Acaila led the Eldar, the ancient line of elves who had been closest to the Valheru. Tomas had come to value his counsel. He had a perspective unique and vast.
“But whatever force for good there is, the evil unleashed by the demon before it was destroyed is still stronger,”
Acaila continued. “That dark agency has servants, and they are building power in Ylith and Zun and now in LaMut.”
“What Subai said about human sacrifice?”
Acaila said, “It is a thing of great evil and great power, and it grows by the day. The servants of such evil often are dupes and have no idea of what they bring upon themselves as well as others. They do not know they destroy their own souls first. As soulless men they feel no remorse, no shame, no regret. They merely act on impulse, seeking what they think they want, glory, power, wealth, the trappings of might. They do not realize they have already lost and anything they do serves only waste and destruction.”
Tomas was silent for a while, then said, “I have Valheru memory, so those impulses are well known to me.”
“Your Valheru forebears lived in different times, my friend. The universe was ordered differently. The Valheru were natural forces, serving neither good nor evil.
“But this thing is a thing of evil, apart from any other consideration, and it must be rooted out and destroyed. And to do so, the forces which strive to endure and survive the onslaught will need help.”
Tomas said, “So I leave to lend my strength.”
Acaila said, “Of all of us here, you alone have the means to tip the balance to good.”
“I will leave and find Pug,” said Tomas. “Together we will do what we must to save the Kingdom and prevent the rise of this evil in Krondor.”
“Go to the Queen,” said Acaila, “and know whatever you do, you do for her and your son.”
Tomas gripped Acaila’s hand and left.
Later that night, after dining with his wife and a lingering good-bye, Tomas returned to the clearing north of the center of the forest. He was now dressed in his white-and-gold armor. A legacy of an ancient past, the armor was without blemish or scratch. He had reclaimed his golden sword with the white hilt when his son had unraveled the mystery of the Lifestone. His hand rested on its hilt, and he wore his white shield with the golden dragon emblazoned on it over his shoulder. He looked to the sky and sent forth a call. He waited.
Men lay dead and dying on all sides. Erik stood exhausted, a mound of dead enemies before him. Sometime during the afternoon his horse had gone out from under him courtesy of a stray arrow.
Twice he had been tempted to order retreat, but on both occasions his men had rallied and the enemy had been thrown back. He vaguely recalled a lull during the afternoon in which he had greedily drunk from a waterskin and eaten something; he couldn’t remember what.
Horns had sounded from the other side a few minutes before, and the enemy withdrew. The diamonds had held, and a thousand or more men had died trying to take them. Erik couldn’t begin to guess how many defenders had died as well. He knew he’d get a body count in the morning.
Leland rode up and said, “My father’s compliments, Captain.”
Erik nodded, trying to get his thoughts organized. “I’ll be along presently, Lieutenant.”
Erik bent and cleaned his sword on the tunic of a dead man before him, then put it in his scabbard and looked over the field. He had ended up in the gap between the center diamond and the one on the right. The bodies before him were waist-high. He turned toward Jadow Shati, who yelled, “I hope we don’t have to do that again anytime soon, man!”
Erik waved. “Not until tomorrow.” He headed toward Earl Richard’s tent. When he got there he found two bodies being dragged out of the tent by guards, and the old Earl sitting at his table, an orderly bandaging his arm.
“What happened?” asked Erik.
“Some of the enemy got loose on your left flank, Captain, and actually got here. I finally got to use this sword.”
“How do you feel?” asked Erik.
“Like hell, Captain.” He looked at the orderly, who finished tying off the bandage, and waved him away. “Still, I can at last feel like a soldier.
“You know,” he said, leaning back, “I once rode a patrol, and we saw some Keshians who ran across the border when they saw us, and until today that was as close as I had come to being in an actual battle.” He got a distant look. “That was forty years ago, Erik.”
Erik sat. “I envy you.”
“I don’t doubt that,” said Richard. “What next?”
“We wait until they withdraw a bit more, then I’d like to put some scouts up in the hills to get a sense of how they’re deploying. Our men did well this day.”
“But we didn’t break them,” said Richard.
“No,” said Erik. “And each day we fight out here in the middle of the road, our chances of reaching Ylith diminish, and our hope of freeing Yabon becomes faint.”
“We need some sort of magic,” said Richard.