last he understood-these birds were made of ice!
To one side, a quartet of serene-looking men stood, eyes closed, lips moving silently. The man on the end twirled a silver bead on a thread, each revolution matching exactly the motion of the ice-birds overhead. Dressed in white homespun robes with red jackets and red sash belts, each man wore a thick silver medallion on a chain around his neck. They were Red Robes, mages of the Order who served the gods of Neutrality.
The Imperial Guard led them out of this room. The Juramona men passed through a wide curtained doorway and beneath a series of wooden arches, each one wider and grander than the last. At each stood a pair of armed guards with spear and shield. This close to the Royal Presence, Tol was relegated to the back of the delegation, behind Lord Wanthred. Voices and music filtered back to him, and the splash of running water. He strained to see over the old noble’s broad shoulders.
“Wait here,” their escort said. He stepped forward, and spoke in a low voice to a richly draped man of middle years. This fellow had a big nose and leaned on a gold-capped staff.
“Ah, yes, bring them ahead,” the big-nosed man said. His face was scrubbed pink, and his fingernails gleamed like mother-of-pearl. He was the cleanest man Tol had ever seen.
Lord Odovar announced himself and his vassals, and the man nodded.
“I am Valdid,” he said, “second chamberlain to His Highness. My lords, attend upon me.”
He turned away, the hem of his blue brocade robe flapping, and they followed him into the heart of the tent- palace.
It was a single great room, thirty paces wide, filled but not crowded with warlords, courtiers, favored guests, and diplomats. Tol’s gaze was caught by a white-robed figure surrounded by a dozen attendants in light, etched armor plate. By their slim, angular features and upswept ears, he realized he was seeing Silvanesti elves for the first time.
He had no time to stare, for fresh wonders were ahead. A carpeted platform rose from the center of the room. Tripods with unlit braziers flanked four corners of a heavy wooden chair, which was padded with leather and carved with the arms of the House of Ackal. The prince’s throne was empty.
Tol looked this way and that, trying to decide which of the many lordly men present was the prince. Perhaps the tall, muscular noble in burgundy velvet? He wore a silver circlet on his brow. Or maybe the rather portly lord speaking to the elves in a musical tongue that must be their own language. Or could he be the handsome blond fellow, only slightly older than Tol, laughing in a group of young women?
Valdid, the second chamberlain, went down on one knee. “Your Highness,” he said, “the marshal of the Eastern Hundred is here with his warlords.”
None of Tol’s guesses was correct. Crown Prince Amaltar was perched on a folding stool, a scroll in his hand. He was dressed in a simple robe of midnight blue silk, cinched at the waist by a wide leather belt. A jeweled war dagger was thrust through the belt, the only visible weapon in the room. The prince’s black hair was cut shorter than the fashion, barely brushing his collar, and unlike all the other men present he sported neither beard nor mustache. Around his neck on a fine gold chain he wore a woman’s golden torque, set with a pair of rubies-said to be a memento of his deceased mother.
Putting down the scroll he held, the prince’s dark eyes inspected the Juramona men as they knelt before him.
“Long life to Your Royal Highness and to your noble father. Death to all enemies of Ergoth!” Odovar cried. The fighting men and many of the women present echoed the marshal’s sentiments, but the foreigners merely looked on, quietly amused.
“Rise, loyal vassals,” said Amaltar.
Grunting from the task of raising his bulk on a sprained knee, Odovar managed to stand without help.
“How long has it been since I last saw you?” asked the prince.
“I last met Your Highness eleven years ago, after the battle of Torgaard Pass.”
“That’s right! You gained the pass from the Tarsans with a picked force of fifty men, as I recall.”
“Your Highness favors me by remembering,” Odovar said, bowing his head. “Aias, we did not hold the pass for long.”
“No matter.” Amaltar gestured to the stool he’d vacated. “Take your ease, my lord. Your leg obviously pains you.”
Odovar colored. “I cannot sit in Your Highness’s presence!”
Amaltar’s pleasant demeanor vanished. “You can if I order it. Sit, marshal.”
Odovar slumped onto the stool, stiff leg extended, embarrassed both by the breach of protocol and by how obvious his need for it was.
The prince snapped his fingers, and a light camp table was carried over, its top covered with scrolls. At another imperial command, four nobles, each the commander of a horde, unrolled a large parchment and held it open by the corners. It was a grand map of the vicinity, drawn in vibrant colors. The blue Caer River snaked across the landscape. Caergoth, three leagues away, appeared as a black ring on the west bank of the river. The only spot on the map devoid of color was the forest itself, east of Caergoth. A line of green delineated its boundary, but within the border no features were depicted.
“The Great Green, my lords,” Amaltar said. He waved a beringed hand across it. “One hundred and fifty leagues end to end, varying from eighteen to thirty leagues wide. We know the dimensions and fringes of the forest thanks to our own surveyors-and our friends the Silvanesti.” He nodded to the listening elves. “But the interior a day’s ride beyond the border is as hidden to us as the far side of the red moon!”
A line of scribes stood behind Amaltar, ready to note any imperial utterances. Four waited with styluses poised, while the fifth was writing, rapidly but discreetly, recording every word the prince said.
Amaltar smote the map with his fist. “Since the days of Ackal Ergot, this region has sheltered brigands, runaways, rebels, and savages. My uncle, Emperor Pakin II, thought he could pacify the forest tribes with gifts and soft words. All he gained for his efforts was the worst series of raids since the founding of the empire. The foresters have continued to block our attempts at eastern expansion, and in their latest raid they murdered my cousin Hynor. No asset to empire was Hynor, but the killing of imperial relatives cannot be allowed to pass.”
“The foresters respect nothing but force, Highness, and heed nothing but cold iron,” Odovar said staunchly. His fellow warlords murmured agreement.
“That’s why we are here,” said the prince. “We will harrow the Great Green like a farmer does a patch of weeds. Any pests we don’t destroy will be forced to flee over the mountains.” With one finger, he traced a line across the unknown land, east to the north-south course of the Kharolis range.
“Is that our limit, Highness?” asked the black-haired noble in burgundy who wore the silver circlet.
“It is, Lord Urakan. When your men reach the western slopes of the mountains, they’ll have ridden far enough.”
Prince Amaltar went on, specifying goals for the invasion. Ten hordes would enter the Great Green in five different locations. They would move parallel to each other as they drove into the woods. Two hordes would remain outside, to guard against sallies by the tribesmen and to catch anyone who tried to escape back into Ergoth.
The three Juramona hordes would not be fighting together. The Firebrands, under Wanthred, would fight alongside another horde from southwest Ergoth, the Corij Rangers. The Rooks and Eagles and Pagas’s Panthers, with Lord Odovar, would enter the Great Green through a large meadow known as Zivilyn’s Carpet.
Amaltar called on the flaxen-haired, white-robed Silvanesti. The elf glided to the map table, trailed by his entourage. This included several dark, painted faces-elves of the woodland Kagonesti race.
The prince said, “My good cousin, Harpathanas Ambrodel, speak of your experiences.”
The tall elf bowed slightly to the heir of Ergoth. “I have fought my way through the great forest seven times,” he said. His voice was mellifluous and pleasing, though it carried a definite air of command. “Each journey brought new battles against new foes. You will find humans, Kagonesti, and, occasionally, ogres.”
The assemblage stirred at the mention of ogres. Harpathanas spoke again, calming his listeners.
“Most ogres never leave the high slopes of the mountains, far to the south,” he said. “Single marauders sometimes stray north to the lowlands, but not often.”
The Silvanesti smiled thinly, showing narrow white teeth. “Humans are the most numerous folk in the forest, as they are elsewhere. The forest humans live in tribes, as humans did centuries ago on the plains. The sizes of the various tribes are hard to measure. At one skirmish my archers had to contend with two hundred human fighters, but I believe more than one tribe was arrayed against us. I would say a typical tribal war party would include ten to
