Sanctuary ee-1

by Paul B. Thompson

  No. Elves must take control of elven destiny once more. If Gilthas and his soft advisors couldn’t see this, someone would have to show them the way. They clung to an imaginary life, thinking protocol and precedence mattered, thinking politeness and accommodation would keep their people safe. Someone would have to make them understand reality.

  The first step to saving the elven race was right here. They must take Khuri-Khan, and use it as their base for striking outward from Khur. Gilthas always had been reluctant to confront Sahim because the human khan had offered the elves sanctuary during their time of trouble, but that sanctuary had come to have much too high a price-and Kerian wasn’t thinking only of steel and silver. The life they’d been forced to live, begging humans for every scrap they received, was draining the heart and soul from her people. Sahim-Khan was a liar, a schemer, and a greedy bandit. He deserved no consideration, and less mercy.

  With Khuri-Khan in their hands, the elves would have access to the sea. Ships could be commandeered or built, and the Lioness and her fighters would harry the coasts of Silvanesti and Qualinesti. Ships of their former conquerors could be taken, and raids mounted on coastal towns. There were islands with temperate climates in the Southern and Eastern Courrain that would fall to a determined attack. The new elven nation would be a seafaring nation, building their wealth and power against the day they would take back their ancestral lands.

  That day would come. Fists clenched, Kerian swore to herself it would come, and not in some dim, distant future, but soon. Very soon.

  She got to her feet, dressing quickly in her dirty garments. It was obvious that talking to Gilthas and his advisors would be pointless. She would make her case to the warriors. Like herself, they understood the realities of life. With them behind her, Gilthas would be forced to listen to her. He could be made to see the logical perfection of her plan.

  It was fully dark outside, and the wind rushed through the lanes, first one way, then back the other. Rosy haloes glowed inside the clouds overhead. The strange sight halted Kerian, despite the fervor of purpose burning in her breast. Lightning was white or bluish. Even in the gods-blasted wastes of Khur, lightning wasn’t red.

  As she navigated the twisting byways on her way to the warriors’ quarter, she encountered no one. However, she quickly knew she was not alone. A hundred yards from Hamaramis’s tent she glimpsed shadows moving behind her. Senses honed by years on the run warned her. The next time there was a flash of scarlet lightning, Kerian whirled abruptly. She saw no one, but had no doubt she was being followed-and by more than one person.

  She shucked the scabbard from her sword.

  Cooking smoke drifted through the lane. Small black shapes flitted overhead, making faint chirping noises. She’d seen bats in Khur just one other time, the night the ash leaves had fallen on her. Recent events had driven the omen from her mind. Now that memory returned full force.

  She continued her march up the alley, making as much noise as she could without being too obvious. Reaching a three-way intersection, she sprang to her right and sprinted down the winding path, taking long strides and landing only on her toes. An old Kagonesti trick, to foil trackers.

  She ran far enough to lose her breath, then ducked behind a cloth merchant’s stall, its flaps closed for the night. The bats still flickered overhead, dodging between the canvas rooftops. When they had passed, silence descended. No sounds of pursuit reached her ears. She stepped out of hiding to continue on her way, and her bare feet trod on soft, green leaves.

  Without looking, she knew they were ash leaves.

  Fresh air teased her back. Turning, she glanced back along the twisting lane. The overlapping edges of the fabric roofs flapped lazily, then settled again. Wind puffed down the path, making the tents belly in and out like the breathing of enormous animals. All but one. One tent didn’t flex-because someone was pressed against it.

  Kerian set her feet firmly and gripped her sword hilt in both hands. She didn’t have long to wait.

  Four figures dashed into view. The leader held a hooded lamp, and when he saw Kerian he opened the shutter wide. Bright light dazzled her, so she lunged forward and swatted the brass lamp away. It landed in the sand, flickered, and kept burning, but less brightly.

  Recovering from her lunge, she heard her attackers draw swords, one after the other. The first, the one who’d held the lamp, thrust at her, throwing himself off balance in his zeal to reach her. She bound up his blade in a parry and drove him back with a punch to his nose. A second attacker came at her, point first. She swung up at him in a wide arc. Their blades met, and the force of her swing sent his sword flying. Completing the circle, she beat aside the blade of the first attacker and repaid him in full, shoving the tip of her sword through his collar bone, deep into his chest. Blood welled.

  Her attackers were strong and fast. Dressed in gebs, they wore gray cloth masks that completely covered their heads. They carried Silvanesti-style swords, but that meant little. Local artisans had taken to making such blades to peddle to the elves, who did not care for the guardless Khurish swords. The craftsmen’s ingenuity had sparked a fad for laddad-style weapons among the youths of Khuri-Khan.

  As she held them off, she shouted for help. No one answered. This part of Khurinost seemed deserted. The Lioness was on her own.

  She snatched up the fallen lamp and used it like a shield, fending off sword points. One of her three remaining foes got too close, and she clouted him with the lamp. He went down, but his hard head broke the oil reservoir off. The lamp died. She dropped it, and a blade found her empty hand. It scored a deep cut along the back of her left wrist.

  Rapid footfalls told her that at last someone was coming. Her hope of assistance died quickly when she saw the new arrivals wore gray hoods. Having whittled her attackers to two, they now swelled to eight.

  She flung herself at a tent wall, sword outthrust. She sawed the stiff canvas and dove headfirst through the opening.

  The tent was used for storage. Only baskets and sacks greeted Kerian’s eyes. She dodged around them, slashed through the opposite wall, and found herself back outside, in a parallel street.

  Scarlet lightning danced above her, and the wind played down the lanes in gusty waves. Tents flapped. Somewhere nearby a metal bucket got loose and clanged end over end, driven by the freakish wind.

  From the noise they were making, Kerian knew her attackers had split up. Some were coming through the holes she’d made in the tent while others were circling the tent to try and cut her off. She saw no glory or purpose in dying just now, so she took to her heels. Her hand was bleeding, leaving a distinct trail in the sand. Even a goblin could track her.

  A single set of rapid footfalls closed in behind her. When they got close enough, she threw herself on her face and let the assassin overrun her. In a flash she was up, and had run him through. He dropped to his knees. She dodged in front of him and tore the hood from his head.

  He was an elf, a Silvanesti!

  Placing her bare foot on his chest, she shoved him onto his back. With her sword tip at his throat, she cried, “Why are you doing this? Who put you up to it?”

  He writhed in agony. His comrades were coming fast behind them. Kerian repeated her question, letting her blade draw blood.

  “The prince!” he rasped. “The prince of Khur!”

  Thunderstruck, she dropped to the sand beside the dying elf. She took hold of his geb and dragged him up till they were nose to nose.

  “Why? Why does Shobbat want me dead?”

  “For the throne of his father.”

  That made no sense, but he was past answering any other questions.

  The rest of the murderous band was upon her. She snatched up the dead elf’s sword. In the weird light of windblown torches and red lightning, the Lioness went through the remaining assassins like a reaper through hay. One of her early teachers was a master of two-sword fighting, which he always claimed was superior to any other type. The secret, he said, was to let yo
ur opponent parry, then counterstrike while his blade was engaged. On this night, she put his teachings to the ultimate test.

  The assassins were nimble and capable fighters, but they had never faced a warrior like the Lioness. One by one they fell, stabbed or slashed by one of her whirling blades. None fled. Their orders were clear.

  The last fellow fought best against her, slicing a bloody line on her right arm and another on her left cheek, before she broke through and impaled him with both her swords at once.

  He collapsed, and she released her blades, allowing his dead body to carry them to the ground. For a moment she stood, covered in their blood and her own, breath coming in gasping gulps, then the strength left her legs. She dropped to her knees, then fell facedown onto the bloody, hard-packed ground.

  Chapter 15

  The cavalry spent fruitless hours sweeping the dunes for Favaronas. Worried, but unable to delay further, Glanthon resumed the trek southwest.

  The sun was touching the western dunes, painting the broad desert in shades of gold, when Glanthon rode to the top of a sand ridge overlooking the caravan trail to Kortal. It was always a busy trail, thick with long trains of plodding donkeys burdened by panniers of goods, or herds of goats and shaggy desert sheep. Hundreds of Khurish nomads plied the caravan route every day, carrying goods from south to north and back. Trade had never ceased, even during the most terrifying days of the late war.

  The trail was empty today. As far as Glanthon could see in both directions, nothing stirred but the wind, carrying streams of sand across the packed roadbed.

  Inath-Wakenti had seemed the most isolated spot in the world. After its emptiness, Glanthon would have welcomed the company even of scruffy humans. Instead, he found their isolation persisting.

  He descended the ridge to the road. Years of traffic had left it sunken a foot deep. From horseback, he could tell that not only had no one passed by today, no one had passed by in several days. The desert wind, constant as breath, had erased all but a few prints. In another day there’d be no marks left at all.

  Had some calamity overtaken Kortal? War, plague, sand- storms-many possibilities sprang to mind.

  The rest of the expedition appeared on the ridge. Glanthon whistled and waved them down. Of the five hundred riders (and three scholars) who’d left Khurinost with Kerianseray, just under three hundred remained. To be honest, Glanthon found the most recent loss, of Favaronas, cut him the deepest, because the archivist had vanished while he himself was in charge.

  His second-in-command, a Qualinesti named Arimathan, rode up. Glanthon hailed him. “We seem to be alone in the world. What do you make of this strange situation?”

  “The nomads are gone,” said the laconic Arimathan.

  “Yes, but where have they gone?” No sooner had Glanthon said this, than an awful answer entered his mind.

  “Form up two lines!” he barked. “All who have bows, string them! Keep them braced and ready!”

  The elves obeyed, but questioned him with puzzled looks.

  “The nomads have left their territory! They’d only do that in the direst circumstances. And where would they go? Khuri-Khan! They must have gone to Khuri-Khan!”

  He chivvied his elves until all were ready. The entire command set out at a trot, down the caravan road.

  Anxiety knotted Glanthon’s chest. He could be wrong, but he didn’t think so. It all made terrible sense. The nomads, having decided to drive the foreigners from their land, were no longer satisfied to fight the Lioness’s small band of explorers. They had gathered their people together and ridden to Khuri-Khan, to strike at the source of the laddad contagion, to destroy Khurinost.

  * * * * *

  Shobbat sat in a heavy mahogany chair regarding an elegant goblet. The silver had been hammered paper-thin. The bowl was small as a child’s fist and, from certain angles, translucent, allowing the delicate amber nectar inside to shine through. The utmost care and concentration were required to handle and drink from such an ethereal cup. Each one was unique, made by an elf artisan enjoined by law to create only a single such vessel every ten years. Since the coming of the laddad to Khur, Shobbat had acquired sixteen of these precious vessels. He’d ruined four before learning how to hold them. These so-called cloud cups were among his most treasured possessions, relics of a vanishing culture that would not rise again if he had his way.

  Not one of his hand-picked assassins had returned. He found this very unsettling. So much so, he’d had to set the cloud cup on the table at his elbow. In his current state of agitation, he would surely snap the slender stem and crush the airy fineness of the bowl. Since the laddad soon would be extinct, he must preserve those of their arts he found attractive.

  Surely enough time had passed for his hirelings to carry out their mission. How hard was it to kill one female?

  Even as he posed the question to himself, he knew the answer: In the case of the Lioness, very hard indeed.

  The resources of the Knights of Neraka been devoted to capturing or killing her for many ineffective years. That’s why Shobbat had hired Silvanesti for the task. These particular elves had no attachment to Kerianseray. They didn’t revere her past deeds, as the Qualinesti did, and like most who had once lived in luxury, they had not adapted well to their current poverty. Shobbat merely added plenty of steel to their own sense of noble purpose. As elves, they had the stealth and senses to reach the Lioness. He thought it a neat solution to a thorny problem. Every hunter knows that the best way to trap a jackal is with a trained jackal.

  Shobbat didn’t like elves. Even in exile they reeked of smug superiority and condescension. On the other hand, he didn’t hate them. Hate was a failing only the lowly could afford. A king must be above such petty sensations, lest they cloud his mind. No, the destruction of the elves was simply a necessary action if he was to circumvent the Oracle’s prophecy. They had to go, and that was that.

  It wasn’t murder, but an act of statesmanship. Monarchs-and monarchs-to-be-did not commit crimes. The elves represented an obstacle to his attaining the throne of Khur. He’d overcome so many others: the meddling Hengriff who was nearly as smug as the laddad, the high priest Minok (no one would ever find him), and the smooth laddad schemer, Morillon. Removing him had been a spur of the moment decision. Shobbat realized Morillon had too much of the Khan’s ear to be allowed to live. Too often his clever tongue unhinged Shobbat’s carefully arranged plans.

  He’d made certain the laddad noble was found. His death sowed doubt about Sahim-Khan’s authority and confusion about his loyalties. Shobbat had failed to kill the laddad king, but even wounding him had been very helpful. The laddad blamed Torghanists for the crime, just as the Sons of the Crimson Vulture blamed Sahim-Khan for the disappearance of their high priest. Everyone was in a proper turmoil and, at the right moment, Shobbat would step forward to restore order and bring glory to Khur once again.

  Only two more needed to die before Shobbat moved against his father. One was the laddad queen, and the other, the slippery sorcerer, Faeterus. Shobbat knew he would have the most trouble with the mage. Faeterus came and went like smoke through a chimney, making him difficult to poison or stab. Perhaps the best way to get rid of a mage was to use magic.

  The night crept by like a craven cur, fearful of being noticed. Shobbat’s servants had long since retired, leaving their master alone in his sitting room on the east side of the royal citadel. He passed the time by considering how he would redecorate the private quarters of the khan, once he held that position. His father reveled in the acquisition of wealth, a trait Shobbat shared, but Sahim had no taste, no sense of style. His quarters were a jumble of possessions, thrown together without any regard for arrangement or aesthetics.

  Why didn’t even one of his hired blades return with news of success or failure? Perhaps Kerianseray had managed to evade death. Shobbat considered the worst possible case, that she had discovered her masked assailants were elves and forced one to reveal who hired him. What would she do the
n? She would go to her husband-not for protection but to get her liege’s sanction for her vengeance. But Gilthas was still very ill. Kerianseray had forbidden Holy Sa’ida even to see him.

  Shobbat was in the most secure place in Khur. He had already destroyed an important Knight of Neraka. He had little to fear from one laddad female, even one so fierce as the Lioness. Except for her barbaric ploy with the sand beast, Kerianseray hadn’t stirred from the elven camp since her husband was wounded.

  He put out his hand and let the weight of the goblet rest on his fingertips. He brought it to his mouth. One never touched a cloud cup with one’s lips. Instead, he held it a hair’s breadth above his open mouth and allowed a slender stream of nectar to pour from the cup and down his throat.

  * * * * *

  Kerian did not return to the Speaker’s tent. Wounded, she continued on to her original destination, the one place she felt she belonged. The warriors’ enclave. Almost half the army was in the field, patrolling the desert outside Khurinost. The rest were astonished when she staggered in amongst them, wan and bleeding. They settled her on a stool and put a clay cup of raisin wine in her hand. An elf knelt by her and began to dress her sword cuts.

  “The Khurs are plotting against us!” she declared, describing her narrow escape from assassins. She did not mention her attackers were Silvanesti; more important was the one who had hired them. “They killed Lord Morillon, tried to kill the Speaker, and they’ve tried to slay me twice!”

  “What shall we do, Commander?” asked a Qualinesti veteran.

  She opened her mouth to give orders, then closed it with a snap. She gulped sweet raisin wine then said, “I am no longer commander of the army. The Speaker has relieved me.”