Tanequil

Twenty–seven

The hand shook him gently awake, and Drumundoon's familiar voice whispered, «Captain, they're coming.» The Federation army. Preparing to attack.

Pied Sanderling opened his eyes to dawn's faint glow on the eastern horizon, scanned the maze of hills and ravines that surrounded him, and waited for the buzzing in his ears to quiet. Every muscle and joint in his body ached, but he couldn't very well complain. He was lucky to be alive at all.

He closed his eyes again, remembering. The explosion of fire, rocking theAsashiel, sweeping away railguns and deck crew. The plummet of the craft toward the earth as he clung to his safety line and called in vain for Markenstall. The impact of the airship as it slammed into a grove of wide–limbed conifers, breaking them apart, leaving him hanging from their shattered boughs. Miraculously, in one piece. No broken bones or severed limbs and no cuts or slashes deep enough to bleed him dry while he waited to be found.

And found he had been, almost at once, by Elven Home Guard in retreat from the airfield, who had watched his vessel fall out of the sky. His own troops, who had recognized him instantly and cut him down, pleading with him not to die, begging him to hold on until they could get help. He had been half–delirious then, burned and shocked, fighting demons that he imagined still flew overhead and hunted him as a hawk would a mouse seeking refuge where there was none to be found.

He had come around eventually, sometime during the long nighttime retreat through the cut to the hills north of the Prekken–dorran, getting his first good look at the ragtag condition of his valiant Home Guard. Obedient to his orders, abandoned by Elven army regulars, they had stood alone against the hordes of Federation attackers that had swept across the airfield. The Home Guard had tried to hold their position, a hopeless task that, in the end, had failed. He had learned this much from Drumundoon, who had found him somehow during the night and stayed with him. He had learned, as well, that the Elven sector of the Prekkendorran was lost and that the Free–born allies, besieged on three sides, were in danger of being overrun. The battle was still being fought, a mix of Bordermen, Dwarves, and mercenaries fighting under the command of the charismatic Dwarf Vaden Wick. But disheartened by the death of their King, broken by the swiftness of their defeat, the Elves had abandoned the field.

«We need you, Captain," Drum had hissed at him, bent close so that only Pied could hear. «We need you desperately.»

Pied could not quite understand why his aide was saying that. There was no longer anything he could do. He was a Captain of the Home Guard relieved of his command, reprimanded and humiliated by his King in a way that left no doubt about his future. Nothing could change that, especially with Kellen Elessedil dead and the Elven army scattered to the four winds.

But that was just the point, Drum had said. Kellen Elessedilwas dead, and so was everyone who had heard him dismiss Pied as Captain of the Home Guard. The whole incident might never have happened, and in truth it would be best if everyone thought it hadn't. Look at how matters stood. Stow Fraxon, who commanded the Elven army regulars, was dead, killed in the Federation assault during the night. All of the airship commanders were dead. Most of the other commanders were scattered or lost. Of all Elven army units assigned to the Prekkendorran, only the Home Guard was still intact, and only Pied Sanderling was still with his command.

«We have Elven Hunters coming in from all over, Captain," Drum whispered. «They think you are their only hope, the only commander of the only unit still making a stand. Think about it. If they can't depend on you, whocan they depend on? You still command, no matter what Kellen Elessedil might have said. Besides, a dead King can't do anything to save us from his mess. Only a live Captain of the Home Guard can do that.»

Pied slept for a time, too tired to argue the point. When he woke, it was midday, and the Home Guard was deep in the tangle of hills north of the flats, pulling together the strays and the lost, linking up with other units that still looked to stand and fight somewhere, in spite of what had happened the night before. Most were in shock, but word had spread that Pied Sanderling had led a successful counterattack against the Federation and damaged the airship and weapon that had destroyed their fleet. While others had run, the Captain of the Home Guard had stood his ground. If there was any hope for the Elves, it lay with him.

Pied heard the talk, even though the words were whispered and the looks cast his way furtive. Drum hadn't exaggerated—everyone was depending on him. He might have been an ex–Captain of the Home Guard twenty–four hours earlier, but he was back in harness, like it or not. He could choose to set the record straight, but what good would that do? The Elven army needed confidence and determination, — he knew better than most how to provide that, and he was in a position to do so. To forgo that responsibility would be to commit a violation of trust worse than anything Kellen Elessedil had ever imagined.

So he had called together his subcommanders and Lieutenants and devised a plan that would give them a chance to stall the Federation advance. In these hills, the Elves were a less visible target than on the flats or in the skies. Here, they could be more elusive as the terrain better suited their style of fighting. The Federation army was advancing on them with the intention of crushing any final resistance they might offer, then flanking and surrounding their Free–born allies. Putting a stop to their effort might very well determine the outcome of the entire war.

With a plan in place and the army regrouped, Drum had persuaded Pied to go back to sleep. He was still battered from his tumble out of the sky, still exhausted enough that he needed to rest. Nothing he could do now was more important than what he would do when the Federation found them.

And now,he thought, opening his eyes once more to stare up into the still–darkened sky, ithas.

He looked at Drumundoon. «Any sign of their airships?» He pushed himself up on one elbow with a grunt. The resulting aches and pains gave evidence of the time and distance he must travel still before he healed. «What about that big ship that was carrying their weapon?»

«No airships in sight at all," his aide responded, reaching down to pull him all the way up and handing him the chain–mail vest he always wore in battle.

Pied stared in disbelief. «How in the world did you find this?»

«I never let go of it, Captain," the other man advised, giving him a wry smile. «I knew you'd be needing it when you came back.»

That he believed Piedwould come back spoke volumes about his faith in his commander. Pied pulled on the vest, buckled on the leather greaves and arm guards that Drum had also somehow salvaged, strapped on a short sword and long knife, and slung his bow and arrows across his back.

He shook his head. «You never cease to amaze me, Drum.» He stretched, adjusted the armor and weapons, and nodded. «All right. Lead the way.»

They went down through the camp to cheers and waves from the Elven Hunters and Home Guard. The ranks of the previous day had swelled to double and, in some cases, triple what they had been, units that had been broken and scattered re–formed and made whole again overnight. The day was clear and the sky cloudless, but the light was pale and silvery on the horizon, the sun still down behind the hills. When it lifted into view, it would blind those walking into it.

Accordingly, Pied had set his defensive line on a low rise that placed the Elves with their backs to the sun and required their enemies to come at them from out of a wide draw that was flanked by high hills on either side. The draw led out of a ten–mile–long cut that twisted through the twin plateaus of the Prekkendorran, a natural passage that seemed to those marching north to be the beginning of a clear opening to the land beyond. But the look was deceptive, — after entering the draw, it became apparent that navigating a series of narrow defiles was then necessary to reach open terrain.

Pied was hoping that whoever was leading the Federation pursuit force did not realize that. It was a realistic hope, given the fact that no Federation force had penetrated that far north in almost fifty years. Airships scouting the Prekkendorran might have noticed the lay of the land, but surveys so far north would have been deemed unimportant or, even if made, long since forgotten or lost.

He put his archers on the flanking heights and his Home Guard and regulars within the draw in two ranks, splitting each into a series of triangles that could attack or retreat in sequence. He was counting on a shifting, three–sided Elven counterthrust to slow the expected full–frontal assault by the larger Federation force. He was counting on being able to turn the attacker's left flank into its main body. He was counting on the resulting confusion and the blinding sunrise to allow the Elves to inflict enough damage to force a retreat. The Federation, he believed, would be relying on superior numbers and brute strength to break the back of the Elven defense. Its perception would be that Elven morale was low after the previous night's debacle and that not much would be needed to put an end to whatever resistance remained.

In truth, Pied was not entirely certain that that wasn't exactly what would happen. He believed the Elves had recovered their pride and sense of purpose, but he also remembered his own assessment of two days earlier, when he had judged them ill prepared and poorly motivated. He had to hope that things had changed, that their defeat on the Prekkendorran, rather than disheartening them, had given them fresh courage.

But it was only in the heat of battle that he would discover which way the tide was running. By then, the die would be cast.

ben Dunsidan stalked the perimeter of the cordoned–off shipyard where Federation workers were crawling all over theDechtera in an effort to get her back in the skies. She had suffered damage to her steering mechanisms and several of her parse tubes, and he did not want to risk taking her up again until he was certain she was not in danger of going down behind Free–born lines, where his enemies could get their hands on his precious weapon. Nor did he want to risk the possibility of further damage if there was a way to protect against it. So he was impatiently biding his time while the airship engineers worked on repairs and improvements, all of them aware of what would happen if they failed in their efforts.

Sometimes he wished he were sufficiently skilled and knowledgeable to solve all of his problems himself, knowing that the job would get done quickly and efficiently. He hated relying on others, hated waiting to discover if they would succeed or fail, and hated the fact that members of the Coalition Council and the public alike would attribute their failures to him and their successes to anyone but.

Still, what was the point of being Prime Minister if you couldn't delegate and command the services of those you led?

He stopped his pacing and stared north. He could take considerable pleasure in what his leadership had accomplished so far. The trap he had set to snare the Elven warships had been more successful than even he had believed possible. In a single night, he had destroyed the bulk of the enemy fleet and killed the King and his sons in the process. The latter was an incredible stroke of good fortune, for it left the Elves not only without a fleet but without their titular leader and his chosen successors, as well. He couldn't imagine what had possessed Kellen Elessedil to do something so foolhardy, but he was grateful for the unexpected gift. Like his father before him, Kellen was given to rash acts. That his last had come when it could be capitalized on so completely was a sign to Sen Dunsidan that his fortunes were about to turn.

But not if he failed to finish the job. Not if he failed to destroy what remained of the Elven army so that he could surround and annihilate its allies. Not if he failed to get theDechtera back into the skies.

He caught sight of Etan Orek scurrying across the platform that housed the weapon he had invented, checking fittings and surfaces, making certain that everything was sound. He had brought the little engineer out to the battlefield with him when he flew theDechtera from the shipyards in Arishaig, deciding that he should be close by in case anything went wrong with the weapon once it was put into use.

A needless concern, as it turned out, but how was he to know? The prototype had performed as expected—better than expected, really, given the destruction it had wreaked on the Elves. It was the Dechtera that had fallen short of her goal. Still, a delay was not so costly at this point. The Federation army had penetrated the Free–born lines, taking command of the west plateau and sweeping all the way north into the hills in which the remnants of the Elven Hunters hid. The Free–born allies still held the east plateau, but they were surrounded on three sides. More to the point, they were confused and hesitant to counterattack. Having witnessed the destruction of the Elven fleet, they were terrified for the safety of their own. Aswell they should be, he thought. Because once theDechtera was airborne again, it would be a simple matter to burn the allied vessels to cinders while they sat on the ground and cut apart the Free–born defensive lines to allow the Federation army passage through.

He was impatient for that. He wanted it to be over and done with. He wanted his victory in hand.

Beware, Sen Dunsidan,he cautioned himself as the adrenaline sent a fresh surge of heady, euphoric anticipation rushing through him.Don't overstep. Don't overreact. Don't rush to your own doom.

He had been a politician too long to indulge in rash behavior. Mistakes of that sort were for less experienced men and women, for the likes of those whose life spans he had cut short on more occasions than he cared to remember. Being a survivor meant being wary of premature celebration and incautious optimism. Being a survivor meant never taking anything for granted, never accepting anything at face value.

«Are your thoughts deep ones, Prime Minister?»

He whirled at the sound of Iridia Eleri's voice, surprised to find her standing right next to him. It frightened him that she could get so close without him hearing her approach. It angered him that she had been doing so repeatedly since he had agreed to accept her offer to act as his private adviser, as if their arrangement invited such intrusion. Worst of all, it reminded him of the way the Use Witch used to materialize in his bedchamber, a memory he would just as soon forget.

«My thoughts are my own, Iridia," he replied. «They are neither deep nor shallow, only practical. Have you something to offer, or are you just looking for new ways to stop my heart?»

If she was offended by his irritation, she kept it to herself. «I have something to offer, if you seek a way to end this war much more quickly than it will be ended otherwise.»

He stared at her, transfixed by more than the possibility her words suggested. She was so pale in the moonlight that she seemed almost transparent, the cast of her skin as white as death, the darkness of her eyes in such sharp contrast they seemed opaque. She was dressed in a black robe, her slender body completely shrouded and her head hooded. Her face, peering from the hood's shadows, and her hands, clutching loosely at the robe's edges, gave disconcerting evidence that he was in the presence of a ghost.

It was not the first time he had experienced that feeling. There had been a look to Iridia of late that was so chillingly otherworldly, he had trouble at times believing she wasn't something less than human.

He pursed his lips at her. «I will end it quickly enough on my own, once theDechtera is airborne again. My weapon will burn what remains of the Free–born fleet to cinders. I already hunt the remnants of the Elven army and will find them within the week, as well. Aren't you better off worrying about Shadea and her Druids than matters of war? Isn't that the task which you were assigned?»

It was a stinging rebuke, delivered as much out of distaste for her unwanted intervention as dismay over her lack of sophistication in battle tactics. But she seemed unmoved by his words, her expression empty of feeling.

«My task is to save you from yourself, Prime Minister. The Free–born have lost their ships on the Prekkendorran, but they can obtain others. Their army might be scattered and in momentary disarray, but it will regroup. You will not win this war through a single victory. You should know as much without my having to tell you.»

Her words were so dismissive that he flushed in spite of himself. She was talking to him as if he were a child.

«This war has lasted fifty years," she continued, seemingly oblivious to his reaction. «It will not be ended on the Prekkendorran. It will not be won on any Southland battlefield. It will be won in the West–land. It will be won when you break the spirit of the Elves, because it is the Elves who are the backbone of the Free–born struggle. Break their spirit, and those who fight with them will be quick to seek peace.»

He frowned. «I would have thought that the loss of their fleet and their King had accomplished that.

Obviously, you don't agree. Have you something else in mind, a more persuasive way to bring them into line?»

«Much more persuasive.»

He felt his patience ebb as he waited in vain for her to continue. «Am I expected to guess at what it is, or will you save me the trouble and simply tell me?»

She looked away from him, out over the shipyard to where theDechtera sat dark and menacing in the moonlight, to where the shipyard workers continued to repair her. She was looking in that direction, but he had the feeling that she was looking at something else altogether, something hidden from him. He was struck again by the distant feel of her, the sense that she was not entirely where she appeared to be.

«You are not averse to killing, are you, Prime Minister?» she asked suddenly.

It was the way she asked the question that made him think she intended to trap him with his own words. He had developed a sixth sense about the use of such tactics over his years, and it had saved him from disaster more than once.

«Are you afraid to answer me?» she pressed.

«You know I am not afraid of killing.»

«I know you believe that the ends justify the means. I know you believe that accomplishing your goals entitles you to take whatever steps are required. I know that you are the architect of the deaths of your predecessor and those who would have succeeded him. I know that you have participated in blood games of all sorts.»

«Then speak your mind and quit playing games with me. My patience with you grows thin.»

Her bloodless face lifted out of the hood's concealing shadows so that her dark eyes locked on his. «Listen closely, then. You waste needless time killing soldiers on the Prekkendorran. Killing soldiers means nothing to those who send them forth. If you want to break the spirit of the Elves, if you want to put an end to their resistance, you have to kill those whom the soldiers protect. You have to kill their women and children. You have to kill their old people and their infirm. You have to take the war from the battlefield into their homes.»

Her voice was a hiss. «You have the weapon to do so, Prime Minister. Fly theDechtera to Arborlon and use it. Burn their precious city and its people to ashes. Make them afraid to think of doing anything other than begging for your mercy.»

She said it dispassionately, but her words transfixed him. He went hot and cold in turn, cowed at first by the prospect of such savagery, then excited by it. He was already perceived to be a monster, so there was little reason to pretend he wasn't. He did not care in the slightest about preserving the lives of those who opposed him, and the Elves had been a thorn in his side for twenty years. Why not cull their numbers sufficiently that they would not threaten again in his lifetime?

«But you are an Elf yourself," he said. «Why are you so willing to kill your own people?»

She made a sound that might have been meant as laughter. «I amnot an Elf! I am a Druid! Just as you are a Prime Minister and not a Southlander. It is the power we wield that commands our loyalty, Sen

Dunsidan, not some accident of birth.»

She was right, of course. His nationality and Race meant nothing to him beyond the opportunities they provided for advancement.

«As a Druid, then," he snapped, «you must know that Shadea will not approve of this. She will be here to confer with me in two days. She is already distressed that I attacked the Free–born without first advising her. Once she discovers my new intention, she will put a stop to it. In appearances, at least, the Druids must seem impartial. She might back the Federation in its bid to reclaim the Borderlands, but she will never countenance genocide.»

«Tell her nothing, then. Let her respond when it is over, after she has already openly declared her support of the Federation. Will anyone listen to her, no matter how loudly she protests?»

«In which case she will come looking for me, and not to offer congratulations.»

The pale face looked away. «I will deal with her when she does.»

He thought to question such boldness, for in the time he had known Iridia he had never once believed that she was a match for Shadea a'Ru. But perhaps things had changed. She sounded very sure of herself, and the steely resolve she brought to their alliance had given him reason to suspect she had grown more powerful.

«What is your decision, Prime Minister?» she pressed.

He was certain of one thing only. If he chose to pursue India's course of action, questions of ethics were pointless. If he failed, questions of ethics would be the least of his problems. And if he succeeded, such questions would be whispered in private, because he would then have become the most powerful figure in the Four Lands. Not even the Druids would dare to challenge his authority.

It should have been an easy decision. Where power and influence were at stake, he had never hesitated in making his choice. Yet he hesitated here. Something felt wrong about this, perhaps a consequence he had not considered or a possibility he had overlooked. But whatever it was, it was definitely there, nagging at him. He could feel it deep inside where such things could not be ignored.

«Prime Minister?»

He gave the doubt another few seconds, and then he dismissed it. There was never gain without risk, and risk always raised doubts. He knew his own mind well enough to embrace what he must do. Without Grianne Ohmsford to worry about, he could afford to take chances he might not otherwise take. The loss of a few thousand lives was not worrying enough to deter him. There was more at stake than lives.

«We will fly to Arborlon," he said.

Dawn broke in a flare of brightness as the sun crested the rim of the hills and began to lift into the sky. The Elves were settled in, most hidden from view behind hummocks and rocks and in the shadows of the defiles, ranks formed and weapons at the ready. Already, they could hear the sound of the Federation army marching to the attack, the pounding of boots and the thumping of spears and swords against shields steady and rhythmic and unnerving. Flashes of light reflected off the flat surfaces of blades as the Federation soldiers wound through the cut and began the long, twisting trek across the flats to where their quarry waited.

Pied, standing with his Home Guard, scanned his ranks for movement and found none. The Elves had disappeared as only the Elves could. They would not be spied out by the Federation until it was too late. He wished he had the services of cavalry to ride at the Federation flanks, but foot soldiers would have to do. He wished he had the use of catapults and fire launchers, but slings and arrows would have to do. He would be outnumbered, perhaps by as much as five to one. He lacked practical experience commanding on a battlefield, — he was Captain of the Home Guard, not a Commander of the Elven army. He was the highest–ranking officer present, and he had never been in a battle of such size.

There's a first time for everything,the old saying went. He just wished there wasn't so much at stake.

He looked down the ranks of those closest and found Drumun–doon standing almost next to him, tall and gangly and looking oddly out of place in his battle gear. Drum wasn't meant to fight on the line; he was meant to serve behind it. Yet there was determination in his young face, and when he caught Pied looking at him, he winked.

Reason enough to believe in him,Pied thought.Reason enough to believe in them all He tightened his grip on his sword and settled deeper into the shadows.