Paul Thompson: The Qualinesti

“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.”