To Light A Candle

“It would please us to hear all that you may tell,” Neishandellazel said, speaking for the first time.

Concisely—at least for Elves—Redhelwar explained about the Shadowed Elves; how Vestakia had discovered evidence of their lairs nearby, and how he and his army had come north to exterminate them.

There was a silence after Redhelwar had finished speaking. In a human conclave, it would have been filled with questions, but on consideration, Kellen supposed they were all pretty irrelevant. The Elves of Ysterialpoerin would know that Redhelwar would do the job as fast as possible, and the best way possible, and protect Ysterialpoerin as well as he could. So what else was there to ask?

“What Ysterialpoerin can do to aid you will be done, in Andoreniel’s name,” Kindolhinadetil said at last. “Send your injured to us that they may find peace and rest, and know that our forests stand ready to succor those who are heartsick for the forests of home. Know also that we will provide the Last Gift to all who require it.”

“The gifts of the Voice of Andoreniel are great, and his counsel makes good hearing,” Redhelwar said, bowing very low once more. “And now I must return to my army, so that all may be done as Andoreniel wishes.”

“Let it be so,” Kindolhinadetil agreed, rising to his feet.

—«♦»—

IT took Kellen some time to figure out what the Viceroy had meant, but he had nothing but time as they rode to catch up with the army. The Last Gift must be burial—only the Elves didn’t bury their dead, they hung them in trees. And Kindolhinadetil had been saying—must have been saying—that it would be appropriate to put the Shadowed Elves there, too. He couldn’t fathom it—how they could still feel kinship with those creatures—but it wasn’t up to him, after all. Perhaps it would make them feel a little less guilty.

As for the rest, Kellen hoped there wasn’t going to be any need of it. But pragmatically thinking, with two enclaves to clean out, he knew there’d be losses. And the Herdingfolk Wildmages hadn’t arrived yet, though the army had added several more Wildmages from the Mountainfolk.

When they caught up to the army, Dionan told Redhelwar that Jermayan and Ancaladar had scouted ahead and found a place suitable to make an extended camp. Padredor and Belepheriel had taken several units ahead to secure and prepare it for the arrival of the main force and the baggage wagons, while Jermayan and Vestakia made an overflight to determine the exact location of the caves.

“All is as I would have it,” Redhelwar said with satisfaction.

—«♦»—

BY a few hours before dusk, most of the camp was in place, though it would be another full day before all the larger pavilions were unshipped. An hour earlier, six Elven Scouts carrying tarnkappa had ridden out to the locations now marked on Redhelwar’s map—just as Vestakia had sensed in her first overflight, the two enclaves were only a short distance apart. Ancaladar had been able to spot separate entrances, but that was no guarantee that the two sets of caves did not connect beneath the ground. Perhaps the scouts would be able to tell them whether they did or not when they returned.

For now, Vestakia was resting in the Healer’s tent. The strain of coming so close to such a large concentration of Demon-taint and then doing such delicate work of detection had exhausted her, but fortunately the camp was located far enough away that she was not constantly affected by the nearness of the Shadowed Elves. And there was nothing Kellen could do to help her.

Once again Kellen forced himself to stay away from her bedside, trying to give Vestakia as little thought as he’d give a sword, or one of Artenel’s new shields. Idalia or Jermayan would tell him if there were anything truly wrong. Meanwhile, he forced himself to focus on other things—the strange and somehow deeply-unsettling beauty of Ysterialpoerin; the fact that there was to be a strategy meeting after supper. The proximity to Ysterialpoerin and the fact that they could finally unship the ovens from the carts meant that the food would be better. Though Elven food was never really bad, Kellen was getting tired of an endless diet of tea, soup, stew, and porridge—though it did occur to him that he ought to be grateful to have the luxury of being tired of food of any sort. The Mountainfolk had been existing on much less, and the time might be coming when he would look back on soup, stew, and porridge with longing.

“You’re restless tonight,” Ciltesse said, coming up to him with a cup of tea.

Kellen took it gratefully, warming his gloved hands. He knew now why fighting in winter was something a sane man avoided at all cost. The weather was another enemy to fight; one that never got tired, and never retreated, and had the terrible weapons of cold and storm forever in its arsenal.

“I suppose I wish it were over with,” Kellen answered. “Or at least, that we knew more than we do.”

Ciltesse smiled faintly. “As do we all—the caverns cleansed and we home at our firesides. And better yet, that there were no need to have cleansed them at all. Yet all things come at a price.”

Is the fighting now the price of the centuries of peace in Elven Lands in the past? Kellen wondered. Or was it the price to pay for centuries of peace in the future— if they won?

He didn’t know. He only knew that he felt terribly uneasy. About what was to come ? Or…