The Betrayal (9 page)

Turisan gazed across at the falls again. “That path is still in use?”

Eliani made a sound of derision. “Mostly by very young lovers in search of a trysting place who do not care how wet they become.”

She turned her mount away and started up the trail. The two Stonereach males exchanged a glance, and Gharinan favored Turisan with a smiling shrug.

They fell into line again, following Eliani westward along the canyon's rim. Numerous small streams crossed the path, seeking their way down to join the river. Some steamed and left sulfurous deposits in their beds.

“You have hot springs.”

“Yes.” Gharinan glanced back at Turisan with a smile. “This runs from the largest of them. The
Guardian's Reward we call it, for it is customary to rest there after a tour on patrol. You might enjoy visiting it when we return.”

They rode on for a league or more, then Eliani led them down a trail that branched southwestward and widened, losing its definition as the dense forest opened out. Greenleaf trees of a variety unfamiliar to Turisan began to appear among the dark blue-green pines. They were slender, white-barked and decked in round gold leaves that fluttered in the slightest breeze. Soon the party was surrounded only by the golden-white trees, restless leaves ever moving, whispering together like raindrops, making the air seem to shimmer. A steady, gentle fall of dry leaves added to the flickering of the light.

Turisan gazed up at the golden boughs, enchanted. “What trees are these?”

Luruthin answered. “We call them firespear, for they thrive where older forests have burned. They are common enough, though they will not grow in the lower regions. Do you not have them in the south?”

Turisan shook his head, gazing up at the white branches, watching the small rounded leaves tremble and dance. “I have never seen them before, there or anywhere. They should grow in Eastfæld with these colors.”

“Not high enough.”

He glanced at Eliani, then gazed upward at the canopy of golden leaves, inhaled their dry woody scent, and smiled. This was the sort of place he craved, blue sky crowning the glory of the gold-white trees, without a made thing in sight save what the ælven carried with them. Still smiling, he looked at the others and found Eliani watching him.

“You have come at the right season. They are merely
green for most of the year, and in another tenday they will be bare. Since they please you, let us take our meal here.”

Lord Felisan's kitchen had packed cold meat, fresh cheese, bread, fruit, and nuts for them, with flasks of wine that they drained and refilled with clear water from a nearby stream. Turisan stretched out on the leaf-strewn ground and listened to the Stonereaches discussing their Guard, learning more about Alpinon from their conversation than any dry history might teach him.

On his first evening he had tended to confuse the two theyns, both of whom had classic Stonereach looks, with green eyes and hair of reddish brown that they wore braided back in hunter fashion. He now knew that Gharinan had sharper features than Luruthin, who laughed more readily than his elder. Both were friendly, Gharinan somewhat more so than Luruthin. Eliani, though courteous, remained aloof.

Turisan watched her cut slices of apple with her knife and take them daintily off the blade with small white teeth. She was pretty, he supposed. Rather wild in her leathers and windblown hair always falling across her green eyes.

He rolled onto his back and gazed up through the sea of golden leaves at the brilliant blue sky. If only he could dwell in such places all the time. At ease, he allowed the firespear wood's khi to flow through him, drinking in the sensations of life beyond the bright signs of the Stonereaches and the less cognizant ones of the horses. The firespears were all connected, he sensed, sharing khi and even roots. They were almost one tree instead of many, and there was a spark of something unusual in their khi.

Lying lazily there, he became aware of a darkness rippling through the forest's khi. He frowned, opening
his eyes just as a streak of black whipped through the shimmering leaves overhead.

He was on his feet and running even as he realized what it had been—a dart of the kind thrown by kobalen raiders. The heaviness he had sensed was the kobalen's khi. He should have recognized it, but it had been some years since his last encounter with kobalen.

He vaulted onto his startled horse and urged it to turn as he freed bow and quiver, slinging the latter over his shoulder. The Stonereaches were with him, thundering down the slope, leaving the remnants of their meal scattered on the forest floor.

Turisan glanced at Eliani and saw her eyes flash back at him—not angrily but lit with the fire of the hunt—and he felt a thrill of delight as they pressed forward. Ahead, shadows moved, lumbering clumsily, noisily through the wood. They were swift but no match for the horses, and soon their number could be discerned: six kobalen on foot, crashing downhill southward and westward.

The two Stonereach males veered off to the right, leaving Turisan and Eliani to strike from the left. Turisan nocked an arrow and let it fly, missing his aim by a hairbreadth. Eliani's found its mark, and a grunting cry signaled first blood.

Bowstrings thrummed as all four ælven struck and struck again, circling their horses around the kobalen, who snarled and swore but could not save themselves. The few darts they let fly were easily avoided. It was over in moments, the raiders a huddled heap pierced with many shafts.

“Hold!”

They all halted at Eliani's cry, horses stamping until soothed back to calmness. She dismounted and approached the kobalen. The others followed.

Breathing hard, Eliani turned a scowling face toward
Gharinan. “What are these vermin doing in the South Wood?”

He frowned, matching her disgust as he gazed at the kobalen. “I know not, my lady, but they are done.”

Luruthin nudged a kobalen with his foot. “This one lives yet.”

The creature bled sluggishly from its wounds, dark liquid oozing into its fine black fur. Eliani stood over it and addressed it in its own tongue, a guttural language of coarse inflection. She must have learned it on patrol; what little of it Turisan knew he had acquired during his service in Southfæld's Guard.

“What brings you so far from your sandpits, rogue?”

The kobalen made no answer. Eliani touched the flights of an arrow lodged in its shoulder. It snarled but said nothing.

“There is no plunder within leagues of here. Why came you hither?”

Turisan saw its arm begin to move and loosed an arrow to pin the wrist. A knife dropped from the gnarled fingers, its blade of ebonglass, the black volcanic glass that kobalen shaped into weapons.

Belated dread washed through him as he realized how close Eliani had been to danger. She glanced at him, then picked up the knife and examined it, its evil edge glinting in the sunlight. She turned back to the kobalen.

“Tell me where you came from and why and I will end it. A clean death.”

Turisan, watching closely, thought he saw a change in the kobalen's eyes. Hope seemed to lighten them, but an instant later fear chased it out.

“My lady, I think you should see this.”

Eliani straightened and went to Gharinan, who had
begun collecting their arrows and searching the dead kobalen. Turisan hung back, keeping an eye on the survivor.

He watched Eliani join Gharinan beside the body of a kobalen. The theyn pointed toward its head, and Eliani crouched to peer more closely at it.

“By the spirits!”

She glanced up at her nextkin, then with the ebon-glass knife sliced the ear from the dead creature's head in one swift motion. Standing, she carried it to Turisan and held it out for him to see.

Amid the black fur he saw a glint of gold. He took the severed ear, careful to avoid dripping blood on himself, and peered at the small hoop of metal that pierced it.

“No kobalen made this.”

He glanced up, and his gaze met Eliani's. She nodded, then looked over her shoulder.

“Gharinan, do any of the others wear these rings?”

“I have seen no others.”

“Search them all.”

Turisan stared at the earring. It was finely wrought, adorned with elaborate coiling scrollwork. Even had it been plain, it could not have been made by kobalen, for they had no skill with metals.

Suddenly a pattern of seeming leaves wrought into the gold resolved into something else. Turisan's heart went cold.

“This is script.”

He turned the ear over to confirm his impression, then held it toward Eliani. She took it back and squinted at the ring.

“ ‘Preserve.’” She looked up at him, her face gone pale. “Do you know of any reason an ælven would mark a kobalen thus?”

Turisan shook his head. She had reached the same conclusion, then. If no ælven had made it, only one other race had the skill.

“Alben.”

A chill coursed through Turisan at the whispered word. He glanced up, opening to the khi of the wood. Reaching through the vast web of firespear, he extended his awareness past the chaos of the nearby slaughter from which all the woodland creatures had fled, past the edge of the grove, into the pines well beyond. Something dark lingered yet, but it was distant and he could not place it. More kobalen, perhaps. No doubt they already were fleeing westward.

Luruthin hurried to Eliani, bow still in hand. “There is nothing else. They have food and water but no plunder.”

Gharinan joined them. “And no others are marked.”

Turisan looked at the handful of dark bodies. “They are too few for a raid. This was a scout.”

Eliani took a small leather pouch from her belt and emptied it of a spare bowstring, then put the ear into it. “They have never come this close to Highstone before. They must have crossed at Midrange and come up through the South Wood.” She turned to face Turisan. “I fear I must cut short our excursion. My father should know of this at once.”

“Of course.”

“And we had best offer atonement.”

Eliani grimaced with the words, and Turisan sympathized. It was part of the paradox of living in the flesh-bound world that the ælven creed sometimes was difficult to keep.

Slaying kobalen was part of a guardian's duty, but because doing harm was against the creed, they must ask forgiveness from the ældar who watched over the creatures, no matter how much harm the kobalen
themselves had wrought. Their ældar must be honored, even as the hunter thanked the ældar of his prey, the farmer the ældar who watched over his crops.

Luruthin and Gharinan began to gather fallen wood and pile the kobalen bodies atop it in a clear space. Eliani joined them, and Turisan returned to where the surviving kobalen lay.

It breathed shallowly, close to death. Turisan leaned over it. “Why does your friend wear a ring in his ear?”

The kobalen gazed at him, eyes already seeming dull. At first he thought it had not understood, but then it drew a deep breath and spat at him.

Turisan dodged. Furious, he drew his belt knife and made one swift slash across the creature's throat. It gurgled, eyes wide with alarm, then was still.

Turisan stood and wiped his knife blade, regretting his angry impulse. It was possible he might have coaxed more information from the kobalen, but he had little patience with the creatures. No use bemoaning his action, for it was dead now. He picked it up and carried it to the pyre.

The others had gathered the rest of the kobalen. The four of them stood around the pyre, and Eliani spread her hands toward it.

“Ældar guardian of these creatures, we pray you pardon the destruction of their lives and the waste of their flesh. We honor their spirit and commit their bodies to flame.”

Turisan added his silent atonement. He spread his hands, as did the others, and closed his eyes in concentration. Narrowing the focus of his khi into his palms, he sent it forth into the dry wood beneath the kobalen and placed a spark there, willing it to set the wood alight, pouring his energy into the creation of fire. He could feel the others doing the same, and soon the pyre was aflame.

Opening his eyes, he stepped back, away from the stink of burning kobalen flesh. Eliani turned from the fire, pausing as she met Turisan's gaze. She had shown no fear during the encounter, only the skill and quick response of a seasoned guardian. She had been magnificent, in fact, and he wished to compliment her, but a hardness in her eyes stayed him. She was on guard still, though against what he could not say. She dropped her gaze as she turned toward the horses.

“Let us hasten to Highstone.”

Lord Felisan received the news of the kobalen intrusion with a sternness that surprised Turisan, who had formed the impression that Alpinon's governor was perpetually merry. There was nothing soft in Felisan's response, however. He ordered an immediate doubling of patrols in the South Wood.

“I will dispatch my letter to your father this day, Turisan, unless you wish to carry word to him yourself.”

Turisan glanced from Felisan to Eliani, who was staring down at the kobalen's ear that lay on the table between them. He might be forgiven for returning at once to Glenhallow.