To Light A Candle

skin—she did not have either fighting skills or Wildmagery to protect her further.

But she was the only one who could sense the presence of the Shadowed Elves.

Being able to see in the caverns was the major problem. Idalia and Atroist had bespelled all the tarnkappa so that they granted darksight, but they had only a couple of dozen of them; such things were major Workings, and even with so many willing to share the Mageprice, there had been a limited amount of time to make them. And the problem with tarnkappa was that they concealed you from friend as well as foe.

Lanterns and torches were a possibility. But they could be easily extinguished by the enemy.

“Magelight,” Idalia said. “It’s a simple spell, and not very costly. And nobody will have to worry about carrying lanterns, either.”

“Magelight?” Atroist asked, looking puzzled.

“This,” Jermayan said. He cupped his hands, holding them a little apart. The space between them grew misty, then began to glow, and in seconds he was holding a small blue ball of light. He spread his hands, and it floated up over his head.

“Ah,” Atroist said. “In the Lost Lands, we call that Coldfire. Yes, Idalia, an elegant solution.”

“It would be well to know that enough can be made in time,” Redhelwar said.

“It can be done,” Jermayan said. “I will do it, so that there is no cost. There will be prices enough to pay for all by the time we are done.”

—«♦»—

ANCALADAR had told them that the Shadowed Elves moved by night, so Redhelwar made plans for a midmorning attack, hoping to take them by surprise. Ancaladar said there were only two ways into the caverns—the way he and Kellen had taken to rescue Idalia, and the way she had taken to bring out the children. Based on the descriptions of both, Redhelwar elected to send the army in through the latter. Jermayan and Ancaladar would go around by the “back way,” meeting up with the main force as quickly as they could.

Redhelwar elected to divide his force into four groups: one, the main force that would enter the caverns and mount the attack. Two, a small force that would wait just outside the cavern mouth to secure it. Three, a mobile force situated halfway between the caverns and the camp to secure the line of retreat, and which could be called up quickly at need. And four, a sufficient force left behind to guard the camp in case the Enemy was only waiting for them to leave to attack it.

Considering the information they had available—which was very little— Kellen could find no fault with Redhelwar’s dispositions. He thought it would be more tactful to keep quiet about that fact, though.

—«♦»—

THEY left the camp an hour after sunrise, heading for the caverns. Each of them had a ball of Coldfire hovering over his or her head like a peculiar nimbus, the radiance only a faint shimmer in the winter sunlight. It would remain until Jermayan—or another Wildmage—dispersed it again.

Kellen was grateful that Shalkan didn’t ask him if he was nervous. He hardly knew whether he was or not. His mind was filled with everything that could go wrong and a dull frustration that he hadn’t thought of suggesting that someone—him—do a thorough scouting expedition of the caverns before they went in with their entire force.

But pulling back now would do more harm than good; what information they might gain would be offset by the damage to the morale of the army. And deep down, Kellen wasn’t entirely certain that Redhelwar would have taken his suggestion.

That was the real problem. The Elves honored him. They respected him. But Kellen didn’t set policy for the Nine Cities. He didn’t plan strategy for the army. And he didn’t have a real voice in the tactics it would use.

Yet.

Yet?

The sudden thought—no, realization—startled him so much that he tensed all over. Shalkan craned his head around to gaze curiously at him, but Kellen shook his head wordlessly, and Shalkan went back to gazing at the path ahead.

Yes, yet. There would come a time—there needed to come a time—when the army did what Kellen said, not what Redhelwar said. But—he remembered the lesson of the Crowned Horns—you couldn’t command that sort of trust. You needed to earn it.

He needed to earn it.