by Dragon Lance
“Where will you go now?” asked Voltorno, his gray eyes gleaming.
Kith-Kanan freed his dagger from his belt when the bowmen turned their attention to the halfhuman. The elf prince realized that only one of them was behind him, about eight feet away. He nudged Anaya lightly with his elbow. She didn’t look at him, but nudged him back.
Kith-Kanan turned and hurled the dagger at the bowman. The good elven iron punched through the man’s leather jerkin. Without a word, he fell back, dead. Kith-Kanan broke left, Anaya right. The humans started yelling and opened fire. Those on the left shot at Anaya. Those on the right shot at Kith-Kanan. The only thing they hit was each other.
About half of the group went down, shot by their own comrades. Kith-Kanan dived for the muddy ground and rolled to the man he’d killed with his dagger. The human’s crossbow had discharged on impact with the ground. Kith-Kanan pulled a quarrel from the dead man’s quiver and struggled to cock the bow.
Anaya also threw herself on the ground, drawing her flint knife as she fell. She was a good ten yards from Mackeli and the archers, who were reloading their weapons. Mackeli reacted to the confusion by trying to snatch Voltorno’s sword, but the half-human was too quick for him. In no time Voltorno had reversed his grip and thrust his weapon at Mackeli. The boy ducked, and Voltorno’s blade stuck in a tree.
“Get them! Kill them!” Voltorno shouted.
Mackeli ran in and out of the trees along the clearing’s edge. Quarrels flicked by him.
Across the clearing, Anaya crawled away in the wet turf, using her toes and elbows. As the archers concentrated their fire on Mackeli, she rose and threw herself at the back of the nearest man. Her moves were not as graceful as they once were, but her flint knife was as deadly as ever. One of the men, wounded by a quarrel, managed to sit up and aim his crossbow at Anaya’s back. Luckily, Kith-Kanan picked him off before he could shoot.
Mackeli had plunged into the woods. Several of the surviving humans ran after him, but Voltorno called them back.
Anaya also made it to cover in the woods. She ran only a dozen yards or so before dropping to the ground. In seconds, she was buried in the leaves. Two humans tramped right past her.
Kith-Kanan tried to cock the bow a second time. From a sitting position though, it wasn’t easy; the bow was too stiff. Before he could get the string over the lock nut, Voltorno arrived and presented him with thirty inches of Ergothian iron.
“Put it down,” Voltorno ordered. When Kith-Kanan hesitated, the half-human raked his sword tip over the prince’s jaw. Kith-Kanan felt the blood flow as he dropped the crossbow.
“Your friends have reverted to type,” said Voltorno with contempt. “They’ve run off and left you.”
“Good,” Kith-Kanan replied. “At least they will be safe.”
“Perhaps. You, my friend, are anything but safe.”
The eight surviving humans crowded around. Voltorno gave them a nod, and they dragged Kith-Kanan to his feet, punching and kicking him. They brought him to the far side of the clearing where they’d first come in and where they’d dropped their baggage. Voltorno produced a set of arm and leg shackles, then chained Kith-Kanan hand and foot.
*
Anaya burrowed away from the clearing, worming through the leaves like a snake. In times past, she could have done so without disturbing a single leaf on the surface. Now, to her ears, she sounded like a herd of humans. Fortunately Voltorno and his men were busy on the other side of the clearing.
When she was quite far away, she parted the leaves with her hands and crawled out. The ground was cold and wet, and Anaya shivered.
She wanted to return at once and free Kith-Kanan, but she knew she’d never trick the humans again. Not alone. She would have to wait until it was dark.
A twig snapped behind her, on her right. She kicked the leaves off her legs and faced the sound. Hugging a tree five yards away was Mackeli.
“You’re noisy,” she criticized.
“You’re deaf. I stepped on four other twigs before that last one,” he said coolly.
They met each other halfway. The hostility of the morning was gone, and they embraced.
“I’ve never seen you run like that,” she avowed.
“I surprised myself,” admitted Mackeli. “Being more grown up does appear to have advantages.”
He looked down at his sister. “I’m sorry for what I said,” he added earnestly
“You only said what I’ve thought a thousand times,” she confessed. “Now we have to think of Kith. We can go in after dark and take him —”
Mackeli took her by the shoulders and dropped to the ground, pulling her down beside him. “Shh! Not so loud, Ny. We’ve got to be smart about this. A year ago, we could have crept in and freed Kith, but now we’re too slow and loud. We have to think better.”
She scowled. “I don’t have to think to know that I will kill that Voltorno,” she insisted.
“I know, but he’s dangerous. He used magic when he fought Kith before, and he’s very clever and very cruel.”
“All right then, what should we do?”
Mackeli glanced quickly around. “Here’s what I think....”
*
When he’d finished ransacking the tree-home, Voltorno supervised his men in setting up traps around the clearing. Where the foot path had been worn in the grass, they strewed caltrops – small, spiky stars designed to stop charging horses. Against the hide leggings Anaya and Mackeli wore, they would be deadly.
In the grass around the tree, they set saw-toothed, spring-loaded traps, such as humans sometimes used to catch wolves. String triggers were strung, a pull on which would send a crossbow quarrel whizzing. Even by the last of the afternoon light the traps were hard to see. Kith-Kanan shuddered as he watched these diabolical preparations and prayed fervently that Anaya’s nose for metal had not deserted her completely.
Night fell, and the cold returned strongly enough to remind the raiders that summer wasn’t around the next sunrise. Kith-Kanan shivered in the chill while he watched Voltorno’s men wrap themselves in Anaya’s warm fur.
Voltorno brought a tin plate of stew and sat on a log in front of the prince. “I was a bit surprised to find you still here,” the half-human said. He drank beer from a tin cup. In spite of his thirst, Kith-Kanan’s nose wrinkled in disgust; it was a drink no true elf would touch. “When I returned to Daltigoth, I made inquiries about you. A Silvanesti, living in the forest like a painted savage. I heard a very strange tale in the halls of the imperial palace.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Kith-Kanan, staring at the fire built some distance in front of the hollow oak. “I don’t believe the humans would allow you into the imperial palace. Even human royalty knows better than to let street garbage into their homes.”
His face contorted in anger, Voltorno flipped a spoonful of hot stew into Kith-Kanan’s already much-abused face. The elf prince gasped and, despite his bound hands, managed to rub the scalding liquid onto the shoulder of his tunic.
“Don’t interrupt,” said Voltorno nastily. “As I was saying, I heard a strange tale. It seems that a prince of the Silvanesti, the brother of the current heir to the throne, left the city under a cloud. He bared a weapon in the hallowed Tower of the Stars or some nonsense like that.” Voltorno laughed.
“It seems the prince’s father married the son’s sweetheart to his brother,” he added.
“Sounds like a very sad story,” Kith-Kanan said, betraying as little emotion as he could. His shoulders ached from being forced to sit hunched over. He shifted his feet a bit, making the chains clatter as he did.
“It has the quality of an epic about it,” Voltorno agreed, stirring his stew. “And I thought to myself: what a prize that son would make. Imagine the ransom the elf prince’s family would pay!”
Kith-Kanan shook his head. “You are gravely mistaken if you think you can pass me off as a prince,” he said. “I am Silvanesti, yes – a warrior whose nagging wife drove him into
the forest for peace and quiet.”
Voltorno laughed heartily. “Oh, yes? It’s no use, my royal friend,” he said. “I’ve seen portraits of the royal house of Silvanesti. You are this errant son.”
A shrill shriek pierced the night air. The humans reached for their arms, and Voltorno went quickly to steady his men. “Keep your eyes open,” he cautioned them, “this could be a trick to divert us.”
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.
Chapter 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 fea
rs 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 the 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.