“Damn the lot of you,” Swiftraven snarled, brandishing his sabre. “Who’s first?”
A hulking brute strode forward, chuckling darkly. In his meaty paw he held a sword that a human would have needed both hands to wield. His face twisted into a sneer, revealing a mouthful of black teeth.
“Come on,” Swiftraven growled.
Crossing the distance from his fellows to the young Plainsman in two long strides, the ogre raised his sword and slashed downward in a vicious arc. Swiftraven lifted his sabre to block the blow, and the crash of blade against blade numbed his whole arm. He stumbled back, nearly falling as his bleeding leg faltered under him, then regained his footing and lunged. He thrust upward with his sabre, seeking to pierce his opponent’s scale armor. The ogre swatted the blow aside with his blade, then struck Swiftraven across the face with his free hand.
A bright sun exploded in the Plainsman’s head, but stubbornly he spat blood and teeth on the ground.
“You’ll have to do better than that, you bastard,” he growled.
The ogre raised its massive sword above its head a second time. Again, Swiftraven raised his sabre to parry Steel met steel.
Then the Plainsman’s blade was spinning through the air shorn off by the might of the ogre’s attack. Swiftraven felt the monster’s weapon bite into his right shoulder, cleaving through his collarbone. He heard something heavy-some distant part of his mind told him it was his sword arm-drop to the ground.
He fell, Brightdawn’s name on his lips.
In his sickbed, Stagheart was weeping. Catt and Paxina’s faces also shone with misery. Riverwind stood very still, his face ashen, hands clenched into fists at his sides. Kronn bowed his head, sucked in a deep breath, and blew it out again through tight lips.
“We waited at the entrance to the tunnels,” he said quietly. “I don’t know-I thought maybe, somehow, he might make it. But when we saw the ogres coming through the woods, Giff had to close up the rock, and we headed back to Kendermore.” He raised his gaze from the floor, turning his head to look at a chair by the window. “Brightdawn… I’m sorry.”
She sat rigidly, her blue eyes vacant. The only parts of her that moved were her hands, which twisted around the arrow Swiftraven had left for her.
She did not cry.
When Riverwind had come to her and told her where Swiftraven had gone, and why, she had been furious-at her father, at Swiftraven, at Moonsong, at herself. In her anger, she had nearly gone down into the tunnels after him, but Riverwind had held her until some semblance of calm returned to her.
“He sacrificed himself for us,” Kronn stated. “If he hadn’t distracted them, the ogres would have caught us before we made it to Chesli’s Creek.”
“It should have been me,” Riverwind said dully. “Oh, Mishakal-he took my place…”
“It’s my fault,” Kronn disputed. “I’m the one who left him there.”
“No.” Brightdawn’s voice was as brittle as old parchment. She stood, numb with anguish. “He chose to go. Don’t blame yourselves-either of you.”
The old Plainsman looked at his daughter and saw the void in her gaze. His eyes gleaming in the lamplight, he reached out to her. With an inarticulate sound, Brightdawn shook off his gentle touch. She turned and walked out the door, which slammed shut behind her.
It was almost sunrise when Riverwind found her, standing atop Kendermore’s western wall. She stared intently at the dark line of the forest as the sky behind her turned gold with the promise of dawn. She still held the arrow in her hands.
“Brightdawn,” the old Plainsman said softly, walking toward her along the battlements.
She didn’t answer. He opened his mouth to say her name again, but before he could speak, she bowed her head, and her knees gave way beneath her. Riverwind was at her side before she could fall, though. He caught her up in his arms and held her close. She sobbed in agony as the tears she’d been holding back all night came all at once.
“Brightdawn,” the old Plainsman murmured, stroking her golden hair. “My child. My sunrise.”
“He didn’t say goodbye,” she moaned. “That’s the worst part. That and knowing Moonsong would be dead now if he hadn’t done what he did. Now I’ll never see him again.”
“You will,” Riverwind said solemnly. “Someday.”
She raised her head, her eyes accusing. “How do you know?” she demanded. “The gods are gone, Father! How can you be sure we’ll be together, after we die? How can you be sure there’s anything waiting for us?”
A spasm of anguish crossed his face. “I know, child,” he told her, “because I have faith. The gods would not have left us without making sure our spirits were cared for after we died. In my heart, I prefer to believe that I’ll see them all again-my grandfather, Sturm, Flint, Tanis, Tas… and Swiftraven will be waiting for us, too.”
She shook her head. “I wish I had your faith, Father.”
“You will, when your pain subsides,” he answered. He pointed up at the sky. “Do you see that star?”
Reluctantly, she looked. Most of the new stars had faded into the violet, pre-dawn glow, but one light lingered longer than the others. It shone red, like a glowing ember, above the northern horizon.
“Paxina tells me the Silvanesti elves have a name for it,” Riverwind said. “They call it Elequas Sori-the Watcher in the Dark. They say that to look upon it is to know peace, that we are not alone.”
Brightdawn looked at the red star a long time, and finally she relaxed in her father’s grasp. He let her go, smiling kindly. “You should go to your sister, child,” he said. “Moonsong will want to see you when she wakes. But first… I have brought you something.”
He reached over his shoulder and unslung his bow from his back. Wordlessly, he offered it to Brightdawn.
She looked at it a moment, then her gaze dropped to Swiftraven’s arrow. Its steel head gleamed in the morning light. She took the bow from her father, fitted the shaft on it, and pulled back the string, aiming out across the meadow. Then she fired.
The arrow carried a long way, soaring high against the brightening sky.
Chapter 20
Two weeks passed.
When Moonsong recovered from her injuries, she offered her skills as a healer to Arlie Longfinger, who consented gladly. Then she visited Stagheart and lay with him in his sickbed, holding him while he wept.
“Forgive me,” he pleaded, sobbing quietly.
She kissed him gently, tasting the salt of his tears. “Oh, my love,” she told him. “There is nothing to forgive.”
Meanwhile, the kender continued to prepare for war. Riverwind, Kronn, and Brimble Redfeather held more drills atop the walls. Brightdawn helped Catt and Paxina oversee the daily struggle to keep the people fed as the town’s foodstocks dwindled.
Then, one warm evening early in the month the kender called Blessings, the ogres launched their attack.
They came at twilight, when the shadows of the Kenderwood were long upon the land. They were only a fraction of the whole horde, marching across the field toward the city’s east wall, but their numbers were still vast: two thousand ogres-two full war bands-all howling for blood.
Thousands of kender, packed shoulder to shoulder atop the wall, peered between the merlons, watching the ogres advance. Some were resolute, their mouths drawn into tight, lipless lines as their hands twisted around their weapons. Others grinned and laughed, shouting at the onrushing attackers with mocking, singsong voices. Still others, who had come off watch only a short time before and had been called back when the alarm sounded, leaned sleepily against the battlements, their shoulders stooped and eyes drooping. A few took quick swigs from jugs of kender lager or flasks of lukewarm tarbean tea. Archers fitted arrows onto bowstrings; slingers tucked stones into the pouches of their hoopaks and chapaks. In the courtyard below, kender grabbed flagstones and hauled them up to the catwalk; the wall’s defenders would not be throwing kurpa melons at their assailants today. Others carried up buckets of steaming pitch, which they poured into the waiting cauldrons instead of the water they had used in the drills. They wrinkled their noses against the pungent smell, taking care not to touch the searing-hot kettles, then tossed the buckets back down into the courtyard when they were empty. Then they grabbed up weapons and squeezed into place at the battlements with the rest of their fellows. The tension on the wall was like the tingling of the air before a thunderstorm.