Chapter 20

Marak-in-Exile, the Steamwalls

His sword was gone. His dagger too. But Forlo had been a fighter all his life, and had even learned a few things from the monks who worshipped the god Manith, who were forbidden from carrying any weapon greater than a walking stick, and so had taught themselves to fight with their bare hands and feet. He was no master of astakha, their art of battle, but he knew a few surprises.

He eyed the kender now as he slowly rose from where he lay, and settled into an easy, relaxed pose, one foot slightly ahead of the other, arms hanging loose at his sides. From there, if the need came, he could drop to a stance the monks called Clutching Griffin, and lay into his enemies. The stone-bows worried him a little, but as long as they didn't shoot him in the face or the knee—or the groin, gods help him—he could probably endure a few hits.

For now, though, he stood still, his eyes flicking to the others. Eldako had settled into a stance of his own, taut as the string of his missing bow. Shedara was eyeing the kender's leader, the woman with the axe. Hult was the most troubled of them all, patting his chest frantically. The amulet Nalaran had given him was gone. Looking around, Forlo saw one of their captors was wearing it, along with four or five other necklaces of various styles—human, hobgoblin, even one blocky thing that had to be of dwarven make.

"Tell him it's all right," Forlo whispered to Eldako. He nodded to Hult, who was on the verge of becoming frantic. "It's just kender. They take things that interest them. We can get it back."

As long as we don't get ourselves killed… .

"You should not be here," said the leader of the band, in thickly accented League-speech. "These are Marak lands. Outsiders do not belong."

"Marak lands?" Shedara asked. "But your valleys lie inland, many leagues from here."

The kender exchanged dark looks, a couple of them muttering under their breaths. The one with the axe held up a hand, and they were still. "We dwell here now, in the mountains," she replied. "The valleys are no longer ours."

"I see," Shedara said. "Then the shadows have driven you out completely."

"The shadows? What do you know about them?" the kender exclaimed, startled. Her fellows chattered amongst themselves in a mishmash of languages: elven, minotaur, hobgoblin, dwarven, and three or four human tongues as well. Forlo blocked out the babble—he'd tried to learn kenderspeak once, from those of the little folk who liked to follow the Sixth Legion's supply train, searching for interesting items to "borrow" from it. The experience had nearly driven him mad. There didn't seem to be any rules to it at all.

"We have fought them, many times," Shedara said. "They overran my people's woods as well."

"The shadows trouble the Silvanaes?"

Shedara nodded. "They trouble us all. This may have started in your valleys, but it has spread far."

The kender prattled to one another. The leader turned and said something to one of them, an older-looking fellow with close-cropped white hair and a long scar that ran from his temple down to the corner of his jaw; he'd lost half his right ear to the same wound. He stepped forward to face Shedara.

"If you have fought them," he said, "then you will know the answer to this. What do their bodies look like, after they are killed?"

Shedara smiled. "There are none. They dissolve into smoke."

The elder kender regarded her, eyes narrow. Then, finally, he broke into a broad grin.

"You are what you say, then," he said. "Friends to the Marakai. I am Yale Highclover. Once I was an elder of the valley-folk, but now I am an exile, like all who escaped the shadow-blight. This is my daughter, Tanda." He gestured to the woman with the axe, who spoke a word to the archers. Warily, they lowered their hoopaui.

Shedara bowed her head. "I am Shedara, once of Armach-nesti. These are my companions—Forlo of Coldhope, Hult of the Tamire, and Eldako from the Dreaming Green. We are exiles too."

"We seek the leader of your people," Forlo interrupted. "We must speak with him."

There was a pause, then the kender broke out laughing. Even Yale chuckled, and shook his head when he saw Forlo's face darken. "I'm sorry," he said. "You must not know our people's ways. We have no leaders—not like the emperor of your League. Shame to hear the new one's dead, by the way. No, we kender take care of our own… or did, until the shadows came. I'm the last elder left, the only one who got away when the darkness came… so I suppose you'll have to settle for me."

"And me too," put in Tanda. "I'm the one who's in charge of rescuing our people."

"Then are there other survivors?" Shedara asked.

Tanda glanced at her father, who made a grim face and waggled his hand. "A few," he said. "About eight hundred of us fled when the shadows came, but many have left for other lands, and more than a few have died since. The Steamwalls are not a pleasant place. We number maybe half as many now."

"We lose about as many as we save from the shadows," Tanda added. "Perhaps more. Our numbers are dwindling. But we have to keep trying, don't we? Better to die fighting than let our people turn into them."

Forlo raised his eyebrows. The kender he'd known had been flighty creatures—not selfish, exactly, but certainly not like these. The Marakai's experiences had changed them, made them more serious. They were like war-orphaned children, grown old before their time. He didn't know how to feel about that: he'd found their curiosity as annoying as any commander might—one had even tried to wander off with his company's battle-standard, once—but seeing them like this, hungry and hunted and even a little grim, only reminded him of all that had changed in the world since the Hooded One had entered his life. Was there anyone in Taladas who hadn't suffered because of the statue and those who had stolen it?

Eldako leaned close to Shedara. "Hult can't understand any of this," he said. "They took the talisman."

He nodded toward the kender with all the necklaces, and Shedara turned back to Yale and Tanda. "We will talk more about this blight," she said. "But before we do, I must ask for our possessions back. Our weapons, and the jade amulet your man is wearing, there."

Father and daughter muttered to each other. After a moment Yale turned back, while Tanda issued several sharp commands to the other kender.

"You must understand," the elder said, "we did not know if you were friend or foe. We took your possessions for our safety, nothing more. We are not thieves."

"Of course," Shedara said, smiling. "We would never accuse you of such a thing."

Forlo suppressed a grin of his own. Kender, as a race, were driven by the need to pick up anything interesting that wasn't nailed down—and to look for a pry-bar for things that were. And they always had an excuse for it. It made them unwelcome in most lands.

It took a few minutes, and a certain amount of extra encouragement from Tanda, for the kender to give up everything they'd taken. Eldako made sure to count his arrows before slinging his quiver across his back again. Hult gave the little folk a dirty look when they handed back the amulet, and only relaxed again when he'd slipped it back around his neck. Forlo felt a surprising flash of envy toward Hult—at least now one of them would be able to follow kenderspeak.

"Is that everything? Good," said Yale. "Now, we were speaking about the shadow-blight—"

A call arose, then—an odd noise, halfway between a hoot and a howl. Several of the kender looked toward the cave mouth, and Tanda whispered to her father and went to peer outside. She cupped her hands to her mouth and echoed the call, which came back a moment later. The kender's faces darkened, their hands tightening around their bows.

So serious, Forlo thought again.

"What is it?" Shedara asked.

"Trouble," Yale replied. "We set watchers before we went in here. The fiends come into the mountains every few days, trying to find us. They need us to make more of them, you see. They're—"

"Father!" called Tanda. "We have to go!"

He glanced back at her, then nodded. "I'm sorry," he said and gestured to the other kender, who hurried toward the cave mouth, hoopaui at the ready. "My daughter is right. Come on—we'll take you back to our own caves, where we'll be safe. Or anyhow, I hope we will."

The kender's hiding place was three hours' brisk walk to the southwest, along a path hidden by gray, scraggly brush. They never saw the shadows that were stalking them, but Forlo could feel them—a coldness out there, a sucking hole in the warmth of the winds that scoured the Steamwall. After a while, the feeling got fainter, and the kender's scouts returned. They looked the same as the others, but their faces and hair were smeared white with ash—camouflage enough that even Eldako didn't spot them until they were close.

More scrub covered the cave's entrance; the kender had woven it into a kind of curtain that pulled neatly aside as they approached. More ash-smeared scouts watched them from outcrops and ledges, stones tucked into the pouches of their bows. Tanda hooted to them, and they relaxed a little but kept wary eyes on the visitors, just the same. Forlo kept his hands away from his weapons as he walked by them, and gave them each a nod of respect. The Marakai were a cunning and secretive people; he was used to kender being nothing more than pests. For the first time, he wondered how much he might learn from them.

They entered the cave and stopped. A second curtain blocked their way, this one made of dark felt. It stayed shut until the brush-screen closed behind them, then drew aside, opening into a wide, firelit space full of kender. Hundreds of them filled the cave, all silent, watching as the party strode in. Then the felt curtain pulled closed, and the little folk went back to what they were doing—talking, laughing, cooking, playing flutes and drums. It was something close to carefree, a semblance of what their life must have been like before. There was a sadness lying just beneath the surface of the merriment, though; a knowledge that, for this generation at least, things could never be as they were. Perhaps in the future, the Marakai would know joy without fear again. And then again, perhaps not. Sometimes, a people's scars were too deep. Forlo found himself staring at Hult as he thought about that. The Uigan's scars would never fully heal.

The scouting party dispersed, spreading out through the cave to join their families and friends, leaving Forlo and the others with Yale and his daughter.

"I have never seen so many kender in one place," Eldako said.

"It's a little frightening," Shedara agreed.

"This is nothing beside what it was like before the troubles," Tanda said, shaking her head. "But what you see are all the free Marakai who remain—except the ones on patrol or guard duty, this is virtually every kender who escaped the shadow-plague, and who hasn't turned his back on his people."

Yale glanced at her sharply. "Hush, child. You know we don't speak of such things in front of the others." Tanda bowed her head, chastened, as Yale looked back at Shedara. "For many of the valley-folk, the pain of what happened is still too near. Come—there are deeper caves where we can talk freely."

"Keep your hands on your valuables," Shedara cautioned in a low voice.

They soon discovered how serious she was. Kender congregated around them as they crossed the cave, staring with mournful eyes, occasionally reaching out to touch them. One tried to take Eldako's sword; another reached for Hult's amulet; a third actually managed to get a buckle undone on one of Forlo's boots before Tanda and Yale could shoo him away. By the time they reached a tunnel at the cave's far end, the mass of little folk around them had grown so thick that Tanda had to shove her way through, then stay behind to make sure none followed. Yale led them down a sloping passage toward another cave. The sound of dripping water rose to meet them.

Halfway down the tunnel, Hult suddenly stopped. He sniffed the air, then looked to his left and right and walked over to the passage wall. "Something lived here, before," he said. "Something large… ."

He ran his hand over the stone, and Forlo saw what he'd seen: deep furrows gouged into the rock, as if by massive claws. In other places, the stone looked to have melted and run down to the floor in undulating lumps, like candle wax.

"A dragon," Eldako murmured. "This was its lair."

Hult found something lodged in one of the furrows. He bloodied his knuckles prying it loose, then swore under his breath and held it up for all to see. It was a scale, night-black, with an opalescent sheen—identical to the one they had brought to the Namer. Eldako shook his head, looking at the ground.

"Where is he?" asked Forlo at once. He took two steps toward Yale before Shedara caught his arm, stopping him. "The dragon who used to live here. Gloomwing. What happened to him?"

"He is gone," Yale replied, his face creased with disgust. "And good riddance to him. Away to the south, away from us. If only he had gone sooner—but the damage is already done."

"Damage?" Shedara asked. "What do you mean?"

Yale sighed. "It's all part of the same story. Come with me, and I'll tell it to you."

They came to a smaller cavern with a deep pool in its midst, shining in the light of several oil lamps placed around its edges. Its surface rippled as water dripped down from long, sharp stalactites. More furrows marked the floor, as well as scarred and pitted patches of rock—eaten away by Gloomwing's acidic breath. A few more scales lay scattered about as well; Forlo picked up one of them, stared at it in disgust, then threw it out across the water. It dropped into the pool with the faintest splash and sank from sight.

Will this chase never end? Forlo thought. Essana, will I ever see you again, or will I just keep chasing this damned wyrm until I die?

Yale led them to the pool's edge, where the floor was flat and even. A pitcher and several cups sat there; with these, the kender scooped water from the pond and poured some for each of them. They drank—the water tasted refreshingly cold and clear, with a mineral tang that was actually quite pleasant. It was good to have something to wash away the stink of brimstone. Forlo drank deeply, then poured himself a second cup and nursed it while Yale sat down at the water's edge. Tanda came to join them. They all looked to the elder kender, who gathered himself, as if shouldering a heavy burden, and began to speak.

"There was a time," the kender explained, "not so long ago, when our people flourished. Yes, the valleys were dangerous places, and there were enemies all around, but we were safe there. We lived. We thrived. We had peace, even through the Godless Night. But when the Night ended, it all changed.

"I should speak of Gloomwing first, since you already know of him. He lived here, in this very cave, for longer than we can remember. He was othlorx—an outcast wyrm, who rejected the call to war across the sea, almost a hundred years ago. He believed he had a greater purpose than to fight and die for foreign masters. And… it feels strange now to say i t… he was a friend to our people. Often he would fly over the valleys, keeping enemies away. He loved to hunt hobgoblins. He even let some of us speak with him, sometimes. I was one of those fortunate few. He told me he wanted only peace and to be left alone. We believed him. What fools we were."

Tanda leaned close, resting her hand on his arm. "Father… ."

"No, child," he said. "It's the truth. We were stupid to trust him. That we live here now is proof enough of that."

"Did he start the shadow-blight?" Shedara asked. "Is he the cause of… of all of this?"

Yale was silent a moment, staring into the water. "Not quite. It wasn't directly his doing… but yes, he was responsible. One day he came to Marak and summoned the elders to him. He said he had brought someone… an ally of his, who would change life for the kender forever. We thought, fools that we were, that he meant the change would be for the better. We had no reason to think otherwise—as I said, Gloomwing had always been our friend.

"But it was all a lie. Gloomwing had no love for the kender—he just thought we might be of use to him, at some point. And we kept enemies away from this cave, I suppose." He smiled, but it quickly faded. "Anyway, we went and met with him, and he introduced us to his ally—a man in a black robe, with a hood that hid his face. He had no name, or none he gave us. He called himself—"

"The Teacher," Hult said.

Yale's eyes widened. "You know him?"

"Yes," Hult replied. "I have met him."

That was all he said—no mention of Chovuk Boyla, or the doom of his people. He did lay a hand on his sword, though, the fingers curling tight about the hilt. Forlo saw the knuckles turn white.

"Well," Yale went on, "that saves some explaining. The Teacher spoke to us of a new life for the kender. He said that, with his help, we wouldn't need to worry about the other races of the world anymore—that we would become stronger than them, and they would leave us untroubled. Most of us believed him—I know I did. I didn't realize until much later that it wasn't his words that made that belief, but magic. He charmed us all into doing his bidding."

Hult bowed his head, his maimed hand rising to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Yes," he murmured. "That is how he works."

"He asked us to gather the clans all in one place—a clearing on the edge of Starshimmer Lake, right in the middle of Marak. We did as he bade, but not all the kender agreed to come. In fact, less than half traveled to the lakeside. My own clan refused, thanks to Tanda—she didn't trust this Teacher, and now I see that she was wiser than me."

"No, Father," she said. "Not wiser. He just didn't use his magic on me."

Yale nodded, giving her a smile, but the pain in his eyes was obvious. He reached out, squeezed her hand. "She even managed to keep me with her, long enough to miss the… the ceremony. For that I owe her everything, because when the Marakai gathered at Starshimmer, the Teacher made good on his promise. He cast a spell that would make our enemies fear us. It did make the kender stronger. But it also turned them into shadow-creatures. They became servants to darkness. Their enemies would fear them… but they were forced to do his bidding."

"Killers, bound to his will," Shedara said.

"Yes."

"But he didn't get all of you," Forlo added.

Yale shook his head. "Some of us resisted him, tried to keep the shadows from overrunning the valleys. That wasn't very smart, looking back—they were stronger than us, and many kender were caught or killed. Any who were captured, they brought to Starshimmer, where the Teacher made shadows of them too. He comes back often, when the black moon is full, to perform the ritual. The shadows are always looking for more victims. We're safe for now, but one day they'll find these caves. And then… then the Marakai will be gone for good."

He stopped, a weight of sorrow in his eyes. Tanda took his hand, clasping it tightly while tears trickled from the corners of his eyes. Forlo let him have his sorrow. His people were dying, doomed to vanish from the world if things continued as they were—and Yale felt responsible. Ensorcelled or not, he and the elders had helped cause Marak's fall. Finally he sucked in a long, shuddering breath and looked up with eyes red with grief.

"As for the dragon… he left after the Teacher came. I suppose he felt his work was done. We haven't seen him since. I doubt Gloomwing will ever return to the Steamwalls."

"Do you know where he went?" Forlo asked.

Yale shook his head.

Forlo's face reddened. "Khot," he said.

Hult's eyes were grim. "We have lost the trail, then."

"No," Shedara said. "There's still a way. One who knows."

Eldako smiled, understanding. But Hult frowned. "Who?" he asked.

Forlo looked at Yale and Tanda, then at the Uigan. He knew what the elf meant. "The Teacher," he said. "We'll have to get what we need from him now."