—«♦»—
JERMAYAN had brought the storm. Kellen gathered that much from the Elven Knight’s half-distracted explanation on the flight to Ysterialpoerin. That, and that the Elves had won the battle.
“I thought for the forest, and the city. It did not matter to the Shadowed Elves or to their masters if they all died, so long as they accomplished their task of destruction, and so I looked first to the trees. Snow would slow the burning, and its cause could be looked to later. So that is a great victory.” Jermayan’s voice was bitter, carried back to Kellen as they flew through the clear air and sunlight above the storm. “When poets unborn sing of this day in centuries to come, surely they will say that we won.”
“Jermayan—” Kellen began. If he couldn’t get some straight answers out of Jermayan soon, he was fairly sure he was going to start shouting.
“Not now,” Ancaladar said.
The dragon tilted his wings, diving back into the storm, and speech became impossible in the maelstrom of their descent.
Kellen was working the saddle-straps before Ancaladar had quite settled. The dragon had landed in a clearing barely big enough to accommodate him—a neat piece of flying with the winds as strong as they were. Kellen slid down the dragon’s ice-covered ribs into a drift of snow.
“Shalkan!” he shouted.
“That way.” Ancaladar extended his neck in the direction Kellen needed to go. “Hurry.”
Kellen ran.
—«♦»—
HE came upon it all at once, a scene so hideous that at first his mind refused to admit what it saw, and then when he realized what he was seeing, Kellen staggered back against a tree, bile rising in his throat.
Dead unicorns.
There were… too many to count. They had been laid in the snow in rows, neatly, as the Elves set their own dead, fresh-removed from the battlefield. Their bodies were rapidly being covered by the falling snow, covering the hideous wounds, the shattered horns.
Dead, they looked so small…
“Kellen. Come.”
Shalkan appeared in front of him, blocking his view of the dead and rousing him from his horrified daze. The unicorn was glowing, just as he had on the night Kellen had first seen him.
Kellen reached out his gauntlet blindly and closed it over Shalkan’s mane, letting the unicorn lead him away.
“Shadowed Elves did this,” Kellen said a few moments later. It wasn’t a question.
“The females from the caverns attacked, led by the males that escaped Athan’s call. The females had all borne young. It made things difficult. Now.” Shalkan stopped and looked at Kellen.
“Many of us are hurt. I am taking you to where the Healers are caring for us—but as you know, only a particular sort of Healer can be of use to us.”
“A virgin,” Kellen said. “A chaste virgin.”
“Fortunately there are a few of those around,” Shalkan said, with a ghost of his usual dry humor. “So you will see blood and wounds in plenty, but nothing the Healers cannot handle. And the Knights may go to the Wildmages, of course—as soon as the rest of them manage to here. I don’t say the blizzard wasn’t necessary. But it causes problems.”
The Knights can go to the Wildmages. But the unicorns can’t. Because—
“I can’t be—” Kellen began, embarrassed and outraged.
“You are,” Shalkan said inexorably. “The only Wildmage who can touch us. You have seen a unicorn healed. If you can heal Gesade, she will live.”
Gesade!
“Idalia—Jermayan—” Kellen said desperately.
“Cannot approach her. It would kill her,” Shalkan said. “She is very badly hurt. You are her only hope.”
I can’t do this! “I need tools,” Kellen said, shutting away his fear. “And someone to share the price.”
“Both are waiting,” Shalkan said. He hesitated for a moment. “There’s something else you probably need to know. Petariel is dead.”
Kellen took a deep breath. He’d shared his morning meal with Petariel. They’d joked together about Petariel going off to a dull day of guarding something nobody was going to attack. And now he would never speak to Petariel again. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that eventually he would weep. Now, though, all he could feel was a terrible emptiness.
Though it was not as terrible as the emptiness that would move within Gesade.
Shalkan began to move forward once more, as quickly as the deep snow would allow.
“Does she know?” Kellen asked.
“We aren’t sure,” Shalkan said.
A few moments later they arrived at the clearing where the wounded unicorns were being tended. It had been hastily enclosed with awnings of heavy silk canvas hung between the trees and overhead, and the ground was covered with sleeping mats, cloaks, and even carpets. Several heavy braziers heated the air.
Kellen and Shalkan stepped inside. Here the air was moist, and filled with smells, some familiar to Kellen, some not. The cinnamon scent of unicorns. The oddly-sweet scent of Elven blood. The rank scent of Shadowed Elf blood, and— faintly—the acrid scent of the poison they used on their weapons. The cloying smell of burn ointment, and the flowery scent of Night’s Daughter, the herb that Jermayan had used so liberally on Kellen’s burns to numb the pain. He could never smell it without remembering that long torturous journey back from the Black Cairn, and ever since then, the scent recalled unpleasant memories.
He knew everyone here, but he didn’t dare stop, didn’t dare let himself see any of them. Not now. He had to think of only one thing right now.
Gesade.
She was at the far end of the tent, lying on her side. The overpowering reek of Night’s Daughter nearly made him gag; she smelled as if they’d bathed her in it. Her fore and hind legs were tied together. Trigwenior and Ansansoniel knelt before her, holding them gently, and Menerchel sat on her shoulders. Even though she had been heavily dosed with a sleeping cordial—Kellen could smell it from where he stood—she was thrashing weakly, trying to get to her feet. The three of them spoke to her soothingly, trying to calm her, but she was beyond hearing.
Her entire head and most of her neck were completely swathed in salve-soaked cloths. There was an airhole at the end through which he could hear her whistling gasps for breath, her agonized whimperings, but they sounded… wrong.
Menerchel looked up as Kellen approached. His face was streaked with tears. He said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Kellen moved behind him, kneeling at Gesade’s back, as close to her as he could get. He pulled off his helmet and gloves. What he needed was already laid out.
“Hush, Gesade, hush,” he said, speaking to her as if she were Deyishene, or Lily. “It’s Kellen. I’ve come to help. Just lie quietly, if you can. I’ll help you, I promise.”
He didn’t know if she heard.
He cut a few strands of his hair, and a few from the base of Gesade’s mane, below the ointment-soaked cloths. Then he reached for the bandage at her neck. Already others—Elven Knights, unicorns, even one or two of the Healers—were gathering around to share the price, just as Shalkan had promised.
But Shalkan was nowhere in sight.
“No—don’t,” Menerchel begged, seeing what Kellen was doing.