Kagonesti

Chapter 15

The tribe remained at the Bluelake as the early summer advanced. The young Pathfinder suggested that they increase the number of warriors guarding the approaches to the village, and his tribemates welcomed the idea. The knowledge that he could help them pleased Ashtaway, but he missed his uncle greatly, seemingly more with each passing hour.

Geese had flocked to the shoreline marshes two days after the battle, winging from the south in great, cackling formations. Most of the tribe's hunters went out in search of game, and it seemed that, for the present, lack of food would not be a problem.

Ashtaway did not accompany the archers on the great stalking. Assured that the tribe would eat well, he left the village, climbing away from the lake and into the wooded foothills. He departed with a strange reluctance, as if he neglected a responsibility. Though he knew that Iydaway-and the earlier Pathfinders-had often vanished into the wilderness for months, even seasons, at a time, Ash felt the spiral horn as a surprisingly heavy weight at his side, an anchor that seemed to hold him close to the tribe. He missed the smiles, the jokes, and the boasts of his fellow warriors. Yet he loped easily through the forest for hour after hour, as cool morning passed into sun-soaked afternoon.

His mind, freed from battles and choices, dwelled on Lectral-and Hammana. It would be very good to see the dragon again, he knew. As to the elfmaid, he desperately wanted to see her, but because of the horn at his side, he was terribly afraid.

He reached the glade where, by Lectral's suggestion, he had earlier taken the deer, and was fortunate enough to bring down a young buck with barely an hour's stalking. Slinging the gutted carcass over his shoulders, he contin- ued on, climbing through the cut into the rocky crest, seeing the obsidian cliff rising beyond.

Shortly before dusk, he approached the sheltered cave where he had left Hammana and Lectral. Slowing to a walk, he followed the same trail on which he had met the elfwoman on their first visit to the silver dragon. Even before she came into sight, a waft of breeze carried Ham- mana's scent to him, and Ash knew that she was in the woods-no doubt gathering more medicinal herbs for her huge patient.

He found her kneeling in a meadow of columbine and honeysuckle, digging at a stubborn root. So as not to startle her, he coughed gently from the edge of the clearing.

Hammana leapt to her feet, whirling to face him, looking at once frightened, embarrassed, a little angry, and far more beautiful than his imagination had remembered. Her face flushed as she wiped the dirt from her hands and smoothed the supple doeskin of her skirt.

"I'm glad to see you again," Ash said, stepping toward her. For a moment, he was the young warrior again, carefree and confident-the Pathfinder's job was a task for someone else, someone wise, like his uncle.

"I-um-Lectral will be happy that you're back," she stammered, still startled by his sudden appearance. He dared to hope that the blush rising across her cheeks was a sign that their meeting brought her as much joy as it did him.

"I told your father that you would stay here for a while. I le was worried, but he trusts you."

"Thank you. Lectral's much better. I think the pouldces have helped a lot."

"There's not another in all the tribes who could tend him so well," Ash declared.

"And how fares the village?" she asked, allowing him to fall into step beside her as they started toward Lectral's cave.

"There was trouble," he admitted. He started to tell her about the bakali, but abruptly she froze, her eyes locked on the spiral hom at his side.

"No!" she gasped, her face numb with shock. "Iydaway Pathfinder…?"

"He was killed in the battle. Before he died, he passed on the Ram's Horn-"

"To you." Hammana completed his statement bluntly, though all the color had washed out of her face. "You are the new Pathfinder of the Kagonesti."

For the first time since his moments of doubt on the night of Iydaway's death, he wanted to deny the fact, to refuse the calling that had given him the Ram's Horn. Hammana's soft eyes, her serene, vibrant strength, suddenly seemed more precious to him than anything else could possibly be.

But already she had stiffened, withdrawing a half step from his side, restoring the formal reserve that was the norm between unmarried wild elves of opposite sexes.

"I am sorry about your uncle," she said quietly.

He told her of the others who had perished, and of the great victory the tribe had won, thanks to the intervention of Sir Kamford Willis, the human knight. By this time, they had reached the cave, and the great silver head, supported by the serpentine neck, emerged to greet them.

"Welcome, Pathfinder," Lectral said, his fangs glistening in a crocodilian smile. "I see that you bear the horn of the Grandfather Ram."

"And dinner as well," Ash said, dropping the buck's carcass outside the cave.

"You are ever welcome here, but most especially when you come with meat," the dragon noted.

Hammana sat silently beside a flat rock and began pounding her herbs with a stout stick. Ashtaway wanted to talk to her, but she avoided his eyes with fierce determination. Instead, the young Pathfinder described for Lectral the developments in the village by the Bluelake. He declared his intention to meet the Knights of Solamnia when Lunitari next waxed crescent-and when he said this, Hammana stiffened almost imperceptibly. Ash was heartened by this proof that she did not ignore him entirely.

"This is a proper and important thing you do," Lectral agreed, nodding sagely. "The knights are good men- among the best-and this Sir Kamford seems to have proved his worth twice over. If you can aid them to strike at Takhisis, you will do a service for all of Ansaion."

"It seems a strange way to make war," the wild elf admitted. "But if the armies of the Dark Queen cannot subsist without their food and weapons, then it may be that by destroying those we can greatly weaken her troops."

The silver dragon nodded, grunting contentedly as Hammana changed the dressing over several of his wounds. Ash noticed that the serpent's scales gleamed much brighter now, and his yellow eyes reflected the waning daylight with a pleasant luster.

"She has helped me very much," Lectral said, slowly. His hooded eyes shifted from the warrior to the woman, as if probing at the tension between them.

"I have done what I could. He is very strong," she replied, intent on her work.

"Alas, I'm afraid this old flap is never going to lift me into the air again," Lectral noted with a grunt of disgust. He twitched his left wing, showing that the leathery surface was pitted, scarred, and twisted. "Still, there are things other than flight to keep a dragon happy. Wyrm- lings, for example. Did I ever tell you of Saytica, my daughter?"

Ash shook his head.

"She flies in the wing defending Palanthas. I have even heard that she bears a great captain of the knights on her back-one of the lords of the knightly orders."

"It is a thing to make one proud," Ash agreed, trying to picture the might of an armored knight mounted on one of these great serpents. How could the Dark Queen's forces hope to destroy an army such as that?

"Alas, there are but few of us," Lectral continued, answering the wild elf's unspoken question. "The reds and whites alone outnumber us, and then there are the blues, the blacks, and the greens. It is a desperate struggle we wage."

Ashtaway could only agree and silently pray that the dragons of silver could hang on long enough to prevail. He hoped that the strike at Sanction would make a difference.

But there was another thing on his mind.

We each bear a Ram's Horn," he said after a respectful silence. "Can you tell me how you came to possess yours?" he asked. 'There have long been legends among us of the second horn, but not since the time of Father Kagonesti has anyone seen it."

It was given to me by my sire, Callak, who got it from Darlantan himself."

"Are you a Pathfinder of the silver dragons?"

Lectral chuckled. "We have no such title, really, but you might say that I am the Hornkeeper."

The dragon drew a deep, pensive breath before he continued. "The silver dragon, Darlantan, is the father of our people, and in his wisdom he saw that even we dragons had weaknesses. He knew that, through the coming centuries, it was important that we have friends, allies, among the peoples of Krynn.

"Of course, the only of those peoples whose lifetime even begins to approach our own are the elves. Yet Darlantan could see that the House Elves-who have many fine qualities, though you raise your eyebrow in skepticism-would become a potent and aloof society, with little need of alliance. Too, the elves of Silvanesti are ever concerned with their own mastery and would have been difficult partners in any endeavor."

"And so he came to Father Kagonesti, in the guise of the Grandfather Ram?" Ash wondered, knowing the answer as legend, but awed to hear it from Lectral as truth.

"Darlantan saw, in your first Pathfinder, that pride, that self-reliance that drew him to the wild elf first as a friend, then as an ally. He bade Kagonos to remain apart from the Silvanesti and laid a heavy mantle on that Elderwild's shoulders. The twin horns of the Grandfather Ram would be the symbol of this bond, and of the Pathfinder's burden.

"Kagonos bore that burden well, and when the First Dragon War raged across the land, he brought his Elder- wild into the struggle and gave all the people of Krynn a hope for the future.

"Before Darlantan perished-at the end of that war-he gave the Ram's Horn to his wyrmling, Callak, who protected it for thirteen centuries. It was during this time that the dwarves, with their infernal greed, dug up the magical dragongems and unwittingly released the evil serpents into the world. As an ancient wyrm, Callak passed it to me when I was but a fledgling flyer, and for ten centuries it has been my task to keep it safe. For most of those vears, it was protected deep in our lair, among mountains inaccessible to any land-bound creature."

"Yet you carried it from that lair…?" Ashtaway, mystified, reminded Lectral.

"Indeed. Now a cruel Dragon War rages again, and those who battle the Dark Queen have fared badly. Remembering that the Elderwild aided us to win the first war against evil dragonkind, I wondered if perhaps their children-the Kagonesti-could do so again. Thus, I winged toward these woodlands, on my way to seek your people, when the reds fell upon me, ending my flight here."

"You sought our aid in the Dragon War?" Ash asked, surprised. "Surely you knew that we would never agree to enter such a…?" He trailed off as the realization dawned.

Darlantan smiled a crocodile grimace of sharp fangs. "It seems to me that, even without my beseeching, you already have agreed," he remarked gently.

Pondering the irony of this fate, Ashtaway built a fire while Hammana sliced meat from the carcass of the buck. They ate, the two wild elves cooking their meat over the low blaze while Lectral contentedly gnawed at a haunch. Afterward, they slept, and Ashtaway woke with the first cool light of dawn. Hammana was already up, grinding at her herbs, brewing a thick tea in a gourd that sat on the banked coals of the fire.

At first he had thought that he might stay here for several days, but one look at the elfwoman's rigid back, then the sound of her stiffly formal greeting when he bade her good morning, convinced him that his presence here-at least, for any longer-would be a mistake.

As soon as Lectral awakened, Ashtaway announced his intention to return to the village. He promised to return with game as soon as possible, though he warned this might not be until after he journeyed to Sanction and back.

"Good luck," the dragon declared. "These knights can hurt Takhisis if only you show them the path."

"I will do that." Ashtaway paused, then drew a breath. "Hammana?"

"Yes?" She rose and accompanied him from the cave, though she did not meet his eyes.

"Is-is there anything I should tell your father? When will you return to the village?"

"I… I don't know. I'll stay here awhile. Lectral still needs me." Was it his imagination, or did she emphasize the dragon's name, pounding home the fact that a Pathfinder had no need of a woman, of anybody?

The Kagonesti wanted to tell her that it wasn't true. He wanted to confess his own need, which he felt more strongly than ever before. He, Ashtaway, needed her at his side! Couldn't she see-couldn't everyone see-that a partner such as Hammana could only make him a better Pathfinder?

But then she raised her face, and when he saw the fierce anger in her eyes, he felt a strange catch in his own throat and could only hold his tongue.

At last, when the cool cloak of the forest surrounded him, the isolation came almost-but not quite-as a relief.