Sanctuary

“It’s a shock to me too,” he replied, smiling faintly. Without warning, he began to slide off the jamb. Kerian was out of the tub in a flash, catching him before he hit the floor.

Hamaramis’s furniture, like the general himself, was rather spare. Kerian eased Gilthas onto a short, unpadded bench and stood looking down at him, hands on hips, dripping on the carpet.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed. You’ll aggravate your wound.”

“It’s healed.” She looked surprised, and he added, “High Priestess Sa’ida is quite skilled.”

“I gave orders she wasn’t to be admitted!”

He was taken aback. “Why?”

“It was a human who wounded you. We’ve had quite enough favors from them!”

Gilthas coughed, wincing. “You wouldn’t say that if it was your shoulder,” he rasped. But she would, of course.

Annoyed, yet unwilling to berate him while he was so weak, she decided to finish her bath. Taking up Hamaramis’s rough sea sponge and stepping back into the tub, she dedicated herself to scrubbing feet and legs while her husband watched.

Finally, the heavy silence and his grim expression were too much. “Whatever it is, just say it!” she said, tossing the sponge into the bath with a splash.

“I’m trying to find the words.” His voice was calm, but concern laced every syllable. “You left your command in the Valley of the Blue Sands?”

“Yes.”

“Kerian, this is a grave matter.”

She nodded. “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. But Glanthon is a competent officer. He’ll get his warriors, and Favaronas, home.”

“That isn’t the point.” He paused, then spoke, the words seemingly wrenched from him. “A commander shouldn’t abandon her soldiers!”

“I thought you were dead or dying! And I don’t need you to school me in how to be a commander!”

“Apparently, you do! My health was totally irrelevant. Your first duty was to your warriors. Leaving them to fend for themselves could be construed as cowardice.”

That brought the Lioness to her feet, sending waves of water over the sides of the tub. “How dare you! No one calls me a coward, not even you!”

He leaned back, panting slightly, exertion and emotion taking their toll.

“You’re no coward, Kerian. I know that. But your behavior of late has been reckless and dangerous. I’m told you dragged the rotting corpse of a sand beast to Sahim-Khan’s door.”

With a grim nod, she admitted it.

“Why?” he asked.

She flung out her hands. “To make a point, of course! I was accused of slaughtering unarmed women and children. I realized the sand beast was probably responsible, maybe at the direction of that traitor, Faeterus. If I had simply told the story to Sahim-Khan, he might not have believed me, or he might’ve ignored me. By putting my case to the people of Khuri-Khan, I ended the lie at once!”

“You have sorely offended Sahim-Khan’s dignity.”

“I don’t care about his dignity!”

She wrung water from her hair and stepped out of the tub. When she looked at her husband again, his face was utterly still, the lines on it seemingly etched twice as deep as before, his gaze fixed on the floor. Concerned, she held out a hand to him, meaning to help him back to bed.

“Do you care about my dignity? You have disobeyed my strictest orders.”

The hand dropped to her side. “What orders?” she asked, genuinely confused.

“Not to fight with the Khurish nomads.”

“What in Chaos’s name are you talking about? They attacked us!”

“Then you should have evaded them.” He thumped the carpet with his cane.

“They knew where we were going! I couldn’t very well evade them and carry out your pointless expedition at the same time!”

He pushed himself upright. His eyes held no anger, only a deep sadness.

“Kerianseray, I love you more than my life,” he whispered. Her towering rage drained away. “But I must do what’s best for the elven nation,” he added. “Your actions continue to provoke our enemies and aggravate our allies. You have consistently made impulsive, reckless choices at a time when the slightest nuances of our deeds can mean life or death.”

His posture straightened, and in that instant, her husband was gone. It was the Speaker who addressed her now. “You are removed as commander of my armies.”

Had he pulled out a blade and thrust it home, he could not have astonished her more. She stared at him in shock as he went on.

“In time, I trust, you will appreciate why I must make this decision, will understand what an increasingly difficult political situation we’re in. Taranath will take command of the cavalry. Hamaramis retains command of my personal guard. You may serve in any company you wish, or you may retire from service.”

With that he turned ponderously and, leaning heavily on his makeshift cane, limped out.

Several yards away, in the corridor leading to the tent’s main room, Planchet waited. When the Speaker appeared, Planchet covered the distance between them in three long strides.

Many unhappy tasks were required of a monarch. The one he’d just performed had been the very worst. Gilthas turned a gray, sweating face to Planchet and whispered, “It is done. Take me home.”

* * * * *

Water dried on Kerian’s skin. How much time passed, she didn’t know, but when she finally came to herself, she was sitting on the rug, her back against the bathtub. Her small- clothes were stiff and dry.

Dismissed. She was dismissed. By her husband!

How many years had she borne arms against the enemies of her people? How long had she shed blood and fought foes more numerous, more powerful, more ruthless than she? She had won and she had lost, many times over, but always she fought on. Never had she quit. And now she was dismissed, cast aside, disparaged.

Gilthas was wrong. She had made mistakes, she admitted that, but her course wasn’t reckless, it was right. If their people were to survive, they needed bold and vigorous action, not soft words and evasion. Inath-Wakenti was a dead end,, as dangerous to the elves as the desert heat and marauding nomads. Perhaps their people weren’t yet strong enough to retake Silvanesti and Qualinesti, but they would hardly grow any stronger in this dreary field of tents, living off the charity of barbarous humans. Nor could they grow stronger by crossing the murderous cauldron of the High Plateau only then to face the deadly mysteries in the Valley of the Blue Sands.

No. Elves must take control of elven destiny once more. If Gilthas and his soft advisors couldn’t see this, someone would have to show them the way. They clung to an imaginary life, thinking protocol and precedence mattered, thinking politeness and accommodation would keep their people safe. Someone would have to make them understand reality.

The first step to saving the elven race was right here. They must take Khuri-Khan, and use it as their base for striking outward from Khur. Gilthas always had been reluctant to confront Sahim because the human khan had offered the elves sanctuary during their time of trouble, but that sanctuary had come to have much too high a price-and Kerian wasn’t thinking only of steel and silver. The life they’d been forced to live, begging humans for every scrap they received, was draining the heart and soul from her people. Sahim-Khan was a liar, a schemer, and a greedy bandit. He deserved no consideration, and less mercy.

With Khuri-Khan in their hands, the elves would have access to the sea. Ships could be commandeered or built, and the Lioness and her fighters would harry the coasts of Silvanesti and Qualinesti. Ships of their former conquerors could be taken, and raids mounted on coastal towns. There were islands with temperate climates in the Southern and Eastern Courrain that would fall to a determined attack. The new elven nation would be a seafaring nation, building their wealth and power against the day they would take back their ancestral lands.

That day would come. Fists clenched, Kerian swore to herself it would come, and not in some dim, distant