glow.
“What’s Sahim-Khan playing at? Is he trying to protect us from his people, or what?” Gilthas muttered.
None of his advisors knew. Absent from the group was Lord Morillon. He was in the city, seeking an audience with the Khan. Planchet, just returned from surveying the damage done to the outer ring of tents, removed his helmet and mopped his forehead with a rag.
“Could be he wants to cut off our water,” he said.
He spoke out of his own thirst, but his suggestion was a logical one. Every drop of water in Khurinost had to be carried from the city. If Sahim-Khan refused them access, the next nearest wells were at Ving’s Oasis, forty miles northeast, a journey of two or three days for elves on foot. The horrors of the march to Khur five years ago would be repeated, and on a daily basis. Gilthas needed alternatives. He recalled Hamaramis and, with Planchet, discussed how to repair the Situation.
“We ought to storm the city,” Hamaramis suggested. “The humans have left us ladders all around Khuri- Khan.”
The scaffolding, erected for repair work on the walls, remained in many spots.
Planchet shook his head. “Sahim-Khan must know that. He’s not a fool.”
The Speaker studied Khuri-Khan through a brass spyglass. Its ruby lenses, polished by the gemcutters’ guild of Qualinost, had allowed him to watch the streets of Qualinost from the heights of the palace. Now they brought Khurish defenses into sharp focus for the Speaker’s tired, sun-scorched eyes. He hated the idea of attacking Khuri- Khan. They had dwelt here in relative peace and safety for five years. They had no real enmity with Khur. If they stormed the city now, they would have to go all out to win. Failure meant utter destruction. They were too few to overwhelm the humans quickly, so war in the desert kingdom would go on and on. If Neraka or the minotaurs intervened, catastrophe would engulf elves and Khurs alike.
“Perhaps it was not the Khan who closed the gates,” Planchet said. He was worried about his young friend Hytanthas, who had not returned to the elves’ camp. Perhaps Hytanthas had stumbled in his mission, and the gates had been closed at the instigation of the mage Faeterus.
Hamaramis reminded them about the fanatical followers of Torghan, and Planchet said they mustn’t forget the Nerakan emissary they’d seen in the Khuri yl Nor. The Khurs had long-standing ties to the Dark Knights, and many of Sahim-Khan’s soldiers had served as mercenaries in their hire.
“Are we prepared to move?” the Speaker asked, still gazing through the spyglass.
“We are short several hundred carts,” Hamaramis replied. “There wasn’t enough timber to build them, and no time to trade for the wood. So we’re building travois.”
Wilder elves often transported goods and possessions by this means. A simple travois required only two long poles and canvas or hide to stretch between them. It could be pulled by horse, donkey, or even a sturdy goat. The trailing runners would not bog down in the sea of sand outside Khuri-Khan.
Glumly, Hamaramis departed to continue the preparations. He was against leaving, and his opposition had grown more open over the past few days. He preferred to stay and attack. Seize the city, he had argued; negotiate with the Khurs from the safety of their own stone walls.
What this bold, forthright plan failed to consider was that once the city was theirs, the elves were trapped. The nomad tribes would gather and expend every last drop of blood to drive them out, and Neraka could not be ignored. The Knights would certainly intervene, storming into Khur as liberators. The last hope of the elven nations would be caught neatly in a stone prison of their own making.
The answer, Gilthas still felt certain, lay in finding a new place to live. The elves needed barriers of distance and inhospitable wastes to guard them from the sudden proliferation of enemies. Only then could they grow and rebuild their strength.
A shadow fell on him, and Gilthas looked up. Planchet had opened a linen parasol to shade him.
“I wonder where Lady Kerianseray is?” the valet said, offering him a damp cloth.
Gilthas pressed the cloth against his throat and brow. “Some place cool, I hope.”
He’d received a very short dispatch from her, two days after the arrival of the first. Kerian and her warriors had entered the valley. The climate was mild and damp, but they’d found no signs of life. Strange stone ruins covered the valley as far as they could see. She intended to penetrate to the center of the valley, fulfilling her mission of exploration, then return.
Gilthas hardly knew what to make of the terse report. It contained no details from his archivist, Favaronas, and raised more questions than it answered. Was the Inath-Wakenti suitable for their people, or not? Was there a supply of fresh water? Any game? What was so strange about the ruins? Did they show evidence of having been built by ancient elves, as some of the legends had it?
The Lioness did thank him for sending Eagle Eye to her. But her promise to “put him to good use against our enemies” did not have a particularly diplomatic ring to it.
Of course she was under great stress, but did her reports have to be so vague and unhelpful? Was she allowing her personal feelings to color them? She was dead against his plan to migrate to the valley. Like the other warriors around the Speaker, Kerian preferred to decide her own fate by fighting. Even though he understood this, he could not allow war to overtake his people. He had to rule his own wife in that regard. The stakes were too high.
He mopped his brow again, glancing skyward. The sun was relentless. Khurinost would exhaust its ready water supply in a day if Khuri-Khan remained inaccessible.
“More to the point,” he said, “where is Lord Morillon? We need those gates opened!”
Lord Morillon was saying those very words to Sahim-Khan, on the rooftop garden of the royal citadel. Enormous screens, woven of reeds and rushes, shaded the garden. In better times, fountains flowed among the ferns and willows, adding the music of falling water to the scene and allowing more tender plants to be grown. As yet, the water system had not been repaired, so the greenery was confined to smaller, potted bushes and flowers which servants carried indoors during the worst heat of the day. Despite its sparse look, the garden still afforded an excellent view of the city.
“If our people are shut out, Great Khan, they will be forced to storm the city for water.”
“Attack Khuri-Khan?” Sahim thundered. “Blood will run down the walls of the city should that happen!”
The Silvanesti noble bowed, saying smoothly, “Your Majesty is wise. Blood indeed will flow, elven and human.”
Honey-tongued Zunda stepped forward and intoned, “Great is the patience of my master, Sahim the Many- Blessed! His forbearance is like the gods’ own! He has heard of the terrible atrocities wrought against his desert children, and still he is merciful. Still he stays his hand against the
Suave, diplomatic Silvanesti never grind their teeth in frustration, but Lord Morillon was close to doing just that. He said-for the eighth time since arriving at the palace-that there was no proof a massacre had occurred, much less that it had been perpetrated by elves. “If the Mighty Khan would receive my king, the Speaker of the Sun and Stars, he would know this tale is false.”
“Desert tribesmen are known throughout this land for their truth telling,” said Zunda. “It is, for them, as essential as water and salt.”
“I can only repeat: There is no proof Lady Kerianseray or any other elven warriors have harmed a single nomad. No one has offered the slightest evidence an atrocity has even occurred. If it has, the Great Khan should look elsewhere for culprits-Neraka, perhaps.”
Lord Hengriff also was present on the rooftop. The representative of the Dark Knights stood a few steps away, among a crowd of other foreign dignitaries he overtopped by head and shoulders. His dark face was expressionless as a mask, even when the Silvanesti noble invoked his country’s name.
“The truth will be known,” Sahim declared. “I believe in the will of the gods.”
In reality Sahim-Khan believed in nothing but Sahim-Khan. As always, his mind was busy considering how best to make use of the current situation. Morillon’s threat to fight for water might prove a useful lever for prying more money out of Neraka. Sahim sought out Hengriff in the crowd, only to discover the bull-voiced warrior had slipped away unnoticed. Such discretion was remarkable in so large a man-remarkable and unnerving.
