Palimpsest

Firearms are an elven craft, and they have always been an elven craft. The making of them is restricted by the standing law of the High Houses to the armouries of the elven military, and the law has been in force for as long as the craft has existed. The law was written to keep them from being made by hands the High Houses had not trained. The distinction has held in principle and slipped in practice.

Masters trained in the elven armouries have, in every generation, left the lands of their birth, and the makers among foreign peoples are the heirs of those who left. The weapons in Cindorian hands today were made by men and women whose teachers were taught in the armouries of an elven army that does not, by its own records, acknowledge them.

— from a treatise on the regulation of weapons among the elven peoples, author and publication unknown

Chapter 34 Ride for the Mountains

Kaelin sprinted toward the horses, and breathless, panted at the others as she came up: "Quick — quick." Without the air to shout, the words came out as a strangled hiss. "It's a trap. Ride for the mountains!"

"Fuck," Vaelra swore. She was hurrying to get Elis up onto the horse, and Darian was helping her from the other side. Ravah was already up on the other horse, reaching down for Tivver on the ground.

Between the sound of her own breath and the blood roaring in her ears, Kaelin couldn't hear very much. Since the moment Veylith had told her to run she hadn't turned to look back, and the possibility that she might have called out behind her was winding her up tighter and tighter. When at last she reached the horse, she put her foot in the stirrup without thinking and swung herself up. The moment the reins came into her hand her heart was hammering as if it would come out of her chest. Vaelra and Darian, with Elis between them, were finally ready to move; Ravah had pulled Tivver up in front of her, given him the reins, and drawn her batons. Looking across, Kaelin saw Veylith walking, slowly, toward them, with her pistols already in her hands.

The moment Veylith saw the others mount up, she'd drawn her weapons — and almost at the same moment she had seen five men come bursting out of the trees behind the horses. "Ride!" she shouted toward them, and raised the pistols as if she were aiming at them. As the others kicked their horses southeast, Kaelin spurred hers and rode it straight at Veylith. Even though Veylith had begun to fire her pistols directly at her, Kaelin didn't even blink. Veylith brought down at least three of the men behind Kaelin; as Kaelin reached her, Veylith holstered the pistols. Kaelin tried to slow as she came up; Veylith vaulted up behind her in a single quick motion and kicked the horse into a gallop. Holding Kaelin around the waist, she shouted, "I told you to ride for the mountains without waiting for me!"

"I am riding for the mountains," Kaelin shouted back at once. Her face wasn't panicked so much as utterly focused, looking dead ahead. The others were riding diagonally ahead of them toward the mountains. Ravah, batons in hand, was ready for a fight. But Veylith could see the horse with Vaelra on it slowing. The mountains were still far off.

"Drop the reins," she shouted into Kaelin's ear.

"What?" Kaelin shot back, startled.

"Trust me," Veylith said in a cooler voice. At that Kaelin loosened the reins she'd been gripping and let them go. The horse didn't seem much affected and kept galloping. Then Veylith unclasped Kaelin's hands at her waist and, in an athletic move, threw herself in front of Kaelin. Kaelin, not even understanding what had happened, suddenly found Veylith in her lap and eye to eye with her. Her legs were wrapped around Kaelin.

Riding almost nose to nose, Veylith reached for her weapons and held them up, and Kaelin shouted, "Now keep riding." Kaelin pulled Veylith into her arms and reached back for the reins. Veylith brought her head down over Kaelin's shoulder and turned the guns to fire behind them. Now Kaelin was looking forward over Veylith's shoulder, riding toward the mountains, while Veylith was looking back over Kaelin's shoulder, aiming at their pursuers. Their faces were a hand's-breadth apart, both of them locked on opposite directions in full focus.

As Veylith reloaded without firing, she saw their pursuers were growing in number and closing the gap. She counted at least twelve riders, and more were joining from the sides. When the guns were ready she began firing them in two different directions at once. Aiming with any precision from horseback at this speed wasn't really possible, so she was firing at the riders almost on reflex. She brought a few down this way, but most of her shots either missed or grazed without slowing them.

Kaelin, though not afraid of the guns going off on either side of her head, felt every shot in her bones. Her ears began to ring after a while. In the brief moments between reloads, she noticed how much the sound was affecting her. Each time, the world's sounds dimmed a little more around her. And yet she kept riding for the mountains.

As Veylith readied to fire again, she saw a single rider sitting motionless on a hilltop to the north. A man with long hair and a long beard was watching all of it, but not moving. "So the Hunter finally shows his face," she said to herself.

"What?" Kaelin shouted, suddenly, right by her ear.

"You're doing great," Veylith shouted back. "Keep it up — but don't get ahead of the others." Kaelin nodded that she understood, and started handling the horse with more confidence. Veylith went on firing. She had slowed many of the riders and brought six or seven of them down on the way. A few had fallen from their saddles and their horses had scattered. But that didn't change the fact that the gap was closing. If it went on like this they'd have to fight, and it wasn't hard to read, from the calm of the man on the hill, that more men were coming.

"We should be coming out of the trees by now," she shouted into Kaelin's ear. "What can you see?"

"We're coming out of the trees in a few minutes," Kaelin shouted back into her ear. "Then the ground starts climbing. There are hills and big rocks."

"Anything else? A road, anything?"

"No road. But — " Kaelin narrowed her eyes and looked harder. "I think there's a cave. A big dark crack between the rocks."

Veylith didn't answer right away — she was reloading. Then she asked, "Can you get closer to the others?" Kaelin let out an uninterrupted string of curses and worked the horse toward them. Veylith didn't hear most of it; she'd started firing behind them again. When the guns were empty she saw Ravah was close on one side, Vaelra on the other. Switching out magazines by touch without looking, she shouted across to Ravah, "Ride for the cave!" Ravah only nodded. Then Veylith called out again, "Tivver — get the presents ready." Tivver also nodded, without answering, but the smile that spread across his face was something to be afraid of.

When Ravah pointed Vaelra to the caves, all of them turned the same way. Before Veylith fired again, she said into Kaelin's ear, "Stay right behind them. Don't slow down until you're inside the cave," and the gunshots started ringing again.

As Veylith fired she could feel that they were slowing — so that the others could get in first. Because of this, the pursuers were closing again. She saw some of them drawing out small knives and hatchets. They still weren't close enough for sword or spear work, but that didn't mean they couldn't attack. She managed to take down two of the men before they could throw anything, but one of them flung an axe that grazed past them by a hair. When the axe whistled past her head, Kaelin was frightened but didn't lose control. But a small dagger was coming straight for Kaelin's back, and Veylith didn't have so much as a second to react. She pulled Kaelin in tighter, crossed her arms behind her, and managed to stop the dagger with her arm. The blade buried itself in her right arm. She struck the dagger's crossguard with the gun in her left hand and knocked it out of her arm and away. Now the arm was bleeding. Before it could go weak she started swapping in a magazine for the last time. If her count was right — and her count had never been wrong — she would have no full magazines left after this.

"They're in the cave," Kaelin shouted into her ear. "Last hundred paces!"

"Pull the reins the moment you're inside," Veylith answered. She had the guns up again, but wasn't rushing this time. She only fired at two men who still had knives in hand.

"Twenty more," Kaelin shouted, just as the shadow of the mountains came over them. A few seconds later Veylith saw the rocks rising around them; at that very moment Kaelin pulled hard on the reins.

"Now," Veylith shouted as the cave walls began to swallow them. She holstered the pistols at her belt. The horse carried them at least fifteen or twenty steps in. Tivver, who was closer to the entrance, lit the ends of two sacks he was holding and hurled them. At the same moment Darian threw another sack toward the entrance. The riders outside saw the sacks and pulled their reins, but they were already much too close to the mouth of the cave.

Vaelra, deepest in, threw herself over the wounded woman who was still on the horse. Ravah ran to Tivver and Darian, who had thrown the sacks and bolted further in, and threw her arms around them, pulling them down in front of her. Veylith, still in the same position on the horse, drew Kaelin closer and pressed her head down into her shoulder.

The sacks went off one after another and the blasts rang through the cave with an enormous noise that felt like an earthquake. The horses panicked at the sound and the force and reared. At last the rock above the entrance began to crack and split with a roar.

The three riders who had pulled up at the cave mouth at the last moment and tried to turn back didn't make it out from under the collapsing ceiling. As the roof came down it sent a strong wind and a great cloud of dust both inward and outward. So much so that even the riders at a distance flinched and pulled back on reflex. The dust took several minutes to settle.

While the riders who had escaped being crushed under the rubble were picking themselves up, the ones further off were regrouping. By the time Baltrik finally arrived, every rider was standing at the ready, waiting for him. Without saying anything, he passed through them and walked, unhurried, toward the collapsed mouth of the cave. Without dismounting, he stopped in front of the rubble and looked at the cave, now sealed as if on purpose. He stroked his beard with an angry expression, then raised one hand. One of the men behind him came to his side at once.

"We're heading for the pass. We make camp on the mountain roads before nightfall. It's at least four days to the other side. Pick two of your fastest men and send them ahead. They keep moving without rest until they reach the other side of the mountains — no camp for them," he said to the man beside him. "If we lose their tracks again, this time it won't be just one throat I cut."

"Yes, sir," the man said, swallowing fearfully. Then, hesitantly, he asked, "Do you really think they can come out of there alive?"

"If they don't get lost in the caves," Baltrik answered, looking up at the mountains, "or the darkness of the mountain doesn't swallow them up."

◈◈◈

When the cloud of dust thinned out and the sound of the cave-in finally stopped, an enormous silence wrapped around the inside. It was pitch dark in the cave, and there was no difference between having one's eyes open or closed. The horses, who had been screaming in panic, had finally calmed; no one had yet made a sound. At last Tivver broke the silence with a cough.

"Can anyone remember the last time we didn't blow up a tunnel?" he muttered to himself, and his voice echoed off the walls. Darian, struggling for breath right beside him, breathed it out the same way; Ravah slowly stood, as if shaking something off.

"Are you all right?" Vaelra asked the wounded woman she was still huddled over.

"I'm all right," Elis answered, coughing. From her voice it was clear she was still speaking with difficulty.

Veylith and Kaelin were still wrapped around each other on the horse. Veylith had taken her hand away from Kaelin's head; their heads were resting against each other, looking opposite ways over each other's shoulders. With the corners of their foreheads pressed together, each of them could hear the other still catching her breath right against her ear. Kaelin didn't even realise she was still gripping the reins tight; Veylith was still shielding her back with her arms.

"Are you all right?" Veylith whispered at last, her mouth right beside Kaelin's ear, without breaking the pose.

"I don't know," Kaelin whispered into her ear, "I think I'm all right."

Veylith didn't answer at once, but her breathing was beginning to come easier. As she slowly relaxed her hands on Kaelin's back, she whispered into her ear again: "I think you're ready for your second riding lesson."

Kaelin laughed out, soft, on the breath. Veylith laughed, too, just to herself. Then, for no reason in particular, the two of them couldn't hold it back and started giggling quietly. The others, hearing them laugh, relaxed in spite of themselves and let themselves drop onto the hard cave floor and breathed.

"I hate to break up the good cheer," Vaelra cut in at last, "but I'd like to remind everyone we're in a dark, terrifying cave."

At that, Veylith lifted her head from against Kaelin's and straightened up. Even though she couldn't see anything, knowing someone was right beside her and hearing her breath had made her feel strange. She wondered for a moment why she didn't find it uncomfortable. Then she called out to the others, "Has anyone got a torch, or something like one?"

"Better than that," Tivver answered at once. A few seconds later, a stone-on-stone strike threw a spark into the dark of the cave. Then another. On the third the spark caught and grew, and the light steadily strengthened. "Lifted two oil lamps from the warden station," Tivver said, turning up the brightness. At last the inside of the cave was lit and they could see one another. Darian and Ravah were sitting on the ground right beside Tivver. Vaelra was helping Elis sit up. Kaelin and Veylith, suddenly face to face, were still and silent for a short while. Their faces, two or three fingers apart, seemed locked. Finally Veylith pulled Kaelin to her again, and Kaelin couldn't tell at first what had happened. But when Veylith made the move to turn, she understood that Veylith was getting back behind her again. Once she was behind, Veylith dismounted at last. But she turned at once and held a hand out to Kaelin. Kaelin took it on reflex and Veylith eased her gently down to the ground. Tivver had lit the other lamp and come over with Ravah and Darian. Vaelra had settled Elis somewhere near the far wall and was walking back toward them.

"So now?" Tivver asked, though he already knew the answer.

Veylith looked around, checked on everyone, then turned her eyes to the darkness ahead. "Forward."