FORTUNATELY, it was nearly impossible to get lost in an Elven war camp once you’d learned the disposition of the tents. Kellen found the tents of the armorers without difficulty.
The first thing that caught his eye were several of the new shields, racked outside the cooper’s tent for transport to the farther cavern. He picked one up and hefted it experimentally.
Heavy, yes, but not as heavy as he’d expected. It was half as long as he was tall, and would provide good protection in the caverns. Leather over wax over wood, just as he, Idalia, and Artenel had decided. Water-soaked, it would be heavier, but he’d still be able to lift it, he judged, and the Elves were much stronger than he was.
“Kellen! This is no time for idleness. We have much to do,” Artenel said, walking out of the main armorer’s tent and regarding him sternly.
Meekly, Kellen followed the Master Armorer into the tent.
“One wishes, of course, that you had not had the misfortune to lose every piece of your armor all at once,” Artenel said, sounding mournful. “But it is not without precedent. And fortunately, knowing that you would be… difficult to fit, I began my preparations sennights ago.”
He gestured at the long table at the center of the tent, and drew back a protective cloth with a flourish. All the components of a full set of Elven battle armor in Kellen’s size lay there, waiting.
The armor Kellen had just lost had been covered with a subtle pattern like wood-grain. The armorers said the patterns added strength to the metal, and the pattern chosen to ornament the metal of the armor was apparently another matter of great importance to Elves. Jermayan’s had a pattern of tiny stars over its entire surface, and, knowing the Elves as well as he now did, Kellen had no doubt that it was an accurate representation of the night sky at some season. Master Belesharon had called Kellen’s armor plain and dull, because it had been made in such haste that there had been no time to add the coat of glistening enamel that was the final touch on normal Elven battle armor. Kellen had liked that just fine.
But apparently Artenel had had a lot of free time to spend on making a new set of armor, just on the chance that Kellen might need it, because the armor he unveiled for Kellen’s inspection was as green as Shalkan’s eyes. Each piece glittered like glass.
And instead of wood-grain, the metal beneath the enamel was covered with a tiny intricate pattern of twining vines similar to the pattern worked into his clothes. Here and there, Kellen could see an occasional star glisten palely among the leaves.
Leaves and stars. Leaf and Star? He felt a sudden cold chill. Who do these people think I am?
The Elves swore by Leaf and Star, just as the Herdingfolk did by the Good Goddess, and the Centaurs by the Herdsman. When Kellen thought about it at all—which was rarely—he thought they were all probably different ways of seeing the same thing he and Idalia—and every other Wildmage—touched when they invoked the Wild Magic: the Power that set Mageprices and kept the world in balance.
Certainly one of the first things that Idalia had taught him about the Wild Magic was that paying whatever Mageprices the Wild Magic set was a way of keeping the world running properly, even if he didn’t understand at the time how the prices he paid—some of them quite small and personal—could really help. How had rescuing a servant girl’s kitten back in Armethalieh, for example, helped the wider world?
But knowing that you were a tool of Greater Powers, and accepting that fact, Kellen realized, was far different than knowing that everyone else knew it too.
He’d been able to handle the thought of being scorned, outcast, relieved of his command, a lot better than he was handling this, Kellen realized. Because he was used to being the goat, the misfit, the butt of a thousand jokes. He’d been that all his life. When he’d become a Knight-Mage, well, the Elves were tactful, and he’d gone almost immediately into training in the House of Sword and Shield, where Master Belesharon had treated him like the humblest apprentice, so while life had been much more pleasant, his status hadn’t seemed appreciably different from what it had been before.
Now things were changing, and rapidly.
You wanted to command the Elven army, and you didn’t think things would change along the way? What would Shalkan say if he knew you thought that?
“It is very beautiful,” Kellen said gravely. “I am honored.”
“It is unworthy work, filled with flaws,” Artenel said dismissively. “Done in haste under the worst possible conditions. Had I dared to present such a piece to my Masters as evidence of my craft, I would still be feeding the forge fires in the guild-house. But it is sound and strong, and will turn a blow, I promise you that. And in a few moonturns, better will come from Sentarshadeen.”
Better than this? Despite Artenal’s protests, Kellen could see no flaw in the armor—and if Artenel said it would protect him, he could be certain that it would.
But though the pieces were complete, the armor was far from finished, for now it had to be assembled on the body of the man for whom it had been prepared, and a thousand modifications made.
—«♦»—
“NEARLY done,” Artenel pronounced with satisfaction a few hours later, “though you will undoubtedly wish to make the last adjustments yourself.”
“As you say,” Kellen said, hastily scrambling from the undertunic and leggings he’d worn for the armor-fitting back into his clothes. “But at just this moment, I am called elsewhere.”
—«♦»—
KELLEN ran all the way to Redhelwar’s pavilion, and suspected that he was late anyway, but if that was the case, the Elven general gave no sign of it.
To his surprise, Redhelwar was alone. Kellen had somehow expected this to be a less private occasion. He wondered if he was going to get the scolding he still felt he might deserve—or at least that protocol ought to demand. He had disobeyed orders—no matter how strong the need, and no matter how right he’d been to do so, there was still that.
But as always, they began with a—mercifully brief—discussion of the tea and the weather. Soon, however, Redhelwar changed the subject.
“You come before me as if your spirit lies heavy, Kellen. Yet already today I have had Adaerion’s good counsel, and Dionan’s and Belepheriel’s as well. And I have been privileged to hear all that Idalia Wildmage could tell me of the nearer cavern.” Redhelwar leaned forward a little. “So. I would know what lies unsaid between us, that you look upon me as one who expects ill tidings.”
Well, if that wasn’t an opening to come straight out with what was bothering him, he had never heard one. “When you made me alakomentai, you gave me a place in your army,” Kellen said, thinking his words through slowly. “Army officers follow orders. You gave me an order. And I didn’t follow it.”
“Yet you are also a Knight-Mage, a voice of the Wild Magic. And if I would command the Wild Magic, then perhaps I shall step outside and command the wind and the weather to answer my will as well,” the General said dismissively. “It would be as efficient a use of my time. You risked both life and honor to save the army. Let that be an end to this matter.”
It was an order, and Kellen took it as such. Seeing Kellen’s assent and relief in his expression, Redhelwar smiled, ever so faintly, and turned to more practical matters.
“The first of the Centaurs will arrive at Ysterialpoerin within a sennight, so Jermayan tells us. Not so many as we will see come spring, but a goodly number for the season—and the weather, which remains difficult. Unfortunately, the Wildmages tell us that to bring truly calm weather here would take all their power, and worsen the weather elsewhere, so they do not advise it. Perhaps it is just as well that our battles this season take place below the earth. A number of High Reaches Wildmages travel with the Centaurs, of course. It will be good to add their numbers to those already with us.”
But it still wouldn’t change the weather. Kellen remembered that Idalia had never wanted to meddle with the weather without a very good reason, and right now the weather patterns were still trying to settle back to normal after the long unnatural drought. That was one of the reasons this winter was as bad as it was— and a good reason why it was a good idea to leave the weather strictly alone, no matter how bad it got. But…
“If the Shadowed Elves are changing the way they attack…” Kellen began.
“That thought has been much in my mind,” Redhelwar said somberly. “Idalia has spoken to me of the traps she saw in the first cavern, but says that you saw more. Yet from what she described, such traps as were there would be the work of moon turns to create.”
“Yes,” Kellen agreed. “They knew we would be coming. And they knew it— perhaps—before we were led to their first lair. All that we do here to fight them is planned for us by others. But we have no choice.”
“No,” Redhelwar said quietly. “And tomorrow we discover what further entertainment they have planned for us.”
“Goblins and duergar,” Kellen said instantly. “The Crystal Spiders said there were more of them in the farther cavern. And all the Shadowed Elves will be there—the ones from both caverns. So we’ll be facing more of them than we expected.” He felt a surge of gratitude to the Crystal Spiders, odd creatures though they were. If they hadn’t come to Idalia’s rescue, if they hadn’t made the effort of talking to her—
“Yet if we face more of our foe than we expect, the reverse is also true, for we have evaded their trap, by the grace of Leaf and Star and the intercession of the Wild Magic.” The commander tapped the table with one finger, betraying his own tension in a manner that Elves seldom indulged in. “Light will keep duergar at bay, and we shall have that in good measure—but it will not stop one from luring prey within reach of another foe,” Redhelwar added, consideringly. “Wild-mage Athan has suggested that he might work a spell of Calling to cause the Shadowed Elves to come out to us. They are easier to kill outside their caves, and we would be beyond reach of their allies.”
“A good plan, if it works,” Kellen agreed. “Idalia said that the tarnkappa don’t work against duergar, but they might work against goblins. They move through stone, though.”
Redhelwar dismissed goblins with a shrug. “We have hunted goblins many times in the past. They are foolish and easily lured, when they are hungry enough. With the Shadowed Elves dead and unable to control them, they will be simple enough to kill. The duergar will present a more difficult problem. Only a Knight-Mage, it seems, can withstand their call.”
“There might be a spell that would help. I’ll ask Jermayan and Ancaladar. And the Crystal Spiders don’t like the duergar any better than we do. They’ll give us all the help they can,” he added.
“Then we are well begun by honoring our promises to them. And now, perhaps, once you have settled a matter of no small interest to the army, we shall ride out to the nearer cavern and see that promise completed,” Redhelwar said, rising to his feet.
—«♦»—
KELLEN was never precisely certain exactly how the Elven destriers were organized. He did know that taking care of several thousand horses—even several thousand horses who knew their names and invariably came when called—was a large job for someone. Several hundred someones, probably, even though the Knights did much of their own horse-work.
The animals that were going to be immediately needed waited in the horse-lines, standing quietly in orderly ranks. Those that would not be needed as quickly seemed to wander at will, though Kellen was sure that was only an illusion.
He saw Idalia’s Cella and Redhelwar’s blood-red bay waiting patiently; Dionan’s stone-grey mare and the thirty mounts of his own troop standing by as well, all under saddle and ready to ride out.
Ciltesse had been loitering nearby—there was really no other word, Kellen thought ruefully, to describe his second-in-command’s behavior.