“This fellow Hauk, have you known him long?”
“No. Only long enough for him to give me the sword.” Kelida smiled shyly. “It’s a foolish story.” The smile died at once. Her green eyes grew dark and sad. “He’s dead, isn’t he? I heard what you said to Tyorl.”
Stanach almost told her that Hauk was, indeed, dead. How could he still be alive? Then the dwarf realized, if she thought Hauk were alive and still Realgar’s prisoner, a prisoner gallantly refusing to tell Realgar where the sword is in order to protect the girl he gave it to, she’d give him the sword. But only if he could convince her that by doing so, she’d have a chance to prevent Hauk’s death. It shouldn’t be hard to make her believe that if Realgar got the sword, Hauk would certainly die. The Theiwar couldn’t leave him alive to give warning to anyone who might prevent his takeover of Thorbardin.
Oh, yes, she’d give him the sword. The chances were slim that she could save Hauk’s life, but Stanach knew she would take those chances. She’d carried Stormblade into the forest, slept with it under her hand. It was Hauk’s sword and she wouldn’t let anyone else so much as hold it … unless she thought it would save Hauk’s life.
He glanced at Kelida. Her arms clasping her drawn up legs, head pillowed on her knees, she was asleep where she sat. Just a ragged human girl, he thought, fallen in love with a ranger—though likely she doesn’t know it yet.
Stanach touched her shoulder lightly to wake her. He returned her questioning smile with a nod. “Go sleep more comfortably, Kelida. The morning comes soon enough.”
She returned to her cold bed and the sword. Stanach spent the rest of the watch carefully working out the details of his plan and ignoring the gnawing of his restless conscience.
“Do what you have to do,” Piper had said.
He wondered where Piper was now, if he was safe, if he was waiting by the tumble of rocks that looked so much like a cairn. Four against one. Aye, but four against one mage. It would make a difference. Do what you have to do.
Well, Piper, he thought, I am.
10
Lavim returned to his companions as the wet gray dawn lighted the sky. Cold and shivering, the kender sighed and wished that he’d found some dwarf spirits in Long Ridge. His flask knocked hollowly against his hip.
“White Disaster,” some called the potent dwarven drink. Lavim had always considered the stuff the next best thing to a warm hearth. Sometimes better, he thought, shoving his hands into the deep pockets of his shapeless, old coat and hunching against the icy drizzle. He’d found no ghosts, no specters, and no phantoms—with or without heads. For a forest hedged about with rumor and fear, Qualinesti was a singularly dull place. The campsite, however, promised to be more interesting. Tyorl glowered at Stanach across the fire. Kelida, her green eyes sharp, her jaw stubbornly set, looked at no one.
Something’s roused her, Lavim thought. The kender, careful of his cold-stiffened knees, dropped down before the fire. He held his hands as close to the flames as he dared and cocked an eye at Stanach. “What’s going on?”
“Stubbornness,” Stanach growled. “Simple-minded, damned, elven stubbornness.” He tossed a bark chip into the fire and looked up at Tyorl, his black eyes hard and mocking. “Tell me, then, elf, are you going to take the chance that your friend Hauk is not Realgar’s captive? Are you going to abandon him for his sword? Aye, well, I suppose you’d live well on what you could sell it for.”
Tyorl leveled his icy stare at the dwarf. “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do: I’m not going to hand Hauk’s sword over to you on the strength of a pretty tale. Where the sword goes, I go.”
Lavim pricked up his ears. “Where are we going?”
No one answered.
“Fine then,” Stanach said to Tyorl. “Come along. I think you believe me, elf. If you don’t, there will be Piper to confirm my tale.” Stanach laughed bitterly. “I suppose you’ll grant that, if I’m lying, he could not have made up the same lies without my prompting, eh? Aye, come along. Ask him before I ever say a word. But, if you’re coming, you’d best make up your mind soon. Piper won’t stay around much longer before he decides I’m dead. Then, I’ll be walking to Thorbardin,” Stanach smiled grimly. “I suppose you will be, too.”
“Who’s Piper?” Lavim’s face was a mass of wrinkles and a puzzled frown. “Why would he decide you’re dead? We’re going to Thorbardin? I’ve never been there, Stanach. I can’t think of a better place to find some really good dwarf spirits, either.” He glanced at the elf. “Is Kelida going, too?”
“No,” Tyorl said.
Kelida, silent till then, looked up and spoke quietly. “Yes, I am.”
Tyorl moved to protest. Kelida overrode him.
“I’m going with the sword. I can’t go back to Long Ridge now. I would never find my way and—” She stopped, her eyes bright and almost fierce.
“And—and the sword is mine. You’ve said it yourself. If Hauk is still alive, he’s—what he’s going through is to protect me. It was convenient for you to say the sword was mine when you thought he might be coming back for it, when you thought I could tell him where you’d gone. Then, the sword was mine. Well, it still is, and it seems that I’m the only one with any right to say where the sword goes.”
“Hauk?” Lavim looked from one to the other of them. He should have stayed in camp, he decided. Clearly he’d missed something last night.
“What sword?” His eyes widened as he saw Stormblade lying across Kelida’s knees. “Oh. Are you talking about that sword?”
Stanach dropped his forge-scarred hand onto the kender’s shoulder.
“Easy, old one, save your questions for later.” He nodded to Kelida. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, I am—”
“Aye,” Tyorl drawled. “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”
“Something worse than what I’ve already been through?”
Tyorl had no answer. It didn’t matter, though. Instinct had warned him last night to keep silent on the matter of Finn. Now, he was glad that he had. Finn’s rangers were waiting outside Qualinesti. Tyorl was certain that Finn would pick up their trail and find them before Stanach found the mage, Piper. He would lay the whole matter before the rangerlord: sword, tale, and his news that Verminaard was moving a supply base into the foothills of the Kharolis Mountains. Finn would decide what must be done.
“Very well, Kelida,” he said. “You’ll need warmer clothes.” He held up a hand to forestall Stanach’s protest. “I know a place where we can scavenge something for her. It’s on the way.”
Stanach tossed another chip into the fire. “Where?”
“Where?” echoed Lavim, all the more confused.
“Qualinost.”
The sun broke from behind lowering, slate-colored clouds and its sweet, warm columns of light shafted down on the city. Four slim spires of the purest white stone rose from the corners of Qualinost at perfect map points: north, south, east, and west. Gleaming silver veins twined in almost-pattern through the snowy stone of the towers. Running out from the northern tower, high above the city, a seemingly frail arch leaped and connected with the southern spire. It was the same with the other towers, and so the city was bounded.
In the very center of the elven city, alive with light more vibrant than the sun’s, rose the elegant Tower of the Sun. Sheathed in gleaming gold, the tower had been for years uncounted the home of the Speaker of the Suns. It, like all of Qualinost, was empty now that the speaker had taken his people, his children, into exile.
The elven city of Qualinost had been built by dwarves, from the design of elves, in a time when friendship, not today’s brooding, sullen antipathy, graced the dealings between the two races. Tyorl entered the city of his birth with a heart torn between joy and sorrow.