2 To Light A Candle.13 (71 page)

It became a deadly dance over the snow. Through his battle-sight, Kellen was aware that Thenalakti, Duarmel, and Shunendar had joined him, but the other commanders were as handicapped as he was by the coldwarg's tactics. The beasts would not stand and fight the skirmishers, and when the cavalry gave chase, they were easy prey. All around him he could hear the shouts of Elves and the screams of horses.

Despite their best efforts, the Elves were too spread out. Every time they tried to regroup, the coldwarg went after the unicorns again. The Unicorn Knights were clustered together, but the rest of the skirmishers, Kellen included, were scattered by now in a wide ring around them. He could see it as clearly as if he sat upon Ancaladar's back. And the coldwarg were taking every advantage of that, scattering them further.

He had to make them come to him.

"Shalkan!" Oh, please don't let Shalkan be dead; I don't think I could stand it—

"Kellen." The unicorn appeared out of nowhere. He was red with blood; he looked as if he'd been bathing in it. But he was alive. Why hadn't Kellen made him wear his armor? He'd make him wear it every day from now on; he swore it.

"I'm going to form square around the unicorns. Make them stand when I do."

"They won't—" Shalkan began.

"Make them"

Shalkan sprang away. A coldwarg leaped out of concealment in the snow and bounded after Shalkan. Without a thought Kellen sent Mindaerel after it, sword poised to strike. A single downward blow severed the creature's spine.

For a moment he had a breathing space. He looked around, unable to see anyone he recognized. Where was Keirasti? Where was Thenalakti?

"Square!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, unable to tell if anyone could hear him. "Square around the unicorns! Skirmishers!"

On the fields of Ondoladeshiron he'd seen the Elven Knights practicing their maneuvers and thought of those maneuvers as only a pretty dance, useless in the war they were about to fight.

Today Kellen learned differently.

All about him on the battlefield, a ripple seemed to move through the Elven Knights as the order was passed. They moved as the fingers of one hand, fighting through their separate retreats to execute the order Kellen had given. He urged Mindaerel down into the fray, closing up with the Knights to either side.

Slowly, bloodily, the square formed. The Knights fought for every inch of ground. The pack seemed to sense what was happening, and tried to drive through the gaps in the forming lines, but at last the monsters were fighting on the Elves' terms. They met a wall of steel and sword and hoof, and at last the impenetrable square closed around the Unicorn Knights.

"Is everyone—" Kellen began.

"Oh, Leaf and Star." Beside him, Duarmel's voice was flat with despair.

Kellen looked. His heart sank.

Across the battlefield, he saw Keirasti riding toward them, her mare running flat-out. Petariel was behind her in the saddle. Limping along beside the mare on three legs, her top speed now only that of the mare's, was Gesade.

There was no hope. Gesade must have been wounded, Keirasti had stopped to cover her retreat. And now the three of them were going to die in sight of sanctuary, because if Kellen broke the square to send out a rescue party, the cold-warg would take more of them, not just his friends.

The coldwarg circling the square saw them in the same instant.

"Archers, fire," Kellen said, his voice rough. "Everyone, hold steady."

He had no spells that would stop a coldwarg pack. Jermayan did, he was sure, but Jermayan wasn't here.

But he was a Knight-Mage.

"Duarmel, take command. Hold them." He gathered up Mindaerel's reins.

"Take me. I'm faster." Shalkan was suddenly at his side.

Kellen didn't question how Shalkan knew what he was going to do, or what it cost the unicorn to stand so calmly among the knights. He flung himself from Mindaerel's back to Shalkan's, and with a bound, they were away.

Shalkan flew over the snow like a blast of wind. Kellen barely noticed that he had no trouble keeping his balance on Shalkan's bare back. The Elven arrows flew all around them, but despite the wind and the snow, Kellen knew that none of the shafts would strike Shalkan.

The coldwarg were not hurrying as they loped toward their prey. The death of their victims was certain, and they would savor the fear before the kill. Though some fell to arrows, the others did not slacken. It would only take one or two to accomplish the kill.

Kellen saw Petariel push himself from Keirasti's saddle and fall to the snow beside Gesade. He saw the Unicorn Knight rise gracefully to his feet and draw his sword.

Closer now.

There weren't many of the pack left alive; seven, perhaps eight. Of those that had begun the attack, many had fled, many had died. Kellen and Shalkan were within reach of the stragglers now. He could attack them, but that wasn't the point. The point was to defend Petariel, Gesade, and Keirasti.

Keirasti had turned back when she felt Petariel's weight leave her saddle. He could hear her shouting. Gesade was shouting too. Kellen didn't bother to listen to the words. He was focused on what he must do.

The coldwarg could have attacked him and Shalkan as they passed, but they didn't. Kellen hadn't thought they would. The creatures would find it far more entertaining to let them reach the others and kill them all together.

He was counting on it.

"Help me," he said to Shalkan, almost conversationally.

"Yes," the unicorn answered simply.

They reached the other three. Shalkan was running flat-out, bounding over the snow. Kellen thrust himself off backward, landed standing in the snow, whirled, and drew his sword.

The coldwarg, sensing at last that something was not right with their prey, abandoned their lazy lope and began to run. They closed the distance between them and Kellen in seconds.

The world became nothing more than a series of targets. Kellen had no time to think, only to be. Afterward—long afterward—he would realize it ought to have reminded him of fighting the Outlaw Hunt, but it didn't, and it never would, because the Kellen who faced the coldwarg in the Elven snow was a very different man than the frightened boy who had faced the pack of stone dogs sent by Armethalieh. That boy had been unsure of himself, uncertain of what to do.

Kellen knew exactly what to do.

He cut through the neck of the first beast that leaped at him. The second didn't die, but it ran, badly wounded. He stopped counting after that. Each blow merged into the next. It was as if they moved to meet his blade. He knew where they were; knew where they would be. It was snowing harder now, masking the world in an impenetrable veil of whiteness, and it didn't matter. Kellen saw the world in patterns of blue and green and red: his attacks, their attacks; defense, retreat.

He did not plan to retreat. He would not be where their blows landed; they would be where his blade could find them. It did not matter if he killed, or merely wounded, all that mattered was that he became the center of their attention, the foe that could not be ignored, that he dominated their thoughts until there was room for no other prey in their minds.

Except, of course, that he was not the prey.

They were. They just hadn't realized it yet.

Here was the dancing circle, as it had been drawn for him by all his teachers—Jermayan, Master Belesharon, those who had taught them, back to the beginning of the World. Within it was what he had sworn to protect. Attack came from every side; he crossed the circle again and again, his sword spraying blood across the snow like dark stars.

At last there were no more targets.

The patterns faded around him and vanished into whiteness. And his sword suddenly felt too heavy to lift.

Warily Kellen gazed around. With his own eyes, he could see nothing but blowing snow, but the battle-sight told him the coldwarg were gone.

Or dead.

He looked around. Where were the others? There was no one in sight.

They had to be here.

"Shalkan?" he said hoarsely. "Keirasti? Petariel? Gesade?" Now that it was over, he could feel the ache in his muscles, the weariness of long exertion in the cold.

Before he could panic, a mound of snow a few feet away thrashed. Shalkan got to his feet and shook vigorously, then Petariel and Keirasti climbed out of the hollow where they had been shielding Shalkan. The two of them gently lifted Gesade to her feet, then at last Keirasti allowed her mare to rise from where she had been lying. The animal shook herself exuberantly, and snorted as if in disapproval of the entire matter.

"I believe I now know what a carpet feels like," Petariel observed, his voice absolutely emotionless.

"You—I—Wait. I stepped on you?" Kellen said, confused.

"Several times," Shalkan said. "I thought it best if we stayed out of your way."

"I put Orata down to use as a shield, and Gesade next to her. Shalkan told us all to curl up as tight as we could," Keirasti said.

He'd said he'd help, Kellen remembered with a sudden flash of gratitude. If he'd had to concentrate on protecting the others—if they'd been visible targets for the coldwarg… well, things might not have worked out so neatly.

"I'm sorry," Kellen said contritely, his voice thick with the exhaustion that poured over him like winter honey. "I didn't mean to step on you."

Petariel stared at him as if he'd gone mad. Kellen could read the expression very clearly, even through Petariel's helmet. "You saved our lives. You saved Gesade's life. And now you're apologizing for it. It's true what they say. Wild-mages are all mad."

"Let's go," Kellen said. He shook his head to clear the snow that was falling into his face through his helmet slits, and found enough energy to lift his sword and sheathe it. "Those things won't be back today, but I'm tired, cold, and we need to get back and report. If you can walk that far, Gesade?"

"I can run, if I have to," the unicorn said proudly, lifting her head.

"Let me go on ahead," Keirasti said. "I'll let them know that Leaf and Star have favored us this day." She vaulted into Orata's saddle and cantered off in the direction of the army.

Kellen looked up at the sky. He could see nothing. Now that he had the luxury of worrying, he hoped the rest of his friends were all right.

He knew as clearly as if the coldwarg had the power of human speech what their intent had been. Attack the army, kill as many of the Unicorn Knights as they could. They could not hope to destroy the entire army, but every warrior they could kill was a small victory for those they served. And if the Deathwings had managed to kill Ancaladar… or capture Vestakia…

"You killed a coldwarg pack," Petariel said in tones of awe, breaking into his thoughts. "I wish I'd been able to watch."

"There weren't a lot of them," Kellen said, realizing the moment he spoke that the words sounded like the worst sort of false modesty. He tried again. "Petariel, I'm a Knight-Mage. That kind of fighting is just one of the things I'm good at, because of the Wild Magic. Like Idalia can heal. It's not like—like something I trained all my life to have. I mean, it's just something I am, not something I had to earn. It doesn't mean…" He wasn't sure what he meant to say, so he stopped.

"But you came for us. You and Shalkan," Petariel said.

That reminded Kellen of something. He rounded on his friend, fury giving him a burst of energy he wouldn't have believed he had left only a moment before.

"And what did you mean by that? Coming out here with me like that? You didn't have a scrap of armor on! You could have been killed!"

"I wanted to see the fun," Shalkan said innocently. "Besides, I knew you'd protect me." Shalkan stretched out his neck, batted his lashes, and managed to assume an infuriatingly sappy expression of hero-worship, despite the fact that he was still covered in drying coldwarg blood.

"I really ought to beat you senseless," Kellen said fervently.

Gesade snorted. "Oh, don't make me laugh!" she begged. "It hurts."

The four of them began to walk slowly back toward the others through the thickening snow.

The Price of Power

CLEANING UP AFTER the battle took all of that day and the next. Vestakia was unhurt, and Idalia said that according to Jermayan, the greatest injury he had sustained in the battle was having to listen to Ancaladar complain about how the Deathwings tasted.

"There would be more dead had you not given warning," Jermayan said later that night.

Kellen had helped Idalia heal Gesade—a coldwarg had bitten through her foreleg, crushing the bone—and then visited with his wounded in the hospital, and then made his second—and more complete—report of the day to Adaerion. He should, by rights, be so completely exhausted he couldn't stand, but he found that he was too keyed-up to sleep. He'd gone to the horse-lines to check on Mindaerel, and found Jermayan there with Valdien. Jermayan, sensing Kellen's mood better than Kellen did, had brought him back to Jermayan's tent.

"But there are dead. It isn't enough," Kellen muttered, staring down into a mug of mulled cider.

"You would save all the world, if you could," Jermayan said. "Yes," Kellen said simply.

It was that, but it was more than that. Today the responsibility for saving the lives of others had been real—not an abstract, not a distant thing. The lives he had to save were right there in front of him, and people lived or died by how fast he could think, and how many right decisions he could make in a very short time. It had been his first taste of the responsibility he had chosen, the responsi-

Cgapter Eighteen bility that would only become greater the longer he pursued this path. The weight of that responsibility felt like iron chains.

And every day would not always end in victory, as this had. Someday he might have to stand and watch friends die because that was the only way to attain a greater victory. He knew that, and wasn't sure that he could bear it.

"Kellen." There was a note of urgency in Jermayan's voice that startled him. He looked up.

Jermayan was studying him as if he were a problem to be solved. "In the Great War… the Wildmages who fell to the Dark… they had fought first for the Light. They saw friends, brothers, sisters, loved ones, all die. Perhaps they wanted to save the world as well."