“Barely even that. It had been a hard winter, and we did not expect them to join us in battle so soon,” RuuKag replied. The hall was now full of gnomes, but he no longer cared. To speak the words unburdened him. “When their Legions were reported, there were few that the rebel clans could field. Everyone who could hold a blade was pressed into service-many of them barely trained youths, and I counted myself among them.”
Jith was in awe. “You joined the battle?”
“What choice did I have?” RuuKag snapped. “I was the son of the Clan Elder-an honored warrior with ancestors covered in glory for a hundred years! I had grown up on stories of fortune in battle. It was all such a fabulous game to me. Here was my chance to add to the name of my clan, to add to the glory of my ancestors, to. . to. .”
“To what?” Jith urged.
“To prove myself to my father,” RuuKag roared. “To show the rest of the clan that I wasn’t just a child of privilege but that I, too, could stand with my ancestors and lay claim to my father’s armor.”
“What happened?” Jith asked.
RuuKag sat back and lifted his head. He could see the field before him as though he were there once more. “We formed a line as we had been taught. None of us were tried in battle-we barely knew how to hold a sword much less use it against a cunning enemy. We were supposed to be in reserve-not to be used in the battle itself-but the lines before us broke. The Legions of Rhonas stormed into the gap, pushing back the lines to either side, trying to flank them. But our leader was an old warrior whose mind had grown brittle and his judgment stale. He saw the gap in the lines and ordered our unit to charge into the bloodiest part of the battle.”
“And what happened?” Jith whispered.
“I. . I couldn’t move,” RuuKag replied in a voice that felt detached for the images in his mind. “I saw the death and the blood and the slaughter in front of me, and I just couldn’t move.”
The room was filled with gnomes now, but only the sound of RuuKag’s quiet voice was heard.
“The line closed again as the manticores fought back,” RuuKag continued. “As it turned out, the charge was in vain; the line would have closed anyway, and all those young manticores who stood next to me and charged died for nothing. Yet there were a number of us who just didn’t heed the call-and we lived. It would have been better for us to have died that day-we were branded as the cowards that we were. We lived-and that was our shame.”
RuuKag paused and looked up. Gnomes filled the story-cavern and were standing at the entrances. Each was facing him in rapt attention, sadness in their eyes.
Sadness for him.
RuuKag was now intent on letting all the words come out. He had forgotten his urgent reasons for departing. He spoke of returning to his father’s clan, his shame of a coward son. He told of his banishment and the tears and howls of his mother echoing in his ears as he departed into the Vestasian Savanna.
He spoke of his longing to die.
His words spilled from him throughout the night in one tale that was many tales: the tale of his enslavement to the Devotions of House Timuran; the tale of Drakis teaching him the pain of knowing the truth and RuuKag’s longing for the peace of not knowing at all; and finally the tale of Belag and Drakis leading them across the savanna and how a dishonored manticore now stood on the edge of a knife trying to decide between the oblivion of the elves and the hope of a life at last.
At last, RuuKag stopped, all his words spent. He looked up into the eyes of the gnomes and settled at last on those of Jith.
The young gnome looked at the manticore with his large, watery eyes. . and gently smiled.
RuuKag looked at the ground.
Jith stepped quickly over to the manticore, moving beneath his face and gazing up as he spoke. “Thank you, RuuKag-ki. Thank you for your story. We understand now.”
RuuKag took in a long, deep breath.
Jith took the manticore’s huge paw with both his small hands. The gnome then touched his forehead to the back of RuuKag’s furry grip.