2 To Light A Candle.13 (55 page)

Cut, step, turn, and cut again. Block, attack, dodge. Celegaer was on his left, another Knight was at his back. One of the Shadowed Elves dropped down on him from above. Kellen grunted, bending forward with the impact, turning the move into a forward throw to dislodge the creature.

He felt the wind of an arrow pass his cheek. There was a muffled grunt behind him. Kellen heard—and felt—the Elven Knight fall to the floor of the cavern and die.

He killed the creature on the ground and moved forward.

At last the Elves' superior battle skills and heavier, more effective armor turned the tide. The battlefield opened up, and it soon became a matter of keeping the Shadowed Elves from escaping, and then it came to executing the enemy wounded and checking the dead.

And that was when Kellen found himself just standing there, sword hanging from his limp grip, staring at an empty tunnel.

"Kellen." Celegaer laid a gentle hand upon his shoulder. "Go back and rest for a moment. Then ask Idalia if Vestakia is well enough to come forward."

Kellen blinked, feeling almost as if he were rousing from a deep sleep. He nodded, and turned away.

He had to move carefully through the piles of corpses, and the stone was slick with blood. It soaked the bodies lying in it, staining them all, Elf and Shadowed Elf alike, the same terrible scarlet color. The blue globes of Coldfire—so many, in such a confined space—made the scene shadowless and stark.

Grief and shame hovered over the battlefield like carrion birds. Kellen had expected the grief—there were too many Elven dead, and he knew that soon he would be mourning the loss of friends—but shame? He did not understand. They'd fought well. They'd won. There was no cause for shame.

Was there?

At the end of the corridor he found Petariel. The Captain of the Unicorn Knights had been wounded: a spear had taken him just behind the knee, at one of the weak points of the Elven armor. He leaned against the wall, a makeshift bandage over his wound, his helmet beneath his arm.

And to Kellen's astonishment, he was weeping.

"Oh, Kellen, our poor cousins. Leaf and Star, that we should be driven to this—.'" Petariel said.

Kellen had no idea what he meant, but there would be time later to figure it out. "Come on," he said, getting an arm under Petariel's shoulders. "Let's get you out of here. Gesade and Shalkan both would have my head if I let anything happen to you."

Petariel laughed raggedly, but it ended on a strangled sob. "The worst has already happened," he said softly.

Kellen half-carried Petariel back up the passageway. He felt a deep pang of relief to see Idalia and Vestakia both there, unhurt—and quickly focused all of his attention on Petariel, lest his worry for Vestakia's safety turn into something he must not feel right now.

"Ah, another one," Idalia said lightly. "The stretcher-bearers will be back in just a moment."

"I can walk," Petariel said grimly.

"No you can't," Idalia said firmly. "Not if you want to be riding again soon."

Kellen helped Petariel to lie down among the other wounded. There were several Healers working in the narrow space, and a constant stream of the walking wounded were moving out toward the open air.

Everything was moving so slowly! But that was why the Shadowed Elves didn't bother with guards, Kellen now realized. They were sure no one could attack them in force.

Once he was sure his emotions were under control, he risked a glance at Vestakia.

Vomit stained the front of her surcoat, and she knelt beside Idalia, obviously dazed and exhausted by the presence of so much Taint. Kellen sighed reluctantly.

"Celegaer needs Vestakia," he said to Idalia.

"Now?" Idalia asked.

"I'm ready," Vestakia said valiantly, raising her head. There were deep shadows beneath her eyes, and she looked haggard.

"Not yet. Soon. He told me to rest," Kellen added, trying to make a joke of it.

"As if you would," Idalia said, handing him a waterskin. "Are you hurt?"

Kellen shook his head, and drank. The water was warm, but it was unicorn-pure. He felt better afterward.

"I think they threw most of what they had at us. Some of them got away, though. We'll have to find them," Kellen said.

"That will be my job," Vestakia said bravely.

"Come on, then," Kellen said gruffly, sounding far more brusque than he wanted to. But he couldn't help it. He felt as if he had no energy to spare for anything.

Idalia and Vestakia followed him back into the cavern.

Celegaer and several of the others were waiting for them just past the end of the bodies. All of them had the faintly stunned air of grief about them that Kellen had noticed before.

"Vestakia," Celegaer said, seeing her. "Are you well?"

"Well enough to do what you ask of me," Vestakia answered steadily.

"Then find our foe," Celegaer said.

Without hesitation, Vestakia pointed—not along the corridor, but at the corridor wall.

"The corridor curves," Idalia said. "That's the direction of the cavern village. There will be females and young there," she warned.

"We can leave none alive," Celegaer said wearily.

"I know," Idalia said gently.

"Celegaer," Kellen said. "If I can suggest… now we know where the village is, and Vestakia is too valuable to risk. Send her outside to wait with Adaerion until we think we have cleared the cavern, then bring her in to check to see if we have missed anyone."

"No!" Vestakia protested.

"Yes," Celegaer said. "An excellent suggestion, Kellen. Padredor, escort Mistress Vestakia back to Adaerion, and order the rest of the knights to come forward. Idalia Wildmage, will you also withdraw?"

"No," Idalia said, taking a moment to consider. "I think I can be useful here."

Blood and Sorrow

SOON THEY WERE moving forward again. Only about half their original force remained. There were not many dead, considering the savagery of the battle, but there were many wounded, and though some of the wounds were minor, Celegaer had not wanted to take wounded Elves into battle. We're too spread out, and there's no way to avoid it in these tunnels. All the advantage is theirs, Kellen thought. We're going to have to figure out how to fight this kind of battle—fast—in order to win it.

At last the tunnel widened out into the great cavern that Idalia had described, with the narrow pathway leading around the rim, and the stairs going down to the village below. The cavern was so vast that the Coldfire coronas of the assembled army did nothing more than light their immediate surroundings. All they could see of what was below was the faint glow of the central firepit.

With a flick of her hand, Idalia sent her ball of Coldfire out to hover over the cavern. The light was faint, but enough to show that the crude stone village below was silent and still.

"Ambush," Kellen said with utter certainty. "You can sense them?" Celegaer asked with surprise.

"No," Kellen said. "But I know they're waiting for us all the same. Or waiting for us to go away."

"Either course would gain them a victory, of a sort," Celegaer answered. "So we go down. But not unwarily. Archers—to the rim."

Once the archers were in place, the Elven Knights began descending the stair. It would have been the perfect place for an ambush, but the Shadowed Elves did not take advantage of it. When the first group of Elves was at the bottom of the staircase, their combined Coldfire illuminated the cavern, giving Kellen a good look at it for the first time.

It was as large as Merryvale—the entire village could have been dropped down neatly inside it, walls and all. There were scattered small huts, and along the cavern wall, Kellen could see holes—they reminded him uncomfortably of very large rat-holes—in the rock.

The Elves stood, silent, motionless.

What are they waiting for? Kellen wondered. He wasn't looking forward to this any more than they were, but it wouldn't get any easier—or any better—if they waited.

And where were Jermayan and Ancaladar?

He looked toward Celegaer.

Celegaer met his gaze, and there was despair in the black eyes. After a moment, Celegaer spoke.

"Search every structure, every hole. Find them all, down to the smallest infant. Kill them all. No survivors. No prisoners." The Elven commander's voice was harsh.

He turned away, striding toward the nearest hut.

The Elves fanned out, spreading across the cavern floor.

For a moment there was silence.

Then Celegaer screamed, and the cavern exploded in a harsh babble of barks and whines.

Kellen ran in the direction of the scream. He was too late. Celegaer was dead, his face and the front of his armor eaten away by a liquid thrown at him by a Shadowed Elf female who had just come out of the stone hut. The archers on the rim had filled her body with arrows, but they had been too late to save their commander.

Celegaer's troops were staring down at him in shock and horror.

"Search the hut!" Kellen ordered. "Keep your shields forward—we know they use poison as a weapon—now we know they use acid, too."

He moved on quickly, heading for the next hut. The doorway was low; he had to duck to get inside.

It was one room, windowless, and it stank. It contained a pile of furs and three small children.

I can't do this, Kellen thought in sick horror. He knew they weren't children—they were Shadowed Elves—but they were young things. Very young. They hissed at him, cringing back from the light.

Then suddenly all three of them shrieked and sprang at him. There was no fear in their bulging pale eyes, only the berserker madness of cornered rats. They swarmed up his body, scrabbling for every purchase, clawing and biting at everything they could reach.

Reflexively, Kellen knocked them away, but they kept coming back. He could see their glistening, needlelike teeth, smell their rank, poison-tainted breath. No matter how many times he flung them away from him, they sprang up and lunged for him again.

Then one of them pulled Kellen's dagger free of its sheath.

It was an Elven dagger, made of deadly Elvensteel and designed to pierce any opening or weakness in the Elven armor's defenses. Seeing the length of gleaming steel in the young thing's hands made all of his battle-honed instincts rouse at once. They weren't children anymore—they were the enemy.

With a gasping cry, he struck the Shadowed Elf child as hard as he could, then grabbed the other two and flung them against the walls of the hut, stunning them.

Then he took his sword and killed them all.

Bile rose in his throat as he retrieved his dagger, and Kellen breathed deeply, trying to center himself again. But the self-forgiveness he sought would not come. He had killed children. How could he accept that?

I will have to find a way. Or not. And whether I can or not, finding out if I can will have to wait. Because my comrades are dying now.

Gritting his teeth, Kellen left the hut.

All around him, the battle was going badly. There weren't as many of the enemy this time, but the Elves were taking terrible losses. They simply couldn't bring themselves to attack and kill what they saw—despite everything—as women and children.

And it was costing them dearly.

Suddenly the cavern was ablaze with light—as bright as the noonday sun at midsummer. Kellen looked up, and saw that the entire roof of the cavern was glowing with bright blue Coldfire.

Jermayan and Ancaladar had arrived.

"Pull back. I'm going to burn the huts." Jermayan's voice spoke quietly, as if in his ear, and Kellen could tell by the startled expressions on the faces of the Elves that everyone else had heard it too. They began to retreat.

But it was easier asked than done, especially when they had to protect their wounded and recover their dead, and it was several minutes of hard and bloody fighting before that could be accomplished.

The Shadowed Elves fought viciously, as much like animals—or insects—as like thinking beings. They did not seem to care if they sacrificed any of their own—down to the smallest infant—if it brought them a greater chance of killing one of the Elves. In cold disbelief, Kellen saw the Shadowed Elf archers using their own young as shields, saw children younger than the ones he'd killed springing upon Elven warriors, armed with jars of acid like the one that had killed Celegaer. He dragged one of the Elves out of the way just in time, striking his young attacker dead. The spilled liquid fumed and bubbled over the corpse, smoking and stinking.

The Elves were barely clear of the huts, fighting their way toward the staircase, when suddenly every stone structure within the cavern save for the staircase burst into flame.

That isn't possible, thought Kellen in awe. Any Wildmage or High Mage could summon Fire—but only to burn what would burn naturally. But this… ? The stone itself was burning as if it were seasoned wood drenched in lamp oil. In seconds, a roaring wall of heat separated the combatants from their prey.

Shadowed Elves—bodies aflame—ran from some of the huts, only to be cut down by the archers, in mercy.

The Shadowed Elves who had not been in the huts were trapped by the walls of flame. Their response to the sudden wave of magic was one of utter terror. The archers who had been holding living shields threw them down and tried to flee, but there was nowhere to go, save into the Elven army.

It was no longer a battle, but a massacre. Some of the Shadowed Elves ran toward the flames. Kellen saw females grab struggling children and throw them into burning huts, the structures already collapsing into ash. The archers shot all they could before the flames took them.

It was over quickly. The huts were gone, the stone burned away to ash. A wall of icy air filled the cavern, wiping away the furnace heat. The stone floor creaked and groaned, forced to cool as quickly as it had been heated.

Ancaladar launched himself from the rim of the cavern, landing in the now-empty space.

Kellen glanced around quickly, feeling a deep pang of relief to see that Idalia was still on her feet, though her garments were tattered and blood-soaked and her face was grim.