The Puppet King

Prologue

“They flew for many days,” Samar said, “leaving Silvanesti that very night.”

“And they came to the Inn of the Last Home,” said the young elf. “I know this, for my mother told me that my father arrived in time to see me born.”

“You are Silvanoshei, the son of Porthios?” The dragon seemed genuinely surprised.

“The name means ‘the Hope of Silvanos,’” explained the young elf.

“Then why do you come to me for the tale of your father’s life?”

“There is much I already know—my mother and Samar have taught me. But there are other details about that tumultuous year that are vague, and some of those are facts that you can fill in.” Silvanoshei looked at the dragon with a pensive expression. “I know that it was at the end of the year three hundred and eighty-two that you decided to fly west as well... and I know that you came to Qualinesti. But why?”

“I will explain, but...” The dragon turned his slitted yellow eyes to Samar, allowing his leather lids to droop disarmingly. “Do you know that it is very uncomfortable sitting upright with my back pressed against the wall? Let me relax. I will not attack you. After all, I myself am curious as to where this tale is going. I should like to hear the ending of the story myself.”

“Very well.” The warrior relaxed his hold on the dragonlance, allowing the great serpent to settle more comfortably onto his bed, which consisted of scattered coins, bits of jewelry, and assorted boots, belts, and other articles of clothing. It was a relatively pathetic hoard for a dragon of Aeren’s size and age, but he merely shrugged.

“This was a place that called to me when I knew that I would at last have to move. Of course, I would miss my home in the south. In many ways Silvanesti was perfect for me. When I first came there, trees were thick and verdant, and the woodlands offered plenty of food. Water was everywhere, and for a long time, I was free to do whatever I wanted.

“I had dwelled there for the thirty winters after the Draconian War—the war you two-legged people call the War of the Lance. Those were good years, but those times were over. Your father was finished reclaiming the land, and my offspring were all slain, killed through the years by elven arrows and by those horrid dragonlances. If I had wished to remain, I would have had to skulk through the tamed gardens and keep my presence secret from the elves.

“And I remembered this place, the forest called Qualinesti, for it had been described to me by the elven traitor. It was a place in the west, and the elf had claimed that it was a wild woodland, very unlike the subdued and formal setting that Silvanesti had become. There were great trees, he had said, and vast realms of forest.

“And so I came here to live out my years in peace.”

“But peace is not what you found,” Silvanoshei noted wryly. “After all, as I said, I know much of the story of my first year of life. My mother has told me many times how she saw Tanis for the last time on the day after my birth as he turned toward his wife and his home... and his destiny in a war that had yet to begin. And how, when I was only a few months old, she swaddled me in the tai-thall that she wore on her back and we took flight on the back of a griffon, flying beside my father as we made for the forests of his homeland.”

“I remember that flight,” Samar said. “We flew with Tarqualan and his two hundred scouts, all of us spurning the authority of the Thalas-Enthia, bound for a life as outlaws in the forest.”

“The elves of two lands had made my father an outlaw.” Silvanoshei shook his head in disbelief.

“That much is true,” Samar noted. “But the land, the elves, the entire situation in Qualinesti was nothing like the place we had left behind...”

Chapter Nine Speaker of the Sun

He looked out from the top of the Tower of the Sun, his view encompassing the place that he knew to be the most beautiful city in all Krynn. Ivory spires jutted from the pastoral groves that sprawled like a carpet across the landscape a thousand feet below. From his lofty vantage, he could see three of the four elegant bridges that bordered Qualinost, strung like tendrils of crystal and silver across the sky. Below, in the center of the city, he could see the top of a rounded hill, the great Hall of the Sky, with its mosaic map of Qualinesti and the surrounding lands.

The dominant buildings of the city were towers, some paneled with wood and resembling the shapes of living trees, others splendid structures of rose quartz rising amid the groves so that just the summits were in view, narrow spires jutting above the canopy of foliage. Though elsewhere the woodlands were browned and crispy, suffering under the onslaught of this season’s unnatural heat, here in the city everything was green, carefully watered and tended by skilled elven gardeners.

Beyond the eastern and western boundaries of the city, the view from the tower almost masked by the thick growth of trees, the landscape plunged into a pair of deep ravines, wherein flowed the waters of the two branches of the Elf-stream. Deep and shadowed within its gorges, the brooks trickled and meandered to a confluence at the north of the city. Those ravines, so well screened by foliage, were more effective than any moats in blocking unwelcome intruders from reaching Qualinost.

To the south, in between the branches of the stream, the ground rose in a series of steep hills, and from this high vantage he could see all the way to the snowcapped whiteness of the High Kharolis. That was dwarven territory, he knew, foreign lands, though at a time not very long ago a treaty had been negotiated, a pact that would have sealed the peace between dwarf and elf as the Pax Tharkas had done a millennium before. It grieved him to know that the events that had brought him here, to this high tower, had also shattered the chance of that treaty’s ratification. With his ascendancy had come retrenchment for the races of Krynn, elves and dwarves and humans withdrawing unto themselves, waiting, watching... and fearing the events that the future might bring.

He was Gilthas Solostaran, Speaker of the Sun, ruler of mighty Qualinesti, the greatest elven nation on Krynn.

And he was a mere figurehead, a puppet controlled by the elves who had placed him on this high throne and who could knock him off of his exalted seat with the casual ease used to swat a meddlesome insect. He was a tool of the Thalas-Enthia, the hidebound senators who had schemed and plotted and fought to insure that nothing in the world would ever change.

His mother was an elven princess, daughter of the revered Speaker Solostaran, who had guided his people through exile during the War of the Lance. She was a heroine of the world, the Golden General who had led armies against the dragon highlords. And his father was Tanis Half-Elven, a Hero of the Lance, a leader in that same war.

Ah, but there was so much more to his father... a half-breed bastard, an elf who had proudly grown and maintained a beard as a symbol of his half-human parentage! Tanis, who was banned from his son’s kingdom, had been branded an outlaw, threatened with death should he dare come to Qualinesti again. Gilthas uttered a sharp bark of laughter as he thought of the irony. He was one quarter human, yet for the purposes of the Thalas-Enthia, he was regarded a purer elf than his uncle Porthios.

It was Porthios whom Gilthas could not help thinking of as the rightful Speaker of the Sun. Porthios, who had given up his medallion of leadership under coercion, because his wife and unborn child had been a hostage of the Thalas-Enthia. And Porthios, who had at last escaped from Silvanesti and disappeared into exile.

Yet his power had disappeared with him. Gilthas knew that he had none of the influence, none of the might that was the rightful accessory to the crown that fit so uneasily upon his young head. But even now, when that knowledge dragged him down, threatened to mire him in a swamp of despair, he felt at least a glimmer of pride, of acceptance, and of destiny. There was no longer an arrow pointed at Alhana Starbreeze’s heart. He could walk away from this place, throw down his medallion of office and, if he so decided, just leave.

He would not do that.

“Damned griffons—the beasts should have their wings plucked, their loins roasted on a slow fire!”

Senator Rashas, esteemed leader of the Thalas-Enthia and the elf who had placed Gilthas on his throne, wiped the sweat from his brow as he entered the lofty tower chamber. He looked at the Speaker crossly. “Why don’t you stay on the lower levels, where you can be reached when you’re needed?”

Gilthas shrugged, keeping his expression bland. “I like it up here.”

“Well, it’s a damned nuisance, you staring off into space all the time instead of attending to matters of your office.”

“You mean such matters as you leave for my consideration... what color of roses to adorn the banquet tables, that sort of thing?” The young speaker was feeling bold and allowed his words to show the fact. He feared Rashas—well he knew the punishments the senator was capable of inflicting, when the elder’s fearsome temper was released—but Gilthas had enough of his mother’s and father’s sense of pride that he couldn’t entirely bite his tongue even when silence was the politic choice.

Apparently today Rashas was not going to bother with a rebuke.

“You need to be ready in two hours. There’s an emergency meeting of the Thalas-Enthia called for noon today.”

“And how could the senate meet without their Speaker to preside?” Gilthas noted sarcastically.

Now Rashas looked at him with narrowed eyes, and the young elf felt a stab of fear. Perhaps he had gone too far. He tried to force himself to stand straight, to meet the cold glare of that icy gaze, but after a few seconds, Gilthas found himself looking sheepishly at the floor.

“Such a childish attitude does not befit an elf of your high station,” Rashas declared. “No doubt it’s that human blood again. I’d hoped you’d begin to outgrow it by now.”

Gilthas knew that Rashas was, in fact, grateful for his human blood. He assumed that it was an ancestry of weakness, that it would help make the Speaker malleable to the will of the Thalas-Enthia. There was a time when the younger elf would have agreed with him. But now, after he had had long days to reflect on his father’s courage and had learned more about the reputation Tanis Half-Elven had earned throughout Krynn, he was not so sure.

“What is the purpose of the meeting?” he asked.

“There is word from the western frontiers, just confirmed by messenger this dawn. Our trade routes with Ergoth and Solamnia are being plagued with banditry.”

“Then the reports last week were not just rumors?” Gilthas asked, unable to keep a twinge of triumph from his voice. He had urged that the senate act when they had first learned of a plundered steel caravan, but the Thalas-Enthia had disbelieved the elf who reported it because he was a mere woodland elf who had been traveling in the company of humans. Gilthas had suggested that the humans be interviewed as well, but the senate would not allow the men into the hallowed chamber at the base of this lofty tower.

“They have been confirmed by reliable reports. Now it is appropriate that the senate consider some action.”

By “reliable,” Gilthas knew that Rashas meant either his own spies or the word of some wealthy elf of high caste and unimpeachable reputation.

“If the griffons weren’t being so uncooperative,” the senator continued, “then we would have had word days ago!”

“I see.” Gilthas refrained from saying the remark that rose to the tip of his tongue: If the Thalas-Enthia had treated Alhana Starbreeze with respect, instead of with extortion and imprisonment, the griffons would not have been offended. As it was, the beasts that had ever been loyal helpmates to the elves of Qualinesti had abandoned their ancient masters, returning instead to a life in the wild. Now they dwelled free and unsaddled among the lofty peaks of the high Kharolis.

“As it was, a rider had to make his way on horseback, through the roughest part of the kingdom. And even so, he brings more questions than he does answers!”

“Perhaps we should invite the princess back. Maybe she could talk some sense into the griffons.”

Rashas’s glare was pure malevolence. “You should be a thousand times glad that the bitch is gone!” he snapped. “She was feeding you lie after lie, and you were too naive to see through her!”

“I enjoyed talking to her,” Gilthas admitted, feeling bold again.

“She, and your father as well, would have been the ruin of this kingdom! I should think that now you’d start to understand what that damned half-breed bastard was trying to do!”

“Sometimes I think that the ‘half-breed bastard’ has more courage and honor in his little toe than any elf left in Qualinesti!” snapped the Speaker, flushed out of his reticence by the senator’s insults.

“You’re still a fool!” Rashas raged. “Now get ready. I told you, the Thalas-Enthia meets in two hours, and you’ll be there! Don’t even think about getting one of those headaches. You should be ashamed, claiming they keep you closed in a dark room! I think they’re just an excuse to keep you from doing your duty.”

The senator stormed away, and Gilthas sighed, turning back toward the pristine view from his balcony, knowing that he had to do as he had been told.

But it was so unspeakably hard!

He thought of his last meeting with his father, probably the last time in his life he would ever see Tanis Half-Elven, who had been exiled from his homeland of Qualinesti. Only later did the son come to see what that sentence had meant to his father. At the time, the young and newly appointed speaker had been too concerned with his own future to worry about Tanis’s past. They had met at the edge of the kingdom—in fact, when Tanis had taken a step toward the border, elven sentries had shot arrows at the half-elf’s feet to underscore the rigidity of the banishment. Father and son had embraced for too short a time, and Gilthas had promised to honor the legacy that had brought him to this throne and to do what he could to block the most shortsighted and mean-spirited acts of the Thalas-Enthia.

Yet so far his presence had been almost entirely symbolic. It seemed that the senate did whatever Rashas wanted, and the presence of Gilthas Solostaran only added legitimacy to their acts.

His musings of self-pity were interrupted by a hesitant knock at the door.

“Enter.”

His mood brightened as he saw the beautiful, golden-haired wild elf who shyly pushed the door open and stood just outside the Speaker’s chamber.

“Please, Kerianseray... come in.”

With a deep bow, the young slave stepped hesitantly forward, keeping her face downcast.

“You can look at me, you know. The sight of me won’t burn your eyes,” Gilthas said gently. As always, he was discomfited by the honors shown him by the palace slaves—and by this slave in particular.

“I was told that the Speaker would be wanting his robes of office,” she said hesitantly, and Gilthas saw that Rashas, as usual, was not being subtle about pointing his young king in the direction he was supposed to go.

“I guess you’re right... I should put them on,” he said with a sigh. “But I still have a little time before fussing with all of that.”

Kerianseray looked at him in confusion. The wrinkling of her brow did nothing to diminish her beauty. In fact, Gilthas found her appearance utterly beguiling. His mind searched, groping for something to say that would keep her here.

“I slept very well last night,” he declared. “That bark tea was soothing. I was fully rested with the dawn.”

Though Gilthas didn’t want the fact widely known, his sleep had been plagued by nightmares—fierce, dire episodes of violence and tragedy—ever since he had assumed the mantle of his office. Even more than the headaches, these episodes had tormented and weakened him. So far as he knew, Rashas didn’t know of these disturbances, nor did anyone except a few of his royal slaves. He was ashamed by what he perceived as his weakness, but the images were so frightening that, when once he had awakened to find Kerianseray soothing his fevered brow with a cool cloth, he had willingly accepted her ministrations. Finally she had grown bold enough to suggest that he sip a brew before retiring, a bitter tea that she had learned to make from her Kagonesti ancestors, a mild medicine that might serve as a balm for just the kind of distress he was suffering.

For some days, he had refused to yield to her suggestion, and she had let the matter drop. The night before last, however, he had awakened with his mouth locked in a rictus of horror, his mind reeling with the image of his mother impaled on a stake of burning wood. All around him this city of crystal and gold had been crumbling, consumed by flames that swept upward from the very ground beneath his feet.

That experience had been so frightening that at last he had gone to Kerianseray and sought her help.

“I am happy I was able to serve the Speaker,” she said, casting her eyes down to the floor. “His suffering is my own,” she added, almost in a whisper.

“There is another thing you could do for me,” Gilthas said. Still Kerianseray held her eyes downcast. “Stop speaking of me as if I’m not here. Refer to me as ‘you,’ not ‘the Speaker.’ If you could do this, it would please me very much.”

“If the Spea—if you wish, I shall try,” the young slave replied. Despite her bronzed skin, Gilthas noticed that a blush was creeping up her cheeks, and this was an expression he found strangely attractive.

“Has my robe been sent for?” he asked.

“Yes. The matrons are starching it and will bring it up shortly. I shall go to help them... that is, unless the... unless you want something else.”

I do, Gilthas thought. I want you to stay here with me. But for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he dared not put those thoughts into words. Instead, he cast around for some excuse, any excuse, that would cause her to remain.

“The matrons will be able to starch the robe by themselves. Perhaps you would be good enough to brush my hair while we’re waiting?”

“Of course!” Kerianseray brightened at the suggestion, and Gilthas felt unaccountably pleased by her reaction. He arranged himself in a comfortable low-backed chair, where he still had a good view of the city sprawling beyond his window. The Kagonesti slave picked up a golden brush and slowly, carefully began to stroke the locks of his long blond hair.

He was soothed by her touch, calmed by her gentle strokes. There were times, he reflected with a sigh, when his life was not so utterly, terribly bad.

Gilthas stood upon the rostrum in the center of the Tower of the Sun. Around him, standing attentively—there were no seats in this hallowed council hall—the robed senators of the Thalas-Enthia waited for him to bring the meeting to order. Though he did not look to the rear, the Speaker knew that Rashas would be very near, standing unobtrusively off to the side but close enough that he could reach the center of the rostrum in a pace or two should events begin to develop in a way he did not desire.

Looking around the uncrowded chamber, Gilthas saw that several dozen of the younger senators were not in attendance. These, for the most part, had inherited their seats during the last forty years or so, following the untimely death of a noble parent. As a rule, they had tended to be more open to change than the staid elder members of the group, many of whom had held their seats for upward of four centuries. When Gilthas had been appointed Speaker, in a ceremony that, for all its rigid legality, had carried the taint of threat and extortion, many of the young senators had stalked out of the chamber. Some of them had refused to return.

But there were still a hundred or so elves here, more than enough to make a quorum. In truth, the only thing that the young hotheads had accomplished was to deprive themselves of a voice in these councils. Gilthas truly regretted their absence. He knew that they despised him, but he hoped that if they could but see what went on in here, they would begin to see that he could offer some real hope to the future of the realm.

The outer doors, portals of solid gold, were closed with a loud clang, sealing off the chamber from the rest of Qualinesti. Immediately Gilthas felt stifled. He wanted to throw the doors open, to admit sunlight and air, but Rashas had informed him that the volatile nature of today’s topic required that the meeting be held in secrecy.

“I call the Thalas-Enthia to order on this day of Fourth Gateway in the month of Spring Dawning, in the year of Krynn three hundred eighty-three years after the Cataclysm.”

The murmuring of the senators in the room died away, and many of them looked at him expectantly, curious as to the topic that had brought them here on such short notice. It irritated Gilthas to see that some elves looked past him to Rashas, but he was determined to conduct this meeting in a way that would give the reactionary senator no cause to intervene.

“We have just received an urgent report from the western wilds of the kingdom. General Palthainon has ridden for three days over forest trails to deliver this important message. I now call upon him to make his report known to the Thalas-Enthia.”

Palthainon, still wearing his mud-stained boots and travel-worn tunic, stood at the foot of the rostrum. The costume was for effect, Gilthas knew. He had been in the city for at least six hours since making his report to Rashas at dawn. Nevertheless, the garb served to focus the attention of the senators on the urgency of his mission. Every eye was on the general as Palthainon climbed four steps to take a position on the highest step, save for the rostrum itself. His back to Gilthas, he turned to address the gathered elves.

“You have perhaps heard disturbing rumors out of the west, stories of banditry and robbery dating from the beginning of this summer. They have been regarded as tall tales, for the most part. Who would dare to challenge the mastery of the Qualinesti in our own domain?”

The general’s remarks were greeted with mutters of astonishment: “Who indeed?” As Palthainon went on to describe his own mission of investigation, begun at the insistence of Rashas, of course, Gilthas tried to remember what he knew of this tall warrior who was so unusually broad-shouldered for an elf.

Palthainon had been an appointee of Rashas, so Gilthas assumed that the warrior’s loyalty lay firmly with the elder senator. He had captained a company during the War of the Lance, when the Qualinesti elves had fled to exile on Ergoth while the unstoppable dragonarmies had claimed their homeland. Palthainon had grown rich in the practice of war, though, perhaps because he had never actually fought against the hordes of the Dark Queen. Instead, his campaigns had been limited to subjugating the Kagonesti, the wild elves, who had roamed free across Ergoth before the coming of the Qualinesti. According to his reputation, Palthainon’s company had never been beaten in battle... and if the number of wild elf slaves he had sold in the markets of Qualimori and Daltigoth was any indication, the reputation was well earned.

Gilthas’s attention snapped back to the present as the warrior continued his story.

“At first I was skeptical of the tales, but then I interviewed two noble elves, high lords of unimpeachable reputation, and their tale was the one that convinced me. They were both part of an overland caravan, journeying south from Caergoth with a load of gemstones and spices, having set forth to barter good Qualinesti steel and leather goods. They were not overly cautious—only a dozen guards—for they had already passed the border stones into Qualinesti. Naturally enough, they felt quite secure with the sanctity of our nation.

“I grieve to tell you, elves of the Thalas-Enthia, that their caravan was attacked in the middle of the night. The bandits number many—the nobles estimated two hundred or more, but experience has shown me that even the most perspicacious of witnesses is untrustworthy on matters such as this. Still, the guards were overwhelmed, the cargo stolen, and the bandits made their escape into the darkness of the woods.”

There were cries of outrage throughout the chamber, and several elves stomped their feet as they agitated for action. Gilthas held up a hand, but the gesture wasn’t enough to calm the gathering into silence. Instead, he spoke loudly, asking his question in a voice that carried over the grumbling.

“Good general, you interviewed both of these noble elves?” he asked.

“Yes, Honored Speaker, and their tales matched in every detail. It may interest you to know that I spoke with them separately, so that they did not have the advantage of each hearing the other’s testimony.”

“A splendid precaution,” Gilthas agreed. “But I take it that, since they were able to talk, neither of them met with harm during this episode?”

“No, Honored Speaker. As a matter of fact, neither of them showed the mark of a single wound.” Palthainon’s tone was a little scornful as he shared this information.

“And the guards... were many of them killed?”

“Their testimony included no remarks as to the state of the guards,” the general said with a shrug.

And you didn’t think to ask! Gilthas wanted to voice the rebuke but decided that it was more politic to bite his tongue. “Still, we can assume that if great bloodshed was wrought among the escort, the nobles would have mentioned the fact as part of their testimony.”

“It is a logical assumption,” agreed the warrior.

“I fail to see what difference the relative wounding of the victims bears upon the facts here,” Rashas interjected. “Clearly a crime has occurred.”

“Very clearly,” Gilthas agreed genially. “I merely wish to establish the exact nature of that crime.”

“The crime is robbery, theft of legitimate imported goods!” declared Palthainon. “We have evidence and testimony to that effect.”

“Yes... in fact, we’ve had testimony to that effect for a week, if I recall correctly.”

“But this is testimony from reliable sources!” the general retorted.

“To be sure... and since this testimony is the same as we heard days earlier, doesn’t that prove that the other sources were reliable as well?” Gilthas was actually enjoying himself.

“Enough!” Rashas snapped the command, and the Speaker felt as though a leash had been jerked tightly around his neck. The senator continued, obviously doing his best to speak in a level and reasonable tone. “We now have the proof we lacked before. Doesn’t this suggest that the Thalas-Enthia proceed to the consideration of some sort of action?”

“It does,” Gilthas agreed, forcing himself to reply in kind.

Senator Fallitarian, a doddering elder known to be a fervent supporter of Rashas, made the motion. “We should send a company of warriors to the west... patrol the trails, bring the rascals to justice!”

“Here, here!” The suggestion was echoed throughout the chamber.

“A single company?” Rashas interjected, with a deliberative scowl. “Two hundred elves to hunt down and capture a band that might be their equal in numbers, if we are to believe the words of the witnesses?”

“We should make it at least three companies,” Gilthas suggested. “That way, they can patrol a larger area and will be readily available to reinforce each other should the bandits prove to be numerous.”

“Excellent idea,” Rashas concurred.

Gilthas was paradoxically annoyed with himself to find that the senator’s praise pleased him.

“Three companies it is!” Senator Fallitarian fell into rank. “I submit that General Palthainon should be appointed their general.”

That motion, too, passed with a mere voice vote. Palthainon was authorized to raise six hundred Qualinesti warriors from the clans in and around the city and to outfit them with armaments from the city armory. He was given a week to organize his three companies. Then he would embark for the west, where he was granted full authority to decide how to deal with the bandits. The senate suggested that he try to bring the leaders back to the city for trial, but even this notion was couched in polite terms, and very few of the gathered nobles ever expected to see any of the bandits in Qualinost—at least, not alive.

Gilthas was about to suggest the meeting be adjourned when the chamber was rocked by a violent pounding on the great golden doors. The noise reverberated like a drumbeat, and a steward immediately looked through the spyhole, then turned to announce to the chamber:

“It is the scout, Guilderhand. He says he has information of urgency to the senate, relevant to the matter being discussed here today.”

“Admit him at once,” Gilthas said, knowing that Rashas would have spoken the same words if he hadn’t. Guilderhand was one of the senator’s trusted agents—“scout” was a euphemistic term for an elf who was widely regarded as a spy. His arrival at such a climactic juncture was typical, for he had a way of drawing attention to himself when he wanted to be noticed.

The scout came into the room, and if Palthainon had looked travel-worn and scuffed from the road, Guilderhand looked as if he had crawled through a muddy sewer to reach this exalted council. His hair was plastered to his skull, his face was filthy, and his dirt-green cloak was thick with brambles and leaves. Apparently unmindful of his unkempt state, he stalked down the aisle and climbed the steps toward the rostrum. He offered a perfunctory bow to Gilthas and a longer genuflection toward Rashas before turning and sweeping his gaze across the rapt audience of elven rulership.

“Elven nobles, esteemed senators, honored elders,” he began. He paused, a long delay even by elven standards, but no one spoke. No elf’s attention wavered even slightly from the bedraggled figure.

“I come with grim news from the west... news that would brook no delay. I have traveled day and night to reach the city and came at once to the chamber where I knew our nation’s wisest leadership would be gathered.”

Again he paused for dramatic effect. Gilthas wanted to urge him to get on with it. Why should news that would brook no delay be delivered with such tantalizing deliberation? But he knew the ways of Rashas’s spy, and so he held his tongue.

“The honorable Palthainon is correct in reporting to you that the bandits number at least two hundred,” Guilderhand said, with a bow toward the general, who stood proudly aloof as he accepted the praise.

That statement begged another question, at least to the Speaker, who was listening with a certain amount of skepticism: How did Guilderhand know the substance of Palthainon’s report? Gilthas knew then that the spy had been waiting outside, eavesdropping on the meeting, waiting until the moment was right for his dramatic entrance.

“My own investigations carried me right into the bandits’ camp, and it was there that I gained my startling information. I have learned the nature of these outlaws and the identity—though it grieves me to know it—of their leader.”

Again he paused, but this time there came urging from the Thalas-Enthia. “Speak—say the name! Who is it?”

“The bandits that have come to prey on our western highways are not, as we all expected, mere human wastrels, scoundrels who seek to enrich themselves off of elven labors. No, my honored leaders, I tell you that these bandits are themselves elves, traitors against their nation and their people!”

“Shame!” The sibilant curse rose from the Thalas-Enthia and was followed by uglier cries and demands for further information. “Who is their leader? Who draws elves into treachery?”

“Their leader is a dark elf, one who is well known to these chambers and to this very rostrum. I grieve to tell you, members of the Senate of Qualinesti, that these outlaws represent an insurgency, and that they are led by none other than Porthios Solostaran, the former Speaker of the Sun and current traitor to his people.”

Gilthas felt weak in the knees and had to exert all of his discipline to keep himself from falling. Porthios! Turned against Qualinesti, violating the exile that he had chosen as he made his escape from Silvanesti!

Suddenly it seemed to the young Speaker as though the entire world was going insane, torn by a hurricane of uncontrollable events... and that he, Gilthas Solostaran, somehow stood at the center of the whirlwind.

Chapter Ten Horizons of Conquest

“Can you believe there was a time when all elves lived like this?” Porthios said, leaning back in his hammock, pushing with a sandaled foot to sway the garland-draped net easily in the clearing.

“Sometimes I wonder why we felt it necessary to move into cities,” Alhana agreed, likewise swaying beside her husband. Silvanoshei was drowsing quietly at her breast. The baby seemed content to eat and sleep, for the most part. Porthios had just chuckled softly with the realization that, for the first time in his life, he was happy with the same regimen.

The three of them were not alone. They were never alone in a camp of more than two hundred warriors, many with spouses and children. Still, they shared a sense of sublime solitude, the late afternoon broken only by the sounds of murmured conversation and the pleasant, swooshing sound of the gentle wind through the trees.

In many respects, this camp was more comfortable than the nicest houses in which they had ever dwelled. Despite the relentless heat of the early summer, they were close enough to the coast that they were eternally soothed by an offshore breeze, a wind that was channeled between two towering bluffs so that it always flowed up the valley.

A pleasant stream meandered right through the middle of the encampment, and numerous waterfalls trilled from the heights on either side. A canopy of lofty trees—ironwood, oak, and an occasional towering cedar—provided constant shade, as well as screened the camp from observation by anyone overhead. Yet the tree limbs were so high that the effect was not stifling. Instead, it was more like a vaulted ceiling that kept them cool with its lofty, heavy boughs.

Of course, the elves had done some work to improve the comfort of the settlement. Dozens of small huts had been erected near the walls of the gorge, and guard posts had been established on the two trails leading into the ravine from the upper walls. Several small caves were used for food storage, and early efforts at establishing a vintner’s yard had been made at the lower end of the gorge. This area of Qualinesti was rich in natural grapes, and the elves had been diligent in their collection, so that now several large casks of mash were slowly fermenting into wine.

It was Tarqualan who had led them to this gorge. The Qualinesti captain had remembered the place from his childhood. The entire band, led by Porthios, had flown here after bidding farewell to Tanis before they had reached the borders of Qualinesti. The half-elf had journeyed northward, returning to his wife. He had been concerned by the rumors of an impending war in the far north, stories that remained unconfirmed but that Tanis had been determined to investigate.

Here in the forest glade, such reports seemed distant and insignificant compared to the easy pleasures of daily life and parenthood. Porthios was glad that he could be with his baby so much. Silvanoshei spent most of his time in the comfort of his tai-thall, the leather cradle that Alhana, or sometimes Porthios himself, wore over the shoulders to support the infant on his parent’s chest. The Qualinesti warriors had crafted the traditional baby carrier during the days after Silvanoshei’s birth, and the tai-thall had supported the newborn infant during the remainder of the flight to his father’s homeland.

As the band of fliers had crossed the border, Porthios had felt a twinge of melancholy and misgiving, knowing that he was now an outlaw in his own homeland. Still, his outrage against that perceived injustice was powerful enough to easily overcome any misgivings he may have had over defying the exile. Now that they were here, he felt like a king again—an outlaw king, perhaps, but that role was well suited to his current mood.

Only recently they had raided another caravan bound southward from Caergoth, and their plunder had included many woolen cloaks as well as iron implements that greatly enhanced the band’s cooking process. Their diet consisted thus far of venison and fish, supplemented by the natural fruits and berries that were blooming throughout the woods. Wild grasses were being harvested and shucked, though so far the outlaws had not gathered enough grain to make a mill or bakery worthwhile. Still, Porthios was determined that, before the coming of winter, they would be cooking a variety of breads.

White-winged shapes flew overhead, and he looked upward from his hammock to see griffons wheeling and gliding in the wide spaces between the trees. He was grateful that the creatures had come with them and had decided to continue to cooperate with the outlaw elves instead of the civilized Qualinesti, the so-called masters of this domain. Porthios knew that, so long as the griffons were with them, his force was much more mobile than any warriors the Thalas-Enthia or their figurehead Speaker could put into the field. With their sentinels posted on the trails and the griffons ready to carry the outlaws into battle, the prince was certain they were safe from surprise attack. Too, the griffons gave them the ability to move quickly, to strike the caravans as they entered the elven kingdom, and to get away with their plunder.

So far, they had managed to make their attacks without any killing, which had been one of Alhana’s most urgent desires. Porthios himself was not terribly worried about the prospect of slaying fat merchant elves. As far as he was concerned, they were working hand-in-pocket with the Thalas-Enthia, and that shortsighted body of conservatives was bad for elvenkind, and consequently his enemy.

He thought a little about the young elf who had replaced him as Speaker. Alhana had gained the measure of Gilthas Solostaran during the short time when they had both been imprisoned in Senator Rashas’s house. Though Porthios was inclined to dismiss the youngster as a mere puppet of the Thalas-Enthia, his wife had cautioned him that Gilthas was in fact made of sterner stuff. She had reminded him that the blood of Tanis Half-Elven and Laurana Solostaran, Porthios’s sister and the famed Golden General of the War of the Lance, flowed undiluted in his veins.

Gilthas, however, had been raised in a sheltered environment, for his parents had foolishly wished to protect him from life in the real world. But now the young elf was fast gaining an education during his tumultuous term as the Speaker of Sun. While on the surface he acted unfailingly to enforce the will of Rashas and the other senators of his faction, Alhana had suggested that Gilthas was in fact his own master and was working toward a future of his own, not the Thalas-Enthia’s, design.

In a sense, Porthios hoped that was true. He thought about his mixed feelings for Tanis, the half-elf who had helped him escape from Silvanesti, yet who had taken his sister to a marriage so far beneath herself. The old animosity still lingered, the rage at this bastard who, Porthios was convinced, had grown a beard to offend elven sensibilities, to audaciously flaunt his humanness. Was it any wonder that a prince of Qualinesti had teased him mercilessly during their shared youth? There were times when Porthios even wondered if Tanis had wooed Laurana merely as a means of gaining vengeance on her brother.

Of course, he had to admit that his sister seemed content, even happy, with the union. He felt sorrow for Laurana, who had, because of her marriage, sentenced herself to virtual exile from Qualinesti. Still, if her son proved to be a true leader of the elves, if his wisdom could begin to guide the two realms toward an eventual reconciliation, then the future might not be as bleak as the outlaw leader sometimes feared.

His musings were interrupted by the rattling call of a crane, the sound reverberating down the sides of the gorge. This was the prearranged symbol of warning from the guards at the head of the trail, and Porthios was immediately out of his hammock, striding through the encampment as he girded on his sword and saw that Alhana, Silvanoshei, and the other nonwarriors were safely hidden in the nearby caves.

Around Porthios were mustered more than a hundred of his fighting elves, while the griffons were thick in the trees overhead. The hooting cry had been a warning, but not the urgent symbol that indicated an imminent attack, so the prince merely waited, his eyes on the winding trail that led down the bluff and into the clearing before the camp. This was the one path into the glade, and it was covered by many archers and blocked by a line of swords. He noted without surprise that Samar had come to Alhana’s side and held his weapon ready while the woman sheltered her baby in her arms.

Even with their watchfulness, however, the outlaws didn’t see the movement along that trail. Instead, there were suddenly elves around the tree trunks at the base of the bluff, silent people who had slipped right down the slope without being seen. Despite his astonishment, Porthios retained enough composure to bow in polite greeting as the first of the elves stepped forward from the band of several dozen that regarded the outlaws from the fringe of their camp.

These were Kagonesti, Porthios saw immediately, a fact that went a great way toward explaining how they could have slipped down the trail without notice. Naked but for girdles and loincloths of soft deerskin, the wild elves were covered all over with the spirals, whorls, and leafy patterns of black tattoos. They were bronze of skin and, for the most part, dark of hair, though a few of the wild elves were blond or even red-haired. Partially because of their camouflage, and partly because of their natural affinity for the woodlands, they could move almost invisibly through dense foliage or across nearly barren ground.

“Welcome to our village,” Porthios said formally. “We greet you in peace, as our cousins of the forest.”

“Welcome to our forest,” replied the leading Kagonesti, who was a strapping warrior, even taller than the lanky Porthios. “We accept your greetings, as our cousins from beyond the woodlands.”

Porthios couldn’t help but notice the wild elf’s reference to “our” forest. He knew that there were tribes of the Kagonesti throughout Qualinesti, though he had thought them to be pretty well subjugated by the civilized elves. Obviously here was a band that thought of its existence in more independent terms.

“We did not want to startle you, so we allowed your sentries to spy us as we passed them at the summit of the trail,” the leading Kagonesti went on. “The call of the crane was not unskilled, coming as it did from the throat of one raised in the city.”

Porthios flushed. Daringflight, the scout who had hooted the warning, was widely known as one of the most skilled elves at imitating animal sounds. Still, he did not want to offend this visitor, and so he held his tongue.

“I am Dallatar, chieftain of the White Osprey Kagonesti,” the wild elf intoned.

“I am called Porthios Solostaran. Once I was Speaker of all Qualinesti. Now I am chieftain of the Westshore Elves.” He made up the name on the spot, conscious that he didn’t want his band to seem less civilized than these forest-dwelling primitives.

“We have seen that you fight the city elves,” Dallatar noted. “It is curious to see you attack those that we see as the same clan.”

“It is curious to us as well,” Porthios said, unwilling to go into a full explanation. He told himself that this savage would never understand the intricacies of interkingdom politics, though in fact he realized that he was suddenly ashamed of the fractiousness that had driven him to take up the outlaw’s life in the forest.

“We have made ourselves happy here,” he added, feeling even as he spoke that the explanation sounded a little lame.

Dallatar nodded sagely, as if Porthios’s statement was the most logical thing in the world. When next the wild elf spoke, it was to reveal a startling change of topic. “You should know that the city elves are marching from Qualinost to come after you. They have a force of six hundred swords.”

“That’s news.” Though he had expected something like this, Porthios was in fact surprised to hear that the Thalas-Enthia had already put a plan into motion. “Have you seen this force? Is it close?”

“No. They will not depart the city for several days yet. But training is under way, under the captainship of one called Palthainon.”

“General Palthainon... I might have known,” the outlaw leader declared in disgust. Palthainon’s reputation for brutality and bullying had been established, and well earned, during the exile on Ergoth. Now he seemed like a logical choice to send after a group of bandits in the western forests.

Only then did another, very obvious, question occur to him. He asked Dallatar bluntly. “You say they won’t leave for days, yet you know their timetable, even the name of their captain. What’s the source of your intelligence?”

“We Kagonesti have brothers held as slaves in the city of gold. There are many ways we can learn of events in Qualinost without the Qualinesti suspecting that news is traveling back and forth.”

Porthios had to admit to the logic of this statement. He had spent many years in the city and had never suspected that the wild elves who worked as house slaves for some of the more arrogant nobles had maintained any kind of contact with their brethren in the forests. Still, he was now grateful for the fact and said so.

The wild elf chieftain shrugged. “We have heard of you, of course... the one who was once Speaker of the Sun. You were always fair and generous with our people. That is different from the manner of many noble elves.”

Porthios was immediately glad that he had always made a practice of treating the Kagonesti as his equals. He knew what Dallatar meant about the arrogance, even cruelty, of some city elf slave owners, though doubtless they, like he, had never attributed such resourcefulness to the clan that had always been casually dismissed as a bunch of painted barbarians.

“Will you join us in the humble sustenance of our camp?” asked the outlaw who was once a king. “As we are neighbors in the woodlands, I would like to think that so we will also be friends.”

“That is our wish as well,” agreed the tribal chief. At a signal of his hand, many women of his tribe came forward, carrying two freshly killed does, baskets of fish, and satchels full of fruits and berries of varieties that the Qualinesti had only rarely seen. “The woods are a full larder at this time of year, and we have brought gifts of food to share with you.”

The shade was thickening in the gorge as the smells of sizzling deer and roasting fish wafted through the air. Porthios and Dallatar sat beside each other around the large central fire pit. Alhana, with Silvanoshei in his tai-thall, was at her husband’s side, and a beautiful Kagonesti maid, her black hair streaked with startling splashes of silver, joined the wild elf chief.

“This is my bride, Willowfawn,” boasted Dallatar proudly. “She has been mine for more than one hundred winters.”

“And together we have made two children,” the woman said frankly. “It was our son who slayed the largest doe, using only his knife.”

“A mighty hunter is Iydahar,” agreed the chief easily.

“And who is your other child?” Alhana asked.

Porthios noticed a darkness come into the chief’s eyes. “She was taken from us as a young girl during the years on Ergoth. She was sold to a Qualinesti lord. Now she works as a slave in his house.”

Porthios and Alhana exchanged a look of guilt and remorse. They had both grown up around wild elf slaves, but somehow they had never considered the origins of those unwilling workers. Now Porthios thought it seemed unutterably barbaric to remove young children from their parents’ family merely because their tribe was judged to lack civilization.

“And I see that you, too, have a child,” said Willowfawn.

“Our first—not a full month old yet,” Alhana said with a smile. Her eyes twinkled. “Of course, Porthios has only been ‘mine’ for thirty winters.”

If Dallatar thought the juxtaposition of the possessive was remarkable, and undoubtedly he did, he made an exceptional pretense of masking his surprise. “I wish the best of health and happiness to your child,” he said solemnly.

Alhana’s hands were suddenly tight around Porthios’s arm. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you very much.”

Bellaclaw came to rest in the clearing before Porthios and his outlaws. Samar dismounted, dropping easily to the soft loam of the ground.

“Palthainon is a fool,” snapped the warrior-mage, shaking his head in disbelief. “He has his elves marching four abreast, one company following right on the heels of the next. They’re making more noise than a drunken dwarf in a chime shop.”

“What about the warriors in his companies? Was Dallatar’s information correct?” Porthios wondered.

“As far as I could tell. It doesn’t look like more than one in ten of them is a veteran of any kind of campaign. Maybe that’s why he’s holding them in such a tight formation—he’s afraid the novices will run away if he’s not looking over their shoulder every step of the way.”

“So he marches them like swine going to the butcher...” The outlaw leader was still amazed. Every elf who’d ever held a sword knew that a loose formation, flexible and supple, was the best marching order for thick woodlands. That way, if part of a column was attacked, the rest of the elves could circle around and strike the attackers in the flanks. But a dense, short formation such as Samar had just described meant that it was quite possible for the entire force to wander into an ambush.

“Remember, he’s never fought Qualinesti before. His victories were against small tribes of wild elves, who could rarely muster more than two- or threescore warriors against him. I daresay he’s in for a nasty shock.”

Porthios nodded grimly. He felt none of the excitement that normally preceded a battle, but he knew he had a job to do and was determined that his own forces would suffer very few casualties. He turned toward Stallyar, who was prancing eagerly under the nearby trees, when he was stopped by a gentle pressure on his arm.

Alhana stood there, sweat standing out in beads on her fair skin. Her huge eyes were dark with concern.

“Please, my husband, isn’t there some other way? Do you have to kill them?”

Porthios sighed, at once angry with her persistence and at the same time grieving for the necessity he perceived in this situation.

“When we robbed from them, we were able to do it without killing. We outnumbered the caravans, and the guards were easily scared away. But this is an armed force sent to find and attack us! You know they won’t hesitate to use their weapons against us. Furthermore, they outnumber our warriors by three to one. There is no longer any room for gentleness.”

“Can’t you just avoid them?” She used the same argument she had been pressing for the last week, ever since the Kagonesti had reported that Palthainon’s force had departed Qualinost.

“You know that’s impossible—unless we want to abandon our camp, to be ready to move at a day’s notice wherever we settle.”

Through a combination of the wild elves and his own outlaws mounted on griffons, Porthios had kept careful tabs on the advance of the Qualinesti force. For a time, it had looked as though Palthainon might blunder southward along the coast, which would have taken him away from the camp for another month or two. But a day earlier, the general had made a fateful guess, veering his force to the north on a bearing that, within another few days, would lead him right into the gorge where Porthios had made his camp. To counter, the outlaw prince had brought his elves out of the encampment and gathered them in this clearing in the deep forest. He had studied the general’s route of advance and planned his battle accordingly.

“I ask you again, can’t you try to frighten them away? You have to see that, up until now, many elves perceive you as the true leader of their people, someone who has been wronged by the Thalas-Enthia. But if you draw elven blood, you suddenly prove to them that you are an outlaw, a threat not only to their pocketbooks but also to the lives of their husbands and sons, to the very fabric of Qualinesti society!”

“Why should I care about the fabric of Qualinesti society?” Porthios demanded harshly. “Isn’t that the agency that stole my crown, that cast me into exile—called me a dark elf?”

“No!” Alhana was annoyingly insistent. “You know that was a few hateful old men in the Thalas-Enthia. They are your enemies, elves like Rashas and Konnal. I beg you, my husband, don’t make this into a war that you’ll regret for as long as you live!”

“Lord Porthios!” cried the scout, Daringflight, who was landing in the clearing. “They’re only a mile away, and they’ve picked up the pace of their march.”

“The decision has been made,” Porthios declared to Alhana, trying for a stern tone but knowing that he merely sounded petulant. “Now I’ll have to ask you to get away from here. The battle is about to begin, and nothing anyone does can change that fact. You’ll be safe here, though if you’d like, I can ask Samar to stay with you.”

“It is not my safety I’m worried about!” she snapped. “I wish you could see that, could understand what you have to do!” Her tone dropped, her words pointed and hurtful. “It’s not enough, husband, merely to send Samar to take your place.”

Her jaw set, Alhana stepped back. Porthios was stunned by the depth of her anger and deeply hurt by her rebuke. He wished she would turn and march away, but instead she kept her eyes fastened upon him, her glare harsh and unforgiving as he stepped to Stallyar’s side and lifted one foot into the stirrup. Samar, nearby, looked away awkwardly. Finally Porthios whirled to face her, his own face distorted by anger.

“I don’t have any choice!” he shouted. “Don’t you see that? Why can’t you see that?”

“I see you, husband, and I see the choices that you make,” she said calmly. “And I grieve for those choices, even as I know that you do the same.”

Only then did she turn and walk away, melting into the woods that made her invisible within a dozen paces.

“Why does she do that?” Porthios growled to himself, kicking Stallyar with unnecessary harshness. The griffon cast a reproving glance over his shoulder as he spread his wings and sprang into the air. “Sorry, Old Claws,” the bandit leader said in chagrin, patting the softly feathered neck.

Within a minute, the sky over the clearing was filled with griffons, the savage fliers silent as they took to the air, bearing Porthios’s company of elite fighters toward the approaching file of Qualinesti. He had picked the site for the ambush carefully, knowing that Palthainon’s force would have to cross a wide clearing and then ford a deep stream. The obvious crossing was a tangle of broken tree limbs that would serve as a makeshift bridge but would allow only one or two elves to cross at a time. The far side of the stream was thickly wooded, and this was where Porthios had decided to conceal his force.

As they flew the short distance, Porthios reflected more on his wife’s accusations. Did she really think that he sent Samar to be with her to take his place? Yet, in honesty, he knew he had relied on the warrior-mage for a lot of help, and he was always willing to attend his queen. A glimmering of suspicion sparked in his mind, but he roughly pushed that poisonous thought aside, though it didn’t vanish entirely.

But now the flying elves were settling into the trees just before the stream. The griffons gathered in several small clearings, a few hundred paces back from the scene of the ambush, while the elves crept forward to take up hiding places in the underbrush to both sides of the prospective crossing. Within a few minutes, all of the bandits, nearly three hundred strong, had secured hiding places for themselves in the tangle. Arrows were laid beside bows, and swords were loosened in scabbards, though if the plan worked as Porthios intended, there would be little need for the bloody combat of a close-ranks melee.

Soon the Qualinesti companies broke into the clearing on the far side of the stream. They marched, as Tarqualan had reported, in tightly packed ranks. Many of the recruits shuffled with weariness, while a few veterans shouted harshly at their comrades, even jabbing and slapping with swords to move the recalcitrant warriors along. Clearly this was a raw and dispirited group of elves.

Porthios’s military mind admired the perfection of the setting, even as his elven conscience railed against Palthainon’s stupidity. Oblivious of the danger, the general marched his column almost to the river’s edge on the far side of the stream. Scowling, the commander stalked along the bank, finally pausing to study the tangle of trunks that spanned the otherwise rock-filled and treacherous gorge.

“Stand alert there!” Palthainon called to his warriors, some of whom had settled to the ground as they waited for orders. “We’ll cross here. No rest until we’re all on the other side.”

“Perfect, you fool,” whispered Porthios. These troops, already ragged with weariness, would be denied a chance to rest before they marched into the ambush. The outlaw leader found himself wondering how Palthainon had earned his reputation on Ergoth. Perhaps it was true that all of his battles had involved attacks against peaceful villages, brutal raids with the primary objective of taking slaves.

The first of the Qualinesti started awkwardly along the makeshift bridge, and now events really did move beyond Porthios’s control. He had set his ambush, given his troops orders, and there was no way to countermand those instructions without revealing himself to the enemy across the waterway. The outlaws were to wait until half the city elves were across the stream. Then they would attack with lethal volleys of arrows, killing most of the hapless invaders before they even knew that battle had been joined.

After several volleys of arrows, the biggest of the outlaws were to fall on the survivors with cold steel, while the rest of Porthios’s force would race back to their griffons and sweep against the remaining Qualinesti from the air. Probably some of the elves on the far side of the river would escape, but the carnage over there would be savage as well. And it served Porthios well to have a few survivors make it back to the city. He wanted the Thalas-Enthia to think twice before they sent another army after him.

The first elves to cross the bridge collapsed in exhaustion on the near bank, while others slowly, painstakingly made their way across. They made no attempt to spread out, to scout the thick woods on the far side. Instead, they were all too grateful to have the chance to rest and to be momentarily beyond the range of Palthainon’s temper and authority.

Porthios looked down at his bow and arrows. He had four steel-tipped shafts ready to shoot, and he pictured each of them puncturing elven flesh, drawing elven blood and piercing elven hearts. He felt sick to his stomach, suddenly horribly reluctant to fight this battle. Alhana had been right after all. It would be a great mistake, an unspeakable tragedy, to lead his countrymen into battle against their own people.

But already the first company of Palthainon’s three units had crossed the stream, and the elves of the second were starting to pick their way across the bridge. At any moment, the first arrows would dart from the trees, and the killing would begin.

When he heard the shouts of alarm from Palthainon’s elves, Porthios at first thought, with perverse relief, that his ambush had been discovered. “Run, you fools!” he whispered fiercely, certain that the Qualinesti would race back across the stream and he would have an excuse not to commence this butchery.

But he quickly realized that Palthainon’s troops still had no clue as to the outlaws’ presence. Instead, the Qualinesti were pointing toward the northern sky. Those troops on the opposite bank were running along the stream, heading for the cover of the nearest copse of trees, a quarter-mile downstream. The elves who had already crossed were standing, staring upward, trying to discern the cause of their comrades’ alarm. Then, with shouts of dire panic, they turned and dashed into the woods, falling and tumbling among the outlaws who lay there in ambush, too panicked even to react to the surprise.

Yet the ambush never occurred, for now the elves of Porthios’s force could see the sky, and none of them cared to raise a weapon against the Qualinesti. Instead, they could only stare, knees turning to jelly, eyes goggling from their heads, as they watched a wing of blue dragons soar downward. The dragonawe permeated even into the woods, and Porthios felt his own bowels grow loose as the massive serpents swept past.

Even so, he had to admire the military precision of their flight. Each dragon was ridden by a mounted knight, and the creatures flew wing tip to wing tip, a dozen of them spanning the full breadth of the wide clearing. Ignoring the elves who had crossed the stream, the serpents dived in pursuit of the Qualinesti who fled along the far bank of the gorge.

Lightning spat from their gaping jaws, blasts of powerful fire that tore elves into pieces and threw up great clods of dirt from the ground. The explosive volley was repeated with ruthless cruelty, changing the pastoral meadow into a scene of carnage, nightmare, and death. The thunder of the deadly attacks reverberated through the trees as dozens, then scores, of Palthainon’s Qualinesti were cut down.

Finally the dragons landed in the midst of the fleeing elves, and the slaughter was tremendous, horrifying, unreal. Jaws snapped, crushing warriors between daggerlike teeth. Wyrms pounced and clawed, tearing other elves to pieces. Knightly riders stabbed with their lances, chopped with their swords, and shouted in glee as the helpless Qualinesti were mercilessly butchered and harried from the field.

All during the massacre, one dragon flew overhead, its rider trailing a pennant, a banner bright with the colors of a five-headed wyrm. Porthios knew that these dragons were part of an army, and that the army fought in the name of Takhisis. Queen of Darkness.

And he knew that war had come once more to Krynn.

Chapter Eleven The Siege of Qualinost

“My lord Speaker, the dragonarmies have come again! We must flee!”

“Stop... speak a little more carefully.” Gilthas sat up in bed, looking at the excited Kagonesti slave who had burst into his bedchamber. “What’s this about dragonarmies?”

“They have come. The Blue Wing returns!” cried the slave, an elder male who had been a part of the migration westward thirty years ago.

By now the young Speaker was fully awake. He climbed from the bed and went to look out the window. Qualinost, to all appearances, was a city in peaceful slumber. The sky was clear, and he saw no sign of any dragon or other attacker. He turned on the slave, irritated at being so rudely awakened.

“What are you talking about—dragonarmies? It’s not possible! Who told you this, and where are they supposedly attacking?”

“They have swept southward from Solamnia and crossed the Newsea. Already they have struck the outposts on the borders!” continued the servant, his eyes wide. “Oh, lord, there is no stopping them! We’re all going to die!”

Gilthas was sliding into his boots, shrugging his robe over his shoulders. Once more he looked out the window. His house—the official dwelling of the Speaker of the Sun—was located directly beside the Tower of the Sun, and that lofty spire blocked his view to the northeast, but even so, he assumed he would see some sign of trouble if there was in fact an invasion occurring.

Still, he couldn’t suppress a sense of alarm as he left his house and started across the wide garden leading to the tower. He noticed other nobles gathering, a strange urgency gripping the city, considering that it was the middle of the night. They came from all directions, silent, exchanging worried glances and frightened looks. Gilthas felt a flash of worry, a thought of his mother and father in their house so far to the north. If war came, they were sure to be in the middle of it—and he couldn’t help feeling that he should be with them to offer whatever help and comfort he could.

At the base of the tower, he found Rashas, and Guilderhand as well. The nobles and senators filed into the chamber with unseemly haste. Torches and magical lanterns lit the great council hall at the base of the tower, light reflected and magnified by the burnished gold of the walls and the numerous mirrors set into alcoves. The gathering was a startling and motley collection. Some of the elders were barefoot, while others were wearing wrinkled or even dirty robes.

Voices rattled and screeched as rumors were exchanged, questions asked, fears aired.

“What’s going on?” one matron was demanding of anyone and everyone within earshot.

“I heard Haven is burning!” a well-fed merchant declared, wiping sweat from his brow and staring wildly around the chamber.

“An army—blue-skinned troops, big as ogres—crossed the border this evening!” This came from an orange grower who owned many groves.

And more cries chimed in, universal in their notes of hysteria and certainty:

“They fly the banner of the Dark Queen!”

“Their general rides a blue dragon!”

“Thousands of troops... they butcher anyone in their path!”

Gilthas climbed the steps to the rostrum and glanced over a sea of anxious faces. Elves looked from him to Rashas and back again. They both raised their hands to try to quiet the crowd, but the gesture had little effect in damming the stream of frightened words.

The Speaker shouted, somehow finding the depth to roar his voice across the chamber. “Elves of Qualinesti! Gather and attend! We need to learn what’s happening, not stampede under an avalanche of rumors!”

The elves grew still, nervously looking back and forth. There remained a dull rumble of whispers, but this was mainly due to hasty explanations passed to the new arrivals who kept filtering through the partially opened doors. Gilthas noted the presence of even some of the youngsters who had typically avoided the meetings of the Thalas-Enthia, radicals such as Quaralan, a young captain of archers who had held his seat in the senate for only a few years, and Anthelia, mistress of a clan of prominent artists and glassmakers. These two now looked just as afraid as everyone else.

“Is there anyone here who has seen these invaders?”

“I have!” a voice shot through the circular chamber. Guilderhand had spoken loudly. He stood near the back, and now he held up both hands in a gesture that was both contemptuous and soothing.

“Please give us your testimony,” Gilthas said quickly.

The spy was dressed in his usual traveling garb, right down to the muddy boots and stained, torn cloak. Still, he strode up the steps of the rostrum as if he belonged there as much as the highest noble. He turned to the crowd, and with a sweeping gesture of his hands, drew the attention of every elf to himself.

“I am sorry to report that the rumors are true, right down to the worst of the tales. The war in the north, about which we have heard fleeting reports, has swept southward to draw Qualinesti into its tendrils. Right now there is a force approaching our fair city, an unstoppable army of brutish warriors, Dark Knights, and blue dragons. They breached the borders of our realm during the night and march with remarkable haste.”

Gilthas drew a deep breath, trying to absorb this incomprehensible news. “What do you know of their numbers... of the makeup of the force?”

“Their legions are huge, my lord Speaker,” replied Guilderhand with a bow that somehow seemed like a mockery. “They filed past me on the Haven road for many hours, and still I could not see the end of the column. As to the warriors that make up the bulk of the force, they are like nothing I have ever seen. Huge, blue-skinned, and all but naked, they march toward battle with jeers and laughs. Truly, they seem monstrously cruel.”

“And the knights and dragons?”

“With my own eyes, I saw twoscore dragons take wing and fly back and forth over the army on the ground. All were blues, and each was ridden by an armored warrior. They flew with discipline, these wyrms, and seemed ever watchful and vigilant.

“As to the knights on the ground, these might have been armed and armored from Solamnia, so like those human warriors did they seem, save that they ride under the banner of the Dark Queen.”

The mention of that hateful goddess brought another bubbling of concern through the chamber, and like a master speaker Guilderhand waited for the whispering to die down.

“They rode in companies. I saw ten companies of forty or fifty knights each. All wore heavy armor, and their horses were huge, monstrous creatures that could crush an elf with one hoof. Many of the knights were lancers, while others had great swords and shields. From the order of their road march, I deduce that they would have no difficulty launching a precise charge. They could ride down any rank of warriors who dared to stand in their path.”

“And they are now in the kingdom, on the roads to Qualinost?” Gilthas pressed, his heart sinking at the thought of such an onslaught.

“I predict that by tomorrow they will reach the bridges leading to the city itself. I have also heard rumors, tales claiming that more of these invaders have entered the western parts of the realm. Naturally we have not been able to confirm those tales.”

“Of course not,” the speaker agreed dejectedly. Oh, why had the griffons abandoned them? If the elves had the services of those once loyal fliers, he knew that at least they’d be able to get word back and forth through the kingdom. As it was, they were feeling their way blindly, could only hope that they acted before it was too late.

“Were you observed?” asked the young senator Quaralan, speaking to Guilderhand. “Did you spy on the army from concealment or move about in disguise?”

“Oh, great lord, it was a harrowing time,” replied the spy. “I tried to hide myself in the undergrowth, where I watched the army pass for some time. Ultimately I was observed and captured by the blue warriors—brutes, they were called. Much to my horror, they took me to see the general commanding this army!”

Cries of horror and sympathy rose from the elven crowd, but Guilderhand raised his hands again, gesturing for silence, for calm.

“Shortly before I was to enter his presence, they held me near a wagon of the Dark Knight sorcerers—Knights of the Thorn, they are, and they wear robes of gray.” The spy held up his hand, in which he gripped a ring of bright gold. “It was from there that I made my escape, stealing this ring of powerful magic. It gave me the power to teleport away, and so I made my way back here. If not, I would certainly have been put to death!”

More shouts of outrage and fear echoed in the chamber.

“We must activate the rest of the city militia,” Gilthas declared, trying to mask his own despair. “Get elves standing at each of the bridges, ready to defend Qualinost against the first sign of attack!”

“What good will that do?” Rashas demanded vehemently, contemptuously. “Weren’t you listening? This is a force that can trample anything that stands in its path! Would you send every young elf in Qualinost to his death?”

Gilthas spun around, at first too surprised even to speak. He gaped at the senator in astonishment, finally shaking his head, forcing out the words. “What would you have us do, then? Flee to Ergoth again, the second exile in thirty years? And even if we wanted to, you know there’s no time for the city’s population to get away!”

“Now is not the time for us to lose our heads,” Rashas replied, his tone calm and soothing. The Speaker realized that somehow Rashas had again made Gilthas appear to be an excitable youngster. Now the elder senator addressed the crowd of elves in general. “What else do we know of this army, these ‘Knights of Takhisis’? Who leads them?”

“I was able to learn a few things during my brief captivity. Their leader is now in Palanthas, a man called Lord Ariakan,” Guilderhand explained. “He is said to be the son of the Dragon Highlord Ariakas, who was once the Emperor of Ansalon. His mother is unknown, though there are those who claim her to be the goddess Zeboim.”

“A lackey of the Dark Queen’s... I admit that the tale makes a certain amount of sense,” Rashas mused.

“I know that these Dark Knights have already conquered Kalaman and much of the north—without bloodshed,” claimed one noble elf, who was a regular importer of marble quarried near that fabled city on the northern coast. “Even allowed the Lord Mayor of Kalaman to hold his seat. Business there has been better than ever.”

“The Kalamans didn’t fight?” This question was asked by Quaralan, who seemed to be making himself spokesman for the young hotheads who had scorned Gilthas’s appointment to the Speaker’s throne.

The noble merchant shrugged. “Perhaps there’ll be a battle at the High Clerist’s Tower, where the Solamnics are trying to hold off the invaders. Of course, if that tower is lost, Palanthas itself would be pretty much defenseless. I would expect that they would let the invaders march in. It would be foolish to let the place get burned down when they don’t have enough troops even to man their own walls.”

“And they have the proof before them, for it’s a fact that Ariakan’s army spared Kalaman!” shouted another elf. “I know this from my brother, who is a seller of silk there. The mayor maintains his station, and the council, too. Indeed, he says that these knights have been a boon in some ways. They’ve stopped the thievery that was always such a problem near the docks.”

Gilthas felt he had to take some steps to control this discussion. He stood straight and assumed his sternest glare as he looked around the chamber. “Am I to assume that the attitude of the Thalas-Enthia is that we welcome these invaders with open arms, that we invite them into our capital and perhaps hope that they will help us solve some recurring problems regarding merchandising and crime?”

His sarcasm was heavy and apparent. After all, Qualinost had no crime to speak of, and virtually every elf in this chamber was rich beyond the dreams of even the most avaricious human noble. Even so, his scornful remarks were greeted mostly with silence, a few elves exchanging nervous glances.

“It seems logical that we should at least meet with the leader of this army,” Rashas said. “There can be no harm in diplomatic negotiations, in finding out what his intentions are.” He addressed Guilderhand. “Is this Lord Ariakan himself leading the troops that are marching on Qualinost?”

“The best information I could gather is no, Esteemed Senator. The commander of this army is called Lord Salladac. He is reputedly a trusted lieutenant of Ariakan’s and has been given complete command of the campaign in Qualinesti.”

“At the very least, we should arm ourselves and make ready to fight!” Gilthas declared, surprising himself with his own vehemence. He heard several shouts of agreement, though they were scattered far and wide through the crowded chamber.

“Who will command?” asked Rashas. “Our most experienced general, Palthainon, is in the west, trying to solve the bandit problem.”

“Then I shall take charge of the troops,” Gilthas said coldly, ignoring the looks of astonishment he saw on many faces. He was prepared to challenge for his right to do so when, to his surprise, Rashas spoke in support.

“I commend the Speaker for his excellent suggestion,” declared the senator. “He has the necessary authority to bring together such recruits as we can gather in a short time.”

“Hear, hear!” Cries of support came from here and there in the chamber, though it was nothing like a universal acclamation.

“At the same time,” Rashas continued, “we have to realize that there is no profit in excessive bloodshed. The honorable members of the Thalas-Enthia must consider the minimum terms that we would require to arrive at a nonmartial solution.”

Gilthas shook his head in astonishment. “You’d be prepared to abandon the defense of the city, of the kingdom, before the first arrow is loosed?”

“I make the suggestion merely because I know that it will make sense for us to be prepared for every eventuality. We all applaud our young Speaker’s courage and the Tightness of your intentions. But bear in mind that war is serious business, and that we are facing a great force, well practiced in the arts of subjugation and conquest. Courage and honor are worthy concepts for any elf, but foolish sacrifice is nothing more than a waste.”

“Where are the Dark Knights now?” Gilthas asked, turning back to Guilderhand. He wondered how the spy had so easily escaped from these ruthless and efficient attackers, but there was no time to follow up on that question.

“They crossed the border after marching along the Southway. I predict they will be no more than five miles away by the dawn.”

“Then we really don’t have any time to lose,” the Speaker declared. He addressed the group at large. “I urge you all to go home, to arm your servants and to take up weapons yourselves. Armed elves should congregate...” Where? Suddenly Gilthas felt overwhelmed by the task. He didn’t even know how to bring his armed elves together! He thought fleetingly of his father, missing Tanis with a powerful sense of longing. Surely the heroic half-elf would know what to do.

“The Hall of the Sky?” suggested Rashas smoothly. The suggestion was perfect. The “hall” was in a fact a huge clearing in the center of the city, large enough to accommodate a good-sized force.

“Yes—meet at the hall, and spread the word!”

The agitated crowd began to disperse, but Gilthas took Rashas aside before the senator left the hall. “I need to send a message,” said the young Speaker. The thought of his father had brought to mind another concern, something that he was determined to address.

“A message? Where?” inquired Rashas, irritated at the delay.

“I want to send for my mother. With war threatening the land, she should come to Qualinesti. I know that my father will be fighting, and it would be best to have her return here to her homeland.” Where she’ll be safe, Gilthas wanted to add, but he didn’t say it, for he knew that it wasn’t true.

Surprisingly, Rashas thought for only a few seconds and then nodded sagely. “An excellent idea,” he replied. “By all means, send for Laurana. Encourage her to come with all haste.”

Watching the senator’s back, Gilthas tried to fathom the elder’s response. He had expected some resistance, even an outright refusal. Now he was worried that Rashas had agreed so easily.

Still, he would send the message by fast courier, then turn to the matter of raising a defense force. Relieved to have reached some course of action, Gilthas left the hall, followed by many worried elves. But he took little notice of the throng around him as he made his way back to his house, wondering what he should wear, where he would find a weapon. And what would he do with a weapon if he had one?

Shaking off his concerns, he stalked away, knowing that he had an army to raise... and just a few hours during which to do it.

Chapter Twelve A Night of Glory and Blood

The outlaws found Palthainon on the muddy field. His hair had been seared off by a dragon’s lightning bolt that had also knocked the warrior elf unconscious, but other than that, the general was unharmed.

The same could not be said for two of his three companies of recruits. Nearly four hundred elves had been caught in the clearing when the blue serpents had flown over, and nearly three-quarters of them had been slaughtered by dragon breath or by the talons of the monsters and the swords of their riders.

Only the elves of the first company—the group that, ironically, would have been the first to suffer the lethal strike of Porthios’s aborted ambush—had survived unscathed, by taking shelter in the thick woods that would otherwise have been their undoing. Though these city elves had tumbled among archers who had been prepared to attack them, both bands of the sylvan folk had been so startled by the arrival of the greater foe that their initial conflict had been immediately forgotten.

Fortunately the dragons hadn’t stayed long after working their butchery on the field. Neither had they discovered the outlaws’ griffons, who had been sheltered in small clearings very near the site of the intended ambush. Now these savage fliers had been gathered, and the survivors of the Qualinesti force had joined with the bandits preparatory to falling back into the forest. General Palthainon was still dazed and disoriented, so Porthios had assumed command of all the elves.

“Get the wounded back to our camp,” he directed. “See that the general is made as comfortable as possible, but don’t waste any time.”

“Lord Porthios!” The cry came from the skies, and the shadow of a griffon’s wings momentarily passed over. One of his Qualinesti warriors gestured wildly as the creature came to rest before him.

“There’s a whole army to the north. It’s a full-scale invasion!”

“All under the banner of the Dark Queen?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Knights, and columns of marching troops as well—great, blue-skinned brutes, they look like they could crush an elf’s skull with their bare hands. It looks like the dragons are winging back to rejoin the infantry.”

Porthios didn’t know where this army could have come from, but the attack on the elven formation made its objective clear enough. “How far away are the ground troops?” he asked, trying to think, to plan.

“Twenty miles. They’re finding slow going in the woods, but they’re coming this way.”

“Let’s get away from here, then. We’ll make plans as soon as we reach the gorge.”

Together with about three hundred survivors from the Qualinesti militia, the outlaw band made its way back to the encampment. Because so many elves had to travel on foot, the journey took quite a bit longer than the one-hour griffon flight that had led the band to the ambush site. The wounded were loaded onto litters, which further slowed down the party’s progress, and it wasn’t until well after sunset that the weary elves marched down the trail into the deep darkness of the cool gorge.

Once back at the camp, they learned—from Dallatar’s Kagonesti, not surprisingly—that another force of Dark Knights had invaded the eastern end of the kingdom and was even now drawing up against Qualinost itself. Flying scouts had given Porthios an idea of the size of the army marching along the coast. It seemed likely that at least five thousand troops were headed almost directly toward his camp.

The wild elves had come with another fifty or so warriors—“braves,” as they called themselves. With this addition, Porthios found himself with a force of some six hundred elves, but nearly half of them were unblooded recruits, fresh from the streets and courtyards of Qualinost. Furthermore, he had serious questions about whether or not those elven warriors would have the stomach to battle a truly dangerous foe.

The bandit leader met with Dallatar, Samar, and Tarqualan around the firepit in the center of their encampment to discuss a course of action. They were warmed only by a low bed of smokeless coals, for with dragons abroad, the elves knew the need for camouflage and concealment was drastically heightened.

“We can stay here and hope they pass us by, or we can pick up the camp and move,” Porthios began. “Or we can choose to fight a battle against outrageous odds. We have to discuss the question. It’s too important for me to make a decision by myself.”

“I say we attack them from ambush,” Samar urged. “They won’t be expecting it, and we can hit them hard while they’re marching, then use the griffons to get away.”

“My braves fight on the ground,” Dallatar declared. “We have befriended griffons through the years but would not ride them into battle. They should be free to make their own choices.”

“Believe me, these griffons are choosing their allegiance,” Tarqualan said. “They have refused to serve the elves of Qualinesti ever since the Thalas-Enthia ordered Alhana Starbreeze imprisoned.”

“Be that as it may,” Porthios interjected, “there are a little more than two hundred griffons allied with our band. That’s not enough to move all of us anywhere. If we fight, two-thirds of us will have to go into battle on the ground.”

“Still, an ambush is the only way—hit them as they march, then fall back into the woods,” Samar urged. “We’ve spied on these brutes. They move like ogres, and they’ll never catch an elf in thick terrain.”

“I agree,” Dallatar said somberly. “We cannot just move away from them, and my pride will not let them take our woodlands without a fight. We wild elves have already decided—we will attack the invaders. What the rest of you do is a matter for your own councils.”

“I applaud your courage,” Porthios replied with equal sincerity. “And I urge you to remain with us. Surely you can see that, together, we can strike a much harder blow than any part of us working alone.”

“Then you, too, are determined to fight?” the Kagonesti chieftain asked.

Porthios looked at his companions. Samar nodded curtly; he had already made his opinion known. Tarqualan drew a deep breath, then spoke. “Neither I nor my scouts could ever sleep well again, knowing we had turned our backs on such a menace. Even if it leads us to the endless sleep of death, such a battle is preferable to flight.”

“Then we are unanimous,” the outlaw who had once been Speaker of the Sun declared. “For I, too, cannot bear the thought of this incursion passing without a fight. If we are fortunate, Qualinost will stand against the attack from the east, and we can sting this western army hard enough that they will have to rethink their strategy. At the very least, they will know that they have attacked a proud, brave enemy.”

“What of the elders and the little ones?” asked Dallatar. “As a rule, they do not fight beside the male and female braves.”

Porthios thought of Alhana and Silvanoshei. He had a fleeting wish that his baby could have been born into a time of peace. Such eras, he realized grimly, were all too rare. “Nor is that the case with us,” he replied. “I suggest that we choose our battleground as far from this camp as possible. Perhaps by doing so we can keep this gorge safe. If the worst happens, the new mothers, the elders, and the children will learn of our defeat, and then they will have to make a quick departure.”

“Madness! What are these crazy ideas you discuss?”

The shrill voice came from out of the darkness, and then the Qualinesti General Palthainon, his head bandaged where the lightning bolt had seared his scalp, shambled into view. He was waving his arms, looking wide-eyed from one elf to another.

“They have dragons—surely you saw that! They cut my companies to pieces, wiped us out almost to the last elf! The only solution is to take to the woods and try to make our way back to the city. Once there, we can sue for peace!”

Dallatar looked at the Qualinesti general with ill-concealed scorn. Porthios kept his expression neutral but rose to his feet and gestured that the commander of the troops from the city join them at the low fire.

“I am glad to see that you are recovering from your wounds,” he said graciously. “But you have been unconscious. Perhaps you don’t know that more than half of your troops survived the attack.”

“Survived? How?” demanded the general.

“They joined us in the woods,” Samar said curtly. “We know that your mission was to find and attack us. We were prepared to ambush you as you crossed the stream. You might say that the dragon attack actually saved the lives of a good number of your warriors.”

“Madness!” cried Palthainon again. “I—I order you, as the duly appointed commander of Qualinesti forces, to cease this insanity!”

All intentions of civility vanished in the rush of anger that swept through Porthios. He whirled on the general, his hand going to the hilt of his sword, knuckles whitening as his grip tightened. Frightened by the gesture and by the expression on the dark elf’s face, Palthainon stepped hastily backward.

“I remind you, General—” Porthios’s voice was heavy with scorn—“that you were appointed to the command of a force with the task of seeking and attacking my band. Also, that you failed dismally in that task. You led your companies into the perfect site for an ambush. If the blue dragons hadn’t come along, you would have been cut to pieces! Now you speak of tactics that any loyal elf can only describe as treasonous!”

“You are the traitor!” hissed the Qualinesti commander, apparently deciding that his life wasn’t in immediate danger. “You hide here in the forest, taking the rightfully earned goods of loyal elven merchants! How dare you—”

With lightning quickness, Porthios reached out a hand and slapped the general, spinning him around, sending him tumbling to the ground.

“You will not address me with contempt,” he growled, standing over the cringing elf. “Nor will you ask how I dare to do anything. You have drawn your own sentence. I would have willingly treated you as an ally against the greater menace of the Dark Knights, but now I can only see you as a craven coward. You will be treated as a prisoner, and even that is a role of higher honor than I think you deserve.”

Palthainon looked as though he wanted to speak, but he gulped and reconsidered his words.

“Guards!” shouted Porthios. Several of his warriors came running. “Bind this elf securely, hands and feet, then tie him to a tree. I want him watched at all times!”

The elves quickly did as they were told. In the meantime, the outlaw leader looked around the encampment, seeing that all of the elves had observed the confrontation between the two leaders. Porthios also considered the problem of the general he had just ordered bound to a tree. There were not enough elves in his band to spare any for guard duty, and as long as he was here, Palthainon was an obvious irritant and distraction.

He decided that this was the time to address the issue of the band’s past and future loyalties.

“Elves of Qualinesti,” he declared, speaking loudly. His words were directed at the warriors who had marched with Palthainon, though all the elves in the camp listened attentively. “I offer you a choice—a choice that you must make now, tonight.

“My loyal scouts and the braves of the Kagonesti will strive to resist this new invasion of our homeland. Our opponents are many, and include blue dragons among their number. But we are elven warriors, and we are fighting for our own forests, so I promise you that we will give these invaders something to think about. We will let them know that Qualinesti is not a nation to be violated with casual arrogance.

“There is at least one among us who feels that this is a doomed course, that we should crawl back to the city, and there try to make peace with these invaders. He has not said what he is prepared to pay for this peace... his treasures? His woman? Who knows—and who cares? I only know that such a choice is repugnant to me.

“But know this, also: I intend to release General Palthainon, to allow him to make his way back to the city and to sacrifice whatever he feels is necessary to save his life. He will be taken into the woods before dawn and pointed in the direction of Qualinost.”

Here Porthios drew a deep breath. He was about to make a tremendous gamble, and he could only hope that he had judged these elves properly.

“I offer this opportunity to any of you who would accompany the general back to the city... back to his negotiated peace, or whatever that course holds. For the rest, I ask you to sharpen your swords and make ready your souls. In the morning, we march to war.”

After a few minutes of deliberation, only about two dozen of Palthainon’s original company elected to desert the band in the gorge. The outlaw leader had these elves escorted southeastward from the camp. They were divested of their swords—“You won’t be doing any fighting,” he pointed out with inescapable logic—but allowed to keep their bows and a few arrows for hunting.

As he was led from the encampment, the general tried to bluster some threats about returning with a new army, but the outlaws took the sting from his words by laughing in his face. While a strong escort of Kagonesti insured that these refugee elves kept going, Porthios met with his other chieftains and discussed a plan for the attack on the Dark Knights.

“We have seen the strength of the enemy, and we know something about the heart of our own troops,” he began as Dallatar, Tarqualan, and Samar all listened intently. “It has been suggested that we strike the Dark Knights while they are on the march, then melt back into the woods. This is a tactic that has some chance of success, but I would like to propose something else.”

“Speak,” Samar said earnestly. “We have all seen the wisdom of your battle plans.”

“Very well. Instead of an ambush while the enemy is on the move, I suggest we strike their camp during the quiet, dark hours before dawn. They will be weary and unsuspecting, while many of them will be sound asleep. We, on the other hand, will be able to make our escape under cover of darkness.”

And so it was decided. The battle was planned for the middle of the following night.

The Dark Knights marched with military precision, and the elves who spied on them from the woods soon saw the wisdom of Porthios’s suggestion. Outriders on horseback preceded the column, and skirmish companies of the blue-skinned brutes were scattered far and wide. As a result, any ambushing party of elves would have been discovered long before the main body of the enemy force was in range.

Furthermore, the blue dragons ranged before and to the flanks of the marching column, always within hailing distance. Any attacking force would have been hammered hard by the lightning breath and crushing weight of the massive, deadly wyrms.

Not that the army’s evening camp would make an easy target, of course.

The Kagonesti, who were the most adept among the elves at moving silently and unseen through the woods, kept close to the force and periodically brought reports back to Porthios. The outlaw captain was waiting with the main body of his force ten miles north of the encampment in the gorge and very near to the line of the enemy’s march. Together with two hundred griffons, he had fewer than six hundred elves to attack a formation that numbered at least ten times the number of his own warriors.

“They have stopped marching for the day,” Dallatar reported as the sun neared the western horizon. “They will make their camp on the slopes and summit of a large, steep hill.”

Further reports indicated that the Dark Knights would apparently keep one dragon in the air all night, alternating in one-hour shifts so that the flying serpent wouldn’t get overly tired. Though the invaders didn’t build a palisade around their camp, the steepness of the hill gave them a measure of defensibility. Some thickets of brush and stumpy pine trees extended up the slopes, but the crest of the hill was bald, providing the knights with good visibility and easy movement from one side of the elevation to another.

As soon as they learned that the enemy had stopped marching, the elves moved out. Like a file of ghosts in the forests, they moved silently toward the hill. The Kagonesti led the way, with the volunteers from the Qualinost recruits in the middle and the scouts of Porthios’s original force bringing up the rear. The griffons came with them, padding along on the ground in order to prevent any chance of being discovered in flight.

Full darkness had settled around them by the time they drew near to the hill.

“Do they have pickets in the forest?” Porthios asked Dallatar, gesturing to the fringe of thick woods around the base of the hill.

“Not enough,” replied the Kagonesti. “Those who are there we will kill in silence.”

“Very well.” The dark elf looked upward, seeing the shadowy form of the circling dragon pass across a pale wisp of cloud. “We’ll take to the sky and try to get that fellow at the same time.”

The rest of the battle plan was formed on the spot, taking into account the terrain, the relative abilities of the Kagonesti and the ill-trained recruits from Qualinost. Fortunately each of these elves had a flint and a steel, and these were ingredients of a key aspect of the impending assault. The wild elves left immediately, relying on their natural stealth as they embarked on the difficult task of removing the Dark Knight pickets.

It was nearing midnight as the rest of the elves dispersed, two bands slipping through the woods to different places at the base of the hill, while Porthios and two hundred of his original Qualinesti waited with the griffons to make up the final part of the attack.

The minutes seemed to drag by like hours, but he knew that they had to wait. Timing was a crucial element of the attack, and each formation would have to make its presence known at the appropriate time. Finally he judged that the moment was right, and with a gesture of his hand, the prince sent two hundred elves into their saddles. White wings fluttered through the clearing, and he had a brief impression of a reverse snowstorm as the fierce griffons swarmed around and slowly lifted themselves and their riders into the sky.

Once they had reached the top of the trees, the elven formation strung into a long line, flying swiftly away from the Dark Knights’ camp. Porthios was grateful for the absence of moonlight as he gradually led the group higher and higher into the air. Puffy clouds wafted past, blocking out many of the stars, and he hoped that these, too, would work to the elves’ advantage.

Gaining altitude steadily, Porthios led the flying formation around a large mass of cloud. Here, screened from the invaders’ view, they spiraled into a rapid climb and finally headed toward the enemy’s camp. They flew at an altitude far above the monotonous spiral of the flying dragon. Maintaining utter silence, they winged closer and closer, veering only enough to keep one or more clouds between themselves and the Dark Knights.

Finally the outlaw prince and Stallyar emerged from a gap between two clouds, and far below he saw the outline of a large blue dragon. The serpent was gliding, wings lazily outspread, with the dark outline of a rider on the saddle between its shoulders. Both dragon and Dark Knight had their attention focused on the ground, which was just what Porthios had been hoping for—indeed, had been counting on.

The griffons tucked their wings, one by one other plummeting after their leader. Porthios drew his sword in a silent gesture while Stallyar, who knew the plan as well as any of the elves, targeted the neck of the monstrous serpent. Wind whistled past, rasping against the prince’s skin, and he felt certain that the knight must soon hear his approach. But even as the target grew larger, until the dragon’s wingspread seemed to span the full width of his vision, both dragon and rider held their attention on the still, dark hilltop below.

Just before the two fliers collided, Porthios leapt from his saddle, landing hard on the back of the dragon. The wyrm uttered a startled gasp as Stallyar’s talons scraped his head, while the elf’s sword, a weapon toned and hallowed by generations of the finest elven artisans, was darting toward the back of the armored knight.

But perhaps that dragonrider had heard his attacker an instant before contact. In any event, the man twisted away, grunting as the sword scraped past his shoulder. He had a short-bladed sword in his own hand, and he made a powerful thrust, rocking Porthios back on the rough spines of the dragon’s backbone. At the same time, the wyrm ducked into a dive, and the elf felt himself sliding toward a broad, leathery wing.

Frantically he reached out, grasping at anything he could touch. His hand closed over the back of the knight’s saddle, and his sword slashed wildly. Steel clanged as the two weapons met, and then the dragon tilted back, twisting and hissing as it tried to pull the griffon off its neck. Porthios was pushed forward with the shift in momentum, and he thrust unerringly, feeling the sharp blade punch through the man’s breastplate, then cut through gristle, flesh, and bone.

Without a sound, the knight toppled away, and now more griffons were plunging past. Elven swords sliced the wyrm’s wings, hacking scales from the supple neck, gouging deep into haunches, flanks, and tail. Still grasping the saddle, Porthios leaned forward and stabbed downward, slicing deep into the wyrm’s shoulder, feeling the dragon twist convulsively. Eyes wide, the elves saw gaping jaws, a neck twisted impossibly as the creature lashed around to bite at him.

But then Samar was there, the warrior-mage riding Bellaclaw and bearing the slender dragonlance. The keen silver edge sliced through the dragon’s neck, gouging deep, nearly severing the hateful head. Porthios was washed by a warm spray, and he realized that blood was gushing from the deep wound on the monster’s neck.

And just like that, the dragon died, never uttering a sound louder than the irritated hissing that had greeted the first attack. The massive wings swept upward, pushed by air pressure as the lifeless shape tumbled toward the ground. Sheathing his sword, Porthios flung himself into the air, flailing wildly, grasping at Stallyar’s reins as the griffon dived past. Pulling himself into the saddle, the prince jabbed his feet into his stirrups and looked around with a sense of exhilaration. The rest of the griffons were diving with him, wings tucked, though they weren’t dropping as fast as the slain dragon.

Still, the camp on the hilltop was now growing underneath them. His eyes skimming the trees, Porthios spotted a glimmer of flame, then several spots of brightness, like living sparks that danced and sparkled in the dry woods. He heard shouts of alarm, saw agitated activity, and knew that the timing of the attack was working perfectly.

Dragons bellowed, and knights shuffled out of their bedrolls, cursing and grunting as they hastily slapped on their weapons. The blue dragons were gathered at the hilltop, and they huffed and snorted impatiently. All of their attention, as far as Porthios could tell, was focused on the fires that were now growing to encompass an arc around a third of the base of the hill.

The slain dragon crashed to the ground in the middle of a bivouac of the army’s brutish warriors, and these blue-skinned creatures bellowed and howled in fury and surprise. Some of them even turned on the corpse, stabbing with monstrous spears or hacking with swords, obviously unaware that the creature was dead.

Then the griffons plummeted like deadly hailstones into the middle of the dragon camp. Abruptly the night was split by the flash of lightning, though the first bolt missed the attackers to cut deeply into the flank of another blue dragon. Porthios wielded his sword from Stallyar’s saddle, striking down a knight who tried to raise a massive, two-handed sword. The silvery griffon galloped forward, ripping into the wing of a dragon with his sharp beak and claws. The elven captain slashed the keen steel blade, cutting another rip out of the wing.

The griffon pounced quickly away, just a hairbreadth of space before the wyrm’s massive talons smashed into the ground. Instinctively Stallyar darted to the side, and a moment later a blast of lightning scored through the night, streaking past, crackling through the air and sizzling the skin on the back of the elf’s neck. Porthios ducked, already feeling the imminent, killing blast of the next lightning bolt, but now the dragon was distracted by other griffons and whipped about to slash at new attackers that worried its wings, flanks, and tail.

Stallyar spread his wings and leapt high, while Porthios had a sickening impression of another griffon’s wing, torn from the bleeding body and floating grotesquely in the air. An elf screamed, the sound hideous as a dragon bit down and gored the unfortunate warrior in two. But dragons and knights were howling, too.

Another man stood in the griffon’s path, and Stallyar reached down, tearing away the fellow’s scalp with a single, vicious bite. Another knight charged in from the right, and Porthios chopped hard, feeling his sword cut through a steel helmet to gouge deep into the skull below. The man screamed and tumbled away, dropping his sword to clasp both hands to his bleeding head.

Flames flickered across the hilltop, the lingering effects of lightning sparking through the air, while other sparks, scattered from campfires and fanned by frantic wings, tumbled across the ground and ignited tufts of dry grass. Dragons still roared, and here and there griffons shrieked in pain as they were caught by massive talons or reptilian jaws. Bodies twitched, and men and elves moaned in pain. The scene was nightmarish, a chaos of horrible sounds, garish fires, and gruesome injuries whirling across the dusty hilltop. Out of nowhere, a hot breeze arose, fanning the little fires into furious blazes, swirling the thick dust through the air until it clogged mouths, eyes, and nostrils.

A dismounted elf tumbled past Porthios, and a blue dragon head lashed like a striking snake in pursuit. The prince’s sword chopped down, gouging the flaring nose, but the wyrm bit down and the fleeing elf was cut in two. The dragon shook its head like a dog worrying a rabbit, and Porthios stabbed upward, carving deep into the blue-scaled neck. Now the serpent reared back in surprise, bloody jaws gaping for another strike.

From the flank, another griffon dived in, tearing at the monster’s face, and Porthios saw Samar slip from his saddle, sliding down the dragon’s side, stabbing deep with his lance. The two elves charged in as more griffons clawed and snapped at the wyrm’s face. With a powerful stab, the prince thrust his blade through the scaly breast, twisting with all his strength. A gout of chill blood soaked him as, with a convulsive shudder, the great serpent tumbled forward.

Porthios tripped, falling on his back as tons of slain lizard pressed him down. He felt strong hands on his shoulders, and he kicked frantically, barely squirming free before the monstrous form crashed to the ground.

“Thanks,” he gasped as Samar let him go and turned to face the attack of a charging knight. “That’s twice you’ve save my life.”

The other elf had no time to reply as he parried the human’s savage blow. The knight’s face was twisted in an expression of grief, and Porthios wondered for an instant if this man had been the dead dragon’s rider. If so, his sorrow only increased his fury, for his second blow knocked Samar’s lance from the elf’s hand. As the loyal Silvanesti fell backward, Porthios lunged in from the side, piercing the man’s flank and then pushing the blade upward to cut the blood vessels around his heart. Soundlessly the knight fell across the foreleg of the dragon, his own warm blood mingling with the cool fluid that still gushed from the blue’s torn chest.

A bolt of lightning crackled through the air, knocking Porthios flat and blasting a griffon and its rider into charred flesh. Stirred by the dry wind, white feathers whirled past, bright in the firelight and deceptively gentle as they settled to the ground. Another dragon pounced, shaking the ground with its weight as it bore an elf and his mount to the ground. With savage bites and tearing claws, it instantly reduced its helpless victims to gory flesh.

“Fall back!” cried Porthios, realizing that the dragons had recovered from their initial surprise and were now making a methodical attempt to eradicate their elven attackers.

The cry was repeated from every elven voice within reach as the warriors leapt into their saddles and griffon wings pulsed, aiding the powerful legs in vaulting the creatures into the air. Some of the elves flew overhead, and these shot arrow after arrow at the dragons, aiming for the sensitive eyes, desperately trying to hold the pursuit at bay long enough for the attackers to take to the air.

Porthios found Stallyar, seized the reins, and then heard a groan of pain from underfoot. He looked down to see an elven warrior, missing one of his arms at the elbow but desperately trying to push himself to his knees. The captain grabbed the fellow by his good arm, pulled him across the griffon’s withers, and silently urged Stallyar into the sky.

Burdened by the extra weight, the griffon didn’t try to leap straight up. Instead, he raced across the hilltop, hurling himself into the air at the edge of the crest, straight into the teeth of the hot wind. Immediately white wings spread wide, catching the air.

Then, with the keen instinct that had so often saved his own and his rider’s life, Stallyar banked hard to the side and dived. Porthios leaned flat across his mount’s shoulders, clinging to the wounded elf with both hands as a lightning bolt hissed through the air over his head. He felt the searing heat on the back of his neck, sensed the world canting crazily as the griffon leveled out his flight, and then the hilltop was behind them. Another bolt spat outward, but sizzled into nothingness before it could reach them.

Laboring hard to gain altitude, Stallyar banked through a wide circle, and then dived into a thick column of smoke that was rising from the woods at the base of the hill. Ignoring the searing heat, blinking the tears from his eyes, Porthios looked down as the flier broke from the other side of the massive cloud.

He saw that the Kagonesti attack had ignited a great conflagration. Like his griffon riders, those elves were falling back but leaving chaos in their wake. Bellowing brutes raced back and forth, batting at flames that singed their skin, striking at shadows that seemed to move with living purpose in the light of the dancing, shifting plumes of fire. Casks of oil exploded with billowing towers of roiling heat, and from a stack of burning crates came the stench of charred beef as the army’s food stockpiles were incinerated.

Here and there a wild elf lay on the ground, his bloody corpse hammered with mindless violence by the brutes, and Porthios felt a stab of grief as he realized the horrific toll of this battle. But the wind whipped the flames higher, carrying the fires across the dry grass of the hillside, and everywhere the light showed an army disrupted by chaos. As Stallyar’s flight took him around the hill, he looked back to see saw Dark Knights turning their weapons against brutes, and other brutes smashing at their own comrades.

On the far side of the hill, he saw the effects of the third prong of his attack. Here the Qualinesti recruits, their numbers stiffened by a few of his bandit veterans, had waited until the rest of the camp was assaulted before they struck. A few fires flared here and there, and he saw that many brutes lay dead in the ruins. From the arrows and cuts in their backs, he suspected that—as he had planned—this part of the camp had been taken by surprise, ambushed while they looked toward the distractions of the first two attacks.

Finally the griffon was flying over the dark forest. Around him, Porthios saw other winged shapes, more of his Qualinesti who had escaped from the hilltop. Wondering what toll the morning would bring, the elves swept away from the Dark Knights toward their rendezvous in the deep woods.

Chapter Thirteen A Day of Shame and Tears

By evening, after one day of trying to recruit, Gilthas had concluded that the elves of Qualinost had no stomach for defending their city against the incursion of the Dark Knights. After sending a message to his mother, pleading with her to come to Qualinesti, he had spent the day going from house to house or speaking loudly at the intersections of the city’s main streets. In most cases, the elves were far more concerned with their own fate than in anything they could do to help the nation as a whole.

Rumors of the invasion, of course, had spread like wind through the city, and the Speaker was met with many panicked questions, demands for protection, and a level of fear that seemed likely to grow into hysteria. Everywhere he went he found people hiding their valuables, boarding up their splendid houses, disguising beautiful wives and nubile daughters as filthy hags. The mood among almost all of the elves was that if the Dark Queen’s army was drawing close to the city, there was no hope of preventing Qualinost’s fall.

A few, including some of those who still had pride in their homeland and a sense of the elven role in Krynn’s history, had scorned Gilthas’s proposal that they join him in fighting the invaders. One of them, the young Senator Quaralan, had almost spat in his face, declaring that the young Speaker lacked the honor to sit upon the throne of Qualinesti and that, as such, he was unsuitable to serve as the city’s military leader. Instead, Quaralan had said, he was making plans to flee with his family and household servants into the forest. There he would resist the occupation in whatever manner he could devise.

Shamed and humiliated, Gilthas had almost wept as he left the young noble’s lofty crystal mansion. How could they misunderstand him so? Why wouldn’t they even give him a chance to show that he could be a leader?

Indeed, almost no one had been willing to take up a sword and gather with the Speaker at the Hall of the Sky. Now, at sunset, the appointed hour for the meeting, barely threescore Qualinesti had gathered, and nothing about these volunteers gave him confidence even in this small fighting force. A few of them were veterans of the War of the Lance who had fought with Gilthanas and Laurana against the armies of the Dark Queen thirty years before. They were still young, though several had been so grievously wounded that they moved like cripples, or were missing an arm. And one of them was blind!

Dejectedly Gilthas thanked them for answering his appeal and told them that he would summon them again if they could be of use to the city. After sending them home, he trudged wearily through the city until he came to the Tower of the Sun, where—as he had expected—many members of the Thalas-Enthia were gathered, awaiting news.

Gilthas learned that Rashas’s spy, Guilderhand, had returned to the tower just before the Speaker’s arrival. Feeling more like an eavesdropper than the nominal ruler of this august gathering, he pushed through the doors and stood near the wall of the chamber.

Rashas stood atop the rostrum, and Guilderhand had just been led to the second-tier step. For once the spy was dressed decently—in the robes of an elven senator, as a matter of fact!—though the garb could not conceal the man’s essentially furtive and clever demeanor.

“Elves of the Thalas-Enthia,” Guilderhand began, “I have met with the leader of this army, a bold Knight of Takhisis called Lord Salladac I have been able to learn, through observation and surreptitious interviewing, that he is regarded as a man of integrity and honor, of great pride and of utmost savagery in battle.”

“Terms! Did he give you terms for our surrender?” cried an elderly senator near the back wall.

Guilderhand nodded and allowed himself the shadow of a smile—a smile that Gilthas thought distorted his ratlike features into something resembling a smug, self-satisfied, and well-fed weasel.

“Can the city be spared a sacking?” cried another elf anxiously.

“I believe that our courageous agent can set your worst fears to rest,” Rashas declared smoothly, thus confirming Gilthas’s suspicion that the senator had spoken to the spy before he made his report to the Thalas-Enthia as a whole.

“Indeed, I hope that I can,” Guilderhand declared. “Fortunately this ring of teleportation allowed me great freedom to move through the enemy camp. After learning all that I could about him—to my considerable reassurance, I promise you all—I presented myself to the lord as an emissary of this hallowed body.”

Of course you did, Gilthas thought bitterly. You didn’t have to wait for that role to be confirmed. You knew your master would support you as long as you did his bidding! He felt himself growing nauseous but forced his feet to remain in place, unwilling to attract attention to his presence here. Also, he had to admit that he was morbidly curious to see what sort of terms the enemy general had proposed.

“Lord Salladac received me most graciously. He is, as you may know by now, currently encamped on the road approaching the north bridge, less than a mile from the city’s gates. His troops, including many blue dragons, are bivouacked in the woods, but they have done so with obvious respect to the hallowed trees of our forest. Only a few trunks have been felled, to clear space for the dragons to sleep, and they are building no more fires than are absolutely necessary for comfort and cooking.”

Gilthas wondered how fires could be necessary for “comfort” in this sweltering summer. Nevertheless, Guilderhand’s information was greeted with quiet murmurs of appreciation throughout the crowd.

“The lord informed me that terms for Qualinesti were identical to those terms offered to Kalaman, a city that has yielded to the Knights of Takhisis, yet still functions with pride and identity intact.”

“How can you call that pride—to hand over your city and your people, to allow a foreign army to occupy and rule you?” demanded a female elf sarcastically. Gilthas recognized her as a radical young senator, Anthelia.

“Nevertheless,” Rashas intervened sternly, “all reports show that the people in that city have been able to maintain their possessions, their freedom, and even most of their significant rights!”

“Except rights such as the freedom to criticize the city’s rulers!” Anthelia retorted angrily.

“In my opinion, the right to criticize one’s ruler is a privilege that all too often lends itself to abuse,” snapped Rashas. “Now I must beg that you remain silent, so that our agent may conclude his report!”

“Let the silence linger here, then!” she shot back. “You’re all very good at that as long as your precious wealth and status remain intact!”

“Guards, remove that woman!” Rashas commanded, and several Kagonesti slaves moved forward from the doors.

“Never mind. I shall remove myself,” Anthelia replied. “I need to get some fresh air. The stink in here is already unbearable, and I have a feeling it’s going to get worse!”

Gilthas stepped out of the way as the slender female stalked through the crowd, which parted like magic before her haughty gaze. She glanced once at the young Speaker, then tossed her head and looked away. Feeling the full brunt of the contemptuous gesture, Gilthas once more withered under the combined onslaughts of guilt and shame.

At the portals to the great chamber, Anthelia spun around and regarded the gathered elves with wild eyes. Her blond hair was unkempt, scattered across her face and shoulders. Her face was twisted with an expression like pain, but it was an agony on a deep and spiritual level.

“I spit on your concept of honor! I spit upon your pretentiousness and your cowardice. Elves of Qualinesti, I spit on you all!”

Shocked, the Thalas-Enthia recoiled in mass as she did just that. The chamber erupted in outraged mutters and angry shouts as the doors slammed behind the departing woman.

Rashas, however, merely shook his head theatrically, a gesture that managed to imply benevolent tolerance for an immature girl and scorn for her radical notions. Once more Gilthas felt his temper rise, and yet once more he knew he was incapable of doing anything to prevent the march of events. Still, he started to push his way through the crowd, determined at last to make his way to the rostrum.

Surprisingly, the elves stood back to let him pass, and a wide avenue opened through the council chamber so that he was able to ascend the steps with relative ease. As he took his place on the rostrum, Rashas indicated to Guilderhand that he should keep speaking.

“As I was saying,” the spy resumed, somehow managing to affect an air of wounded dignity, “we have been assured that personal property, including slaves, will be respected. The Thalas-Enthia will continue to meet in this chamber and to have full authority over matters relating to Qualinesti, except when they conflict with matters of the Dark Knights’ security.”

“And what do the Dark Knights get out of this conquest?” Gilthas asked. “Why have they come here?”

“Perhaps I can answer that,” Rashas said. “For, shrewd and observant as our loyal agent is, these were facts he did not discern. However, as I hear more about the developments of this recent ‘war’”—he said the word as if the elves should realize that the conflict was in reality nothing more than a big misunderstanding—“the more I realize that the coming of the Dark Knights may, in fact, be a good thing for Ansalon.”

Murmurs of astonishment greeted this statement, but they were muted by those who found some cause for agreement with the senator’s startling remark. The young Speaker of the Sun found nothing agreeable in the statement, however, and turned his eyes upon Rashas with a cold glare.

“Can you explain yourself?” Gilthas asked. “Does this mean that you have chosen to embrace the worship of the Dark Queen?”

“Certainly not!” Rashas was indignant. “Nor, as I understand the terms of this occupation, is the worship of Takhisis a matter that the knights intend to advocate. But think about it, wise elves... think about the events that have marked our world in the last years.” He spoke reasonably, turning his back to Gilthas as he addressed the elder senators in the front rows of the council.

“Haven’t we seen an increase in banditry and brigandage? All across Ansalon, and even here, in Qualinesti? And has there not been a tendency among the youth to scorn the time-honored ways of their elders, to abandon the wisdom that has evolved through centuries, through millennia of life and culture?”

Now his words were greeted with nods of agreement, and Gilthas knew that the senator had them.

“We have all seen the signs of this cultural erosion... the lack of respect shown to those of high rank. Too many fortunes are made easily today, and as a consequence, the hallowed traditions of generations-long dynasties are replaced by upstart youngsters who would as soon spit upon this great tower as honor it with appropriate fealty.”

Who could argue with this eminently reasonable statement? After all, the memory of Anthelia’s angry departure was still at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

“Then, too, there are matters of sedition, such as the treaty our former Speaker and his Silvanesti wife were attempting to impose upon us. They would have broken down the time-honored barriers that make us our own unique people!

“Elves of the Thalas-Enthia, it seems to me that the coming of the Dark Knights is not necessarily the tragedy that we first perceived it to be. Surely they will take steps to guard our highways from bandits, and perhaps, where we are inclined through benevolence and tolerance to put up with outrageous behavior, the knights will see that such outbursts are punished in a way that will prevent them from happening again.”

Once more the lingering shame of Anthelia’s diatribe worked in Rashas’s favor. No elf had been bold enough to lay a hand upon her as she stormed out, but there were many here who would have relished the prospect of seeing her imprisoned, whipped, or even worse.

“Finally, there is the matter of practicality, the knowledge that we simply do not have a force to resist this imminent onslaught. Or, forgive me Honored Speaker.” Now Rashas turned to Gilthas, who stood, white-lipped, behind him. “Did you have success in gathering an army to defend our city.”

“You know very well that I did not,” replied the young Speaker tightly.

Rashas did not even bother to acknowledge the response. “Then I make the following resolution. That we send an emissary to Lord Salladac, empowered to treat with him, and that we make a pact to accept his terms. We will welcome him into our city and treat him with the honor a conqueror deserves, and we will hope that Qualinesti is allowed to flourish under the same circumstances as Palanthas and Kalaman.

“I will ask for a voice vote. Speak if you are in favor of my resolution.”

There was a mutter of assent—not a shout of acclamation, but still a nearly unanimous grumble of elven voices.

“And opposed?...”

Gilthas wanted to shout his own outrage, but he knew there was no use. In truth, what good would it do to resist, when the elven nation could not muster an army, when the people did not have the will to defend themselves? And so he held his silence.

“It is decided, then,” Rashas declared. “The Speaker of the Sun and Stars and I myself shall go to see Lord Salladac on the morrow. With luck, by tomorrow night, we will again be a nation at peace.”

At peace, perhaps... Gilthas’s thoughts were bitter, and tears stung his eyes.

But peace at what price?

Lord Salladac was an imposing figure, taller than an elf and broad-shouldered and massive in a way that was unmistakably human. Gilthas quailed at a momentary image: It was not difficult to imagine this man picking up an elf in his hands and breaking him in two.

But in contrast to his bearlike physique, the lord’s face and words were geniality personified. The two elven emissaries were ushered into his command tent, and he greeted them warmly. Servants offered small glasses of iced wine before withdrawing to leave the trio alone. Seated in comfortable chairs of wood that were ingeniously designed to fold for easy transport, Gilthas and Rashas faced the leader of the invasion force.

“Your terms have been relayed to us,” the senator began without preamble.

“Ah, yes, your emissary... Guilderhand, I believe he was called. He seemed impressed by my display of strength.”

“Would you really have sentenced him to death had you caught him sneaking around your camp?” Gilthas asked.

Salladac chuckled. “Why? In fact, he was quite useful to me. Though I doubt that he suspects the fact, I myself arranged for him to steal that ring of teleportation. I knew that if he had freedom of movement around my camp, he would come to the conclusion that resistance would be futile.”

Gilthas flushed, embarrassed and shamed by the knowledge of how easily the elves had been manipulated.

“After considerable debate,” Rashas said, with a sidelong glare at Gilthas, “the Thalas-Enthia has voted to accept your more than generous terms.”

“Splendid!” declared Salladac, in a manner that reminded Gilthas of a person agreeing to a pleasurable social outing. “I must say that I was fully confident elven wisdom would see the logic of our proposal.”

“Indeed,” Rashas said in the same polite tones. “I am sure, as events transpire, it will become apparent that there are advantages to all sides in this arrangement.”

The young Speaker felt his face flush with shame, but as always when he was in the presence of Rashas, he seemed unable to find the words to articulate his feelings. Better, he decided, to let the senator speak, to let him prostitute his nation and his pride for the sake of this invader’s ambition. Even so, Gilthas felt the history of the moment and knew that he was witnessing a shameful day in the long life of a proud race.

How could Rashas not feel that same humiliation?

But instead, the senator was cheerfully discussing the arrangements for the army’s entrance into the city, promising that splendid lodgings would be made available for Salladac and his chief lieutenants, offering to procure venison for the dragons and fruits and breads for the Dark Knights.

“And the brutes?” Gilthas suddenly asked. He had seen the ranks of blue-skinned, virtually naked warriors arrayed before the general’s command tent. Their appearance had been savage in the extreme, and he had noticed that even Rashas had quailed at their scowling expressions and hulking size. “What do they eat?”

Salladac shrugged. “They are not particular, as you might imagine. Indeed, it is not my intention to lodge them in the city. We have learned that they do not mix well with the nations that we are trying to unite across Ansalon. Of course, they are useful in battle, but we are grateful for occasions such as this, when a nation sees the wisdom of joining our ranks without the need for gratuitous bloodshed. And fortunately much of the land has thus acceded to our inevitable advance.”

“It’s true, then... places like Kalaman have also surrendered to the Dark Knights without fighting?” Gilthas had not fully believed the stories that Guilderhand and Rashas had presented to the senate.

“For the most part, yes. It’s true that the Knights of Solamnia look to put up a good fight at the Tower of the High Clerist. In the end, however, I have no doubt that Lord Ariakan will prevail. Indeed, the outcome of the fight is inevitable.” For the first time, the lord’s genial facade cracked slightly, and his look gave Gilthas a suggestion of the iron-thewed warrior that lived beneath the pleasant exterior. “As it would have been inevitable had you elves been so foolish as to offer resistance.”

Gilthas thought of his father and knew that he would have joined the Knights of Solamnia in their heroic defense. He wondered what would happen to Tanis, but he didn’t want to ask the human knight for information.

“Merely a few young hotheads,” Rashas was saying smoothly. “I assure your lordship that the bulk of our population gave no consideration to impulses toward useless violence.”

“I regret to say that is not the case in the western part of your nation,” Lord Salladac said, his tone still stern. “There dwells a horde of elves in your forest that has caused serious harm to the other branch of my force.”

“Porthios?” Gilthas blurted without thinking. “He attacked you?”

“Ah, the rebel of House Solostaran,” the lord replied. “That explains a great deal. Yes, in fact, he led many thousands of elves in a night attack against a legion of Dark Knights. His warriors killed hundreds of troops and destroyed most of the army’s provisions. Not to mention that they slayed three dragons as well.”

At last Gilthas felt some salve to his elven pride. He didn’t know how Porthios could have gained an army of thousands, nor how elves and griffons could hope to kill dragons, but here was proof that the entire race was not craven and cowardly. He strained to keep his face bland, but his heart pounded with the thrilling news.

“Of course,” Salladac continued, “that army was commanded by a lesser lord. He has been summoned back to Lord Ariakan, and has probably already paid for his failure with his life.

“Even so, it is a distressing matter and will command my attention during the next few days. I must attend to this Porthios before I embark for Silvanesti, where I fear that your fellow elves will not prove as wise and accommodating as have you Qualinesti. I trust that such incidents of violence and intractability will prove exceptionally rare, for I must warn you both that although I pride myself on my tolerance, I can only be pushed so far before I start pushing back. And that will lead to consequences that none of us want.”

“Porthios is an outlaw!” Rashas declared. “At the time of your inva—er, arrival—he was the subject of a campaign by our leading general, Palthainon, and hundreds of Qualinesti warriors. In fact, General Palthainon has only just returned to the city. It occurs to me that he may be able to furnish you with information about the location of the outlaw camp.”

“Good. Send General Palthainon to me at once.”

Rashas nodded eagerly, despite the human’s tone of peremptory command. “I assure you that when he is caught, the elves of the Thalas-Enthia will wholly support whatever punishment you deem appropriate.”

“Splendid!” Lord Salladac was again all happiness and geniality. “I can see that this is the beginning of a fruitful alliance, a relationship that will bring prosperity—and profit—to all sides.”

“Your wisdom obviously is as great as your military acumen,” said Rashas, standing and bowing deeply. “Now, if you will forgive us, we should return to the city and make ready to offer you a fitting welcome.”

Salladac and Gilthas rose, too. The human was effusive in his thanks to the senator, including the Speaker almost as an afterthought. “Shall we say noon tomorrow for our official entrance?” he said in conclusion.

“That is more than enough time,” Rashas agreed.

With an escort of braying dragons and prancing horses, the two elves were led back to the bridge and were finally left by the humans only as they started across the elegant span leading to Qualinost. Gilthas looked down, saw the white rapids churning through the gorge so far below, and had to forcibly shake away an impulse that urged him to leap over the railing and end his life and his shame on the jagged rocks in the deep ravine.

“Does that feel better?”

Kerianseray’s hands massaged the Speaker’s scalp, smoothly combing through the long, golden hair, pressing with soothing pressure against the throbbing points of pain beneath his temples and brow.

“Yes... it helps more than you can know,” Gilthas murmured, allowing his head to roll loosely from one shoulder to the other.

The Kagonesti woman stood behind him at the low couch where he half-reclined, trying to shake off the lingering distaste of his meeting with the Dark Knight lord. The afternoon had been spent in discussion with various senators and nobles, and he faced the prospect of more meetings tonight. But for now, at least, during the hour before sunset, he had been able to retreat to his own house for some much-needed solitude and recuperation.

“Would you like some tea to help you sleep?” she asked.

“No, I’m afraid sleep is a luxury that I’ll have to postpone,” Gilthas murmured, thinking how pleasant it was to have Kerian speak to him as a friend, instead of with the deep formality of a slave to a master. “There are matters to arrange, houses to procure for the lord’s residence in Qualinost.”

“Will the dragons come into the city?” Kerianseray asked. Though all the elves were frightened of the monstrous serpents, she spoke in cool, level tones.

“No... not the brutes, either.” Gilthas sat up, forgetting the pain in his skull as his indignation flared anew. “I tell you, this whole thing is just too damn civilized. It was like Rashas and Salladac were making arrangements for a tea party, not a military occupation—certainly not the surrender of a proud nation!”

“Sometimes pride gets lost behind wealth and comfort,” Kerian observed, startling the speaker with her insight. “Those such as Rashas are more concerned with keeping what they have than with leaving anything for the future—or showing any honor to the past.”

“Sometimes I think Porthios is right,” Gilthas admitted. “Did you know he attacked a Dark Knight army with thousands of elves? Even managed to kill three dragons!”

Kerianseray was quiet for a little while, and Gilthas thought she was surprised by the news. Instead, it was he who was startled when next she spoke.

“Actually, he only had about five hundred elves. But it’s true about the dragons... though many elves were killed as well.”

He sat up abruptly and turned to face her. “How do you know that?”

She shrugged shyly, allowing her golden hair to fall across her eyes. Then, with a proud gesture, she pushed it back and met his accusatory glare.

“Some of his elves were Kagonesti, of my father’s tribe. They have allied themselves with Porthios and share his village in the forest.”

“Really?” Gilthas was surprised, and a little thrilled, by this revelation. He took it to mean that Kerian trusted him, or she certainly would not have let him see the extent of her information. Then he thought further about what she was saying.

“Your father’s tribe, you said. You know where they are, where they live?”

Now her pride was unmistakable. “My father is Chief Dallatar, scion of Dallatar, one of the Kagonesti who saw our tribe survive the Cataclysm. I have been a slave since I was a little girl, but I have never forgotten who my family is.”

“And you are in contact with him... or with your tribe,” Gilthas said in wonder. “Yet you stay here, in the city, as a slave? Do you ever think of escaping, of going to him?”

“Every day,” Kerian replied frankly. “But I serve a purpose in Qualinost, and it is an important cause... reason enough for me to stay in the city.”

“You’re a spy?” The Speaker was truly astonished.

She shrugged. “If you want to call it that. We long ago learned that it is important for us wild elves to know what the city elves are planning, especially in relationship to the Kagonesti. I was taken from the tribe together with twelve other children by a Qualinesti raiding party, elven butchers who murdered our nursemaids and carried us off to Daltigoth. If we had known that General Palthainon was on the way, it is quite possible that we could have taken shelter, avoided his raid, and spared the lives of those he killed.”

Gilthas hung his head again, fighting the tears that rose to his eyes. How much shame would fall on him today? He blinked, looked up at Kerianseray with awe and affection.

“You’re very brave. Do you know that?”

She shrugged. “I do what must be done. It is what my father does, too... what he taught me.”

“And what Porthios does. What all elves should do!” Bitterly he recalled the reaction of the city elves when they had learned of the army’s approach... the fifty volunteers he had been able to muster, a pathetic fragment of a company to defend a city that should have raised a proud army!

Gilthas rose from the couch and stalked to the window. He looked out at the pastoral city with its floating lights dancing like fireflies among the crystal towers and golden manors. There were unusually few people in sight, but other than that, there was no indication that this was a place facing the occupation of a hostile army with the dawn. Doubtless most of the elves were busy hiding their treasures, he thought scornfully, or making arrangements to sell food, wine, and other goods to the human knights.

With a sudden sense of decision, he turned to Kerianseray. He looked at this slave woman with new eyes, seeing her as much, much more than the meek and servile person who had been able to soothe his sleep with her bark tea.

“I must speak to Porthios,” Gilthas said. “I will go to him in the forest, talk to him, show him that not all of us in the city are cowards.”

“You would do this?” she said, her eyes wide. “But the Thalas-Enthia—”

“Are fools!” he snapped. “And I want Porthios to know that we’re not all like that!”

“How will you do it?” she asked pragmatically.

“First I have to find him. Can you get a message to him, ask if he will see me?”

She considered his request for only a few heartbeats, but it seemed to Gilthas as if time dragged by, as if his entire future, the hope for himself as a man and for his nation as a whole, hung on the decision she would make in those few seconds.

“Getting a message to him is simple, and I will do so,” she finally said. “But I fear that it will not be easy to persuade him to see you.”

“I’ll take that chance,” Gilthas said.

“Then we have to try,” Kerian agreed with a nod.

Chapter Fourteen Rage

Bellaclaw glided through the treetops and came to rest in the center of the encampment. Porthios recognized Samar’s urgency in the way the Silvanesti dropped his dragonlance and leapt down from the saddle even as his griffon pranced and settled on the bare ground.

“The blue dragons have broken camp and flown. They’re coming this way!” declared the scout. “Straight for the gorge.”

“Time to move!” shouted the outlaw prince, and instantly the encampment was transformed by a wave of frantic activity.

Elves picked up their babes and a few necessities of clothing and tools. Warriors ran into their huts, grabbed weapons, bent strings onto bows and checked quivers to make sure they were full of straight, sharp arrows. The cookfires were smothered by quick scoops of loose dirt, while a few tanned hides were pulled off the drying racks and employed to wrap supplies into bundles. Other racks, those where the hides were still fresh, would be left behind, as would the crude huts that had served as the band’s shelters for the last few weeks.

Despite the baby slung over her back in his tai-thall, Alhana moved adeptly as she wrapped a cooking kettle, several knives, and the small amount of spare clothing that she and Porthios had into a soft velvet blanket, the only concession to comfort they had allowed themselves as they had flown to this primitive lifestyle. Watching her, Porthios felt a pang of regret. She was a princess, heir to a great throne and the leadership of a proud people, and yet, out of loyalty to him, she had followed him into exile.

And now the exile had brought a taste of real danger.

Samar ran past, holding his lance again, urging the elves to haste.

“How long until they get here?” Porthios asked.

“Not much time,” the warrior-mage replied. “They must have found us somehow. They were flying on a beeline toward the camp.”

Porthios knew that ever since the raid on the Dark Knight army, the invaders had been vigorously searching the forests, seeking the location of the elven encampment. Dragons in flights of four or five had winged across western Qualinesti, though they had been able to see little through the leafy canopy. Their searches might have been more efficient if they had flown individually, but the elves took pride in the fact that the powerful serpents obviously feared being caught alone.

Parties of brutes had stomped all through the woods as well. Several of these had met stinging ambushes, but the savage warriors seemed undeterred by the danger. Indeed, the prospect of fighting seemed to make them all the more enthusiastic in their searches. Over the last few days, several of these bands had swept close to the gorge, and despite the precautions taken by his outlaws, Porthios had known that inevitably the location of the camp would be discovered.

Now Samar’s warning seemed to indicate that the worst had happened—that the camp had been discovered and word had been taken to the army without the elves knowing that their secret was out. If the dragons flew fast, they could get here in less than an hour, and everyone in the camp knew the elves had to be long gone by then.

“Take the inland trail!” Porthios reminded those elves who would be traveling on foot. The band had planned their flight in advance, knowing that if they headed toward the coast they would be more easily trapped against the barrier of the sea. “Split up as soon as you get into the deep forest. Remember to rendezvous at Splintered Rock in two nights!”

“Good luck,” declared Tarqualan as he and a number of griffon riders prepared to fly west. The sea was no obstacle to them, and they planned to take a long route before circling around to the meeting place, a bluff that had been repeatedly struck by lightning and was characterized by the broken, jagged spires that jutted from its face.

Porthios and two other warriors, each of whom was accompanied by a wife and a newborn babe, would ride three griffons through the forest. The creatures would not be able to fly as fast as Tarqualan’s single-mounted warriors, so that small party planned to take a more direct route to the rendezvous. They would be escorted by two skilled archers on griffons of their own.

“I’ll fly with the queen,” Samar said decisively.

“No!” Porthios surprised himself with his vehement reaction. “You need to help with the main body,” he added.

Samar looked at Alhana, and the prince felt a startling pang of resentment. “Very well,” replied the warrior-mage, turning to Porthios calmly. “Good luck.”

“Good luck to you—and hurry,” the outlaw added unnecessarily.

He took Alhana’s hand and joined the file of elves following the steep trail out of the gorge. Because of the extra weight the griffons would carry, the three mothers with their babies and mates would climb the bluff on foot and mount up only when the flying creatures could launch from a high altitude. Atop the elevation, they were to meet the two other warriors who would escort the couples to safety.

The back of the outlaw captain’s neck prickled anxiously, and he had to resist the notion that at any moment the sky would erupt in a cloud of blue wings and a barrage of lethal lightning bolts. Fortunately two of the babies slept, and Silvanoshei looked around in silent, wide-eyed wonder.

Soon they were out of the deep ravine, and here the trail branched into many winding paths. Porthios found Dallatar waiting for them there. He stopped to talk to the Kagonesti chieftain as many of the Qualinesti elves filed past and dispersed into the forest.

“We will go east,” the wild elf said. “There may be word from my daughter. I have heard nothing from the city in many days and will try to make contact before joining you at the Splintered Rock.”

“Have a care,” Porthios replied. “The brutes will likely be everywhere.”

“Indeed, but they do not have the woodcraft to track a Kagonesti who does not wish to be followed. It is yourselves who should take care. Though you have made these woods your home, they are not your natural surroundings. I bid you good fortune and speed, and hope to see you in three days.”

With a firm handclasp, the wild elf turned off the trail and, in an eye blink, seemed to vanish into the undergrowth. Porthios and Alhana, together with the other members of the little party of refugees, continued on the path, moving as quickly as the burdened women could walk.

It was not too many minutes later when they heard a violent splintering of wood followed by the explosive crackling of blue dragon lightning breath. The sounds came from the rear, a mile or so away. Porthios could imagine the havoc as the wyrms swept down into the gorge, blasting the huts, knocking down the trees that had given the band such good shelter and concealment. He was grateful that the ravine had been moist even in the midst of this dry summer. With any luck, the wood was wet enough that it wouldn’t develop into a conflagration.

Despite their successful escape, the outlaw chief had to fight back the tears that forced their way into his eyes. He felt a powerful sense of anger and futility—rage at the knowledge that the sacred vale was being ravaged, and impotent fury at his failure to do anything to counteract the threat.

They met Stallyar and the four other griffons at a bare ridge of rock along the escarpment over the gorge. From here, they could see down into the site of their camp, though the elves and their flying mounts remained screened by trees and underbrush from the rampaging serpents below. They saw blue heads on snaky necks rise from the forest, jaws gaping to spit out bright flashes of lightning. In places, sooty smoke rose from the verdant canopy, and here and there they saw a lofty tree topple, pushed by the monstrous force of a destructive dragon.

As the trees were thinned, Porthios caught frequently glimpses of the knights who rode those serpents. Dressed in their black armor, which must have been stiflingly hot, they stalked back and forth, knocking down what remained of the ruined huts, kicking through the debris of elven lives with their heavy boots, or hacking at furs and fabrics with their great swords.

Porthios wanted desperately to launch an arrow or two into that vale, to punish these arrogant humans for their transgressions, but his sense of discipline was too strong. He and the others had come here to make their escape, and it made no sense to announce their position by such a gratuitous attack.

Unfortunately neither could they launch into the air from this high vantage, for to do so would have carried them clearly into the sight of the dragons and Dark Knights wreaking their damage below.

“Come on,” he whispered bitterly, his voice unnecessarily harsh as he moved the other elves and the five griffons along the winding path. They were deep in the woods now and had left no spoor that could be followed from the ruined camp, but he felt a growing sense of alarm, a need to move even faster to get away from this place.

For more than an hour, they walked along the narrow trail, the griffons prancing in agitation, occasionally hissing or fussing as the sharp rocks wore against their tender forefeet. But like the elves, the creatures understood the need for stealth, and despite their impatience, none of them tried to spread wings and fly. The elf women, too, were suffering. All three were carrying infants too small to walk, which was why they had planned to make their escape in the saddle. And here, where the warriors needed to be combat ready at a moment’s notice, they dared not burden themselves with babies or supplies. But the females bore their fatigue and discomfort without complaint, though it tore at Porthios when he looked at his wife’s drawn face, at the rivulets of sweat than ran through the dust caked across her skin.

Discomfort was further aggravated by the stifling heat that penetrated even into the normally cool floor of the forest. The summer had been growing increasingly warm, and now the wind seemed to have died away to nothing. The sun blazed above the trees, and the stuffy air pressed close, drawing perspiration freely from each elf’s skin.

Finally they reached a place Porthios had remembered, a low bluff on the opposite side of the ridge from the escarpment over the camp. They had moved several miles closer to the coast, and with that distance behind them, he felt safe in exposing themselves for as long as it would take for the griffons to spread their wings and start to gain altitude.

“Mount up here,” he said tersely. The griffons went to the edge of the precipice, and the warriors helped their women into the saddles. The escorting archers took to the air, circling overhead. The two warriors with wives and babies were veterans of Porthios’s company in Silvanesti, and now they waited for his signal with the same discipline and patience that had carried them through decades of nightmarish campaigns.

“Good luck to you all. Let’s fly!” he said, sliding over Stallyar’s rump to rest as firmly as possible behind Alhana and the deep saddle.

With a spreading of silver-feathered wings and a flexing of powerful haunches, the mighty griffon pounced into the air, catching the wind and immediately driving them forward and away from the looming cliff. The treetops seemed to rush up from below, and Porthios held on tightly, wincing as a dizzying vision of the forest swept underneath.

With powerful strokes, Stallyar first held them at level altitude, banking slightly to get around the tops of the tallest trees. Then, very slowly, the griffon started to climb.

Still clinging to his wife and the reins, Porthios looked around and saw that the two other heavily laden griffons had likewise managed to bear their precious passengers aloft. The final two, bearing their escorting archers, flew just above them. With Stallyar in the lead, the creatures trailed slightly behind to the right and left, and the little formation winged its way along the valley. Far ahead of them, in the western distance, they could make out the glint of the sea.

“Bear southward,” he said to Alhana, who tugged gently on the reins. Anticipating the direction, Stallyar veered slightly, wings stroking powerfully as he lifted them gradually higher. With just enough altitude to clear the neighboring ridge, the griffon once again allowed them to glide, descending slightly while the valley floor dropped quickly below.

Now they had two ridges between themselves and the wing of blue dragons, but even so, the elves did not relax their vigilance. Porthios guided them along the course of this deep valley, making sure that they flew below the summit of the ridges that ran in serpentine crests to either side. Slowly the vista of the sea grew before them, with the brightness of the setting sun reflected in almost painful brilliance from the broad swath of water.

It was out of that brightness that death came seeking, a blue dragon and its black-armored rider plummeting right out of the sun. Porthios suddenly sensed menace there, vaguely saw the terrible wings extending to right and left out of the blazing sunset. He shouted an alarm, but Stallyar had perceived the threat at the same time. The griffon banked to the left hard and dived toward the treetops.

“Fly, Lord Porthios!” cried one of the other elven warriors, an archer who was alone in his saddle.

“And you—try to escape!” shouted the outlaw prince, sensing his loyal man’s intentions.

But the elf’s course had been chosen. Somehow he had his bow out and shot an arrow straight into the snout of the beast. The subsequent bellow of rage seemed to shake the air in the sky, a forceful onslaught of sound that rocked the griffons sideways and threatened to press the elves out of the saddle.

Next came the blast of lightning, and Porthios didn’t have to look to know that his bold warrior had been slain. The stench of burned flesh carried instantly to his nostrils.

Now the treetops were whipping past, and Stallyar was gasping with the effort of flying with his double load of riders. The two other couples were nearby, their mounts, too, showing the effects of the burdened flight. All three infants were squalling loudly, frantic and afraid. With a quick glance backward, Porthios saw that the remaining warrior of their escort was angling upward and away, shooting arrows and attempting to draw the dragon after it.

From the thunderous bellows of rage, it seemed likely that the monster was going after the pesky archer, but the elf also heard the harsh commands of the knight, who was struggling to bring his serpent after the greater concentration of enemies. He looked again, saw that the wyrm was reluctantly wheeling, preparing to dive after the three griffons and their riders now gliding right through the lashing branches of the trees.

It was a pursuit that could only have one outcome, and Porthios desperately sought some tactic that would give them a chance of survival.

“There, land!” he shouted as a tiny patch of clearing opened before them. “We’ve got to go on foot!” he shouted to the others.

All three griffons plunged to the soft ground, and the warriors and their women tumbled from the saddles, the men frantically cushioning the falls of their children and wives.

“Now, go!” shouted the outlaw captain, waving frantically to urge the riderless griffons into the air.

The dragon roared again, and Porthios looked upward. He saw that the knight was now slumped in the saddle, an elven arrow jutting from his back. The four griffons swirled about the azure serpent until those horrible jaws gaped again, spewing a lightning bolt that shattered one of the brave creatures with a direct hit. The elves groaned, and Porthios felt a sickening lurch in his heart. Because of the sun’s glare, he couldn’t see if the stricken griffon had Stallyar’s distinctive, silvery sheen on its wingtips.

“Into the woods! We’ve got a slight chance, nothing more!” he said, propelling the three women and two warriors ahead of him. They stumbled onto a narrow deer trail and jogged away from the clearing as quickly as the females could move. The babies, exhausted and numb, had again fallen silent.

After ten minutes they paused, gasping for breath, and Porthios scrambled up a lofty pine tree. He saw the distant figures of the dragon and at least two griffons, the smaller creatures leading the wyrm on a frantic chase. They were heading west, toward the sea, and the elf murmured a silent prayer to Paladine, thanking the god for their escape and begging his aid to help the brave griffons to escape.

Finally he dropped down from the tree to report on what he had seen. He looked at the somber, strained faces of his companions and knew that the course of their flight had been drastically changed.

“We’re going to have to reach Splintered Rock on foot,” he told them. “If we set an easy pace we should be able to do it in two or three days.”

With the fortitude born of months of living as outlaws, the others quickly agreed. Porthios led and one of the other warriors brought up the rear as the elves continued through the forest. Where the deer trails worked in their favor, they followed them. For a while, a shallow streambed gave them a path. When the underbrush finally closed in, the men took turns hacking with their swords to open a path.

As night fell they found a large willow tree, with a trunk that had been hollowed by years of decay. Using their swords to expand the makeshift cave, the elves managed to make a shelter that allowed all three women and infants to sleep with some degree of protection from the elements. The men hunkered down outside the entrance and took turns staying awake during the dark, silent night. A short rainstorm washed over them sometime before dawn, and though the warriors were sodden, their wives emerged from the shelter dry and at least partially rested.

One of the warriors took time to collect some wild berries, and these provided at least minimal sustenance before they once more started on their way. Their luck seemed to be improving, however, for within an hour, they stumbled upon a wide path that seemed to bear more or less in the direction they wanted to be going. Porthios led the way again, holding his wife’s hand in his own as he held his weapon at the ready, trying to peer into the shadowy forest that pressed close to each side.

The first clue of the ambush came from a waft of wind that brought the scent of stale, acrid sweat to his nostrils. The other elves sensed it, too, and instinctively looked in alarm at their leader.

Porthios had his sword in his right hand, while his left still gripped Alhana’s tense fingers. He stared into the woods to both sides. He realized that the shrubbery was very thick here, and that the ground sloped up both to the right and to the left. Intuitively he sensed a trap and was about to turn to order the elves to backtrack when the first brutes crashed from the woods.

In a moment of frozen panic, he saw a male elf go down, skull crushed by a massive club. The warrior’s woman screamed and bent over her man, only to be cut in two by the brutal sweep of a massive sword. Dozens of the monsters charged, coming from all directions, and in a moment of crystalline clarity, he saw his wife and child beneath the threat of those crushing blows.

His perceptions, his whole world, twisted violently in that instant. Caution and practicality vanished in a cloud of pure fury.

Like a whirlwind, he flew past Alhana, stabbing one brute through the belly, then cutting the throat of another with the backslash. A club slashed at him from the side, and instinct warned him to duck. He felt the gust of air as the blunt weapon whipped past his scalp and tore at his hair. Lunging to the side, he drove his blade into the flank of the club wielder, sending the creature tumbling backward with a ragged bellow of pain.

Alhana’s scream galvanized him, and he whirled to see a brute’s blue hand wrapped around her wrist. Silvanoshei was swaying in his cradle, crying again. Before the attacker could pull his wife into the underbrush, the prince’s weapon came down and Alhana screamed again, this time at the sight of the dismembered paw still clutching her arm. Clutching her baby, the elf woman fell back, leaning against a stout tree trunk, flailing her arm until the gruesome remnant broke loose and fell into the underbrush.

Porthios lunged past his wife, the bloody blade flashing in a deadly dance, driving several brutes backward with such haste that they tumbled over each other. The sword of his ancestors flashed, drawing howls as he gouged his enemies’ massive legs, but then the prince retreated to stand before Alhana. She was sheltered against the tree trunk, two broad limbs reaching around almost as if to fold her in a protective embrace, and Porthios drew several ragged gasps of breath as he looked at the circle of looming figures.

He was vaguely aware that the other elves had disappeared, slain or captured by the blue-skinned attackers or perhaps escaping into the woods during the initial confusion of the ambush. At least a dozen of the monstrous warriors now faced him, forming a ring that closed off any hope of escape.

“Porthios... get away—over them, through the branches of the tree,” Alhana whispered behind him, her voice taut as a bowstring. “They’ll take me prisoner... you can come for me later.”

In a flash of emotion so strong that it all but burned through his heart, he saw how much he loved her and this child, this son who was the hope of the elven nations through the coming years.

His eyes were clear, his body immediately restored by the power of his emotion. The brutes were all panting, and some of them held hands over cuts and gouges that dripped blood and smeared streaks of blue along their limbs. With a sense of vague detachment, he saw that the creatures were actually covered with paint, that their natural flesh was more like a human’s. They loomed as tall as he was but much more solid, and the growls and barks emerging from their throats showed that they were angry and ready to take their revenge. Clubs were raised, swords readied, as the brutes cautiously closed in.

Porthios did the one thing they didn’t expect. He attacked, throwing himself bodily toward the center of the ring of blue-skinned horror. His sword flashed out like the flicking tongue of some metal-mawed dragon, and in a whistling flash, tore open the bellies of the two nearest brutes. Groaning piteously, hands struggling to contain their spilling guts, the creatures staggered backward and collapsed. The other brutes gaped, momentarily astonished at the audacity of this elf who had charged them so recklessly.

Porthios continued his attack, whirling through the rank of his foes, stabbing one in the back and cutting the hamstrings of another. With a final, skull-splitting blow, he hacked through a fifth brute and once again stood before his awestruck wife, intent on protecting her with every sinew of his body, every drop of his blood. He danced forward, waving the blade, and the remaining attackers actually took a few steps backward.

Still, the ring of deadly warriors remained solid, fully enclosing the elves, though the enemy was a little more cautious about pressing in. When Porthios rushed forward, the brutes fell back quickly, this time stumbling out of reach of his lethal steel. From the corner of his eye, he saw that one of the monsters lunged toward Alhana when he advanced, and like lightning he whirled, cutting the thing down with a stab to the throat.

A red haze filmed his vision, and he vaguely wondered if he was wounded. But it was the heat of his own emotions, the rage possessing him, turning him into a lethal fighting machine. Rushing forward, he had enough control to bluff a charge to the right, then whip to the left and stab another brute before the creature could raise its weapon in a parry. Again he repeated the maneuver, and another monstrous attacker fell back, bellowing in anger and clutching hands over the deep cut in its belly.

Four more remained, and the next time he rushed forward, they stumbled backward in a frantic attempt to avoid his cutting steel. Now they were a dozen paces away from the tree, a loose ring that he could have dashed through with a sudden sprint. But still, there was Alhana and Silvanoshei—they couldn’t run, and he couldn’t leave them.

So he resolved to finish this fight with the same cold violence that the brutes had used to commence it. Porthios charged forward again, faster and farther, and this time he caught one of the brutes before it could retreat. A single slice ended that ugly warrior’s life, and at the sight of the newest corpse the other three turned and raced away, smashing through the brush like panic-stricken cattle.

The jagged bluff known as Splintered Rock rose from the depths of the forest, the spiked promontories reminding Porthios of the towers of a distant elven city. As he and Alhana plodded closer, however, they clearly saw the frost-cut cracks in the face of the stone, the heaps of talus piled at the foot of each weather-beaten spire. The meeting place served its purpose well, for it was far from any roads or well-used trails, and yet the elves could see it from a long distance away.

Slowly, over the course of several days, the refugees from the bandit camp had trickled into the meeting place, gathering around the deep, clear lake at the foot of the bluff. Tarqualan and his griffon riders were already here as Porthios, now carrying Silvanoshei, and his wife dragged themselves wearily into the grassy meadow at the lakeshore.

The outlaw prince surprised many, even including himself, when he burst into tears at the sight of Stallyar. Many feathers of the griffon’s right wing had been blasted by a dragon’s lightning bolt, but the creature held his eagle’s head up proudly, yellow eyes flashing as Porthios wrapped both arms around the strong neck. Stallyar dropped his beak into an affectionate peck on the elf’s shoulder, then settled down to rest. Tarqualan told Porthios that the mighty creature had been tense and agitated until the moment when his master had appeared. Only then did it seem that Stallyar would allow himself to relax.

“My lord, you can well imagine the consternation we all felt upon your mount’s arrival. There is not an elf here that did not pledge his life and his sword to avenge your death. Indeed, there are many parties of warriors in the woods, both searching for you and exacting whatever vengeance they can against the Dark Knights.”

Porthios described his encounter with the brutes and learned that similar ambushes were experienced by many of the refugees. Samar had led dozens in a fighting retreat, running a gauntlet of attackers and wounding a blue dragon with his lance. Finally he had led the group here, arriving a few hours before Porthios with many wounded in tow.

“The attack plan was worked out with an eye toward strategy,” the prince realized. “The enemy general only sent his dragons against our camp when his troops were already in place in the surrounding woods.”

And, tragically, it was a tactic that had proven lethally successful, for even four days after the appointed time of the rendezvous, barely two-thirds of the elves who had fled the encampment had arrived at Splintered Rock.

It was with relief and delight, on that fourth evening, that Porthios and the rest greeted Dallatar and his band of Kagonesti. Not surprisingly, the wild elves had made their way around the enemy’s traps, even turning the tables on several companies of brutes who had been lying in ambush alongside well-traveled trails.

But Porthios was surprised by the news Dallatar shared as the two of them sat around a small fire later that evening. Alhana reclined nearby, resting uncomfortably as she nursed her baby, still trying to recover from the rigors of the flight. Samar, too, was present, watchfully eyeing the dark forest. Porthios felt a pang of guilt as he saw that the warrior-mage seemed to take care to avoid sitting at Alhana’s side.

Porthios asked the Kagonesti chieftain if he had made contact with his spies in Qualinost.

“Yes, I did. As you expected, they surrendered to the Dark Knights without a fight. The city has been occupied, though the senators and nobles have been allowed to keep their wealth and stations, except for a few of the more independent thinkers. The senators called Quaralan and Anthelia, for example, have been arrested and imprisoned in a camp outside of the city.”

“And what about the common people?” Porthios asked.

Dallatar shrugged. “There, again, those who have the courage to speak out against the occupation have been arrested, their property—such as it is—confiscated.”

“Who is the ruler of the occupation forces?”

“A lord called Salladac. It was he who commanded the operation against your encampment. He was aided by Palthainon, who revealed the location of your band. Rumor has it that the lord knight is quite pleased with the attack. However, it might please you to know that another Lord—Haldian, I think they called him—who originally commanded the invasion of the west was sentenced to death, executed by order of Salladac.”

“No great loss... he was a fool,” Porthios declared grimly. “Better for us if he had been left in charge. Are your own agents safe?”

“My agent is my daughter... and, yes, thank you for the inquiry. She is well. In fact, in addition to a belated warning about Palthainon’s treachery, she sends a message for you.”

“A message?” Porthios felt so separated from his previous life in that place that he had somehow brought himself to believe that his own existence was no longer relevant to the elves of the city. “From whom?”

“From the Speaker of the Sun, your nephew, Gilthas.”

Porthios spat scornfully, drawing a sizzle from the embers of the low fire. “What does he have to say to me?”

“He begs the honor of a meeting with you.”

Now the outlaw sat up straight. “Why? So he can turn me over to his puppet master, this Lord Salladac?”

“I don’t know why he wants to speak to you, but the question was phrased as though he asks you for a favor.”

“And why should I grant that favor? This is a transparent attempt to trap me. After his dragons and his brutes failed, Lord Salladac is obviously turning to my own kinsman to use against me!”

Dallatar was noncommittal. “My... agent seems to feel that the young lord is sincere, that he feels genuine disgust at the betrayal of his homeland.”

“He was a part of that betrayal!” Porthios declared passionately. “He wears the medallion that I gave up—gave up because a Qualinesti arrow was pointed at my wife’s heart.”

“Gilthas didn’t know that!” Alhana, pushing herself awkwardly to a sitting position, spoke with surprising vehemence.

Porthios turned to his wife in anger and astonishment, but something in her direct gaze caused him to hold his temper in check. “You spoke with him about the matter?”

Alhana smiled, albeit a thin and bitter expression. “We were held prisoner in the same room for a time, until Rashas decided that I was a bad influence on him.”

“What—what was he like?” For the first time, Porthios found himself thinking about his nephew in more than just superficial terms. “Why would he take the throne from me under those circumstances?”

“For much the same reason you gave up the medallion,” Alhana explained gently. “He, too, knew of the arrow pointed at my heart. He is terribly young, not as wise as either you or I could wish. But I believe, my husband, that he has a good heart.”

“I still say it would be madness to meet him!” Porthios declared, groping for the strength of will that had stiffened his resolve when first he had heard this harebrained idea.

“You can always take precautions,” his wife noted. “Choose the place of the meeting yourself. Place plenty of guards around it.”

“And what if he has a company of Dark Knights follow him to the rendezvous. Do you want to risk another ambush?”

“What about sending a griffon for him?” Alhana countered with maddening logic. “No one on foot or even horseback could follow, and if a dragon appears, you can cancel the meeting—even, if he betrays you, send the boy to his death,” she added harshly.

“Boy?” asked Porthios. “This is the Speaker of the Sun, the ruler of Qualinesti, we’re talking about!”

“And he’s also the son of your sister and her husband, Tanis Half-Elven, in case you’ve forgotten. I think you should see him!”

“All right—all right!” Porthios snapped. He turned to Dallatar. “I’ll see him as soon as you can arrange a rendezvous.”

He was irritated at allowing himself to be persuaded, frustrated by this enforced isolation in the wilderness, galled by his dependence on others.

Even so, he was surprised by his certainty that, however reluctantly, he had made the right decision.

Chapter Fifteen Qualinost Enchained

Gilthas looked out from the upper floor of his house, studying the city sprawled across the landscape. He was purposely looking south and west, away from the Tower of the Sun. He saw the domed hill where the Hall of Audience lay under the open sky, and from his vantage on the third floor, he could even catch a glimpse through the treetops of the mosaic tiles of the great map, the detailed relief depiction of the nation and its surroundings that had been scribed right into the floor of the hall.

The arched bridges that framed the city were silvery threads against the sky, so fine that they might have been gossamer webbing, yet he knew them to be strong structures, made of elven steel and each capable of supporting a great weight. Trees were everywhere, and if their leafy crowns were a little parched and browned, that was no different than the surrounding forests—or, indeed, from anywhere else on the continent that sweltered under the oppression of this brutally hot, dry summer.

On the surface, this was the same elven city he had first glimpsed a year before, the halcyon place he had dreamed about all his life, had run away from home to visit. He had been welcomed here, and then imprisoned... threatened, and then raised to the highest office in the land, at least in name. Now heat shimmered from the landscape, and the sun blazed down from a sky that was only pale blue but lacked the hint of even a single wisp of cloud.

Gilthas fondled the medallion he wore over his breast, the golden disk that lay beside the Sunstone on its own chain. He thought about what that medallion was supposed to signify—the Speaker of the Sun! What could be more exalted? It was a title greater than king, loftier than any emperor.

And yet when it was wrapped around him, it was only a hollow shell.

At first he had been Rashas’s puppet. Now he was a mere figurehead enforcing the rule of Lord Salladac. When would he get the chance—when would he find the courage—to be his own master?

He heard the shy knock at the door and knew that he was about to encounter the one bright spot in his life.

“Come in,” he called, and Kerianseray entered. She held the neatly pressed folds of his Speaker’s costume.

“Is my lord ready—that is, are you ready to don your robes?” The slave woman’s voice was a musical charm in the room, and she blushed as she corrected the form of address that had been ingrained since her childhood.

“I suppose I am,” Gilthas sighed. “At least this is going to be a small meeting. Only Rashas and a few senators, plus Lord Salladac, are going to be there.”

Kerian said nothing as she laid his robe on the table and went to get the golden brushes that she used on his long hair. He flopped down onto the couch, then looked up as she returned.

“Has there been any word from... from the forest? Do you know if he will agree to see me?”

She shrugged, a tiny gesture. “I have heard nothing yet. I will tell you as soon as I know, of course.”

“Yes... thank you,” he said, feeling as if he had been chastised for being an impetuous youth. Of course she would tell him!

For a time he relaxed, eyes closed, letting her brush his hair. He relished the feel of the stiff bristles against his scalp, but even more pleasant was the touch of her fingers as they stroked through his golden locks, occasionally coming into contact with his skin. Each time they did, it was as though he felt an electric spark, and he tingled with a pleasure that he tried to conceal but felt certain that she must sense. How could she not feel an emotion that was so strong, so consuming, that sometimes it threatened to burst into real fire?

When she was finished, he rose, lifting his arms so that she could slide his robe onto him. His hands, still upraised, were extended over each of her shoulders, and impulsively he lowered them, letting his fingers come to rest against the soft silk of her gown.

She froze, drawing an almost inaudible gasp. He didn’t move, though it felt as though his whole body was vibrating, buzzing like the wings of a bee or a hummingbird. Slowly she drew a breath. Her eyes were lowered, fixed upon his chest even though he looked searchingly into her face. Her mouth was slightly open, and he quivered at the sight of her tongue as it slipped forth just long enough to wet her lips.

He wanted desperately to kiss her, and he sensed in her stillness a willingness to accept his own lips against hers. Time stopped. Even his heart seemed not to beat as he yearned, longed, lusted for a further caress. Still her eyes remained lowered demurely, and he felt the thundering of his own pulse—or was it hers?—pounding in his ears.

But gradually, reluctantly, he knew that he couldn’t pull her closer, couldn’t move his mouth to hers. His exhalation was ragged as he dropped his arms, then turned slightly to allow her to pull his belt around him. Momentarily she looked up before once again lowering her eyes, and the look he saw in her face struck him deeply. Her emotions were powerful, shining from her eyes like bright sunlight, and for that second, they blazed into him, furious and unabashed.

Yet he couldn’t read them, couldn’t see what she was feeling. Was she hurt? Angry at his presumptuous embrace? Or was that scorn he saw there? Did she mock his cowardice, his hesitancy? Miserably he turned his back, analyzing that look over and over but failing to come to any closer understanding of what the woman was feeling.

She cinched the sash around his waist and then knelt to tie his golden sandals. Not once did her face rise to him. Instead, she pulled the straps and laced the bindings with firm, businesslike tugs. When at last he was dressed, she bowed deeply and took two steps back.

“Does my lord Speaker require anything else?” she asked, addressing the floor.

“Not now... Kerian...” He spoke to her, but his voice trailed off as still she wouldn’t lift her face to meet his gaze. “Thank you... thanks for listening. For... everything,” he concluded lamely.

“As you wish,” she said. Finally she looked at him, but she had managed to wipe all trace of that blazing emotion from her gaze. Her eyes were dispassionate, her face devoid of any expression save dignified respect. “If there is nothing further...?”

“Of course. You may go,” he said.

He felt his knees shaking as she closed the door behind her. He put both hands upon the table and leaned there for a moment, breathing deeply, trying to understand the passions that were coming over him. By Paladine, by all the gods, he knew that he wanted her, craved her in a manner that was as sudden and frightening as it was irresistible and all-consuming. Perhaps that feeling had lingered in his subconscious over the past weeks and months, but never had it burst into open flame as it did this morning.

Guilt and confusion wracked him. She was a slave, bidden to do his will! And yet she was his master in ways he couldn’t understand. Merely that flash of heat in her eyes had practically brought him to his knees. And now that she was gone, it was as though the room was colder, darker. The emptiness of his life surrounded him, and he almost called her back, summoning her into the room so that he could bask in the warmth of her presence.

But duty called, and so he trudged like a zombie to the lower floors of his house, where he fell into step with the honor guard of the four Qualinesti warriors who had been waiting there to escort him to the Tower of the Sun. Once there, he found Rashas and a few senators in the council chamber, awaiting the arrival of the Speaker and Lord Salladac.

“Are you ill?” asked the leader of the Thalas-Enthia, peering suspiciously into Gilthas’s face. “You look pale. Did you eat something disagreeable?”

“I must have done so,” the Speaker replied, ashamed that his feelings were so clearly displayed to these elves who really meant so little to him. “Give me a moment. I’m sure it will pass.”

“Slave!” barked Rashas, summoning one of the attendants from the side of the round council chamber. “Bring the Speaker a stool and some water!”

Though he didn’t want to admit it, Gilthas was grateful for the seat. His legs were still trembling, weakened by the wave of emotion. A few sips of cool springwater helped to restore him, however, and he looked around the chamber, identifying the dozen or so nobles who were attending this conference with their new conqueror. Idly, Gilthas was surprised to note that Guilderhand wasn’t present. The spy had made a point of attaching himself to everything involving the city’s new rulers.

The drink and the chance to catch his breath did their work, and Gilthas felt ready to fulfill his ceremonial role by the time Lord Salladac, escorted by two of his armored knights, was shown into the chamber.

As the men entered, Gilthas hastily rose so he could stand with the senators, anxious that the human conqueror see no sign of his weakness. But it seemed as though Lord Salladac took little notice of the elves who were here. Instead, he strode to the rostrum and seated himself upon the lone stool, the perch that Gilthas had just vacated. The lord’s bearlike features were creased by a scowl that made him seem fierce and vaguely beastlike.

“How did your campaign in the west fare?” Rashas asked solicitously. “Surely you were able to destroy the outlaw camp.”

“Aye... what there was of it, we trampled into the ground. Smashed the huts and burned the few wretched belongings they had there,” growled Salladac. Still, he did not sound like a soldier who had won a great victory.

“Did you capture Porthios?” Gilthas asked, trying to keep his voice level. He knew that this had been one of Salladac’s major objectives, though Kerian had convinced him that the elven prince would not be taken easily.

“The bastard got away, with most of his elves,” declared the lord. “It’s like the forest swallowed them up—and then spit out my brutes when they tried to follow!”

“Surely with his camp destroyed and his followers scattered to the four winds, you have drastically curtailed his operations,” Rashas said smoothly.

“That we have,” the lord of the Dark Knights admitted. “And we butchered a few of the wretches, those who weren’t fast enough to disappear.”

“Then it must be called a victory,” Rashas replied. “Know that we elves of Qualinost are grateful to you for cleaning out the pests that dared to dwell in our midst.”

“You should be,” the lord retorted. “But the work’s not done yet. Still, I’ll have to wait a few weeks to finish it.”

“It won’t be long before the rest of the rebels are brought to heel,” Rashas declared. “Perhaps we will even have some useful information for you soon.”

Gilthas narrowed his eyes and looked at the elder senator, whose face was creased by a faint, private smile. The younger elf remembered how Palthainon had previously betrayed the position of Porthios’s camp. Now he wondered what Rashas meant and made a mental note to try to find out.

“You have other business more pressing?” Gilthas wondered, speaking to the human lord.

“I’m staying here, but my dragons are off to Silvanesti tomorrow,” the lord replied.

“Why are they going?” asked the Speaker.

“They’re needed to assist in a campaign. The eastern elves have not proven to be as reasonable as you Qualinesti, and my colleagues anticipate a rather brutal campaign. Unfortunate, too. You know, you elves of the Thalas-Enthia are really a credit to civilization in the way you saw the practical solution here.”

Gilthas flushed, deeply ashamed at the comparison. The other elves, he saw, nodded pleasantly, as if honestly pleased by the compliment. Couldn’t they see? Were they really so shameless to believe that it was better to surrender to a powerful master than to even make a pretense of prideful resistance? Trying to conceal his own disgust, Gilthas allowed himself to be grateful that Porthios had escaped the lord’s attack. He hoped that the rebel leader would contact him soon, would agree to meeting the Speaker who wore the medallion that Porthios once had claimed as his own.

Lord Salladac made his departure, leaving the elves to conclude matters of the city’s governance among themselves. They discussed matters of food allocation, since though there were not that many knights living in the city garrison, the humans showed a capacity to eat far more than any individual elf.

“We should at least be glad that he marched those damn brutes out of here,” a senator called Hortensal said, grimacing at the requirement that he give a valuable granary over to the Dark Knights.

“And the dragons,” said another, smug because his holdings were in crystal and glass, for which the humans had thus far shown little interest. “Imagine how much they would eat if we had to take care of them.”

“Let them eat rebels,” Rashas said bitterly. “Porthios has been a thorn in our side long enough!”

“You mentioned that you might have information for Lord Salladac soon,” Gilthas said casually. “What did you mean by that?”

Rashas looked at the young Speaker sharply. “That’s a private matter, but it may prove that Porthios is not as clever, his movements not as mysterious, as he might think.”

“May he rot in the Abyss!” declared one of the senators, a merchant who had lost a small fortune when the bandits had plundered an incoming caravan of steel coins.

“So we should pray,” Rashas continued, his unblinking stare fixed upon Gilthas. “And let us remember that discussions in this chamber are the private matters of the elven state. They are not to be repeated, nor even speculated upon, beyond these walls.”

Gilthas knew that he was being warned, and the thought was vaguely pleasing. He shrugged, adapting an air of unconcern. “Of course,” he said agreeably. Still, he could not bring himself to join in the chorus of general condemnation that echoed from the elves who were still talking about Porthios.

“And what about Silvanesti?” Rashas asked. “Doesn’t it seem foolish that they will subject themselves to a war without hope of victory?”

“They won’t have a chance against the dragons,” said Hortensal, with a dismissive shrug. “They were too stupid to follow our example, to realize the futility of resistance.”

Gilthas grimaced at the words—he couldn’t recall the Qualinesti offering any resistance at all—but he decided to hold his tongue. Instead, it was Rashas who spoke.

“At least the Silvanesti will be busy with war. They will have no time to meddle in our affairs.”

“And thus the sanctity of elven purity is preserved!” cried Hortensal, with every appearance of enthusiasm.

“Indeed. Sometimes the greatest gifts come disguised in the most mysterious fashion,” Rashas agreed.

Gilthas swam long strokes in the clear pool outside the Speaker’s house. For an hour, he cut through the water, back and forth, alternately churning and gliding until he was exhausted. Then he went inside and had a bath in water so hot that it all but scalded his skin. When he got out of the tub, two matronly slaves toweled him with rough enthusiasm, so much so that it seemed as though they scraped away a whole layer of his skin.

Even so, he still felt unclean.

He went to his study, where he closed the door and, despite the late afternoon sun streaming in through the open window, lit an oil lantern and settled in a corner chair. He had a leather-bound tome in his hands, a volume he had recently discovered in the library of this great house. The book was entitled The Vingaard Campaign, and had been scribed by the renowned historian Foryth Teel, assistant to Astinus Lorekeeper himself.

More significant to Gilthas, it was a story about his mother. The events described in the book had occurred only thirty years ago. Foryth Teel wrote a story of war, of a remarkable series of offensive battles during which the Knights of Solamnia had liberated the lands of Northern Ansalon, the territories that had over previous years been crushed under the heel of the dragon highlords.

He had been reading bits and pieces of the book over the last few days, perhaps to remind himself that there had really been a time—and not very long ago!—when the elves had fought for a just cause, battling with courage and heroism against the hordes of the Dark Queen, who sought to subjugate the world underneath a realm of violence, slavery, and savage conquest. At times, he was numbed by a sense of real grief as he thought about how far his people had fallen.

During other passages, he was staggered by a sense of bitter irony. The Emperor of Ansalon, the Highlord Ariakas, had fought for five years, slowly expanding the swath of his conquest across Krynn until, under the leadership of generals such as Gilthas’s mother Laurana, the dragonarmies had been swept backward, finally scattered when their queen had deserted them and their foul temple. Now it was Ariakas’s son, the Lord Ariakan, who led the Knights of Takhisis on a fast and efficient campaign. In a matter of weeks, he had conquered territories that his father had never been able to reach, and now held such firm sway on Ansalon that it was difficult to conceive of any kind of organized resistance.

And then there were times where Gilthas was simply lost in a story of high adventure, when he marveled at the exploits of dragons of gold and silver, of brave warriors—including not only his mother, but also his uncle, Gilthanas, and legendary heroes such as Flint Fireforge—and of the desperate battles that culminated in the magnificent victory at Margaard Ford, a key crossing of the Vingaard River. In the end, he admitted that this was the reason he enjoyed reading the book, for it carried him away with its epic sweep and its dazzling rendition of people, dragons, places, and events.

He wondered if his mother had received his invitation, if she planned to come here. He missed her, longed for her presence and her guidance. It was better for her safety, he told himself, though he realized that her presence would do more to ease his own loneliness than it would for Laurana’s security.

An hour later Kerian knocked, and it was with a rush of pleasure that he closed the leather covers and called for her to enter.

“Hello,” he said, rising and stretching his arms over his head. “I was reading... got lost in the past for a little while.”

“I am glad,” the Kagonesti woman said. “I came to see if you would like some wine before dinner.”

“Yes, that would be splendid.” He noticed that she had brought a pitcher, and she advanced into the room at his answer. “Would you care to have a glass with me?”

“Yes... I would.”

He waited while she poured them each a mug of the pale liquid. When she brought his glass over to his chair, he took it, then followed her to sit beside her on the couch.

“I have had word from my... from the forest,” Kerianseray said. “It arrived just this afternoon.”

“Word from the wild elves? How?” Gilthas asked. He wasn’t aware of any messengers coming to the house.

“I am sorry, my lord, but I am not permitted to discuss that part of my duties.”

Gilthas was surprised by her refusal. Only then did he stop to consider the extraordinary trust she had placed in him merely by revealing the fact that she was able to maintain some sort of surreptitious contact with her tribe.

“Of course. Forgive me for asking,” he said, though a part of him was desperately curious and thought that, if she really did trust him, she should be willing to reveal the details he sought. Still, he decided to let the matter rest for now. “What did you learn?”

“Porthios Solostaran has agreed to meet with you, provided you come to the meeting alone.”

“Yes, of course! That’s wonderful!” he cried, elated.

“I’m glad you’re pleased,” Kerian said, looking happy herself.

Impulsively he put his hands on her shoulders, and this time pulled her close before she could lower her face. His lips found hers, and their kiss was like a bond sealed in fire. Her mouth was slightly open, and Gilthas felt a whirlwind of emotions, new experiences assaulting him, tantalizing him, reaching deep into his soul.

As if he were mired in a dream—a fantastic, wondrously arousing dream—he felt her arms reach around his shoulders, and then she was pulling him closer. She welcomed his kiss, reciprocated with warmth and fire.

And then that fire was everywhere, pouring through Gilthas’s veins, clouding his thoughts, pounding a savage drumbeat in his heart. He drew a breath, the sweetest air he had ever tasted, and pressed harder against her, feeling her falling back as his weight bore her down upon the couch.

Their surroundings disappeared, and he was only aware of the two of them, each wrapped in the other, in bliss and warmth and desire. And for a time, too short a time, Gilthas forgot his throne, forgot the Thalas-Enthia, and was one with the woman he loved.

Chapter Sixteen Speakers of Past and Present

They left the Speaker’s house in the predawn hours, when the night was at its darkest and activity in the city had almost completely ceased. There were a few patrols of Dark Knights wandering the streets, but by elven standards, these humans made so much noise and their night vision was so feeble that Gilthas and Kerianseray had no difficulty evading the sentries in the vicinity of the Tower of the Sun.

Of course, the magical lights that danced through the city during the night hours were still in evidence, but it seemed to Gilthas that their brilliance had somehow been muted since the coming of the conquerors. Whereas in the past the entire city had seemed to sparkle with brightness, now each lantern existed in a small island of illumination, but the contrast only served to heighten the shadows in the majority of the city that remained unlighted.

Once they had passed into the darkened reaches of elven homes, the pair hid in the shadows for several minutes while a party of armored men marched past. The young Speaker was acutely conscious of the woman’s presence beside him. He placed a protective arm around her shoulders and relished the warmth as she seemed to melt into his side. Even so, she seemed considerably less frightened than he did, and he found himself wondering how many times she had left the house in the dark of the night to wander Qualinost on some mysterious purpose.

But those thoughts vanished as the guards turned a corner. Instantly she was up, pulling him by the hand, leading him in a sprint down a lane shaded by thick borders of overhanging aspen trees.

He tried to keep up, but he was embarrassed to realize that he was gasping for breath after a short run. Tugging on her hand, he tried to slow her headlong pace, but instead she pulled him along urgently, all but dragging him as he stumbled the last two dozen paces to the end of the lane. Here again she pushed him into the shelter of roadside shrubbery, still holding his hand as she knelt beside him and studied the wide roadway before them.

Gilthas sensed affection in the touch of her dry fingers on his moist hand, but he also felt the competence, the confidence of this woman he knew so little about. Though he strained to control his rasping breaths, she pressed a finger to his lips, and he forced himself to be utterly silent. Here, too, there were Dark Knights. Indeed, he was startled to find out how fully Qualinost was garrisoned by its new conquerors. His guess would have been that there were only a few dozen of the human warriors in the city, but if that were the case, they had seen half of them in the past few blocks—and that at the darkest hours of night!

Finally they were running again, around corners, through curving little streets that were barely wide enough for the two of them to pass side by side. Still they avoided the occasional patches of illumination, always choosing the darkest route when a pair of alternating paths presented themselves. They were going uphill, Gilthas noticed, and then suddenly the trees were finished and the dazzling night sky yawned overhead. He stumbled, shaken by the vast sense of openness after all the winding, narrow byways. His feet scuffed over flat tiles, and only then did he realize that she had brought him to the great Hall of Audience, the hilltop clearing with its mosaic map and broad clearing.

The great constellations sparkled overhead, gleaming from the moonless sky. He gaped at Paladine and Takhisis, as always in opposition, facing each other across the sky. Many times as a youth he had whiled away the nighttime hours by staring upward at the fabulous array of stars, but never had he seen them so perfectly, never had they seemed so close. He had to resist the childish notion that he could reach out and pluck them from the sky like sparkling cherries. Vaguely he noticed that even now, in the depths of the night, the air was as hot and stifling as normal for a midsummer day.

“Over here,” she whispered, tugging him along the edge of the trees that fringed the clearing. They stayed low, moved like furtive creatures of the forest, though it seemed that here, at least, the Dark Knights had left the city of the elves to itself.

Then he gasped audibly as he saw white wings shimmering in the deep shadows. Two large creatures waited there, and even before he saw the eaglelike heads upraised, yellow eyes staring at the pair of elves, he knew these were griffons.

Only once had he ridden one of the magnificent creatures. That had been upon his first meeting with Rashas. How blind he had been then, how fooled by the venerable senator’s gracious words, his elegant veneer. Gilthas had mounted the steed and ridden double with Rashas, his mind awhirl with nothing more than his first glimpse of Qualinesti. It had never occurred to him then that he was coming here to serve the senator’s purposes, that indeed Rashas had lured him with the perfect bait: the chance for a stifled youngster to get out from beneath his parents’ wings, to have a taste of freedom.

Freedom! The very notion left a bitter feeling in his memory as he thought of how fully he had been tricked. Within a matter of hours, he had learned he was virtually the prisoner of Rashas, and within days he had been installed as a figurehead on the throne of his mother’s people.

“They will carry us,” Kerianseray was saying, gesturing to the creatures. Both, Gilthas now saw, were saddled and apparently eager to fly.

Once again he had a feeling of his own wrongness, of the guilt and culpability that lay on his shoulders because he had unwittingly stepped into his crown. As a result of that conspiracy, which had included the holding of Alhana Starbreeze hostage, the griffons had stopped serving the Qualinesti. Yet obviously they still served Porthios.

He stepped up to one of the creatures, which regarded him with a glare that he thought was exceptionally cold and aloof. Gilthas bowed stiffly, not wanting to appear weak or indecisive in front of this proud creature. Yet he was embarrassed as he tried to slip his boot into the stirrup and found the silver bracket always dancing just beyond the reach of his toes. Finally Kerian stepped to his side, helped him plant his foot, then aided him to swing his other leg across the creature’s leonine haunches.

Once he was astride the griffon, Gilthas noticed that the saddle felt very natural, almost as though it conformed to his body. The back was high and pressed close to his spine, which was good, because the griffon pounced forward with a sudden beat of its wings, and without that brace, the elf would certainly have slid right over the rump to sprawl gracelessly on the ground that was already receding beneath him.

He saw the treetops of Qualinost whirl past below, felt the creature bank as it followed a course over the densest of the city’s vegetation. Like the two elves on foot, the griffons avoided those parts of the city where the magical lights danced. Soon they soared beneath one of the lofty arched bridges, and though Gilthas could clearly see the Dark Knights pacing their monotonous duty overhead, the twin fliers whisked through the shadows undetected.

Kerian, on the other griffon, was nearby. Somehow she looked relaxed as she leaned forward in the saddle, the reins held loosely in her left hand, golden hair trailing in a plume behind her. As they passed over the deep gorge that yawned to the west of the city, Gilthas was clutching the horn that rose from the forepart of his own saddle. Only after he glanced again at Kerian did he belatedly remembered the reins. Picking up the leather straps, he held them lightly, certain that the griffon did not need—and would not welcome—his steering or guidance.

The night air was surprisingly cool once they rose above the trees, but after the numbing heat of the last weeks, Gilthas relished the chill, enjoyed the sensation of his sweat drying from the force of the wind. He looked back, seeing the illumination of the city’s lights fading through the woods. Within a few minutes, Qualinost had faded into the distance behind them, and the forest sprawled strangely dark to all the horizons below.

They were flying west, he knew from the position of the stars, though Gilthas found it impossible to calculate how far they had traveled. Strangely, he didn’t feel any need to sleep. Instead, he absorbed the view of the starlit landscape, watched the occasional clouds wisp across the heavens, or stole surreptitious looks at Kerian, riding in silence just twenty or thirty feet off to the side.

A glance over his shoulder showed that dawn had begun to pink the horizon, but there was no distinguishing characteristic in all the vast forest to give him a clear idea of where he was. Slowly daylight filtered across the sky, and with the increasing illumination, the two griffons dived until they were flying just above the tops of the trees. He suspected that this was to avoid discovery by dragons, and the suspicion gave him a little thrill of adventure that soon translated into an acid churning of his stomach.

Finally the sun rose into the cloudless sky, and the heat of the direct rays on his back brought back awareness of this scorching summer. They coursed through dry air, and in the harsh light, he saw that many of the trees were withered, their leaves tinged with a brown that was utterly unnatural for the eternally lush forests of Qualinesti. They crossed over a small stream, and in the glimpses he got between the leaves, he saw that the water was still and muddy, more a series of stagnant pools around bone-dry rocks than any kind of fresh water flowage.

And then, at last, something broke the monotonous blanket of treetops. A bluff jutted before them, a conelike promontory formed by some ancient geological convulsion, or perhaps the work of some ultrapowerful wizard with a taste for altered landscapes. The sides of the elevation were thickly blanketed by trees, but the face was bare rock, a cliff worn ragged by weather, reduced to a series of tapered spires rising upward from the jagged summit. At the base of the cliff was a small lake, where the waters somehow remained clear and blue in the midst of the drought.

Here the griffons descended, gliding just above the lake’s surface. Gilthas was enthralled by the sight of huge trout darting away from their swift shadows.

Finally he looked up and saw that they were angling toward the shore. And there, in the shadows beneath the lofty oaks and vallenwoods, he saw a number of people gathered, arrayed in a semicircle, clearly awaiting their arrival.

The griffons swept closer, and Gilthas could see that these were elves. In the woods beyond them, more griffons were at rest, though some of the creatures lifted their heads or made sharp squawks to acknowledge the arrival of their two fellows.

With a suddenness that almost pitched him from the saddle, Gilthas’s steed swooped down and skidded to a halt on the dry ground at the edge of the lake. Immediately hard-faced elves raced forward, flanking him with swords drawn.

“Get down!” one of them barked. “Quickly!”

Gilthas did so, scrambling from the saddle, kicking out of the stirrups, and somehow coming to rest on his feet. He noticed that Kerianseray had dismounted smoothly and was welcoming the embrace of a tall, fierce Kagonesti. That warrior, whose face, chest, and limbs were covered with the whorls and leaves of black tattoos, stared over Kerian’s head at Gilthas, his expression cold and unreadable.

Trying to summon what he could of his dignity, Gilthas straightened up and looked stiffly over the assembled elves.

These were a mix of wild elves and crudely dressed Qualinesti, the latter wearing leather leggings and cloth tunics to set them apart from the Kagonesti, who wore loincloths. One of the Qualinesti, a golden-haired male with stern features, his mouth locked in a harsh frown, stepped forward from the throng.

Gilthas was certain this was Porthios.

“Greetings, Uncle,” began the young Speaker. “I am grateful that you have agreed to see me.”

“You should be,” Porthios snapped. “For by many accounts, you are the one who has stolen my medallion and my throne, who purports to lead my people but is really the tame lackey of the Thalas-Enthia!”

Gilthas felt the sting of the words, used all his willpower not to recoil. “I had no part in seeking this throne,” he retorted, his eyes searching through the elves beyond Porthios, seeking one particular face. “Instead, it was thrust upon me—after it had already been taken from you!—and I donned the medallion to avoid an even darker alternative.”

“What alternative is darker than betrayal? Than exile?” growled the former Speaker of the Sun.

“The murder of a princess... the loss of an unborn child’s life,” Gilthas said, his tone softening as he found the person he sought. “Hello, my queen. I am glad to see that you are well.”

“Hello, Gilthas,” Alhana replied with a smile. She stepped forward, taking her husband’s arm in a gesture that seemed incongruously tender in contrast to Porthios’s harsh words. “And I am glad to see you healthy as well.”

“Tell me why you wanted to see me,” Porthios demanded, clearly vexed by his wife’s friendliness with the young elf.

“Because I admire what you have done, and I despise what has happened in Qualinesti. You might be interested to know that your victory over a wing of the Dark Knights’ army resulted in a general’s execution. I have heard that Lord Ariakan himself found your attack embarrassing and disconcerting.”

“And who is Lord Ariakan? Is he your new master?” The outlaw captain seemed determined to be rude.

Gilthas stiffened. “My admiration was based on an account of your actions and a genuine interest in seeing if there was something, anything, I could do to help you. However, I have no interest in being insulted and ridiculed. I can leave right now!”

“No,” Porthios growled, “you can’t. Not unless you know how to persuade the griffons to obey you.”

Gilthas felt a nervous surge in his gut and knew that the other elf spoke the truth. Still, he tried to cover his anxiety with bluster. “Am I your prisoner, then? This journey was a ruse on your part to work my capture?”

“Why should we take risks like this? You wouldn’t be worth the trouble,” Porthios said with a sneer.

“Then why am I here?” Gilthas retorted, getting hotter by the second. “Why did you let me come?”

“Because you know things about the Dark Knights... things that I need to know. You were right, in a sense. You might be able to help me.”

“Come, Husband. This is not a matter to be discussed while we stand here and wait for the sun to reach its zenith,” Alhana said gently. She had not let go of his arm, and now she gently pulled him through a half circle while she turned to Gilthas. “Join us for a bite of food... and we can sit, as conferring elves should.” She looked chidingly back to Porthios. “Not stand around like human bulls getting ready to fight a duel.”

Gilthas followed, aware that Kerian was walking behind him, still arm in arm with the glowering Kagonesti warrior. Lining their route into the forest were many other elves, and it did not escape the young Speaker’s notice that there was not a friendly face in the lot.

All of which made Alhana’s graciousness an exceptional relief. She led them to a small clearing, merely a bare patch of forest floor surrounded by the trunks of many massive trees. It was almost as though a natural room had been formed here in the woods. Stern warriors stood at the gaps between the trees, giving some measure of privacy to the elves who entered the enclosed space.

They included Porthios and Alhana, Gilthas, several other elven warriors, and Kerian and the Kagonesti brave who had not left her side since their arrival. Gilthas was further pleased to recognize the warrior-mage Samar, who with Tanis had aided Alhana’s escape. So far as the Speaker had known, Samar had been killed during the queen’s first, ill-fated attempt at escape.

“No... I was saved by healer magic,” Samar explained easily. “And in our second attempt, we were more careful, though I regret that we were not able to get you away with us.”

“Sometimes I wish you had,” Gilthas admitted, allowing himself a moment of glum honesty.

“You tried to escape?” Porthios asked skeptically “Rashas was holding his prospective Speaker prisoner?”

“I told you, Husband,” Alhana interjected with a touch of exasperation. “It was only the threat against my life that forced Gilthas to take on the medallion and the throne of the Speaker.”

“It’s true,” Gilthas insisted, trying to be pleasant, though he admitted to himself that he was tired of Porthios’s scorn and irritated with the outlaw prince constantly questioning his motives. “Rashas showed me an archer, one of his Kagonesti slaves, who held a bow drawn, an arrow aimed at your wife’s heart. He made it clear that he would give the order to shoot if I showed any hesitation.”

A question suddenly occurred to the young elf, and he fixed his eyes upon Porthios with a hint of challenge. “And that medallion still bore the enchantment of the sun... that meant that you gave it up willingly! Why?”

The prince glowered and flushed, but finally shrugged in resignation. “Rashas used the same tactic against me,” Porthios admitted. “I gave it up to spare Alhana’s life.”

“Then take it back!” Gilthas urged suddenly, impetuously. “I would willingly return it to you, and you can have the throne again!”

Porthios shook his head firmly. “I’m an outlaw, remember? My days of living in Qualinost, in any elven city, are behind me!”

“If that’s the case—if you accept the judgment of the Thalas-Enthia that you’ve been exiled—then why do you choose to dwell in the Qualinesti forests?” Gilthas shot back, his chin jutting forward in challenge.

The older elf blinked, then allowed himself a tight smile. “I see the pup is finding his bark.” His expression darkened. “But my reasons are my own, and I have no intention of justifying them to you.”

Gilthas shrugged. “It’s not necessary that you do. But I would have expected your actions to make a little more sense, that’s all.”

“They make sense to me.”

“You said that I could help you, that you wanted information about the Dark Knights. What do you want to know?”

“This Lord Salladac... you have met him?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what he’s like, his strengths, especially, and any weaknesses you might have observed.”

Gilthas tried to comply. He listed the Dark Knight leader’s grasp of strategy and tactics, his obvious mastery over his own troops. He described the speed with which the knightly army moved, the well-disciplined dragons, and the rank after rank of fierce-looking brutes, all apparently devoted to their lord. Gilthas also mentioned Salladac’s utter ruthlessness in dealing with the incompetence of his own lieutenant, the soldier who had been executed for failing to guard his camp.

“That incompetence was highlighted only by our attack,” Porthios interjected with no attempt to conceal his pride.

“Exactly. Salladac is a diplomat, too. In negotiations, he is unfailingly pleasant, yet he seems to get exactly what he wants.”

“That’s because he deals from a position of strength.”

“Perhaps... and also because, in my experience, he’s been negotiating with weaklings.” Gilthas was startled by his own frankness.

“Do you include yourself in that assessment?” Porthios looked at him shrewdly.

The Speaker merely shrugged. “You can, if you want. I was present, but—as I’m sure you could imagine—it was Rashas who did the talking.”

“Gilthas—that is, the Speaker—tried to raise a company to defend the city!” Kerianseray, speaking for the first time, interrupted with surprising vehemence.

A warm flush of pleasure flowed through the young elf at her words, though he tried to mask his emotion from Porthios and from the fierce-looking Kagonesti who glowered at Kerian’s side.

“This is true?” asked the outlaw captain.

Now Gilthas’s emotions shifted again toward shame as he remembered his pathetic efforts. “I tried, that much is true. But the elves of the city showed no stomach for the fight. I was able to gather about fifty old warriors, half of them lamed during the War of the Lance.”

“They had no stomach for the fight, or for their leader?” Porthios stabbed shrewdly.

Gilthas remained silent, biting his tongue as he glared at the outlaw.

Porthios snorted in contempt. “I would have expected more from the son of Tanis Half-Elven. Your father was impetuous, a fool in some ways, but at least he—”

Gilthas had heard enough. His features twisted into a snarl and he jumped to his feet. “Listen, damn you—leave my father out of this! Tanis has more wisdom in his big toe than you, a so-called elven prince, have in your whole body! You won’t insult him in my presence, or I will fight you!”

He dropped his tone, his voice deliberately scornful, challenging. “Are you a complete fool? Can’t you see that I don’t have any more choice in these matters than you do? If you’re too stupid to get that through your head, then send me away or kill me... whatever you plan to do.”

With a glower of pure fury, he raised his fist—he had no weapon—and took what he assumed was a martial stance. “That is, you can try to kill me!”

Porthios stared at him, his face darkening to a furious crimson. Then, to Gilthas’s immense chagrin and embarrassment, the outlaw prince threw back his head and laughed out loud. He bounced to his feet and, still laughing, reached forward to clasp the Speaker’s clenched fist in both of his hands.

“Well said, young nephew. You are your mother’s—and your father’s—son after all. And you’re right to talk to me like that. I apologize for my rudeness.”

Utterly flustered now, Gilthas followed the other’s lead and sat back down. He regarded Porthios warily, surprised to realize that the outlaw now seemed to be in a fine mood, for he was chuckling and shaking his head in amusement.

“You were telling me about this Dark Knight lord... painting a rather formidable picture, I must admit. Does he have any weaknesses?”

Gilthas had actually given this question some thought, and he had an answer prepared. “If he has a weakness, and I am not certain that he does, it is that Lord Salladac is convinced—is too convinced—that he cannot fail. He exhibits a sense of arrogance that might lead to his undoing.”

“In what way?” Porthios was listening intently.

“He has been ordered to send his dragons and half his army to aid in the campaign against Silvanesti, for example, but he’s decided to remain here, fully confident that he and his regime are safe.”

“As to the city, is it true that the Thalas-Enthia is allowed to meet, to conduct business as usual?”

“Yes... up to a point. The most radical members have fled, and their houses have been given over to the knightly garrison. There is a curfew now, but of course that doesn’t mean much to elves—it’s not as if we carouse like dwarves until all hours—though the knights have many guards patrolling the city at night.” He flashed a smile at the Kagonesti woman across the campfire. “Fortunately Kerianseray didn’t seem to have much trouble in leading us past them.”

“My daughter has been trained to know the stealth of the deer and the speed of the rabbit,” declared the tattooed warrior who sat so protectively beside the wild elf maid.

“Your daugh—of course, yes,” Gilthas said, flustered. Alhana’s eyes sparkled at his discomfort, though he tried manfully to maintain his composure. Nevertheless, he was almost giddy with delight at the news. Though the wild elf brave was clearly mature, his tattooed elven face gave no hint that he was anything more than a grown male, so the Speaker had naturally formed a mistaken impression about him

“Forgive me,” Porthios said. “This is Dallatar, chieftain of the Kagonesti in these woods. His warriors have allied themselves with ours in defense of our homeland.”

“I’m glad,” Gilthas said sincerely. “And you should know that there are those in the city who would be your allies as well.”

“I believe you,” the dark elf said, and Gilthas was surprised at the wave of relief those words sent through him.

“Now that we’ve gotten some of this business out of the way,” Alhana suggested, with a pointed look at her husband, “why don’t we move to the council fire. There we can eat—not a palace feast, of course, but we make do with the humble fare that the forest provides—and perhaps our guest might get a taste of our hospitality instead of our suspicions.”

“Agreed,” Porthios said cheerfully.

The elves made an informal procession as they left the enclosed space between the tree trunks. Gilthas was surprised to find, a few paces deeper in the forest, a wide, open space in which were gathered hundreds of elves and griffons. A few tall trees grew here and there, with broad upper branches sweeping outward, interconnecting enough to deny any glimpse of the sky. More significantly, he realized, this huge encampment was consequently invisible to discovery from the air.

The “humble fare” of the forest was a dazzling array of foods, centering around roast venison, stuffed game hens, and fish fillets spitted and grilled over hardwood coals. There were fruits and tubers in accompaniment, including berries that had been whipped into a light froth and then spread over thin strips of bread. The outlaws even had wine, though Porthios cheerfully admitted that it was not of their own making. Instead, they had taken it from an outbound caravan. Many jugs had been cached near here, so that when the blue dragons had driven them out of their previous camp, they had still maintained a ready supply of the beverage so favored by the elves.

The atmosphere was convivial, and Gilthas found himself envying these elves of the forest. In his opinion, they paid but a small price by sleeping on the ground, making do without the dancing lights, the elegant surroundings of Qualinost. Porthios tried to point out that a great deal of work went into gathering the food, and even more time was spent guarding themselves against attack, but even these deterrences seemed merely like an adventurous aspect to what must be an idyllic life.

These were the thoughts on Gilthas’s mind as he rose to visit the latrine long after the meal had been supped. The wine left a pleasant taste on his tongue and a mild buzz in his head as he wandered through the woods.

It was so peaceful here, he thought as he heard birdcalls in the dark woods. He strolled through the dark, coming back to the firelit clearing by a roundabout path. At the edge of the illuminated swath, he almost stumbled over a figure crouching in the bushes.

“Excuse me,” stammered Gilthas, embarrassed by his clumsiness. He assumed that this was merely another elf who, like himself, had wandered off to relieve himself in private. Then he caught a glimpse of the sharp, angry features.

“You!” gasped the young Speaker.

Immediately the other elf, who had recognized Gilthas at the same time, spat a curse and snatched at something he held in his hand. The Speaker saw a golden ring, twisted by frantic fingers. With a single muffled word, the figure disappeared. Gilthas lunged forward, groping through empty space, knowing that the other elf had teleported away.

“Porthios! Alhana!” he cried, lunging into the clearing, pointing to the place where the other elf had crouched.

“What? What’s wrong.”

“There, in the woods—a spy was watching!”

“How do you know he’s a spy?” demanded the outlaw captain, drawing his sword and racing toward the empty patch of shrubbery.

“Because I recognized him. His name is Guilderhand, and he’s loyal only to Rashas!”

“I’ll have to return to the city immediately,” Gilthas said. “Guilderhand is probably there already, but perhaps I can try to minimize the damage.”

“How?’ Porthios asked scathingly. “He saw you here, he knows the location of our camp, and you claim that he’s loyal to our staunchest enemy. Our only alternative is to flee from here and take you with us!”

He looked at Gilthas closely. “Which is a shame, my young prince, because I had realized that with you on the Speaker’s throne, we could in fact be very useful to each other.”

“It might not be as bad as we fear,” Samar reported as he came to join them. The warrior-mage had been investigating the place where Guilderhand had disappeared. “Perhaps we can send someone after him and get to him before he makes a report.”

“How?” asked Porthios.

“I have a device of teleportation myself, which is the same enchantment that Guilderhand obviously had on his ring.” Samar produced a small vial from his pouch. “It is contained here, in a bit of mint. It can be used to send someone to Qualinost, to try to intercept—and to silence—the spy.”

“I’ll go,” Gilthas said quickly. “It has to be me. I can move around the city, and no one will be surprised to see me there.”

“Then perhaps we do have time,” the outlaw captain said. He looked at Gilthas. “Do you know what needs to be done?”

“To go after Guilderhand?” Gilthas asked, his mind still taut with the fear and excitement of the encounter.

“You’ll have to kill him if you can find him before he reports to Rashas,” Porthios declared grimly. “But if you’re too late, then flee the city, or suffer the consequences of having the senator and the Thalas-Enthia know about our alliance.”

“I understand,” Gilthas said, and he did—up to a point.

The one thing he didn’t know was how in Krynn he would go about trying to commit a murder.