden replied. "But by me own thinkin', ye was fightin' more for Roger than for any paradise in yer thoughts."

  Again, the man had to pause for a bit to consider any response he might give, for Roger understood that the centaur spoke honestly and accurately. All through the early days of the war, Roger had indeed been a selfish warrior, considering every action based mostly on what fame it might bring to him. Elbryan had shown him the error of his ways, as hadJuraviel, with typical elven bluntness. Only now, however, with Bradwarden so clearly pointing it out, did Roger begin to understand the depth of the change that had come over him. Only now did he consciously recognize that Elbryan had died for a reason, for something bigger than his own life and bigger than Pony's life. And, to Roger's complete surprise, he found himself frustrated and disappointed that Pony had chosen to run away when all the city was being offered up to her, when, with a few words and a few actions, she could have made a profound change upon Palmaris, a change for the better, a change that would give meaning to their sacrifices made in battling first the demon and its minions and then the demons that had infected the Abellican Church.

  And she had run away!

  "But aren't ye being tough on the poor girl? " Bradwarden remarked.

  "She should not be here," Roger replied. "Or at least, she should not be planning to stay. There is too much to do, and time will work against us if we do not act."

  "Against us?" the centaur echoed doubtfully. "I'm not seem' Roger Lockless doin' much work in Palmaris. I'm not seein' Roger Lockless doin' much work at all!" He ended with a laugh, a great belly laugh; but Roger, too perplexed by these revelations concerning his feelings, didn't join in.

  "Ah, but ye're bein' too hard on her," Bradwarden explained.

  "The opportunity-"

  "And what good might she be doin' if her heart's not in it? " Bradwarden promptly interrupted, and his voice grew more grim then, and more serious. "Ye lost a friend, and so ye're stingin', and wantin' to put a meanin' to it," the centaur explained. "And so ye should be, and so should we all. But Pony's lost more than a friend."

  "I loved Elbryan," Roger started to protest, but Bradwarden was laughing at the absurdity of the statement, and Roger couldn't honestly disagree. Comparing his relationship with Elbryan to the one the ranger shared with Pony was indeed absurd.

  "She's needin' time to heal," the centaur said after a bit. "She's needin' time for rememberin' who she is and why she is, and for findin' a reason to keep on fightin'."

  "How long?" Roger asked. "It's been a year."

  "A torn heart can take a sight longer than a year," Bradwarden said quietly, solemnly, his voice filled with obvious sympathy for his dear friend Pony. "Ye give her the time, and it might be that she'll go back and begin the fight anew."

  "Might be?"

  "And might not be," the centaur said plainly. "Ye can't be tellin' someone else what fights they're wantin' to pick, and ye can't be arguin' the worth o' fightin' to one who's not seein' it." "And if she chooses not to continue?" Roger asked. "What value, then, of Elbryan's death?"

  "Ask yerself," the centaur replied. "Ye're so quick to be makin' it Pony's fight, and easy enough for ye, sittin' up here in the Timberlands. Where's Roger, then? I'm askin'. He's lettin' his friend go cold in the ground, and not doin' a thing to bring a value to Elbryan's death."

  "I was not offered the barony or the abbey."

  "Ye weren't lookin' for the offer," Bradwarden said. "Ye could've ridden the last fight to some power, if ye so chose."

  "I came north with you," Roger protested, "to bury Elbryan."

  "And ye could've been back in Palmaris before the summer was half finished," Bradwarden scolded. "Are ye mad at Pony, boy? Are ye really? Or is it yerself that's botherin' yerself?"

  Roger started to answer, but stopped short and stood staring out at the forest, wondering, wondering.

  "Pony's needin' a friend now, and needin' us to let her do all that she's needin' to do without our judgin' her," Bradwarden remarked sternly. "Ye think ye can do that? "

  Roger looked him right in the eye, considered the question carefully and honestly, then nodded.

  A chill wind came up that evening, and Pony honestly wasn't sure if it was a natural thing or a consequence of this cold place. In either case, how fitting it seemed to her as she stood before the two cairns in the grove north of Dundalis, a place that would have left her cold on the hottest of bright summer days.

  She only glanced at the older of the graves, the resting place of Mather Wyndon, Elbryan's uncle and the first Wyndon ranger. She couldn't help but picture the body under those stones, disturbed first by Elbryan on that dark night when he had earned Tempest, the elven sword, and then again more recently by Bradwarden and Roger, when they reinterred the weapon beside its original owner.

  And Pony couldn't help but picture Elbryan, and the mere thought of her love lying cold in the ground nearly buckled her knees. He was there, under those rocks, with Hawkwing, the magnificent bow Belli'mar Juraviel's father, Joycenevial, had crafted for him during his years of training with the Touel'alfar. He was there, with eyes unseeing and a mouth that could not draw breath. He, w
ho had so often warmed her in his gentle but strong embrace, was there, alone and cold, and there was nothing, nothing that she could do about it.

  All of her young life had been marred by loss. First her family and friends-all of them save Elbryan-had been murdered by goblins and giants. Then her companions at Pireth Tuime-men and women she hadn't considered friends but with whom she had forged a working relationshiphad been slaughtered by the attacking powries. Then the Chilichunks, who had shown her only love, had perished in the dungeons of St.-Mere-Abelle.

  Then Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk and Tuntun and Avelyn, dear Avelyn, all lost on the road to Mount Aida. And her child, torn from her womb by the demon Markwart. And finally-in an act that had saved her life, surely-she had lost Elbryan, her lover, her best friend, the man she had intended to grow old beside.

  It didn't get easier, these confrontations with death. Far from hardening her heart to future losses, each death seemed to amplify those that came before.

  She pictured them now, all of them, from Elbryan to Avelyn to her father, walking past her as if in a dream, moving close in front of her but never seeing her or hearing her plaintive calls. Walking, walking away from her forever.

  She reached out and tried to grab Elbryan, but he was an insubstantial thing, a formed mist and nothing more, and her hand passed right through him. He was an image, a memory, something lost.

  Pony blinked open her eyes and didn't even try to hold back the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

  Chapter 18

  Friendships Fast

  I hadn't thought we'd be seein' our home again so soon," Liam O'Blythe remarked to Prince Midalis as they trotted their mounts at the lead of a long column making its way through the muggy air of the Vanguard forest. They had gone north with Bruinhelde and his clan only to be met by barbarian scouts reporting that southern Alpinador was clear of monsters, that not a sign of any goblins or powries had been seen in many, many weeks. And so, with Bruinhelde's approval and a knowing wink and a nod from Andacanavar, the men of Vanguard had turned about, heading back to their homes to erase the scars of the demon war.