The Elven Page 11

  From the edge of the glade, Nuramon peered ahead, trying to make out anything recognizable. Close to the center stood three oaks. An unpleasant smell reached him on the wind, making him pause for a moment. Something about the smell wasn’t right. But what was right in this world for elven senses?

  He stepped carefully into the glade and looked around. There was no one to be seen. But with every step, the hissing sound grew louder. Whatever it was, it had to be coming from behind the three oaks. Nuramon’s hand tightened around the cool grip of his sword.

  When Nuramon had almost reached the three oaks, he saw to his left a broad spoor leading from the forest. Aigilaos’s tracks.

  He hurried toward the three trees. The hissing came horribly loud and long now. He saw a broken band of gold lying in the snow. Quickly, he rounded the oaks and stopped dead in disbelief.

  In front of him in the snow lay Aigilaos. The centaur’s head was tipped far back, and he was making the hissing noise through his open mouth. His curled beard was matted with blood. At his throat, Nuramon saw four thin wounds. If not for those, he realized, the centaur’s bellowing would have rung from one end of the forest to the other. Like this, he was barely able to make a sound. Something had literally cut out his voice. His screaming was no more than a deep breath blasted from his throat.

  There was more pain in Aigilaos’s face than Nuramon had ever seen in any other creature. His eyes stood wide open. Over and over, he tensed and tried to bellow, but all he could get out was that pitiful hiss.

  All four of the centaur’s legs were broken, one with the bone protruding through the skin. His long belly had been slit open. A pool of blood had formed in the snow and frozen, and a portion of his innards spilled out. One arm lay crushed beneath his body. The other was dislocated and, like his legs, broken. His sides were marked with long slashes, as if some marauding predator had set upon him.

  Nuramon did not want to imagine the pain that Aigilaos must have felt. He had never seen a living thing as mutilated as the centaur.

  “Farodin! Mandred!” shouted Nuramon, uncertain whether to fetch help or stay and try to do something for Aigilaos. He looked down at his own hands and saw them trembling. He had to do something. His companions at the camp were certain to have heard him.

  “I’ll help you, Aigilaos.”

  The centaur ceased his voiceless screaming. His face convulsed, and he looked up at Nuramon.

  It was hopeless. The belly wound alone would kill the centaur. The slashes to his throat had also done severe damage. Was he supposed to lie to the centaur? “I will ease your pain.” Nuramon laid his hands on Aigilaos’s forehead and looked into his tearing eyes. That the centaur was still conscious was a miracle. “Just a moment longer,” said Nuramon, then he focused on the magic he would need.

  It began with a tingle in the tips of his fingers. Nuramon concentrated on his heartbeat and felt a cool tremor run down through his arms to his hands. Under his fingers, he felt Aigilaos’s forehead grow warm. He could feel the centaur’s racing pulse and how his own heartbeat grew faster to match his companion’s. Then both heartbeats slowed again, and Aigilaos became calmer. So far, so good, even if the centaur was beyond rescue.

  As Nuramon let go of Aigilaos’s forehead, he saw the lines of the centaur’s face slowly relax. And again, with all the blood staining the snow, it amazed him that Aigilaos was even conscious. He resolved to fight against his companion’s death, as hopeless as the attempt might seem. He had no experience with centaurs. Maybe they could survive such wounds. Carefully, he laid his hands on Aigilaos’s slashed throat.

  Aigilaos felt no more pain and gazed steadily into Nuramon’s eyes. Then he shook his head and glanced down at the elf’s sword.

  Nuramon was horrified. Aigilaos knew that the end had come. And now it was up to Nuramon to draw Gaomee’s sword and make his death as swift as possible. The sword that Gaomee had once wielded so heroically to defeat Duanoc was now to be stained with the blood of a companion.

  Nuramon hesitated, but in the centaur’s eyes was a plea he could not ignore. It overcame him. He had to do it. Out of compassion, he had to. He drew the sword.

  Aigilaos nodded.

  “We will meet again, Aigilaos. In the next life.” Nuramon raised the sword and brought it down. But the sword tip stopped just before it struck the centaur’s chest. Aigilaos looked up in confusion. “I can’t do it,” said Nuramon in despair, shaking his head. The words of farewell he had said to the centaur rang inside him like an enormous bell. We will meet again, Aigilaos. In the next life. Who could say that the words were true? Nuramon did not know for certain that Aigilaos’s soul would be able to find its way from this world back to Albenmark. To take his life here might rob him forever of the chance to be born again.

  Nuramon threw his sword aside. He had come close to staining the weapon with the blood of a comrade. There was only one thing left for him to do. He had to use what magic he knew to try to save his companion’s life.

  Nuramon once again checked the wounds on Aigilaos’s throat. Mandred had described the manboar as a coarse and primitive beast, but these cuts had been made so precisely that they seemed to have come from a knife. Was the manboar also capable of using weapons? Or had some other beast mauled Aigilaos like this? Another thing puzzled Nuramon: apart from the blood of his companion, there were no tracks to be seen leading away, not even the tracks of the deer that Aigilaos had been hunting. And there was no sign of Brandan either. Maybe he was lying somewhere out there in the forest, as mutilated as Aigilaos.

  Nuramon suppressed the desire to call out for the rest of the party. Doing so might only attract the beast. He placed his hands carefully over the narrow wounds. The moment he thought of the magic, the tingling in his fingertips began again. This time, however, he did not feel the tremor in his arms that he had before. Instead, the tingling transformed into a pain that spread from his fingertips to his hands and into his joints. Pain for healing. That was the trade-off that was inherent to his magic. When the pain finally faded, Nuramon removed his hands from Aigilaos and looked at his throat. The wounds had closed.

  Then he looked at the gaping slit in the centaur’s belly, knowing that such an injury was beyond his power. He needed a spell that would bring an entire body back to life. Nuramon bent low over Aigilaos’s torso. “Can you speak again?” he asked the centaur.

  “Don’t do it, Nuramon,” Aigilaos begged, his voice husky. “Take the sword and bring this to an end.”

  Nuramon placed his hands on Aigilaos’s temples. “It’s only pain.” He knew very well that the more serious the wound, the greater the pain he himself would have to endure. Still, he focused on the task and tried to calm his breathing.

  “I wish you the luck of the Alben, my friend,” said the centaur.

  Nuramon did not reply. He let his magic flow through his hands into Aigilaos’s body. He thought of those he had healed in the past. A great many trees and animals, but only rarely an elf.

  A searing pain suddenly shot through his hands and up his arms. This was the price he paid for healing. This was what he had to withstand. Then the pain grew and turned into something appalling. Nuramon closed his eyes and fought it, but all of his attempts to dissipate it failed. It hit him like a lightning bolt inside his head. He knew he only had to let go to end it. But stopping meant that Aigilaos would be lost.

  It wasn’t just the number of injuries nor just the damage wrought by the belly wound. There was something else here, something that Nuramon couldn’t contain. Was it poison? Or perhaps magic? Nuramon tried to relax his mind, but the pain was too great. He felt his hands begin to cramp and his body start to shake.

  “Nuramon! Nuramon!” he heard a raw voice shout. “By the gods!”

  “Silence. He is healing him,” came the voice of an elf. “Oh, Nuramon.”

  The pain grew, and Nuramon clenched his teeth. There seemed to
be no end to the agony. It rose and rose. He felt his own senses begin to fade.

  For one moment, Nuramon thought of Noroelle. And the pain was suddenly gone.

  All around was quiet.

  Nuramon opened his eyes slowly and saw Farodin’s face above him.

  “Say something, Nuramon.”

  “Aigilaos?” was all that escaped him.

  Farodin looked aside, then back at Nuramon. He shook his head.

  Beside him, Mandred cried out. “No. Wake up. Wake up! Don’t go like this! Speak to me!”

  But the centaur was silent.

  Nuramon tried to stand. Slowly, his strength returned.

  Farodin helped him to his feet. “You could have died,” he whispered.

  Nuramon stared down at Aigilaos. Mandred was bent over the centaur, weeping. Aigilaos’s face was indeed calm, but his body was still a horrible sight.

  “Have you forgotten what you promised Noroelle?”

  “No, I have not,” whispered Nuramon. “Which is why Aigilaos had to die.”

  Nuramon tried to turn and move away, but Farodin held him firmly. “You could not have saved him.”

  “But what if he could have been saved?”

  Farodin said nothing.

  Mandred stood and turned to face them. “Did he say anything?” The human was looking expectantly at Nuramon.

  “He wished me luck.” It was all the elf could say.

  “You did everything you could. I know that,” Mandred said, but the human’s words did not console Nuramon.

  He picked up the sword, looked at it, and thought of what Aigilaos had asked of him. He could not tell Mandred that.

  “What happened? And where’s Brandan?” Farodin asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Nuramon slowly.

  Mandred shook his head. “We can count ourselves lucky if he’s still alive.” He looked at Aigilaos and sighed heavily. “By the gods. No one should die like that.” Then he looked around. “Damn it. It’s already far too dark.”

  “Then we’d better find Brandan quickly,” said Farodin.

  They turned and looked at Aigilaos again and decided to come back for him later that night if they possibly could.

  Nuramon led Farodin and Mandred back to Brandan’s tracks. Night had fallen in the meantime. “I should have brought the barinstones from the camp,” said Farodin. The elf’s tracks were hard enough to follow in daylight. The darkness made it impossible. They were not expert trackers.

  Suddenly, from some distance behind them rose a monstrous howling. All three turned, then Mandred shouted, “The camp! Come on!”

  They set off running, and Nuramon realized that Mandred had great difficulty moving in the darkness. He was constantly running into low branches, but then he dropped back and ran behind Farodin. He cursed the whole time at the way he sank to his calves in the snow with every step while the elves ran lightly on top of it.

  Finally, they reached the camp. It was empty.

  The fire burned, and the horses were standing quietly, but Vanna, Lijema, and the wolves had disappeared. While Farodin kneeled beside his saddlebags, Nuramon circled the camp, searching for tracks. Mandred stood as if paralyzed. He probably thought that all was lost.

  The forest was silent.

  Nuramon found the tracks of the wolves and the elves. They led along the edge of the forest. There were no signs of battle or struggle. He told his companions of his discovery, and Farodin threw him and Mandred each a barinstone. They were clear and glowed with a white light.

  A howling reached them from deep in the forest, and they set off again. They shouted out for Vanna and Lijema, but no answer came.

  They found a blood trail and followed that. The wolves and apparently Vanna and Lijema, too, had followed the blood before them.

  Soon they came across a dead wolf, its throat torn out. Apprehensive, they went on following the tracks, finding more drops of blood every few steps.

  They could still hear the howling up ahead. Suddenly, among the trees in front of them, they could see the white wolves leaping. There was a shadow there, and the wolves were on it. A huge form. It lashed out wildly, and the baying of a wolf turned into stifled yelps of pain. Then they heard a woman screaming.

  They reached a clearing. The light of the barinstones expelled the darkness. Nuramon saw the wolves pursuing a hulking, hunched form moving off quickly into the darkness.

  In the light from his stone, Nuramon found Vanna, the sorceress, in the middle of the clearing.

  “Come back! This is no time for revenge!” she screamed after the vanishing wolves. “Come back!” But they did not listen to her. The sorceress’s legs gave way, and she buckled over something in the snow.

  Mandred and Farodin were with her in an instant. Nuramon approached more slowly and looked around. Three wolves lay dead in the clearing. The leader of the pack was among the dead. Something had been rammed into its back. Nuramon noticed a sharp odor in the air. It was the same stink he had detected when he’d found Aigilaos. It was the reek of the beast.

  When Nuramon reached his companions, he saw in the light of his barinstone that Vanna was kneeling beside Lijema. When the sorceress straightened up, he could see that the wolfmother’s breast had been torn open. Something had punctured her chest and destroyed her lungs and heart. Her eyes still shone, but her face was frozen in a mask of astonishment.

  Vanna pressed her forehead lovingly to the dead woman’s.

  “What happened?” asked Farodin.

  Vanna said nothing.

  Farodin took hold of the sorceress by the shoulders and shook her gently. “Vanna.”

  Her large eyes seemed to look right through him. She pointed off to one side. “Brandan is over there, behind that tree. The boar . . .” She broke off.

  Nuramon ran. He needed to get to Brandan as fast as possible. In his mind’s eye, he could still see Aigilaos.

  An argument broke out between Mandred and Farodin. The human wanted to pursue the beast, but Farodin was not going to allow it. How could they fight about such a thing at a time like this? Brandan might still be alive.

  Nuramon reached the edge of the clearing and found him. The tracker lay on his back. He was injured slightly on one side of his head and on one leg. He was unconscious, but his heart still beat, and he was breathing slowly. Nuramon laid his healing hands on Brandan’s wounds. Again he felt the tingling come, followed by the pain. After a moment, the wounds scabbed over beneath his fingers. That would do for now. He would finish healing him later.

  He picked Brandan up with an effort and made his way with heavy steps back to the others. Under the load he carried, his feet sank in the snow.

  He heard Farodin talking patiently to Mandred, trying to persuade him. “The beast is toying with us. We can’t let it provoke us into doing something thoughtless now. We can hunt it down tomorrow.”

  “As you think best,” said Mandred with reluctance.

  When they saw Nuramon approaching, the worry on their faces was clear. They ran to him.

  “Is he . . . ?” Mandred began.

  “He’s alive, but we should get him back to camp.”

  It was a hard walk back. Mandred carried Brandan while Farodin and Nuramon took the body of Lijema between them. They left the dead wolves where they lay. Along the way, Mandred tried to wake Brandan, but the tracker rested deep in unconsciousness.

  At the camp, Farodin took care of Lijema’s corpse, wrapping the body in a cloak. Mandred and Vanna sat at the fire and listened to the sounds of the forest. Brandan’s head lay in Nuramon’s hands, absorbing his magic, while Nuramon watched Vanna and Mandred. Their faces and the way they were sitting said more than any words could. Two members of the elfhunt had been killed, and their wolves were either dead or gone.

  Nuramon looked up to the moon. His grandmother had sp
oken the truth. Only half of it could be seen, and it looked far smaller than the moon in Albenmark. He thought back to the last time he had spoken with Noroelle. What happens if you die in the human realm? He could only hope that Lijema would be reborn. He did not know what happened to a centaur after death. There were some among the Albenkin who said that in death, centaurs went directly into the moonlight. He hoped the souls of their dead companions were not lost.

  As the pain seeped out of Brandan’s body and into Nuramon’s hands, Nuramon closed his eyes and thought of Aigilaos. Farodin was right: the centaur had been beyond rescue, but he still wondered whether his thoughts of Noroelle and of the promise he had made her had contributed to Aigilaos’s death. Maybe . . . maybe with a little more effort, he could have saved him.

  The pain ebbed away, and Nuramon opened his eyes. Farodin, Mandred, and Vanna were standing around him. He let go of Brandan. “Don’t worry. All is well.”

  But the worry they felt was only replaced by relief when, a few moments later, Brandan awoke.

  He was exhausted, but he could tell them what had happened. “It was on me without warning. There was a terrible smell, and it was as if I were paralyzed. I could do nothing. Nothing.”

  He had been knocked unconscious by the manboar and used as bait. The last thing he remembered was the sound of breathing, but it was a horrible, guttural sound.

  Nuramon told Brandan and Vanna what had happened to Aigilaos. He described the centaur’s fate to the last detail, but kept to himself that Aigilaos had begged him to kill him. Brandan and Vanna listened in distress and horror.

  Farodin shook his head. “Something about this manboar is not right. It is more than just a beast.”

  “Whatever it is, we can kill it if we don’t let ourselves get split up again,” said Mandred.

  “We will take watches. The bastard won’t catch us by surprise,” Farodin replied.

  Before they could decide who would take the first shift, two of the wolves slunk back into the camp. They were silent and came with their tails between their legs, but they were uninjured. Mandred was happy to see the animals back and stroked the head of one of them. Vanna welcomed the second. The wolves were exhausted, and they stank of the manboar.