It was an Elven dagger, made of deadly Elvensteel and designed to pierce any opening or weakness in the Elven armor’s defenses. Seeing the length of gleaming steel in the young thing’s hands made all of his battle-honed instincts rouse at once. They weren’t children anymore—they were the enemy.
With a gasping cry, he struck the Shadowed Elf child as hard as he could, then grabbed the other two and flung them against the walls of the hut, stunning them.
Then he took his sword and killed them all.
Bile rose in his throat as he retrieved his dagger, and Kellen breathed deeply, trying to center himself again. But the self-forgiveness he sought would not come. He had killed children. How could he accept that?
I will have to find a way. Or not. And whether I can or not, finding out if I can will have to wait. Because my comrades are dying now.
Gritting his teeth, Kellen left the hut.
All around him, the battle was going badly. There weren’t as many of the enemy this time, but the Elves were taking terrible losses. They simply couldn’t bring themselves to attack and kill what they saw—despite everything—as women and children.
And it was costing them dearly.
Suddenly the cavern was ablaze with light—as bright as the noonday sun at midsummer. Kellen looked up, and saw that the entire roof of the cavern was glowing with bright blue Coldfire.
Jermayan and Ancaladar had arrived.
“Pull back. I’m going to burn the huts.” Jermayan’s voice spoke quietly, as if in his ear, and Kellen could tell by the startled expressions on the faces of the Elves that everyone else had heard it too. They began to retreat.
But it was easier asked than done, especially when they had to protect their wounded and recover their dead, and it was several minutes of hard and bloody fighting before that could be accomplished.
The Shadowed Elves fought viciously, as much like animals—or insects—as like thinking beings. They did not seem to care if they sacrificed any of their own—down to the smallest infant—if it brought them a greater chance of killing one of the Elves. In cold disbelief, Kellen saw the Shadowed Elf archers using their own young as shields, saw children younger than the ones he’d killed springing upon Elven warriors, armed with jars of acid like the one that had killed Celegaer. He dragged one of the Elves out of the way just in time, striking his young attacker dead. The spilled liquid fumed and bubbled over the corpse, smoking and stinking.
The Elves were barely clear of the huts, fighting their way toward the staircase, when suddenly every stone structure within the cavern save for the staircase burst into flame.
That isn’t possible, thought Kellen in awe. Any Wildmage or High Mage could summon Fire—but only to burn what would burn naturally. But this … ? The stone itself was burning as if it were seasoned wood drenched in lamp oil. In seconds, a roaring wall of heat separated the combatants from their prey.
Shadowed Elves—bodies aflame—ran from some of the huts, only to be cut down by the archers, in mercy.
The Shadowed Elves who had not been in the huts were trapped by the walls of flame. Their response to the sudden wave of magic was one of utter terror. The archers who had been holding living shields threw them down and tried to flee, but there was nowhere to go, save into the Elven army.
It was no longer a battle, but a massacre. Some of the Shadowed Elves ran toward the flames. Kellen saw females grab struggling children and throw them into burning huts, the structures already collapsing into ash. The archers shot all they could before the flames took them.
It was over quickly. The huts were gone, the stone burned away to ash. A wall of icy air filled the cavern, wiping away the furnace heat. The stone floor creaked and groaned, forced to cool as quickly as it had been heated.
Ancaladar launched himself from the rim of the cavern, landing in the now-empty space.
Kellen glanced around quickly, feeling a deep pang of relief to see that Idalia was still on her feet, though her garments were tattered and blood-soaked and her face was grim.
All of the Elves looked stunned. They’d won the battle, but at a terrible cost, both physical and spiritual.
Which is what Shadow Mountain wants, Kellen realized with a flash of insight. THAT’S what this war is about. It’s just another kind of drought. The last one starved the land. This one starves the spirit.
Realizing that, he felt his own soul-sickness ease. He’d hated what he’d done here today with all his being. But it had been necessary. The Shadowed Elves were Demonic in nature. They were creatures of the Endarkened, created as a trap for the creatures of the Light. To show them mercy would be to doom the Light.
I pity them, because I think they have no choice to be other than what they are. And I forgive them, because they have no choice. But I have a choice to fight for what I think is right, and I also forgive myself for making it.
But the Elves—oh, it was different for them. Not only had they been killing women and children, they had been killing kin. Blood of their blood. Tainted, but still their own.
I have to figure out how to take that guilt away from them …
Kellen took a few steps toward Jermayan and Ancaladar.
“It took you long enough,” Kellen said. He could sense the tension of the Elves—normal Wildmagery was one thing, but what they’d just seen went far beyond that.
“We were hunting Shadowed Elves,” Ancaladar said in his deep soft voice. “And a way here that I could pass through was hard to find.”
Jermayan was looking past Kellen, searching the armored figures for familiar forms. He came over to Kellen.
“Celegaer?” he asked in a low voice.
“Dead,” Kellen said. “Vestakia is waiting outside with Adaerion and the reserves. We didn’t want to risk her.”
“Better she not see … this,” Jermayan said grimly.
“Kellen,” Idalia said, coming up. Her voice echoed in the empty space. “I hate to say this, but … Celegaer is dead, Padredor is badly wounded, and so is Tinbendon. They can’t find Perchalas. And you’re a Knight-Mage.”
Kellen looked from Jermayan to Idalia, not understanding.
“You are the ranking officer able to command,” Jermayan said quietly. “What do we do?”
He’d wanted the job. He just hadn’t expected to get it now.
“Can you widen the steps to the surface? We need to transport the dead and wounded,” he said.
“He doesn’t ask much, does he?” Ancaladar commented.
“Yes,” Jermayan said, answering Kellen.
Jermayan stretched out his hand. And the steps … blurred.
For a moment Kellen thought there must be something wrong with his vision. But when it steadied again, he could see that the steps were wider than before, as broad and easy as any grand staircase in a High Mage’s house.
Kellen stared at Jermayan and Ancaladar, his emotions in turmoil. Awe, yes, and not a little fear. Not of his friends, but … this was power but of legend, out of wondertales.
“It comes at a price,” Jermayan said quietly.
“Yes,” Kellen said. If no other price than the price of being set apart from everything normal and familiar by living in a world you could reshape with a thought.
“Cover our retreat,” he said to Jermayan and Ancaladar. “Then get out yourselves. I think we got them all, but we won’t know until Vestakia tells us.”
He turned and went back to the others.
“Gather up the dead. Prepare the wounded for transport. We’re leaving.”
Kellen had learned by watching that a good commander gave an order and left the details to his subordinates. He did nothing to interfere with the arrangements for departure. He was busy enough helping to bandage the wounded. Neither he nor Idalia dared to risk any healings—though everyone there would have been willing to share the price, they had been fighting all day, and it would have been cruel to ask it, nor did either Wildmage dare to risk deeper exhaustion and incurring Magedebt themselves.
But Jermayan was not so bound. He moved among the injured, Healing the worst of the injuries until Kellen saw him stagger with weariness as he rose from beside a supine body.
A dragon’s power might be inexhaustible. But a Mage was not
“Stop it,” Kellen said quietly, going over and putting a hand under Jermayan’s arm. “We need you to be able to fight if you have to. That’s more important.”
“More important than their lives?” Jermayan demanded in an anguished whisper.
“They’ll be with the Healers soon,” Kellen said. “And if you cannot fight when we need you, we may all die.”
He did not know where the words were coming from. They were harsh and brutal, but they seemed to be the right thing to say, for Jermayan nodded slowly and walked back to where Ancaladar waited.
The Elves began moving up the newly-broadened staircase, carrying those too injured to walk—and the dead—in makeshift slings formed of cloaks and surcoats.
They carried the Shadowed Elf dead with them as well, all that they had been able to recover. Kellen was surprised at that, but had said nothing. He would never, he realized, truly understand the Elves, even if he lived among them for the rest of his life.
Kellen was the last up the stairs. At the top he stopped and looked back. The cavern was utterly empty save for Jermayan and Ancaladar, and a fine coating of grey ash upon the floor.
IT was twilight by the time Kellen stepped into the open air again. The corridors through which he had passed had been utterly empty. The Elves and the Shadowed Elves were gone, and only spilled blood remained.
The army had moved more slowly as the corridor narrowed, and the slower Kellen moved, the more it seemed he could feel exhaustion dragging at his limbs. When they reached the narrow corridor to the outside, he simply stopped, leaning against the wall and resting until Idalia came back for him.
“We thought you might have gotten lost,” she said, handing him a wooden cup.
Kellen shook his head wordlessly. The cup held hot cider. He drained it in a few quick gulps.
“Vestakia?” he asked.
“She doesn’t sense any Taint from where she is, which is good. Redhelwar wants her to go down to be sure, but that can wait until tomorrow, if you agree.”
If I agree? When had Redhelwar started consulting him?
“She doesn’t sense anything? How close is she?” Kellen asked.
“Right outside,” Idalia said. “She said she could feel it when …” Idalia stopped.
“When we’d killed all of them down in the cavern,” Kellen said gently. “Maybe she should go up to the other entrance now and check there, just to be sure. But I don’t think any of them ran.”
“Come on, then. You’ll need to make your report.”
THE reserve force had been brought up, and transport wagons were being used to carry away the wounded. The dead, to whom time no longer mattered, lay in neat rows in the snow, waiting to be carried away in their turn. Kellen looked away—there would be time enough later to find out who had died today.
Globes of Coldfire, interspersed with more conventional lanterns, flickered over the landscape, lending the twilight an ethereal, insubstantial quality, as if he were in a waking dream—or a nightmare.
Idalia led him toward Redhelwar. The general was seated on his bay destrier, Vestakia at his side on a cream palfrey. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of him.
“I will not ask you for a detailed report now, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar said, “but I will need a preliminary one.”
“We entered the cavern village,” Kellen said. “It was occupied by females and young, as well as by the survivors of the first attack—mostly archers, I think. They hid until we entered the village and started going into the huts. They attacked us with acid and poison weapons. Jermayan and Ancaladar arrived and set fire to the village, and we … did what we’d set out to do. Celegaer is dead, two of his lieutenants were badly injured, and the third is missing. So we left.”
Redhelwar nodded. “Do you believe that more of the creatures may be in hiding elsewhere in the caverns?” he asked.
“No,” Kellen said, shaking his head. “You didn’t see how they came after us. I’m sorry, but … I don’t think any of them wanted to get away from the fight, except at the very end, and then they couldn’t. But I’d like Vestakia to go up to the other entrance—the one that Ancaladar uses—and see what she can sense there, just to be sure.”
“Yes. Best to be as sure as we can without going back inside tonight. Arambor, find horses for the Wildmages, and gather a party.”
While the horses were being brought, Kellen took the opportunity to clean the worst of the blood from his sword. It felt good to be able to sheathe it again. He wished Shalkan could be with him, but that simply wasn’t possible.
The horses were led forward—Idalia had her own palfrey, but the mare brought for Kellen—a dapple grey with a white mane and tail—was a stranger to him. He took a moment to stroke her neck reassuringly before swinging into the saddle, blessing all those hours of lessons with Deyishene.
“Her name is Mindaerel,” Redhelwar said. “She has lost a friend this day.” He paused, and added heavily, “As have we all. Celegaer was her rider.”
Kellen nodded. He’d seen the closeness of the bond between Jermayan and Valdien, more like that between dog and master than between horse and rider. What would happen to all the Elven warhorses bereft of their closest companions by the battle today?
He urged Mindaerel forward. To his relief, she obeyed without hesitation. If she was in some form of equine mourning, she didn’t show it. Unbidden, the thought came to him. She is a warrior too …
He dropped into battle-mind easily, scanning the terrain ahead for any sign of ambush, and saw nothing. When they were still half a mile from the cave opening, he saw Ancaladar push himself out through it, springing upward into the sky. Kellen waved, hailing the pair, and Ancaladar dipped a wing in reply.
The small party reached the cliff face. High above, there was a dragon-sized opening in the sheer, ice-covered expanse of rock.
“Anything?” Kellen asked.
Vestakia concentrated. She looked as if she were listening very hard, although listening was not precisely what she was doing.
“Nothing,” Vestakia said after a long pause. She burst into tears, and Idalia moved to comfort her.
IT was nearly midnight by the time Kellen was able to settle into his tent at last. He wasn’t alone; Shalkan had joined him, as much for emotional support as because it was freezing outside. Kellen was happy to have him there for both reasons; the unicorn’s body helped raise the temperature in the tent appreciably.
Kellen had discussed the day’s events with his friend already, settling them in his mind so that he could work through them when there was leisure to (if there ever was), but a few things still puzzled him.
“Shalkan, what did the Elves do with all those bodies—the Shadowed Elf ones, I mean? They went to so much trouble to get them—they brought all of them out of the caverns and back here; I saw them. But later, they’d disappeared.”
The unicorn snorted gently, and snuggled closer to Kellen. “They did with them just what they did with their own dead. They took them into the forest and suspended them in the trees. You can go and see tomorrow if you like.”
Kellen twitched. “No, thanks. But why?”
“You have to think like an Elf. If they buried them, it would shut the spirit away from the wind and the sun. If they burned them … well, that would be rather hard on the trees that were felled to make the pyres. And if they floated them down rivers, it would take their dead far away from home and hearth.
“As for why they’re treating the Shadowed Elves the same way they’re treating their own dead … well, you saw how they acted today.”
“Yes. It was”—Kellen groped for words—“strange. I didn’t understand it. Surely they realize that the Shadowed Elves aren’t really Elves!”
Shalkan made a “hrumphing” noise. “What if Idalia did something really horrible?”
“But she wouldn’t!” Kellen protested automatically.
“But imagine if she did. How would you feel?”
Kellen thought about it. First he had to imagine Idalia being somebody else entirety—but feeling just the same way about her. Then he imagined her doing something awful.
“I guess I’d feel … but I still don’t …” he faltered.
“To you, the Shadowed Elves are creatures of the Dark. To the Elves, they are Elves—debased, Tainted, and twisted, but Elves nonetheless. Nothing you or I or anyone else can say or do will change that feeling. And so they feel responsible.”
“Which is just what They want,” Kellen said, feeling sick.
“I know,” Shalkan answered.
THE following day, Kellen and a party of Elves entered the caverns once more, Vestakia in the lead. This time Redhelwar accompanied them—it was necessary, the Elven general said, to see firsthand the terrain over which he would be sending armies to fight in the future.
Once more Jermayan and Ancaladar entered the caverns from the other direction. The two groups met at the site of the village cavern.
The Coldfired ceiling still burned brightly over the cavern where the village had been. Eventually it would go out by itself if Jermayan did not extinguish it, but Coldfire—or Magelight—was such a simple spell that such castings were often left to run out by themselves. Redhelwar looked down into the cavern in silence.
Vestakia shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, sounding relieved.
By the end of the day they had explored a great deal of the cave system. They found several more areas that the Shadowed Elves had used for various purposes—storerooms, larders, middens—but no further sign of the creatures themselves. And, thankfully, no prisoners. Kellen didn’t think that anything could be held prisoner here for long and still be sane. At last everyone agreed that this cavern system was empty of Shadowed Elves.
“And now,” Redhelwar said, “we must find their next lair.”
The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy Page 120
