A Darkness Forged in Fire

FIFTY-TWO

Stay close, Ally; same goes for the rest of you," Yimt said. He jogged toward the gap in the trees.

"Sweet knobby-kneed nuns!" he shouted, turning and running back toward them. He grabbed Alwyn by the cross-belts and heaved him to the side as muraphants burst through the gap in the trees and into the open.

Alwyn got up spitting dirt and cautiously peered into the gap. The elves of the Long Watch slipped through with ease, their bows humming as arrows streaked across the field.

"Okay, let's try that again," Yimt said, his voice a little quieter than normal. He led them through the wreckage of the sarka har and onto the battlefield. Alwyn gasped as he stepped through the trees, both at the cold and at what he saw. Of all the nightmares he had had or would ever have, nothing would match this.

Bodies, of all kinds, littered the ground. Bara jogg of immense size heaved themselves over the earth, consuming anything that lay in their path. Shadows flitted in and out of sight, blazing swords of ugly black flame spraying hoar frost with every thrust and parry. A branch on one of the sarka har stabbed down at Alwyn, its razor-edged leaves slashing the arm of his jacket, but not the flesh beneath.

"You must be alert to the dangers around you," Chayii said, suddenly appearing at his elbow. She held a long, thin sword in her hand and used it to cut the branch off with a quick flick of her wrist. Black ichor sprayed from the tree's wound, and a scream sounded somewhere in Alwyn's head. He looked down at the gleaming wooden sword, still amazed that something made of wood could be so sharp. The weapon glowed warmly, its surface polished smoother than marble, the deep browns of the grain pulsing with energy.

Something distant tugged at Alwyn's consciousness and made him turn. It was as if the world had suddenly been connected, each thing, each emotion, a tiny piece of an immense puzzle, and all connected to one another. There were no words, but he understood the threat.

Fifty yards away, one of the black elves stared at Chayii. It obviously sensed the power in the weapon and knew it for what it was. It hissed Hynta-reig, and Alwyn knew, in the way he had known back in the forest, that the words meant the elves of the deep forest, the abandoners. He felt the long-borne hatred that coursed through the elf as it pulled back the string on its bow. So great was its fury that it failed to see Yimt aiming his shatterbow at it.

The shatterbow fired first. The elf was taken in the chest by two black arrows of its own making. The fingers holding the string went slack, loosing the arrow even as the elf fell lifeless to the ground.

Alwyn reached out for Miss Red Owl and pushed her forward, stumbling after her. The black arrow tore through the leather cartridge pouch on his hip, the cloth of his caerna, and finally the flesh beneath. He felt his thigh bone break as he hit the ground, a scream blown from his lungs.

"Ally's hit!" Boots thudded on the ground, hands grabbed him and rolled him over. He was aware of slashes of light and crushing darkness. Elvish words drifted through to him and he latched on to them, understanding they were a lifeline. The sound of his blood pumping roared in his ears. The pain in his leg dug a little deeper each time. A voice whispered in his head, calling him, seeking control.

"I'm sorry, Yimt, I'm so sorry," he said, not knowing why. The pain and the cold were consuming him. He looked down at his left leg, at the black arrow stuck there, high above the knee, its steel-leaf fletching already growing as the shaft pulsed with his blood. A tourniquet was cinched tight around his upper thigh, but he could feel the cold trying to seep beyond it and into the rest of his body.

"Nothing to apologize for, lad," Yimt said, leaning over him, the end of his beard just inches from Alwyn's face. The dwarf turned and looked at someone nearby. "Do your magic! Get that thing out of him! You did it before!"

Chayii came into view, shaking her head. "It has already taken root, and he is still weak from the last one. To try to reverse it now would put too much strain on him. I fear he would not survive."

Yimt's face turned bright red. "This ain't no time to be worrying about trees over people! I put two of them black arrows into that korwird and you countered them; this is only one."

Chayii turned her head quickly toward Yimt, anger bright on her face. "Would you have us shoot him with an arrow in the other leg? No, master dwarf, the arrow is now part of him. This is no choice I make, it is as it is. The korwird was dead when we culled the sarka har. To cull this one would be to cull Alwyn as well, sending him to a fate worse than death."

"Then I'll take care of it," Yimt said, reaching out to grab the arrow. "Scolly, Teeter, hold him down. Inkermon, you believe in that creator of yours so much, I want a prayer, and a damn good one." He paused, thinking for a moment, then looked back at Alwyn. "Ally, lad, this might hurt a bit, so try not to scream too much."

Alwyn tried to protest, but his throat was locked, his mouth clenched against the pain. He closed his eyes and prayed for unconsciousness. It eluded him. The irony of it brought tears to his eyes and he started to laugh.

"No!" Chayii said. "To rip it out would kill him. The sapling and his leg are one. There is no way to separate them. We must end his misery before he is beyond us."

Alwyn opened his eyes. Everything was growing distant as the cold infused him. He managed to utter two words. "Do it."

Yimt looked at him with genuine shock.

He turned to Chayii, who nodded. "It is the only way," she said. Alwyn noticed that she still held her sword in her hand.

Alwyn turned his head away as hands gently held his arms and legs. He heard Yimt gasp, and looked back. The dwarf was shaking his head in disbelief.

"No. There is another way," Meri said, holding out a shadowy hand.

Konowa bared his teeth and smiled at death as the arrows struck, their dark runes that branded their shafts guiding them unerringly for the heart. He expected excruciating pain, agony, but after the sound of the arrows piercing flesh he felt only a cold dread as the horror of what happened hit him.

They hadn't aimed at him.

"M-major…"

There was a sigh, and an animal scream, and the sound of two bodies falling to the ground. A temporary gap in the square revealed the terrible truth. Lorian and Zwindarra sprawled on the ground, the black shaft of an arrow protruding from each chest. He heard a bowstring pulling taut and turned back to see the elf nearest him taking aim again, and this time it was at him.

A dark blur pounced on the elf even as it released the string. The arrow leaped from the bow as Jir's teeth sank into the elf's neck, snapping its spine. Time seemed to slow for Konowa. He heard the high-pitched twang of the bowstring and a strange after-echo, the sharp cracking of teeth on bone, saw the arrow rotating on its axis as it sped toward him. The acorn against his chest thrummed with energy, but there was nothing he could do with it except watch his own destruction.

The Star. All this death and waste for an idea. Even now, it compelled man and beast to horrible acts.

The arrowhead had reached the edge of his jacket just above the acorn, the very tip of its sharpened point penetrating the cloth, when a second arrow hit it obliquely at the same point, shattering the two shafts and sending the splinters flying off to the side, leaving Konowa unscathed. He blinked and looked down at his chest, expecting to see an arrow there.

He looked up, turning to the right. A leafy bush stood improbably in the middle of the battlefield. He blinked and looked again, and the bush was gone.

A growl brought his head back to the front in time to see three rakkes converging on Jir. Konowa screamed his battle cry and charged. Before he had covered half the distance the rakkes were all down, two with arrows through their necks, the third with Jir's jaws around it.

Konowa felt the power of the acorn increasing and knew the regiment was close. The fortress was now less than a hundred yards away. The shades of the Iron Elves continued their battle with the captured souls of the Thirty-fifth Regiment, an ethereal combat that swam in and out of his vision. Rakkes still roamed the field, their charges coming closer as the regiment expended the last of its ammunition. Black arrows raked square and circle alike. In the course of the battle, the two entities-once mortal enemies, now both prey-had moved closer together until they were now little more than twenty feet apart.

The elfkynan broke. Chants of "Sillra! Sillra!" were replaced with screams. Their circle disintegrated and the survivors ran, hunted by shadow, claw, and frost fire.

A group of rakkes charged to within yards of the square when arrows cut into them from all sides. These weren't random shots, but well-aimed strikes that hit eyes and throats and hearts, bringing the creatures down quickly and with skill. Konowa recognized the archers by the talent of their shooting even as his senses blurred with the power of the bond-oath between elf and Wolf Oak.

The rakkes panicked, howling their confusion as more arrows cut into their ranks. A few muskets fired as well, an odd sound after the silence of the square when it fired what Konowa thought was its last round. Konowa thrust his saber into the chest of the nearest rakke, the frost fire turning it into a burning, screaming pyre. All this death. The futility of it gave strength to his arm, and he swung his saber with abandon, severing limbs and heads, skewering bodies so violently that he was forced to place his boot on the chest of one rakke to pull the saber back out.

Jir stalked around him, a black demon of claws and teeth, ripping into the rakkes, exposing the blood and the bone beneath. The dead piled up around them, their frenzy unmatched. Konowa let the cold take him, giving himself over to its power. His saber arm was cold, black death. His eyes gleamed with frost. They would pay. He would destroy them all.

A shade of the Thirty-fifth Regiment appeared in front of Konowa and he cut it down, his saber equally effective against shadow. Nothing could stand up to him. He heard the twang of a bowstring and felt the arrow slicing through the air. He reached out with his senses and burned it with frost fire. The feeling was glorious. Another group of rakkes massed for an attack. Konowa spread the fingers of his left hand wide and slowly squeezed. Frost and flame burst over the rakkes, their screaming pitiful as they tried to run. Konowa squeezed his hand tighter and then opened it with a yelp. A white feather quill stuck out of the top of his hand.

"I think that's more than enough," Rallie said, striding toward him. Visyna, the Prince, and the regimental Color party followed.

Konowa looked around him. The battlefield had changed. The bara jogg were crawling back to the river, while rakkes and black elves vanished into the sarka har, the limbs of the trees embracing them. Elves of the Long Watch spread out across the wreckage, their oath-bond weapons tiny sparks of warmth in a cold, dark sea of Her power.

Black flame danced along Konowa's saber and frost radiated out in all directions from beneath him. His breath misted and hung in the air, a swirling veil muting everything around him. With a single thought he burned the quill in his hand. The power coursing through him was wonderful and terrible.

Konowa flowed his senses outward, searching, and found a source of power searching in return. He turned and saw a tiny sapling pushing up through the frost, but unlike the sarka har, this tree grew proud and straight and shone with a brilliant red glow. Konowa looked closer. It looked like a Wolf Oak, only more…perfect. The buds on its thin branches began sprouting leaves, and as they unfurled it was clear to see they were unmistakably in the shape of a star. Without a word he walked over and stood above it. He looked up to the sky, searching the darkness for a sign, but he already knew what he had found.

This was the Eastern Star returned.