by Roland Green
Threehands was too dark to flush visibly, but he could not meet Pirvan’s eyes while he laughed. “Smooth-tongued as always, Sir Knight. But no fool, either. Also, I realize now that she might want to see if her home is safe, from both enemies and High Judge Lauthin the Loud.”
“Are you not saying two words that mean the same thing, Threehands?”
They were still laughing over that when a small dust cloud broke off from the larger cloud of Rynthala’s riders and began to return. As it came closer, Pirvan saw that it was one of the riders, the weather-beaten old elf Tharash who seemed to be her second in command.
“I am bidden to welcome you to Belkuthas, in the name of Krythis and Tulia, likewise their daughter Rynthala. It is requested that for tonight you camp outside the walls, in a place of your choice. There are several good springs on level ground.”
“Are any of them in use?” Pirvan asked. “As, for example, by a certain high judge of the Silvanesti and his company?”
“Yes. An outrider has come in from them. We will direct them to a camp elsewhere than yours.”
“We are grateful,” Pirvan said. “I trust Belkuthas has suffered no mishap.”
“It is not that we do not trust you within our walls,” Tharash said. “Nor Lauthin either. But we are preparing the place for defense. Everywhere we are not digging or moving stones, those who have fled the sell-swords are camped, with their animals and goods. Few are well-armed, let alone warriors.”
“And camping outside, we will be in the path of any attack, giving warning?” Threehands said.
The elf shrugged.
Threehands smiled. “Take no offense, Tharash. We would do the same in your place, and you and yours have honor with us. We might even make a good warrior maiden of Rynthala, if she can ever learn to follow orders.”
Tharash laughed softly. “You would have to live as long as I have, Free Rider, to have any hope of seeing that.”
Chapter 12
Pirvan’s party reached the citadel of Belkuthas later than he had wished, but earlier than he had expected. Rynthala’s wild ride brought out a swarm of able-bodied refugees, who helped water the horses, tend the wounded, and carry the dead.
From what the refugees said, the bands of sell-swords wandering the country under the name tax soldiers were either ill disciplined or seeking to terrorize the people. Most of the farmers and herdsmen who had seen their homes burned and their flocks slaughtered could not tell the difference, nor did Pirvan really blame them for not remaining to find out.
The refugees were pathetically grateful to Pirvan, and almost equally so to the Gryphons, although some of them from outlying areas had experienced Free Rider raids. As they saw it, somebody was giving the sell-swords a badly needed lesson, after which they would all go home and leave peaceable farmers and herdsmen in peace.
Pirvan hoped so. He did not have the heart to suggest that this might be the beginning of a long ordeal. He had still less heart to suggest that the lord and lady of Belkuthas might not have done the best for the refugees by taking them in.
The problem was, very simply, that to an experienced soldier like Pirvan, Belkuthas was still hardly defensible against a serious attack. This was in spite of all the work already put in by its defenders—human, dwarven, and otherwise—of which they were justly proud.
The original citadel had covered several times the area of the one presently inhabited. Krythis and Tulia had put in a state of defense only the inhabited one, which might have supported a garrison of two hundred. It had only one well, but would otherwise require either a long blockade, heavy siege engines, or potent spells to bring it down.
The potent spells might lie ready to the enemy’s hand. Pirvan resolved to speak with the Red Robe on this matter. Meanwhile, the inhabited citadel was now holding more than five hundred refugees, most of them useless mouths, in addition to its defenders, some of the refugees’ livestock, and the gods knew what else.
Pirvan hoped Krythis and Tulia did as well.
Outside the inhabited area were old walls and the stubs of towers. Many of them had been quarried for stone for centuries, so that it would have taken a thousand men two years to restore them to their original state. As they were, they were totally indefensible, offering no protection for the citadel’s other two wells. They did offer plenty of hiding places for an attacker to sneak up on the defended walls and try rushing them by surprise.
With time short and men abundant, Pirvan wagered that this was exactly what any attacker would do. He resolved to array his fighters to protect at least his side of the citadel from that particular menace, and to keep so much as a mouse from getting through unchallenged.
Then it would be time to speak to Krythis and Tulia.
Pirvan gave Threehands, Darin, and Haimya their orders. Rynthala being back home, she was under her parents’ authority again, Pirvan hoped with some counsel from Tharash. Then he went to visit the wounded, saving Hawkbrother for last, partly out of politeness, partly because the Gryphon warrior hardly needed encouragement.
For a man with a bloody gash in his scalp and torn muscles and cracked bones in one leg, Hawkbrother was in singularly good spirits. Pirvan thought part of this might be an act, to keep up Eskaia’s spirits and those of the other wounded, but also knew that the Free Riders were as firm about making light of pain as they were about showing honor.
Having his scalp half shaved and most of the shaved half dressed did not improve Hawkbrother’s appearance. From the way Eskaia stared at him, he might have been the avatar of a god.
“Eskaia, would you mind fetching me some water, now that there is someone to relieve you,” Hawkbrother asked. “Don’t wait for herbs. I would drink horse piss if I thought the horse was healthy.”
Eskaia patted him on the cheek opposite his scalp wound, then went off. As she left, Pirvan noted she had somehow managed to wash her face and brush her hair since the arrival. Not that she could not have done it in five minutes, nor that she was unready for battle, but two years ago a small war could not make her change her clothes between riding and dinner.
“You may be drinking just that before we are done with Belkuthas,” Pirvan said.
Hawkbrother looked toward the citadel. “Water?”
“That, and much else. I will tell you later.”
“Much later. I say nothing against your daughter—”
“Wise of you, brother of brother.”
“No head wound can take my wits, for I have none, or so my mother once told me,” Hawkbrother replied. “I do say that Eskaia will be easier in her mind once I start healing, so I shall have to be quick about it. Meanwhile, could you tell her that I will not vanish in a puff of smoke if she takes her eyes off me for two breaths?”
“Tell her yourself, Hawkbrother.”
“Have—have I the right? By Free Rider custom, that means—”
“It probably means that I will have to paint myself blue and shave my scalp, then swear blood brotherhood with Redthorn—all of which I will do, to keep the peace. But as for us, by the custom of our family, whoever wants something done by another must ask her himself. Also, I think the request will sit better with Eskaia if it does not come from me. If I say a word of it, she will wrap herself up with you in the same blanket—”
Hawkbrother was light-skinned enough to flush. He also seemed to have inhaled a good deal of dust, judging from the way he was coughing.
“I beg your pardon, Hawkbrother. And now, before I make a bigger fool of myself than I already have—”
A trumpet sounded from the keep. In the distance, a silver-toned horn replied.
“Fifty plagues take the Silvanesti,” Hawkbrother said. “That has to be Lauthin the Loud and his little flock.”
It did not improve Lauthin’s disposition to hear the name “Lauthin the Loud” bandied about the citadel from the moment of his arrival. Nor did having to wait to be received in proper state.
However, his hosts had made up their minds that they ha
d nothing to lose by being ready for the worst, and nothing to gain by trying to placate one who seemed to have been born in a vile mood and grown worse with each passing century. This was their home; Lauthin could use it with their consent, or camp in the forest without it.
Tulia and Rynthala went out to settle the embassy in a safe, comfortable campsite well clear of Pirvan’s men and the refugees. (The Silvanesti sense of elven superiority was matched by a human belief that elves were effete and cowardly.)
Krythis saw to putting the quarters and hall in as much order as possible. He was even able to wash his face and hands, although one could have shaken from his clothes enough dust to mix a fair-sized hod of mortar.
Tharash kept running back and forth among the two camps and the citadel until Krythis finally told him to wrap himself around a jug of ale and not stir for an hour.
“You don’t want me standing by?”
“There will be no trouble. Do you understand that? Do all our people understand it?”
“I do. I’ll speak to one or two of the young folk. They’re hotheaded, compared to what they were in my day.”
“You had a day, Tharash? You were not born as you are?”
The elf laughed and went off to find the ale. His departure was a signal for the return of Tulia and Rynthala.
The horns and drums that announced the coming—the onset, Krythis wanted to call it—of High Judge Lauthin followed immediately thereafter.
Zephros was not happy at the news, either of the defeat of the sell-sword ambush or of the safe arrival of Pirvan at Belkuthas. The only thing that consoled him was that Luferinus and Wilthur seemed still less content. The pleasure of watching their distaste or even dismay gave way to impatience with their refusal to provide him details. Treating him like a fool might be their pleasure; it would be an expensive one if it was noticed by Zephros’s troops.
For the moment, memories of desert hobgoblins and rumors that the enemy had wizards kept the men reconciled to accepting mysterious, hooded magic-users among their own ranks. This acceptance might not last forever, and then it would not matter a bit whether Zephros discouraged or encouraged desertion from his usurped band.
The men would depart. If they somehow knew that Wilthur the Brown was the source of the magic, they would depart in haste and without order.
Meanwhile, if these zealots for the kingpriest wanted Zephros’s help, that help would be informed.
“It seems to me we are crying before we know that the milk has been spilled,” Zephros said, sipping his wine. He feared it was the last. None of the new companies coming in had any left, nor would the loot of raided farms help. The folk around here seemed partial to ale, which he had never been able to stomach, or dwarf spirits, which might be good for embalming corpses.
“How so?” Luferinus said.
“If the scouts are right about Pirvan, why shouldn’t they also be right about the crowding in the citadel? There will be more refugees coming in, too.”
“So?” Wilthur said. He put a world of frustration into the one word.
“We have the weight of numbers. You keep saying one repulse will break the spirits of our men. Well, I doubt it. The surest way of making certain it will not is for me to say what you believe.”
“You would not!” Wilthur exclaimed. His voice held such fury that Zephros half expected a fireball to land in his lap.
Instead, Luferinus spoke. “Do you mean to come at the truth roundabout, or can you march straight there?”
“Forward, march!” Zephros said. It had not been much wine or good wine, but he had taken it on an empty stomach. “Simple. Be sure the first attack will drive home. Weaken them beforehand, from a distance—by magic.”
Wilthur went from looking ready to kill Zephros to looking ready to kiss him. The captain found the second possibility even more appalling than the first. He also remembered that no tale about Wilthur ever said he knew much of war. Luferinus was too much in awe of the mage to teach him.
I may be as bad a soldier as that old bastard Aurhinius always said, thought Zephros, but Kiri-Jolith forsake me if I am not better than these two.
“By magic,” Zephros repeated. “Possibly even simple magic.”
“You are no judge of magic, and you are talking too much,” Luferinus said.
Wilthur replied by making a small fireball appear in his hand. He tossed it up and pretended to let it fall toward Luferinus’s face. The other captain turned pale. Wilthur raised a finger, and the fireball vanished with a pop.
“If, that is, there is a simple spell for poisoning a well,” Zephros said. “Simple spell—poison a well.”
“Do not, I pray, take up poetry when you retire from war,” Wilthur said. “I make no promises. But what you suggest has merit. It may even prove fruitful.”
Zephros wanted to stick out his tongue at Luferinus.
“Lauthinaradalas, high judge of the Silvanesti,” the elven herald bawled.
To Krythis’s ears, he sounded like a minotaur calf trying to imitate a full-grown warrior bull. Why did the heralds of all races always sacrifice beauty of sound for sheer volume? There was explanation and even excuse for doing so on the battlefield, but within doors, in a small chamber where one could hit one’s audience with a thrown biscuit?
Lauthin stepped forward. He strode briskly, and his eyes were clear, though his wrinkles and almost-transparent skin said he was older even than Tharash. He also had a rasping voice and no discretion about using it at length.
Being judged by Lauthin must be a disagreeable experience, thought Krythis, even when the judgment went in one’s favor.
Lauthin read the royal decree establishing his embassy and defining its purpose. This merely gave Belot’s information in more detailed form.
Krythis and Tulia looked at one another, then Krythis nodded. “If you find the citadel of Belkuthas fit and proper for the purpose you have stated, it is at your disposal for the duration of the embassy.”
“This is as well. Please make your arrangements to move out immediately. We cannot camp in the wilderness for long without sacrificing the dignity of the Silvanesti.”
Krythis saw from Tulia’s expression that he had not imagined the words he thought he had just heard. “We had not received such a request, nor imagined that we would,” was the least rude reply that he could muster.
“Then Belot failed in his duty, and I shall deal with him myself,” Lauthin said. “Consider, however, your sacred duty as hosts. Consider also that without full hospitality to this embassy, you can have no hope of my offering you a place among the true elves of Silvanesti.”
Neither Krythis nor Tulia replied for a moment, Krythis at least because he was speechless with rage. He could not recall having been so angry in his life, not even with a drunken servant who had tried to attack Tulia.
We have lived apart from the world too much, forgetting how much folly there is in it, he thought. So when it comes from an unexpected place, we are twice as surprised as most folk.
No amount of surprise would justify telling Lauthin and his embassy to pack up and go home. If he did, any agreement reached between the elves and Istar would doubtless include the suppression—by fire and sword, if all else failed—of Belkuthas and its allies. The dwarves would offer their fosterlings a refuge, but do no more against the combined might of the two realms and races.
“I believe you make your request and your offer in good faith,” Krythis said. His voice was almost steady, and Lauthin did not seem to be looking at either his or Tulia’s hands. “However, we cannot do as you ask, within any reasonable period of time. The refugees from the sell-swords flooding the land are a duty we have taken up and cannot lay down. If we were sure you were ready, willing, and able to assume responsibility for them—”
“What an outrageous idea!”
“Then it would not be practical?”
“My lord and lady of Belkuthas, I have come as an ambassador, not a rescuer to a pack of smelly human fugitives.”<
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Tulia’s strained patience audibly snapped. “They are refugees, not fugitives, having committed no crime save that of being inconvenient to Istar’s sell-swords. They do not smell, save through water being short. A fair number of them have elven blood and—”
“Far too many say this, I know. But few truly, and those are Qualinesti and Kagonesti, not my concern any more than humans.”
“What about dwarves?” Krythis asked. That was stealing Tulia’s thunder, but somebody had to steal it before she poured it on Lauthin’s head like a chamber pot into a town alley.
“What about them?”
Krythis elaborated. “Is it the wish of King Maradoc to raise difficulties—if I may put it delicately—with the dwarven nations?”
“It is not. But he expects them to go into their caves until this brawl is done.”
“I wonder how King Maradoc learned so much as to be able to speak for the dwarves,” Tulia put in. At least she was content with hurling words, instead of something more solid.
“I wonder that elven blood could not prevent you two from being such witlings,” Lauthin said. He nodded to his herald, who was barely able to proclaim the high judge’s withdrawal to his quarters before Lauthin stalked through the door.
This time Tulia actually was laughing and crying at the same time, the moment they were alone. Krythis put an arm around her shoulders.
“He will have to come back, you know,” he said. “Maradoc will not thank him for ruining the embassy and risking war out of pique over our hospitality. When Lauthin’s temper cools, he will think of that. Also, we may be able to find other places for the refugees. Then there may be room for even Lauthin’s swollen pride.”
Tulia wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You are asking for two wonders at once. First, another place for the refugees. Second, wits in Lauthin. Can you imagine that, in an elf who thought that offering us a place in his household would bribe us to cast out folk who came to us for help?”
“The old Silvanesti nobles are a proud folk. Lauthin doubtless thinks that he had offered us something worthwhile.”