The low ground in the shadow of the hill was wet and marshy. Her boots squelched in the puddles and slopped in the mud. Kelida retrieved the dagger quickly. When she turned to start back up the hill, something fluttering in the close underbrush of the forest caught her eye. Frowning, Kelida took a few steps toward the thickets.
She pushed through the thorny scrub brush and stopped. The underbrush framed a small sward of late green grass. A young man lay there, his right arm twisted in an impossible angle beneath him, his swollen, broken left hand outflung as though appealing for mercy. From where she stood, Kelida could not tell if he breathed.
She raised a hand to her mouth and caught a finger between her teeth so that she wouldn’t scream. Long blond hair trailed in a thin rivulet of water, mud-fouled and plastered to the side of his face. Encrusted with blood at the edges and angry red along the trough, a blade’s deep cut scored that face from a swollen, bruised eye to just beneath his jaw. Great rusty splashes of blood stained his red robes; some were brown and old, some crimson and still spreading. Kelida drew a short, choppy breath.
“Lavim!” she cried. “Tyorl! Stanach!”
The young man moaned and opened his eyes. Once, they might have been as blue as a summer sky. Now, they were muddy and dull with pain.
“Lady,” he whispered. He gasped and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, then ran his tongue around blood-stained lips and tried again. “Lady, will you help me?”
Stanach, his hands cold and shaking, dropped to his knees. His palm on Piper’s chest, he felt for the rise and fall of life as he had when he crouched in the dusty road beside Kyan Red-axe five days ago. Piper still lived, if only barely. His breath was a bubbling wheeze in his lungs. The mage had not spoken since he’d asked for Kelida’s help, but only lay still and silent.
He was not dead, but it would not be long before he was. Both of his hands and several ribs were broken, too much blood stood in his lungs. Tyorl, who had left to quickly scout the glade for signs of the young man’s attackers, returned now. He carried his longbow, an arrow still at nock, in his left hand; in his right, he held an old cherry wood flute. This he silently offered to Stanach.
Stanach took the instrument, running his thumbs down the smooth length of polished wood. After a moment’s hesitation, he laid the flute beside Piper’s broken right hand. “Where did you find it?”
“A little way off. Stanach, I have to talk with you.”
Stanach nodded and climbed wearily to his feet.
The elf, his long blue eyes unreadable, glanced at Piper, then looked around for Kelida. He saw her standing with Lavim at the edge of the glade and motioned for her to join them.
“Stay with him, Kelida.”
Kelida said nothing. Green eyes wide with pity, face paled by fear, she settled beside the mage. Lavim, silent for once, crouched down opposite her. Stanach sighed heavily and followed Tyorl into the deepening shadows of the forest until they were well out of the others’ hearing. Tyorl returned the arrow to his quiver, but did not unstring his bow.
“He looks like he was set on by a mob.”
Stanach nodded.
“I found no sign at all that anyone else has been here. I found no track or mark that even he had come into the glade. How do you suppose he got here?”
“I don’t know. He’s magi and—” Stanach swallowed against the tightening of his throat. “—and known in Thorbardin for his transport spells.” Memory caught him and he smiled. “He gets you where you want to go, but the magic always feels like its going to pull the day’s dinner out of your belly. He’s—known for that, too.
“I don’t think it happened very far from here, though. He wouldn’t have had the strength to transport any great distance. Is the road into Long Ridge near?”
“Five miles, maybe a little more,” Tyorl said.
“Then, that’s where it happened. Or near there. It’s where he was waiting for me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Aye,” Stanach muttered roughly, “so am I.” He turned and started back to Piper. He didn’t get two steps before Tyorl caught his arm.
“What about the sword?”
“What about it?” Stanach tangled the fingers of his right hand in his beard and closed his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said bitterly. “I didn’t get to Piper in time, did I? He can’t help me and I—I can’t help him. Let me at least sit with him while he dies.”
So saying, the dwarf turned and left the shadows for the sun-dappled sward. Tyorl followed silently.
Kelida moved aside when Stanach came to sit beside her. “He’s still breathing, Stanach. He’s still alive.”
Stanach said nothing, only drew the back of his hand across his mouth and nodded, his eyes on Piper’s broken hands.
Kelida, following his gaze, whispered, “Why?”
“So he couldn’t defend himself with magic.” He touched a finger to the flute. “They didn’t know about the pipe. It got him away, but not in time to save his life.”
Ah, Jordy, Stanach thought. I’m sorry, Piper!
“We might as well camp here.” Tyorl said, “It’s a muddy hole to pass the night in, but I’ve a feeling we’ll want the lee of the hill to shelter our fire tonight. We’d better set our night watch fireless on the hilltop.” Tyorl motioned to the kender who looked like he wanted to ask questions. “Fuel and kindling, aye?”
Lavim rose stiffly and, with one look at Stanach, slipped into the woods. The elf climbed the hill to walk the watch. Alone, Kelida sat beside Stanach. She, who had watched her family and friends fall before a dragon’s rage, saw the deep and desolate sorrow in the dwarf’s eyes and knew that he mustn’t sit alone.
Solinari, as it always did, rose first above the horizon. Lunitari did not lag far behind. Night, deep blue and cold, flowed into the glade. Shadows and firelight turned the naked brush to glowing black webbing. When the red moon’s light crested the hill and ran down into the woods, Stanach realized that he hadn’t heard the thick, rasping sound of Piper’s labored breathing for many moments. He leaned forward, gently placed his hand on the mage’s chest. There was no movement. The lifebeat in his neck was stilled. Stanach sat listening to the thunder of his own heart.
“I’m sorry,” Kelida whispered.
Stanach nodded. He looked at her for a long moment, then at the Kingsword she still wore at her hip. Gold caught the fire’s light, and shadows glided over the silver. The five sapphires winked coldly. Stanach thought he could see the crimson heart of the steel glowing through the shabby leather scabbard.
Kelida covered his right hand with her own.
Stanach still said nothing.
The music that had enchanted the dwarven children of Thorbardin was flown. The magic was gone. Jordy was dead and Kyan was dead. In that moment, Stanach didn’t let himself feel a thing for fear that his grief would overwhelm him and he would weep.
13
Where is the sword?
The voice, as hard and cold as black obsidian, became the darkness. The darkness became the voice. Hauk did not know whether he saw the dwarf with his eyes or felt him, like a shape-shifting nightmare, in his mind.
Where is the sword?
Hauk answered carefully. The dwarf could see into his mind. Or he stood inside his mind. “I don’t—I don’t know.”
The questioning had become like a defensive sword fight. Parry and deflect, retreat, then parry again. Like a fighter whose back is to a cliff’s drop, Hauk knew that he could not retreat much longer. His answer was true. He didn’t know where the sword was now.
Who has the sword?
“I don’t know.” I don’t, he told himself. I don’t know her name. He cached the picture of the red-haired barmaid behind the wall of his will. It’s mine, he told himself over and over again. I own this memory. I own it! He buried it deep and far, as a miser does who hides a treasure of immeasurable worth.