The Kinslayer Wars

by Douglas Niles

  “Hello, Hermathya,” he said, sitting up in the bed. He wasn’t particularly surprised to see her, and if he was honest with himself, neither was he very much dismayed.

  “I took this from the serving girl,” she said, bringing forward a large silver tray with domed, steaming dishes and crystal platters. Once again he was struck by her air of youth and innocence.

  Memories of the two of them together …. Kith-Kanan felt a sudden resurgence of desire, a feeling that he thought had been gone for years. He wanted to take her in his arms. Looking into her eyes, he knew that she desired the same thing.

  “I’ll get up. We can dine near the windows.” He didn’t want to suggest they go to the balcony. He felt there was something furtive and private about her visit.

  “Just stay there,” she said softly. “I’ll serve you in bed.”

  He wondered what she meant, at first. Soon he learned, as the dinner grew cold upon a nearby table.

  10

  THE MORNING AFTER

  HERMATHYA SLIPPED AWAY SOMETIME DURING THE MIDDLE OF the night, and Kith-Kanan felt profoundly grateful in the morning that she was gone. Now, in the cold light of day, the passion that had seized them seemed like nothing so much as a malicious and hurtful interlude. The flame that had once drawn them together ought not to be rekindled.

  Kith-Kanan spent most of the day with his brother, touring the stables and farriers of the city. He forced himself to maintain focus on the task at hand: gathering additional horses to mount his cavalry forces for the time when the Wildrunnners took to the offensive. They both knew that they would, they must, eventually attack the human army. They couldn’t simply wait out the siege.

  During these hours together, Kith found that he couldn’t meet his brother’s eyes. Sithas remained cheerful and enthusiastic, friendly in a way that twisted Kith-Kanan’s gut. By midafternoon, he made an excuse to leave his twin’s company, pleading the need to give Arcuballis some exercise. In reality, he needed an escape, a chance to suffer his guilt in solitude.

  The following days in Silvanost passed slowly, making even the bleak confinement in beseiged Sithelbec seem eventful by comparison. He avoided Hermathya, and he found to his relief that she seemed to be avoiding him as well. The few times he saw her she was with Sithas, playing the doting wife holding tightly to her husband’s arm and hanging upon his every word.

  In truth, the time dragged for Sithas as well. He knew that Vedvedsica was laboring to create a spell that might allow them to magically ensnare the griffons, but he was impatient to begin the quest. He ascribed Kith-Kanan’s unease to similar impatience. When they were together, they spoke only of the war and waited for a message from the mysterious cleric.

  That word did not come for eight days, and then, oddly, it arrived in the middle of the night. The twins were wide awake, engaged in deep discussion in Sithas’s chambers, when they heard a rustling on the balcony beyond the open window. Sithas drew the draperies aside, and the sorcerous cleric stepped into the room.

  Kith-Kanan’s eyes immediately fell upon Vedvedsica’s hand, for he carried a long ivory tube, the ends capped by cork. Several arcane sigils, in black, marked its alabaster surface.

  The cleric raised the object, and the twins instinctively understood, even before Vedvedsica uncorked the end and withdrew a rolled sheet of oiled vellum. Unrolling the scroll, he showed them a series of symbols scribed in the Old Script.

  “The spell of command,” the priest explained softly. “With this magic, I believe the griffons can be tamed.”

  *

  The twins planned to depart after one more day of final preparations. With the scroll at last a reality, a new urgency marked their activity. They met with Nirakina and Lord Quimant shortly after breakfast, a few hours after Vedvedsica had departed.

  The four of them gathered in the royal library, where a fire crackled in the hearth to disperse the autumnal chill. Sithas brought the scroll, though he placed his cloak over it as he set it on the floor. They all sat in the great leatherbacked chairs that faced the fire.

  “We have word of a discovery that may change the course of the war – for the better,” announced Kith.

  “Splendid!” Quimant was enthusiastic. Nirakina merely looked at her sons, her concern showing in the furrowing of her brow.

  “You know of Arcuballis, of course,” continued the warrior. “He was given to Sithel – to father – by a ‘merchant’ from the north.” According to the strategy he and Sithas had developed, they would say nothing about the involvement of the gray cleric. “We have since learned that the Khalkist Mountains are home to a great herd of the creatures – hundreds of them, at least.”

  “Do you have proof of this, or is it merely rumor?” asked Nirakina. Her face had grown pale.

  “They have been seen,” explained Kith-Kanan, glossing over the question. He told Quimant and Nirakina of his dream on the night before he departed Sithelbec. “Right down to the three volcanoes, it bears out everything we’ve been able to learn.”

  “Think of the potential!” Sithas added. “A whole wing of flying cavalry! Why, the passage of Arcuballis alone sent hundreds of horses into a stampede. A sky full of griffons could very well rout the whole Army of Ergoth!”

  “It seems a great leap,” Nirakina said slowly and quietly, “from the knowledge of griffons in a remote mountain range to a trained legion of flyers, obeying the commands of their riders.” She was still pale, but her voice was strong and steady.

  “We believe we can find them,” Sithas replied levelly. “We leave at tomorrow’s sunrise to embark upon this quest.”

  “How many warriors will you take?” asked Nirakina, knowing as they all did the legends of the distant Khalkists. Tales of ogres, dark and evil dwarves, even tribes of brutish hill giants – these comprised the folklore whispered by the average elf regarding the mountain range that was the central feature of the continent of Ansalon.

  “Only the two of us will go.” Sithas faced his mother, who appeared terribly frail in her overly-large chair.

  “We’ll ride Arcuballis,” Kith-Kanan explained quickly. “And he’ll cover the distance in a fraction of the time it would take an army – even if we had one to send.”

  Nirakina looked at Kith-Kanan, her eyes pleading. Her warrior son understood the appeal. She wanted him to volunteer to go alone, leaving the Speaker of the Stars behind. Yet even as this thought flashed in her eyes, she lowered her head.

  When she looked up, her voice was firm again. “How will you capture these creatures, assuming that you find them?”

  Sithas removed his cloak and picked up the tube from the floor beside his chair. “We have acquired a spell of command from a friend of the House of Silvanos. If we can find the griffons, the spell will bind them to our will.”

  “It is a more powerful version of the same enchantment that was used to domesticate Arcuballis,” added Kith. “It is written in the Old Script. That is one reason why Sithas must go with me – to help me cast the spell by reading the Old Script.”

  His mother looked at him, nodding calmly, more out of shock than from any true sense of understanding.

  Nirakina had stood beside her husband through three centuries of rule. She had borne these two proud sons. She had suffered the news of her husband’s murder at the hands of a human and lived through the resulting war that now engulfed her nation, her family, and her people. Now she faced the prospect of her two sons embarking on what seemed to her a mad quest, in search of a miracle, with little more than a prayer of success.

  Yet, above all, she was the matriarch of the House of Silver Moon. She, too, was a leader of the Silvanesti, and she understood some things about strength, about ruling, and about risk-taking. She had made known her objections, and she realized that the minds of her sons were set. Now she would give no further vent to her personal feelings.

  She rose from her chair and nodded stiffly at each of her sons. Kith-Kanan went to her side, while Sithas remained in his chair
, moved by her loyalty. The warrior escorted her to the door.

  Quimant looked at Sithas, then turned to Kith-Kanan as he returned to his chair. “May your quest be speedy and successful. I only wish I could accompany you.”

  Sithas spoke. “I shall entrust you to act as regent in my absence. You know the details of the nation’s daily affairs. I shall also need you to begin the conscription of new troops. By the end of winter, we will have to raise and train a new force to send to the plains.”

  “I will do everything in my power,” pledged Quimant.

  “Another thing,” added Sithas casually. “If Tamanier Ambrodel returns to the city, he is to be given quarters in the palace. I will need to see him immediately upon my return.”

  Quimant nodded, rose, and bowed to the twins. “May the gods watch over you,” he said, then left.

  *

  “I have to go. Don’t you understand that?”

  Sithas challenged Hermathya. She stomped about their royal bedchambers before whirling upon him. “You can’t! I forbid it!” Hermathya’s voice rose, becoming shrill. Her face, moments before blank with astonishment, now contorted in fury.

  “Damn it! Listen to me!” Sithas scowled, his own anger rising. Stubborn and intractable, they stared into each other’s eyes for a moment.

  “I’ve told you about the spell of binding. It’s in the Old Script. Kith doesn’t have the knowledge to use it, even if he found the griffons. I’m the only one who can read it properly.” He held her shoulders and continued to meet her eyes.

  “I have to do this, not just for the good it will do our nation, but for me! That’s what you have to understand!”

  “I don’t have to, and I won’t!” she cried, whirling away from him.

  “Kith-Kanan has always been the one to face the dangers and the challenges of the unknown. Now there’s something that I must do. I, too, must put my life at risk. For once, I’m not just sending my brother into danger. I’m going myself!”

  “But you don’t have to!”

  Hermathya almost spat her anger, but Sithas wouldn’t budge. If she could see any sense in his desire to test himself, she wouldn’t admit it. Finally, in exhaustion and frustration, the Speaker of the Stars stormed out of the chambers.

  *

  He found Kith-Kanan in the stables, instructing the saddlemaker on modifications to Arcuballis’s harness. The griffon would be able to carry the two of them, but his flight would be slowed, and they would be able to take precious little in the way of provisions and equipment.

  “Dried meat – enough for only a few weeks,” recited Kith-Kanan, examining the bulging saddlebags. “A pair of waterskins, several extra cloaks. Tinder and flint, a couple of daggers. Extra bowstrings. We’ll carry our bows where we can get at them in a hurry, of course. And twoscore arrows. Do you have a practical sword?”

  For a moment, Sithas flushed. He knew that the ceremonial blade he had carried for years would be inadequate for the task at hand. Cast in a soft silver alloy, its shining blade was inscribed with all manner of symbols in the Old Script, reciting the glorious history of the House of Silvanos. It was beautiful and valuable, but impractical in a fight. Still, it rankled him to hear his brother speak ill of it. “Lord Quimant has procured a splendid longsword for me,” he said stiffly. “It will do quite nicely.”

  “Good.” Kith took no notice of his brother’s annoyance. “We’ll have to leave our metal armor behind. With this load, Arcuballis can’t handle the extra weight. Have you a good set of leathers?”

  Again Sithas replied in the affirmative.

  “Well, we’ll be ready to go at first light, then. Ah —”

  Kith hesitated, then asked, “How did Hermathya react?” Kith knew that Sithas had put off telling Hermathya that he would be gone for weeks on this journey.

  “Poorly,” Sithas, said, with a grimace. He offered no elaboration, and Kith-Kanan did not probe further.

  They attended a small banquet that night, joined by Quimant and Nirakina and several other nobles. Hermathya was conspicuously absent, a fact for which Kith was profoundly grateful, and the mood was subdued.

  He had found himself anxious throughout these last days that Hermathya would tell her husband about her dalliance with his brother. Kith-Kanan had tried to put aside the memory of that night, treating the incident as some sort of waking dream. This made his guilt somewhat easier to bear.

  After dinner, Nirakina handed Sithas a small vial. The stoneware jar was tightly plugged by a cork.

  “It is a salve, made by the clerics of Quenesti Pah,” she explained.

  “Miritelisina gave it to me. If you are injured, spread a small amount around the area of the wound. It will help the healing.”

  “I hope we won’t need it, but thank you,” said Sithas. For a moment, he wondered if his mother was about to cry, but again her proud heritage sustained her. She embraced each of her sons warmly, kissed them, and wished them the luck of the gods. Then she retired to her chambers.

  Both of the twins spent much of the night awake, taut with the prospect of the upcoming adventure. Sithas tried to see his wife in the evening and again before sunrise, but she wouldn’t open her door even to speak to him. He settled for a few moments with Vanesti, holding his son in his arms and rocking him gently while night gave way to early dawn.

  11

  DAY OF DEPARTURE, AUTUMN

  THEY MET AT THE STABLES BEFORE DAWN. AS THEY HAD REQUESTED, no one came to see them off. Kith threw the heavy saddle over the restless griffon’s back, making sure that the straps that passed around Arcuballis’s wings were taut. Sithas stood by, watching as his brother hoisted the heavy saddlebags over the creature’s loins. The elf took several minutes to make sure that everything was secure.

  They mounted the powerful beast, with Kith-Kanan in the fore, and settled into the specially modified saddle. Arcuballis trotted from the stable doors into the wide corral. Here he sprang upward, the thick muscles of his legs propelling them from the ground. His powerful wings beat the still air and thrust downward. In a single fluid motion, he leaped again and they were airborne.

  The griffon labored over the garden and then along the city’s main avenue, slowly gaining altitude. The twins saw the towers of the city pass alongside, then slowly fall behind. Rosy hues of dawn quickly brightened to pink, then pale blue, as the sun seemed to explode over the eastern horizon into a crisp and cloudless day.

  “By the gods, this is fantastic!” cried Sithas, overcome with the beauty of their flight, with the sight of Silvanost, and perhaps with the exhilaration of at last escaping the confining rituals of his daily life.

  Kith-Kanan smiled to himself, pleased with his brother’s enthusiasm. They flew above the Thon-Thalas River, following the silvery ribbon of its path. Though autumn had come to the elven lands, the day was brilliant with sunshine, the air was clear, and a brilliant collage of colors spread across the forested lands below.

  The steady pulse of the griffon’s wings carried them for many hours. The city quickly fell away, though the Tower of the Stars remained visible for some time. By midmorning, however, they soared over pristine forestland. No building broke the leafy canopy to indicate that anyone – elf, human, or whatever – lived here.

  “Are these lands truly uninhabited?” inquired Sithas, studying the verdant terrain.

  “The Kagonesti dwell throughout these forests,” explained Kith. The wild elves, considered uncouth and barbaric by the civilized Silvanesti, did not build structures to dominate the land or monuments to their own greatness. Instead, they took the land as they found it and left it that way when they passed on.

  Arcuballis swept northward, as if the great griffon felt the same joy at leaving civilization behind. Despite the heavy packs and his extra passenger, he showed no signs of tiring during a flight that lasted nearly twelve hours and carried them several hundred miles. When they ultimately landed to make camp, they touched earth beside a clear pool in a sheltered forest grotto. Th
e two elves and their mighty beast spent a peaceful night, sleeping almost from the moment of sunset straight through until dawn.

  Their flight took them six days. After the first day, they took a two-hour interval at midday so that Arcuballis could rest. They passed beyond the forests on the third day, then into the barren plains of Northern Silvanesti, a virtual desert, uninhabited and undesired by the elves.

  Finally they flew beside the jagged teeth of the Khalkist Range, the mountainous backbone of Ansalon. For two full days, these craggy peaks rose to their left, but Kith-Kanan kept them over the dry plains, explaining that the winds here were more easily negotiable than they would be among the jutting summits.

  Eventually they reached the point where they had to turn toward the high valleys and snow-filled swales if they expected to find any trace of their quarry.

  Arcuballis strained to gain altitude, carrying them safely over the sheer crests of the foothills and flying above the floor of a deep valley, following the contours of its winding course as steep ridgelines rose to the right and left, high above them.

  They camped that night, the seventh night of their journey, near a partially frozen lake in the base of a steep-sided, circular valley. Three waterfalls, now frozen into massive icicles, plunged toward them from the surrounding heights.

  They chose the spot for its small grove of hardy cedars, reasoning correctly that firewood would be a useful, and rare, commodity among these lofty realms.

  Sithas helped his brother build the fire. He discovered that he relished the feel of the small axeblade cutting the wood into kindling. The campfire soon crackled merrily, and the warmth on his hands was especially gratifying because his work had provided the welcome heat.

  Thus far, their journey seemed to the Speaker of the Stars to be the grandest adventure he had ever embarked upon.

  “Where do you think the Lords of Doom lie from here?” he asked his brother as they settled back to gnaw on some dried venison. The three volcanoes were rumored to lie at the heart of the range.