Kagonesti lh-1

by Douglas Niles

  As they jogged, Iydahoe was as impressed with Vanisia's endurance as he had been with her stealth. Never complaining, she held the same pace as the two wild elves, though the warrior suspected that her ornate sandals must be causing her no small amount of pain.

  Finally, several miles from the Istarian camp, the dust of invisibility began to wear off. In a matter of moments, all three of them could clearly be seen-and since they were well beyond the nearest humans, Iydahoe found their reappearance to be something of a relief. No pursuit was audible, so the warrior allowed a brief rest. Vanisia collapsed to the ground while Bakall, his head held low, muttered something about making a circuit around the place to make sure they weren't observed. Iydahoe sensed that the young warrior was embarrassed by the lack of willpower he had displayed atop the bluff, and didn't want to discuss the matter. Knowing that solitary meditation might be the best cure for Bakall's guilt, Iydahoe agreed.

  For a short time, he sat in silence with the elfmaid, but curiosity finally compelled him to speak.

  "Why did you stop the wizard from burning me? You spoke of going to Istar, of singing the Evening Prayers. Why did you turn away from that?"

  He was afraid that she would be terribly upset, but when she spoke, her voice was strong, her words clear. "Istar is meaningless now-or at least, it will be in a matter of days."

  Iydahoe remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

  "Loralan has preached this prophecy for many decades, more than a century. I have heard about the spi- raling descent of Istar's rulers. The current Kingpriest is the worst, and it was only with reluctance that Loralan consented to allow our chorale to make the journey this year. Then, from things he said in the wagon, to Wellerane-" Here her voice cracked for the first time. "-I believe the end is near."

  "The end? Of what?"

  "Of Istar-and, perhaps, of Krynn. The wrath of the gods will strike our world, and the legions of Istar will perish. If that happens, and I cannot be with my father, I did not want to be among the humans of that wretched procession."

  "In the forest we live with little, by House Elf standards," Iydahoe pointed out.

  She smiled slightly. "Little? There are those in Silvanesti who have nothing amid the splendor and plenty."

  "Spoken like a Kagonesti," the warrior admitted, impressed.

  "I've treasured the solitude of the wild places since I was a little girl," Vanisia said. "I chose the fields of Misha- kal's flowers over the greatest crystal citadels of our elven architects. Often I slept outside, on the banks of the Thon- Thalas, just to hear the music of the river in the dawn."

  "We have no architects in the forest," Iydahoe replied, "but I, too, know the song of flowing water." In his heart, he wondered if she would be able to survive-and enjoy a life-in the mud-and-deer-hide lodges of the Kagonesti. Surprising himself with his vehemence, he desperately hoped that she would. Only then did he wonder if there could possibly be any substance to her fears. There couldn't. She was frightened by the strange disappearance of her father. Surely that was all.

  "I–I thank you for taking me away."

  "You took yourself away," Iydahoe said with a shrug that was an attempt to conceal his pleasure at her companionship. All this talk of gods' wrath unsettled him, but he could not bring himself to believe that the end of the world was a real possibility. Still, he pressed her on the point. "What words did this cleric say to you, to your father, to make you believe the future is so dire?"

  "He has talked of the growing arrogance of the King- priest, of that man's belief that someday he will be able to command the gods themselves. When he tries, the gods will punish him-and all of Ansalon as well."

  "How will they mete out this punishment?"

  "Loralan did not know. But he said that the true clerics might be summoned away beforehand, and that many days-twelve or thirteen, I think he said-of terror would befall the land. And that none of the warnings could cause the Kingpriest to turn from his disastrous path."

  "The priest did say something about that, about the road to Istar taking more than thirteen days," Iydahoe remembered, still unwilling to accept the veracity of her fears.

  Vanisia only nodded.

  "And you believe that the first of these predictions has come to pass, that the priests have been summoned away?" Iydahoe did not place a great deal of faith in prophecies, but the young elfmaid's words disturbed him nonetheless.

  "Loralan came to get my father, just as he is taking the other clerics-the true speakers of the gods who live across Ansalon. I suspect they are all gone now."

  "Clerics and wizards of the House Elves may come and go as they wish," Iydahoe replied skeptically, "but other priests still dwell among the peoples of the world. My father, Hawkan, is a shaman who knows the ways of the gods-and he awaits us in our village. We will see him by the end of the day."

  "I hope you're right," said Vanisia, and he knew that she meant it.

  Yet Iydahoe was disquieted by her conviction, sensing that she would be honestly surprised to find the wild elf shaman in the camp.

  "Why do you think the clerics were taken from the world?" he asked, grappling with the mystery.

  "I can't say for sure. Perhaps because we have allowed the arrogance of the Kingpriest to grow too strong. Neither elves nor men have been able to prevent his mad condemnation of everything he dislikes. He brands a thing, or a people, as evil-then he has it killed. Dwarves, ogres, even elves have felt this hatred."

  "Then why did Silvanesti make a road to his citadel?"

  "For more than a century we had shunned Istar, banished all trade and commerce with that realm. But some of our priests-notably Loralan-convinced our rulers that we must try to communicate with the Kingpriest. He felt that only thus could they even have a chance to change his disastrous path."

  "We have no need for such superstitions in the wild. You will find that life is simpler in the forest." In Iydahoe's own mind he began to wonder if, too, it might not become more peaceful. How many more humans would he have to kill before the four tribes were avenged? For the first time, he realized that he had embarked on a hopeless task-and he gave real thought to laying aside his quest for vengeance.

  "I think this is more than superstition, though I pray that I might be wrong."

  They rested uneasily for a few hours, then rose to take the trail in a peculiarly dim and misty dawn. The light seeping through the trees seemed pale, sickly, as though a greenish filter had been laid across the sun. It was not until midmorning, when they emerged from the trees onto a low promontory with a view of hills, valleys, and sky, that Iydahoe understood why.

  The entire expanse of cloudless heaven had become a dank, putrid green.

  Like a sweep of fetid marshlands, the pale, sickly color stained the sky. It was not in any way a healthy, verdant green, like the budding of spring or the rippling of a lush field of grass. Instead, it filled the upper air with a dead, shadowy layer of rot. The vast space overhead took on a vivid, dire cast, like the skin of a person who had become seriously ill.

  Iydahoe vividly remembered Vanisia's words, her predictions of godly warnings that would pace off the days before disaster. Certainly it did not take much imagination to think that this coloring of the sky must be such a warning. Indeed, it could be nothing else!

  The three elves did not speak, but took the homeward trail with renewed urgency. Iydahoe was shaken to his core, though he tried not to display his unsettled state to his two companions. Bakall looked around wildly, holding an arrow constantly ready in his bow, while Vanisia became listless and downcast, plodding dully along with her gaze fixed on the ground.

  They jogged as quickly as possible.. Iydahoe taking the lead, now seeking the shortest path back to the grotto of the small tribe's village. Under the pall of the bizarre sky, he felt that the legionnaires would hasten back to Istar and not waste a lot of time seeking the two wild elves. Undoubtedly the human soldiers, bereft of their wizard and their priest, were reacting with horror to the
phenomenon.

  The memory of the dead wizard left Iydahoe cold, even numb. Always before the slaying of his enemies had been a thing that gave him satisfaction. Now he had killed perhaps the deadliest enemy in the history of the four tribes — and yet the memory of that justifiable death gave him no pleasure at all.

  He wondered if the humans would realize that the Kagonesti had taken Vanisia-or if they would believe that they had abducted Wellerane as well. The Istarians' consternation didn't matter to him, except insofar as his enemies would be too distraught to bother with following the wild elves. This, of course, was a good thing.

  Near sunset, they approached the grotto, traveling more slowly than the two Kagonesti would have by themselves. Still, the elfwoman trotted without complaint, though raw blisters were clearly visible on each of her feet. The three hurried among the tall trunks leading to the gorge and the sheltered village.

  Vanisia's piercing scream shot through the forest like a lightning bolt, and Iydahoe whirled to see what had frightened her. With a moan, she pointed toward the bole of a tree, sinking to her knees in shock.

  As Iydahoe followed her pointing finger, he felt a chill descend into the very pit of his stomach. The bark of the tree trunk had split apart like some kind of festering wound, and from the opening dripped glistening, crimson blood! Streaming onto the ground in a thick, congealing flood, the liquid gushed as if it poured from a fresh, deep cut.

  The elves stared in dull disbelief. Vanisia and Bakali recoiled a step, while Iydahoe's fists clenched in impotent rage. What kind of horror was it that could rend the very trees of the forest? He saw the pool of blood expand, pouring over the dike formed by a gnarled root, starting a small trickle along the forest trail.

  The bark tore on another tree, nearby, and more scarlet liquid flooded out. All around them trunks ripped, and soon the stench of spilled blood overpowered everything else in the forest. Fueled by steadily growing panic, Iydahoe led the pair through the woods, racing as fast as their feet could carry them. They leapt splashing rivulets of gore, desperately skirted growing pools of the horrid stuff. The warrior ran as if he fled a nightmare, no longer certain of what they would find in the grotto. He no longer felt certain about anything!

  When they slipped through the narrow, twisting gorge that led to the concealed village, Iydahoe tried unsuccessfully to calm his pounding heart. Finally they reached the clear pool of water, and he saw the small lodges of the makeshift tribe. The young Kagonesti, all the survivors of the Istarian massacre of fourteen years earlier, came run- i ning toward them, shouting in relief.

  But only the younger elves were here. He saw the fragments of the Ram's Horn, sitting as always on the smooth, mossy blanket before his father's lodge. The coals of Hawkan's fire were out, and there was no sign of movement within the shadowed interior of the little hut.

  "Hawkan? Where's my father?" demanded Iydahoe. The boy Kagwallas, who was almost as old as Bakall, stepped forward, his eyes filled with tears. "A person came last night, a House Elf," he explained. "He took your father by the hand. Together they went away." "They just disappeared! It was magic!" wailed little Faylai. Iydahoe staggered under the onslaught of monstrous fear, sinking to the ground from unbearable weight, knowing that Vanisia had spoken the truth. The end of the world had begun.

  Chapter 29

  Thirteen Days of Doom

  The terrified Kagonesti huddled around a small fire, watching the woods. At sunset, they divided themselves into the three largest lodges to spend the long, ghostly night. At dawn, they emerged again, rebuilding the fire and watching their wilderness perish before their eyes. The trees continued to bleed, fouling the streams, polluting the crystal pool in the center of the village. Fortunately, Kagwallas had had the presence of mind to order all the waterskins filled when the trees had first split open, and the tribe did not suffer for water. Keeping his bow and arrows in his hands, Iydahoe often rose to his feet and paced around the periphery of the village. He felt as though the forest itself was planning an attack, and he despaired that his own vigilance would not be enough to prevent or deflect it.

  Kagwallas and Bakall, too, kept watch on the woods, while Dallatar tried amuse the younger elves by making funny faces and performing inept juggling acts. Ambra held little Faylai on her lap, while Vanisia sat among all the wild elves, offering a comforting word whenever she could.

  Iydahoe heard a stirring in the woods-the first such noise since the trees had begun to bleed. Carefully raising an arrow, he peered among the gory trunks, certain that something large moved out there. A bulky form crashed heavily through the decaying brush.

  A stag lumbered into view, shaking its antlered head from side to side, groggy and confused. Snorting, it fixed bloodshot eyes on one of the lodges. Lowering its rack, the great deer charged, smashing through the bark-and- leather wall of the small hut.

  Oddly, Iydahoe's first fear was a concern that the heavy hooves would further smash the pieces of the Ram's Horn, which still lay on the mossy blanket nearby. Overcoming his surprise, the elf raised his bow and shot-a perfect hit, sending the arrowhead deep into the creature's heart. Yet the deer only stumbled, raising its head and snorting as it looked around for the source of the attack. Iydahoe shot again, followed with a third arrow before the animal sank to its knees, then toppled, dead.

  Regretfully, the warrior and the older boys dragged the meat into the woods, reluctant to eat a creature that had been touched by such visible and profound madness. That night, Iydahoe trembled on his sleeping pallet, hearing the surreal moaning of the wind, the sighing of the trees, as if each limb, each trunk, felt terrible grief over the wounds that so unnaturally drained them. His nightmares came while he was awake, and his fear blocked him from seeking the only available refuge-sleep.

  "Is it true that you have killed many hundred men?" asked Vanisia suddenly, her voice emerging from the darkness on the other side of the hut. For a moment, Iydahoe didn't even comprehend her question, and when he did he thought that her curiosity seemed no more bizarre than the natural chaos around them.

  "That's what the human said. I have not kept count of lives, though I've shot many hundreds of arrows at the Istarians. And I rarely missed," he added, wanting to be truthful.

  "Why did you kill so many?"

  He told her of the day, fourteen years before, when his- and the tribe's-life had changed forever. It was not until he finished speaking that he realized he wept, that sometime during his speaking Vanisia had come to his side. Now she, too, wept as she held him. In the strength of her embrace he found the only goodness he knew in the world, profoundly relieved that there was, at least, that much comfort amid the chaos and despair.

  "Why must you do this avenging, this killing?" she probed gently, after a long silence.

  "I–I don't know. Since that day, the tribe has had no Pathfinder-"

  "They have you," Vanisia said firmly, and her words brought him up short. "You will show them the way. And perhaps that way is not always by killing."

  "I am beginning to think you speak the truth," he admitted. With this thought on his mind, he finally slept.

  The next day, the maddened intruders were wild boars-three of them. The creatures stampeded into the camp, heads lowered, and charged at the first Kagonesti they saw. This was Dallatar, who ducked out of the way. But one of the young girls, trying to run, was tossed high by a tusked snout and suffered a broken arm. She cried shrilly as Iydahoe and the older youths finally slew the maddened animals with spears and arrows.

  Once more the wild elves dragged the meat away from the village and left it to rot. Vanisia showed her clerical gift as a healer in mending and splinting the broken bone, but when she prayed to her goddess for aid in healing, those beseechments went unanswered. All her concentration and effort could not bring a response from the angered deities of Krynn-there would be no miraculous recovery.

  On successive days, wolves, hawks, even rabbits and squirrels, dashed into the village in berserk frenz
y. The youngest Kagonesti wielded clubs and threw stones, joining the rest to battle the unnatural onslaught. On the seventh night, the wild elves moved from their lodges into a large, dry cave that stood in one of the grotto's walls. There they slept fitfully, always with several sentries posted to keep their eyes on the night's exceptionally deep darkness.

  Late in the morning of the ninth day, a bear lurched into the village. The brute drooled, snapping foaming jaws as it peered around with dim, bloodshot eyes. Iydahoe ordered the rest of the tribe into the cave and faced the monster alone. He shot many arrows into the bear before it charged, roaring. Then he chopped with his axe as the bear mauled the elf. The two combatants rolled across the ground, the elf snarling as fiercely as the bear. Claws raked Iydahoe's ribs as the steel axe bit again and again into the crazed animal's side.

  It was that keen blade that ultimately saved him, slashing through the arteries in the monster's neck. Iydahoe's tribemates dragged the corpse off the bleeding, ravaged warrior, but the wild elf would not lie still and let Vanisia tend his wounds. Instead, he stumbled to his feet, shaking his bleeding fists at the equally gruesome forest.

  "Why do you turn on us?" Iydahoe cried. The pain from his wounds was nothing compared to the spiritual betrayal he felt. His rage was mindless, directed at the woods and mountains themselves. The corruption of tree and wild beast was too much, too vile, to bear.

  "Come and kill me-now!" he shrieked. 'The bear was too weak! Give me a real killer! Or are you afraid?"

  He didn't know who he shouted at as he wildly looked around, but suddenly his eyes fixed on a focus for his rage, his despairing sense of abandonment. Blindly he stumbled to the mat where the shards of the Ram's Horn lay.