“That was lucky,” Verhanna said matter-of-factly.
“Lucky, noble warrior? ‘Twas the will of the gods!” Diviros said ringingly, lifting a hand to heaven. “That it was so was shown five days later as we traversed the great southern forest amid a tempest of thunderbolts, for there we beheld a sight so strange the gods must have preserved us that we might be witness to it!”
Verhanna was growing weary of the bard’s elaborate storytelling and showed it by sighing loudly. Rufus, however, was in awe of so spellbinding a speaker. “Go on, please!” he urged, a forkful of pork halted midway to his mouth.
Diviros warmed under the kender’s intense regard. “We had stopped by a large pool of water to refresh ourselves. Such a beautiful spot, my little friend! Crystalline water in a green bower, surrounded by a snowy riot of blooming buds. Well, as we were all partaking of the icy cold liquid, a monstrously large bolt of lightning struck not a score of paces from us! The flash was brighter than the sun, and we were all knocked completely senseless.
“It was Selenara who roused first. She knows well the sound of a child in distress, and it was just such a sound that brought her awake – a mewling noise, a crying. My good wife wandered up the wooded hillside into a large meadow, and lo! there a great oak tree had been hit by the lightning, blasted into more splinters than there are stars in the heavens! Where the broad trunk had split open, she found the one who cried so piteously.”
Diviros paused dramatically, gazing directly into Verhanna’s impatient eyes. “It was a fully grown male elf!”
Rufus and his captain exchanged a look. Verhanna set aside her empty trencher and asked, “Who was it – some traveler sleeping under the tree when it was hit?”
The bard shook his head solemnly, and once more his voice was low and serious as he replied, “No, good warrior. It was clear that the fellow had been inside the tree and that the lightning had released him.”
“Bleedin’ dragons!” sighed the kender.
“My good spouse ran back to the pool and raised us from our stupor. I hurried to the shattered tree and beheld the strange elf. He was slick with blood, yet as my wife and sister washed him, there was not a cut, not even a scratch, anywhere on him. Moreover, there was an oval hollow in the tree, just large enough for him to have fitted in with his legs drawn up.”
Verhanna snorted and waved a hand dismissively. “Look here,” she said kindly, “that’s quite a tall tale you’ve spun, bard, but don’t carry on so hard that you begin to believe it yourself! You are a tale-spinner, after all, and a very good one. You almost had yourself convinced.”
Diviros’s mobile face showed only the briefest flash of annoyance. “Forgive me. I did not intend to deceive, only to relate to you the marvel we encountered in this elf who seemed born from a tree. If I offended, I apologize.” He bowed again, but Kivinellis blurted, “Tell them about his hands!” Everyone stared at the child, and he retreated once more behind his mother’s back. Rufus hopped up from the log he’d been sitting on.
“What about his hands?” asked the kender.
“They were discolored,” Diviros said casually. “The elf’s fingers, including his nails, were the color of summer grass.” His tawny eyes darted to his son, and the quick look was not kind.
“What happened to the green-fingered elf?” Rufus wondered aloud.
“We cared for him a day or two, and then he wandered off on his own.”
Verhanna detected a note of resistance in his voice. In spite of Rufus’s obvious enjoyment of the story, the bard was suddenly reluctant to speak. The captain had never known a bard to be reticent before an attentive audience. She decided to press him. “Which way did this odd, green-fingered fellow go?”
There was a momentary hesitation, barely discernible, before Diviros answered, “South by west. We have not seen him since.”
The Speaker’s daughter stood. “Well, we thank you, good bard, for your tale. And for our dinner. We must be off now.”
She tugged Rufus to his feet.
“But I haven’t finished eating!” protested the kender.
“Yes, you have.”
Verhanna hustled him to his horse and sprang to her own saddle. “Good luck to you!” she called to the family. “May your way be green and golden!”
In a moment, they’d left the group of elves staring in surprise after them.
Back on the trail, cloaked by the robe of night, Verhanna brought her horse to a stop. Rufus bounced up beside her. The kender was still babbling about their abrupt departure and the premature end of his meal.
“Forget your stomach,” Verhanna ordered. “What did you make of that strange encounter?”
“They had good food,” he said pointedly. When she raised a warning eyebrow, Rufus added hastily, “I thought the bard was all right, but the others were a little snooty. Of course, a lot of the elder folk are like that – your noble father excluded, my captain.” He flashed an ingratiating smile.
“They were afraid of something,” Verhanna said, lowering her voice and tapping her chin thoughtfully. “At first I thought it was us, but now I think they were afraid of Diviros.”
The kender crinkled his nose. “Why would they be afraid of him?”
Verhanna wrapped her reins tightly around her fist. “I have an idea.”
She turned her horse back toward the bard’s campfire. “Get your knife out and follow me!” she ordered, putting her spurs to work.
Her ebony mount bolted through the underbrush, its heavy hooves thrashing loudly. Puzzled, Rufus turned his unwieldy animal after his captain, his heart pounding in excitement.
Verhanna burst into the little clearing in time to see Diviros shoving his small son into the back of one of their carts. The bard whirled, eyes wide in alarm. He reached under the cart and brought out a leaf-headed spear – hardly bardic equipment. Verhanna shifted her round buckler to catch the spear point and deflect it away. Diviros planted the heel of the spear shaft against his foot like an experienced soldier and stood while the mounted warrior charged toward him.
“Circle around them, Wart!” the captain cried before ducking her face behind the rim of her shield. Verhanna and Diviros were seconds from collision when the young elf boy stood up in the cart and hurled an earthenware pot at his father. The thick clay vessel thudded against Diviros’s back. He dropped his spear and fell to his knees, gasping for air. Verhanna reined in her mount and presented the tip of her sword at his throat.
“Yield, in the name of the Speaker of the Sun!” she declared. Diviros’s head dropped down in dejection, and he spread his hands wide on the ground.
Rufus clattered up to the cart. The boy scrambled over the baggage and bounced up and down in front of the kender.
“You’ve saved us!” he cried joyously.
“What’s going on here?” Rufus asked, his confusion evident. He looked up at Verhanna. “Captain, what in darkness is going on?”
“Our friend Diviros is a slaver.” Verhanna prodded Diviros with her sword tip. “Aren’t you?” The elf didn’t answer.
“Yes!” the boy said. “He was taking us all to Ergoth to be sold into slavery!”
The two elf women were released from their cart, where Diviros had bound and gagged them. Gradually the whole story came out.
The Guards of the Sun, under Kith-Kanan’s orders, had so disrupted the traffic of slaves from Silvanesti to Ergoth that slave dealers in both lands were resorting to ruses like this one. Small groups of slaves, disguised as settlers and held by one or two experienced drivers, were being sent on many different routes.
Verhanna ordered Diviros bound. The elf women did her bidding eagerly. Once the erstwhile bard was secured, Rufus approached her and said, “What do we do now, Captain? We can’t keep trailing the Kagonesti with a prisoner and three civilians in tow.”
Disappointment was written on Verhanna’s face. She knew the kender was right, yet she burned to bring the crafty Kagonesti slavers to justice.
“We
can resume the hunt,” she said firmly. “Their trail was leading west, and we’ll continue in that direction.”
“What’s in the west?”
“Pax Tharkas. We can turn Diviros over to my father’s guards there. The captives will be taken care of, too.”
She looked up into the starry sky. “I want those elves, Wart. They ambushed my soldiers and made a fool of me with their smoke phantom. I want them brought to justice!” She drove her mailed fist into her palm.
They bundled Diviros into one of the carts and set Deramani, the older elf woman, to watch him. The younger woman, Selenara, volunteered to drive their wagon. Rufus tied Diviros’s horse to the other cart and climbed in beside Kivinellis. Once Verhanna was mounted, she led the caravan out of the clearing and headed west.
The elf boy told Rufus and Verhanna that he was actually an orphan from the streets of Silvanost. Then he proceeded to shower them with questions about Qualinesti, Qualinost, and the Speaker of the Sun. He’d heard tales of Kith-Kanan’s exploits in the Kinslayer War, but since the schism between East and West, even the mention of Kith-Kanan’s name was frowned upon in Silvanesti.
Verhanna told him all he wanted to know – except that she was the daughter of the famous Speaker.
Then Rufus posed a question to Kivinellis. “Hey, was that story about the elf coming out of the tree true?” he asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” put in Verhanna. “Diviros was lying, playing the part of a bard.”
“Oh, no, no!” said the boy urgently. “It was true! The green-fingered elf appeared just as he said!”
“Well, what happened to him?” queried the kender.
“Diviros tried to feed him a potion in order to steal his will so he could sell him in Ergoth as a slave. But the potion had no effect on him! In the night, while we all slept, the green-fingered one vanished!”
Verhanna shrugged. “I don’t believe it,” she muttered.
The red moon, Lunitari, set at midnight. The freed slaves slept in the carts, but Verhanna and Rufus remained awake, and the caravan continued to move west through the night.
7
THE BLACK AMULET
“CLEAR AWAY, CLEAR AWAY THERE! DO YOU WANT TO BE mashed to jelly? Get out!” The dwarf overseer, Lugrim, bellowed down at one of the workers pushing a granite block ten feet long, eight feet wide, and six feet high. It didn’t help the grunt gang that the rotund dwarf stood on top of the block, adding his own weight to their overall burden. The block was sliding slowly down an earthen ramp. Other workers, human and half-human boys, skipped back and forth in front of the stone, sweeping the wave of displaced dirt out of the way with shovels and rakes. Theirs was a dangerous job; the block could not be stopped once in motion, and if the boys got caught or fell while sweeping, the stone would crush them. Only the most nimble worked as sweepers. Ulvian was embedded in a mass of sweating, straining bodies, his hands flat on the block and his bare toes dug into the dirt.
The red rain had stopped just two days before. Its remains were evident all over Pax Tharkas in the form of crimson puddles, and now the damp soil gripped like glue. Five days he had been at Pax Tharkas. Five days of exhaustion, toil, and fear.
“Push, you laggards!” Lugrim exhorted. “My old mother could push harder than you!”
“I knew your mother,” Dru shot back quickly, face to the ground as he strained. “Her breath could move solid rock!”
The overseer turned and glared in the direction from which the voice had come. A squat fellow, even by dwarven standards, he could barely see over his thick, fur-wrapped belly. “Who said that?” he demanded, his eyes darting over the gang.
“All together, lads,” grunted Splint. As one, the convicts gave a hard, sudden shove. The block slid forward, skewing to the left. The dwarf atop the stone lost his footing and toppled over the side. He let out a loud “oof!” and lay stunned. The block ground inexorably onward.
Merith appeared, elegantly clad in burnished armor and a fur mantle, his fair hair clean and neatly combed. Helping the fallen dwarf to his feet, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Aye.” Lugrim braced his arms against his back and winced, then turned ponderously to face the grunt gang, who were watching him. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, scum?”
“Yes, Master Lugrim,” they replied in unison, sing-songing their words like naughty children.
Merith easily picked out Ulvian in the crowd of twenty convicts. The prince didn’t meet his glance but kept his legs driving forward in the blood-colored mud. In spite of his growing blond beard, the marks of his beating by Splint still showed. Gossip had told Merith what happened, but the warrior refused to intervene. Kith-Kanan’s son had hard lessons to learn if he was to survive.
Below the pinnacle where Merith stood, the two square tower keeps that were the innermost defense of the fortress rose to unequal heights. Construction on the west tower was farther along than on the east. Its parapets were already in place. From this distance, Merith could see tiny figures walking on them and on the great wall that connected the two towers.
The camp was situated in the valley behind the fortress. In front of the citadel, farther down the pass, two curtain walls had been erected as the first lines of defense against any attacker. Tall, single gates of hammered bronze were the only openings in the walls. They stood open now, propped apart by huge timber balks. Workers and artisans poured in and out like streams of ants around a bowl of fruit.
Looking down on all this, Merith could well believe the completion of Pax Tharkas was not far away. A year, perhaps less. Feldrin Feldspar had done a magnificent job, building the citadel not only quickly but also well.
The night before, the master builder had shown him detailed drawings of the underground galleries that were being hollowed out of the mountainside beneath each tower. Enough food and water to last for years could be stored there, making Pax Tharkas resistant to any siege. An elaborate throne room, suitable for either the King of Thorbardin or the Speaker of the Sun, was also being constructed. Details such as these might take a few more years to finish, but the basic fortress would be ready to occupy much sooner than that.
A shadow fell across Merith; a cloud had covered the sun. As he turned from his study of the fortress, tiny particles peppered his face, and he inhaled grit. Vibrations tingled the soles of his shoes. It was an odd, tickling sensation, and Merith shifted his weight, looking down at his boots. Then he became aware of a deep humming sound, like the bass drums the priests of E’li sometimes played during festivals. The dust cloud was thickening. Below, workers scrambled in confusion.
“Landslide!” someone shouted.
Merith whirled and saw behind and to his left what he had only felt before. Boulders and rain-soaked chunks of wet soil were rolling down the east face of the mountain. Paralyzed, the elf warrior could only stare in amazement as tons of rock and dirt hurtled toward the quarries in the high pass. The noise increased to a deafening roar, and the ground shook so that he lost his footing and fell.
Screams filled the air, piercing the thunder of the avalanche. Merith rolled about like a pea shaken in its pod. He clawed at the stony earth, trying to keep his balance.
The landslide hit the pass. Rock chips and boulders flew, crushing everything they hit. Merith watched helplessly as a huge stone bowled over half a dozen quarry workers. A pall of reddish dust descended over the scene. The roar faded. The sobbing of the terrified and injured was everywhere.
“Help!” A loud cry sliced through the moans of the injured and dying. “Help, somebody! Help me!”
Merith stumbled to his feet and ran down the earthen ramp. The overseer was lying on the path on this side of the block. The convicts had scattered, as had the sweeper boys. Merith knelt beside the dwarf. Lugrim had an ugly, bleeding gash on his forehead. His heart beat strongly, however, so the elf warrior knew he was only knocked unconscious.
“Help, in the names of the gods! The stone is moving!” The shout came agai
n, nearer this time. Merith looked up and caught his breath in a gasp. The severe vibrations from the landslide had twisted the path of the granite block. It was teetering on the edge of the ramp, and people lay prostrate in the very shadow of the rock.
Merith left the dwarf where he lay. A few paces closer, he saw two gang members close to the block. One was a Silvanesti he didn’t know; the other was Prince Ulvian. The prince’s pant leg was caught under the block! The granite had run over his trailing hem and was dragging him along.
Only one of his comrades remained behind to help him.
“Merithynos! Help me!” screamed Ulvian. He kicked vainly at the huge stone with his left leg. His other was hard against the rock. The block crept forward on its own, driven by the slope of the ramp and its skewed position. In another yard or two, it would be far enough off the ramp that it would topple over on its side. Anything or anyone in its way would be crushed.
Merith and the Silvanesti pulled on Ulvian’s arms, trying to tear him free. The prince’s forester clothing was made of deerhide and was very tough. The warrior drew his knife and sawed at the leather. Too slow, too slow!
“Do something!” Ulvian pleaded, tears streaking his face.
“I’m trying, Your Highness!” Merith replied. The other elf stiffened for a moment, staring at Merith.
The lieutenant sawed harder at the deerhide and finally succeeded in making a small slit.
The block ground a sweeper’s broom into the stony ramp. The crushing sound of the wooden handle being pulverized sent fresh paroxysms of terror through the prince. “Please don’t let me die!” he groaned piteously. “Save me, Merith, Dru!”
The enormous cube of granite wobbled on the edge of the ramp. Merith cursed and tore at the leather pants with his hands. Ulvian’s lower body already hung over the rim of the ramp, while he was pinned on his back.
The Qualinesti Page 10