“Stay here, then!”
“Oh, darlings, I'd adore that. But ...” He waved a helpless hand. “What would the troop do without me? They would be simply lest, the poor dears. Ta-ta, darlings!”
Fun was fun, but once they were safely out of sight of the city walls, the party was of one mind, searching until they’d found a small pool screened by a grove of trees. Kevin practically threw himself from his mule and gladly stripped off his girlish finery, scrubbing and scrubbing till he’d washed every last trace of paint and powder from his face.
“Ugh. Can’t see how women can stand wearing all that stuff.”
“Frankly, neither can I!” Lydia straightened, shaking out her damp black hair and tousling the curls dry with her hands. “I mean, I like looking nice as much as any other woman.” She winked at Kevin. “You should see me when I dress up pretty! But all that stuff I was wearing just now made me feel like I was carrying a prison around with me!”
In the middle of strapping on her sword, she paused, looking out over the lake, eyebrows raised. “My, isn’t that a pleasant sight!”
Naitachal, some distance away, had stripped to the waist to wash off the last of the disguising powder. His body was inhumanly slim and graceful but undeniably male, smooth muscles rippling and dark skin gleaming with every move. Realizing the others were watching him, he disappeared into the bushes, emerging shrouded once more in his black cloak. And now every trace of frivolity was gone.
It’s almost as though he was drunk before, and now he’s sober again, Kevin thought.
Maybe that wasn’t so bizarre an idea. After all, for a Dark Elf, a necromancer used to a grim world of sorcery and death, being suddenly thrown into the middle of so much vibrant, busy life really must have been intoxicating!
As the bardling retrieved his lute from the pile of dancing girls’ gear, he heard Naitachal mutter:
“Powers, I’m glad that’s over.”
“I thought you were enjoying yourself.” Eliathanis’ voice was cool with disapproval.
Naitachal glanced sharply at the White Elf—”Up to a point. One moment more, though, and I think I would have thrown up.”
“From fright?” Kevin asked in disbelief.
“Hardly!” The Dark Elf gave him a fierce little grin. “From a surfeit of sugar!”
As the party rode up the gentle slope from the river plain in which Westerin lay, Kevin suddenly reined in his mule. “Lydia, if we have to retrace all our steps back to Count Volmar’s castle, we’re going to waste too much time.”
“Agreed. Besides, I don’t want to risk going through that gorge again, either; one ambush is more than enough, thank you.” The woman hesitated, chewing thoughtfully on her lip. “I do know a much shorter route. The only thing is ... well—.. let’s put it this way:
anybody have any objections about riding through a battlefield?”
“A what?”
“An ancient one. I’m not even sure what the whole thing was all about, it happened so long ago. Shouldn’t be anything left to bother us.” She shot an uneasy glance at the Dark Elf. “Unless, of course, someone tries to disturb things.”
Naitachal’s eyes glinted coldly. “ I am not in the habit of rousing that which should not be roused. Lead on.”
Kevin struggled against the urge to keep looking over his shoulder. This was ridiculous! An easy ride, a nice, bright, sunny day, a smooth, grassy meadow stretching out before him without any obstructions at all and a splendid array of mountains in the distance there was not the slightest thing to fear.
Then why oh why was his mind insisting on sending these constant thrills of nervousness through him?
“Naitachal,” the bardling asked uneasily. “Is this ... was this ...”
“The battlefield?” The Dark Elf’s voice sounded strained and distant. “Yes ... you would sense that, too, wouldn’t you. Bard-to-be that you are? So many lives lost, human and Other ... I can feel their auras even now, calling to me ....”
“Well, don’t answer them!” Lydia snapped, and Naitachal blinked like someone suddenly shaken from a dream.
“No,” he said, and then more confidently, “no!”
But as they rode on across the meadow, the others could see shudders racking his slender frame. The Dark Elf was plainly fighting some terrible inner battle of his own, struggling against all the long, cruel years of childhood conditioning screaming at him, You are a creature of the Darkness! Leave the light behind you!
Unexpectedly, Eliathanis brought his mule alongside. “Take my hand,” he said softly.
“What—”
“Take it. Hold fast. Yes, like that. Think of sunlight, Naitachal. Think of life and joy. They are the only realities here.”
Kevin saw the White Elf wince with the force of Naitachal’s desperate grasp—But Eliathanis refused to let go, as though willing peace into the Dark Elf through that link.
And little by little the tension left Naitachal’s body. He shuddered one last time, then released the White Elf’s hand, looking at Eliathanis in confusion.
“Thank you,” the Dark Elf said after a moment. “I hardly expected you to wish to help me, but—thank you.”
“Ah. Well.” Eliathanis flushed, embarrassed by his own kindness. “I... didn’t want you rousing anything undead against us.”
“I wouldn’t willingly.” Then Naitachal added, very softly, “But it was a near thing.”
Alatan, sorcerer, necromancer, paced impatiently back and forth on the ramparts of his small, square keep, glancing now and then out over the smooth, treeless expanse of meadow without really seeing it. He was alone up there, the only living being in all the keep, alone save for a few silent, soulless aides.
“Damn her!” he hissed.
And damn him for a fool for ever letting himself be forced to be responsible to her! So much time had passed without a word from her. He’d almost let himself believe the rumors that the sorceress was dead, or so far from here that she’d forgotten all about him and the debt he owed her: the debt of his life.
Oh no. She hadn’t forgotten. All at once there had come that summons, and with it the infuriating knowledge that he still wasn’t free, any more than he’d been free so many years ago ... when the peasants had caught him weak from the aftereffects of a failed spell, had caught him and condemned him to death by fire——.
The sorcerer stopped short, black cloak swirling about him. Unbidden, his mind conjured up the hardwood stake as clearly as though it were with him now instead of far in the past, the stake and the chains pressing him cruelly back against it, his hands bound so he couldn’t gesture, his mouth sealed with a wooden gag so he couldn’t call out the slightest spell, and the flames crackling at the wood beneath him, the heat already starting to eat at his feet, his legs ...
Alatan spat out a savage curse, forcing his mind back to the present. It was done, he was safe, and he should have banished such ridiculous memories long ago!
The sorcerer resumed his angry pacing. What nonsense this was! He had seen and done and summoned horrors enough during his career, horrors that would have sent any other man screaming—aye, and he’d seen many of those horrors do him homage, too. He would not act like some raw boy haunted by his own mind!