The Coming Storm by Valerie Douglas Page B

shocking Jareth stumbled to a halt. He’d never seen a sick or injured Elf. Elves simply didn’t get sick. The same magic that made them so long-lived tended to heal them with startling speed. Jareth had known it was possible but he’d never in his lifetime seen it.
    Until now.
    Alic. Elon knew him immediately. Wounded. He ran across the field to meet the Hunter, taking the bridle of his clearly exhausted horse to stop it.
    Raising his head was such an effort for Alic that Elon knew he was at the end of his strength.
    It had been centuries as men measured such since Elon had seen such weariness in another Elf.
    What had happened? It pierced him to his core. And where was Colath?
    Aric’s eyes met his for a moment, struggled for clarity, and then he consigned himself to his exhaustion and slid bonelessly from the saddle, knowing he was safe.
    Sending him strength through the empathic bond, Elon steadied him as the Healers surrounded them. No more than he did they show their dismay. He could practically feel the energy pour off of them as they lent Aric strength as Elon had.
    Already another rider had emerged from the Veil and the horse plodded wearily across the field.
    A man, slumped over his saddle and staying in it only out of sheer dogged determination.
    Hunters and Woodsmen filled the field, running past him to aid the rider from his saddle.
    At first the man struggled, until he realized he was among friends. Then he collapsed, as utterly and completely as Aric had.
    One of the chirurgeons – the healers of men, although they had no magic – tipped a draught between the man’s lips as others lifted the limp form and hurried it away.
    A mere moment behind the man was Jalila, her head held high but her lips drawn tight with pain. Her bow was still clutched tightly in her hand but her quiver was empty. She looked back over her shoulder, the motion an effort against her own injury.
    Colath passed through the mists of the Veil.
    He was clearly exhausted, blood visible on his side. He was the last.
    There had been five.
    For a moment, Elon shut his eyes against the pain of that knowledge. He was the one who had sent them out.
    Then he gathered himself and moved forward.
    Jalila gave him a look, tried to straighten in her saddle.
    He shook his head. “I know your report is urgent but it can wait until the Healers have seen you.”
    She  closed her eyes a moment and then nodded as the Healers swarmed around her. He saw it now, a deep gash running down her back.
    He was already moving on to catch Chai’s bridle to bring the Colath’s battered horse to a stop.
    Elon stroked her nose to calm her when she started nervously. There was a score running down one flank, shallow, another on her chest.
    “You did well, little one,” he said.
    The horse’s great eyes looked at him and then she lowered her head with relief, blowing.
    From the saddle Colath looked at him, exhausted beyond speech, slightly bent over the wound in his side.
    Shaking his head, Elon said to the unspoken question in Colath’s colorless eyes, “Later.”
    With a touch on the knee, Elon sent Colath to sleep and Colath, too, slid limply out of the saddle. Elon caught him and eased him down to the ground as the Healers joined them.
    “We have him, Elon,” one said.
    He nodded and let them do their work.
    As a Healer himself, he could have done the work but recognized there was no purpose in him doing it, no necessity. For all Colath was his true-friend, these were here for this purpose, his was to guide and command.
    The field emptied quickly of all but the horses, those that tended them, and Jareth.
    “He took five with him,” Elon said, looking at the four surviving horses. His responsibility.
    He’d misjudged.
    Badly.
    Jareth waited, standing in Colath’s stead as friend. Not quite the true-friend bond but friend just the same. There to listen as needed.
    That Elon wasn’t offering criticism of Colath, Jareth knew.
    It was Elon’s