Elven Nations - The Kinslayer Wars Part 10

Kith-Kanan looked at his brother curiously, but Sithas did not elaborate. Instead, the Speaker continued in a different vein.

"I've had some Thalian blond wine chilled in my apartment. I want to hear everything that's happened since the start of the war. Come and find me after you've spoken to Nirakina."

"I will. I've got a lot to tell, but I want to know how things have fared in the city as well." Kith-Kanan followed Sithas from the nursery, quietly closing the door. Before it

shut, he looked back and saw Hermathya cuddling the baby to her breast. The elf woman's eyes looked up suddenly and locked upon Kith's, making an electric connection that he had to force himself to break.

The two elves, leaders of the nation, walked in silence through the long halls of the Palace of Quinari. They reached the apartments of their mother, and Kith stopped as Sithas walked silently on.

"Enter" came her familiar voice in response to his soft knock.

He pushed open the door and saw Nirakina seated in a chair by the open window.

She rose and swept him into her arms, hugging him as if she would never let him go.

He was shocked by the aging apparent in his mother's face, an aging that was all the more distressing because of the long elven life span. By rights, she was just reaching middle age and could look forward to several productive centuries before she approached old age.

Yet her face, drawn by cares, and the gray streaks that had begun to silver her hair reminded Kith of his grandmother, in the years shortly before her death. It was a revelation that disturbed him deeply.

"Sit down, Mother," Kith said quietly, leading her back to her chair. "Are you all right?"

Nirakina looked at him, and the son had trouble facing his mother's eyes. So much despair!

"Seeing you does much to bring my strength back," she replied, offering a wan smile. "It seems I'm surrounded by strangers so much now."

"Surely Sithas is here with you."

"Oh, when he can be, but there is much to occupy him. The affairs of war, and now his child. Vanesti is a beautiful baby, don't you agree?"

Kith nodded, wondering why he didn't hear more pleasure in his mother's voice. This was her first grandchild.

"But Hermathya thinks that I get in the way, and her sisters are here to help. I have seen too little of Vanesti." Nirakina's eyes drifted to the window. "I miss your father. I miss him so much sometimes that I can hardly stand it."

Kith struggled for words. Failing, he took his mother's hands in his own.

"The palace, the cityit's all changing," she continued. "It's the war. In your absence, Lord Quimant advises your brother. It seems the palace is becoming home to all of Clan Oakleaf."

Kith had heard of Quimant in Sithas's letters and knew his brother considered him to be a great a.s.sistance in affairs of state.

"What of Tamanier Ambrodel?" The loyal elf had been his mother's able aide and had saved her life during the riots that rocked the city before the outbreak of war. Sithel had promoted him to lord chamberlain to reward his loyalty. His mother and Tamanier had been good friends for many years.

"He's gone. Sithas tells me not to worry, and I know he has embarked upon a mission in the service of the throne. But he has been absent a long time, and I cannot help but miss him."

She looked at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. "Sometimes I feel like so much excess baggage, locked away in my room here, waiting for my life to pa.s.s!"

Kith sat back, shocked and dismayed by his mother's despair. This was so unlike the Nirakina he had always known, an elf woman full of vigor, serene and patient against the background of his father's rigid ideas. He tried to hide his churning emotions beneath a lighthearted tone.

"Tomorrow we'll go riding," he said, realizing that sunset approached quickly. "I have to meet Sithas tonight to make my reports. But meet me for breakfast in the dining hall, won't you?"

Nirakina smiled, for the first time with her eyes as well as well as with her lips. "I'd like that," she said. But the memory of her lined, unhappy face stuck with him as he left her chambers and made his way to his brother's library.

"Come in," announced Sithas, as two liveried halberdiers of the House Protectorate snapped to attention before the silver-plated doors to the royal apartment. One of them pulled the door open, and the general entered.

"We wish to be alone," announced the Speaker of the Stars, and the guards nodded silently.

The pair settled into comfortable chairs, near the balcony that gave them an excellent view of the Tower of the Stars, which rose into the night sky across the gardens. The red moon, Lunitari, and the pale orb of Solinari illuminated the vista, casting shadows through the winding pa.s.sages of the garden paths.

Sithas filled two mugs and placed the bottle of fine wine back into its bucket of melting ice. Handing one mug to his brother, he raised his own and met Kith's with a slight clink.

"To victory," he offered.

"Victory!" Kith-Kanan repeated.

They sat and, sensing that his brother wanted to speak first, the army commander waited expectantly. His intuition was correct.

"By all the G.o.ds, I wish I could be there with you!" Sithas began, his tone full of conviction.

Kith didn't doubt him. "War's not what I thought it would be," he admitted. "Mostly it's waiting, discomfort, and tedium. We are always hungry and cold, but mostly bored. It seems that days and weeks go by when nothing happens of consequence."

He sighed and paused for a moment to take a deep draft of his wine. The sweet liquid soothed his throat and loosened his tongue. "Then, when things do start to happen, you're more frightened than you ever thought was possible. You fight for your life; you run when you have to. You try to stay in touch with what's going on, but it's impossible. Just as quickly, the fight's over and you go back to being bored. Except now you have the grief, too, knowing that brave companions have died this day, some of them because you made the wrong decision. Even the right decision sometimes sends too many good elves to their deaths."

Sithas shook his head sadly. "At least you have some control over events. I sit here, hundreds of miles away. I sent those good elves to live or die without the slightest knowledge of what will befall them."

"That knowledge is slim comfort," replied his brother.

Kith-Kanan told his brother, in elaborate detail, about the battles in which the Wildrunners had fought the Army of Ergoth. He talked of their initial small victories, of the plodding advance of the central and southern wings. He described the fast-moving hors.e.m.e.n of the north wing and their keen and brutal commander, General Giarna. His voice broke as he related the tale of the trap that had ensnared Kencathedrus and his proud regiment, and for a moment, he lapsed into a miserable silence.

Sithas reached out and touched his brother on the shoulder. The gesture seemed to renew Kith-Kanan's strength, and after drawing a deep breath, he began to speak again.

He told of their forced retreat into the fortress, of the numberless horde of humans surrounding them, barring the Wildrunners against any real penetration. The wine bottle

emptiedit may as well have been by evaporation, for all the notice the brothers tookand the moons crept toward the western horizon. Sithas rang for another bottle of Thalian blond as Kith described the state of supplies and morale within Sithelbec and talked about their prospects for the future.

"We can hold out through the winter, perhaps well into next year. But we cannot shake the grip around us, not unless something happens to break this stalemate!"

"Something such as what? More reinforcementsanother five thousand elves from Silvanost?" Sithas leaned close to his brother, disturbed by the account of the war. The setbacks suffered by the Wildrunners were temporarythis the speaker truly believedand together they had to figure out some way to turn the tide.

Kith shook his head. "That would helpany reinforcements you can send would helpbut even twice that many elves would not turn the tide. Perhaps the Army of Thorbardin, if the dwarves can be coaxed from their mountain retreat ...." His voice showed that he placed little hope in this possibility.

"It might happen," Sithas replied. "You didn't get to know Lord Dunbarth as did I, when he spent a year among us in the city. He is a trustworthy fellow, and he bears no love for the humans. I think he realizes that his own kingdom will be next in line for conquest unless he can do something now."

Sithas described the present amba.s.sador, the intransigent Than-Kar, in considerably less glowing terms. "He's a major stumbling block to any firm agreement, but there still might be some way around him."

"I'd like to talk to him myself," Kith said. "Can we bring him to the palace?"

"I can try," Sithas agreed, realizing how weak the phrase sounded. Father would have ordered it, he reminded himself. For a moment, he felt terribly ineffective, wis.h.i.+ng he had

Sithel's steady nerves. Angrily he pushed the sensation of doubt away and listened to his brother speak.

"I'll believe in dwarven help when I see their banners on the field and their weapons pointed away from us!"

"But what else?" pressed Sithas. "What other tactics do we have?"

"I wish I knew," his brother replied. "I hoped that you might have some suggestions."

"Weapons?" Sithas explained the key role Lord Quimant was playing to increase the munitions production at the Oakleaf Clan's forges. "We'll get you the best blades that elven craftsmen can make."

"That's somethingbut still, we need more. We need something that cannot just stand against the human cavalry but break itdrive it away!"

The second bottle of wine began to vanish as the elven lords wrestled with their problem. The first traces of dawn colored the sky, a thin line of pale blue on the horizon, but no ready solution came to mind.

"You know, I wasn't certain that Arcuballis could find you," Sithas said after a pause of several minutes. The frustration of their search for a solution weighed upon them, and Kith welcomed the change of conversation.

"He never looked so good to me," Kith-Kanan replied, "as when he came soaring into the fortress compound. I didn't realize how much I missed this placehow much I missed you and motheruntil I saw him."

"He's been there in the stable since you left," Sithas said, shaking his head with a wry grin. "I don't know why I didn't think of sending him to you shortly after you first became besieged."

"I had a curious dream about himabout an entire flock of griffons, actuallyon the very night before he arrived. It was most uncanny." Kith described his strange dream, and the two brothers pondered its meaning.

"A flock of griffons?" Sithas asked intently.

"Well, yes. Do you think it significant?"

"If we had a flock of griffons ... if they all carried riders into combat ... could that be the hammer needed to crack the sh.e.l.l around Sithelbec?" Sithas spoke with growing enthusiasm.

"Wait a minute," said Kith, holding up his hand. "I suppose you're right, in a hypothetical sense. In fact, the horses of the humans were spooked as I flew over, even though I was high, out of bowshot range. But who ever heard of an army of griffons?"

Sithas settled back, suddenly realizing the futility of his idea. For a moment, neither of them said anythingwhich was how they heard the soft rustling in the room behind them.

Kith-Kanan sprang to his feet, instinctively reaching for a sword at his hip, forgetting that his weapon hung back on the wall of his own apartment. Sithas whirled in his seat, staring in astonishment, and then he rose to his feet.

"You!" the Speaker barked, his voice taut with rage. "What are you doing here?"

Kith-Kanan crouched, preparing to spring at the intruder. He saw the figure, a mature elf cloaked in a silky gray robe, move forward from the shadows.

"Wait." said Sithas, much to his brother's surprise. The speaker held up his hand and Kith straightened, still tense and suspicious.

"One day your impudence will cost you," Sithas said levelly as the elf approached them. "You are not to enter my chambers unannounced again. Is that clear?"

"Pardon my intrusion. As you know, my presence must remain discreet."

"Who is this?" Kith-Kanan demanded.

"Forgive me," said the gray-cloaked elf before Sithas cut him off.

"This is Vedvedsica," said Sithas. Kith-Kanan noted that his brother's tone had become carefully guarded. "He has ... been helpful to the House of Silvanos in the past."

"The pleasure is mine, and it is indeed great, honored prince," offered Vedvedsica, with a deep bow to Kith-Kanan.

"Who are you? Why do you come here?" Kith demanded.

"In good time, lordin good time. As to who I am, I am a cleric, a devoted follower of Gilean."

Kith-Kanan wasn't surprised. The G.o.d was the most purely neutral in the elven pantheon, most often used to justify self-aggrandizement and profit. Something about Vedvedsica struck him as very self-serving indeed.

"More to the point, I know of your dream."

The last was directed to Kith-Kanan and struck him like a lightning bolt between the eyes. For a moment, he hesitated, fighting an almost undeniable urge to hurl himself at the insolent cleric and kill him with his bare hands. Never before had he felt so violated.

"Explain yourself!"

"I have knowledge that the two of you may desireknowledge of griffons, hundreds of them. And even more important, I may have knowledge as to how they can be found and tamed."

For the moment, the elven lords remained silent, listening suspiciously as Vedvedsica moved forward. "May 1?" inquired the cleric, gesturing to a seat beside their own.

Sithas nodded silently, and all three sat.

"The griffons dwell in the Khalkist Mountains, south of the Lords of Doom." The brothers knew of these peaksthree violent volcanoes in the heart of the forbidding range, high among vast glaciers and sheer summits. It was a region beyond the ken of elven explorers.

"How do you know this?" asked Sithas.

"Did your father ever tell you how he came to possess Arcuballis?" Again the cleric fixed Kith-Kanan with his gaze, then continued as if he already knew the answer. "He got him from me!"

Kith nodded, reluctant to believe the cleric but finding himself unable to doubt the veracity of his words.

"I purchased him from a Kagonesti, a wild elf who told me of the whereabouts of the pack. He encountered them, together with a dozen companions. He alone escaped the wrath of the griffons, with one young cubthe one given by me to Sithel as a gift, and the one that he pa.s.sed along to his son. To you, Kith-Kanan."

"But how could the flock be tamed? From what you say, a dozen elves perished to bring one tiny cub away!" Kith-Kanan challenged Vedvedsica. Despite his suspicions, he felt his own excitement begin to build.

"I tamed him, with the aid and protection of Gilean. I developed the spell that broke him to halter. It's a simple enchantment, really. Any elf with a working knowledge of the Old Script could have cast it. But only I could bring it into being!"