The Qualinesti

16 — Four-Legged Cousins

Verhanna stirred from her slumber. Opening her eyes, she saw Greenhands sitting cross-legged on the ground a few feet away. The morning sun was in her eyes, and she lifted a hand to shade them. Greenhands was looking across the broad vista of mountain peaks.

It took the Qualinesti princess a moment to recall the events of the past days. The cold funeral pyres remained as mute evidence of what had transpired. She also recalled the news she had received regarding the white-haired elf before her. Her half-brother.

He turned to her, and she quickly looked away, embarrassed that he’d noticed her scrutiny.

“Hello, my captain,” he said equably. “You have slept long—a night, a day, and a second night.” Wind stirred his long hair. His green eyes were darker somehow, more muted than their usual vivid hue.

“By Astra!” Verhanna got to her feet and hurried to Rufus. She poked him in the back with the toe of her boot. The kender screwed up his wizened face and groaned.

“Go ’way, Auntie! I wanna sleep,” he grumbled.

“On your feet, Wart!”

Rufus’s blue eyes popped open.

The warrior maiden and kender circled through the scattered sleepers, waking them. Kith-Kanan sat up, coughing and shaking his head. “Merciful gods,” he muttered. “I’m too old to sleep on bare ground.” Verhanna grasped Kith-Kanan’s arm and helped him stand. He was very stiff from having slept in the open. “Is there anything to eat?” he asked. “I’m hollow.”

Rufus approached Kemian cautiously. The general had been seriously injured by the wyvern, and the kender feared that he’d find him dead. But Kemian drew breath steadily. His brow was cool and dry, and after Rufus awakened him, his eyes were clear.

“Water,” he said hoarsely. Rufus put a wicker-wrapped bottle to the elf’s lips.

Gradually the whole party arose. They stood around, a bit dazed, taking in their situation.

Kith-Kanan saw Greenhands, still seated serenely on the ground. He stood when Kith-Kanan approached him. The Speaker held out a hand. His son looked at it uncomprehendingly, and Kith-Kanan showed him how to shake hands.

“My son,” he said proudly. “You did well.”

Greenhands’ brow wrinkled in thought. “I only wanted to save you,” he replied. “I did not mean to kill.”

“Shed no tears for Drulethen, Son! His heart was as black as the onyx talisman he prized. He chose his path, and he chose his destruction. Be at peace. You have done a noble deed.”

The elf didn’t look convinced. In fact, he had a look of such sadness that Kith-Kanan put an arm around his shoulder and asked him what troubled him so.

“Before I found you, I often felt the presence of my mother,” he replied. “She would guide me and help me. I have sat here a long time, reaching out to her, but she does not answer. I do not feel her near any longer.”

“She must know that you’re with me now. You’re not alone,” Kith-Kanan said gently. “When your mother…left me, it took me a long time to get used to not having her by my side. But we are together now, and there are many things I need to know about you and how you came to be here.”

A disturbance erupted on the other side of the plateau. Kith-Kanan left his newfound son and hastened to the point of trouble. All the warriors were clustered in a group. They parted for the Speaker. In the center of the knot, he found Ulvian being restrained by two warriors. Verhanna and her kender scout faced them.

“What is this?” asked Kith-Kanan.

“My loving sister seeks to deny me a horse,” Ulvian said, straining against his captors. “And these ruffians have laid hands on me!”

“There are twenty people, and only twelve horses,” Verhanna snapped at him. “You’re still a convict, and by Astra, you’ll walk!”

“Release him,” Kith-Kanan said. The elves let go of Ulvian. A smug sneer appeared on the prince’s face, but his father erased it by adding, “You will walk, Ullie.”

The prince’s face turned red under his dirty blond beard. “Do you think I can walk all the way to Qualinost?” he exploded.

“You’re going back to Pax Tharkas!” Verhanna put in.

“No,” said the Speaker. The single quiet syllable silenced both siblings. “The prince will accompany us home to Qualinost.”

“But, Father—!”

“That’s enough, Hanna!” She flushed at this mild rebuke. “Has anyone seen to Lord Ambrodel?”

“He’s doing OK, Your Worship,” interposed Rufus. “But with those busted ribs, he can’t ride.” The kender suggested they make a stretcher from whatever they could find inside the cave. The stretcher could be dragged behind a horse.

Kith-Kanan gave orders for this to be done. Two warriors went in search of poles and cloth while the others collected their scattered gear and loaded for home.

The Speaker and his daughter went to see Kemian. The general was white-faced with pain, but he saluted gamely when his sovereign arrived. Kith-Kanan knelt beside him.

“The kender says you’ll be all right,” he said encouragingly. “Though he’s not a healer, he does seem to have some knowledge of these things. How do you feel, my lord?”

Through clenched lips, Kemian replied, “I am well sire.”

“Do you feel well enough to tell me what happened in the cave? How did you get hurt, and how did Greenhands manage to kill the wyvern?”

The injured elf coughed and almost fell back in pain. Verhanna got behind him to bolster him up. Kemian gave her a grateful glance over his shoulder, then launched into his account of the death of the sorcerer Drulethen.

“The green-fingered one reasoned that, with his strength, he could rope the beast and pull its head inside, where I would chop it off with my sword. I got the rope we’d gathered for you, Speaker, and tied off the end to a wall bracket in the great chamber. The warriors and the kender teased the monster into attacking, and Greenhands caught him in his snare.” He paused to draw a ragged breath.

“We pulled the monster in, even though it fought hard against us,” Kemian continued. “I’ve never seen so strong an elf, sire. Greenhands hauled in that wyvern as if it were a river trout. I stepped forward to finish the job with my sword, but—” he passed a hand over his chest—“the monster pinned me against the wall with its head. It meant to crush the life out of me and was doing just that when Greenhands took the sword from my hand and chopped the beast’s head off. Two strokes was all it took, I swear. Then I swooned from pain.”

Verhanna took up the water bottle Rufus had left and wet Kemian’s lips. “Thank you, lady,” he whispered. “You’re very kind.”

“That’s not something I hear very often,” she replied tartly.

Kemian coughed. Agony contorted his face. “Sire,” he gasped, “is he really your son?”

“Yes. He is the child of my first wife, whom I lost many, many years ago.”

Kemian grasped Kith-Kanan’s hand. “Then you have a fine son, Majesty. With guidance, he would make a fine Speaker of the Sun.”

It was the same thought that had just occurred to the Speaker. By common law of primogeniture, the eldest son was to inherit a monarch’s crown. Even though Ulvian was born first, Greenhands had been conceived several centuries earlier. It was a legal and ethical riddle to try the brains of the wisest thinkers in Qualinost.

Verhanna interrupted his thoughts. “Father, I agree with the general. Greenhands is brave and good and has powers beyond what you have already seen.” She recounted the experiences she and Rufus had had with Greenhands—his control of the herd of elk, her healing, their meeting with the centaurs.

The centaurs! She jumped to her feet, letting go of Kemian so quickly he slid sideways to the ground. He moaned, but Verhanna was already stepping over him and bawling for Greenhands. He and Rufus were standing at the edge of the ashes, all that was left of the wyvern’s pyre.

“I’m calling you!” she said, planting her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you answer?”

Rufus pointed to the object of their rapt attention. Half-buried in the cinders was the scorched skull of the monster. All the flesh had been burned away, and the horny yellow beak had turned a sickly gray from the heat.

“We was thinking that would make a great trophy,” Rufus said.

“And on what pack mule were you planning to put that thing?” she asked pointedly. The skull was four feet long.

“I can carry it,” Greenhands said softly, and Rufus beamed at him.

“Leave it. It’s just carrion.” Verhanna took hold of Greenhands’ arm, pulling him away from the ashes. “Do you still have the horn that centaur gave you?”

“It’s there.” He indicated the rocks where their gear had been placed before the fight.

“Use it,” she said. “Summon the centaurs.”

“Why, my captain?” Rufus scratched his freckled cheek.

“We need mounts, don’t we? Centaurs have four legs, don’t they? If they’re agreeable, we’ll ride them right into Qualinost!” She grinned. “What an entrance we’ll make!”

Rufus grinned back at her. So taken was he with her idea that he ran to the rocks and fetched back the ram’s horn.

He inhaled deeply. Fastening his lips on the horn tip, the kender blew till his red face turned purple. A horrible wail escaped from the open end of the horn. Everyone on the plateau stopped what he was doing and put his hands over his ears.

“Enough!” said Verhanna, snatching the horn from Rufus’s lips. He staggered away, winded from his effort.

She handed the ram’s horn to Greenhands. He raised it high and blew.

A deep, steady tone issued from the horn. The unwavering bass note bounced against the mountains and echoed back like a phantom reply.

“Again,” Verhanna demanded.

The second note took wing before the first had died. The two sounds chased each other all through the Kharolis and back again. Greenhands lowered the horn, and the two calls finally faded away into the distance. Everyone waited, but nothing happened. There was no answering sound.

Verhanna was disappointed, but before she could order Greenhands to sound the horn again, Kith-Kanan came up to them. “Son,” he said quickly, “Hanna said you were able to heal a goblin bite she received. Do you think you could do as much for Lord Ambrodel?”

“If you wish it, Father,” was Greenhands’ reply.

They went to the general, and Greenhands sat down on the ground beside him. Kemian watched him expectantly, a fevered gleam in his gray-blue eyes.

Greenhands touched his fingertips lightly to each side of the warrior’s head, cocking his own as if listening to something. “You must take off the metal he wears,” Greenhands murmured, pulling his hands back. “It blocks the power.”

“What power?” demanded Ulvian, who had joined them. Verhanna punched him in the arm to silence him.

Rufus deftly untied the armor that Kemian still wore and tugged it free. He removed every bit of metal the general had, even snipping the copper buttons from his haqueton. Those buttons found their way somehow into the kender’s pockets.

“Now it begins,” Greenhands said. He placed his hands flat against Kemian’s ribs. After a few moments, it became obvious the breathing of the two elves was synchronous. Kemian’s was short and ragged because of his injury; Greenhands also breathed in small gasps. The green-fingered elf slowly closed his eyes. Kemian’s eyelids fluttered down also.

Their breathing came faster. All the color drained from Greenhands’ face, and beads of shiny sweat broke out on his brow. At the same time, a flush of red blood came to Lord Ambrodel’s face. His body went limp, his head lolling to one side. The green-fingered elf stiffened abruptly, his back and neck rigid. Now his breath came in harsh, loud gasps for air.

Verhanna cared greatly for Greenhands and hated to see him in pain. Her guilt was compounded by knowing that he had suffered for her also, when he’d saved her from the festering goblin bite.

Kemian cried out. His shout was echoed by Greenhands. The sound rose in intensity and was suddenly cut off. Greenhands’ head hung down. His hands slid off the now sleeping general. He wrapped them around his own chest and moaned. Kith-Kanan and Verhanna gently lowered him to the ground.

“Rest easy,” Kith-Kanan said, smoothing Greenhands’ sweat-soaked hair from his brow. “Rest easy, Son. You’ve done it. You’ve healed Kemian.” The general’s chest rose and fell in deep, untroubled breaths.

It was early afternoon by the time the party was ready to go. Kemian and Greenhands had slept for several hours. Lord Ambrodel awoke fully recovered, and his healer had only some soreness and stiffness remaining. No centaurs had come to aid them, so they set out with ten riding and ten walking. Two horses were used for baggage only. Verhanna mounted up with Kemian and eight warriors. In spite of her protests, her father had chosen to walk, along with Greenhands and Ulvian.

“But you’re the Speaker!” she protested.

“An even better reason to go on foot. My subjects should always know that I am willing to do without so that they may live better. Besides, down here I can talk with my sons.”

Verhanna looked at Greenhands and Ulvian, who walked on each side of their father. Neither of them had spoken to the other. In fact, Ulvian seemed to be assiduously avoiding his newly revealed half-brother. With a last shake of her head, Verhanna reined about and galloped to the head of the little column, taking her place by General

Ambrodel’s side.

“How long is the journey to your city, Father?” asked Greenhands.

“On foot, we’ll be many days walking,” said the Speaker. “We’ll have to pass through Pax Tharkas on the way.”

Ulvian reacted violently to this. He halted in his tracks and stared hard at Kith-Kanan, who continued walking along with the rest of the group. The others on foot passed the prince, until he was standing alone on the narrow mountain trail, the rest of the party well ahead of him.

Kith-Kanan called out, “Coming, Ullie?”

He wanted to shout back, “No!” but there was no wisdom in resisting. His sister would merely insist he be restrained. His father had said he would be allowed to return to Qualinost with the rest of the group. All the prince could do was hope that was true.

They made good time that day, reaching the wider road in the lower elevations by midafternoon. Kith-Kanan halted them there for a rest and food. Cooking fires were lit under the flawless blue vault of sky. The Speaker commented on the fine weather.

“Strange,” he mused, “the Kharolis in summer is usually beset by daily thunderstorms.”

“Perhaps the gods are showing their favor,” Kemian suggested.

Verhanna and her father exchanged a private look. “Some happy influence is at work,” Kith-Kanan agreed. The Speaker believed that the shooting stars and this fine weather were all signs that the gods were pleased by the fact that, after four centuries, he and Greenhands had come together.

Rufus had dropped off the rump of Verhanna’s horse when the column stopped and promptly disappeared into the rocks on the high side of the road. The group was busy, though, and no one paid any attention.

The soup was just beginning to boil when the drumming of hooves echoed down the road. The warriors, true to their training, dropped their pots and cups and grabbed their weapons. Kith-Kanan, more curious than alarmed, walked to the end of the road and looked up and down the mountainside, trying to see who was coming. Dust rose from the trail. He heard a high, broken yelp.

“Hi-yi-yi!”

Around the curve in the road appeared Rufus Wrinklecap, clinging to the back of a brown-skinned centaur. More wild horse-people followed, and they barreled up the road straight at Kith-Kanan. The warriors shouted for the Speaker to withdraw to safety, but Kith-Kanan stood his ground.

The lead centaur, carrying the kender, came to a stop just inches from the Speaker.

“Hail, Your Worthiness!” declared Rufus. “This is my friend, Uncle Koth, and these are his cousins!”

Kith-Kanan placed his right palm over his breast. “Greetings, Uncle Koth, and all your family. I am Kith-Kanan, Speaker of the Sun.”

“Most happy to see you, cousin Speaker.” The centaur’s dark eyes, round like a human’s, flitted quickly from side to side. “Where would be our friend, he of the green fingers?”

Kith-Kanan beckoned Greenhands forward. The centaur embraced him with both brawny arms.

“Little cousin! We heard you call, and have run hard all day to find you!”

“You were a day’s ride away, and you heard him blow the horn?” asked Verhanna, amazed.

“Indeed so, sister cousin. Is that not why I gave it to him?”

Koth beamed, showing his uneven, yellow teeth. “We found the littlest cousin down the road, eating jackberries. He explained the boon you desire from us and led us back here.”

Verhanna raised an eyebrow at her kender scout. “Jackberries, eh?”

Rufus gave her an ingratiating smile. “Well, there were only a few—”

“This is excellent,” Kith-Kanan said. “Are you willing to carry us all the way to Qualinost?”

Koth scratched behind one ear. The stiff brown hair that fringed it grated loudly on his callused fingers. “Well, cousin Speaker, where might this Kaal-nos be?”

Kith-Kanan said, “By horse, it’s an eight-day ride from here.”

“Horse!”

Koth snorted, and the band of centaurs at his back laughed loudly. “The sun and moons all know no horse can run like the Kothlolo,” he boasted. “If it pleases you, cousin Speaker, we will have you in your Kaal-nos in six days.”

This claim set the warriors buzzing with speculation. Kith-Kanan held up a hand for quiet. “Uncle Koth, if you can put me in my capital in six days, I will give you a reward such as no centaur ever dreamed of.”

The centaur’s eyes narrowed with thought. “Reward is good. I’ll think on it, cousin, and so should you. When we get to Kaal-nos, I’ll find out if you think as big as Koth!”

There were only eight centaurs. Since it was claimed that ordinary horses would not be able to keep up, only the Speaker and his close party rode them. The rest of the warriors were told to proceed on horseback to Pax Tharkas, where relief and refreshment would be given them.

“Are we bypassing the fortress, Father?” asked Verhanna.

“If the centaurs can get us back to the city in six days, there’s no reason to detour to Pax Tharkas,” he replied. Verhanna looked at Ulvian and frowned but said no more.

There was much rough laughter and nervousness as the party climbed on the centaurs. Kith-Kanan rode Koth. Without saddles or stirrups or reins, the riders were worried about maintaining their balance as they rode. Rufus supplied the answer. His mount was a dapple-gray lady centaur who wore a buckskin halter over her small breasts. The kender took the wide sash belt from his formerly fine suit of clothes and tied it loosely around her human waist. This gave him something to cling to from behind, and it didn’t impede the centaur’s movements. In fact, she stroked the dirty yellow belt fondly, admiring its silky smoothness. The rest of the party quickly copied the kender’s invention with whatever belts or braces they owned, and they were soon set.

“Ready, cousins?” boomed Koth. Together the centaurs chorused their assent. “You have a firm hold, cousin Speaker?”

Kith-Kanan shifted his seat slightly. “I’m ready,” he said, gripping the leather baldric he’d converted to a centaur harness. Koth gave a wild, wavering yell and galloped down the road at breakneck speed. The rest of the centaur band thundered after him.

The Speaker had ridden some strange creatures in his life. His royal griffon, Arcuballis, had possessed breathtaking strength in flight and had once performed a complete loop in the air, but this! The riders’ weight didn’t seem to hinder the centaurs much; they bounded over low obstacles and careened around large ones with absolute abandon.

Kith-Kanan was above yelling from fright or excitement, but his followers were not so restrained. Verhanna, whose long legs nearly scraped the ground when astride her short-legged centaur, yelped involuntarily at every wild bump and turn. Rufus whooped and shouted from the back of his lady centaur and waved his big hat. Kemian tried to emulate the Speaker’s dignity, but an occasional startled shout escaped his lips from time to time. Ulvian was tight-lipped, his thoughts on distant things. Only Greenhands seemed to take the ride with perfect equanimity. Despite the pounding pace, he held on with one relaxed hand and studied the scenery with total attention.

The landscape swept past at an astonishing rate. As surefooted as goats, the centaurs raced near the sheer drop that bounded the mountain road. Kith-Kanan gradually relaxed his death grip on the baldric and sat more erect.

“How long can you maintain such a pace?” he said loudly in Koth’s ear.

“I shall be winded in a few hours,” shouted the centaur. “Of course, I am old. My young cousins can run longer than I!”

Kith-Kanan cast a glance back over his shoulder. His children and friends bounced and yelped on the centaurs’ backs. Red topknot streaming in the wind, Rufus flipped him a salute. Verhanna gave her father an uncertain smile as she glanced at the cliff’s edge almost below her feet. Greenhands waved casually.

The wind sang in Kith-Kanan’s ears, and the day was fair and warm. He would soon be home in his beloved city, arriving on the back of a wild centaur. Throwing back his head, the Speaker of the Sun laughed out loud. His merriment echoed through the hills against a rhythm of centaurs’ hooves.

By twilight, after half a day of constant motion—they even ate on the run—the centaurs were on the lower slopes of the eastern Kharolis, with the wide plain spread out at their feet. Kith-Kanan remarked on the abundance of flowers and the tall green grass, none of which had been present when he and his party passed through a week before.

“The flowers bloomed for Greenhands,” Rufus said. He bit a wild apple, then offered the rest of the fruit to his mount. She reached back with one sun-browned arm and deftly took the fruit.

Kith-Kanan looked over Koth’s human shoulder at the field of blooming flowers. He remembered a time long ago when he and his young friend Mackeli had journeyed to Silvanost through a land bursting with life. Pollen and flower petals had filled the sun-washed air, and everywhere there was a vibrancy above and beyond the usual growth of spring. It had happened because his wife Anaya had metamorphosed into an oak tree—she had joined the power that she served so faithfully. The ancient power had showed its rejoicing in an explosion of fertility. Now Greenhands’ passage through the countryside was provoking the same reaction. It was one more bit of confirmation that Greenhands was indeed his and Anaya’s child. Not that he needed much convincing. He saw his beloved every time he looked into his son’s innocent green eyes and smiling face.

“Majesty? Majesty?”

Kith-Kanan snapped back to the present. “Yes?”

Rufus had guided his mount next to the Speaker’s. “Your Mightiness, the others want to know if we can stop and stretch our legs.”

The Speaker rubbed his numb thighs. “Yes, an excellent idea. Stop, uncle, if you please.”

The centaurs drew up, and their riders stiffly dismounted. With many groans, they stretched their sore muscles. Kith-Kanan went to speak quietly with Greenhands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ulvian stalking down the slope toward the plain, deeply shadowed now that the sun had set.

“Shall I fetch him back?” Verhanna asked, hand on her sword hilt.

“No. He won’t get far.” Kith-Kanan sighed. His delight in the fine day and his new son were tinged with worry for the problems of his other son. “Your people can catch up to him, can’t they, uncle?”

A wide grin split the centaur’s face. “No doubt, cousin Speaker!” Koth declared. “No two-legs can outrun the Kothlolo!”

They delayed a while longer, then everyone mounted up and Kith-Kanan pointed the way to distant Qualinost.