Alliances

Chapter 9

Rising out of the vast expanse of Khur’s northern desert were a series of rocky pinnacles. Before the First Cataclysm they were part of the Khalkist range to the north, connected to those mountains by long ridges that projected into the arid southern plain like great bony fingers. Time and catastrophe had eroded the fingers, leaving only the isolated pinnacles. There were six of them, known to the nomads as the Lion’s Teeth. Individually, from northwest to southeast, they were called Pincer, Ripper, Great Fang, Chisel, Lesser Fang, and Broken Tooth. Great Fang was the tallest; Pincer, the smallest. Broken Tooth covered the largest area and sported a wide, flat top.

Distributed around the bases of these spires were thousands of elves, survivors of the exodus from Khurinost, their tent city under the walls of Khuri-Khan. In six months the ponderous column had progressed barely sixty miles. Apart from the massive logistical problems of moving so many people, their possessions, and their livestock across the inhospitable terrain, the elves had been dogged every step of the way by growing numbers of Khurish nomads.

The desert tribesmen had always resented the presence of outsiders in their sacred land, but they had largely ignored the elves until Adala, female chieftain of the Weya-Lu tribe, awakened to the special danger the elves posed. It was not their trespass (considered a grave sin among nomads), nor their trampling of Khurish traditions that provoked Adala to action. As long as the laddad remained in their squalid tent city, Adala could ignore them. The spur that finally caused her to raise her people against them was their Speaker’s decision to lead his people away from the Khurish capital to settle in a valley on the northern border of Khur. The elves called it Inath-Wakenti, the Vale of Silence. City-dwelling Khurs knew it as the Valley of the Blue Sands and considered it little more than a fable.

Nomads knew better. To them, the valley was Alya-Alash (Breath of the Gods), the home of Those on High when They dwelt on the mortal plane. Strange forces lay quiescent in its cool, misty recesses. Disturbed by interlopers, the powers might leave their mountain haven and wreak havoc on the desert peoples. The world itself might come to an end if the sacred silence of Alya-Alash were broken.

Those on High had filled Adala with Their holy purpose. Her maita, her divine fate, was to unite the people of the desert against the intruders. Maita and the grace of Those on High would allow the nomads to overcome the subtle ways and superior warcraft of the laddad. Unfortunately, maita was no one’s servant, to be commanded at will. Adala had gathered six of the seven tribes of Khur to her cause, and they had won several victories, but the final destruction of the elves eluded them. Protected by the khan’s army, the laddad had escaped from Khurinost and begun their journey northward. With both Sahim-Khan’s formidable troops and elf cavalry arrayed against them, the nomads could do little more than harass their enemy. As the miles increased, the khan’s soldiers turned back home, and nomad attacks on the laddad grew stronger, more determined.

In the shadow of the Lion’s Teeth, nomad horsemen struck the left side of the elves’ formation while it moved slowly, steadily north-northwest. The hard-riding men of the Weya-Lu and Mikku tribes sliced a bloody swath through the terrified elves, driving warriors and civilians back upon the center of the column. Panic-stricken civilians hampered the warriors’ efforts to re-form and counterattack. A rout seemed inevitable. The elves would be scattered across the sun-baked wasteland and slaughtered.

Traveling in the midst of his footsore nation was Gilthas Pathfinder, Speaker of the Sun and Stars. When the fighting reached him, he halted his horse amid the backwash of his terrified people. An iron ring of warriors formed around the Speaker, trying to hold off the nomad horde.

“Great Speaker, you must withdraw!” said General Hamaramis, commander of the Speaker’s private guard. Blood streamed down his forehead.

Warriors and ordinary elves alike added their pleas to withdraw, but Gilthas would not remove himself to a place of safety. Even as nomad arrows flicked past him, he remained where he was.

“You’ve done your best, General. Now we must help you push back this attack,” he said then turned in the saddle to address his people. “Elves of the two nations! We have been driven from our homelands, persecuted, robbed, and slaughtered. This may be our last trial. Let us go no further. Let us meet our fate as true descendents of Silvanos and Kith-Kanan, and never bow to the murderers’ blades!”

The elves let out a roar, and Adala’s fickle maita ebbed. Elves of every stripe—nobles, commoners, artisans, farmers, male and female—surged forward around the Speaker’s horse. Armed with anything that came to hand, they fell upon the nomads. Astonished Khurs were dragged from their saddles or had their mounts pushed over. The enormous mass of elves pressed in on two sides, squeezing the Khurs between them. Many elves fell to nomad swords, but the momentum of the whole nation could not be stopped. Like a slow flood rising over a sandbar, they wore away the ranks of nomads and threatened to engulf them completely.

Some Khurs in the rearmost ranks gave way. More followed, and more still. Robbed of impetus, the nomads’ deadly thrust collapsed. When at last their line broke, their spearhead—several hundred warriors of the Weya-Lu tribe—was surrounded by elves. Hamaramis called for the humans to surrender.

Their reply was blunt and rude. Regretful but unyielding, the general signaled his re-formed cavalry and left the nomads to their inescapable fate.

Gilthas had saved his people, but the cost was high. Hundreds were killed, hundreds more wounded, and irreplaceable supplies were lost in the mad rush to fend off the nomads. Carts were overturned, and oil, water, and other precious liquids soaked the pitiless sand. Foodstuffs carefully preserved and hoarded were trampled.

While the elves marveled at their survival, despite the high cost they had paid, the dispirited nomads returned to their hidden camps. For an entire month, they’d marshaled their forces, gathering together far-flung tribes and clans from every corner of Khur. That was to have been the decisive battle, the final defeat of the laddad pestilence, and it had failed. Their supreme effort had been repulsed.

Some of the clan chiefs and warmasters spoke openly of quitting. The valley to which the laddad were headed wasn’t really part of Khur after all. No nomads lived there. No nomads even visited there. Why not let the laddad go to the valley and be cursed by the forces within it? Why sacrifice more Khurish lives to hasten the death that surely awaited the laddad?

The chiefs and warmasters gathered around their leader. Their sturdy desert-bred horses were shorter than the war-horses ridden by elves, but still towered over Adala’s donkey.

Known as the Weyadan, Mother of the Weya-Lu, but more frequently called simply “Maita” by her followers, Adala sat on Little Thorn’s back beneath a square of black damask supported by four tall poles. As always, her hands were busy. She was darning holes in the robe of one of her kinsmen. Months ago most of the Weya-Lu women and children had been slain in a night raid on an unprotected camp. The atrocity was blamed on the laddad, who had a warband in the vicinity. Since then Adala had taken on various domestic tasks for the surviving wifeless men. Chief of the Weya-Lu and anointed leader of the temporarily united desert tribes she might be, but she also sewed, mended, and cleaned as necessary to support her loyal warriors.

“What say you, Maita?” asked Danolai, warmaster of the Mikku. “Why waste our lives against a departing foe?”

“The blood of our people is still hot upon the sand,” Adala replied evenly. “Who would not avenge his kinsmen, wrongly slain?”

The men looked away. Adala’s youngest daughters, Chisi and Amalia, had been among those slain in the treacherous night raid. Adala had always been certain the laddad were behind the terrible crime. Her followers had been less sure until the tracks of shod horses were discovered nearby. Nomad ponies wore no shoes.

“They are too great for us, Maita.”

It was obvious most of the men present agreed with Danolai. Adala looked at him, her eyes hard.

“Then go home,” she said. “If you think the laddad are greater than you, then you are nothing. Take the other nothings and go, but leave your swords in the sand. You have no right to bear arms.”

The men blanched. A nomad’s sword, narrow bladed and bare of guard, was as vital a part of his identity as prowess on a horse or skill as a storyteller. He could experience no greater shame than to have his sword taken away and driven pointfirst into the sand. The gesture implied every degree of cowardice.

Adala’s cousin Wapah, sitting a horse at her side, spoke. “Our great throw did not succeed. But while we live, we can fight again.” His pale gray eyes were unusual among nomads, but common in Wapah’s Leaping Spider Clan.

“Every fight weakens the laddad. This is not their land. This is not their climate. One day their foreign ways will fail them, and they will be ours.”

Kindly folks called Wapah a philosopher. Those less charitable labeled him a garrulous gossip. But his was the only voice of reason between Adala’s unyielding belief in her maita and the chiefs’ despair. Old Kameen, the only clan chieftain from the ruling Khur tribe to join Adala’s cause, seconded Wapah’s words.

“We should be patient,” he advised. “Keep a close watch on the laddad. Gather the tribes again, and strike when the time is right.”

Adala finished her sewing and bit off the thread. “Kameen speaks wisely,” she said, folding the mended robe. “We will hang on the heels of the laddad until my maita shows us when to attack again.”

No one had a better idea to offer, and no one showed any sign of abandoning the fight. Fear of shame and a ferocious commitment to honor ran deep among the Khurs.

Several miles away, the elves were facing a crisis of their own. The damage to their dwindling supplies proved worse than first thought. One-fifth of their available water and a sixth of their edible oil had been lost in the attack. The great number of wounded meant the column could not maintain even the slow pace it had been making. Their time in the desert would be prolonged, and they did not have the supplies to meet the needs of everyone.

Planchet, Gilthas’s valet and bodyguard, arrived with General Taranath and other officers of the army. Planchet had been leading the right wing of the elves’ column. Surveying the destruction, his sunburned face paled a little. The carnage of men, elves, and horses traveled in a direct line to the Speaker. Planchet knew his sovereign well enough to realize he hadn’t retreated an inch.

Standing next to his horse, Gilthas was a thin figure clad in Khurish attire. Most elves had adopted the practical desert dress. Some, like Hamaramis and Planchet, added Qualinesti-style leggings, feeling uncomfortable on horseback without them. The Silvanesti among the Speaker’s councilors clung stubbornly to their silk robes, no matter how frayed and threadbare.

Planchet hailed his liege with great relief. “Sire, what is your will?” he said, dismounting.

“To lie in the cool shade of a birch forest with my feet soaking in a crystal stream.” Gilthas smiled wanly at the elf who was his valet, bodyguard, sometime general, and close friend. “What do you want, good Planchet?”

Amused, Planchet nevertheless answered seriously, pointing to the distant spires of the Lion’s Teeth. “Scouts tell us those peaks are easily defensible. I think we should make for them without delay.”

“Do you propose our people climb mountains?” asked Hamaramis.

“I do. We’re too vulnerable in the open desert. Another attack like today’s, and none of us will live to see Inath-Wakenti.”

The old general scowled. “We’ll be locking ourselves in a dungeon cell. The Khurs will never let us out again.”

All the officers had dismounted. Gilthas parted their ranks with a wave and walked a few yards beyond, where thousands of elves stood, knelt, or squatted on the sand, waiting to hear what he would ask of them next. Weary and frightened they were, but each and every face wore the same trusting expression. They believed Gilthas would lead them out of the fiery crucible of the desert just as he had led them from their shattered homelands when minotaurs, bandits, and goblins invaded. They had proclaimed him Gilthas Pathfinder. Such trust was an enormous source of strength for the Speaker of the Sun and Stars. It was also an enormous burden.

Gilthas inhaled deeply the dry, overheated air. His sandaled toe nudged a broken amphora. The golden olive oil inside was gone, lost to the insatiable sand.

“How far to the nearest of those peaks?”

“Broken Tooth is nine miles away, Great Speaker,” replied Planchet.

“And how far is the last peak from Inath-Wakenti?”

No one knew. As Gilthas returned to his officers, there was a flurry of activity as maps were produced and consulted. Planchet reported, “From the westernmost peak, Pincer, the mouth of Inath-Wakenti appears to be twenty-five to thirty miles away.”

“That’s a broad range.” In the desert, five miles could easily mean the difference between survival and destruction.

Planchet assured him they would refine the calculations. Gilthas studied the map Planchet held for him then announced his decision.

“We will go to the first pinnacle. We will occupy each spire in turn, using it as a fortress against the desert tribes.”

The sun was sinking in the west. Gilthas returned to his horse, and Planchet went with him. Watching them ride away, one of Hamaramis’s younger officers made a disparaging remark about the Speaker’s wits. The old general whirled and struck the offender with his gauntleted hand. The elf hit the ground, blood trickling from his lip.

“How dare you!” Hamaramis rasped. Heat and the shouting of commands had taken a toll on his voice, but fury was clear in every hoarse word. “The heir of Silvanos is not to be insulted!”

The young officer, a Silvanesti protégé of the late Lord Morillon, arose with much wounded pride. “I ask forgiveness,” he said stiffly. “But you yourself said going there would be like jumping into prison.”

“So it may be. And if the Speaker commands it, jump we will!”

The chastened captains dispersed to their waiting troops. General Taranath remained with Hamaramis. “You fear this development?” Taranath asked, his gaze following the insolent Silvanesti.

Hamaramis shrugged, wincing at the pain in his shoulders. “It’s difficult to know the future. I am no seer,” he rasped.

“I said that once to Hytanthas Ambrodel. His reply was, ‘The future always arrives, whether we want it or not.’”

“I miss young Hytanthas. One of many fine officers we’ve lost.”

Taranath did not correct the old general. Hytanthas had been sent by the Speaker to find his missing wife. No word had come from him in months, but as far as anyone knew, Hytanthas was not dead.

A ragged blare of trumpets brought the mass of exhausted elves to their feet. They prepared to resume their trek.

Hamaramis and Taranath solemnly clasped hands. This close to destruction, each parting felt like the final one.

They succeeded in achieving the heights. As Planchet’s scouts had reported, the Lion’s Teeth were scalable, especially for those as motivated and agile as the elves. For days they had been clinging to the windy fortresses. Days of scalding sun, chill nights, and an ever-shrinking water supply. Two-thirds of the elves, including the Speaker and Planchet, camped on Broken Tooth. A much smaller band was dug in on the much steeper neighboring peak, Lesser Fang. Beyond them, the remaining elves had taken refuge on Chisel. By means of signal mirrors, those on Chisel notified the Speaker they had found a small spring bubbling in a cleft on the pinnacle’s side. It was difficult to reach in the best of conditions and nearly impossible under the constant sniping of nomad archers, but Taranath, in command of the elves on Chisel, rigged a chain of leather buckets to haul water from the spring under cover of darkness. Those on Chisel would not go thirsty but had no way of sharing their life-giving find.

Daily the desert floor around the pinnacles echoed with the sounds of battle. General Hamaramis and the remaining cavalry fought to keep clear the gaps between the steep mountains. The nomads no longer sought or accepted pitched battle. Instead they tried to ambush small parties of elf warriors, sniped at the peaks with arrows, then vanished into the blazing desert when Hamaramis brought the weight of his army to bear. The Speaker ordered bonfires burned atop the peaks every night. The bonfires served a dual purpose: not only dissuading the nomads from sneak attacks, but signaling to the elves on the adjacent peaks that their comrades were holding out.

One night, just before midnight, the beacon atop Lesser Fang went out. Word was sent to the Speaker, and he convened a hasty council. It was held atop the cairn they had constructed on Broken Tooth. The cairn afforded them an unobstructed view of the black outlines of Lesser Fang, Chisel, and Great Fang. Great Fang, highest of the pinnacles, blocked any view of Ripper and Pincer beyond.

“Perhaps they ran out of fodder for the flames,” said a Silvanesti councilor. Oil was more precious than steel at that moment, and little wood could be had for fires. Dried dung was the usual fuel in the desert.

“We cannot assume that,” Planchet said. The warriors around him murmured in solemn agreement.

“You’ve heard nothing?” Gilthas asked.

“Nothing at all, sire.”

The human blood in his ancestry meant Gilthas’s senses were not quite as acute as those of a full-blooded elf. If Planchet and the others did not hear anything from Lesser Fang, then there was nothing to be heard. Despite that, Gilthas leaned forward over the rickety wooden railing atop the cairn platform and peered into the blackness toward Lesser Fang. He strained to see until tears came to his eyes, but neither sight nor sounds reached him.

“We must know!” he said, driving a fist into his palm. Not for the first time, he wished for the presence of a mage or seer. Since the elves’ exile, these had been in short supply, targeted by both the minotaurs and the Knights of Neraka to blind the elves’ resistance and spread fear and despair.

Two young warriors volunteered to go to Lesser Fang, to find out what had happened. The peak was only a quarter of a mile away, but the two would have to descend Broken Tooth, cross open desert, then climb the steep side of the neighboring peak, all in darkness while evading vigilant nomads.

Gilthas saw no other option. He warned the ardent young elves not to waste their lives. “If the enemy has taken the mountain, come back at once. Don’t attempt a rescue. Come back and report what you find to me.”

They saluted and hurried away. The ever-present wind atop the peak freshened, swirling around the cairn. Gilthas coughed. The spasm didn’t stop, but grew stronger. Faithful Planchet laid a hand on his shoulder.

“You are ill, sire.”

Gilthas shook his head, drawing a shaky breath. “It’s only the chill night air. It dries my throat.”

The valet didn’t believe that for a moment, but it did give him a reason to urge the Speaker to leave the exposed sentinel post. The two of them descended, but Gilthas would not return to camp.

“I will remain here, in the lee of the cairn,” he said.

His tone told Planchet that the valet’s mothering would be tolerated so far but no further. Planchet gave in with good grace.

“An excellent idea. We will call you if there are any developments.” He climbed back up the stone pile.

Gilthas pulled his affre close about his throat. The coughing was becoming more and more difficult to stop once it began. Sometimes he coughed up flecks of blood.

He knew what ailed him. Consumption wasted the body and rotted the lungs. Legend held a consumptive grew more beautiful as death drew near. The glimpses he’d caught of his reflection told him he was not beautiful. He was a good fifteen pounds lighter than when he had dwelt in Khurinost. His eyes were heavily shadowed, yet red rimmed, and despite the sunburn on nose and cheeks, his pallor had grown markedly. No, certainly not beautiful, so he must still be full of life. But his cough was becoming more frequent, and his eyes were more sensitive to the brilliant light of the Khurish sun than they had been. Deep in his chest, there was a hollowness, a sort of dead emptiness, as if a block of wood rested there.

Sweat suddenly broke out, and he loosened the neck of his robe. He knew the unnatural heat would pass quickly, leaving him even more chilled than before, but while it lasted, his body burned as though roasted over a fire.

Leaning against the cool stones of the cairn, alone for the first time in days, Gilthas allowed his thoughts to drift to other times and places. He imagined Kerian’s reaction to his illness. You’re not sick, she would declare, her strong features softening as she looked at him. You just need rest, good food, and lots of hot baths.

His wife was a great believer in the nearly miraculous powers of hot water and soap, probably because she’d been an adult before having easy access to either. Limitless hot water, a well constructed tub, and rose petal soap represented the height of civilization to the Lioness, among the very few things worth leaving her beloved forest for.

A bead of sweat ran down Gilthas’s forehead. He wiped it away. His skin was hot to his own touch. Wind swirled around the makeshift tower at his back, setting the hem of his geb flapping and raising gooseflesh on his arms. He shivered, although the sweat still trickled down his face. This was a particularly intense episode of the fever.

A rustling noise drew his attention away from his bodily ills. Leaves tumbled over the stony ground at his feet. He blinked, wondering if he could be hallucinating. Nothing grew on Broken Tooth, not even weeds. He picked up a leaf. It was an ash leaf, green and supple. Where could they be coming from?

Another sound interrupted his musings. His councilors on the lookout post above were exclaiming in surprise. Stepping away from the cairn, Gilthas looked up. A cloud of bats was whirling overhead. Some of the elves were swiping at the darting creatures, trying to shoo them away.

Gilthas told them to stop. Bats and leaves appearing from nowhere in the lifeless desert? These had to be omens. Whether good or bad, he didn’t know, but they should take care not to antagonize whatever forces were at work. Perhaps the elves were near enough to Inath-Wakenti that the power there was affecting their surroundings.

Gilthas choked suddenly. The wind had hurled a leaf directly into his open mouth. Instinctively he spat it out then abruptly bent, picked up another, and placed it on his tongue. His eyes widened. He hadn’t imagined it; the ash leaf tasted very good, like asparagus, his favorite vegetable.

The councilors descended to find their king crouched on the ground, stuffing green leaves into his mouth. Before Planchet could protest, Gilthas thrust a handful of leaves at him.

“Try them! They’re good!”

With the air of an elf humoring an insane request, Planchet bit the tip of one leaf. He could hardly credit the sensations in his mouth. The taste was bright and crisp, like a fresh radish. Planchet loved radishes, especially those grown in the meadows surrounding Bianost, from whence he hailed.

“Gather them up!” Gilthas commanded. “We have fresh food!”

Even the haughty Silvanesti councilors went to work with a will, gathering the leaves still falling from the sky.

Word of the unexpected bounty flashed across the mesa. Elves sleeping fitfully on cold stone awoke. Confusion changed to laughing astonishment as each of them tasted the leaves. The more alert rigged blankets and tarps to catch a greater harvest.

For an hour, the wind blew ash leaves over the crowded mountaintop. The elves gathered all they could until the wind died out and no more leaves fell.

Gilthas surveyed the scene with quiet delight. “What do you make of this, Planchet?”

“A miracle from the gods, sire.” Planchet ate another leaf. He and the Speaker had compared their experiences, but no matter how many leaves they tried, each tasted like asparagus to the Speaker and like radishes to his valet.

Into the celebratory scene came the two scouts returning from Lesser Fang. They arrived, gasping for breath from having run all the way back.

Their ashen faces told Planchet their report would be better given to the Speaker in private. Before he could suggest that, the scouts blurted out their news.

“They’re gone, Great Speaker! All of them!” said one.

The other added, “There is no one on Lesser Fang!”

Gilthas took a step back, visibly shaken. Thousands dead? It wasn’t possible. Not since the elves’ arrival in Khur had the nomads achieved such a victory.

“Did you find evidence of a fight?” Planchet said sharply.

Some, they said. The rocky path up the north face of the pinnacle held the bodies of eight slain nomads. At the top, threescore elves had fallen defending the plateau. Gilthas questioned that figure, wondering where the rest had gone. One scout suggested that the bulk of elves, fearful of being overrun, had evacuated to Chisel. That did not seem likely. The beacon on Chisel was burning as before. If something grave had happened, the Speaker was certain Taranath would have signaled him, perhaps by lighting a second bonfire. No such sign had come from Chisel.

Still, that possibility had to be investigated. Fresh scouts were dispatched to make the dangerous trek to Chisel. The Speaker also ordered the army be recalled. Hamaramis kept it hidden unless it was engaged. This night the army was lying among the high dunes southwest of the Lion’s Teeth, a half-hour’s walk from the base of Broken Tooth. One of the few horses on Broken Tooth was saddled and a rider sent to fetch the army.

“This is impossible,” Planchet insisted. “Sire, we would have heard something! If they all were massacred, we would have heard it!”

Gilthas laid a hand on his distraught valet’s shoulder. He agreed with Planchet, but there was little more that could be done until daybreak. With Planchet at his side, be walked among his anxious subjects, reminding them of the miracle of the ash leaves and reassuring them about their missing brethren. The elves on Lesser Fang likely had been surprised by the nomads and decided to escape to Chisel or hide in the desert, but they Would be found.

The Speaker’s reassurances and his presence comforted his subjects. With lightened hearts, the elves finished storing away the bounty of leaves then settled down to sleep for what remained of the night.

Despite the confident face he showed his people, Gilthas was deeply worried about his missing subjects. He didn’t suspect the Khurs, but a more mysterious cause. Only with Planchet had he shared Kerian’s report of the disappearance of many of her warriors in Inath-Wakenti. Perhaps the elves on Lesser Fang had been spirited away by a similar unknown force.

Kerian herself had vanished near Khurinost, after riding to face certain death at the hands of the nomads. None of the desert-dwellers they’d captured and questioned had been able to give them any information about her. Privately Gilthas thought that a good sign. If the Khurs had captured or killed the fabled Lioness, they’d have boasted to the heavens about it.

No word at all had been received from Hytanthas and the five experienced trackers Gilthas had sent to look for Kerian. For all Gilthas knew, the six searchers were lost too.

The starlit pinnacle was quiet. A breeze, weaker than the leaf-bearing wind but colder, had everyone reaching for blankets, rugs, spare gebs and affres, anything to ward off the chill.

Planchet had spread Gilthas’s bedroll under a canvas lean-to. The shelter was barely larger than the bedroll it covered, but it kept the constant wind at bay. As Gilthas lay down on his lonely bed, he knew in his heart that his wife was alive. The day she died, the colors of life would fade, the tumult of the living world would still, and wherever Gilthas Pathfinder was, he would know she no longer drew breath.

Oddly comforted, he lay down amid bales of ash leaves and was soon asleep.