"Leaf and Star be with you all."
* * * * *
IDALIA and Vestakia rode out to see Jermayan and Keirasti off. Jermayan had ridden down into the camp on Valdien, who was once again stabled up at Ancaladar's ice-pavilion. Keirasti was tiding pillion behind Idalia, since her destrier was still with her command.
"Be safe," Idalia said to Jermayan.
"I shall keep him so," Ancaladar promised.
"It should be a simple matter," Jermayan said. "At least as simple as anything involving the Shadowed Elves is."
"If only I had known sooner!" Vestakia said.
"Then all would have happened just as it has," Jermayan told her. "We must cleat those caverns to fit them to our own use, and we would have sent just such a force to do it. Kellen is hardly a novice at this work. I will bring him your warning, and he will proceed with care."
Vestakia nodded, looking miserable and unconvinced.
Jermayan stepped up into Ancaladar's saddle, and reached down to help Keirasti into the saddle behind him. The packs she was taking back to her command, which had been lashed to Valdien's saddle, were already tied in place. The two riders began to buckle themselves in.
"Come on," Idalia said, setting her foot into Cella's stirrup and taking Valdien's reins with her. "The horses won't like getting a faceful of snow when Ancaladar takes off, and neither will we."
The two riders backed off a little distance as Ancaladar began his takeoff run. In moments the dragon was skyborne, circling over the camp in an ascending spiral and then heading westward, his black wings outstretched.
"Back to camp, then," Idalia said.
* * * * *
WHEN they returned to the Healer's Pavilion, Cilarnen was up and dressed.
"By your leave," Cilarnen said, when he saw Idalia. "I'd better go back to my own camp. Since we're moving, I have packing a lot of packing to do. And preparations to make. And there's no one to do it but me."
Idalia regarded him critically. Rest and food had done much to restore his vitality. The trouble was, she didn't really trust him to take care of himself.
"If you work yourself until you drop, you'll be no use to anyone. And I'll nave no choice but to treat you to a selection of my strengthening cordials. And I warn you now, they taste incredibly vile."
"Your point is well taken," Cilarnen said with a faint smile. "Still, the work must be done, or I will be of no use to the army anyway. I promise to be careful. Elven tea is vile enough. I would hate to risk the experience of any more of your cordials. Kardus will help me. And perhaps Vestakia will come also."
"Fine. She can keep an eye on you. If she agrees?"
"If you don't need me down in camp, I'd be happy to keep an eye on Cilarnen," Vestakia said, with a faintly wicked smile. "And he can tell me more about Armethalieh."
Cilarnen bowed again. "That I shall be more than happy to do. It was once the most beautiful place in the world, and the Eternal Light grant that it shall be so again."
Chapter Eleven
To Live in the City of Distance
ANCALADAR SPED THROUGH the great halls of the upper air, his wings barely moving. The wind whistled over the armor of his two riders, making a monotonous, atonal song.
"Redhelwar orders the army south," Jermayan said.
"Yes," Keirasti agreed.
"So Kellen would have advised him, and so I said to him," Jermayan said. "And yet I wonder at the timing of it."
"And so you must, until you speak with Kellen," Keirasti said implacably.
Jermayan sighed. "And so I shall."
And when he spoke to Kellen, he would discover what Kellen had learned that was of such terrible urgency that he had needed to send Keirasti north to deliver the information to Redhelwar at all costs.
Though the flight back to where Keirasti had left Maredhiel and the rest of her command was just as long as the one away from her, it seemed shorter, for this time they knew exactly where they were going, and Ancaladar had no need to search every inch of the crags below for traces of a party in distress.
The site was easy to spot, for in the handful of hours less than a full day that Keirasti had been gone, the Knights had set up a full camp and picketed the horses. Ancaladar banked once over the ring of tents, the looked for a suitable landing place. It was easily found, for the mountain valley was filled with sweeps of smooth snow.
"Easy enough to land," the dragon grumbled, as he set his wings for his final descent. "Harder to get airborne again."
Jermayan patted Ancaladar's neck in sympathy. Left to himself, the dragon would make his flights from high places, such as the tops of mountains, where he had strong winds to bear him up, and hundreds of feet of free air below him in which to maneuver. Though he could take off from a level plain and had, many times as Ancaladar said, it was more work.
The landings were not things of ease, either.
At the last moment, Ancaladar fanned his wings backward hard and stood almost upright in the air, hitting the deep snow hind feet first. The backwinging in the air slowed his already greatly-diminished forward speed, but not enough to keep him from digging a deep trench through the heavy powdery snow. On solid ground, draconic landings were light and elegant things, but the uncertain surface of the snow often did not permit such grace.
At last Ancaladar settled his belly into the snow and folded his wings.
"We're here," he said unnecessarily.
Keirasti began to unbuckle her straps.
Maredhiel was already riding out toward them, leading Orata.
Keirasti glanced toward the sky. "You have only an hour of light more at best. It would please me should you choose to stay with us for the night and journey on in the morning."
"This is familiar territory to us," Ancaladar replied. "And the winds over the plains ahead present no challenge. If my Bonded agrees, we will fly on."
"Then let it be so. When you see Kellen, tell him I will be with him before another sennight passes."
She slipped down from the dragon's back, grunting as she found herself waist-deep in snow, and began untying the neater pack from Ancaladar's saddle. Jermayan reached back to loose the one she could not reach, handing it across to her.
By the time they were both free, Maredhiel had reached them.
"Alas that you rejoin us so speedily," the Elven Knight said cheerfully. "I had thought we were to have at least a moonturn's recreation here in this garden spot."
"So much for your dreams of ease, lazy one," Keirasti said to her Second. "Take this pack up with you; it is filled with Idalia's medicines. Tomorrow we begin to rejoin the army."