Theryontas corrected him, deferential but precise, giving the total number of Bianost elves as three hundred forty-nine.
“Still not much of an army,” Samar said.
“We took Bianost with far less and defended it too,” Kerian said tartly.
“The bandits were surprised. When Samuval learns what happened here, he’ll take the field himself. He has twenty thousand men and can call up at least that many more goblins. How will you trick a host of forty thousand warriors, lady?”
Kerian crossed her arms over her chest, hands gripping her upper arms tightly in anger. “It has been done. I fought the Knights to a standstill with much less.”
“You had safe havens then. Where are your havens now? You had the clandestine support of the Speaker of the Sun and most of the population of Qualinesti. Where are they now?”
“Enough.”
Silence descended at Alhana’s command. Samar, his professional pride aroused, had taken a step toward the Lioness during their debate. He moved back.
“It is clear we have difficult choices to make,” Alhana went on. “First and foremost, we must remove the cache of weapons and hide it safely elsewhere.”
She was interrupted by the arrival of a rider. One of her guards came cantering across the square. His easy approach told them that whatever news he bore wasn’t urgent. Samar went to receive the courier’s message. After a brief exchange, Samar returned and reported to Alhana.
“Two strangers have been found. Elves. One is gravely injured. They have the look and manner of warriors, but their arms and clothing are most strange.”
Samar waved the rider forward and asked him to explain further. “They are ragged,” the elf said. “Obviously they have come a very long way. The injured one has a sword wound in the ribs, badly festered. He was on horseback. The other was leading the horse. Each was wearing an ankle-length, straight robe, once light in color, but now very dirty. Their helmets are conical, with a spike on top.”
Shock tingled through Kerian’s body. “And their swords?”
“Long curved sabers that seem to have lost their guards-”
Her whoop of excitement caused everyone to flinch.
“Those are Khurish swords!” she shouted. “Did they give you their names?”
“The one leading the horse did. He speaks like a rough trooper, but gave a noble name: Ambrodel.”
“Hytanthas!”
With that, Kerian sprinted toward the rider, vaulted onto his horse’s rump, and cried, “Take me to him! I know him!”
Samar protested that the council was still in session, but Kerian ignored him. She kicked the horse into motion, and they clattered away across the square. They left Bianost by the east road then turned to cut across the burned squatters’ camp. Skirting an overgrown grove of apple trees, they galloped down a dirt path until they reached a knot of mounted guards.
“Where are the two strangers?” Kerian demanded.
The guards couldn’t see her very clearly but knew she wasn’t one of their officers. One asked her name.
“I’m Kerianseray, commander of the army of the Speaker of the Sun and Stars!”
It sounded most impressive, and every elf snapped to attention, not an easy task when mounted. They escorted her and the courier down a gully to a dry streambed choked with willow saplings. Sheltered from view by the high banks of the dry creek was a small campfire. Elves were gathered around it. Kerian slid off the horse and pushed through the elves until she reached the fireside.
Amid the polished ranks of royal guardsmen sat a particularly filthy elf. Matted hair fell across his gaunt face, but the blue eyes that looked up at Kerian were those of her young comrade.
“Hytanthas!”
He rose, too quickly, and staggered. The elves nearest bore him up.
“Commander? Lady?” He put out a thin hand as if to reassure himself he wasn’t hallucinating. Grinning widely, Kerian stepped forward and embraced him. He felt like a child in her grasp, all bones and airy sinew.
“It
“What happened? How did you get here?”
“I might ask you the same thing, Commander,” he joked wanly. “Mostly I walked, all the way from Khur.”
He was swaying on his feet. Kerian helped him sit again and sat next to him. He gestured to his emaciated, fever-ravaged companion lying by the fire. “That’s Camaranthas. We two are all that remain of the party the Speaker sent to find you.”
As they turned to look, the elf tending Camaranthas shook his head. Hytanthas’s last comrade had succumbed. Without a word, the surrounding warriors bowed their heads, clapped their hands together twice, paused, and clapped twice again, the ancient salute to the dead from House Protector.
“He never knew we made it.” Hytanthas’s face had the dull, vacant look of one who has mourned too much already.
Kerian sympathized with his loss, but time was pressing. “You must come with me. I must hear your tale. There are important people you must speak with.” Belatedly, she added, “Have you eaten?”
He had. Alhana’s guards had given him food and water. What he needed was sleep. Camaranthas had been wounded in a goblin ambush four days earlier. Hytanthas had sworn he would find a healer and had not dared to rest, lest his comrade perish.
Kerian promised he would sleep soon in the best accommodations to be found in Bianost, but he must hold out just a little longer.
As horses were brought for them, Hytanthas said, “Lady, I have dire news. The Speaker and all our people are in grave peril!”
She suppressed an impatient sigh. “As they were when I left. As they will always be in Khurinost.”
“They’re not in Khurinost any longer!”
He explained the Speaker had begun the great trek to Inath-Wakenti with the entire nation. Swarms of nomads dogged their heels. The last news Hytanthas had gleaned from other travelers was two weeks old. It said that the Speaker and the nation were near the northern mountains. Many had died from nomad attacks. The Speaker intended to make a stand, to hold off the growing threat from the desert tribesmen.
Kerian’s impatience vanished, replaced by disbelief. Make a stand? They’d had a defensible position at Khuri-Khan, but Gilthas had abandoned it. Instead, he’d led their nation into the desert to die!
She took a deep breath, working hard to regain her composure. “Come,” she said, taking his arm and gently propelling him toward his borrowed horse.
They mounted. On the way, she explained about the council being held in the newly freed town, of the presence of Alhana Starbreeze, her guards, and several hundred town elves ready to throw off the bandit occupation.
“They all must hear what you have told me,” she finished.
“Then will we return to Khur? That was my mission, to bring you back to the Speaker.”
She looked away, toward the torchlit town. “If what you heard is true, Hytanthas, there is no Speaker anymore. No elf nation, either.”
Chapter 9
Rising out of the vast expanse of Khur’s northern desert were a series of rocky pinnacles. Before the First Cataclysm they were part of the Khalkist range to the north, connected to those mountains by long ridges that projected into the arid southern plain like great bony fingers. Time and catastrophe had eroded the fingers, leaving only the isolated pinnacles. There were six of them, known to the nomads as the Lion’s Teeth. Individually, from
