Paul Thompson - Alliances

“I’ll fight for you on two conditions.” Her chin lifted. “I command your army, such as it is. I answer only to you.”

Nalaryn raised an eyebrow but made no objection. The masked elf nodded solemnly.

“Second,” Kerian said, “I must know your identity. If I’m to follow you and believe in your cause, I have to know who you are. After all, this could be some strange Nerakan plot to undermine resistance in Qualinesti.”

For a long moment, he stood motionless, pondering, then spoke quietly to Nalaryn. The Kagonesti chief moved away to the gate and turned his back. When he was gone, the masked elf came to stand only inches from her horse’s side.

Very softly he said, “On the scaffold, you revealed yourself to me, so I will do the same. But believe me when I tell you that if you betray this confidence to anyone, you will die.”

Threats did not usually impress her, but something in his voice, and in the eyes that bored into her own, told her he was in deadly earnest. She nodded once. She would keep the secret of his identity.

He put a finger below the bottom edge of his mask. A heartbeat passed, and another, then he lifted the cloth up to his forehead.

Kerianseray, battle-hardened Lioness of legend, recoiled in horror. The mask came back down.

“I was once Porthios, Speaker of the Sun,” he said. “Now my fate is yours, and yours is mine.”

Fighting raged in the streets of Samustal all day and into the night. The small band of elves moved through the town, striking anywhere the bandits managed to rally. Despite the intense fighting, not a single Kagonesti was injured. Kerian received a few cuts and bruises—nothing compared to what she’d already been through—and Porthios, unarmed and unafraid, did not get a scratch. He walked through furious skirmishes like a shadow, seemingly impervious to harm.

Despite the elves’ spectacular showing, the victory really belonged to the oppressed people of Bianost, who rose up when trouble erupted. Armed with sticks, tools, whatever came to hand, they threw themselves on their oppressors. Weapons weighed down by the bodies of courageous attackers, the bandits were overcome as waves of angry townsfolk flooded over them.

The cost to the elves was terrible, but they took on Olin’s mercenary legion and destroyed it. The last bandits abandoned the town before dawn, piling into carts or riding any four-legged animal they could steal. As they fled, they were pelted with rotten fruit, stones, and the jeers of the townsfolk.

Porthios, the Lioness, and the Kagonesti band went to the mayor’s palace. The bulk of Olin’s troops were gone, slain in the rioting. His personal guard still stood watch at the mayor’s residence, but they had abandoned the outer porticos to cluster together by the main door, trapped by the riot. Porthios led his band directly to the palace’s front steps. The elves marched in close order, wearing mantles and helmets taken from fallen bandits. Arrows found vital organs, mauls cracked skulls, and the guards fell. Then the way was clear.

The Lioness dueled with a bandit officer until a helpful archer put an arrow through his throat. Porthios stood apart, watching her wade through the fracas.

When she rejoined him, bloody and panting, Porthios remarked, “You’re not the fighter I expected, though you have the reputation of being quite a slayer.”

“I wasn’t born in a palace. I never had fencing lessons,” she retorted, sheathing her captured blade. “I have killed many enemies. It isn’t style that matters, only winning.”

Porthios couldn’t argue with that. One shouldn’t expect style or finesse from a peasant, no matter how experienced.

He led the way inside. Ignoring his followers’ objections, he threw open the mansion’s double doors. Three crossbow bolts thudded into the panels next to his head. Unimpressed, he shouted, “Olin Man-Daleth! Come out and face justice!”

Kerian dragged him aside as more bolts whizzed down the hall. Behind her, Nalaryn had glimpsed the bowmen. With silent gestures, he dispatched four of his people down the side corridors to deal with them.

“You’re too bold for your own good,” Kerian told Porthios tartly. “This revolution will come to a sudden end if you stop an arrow.”

“You’re wrong. What has started cannot be stopped by a single arrow.”

He entered, striding down the center of the ornate hail, calmly examining the bas-reliefs that depicted the rise of the Qualinesti nation. The hall had been defaced by Olin’s men. Statues had heads and limbs hacked off, and the travertine floor showed deep scratches where hobnailed boots and spurs had scored the stone.

They investigated the entire palace, flushing out a few hidden bandits, who died fighting. When they reached the lord mayor’s audience hail, they found a crowd of servants huddled behind the sky-blue and gold tapestries. Kerian drove them out from concealment at sword point. There were eleven, five women and six men. All wore Olin’s livery, a dark green tabard with a triangle of silver daggers.

“Please, good lords, don’t kill us!” one quavered. “We’re humble folk pressed to duty against our will!”

Porthios would’ve dismissed them, but Kerian did not waver. Something didn’t feel right, she said. The servants could have fled at any time, and why were they still wearing Olin’s colors, unless they were supposed to be found so dressed?

She told the archers to keep them covered and grabbed the closest servant, a middle-aged woman with brindled hair. She turned the woman’s hand palm up then sniffed her sleeve.

“Kitchen. Scrubwoman,” she announced and pulled the tabard over the woman’s head. “Go on, get out.”

She repeated this performance for each human, announcing their place in the household by the marks on their hands and the smell of their clothes: baker, wine steward, scullery maid, keeper of hounds.

The sixth, a man, revealed a pair of callused palms with clean, well-trimmed nails. It didn’t take a sensitive nose to notice he was wearing scent. She laid her sword on his shoulder.

“Who are you?”

“Theydrin. Lord Olin’s valet.”

“Where is Olin?” Porthios demanded.

The man glanced at his masked captor with curiosity. “I don’t know, sir. May I go?”

In response, Kerian slashed hard across the man’s chest. His green tabard fell away, showing them a close-fitting shirt of fine mail.

“It’s Olin!” Kerian shouted, leaping back.

The fellow’s reply was to take hold of the female servant closest to him and put a curved dagger to her throat. “I’ll slit her gullet if you try to stop me!”

Porthios shrugged. “So? One less human will hardly distress me.”

“Wait.” Kerian spoke as much to the Kagonesti as to Olin. Nalaryn’s band had nocked arrows and was preparing to draw.

“Kill them both,” Porthios ordered.

Bows creaked back to full stretch. The implacable faces of the Wilder elves were too much for the bandit lord. He released his hostage. Kerian pulled her out of the way. Olin dropped his dagger and held out his hands.

“I have treasure! I’ll pay a ransom! You’ll all be rich!” he babbled.

“Treasure stolen from the people of Qualinesti.”

So saying, Porthios lifted a hand, and two of the Kagonesti loosed. They aimed low, and their arrows took Olin from opposite sides. He shrieked in agony and slumped to the ground. Another Kagonesti finished Olin with a blow from his maul. Horrified, the last weeping servants fled.

Kerian returned her blade to its sheath. “Is this how it’s to be?” she asked. “No quarter?”

“You would show mercy to the man who ordered you flayed alive?” Porthios stared up at the ornate ceiling. “Olin was a brutal killer. All murderers can expect the same. Does that trouble you?”