by Dragon Lance
Mackeli’s eyes were open. He looked at Kith-Kanan, and a frown tugged one corner of his mouth.
“This time... I can’t obey, Kith,” he said weakly. The life left his body with a shuddering sigh. Sightlessly his green eyes continued to gaze up at his friend.
An anguished sob wracked Kith-Kanan. He clutched Mackeli to him and wept. What curse was he under? How had he offended the gods? Now all of his family from the wildwood was gone. All gone. His tears mingled with Mackeli’s blood.
A sound penetrated Kith-Kanan’s grief; the brute that Mackeli had stabbed in the leg groaned. Kith-Kanan lowered the boy’s body to the ground and gently closed his eyes. Then, with a growl, he grabbed the wounded mercenary by the tunic and dragged him to his feet.
“Who sent you?” he snarled. “Who sent you to kill me?”
“I don’t know,” gasped the elf. He trembled on his injured leg. “Mercy, great lord! I’m just a hireling!”
Kith-Kanan shook him by the shirt front, his face twisted into a hideous mask of rage. “You want mercy? Here’s mercy: tell me who hired you, and I’ll cut your throat. Don’t tell me, and it will take far longer for you to die!”
“I’ll tell, I’ll tell!” babbled the terrified elf. Kith-Kanan threw him to the ground. The light from the fireball suddenly grew more intense. The elf let out a scream and threw an arm over his face. Kith-Kanan turned in time to see the fiery globe come hurtling at them. As he leaped aside, the fireball hit the wounded elf. There was a thunderclap, and the globe exploded.
Slowly, sight and hearing returned to Kith-Kanan, and darkness reclaimed the camp. The prince raised his head and found that his right arm and leg were scorched from the fireball’s impact. The wounded elf was gone, vaporized.
*
Mackeli was buried in a simple grave on the banks of the Khalkist River. The Wildrunners laid his sword across his chest, as was the custom with elven warriors. At the head of his grave, in lieu of a marker, Kith-Kanan planted the sprig of oak he’d snipped from Anaya’s tree. All this time it had remained green. The prince was certain the sprig would grow into a fine tree, and that Mackeli and Anaya would be united somehow in renewed life once more.
As the camp was breaking up, Kith-Kanan fingered the small ring he now wore on his left little finger. This was the ring Silvanos had given to his great general Balif during the Dragon War. Sithel had passed the ring on to his son as a parting gift; it had been wrapped in the red silk handkerchief the speaker had passed to his son. Kith-Kanan had donned the ring with pride, but now he wondered if it was an unintentional portent of tragedy. After all, Balif had been murdered by his rivals, certain high-ranking elves who resented the kender’s influence with Silvanos. Now similar treachery had struck at Kith-Kanan and had taken his young friend.
With somber diligence the Wildrunners struck their tents. When they were done, the senior captain, a Kagonesti named Piradon, came to Kith-Kanan.
“Highness, all is ready,” he announced.
Kith-Kanan studied the captain’s face. Like all the Kagonesti who served in the royal guard, Piradon did not wear skin paint. It made his face seem naked.
“Very well,” he said flatly. “The usual columns of four, and I want outriders ahead, behind, and on both flanks. No one’s going to surprise us again.”
Kith-Kanan put a foot in his stirrup and swung a leg over his horse. He slapped the reins against his horse’s rump and cantered down to the road. The golden ring of Balif felt tight on his finger, making his pulse throb in his fingertip. The prince decided then that the feeling would stand as a constant reminder of Mackeli’s death and of his own vulnerability.
Chapter 27
HIGH SUMMER,
YEAR OF THE RAM
Deprived of Anaya and bereft of Mackeli, Kith-Kanan threw himself into his duty with a will that would have astonished those who had known him as a callow, self-centered youth. He drove his warriors as hard as he drove himself, and in weeks molded them into a quick-thinking, quick-acting force.
Two months passed. High summer came to the plain, and the days grew very hot. Daily thunderstorms soaked the steaming plains and green forest, quenching the thirsty land so bursting with life. Grass grew on the plain as tall as a grown elf’s shoulder; so tall, in fact, that the herders had to cut swaths through it with scythes twice weekly. Vines and bracken choked the paths in the forest, making travel difficult, but the Wildrunners were too busy to complain. Tall mountains of clouds, like castles of white smoke, passed serenely overhead as the Wildrunners set up camp in order to construct a new armory; one Kith-Kanan had already dubbed Sithelbec.
Militia outposts like the one under construction had been established all across the plain in the past eight weeks, and settlers of every race flocked to their standards. Humans, elves, kender, dwarves-they were all tired of being victims, subject to the whims of the roving robbers. The captains and sergeants of the Wildrunners drilled them with pikes and shields, and showed them how to stand up to the mounted brigands. Everywhere Kith-Kanan’s force stopped, an armory was founded. Stout stone houses were built by the Wildrunners, and there all the militia’s weapons were stored. At the sounding of a gong, all able-bodied people in the locale would rush to the arsenal and arm themselves. In an attack, the Wildrunner officers stationed close at hand would lead them out to repel the raiders.
By a few weeks before midsummer, the south and central plains had been pacified. In most cases, the brigands hadn’t even stayed around to fight the new militia. They’d simply vanished. Parnigar, eldest of the sergeants, had pronounced himself dissatisfied with the results of the campaign, however.
“What fault can you find?” Kith-Kanan had asked his trusted aide, the closest person to him since Mackeli’s death. “I’d say we were succeeding far better than we could have hoped.”
“Aye, that’s the problem, sir. The brigands have given up too easily. They’ve scarcely tried to test us,” Parnigar countered.
“Just shows that thieves have no stomach for honest combat.” The old soldier nodded politely, but it was plain he had not been convinced.
The construction of Sithelbec began with a stockade of logs around the inner blockhouse of stone. Here, at the edge of the western forest, Kith-Kanan planned to extend law and order.
Inside the forest, however, was a different proposition. There were many elves of the Kagonesti race living in the woods, but they were hardy and independent and did not take kindly to armed soldiers on their land. These woods elves got along much better with their human neighbors than they did with the Kagonesti under Kith-Kanan’s command. Worse, the western woods elves scorned the prince’s offers of protection.
“Who do we need protection from?” they had asked scornfully when confronted. “The only invaders we see are you.”
The woods elves spat on Kith-Kanan’s representatives or threw stones at them, then melted into the trees.
The Wildrunners were all for going into the forest and converting the stubborn woods elves at the point of a sword, but Kith-Kanan would not allow it. Their success was built upon the trust the common people had in them; if they turned tyrannical, everything they’d accomplished would be for naught. It would take time, but the prince believed that he could even win over the wild Kagonesti.
As work on Sithelbec continued, Kith-Kanan received a dispatch from his father. The Speaker of the Stars had accepted the prince’s invitation to the outpost. Sithel was coming, accompanied by Sithas and a caravan of guards and courtiers.
Kith-Kanan studied the dispatch, penned by his twin. The speaker’s retinue was large and slow-moving; it would be at least two weeks before they reached Sithelbec. Even with that grace period, the fortress would not be finished in time. Kith-Kanan exhorted his warriors to do their best, but to save their strength for fighting-even though bandits were becoming as rare as cool breezes in the hot and steamy summer nights.
*
The work was still unfinished when the banner of the speaker’s party
appeared on the horizon. Kith-Kanan called in all his patrols and formed his warriors before the gates of Sithelbec.
The Wildrunners looked on in awe as the speaker’s party came into view. First came forty guards on horseback, armed with long lances. Pennants fluttered from their lance tips. Behind them came an honor guard of nobles, sixty-two of them, bearing the banners of Silvanos’s clan, the city of Silvanost, the great temples, the major guilds, and the lesser towns of Silvanesti. The nobles formed a square behind the line of lancers. Next came Sithas and his entourage, all clad in scarlet and white. Finally, the Speaker of the Stars rode up, flanked by one hundred courtiers wearing the speaker’s colors. The tail of the procession consisted of the rest of the guards and all the baggage wagons.
“By Astarin,” muttered Kith-Kanan. “Is there anyone left in Silvanost?”
The nobles parted ranks, the lancers moved to one side, and Sithas rode forward. “Greetings, Brother. Is everything in order?” asked the heir to the throne.
Kith-Kanan grinned. “Not everything,” he said, looking up at Sithas. “But we’re doing well enough.”
The leader of the Wildrunners strode through the blocks of mounted elves toward his father.
Soldiers, nobles, and courtiers parted for him with mechanical precision. There was Sithel, astride a splendid white charger, his golden mantle draped across the animal’s rump. The crown of Silvanos sparkled on his brow.
Kith-Kanan bowed from the waist. “Hail, great speaker!”
“Hail to you, my son.” Sithel waved the emerald and ivory scepter of Silvanos, and Kith-Kanan straightened, “How have you been?”
“Mostly well, Father. The militia has been a great success. Incidents of marauding have ceased and, until recently, everyone we met was with us.”
Sithel laid the scepter in the crook of his arm. “Until recently?” he asked with a frown.
“Yes. The inhabitants of the woods are not eager for our help. I believe we can eventually win them to our side, though.”
The speaker’s charger shook its head and did a slow half-circle. A groom ran forward to hold the animal’s bridle as Sithel patted his horse’s snowy neck.
“I would hear more about this,” he said solemnly. Kith-Kanan took the bridle from the groom and led his father’s mount toward the unfinished fortress.
*
The vast formation of soldiers and courtiers dispersed, and a regular tent city grew up on the plain in and around the stockade of Sithelbec. The speaker moved into the incomplete keep, as did Sithas. There, on a rough table of green oak planks, Kith-Kanan served them dinner and told them about the problems they’d been having winning the confidence of the woods elves.
“The impudence of it,” Sithas complained vehemently. “I think you should go in and drag the wretches out.”
Kith-Kanan couldn’t believe his ears. “And make them blood enemies forever, Sith? I know the Kagonesti. They prize freedom above all things and won’t submit even with a sword at their throat. Unless we’re willing to burn down the whole forest, we’ll never flush them out. It’s their element; they know every inch of it. Most of all, it’s their home.”
There was a moment of silence, then Sithel broke it.
“How is the hunting?” he asked pleasantly.
“Outstanding,” Kith-Kanan said, glad of the change in subject. “The woods are fairly bursting with game, Father.”
They gossiped a bit about life back in the city. Lady Nirakina and Tamanier Ambrodel were continuing their efforts on behalf of the homeless. The new Market was almost finished. Given the huge abundance of the coming harvest, even the new, expanded Market would be taxed to handle the volume.
“How is Hermathya?” Kith-Kanan asked politely.
Sithas shrugged, “As well as always. She spends too much and still craves the adoration of the common folk.”
They made plans for a boar hunt that would take place on the morrow. Only a small party would go-the speaker, Sithas, Kith-Kanan, Kencathedrus, another royal guard, Parnigar, and half a dozen favored courtiers. They would assemble at dawn and ride into the forest armed with lances. No beaters or hounds would be used. The speaker viewed such measures as unsporting.
*
Though the sun had not yet shown itself, there was an early heat in the air, a promise of the stifling day to come. Kith-Kanan stood by a small campfire with Parnigar, eating some bread and porridge. Sithas and Sithel emerged from the half-built keep, dressed in drab brown hunting clothes.
“Good morning,” Kith-Kanan said energetically.
“Going to be hot, I think,” appraised Sithel. A servant appeared silently at his elbow with a cup of cool apple cider. A second servant offered Sithas similar refreshment.
The courtiers appeared, looking ill at ease in their borrowed hunting clothes. Kencathedrus and Parnigar were more lethal looking. The commander leaned on his lance with an easy grace, seeming fully awake, the benefit of many years rising before the sun. The hunting party ate in relative silence, chewing bread and cheese, spooning porridge quickly, and washing everything down with cider.
Sithel finished first. He thrust his empty cup and plate at a servant and took a lance from the pyramid of weapons stacked outside the keep.
“To horse,” he announced. “The prey awaits!”
The speaker mounted with ease and swung the long ash lance in a broad circle around his head. Kith-Kanan couldn’t help but smile at his father who, despite his age and dignity, was more expert with horse and lance than any of them, except perhaps Kencathedrus and Parnigar.
Sithas was a fair horseman, but fumbled with the long lance and reins. The courtiers, more used to loose robes and tight protocol, wobbled aboard their animals. The nervous animals were made more so by the lances bobbing and dancing just behind their heads.
Forming a triangle with Sithel in the lead, the party rode toward the forest, half a mile away. Dew was thick on the tall grass, and crickets sang until the horses drew near. The silver rim of Solinari could been seen on the western horizon.
Sithas rode on the speaker’s left. Kith-Kanan rode on his father’s right, resting the butt of his lance in his stirrup cup. They rode at an easy pace, not wanting to tire the horses too early. If they flushed a boar, they’d need all the speed they could muster from their chargers.
“I haven’t been hunting in sixty years,” Sithel said, breathing deeply of the morning air. “When I was your age, all the young bucks had to have a boar’s head on their clan hall wall to show everyone how virile they were.” Sithel smiled. “I still remember how I got my first boar. Shenbarrus, Hermathya’s father, and I used to go to the marshes at the mouth of the Thon-Thalas. Marsh boar were reputed to be the fiercest of the fierce, and we thought we’d be the most famous hunters in Silvanost if we came back with a trophy. Shenbarrus was a lot thinner and more active in those days. He and I went down river by boat. We landed on Fairgo Island and immediately started tracking a large beast.”
“You were on foot?” asked Kith-Kanan, incredulous.
“Couldn’t get a horse on the island, son. It was too marshy. So Shenbarrus and I went in the spikerod thickets, armed with spears and brass bucklers. We got separated and the next thing I knew, I was alone in the marsh, with ominous rustlings in the bushes around me. I called out: ‘Shenbarrus! Is that you?’ There was no answer. I called again; still no answer. By then I was certain the noise I’d heard was a boar. I raised my spear high and thrust it through the thick brush. There was a scream such as mortal elf never heard, and Shenbarrus came pounding through the spikerod into the open. I’d jabbed him in, hmm, the seat of his robe.”
Kith-Kanan laughed. Sithas laughed and asked, “So you never got your marsh boar?”
“Oh, I did!” Sithel said. “Shenbarrus’s yells flushed a monster of a pig out of the brush. He ran right at us. Despite his painful wound Shenbarrus stabbed first. The pig thrashed and tore up the clearing. I got my spear back and finished the beast off.”
“W
ho got the head?” asked Sithas.
“Shenbarrus. He drew first blood, so it was only right,” said his father warmly.
Kith-Kanan had been in Hermathya’s father’s house many times and had seen the fierce boar’s head in the dining hall over the fireplace. He thought of old Shenbarrus getting poked in the “seat of his robe” and he burst out laughing all over again.
The sky had lightened to pink by the time they reached the dark wall of trees. The party spread out, far enough apart for easy movement, but near enough to stay in sight of one another. All idle talk ceased.
The sun rose behind them, throwing long shadows through the trees. Kith-Kanan sweated in his cotton tunic and mopped his face with his sleeve. His father was ahead to his left, Parnigar slightly behind to his right.
Being in the forest again brought Anaya irresistibly to mind. Kith-Kanan saw her again, lithe and lively, flitting through the trees as silent as a ghost. He remembered her brusque manners, her gentle repose, and the way she felt in his arms. That he remembered best of all.
The heavy rains of summer had washed the sandy soil of the forest away, leaving chuckholes and protruding roots. Kith-Kanan let his horse pick its way along, but the animal misjudged its footing and hit a hole. The horse stumbled and recovered, but Kith-Kanan lost his seat and tumbled to the ground. The stump of a broken sapling gouged him in the back, and he lay there for a moment, stunned.
His vision cleared and he saw Parnigar leaning over him. “Are you all right, sir?” the old sergeant asked concernedly.
“Yes, just dazed. How’s my horse?”
The animal stood a few yards away, cropping moss. His right foreleg was held painfully off the ground.
Parnigar helped Kith-Kanan stand as the last of the hunting party passed by. Kencathedrus, in the rear, asked if they needed any help.
“No,” Kith-Kanan said quickly. “Go on. I’ll see to my horse.”
The horse’s lower leg was bruised but, with care, it wouldn’t be a crippling injury. Parnigar offered Kith-Kanan his horse, so he could catch up to the rest.