“What are they saying?” Kellen demanded, still sounding unconvinced. Well, she couldn’t blame him—here she was, covered in spiders, after being lured down here by a duergar!
“They live here. It really is all right, Kellen,” she replied, making her voice sound reassuring. “They’re friendly, honestly—didn’t you see how they distracted the duergar so it lost control of me for a moment?” She had seen that in their minds as well. “They don’t like the Shadowed Elves, and they see us as their allies. They told me that the Shadowed Elves set up the traps in these caves—and called in some other Black Minds, they say, then left.”
“Yeah,” Kellen said with a sigh. “I’ve already met some of the other ‘Black Minds’—a pack of goblins. But what was that thing that was after you?”
“Duergar,” Idalia said briefly. “They lure prey with their minds. Tarnkappa don’t work against them, because they can’t see.”
“Oh.” Kellen sounded slightly chastened. There was a pause. “We need to set off all those other traps. And I think if we do, this whole cave might collapse. The roof of the village cavern is set to come down, but I couldn’t see the tripwire for it, or any other way of triggering it.”
Do you understand? Idalia thought to the spiders. I don’t want any of you to be hurt. But this place is too dangerous to leave as it is.
:We understand,: the Crystal Spiders “said” —they seemed to speak as one, or perhaps all of them together made up one mind. : Wait… : There was a long pause, and Idalia sensed that the spiders were consulting among themselves and picking through her surface thoughts, trying to find a concept they would all understand. : Wait a day before you make the caverns safe, and we will not be harmed. And when next you hunt the Shadowed Elves, we will give you what help we can.:
“I promise we will wait,” Idalia said aloud. “And I thank you for your help.”
There was a wave of movement, and the shining carpet of enormous spiders that had covered her scuttled away. Idalia sat up, watching as the balls of glowing pastel light disappeared into the darkness, actually seeing them for the first time.
“Why—they’re beautiful,” she said aloud, in surprise. “Poor things—never harming anything but insects, suddenly finding themselves hunted by Shadowed Elves—”
“I guess we’re not the only ones the Shadowed Elves are hurting,” Kellen said quietly.
“They’re hurting everything that lives,” Idalia said grimly. “That’s what they were designed to do. Hurt things.”
“Why?” Kellen asked plaintively, and suddenly he sounded very young and fragile. “Why would they want to do that? It doesn’t sound like any kind of life. What possible kind of existence is that for anything?”
“Kellen,” Idalia said, her voice suddenly sharp with fear. “You said you were attacked by goblins. Did any of them bite you?”
“Of course not,” Kellen said indignantly, but there was a dreamy undertone to his voice that Idalia didn’t like. “Some of them chewed on my armor a lot, though. I couldn’t help that.”
“No, of course you couldn’t. Come here and let me see.”
She cupped her hands and concentrated. A faint mist began to coalesce between her palms, growing denser and brighter until it burned chill and blue. She gestured, and the ball of Coldfire rose to hover above her head.
In its light she could see Kellen standing a few feet away. His tarnkappa was hanging from one hand, his sword—half his sword—was hanging from the other. She got to her feet, retrieving her discarded glove in the process, and walked over to him.
She leaned over and sniffed. His armor reeked of goblin venom, but it seemed to be in one piece. If any of them had spit in his face, he wouldn’t be standing here debating the nature of Evil, Knight-Mage or no. He’d be goblin dinner.
But if any of it had gotten through the joins in the armor and soaked into the padding, and through the padding…
“I think I might have been poisoned after all, Idalia,” Kellen said somberly, and with a slight slurring in his voice. “I don’t feel—quite right.”
“I think so, too,” Idalia said. “But not badly. You’ll just be a little… drunk. And Shalkan can fix that once we’re out of here.” She hoped. A unicorn could cleanse a poisoned wound, but how could Shalkan reach the poison that had soaked into Kellen’s skin?
Kellen laughed bitterly. “Can you get out of here without me?” He began removing his armor. “Without triggering any of the traps we passed on the way in? Can I keep from triggering them?” He set the last of his armor aside. The damp blotches of poison were visible now on the legs and thighs of his leather under-padding. Kellen began to remove it as well. “Because if not, you’ve got to heal me now, or we’ve got to figure out something else that will work. And if we can’t, we’ve failed. And the army is going to die.”
Where the goblin poison had reached his skin through the underpadding, there were raised red welts. Kellen rubbed at them absently, shivering in the cold of the cave. He was wearing nothing but a hip-wrap now, but at least it was untouched by goblin poison.
He was right, Idalia realized.
She had no idea where she was in the caves now. She was sure Kellen could lead her back to the village cavern, even in this condition, but even though they’d marked them carefully on the way in, Idalia wasn’t completely certain of her ability to navigate past all the traps on the way out without a Knight-Mage’s battle-sight to point them out. And Kellen might not be able to do it at all if the poison fogged his mind any more deeply.
And if she did leave him and make the try, and succeeded, then she’d have to come back in and try to get him out later, when he was in even worse shape from the slow working of the poison he’d absorbed—because Shalkan couldn’t get in here at all. Though he might possibly manage to throw off the effects of the poison by himself eventually, it was a gamble she didn’t want to take, and they couldn’t afford to wait.
And leaving him here, alone, sick, without sword or armor—well, she doubted she’d have a brother to come back to, considering what else the Crystal Spiders said was prowling around down here.
But if she did heal him, there was no one here to take any of the physical price, even if her Mageprices seemed to have all been paid in advance. The effort would leave her exhausted. And navigating the labyrinth of traps took a huge amount of physical stamina. She wouldn’t be able to do it after doing a healing. And Kellen wouldn’t be able to do it carrying her.
But there was one thing she could try.
Idalia began to rummage through her possibles bag.
“Here are the choices as I know them,” she said. “If I leave you and go for help and to warn Redhelwar, I might be able to get out by myself, but I don’t guarantee it. Meanwhile you get sicker, and I—or someone—still have to come back in and get you out. Or I can heal you here, after which you’ll probably have to carry me out, and I don’t think that will work either.”
Kellen laughed giddily, caught himself, and shook his head.
“Or you can drink this,” she said, having found the phial she’d been looking for. “It’s not a healing. It’s not really a medicine. It’s a cheat. It convinces your body it’s well—for a little while—no matter how badly you’ve been hurt—or poisoned. But when it wears off, what it’s done to you has to be paid for with a true healing, or a lot of rest, or both.”
“Why would you make a bad thing like that?” Kellen asked, sounding less than half his age. He rubbed at his head, as if it hurt, dropping the tarnkappa to the cavern floor.
“Sometimes a man needs to be able to walk off a battlefield with two broken legs,” Idalia said. “This will let him do it. But he pays for it afterward.”
Her brother suddenly shook himself, all over, like a dog shaking himself dry. “Gods of Leaf and Star!” Kellen swore, sounding like himself for just a moment, “if you told me it would kill me in a day, I’d still take it. Give it to me, before I get too stupid to know how to drink.”
Idalia placed the thumb-sized glass phial in his hand, blessing the impulse that had caused her to bring it with her when she’d packed for the journey.
Kellen broke the seal and quickly tossed it back, shuddering and gagging at the taste.
Chapter Twenty The Order of Battle
WHY DID ALL of Idalia’s herbal medicines seem to be made of the bitterest herbs she could find? The taste made his eyes water and his teeth ache, and Kellen swallowed hard, resisting the impulse to retch.
But the disconnected floating feeling that he’d been fighting off ever since he’d killed the duergar was gone. He was himself again. He took several deep breaths.
“I feel better,” he said.
“You won’t in half a day,” Idalia warned.
In half a day the Elven army would have been warned about this trap. At the moment, that was all that mattered.
Kellen inspected the pile of discarded armor and garments. The sheen of goblin poison glowed sickly green to his battle-sight in far too many places. He picked up his heavy fur cloak, inspecting it carefully—it was clean—and put it on, then looked at his armor regretfully.
“There’s no way to carry it safely, and half of it’s covered with goblin spit. I’ll miss it.” He picked up his dagger and his broken sword. “Come on.”
“First let’s do something about your feet,” Idalia said, taking out her dagger and beginning to cut her tarnkappa into strips. “It won’t be much, but it’s better than having you try to walk out of here barefoot.”
—«♦»—
THE return trip seemed to go far more swiftly than the trip in. Idalia’s Potion of False Healing filled him with energy, so that Kellen had to be careful to adjust his pace to hers. He felt as if he could run all the way.
But making their way back through the traps was still a painstaking process, one that required the most exacting concentration. Kellen breathed a sigh of relief when he and Idalia stepped over the last of the trip wires.
Idalia hugged him tightly.
“I never, never, never want to go down there again,” she said fervently.
“Neither do I,” Kellen said. Now that it was over, he could acknowledge the fear—and more, the disgust—he’d felt every moment he’d been down in the Shadowed Elf caverns. There was something horribly unclean about those traps. Compared to them, the goblins and even the duergar had been wholesome.
“I’ll cut up the blanket I left with Cella to make you a pair of leggings,” Idalia said, “but I’m afraid you’re going to have a cold ride back.”
“At least it should be day when we get out,” Kellen said. “I just hope it isn’t snowing too hard.”
They reached the entrance of the cave.
It was dusk. They’d been underground a full day. But sunset wasn’t the only thing that greeted them.
Spread out across the valley, starting a bowshot’s-length from the cavern and running all the way to the stream and beyond, was a third of the Elven army.
They sat on their destriers like statues, as if they had been waiting there for centuries, and were prepared to wait for centuries more. A light snow was falling, and from the way it had collected on their cloaks and armor, they had indeed been waiting here for some time. The only movement was the flutter of the war banners on the wind, and the occasional shake of a destrier’s head.
Facing the army was Shalkan, standing firm right in the mouth of the cavern. His horn glowed deep scarlet, and every inch of fur not covered by his armor was fluffed straight out.
“It looks like they got here early,” Idalia said noncommittally.
Kellen looked out over the assembled host. With a sinking heart, he saw not only Adaerion’s banner, but Belepheriel’s and Redhelwar’s as well.
Ninolion had been wrong. The general had been able to make his dispositions in less than a day. Or else, finding Kellen gone, he’d put everything else aside to bring a force to the nearer cavern.
And now Shalkan was holding them off.
—«♦»—
“GOOD to see you,” Shalkan said, not moving, as Kellen and Idalia walked slowly up to stand with him.
“I was right,” Kellen said. “The whole cavern’s been turned into one enormous death trap.”
“You might want to let Redhelwar know,” Shalkan replied, as outwardly calm as if Kellen had just remarked on the depth of the snow. “Ah, here he comes now.”
The general rode into the first rank of the assembled Knights, but came no closer. Considering the way Shalkan looked, he probably didn’t dare.
“You’d better go out to him,” Shalkan said. “I believe he was unaware until now of how protective a unicorn can be.”
Wincing inwardly at the thought, Kellen stepped out of the cavern mouth into the snow, wrapping his cloak around him as tightly as he could. The snow was knee-deep, and soaked through the rags of the tarnkappa wrapped around his feet instantly. As he had been taught at the House of Sword and Shield, he shut the pain and the cold away in a small part of his mind, and concentrated on the task ahead.
He reached Redhelwar’s stirrup and bowed, as formal a bow as he could manage under the circumstances.
“I See you, Redhelwar, Army’s General,” he said.
But Redhelwar did not greet him in return. Instead, he bent his head only enough to look stonily down at Kellen through the slits in his helmet.
“What do you have to say to me, Kellen Knight-Mage?”
Kellen suspected that this was not War Manners, but the attitude of a commander who is about to issue a great deal more than a simple reprimand. Either way, it did not matter.
He took a deep breath. No matter what was done to him after this, at least he would have prevented a disaster with his disobedience. “I say that the cavern is a death trap, Redhelwar. There are no Shadowed Elves here. It is filled with a series of traps, cleverly concealed, to destroy the army if it enters. And if the army actually reached the village cavern, the entire roof would collapse upon them.” The commander’s eyes widened, but Kellen wasn’t done yet. “Further, the Shadowed Elves brought allies to ensure that the army would advance into the caverns at any cost: within the caverns are both goblins and duergar. I have seen and slain both, but more remain.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and picked his words with the utmost precision. “Whoever entered that cavern mouth would never come out again; neither living, nor dead. This was not only meant as a trap, it was meant to destroy one-third of our army.”
Elves were ageless and beautiful. Even the tales told of them in Armethalieh said so. And though Kellen had seen that they did age, the marks of age came slowly and at the end of a very long life, and even in age they were still beautiful.
But in that moment Redhelwar’s Elven beauty drained away like water poured into drought-parched earth. For a moment, Kellen saw the Elven general not only surprised, but terrified.
He lowered his eyes quickly, not wishing to see more.
“If I had done what I wished to do, followed the plans I had made…” Redhelwar said. His voice sounded hollow, as if he bore a burden of unendurable pain.
“I would ask a boon, Army’s General,” Kellen said, keeping his teeth from chattering with an effort. The wind seemed to find every gap in his cloak, and the snow burned against his skin. He couldn’t feel his feet at all.
“Name your boon, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar said. His voice was stronger now, and Kellen dared to look up again. Redhelwar’s face was still haggard, but it no longer looked quite so… naked.
“We escaped the cavern alive through the help of allies. The caverns are far too dangerous to leave with their traps intact, but we have promised our allies time to escape before we destroy the traps. They ask for a day.”
“All shall be as you wish,” Redhelwar said hollowly.
He raised his hand and gestured. Dionan rode forward.
“Sound the retreat,” Redhelwar said, his voice steady now, but without expression. “We return to camp.”
; Dionan raised his horn to his lips and blew a complicated series of notes. Instantly the army was in motion, its elements turning in place and beginning to move away from the cavern.
“Bring Ninolion to me, and fetch Idalia’s mount. My compliments to Belepheriel, and let him know it would please me greatly if he and his people would continue to watch over this cavern for untoward events. Under no circumstances are they to enter it.”
“And could someone find something for Kellen to wear?” Idalia demanded irritably, forging through the snow to stand at Kellen’s side. “He hasn’t got a thing on under that cloak.”
“The, uh, Goblins poisoned my armor. I had to take it off,” Kellen explained, blushing furiously. He thought he’d actually rather freeze than have Idalia explain things.
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