by Roland Green
“Then do as the rider would, if he were awake,” Tulia said. “Put her out of her pain.”
The pegasus rolled her vast green eyes at those words and neighed faintly, as if in protest. Rynthala stepped forward.
“Well, Sirbones?”
“I—I have never given death, even to a pegasus. My oath—”
Rynthala used a much less sacred oath of her own. She also cast doubts on Mishakal’s chastity and Sirbones’s manhood.
“Your oath commands you to ease unbearable pain, does it not?” Tulia said. “Does it command how?”
“I may not give death,” Sirbones said. Frail and past sixty as he was, he was as immovable as Belkuthas’s keep when he spoke in that tone.
“Can you put the pegasus to sleep while I try to set her wing and dress her flank?” Rynthala asked. “And steep the dressings and splint in whatever healing potions you keep about?”
Sirbones started to look to Krythis and Tulia for permission to obey their daughter. Rynthala’s face darkened. He hastily looked back at the daughter, and nodded, then knelt beside the pegasus. Within moments, the wounded creature’s eyes were closed, and its breathing was even shallower than before, but far steadier. From time to time its braided, silver-hued tail twitched, and once the good wing rose halfway. Otherwise it might have been a statue.
Krythis suspected that Sirbones had been less than wholly truthful about his ability to heal pegasi. Most likely, he had not wished to spend his spell power on pegasi when humans, elves, and dwarves might soon need all he had and more besides. Rynthala might have lived with that truth. But dithering was something Rynthala neither understood nor forgave, and Krythis found it hard to disagree.
Not when war might be coming to Belkuthas. Naked, raw, red war.
And if not war, then so much else that was unheard of for years in this land that the leisure to contemplate alternatives over wine would be a luxury that existed only in memory.
As the column made camp for the night, Darin found the next set of footprints. The chiefs had chosen a site as far as possible from rough ground. This was no more than long bow shot. They also commanded that no tents go up, so none could be trapped within them, and that double sentries would stand watch all night.
Darin led out the first watch, and found the footprints while he was picking the sentry posts. A returning messenger brought Pirvan, Haimya, and the two Gryphon brothers out to where Darin knelt, guarding a patch of soft sand as if it were a relic of Huma Dragonbane.
“Kender, I think,” Darin said, when only the four summoned were within hearing.
Certainly the footprints were too small for anything except kender or gully dwarves. Gully dwarves would find little fare in this land and lack the wits to pack food and water. Kender, on the other hand, had wits to spare, regardless of how they used them.
Pirvan knelt and studied the footprints more closely. The feet were not only small but booted, which further argued against gully dwarves. Also, they were sunk deep into the sand in proportion to their length.
Pirvan rose, brushing sand off his hands and knees. “Kender indeed,” he said. “And carrying heavy packs.”
“Probably everything in them handled from their rightful owners,” Threehands muttered. Hawkbrother looked away, and Pirvan decided on silence, as there seemed more to this than met the eye.
Less tolerant, Haimya spoke briskly. “Have you or your folk a quarrel with the kender, my chief?” It did not take one who knew Haimya well to hear the edge in the words “my chief?”
“And if we do?”
“The knights seek to undo the evil they did, wielding swords for Istar against ‘barbarians.’ Will you help or hinder?”
“How am I hindering?” The Gryphon sounded truly perplexed.
“Do you see all kender as thieves and vermin?”
Threehands laughed, less harshly than usual. “No, only those who come into the desert without knowing its laws. Fortunately not all of them live long enough to trouble anything but the sand. But a kender will handle anything, including a man’s mount, weapons, or water. The desert spirits do not honor that.”
“You and your warriors have laws about sharing in need,” Pirvan reminded Threehands.
“Yes, but those laws command one to return or repay as soon as possible. Kender—well, the gods only know where something handled by a kender will end up. Not back with the one who first held it, surely. Free Riders have died because kender handled their waterskins,” Threehands concluded. “Fortunately they seldom come into the desert at all. So I suppose we can be at peace over these two, as long as they stay well away from us.”
Pirvan nodded. This seemed the wrong time to suggest they should vigorously follow the trail of those kender, seeking to meet and speak with them. If kender seldom entered the desert, what were these two doing here, especially now? What might they have seen?
Not that these questions were ever likely to be answered. Not only was the desert large and kender small, but the average kender could find a hiding place on a dining-hall table!
By evening at Belkuthas, it was plain that Sirbones and Rynthala between them had done well by the pegasus. The inward bleeding had ceased, the cleric’s spells kept the pain within bounds, the stepped dressings were already at work on the wounded flank, and the broken wing was set with a splint so elaborate that Rynthala had enlisted the help of two harness-makers and a carpenter’s apprentice to design and build it.
This was as well, and for more folk than the pegasus. The rider, when he regained his senses, turned out to be a messenger from Maradoc, king of the Silvanesti. His message was that a Silvanesti embassy, led by one Lauthinaradalas, a high judge, was on its way north. It intended to reside at Belkuthas, a neutral location that all parties to the dispute with Istar might approach without fear. The embassy would remain until Istar either sent its own embassy to the Silvanesti or showed itself determined to treat the elves as mere subjects.
“Lord Lauthin is not expecting the humans to see reason,” said the messenger from his sickbed. Krythis and Tulia offered no response to that. “But the king has commanded, and he will obey. So will you.”
Krythis was glad Rynthala was still down in the stables—she seemed prepared to sleep in the stall with the wounded pegasus.
He said, “Your pardon, my friend—”
“Hardly that, to a half-elf.”
Krythis counted to ten. “I will call you by your name, if you will condescend to give it.”
“You may call me Belot.”
Krythis noted that this was not the same as saying his name was Belot, nor was it the full name that courtesy demanded for a host who had saved one’s life. The self-named Belot was either determined to be rude or genuinely feared that the human blood in Krythis and Tulia had corrupted them enough that they might use his full name to work magic against him.
Neither boded well for the elf’s presence at Belkuthas. As for what it implied about the presence of two or three score like him.… Only with an effort of will and a few warming thoughts of Tulia was Krythis able not to shudder.
“This may not be the best time for those who cannot fight or run to be traveling here. Gryphons are not all that need be”—Krythis searched for a softer word than feared—“that need be considered in one’s plans,” he concluded, which sounded like an Istarian law counselor but at least did not seem to offend Belot.
“All plans will be easier to make when Istar recognizes its proper relationship with the Silvanesti,” Belot said. “Now, if I may go to my mount and see how she fares …”
Tulia offered, “She fares well enough, for now.”
“I must—”
“You may not leave this bed without leave from Sirbones,” Tulia said, coming up on the other side of Belot.
“A human healer?”
“A priest of Mishakal, who is honored by all races, elves included,” Krythis said. “Go where you will, if you insist, but on your head be it.”
Belot put a ha
nd to his bandaged head, winced, and lay back down. “Your pardon,” he said, sounding almost sincere. “But I am worried about Amrisha.” Krythis heard truth and real affection in those last words.
“Our daughter attends Amrisha,” Tulia said.
“Your—daughter—?” Belot said, pronouncing the word as if it were an obscenity and staring as if he had just found dung in his wine cup.
“As fine a rider and with as much knowledge of healing animals as you could find,” Tulia put in.
“A quarter-elf, taking care of Amrisha?” Belot snapped. “Are you mad?”
Krythis did not count to ten or conjure up fantasies of Tulia this time. He thought briefly, but in great detail, about the pleasure of throwing Belot off the top of the keep. If anybody besides Amrisha the pegasus would miss Belot, Krythis would confess himself surprised. Krythis also gave thanks once more that Rynthala was not present. She would have thought even longer about undoing Sirbones’s healing of Belot—and perhaps done more than think.
“You will be even madder than we if you try to wander about the citadel with bees swarming in your head and your feet going in different directions at each step,” Tulia snapped. “We respect you for having earned King Maradoc’s trust. But tonight you would do well to earn ours.”
She slipped her arm through her husband’s. “Shall we leave this elf to the rest he so clearly needs?”
The only problem with Tulia’s grip on Krythis was that he could not run from the chamber, nor even walk from it as fast as he wished.
In the fresh air outside, Krythis felt his temper cooling along with his skin—except where Tulia warmed it with her touch.
“As if war was not enough,” she said at last.
“Do we need to fear war if this High Judge Lauthin and his followers come? Famine, perhaps, and brawls, but war? Who would attack us while we host such an embassy?”
“Anyone who wanted to bring about the final war between humans and elves. You have assured me time and again that such exist. Do you say otherwise, to reassure me?” Her tone was very like her daughter’s.
Krythis knew that to say anything even smelling of an untruth would be an insult not soon forgiven.
He would not be divided from Tulia. Not now. “You have the right of it,” he said slowly. “But if Lauthin brings a score like Belot, we may not survive the embassy long enough to be killed in the war!”
“Then let us fill the days and nights before either comes, with as much life as is in us,” Tulia said.
Chapter 9
Rynthala raised both hands, controlling ber horse with her knees. One hand lifted over her head, halting her scouting party; she held the other out at an angle, thumb and forefinger apart. That brought Tharash out of his saddle and up to her stirrup, albeit at his own graceful, leisurely pace.
Tharash (his full name was only just shorter than a gnome’s) was an elf, from his dark coloring almost certainly of Kagonesti blood. He admitted to being seven hundred years old, although he did not look it, even by elven standards. In any case, Rynthala’s parents could account only for the last forty or so of those years.
They did not care. He was the best tracker and the most indefatigable huntsman and ranger they had ever known. Rynthala, wise beyond her years in such matters (thanks largely to Tharash’s teaching) was willing to take their word for it.
She had even been willing to take Tharash on this ride south and west; for all she knew, it was a trick to get her away from Belot. Her parents trusted her trailcraft and courage; they did not trust her temper with the elven messenger. Since they could not offend him by departing with her, they had sent Tharash in his old role as foster father. They were accompanied by a dozen of the best woodsmen and riders at Belkuthas.
“Yes, Lady Rynthi?” Tharash said. He now put a “lady” in front of her pet name, and no longer patted her knee. Otherwise his manner toward her was unchanged from when she had been seven and spent her first night in the woods with him.
“Judge for yourself, but is that not smoke beyond the ridge—the one with the red outcropping—to the southwest?”
Tharash needed only a single look. “Your eyes are sharp, lady.”
“Who honed them?”
“Guilty. But your tongue is your own creation.”
“Need you follow that trail? My parents have already worn it fetlock-deep.”
But Tharash was not listening. After looking around to see that none had overheard, he knelt and put his ear to the ground. He managed to look graceful even in that awkward pose, but was swift to stand afterward.
“Unless my ears are failing—”
“Your ears will fail long after I am dead,” Rynthala said gently, then wanted to apologize to the frowning face beside her.
She had spoken only the truth. A fourth part of elven blood might give her a century of life or a bit more, but Tharash would still be following trails when her ashes rode the winds of Krynn. It was a price that few elves were willing to pay for associating with humans, and for this Tharash deserved more honor, or at least fewer reminders.
“My ears tell me that not far off are no less than three bands of good size, two of them at least largely mounted.”
The elf’s courtesy kept him from adding, Is it wise to go on? but Rynthala could hear it in his voice.
“One of them could well be Lauthin’s embassy. If so, we should seek them out and ride north with them.”
“Will they welcome us? I am not Silvanesti, so folk like Lauthin are as strange to me as kender, and not nearly as amusing.”
“They already seem ready to think the worst of us Belkuthas folk. If we send them a guard of honor, it can do no harm.”
She did not add, unless we encounter a foe too strong for our fourteen bows, because she could also hear those words in the elven ranger’s voice. Indeed, she could think of nothing to say, nor anything to do except give the signal to remount and move on.
For three days, the united company of Free Riders and Solamnic warriors had been casting back and forth across the country between them and Belkuthas. This was a compromise between, on the one hand, splitting the band to search out Zephros’s army and, on the other, marching straight for the citadel.
Neither chief had favored dividing the company. At least three other armed companies, not counting the kender, were within a day’s ride. All remained as invisible as if they had burrowed into the rock like dwarves. Dividing the riders increased the chances of intercepting one of these bands, but also of falling to them if they were strong enemies.
Threehands himself spoke strongly in favor of riding straight to Belkuthas. Pirvan disagreed.
“The folk at Belkuthas are friends to all, or at least foes to none who come in peace. But we will have a warmer welcome if we gather knowledge of who else comes. More than Zephros are coming on, I think.”
Threehands clearly found that probability about as agreeable as draining an oasis dry, but acknowledged Pirvan’s wisdom. So they began their wandering path, which left them farther toward Belkuthas at the end of each day but meanwhile let them search the land well to either side of the direct road.
Now it was the last halt of the third day’s march. Pirvan squatted cross-legged. In this pose and garbed as he was, one would have had to look twice to see that he was not a free rider. Haimya lay on a scrap of rawhide, her head in Pirvan’s lap, while he combed the sand out of her hair.
There was more gray in that hair than there had been even as recently as their departure for the desert. But it was still thick, springy, and a delight to run his fingers through. He wished earnestly that a night would soon come, when he and his lady could pitch a tent and withdraw into it.
A shadow fell across them. They looked up to see Hawkbrother.
“Pardon if I intrude—”
Haimya smiled. “You look too much in earnest to be sent away, regardless of what you say.”
“You are more gracious than I deserve. Ah—how much longer shall we expose Tarothin to the p
erils of this land?”
Pirvan started to bristle, but Haimya put a finger to his lips. “We shall cease when Tarothin bids us, and not before,” she said. “He is an old friend as well as a potent wizard, and this is probably his last quest. We cannot take honor from him by wrapping him like a babe.”
The word “honor” did not have its usual near-magical effect on a Free Rider. Pirvan realized that more was called for, and tried to keep his voice light.
“We do let him use a tent of nights. He has proven he can wake from a sound sleep, shred a tent, jerk pegs and poles out of the ground, and put out fires—all of it using little or no magic.”
“At least once,” Hawkbrother said.
“Once is all he will need. After the first attack, we ride straight for Belkuthas to bring warning.”
Hawkbrother nodded, but seemed to have unspoken words dangling like overripe berries from his lips. Pirvan’s hands ceased their work in Haimya’s hair.
“What truly afflicts you, Hawkbrother? If you do not tell the truth, I shall forbid you to see Eskaia!”
Hawkbrother’s face told Pirvan that this was no proper jest, even before Haimya pinched her husband’s inner thigh so hard that her fingernails nearly met in his flesh. The Gryphon warrior looked enraged enough to draw steel and humiliated enough to weep.
“Your pardon, though I realize my ill-spoken jest may not deserve one,” Pirvan said. Haimya’s pinch turned into a caress.
“It does, for you are my sworn chief and have a right to speak as you wish.”
“Even as a father who forgot that his daughter is a woman grown and not his to command?”
“Even that,” Hawkbrother said, and he smiled. “You and my father should sit down over wine some day and trade stories of how you gave your children commands that they would not obey. I am sure it would console you both.”
“When that day comes, I am sure it will,” Pirvan said. “But your father is far away, and your brother is close. Does he wish to end our search?”
