The Cleric Quintet: In Sylvan Shadows

 

Revelations and Reluctant Allies

Cadderly saw the black liquid oozing from Danica's wound and grew doubly concerned. He had seen the imp's sting fell Pikel, and the dwarf would have died if it hadn't been for a druid's healing magic. How could a human survive a poison potent enough to overpower a dwarf?

Danica's arm continued to twitch, and still more of the evil substance flowed out, mixing with her blood. Her breathing came slower, alarming Cadderly until he realized she was using a technique to keep herself calm. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at him, and he knew, though did not understand how, that she would be all right.

"A wicked sting," she whispered. "And the burn . . ."

"I know," Cadderly replied gently. "Rest easily. The battle is won."

Danica's eyes looked past Cadderly and she couldn't suppress a chuckle. Cadderly turned and understood, for Ivan and Pikel, both covered head to toe in soot, rushed about the camp, searching the bodies of dead monsters.

Danica sat up, took a deep breath, and shook her head vigorously. "The poison is no more," she announced, her voice suddenly solid again. "I have defeated it, forced it from my body."

Cadderly could not begin to express his amazement. He shook his head slowly and made a mental note to question Danica on how she had overcome the deadly substance. But that would wait for another, more peaceful time. Now Cadderly had other concerns.

"Dorigen got away," he said. Danica nodded and began working at the bindings on his wrists.

"You do not understand," Cadderly continued, building himself into a minor fit of frenzy. "She has my crossbow. The weapon has fallen into the hands of an enemy!"

Danica didn't seem overly concerned. "We are alive and free again," she said. "That is all that matters. If you get into a fight again, you'll find a way to win without that weapon."

Danica's confidence in his ingenuity touched Cadderly, but she had missed his point. It wasn't for himself that he was frightened, it was for all the region. "She has the crossbow," he said again. "And the explosive darts."

"How many?"

Cadderly thought for a moment, trying to recall all those he had used and all the ones he had continued to make during his stay in Shilmista. "Six, I believe," he said, then he sighed with relief as he remembered another important point. "But she does not have the flask containing more of the potion. I left that back at the elven camp."

"Then fear not," Danica said, still not understanding his concern.

"Fear not," Cadderly echoed sarcastically, as though his worries should be plain to see. "She has it do you not understand the implications? Dorigen could copy the design, unleash a new . . ." He stopped, unable to penetrate the frown on Danica's face. She pointed behind him and he looked again over his shoulder.

Not even the dwarves were there. Cadderly didn't understand.

"The tree," Danica explained. "Look at the tree."

Cadderly did as instructed. The proud elm, just moments before lush and vibrant in its late summer colors, remained only a charred and blackened skeleton. Small fires burned in several nooks; waves of rising heat distorted the air above and around the tree. Heaped, blackened forms of the dead orogs seemed to meld together with the dark limbs.

"Do you believe that a wizard who could wreak such sudden and terrible destruction would be impressed by your tiny crossbow?" Danica reasoned. "In Dorigen's eyes, would the bow be worth the expense?"

"She raised it against you," Cadderly argued, but he knew before Danica even scowled at him that Dorigen had threatened with the bow only to heighten the effect on Cadderly.

"Your bow is a fine weapon," Danica said softly, "but one that a wizard of Dorigen's power does not need."

Cadderly could not argue that logic, but he was not comforted. Whatever the outcome, he could not ignore the fact that a weapon he had designed might be used against an innocent, perhaps even against someone close to him. Again the crossbow was a symbol of the insanity around him, the rushing violence that he could not control and from which he could not hide.

*****

The haul was a bit meager by Ivan's standards, and the stubborn dwarf refused to yield until he had searched every inch of the camp. He sent Pikel to a tent across the way while he moved to the collapsed one that Cadderly and Danica had exited.

He slapped at the fallen skins with his free hand and used his axe to hold enough of the roof up so that a monster wouldn't crash into him. He came upon Tiennek's body first, still kneeling, propped by the crude spear.

"I bet that hurt," Ivan said, seeing the gruesome wound. He didn't know whether this man had been friend or foe, so he didn't go out of his way to search the body. Ivan did scoop up the fine sword that lay beside the dead man's hand, though, muttering, "Ye won't be needing this," almost apologetically as he pressed farther under the fallen canopy.

"Another one," the dwarf said in surprise, nearly stepping on poor Elbereth a moment later. "And still alive," he added when Elbereth snarled and wriggled away.

Ivan's expression turned sour when he saw it was an elf seated before him, but his disdain did not outdo the antipathy plainly exhibited on the elf's face.

"You have my sword," Elbereth said grimly, staring hard into the dwarfs dark eyes.

Ivan looked down to his belt. "So I do!" he replied, making no move toward the sword or the elf.

Elbereth waited as patiently as he could for a long moment. "I am still bound," he said, his voice trembling with anger.

Ivan looked at him long and hard, finally bobbing his hairy head. "So ye are!" the dwarf agreed, and he walked away. He nearly bumped into Cadderly and Danica back outside the tent.

"Where is Elbereth?" Cadderly asked, surprised that Ivan had come out alone.

"What's an Elbereth?" the dwarf answered smugly.

Cadderly wasn't in the mood for bantering. "Ivan!" he shouted.

The dwarf's eyes widened, two shining orbs in the middle of his blackened face. "That's a fine 'well met,' ye ungrateful - "

"All of our thanks!" Danica interrupted, relieved to see the dwarf but also wanting to calm the increasingly volatile scholar. She stepped over and threw a huge hug around the dirty dwarf, even kissing him on his hairy cheek and leaving a clean spot in the plane of soot.

"That's better," Ivan said, an inevitable tenderness emerging in his normally gruff voice as he looked at Danica.

"Now, where is Elbereth?" Danica asked calmly.

Ivan poked his thick thumb back over his shoulder. "In a foul mood, that one," he explained. Danica started for the collapsed tent, and Cadderly, too, but Ivan stomped a boot on the young scholar's foot, holding him in place.

"I still ain't heard a word of thanks from yer mouth," the dwarf growled.

Cadderly's expression was warmly sincere. He bent over quickly and kissed Ivan's other cheek, sending the dwarf in a sputtering tirade across the compound. "Durned fool boy!" Ivan growled, wiping at the wet mark. "Durned fool!" Cadderly enjoyed a much-needed smile at the spectacle.

The young man's relief was short-lived, though, as Danica pulled him under the tent and led him to Tiennek's body. She lifted the skin roof high to make sure that Cadderly had a good view of the corpse.

"Slain at my hands," Danica announced, no pride evident in her voice. "I killed him, do you understand? I did as I had to do, as the barbarian forced me to do."

Cadderly shuddered but did not seem to get Danica's point, if there was any.

"Just as you did with the evil priest," she said, putting it more bluntly.

"Why do you bring Barjin into this?" Cadderly demanded, horrified. That now-familiar image of the dead priest's eyes came at him from the depths of his subconscious.

"I do not bring Barjin into it," Danica corrected him. "You do." She went on quickly, cutting short Cadderly's forthcoming protest. "You bring Barjin with you wherever you go," she explained, "a ghost that haunts your every thought."

Cadderly's expression reflected his confusion.

"As with the wounded orogs back in the foothills," Danica said, her tone softening. "Leave dead Barjin behind. I beg you. His death was brought about by his own actions. You did only as you had to do."

"You do not care that you killed this man?" Cadderly asked, almost accusingly.

"I care," Danica snapped, "but I know that if I were given the chance to do it again, Tiennek would be dead exactly as he is now. Can you say differently about Barjin?"

Cadderly thought back to the events in the Edificant Library's catacombs. They seemed as if they had happened just that morning and had occurred a hundred years before, all at the same time. Cadderly had no answer to Danica's disturbing question, and she didn't wait for any, remembering that Elbereth, bound and probably humiliated, awaited his rescue. Cadderly followed at Danica's heels, his eyes locked on dead Tiennek until the drooping roof put the barbarian out of sight.

Elbereth didn't blink through the long moments it took Danica and Cadderly to free him. He would not show weakness openly, would not reveal the humiliation in his helplessness and capture. Only anger shone in the elf's silver eyes and showed in the set of his angular jaw. When he was free, he rushed from the collapsed tent, tearing through the skins with fury.

Ivan and Pikel stood beside the flap to Dorigen's tent. Ivan fingered Danica's crystal-bladed daggers, admiring the golden tiger hilt of one and the silver dragon hilt of the other. Pikel held a thick purple robe while trying futilely to get Cadderly's spindle-disks to spin back up into his chubby palm. At the dwarves' feet lay Cadderly's pack and walking stick.

It wasn't hard for Cadderly and Danica to guess where Elbereth was heading.

"My sword!" the elf prince shouted at the dwarf. Elbereth threw his slender hand out Ivan's way. When Ivan didn't immediately react, Elbereth grabbed the sword right from Ivan's belt.

"Skinny thing anyway," Ivan remarked to Pikel. "Probably break the first time I hit something with it."

In the blink of an eye, Elbereth had his sword tip against Ivan's thick throat.

"And ye're welcome," came the dwarf's reply.

"Uh-oh," remarked Pikel.

"Ye keep playing like that, and ye're going to get hurt," Ivan added evenly, locking stares with the silver-eyed elf.

It went on for a long, uncomfortable while, a battle of wills that teetered on the brink of violence.

"We have no time for this," Cadderly said meekly, going to inspect his pack. The Tome of Universal Harmony was there, to his relief, as was his light tube. All his belongings remained, in fact, with the notable exception of his crossbow.

Danica's approach was more straightforward. She casually pushed Elbereth's sword aside and stepped between the elf and dwarf, alternately shaming each of them with her uncompromising glare.

"Haven't we enough enemies?" the woman scolded. "An army of monsters surrounds us, and you two think to do battle with each other?"

"I have never seen much difference between an orc and a dwarf," Elbereth spat.

"Oo," answered a wounded Pikel.

"Ye view yer betters in a similar light, then," Ivan fought back.

"Oo," said Pikel, regarding Ivan with admiration.

Elbereth drew in his breath. Danica could see his grip tighten on his sword.

"They saved us," Danica reminded Elbereth. "Without Ivan and Pikel, we would remain Dorigen's prisoners or we would be dead."

Elbereth scowled at the notion. "You would have defeated the barbarian in any case," he argued, "then we would have been free."

"How many orogs and orcs would have come to Tien-nek's cries if the dwarves had not held them in battle outside our tent?" Cadderly interjected.

Elbereth's scowl did not diminish, but he did slide his sword into its sheath. "When this is over . . ." he warned Ivan, letting the threat hang open-ended.

"When this is over, ye're not likely to be around," Ivan huffed back, and the smugness of his tone suggested that he knew something the others did not.

He let them wait a while before offering an explanation. "How many kinfolk ye got, elf?" he asked. "How many to fight against the army that's come to yer wood?"

"Two more now," Cadderly replied.

"If ye're talking of me and me brother, then ye're talking nonsense," Ivan said. "I'm not about to die for the likes of some elves!"

"It is not just for the elves, Ivan," Cadderly explained. He looked about to all of them to get their attention. "This battle this war goes beyond Shilmista, I fear."

"How can you know?" Danica asked.

"Dorigen serves Talona," Cadderly replied. "We suspected that from the gloves Elbereth took from the bugbears before we ever came here. Now the connection is undeniable." He looked to Pikel. "Do you remember the imp that stung you?"

"Oo," answered the dwarf, rubbing his shoulder.

"That very imp was with Dorigen in her tent," Cadderly explained. "She and Barjin have come from the same source, and if they have attacked the library and now the forest, then . . ."

"Then all the region is in danger," Danica finished for him, "and the headmasters' worst fears shall be realized."

"So, you and your brother will fight," Cadderly said to Ivan. "If not for the elves, then for everyone else."

Ivan's dark eyes narrowed, but he did not refute the young scholar's logic.

"This would seem the place to begin," Cadderly went on, determined to forge an alliance. "We cannot allow our enemies a hold in Shilmista, and the Bouldershoulder brothers' help would go far in accomplishing our tasks."

"All right, elf," Ivan said after looking to Pikel for confirmation. "We'll help ye out, ungrateful though ye're sure to be."

"Do you believe I would accept . . ." Elbereth started, but Danica's glare stopped him short.

"Then fight well," Elbereth said instead. "But do not doubt, dwarf, that when this is ended, you and I will speak again about our meeting in the tent."

"Ye won't be here," Ivan said again.

"Why do you keep saying that?" Cadderly asked.

"Because I seen the enemy, lad," Ivan answered somberly. "Hundreds of them, I tell ye. Ye think the elves'll beat that number?"

Elbereth shook his head and turned away.

"There," Ivan said, pointing to a tree where he had spotted the elusive Hammadeen. "If ye don't believe me, then ask the faerie-thing!"

Elbereth did just that, and when he returned from his private conversation with Hammadeen, his face was pale.

"We cannot stay here," Danica said, trying to shake the elf from his concerns. "Do we go after the wizard?"

"No," Elbereth replied absently, his eyes looking to the distant south. "They have battled at the Hill of the Stars. I must go to my people."

"It would be a better course," Cadderly agreed. "Dorigen is too dangerous. She has spies. . . ." he stopped to consider Danica, who was mouthing their missing companion's name and pounding a fist into her hand. Cadderly didn't indicate his agreement, though. He refused to believe that Kierkan Rufo, for all his faults, willingly would have given information to the evil wizard.

But Cadderly had to admit that, lately, he simply did not know what to believe.

*****

Dorigen approached Ragnor's camp tentatively, not certain of how the volatile ogrillon would act now that the battle had taken such an unexpected twist. She had been absent, away hunting Cadderly and his friends, when Ragnor had launched his attack on the elven camp. Even without her help, though, the ogrillon had routed the elves and driven them miles southward.

Dorigen cursed her own stupidity. She had supplied Ragnor with the elves' position; she should have foreseen that the cocky brute would move against them, particularly if she would not be around to share in the victory.

Now Dorigen found herself in an awkward position, for while the ogrillon's moves had met with success, Dorigen's had met with disaster. She went to see Ragnor anyway. Her magical energies were all but exhausted this day and she needed Ragnor even if he did not need her.

"Where are my soldiers?" was the first thing the burly ogrillon barked at her when she entered his tent. Ragnor looked around slyly to his elite bugbear guard, realizing that this was the first time he had seen Dorigen without her barbarian escort. "And where is that slab of flesh you keep at your side?" he asked.

"We have powerful enemies," Dorigen answered and countered all at once, raising her voice loud enough to silence the bugbear chuckles. "You should not be so smug in your temporary victory."

"Temporary?" the ogrillon roared, and Dorigen wondered if perhaps she had pushed the ogrillon too far. She half expected Ragnor to rush over and tear her apart.

"Two score of the elves fell!" the ogrillon went on. "Six I killed myself!" Ragnor displayed a gruesome necklace featuring twelve elf ears.

"At what cost?" Dorigen asked.

"It does not matter," Ragnor replied, and Dorigen knew by the way Ragnor winced that the elven camp had not been overrun easily. "The elves are few, but my troops are many," the ogrillon went on. "I will not fear even a few thousand dead when Shilmista falls under my shadow."

"My shadow?" Dorigen asked slyly, emphasizing Ragnor's use of the personal pronoun. For the first time since she had entered the tent, she saw a hint of trepidation in the ogrillon's eye.

"You were away on private matters," Ragnor argued, somewhat subdued. "The time had come to attack, and I did. I struck with every soldier I could muster. I led the attack myself and carry the scars of battle!"

Dorigen bowed her head respectfully to calm the volatile beast. Ragnor had told her much more than he had intended. He mentioned that she was away, but she had not told him that she would be far from camp. For some reason, Ragnor had chosen that time to attack, without Dorigen to help him. With the ogrillon so adamant in his statement that Shilmista would fall under his control, and not to Castle Trinity, Dorigen worried just how far Ragnor's newfound independence would take him.

She had no desire to be anywhere near the ogrillon when he decided he did not need Castle Trinity.

"I go to my rest," she said, bowing again. "Accept my congratulations on your great victory, mighty General." Ragnor couldn't hide his thrill at hearing those words. Figuring that was a good note on which to depart, Dorigen left the tent, thinking it strange that a merciless brute such as Ragnor could be so easy a mark for flattery.

"He got scared," Druzil remarked from his perch on Dorigen's shoulder, soon after the wizard had departed the tent. The imp materialized. "He feared that you would control the battle and that he would not be needed."

"Let us hope he still believes that I can be of some use to him," Dorigen replied. "He will not be pleased to learn how many of his soldiers I have lost."

"Do not mention them," Druzil suggested. "I do not believe Ragnor can count anyway."

Dorigen turned her head sharply to face the imp. "You will never underestimate the ogrillon again!" she growled. "Any mistakes could bring a swift end to our lives."

Druzil snarled and grumbled but did not really argue. "What are your plans?" he asked after a long enough while for Dorigen to cool down.

Dorigen stopped her march to consider the question. "I will see where I may be of use," she answered.

"Have you given up on Aballister's son?" The imp sounded surprised.

"Never!" Dorigen snapped. "This Cadderly of Carradoon is a dangerous one, as are his friends. When this fight is over, whatever path Ragnor chooses, young Cadderly will prove valuable." Her eyes narrowed as though she had reminded herself of something important.

"You can still contact Kierkan Rufo?" she asked.

Druzil chuckled, the rough laugh sounding almost like a cough in his raspy little voice. "Contact?" he echoed. "Intrude upon would be a better description. Kierkan Rufo wears the amulet. His mind is mine to explore."

"Then hear his thoughts," Dorigen instructed. "If Cadderly returns to the elven camp, I wish to know."

Druzil muttered as usual and faded away, but Dorigen, too engrossed by the intrigue unfolding around her, paid his complaints little heed.

*****

"Afore ye set yer sights on going back to the hill," Ivan said gruffly, "me brother and me has got something ye should see."

Elbereth eyed the dwarf curiously, wondering what cruel surprise Ivan had in store for him this time. But when they at last arrived at the dwarves' small camp, just a mile or so out of their way, Elbereth cast a surprised look Ivan's way. Buried under a cairn of piled rocks lay a partially burned elven body, which Elbereth knew at once was Ralmarith's, his friend who had been slain in the enemy wizard's initial attack.

"How did you come by this?" the elf demanded, his voice a mix of suspicion and relief.

"Took it from the goblins," Ivan said, taking care to keep all hints of sympathy out of his gruff voice. "We figured that even an elf deserved a better resting place than a goblin's belly."

Elbereth turned back to Ralmarith's body and said no more. Danica moved and knelt beside him, putting an arm over his slender shoulders.

"Them two're a bit friendly, eh?" Ivan said to Cadderly, and the young scholar had to bite his lip to hold back his thoughts indeed, to force them from his mind. He had to trust in Danica, and in their love, he knew, for their situation was too dangerous to allow for any rifts between him and Elbereth.

Danica nodded more than once Ivan and Pikel's way, trying to prompt the elf to offer some thanks. Elbereth did not respond, though. He just whispered his farewells to his friend and carefully repacked the cairn, leaving Ralmarith's body to the forest the slain elf had so loved.

Shilmista was strangely quiet as the five companions made their stealthy way toward Daoine Dun. They stopped once for a short break, with Elbereth heading off to scout the area and see if he might find Hammadeen or some other woodland being to gather some information.

"You must forgive Elbereth," Cadderly said to Ivan, taking the opportunity to try to play peacemaker.

"What's an Elbereth?" Ivan asked snootily, not looking up from his work resetting the antler in his helmet. The dwarf grimaced and tightened the screw as much as he could, since he had no lacquer to reinforce the fit.

"He is the prince of Shilmista," Cadderly went on, wincing at, but otherwise ignoring, the dwarf's unyielding stubbornness. "And Shilmista might prove the cornerstone to support our struggles."

"I'm not for giving much hope to our struggles," Ivan replied grimly. "Yer handful of elves won't do much against the army that's walked in."

"If you really believed that, you would not have agreed to come along," Cadderly reasoned, thinking he had found a chip in the dwarf's iron facade.

The incredulous grin Ivan gave stole that thought away. "I'm not for missing a chance to bash a few orc brains," the dwarf retorted. "And yerself and the girl needed me and me brother."

Cadderly couldn't compete with Ivan's seemingly endless surliness, so he walked away, shaking his head at Danica and Pikel as he passed them. A few moments later, Elbereth came back to the camp and announced that the path to the hill was clear.

Daoine Dun was not as Cadderly remembered it. The once beautiful Hill of the Stars lay blasted and blackened, its thick grasses trampled under the charge of monstrous feet and its lush trees broken or burned. Even worse was the stench. Flocks of carrion birds flew off at the companions' approach, for the dead a fair number of elves among them had been left out to rot.

Even Ivan had no comment in the face of Elbereth's shock. Indeed, Ivan called Pikel to the side, and together they began to dig a common grave.

The elf prince wandered back and forth across the battlefield, checking the bodies of his kinfolk to see if he could determine which elves had fallen. Most had been mutilated, though, and the stoic elf just shook his head sadly at Danica and Cadderly as they followed him through his silent vigil.

They buried the fallen elves, Danica offering her thanks to the dwarves, though stubborn Elbereth would not, then they searched the whole hill. Elbereth kept to the trees, seeking to learn more of what had happened and where his friends and enemies might now be. Ivan and Pikel led the search of the caves. In one they found the half-eaten bodies of several horses, though, fortunately, Temmerisa was not among them.

In another chamber, in the cave that Galladel had used as his own, they made what Cadderly considered a remarkable discovery. Several books and scrolls were strewn about the floor, as if the elf king had hurriedly departed, quickly selecting what he should take with him and what to leave behind. Most of the writings were meaningless notes, but in one corner Cadderly found an ancient tome, bound in black leather and bearing the high elven runes for the letters "D," "Q," and "q." Cadderly took up the book in trembling hands, suspecting its contents. He gingerly undid the snap and opened it.

The ink was faded and the page was filled with many symbols that Cadderly could not understand. It bore the name Cadderly expected to see, though, Dellanil Quil'quien, the long-dead king of Shilmista and one of the forest's legendary heroes.

"What have you found?" came Elbereth's call from the cave entrance. He stood beside Danica; Ivan and Pikel had moved on to the next hole.

"Your father would not have left this intentionally," Cadderly explained, turning about and displaying the black-covered tome. "It is the book of Dellanil Quil'quien, a priceless work."

"I am surprised my father brought it along at all," Elbereth replied, "but I am not surprised that he left it behind. The book holds little value for him. Its writings are arcane, using many symbols that we of Shilmista can no longer comprehend. The book holds nothing for us. Take it back to your library if you desire."

"Surely you err," Cadderly said. "Dellanil Quil'quien was among your greatest heroes. His feats, his magic, could prove critical examples at this dire time."

"As I have told you," replied Elbereth, "we can no longer even read the work. Nor can you. Many of the symbols have not been used for centuries. Come now," Elbereth bade the two humans. "We must move on. Even as we speak, my people may be in another battle, and I do not wish to remain at this scarred place any longer than is necessary." The elf walked out into the afternoon sunlight. Danica waited by the entrance for Cadderly.

"You are keeping the book?" she asked, seeing him placing it in his pack.

"I do not agree with Elbereth's estimation of the work," Cadderly replied. "There may be something in Dellanil's writings that will help us in our fight."

"But you cannot even read it," Danica said.

"We shall see," Cadderly replied. "I have translated many works back at the library. Now, at least, I have a task that I am prepared to handle as you might, when you are faced with physical battle."

Danica nodded and said no more. She led Cadderly out of the cave and down to where the elf prince waited for the dwarves to complete their search.

For Cadderly, the book came as a godsend. He really didn't believe, didn't dare to hope, that he would find something important in the work, even if he could manage to translate the strange runes. But just working toward the common goal of saving the forest while using his unique skills added a bit of spring to the young scholar's steps.

Most important of all, finding and working with the book of Dellanil Quil'quien would somewhat remove Cadderly from the violence. He longed for that time past, before Barjin had come to the Edificant Library, when adventures were found only in the words of ancient books.

Perhaps this work would block the harsh realities that had so suddenly surrounded the young scholar.