Kellen dropped to his knees, retching, his stomach heaving, tears streaming down his face as he sobbed between bouts of vomiting. He felt, more than saw, Jermayan getting slowly and carefully to his feet; felt Jermayan kneel beside him, and felt the Elf's hands steadying him as his stomach emptied. He wept for himself, for a loss of something he could not name, for the blood on his hands and his soul. He wept that he had been so weak that Jermayan had been forced to put himself in danger. He wept that he had simply not been good enough.
And he wept with rage, at the men who had forced him to kill.
"All the practice in the world cannot prepare you to see a man die," Jermayan said simply when Kellen was able at last to listen. "But you did not let your feelings overmaster you—or we would not be here now."
"But—" Kellen groaned. He'd failed. He'd gotten Jermayan hurt, nearly killed! "I—"
"Hush. And listen to one who is briefly your master," Jermayan said gently. "You have crossed a great abyss today. You have chosen death. With your two hands, you have delivered it. Are you sorry?"
"Yes. No. Both." There was nothing left in his stomach, but Kellen remained bent over, gut aching, throat raw, tears still burning down his cheeks.
"Good. It is a wretched thing to take a life, but it was what needed to be done today. These outlaws could have turned aside from us; they could have broken off combat at any time, and we would not have pursued them. They did neither. We cannot know if they deserved the death they won, but if we had not slain them, they would have slain us, and our task requires that we live. Do you hate them? Do you anger, still?"
That Kellen was sure of. "Yes!" He'd killed today. He would never forget that, never forgive it. Never!
"Do not; we cannot know what drove them. Perhaps their minds were not even their own. Let it go. Forgive them."
"Houi?" Kellen cried in anguish.
"Now they are not your foes. Think of them as men and Centaurs once more."
It was the hardest thing he had ever done, until he remembered that moment of paralysis, when he had looked at the face of the first dying man, and had thought, He has a wife, friends, parents —
Then at last he could, and did. The tears came again, and in weeping for them, Kellen forgave them.
"Now forgive yourself," Jermayan said. "You could do no other than what you did."
And Jermayan put a steadying arm around Kellen's shoulders, and waited until he could.
FINALLY, Kellen was done with forgiveness and forgiving; he was empty and exhausted, but he finally felt—clean. As he had not felt since the fight began.
He got to his feet with an effort, then helped Jermayan to stand. They stood for a moment with hands clasped, looking into each other's eyes. Finally, Jermayan nodded, as if satisfied by what he saw in Kellen, and let his hands go.
When Jermayan stood, Valdien hurried to his master's side, nudging at him worriedly. Jermayan put an arm over the destrier's neck, gripping his mount's saddle for support.
"You'll need to clean the swords," he said matter-of-factly. "Scrub the blades down with earth. Pack my armor on the mule… I think I will have to ride without it."
For Jermayan to make such a concession meant that the Elven Knight must be far weaker than he wanted to admit, Kellen realized. He said nothing, merely doing as he was told. Most of the blood came off the blades with a few handfuls of earth, and he was able to sheathe them. A thorough cleaning with oil, rag, and whetstone would have to wait, but this would do for now.
By the time he'd repacked the healing supplies on the mule, added Jermayan's armor, helped Jermayan back into his padded tunic and surcoat (the tunic was torn, and both items were bloody, but they could not spare the time to unpack anything else), and gotten a cloak for Jermayan to wear over the padded undertunic, Shalkan had returned, to Kellen's great relief.
The unicorn had managed to wash off all traces of blood while he'd been gone, his fur restored once more to its pristine glistening whiteness. Kellen was grateful for that—there'd been something especially disturbing about the sight of Shalkan covered in blood.
The unicorn took in the situation in a glance and nodded in approval.
"I've found a place that should do. All ready?" Shalkan asked.
Kellen looked to Jermayan. The Elf nodded.
"Good. Let's go," Shalkan said with a wary look around. "We've been here too long already."
Kellen helped Jermayan into Valdien's saddle—another concession that proved how weak the Elven Knight really was, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Jermayan rode heavily, as if remaining upright took most of his strength. Kellen hoped they didn't run into anything else between here and the campsite Shalkan had found for them. Jermayan was in no condition to fight at all, and Kellen wasn't feeling much better, truth be told. He swung himself into Shalkan's saddle and landed, despite his best intentions, with an ungraceful thud. The unicorn didn't comment.
SHALKAN led them through the trees toward the eastern wall of the canyon. Soon Kellen heard the sound of trickling water, and saw that they were paralleling the path of a tiny stream. After a short while, the sound of the little brook was joined by the louder sound of falling water, and through a gap in the trees ahead, Kellen could see what must be their destination for the night: a wide crack in the canyon wall where a tiny waterfall spilled down from above to fill a cuplike catch-basin before spilling away into the narrow stream.
By the time they reached it, Jermayan was swaying dangerously in his saddle. Kellen had saved his life, but he didn't have Idalia's practice in healing; whatever had happened had been done by the Powers without any help or guidance from him.
He had the feeling that this healing had been a great deal like forcing a lot of water into a pond by flooding it, rather than allowing it to trickle in. The pond got water in it, but a lot was lost in the process.
And there had been no one to share the price of the healing with him, either, which probably made more of a difference. The Elven Knight was still dangerously weak, and Kellen couldn't think of any way to fix that except rest and food.
As for Kellen, between the fight and the healing and the aftermath— well, he was exhausted, and really not interested in anything but rest himself.
And what about attackers on their trail?
The thought made his stomach hurt all over again. We're not up to another attack, he thought desperately.
But the campsite Shalkan had found them was easily defensible— there was only one direction from which anyone could approach, and the entryway was not that much wider than the canyon from which Kellen and Shalkan had fought off the Outlaw Hunt. The moment he saw it, he sighed with relief. He and Shalkan could protect it alone if they had to.
Best of all, there was plenty of water. He was thirsty, and knew Jermayan must be as well, having lost so much blood.
As the light faded from the sky, Kellen was wholly occupied with the chores of setting up the camp, since for the first time he had to do it all by himself. First he got Jermayan off Valdien's back and settled more or less comfortably against one wall of the narrow canyon while Valdien and the mule quenched their thirsts. He filled one of the tankards from the spring and handed it to Jermayan, then he got Shalkan out of his armor and unsaddled Valdien. He found a twisted bit of tree growing out of the rock wall at the back of the canyon, and tied the mule's halter-rope to it securely. He was sure that Valdien wouldn't stray—the big Elven destrier behaved more like a large dog than he did like any horse Kellen had ever seen—but Lily had had a hard day, and Kellen didn't want to wake up to find the mule gone. Once she was securely tied, he removed his own armor at last and began unloading her.
After that, all that was left to do was to light the lanterns, build a fire, and feed the animals while the tea was brewing—allheal, he thought, since both of them could use it. Once the animals were fed, Kellen unwrapped a couple of trail-bars for Shalkan and began cutting up another couple to make soup.
By the time that task was done, the tea was ready. Kellen added a large disk of crystallized honey to each cup—they could both use the sugar—and poured the two cups full. Maybe Idalia and the Elves were right about the restorative powers of tea after all, Kellen thought. Certainly nothing had ever seemed so welcome as the thought of a hot cup of sweet tea just now.
He carried the other cup over to Jermayan.
"Drink this. You'll feel better."
"My thanks." Jermayan took the cup from Kellen's hand. His fingers were icy where they brushed Kellen's own, and his hand trembled.
"You should come over by the fire where it's warmer," Kellen said. "You've lost a lot of blood, and you'll be cold."
"Soon," Jermayan promised. He drank, eyes closing.
"We ought to have died back there," he said after a moment.
"I nearly got us killed," Kellen said bitterly.
"No." Jermayan reached out his hand with an effort and placed it on Kellen's arm. "It was I who nearly got us killed, riding bareheaded and unshielded as if I went to bring in the spring-tide, though knowing that I rode through unfriendly lands with an unblooded Knight-batchelor who had not yet won shield or spurs. Against six men and two Centaurs… it is only because you are what you are that we are here now, Kellen Tavadon. And beyond that: you have put yourself under obligation to the Powers to ransom my life from Death's cold halls. That is a gift of which I am unworthy."
Kellen wasn't really sure what to say to that. "Well, it's not like I could just go back and tell Idalia I'd misplaced you," he said awkwardly. "She wouldn't like that."
"There is much of your sister in you," Jermayan said mournfully. "Her grace, her nobility of spirit. From the moment I first saw her in Ondola-deshiron I knew it was she for whom my heart had waited through all the long decades of my life. Love among the Children of Leaf and Star is no light thing. It is for ever and always. I would not have troubled her with the burden of my heart, did I not know that hers inclined to me as well. Yet she denies what we both know to be the truth." He lowered his head and sighed deeply.