Knights of the Rose

Chapter 8

Word of the advance-Krythis refused to use the word “onrush”-of Zephros’s motley column reached Belkuthas about the same time it reached Pirvan and the Gryphons. Krythis and Tulia kept no scouts in the desert. They did keep as friends some of the desert clans, both Free Riders and the root-grubbers who burrowed into cliff faces and hillsides.

It was the tale of a scout from the Treecat clan that reached Belkuthas first, passed on through several dwarves. (Indeed, it was said that dwarven tunnels so honeycombed the land that one could walk all the way from Belkuthas far into Thoradin, if one could find the right entrance, and the dwarves allowed it.)

For this, Krythis and Tulia did not mind being awakened from the deepest and most pleasant sort of slumber. That is, they did not mind once they were awake enough to understand what the tidings meant.

“They may not be marching against us,” Tulia said. It was a painfully transparent effort to reassure herself.

“I can well believe that, for now,” Krythis replied. “But they will be marching upon us before long. Where one like Zephros marches, people flee. When people flee, those like Zephros pursue-like a dog roused to give chase by his prey’s flight.

“Many will surely come here. We have labored for half a human lifetime to make this a place of peace and a refuge for all. In this time of trouble, many will remember that and come here. Zephros will follow.”

Tulia looked at the ground. “He will come here, and he will see humans and all other folk living in peace. If he is one of those sworn to destroy that harmony …”

She could not command her voice well enough to finish. To Krythis, taking her in his arms seemed a sadly inadequate gesture. It was the best he could do, however, for he was none too sure of his voice either.

At last they stepped apart, and as if at a command both turned to look outward from the tower, at their citadel. As a home filled with memories, the sight of it warmed. As a fortress to withstand even the most inept siege, the sight chilled.

There had been a fortress on this site since the days of the Empire of Ergoth, long before Vinas Solamnus’s birth. It was likely that the site had been inhabited even before then.

Indeed, a dwarven friend of Krythis, one Gran Axesharp, had walked about Belkuthas, examining all the stonework, then turned to his host and said: “Let me take this place down stone by stone some day, when you no longer need it. I swear to find signs of at least three completely unknown races somewhere about here.”

Antiquity was all very well, and Krythis and Tulia, being folk at peace with themselves and the world, were also at peace with the odd ghost that Belkuthas harbored. It was not so good to make a home in what had been a place for war.

Much work had been needed to restore those buildings they wished to keep and shore up or tear down the rest. The restored buildings would need to keep out the chill of winter, the heat of the sun, the wind, the rain, thieves, and wild animals. The other buildings needed not to fall down on their heads, or the heads of their servants, guards, visitors, or children, or even the nesting birds, squirrels, and mice.

So the keep rose tall and dark, looming over the old Great Hall, where in a maze of newly built rooms Krythis and Tulia actually lived. The keep served well enough as a watchtower and storeroom, but no one had thought of defending it since before Rynthala’s birth.

It was much the same case elsewhere. Some outbuildings housed servants, guests, or horses. Others were only fenced holes in the ground. Parts of the wall rose as high and stout as ever. In other parts gaped holes through which six minotaurs could have marched shoulder to shoulder.

“We’ll have to ask people to bring their own food, as much as possible,” Krythis said. “We can store it, but we can’t divide our own supplies among a thousand mouths. We will also have to buy from our neighbors. I will pray for the crops to be in and abundant, before enemies or fugitives arrive.”

“Can Sirbones do anything to help?” Tulia asked.

“I suspect not even Sirbones himself knows what he can do,” Krythis replied. “The gods, maybe. Any lesser being, I doubt. It cannot hurt to ask. But remember he is not a young man. Healing spells take much from a priest-and he will be casting far too many of those.”

“So the magic, like the food, may not be enough to go around, and we will watch, helpless, while people die?” Tulia said. It was hardly a question, and any urge Krythis had to console his wife vanished as she slammed one fist hard against the battlement.

In that moment she reminded Krythis very much of their daughter in a rage. In the next moment Krythis wondered if there was any place they could send Rynthala, to keep her safe.

In the moment after that, he was ready to laugh at himself for the absurd notion. If war washed over this land, there might be no safe place. There was probably no place they could send Rynthala that could keep her if she did not wish to stay. And there was little chance they could make her leave in the first place.

By then Tulia was sucking her scraped knuckles and looking ready to both laugh and cry at once.

Now, Krythis decided, it was time to embrace her-closely and for a long time, before they went downstairs to begin preparing Belkuthas for war.

To Pirvan’s left, Nedilhome Canyon slashed into the hills, now splotched with green over the desert hues of umber and ocher. To his right, Haimya and Threehands rode silhouetted against a long, gentle slope of savagely scarred and nearly barren rock.

“The canyon’s the most common road for traders,” Threehands said. “Water, caves for the night, fodder you can cut from atop the cliffs if you’re man enough to climb them. But of course, traders seldom come this way, or if they do, seldom last this far.”

“I was hardly thinking of using-” Pirvan began, when a raised hand from an outrider ahead stopped all conversation. The man turned his horse and rode back.

“Somebody’s been by here, my chief,” he said.

“Chiefs,” Threehands said. “We are two. Now speak. Mounted or afoot?”

The man spoke with the same brevity as Threehands. Men in boots leading mostly new-shod horses with moderate loads. The track angled in from the right-from the northeast-and now ran parallel to the line of the Gryphons’ and knights’ advance.

“Zephros,” Threehands muttered.

“I hope so,” Pirvan replied. He hated to think of any more armed bands, Istarians, sell-swords, bandits, or others, wandering about this land. Tempers were high enough already, and any slight mischance could mean a horrid death toll.

Threehands was already signaling the men into battle order. A Gryphon band of this size fought in three triangles, each with the base toward the enemy and the point toward the rear. Pirvan’s fighters formed the leftmost triangle, normally the least honorable.

Today the left flank was toward the hills, from which surprise attacks would most likely come. Threehands could hardly intend insult. Pirvan would also refuse to take it, regardless of the Gryphon’s intention.

They rode on, now in battle formation. Nedilhome Canyon slowly fell behind. Pirvan let his horse drift right, until he rode beside Threehands.

“What are your plans?”

“Need you ask?”

“You do plan to attack, then?”

“If it is any of your-no, you are chief, likewise. It is your concern. They are on our land, without our leave, and you speak ill of them. I trust your judgment. Is that not enough reason for attacking?”

Pirvan was silent a trifle too long. To do him justice, Threehands only frowned. He did not glare, let alone curse.

“What cause must knights have before they can draw sword?” he asked. “They certainly found enough when Istar commanded them to fight us. Has not Zephros given at least as much offense?”

Pirvan knew he did not dare reply with silence a second time. He also did not dare tell the truth, which was that at the command of Istar, the knights did not recognize the land rights of the Free Riders. It was expedient to leave them in peace, but if an Istarian chose not to do so, that was between him and the desert-dwellers.

Which left Pirvan squarely in the middle.

“Zephros is a man of hasty temper,” Pirvan said. “If he has not broken the peace yet, he will surely do so before we are much older. But until he does, he is not a lawful foe for the knights.”

“Who still suck from the paps of the kingpriest,” Threehands said, but so quietly that only his bitterness reached Pirvan. The knight had no easy answer to that, so they rode on in silence.

The pen wall across the forecourt of Belkuthas now rose to the height of a man’s waist. That would not keep in horses, but would do well for most other beasts. It would also keep either horse or foot from coming at archers behind it.

That it was even this high so quickly was a tribute to Gran Axesharp and his family. What mysterious messenger had reached them and with what tale, Krythis doubted he would ever know. But twenty dwarves had appeared outside the gate the morning after the warning came, and offered all the help their arms and tools could give.

For the sake of not appearing a witling, Krythis ordered them to start building a pen for the fugitives’ animals. One of the dwarves spat openly on the ground, and several muttered, “Baby tasks.”

But they turned to with a will, and also with hammers, mauls, chisels, wedges, and tools Krythis did not recognize. Half of them worked on the pen; the others started collecting stones of suitable size to repair the gaps in the walls.

It was now the fourth morning since the dwarves’ coming. The pen would be done by sunset, and five of the gaps in the wall could only be found by a sharp-eyed watcher who knew where they had been before. The new stonework might not stand up against a battering ram, but would certainly do more than keep cattle out of the kitchen garden!

The matter of payment had yet to arise, and Krythis decided to wait for the dwarves to speak first. It helped that Axesharp was related in some vague way (dwarven genealogies all being vague to Krythis) to the House of Lintelmaker, who had been one of the two dwarven clans to raise the orphaned Tulia and Krythis.

Perhaps the whole matter was a further coming-of-age present to Rynthala, in honor of her dwarven-fostered parents?

Two dwarves were now raising both din and dust, splitting larger rocks into slabs and then chiseling an edge on each slab. As the sharpened slab landed on one end of the pile, two more dwarves would pick up another from the other end and wedge it firmly into the wall, sharp and upward.

Krythis still marveled at what the dwarves could do without mortar. He had asked once why they were not using it, and received in return such a frigid silence that he expected his fingers and toes to turn blue. He had not asked again.

But the pen would now be proof even against animals that wished to jump out, as well as warhorses whose riders might wish to jump them in. This was just as well, because the first herd of cattle being bought for slaughter and salting down must be on the road already. If Nektoris and his sons had not lost their beast-craft-

A dust cloud on the south road told Krythis that something was already on the move toward Belkuthas. He had just formed the thought of riding out to meet them rather than stand around and watch dwarves fling stones, when two specks in the southern sky caught his attention.

Both were winged, and both had to be large to be visible from such a distance. Now he saw one dive steeply toward the earth, and the other dive even more steeply, as if seeking to get below the first and come up underneath it.

In its blind spot, under its vulnerable belly.

Krythis cupped his hands and shouted:

“Archers! To the high points!”

He then realized that the order would have made more sense if he had not left his own bow in his chambers.

As the citadel’s fighters darted out of doors and scrambled up stairs and ladders, the two flying newcomers became recognizable: one as a gryphon, the other a pegasus with a rider on its back. Gryphons’ lust for horseflesh was notorious. They did not scruple whether the horse had wings or not, but crunched down everything, even the frail wing bones and feathers.

Krythis wondered if he should climb up and hope someone would lend him a bow, but most archers were about as ready to lend their wives as their bows.

Fortunately one of the archers responding to the call was Rynthala. She ran out of the hall with her own bow slung over one shoulder, her quiver over the other, and her father’s bow and quiver in her hands. Her long-legged stride ate up the ground to Krythis. Long before the flying battle came within bow shot, Krythis was as well-armed as he needed to be.

“Where’s Mother?” Rynthala asked. “She wouldn’t want to miss this, I know.”

Krythis thought Rynthala rather overestimated her mother’s lust for battle, though Tulia was no mean archer herself and a respectable swordswoman as well. But Rynthala was born a good warrior and had made herself a better one. She had not years enough to understand that not everyone was made as she was.

Krythis direly wished to know what a pegasus was doing flying toward Belkuthas as if the fate of Krynn depended on it. Or perhaps it was only the gryphon’s pursuit that had the pegasus flying this way, to avoid ending its life as the gryphon’s dinner.

The pegasus had contrived to dive so low that the gryphon now had no hope of attacking from below. But gryphons were not stupid, in spite of their insensate appetites. The gryphon flung itself into a furious climb, wings thundering, as it rose screaming with a cry that tore at the ears.

Then, as the pegasus slowed to pass over the walls of Belkuthas and land, the gryphon stooped and dived.

The descending gryphon met more than a score of ascending arrows. Amid the fainter twangs of longbows, Krythis heard the sharp metallic snik of a heavy crossbow. As soon as he’d shot three arrows, he looked down.

Two of the dwarves were holding a huge fortress crossbow, one of those cocked with a geared crank and capable of sending its bolt through a half-grown oak tree. The lord of Belkuthas had just time to wave to these welcome allies when arrows, bolt, gryphon, and pegasus all came together in the same space of air.

The gryphon took a dozen arrows and the crossbow bolt. If it had been armored like a knight, it would still have suffered mortal wounds. But with arrows in eye, throat, and belly, it still had the strength to claw open the pegasus’s flank and break one wing.

Pegasus and gryphon crashed into the courtyard together. The winged horse’s rider jumped before his mount landed, and Krythis thought he saw elven agility in that leap. But the gryphon’s thrashing tail swept the rider off his feet, and after he fell he did not rise again.

For a moment, he was in further danger, from both the dying gryphon and his wounded, panic-stricken mount. But it was a short moment. Everyone with a weapon was already running toward the gryphon to finish it off. The swiftest runners, Rynthala and one of the archers, reached the rider and snatched him to his feet so violently that Krythis hoped they had not worsened his injuries.

Then everyone else hacked, thrust, slashed, and kicked at the gryphon until it not only stopped moving but was hardly more than a bloody mass of flesh and feathers. By then, Krythis had scrambled down from his perch and was hurrying across the courtyard.

As he did, he saw Tulia approaching from the gateway. She had her sword in one hand and was all but dragging Sirbones with the other. The priest of Mishakal looked rather as if he wished to be somewhere else, but duty as well as Tulia’s firm grip kept him moving forward.

By the time Sirbones and Krythis met, the pegasus had fallen senseless from pain and loss of blood. Half a dozen humans and dwarves were dragging the dead gryphon away. The rider, who was indeed a Silvanesti elf, had not yet regained his senses.

Sirbones bent over the elf first. He rested one hand on the elf’s chest, the other on his forehead, and murmured a short spell. Then he looked up, without rising.

“A blow to the head and cracked ribs. I have eased the pain so that he will sleep while we bind the ribs. He should be watched closely while he sleeps. And next time you handle a wounded man, Rynthala, do not toss him about as if he were a bale of hay on the end of a pitchfork.”

Rynthala’s mouth opened, then closed as both her parents gave her looks that conveyed the wisdom of silence. Meanwhile, Sirbones was examining the pegasus.

“I lack the art to heal these wounds in pegasi,” Sirbones said. “The wing may never bear flying again, and it-”

“She,” Rynthala said. “The pegasus is a mare.”

Sirbones seemed to think better of whatever he had been about to say, and nodded. “I fear I cannot heal her.”

“Then do as the rider would, if he were awake,” Tulia said. “Put her out of her pain.”

The pegasus rolled her vast green eyes at those words and neighed faintly, as if in protest. Rynthala stepped forward.

“Well, Sirbones?”

“I-I have never given death, even to a pegasus. My oath-”

Rynthala used a much less sacred oath of her own. She also cast doubts on Mishakal’s chastity and Sirbones’s manhood.

“Your oath commands you to ease unbearable pain, does it not?” Tulia said. “Does it command how?”

“I may not give death,” Sirbones said. Frail and past sixty as he was, he was as immovable as Belkuthas’s keep when he spoke in that tone.

“Can you put the pegasus to sleep while I try to set her wing and dress her flank?” Rynthala asked. “And steep the dressings and splint in whatever healing potions you keep about?”

Sirbones started to look to Krythis and Tulia for permission to obey their daughter. Rynthala’s face darkened. He hastily looked back at the daughter, and nodded, then knelt beside the pegasus. Within moments, the wounded creature’s eyes were closed, and its breathing was even shallower than before, but far steadier. From time to time its braided, silver-hued tail twitched, and once the good wing rose halfway. Otherwise it might have been a statue.

Krythis suspected that Sirbones had been less than wholly truthful about his ability to heal pegasi. Most likely, he had not wished to spend his spell power on pegasi when humans, elves, and dwarves might soon need all he had and more besides. Rynthala might have lived with that truth. But dithering was something Rynthala neither understood nor forgave, and Krythis found it hard to disagree.

Not when war might be coming to Belkuthas. Naked, raw, red war.

And if not war, then so much else that was unheard of for years in this land that the leisure to contemplate alternatives over wine would be a luxury that existed only in memory.

As the column made camp for the night, Darin found the next set of footprints. The chiefs had chosen a site as far as possible from rough ground. This was no more than long bow shot. They also commanded that no tents go up, so none could be trapped within them, and that double sentries would stand watch all night.

Darin led out the first watch, and found the footprints while he was picking the sentry posts. A returning messenger brought Pirvan, Haimya, and the two Gryphon brothers out to where Darin knelt, guarding a patch of soft sand as if it were a relic of Huma Dragonbane.

“Kender, I think,” Darin said, when only the four summoned were within hearing.

Certainly the footprints were too small for anything except kender or gully dwarves. Gully dwarves would find little fare in this land and lack the wits to pack food and water. Kender, on the other hand, had wits to spare, regardless of how they used them.

Pirvan knelt and studied the footprints more closely. The feet were not only small but booted, which further argued against gully dwarves. Also, they were sunk deep into the sand in proportion to their length.

Pirvan rose, brushing sand off his hands and knees. “Kender indeed,” he said. “And carrying heavy packs.”

“Probably everything in them handled from their rightful owners,” Threehands muttered. Hawkbrother looked away, and Pirvan decided on silence, as there seemed more to this than met the eye.

Less tolerant, Haimya spoke briskly. “Have you or your folk a quarrel with the kender, my chief?” It did not take one who knew Haimya well to hear the edge in the words “my chief?”

“And if we do?”

“The knights seek to undo the evil they did, wielding swords for Istar against ‘barbarians.’ Will you help or hinder?”

“How am I hindering?” The Gryphon sounded truly perplexed.

“Do you see all kender as thieves and vermin?”

Threehands laughed, less harshly than usual. “No, only those who come into the desert without knowing its laws. Fortunately not all of them live long enough to trouble anything but the sand. But a kender will handle anything, including a man’s mount, weapons, or water. The desert spirits do not honor that.”

“You and your warriors have laws about sharing in need,” Pirvan reminded Threehands.

“Yes, but those laws command one to return or repay as soon as possible. Kender-well, the gods only know where something handled by a kender will end up. Not back with the one who first held it, surely. Free Riders have died because kender handled their waterskins,” Threehands concluded. “Fortunately they seldom come into the desert at all. So I suppose we can be at peace over these two, as long as they stay well away from us.”

Pirvan nodded. This seemed the wrong time to suggest they should vigorously follow the trail of those kender, seeking to meet and speak with them. If kender seldom entered the desert, what were these two doing here, especially now? What might they have seen?

Not that these questions were ever likely to be answered. Not only was the desert large and kender small, but the average kender could find a hiding place on a dining-hall table!

By evening at Belkuthas, it was plain that Sirbones and Rynthala between them had done well by the pegasus. The inward bleeding had ceased, the cleric’s spells kept the pain within bounds, the stepped dressings were already at work on the wounded flank, and the broken wing was set with a splint so elaborate that Rynthala had enlisted the help of two harness-makers and a carpenter’s apprentice to design and build it.

This was as well, and for more folk than the pegasus. The rider, when he regained his senses, turned out to be a messenger from Maradoc, king of the Silvanesti. His message was that a Silvanesti embassy, led by one Lauthinaradalas, a high judge, was on its way north. It intended to reside at Belkuthas, a neutral location that all parties to the dispute with Istar might approach without fear. The embassy would remain until Istar either sent its own embassy to the Silvanesti or showed itself determined to treat the elves as mere subjects.

“Lord Lauthin is not expecting the humans to see reason,” said the messenger from his sickbed. Krythis and Tulia offered no response to that. “But the king has commanded, and he will obey. So will you.”

Krythis was glad Rynthala was still down in the stables-she seemed prepared to sleep in the stall with the wounded pegasus.

He said, “Your pardon, my friend-”

“Hardly that, to a half-elf.”

Krythis counted to ten. “I will call you by your name, if you will condescend to give it.”

“You may call me Belot.”

Krythis noted that this was not the same as saying his name was Belot, nor was it the full name that courtesy demanded for a host who had saved one’s life. The self-named Belot was either determined to be rude or genuinely feared that the human blood in Krythis and Tulia had corrupted them enough that they might use his full name to work magic against him.

Neither boded well for the elf’s presence at Belkuthas. As for what it implied about the presence of two or three score like him.… Only with an effort of will and a few warming thoughts of Tulia was Krythis able not to shudder.

“This may not be the best time for those who cannot fight or run to be traveling here. Gryphons are not all that need be”-Krythis searched for a softer word than feared-“that need be considered in one’s plans,” he concluded, which sounded like an Istarian law counselor but at least did not seem to offend Belot.

“All plans will be easier to make when Istar recognizes its proper relationship with the Silvanesti,” Belot said. “Now, if I may go to my mount and see how she fares …”

Tulia offered, “She fares well enough, for now.”

“I must-”

“You may not leave this bed without leave from Sirbones,” Tulia said, coming up on the other side of Belot.

“A human healer?”

“A priest of Mishakal, who is honored by all races, elves included,” Krythis said. “Go where you will, if you insist, but on your head be it.”

Belot put a hand to his bandaged head, winced, and lay back down. “Your pardon,” he said, sounding almost sincere. “But I am worried about Amrisha.” Krythis heard truth and real affection in those last words.

“Our daughter attends Amrisha,” Tulia said.

“Your-daughter-?” Belot said, pronouncing the word as if it were an obscenity and staring as if he had just found dung in his wine cup.

“As fine a rider and with as much knowledge of healing animals as you could find,” Tulia put in.

“A quarter-elf, taking care of Amrisha?” Belot snapped. “Are you mad?”

Krythis did not count to ten or conjure up fantasies of Tulia this time. He thought briefly, but in great detail, about the pleasure of throwing Belot off the top of the keep. If anybody besides Amrisha the pegasus would miss Belot, Krythis would confess himself surprised. Krythis also gave thanks once more that Rynthala was not present. She would have thought even longer about undoing Sirbones’s healing of Belot-and perhaps done more than think.

“You will be even madder than we if you try to wander about the citadel with bees swarming in your head and your feet going in different directions at each step,” Tulia snapped. “We respect you for having earned King Maradoc’s trust. But tonight you would do well to earn ours.”

She slipped her arm through her husband’s. “Shall we leave this elf to the rest he so clearly needs?”

The only problem with Tulia’s grip on Krythis was that he could not run from the chamber, nor even walk from it as fast as he wished.

In the fresh air outside, Krythis felt his temper cooling along with his skin-except where Tulia warmed it with her touch.

“As if war was not enough,” she said at last.

“Do we need to fear war if this High Judge Lauthin and his followers come? Famine, perhaps, and brawls, but war? Who would attack us while we host such an embassy?”

“Anyone who wanted to bring about the final war between humans and elves. You have assured me time and again that such exist. Do you say otherwise, to reassure me?” Her tone was very like her daughter’s.

Krythis knew that to say anything even smelling of an untruth would be an insult not soon forgiven.

He would not be divided from Tulia. Not now. “You have the right of it,” he said slowly. “But if Lauthin brings a score like Belot, we may not survive the embassy long enough to be killed in the war!”

“Then let us fill the days and nights before either comes, with as much life as is in us,” Tulia said.