Douglas Niles: The Kinslayer Wars

Then she pulled out the knife and threw back her arm. Why is he laughing?

She wondered about that even as she drove the point of the weapon toward the unarmored spot at his throat. Giarna made no attempt to block her thrust. The blade struck his skin but snapped as the weapon broke at the hilt. The useless shard of metal fell to the floor as Suzine blinked, incredulous. General Giarna’s throat showed not the tiniest hint of a wound.

It wasn’t until Parnigar returned with his company of scouts that Kith-Kanan received any vital information regarding the enemy’s positions. Wearing sodden trail clothes from the nine-day reconnaissance, the veteran captain reported to Kith-Kanan as soon as he returned to the fort.

“We pushed at the fringes of their position,” he reported. “Their pickets were as thick as flies on a dead horse. They got two of my scouts, and the rest of us barely slipped out of their grasp.”

Kith shook his head, wincing. Even after forty years of war, the death of each elf under his command struck him like a personal blow.

“We couldn’t get into the main camp,” explained Parnigar. “There were just too many guards. But judging by the density of their patrols, I have to conclude they were guarding the main body of Giarna’s force.”

“Thanks for taking the risk, my friend,” said Kith-Kanan finally. “Too many times I have asked you.” Parnigar smiled wearily. “I’m in this fight to the end—one way or another!” The lanky warrior cleared his throat hesitantly. “There’s . . . something else.” “Yes?”

“We found the Lady Suzine’s coachman on the outskirts of the human lines.” Kith-Kanan looked up in sudden fear. “Was he—is he alive?” “Was.” Parnigar shook his head. “He’d been taken by their pickets, then escaped after a fight. Badly wounded in the stomach, but he made it to the trail. We found him there.” “What did he tell you?” “He didn’t know where she was. He had dropped her beside the trail, and she

followed a path into the woods. We checked out the area. Guards were thicker than ever there, so I think the headquarters must have been somewhere nearby.” Could she be heading back to Giarna? Kith-Kanan sensed Parnigar’s unspoken

question. Surely she wouldn’t betray Kith-Kanan. “Can you show me where this place is?” asked the elven commander urgently. “Of course.” Kith sighed sympathetically. “I’m sorry that you must travel again so quickly, but perhaps. . .” Parnigar waved off the explanation. “I’ll be ready to ride when you need me.”

“Go to your quarters now. Mari’s been waiting for you for days,” Kith-Kanan ordered, realizing that Parnigar still dripped from his drenched garments.

“She’s probably got dry clothes all ready to get you dressed.”

“I doubt she wants to dress me!” Parnigar chuckled knowingly.

“Off to your wife now, before she grows old on you!” Kith’s attempt at humor felt lame to both of them, though Parnigar forced a chuckle as he left.

Hermathya looked at herself in the mirror. She was beautiful and she was young ... yet for what purpose? She was alone.

Tears of bitterness welled in her eyes. She rose and whirled away from her table, only to be confronted by her bed. That canopied, quilted sleeping place mocked her every bit as harshly as did the mirror. For decades, it had been hers alone.

Now even her child had been sent away. Her anger throbbed as hot as ever, the same rage that had turned the two-week journey back to the city into a silent ordeal for Sithas. He endured her fury and didn’t let it bother him, and Hermathya knew that he had won.

Vanesti was gone, serving beside his uncle on the front lines of danger! How could her husband have done this? What kind of perverse cruelty would cause him to torture his wife so? She thought of Sithas as a stranger. What little closeness they had once enjoyed had been worn thin by the stresses of war. Her thoughts abruptly wandered to Kith-Kanan. How much like Sithas he looked—and yet how very different he was! Hermathya looked back upon the passion of their affair as one of the bright moments of her life. Before her name had been uttered as the prospective bride of the future Speaker of the Stars, her life had been a passionate whirl.

Then the announcement had come—Hermathya, daughter of the Oakleaf Clan, would wed Sithas of Silvanos! She remembered how Kith-Kanan had begged—he had begged!-her to accompany him, to run away. She had laughed at him as if he were mad.

Yet the madness, it now seemed, was hers. Prestige and station and comfort meant nothing, she knew, not when compared to the sense of happiness that she had thrown away.

The one time since then when Kith-Kanan and she had come together illicitly flared brightly in her mind. That episode had never been repeated because Kith-Kanan’s guilt wouldn’t allow it. He had avoided her for years and was awkward when they were brought together through necessity.

Shaking her head, she fought back the tears. Sithas was in the palace. Hermathya would go to him and make him bring their son back home!

She found her husband in his study, perusing a document with the Oakleaf stamp, in gold, at the top. He looked up when she entered, and blinked with surprise.

“You must call Vanesti back,” she blurted, staring at him.

“I will not.”

“Can’t you understand what he means to me?” Hermathya fought to keep her voice under control. “I need him here with me. He’s all I’ve got!”

“We’ve been over this. It will do the lad good to get out of the palace, to live among the troops. Besides, Kith will take good care of him. Don’t you trust him?”

“Do you?” Hermathya uttered the insinuation without thinking.

“Why? What do you mean?” There had been something in her tone. Sithas leapt from his chair and stared at her accusingly.

She turned away, suddenly calm. She controlled the discussion now.

“What did you mean, do I trust him?” Sithas’s voice was level and cold. “Of course I do!”

“You have been gullible before.”

“I know that you loved him,” the Speaker added. “I know of your affair before our marriage. I even know that he pleaded with you to go with him when he flew into exile.”

“I should have gone!” she cried, whirling suddenly.

“Do you still love him?”

“No.” She didn’t know whether this was a lie or not. “But he loves me!”

“That’s nonsense!”

“He came to me in my bedroom long ago. He didn’t leave until the morning.” She lied about the room because it suited her purpose. Her husband wouldn’t know that it was she who had gone to him.

Sithas stepped closer to her. “Why should I believe you?”

“Why should I lie?”

His open hand caught her across the cheek with a loud smack. The force of his blow sent her tumbling backward to the floor. With a burning face, she stood up, her eyes spitting fire at him.

“Vanesti will stay on the plains,” Sithas declared as she turned and fled. He turned to the window, numb, and stared to the west. He wondered about the stranger his brother had become.

“You believed that you could come here to kill me?” General Giarna looked at Suzine with mild amusement. The old woman backed against the closed door of his cottage. She had picked up the broken blade of her knife, but the weapon felt useless and futile, for it couldn’t harm her enemy. Thunder rumbled outside as another storm swept across the camp.

“Your death would be the greatest thing that could happen to Krynn.” She spoke bravely, but her mind was locked by fear. How could she have been so stupid as to come here alone, thinking she could harm this brutal warrior?