Alliances

Gilthas laid a hand on his distraught valet’s shoulder. He agreed with Planchet, but there was little more that could be done until daybreak. With Planchet at his side, be walked among his anxious subjects, reminding them of the miracle of the ash leaves and reassuring them about their missing brethren. The elves on Lesser Fang likely had been surprised by the nomads and decided to escape to Chisel or hide in the desert, but they Would be found.

The Speaker’s reassurances and his presence comforted his subjects. With lightened hearts, the elves finished storing away the bounty of leaves then settled down to sleep for what remained of the night.

Despite the confident face he showed his people, Gilthas was deeply worried about his missing subjects. He didn’t suspect the Khurs, but a more mysterious cause. Only with Planchet had he shared Kerian’s report of the disappearance of many of her warriors in Inath-Wakenti. Perhaps the elves on Lesser Fang had been spirited away by a similar unknown force.

Kerian herself had vanished near Khurinost, after riding to face certain death at the hands of the nomads. None of the desert-dwellers they’d captured and questioned had been able to give them any information about her. Privately Gilthas thought that a good sign. If the Khurs had captured or killed the fabled Lioness, they’d have boasted to the heavens about it.

No word at all had been received from Hytanthas and the five experienced trackers Gilthas had sent to look for Kerian. For all Gilthas knew, the six searchers were lost too.

The starlit pinnacle was quiet. A breeze, weaker than the leaf-bearing wind but colder, had everyone reaching for blankets, rugs, spare gebs and affres, anything to ward off the chill.

Planchet had spread Gilthas’s bedroll under a canvas lean-to. The shelter was barely larger than the bedroll it covered, but it kept the constant wind at bay. As Gilthas lay down on his lonely bed, he knew in his heart that his wife was alive. The day she died, the colors of life would fade, the tumult of the living world would still, and wherever Gilthas Pathfinder was, he would know she no longer drew breath.

Oddly comforted, he lay down amid bales of ash leaves and was soon asleep.

Chapter 10

The dining room of the mayor’s palace in Bianost once more hosted a gathering of elf notables. Unlike meals of decades past, this was no rich repast, carefully planned by kitchen artists. Kerian, Alhana, Chathendor, and Samar were seated at one end of a table meant to hold many times their number. The fare was simple, and the diners served themselves-all except Alhana. Chathendor performed that duty for her. Long experience had taught her that protesting was pointless. By the amber glow of candles and oil lamps, the diners discussed their options.

Since the arrival of Hytanthas Ambrodel, tensions had only increased among the liberators of Bianost. Hytanthas was ensconced among the wounded, tended by healers and slowly regaining his strength, but Porthios remained missing. In his absence the townsfolk had turned to Alhana for guidance. She pointed out that Kerian, as wife to the Speaker of the Sun and Stars, should rightly hold that place. Blunt as always, the Lioness told her not to worry about such niceties: “None of us is king or queen here. If it comforts the townsfolk to look to you, that’s fine-as long as it’s understood I take the lead in military matters.”

This was said with a pointed look at Samar, who bristled just as Kerian must have known he would. Alhana stepped in to forestall the disagreement that always seemed to hover in any encounter between her trusted commander and the Lioness. With an apologetic glance at Samar, Alhana agreed.

Alhana said they should follow Porthios’s original plan: abandon Bianost as soon as possible and take the huge cache of weapons into the forest for safekeeping. She and the Lioness were in accord on that point. For once, however, Samar did not side with his queen. He favored seizing another bandit-held town deeper in the forest, such as Frenost. Another coup like Bianost, he insisted, would rally every elf in the nation and seriously demoralize the bandits.

Kerian shook her head. “It won’t work,” she said.

Pushing away her empty dinner plate, she leaned down and lifted a heavy roll of vellum from the floor next to her chair. Unrolled, it proved to be a fine map of Qualinesti, painted in four colors and showing details as fine as individual wells, houses, and footpaths. She had found it in a heap of documents the bandits had been using as tinder to start cook fires in the kitchen. More startling than that casual disregard for so fine a document was the notation on the back of the map: “Copied by Favaronas, royal archivist, Qualinost. Year VI,” meaning the sixth year of Gilthas’s reign.