Windwalker (41 page)

Fyodor threaded and tied the second laces as quickly as his shaking hands would allow. He pulled on Petyar’s boots and looked around for his sword.

A few weapons littered the ground, Rashemi and drow alike, but he reached for none of them. According to tradition, the black sword would be the last he wielded.

He looked for Liriel, his gaze following the black-robed witches as they moved with the other women around the field. She was not among them.

As the haze of his battle frenzy receded, he remembered when and where he’d last seen his friend. A priestess of Lolth awaited her, and so did a deadly drow swordmaster. She had bidden him leave her.

And he had left.

Fyodor turned and stumbled into the forest. He had no strength, no sword. There was nothing left to him but the drow girl he loved and the knowledge that he need never leave Rashemen again.

The water beside Liriel exploded upward, reforming in the familiar blue shape of the genasi. Azar gave the drow a fierce smile, and the light of insanity burned bright in her eyes. She showed Liriel the sword Gorlist had tossed into the water.

“The illithid wanted you dead,” she said. “Live to spite her!”

Liriel had no time to respond, no time to claim and lift the blade. Gorlist’s running charge was almost upon her. She did not see Fyodor streaking toward her, moving with the preternatural speed granted by his berserker frenzy.

The young Rashemi thrust himself between the girl and the warrior, accepting the thrust meant for Liriel. Drow steel sank deep and true. Fyodor fell heavily to his knees, and the strength of his final frenzy slipped from him like a sigh.

Liriel’s keening wail tore through the clearing. She hurled herself at Gorlist, tearing at him with her nails and teeth like a wild thing. They fell together, but the stronger male quickly rolled her beneath him.

He captured her furious hands and pinned them above her head. Holding her captive with one hand, he reached in his belt for a knife and raised it for the killing stroke.

He froze, hand uplifted and neck chorded with an unvoiced scream. A crimson fountain spilled from his open mouth, and the light of hatred at last faded from his eyes. He fell slowly to one side and lay with Liriel’s sword impaling his throat.

Azar stood over him. “The illithid wanted you dead,” she explained to Liriel, “and so did this dark male.” She extended a slim blue hand to the drow girl.

Liriel took it and allowed the genasi to pull her to her feet. She ran the few steps to Fyodor’s side and fell to her knees beside him. Dimly she was aware of the clatter of horse’s hoofs, and of Sharlarra’s bright head close to her own. “What can I do?” the elf said softly.

The drow met her eyes. “He had a sword—a black blade without an edge. Find it and bring it here.”

The elf woman leaped to her feet and onto her horse’s back. Moonstone raced toward the battlefield as if sensing the time for this task was swiftly running out. Sharlarra backhanded tears from her face and scanned the field.

Finally her eyes settled on a sturdy woman of about thirty years of age. The woman’s black braids were unraveled, her kirtle stained with blood. Two small boys clung to her skirts, and a black sword rested on her shoulder.

Sharlarra pulled up beside the woman. “Liriel sent me to find Fyodor’s sword. Don’t ask me why. Is that it?”

A bleak expression filled the woman’s winter-blue eyes. “It is, and I don’t need to ask why. A warrior of Rashemen always dies with his sword in his hands.”

RAVEN ASCENDING

Fyodor stirred in Liriel’s arms. His eyes opened and met hers. There were so many things she wanted to say, but all she could manage was, “I sent for your sword.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “Windwalker,” he said. “The heart and strength of the land. Of course you would understand such things.”

His words shattered her. She rested her cheek on his head and struggled to hold back a different kind of darkness—a wave of grief and despair unlike anything she had ever known.

“Listen to me, little raven,” he said in a fading voice. “I was a dead man the day I left Rashemen. What adventures we have shared since then, and what wonders I have known.” He found her hand and raised it to his lips. “You have brought me home, as Zofia foretold.”

There was peace on Fyodor’s face, utter contentment in his eyes, but for Liriel, this was not enough.

“You told me that truth would always find its way out, that good is stronger than evil. We’ve come so far together. Why must we lose now?”

“Dying is not the same as losing. What we were meant to do, we did. What we are, we became.”

His breath hitched then released on a soft rattling sigh.

Liriel’s tears fell freely as she rocked him in her arms. “Not yet,” she pleaded. “Wait for the sword. Just wait a little while more. Don’t leave. Don’t leave me alone.”

Thorn and Sharlarra found them there. The drow’s cheek remained pillowed on Fyodor’s head. Her eyes were closed, and her small frame shook with her anguished mourning.

The elf’s horse whickered softly and nosed Sharlarra. The elf following Moonstone’s pointed gaze and noted the translucent form of the young Rashemi, standing near the grieving drow.

Sharlarra walked over to Liriel and laid a hand on her shoulder. The drow looked up with dull eyes. Sharlarra held out Fyodor’s sword.

Bitter laughter spilled from the drow. “It’s too late. He’s gone.”

Thorn seized her chin and turned it toward the watchful spirit. “Not yet, he isn’t. I know this land. It is not an easy place to leave. Did you bid him stay?”

The drow nodded silently, her eyes fixed on her friend’s face. “I didn’t want to be alone,” she whispered, “but I didn’t mean this.”

Sharlarra knelt beside Liriel and eased the Hashemi’s body from her arms. She lowered Fyodor to the ground then placed the black sword on his chest and folded his hands over it. She and Thorn helped Liriel to her feet.

For a long moment Liriel stood between the body and the spirit of her beloved friend.

It was Thorn who finally broke the silence. She looked to the lingering spirit and said firmly, “We will hunt well, and run swiftly. We three.”

Fyodor’s ghostly eyes shifted from Thorn to Sharlarra. The elf nodded. Finally he looked to Liriel, and there was both a farewell and plea in his eyes.

An image came vividly to Liriel’s mind: the battle for the island of Ruathym, when Fyodor took on yet another transformation, sending his spirit in animal form to take Liriel from the very hand of Lolth. She nodded and closed her eyes, listening for the music of the place to which Fyodor belonged.

The song of Rashemen filled her mind, growing louder as new voices joined the chorus. A familiar deep voice, as like to Fyodor’s as shadow to source, took up the song. Entwined with it was a woman’s voice. Fyodor’s parents. She knew this with absolute certainty.

The voices of friends whose names she did not know filled her mind, shouting cheerful insults over the background of song. The faces began to take shape in her mind. There was the bearded visage of the friend who had welcomed them to Dernovia. There was young Petyar. There was a wild snowcat awaiting Fyodor with the calm air of a beloved pet expecting her master.

There was Home.

Liriel felt her spirit tear free, saw her small dark form sag between the two elf women who had thrown their lot in with hers.

Then she was soaring away, the cold Rashemaar wind beneath her black wings. Strong arms encircled her neck, but she felt her friend’s weight only in her heart. The flight was over too soon, and the raven spirit that Liriel had become came to rest on a strong perch—a limb, perhaps, of the mythic tree that held all worlds in its branches. Fyodor’s spirit filled hers with a final embrace, and then he was gone.

Her golden eyes sought him, but she could go no further that this. Neither could she bring herself to leave. What was there left for her in the world she knew but elusive starlight and lingering shadows?

A sharp slap dragged her suddenly back into her body.

Liriel’s eyes flew open. The lythari leaned over her, hand upraised for another of her trademark “rescues.” The drow caught Thorn’s wrist.

“Do that again and you’ll be running on three feet instead of four,” she warned.

“What’s this?” Sharlarra said warily.

The drow dragged herself to her feet. “Explain it to her. I’ve got something to do.”

Between the three of them they managed to lift Fyodor’s body to the back of a beautiful gray horse. Liriel stood and watched them go with dry eyes. The farewell that mattered had been spoken.

One more battle awaited her. She would have this done today, one way or another.

She turned around, not at all surprised to see Shakti Hunzrin waiting for her. Her gaze dropped to the skeletal whip writhing in agitation by the priestess’s side, and she gave a resigned sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Matron Triel wants you back in Menzoberranzan,” Shakti announced.

This information stunned Liriel into silence. After a long moment, she asked, “You would take me there? Alive?”

“If that is what Triel wants, yes.”

It was on the tip of Liriel’s tongue to ask what Gromph wanted. Since the day she’d left the Underdark, she’d never been certain whether the forces he’d sent after her were trying to find her or kill her.

In truth, it did not matter. As far as Liriel was concerned, her father was dead. Hrolf, the pirate who had loved her, who had wanted nothing from her but her happiness, had died on Ruathym.

She managed a contemptuous half-smile. “Would you be shocked if I told you that Triel’s desires are not first thing that come to mind when I awaken?”

“So you will not return?

“No. Kill me now, or try to.”

Shakti nodded as if she had expected this. “If the drow of Menzoberranzan learn that you live, they will never stop seeking you. You know this.”

Liriel nodded.

“There is another way.” Her crimson eyes dropped to the mask that still hung from Liriel’s belt.

She understood at once and tugged the mask free. Shakti tied it to her belt. The mask remembered its former wearer, and the priestess took on Liriel’s form—and something more.

A measure of Lolth’s dark glory shone through the priestess’s borrowed amber eyes.

“This is what you have lost,” Shakti proclaimed in a voice filled with power. “In choosing service over power, you have made your choice. Yet what has it profited you? You have lost the favor of Eilistraee. You are alone. You are nothing.”

Dark laughter rose on the wind, and the insane light faded from Shakti’s eyes. The satisfaction there was entirely her own.

“Matron Triel might claim otherwise, but she wants you dead. You have lost Lolth’s favor, which is even better. I think the archmage will quickly accustom himself to his daughter’s loss, but if Gromph comes to suspect that you are alive and becomes troublesome in his demands to have you back, we will have a means to quiet him. Better yet, he would view this—” Shakti broke off and gestured contemptuously to her borrowed form— “as a pawn to use in his pathetic little intrigues. Triel will know of these games, and, through me, will be able to thwart the foolish male at every turn.”

“Gromph is not easily fooled, and you have no wizard’s spells. I suppose you’ve thought of a solution to that, too.”

Shakti’s eyes dropped to the Windwalker.

Liriel handed it over without hesitation. It had purchased Fyodor’s freedom. Now it would purchase hers. Its power was spent. It had done all the damage it would do. Let Shakti discover that some other time.

“What of the mercenaries?”

Shakti followed her reasoning at once. “They cannot return to Menzoberranzan, of course. What has happened here and what it means to the drow is a secret that must be kept for as long as possible. I will return to the city alone.”

“You want to kill me. Why don’t you?”

The priestess’s eyes moved to the place where Gorlist lay, a sword through his throat. “This male wanted to kill you. He wanted that more than anything else. That wanting made him blind and stupid.”

“Not to mention dead.”

“That is the logical consequence of blindness and stupidity.” Shakti untied the mask. In her own form, she looked upon Liriel for the last time. Her eyes held all the endless hatred of the Abyss.

“You bested me once. I learned from that. The curse of the drow is uncontrolled hatred. If I can walk away and leave you alive, I will know I am equal to any challenge.”

Liriel received this pronouncement in silence. Apparently she was not the only one who had changed profoundly over the past few months.

“You will become a great matron mother,” she told Shakti.

The drow’s smile was cold and supremely satisfied. “I know.”

A raucous cry sounded overhead, and a dark shadow winged across the clouded sky. Its flight took a circling path that spoke of hidden enemies—most likely one of the drow males who had fled the losing battle.

Thorn reflected that she would have to teach raven lore to her new pack sisters. There was much she could learn from them, as well. She had taken the drow’s measure and seen her power. As for Sharlarra, any elf who rode with a teu-kelytha—one of the legendary moon horses of Evermeet—must have depths worth exploring. The story of how such a horse came to leave the sacred island would surely be one worth hearing.

A deep contentment filled the lythari, such as she had never expected to feel. She slipped into her lupine form and followed the hunt.