The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [265]
“Your Majesty!” he cried out, clamping big arms around her and lifting her off the ground. “By Jorus, you're alive!”
Grace gritted her teeth. “Not for much longer if you keep that up.”
Kel set her back down. “Sorry about that.” He turned his head, gazing from side to side.
“Have you lost something?” Tarus said.
“As a matter of fact, I have,” Kel said with a grunt. “I've lost my witch. Somehow I managed to misplace her during the fray, and now I can't find her.”
“Maybe she's back at the keep,” Aryn offered.
Kel scowled. “I've already tried there, but no one's seen her. This is most bothersome. I need her to look at her runes and tell me whether it would be auspicious to grow my beard back or not.” He clenched a meaty fist. “The wretched hag is hiding from me somewhere.”
“How about right in front of your face, Your Obliviousness?” croaked an acidic voice.
As one they turned to see a ragged form shambling toward them on stick-thin legs. Grisla halted before Grace and bared her lone tooth in a grin. “Greetings, Queen of Malachor.”
The hag bowed low, and Grace was so flustered she started to bow in return until Tarus caught her arm.
Kel glared at the crone. “What about me, hag? Aren't you going to show me proper obeisance? And where have you been all this time?”
She thrust her hands against her lumpy hips and rolled her one bulbous eye. “I've been seeing to more important things than the fur on your face, Your Hairiness. I've been searching for stragglers on the battlefield. In fact, I've just found some.” She gestured with a knobby hand.
Grace and the others looked up. Five figures walked toward them—slowly, as if exhausted beyond imagining. At first they were only silhouettes in the gloom. Then one last stray beam of sunlight found its way through a gap in the mountains to fall on the battlefield, illuminating their faces.
There is a joy that is beyond expression in words. It is experienced, not by the heart or by the mind, but by the soul—a sudden sense of rightness so clear and perfect that man's fleeting glimpses of it are surely what first gave him the idea of heaven.
Grace felt such a joy now. The sunlight made their faces shine, as if illuminated from within, so that each of them was more fair than she remembered. Melia and Falken. Beltan and Vani clad in strange, primitive leathers. And . . .
“Travis,” she whispered, and then louder, with all the force of her joy. “Travis!”
She staggered forward, then he was running. He caught her in his arms, holding her with gentle strength. Her right arm wasn't much use, but she gripped him with the left, holding on with all her might. Like Vani and Beltan, he wore clothes made of aurochs hide, though his were stained orange with ocher.
The others reached them, and Grace was being held by Falken and Melia at once, and she was dimly aware that both the bard and the lady were weeping. Before she knew it, Beltan scooped her up in his arms, and she didn't care—she couldn't feel pain, not now. Then she found herself gazing into gold eyes. Vani. She embraced the T'gol, and as she did Grace felt the faint swelling of the other woman's stomach.
After that Travis was there again, and he held her hands in his own. He looked older than she remembered. There were lines she hadn't seen before around his mouth and eyes, but they made him look handsome and wise.
“How?” she said. “How can you possibly be here?”
His voice was soft with wonder. “I'm not sure I know myself, Grace. I'm not sure any of us do.”
“And is that true, Runebreaker?” Grisla said. She let out a cackle. “Or should I say, Worldmaker?”
Grace gave Travis a questioning look. He pulled his hands away from hers.
“Travis, what is it? What's happened to you?”
Grisla hobbled toward him. “I'll tell you what happened. He did it. He broke the First Rune.”
An edge of terror cut through Grace's joy. “That's what happened to the sky, isn't it? It was the other Runebreaker. He broke the rune of sky, and Mohg returned to Eldh to break the First Rune, but somehow you stopped him.”
“No,” said