A large fan.
He could hear it now. A roaring, like a waterfall, but faint and far-off—for the moment.
How much snow was on that mountain?
Was it all coming down?
If the entire army had not come this way the day before, breaking a deep trail in the snow that even another night’s snowfall had been unable to fill, they would not have been able to try to outrun it.
But “try” was all they were able to do.
The roaring now was as loud as the fury of a battle, and the wave of snow pushed wind before it. Kellen felt the rush of air at his back and braced himself even though he knew that it was the most futile of gestures—
Then he felt the spell as it was being cast, and saw two waves of snow as high as Ancaladar’s shoulder pass them by on either side, racing along beside them as fast as a running horse. A few hundred yards further on, the force of the snow-spill was spent, but without Jermayan’s spell it would certainly have been enough to bury them all.
The troop reined in—Kellen had been bringing up the rear—and stopped. Kellen looked back.
There was a deep sheltering “V” in the snow along their track. Beyond that, and to either side, the snow lay white and smooth—and deep. There was no sign of the cavern mouth—or even of the cliff face.
Ancaladar landed a few yards ahead. The dragon kicked up a great plume of snow with his landing, then settled deeply into the snow. Jermayan dismounted, and walked through the snow to Redhelwar. Kellen urged Firareth forward.
Jermayan bowed.
“It seems the cave was more extensively mined than anyone properly understood,” Redhelwar said.
“Ancaladar expected a… small snow-spill,” Jermayan admitted. “He has seen them before, when the snows have been heavy. And we thought—when I sent the wind to scour the caverns—that when the roof of the village cavern collapsed there would be some disturbance, but…”
Jermayan looked a bit shaken, and more than a little drained. Kellen was reminded, once again, that if Ancaladar’s storehouse of power was infinite, Jermayan’s energy was not. He wondered just how much energy it had taken to turn aside that wall of snow.
“But we are all still alive thanks to you, and the caverns are gone, and so are the traps, which is what matters,” Kellen said. “And I do not think, from the way Idalia is looking at us, that either you or I will have to worry about tomorrow’s battle if you do not go and rest now.”
“So I have said,” Ancaladar said, speaking up now. “But I am a mere dragon, so of course my Bonded would not listen to me. No. We must land, and he must assure himself twice-over that what he could see with his own eyes was indeed so, and stand here in the snow when a warm fire and a hot meal is what he truly needs.”
It was amazing, really, how much Ancaladar could sound like Shalkan when he tried, though Kellen had the impression Ancaladar was reserving the worst of his lecture for when he and Jermayan were alone.
“Then let him go to them at once,” Redhelwar said, speaking directly to Ancaladar.
Jermayan bowed once again, and walked back through the snow to Ancaladar.
“Men,” Idalia said in disgust, coming up beside Kellen.
“Wildmages,” Kellen corrected absently. “Or maybe Elven Knights. Keirasti isn’t any more sensible, and she’s a girl.”
“ ‘Girl’—she’s old enough to be your grandmother,” Idalia said with a snort.
“Great-grandmother, probably,” Kellen said agreeably. “And I suppose the Healers all take care of themselves very sensibly ? Or do they work themselves until they drop, going without food and sleep when there are wounded to care for?”
Idalia laughed, looking surprised. “You’re getting far too good at arguing, little brother. And the worst of it is, you’re right—as you know perfectly well, since you’ve worked in the Healers’ tents.”
They ducked their heads, covering their faces as Ancaladar took off, raising a shower of snow. When the black dragon was well airborne, Dionan gave the signal, and they began to ride back toward the camp.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Idalia asked.
“Fit to fight tomorrow,” Kellen told her, allowing himself just the briefest moment of preening, thinking about his new glory of armor and weaponry. “I’ll be a stunning sight, too. You just wait and see.”
—«♦»—
THAT night, Kellen attended the meeting of the senior commanders to plan the placement of the troops. No one had remarked about his presence at all, either for or against it. Kellen kept his mouth shut and his ears open. If he wanted to learn how to handle an army—not just set policy for it, or to react to an emergency facing it—here was the place to begin.
Kellen had expected they would attack the farther cavern sometime during the next day, but Athan Wildmage had said that his Calling Spell needed to be timed to the moon’s appearance in the sky above the cavern mouth. The Shadowed Elves were more likely to come out at night, too, and for once they wanted them to come out.
So the army would have one last day of grace to finish its preparations for attack. One more day to rest, to heal, to mend armor and weapons and make new ones, to plan. The trouble was, without knowing what, exactly, they were going to face, it was difficult to plan.
Redhelwar’s decision was to divide the army into very small, very mobile, sections. It was more likely the Shadowed Elves would attack if they thought the odds looked to be in their favor. The third of the army that was to have been used to attack the nearer cavern would be kept well back and hidden until the enemy was thoroughly committed, and those who were already there had been ordered to spend the day appearing to scatter their forces, on the pretext of building a more permanent set of camps and organizing several hunting parties.
Their strategy was founded on the hope that the Shadowed Elves were just as uncoordinated and barbaric as they had been at the first cavern. There was every possibility for the plan to turn to a disaster if the Shadowed Elves showed any organization and generalship at all. And everyone gathered in Redhelwar’s tent that night knew that every battle they’d had with the enemy thus far might be all part of one long feint: the Shadowed Elves might not actually be the feral half-animal rabble that they seemed. If that was the case, the Elven losses would be heavy tomorrow.
But there was no way to know. Kellen’s Knight-Mage gifts couldn’t truly show the future. At best they seemed to give him a wider view of the present— he’d “seen” the attack on Ysterialpoerin because it was already in motion, and the nearer caverns had already been mined when he’d given his warning that they were too dangerous to invade. And he already knew his battle-sight could be blocked by Demonic magic.
When it came to the outcome of tomorrow’s battle, he knew as little as Redhelwar did. The sole advantage they had was that they had not lost a third of the army to the trapped caverns. Kellen only hoped the enemy did not know that, but there was no way to be sure.
—«♦»—
THE following morning, he went out to say good-bye to Shalkan before taking his troop out into position. The morning meal had been lavish—the cooks had truly outdone themselves, since it was the last proper meal the fighters would probably see for a whole day at least—and Kellen was certain he was not the only one who did his best to try not to think of it as a farewell feast.
When he buckled on his new armor for the first time—it had been waiting in his tent when he returned from the meeting the previous night—he had to admit that despite his reservations about what he could not help thinking of as its gaudiness, Artenel had done a magnificent job. As long as he didn’t look at it, it felt just like his old armor, nearly as comfortable as an ordinary suit of clothing. At that, the showy armor actually made him relax a little—it was very difficult to picture himself going out in something that looked like a fancy-dress costume to actually fight. Never mind what his head knew, his insides took one look and didn’t believe. His sword, of course… well, he’d never mistake Light at the Heart of the Mountain for his old sword, but that was not a disadvantage. The sword moved like an extension of his hand—no, his thought. And if he had to kill any more duergar, well, he’d use a spear.
Tucking some delicacies saved from breakfast into his new surcoat, he went up to the Unicorn Knights’ camp. Even if he didn’t have much of an appetite this morning, that never seemed to hinder Shalkan.
Though the Unicorns were posted at Ysterialpoerin now, there was a great deal of traffic back and forth between the city and their camp. Once Kellen and the others were in position, Redhelwar intended to move the units that had been guarding the cavern back to the main camp for a few hours as well. If the Shadowed Elves were watching, the more confusion about who was where, the better.
“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” a familiar voice greeted him from the edge of the Unicorn Knights’ encampment.
“I See you, Riasen,” Kellen said. “I’ve come looking for Shalkan. I ride out to the farther cavern in a few hours, and I hoped to see him.”
“And I back to the city.” Riasen shook his head ruefully. “I should have brought an edifying scroll or two—you cannot imagine how very dull it is there! But that’s all to the good, when one is hoping not to be attacked, of course.” He glanced out toward where the unicorns were drifting toward the camp. “One imagines Shalkan will be along in a few moments, if only to admire the fact that you have something near to proper armor at last.”
“Urm. Yes,” Kellen replied, blinking owlishly at him.
Riasen chuckled, and motioned to him to follow toward the center of the Unicorn Knights’ encampment. “Only think what Artenel could have done with enough time and the proper equipment—but still, no one will think badly of you. It is wartime armor, after all, and you will soon have better. And no one, indeed, could find any fault at all with your spurs and sword. Quite fitting, since you come from the sea-city.” He picked up a cup from a table inside the door of his own pavilion, and filled it from a pot steeping on the brazier there before offering it to Kellen. “Tea?”
“I suppose it must be fitting, since the one who gifted me with them is long in years and wisdom,” Kellen said, accepting the inevitable cup of tea with real gratitude. He’d never thought of Armethalieh as a “sea-city” before. He could see the wave pattern in his sword’s quillons, but he still couldn’t make out the pattern on his spurs, even in the strongest sunlight. The stones glowed brilliantly, and he could tell there was supposed to be a pattern, but that was all.
And Riasen, perfectly casually, seemed to find as much fault with his armor as Artenel had.
“Utterly stunning,” Shalkan drawled, mincing into the center of the circle of pavilions. He struck a pose, and somehow managed to remind Kellen of some of his most dandified classmates back in Armethalieh, the ones who spent every moment they weren’t studying the High Magick arguing about clothes. “I can see I shall have to have a new saddle and armor—immediately.”