Firstborn

by Paul B. Thompson

  A flaming brand hurtled through the air, tumbling end over end and trailing sparks and embers. It hit the grass twenty feet from the tree. It tripped a trigger string, and a crossbow fired with a dull thud.

  “Aahwoo!” came a wailing cry from the dark trees. The humans began to mutter among themselves.

  A second flaming brand flew into the clearing, from the opposite side of the forest. Then a third, some yards from the second. And a fourth, some yards from that.

  “They’re all around us!” one man cried.

  “Quiet!” said Voltorno.

  Carefully avoiding the wicked caltrops, he strode out on the central path. The men clustered together near him in a fighting circle facing outward from their campfire. From his staked position, Kith-Kanan smiled grimly.

  A figure appeared at the end of the path, carrying a burning branch. Voltorno drew his sword. The figure stopped where the caltrops began, some four yards from the half-human. The torch Voltorno held lit Anaya’s face. Her face and hands were painted black. A single red stripe ran vertically from her forehead, along her nose, over her chin, and to the base of her neck.

  Voltorno turned to his men. “You see? It’s just the girl,” he crowed. He faced Anaya. ‘Where’s the boy? Hiding?” he asked with a sneer.

  “You have come into the wildwood once too often,” Anaya intoned. “None of you will leave it alive.”

  “Someone shoot her,” Voltorno said in a bored tone, but the humans were mesmerized. None of them moved. Taking a slow step toward her, the commander declared, “It’s you who will die, girl.”

  “Then enter the forest and find me,” she said. “You have bows and swords and iron blades. All I have is a knife of flint.”

  “Yes, yes, very boring. You’d like us to flounder around in the woods at night, wouldn’t you?” remarked Voltorno, moving another step closer to her.

  “It’s too late,” she warned. “One by one, you shall all die.” With that, Anaya slipped away into the night.

  “Such melodrama,” grumbled the half-human, returning to the fire. “I guess one can’t expect more from a pair of savages.”

  “Why didn’t you use your great magic, Voltorno?” Kith-Kanan asked sarcastically.

  Quite earnestly, one of the terrified humans began to explain. “Our master must be very close to the one he —” This helpful information was abruptly cut off as Voltorno backhanded the speaker. The human fell back, his face bleeding.

  Now Kith-Kanan understood. Voltorno’s repertoire of magic was probably quite limited. Perhaps he had only the spell of befuddlement he had used in his duel with Kith-Kanan. And he had to be very close to the one he wished to enchant, which was obviously why he had been sidling closer to Anaya.

  The next morning Kith-Kanan awoke stiff and groggy. The chill had penetrated his bones, and his chains didn’t allow him to rest comfortably. He was trying to stretch the ache from his legs when a shriek of pure horror rang through the clearing. Kith-Kanan jerked toward the sound.

  One of the human guards was staring down at the bedroll of one of his comrades. His face was bone-white and his mouth slack. He would have given vent to another scream, but Voltorno arrived at his side and shoved him away.

  Voltorno’s face registered shock, too, as he looked down at the bedroll. The human who had screamed now babbled, “Master! They cut Gernian’s throat! How?”

  The half-human rounded on the frantic raider and commanded him to be silent. All the humans now ringed their dead companion. Each of them asked themselves the same questions: How had Anaya and Mackeli killed the man without being seen by the watch? How had they gotten through the traps? Voltorno was rattled, and the humans were close to panic.

  19

  SITHAS RETURNS

  MORNING, AND THE HUMANS STIRRED HALF-HEARTEDLY THROUGHOUT the ambassador’s large tent. Sithas heard them, their voices hoarse from sleep, talking in the cloth-walled corridor outside his room. He rose and shook the wrinkles from his clothes.

  Ulvissen greeted the prince as he entered the tent’s main salon. The seneschal offered him breakfast, but Sithas took only a single apple from a bowl of fruit and forsook the rest. Humans had the habit of eating abysmally heavy meals, he knew, which probably accounted for their thick physiques.

  It had stopped raining during the night, though now the wind blew steadily from the south, tearing the solid ceiling of gray clouds into ragged, fluffy pieces. From their vantage point on the hill overlooking the river, it seemed as if the broken clouds were scudding along at eye level. Flashes of early morning sun illuminated the scene as the clouds passed before it.

  “Strange weather,” Ulvissen remarked as Sithas looked out over the scene.

  “We seldom get snow or ice here, but these storms blow in from the southern ocean many times each winter,” explained the Silvanesti prince.

  The river was alive with small craft taking advantage of the lull. Ulvissen turned up the flaps of his thick, woolen cape as he asked Sithas if river traffic was usually interrupted for the duration of the storm.

  “Oh, no. The fishers and barge runners are accustomed to bad weather. Only the very worst winds will keep them tied to the dock.”

  Sithas’s escort and the ambassador’s guards lined up as Ulwen and Teralind came out. The old ambassador looked even worse by daylight. His skin was sallow, with blue veins boldly visible. He moved so little that Sithas might have taken him for a corpse, were it not that his eyes blinked now and then.

  The gang of servants fell to and struck the tent. While the windy air resounded with mallet strikes and the thud of falling canvas, Sithas went to the barge. The giant turtle had drawn in his head and legs during the night, and he was still asleep. Sithas rapped on the hull of the barge.

  “Ferry master!” he called. “Are you there?”

  The elderly elf’s head popped out over the bulwark. “Indeed I am, Highness!” He hopped up on the bulwark with a spryness that belied his advanced age. A long pry bar rested on the boatman’s shoulder, and he twirled it slightly as he went to where the chains hooking the turtle to the barge were looped over enormous iron hooks, spiked to the bow of the barge. Positioning the flat end of the pry bar under the chain links, he shouted, “Clear away All!”

  The soldiers of both races perked up. Sithas, who was walking back to stand with Ulvissen, halted and spun around. The ferry master leaned on his bar, and the first chain slipped off its hook. He shouted to clear the way again and popped the other chain free. The elf prince saw that the humans were watching with rapt interest. He hoped the ferry master knew what he was doing.

  The giant shackles fell against the shell of the turtle. This woke the beast, for the front hinge of its carapace, that part that closed in the giant animal’s head, opened. The huge green head slowly emerged.

  The ferry master raised his trumpet to his lips and sounded a single note. The turtle’s legs came out, and he stood up. The rear of the turtle’s shell bumped the barge, and the craft began to move.

  “Look sharp!” sang out the ferry master.

  With rapidly increasing speed, the fifty-foot barge slid down the muddy hill. It already had a natural groove to follow – the one it had made coming up the hill the night before. Churning a wave of mud before it, the barge accelerated down the slope. The ferry master played a cavalry charge on his horn.

  “Madness!” exclaimed Teralind. “Hell smash himself to bits.”

  Sithas glanced over his shoulder and saw that the human woman had come forward, leaving her chair-bound husband with Ulvissen. As politeness dictated, he assuaged her fears as best he could. “It is a common thing. Do not fear, Lady, the craft is stoutly built.” He prayed to Matheri that this was indeed so.

  The flat stern of the barge hit the water, throwing up a tremendous wave. Then the barge slid completely off the bank into the river, leaving a cloud of mud in the water around it.

  The turtle swung around ponderously. The humans who had been dismantling the tent scattered as t
he great beast swung toward them. With utmost placidity the giant turned and walked down the hill. The incline and slippery mud bothered him not at all. As the ferry master commanded him with trumpet calls, the turtle slid quietly into the river and allowed the chains to be re-attached to the barge.

  In another hour, the ambassador’s party was ready to board. By the time they moved down a marble-paved path to the water’s edge, the wind had slowed and died out completely.

  The captain of the elven soldiers shook his head. “The lull’s ending,” he noted, resignation coloring his comment.

  “More rain?” asked Ulvissen.

  “And more wind,” replied Sithas.

  *

  The ambassador’s party made it to the island without incident. Waiting for them were three large sedan chairs and two horse-drawn wagons. Spray broke over the dock, soaking the poor porters who stood by the sedan chairs. With scant attention to protocol, the ambassador was bundled into one chair, Lady Teralind into another, and Sithas into the third. The wagons were for the baggage. Everyone else had to walk.

  Sithas was surprised when he entered his private rooms in the palace. The window shutters were drawn against the rain, and waiting for him in the dim, unlit room was Hermathya.

  “So you’re home,” she said with irritation. ‘Was it worth it?”

  Her tone was arch, close to anger. Though he had no reason, Sithas felt his own emotions hardening, a fact that surprised him.

  “It had to be done,” he said smoothly. “As it is, things turned out rather well. We showed the humans of what stuff elves are made.”

  She trembled and strode past the prince to the shuttered window. Rain was seeping through the slats, pooling on the cool marble floor.

  “And what are you made of?” she demanded, temper flaring.

  “What do you mean? What’s the matter?”

  “You risked your life for etiquette! Did you give any thought to me? What would happen to me if you had been killed?”

  Sithas sighed and sat in a chair made of intertwined maple saplings. “Is that what’s bothering you? It’s unworthy of you, Thya. After all, I was in no real danger.”

  “Don’t be so damned logical! You’ve no idea what I meant.” Hermathya turned to the speaker’s heir. Through clenched teeth, she said, “I’ve passed my first fertile time. It’s gone, and we missed it.”

  Sithas finally understood. Even though an elven couple might live as husband and wife a thousand years, they might only be fertile three or four times in their entire lives. These times were very irregular; even the healing clerics of Quenesti Pah couldn’t predict a fertile time more than a day or two in advance.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Sithas asked, his voice softening.

  “You weren’t here. You were sleeping by yourself.”

  “Am I so unapproachable?”

  She fingered the edge of her embroidered collar “Yes, you are.”

  “You have no problem getting what you want from others,” Sithas went on heedlessly. “You collect gifts and compliments as a child picks flowers in a field. Why can’t you speak to me? I am your husband.”

  “You are the elf I married,” she corrected, “not the elf I loved.”

  Sithas stood quickly. “I’ve heard enough. In the future you —”

  She moved toward him. “Will you listen to me for once? If you insist on risking your life on foolish errands, then you must give me a child. Our marriage can mean something then. An heir needs an heir. You want a son; I need a child.”

  The prince folded his arms, annoyed at her pleading tone. That emotion confused Sithas somewhat. Why did her pleading irritate him? “Perhaps it is the wisdom of the gods that this happened,” he said. “It is not a good time to start a family.”

  “How can you say that?” she asked.

  “It is Matheri’s own truth. My life is not my own. I have to live for the nation. With all this trouble in the West, I may even have to take up arm for the speaker’s cause.”

  Hermathya laughed bitterly. “You, a warrior? You have the wrong twin in mind. Kith-Kanan is the warrior. You are a priest.”

  Coldly Sithas told her, “Kith-Kanan is not here.”

  “I wish to Astarin he was! He would not have left me last night!” she said harshly.

  “Enough!” Sithas went to the door. With unmatched politeness, he said, “Lady, I am truly sorry to have missed the time, but it is done and no peace will come from dwelling on lost chances.” He went out. Behind him, Hermathya dissolved in furious tears.

  Sithas descended the steps, his face set hard as granite. Servants and courtiers parted for him as he went. All bowed, as was the custom, but none dared speak.

  *

  Two fine chairs were set up in the audience hall of the Tower of the Stars. One, short-legged and plush, was for Ehmbarth, ambassador from Thorbardin. The second was a tall piece of furniture, its elegantly wrought curves gilded. Here sat Teralind. Her husband, the titular ambassador, sat in his special chair beside her. Praetor Ulwen did not speak and after a while it was easy to forget he was even present.

  Sithel sat on his throne, of course, and Sithas stood by his left hand. The rest of the floor was taken up by courtiers and servants. Ulvissen, never far from Teralind and the ambassador, hovered behind the lady’s golden chair, listening much and speaking little.

  “The territory in question,” Sithel was saying, “is bordered on the south by the bend of the Kharolis River, on the west by the city of Xak Tsaroth, on the east by the Khalkist Mountains, and on the north by the region where the Vingaard River is born on the great plain. In the time of my father, this region was divided into three areas. The northernmost was named Vingaardin, the central was called Kagonesti, and the southernmost was Tsarothelm.”

  Dunbarth waved a beringed hand. “Your Highness’s knowledge of geography is considerable,” he noted with exaggerated politeness, “but what is the point in your lecture?”

  “As I was about to say, in the time of my father, Silvanos, these three provinces were unclaimed by any of our nations. They were ruled, and ruled poorly, by local lords who extorted taxes from the common folk and who warred constantly with each other.”

  “Such is not the case today,” Teralind interjected.

  “There is considerable violence in this area still,” Sithel replied, “as evidenced by the massacre of fifty of my guard by a large force of mounted men.”

  Silence ensued. The elven scribes, who had been taking down every word spoken, held their styluses poised over their pages. Dunbarth looked at Teralind curiously.

  “You do not object, Lady, to the speaker’s description of the marauders as ‘men’?”’ he asked pointedly, leaning forward on one elbow.

  She shrugged her green velvet clad shoulders, and Ulvissen sidled closer to the back of her chair.

  “The emperor does not rule the entire race of men,” she allowed. Sithas could almost hear the unspoken yet at the end of Teralind’s statements “any more than the king of Thorbardin rules all dwarves. I don’t know who these bandits are, but if they are men, they are not men of Ergoth.”

  “Certainly not,” Sithel continued smoothly. “You will not deny, though, that the emperor has done nothing to discourage the large number of human settlers who cross the plain and descend the rivers by boat and raft. They are displacing both the Kagonesti and those Silvanesti who have moved west to live. It must stop.”

  “There is not room enough in Ergoth for everyone to live and work, nor is there land enough to grow the food needed to feed them all,” countered Teralind. “Why is it strange that human settlers should leave the boundaries of the empire and wander east into the region claimed by the Silvanesti, when that region is so sparsely settled?”

  “None have tried to settle in Thorbardin,” said Dunbarth unhelpfully.

  Prince Sithas gestured to a scribe, who brought him a parchment scroll filled with tiny, precise writing. Two large wax seals were affixed to the bottom of
the paper. “This is our copy of the agreement made between Speaker Sithel and Emperor Tion, dated four hundred years ago. It specifically forbids Ergoth from colonizing Vingaardin without the approval of the Speaker of the Stars.”

  “Emperor Tion was an old man. Many of the works done by him late in his life were faulty,” Teralind commented tactlessly. Ulvissen, who’d been stroking his auburn beard in thought, leaned down and whispered in her ear. She nodded and continued, “No less than six of Tion’s treaties have been repudiated over the years since his death. The treaty Prince Sithas holds is therefore of doubtful standing.” At her side, the aged praetor stirred vaguely. Teralind paid no attention.

  Dunbarth slid forward and dropped out of his chair. He tugged his tunic down smoothly over his barrel chest and said, “As I recall, it was Tion’s plan to invade and conquer Sancrist, but he feared the elven nation would retaliate against his eastern border. For that reason he struck a deal with Speaker Sithel.”

  The prince had returned the parchment to the scribe. Curious, he asked, “And why did the invasion of Sancrist not take place?”

  Dunbarth laughed merrily. “The Ergothian generals pointed out how difficult it would be to rule an island full of gnomes. The drain on the empire’s treasury would have been enormous!” Some scattered laughter drifted through the hall. Sithel rapped on the floor with his five-foot-long regal staff, and the snickering died.

  “I believe what you say, Lady Teralind,” Sithel noted blandly. “His Majesty Tion must have been distracted to imagine he could conquer and rule the gnomes, though he did not really seem so when I met him.” Teralind flushed slightly at this reminder of the speaker’s great life span.

  “But that doesn’t change the fact that human settlers and human bandits have been taking life and land away from my subjects.”

  “If I may say something,” Dunbarth interrupted, walking around the side of his chair. “Many people come to Thorbardin to buy our metals, and we have heard a great deal about the troubles on the Plain. I think it is unfair to say, Your Highness, that it is simply a matter of humans pushing elves out. I understand that many of the bandits are elves themselves, of the Kagonesti race.” He rubbed the broad toe of his left boot against the trousers of his right leg to remove a smudge on the brilliant shine. “And some of the bandits are half-elves.”