Elvenbane (54 page)

But when the visitor entered Dyran’s tent, his face shrouded in the hood of a cloak, Dyran frowned. There was a glow of magic about him, the faint hint of illusion. If this was some kind of a trick—

With a single word, he overpowered and broke the spell, and the man chuckled, and put back his hood, allowing the golden glow of a mage-born light to shine on his face.

There was no mistaking those features.

Halfblood
! Dyran raised his shields immediately, and his hand stole beneath the table to grasp the knife hidden there.

“What do you want of me, wizard?” he asked coldly.

But the other made no offensive moves, indeed, no moves of any kind. His bearded face remained calm, even bland. “It is not what I want of you, my lord,” he said, in a smooth, even voice. “It is what I can offer you.”

Dyran’s eyes widened in surprise, but only for a moment. Then he, too, began to smile. “So,” he said, releasing his hold on the dagger’s hilt and leaning back into his chair, “one of the wizards chooses to turn his coat. Is that it?”

“My lord, I protest,” the stranger replied, irony thick in his tone as he spread his empty hands. “I am simply choosing to provide my services to someone who would appreciate them. The choice is simple, or so it seems to me. I can choose to serve you, live, and most likely prosper—or I can oppose you with the rest, and die, as the old ones did long ago. My name, by the way, is Garen Harselm.”

“You interest me,” Dyran said, and gestured at one of the stools on the other side of the table. “Do sit down. Now, what exactly are these’services’ you offer, Garen?”

Garen hooked one of the stools neatly with his foot, and drew it to him before settling himself onto it. If he was disappointed at not being called “Lord” Garen, he did not show it. “First, I offer my services as a wizard. You, of course, are an acknowledged master of elven magics—but I can provide you with the other half of the equation. The wizard-powers. The ability to know what your enemies are thinking—to know what they are doing—to move objects without needing to cast a spell—”

“Enough, Garen, I know what wizards are capable of,” Dyran said with a trace of impatience. “I also know that not all wizards are equally able in all aspects of those powers.”

Garen shrugged. “I can’t expect you to believe me when I tell you that I am as much a master of my magics as you are of yours. I shall, of course, prove that to you in time. But I can offer you two more things that

I think are of great import to you.” He held up one finger. “The location of the wizards’ stronghold.” He held up the second finger. “The location of your son and heir.”

Only years of self-control—and the suspicion that the wizard was going to say that he knew where Valyn was—kept Dyran from betraying himself.

“And just what are you asking in return for all this?” he asked smoothly, raising a long, elegant eyebrow.

Garen spread his hands. “Simple enough, my lord. The opportunity to serve you. After all, isn’t it better to live in service than to die in dubious freedom?”

“Indeed,” Dyran replied, smiling. “So—just where is this stronghold?”

Dyran waited, still smiling, while Triana, Cheynar, Berenel, and the rest seated themselves. Triana alone looked unruffled—but then, she was a creature of the night, and had probably been awake when his summons arrived. “My lords,” he said, “and lady. Permit me to thank you for answering my call to assemble this evening.” He smiled a little more as Berenel stifled a yawn. “I know it is late, but I think, Lord Berenel, you will find it was worth breaking your rest to come.”

“It had damn well better be,” Berenel grumbled, wrapping his cloak about himself. “This is the third night in a row that
something’s
rousted me out of my bed.”

“It should be the last, my lord,” Dyran replied with a friendly nod.
And you can go back to your dragon-chasing, my lord
—
while I go on to overlordship of the entire Council
. “I have had a most unusual visitor tonight,” he continued. “A wizard.”

He chuckled at the swift intake of breath from Triana and Cheynar. “Yes, that is correct. A halfblood. He offered me the location of the wizards’ stronghold—and his own services. An offer that would be extremely difficult to turn down, wouldn’t you say?”

“In exchange for what?” Berenel demanded sharply. “And how do you know he wasn’t lying?”

“In exchange for his safety, and my protection—and of course, I don’t know that he was telling the truth. He could easily have been lying, both when he told me freely, and when I burned his hands off.” Dyran steepled his hands before his chin, thoughtfully. “It is possible of course. But I rather think he was telling the truth both times. And I don’t think he was tampering with my mind—I
have
had dealings with wizards before, you know, and pain completely destroys any control they have over their powers.”

“Where is he now?” Triana asked—uneasily, Dyran thought. He regarded her askance for a moment. There was something going on there. When this was over, he would have to see to the Lady, perhaps. She was hiding something…

He nodded at the pile of ash a slave was sweeping up. “He’d outlived his usefulness.” At Triana’s frown he pointed an admonitory finger at her. “You are very young, my lady. I take it that you disapprove of my promising this renegade safety, then disposing of him.”

Triana nodded slightly, reluctantly, as if she had not wanted to admit to that disapproval.

“Firstly, I never offered him safety,” Dyran told her. “He assumed it. And secondly, a man who has betrayed his friends, his own kind, is
never
to be trusted—and a wizard, a halfblood, triply so. Anyone who turns traitor once will do so again, when the stars turn in favor of a new master. Remember that, my lady. Halfbloods are treacherous by nature, and become more so with every passing year they add to their age. Like a one-horn, they will
always
turn on their masters.”

“For once, Dyran, I agree with you,” Berenel said emphatically. “So where is this’stronghold’ of theirs, and what are we going to do about it?”

Ah, I have you, my reluctant allies
, Dyran thought with satisfaction, as he unrolled his map before them.

He had them all. And to think it was his bitterest enemies who gave them to him!

“Here is the stronghold,” he said, pointing to the spot he had carefully plotted from the renegade’s directions. “And this is what we are going to do about it___”

THAT WAS ODD, Keman thought, as he flew over the enemy campsite, trusting to the moonless night to keep him invisible. That was very odd—

Although fires were burning in every fire-pit, and torches flared beside the tents of the commanders, there was no movement in the camp. None whatsoever. And as Keman had come to learn, there was always
some
movement in a sleeping camp. Sentries and messengers came and went—men needed to relieve themselves—horses stirred in their sleep.

He took a deep breath and tested the air. Woodsmoke. Nothing more. It didn’t smell right, either. There should have been other odors; cooking, horses, the sweat of humans.

He swooped in lower for a better look.

No sentries
. That was the first thing he noticed. Of course, they could be hidden, but why bother? He cast a sharp glance at the bivouacked troops. There were bundles lying beside the fires, but they weren’t moving either. Men did not just lie like logs when they slept, they twisted and tossed—

Lie like logs
… He sharpened his eyes and focused in on those bundles. Those
were
logs! Logs, bundles of brush, grass… Where were the fighters?

He drove himself upward with strong wing-beats, and hovered, checking the forest beneath, changing his eyes again, so that they could see the heat of warm, living bodies—

And found what he was looking for, traveling in dark and silence through the forest, somehow able to see despite the moonless night and the stygian dark under the trees. The entire enemy army, moving on a line that pointed straight at the Citadel.

For a moment, his heart stopped beating.

Fire and Rain
—

His wing-beats faltered—then, as shock gave way to panic, he drove himself upward in frantic haste.

:Shana
!: he called, reaching as hard as he could.

Please, please let her hear me, let her answer
. …

He drove himself higher, then turned his drive into a flat-out, high-speed run to the Citadel.

:Shana!:

Ordinarily Keman transformed as he landed, to avoid frightening people, but when he had reached Shana and sounded the alert, she had asked him to stay in draconic shape when he arrived. The only entrance large enough for him in that shape was the main one—and he saw as he landed that the illusion cloaking it was gone and it was lit as bright as day by hundreds of lamps and torches.

He heard children crying and being shushed; from within the cave, heard the echoing voices of people shouting directions. The smoke that swirled pale and gray from the cavern mouth tasted of other things than wood and oil.

There was a thin but steady stream of people heading northwards from the entrance—groups of two and three children and one adult, all carrying packs. He squeezed by a little knot of them, and they never even looked up at him as they passed, even though most of the children had only seen him once or twice, and at a distance. The children stumbled under their burdens, sleepy, heavy-eyed, and confused; the adults were awake enough, but grim-faced and frightened.

The Citadel itself buzzed with activity, with most of the adult and near-adult wizards rushing about, carrying things; the confusion looked random and chaotic at first, but after watching for a bit, Keman could see there was purpose behind it.

Some of them were carrying small brown bundles into the tunnels, and returning empty-handed. Some were taking larger packages into the Citadel, and returning with the small brown bundles. Some were going off down the tunnels and coming back laden—

Some were feeding the fires with papers and books.

Shana came running up, pack on her back, and her face white with strain and fear, hair tumbled all awry.

“Can you fly more tonight?” she asked, and at his nod, she reached for the back of his neck and grabbed his spinal crest, hauling herself up into place in front of his wings with practiced ease. In less time than it took to breathe, she had settled herself on his back.

“Where are we going?” he asked in Kin tongue, trotting back towards the mouth of the cavern, his mouth dry with anxiety, his stomach in one big knot. But he still couldn’t help thinking that if the conditions had been pleasant instead of panicked, he’d have purred a little—under the fear, the anxiety—it felt good to have Shana with him again. Good, and
right
.

“They’re never going to get everyone out in time, so we’re going to play rear guard,” she replied, as they passed another little group of children, slipped through the entrance, and reached the clearing outside. And at his start of surprise, she added, “We’re going to pull off a delaying action, but not by ourselves. Remember that herd of one-horns we found?”

“Biggest herd I’d ever seen,” he responded absently. “I didn’t know any of them were sociable enough to make a herd that size. They must be some variant on the breed. Hold on—”

He made a short run and launched himself strongly into the air, pumping his wings as hard as he could to make up for the lack of updrafts, noting as he gained altitude how Shana moved with him, and how she felt like a part of him—unlike Valyn, who’d felt inert and lifeless, like a sack of grain. And by the time he had breath to continue the conversation he knew what she wanted.

“You are the only creature I’ve ever heard of who can control those monsters,” he said over his shoulder. “But do you think you can control an entire herd?”

“Well,” she shouted back against the wind of his passage, “that’s what we’re going to find out.”

They did.

She could.

Without his night-sight to guide them, they would never have found the herd of one-horns, but once they located it, Shana didn’t need much time to wake them and bring them under her control. Keman wished Shana could see the herd as he did—the faint starlight gleaming on ivory and ebony coats, shining on the long, slender, pointed horns…

You could almost forget the fangs and the claws, and that they could kill even snatchers with that horn.

And of course, from here the mad, orange-red eyes were impossible to see.

Keman had to hover as rock-steady as he could, because all of Shana’s concentration was taken up with making sure that the herd followed her orders—that none of them turned maverick and broke away, because as soon as one broke, they all would. The herd moved along steadily, as docile as a herd of two-horns—and they needed to keep it that way. He kept his mind as silent as possible, knowing that the least little distraction on his part could ruin everything—

But everything went as perfectly as if it had been planned and practiced. Right up until the moment that the herd got downwind of the army.

Below him, Keman saw first one, then a dozen, throw up their heads and sniff the air suspiciously. The whole herd stopped dead in its tracks, and the lead stallion pawed the ground and snorted.

Then started to turn—

Oh no—Shana was losing them—

The rest of the herd pranced restively as the stallion hesitated, started forward, backed a pace, lowered his head, and squealed angrily; protesting, and rebelling against Shana’s unspoken commands.

Keman searched his memory desperately for everything he knew and had learned about one-horns—and dared a thought of his own, aimed at the stallion.

Not a thought, really—an image. The image of the two-leggers taking his mares. His mates.
Stealing
them—and giving them to another stallion. Shana caught his image, and added an illusory scent of strange stallion to what Keman projected.

The stallion’s head came up as he sniffed the air for what he thought he had scented—and he bugled a cry of maddened challenge. He reared and screamed again, his herd picking up his agitation, and now starting to mill. Keman sensed that Shana was holding him back, making him angrier.

Then he was plunging straight ahead, nothing in his mind but red murder, craving nothing more now than to destroy those who would
dare
to steal his mates, all earlier protests utterly forgotten. The rest of the herd followed, infected by his rage, with the scent of the humans now become the scent of the
enemy
, and blood-lust maddening them past all reason. Through the forest below Keman tumbled a frothing wave of black and silver manes and tails; the thunder of feet, the squeals and shrieks carrying clearly up to where he flew. In moments they had gained such momentum as to be next to unstoppable.

They hit the scouts and cut them down, pounding them to red dust, before they could even sound a warning.

Keman sped up, and moved ahead of the herd, reaching the oncoming army before the rage-maddened one-horns did. Below, the first ranks looked up at the sky, wondering if there was a storm coming in.

The herd encountered the leading edge of the army, and the real slaughter began.

Keman didn’t wait to see more than the initial contact; he veered off and headed northwards, feeling sick to his stomach and a little guilty. And he wasn’t certain which he felt more guilt over and sorrier for—the army of human slaves or the one-horns.

:I wish I hadn’t had to do that
.: came Shana’s subdued thought.

:I know
,: Keman replied, relieved that she shared his feelings of guilt.
:Me, too
.: He heaved a sigh that she echoed.:
Well, if I know one-horns, at least half the herd is going to survive
—
and if the slaves have any sense at all, they’ll run
.:

:If they have a choice
,: Shana reminded him glumly.
:Their masters may not give them one. The one-horns are going to run right over the top of them. And I don’t know if the one-horns are going to be so crazed that they turn and try to run down the entire army, or if they’re going to scatter as soon as the humans start to fight back
.: She sighed again.
:At least we gave the rest enough time to seal as much up as they could, destroy the rest, and get out of there
.:

:.Where are we going
?: he asked.
:And
—
how did this happen? How did the elves find out about us
?:

: We’re going north, to an old human fortress
.: she told him, as he veered north at her direction, catching a rising thermal and gaining more height,
ill’s in ruins, but it has a well, it’s on the top of a hill, and it’s defensible, which the Citadel isn’t; there are just too many bolt-holes and escape tunnels for us to block. The old wizards meant to use the new place for a second Citadel, but they never got the chance because of the plague
.:

:Where did you find that out
?: he asked.

It was in those old chronicles I found
,: she replied.
The ones back in the older tunnels
.:

There was a lot about those old records she hadn’t said much about; he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was just that she hadn’t had time…

And they still didn’t have time, not if they were going to follow the fleeing wizards.

That inability to defend the Citadel was what he had been afraid of when he’d first seen the place. Many ways to escape meant just as many ways for enemies to get in. That was the one aspect in which it was not the kind of home a dragon would have built…

Hopefully, this new place had fewer exits.

:As for what happened
—: she continued, with smothered anger,
.-someone turned his coat. One of the older wizards. He was missing when you called in the alarm, and he hadn’t turned up by the time I left. We have to assume he’s told the elves everything there is to know about us
—
how many we are, what we can do. Since he was on the war council, even about you. Any edge we had because of surprise is gone
.:

The feelings that came with her thoughts told him that she was not optimistic about this second refuge. He didn’t much blame her; it didn’t sound like anything other than it was—a last place to make a stand.

:Shana
,: he said solemnly,
:I want you to make my apologies to the others when we land
.:

:Apologies
?: she replied, startled.
:For
—:

:I’m going to leave for a little
,: he told her.
I can’t do much for you now, since the enemy knows about me
—
but there’s something I
can
do that he won’t know about, and if I leave now, I can return in time to do some good
.:

He took a deep breath, as she waited in expectant silence, her mind churning with unspoken speculations. :
I can go get help
,: he said.
:From the Kin
.:

Keman left Shana at dawn. He came winging in to the airspace above the Lair in the light of full day; tired, but determined to have satisfaction at long last. And desperately afraid for his friends. Desperation gave him extra strength to put up a good front.

:
Who flies
?: came the ritual question from the sentry, who had not recognized him.

:Kemanorell
: Keman trumpeted back, following the thought-reply with a bugling cry of defiance.
:I return to claim Challenge-Right
!:

Chew on that a while
, he thought with satisfaction, when the sentry’s reply was lost in confusion. He circled for a moment, pondering the best choice of ground, then landed on the top of one of the cliffs overlooking the Lair. He settled there, clung to the rocks with claws and tail, and took an aggressive stance, head high, spinal crest up, frill extended, mantling his wings, and waiting for his answer.

Down below he watched as several dragons emerged from their lairs, and stared upward at him. He had, deliberately, sent his reply to the sentry in an “open” mode for everyone in the Lair to hear—and it seemed that everyone had. More and more dragons either, appeared below, or poked their heads out of openings all along the sides of the canyon. Several of the Kin gathered in a knot—consulting, he supposed, on who was to deliver his answer. Finally it came.

:The Lair recognizes Kemanorei
:

That voice he knew.
Keoke
.