He waited for the two Knights to ride away.
"Soon we can ask Kellen," Ancaladar said.
"Yes," Jermayan answered. "Soon."
* * * * *
IN the end, it came down to the simple work of butchery.
They outnumbered their enemy ten a hundred to one, and the Shadowed Elves had no place to run to. Some of them fled through the passage that led to the surface; Kellen's battle-sight showed him that Churashil's force made short work of them there.
But far more remained in the caverns below. Some had managed to evade Kellen's force, but Umerchiel and the others waited in the chamber beyond, and there were no other exists from it. So they, too, were accounted for.
Many of the Shadowed Elves in the river gallery had thrown down their weapons when the caverns began to shake; it became a matter of finding those that were still alive, driving them up against the walls of the gallery, and cutting them to pieces.
Sometimes the Shadowed Elves would hide among the mounds of their dead. After the first one had attacked from such a hiding place, Kellen ordered all the Shadowed Elf corpses checked. They found more survivors. Two Elves would hold the victim while a third slit the captive's throat.
None of the swimmers reached the far shore alive.
By the time the Elves had finished their bloody work, the Angarussa had begun to run normally, washing the bodies of the floating dead that had fallen into its waters away with it.
After he had disposed of the Shadowed Elf sortie that had reached the surface, Churashil had sent scouts down into the caverns, and received new orders from Kellen. Braziers had been brought to warm the river-gallery, and a steady stream of wounded were being evacuated to the main camp.
There weren't many. Only a tiny fraction of the company of Elves Kellen had brought into Halacira had actually engaged the enemy in the Shadowed Elf attack.
And most of them had drowned.
Eventually Kellen's people would have to try to dredge the river to recover the bodies.
Kellen tried to think of what he could have done differently, had he known Halacira had become an Enclave of the Shadowed Elves before he'd entered the caverns. But he could think of nothing. He would still have had to go down into the caves with his Knights to find them. The caves would still have been entrapped. The Shadowed Elves would still have flooded the caves.
If he had gone alone, he might have gotten out the way he'd come. Or he might have died. If he'd come down with a smaller force, they might all have died, for it was their overwhelming numbers that had kept so many of them alive today.
As brutal as it was, despite the losses they had suffered, this was the best outcome they could have hoped for.
It didn't feel right.
And they were still going to have to search the caves thoroughly, because they could not allow even one of the Tainted creatures to survive. "Did the day go as you wished it?"
Wirance walked over to the nearest brazier and held his hands out to its warmth. The Wildmage looked exhausted. Lines of weariness etched his weatherbeaten features.
"What are you still doing here?" Kellen demanded. "I told Umerchiel to send all the Wildmages up to the Healers as soon as the passage was clear."
"Aye, well, as to that… I stayed with Kerleu. I have to say, I thought we were going to bring the whole place down on us when the spell ran. But the mountain's bones run deep."
Kerleu stayed too? But all the wounded should have been evacuated hours ago.
"He's dead, isn't he?" Kellen said.
"A life was the Price, a life freely given," Wirance said. "We all agreed to pay it. He had a valiant heart, but crossing the Mystrals too often will weaken it. It could well have happened without the spell."
But it didn't.
Kellen drew a deep breath. "He is no less a casualty of war than Ambanire, or any other who fell in battle here today. He will be so honored."
Wirance clapped him on the shoulder. "All goes as the Huntsman wills, lad. Kerleu goes to the Forest to be born again to the Wife. He'll be back, sure as flowers in the spring."
Kellen nodded, though spring and Wirance's easy certainty that it would come seemed very far away.
"And the day?" Wirance said again.
"We won," Kellen said slowly. "In a day or two, I suppose we'll know whether the caverns are clear. And Artenel and his people can get to work rebuilding them to make them into a fortress."
"So no one who died here died for nothing," Wirance said, sounding satisfied. "And now that I've got a little heat in these old bones, I'll get back to Kerleu."
"I'll go with you."
* * * * *
MUCH of the main force of the army was still in the selkie-chamber and the mining-cavern beyond it. Kellen searched until he found Isinwen. His Second was batteredand, of course, soaking wetbut alive and well.
"It's going to take forever to move everyone out across the causeway," Kellen said once greetings had been exchanged. "Is there any chance now of getting out through the main entrance?"
For one thing, it was closer to the camp. That meant dry clothes, fires, and food something all of them needed. Churashil had brought horses and wagons around to the river cavern entrance to transport the wounded, and the Knights that had so far made their way to the surface through that exit, but the sun was setting, and to move all the horses around to that entrance and ride back again would take a long time and they'd be even colder than they were now.
"The main entrance should be clear by now if damp," Isinwen said after a moment's thought.
"Take a party and see."
* * * * *
THOUGH several of the side-galleries had collapsed due to either the Shadowed Elves' work or the Wildmages' spell the route to the surface was clear, and Kellen immediately began evacuating his army through the larger entrance. He would leave no one behind in the caves tonight, not even the dead. Guarding the exits would have to be enough.
Leaving the caves went a good deal faster than entering them had. He was glad of that much. There were a number of blessings to be counted, if he cared to: no duergar had lurked anywhere in the unlighted depths of the caves to draw any of his troops farther in. The Shadowed Elves had not summoned any of the Shadow's other allies to aid them if the Elves had faced Frost Giants and Ice Trolls here in Halacira, as well as Shadowed Elves and rising water, their situation would have been unwinnable.
But the Shadowed Elves had been willing to die to the last soul to destroy their enemy, and perhaps their allies had not. Or perhaps they simply had not been able to reach them in time.
Finally the last band of Elves prepared to ascend to the surface. Kellen wrapped his borrowed dry cloak around him and followed.
AS the day dimmed, Jermayan and Ancaladar saw no trace of Kellen's army, though as they neared Halacira, they saw signs of their passage in plenty, for the trees had kept the snow from eradicating the marks of the horses and wagons completely.
"He cannot have moved the army this fast," Jermayan groaned.
"He has," Ancaladar answered simply.
It was barely possible. For a master general, in complete command of his forces, driven by a necessity Jermayan could only wonder at. He could only hope that Kellen had stopped to rest for a day or two in camp before going down into the caverns.