Netheril - Mortal Consequences Part 16

Sunbright b.u.t.ted his head into Magichunger's belly to wedge the war chief atop his shoulders.

Harvester's tall pommel helped keep Magichunger in place. Slipping on leaves, the shaman strained to his knees, then feet. Magichunger swayed dangerously.

"Knuckle'!" he whispered. "Knuck-oh!"

The thief appeared under his chin, startling him. "Nightchild's dead," she whispered.

"Dead! No!" It was Archloft, Nightchild's blanket partner. "We need his body."

A bad omen, thought the shaman, for one so named to die out in the dark. "Leave him," he said, "or we're all bodies. Knuckle', lead us out!"

"Here!" she directed, but he couldn't see which way. She grabbed his arm and tugged, skipped to the others, and pointed them in the right direction. "I'll steer if you go wrong. Hurry!"

A one-eyed thief leading the blind, Sunbright thought inanely. His first step throbbed where his toes had been sliced. He spit out the pain and tramped, noisy as a wounded moose. He figured he'd probably stop a dozen arrows before he took five paces, but no barbs slammed into him, so he plodded on, lurching side to side as he jogged, for Magichunger was thick through the body. Knucklebones was a sparrow by comparison.

Tree trunks flicked by like pillars of smoke. Then cooler air blew in Sunbright's face, and he knew they'd reached the gra.s.sy slope. Darkness before his eyes was less intense. Prairie night. They were almost safe, for he doubted elves would leave the woods for open s.p.a.ces for long. Perhaps, emboldened by darkness, they'd circle far ahead and lay a trap ...

He jolted as Magichunger stirred, growled, and groaned, "What's-Who's-"

"Hus.h.!.+ I've got you!"

"Who? Sunbright? You're not-ugh!-strong enough to carry me!"

"You dream then." To gauge if the victim had lost too much blood, Sunbright gasped, "Still with us?"

"Uh! Yes! But you make a ... d.a.m.ned poor ... sled!"

The shaman hissed, "We'll drive buffalo ahead next time! You're beefy as one!"

"You just want... to cover your own back ... with me as s.h.i.+eld!"

"Don't be stupid," Sunbright growled. For some reason the quip irritated the shaman. "The tribe needs you." "Don't see ... why. I'm not... having much luck."

"Luck? You mean you're not learning something? No, we learned plenty."

"What-ahh!" Magichunger stifled a groan of pain. "What did we learn? First it's d.a.m.ned orcs, then it's elves. My son'll be war chief, and his son, and so forever at this rate-aggh!"

"Rest," Sunbright ordered. "We'll talk later."

Magichunger grew limp, which made him easier to carry, but Sunbright knew the war chief might die. The shaman sucked wind and jogged downhill, finally struck level earth, smelled tall gra.s.s, and heard it swish against his boots. The cleft between his toes throbbed, and blood squished in his boot, making it slippery.

"Need help?"

The whisper startled him. And fuddled him. Knucklebones had skipped alongside without his knowing.

Dropping to one knee, Sunbright wrestled Magichunger off his shoulder. Low down, the smell of gra.s.s made him feel safe. "Give me light!" he said.

"They'll see from the forest!" the thief objected.

"I need light, d.a.m.n it! Crouch over it! No, better, light up his leg here! Give me your hand!"

Grabbing her small, cool hand, he directed it onto Magichunger's hot, wet leg. The rogue striped cold light from her fingertips. At the same time, she hunkered over the small glow to s.h.i.+eld it from eyes in the forest.

After hours in the dark, the firefly light made Sunbright squint. He sucked his little finger, stuck it in an oozing hole, wiggled, felt it protrude past flesh out the other side. Quickly he bandaged the wound and tied it off. "Lucky?" he muttered. "Or maybe not. Magichunger would not faint from such a trifling . . . Oh, Moander's mirth!"

Exploring, his hands found a second arrow jutting from Magichunger's kidney. Then a third arrow standing from the point of his shoulder. "Shroud of Selune!" Sunbright exclaimed. "I owe Magichunger an apology. He's tough as a shark's tooth. More light, please-Who comes?"

Knucklebones had already seen the shape, but the dark figure didn't move like an attacker.

"Blackblossom!" the barbarian woman whispered, not joking for once. "Need help?"

"No," Sunbright answered. "Stay out of the light! Get back to the tribe. We'll follow." The woman didn't waste words, but faded away.

Knucklebones plied minute strips of light to help Sunbright bandage the wound. The shaman decided to cut out the kidney arrow lest the barbs work deeper into vitals with every jostle. The thief eased her dark blade alongside the arrowhead, sliced damaged and swelling muscle, and withdrew the barb. Blood welled black until Sunbright plugged and wrapped it. The shoulder arrow he left embedded, but he found the shaft too tough to break.

"What is this wood?"

"Let me," Knucklebones whispered. By feel, the part-elf shaved hard splinters.

"If he lives, Magichunger will give orders from bed." With gallows humor, he added, "If he dies, we'll need a new war chief. You, perhaps."

"Not I. Did you-" The elf stopped short as she wiggled the arrow, then shaved more. No wood could resist an elven blade for long.

"Did I what?" Sunbright asked.

"Did you-kill anyone?"

A strange question in an odd tone, the shaman thought. "No," he told her. "Did you?"

"No. I don't-I don't want to kill anyone. Them."

"Elves, you mean?"

She nodded, forgetting he couldn't see the motion in the dark, then said, "Yes."

"Because they're elves?" Sunbright asked. He watched for anyone lurking or advancing. But wavy gra.s.s made a darker line against a dark sky, and nothing broke the line.

"More than that," she said, leaning on the arrow, then cursing under her breath. "They look like me."

"They do?" he asked, then the snap of the shaft ended the questions. "Douse this magic light."

"I can't," Knucklebones said, sounding oddly hurt. "Don't you know I can't dispel it? It fades on its own."

"Oh," he said awkwardly. "No, I never knew that." There was much he didn't know about this part-elven thief from the future. Why didn't he? He'd known Greenwillow to her core, or thought he had. Then he was busy wrestling Magichunger onto his shoulders like a dead ox. Glancing around, he set off at a quick march.

"No! This way!" came the thief's whisper.

Fl.u.s.tered, Sunbright staggered after her voice. Normally he knew the compa.s.s with his eyes closed.

He was rattled to mess up now. Rattled by Knucklebones's queer reticence about fighting, and killing, and not knowing magic, and much else that only a woman could know.

But one thing he knew: he didn't want to kill elves either. Not Greenwillow's kin.

Disgusted with his own maundering, he concentrated on lugging Magichunger to safety.

A glow silhouetted a gra.s.sy hummock to mark the main camp, though the barbarians were scattered along a five-mile line out in the prairie. Sunbright staggered toward the fire with his burden, Knucklebones d.o.g.g.i.ng his heels. They didn't expect to be welcomed as heroes, but were unprepared for ugly wrath.

People spilled from the firelight to grab Magichunger, immediately shouting.

"Archloft says you left Nightchild's body to the wolves!" growled Mightylaugh.

"The Rengarth always bring out their dead!" shrilled Forestvictory. "Always!"

"You must go back for him!" yelled another.

"And who made Sunbright war chief if Magichunger falls? A shaman is never war chief! It's not allowed!" called a fourth.

Yet their shouts died as Rightdove pointed to the blue-white gleam on Magichunger's leg.

"Witchlight!" Rightdove gasped. "Did you do this, Sunbright?"

"It smacks of magic!" said Forestvictory.

Knucklebones piped up, "That's my doing, a simple cantra. Everyone born to the empire can perform small magic-"

No one listened. "Magic is forbidden!" a voice shouted.

"Taboo!"

"Hush, all!" Sunbright was exhausted in mind and body by the fight and panic, and drained of spirit. Taking Knucklebone's hand, he let others lug Magichunger to the fire, then asked, "What is there to eat?"

"Nothing!" Goodbell spat. She nursed a fidgety child by the fire, her face drawn and lined. "Our best hunters lie dead in the forest where the game must hide. The prairie offers nothing."

Sunbright plunked on gra.s.s by the fire. Dried dung smoked and wafted into his eyes. "I'll try tracking game at dawn," he promised.

"Better hunt that fight!" Mightylaugh said as he strode to the fire. "You learned nothing, Kindbloom tells us. You only got Magichunger shot full of arrows."

"We learned plenty," Sunbright snapped. "Use your brains instead of your mouth."

Magichunger's mother and sisters bandaged him, wrapped him in blankets, and rolled him near the fire. Fighters stood with empty hands, or swished swords in their anger. More barbarians came from the dark to hear the news and arguments. Mightylaugh demanded, "What did we learn?"

The shaman scrubbed aching temples, and said, "I'm guessing, but think on this: I don't believe the elves mean us harm-"

"No harm!" scoffed several.

"I think they simply bar us from the forest. They can see in the dark. They shot Magichunger three times, recognizing he's war chief, and could have shot me a dozen times as I lugged him out, yet they didn't. So-"

"You're an elf friend!" someone bawled from the dark. "They wouldn't shoot you!"

Knucklebones's hand tightened on Sunbright's leg. The shaman refused to take the bait. "Look at the evidence," he demanded. 'They could have killed us all, but instead they let us escape, and didn't pursue."

"They're afraid to fight us!" Kindbloom crowed. "They're cowards, and know we're better warriors!"

"Further," Sunbright plowed on, "if they intended war, they could slip out here and slit our throats while we sleep. They could slide through this gra.s.s like snakes, but don't."

"Get past our guards? Not likely!" "Never! The prairie belongs to the Rengarth!"

"And," hollered the shaman, "I don't think there are many elves. We're only attacked by three dozen at most. Their tribe must be small. Legends say elves are scarce."

"Legends say they turn invisible, and I don't see that!" argued Mightylaugh.

"If we could force them to fight here, we'd make mincemeat of 'em!" added Kindbloom. "No elf can stand against a barbarian!"

"They're cowards! Skulking like coyotes in the dark!" chimed Archloft. "We should burn the forest, drive them out like rats from grain!"

More threats, rants, hollering. Sunbright groaned at their illogic, and cursed himself too. His proud people refused to consider anything new, buried their heads in custom and tradition like a child burrowing under blankets. It was partly his own fault, for he'd recalled them to tradition, too well.

Faced with a new problem, they could only ply old ways, lash out blindly instead of think.

Knucklebones huddled against Sunbright, and gripped his brawny arm with her small, strong hand.

Over the belligerent bellowing, she murmured, "They call you elf-friend."

"They call me many names," he rea.s.sured her. "It's just wind."

"But you are an elf-friend, for my blood is shared with the Old Ones."

Sunbright squeezed her hands. "I love you, no matter what you are," he said.

Her hands jerked back, surprising him. One slanted eye glared, and she said, "You think it's evil to possess elven blood?"

"No!" he exclaimed. Shanks of Shar, thought Sunbright, was everyone mad? "No, I think... Don't you turn against me too!"

In apology, Knucklebones laid her tousled dark head against his shoulder. "I won't," she promised, "but I honestly don't know what I am, Sunbright."

Tired, fuddled, the man hugged her close, kissed her curls. Around them, the frustrated war talk failed. The last question was, "So what now?"

"Try peace," offered Sunbright. Eyes turned: hostile, confused, angry. "Carry a flag of truce to the forest. See if the elves will talk. Explain we seek to camp and hunt and then move on. Perhaps they'll let us stay."

"You said we'd winter over into spring, not move on!" spat Goodbell. "Which is true?"

"Either," Sunbright hedged. "What's important is to talk. It can't hurt."

"They'd kill the messenger!"

"Let Sunbright carry the flag!" someone piped. "It's his idea!"