Silver Shadows

by Cunningham, Elaine

  Arilyn continued her turn, slashing across the wounded man’s throat as she went. She then whirled upon the dumbfounded swordsman who had helped to fell his own comrade. In three strokes, her sword found his heart. Yanking her blade free, she advanced upon the final man.

  “Open the door or die,” she said succinctly.

  The guard did not need time to ponder his choices. He pulled a ring of keys from his belt and tossed it to Arilyn. She caught it and tossed it back.

  “No. You.” She remembered all too well the laborious task of disabling the devices that trapped the lock. There was no time for such precautions this time.

  Fortunately for her, the guard did not know of the magical traps. He slipped a huge iron key into the latch and turned it. As he did so, Arilyn stepped back.

  A flare of arcane light ripped through the halls. Arilyn shielded her eyes, but not before she caught a glimpse of the guard’s bones, gleaming weirdly through his flesh as his body jolted and shook. Finally he fell, charred beyond recognition, his skeletal fingers still clutching the white-hot key. The door swung open as he fell.

  Arilyn stepped over the body, ignoring the dry, brittle crunch as she accidently trod on what had once been a human hand.

  She made her way directly to Zoastria’s resting place and lifted the dusty lid of the glass tomb. As she gathered the tiny elf woman in her arms, as one might hold a sleeping child, the first of Tinkersdam’s explosions ripped through the palace.

  “An hour, maybe less,” Arilyn muttered sarcastically, quoting Tinkersdam and wishing the alchemist possessed a more precise awareness of time’s passing.

  She headed toward the door with Zoastria cradled against her chest, dodging a gauntlet of falling treasures as she went. All around her, statues toppled, and shelves laden with treasures rocked and crashed to the floor. As Arilyn ducked out of the path of a falling suit of armor, the second explosion hit, this one more powerful than the first. The tremors knocked Arilyn to her knees, but somehow she kept her hold on the sleeping elf woman. As she staggered to her feet, she blessed the fact that Zoastria had been small and slight.

  Dust and small rocks rained down on her as she hurried back to the well. Ferret was already there, her knife pressed to the throat of an elderly Tethyrian man. As they had anticipated, Assante realized that explosions of this magnitude would destroy many of his defenses, and he had come to the lower levels of his palace to avail himself of his escape tunnel.

  “The palace is coming down,” Ferret lied fiercely. “Those explosions were but the first of many. Take the fastest way out, and take us with you, and you have a chance of living through this. When we are beyond the palace grounds, you will be set free. If you call out for help or try to attack us, I will kill you at once, and we will take our chances without you as hostage. Do you understand?”

  The former assassin nodded slightly; even so small a movement sent a thin line of blood running down into his shirt. Assante set a course through the halls and up sweeping marble stairs. The noise that assaulted them as they entered the main hall reminded Arilyn of a cavalry charge at the heat of battle.

  Screaming, dragging wounded friends or gathering up armloads of possessions, Assante’s retainers frantically sought escape from the burning building. Since so much emphasis had been given to keeping unwanted visitors out, the doors leading in and out of the palace were few. In the confused rush for these exits, many people had been knocked down and were now being trampled underfoot. Those who retained their balance surged toward the doors, too frantic to notice that their feared master was among them.

  Ferret gave the knife at Assante’s throat an encouraging twitch, and the master assassin waded out into the chaos and confusion. To Arilyn’s disgust, the assassin did not hesitate to use his knife on his own people. Indeed, Assante cut a way for them through the milling throng, killing with brutal efficiency and then climbing coldly over the bodies. He would certainly have tried to turn his blade upon his captors, old as he was, but for one precaution Arilyn had insisted upon: both she and Ferret openly wore their Shadow Sashes, flaunting their rank among Zazesspur’s professional assassins. Only a fool would challenge two such seasoned killers, and Assante was no fool. He would wait for his chance and then strike. She only hoped Ferret had gained enough experience to realize this and to strike first.

  Once outside, they made for one of the bridges that spanned the reflecting pool. Unfortunately, so did most of the survivors. At Ferret’s urging, Assante shouted repeatedly for his people to make way, and they did so. Now that they were beyond the crumbling palace, their panic was lesser than their deep-seated fear of their master.

  But the danger to the escaping elf women was all the greater. Within the walls of the palace, the screams and cries had reverberated into a deafening cacophony. Now that Assante could be heard, now that the crush was lessened somewhat, his plight would not go unnoticed. Surely some of his guards would move to his rescue, and neither Arilyn nor Ferret had hands free for such a fight.

  Ferret, apparently, had come to the same conclusion. As soon as they neared the pool, she shoved Assante viciously away from her, pulling the knife at his throat back toward her as he fell. His body splashed into the “water” with a sickening hiss, and blood rose to bubble and pop on the surface of the acid pool.

  Arilyn grimaced, for Ferret’s action was shortsighted. Without Assante to use as a shield, they were virtually defenseless.

  The Harper turned back toward the palace just in time to see a guard rushing at them, his scimitar lifted high overhead in preparation for swift retribution. She leaped forward, twisted to one side, and kicked out as hard and as high as she could considering the precious burden in her arms. The kick landed firmly in his chest. It was not much, but it stunned him and halted his momentum long enough for Ferret to join the fray.

  The green elf leaped forward and thrust her knife into the guard’s throat. She twisted the blade, yanked it free, and then hurled it at a second guard.

  “Run!” she demanded as she tore the sword from the dead man’s hands.

  Arilyn did so. Ferret held the curved blade before her, waving it menacingly at those who’d halted at the far edge of the bridge. Then she lifted the sword high and hurled it—not at the guards, but into the deadly pool. A spray of acid splashed up into the crowds, droplets that would tunnel through flesh and sinew and bone, causing incredible agony as they left behind indelible scars, or blindness, or death.

  Ignoring the screams, Ferret turned and ran after Arilyn.

  It was not difficult to leave the compound’s gardens. The gate had been shattered by the first rush to escape, and the panic within was nothing compared to the confusion outside Assante’s complex. It seemed as if all of Zazesspur had come to see the excitement.

  Arilyn pressed her way through the milling crowd to the carriage Hasheth had arranged for them, which waited three streets east and away from much of the turmoil. Kendel Leafbower sat in the driver’s box, cloaked and cowled to conceal his elven nature.

  Jill leaned out of the carriage and took the slumbering elf woman from Arilyn’s arms. The Harper snatched up a cloak, draped it over herself, and then climbed onto the box beside Kendel. She took the reins from his hands and shook them briskly over the horses’ back.

  The dwarf, meanwhile, had deposited Zoastria gently onto the carriage seat and extended a brawny hand to Ferret. The wild elf hesitated only a moment, then grasped the offered wrist as the carriage lurched off. Jill tugged the wild elf inside with an ease that nearly pulled her arm from her shoulders, and brought her tumbling into his lap.

  “Well, now,” the dwarf said happily. “I knowed you’d come around to my way of thinking sooner or later!”

  * * * * *

  They were an odd company, these six travelers to the Forest of Tethir. There was a priest of Gond, who was a bit grumpy over having been persuaded to abandon his traditional yellow tunic for the more practical browns and greens of forest garb. There was a moon elv
en male, who walked as silent as a shadow, and a dwarf whose small boots thumped and cracked with every step. Then there were two elven females, one of the forest folk and one of the moon people, and the slumbering elven hero whom they carried between them on a litter.

  Four days’ travel lay between them and Talltrees, and Arilyn made good use of the time laying plans for the battle to come. All had a part to play, even the dwarf. Arilyn was past worrying what the forest elves would make of such strange allies. All that mattered was winning freedom—for them, and also for Danilo. How she would accomplish both these goals was not yet clear to the Harper, and these thoughts weighed heavily on her as they made their way eastward.

  At last they neared the elven settlement. Arilyn and Ferret placed the litter on the ground to rest for a moment, but Ferret stopped in midstretch and let out a strangled cry. She set out for the settlement at a run.

  “Stay here,” Arilyn informed the others, and then she sprinted off after the frantic elf.

  It was not long before she saw what the green elf had envisioned. Where the elven community had been was only a barren, blasted circle, too eerily precise to be anything but the result of a wizard’s fire. The destruction had been swift and terrible. Although most of the circle had been reduced to gray ash, here and there bits of charred trees and the remnants of elven dwellings lay in tumbled piles, little more than glowing coals that Arilyn knew could not be quenched until they had burned all they touched into oblivion. Here and there wisps of smoke still rose from the rubble as the wizard’s fire completed its grim work.

  Talltrees was no more.

  Twenty

  For several anguished moments the elven females regarded the smoking ruins of the forest stronghold

  “They are not all dead, my clan,” Ferret said in a dazed voice. “Somehow most of them escaped, and they are even now nearby.”

  Arilyn did not need to ask how she knew. In times of great stress, even those elves who were not joined in special mystic bonds sensed things that their eyes and ears could not possibly have told them.

  The green elf lifted her hands to her mouth and sent a high, ringing call out into the ruined forest.

  The survivors of the Talltrees clan came quickly, but their eyes were glazed with the pain of their loss, and they moved as if their limbs were heavy and numbed by grief and exhaustion.

  Ferret ran to her brother and fell into his arms. Rhothomir enfolded her to him, but he looked over her head, his eyes seeking out Arilyn.

  “How did this happen? How did the humans find this place?” he demanded.

  The answer came to Arilyn quickly, painfully, like the stab of a knife. “Probably they had a cleric,” she admitted. “Some priests can force the spirit of the slain to answer questions. Hawkwing fell near the human fortress; we could not bring her back into the forest. All that she knew, they now know.”

  The elves stared at Arilyn in horrified silence. What she described was an unspeakable abomination. No elf would willingly disturb the course of another’s afterlife.

  “You have brought this violation upon Hawkwing, and this loss upon us all,” one of the females said in a low voice.

  “You led Hawkwing and the other elves from the forest,” added another. “If you had not, this would not have occurred.”

  Dark murmurs rippled through the elven assemblage. Arilyn could not fault them. The forest folk were battered and beleaguered, and in times of peril they would naturally fall back into old ways. As an outsider, a moon elf, she was an object of suspicion. Arilyn wondered, briefly, what they would think when they met Jill and Tinkersdam.

  “We followed your plans; we listened to your words,” the Speaker said solemnly. “And in doing so, we have suffered. You must leave this forest at once and never return.”

  “You would let her go?” one of the elves demanded incredulously. “What is to keep her from leading still more humans to us? She must not leave; she must not live! The time has come for the clan to protect our own!”

  “The time has come,” announced a ringing voice, “for the children of Tethir to unite, and to fight. You will not harm Arilyn Moonblade.”

  The elves turned as one toward the source of this pronouncement. At the edge of the blasted clearing stood Ganamede, his silvery fur nearly the shade of the ash that drifted through the air. Even now, in their grief and loss and anger, the sight of one of the elusive lythari cast a spell of wonder over the forest elves.

  As soon as all eyes were upon him, the lythari lifted his silver muzzle and sent a long, undulating call into the forest. Then he walked to Arilyn’s side. His wolflike body shimmered briefly with silvery light as he shifted into his elven form.

  As if from one throat, a gasp of wonder and astonishment rose from the elven clan. None of them had ever seen a lythari in elven form. Ganamede stood tall and proud at Arilyn’s side, one hand resting on her shoulder in a gesture of friendship and support. In his other hand he held an elven bow. His silver hair was bound back, his angular face painted for battle in the custom of the forest elves.

  One marvel followed another. In swift response to his call, a dozen enormous silvery wolves slipped into the clearing and formed a semicircle around the moon elf and her lythari protector. These did not transform, but their strange blue eyes met those of the forest elves with firm purpose. The message was clear: no one would move against Arilyn unless they were willing first to fight the silver shadows.

  “I have come from the Suldusk lands,” Ganamede said, speaking into a deep and profound silence. “Their settlement has also been destroyed, but they did not fare as well as you. Those elves that yet live are wretched captives, held in cages at the edges of the ravaged forest. Beyond that, near the banks of the river, is the human camp.” He turned to Arilyn. “You know the ways of humans better than any among us. If you will lead us, we will follow, and we will attack.”

  “The Elmanesse have troubles enough of our own,” Rhothomir protested angrily. “We cannot be expected to go to the aid of the Suldusk!”

  Ganamede turned a steady gaze upon the Speaker. After a moment, Rhothomir dropped his eyes, visibly shamed. If the lythari were willing to leave the forest to aid the Suldusk, how could they do less?

  “There is more,” the lythari said. “The humans have been cutting the ancient trees, burning large sections of the forest lands. This threatens all the children of Tethir. Once before our tribes united to stop a great evil. This we must do again.”

  Ferret came to the center of the blasted clearing, her eyes blazing with fervor. “And so we shall! Some of our elders remember the battle of which this lythari speaks. They must also remember Soora Thea, who led us to victory! Today will legend be given life. Come, all of you, and see the hero who has returned.”

  Cautious hope began to dawn in the eyes of the elven folk. But Arilyn did not miss the fact that many of them still regarded her with distrust, even hatred. They would not soon forget the destruction of their home. Nor were they in any frame of mind to accept a human and a dwarf into their midst.

  She tapped Ganamede’s arm, jerked her head to indicate that he and the other lythari should follow, and then took off at a run for the place where Jill and Tinkersdam waited. The lythari shimmered into wolf form as he followed her, his clan hard behind him.

  They found the alchemist seated on a log, his head in his hands and a forlorn expression on his plump, sallow face. If there was no work to be done and no property waiting to be destroyed, Tinkersdam was utterly at odds with himself. Jill was seated beside him, sipping experimentally at a flask of summer mead he’d managed to talk away from Ferret. Kendel was nowhere in sight. The dwarf and the Gondsman looked up as Arilyn approached. Both did an astonished double take at the sight of the enormous wolves running silently at her heels.

  “No time to explain,” she said. “Tinkersdam, climb onto this lythari’s back. One of the others must take the dwarf, and some of you go into the forest to look for a moon elf male with red-gold hair and blu
e eyes. He’s probably hunting. Take all three of them near to the place where the battle will be. Await us there. But I swear by Gond’s gears, Tinkersdam, if you blow up something before we join you, you’re on your own from now on!”

  The alchemist rose, shrugged, and shouldered on his massive pack. He clambered awkwardly onto the lythari’s back. Jill followed suit, albeit with a string of grumbled curses. The two lythari disappeared into the forest, stumbling a bit beneath their loads.

  They disappeared not a moment too soon. Ferret burst into the clearing, the People of Talltrees close behind her.

  The elf woman stopped and pointed to the sleeping figure of Zoastria. “Ysaltry, Nimmetar, you fought under Soora Thea’s command. Come forward and say whether or not this is she.”

  Two elderly elves came forward. They gazed for quite some time at the elf woman’s still face, remembering ancient times and long-ago battles. Finally, they nodded.

  Ferret looked to the half-elf. “Begin,” she said urgently.

  Arilyn slowly drew her moonblade and held it up high before her. Faint blue light dawned in the moonstone in its hilt and spread down the shining length of the blade. Those elves who had never seen the magic sword in battle exclaimed softly.

  The significance of it was lost on none of them. All had heard the story of Soora Thea, the hero who slept. All of them knew Arilyn carried a moonblade. Slowly, the realization came upon them that the sword in her hand was the very one their ancient hero had carried.

  The knowledge of this, and the wonder of it, burned bright in the eyes of the survivors of Talltrees. Even so, Ferret spoke the words aloud in the ringing tones of a lore-talker.

  “For hundreds of years, it has been said among us that for as long as the magic fire of Myth Drannor burns within this sword, a hero will return in times of greatest need. Once before Soora Thea led our tribe in battle. She will come again, now, this day, in response to the call of her clans-daughter.”