In his frightened floundering, Shanhaevel’s hand smacked against something hard, and he instinctively closed his grip on it. It was his staff, he realized, and he pulled it to himself, gripping it for all he was worth and swinging it all about, hoping to discourage any potential attacks. He could still neither see nor hear, although both his vision and hearing seemed to be gradually returning.
After a moment or two, the elf realized that it was quiet. He could hear the slurping and sucking of the mud beneath his body as he twisted around. He stopped moving and listened. There were no sounds of battle, only the dripping from the surrounding trees and a faint rasping sound.
Shaking his head and wishing he could rub his eyes to try to restore his sight, Shanhaevel sat up and peered around as his vision returned.
“Lanithaine?” he called, worried that more gnolls might be nearby. There was no answer.
Shanhaevel scrambled to his feet, his eyesight mostly restored. Burned bodies lay everywhere. He moved among them, relieved to see that they were all gnolls. Then he spotted his teacher, slumped against the bole of a large oak, breathing in ragged, rapid gasps. Shanhaevel leaped across the distance between them and knelt down beside the old man.
Lanithaine’s breathing was shallow, and Shanhaevel could detect a faint gurgling with each breath. An arrow had caught him squarely in the back and was protruding from his ribs in front. Shanhaevel leaned down, close to his teacher’s face. He could see blood discoloring Lanithaine’s lips.
No! The elf screamed silently. Why now? I have no healing magic!
“Lanithaine, talk to me,” he said. Lanithaine opened his eyes and looked at Shanhaevel, although the elf knew that his own visage was nearly invisible to the man. Good, he thought. Don’t let him to see my fear.
“You must go to… to Hommlet,” Lanithaine rasped, his voice weak and moist. “Find… Burne. Tell him… what… h-happened.”
“No, you’re coming, too,” Shanhaevel insisted. “I’m taking you there just as soon as I can get you on one of the horses.”
Lanithaine reached up and took hold of Shanhaevel’s arm with his hand. The grip was weak, and his teacher’s fingers trembled. “No,” the older man said, his voice softer still. “Can’t breathe. Arrow… through… a l-l—”
Shanhaevel could feel the tears welling up in his eyes, because he knew what his teacher was saying, and he couldn’t bear to hear the rest. He started to drag a sleeve across his face to keep the tears away, but his arm, his face, everything was covered in mud, so he simply let them fall.
“Go,” Lanithaine said, the effort to speak clearly taxing him. He coughed, his body seizing up with spasms, and blood now stained his white beard. Shanhaevel could only hold the man, feeling Lanithaine’s fingers dig into his arm. When the coughing fit subsided, the older man continued, his voice barely a whisper. “You… can… do this. Burne… needs…you. Help… as… you wou—” The old man paused for breath. “…me.”
“Lanithaine, no! You are my teacher. I can’t—won’t—serve another!” Shanhaevel, too, struggled to breathe, feeling as though he were suffocating. He felt helpless, and his master’s words were ripping at his insides. The suggestion that the elf serve another was too much. It cut too deeply. The lump that formed in his throat nearly choked him.
“No… serve. Aid. For me. See… task…through.” Another coughing fit gripped Lanithaine, and this time, it would not release him. As his breath grew more and more shallow, the older man gasped, his head sagging back, until the last cough was little more than a pitiful wheeze, and he sighed, lying still.
2
Unmoving, Shanhaevel crouched beside his master’s body, his mind refusing to believe what was before him. It could not be. They were supposed to spend many more years together. This was not how it was supposed to end. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision of the face of his dead teacher, but he could not tear his eyes away.
“No,” he insisted, and shook Lanithaine once, gently. He is just unconscious, the elf told himself. I can revive him. Not dead. Not dead!
“Noooo!” He screamed into the forest, loud and long, feeling his throat grow hoarse and not caring. He screamed it again and grabbed at the hated arrow, yanking it free from Lanithaine’s body.
With his fist clenched around the missile, Shanhaevel lunged back and away from Lanithaine, unwilling to look upon his teacher’s face any longer. His rage burned inside him now, white-hot anger that made him clench his teeth and ball his free hand into a fist. The elf whirled around, wanting, hoping to spot a gnoll on the road, one that might have escaped the death of Lanithaine’s bolt of lightning.
There were none. If any had survived, they had vanished. Desperate, Shanhaevel peered around, listening. His breath heaved in his chest, and hot tears ran down his face, mixing with the mud caked there. He could feel his fists shaking from his rage. In fury, he gripped the arrow even more tightly, then flung it away and sank down in the road, his mind numb.
Bad things dead, Ormiel said, the thought vaguely coupled with a slight yearning for a mouse to snack upon. Why still shout for the hunt?
Shanhaevel raised his head and looked around. His vision was fine now, but the world seemed dull, muted.
Lanithaine is dead, he told the hawk.
Ormiel didn’t answer, but Shanhaevel sensed the sorrow the bird felt, and the hawk cried out, a forlorn screech from the branches overhead that echoed into the night.
Damn, the elf thought, feeling the rage inside him reduced to a dull smoldering. Damn it all to the hells. He tried to wrap his mind around the meaning behind the words. Lanithaine is dead. The elf felt his throat tightening once more and refused to let it overwhelm him. Instead, he stood, peering around and focusing his mind on what to do next, shutting out, for the moment, his grief. He spotted one of the gnolls Lanithaine had slain.
Moving closer, he crouched down for a look, gathering in as many details as he could from the blackened, charred body. It was armed and armored—fairly well, too. Shanhaevel did not recognize the symbol emblazoned on the beast’s black tunic. The cloth was burned, but the symbol seemed to be a flaming eye of orange. He made a mental note of it, wondering what tribes he might not be familiar with roamed this part of the Gnarley.
Gnolls this far west, Shanhaevel thought. Lanithaine said we weren’t more than another hour, even on foot, from Hommlet, and there are easily half a dozen other communities scattered around, at least according to his map. Plus, we—I—I’m into the hills now, and the gnomes hold solid sway here. Why would gnolls risk ranging this far out of the deep forest? Maybe this Burne in Hommlet will know.
Do I go on, though? Why? What am I going to do there, just walk up and ask for this Burne? Excuse me, Mr. Burne, but Lanithaine is dead, so I’m here instead. They’ll think I’m crazy. He shook his head in dismissal. I’m not going to Hommlet.
Yes, you are, Shanhaevel told himself. Lanithaine wanted it. He wanted you to go in his stead. The one thing Lanithaine would have hated the most about dying was leaving an obligation unpaid.
For a moment, the elf was angry again—angry with the wizard Burne, who had needed Lanithaine for whatever reason, angry with Lanithaine for coming to aid Burne and for dying, but mostly angry with himself for letting his emotions get so twisted around everything. The anger gave way to fresh sorrow, because he knew the reason plainly enough: It was Lanithaine’s honor that was at stake, even in death, and Shanhaevel had cared too much for the man in life to taint that.