Kagonesti

Chapter 20

"Go out here," Toofer said, pointing to a pair of large iron doors blocking the end of the roughly carved tunnel. The gully dwarf halted in his tracks, arms crossed firmly across his chest, as if he couldn't wait for the elf and his human companions to be gone.

Ashtaway stepped forward, Sir Kamford at his side. The knight held aloft the last of the sputtering torches that had illuminated their world during the long, often confusing march through the tunnels under the great mountain.

The portals before them resembled strongly the doors Ashtaway had discovered in the valley above Sanction- though the elf sensed that their long subterranean march had carried them well south of that dark and smoldering city. They had been underground for approximately three days, Ash guessed, though they had seen no glimpse of the sky in that time and thus had no real grasp of the duration of their sunless trek. The wild elf also deduced, based on long stretches of gradual downhill slope, that the war party had descended a considerable distance from the entrance on the mountainside.

"Go on. Git," urged the Highbulp, all but pushing the knight toward the door.

"What's outside?" Ash asked suspiciously.

"Usual stuff. Air, mountains, sky. Ground where horses can poop and not stink up tunnel."

The latter concern, the elf thought with a smile, was strongly on Toofer's mind. Though the gully dwarves had displayed a remarkable lack of fastidiousness in all aspects of their lives, the presence of the knights' mighty steeds in these enclosed tunnels had apparently proved too much for even their less-than-delicate sensibilities.

Sir Kamford called several of his men forward to work the door-opening mechanisms-capstans, he called them. The first glimmerings of daylight soon crept through the opening portals, causing the men to blink and shield their eyes until they could adjust, once again, to bright illumination.

"Your help has been very valuable," Ashtaway said to the gully dwarf Highbulp, who had begun to tap his foot in agitation.

"Never mind about that. But t'anks for killin' ol' No- Teeth. We never liked him so much."

"You're… welcome, I think," Ash said with a grin. "But to be on the safe side, I wouldn't go right back to Sanction if I were you. No-Teeth might have had some friends, and I bet they're not too happy right now."

"No friends. But still, we go to different tunnel for a while. Was getting boring, just 'open door,' 'close door' alia time. Toofer real Highbulp, gonna get me a tribe. Maybe even make a army, like you got. No horses, though."

The gully dwarf wrinkled his face and held his nose as one of the great warhorses made another contribution to the floor of the tunnel. "Canya open that door faster?" he asked.

The knights ignored him, and in truth the iron portals swung open fairly quickly. No doubt, Sir Kamford's men were as eager to get outside as the gully dwarves were to see them go. Against the brightness of a cloudless day they saw tall, leafy trees, the edge of a forest beginning a few paces beyond the tunnel doors.

"You've been a true ally," Ashtaway solemnly told Highbulp Toofer. "Among my people, we have a term of honor. We bestow it on some of our great warriors, and those leaders who have an impact on our history. We call such a hero 'Pathfinder.'"

The Kagonesti took a tiny feather from his belt pouch, a tuft of ruby-bright crimson fading into an iridescent green. He placed it behind Toofer's ear, entangling it in the loose curls of oily hair.

"Highbulp Toofer of the Smoking Mountain, I name you'Pathfinder.'"

The gully dwarf blinked in surprise. His chest puffed outward as he stood up to his full three-foot height, beaming.

"No worries about ogres chasin' you," he said. "Highbulp Pathfinder gets 'em going on the wrong way!"

"Thanks, my friend." Ashtaway was touched by the little fellow's heart.

"And our thanks, too." Sir Kamford joined them as the knights, leading their horses, began to file out of the doorway. No more than sixty of the original hundred had survived, but they knew that-without the discovery of the tunnel-all the knights would have perished beneath frost and lightning or fang and talon. "Sorry about the mess. I suggest you leave it for the ogres to clean up," he suggested with a chuckle.

Toofer brightened still further. "That's a good idea," he agreed before turning to the dozen members of his clan who had watched, awestruck, the bestowing of the colored feather.

"C'mon, you louts!" he shouted, pulling a forked stick out of his voluminous pouch. A string of rubbery, flexible sinew linked the two split ends "We got new game wit' ogres. Everybody got a flinger?"

The Highbulp commenced describing what promised to be a very elaborate tactical plan as Ashtaway and Sir Kamford finally passed through the doors. Breathing deeply of the fresh air, the elf looked up and saw close- pressing ridges, thickly covered with broad-leaved trees. A waterfall streamed, a plume of white mist, into the head of the valley, and nearby they could hear the splashing of a shallow but fast-flowing brook. The smells were summery and the air thick enough to confirm that they had indeed descended far from the mountainous heights.

"We must be very near the plains," Ash guessed. "If you follow the stream down from this valley, I suspect you'll be out of the foothills by the end of the day."

"Then westward, toward Solamnia," Sir Kamford agreed. "I need to learn how Huma's campaign fares- and let the lords know of our success."

"Was it worth the cost?" Ashtaway wondered. Throughout the long, dark march, his mind had replayed the glorious images of the charge. He remembered the inexorably precise advance, the way that no ogre or human could stand in the face of those raging horses.

Then had come the fires, when so much of the enemy's stockpiles had burned. This still seemed, to Ashtaway, a curious way to fight. It made sense when the knight described it-the Kagonesti could understand that the weapons and food would benefit the Dark Queen's army for some months-but it was not the kind of thing any wild elf chieftain would try to do. After hours of subterranean meditation, Ashtaway had finally understood why: When the Kagonesti went to war, they expected to win or lose on the day the battle was joined. This planning for battles that would not occur until the next season was a thing that seemed pointless, even defeatist.

"I believe it was," Sir Kamford declared, though he shook his head with a weariness that belied his words. "To lose Sir Blayne… to see so many other good men fall, never to rise. Who can say? If those arrows, that steel, were destined to kill a hundred men in the future, the cost was just. If they never were to have been used…"

The knight lapsed into silence, and only after a moment's reflection did Ash realize that the human was patiently, elven-fashion, awaiting the Kagonesti's response.

"Even so, many ogres were slain. And some slaves were freed. I think that those are good things," Ashtaway replied.

"And I would like to think that the knights have made a friend-a good friend-among the proudest, the finest elves on all of Ansalon."

The Kagonesti Pathfinder, deeply moved, touched his hand to the knight's shoulder. "You have," he promised, knowing that Sir Kamford Willis was a warrior as courageous, as mighty-in his own way-as Faltath, or any heroic wild elf brave.

Ashtaway stood still, remembering and meditating, while the knights allowed their horses to graze and drink. He still hadn't moved when they mounted, though he finally raised a hand in farewell as Sir Kamford, riding at the rear, disappeared into the trees.

After a few brief minutes spent rigging several snares, Ash spent the rest of the day swimming in the stream and sunbathing. The snares provided him with two plump rabbits for dinner, and afterward he slept under the stars. Every time he awakened, he rejoiced to the array of lights that gleamed and twinkled at him from the moonless vault of the sky. He felt newly alive, as if he had emerged from the tunnels a different person, a different kind of Pathfinder.

He took five days in returning to the south, following valleys that became steadily more familiar as he moved closer to the Bluelake. All the while his mind worked, as he wrestled with an expanded view of his world. For the first time in his life, he considered the notion that there were good people in the world-people who were not of the Kagonesti. Sir Kamford, and even Highbulp Toofer, had forced Ashtaway to reconsider the traditions that had kept his tribe in an almost constant state of war. Surely some enemies, such as the ogres and the bakali, were worthy foes. But perhaps it was wrong to assume that humans, that dwarves, were enemies, simply because they were humans or dwarves.

Ashtaway even speculated about the Silvanesti-might the Kagonesti learn that the ancient clans of the House Elves were not filled with the despicable villains that Ash had always been taught resided there? He had known Kagonesti who had been killed by Silvanesti swords, and of the deadly traps laid by the House Elves to protect their precious cities. He had seen Silvanesti slain by arrows fired from wild elven ambush. He sensed that such depths of hatred could not be wrong. The House Elves and the wild elves were forever destined to be foes.

As he traveled through the eternal woodland, Ashtaway discarded some of his earlier beliefs and embraced others. He reflected on war and peace, on the worth of life and death when a hated foe stood before one's blade or bow. He wondered about the nature of hatred, such as that which had raged between his people and humankind through all the ages of Krynn. And still the inner torment raged within him. It was not until he had reached a familiar valley within a day's march of the village that he understood why.

Turning to the side, he made his way toward the foothill valley, climbing through the rocky notch to see the black, obsidian wall. He wished he had the time to hunt, to bring fresh game with him, but his urgency wouldn't allow delay.

Once again he found Hammana in the woods-though this time he didn't surprise her. Instead, she stood in the midst of the clearing, watching the woods as he emerged from the underbrush.

"Hello, Pathfinder," she said quietly. Her hazel eyes shined as she looked at him, her chin held proudly raised.

"Hammana…" He crossed to her in long strides and took her hands in his.

"No." She pulled back, and he saw that the shining in her eyes came from unshed tears. "I cannot let myself love you."

He didn't pursue, though his hands remained outstretched, reaching. "I am the Pathfinder now. I didn't ask for the horn, but it's a destiny that came to me-and I shall bear it, I hope, well.

"But 1 know already, Hammana, that I'm a different Pathfinder than those who came before me. I am not Iydaway or Barcalla or Father Kagonesti. Just as Iydaway changed the tasks of leadership by speaking and persuading rather than guiding in aloof silence, I, too, shall change. I will not make war against the humans, simply because they are human. Already I have done a thing unlike any other Pathfinder of the Kagonesti."

"You… you will be a great leader of our people. This I know." She seemed proud when she said this, and sad as well.

"But this peace with humankind is not the only way I will be different," Ash persisted. He stepped forward and took her hands again, holding too tightly for Hammana to easily pull away. "Other taboos, too, date from an earlier time. They may have been right in the past, but I know they are wrong for me."

She looked at him intently now, surprised and wondering.

"I will also be the first Pathfinder who takes a wife… if she will have me."

For a moment, he didn't know what she would say. The tears spilled down her cheeks then, overwhelming her efforts to blink them away.

"She will," the elfwoman said, and his arms wrapped her as she fell against him.

"This is a wonderful development, truly splendid!" Lectral declared when, hand in hand, they went to the cave and shared their news. "A bit of departure from tradition, though, isn't it?"

"It is," Ashtaway agreed. "We live long lives, your people and mine, but I have learned that times can change, peoples can change-many things change."

Lectral blinked sagely. "Even for elves and dragons," he said with a contented nod.