The Puppet King

by Doug Niles

  “Would you like some tea to help you sleep?” she asked.

  “No, I’m afraid sleep is a luxury that I’ll have to postpone,” Gilthas murmured, thinking how pleasant it was to have Kerian speak to him as a friend, instead of with the deep formality of a slave to a master. “There are matters to arrange, houses to procure for the lord’s residence in Qualinost.”

  “Will the dragons come into the city?” Kerianseray asked. Though all the elves were frightened of the monstrous serpents, she spoke in cool, level tones.

  “No … not the brutes, either.” Gilthas sat up, forgetting the pain in his skull as his indignation flared anew. “I tell you, this whole thing is just too damn civilized. It was like Rashas and Salladac were making arrangements for a tea party, not a military occupation—certainly not the surrender of a proud nation!”

  “Sometimes pride gets lost behind wealth and comfort,” Kerian observed, startling the speaker with her insight. “Those such as Rashas are more concerned with keeping what they have than with leaving anything for the future—or showing any honor to the past.”

  “Sometimes I think Porthios is right,” Gilthas admitted. “Did you know he attacked a Dark Knight army with thousands of elves? Even managed to kill three dragons!”

  Kerianseray was quiet for a little while, and Gilthas thought she was surprised by the news. Instead, it was he who was startled when next she spoke.

  “Actually, he only had about five hundred elves. But it’s true about the dragons … though many elves were killed as well.”

  He sat up abruptly and turned to face her. “How do you know that?”

  She shrugged shyly, allowing her golden hair to fall across her eyes. Then, with a proud gesture, she pushed it back and met his accusatory glare.

  “Some of his elves were Kagonesti, of my father’s tribe. They have allied themselves with Porthios and share his village in the forest.”

  “Really?” Gilthas was surprised, and a little thrilled, by this revelation. He took it to mean that Kerian trusted him, or she certainly would not have let him see the extent of her information. Then he thought further about what she was saying.

  “Your father’s tribe, you said. You know where they are, where they live?”

  Now her pride was unmistakable. “My father is Chief Dallatar, scion of Dallatar, one of the Kagonesti who saw our tribe survive the Cataclysm. I have been a slave since I was a little girl, but I have never forgotten who my family is.”

  “And you are in contact with him … or with your tribe,” Gilthas said in wonder. “Yet you stay here, in the city, as a slave? Do you ever think of escaping, of going to him?”

  “Every day,” Kerian replied frankly. “But I serve a purpose in Qualinost, and it is an important cause … reason enough for me to stay in the city.”

  “You’re a spy?” The Speaker was truly astonished.

  She shrugged. “If you want to call it that. We long ago learned that it is important for us wild elves to know what the city elves are planning, especially in relationship to the Kagonesti. I was taken from the tribe together with twelve other children by a Qualinesti raiding party, elven butchers who murdered our nursemaids and carried us off to Daltigoth. If we had known that General Palthainon was on the way, it is quite possible that we could have taken shelter, avoided his raid, and spared the lives of those he killed.”

  Gilthas hung his head again, fighting the tears that rose to his eyes. How much shame would fall on him today? He blinked, looked up at Kerianseray with awe and affection.

  “You’re very brave. Do you know that?”

  She shrugged. “I do what must be done. It is what my father does, too … what he taught me.”

  “And what Porthios does. What all elves should do!” Bitterly he recalled the reaction of the city elves when they had learned of the army’s approach … the fifty volunteers he had been able to muster, a pathetic fragment of a company to defend a city that should have raised a proud army!

  Gilthas rose from the couch and stalked to the window. He looked out at the pastoral city with its floating lights dancing like fireflies among the crystal towers and golden manors. There were unusually few people in sight, but other than that, there was no indication that this was a place facing the occupation of a hostile army with the dawn. Doubtless most of the elves were busy hiding their treasures, he thought scornfully, or making arrangements to sell food, wine, and other goods to the human knights.

  With a sudden sense of decision, he turned to Kerianseray. He looked at this slave woman with new eyes, seeing her as much, much more than the meek and servile person who had been able to soothe his sleep with her bark tea.

  “I must speak to Porthios,” Gilthas said. “I will go to him in the forest, talk to him, show him that not all of us in the city are cowards.”

  “You would do this?” she said, her eyes wide. “But the Thalas-Enthia—”

  “Are fools!” he snapped. “And I want Porthios to know that we’re not all like that!”

  “How will you do it?” she asked pragmatically.

  “First I have to find him. Can you get a message to him, ask if he will see me?”

  She considered his request for only a few heartbeats, but it seemed to Gilthas as if time dragged by, as if his entire future, the hope for himself as a man and for his nation as a whole, hung on the decision she would make in those few seconds.

  “Getting a message to him is simple, and I will do so,” she finally said. “But I fear that it will not be easy to persuade him to see you.”

  “I’ll take that chance,” Gilthas said.

  “Then we have to try,” Kerian agreed with a nod.

  “And so my uncle agreed to come to see my father,” Silvanoshei said. “It would seem that such a meeting should have held much hope for the future of the elves.”

  The dragon’s eyes had drooped shut, and he breathed deeply, puffing long exhalations from his huge nostrils. The two elves, however, were wide awake, and the elder nodded sagely in response to his companion’s remark.

  “So it would,” Samar agreed. “But then, as now, there were many forces abroad in the world, and only a very few of them can be influenced by the actions of we mere mortals.…”

  Rage

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bellaclaw glided through the treetops and came to rest in the center of the encampment. Porthios recognized Samar’s urgency in the way the Silvanesti dropped his dragonlance and leapt down from the saddle even as his griffon pranced and settled on the bare ground.

  “The blue dragons have broken camp and flown. They’re coming this way!” declared the scout. “Straight for the gorge.”

  “Time to move!” shouted the outlaw prince, and instantly the encampment was transformed by a wave of frantic activity.

  Elves picked up their babes and a few necessities of clothing and tools. Warriors ran into their huts, grabbed weapons, bent strings onto bows and checked quivers to make sure they were full of straight, sharp arrows. The cookfires were smothered by quick scoops of loose dirt, while a few tanned hides were pulled off the drying racks and employed to wrap supplies into bundles. Other racks, those where the hides were still fresh, would be left behind, as would the crude huts that had served as the band’s shelters for the last few weeks.

  Despite the baby slung over her back in his tai-thall, Alhana moved adeptly as she wrapped a cooking kettle, several knives, and the small amount of spare clothing that she and Porthios had into a soft velvet blanket, the only concession to comfort they had allowed themselves as they had flown to this primitive lifestyle. Watching her, Porthios felt a pang of regret. She was a princess, heir to a great throne and the leadership of a proud people, and yet, out of loyalty to him, she had followed him into exile.

  And now the exile had brought a taste of real danger.

  Samar ran past, holding his lance again, urging the elves to haste.

  “How long until they get here?” Porthios asked.

  “Not mu
ch time,” the warrior-mage replied. “They must have found us somehow. They were flying on a beeline toward the camp.”

  Porthios knew that ever since the raid on the Dark Knight army, the invaders had been vigorously searching the forests, seeking the location of the elven encampment. Dragons in flights of four or five had winged across western Qualinesti, though they had been able to see little through the leafy canopy. Their searches might have been more efficient if they had flown individually, but the elves took pride in the fact that the powerful serpents obviously feared being caught alone.

  Parties of brutes had stomped all through the woods as well. Several of these had met stinging ambushes, but the savage warriors seemed undeterred by the danger. Indeed, the prospect of fighting seemed to make them all the more enthusiastic in their searches. Over the last few days, several of these bands had swept close to the gorge, and despite the precautions taken by his outlaws, Porthios had known that inevitably the location of the camp would be discovered.

  Now Samar’s warning seemed to indicate that the worst had happened—that the camp had been discovered and word had been taken to the army without the elves knowing that their secret was out. If the dragons flew fast, they could get here in less than an hour, and everyone in the camp knew the elves had to be long gone by then.

  “Take the inland trail!” Porthios reminded those elves who would be traveling on foot. The band had planned their flight in advance, knowing that if they headed toward the coast they would be more easily trapped against the barrier of the sea. “Split up as soon as you get into the deep forest. Remember to rendezvous at Splintered Rock in two nights!”

  “Good luck,” declared Tarqualan as he and a number of griffon riders prepared to fly west. The sea was no obstacle to them, and they planned to take a long route before circling around to the meeting place, a bluff that had been repeatedly struck by lightning and was characterized by the broken, jagged spires that jutted from its face.

  Porthios and two other warriors, each of whom was accompanied by a wife and a newborn babe, would ride three griffons through the forest. The creatures would not be able to fly as fast as Tarqualan’s single-mounted warriors, so that small party planned to take a more direct route to the rendezvous. They would be escorted by two skilled archers on griffons of their own.

  “I’ll fly with the queen,” Samar said decisively.

  “No!” Porthios surprised himself with his vehement reaction. “You need to help with the main body,” he added.

  Samar looked at Alhana, and the prince felt a startling pang of resentment. “Very well,” replied the warrior-mage, turning to Porthios calmly. “Good luck.”

  “Good luck to you—and hurry,” the outlaw added unnecessarily.

  He took Alhana’s hand and joined the file of elves following the steep trail out of the gorge. Because of the extra weight the griffons would carry, the three mothers with their babies and mates would climb the bluff on foot and mount up only when the flying creatures could launch from a high altitude. Atop the elevation, they were to meet the two other warriors who would escort the couples to safety.

  The back of the outlaw captain’s neck prickled anxiously, and he had to resist the notion that at any moment the sky would erupt in a cloud of blue wings and a barrage of lethal lightning bolts. Fortunately two of the babies slept, and Silvanoshei looked around in silent, wide-eyed wonder.

  Soon they were out of the deep ravine, and here the trail branched into many winding paths. Porthios found Dallatar waiting for them there. He stopped to talk to the Kagonesti chieftain as many of the Qualinesti elves filed past and dispersed into the forest.

  “We will go east,” the wild elf said. “There may be word from my daughter. I have heard nothing from the city in many days and will try to make contact before joining you at the Splintered Rock.”

  “Have a care,” Porthios replied. “The brutes will likely be everywhere.”

  “Indeed, but they do not have the woodcraft to track a Kagonesti who does not wish to be followed. It is yourselves who should take care. Though you have made these woods your home, they are not your natural surroundings. I bid you good fortune and speed, and hope to see you in three days.”

  With a firm handclasp, the wild elf turned off the trail and, in an eye blink, seemed to vanish into the undergrowth. Porthios and Alhana, together with the other members of the little party of refugees, continued on the path, moving as quickly as the burdened women could walk.

  It was not too many minutes later when they heard a violent splintering of wood followed by the explosive crackling of blue dragon lightning breath. The sounds came from the rear, a mile or so away. Porthios could imagine the havoc as the wyrms swept down into the gorge, blasting the huts, knocking down the trees that had given the band such good shelter and concealment. He was grateful that the ravine had been moist even in the midst of this dry summer. With any luck, the wood was wet enough that it wouldn’t develop into a conflagration.

  Despite their successful escape, the outlaw chief had to fight back the tears that forced their way into his eyes. He felt a powerful sense of anger and futility—rage at the knowledge that the sacred vale was being ravaged, and impotent fury at his failure to do anything to counteract the threat.

  They met Stallyar and the four other griffons at a bare ridge of rock along the escarpment over the gorge. From here, they could see down into the site of their camp, though the elves and their flying mounts remained screened by trees and underbrush from the rampaging serpents below. They saw blue heads on snaky necks rise from the forest, jaws gaping to spit out bright flashes of lightning. In places, sooty smoke rose from the verdant canopy, and here and there they saw a lofty tree topple, pushed by the monstrous force of a destructive dragon.

  As the trees were thinned, Porthios caught frequently glimpses of the knights who rode those serpents. Dressed in their black armor, which must have been stiflingly hot, they stalked back and forth, knocking down what remained of the ruined huts, kicking through the debris of elven lives with their heavy boots, or hacking at furs and fabrics with their great swords.

  Porthios wanted desperately to launch an arrow or two into that vale, to punish these arrogant humans for their transgressions, but his sense of discipline was too strong. He and the others had come here to make their escape, and it made no sense to announce their position by such a gratuitous attack.

  Unfortunately neither could they launch into the air from this high vantage, for to do so would have carried them clearly into the sight of the dragons and Dark Knights wreaking their damage below.

  “Come on,” he whispered bitterly, his voice unnecessarily harsh as he moved the other elves and the five griffons along the winding path. They were deep in the woods now and had left no spoor that could be followed from the ruined camp, but he felt a growing sense of alarm, a need to move even faster to get away from this place.

  For more than an hour, they walked along the narrow trail, the griffons prancing in agitation, occasionally hissing or fussing as the sharp rocks wore against their tender forefeet. But like the elves, the creatures understood the need for stealth, and despite their impatience, none of them tried to spread wings and fly. The elf women, too, were suffering. All three were carrying infants too small to walk, which was why they had planned to make their escape in the saddle. And here, where the warriors needed to be combat ready at a moment’s notice, they dared not burden themselves with babies or supplies. But the females bore their fatigue and discomfort without complaint, though it tore at Porthios when he looked at his wife’s drawn face, at the rivulets of sweat than ran through the dust caked across her skin.

  Discomfort was further aggravated by the stifling heat that penetrated even into the normally cool floor of the forest. The summer had been growing increasingly warm, and now the wind seemed to have died away to nothing. The sun blazed above the trees, and the stuffy air pressed close, drawing perspiration freely from each elf’s skin.

  Finally
they reached a place Porthios had remembered, a low bluff on the opposite side of the ridge from the escarpment over the camp. They had moved several miles closer to the coast, and with that distance behind them, he felt safe in exposing themselves for as long as it would take for the griffons to spread their wings and start to gain altitude.

  “Mount up here,” he said tersely. The griffons went to the edge of the precipice, and the warriors helped their women into the saddles. The escorting archers took to the air, circling overhead. The two warriors with wives and babies were veterans of Porthios’s company in Silvanesti, and now they waited for his signal with the same discipline and patience that had carried them through decades of nightmarish campaigns.

  “Good luck to you all. Let’s fly!” he said, sliding over Stallyar’s rump to rest as firmly as possible behind Alhana and the deep saddle.

  With a spreading of silver-feathered wings and a flexing of powerful haunches, the mighty griffon pounced into the air, catching the wind and immediately driving them forward and away from the looming cliff. The treetops seemed to rush up from below, and Porthios held on tightly, wincing as a dizzying vision of the forest swept underneath.

  With powerful strokes, Stallyar first held them at level altitude, banking slightly to get around the tops of the tallest trees. Then, very slowly, the griffon started to climb.

  Still clinging to his wife and the reins, Porthios looked around and saw that the two other heavily laden griffons had likewise managed to bear their precious passengers aloft. The final two, bearing their escorting archers, flew just above them. With Stallyar in the lead, the creatures trailed slightly behind to the right and left, and the little formation winged its way along the valley. Far ahead of them, in the western distance, they could make out the glint of the sea.