The Kinslayer Wars

28

The Kinslayer War spewed blood across the plainslands for nearly forty years. It was a period of long, protracted battles, of vast interludes of retrenchment, of starvation, disease, and death. Savage blizzards froze the armies camped in winter, while fierce storms—lightning, hail, and cyclonic winds—ripped capriciously through the ranks of both sides during the spring season. From the historian’s perspective, there is a dreary sameness to the war. Kith-Kanan’s Wildrunners pursued the humans, attacked them, seemed to wipe them out, and then even more humans took the places of the slain. General Giarna maintained complete control of the Ergothian troops, and though his losses were horrendous, he bore them without regret. The pressure of his sudden attacks chipped away at the elves, while reinforcements balanced out the general’s losses. A stalemate evolved, with the forces of Silvanesti winning every battle, but with the humans always averting complete defeat. Despite this monotonous pattern, the course of the war had several key junctures. The Siege of Sithelbec must be considered a decisive hour. It seemed the last chance for General Giarna to attain an undiluted victory. But the Battle of Sithelbec turned the tide and will always be ranked among the turning points of the history of Krynn.

Throughout, the life of one individual best illustrates the tragedy and the inevitability of the Kinslayer War. This is the human wife of Kith-Kanan, Suzine des Quivalin.

Relative of the great Emperor Quivalin V, as well as his heirs (a total of three Quivalin rulers presided over the war), her presence in the army of her nation’s enemy served to solidify the human resolve. Disowned by her monarch, sentenced in absentia to hang by her former lover, General Giarna, she took to the elven cause with steadfast loyalty.

For over thirty-five years, the greater part of her life, she remained true to her husband, first as his lover and later as his companion and adviser, always as his wife. She was never accepted by the elves of Silvanesti; her husband’s brother never even acknowledged her existence. She bore Kith-Kanan two children, and the half-elves were raised as elves among the clans of the Wildrunners.

Yet the elven army, like its society, changed over the years. Even as human blood entered the royal elven veins, the human presence came to be accepted as a part of the Wildrunner force. The pure racial lines of the eastern elves became irrelevant in the mixed culture of the west. Even as they fought for the cause of Silvanesti, Kith-Kanan’s elves lost the distinction of the war’s purpose as seen by Sithas.

And the battles raged on and seemingly built to an inevitable climax, only to have the elusive moment of decision once again slip out of reach. Beyond these key moments, however, and certainly surpassing them in oddity, was the peculiar end of the war itself . . .

29

The sprig that had once made such a proud sapling now towered over Kith-Kanan, a stalwart oak of some sixty feet in height. He gazed at it but could summon little emotion. He found that the memory of Anaya had faded over the distance of time. Nearly four decades of combat, of battles against the elusive armies of Ergoth, had worn away at his life. It seemed that treasured thoughts of a time before the war had been the first memories to disappear. Mackeli and Anaya might have been acquaintances of a friend, elves he had heard described and seen illustrated but had never actually met.

Even Suzine. He had a hard time now remembering her as she used to be. Her hair, in earlier days lush and fiery red, was now thin and white. Once supple grace had become slow and awkward movement, her once beautiful young body arthritic and stiff. Her sight and hearing had begun to fail. While he, with his elven longevity, was still a young adult, she had become an elderly woman.

He had flown here early this morning, partly in order to avoid her—to avoid all of those who gathered at the forest camp, an hour’s flight by griffon from here, for the war conference. This was the eighth such council between himself and his brother. They met about once every five years. Most of the gatherings occurred, like this one, halfway between Silvanost and Sithelbec. Kith-Kanan couldn’t bear the thought of returning to the elven capital, and Sithas preferred to avoid a journey all the way to the war zone.

These quintennial conferences had begun as grand outings, an opportunity for the general and his family, together with his most trusted captains, to embark on a journey away from the tedious rigors of war. By now, they were anathema to Kith, as predictable in their own way as the battlefield. His brother’s family and retinue had made an art out of shunning the human woman whom Kith-Kanan had married. Suzine was always invited to the banquets and feasts and celebrations. Once there, however, she was pointedly ignored. Some elves, such as his mother, Nirakina, had defied the trend, showing kindness and courtesy to Kith’s wife. Nirakina’s husband of the past thirty years, Tamanier Ambrodel, who came from the plainslands himself, tried to lessen the prejudice that fell upon her.

But Hermathya and Quimant and the others had shown her only contempt, and over the years, Suzine had tired of facing their antagonism. Now she avoided the large gatherings, though she still traveled with Kith-Kanan to the conference site.

Kith looked away from the tree, as if guilty about his thoughts, which now turned to his children. Suzine had borne him two half-elves, and he knew that they should bring him joy.

Ulvian, son of Kith-Kanan! That one, it would seem, was destined to rule some day. Was he not the eldest son of the elven hero who had led his army faithfully for all the years of the Kinslayer War? Despite the rapid growth to adulthood that was a mark of his half-human ancestry, how could he fail to show the wisdom and bravery that had been his father’s traits of survival for all these years? So far, those traits hadn’t been evident. The lad showed a lack of ambition bordering on indolence, and his arrogant and supercilious nature had alienated anyone who had tried to be his friend.

Or Verhanna, his daughter. Blessed image of her mother? She was in danger of becoming, with her constant tantrums and her litany of rude demands, a living reminder of the divisive war that had become a way of life for him and for all of the elven peoples.

The Kinslayer War. How many families had been divided by death or betrayal? No longer was this a war between elves and humans, if it had ever been that. The population of Silvanesti couldn’t support the level of warfare, so now, in addition to the stalwart dwarves, huge companies of human mercenaries fought alongside his Wildrunners. They were well paid for serving the elven standards.

At the same time, many elves, especially the Kagonesti, driven from the nation by the demanding decrees of the Speaker of the Stars, had fled to the human banner. Dwarves, particularly of the Theiwar and Daergar clans, had also enlisted to serve the Emperor of Ergoth.

This was a strange admixture of alliances. How often had elf slain elf, human fought human, or dwarf butchered dwarf? Each battle brought new atrocities, as likely as not visited by fighters of one race against enemies of the same background.

The war, once fought along clear and precise lines, had become an endlessly feeding monster, for the numberless enemy seemed willing to pay any price to win, and the skilled and valiant troops of Kith-Kanan purchased victory after victory on scores of battlefields with the precious coin of their own blood. Yet ultimate victory—a settlement of the war itself—remained elusive. With a sigh, Kith-Kanan rose to his feet and crossed wearily to Arcuballis. He would have to get back to the camp, he knew. The conference was due to begin in an hour. The griffon leaped into the sky while the rider mused sadly about the time when his life had been shadowed by the growth of a tree in the forest.

“We have chased the humans across the plains every summer! We kill a thousand of them, and five thousand come to take their places,” Kith-Kanan loudly complained about the frustrating cycle of events.

Sithas, Lord Quimant, and Tamanier Ambrodel had come from the capital city to attend this council. For his part, Kith-Kanan had brought Parnigar and Dunbarth Ironthumb on his journey across the plains. Other members of their respective parties—including Hermathya, Nirakina, Suzine, and Mari, Parnigar’s newest human wife—now enjoyed the shade of awnings and trees around the fringes of the great meadow where they camped.

Meanwhile, the two delegations engaged in heated discussion within an enclosed tent in the middle of the clearing. Two dozen guards stood, out of earshot, around the shelter.

The most savage of the spring storms were still some weeks away, but a steady drizzle soaked the tent and added to the gray futility of the mood.

“We crush an army in battle, and another army marches at us from another direction. They know they cannot defeat us, yet they keep trying! What kind of creatures are they? If they kill five of my Windriders at the cost of a thousand of their own soldiers, they hail it as a victory!”

Kith-Kanan shook his head, knowing that it was a human victory whenever his griffon cavalry lost even one precious body. The Windriders numbered a bare hundred and fifty stalwart veterans now, scarcely a third of their original number. There were no more griffons; to ride, nor trained elven warriors to mount them. Yet the tide of humans flowing across the plains seemed to grow thicker every year.

“What kind of beings are these that they could spill so much blood, lose so many lives, and still carry forward their war?” Sithas demanded, exasperated. Even after forty years of warfare, the Speaker of the Stars couldn’t fathom the motivations of the humans or their various allies.

“They breed like rabbits,” observed Quimant. “We have no hope of matching their numbers, and our treasury runs dry simply to maintain the troops that we have.”

“Knowing that this is true and doing something about it are two different things,” Sithas retorted.

The council lapsed into glum silence. There was a depressing familiarity to their predicament. The national attrition caused by the war had become readily apparent thirty years earlier.

“The winter, at least, has been mild,” suggested Parnigar, trying to improve their mood. “We lost very few casualties to cold or snow.”

“Yes, but in the past, such winters have given us the heaviest spring storms,” answered Kith-Kanan. “And the summers are always bloody,” he concluded.

“We could send peace feelers to the emperor,” suggested Tamanier Ambrodel. “It may be that Quivalin the Seventh is more amenable than his father or grandfather.”

Parnigar snorted. “He’s been ruler for four years. In that time, we’ve seen, if anything, an increase in the pace of Ergoth’s attacks.! They butcher their prisoners. This past summer, they began poisoning wells wherever they passed. No, Quivalin the Seventh is no peacemonger.”

“Perhaps it is not the emperor’s true will,” suggested Quimant, drawing another snort from Parnigar. “General Giarna has made an empire for himself of the battlefield. He would be reluctant to relinquish it—and what better way to sustain his power than to ensure that the war continues?”

“There is the matter of General Giarna,” grunted Dunbarth, with an uncharacteristic scowl. “He presses forward with every opportunity, more brutal than ever. I don’t think he’d desist even if given the order. War has become his life. It sustains him!”

“Surely after all these years . . .?” Tamanier wondered.

“The man doesn’t age! Our spies tell us he looks the same as he did forty years ago, and he has the vitality of a young man. His own troops hate and fear him, but there are worse ways to ensure the obedience of your subordinates.”

“We have taken the extreme step of sending assassins after him, a brigade comprised of humans and elves both.” Kith related the tale of the assassination attempt. “None survived. From what we have pieced together, they reached Giarna in his tent. His personal security seemed lax. They attacked with daggers and swords but couldn’t even injure him.”

“Surely that’s an exaggeration,” suggested his brother. “If they got that close, how could they not have been successful?”

“General Giarna has survived before, under circumstances where I would have expected him to die. He has been showered with arrows. Though his horse may be slain beneath him, he gets away on foot. He has fought his way out of deadly ambushes, leaving dozens of dead Wildrunners behind him.”

“Something unnatural is at work there,” pronounced Quimant. “It’s dangerous to think of peace with such a creature.”

“It is dangerous to fight such a creature as well,” remarked Parnigar pointedly. Quimant understood the intent of the remark. Parnigar had done nearly a half century of fighting, after all, while Quimant’s family had spent those years raking in a fortune in munitions profits. But the lord coolly ignored the warrior’s provocation.

“We cannot talk of peace, yet,” emphasized Sithas. He turned to his brother.

“We need something that will allow us to bargain from a position of strength.”

“Do you mean to suggest that you’d be willing to bargain?” asked Kith-Kanan, surprised.

Sithas sighed. “You’re right. You’ve all been right, but for years, I’ve refused to believe you. But it has begun to seem inconceivable that we can win a complete victory over the humans. And we cannot maintain this costly war forever!”

“I must inform you,” interjected Dunbarth, clearing his throat. “Though I have stalled my king for several years now, his patience will not last forever. Already many dwarves are agitating for us to return home. You must realize that King Pandelthain is not so suspicious of humans as was King Hal-Waith.” And you, old friend—you deserve the chance to go home, to rest and retire. Kith-Kanan kept that thought to himself. Nevertheless, the changes wrought by age in Dunbarth were more apparent than any that were manifest in the elves. The dwarf’s beard and hair were the color of silver. His once husky shoulders had a frail look to them, as if his body was a mere shell of its former self. The skin of his face was mottled and wrinkled.

Yet his eyes still shined with a merry light and keen perceptiveness. Now, as if he followed Kith’s thoughts, he turned to the elven general and chuckled.

“Tell ’em, young fellow. Tell ’em what we’ve got up our sleeves.” Kith nodded. The time was right.

“We have word that the humans are planning a trap against the Windriders. They will lure the griffons into an archery ambush. We want to amass the Wildrunners, using all the mercenaries, garrison forces, and dwarves—our entire army. We want to come at them from the north, east, and south. If we hit them hard and we keep the advantage of surprise, we’ll achieve the kind of setback that will force them to the bargaining table.”

“But Sithelbec—you’d leave the fortress unscreened?” Sithas asked. In the course of the Kinslayer War, the siege of those high palisades had become an epic tale, and a bustling military city had blossomed around the walls. The place had a tremendous symbolic as well as practical importance to the Silvanesti cause, and a sizable proportion of the Wildrunners were permanently garrisoned there.

“It’s a risk,” Kith-Kanan admitted. “We will move quickly, striking before the humans can learn our intentions. Then the Windriders will act as the bait of the trap, and while the enemy is distracted, we will strike.”

“It’s worth a try,” urged Parnigar, supporting his general’s plan. “We can’t keep chasing shadows year after year!”

“Some shadows are more easily caught,” observed Quimant acidly. “The human women, for example.”

Parnigar leaped to his feet, knocking his chair over backward and lunging toward the lord.

“Enough!” The Speaker of the Stars reached out and pushed the warrior back toward his chair. Even in his rage, Parnigar heeded his ruler.

“Your insulting remark was uncalled for!” barked Kith-Kanan, staring at Quimant.

“True,” Sithas agreed. “But neither would it be invited if you and your officers kept your loyalties a little more clear in your own heads!” Kith-Kanan flushed with anger and frustration. Why did it always come down to this? He glared at Sithas as if his twin was a stranger. A noise at the tent flap pulled their attention away from the conference. Vanesti, Ulvian, and Verhanna, the children of the royal twins, erupted into the tent with impertinent boldness. Hermathya followed.

Kith-Kanan met her eyes and froze, suddenly numb. By the gods, he had forgotten how beautiful she was! Furious and guilty, he nonetheless watched her furtively. She cast him a sideways glance, and as always, he saw the beckoning in her eye that only furthered his pain. Never again, he knew, would he betray his brother. And now there was the matter of his own wife.

“Uncle Kith!” Vanesti irritated his father by running directly to his uncle. The young elf stopped quickly and then pantomimed a formal bow.

“Come here. Stop acting like the court jester!” Kith swept his nephew into an embrace, keenly aware of the eyes of his own children upon him. Ulvian and Verhanna, though younger than Vanesti, had matured much more quickly because of their half-human blood. Already young adults, they looked disdainfully upon such adolescent outbursts of emotion.

Perhaps, too, they sensed the bitter contrast in their relationship with their own uncle. There had never been an “Uncle Sithas” or a “come here, children!” between them. They were half-human and consequently had no place in the Speaker’s royal family.

Perhaps they understood, but they didn’t forgive.

“This reminds me of a final matter for discussion,” Sithas said stiffly. He relaxed when Vanesti left Kith’s side to stand with Ulvian and Verhanna beside the open door flap of the tent.

“Vanesti is due to begin his training in the warrior arts. He has disdained the academies in the city and has prevailed upon me to make this request: Will you take him as your squire?”

For a moment, Kith-Kanan sat back, acutely aware of Vanesti’s hopeful gaze. He couldn’t suppress a surge of affection and pride. He liked the young elf and felt that he would be a good warrior—good at whatever he attempted, for that matter. Yet he couldn’t entirely ignore another feeling.

The proposition reminded him of Ulvian. Kith had sent his son to Parnigar, as squire to that most able soldier. The young half-elf had proven so intractable and shiftless that,

with deep regret, Parnigar had been forced to send him back to his father. The failure had stung Kith-Kanan far more than it had disturbed Ulvian. Yet when he looked at the young form of Vanesti, so much like a younger version of Kith-Kanan himself, he knew what his answer must be. “It would be my honor,” Kith replied seriously. * * * * *

The aging woman watched the image of the elf in the mirror. The glass was cracked and patched, with several slivers missing. It had, after all, been reconstructed from shards. Five years earlier, she had hired a legion of skilled elven artisans to take those broken pieces, guarded by Suzine for years, adding crafts of their own to restore the glass to some measure of its former power.

It seemed that, with the distance that had grown between herself and her husband, she had little left to do in life but observe the course of things around her. The mirror gave her the means to do so, without forcing her to leave her carriage and be exposed to the subtle humiliations of the Silvanesti elves. Suzine flushed as she thought of Hermathya and Quimant, whose cutting remarks had hurt her decades earlier when she had allowed them to penetrate her emotions. Yet even those barbs had been easier to take than the aloof silence of Sithas, her own brother-in-law, who had barely acknowledged her existence!

Of course, there was goodness to be found in elvenkind, too. There was Nirakina, who had always treated her as a daughter, and Tamanier Ambrodel, who had offered friendship. But now age had impaired even those relationships. How could she feel like a daughter to Nirakina when the four centuries old elf-woman seemed like a spry young woman beside the aging Suzine? And her hearing made conversation difficult, so that even Tamanier Ambrodel had to shout his remarks, often repeating them two or three times. She found it less embarrassing to simply avoid these two good souls. So she remained in this enclosed coach that Kith-Kanan had given her. The large vehicle was comfortably appointed, even to the point of containing a soft bed—a bed that was always hers alone.

For what must have been the millionth time, she wondered about the course her life had taken, about the love she had developed for an elf who would inevitably outlive her by centuries. She couldn’t regret that decision. Her years of happiness with Kith-Kanan had been the finest of her life. But those years were gone, and if she didn’t regret her choice of nearly four decades earlier, neither could she bury the unhappiness that was now her constant companion. Her children were no comfort. Ulvian and Verhanna seemed embarrassed by their mother’s humanness and shunned her, pretending to be full-blooded elves insofar as they could. But she felt pity for them as well, for their father had never shown them the affection that would have been due his proper heirs—as if he himself was secretly ashamed of their mixed racial heritage. Now that she was too old to ride a horse, her husband carted her around in this carriage. She felt like so much baggage, a cargo that Kith-Kanan was determined to see properly delivered before he proceeded with the rest of his life. How long could she remain like this? What could she do to change her lot in her waning years?

Her mind drifted to the enemy—to her husband’s enemy and her own. General Giarna frightened her now more than ever before. Often she had observed him in the repaired glass, shocked by the youthful appearance and vigor of the man. She sensed in him the power of something much deeper than she had first suspected.

Often she remembered the way Giarna had slain General Barnet. It was as if he had sucked the life out of him, she remembered thinking. That, she now knew, was exactly what he had done. How many more lives had the Boy General claimed over the years? What was the true cost of his youthfulness?

Her mind and her mirror drifted back to Kith-Kanan. She saw him in the conference. He was close enough to her that she could see him very clearly indeed. The elf’s image grew large in her mirror, and then she looked into his eyes, through his eyes. She stared, as she had learned to do years before, into his subconscious.

She looked past the war, the constant fear that she found within him, to gentler things. She sought the image of his three women, for she was used to seeing the elf women Anaya and Hermathya there. Suzine sought the image of herself—herself as a young woman, alluring and sensual.

That image had grown more difficult to find of late, and this added to her sorrow.

This time she could find no remembrance of herself. Even the spritely Anaya was gone, her image replaced by the picture of a tall, slender tree. Then she came upon Hermathya and sensed the desire in Kith’s mind. It was a new sensation that suddenly caused the mirror to glow, until Suzine turned her face away. The mirror faded into darkness as tears filled her eyes. Slowly, gently, she placed the mirror back into its case. Trying to stem the trembling of her hands, she looked about for her coachman. Kith-Kanan wouldn’t return for several hours, she knew.

When he did, she would be gone.

30

The lord-major-chieftain supreme of Hillrock stretched his brawny arms, acutely aware that his muscles were not so supple as they had once been. Placing a huge hand to his head, he stroked blunt fingers through hair that seemed to grow thinner by the week.

Squinting against the setting sun, he looked about his pastoral community of large one-room dwellings hewn from the rock of this sheltered valley. To the east towered the heights of the Khalkist Mountains, while to the west, the range settled into the flatlands of the Silvanesti plain.

For three decades, he had ruled as lord-major-chieftain supreme, and they had been good years for all of his people. Good years, but past now. Poking his broad tongue against the single tooth that jutted proudly from his lower gum, the lord-major exercised his mind by attempting to ponder the future. A nagging urge tugged at him, desirous of pulling him away from peaceful Hillrock. He couldn’t put his finger on the reasons, but the hill giant who had once been called One-Tooth now felt a need to leave, to strike out across those plains. He was reluctant to answer this compulsion, for he had the feeling that once he left, he would never return. He couldn’t understand this compulsion, but it grew more persistent every day.

Finally the hill giant gathered his wives together, cuffing and cursing them until he had their attention.

“I go away!” he said loudly.

The formalities completed, he hefted his club and started down the valley. Whatever the nature of the longing that drew him to the plains, he knew that he would find its source in an elf who had once been his friend.

The conference broke up in awkward farewells. Only Hermathya displayed emotion, screaming and rebuking Sithas for his decision to send Vanesti to the battlefield. The Speaker of the Stars coolly ignored his wife, and she collapsed into spasms of weeping. She desperately hugged the young elf, to his acute embarrassment, and then retired to her coach for the long journey back to Silvanost.

Few had noted Suzine’s departure late on the previous day. Kith-Kanan was puzzled by her leaving, though he assumed she had reason to return to Sithelbec. In truth, he was also a little relieved. The presence of his human wife put strain on any communication with Sithas, and Suzine’s absence had made the subdued farewell banquet a little easier to endure. Still, it was unlike her to depart so abruptly without advising him, so he couldn’t totally banish his concern. This concern mounted to genuine anxiety when, ten days later, they finally arrived at the fortress and learned that the general’s wife hadn’t been seen. Nor had she sent any message. He dispatched Windriders to comb the plains, seeking a sign of Suzine’s grand coach. However, true to Kith’s prediction, the spring storm season began early, and thunder-storms blanketed the grasslands with hail and torrential rains. Winds howled unchecked across hundreds of miles of prairie. The search became all but impossible and had to be suspended for all intents and purposes.

In the meantime, Kith-Kanan threw himself into the choreography of his great battle plan. The forces of the Wildrunners mustered at Sithelbec, preparing to march westward, where they would hit the human army before General Giarna even realized they had left the region of the fortress. Intelligence about the enemy was scarce and unreliable. Finally Kith called upon the only scout he could count on to make a thorough reconnaissance: Parnigar.

“Take two dozen riders and get as close as you can,” ordered Kith-Kanan, knowing full well that he was asking his old friend to place his life at grave risk. But he had no real alternative.

If the veteran resented the difficult order, he didn’t let on. “I’ll try to get out and back quickly,” he replied. “We want to get the campaign off to an early start.”

“Agreed,” Kith noted. “And be careful. I’d rather see you come back emptyhanded than not come back at all.” Parnigar grinned, then grew suddenly serious. “Has there been any word about—I should say ‘from’—Suzine?”

Kith sighed. “Not a thing. It’s as if the world gobbled her up. She slipped away from the conference that afternoon. I brought Vanesti back to the camp as my squire and found her gone.”

“These damned storms will run their course in another few weeks,” said the scout, “but I doubt you’ll be able to send fliers out before then. No doubt she’s holed up safe on some farmstead . . .”

But his words lacked conviction. Indeed, Kith-Kanan had lost optimism and didn’t know what to believe anymore. All indications were that Suzine had left the camp of her own free will. Why? And why wasn’t he more upset?

“You mentioned your squire.” Parnigar smoothly changed the subject. “How’s the young fellow working out?”

“He’s eager, I’ve got to grant him that. My armor hasn’t gleamed like this in years.”

“When we march . . .?”

“He’ll have to come along,” Kith replied. “But I’ll keep him to the rear. He doesn’t have enough experience to let him near the fighting.”

“Aye,” grunted the old warrior before disappearing into the storm.

“This will do, driver. I shall proceed on foot.”

“Milady?” The coachman, as he opened the door for Suzine, looked at her in concern. “The Army of Ergoth has scouts all over here,” he said. “They’ll find you for sure.”

I’m counting on that. Suzine didn’t verbalize her reply. “Your dedication is touching, but, really, I’ll be fine.”

“I think the general would be—”

“The general will not be displeased,” she said firmly.

“Very well—” His reluctance was plain in his voice, but he assisted her in stepping to the ground. The carriage rested at the side of a muddy trail. Several wide pathways led into the woods around them.

She was grateful for the smoothness of the trail. Neither her eyes nor her legs were up to a rigorous hike. She turned toward the coachman who had carried her so faithfully across the plains for more than a week. Her mirror, now resting in the box on her belt, had shown her where to go, allowing her to guide them around outposts of human pickets. The only other possession she carried was in a pouch at her belt: a narrow-bladed knife. She wouldn’t be coming back, but she couldn’t tell the driver that.

“Wait here for two hours,” she said. “I’ll be back by then. I know these woods well. There are some old sights I would like to see.”

Nodding and scowling, the driver climbed back onto his seat and watched until the woods swallowed her up. She hurried along the trail as fast as her aging legs would carry her, but even so, it took her more than an hour to cover two miles. She moved unerringly past many forks in the path, certain that the mirror had shown her the right way.

Shortly after she passed the end of her second mile, an armored crossbowman stepped into the path before her.

“Halt!” he cried, leveling his weapon. At the same time, he gaped in astonishment at the lone old woman who approached the headquarters of the Army of Ergoth.

“I’m glad you are here to greet me,” she said pleasantly. “Take me to see General Giarna!”

“You want to see the general?”

“We’re ... old friends.”

Shaking his head in amazement, the guard nevertheless led Suzine a short way farther down the trail, entering a small clearing. The top of the meadow was almost completely enclosed by a canopy of tall elms—protection against detection from the air, Suzine knew.

“The general’s in there.” The man gestured to a small cottage near the clearing’s edge. Two men-at-arms flanked the doorway, and they snapped to attention as Suzine walked up to them.

“She wants to see the general,” explained the crossbowman, with a shrug.

“Should we search her?” The question, from a muscular halberdier, sent a shiver down Suzine’s stooped spine. She felt acutely conscious of the dagger in her pouch.

“That won’t be necessary.” Suzine recognized the deep voice from within the cottage. The watchmen stood aside, allowing Suzine to step through the door.

“You have come back to me!”

For a moment, Suzine stood still, blinking and trying to see in the dim light. Then the large black-cloaked figure moved toward her, and she knew him—knew his sight, his smell, and his intimidating presence. With a sense of dull wonder, she realized that the tales she had heard, the images of her mirror, were all true. General Giarna stood before her now. She knew that he must be at least seventy years old, but he looked the same as he had forty years earlier!

He stepped closer to her. She felt the revulsion and fear she had known forty years earlier when he had approached her, had used her. Slowly her fingers closed around the weapon in her pouch. The man loomed over her, looking down with a slightly patronizing smile. She stared into his eyes and saw that same hollowness, the same sense of void, that she remembered with such vivid terror.

Then she pulled out the knife and threw back her arm. Why is he laughing?

She wondered about that even as she drove the point of the weapon toward the unarmored spot at his throat. Giarna made no attempt to block her thrust. The blade struck his skin but snapped as the weapon broke at the hilt. The useless shard of metal fell to the floor as Suzine blinked, incredulous. General Giarna’s throat showed not the tiniest hint of a wound.

It wasn’t until Parnigar returned with his company of scouts that Kith-Kanan received any vital information regarding the enemy’s positions. Wearing sodden trail clothes from the nine-day reconnaissance, the veteran captain reported to Kith-Kanan as soon as he returned to the fort.

“We pushed at the fringes of their position,” he reported. “Their pickets were as thick as flies on a dead horse. They got two of my scouts, and the rest of us barely slipped out of their grasp.”

Kith shook his head, wincing. Even after forty years of war, the death of each elf under his command struck him like a personal blow.

“We couldn’t get into the main camp,” explained Parnigar. “There were just too many guards. But judging by the density of their patrols, I have to conclude they were guarding the main body of Giarna’s force.”

“Thanks for taking the risk, my friend,” said Kith-Kanan finally. “Too many times I have asked you.” Parnigar smiled wearily. “I’m in this fight to the end—one way or another!” The lanky warrior cleared his throat hesitantly. “There’s . . . something else.” “Yes?”

“We found the Lady Suzine’s coachman on the outskirts of the human lines.” Kith-Kanan looked up in sudden fear. “Was he—is he alive?” “Was.” Parnigar shook his head. “He’d been taken by their pickets, then escaped after a fight. Badly wounded in the stomach, but he made it to the trail. We found him there.” “What did he tell you?” “He didn’t know where she was. He had dropped her beside the trail, and she

followed a path into the woods. We checked out the area. Guards were thicker than ever there, so I think the headquarters must have been somewhere nearby.” Could she be heading back to Giarna? Kith-Kanan sensed Parnigar’s unspoken

question. Surely she wouldn’t betray Kith-Kanan. “Can you show me where this place is?” asked the elven commander urgently. “Of course.” Kith sighed sympathetically. “I’m sorry that you must travel again so quickly, but perhaps. . .” Parnigar waved off the explanation. “I’ll be ready to ride when you need me.”

“Go to your quarters now. Mari’s been waiting for you for days,” Kith-Kanan ordered, realizing that Parnigar still dripped from his drenched garments.

“She’s probably got dry clothes all ready to get you dressed.”

“I doubt she wants to dress me!” Parnigar chuckled knowingly.

“Off to your wife now, before she grows old on you!” Kith’s attempt at humor felt lame to both of them, though Parnigar forced a chuckle as he left.

31

Hermathya looked at herself in the mirror. She was beautiful and she was young ... yet for what purpose? She was alone.

Tears of bitterness welled in her eyes. She rose and whirled away from her table, only to be confronted by her bed. That canopied, quilted sleeping place mocked her every bit as harshly as did the mirror. For decades, it had been hers alone.

Now even her child had been sent away. Her anger throbbed as hot as ever, the same rage that had turned the two-week journey back to the city into a silent ordeal for Sithas. He endured her fury and didn’t let it bother him, and Hermathya knew that he had won.

Vanesti was gone, serving beside his uncle on the front lines of danger! How could her husband have done this? What kind of perverse cruelty would cause him to torture his wife so? She thought of Sithas as a stranger. What little closeness they had once enjoyed had been worn thin by the stresses of war. Her thoughts abruptly wandered to Kith-Kanan. How much like Sithas he looked—and yet how very different he was! Hermathya looked back upon the passion of their affair as one of the bright moments of her life. Before her name had been uttered as the prospective bride of the future Speaker of the Stars, her life had been a passionate whirl.

Then the announcement had come—Hermathya, daughter of the Oakleaf Clan, would wed Sithas of Silvanos! She remembered how Kith-Kanan had begged—he had begged!-her to accompany him, to run away. She had laughed at him as if he were mad.

Yet the madness, it now seemed, was hers. Prestige and station and comfort meant nothing, she knew, not when compared to the sense of happiness that she had thrown away.

The one time since then when Kith-Kanan and she had come together illicitly flared brightly in her mind. That episode had never been repeated because Kith-Kanan’s guilt wouldn’t allow it. He had avoided her for years and was awkward when they were brought together through necessity.

Shaking her head, she fought back the tears. Sithas was in the palace. Hermathya would go to him and make him bring their son back home!

She found her husband in his study, perusing a document with the Oakleaf stamp, in gold, at the top. He looked up when she entered, and blinked with surprise.

“You must call Vanesti back,” she blurted, staring at him.

“I will not.”

“Can’t you understand what he means to me?” Hermathya fought to keep her voice under control. “I need him here with me. He’s all I’ve got!”

“We’ve been over this. It will do the lad good to get out of the palace, to live among the troops. Besides, Kith will take good care of him. Don’t you trust him?”

“Do you?” Hermathya uttered the insinuation without thinking.

“Why? What do you mean?” There had been something in her tone. Sithas leapt from his chair and stared at her accusingly.

She turned away, suddenly calm. She controlled the discussion now.

“What did you mean, do I trust him?” Sithas’s voice was level and cold. “Of course I do!”

“You have been gullible before.”

“I know that you loved him,” the Speaker added. “I know of your affair before our marriage. I even know that he pleaded with you to go with him when he flew into exile.”

“I should have gone!” she cried, whirling suddenly.

“Do you still love him?”

“No.” She didn’t know whether this was a lie or not. “But he loves me!”

“That’s nonsense!”

“He came to me in my bedroom long ago. He didn’t leave until the morning.” She lied about the room because it suited her purpose. Her husband wouldn’t know that it was she who had gone to him.

Sithas stepped closer to her. “Why should I believe you?”

“Why should I lie?”

His open hand caught her across the cheek with a loud smack. The force of his blow sent her tumbling backward to the floor. With a burning face, she stood up, her eyes spitting fire at him.

“Vanesti will stay on the plains,” Sithas declared as she turned and fled. He turned to the window, numb, and stared to the west. He wondered about the stranger his brother had become.

“You believed that you could come here to kill me?” General Giarna looked at Suzine with mild amusement. The old woman backed against the closed door of his cottage. She had picked up the broken blade of her knife, but the weapon felt useless and futile, for it couldn’t harm her enemy. Thunder rumbled outside as another storm swept across the camp.

“Your death would be the greatest thing that could happen to Krynn.” She spoke bravely, but her mind was locked by fear. How could she have been so stupid as to come here alone, thinking she could harm this brutal warrior?

Instead, she had become his prisoner.

Her heart quailed as she remembered the man’s dark tortures, his means of gaining information from his captives. And no captive had ever possessed such valuable information as the wife of his chief enemy.

Now the general laughed heartily, placing his hands on his hips and leaning backward like a young man. “My death, you should know, is not so easily attained.”

Suzine stared at him.

“Do you remember the last night of General Barnet?” She would never forget that awful, shriveled corpse, cast aside by General Giarna like an empty shell, drained of all its life.

“My powers come from places you cannot begin to understand!” He paced in agitation, looking at her.

“There are gods who care for people of power, gods whose names are only whispered in the dead of night, for fear of frightening the children!” General Giarna whirled again, his brow furrowed in concentration. “There is Morgion, god of disease and decay. I tell you, he can be bought! I pay him in lives, and he saves his curse from my flesh! And there are others—Hiddukel, Sargonnas! And of course—” his voice dropped to a whisper; his body quivered, and he looked at Suzine—“the Queen of Darkness, Takhisis herself! They say that she is banished, but that’s a lie. She is patient and she is generous. She bestows her powers on those who earn her favor!

“It is the power of life, in all its aspects! It allows me to be strong and young, while those around me grow old and die!”

Now he stared directly at her, and there seemed to be genuine anguish in his voice. “You might have shared this with me! You were a woman of power. You would have made a fitting partner for me! Who knows, one day we might have ruled Ergoth itself!”

“Your madness consumes you,” Suzine replied.

“It is not madness!” he hissed. “You cannot kill me. No human can kill me!

Nor a dwarf, nor an elf. None may slay me!”

General Giarna paced restlessly. A steady beat of rain suddenly began pounding on the roof, forcing him to raise his voice. “Not only do I remain young and vigorous, but I am also invulnerable! ” He looked at her sideways, slyly. I even had my men capture a griffon so that I might devour it and take over its aura. Now not even one of those beasts—the bane of this long war—can claim my blood.

“But enough of this talk,” said Giarna, suddenly rough. He took her arm and pulled her to a chair, throwing her into it.

“My spies tell me that the Wildrunners prepare an attack. They will move on my headquarters here because they have learned of our plans to ambush the griffons.”

Suzine looked at him dumbly.

“No doubt you know the route of march they will take when they come west. You will tell me. Be sure of this, you will tell me. I will simply move my ambush and consummate the victory that has eluded me for so long.” Fear pulsed hotly in Suzine’s mind. She did know! Many nights she had been present during battle planning between Parnigar and Kith-Kanan. The other officers had ignored her, assuming that she wasn’t listening, but out of curiosity, she had paid attention and absorbed most of the details.

“The only question is—” Giarna’s voice was a deep bass warning—“will you tell me now or afterward?”

Her mind focused with exceptional clarity. She heard the rain beating steadily against the wooden frame of the house. She thought of her children and her husband, and then she knew.

There was a way—an escape for her! But she had to act fast, before she had second thoughts.

Her bleeding fingers, still clutching the knife blade, jerked upward. Giarna saw the movement, an expression of mild annoyance flickering across his face. The crone already knew she couldn’t harm him!

Him. In that instant, he recognized his mistake as the keen edge sliced through Suzine’s own neck. A shower of bright blood exploded from the torn artery, covering the general as the old woman slumped to the ground at his feet.

One-Tooth plodded through yet another thunderstorm. His march, already an epic by hill giant standards, had taken him through the foothills of his beloved mountains and across hundreds of miles of flatlands.

How did people ever live around here? He wondered at a life without the comforting rocky heights. He felt vulnerable and naked on these open prairies of grass.

Of course, his journey was made easier by the fact that such inhabitants as he encountered fled in panic at his approach, giving him a free sampling of whatever food had been bubbling on the stove or whatever milk might be chilling in the damp cellar.

The giant still didn’t know why he had embarked upon this quest or what his ultimate destination would be. But his feet swung easily below him, and the miles continued to fall behind. He felt young again, more spry than he had in decades.

And he was propelled by an inchoate sense of destiny. When his march ended, that was where his destiny would be found.

32

Rain lashed at the griffon and its rider, but the pair pressed on through the storm. Though the day was hours old, the horizon around them remained twilit and dim, so heavy was the gray blanket of clouds. Arcuballis flew low, seeking a place to land, cringing still closer to the earth against sudden blasts of lightning that seemed to warn them from the sky.

Finally Kith-Kanan found it—the small house in the center of the farmstead, down the trail where the coachman had seen Suzine disappear. Parnigar had showed him the trail two miles back, but he had flown past the clearing twice. So closely entwined were the overhanging branches that he hadn’t even noticed it.

The trailhead was more than two miles away, and she couldn’t have walked much farther than this. Yet there seemed to be nothing else besides anonymous woods for several miles in all directions. This had to be the place. Arcuballis dove quickly to earth, dropping like a stone between the limbs of the broad elms. The griffon landed in a crouch, and Kith’s sword was in his hand.

The door to the small house stood partially open, slamming and banging against its frame as the wind gusts shifted direction. The yard around the house was churned to mud, mired by the hooves of countless horses. Blackened pits showed where great cook fires had burned, but now these were simply holes filled with sodden ash.

Cautiously Kith-Kanan dismounted and approached the house. He pushed the door fully open and saw that it consisted of one main room, and that room was now a shambles. Overturned tables, broken chairs, a pile of discarded uniforms, and a collection of miscellaneous debris all contributed to the disarray.

He began to pick through debris, kicking things with his boots and moving big pieces with his free hand, always holding his longsword at the ready. He found little of worth until, near the back corner, his persistence was rewarded. A tingle of apprehension ran along his spine as he uncovered a wooden box he recognized instantly, for it was the one Suzine had used to store her mirror. Kneeling, he pulled it from beneath a moldy saddle blanket. He opened the top, and his reflection stared back at him. The mirror had remained intact. Then as he looked, the image in the glass grew pale and wavery, and suddenly the picture became something else entirely.

He saw a black-cloaked human riding a dark horse, leading a column of men through the rain. The human army was on the march. He could recognize no landmarks, no signposts in the murky scene. But he knew that the humans were moving.

Obviously the planned ambush of the Windriders was suspected and now would have to be cancelled. But where did the humans march? Kith had a sickening flash of Sithelbec, practically defenseless since most of the garrison had marched into the field with the Wildrunners. Could General Giarna be that bold?

A more hideous thought occurred to him. Had Suzine betrayed him, revealing their battle plans to the human commander? Did the enemy march somewhere unknown to set up a new ambush? He couldn’t bring himself to believe this, yet neither could he ignore the evidence that she had been here at the human command post.

Where was Suzine? In his heart, he knew the answer.

Grimly he mounted Arcuballis and took off. He made his way back to the east, toward the spearhead of his army, which he had ordered to march westward in an attempt to catch the human army in its camp. Now he knew that he had to make new plans—and quickly.

It took two days of searching before the proud griffon finally settled to earth, in a damp clearing where Kith had spotted the elven banner. Here he found Parnigar and Vanesti and the rest of the Wildrunner headquarters. This group marched with several dozen bodyguards, trying to remain in the approximate center of the far-flung regiments. Because of the weather, the march columns were separated even more than usual, so that the small company camped this night in relative isolation.

“They’ve broken camp,” announced Parnigar, without preamble.

“I know. Their base camp is abandoned. Have you discovered where they’ve gone?”

Kith’s worst fears were confirmed by Parnigar’s answer. “East, it looks like. There are tracks leading in every direction, as always, but it looks like they all swing toward the east a mile or two out of the camps.” Again Kith-Kanan thought of the ungarrisoned fortress rising from the plains a hundred miles to the east.

“Can we attack?” asked Vanesti, unable to restrain himself any longer.

“You’ll stay here!” barked Kith-Kanan. He turned to Parnigar. “In the morning we’ll

have to find them.” “What? And leave me here alone? In the middle of nowhere?” Vanesti was indignant. “You’re right,” Kith conceded with a sigh.

“You’ll have to come. But you’ll also have to do what I tell you!” “Don’t I always?” inquired the youth, grinning impishly. * * * * *

General Giarna slouched in his saddle, aware of the tens of thousands of marching soldiers surrounding him. The Army of Ergoth crept like a monstrous snake to the east, toward Sithelbec. Outriders spread across a thirty-mile arc before them, seeking signs of the Wildrunners. Giarna wanted to meet his foe in open battle while the weather was unchanged, hoping that the storm would neutralize the elves’ flying cavalry. The Windriders had made his life very difficult over the years, and it would please him to fight a battle where the griffons wouldn’t be a factor.

Even in his wildest hopes, he hadn’t reckoned on weather as dismal as this. A day earlier, a tornado had swept through the supply train, killing more than a thousand men and destroying two weeks’ worth of provisions. Now many columns of his army blundered through the featureless landscape, lost. Every day a few more men were struck by lightning, crippled or killed instantly. The general didn’t know that, even as he marched to the east, the elven army trudged westward, some twenty-five miles to the north. The Wildrunners sought the encampment of the human army. Both forces blundered forward in disarray, passing within striking range of each other, yet not knowing of their enemy’s presence.

General Giarna looked to his left, to the north. There was something out there! He sensed it, though he saw nothing. His intuition informed him that the presence that drew him was many miles away.

“There!” he cried, suddenly raising a black-gloved hand and pointing to the north. “We must strike northward! Now! With all haste!” Some companies of his army heard the command. Ponderously, under the orders of their sergeants-major, they wheeled to the left, preparing to strike out toward the north, into the rain and the hail—and, soon, the darkness. Others didn’t get the word. The ultimate effect of the maneuver spread the army across twice as much country as Giarna intended, opening huge gaps between the various brigades and adding chaos to an already muddled situation.

“Move, damn you!” The general cried, his voice taut. Lightning flashed over his head, streaks of fire lancing across the sky. Thunder crashed around them, sounding as if the world was coming apart.

Still the great formations continued their excruciating advance as the weary humans endeavored to obey Giarna’s hysterical commands.

He couldn’t wait. The scent drew him on like a hound to its prey. He wheeled his horse, kicking sharp spurs into the black steed’s flanks. Breaking away from the column of his army, he started toward the north ahead of his men. Alone.

Warm winds surged across the chill waters of the Turbidus Ocean, south of Ergoth, collecting moisture and carrying it aloft until the water droplets loomed as monumental columns of black clouds, billowing higher until they confounded the eyes of earthbound observers by vanishing into the limitless expanse of the sky.

Lightning flashed, beginning as an occasional explosion of brightness but increasing in fierceness and tempo until the clouds marched along to a staccato tempo, great sheets of hot fire slashing through them in continuous volleys. The waters below trembled under the fury of the storm.

The winds swirled, propelled by the rising pressure of steam. Whirlwinds grew tighter, shaping into slender funnels, until a front of cyclones roared forward, tossing the ocean into a chaotic maelstrom of foam. Great waves rolled outward from the storm, propelled by lashing torrents of rain. And then the storm passed onto land.

The mass of clouds and power roared northward, skirting the Kharolis Mountains as it veered slightly toward the east. Before it lay the plains, hundreds of miles of flat, sodden country, already deluged by thunder and rain.

The new storm surged onto the flatlands, unleashing its winds as if it knew that nothing could stand in its path. * * * * *

A soaking Wildrunner limped through the brush, raising his hand to ward off the hail and wipe rain away from his face. Finally he broke into a clearing and saw the vague out-lines of the command post. Finding it had been sheer luck. He was one of two dozen men who had been sent with the report, in the hopes that one of them would reach Kith-Kanan.

“The Army of Ergoth!” he gasped, stumbling into the small house that served as the general’s headquarters. “It approaches from the south!”

“Damn!” Kith-Kanan instantly saw the terrible vulnerability of his army, stretched as it was into a long column marching east to west. Wherever the humans hit him, he would be vulnerable.

“How far?” he asked quickly.

“Five miles, maybe less. I saw a company of horsemen—a thousand or so. I don’t know how many other units are there.”

“You did well to bring me the news immediately.” Kith’s mind whirled. “If Giarna is attacking us, he must have something in mind. Still, I can’t believe he can execute an attack very well—not in this weather.”

“Attack them, uncle.”

Kith turned to look at Vanesti. His fresh-faced nephew’s eyes lit with enthusiasm. His first battle loomed.

“Your suggestion has merit,” he said, pausing for a moment. “It’s one thing that the enemy would never suspect. His grasp of the battle won’t be much greater than mine, if I’m on the offensive. And furthermore, I have no way to organize any kind of defense in this weather. Better to have the troops moving forward and catch the enemy off balance.”

“I’ll dispatch the scouts,” Parnigar noted. “We’ll inform every company that we can. It won’t be the whole army, you realize. There isn’t enough time, and the weather is too treacherous.”

“I know,” Kith agreed. “The Windriders, for one, will have to stay on the ground.” He looked at Arcuballis. The great creature rested nearby, his head tucked under one wing to protect himself from the rain.

“I’ll take Kijo and leave Arcuballis here.” The prospect made him feel somehow crippled, but as the storm increased around him, he knew that flight would be too dangerous a tactic.

He could only hope that his enemy’s attack would be equally haphazard. In this wish, he was rewarded, for even as the fight began, it moved out of the control of its commanders.

The two armies blundered through the rain. Each stretched along a front of several dozen miles, and great gaps existed in their formations. The Army of Ergoth lumbered north, and where its companies met elves, they fought them in confusing skirmishes. As often as not, they passed right through the widely spaced formations of the Wildrunner Army, continuing into the nameless distance of the plains.

The Wildrunners and their allies struck south. Like the humans, they encountered their enemy occasionally, and at other times met no resistance. Skirmishes raged along the entire distance, between whatever units happened to meet each other in the chaos. Human horsemen rode against elven swords. Dwarven battle-axes chopped at Ergothian archers. Because of the noise and the darkness, a company might not know that its sister battalion fought for its life three hundred yards away, or that a band of enemy warriors had passed across their front a bare five minutes earlier.

But it didn’t matter. The real battle took shape in the clouds themselves.

33

Hail thundered through the woods, pounding trees into splinters and bruising exposed flesh. The balls of ice, as big across as steel pieces, quickly blanketed the ground. The roar of their impact drowned all attempts at communication. Kith-Kanan, Vanesti, and Parnigar halted their plodding horses, seeking the minimal shelter provided by the overhanging boughs of a small grove of elms. They were grateful that the storm hadn’t caught them on the open plains. Such a deluge could be extremely dangerous without shelter. Their two dozen bodyguards, all veterans of the House Protectorate, took shelter under neighboring trees. All the elves were silent, wet, and miserable. They hadn’t seen another company of Wildrunners in several hours, nor had they encountered any sign of the enemy. They had blundered through the storms for the whole day, lashed by wind and rain, soaked and chilled, fruitlessly seeking sign of friend or foe.

“Do you know where we are?” Kith asked Parnigar. Around them, the pebbly residue of the storm had covered the earth with round, white balls of ice.

“I’m afraid not,” the veteran scout replied. “I think we’ve maintained a southerly heading, but it’s hard to tell when you can’t see more than two dozen feet ahead of you!”

All of a sudden Kith held up a hand. The hailstorm, with unsettling abruptness, had ceased.

“What is it?” hissed Vanesti, looking around them, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know Kith admitted. “Something doesn’t feel right.” The black horse exploded from the bushes with shocking speed, its dark rider leaning forward along the steed’s lathered neck. Sharp hooves pounded the ice-coated earth, sending slivers of crushed hailstones flying with each step. The attacker charged past two guards, and Parnigar saw the glint of a sword. The blade moved with stunning speed, slaying both elven bodyguards with quick chops.

“We’re attacked!” Parnigar shouted. The veteran scout seized his sword and leaped into his saddle, spurring the steed forward.

Kith-Kanan, followed by Vanesti, ducked around the broad tree trunk just in time to see Parnigar collide with the attacker. The brutal impact sent the elf’s mare reeling side-ways and then tumbling to the ground. The horse screamed as the elven warrior sprang free, crouching to face the black-cloaked human on his dark war-horse.

“Giarna!” hissed Kith-Kanan, instantly recognizing the foe.

“Really?” gasped Vanesti, inching forward for a better look.

“Stay back!” growled the elven general.

The black steed abruptly reared, lashing out with its forehooves. One of them caught Parnigar on the skull, and the elf fell heavily to the ground. Frantically Kith looked toward his bow, tied securely to his saddlebags on the other side of the broad tree. Cursing, he drew his sword and darted toward the fight.

With savage glee, the human rider leaped from his saddle, straddling Parnigar as the stunned elf struggled to move. As Kith ran toward them, the human thrust his sword through the scout’s chest, pinning him to the ground with the keen blade.

Parnigar flopped on his back, stuck to the earth. Blood welled around the steel blade, and the icy pebbles of hail beneath him quickly took on a garish shade of red. In moments, his struggles faded to weak twitching, and then to nothing.

By that time, Kith had lunged at the black swordsman. The elf slashed with his sword but gaped in surprise as the quick blow darted past Giarna. The man’s fist hammered into Kith-Kanan’s belly, and the elf grunted in pain as he staggered backward, gasping for air.

With a sneer, the human pulled out his blade, turning to face two more Wildrunners, Kith’s bodyguards, who charged recklessly forward. His sword flashed once, twice, and the two elves dropped, fatally slashed across their throats.

“Fight me, you bastard!” growled Kith-Kanan.

“That is a pleasure I have long anticipated!” General Giarna’s face broke into a savage grin. His teeth appeared to gleam as he threw his head back and laughed maniacally.

A quartet of veteran Wildrunners, all loyal and competent warriors of the House Protectorate, rushed General Giarna from behind. But the man whirled, his bloody sword cutting an arc through the air. Two of the guards fell, gutted, while the other two stumbled backward, horrified by their opponent’s quickness. Kith-Kanan could only stare in shock. Never had he seen a weapon wielded with such deadly precision.

The retreating elves moved backward too slowly. Giarna sprang after them, leaping like a cat and stabbing one of them through the heart. The other elf rushed in wildly. His head sailed from his body following a swathlike cut that the human made with a casual flick of his wrist.

“You monster!” The youthful scream caught Kith-Kanan’s attention. Vanesti had seized a sword from somewhere. Now he charged out from behind the elm trunk, lunging toward the murderous human general.

“No!” Kith-Kanan cried out in alarm, rushing forward to try to reach his nephew. His boot caught on a treacherous vine and he sprawled headlong, looking up to see Vanesti swinging his sword wildly.

Kith scrambled to his feet. Each of his movements seemed grotesquely slow, exaggerated beyond all reason. He opened his mouth to shout again, but he could only watch in horror.

Vanesti lost his balance following his wild attack, stumbling to the side. He tried to deflect the human’s straight-on stab, but the tip of General Giarna’s blade struck Vanesti at the base of his rib cage, penetrating his gut and slicing through his spine as it emerged from his back. The youth gagged and choked, sliding backward off the blade. He lay on his back, his hands clutching at the air.

The lord-major-chieftain supreme of Hillrock pressed forward, trudging resolutely through weather the like of which he had never experienced before. Hailstones pummeled him, rain lashed his face, and the wind roared and growled in its futile efforts to penetrate the hill giant’s heavy wolfskin cloak, a cloak he had worn proudly for forty years.

Yet One-Tooth plodded on, grimly determined to follow the compulsion that had drawn him here. He would see this trek through to its end. The burning drive that had led him this far seemed to grow more intense with each passing hour, until the giant broke into a lumbering trot, so anxious was his feeling that he neared his goal.

As he moved across the plains, a strange haze seemed to settle over his mind. He began to forget Hillrock, to forget the giantesses who were his wives, the small community that had always been his home. Instead, his mind drifted to the heights of his mountain range, to one snow-blanketed winter valley long age and a small, fire-warmed cave.

Later, elves who had lived for six hundred years swore that they had never before seen such a storm. The weather erupted across the plains with a violence that dwarfed the petty squabbles of the mortals on the ground. The thunderheads grew in frenzy, an explosive, seething mass of power that transcended anything in human or elven memory. The storms lashed the plains, striking with wind and fire and hail.

At nightfall, when darkness gathered across the already sodden plains on the night of the summer solstice, Solinari gleamed full and bright, high above the clouds, but no one on Krynn could see her.

Lightning erupted, hurling crackling bolts to the ground. Great cyclones of wind, miles across, whirled and roared. They spiraled and burst, a hundred angry funnel clouds that shrieked over the flat plains, leveling everything in their path.

The great battle of armies never occurred. Instead, a howling dervish of tornadoes formed in the west and roared across the plains, scattering the two forces before them, leaving tens of thousands of dead in their wake. The most savage of the tornadoes swirled through the Army of Ergoth, scattering food wagons, killing horses and men, and sending the remnants fleeing in all directions.

But if the human army suffered the bulk of the death toll, the Wildrunners suffered the greatest destruction. Huge columns of black clouds, mushrooming into the heights of the distant sky, gathered around the great stone block of Sithelbec. Dark and foreboding, they collected in an awful ring about the city. For hours, a dull stillness pervaded the air. Those who had sought shelter in Sithelbec fled, fearing the unnatural calm.

Then the lightning began anew. Bolts of energy lashed the city. They crackled into the stone towers of the fortress, exploding masonry and leaving the smell of scorched dust in the air. They seared the blocks of wooden buildings around the wall, and soon sheets of flame added to the destruction. Like a cosmic bombardment, crackling spears of explosive electricity thundered into the stone walls and wooden roofs. Crushing and pounding, pummeling and bruising, the storm maintained its pressure as the city slowly collapsed into ruin.

Kith realized that he was screaming, spitting his hatred and rage at this monstrous human who had dogged his life for forty years. He threw caution aside in a desperate series of slashes and attacks, but each lunge found Giarna’s sword ready with a parry—and each moment of battle threatened to open a fatal gap in the elf’s defenses.

Their blades clanged together with a force that matched the thunder. The two opponents hacked and chopped at each other, scrambling over deadfalls, pushing through soaking thorn bushes, driving forward in savage attacks or careful retreats. The rest of the House Protectorate bodyguards rushed, in a group, to their leader’s defense. The human’s blade was a deadly scythe, and soon the elves bled the last of their lives into the icy, hail-strewn ground. It became apparent to Kith that Giarna toyed with him. The man was unbeatable. He could have ended the fight at virtually any moment, and he seemed completely impervious to Kith’s blows. Even when, in a lucky moment, the elf’s blade slashed against the human’s skin, no wound opened. The man continued to allow Kith to rush forward, to expend himself on these desperate attacks, and then to stumble back, seemingly inches ahead of a mortal blow.

Finally he laughed, his voice a sharp, animal bark.

“You see now that, for all your arrogance, you cannot live forever. Even elven lives must come to an end!”

Kith-Kanan stepped back, gasping for breath and staring at the hated enemy before him. He said nothing as his throat expanded, gulping air.

“Perhaps you will die with as much dignity as your wife,” suggested Giarna, musing.

Kith froze. “What do you mean?”

“Merely that the whore thought she could do what all of your armies have been unable to do. She tried to kill me!”

The elf could only stare in shock. Suzine! By the gods, why would she attempt something so mad, so impossible?

“Of course, she paid the price for her stupidity, as you will do as well! My only regret was that she took her own life before I could draw the information I needed from her.”

Kith-Kanan felt a sense of horror and guilt. Of course she had done this. He had left her no other way in which to aid him.

“She was braver and finer than we will ever be,” he said, his voice firm despite his grief.

“Words!” Giarna snorted. “Use them wisely, elf. You have precious few left!” Vanesti lay on the ground, so still and cold that he might have been a pale patch of mud. Near him, Parnigar lay equally still, his eyes staring sightlessly upward, his fingers curled reflexively into fists. His warm blood had melted the hailstones around him, so that he lay in an icy crimson pool. Marshaling his determination, Kith charged, recklessly slashing at his opponent in a desperate bid to break his icy control. But Giarna stepped to the side, and Kith found himself on his back, looking up into gaping black holes, the deadened eyes of the man who would be his killer. The elf tried to scramble away, to spring to his feet, but his cloak snagged on a twisted limb beside him. Kith kicked out, then fell back, helpless.

Trapped between two logs, Kith-Kanan couldn’t move. Desperately, feeling a rage that was nonetheless overpowering for its helplessness, he glared at the blade that was about to end his life. Giarna stood over him, slowly raising the bloodstained weapon, as if the steel intended to savor the final, fatal thrust. The crushing blow of a club knocked Giarna to the side before the killing blow could fall. Stuck behind the deadfall, Kith couldn’t see where the blow had come from, but he saw the human stumble, watched the great weapon swing through his field of vision.

Snarling with rage, Giarna whirled, ready to slay whatever impertinent foe distracted him from his quarry. He felt no fear. Was he not impervious to the attack of elf, dwarf, or human?

But this was no elf. Instead, he stared upward at a creature that towered over his head. The last thing Giarna saw before the club crushed his skull and scattered his brains across the muddy ground was a lone white tooth, jutting proudly from the attacker’s jaw.

“He’s alive,” whispered Kith-Kanan, scarcely daring to breathe. He kneeled beside Vanesti, noting the slow rise and fall of his nephew’s chest. Steam wisped from his nostrils at terrifyingly long intervals.

“Help little guy?” inquired One-Tooth.

“Yes.” Kith smiled through his tears, looking with affection at the huge creature who must have marched hundreds of miles to find him. He had asked him why, and the giant had merely shrugged.

One-Tooth reached down and grasped the bundle that was Vanesti. They wrapped him in a cloak, and now Kith rigged a small lean-to beneath the shelter of some leafy branches.

“I’ll light a fire,” said the elf. “Maybe that will draw some of the Wildrunners.” But the soaked wood refused to burn, and so the trio huddled and shivered through the long night. Then in the morning, they heard the sound of horses pushing along a forest trail.

Kith wormed his way through the bushes, discovering a column of Wildrunner scouts. Several veterans, recognizing their leader, quickly approached him, but they had to overcome their fear of the hill giant when they came upon the scene of the savage fight.

Gingerly they rigged a sling for the youth and prepared to make the grueling ride to Sithelbec.

“This time you’ll come home with me,” Kith told the giant. In the thinning mist, they started toward the east. Not for several days, until they met more survivors of his army—some who had had word from the fortress—did they learn that the home they marched to had been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble.