To Light A Candle ou(tom-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  Kellen knew exactly what to do.

  He cut through the neck of the first beast that leaped at him. The second didn’t die, but it ran, badly wounded. He stopped counting after that. Each blow merged into the next. It was as if they moved to meet his blade. He knew where they were; knew where they would be. It was snowing harder now, masking the world in an impenetrable veil of whiteness, and it didn’t matter. Kellen saw the world in patterns of blue and green and red: his attacks, their attacks; defense, retreat.

  He did not plan to retreat. He would not be where their blows landed; they would be where his blade could find them. It did not matter if he killed, or merely wounded, all that mattered was that he became the center of their attention, the foe that could not be ignored, that he dominated their thoughts until there was room for no other prey in their minds.

  Except, of course, that he was not the prey.

  They were. They just hadn’t realized it yet.

  Here was the dancing circle, as it had been drawn for him by all his teachers—Jermayan, Master Belesharon, those who had taught them, back to the beginning of the World. Within it was what he had sworn to protect. Attack came from every side; he crossed the circle again and again, his sword spraying blood across the snow like dark stars.

  At last there were no more targets.

  The patterns faded around him and vanished into whiteness. And his sword suddenly felt too heavy to lift.

  Warily Kellen gazed around. With his own eyes, he could see nothing but blowing snow, but the battle-sight told him the coldwarg were gone.

  Or dead.

  He looked around. Where were the others? There was no one in sight.

  They had to be here.

  “Shalkan?” he said hoarsely. “Keirasti? Petariel? Gesade?” Now that it was over, he could feel the ache in his muscles, the weariness of long exertion in the cold.

  Before he could panic, a mound of snow a few feet away thrashed. Shalkan got to his feet and shook vigorously, then Petariel and Keirasti climbed out of the hollow where they had been shielding Shalkan. The two of them gently lifted Gesade to her feet, then at last Keirasti allowed her mare to rise from where she had been lying. The animal shook herself exuberantly, and snorted as if in disapproval of the entire matter.

  “I believe I now know what a carpet feels like,” Petariel observed, his voice absolutely emotionless.

  “You—I—Wait. I stepped on you?” Kellen said, confused.

  “Several times,” Shalkan said. “I thought it best if we stayed out of your way.”

  “I put Orata down to use as a shield, and Gesade next to her. Shalkan told us all to curl up as tight as we could,” Keirasti said.

  He’d said he’d help, Kellen remembered with a sudden flash of gratitude. If he’d had to concentrate on protecting the others—if they’d been visible targets for the coldwarg… well, things might not have worked out so neatly.

  “I’m sorry,” Kellen said contritely, his voice thick with the exhaustion that poured over him like winter honey. “I didn’t mean to step on you.”

  Petariel stared at him as if he’d gone mad. Kellen could read the expression very clearly, even through Petariel’s helmet. “You saved our lives. You saved Gesade’s life. And now you’re apologizing for it. It’s true what they say. Wild-mages are all mad.”

  “Let’s go,” Kellen said. He shook his head to clear the snow that was falling into his face through his helmet slits, and found enough energy to lift his sword and sheathe it. “Those things won’t be back today, but I’m tired, cold, and we need to get back and report. If you can walk that far, Gesade?”

  “I can run, if I have to,” the unicorn said proudly, lifting her head.

  “Let me go on ahead,” Keirasti said. “I’ll let them know that Leaf and Star have favored us this day.” She vaulted into Orata’s saddle and cantered off in the direction of the army.

  Kellen looked up at the sky. He could see nothing. Now that he had the luxury of worrying, he hoped the rest of his friends were all right.

  He knew as clearly as if the coldwarg had the power of human speech what their intent had been. Attack the army, kill as many of the Unicorn Knights as they could. They could not hope to destroy the entire army, but every warrior they could kill was a small victory for those they served. And if the Deathwings had managed to kill Ancaladar… or capture Vestakia…

  “You killed a coldwarg pack,” Petariel said in tones of awe, breaking into his thoughts. “I wish I’d been able to watch.”

  “There weren’t a lot of them,” Kellen said, realizing the moment he spoke that the words sounded like the worst sort of false modesty. He tried again. “Petariel, I’m a Knight-Mage. That kind of fighting is just one of the things I’m good at, because of the Wild Magic. Like Idalia can heal. It’s not like—like something I trained all my life to have. I mean, it’s just something I am, not something I had to earn. It doesn’t mean…” He wasn’t sure what he meant to say, so he stopped.

  “But you came for us. You and Shalkan,” Petariel said.

  That reminded Kellen of something. He rounded on his friend, fury giving him a burst of energy he wouldn’t have believed he had left only a moment before.

  “And what did you mean by that? Coming out here with me like that? You didn’t have a scrap of armor on! You could have been killed!”

  “I wanted to see the fun,” Shalkan said innocently. “Besides, I knew you’d protect me.” Shalkan stretched out his neck, batted his lashes, and managed to assume an infuriatingly sappy expression of hero-worship, despite the fact that he was still covered in drying coldwarg blood.

  “I really ought to beat you senseless,” Kellen said fervently.

  Gesade snorted. “Oh, don’t make me laugh!” she begged. “It hurts.”

  The four of them began to walk slowly back toward the others through the thickening snow.

  Chapter Eighteen The Price of Power

  CLEANING UP AFTER the battle took all of that day and the next. Vestakia was unhurt, and Idalia said that according to Jermayan, the greatest injury he had sustained in the battle was having to listen to Ancaladar complain about how the Deathwings tasted.

  “There would be more dead had you not given warning,” Jermayan said later that night.

  Kellen had helped Idalia heal Gesade—a coldwarg had bitten through her foreleg, crushing the bone—and then visited with his wounded in the hospital, and then made his second—and more complete—report of the day to Adaerion. He should, by rights, be so completely exhausted he couldn’t stand, but he found that he was too keyed-up to sleep. He’d gone to the horse-lines to check on Mindaerel, and found Jermayan there with Valdien. Jermayan, sensing Kellen’s mood better than Kellen did, had brought him back to Jermayan’s tent.

  “But there are dead. It isn’t enough,” Kellen muttered, staring down into a mug of mulled cider.

  “You would save all the world, if you could,” Jermayan said. “Yes,” Kellen said simply.

  It was that, but it was more than that. Today the responsibility for saving the lives of others had been real—not an abstract, not a distant thing. The lives he had to save were right there in front of him, and people lived or died by how fast he could think, and how many right decisions he could make in a very short time. It had been his first taste of the responsibility he had chosen, the responsibility that would only become greater the longer he pursued this path. The weight of that responsibility felt like iron chains.

  And every day would not always end in victory, as this had. Someday he might have to stand and watch friends die because that was the only way to attain a greater victory. He knew that, and wasn’t sure that he could bear it.

  “Kellen.” There was a note of urgency in Jermayan’s voice that startled him. He looked up.

  Jermayan was studying him as if he were a problem to be solved. “In the Great War… the Wildmages who fell to the Dark… they had fought first for the Light. They saw friends, brothers, sisters, loved on
es, all die. Perhaps they wanted to save the world as well.”

  “I… oh.” Kellen blinked as Jermayan’s words sank in. “But I can’t stop caring that they die.”

  “No,” Jermayan agreed. “But don’t let your caring heart do the Enemy’s work for him. Now go to bed.”

  —«♦»—

  AFTER that first assault, flank patrols became the order of the day during the march. Every unit of the army took a turn at riding them.

  Though the coldwarg and the Deathwings never again attacked the army in the same numbers they had the first time, Jermayan reported that both creatures trailed the army at a distance constantly. Everyone knew this before very long, and everyone was on edge, waiting, wondering what was going to happen next. Though Jermayan and Ancaladar could easily have flown back and destroyed the packs, to do so would have meant leaving the marching column vulnerable to aerial attack—and Redhelwar was certain that this was precisely what their enemy was hoping for.

  Kellen agreed, and had said as much. Since the coldwarg attack, his position in the army had undergone a subtle change. He had proven himself—shown that he could think quickly and well in battle, and act efficiently to save lives and form strategies that would kill the enemy. The senior commanders gave greater weight to his advice.

  As for the sub-commanders, and the field knights, Kellen was welcomed at every fire and in every pavilion. He spent as much time with them as he could, knowing, deep in his heart, that the day would come when he would have to command them. He wondered if Redhelwar suspected it as well.

  The progress he was making toward his goal should have made him happy—it was what he needed, it was what he was working for—but all Kellen could see was the pressure of needing to be both right and lucky the next time he went into battle as well. Each time the stakes were higher, and to gain his ultimate goal, he could not afford a single misstep.

  But at least they listened. The creatures—Deathwings and coldwarg both— were obviously acting under orders, and Kellen wasn’t the only one to suspect that Vestakia was their ultimate target. The Elves knew that the Deathwings could snatch a rider from the saddle—they’d seen it done one day, when one of the white-furred monsters had slipped past Ancaladar and Jermayan’s defenses, though the archers had forced the creature to drop its prize unharmed—so now Vestakia rode in one of the wagons. It was stuffy and far less comfortable than riding on horseback, but at least she was safe from being snatched out of the saddle.

  But others would not be, and so Ancaladar flew over the army, and let the coldwarg follow it.

  —«♦»—

  THE land around Ysterialpoerin was heavily forested. Dense pine woods made it utterly impossible to keep to anything resembling a formal line of march, and slowed the army’s progress as alternate routes had to be found, time and again, for the supply wagons. Once they entered the forest, the Deathwings had stopped shadowing them, but the coldwarg did not. The trees provided far too much cover for the coldwarg; everyone knew they were there, but Jermayan and Ancaladar could not always see them. The Elves hunted them when they could, but no matter how many they killed, it never seemed to discourage the rest.

  Kellen waited. He knew something was going to happen, and it would be when they let their defenses down.

  And it did. When the army was two days away from Ysterialpoerin, the coldwarg attacked again, this time by night when half the camp was asleep.

  Kellen was roused out of unquiet dreams by shouts and horns, and was halfway into his armor before he was even awake. Grabbing his sword, he ran toward the horse-lines. They were heavily guarded—next to the unicorns, the horses were the most attractive target for the coldwarg, since without their mounts and draft animals, the army would be crippled.

  The battle this time was brief. They lost a few of the horses, and less than a dozen Knights, but once Ancaladar was able to find a place to land and take Jermayan onto his back, the victory was not in doubt.

  —«♦»—

  THE third attack came days later, this time at dawn, just when they were all encumbered with packing and harnessing up.

  One moment, Kellen was tightening the saddle girth—the next, only a glimpse of something moving at the edge of his vision warned him.

  Then the coldwarg were on them.

  They came on as if driven, and this time there was something desperate in the way they flung themselves at the Elves. There was no thought and no science in this attack; they attacked as the Shadowed Elves had, with hysterical ferocity, as if they were not only trying to overwhelm the Elves with mere numbers, but as if the unseen hand directing them had decided to sacrifice them entirely.

  Kellen made a target out of himself. And in a moment, he was surrounded by the coldwarg, which was exactly how he wanted it.

  And he began his deadly dance.

  Perhaps it had seemed clever to the enemy, to attack now—but it was the worst of all times for them to try, when the warriors were fresh, well rested, bodies still warmed and not stiff and cold with long riding.

  The red and blue shadows of battle-sight dodged around him, circling, driving in, dashing out—

  Be where they aren’t—

  Making feints, snapping enormous jaws—

  Be where they aren’t expecting—

  It was what Jermayan would call “a challenge.”

  Be the target they can’t ignore.

  With a new challenge involved—the Elves had come to understand that his battle-sight allowed him to see every danger, including friendly fire, and were taking advantage of that. So while he made an irresistible attraction of himself, they surrounded him and sent arrow after arrow into the ring of coldwarg around him. Now his own dodging had to include the arrows that missed their targets.

  And even a Knight-Mage grew tired—

  Kellen drove his sword through the body of a coldwarg. He was beginning to tire, and as a consequence, the strike was clumsy—he’d missed vital organs—and the monster dragged itself along his blade, jaws snapping as it strained to reach his throat.

  He flung himself onto his back, pulling his dagger, and jammed it with all his force into the beast’s eye. He felt the tip of the blade grate against the inside of the back of its skull as the blow drove home.

  As it thrashed, he got his feet into the coldwarg’s chest, and shoved with all his might, flinging the dying creature away from him. He rolled to his feet, and looked around for fresh targets, but his battle-sight was strangely clouded. A blue haze filled it, though to his normal vision, the scene was clear.

  And with normal sight, he could see the coldwarg walking—slowly, stiffly— away from their prey. Their heads and tails were down, and their hackles stood up stiffly.

  Something is happening.

  “Let them go,” Kellen said quietly to the Elves around him.

  The coldwarg staggered away from the horses, into the trees, moving in an eerie silence. Kellen could see their sides heaving; the beasts were panting as if they were running. When they were a bowshot’s distance away from the horse-lines, they stopped.

  And burst into flames.

  They burned as the stone houses in the Shadowed Elf caverns had burned, with a hot and furious flame that touched nothing around them. The fires burned so quickly that none of the beasts had time to utter so much as a yelp, and in seconds nothing remained but pools of snowmelt where the coldwarg had stood.

  The Enemy had discarded its weapon.

  —«♦»—

  THE day they reached Ysterialpoerin, Redhelwar and Adaerion rode down into the city, with Kellen’s troop along as escort, as the army continued onward toward the place where it would settle itself semipermanently.

  Ysterialpoerin was the closest in form—Jermayan had told Kellen—to how the Elves had lived in the days before the Great War.

  As they rode, Kellen kept waiting to see a sign that they had reached the city, and finally realized that there wasn’t going to be one. They were already in it. He looked around, as
much as he could without changing position. It was nearly impossible to tell where the trees stopped and the buildings began, so artfully did they blend together. Kellen had to look very closely as he rode, but yes—there was a house, built somehow between two of the largest trees, several dozen feet over their heads. And there was another, on the ground this time, its stone surface nearly indistinguishable from the stone outcropping thrusting into the forest beside it. Only it wasn’t stone, he realized a few moments later, but tile made to look like stone.

  And some of the trees weren’t trees at all, he realized with a shock—unless trees had doors in them, and windows.

  He’d thought that Sentarshadeen was beautiful, and that its dwellings blended into the landscape, but riding into Ysterialpoerin was like riding into a dream while you were still awake. Even the snow seemed to have fallen here with the intent to fall beautifully.