Windwalker

by Elaine Cunningham

  The little one glanced from one face to another, looking as puzzled as Liriel felt. “There is magic in this sword,” he insisted.

  Fyodor looked to his sister. An expression of mingled pain and pride crossed her face. “Thrisfyr has the gift,” she said simply. “It is already decided that he will join the vremyonni. He will go to the Old Ones for training before next winter’s snows.”

  “A great honor,” he said softly. Vastish smiled but not without irony.

  The morning meal passed swiftly with nothing more serious to mar it than a mug of spilled milk. They thanked their hostess and left to tend to the day’s business.

  “What was all that about?” Liriel asked softly as soon as they were beyond hearing’s range. “What did the little boy say that made your sister turn pale?”

  Fyodor’s shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “When we first met, you commented on my blunt sword. I told you that it was thus fashioned so I would not cut myself. You thought I was merely being foolish, but I spoke the simple truth. A warrior who cannot control his battle rages is given such a sword, and for several reasons. First, so he is less likely to harm his brothers. Second, so he does not cut himself and die by his own hand. There is no greater disgrace to a Rashemi than this. Finally, so he will die with honor and purpose. The berserkers go first into battle. Any man with a blunt sword leads the way.”

  The grim truth came to Liriel slowly. “It is a sentence of death.”

  “Yes. Zofia lent this sword magic so that it might cut those not of Rashemen and that I might stay alive long enough to complete my quest.”

  “Throw it away,” she said passionately. “Get another sword. Your battle rages are under control—you don’t need a blunt sword anymore.”

  “That is not our way,” he said softly. “This is the last sword I will wield. That is our law and custom. I must die with this sword in my hand.”

  Liriel’s first impulse was to protest this new example of human stupidity, but memories flooded her mind and stilled her tongue: Fyodor facing drow and Luskan warriors, fighting sea ogres, slaying a giant squid—by cutting his way out from the inside. She relaxed. He had won many battles with that blunt, black sword. Why shouldn’t he continue to do so?

  A tall, gangling youth trotted toward them, his arms full of what appeared to be a bundle of black sticks and his shaggy brown hair falling into his eyes. He pulled up short and bobbed his head to the “witch” at Fyodor’s side. Fyodor quickly completed the introductions and asked what Petyar was about.

  “We’re to scout the Warrens,” the boy said without preamble. “Treviel’s orders. The others are waiting at the west gate.” He grinned broadly. “There will be a lightning wand for each of us. The vremyonni sent them.”

  Liriel noted the grim set of Fyodor’s jaw. “The male wizards?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said shortly. “They live and study and create in a hidden place.”

  “These Warrens,” she concluded. “These are caves?”

  The look he sent her confirmed her unspoken concern. Where there were caves, there were tunnels. Where there were tunnels, there might well be drow. She did not doubt that Gorlist would catch up with her sooner or later. This was not, however, the time she would have chosen.

  “I’ll come with you,” she stated.

  The boy’s face fell. “With all respect, Lady, this is a simple scouting expedition.”

  Fyodor claimed one of the ebony wands. It was about the length of a big man’s forearm and the thickness of his thumb. It had been intricately carved with a tiny design that spiraled up the length of the wand. It was a priceless work of art, created to be destroyed in a single moment.

  He lifted this pointedly and raised one brow. “For a simple scouting expedition we need such a thing? Speak truth, Petyar. We are hunting. Not your black wolf, I hope.”

  Liriel blinked in surprise to hear this term.

  “The beast does not travel with any pack,” the boy said, his tone defensive, “and a lone wolf often seeks easy prey, becoming a danger to livestock and children.”

  Fyodor hefted the wand. “Even if you convinced Treviel of that, this was not meant for a wolf.”

  “I followed it into the Warrens,” the boy admitted. “I was hoping to find her lair. What I found instead was a dead drow.”

  Fyodor glanced at his friend. “This drow was killed by the wolf?”

  “Who cares?” Petyar retorted. “A dead drow is a blessing, however it came about, but yes, it appears so. His shoulder was torn open, his throat savaged.”

  Fyodor drew him away from Liriel and placed himself between the two—whether for Petyar’s protection or hers, Liriel couldn’t say. Fyodor glanced back at her.

  “It is best that you stay close to the village today. Promise me this.”

  She did and was rewarded by the glad flash in her friend’s eyes. His word, his honor—these were no small things to Fyodor. Apparently he considered her refusal to give her word, unless she meant to keep it, a good thing.

  For the first time, she wondered how he felt about the deception she had forced them both to live. Perhaps Zofia’s word might have been enough to gain cautious acceptance for a drow, but the lie had been told. To the eyes of the truth-loving Rashemi, concealing her nature most likely confirmed it.

  “We will talk when I return,” Fyodor said gently. He took her hand and raised it to his heart then turned and strode off beside his lanky kinsman.

  They met the other warriors at the west gate. Horses awaited them, and they rode hard toward the Running Rocks.

  The scouting party stopped at the mouth of the caves and lit small torches. They waved these overhead as they ducked into the tunnels, warding off a sudden rush of startled bats.

  Petyar led them down to the narrow passage where the dead drow lay. Fyodor crouched beside the body for a closer look. After a few moments he glanced up.

  “He did not die here. Something dragged him to this place, and not the wolf.”

  Treviel sneered. “What else should we expect? Of course there are more of these two-legged vermin. The drow do not hunt alone.”

  “They leave their dead in a tunnel for the rats?” Fyodor asked.

  “What else would they do? It is difficult to bury or burn in a cave.”

  Fyodor had had enough experience with dark elves to understand that their thinking was seldom so simple. He lifted his torch high and surveyed the tunnel. Though the passage was narrow, the ceiling soared overhead. Fyodor made out odd shadows and impressions in the uneven rock that might be nothing or might be passages into unseen tunnels. The drow had moved their dead comrade for a purpose. Bait for a trap, perhaps?

  The warrior lowered his torch. “No wonder Petyar chose this tunnel. The ceilings are high enough to keep the cobwebs from tangling in his hair,” he said lightly. He made a show of sweeping the torch low to check the floor. “No sign of wolf scat. She hasn’t been back to feed yet, and from the looks of things the rats will polish these bones within a day or so. I warrant that we’ll find no wolf in these warrens today.”

  Petyar looked puzzled, but before he could speak Treviel gave him an ungentle shove. “Move it, boy, and hold your tongue,” he said in a stern, soft voice.

  The men fell into step, moving swiftly toward the open cavern beyond. They were almost there when the drow attacked.

  The Rashemi scouts reacted at once. Swords hissed free, and the warriors ran eagerly to meet this much-hated foe. Men near the rear of the party gave shouts of warning as more dark elves clambered down the stone walls and into the torchlight.

  A drow female, small, lithe, and clad in scant leather armor, leaped into Fyodor’s path. She leveled two weapons at him: a broadsword and a coldly beautiful smile.

  Fyodor hesitated just for a moment. Even this small delay was too much. The female lunged, her sword seeking his heart. He gathered his wits and used his best weapon—his size—against the smaller and more agile drow.

  He leaned aw
ay from the drow’s attack then lunged at her, pinning the small female to the wall. She writhed and thrashed but could not bring her weapon to bear. Knowing Liriel’s penchant for multiple weapons, he immediately seized the drow’s wrists and pinned them high over her head.

  “Go!” roared Fyodor, waving the others to pass as he struggled to hold onto the drow. Treviel repeated the command.

  The female wriggled away and climbed the wall. Fyodor let her go, suspecting that he might yet have cause to regret this. He took the ebony wand from his belt and took stock of the battle.

  Most of the men had retreated down the exit tunnel. Bright lights flared suddenly, driving the drow back and providing an escape for the Rashemi. Only Petyar and Treviel remained in the cavern. Side by side, the two warriors backed down the narrow tunnel, holding off the cat-quick swords of several attacking drow. Fyodor made a quick count and came to an unanticipated conclusion:

  There were not enough drow.

  The irony in that observation did not escape him, hard-pressed though he was. But it was better to see one’s enemy than to wonder when a hidden foe might strike. The drow for whom he could not account had probably taken the same route as the female, nimbly climbing the walls along paths only they could see.

  Again Fyodor lifted his torch high. This time the light was reflected back by several pairs of red eyes and small, gleaming knives.

  Fyodor tossed his wand straight up, sending it spinning high into the cavern. It struck the ceiling and shattered. He shielded his eyes for the resulting blinding flash.

  Instead, the tunnel filled with a faint, deep purple light. Clearly revealed in it were the mocking faces of the drow warriors—and the smug countenance of a bald human not more than ten paces from where Fyodor stood. He shoved young Petyar out of the way and moved to block the tunnel himself.

  “You go no farther,” he told the lurking drow.

  Soft, mocking laughter bounced along the high ceiling, and the dark elf warriors swarmed down the rock wall toward him.

  Fyodor slammed his black sword back into its sheath. He would not need it. His eyes drifted shut for a moment, and he swiftly reached back into a place deep within, seeking a force that was both ancient and newly discovered.

  The change hit him like a panicked stallion. Power surged through him, knocking him to the stone floor, but when he struck the ground, it was not with his hands. Enormous black-furred paws slapped down against the stone, claws clicking like ready daggers.

  The power flowed on and on, bursting from him in a roar that shook the tunnel and froze the attacking dark elves where they stood.

  Or so it seemed.

  It was always so when the berserker frenzy came. Time slowed around him, giving Fyodor room to observe, to respond. To attack.

  One paw lashed out, lightning quick, and slashed the nearest elf across the throat. Fyodor caught the falling body in his jaws. With a toss of his massive bear’s head, he threw the dead elf onto the swords of two attacking dark elves. Both went down under the weight of their comrade. The berserker kept coming.

  Fyodor felt the sting of nimble swords, but his thick fur and tough hide proved more effective than leather armor. The human hurled sizzling balls of light at him. These singed and stank, filling the tunnel with rank smoke, but the berserker felt no pain. He never did, until after.

  Roaring with battle fever, he charged past the last of the drow in the tunnel and hurled himself at the bald wizard.

  A sharp crack, like the flap of an unsecured sail in a gale wind, announced Fyodor’s newest foe. A terrible creature dropped from a high perch, an enormous birdlike monster with a bat’s leathery wings and a long, pointed beak lined with needlelike fangs. It hurtled down, seemingly intent upon stopping the berserker’s charge.

  In the part of his mind that was still human, Fyodor recognized the handiwork of a Red Wizard. The avian spread its massive wings and leveled its beak at Fyodor in a bizarre parody of a knight’s charge. Fyodor reared up and charged right through the monster’s path, his claws slashing and his fangs snapping at that dangerous beak. His onslaught shredded the thick membrane of the wings, and the pointed beak snapped between his jaws. The berserker spat and came on.

  The wizard was not yet finished. He threw a handful of powder onto the floor and stepped into the rising cloud. For a moment he was obscured by the thick mist. When he stepped out, it was on two strong, furred legs. A fierce gray cave bear waded toward the berserker, its powerful upper limbs spread in preparation for a lethal hug.

  The two combatants tangled and went down, snapping and rolling. In the cavern beyond, flares of light flashed and waned, and the sounds of fierce battle rang through the warrens. Fyodor clung to the transmuted wizard, worrying him with fang and claw, determined to keep him from joining the drow band.

  He did not know how much time passed or how long he fought. After a while Fyodor noticed that the tunnel had gone dark and that his opponent no longer struggled.

  No longer breathed.

  The warrior pushed himself away and padded on four feet into the cavern. Two torches were still burning faintly. Someone among the fighters had had the presence of mind to wedge them among the scattered rocks.

  The scene revealed in the dim light was a grim one. The Rashemi band had won but at a high cost. Three men lay dead, and most of the others had taken wounds.

  Petyar noticed the bear and let out a yelp of alarm. The older warriors went alert at once, swords ready.

  The fyrra held up a hand to keep them back. “Chesnitznia”, he said wearily, explaining Fyodor’s altered form.

  The survivors eyed him with awe and respect. This was nearly too much for Fyodor to endure. His borrowed form slipped away, and he slumped against the cavern wall.

  Someone wrapped a cloak around his naked shoulders and pushed a flask into his hand. He took an obliging sip and found that it contained strong tea thick with honey. The sweetness sickened him, but he remembered the old tales that spoke of shapeshifters who were ravenous after a change. Perhaps the thick liquid would restore his strength. It was too much to hope that it might quiet his thoughts.

  His stomach roiled, and a bit of the tea washed back. Fyodor wiped his mouth, and his hand came down smeared with a viscous red. The realization of its source sent him staggering off to be sick in earnest.

  “Better?” inquired Treviel when at last he returned.

  Fyodor nodded, not able to bring himself to meet the fyrra’s eye, but the older man seized his chin and forced it up.

  “What you did was well done,” he said firmly. “While the wizard lived, the lightning sticks could not do their job. Without them more of your brothers would have died.”

  “If anything, the wizard died too easily,” one of the other men spat. “He was the worse kind of traitor—a human who sided with the drow against his own kind.”

  The others murmured a vicious assent. Fyodor noted the hatred on their much-loved faces, and his heart broke. It was all too easy to imagine it turned upon him. He was not certain that he did not deserve it.

  The Rashemi gathered their dead and walked in silence through the warrens. Fyodor was glad for this silence. He had much to think about.

  He had always tried to be an honest and honorable man. Many times he had warned Liriel away from the goddess of her childhood, challenging her to consider if any good could come from a union with evil. Perhaps he should have more closely heeded his own advice.

  On the surface of things, this thought was unfair to Liriel, and he knew it. She was no more evil than a snowcat. On the other hand, she had no more morals than the same wild cat. Without guides or restraints, how could anyone safely chart his way? The result of this lack was the tangled deception they now lived. Any lie was difficult to sustain, and Liriel’s was especially dangerous.

  Fyodor regretted also his naiveté in thinking that his people might come to accept Liriel, perhaps even to see her as he did. The Rashemi hated the drow, and he could not fault his people for
their deeply ingrained prejudice. Their history bore this out—as, he had to admit, did his own experience.

  He loved Liriel, deeply and completely. More importantly, however, he knew her. It was not without reason that Lolth wove Her webs around the errant drow princess. Liriel battled a dark nature, and she never seemed quite sure of the line between right and wrong. Sometimes she didn’t seem to realize that such a line existed or even that it should exist.

  These troubling thoughts followed him through the winding caves and tunnels of the warrens. By the time the silent band stepped into the light, Fyodor had dragged himself to a painful but inevitable conclusion.

  He had done his people a disservice by bringing Liriel among them. If he had not done so, these drow would not have followed her here. These men would not be dead. For the sake of all concerned, he would take Liriel far from Rashemen as soon as he returned to the village. Even if this meant abandoning his duty as a warrior. Even if it meant committing what his people would certainly regard as an unforgivable treason.

  Even if it meant leaving his homeland forever.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CIRCLES

  Within the Witches’ Lodge was a large courtyard walled by vine-draped trees. In the sheltered circle within gathered several of Dernovia’s witches. For the first time Liriel was permitted to observe their spellcasting.

  In her now-familiar guise of the tall, silver-haired Witch of Shadowdale, she watched intently as the circle of black-clad women moved through their dance, hands joined and voices lifted in chant. The pattern was intricate, the magical language unknown to her. What puzzled her most was the ability of these many women to unite not only their strength but their purpose.

  Power rose from each of the masked women like steam—not quite visible, but tangible all the same. The object of the witches’ focus and the recipient of the power they raised was a carved wooden staff. It bobbed gently in the air in the precise center of the circle.

  One of them would wield it. Oddly enough, no one seemed concerned over who might eventually claim the prize.