“What was the nature of your obstacles?”
“The usual rings of guards, Your Highness,” replied the elf. “But the humans lack sorcerers and so cannot screen the paths with magic. The first day of my journey I was concealed by invisibility, a spell that camouflaged myself and my horse. Afterward, the fleetness of my steed carried me, and I encountered only one minor fray.”
The Speaker of the Stars took the scroll and broke the wax seal. Carefully he unrolled the sheet, ignoring Quimant for the time being. The lord stood quietly; if he was annoyed, he made no visible sign of the fact.
Sithas read the missive solemnly.
I look out, my brother, upon an endless sea of humanity. Indeed, they surround us like the ocean surrounds an island, completely blocking our passage. It is only with great risk that my couriers can penetrate the lines – that, and the aid of spells cast by my enchanters, which allow them some brief time to escape the notice of the foe.
What is to be the fate now of our cause? Will the army of Ergoth attack and carry the fort? Their horses sweep in great circles about us, but the steeds cannot reach us here. The other two wings have joined General Giarna before Sithelbec, and their numbers truly stun the mind.
General Giarna, I have learned, is the name of the foe we faced in the spring, the one who drove us from the field. We have taken prisoners from his force, and to a man they speak of their devotion to him and their confidence that he will one day destroy us! I met him in the brief hours I was prisoner, and he is a terrifying man. There is something deep and cruel about him that transcended any foe I have ever encountered.
Will the dwarves of Thorbardin march from their stronghold and break the siege from the south? That, my brother, would be a truly magnificent feat of diplomacy on your part. Should you bring such an alliance into being, I could scarce convey my gratitude across the miles!
Or will the hosts of Silvanost march forth, the elves united in their campaign against the threat to our race? That, I am afraid, is the least likely of my musings – at least, from the words you give me as to our peoples’ apathy and lack of concern. How fares the diplomatic battle, Brother?
I hope to amuse you with one tale, an experience that gave us all many moments of distraction, not to mention fear. I have written to you of the gnomish lava cannon, the mountain vehicle pulled by a hundred oxen, its stony maw pointed skyward as it belches smoke and fire. Finally, shortly after my last letter, this device was hauled into place before Sithelbec. It stood some three miles away but loomed so high and spumed so furiously that we were indeed distraught!
For three days, the monstrous structure became the center of a whirlwind of gnomish activity. They scaled its sides, fed coal into its bowels, poured great quantities of muck and dust and streams of a red powder into its maw. All this time, the thing puffed and chugged. By the third day, the entire plain lay shrouded beneath a cloud from its wheezing exhalations.
Finally the gnomes clambered up the sides and stood atop the device, as if they had scaled a small mountain. We watched, admittedly with great trepidation, as one of the little creatures mixed a caldron at the very lip of the cannon’s interior. Eventually he cast the contents of the vessel into the weapon itself. All of the gnomes fled, and for the first time, we noticed that the humans had pulled back from the cannon, giving it a good half-mile berth to either side.
For a full day, the army of Ergoth huddled in fright, staring at their monstrous weapon. Finally it appeared that it had failed to discharge, but it was not until the following day that we watched the gnomes creep forward to investigate.
Suddenly the thing began to chug and wheeze and belch. The gnomes scurried for cover, and for another full day, we all watched and waited. But it was not until the morning of the third day that we saw the weapon in action.
It exploded shortly after dawn and cast its formidable ordnance for many miles. Fortunately we, as the targets of the attack, were safe. It was the gathered human army that suffered the brunt of flaming rock and devastating force that ripped across the plains.
We saw thousands of the humans’ horses (unfortunately a small fraction of their total number) stampede in panic across the plain. Whole regiments vanished beneath the deluge of death as a sludgelike wave spread through the army.
For a brief moment, I saw the opportunity to make a sharp attack, further disrupting the encircling host. Even as I ordered the attack, however, the ranks of General Giarna’s wing shouldered aside the other humans. His deadly riders ensured that our trap remained effectively closed.
Nevertheless, the accident wreaked havoc among the Army of Ergoth. We gave thanks to the gods that the device misfired; had its attack struck Sithelbec, you would have already received your last missive from me. The cannon has been reduced to a heap of rubble, and we pray daily that it cannot be rebuilt.
My best wishes and hopes for my new niece or nephew. Which is it to be?
Perhaps you will have the answer by the time you read this. I can only hope that somehow I will know. I hope Hermathya is comfortable and well.
I miss your counsel and presence as always, Brother. I treat myself to the thought that, could we but bring our minds together, we could work a way to break out of this stalemate. But, alas, the jaws of the trap close about me, and I know that you, in the capital, are ensnared in every bit as tight a position as I.
Until then, have a prayer for us! Give my love to Mother!
Kith
Sithas paused, realizing that the guards and Quimant had been studying him intently as he read. A full range of emotions had played across his face, he knew, and suddenly the knowledge made him feel exceedingly vulnerable.
“Leave me, all of you!” Sithas barked the command, more harshly perhaps than he intended, but he was nevertheless gratified to see them all quickly depart from the hall.
He paced back and forth before the emerald throne. His brother’s letter had agitated him more than usual, for he knew that he had to do something. No longer could he force the standoff at Sithelbec into the back of his mind. His mother and his brother were right. He needed to see Kith-Kanan, to talk with him. They would be able to work out a plan – a plan with some hope of success!
Remembering his walk with Nirakina, he turned toward the royal doors of crystal. The gardens and the stables lay beyond.
Resolutely Sithas stalked to those doors, which opened silently before him.
He emerged from the tower into the cool sunlight of the garden but took no note of his surroundings. Instead, he crossed directly to the royal stable.
The stable was in fact a sprawling collection of buildings and corrals. These included barns for the horses and small houses for the grooms and trainers, as well as stocks of feed. Behind the main structure, a field of short grass stretched away from the Tower of the Stars, covering the palace grounds to the edges of the guildhouses that bordered them.
Here were kept the several dozen horses of the royal family, as well as several coaches and carriages. But it was to none of these that the speaker now made his way.
Instead, he crossed through the main barn, nodding with easy familiarity to the grooms who brushed the sleek stallions. He passed through the far door and crossed a small corral, approaching a sturdy building that stood by itself, unattached to any other. The door was divided into top and bottom halves; the top half stood open.
A form moved within the structure, and then a great head emerged from the door. Bright golden eyes regarded Sithas with distrust and suspicion.
The front of that head was a long, wickedly hawklike beak. The beak opened slightly. Sithas saw the great wings flex within the confining stable and knew that Arcuballis longed to fly.
“You must go to Kith-Kanan,” Sithas told the powerful steed. “Bring him out of his fort and back to me. Do this, Arcuballis, when I let you fly!”
The griffon’s large eyes glittered as the creature studied the Speaker of the Stars. Arcuballis had been Kith-Kanan’s lifelong mount until the du
ties of generalship had forced his brother to take a more conventional steed. Sithas knew that the griffon would go and bring his brother back.
Slowly Sithas reached forward and unlatched the bottom half of the door, allowing the portal to swing freely open. Arcuballis hesitantly stepped forward over the half-eaten carcass of a deer that lay just inside the stable.
With a spreading of his great wings, Arcuballis gave a mighty spring. He bounded across the corral, and by his third leap, the griffon was airborne. His powerful wings drove downward and the creature gained height, soaring over the roof of the stable, then veering to pass near the Tower of the Stars.
“Go!” cried Sithas. “Go to Kith-Kanan!”
As if he heard, the griffon swept through a turn. Powerful wings still driving him upward, Arcuballis swerved toward the west.
It seemed to Sithas as if a heavy burden had flown away from him, borne upon the wings of the griffon. His brother would understand, he knew. When Arcuballis arrived at Sithelbec, as Sithas felt certain he would, Kith-Kanan would waste no time in mounting his faithful steed and hastening back to Silvanost. Between them, he knew, they would find a way to advance the elven cause.
“Excellency?”
Sithas whirled, startled from his reverie by a voice from behind him. He saw Stankathan, the majordomo, looking out of place among the mud and dung of the corral. The elf’s face, however, was knit by a deeper concern.
“What is it?” Sithas inquired quickly.
“It’s your wife, the Lady Hermathya,” replied Stankathan. “She cries with pain now. The clerics tell me it is time for your child to be born.”
7
THREE DAYS LATER
THE OIL LAMP SPUTTERED IN THE CENTER OF THE WOODEN TABLE. The flame was set low to conserve precious fuel for the long, dark months of winter that lay ahead. Kith-Kanan thought the shadowy darkness appropriate for this bleak meeting.
With him at the table sat Kencathedrus and Parnigar. Both of them – as well as Kith, himself – showed the gauntness of six months at half rations. Their eyes carried the dull awareness that many more months of the same lay before them.
Every night during that time, Kith had met with these two officers, both of them trusted friends and seasoned veterans. They gathered in this small room, with its plain table and chairs. Sometimes they shared a bottle of wine, but that commodity, too, had to be rationed carefully.
“We have a report from the Wildrunners,” Parnigar began. “White-lock managed to slip through the lines. He told me that the small companies we have roaming the woods can hit hard and often. But they have to keep moving, and they don’t dare venture onto the plains.”
“Of course not!” Kencathedrus snapped.
The two officers argued, as they did so often, from their different tactical perspectives. “We’ll never make any progress if we keep dispersing our forces through the woods. We have to gather them together! We must mass our strength!”
Kith sighed and held up his hands. “We all know that our ‘mass of strength’ would be little more than a nuisance to the human army – at least right now.
The fortress is the only thing keeping the Wildrunners from annihilation, and the hit-and-run tactics are all we can do until … until something happens.”
He trailed off weakly, knowing he had touched upon the heart of their despair. True, for the time being they were safe enough in Sithelbec from direct attack. And they had food that could be stretched, with the help of their clerics, to last for a year, perhaps a little longer.
In sudden anger, Kencathedrus smashed his fist on the table. “They hold us here like caged beasts,” he growled. “What kind of fate do we consign ourselves to?”
“Calm yourself, my friend.” Kith touched his old teacher on the shoulder, seeing the tears in the elven warrior’s eyes. His eyes were framed by sunken skin, dark brown in color, that accentuated further the hollowness of the elf’s cheeks. By the gods, do we all look like that? Kith had to wonder.
The captain of Silvanost pushed himself to his feet and turned away from them. Parnigar cleared his throat awkwardly. “There is nothing we can accomplish by morning,” he said. Quietly he got to his feet.
Parnigar, alone of the three of them, had a wife here. He worried more about her health than his own. She was human, one of several hundred in the fort, but this was a fact that they carefully avoided in conversation. Though Kith-Kanan knew and liked the woman, Kencathedrus still found the interracial marriage deeply disturbing.
“May you rest well tonight, noble elves,” Parnigar offered before stepping through the door into the dark night beyond.
“I know your need to avenge the battle on the plains,” Kith-Kanan said to Kencathedrus as the latter turned and gathered his cloak. “I believe this, my friend – your chance will come!”
The elven captain looked at the general, so much younger than himself, and Kith could see that Kencathedrus wanted to believe him. His eyes were dry again, and finally the captain nodded gruffly. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he promised before following Parnigar into the night.
Kith sat for a while, staring at the dying flame of the lantern, reluctant to extinguish the light even though he knew precious fuel burned away with each second. Not enough fuel … not enough food … insufficient troops. What did he have enough of, besides problems?
He tried not to think about the extent of his frustration – how much he hated being trapped inside the fortress, cooped up with his entire army, at the mercy of the enemy beyond the walls. How he longed for the freedom of the forests, where he had lived so happily during his years away from Silvanost.
Yet with these thoughts, he couldn’t help thinking of Anaya – beautiful, lost Anaya. Perhaps his true entrapment had begun with her death, before the war started, before he had been made general of his father’s – and then his brother’s – army.
Finally he sighed, knowing that his thoughts could bring him no comfort.
Reluctantly he doused the lantern’s flame. His own bunk occupied the room adjacent to this office, and soon he lay there.
But sleep would not come. That night they had had no wine to share, and now the tension of his mood kept Kith-Kanan awake for seeming hours after his two officers left.
Eventually, with the entire fortress silent and still around him, his eyes fell shut – but not to the darkness of restful sleep. Instead, it was as though he fell directly from wakefulness into a very vivid dream.
He dreamed that he soared through the clouds, not upon the back of Arcuballis as he had flown so many times before, but supported by the strength of his own arms, his own feet. He swooped and dove like an eagle, master of the sky.
Abruptly the clouds parted before him, and he saw three conical mountain peaks jutting upward from the haze of earth so far below. These monstrous peaks belched smoke, and streaks of fire splashed and flowed down their sides.
The valleys extending from their feet were hellish wastelands of crimson lava and brown sludge.
Away from the peaks he soared, and now below him were lifeless valleys of a different sort. Surrounded by craggy ridges and needlelike peaks, these mountain retreats lay beneath great sheets of snow and ice. All around him stretched a pristine brilliance. Gray and black shapes, the forms of towering summits, rose from the vast glaciers of pure white. In places, streaks of blue showed through the snow, and here Kith-Kanan saw ice as clean, as clear as any on Krynn.
Movement suddenly caught his eye in one of these valleys. He saw a great mountain looming, higher than all the others around. Upon its face, dripping ice formed the crude outlines of a face like that of an old, white-bearded dwarf.
Kith continued his flight and saw movement again. At first Kith thought that he was witnessing a great flock of eagles – savage, prideful birds that crowded the sky. Then he wondered, could they be some kind of mountain horses or unusual, tawny-colored goats?
In another moment, he knew, as the memory of Arcuballis came flooding back. Thes
e were griffons, a whole flock of them! Hundreds of the savage half-eagle, half-lion creatures were surging through the air toward Kith-Kanan.
He felt no fear. Instead, he turned away from the dwarfbeard mountain and flew southward. The griffons followed, and slowly the heights of the range fell behind him. He saw lakes of blue water below him and fields of brush and mossy rock. Then came the first trees, and he dove to follow a mountain rivulet toward the green flatlands that now opened up before him.
And then he saw her in the forest – Anaya! She was painted like a wild savage, her naked body flashing among the trees as she ran from him. By the gods, she was fast! She outdistanced him even as he flew, and soon the only trace of her passage was the wild laughter that lingered on the breeze before him.
Then he found her, but already she had changed. She was old, and rooted in the ground. Before his eyes, she had become a tree, growing toward the heavens and losing all of the form and the senses of the elfin woman he had grown to love.
His tears flowed, unnoticed, down his face. They soaked the ground and nourished the tree, causing it to shoot farther into the sky. Sadly the elf left her, and he and his griffons flew on farther to the south.
Another face wafted before him. He recognized with shock the human woman who had given him his escape from the enemy camp. Why, now, did she enter his dream?
The rivulet below him became a stream, and then more streams joined it, and the stream became a river, flowing into the forested realm of his homeland.
Ahead he finally saw a ring of water where the River Thon-Thalas parted around the island of Silvanost. Behind him, five hundred griffons followed him homeward. A radiant glow reached out to welcome him.
The Kinslayer Wars Page 8
