To Light A Candle

They’d nearly reached the stream, but he didn’t want to spend the few remaining hours of the night among the Elven dead, and he doubted Idalia did either.

“Let’s—” he began.

“We’d better check for survivors,” Idalia interrupted. “Gairith said they were all dead, I know, and he stopped to take their tarnkappa—but he was wounded himself, and if they were only badly hurt, he might have missed vital signs.”

So they rode on.

They found the bodies of the horses—six of them. Kellen dismounted, drawing his sword and motioning to Idalia to stay in the saddle. Something was not right here.

No bodies.

The Elves had not come to carry away their dead—not this soon. And the coldwarg had not eaten them, for they would not have stopped with the Elven bodies, and save for attack-bites, the horses had not been touched.

He paced around, moving back and forth across the area. He found Emerna, her throat and belly torn open. There was still a hollow in the snow beneath her where Gairith had lain. He scratched at the fresh snow with the tip of his sword, uncovering Gairith’s frozen blood.

At last he opened himself, reluctantly, to See the battle.

He watched the shadows of the Elven scouts ride silently down through the falling snow in two files. Saw them stop, and see the Shadowed Elves advance. He turned and watched the Shadowed Elves come toward them over the snow, the forward ranks of the horde breaking into a run.

Saw the Elves rein in and turn to run, only to be met by the fury of the waiting coldwarg. Three of the horses went down in that first instant, and by then it was too late. The Shadowed Elves overwhelmed the scouts, leaping onto the horses’ backs, clawing at the riders’ armor. It was like watching something eaten alive by maggots, if that were possible. Kellen watched as one of the Shadowed Elves stabbed one of the scouts to death with his own dagger, slamming the narrow deadly blade home over and over again. Saw others, their armor stripped from them, bludgeoned to death with clubs.

It was over in a handful of minutes.

The Shadowed Elves moved on, like the horde of plague rats they so much resembled. A few moments passed, and he saw Gairith work his way painfully from beneath Emerna’s body. One arm hung useless at his side, and his face was covered with blood. The Elven scout staggered, regained his balance, and after checking the others, moved off into the forest, following the Shadowed Elves.

—«♦»—

KELLEN waited, but nothing changed. The bodies were still there. He blinked, shook his head. Let me See what happened to them! he demanded silently.

He had the sense that time passed—hours. And then, moving over the snow, came a band of now-familiar cloaked figures. Shadowed Elves. Not warriors, but a hunting party; one had a brace of hares hanging from his belt, another carried the body of some animal Kellen couldn’t identify.

When they saw the Elven dead, they grew excited, gesturing to one another. Then they quickly gathered up the bodies—and all the weapons and pieces of armor—stowing them in the curious slings that Lairamo had described from her captivity in their hands.

And they were gone.

Kellen blinked, banishing the vision. He shuddered. There was no doubt what the Shadowed Elves meant to do with the bodies.

“They’re all dead,” he said. “And Shadowed Elves came and took away the bodies.”

“Why?” Idalia said, dumbfounded.

“To eat,” Kellen said. There was no doubt in his mind.

“Kellen… are you sure… ?”

“I saw them die,” Kellen said gently. “None of them were alive by the time the Shadowed Elves came. They died… very quickly.”