Elven Nations - The Kinslayer Wars Part 29

He had ordered members of the House Protectorate to disguise themselves as workers and artisans and to enter the taverns and inns frequented by the citizens. They were to listen carefully, and if they overheard anyone pa.s.sing this rumor, the culprit was to be immediately arrested and brought to the palace for questioning.

"Pa-pa?"

The voice brightened his mood as nothing else could. Sithas turned to see Vanesti toddling toward him, carryingas alwaysthe wooden sword Kith-Kanan had made for him before departing for Sithelbec.

"Come here, you," the Speaker of the Stars said, kneeling before the throne and throwing wide his arms.

"Pa-pa!" Vanesti, his beaming face framed by long golden curls, hastened his pace and immediately toppled forward, landing on his face.

Sithas scooped the tyke into his arms and held him, patting him on the back until his crying ceased. "There, there. It doesn't hurt so bad, does it?" he soothed.

"Ow!" objected the youth, rubbing his nose.

Sithas chuckled. Still carrying his son, he started toward the royal door that led to the Gardens of Astarin.

Quimant returned two days later and came to see Sithas as the Speaker sat alone in the Hall of Audience.

"Your plan has worked miracles!" reported the lord. If he noticed his ruler's melancholy air, he didn't call attention to it. "We have tripled the number of slaves and can work the mines around the clock now. In addition, the freed elves have marched off to the plains. They make a very formidable company indeed!"

"The war may be over by the time they reach the battlefield," sighed Sithas. "Perhaps I have simply freed a number of malefactors for nothing."

Quimant shook his head. "I've heard the reports. Even though the Wildrunners are pushing the humans westward, I wouldn't expect a complete end to the war before next summer."

"Surely you don't think the Army of Ergoth will rea.s.semble now that the Windriders are pursuing them?"

"Not rea.s.semble, no, but they will break into small bands. Kith-Kanan's army will find many of them, but not all. Yes, Excellency, I fear we will still have an enemy to contend with a year from nowperhaps even longer."

Sithas cast off the notion as unthinkable. Before the debate proceeded further, however, a guard appeared at the hall's door.

"What is it?" inquired the Speaker.

"Lashio has captured a fellow, a stonemason, in the city. He was spreading theer, the tale about General Kith-Kanan."

Sithas bolted upright in his throne. "Bring him to me! And summon the stablemaster.

Tell him to bring a whip!"

"Your Majesty?"

The words came from behind the guard, who stepped aside and let Tamanier Ambrodel enter. The n.o.ble elf approached and bowed formally. "May I have a private word with the Speaker?"

"Leave us," Sithas told the guard. When only Quimant and himself were present, he gestured Tamanier to speak.

"I wish to prevent you from allowing a grave injustice," Ambrodel began.

"I dispense the justice here. What business is it of yours?" demanded Sithas.

Ambrodel flinched at the Speaker's harsh tone but forged ahead. "I am here at your mother's request."

"What is the nature of this 'injustice'?"

"It concerns your punishment of this elf, this mason. Your mother, as you know, has received letters from Kith-Kanan separate from the official missives he sends to you. It

seems that he communicates to her on matters that he does not care to discuss ... with others."

Sithas scowled.

"Kith-Kanan has taken a human woman as his companion. He has written your mother about her. Apparently he is very much smitten."

Sithas sagged backward in the monstrous throne. He wanted to curse at Tamanier Ambrodel, to call him a liar. But he couldn't. Instead, he had to accept the unthinkable, no matter how nightmarish the knowledge.

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

Sithas labored for hours over the letter he tried to write to his brother. He attempted a number of beginnings.

Kith-Kanan, my Brother, I have word from mother of a woman you have taken from the enemy camp. She tells me that the human saved your life. We are grateful, of course.

He could go no further. He wanted to write, Why? Why? Don't you understand what we're fighting for? He wanted to ask why victory had come to smell like failure and defeat.

Sithas crumpled up the parchment and hurled it into the fireplace. The realization hit him brutally.

He no longer had anything to say to his brother.

27.

Early Winter, Last Day of 2213 (PC).

The blizzard swept over the ice-berg dotted ocean and around the snow-swept flanks of the Kharolis Mountains. It roared over the plains, making life a bitter and icy nightmare for the armies of both sides.

Those forceshuman, elven, and dwarvenceased all maneuvers and combat.

Wherever the blast caught them, the brigades and regiments of the Wildrunners sought what little shelter they could and made quarters for the winter. Their Ergothian enemies, in even smaller bands, occupied towns, farm outposts, and wilderness camps in a desperate attempt to shelter themselves from nature's onslaught.

The Windriders, together with a large detachment of the dwarven legion, were more fortunate. Their camp occupied the barns and cabins of a huge farm, abandoned by its human tenants during the rout of the Ergothian Army. Here they found livestock for the griffons and bins of grain from which elven and dwarven cooks prepared a hard bread that, while bland and tough, would sustain the troops for several months.

The rest of Kith-Kanan's army occupied a mult.i.tude of camps, more than forty, across an arc of the plains stretching some five hundred miles.

On this brutally cold day, Kith made an inspection of the Windriders' camp. He pulled his woolen scarf closer about his face. It wouldn't entirely block the wind, but perhaps it would keep his ears from becoming frostbitten. In a few minutes, he would reach the shelter of the dwarven lodge, where he would meet with Dunbarth. After that, the warm fire of his own house . . . and Suzine.

The Wildrunners had succeeded in driving the remnants of the Ergothian Army hundreds of miles to the west. Throughout the campaign, Suzine had ridden with Kith on his griffon and lain with him in his tent. Zestful and hardy in a way that was unlike elven females, Suzine had adopted his life as her own and made no complaints about fighting conditions or the vicissitudes of weather.

The Army of Ergoth had left thousands of corpses behind on the plains. The bravest of the human warriors had taken shelter in tracts of forestland, where the Windriders couldn't pursue. Most of their fellows streamed home to Daltigoth. But these stubborn remnants, mostly light hors.e.m.e.n from the northern wing of the Ergothian Army, fought and held out.

Trapped within the forests, the hors.e.m.e.n couldn't use their strengths of speed and surprise. Out of necessity, the human army began waging a relentless campaign of guerrilla warfare, striking in small groups, then falling back to the woods. Ironically the elves among them had proven particularly adept at organizing and utilizing these scattershot tactics.

After months of hard pursuit and small victories in countless skirmishes, Kith-Kanan was preparing for a sweeping attack that might have expelled the hated enemy from the elven lands altogether. The Wildrunner infantry had a.s.sembled, ready to drive into the tracts of forest and expunge the Ergothian troops. Elven cavalry and the Windriders would fall upon them after they were forced into the open.

Then the early blows of winter had paralyzed military operations.

In his heart, the elven general felt scant disappointment that circ.u.mstances would force him to remain in the field at least until spring. He was content in the large, well-heated cottage that he had requisitioned, his due as commander. He was content in the arms of Suzine. How she had changed his life, revitalized him, given him a sense of

being that extended beyond the present! It was ironic, he reflected, that it was war between their people that had brought them together.

The long, low shape of the dwarven lodge emerged before him, and he knocked on the heavy wooden door, setting aside thoughts of his woman until later. The portal swung open, and he stepped into the dim, cavelike log house that the dwarves had erected as their winter shelter. The temperature, while warmer than the outside air, was quite a bit cooler than that which was maintained in the elven shelters.

"Come in, General!" boomed Dunbarth, amid a crowd of his veterans gathered around a platform in the middle of the lodge.

Two nearly naked dwarves gasped for breath on the stage before hurling themselves at each other. One of them swiftly picked his opponent up and flipped him over his shoulder, whereupon the dwarven crowd erupted into cheers and boos. More than a few pouches, bulging with gold and silver coins, changed hands.

"At least you don't lack for diversion," remarked Kith-Kanan with a smile, settling beside the dwarf commander at a low bench that several other dwarves had swiftly vacated for him.

Dunbarth chuckled. "It'll do until we can get back to the real war. Here, I've had some wine heated for you."

"Thanks." Kith took the proffered mug while Dunbarth hefted a foaming tankard of ale. How the dwarves, who marched with a relatively small train of supplies, maintained a supply of the bitter draft was a mystery to Kith, yet every time he visited this winter shelter he found them drinking huge quant.i.ties of the stuff.

"And how do our elven comrades weather the storm?" inquired the dwarven commander.

"As well as could be expected. The griffons seem unaffected for the most part, while the Windriders and other elves have sufficient shelter. It could be a long winter."

"Aye. It could be a long war, too." Dunbarth made the remark in a lighthearted tone, but Kith-Kanan didn't think he was joking.

"I don't think so," the elf countered. "We have the remnants of the humans trapped to the west. Surely they can't move any more than we can in the midst of this storm."

The dwarf nodded in silent agreement, so the elf continued. "As soon as the worst of the winter pa.s.ses, we'll head into the attack. It shouldn't take more than two months to push the whole ma.s.s of them off the plains and back within the borders of Ergoth where they belong!"

"I hope you're right," replied the dwarven general sincerely. "Yet I'm worried about their commander, this Giarna. He's a resourceful devil!"

"I can handle Giarna!" Kith's voice was almost a growl, and Dunbarth looked at him in surprise.

"Any word from your brother?" inquired the dwarf after a moment's pause.

"Not since the storm set in."

"Thorbardin is disunited," reported his companion. "The Theiwar agitate for a withdrawal of dwarven troops, and it seems they might be winning the Daergar Clan over to their side."

"No wonder, with their own 'hero' joining ranks with the Army of Ergoth." The reports had been confirmed in late autumn: After Sithas had driven him from Silvanost, Than-Kar had delivered his battalion over to General Giarna. The Theiwar dwarves had helped protect the retreating army during the last weeks of the campaign before winter had stopped all action.

"A shameful business, that," agreed Dunbarth. "The lines of battle may be clear on the field, but in the minds of our people, they begin to grow very hazy indeed."

"Do you need anything here?" inquired Kith-Kanan.

"You wouldn't have a hundred bawdy dwarven wenches, would you?" asked Dunbarth with a sly grin. He winked at the elf. "Though perhaps they would merely sap our fighting spirits. One has to be careful, you know!"

Kith laughed, suddenly embarra.s.sed about his own circ.u.mstances. The presence of Suzine in his house was common knowledge throughout the camp. He felt no shame about that, and he knew his troops liked the human woman and that she returned their obvious affection. Still, the thought of her being regarded as his "bawdy wench" he found disturbing.

They talked for a while longer of the pleasures of homecomings and of adventures in more peaceful times. The storm continued unabated, and finally Kith-Kanan remembered that he needed to finish his rounds before returning to his own house. He bade his farewells and continued his inspection of the other elven positions before turning toward his cottage.

His heart rose at the prospect of seeing Suzine again, though he had been gone from her presence for mere hours. He couldn't bear the thought of this winter camp without her. But he wondered about the men. Did they see her as a "wench" as Dunbarth seemed to? As some sort of camp follower? The thought would not go away.

A bodyguard, an immaculate corporal in the armor of the House Protectorate, threw open the door of his house as he approached. Kith quickly went inside, enjoying the warmth that caressed him as he shook off his snow-covered garb.

He pa.s.sed through the guardroomonce the parlor of the house, but now the garrison for a dozen men-at-arms, those trusted with the life of the army commander. He nodded

at the elves, all of whom had snapped to attention, but he quickly pa.s.sed through the room into the smaller chambers beyond, closing the interior door behind him.

A crackling blaze filled the fireplace before him, and the aroma of sizzling beef teased his nostrils. Suzine came into his arms and he felt completely alive. Everything would wait until the delights of reunion had run their course. Without speaking, they went to the hearth and lay down before the fire.

Only afterward did they slowly break the spell of their silence.

"Did you find Arcuballis in the pasture?" Suzine asked, lazily tracing a finger along Kith-Kanan's bare arm.

"Yes. He seems to prefer the open field to the barn," the elf replied. "I tried to coax him into a stall, but he stayed outside, weathering the storm."

"He's too much like his master," the human woman said tenderly. Finally she rose and fetched a jug of wine that she had warmed by the fireplace. Huddled together under a bearskin, they each enjoyed a gla.s.s.

"It's odd," said Kith-Kanan, his mood reflective. "These are the most peaceful times I've ever spent, here beside the fire with you."

"It's not odd," replied the woman. "We were meant to know peace together. I've seen it, known it, for years."

Kith didn't dispute her. She had told him how she used to watch him in the mirror, the enchanted gla.s.s that she had crashed over Giarna's skull to save his life. She carried the broken shards of the gla.s.s in a soft leather box. He knew that she had seen the griffons before the battle yet hadn't told her commander about this crucial fact. Often he had wondered what could have made her take such a risk for onean enemy!she had met only once before.