flowers were brought into the square and arranged in a mosaic of colors.”
Kerian could scarcely conceive it. Today there was only smoke, sweat, and the reek of blood. She looked beyond Alhana into the audience hall. Porthios wasn’t in sight. She spoke privately to Nalaryn, telling him to find his leader and bring him here.
Nalaryn was not confident. “If the Great Lord chooses not to come, I cannot force him.”
“Fair enough. But tell him I intend to show Alhana the treasure.”
Nalaryn departed. Alhana’s retainers, Chathendor and Samar, were discussing their rout of the bandits.
“They never could stand up to us in a fair fight,” Samar said. “If the beast Beryl had not weakened us, if the Knights hadn’t ridden in, those bandits would never have found a haven here!”
Yes, Kerian thought sourly, and if horses had horns, they’d be cows.
Shifting the subject, she asked Alhana how they came to be here.
“Word reached me of a rebellion, led by a masked figure with great skill in war. I summoned my old guard from around the lands of the New Sea and came at once to lend my support.”
It sounded very simple but also rehearsed. Kerian had been among royalty long enough to recognize a diplomatic lie. Could word of Porthios’s little victories have reached so far so soon? If so, the elves’ enemies would know of them too.
The audience hall was a sight. Torches illuminated a makeshift scaffolding knocked together from fire- blackened timbers scavenged from the slave cages. The tower of planks and posts rose in the center of the hall to a gaping hole cut in the painted ceiling.
At Kerian’s invitation, Samar scaled the scaffold. He stood with head and shoulders inside the attic and studied the space by torchlight. It did not display the usual airy delicacy that marked elven construction. Thick beams had been added to supplement the slender ceiling joists, and planks had been laid over the whole to make a floor. Heavy planks, he noted. Overhead, a beam still bore signs that a block and tackle had been attached. Whatever had been hidden there, it was very heavy. All that remained were snippets of rope and cloth sacking. He turned and climbed back down the scaffold.
In the hail below, Chathendor had made his own discovery: several sacks discarded in a heap. The linen sacks were too flimsy to have held bullion. Steel ingots would have torn right through. Samar caught a faint odor coming from the cloth. The smell was mineral oil, and something else. He thrust a hand into an empty sack and felt along the seams. His fingers came out covered in sticky yellow beeswax.
He uttered an oath. Chathendor chided him, reminding him of the presence of Alhana. “And of Lady Kerianseray, of course,” the elderly retainer added, somewhat belatedly. Kerian snorted in amusement.
Samar knew the significance of the sacks. He gave her a keen look, demanding, “How did you find them?”
“Them?” asked Chathendor.
Kerian told of the dying councilor’s cryptic clue regarding treasure in the sky.
Although her confusion was plain, Alhana was too well bred to insist on quick answers. Chathendor had no such compunctions. “What treasure?” he demanded. “What are you both talking about?”
Samar said, “A trove not of steel or jewels, but of weapons!”
Kerian confirmed his deduction. A parchment left with the cache in the attic had told the tale, she explained. In the waning days of Qualinesti, the great arsenal of Qualinost was stripped of weapons, part of a desperate plan to arm every elf of fighting age in the country. The royal arsenal was divided into three parts. One part was kept in the city and was lost when Beryl destroyed it. A second part was sent to the fortress at Pax Tharkas, but never arrived. A fast-moving band of Nerakan cavalry intercepted the caravan and stole the arms. The final third was intended for a new army being raised in the Forest of Wayreth. It, too, never reached its intended destination. Events overtook the caravan, and the weapons were hidden in the mayor’s palace in Bianost. In the ensuing chaos, only the single councilor of Bianost who remained remembered where the arms had been concealed.
“Olin’s men heard rumors of a secret cache and assumed it was treasure,” said Kerian. “They tortured Kasanth, but he kept the secret. He passed on a single clue to”-she stumbled only slightly-”our leader, who deduced the cache’s location.”
Alhana gazed at the ruined ceiling. “Amazing. Where are the weapons now?”
“Divided into lots and hidden in buildings around town. We were collecting wagons and draft animals when Grayden’s army showed up.”
“Where did you plan to take it?” Samar asked.
“The forest. We’ll raise the banner of Qualinesti and rally all able-bodied elves to our cause.”
Samar and Chathendor didn’t think much of that plan. A few thousand elves remained in the whole of Qualinesti, and that included males, females, children, and a large proportion of Kagonesti who cared little about repairing the Qualinesti state.
Kerian thought of the seasoned warriors she’d led in Khur. If only she had them with her. But they were in the desert, chasing Gilthas’s foolish dream of a new homeland.
“I would speak with your leader.”
Alhana’s voice broke in on Kerian’s grim thoughts. “I sent Nalaryn to find him. He’s a very mysterious fellow. Comes and goes at all hours, and keeps no counsel but his own.”
Alhana seated herself on the pedestal of a broken statue, once the proud image of a former Qualinesti leader and, thanks to Olin’s despoilers, reduced to scattered lumps of stone.
“I shall wait.”
Kerian nodded. It would be worth waiting for, she thought. Alhana deserved to hear the truth.
“I’ll make every effort to send him to you,” she said, “Until then, I must see about finding more carts and horses. We’ll gain nothing if our enemies retake Bianost with the arsenal still here.”
She departed and Samar followed, intending to see how the royal guards were faring in their patrol of the outer edges of the town.
The sun set, and the diffuse glow of twilight faded slowly. Chathendor moved around the ruined hall, commenting on the decorations and architecture. His lady returned no answers, only listened politely to his chatter. At last, exhausted by the day’s events, he righted a large chair and seated himself. The first stars appeared in the hail’s high windows. The sound of voices outside was a low, soothing murmur. Chathendor began to snore.
Alhana sat immobile, her face reflecting none of the uncertainty swirling in her heart. Could this masked rebel leader be her husband? She had barely glimpsed him before his abrupt departure. So she waited, with the considerable patience of a long-lived elf, a well-trained queen, and a wife fully intending not to stir one inch until she had the answers she sought.
The sound of footfalls caused her to flinch, revealing how thin was her veneer of calm. They came from the shadows at the far end of the hall, deliberate and steady, like the tread of a herald determined to be heard. Alhana clenched her hands, cold as ice, in her lap. A silhouette appeared twenty feet away, featureless in the weak starshine. Her heart beat faster. She drew a shaky breath.
“You have nothing to fear.” His voice was low, hoarse, and completely unfamiliar.
Her back straightened. “I am not afraid.”
“I’m not accustomed to holding conversations in the dark.” Without moving from her perch, she looked around. “Is there no candle or lamp?”
“Light one, and I will go.”
It was her turn to offer reassurance. “You have nothing to fear from me. I am unarmed and”-Chathendor’s snores increased in volume-”well, not completely alone.”
He came a few steps closer, resolving into a shadowed form clad in a tattered, loosely fitting robe. Face and head were completely concealed by the robe’s hood.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
“To lend my support to this rebellion.”
“You could have sent soldiers. Why did
With deliberate emphasis, she said, “To find you.”
