Paul Thompson: Sanctuary

She asked him why. His sunburned face turned south, hazel eyes growing distant, as if seeing the green land that still lay beyond the horizon. “I should like to die at least close to Silvanesti land,” he said simply.

“Very well. Pick a band of five hundred, all good archers. Fix the enemy here for at least a day.”

A tall order, but Baranthalonus nodded. “The five hundred should be Silvanesti.”

None objected to the implicit gibe. Silvanesti were known for considering themselves superior to all races, including other elves. Ordinarily the Lioness would not have tolerated such a provocative statement, but these circumstances were hardly ordinary, and this elf had volunteered for death.

With a shrug, she said, “I wish you had Kith-Kanan himself.”

“He was Qualinesti, General.”

The jest elicited hoarse chuckles from the others. “Well, you’ll have at least one in your company who’s not of the star-born.” She indicated herself.

Her officers protested. As commander of the army, she must not place herself in such peril.

“I’ll do what I think is best for the army,” she snapped, cutting off the protests.

Hytanthas was sent to bring Taranath forward. As the Lioness’s second-in-command, he would lead in her absence.

Four other Silvanesti officers asked to join Baranthalonus, so he sent them through the ranks to pick five hundred warriors. In short order the covering force was assembled on the gravelly knoll. All of the army’s remaining arrows were turned over to them. The archers chose their places with care, each surrounding himself with a hedge of arrows, points thrust into the coarse sand. One of the archers, the Lioness never knew which, yielded his food and waterskin to a comrade who was continuing the march. In rapid order, every elf in the covering force willingly surrendered his precious rations, then knelt to await the enemy’s arrival.

Lord Taranath arrived. Formerly a commander in the royal guard of Qualinost, he was an unusually tall elf. This, together with his somewhat rounded ears, had always encouraged speculation about a mixed parentage. Taranath was renowned for coolness in battle, and such insults were the only things that stirred him to rage. Given his prowess with a sword, he was not often insulted.

“Lady,” he said, saluting the Lioness. She didn’t care for the honorific, but this was hardly the time to reprove her valiant friend. She delivered her orders with characteristic brevity.

“Take the army to the sea, Taran. Head north to Khuri-Khan, and present the army with my compliments to the Speaker.”

Taranath raised an eyebrow. “The minotaur fleet—how will we avoid it?”

“Spring is nearly over. The Khurish nomads will be leaving the deep desert, before the summer heat sets in.” Kerian grimaced; crazy to imagine this as spring, yet summer would indeed be much worse. “There’ll be hundreds, thousands of them on the coastal route. Mix with them, join their caravans. The bull-men won’t molest you while you ride amidst a pack of nomads.” The king of the Khurish humans, Sahim-Khan, was known to be on friendly terms with the minotaurs.

“Is it honorable to skulk home,” Taranath spoke quietly, “cloaked by hordes of ragged nomads?”

“War is not about honor. It’s about survival—and victory.” Since the latter had eluded them, the former was now paramount.

Flat horn blasts echoed across the sand. Kerianseray shaded her eyes. A thick, rising column of dust marked the oncoming enemy.

“Go,” she said. “Tell the Speaker—” She stopped, a rare blush mantling her sunbrowned cheeks, as she failed to find the right words.

Taranath was deeply moved, but respected her privacy. “I know what to tell the Speaker, lady. Fare you well.”

Like the tide retreating from jetsam on the shore, the elven army flowed away, leaving the small Silvanesti force alone on the stony knoll. Seventy-five hundred warriors, mounted and on foot, vanished among the pines and junipers. Despite weariness and heavy hearts, they made no more sound than the soughing of the wind. The volunteers watched them go.

The Lioness twisted around in Eagle Eye’s saddle. From a long, leather-covered tube tied across the animal’s hips, she withdrew three lengths of polished steel, each about four feet long. Screwing the threaded ends together, she soon had a formidable lance, a griffon-rider’s deadliest weapon.

The archers lifted their heads. They heard a single voice, far deeper than any elf’s, deeper even than a human’s, roaring from across the distance. The minotaur commander was challenging his troops. Everyone looked to Baranthalonus. He in turn looked to the Lioness.

“I’ll not rise yet,” she said, tugging on mail gauntlets. Even though they were sewn of light-colored cloth to reflect the sun, donning them was like putting her hands into a hot frying pan. “No sense giving our position away.”

The dust clouds grew thicker, spreading out in a semicircle from south to north, fully encompassing the small hillock. Clanking and clattering, the great armored host of minotaurs drew nearer. Loose stones danced as the desert trembled under the tread of two thousand bull-men. Eagle Eye no longer shifted his clawed forefeet on the hot sand. The griffon stood unmoving, his golden-eyed gaze fixed upon the approaching enemy, alert for his rider’s slightest command.

Kerianseray tightened the straps of her helmet beneath her chin. It wasn’t a fighting helm, made of steel or iron, but a soft leather cap, designed chiefly to keep her thick golden hair out of her face while she was airborne. She shifted the steel lance off her knees and couched it under her arm. Thoughts crossed her mind: What a long way she’d come from the woods of Qualinesti. There she’d first fought the Nerakans with a simple leather sling. Now she commanded Silvanesti lords from griffonback, with a knightly weapon in her hand. A strange fate had led her here.

Fate—and her husband. Once despised as the “Puppet King,” a tool of the Knights of Neraka, Gilthas had left a soft, comfortable life to lead the remnants of the elven nations across mountains and desert to find refuge in Khur. No one called him puppet now. The coalition of Qualinesti, Silvanesti, and Kagonesti who had abandoned their woodlands was six years old, and still as fragile as a hummingbird’s egg. Holding them together was Gilthas, Speaker of the Sun and Stars.

The din of the minotaurs’ approach was deafening. They marched in a series of tight triangular formations, apex forward, shaping their famed “dragontooth” attack. An enemy facing this battle line found itself squeezed into close combat on two sides. These minotaur dragonteeth chewed up and destroyed entire armies. But Kerianseray didn’t intend to play the game their way today.

She looked to Baranthalonus and nodded. He gave the order. As one, five hundred Silvanesti archers—the best remaining in all the world—rose to their feet, flocked arrows, and loosed them into the air. Kerianseray closed her eyes for an instant and whispered one word.

“Gilthas.”

For centuries Khur was thought of as an empty land, devoid of life or livelihood, containing only sand, stone, and sun. In truth the desert was home to many living things, each adapted to the stark environment. Beneath the sand dwelt creatures tenacious and frequently venomous. Above ground grew grass like wire, thorny vines, and waxen shrubs. By night the desert rose bloomed, source of the rarest perfume in the world. The scent was sweet, but the petals of the plant were deadly poison. Such was the life of the land of Khur.

The people of Khur were likewise shaped by their desert home. Most were nomads of hard mien and severe law, devoted to clan, tribe, and gods. Living on their own in a harsh land, they knew no master but the desert. Each tribe was its own nation, and every nomad his own lord. Ungovernable, they nonetheless had a king, the Khan of Khur, who dwelt in the city of Khuri-Khan.