The Inheritance

Chapter 17

Elansa stood upon the battlements, her phoenix in her hand, on her lips a prayer to her god. The fury of the battle below, the fighting of outlaws and the undead filled her up, lifted her prayer to a god who knew the round of life and death and life. She sent her cry to the Blue Phoenix, the god as he was rising from the ashes of his own death, alive and triumphant.

"Habbakuk, rise! O, Blue Phoenix, lift your wings, and lift me up!"

She raised her arms, and upon her breast the sapphire glowed. In her eyes, the fire of the god kindled, his power rising. The wind, cold around the towers, heard a god's command. Running up from the south and down from the east on the currents of the world, sailing on the paths of Krynn’s sky, the wind changed direction. It turned, like a wide-winged creature summoned.

The howling of the undead echoed between the walls of Pax Tharkas. The light of the new day leaped from the edges of Brand's blade and Dell's. No blood dulled the battle-light, for their enemies’ blood had turned to dust and vanished long ago. They bared their teeth in the Warrior's grin, the two outlaws back to back.

"Heads off!" Dell shouted, laughing. She ducked as Brand swung, then came up and swiped the skeleton of a dwarf off his clattering feet. The thing fell but did not die. She kicked off the creature's head, and it came up again. She felt Brand's laughter vibrating in her own body, so close did their backs press.

Looking down from the wall, out from her magic, Elansa saw that, by the head count, the outlaws had killed their own number in the clattering ancient Royal Guard. They had lost only Bruin.

Brand looked up, as though he felt her eyes on him. Dell swung away from him, trying to swipe the head from a creature upon whose bones rags of silk fluttered, upon whose head a tarnished helm of royal silver sat. The outlaw lord's eyes met hers, and she felt the shock of his lust for battle.

"Char!" Brand roared. "Don’t leave her!"

Char never did. He stood close, his dark beard and shaggy hair blown in the wind of her magic.

The undead poured out from the cellar beneath the eastern tower-humans, elves, and dwarves in rusted and rotting accoutrements of their ancient glory. Clattering, howling, their eye-sockets black as the end of life, they scented living flesh and hot blood and swung at the living with rusted blades. The blades could hurt. They had the edges to maim. One had run right through Bruin's breast. The touch of the undead thing had killed him, though. It was death's touch, turning blood to ice and marrow to dust, stopping the heart.

Nigh-toothless Kerin swung at one, an elf by the look of his ruined armor. He missed the head, shattered a shoulder, and fell screaming to his knees when the thing grasped him by the throat with its remaining hand.

Around Elansa the winds gathered. Char shouted something to her, but she did not hear. She lifted her hands, her arm high, and gathered the airs of Krynn, the breath of the world.

Ley shouted like thunder to his daughter, "Behind! Tianna! Behind!"

The half-elf turned, swift as lightning, to lop the head from a clattering skeleton. Shrieking, something like mist, gray and bodiless, poured out of the hung jaw of the fallen head. For an instant, Elansa thought she saw a figure form, a spirit-mist, a soul long trapped and finally released.

On the battlement, she shouted. "Habbakuk! Take their souls and quench their pain!"

She thought of storm and sent the wind of the world running out from her hand. It caught that spirit-mist in whirling tempest, sweeping it into the heart of itself, a gale directed by Elansa’s own hand. She felt the presence of a god, wings spread wide and sheltering. Into that shelter the lorn spirit fled, the soul of a brave warrior held prisoner by the corruption of a foul magic, a spell anciently cast by a mage whose name no one alive remembered.

Shrieking, another spirit flowed out from a fallen head, a gaping jaw. This, too, her storm gathered. This the god took.

In the courtyard only Brand, Dell, Ley, and Tianna stood among the living.

The moment she counted them, the count of them decreased. Tianna, the half-elven child of a dark elf, died in the white, brittle grasp of a tall skeleton. A moment too late, Ley battered the head and broke the skull of the thing that killed his daughter. His roar of rageful woe bellowed high to the battlements, mingling with the shrieks of the undead thing at last dying.

A voice, Elansa’s, shouted out from the maelstrom of winds, crying, "Brand, give ground! Go inside!"

Never questioning, his face alight with battle-lust, his eyes-she saw them from the height!-shining on her, Brand shouted in a kind of mad-minded laughter, "In! In! Dell! Ley!"

They ran, hacking through the bone-white warriors, Brand himself like a scytheman with his sword. Shrieking rose to the heights, lost souls set loose. Bones rattled, clattering, falling, and Brand, at the doorway to safety, turned and looked up.

"Princess!" he shouted, shining.

Upon her breast the sapphire phoenix lay, blue against her white flesh. He felt it beating, for he knew how her heart felt. He knew the rhythm of it. He had learned it on long, cold nights, as it beat steadily against his own breast. With his sword Brand saluted her, laughing he raised the blade before he plunged into the tower, into darkness.

On his heels ran a wind the like of which the granite fortress had never felt. It ripped bone from bone, tearing ribs from spines, shattering bony necks, flinging skulls in the whirlwind Elansa guided with her own will and shaped with her hands. She scoured the courtyard, broke the bones to powder and sent the poor scraps of once-proud armor and ancient clothing sailing up to the dawn, soaring out over the wall and into the valley where armies of the living gathered.

"Princess!" cried a voice, familiar, urgent.

Shaking, she looked away from what she had made with her magic, and she saw Char. She had known his face white with the pain of wanting his beloved dwarf spirits. She had known him gray on the morning after nightmare. She had never seen his face so drained of blood-of all color-as she did now.

"Princess, look!"

Over the valley, shreds of ancient glory and bits of bone whirled in the wind from the wings of the Blue Phoenix. Below, armies ran headlong toward dying, elves and goblins tearing up the stony earth to join in battle, and in the midst of the goblin army there was fire.

The warden of Qualinesti ran ahead of his army. Beside him ran Demlin.

"My prince!" the elf had cried. "We have seen the princess! We have seen her on the walls of Pax Tharkas!"

He'd delivered his message from horseback as he tore into the camp. Around him elven warriors had gathered, a silver army swirling, shouts of joy rising.

"Elansa! Elansa!" Her name had rung on the air like the call of a war horn. "Elansa!"

So did the cry ring now, from the prince, from his warriors galloping across the stony plain. "Ride for Elansa!" Kethrenan shouted. "Ride for our princess!"

The point of a spear, the hard gleaming edge of a sword, he drove his mount forward, the shining towers of Pax Tharkas in view. The force of his stem will carried his army behind, his warriors beloved of their prince. Kethrenan’s war cry rang out, a terrible roar to shiver his foes and lift his warriors. The dark army of goblins halted and turned. He felt it like a shock in his own heart, the surprise of his enemy when they saw the silver army pouring down behind. In a moment's time, their cries of fear turned to battle cries, and in the midst of them a great bolt of fire shot upward and out. Caught between their master and his weapon, goblins burned, screaming, and the stench of the cooking flesh polluted the air.

And the hob-riding, Keth shuddered in horror-the hob himself looked like one of his own victims. Skin black and peeling in bloody shreds from glistening bones, the thing that used to be Gnash came lurching, clinging to its fire-staff. It did not scream in helplessness. It went with direction into the teeth of the elven army. It wailed in agony, consumed by its magic and generating fire with each shriek. Great gouts of flame shot out from the staff. They hung above the ground, struggling to form in the shape of the fire-wights that had so terrified past battlegrounds, but they could not. Like their creator, they staggered and fell. Stone didn't feed them, and Gnash’s magic could not.

Elven voices thundered to the sky as the Qualinesti scented victory.

"Take him!" the prince shouted, pointing to Gnash. "Kill him!"

Behind Gnash, his army roared. Caught between their master's magic and the rage of elves, the goblins broke ranks. Some turned to fight, others fled, and one small bold line of them dug in and put up a wall of spears between the elves and their master, ringing him round while gouts of fire soared over their heads, unshaped but still dangerous.

"Gnash!" the goblins howled. "For Gnash!"

The first wave of elves broke on that wall, horses thrust through the neck, the belly, elves speared and pitched from their mounts. As the warriors fell, the goblins cheered, and those who hadn't fled their foe or their master fell upon them, hacking with their saw-toothed blades or filling the wounded with arrows. In the screaming fray, Kethrenan shouted orders to his army, and he found himself looking south and gauging the distance to Pax Tharkas. The fortress stood bright in the cold light, gleaming. Before it, he knew, Lindenlea’s army waited, and now it was time to change the tide of this battle.

Even as he prayed for those who would obey him, Kethrenan cried, "Take him and damn the cost!"

Screaming, the elven army threw itself upon the spear wall, shattering their first ranks. The second leaped over the corpses of horses and elves and goblins to get to Gnash. For one instant, Kethrenan saw his foe, the hobgoblin reduced to an animated corpse. Their eyes met, the spear wall broke, and the hob was swept away on the tide of his followers.

Down the plain to Pax Tharkas they ran, and Kethrenan called off pursuit, refusing to let his army follow.

"Not yet," he said, leaning forward to watch the goblins run. "Give them a chance to get right where we want them."

He looked around at the stony plain and the corpses of elves and goblins. The stench of burning flesh hung in the air, turning his belly sick. He listened to the wind and the sounds of the groaning wounded. In the sky ravens gathered, and somewhere in the hills wolves must surely be lifting their noses to the wind. Kethrenan moved his army away from the killing ground, took them to a quieter place, and let them rest. He did not go back for the wounded, and he didn't spare men to help them. His battle was joined but not yet won. Neither would it be won until he had the head of the outlaw Brand on his lance. To get that, he must break the goblin army and the gates of Pax Tharkas.

Kethrenan spared a prayer for the doomed and the dead. Among them, he saw Demlin, his erstwhile servant, killed in Elansa’s cause.

"May the gods have mercy," he whispered as he turned his back. "May the gods have mercy."

Elansa stood shivering in her rags. Hollowed by her magic, she leaned against the wall, looking down into the empty courtyard. Char helped her to sit. He put her back to the parapet and the battle below.

"Princess," he said, standing close. "Is it always so hard?"

She hardly understood what he meant until she saw him looking into the court and the scattered bones. Elansa rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. "Char, I hurt." Not in the bones of her, or the muscles. Not that way. She hurt in the soul of her, for she was a woodshaper, and she was not made to break and rend. She was made to shape and nurture and heal. Her breath caught in a ragged sob.

"Aye, well. It's done now." He patted her shoulder awkwardly. "You did good."

Elansa looked up, and she looked past him. Brand stood at the door to the tower. He lifted a hand, beckoning. She tried to stand but couldn't. Char pulled her to her feet. She could not stand on her own. She had to lean against the wall, and even that was an effort.

Brand covered the distance between them with long sure strides. He gathered her in his arms, holding her carefully. She smelled blood on him-his own, for his enemies had not bled in centuries.

She tried to say something, to ask him where he was wounded, but she couldn't. The winds of magic had blown all the wit and will from her. She saw Char’s face though, and she didn't see fear there. Brand bled, but he wouldn't die of it.

Outside the fortress, beyond the stone walls, the storm of battle grew closer. Screams of rage, howls of fury, and the agonized cries of the dying filled the air. Elansa smelled the stink of burning flesh.

"I know the bargain we made," Brand said, his voice soft, his lips against her ear. He spoke for only her to hear. "But you can't walk out of here now, princess. Come inside. What will happen out there, will happen."

"No," she said. "I have to see. They are my people. I have to see."

He kissed her. He had never done so till then; she had not wanted it, he had never forced it. He kissed her, and it was a very gentle thing. He put her foot to ground, but he held her with his arm around her waist.

Lindenlea stood high in her stirrups, looking out over the plain. A slow smile spread across her lips, a wolfish tugging.

"Ready," she said to the elf at her side. "Get ready."

He nodded briskly and sent the order along the line of mounted warriors stretched before the narrow road that would lead to the first gate of Pax Tharkas. They saw the dust cloud first, and they heard the armies next-thunder of hooves, shouting voices, goblin-speech and Elvish all mingling into a distant roar of battle-song. One elf looked up and back, seeing Elansa on the Tharkadan. He saw her held close between a dwarf and a tall, bearded human. In his eyes, she stood a captive, and the blood in him burned to see the hand of the human on the arm of his princess.

"For the princess!" he cried, and the shout went long the line, a new war cry.

Lindenlea looked up to the wall, to the captive princess. She changed the battle cry. "To free the princess!"

The thunder of war came closer, the dark horde of fleeing goblins and the bright mass of elves behind.

"Stand," Lindenlea said to her aid. "Stand, hold, and wait till they're where we need them."

Stand! Stand! Stand! The command went down the line. Horses snorted, bridles jingled, and soldiers held their position.

The goblins came on, running in no formation now, and it seemed they followed no one. Indeed, they were driven. In the rear a terrible creature ran, a thing with black flesh peeling from its bones, its eyes white and staring, its mouth a bloody gash from which curses and screams of agony poured. Fire ran on it, like a cloak blown back by wind; fire poured from its hands, burning all those who did not get out of its way.

"Hold," Lindenlea said, and the horses stamped restlessly, catching the scent of fear. "Hold."

The goblins saw the road and the waiting army in the same instant. They broke, screaming, then reformed, for there was no place to go but back. The hob drove them, and Kethrenan drove the hob.

"Go!" she cried, and her army thundered forward.

They crashed together, the elven army and the goblin army. Mounted elves trampled the goblins, and the goblins did not die easily. They thrust swords into the bellies of horses. They held ground and hacked at the legs of the riders. When horses went down, the goblins swarmed them, yanking elves from the saddles, cutting throats and turning the stones red with blood.

"Get the hob!"

The order roared out over the heads of the fighters, and Lindenlea’s heart leaped to hear it. Across the battle she saw her prince, Kethrenan at the head of his warriors. Spurring her mount, Lindenlea sprang to obey. She slashed her way across the bloody ground, trampling goblins. Those of the elves who saw her coming cut a path for her, laughing and cheering her.

"Lindenlea! Lindenlea! Lindenlea!"

And someone shouted, "Free the princess!"

Lindenlea had her eye on Kethrenan when that cry went up. She saw him hear it, and his head snapped around. She saw him look upward. She saw his face when he saw his wife, his Elansa Sungold standing on the Tharkadan, hemmed by outlaws.

It was the seeing that killed her, her attention on her prince. Lindenlea didn't see the goblin's arrow winging from her left. And of course, she didn’t feel it. She fell to the bloody ground, dead before her horse trampled her.

On the Tharkadan, Elansa saw the elves cut a path through the goblins. She saw two bright figures, elves in gleaming mail, spur their mounts for the place in the dark horde where the fire flashed. That light. She knew it. It was magic’s light, and she knew that it ravaged the hobgoblin.

Char sucked in a sudden breath.

"That’s him," the dwarf said. "There's the hob." He laughed, and he nudged Brand with his elbow. "There, it looks like a couple elves have an eye for him."

Char leaned on the parapet, watching as one of the elves fell, like a star falling out of the sky, bright to the ground.

Elansa groaned. It was as though she had fallen. It was so far away she couldn't know who that was. She couldn't see the elf's face when the arrow plucked away life. She heard a cry, though, faint and far and carried on the cold wind.

"Lindenlea! Lea!"

So cried her husband, the warden of Qualinesti, in the moment he lopped the head from the hobgoblin. Then, his sword dark and running with the blood of all this killing, Prince Kethrenan looked up, and again he saw his wife on the battlements of Pax Tharkas. Who else of the elves saw her, saw a princess held captive, kept close between two outlaws, a dwarf and a rough human. Kethrenan saw another thing, and all the heat of battle drained out of him. His blood ran cold in his veins. Whoever else of the elves saw her then, saw her bow her head to weep. Kethrenan saw her rest her cheek upon the shoulder of the bearded human, of Brand the outlaw. He saw her turn in his embrace and hide her weeping against his chest.

While the lengthening shadows lay on the stone floor of the room that had, for days, been her home of sorts in Pax Tharkas, Elansa sat with her back against the wall. Brand's cloak covered, and his sleeping furs made her warm. The broken tiles of the mosaic floor shone where the shadows did not fall and the dust had been scuffed by foot traffic. A great silence sat upon the room, upon the fortress itself. For a time there had been a flurry of coming and going as Brand and his few had gone into the cellar to see that no threat remained. None did. They found the corpses of gully dwarves and two dead goblins, only lately gone cold. It had been Char who had found the Chamber of Columns and the opened crypts.

"Ain't but a few got opened," he said, "and nigh more than a dozen or two left closed." He shuddered. "You can feel them in there, behind their doors. You can feel them smelling the blood, the flesh on your bones."

Raised in Thorbardin and on all the proud stories of the dwarven past, Char knew his history. He knew as well as Elansa who those undead had been, a long time ago when honor had moved them and a dark magic had not yet touched them. At Char's insistence, they sealed the doors as best they could and left the corpses behind.

Through this, Elansa sat alone, waiting.

Outside the battle had ended. She heard the martial voices of elves, soldiers setting up camp, giving orders, accepting orders, now and then laughing in the flush of their victory. The cries of ravens haunted the sky when night came, and wolves padded down from the mountains. Most of the killed goblins burned upon a high pyre. This Kethrenan commanded not to do them honor but to clean the field before the gates. Over the elves, small cairns of stone were being laid. It was a small honor to keep the wolves away. No one expected the little piles to stand long.

Sometimes Elansa slept, close in Brand's arm. He held her against him, gently. In her sleep, she smelled the blood of his wound, the sword cut that had torn the flesh of his right arm below the shoulder. The wound was bound and no longer seeping. He never groaned over it or even looked at it after Dell cleaned and dressed it. He was used to these things, the pain and the healing. When she did not sleep, she simply sat waking, as now.

And so she saw the shadows of the day’s ending on the floor as she listened to the elves outside the wall. She looked around and saw the outlaws, Dell and Char and grieving Ley, these few who remained to Brand. They looked like they always did, like foxes in the den. Wary, they watched the door, and they talked in low whispers. Brand himself said nothing. He simply sat with the princess in his arm.

"You will go when you wish," he said to her. "We made our bargain."

But Elansa was too weary to go. She had strength only for sitting, for leaning against Brand. This he let her do, hearkening to the ravens and the cries of elves on the battleground, listening to the opening of the gates of Pax Tharkas and the clatter of hooves in the courtyard. If he wondered what fate he would meet, he and his three friends, he didn't speculate aloud or burden her with his thoughts. He simply let her rest.

But Brand did rest with his sword across his knees.

In the room, the outlaws stirred. Near the door, Char stood straight. Mail sang in the corridor, jingling. Booted feet trod the stone, heavy. Only one came, an elf off the battleground. None need guess who he was. Char went to the door, opening it before Kethrenan could.

"Welcome to Pax Tharkas," said the dwarf to the elf prince. His voice held only a small note of irony. "We’ve been expecting you."

Kethrenan stood in his battle gear, mailed and helmed and weaponed. He stood covered in blood and dust, his face all keen edges, his eyes like swords. Elansa’s breath caught in her throat, as it had so many times before when she'd seen him like this, the prince come home from battle. Then, in the halls of the Tower of the Sun, she had felt a thrill to watch him stride into the room, to smell the battle still on him. Now, she did not thrill to see him. Now he looked dangerous, and fear snaked cold in her belly, for the look he turned on her was one of disgust.

When she moved, Brand loosed his hold on her a little.

"Keth," she said.

Kethrenan ignored her. He glanced at Char only to see that he was no threat. He pushed past him, swept the room with a cold stare. One and another, the outlaws looked at him. None stood, and Dell, in the far corner, honed the blade of her dagger, making steel and stone sing. Kethrenan dismissed it. Last, he looked at Brand.

"You," he said. "Move away from my wife."

Brand kept his place. He did not move his arm. Elansa felt him quiver, as a hound does to a call. He lifted his head. The danger she sensed, he understood.

"Move," Kethrenan said.

Brand's lips moved in a long slow smile. His eyes narrowed. Elansa’s belly tightened. She tried to move, but he held her.

"My lord prince," Brand said, naming the elf courteously.

Dell rose from her place in the corner, and the singing of stone on steel ended. Near the window, Leyerlain Starwing had the dark look of one who stares at an end. Perhaps it wasn't Kethrenan in his thoughts, but it was the prince at whom he directed his glance. Behind the elf prince Char stood with his back to the door, his throwing axe to hand. No one offered harm, but no one stood down.

Brand rose, and he stood before Elansa. In his left hand, he held his sword. It was not his natural hand for holding a weapon. Still he gripped it strongly, neither raising it nor grounding it.

Kethrenan lifted his head. "Do you threaten me?"

Brand appeared to consider the question, then allowed as how he probably did, indeed, threaten. "But it doesn't have to come to that if you go gently with your wife."

The color drained from Kethrenan’s cheeks. Beneath the grime of battle and burnish of the sun, his skin went ashen.

"Elansa," he said, his voice cold as the winter of her captivity. "Move away from that human scum so I may kill him."

She rose, and the doing was easier than she'd imagined. She’d found strength, but she knew not where. Head high, standing in her rags, she said, "You will not kill him, husband. I do not wish it."

Kethrenan’s eyes widened for the briefest instant, then they narrowed.

"Husband, I am ready to leave here with you, but I won't leave over the bodies of these people. Brand and I made a bargain between us. I upheld my part, and doing that I made certain you had only goblins to face, not worse." She put her hand upon the sapphire phoenix, the wide-winged bird upon her breast. Soft, Elansa said, "Now Brand is prepared to uphold his part of our agreement. Let it be, Keth."

She spoke, without considering her voice and what the softness of it might reveal. Elansa saw horror and disgust warring in her husband's eyes as he understood, as he gleaned the true meaning behind her words. She saw them overwhelm disbelief and change into anger.

"He… he has had you."

Had, he said. That word made her skin crawl.

"He has had you, and you stand here shameless without the decency to have killed yourself!"

In the silence between them, the cries of ravens sounded very close, the call of death.

Brand moved Elansa aside and named the elf prince a coward.

"Coward, aye, that's what you are. You'd rather she killed herself than lived? You'd rather find her corpse than find her alive? Elf, you have no idea what courage your wife has. You have never seen it in your fine and golden towers. I have seen it. I have tested it, and I have tasted it." Sneering, he said, "You don't deserve her."

White to the eyes, Kethrenan drew his sword. Steel sang from the scabbard, the blade flashed up, and someone cried out.

Kethrenan shouted in Elvish. "Valth! Caslth! Valth!"

Whore! Slut! Whore!

Two swords rose. Kethrenan’s flashed first and fell to kill the woman he named whore. Brand moved swiftly. He took the blow, the whole blade into his breast. Elansa screamed and fell, covered in blood as a dagger whistled past her ear. Again, blood, spurting, spraying, and she saw her husband fall, Leyerlain’s dagger in his throat. The room erupted in cursing and cries of fear. Elansa wailed, for she kneeled with her back to the corpse of her husband and Brand's body in her arms.

Brand looked at her, his eyes dim, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. Kethrenan’s sword had cut so deeply into his lungs he would soon drown in his own blood. Still, he held her with his eyes and tried to speak.

What was to say? What words would serve? None.

"My girl," he whispered. Only that, for a long moment, while someone sobbed, and someone else cursed. Only that, and then, "I loved the courage of you. I love…" And then, the soft sigh, the last breath leaving.

Elansa felt him go. She felt him die. There in her arms, she felt it, and she saw the life go out of his eyes. She lifted up her head to keen.

"Wu-la! Wa-la! Wa-la!"

The terrible grief-cry silenced the room, and then Char took her and pulled her to her feet. Brand slid from her, fell away, and she tried to cry out, but she had no voice for anything but keening.

Elansa would not go with the elves. She said so with the last of her tears on her thin cheeks. She would not go with people whose prince would have killed her for choosing to live. The outlaws gathered around her when she stated her will, and Char shook his head.

Dell didn't understand.

"He's dead," she said, glancing scornfully at Kethrenan. "Who's to know what he said or didn't say, what he knew or didn't? Go home, princess. You can now."

Leyerlain understood well, though.

"Let her do what she wants," he said. He said so wiping his bloody dagger on the leg of his pants. Not once did he look at the prince he'd killed or the outlaw lord whose life he'd hoped to save. Ley knew about endings, it seemed, more than anything else. He didn't look at Elansa. "Let her do what she wills. I'm out of here. Kethrenan’s warriors are going to come looking for him soon. I'm not going to be here when they show up."

So saying, he turned and walked away. He didn't go alone. Wordless, Dell followed. They would find their way together, or they would part. This was the pattern of their lives, the way their fates were woven. Only Char remained, and of the last three outlaws, he grieved the dead man most.

"Princess," he said, his voice rough with emotion as he took Elansa’s arm and helped her to stand. "We have to leave, if that’s what you want to do."

She nodded. She wanted nothing else.

"Then we'll go through the tunnels again," he said. "Just you and me, we'll get back to Hammer Rock and see what we can think of after that."

Again, Elansa nodded. She heard his words, she understood, but she couldn't think about that now. Neither could she take her eyes from the dead, her husband and the man who had been her kidnapper, who had, by some mysterious alchemy of events and emotion, become, almost, her lover.

Slowly, with great care, she took the sapphire phoenix from her breast, slipping the chain over her head. Here was the inheritance of ages, a treasure she was obliged to pass from her own hand into that of her daughter. She did not think, kneeling beside the body of a man who had seen in her the kind of courage she herself had not known existed, she did not think of unborn daughters. She thought of him and how in the courtyard he had harried creatures of darkness into the light so that she might kill them. She remembered how he had looked at her upon the wall, his eyes shining to see her. He had seen a thing about her that her own husband could not see, and he had valued it to the cost of his own life.

With great gentleness, she slipped the chain over Brand's head and settled the phoenix upon his bloody breast. She bent, kissed his cold lips, and felt all the coldness of winter and stone settle in her heart.

"Char," she said, "we cannot let him lie here like this."

Him, the outlaw. She didn't think about the prince.

But Char said there was no time. Out in the courtyard the voices of elves had taken on the tenor of those who are wondering: Where is the prince? Where is the princess?

"We have to leave him," the dwarf said. "Let him lie here in this his stone fastness." His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "It’s all the reason he took you, princess. Just to find a high place, a fortress in the mountains where he could harry goblins and fight feuds you in your golden city never knew existed. And here he died. Leave him. Let it be his tomb till time makes his bones into dust and all the tale is forgotten. It’s time to go now, if you mean to leave."

She went. Her hand in his because he would not let go, she followed Char out of the ancient chamber that had once hosted elf kings and dwarven thanes, the chamber that now hosted only the dead.