They move with unbelievable stealth and speed."
"They advance southward, then?" Kith-Kanan asked, instinctively knowing the answer, for he immediately understood that the human commander of the northern wing must be an unusually keen and aggressive foe.
"Yes! Faster than I would have believed, had I not seen it myself. They ride like the wind, these humans. They have surrounded most of the northern pickets. I alone escaped."
The messenger"s eyes met Kith"s, and the elf spoke with all the intensity of his soul.
"But that is not the worst of it, my general! Now they sweep to the east of my own path.
Already you may be cut off from Sithelbec."
"Impossible!" Kith barked the denial. The fortress, or city, of Sithelbec was his headquarters and his base of operations. It was far to the rear of the battle zone. "There can"t be any humans within a hundred miles of there."
But again he looked into the eyes of the messenger, and he had to believe the terrible news. "All right," he said grimly. "They"ve stolen a march on us. It"s time for the Wildrunners to seize it back."
3.
That Night, in the Army of Ergoth.
The sprawling tent stood in the center of the vast encampment. Three peaks stood high, marking the poles that divided the shelter into a trio of chambers. Though the stains of the season"s campaign marked its sides, and seams showed where the top had been mended, the colorless canvas structure had a certain air about it, as if it was a little more important, a little more proud than the tents flowing to the horizon around it.
The huge camp was not a permanent gathering, and so the rows of straight-backed tents ran haphazardly, wherever the rolling ground, crisscrossed by numerous ravines, allowed. Green pastures, feeding grounds for twenty thousand horses, marked the hinges of the encampment. As dusk settled, the army"s shelters lined up in gray anonymity, except for this high, three-peaked tent.
The inside of that structure, as well, would never be mistaken for the abode of some soldier. Here cascades of silken draperiesdeep browns, rich golds, and the iridescent black that was so popular among Ergothian n.o.blescovered the sides, blocking any view of the harsh realities beyond the canvas walls.
Suzine des Quivalin sat in the tent, studying a crystal gla.s.s before her. Her coppery hair no longer coiled about the tiara of diamond-studded platinum. Instead, it gathered in
a bun at the back of her head, though its length still cascaded more than a foot down her back. She wore a practical leather skirt, but her blouse was of fine silk. Her skin was clean, making her unique among all these thousands of humans.
Indeed, captains and sergeants and troopers alike grumbled about the favors shown to the general"s womanhot water for bathing! A luxurious tentten valuable horses were required just to haul her baggage.
Still, though grumbling occurred, none of it happened within earshot of the commander. General Giarna led his force with skill and determination, but he was a terrifying man who would brook no argument, whether it be about his tactics or his woman"s comforts. Thus the men kept the remarks very quiet and very private.
Now Suzine sat upon a large chair, cushioned with silk-covered pillows of down, but she didn"t take advantage of that softness. Instead, she sat at the edge of the seat, tension visible in her posture and in the rapt concentration of her face as she studied the crystal surface before her.
The gla.s.s looked like a normal mirror, but it didn"t show a reflection of the lady"s very lovely face. Instead, as she studied the image, she saw a long line of foot soldiers.
They were clean-shaven, blond of hair, and carried long pikes or thin, silver swords.
She watched the army of Kith-Kanan.
For a time, she touched the mirror, and her vision ran back and forth along the winding column. Her lips moved silently as she counted longbows and pikes and horses.
She watched the elves form and march. She noted the precision with which the long, fluid columns moved across the plains, retaining their precise intervals as they did so.
But then her perusal reached the head of the column, and here she lingered. She studied the one who rode at the head of that force, the one she knew was Kith-Kanan, twin brother to the elven ruler.
She admired his tall stance in the saddle, the easy, graceful way that he raised his hand, gesturing to his outriders or summoning a messenger. Narrow wings rose to a pair of peaks atop his dark helmet. His dark plate mail looked worn, and a heavy layer of dust covered it, yet she could discern its quality and the easy way he wore it, as comfortably as many a human would wear his soft cotton tunic.
Her lips parted slightly, and she didn"t sense the pace of her breathing slowly increase. The lady did not hear the tent flap move behind her, so engrossed was she in her study of the handsome elven warrior.
Then a shadow fell across her, and she looked up with a sharp cry. The mirror faded until it showed only the lady, her face twisted in an expression of guilt mixed with indignation.
"You could announce your presence," she snapped, standing to face the tall man who had entered.
"I am commander of the camp. General Giarna of Ergoth need announce his presence to no one, save the emperor himself," the armor-plated figure said quietly. His
black eyes fixed upon the woman"s, then shifted to the mirror. These eyes of the Boy General frightened herthey were hardly boyish, and not entirely human, either. Dark and brooding, they sometimes blazed with an internal fire that was fueled, she sensed, by something that was beyond her understanding. At other times, however, they gaped black and empty. She found this dispa.s.sionate void even more frightening than his rage.
Suddenly he snarled and Suzine gasped in fright. She would have backed away, save for the fact that her dressing table blocked any retreat. For a moment, she felt certain he would strike her. It would not be the first time. But then she looked into his eyes and knew that, for the moment, anyway, she was safe.
Instead of violent rage, she saw there a hunger that, while frightening, did not presage a blow. Instead, it signaled a desperate yearning for a need that could never be satisfied. It was one of the things that had first drawn her to him, this strange hunger.
Once she had felt certain that she could slake it.
Now she knew better. The attraction that had once drawn her to Giarna had waned, replaced for the most part by fear, and now when she saw that look in his eyes, she mostly pitied him.
The general grunted, shaking his head wearily. His short, black hair lay sweaty and tousled on his head. She knew he would have had his helmet on until he entered the tent, and then taken it off in deference to her.
"Lady Suzine, I seek information and have been worried by your long silence. Tell me, what have you seen in your magic mirror?"
"I"m sorry, my lord," replied Suzine. Her eyes fell, and she hoped that the flush across her cheeks couldn"t be noticed. She took a deep breath, regaining her composure.
"The elven army countermarches quicklyfaster than you expected," she explained, her voice crisp and efficient. "They will confront you before you can march to Sithelbec."
General Giarna"s eyes narrowed, but his face showed no other emotion. "This captain ... what"s his name?"
"Kith-Kanan," Suzine supplied.
"Yes. He seems alertmore so than any human commander I"ve faced. I would have wagered a year"s pay that he couldn"t have moved so fast."
"They march with urgency. They make good tune, even through the woods."
"They"ll have to stick to the forests," growled the general, "because as soon as I meet them, I shall rule the plains."
Abruptly General Giarna looked at Suzine inquiringly. "What is the word on the other two wings?"
"Xalthan is still paralyzed. The lava cannon is mired in the lowlands, and he seems unwilling to advance until the gnomes free it."
The general snorted in amused derision. "Just what I expected from that fool. And Barnet?"
"The central wing has gone into a defensive formation, as if they expect attack. They haven"t moved since yesterday afternoon."
"Excellent. The enemy comes to me, and my erstwhile allies twiddle their thumbs!"
General Giarna"s black beard split apart as he grinned. "When I win this battle, the emperor cannot help but realize who his greatest warrior is."
He turned and paced, speaking more to himself than to her. "We will drive against him, break him before Sithelbec! We have a.s.surances that the dwarves will stay out of the war, and the elves alone cannot hope to match our numbers. The victory will be mine!"
He turned back to her, those dark eyes flaming again, and Suzine felt another kind of fearthe fear of the doe as it trembles before the slavering jaws of the wolf. Again the general whirled in agitation, pounding his fist into the palm of his other hand.
Suzine cast a sidelong glance at the mirror, as if she feared someone might be listening. The surface was natural, reflecting only the pair in the tent. In the mirror, she saw General Giarna step toward her. She turned to face him as he placed his hands on her shoulders.
She knew what he wanted, what she wouldshe mustgive him. Their contact was brief and violent. Giarna"s pa.s.sion contorted him, as if she was the vent for all of his anxieties. The experience bruised her, gave her a sense of uncleanliness that nearly
brought her to despair. Afterward, she wanted to reach out and cover the mirror, to smash it or at least turn it away.
Instead, she hid her feelings, as she had learned to do so well, and then lay quietly as Giarna rose and dressed, saying nothing. Once he looked at her, and she thought he was going to speak.
Suzine"s heart pounded. Did he know what she was thinking? She thought of the face in the mirror againthat elven face. But General Giarna only scowled as he stood before her. After several moments, he spun on his heel and stalked from the tent. She heard the pacing of his charger without, and then the clatter of hooves as the general galloped away.
Hesitantly, inevitably, she turned back to the mirror.
4.
In Pitched Battle.
The two armies wheeled and skirmished across the flatlands, using the forests for cover and obstruction, making sharp cavalry sweeps and sudden ambushes. Lives expired, men and elves suffered agony and maiming, and yet the great bodies of the two armies did not contact each other.
General Giarna"s human force drove toward Sithelbec, while Kith-Kanan"s Wildrunners countermarched to interpose themselves between the Ergothian army and its destination. The humans moved quickly, and it was only the effort of an all-night forced march that finally brought the exhausted elves into position.
Twenty thousand Silvanesti and Kagonesti warriors finally gathered into a single ma.s.s and prepared a defense, tensely awaiting the steadily advancing human horde. The elven warriors averaged three to four hundred years of age, and many of their captains had seen six or more centuries. If they survived the battle and the war, they could look forward to more centuries, five or six hundred years, perhaps, of peaceful aging.
The Silvanesti bore steel weapons of fine craftsmanship, arrowheads that could punch through plate mail and swords that would not shatter under the most crushing of blows. Many of the elves had some limited proficiency in magic, and these were grouped
in small platoons attached to each company. Though these elves, too, would rely upon sword and shield to survive the battle, their spells could provide a timely and demoralizing counterpunch.
The Wildrunners also had some five hundred exceptionally fleet horses, and upon these were mounted the elite lancers and archers who would hara.s.s and confuse the enemy. They wore the grandest armor, shined to perfection, and each bore his personal emblem embroidered in silk upon his breast.
This force stood against a human army of more than fifty thousand men. The humans averaged about twenty-five years of age, the oldest veterans having seen a mere four or five decades of life. Their weapons were crudely crafted by elven standards, yet they possessed a deep strength. The blade might grow dull, but only rarely would it break.
The human elite included riders, numbering twenty thousand. They bore no insignia, nor did they wear armor of metal. Instead, they were a ragged, evil-looking lot, with many a missing tooth, eye, or ear. Unlike their elven counterparts, almost all were bearded, primarily because of a disdain of shaving, or indeed grooming of any kind.
But they carried within them an inner thirst for a thing uniquely human in character.
Whether it be called glory or excitement or adventure, or simply cruelty or savagery, it was a quality that made the short-lived humans feared and distrusted by all the longer-lived races of Krynn.
Now this burning ambition, propelled by the steel-bladed drive of General Giarna, pushed the humans toward Sithelbec. For two days, the elven army appeared to stand before them, only to melt away at the first sign of attack. By the third day, however, they stood within march of that city itself.
Kith-Kanan had reached the edge of the tree cover. Beyond lay nothing but open field to the gates of Sithelbec, some ten miles away. Here the Wildrunners would have to stand.
The reason for falling back this far became obvious to elf and human alike as the Wildrunners reached their final position. Silver trumpets blared to the eastward, and a column of marchers hove into view.
"Hail the elves of Silvanost!"
Cries of delight and welcome erupted from the elven army as, with propitious timing, the five thousand recruits sent by Sithas two months earlier marched into the Wildrunners" camp. At their head rode Kencathedrus, the stalwart veteran who had given Kith-Kanan his earliest weapons training.
"Hah! I see that my former student still plays his war games!" The old veteran, his narrow face showing the strain of the long march, greeted Kith before the commander"s tent. Wearily Kencathedrus lifted a leg over his saddle. Kith helped him to stand on the ground.
"I"m glad you made it," Kith-Kanan greeted his old teacher, clasping his arms warmly. "It"s a long march from the city."
Kencathedrus nodded curtly. Kith-Kanan would have thought the gesture rude, except that he knew the old warrior and his mannerisms. Kencathedrus represented the purest tradition of the House Royalthe descendents, like Kith-Kanan and Sithas, of Silvanos himself. Indeed, they were distant cousins in some obscure way Kith had never understood.
But more than blood relative, Kencathedrus was in many ways the mentor of Kith-Kanan the warrior. Strict to the point of obsession, the teacher had drilled the pupil in the instinctive use of the longsword and in the swift and repet.i.tive shooting of the bow until such tasks had become second nature.
Now Kencathedrus looked Kith-Kanan up and down. The general was clad in unadorned plate mail, with a simple steel helmet, unmarked by any sign of rank.
"What about your crest?" he asked. "Don"t you fight in the name of Silvanos, of the House Royal?"
Kith nodded. "As always. However, my guards have persuaded me that there"s no sense in making myself a target. I dress like a simple cavalryman now." He took Kencathedrus"s arm, noting that the old elf moved with considerable stiffness.
"My back isn"t what it used to be," admitted the venerable captain, stretching.
"It"s likely to get some more exercise soon," Kith warned him. "Thank the G.o.ds you arrived when you did!"
"The human army?" Kencathedrus looked past the elves, lined up for battle. Kith told the captain what he knew.