Sanctuary

Prologue

A flock of blackbirds took flight, screeching wildly. They were not used to strangers. The sight of so many figures, moving toward them, incited panic. In moments the birds were lost against the unbending glare of the sun, but the emptiness was soon filled by a long column of cavalry.

Dusty horses, heads low, trudged over coarse sand and loose stones, their riders dozing in the saddle. Stragglers limped along the column’s flanks, shields hanging from spears borne on weary, bony shoulders. None lacked a wound-these ranged from stray cuts and bruises to missing limbs. More than a few were gray-faced, bearing the unmistakable mark of impending death.

All were elves, many of the Kagonesti strain, but fully half belonged either to the western, Qualinesti line or the Silvanesti, eldest among the ancient race.

At the head of this mournful procession walked Kerianseray, general of all the elven armies. Years in the desert had deepened her natural brown skin tone and given her eyes a penetrating squint. Just now, her eyes were fixed on her trudging feet, willing them to make one more step, and another, and another.

She was leading her griffon. Eagle Eye had come to her as a gift from Silvanesti lords grateful to have escaped their homeland ahead of the invading minotaur host. Kagonesti she might be, but the protocol-sensitive nobles insisted that Kerianseray should have the finest mount in the army, not only as the leader of the remaining elven host but as wife to Gilthas, the Speaker of the Sun and Stars. In skirmish after skirmish, Eagle Eye had proven his mettle, taking the measure of many a fierce minotaur and ushering numerous foes into the hereafter. But even under the guidance of his ferocious rider, he could not reverse the inevitable.

Kerianseray, known to friend and foe alike as the Lioness, had led ten thousand elves south through the desert of Khur, seeking some means of entering the despoiled kingdom of Silvanesti from the north. Her warrior band was united by an unquenchable desire to expel the invaders from the sacred sylvan fastness of that most ancient elven homeland. Half a thousand perished even before the border of Silvanesti was reached, lost to heat, tainted water, and poisonous reptiles. Where fine sand finally gave way to loamy soil, and stunted pines and twisted junipers to leaf-bearing trees, the minotaurs were waiting. Using their dreaded “dragontooth” tactics, they shredded the Lioness’s force long before it reached Silvanesti land. Her grand plan to raise the common folk in revolt against their brutal overlords died before it could be born.

Repulsed at the border, the elves had shifted eastward, hoping to get around the wall of minotaurs. Everywhere they tried to enter Silvanesti, they were met by the swords and axes of the brawny bull-men. Food and water dwindling, the Lioness was forced to retreat. Failure in battle was one thing; she had known defeat before. Failure here, with nothing at their backs but three hundred miles of desert, was much worse. Annihilation stared every elf in the face. All they could do was return the way they had come, back across the scorching desert, hoping they would reach their temporary home—the tent settlement near Khuri-Khan-before they perished.

A rider was cantering through the slow-moving column, streams of dust rising behind him. Kerianseray heard the hoofbeats and halted, tugging on Eagle Eye’s braided halter.

The griffon, unhappy to have his raptor’s claws on the broiling sand, arched his neck and clawed at the offending ground. The Lioness spoke briefly to him and be quieted.

The rider slewed to a halt. “General, I bring urgent word from the rear guard!”

She squinted up at him, wracking her sun-broil memory for a name. Hytanthas it was. Hytanthas Ambrodel. Two centuries ago his forefathers dwelled in the marbled halls of Qualinost advisors to the Speaker of the Sun. Centuries before that, in Silvanost, his ancestors would have owned Kagonesti slaves. This dirty, disheveled young soldier was now among the last of his line.

His lips were so parched that he could hardly push the words out. After swallowing several times, he managed to rasp, “The enemy presses upon us! Lord Taranath says a regiment at least!”

A regiment. Two thousand minotaurs.

Exhaustion weighed on Kerian like a thick, heavy cloak. She still commanded almost eight thousand elves, but the enemy was well-supplied and fresh. Her elves were all but spent.

Her officers collected around her. She questioned Hytanthas openly for everyone to hear. This was how the Lioness led, not from some lofty position, but as a comrade among equals. For this and other reasons, she was respected by her warriors almost to the point of adulation.

According to young Ambrodel the horned enemy was coming straight on, in battle array.

An elf, his sword arm in a sling, exclaimed, “Afoot? Perhaps we could just ride away from them!”

“Ride where?” said another injured officer. “The only thing in front of us is wasteland!”

“That’s what they want,” the Lioness said. Absently, she stroked Eagle Eye’s feathered neck. “To drive us out and let the desert kill us.”

“Let’s stand and fight, then!” said the first elf. Others, despite their hurts, loudly seconded this declaration.

Kerian shook her head. Even if they managed to wipe out the attackers, they’d lose half their strength in the battle. Each and every warrior was precious these days. Expelled from their homelands, the elves had only the resources they’d been able to carry with them. Horses and trained fighters were more valuable than any amount of steel or precious jewels.

She scratched her head, dislodging a cascade of sand from her hair. The thick curls resisted her efforts to confine them in a braid, so she tied them back with a leather thong.

Her battered army was watching her, waiting for orders. No matter how gravely wounded, their heads were unbowed. If she ordered it, each and every one would fight—and most would die. Such an order was unthinkable. The preservation of the army was far more important than a fleeting gesture against the minotaurs.

She put a foot in the stirrup of Eagle Eye’s slim saddle and swung onto the griffon’s back. As she settled herself, the sea of expectant faces continued to regard her in silence.

“The army will march east, to the sea,” she announced.

Some were openly stunned. While the coastline was less harsh than the deep desert, it was also subject to the watchful eyes of the minotaur fleet. Escaping detection would be impossible. The enemy could cruise along and land troops ahead of the retreating elves at any point.

Those who had served with the Lioness in her long campaign against the Knights of Neraka were not shocked, however. They knew she wasn’t desperate or reckless, knew she must have some bold device in mind.

Quietly, she added, “I need volunteers.” Although she didn’t specify a duty, all present suddenly realized what she was about to say. The officers straightened to attention, volunteering one and all.

“I need a covering force to delay the minotaurs. To make a stand.” She gestured to a slight rise among the gnarled junipers. “There, on that knoll.”

Hytanthas Ambrodel opened his mouth, but before he could speak, she waved a hand. “No, not you, Captain. I need you for something else.”

He didn’t recognize this for the kindly falsehood it was. The Lioness’s weary face gave nothing away, but she wanted to spare the too young, too ardent captain this particular task. She had lost too many like him on this campaign.

A Silvanesti named Baranthalonus, a veteran, saluted. “General, allow me the honor.”

She asked him why. His sunburned face turned south, hazel eyes growing distant, as if seeing the green land that still lay beyond the horizon. “I should like to die at least close to Silvanesti land,” he said simply.

“Very well. Pick a band of five hundred, all good archers. Fix the enemy here for at least a day.”

A tall order, but Baranthalonus nodded. “The five hundred should be Silvanesti.”

None objected to the implicit gibe. Silvanesti were known for considering themselves superior to all races, including other elves. Ordinarily the Lioness would not have tolerated such a provocative statement, but these circumstances were hardly ordinary, and this elf had volunteered for death.

With a shrug, she said, “I wish you had Kith-Kanan himself.”

“He was Qualinesti, General.”

The jest elicited hoarse chuckles from the others. “Well, you’ll have at least one in your company who’s not of the star-born.” She indicated herself.

Her officers protested. As commander of the army, she must not place herself in such peril.

“I’ll do what I think is best for the army,” she snapped, cutting off the protests.

Hytanthas was sent to bring Taranath forward. As the Lioness’s second-in-command, he would lead in her absence.

Four other Silvanesti officers asked to join Baranthalonus, so he sent them through the ranks to pick five hundred warriors. In short order the covering force was assembled on the gravelly knoll. All of the army’s remaining arrows were turned over to them. The archers chose their places with care, each surrounding himself with a hedge of arrows, points thrust into the coarse sand. One of the archers, the Lioness never knew which, yielded his food and waterskin to a comrade who was continuing the march. In rapid order, every elf in the covering force willingly surrendered his precious rations, then knelt to await the enemy’s arrival.

Lord Taranath arrived. Formerly a commander in the royal guard of Qualinost, he was an unusually tall elf. This, together with his somewhat rounded ears, had always encouraged speculation about a mixed parentage. Taranath was renowned for coolness in battle, and such insults were the only things that stirred him to rage. Given his prowess with a sword, he was not often insulted.

“Lady,” he said, saluting the Lioness. She didn’t care for the honorific, but this was hardly the time to reprove her valiant friend. She delivered her orders with characteristic brevity.

“Take the army to the sea, Taran. Head north to Khuri-Khan, and present the army with my compliments to the Speaker.”

Taranath raised an eyebrow. “The minotaur fleet—how will we avoid it?”

“Spring is nearly over. The Khurish nomads will be leaving the deep desert, before the summer heat sets in.” Kerian grimaced; crazy to imagine this as spring, yet summer would indeed be much worse. “There’ll be hundreds, thousands of them on the coastal route. Mix with them, join their caravans. The bull-men won’t molest you while you ride amidst a pack of nomads.” The king of the Khurish humans, Sahim-Khan, was known to be on friendly terms with the minotaurs.

“Is it honorable to skulk home,” Taranath spoke quietly, “cloaked by hordes of ragged nomads?”

“War is not about honor. It’s about survival—and victory.” Since the latter had eluded them, the former was now paramount.

Flat horn blasts echoed across the sand. Kerianseray shaded her eyes. A thick, rising column of dust marked the oncoming enemy.

“Go,” she said. “Tell the Speaker—” She stopped, a rare blush mantling her sunbrowned cheeks, as she failed to find the right words.

Taranath was deeply moved, but respected her privacy. “I know what to tell the Speaker, lady. Fare you well.”

Like the tide retreating from jetsam on the shore, the elven army flowed away, leaving the small Silvanesti force alone on the stony knoll. Seventy-five hundred warriors, mounted and on foot, vanished among the pines and junipers. Despite weariness and heavy hearts, they made no more sound than the soughing of the wind. The volunteers watched them go.

The Lioness twisted around in Eagle Eye’s saddle. From a long, leather-covered tube tied across the animal’s hips, she withdrew three lengths of polished steel, each about four feet long. Screwing the threaded ends together, she soon had a formidable lance, a griffon-rider’s deadliest weapon.

The archers lifted their heads. They heard a single voice, far deeper than any elf’s, deeper even than a human’s, roaring from across the distance. The minotaur commander was challenging his troops. Everyone looked to Baranthalonus. He in turn looked to the Lioness.

“I’ll not rise yet,” she said, tugging on mail gauntlets. Even though they were sewn of light-colored cloth to reflect the sun, donning them was like putting her hands into a hot frying pan. “No sense giving our position away.”

The dust clouds grew thicker, spreading out in a semicircle from south to north, fully encompassing the small hillock. Clanking and clattering, the great armored host of minotaurs drew nearer. Loose stones danced as the desert trembled under the tread of two thousand bull-men. Eagle Eye no longer shifted his clawed forefeet on the hot sand. The griffon stood unmoving, his golden-eyed gaze fixed upon the approaching enemy, alert for his rider’s slightest command.

Kerianseray tightened the straps of her helmet beneath her chin. It wasn’t a fighting helm, made of steel or iron, but a soft leather cap, designed chiefly to keep her thick golden hair out of her face while she was airborne. She shifted the steel lance off her knees and couched it under her arm. Thoughts crossed her mind: What a long way she’d come from the woods of Qualinesti. There she’d first fought the Nerakans with a simple leather sling. Now she commanded Silvanesti lords from griffonback, with a knightly weapon in her hand. A strange fate had led her here.

Fate—and her husband. Once despised as the “Puppet King,” a tool of the Knights of Neraka, Gilthas had left a soft, comfortable life to lead the remnants of the elven nations across mountains and desert to find refuge in Khur. No one called him puppet now. The coalition of Qualinesti, Silvanesti, and Kagonesti who had abandoned their woodlands was six years old, and still as fragile as a hummingbird’s egg. Holding them together was Gilthas, Speaker of the Sun and Stars.

The din of the minotaurs’ approach was deafening. They marched in a series of tight triangular formations, apex forward, shaping their famed “dragontooth” attack. An enemy facing this battle line found itself squeezed into close combat on two sides. These minotaur dragonteeth chewed up and destroyed entire armies. But Kerianseray didn’t intend to play the game their way today.

She looked to Baranthalonus and nodded. He gave the order. As one, five hundred Silvanesti archers—the best remaining in all the world—rose to their feet, flocked arrows, and loosed them into the air. Kerianseray closed her eyes for an instant and whispered one word.

“Gilthas.”