Alliances Read online

  The former residence of Bianost’s mayor stood opposite the town hall. Bonfires blazed on its stone steps. The number of guards in evidence made it obvious Olin Man-Daleth had taken the mansion for his own. The sandstone facade was streaked with soot, and the elegantly tall windows were crudely bricked up, leaving only narrow openings through which archers could shoot. The ornamental bronze doors were nearly concealed behind a head-high breastwork of timbers and sandbags. The entrance was guarded by no fewer than fifteen armed bandits.

  Lord Olin stood on the stone steps as the recaptured prisoners were brought before him. Tall, with iron-gray hair, Olin wore full armor and a heavy dark cape to disguise his thinness. Narrow, close-set eyes and a nose crooked from having been broken and inexpertly set gave him a sinister look. The news of the escape had interrupted his dinner, putting him in a foul mood. Despite his perpetual thinness, he had a hearty appetite, and food was one of the great pleasures of his life. Those responsible for disrupting his meal would know his wrath.

  He glared at the bound elves kneeling at the bottom of the stairs. The female he ignored, concentrating his attention on the four males.

  “How did you get out?” he demanded.

  When no answers were forthcoming, a goblin struck one of the captives, knocking the elf onto his face. Olin repeated the question.

  The elves exchanged frightened looks but still said nothing. The goblin lifted its sword, ready to take the head of a random prisoner, but Olin stayed its hand. His face was very red. He stomped down the steps, halting on the last one.

  “Rebellion will not be allowed!” he shouted. “I will know who your ringleaders are and deal with them!”

  He gestured at two of the elves. “Bring them to the tower. Return the rest to the cages.” He swept up the stairs.

  The captives were bullied and buffeted across the square toward the town hall. There they were separated, with Kerian and two elves returned to the holding cage, and the two elves chosen by Lord Olin forced into the long stairwell that led up the town hall tower.

  Kerian asked her fellow captives what was in the tower. Neither would answer. They huddled in the far corner of the cage, their misery all the greater for their brief taste of freedom. Soon the three of them heard screams.

  When the first echoed through the air, Kerian rushed to the door. Standing on tiptoe, she peered out the small window. Outside were three guards.

  “What’s happening, savages?” she demanded.

  Two guards ignored her. The third, younger than the others, ambled over, regarding her with open interest.

  Another scream ripped through the air, the sound of a soul in terrible torment. Kerian pounded a fist against the door.

  The young guard smiled. “Lord Olin wants to know who to blame for the escape. In the tower questions are answered quickly or not at all.”

  “Leave them alone! Tell him it was me!”

  “I’ll be sure to do that.” Laughing, the bandit moved away.

  Nothing she said mattered. None of the guards believed her. Only the young one would even speak to her, and then only to make obscene suggestions. The distant screams continued intermittently.

  Some time later, a sharp rap on the cell door jolted her awake. She didn’t know how long she’d dozed, but the young guard’s laughter brought her quickly to her feet.

  “It appears you weren’t lying. They both admitted you planned the whole thing.” He shook his head, grinning appreciatively. “You’re a firebrand.”

  “What has happened to them?”

  “Oh, they’re dead. Believe me, they’re lucky. For you, it won’t be so quick.” She did not ask what he meant, but he volunteered the information anyway. “You’re to be executed, as a warning to other would-be rebels. Day after tomorrow.” He walked away.

  Sick with guilt and helpless fury, Kerian slid to the floor.

  5

  The cemetery outside Gateway lay between two hills, hidden from the lights of town and the traffic on the coast road. The vale was low and boggy, so the graves were built above-ground. Bathed in starlight, they stood like ordered blocks of ice, white and polished. Most were unadorned stone boxes, but a few elaborate mausoleums bore the names of families long important in the province.

  Like the nation itself, the cemetery had fallen on hard times. Weeds sprouted around the foundations of the monuments. Grass grew knee high and choked the pathways. Vines girded graves great and humble. Here and there, the stone boxes had collapsed from weather or the attentions of grave robbers. The broken graves were quickly claimed by weeds. Cemeteries were melancholy places in the best of times. The one outside Gateway was a somber testament to the tragedy of a nation.

  Standing alone on one of the overgrown paths was a figure draped in a long linen duster. She stepped from the deep shade of an obelisk and starlight washed her pale features in cool radiance. Her face might have graced an elegant statue atop one of the finer monuments. Her astonishing beauty overlaid by deep pain, Alhana Starbreeze was the living embodiment of mourning.

  The whir of a nightjar made her start. Then a figure, cloaked and hooded like herself, emerged from the grass-choked side path.

  “What word?” she murmured.

  The newcomer drew back his cowl, revealing a lean countenance, almond-shaped eyes, and a high, pale forehead. Like Alhana, Samar was a Silvanesti. There was a glint of iron at his throat, a warrior’s gorget.

  “Nothing to confirm the rumors, lady, but nothing to disprove them either.”

  The line of her jaw hardened. Every day she lingered in this land was dangerous and expensive. Danger she could bear, but there was little she could do to lessen the drain on her slender purse.

  She asked no more questions, preferring to hear Samar’s full report when they rejoined their party. They mounted their waiting horses and, with Alhana in the lead, left the deserted cemetery.

  Samar followed three steps behind, as he felt was proper. Long acquaintance allowed him to recognize his lady’s disappointment. Hope had buoyed her for a while, and she’d had precious little of it lately, but she was coming to realize the folly of the dream she chased.

  Her only child, on whom she’d placed her hopes for the future of the elf nation, had been taken from her. No hero’s death, nor even a worthy one, had been granted Silvanoshei. He had died a dupe, killed by the woman he loved, the false prophet of a dark deity. Porthios, the husband Alhana had married for duty but come to love, was gone as well, killed in the same war that had claimed their son. Blasted from the sky by a dragon’s fiery breath, his had been a magnificent end for a warrior and a king. The crime, Samar thought, was that Alhana could not accept that her husband was dead. His griffon’s incinerated body had been found, but its rider never was. From that slim hope, Alhana had built the fantasy that her husband might still live.

  Their homeland was despoiled, their people scattered, but she would not give up the search. A resurrected husband might be too much of a miracle, but at the very least she intended to find his remains and see him properly interred. However, Alhana had not come to the long-unused cemetery to find Porthios’s grave. Rumors had reached, even her in exile, of a mysterious leader who was forging the few remaining elves of Qualinesti into a rebellion. The old cemetery served as a private place to wait while Samar ventured into Gateway to gather what information he could about the budding revolt and its mastermind. Silent as a ghost, Alhana walked among the forgotten dead, waiting for word of her lost husband.

  They’d been on the mainland just two days. Before that, Alhana and her small company of loyal followers had dwelt on the island of Schallsea, tolerated but not celebrated. She could have retreated to the forest of her own country. There were still hidden vales where a careful inhabitant could live with little risk of discovery. But with Silvanesti, Qualinesti, and Kagonesti slaughtered, enslaved in their own countries, or exiled to alien lands, Alhana would not seek sylvan peace for herself. For a long time, she wandered the lands of the New Sea until wea
riness and impending poverty brought her to a halt on Schallsea. From there she kept up her search, sending out agents to investigate hearsay and interviewing travelers who’d come from the former elf homelands.

  It was more than rumors of a masked rebel that brought Alhana back to the mainland. Anyone could don a mask, for any number of reasons. But the Kagonesti who followed the rebel called him “Great Lord,” a title usually reserved for the Speaker or his heir.

  Samar argued that that was not enough reason for her to risk entering occupied Qualinesti. Kagonesti were truthful people but much given to mysticism and symbolism. Their Great Lord could be nearly anyone. Alhana’s chamberlain, the venerable Chathendor, agreed with Samar. Alhana did not. She intended to go to Qualinesti. Whatever they felt about her quest, and despite her abdication of the throne, she would always be their queen. They and a few hundred Silvanesti warriors accompanied her across the sea.

  The terrain east of Gateway was rolling grassland, long cleared of all but the smallest saplings and bushes. Alhana and Samar crested a low rise and reined up. The view showed nothing but a starlit meadow. In answer to Samar’s low whistle, the hillsides seemed to come alive. From every low swale and scrap of cover rose elves, their green- and brown-clad forms shaded to black by the darkness.

  One elf moved to greet the newcomers. Even among a long-lived race, Chathendor was very old, more than twice Alhana’s age. Perhaps because he’d lived so long, he was the only truly fearless person Alhana knew. He’d once told her that at his age, death wasn’t a terrifying abstraction to be avoided at all costs, but a patient visitor, awaiting its inevitable invitation. Bare of hood, his pale, curly hair was pearlescent in the starlight.

  “What word?” he whispered, unknowingly echoing Alhana’s question to Samar.

  Both of them dismounted and Samar reported. “For weeks a band of Kagonesti, led by a masked elf, has been harrying the small Nerakan fort of Alderhelm, killing off mercenaries by twos and threes. Word reached Gateway that a Dark Knight sent to the fort to put an end to the troubles was herself attacked, and her entire command spirited away overnight.”

  “A kender’s tale!” Chathendor scoffed.

  “Evidently not. The knight dispatched a report to the Order’s citadel in Frenost. The courier was kept occupied at an inn called The Saddle Horn, halfway between Frenost and Haven, while the contents of his bag were copied. The news reached Haven ahead of him and beat him to Gateway too.”

  “Was there a description, Samar?” Alhana asked, caring little how the news had come.

  “Masked, covered head to toe by ragged robes, but well spoken, with the diction and vocabulary of a high-born Qualinesti.”

  “A Qualinesti,” she echoed, her voice little more than a sigh. Perhaps her quest was not a fool’s errand after all.

  She controlled her emotions, reminding herself it was a slender thread. A “high-born” Qualinesti could be a courtier or a former officer of the royal army who had donned a hood to confound the bandits. And yet—something in her heart would not let that particular rumor go. She had suffered so many disappointments. For half a year she had stalked a supposed Porthios around the cities of Crusher’s Bay, always one step behind, until finally catching up with him in a Walmish gaming house. The impostor passing himself off as her husband was no more than a quarter elf, a glib liar who’d managed to convince dozens of gullible folk he was the lost ruler of Qualinesti. It was merely a confidence game, a way for him to gull his way to an easy life. Caught, he confessed all. Alhana forgave him. Unbeknownst to her, Samar had not. When his sorrowing queen was out of sight, Samar made certain the impostor would ply his trade no longer, except as food for the fish of Crusher’s Bay.

  “We must go to Alderhelm,” she announced.

  Alhana’s lieutenants protested. Bad enough she had come as far as she had, but entering occupied Qualinesti was unthinkably hazardous. Should Captain Samuval get his hands on the former queen of Silvanesti, she would surely die. There was no one left to ransom her.

  Their arguments fell on deaf ears. Alhana silenced them with a sharp word. She had to know the truth for herself. She was tired of waiting in safety while others risked their lives to find out for her.

  She thanked them both, telling Samar to prepare the troops and sending her chamberlain with him. She needed solitude, time to think.

  She rode in the direction of the ruined cemetery but didn’t go far. Samar would be frantic if she went out of sight. Reining up, she pushed back her hood and untied the scarf that concealed her upswept ears and bound up her hair. The night-black sheaf fell to the middle of her back. She looked up at the starry sky.

  Was it truly possible Porthios lived, or was she endlessly deceiving herself? More than a mask and courtly diction were needed to bring her husband back to life, but his body had never been found. If anyone could survive dragonfire, it would be Porthios. There was another, much harder question she did not like to contemplate: If he had survived, why had he left her to grieve his death and their son’s death all alone?

  Her solitude ended too soon. Samar and Chathendor rode up to report their people were ready to move. However much he might protest her course, Samar was the truest friend she’d ever had. Chathendor, with the bluntness granted by extreme age, was both wise and inventive. He saw angles others did not. More than once he’d saved her from ruin, just by his wits. Armed with her two champions, and her own resolve, Alhana was not afraid to enter Qualinesti.

  Breetan Everride shivered. The sun was not yet up, but the sky, clear as a mountain lake, shaded from indigo in the west to azure in the east. A south wind carried the cold breath of Icewall, and she pulled her mantle close around her neck. She stood in a long, narrow courtyard hard by the outer wall of the Black Hall. The Hall was the seat of Lord Egil Liveskill, who was responsible for the peace and security in the Southward, as the Dark Knights designated the former elf kingdom of Qualinesti.

  She had reached the Hall the evening before. Despite the lateness of the hour, she was escorted directly to Lord Liveskill’s audience chamber. Liveskill sat at a great oval table, its obsidian surface covered with books, parchments, and sheaves of reports. The master of the Black Hall worked late nearly every night.

  Liveskill’s blond hair was still trimmed close, but since she’d last seen him he’d grown a short beard, confined to his square chin. He seemed paler than she remembered, but perhaps that was due to the combination of candlelight and the contrast of his dark blue tunic. Liveskill had once received a prophecy that he was in danger from fire, so no modern lamps were permitted within the Hall. How numerous racks of candles were safer than oil lamps, Breetan couldn’t imagine, but they were certainly warmer. Breetan was sweating heavily in her armor.

  “I hear strange tidings,” he said before even looking at the document she held out to him. “You bring word of an insurrection in the Southward.”

  She wasn’t surprised the news had preceded her; the Black Hall had spies in every town and village. Liveskill took her reports. Documents that had taken her a day and a half to write, he read through in moments, then sat back in his chair. His expression was unreadable.

  “Why?” he finally said. “Why would this masked rebel leave you alive to send word of his deeds to the Order? Why deliberately attract our attention?”

  Before she could reply, he answered his own question. “This is a diversion. He wants us to scour the Alderhelm forest for him while he strikes at his true target. Do you have any idea what that might be?”

  His quick insight left her struggling to catch up. “My lord, I cannot believe he commands more than a few dozen foresters. It’s one thing to harry a small outpost, quite another to think he could threaten the Order. The difficulties of counting the Kagonesti are well known, but our census estimates the total number in the Southward at three to four thousand. Even if he could command them all, that’s hardly sufficient to bring down our fortresses.”

  He did not reply. Breetan sweated harder. Her
failure against the masked rebel was galling, and the Order seldom forgave failure. She decided a bit of boldness was required.

  “My lord, allow me to redeem myself. Give me a company and I will—”

  “No.”

  His flat denial sent a shiver of doubt through her. Liveskill’s distant gaze focused on her, and she steeled herself for whatever would come.

  “The failure was yours alone. Alone you will redeem it.”

  Faint hope stirred. Perhaps her only choices were not disgrace or death.

  Unfortunately he told her nothing more, only dismissed her, saying he would call for her at sunrise. His majordomo, Denius Dukayne, escorted her to a sumptuous bedchamber, where a fine repast awaited. Was this a last meal for the condemned or simple courtesy for a fellow knight and member of the Black Hall?

  She fortified herself with food, wine, and the uncommon luxury of a comfortable bed.

  Sunrise was still half an hour away when Dukayne tapped at her door, but she was ready and waiting for him. He conducted her to the courtyard of the Black Hall, where Liveskill awaited her.

  With him were two artisans in short tunics, baggy breeches, and ankle-high boots. Liveskill introduced them. The elder, with white hair and a wispy beard, was Gonthar, master bowyer. The other, nearer Breetan’s age and clean shaven, was Gonthar’s journeyman, Waymark.

  As a chill wind swirled around inside the sheer black stone walls, Gonthar handed Breetan the velvet-wrapped package he held. It proved to be a large, elaborately made crossbow. Despite her uncertainty over her situation, she was intrigued. Liveskill knew the crossbow was her favored weapon.

  Although large, it was remarkably light. The black ironwood stock had been inletted deeply along its length, hollowing it and making it far lighter than it appeared. There was no arrow trough. The bowstring was buried in the stock, not lying atop it. At the front of the stock was a square opening for inserting the bolt blunt end first. Odder still was the tube attached to the upper right edge of the stock. It was brass, carefully blackened except for the knurled rings at one end. In place of the customary trigger bar, a round hole had been bored midway through the wrist of the stock. Within was set an ivory trigger. The weapon was light enough for her to hold in one hand, her arm at full extension. No doubt it had been designed to be loosed that way, if need be.