The Qualinesti

2 — The Raid

The kender led Verhanna’s troops across the mountains to a bluff overlooking the River of Hope, which formed Qualinost’s western boundary. The towers and bridges of the city rose up to the northeast not three miles away. The sun was setting behind the mountains at the warriors’ backs. Its light washed the capital, and the arched bridges glowed like golden tiaras. Nestled in the light green of spring leaves, thousands of windows reflected the crimson sun. Brightest of all, the Tower of the Sun mirrored the fiery glow with a vigor that nearly burned Verhanna’s eyes.

Verhanna gazed over the city her father had founded, and a deep sense of peace filled her. Her home was beautiful; the thought that dealers in elven and human misery operated within sight of Qualinost’s beauty sent a wave of resolute anger washing over her.

Rufus broke her reverie. “Captain,” he whispered, “I smell smoke.”

Verhanna strained until she caught a faint tang of wood smoke on the gentle breeze. It was coming from below, from the base of the bluff. “Is there a way down there?” she queried.

“Not on horseback. The path’s too narrow,” Rufus replied.

Quietly Verhanna ordered her troops to dismount. The horses were tethered among the rocks, and a group of five warriors was set to watch them. The remaining fifteen followed Verhanna to the path. She, in turn, followed Rufus Wrinklecap.

It was obvious that others had been using this path. Sand from the riverbank had been spread over the rocky ground, no doubt to soften footfalls. Now the sand served the guards as they crept down the path two abreast. They were careful to keep their shields from banging against anything. The smell of wood smoke grew stronger.

The base of the bluff was some thirty yards from the river’s edge. Scrub pines dotted the landscape, and halfway out from the cliff, there was nothing but sand deposited by the river during spring floods. Verhanna caught Rufus by the shoulder and stopped him. The warriors crouched silently behind their captain, shielded from the camp by the small trees.

Voices drifted to them—voices and sounds of movement.

“Can’t see how many there are,” Verhanna said in a tense whisper.

“I can find out,” Rufus said confidently, and before she could stop him, he had eased out from under her hand and started forward.

“No! Come back!” the captain hissed.

It was too late. With the fearlessness, some might say foolishness, of his race, the kender scrambled forward a few paces, stood, and dusted the sand from his knees. Then, whistling a cheery air, he marched into the unseen slavers’ camp.

Merith crawled to his captain. “The little thief will give us away,” he murmured.

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “By the gods, he’s a brave little mite.”

Moments later, rough laughter filled the air. Rufus’s treble voice, saying something unintelligible, followed, then more laughter. To Verhanna’s surprise, the kender came rolling through the scrub pines, knees tucked under his chin. He made a graceful flip onto his feet and flung out his arms. There was more laughter, and a spattering of applause. Verhanna understood; the kender was playing the fool, doing acrobatic tricks to amuse the slavers.

Rufus scuffed his feet on the sand and dove headfirst into a somersault. From her hiding place, Verhanna could just make out what he’d marked in the dirt. A one and a zero. There were ten slavers in the camp.

“Good fellow,” she whispered fiercely. “We’ll rush them. Spread out along the riverbank. I don’t want any of them jumping in the water and swimming away.” Burdened by armor, her guards wouldn’t be able to pursue the slavers in the river.

Swords whisked out of scabbards. Verhanna stood, silently thrusting her blade in the air. The last rays of daylight fell across her face, highlighting its mix of human and elven features. Almond-shaped elven eyes, rather broad human cheeks, and a sharp Silvanesti chin proclaimed the captain’s ancestry. Her braid of light brown hair hung forward across her chest, and she flicked it behind her. She nodded curtly to her warriors. The guards swept forward.

As Verhanna hurried through the screen of scrawny trees, she took in the slavers’ camp in a quick glance. At the foot of the cliff stood several huts made of beach stone chinked with moss. They blended in so well with their surroundings that from a distance no one would have recognized them as dwellings. Two small campfires burned on the open ground in front of the huts. The slavers stood in a ragged group between the fires. Rufus, his red topknot dripping perspiration and his blizzard of freckles lost on his flushed face, was standing on his hands before them.

The astonished slavers shouted when they saw the guards crashing toward them. A few reached for weapons, but most elected to flee. Verhanna pounded across the sand, straight at the nearest armed slaver. He appeared to be a Kagonesti, with dark braided hair and red triangles painted on his cheeks. In his hands he held a short spear with a wicked barbed head. Verhanna fended off the spear point with her shield and hacked at the shaft with her sword, lopping off the spearhead. The Kagonesti cursed, flung the wooden shaft at her, and turned to run. She was on him in a heartbeat, her long legs far swifter than his. The captain lowered her sword and slashed the fleeing slaver on the back of his leg. He fell, clutching his wounded limb. Verhanna hopped over him and kept going.

The slavers fell back, driven in toward the cliff base by the swords of the guards. Some chose to fight the Qualinesti, and these died in a brief, bloody skirmish. The ragged band was poorly armed and outnumbered, and soon they were on their knees, crying out for quarter.

“Down on your bellies!” Verhanna shouted. “Put your hands out flat on the ground.”

She heard a warning shout from her left and turned in time to see one of the slavers sprinting for the river. He had too much of a head start for any of the guards to catch him, but he hadn’t reckoned on Rufus Wrinklecap. The kender whipped out a sling and quickly loosed a pellet. With a thunk, the stone hit the back of the slaver’s head, and the escaping human fell and lay still. Rufus trotted over to him, and his hands began moving through the fellow’s clothing.

The fight was over. The slavers were searched and bound hand and foot. Of the ten in the camp, four were human men, four were Kagonesti, and two were half-humans. Merith remarked on the fact that the three who died fighting were all Kagonesti.

“They’re not inclined to submit,” Verhanna replied grudgingly. “Have those huts searched, Merith.”

Rufus came sauntering up, swinging his sling jauntily. “Pretty good fight, eh, Captain?” he said cheerfully.

“More a pigeon shoot than a fight, thanks to you.”

The kender beamed. Verhanna dug into her belt pouch and found a gold piece. Her father’s graven image stared up from the coin. She tossed it to Rufus.

“That’s for your help, kender,” she said.

He caressed the heavy gold piece. “Thank you, my captain.”

Just then Merith shouted, “Captain! Over here!” He stood by one of the huts.

“What is it?” she asked sharply when she reached him. “What’s wrong?”

Ashen-faced, he nodded toward the hut. “You—you’d best go inside and see.”

Verhanna frowned and pushed by him. The door of the crude stone house was nothing but a flap of leather. She thrust a hand through and stepped inside. A candle burned on the small table in the center of the one-room dwelling. Someone was seated at the table. His face was in shadow, but Verhanna saw numerous rings on the hand that rested on the table, including a familiar silver signet ring. A ring that belonged to—

“Really, sister, you have the most appalling timing in the world,” said the seated figure. He leaned forward into the candlelight, and the hazel eyes of the line of Silvanos sparkled.

“Ulvian! What are you doing here?” Verhanna asked, shock reducing her voice to a whisper.

Kith-Kanan’s son pushed the candle aside and clasped his hands lightly on the tabletop. “Conducting some very profitable business, till you so rudely disrupted it.”

“Business?” For a long moment, his sister couldn’t take it in. The crude plates and utensils, the worn wooden table, the rough pallet of blankets in one corner, even the sputtering candle—all claimed her roving gaze before her eyes once more rested on the person before her. Then, with the force of a summer storm, she exploded, “Business! Slavery!”

Ulvian’s handsome face, so like his mother Suzine’s, twitched slightly. Full-blooded elven males couldn’t grow beards or mustaches, but Ulvian kept a modest stubble as a sign of his half-human heritage. With a quick, distracted motion, he stroked the fine golden hair.

“What I do is none of your affair,” he said, annoyed. “Nor anyone else’s, for that matter.”

Her own brother a trafficker in slaves! Eldest son of the House of Silvanos and the supposed heir to the throne of Qualinesti. Verhanna’s face flamed with her disgrace and the knowledge of the shame and pain this would cause their father. How could Ulvian do such a thing? Then her mortification was replaced by anger. Cold rage filled the Speaker’s daughter. Grabbing Ulvian by the front of his crimson silk doublet, Verhanna dragged him from behind the table and out of the hut. Merith was still waiting outside.

“Where are the slaves?” she rasped. Mutely Merith pointed to the larger of the two remaining huts.

“Come on, Brother,” growled Verhanna, shoving Ulvian ahead of her. Other guards saw the Speaker’s son and gaped. Merith stormed at them.

“What are you gawking at? Mind those prisoners!” he ordered.

Verhanna propelled Ulvian into the slave hut. Within, a guard was removing a young, emaciated female elf’s chains with a hammer and chisel. Other slaves slumped against the walls of the hut. Even with their deliverance at hand, they were broken in spirit, listless and passive. There were some half-human males, and to Verhanna’s horror, two dark-haired human children who couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old. All the captives were caked with filth. The hut reeked of stale sweat, urine, and despair.

The guard hacked the elf woman’s chain in two and helped her stand. Her thin, frail legs wouldn’t support her. With only the faintest of sighs, she crumpled. The guard lifted her starved body in his arms and carried her out.

Verhanna knew she must get control of her emotions. Closing her eyes, she willed herself to be calm, willed her heart to slow its frenzied beating. Opening her eyes once more, she said with certainty, “Ulvian, Father will have your head for this. If he favors me, I’ll gladly swing the axe.”

One pale hand adjusting the lace at his throat, Ulvian smiled. “I don’t think so, sweet Sister. After all, it wouldn’t look good for the Speaker’s heir to go around without a head, now would it?”

The captain slapped her brother. Ulvian’s head snapped back. Slowly he turned to face his sister. She was four inches taller than he, and the prince tilted his head back slightly to stare directly into her eyes. The smirk was gone from his lips, replaced by cold-blooded fury.

“You will never be Speaker if I have anything to say about it,” Verhanna swore. “You are unfit to utter our father’s name, let alone inherit his title.”

A single bead of blood hung from the corner of Prince Ulvian’s mouth. He dabbed at it and said softly, “You always were Father’s lapdog.”

Sweeping the door flap aside, Verhanna called, “Lieutenant Merith! Come here!” The elegant elf hustled in, scabbard jangling against his armored thigh.

“Put Prince Ulvian in chains,” she ordered. “And if he utters one word of protest, gag him as well.”

Merith stared. “Captain, are you sure? Chain the prince?”

“Yes!” she thundered.

Merith searched among the heaps of chain in the slave hut and found a set of manacles to fit Prince Ulvian. Abashed, he stood before Kith-Kanan’s son and held open the cold iron bonds.

“Highness,” Merith said tightly. “Your hands, please.”

Ulvian did not resist. He presented his slim arms, and Merith snapped the bands around his wrists. A hole in the latch would take a soft iron rivet. “You will regret this, Hanna,” the prince said in a barely audible voice as he stared at his manacled wrists.

By the time Verhanna’s warriors had the slavers’ camp sorted out, Lord Ambrodel and his personal escort of thirty riders had come thundering up the riverbank, summoned by fast dispatch. The elves set up a double row of torches in the sand to light the riders’ way. By the same light, they had sorted the wretched captives by race and gender. The slavers were chained together in one large band, and a guard of bow-armed warriors set to watch them.

Lord Ambrodel rode up, sand flying beneath his horse’s hooves. He called out loudly for Verhanna. The Speaker’s daughter came forward and saluted the younger Ambrodel.

“Give me your report,” he ordered before dismounting.

Verhanna handed him a tally showing eight slaves found and freed, and seven slavers captured. “Three chose to fight and were killed,” she added. Lord Ambrodel slipped the parchment under his breastplate.

“How were they moving the slaves?” he asked, surveying the cunningly concealed camp.

“By river, sir.”

Lord Ambrodel glanced back at the moonlit water.

“My lord,” Verhanna continued, “we found signs that more slaves were sent on from this camp. The ones we found here were too sick to travel. I’d like to take my troop on and try to intercept the rest before they reach the Ergoth border.”

“You’re far too late for that, I’m sure,” Lord Ambrodel replied. “I want to question the leader of the slavers. Did you take him alive?” Verhanna nodded curtly. The warrior lord tugged off his leather gauntlets and slapped the sand from his mailed thighs. “Well, Captain, show him to me,” he said impatiently.

Without a word, Verhanna turned on one heel and led her commander toward the huts. The slavers lay on the ground, their heads buried in their arms in despair or else staring with hatred at their captors. Verhanna yanked a torch from the sand and held it high. She held the door flap open for Lord Ambrodel and thrust the torch inside. The face of the figure seated before them leapt into clarity.

Lord Ambrodel recoiled sharply. “It cannot be!” he gasped. “Prince Ulvian!”

“Kemian, my friend,” the prince said to the general, “you’d best have these fetters removed. I am not a common criminal, though my hysterical sister insists on treating me like one.”

“Release him,” said Lord Ambrodel. His face was white.

“My lord, Prince Ulvian was caught engaging in the forbidden commerce of slavery,” Verhanna put in quickly. “Both my father’s edicts and the laws of the Thalas-Enthia demand—”

“Don’t quote the law to me!” Lord Ambrodel snapped. “I shall bring this matter to the attention of the Speaker at once, but I will not drag a member of the royal family through the streets of Qualinost in chains! I cannot disgrace the Speaker so!”

Before she could order it, Merith was at Verhanna’s side, chisel in hand. She shoved her lieutenant’s hands aside and grasped the cold iron clamps in her own bare hands. With the strength bestowed upon her by her elven heritage, Verhanna pried the manacles apart just enough so that Ulvian could slip his arms out. Impudently he handed the empty chains to his sister.

“Captain,” Lord Ambrodel said, “return to your troop. Muster them for marching.”

“My lord! To what destination?” she answered tersely.

“Southeast—to the forest. I want you to search for other slaver camps there. Lieutenant Merithynos will remain to report on the finding of the slavers.”

Verhanna’s gaze flickered to her brother, to Merith, and back to Lord Ambrodel. She was too disciplined in the ways of the warrior to disobey her commander, but she knew Lord Ambrodel was sending her away so he could handle the delicate business of Ulvian’s crime and punishment. Kemian would not let the prince escape; he was too honest for that. But he would grant her brother every privilege, up to the moment he turned Ulvian over to Kith-Kanan himself.

“Very good, sir,” Verhanna finally responded. With a curt nod, she departed, spurs ringing as her heels struck the packed sand.

Ulvian rubbed his wrists and smiled. “Thank you, my lord,” he said. “I shall remember this.”

“Save your gratitude, my prince. I meant what I said; you will be given over to your father’s judgment.”

Ulvian maintained his smile. The ruddy light of the torch made his blond beard and hair look like copper. “I’m not afraid,” he said lightly. Indeed he wasn’t. His father had never punished Ulvian for his errant ways in the past.

As Verhanna gathered her warriors together with hoarsely shouted commands, the kender reappeared. His pockets were bulging with plunder from the slavers’ camp: knives, string, flints, clay pipes, brass-studded wristbands.

“Hail, Captain,” Rufus called. “Where to now?”

Verhanna looped her reins around her left hand. “So you came back! I thought I’d seen the last of you.”

“You paid me. I’m your scout now,” Rufus announced. “I can lead you anywhere. From which horizon will we next see the sun?” Verhanna swung into the saddle. Her eyes rested on the hut where her brother and Lord Ambrodel still tarried. Her brother, the slaver. “South,” she said, biting off the word as it left her tightly drawn lips.

The Speaker’s house was quite large, though far less grand than the Quinari Palace in Silvanost where Kith-Kanan had grown up. Built entirely of wood, it had a warmth and naturalness he felt was missing from the great crystal residence of his brother, the Speaker of the Stars. The house was more or less rectangular in shape, with two small wings radiating to the west. The main entrance was on the east side, facing the courtyard of the Tower of the Sun.

Lord Ambrodel, Lieutenant Merith, and Prince Ulvian stood in the lamplit antechamber where Kith-Kanan usually greeted his guests. As it was well past midnight, the bright moons of Krynn had already set.

Despite the late hour, the Speaker looked alert and carefully groomed as he and Tamanier Ambrodel descended the polished cherrywood staircase to the antechamber. His fur-trimmed robe swept the floor. The toes of his yellow felt slippers protruded from under the green velvet hem.

“What has happened?” he asked gently.

As senior officer present, it fell to Kemian Ambrodel to explain. When he reached the point in his story where Verhanna had discovered Prince Ulvian in the slavers’ camp, Kemian’s father Tamanier gasped in astonishment. Kith-Kanan’s gaze shifted to Ulvian, who pursed his lips and rocked on his heels in an obvious display of arrogance.

“Were the slaves you found badly treated?” asked the Speaker in clipped tones.

“They were sick, filthy, and ill-fed, Majesty. From what they told us, they were held back from a larger group of slaves sent on by river to Ergoth because they were deemed too feeble for hard work.” Kemian fought down his disgust. “A few had been whipped, Speaker.”

“I see. Thank you, my lord.”

Kith-Kanan clasped his hands behind his back and studied the floor. The maple had a beautiful grain pattern that resembled the dancing flames of a fire. Suddenly, he lifted his head and said, “I want you all to swear to keep what happens here tonight strictly secret. No one is to know of it—not even your families. Is that clear?” The assembled elves nodded solemnly, except Ulvian. “This is a delicate matter. There are those in Qualinost who would try to profit from my son’s actions. For the safety of the nation, this must remain a secret.”

Stepping down from the last stair, the Speaker stood nose-to-nose with his son. “Ullie,” he said quietly, “why did you do it?”

The prince quivered with suppressed anger tinged with fear. “Do you really want to know?” he burst out. “Because you preach about justice and mercy instead of strength and greatness! Because you waste money on beggars and useless temples instead of a proper palace! Because you were the most famous warrior of the age, and you’ve thrown all your glory away to idle in gardens instead of fighting your way to the gates of Silvanost, our rightful home!” His voice choked off.

Kith-Kanan looked his son up and down. The grief on his face was visible to all. The Speaker’s great dignity asserted itself, however, and he said, “The war and the great march west left Silvanesti with an acute shortage of farmers, crafters, and laborers. To appease the nobles and clerics, my brother, the Speaker of the Stars, has sanctioned slavery throughout his realm. A similar condition exists in Ergoth, with similar results.

But no amount of inconvenience justifies the bondage of living, thinking beings by others. I have made it my life’s goal to stamp out the evil traffic in servitude in Qualinesti, and yet my own son—” Kith-Kanan folded his arms, gripping his biceps hard through the plush velvet of his robe. “Ulvian, you will be held under close confinement in Arcuballis Tower until—until I can think of a proper punishment for you,” he declared.

“You don’t dare.” The prince sneered. “I am your son, your only legitimate heir! Where will your precious dynasty be without me? I know you, Father. You’ll forgive me anything to keep from being the first and last Speaker of the Sun from the House of Silvanos!.”

The aged Tamanier Ambrodel could contain himself no longer. He had been friend to Kith-Kanan ever since the Speaker was a young prince in Silvanost. To listen to this spoiled pup jeering at his father was more than mortal flesh could bear. The gray-haired castellan stepped forward and struck Ulvian with his open hand. The prince rounded on him, but Kith-Kanan moved swiftly, placing himself between his son and castellan.

“No, Tam. Stop,” he said, his voice shaking. “Don’t justify his hatred.” To Ulvian, he added, “Fifty years ago you might have earned a beating for your insolence, but now I will not ease your conscience so readily.”

Tamanier stepped back. Kith-Kanan beckoned to Merith, standing quietly behind Kemian Ambrodel.

“I have a charge for you, Lieutenant,” Kith-Kanan said gravely. The Speaker’s gaze unnerved the anxious young elf. “You will be my son’s keeper. Take him to Arcuballis. Stay with him. He must see and speak to no one—no one at all. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Great Speaker.” Merith saluted stiffly.

“Go now, while it is still dark.”

Merith drew his sword and stood beside Ulvian. The prince glared sullenly at the naked blade. Speaker, castellan, and general watched the two leave for the tower keep that guarded the city’s northeastern corner. When the great doors of the house closed behind them, Kith-Kanan asked Kemian where Verhanna was. Lord Ambrodel explained how he’d thought it best to separate brother and sister at such a crisis.

“A wise decision,” Kith-Kanan said ruefully. “Hanna would wring Ullie’s neck.”

The Speaker bade Kemian return to the field and continue the hunt for slavers. The general bowed low, first to his sovereign and then to his father, and swept out of the hall. Once he was gone, Kith-Kanan sank shakily to the steps. Tamanier swiftly knelt beside him.

“Majesty! Are you ill?”

Tears glistened in Kith-Kanan’s brown eyes. “I am all right,” he murmured. “Leave me, Tam.”

“May I escort Your Majesty to his room?”

“No, I want to sit a while. On your way now, old friend.”

Tamanier rose and bowed. The scuff of his sandals faded in the dimly lit corridor. Kith-Kanan was alone.

He realized his hands were clenched into fists, and he relaxed them. Five hundred years was not a long time to live, by elven standards, yet at that moment, Kith-Kanan felt very aged indeed. What was he to do with Ulvian? The boy’s motives were a mystery to him. Did he need money so badly? Was it the thrill of doing something forbidden? No reason could excuse his conduct this time.

Once, after Ulvian had returned home half-naked and filthy after literally losing his shirt gambling, Verhanna had cornered her father. “He’s no good,” she had said.

“Isn’t he? Who made him so?” Kith-Kanan had wondered aloud. “Can I blame anyone but myself? I hardly ever saw him till he was twelve. The war was going badly, and I was needed in the field.”

“Mother spoiled him. She filled his head with a lot of nonsense,” Verhanna said bitterly. “I can’t count the times he’s told me you were responsible for her death.”

Kith-Kanan drew a hand across his brow. He couldn’t count the times he’d told Ulvian the truth about Suzine, that she had sacrificed her life for her husband and his cause, but Ulvian never believed it.

What could he do? Ulvian was right; Kith-Kanan couldn’t have his own son executed or banished. He was the Speaker’s heir. After working so hard, sacrificing so much, to build this great nation, Kith-Kanan wondered, was it all to be lost?

A bell tolled somewhere far off. The priests of Mantis, called Matheri in old Silvanost, were ringing the great bronze temple bell, signaling the imminent dawn. Kith-Kanan raised his weary head from his hands. The sound of the bell was like a voice, calling to him. Come, come, it said.

Yes, he thought. I will meditate and ask the gods. They will help me.