When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

  “As brief as was suitable,” Jermayan said. He brushed crusted snow from the stirrup and vaulted into Ancaladar’s saddle, pulling the riding-straps into place with the ease of long practice.

  Ancaladar lumbered through the snow, bounding down the long slope that led away from the Fortress, his wings folded tightly against his back as he built up speed. Snow and shards of ice-crust sprayed up around him to either side in wide fans.

  When he was running flat-out, he spread his wings with a sudden snap, and was pulled from the ground. For the first few yards, the dragon struggled for height, wings fanning, but then he found the wind he’d been seeking and gained height quickly in a series of sharp zig-zagging motions, until he’d reached what he considered a safe height above the ground.

  “And now?” Ancaladar asked, once he was soaring smoothly through the sky.

  “Ysterialpoerin,” Jermayan answered. “But I wish to go to the camp first, and speak to Redhelwar.”

  “And Idalia,” the dragon said smugly.

  KELLEN’S scouts had brought more reports of plague in the days that followed, until he ordered his scouts to stay away from settlements entirely. He dared not risk losing any of his troops to sickness out here in the cold waste, especially with the mountains still to cross.

  They lost a fortnight camped at the foot of the Mystrals as a winter storm raged over them. To attempt to ascend the mountains in such weather would be purest suicide, but though the delay was unavoidable, it gnawed at Kellen’s nerves. At least they’d be able to stop at Ondoladeshiron to resupply, and to get out of the weather for a day or so, and from there the journey to Halacira and on to Sentarshadeen should be fairly easy going. The weather should be milder too, at least by comparison.

  At last the weather broke, and the army moved on.

  When they entered the mountains, Kellen rode far ahead of everyone, for Shalkan, sure-footed as a mountain goat and light-footed as only a unicorn could be, blazed the trail through the passes for the snow-sledge to follow. The unicorn was able to tell where the ice would bear the weight of the carts and horses, and where it would crack and fissure, trapping the heavy, slow-moving oxen. The two of them searched the slopes above for the treacherous, precariously-balanced weights of snow that might at any moment cascade into a deadly snow-spill, crushing men and animals beneath tons of snow and ice.

  Most of all, both Knight-Mage and unicorn strained their senses to detect the Enemy’s creatures. The high cold realms were their natural habitat, and the narrow mountain passes were the perfect spot for an ambush.

  “ARE you sure this is the smartest thing we’ve ever done?” Kellen asked, trying to keep the uneasiness out of his voice.

  It was their seventh day in the mountains, and so far they had encountered no living things at all. Kellen distrusted the quiet; in his time with the army, he had gained the soldier’s dislike of too much good fortune. It always seemed to mean that some particularly bad stroke of luck was about to fall.

  And so far, they’d been far too lucky. Only a few cases of frost-burn, some snow-dazzle, and a bit of mountain-sickness, all of which the Wildmages—all from the High Reaches—had warned him to expect. They’d run out of fresh meat during the storm, but they still had enough provisions to make Ondoladeshiron.

  Much too easy, Kellen thought grimly. And I know They know we’re here. Why aren’t They trying to stop us?

  He had the sense that Their attention was elsewhere, that They weren’t paying attention to him because They felt They didn’t need to. Either Their attacks and defenses had been put into place long ago, or They were concentrating Their attentions on something They thought was far more important than destroying a third of the Elven Army.

  And if that was the case, Kellen desperately wanted to know what it was.

  Kellen’s force was several hundred yards behind him, and the whistling of the wind over the ice-covered rocks drowned out any sound they made. Though he could sense their presence through the Wild Magic, his eyes and ears insisted to Kellen that he and Shalkan were completely alone in a frigid gray and white wilderness. He hadn’t really liked the idea of riding out with him and Shalkan so far ahead of any possible support—or rescue—but they were the only ones who would be able to find any traps before the army did. He really had no choice.

  “Oh, let me see …” Shalkan appeared to actually be giving Kellen’s question serious thought. “We faced down several Outlaw Hunts clumped together armed with nothing more than a big stick. We attacked an Endarkened stronghold with only Jermayan and Vestakia for company, and then you defied the Queen of Shadow Mountain in your underwear. You challenged Belepheriel and disobeyed Redhelwar and entered the Shadowed Elf caverns with only Idalia to accompany you. This is probably not the most ill-considered venture of your career.”

  “You know, that makes me feel a lot better,” Kellen said.

  “It should,” Shalkan said sweetly. “Since you survived all those things, you’ll probably survive this, too.”

  “ ‘Probably,’” Kellen muttered.

  “Well, there are no certainties, of course,” Shalkan drawled. “I just think you ought to bear in mind that if you don’t survive, this army you’re leading probably won’t make it to the banks of the Angarussa, and if Redhelwar loses a third of his Knights and his Knight-Mage, I don’t think he can win the war. And now I think it’s time for you to dismount so we can fight for our lives.”

  The last sentence was delivered in the same light conversational tones as the rest of Shalkan’s speech, so it took a moment for the sense of his words to penetrate.

  Kellen didn’t waste a moment in foolish questions, but flung himself from the unicorn’s saddle. The quiver of trail-wands at his hip spilled onto the ice as he drew his sword.

  Light at the Heart of the Mountain glowed, even in the dull winter’s light. Kellen knew his sword had no magic—the Elves were not Mages, to craft magic swords—but the blade had a perfection that was nearly Otherworldly.

  As if the flicker of light on steel were a signal, a thunderous roar filled the air, coming from farther up the narrow pass. Kellen knew instinctively—a Knight-Mage’s gift—that the passage opened out ahead. They could use the room to fight, if they could reach the open space before whatever had made the sound reached them.

  Something strong enough to stop us, he thought as he ran. Don’t bother with arrows, then. Cut it to pieces. And stay out of its reach.

  That wasn’t going to be easy.

  All at once the walls of the passage ended, and Kellen was standing at the entrance to an ice-field that slanted down and away from him. It was one of the landmarks he and Shalkan had been told to look for; it meant they were near the top of the pass and would be starting down soon. It would also give the army a place to stop and rest for a few hours.

  Just as he reached the open air, he saw something come charging up the slope. When it saw him, it skidded to a stop. Kellen sensed he’d disappointed it: He should have been terrified of its bellowing, and cowered in the narrow pass until it could reach him and tear him to pieces.

  It reared up on its hind legs.

  And up—

  And up—

  “Shadewalker,” Shalkan said tersely from behind Kellen’s left shoulder. “Though usually they come in black,” he added in something closer to his normal conversational tones.

  Atroist and Jermayan had said that Shadewalkers looked like giant bears. When Kellen had lived in the Wildwood, Idalia had told him to be wary of bears, but Kellen had never seen one. He decided now he didn’t want to.

  The Shadewalker was as tall as three men standing upon one another’s shoulders, and so massive that it actually looked squat. It was covered in thick dirty-white fur. It had a flat triangular earless head that reminded Kellen of a snake’s—and Kellen hated snakes—and beady blazing red eyes. Long curved yellow teeth protruded from both its upper and lower jaws, distorting its rubbery black lips. It had narrow sloping shoulders, and its long arms da
ngled. Against the whiteness of its fur the long black claws that studded its paws glistened like glass knives. Its hind legs were squat, bulging with muscle.

  It will try to get past me and reach the convoy, Kellen thought. Then there was no more time for thought as the Shadewalker dropped to all four legs again and charged.

  If he had not been a Knight-Mage, trained in the House of Sword and Shield, it would have been fatally easy for Kellen to misjudge the scale of his attacker and the seeming slowness of its attack, and not gotten out of the way in time. But as if Time itself had stopped, Kellen knew where the blow would strike. He dug his heels into the treacherous ice beneath his feet and sprang backward at the last moment, striking downward with his sword as he did.

  The claws missed him by inches, and his sword did not cut as deeply as he’d hoped. But it drew blood, and the Shadewalker recoiled, bellowing in outrage.

  Kellen was already running down the slope, away from the entrance to the pass. Shalkan danced over the ice, circling in the opposite direction. Both knew that the Shadewalker would not dare turn its back on them while it was uncertain of how much of a threat they represented.

  It reared up, slapping at the shallow cut on its arm, trying to keep both of them in sight at once. Certain now that he had the Shadewalker’s attention, Kellen stopped and turned, concentrating upon the enemy he must kill.

  For Kellen, the world became stark and vivid, as he automatically dropped into Battlesight. The Shadewalker’s enormous muscled form was overlaid with a vivid tracery of red and blue images, showing Kellen where best to strike, and how the beast would attack, but how he could land a blow upon an enemy with a reach more than three times his own was a problem never addressed within the Teaching Circle at the House of Sword and Shield.

  He must find a way.

  Half a dozen times Kellen began an attack, only to break off at the last moment as the Shadewalker moved to block it. The only parts of it within his reach were its enormous arms, and while he could hit them, he was not completely sure he could do enough damage. The only thing he succeeded in doing was in luring it farther out onto the snowfield, where he and Shalkan had more room to move.

  He was afraid for Shalkan.

  He pushed that fear aside.

  He was afraid for the Knights who would be hurrying to help.

  He pushed that fear aside.

  Only the Battle-mind could help him now.

  Once, in the House of Sword and Shield, Kellen had sparred against a dozen Knights. Then, the object of the exercise was to move through them neither striking nor being struck: Master Belesharon had called it “Water Mind,” and it was one of the gifts of a Knight-Mage. It was also the hardest thing Kellen had ever achieved, for Water Mind showed him the course of the unfolding battle as if it were the water through which a fish swam, and as the fish sensed obstacles in its path, so Kellen could sense how the fight would move, and he could move with it, or around it.

  Or into it.

  Water Mind was dangerous, for it drained energy, strength, reserves, far past the point of exhaustion. But he had no choice now.

  Kellen felt the utter peace of Water Mind enfold him, and suddenly he had all the time in the world. The tracery of light over the Shadewalker’s body dimmed and vanished, for Kellen no longer needed it. He stepped forward, bringing his sword up in a drawing cut beneath its arm, and stepped back.

  It was as if he and the Shadewalker no longer fought, but cooperated in the deadly dance of its destruction. Kellen never shifted more than a few steps to avoid its wildly-thrashing arms; when it lowered its head to snap at him, his dagger was already in his hand. He drove it through the bottom of the jaw, spiking the creature’s tongue to its soft palate and making it keen in muffled agony.

  Shalkan darted in behind, stabbing with his horn. The Shadewalker swung around on all fours, slashing at the unicorn, then turned back to confront his chief tormenter, pawing at its chin and finally tearing the dagger free in a spatter of blood.

  Kellen cut again, this time across the ribs. He reversed his blade and brought it down hard across the Shadewalker’s foreleg. He felt the blade grate against bone, but the limb remained intact.

  The Shadewalker reared back, taking its wounded head and arm out of Kellen’s reach, but as it did, it exposed its belly.

  Kellen feinted toward it with his sword—

  Swayed backward out of the way of the slashing blow the creature aimed at him—

  And struck with all his might in the moment it was off-balance.

  It tumbled forward, its weight ripping its flesh along the edge of the blade. Kellen let the momentum of his strike carry him in the opposite direction, so that he would not be beneath the Shadewalker’s body when it collapsed. Its belly tore open with a foul-smelling gush of entrails; it collapsed into them, releasing a wet stench. Almost instantly frost began to form on the exposed gray-pink surfaces.

  It struggled to get to its feet for a few seconds longer, then something else tore inside it, and dark red blood came squirting out over the mass of pale intestines and onto the snow, causing a cloud of steam to rise around the still-twitching body.

  Seeing that, Kellen knew his work was over, and Water Mind left him.

  The floating peace he had felt only an instant before deserted him. Suddenly he felt as if he couldn’t breathe—or as if he hadn’t taken a breath in far too long. He took an unsteady step backward, and sat down—hard—on the ice. The world darkened, and all he could see were sparkling lights before his eyes.

  “Kellen?” Shalkan’s voice, sounding very far away.

  “Kellen!”

  Isinwen dragged him to his feet. Though Kellen’s vision was still hazy, he could see Rhuifai, Seheimith, Janshil, and the rest of his troop crowded in behind his Second.

  “I’m fine,” he said unconvincingly.

  “You’re hurt,” Isinwen said, sounding worried.

  “No,” Kellen protested. But a deep breath brought a sudden soreness in his right side, and when he reached down, his fingers encountered roughness instead of the glassy smoothness of his armor’s enameled surface.

  He looked down. There were three long furrows across his ribs, where one of the Shadewalker’s blows had come a little too close. He would have an excellent set of bruises to show for this encounter.

  “Nothing that Allheal won’t cure,” Kellen said, feeling stronger now.

  “You take too many chances,” Isinwen said, a note of exasperation—and relief—in his voice.

  Kellen nodded. There was nothing to say. He knew it was wrong to hazard himself this way when he was responsible for the lives of his entire force. But he also knew that no one else could do what he had done, and if he had not done it, his command would have perished.

  “Go back to the convoy and bring them up. Pass the word that we will stop here long enough to drink tea. I could do with a cup myself,” he added. He felt thirsty—unusually so. Undoubtedly it was more of the aftermath of Water Mind. The floating state was a potent tool, but just like his own sword or dagger, it did not care what it harmed, and could destroy him as easily as an enemy.

  Isinwen sent the others went back to their waiting destriers, and, with a last glance around the snowfield to make sure that no other danger lay in wait, followed. A few moments later six of the Knights mounted up and headed back toward the rest of the convoy. The rest settled down, spreading their cloaks to form a windbreak, and prepared to brew tea.

  When they were thoroughly engaged in the activity, Shalkan trotted back to Kellen’s side.

  “Not that I had any doubts, of course, but it was interesting to watch,” the unicorn said.

  “Even more interesting to do,” Kellen said, stretching tentatively.

  He realized that the blood from the kill had frozen along the surface of his blade and sighed. It would take warm water and oil, then a session with a sharpening stone, before the blade was at its best again.

  It took him three tries to summon Fire into th
e small block of charcoal that he laid inside his shield—he could have gone and gotten Fire from Isinwen but it would have meant leaving Shalkan alone—but once it was burning, it gave off enough heat to melt the ice beneath it sufficiently that he could begin to clean his sword. Once it was clean enough to sheath, Kellen tipped the charcoal out onto the ice and set the shield aside.

  “There’s something here you should see,” Shalkan said, prodding at the body of the Shadewalker.

  “What?” Kellen asked.

  “Figure it out for yourself,” Shalkan said, twitching his tail. “I’ll be around.”

  Kellen sighed. It was awkward having to divide his time between Shalkan and the army, but there really wasn’t any way for him to have specified that all members of his command be chaste virgins. It simply wasn’t practical.

  Keirasti and her troop rode out onto the ice-field, passing Isinwen and the others with a casual salute. She swung down off Orata’s back and walked over to the body of the Shadewalker.

  “That is a very ugly bear,” she announced.

  Kellen walked over to join her. “Shalkan said it was something called a Shadewalker.”

  “And it seems we are not the first to try its mettle recently,” Keirasti continued. “It bears wounds of recent fighting—sword wounds—less than a sennight old, I judge.”

  She pointed.

  “But… those are mine,” Kellen said, dumbfounded.

  He realized suddenly just how lucky he’d been to strike the fatal blow that he had. The Shadewalker’s earlier injuries had already partly healed by the time he’d struck the blow that killed it—in fact, the first wound he’d given it was entirely gone. Even the deep cut to its foreleg was more than half healed.

  The wounds Shalkan had given it were still raw and fresh, however, which made Kellen wonder. He knelt down beside it and investigated the body carefully, parting the fur to inspect the hide, and found several more wounds, these old enough to have healed over into angry raised knots in the Shadewalker’s black skin.