Prince of Demons

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  “Yes.” Tae would not miss this opportunity.

  “Four horses, then,” Weile finished as Alsrusett thundered past him. The bodyguard slipped outside, his inspection cut short by Weile’s sudden emergence. Daxan headed through next, leaving Tae to trail in his wake.

  A waning moon added a sheen to the forest’s highest branches, and a glaze filtered to the ground. As Tae’s eyes adjusted from lantern to duller natural light, he hurried after his father and Alsrusett. Daxan remained behind to seal the entrance. Moments later, his footfalls crashed after the others, and the squatty guard sprinted up beside them.

  Questions plagued Tae, mostly those he had planned to discuss with his father before such an emergency arose. He had wondered whether Weile and his gangsters worked for the elves, but this incident suggested otherwise. He doubted his father would stand for an interrogation now, even if they could hear one another over the crash of movement; but he saw the need for a warning. “Careful. Elves won’t stay cornered. Magic.”

  Weile glanced back, nodding acknowledgment. A quizzical expression slipped onto his features as he continued his walk. Surely he wondered as much about his son’s knowledge of elves as Tae did about his father’s.

  Daxan dashed ahead. Possibilities assailed Tae as he accompanied Weile and his other bodyguard to Kinya’s cottage. The close darkness of the forest hampered vision and direction sense, and they found a comfortable balance between silence and speed. Soon, they reached the cottage where Kinya had readied the horses. Mounting took moments. Tae, Weile, Daxan, and Alsrusett rode toward the stalemate.

  Excitement plied Tae long after fatigue and the steady rhythm of the horse should have lulled him to sleep. Forced to an irritatingly slow pace by the darkness, Tae felt chased by a restlessness that apparently bothered the others as well. After a brief discussion with Weile, Alsrusett lit a lantern, suspended it on a pole, and bobbed it over his horse’s head. His bay mare shied at its sudden appearance. Alsrusett calmed her with pats and praise. She soon tolerated its presence, though occasional shifts in shadow sent her skittering sideways. Alsrusett kicked the horse to a trot, then a canter. The other horses followed her in a line, tracing her steps and thus not requiring light of their own.

  Dawn crept over the Southern Weathered Mountains as the horses broke from forest onto sparser, rockier terrain. An Easterner met Weile and his party at the transition, scarcely waiting until they drew up their horses before speaking. “The elves put our men to sleep. They’re headed toward nighthawk.”

  Weile gave Tae an admiring glance, though he addressed the newcomer. “How long ago?”

  “High night, sir, but they haven’t gotten far. They didn’t take our horses.” Apparently finally recognizing Weile, he granted the commander a respectful bow. “They must have made a mistake, because their spell put some of their own to sleep, too. Carrying and dragging slowed them.”

  “Our sleepers?” Weile asked.

  “Tern sector’s watching them.”

  “Let’s go!” Weile commanded. The man joined the group, and they headed southwest, along the mountains. With the help of a few more guides along the way, they discovered the elves trapped in a high-walled valley thick with trees. Tae looked down on the scene from horseback, counting nearly two dozen moving figures below and a few lying still amid the greenery. The array of hair colors would have clinched their identity as elves; humans traveling in such numbers would surely span only a race or two. But with color vision lost to darkness, Tae found it impossible to distinguish them. Easterners spread across the ledges above the valley. Weile rode them around these until he pulled up beside an obvious leader. “What’s going on, Chayl?”

  On foot, the man addressed as Chayl tore his gaze from the elves. He glanced at Weile, then looked back into the canyon. Gradually, his brain registered appearance and voice; and he gave his commander his full attention. “We’ve got the traitor elves surrounded. We lost six at aristiri sector, and there’re fourteen more asleep there.”

  “I heard about that.” Weile added in a threatening voice, “No elves hurt, right?”

  “Right,” Chayl confirmed. “Other than the sleep magic, which seems harmless, they haven’t attacked. They have weapons, but only one of the humans has resorted to violence.” He glanced into the valley and back again. “The man hasn’t caused much trouble. The wild one’s a woman. Renshai, I think.”

  “Have they tried to escape here?”

  “Not yet. There’re thirty-seven, counting the humans. A dozen or so are still sleeping. Including the humans. I think that’s who they’re waiting for.” Chayl made a broad, sweeping gesture over the valley. “Obviously, they don’t know much about war strategy.”

  Tae smiled. History recorded that the Easterners had made a similar mistake during the Great War more than three hundred years earlier. Attempting a sneak attack on the West, they had hidden their massive troops in a quarry where forewarned Westerners found and slaughtered them.

  Weile studied the situation. “Tell the men to ready their bows but not to fire unless given a direct command. Remind them we’re not to kill any elf. The humans, especially the woman, must die.”

  Chayl rushed to relay the message. Weile cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted into the valley. “Lav’rintii, can you hear me?” The cliff face shattered his voice to echoes.

  Silence followed.

  Weile waited several moments before repeating louder, “Lav’rintii, can you hear me?”

  As the reverberations faded, nothing returned but the rustling of branches in the wind and the rising and falling cadence of insects.

  Weile tensed to call again as a thin, musical voice scarcely rose above the other sounds. Tae could not discern words.

  “Lav’rintii, answer if you value your lives at all!” Irritation entered Weile’s tone. He had made it clear to his men he would not kill elves, but he would let the elves believe otherwise.

  “They did answer,” Tae informed his father.

  Weile looked at Tae. “They did?”

  Again, a lyrical sound floated up from below. This time, Tae thought he heard lav’rintii with the light syllables properly restored. The other words still blended into a jumble that even context could not sort. He suspected whoever answered used the common trading tongue with appalling syntax.

  “What did they say?”

  “I’m not sure,” Tae admitted. “It’s a lot harder to holler up through trees than down into a cavern. And it’s possible this particular group doesn’t speak trading, at least not well.”

  Weile’s dark eyes fixed on his son. “How do you know so much about elves?”

  Tae relived the moments of terror as he raced across elfin territory while they tracked him with magic. He had climbed their dungeon roof, hoping to create a hole for an escape route, rescue Griff, and slip them both to safety. But the elves had learned construction by viewing human buildings through magic, not by mastering the necessary mechanics. The roof had collapsed beneath Tae. The elves had captured him with magic, then tortured him unmercifully for information. Now, a brief sharpness twinged through him, and he appreciated the mind’s inability to accurately recall pain. His current wounds bothered him enough. “I’ve dealt with them before.”

  “Have you?” Clearly surprised, Weile put aside curiosity for the moment. “We’ll talk about that later. Can you speak their tongue?”

  The question might have seemed strange to any other, but Weile had always pressured Tae to learn every language. Tae could not remember when he had not spoken at least four fluently. As an infant, his father had used Eastern and trading interchangeably, and they had hired a Béarnian maid to use her home tongue and Western around him. Whether because of his early exposure, or just a natural gift, Tae learned languages with an ease that made Weile’s studies seem clumsy. Tae understood eight of the nine known human languages, barring only Renshai, spoke at least passing amounts of each, and could read and write the original four. This talent had served him
well, not only in situations when others talked freely believing he could not understand them. It had allowed him to scan the sage’s notes, written in Béarnese, to find the name and location of the missing heir. During his run from Weile’s enemies, Tae had come to the realization that his father’s insistence probably stemmed from the intention of turning his son into a spy rather than from any altruistic, fatherly reason. Now, he decided, the original purpose did not matter. Whatever Weile’s intention, Tae had gained an invaluable skill. “They’ve got a language all their own. It resembles Northern. They seem to mostly understand Northern, too.”

  “Tae. . . ?” Weile started hesitantly.

  Tae anticipated the question. “You want me to go down and talk to them?”

  “It might be dangerous.”

  Tae doubted his father’s concerns. The bits of information he had received from the various men suggested otherwise. The elves he had faced would have slaughtered all of his father’s men while they slept. They would never have tolerated humans among them. Chayl had called them elfin traitors, a phrase Tae had, at first, believed a redundancy. Now he put the sequence together differently and, he suspected, correctly. When he considered lav’rintii as the elfin word for “traitor,” it placed a whole new light on the situation. These elves would then represent Captain’s followers, perhaps accompanied by the elder himself. The Renshai could be Rantire or Kevral and the man Ra-khir or Darris. Tae’s heart pounded at the realization, and suddenly the mission seemed nothing less than dire necessity. “I’ll talk to them.” He dismounted and headed toward the edge, seeking the best route into the valley.

  “Wait.” Weile stayed Tae with the word and the sudden imposition of his horse. “Before you parley, you have to know the terms.”

  Tae nodded distractedly.

  “Convince the elves we have enough arrows to kill all of them from here. Assure them they can go free if they change course away from Béarn. And, no matter what else gets settled, the two humans die.”

  Horror fluttered through Tae’s chest, reawakening the pain of the injury Nacoma had inflicted; but he nodded grimly. He had to know the identities of those below. Plans would have to wait for knowledge. As Chayl returned, Tae slipped down the wall of the valley. He climbed well enough not to bother seeking the simpler access the elves must have taken, careful only to ascertain that he had not condemned himself to a fall. As he disappeared over the side, he caught his father’s soft words to Chayl. “That’s my son down there. If any man shoots, it’ll be the last thing he ever does.”

  Tae clambered down stone that softened to a gentle, tree-lined slope, requiring no more attention to negotiate than a romp through the forest. He kept an eye on the pattern of trees as well as roots and other obstacles in his path. The lower he got, the more his gaze strayed to the bottom, seeking movement. The changing pattern suggested the elves had noticed him. As sunrise turned the horizon pink and light slithered down the faces of the cliff, they gathered to study him, then slipped quietly to a site near a clump of bushes. Tae directed his hearing to catch the first whisper of a chant that would indicate they had begun a jovinay arythanik, a shared spell.

  “We’ve sent a man to talk!” Weile’s unexpected shout startled Tae into a wary crouch. The sudden movement reawakened the pain of his wounds as his cautious climb had not. “Don’t harm him, or you all die!” The warning should have been unnecessary. It was unlawful in every human society to kill a messenger or a mediator. Elves might not follow the universal convention.

  Having been indicated by his father, as well as already noticed by the elves, Tae made no attempt at subtlety. He walked openly to the valley floor, resisting the cover of outcroppings and tree shadows to place himself fully into the growing sunlight. This had the added advantage of forcing the elves to look into the light to see him. He studied them between the trees. Ten had gathered beneath a spindly binyal, prodding someone he could not see between them. Their hair ranged from red-black to elder white, and he could now recognize their fragile-looking forms as elfin.

  Tae used the Northern tongue, “I mean you no harm.”

  All of the elves turned to stare, their strange eyes reflecting light like faceted sapphires, emeralds, and topaz. The two nearest him rose and edged forward. The taller shook a mane of mahogany hair from his angular face. Heart-shaped lips parted to reveal straight rows of incisors and molars. Tae blamed nervousness for his own heightened senses. For the first time, he realized elves had no canine teeth, a detail that fit well with their vegetarian diet. He also spoke Northern. “You know Otherspeak?”

  Tae hesitated. “Is that what you call what I’m using?”

  “Yes.”

  Tae saw no reason to give an answer that had become self-evident, but the elves seemed to expect one. “Not very well, but I’ll do my best.”

  The shorter elf seemed to sport every feature that typified elves, more alien-appearing than his companions. Grotesquely high cheekbones hovered over a small nose and lips so broad they seemed a caricature. Wispy, white-blond hair curled around a gently tapering chin and yellow eyes as pale as his hair watched Tae without emotion. “Why are you threatening us? Why are you chasing us? We didn’t bother you.”

  Tae had hoped to assess the elves before committing himself to a cause. The straightforward queries stole the time he required. He weighed his options, his thoughts retarded by fatigue, sleep long overdue, and the dull ache in his chest. It seemed best to meet bold forthrightness with equally direct questions. “Lav’rintii.” Tae seasoned the word with proper elfin pronunciation. “What does that mean?”

  The elves exchanged unreadable glances. The taller one answered. “It means ‘destroyers of the peace,’ but we are not that at all. We call ourselves lysalf and the others svartalf.”

  Tae needed nothing more. He grinned. “You are Captain’s followers.” He amended, recalling Captain’s elfin name. “Arak’bar Tulamii Dhor.”

  A groan emerged from beneath the gathering, deep and certainly human.

  Tae felt an airless flutter in his chest, as if his heart had momentarily stopped. Terror naturally followed. Then the normal beat resumed, leaving only an excited tingle. “Which,” he started, at once desperate and fearing to finish the question. If the Renshai was other than Kevral, he might not survive the sorrow. “. . . human is that?”

  The elves scurried aside to reveal Kevral scrambling to her feet. She charged even as her sword cleared its sheath in a swirl of silver highlights.

  Tae dodged from her path, not for the first time. “Kevral, it’s Tae.”

  Kevral halted, blue eyes restless, sword sinking back toward its sheath. He hoped his father could not see the attack from the top of the valley. Kevral returned the sword to its proper place, sprang forward, and grabbed Tae in a wild embrace. “Tae! You’re alive.”

  Tae wrapped his dark arms around Kevral, reveling in the sweet musk of her hair, the warmth of her presence, the pleasant, natural smells of her clothing and skin. The press of her body against him also aroused a desire he would not have believed possible in such a tense situation. His mind galloped off in a swirl of images that revolved around levering her down in the grass, despite the stares of the elves and Easterners, and making fierce, passionate love. Instead, he contented himself with a kiss that went from joyful to torrid in an instant.

  Kevral’s muscles loosened almost imperceptibly; if he had not held her, Tae could not have discerned the change. A moment later, she stiffened again, jerking her head aside and shoving him free. “Where’s Ra-khir?”

  Not exactly the response I wanted. Tae released Kevral and staunched embarrassment with humor. “I don’t know. Was he supposed to be with me?”

  Kevral gave Tae a measuring look. He had chosen a bad time for jokes. “He was with me. Is he all right?” Kevral did not await a reply to a question Tae clearly could not answer. “Ra-khir!” she called.

  Brush rattled, then half a dozen elves emerged from the valley foliage with the groggy apprent
ice Knight of Erythane between them. Ra-khir’s red hair trailed in strands down his forehead, and his clothing consisted of a crudely sewn patchwork of unmatched fabrics. Heavily muscled, he could not possibly have fit into any single tunic the elves might have spared him. His chin carried three days’ growth of beard. Yet his wild hair, scrappy clothes, and dirt-smeared features only enhanced his attractiveness, and the bags beneath his eyes refined their striking green. Though more important matters plagued Tae, he suffered pangs of irritation at the realization that he could never compete when it came to looks.

  Ra-khir shook his head to clear it. His gaze shifted from the ground to Kevral and finally landed on Tae. A smile glided across his lips, and he met Tae’s brown eyes levelly. “Tae!” The excitement in the greeting sounded genuine, and the smile clinched the image. “Do you know if any of the others are . . .” He stumbled over the obvious “alive.” “. . . safe?”

  “I don’t know about the others, but we’re not safe at all.” Tae glanced toward the crest.

  Ra-khir followed Tae’s gaze to the tiny, dark figures at the lip and groaned. The corners of his mouth sank back into a neutral position, and his eyes narrowed pensively. “How did you get here?”

  Tae doubted Ra-khir currently wondered about how he’d survived the Southern Sea, so he addressed the more significant issue. “Those are my father’s men.”

  From the corner of his eye, Tae saw Kevral nodding knowingly. Ra-khir’s brows rose, and his forehead creased, as he made the obvious connection. Tae tried to focus fully on the situation he hoped to defuse, but he could not help noticing how close to Kevral Ra-khir chose to stand and the more relaxed posture he assumed around her now. Few would notice the difference, but years of guessing human intention and reaction, as well as the significance of this particular union, told all. Their relationship had drastically changed. I’ve lost Kevral. Though uncertain, the belief stung, even through Tae’s concerns about his friends’ lives. His new relationship with his father put the latter concern to rest. Why couldn’t I have been the one washed ashore with Kevral? Tae did not ponder long. Luck and chance had rarely proved his friends.