The Kinslayer Wars

19

The forestlands of Silvanost stretched below like a shaggy green carpet, extending to the far horizons and beyond. Huge winged shadows flickered across the ground, marking the path of the griffons. The creatures flew in great V-shaped wedges, several dozen griffons in each wedge. These formations spread across more than a mile.

Kith-Kanan and Sithas rode the first two of the mighty beasts, flying side by side toward their home. The forest had stretched below them for two days, but now, in the far distance, a faint glimmer of ivory light appeared. They soared faster than the wind, and swiftly that speck became identifiable as the Tower of the Stars. Soon the lesser towers of Silvanost came into view, jutting above the treetops like a field of sharp spires.

As they left the wilderness behind, Kith-Kanan thought fondly of the giant they had grown to know. One-Tooth had waved to them from the snow-filled valley until the fliers had vanished from sight. Kith-Kanan still remembered his one tusklike tooth bobbing up and down in a forlorn gesture of farewell. They followed the River Thon-Thalas toward the island that held the elven capital. The griffons streamed into a long line behind them, and several of them uttered squawks of anticipation as they descended. Five hundred feet over the river, they raced southward, and soon the whole city sprawled below them.

The creatures shrieked and squalled, alarming the good citizens of Silvanost so much that, for several minutes, there existed a state of general panic, during which time most elves assumed that the war had come home to roost via some arcane and potent human ensorcelment.

Only when the two blond-haired elves were spotted did the panic turn to curiosity and wonder. And by the time Sithas and Kith-Kanan had circled the palace grounds and then led their charges in a gradual downward spiral toward the Gardens of Astarin, the word had spread. The emotions of the Silvanesti elves exploded into a spontaneous outpouring of joy.

Nirakina was the first to meet the twins as the great creatures settled to the ground. Their mother’s eyes flowed with tears, and at first she could not speak. She took turns kissing each of them and then holding them at arms’ length, as if making sure that they were alive and fit.

Beyond her, Sithas saw Tamanier Ambrodel, and his spirit was buoyed even higher. Lord Ambrodel had returned from his secret mission to Thorbardin. Loyally, he had stayed discreet about what he had learned. Now he might have decisive news about a dwarven alliance in the elven war.

“Welcome home, Your Highness,” Ambrodel said sincerely as Sithas clasped the lord chamberlain’s shoulders.

“It’s good to see you here to greet me! We will talk as soon as I can break away.” Ambrodel nodded, the elf’s narrow face reflecting private delight. Meanwhile, the griffons continued to descend into the gardens, and across the gaming fields, and even into many of the nearby vegetable plots. They shrieked and growled, and the good citizens of the city gave them wide berth. Nevertheless, each griffon remained well behaved once it landed, moving only to preen its feathers or to settle weary wings and legs. When they had all landed, they squatted comfortably on the ground and took little note of the intense excitement surrounding them.

Kith-Kanan, with a barely noticeable limp, took his mother’s arm as Hermathya and a dozen courtiers emerged from the Hall of Audience. Lord Quimant walked, with a quick stride, at their head.

“Excellency!” he cried in delight, racing forward to warmly embrace the Speaker of the Stars.

Hermathya approached a good deal more slowly, greeting her husband with a formal kiss. Her greeting was cool, though her relief was obvious even through her pretense of annoyance.

“My son!” Sithas said excitedly. “Where is Vanesti?” A nursemaid stepped forward, offering the infant to his father.

“Can this be him? How much he’s changed!” Sithas, with a sense of awe, took his son in his arms while the crowd quieted. Indeed, the elfin child was much larger than when they had departed, nearly half a year earlier. His blond hair grew thick upon his scalp. As his tiny eyes looked toward his father, Vanesti’s face broke into a brilliant smile.

For several moments, Sithas seemed unable to speak. Hermathya came to him and very gently took the child. Turning away from her husband, her gaze briefly met Kith-Kanan’s. He was startled by the look he saw there. It was cool and vacant, as if he did not exist. It had been many weeks since he had thought of her, but this expression provoked a brief, angry flash of jealousy—and, at the same time, a reminder of his guilt.

“Come—to the palace, everyone!” Sithas shouted, throwing an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “Tonight there will be a feast for all the city! Let word be spread immediately! Summon the bards. We have a tale for them to hear and to spread across the nation!”

The news carried through the city as fast as the cry could pass from lips to ear, and all the elves of Silvanost prepared to celebrate the return of the royal heirs. Butchers slaughtered prime pigs, casks of wine rumbled forth from the cellars, and colorful lanterns swiftly sprouted, as if by magic, from every tree, lamppost, and gate in the city. The festivities began immediately, and the citizenry danced in the streets and sang the great songs of the elven nation. Meanwhile, Sithas and Kith-Kanan joined Lord Regent Quimant and Lord Chamberlain Tamanier Ambrodel in a small audience chamber. The regent looked at the chamberlain with some surprise and turned to Sithas with a questioning look. When the Speaker of the Stars said nothing, Quimant cleared his throat and spoke awkwardly.

“Excellency, perhaps the lord chamberlain should join us after the conclusion of this conference. After all, some of the items I have to report are of the most confidential nature.” He paused, as if embarrassed to continue.

“Indeed, in this nearly half a year that you have been absent, I must report that the lord chamberlain has not in fact been present in the capital. He only returned recently, from his family estates. Apparently matters of his clan’s business interests took precedence over affairs of state.”

“Tamanier Ambrodel has my complete confidence. Indeed,” Sithas replied,

“we may find that he has reports to make as well.”

“Of course, my lord,” Quimant said quickly, with a deep bow. Quimant immediately started to fill them in on the events that had occurred during their absence.

“First, Sithelbec still stands as strong as ever.” The lord of Clan Oakleaf anticipated Kith-Kanan’s most urgent question. “A messenger from the fortress broke through the lines a few weeks past, bringing word that the defenders have repulsed every attempt to

storm the walls.”

“Good. It is as I hoped,” Kith replied. Nevertheless he was relieved.

“However, the pressure is increasing. We have word of a team of dwarven engineers—Theiwar, apparently—aiding the humans in excavating siege works against the walls. Also, the number of wild elves throwing in their lot with Ergoth is increasing steadily. There are more than a thousand of them, and apparently they have been formed into a ‘free elf company’.”

“Fighting their own people?” Sithas was aghast at the notion. His face reddened with controlled fury.

“More and more of them have questioned the right of Silvanost to rule them. And an expedition of the wild elves of the Kagonesti arrived here shortly after you left to plead for an end to the bloodshed.”

“The ignoble scum!” Sithas rose to his feet and stalked across the chamber before whirling to face Quimant. Vivid lines of anger marred his face. “What did you tell them?”

“Nothing,” Quimant replied, his own face displaying a smug grin. “They have spent the winter in your dungeon. Perhaps you’d care to speak to them yourself!”

“Good.” Sithas nodded approvingly. “We can’t have this kind of demonstration. We’ll make an example of them to discourage any further treachery.”

Kith-Kanan faced his brother. “Don’t you want to—at the very least—hear what they have to say?”

Sithas looked at him as if he spoke a different language. “Why? They’re traitors, that’s obvious! Why should we—”

“Traitors? They have come here to talk. The traitors are those who have joined the enemy out of hand! We need to ask questions!”

“I find it astonishing that you, of all of us, should take this approach,” Sithas said softly. “You are the one who has to carry out our plans, the one whose life is most at risk. Can you not understand that these ... elves"—Sithas spat the word as if it were anathema—“should be dealt with quickly and ruthlessly?”

“If they are indeed traitors, of course! But you can take the trouble to hear them first, to find out if they are in fact treacherous or simply honest citizens living in danger and fear!”

Sithas and Kith-Kanan glowered at each other like fierce strangers. Tamanier Ambrodel quietly watched the exchange. He had offered no opinion on any topic as yet, and he felt that this was not the time to interject his view. Lord Quimant, however, was more forthright.

“General, Excellency, please . . . there are more details. Some of the news is urgent.” The lord stood and raised his hands.

Sithas nodded and collapsed into his chair. Kith-Kanan remained standing, turning expectantly toward the lord regent.

“Word out of Thorbardin arrived barely a fortnight ago. The ambassador, Than-Kar of the Theiwar clan, reported it to me in a most unpleasant and arrogant tone. His king, he claims, has ruled this to be a war between the humans and elves. The dwarves are determined to remain neutral.”

“No troops? They will send us nothing?” Kith-Kanan stared at Quimant, appalled. Just when he had begun to see a glimmer of hope on the military horizon, to get news like this! Nothing could be more disastrous. The general slowly slumped into his chair, trying unsuccessfully to fight a rising wave of nausea.

Shaking his head in shock, he looked at his brother, expecting to see the same sense of dismay written across Sithas’s face. Instead, however, the speaker’s eyes had narrowed in an inscrutable expression. Didn’t he understand?

“This is catastrophic!” Kith-Kanan exclaimed, angry that the Speaker didn’t seem to grasp this basic fact. “Without the dwarves, we are doomed to be terribly outnumbered in every battle. Even with the griffons, we can’t prevail against a quarter of a million men!”

“Indeed,” Sithas agreed calmly. Finally he spoke to Ambrodel. “And your own mission, my lord, does that bear this information out?” Lord Quimant gave a start when he realized that Sithas was addressing Ambrodel.

“Rather dramatically not, Excellency,” Ambrodel replied softly. Kith-Kanan and Lord Quimant both stared at the chamberlain in mixed astonishment.

“I regret the subterfuge, my lords. The Speaker of the Stars instructed me to reveal my mission to no one, to report only to him.”

“There was no reason to say anything—not until now,” Sithas said. Once again, the others felt that commanding tone in his voice that brought all discussion to an abrupt halt. “If the lord chamberlain will continue . . .?”

“Of course, Your Excellency.” Ambrodel turned to include them all in his explanation. “I have wintered in the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin.”

“What?” Quimant’s jaw dropped. Kith-Kanan remained silent, but his lips compressed into a tight smile as he began to appreciate his brother’s wiliness.

“It had been the Speaker’s assessment, very early on, that Ambassador Than-Kar was not doing an appropriately thorough job of maintaining open and honest communication between our two realms.”

“I see,” Quimant said, with a formal nod.

“Indeed, as events have developed, our esteemed leader’s assessment has been proven to be accurate.”

“Than-Kar has deliberately sabotaged our negotiations?” demanded Kith.

“Blatantly. King Hal-Waith has long backed our cause, as it was presented to him by Dunbarth Ironthumb upon that ambassador’s return home. Than-Kar’s original mission had been to report to us the king’s intent to send twenty-five thousand troops to aid our cause.”

“But I saw no sign of these troops on the plain. There is no word of them now, is there?” Kith-Kanan probed.

Quimant shook his head. “No—and certainly reports would have reached Silvanost had they marched during the winter.”

“They did not march, not then,” continued Ambrodel. “The offer of aid came with several conditions attached, conditions which Than-Kar reported to his king that we were unwilling to accept.”

“Conditions?” Now Kith was concerned. “What conditions?”

“Fairly reasonable, under the circumstances. The dwarves recognize you as overall commander of the army, but they will not allow their own units to be broken up into smaller detachments—and dwarven units will work only under dwarven leaders.”

“Those commanders presumably answerable to me under battle conditions?” Kith-Kanan asked.

“Yes,” Ambrodel nodded.

The elven general couldn’t believe his ears. Dwarven fighting prowess and tactical mastery were legendary. And twenty-five thousand such warriors . . . why, if they fought alongside griffon cavalry, the siege of Sithelbec might be lifted in a long afternoon of fighting!

“There were some other minor points, also very reasonable. Bodies to be shipped to Thorbardin for burial, dwarven holidays honored, a steady supply of ale maintained, and so on. I do not anticipate any objection on your part.”

“Of course not!” Kith-Kanan sprang to his feet again, this time in excitement. Then he remembered the obstruction presented by Than-Kar, and his mood darkened. “Have you concluded the deal? Must we still work through the ambassador? How long—”

Ambrodel smiled and held up his hands. “The army was mustering as I left. For all I know, they have already emerged from the underground realm. They would march, I was promised, when the snowmelt in the Kharolis Mountains allowed free passage.” The chamberlain shivered as he remembered the long, dark winter he spent there. “It never gets warm in Thorbardin. You’re always damp and squinting through the dark. By the gods, who knows how the dwarves can stand living underground?”

“And the ambassador?” This time Sithas asked the question. Once again those lines of anger tightened his face as he pondered the extent of Than-Kar’s duplicity.

“King Hal-Waith would consider it a personal favor if we were to place him under arrest, detaining him until such time as the next dwarven mission arrives. It should be here sometime during the summer.”

“Any word on numbers? On their march route?” Tactics already swirled through Kith-Kanan’s head.

Ambrodel pursed his lips and shook his head. “Only the name of the commander, whom I trust will meet with your approval.”

“Dunbarth Ironthumb?” Kith-Kanan was hopeful.

“None other.”

“That is good news!” That dignified statesman had been the brightest element of the otherwise frustrating councils between Thorbardin, Silvanesti, and Ergoth. The ambassador from the dwarven nation had retained a sense of humor and self-deprecating whimsy that had lightened many an otherwise tedious session of negotiation.

“Where am I to join him?” Kith-Kanan asked. “Shall I take Arcuballis and fly to Thorbardin itself?”

Ambrodel shook his head. “I don’t think you could. The gates remain carefully hidden.”

“But surely you could direct me! Didn’t you say that you have been there?”

“Indeed,” the chamberlain agreed with a nod. He coughed awkwardly. “But to tell you the truth, I never saw the gates, nor could I describe the approach to you or to anyone.”

“How did you get in, then?”

“It’s a trifle embarrassing, actually. I spent nearly a month floundering around in the mountains, seeking a trail or a road or any kind of sign of the gate. I found nothing. Finally, however, I was met in my camp by a small band of dwarven scouts. Apparently they keep an eye on the perimeter and were watching my hapless movements, wondering what I was up to.”

“But you must have entered through the gate,” Kith said.

“Indeed,” nodded Ambrodel. “But I spent the two days of the approach—two very long days, I might add—stumbling along with a blindfold over my eyes.”

“That’s an outrage!” barked Quimant, stiffening in agitation. “An insult to our race!”

Sithas, too, scowled. Only Kith-Kanan reacted with a thin smile and a nod of understanding. “With treachery among their own people, it only seems a natural precaution,” the elven general remarked. That lessened the tension, and Ambrodel nodded in reluctant agreement.

“Excellency,” inquired Quimant, with careful formality. It was obvious that the lord regent was annoyed by not having been apprised of the secret negotiations. “This is indeed a most splendid development, but was it necessary to retain such a level of secrecy? Perhaps I could have aided the cause had I been kept informed.”

“Indeed, quite true, my good cousin-in-law. There was no fear that the knowledge would have been misplaced in you—save this one. In your position as regent, you are the one who has spent the greatest amount of time with Than-Kar. It was essential that the ambassador not know of this plan, and I felt that the safest way to keep you from a revealing slip—inadvertent, of course—was to withhold the knowledge from you. The decision was mine alone.”

“I cannot question the Speaker’s wisdom,” replied the noble humbly. “This is a most encouraging turn of events.” * * * * *

Kith left the meeting in order to arrange for the postings around the city. He wanted all Silvanost to quickly learn of the call for volunteers. He intended to personally interview and test all applicants for the griffon cavalry. Sithas remained behind, with Quimant and Ambrodel, to attend to matters of government. “As to the city, how has it fared in our absence?” Quimant informed him of other matters: weapons production was splendid, with a great stockpile of arms gathered; refugees from the plains had stopped coming to Silvanost—a fact that had greatly eased the tensions and crowding within the city; the higher taxes that Sithas had decreed, in order to pay for the war, had been collected with only a few minor incidents.

“There has been some violence along the waterfront. The city guard has confronted Than-Kar’s escorts on more than one occasion. We’ve had several elves badly injured and one killed during these brawls.”

“The Theiwar?” guessed Sithas.

“Indeed. The primary troublemakers can be found among the officers of Than-Kar’s guard, as if they want to create an incident.” Quimant’s disgust with the dwarves was apparent in his sarcastic tone.

We’ll deal with them . . . when the time is right. We’ll wait till Kith-Kanan forms his cavalry and departs for the west.”

“I’m certain he’ll have no shortage of volunteers. There are many noble elves who had resisted the call to arms, as it applies to the infantry,” said Lord Quimant. “They’ll leap at the chance to form an elite unit, especially with the threat of conscription hanging over their heads!”

“We’ll keep news of Thorbardin’s commitment secret,” Sithas added. “Not a word of it is to leave this room. In the meantime, tell me about the additional troops for the infantry. How fares the training of the new regiments?”

“We have five thousand elves under arms, ready to march when you give the command.”

“I had hoped for more.”

Quimant hemmed and hawed. “The sentiment in the city is not wholly in favor of the war. Our people do not seem to grasp the stakes here.”

“We’ll make them understand,” growled Sithas, looking to the lord as if he expected Quimant to challenge him. His wife’s cousin remained silent on that point, however.

Instead, Quimant hesitantly offered another suggestion. “We do have another source of troops,” he ventured. “However, they may not meet with the Speaker’s satisfaction.”

“Another source? Where?” Sithas demanded.

“Humans—mercenaries. There are great bands of them in the plains north of here and over to the west. Many of them bear no great love for the emperor of Ergoth and would be willing to join our service—for a price, of course.”

“Never!” Sithas leaped to his feet, livid. “How can you even suggest such an abomination! If we cannot preserve our nation with our own troops, we do not deserve victory!”

His voice rang from the walls of the small chamber, and he glared at Quimant and Ambrodel, as if daring a challenge. None was forthcoming, and slowly the Speaker of the Stars relaxed.

“Forgive my outburst,” he said, with a nod to Quimant. “You were merely making a suggestion. That I understand.” “Consider the suggestion withdrawn.” The lord bowed to his ruler.

The recruits for the griffon-mounted cavalry were sworn in during a sunny ceremony a week after the brothers had arrived in the city. The event was held on the gaming fields beyond the gardens, for no place else in the city provided enough open space for the great steeds and their proud, newly appointed riders to assemble.

Thousands of elves turned out to watch, overflowing the large grandstands and lining the perimeter of the fields. Others gathered in the nearby towers, many of which rose a hundred feet or more into the air, providing splendid vantage.

“I welcome you, brave elves, to the ranks of an elite and decisive force, unique in our grand history!” Kith-Kanan addressed the recruits while the onlookers strained to hear his words.

“We shall take to the sky under a name that bespeaks our speed—henceforth we shall be known as the Windriders!”

A great cheer arose from the warriors and the spectators.

As Quimant had predicted, many scions of noble families had flocked to the call to arms once they learned of the nature of the elite unit. Kith-Kanan had disappointed and angered a great number of them by selecting his troops only after extensive combat tests and rigorous training procedures. Sons of masons, carpenters, and laborers were offered the same opportunities as the proud heirs of the noble houses. Those who were not truly desirous of the honor, or were unwilling or incapable of meeting the high standards established by Kith-Kanan, quickly fell away, consigned to the infantry. At the end of the brutal week of tests, the elven commander had been left with more than a thousand elves of proven courage, dedication, and skill.

“You will train in the use of the light lance, the elven longbow, and the steel-edged longsword. Lances will be wielded in the air or on the ground!” He looked over the assembled elves. They stood, a pair flanking each griffon, wearing shiny steel helms with long plumes of horsehair. The Windriders wore supple leather boots and smooth torso armor of black leather. They were a formidable force, and the training to come would only enhance their abilities. Brass trumpets blared the climax of the ceremony, and each of the Windriders received a steel-edged shortsword, which would be worn throughout the training. They would have to learn fast, Kith-Kanan had warned his new recruits, and he knew that they would.

He looked to the west, suddenly restless. It won’t be long now, he told himself.

Soon the siege of Sithelbec would be broken—and how long after that would it be before the war was won?

20

Kith-Kanan couldn’t sleep. He went for a walk in the Gardens of Astarin, relieved that the griffons had all been moved to the sporting fields. There the creatures rested and enjoyed the fresh meat that the palace liverymen hastily had butchered and carted over to them.

For a time, the elf lost himself in the twists and turns of the elegant gardens. The soothing surroundings took him back to his youth, to untroubled days and, later, to passionate nights. How many times, he reflected, had he and Hermathya met among this secluded foliage?

Anxiously he tried to shrug off the memories. Soon he and Arcuballis would take to the air, leaving this city and its temptations behind. The mere sight of her was a source of deep guilt and discomfort to him.

As if circumstances mirrored his thoughts, he turned a corner and encountered his brother’s wife, walking in quiet contemplation. Hermathya looked up, but if she was at all surprised to encounter him, her face didn’t reveal anything.

“Hello, Kith-Kanan.” Her smile was deep and warm and suddenly, it seemed to Kith, reckless.

“Hello, Hermathya.” He was certainly surprised to see her. The rest of the palace was dark, and the hour was quite late.

“I saw you come to the garden and came here to find you,” she informed him.

Alarms bells went off in his mind as he gazed at her. By the gods, how beautiful she was! No woman he had ever known aroused him like Hermathya. Not even Anaya. He could tell, by the smoldering look in her eyes, that her thoughts were similar.

She took a step toward him.

The instinct to reach out and crush her to him, to pull her into his arms and touch her, was almost overpowering. But at the same time, he had sordid memories of their last tryst and her unfaithfulness to his brother. He wanted her, but he dare not weaken again—especially now, after all that he and Sithas had been through together.

Only with a great effort of will did Kith-Kanan step back, raising his hands to stop her approach.

“You are my brother’s wife,” he said, somewhat irrelevantly.

“I was his wife last autumn,” she spat, suddenly venomous.

“Last autumn was a mistake. Hermathya, I loved you once. I think of you now more than I care to admit. But I will not betray my brother!” Again, he added silently. “Can you accept this? Can we be members of the same family and not torment each other with memories of a past that ought to be buried and forgotten?”

Hermathya suddenly clasped her hands over her face. Her body wracking with sobs, she turned and ran, swiftly disappearing from Kith-Kanan’s sight. For a long time afterward, he stared at the spot where she had stood. The image of her body, of her face, of her exquisite presence, remained vivid in his mind, almost as if she was still there.

Three days later, Kith was ready to embark. His plan of battle had been made, but there remained many things to be done. The Windriders wouldn’t fly to the west for another six weeks. Under the tutelage of their new captain, Hallus, they had to train rigorously in the meantime.

“How long do you think it will take to find Dunbarth?” asked Sithas when he, his mother, and Tamanier Ambrodel came to see Kith-Kanan off. Kith shrugged. “That’s one reason I’m leaving right away. I have to hook up with the dwarves and fill them in on the timetable, then get to Sithelbec before the Windriders.”

“Be careful,” his mother urged. The color had come back into her face since the brothers’ return, and for the past several weeks she had seemed as merry and robust as ever. Now she struggled not to weep.

“I will,” Kith promised, holding her in his arms. They all hoped the war would end quickly but understood that it might be many months, even years, before he could return.

The door to the audience chamber burst open, and the elves whirled, surprised and then amused. Vanesti stood there.

Sithas’s son, not yet a year old, toddled toward them with an unsteady gait and a broad smile across his elven features. In his hand, he brandished a wooden sword, slashing at imagined enemies to the right and left until his own momentum toppled him to the floor. The sword abandoned, he rose and approached Kith-Kanan unsteadily.

“Pa-pa!” cried the tiny elf, beaming.

Kith blushed and stepped aside. “There’s your papa,” he said, indicating Sithas.

Kith-Kanan noted how much Vanesti had changed during the course of their winter in the mountains. Conceivably the war could drag on for several more years. The toddler would be a young boy by the next time he saw him.

“Come to Uncle Kith, Vanesti. Say good-bye before I ride the griffon!” Vanesti pouted briefly, but then he wrapped his uncle in a tight hug. Lifting the tiny fellow up and holding him, Kith felt a pang of regret. Would he ever be able to settle down and have children of his own?

Once again Kith-Kanan and Arcuballis took off on an important mission. The vast forestlands of Silvanesti sprawled beneath them. Far to the south, Kith caught an occasional glimpse of the Courrain Ocean, which stretched past the horizon with a limitless expanse.

Soon he came to the plains, and they continued to soar high above the sea of grass that stretched to the limits of his vision. He knew that, northward, his embattled Wildrunners still held their fortress against the pressing human horde. Soon he would join them.

He spotted the snowy crests of the Kharolis Mountains jutting into the sky. For a full day, Kith watched the imposing heights grow closer, until at last he flew above the wooded valleys that extended from the heart of the range and he was encircled on all sides by great peaks.

Here he began his search in earnest. He knew that the kingdom of Thorbardin lay entirely underground, with great gates providing access from the north and south. The snowmelt had long passed from the forested valleys to the high slopes. The gate, he reasoned, would occupy a lower elevation, both for enhanced concealment and easier access.

He searched along these valleys every day from first to last light, seeking a sign of the passage of the dwarven army. The land consisted of almost entirely uninhabited wilderness, so he reckoned that the march of twenty thousand heavy-booted dwarves would leave some kind of obvious trail. For days, his search was fruitless. He began to chafe at the lost time. Borne by his speedy griffon, he crossed the range two full times, but never did he find the evidence he sought. His search took him through all of the high valleys and much of the lower foothills. He decided, in desperation, that he would make his last sweep along the very northern fringe of the range, where the jagged foothills petered out into low slopes and finally the flat and expansive plains. Frequent rainstorms, often accompanied by thunder and lightning, hampered his search. He spent many miserable afternoons huddled with Arcuballis under whatever shelter they could find while hail and rain battered the land. He wasn’t surprised, for spring weather was notoriously violent on the plains, yet the forced delays were extremely dispiriting.

Nearly two weeks into his search, he was working his way to the north, following a broad zigzag from east to west. The sun was high that day, so much so that he could see his shadow directly below him. Finally the shadow ebbed away toward the east, matching the sun’s descent in the west. Still he had seen no sign of his quarry.

It was near sunset when something caught his eye.

“Let’s go, old boy—down there,” he said, unconsciously voicing the command that he simultaneously relayed to Arcuballis through subtle pressure from his knees on the griffon’s tawny flanks. The creature tucked his wings and swooped low, flying along a shallow stream that marked a broad, flat valley bottom.

At one place, however, the river spilled over a ten-foot shelf of rock, creating a bright and scenic waterfall. It wasn’t the beauty of the scene that had caught Kith-Kanan’s eye, however.

The elf noticed that the brush lining the stream banks was flattened and trampled; indeed, there was a swath some twenty feet wide. The matted brush and grass extended in an arc from the streambed above the falls to the waterway.

Kith-Kanan could see no other sign of passage anywhere in this broad, meadow-lined valley, nor were there any groves of trees that might have concealed a trail. Arcuballis came to rest on a large boulder near the stream bank. Kith swiftly dismounted, leaving the griffon to preen his feathers and keep an eye alert for danger while the elf explored the terrain. The first thing he noticed was the muddy stream bank. Higher up, where the earth was slightly drier, he saw something that made his heart pound. Boot prints! Heavy footgear had trod here, and in great numbers. The prints indicated their wearers were heading down the valley after emerging from the streambed. Of course! The dwarves had taken great pains to keep the entrance to their kingdom a secret, and now Kith understood why there had been no road, nor even a heavily used path, leading to the north gate of Thorbardin. The dwarves had marched along the streambed!

“Come on—back into the sky!” he shouted, rousing Arcuballis. The creature crouched low to allow Kith to leap into the wide, deep saddle. The elf lashed himself in with one smooth motion and kicked the griffon’s flanks sharply.

Instantly Arcuballis sprang from the rock, his powerful wings driving downward to carry them through the air. As the griffon began to climb, Kith-Kanan nudged him with his knees, guiding him low above the stream. They glided along the course of the stream while Kith-Kanan searched the ground along either bank for more signs. Thank the gods for that waterfall!

Dusk soon cast long shadows across the valley, and Kith-Kanan realized that he would have to postpone his search until the morrow.

Nevertheless, it was with high spirits that he directed Arcuballis to land. They camped beneath an earthen overhang on the banks of the stream, and the griffon snatched nearly a dozen plump trout from the water with lighting grasps of his eagle-clawed forefeet. Kith-Kanan feasted on a pair of these while the griffon enjoyed his share.

The next morning Kith again beat the morning sun into the sky, and within an hour, he had left the foothills behind. The mountain stream he followed joined another gravel-bottomed watercourse, and here it became a placid brook, silt-bottomed and sluggish. Here, too, there were signs that the dwarven column had emerged to march overland.

Now Kith-Kanan urged Arcuballis ahead, and the griffon’s wings carried them to a lofty height. The trail became a wide rut of muddy earth, clearly visible even from a thousand feet in the air. The griffon followed the path below while the elf’s eyes scanned the horizon. For much of the day, all he could see was the long brown trail vanishing into the haze of the north.

Kith-Kanan began to worry that the dwarves had already reached Sithelbec. Certainly they were tough and capable fighters, but even in their compact formations, they would be vulnerable to the sweeping charges of the human cavalry if they fought without the support of auxiliary forces. It was late afternoon before he finally caught sight of his goal and knew that he was not too late. The marching column stretched as straight as a spear shaft across the plains, moving toward the north. Kith urged the griffon downward, picking up speed.

As he flew closer, he saw that the figures marched with military precision in a long column that was eight dwarves wide. How far into the distance the troops extended he could not be certain, though he flew overhead for several minutes after he had observed the tail of the column before he could even see its lead formations.

Now he was spotted from below. The tail of the column split and turned, while companies of short, stocky fighters broke to the right and left, quickly swinging into defensive postures. As Arcuballis dove lower, he saw the bearded faces, the metal helms with their plumes of feathers or hair, and, most significantly, the rank of heavy crossbows raised to fire!

He pulled back on the reins and brought Arcuballis into a sharp climb, hoping he was out of range and that the dwarves wouldn’t shoot without first identifying their target.

“Ho! Dwarves of Thorbardin!” he called, soaring about two hundred feet over the ranks of suspicious upturned faces.

“Who are you?” demanded one, a grizzled captain with a shiny helmet plumed by bright red feathers.

“Kith-Kanan! Is that you?” cried another gruff voice, one that the elf recognized.

“Dunbarth Ironthumb!” the elf shouted back, waving at the familiar figure. Happy and relieved, he brought the griffon through a long, circling dive. Finally Arcuballis came to rest on the ground, though the griffon pranced and squawked nervously at the troops arrayed before him.

Dunbarth Ironthumb clumped toward him, a wide smile splitting his full, gray-flecked beard. Unlike the other officers of his column, the dwarf wore a plain, unadorned breastplate and a simple steel cap.

Kith sprang from the saddle and seized the stalwart dwarf in a bear hug. “By the gods, you old goat, I thought I’d never find you!” he declared.

“Humph!” snorted Dunbarth. “If we’d wanted to be found, we would have posted signs. Still, what with the storms we’ve been dodging—floods, lightning, even a black funnel cloud!—it’s a lucky thing you did find us. Why were you looking?”

The grizzled dwarf raised his eyebrows in curiosity, waiting for Kith to speak.

“It’s a long story,” the elf explained. “I’ll save it for the campfire tonight!”

“Good enough,” grunted Dunbarth. “We’ll be making camp after another mile.” The dwarven commander paused, then snapped his fingers in sudden decision.

“To the Abyss with it! We’ll make camp here!”

Dunbarth made Kith-Kanan laugh easily. The elf commander ate the hardtack of the dwarves around the fire, and even took a draft of the cool, bitter ale that the dwarves hold so dear but which elves almost universally find to be unpleasant to the palate.

As the fire died into coals, he spoke with Dunbarth and a number of that dwarf’s officers. He told them of the mission to capture the griffons and of the forming of the Windriders. His comrades took heart from the tale of the flying cavalry that would aid them in battle.

He also described, to mutters of indignation and anger, the complicity of Than-Kar and his brother’s plans to arrest the ambassador and return him to King Hal-Waith in chains.

“Typical Theiwar treachery!” growled Dunbarth. “Never turn your back on ’em, I can tell you! He never should have been entrusted with a mission of such importance!”

“Why was he?” Kith inquired. “Don’t let it go to your head, but you were always a splendid representative for your king and your people. Why did Hal-Waith send a replacement?” Dunbarth Ironthumb shook his head and spat into the fire. “Part of it was my own fault, I admit. I wanted to go home. All that talking and diplomacy was getting on my nerves—plus, I’d never spent more than a few months on the surface at a time. I was in Silvanost for a full year, you’ll remember, not counting time on the march.”

“Indeed,” Kith-Kanan said, nodding. He remembered Tamanier Ambrodel’s remarks about that elf’s long months underground. For the first time, he began to understand the adjustment these subterranean warriors must make in order to undertake an aboveground campaign. Growing up, working and training—all their lives were spent underground.

Surprising emotion choked his throat, for suddenly he realized the depth of the commitment that had brought forth the dwarven army. He looked at Dunbarth and hoped that the dwarf understood the strength of his appreciation.

Dunbarth Ironthumb gruffly cleared his throat and continued. “We have a tricky equilibrium in Thorbardin, I’m sure you appreciate. We of the Hylar Clan control the central realms, including the Life-Tree.” Kith-Kanan had heard of that massive structure, a cave city all of its own carved from the living stone of a monstrous stalagmite. He nodded his understanding.

“The other clans of Thorbardin all have their own realms—the Daergar, the Daewar, the Mar, and the Theiwar,” continued Dunbarth. The old dwarf sighed.

“We are a stubborn people, it is well known, and sometimes hasty to anger. In none of us are these traits so prevalent as among the Theiwar. But also there is a level of malevolence, of greed and scheming and ambition, among our paleskinned brethren that is not to be found among the higher dwarven cultures. The Theiwar are much distrusted by the rest of the clans.”

“Then why would the king appoint a Theiwar as ambassador to Silvanesti?” Kith-Kanan asked.

“Alas, they are all those things I said, but so too are the Theiwar numerous and powerful. They make up a large proportion of the kingdom’s population, and they cannot be excluded from its politics. The king must select his ambassadors, his nobles, even his high clerics from the ranks of all the clans, including the Theiwar.”

Dunbarth looked the elf squarely in the eye. “King Hal-Waith thought, mistakenly it would appear, that the crucial negotiations with the elves had been concluded with my departure from your capital. Therefore he took the chance of appointing a Theiwar to replace me, having in mind another important task for me and knowing that the Theiwar Clan would make a considerable disturbance if they were once again bypassed for such a prominent ambassadorship.

“I think you start to get the picture” Dunbarth continued. “But now to matters that lie before us, instead of behind. Do you have plans for a summer campaign?”

“The wheels are already in motion,” Kith explained. “And now that I have caught up with you, we can put the final phase of the strategy into motion.”

“Splendid!” Dunbarth beamed, all but licking his lips in anticipation. Kith-Kanan went on to outline his battle plan, and the dwarven warrior’s eyes lit up as every detail was described.

“If you can pull it off,” he grunted in approval after Kith-Kanan had finished,

“it will be a victory that the bards will sing about for years!” They spent the rest of the evening making less momentous conversation, and around midnight, Kith-Kanan made his camp among the army of his allies. At dawn, he was up and saddling Arcuballis, preparing to leave. The dwarves were awake, too, ready to march.

“Less than three weeks to go,” said Dunbarth, with a wink.

“Don’t be late for the war!” chided Kith. Moments later, the sunlight flickered from the griffon’s wing feathers a hundred feet above the dwarven column. Arcuballis soared into the sky, higher and higher. Yet it was many hours before Kith saw it, a blocklike shape that looked tiny and insignificant from his tremendous height. He would reach it by dark. It was Sithelbec, and for now at least, it was home.

21

Long rows of makeshift litters filled the tent, and upon them, Suzine saw men with ghastly wounds—men who bled and suffered and died even before she could begin to treat them. She saw others with invisible hurts—warriors who lay still and unseeing, though often their eyes remained open and fixed. Oil lanterns sputtered from tent poles, while clerics and nurses moved among the wounded.

Men groaned and shrieked and sobbed pathetically. Others were delirious, madly babbling about pastoral surroundings they would in all likelihood never see again.

And the stench! There were the raw smells of filth, urine, and feces, and the sweltering cloud of too many men in too small an area. And there were the smells of blood, and of rotting meat. Above all, there remained an ever-pervasive odor of death. For months, Suzine had done all that she could for the wounded, nursing them, tending their injuries, providing them what solace she could. For a time, there had been fewer and fewer wounded as those who had been injured in the battles of the winter had been healed or perished or were sent back to Ergoth. But now it was a new season, and it seemed that the war had acquired a new ferocity. Just a few days earlier, Giarna had hurled tens of thousands of men at the walls of Sithelbec in a savage attempt to smash through the barricades. A group of the wild elves had led the way, but the elves within the fortress had fallen upon their kin and the humans who followed with a furious vengeance. More than a thousand had perished in the fight, while these hundreds around her represented just a portion of those who had escaped with varying degrees of injuries.

Most of the suffering were humans, but there were a number of elves—those who fought against Silvanesti—and Theiwar dwarves as well. The Theiwar, under the stocky captain Kalawax, had spearheaded one assault, attempting to tunnel under the fortress walls. The elves had anticipated the maneuver and filled the tunnel, jammed tightly with dwarves, with barrels full of oil, which had then been set alight. Death had been fast and horrible. Suzine went from cot to cot, offering water or a cool cloth upon a forehead. She was surrounded by filth and despair, while she herself bore hurts that could not be seen but which nevertheless cut deeply into her spirit. So Suzine felt a kinship with these hapless souls and gained what little comfort she could by caring for them and tending their hurts. She remained throughout most of this long night, knowing that Giarna was tormented by the failure of his attack, that he might seek her out. If he found her, he would hurt her as he always did, but here he would never come.

The hours of darkness passed, and gradually the camp fell into restless silence. Past midnight, even those men in the most severe pain collapsed into tentative slumber. Weary to the point of collapse, praying that Giarna already slept, she finally left the wounded to return to her own shelter. Outside the hospital tent waited her two guards, the men-at-arms who escorted her when she moved about the camp. Actually they were a pair of the Kagonesti elves who had joined ranks with the army in the hope that it offered them a chance to gain independence for their people. Oddly, she had come to enjoy the presence of the softspoken, competent warriors in their face paint, feathers, and dark leather garb.

Suzine had wondered how such elves could rationalize their fight, since it was waged with great terror against their own people. Several times she had asked the Kagonesti about their reasons, but only once had she gotten an honest answer—from a young elf she was caring for, who had been wounded in one of the attempts to storm the fortress walls.

“My mother and father have been taken as slaves to work in the iron mines north of Silvanost,” he had told her, his voice full of bitterness. “And my family’s farm was seized by the Speaker’s troops when my father was unable to pay his taxes.”

“But to go to war against your own people,” she had wondered.

“Many of my people have been hurt by the elves of Silvanost. My people are the Kagonesti and the elves of the plains! Those who live in that crystal city of towers are no more my kin than are the dwarves of Thorbardin!”

“Do you wish to see the elven nation destroyed?”

“I only wish for the wild elves to be left alone, to regain our freedom, and to have nothing to do with the causes of governments that have made our lands a battleground!” The elf had gasped his beliefs with surprising vehemence, struggling to sit up until Suzine eased him back down.

“If the Emperor of Ergoth treats us ill after this war is won, then shall we struggle against him with the same fortitude! But until that time, the human army is our only hope of throwing off the yoke of Silvanesti oppression!” She had been deeply disturbed by the elf’s declarations, for it did not fit her idea of Kith-Kanan to hear such tales of injustice and discrimination. Surely he didn’t know of the treatment accorded to Kagonesti by his own people!

Thus she had convinced herself of his innocence and looked upon the Kagonesti elves with pity. Those who had joined the human army she befriended and tried to ease their troubled hurts.

Now her two guards held open her tent flap for her and waited silently outside. They would stand there until dawn, when they would be relieved. As always, this knowledge gave her a sense of security, and she lay down, totally exhausted, to try to get some sleep.

But though she lay wearily upon her quilt, she couldn’t sleep. An odd sense of excitement took hold of her emotions, and suddenly she sat up, aroused and intrigued.

Instinctively she went to her mirror. Holding the crystal on her dressing table, she saw her own image first, and then she concentrated on setting her mind free.

Immediately she espied that handsome elven face, the visage she had not looked upon for nearly eight months. Her heart leaped into her throat and she stifled a gasp. It was Kith-Kanan.

His hair flew back from his face, as though tossed by a strong wind. She remembered the griffon, only this time, instead of flying away from her, he was returning!

She stared at the mirror, breathless. She should report this to her general immediately. The elven general was returning to his fortress!

Yet at the same time, she sensed a decision deep within her. The return of Kith-Kanan stirred her emotions. He looked magnificent, proud and triumphant. How unlike General Giarna! She knew she would say nothing about what she had seen.

Swiftly, guiltily, she placed the mirror back inside of its velvet-lined case. Almost slamming the engraved ivory lid in her haste, she hid the object deep within her wardrobe trunk and returned to her bed.

Suzine had barely stretched out, still tense with excitement, when a gust of wind brushed across her face. She sensed that the flap of her tent had opened, though she could see nothing in the heavy darkness.

Instantly she felt fear. Her elven guards would stand firm against any illicit intruder, but there was one they would not stop—did not dare stop—for he held their fates in his hands.

Giarna came to her then and touched her. She felt his touch like a physical assault, a hurt that would leave no scar that could be seen. How she hated him! She despised everything that he stood for. He was the master slayer. She hated the way he used her, used everyone around him. But now she could bear her hatred because of the knowledge of a blond-haired elf and his proud flying steed—knowledge which, even as General Giarna took her, she found solace in, knowledge that was hers alone.

Kith-Kanan guided Arcuballis through the pitch-dark skies, seeking the lanterns of Sithelbec. He had passed over the thousands of campfires that marked the position of the human army, so he knew that the elven stronghold lay close before him. He needed to find the fortress before daylight so that the humans wouldn’t learn of his return to the plains.

There! A light gleamed in the darkness. And another!

He urged Arcuballis downward, and the griffon swept into a shallow dive. They circled once and saw three lights arranged in a perfect triangle, glimmering on the rooftop. That was the sign, the signal he had ordered Parnigar to use to guide him back to the barracks.

Indeed, as the griffon spread his wings to set them gently atop the tower, he saw his trusted second-in-command holding one of the lights. The other lantern-bearers were his old teacher, Kencathedrus, and the steadfast Kagonesti elf known as White-lock.

The two officers saluted smartly and then clasped their commander warmly.

“By the gods, sir, it’s good to see you again!” said Parnigar gruffly.

“It is a pleasure and a relief. We’ve been terribly worried.” Kencathedrus couldn’t help but sound a little stern.

“I have a good excuse. Now let’s get me and Arcuballis out of sight before first light. I don’t want the troops to know I’ve returned—not yet, in any event.” The officers looked at him curiously but held their questions in check while arrangements were made with a stable master to secure Arcuballis in an enclosed stall. Meanwhile, Kith-Kanan, concealed by a flowing, heavy robe, slipped into Kencathedrus’s chamber and awaited the two elven warriors. They joined him just as dawn was beginning to lighten the eastern horizon. Kith-Kanan told them of the quest for the griffons, describing the regiment of flying troops and the coming of the dwarves and detailing his battle plans.

“Two weeks, then?” asked Parnigar, scarcely able to contain his excitement.

“Indeed, my friend—after all this time.” Kith-Kanan understood what these elves had been through. His own ordeals had been far from cheery. Yet how difficult it must have been for these dynamic warriors to spend the winter and the spring and the first few weeks of summer cooped up within the fortress.

“Fresh regiments are on the march to Sithelbec. The Windriders will leave in a few days, making their way westward. The dwarves of Thorbardin, too, are preparing to move into position.”

“But you wish your own presence to remain secret?” asked Kencathedrus.

“Until we’re ready to attack. I don’t want the enemy to suspect any changes in our defenses. When the attack develops, I want it to be the biggest surprise they’ve ever had.”

“Hopefully the last surprise,” growled Parnigar.

“I’ll stay here for a week, then fly west at night to arrange the rendezvous with the forces arriving from Silvanost. When I return, we’ll attack. Until then, conduct your defenses as you have in the past. Just don’t allow them to gain a breach.”

“These old walls have held well,” Parnigar noted. “The humans have tried to assault them several times and always we drove them back over the heaped bodies of their dead.”

“The spring storms, in fact, did us more harm than all the human attacks,” Kencathedrus added.

“I flew through some of them,” Kith-Kanan said. “And I heard Dunbarth speak of them.”

“Hail crushed two of the barns. We lost a lot of our livestock.” Kencathedrus recounted the damage. “And a pair of tornadoes swept past, doing some damage to the outer wall.”

Parnigar chuckled grimly. “Some damage to the wooden wall—and a lot of damage to the human tents!”

“True. The destruction outside the walls was even worse than within. I have never seen weather so violent.”

“It happens every year, more or less,” Parnigar, the more experienced plainsman, explained. “Though this spring was a little fiercer than most. Old elves tell of a storm three hundred years ago when a hundred cyclones came roaring in from the west and tore up every farm within a thousand miles.” Kith-Kanan shook his head, trying to imagine such a thing. It even dwarfed war! He turned his attention to other matters. “How about the size of the human army? Have they been able to replace their losses? Has it grown or diminished?”

“As near as we can tell—” Parnigar started to answer, but Kith-Kanan’s former teacher cut him off.

“There’s one addition they’ve had, it shames me to admit!” Kencathedrus barked. Parnigar nodded sorrowfully as the captain of the Silvanesti continued.

“Elves! From the woods! It seems they’re content to serve an army of human invaders, caring naught that they wage war against their own kingdom!” The elf, born and bred amid the towers of Silvanost, couldn’t understand such base treachery.

“I have heard this, to my surprise. Why are they party to this?” Kith-Kanan asked Parnigar.

The Wildrunner shrugged. “Some of them resent the taxes levied upon them by a far-off capital, with the debtors taken for servitude in the Clan Oakleaf mines. Others feel that trade with the humans is a good thing and opens opportunities for their children that they didn’t have before. There are thousands of elves who feel little if any loyalty to the throne.”

“Nevertheless, it is gravely disturbing,” Kith-Kanan sighed. The problem vexed him, but he saw no solution at the present.

“You’ll need some rest,” noted Kencathedrus. “In the meantime, we’ll tend to the details.”

“Of course!” Parnigar echoed.

“I knew that I could count on you!” Kith-Kanan declared, feeling overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude. “May the future bring us the victory and the freedom that we have worked so hard for!”

He took the officers up on their offer of a private bunk and enjoyed the feel of a mattress beneath his body for the first time in several weeks. There was little more he could do at the moment, and he fell into a luxurious slumber that lasted for more than twelve hours.

22

The mouth of the coal mine gaped like the maw of some insatiable beast, hungry for the bodies of the soot-blackened miners who trudged wearily between the shoring timbers to disappear into the darkness within. They marched in a long file, more than a hundred of them, guarded by a dozen whip-wielding overseers.

Sithas and Lord Quimant stood atop the steep slope that led down into the quarry. The noise from below pounded their ears. Immediately below them, a slave-powered conveyor belt carried chunks of crushed ore from a pit, where other slaves smashed the rock with picks and hammers, to the bellowing ovens of the smelting plant. There more laborers shoveled coal from huge black piles into the roaring heat of the furnaces. Beyond the smelting sheds rose the smoke-spewing stacks of the weapon smiths, where raw, hot steel was pounded into razor-edged armaments.

Some of the prisoners wore chain shackles at their ankles. “Those are the ones who have tried to escape,” Lord Quimant explained. Most simply marched along, not needing any physical restraint, for they had been broken as slaves in a deeper, more permanent sense. Each of these trudged, eyes cast downward, almost tripping over the one ahead of him in the line.

“Most of them become quite docile,” the lord continued, “after a year or two of labor. The guards encourage this. A slave who cooperates and works hard is generally left alone, while those who show rebelliousness or a reluctance to work are ... disciplined.”

One of the overseers cracked his whip against the back of a slave about to enter the mines. This fellow had lagged behind, opening a gap between himself and the worker in front of him. At the flick of the lash, he cried out in pain and stumbled forward. Even from his height, Sithas saw the red welt spread across the slave’s back.

In his haste, the slave stumbled, then crawled pathetically to his feet under another flurry of lashes from the guard.

“Watch now. The rest of them will step quite lively.” Indeed, the other slaves did hasten into the black abyss, but Sithas didn’t think such cruelty was warranted.

“Is he a human or an elf?” wondered the Speaker.

“Who-oh, the tardy one?” Quimant shrugged. “They get so covered with dust that I can’t really tell. Not that it makes much difference. We treat everybody the same here.”

“Is that wise?” Sithas was more disturbed than he thought he would be about the brutality he saw here.

Lord Quimant had attempted to dissuade Sithas from visiting the Clan Oakleaf estates and mines, yet the Speaker had been determined to take the three-day coach ride to Quimant’s family’s holdings. Now he began to wonder if perhaps Lord Quimant had been right to want to spare him the sight. He had too many disturbing reservations about the Oakleaf mines. Yet at the same time, he had to admit he needed the steel that came from these mines and the blades that were cast by the nearby smithies.

“Actually, it’s the humans who give us the most trouble. After all, the elves are here for ten or twenty years, whatever the sentence happens to be for their crime. They know they must suffer that time, and then they’ll be free.” Indeed, the Speaker of the Stars had sentenced a number of citizens of Silvanost to such labor—for failure to pay taxes, violence or theft against a fellow elf, smuggling, and other serious transgressions. The whole issue had seemed a good deal simpler in the city, when he could simply dismiss the offending elf and rarely, if ever, think of him again.

“So this is their miserable fate,” he said quietly. Quimant continued. “The humans, you know, are here for life—of course, a foreshortened life, in any event. And you know how reckless they are anyway. Yes, indeed, humans are the ones who give us the most problems. The elves, if anything, help to keep them in line. We encourage their little acts of spying on one another.”

“Where do all the humans come from?” inquired Sithas. “Surely they haven’t all been sentenced by elven courts.”

“Oh, of course not! These are mostly brigands and villains, nomads who live to the north. They trouble the elves and kender of the settled lands, so we capture them and set them to work here.”

Quimant shook his head, thinking before he continued. “Imagine—a paltry four or five decades to grow up, experience romance, try to make a success of your life, and leave children behind you! It’s amazing they do so well, when you consider what little time they have to work with!”

“Let’s go back to the manor,” said Sithas, suddenly very weary of the harsh spectacle before him. Quimant had arranged for a splendid banquet after dark, and if they remained here any longer, Sithas was certain that he would lose his appetite.

The ride back to Silvanost seemed to Sithas to take much longer than the trip into the country. Still, he felt relieved to leave the Oakleaf estates behind.

The banquet had been a festive affair. Hermathya, the pride of Oakleaf, and her son Vanesti had been the stars of the evening. The affair lasted far into the night, yet Quimant and Sithas made an early start for the city on the following morning. Hermathya and the boy remained behind, intending to visit the clanhold for a month or two.

The first two days of the trip had seemed to drag on forever, and now they had reached the third and final day of the excursion. Sithas and Quimant traveled in the luxurious royal coach. Huge padded couches provided them with room to recline and stretch. Velvet draperies could be closed to block off dust and weather ... or intrusive ears and eyes. Each of the huge wheels rested on its own spring mechanism, smoothing the potholes of the crushed gravel trail. Eight magnificent horses, all large palominos, trotted at the head of the vehicle, their white manes and long fetlocks smoothly combed. Metal trim of pure gold outlined the shape of the enclosed cabin, which was large enough to hold eight passengers.

The two lords traveled with an escort of one hundred elven riders. Four archers, in addition to their driver, rode atop the cabin, out of sight and hearing of the pair of elves within.

Sithas sat shrouded in gloom. His mind would not focus. He considered all the progress that had been made toward a counterattack. The training of the Windriders was nearly complete. In a few days, they would fly west to begin their part in Kith-Kanan’s great attack. The final rank of elven infantry—four thousand elves of Silvanost and the nearby clanholds—had already departed. They should reach the vicinity of Sithelbec at the same time as the Windriders. Even these prospects did not brighten his mood. He imagined the satisfying picture of the dwarven ambassador Than-Kar captured and brought to the Speaker of the Stars in chains, but that prospect only reminded him of the prisoners of the Oakleaf mines.

Slave pits! With elven slaves! He accepted the fact that the mines were necessary. Without them, the Silvanesti wouldn’t be able to produce the vast supply of arms and weapons needed by Kith-Kanan’s army. True, there were good stockpiles of weapons, but a few weeks of intensive fighting could deplete those reserves with shocking speed.

“I wonder,” he said, surprising himself and Quimant by speaking aloud.

“What if we found another source of labor?”

The lord blinked at the Speaker in surprise. “But how? Where?”

“Listen to this.” Sithas began to envision a solution, speaking his thoughts as they occurred to him. “Kith-Kanan still needs reinforcements on the ground. By Gilean, we were only able to send him four thousand troops this summer! And that left the capital practically empty of able-bodied males.”

“If Your Majesty will remember, I cautioned against such a number. The city itself is laid bare. . .”

“I still have my palace guard—a thousand elves of the House Protectorate, their lives pledged to the throne.” Sithas continued. “We will form the slaves—the elven slaves—from your mines into a new company. Swear them to the Wildrunners for the duration of the war, their sentences commuted to military duty.”

“They number a thousand or more,” Quimant admitted cautiously. “They are hardened and tough. It’s perhaps true that they would make a formidable force. But you can’t close down the mines!”

“We will replace them with human prisoners captured on the battlefield!”

“We have no prisoners!”

“But Kith’s counterattack begins in less than two weeks’ time. He’ll break the siege and rout the humans, and he’s bound to take many of them as captives.” Unless Kith’s plan is a failure, he thought. Sithas wouldn’t allow himself to consider that possibility.

“It may just work,” Quimant noted, with a reluctant nod. “Indeed, if his attack is a great success, we might actually increase the number of, ah ... laborers. Production could improve. We could open new mines!” He warmed to the potential of the plan.

“It’s settled, then,” Sithas agreed, feeling a great sense of relief.

“What about Than-Kar, Excellency?” inquired Quimant after several more miles of verdant woodlands slipped by.

“It will be time for retribution soon.” Sithas paused. “You know that we intercepted his spy with a message detailing the formation of the Windriders?”

“True, but we never discovered who the message was intended for.”

“It was being carried west. It was sent to the Ergoth general, I’m certain.” Sithas was convinced that the Theiwar had joined with the humans in a bid for dominance of the dwarven nation. “I’ll keep Than-Kar in suspense until Kith is ready to attack, so he doesn’t find out that we’re onto his treachery until it’s too late for him to send another warning to the west.”

“A fine trap!” Quimant imagined the scene. “Surround the dwarves in their barracks with your guard, disarm them before they can organize, and like magic, you have him as your prisoner.”

“It’s too bad I promised to return him to King Hal-Waith,” noted Sithas. “I’d like nothing better than to send him to your coal mines.” Suddenly they leaned toward the front of the cabin as the coach slowed. They heard the coachman calling out to the horses as he hauled back on the reins.

“Driver? What’s the delay?” inquired the Speaker, leaning out the window. He saw a rider—an elf, wearing the breastplate of the House Protectorate—galloping toward them from the front of the column.

The elf wasn’t a member of the escort, Sithas realized. He saw the foam-flecked state of the horse and the dusty, bedraggled condition of the rider, and knew that the fellow must have come a long way.

“Your Majesty!” cried the elven horseman, reining in and practically falling out of the saddle beside the speaker’s carriage door. “The city—there’s trouble!

It’s the dwarves!”

“What happened?”

“We kept a watch over them as you ordered. This morning, before dawn, they suddenly burst out of the inns where they were quartered. They took the guards by surprise, killed them, and headed for the docks!”

“Killed?” Sithas was appalled—and furious. “How many?”

“Two dozen of the House Protectorate,” replied the messenger. “We’ve thrown every soldier in the city into the fray, but when I left six hours ago they were slowly fighting their way to the riverbank.”

“They need boats,” guessed Quimant. “They’re making a break for the west.”

“They sniffed out my trap,” groaned Sithas. The prospect of Than-Kar escaping the city worried him, mostly because he feared the dwarf would somehow be able to warn the humans about the Windriders.

“Can the house guards hold until we get there?” demanded the Speaker.

“I don’t know.”

“Dwarves hate the water,” observed Quimant. “They won’t try a crossing at night.”

“We can’t take that chance. Come in here,” he ordered the rider, throwing open the

coach door. “Driver, to the city! As fast as you can get us there!” The gilded carriage and its escort of a hundred mounted elves thundered toward distant Silvanost, raising a wide plume of dust. * * * * *

“They’ve made it to the river, and even now they seize boats along the wharf!” Tamanier Ambrodel greeted Sithas on the Avenue of Commerce, the wide roadway that paralleled the city’s riverfront.

“Open the royal arsenal. Have every elf who can wield a sword follow me to the river!”

“They’re already there. The battle has continued all day.” The royal procession had arrived in the city with perhaps two hours of light remaining. Sithas leaped from the coach and took the reins of a horse that had been saddled for him on Tamanier’s orders. He quickly donned a chain mail shirt and hefted the light steel shield that bore the crest symbolizing the House of Silvanos.

In the meantime, the riders from his escort had dismounted, readying for conflict.

“They’ve barricaded themselves into two blocks of warehouses and taverns, right at the waterfront. It seems they’re having some difficulties getting their boats rigged,” explained the lord chamberlain.

“How many have we lost?” asked the speaker.

“Nearly fifty killed, most in the first few hours of the fight. Since then we’ve been content to keep them bottled up until you got here.”

“Good. Let’s root them out now.”

Surprisingly, that thought gave him a sense of grim satisfaction. “Follow me!” Sithas cried, turning the prancing stallion down the wide Avenue of Commerce. The elves of his guard followed him. He inspected detachments that held positions down several streets that led toward the wharf. Just beyond these companies, Sithas could see hastily erected wooden barricades. He imagined the white, wide eyes of Theiwar dwarves peering between the gaps of these crude defenses.

“They’re there,” a sergeant assured Sithas. “They don’t show themselves until we attack. Then they give a good accounting of themselves. Our archers have picked off more than a few of them.”

“Good. Attack when you hear the trumpets.”

Sithas himself led the band of his personal guard toward White Rose Lane before leading them down a narrow thoroughfare that was the most direct route to the waterfront.

As he had suspected, the dwarves were prepared to meet them here as well. He saw several large fishing boats lashed to the wharf, while bands of dwarves wrestled several more into place. A sturdy line of dwarves blocked the street before him, arrayed four deep, armed with crossbows, swords, and stubby dwarven pikes. A barrier of barrels, planks, and huge coils of rope stood before them.

Behind these, Sithas saw the dwarven ambassador himself. Than-Kar, squinting in the uncomfortable glow of afternoon sunlight, cursed and shouted at his guards as they tried to pull the largest of the boats against the quay.

“Charge!” Sithas cried, his voice hoarse. “Break them where they stand!” Three trumpeters blared his command. A roar arose from the elves gathered along the nearby streets and lanes. Sithas spurred his charger forward. A piece of paving stone had worked its way loose over many winters of frost and springtimes of rain. Now it lay on White Rose Lane, looking for all the world like the rest of the securely cemented stones that made up the smooth surface of the street.

But when the right forehoof of Sithas’s mount came to rest for a fraction of a second upon it, the treacherous stone skidded away, twisting the hoof of the charging horse. Bones snapped in the animal’s leg, and it collapsed with a shriek of pain, hurling the Speaker of the Stars from the saddle. At the same time, a full volley of steel-tipped cross-bow quarrels whistled through the air, whirring over Sithas’s head. He took no note of the missiles as he crashed headlong into the roadway. His sword blade snapped in his hand, and his face exploded in pain. Groaning, he struggled to rise.

The elves of the royal guard, seeing their ruler collapse before them and not knowing that his fall had been caused by a loose paving stone, cried out in fury and rage. They charged forward, swords raised, and began to clash with the dwarves who blocked their path. Steel rang on steel, and shouts of agony and triumph echoed from the surrounding buildings.

Sithas felt gentle hands on his shoulders. Though he could barely move, someone turned him onto his back. With a shock, the Speaker of the Stars looked up to see that the sky had become a haze of red smoke. Then a kerchief dabbed at his head and cool water washed his brow. His eyes cleared, and he saw the anxious faces of several of his veteran guards. The red haze, he realized, had been caused by the blood that still spurted from the deep gashes on his forehead and cheeks.

“The fight,” he gasped, forcing his lips and tongue to move. “How does the fight go?”

“The dwarves stand firm,” grunted an elf, cold fury apparent in his voice. Sithas recognized the fellow as Lashio, a longtime sergeant-major who had been one of his father’s guards.

“Go! I’ll be all right! Break them! They must not escape!” Lashio needed no urging. Seizing his sword, he sprang toward the melee.

“Don’t try to move, Excellency. I’ve sent for the clerics!” A nervous young trooper tried to dab at Sithas’s wounds, but the Speaker angrily brushed the fellow’s ministrations away.

Sitting up, Sithas tried to ignore the throbbing in his head. He looked at the hilt of his shattered weapon, still clutched in his bleeding hand. In fury, he tossed the ruined piece away.

“Give me your sword!” he barked at the guardsman.

“B-But, Excellency . . . please, you’re hurt!”

“Are you in the habit of disobeying orders?” Sithas snarled.

“No, sir!” The young elf bit his lip but passed his weapon, hilt first, to the Speaker of the Stars without further delay.

Unsteadily Sithas climbed to his feet. The throbbing in his head pounded into a crescendo, and he had to grit his teeth to prevent himself from crying out in pain. The din of the battle raging nearby was nothing compared to the pain inside his head.

His unfortunate horse lay beside him, moaning and kicking. From the grotesque angle of its foreleg, Sithas knew that the animal was beyond saving. Deliberately he cut its throat with the sword, watching sadly as its lifeblood spurted across the pavement, splattering his boots.

Slowly his head began to clear, as if the shock of the horse’s death penetrated the haze of his own wounds. He looked down the narrow lane and saw the mass of his royal guard, still pressing against the line of Than-Kar’s bodyguards. Sithas realized that he could do nothing in that direction. Instead, he looked up the street and saw a nearby tavern, the Thorn of the White Rose. The melee in the street raged just beyond its doors. Sithas remembered the place. It was a large establishment, with sleeping rooms and kitchen as well as the typical great room of a riverfront tavern. Instinctively he knew that it would suit his purpose.

He started to hurry toward the door, shouting to those members of his guard who were in the back of the fight, unable to reach the dwarves because of the press of their comrades and the narrow confines of the lane.

“Follow me!” he called, pushing open the door. Several dozen of his guardsmen, led by Lashio, turned to answer his call.

The startled patrons of the bar, all of whom were standing at the windows to watch the fight in the street, turned in astonishment as their blood-streaked ruler stumbled in. Sithas paid them no note, instead leading his small company past the startled bartender, through the kitchen, and out into the alley behind the place.

A lone dwarf stood several paces away, apparently guarding this route of approach. He raised his steel battle-axe and shouted a hoarse cry of alarm. It was the last sound he made as the Speaker of the Stars lunged at him, easily dodging the heavy blow of his axe to run him through.

Immediately Sithas and his small band raced from the alley onto the docks. The dwarves fought to reach their boats as bands of the royal guardsmen surged onto the waterfront from other nearby streets and alleys. A black-bearded dwarf confronted Sithas. The elf saw that his attacker wore a breastplate and helm of black steel, but it was his eyes that caught Sithas’s attention: wide and vacant, like the huge white circles of a madman, pure Theiwar.

Snarling his frustration—for he saw Than-Kar, behind this dwarf, scrambling into one of the boats—Sithas charged recklessly forward.

But this foe proved far more adept than the Speaker’s previous opponent. The Theiwar’s keen-edged battle-axe bashed Sithas’s longsword aside, and only a desperate roll to the side saved the elf from losing his right forearm. He bounced to his feet in time to ward off a second blow, and for a few moments, the two combatants poked and stabbed ineffectively, each searching for an opening.

Sithas thrust again, grimly pleased to see panic flash in the Theiwar’s otherwise emotionless eyes. Only a desperate twist to the side, one that dropped the dwarf to his knees for a moment, saved him from the elf’s deadly steel. With surprising quickness, however, the dwarf sprang to his feet and parried Sithas’s next blow.

Then the elf had to ward off several hard slashes as the dwarf drove him backward for several steps. Sithas caught his heel on a coil of rope and tripped, but recovered in time to parry a savage blow. Steel rang against steel, but his strong arm held firm.

Then, behind the black-armored warrior, the dwarven ambassador raised his head and gave a sharp call. The dwarves on the dock immediately fell back toward the boats, and this gave Sithas his opening.

The elf reached down and grasped the coil of rope. With a grunt of exertion, he hurled it at the carefully retreating Theiwar. The dwarf raised his axe to knock the snakelike strands aside, and Sithas darted forward. His blade penetrated the dwarf’s skin at the throat, just above his heavy breastplate. With a gurgling cry of pain, the warrior stumbled, his wildly staring eyes growing cold and vacant.

As his fallen foe slumped to the docks, Sithas leaped over the body, racing toward the boat where Than-Kar frantically gestured to his guards. The Speaker of the Stars reached the edge of the quay as the craft began to drift into the river. For a moment, he considered leaping after it. A second look at the boat full of dwarves changed his mind. Such a leap would accomplish nothing but his own death. Instead, he could only watch in dismay as the Theiwar dwarf and his bodyguards, propelled by a timely breeze, made their way smoothly to the far bank of the Thon-Thalas River and the road to the west beyond.

23

Kith-Kanan remained in Sithelbec for a week, keeping within the small officer’s cabin for the whole time. He met with Parnigar, Kencathedrus, and other of his trusted officers. All were cautioned to secrecy on their leader’s plan. Indeed, Kith made a point of asking Parnigar to keep the news from his wife, who was human.

Kith had plenty of time to rest as well, but his sleep was troubled by recurring dreams. Often in the past he had dreamed of Anaya, the lost love of his life, and more recently the alluring vision of Hermathya had haunted him, often banishing Anaya from his thoughts.

Now, since he had come to Sithelbec, a third woman intruded herself in his dreams—the human woman who had saved him from General Giarna when he had been captured. The trio of females waged a silent but forceful war in his subconscious. Consequently his periods of true sleep were few in number. Finally the week was over, and in the middle of a dark night, he left the fortress upon the back of Arcuballis. This time his flight was short, a mere fifteen miles to the east. He made for the wide clearing, surrounded by a dense ring of forest, that he had established.

He was pleased when the Windriders, under the young, capable Captain Hallus, arrived on schedule. Four thousand elves of Silvanost had also camped here, providing him with substantial reinforcement. Sithas left fresh orders and flew back to the fortress before darkness broke. Few realized he had ever been gone.

It only remained to see whether Dunbarth and his dwarves would fulfill their part of the bargain, but Kith-Kanan had few worries on this score. One more day had to pass before their deadline.

Kencathedrus and Parnigar had done their work well. Kith-Kanan emerged from the captain’s room at sunset to find the fortress of Sithelbec alive with tension and subdued excitement. Troops cleaned their weapons or oiled their armor. The elven horsemen fed and saddled their mounts, preparing for the sortie that was coming. Archers checked their bowstrings and gathered stores of extra arrows beside their positions.

Kith-Kanan walked among them, stopping to clap a warrior on the shoulder here or to ask a quiet question there. Word of his return spread through the fortress, and the activities of the Wildrunners took on a dramatic degree of purpose and determination.

Rumors spread like smoke on the wind. The Wildrunners would make a grand attack! An elven army gathered on the plains beyond the fortress! The morale of the human army had crumbled. They would be routed if faced with a vigorous sortie!

Kith-Kanan made no attempt to dispute these rumors.

Indeed, his tight-lipped demeanor served to heighten the tension and anticipation among his troops. The long siege, barely a month short of a year, had brought the Wildrunners to such a state that they would willingly risk their lives to end the confinement.

The general made his way to the high tower of the fortress. Darkness still shrouded the plains, and the elves burned no lamps, even within the walls. Their nightvision allowed them to move around and organize without illumination.

At the base of the tall structure, Kith found Parnigar, waiting as he had been ordered to, with a young elf. The latter didn’t wear the accoutrements of the warrior, but instead was wrapped in a soft cloth robe. He wore doeskin boots, no helmet, and his eyes were bright as Kith-Kanan approached.

“This is Anakardain,” introduced Parnigar. The young elf saluted crisply, and Kith-Kanan acknowledged the gesture, signaling Anakardain to relax.

“Has Captain Parnigar informed you of my needs?” he inquired quickly.

“Indeed, General.” Anakardain nodded enthusiastically. “I am honored to offer my humble skills in this task.”

“Good. Let’s get to the top of the tower. Captain?” Kith turned back to Parnigar.

“Yes, sir?”

“Have Arcuballis brought to the tower top. When I need to mount, I won’t have time to come down to the stables.”

“Of course!” Parnigar turned to get the griffon, while the two elves entered the base of the tower and made their way up the long, winding stairway to the top. Anakardain, Kith sensed, wanted to ask a hundred questions, but he remained silent, which Kith-Kanan greatly appreciated at this particular moment.

They emerged onto the high tower’s parapet with the sky, still dark, looming overhead. They could see a red glow where the crimson moon, Lunitari, had just set over the western horizon. The white moon, Solinari, was a thin crescent in the east. The only other illumination above them came from millions of stars, while it seemed that an equal number of campfires burned in the great ring of the human army surrounding them.

The fortress of Sithelbec was a dark sprawl around them. The stars boded well, Kith-Kanan thought. It was important that they have a clear day for the implementation of his plan.

“This is where you desire my spell?” inquired Anakardain, finally breaking the silence.

“Yes—to the limits of your range!”

“It will be seen for twenty miles,” promised the young mage. A shape, rising through the air, emerged from the darkness, and Anakardain flinched backward nervously as Arcuballis came to rest on the parapet beside them. Kith chuckled, easing the young elf’s tension as he took the griffon’s bridle and led him onto the high platform.

Other elves, including Parnigar and a small detachment of archers, joined them. One of the troopers carried a shining trumpet, and even through the darkness, the instrument seemed to radiate a golden sheen. A faint glimmer of rosy sky marked the eastern horizon by now, and they watched as it gradually extended over their heads. One by one the stars winked out of sight, overtaken by the greater brightness of the sun.

Now Kith-Kanan could look down and see the fortress come alive around him. The Wildrunner cavalry, three hundred proud elves, gathered before the huge wooden gates that provided the main entrance and egress from the fort. Those gates had not been opened in eleven months.

Behind the riders, companies of elven infantry gathered in a long column. Some of these collected in the alleys and passages leading to the main avenue, for there wasn’t enough open space for all of the troops, some ten thousand in number, to form up before the gates. The infantry included units of pike and longbow, plus many with sword and shield. The elves stood or paced restlessly. The plans for the attack had been made carefully. Kencathedrus himself rode a prancing charger before the gates. Though the proud veteran had wished to ride forth with the first wave of cavalry, Kith-Kanan had ordered him to remain behind until the infantry joined the fight.

This way, Kencathedrus would be able to direct each unit to begin its charge, and Kith hoped they would avoid a great traffic jam at the gates themselves. The next hour was the longest of Kith-Kanan’s life. All of the pieces were in place, all the plans had been laid. All that they could do now was to wait, and this was perhaps the most difficult task of all.

The sun, with agonizing slowness, reached the eastern horizon and slowly crept upward into the sky. The long shadow of the high tower stretched across the closest section of the human camp west of the fortress. As the sun climbed, it dazzled everyone—humans and elves alike—with its fiery brilliance. The general studied the human camp. Wide, muddy avenues stretched among great blocks of tents. Huge pastures, beyond the fringes of the tents, held thousands of horses. Closer to the fortress walls, a ring of ditches, trenches, and walls of wooden spikes had been erected. More piles of logs had been gathered at the fringes of the camp, dragged from the nearest forests, some ten miles away, and collected for a variety of uses.

These siege towers had been constructed over the winter. Though the humans preferred to let hunger and confinement do their work for them, obviously their patience had begun to wear thin. These great wooden structures had many portals from which archers could shower their missiles over Sithelbec’s walls. Huge wheels supported the towers, and Kith knew that eventually they would rumble forward to try to take the fortress by storm. Only the high cost of such an attack had stayed the human hand thus far. Signs of activity began to dot the human camp as breakfast fires were lit and wagons of provisions, pulled by draft horses, struggled along the muddy lanes. The sun crested the wall of the fortress. The elves could count on the fact that the humans to the west would be blinded by that bright orb. The time, Kith-Kanan knew, had finally come.

“Now!”

The general barked that one word, and the trumpeter instantly raised his horn to his lips. The loud bray of the call rang from atop the tower, blaring stridently across the fortress and ringing harshly against the ears of the slowly awakening human army.

A deep rumble shook the fortress as gatesmen released the great stone counterweights and the massive fortress gates swung open with startling swiftness. Immediately the elven riders kicked their steeds, startling the horses into explosive bursts of speed. Shouts and cries of excitement and encouragement whooped through the air as the riders surged forth. Still the trumpet brayed its command, and now the elven infantry rushed from the gates, emerging from the dust cloud raised by the stampeding horses. Kencathedrus, his lively mount prancing with excitement, indicated with his sword each company of foot soldiers, and, in turn, they followed but a pace or two behind the unit that rushed before.

In the camp of the humans, the surprise was almost palpable, jerking men from breakfast idylls, or for those who had had duty during the night, from sleep. Eleven months of placid siege-making had had the inevitable effect of lessening readiness and building complacency. Now the peace of a warm summer’s morning exploded with the brash violence of war.

The cavalry led the elven charge while the companies of foot soldiers spread into lines and advanced behind the horsemen. The lead horses reached the ditch the humans had excavated around the fortress and charged through the obstacle. Properly manned, it would have been a formidable barrier, but the elven lances pierced the few humans who stood up to challenge them as the horses charged up the steep dirt sides.

The elven lancers thundered through the ditch and then smoothly spread their column into a broad line. Lances lowered, they charged into a block of tents, spearing and trampling any humans who dared oppose them. Trumpet calls echoed from the companies of the Ergothian Army, but to the elven commander, the tones held a frantic, hysterical quality that accurately reflected the confusion sweeping through the vast body of men. A group of swordsmen gathered, advancing shield-to-shield into the face of the thundering cavalry.

The elven horses kicked and bucked. Riders stabbed with their lances. Some of the wooden shafts splintered as their tips met the hard steel of human shields, but others drove the sharp points between the shields into soft human flesh beyond. One powerful elf thrust his lance forward so hard that it penetrated a shield, sticking the soldier beyond into the ground like an insect might be pinned to a board for display.

That rider, like so many others, drew his sword following the loss of his lance. The tight ranks of horse, crowded in among the tangle of tents and supply wagons, inevitably broke into smaller bands, and a dozen skirmishes raged through the camp.

Elven riders hacked and chopped around them as the humans scrambled to put up a defense. A rider decapitated one foe while his horse trampled another. Three humans rushed at his shield side, and he bashed one of them to the ground. Whirling, the horse reared and kicked, knocking another of the men off his feet. As the steed’s forefeet fell, the elf’s sword, in a lightning stroke, caught the remaining footman in the throat. With a gurgling gasp, he fell, already forgotten as his killer looked for another target.

There was no shortage of victims amid that vast and teeming camp. Finally the humans started to gather with some sense of cohesion. Swordsmen collected in units of two or three hundred, giving the horsemen wide berth until they could face them in disciplined ranks. Other humans, the herdsmen, gathered the horses from the pastures and hastened to saddle them. It would be some minutes before human cavalry could respond to the attack, however. Archers, in groups of a dozen or more, started to send their deadly missiles into the elven riders. Fortunately the horses moved so quickly and the camp around them was so disordered that this fire had little effect. Bucking, plunging horses trampled some of the canvas tents and kicked the coals from the numerous fires among the wreckage. Soon equipment, garb, and tents began to smolder, and yellow flames licked upward from much of the ruined camp.

“Where is that witch?” demanded General Giarna, practically spitting his anger. He spouted questions, orders, and demands at a panicked group of officers “Quickly! Get the horses saddled! Organize archers north and south of the breach! Alert the knights! Gods curse your slowness!” Beside him, Kalawax, the Theiwar commander, watched shrewdly. “This was unexpected,” he murmured.

“Perhaps. It will also be a disaster for the elves. They have given me the opportunity I have so long desired, to meet them in the open field!” Kalawax said nothing. He merely studied the human leader, his Theiwar eyes narrowed to slits. Even so, the whites showed abnormally large to either side of his pupils.

Suzine was forgotten for the moment.

“General! General!” A mud-splattered swordsman lurched through the crowd of officers and collapsed to his knees. “We attacked the elven line at the ditch, but they stopped us! My men, all killed! Only—”

Further words choked away as the general’s black-gloved hand seized the gagging messenger. Giarna squeezed, and there was the sound of bones snapping.

Casting the corpse aside, General Giarna fixed each of his officers with a black, penetrating gaze. To a man, they were terrified to the core.

“Move!” barked the commander.

The officers scattered, each of them racing to obey.

More trumpets blared, and companies of humans swarmed from across the vast encampment, charging toward the elves who stood in a semicircle before the fortress gates. The companies of Wildrunner infantry, led by Kencathedrus, met the first of these attackers with shields and swords. The clash of metal and screaming of the wounded added to the cacophony.

The humans around the fort still outnumbered the elves by ten to one, and Kith-Kanan had only committed a quarter of the defenders to this initial sortie. Nevertheless, small bands of humans acquitted themselves well, hurling their bodies against the shredding blades of the elves.

“Stand firm there!” shouted Kencathedrus, urging his horse into a gap where two elves had just fallen.

The captain maneuvered his steed into the breach while his blade struck down two men who tried to force their way past him. Swords smashed against shields. Men and elves slipped in the mud and the blood. Now the ditch served as a defensive line for two of the elven companies. Cursing and slashing, the humans charged into the muddy trough, only to groan and bleed and die beneath the swords of the elves.

Elven archers showered the human troops with a deadly rain of steel-tipped hail. The ditch became a killing ground as panicked men turned to flee, tangling themselves among the fresh troops that the human commanders were casting into the fray.

Beyond the ditch, the elven cavalry of three hundred riders plunged and raced among thirty thousand humans. But more and more fires erupted, sending clouds of black smoke wafting across the field, choking noses and throats and blocking vision.

Greedy flames licked at the wall of one tent, and suddenly the blaze crackled upward. Wreckage fell inward, revealing several rows of neat casks, the cooking and lamp oil for this contingent of the human army. One of the casks began to blaze, and hot oil cascaded across the other barrels. A rush like a hot, dry wind surged from the tent, followed by a dull thud of sound. Fiery oil sprayed outward. A cloud of hellfire mushroomed into the sky, wreathed in black smoke.

Instantly the inferno spread to neighboring tents. A hundred men, doused by the liquid death, screamed and shrieked for long moments before they dropped, looking like charred wood.

From his vantage on the tower, Kith-Kanan watched the battle rage through the camp. Though chaos reigned on the field, he could see that the sortie had affected only a relatively small portion of the human camp. The enemy had begun to recover from the surprise attack, and fresh regiments surged against the elven horsemen, threatening to cut them off from any possible retreat.

“Sound the recall—now!” Kith-Kanan barked.

The trumpeter blared the signal even as Kith finished his command. The notes rang across the field, and the elven riders immediately turned back toward the gates.

At the ditch, Kencathedrus and his men stood firm. A thousand human bodies filled the trench, and there wasn’t an elven blade that didn’t drip with gore. The infantry opened a gap in their line for the riders to thunder through as an increasing rain of arrows held the humans at bay.

Even as this was happening, Kith turned his eyes to the south, looking along the horizon for some sign that the next phase of his strategy could begin. The time was ripe.

There! He saw a row of banners fluttering above the gray, and soon he discerned movement.

“The dwarves of Thorbardin!” he cried, pointing.

The dwarves came on in a broad line, trotting as fast as their stocky legs could carry them. A throaty roar burst from their throats, and the legion of Thorbardin hastened into a charge.

The humans were pressing the elven forces at the gates of Sithelbec. From his vantage, Kith-Kanan watched with grim satisfaction as his Wildrunners managed to beat back attack after attack. To the south, some of the humans had now realized the threat lumbering forward against their backs.

“Dwarves!” The cry raced through the human camp, quickly reaching General Giarna. Kalawax, beside him, gaped in astonishment, his already pallid complexion growing even more pale.

“The dwarven legion! Hylar, from Thorbardin!” More reports, from the throats of hoarse messengers, were brought back to the general in his command tent.

“They drive against the south!”

“I knew nothing of this!” squawked Kalawax, unconsciously backing away from Giarna. The dwarf’s earlier aplomb had vanished with this new turn of events. “My spies have been tricked. Our agents in Silvanost have worked hard to prevent this!”

“You have failed!”

Giarna’s words carried with them a sentence of doom. His eyes, black and yawning, seemed to rage for a moment with a deep, parasitic fire. His fist lashed out, pummeling the Theiwar on the side of his head. But this was no ordinary blow. It connected squarely, and the dwarf’s thick skull erupted. The general’s other hand seized the corpse by the neck. His face flushed, and his eyes flared with an insane pleasure. In another moment, he cast the Theiwar—now a dried and shriveled husk—to the side. Kalawax was already forgotten as the general absently wiped his hand on his cloak, focusing on the problem of how to stem this most recent attack.

“For Thorbardin! For the king!”

A few human companies of swordsmen raced to block the surging waves of dwarves, but most of the Army of Ergoth was preoccupied with the elven sortie. Dunbarth Ironthumb led the way. A man raised a sword, holding his shield across his chest, and then chopped savagely downward at the dwarven commander. Dunbarth’s battle-axe, held high, deflected the blow with a ringing clash. In the next instant, the dwarven veteran slashed his weapon through a vicious swing, cutting underneath the human’s shield. The man shrieked in agony as the axe sliced open his belly.

“Charge! Full speed! To the tents!”

Dunbarth barked the commands, and the dwarves renewed their advance. Those humans who tried to stand in the way quickly perished, while others dropped their weapons and fled. Some of these escaped, while others fell beneath the volley of crossbow fire leveled by the dwarven missile troops. Dunbarth led a detachment along a row of tents, chopping at the guy lines of each, watching the rude shelters collapse like wilting flowers. They came upon a supply compound, where great pots of stew had been abandoned, still simmering. Seizing everything flammable, they tossed weapons and harnesses, even carts and wagons, onto the coals. Quickly searing tongues of flame licked upward, igniting the equipment and marking the spot of the dwarven advance.

“Onward!” cried Dunbarth, and again the dwarves moved toward Sithelbec. The human troops didn’t react quickly to this new threat. Small bands perished as the stocky Hylar swept around them, and the waves of the attackers gave little time for the humans to muster a stand. The sheer numbers of the defenders gave the humans an edge. Soon Dunbarth found some brave human contesting every forward step he tried to take. His axe rose and fell, and many an Ergothian veteran perished beneath that gory blade. But more and more of the humans stepped up.

“Stand firm!” cried Ironthumb.

Now the dwarves hacked and chopped in tight formation in the middle of a devastated human camp. A thousand men rushed against their left, met by the sharp clunk of crossbows and a volley of steel-tipped death. Hundreds fell, pierced by the missiles, and others turned to flee.

Swords met axes in five thousand duels to the death. The dwarves fought with courage and discipline, holding their ranks tight. They maimed and killed with brutal efficiency, but they were well matched by the courageous humans who pressed them in such great numbers.

But it was those numbers that would have to tell the tale. Slowly Dunbarth’s force contracted into a great ring. Amid the cries and the clanging and the shouting and screaming, Dunbarth slowly realized the tactical situation. The dwarven legion was surrounded.

24

Kith-Kanan watched the courageous stand of the dwarves with a lump of admiration burning in his throat. Dunbarth’s magnificent charge had taken the pressure off the elves at the gate, and now Kencathedrus’s force could surge forward again, expanding their perimeter against the distracted humans. Attacked from two sides, the Army of Ergoth wavered and twitched like a huge but indecisive beast set upon by a swarm of stinging pests. Great masses of human foot soldiers stood idle, waiting for orders while their comrades perished in desperate battles a few hundred yards away.

But now a sense of purpose seemed to settle across the humans. The tens of thousands of horses had been saddled. The riders, especially the light horsemen of General Giarna’s northern wing, had reached their steeds and were ready for battle.

Unlike the humans on foot, however, the cavalry did not race piecemeal into the fray, setting themselves up for defeat. Instead, they collected into companies and regiments and finally into massive columns. The riders surged around the outside of the melee, gathering and positioning themselves for one crucial charge.

The elves of the sortie force could save themselves by a quick return to the fortress. The dwarves, however, were isolated amid the wreckage of the south camp and had no such fallback. Lacking pikes, they would be virtually helpless against the onslaught Giarna was almost ready to unleash.

Kith-Kanan turned to Anakardain, who had remained at his side throughout the battle. “Now! Give the signal!” commanded the general. The elven mage pointed a finger toward the sky. “Exceriate! Pyros, lofti!” he cried.

Instantly a crackling shaft of blue light erupted from his pointing hand, hissing upward amid a trail of sparks. Even in the bright sunlight, the bolt of magic stood out clearly, visible to all on the battlefield. And, Kith devoutly hoped, to those who waited some twenty miles away—waited for this very signal. For several minutes after the flare, the battle raged, unchecked. Nor was there any sign that might alter this, though Kith-Kanan kept his eyes glued to the eastern horizon. The sun hung midway between that horizon and the zenith of noon, though it seemed impossible that the battle had raged for barely three hours.

Now the human cavalry galloped from the pastures, an impressive mass of horsemen under the tight control of a skilled commander. They surged around the trampled encampment, veering toward the embattled dwarves. Finally Kith-Kanan, still staring to the east, saw what he had been looking for: a line of tiny winged figures, a hundred feet above the ground and heading fast in this direction. Sunlight glinted from shiny steel helms and sparkled from deadly lance heads.

“The charge—sound it again!” barked the elven general to his trumpeter. Another blare sounded across the field, and for a moment, the momentum of battle paused. Humans looked upward in surprise. Their officers, in particular, were puzzled by the command. The elven and dwarven troops, hard pressed now, seemed to be in no position to execute an offensive.

“Again—the charge!”

Again and again the call brayed forth.

Kith-Kanan watched the Windriders as the soaring line approached nearer and nearer, within two or three miles of the field. The elven general picked up his shield and checked to see that his sword hung loosely in his scabbard.

“Take over the command,” Kith told Parnigar, at the same time grabbing the reins of Arcuballis and stepping to the griffon’s side.

The Wildrunner captain stared at his general. “Surely you’re not going out there! We need you here. Your plan is working! Don’t jeopardize it now!” Kith shook his head, casting off the arguments. “The plan has a life of its own now. If it fails, sound the recall and bring the elves back into the fortress. Otherwise, continue to give them support from the archers on the walls—and be ready to bring the rest of them out if the humans start to break.”

“But, General!” Parnigar’s next objections died away as Kith-Kanan swung into his high leather saddle. Obviously he would not be deterred from his actions.

“Good luck to you,” finished the captain, grimly looking over the field where thousands of humans still surged in attack.

“Luck has been with us so far,” Kith replied. “May she stay with us just for a little longer.”

Now the Windriders, still flying in their long, thin ranks, slowly nosed into shallow dives. They hadn’t yet been sighted by the humans on the ground, who had no reason to expect attack from the air.

Again the bugler brayed his charge. Arcuballis sprang from the tower, his powerful wings carrying Kith-Kanan into line with the other Windriders. At this cue, the griffons shrieked their harsh challenge, a jarring noise that cut cleanly through the chaos of the battle. Talons extended, beaks gaping, they howled downward from the heavens.

The whole pulse of the battle ceased as the shocking vision swept lower. Men, elves, and dwarves alike gaped upward.

Cries of alarm and terror swept through the human ranks. Units of men who had until now maneuvered in tightly disciplined formations suddenly scattered into uncontrolled mobs. The shadows of the griffons passed across the field, and again the beasts shrilled their savage war cries.

If the reaction by the humans to the sudden attack was dramatic and pronounced, the effect upon the horses was profound. At the first sound of the approaching griffons, all cohesion vanished from the cavalry units. Horses bucked and pitched, whinnied and shrieked.

The Windriders passed over the entire battlefield a hundred feet above the ground. Occasionally a human archer had the presence of mind to launch an arrow upward, but these missiles always trailed their targets by great distances before arcing back to earth, to land as often as not among the human ranks. Elven archers along the walls of Sithelbec showered their stunned opponents with renewed volleys as their captains sensed the battle’s decisive moment.

“Again—once back, and we’ll take to the ground,” Kith-Kanan cried, edging Arcuballis into a dive. The unit followed, and each griffon tucked its left wing, diving steeply and turning sharply to the left.

The creatures swung through a hundred-and-eighty-degree arc, losing about sixty feet of height. Now the cries of the elven riders joined those of the griffons as they raced over the human army. Bugles blared from the fortress walls and towers and from the ranks of the sortie force. Throaty dwarven cheers erupted from Dunbarth’s veterans, and the legion of Thorbardin quickly broke its defensive position, charging into the panicked humans surrounding them.

The elves of the sortie force, too, charged through the ditch into the humans who had been pressing them with such intensity. Columns of elves burst from the open gates of Sithelbec, reinforcing their comrades.

Kith-Kanan selected a level field, a wide area of pasture between the western and southern human camps, for a landing site and brought the griffons to earth there. His first target would be the brigade of armored knights that were struggling to regain control of their mounts.

The griffons barely slowed as they tucked their wings and sprang forward, propelled by their powerful leonine hindquarters while their deadly foreclaws reached forward as if eager to shred the flesh of the foe.

The single line of griffons, their riders still holding their lances forward, ripped into the bucking, heaving mass of panicked horses. No charge of plate-mailed knights ever struck with such killing force. Lances punctured armor and horses fell, gored by the claws of the savage griffons, and then the elven swords struck home.

Kith-Kanan buried his lance in the chest of a black-armored knight as the human’s horse bucked in terror. He couldn’t see the man’s face behind the closed shield of his dark helmet, but the steel tip of his weapon erupted from his victim’s back in a shower of blood. Arcuballis sprang, his claws tearing away the saddle of the heavy war-horse as the terrified animal crashed to the ground.

His lance torn away by the force of the charge, Kith drew his sword. A knight plunged nearby, desperately struggling to control his mount; Kith-Kanan stabbed him in the back. Another armored warrior, on foot and wielding a massive morning star, swung the spiked ball at Arcuballis. The griffon reared back and then pounced on the man, tearing out his throat with a single powerful strike of his beak.

A chaotic jumble of shrieks and howls and moans surged around Kith, mingling with the pounding of hooves and the clash of sharp steel against plate mail. But even the superior armor of the humans couldn’t save them. With no control over their mounts, they could do little more than hold on and try to escape the maelstrom of death. Very few of them made it.

“To the air!” Kith cried, spurring Arcuballis into a powerful upward leap. Shattered knights covered the ground below them while the thundering mass of their horses stampeded right through a line of human archers who couldn’t get out of the way in time. All around Kith-Kanan, the other griffons sprang into the air, and with regal grace, the Windriders once again soared across the field. Slowly they climbed, forming again into a long line, flying abreast. As the griffon’s wings carried him upward, Kith looked across the field. In the distance rolled great clouds of dust. Some twenty thousand horses had already stampeded away from the battle, and these plumes marked their paths of flight. Human infantry fled from the tight ranks of the dwarven legion, while the elven reinforcements drove terrified humans into panic. Many of the enemy had dropped their weapons and thrown up their hands, pleading and begging for mercy.

Kith-Kanan veered toward the Ergothian foot soldiers, the line of Windriders following in precise formation. He took up his bow and carefully nocked an arrow. He let the missile fly, watching it dart downward and penetrate the shoulder of one of the foot soldiers. The fellow toppled forward, his helmet rolling in the mud, and Kith-Kanan got a jolt when he espied the long blond hair cascading around his body. Other arrows found targets among this company as the griffons passed overhead, and the general noticed with surprise these other men, too, all had blond hair.

One of them turned and launched an arrow upward, and a nearby griffon shrieked, pierced through the wing. The animal’s limb collapsed, and the beast tipped suddenly to the side, plummeting to the earth among the Ergothian archers. The rider died from the force of the crash, but this didn’t stop the soldiers from hacking and chopping at his body until only a gory mess remained.

Kith shot another arrow, and a third, watching grimly as each took the life of one of these blond savages. Only when the humans had been riddled with losses did the Windriders consider the death of their comrade avenged. As they soared away, Kith-Kanan was struck by the narrow face of one of his victims, lying face-up in the mud. Diving lower, he saw a pointed ear and blond hair. Elves! His own people fighting for the Army of the Emperor of Ergoth!

Growling in anger, he urged Arcuballis upward, the rest of his company following. With terrible purpose, he looked across the mud-and-blood-strewn field for an appropriate target.

He saw one group of horsemen, perhaps two thousand strong, that had rallied around a streaming silver banner—the ensign of General Giarna himself, Kith knew. Instantly he veered toward this unit as the general was urging his reluctant troops into a renewed charge. The griffons flew low, no more than ten feet off the ground, and the creatures shrilled their coming. Unaffected by the curses of their commanding general, the human riders allowed their horses to turn and scatter, unwilling to face the griffon cavalry. Kith-Kanan urged Arcuballis onward, seeking the general himself, but the man had vanished among the dusty, panicked ranks of his troops. He might already have been trampled to death, for all Kith-Kanan knew.

The Windriders flew across the field, landing and attacking here and there, wherever a pocket of the human army seemed willing to make a stand. Often the mere appearance of the savage creatures was enough to break a formation, while occasionally they crashed into the defending ranks and the griffons tore with talons and beaks while their elven riders chopped and hacked with their lethal weapons.

The elves on the ground and their dwarven allies raced across the field, encouraging the total rout of the human army. More and more of the humans held up their hands in surrender as they concluded that escape was impossible. Many of the horses were stampeded, riderless, away from the field, lost to the army for the foreseeable future. A great, streaming column of refugees—once a proud army but now a mass of panicked, terrified, and defeated men—choked the few roads and scarred new trails across the prairie grasslands. When the Windriders finally came to earth before the gates of Sithelbec, they landed only because there were no more enemies left to fight. Huge columns of human prisoners, guarded by the watchful eyes of elven archers and dwarven axemen, stood listlessly along the walls of the fortress. Amidst the smoke and chaos of the camps, detachments of the Wildrunners poked and searched, uncovering more prisoners and marking stockpiles of supplies.

“General, come quickly!” Kith-Kanan looked up at the cry, seeing a young captain approaching. The elf’s face was pale, and he gestured toward a place on the field.

“What is it?” Sensing the urgency in the young soldier’s request, Kith hurried behind him. In moments, he knew the reason for the officer’s demeanor. He found Kencathedrus lying among the bodies of a dozen humans. The old elf’s body bled from numerous ugly wounds.

“We beat them today,” gasped Kith-Kanan’s former teacher and weaponmaster, managing a weak smile.

“Didn’t we, though?” The general took his friend’s head in his hands, looking toward the nearby officer. “Get the cleric!” he hissed.

“He’s been here,” objected Kencathedrus. Kith-Kanan could read the result in the wounded elf’s eyes: There was nothing that even a cleric could do.

“I’ve lived to see this day. It makes my life as a warrior complete. The war is all but won. You must pursue them now. Don’t let them escape!” Kencathedrus gripped Kith’s arm with surprising strength, nearly raising himself up from the ground. “Promise me,” he gasped. “You will not let them escape!”

“I promise!” whispered the general. He cradled Kencathedrus’s head for several minutes, even though he knew that he was dead.

A messenger—a Kagonesti scout in full face paint—trotted up to Kith-Kanan to make a report. “General, we have reports of enemy activity in the north camp.”

That part of the huge circular human camp had seen the least fighting. Kith nodded at the scout and gently laid Kencathedrus’s body on the ground. He rose and called to a nearby sergeant-major.

“Take three companies and sweep through the north camp,” he ordered. He remembered, too, that General Giarna and his horsemen had escaped in that direction. He gestured to several of his Windriders. “Follow me.”

25

Suzine watched the battle in her glass. Here in her tent in the northern camp, she did not feel the brunt of battle so heavily. Though the men here had raced to the fight and suffered the same fate as the rest of the army, the camp itself had not yet experienced the wholesale destruction that marked the south and west camps of the humans.

She had seen the Windriders soaring from the east, had watched their inexorable and unsuspected approach against her general’s army, and she had smiled. Her face and her body still burned from Giarna’s assaults, and her loathing for him had crystallized into hatred.

Thus when the elf commander had led the attack that sundered the army around her, she had felt a sense of joy, not dismay, as if Kith-Kanan had flown with no other purpose than to effect her own personal rescue. Calmly she had watched the battle rage, following the elven general in her mirror. When he led the charge against Giarna’s remnant of the great cavalry brigades, she had held her breath, part of her hoping he might come upon the human general and strike him dead, another part wishing that Giarna would simply flee and leave the rewards of victory to the elven forces. Even when her elven guards fled from their posts, she had taken no note.

Now she heard marching outside her tent as the elves of the sortie force moved through the north camp looking for human survivors. Suzine heard some men surrender, pleading for their lives; she heard others attack with taunts and curses, and finally screams and moans as they fell. The battle coursed around her, washing the tent city in smoke and flame and pain and blood. But still Suzine remained within her tent, her eyes fixed upon the golden-haired figure in her mirror. She watched Kith-Kanan, mounted upon the leaping, clawing figure of his great beast, slash and cut his way through the humans who tried to challenge him. She saw that the elven attack moved steadily closer to her. Now the Wildrunners fought a mere thousand yards to the south of her tent.

“Come to me, my warrior!” she breathed.

She willed him to come to her with all of her heart, watching in her glass as Kith-Kanan hacked the head from a burly human axeman.

“I am here!” Suzine desperately wanted Kith-Kanan to sense her presence, her desire, her—did she dare believe it—love.

The opening of her tent flap interrupted her reverie. It was him! It must be!

Her heart afire, she whirled, and only when she saw Giarna standing there did brutal reality shatter her illusion. As for Giarna, he looked past her violently, at the image of the elven commander in the mirror.

The human general stepped toward her, his face a mask of fury, more like a beast’s than a man’s. It sent an icy blade of fear into the pit of Suzine’s stomach.

When Giarna reached her and seized her arms, each in one bone-crushing hand, that blade of fear twisted and slashed within her. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think; she could only stare into those wide, maddened eyes, the lips flecked with spittle, stretched taut to reveal teeth that seemed to hunger for her soul.

“You betrayed me!” he snarled, throwing her roughly to the ground. “Where did these flying beasts come from? How long have they been waiting, ready to strike?” He knelt and punched her roughly, splitting her lip. He glanced at the mirror on the table. Now, her concentration broken, the image of Kith-Kanan had faded, but the truth of her obsession had been revealed.

The general’s black-gauntleted hand pulled a dagger from his belt, and he pressed it between her breasts, the point puncturing her gown and then brushing the skin beneath it.

“No,” he said, at the very moment when she expected to die. “That would be too merciful, too cheap a price for your treachery.”

He stood and glared down at her. Every instinct of her body told her to scramble to her feet, to fight him or to run! But his black eyes seemed to hypnotize her to the ground, and she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“Up, slut!” he growled, kicking her sharply in the ribs and then reaching down to seize her long red hair. He pulled her to her knees, and she winced, closing her eyes, expecting another blow to her face.

Then she sensed a change within the small confines of the tent, a sudden wash of air against her face . . . the increase in the sounds of battle beyond . .

.

Giarna cast her aside, and she looked at the door to the tent. There he was!

Kith-Kanan stood in the opened tent flap. Beyond him lay bodies on the ground, and she caught a glimpse of men and elves hacking against each other with swords and axes. The tents in her line of view smoked and smoldered, some spewing orange flame.

The golden-haired elf stepped boldly into the darkened tent, his steel longsword extended before him. He spoke harshly, his blade and his words directed at the human general.

“Surrender, human, or die!” Kith-Kanan, obviously not recognizing the commander of the great human army in the semidarkness of the tent, took another step toward Giarna.

The human general, his dagger still in his hand and his body trembling with rage, stared soundlessly at the elf for a moment. Kith-Kanan squinted and crouched slightly, ready for close-quarter fighting. As he studied his opponent, recognition dawned, memories of that day of captivity a year before, when the battle had gone against the elves.

“It’s you,” the elf whispered.

“And it is fitting that you come to me now,” replied the human general, his voice a strangled, triumphant snarl. “You will not live to enjoy the fruits of your victory!”

In a flash of motion, the man’s hand whipped upward. In the same instant, he reversed his grip on the dagger, flipping its hilt from his hand and catching the tip of the foot-long blade in his fingertips.

“Look out!” Suzine screamed, suddenly finding her voice. Giarna’s hand lashed out, flinging the knife toward Kith’s throat. Like a silver streak, the blade flashed through the air, true toward its mark. Kith-Kanan couldn’t evade the throw, but he could parry it. His wrist twitched, a barely perceptible movement that swung the tip of his sword through an arc of perhaps six inches. That was enough; the longsword hit the knife with a sharp clink of metal, and the smaller blade flipped over the elf’s shoulder to strike the tent wall and fall harmlessly to the ground. Suzine scrambled away from Giarna as the man drew his sword and rushed toward the elf. Kith-Kanan, eight inches shorter and perhaps a hundred pounds lighter than the human general, met the charge squarely. The two blades clashed with a force that rang like cymbals in the confines of the tent. The elf took one step back to absorb the momentum of the attack, but Giarna was stopped in his tracks.

The two combatants circled, each totally focused on the other, looking for the slightest hint, the twitch of an eye or a minute shifting of a shoulder, that would warn the other of an intended lunge.

They slashed at each other, then darted out of the way and just as quickly slashed again. Neither bore a shield. Consummate swordsmen both, they worked their way around the spacious tent. Kith-Kanan tipped a dressing screen in front of the human. The man leaped over it. Giarna drove the elf backward, hoping to trip him on Suzine’s cot. Kith sensed the threat and sprang to the rear, clearing the obstacle and then darting to the side, driving against the human’s flank.

Again the man parried, and the two warriors continued to circle, each conserving his strength, neither showing the weariness of the long day’s battle. Where Giarna’s face was a mask of twisted hatred, however, the elf’s remained an image of cool, studied detachment. The man struck with power that the elf could not hope to match, so Kith-Kanan had to rely on skill and control for each parry, each lightning thrust of his own.

The woman glanced back and forth, her eyes wide with horror alternating with hope.

They were too equal in skill, she saw, and given this fact, Giarna’s size and strength inevitably would vanquish the elf. An increasing sense of desperation marked Kith’s parries and attacks. Once he stumbled and Suzine screamed. Only Giarna’s heavy boot, as it caught in a fold of her rug, prevented his blade from tearing through the elf’s heart.

Nevertheless, he managed to cut a slash in Kith’s side, and the elf grunted in pain as he regained his balance. Suzine saw a tightness in his expression that hadn’t been there before. It could be called the beginnings of fear. Once he glanced toward the door, as if he hoped for assistance from that quarter. Only when he did that did Suzine notice the sudden quiet that seemed to have descended across the camp. The fight outside had moved beyond them. Kith-Kanan had been left behind.

She saw Giarna drive Kith backward with a series of ringing blows, and she knew she had to do something! Kith sprang forward, desperation apparent in each of his swinging slashes. Giarna ducked away from each blow, giving ground as he searched for the fatal opening.

There! The elf overreached himself, leaning too far forward in an attempt to draw blood from his elusive target.

Giarna’s sword came up, its tip glistening from Kith’s moist blood, held for just a moment as the elf followed through with his reckless swing. Kith tried to twist away, raising his left arm so that he would take the wound in his shoulder, but Giarna simply raised that deadly spike and drove it toward the elf’s neck.

The sound of shattering glass was the next thing that Suzine knew. She didn’t understand how she came to hold the frame of her mirror in her hands, didn’t comprehend the shards of glass scattered across the rug. More glass, she saw, glinted upon Giarna’s shoulders. Blood spurted from long slashes in his scalp.

The human leader staggered, reeling from the blow to his head, as Kith-Kanan twisted away. He looked at the woman, gratitude shining in his eyes—or was that something deeper, more profound, more lasting, that she wished to see there?

The elf’s blade came up, poised to strike, as Giarna shook his head and cursed, wiping the blood from his eyes. His back to the door, he stared at the elf and the woman, his face once again distorted by his monstrous hatred. Kith-Kanan stepped to Suzine’s side, sensing the man’s hatred and protecting her from any sudden attack.

But there would be no attack. Groggy, bleeding, surrounded by enemies, Giarna made a more pragmatic decision. With one last burning look at the pair, he turned and darted through the tent flap.

Kith-Kanan started forward but stopped when he felt Suzine’s hand on his arm.

“Wait’” she said softly. She touched the bloodstained tunic at his side, where Giarna’s sword had cut him.

“You’re hurt. Here, let me tend your wound.”

The weariness of the great battle finally arose within Kith-Kanan as he lay upon the bed. For the first time in more months than he cared to remember, he felt a gentle sensation of peace.

The war almost ceased to exist for Kith-Kanan. It became distant and unreal. His wound wasn’t serious, and the woman who tended him was not only beautiful but also had been haunting his dreams for weeks.

As the Army of Ergoth scattered, Parnigar took command of the pursuit, skillfully massing the Wildrunners to attack concentrations of the enemy wherever they could be found. Kith-Kanan was left to recuperate and paid little attention to his lieutenant’s reports of progress.

They all knew the humans were beaten. It would be a matter of weeks, perhaps months now, before they were driven back across the border of their own empire. Wind-riders sailed over the plains, dwarves and elves marched, and elven cavalry galloped at will.

And back at the nearly abandoned fortress, the commander of this great army was falling in love.

26

Already the cool winds presaging autumn swirled northward from the Courrain Ocean, causing the trees of the great forestlands to discard their leaves and prepare for the long dormancy of winter. The elves of Silvanesti felt the winds, too, throughout the towns and estates and even in the great capital of Silvanost.

The city was alive with the great jubilation of victory. Word from the front told of the rout of the human army. Kith-Kanan’s army was on the offensive. The elven general had sent columns of Wildrunners marching swiftly across the plains, fighting the pockets of human resistance.

The dwarven league did its part against the humans, while the Windriders swept down from the skies, shattering the once-proud Ergothian regiments, capturing or killing hundreds of humans, and scattering the rest to the four winds. Most bands of desperate survivors sought nothing more than flight back to the borders of Ergoth.

Great camps of human prisoners—tens of thousands—now littered the plains. Many of these Kith-Kanan sent to the east upon the orders of his brother, where the human prisoners were condemned to spend their lives in the Clan Oakleaf mines. Others were assigned to rebuild and strengthen the fortress of Sithelbec and repair the damage to settlements and villages ravaged by two years of war.

These should be the greatest days of my life, Sithas brooded over the reports from his great emerald throne. He was reluctant to leave the Hall of Audience for the brightness of the garden or the city despite the beautiful late afternoon sky.

An hour ago he had ordered his courtiers and nobles to leave him alone. He was disconsolate, despite the most recent missive from Kith-Kanan—borne by a Windrider courier, the news less than a week old—which had continued favorable reports of victory.

Perhaps he would have been relieved to talk to Lord Quimant—no one else seemed to understand the pressures of his office—but that nobleman had left the city more than a week earlier to assist in the administration of the new prisoner slaves at his family’s mines in the north. He had no clear idea when he would return.

Sithas’s mind ran over his brother’s latest communication. Kith reported that the central wing of the Army of Ergoth, which had tried to march home by the shortest and most direct route, had since ceased to exist. The entire force had been eradicated when the Wildrunners gathered and attacked the central wing, causing massive casualties.

There was no longer much of a southern wing, either. Its soldiers had suffered the highest toll in the initial counterattack. And the smaller northern wing, with its thousands of light horsemen and fast-moving infantry under the shrewd General Giarna, had been scattered into fragments that desperately sought refuge among the clumps of forest and rough country that fringed the plains.

Why, then, could Sithas not share in the exultation of the Silvanost citizenry?

Perhaps because reports had been confirmed of Theiwar dwarves joining with the fleeing remnants of Giarna’s force, even though their cousins, the Hylar, fought on the side of the elves. Sithas had no doubt that the Theiwar were led by the treacherous general and ambassador Than-Kar. Such internecine dwarven politics served to further confuse the purposes of this war. Neither was there any doubt now that large numbers of renegade elves fought on the side of Ergoth. Elves and dwarves and humans fighting against elves and dwarves!

Quimant continued to advocate the hiring of human mercenaries to further reinforce Kith-Kanan’s armies. This was a step that Sithas was not prepared to take. And yet . . .

The immediate victory didn’t seem to offer an end to the differences among the elves. Would Silvanesti ever be pure again? Would involvement in this war break down the barriers that separated elvenkind from the rest of Krynn?

Even the name of the war itself, a name he had heard uttered in the streets of the city, even murmured from the lips of polite society, underscored his anguish. Following the summer’s battles and the lists of the dead, it had become the universal sobriquet for the war, too commonly known to be changed even by the decree of the Speaker of the Stars.

The Kinslayer War.

The name left a bitter taste on his tongue, for to Sithas, it represented all that was wrong about the cause they fought against. Blind, misguided elves throwing in their lot with the human enemy—they forfeited their right to any kinship!

More serious to Sithas, in a personal sense, was the nasty rumor now making the rounds of the city, a preposterous allegation. The scurrilous gossip had it that Kith-Kanan himself had taken a human woman for a consort! No one, of course, dared present this news to Sithas directly, but he knew that the others believed and whispered the ludicrous tale.

He had ordered members of the House Protectorate to disguise themselves as workers and artisans and to enter the taverns and inns frequented by the citizens. They were to listen carefully, and if they overheard anyone passing this rumor, the culprit was to be immediately arrested and brought to the palace for questioning.

“Pa-pa?”

The voice brightened his mood as nothing else could. Sithas turned to see Vanesti toddling toward him, carrying—as always—the wooden sword Kith-Kanan had made for him before departing for Sithelbec.

“Come here, you,” the Speaker of the Stars said, kneeling before the throne and throwing wide his arms.

“Pa-pa!” Vanesti, his beaming face framed by long golden curls, hastened his pace and immediately toppled forward, landing on his face.

Sithas scooped the tyke into his arms and held him, patting him on the back until his crying ceased. “There, there. It doesn’t hurt so bad, does it?” he soothed.

“Ow!” objected the youth, rubbing his nose.

Sithas chuckled. Still carrying his son, he started toward the royal door that led to the

Gardens of Astarin. * * * * * Quimant returned two days later and came to see Sithas as the Speaker sat alone in the Hall of Audience.

“Your plan has worked miracles!” reported the lord. If he noticed his ruler’s melancholy air, he didn’t call attention to it. “We have tripled the number of slaves and can work the mines around the clock now. In addition, the freed elves have marched off to the plains. They make a very formidable company indeed!”

“The war may be over by the time they reach the battlefield,” sighed Sithas.

“Perhaps I have simply freed a number of malefactors for nothing.” Quimant shook his head. “I’ve heard the reports. Even though the Wildrunners are pushing the humans westward, I wouldn’t expect a complete end to the war before next summer.”

“Surely you don’t think the Army of Ergoth will reassemble now that the Windriders are pursuing them?”

“Not reassemble, no, but they will break into small bands. Kith-Kanan’s army will find many of them, but not all. Yes, Excellency, I fear we will still have an enemy to contend with a year from now—perhaps even longer.” Sithas cast off the notion as unthinkable. Before the debate proceeded further, however, a guard appeared at the hall’s door.

“What is it?” inquired the Speaker.

“Lashio has captured a fellow, a stonemason, in the city. He was spreading the—er, the tale about General Kith-Kanan.”

Sithas bolted upright in his throne. “Bring him to me! And summon the stablemaster. Tell him to bring a whip!”

“Your Majesty?”

The words came from behind the guard, who stepped aside and let Tamanier Ambrodel enter. The noble elf approached and bowed formally. “May I have a private word with the Speaker?”

“Leave us,” Sithas told the guard. When only Quimant and himself were present, he gestured Tamanier to speak.

“I wish to prevent you from allowing a grave injustice,” Ambrodel began.

“I dispense the justice here. What business is it of yours?” demanded Sithas. Ambrodel flinched at the Speaker’s harsh tone but forged ahead. “I am here at your mother’s request.”

“What is the nature of this ‘injustice’?”

“It concerns your punishment of this elf, this mason. Your mother, as you know, has received letters from Kith-Kanan separate from the official missives he sends to you. It seems that he communicates to her on matters that he does not care to discuss . . . with

others.”

Sithas scowled.

“Kith-Kanan has taken a human woman as his companion. He has written your mother about her. Apparently he is very much smitten.” Sithas sagged backward in the monstrous throne. He wanted to curse at Tamanier Ambrodel, to call him a liar. But he couldn’t. Instead, he had to accept the unthinkable, no matter how nightmarish the knowledge. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. * * * * * Sithas labored for hours over the letter he tried to write to his brother. He attempted a number of beginnings.

Kith-Kanan, my Brother,

I have word from mother of a woman you have taken from the enemy camp. She tells me that the human saved your life. We are grateful, of course.

He could go no further. He wanted to write, Why? Why? Don’t you understand what we’re fighting for? He wanted to ask why victory had come to smell like failure and defeat.

Sithas crumpled up the parchment and hurled it into the fireplace. The realization hit him brutally.

He no longer had anything to say to his brother.

27

The blizzard swept over the iceberg dotted ocean and around the snowswept flanks of the Kharolis Mountains. It roared over the plains, making life a bitter and icy nightmare for the armies of both sides.

Those forces—human, elven, and dwarven—ceased all maneuvers and combat. Wherever the blast caught them, the brigades and regiments of the Wildrunners sought what little shelter they could and made quarters for the winter. Their Ergothian enemies, in even smaller bands, occupied towns, farm outposts, and wilderness camps in a desperate attempt to shelter themselves from nature’s onslaught.

The Windriders, together with a large detachment of the dwarven legion, were more fortunate. Their camp occupied the barns and cabins of a huge farm, abandoned by its human tenants during the rout of the Ergothian Army. Here they found livestock for the griffons and bins of grain from which elven and dwarven cooks prepared a hard bread that, while bland and tough, would sustain the troops for several months.

The rest of Kith-Kanan’s army occupied a multitude of camps, more than forty, across an arc of the plains stretching some five hundred miles. On this brutally cold day, Kith made an inspection of the Windriders’ camp. He pulled his woolen scarf closer about his face. It wouldn’t entirely block the wind, but perhaps it would keep his ears from becoming frostbitten. In a few minutes, he would reach the shelter of the dwarven lodge, where he would meet with Dunbarth. After that, the warm fire of his own house . . . and Suzine.

The Wildrunners had succeeded in driving the remnants of the Ergothian Army hundreds of miles to the west. Throughout the campaign, Suzine had ridden with Kith on his griffon and lain with him in his tent. Zestful and hardy in a way that was unlike elven females, Suzine had adopted his life as her own and made no complaints about fighting conditions or the vicissitudes of weather.

The Army of Ergoth had left thousands of corpses behind on the plains. The bravest of the human warriors had taken shelter in tracts of forestland, where the Windriders couldn’t pursue. Most of their fellows streamed home to Daltigoth. But these stubborn remnants, mostly light horsemen from the northern wing of the Ergothian Army, fought and held out.

Trapped within the forests, the horsemen couldn’t use their strengths of speed and surprise. Out of necessity, the human army began waging a relentless campaign of guerrilla warfare, striking in small groups, then falling back to the woods. Ironically the elves among them had proven particularly adept at organizing and utilizing these scattershot tactics. After months of hard pursuit and small victories in countless skirmishes, Kith-Kanan was preparing for a sweeping attack that might have expelled the hated enemy from the elven lands altogether. The Wildrunner infantry had assembled, ready to drive into the tracts of forest and expunge the Ergothian troops. Elven cavalry and the Windriders would fall upon them after they were forced into the open.

Then the early blows of winter had paralyzed military operations. In his heart, the elven general felt scant disappointment that circumstances would force him to remain in the field at least until spring. He was content in the large, well-heated cottage that he had requisitioned, his due as commander. He was content in the arms of Suzine. How she had changed his life, revitalized him, given him a sense of being that extended beyond the present! It was ironic, he reflected, that it was war between their people that had brought them together.

The long, low shape of the dwarven lodge emerged before him, and he knocked on the heavy wooden door, setting aside thoughts of his woman until later. The portal swung open, and he stepped into the dim, cavelike log house that the dwarves had erected as their winter shelter. The temperature, while warmer than the outside air, was quite a bit cooler than that which was maintained in the elven shelters.

“Come in, General!” boomed Dunbarth, amid a crowd of his veterans gathered around a platform in the middle of the lodge.

Two nearly naked dwarves gasped for breath on the stage before hurling themselves at each other. One of them swiftly picked his opponent up and flipped him over his shoulder, whereupon the dwarven crowd erupted into cheers and boos. More than a few pouches, bulging with gold and silver coins, changed hands.

“At least you don’t lack for diversion,” remarked Kith-Kanan with a smile, settling beside the dwarf commander at a low bench that several other dwarves had swiftly vacated for him.

Dunbarth chuckled. “It’ll do until we can get back to the real war. Here, I’ve had some wine heated for you.”

“Thanks.” Kith took the proffered mug while Dunbarth hefted a foaming tankard of ale. How the dwarves, who marched with a relatively small train of supplies, maintained a supply of the bitter draft was a mystery to Kith, yet every time he visited this winter shelter he found them drinking huge quantities of the stuff.

“And how do our elven comrades weather the storm?” inquired the dwarven commander.

“As well as could be expected. The griffons seem unaffected for the most part, while the Windriders and other elves have sufficient shelter. It could be a long winter.”

“Aye. It could be a long war, too.” Dunbarth made the remark in a lighthearted tone, but Kith-Kanan didn’t think he was joking.

“I don’t think so,” the elf countered. “We have the remnants of the humans trapped to the west. Surely they can’t move any more than we can in the midst of this storm.”

The dwarf nodded in silent agreement, so the elf continued. “As soon as the worst of the winter passes, we’ll head into the attack. It shouldn’t take more than two months to push the whole mass of them off the plains and back within the borders of Ergoth where they belong!”

“I hope you’re right,” replied the dwarven general sincerely. “Yet I’m worried about their commander, this Giarna. He’s a resourceful devil!”

“I can handle Giarna!” Kith’s voice was almost a growl, and Dunbarth looked at him in surprise.

“Any word from your brother?” inquired the dwarf after a moment’s pause.

“Not since the storm set in.”

“Thorbardin is disunited,” reported his companion. “The Theiwar agitate for a withdrawal of dwarven troops, and it seems they might be winning the Daergar Clan over to their side.”

“No wonder, with their own ‘hero’ joining ranks with the Army of Ergoth.” The reports had been confirmed in late autumn: After Sithas had driven him from Silvanost, Than-Kar had delivered his battalion over to General Giarna. The Theiwar dwarves had helped protect the retreating army during the last weeks of the campaign before winter had stopped all action.

“A shameful business, that,” agreed Dunbarth. “The lines of battle may be clear on the field, but in the minds of our people, they begin to grow very hazy indeed.”

“Do you need anything here?” inquired Kith-Kanan.

“You wouldn’t have a hundred bawdy dwarven wenches, would you?” asked Dunbarth with a sly grin. He winked at the elf. “Though perhaps they would merely sap our fighting spirits. One has to be careful, you know!” Kith laughed, suddenly embarrassed about his own circumstances. The presence of Suzine in his house was common knowledge throughout the camp. He felt no shame about that, and he knew his troops liked the human woman and that she returned their obvious affection. Still, the thought of her being regarded as his “bawdy wench” he found disturbing. They talked for a while longer of the pleasures of homecomings and of adventures in more peaceful times. The storm continued unabated, and finally Kith-Kanan remembered that he needed to finish his rounds before returning to his own house. He bade his farewells and continued his inspection of the other elven positions before turning toward his cottage.

His heart rose at the prospect of seeing Suzine again, though he had been gone from her presence for mere hours. He couldn’t bear the thought of this winter camp without her. But he wondered about the men. Did they see her as a “wench” as Dunbarth seemed to? As some sort of camp follower? The thought would not go away.

A bodyguard, an immaculate corporal in the armor of the House Protectorate, threw open the door of his house as he approached. Kith quickly went inside, enjoying the warmth that caressed him as he shook off his snow-covered garb. He passed through the guardroom—once the parlor of the house, but now the garrison for a dozen men-at-arms, those trusted with the life of the army commander. He nodded at the elves, all of whom had snapped to attention, but he quickly passed through the room into the smaller chambers beyond, closing the interior door behind him.

A crackling blaze filled the fireplace before him, and the aroma of sizzling beef teased his nostrils. Suzine came into his arms and he felt completely alive. Everything would wait until the delights of reunion had run their course. Without speaking, they went to the hearth and lay down before the fire. Only afterward did they slowly break the spell of their silence.

“Did you find Arcuballis in the pasture?” Suzine asked, lazily tracing a finger along Kith-Kanan’s bare arm.

“Yes. He seems to prefer the open field to the barn,” the elf replied. “I tried to coax him into a stall, but he stayed outside, weathering the storm.”

“He’s too much like his master,” the human woman said tenderly. Finally she rose and fetched a jug of wine that she had warmed by the fireplace. Huddled together under a bearskin, they each enjoyed a glass.

“It’s odd,” said Kith-Kanan, his mood reflective. “These are the most peaceful times I’ve ever spent, here beside the fire with you.”

“It’s not odd,” replied the woman. “We were meant to know peace together. I’ve seen it, known it, for years.”

Kith didn’t dispute her. She had told him how she used to watch him in the mirror, the enchanted glass that she had crashed over Giarna’s skull to save his life. She carried the broken shards of the glass in a soft leather box. He knew that she had seen the griffons before the battle yet hadn’t told her commander about this crucial fact. Often he had wondered what could have made her take such a risk for one—an enemy!—she had met only once before. Yet as the weeks became months, he had ceased to ask these questions, sensing—as did Suzine—the rightness of their lives together. She brought to him a comfort and serenity that he thought had been gone forever. With her, he felt a completeness that he had never before attained, not with Anaya nor Hermathya.

That she was a human seemed astonishingly irrelevant to Kith. He knew that the folk of the plains, be they elf or dwarf or human, had begun to see the war break the barriers of racial purity that had so long obsessed them. He wondered, for a brief moment, whether the elves of Silvanost would ever be able to appreciate the good humans, people like Suzine.

A schism was growing, he knew, among his folk. It divided the nation just as certainly as it would inevitably divide his brother and himself. Kith-Kanan had made up his mind which side he was on, and in that decision, he knew that he had crossed a line.

This woman with him now, her head resting so softly upon his shoulder, deserved more than to be considered a general’s “bawdy wench.” Perhaps the fumes from the fire wafted too thickly through the room, muddling his thoughts. Or perhaps their isolation here on the far frontiers of the kingdom brought home to Kith the truly important things in his life. In any event, he made up his mind. Slowly he turned, feeling her stir against his side. Sleepily she opened an eye, brushing aside her red hair to smile at him.

“Will you become my wife?” asked the general of the army.

“Of course,” replied his human woman.