It’s likely, Stanach thought, the ranger is dead. He would not live two days if he had to depend upon Realgar’s mercy. But Hauk must have kept his silence to the end. He saw the same thought in the sudden darkening of the elf’s eyes.
“Aye, you know it.” Stanach whispered.
Tyorl shook his head and looked up. “I only believe we’ve lost our watch. The kender is gone.”
You don’t doubt me, the dwarf thought. If you do, you’re not going to take the chance that someone who will kill for Stormblade is following us now, following the girl.
Stanach nodded toward the birches, ghostly gray in the darkness. “I’ll keep the fire. You get some sleep.”
Tyorl shook his head. “The kender is your friend. It strikes me as convenient that he’s gone and left you to take the watch … and maybe the sword, too.”
“Me?” Stanach snorted. “Where would I go with it? Aye, back to Thorbardin if I could. I suppose I could kill you where you sleep. But you know better than that. I’d never get out of this forest before I died of old age.” Stanach’s smile held no humor. “Lavim said it: ‘who enters Elvenwood doesn’t get out without an elf to show him the way.’ Go to sleep. I’m willing to wait for morning to talk about it again.”
Tyorl, who had trusted the dwarf in Long Ridge, did not trust him now. He did, however, trust the forest. He didn’t know what Stanach might do if he didn’t have to fear Qualinesti. Though Stanach’s assurances had been smooth and easily given, Tyorl wondered if they had also been true. Kelida curled up tightly against the chill and damp seeping into her bones from the hard ground. She’d overheard enough of the tale Stanach had told Tyorl to know the sword that had bruised her legs, the one that now lay under her hand, was no ordinary blade.
Their voices, though pitched low, had wakened her. Then, she was glad enough to be awake. Her sleep had been foul with nightmares of fire and death.
She hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but when she heard the sword mentioned, heard it named, she could not help herself.
Hauk! Was he dead? Was he a prisoner of this Realgar?
Kelida squeezed her eyes shut. She remembered his hands, large and calloused, as he placed the sword—Stormblade!—at her feet. She remembered his smile and the way his voice broke when he offered his apology. What had happened to him?
If he’s not dead, Realgar has him. Me, I’d rather be dead. Tyorl slept nearby. Across the fire from her, Stanach sat his watch. Firelight gilded the silver earring he wore and gleamed red in the depths of his thick black beard. When he reached for a stout branch to toss onto the fire, Kelida sat up. He said nothing, only nodded. Kelida tucked a straggling wisp of her hair behind her ear and handed him another branch. He took the wood and thanked her. She was surprised that his voice, often a deep, rumbling growl when he spoke to Tyorl, could be so soft. Kelida offered him a tentative smile. Though he did not return it, his dark eyes lost some of their grimness.
Encouraged, she went to sit beside him. She did not share his log, but sat on the ground, her back braced against it. She did not take her eyes from the hot dance of the flames.
Fire, thick and hot as the flames of a hundred torches, poured from the dragon’s maw. Kelida screamed as the fire found the tinder-dry thatching of the farmhouse’s roof. The house exploded around her brother and her mother. For a long, horrible moment, Kelida saw her mother’s face, and her brother’s. The boy was shrieking, the tears on his face were the color of blood, reflecting the flames. Her mother, hunched over the boy as though her own body might protect him from the heat, wore strangely mingled looks of desperation and resignation.
Then there was nothing to see but two small human torches in a house made of fire.
Kelida took no warmth from the campfire. A small, tame reminder of her family’s deaths, it only set her shivering.
“Stanach, where is Lavim?”
Stanach shrugged. “Out on kender-business. Who knows? Likely he’ll be back before dawn.” Looking for ghosts, he thought. He did not say this aloud.
“Have we thanked you for saving our lives?” she asked quietly. He didn’t answer at once, but held perfectly still as though asking himself the question. “No,” he said at last.
“I’m sorry. We should have before now. Thank you. If it wasn’t for you and Lavim, Tyorl would be dead now, and I—” She faltered, hearing whispers from her nightmares in the hiss and sigh of the flames. Stanach shook his head. “Don’t think about it. It never happened. Tell me, how did you come to be at the barricade with Tyorl?”
“I was saying good-bye. He was leaving Long Ridge.”
“Ah?”
Kelida saw the speculation in his eyes and blushed. “No, it’s not what you think. I—I’ve only known him for a day or two. When Hauk gave me the sword, and then couldn’t be found, I wanted to give it back to Tyorl. He wouldn’t take it. He said Hauk might come back for it.”
Stanach smiled. He saw the way of it now. The girl wasn’t interested in Tyorl at all. She was, however, interested in this missing ranger, Hauk. He heard it in her voice and saw it in the way she looked back at Stormblade. The sword could have been hilted with lead, the sapphires could have been no more than rocks from the stream’s bed. It was Hauk’s sword and that was all that mattered to Kelida.
What mattered to Tyorl. however, was something else. He had an interest in the girl. Aye, that elf’s eyes could be hard as Stormblade’s jewels, but never when he looked at Kelida, never when he spoke of her. This would be something to consider.
“Kelida,” he said, “won’t your family be wondering where you are?”
“My father, my mother, and Mival, my little brother—” Kelida drew a steadying breath. “They’re dead. We had a farm in the valley. It—the dragon came and—”
Stanach looked away, out beyond the fire and into the still and silent forest. The wind sounded like the echoes of looters’ howls. Suddenly, he felt like one who, from idle curiosity, stares at a stranger’s raw, open wound. “Hush, Kelida,” he said gently, “hush. I’ve seen the valley.”
Her sigh was ragged. “I have no one to miss me.”
She was a pretty creature by human standards. Stanach looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. How old was she? Maybe twenty. It was hard to tell. Tall and russet haired, the farmers’ sons in Long Ridge had likely been drawn to her green eyes like moths to a candle. Here in the dark forest, however, hers were not the eyes of a woman, they were the eyes of a lost child, large and frightened and staring at a world gone suddenly mad.
Twenty years! Stanach, who at twenty had been but a child, and who had never been able to understand how someone who had lived so short a span of years could be considered an adult, saw only a child in Kelida. A child who had no one. For humans there is the family and all others outside the family were often only strangers. There is no clan, no large and deep well of strength and understanding to draw upon when a parent, a brother, a child dies. Stanach tried to imagine what that emptiness must be like, but could not. Once in a great while, for great crimes or sins against the clan, a dwarf would be declared outlaw, clan-reft. Such unfortunates were shunned by all and pitied by some. Kelida’s condition was not the same. For her it was as though her whole clan, parents, brothers, children, cousins, aunts, uncles, all who shared her name, were dead. Stanach shuddered. It was not to be imagined. He poked at the fire again and watched the small eruption of sparks dance into the night. The fire’s light slid over Stormblade’s gold hilt, colored the silver chasing to orange, and danced down the blue path of sapphires.
Stanach tugged at his beard. Aye, the ranger meant something to her.