DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (223 page)

She heard the commotion behind her, the screams.

Pony blanked it out, couldn't bear it at that time. She felt unclean and tainted. She moved lower on the roof and vomited until her sides ached.

They watched him climb the stony cliff with some amusement, but also with a fair amount of pride, for Elbryan moved with a grace and agility beyond that of most humans, especially one his size. For the Touel'alfar, those movements, so natural and animallike, served as a testament to their training and their way of life. To their thinking, Nightbird's achievements were their achievements; but by their estimation, he still could not match the agility of even the most clumsy elf.

Far down below, across the rocky remnants of an old riverbed and under the canopy of a large cluster of pines, Bradwarden, Roger, and the monks busied themselves setting up camp. The two elves had watched them start unseen and unnoticed, as they had been for almost all this journey, and then they had followed Nightbird so inconspicuously that even the elven-trained ranger had taken no note of them

The ranger inched his hand above him, fingers walking up the stone, seeking a crack. He closed his eyes, focusing on his sense of touch, letting his fingertips "see" for him. He found, so high above him that he had to rise on tiptoe, a crack barely deep enough to admit his fingertips and only wide enough for one hand. The ranger fell into a state of absolute calm, allowing the muscles in his hand to go rigid. He inched up, up, barely noting the move, deep in thought, all his willpower focused squarely on that hand.

His shoulder at last rose higher than his elbow. He inched his other hand up, walking it up the stone, hunting the next hold. This time he found a deeper crack, and he managed to wedge his fingers in, then swing one foot out and placed his toes in the crack. The next move was easy: the muscles of his arm and leg worked to bring him closer, then angle him upward. The next hold was in a wider gap, and from there, the ranger found a grip for both hands above him, a narrow ledge, a place to rest.

Elbryan pulled himself up —and he nearly toppled in surprise, for there, waiting for him, sat Ni'estiel, a pipe in his mouth, blowing smoke rings into the air.

"Too slow," the elf criticized.

The ranger pulled himself over into a sitting position and took a welcome deep breath. "I would have come up faster if I, too, wore a pair of wings," he replied dryly.

"Faster still if you were not trapped in so large and unwieldy a body," Ni'estiel said. "And why have you decided to make so arduous a climb with the sun already low in the western sky? The season's cold will be unforgiving so high up after the sun is gone. How well will your fat human fingers grasp a ledge of icy-cold stone? "

"I wanted a look ahead," the ranger explained. "Roger found some goblin sign, a small lean-to."

"You could have simply asked," answered Tiel'marawee, fluttering up to land beside her kin.

"Asked? I did not know if the Touel'alfar had come along for the journey," the ranger admitted. "Nor did you seem eager to help me, whatever course lay before me."

The elves glanced at each other, Ni'estiel shook his head, and then they turned back to face the ranger, neither of them looking particularly pleased.

"What have I done?" Elbryan asked bluntly. "Surely your attitude toward me has not been that of friend to friend, and yet I cannot understand what has so changed our friendship."

"Friendship?" Tiel'marawee echoed skeptically. "I spoke to you not at all during your years in Andur'Blough Inninness, Nightbird. Why would you assume that we two are, or ever were, friends?"

The words stung the ranger, and he had to admit their truth. "But I am elf-friend," he reasoned. "Is not a friend of Lady Dasslerond a friend to all the Touel'alfar?"

"It is a friendship that you have strained," Ni'estiel said plainly.

"What have I done?" the ranger replied, his voice rising. "When Belli'mar Juraviel left —"

"You taught her," Ni'estiel said.

"Taught?" Elbryan echoed, caught by surprise, but as soon as he paused to consider the word, he understood.

"Bi'nelle dasada
was our gift to you," Tiel'marawee explained. "It was not yours to offer another."

"Juraviel and I already had this conversation," the ranger tried to explain.

"Belli'mar Juraviel's word on this is far from final," Ni'estiel retorted. "Lady Dasslerond will decide if you are to be punished for your foolish action. But understand this, Nightbird: even if the lady chooses to ignore your error, we of the Touel'alfar know what you did and are not pleased."

"Not at all," Tiel'marawee added.

"Pony is of my own heart and soul," Elbryan answered. "Even Belli'mar was amazed when he saw the harmony of our dance. And am I
n'Touel'alfar
or of the people? Which is it, I ask, because surely, for all the words of friendship and kinship —"

"And how many years has Jilseponie spent in Andur'Blough Inninness?" Ni'estiel interrupted sarcastically. "How many hours speaking wisdom with one of the Touel'alfar, learning the emotional strength to go with the formidable weapon of
bi'nelle dasada?"

"Our dance —" the ranger began.

"Is a matter of the physical," Ni'estiel cut him short. "But the truth of
bi'nelle dasada
transcends the physical and goes to the spiritual. Any person might learn the physical movements, but what a dangerous and terrible thing
bi'nelle dasada
would become if it were merely that."

"The warrior is a blend of heart and body," Tiel'marawee added. "It is the injection of the soul into the movements of the body that brings heart and compassion, that tells when the blade should be used in addition to how to use it."

"And this is what you have violated, Nightbird," Ni'estiel went on. "So you have taught the woman, and who will she choose to teach? And they, in turn, will pass it along to others; and what is left, then, of our gift?"

Elbryan was shaking his head, for he knew Pony better than that, knew she would keep the secret between them; he knew her heart, and knew, beyond the comprehension of his elven detractors, that there was no one else with whom she, or he, could possibly share so intimate an experience. But the ranger didn't voice those thoughts, and understood the fears of his elven friends. Despite the differences in size and strength —in fact, partly because of those differences—the average elf could easily defeat even skilled human soldiers in combat.
Bi'nelle dasada
was their edge, a fighting style that the slashing styles of heavier humans could not match.

Despite his empathy, the ranger felt he had not violated the elven trust, that Pony was an extension of his very soul and that she was every bit as worthy as he to know the dance.

"Lady Dasslerond will go to her," he reasoned.

"Lady Dasslerond, and Belli'mar Juraviel and many others, are already in Palmaris," Ni'estiel admitted.

For a moment, the ranger feared that Dasslerond and the others might harm Pony to protect their secret, but that dark thought passed. The elves could be dangerous; their way of looking at the world and concepts of good and evil were very different from the ways of humans. But they would not harm Pony.

"I apologize to you for my transgression," Elbryan said. "No, I apologize for the discomfort my choice has brought to you. But I assure you that once Lady Dasslerond has had the opportunity to meet and know Pony, and once she has witnessed the beauty of Pony's sword dance —a beauty of the spirit as well as the body—she will understand and will be at peace."

By their expressions, the ranger could see that his words satisfied the two elves —as much as they could be satisfied now.

"Lady Dasslerond did not go to Palmaris to measure your lover's ability in the sword dance," Ni'estiel said, and he looked at his elven companion as if seeking approval, something the ranger did not miss. He stared at Ni'estiel hard, prompting the elf to continue.

"She went to see Jilseponie, the lover of Nightbird, soon to be the mother of Nightbird's child," Ni'estiel remarked.

"Pony and I have decided that we will not bear any chil —" the ranger started to reply.

The slightest breeze could have blown Elbryan from the ledge at that awful and wonderful moment, the most confusing and dizzying array of feelings washing over him.

"How do you know this?" Elbryan asked breathlessly.

"Belli'mar Juraviel knew. He told us on the road in the southland, when he came upon our band as we shadowed Roger Lockless and the five monks," Tiel'marawee admitted. "Thus did Lady Dasslerond decide to go south, with the majority of our kin, while we two alone continued north."

Elbryan could hardly breathe. It all made perfect sense to him, seemed to explain so many things, such as the absence of warning and aid from the elves during the goblin attack, and yet it made no sense at all. How could Juraviel have known that Pony was pregnant? The elf had been with Elbryan since Pony had gone to Palmaris.

And then the awful truth hit Elbryan. Pony had known. And she had left him. She had run to Palmaris out of fear that continuing north might cause injury to the unborn baby. And she had not told him!

"You judge her, ranger," Ni'estiel observed.

Elbryan turned a blank stare over him.

"And yet you do not know the truth," Ni'estiel went on.

"How did Juraviel know?" the ranger asked. "Did Pony tell him? And if she did, then why did she not tell me?"

"You know only what your fears tell you," Tiel'marawee added. "You are thinking the worst, and yet should you not be full of joy?"

Elbryan held up his hands helplessly, for he did not know what to think or to feel. "I have to go to her," he said.

"Spoken like a human," Ni'estiel remarked dryly.

"Perhaps, if your assumptions are correct, you have just answered the question," Tiel'marawee added. "Abandon all and rush to her side, but you will do no practical good there."

"You doubt that I should be with Pony at this time?"

"If the situation allowed for it, then of course you should," Ni'estiel replied sternly. "But that is a matter of the joy you deserve, and not of any practical purpose. Pragmatism demands that you finish your task here, and then go to your lover."

"Now go back down and take your sleep," Tiel'marawee said to him. "We shall scout the road ahead and speak with you in the morning."

The ranger nodded, and gradually, as he dismissed the negative assumptions and began basking in the reality of the situation, a smile widened across his handsome face. Surely he wanted Pony to have his child —a hundred children! Surely this was a blessed thing, the result of a true union of love.

"The bottom of the sun finds the horizon," Ni'estiel warned.

Elbryan's smile faded when he looked down at the formidable descent. "A long climb," he said with a groan, stretching his tired muscles.

"Did you not just insist that you were not
n'Touel'alfar?"
Tiel'marawee said to him in a lighter, teasing tone. "Flap your wings, then, elf."

With a groan, the ranger began to climb down.

Ni'estiel and Tiel'marawee, true to their word, set out immediately to the north. They found the lean-to Roger had discovered and more goblin signs beyond that, including a camp only recently abandoned. They weren't particularly surprised, or alarmed, by the discoveries, since they were far into the Wilderlands and definitely in goblin-infested territory. To find no goblin sign would have been more surprising, and more alarmed would they have been had any of their findings indicated that powries, a far more cunning foe, were in the area. That wasn't the case, the two elves were fairly certain, for powries built different and stronger structures, even for temporary camps, than goblins.

"Only goblins," Ni'estiel said to Tiel'marawee as Sheila began her ascent over the eastern horizon, lighting the encampment enough for Ni'estiel to point out one particularly rickety structure. Now all they had to do was find the somewhat dim-witted creatures, and instruct Nightbird and his friends on how they might simply avoid them.

Another set of eyes also viewed that structure. The eyes of a cat, scanning the dark forest as clearly as a man might see it in the light of day. Keen eyes saw the elves, keen ears heard their words, and a keen nose smelled the blood within their tiny and tender bodies.

The tiger De'Unnero crept closer. He was not knowledgeable of the Touel'alfar, but he knew these two for what they were, and by what he had overheard he knew they were friends of Nightbird. And De'Unnero did know the legends of the elves, mostly that they were powerful and deceptive enemies.

Better to deal with them efficiently, he decided; better to take the ring of defense away from his primary prey.

The tiger came a stride closer on quiet, padded feet.

Ni'estiel froze, as did Tiel'marawee; the elves, attuned to their environment, sensed his presence, the sudden hush that preceded the charge of the predator.

Out came slender swords, and on came De'Unnero, a great pounce that sent him flying to land on Ni'estiel.