The Outstretched Shadow

by Mercedes Lackey

  “We will eat, then prepare the packs. By then, it should be light enough for your morning lesson. Afterward, we can load the mule, saddle Valdien and Shalkan, and ride. Tonight we will still be within the borders of Elven lands, and perhaps tomorrow as well, but the day after, we will be in the Wild Lands beyond, and must be on our guard.”

  “What’s there?” Kellen asked. He lit the other lantern and used it to find the water barrel, setting the lantern down to unscrew the lid.

  “It is an inhospitable mountainous land, thinly settled, and that by Men who have never heard of your City, though I believe some Centaurs also live there as well, and may by now have had word from their kindred who fled before the Scouring Hunt. We Elves know little of it; its inhabitants have no love for outsiders of any race, and are fearful and suspicious of anything new or strange.” Jermayan shrugged, as if that did not matter, but Kellen was better able to read him now, and he sensed that something about the inhabitants of that wilderness made him uneasy and suspicious.

  They should get along just fine with Armethalieh, then, if they ever get together. Why was it that no matter how far away he got from the Golden City, he never really got away from it?

  Kellen left the lantern beside the water barrel and returned to the fire for the teapot, filling it full at the barrel and bringing it back to hang it over the fire.

  “Sounds like we’ll have a good time there,” he muttered, starting to roll up his bedding.

  “Let us pass through alive—assuming our goal lies beyond their lands—and I shall be well content,” Jermayan said simply.

  Maybe “suspicious” was too mild a term.

  THEY breakfasted on bread and cheese and tea. Valdien and the mule ate grain; Shalkan had bread and journey-rations. By the time all of them had drunk their fill, one barrel was empty and the other nearly so. Jermayan tipped the last of the water from Songmairie into water-bottles, and Kellen rolled the barrels down to the trickle in the creekbed to fill them. Perhaps when they reached the Wild Lands they would be able to do without carrying their own water, but for now it was still a necessity.

  He winced inwardly as he poured bucket after bucket of the turbid brown water into the barrels, filling them to the brim. Shalkan was standing behind him the entire time, watching in an eloquent disapproving silence. When the barrels were full, he minced forward, and lowered his horn into each in turn.

  As the tip of Shalkan’s horn touched the surface of the water, there was a blue shimmer, and the water went from brackish brown to crystal clear, as pure as the unicorn spring itself.

  The touch of a unicorn’s horn not only destroyed all baneful magic, but could purify water—and any other harmful substance as well. In the City, Kellen had been taught that a cup made from a unicorn’s horn would allow its owner to drink even poison safely, a little nugget of information he didn’t think he was going to share with his friend anytime soon. In fact, the very thought made him sick now. Who could be so vile as to kill a unicorn? Even despoiling one found dead of its horn seemed obscene.

  “Thanks,” Kellen said.

  “I have to drink it, too,” Shalkan pointed out inarguably.

  By now it was fully light, and time to put his armor on and go to work. It was only as Kellen was settling his helmet into place that he realized he ought to be sore today … and wasn’t. The allheal had done its work. He felt fine.

  He hoped he’d be able to say the same thing once the lesson was done.

  BY now the novelty of wearing armor and swinging a sword was past, and he could concentrate fully on the work of learning what Jermayan had to teach him. As a Knight-Mage, a lot of his abilities came from his connection to the Wild Magic, but instincts and innate abilities wouldn’t build muscles and hone skills. What Kellen really needed to sharpen his Knight-Mage skills was practice, lots of it, and Jermayan seemed to be prepared to give him an infinite amount. This morning, to Kellen’s surprise, they even spent a few moments on extremely simple drills: how to stand, how to hold his sword, how to advance, the basic forms of attack and defense and their names.

  “As a Knight-Mage, your body knows these things already, but your mind does not. Therefore, I will tell them to you: once. Try to remember what your body already knows, so that you do not get in your own way,” Jermayan said dismissively.

  Though the Elven Knight was ruthless in his training, never letting Kellen get away with anything, and his corrections were always swift and painful, Kellen found that he did not resent his new teacher in the slightest. For the first time in his life, Kellen knew that his instructor not only had his own good at heart, with no other agenda in mind (other than keeping him alive), but that he could master what he was being taught, if he worked hard. And—also for the first time in his life—it was something that Kellen actually wanted to learn. He applied himself to Jermayan’s lessons wholeheartedly, with a passion that would have surprised all of his previous instructors, Idalia included.

  At first, these simple things seemed useless, as useless as tracing and retracing the glyphs of High Magick. But then, as Kellen went through the patterns for the third and fourth times, something clicked in his mind.

  Because on the third and fourth time—he did them correctly. Absolutely correctly. And his body recognized that fact.

  What was more, with the recognition came another realization; there was a good reason for insisting on perfection in these fighting moves. A perfected movement went as far as it was possible to go in eliminating strain, minimizing the risk of damage, making the most efficient use of strength and energy. Which, of course, was why it felt right. This was fighting; obviously he could not completely eliminate injury and damage, and when he actually fought, he probably wouldn’t be able to do those perfect moves because his enemy wouldn’t give him the proper setup. But the more Kellen drilled, the more doing it the right way became habit and muscle-memory.

  This wasn’t mindless repetition for the sake of humiliating the student; it was mindful repetition to make the movements second-nature, so that he would never have to think about them. Because thinking took time, and in a fight, as Kellen very well knew, there never was any time.

  Which must be the explanation for that passage of The Book of Moon.

  And maybe it went a long way toward explaining why he and Shalkan had been able to fight their way free of the Outlaw Hunt. Because at some point, he hadn’t been thinking at all, only letting his body act.

  Exactly what The Book of Moon said …

  “VERY nice,” Jermayan said, an hour later, as Kellen stood, winded and panting, in the center of the teaching circle. What mind and heart knew, muscles were being forced to learn—and fast. Kellen was ruefully coming to accept that while the muscles that came from a season of chopping wood and hauling water might be a good foundation for becoming a Knight-Mage, they were only a foundation. Swordplay used those same muscles in an entirely different fashion!

  “I accept that under most circumstances you will probably not be hit by one swordsman, should only one swordsman attack you. And unfortunately one swordsman is all I have available to teach you with. We will therefore proceed to other matters. Can you hit me, Knight-Mage?” Jermayan asked.

  Kellen wasn’t sure himself. The spell-sight showed him where Jermayan was going to strike, but that meant it was only being used reactively. If he attacked, wouldn’t that mean Jermayan would have as much opportunity to block his attack as he would have any other attacker’s?

  “I don’t know,” Kellen said at last.

  “Let us see,” Jermayan said. “Come, you have blocked my attacks often enough to see how it is done. Do to me what I have done to you.”

  Easy enough to say. Kellen took a deep breath and put himself into a trance once more, gazing at Jermayan. Only this time, instead of waiting for Jermayan to hit him, he intended to hit Jermayan. Hit him, he told himself.

  This time, instead of a blue ghost that moved before Jermayan moved, Kellen saw Jermayan overlaid with a web of re
d. One spot burned more brightly than the rest. Without thinking, Kellen struck at it.

  Jermayan blocked him, of course, but Kellen had already broken off that attack before he completed it, striking at his next red-flaring target. Once Jermayan was in motion, Kellen was always ahead of him, and no matter how many times he was blocked, he kept moving on to the next target.

  Until at last Jermayan’s blade was not there to block his. Kellen swung toward the undefended target with all his strength.

  Wait! NO!

  He could not pull the blow, but at the last moment—barely—he managed to shift the sword, so that the flat, not the edge, hit Jermayan’s armor. It struck with a solid “clang!” like a hammer hitting a muffled bell, taking Jermayan high on the left thigh.

  Kellen staggered back, gasping in horrified reaction when he realized what he had nearly done.

  He’d been attacking full-out, because that was the way they’d always sparred. And he hadn’t expected to hit Jermayan, because he never expected anything when he fought.

  But if the strike had gone home edge-first, instead of with the flat …

  Elven blades were meant to cut through Elven armor.

  He could have hurt Jermayan.

  Badly.

  Kellen stepped back, the sword falling from his hands to the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “I didn’t think. I could have hurt you.”

  “So you could have,” Jermayan said quietly, and though his voice was calm and steady, his face invisible behind the helmet’s guard, Kellen had the sense that the Elven Knight was as shaken as he. “It was my error, Knight-Mage. I will not make it again. And so I think that in future combat, it will be better if we fight with padded blades, lest we do the enemy’s work for him.”

  “Jermayan—” He felt horrible. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t want—”

  Jermayan sheathed his sword and pulled off his helm, then managed a wan smile. “Of course you didn’t. Do you think me foolish as a babe unweaned, not to know this? It was my fault, to have urged this upon you without forethought myself, and for my folly I shall have a set of bruises to match yours. And—” he added meaningfully, “—think you. You did turn your blade in time, though in the heat of combat, and with what, barely a scant two days’ true training? You acted with discipline and care. And now, that is sufficient for the morning. We should prepare to ride. There will be another lesson at midday. In which you will learn not to drop your sword when you are surprised.”

  THIS time they followed the route that Kellen chose, with a midday stop to rest Valdien and the mule and for Kellen to practice again, both his attack and defense. Before they began, Jermayan made sure that both blades were padded, with a layer of tough wadding made from a spare undertunic over each edge and the point, then well wrapped in a thin layer of leather—and for the first time, he carried his shield. Kellen discovered that Elven shields were meant to be worn high on the arm, so that the Knight could still wield his sword two-handed if he chose.

  “At home, there would be practice-sheaths to protect the blades—and our armor—but alas, I did not think to bring them,” Jermayan said. “It did not occur to me they would be needed.”

  “Well, I expect you thought I’d barely figure out how to keep from cutting myself on my own sword,” Kellen offered.

  “True enough,” the Elven Knight agreed, to Kellen’s chagrin. “But we shall contrive.”

  There was, of course, no need at all for Jermayan to wrap his own blade as well as Kellen’s, but Kellen supposed it had something to do with Elven notions of propriety and fair-dealing. As it was, he felt bad about the sacrifice of the undertunic. He just hoped they weren’t going to need it later.

  Though he tried his hardest, Kellen didn’t manage to land another blow on the Elven Knight, but for the first time, a bout with Jermayan didn’t leave him feeling afterward as if he’d run ten miles uphill in his armor, and Jermayan actually seemed to approve of his progress. Kellen was feeling pretty good about things as they went on again.

  The feeling didn’t last. He’d started feeling unaccountably nervous as they rode along … twitchy, really, as if something were watching them, but though he kept looking around, he never managed to spot anything.

  They were riding through a forest, one that was suffering less from the effects of the drought than other places in Elven lands, as it grew along the banks of a river Jermayan said was called Angarussa the Undying, which even now ran strongly, though far lower in its bed than it should have been.

  “It runs above caves, doesn’t it?” Kellen asked suddenly.

  “The Caverns of Halacira are very near here, yes,” Jermayan said, puzzled. “The Undying goes down into them and runs underground for some distance.”

  “I have to look for something,” Kellen said. “Stop.” He’d seen the Angarussa last night in his dream, and something … wasn’t right here.

  Shalkan halted, and Kellen dismounted. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he headed toward the sound of the river, trying to feel the same sensation he had last night in his dream. It was frustrating, like trying to listen for music you weren’t even sure was there at all, made worse because he knew he wasn’t going to like what he found, and didn’t actually want to find it.

  He walked toward the river, not looking so much as listening, until he reached the spot. Or perhaps it wasn’t listening, it was feeling. The way he felt the Wild Magic.

  Here.

  He looked down, and discovered he was standing directly over a patch of low-growing flowers. They looked like tiny lilies.

  “Jermayan?” Kellen called.

  The Elven Knight quickly joined him.

  “What are those?” Kellen asked, pointing downward.

  Jermayan stared at the ground. “They look like starflowers,” he said. But he didn’t sound at all sure, and his voice was shaken. He stepped quickly backward, off the patch of flowers.

  “Are starflowers supposed to be … black?” Kellen asked, when Jermayan said nothing more.

  “No,” Jermayan said with certainty. “Starflowers are—or ought to be—white. Silvery white. And they glow at night. They should be beautiful.”

  Idalia had said to look for things that were “just plain bad,” and the more that Kellen looked at the spreading patch of sooty black flowers, the more he was sure they fit into that category. He didn’t know what real starflowers looked like, but these looked wrong. He stepped back carefully out of the flowers.

  “What should we do about them? I don’t want to just leave them here.” He didn’t know why, but he knew he couldn’t leave those so-called flowers there. They felt—obscene. Or poisonous. Or both.

  “Let me,” Shalkan said. “If this doesn’t work, we can dig them up and bury them.”

  The unicorn approached the patch of black flowers and knelt so that he could touch them with his horn. As he did, the flowers curled up and withered, the effect spreading swiftly until in a few moments there was nothing but bare earth where the patch of flowers had been.

  Shalkan rose to his feet again and shook his head strongly, as though he were shaking something nasty from his horn.

  “I suppose this means we’re on the right track,” he commented blandly to no one in particular.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Beyond the Elven Lands

  BY THE END of their third day on the road the travelers had left the borders of the lands claimed by the Elves and were well into the mountains. It was no longer difficult to find water—these lands were not suffering under a magical drought—and the water barrels the mule carried were now empty, to save weight.

  But even without drought to afflict it, it was a hard land, one of rocks and hidden springs, near-barren hills covered with sparse grass and scrubby bushes. The small party spent as much time going down as up, often having to detour out of their way in order to find a path that Valdien and the mule could follow. Even a few days and a few miles had made a difference in the weather, and no
w Kellen was glad of the protection his armor offered in more ways than one, for the days were chilly and the nights decidedly cold.

  Kellen’s lessons continued—morning, noon, and night—and with every exercise, he became more comfortable with both sword and armor, more confident of his skill, and above all, his endurance, coordination, and strength increased almost with every new lesson. Jermayan was a matchless teacher, patient and firm, and most of all certain of Kellen’s excellence.

  In addition to the disciplines of combat, Kellen had learned many other things as well—how to care for his sword and armor, how to get into and out of his armor easily, how to cope with the dozens of small chores of life on the road. He realized now how many of those Idalia had handled on their flight from the Wildwood, but now he was learning to take care of them himself.

  He was also learning how to care for and even saddle Valdien as well as Shalken—not because Jermayan intended ever to leave that particular task to him, but because, as the Elven Knight constantly reminded him, they could never foresee what disaster might lie ahead. It might come to pass in the future that Jermayan wouldn’t be able to take care of Valdien himself, either due to injury, or … for some other reason.

  Though Valdien blatantly preferred Jermayan’s attentions to Kellen’s, and made no secret of it, the pack mule was more than willing to become a friend to anyone who fed her and brushed her and cleaned her hooves. Lily, for all the high-flown poetry of her name, was a very tolerant and down-to-earth sort (though Kellen supposed that went with being a mule), patiently enduring Kellen’s rather clumsy (at first) attempts at hostlery. But by the time they were out of Elven lands, he could see to her needs as well as Jermayan could, and nearly as fast.