The Floodgate (9 page)

After a few moments she found them-truffles, big as her fist, fragrant and meaty. She brushed the dirt from a savory fungus and began to eat, dutifully at first in order to regain strength, and then with real hunger.

“Kiva,” said a male voice, a human voice, deep and disturbingly familiar.

Startled, she leaped to her feet The too-sudden movement set her head whirling and her vision dancing with sparks of light. When she focused, it was upon the ghostly form of Andris, the jordain she had condemned, used, and discarded.

For a moment Kiva went cold with horror-she, who thought herself beyond reach of such emotions!

“Is this my fate, then?” she murmured. “Am I to be haunted by all those whom I have killed?”

“If that’s so, you will never lack company,” Andris responded. “Perhaps the others will be along presently, but I am no ghost.”

Even as he spoke, she saw it was true. The tall jordain was translucent, but he retained color, like delicately tinted glass. The jungle grasses bent beneath his feet and parted before him as he came toward her.

Her first response, honed by dozens of years among Halruaa’s wizards, was to hurl a spell. None came to her call. She pulled her only remaining weapon-a broken boar’s tusk, long as a dagger and nearly as sharp-and slashed at the approaching human.

Andris easily dodged and seized her wrist. The elf tried to twist away, but her captor’s grip was surprisingly firm and strong. She quickly realized the futility of struggle and forced herself to meet his eyes. To her relief and puzzlement, her death was not written in them.

“How is this possible?” she demanded, her gaze traveling his translucent form.

“The laraken did this. I carry elf blood, the gift of a distant ancestor. ‘Distant’ only in terms of time,” he added pointedly. Understanding touched the elf’s golden eyes, bringing light but no warmth. Andris felt an illogical stab of disappointment.

At loss for words, he handed Kiva the necromancer’s tome. She paged through the ancient book, her face deathly pale and her lips set in a tight line. “Is this true?” Andris asked gently. Kiva slammed the book shut. “As far as it goes, yes. There is much left unsaid.”

Andris whistled softly. “If that is true, I am glad for the omission.”

“You should be.” Her voice was faint, and memories haunted her eyes.

After a few moments, Andris ventured, “This book explained many things. I’ve wondered how you, a full-blooded elf, could face the laraken and live.”

His question jolted her back into the present moment “Do I?” The elf spat out the words. “The laraken and its creator-” she punctuated this by hurling the book back at Andris-“have taken from me everything of value. I breathe, I speak and move. I hate! But do I live? Such things the sages debate!”

Andris recognized the bitterness in her voice and heard the insanity. Neither changed his chosen path. “You will resolve the question for them if you stay here much longer. You are weak, Kiva. You cannot survive alone.”

Her chin lifted. “I have allies.”

“You had better find them, and soon.”

She was about to respond when they caught the distant sound of underbrush rustling and a faint, grating snuffle. A boar, Andris noted grimly. In her hunger, Kiva had apparently forgotten that the scent of truffles might lure one of the dangerous beasts.

Kiva’s eyes darted toward the sound, then to the ghostly sword on the jordain’s hip. “I can help you,” Andris said softly as he eased his weapon free. “With the boar and with other things.”

The elf managed a scornful little laugh. “At what price?”

“Tell me how the Cabal can be destroyed.”

This Kiva had clearly not expected. She regarded the jordain with curiosity. “Only idiots and elves believe in the Cabal. You spoke truth when you claimed elf blood?”

Andris noted that she spoke only of race, not of kinship. “Did I speak truth? Lady, I am a jordain,” he said, self-mockery sharp in his eyes.

She let this pass. For the first time she looked at him, and there was something approaching kinship in her amber eyes. “You saw the captured elves of Kilmaruu, you read Akhlaur’s journal,” she said in a soft but steely voice. “You know who we are and what we must do. So be it.”

Andris met the elf woman’s eyes and saw there a destiny that encompassed them both. He responded with a grim nod.

There was no time for anything more. The underbrush exploded into a sudden fury of sound and motion. Andris whirled to face the charging beast-an enormous black sow, her belly swinging slack from a recent litter and her red eyes gleaming with desperate knowledge of her piglets’ hunger. He judged the creature as nearly half the mass of a war-horse, with thrice the fight and fury.

Kiva touched Andris on the back, just below the shoulder blades. “Here,” she said tersely. “Strike hard.”

He acknowledged this with a curt nod and then pushed her aside, holding his ground as the wild pig charged in, its snout tucked like a charging bull. At the last moment Andris sidestepped, spun, and drove the sword home.

The blade sank into the hump of fat that was the wild pig’s most vulnerable spot. Andris felt the sword grate against ribs before it was wrenched from his grasp. Even so, the great sow took several more steps before she stumbled and went down.

“Careful,” the elf cautioned as Andris closed in. “The sow could still gut you with a nod of her head.”

The wounded pig managed to get her feet beneath her and a tree at her back. At bay, she swung her massive head as if daring Andris to attack. The jordain stood his ground, battle-poised but patient.

It was not the sow’s nature to wait tamely for death. She let out a searing bellow and burst into a charge, heading not for Andris but for the weaponless Kiva.

Andris shouted a warning and sprinted directly through the beast’s path, slashing at the pig’s sloped forehead. Blood poured freely. Blinded, the creature veered wildly aside.

Andris leaped onto the bristly back and groped for the hilt of the embedded sword, but the pig whirled and bucked, its tusks slashing the air. With each movement the upright sword swayed and danced like a palm tree in a monsoon gale. Andris was battered by the flailing movements of his own sword. Try as he might, he could not get a grip on it without slicing his hand on the blade or losing his hold on the pig.

As the sow frantically pitched and spun, the forest colors blurred into a whirling green haze. Andris was dimly aware of Kiva’s shouts, barely audible above the creature’s furious squeals and roars, and the thunderous pounding of his own heart. He sensed a dark streak sweeping in at him, felt a bruising blow glance off his shoulder and thud heavily into the sow’s ribs.

The wild pig stopped to consider this new threat. Andris focused his spinning vision on the elf woman, who stood with her feet planted wide and a stout length of deadwood in her hands.

“The sword!” she shrieked as she hauled back the club for another swing.

Andris seized the hilt. Before he could thrust it down for the killing blow, the sow took off toward Kiva in another running charge. The jordain jolted back, certain he would lose his seat and yank the sword free.

He might have done just that, had Kiva been less agile. The elf dived aside, rolling quickly and coming to her feet. From the corner of his eye, Andris saw Kiva throw herself into a spin, bringing the club up and around as she came.

The stout stick caught him across the flat of his back, slamming him forward. Pain radiated through his limbs like molten fire, but he pushed it aside and used the momentum to help him thrust the sword deep between the sow’s ribs. Still holding the hilt, he threw himself from his perch, wrenching the sword to one side as he fell. He let go and rolled away from the wounded beast. Coming up in a battle crouch, he pulled his jordaini daggers and waited.

Blood poured from the pig’s snout and dripped from its tusks, but it took a few staggering steps toward Andris. It closed in, nearly to arm’s length, before its legs finally buckled and gave out. The stubborn beast fell, twitched, and went still.

Andris released his breath on a long, ragged sigh of relief. He cast a wry look at Kiva. Her angular, elven face was drawn and ashen, almost gray beneath its coppery tone. He bit back the sarcastic “thanks” that danced ready on his tongue and set to work butchering. Kiva managed to light a fire. By unspoken agreement, they worked together and with great haste. Night was falling, and scavengers would soon come prowling. They quickly seared and ate several small chunks of meat.

When their hurried meal was over, the elf gestured toward a nearby mazganut tree. Andris helped her climb into its branches. He leaned against the stout trunk, winced with pain, and shifted around until he found a position that didn’t hurt his bruised shoulders too badly. They settled down in relative safely to await the dawn.

The silence stretched between them, heavy with unanswered questions. Kiva spoke abruptly. “This is no paladin’s quest you undertake. Have you the stomach for it? For me?”

She reached out and touched his throbbing shoulder. “This journey started painfully. Most likely, matters will not improve. I won’t mouth regrets I don’t feel, and I’ll do whatever it takes to avenge the wrongs done to your people and mine. Knowing this, will you follow me still?”

Andris answered as honestly as he could. “I can’t pretend to understand all that you have done, but I believe we share a common goal.”

“And that will content you, jordain?”

He hadn’t expected anything more. Aloud he said, “Where do we start?”

Kiva’s smile was suddenly feline. “We meet some of those allies I promised you. I admire your confidence, Andris, but did you really think that we two could take on the whole of Halruaa?”

Andris awoke while the sun still slept. He watched as light slowly filtered through the layers of forest canopy and lit the quiet, ravaged face of the elf woman beside him.

Kiva was in reverie, the uniquely elven state of wakeful dreaming, more restful than sleep. Her feline eyes were open, fixed upon some distant, pleasant sight. A small, innocent smile curved her lips. She looked very young, and not at all like the coldly determined magehound who had shattered his life. For a moment Andris wondered how far back Kiva had to go to find this person, these memories.

Then, suddenly, she was awake, and her eyes were as cold as a hunting cat’s. Andris glanced aside, but not before she took note of his scrutiny.

“Well?” she demanded.

“We have much to do. I will ponder the mystery of evil some other day.”

She looked puzzled, then astonished. For a moment he thought she would dispute his assessment. But Kiva was no jordain, and apparently she did not share his passion for either disputation or truth.

Or perhaps, he realized, his opinion simply did not matter to her.

Without further speech they unwound the vines that tethered them to the mazganut branch. Kiva quickly braided her hair into two plaits, and they drank some of the dew that collected in the large, almond-scented leaves.

As they scrambled down the tree into the deeply shaded clearing beneath, Andris noted that the elf seemed stronger. She seemed to be absorbing strength from the teeming life of the forest. An image flashed into Andris’s mind-the hideous laraken gaining flesh as it drained magic and life. Like mother, like child. The analogy sent a shudder of revulsion through Andris. He dropped the last few feet onto the thick carpet of moss, suddenly eager to put some distance between himself and the elf woman.

As Kiva’s foot touched the forest floor, an arrow flashed into the clearing. It pierced one of her jade-colored braids and pinned it securely to the tree.

The elf woman’s eyes went wide, but she did not struggle. She called out in a language that was more akin to wind and birdsong than to human speech.

Five elves stepped into the mazganut clearing, soundless as shadows. All were male, and none stood taller than Andris’s shoulder. Their sharp-featured faces were beautiful, their skin ranging in hue from copper to polished sandalwood, their hair rich shades of brown or green. These were not primitive folk, as Andris had always heard, but people who possessed artistry, even riches. They wore finely woven linen, and the arrowhead that pinned Kiva to the tree was carved from a gemstone.

These thoughts flicked into Andris’s mind and were gone, chased by a growing sense of awe as the elves stalked in. They moved with the taut, deadly grace of jungle cats. Never had Andris beheld warriors who filled him with more admiration or more foreboding. And these wondrous people were his kin!

Of course, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t kill him where he stood.

With great reluctance, he reached for his sword.

“Put away your weapon, karasanzor,” one of the elves said in heavily accented Halruaan. “We mean no harm.”

A moment passed before Andris realized the elf was speaking to him, not Kiva. The former magehound was weaponless, yet the elf fixed his gaze upon her as he spoke.

Because he wanted to believe them, and because he really had no choice, Andris accepted the elf’s pledge. He slid his sword away and lifted both hands in a gesture of peace. Still no one met his eyes.

“You are of the People,” the elf said to Kiva, “and your voice knows the song of the jungle. Yet you wear human clothes and travel with a human … companion.”

Kiva started to speak in Elvish, but the male cut her off with a few sharp words. She went pale, but her chin lifted. “Very well, I will speak the human tongue until I have earned the right in your eyes to speak as one of the People.

“I have lived among the humans of Halruaa for many years, but once my name was sung in these forests as Akivaria, a daughter of the Crimson Tree.”

The elves exchanged glances. “Yes, I am that Akivaria,” Kiva said tartly. “A survivor of the village you patrol-the only living survivor. My kinsman Zephyr was slain by the humans.”

A moment of profound silence met this news. Tears burned in one elf’s eyes and ran down his face, unchecked and unashamed. Andris felt the elf’s grief as if it were his own, yet mingled with it was a strange sense of joy. Zephyr was Kiva’s kin, and this warrior wept a kinsman’s tears over the old jordain. Perhaps these elves were his family in fact, and not just through distant bonds of shared race.