Grudgebearer (50 page)

“I want to live,” Dolvek whispered.

You have not stopped living
, the god's gentle voice echoed in Dolvek's mind.

Hovering over his prone form, Yavi looked into the young elf's eyes, then back to Kholster. “Will he live?”

“Not if we're lucky,” the Aern answered dryly. “A warrior has to fight to survive. The only fighting blood in this one is what he just swallowed.” He clenched his fist again over Dolvek's face, and one last orange droplet struck the prince's cheek.

Darkness crept in around the edges and his vision began to fade, but Dolvek fought, raging voicelessly against the Zaur, against Kholster, and most of all against that part of himself which thought it would all be easier if he simply gave up and went with Torgrimm to the next life.

“Not yet,” he murmured feverishly as he drifted from semiconsciousness into healing slumber. It was not a restful sleep, nor did he dream. He had no time for dreams. Dolvek had accepted the first hammer blow of his forging; he was too busy fighting.

CHAPTER 44

THE THREE RACES
OF ELVES

Yavi watched as Kholster slammed together two fist-sized blocks of obsidian, each carved with sharply chiseled runes. When they met, the stones merged and the runes blazed red. Kholster set the combined block on the ground near the fallen Eldrennai and sighed.

“That will keep him warm.”

Yavi felt the heat from the stone even where she stood, several feet away. “Is that a Dwarven Hearth Stone?” she asked.

Kholster smiled broadly, revealing his doubled canines. Combined with the light of the Hearth Stone it lent a demonic cast to his features. “No,” he answered softly. Yavi marveled at how gentle his voice sounded, so different from the cold, angry tones he had used when helping her make the antidote for the Zaur venom. “It's an Aernese Hearth Stone, but yes, Dwarves made it.”

He pointed to the top of the glowing Stone. “A Dwarven Hearth Stone would have an indentation on top.”

“What for?” asked Yavi, coming closer to inspect the Stone.

“To deactivate it. It would cool and then separate.”

“So Aernese Hearth Stones are only good for one use?”

“No. We pick them up and pull them apart to turn them off,” he answered, miming the action with his hands.

“That sounds painful,” Yavi said, blanching at the thought.

“It can be,” Kholster said glibly, then chuckled. “To be honest, most of us just use our warpicks.” He lifted his and swung it in a careful arc. As its tip struck the exact center of the Hearth Stone, a small line appeared and the blocks began to separate. Withdrawing the tip before the two stones completely parted, Kholster slung the weapon on his back once more. “It's an excellent test of precision and muscle control.”

“I can see that,” Yavi acknowledged. “What about Dolvek? Will he live?”

Kholster walked over to Dolvek's prone form, crouched to inspect the wound on his shoulder, and then dug his fingers sharply into it, eliciting a loud groan from the slumbering Eldrennai.

“It seems likely,” Kholster told her. “It's hard for me to care.” He showed Yavi his palm where she had cut him. The wound was already closed; only a thin orange line marked the cut, and as she watched even that faded to match the surrounding bronze skin. “Eldrennai heal too slowly for me to be sure, but if he can feel pain and react to it, then he might recover.” He shrugged. “If not, you can always get a replacement from Port Ammond.”

“Don't be so callous,” Yavi admonished. “I could have been dead without him.”

“No,” Kholster disagreed. “I would have interfered if you'd been alone.”

Yavi glared at him, then turned away and walked to one of the ancient
ehmar
trees. Its leaves were broad and round, and from beneath its bark the tree spirit peeked out at the three humanoids.

“How long did he stand there?” Yavi asked. “Did you see him,
Ehmar-ama
?”

A round, fat head pushed out from beneath the bark. “See?” it asked. “I see him, that one, many times, Pretty One, but for how long which time? Too many times is he here, that one. Always arguing and fighting, but never with fire. Heats rocks, that one. Puts out fire, that one. Never brings it.”

“Thank you,” Yavi said politely, then she stomped her foot and looked petulantly at Kholster. “It doesn't know.”

“Then why don't you ask me again?” Kholster asked as he walked past the obelisk and the statues of the gods, out onto the pier. Formed from the same material as the obelisk, it extended out into the water of the Bay of Balsiph. On the end of the pier, the same words floated, written in all the known tongues of Barrone, including some which were no longer recognized. On Kholster's back, the spirit within his warpick flowed up its hilt and perched on his shoulder like a bird of prey. The same bright orange as Kholster's blood, the spirit watched Yavi with amber-colored eyes. It looked away from her and shrieked angrily at the obelisk. Kholster laughed.

“She doesn't like this place. This stone. It looks like obsidian, but no one knows what it really is. Grudge doesn't like it, because she can't cut through it.”

“She?” Yavi asked.

“You're a Vael. I know you can see her,” Kholster explained. “I've only seen Grudge once. When the metal cooled, as I finished wrapping her haft, she flew out of me, a beautiful, angry hawk, and sank into the weapon. Then I knew she was complete. When my mind is quiet, I can feel her. When I fight, I sometimes hear her battle cry.”

Yavi ran her hand along the smooth surface of the obelisk as she listened. It rose up into the sky and out along the ground, a seamless mass of black. Fifteen hands wide and ninety hands high, the obelisk was ringed with inscriptions in every language. Careful golden letters and runes, not carved but floating just below the surface, spoke cryptically to its purpose: “Welcome to Oot.”

Yavi followed the Aern from the base of the obelisk out along the pier. “She's beautiful,” Yavi said softly as she closed with Kholster. She felt self-conscious standing next to him, resisted the urge to lean against him. Vael were made for the Aern. Yavi had heard that over and over growing up, but she'd never felt it, not before meeting one.

“Thank you, daughter of Kari.” Kholster pointed to the sun, setting in the distance, and walked back to the obelisk. His hand touched its black surface above the Aernese translation. “I, Kholster, First of One Hundred, of the Exiled Army, once slave, now free, greet you in good faith.”

“What?” she asked. Her eyes widened, and she joined him at the obelisk. It was the ceremony! She looked at Dolvek's prone form. Kholster was starting the ceremony early. Could he do that?

“I . . . I am Yavi, daughter of Kari, princess of The Parliament of Ages and Guardian of the Rule of Leaf. Your ancestral home awaits you should you wish to return to it. You and all your kind are welcome here. You have long been missed.”

Kholster removed his smoked-glass lenses, revealing eyes that were black where they might otherwise have been white, just as Yavi's mother had said. His irises were pale jade in color, his pupils amber, a startling contrast to the blackness surrounding them. “I speak for the Aern. We will gladly return to the forest with you to dwell together with the Vael, to teach and be taught. We do, however, have one condition.”

“And what might that be?” Yavi asked sadly. She had been warned Kholster always responded the same way.

“Do the Oathbreakers yet live? Have their towers tumbled? Has their lifeblood poured out upon their beloved plains?”

“The Eldrennai dwindle, but they live. Their borders shrink, but their towers stand tall,” Yavi said softly.

Kholster's eyes flicked to the left as if he saw something she didn't and was enraged or heartbroken, she couldn't tell which, only that behind it loomed a wall of hatred and slaughter so great she could not encompass it all. “Then the Grudge we bear is borne still, and we regret that we cannot return. We, most of us, will dwell upon the blue forest of the sea and in the lush caverns far to the south with our brothers, the Dwarves. The Vael may visit us whenever they will, and we will make for them a welcome place at our table.”

Kholster cast a hate-filled glance at Dolvek. The injured prince's chest rose and fell slightly as though he barely drew breath. There was no way he could answer.

“You can't expect him to go through the ritual,” Yavi protested. “He's been injured.”

“His oath to break,” Kholster said dismissively.

“No, it was the Zaur's fault,” she argued.

“I've never seen a battle involving an Eldrennai that was not the fault of an Eldrennai, but if you tell me it is not so . . . that you were ambushed . . .”

“Are you quite finished?” Dolvek coughed weakly.

Yavi thought she spied a look of admiration cross Kholster's face, but it quickly vanished.

“The ritual, you high-born, stump-eared maggot,” Kholster chided. “Invite us to your lands.”

“Will you . . . come . . . in peace to the El . . . to the Eldren Plains?” Dolvek gasped through a fit of coughing.

Kholster waited until Dolvek caught his breath before responding. “No, only to destroy them.”

Dolvek opened his mouth to reply, erupting instead into an even more painful-sounding hacking cough. Yavi felt Kholster press a waterskin into her hand. She gave him a perilous look of anger but took it and helped Dolvek swallow a few sips. The water seemed to help.

“Will you sit in peace at our table?” Dolvek gasped out.

“Only in celebration of your doom,” Kholster answered.

“We understand of old the ill will you bear us. We created your people and the Vaelsilyn as slaves, forgetting the most basic tenet of our people, that life is sacred and that no thinking being can be owned by another. If there is some reparation we could make, some way we can make amends, please tell me and I will carry it back to the Council of Elements.” Dolvek uttered his memorized words as quickly as possible and then grabbed for the waterskin.

Kholster waited patiently for him to finish drinking and then took the empty skin from Yavi. “There is.”

Yavi gasped. This was not the usual response. Kholster continued, “Seven times I have come here.” He pounded his fist against his chest. “I, who still remember the touch of the Eldrennai lash, have come here to this place each and every time my presence has been requested.” He shook his head. “For centuries I have had to look into the face of an Eldrennai, a so-called noble prince, each of whom seemed to feel the Aern should still be in the thrall of their former masters.”

“Let it go,” Dolvek sneered.

Kholster snorted. “My words are like seeds sown on salted earth. You reject my offer before it is even made. So be it. You should have listened to Wylant, you are all of you doomed.”

“What?”

Kholster closed his eyes tiredly, replacing his smoked-glass lenses, and turned to Yavi. “You are the most beautiful female I have ever seen, and I have walked the face of Barrone for more than seven thousand years. You know that the Aern do not lie. So, with whatever great ill comes to pass from the breaking of this pact, know that your people have but to call and we will come in force to help you. Should you need to flee your forest, come to the sea or to our caves and we will make you welcome. Life to you and yours,” Kholster turned on his leather-booted heel and strode toward the water.

“Good riddance,” croaked Dolvek through gritted teeth.

Sighing, Yavi rubbed her eyes. It was exactly as her grandmother had said it would be. “The Eldrennai never fail to argue with the Aern,” her gran had told her. “It will be up to you to keep the peace. There has yet to be a peaceful resolution to anything between those two that the Vael didn't carefully nurture and bring to pass.”

Remembering her gran, Yavi held up her hands and shouted, “Wait!
”

Kholster stopped, listening, but did not turn.

“You must stay,” she said gently. “All three of us are needed here. Three, one of each race, for three days. That is all that is required to keep the trust.”

“Forget the trust,” Kholster told her, tossing the words back over his shoulder. “Think instead about the Zaur on your borders. I killed more of them in the forest; scouts, just like the ones you fought here. There is a new warlord. His name is Xastix.”

Dolvek let his head fall back to the ground, but Yavi simply stared. “How do you know that?” she questioned, following him out onto the pier.

“I interrogated one of the scouts.” Kholster folded his arms, still presenting his back to both Yavi and Dolvek. “Xastix wanted to stop the Grand Conjunction, to keep it from taking place. Then, I think he plans to attack.”

Yavi touched his shoulder with the back of her hand, a uniquely Vaelsilyn touch, intended to calm but not to restrain. “Do you know when?”

“He'll likely give his scouts two or three days to report back,” Kholster said thoughtfully, turning to gaze past her toward the sinking sun. “Then he'll take another day or so to rally his troops, get them moving. I worried about the number of Zaur here, though. There should have been more.”