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.(Both of them.)(Both of them,) Chyrie agreed.(And it is a fit day to give new life to the forest, when so many have passed on,) Valann told her.(How our clan will rejoice.)That thought roused Chyrie from her drowsy contentment.(I would see how they have fared,) she thought eagerly.(I will need our friends to help me manage these two little ones.Surely there must be—ah, yes, my friend the spot-tailed hawk.)There was no reaching now for the sharp-eyed bird; it was with her already, and Chyrie had only to sort through the many visions in her mind to look out through its eyes, to soar through the trees to the Wilding village.A black and smoking ruin met her eyes.The trees were gone.The hanging shelters were gone.Only the scattered stones of the Wildings’ ovens and their equally scattered bodies marked that this had once been a living clan.Scavenger birds were there already, picking at the flesh of the dead.Most, horribly burned or mutilated, could not be recognized.It could not be.Surely it could not be.Chyrie sent the spot-tail flashing through the forest, here and there, back and forth.Surely some few must have survived.There were none alive on Wilding land.If any had survived, they had fled to another clan, and Chyrie knew deep in her heart that that they would never have done.(I will never leave you,) Val thought again, his silent “voice” very small, very distant.Chyrie had not screamed during her bearing, and she did not scream now.She held her children to her and wept quietly.Chapter FifteenSunlight on wet leaves, now turning red and yellow with the decline of summer.The smell of warm damp earth.Tender new seedlings reaching up through blackened ground.Two humans, a man and a woman heavily pregnant, rode into the Heartwood alone, unarmed, unarmored, following the elven common road toward the heart of the Heartwood, but no Blue-eyes attacked them.They rode quietly, unhurriedly, seldom speaking to each other.They camped by the side of the trail, seeking clear spots where the vegetation had been burned.There were many such spots.No one came to their fire.The humans held each other in the night, silently.After several days they reached Inner Heart, not long after sunset.They were met at its borders by a small hunting party of elves, who escorted them to the village.Most of the village’s huts were empty now.The humans declined a hut, telling the elves they must begin their ride back that night.The man and woman were led not to the large speaking hut, which was now gone, but to a small fire at the edge of the village, where they waited patiently, not sitting.Rowan came quietly, alone.She faced them across the fire.“Share our food and fire, and be made welcome among us,” she said.“We are honored to share your food and fire,” Sharl said quietly.“May joy and friendship be our contribution.”Rowan sat, and the humans did also.“Those who returned from the city told me what passed there,” Rowan said, opening a wineskin and pouring three cups.“I could scarce believe their tales of the ground opening and a monster reaching forth, but I felt the shaking with my own feet.Many trees fell, but the invaders on our land turned and fled.”“The shaking was real,” Rivkah said.“The crack in the ground and the hand were illusion.I did it myself.We terrified our own people as much as our enemies, I’m afraid.”“And how do your people fare?” Rowan asked.Sharl shook his head.“When the wall was breached, we lost many people,” he said.“More were killed when the ground shook.The largest part of the survivors are the mercenary troops I brought in, and they have left now.Most of the city’s buildings have fallen, and large parts of the wall.Of what still stands, only a few buildings are truly safe.Several sections of the keep fell, and only a few parts are livable.There are huge holes in the ground where the rock collapsed into the springs under the city.It will take years of work before the city is rebuilt, and we have no money to hire the work done.I will have to go north again to my family and raise money to try again.”He accepted the cup Rowan passed to him and drank in silence for a long moment.“And your people?” he asked.“I saw fires deep within the forest, although Rivkah and her mages kept the rain falling until we were sure the army was retreating.”Rowan lowered her eyes.“Many clans were destroyed to the last child,” she said softly.“The lands of other clans have been ruined beyond any hope of sustaining them for many years.When the border clans were first attacked and driven from their territories, they fled inward and drove other clans in turn from their lands.By the time the barbarians turned away, most of the border lands had been burned or trampled beyond habitation, and many of the inner lands had been badly damaged as well.”“What of the alliance?” Rivkah asked gently.Rowan shook her head.“There is no alliance,” she said.“They fought well together—beyond anything I had hoped or dared to even dream.Our Gifted Ones achieved magic we would never have believed possible.But when all was finished, they fell to fighting for the good lands remaining, where there is still game to feed them through the winter.Now the clans raid each other as they did before.” She sighed.“I could not hold them together, no matter how I tried.”“New ideas take time,” Rivkah said comfortingly.“You might say this fruit didn’t have time to ripen.” She hesitated.“Is Dusk well?”“Dusk is not well.” Rowan’s lips thinned.“A human spear, poisoned with their own feces, struck him while his mind flew with a bird.He will be long mending, body and mind, but he will mend.” She was silent for a long moment.“I was told Valann has returned to the Mother Forest.”“He was killed at the same time as my teacher,” Rivkah said sadly.“We buried them together.Have you heard anything of Chyrie? She disappeared right after Valann was killed, and nobody’s seen her since.No one saw her leave the city, but we haven’t found.” Her voice trailed off awkwardly.“You have not found her body.” Rowan sighed.“We have seen nothing of her.Jeena passed through Inner Heart, and she said—” Rowan stopped, shaking her head.“What she said is impossible.Chyrie is gone, I fear.”“No.”The voice that spoke was a harsh croak, rusty with disuse.Rowan, Sharl, and Rivkah stared into the darkness, and saw firelight reflect in tawny amber eyes.The elf that came forward was almost unrecognizable as Chyrie [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]