The Kinslayer Wars Read online

  Sithelbec had grown rapidly in the last year, sprawling across the surrounding plain until it covered a circle more than a mile in diameter. The central keep of the fortress was a stone structure of high towers, soaring to needlelike spires in the elven fashion. Around this keep clustered a crowded nest of houses, shops, barracks, inns, and other buildings, all within other networks of walls, blockhouses, and battle platforms.

  Expanding outward through a series of concentric palisades, mostly of wood, the fortress protected a series of wells within its walls, ensuring a steady supply of water. Food – mostly grain – had been stockpiled in huge barns and silos. Supplies of arrows and flammable oil, stored in great vats, had been collected along the walls’ tops. The greater part of Kith-Kanan’s army, through the alert withdrawal under Parnigar, had reached the shelter of those ramparts.

  Yet as the Army of Ergoth moved in to encircle the fortress, the Wildrunners could only wait.

  Now Kith-Kanan walked among them, making his way to the small office and quarters he maintained in the gatehouse of the central keep. He felt the tension, the fear that approached despair, as he looked at the wide, staring eyes of his warriors.

  And even more than the warriors, there were the women and children. Many of the women were human, their children half-elves, wives and offspring of the western elves who made up the Wildrunners. Kith shared their sorrow as deeply as he felt that of the elven females who were here in even greater numbers.

  They would all be eating short rations, he knew. The siege would inevitably last into the autumn, and he had little doubt the humans could sustain the pressure through the winter and beyond.

  As he looked at the young ones, Kith felt a stab of pain. He wondered how many of them would see spring.

  6

  AUTUMN, YEAR OF THE RAVEN

  LORD QUIMANT CAME TO SITHAS IN THE HALL OF AUDIENCE. His wife’s cousin brought another elf – a stalwart-looking fellow, with lines of soot set firmly in his face, and the strapping, sinewy arms of a powerful wrestler – to see the Speaker of the Stars.

  Sithas sat upon his emerald throne and watched the approaching pair. The Speaker’s green robe flowed around him, collecting the light of the throne and diffusing it into a soft glow that seemed to surround him. He reclined casually in the throne, but he remained fully alert.

  Alert, in that his mind was working quickly. Yet his thoughts were many hundreds of miles and years away.

  Weeks earlier, he had received a letter from Kencathedrus describing Kith-Kanan’s capture and presumed loss. That had been followed, barely two days later, by a missive from his brother himself, describing a harrowing escape: the battle with guards, the theft of a fleet horse, a mad dash from the encampment, and finally a chase that ended only after Kith-Kanan had led his pursuers to within arrow range of the great fortress of Sithelbec.

  Sithelbec – named for his father, the former Speaker of the Stars. Many times Sithas had reflected on the irony, for his father had been slain on a hunting trip, practically with-in sight of the fortress’s walls. As far as Sithas knew, it had been his father’s first and only expedition to the western plains. Yet Sithel had been willing to go to war over those plains, to put the nation’s future at stake because of them. And now Sithas, his firstborn, had inherited that struggle. Would he live up to his father’s expectations?

  Reluctantly Sithas forced his mind back to the present, to his current location.

  He cast his eyes around his surroundings to force the transition in his thoughts.

  A dozen elven guards, in silver breastplates and tall, plumed helmets, snapped their halberds to attention around the periphery of the hall. They stood impassive and silent as the noble lord marched toward the throne.

  Otherwise the great hall, with its gleaming marble floor and the ceiling towering six hundred feet overhead, was empty.

  Sithas looked at Quimant. The elven noble wore a long cloak of black over a silk tunic of light green. Tights of red, and soft, black boots, completed his ensemble.

  Lord Quimant of Oakleaf was a very handsome elf indeed. But he was also intelligent, quick-witted, and alert to many threats and opportunities that might otherwise have missed Sithas’s notice.

  “This is my nephew,” the lord explained. “Ganrock Ethu, master smith. I recommend him, my Speaker, for the position of palace smith. He is shrewd, quick to learn, and a very hard worker.”

  “But Herrlock Redmoon has always handled the royal smithy,” Sithas protested. Then he remembered: Herrlock had been blinded the week before in a tragic accident, when he had touched spark to his forge. Somehow the kindled coal had exploded violently, destroying his eyes beyond the abilities of Silvanost’s clerics to repair. After seeing that the loyal smith was well cared for and as comfortable as possible, Sithas had promised to select a replacement.

  He looked at the young elf before him. Ganrock’s face showed lines of maturity, and the thick muscle of his upper torso showed proof of long years of work.

  “Very well,” Sithas agreed. “Show him the royal smithy and find out what he needs to get started.” He called to one of his guards and told the elf to accompany Ganrock Ethu to the forge area, which lay in the rear of the Palace of Quinari.

  “Thank you, Your Eminence,” said the smith, with a sudden bow. “I shall endeavor to do fine work for you.”

  “Very good,” replied the Speaker. Quimant lingered as the smith left the hall.

  Lord Quimant’s narrow face tightened in determination as he turned back to Sithas.

  “What is it, my lord? You look distressed.” Sithas raised a hand and bade Qiumant stand beside him.

  “The Smelters Guild, Your Highness,” replied the noble elf. “They refuse – they simply refuse – to work their foundries during the hours of darkness. Without the additional steel, our weapon production is hamstrung, barely adequate for even peacetime needs.”

  Sithas cursed quietly. Nevertheless, he was thankful that Quimant had informed him. The proud heir of Clan Oakleaf had greatly improved the efficiency of Silvanost’s war preparations by spotting details – such as this one – that would have escaped Sithas’s notice.

  “I shall speak to the smelter Kerilar,” Sithas vowed. “He is a stubborn old elf, but he knows the importance of the sword. I will make him understand, if I have to.”

  “Very good, Excellency,” said Lord Quimant, with a bow. He straightened again. “Is there news of the war?”

  “Not since the last letter, a week ago. The Wildrunners remain besieged in Sithelbec, while the humans roam the disputed lands at will. Kith has no chance to break out. He’s now surrounded by a hundred thousand men.”

  The lord shook his head grimly before fixing Sithas with a hard gaze. “He must be reinforced – there’s no other way. You know this, don’t you?”

  Sithas met Quimant’s gaze with equal steadiness. “Yes – I do. But the only way I can recruit more troops is to conscript them from the city and the surrounding clan estates. You know what kind of dispute that will provoke!”

  “How long can your brother hold his fort?”

  “He has rations enough for the winter. The casualties of the battle were terrible, of course, but the remainder of his force is well disciplined, and the fortress is strong.”

  The news of the battlefield debacle had hit the elven capital hard. As the knowledge spread that two thousand of the city’s young elves – two out of every five who had marched so proudly to the west – had perished in the fight, Silvanost had been shrouded in grief for a week.

  Sithas learned of the battle at the same time as he heard that his brother had fallen and was most likely lost. For two days, his world had been a grim shroud of despair. Knowing that Kith had reached safety lightened the burden to some extent, but their prospects for victory still seemed nonexistent. How long would it be, he had agonized, before the rest of the Wildrunners fell to the overwhelming tide around them?

  Then gradually his despair had turned to anger – anger
at the shortsightedness of his own people. Elves had crowded the Hall of Audience on the Trial Days, disrupting the proceedings. The emotions of the city’s elves had been inflamed by the knowledge that the rest of the Wildrunners had suffered nowhere near the size of losses inflicted upon the elves of Silvanost. It was not uncommon now to hear voices raised in the complaint that the western lands should be turned over to the humans and the Wildrunner elves, to let them battle each other to extinction.

  “Very well – so he can hold out.” Quimant’s voice was strong yet deferential. “But he cannot escape! We must send a fresh army, a large one, to give him the sinew he needs!”

  “There are the dwarves. We have yet to hear from them,” Sithas pointed out.

  “Pah! If they do anything, it will be too late! It seems that Than-Kar sympathizes with the humans as much as with us. The dwarves will never do anything so long as he remains their voice and their ears!”

  Ah – but he is not their voice and ears. Sithas had that thought with some small satisfaction, but he said nothing to Quimant as the lord continued, though his thoughts considered the potential of hope. Tamanier Ambrodel, I am depending upon you!

  “Still, we must tolerate him, I suppose. He is our best chance of an alliance.”

  “As always, good cousin, your words are the mirror of my thoughts.” Sithas straightened in his throne, a signal that the interview drew to a close. “But my decision is still to wait. Kith-Kanan is secure for now, and we may learn more as time goes on.”

  He hoped he was right. The fortress was strong, and the humans would undoubtedly require months to prepare a coordinated assault. But what then?

  “Very well.” Quimant cleared his throat awkwardly, then added, “What is the word of my cousin? I have not seen her for some weeks now.”

  “Her time is near,” Sithas offered. “Her sisters have come from the estates to stay with her, and she has been confined to bed by the clerics of Quenesti Pah.”

  Quimant nodded. “Please give her my wishes when next you see her. May she give birth speedily, to a healthy child.”

  “Indeed.”

  Sithas watched the elegant noble walk from the hall. He was impressed by Quimant’s bearing. The lord knew his worth to the throne, proven in the half-year since he had come to Silvanost. He showed sensitivity to the desires of the Speaker and seemed to work well toward those ends.

  He heard one of the side doors open and looked across the great hall as a silk-gowned female elf entered. Her eyes fell softly on the figure seated upon the brilliant throne with its multitude of green, gleaming facets.

  “Mother,” said Sithas with delight. He didn’t see much of Nirakina around the palace during these difficult days, and this visit was a pleasant surprise. He was struck, as she approached him, by how much older she looked.

  “I see you do not have attendants now,” she said quietly to Sithas, who rose and approached her. “So often you are busy with the affairs of state … and war.”

  He sighed. “War has become the way of my life – the way all Silvanost lives now.” He felt a twinge of sadness for his mother. So often Sithas looked upon the death of his father as an event that had placed the burden of rule on his own shoulders. He tended to forget that it had, at the same time, made his mother a widow.

  “Take a moment to walk with me, won’t you?” asked Nirakina, taking her son by the arm.

  He nodded, and they walked in silence across the great hall of the tower to the crystal doors reserved for the royal family alone. These opened soundlessly, and then they were in the Gardens of Astarin. To their right were the dark wooden buildings of the royal stables, while before them beckoned the wondrous beauty of the royal gardens. Immediately Sithas felt a sense of lightness and ease.

  “You need to do this more often,” said his mother, gently chiding. “You grow old before your time.” She held his arm loosely, letting him select the path they followed.

  The gardens loomed around them – great hedges and thick bushes heavy with dewy blossoms; ponds and pools and fountains; small clumps of aspen and oak and fir. It was a world of nature, shaped and formed by elven clerics – devotees of the Bard King, Astarin – into a transcendent work of art.

  “I thank you for bringing me through those doors,” Sithas said with a chuckle. “Sometimes I need to be reminded.”

  “Your father, too, needed a subtle reminder now and then. I tried to give him that when it became necessary.”

  For a moment, Sithas felt a wave of melancholy. “I miss him now more than ever. I feel so … unready to sit on his throne.”

  “You are ready,” said Nirakina firmly. “Your wisdom is seeing us through the most difficult time since the Dragon Wars. But since you are about to become a father, you must realize that your life cannot be totally given over to your nation. You have a family to think about, as well.”

  Sithas smiled. “The clerics of Quenesti Pah are with Hermathya at all times.

  They say it will be any day now.”

  “The clerics, and her sisters,” Nirakina murmured.

  “Yes,” Sithas agreed. Hermathya’s sisters, Gelynna and Lyath, had moved into the palace as soon as his wife’s pregnancy had become known. They were pleasant enough, but Sithas had come to feel that his apartments were somehow less than his own now. It was a feeling he didn’t like but that he had tried to overlook for Hermathya’s sake.

  “She has changed, Mother, that much you must see. Hermathya had become a new woman even before she knew about the child. She has been a support and a comfort to me, as if for the first time.”

  “It is the war,” said Nirakina. “I have noticed this change you speak of, and it began with the war. She, her clan of Oakleaf, they all thrive upon this intensity and activity.” The elven woman paused, then added, “I noticed Lord Quimant leaving before I entered. You speak with him often. Is he proving himself useful?”

  “Indeed, very. Does this cause you concern?”

  Nirakina sighed, then shook her head. “I – no – no, it doesn’t. You are doing the right thing for Silvanesti, and if he can aid you, that is a good thing.”

  Sithas stopped at a stone bench. His mother sat while he paced idly below overhanging branches of silvery quaking aspen that shimmered in the light breeze.

  “Have you had word from Tamanier Ambrodel?” Nirakina asked.

  Sithas smiled confidentially. “He has arrived at Thorbardin safely and hopes to get in touch with the Hylar. With any luck, he will see the king himself. Then we shall find out if this Than-Kar is doing us true justice as ambassador.”

  “And you have told no one of Lord Ambrodel’s mission?” his mother inquired carefully.

  “No” Sithas informed her. “Indeed, Quimant and I discussed the dwarves today, but I said nothing even to him about our quiet diplomat. Still, I wish you would tell me why we must maintain such secrecy.”

  “Please, not yet,” Nirakina demurred.

  A thin haze had gradually spread across the sky, and now the wind carried a bit of early winter in its caress. Sithas saw his mother shiver in her light silken garment.

  “Come, we’ll return to the hall,” he said, offering his arm as she rose.

  “And your brother?” Nirakina asked tentatively as they turned back toward the crystal doors. “Can you send him more troops?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Sithas replied, the agony of the decision audible in his voice. “Can I risk arousing the city?”

  “Perhaps you need more information.”

  “Who could inform me of that which I don’t already know?” Sithas asked skeptically.

  “Kith-Kanan himself.” His mother stopped to face him as the doors opened and the warmth of the tower beckoned. “Bring him home, Sithas,” she said urgently, taking both of his arms in her hands. “Bring him home and talk to him!”

  Sithas was surprised at his own instinctive reaction. The suggestion made surprisingly good sense. It offered him hope – and an idea for action that would unit
e, not divide, his people. Yet how could he call his brother home now, out of the midst of a monstrous encircling army?

  *

  The next day Quimant again was Sithas’s first and primary visitor. “My lord,” began the adviser, “have you made a decision about conscription of additional forces? I am reluctant to remind you, but time may be running short.”

  Sithas frowned. Unbidden, his mind recalled the scene at the riverbank when the first column departed for war. Now more than half those elves were dead.

  What would be the city’s reaction should another, larger force march west?

  “Not yet. I wish to wait until …” His voice trailed off. He had been about to mention Ambrodel’s mission. “I will not make that decision yet,” he concluded.

  He was spared the necessity of further discussion when Stankathan, his palace majordomo, entered the great hall. That dignified elf, clad in a black waistcoat of wool, preceded a travel-stained messenger who wore the leather jerkin of a Wildrunner scout. The latter bore a scroll of parchment sealed with a familiar stamp of red wax.

  “A message from my brother?” Sithas rose to his feet, recognizing the form of the sheet.

  “By courier, who came from across the river just this morning,” replied Stankathan. “I brought him over to the tower directly.”

  Sithas felt a surge of delight, as he did every fortnight or so when a courier arrived with the latest reports from Kith-Kanan. Yet that delight had lately been tempered by the grim news from his brother and the besieged garrison.

  He looked at the courier as the elf approached and bowed deeply. Besides the dirt and mud of the trail, Sithas saw that the fellow had a sling supporting his right arm and a dark, stained bandage around the leggings of his left knee.

  “My gratitude for your efforts,” said Sithas, appraising the rider. The elf stood taller after his words, as if the praise of the speaker was a balm to his wounds.