Paul Thompson - Alliances

Thank you very much, she thought sourly. True or not, Alhana’s fears had utterly spoiled Kerian’s rest.

Less than a mile away, two gray-clad figures moved quietly along the stony trails atop the sandstone mountains, They proceeded in an odd fashion. One would dart across open ground, hide, then signal the trailing comrade to follow. The second would then dart forward, hide, and signal. Zigzagging over the plateau, Breetan Everride and Sergeant Jeralund came within a hundred yards of the elves’ camp then halted, concealing themselves beneath a pair of boulders that leaned together at their tops.

“There it is!” Breetan said, low voice further muffled by her gray suede mask.

Sergeant Jeralund grunted. He was cold and tired. They’d been bedded down for the night when Breetan shook him awake, pointing excitedly to a crimson glow over the higher peaks to the southeast. She was certain the elves were celebrating an important event. Why else draw attention to themselves with so great a fire?

With her leading, they traversed the mountains, drawn to the distant glow like moths to a candle. Breetan paused once to unsling her crossbow. She loaded it, then beckoned Jeralund onward.

Overlooking the elves’ camp, they tried to make sense of the scene they beheld.

“They’ve got griffons!” Jeralund exclaimed, no longer sleepy. “If they mount their entire force, they can strike anywhere at will.”

It was a very worrisome development, but Breetan was more concerned with the whereabouts of her target. He must be in the elves’ camp. How was she to get him? Infiltrating the camp would be suicide. The elves could hear, smell, and see humans coming from far away.

“Wait,” Jeralund advised, breathing on his gloved hands. “It’ll be daylight in a few hours. When the camp is awake, the Scarecrow will be out and about.”

“How far would you say it is to the center of those tents?”

“No more than a hundred ten yards.”

She adjusted the dial on the crossbow sight. It was a fiendishly complicated device, but after regular practice, Breetan was confident she could hit an elf at three hundred yards—four hundred if the wind was still, which it seldom was at this altitude.

She sat, stretching her legs in front of her, and laid the crossbow over her knees.

“We wait.”

False dawn flared. Like the bugle call blown to rouse human soldiers, it awakened every elf in the mountain camp. The griffons, attuned to the moods of their new riders, stood up along their picket line. They pawed the rocky ground impatiently, wings unfurling and flapping to loosen the muscles.

Under the lightening sky, Kerian pulled a quilted jerkin over her trail-worn buckskins. Weight was critical. The thick jerkin would not only keep her warm as she flew high, but would offer protection since her only armor would be a steel skullcap taken from the Bianost cache. Added to that would be her sword, lance, bow, provisions, and Alhana—Kerian began to feel sorry for her mount. The Golden griffons, smaller than their Royal counterparts, were being asked to fly several hundred miles, a much longer distance than they usually covered in one go. The journey should take ten to twelve hours. With good luck, and given the length of the summer day, they should reach Khur before sunset.

Kerian and Alhana, both experienced griffon riders, were to lead the way on Chisa. They had discussed the route and had decided to steer clear of inhabited lands as much as possible, to keep secret their acquisition of griffons. They would fly overland to New Bay, then northeast over the New Sea, avoiding both the mainland swamp and Schallsea Island. They’d thread the narrow straits of Qwermish, bisect the Inland Sea, and cross onto land again between Sanction and Thrusting Knife. From there, they would traverse the Khalkist Mountains by following valleys north and east and keeping to as low an altitude as possible. The mountains were replete with Nerakan hirelings, mercenaries, and talkative traders. Not all were hostile, but gossip would be deadly to the desire for secrecy.

Their ultimate goal was the mouth of the pass into Inath-Wakenti. Kerian reasoned that Gilthas had made a dash for the valley after being besieged on the Lion’s Teeth. Good, noble Planchet had stayed behind with a rearguard to protect the main body of elves. That was the scene they had witnessed in the sky. There was no point flying to the Lion’s Teeth. That fight was obviously over.

In the privacy of her tent, Kerian had wept after watching Planchet’s gallant stand. Although the vision had vanished abruptly, its end was inevitable: Planchet was dead. She had grieved the loss for his sake and for what it would mean to Gilthas. None knew better than she how important Planchet was to her husband. The vision also had left her haunted by thoughts of Gilthas’s looming fate. He had denied her, so she’d cut herself off from him, but their bond went deeper than politics or military matters. She missed him with an ache she could no longer ignore. If he was alive, she would make him take her back, on her terms. If he was dead—

If Gilthas was dead, someone would pay.

She decided to leave behind her bag of provisions. With Chisa carrying two riders, every bit of saved weight would be a help. Kerian could go a day without food. She would dine in Khur this night with her husband.

Hytanthas jogged up. Like the Lioness, his only piece of armor was a metal cap to protect his head. His face was flushed. He looked happier than at any time since he’d turned up in Qualinesti.

“The riders are mustering by the corral! Hurry, Commander!”

“They won’t leave without us,” she replied grumpily. His enthusiasm was sometimes refreshing, but after a sleepless night, she found the bright-eyed vigor of an elf only a few years younger than herself extremely tiresome.

The elves staying behind were arrayed in a great semicircle behind the corral. Kerian surveyed their faces, one and all, from the pale-eyed good looks of Alhana’s Silvanesti guards, to the smaller, darker, all-too-ordinary elves of Bianost, who had risked everything to join the rebellion. In the center of the group, Chathendor and Nalaryn seemed polar opposites—a Kagonesti scout from the deep forests of western Qualinesti and a life-long courtier of Silvanost—but they stood shoulder to shoulder, like brothers.

Kerian swallowed hard. Deliberately avoiding an emotional scene, she turned away from those staying behind and studied the flyers. One was missing. Before she could mention his absence, Porthios arrived.

He came slowly, tying twine around his wrist. He’d wrapped the twine around his arm to keep his loose sleeves from catching the wind and was trying to finish it off at his wrist. Tying knots one-handed was difficult work and he struggled with it, but not for long.

“Let me.”

Alhana took the loose ends of string and tied them off. She asked, “Too tight?”

“No.” His voice was barely audible, but she heard him well enough. She held out a hand for another length of twine. Wordlessly, he gave it to her, and she began binding up his other sleeve.

Although she never once looked up at him, Porthios’s gaze did not leave her all the while she worked. She was clad in a riding tunic of deep blue suede, trimmed with white fur, and gathered at the waist by a belt of woven silver. A slim dagger was thrust through her belt and a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder. She was good with a bow, he remembered. Better than he with moving targets. Better than he with all targets now. Her hair was covered by a scarf that matched her tunic. Her eyes, reflecting the tunic’s color, were the dark purple of the late-evening sky over Qualinost.

He moved abruptly away from her to stand by Samar and his griffon. She’d only just finished tying the twine around his wrist. She looked at him curiously. “Did I hurt you?”