AT DAWN THE warhorns blew the victory. Hours before, carts of wounded had begun moving back toward the camp, well guarded by line units that could now be spared from what was by now little more than a series of executions. Kellen and his people remained, having no orders otherwise, and slowly a few last stragglers from Kellen’s troop found them: Rhuifai. Janshil. Krinyen.
Kellen knew that Isinwen was right. Loss was the price of war. No one blamed him for the deaths. Except himself.
You’ve got to stop this, or you’ll go mad, he told himself. If Belepheriel can forgive you for Imerteniel’s death, then you have to forgive yourself now, because the deaths of those who died tonight are no more your fault than Imerteniel’s was. If you can’t forgive yourself, you’ll be useless in this fight. And the stakes are too high for that.
They knew what they were doing, and they did it willingly and gladly. They were Elven Knights, trained for war. Don’t dishonor their deaths by letting them make you less than what you are.
“We will always remember them,” Kellen said, heavily. He’d been silent a very long time. Isinwen looked up in surprise when he finally spoke.
“Yes,” he said simply. “Their names will be entered in the Great Book in the House of Sword and Shield. The House will remember them, and so will our children. And Leaf and Star will remember also, as long as the forests bloom and the stars burn.”
And it’s our job to make sure that the forests bloom forever, Kellen thought grimly. I’ll make sure they do. I swear it.
A few hours after dawn, Adaerion rode down with the order for Kellen and his troop to retreat back to camp.
“And make sure you eat and sleep when you get there. You’re going into the cavern tomorrow,” Adaerion said when they were mounted and ready to ride.
Wearily, Kellen turned Firareth’s head toward camp.
—«♦»—
KELLEN missed the next battle, which took place that very night. Redhelwar brought the Unicorn Knights up from Ysterialpoerin to the farther cavern, backed them with a handpicked selection of volunteer cavalry that could work in close proximity to unicorns, and arranged for Jermayan and Ancaladar to slaughter a small herd of deer directly below the cavern mouth.
He didn’t ask Jermayan to unseal the ice barriers over the cavern openings. There was no need.
The ever-voracious Goblins, lured out into the darkness by the scent of fresh meat, swarmed toward the mound of venison through the ice and rock. And once they began to feed, the Unicorn Knights attacked. One thrust of their mounts’ horns would kill a Goblin, and though the creatures spat poison, the touch of a unicorn’s horn could quickly heal the hurt.
Though the Elves slew them in great numbers, the lure of food—dead deer, the bodies of slain Goblins, and the prospect of living prey—kept the creatures coming. They must have been more than usually ravenous; perhaps the Shadowed Elves had kept them short of prey. Many of them stopped to eat instead of attacking, and Elven lancers, riding in and out of the fray, quickly added the new arrivals to the swiftly growing mound of dead at little risk to themselves. Goblins would rather eat than kill and would break off an attack in order to feed. Only in the absence of food were they truly dangerous to an enemy. So long as there was something to eat, they could be killed with relative impunity.
And at last, no more Goblins emerged into the upper air.
As Redhelwar had told Kellen, the Elves had hunted Goblins many times in the past.
—«♦»—
THAT was the tale Kellen heard when he was roused at dawn of the next day. He might have slept even longer, save for the fact that someone was shaking the bells at the door of his tent—and had been for some time, by the sound of things.
He staggered over to the doorway, still wearing his armor’s underpadding. Idalia was standing there, a roll of cloth under one arm and a covered mug in the other.
“Oh, good,” she said. “You’re still alive. You certainly slept like the dead.” She dumped the bundle on the floor of his tent and held out the mug. “Armethaliehan Black. I figured you’d need something stronger than Winter Spice this morning.”
“How long… ?” Kellen croaked, snatching for the mug and flipping back the lid. The fragrant smell of—very strong—tea filled the pavilion. He drank eagerly.
“Let’s see,” Idalia said, pretending to think about it. “It’s dawn, so the battle at the cavern ended yesterday morning. Last night the Unicorn Knights—with a little help from qualifying cavalry—lured out and killed what’s probably all of the Goblins from the caverns. Now Redhelwar wants to see you as soon as you’ve eaten. So you should probably get dressed and go see him.” She dropped the tent flap and walked off while Kellen was still coming to terms with being awake.
Kellen finished his tea and put on his armor—apparently he’d cleaned both before passing out yesterday, though he didn’t remember doing it—and put on a fresh surcoat. The bundle Idalia had dropped was his coldwarg-fur cloak, mended.
I have to remember to thank her for that—if she won’t take my head off for it.
—«♦»—
PETARIEL was in the dining tent, and Kellen got a more detailed version of the slaughter of the Goblins from him as he worked his way through a platterful of food.
“I wish I’d been there,” he said, surprised to find it was true.
“Well, we can’t let you have all the fun,” Petariel said reprovingly. “It made a nice change from riding picket around the Heart of the Forest, I assure you. We return Nironoshan to you, incidentally—while we thank you for the warning, if you’ve lost any Shadowed Elves, I assure you, we haven’t found them.”
“They’ve probably run off to some other rat-hole,” Kellen said darkly. “Just… in case they haven’t…”
“We’ll continue to look for them,” Petariel assured him. “But I don’t think I can promise to return them to you in the condition you last saw them.”
Kellen shook his head, smiling painfully. He knew Petariel’s lightly-mocking words were a mask for the grief that all the Elves shared at being forced to execute those they thought of as their own kind.
He understood it better than he would have once. Petariel had offered Kellen neither sympathy nor acknowledgment for the members of his troop he had lost in the battle, though he was sure Petariel knew about them, and for that, Kellen was profoundly grateful. If Petariel had, Kellen wasn’t sure he’d have been able to stand it.
“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to return them at all,” he said, striving to match his friend’s tone. “One does not ask for the return of a gift.”
“Since you have given me such a rich gift, I shall have to ask Gesade what I may gift you with in suitable recompense,” Petariel said. “But you must go now, else you will be late for the day’s interesting events.”
—«♦»—
WHEN Kellen arrived in Redhelwar’s pavilion, the senior commanders, Idalia, Vestakia—in her scarlet armor—and Jermayan were already there. Once he would have fretted about being late. Now Kellen simply assumed that if Redhelwar had wanted him earlier, he would have sent someone to fetch him.
“Kellen Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar greeted him. “It is now time to finish what we have begun. Vestakia must lead us to the Shadowed Elf village.”
Kellen thought about it for a moment. “Will it work?” he asked bluntly. “I know you can sense Taint, Vestakia, but the Shadowed Elves aren’t the only Tainted things still in there—even without Goblins.”
Vestakia nodded. “I know I can’t tell one kind of Tainted creature from another, but from what Jermayan says about the duergar, if we go in lit with Cold-fire, they’ll sense it and get as far away from us as possible—and the Shadowed Elves won’t.”
We hope, Kellen thought grimly.
“We’ve killed all—or nearly all—the Goblins, and most of the fighting males,” Redhelwar said. “What you should face today should be only females and young, though in greater numbers than you have faced before.”
Kellen nodded. “Then Vestakia will be able to lead us to the village. And once she’s found it, she’ll return to the surface immediately.”
“I won’t object,” Vestakia said with a rueful smile.
—«♦»—
JERMAYAN and Ancaladar were waiting for them at the cavern mouth. The day was dark, and even cold as it was, the air felt heavy instead of crisp. Kellen remembered what the other Wildmages had said about the weather. Because of that—and because clearing the caverns of all their Tainted inhabitants would probably not be the work of a single day, Redhelwar would be making a second, temporary, camp here, once the battlefield had been cleared. The Elves were still working to remove the bodies of the slain Shadowed Elves as the fighting force rode through, and everywhere Kellen looked the snow was churned and stained. He found himself looking forward to the snow to come.
Before they’d arrived, Jermayan had improved the path to the cavern mouth—now it was a long gentle slope instead of the steep twisting path the Shadowed Elves had carved. As those who would enter the cavern began to dismount, he banished the shield of ice that had barred the entrance.
“First ranks, take your shields,” Adaerion ordered.