by Pati Nagle
Filari's brow furrowed with worry. Rephanin realized she must be thinking of Kelevon, who hailed from the Steppe Wilds.
Kelevon will not dare go near Watersmeet. Pashari would have his head.
Ehranan took a slice of meat from the platter between them. “The Steppes are closest to Fireshore. Communicating with them is more important than with Eastfæld at present. Governor Pashari will welcome you, be assured. I will give you a letter for her.”
Rephanin watched Filari, who had stopped eating and sat staring at her plate. None of these assurances seemed to comfort her, even his private one. He gave a slight cough.
“We have not yet tested Filari's ability to speak at distance.”
Ehranan raised an eyebrow. “You spoke from opposite ends of the column.”
“Less than a league apart.”
“Well, she must speak to you several times a day, then, to be sure that she still can.”
Rephanin stifled a sigh, and looked at the feast laid for them by the host. It had overflowed the table in the private room Ehranan had taken; several dishes waited atop the dresser, fated to be ignored. Rephanin selected a piece of apple and chewed it thoughtfully.
“She might reach Watersmeet faster if she rode.”
A horse would also gain her the attention and respect of the Steppegards. He knew Ehranan was aware of this.
“If there is a mount to be had at Waymeet, by all means.”
Rephanin looked at Filari, unsurprised to see that this did not cheer her. It will not be so bad. At least you will be away from the army.
But you made me want to see the sea.
I ask your pardon.
The corners of her lips curved slightly at this. She sipped her cider.
Ehranan put down his knife and turned to her. “You will be doing a great service for all ælvenkind. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
Filari colored deeply and looked down again. “Thank you, my lord.”
And you will not be in the Steppe Wilds forever.
A flicker of sadness went through her khi and was gone even before Rephanin recognized it. She raised her cup to sip again.
It will be better than home, no doubt.
A tragic thought. He could think of no answer. Centuries ago, he had felt the same way.
It was well past midnight when Luruthin and his friends left the snow behind. The hunger was painful now, and Luruthin fought the desire to break into a run. Waves of cramp gripped his gut, making it difficult to think of anything save for putting an end to the torment.
The trail they followed stayed near the river. They passed numerous cascades, all lesser than the high waterfall above.
His fall. His folly. Would it have been simpler for all of them if he had succeeded there?
Vanorin began to search for shelter among the steep crags of the valley wall. It need only accommodate Luruthin, of course. Eliani and Vanorin could rest outside, in the sunlight. Or continue without him. Perhaps that would be best.
Vanorin paused to peer upward at a high, narrow cliff of black rock that divided the valley they traveled from another running down from the north. He pointed toward a dark hollow on the side of the cliff.
“There is a cave there, but we would have to climb to it.”
Luruthin scowled. “We have had enough climbing.”
He started forward again, along the base of the cliff and toward the convergence of the valleys. Vanorin and Eliani caught up with him at the edge of a stream that ran briskly there.
The water was swift and too wide to leap across, swollen with snowmelt from the mild day just past. They could not cross here.
Luruthin caught his breath. Smoke!
Eliani smelled it too—he saw her nostrils widen. They all stood silent, watching and listening, questing up the valley with khi for a sign of the fire’s makers. Luruthin found it and swallowed.
Kobalen. A small group, camped on the south side of the valley near the stream, perhaps half a league away. The running water made confusion of their khi but he was certain there were several kobalen together.
He crouched as he gazed up the valley toward the unseen camp. How to capture a kobalen? Separate one from the group and take it alive? He had hunted them often but only to kill them.
He remembered Kivhani saying something about the hunter’s benison, and wished now that he had asked to know more of how the Lost hunted. It was strange to think of kobalen as game.
By the creed, game were given a quick and merciful kill if possible, but he suspected it would be easier to take blood from a living kobalen. The creature need not die; he would not need that much blood. When he recalled the strength that a single cup had given him...
A shiver went through him at the memory. That would not happen again.
He glanced at Eliani, then started forward up the valley, moving with a hunter’s silence through the scrubby oaks and greenleaf trees that grew along the stream. With Eliani and Vanorin following, he strode onward until he reached the kobalen’s camp.
Six adults, two young, sleeping around the remains of their fire. One family, or perhaps two. He closed his eyes, hating that he must destroy their peace.
To attack the whole party was needless, and also dangerous. Eliani’s safety must be considered. Had that not been the case, had they merely been on patrol to keep the Ebons near ælven towns clear of kobalen, he would not have hesitated to slay the whole group.
Eliani and Vanorin came to stand beside him. He glanced toward his cousin and saw her take something from her belt, a dark bundle. The glint of starlight on metal told him what it was.
An alben throwing net. Yes, she had kept one. He had forgotten. He shivered.
She offered it to him. With a shudder he shook his head.
He would not use one of their nets. He preferred not to touch it or even to look at it. Fighting the evil memories it aroused, he looked away, back at the kobalen.
One of them stirred. Luruthin held his breath, watching as the young male sat up, then stood and stretched. It walked to the stream bank and stood relieving itself into the water.
Instinct and need together drove Luruthin forward. He stepped out of the woods, moving silently until he stood behind the kobalen. In one swift movement he put his arm around its throat. At the same time, and purely by instinct, he took hold of its khi, silencing it more effectively so than mere physical dominance would ensure.
The kobalen struggled feebly for a moment, then sagged, its weight dragging Luruthin forward. He held on, knowing the creature was not dead, was perhaps feigning helplessness.
He turned his head and saw Vanorin beside him. The captain picked up the kobalen’s legs and helped carry it into the woods. They took it some few rods downstream, stopping in a small clearing between stands of oak.
They laid the kobalen down on the dry leaves. Luruthin made certain it was truly unconscious, then looked up.
Eliani stood at the edge of the clearing, gazing toward the kobalen’s camp. She glanced at him and shook her head, then returned to watching.
The kobalen had not missed their companion. Not yet.
Luruthin knelt beside the creature, anxious to be done with it. The strong, musky smell of the kobalen was not appealing, but he was in no case to be fastidious. He drew his belt knife, wondering how to proceed.
Vanorin had unshouldered his pack and now held out the cup they had shared. The same cup from which Luruthin had drunk their gift. He met Vanorin’s gaze, swallowed, and accepted it. Better to drink from a cup than to lay his lips to the creature’s hide.
Vanorin lifted the kobalen by its shoulders and held its head, exposing the neck to Luruthin’s blade. Chagrined at this assistance, he hesitated no longer and made a cut beneath the kobalen’s ear, where the heavy veins lay.
The smell of blood rose bright and hot into the night air, making him gasp with need. Luruthin held the cup beneath the cut with a trembling hand, gathering what flowed from the wound. It took far too long, with
his anguished stomach demanding what he smelled.
When the cup was half full he could wait no longer. He gulped down its contents, then returned it for more.
The blood struck his gut like a ball of fire. Kobalen’s blood, and kobalen’s khi especially, was much heavier than that of ælven, and he tasted and felt the differences. Still, the rush of returning strength was like what he had felt before, the ebb of anguish a familiar relief.
He looked down at the kobalen. Vanorin held its head between his hands, ready to control it should it rouse. How humbling that he should need help in this, that Vanorin should debase himself so far, stepping outside the creed to do harm to this creature for his sake.
His fingers were slick with blood, he realized, warm and sticky where they pressed against the kobalen’s throat. He shifted the cup to a better position and watched the blood flow until it was nearly full, then drank again, more slowly this time, pausing to breathe between swallows.
Much better. His senses sharpened, free of the blinding hunger. He heard the stream’s rush and the cry of a night bird hunting down the valley, smelled the kobalen and their fire a short distance away, saw a mouse scurry away beneath the oaks.
One more, he decided, returning the cup to the kobalen’s throat again. That would sate him, and he hoped he would need no more for a while.
A sound reached him, a voice raised in query, sending a tremor of fear through him. He glanced up at Eliani, who came toward him to whisper.
“They have missed him.”
Vanorin pushed the kobalen off of his knees and let it fall on the ground, reaching for his pack as he stood. Luruthin gulped what was in the cup and followed Vanorin and Eliani down the valley, moving swiftly and silently.
Vanorin paused and pointed to the stream. It spread wide in a shallows, curling around boulders before plunging through a narrow cleft in a small cascade. Eliani nodded and Vanorin scrambled down the bank into the water, which came to his waist. Holding his bow overhead, he began to cross the stream.
Luruthin licked blood from his fingers and from the cup as he watched Eliani follow Vanorin into the water. When he saw that she was steady and in no danger of being swept away, he followed, still clutching the cup, holding his own bow high with one hand.
He gasped at the icy water. The blood in his gut churned as he slogged across. Uncomfortable, but far better than the pain of being empty.
Shouting reached him from upstream. The kobalen had found their friend. Luruthin hoped they would concern themselves with tending the injured one’s hurts, and not with pursuing his attacker.
Vanorin reached the far bank and climbed it, then turned to help Eliani. Luruthin slipped on a loose stone as he followed, and nearly plunged face first into the stream. He managed to keep his bow out of the water but his other hand went into it and he lost the cup as instinct made him grab for support. Finding his feet again, he peered down into the water but saw no glint of metal.
“Never mind.” Vanorin beckoned to him from the shore.
Luruthin scrambled out of the water and stood dripping, shivering. His stomach grumbled and he wished to lie down and rest, but knew he could not risk staying this close to the kobalen’s camp. Vanorin led them downward again, following the stream once more and setting an easy pace.
Dawn was beginning to lighten the eastern sky by the time Vanorin called a halt. Luruthin eyed the strip of glowing blue as one might watch a dangerous beast. He knew the sun would not rise yet for a while, but already he sensed a whisper of its burning power tingling in the air.
The valley was less steep here, dense with trees and brush in its bottom where the river flowed swift and cold. No cliffs; instead wooded slopes thick with evergreens reaching skyward.
Luruthin doubted they would find caves here. His heart began to race with fear.
A shelter, then. There was time to fashion one, and it would suffice. He remembered the Lost's shelters at their camp. Simple frames draped with skins and covered with boughs of evergreen. He and his friends had no skins, but they had blankets that would serve.
Vanorin and Eliani were filling their water skins from the river. Luruthin’s gut rumbled. He wanted greens, but they did not grow in the mountains in winter.
Remembering the food in his pack, he took it out and ate two dried stonefruits, which eased him a little. He ate one more, then put the pouch away and looked at the trees between the river and the slope.
Vanorin came toward him. “I will look for a cave. Stay here with Eliani.”
Luruthin nodded. “I will cut branches for a shelter, in case you find no cave.”
“Yes. Take my woodcutting blade.” Vanorin unslung the blade in its sheath and handed it to Luruthin, then started toward the woods.
“Vanorin.”
The captain paused, eyes questioning. Luruthin took a step closer.
“Thank you for your help.”
Vanorin smiled slightly, then nodded and left. Luruthin watched him walk into the woods, thinking that his words of thanks had been inadequate. Vanorin helped him for Eliani’s sake, yet help for any reason was crucial to him now. Alone, he would surely have perished.
Eliani came to him, offering water. He shook his head, hefting his own skin, which was more than half full. He had drunk no water since taking blood, and as yet wanted none. The fruit had helped.
He would have to pay close attention to his body’s changing demands. Feeling a return of grief at the thought, he pushed it away and walked to the nearest evergreen, selecting a long, straight limb to cut.
By the time Vanorin returned, Luruthin had cut ten poles and Eliani had stripped them of lesser branches. The band of blue on the eastern horizon had widened and grown paler at its edge. Warmed by the work of cutting, Luruthin paused and wiped his brow as Vanorin joined them.
“No caves, but there is a wash down the slope where the trees are thick. A good place to make a shelter.”
“Very well.”
Luruthin sheathed the blade and picked up the poles he had cut, balancing them on his shoulder. Eliani and Vanorin carried his weapons and pack as Vanorin led them into the forest.
The wash was narrow and less than a rod deep, filled with rocks and damp in its sandy bottom. Luruthin glanced westward, wary of a storm that would bring down a flood, but the sky was yet clear.
With Vanorin’s help he built his shelter, stacking evergreen branches thickly across the south-facing front, nervous lest a single ray of sunlight find its way in. The sky was growing brighter moment by moment, and his skin had begun to prickle by the time he crawled inside with his pack and nodded to the others to lay branches across the last gap.
Eliani peered in at him, looking worried. “Shall I come in with you?”
Luruthin shook his head. “There is not much room. You will be more comfortable outside.”
Out in the sunshine, where he could never again go. His throat tightened suddenly and he looked away, fussing with his pack. The light dimmed as Vanorin covered the entrance with tree branches.
Luruthin watched the slivers of light that speckled the rocks around him disappear as his friends piled more boughs over the entrance. For a moment the panic of being held captive returned to him, and he had to force himself to be still and not fly from the enclosure.
He took deep breaths and looked at the blanket and poles overhead, reminding himself that he had made this place, that he was here by choice. Pressing his lips together so that he would make no sound, he leaned his back against the rocky wall of the wash and wrapped his arms around his knees.
It was chill inside the shelter, but he did not mind. Better that than the sun.
He listened to the sounds of his friends settling themselves for the day, to the few words they exchanged, to the song of birds greeting the dawn. He felt as if he had disappeared. Another wave of panic came over him, and to fight it he spoke.
“Has the sun risen?”
Vanorin replied. “It is rising now. Are you all right?”
“Y-yes. So far I am well.”
Fear gripped him. Between the sun and the dread of confinement, he felt he might lose his wits and flee.
“Sing that s-song, will you, Vanorin? The one about the shepherd’s child?”
Vanorin began to sing softly. The tune calmed Luruthin, who had heard it often enough in Ulithan’s cave that he could follow it and join in on some of the verses.
It was long and rambling, and very foolish, and it comforted him. By the time the song had ended, the sun was fully up. He could feel it in his bones. Staring apprehensively at the roof of his little shelter, he was able at last to convince himself that it was enough.
“Thank you, Vanorin.”
“Do want another?”
“Not now.”
As the morning progressed, Luruthin tried to rest, as he knew the others were doing. He had not the concentration required to meditate. He had not done that for a long time, spending his thoughts instead on dread of the new life he must lead, on regrets for all he must leave behind.
The air around him grew warmer as the day went on, and his thoughts moved away from the immediacy of his situation. For a long while, since Ghlanhras, he had thought only of surviving the present day. Now he was beginning to be able to think of a future, of a day when he would feel no suffering, or much less suffering at least.
A day when he could feel safe among others who shared his fate. Bitter a fate as it was, he was beginning to believe that he could bear it.
These musings carried him until the light began to fade and he knew the sun was westering. He sat listening as evening came on, as the birds and woodland creatures made ready for night.
He knew the moment the sun was down. Standing, he pushed against the boughs that covered his shelter and they slid in a jumble to the ground. He stepped over the heap of branches into the twilit evening.
Eliani and Vanorin were sitting nearby, their backs leaned against tree trunks. Eliani looked at Luruthin, then suddenly jumped up and threw her arms around him. He returned the embrace lightly before drawing back. A tear glinted on Eliani’s cheek and she brushed it away.