by Dragon Lance
“Is that wise?” Sithas was more disturbed than he thought he would be about the brutality he saw here.
Lord Quimant had attempted to dissuade Sithas from visiting the Clan Oakleaf estates and mines, yet the Speaker had been determined to take the three-day coach ride to Quimant’s family’s holdings. Now he began to wonder if perhaps Lord Quimant had been right to want to spare him the sight. He had too many disturbing reservations about the Oakleaf mines. Yet at the same time, he had to admit he needed the steel that came from these mines and the blades that were cast by the nearby smithies.
“Actually, it’s the humans who give us the most trouble. After all, the elves are here for ten or twenty years, whatever the sentence happens to be for their crime. They know they must suffer that time, and then they’ll be free.”
Indeed, the Speaker of the Stars had sentenced a number of citizens of Silvanost to such labor – for failure to pay taxes, violence or theft against a fellow elf, smuggling, and other serious transgressions. The whole issue had seemed a good deal simpler in the city, when he could simply dismiss the offending elf and rarely, if ever, think of him again.
“So this is their miserable fate,” he said quietly.
Quimant continued. “The humans, you know, are here for life – of course, a foreshortened life, in any event. And you know how reckless they are anyway.
Yes, indeed, humans are the ones who give us the most problems. The elves, if anything, help to keep them in line. We encourage their little acts of spying on one another.”
“Where do all the humans come from?” inquired Sithas. “Surely they haven’t all been sentenced by elven courts.”
“Oh, of course not! These are mostly brigands and villains, nomads who live to the north. They trouble the elves and kender of the settled lands, so we capture them and set them to work here.”
Quimant shook his head, thinking before he continued. “Imagine – a paltry four or five decades to grow up, experience romance, try to make a success of your life, and leave children behind you! It’s amazing they do so well, when you consider what little time they have to work with!”
“Let’s go back to the manor,” said Sithas, suddenly very weary of the harsh spectacle before him. Quimant had arranged for a splendid banquet after dark, and if they remained here any longer, Sithas was certain that he would lose his appetite.
*
The ride back to Silvanost seemed to Sithas to take much longer than the trip into the country. Still, he felt relieved to leave the Oakleaf estates behind.
The banquet had been a festive affair. Hermathya, the pride of Oakleaf, and her son Vanesti had been the stars of the evening. The affair lasted far into the night, yet Quimant and Sithas made an early start for the city on the following morning. Hermathya and the boy remained behind, intending to visit the clanhold for a month or two.
The first two days of the trip had seemed to drag on forever, and now they had reached the third and final day of the excursion. Sithas and Quimant traveled in the luxurious royal coach. Huge padded couches provided them with room to recline and stretch. Velvet draperies could be closed to block off dust and weather … or intrusive ears and eyes. Each of the huge wheels rested on its own spring mechanism, smoothing the potholes of the crushed gravel trail.
Eight magnificent horses, all large palominos, trotted at the head of the vehicle, their white manes and long fetlocks smoothly combed. Metal trim of pure gold outlined the shape of the enclosed cabin, which was large enough to hold eight passengers.
The two lords traveled with an escort of one hundred elven riders. Four archers, in addition to their driver, rode atop the cabin, out of sight and hearing of the pair of elves within.
Sithas sat shrouded in gloom. His mind would not focus. He considered all the progress that had been made toward a counterattack. The training of the Windriders was nearly complete. In a few days, they would fly west to begin their part in Kith-Kanan’s great attack. The final rank of elven infantry – four thousand elves of Silvanost and the nearby clanholds – had already departed.
They should reach the vicinity of Sithelbec at the same time as the Windriders.
Even these prospects did not brighten his mood. He imagined the satisfying picture of the dwarven ambassador Than-Kar captured and brought to the Speaker of the Stars in chains, but that prospect only reminded him of the prisoners of the Oakleaf mines.
Slave pits! With elven slaves! He accepted the fact that the mines were necessary. Without them, the Silvanesti wouldn’t be able to produce the vast supply of arms and weapons needed by Kith-Kanan’s army. True, there were good stockpiles of weapons, but a few weeks of intensive fighting could deplete those reserves with shocking speed.
“I wonder,” he said, surprising himself and Quimant by speaking aloud.
“What if we found another source of labor?”
The lord blinked at the Speaker in surprise. “But how? Where?”
“Listen to this.” Sithas began to envision a solution, speaking his thoughts as they occurred to him. “Kith-Kanan still needs reinforcements on the ground. By Gilean, we were only able to send him four thousand troops this summer! And that left the capital practically empty of able-bodied males.”
“If Your Majesty will remember, I cautioned against such a number. The city itself is laid bare …”
“I still have my palace guard – a thousand elves of the House Protectorate, their lives pledged to the throne.” Sithas continued. “We will form the slaves – the elven slaves – from your mines into a new company. Swear them to the Wildrunners for the duration of the war, their sentences commuted to military duty.”
“They number a thousand or more,” Quimant admitted cautiously. “They are hardened and tough. It’s perhaps true that they would make a formidable force. But you can’t close down the mines!”
“We will replace them with human prisoners captured on the battlefield!”
“We have no prisoners!”
“But Kith’s counterattack begins in less than two weeks’ time. He’ll break the siege and rout the humans, and he’s bound to take many of them as captives.” Unless Kith’s plan is a failure, he thought. Sithas wouldn’t allow himself to consider that possibility.
“It may just work,” Quimant noted, with a reluctant nod. “Indeed, if his attack is a great success, we might actually increase the number of, ah … laborers. Production could improve. We could open new mines!” He warmed to the potential of the plan.
“It’s settled, then,” Sithas agreed, feeling a great sense of relief.
“What about Than-Kar, Excellency?” inquired Quimant after several more miles of verdant woodlands slipped by.
“It will be time for retribution soon.” Sithas paused. “You know that we intercepted his spy with a message detailing the formation of the Windriders?”
“True, but we never discovered who the message was intended for.”
“It was being carried west. It was sent to the Ergoth general, I’m certain.”
Sithas was convinced that the Theiwar had joined with the humans in a bid for dominance of the dwarven nation. “I’ll keep Than-Kar in suspense until Kith is ready to attack, so he doesn’t find out that we’re onto his treachery until it’s too late for him to send another warning to the west.”
“A fine trap!” Quimant imagined the scene. “Surround the dwarves in their barracks with your guard, disarm them before they can organize, and like magic, you have him as your prisoner.”
“It’s too bad I promised to return him to King Hal-Waith,” noted Sithas. “I’d like nothing better than to send him to your coal mines.”
Suddenly they leaned toward the front of the cabin as the coach slowed. They heard the coachman calling out to the horses as he hauled back on the reins.
“Driver? What’s the delay?” inquired the Speaker, leaning out the window. He saw a rider – an elf, wearing the breastplate of the House Protectorate – galloping toward them from the front of the column.
The elf wasn’t a member of the escort, Sithas realized. He saw the foam-flecked state of the horse and the dusty, bedraggled condition of the rider, and knew that the fellow must have come a long way.
“Your Majesty!” cried the elven horseman, reining in and practically falling out of the saddle beside the speaker’s carriage door. “The city – there’s trouble! It’s the dwarves!”
“What happened?”
“We kept a watch over them as you ordered. This morning, before dawn, they suddenly burst out of the inns where they were quartered. They took the guards by surprise, killed them, and headed for the docks!”
“Killed?” Sithas was appalled – and furious. “How many?”
“Two dozen of the House Protectorate,” replied the messenger. “We’ve thrown every soldier in the city into the fray, but when I left six hours ago they were slowly fighting their way to the riverbank.”
“They need boats,” guessed Quimant. “They’re making a break for the west.”
“They sniffed out my trap,” groaned Sithas. The prospect of Than-Kar escaping the city worried him, mostly because he feared the dwarf would somehow be able to warn the humans about the Windriders.
“Can the house guards hold until we get there?” demanded the Speaker.
“I don’t know.”
“Dwarves hate the water,” observed Quimant. “They won’t try a crossing at night.”
“We can’t take that chance. Come in here,” he ordered the rider, throwing open the coach door. “Driver, to the city! As fast as you can get us there!” The gilded carriage and its escort of a hundred mounted elves thundered toward distant Silvanost, raising a wide plume of dust.
*
“They’ve made it to the river, and even now they seize boats along the wharf!” Tamanier Ambrodel greeted Sithas on the Avenue of Commerce, the wide roadway that paralleled the city’s riverfront.
“Open the royal arsenal. Have every elf who can wield a sword follow me to the river!”
“They’re already there. The battle has continued all day.” The royal procession had arrived in the city with perhaps two hours of light remaining.
Sithas leaped from the coach and took the reins of a horse that had been saddled for him on Tamanier’s orders. He quickly donned a chain mail shirt and hefted the light steel shield that bore the crest symbolizing the House of Silvanos.
In the meantime, the riders from his escort had dismounted, readying for conflict.
“They’ve barricaded themselves into two blocks of warehouses and taverns, right at the waterfront. It seems they’re having some difficulties getting their boats rigged,” explained the lord chamberlain.
“How many have we lost?” asked the speaker.
“Nearly fifty killed, most in the first few hours of the fight. Since then we’ve been content to keep them bottled up until you got here.”
“Good. Let’s root them out now.”
Surprisingly, that thought gave him a sense of grim satisfaction. “Follow me!” Sithas cried, turning the prancing stallion down the wide Avenue of Commerce. The elves of his guard followed him. He inspected detachments that held positions down several streets that led toward the wharf. Just beyond these companies, Sithas could see hastily erected wooden barricades. He imagined the white, wide eyes of Theiwar dwarves peering between the gaps of these crude defenses.
“They’re there,” a sergeant assured Sithas. “They don’t show themselves until we attack. Then they give a good accounting of themselves. Our archers have picked off more than a few of them.”
“Good. Attack when you hear the trumpets.”
Sithas himself led the band of his personal guard toward White Rose Lane before leading them down a narrow thoroughfare that was the most direct route to the waterfront.
As he had suspected, the dwarves were prepared to meet them here as well.
He saw several large fishing boats lashed to the wharf, while bands of dwarves wrestled several more into place. A sturdy line of dwarves blocked the street before him, arrayed four deep, armed with crossbows, swords, and stubby dwarven pikes. A barrier of barrels, planks, and huge coils of rope stood before them.
Behind these, Sithas saw the dwarven ambassador himself. Than-Kar, squinting in the uncomfortable glow of afternoon sunlight, cursed and shouted at his guards as they tried to pull the largest of the boats against the quay.
“Charge!” Sithas cried, his voice hoarse. “Break them where they stand!”
Three trumpeters blared his command. A roar arose from the elves gathered along the nearby streets and lanes. Sithas spurred his charger forward.
A piece of paving stone had worked its way loose over many winters of frost and springtimes of rain. Now it lay on White Rose Lane, looking for all the world like the rest of the securely cemented stones that made up the smooth surface of the street.
But when the right forehoof of Sithas’s mount came to rest for a fraction of a second upon it, the treacherous stone skidded away, twisting the hoof of the charging horse. Bones snapped in the animal’s leg, and it collapsed with a shriek of pain, hurling the Speaker of the Stars from the saddle. At the same time, a full volley of steel-tipped cross-bow quarrels whistled through the air, whirring over Sithas’s head. He took no note of the missiles as he crashed headlong into the roadway. His sword blade snapped in his hand, and his face exploded in pain. Groaning, he struggled to rise.
The elves of the royal guard, seeing their ruler collapse before them and not knowing that his fall had been caused by a loose paving stone, cried out in fury and rage. They charged forward, swords raised, and began to clash with the dwarves who blocked their path. Steel rang on steel, and shouts of agony and triumph echoed from the surrounding buildings.
Sithas felt gentle hands on his shoulders. Though he could barely move, someone turned him onto his back. With a shock, the Speaker of the Stars looked up to see that the sky had become a haze of red smoke. Then a kerchief dabbed at his head and cool water washed his brow. His eyes cleared, and he saw the anxious faces of several of his veteran guards. The red haze, he realized, had been caused by the blood that still spurted from the deep gashes on his forehead and cheeks.
“The fight,” he gasped, forcing his lips and tongue to move. “How does the fight go?”
“The dwarves stand firm,” grunted an elf, cold fury apparent in his voice.
Sithas recognized the fellow as Lashio, a longtime sergeant-major who had been one of his father’s guards.
“Go! I’ll be all right! Break them! They must not escape!”
Lashio needed no urging. Seizing his sword, he sprang toward the melee.
“Don’t try to move, Excellency. I’ve sent for the clerics!” A nervous young trooper tried to dab at Sithas’s wounds, but the Speaker angrily brushed the fellow’s ministrations away.
Sitting up, Sithas tried to ignore the throbbing in his head. He looked at the hilt of his shattered weapon, still clutched in his bleeding hand. In fury, he tossed the ruined piece away.
“Give me your sword!” he barked at the guardsman.
“B – But, Excellency … please, you’re hurt!”
“Are you in the habit of disobeying orders?” Sithas snarled.
“No, sir!” The young elf bit his lip but passed his weapon, hilt first, to the Speaker of the Stars without further delay.
Unsteadily Sithas climbed to his feet. The throbbing in his head pounded into a crescendo, and he had to grit his teeth to prevent himself from crying out in pain. The din of the battle raging nearby was nothing compared to the pain inside his head.
His unfortunate horse lay beside him, moaning and kicking. From the grotesque angle of its foreleg, Sithas knew that the animal was beyond saving.
Deliberately he cut its throat with the sword, watching sadly as its lifeblood spurted across the pavement, splattering his boots.
Slowly his head began to clear, as if the shock of the horse’s death penetrated the haze of his own wounds. He lo
oked down the narrow lane and saw the mass of his royal guard, still pressing against the line of Than-Kar’s bodyguards. Sithas realized that he could do nothing in that direction.
Instead, he looked up the street and saw a nearby tavern, the Thorn of the White Rose. The melee in the street raged just beyond its doors. Sithas remembered the place. It was a large establishment, with sleeping rooms and kitchen as well as the typical great room of a riverfront tavern. Instinctively he knew that it would suit his purpose.
He started to hurry toward the door, shouting to those members of his guard who were in the back of the fight, unable to reach the dwarves because of the press of their comrades and the narrow confines of the lane.
“Follow me!” he called, pushing open the door. Several dozen of his guardsmen, led by Lashio, turned to answer his call.
The startled patrons of the bar, all of whom were standing at the windows to watch the fight in the street, turned in astonishment as their blood-streaked ruler stumbled in. Sithas paid them no note, instead leading his small company past the startled bartender, through the kitchen, and out into the alley behind the place.
A lone dwarf stood several paces away, apparently guarding this route of approach. He raised his steel battleaxe and shouted a hoarse cry of alarm. It was the last sound he made as the Speaker of the Stars lunged at him, easily dodging the heavy blow of his axe to run him through.
Immediately Sithas and his small band raced from the alley onto the docks.
The dwarves fought to reach their boats as bands of the royal guardsmen surged onto the waterfront from other nearby streets and alleys.
A black-bearded dwarf confronted Sithas. The elf saw that his attacker wore a breastplate and helm of black steel, but it was his eyes that caught Sithas’s attention: wide and vacant, like the huge white circles of a madman, pure Theiwar.
Snarling his frustration – for he saw Than-Kar, behind this dwarf, scrambling into one of the boats – Sithas charged recklessly forward.
But this foe proved far more adept than the Speaker’s previous opponent.