"Oh, let me see… " Shalkan appeared to actually be giving Kellen's question serious thought. "We faced down several Outlaw Hunts clumped together armed with nothing more than a big stick. We attacked an Endarkened stronghold with only Jermayan and Vestakia for company, and then you defied the Queen of Shadow Mountain in your underwear. You challenged Belepheriel and disobeyed Redhelwar and entered the Shadowed Elf caverns with only Idalia to accompany you. This is probably not the most ill-considered venture of your career."
"You know, that makes me feel a lot better," Kellen said.
"It should," Shalkan said sweetly. "Since you survived all those things, you'll probably survive this, too."
"'Probably,'" Kellen muttered.
"Well, there are no certainties, of course," Shalkan drawled. "I just think you ought to bear in mind that if you don't survive, this army you're leading probably won't make it to the banks of the Angarussa, and if Redhelwar loses a third of his Knights and his Knight-Mage, I don't think he can win the war. And now I think it's time for you to dismount so we can fight for our lives."
The last sentence was delivered in the same light conversational tones as the rest of Shalkan's speech, so it took a moment for the sense of his words to penetrate.
Kellen didn't waste a moment in foolish questions, but flung himself from the unicorn's saddle. The quiver of trail-wands at his hip spilled onto the ice as he drew his sword.
Light at the Heart of the Mountain glowed, even in the dull winter's light. Kellen knew his sword had no magic the Elves were not Mages, to craft magic swords but the blade had a perfection that was nearly Otherworldly.
As if the flicker of light on steel were a signal, a thunderous roar filled the air, coming from farther up the narrow pass. Kellen knew instinctively a Knight-Mage's gift that the passage opened out ahead. They could use the room to fight, if they could reach the open space before whatever had made the sound reached them.
Something strong enough to stop us, he thought as he ran. Don't bother with arrows, then. Cut it to pieces. And stay out of its reach.
That wasn't going to be easy.
All at once the walls of the passage ended, and Kellen was standing at the entrance to an ice-field that slanted down and away from him. It was one of the landmarks he and Shalkan had been told to look for; it meant they were near the top of the pass and would be starting down soon. It would also give the army a place to stop and rest for a few hours.
Just as he reached the open air, he saw something come charging up the slope. When it saw him, it skidded to a stop. Kellen sensed he'd disappointed it: He should have been terrified of its bellowing, and cowered in the narrow pass until it could reach him and tear him to pieces.
It reared up on its hind legs.
And up
And up
"Shadewalker," Shalkan said tersely from behind Kellen's left shoulder. "Though usually they come in black," he added in something closer to his normal conversational tones.
Atroist and Jermayan had said that Shadewalkers looked like giant bears. When Kellen had lived in the Wildwood, Idalia had told him to be wary of bears, but Kellen had never seen one. He decided now he didn't want to.
The Shadewalker was as tall as three men standing upon one another's shoulders, and so massive that it actually looked squat. It was covered in thick dirty-white fur. It had a flat triangular earless head that reminded Kellen of a snake's and Kellen hated snakesand beady blazing red eyes. Long curved yellow teeth protruded from both its upper and lower jaws, distorting its rubbery black lips. It had narrow sloping shoulders, and its long arms dangled. Against the whiteness of its fur the long black claws that studded its paws glistened like glass knives. Its hind legs were squat, bulging with muscle.
It will try to get past me and reach the convoy, Kellen thought. Then there was no more time for thought as the Shadewalker dropped to all four legs again and charged.
If he had not been a Knight-Mage, trained in the House of Sword and Shield, it would have been fatally easy for Kellen to misjudge the scale of his attacker and the seeming slowness of its attack, and not gotten out of the way in time. But as if Time itself had stopped, Kellen knew where the blow would strike. He dug his heels into the treacherous ice beneath his feet and sprang backward at the last moment, striking downward with his sword as he did.
The claws missed him by inches, and his sword did not cut as deeply as he'd hoped. But it drew blood, and the Shadewalker recoiled, bellowing in outrage.
Kellen was already running down the slope, away from the entrance to the pass. Shalkan danced over the ice, circling in the opposite direction. Both knew that the Shadewalker would not dare turn its back on them while it was uncertain of how much of a threat they represented.
It reared up, slapping at the shallow cut on its arm, trying to keep both of them in sight at once. Certain now that he had the Shadewalker's attention, Kellen stopped and turned, concentrating upon the enemy he must kill.
For Kellen, the world became stark and vivid, as he automatically dropped into Battlesight. The Shadewalker's enormous muscled form was overlaid with a vivid tracery of red and blue images, showing Kellen where best to strike, and how the beast would attack, but how he could land a blow upon an enemy with a reach more than three times his own was a problem never addressed within the Teaching Circle at the House of Sword and Shield.
He must find a way.
Half a dozen times Kellen began an attack, only to break off at the last moment as the Shadewalker moved to block it. The only parts of it within his reach were its enormous arms, and while he could hit them, he was not completely sure he could do enough damage. The only thing he succeeded in doing was in luring it farther out onto the snowfield, where he and Shalkan had more room to move.
He was afraid for Shalkan.
He pushed that fear aside.
He was afraid for the Knights who would be hurrying to help.
He pushed that fear aside.
Only the Battle-mind could help him now.
Once, in the House of Sword and Shield, Kellen had sparred against a dozen Knights. Then, the object of the exercise was to move through them neither striking nor being struck: Master Belesharon had called it "Water Mind," and it was one of the gifts of a Knight-Mage. It was also the hardest thing Kellen had ever achieved, for Water Mind showed him the course of the unfolding battle as if it were the water through which a fish swam, and as the fish sensed obstacles in its path, so Kellen could sense how the fight would move, and he could move with it, or around it.
Or into it.
Water Mind was dangerous, for it drained energy, strength, reserves, far past the point of exhaustion. But he had no choice now.
Kellen felt the utter peace of Water Mind enfold him, and suddenly he had all the time in the world. The tracery of light over the Shadewalker's body dimmed and vanished, for Kellen no longer needed it. He stepped forward, bringing his sword up in a drawing cut beneath its arm, and stepped back.
It was as if he and the Shadewalker no longer fought, but cooperated in the deadly dance of its destruction. Kellen never shifted more than a few steps to avoid its wildly-thrashing arms; when it lowered its head to snap at him, his dagger was already in his hand. He drove it through the bottom of the jaw, spiking the creature's tongue to its soft palate and making it keen in muffled agony.
Shalkan darted in behind, stabbing with his horn. The Shadewalker swung around on all fours, slashing at the unicorn, then turned back to confront his chief tormenter, pawing at its chin and finally tearing the dagger free in a spatter of blood.
Kellen cut again, this time across the ribs. He reversed his blade and brought it down hard across the Shadewalker's foreleg. He felt the blade grate against bone, but the limb remained intact.
The Shadewalker reared back, taking its wounded head and arm out of Kellen's reach, but as it did, it exposed its belly.
Kellen feinted toward it with his sword
Swayed backward out of the way of the slashing blow the creature aimed at him
And struck with all his might in the moment it was off-balance.
It tumbled forward, its weight ripping its flesh along the edge of the blade. Kellen let the momentum of his strike carry him in the opposite direction, so that he would not be beneath the Shadewalker's body when it collapsed. Its belly tore open with a foul-smelling gush of entrails; it collapsed into them, releasing a wet stench. Almost instantly frost began to form on the exposed gray-pink surfaces.
It struggled to get to its feet for a few seconds longer, then something else tore inside it, and dark red blood came squirting out over the mass of pale intestines and onto the snow, causing a cloud of steam to rise around the still-twitching body.
Seeing that, Kellen knew his work was over, and Water Mind left him.
The floating peace he had felt only an instant before deserted him. Suddenly he felt as if he couldn't breathe or as if he hadn't taken a breath in far too long. He took an unsteady step backward, and sat down hard on the ice. The world darkened, and all he could see were sparkling lights before his eyes.
"Kellen?" Shalkan's voice, sounding very far away.
"Kellen!"