He looked over the assembled elves. They stood, a pair flanking each griffon, wearing shiny steel helms with long plumes of horsehair. The Windriders wore supple leather boots and smooth torso armor of black leather. They were a formidable force, and the training to come would only enhance their abilities.
Brass trumpets blared the climax of the ceremony, and each of the Windriders received a steel-edged shortsword, which would be worn throughout the training. They would have to learn fast, Kith-Kanan had warned his new recruits, and he knew that they would.
He looked to the west, suddenly restless. It won’t be long now, he told himself.
Soon the siege of Sithelbec would be broken – and how long after that would it be before the war was won?
20
MIDSPRING, 2213 (PC)
KITH-KANAN COULDN’T SLEEP. HE WENT FOR A WALK IN THE Gardens of Astarin, relieved that the griffons had all been moved to the sporting fields. There the creatures rested and enjoyed the fresh meat that the palace liverymen hastily had butchered and carted over to them.
For a time, the elf lost himself in the twists and turns of the elegant gardens.
The soothing surroundings took him back to his youth, to untroubled days and, later, to passionate nights. How many times, he reflected, had he and Hermathya met among this secluded foliage?
Anxiously he tried to shrug off the memories. Soon he and Arcuballis would take to the air, leaving this city and its temptations behind. The mere sight of her was a source of deep guilt and discomfort to him.
As if circumstances mirrored his thoughts, he turned a corner and encountered his brother’s wife, walking in quiet contemplation. Hermathya looked up, but if she was at all surprised to encounter him, her face didn’t reveal anything.
“Hello, Kith-Kanan.” Her smile was deep and warm and suddenly, it seemed to Kith, reckless.
“Hello, Hermathya.” He was certainly surprised to see her. The rest of the palace was dark, and the hour was quite late.
“I saw you come to the garden and came here to find you,” she informed him.
Alarms bells went off in his mind as he gazed at her. By the gods, how beautiful she was! No woman he had ever known aroused him like Hermathya.
Not even Anaya. He could tell, by the smoldering look in her eyes, that her thoughts were similar.
She took a step toward him.
The instinct to reach out and crush her to him, to pull her into his arms and touch her, was almost overpowering. But at the same time, he had sordid memories of their last tryst and her unfaithfulness to his brother. He wanted her, but he dare not weaken again – especially now, after all that he and Sithas had been through together.
Only with a great effort of will did Kith-Kanan step back, raising his hands to stop her approach.
“You are my brother’s wife,” he said, somewhat irrelevantly.
“I was his wife last autumn,” she spat, suddenly venomous.
“Last autumn was a mistake. Hermathya, I loved you once. I think of you now more than I care to admit. But I will not betray my brother!” Again, he added silently. “Can you accept this? Can we be members of the same family and not torment each other with memories of a past that ought to be buried and forgotten?”
Hermathya suddenly clasped her hands over her face. Her body wracking with sobs, she turned and ran, swiftly disappearing from Kith-Kanan’s sight.
For a long time afterward, he stared at the spot where she had stood. The image of her body, of her face, of her exquisite presence, remained vivid in his mind, almost as if she was still there.
*
Three days later, Kith was ready to embark. His plan of battle had been made, but there remained many things to be done. The Windriders wouldn’t fly to the west for
another six weeks. Under the tutelage of their new captain, Hallus, they had to train rigorously in the meantime.
“How long do you think it will take to find Dunbarth?” asked Sithas when he, his mother, and Tamanier Ambrodel came to see Kith-Kanan off.
Kith shrugged. “That’s one reason I’m leaving right away. I have to hook up with the dwarves and fill them in on the timetable, then get to Sithelbec before the Windriders.”
“Be careful,” his mother urged. The color had come back into her face since the brothers’ return, and for the past several weeks she had seemed as merry and robust as ever. Now she struggled not to weep.
“I will,” Kith promised, holding her in his arms. They all hoped the war would end quickly but understood that it might be many months, even years, before he could return.
The door to the audience chamber burst open, and the elves whirled, surprised and then amused. Vanesti stood there.
Sithas’s son, not yet a year old, toddled toward them with an unsteady gait and a broad smile across his elven features. In his hand, he brandished a wooden sword, slashing at imagined enemies to the right and left until his own momentum toppled him to the floor. The sword abandoned, he rose and approached Kith-Kanan unsteadily.
“Pa-pa!” cried the tiny elf, beaming.
Kith blushed and stepped aside. “There’s your papa,” he said, indicating Sithas.
Kith-Kanan noted how much Vanesti had changed during the course of their winter in the mountains. Conceivably the war could drag on for several more years. The toddler would be a young boy by the next time he saw him.
“Come to Uncle Kith, Vanesti. Say good-bye before I ride the griffon!”
Vanesti pouted briefly, but then he wrapped his uncle in a tight hug. Lifting the tiny fellow up and holding him, Kith felt a pang of regret. Would he ever be able to settle down and have children of his own?
Once again Kith-Kanan and Arcuballis took off on an important mission. The vast forestlands of Silvanesti sprawled beneath them. Far to the south, Kith caught an occasional glimpse of the Courrain Ocean, which stretched past the horizon with a limitless expanse.
Soon he came to the plains, and they continued to soar high above the sea of grass that stretched to the limits of his vision. He knew that, northward, his embattled Wildrunners still held their fortress against the pressing human horde. Soon he would join them.
He spotted the snowy crests of the Kharolis Mountains jutting into the sky.
For a full day, Kith watched the imposing heights grow closer, until at last he flew above the wooded valleys that extended from the heart of the range and he was encircled on all sides by great peaks.
Here he began his search in earnest. He knew that the kingdom of Thorbardin lay entirely underground, with great gates providing access from the north and south. The snowmelt had long passed from the forested valleys to the high slopes. The gate, he reasoned, would occupy a lower elevation, both for enhanced concealment and easier access.
He searched along these valleys every day from first to last light, seeking a sign of the passage of the dwarven army. The land consisted of almost entirely uninhabited wilderness, so he reckoned that the march of twenty thousand heavy-booted dwarves would leave some kind of obvious trail.
For days, his search was fruitless. He began to chafe at the lost time. Borne by his speedy griffon, he crossed the range two full times, but never did he find the evidence he sought. His search took him through all of the high valleys and much of the lower foothills. He decided, in desperation, that he would make his last sweep along the very northern fringe of the range, where the jagged foothills petered out into low slopes and finally the flat and expansive plains.
Frequent rainstorms, often accompanied by thunder and lightning, hampered his search. He spent many miserable afternoons huddled with Arcuballis under whatever shelter they could find while hail and rain battered the land. He wasn’t surprised, for spring weather was notoriously violent on the plains, yet the forced delays were extremely dispiriting.
Nearly two weeks into his search, he was working his way to the north, following a broad zigzag from east to west. The sun was high that day, so much so that he could see his shadow directly
below him. Finally the shadow ebbed away toward the east, matching the sun’s descent in the west. Still he had seen no sign of his quarry.
It was near sunset when something caught his eye.
“Let’s go, old boy – down there,” he said, unconsciously voicing the command that he simultaneously relayed to Arcuballis through subtle pressure from his knees on the griffon’s tawny flanks. The creature tucked his wings and swooped low, flying along a shallow stream that marked a broad, flat valley bottom.
At one place, however, the river spilled over a ten-foot shelf of rock, creating a bright and scenic waterfall. It wasn’t the beauty of the scene that had caught Kith-Kanan’s eye, however.
The elf noticed that the brush lining the stream banks was flattened and trampled; indeed, there was a swath some twenty feet wide. The matted brush and grass extended in an arc from the streambed above the falls to the waterway.
Kith-Kanan could see no other sign of passage anywhere in this broad, meadow-lined valley, nor were there any groves of trees that might have concealed a trail. Arcuballis came to rest on a large boulder near the stream bank. Kith swiftly dismounted, leaving the griffon to preen his feathers and keep an eye alert for danger while the elf explored the terrain.
The first thing he noticed was the muddy stream bank. Higher up, where the earth was slightly drier, he saw something that made his heart pound.
Boot prints! Heavy footgear had trod here, and in great numbers. The prints indicated their wearers were heading down the valley after emerging from the streambed. Of course! The dwarves had taken great pains to keep the entrance to their kingdom a secret, and now Kith understood why there had been no road, nor even a heavily used path, leading to the north gate of Thorbardin.
The dwarves had marched along the streambed!
“Come on – back into the sky!” he shouted, rousing Arcuballis.
The creature crouched low to allow Kith to leap into the wide, deep saddle.
The elf lashed himself in with one smooth motion and kicked the griffon’s flanks sharply.
Instantly Arcuballis sprang from the rock, his powerful wings driving downward to carry them through the air. As the griffon began to climb, Kith-Kanan nudged him with his knees, guiding him low above the stream.
They glided along the course of the stream while Kith-Kanan searched the ground along either bank for more signs. Thank the gods for that waterfall!
Dusk soon cast long shadows across the valley, and Kith-Kanan realized that he would have to postpone his search until the morrow.
Nevertheless, it was with high spirits that he directed Arcuballis to land. They camped beneath an earthen overhang on the banks of the stream, and the griffon snatched nearly a dozen plump trout from the water with lighting grasps of his eagle-clawed forefeet. Kith-Kanan feasted on a pair of these while the griffon enjoyed his share.
The next morning Kith again beat the morning sun into the sky, and within an hour, he had left the foothills behind. The mountain stream he followed joined another gravel-bottomed watercourse, and here it became a placid brook, silt-bottomed and sluggish.
Here, too, there were signs that the dwarven column had emerged to march overland.
Now Kith-Kanan urged Arcuballis ahead, and the griffon’s wings carried them to a lofty height. The trail became a wide rut of muddy earth, clearly visible even from a thousand feet in the air. The griffon followed the path below while the elf’s eyes scanned the horizon. For much of the day, all he could see was the long brown trail vanishing into the haze of the north.
Kith-Kanan began to worry that the dwarves had already reached Sithelbec.
Certainly they were tough and capable fighters, but even in their compact formations, they would be vulnerable to the sweeping charges of the human cavalry if they fought without the support of auxiliary forces.
It was late afternoon before he finally caught sight of his goal and knew that he was not too late. The marching column stretched as straight as a spear shaft across the plains, moving toward the north. Kith urged the griffon downward, picking up speed.
As he flew closer, he saw that the figures marched with military precision in a long column that was eight dwarves wide. How far into the distance the troops extended he could not be certain, though he flew overhead for several minutes after he had observed the tail of the column before he could even see its lead formations.
Now he was spotted from below. The tail of the column split and turned, while companies of short, stocky fighters broke to the right and left, quickly swinging into defensive postures. As Arcuballis dove lower, he saw the bearded faces, the metal helms with their plumes of feathers or hair, and, most significantly, the rank of heavy crossbows raised to fire!
He pulled back on the reins and brought Arcuballis into a sharp climb, hoping he was out of range and that the dwarves wouldn’t shoot without first identifying their target.
“Ho! Dwarves of Thorbardin!” he called, soaring about two hundred feet over the ranks of suspicious upturned faces.
“Who are you?” demanded one, a grizzled captain with a shiny helmet plumed by bright red feathers.
“Kith-Kanan! Is that you?” cried another gruff voice, one that the elf recognized.
“Dunbarth Ironthumb!” the elf shouted back, waving at the familiar figure.
Happy and relieved, he brought the griffon through a long, circling dive.
Finally Arcuballis came to rest on the ground, though the griffon pranced and squawked nervously at the troops arrayed before him.
Dunbarth Ironthumb clumped toward him, a wide smile splitting his full, gray-flecked beard. Unlike the other officers of his column, the dwarf wore a plain, unadorned breastplate and a simple steel cap.
Kith sprang from the saddle and seized the stalwart dwarf in a bear hug. “By the gods, you old goat, I thought I’d never find you!” he declared.
“Humph!” snorted Dunbarth. “If we’d wanted to be found, we would have posted signs. Still, what with the storms we’ve been dodging – floods, lightning, even a black funnel cloud! – it’s a lucky thing you did find us. Why were you looking?”
The grizzled dwarf raised his eyebrows in curiosity, waiting for Kith to speak.
“It’s a long story,” the elf explained. “I’ll save it for the campfire tonight!”
“Good enough,” grunted Dunbarth. “We’ll be making camp after another mile.” The dwarven commander paused, then snapped his fingers in sudden decision.
“To the Abyss with it! We’ll make camp here!”
Dunbarth made Kith-Kanan laugh easily. The elf commander ate the hardtack of the dwarves around the fire, and even took a draft of the cool, bitter ale that the dwarves hold so dear but which elves almost universally find to be unpleasant to the palate.
As the fire died into coals, he spoke with Dunbarth and a number of that dwarf’s officers. He told them of the mission to capture the griffons and of the forming of the Windriders. His comrades took heart from the tale of the flying cavalry that would aid them in battle.
He also described, to mutters of indignation and anger, the complicity of Than-Kar and his brother’s plans to arrest the ambassador and return him to King Hal-Waith in chains.
“Typical Theiwar treachery!” growled Dunbarth. “Never turn your back on’em, I can tell you! He never should have been entrusted with a mission of such importance!”
“Why was he?” Kith inquired. “Don’t let it go to your head, but you were always a splendid representative for your king and your people. Why did Hal-Waith send a replacement?”
Dunbarth Ironthumb shook his head and spat into the fire. “Part of it was my own fault, I admit. I wanted to go home. All that talking and diplomacy was getting on my nerves – plus, I’d never spent more than a few months on the surface at a time. I was in Silvanost for a full year, you’ll remember, not counting time on the march.”
“Indeed,” Kith-Kanan said, nodding. He remembered Tamanier Ambrodel’s remarks about that elf’s long mo
nths underground. For the first time, he began to understand the adjustment these subterranean warriors must make in order to undertake an aboveground campaign. Growing up, working and training – all their lives were spent underground.
Surprising emotion choked his throat, for suddenly he realized the depth of the commitment that had brought forth the dwarven army. He looked at Dunbarth and hoped that the dwarf understood the strength of his appreciation.
Dunbarth Ironthumb gruffly cleared his throat and continued. “We have a tricky equilibrium in Thorbardin, I’m sure you appreciate. We of the Hylar Clan control the central realms, including the Life-Tree.”
Kith-Kanan had heard of that massive structure, a cave city all of its own carved from the living stone of a monstrous stalagmite. He nodded his understanding.
“The other clans of Thorbardin all have their own realms – the Daergar, the Daewar, the Mar, and the Theiwar,” continued Dunbarth. The old dwarf sighed.
“We are a stubborn people, it is well known, and sometimes hasty to anger. In none of us are these traits so prevalent as among the Theiwar. But also there is a level of malevolence, of greed and scheming and ambition, among our paleskinned brethren that is not to be found among the higher dwarven cultures. The Theiwar are much distrusted by the rest of the clans.”
“Then why would the king appoint a Theiwar as ambassador to Silvanesti?” Kith-Kanan asked.
“Alas, they are all those things I said, but so too are the Theiwar numerous and powerful. They make up a large proportion of the kingdom’s population, and they cannot be excluded from its politics. The king must select his ambassadors, his nobles, even his high clerics from the ranks of all the clans, including the Theiwar.”
Dunbarth looked the elf squarely in the eye. “King Hal-Waith thought, mistakenly it would appear, that the crucial negotiations with the elves had been concluded with my departure from your capital. Therefore he took the chance of appointing a Theiwar to replace me, having in mind another important task for me and knowing that the Theiwar Clan would make a considerable disturbance if they were once again bypassed for such a prominent ambassadorship.
The Kinslayer Wars Page 21
