Stardeep d-3

by Bruce R Cordell

  When the huntress reached her village under the snow-bowed canopy, she couldn't understand what transpired before her eyes-the scene was too far outside her experience for comprehension.

  Humans-no, elves. . elves! Not wood elves like her tribe, or high elves she'd glimpsed on the Yuirwood's borders, nor even half-elves. Strange, steely eyed elves on mailed steeds. They were everywhere, surrounding the village, cantering through the center circle, sweeping down the side avenues. Resplendent in mail so fair it could only be mithral, the newcomer elves assailed her home without mercy.

  Surprised and beset on all sides, wood elves died.

  She saw friends taken in the back by scything swords. Others were pushed from high bowers by cruelly aimed arrows. A group that sought to flee beneath the boughs was ridden down by flashing hooves. Slender blades cut screaming throats. Dying children cried out to their parents, husbands to their wives. Janesta saw her friend Natal Peacethorn pulled from his home, shrieking. Her brother's wife Sarana was felled with two arrows. The monument stone that had stood three full tendays since the encampment's hopeful founding was toppled and smashed. Five hunters attempted to drag away wounded, but they were ridden down for their efforts.

  Janesta was witnessing a heartless slaughter, nothing less. What courage she always assumed was hers failed; she shrank back into the undergrowth, all strength stolen from chilled, clammy limbs.

  She turned, swearing, crying, hating herself, and ran blindly through the snowy woods, careful to keep her feet light and sliding, leaving as little sign as her snowcraft allowed. If she were to survive the annihilation of her home at the hands of these strange, steel-eyed elves, cowardice was her only option.

  At first she ran without goal, holding no thought other than escape. As the heat of her exertion warmed her, a seed of fury blossomed, burning at the loss through which she labored. She adjusted her direction and set her course. She was bound for Relkath's Foot, one of the largest communities of wood elves in all the Yuirwood. There she would tell her story, pour out her anger, and gather a force. Only vengeance could sate her loss.

  She would go to Relkath's Foot and alert the Masters of the Yuirwood.

  The image of stern-faced elves in shining, blood-slicked mail maddened her. The kin-slaying elves hadn't dropped from the sky, nor were their horses lathered as if from a long ride. They had appeared from somewhere not far from the encampment. After she put a few miles of forest behind her, thinking all the while, Janesta was pretty sure from where.

  On the edge of a pocket reality, a massive gate loomed, cold and gray, a lattice of strange script and tiny cracks bespeaking hundreds of years of weathering.

  Telarian waited for Brathtar just inside the great stone gates that opened onto the mist-shrouded Causeway. Telarian often stood thus, year in and year out. The chiseled granite of the gate's face was as familiar as a friend. The Keeper knew every edge, every crack, every discoloration. Moreover, he was more than familiar with the inscriptions, sigils, and glyphs so prominently displayed. They warned of danger and death for any who entered uninvited, in a variety of tongues and alphabets:

  This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. . nothing valued is here.

  What is here is dangerous and repulsive. This message is a warning about danger.

  The danger is present in your time, as it was in ours.

  The danger is to the world, and it can erase all life, overwriting all with abomination.

  The danger may be unleashed if this place is disturbed. Shun this place. Turn around.

  The warnings were not endowed with magical force capable of steering away the curious, but danger would certainly befall any who ignored the warnings and ventured into the shadowed Grand Vestibule.

  On more than one occasion in the long history of Stardeep, the gates had withstood attacks by fools loyal to the Traitor, who had discovered his prison despite all the effort of hiding his location. But neither those ancient attacks, nor all the time that had since elapsed had discernibly weakened the facade. Stardeep's entrance stood strong and patient, capable of repelling anything thrown its way.

  Above the gate was scribed the massive symbol of a strangely curving tree: Stardeep's emblem. Around the white tree was a circular field that glowed and flickered with bluish fire. Though of late, to Telarian's eyes, the fire seemed darker, sootier perhaps.

  Telarian watched as the commander and his men slowly filed back across the hazy land bridge, as if resolving from imagination into reality. The men didn't speak to each other, or look up to salute the Keeper, as was his due. Desolation hung in their slack postures and in their limp hold on their reins.

  Telarian recognized they had followed his orders.

  Commander Brathtar brought up the column's rear, his mail dimmed by a sheen of dried blood. Behind him, the Causeway faded into the encroaching mist, hidden or truly dissolved, Telarian did not know. Either way, it would return when next bidden by Cynosure or him, and again provide a connection between Stardeep and the Yuirwood.

  Brathtar reined up and fixed Telarian with a glassy stare. Some indefinable essence was missing in the man; he seemed anchorless. The Keeper regretted the change he saw, but neither pity nor concern were his to dispense. Brathtar's actions had been required, an important element of his delicate plan. Sacrifices were necessary if so much more was to be saved. What was the blood of dozens compared to the souls of all the world?

  Brathtar said, "The encampment is cleansed, Keeper. The dissidents who planned the attack you described are. . no more."

  "Your service is greater than you can know, Commander. Well done."

  The elf commander cleared his throat, dropped his eyes for a moment. He had more to say.

  "What is it?"

  "As we cleaned up, one of my Knights found a trail. Someone escaped the encampment. We gave chase, but lost the track."

  Telarian sensed something fall away into the suddenly yawning void of his mind. He hadn't foreseen a survivor. Over the sudden roaring in his ears he asked, too loud, "Are you certain?"

  Brathtar nodded.

  The noise in his ears grew louder, not unlike the horns he tested on occasion in the Outer Bastion. How. .? Where. .? But. . Telarian fumbled for reassurance as the floor of his certainty threatened to fall away. His gloved hand found the pommel of brooding Nis.

  The horns ceased. Lucidity was restored, and with it, calm acceptance as wide as the untroubled Sea of Fallen Stars.

  A fey thought danced across his mind; he would tighten his grip on Nis, pull forth the blade, and reward Brathtar for his failure.

  Don't be a fool, Telarian, Nis whispered. We yet have uses for our Commander. With the completion of this last task, he is now a tool broken to our hand.

  The Keeper let out his breath. He drowned his concerns in the unflappable serenity that oozed up from his fingers out of the unguessed depths of the black blade.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Aglarond, Yuirwood Forest

  Magnificent yellow pines crowded the edge of the Yuirwood. Their short, forked branches drooped under a burden of snow, instead of turning up like drakes' tails as they did during the summer. The spirelike tops created a jagged canopy above, though from the understory, all that was visible were naked branches ending in tufts of green needles. The cones were savagely spiked, curved like a bee's stinger to catch the unwary.

  At ground level, melting snow mixed with the fine detritus of the forest floor, absorbing most of the runoff, but creating occasional muddy sinkholes. Kiril discovered one by stepping directly into it. She muttered a clipped stream of invectives as cold water doused her foot. Not for the first time that day.

  Her heavy furs had gone from cozy and comforting in the morning chill to heavy and stifling as the day advanced. Though direct sunlight rarely touched them beneath the pine ceiling, her reckless pace contributed to what seemed an unseasonably warm morning.

  Ahead, the crystal dragonet flitted from branch to branch
.

  Shafts of sunlight sometimes transfixed the creature, making Xet's translucent carapace glow as if afire.

  Kiril was suddenly reminded of the time she'd first met the creature. After fleeing Stardeep, she lost herself amid lonely mesas in the southeast. Too much a coward to end her own life, she eked out a living trapping dune rats, working as a bodyguard, and drinking herself into oblivion each night. Eventually, she found a dwarf hermit whose heart craved solitude as much as hers, though for different reasons. Xet had been his lone companion. The recluse, a geomancer named Thormud, recognized her as a potent warrior despite her wasted life. He hired her as his lone bodyguard.

  Defending Thormud, she'd rarely drawn the Blade Cerulean. That was a good decade, or as good as she could have hoped for. Alcohol fully claimed her, but she found refuge in a surly attitude and foul language.

  As it always did, the world intruded. Kiril accompanied the geomancer on his last escapade, into the Desert of Desolation. Thormud followed a trace of evil infecting the earth. She and the geomancer, and a few others met along the way, cleansed that infection; an Imaskaran war relic was kept safely inactive.

  That triumph had awakened something in her. It was the first truly good thing she'd accomplished since her personal downfall. Her victory, the sense she'd achieved something noble, instilled in her a seed of hope.

  Hope made people act funny.

  She decided she would return to Aglarond, perhaps even to Stardeep, or at least to the hidden realm of Sild?yuir where her people dwelt. She said her good-byes to the geomancer. He gave her a gift-his tiny crystalline dragonet named Xet. Xet bore the shape of a dragon, but he lacked the size and courage to match.

  Kiril accepted the gift with her typical lack of grace and then departed, Xet flitting and chiming in her wake.

  She headed northwest, toward Aglarond. The dragonet kept her company on the long trek, she had to admit. But as she approached her homeland, dread and shame reemerged, and the memory of her recent success faded.

  Hope proved too hard to hold. Habits cultivated over a decade toppled hope's facade.

  Almost at the border of the great Yuirwood, she paused in Laothkund. A few days became a few tendays, then a few months. She lost her conviction. She foundered.

  Until now.

  A ray of sunlight briefly flashed from one of Xet's facets directly into her eyes, startling her out of her reverie. She excoriated the brittle-brained creature. Not that the dragonet cared. Xet seemed determined to remain with her.

  Like Gage.

  Behind Kiril, the man doggedly brought up the rear. She'd discouraged him, called him terrible names, and even left without telling him. But the clinging bastard discovered her plan and joined her. Her protestations didn't move him except to produce a smile, which only infuriated her. He said he wanted to help.

  Right, that's what motivated all thieves, and she knew Gage well enough to know his profession. Still… he had returned the sword-a selfless act accomplished at some personal cost. Gage didn't speak of it, but she sometimes caught him looking at his left hand-it had once borne a dark gauntlet nearly twin to the one on his right. Yet he stayed with her, even now. While she didn't want to dismiss Gage's offer of aid outright, Kiril guessed he merely craved excitement. Hadn't the thrill of danger been the lure and glue that so often drew them both together in the taverns of Laothkund?

  Though a companion on the trail wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

  Kiril snorted. After being so disagreeable when she first realized he followed, admitting she was glad to have his company was the last thing her ego would allow. But it was true. In a very real way, she doubted she would've made it as far as the edge of Laothkund, let alone to the border of the Yuirwood without him. Last night, as heavy clouds stole away the day's remaining light and snow began to fall, they pitched their tents beneath the outer eaves. This morning, they moved northwest through yellow pines, toward the Causeway.

  The image of Nangulis, as he had been before his self-sacrifice, bloomed fully realized into her consciousness, instantly becoming the sole focus of her attention. Not for the first time.

  Nangulis! Tall, silver haired, with dark eyes of mystery that never failed to enthrall Kiril even after the years they had spent together. Was he returned to life and body? Could any possibility explain such a resurrection? No, she knew it was impossible! Kiril carried a sliver of Nangulis's soul with her even now. But yet. .

  Gage had heard her dead lover's name from Sathra's lips. A name displaced in time and forgotten. It could not be active and involved in the theft of the sword imprinted with a life lost. .

  Each notion she entertained that might explain such a possibility seemed more ludicrous than the previous. Impossibility heaped upon ridiculousness, until she felt she would go mad.

  She groped for her flask and took a drink that temporarily numbed her racing thoughts.

  The answers to all her questions lay in Stardeep.

  She didn't dare hope those answers might fall from the lips of Nangulis himself. As she pressed him in her arms. She didn't dare imagine that scene, but once entertained, she couldn't scrub away her soul's fondest wish.

  Some time later, Kiril paused in her breakneck rush through the forest. Her furs were too damn hot for one moment longer, even in the canopy's shadow. She was tempted to fling off her cold-weather clothing and keep going. But she would need the furs again at night. Which meant she would have to carefully pack them. She growled. Repacking supplies was finicky work, just the sort she hated. But it was now or never, otherwise she would broil.

  To her left, Kiril spied a fallen tree-broad, unrotted, and most importantly, free of snow. She removed the heavy pack and balanced it on the log, then shrugged out of her coat.

  From behind, Gage called, "Splendid! I could use a break, too." He joined Kiril and threw himself down on the log next to her pack. She noticed with some irritation he had already removed his coat, hood, and single fur glove. Removed and stowed them in his bulky pack while walking behind her, without raising a sweat. She narrowed her eyes, but didn't give him the satisfaction of commenting on his feat.

  As she undid the knots securing her pack, Xet lit suddenly on her shoulder, pinching her flesh with its crystal-hard claws.

  "Damn it, I told you to warn me before you do that!"

  Xet pealed a strangely familiar tone. . when had she last heard it? An image of the dark halls of an Imaskaran ruin to the southeast came to her, with Xet's cry echoing on stone. In that dark tower she had wielded Angul against creatures that deserved the Blade Cerulean's righteous bite …

  Xet was sounding a warning.

  "Gage-"

  He turned to regard her, and the black-fletched arrow only tagged his shoulder instead of finding his heart. He grimaced, flipping backward off the log. He landed on his back behind the fallen tree.

  Xet flew up as Kiril spun around. She stared into the thickets of wavering daylight. The dark trunks of pines multiplied in all directions in numbers beyond counting. Where was the archer? There. .

  A pulse of dimness, like nights clasp when the sun dipped below the horizon, oozed from every shadow. But darker yet, a squirming ball of gloom bounded across the forest floor, ricocheting between the unmoving pine boles.. . aimed right at her. Kiril dropped and the shadowy missile struck the log. A burst of fire with flames the color of coal arced in all directions. Kiril cried out in relief, until she spied several more shadows racing toward her.

  "Blood!" she swore, rolling to her feet.

  From behind the log, she heard Gage mutter, "Sathra! Why would she. .?"

  Her head jerked around. Too bad-no time to ask the thief how Sathra could be attacking if she were dead, as he had told her in Laothkund. If they both survived, she would skin the truth out of him.

  The racing shadows resolved into humanoid silhouettes, each merely a dark outline cast on reality.

  Kiril drew Angul.

  Truth's clarity burned away the darkness all around her
. searing her consciousness in the bargain. Doubts, worries, and pains of mind and body were cauterized in the absolute conviction of Angul's steel. The Blade Cerulean flamed triumphantly in her welcoming grip, its star blue fire belling out and banishing shadows in every direction.

  The three silhouettes resolved into charging men wielding daggers and slender swords. She held back Angul's sure retributive strike; she retained hold of her mind by the barest of threads, enough to ask the sword, "Nangulis? Are you in there?"

  The blade answered only by wrenching itself around in her grip, shearing off the crown of the man who charged her. Certainty of purpose beat up from the blade through her skin as it always had, like heat. Whether or not Nangulis walked again, Angul remained as he always had been: judge, jury, and executioner of what he knew to be right.

  A dagger sprouted in the throat of a second attacker. He burbled and fell at her feet. Gage was flinging daggers from behind the log. The last attacker was turning, an expression of uncertainty breaking to fear, even as she strode forward and swept Angul through him from neck to navel.

  From nowhere, the air cracked, louder than anything she'd ever heard.

  The breath was drawn from Kiril's lungs, and Gage fell to one knee, gasping. Halos of shadow spun around both of them, off kilter and wobbling like a swarm of ethereal wagon wheels. A voice, far-off and airy, was audible over the ringing in Kiril's ears. An arcane voice. A voice in the midst of calling down more destruction.

  She leaped just as the air convulsed again, even louder. She landed face-first in muddy snow, but her legs churned for purchase and her left hand groped for Angul's hilt. The blade pulled her to her feet despite the absolute silence that had descended. Blood seeped from her ears. The sword did not comprehend failure. The weakness of her flesh was something he would not tolerate.

  Ahead, a clearing in the woods surrounded a bare hillock, mostly free of the night's snow. Upon the bald hill's crown was a woman. She was sheathed in black fabric and obsidian jewelry that pierced ears, nose, and eyebrows. Even in the full light of day, shadows curled and scampered around her like negative flames in a stiff wind. The darkness whispered, but the words were too faint for Kiril to make out.