gone and found a snow-bear.”
“I should have let you,” the unicorn said consideringly. “It would have been fun to watch. And we could have skinned it afterward, and the stubbornest Elf in the Flower Forest would have had a lovely new cloak.”
“Only if I could have left the bear in it to share it with him,” Kellen said.
Petariel’s injury—a spear through the knee—had looked bad enough at first, but it was only a day or two later that the Healers had realized how serious the Shadowed Elf poison could be. Nothing they’d been able to do had stopped the spread of the infection that ate the flesh from within. Not even the touch of Gesade’s horn had been able to purify it. Only a Healing Spell had been able to lift the Taint from the wound so that the Healer’s drugs could take effect. By the time Kellen had been called to Petariel’s side, the Unicorn Knight had been delirious with pain and poison… and a very bad patient.
—«♦»—
KELLEN unharnessed Shalkan before seeing to anything else, but by the time the wagons carrying the rest of their gear got to the Unicorn Knights’ encampment, a messenger had arrived as well. It was Dionan, a junior member of the General’s staff.
“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Dionan said, bowing.
“I See you, Dionan,” Kellen said. He returned the bow as best he could with his arms full of Shalkan’s armor.
“You’re wanted in Redhelwar’s pavilion in two hours,” Dionan said. “He’s gathering all the commanders, and everyone with special experience in fighting the Shadowed Ones.”
Two hours would barely give him enough time to change into the cleanest clothes he had—and maybe, if he was lucky—get some tea. His stomach growled. Food, unfortunately, was going to have to wait.
He set Shalkan’s armor in a convenient location and went looking for his packs.
—«♦»—
IDALIA left her palfrey with the horse-lines—someone else would untack Cella and turn her out with the herd, then clean her tack and bring it to Idalia’s tent.
There was little deference to rank among the Elves—at least not in the same way there was among humans—but the work of the Healers was hard and often dangerous, and that brought them a few privileges.
With Cella seen to, Idalia went off toward the Mountain Traders’ camp to see if she could find some old friends and catch up on the gossip.
The wind here on the Gathering Plain was sharp and piercing—Idalia, having spent a winter in Ondoladeshiron several years earlier, had dressed for the weather, but even in fur-lined garments, with a heavy fur cloak over everything, she shivered in the wind. The Mountainfolk probably thought this was no more than a brisk spring day, though—it snowed early in the High Reaches, and spring thaw came late. Because of this, the Mountainfolk did very little farming, hunting and trading for most of their needs. They worshiped the Greater Powers in the form of the Huntsman and the Forest Wife, and were careful to do nothing to offend Them, lest They should withdraw the game and the fruits of the forest.
The tents of the Mountainfolk were designed to withstand the heaviest of snows, being low domes constructed of waxed canvas with thin rods sewn into the fabric to stiffen it. Once unfolded and staked into place, no amount of snow could collapse them, nor wind overset them. In fact—Idalia could see as she approached their encampment—all of the dun-colored tents had been edged around with high-packed snow for added warmth and stability, so that only the very tops protruded from the mounds of glistening white.
“Hail, stranger.” A man anonymous in winter furs greeted her as she approached. “Are you lost?”
“Looking for old friends,” Idalia answered, pushing back the hood of her cloak so he could see her face.
“By the First Frost—Idalia! Come to give me my mule back, have you?”
To Idalia’s surprise and delight it was Kearn, one of her closest friends among the Mountain Traders.
“No more than you’re here to give me my
“Well met nevertheless,” Kearn said. “I’m glad you made it away from the Wildwood safely. There’s many that didn’t, so I hear.”
