The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  His tone was light, despite his obvious pain, making her smile despite herself.

  “Vestakia, since you seem to be feeling better this morning, perhaps you could tend to our latest patient,” Idalia said. “Sweet gruel for his tender stomach, I think, then into bed with him. Keep him warm. And stay with him—or I shall put you back into a bed again as well.”

  Vestakia simply tossed her head.

  “Some people, Cilarnen, think that others can do nothing without constant supervision. Shall we show them that they are wrong?”

  “Indeed, Lady Vestakia, I would be honored to assist you.”

  WHILE he ate and drank—the light breakfast was really all he could manage just now, after so many days of fasting—Cilarnen told Vestakia of his night’s labors, and that Jermayan had gone in search of those he had seen in his vision.

  Her teasing mood instantly sobered.

  “But … what could have happened?” she asked in bewilderment.

  “That I do not know. But Jermayan has set out to find them and see. Vestakia, there cannot have been a battle. I saw no wounded at all. And … these are the Elven Lands. You’ve said yourself that the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves is at Halacira. They were nowhere near that. Certainly it is troubling, but Jermayan will find them soon, and bring news. We shall just have to wait until then.”

  BUT it was not Jermayan who entered the Healer’s Tent to join them, a few hours later, but Keirasti, accompanied by Idalia.

  The Elven Knight looked exhausted, and stunned with cold. Vestakia jumped up immediately from her place by Cilarnen’s bedside, and went to fetch her a large mug of soup. Soup and tea were always ready and waiting in the Healer’s pavilion.

  “Before anyone asks, Kellen is alive and well,” Idalia said. “At least he was six days ago, when Keirasti left him. And he was nowhere near Halacira.”

  “Well, there’s some good news,” Cilarnen said, lying back against his pillows again.

  “Indeed it is,” Keirasti said. “I judge he is yet a sennight from Halacira. When Jermayan returns from the Crowned Horns, he will take your warning to Kellen, and he will be grateful to receive it, you may be sure.”

  “I must go with Jermayan,” Vestakia said, coming over and handing Keirasti a large mug of thick soup. “I can help.”

  “No,” Keirasti said. “Jermayan has promised he will return me to my command. They await me at the foot of the Mystrals. Ancaladar can only carry two at speed.”

  “He can take your warning to Kellen,” Idalia said gently. “That will be what Kellen needs now. He’ll probably send for you anyway very soon, to make sure the caverns are clear.”

  AND it would be just as well, Idalia reflected, for Vestakia to have a day or two to rest and compose herself before she saw Kellen again. The way she looked right now, the poor girl would probably throw herself into Kellen’s arms the moment she saw him, and though her brother might have a head made of wood sometimes, he wasn’t made of stone. But he did have a vow of chastity and celibacy that had some moonturns yet to run, and Idalia doubted it would be the easiest thing in the world to remember with a weeping Vestakia in his arms.

  “And you’ll have plenty to do here before you go. Redhelwar has given the order to move the army south.”

  “South? We’re to move?” Cilarnen sat bolt upright. “But I—”

  “Must stay right there and rest,” Idalia said inexorably. “You will have plenty of time later to pack that mare’s nest you call a camp. Which you cannot do if you are facedown in the snow, asleep with exhaustion.”

  Cilarnen subsided, grumbling.

  Just then one of the other Healers entered the tent.

  “Ancaladar is flying over the camp. Jermayan will be here soon.”

  “I must prepare,” Keirasti said, setting down her wooden mug. “And hope not to freeze on the return journey.”

  She got to her feet, picking up two bulky packs that lay at her feet. “I thank you for these, Idalia. Our Healers were running low on supplies.”

  “At least you won’t have to cross the Mystrals on horseback again soon,” Idalia said. “Safe journey to you.”

  “Leaf and Star be with you all.”

  IDALIA and Vestakia rode out to see Jermayan and Keirasti off. Jermayan had ridden down into the camp on Valdien, who was once again stabled up at Ancaladar’s ice-pavilion. Keirasti was riding pillion behind Idalia, since her destrier was still with her command.

  “Be safe,” Idalia said to Jermayan.

  “I shall keep him so,” Ancaladar promised.

  “It should be a simple matter,” Jermayan said. “At least as simple as anything involving the Shadowed Elves is.”

  “If only I had known sooner!” Vestakia said.

  “Then all would have happened just as it has,” Jermayan told her. “We must clear those caverns to fit them to our own use, and we would have sent just such a force to do it. Kellen is hardly a novice at this work. I will bring him your warning, and he will proceed with care.”

  Vestakia nodded, looking miserable and unconvinced.

  Jermayan stepped up into Ancaladar’s saddle, and reached down to help Keirasti into the saddle behind him. The packs she was taking back to her command, which had been lashed to Valdien’s saddle, were already tied in place. The two riders began to buckle themselves in.

  “Come on,” Idalia said, setting her foot into Cella’s stirrup and taking Valdien’s reins with her. “The horses won’t like getting a faceful of snow when Ancaladar takes off, and neither will we.”

  The two riders backed off a little distance as Ancaladar began his takeoff run. In moments the dragon was skyborne, circling over the camp in an ascending spiral and then heading westward, his black wings outstretched.

  “Back to camp, then,” Idalia said.

  WHEN they returned to the Healer’s Pavilion, Cilarnen was up and dressed.

  “By your leave,” Cilarnen said, when he saw Idalia. “I’d better go back to my own camp. Since we’re moving, I have packing—a lot of packing—to do. And preparations to make. And there’s no one to do it but me.”

  Idalia regarded him critically. Rest and food had done much to restore his vitality. The trouble was, she didn’t really trust him to take care of himself.

  “If you work yourself until you drop, you’ll be no use to anyone. And I’ll have no choice but to treat you to a selection of my strengthening cordials. And I warn you now, they taste incredibly vile.”

  “Your point is well taken,” Cilarnen said with a faint smile. “Still, the work must be done, or I will be of no use to the army anyway. I promise to be careful. Elven tea is vile enough. I would hate to risk the experience of any more of your cordials. Kardus will help me. And perhaps Vestakia will come also.”

  “Fine. She can keep an eye on you. If she agrees?”

  “If you don’t need me down in camp, I’d be happy to keep an eye on Cilarnen,” Vestakia said, with a faintly wicked smile. “And he can tell me more about Armethalieh.”

  Cilarnen bowed again. “That I shall be more than happy to do. It was once the most beautiful place in the world, and the Eternal Light grant that it shall be so again.”

  Chapter Eleven

  To Live in the City of Distance

  ANCALADAR SPED THROUGH the great halls of the upper air, his wings barely moving. The wind whistled over the armor of his two riders, making a monotonous, atonal song.

  “Redhelwar orders the army south,” Jermayan said.

  “Yes,” Keirasti agreed.

  “So Kellen would have advised him, and so I said to him,” Jermayan said. “And yet I wonder at the timing of it.”

  “And so you must, until you speak with Kellen,” Keirasti said implacably.

  Jermayan sighed. “And so I shall.”

  And when he spoke to Kellen, he would discover what Kellen had learned that was of such terrible urgency that he had needed to send Keirasti north to deliver the information to Redhelwar at all costs.

&n
bsp; Though the flight back to where Keirasti had left Maredhiel and the rest of her command was just as long as the one away from her, it seemed shorter, for this time they knew exactly where they were going, and Ancaladar had no need to search every inch of the crags below for traces of a party in distress.

  The site was easy to spot, for in the handful of hours—less than a full day—that Keirasti had been gone, the Knights had set up a full camp and picketed the horses. Ancaladar banked once over the ring of tents, the looked for a suitable landing place. It was easily found, for the mountain valley was filled with sweeps of smooth snow.

  “Easy enough to land,” the dragon grumbled, as he set his wings for his final descent. “Harder to get airborne again.”

  Jermayan patted Ancaladar’s neck in sympathy. Left to himself, the dragon would make his flights from high places, such as the tops of mountains, where he had strong winds to bear him up, and hundreds of feet of free air below him in which to maneuver. Though he could take off from a level plain—and had, many times—as Ancaladar said, it was more work.

  The landings were not things of ease, either.

  At the last moment, Ancaladar fanned his wings backward—hard—and stood almost upright in the air, hitting the deep snow hind feet first. The backwinging in the air slowed his already greatly-diminished forward speed, but not enough to keep him from digging a deep trench through the heavy powdery snow. On solid ground, draconic landings were light and elegant things, but the uncertain surface of the snow often did not permit such grace.

  At last Ancaladar settled his belly into the snow and folded his wings.

  “We’re here,” he said unnecessarily.

  Keirasti began to unbuckle her straps.

  Maredhiel was already riding out toward them, leading Orata.

  Keirasti glanced toward the sky. “You have only an hour of light more at best. It would please me should you choose to stay with us for the night and journey on in the morning.”

  “This is familiar territory to us,” Ancaladar replied. “And the winds over the plains ahead present no challenge. If my Bonded agrees, we will fly on.”

  “Then let it be so. When you see Kellen, tell him I will be with him before another sennight passes.”

  She slipped down from the dragon’s back, grunting as she found herself waist-deep in snow, and began untying the nearer pack from Ancaladar’s saddle. Jermayan reached back to loose the one she could not reach, handing it across to her.

  By the time they were both free, Maredhiel had reached them.

  “Alas that you rejoin us so speedily,” the Elven Knight said cheerfully. “I had thought we were to have at least a moonturn’s recreation here in this garden spot.”

  “So much for your dreams of ease, lazy one,” Keirasti said to her Second. “Take this pack up with you; it is filled with Idalia’s medicines. Tomorrow we begin to rejoin the army.”

  Whatever message Keirasti had carried, Jermayan reflected, Maredhiel obviously had no inkling of it. She accepted her parcel readily, with no indication that she was burdened by more-than-ordinary cares.

  He waited for the two Knights to ride away.

  “Soon we can ask Kellen,” Ancaladar said.

  “Yes,” Jermayan answered. “Soon.”

  IN the end, it came down to the simple work of butchery.

  They outnumbered their enemy ten—a hundred—to one, and the Shadowed Elves had no place to run to. Some of them fled through the passage that led to the surface; Kellen’s battle-sight showed him that Churashil’s force made short work of them there.

  But far more remained in the caverns below. Some had managed to evade Kellen’s force, but Umerchiel and the others waited in the chamber beyond, and there were no other exists from it. So they, too, were accounted for.

  Many of the Shadowed Elves in the river gallery had thrown down their weapons when the caverns began to shake; it became a matter of finding those that were still alive, driving them up against the walls of the gallery, and cutting them to pieces.

  Sometimes the Shadowed Elves would hide among the mounds of their dead. After the first one had attacked from such a hiding place, Kellen ordered all the Shadowed Elf corpses checked. They found more survivors. Two Elves would hold the victim while a third slit the captive’s throat.

  None of the swimmers reached the far shore alive.

  By the time the Elves had finished their bloody work, the Angarussa had begun to run normally, washing the bodies of the floating dead that had fallen into its waters away with it.

  After he had disposed of the Shadowed Elf sortie that had reached the surface, Churashil had sent scouts down into the caverns, and received new orders from Kellen. Braziers had been brought to warm the river-gallery, and a steady stream of wounded were being evacuated to the main camp.

  There weren’t many. Only a tiny fraction of the company of Elves Kellen had brought into Halacira had actually engaged the enemy in the Shadowed Elf attack.

  And most of them had drowned.

  Eventually Kellen’s people would have to try to dredge the river to recover the bodies.

  Kellen tried to think of what he could have done differently, had he known Halacira had become an Enclave of the Shadowed Elves before he’d entered the caverns. But he could think of nothing. He would still have had to go down into the caves with his Knights to find them. The caves would still have been entrapped. The Shadowed Elves would still have flooded the caves.

  If he had gone alone, he might have gotten out the way he’d come. Or he might have died. If he’d come down with a smaller force, they might all have died, for it was their overwhelming numbers that had kept so many of them alive today.

  As brutal as it was, despite the losses they had suffered, this was the best outcome they could have hoped for.

  It didn’t feel right.

  And they were still going to have to search the caves thoroughly, because they could not allow even one of the Tainted creatures to survive.

  “Did the day go as you wished it?”

  Wirance walked over to the nearest brazier and held his hands out to its warmth. The Wildmage looked exhausted. Lines of weariness etched his weather-beaten features.

  “What are you still doing here?” Kellen demanded. “I told Umerchiel to send all the Wildmages up to the Healers as soon as the passage was clear.”

  “Aye, well, as to that… I stayed with Kerleu. I have to say, I thought we were going to bring the whole place down on us when the spell ran. But the mountain’s bones run deep.”

  Kerleu stayed too? But all the wounded should have been evacuated hours ago.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” Kellen said.

  “A life was the Price, a life freely given,” Wirance said. “We all agreed to pay it. He had a valiant heart, but crossing the Mystrals too often will weaken it. It could well have happened without the spell.”

  But it didn’t.

  Kellen drew a deep breath. “He is no less a casualty of war than Ambanire, or any other who fell in battle here today. He will be so honored.”

  Wirance clapped him on the shoulder. “All goes as the Huntsman wills, lad. Kerleu goes to the Forest to be born again to the Wife. He’ll be back, sure as flowers in the spring.”

  Kellen nodded, though spring—and Wirance’s easy certainty that it would come—seemed very far away.

  “And the day?” Wirance said again.

  “We won,” Kellen said slowly. “In a day or two, I suppose we’ll know whether the caverns are clear. And Artenel and his people can get to work rebuilding them to make them into a fortress.”

  “So no one who died here died for nothing,” Wirance said, sounding satisfied. “And now that I’ve got a little heat in these old bones, I’ll get back to Kerleu.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  MUCH of the main force of the army was still in the selkie-chamber and the mining-cavern beyond it. Kellen searched until he found Isinwen. His Second was battered—and, of course, soaking
wet—but alive and well.

  “It’s going to take forever to move everyone out across the causeway,” Kellen said once greetings had been exchanged. “Is there any chance now of getting out through the main entrance?”

  For one thing, it was closer to the camp. That meant dry clothes, fires, and food—something all of them needed. Churashil had brought horses and wagons around to the river cavern entrance to transport the wounded, and the Knights that had so far made their way to the surface through that exit, but the sun was setting, and to move all the horses around to that entrance and ride back again would take a long time—and they’d be even colder than they were now.

  “The main entrance should be clear by now—if damp,” Isinwen said after a moment’s thought.

  “Take a party and see.”

  THOUGH several of the side-galleries had collapsed—due to either the Shadowed Elves’ work or the Wildmages’ spell—the route to the surface was clear, and Kellen immediately began evacuating his army through the larger entrance. He would leave no one behind in the caves tonight, not even the dead. Guarding the exits would have to be enough.

  Leaving the caves went a good deal faster than entering them had. He was glad of that much. There were a number of blessings to be counted, if he cared to: no duergar had lurked anywhere in the unlighted depths of the caves to draw any of his troops farther in. The Shadowed Elves had not summoned any of the Shadow’s other allies to aid them—if the Elves had faced Frost Giants and Ice Trolls here in Halacira, as well as Shadowed Elves and rising water, their situation would have been unwinnable.

  But the Shadowed Elves had been willing to die to the last soul to destroy their enemy, and perhaps their allies had not. Or perhaps they simply had not been able to reach them in time.

  Finally the last band of Elves prepared to ascend to the surface. Kellen wrapped his borrowed—dry—cloak around him and followed.