by Dragon Lance
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.
He saw another elf woman in the garden. She looked upward, her arms spread, welcoming him to his home, to her. At first, from a distance, he wondered if this was his mother, but then as he dove closer, he recognized his brother’s wife, Hermathya.
Sunlight streamed into his window. He awoke suddenly, refreshed and revitalized. The memory of his dream shone in his mind like a beacon, and he sprang from his bed. The fortress still slumbered around him. His window, on the east wall of a tower, was the first place in Sithelbec to receive the morning sun. Throwing a cloak over his tunic and sticking his feet into soft, high leather boots, he laced the latter around his knees while he hobbled toward the door.
A cry of alarm suddenly sounded from the courtyard. In the next moment, a horn blared, followed by a chorus of trumpets blasting a warning. Kith dashed from his room, down the hall of the captain’s quarters and to the outside. The sun was barely cresting the fortress wall, and yet he saw a shadow pass across that small area of brightness.
He noted several archers on the wall, turning and aiming their weapons skyward.
“Don’t shoot!” he cried as the shadow swooped closer and he recognized it.
“Arcuballis!”
He waved his hand and ran into the courtyard as the proud griffon circled him once, then came to rest before him. The lion’s hindquarter’s squatted while the creature raised one foreclaw – the massive, taloned limb of an eagle. The keen yellow eyes blinked, and Kith-Kanan felt a surge of affection for his faithful steed.
In the next moment, he wondered about Arcuballis’s presence here. He had left him in charge of his brother back in Silvanost. Of course! Sithas had sent the creature here to Kith to bring him home! The prospect elated him like nothing else had in years.
*
It took Kith-Kanan less than an hour to leave orders with his two subordinates. Parnigar he placed in overall command, while Kencathedrus was to drill and train a small, mobile sortie force of cavalry, pikes, and archers. They would be called the Flying Brigade, but they were not to be employed until Kith-Kanan’s return. He cautioned both officers on the need to remain alert to any human stratagem. Sithelbec was the keystone to any defense on the plains, and it must remain impregnable, inviolate.
“I’m sure my brother has plans. We’ll meet and work out a way to break this stalemate!” The autumn wind swirled through the compound, bringing the first bite of winter.
He climbed onto the back of his steed, settling into the new saddle that one of the Wildrunner horsemen had cobbled for him.
“Good luck, and may the gods watch over your flight,” Kencathedrus said, clasping Kith’s gloved hand in both of his own.
“And bring a speedy return,” added Parnigar.
Arcuballis thrust powerful wings, muscular and stout enough to break a man’s neck, toward the ground. At the same time, the leonine hindquarters thrust the body into the air.
Several strokes of his wings carried Arcuballis to the top of a building, still inside the fortress wall. He grasped the peaked roof with his eagle foreclaws, then used his feline rear legs to spring himself still higher into the air. With a squawk that rang like a challenge across the plain, he soared over the wall, climbing steadily.
Kith-Kanan was momentarily awestruck at the spectacle of the enemy arrayed below him. His tower, the highest vantage point in Sithelbec, didn’t convey the immense sprawl of the army of Ergoth – not in the way that Arcuballis’s ascending flight did. Below, ranks of human archers took up their weapons, but the griffon already soared far out of range.
They flew onward, passing above a great herd of horses in a pasture. The shadow of the griffon passed along the ground, and several of the steeds snorted and reared in sudden panic. These bolted immediately, and in seconds, the herd had erupted into a stampede. The elf watched in wry amusement as the human herdsmen raced out of the path of the beasts. It would be hours, he suspected, before order was restored to the camp.
Kith looked down at the smoldering remains of the lava cannon, now a black, misshapen thing, like a burned and gnarled tree trunk leaning at a steep angle over the ground. He saw seemingly endless rows of tents, some of them grand but most simple shelters of oilskin or wool. Everywhere the flat ground had been churned to mud.
Finally he left the circular fortress and the larger circle of the human army behind. Forests of lush green opened before him, dotted by ponds and lakes, streaked by rivers and long meandering meadows. As the wild land surrounded him, he felt the agony of the war fall away.
*
Suzine des Quivalen studied the image in the mirror until it faded into the distance, beyond the reach of her arcane crystal. Yet even after it vanished, the memory of those powerful wings carrying Kith-Kanan away – away from her – lingered in her mind. She saw his blond hair, flying from beneath his helmet. She recalled her gasp of terror when the archers had fired, and her slow relaxation as he gained height and safety. Yet a part of her had cursed and railed at him for leaving, and that part had wanted to see a human arrow bring him down. She didn’t want him dead, of course, but the idea of this handsome elf as a prisoner in her camp was strangely appealing.
For a moment, she paused, wondering at the fascination she found for this elven commander, mortal enemy of her people and chief opponent of the man who was her … lover.
Once General Giarna had been that and more. Smooth, dashing, and handsome, he had swept her off her feet in the early days of their relationship.
With the aid of her powers with the mirror, she had given him information sufficient to discredit several of the emperor’s highest generals. The grateful ruler had rewarded the Boy General with an ever increasing array of field commands.
But something had changed since those times. The man who she thought had loved her now treated her with cruelty and arrogance, inspiring in her fears that she could not overcome. Those fears were great enough to hold her at his side, for she had come to believe that flight from General Giarna would mean her sentence of death.
Here on the plains, in command of many thousands of men, Giarna had little time for her, which was a relief. But when she saw him, he seemed so coldly controlled, so monstrously purposeful, that she feared him all the more.
With an angry shake of her head, she turned from the mirror, which slowly faded into a reflection of the Lady Suzine and the interior of her tent. She rose in a swirl of silk and stalked across the rich carpets that blanketed the ground.
Her red hair swirled in a long coil around her scalp, rising higher than her head and peaking in a glittering tiara of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.
Her gown, of blood-red silk, clung to the full curves of her body as she stalked toward the tent flap that served as her door. She stopped long enough to throw a woolen shawl over her bare shoulders, remembering the chill that had settled over the plains in the last few days.
As soon as she emerged, the six men-at-arms standing at her door snapped to attention, bringing their halberds straight before their faces. She paid no attention as they fell in behind her, marching with crisp precision as she headed toward another elegant tent some distance away. The black stallion of General Giarna stood restlessly outside, so she knew that the man she sought was within.
The Army of Ergoth spread to the horizons around her. The massive encampment encircled the fortress of Sithelbec in a great ring. Here, at the eastern arc of that ring, the headquarters of the three generals and their retinues had collected. Amid the mud and smoke of the army camp, the gilded coaches of the noble lancers and the tall, silken folds of the high officers’ tents, stood out in contrast.
Before Suzine arose the tallest tent of all, that of General Barnet, the overall general of the army.
The two guards before that tent stepped quickly out of the way to let he
r pass, one of them pulling aside the tent flap to give her entrance. She passed into the semidarkness of the tent and her eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light. She saw General Giarna lounging easily at a table loaded with food and drink. Before him, sitting stiffly, was General Barnet. Suzine couldn’t help but notice the fear and anger in the older general’s eyes as he looked at her.
Beyond the two seated men stood a third, General Xalthan. That veteran’s face was deathly, shockingly pale. He surprised Suzine by looking at her with an expression of pleading, as if he hoped that she could offer him succor for some terrible predicament.
“Come in, my dear,” said Giarna, his voice smooth, his manner light. “We are having a farewell toast to our friend, General Xalthan.”
“Farewell?” she asked, having heard nothing of that worthy soldier’s departure.
“By word of the emperor – by special courier, with an escort. Quite an honor, really,” added Giarna, his tone mocking and cruel.
Instantly Suzine understood. The disaster with the lava cannon had been the last straw, as far as the emperor was concerned, for General Xalthan. He had been recalled to Daltigoth under guard.
To his credit, the wing commander nodded stiffly, retaining his composure even in the face of Giarna’s taunts. General Barnet remained immobile, but the hatred in his eyes now flashed toward Giarna. Suzine, too, felt an unexpected sense of loathing toward the Boy General.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the doomed wing commander quietly. “I really am.”
Indeed, the depths of her sorrow surprised her. She had never thought very much about Xalthan, except sometimes to feel uncomfortable when his eyes ran over the outlines of her body if she wore a clinging gown.
But the old man was guilty of no failing, she suspected, except an inability to move as quickly as the Boy General. Xalthan stood in the path of Giarna’s desire to command the entire army. General Giarna’s reports to the emperor, she felt certain, had been full of the information she had provided him – news of Xalthan’s sluggish advance, the ineptness of the gnomish artillerymen, all details that could make a vengeful and impatient ruler lose his patience.
And cause an old warrior who deserved only a peaceful retirement to face instead a prospect of torture, disgrace, and execution.
The knowledge made Suzine feel somehow dirty.
Xalthan looked at her with that puppylike sense of hope, a hope she could do nothing to gratify. His fate was laid in stone before them: There would be a long ride to Daltigoth, perhaps with the formerly esteemed officer bound in chains. Once there, the emperor’s inquisitors would begin, often with Quivalen himself in attendance.
It was rumored that the emperor received great pleasure from watching the torture of those he felt had failed him. No tool was too devious, no tactic too inhumane, for these monstrous sculptors of pain. Fire and steel, venoms and acids, all were the instruments of their ungodly work. Finally, after days or weeks of indescribable agony, the inquisitors would be finished, and Xalthan would be healed – just enough to allow him to be alert for the occasion of his public execution.
The fact that her cousin was the one who would do this to the man didn’t enter into her considerations. She accepted, fatalistically, that this was the way things would happen. Her role in the court family was to be one who remained docile and sensitive to her duties, useful with her skills as seer. She had to play that role and leave the rest to fate.
Just for a moment, a nearly overwhelming urge possessed her, a desire to flee this army camp, to flee the gracious life of the capital, to fly from all the darkness that seemed to surround her empire’s endeavors. She wanted to go to a place where troubles such as this one remained concealed from delicate eyes.
It was only when she remembered the blond-haired elf who so fascinated her that she paused. Even though he had gone, flown from Sithelbec on the back of his winged steed, she felt certain he would return. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to be here when he did.
“Farewell, General,” she said quietly, crossing to embrace the once-proud warrior. Without another glance at Giarna, she turned and left the tent.
Suzine retreated to her own shelter, anger rising within her. She stalked back and forth within the silken walls, resisting the urge to throw things, to rant loudly at the air. For all her efforts at self-control, her vaunted discipline seemed to have deserted her. She could not calm herself.
Suddenly she gasped as the tent flap flew open and her general’s huge form blocked out the light. Instinctively she backed away as he marched into her shelter, allowing the flap to fall closed behind him.
“That was quite a display,” he growled, his voice like a blast of winter’s wind.
His dark eyes glowered, showing none of the amusement they had displayed at Xalthan’s predicament.
“What – what do you mean?” she stammered, still backing away. She held her hand to her mouth and stared at him, her green eyes wide. A trace of her red hair spilled across her brow, and she angrily pushed it away from her face.
Giarna crossed to her in three quick strides, taking her wrists in both his hands. He pulled her arms to her sides and stared into her face, his mouth twisted into a menacing sneer.
“Stop – you’re hurting me!” she objected, twisting powerlessly in his grip.
“Hear me well, wench.” He growled, his voice barely audible. “Do not attempt to mock me again – ever! If you do, that shall be the end your power … the end of everything!”
She gasped, frightened beyond words.
“I have chosen you for my woman. That fact pleased you once; perhaps it may please you again. Whether it does or not is irrelevant to me. Your skills, however, are of use to me. The others wonder at the great intelligence I gain concerning the elven army, and so you will continue to serve me thus.
“But you will not affront me again!” General Giarna paused, and his dark eyes seemed to mock Suzine’s terrified stare.
“Do I make myself perfectly clear?” Giarna demanded, and she nodded quickly, helplessly. She feared his power and his strength, and she could only tremble in the grip of his powerful hands.
“Remember well,” added the general. He fixed her with a penetrating gaze, and she felt the blood drain from her face. Without another word, he spun on his heel and stalked imperiously from the tent.
*
The flight to Silvanost took four days, for Kith allowed Arcuballis to hunt in the forest, while he himself took the time to rest at night on a lush bed of pine boughs amid the noisy, friendly chatter of the woods. On the second day of his flight, Kith-Kanan stopped early, for he had reached a place that he intended to visit. Arcuballis dove to earth in the center of a blossom-bright clearing, and Kith dismounted. He walked over to a tree that grew strong and proud, shading a wide area, far wider than when he had last been here a year before.
“Anaya, I miss you,” he said quietly.
He rested at the foot of the tree and spent several hours in bittersweet reflection of the elf woman he’d loved and lost. But he didn’t find total despair in the memory, for this was indeed Anaya beside him now. She grew tall and flourished in a part of the woods she had always loved.
She had been a creature of the woods, and together with her “brother”
Mackeli, the forest’s guardian as well. For a moment, the pain threatened to block out the happier memories. Why did they die? For what purpose? Anaya killed by marauders. Mackeli slain by assassins – sent, Kith suspected, by someone in Silvanost itself.
Anaya hadn’t really died, he reminded himself. Instead, she had undergone a bizarre transformation and become a tree, rooted firmly in the forest soil she loved and had strived to protect.
Then a disturbing vision intruded itself into Kith’s reminiscences, and the picture of Anaya, laughing and bright before him, changed slightly. A beautiful elven woman still teased him, but now the face was different, no longer Anaya’s.
Hermathya! The image of his first love, now his
brother’s wife, struck him like a physical blow. Angrily he shook his head, trying to dispel her features, to call back those of Anaya. Yet Hermathya remained before him, her eyes bold and challenging, her smile alluring.
Kith-Kanan exhaled sharply, surprised by the attraction he still felt for the Silvanesti woman. He had thought that impulse long dead, an immature passion that had run its course and been banished to the past. Now he imagined her supple body, her clinging, low-cut gown tailored to show enough to excite while concealing enough to mystify. He found himself vaguely ashamed to realize that he still desired her.
As he shook his head in an effort to banish the disturbing emotion, a picture of still a third woman insinuated itself. He recalled again the red-haired human woman who had given him his chance to escape from the enemy camp. There had been something vibrant and compelling about her, and this wasn’t the first time he had remembered her face.
The conflicting memories warred within him as he built a small fire and ate a simple meal. He camped in the clearing, as usual making himself a soft bed.
The night passed in peace.
He took to the air at first light, feeling as if he had somehow sullied Anaya’s memory, but soon the clean air swept through his hair, and his mind focused on the day’s journey. Arcuballis carried him swiftly and uneventfully eastward.
After his third night of sleeping in the woods, he felt as if his strength had been doubled, his wit and alertness greatly enhanced.
His spirits soared as high as the Tower of the Stars, which now appeared on the distant horizon. Arcuballis carried him steadily, but so far was the tower that more than an hour passed before they reached the Thon-Thalas River, border to the island of Silvanost.
His arrival was anticipated; boatmen on the river waved and cheered as he flew overhead, while a crowd of elves hurried toward the Palace of Quinari. The doors at the foot of the tower burst open, and Kith saw a blond-haired elf, clad in the silk robe of the Speaker of the Stars, emerge. Sithas hurried across the garden, but the griffon met him halfway.
