CLEANING UP AFTER the battle took all of that day and the next. Vestakia was unhurt, and Idalia said that according to Jermayan, the greatest injury he had sustained in the battle was having to listen to Ancaladar complain about how the Deathwings tasted.
“There would be more dead had you not given warning,” Jermayan said later that night.
Kellen had helped Idalia heal Gesade—a coldwarg had bitten through her foreleg, crushing the bone—and then visited with his wounded in the hospital, and then made his second—and more complete—report of the day to Adaerion. He should, by rights, be so completely exhausted he couldn’t stand, but he found that he was too keyed-up to sleep. He’d gone to the horse-lines to check on Mindaerel, and found Jermayan there with Valdien. Jermayan, sensing Kellen’s mood better than Kellen did, had brought him back to Jermayan’s tent.
“But there are dead. It isn’t enough,” Kellen muttered, staring down into a mug of mulled cider.
“You would save all the world, if you could,” Jermayan said. “Yes,” Kellen said simply.
It was that, but it was more than that. Today the responsibility for saving the lives of others had been real—not an abstract, not a distant thing. The lives he had to save were right there in front of him, and people lived or died by how fast he could think, and how many right decisions he could make in a very short time. It had been his first taste of the responsibility he had chosen, the responsibility that would only become greater the longer he pursued this path. The weight of that responsibility felt like iron chains.
And every day would not always end in victory, as this had. Someday he might have to stand and watch friends die because that was the only way to attain a greater victory. He knew that, and wasn’t sure that he could bear it.
“Kellen.” There was a note of urgency in Jermayan’s voice that startled him. He looked up.
Jermayan was studying him as if he were a problem to be solved. “In the Great War… the Wildmages who fell to the Dark… they had fought first for the Light. They saw friends, brothers, sisters, loved ones, all die. Perhaps they wanted to save the world as well.”
“I… oh.” Kellen blinked as Jermayan’s words sank in. “But I can’t stop caring that they die.”
“No,” Jermayan agreed. “But don’t let your caring heart do the Enemy’s work for him. Now go to bed.”
—«♦»—
AFTER that first assault, flank patrols became the order of the day during the march. Every unit of the army took a turn at riding them.
Though the coldwarg and the Deathwings never again attacked the army in the same numbers they had the first time, Jermayan reported that both creatures trailed the army at a distance constantly. Everyone knew this before very long, and everyone was on edge, waiting, wondering what was going to happen next. Though Jermayan and Ancaladar could easily have flown back and destroyed the packs, to do so would have meant leaving the marching column vulnerable to aerial attack—and Redhelwar was certain that this was precisely what their enemy was hoping for.
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.