The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Kellen agreed, and had said as much. Since the coldwarg attack, his position in the army had undergone a subtle change. He had proven himself—shown that he could think quickly and well in battle, and act efficiently to save lives and form strategies that would kill the enemy. The senior commanders gave greater weight to his advice.

  As for the sub-commanders, and the field knights, Kellen was welcomed at every fire and in every pavilion. He spent as much time with them as he could, knowing, deep in his heart, that the day would come when he would have to command them. He wondered if Redhelwar suspected it as well.

  The progress he was making toward his goal should have made him happy—it was what he needed, it was what he was working for—but all Kellen could see was the pressure of needing to be both right and lucky the next time he went into battle as well. Each time the stakes were higher, and to gain his ultimate goal, he could not afford a single misstep.

  But at least they listened. The creatures—Deathwings and coldwarg both—were obviously acting under orders, and Kellen wasn’t the only one to suspect that Vestakia was their ultimate target. The Elves knew that the Deathwings could snatch a rider from the saddle—they’d seen it done one day, when one of the white-furred monsters had slipped past Ancaladar and Jermayan’s defenses, though the archers had forced the creature to drop its prize unharmed—so now Vestakia rode in one of the wagons. It was stuffy and far less comfortable than riding on horseback, but at least she was safe from being snatched out of the saddle.

  But others would not be, and so Ancaladar flew over the army, and let the coldwarg follow it.

  THE land around Ysterialpoerin was heavily forested. Dense pine woods made it utterly impossible to keep to anything resembling a formal line of march, and slowed the army’s progress as alternate routes had to be found, time and again, for the supply wagons. Once they entered the forest, the Deathwings had stopped shadowing them, but the coldwarg did not. The trees provided far too much cover for the coldwarg; everyone knew they were there, but Jermayan and Ancaladar could not always see them. The Elves hunted them when they could, but no matter how many they killed, it never seemed to discourage the rest.

  Kellen waited. He knew something was going to happen, and it would be when they let their defenses down.

  And it did. When the army was two days away from Ysterialpoerin, the coldwarg attacked again, this time by night when half the camp was asleep.

  Kellen was roused out of unquiet dreams by shouts and horns, and was halfway into his armor before he was even awake. Grabbing his sword, he ran toward the horse-lines. They were heavily guarded—next to the unicorns, the horses were the most attractive target for the coldwarg, since without their mounts and draft animals, the army would be crippled.

  The battle this time was brief. They lost a few of the horses, and less than a dozen Knights, but once Ancaladar was able to find a place to land and take Jermayan onto his back, the victory was not in doubt.

  THE third attack came days later, this time at dawn, just when they were all encumbered with packing and harnessing up.

  One moment, Kellen was tightening the saddle girth—the next, only a glimpse of something moving at the edge of his vision warned him.

  Then the coldwarg were on them.

  They came on as if driven, and this time there was something desperate in the way they flung themselves at the Elves. There was no thought and no science in this attack; they attacked as the Shadowed Elves had, with hysterical ferocity, as if they were not only trying to overwhelm the Elves with mere numbers, but as if the unseen hand directing them had decided to sacrifice them entirely.

  Kellen made a target out of himself. And in a moment, he was surrounded by the coldwarg, which was exactly how he wanted it.

  And he began his deadly dance.

  Perhaps it had seemed clever to the enemy, to attack now—but it was the worst of all times for them to try, when the warriors were fresh, well rested, bodies still warmed and not stiff and cold with long riding.

  The red and blue shadows of battle-sight dodged around him, circling, driving in, dashing out—

  Be where they aren’t—

  Making feints, snapping enormous jaws—

  Be where they aren’t expecting—

  It was what Jermayan would call “a challenge.”

  Be the target they can’t ignore.

  With a new challenge involved—the Elves had come to understand that his battle-sight allowed him to see every danger, including friendly fire, and were taking advantage of that. So while he made an irresistible attraction of himself, they surrounded him and sent arrow after arrow into the ring of coldwarg around him. Now his own dodging had to include the arrows that missed their targets.

  And even a Knight-Mage grew tired—

  Kellen drove his sword through the body of a coldwarg. He was beginning to tire, and as a consequence, the strike was clumsy—he’d missed vital organs—and the monster dragged itself along his blade, jaws snapping as it strained to reach his throat.

  He flung himself onto his back, pulling his dagger, and jammed it with all his force into the beast’s eye. He felt the tip of the blade grate against the inside of the back of its skull as the blow drove home.

  As it thrashed, he got his feet into the coldwarg’s chest, and shoved with all his might, flinging the dying creature away from him. He rolled to his feet, and looked around for fresh targets, but his battle-sight was strangely clouded. A blue haze filled it, though to his normal vision, the scene was clear.

  And with normal sight, he could see the coldwarg walking—slowly, stiffly—away from their prey. Their heads and tails were down, and their hackles stood up stiffly.

  Something is happening.

  “Let them go,” Kellen said quietly to the Elves around him.

  The coldwarg staggered away from the horses, into the trees, moving in an eerie silence. Kellen could see their sides heaving; the beasts were panting as if they were running. When they were a bowshot’s distance away from the horse-lines, they stopped.

  And burst into flames.

  They burned as the stone houses in the Shadowed Elf caverns had burned, with a hot and furious flame that touched nothing around them. The fires burned so quickly that none of the beasts had time to utter so much as a yelp, and in seconds nothing remained but pools of snowmelt where the coldwarg had stood.

  The Enemy had discarded its weapon.

  THE day they reached Ysterialpoerin, Redhelwar and Adaerion rode down into the city, with Kellen’s troop along as escort, as the army continued onward toward the place where it would settle itself semipermanently.

  Ysterialpoerin was the closest in form—Jermayan had told Kellen—to how the Elves had lived in the days before the Great War.

  As they rode, Kellen kept waiting to see a sign that they had reached the city, and finally realized that there wasn’t going to be one. They were already in it. He looked around, as much as he could without changing position. It was nearly impossible to tell where the trees stopped and the buildings began, so artfully did they blend together. Kellen had to look very closely as he rode, but yes—there was a house, built somehow between two of the largest trees, several dozen feet over their heads. And there was another, on the ground this time, its stone surface nearly indistinguishable from the stone outcropping thrusting into the forest beside it. Only it wasn’t stone, he realized a few moments later, but tile made to look like stone.

  And some of the trees weren’t trees at all, he realized with a shock—unless trees had doors in them, and windows.

  He’d thought that Sentarshadeen was beautiful, and that its dwellings blended into the landscape, but riding into Ysterialpoerin was like riding into a dream while you were still awake. Even the snow seemed to have fallen here with the intent to fall beautifully.

  At last—Kellen suspected they’d ridden all the way through the center of the city to reach their destination, but he hadn’t seen a single Elf, and very few things he recogniz
ed as a house—they came to what would be, in human lands, the Viceroy’s Palace.

  The forest opened out into a clearing. At the far side of it stood a house, the first one Kellen had seen here that was easily recognizable. Like the House of Leaf and Star back in Sentarshadeen, it was a house, not a palace, though it was quite large. Unlike the House of Leaf and Star, it was made entirely of wood—ancient wood, weathered to grey by the passing of untold seasons. Like the House of Leaf and Star, it glittered with winter’s ice, but everywhere that Kellen could see, the wood was carved; delicate intricate carvings of vine and flower, leaf and bud. It was as if the house itself might burst into flower at any moment and take root in the earth beneath.

  Standing upon the portico of the House were two Elves wearing elaborate jeweled and feathered cloaks of white, pale grey, and ice-blue.

  The riders stopped. Redhelwar dismounted and walked forward. He bowed deeply.

  “I See you, Kindolhinadetil, Voice of Andoreniel in Ysterialpoerin. I See you, Neishandellazel, Lady of Ysterialpoerin.”

  “We See you, Redhelwar, General of Andoreniel’s armies. Be welcome in the House of Bough and Wind, Branch of Leaf and Star, you and those who ride with you.”

  “We come on the wing to speak our word,” Redhelwar said, not moving from where he stood.

  “Yet be welcome, as the wind that shakes the bough is welcome,” Kindolhinadetil said.

  At this second invitation, Redhelwar moved forward. Adaerion dismounted, and gestured for Kellen to follow. The three Knights followed the Elven Viceroy and his Lady into The House of Bough and Wind.

  Kellen resolved not to say a single word while he was here, no matter what. The Knights of Ysterialpoerin had seemed just like the rest of the Elves Kellen had met, but on reflection, he realized that must be because they’d left Ysterialpoerin and traveled extensively through the Elven Lands—and spent a number of years at the House of Sword and Shield besides. Kindolhinadetil and his Lady were another pot of tea entirely. He suspected they wouldn’t have any particular patience with round-ear informality, Knight-Mage or no.

  He knew the Elves were an ancient race—far older than humans—but walking into the House of Bough and Wind was the first time he truly felt that age. Walking through the doorway was like walking into a summer forest. It looked nothing at all like a human house. He smelled the green scent of new growth, heard the twittering of birds, and saw the flash of butterflies among the trees. The fantasy was perfect. Yet there was no magic in it, only Elven artifice and the love of illusion.

  Passing between two trees, they found themselves in a “clearing.” There were other Elves present—not dressed in winter’s white, but in the soft bright colors of summer. They stood so very still that only Kellen’s Knight-Mage senses made him certain they were there at all, and not merely some vividly lifelike artwork created to serve the same function as statuary.

  Kindolhinadetil and Neishanellazel removed their long cloaks. Beneath them, they, too, were dressed in summer colors; Kindolhinadetil in shades of green and blue, Neishanellazel in copper and gold.

  Servants—somehow Kellen had no doubt there were servants in Ysterialpoerin—came forward to take the Knights’ heavy winter cloaks. As they did, Kindolhinadetil and his lady seated themselves on elaborately carved chairs and turned their whole attention to Redhelwar.

  “It would please us to hear all that you may tell,” Neishandellazel said, speaking for the first time.

  Concisely—at least for Elves—Redhelwar explained about the Shadowed Elves; how Vestakia had discovered evidence of their lairs nearby, and how he and his army had come north to exterminate them.

  There was a silence after Redhelwar had finished speaking. In a human conclave, it would have been filled with questions, but on consideration, Kellen supposed they were all pretty irrelevant. The Elves of Ysterialpoerin would know that Redhelwar would do the job as fast as possible, and the best way possible, and protect Ysterialpoerin as well as he could. So what else was there to ask?

  “What Ysterialpoerin can do to aid you will be done, in Andoreniel’s name,” Kindolhinadetil said at last. “Send your injured to us that they may find peace and rest, and know that our forests stand ready to succor those who are heartsick for the forests of home. Know also that we will provide the Last Gift to all who require it.”

  “The gifts of the Voice of Andoreniel are great, and his counsel makes good hearing,” Redhelwar said, bowing very low once more. “And now I must return to my army, so that all may be done as Andoreniel wishes.”

  “Let it be so,” Kindolhinadetil agreed, rising to his feet.

  IT took Kellen some time to figure out what the Viceroy had meant, but he had nothing but time as they rode to catch up with the army. The Last Gift must be burial—only the Elves didn’t bury their dead, they hung them in trees. And Kindolhinadetil had been saying—must have been saying—that it would be appropriate to put the Shadowed Elves there, too. He couldn’t fathom it—how they could still feel kinship with those creatures—but it wasn’t up to him, after all. Perhaps it would make them feel a little less guilty.

  As for the rest, Kellen hoped there wasn’t going to be any need of it. But pragmatically thinking, with two enclaves to clean out, he knew there’d be losses. And the Herdingfolk Wildmages hadn’t arrived yet, though the army had added several more Wildmages from the Mountainfolk.

  When they caught up to the army, Dionan told Redhelwar that Jermayan and Ancaladar had scouted ahead and found a place suitable to make an extended camp. Padredor and Belepheriel had taken several units ahead to secure and prepare it for the arrival of the main force and the baggage wagons, while Jermayan and Vestakia made an overflight to determine the exact location of the caves.

  “All is as I would have it,” Redhelwar said with satisfaction.

  BY a few hours before dusk, most of the camp was in place, though it would be another full day before all the larger pavilions were unshipped. An hour earlier, six Elven Scouts carrying tarnkappa had ridden out to the locations now marked on Redhelwar’s map—just as Vestakia had sensed in her first overflight, the two enclaves were only a short distance apart. Ancaladar had been able to spot separate entrances, but that was no guarantee that the two sets of caves did not connect beneath the ground. Perhaps the scouts would be able to tell them whether they did or not when they returned.

  For now, Vestakia was resting in the Healer’s tent. The strain of coming so close to such a large concentration of Demon-taint and then doing such delicate work of detection had exhausted her, but fortunately the camp was located far enough away that she was not constantly affected by the nearness of the Shadowed Elves. And there was nothing Kellen could do to help her.

  Once again Kellen forced himself to stay away from her bedside, trying to give Vestakia as little thought as he’d give a sword, or one of Artenel’s new shields. Idalia or Jermayan would tell him if there were anything truly wrong. Meanwhile, he forced himself to focus on other things—the strange and somehow deeply-unsettling beauty of Ysterialpoerin; the fact that there was to be a strategy meeting after supper. The proximity to Ysterialpoerin and the fact that they could finally unship the ovens from the carts meant that the food would be better. Though Elven food was never really bad, Kellen was getting tired of an endless diet of tea, soup, stew, and porridge—though it did occur to him that he ought to be grateful to have the luxury of being tired of food of any sort. The Mountainfolk had been existing on much less, and the time might be coming when he would look back on soup, stew, and porridge with longing.

  “You’re restless tonight,” Ciltesse said, coming up to him with a cup of tea.

  Kellen took it gratefully, warming his gloved hands. He knew now why fighting in winter was something a sane man avoided at all cost. The weather was another enemy to fight; one that never got tired, and never retreated, and had the terrible weapons of cold and storm forever in its arsenal.

  “I suppose I wish it were over with,” Kellen answe
red. “Or at least, that we knew more than we do.”

  Ciltesse smiled faintly. “As do we all—the caverns cleansed and we home at our firesides. And better yet, that there were no need to have cleansed them at all. Yet all things come at a price.”

  Is the fighting now the price of the centuries of peace in Elven Lands in the past? Kellen wondered. Or was it the price to pay for centuries of peace in the future—if they won?

  He didn’t know. He only knew that he felt terribly uneasy. About what was to come? Or …

  There was a scream from the Healers’ Tents, and all Kellen’s sense of unease coalesced into a sudden terrible sense of warning.

  He flung away the cup, with no idea where it went, and gave poor Ciltesse a shove in the direction of the Unicorn Knights. “We’re going to be attacked—go! Warn as many as you can!”

  Kellen whirled and ran headlong through the camp, toward Redhelwar’s tent, giving the alarm to all he passed. It had been Vestakia who had screamed—she could sense Demon-taint at a great distance. Kellen’s own abilities relied more on hunches—the more he faced a particular enemy, the more accurately he could predict how that enemy would behave in battle. And sometimes the Wild Magic gave him advance warning of danger to come.

  But not enough to do any real good, Kellen thought in bitter, frantic frustration.

  He reached Redhelwar’s tent and barged inside, not stopping for courtesies. Redhelwar was disarming himself, as Dionan stood by. In the distance, Kellen could hear a few of the Elven warhoms blowing, sounding the watch-and-ward.

  “the Enemy is attacking!” Kellen blurted out. “Vestakia sensed it too!”

  Suddenly the calls of some of the horns changed. An enemy had been sighted.

  “Yes, so it seems,” Redhelwar said with remarkable calmness, reaching again for the pieces of his discarded armor. “See to your command.”