Douglas Niles - The Kinslayer Wars

Gardens of Astarin. * * * * * Quimant returned two days later and came to see Sithas as the Speaker sat alone in the Hall of Audience.

“Your plan has worked miracles!” reported the lord. If he noticed his ruler’s melancholy air, he didn’t call attention to it. “We have tripled the number of slaves and can work the mines around the clock now. In addition, the freed elves have marched off to the plains. They make a very formidable company indeed!”

“The war may be over by the time they reach the battlefield,” sighed Sithas.

“Perhaps I have simply freed a number of malefactors for nothing.” Quimant shook his head. “I’ve heard the reports. Even though the Wildrunners are pushing the humans westward, I wouldn’t expect a complete end to the war before next summer.”

“Surely you don’t think the Army of Ergoth will reassemble now that the Windriders are pursuing them?”

“Not reassemble, no, but they will break into small bands. Kith-Kanan’s army will find many of them, but not all. Yes, Excellency, I fear we will still have an enemy to contend with a year from now—perhaps even longer.” Sithas cast off the notion as unthinkable. Before the debate proceeded further, however, a guard appeared at the hall’s door.

“What is it?” inquired the Speaker.

“Lashio has captured a fellow, a stonemason, in the city. He was spreading the—er, the tale about General Kith-Kanan.”

Sithas bolted upright in his throne. “Bring him to me! And summon the stablemaster. Tell him to bring a whip!”

“Your Majesty?”

The words came from behind the guard, who stepped aside and let Tamanier Ambrodel enter. The noble elf approached and bowed formally. “May I have a private word with the Speaker?”

“Leave us,” Sithas told the guard. When only Quimant and himself were present, he gestured Tamanier to speak.

“I wish to prevent you from allowing a grave injustice,” Ambrodel began.

“I dispense the justice here. What business is it of yours?” demanded Sithas. Ambrodel flinched at the Speaker’s harsh tone but forged ahead. “I am here at your mother’s request.”

“What is the nature of this ‘injustice’?”

“It concerns your punishment of this elf, this mason. Your mother, as you know, has received letters from Kith-Kanan separate from the official missives he sends to you. It seems that he communicates to her on matters that he does not care to discuss . . . with

others.”

Sithas scowled.

“Kith-Kanan has taken a human woman as his companion. He has written your mother about her. Apparently he is very much smitten.” Sithas sagged backward in the monstrous throne. He wanted to curse at Tamanier Ambrodel, to call him a liar. But he couldn’t. Instead, he had to accept the unthinkable, no matter how nightmarish the knowledge. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. * * * * * Sithas labored for hours over the letter he tried to write to his brother. He attempted a number of beginnings.

Kith-Kanan, my Brother,

I have word from mother of a woman you have taken from the enemy camp. She tells me that the human saved your life. We are grateful, of course.

He could go no further. He wanted to write, Why? Why? Don’t you understand what we’re fighting for? He wanted to ask why victory had come to smell like failure and defeat.

Sithas crumpled up the parchment and hurled it into the fireplace. The realization hit him brutally.

He no longer had anything to say to his brother.

The blizzard swept over the iceberg dotted ocean and around the snowswept flanks of the Kharolis Mountains. It roared over the plains, making life a bitter and icy nightmare for the armies of both sides.

Those forces—human, elven, and dwarven—ceased all maneuvers and combat. Wherever the blast caught them, the brigades and regiments of the Wildrunners sought what little shelter they could and made quarters for the winter. Their Ergothian enemies, in even smaller bands, occupied towns, farm outposts, and wilderness camps in a desperate attempt to shelter themselves from nature’s onslaught.

The Windriders, together with a large detachment of the dwarven legion, were more fortunate. Their camp occupied the barns and cabins of a huge farm, abandoned by its human tenants during the rout of the Ergothian Army. Here they found livestock for the griffons and bins of grain from which elven and dwarven cooks prepared a hard bread that, while bland and tough, would sustain the troops for several months.

The rest of Kith-Kanan’s army occupied a multitude of camps, more than forty, across an arc of the plains stretching some five hundred miles. On this brutally cold day, Kith made an inspection of the Windriders’ camp. He pulled his woolen scarf closer about his face. It wouldn’t entirely block the wind, but perhaps it would keep his ears from becoming frostbitten. In a few minutes, he would reach the shelter of the dwarven lodge, where he would meet with Dunbarth. After that, the warm fire of his own house . . . and Suzine.

The Wildrunners had succeeded in driving the remnants of the Ergothian Army hundreds of miles to the west. Throughout the campaign, Suzine had ridden with Kith on his griffon and lain with him in his tent. Zestful and hardy in a way that was unlike elven females, Suzine had adopted his life as her own and made no complaints about fighting conditions or the vicissitudes of weather.

The Army of Ergoth had left thousands of corpses behind on the plains. The bravest of the human warriors had taken shelter in tracts of forestland, where the Windriders couldn’t pursue. Most of their fellows streamed home to Daltigoth. But these stubborn remnants, mostly light horsemen from the northern wing of the Ergothian Army, fought and held out.

Trapped within the forests, the horsemen couldn’t use their strengths of speed and surprise. Out of necessity, the human army began waging a relentless campaign of guerrilla warfare, striking in small groups, then falling back to the woods. Ironically the elves among them had proven particularly adept at organizing and utilizing these scattershot tactics. After months of hard pursuit and small victories in countless skirmishes, Kith-Kanan was preparing for a sweeping attack that might have expelled the hated enemy from the elven lands altogether. The Wildrunner infantry had assembled, ready to drive into the tracts of forest and expunge the Ergothian troops. Elven cavalry and the Windriders would fall upon them after they were forced into the open.

Then the early blows of winter had paralyzed military operations. In his heart, the elven general felt scant disappointment that circumstances would force him to remain in the field at least until spring. He was content in the large, well-heated cottage that he had requisitioned, his due as commander. He was content in the arms of Suzine. How she had changed his life, revitalized him, given him a sense of being that extended beyond the present! It was ironic, he reflected, that it was war between their people that had brought them together.

The long, low shape of the dwarven lodge emerged before him, and he knocked on the heavy wooden door, setting aside thoughts of his woman until later. The portal swung open, and he stepped into the dim, cavelike log house that the dwarves had erected as their winter shelter. The temperature, while warmer than the outside air, was quite a bit cooler than that which was maintained in the elven shelters.

“Come in, General!” boomed Dunbarth, amid a crowd of his veterans gathered around a platform in the middle of the lodge.

Two nearly naked dwarves gasped for breath on the stage before hurling themselves at each other. One of them swiftly picked his opponent up and flipped him over his shoulder, whereupon the dwarven crowd erupted into cheers and boos. More than a few pouches, bulging with gold and silver coins, changed hands.