Elven Nations - The Kinslayer Wars Part 8

The stable was in fact a sprawling collection of buildings and corrals. These included barns for the horses and small houses for the grooms and trainers, as well as stocks of feed. Behind the main structure, a field of short gra.s.s stretched away from the Tower of the Stars, covering the palace grounds to the edges of the guildhouses that bordered them.

Here were kept the several dozen horses of the royal family, as well as several coaches and carriages. But it was to none of these that the speaker now made his way.

Instead, he crossed through the main barn, nodding with easy familiarity to the grooms who brushed the sleek stallions. He pa.s.sed through the far door and crossed a small corral, approaching a st.u.r.dy building that stood by itself, unattached to any other.

The door was divided into top and bottom halves; the top half stood open.

A form moved within the structure, and then a great head emerged from the door.

Bright golden eyes regarded Sithas with distrust and suspicion.

The front of that head was a long, wickedly hawklike beak. The beak opened slightly. Sithas saw the great wings flex within the confining stable and knew that Arcuballis longed to fly.

"You must go to Kith-Kanan," Sithas told the powerful steed. "Bring him out of his fort and back to me. Do this, Arcuballis, when I let you fly!"

The griffon's large eyes glittered as the creature studied the Speaker of the Stars.

Arcuballis had been Kith-Kanan's lifelong mount until the duties of generalship had forced his brother to take a more conventional steed. Sithas knew that the griffon would go and bring his brother back.

Slowly Sithas reached forward and unlatched the bottom half of the door, allowing the portal to swing freely open. Arcuballis hesitantly stepped forward over the half-eaten carca.s.s of a deer that lay just inside the stable.

With a spreading of his great wings, Arcuballis gave a mighty spring. He bounded across the corral, and by his third leap, the griffon was airborne. His powerful wings drove downward and the creature gained height, soaring over the roof of the stable, then veering to pa.s.s near the Tower of the Stars.

"Go!" cried Sithas. "Go to Kith-Kanan!"

As if he heard, the griffon swept through a turn. Powerful wings still driving him upward, Arcuballis swerved toward the west.

It seemed to Sithas as if a heavy burden had flown away from him, borne upon the wings of the griffon. His brother would understand, he knew. When Arcuballis arrived at Sithelbec, as Sithas felt certain he would, Kith-Kanan would waste no time in mounting his faithful steed and hastening back to Silvanost. Between them, he knew, they would find a way to advance the elven cause.

"Excellency?"

Sithas whirled, startled from his reverie by a voice from behind him. He saw Stankathan, the majordomo, looking out of place among the mud and dung of the corral.

The elf's face, however, was knit by a deeper concern.

"What is it?" Sithas inquired quickly.

"It's your wife, the Lady Hermathya," replied Stankathan. "She cries with pain now.

The clerics tell me it is time for your child to be born."

7.

Three Days Later.

The oil lamp sputtered in the center of the wooden table. The flame was set low to conserve precious fuel for the long, dark months of winter that lay ahead. Kith-Kanan thought the shadowy darkness appropriate for this bleak meeting.

With him at the table sat Kencathedrus and Parnigar. Both of themas well as Kith, himselfshowed the gauntness of six months at half rations. Their eyes carried the dull awareness that many more months of the same lay before them.

Every night during that time, Kith had met with these two officers, both of them trusted friends and seasoned veterans. They gathered in this small room, with its plain table and chairs. Sometimes they shared a bottle of wine, but that commodity, too, had to be rationed carefully.

"We have a report from the Wildrunners," Parnigar began. "White-lock managed to slip through the lines. He told me that the small companies we have roaming the woods can hit hard and often. But they have to keep moving, and they don't dare venture onto the plains."

"Of course not!" Kencathedrus snapped.

The two officers argued, as they did so often, from their different tactical perspectives. "We'll never make any progress if we keep dispersing our forces through the woods. We have to gather them together! We must ma.s.s our strength!"

Kith sighed and held up his hands. "We all know that our 'ma.s.s of strength' would be little more than a nuisance to the human armyat least right now. The fortress is the only

thing keeping the Wildrunners from annihilation, and the hit-and-run tactics are all we can do until ... until something happens."

He trailed off weakly, knowing he had touched upon the heart of their despair. True, for the time being they were safe enough in Sithelbec from direct attack. And they had food that could be stretched, with the help of their clerics, to last for a year, perhaps a little longer.

In sudden anger, Kencathedrus smashed his fist on the table. "They hold us here like caged beasts," he growled. "What kind of fate do we consign ourselves to?"

"Calm yourself, my friend." Kith touched his old teacher on the shoulder, seeing the tears in the elven warrior's eyes. His eyes were framed by sunken skin, dark brown in color, that accentuated further the hollowness of the elf's cheeks. By the G.o.ds, do we all look like that? Kith had to wonder.

The captain of Silvanost pushed himself to his feet and turned away from them.

Parnigar cleared his throat awkwardly. "There is nothing we can accomplish by morning," he said. Quietly he got to his feet.

Parnigar, alone of the three of them, had a wife here. He worried more about her health than his own. She was human, one of several hundred in the fort, but this was a fact that they carefully avoided in conversation. Though Kith-Kanan knew and liked the woman, Kencathedrus still found the interracial marriage deeply disturbing.

"May you rest well tonight, n.o.ble elves," Parnigar offered before stepping through the door into the dark night beyond.

"I know your need to avenge the battle on the plains," Kith-Kanan said to Kencathedrus as the latter turned and gathered his cloak. "I believe this, my friendyour chance will come!"

The elven captain looked at the general, so much younger than himself, and Kith could see that Kencathedrus wanted to believe him. His eyes were dry again, and finally the captain nodded gruffly. "I'll see you in the morning," he promised before following Parnigar into the night.

Kith sat for a while, staring at the dying flame of the lantern, reluctant to extinguish the light even though he knew precious fuel burned away with each second. Not enough fuel ... not enough food ... insufficient troops. What did he have enough of, besides problems?

He tried not to think about the extent of his frustrationhow much he hated being trapped inside the fortress, cooped up with his entire army, at the mercy of the enemy beyond the walls. How he longed for the freedom of the forests, where he had lived so happily during his years away from Silvanost.

Yet with these thoughts, he couldn't help thinking of Anayabeautiful, lost Anaya.

Perhaps his true entrapment had begun with her death, before the war started, before he had been made general of his father'sand then his brother'sarmy.

Finally he sighed, knowing that his thoughts could bring him no comfort. Reluctantly he doused the lantern's flame. His own bunk occupied the room adjacent to this office, and soon he lay there.

But sleep would not come. That night they had had no wine to share, and now the tension of his mood kept Kith-Kanan awake for seeming hours after his two officers left.

Eventually, with the entire fortress silent and still around him, his eyes fell shutbut not to the darkness of restful sleep. Instead, it was as though he fell directly from wakefulness into a very vivid dream.

He dreamed that he soared through the clouds, not upon the back of Arcuballis as he had flown so many times before, but supported by the strength of his own arms, his own feet. He swooped and dove like an eagle, master of the sky.

Abruptly the clouds parted before him, and he saw three conical mountain peaks jutting upward from the haze of earth so far below. These monstrous peaks belched smoke, and streaks of fire splashed and flowed down their sides. The valleys extending from their feet were h.e.l.lish wastelands of crimson lava and brown sludge.

Away from the peaks he soared, and now below him were lifeless valleys of a different sort. Surrounded by craggy ridges and needlelike peaks, these mountain retreats lay beneath great sheets of snow and ice. All around him stretched a pristine brilliance.

Gray and black shapes, the forms of towering summits, rose from the vast glaciers of pure white. In places, streaks of blue showed through the snow, and here Kith-Kanan saw ice as clean, as clear as any on Krynn.

Movement suddenly caught his eye in one of these valleys. He saw a great mountain looming, higher than all the others around. Upon its face, dripping ice formed the crude outlines of a face like that of an old, white-bearded dwarf.

Kith continued his flight and saw movement again. At first Kith thought that he was witnessing a great flock of eaglessavage, prideful birds that crowded the sky. Then he wondered, could they be some kind of mountain horses or unusual, tawny-colored goats?

In another moment, he knew, as the memory of Arcuballis came flooding back.

These were griffons, a whole flock of them! Hundreds of the savage half-eagle, half-lion creatures were surging through the air toward Kith-Kanan.

He felt no fear. Instead, he turned away from the dwarfbeard mountain and flew southward. The griffons followed, and slowly the heights of the range fell behind him. He saw lakes of blue water below him and fields of brush and mossy rock. Then came the

first trees, and he dove to follow a mountain rivulet toward the green flatlands that now opened up before him.

And then he saw her in the forestAnaya! She was painted like a wild savage, her naked body flashing among the trees as she ran from him. By the G.o.ds, she was fast! She outdistanced him even as he flew, and soon the only trace of her pa.s.sage was the wild laughter that lingered on the breeze before him.

Then he found her, but already she had changed. She was old, and rooted in the ground. Before his eyes, she had become a tree, growing toward the heavens and losing all of the form and the senses of the elfin woman he had grown to love.

His tears flowed, unnoticed, down his face. They soaked the ground and nourished the tree, causing it to shoot farther into the sky. Sadly the elf left her, and he and his griffons flew on farther to the south.

Another face wafted before him. He recognized with shock the human woman who had given him his escape from the enemy camp. Why, now, did she enter his dream?

The rivulet below him became a stream, and then more streams joined it, and the stream became a river, flowing into the forested realm of his homeland.

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 pa.s.s 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 foreclawthe ma.s.sive, 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 strategem. 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 hors.e.m.e.n had cobbled for him.

"Good luck, and may the G.o.ds 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 Ergothnot 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, pa.s.sing above a great herd of horses in a pasture. The shadow of the griffon pa.s.sed 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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.