Heart of the Exiled (21 page)

Some of the fleececod bushes were bare. Quite a few were, she realized, glancing over the patch. Fleececod
did not normally drop its old cods until the new buds of spring pushed them away.

Shalár frowned. Kobalen did not make cloth; they would have no use for fleececod. Mayhap they had discovered it could stanch a wound.

“Yaras.”

He joined her, and she pointed toward the bushes. “Have you ever known kobalen to harvest fleececod?”

“No, Bright Lady.”

“Can you think of why Irith or Ciris might have done it? I assume you did not.”

Yaras frowned, then shook his head. “We would have no reason.”

Shalár took hold of a bare stem and closed her eyes, exploring the fleececod’s khi, searching for a hint of the harvester. Something whispered of an awareness greater than the plant’s, but beyond that she could detect nothing.

Kobalen would not have picked fleececod. Her watchers had no reason to do so. Who, then?

She shook her head. She had no leisure for such puzzles.

“Onward.”

Yaras nodded and strode forward, the army following. Shalár gazed at the bushes as she walked after him. Finding one that had not been picked, she snapped the dry stem of a cod and cupped the white, fibrous bloom in her hand as she walked on. A question with no answer, an ideal focus for meditation.

Shalár heard the footfalls of a hunter running toward her, light sounds scarcely different from the patter of falling leaves. She frowned and glanced up at the setting moon, clearly visible through barren branches
as it sank toward a gray wall of cloud in the west. She and her army were in a greenleaf wood, climbing the flank of the Great Sleeper toward evergreens that would shade them for the morrow. It was too soon for the army to seek shelter, though. Yaras must know that.

“Why do you return now?”

She pushed her way through a stand of scrub oak even as he appeared out of the brush before her. Her temper was short owing to the hunger that had begun to grip her. Yaras seemed not to notice, for he dipped a bow and grinned.

“I have found something. Halt the pack.”

Shalár glared at him, angered by his presumption. It was she who commanded here, not he. She felt an urge to strike him but mastered it. That was the hunger, and she would not let it rule her.

She closed her eyes to signal the army, the expense of khi making her gut clench with sudden need. They halted.

She glared at Yaras once more. He had his head up, listening and scenting. After a moment he looked at Shalár and smiled.

“They are still asleep. Kobalen. A small band, no more than thirty.”

Shalár could have wept with relief. Hunger roared in her ears at the thought of food so near. She should have sensed them, but she was tired—so tired.

“Where?”

Yaras nodded toward the slope behind him. “Half a league to the east. Camped in a hollow by a spring. Five hunters should be enough to capture them.”

“Take ten.”

She would take no risk of losing this catch, for there might not be another before they reached Fireshore.
She ought to lead the hunt herself, but she was weary and weak from hunger. Yaras was not so afflicted yet, though she could sense his need. He had done right to come back, and she knew it must have cost him an effort to refrain from feeding at once.

She closed her eyes again to summon the army to her. She had been walking ahead of them, and now they came up quietly, gathering in a clearing carpeted with fallen leaves. Some sat down at once, and a few sprawled on the ground.

Shalár nodded to Yaras to choose his hunters. He quickly picked ten of those who seemed least weary and led them eastward up the slope, shadows fading into the scrub beneath the trees.

Shalár sat on a rock to await their return, sighing as she looked up at the sullen moon now half-hidden by cloud. Her face tingled slightly from its reflected light, a sign of her weakened state.

As she gazed westward, a dim glow of light seemed to shine through the brush beneath the trees. It was not moonlight, more like the flickering of a campfire, for it moved, glimmering, now shining out between branches, now fading almost to nothing. Shalár frowned as she watched it, the hair on her neck rising as she realized it was approaching.

Torchlight? Someone coming to the army? But her own hunters would not have made a light, and they were all here save those Yaras had taken to hunt. There were none of her people living this far from Nightsand. Kobalen could command fire, but they would never approach the army. That left ælven, though she doubted they would come near her hunters, either, even if they had dared to venture this far into the Westerlands.

She swallowed, wondering whether to call out a challenge. Glancing around the clearing, she saw that none of the army had taken notice of the light. With growing unease, she looked back at it.

It was closer. Not torchlight, too white for fire. It shimmered now, growing brighter as it came nearer. Shalár shifted, reaching for the knife at her hip, its solid hilt a comfort.

The light was moving along the ground, approaching as if cast by lantern or torch. At first she had thought it was dancing, but now it merely shifted from side to side, as if someone was walking through the wood, stepping around obstacles, between trees. Shalár glanced up toward the moon, but it was gone now, sunk behind the clouds, the only hint of its presence the outline of golden fire it cast around the edges of the cloud.

Cautiously, she reached out to taste the khi of the intruder. The moment she opened herself to it, she gasped at its brilliance and quickly pulled back, squeezing her eyes shut and closing all her senses.

Whatever cast that light was powerful, both strange and familiar. She tasted fear, tried to breathe more steadily, tried to calm her thundering heart.

After a moment she dared to look again and saw the glowing figure, now much closer. The army gave no sign of having noticed.

Her fingers gripped the knife hilt convulsively, though she knew now the weapon was useless. Warily she watched the silvery light take shape as the walker emerged from the woods. Tall, male, robed in white and carrying something—a child? Suddenly she knew him, and her heart clenched with cold fear as she whispered his name.

“Dareth?”

But it could not be he. Dareth was gone, crossed into spirit many days since.

Crossed into spirit. Shalár began to tremble.

He stopped at the edge of the clearing, no more than a rod away from her. It was Dareth, looking strong as he had not looked for centuries, looking as he had in Fireshore, before the hunger. His long, pale hair was loose over the shoulders of his robe, falling down to the middle of his back, waking a longing in Shalár to run her fingers through its silkiness. He stood silently gazing at her, eyes rich with love tinged with sorrow.

“What do you want?”

Dareth bent to set the child he carried on its feet. Shalár could not see its face, for it glowed with a light even brighter than that surrounding Dareth. He held its hands to steady it for a moment, then released them.

The child sped away at once, toward Shalár. Without thought she opened her arms, but the child spirit passed her by, so swiftly its brilliance sent a wave of tingling heat through her. There was no sound in its passing. She turned her head, but it had vanished.

A few of the army were watching her, mildly curious. They saw nothing of Dareth or the child, she knew. Swallowing, she looked back at Dareth.

“What does this mean?”

He merely gazed at her, softly smiling, giving her sympathy but no answers. Was this the spirit of the child they had tried and failed to conceive together? Or a child she might yet bear? Heartache smote her at the thought. Should she have said something, offered something?

She stood up and had to pause for a moment to steady herself. All the discomforts of her flesh returned to her attention: weariness, sore muscles, aching feet,
weakness, and hunger. She turned resentful eyes toward Dareth.

What good was such a vision if it offered no comfort? Dareth had left her, chosen to leave his suffering flesh. He had abandoned the struggle to regain what they had lost, leaving her to fight on alone. Why did he now taunt her?

She took a step toward him, feeling her anger flare. As if her movement had disrupted his khi, the light around him rippled, distorting her perception of him, like a reflection on the surface of troubled water. She stopped, suddenly afraid of his departure. He was lost to her, yet she saw him now and wanted to see him still, wanted to gaze at him forever.

The ripples continued, waves of shadow damping the light, which grew dimmer moment by moment. He was leaving.

“Stay. Please stay.”

He reached a hand toward her, his face now sad. Shalár gave a small gasp and stepped forward, reaching out to touch him. The light faded as her hand passed through the air where he had been.

Slowly she moved to the spot where he had stood. With an effort she opened her awareness once more, seeking for a whisper of him on the wind. There was nothing but darkness and the hollow rustle of dry leaves.

Her face was wet, she noticed. Wet with tears. She had not allowed herself that weakness in a very long time.

She stood a long while gazing into the empty wood, seeing Dareth in her mind’s eye, trying to remember every subtle shift of his expression.

Why a child? Why here, now? She thought it through again and again but could find no answer.

“Bright Lady?”

She turned, surprised at the stiffness in her legs. One of the army, a female with a tattered armband over her leathers, a token of affection from some loved one, made a slight, hesitant bow.

“Your pardon, Bright Lady. The hunters have returned.”

Shalár looked past her, startled. It did not seem long enough, yet there they were, Yaras and the others, herding a small band of subdued kobalen into the clearing. Shalár smelled the creatures’ pungent scent, tasted their fear on the air. Her hunger woke anew, hot and angry.

Yaras glanced up and saw her. His face was pinched now, exertion and hunger sharpening his features. He nodded in greeting and glanced at the catch.

“One to every twelve hunters, by my reckoning. I wish there were more. We took them all; none escaped.”

“You did well. Summon your captains.”

Shalár laid a hand on his shoulder, a gesture meant to convey her approval. The shock of touching solid flesh surprised her. She gave herself a shake to dispel it.

“This one was too small to feed twelve.” Yaras gestured toward a tiny kobalen sitting on the ground nearby. “I set it aside for you, Bright Lady.”

A small, coarse face turned toward her, round eyes wide with fear and red-rimmed in contrast to the black fur. The kobalen was young, no more than a handful of years, though a child of Shalár’s people would not grow so large in twenty. Kobalen matured swiftly in their short lives. This one was yet a child.

A child. Shalár frowned.

Dareth could not have meant this creature. The
child with him had shone with a light fiercer than his own—it must then have been something even mightier, not so feeble a thing as kobalen. She saw again the child running free, a flash of brilliance that burned her soul as it passed.

What if she set this child free? What if she chose to be merciful—that ælven ambition—and spare this small life?

The kobalen would die alone, then, of starvation most likely. Or if it had the good fortune to encounter another band of its kind, it would become a slave to them. It would warn them, also, of her army’s presence.

“We are ready, Bright Lady.”

She turned to look at Yaras, saw the captains beyond him waiting sharp-eyed with hunger. Yaras held a knife in his hand, which he offered to her. She shook her head, gesturing to him to begin sharing out the catch. He turned to the clustered kobalen and selected a large male.

Shalár went to the kobalen child, ignoring the frightened sounds behind her. The child stared at her warily and moved to scramble away, but she caught its mind and stilled it, holding it gently with khi.

There are other kinds of mercy. This creature shall not suffer.

She spent a little more khi to cloud the kobalen’s mind, to blind it to the blade she raised to its throat, to numb the slight pain as she opened its vein. Gathering the small body to her, she fed gently, sending the creature into a dreamless sleep where no fear would ever trouble it again.