He did not approach. “Under the walls of Mereklar.”
Mereklar was a city southeast of Bianost, in the foothills of the Redstone Bluffs. According to Favaronas’s map, it was just less than twenty miles away.
“Is he coming this way?” asked Chathendor.
“He will break camp within a day or two. His line of march is the High Road.” This was the paved way that connected Mereklar to Bianost and continued northwest to Frenost.
“How do you know all this?”
The masked head turned toward Kerian. “I know. We must leave tonight.”
Alhana sent Samar to see to the guards’ preparation. Kerian reminded her that the Bianost militia needed to be mustered first. Untrained and on foot, they would require longer to get under way. Also, what of the shortage of draft animals to pull the wagons loaded with the weapons cache?
“What can’t be moved must be hidden or destroyed,” Alhana said. “You will see to it?”
Kerian nodded. She and Samar departed in haste. For as long as their voices could be heard, they argued loudly about whether to hide or destroy the surplus weapons.
Chathendor, rushing away to see to their belongings, paused and glanced at Porthios, whom he did not recognize. “Lady,” he whispered, “perhaps you should not be alone with this person?”
She clasped his hand and gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s all right, my friend. I am perfectly safe. Now go. We must be ready to depart without delay.”
When the chamberlain had reluctantly withdrawn, Alhana filled two pewter goblets from a slender silver ewer. Lifting one, she gestured at the other. “Refresh yourself. It’s a long way to Mereklar and back on foot.”
Porthios entered the warm light of candles and oil lamps. Despite his ragged, too-long robe, he moved with exceptional silence, even for an elf. Watching him take the cup, Alhana was struck by the familiarity of the gesture. Whatever metamorphosis he’d undergone, masked and gloved or not, she would have known him anywhere just by the way he cradled his goblet. The stem nestled between his thumb and middle finger; his other fingers did not touch the cup.
“What are you watching so intently?” Porthios asked.
She told him. He glanced at his hand. “Habits are hard to change,” he muttered. He wondered if others could recognize him by such telltale trifles or if that was a skill possessed only by his observant wife.
Former wife. Part of the life that had been ripped away in fire and pain and blood. But if that were true, then why did he still feel bound to her? Despite his firm intention to remain apart from her, he found himself unable to leave the room. The untouchable nearness of her was agony, but he drew it out a moment more.
“Where will you go now?”
Surprise widened her violet eyes. “My habits have not changed either. I go with Kerianseray and the others.”
“Even if it costs your life?”
She extended her goblet, tapping it gently against his own. “We all must die, Porthios.”
His name on her lips was like a thunderclap. Dropping his eyes, he sipped wine. The fine Qualinesti vintage burned his tongue yet had no taste at all. Since the fire, no food or drink smelled or tasted right. The only exception had been the honeydew wafers given him by the god in the forest. The wine did warm his belly, so he emptied the goblet and held it out to be refilled. She poured, and before he could withdraw the cup, she covered his hand with her own.
Porthios flinched, but to Alhana’s joy, he did not drawback. Through the gloves all she could feel was bone. It was like grasping the hand of a skeleton. But this skeleton still lived. Without warning, he released the pewter goblet and took hold of her hand, gripping it tightly with both of his own as spilled wine spattered her feet.
Well after midnight, the elves abandoned Bianost.
Kerian advocated burning the town to obscure any evidence of what had been found there, but the local militia objected. Despite the pitiful state to which Olin had reduced it, Bianost was their home, and they could not bear the thought of its wholesale destruction. Kerian was not unmoved by their pleas but likely would have overruled them except for Alhana. The former queen also advocated letting the town stand, although for a different reason. If they were to win the hearts of the ordinary folk in Qualinesti, whether elf, human, or other, they had to demonstrate their superiority to the enemy. Torching the empty town was exactly what Samuval’s bandits would do.
Kerian accepted that logic. With a grin, she said that leaving the town intact would probably delay their pursuers, who would have to work their way through the scabrous dwellings, searching for rebels.
With wagons laden with much of the arms cache, the elves departed. Hytanthas rode in a wagon with the cargo because he was still too weak to sit a horse. He had come down with a fever soon after being found. One of Nalaryn’s Kagonesti called it a fever of exhaustion, brought on by weeks of little or no food, water, or rest. They made him as comfortable as possible but he knew nothing of the lambswool blankets and soft pillows that had been found for him. He fought phantom nomads and monsters while his fever raged. In his lucid moments, he tried to convince the Lioness to return with him to Khur, to aid the beleaguered Speaker. She rebuffed every attempt. She had been cast aside, she said. Gilthas hadn’t even heard her out. He didn’t need her, didn’t want her help. For all they knew, the elf host had been decimated and Gilthas captured. What was the point in returning to Khur if the war there was over? The future of their race lay in Qualinesti, in the ancient homeland. Strange magic had delivered her here even as Orexas had begun his promising rebellion.
After consultation with Alhana and Porthios, Kerian led the elves due east out of Bianost. Twenty-five miles down the wide, royal road (its pavement broken, the cracks thick with weeds) lay the former site of Qualinost, where there was only the Lake of Death. The bandit host was bearing down on Bianost from the south. They would expect the elves to make for their home forest, west of town. Kerian hoped an eastward track would confound the bandits and allow her to put more distance between the fleeing elves and Gathan Grayden’s vengeful host before she turned the column north into the forest.
They moved by night, resting under the overhanging trees by day. Spies and informers were everywhere in the dark heart of the ruined elf kingdom. Daily Alhana’s vanguard flushed goblins out of the woods, slaying them without mercy. Surprise was one of their few assets. They couldn’t afford to have their position betrayed too soon.
Caution, as well as the laden wagons and the many civilians on foot, kept their pace slow. Samar chafed at the delays.
“What a miserable crawl! Oh, for the days when royal elves flew into battle on the backs of griffons! No foe could stand before them!”
“As I recall, the imperial hordes of Ergoth managed,” Chathendor said dryly.
That launched the two on an involved discussion of the tactics and strategy of the long-ago Kinslayer War. They proved well matched. Samar was a student of history, and Chathendor had once been a warrior of considerable prowess.
They rode in company with Alhana and Kerian. Nalaryn remained with his clan, which kept to the fringes of the woods on each side of the road. Porthios, as was his wont, came and went without a word, disappearing and rejoining the march at will.
Alhana rode slower and slower. So caught up in their argument were Samar and Chathendor, they never noticed her falling behind. Kerian circled back to collect her.
“Alhana, you must keep up,” the Lioness chided.
“If we had griffons, it would redress many imbalances,” Alhana mused.
It would indeed. Kerian mentioned her own griffon, Eagle Eye, who had seen her through many tight spots.
“But he’s far away, with-in Khur,” Kerian finished awkwardly. She reached for the bridle of Alhana’s white mare. “Highness, we should catch up to the column.”
Alhana shook off her reverie. She regarded Kerian for a thoughtful moment. “Would you call me ‘aunt’?” she asked. “We are family, are we not, Kerianseray? And I have so little family left.”
Surprised by the request, Kerian consented readily enough. She was even more surprised when Alhana
