To Light A Candle

Shadowed Elves or goblins remained here. There were still the duergar to hunt down; Adaerion could be certain Kellen could resist their lure, and could protect the others from giving in to it.

Figuring out how to hunt them down—so the caverns could be finally cleared—was a problem for another day.

And even when we clear this place out, who knows how many more lairs remain? Kellen thought wearily. And this isn’t even the war. This is just another of Shadow Mountain’s strategies to weaken us BEFORE the war.

He had never felt so close to despair.

—«♦»—

BY the time he reached the surface, Kellen already knew—from talk passed back up the line—that the promised blizzard had come early—magically early. No one knew why, but everyone was agreed that the Wildmages would not have called it.

Fresher information came the closer Kellen got to the surface, but it was frustratingly incomplete. A battle at Ysterialpoerin. Their own orders remained the same: stay here and clear the caverns.

At last he reached the end-tunnel, and almost wished he hadn’t.

Snow was blown along half its length. He could see nothing beyond the entrance but dim whiteness. Each pair of Knights who walked out through the entrance was visible for only a few seconds before vanishing into the dense all-concealing snow. Their heavy cloaks whipped around them as if they were made of thin silk.

Kellen hurried forward, all but shoving Isinwen ahead of him. They must have won at Ysterialpoerin. Redhelwar would surely have been able to get the reserves from the camp to the city in time to support them.

He was grateful that Jermayan had taken the time to reshape the ramp out of the caves. The wind was fierce, and the snow that covered it had been packed down to ice by the feet of those before him. If it had been any steeper, it would have been a slide, not a pathway.

He looked for Adaerion, but it was Jermayan who came toward him out of the snow.

“Shalkan is asking for you. Come quickly.”

“Shalkan?” Shalkan was at Ysterialpoerin!

“He is unhurt. But… hurry.”

—«♦»—

JERMAYAN had brought the storm. Kellen gathered that much from the Elven Knight’s half-distracted explanation on the flight to Ysterialpoerin. That, and that the Elves had won the battle.

“I thought for the forest, and the city. It did not matter to the Shadowed Elves or to their masters if they all died, so long as they accomplished their task of destruction, and so I looked first to the trees. Snow would slow the burning, and its cause could be looked to later. So that is a great victory.” Jermayan’s voice was bitter, carried back to Kellen as they flew through the clear air and sunlight above the storm. “When poets unborn sing of this day in centuries to come, surely they will say that we won.”

“Jermayan—” Kellen began. If he couldn’t get some straight answers out of Jermayan soon, he was fairly sure he was going to start shouting.

“Not now,” Ancaladar said.

The dragon tilted his wings, diving back into the storm, and speech became impossible in the maelstrom of their descent.

Kellen was working the saddle-straps before Ancaladar had quite settled. The dragon had landed in a clearing barely big enough to accommodate him—a neat piece of flying with the winds as strong as they were. Kellen slid down the dragon’s ice-covered ribs into a drift of snow.

“Shalkan!” he shouted.

“That way.” Ancaladar extended his neck in the direction Kellen needed to go. “Hurry.”

Kellen ran.

—«♦»—