by Pati Nagle
He hastily lashed the odd weapons together, then retrieved his bundle and handed Velashi her satchel. He considered keeping the kobalen spear, but decided it would be too much a burden.
He threw it down beside the kobalen Velashi had slain, first smashing the point against the boulder, next to Velashi’s bloody handprint. He did the same with the fallen kobalen’s spear.
The deer had run east, so he struck west, uphill again, leading Velashi up the difficult scramble of rocks and boulders on the side of the wash. Away from their destination, but for now getting away from the kobalen mattered most.
Velashi was silent, following without question, moving noiselessly among the rocks. When they were well up the hillside they heard an outraged cry from below. They ducked behind boulders and were still, gazing at each other as they listened to the raging of the two kobalen who had found their slain friends.
Ghaláran turned his attention to the kobalen, spreading his awareness down the slope to find their khi. Two dark forms standing, three from which the khi was faded, and another, smaller form, also drained of khi: a deer. The hunters had succeeded, but at cost.
He waited, muscles tensed to flee, until the kobalen at last departed, carrying their kill down the wash. Releasing a breath he had not been aware he was holding, he relaxed, but did not yet dare leave hiding.
Instead he followed the kobalen with his thoughts, then reached past them to learn whence they came. What he found filled him with dismay. A large camp beside the Silverwash. Fifty kobalen, at least. He withdrew and looked at Velashi, who was watching him.
“There are many more at the river. We cannot go that way.”
Velashi glanced toward the river and a swallow moved her throat. They were nearly out of water.
“This valley has many springs. Come.”
He stood, facing north, where Midrange Peak rose white and forbidding. He remembered past camping places with good water, even hot springs at one or two. The nearest was well up the mountain from here, but they could reach it during the night.
Velashi rose and they journeyed northward, leaving the wash and crossing another. It was difficult climbing across the lesser valleys instead of up them, but it placed that same difficulty between them and the kobalen, and Ghaláran was silently concerned that the two hunters would rally a different sort of hunting party to avenge their friends. Kobalen had no creed to prevent them from such actions.
The sun set and dusk settled among the trees. The smell of pine carried on a cool breeze eased the tightness in Ghaláran’s chest. They came to a little rill, scarce more than a trickle, descending from a spring above. Too thirsty to seek the spring itself, they crouched to drink and splash the cold, crisp water on their faces.
Velashi scrubbed her hands in the water for a long while, then laid Jhirinan’s longknife in the rill. Ghaláran caught it up again.
“Bad for the hilt.”
He took out one of the cloths he had brought from home and carefully cleaned and dried the knife, then offered it to Velashi again. She seemed reluctant to take it.
“You had best keep it to hand. We may encounter more kobalen.”
She gave him a troubled glance. “I never thought I would kill a kobalen. I should atone.”
“You defended yourself. No atonement is needed.”
“But I feel I should atone. That kobalen might have a mate, might have young—”
“It might have slain you.” His voice sounded more harsh than he had meant. He tried for a gentler tone. “Have you forgotten what you lost at their hands, only yesterday?”
She wrapped her arms around her knees, staring at the rill with haunted eyes. “I lost less than you.”
Ghaláran looked away, discomfited. Suddenly restless, he stood, gazing toward Midrange Peak, much nearer now. Moonlight set its snowy cap aglow.
“There is a hot spring not far from here. We can reach it tonight. Are you spent?”
“No.”
“Let us go, then.”
They followed the rill to its source, where Velashi filled her waterskin again. While he waited, Ghaláran cleaned his own knife. Best to care for the knives they had—spirits knew when he would be able to make another. He was glad of the whetstone he had brought. He used it to sharpen both blades.
They crossed a last valley onto Midrange Peak, then struck westward again, climbing ever higher. Oaks gave way to evergreens. Patches of firespear, their trunks glowing in moonlight, were bright spots in the dark, slumbering wood.
Ghaláran felt as if his pace slowed with each step, his limbs growing heavier. Partly it was the thin air this high in the mountains, but he knew he was also near the limit of his strength.
He paused to catch his breath and get his bearings. Standing among tall trees he could not see where on the mountain they were, so he closed his eyes, sensing the deep, slow khi of the forest and the brighter, quicker sparks of the small creatures living within it. Many of those slumbered, but some were active. He sought past them, past the trees, down into the earth where the mountain’s heart glowed with fire.
Fire khi was hard to control—as he well knew from his work—and his first response was to draw back from the intense and vast heat beneath the earth’s surface. Cautiously, he sought the threads of water that rose hot from the depths of the mountain. The nearest, a spring he had often visited before, was not too distant.
Holding onto that thread of heat, he walked onward. Velashi followed, silent again with weariness and despair.
The stars wheeled westward, then vanished under a gathering cloud. A thin rain began to fall, blessing to the forest, but something of an added trial to two weary ælven.
Ghaláran was glad that Velashi had a cloak. For himself, he cared little. As filthy as he was, the rain could only improve his state. What he truly looked forward to now was bathing in the hot spring, and he watched eagerly for the stream that descended from it.
“There!”
A swath of thick greenery cut across the slope they were walking. Ghaláran hurried toward it, casting a glance uphill seeking the bluff from which the stream flowed. He saw it though the trees, a dark wall of rock.
He stepped across the stream and paused to offer a hand to Velashi. She accepted his help to hop across the water. This course was larger than the rill where they had stopped earlier. Grass, moss, and clumps of fern grew all along its banks. Tiny stems of white bell-like flowers gleamed in the darkness.
Ghaláran followed the stream up to the bluff of black volcanic rock down which it trickled in multiple rivulets. No trail existed, but he knew the easiest way to climb the bluff, switching back and forth across the rugged face of the rock wall. He gave a grateful sigh as they reached the pool at the top.
Surrounded by basalt stones, with another, higher bluff to the west, the pool was clear and dark, less than an arm’s length in depth, its bottom fine black sand. Tendrils of steam rose from its surface despite the rain. At the near end the water slipped over its edge between boulders to roam down the bluff and gather at its foot in the stream they had followed hither.
Ghaláran turned to Velashi, who looked somewhat bedraggled, her damp hair clinging to her head. “There is a cave above the spring where we can shelter. Shall I take your satchel there?”
“Yes, but let me get my comb.”
While Velashi hunted in the satchel, Ghaláran sat down and pulled off his boots. She found her comb and handed the satchel to him. He shouldered it and caught up his boots, and Velashi laid her cloak across his burdens.
Stepping into the pond, Ghaláran drew a breath of pleasure as the heat soaked through his clothes. The black sand gritted gently against his feet as he waded across to the bluff side of the pool, where the water was deepest and hottest.
A dark crevice in the wall led to the cave he knew from past visits. A large, flat rock had been placed beneath it in the pool, providing a step from which to reach the cave. Ghaláran went in and stood a moment, seeking deep into the cave, which went
back into the bluff, for any sign of living khi. He found none.
He dropped his burdens, setting Velashi’s things aside and digging in his bundle of clothing for the jar of soap. He stripped off his wet and torn clothing and brought it with him as he returned to the pool.
Velashi was already in the water, her boots at the pool’s edge, her clothes spread across the rocks. Ghaláran sank to his knees, holding the soap jar above the water, and hissed as he discovered several cuts of which he had not been aware.
He made his way across to join Velashi and set the soap and his wet clothes on the rocks at the pool’s edge. Finding a comfortable rock to lean against, he closed his eyes, letting the heat soak into his weary frame.
He bethought him of the kobalen, and made a belated search of the surrounding forest and bluffs. Water distorted his perception of khi, making it harder to tell what creatures were near, and the rain added to this trouble. He sensed a slumbering catamount a few rods away, and could not discern any other large creature in that distance. The cat was unlikely to trouble them, far more likely to avoid them. Satisfied, he relaxed.
“What now?” Velashi asked, her voice forlorn.
Ghaláran opened his eyes and sat up to look at her. Her eyes were hollow.
“Do we go back?”
Back or onward, farther to the north. Either way, they might find no better success. The kobalen seemed to be everywhere, blocking them from rejoining their kindred. Two ælven, even armed with longknives, had little chance of defeating any sizable group of kobalen.
Ghaláran’s heart sank as he thought of the twenty who had stood in defense of Highglen. Twenty with longknives, and they had not been enough. The kobalen’s spears took away the advantages of the knife.
He shook his head, defying despair. “I do not know. Let us rest a while, then we may decide. Here, I have some soap.”
He picked up his jar and opened it, offering it to Velashi. She took a fingerful and smelled it.
“Mmm. Balmleaf.”
“Milari made it.”
Velashi looked at him, distraught for an instant, then she managed a small, sad smile. He smiled back briefly and set the jar on a rock at the water’s edge, then carefully removed the bandage from his brow.
He leaned backward in the water, lowering his head. He could not help hissing as the hot water covered his wound. Gingerly, he rubbed at it, working caked blood from his hair. At last he ducked his head completely, then came up and reached for the soap.
Velashi was washing her hair. He paused to admire her for a moment, but that only made him miss Milari the more. He looked away, rubbing soap into his own hair and, carefully, around his wound.
His head was aching again and he even felt somewhat dizzy. He rinsed the last of the soap from his hair and climbed out of the water, his body steaming. The rain was cold but felt good on his heated flesh. He sat on a boulder—also cold—to rest and regain his balance.
“Are you all right?”
He glanced at Velashi, her shoulders rising white from the water amid curls of steam, her hair dark with being wet. “A little lightheaded.”
“Let me fetch you some cold water.”
“You need not trouble.”
“I am thirsty too.”
She rose and waded toward the cave. He watched the steam rise from her body, its lines not quite as soft and full as Milari’s but still fair.
Velashi had not had a steady partner that he knew of, though she was friendly enough with all the males of Highglen. He knew Jhirinan had courted her now and again.
A sound caught his notice; an animal grunt. He sought toward the catamount and found it slinking away. Not the source of the noise, but neither peaceful.
Suddenly his flesh prickled with danger. He turned his attention to the foot of the bluff.
Kobalen were climbing the rock wall, or trying to.
Ghaláran lurched to his feet and lunged across the pool, catching up to Velashi as she reached the cave’s entrance. He pushed her unceremoniously up and in, following to retrieve his knife.
She turned a startled face to him, indignation fading as she saw his expression. “What is it?”
“Kobalen.” He kept his voice low, and gestured to the back of the cave. “Go.”
She caught up her cloak and satchel, grabbed his bundle as well, and scrambled into the cave’s depths. Jhirinan’s knife was left lying beside the cave wall along with his boots. Ghaláran caught up the knife and turned to face the cave’s entrance, settling the weight of the hilts in either hand.
“Spirits guard us.”
Let them not reach us. We have nowhere further to run.
He dismissed a fleeting wish for his clothes. Their protection was illusory, though cloth might turn a light stroke that would nick flesh. Against a killing blow, they were no real safeguard.
Standing just within the cave, he grimaced as he looked across the pool. His bandage lay pale on the black rocks. His clothes and Velashi’s were strewn beside the pool, and the little jar of soap sat there still. Even the worst kobalen tracker would have no trouble deducing their presence.
Careless. He regretted his lack of caution. Weariness had made him negligent. He hoped it would not be their death.
He could hear the kobalen scrambling up the bluff, now. Closing his eyes, he sought to discern their number. The water of the pool made it difficult to sense them, but he was sure there were at least five. Despair rose in his throat and he strove to swallow it.
Were these the hunters from below, tracking them down, or some different group? It hardly mattered. Ghaláran drew back into the shadows as the first kobalen scrambled over the edge of the bluff.
Three more followed, and quickly fell upon the ælven’s clothes. They picked them up, smelled them, quarreled over them and threw them down again. Kobalen had no use for clothing, being covered with fur.
Ghaláran watched one of them pick up his soap jar, sniff at it, then recoil and smash the jar on the rocks. He winced. Another small comfort lost to him. Another remembrance of Milari He had not much more to lose.
Two other kobalen had reached the pool, and now an argument ensued. Ghaláran knew only a little of the kobalen’s rough language, but he gathered they did not care to get themselves wet crossing the pool.
Good. Let them go away. He willed them to go, to believe that he and Velashi were fled. Down the mountainside. Up onto the cliffs. Anywhere but here.
It was not to be. The largest of the kobalen pointed toward the crevice where Ghaláran hid, and said something loud and seemingly final. It stepped into the pool and started across.
The other kobalen followed, yipping in dismay at the heat of the water. Ghaláran felt his chest tighten as his pulse increased. He shifted his grip on the hilts of his knives.
He must not let them drag him out. If he stayed in the narrow entrance of the cave, they would have to come at him one at a time.
He swallowed, thinking of Jhirinan. Be with me, brother.
Six kobalen sloshed their way across the pool. Ghaláran stayed hidden, watching. The leader paused as it came to the deeper water where the spring welled, and said something to the others. It looked up at the cave, narrowed its eyes that saw so poorly in darkness, and came on.
It had a spear in its hands. It found the step stone and stood upon it. Ghaláran could smell the creature, could easily feel its khi now despite the water. He withdrew a little, waiting for the kobalen to set foot in the cave.
The point of the spear advanced into the entrance. Ghaláran was out of its path, for the narrow passage turned almost at once. He watched the gleaming black glass point slowly move forward until, with a small click, it touched the cave wall.
He heaved himself sideways, against the shaft of the spear, pinning it to the cave wall. A startled cry from the kobalen became a gargle as Ghaláran swept both knives across its throat. It fell backward, into the pool among its shrieking companions.
Ghaláran kicked the spear behind him into
the cave. He did not know whether he had broken its point, but whole or no he did not want the kobalen to retrieve it, nor did he care to trip over it.
A second kobalen came in, growling with rage, muttering curses Ghaláran could not interpret but easily understood. This one did not lead with its spear, but instead made short thrusts with it into the darkness.
Ghaláran watched, gathering the rhythm of its movement, and stepped out of hiding as the spear withdrew. He knocked the shaft aside with one arm and thrust with the other, sinking his knife into the creature’s heart. It coughed and stammered, then fell, blocking the entrance.
Ghaláran took both knives in one hand and pulled the spear from the dying kobalen’s hands with the other, throwing it behind him with the first. He resumed his stance, no longer hiding. Even so, the next kobalen came hesitantly. It must not see him well.
It held its spear at its shoulder, as if to throw it. Foolish in this small space, but then a spear was unwieldy here no matter how it was held. Ghaláran knew by the kobalen’s unfocused gaze that it had not seen him. He stepped forward, knocking the spear upward.
A crunch and a shower of splintered glass followed. Ghaláran aimed a blow at the kobalen’s heart but had to dodge instead as another spear was thrust at him from behind the kobalen, beneath its arm. The forward kobalen stumbled across its fallen friend, toppling toward Ghaláran. He jumped back, and the kobalen fell on its face.
Ghaláran put his knives to the sides of its neck and drew, cutting deep, then stepped back again to avoid the thrusting spear. The kobalen struggled to rise, bleeding copiously, its own spear lodged diagonally across the entrance.
The cave stank now and its floor was becoming sticky with blood. The two fallen kobalen blocked the others from coming on, as did the lodged spear.
Ghaláran considered leaving it, then decided it was a danger to him, hampering his movement while still allowing the kobalen to thrust spears at him. He pulled it free and tossed it back into the cave.
A dart flew toward him, its fletches brushing his cheek as it passed to smack into the cave wall. He ducked behind the turning, and heard the bodies being dragged away.