CHAPTER THIRTEEN
28 Nightal, the Year of the Unstrung Harp
The scout and his hippogriff wheeled down out of the gray sky, a ghostly rider on a ghostly mount, almost impossible to see against the steely clouds even with detection magics fully raised. Khelben glanced over at Laerm Ryence, his counterpart and co-commander of the Swift Cavalry, and found the elf s silver eyes fixed on the trail ahead. Here they were, racing toward an army of phaerimm as fast as their spell-driven mounts could gallop, and the fool still had not bothered to cast his detection magic. Such negligence did not speak well for Evermeet's expeditionary company
The scout swept up alongside the column, his hippogriff's wings thrumming air as he slowed. Lord Ryence jumped visibly, his free hand dropping to his belt of wands, his neck craning to look over the wrong shoulder.
'No need for alarm,' Khelben yelled, his voice falling into the rhythm of his galloping mount. He wrapped his reins around his saddle's pommel, then worked a spell to mute the thundering hooves of the four hundred horses behind him. 'It's my scout.'
Ryence's fingers finally flashed through a detection spell. 'So… 1… see.' like most of the elves, he seemed ill-at-ease on the powerful chargers Lord Piergeiron had selected for their journey. 'I am not blind.'
Ignoring the testy reply, Khelben turned to his scout. 'What is your report?'
The rider, a long-faced man with a two-day growth of beard, said, 'About two miles ahead, the Winding Water bends within an arrow's flight of the High Moor. Not a thousand paces beyond, the Serpent's Tail forks north and blocks your way.' 'A good place for an ambush?'
'The best. You'd be trapped against the Winding Water, with the Serpent's Tail blocking the way ahead.'
Khelben glanced at the steep slope flanking them to the north. Though the escarpment rose only a hundred feet to the High Moor, its face was soggy and slick-difficult climbing under the best of circumstances, impossible with arrows and lightning bolts raining down from above. Opposite the moor lay the Winding Water, easily two hundred paces across, with a dark central channel purling between two banks of solid ice.
'Well need to cross.' Khelben nodded toward the river. 'I can bridge the distance with a space-folding door, but we'd have to feed riders through one at a time. It might be faster for your Selu'taar to fashion a good-sized bridge.'
Ryence tried to look surprised. 'What makes you think there are high mages here?'
'You try my patience, Lord Ryence,' Khelben said darkly Were Laeral there, she would have been proud of him for not calling the elf a liar. 'Now is a poor time to insist on polite little secrets.'
It was Ryence's aide, a venerable Gold male named Bladuid, who answered, 'A bridging spell would not be difficult. Half an hour would be sufficient.'
'Too much time,' grouched Ryence, annoyed that Bladuid had betrayed his identity. The elf commander pointed his chin toward the wall of snow-caked trees along the river's southern bank. 'And we would only have to cross again, or have the Forest of Wyrms to worry us for the next hundred miles.'
'Better to lose an hour or two crossing rivers than half a company fighting an ambush.'
Ryence's eyes flashed white, and he looked to Khelben's scout. 'Did you see any ambushers atop the moor?' Somewhat reluctantly, the rider shook his head.
'He wouldn't,' said Khelben. 'Not if the phaerimm are using their magic.' 'I'm willing to take that chance.'
'I'm not,' said Khelben. 'There must be enough of us left to hold after we raise our end of the gate. If the phaerimm destroy it, it will take a month for the army to reach Evereska.'
'I am not surprised to hear such talk from a human,' said Ryence. 'The phaerimm are not threatening one of your cities.'
'It may not be a human city they are attacking, but plenty of human blood will be spilled defending it.' Khelben struggled to conceal the full depth of his contempt for this elf. He had witnessed enough noble ambition to recognize a lord trying to make a name for himself, and he knew that such fools rarely had the good taste to get only themselves killed. 'You'd do well not to waste it.'
'No elf has asked you to waste anything,' said Bladuid, urging his horse alongside Ryence's. 'As far as we are concerned, this an elf matter.'
Though Khelben was well aware of the disdain in which most Gold elves held humans, he was unaccustomed to feeling its sting himself. Drawing himself to his full height, he glared past Ryence at the high mage.
'Perhaps you have forgotten who I am. My father was Arun Maerdrym, noble son to House Maerdrym of Myth Drannor.' What Khelben did not add-though it was obvious by his entirely human appearance-was that Arun had been a half-elf, and as such the first son of mixed race to be acknowledged by a noble house. 'And I, personally, am one of the few-human, elf, or otherwise-who actually recalls living in Myth Drannor.'
'Then you should know what happens when elves and humans mix,' the high mage replied. 'How long ago was it that Myth Drannor fell?'
'More recently than Aryvandaar,' Khelben shot back. 'And you can hardly blame humans for that.'
The gibe drew an angry snarl from Ryence and a black glare from Bladuid. No elf-especially no Gold elf-liked to be reminded of how the Crown Wars had shattered the golden age of elven civilization.
Khelben softened his tone. 'Fortunately, the spirit of Myth Drannor still lives in some-even in Evereska. I myself have always found a warm welcome in the vale.'
'Yes. Perhaps if more humans risked their lives helping elves instead of robbing their tombs, they would receive the same welcome you did.' The high mage was referring to the time-nearly a thousand years earlier-that Khelben had almost died saving three Evereskans from a phaerimm ambush. When the grateful elves took him home to recover from his wounds, he became the first human ever allowed to see Evereska.
'If 1 may be so bold,' said Khelben's scout, still flying just above his shoulder, 'we are trying to help now.'
'How very noble of you,' Bladuid said. 'And your generosity has nothing to do with what will become of human lands if the phaerimm succeed?' 'Waterdeep is a long way from Evereska, mage.' The scout looked back to Khelben and pointed up the trail. 'There's the bend, milord. If you're going to cross, you'd better do it soon.'
Khelben looked over to Ryence. 'What say you? Will you humor me this once?'
The elf lord considered his request only a second. 'There's no need. We must be two hundred miles from Evereska. The phaerimm are not going to ambush us here.'
'Then I wish you well,' said Khelben, pulling his horse out of line. Ryence's eyes widened. 'What are you…'
That was all Khelben heard before Ryence was carried out of earshot. He raised his hand to call Waterdeep's riders to him, then watched with a heavy heart as the elf warriors streaked past, their heads swinging around to look in his direction. He would have felt better, had their expressions had been less indignant and more perplexed.
The scout landed beside Khelben, keeping a tight rein on his hippogriff so it did not try to snack on the gathering horses.
'A wise choice, milord.' In the thickening cloud of steaming horse breath, the scout's invisible form was barely discernible even to Khelben. 'That elf is too eager to find his death.'
'Let us hope he finds it later rather than sooner. Ryence may be a fool and Bladuid a bigot, but their warriors are brave and worthy, else they would not have traveled so far to fight someone else's battle.' Khelben looked away from the elves and fixed his attention on the scout. 'Shandar, is it not?' 'An excellent memory, Lord Blackstaff.'
'There are only a dozen of you,' said Khelben, dismissing the compliment with a wave of his hand. 'Tell me how the moor looked when you flew over it. Can a horse cross it?'
'The ground looked frozen enough, but it was too broken. I fear we'd cripple as many as we didn't.' The
