Exile's Gamble_The Chronicles of Shadow_Book II

by Lee Dunning

  “This is highly irregular. You should have remained dead to the world until I determined you healed enough to wake,” Lady Sera said. She tried to capture W’rath’s chin in her hand but he twisted his head, thwarting her. Lady Sera threw up her hands in defeat. “Oh, bother! See if I care. If your brain leaks out your ears or your eyes melt, do not come scratching at my door.”

  “Not to worry,” W’rath said, “I shall send someone far less annoying than myself to beg your aid.” He cast his eyes in Raven’s direction. She hovered in the doorway, distressed as a halfling with an empty plate. W’rath wondered at her sudden bout of shyness. Perhaps these last few weeks gave her the chance to think on the events leading up to this point. Her youth, combined with her idealism might have her reconsidering her association with someone who would leave a pile of helpless humans to die in a wildfire.

  None of the others held back, though. Even Lady Swiftbrook had given up the struggle to appear dignified. Her smile didn’t falter when Lady Culna’mo slapped her on the back and sent her stumbling from the overenthusiastic strength only a First Born could muster. As soon as she entered, Kela made sure W’rath knew she’d spent these past weeks strengthening and training the young Shadow Elves. She now leaned against a wall, arms crossed, exhibiting a rare show of patience as the others chattered and laughed.

  W’rath reached out with his power, scanning the area surrounding House of Memories, and to his delight, no shooting pains stabbed into his brain. He stretched his back and it gave an audible pop. He felt glorious. Now if he could just hunt down some of those burning sticks to ease the sting of the clean air in his lungs, he’d consider himself perfect in all aspects.

  Lady Sera made one last assault on his person and in a fit of mischief, he willed a tendril of his hair to snake out and slap her hand away. She yelped in shock and jumped back in alarm. He grinned at her. “You’ve done your job admirably, Lady Healer,” he said. “Everything is an extension of my will once again.”

  “Ancestors preserve us,” Lady Swiftbrook said. “Did you have to fix him so completely? He’s more insufferable than ever.”

  “I only provided the atmosphere needed for his body to heal itself,” Lady Sera said, brushing at her hand as if she could still feel the touch of W’rath’s improvised weapon.

  “And a fine atmosphere it was.” W’rath winked at the healer and she rewarded him with a deep flush. Ah, stuffy Sky Elves, one could have such fun with them.

  W’rath took in the little group gathered around his sick bed, and an unsought for sense of affection for these near strangers tightened his throat. The tragedies and drama of a few days had pulled them into a closeness he hadn’t experienced since he’d commanded a small, elite group of psions several millennia ago. So much bitterness had wrapped itself around his heart he’d forgotten what camaraderie felt like. “Thank you,” he said before he realized he’d spoken.

  Even Raven stopped her agitated dance from foot-to-foot to gape at him. Kela broke the awkwardness. “Bah! Don’t go soft on us now,” she said. “Once we hear back from Foxfire we’ll need you to go kill some human who calls herself the Dragon Queen.”

  Ah, so something of interest had happened while he napped. Intriguing. “I’d wondered at Lord Foxfire’s absence,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

  The four females barraged W’rath with information ranging from Lord Icewind’s surprising interrogation of the mercenary mage to Foxfire’s journey to the Badlands to treat with human nomads who might know more about the motives of their mysterious foe, the Dragon Queen.

  W'rath felt the thrill of a new problem to unravel. The ladies doubted the Dragon Queen actually belonged to that venerable race of reptiles. While he agreed with their logic, the possibility of a dragon seeking vengeance against the elves after thousands of years had a certain dramatic flair he found fitting for the powerful creatures. It could mean his release from the Abyss was no accident. A dragon would find it poetic to free him so he could die by the side of his kin as they perished at the claws of demons and devils.

  “What about the demons themselves?” W’rath asked. “Have they set out from Second Home yet to hunt us down?” W’rath thought he could hear the blood running through his veins so silent was the response to his query. “Ah, I see. You thought they’d remain satisfied with the taking of our city.”

  “Ancestors preserve us from our stupidity,” Lady Swiftbrook said, slapping a hand against her forehead. “Thinking never came into it.”

  “Shit,” Lady Kela said. “Of course they’re not done with us.” She looked around as if searching for someone to punch. The rest of the females stepped back a few paces out of ready reach.

  Lady Culna’mo’s face had gone scarlet, presumably with shame. “Lord Icewind told us the Dragon Queen paid Tassilia a fortune for the portals they opened in Second Home. No one spends that kind of money on a weapon and then abandons it. Either she’s guiding the monsters herself now or the mercenaries still control them. Regardless, they’ll sniff us out in Teresland.”

  “Gods,” Raven said, “their army could be closing in on Teresland as we speak.”

  “I’ll have my scouts look into it,” Kela said. “Even if the demons are using magic to travel, they’ll leave some sign. We’ll find them.”

  “I’ll contact Lord Icewind,” Lady Swiftbrook said, “and warn him. He needs to prepare for a siege.”

  Raven shook her head, perhaps remembering the horrors she’d faced in Second Home. “It won’t be enough. We have to send an army to help them.”

  W’rath turned his attention to Lady Culna’mo. She nodded, accepting the task. “I’ll start mobilizing our people. I’ll need Lady Swiftbrook’s help to organize the pure casters and sword mages.”

  “Of course,” Lady Swiftbrook murmured.

  “Beyond that where do we stand?” W’rath asked once the ladies fell silent again.

  “Foxfire and his guards currently bide their time while the head of the Thorn and Spine Clan determines if the gifts we sent them are safe,” Lady Swiftbrook said. “He says their numbers are greatly reduced and the only males left to them are either babes or oldsters.”

  “Because the Dragon Queen?” W’rath asked.

  Lady Swiftbrook shrugged. “It’s one of the things he hopes to learn once the clan leader deigns to speak with them.”

  “Humph,” Kela said. “If you’d sent me, I could have made them speak sooner.”

  Lady Swiftbrook gave the Wood Elf a glare of exasperation. “Must you always resort to violence? No, Lord Foxfire knows what he’s doing. We just need to exercise a modicum of patience.”

  W’rath felt a predatory smile slip onto his face. He liked Lady Kela’s up-front approach. What she lacked in subtlety she made up for in enthusiasm. He watched her as he spoke his next words. “And what of my favorite descendent of the First?”

  “That son of an orc slit!” Kela erupted. Her hand grasped the huge knife on her hip and she half drew it. “Bah—you just had to bring him up.”

  “I only ask,” he said, frowning at the silk robe encasing his body, “because the old boy stands at the front steps. Apparently, word of my waking traveled quickly.”

  “I thought he’d have the sense to stay holed up in that ugly fortress of his,” Kela said.

  “He’s a warrior and ambitious,” Lady Culna’mo said. “He’s too aggressive to sit back and wait on our verdict. He won’t step down without a fight and that means he’ll confront what he sees as the source of his problems.”

  “You mean who,” Raven said. Worry creased her brow and an unhappy tilt pulled at her lips.

  Perhaps, W’rath mused, her nerves weren’t a product of anger directed at him but rather a result of concern over K’hul. What threat did she see K’hul capable of posing? Then he remembered her love of history and their previous conversation. She’s afraid of starting a new civil war.

  W’rath turned to the healer. “Lady, do you happen to have some parchment I might borro
w?”

  “You’re a puzzling individual,” she muttered, but fished out a scroll from the spacious pockets of her robe. “It’s a list of ingredients I need for my spells. Don’t lose it.”

  “I don’t know why you bother,” Lady Swiftbrook said, “your writing is illegible. Even you can’t read it.” Lady Sera rewarded her with a rude gesture.

  “Perfect,” W’rath said. He squinted at the paper but without his spectacles, he couldn’t make out Lady Sera’s scrawls. “If K’hul happens to catch a glimpse of the content of the scroll he’ll have no idea what it contains.”

  “What are you up to?” Lady Swiftbrook said, suspicious as usual.

  W’rath waved the document in her direction. “At the risk of earning Lady Kela’s ire, I have an alternative suggestion to unseating our young K’hul.”

  W’rath thought he’d anticipated the reaction his declaration would elicit but the sheer volume of Lady Swiftbrook’s raised voice stunned him. Even Kela couldn’t compete with the outraged Sky Elf and she gave way as Lady Swiftbrook stormed toward W’rath, teeth bared. The survivor in W’rath almost sent him teleporting from the room but Lady Swiftbrook pulled up short of his bed and waited, seething and cursing. He swallowed and raised his hands in an attempt to placate his companions. “Hear me out before you reach for your weapons.”

  “Let him speak,” Raven said, more steel in her voice than usual. This led credence to his suspicions about what worried her. She might not like K’hul but she’d do whatever she deemed necessary to keep the islands from erupting into violence.

  Even so, a few more moments passed before Lady Swiftbrook and Kela sputtered into disgruntled silence. With the quiet came the realization the temperature in the room had dropped to freezing. Ice crystals hung in the air surrounding Lady Swiftbrook.

  “Madam,” W’rath said, letting his voice go soft as if he addressed a dangerous animal.

  With a gasp, Lady Swiftbrook came to her senses. “Ancestors!” Immediately the room started to thaw as she tamped down on her emotions. “Still, you need to explain yourself.”

  W’rath tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Let me begin by saying I in no way forgive K’hul. Even if we concede his youth and lack of experience contributed to the near disaster on the battlefield, I believe his motives, at least in part, held darker intensions. I understand his fear of me and I could tolerate his bigotry if he didn’t allow it to put others at risk.”

  “Just say it,” Kela said. “He tried to kill you and didn’t care others would die also.”

  “He endangered the whole point of your mission,” Lady Culna’mo added. “The mage you captured nearly died as well.” She drew closer as if to ensure no one mistook her for a K’hul supporter.

  “As well as the other humans,” Raven said. “The priest, the queen, those boys…” She dropped her eyes.

  So abandoning the humans did haunt her. What a sensitive soul she possessed. I should have never taken her with me that night.

  “All excellent reasons to remove him from the High Council,” Lady Swiftbrook said. “I have yet to hear why he should retain his seat.”

  “It’s quite simple, really,” W’rath said. “I desire to keep us out of a civil war.” Immediately, Raven’s head shot up and while W’rath had no empathic ability, he could swear a wave of gratitude rolled off her to embrace him. “He has a strong following, especially among the First Born, and I am familiar enough with our inglorious past to know how well things went the last time a Shadow Elf attempted a coup.”

  “This is different,” Kela said.

  Lady Culna’mo gave a sharp shake of her close-cropped head. “You’re both right,” the warrior said. “It is a very different situation, and yet … it’s not. The military families, Sky Elf and First Born alike, have generations of tradition they won’t abandon because of a schism between the House of K’hul and a newcomer.”

  “Surely, they can see the circumstances warrant his removal,” Lady Swiftbrook said. Of all of them, she seemed the most distressed. Did she feel it necessary to prove she stood independent from the elf who had shared her bed for over four centuries? Perhaps her failure to intervene in the treatment of the young Shadow Elves drove her to overcompensate.

  Raven had gone to nibbling her lower lip, apparently thinking things through. When she at last spoke, no venom tinged her voice, just a need for information. “If we did remove him from the council, what would happen at that point—and I don’t mean people strangling each other in the streets. What is the established protocol?”

  “One of two things,” Lady Swiftbrook answered, “either Lady Culna’mo nominates a replacement, and we approve them, or the next K’hul in line steps into the position.”

  “Bloody hells, there’s more of them?” Kela said. She scanned the room as if she might find a First Born crouched behind one of the room’s decorative suits of armor.

  “He has a younger half-sister,” Lady Swiftbrook said. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “The two of us have never gotten along. She refers to me as the Stick.” She raised an eyebrow, daring W’rath to laugh but it was Lady Sera who tittered behind her hand.

  “She’s only just turned one hundred,” Lady Culna’mo said. “If you think K’hul the elder is immature and unworldly, the younger is worse. If anything, she’s more fanatical.”

  “She took the K’hul name?” W’rath asked, giving voice to his surprise.

  “Like I said, she’s a zealot,” the First Born continued. “My brother trained with her several times. He said all she ever talked about was restoring her family’s former glory. She loves her brother but his relationship with Lady Swiftbrook makes her doubt his commitment to the family.”

  “Well, she should be ecstatic now,” Lady Swiftbrook grumbled.

  W’rath considered this new information. Another K’hul waiting to take over made the situation even more precarious. “Allowing a younger, more … exuberant K’hul to take office does not strike me as a viable option,” W’rath said. “While completely removing the K’hul line from the post might sound tempting, I go back to my earlier concerns with the added caveat that putting the nomination on Lady Culna’mo’s shoulders would put her in a difficult situation with the traditionalists.”

  Kela’s wild hair seemed to rise up with her growing ire. “So we do nothing?”

  W’rath’s lips twisted into a grimace. He hated to give the appearance of turning tail from the might of the K’hul family but he understood the power behind the family name. “Sometimes keeping your enemy close at hand is preferable to sending him off to skulk and plot behind your back. We have the opportunity here to muzzle the wolf. We allow him to stay on the council where it’s easier to keep an eye on him.” He held up the scroll for all of them to see. “We also propose changes to limit his reach.”

  “That’s still just a list,” Lady Sera said.

  “Only the appearance of a formal document is necessary,” W’rath said. “I go to face him in the next few minutes and we don’t have time to fight over every detail.”

  This time Lady Sera led the roar of protest. “You’ve only just woken. You have no business leaving this room to butt heads.”

  “Not to mention, this is a council decision—we should meet him as a united front,” Lady Swiftbrook said. She drew her head up like an angered serpent and the smell of a summer storm stung W’rath’s nose.

  “As we’ve already established,” W’rath said, patting the air in an attempt to calm the emotions filling the room, “I am the focus of K’hul’s ire. If we meet him as a group, he’ll feel more threatened, grow more defensive, and strike out randomly. If I sit him down in a room with just the two of us, where he needn’t fear loss of face, he’s less likely to do something regrettable. At the very least, his hatred will remain with me and not fall upon the rest of you.”

  “Like the day you took him to the dojo to speak alone?” Lady Swiftbrook said.

  “Precisely,” W’rath said, ignoring her sarcasm.
“Thank you for reminding us of my spectacular success in negotiating the removal of the collars from the throats of the lads.”

  Before further anger could reduce the discussion to chaos, Raven inserted herself. “Number one for your list—no more block voting by the Sea Elves. If they want to participate, they have to learn about the issues and attend the council meetings in person.”

  “Excellent,” W’rath said. “See, not so difficult. Now quickly—give me your ideas. Oh, and if someone knows where I might find something more dignified to wear than this robe, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

  For the first time in almost four hundred years, K’hul stood in the entryway to the Stormchaser estate. When he saw the Wood Elves guarding the front doors he half-expected to meet with resistance but W’rath’s scruffy little minions settled for fingering the hilts of their oversized knives before stepping out of his way. The silver doors opened of their own accord. Despite the sunbeams and glittering gems, House of Memories struck him as more lair than dignified estate. He only managed to force himself to cross the threshold because he feared shame more than death.

  Once inside, the doors swung silently shut. No resounding gong echoed K’hul’s doom but somehow the silence unsettled him more. Then, there was the statue.

  Of course, he remembered the sculpture of the stunning Uruviel Stormchaser but the thing standing to the other side of the stairway drew his attention now. Even barricaded in his family’s estate, he couldn’t escape the gossip. Some refused to believe the statue of Umbral accurately portrayed the long-dead son of the First but a greater number, even among those in his household, accepted it as an answer to one of the many questions from the elves’ past—what did Umbral K’hul look like?

  “First Father,” K’hul said, taking in the towering marble figure. He’d always known Umbral was no twisted monster but he hadn’t expected the boy to have such an air of determination about him. K’hul tried to rationalize the artist had taken liberties but the part of his mind sending waves of unease down his spine knew the truth. This is real, it said. A fourteen-year-old had more strength of will in his thin frame than you carry in the whole of your mountainous bulk.