Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [141]
A bleak expression filled the woman's winter-blue eyes. "It is, and I don't need to ask why. A warrior of Rashemen always dies with his sword in his hands."
CHAPTER TWENTY
raven ascending
Fyodor stirred in Liriel's arms. His eyes opened and met hers. There were so many things she wanted to say, but all she could manage was, "I sent for your sword."
A faint smile touched his lips. "Wind-walker," he said. "The heart and strength of the land. Of course you would understand such things."
His words shattered her. She rested her cheek on his head and struggled to hold back a different kind of darkness-a wave of grief and despair unlike anything she had ever known.
"Listen to me, little raven," he said in a fading voice. "I was a dead man the day I left Rashemen. What adventures we have shared since then, and what wonders I have known." He found her hand and raised it to his lips. "You have brought me home, as Zofia foretold."
There was peace on Fyodor's face, utter contentment in his eyes, but for Liriel, this was not enough.
"You told me that truth would always find its way out, that good is stronger than evil. We've come so far together. Why must we lose now?"
"Dying is not the same as losing. What we were meant to do, we did. What we are, we became."
His breath hitched then released on a soft rattling sigh.
Liriel's tears fell freely as she rocked him in her arms. "Not yet," she pleaded. "Wait for the sword. Just wait a little while more. Don't leave. Don't leave me alone."
Thorn and Sharlarra found them there. The drow's cheek remained pillowed on Fyodor's head. Her eyes were closed, and her small frame shook with her anguished mourning.
The elf's horse whickered softly and nosed Sharlarra. The elf following Moonstone's pointed gaze and noted the translucent form of the young Rashemi, standing near the grieving drow.
Sharlarra walked over to Liriel and laid a hand on her shoulder. The drow looked up with dull eyes. Sharlarra held out Fyodor's sword.
Bitter laughter spilled from the drow. "It's too late. He's gone."
Thorn seized her chin and turned it toward the watchful spirit. "Not yet, he isn't. I know this land. It is not an easy place to leave. Did you bid him stay?"
The drow nodded silently, her eyes fixed on her friend's face. "I didn't want to be alone," she whispered, "but I didn't mean this."
Sharlarra knelt beside Liriel and eased the Hashemi's body from her arms. She lowered Fyodor to the ground then placed the black sword on his chest and folded his hands over it. She and Thorn helped Liriel to her feet.
For a long moment Liriel stood between the body and the spirit of her beloved friend.
It was Thorn who finally broke the silence. She looked to the lingering spirit and said firmly, "We will hunt well, and run swiftly. We three."
Fyodor's ghostly eyes shifted from Thorn to Sharlarra. The elf nodded. Finally he looked to Liriel, and there was both a farewell and plea in his eyes.
An image came vividly to Liriel's mind: the battle for the island of Ruathym, when Fyodor took on yet another transformation, sending his spirit in animal form to take Liriel from the very hand of Lolth. She nodded and closed her eyes, listening for the music of the place to which Fyodor belonged.
The song of Rashemen filled her mind, growing louder as new voices joined the chorus. A familiar deep voice, as like to Fyodor's as shadow to source, took up the song. Entwined with it was a woman's voice. Fyodor's parents. She knew this with absolute certainty.
The voices of friends whose names she did not know filled her mind, shouting cheerful insults over the background of song. The faces began to take shape in her mind. There was the bearded visage of the friend who had welcomed them to Dernovia. There was young Petyar. There was a wild snowcat awaiting Fyodor with the calm air of a beloved pet expecting her master.
There was Home.
Liriel felt her spirit tear free, saw her small dark form sag between the two elf women who had thrown their lot in with hers.
Then she was soaring away, the cold Rashemaar wind