Elvenborn

17

The plight of one young woman could not hold Kyrtian's attention for long. So long as she was no longer a threat, he didn't particularly care what his mother did with her.

Truthfully, he couldn't even remember which of the three girls she was; she was Lydiell's problem now, and he would just as soon that things stayed that way. Within a few moments, he had even forgotten her name as his attention turned to the more urgent task of changing his strategy to deal with Moth and the Young Lords in light of this new information.

It was just a good thing that they had already settled at their evening campsite. Outside the tent was the usual cacophony of hundreds of humans setting up campfires and bedrolls, getting fed at the mess-wagons, and being ordered about by their elven officers. The mellow golden light of near-sunset made the western wall of Kyrtian's tent glow; the air was full of dust and the scent of trampled grass and wood smoke. There was food on a tray on his camp-bed, virtually the same sort of food that the human fighters would be eating, but Kyrtian ignored it. Gel would probably nag him into eating it eventually.

"Well, we need to rethink our battle-plan," he said to Gel, spreading his terrain-map out over the blank black glass of the teleson-screen set into the top of his campaign-desk. "The question is, what can we push towards now that will allow us to get close enough to Moth that she can send someone out to us if she wants, without making straight for her estate or look as if we're trying to avoid that estate?"

"Good question." Gel pulled at his chin while he studied the map, frowning. "Damn good question. What about here—" his finger stabbed down at a spot on the map where they had noted a possible slave-camp, one full of former gladiators. "We can let it out that we think this is a training-camp for the Young Lords' soldiers. That ought to be reason enough for anyone."

Taking the army in that direction would allow them to skirt Moth's estate without actually taking it—and would give them a corridor for a strike deeper into Young Lords' territory. Kyrtian nodded, and reached absently for his mug of water, taking a sip to ease a throat tickling with inhaled dust. "Let's make a report to Lord Kyndreth and suggest the change of plan. I want him to argue against me for a little."

"Why?" Gel gave him a quizzical glance, brows knitted.

Kyrtian refolded the map carefully and set it aside. "Because this is going to serve us in more ways than one. He's going to point out that with a very little effort I can rescue Moth. I'm going to counter that Moth is probably safe where she is, that the Young Lords probably haven't even thought about one old woman in a tiny estate, and pushing towards the Young Lords at that point will make them think that Moth is valuable to us. I want him to see that it's possible some of the old retainers held behind the lines that have been ignored until now could be used as hostages. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the Young Lords to do that yet, but I want Kyndreth to realize he doesn't want to give them the idea. I do want Kyndreth to focus on that and not look for other reasons why I might not want to push at that point."

"That'll give him something more to think about," Gel said, pulling on his chin until Kyrtian wondered if he was going to stretch it out of shape somehow. "Aye, and that'll give him one more thing to warn the others about."

"Which will give the Council something else to think about besides the Wizards. It might even give them a reason to order me to hold back until they can find ways to get the people they want out of harms' way." Kyrtian nodded as Gel's eyes widened. "You see. You know, I never thought I'd be trying to think up ways to get Kyndreth to pull our forces back—but that could be the best strategy at the moment." The back of his neck ached with tension, and he rubbed it, hoping that a headache wasn't coming on. "I never thought this would be so complicated," he said plaintively, to no one at all. "If I had known—"

"If you'd known, you still wouldn't have been able to escape this," Gel pointed out bluntly. "Kyndreth wanted you; what Kyndreth wants, happens."

There was no real answer to that, and Gel knew it. Kyrtian just shook his head, and winced a little at the start of that headache he'd hoped to avoid.

He keyed the teleson with Kyndreth's seal, placing it facedown in the little round depression made for receiving such seals in the upper right-hand corner, and with a touch and a word, activated the spell. As he expected, he contacted, not Kyndreth directly, but one of the Great Lord's many underlings.

The plainly-clad Elvenlord stared up at him with a solemn and expectant expression on his long face. "Would you please consult with Lyon Lord Kyndreth?" Kyrtian asked politely. "Please inform him that I believe we need to change our battle-plans." He explained his new plans carefully and the reasons for them, while the underling took detailed and copious notes, occasionally stopping and asking him politely to repeat or elaborate on something. Kyrtian was impressed; he'd encountered no few of Lord Kyrtian's flunkies who had been utterly bored with him and his campaign since he'd been put in charge of the army, but this fellow was not of that ilk.

"I'm to be your liaison with Lord Kyndreth for the foreseeable future, Lord Kyrtian," the underling said solemnly. "Lord Kyndreth has made it very clear that your reports are to be given his first consideration, and I have the authority to break in upon him at any time—including in his sleep, if you should deem your report to be sufficiently urgent."

Well, well, well. Kyrtian blinked. "It's not urgent, since we'll still be moving through territory that the Young Lords have abandoned for at least two more days, but I should like to hear his opinion before we break camp and move at dawn tomorrow."

The underling gave a slight bow of his head. "I shall see to it that he reads this report and communicate your request to him within the hour, Lord Kyrtian."

The teleson-screen went blank again, and Gel, who had stayed carefully out of range for the duration of the conversation, chuckled. "It seems that your value has gone up in the world, Kyrtian."

"So it does," Kyrtian replied, and put a thin, flat plate of be-spelled bronze over the teleson-screen, fitting it into the slight depression where the glass had been inset there, to prevent it from being inadvertently activated. Should someone—Lord Kyndreth, hopefully—wish to contact him while the plate was in place, the plate itself would glow and emit a pleasant repeating chime to alert him. Kyrtian always "plated" his teleson when he wasn't using it himself; it was possible for outsiders to activate one's screen and spy on what was going on within its range if they had a key to it—like the ones he had to Lord Kyn-dreth's teleson and his mother's. And keys could be duplicated by even the weakest of mages.

With the plate in place, he turned to Gel. "Interesting, don't you think?" he asked. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That Lord Kyndreth's own status is going up because of what you've managed to do out here?" Gel countered. At Kyrt-ian's nod, he pursed his lips. "If that's the case, he may want you to press ahead to Moth's estate anyway."

"So we have to think of an alternate plan." The more Kyrtian thought about it, the less he wanted to press the Young Lords now holding the estate that Moth's husband had once owned. "We've got to give him a richer victory. Not just the possibility, but the real thing."

"Ah, horse turds," Gel said sourly. "You don't ask much, do you? Let me get some scouts out; maybe they can find us a juicy prize."

He stalked out of the tent to round up a few of the scouts who had, in all likelihood, settled in at their campfire and would not be pleased to be sent out again. The scouts were all Elvenlords, of course—the previous commander had not trusted humans to run free and act as scouts, and Kyrtian was not going to risk any of his own people in this situation. None of them had more than the bare minimum of magic; they were Elven only by benefit of birth and blood. In the world of the Great Lords they were useful only as overseers and supervisors of humans and breeders of possible mates for unmarried sons or themselves. They were expendable, and often treated worse than slaves deemed to be more valuable, such as treasured concubines or skilled gladiators.

From the beginning, Kyrtian treated them with respect, and as a consequence, had gradually won their loyalty to the point where they had accepted Gel as Kyrtian's second-in-command, something no Great Lord would ever do. He took pains never to show them that he felt sorry for them, but he did. In the long story of the Elvenlords in this place, next to the history of the enslaved and abused humans, theirs was the saddest.

A chiming from the bronze plate at his elbow broke into his thoughts, and he hastily uncovered the teleson.

The craggily handsome face of Lord Kyndreth himself stared up at him, and Kyrtian made a sketchy salute. "Hrotheran passed on your request, and the reason for it," Kyndreth rumbled. "My first thought was that the young pups wouldn't dare threaten harm to another Elvenlord or lady but—" he chuckled harshly "—my next thought was that they already have."

"Well," Kyrtian replied, "yes. Frankly, we've no way of knowing if the deaths of some of the Lesser Lords on their estates were at the hands of revolting slaves, or of the Young Lords. They wouldn't admit it if they had killed one of us, not when they know very well how harsh the penalties will be when we defeat them."

Kyndreth smiled without any humor. "You show a fine grasp of reality for such a young man. I'd expected a little more idealism from you until this last message of yours."

"My lord, I have studied our history since Evelon well enough to realize that honor is only for those who can afford it," Kyrtian replied, without any expression in his voice. "We have' the all the advantages and can afford to be honorable; they cannot, and the only reason they haven't taken such a step before this is probably because it hasn't occurred to them." He paused and added judiciously, "I am afraid that I have not yet detected much in the way of imagination in their tactics. I should not like to be the one to give them ideas that would not have arisen on their own."

"Well said. Now, I'll handle the Council; you go on as you have." Kyndreth chuckled dryly, this time with just a touch of real amusement. "Given their past performance, it's entirely possible that the puppies will panic and just abandon their stronghold anyway when you've flanked them. Keep me informed."

"Yes, my lord," Kyrtian said, but the Great Lord had already broken his spell and the connection; the teleson-plate reflected only Kyrtian's own face.

It was Moth's own people, and not the Young Lords headquartered on her old estate, who gave her the astonishing news that Kyrtian's forces were inexplicably turning aside without trying to take the Young Lords' stronghold. She'd had the cleverest of her "boys" out shadowing the army, and it was one of these who had come back in the dawn to report that the army was up and away at right angles to their previous line of march. They were not merely clever, four of them had the "human magic," the knack of listening to the thoughts of others. When they were close enough, they were able to hear what the common fighters and even some of the officers knew, and that was invaluable.

The army was now headed, presumably, for the training-camp that the Young Lords had set up to retrain some of the gladiators that they had taken as soldiers.

"They just up and changed march, Little Mother," the swarthy, squat young human told her, as she kept refilling his glass and his plate. The "boys" tended to forget about eating and drinking while they were out there, and came back starved and ready to drink a lake. "It's as if they got different orders last night."

Lady Moth considered this information for a moment, then made up her mind. "Lasen, on a fast horse, how long do you think it would take me to catch up to the army?" she asked. The man stared at her, understanding slowly coming into his brown eyes; his brow wrinkled with concern so that he looked like a worried hound.

He knew her; he knew better than to try and dissuade her. He didn't have to read her thoughts to know what they were— although, if he had cared to, he probably could have, since he was one of the four with wizard-powers.

He won't though; those boys think it's impolite to hear thoughts without permission, if you 're a friend. He probably wouldn't even think of doing it unless my life or his was at stake, the dear child. There was nothing in her thoughts she cared to hide from anyone these days—though when she'd been younger...

"You could catch them by sundown," he told her, slowly. "But the question is, can you come at Lord Kyrtian through all of his army and come away again back to us?" A fleeting ghost of fear traveled across his face then, and it was that fear she answered before she addressed the spoken question.

"I have no intention of abandoning all of you, my lad," she said fondly, and tapped his shoulder in mock-admonition with the book she was holding. "Never fear that; you and the rest are all the family I have now, and all the family I want. I want to talk to Kyrtian, that's all; I think I can do a lot for all of us if I can just talk to him."

Lasen looked skeptical, and Lady Moth smiled. "Little Mother, this is the Army Commander, not one of your Young Lords."

"He's no older than the Young Lords, my lad, and what's more, if you think I'm good to my people, you should see his! I pledge you my word for it."

Lasen nodded slowly. Moth didn't often pledge her word; all her humans knew that when she did, she was beyond certain of what she promised. A little of the concern cleared from his face.

"As for getting in and out—" she chuckled "—no fear there, either. So long as there isn't another Elvenlord I have to outwit, I'll get in and out again."

"I'll have Starfoot saddled and waiting—and it's myself that will come with you, then," Lasen said, in a voice that told her that he would be just as stubborn as she on that point. She inclined her head in tacit agreement, and went off to tell Viridina what she intended, and to change her gown for something more suited to the task at hand.

Lasen waited at the door of the stable, Starfoot and another horse saddled and ready, when she arrived, clad in breeches and somber tunic of brown doeskin. Starfoot was a mare so named, not because she was lovely (for in actual fact she was as ugly as a mud-pie and scrawny as a sapling), but because she was fleet as any shooting-star. She was perfect for such a task; her mud-color would hide her, just as the brown of Moth's clothing would serve the same purpose. Lasen had chosen another mud-colored, swift horse, a gelding that was Starfoot's half-brother, and already wore dust-grey tunic and breeches for the same camouflaging purpose.

And Lasen had one other advantage as her guide and guard; he had the human magic of speaking and hearing in thoughts. No one would get near to them without him knowing, and they could avoid the army's own scouts and sentries easily. That was the one thing that idiot Elvenlords always forget, Moth thought sourly, as she mounted Starfoot a little stiffly. Human magic makes it possible for them to know long before an enemy arrives.

It was a long, hard ride, even for Moth, who was used to riding the bounds of her own estate every day. They did not stop except to rest the horses and allow them to drink and snatch a mouthful of oats. And it was after sunset when they finally saw the campfires of Kyrtian's army from the top of a hill, like strange, yellow stars sprinkled across the hillside opposite them.

Lasen stared at the encampment. "The password is 'A fine satin sheep,'" he said, after a moment's pause.

"Sheep? Not sheet?" she asked, nonplused.

"Definitely sheep," he replied. "They're using nonsense phrases just to make things a bit more secure."

Moth dismounted; no need to order Lasen to watch the horses and lie concealed while she made her way into the army. He vanished into the darkness behind her; she worked her magic on herself.

She was already as thin and bony as many human men, and her loose tunic concealed what there was of her figure. With her long hair knotted on the top of her head and hidden beneath a cap, she needed only to alter her appearance a trifle to pass as a slave: round her ears, darken her skin, and so long as she kept her head down, simply darkening her eyes would suffice to hide what she was.

And the magic of elven women, after all, was to alter small things....

It hurt; that was the worst of it. Her ears burned as if she had dipped them in boiling water as she rounded the points, and she bit her nether lip until it bled to keep from crying out. Then it was the turn of her eyes—not so difficult, this, to change the color, and not as painful.

Then, following the whispered conversation that Lasen had given her before he vanished, she walked into the army encampment. Thanks to Lasen she had the password she needed to pass the sentries quite as if she was part of the army herself. No one even gave her a second glance.

As she strode stiffly among the campfires, in the flickering light from fire and torch that made it possible to pull off the next part of her ruse, she kept a sharp eye out for something she could use to get up as far as, and even into, Kyrtian's tent. One piece at a time, she managed to pilfer a tray, a plate, and a rough-hewn wooden cup; with a breath of her own magic, they acquired a patina of silver. Water took on the rosy hue of wine, and a couple of chunks of wood became meat, cheese and bread, at least on the surface. A snatched handful of weeds transformed into tasty-looking "garden" greens put the final touches on. This all looked edible (although it wasn't) but by no means more than a scant touch above the ordinary soldiers' ra-. tions. She knew her nephew; knew that was what he would eat by choice. She didn't want her excuse for entrance to be snatched away by the officious servant of some lesser Elven-lord just because it looked tasty enough to be appetizing to his master!

By this time she was well up to the cluster of tents of the commanders; the larger size of Kyrtian's made it obvious which was his. There were guards on the tent, but her age, size, and burden made her status and errand obvious, and they gave her the merest of cursory once-overs to ensure that she wasn't armed before holding the flap aside and sending her in.

Kyrtian and his human shadow Gel were bent over maps, seemingly oblivious to anything else. She cleared her throat ostentatiously.

Neither of them turned around, or even so much as started. "We know you're there," Gel said crossly—which relieved her somewhat, since she'd been a little alarmed at how easily she had gotten close to her nephew, unchallenged. "Put it down and get out."

"That's a fine way to talk to your Lord's aunt," she replied, loudly enough so they could hear her, but softly enough that her voice shouldn't carry to the guards outside.

They pivoted so fast to look at her, their eyes so wide and shocked, that she chuckled.

"Moth? Moth?" Kyrtian squeaked. "Voice just now starting to break, boy?" Moth replied with a grin, putting down her inedible burden. "Always knew everything about you was slow to grow but your mind, but isn't that a bit much?"

"So, that's the situation, then," Kyrtian finished. The arrival of his aunt on his very doorstep—and disguised as a human slave, no less!—had been something of a shock. A pleasant shock, however. "And I don't mind telling you that I've been scrambling to find some excuse not to rescue you." He and Moth had been talking nonstop for so long that they were both hoarse, and once he got over his surprise, he had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.

"Well," she ruminated. "You can see why I was in no great hurry to be rescued. These young rebels are still not the best answer to our troubles, but they're a damn sight better than their fathers."

He reached for a pitcher of something she had conjured up out of water, a handful of blossoms and a bit of magic and poured cups of the stuff for both of them. Whatever it was, it had as good an effect on a hoarse throat as honeyed tea. "I don't know what to do," he admitted. "I can't stop commanding the army—it will just mean humans slaughtering humans. At least this way I'm keeping bloodshed to a minimum. But if I defeat the Young Lords, mother thinks the Great Lords will turn the army against the Wizards, and never mind the treaty."

"Your mother's right," Moth said sourly, her mouth twisted up into a scowl. "There was never an agreement reached by any of the Great Lords that wasn't broken as soon as one or the other of them could manage it, and that's a fact you'd better get used to. There's no honor among them; your cousin is just a bit more open about his treachery than most of them are. If he was good, he'd have had your estate years ago."

Kyrtian could only shake his head. Since taking command, he had gotten one example after another of the duplicity of his own race, and he was still having a hard time getting used to it. What was the point of all this double-and triple-crossing, anyway? Wasn't the world wide enough for everyone to prosper?

Evidently not, or at least, not so far as the Great Lords were concerned.

Gel's sardonic expression and occasional sarcastic comments had made it very clear that he was not anywhere near as innocent as Kyrtian had been. And, all things considered, Lady Lydiell probably wasn't either.

"Look," Gel said, breaking into his thoughts. "We need a plan, and I think I have one, but it depends on Moth's ability to scare the whey out of these pet rebels of hers." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Can you?"

"Depends on what you and this army of yours can do," she temporized. "What's the plan?"

"You can go as yourself to this training-camp. The gladiators will trust your humans, I suspect; fighters tend to trust other fighters. Whatever it takes, see if you can get them to listen to you and agree to what you want to do."

She smiled. "It won't take much," she told them both, wearing an expression that told them she was mightily pleased with herself. "I can negate their collars; I've enough bits of iron to do that. We've done some experimenting, and all it takes is a thin sheet of it slipped in behind and around the lock and beryl, and you can pry the collar off without hurting the slave. I always carry a few pieces with me now, just in case."

"Hah!" Gel hit the table with his fist, greatly pleased. "Good! You tell 'em that when we attack, if they scatter instead of fighting, we'll open up our lines at a particular point inside the forest to let 'em through, then swallow them up into the army." Kyrtian immediately saw what Gel had in mind—they had a cadre of fighters that Gel trusted trained up now, who were actually loyal to Kyrtian. So even if, say, Lord Kyndreth was watching via magic, all he would see was that the enemy gladiators scattered and nothing more. He also had a good idea what Gel was going to suggest next.

"Then," he took over, "Moth, you go to your rebels, and suggest that they break up and get out of the estates; take to the hills with small groups to avoid being captured, and start a guerrilla war."

His aunt absorbed all this for a moment, then a smile broke out on her face. "I see! I scare the youngsters, by telling them what I personally witnessed of the slaughter of their best troops, and convince them that they can't possibly hold out directly. They abandon the estates, or at least the ones that still have older relatives among the Great Lords to claim them— which is half of what their fathers want. I can be 'rescued' and serve as their eyes and ears into what their fathers are up to— which gives you eyes and ears into what they're doing, so you can arrange things to your liking. You still have a war that you can fight in tiny skirmishes, without ever coming to a conclusion." Her grin widened. "I can even offer to hide the ringleaders and some of the rest on the property I hold now, and they can run their fight from there."

Kyrtian gave her a little bow of respect. She should have been a general. "Which means the Great Lords won't send me against the Wizards, at least, not for a while." He considered the next move in the plan. "We can delay things for a while, while I try and come up with a better solution."

Lady Moth laughed mockingly. "And my reward is to get my husband's estate back, which is no bad bribe for my complicity, boy."

"There has to be something in this bargain for you, my Lady," he demurred. She shook her head at him.

"I think this will work for a while, anyway," Gel voiced his own opinion. "I like it. And I've got no particular objection to patching together temporary solutions for the next two decades."

Lady Moth stood up. "Time for me to go. Boy, when you have the time, find an excuse to come to the estate—I've found some things in the library I think will interest you."

She didn't waste time on farewells; Lady Moth was not one to waste time on anything, as Kyrtian recalled. A brief embrace for him, and a sketchy salute for Gel was all she gave, then she was out of the tent and back on her way to her waiting human escort.

Gel followed her out, to be sure she got back safely through the lines. While he was gone, Kyrtian folded the maps, tidied the tent, and removed the bronze plaque from the teleson. He wanted to talk to Lady Lydiell about this while it was all still fresh in his mind. It was worth the chance of being "overheard," although given that this was a very odd hour to be talking to her, that was less likely this time.

Lydiell listened to his brief summary with her eyes alight. "If this had been anyone other than Moth, I would have said it was too good to be true," she said when he was finished. "But it is Moth, and frankly, it's exactly the sort of thing I would expect out of her. Well—look what she's done on her own, discovering how to negate the collar-spells and get them off without hurting the slaves!"

"Useful bit of information, that," Kyrtian murmured, thinking out loud. "It would have to be a human that did it, though; I wouldn't want to chance either poisoning by the metal or magical backlash. Mother, how am I going to keep Lord Kyndreth from suspecting that something is up when all resistance suddenly melts away?"

"By staging more of a rout at this next mock-battle than you're likely to get from the handful of former gladiators there," she said instantly. "You and I will create a Gate from here to there, and we'll send through all of our people that can fight. They'll pose as slaves of the Young Lords—they'll hold a line, then break and rout—straight back to the Gate and home. That will give you something to convince Kyndreth that you've won a conclusive victory."

"A Gate? Can I do that?" he asked doubtfully. "Am I strong enough?"

"Not by yourself—but remember what you discovered about combining magic from several people?" she countered. "You have me and the others here; together we will have quite enough to create a Gate."

He nodded, and began to feel more confident. "Perhaps I should invite Lord Kyndreth to observe?"

"At a distance," she answered. "With the Council. There's an old viewing-teleson in the Council Chamber; they probably haven't used it since the disastrous debacle with Lord Dyran."

"But if I choose where to put the teleson-sender, they'll see what I want them to see." This was coming out better and better. "And with all of the Great Lords jostling about, they aren't going to notice the Gate—"

"They won't notice it anyway," Lydiell said with confidence. "It's very noisy, but they won't be expecting it and they'll be too far away. They'd have to know something like that was going on."

"Oh, I can cover it with some levin-bolts anyway," Kyrtian decided. "They'd be expecting something of the sort. Mother— I think this is going to work—"

"I never doubted that you would find a way," she said serenely.

When they ended their conversation, and he had covered the teleson-screen again, he waited impatiently for Gel to return so that he could work out all the details of this addition to the plan.

For the first time since he had taken over the command of the Great Lords' army, he began to hope he could save, not only his own people, but everyone involved. Or at least, almost everyone. And that was so much more than he had ever thought he'd be able to do, that he felt as if he had just drunk an entire bottle of sparkling wine.

Now, let's hope all this doesn't prove to be as ephemeral as wine-joy!