Kagonesti

Chapter 7

Kagonos crouched soundlessly, responding by instinct to the sense of danger. He tried to absorb the subtle clues of the night, sniffing the air, trying to penetrate the shadows with his eyes. Someone shared this dark riverbank with him-someone very close, someone dangerous. Kagonos was inclined to believe that it had been an odor, faintly borne by the night breeze, that first had triggered his subtle sense of alarm. He never questioned that his intuitive response had been a portent of real danger.

Silently the Elderwild crawled sideways along the riverbank, wriggling snakelike through the mud and grass. He strained to study the darkness, to break the veil of silence. His nostrils twitched, probing the wind, and then he knew: it was the scent of metal, tainted recently with blood.

The wind shifted, and the scent was gone, yet its passing gave Kagonos a better picture of his enemy's location. The threat lay along the bank, slightly downstream. Carefully, silently, the Elderwild worked his way along the mud flat bordering the great flowage, crawling against the direction of current until he felt safe from observation. He remained as low as a slithering animal when he climbed the bank and lay on the brittle grass of the plain. Against the horizon, the fires from the camp still surged, too far away to provide any illumination here.

Staying low, Kagonos crept along the bank, vision attuned to the darkness, nose twitching as he sought that faint, yet clearly definable, scent.

His elven eyes saw the threat first as a haze of warmth gathered between two juniper bushes. Creeping carefully closer, Kagonos discerned his quarry pressed to the ground, immobile, head raised to better see the grave site. Obviously, the lurker hadn't seen the wild elf make his way off to the side.

Kagonos observed the vague shape, gradually making out the cooler form of a longsword held ready in the fellow's hand. That blade was the source of the smell, he knew. The fact that it remained out of its scabbard seemed clear enough proof of this hidden figure's hostile intent.

Rising on his hands and gathering his legs beneath him, Kagonos prepared for the charge. His long-shafted weapon, the steel axe head gleaming coolly in the starlight, felt light and deadly in his right hand, while his left would launch the momentum of his charge. When the soft moccasins nestled into small depressions in the ground, the Elderwild waited a few heartbeats, ensuring that his quarry did not know he had been detected.

No sign of alarm disturbed the still watcher. The steel sword remained poised a few inches off the ground, the slender head-an elven head-fixed on the riverbank below. With an explosion of speed Kagonos sprang, raising his axe and sprinting along the dry grass with no more noise than the rustle of the air around his body.

Yet that wind sound was enough. The other elf twisted on the ground, starlight reflecting with diamondlike glitters as that silver sword whipped toward the charging Elderwild. Kagonos pounced and swung, then cursed as the clang of metal rang loudly through the night-his target parried the blow with a lightning-fast twist of his blade.

The Elderwild tumbled away, hearing the whoosh of air as the deadly sword slashed past his ear. Bouncing to his feet, crouching for balance, Kagonos raised his axe and watched his quarry, ready to counter the swordsman's next move. As he probed the darkness to seek his enemy's intentions in his eyes, the tribal chieftain recognized the stealthy ambusher-without surprise.

"Quithas!" he spat. Though he had suspected this since his first tingling of alarm, the sight of his old enemy inflamed, and at the same time strangely gratified, Kagonos.

"Yes, Wild Elf. I have come to reclaim my axe-and to avenge myself for its theft."

"You lost it easily enough-against a naked, unarmed Ъоу.' Do you remember?"

Kagonos watched the golden-haired general carefully. Quithas was taut, almost trembling with tension-but his hook-nosed face was twisted into an almost giddy grin. He leered at the Elderwild, his eyes glittering unnaturally, and cackled a laugh before he replied.

"I remember well. But I have killed many times since then," Quithas replied. "And with each death my skills have improved-and with each death I have brought myself one step closer to ultimate vengeance against you!"

"Why do you seek me now, when peace is here?" The Elderwild was disturbed far more by his opponent's unsteady demeanor than he would have been if Quithas had been grim and purposeful. Kagonos struggled to contain his own anger, understanding that careful alertness might be the only way to save his life. Forcefully he pressed aside an urge to throw himself wildly at the House Elf, swinging the axe in mad, furious swipes.

"There can be no peace for me, as long as you live!" Quithas declared. For a moment, his face became earnest, as if he really wanted the Pathfinder to understand his murderous intent. "There is more than vengeance in my mind, Kagonos. I shall kill you, but not only for revenge."

Kagonos ducked as the silver sword slashed forward. Skipping backward, the Elderwild parried a series of fast cuts, meeting each with the head of his long-hafted axe. He took great care to parry metal against metal, knowing that the keen longsword, if it met the wooden shaft, could possibly chop his weapon into two useless pieces. Deftly the wild elf backed away, watching his enemy expend energy on a series of futile slashes.

"What is this if not your revenge?" demanded Kagonos, falling back for a moment, trying to keep his enemy talking. He was surprisingly shaken by the House Elf's words.

Quithas barked a laugh. "Silvanos is speaking to the Elderwild. Under a banner of high honors, he has promised to lead them to his capital in the south, to fete them with gifts and treasure."

"They will not go!"

"Already they agree. Barcalla and Felltree have been dazzled by jeweled bracelets-the shamans are fighting over baubles," Quithas declared with a smirk. "I told the great ruler that I would seek you, persuade you of the wisdom of this course."

"He knew you would try to kill me!" Kagonos declared. The Pathfinder's rage expanded outward to include the elven patriarch in its embrace.

"Perhaps," Quithas noted with a shrug. "I don't think he really cared-he doesn't understand, as do I, that your people will be much more malleable without your disruptive presence."

"My people love the life in the forests-they will not turn their backs on it!"

"Silvanos can be very… persuasive. He has showered them with countless things they could never gain in their usual savage state."

This time Kagonos didn't hold back the fury. He exploded toward Quithas with a wicked slash of his axe. Drawing back before the griffontamer's parry, the wild elf reversed his swing, driving his opponent back toward the steeply dropping riverbank. One step from the edge, Quithas halted, defending against the attacks with skill that was the match of the Elderwild's. Finally Kagonos retreated, realizing that he would not yet find the fatal opening. Once more Quithas breathed heavily, drawing deep gasps through his open mouth even as he tried to grin triumphantly.

Within Kagonos's mind raged a storm of dissension and fear. Could it be as Quithas had boasted? Would the elves of his tribe turn their backs on the woodlands, choosing instead the "protection" of city walls? And what use would their polished cousins find for them- painted, unclothed, unschooled in matters of poetry and arts? As House Servitor? No! They must be wild!

He remembered Darlantan's commands-only Kagonos, the Pathfinder, could show his people the way.

Quithas moved so quickly that Kagonos barely saw the attack. One moment the swordsman leaned forward, gasping to regain his wind, and the next he burst into violence, silver blade lashing from the darkness like the tongue of a striking snake.

Again and again the axe bashed the sword aside, though the tip of Quithas's weapon gouged a stinging cut across Kagonos's chest. Now it was the wild elf who fell back, struggling to block each potentially fatal blow, striving to avoid the roots and branches that suddenly seemed to thrive on ground that had been smooth a few minutes earlier.

Then the House Elf stabbed with a lightning thrust that grazed the Elderwild's side as Kagonos twisted away. Grunting, Quithas twisted his weapon, carving deeply into his enemy's flesh. The Pathfinder gasped as cold steel ripped over his rib cage.

But this time Quithas overreached himself, though he realized the mistake immediately. Planting both feet, crouching, the swordsman jerked his blade back, flipping it upward to parry Kagonos's blow-which he expected from the left.

The Elderwild feinted with a drop of his shoulder, but at the same time he flipped the axe into his other hand. When Quithas raised his weapon to block the anticipated blow, the axe head swept inward from the opposite direction, striking the elf cleanly in the neck, slicing with cruel force, the blade coming free, emerging into the air above Quithas's opposite shoulder.

With a reflexive shiver, the House Elf's body flexed backward, the longsword flying harmlessly into the mud. When the corpse started to topple, Kagonos reached forward and grasped Quithas's head, seizing the locks of long blond hair. While the body flopped onto the ground, the head swung freely from the Elderwild's hand.

Instinctively Kagonos tipped back his head and raised the horn to the sky. He blew, and the braying wail carried across the plains, into the camp of the celebrating army, perhaps even to the distant stars themselves. He wondered if Darlantan heard-and took some comfort from the hope that he did.

Then Kagonos turned toward the House Elf camp. His fury pounded, and he held his grisly trophy up toward the sky. He would go there, carrying the head of Quithas Griffontamer, and present it to Silvanos himself!

Kagonos would speak to his people, would wrap them in his fury. They would fight if they had to, battling through the camp of the craven, villainous House Elves. He would show them the path with his rage, with his righteous condemnation of Silvanos. He would lead them to the wild places!

If they would come.