"More or less," Kalamadea rumbled, lifting his head from his foreclaws. "Remember, after all, that we use magic to find things, and since the Rotten Metal interferes with magic, its very presence is going to interfere with locating it. We'll actually have to do some roundabout reckoning on where the interference is strongest to find veins of ore."
"I knew it couldn't be all that easy," Shana muttered to herself, but at least Father Dragon seemed to think that there was a way to work around the problem, and that was more than she had expected.
"We also won't be able to bring it to the surface the way we can the silver and gold," Alara sighed regretfully. "So once we find it, you'll still have to dig for it, and it'll be ore rather than the nice, pure nuggets of other things we can bring up."
"Oh, Ancestors—" Lorryn said in mock dismay. "Think of it—one more reason for able-bodied folks to have to leave the Citadel, which means fewer servants to attend to the whims of the Old Whiners! They might actually have to learn to clean up after themselves once in a while!"
Shana had noticed that Lorryn had, if anything, less patience with Caellach Gwain than she did, although you would never have known it by the way he acted with the old wizard and his cronies. She smiled. "I wouldn't mind taking my turn on the end of a shovel," she volunteered. "Especially if it meant that you would take over dealing with them instead of me."
He groaned and shook his head. "Oh, Shana—all right. I suppose that among the three of us, Parth Agon, Denelor and I can handle them. I've noticed a distinct improvement in Parth's attitude ever since he's seen just what an idiot Caellach is being."
"And Denelor always was a dear," Shana said, speaking fondly of her former teacher and the "master" to her "apprentice."
Kalamadea snorted. "I would not have used that description," he said. "But he certainly is far more willing to adapt, accommodate, and change than any of the other older wizards. Well, I would say that we have something of a plan, then. Alara and one or two of the others should be the ones to go looking for Rotten Metal; when they find some that is not too far beneath the surface, you and a few hardy souls, Shana, can see about digging some up. Meanwhile Lorryn will advise Parth Agon, with the help of Denelor—and me."
Shana almost laughed aloud at that last. If Caellach was afraid of anything, it was of the dragons, and Kalamadea was the most imposing of his kind. Caellach had tried—and nearly succeeded—in undoing all of the reforms of the younger wizards once, when Shana had been away from the Citadel. As it happened, she had been the captive, at the time, of the Iron People, as had Kalamadea and Keman. So there had been no one in place to keep Caellach Gwain in check.
"You or I, Shana, will always have a presence here, and Lorryn, too, I think," Father Dragon rumbled, confirming her thought. "At least, until the day when Caellach Gwain swells up with indignation and explodes."
They all laughed so hard at the images conjured up by that statement that a sleepy older wizard padded grumbling into the lair to lodge a protest at having her sleep disturbed, and went away muttering under her breath.
19
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Kyrtian sat uneasily on his horse in the chill darkness just before dawn. He had brought in his troops just after midnight, positioning them as if this was going to be a real fight and not the sham thing that he and Moth had arranged. After all, the only people that knew it was a sham were his own
people on both sides of the coming battle, all of Moth's people, and he and Gel. It was a given that some of his commanders (if not all of them) were reporting to one or more of the Great Lords. Kyrtian wanted them to report the most impressive victory yet—and the most decisive.
This would be enjoyable only if he was down there with his troops; he would have given a great deal to be able to leap out of his saddle and head up the men he knew so well. Well, the only reason it would be enjoyable is because I know how much of this attack is sham.
Ancestors, but it was cold! Armor and padded gambeson weren't doing a lot against the dankness, which penetrated everything. In fact, the armor was only making things worse; it sucked heat away from him instead of holding it in.
And—was there actually dew condensing on it?
A cold droplet sparkled for a moment just before his eyes, then dropped off the tip of his helm to splash onto his nose.
There was. He shivered and tried to stop himself; it only made his ridiculous, useless, over-ornamented armor rattle.
Not possible for him to join his men where they waited for the signal to attack, of course. The Great Lords who were his ultimate masters here would, one and all, have had him hauled up in front of them for recklessness and blatant disregard for his position.
So he had to sit on a horse on a hill—making an excellent target, incidentally, had his magic not been so strong—and direct his fighters from afar. Never once dirtying his hands with actual combat, oh, no. That was beneath his dignity as a commander, and damaging to the authority of Elves in general and the Great Council in the person of its designated commander in particular.
At least this time he would have something to do besides sit and watch and issue an occasional order. Moth's young rebels were going to be very visibly in the field today; they were also going to be wearing some of that bizarre jewelry she'd told him about. They couldn't work any magic while wearing it, but that didn't matter, since most of them didn't have that much in the first place. It would protect them from his levin-bolts; they
wanted to demonstrate in the most public forum possible that their fathers could no longer threaten to strike them down in that particular fashion.
I cannot imagine that. I just can't. I know intellectually that there are men out there who think of their sons as possessions, and are perfectly willing to destroy them and try begetting a son again if their "possessions" offend them, but I still cannot fathom it in my heart.
Since their fathers didn't know it was only sets of gold-plated cuffs and torques that protected the rebellious Young Lords, and not some new sort of magic, this demonstration was going to set the Council rather well aback.
The rebels aren 't just Young Lords either, though most of them here are. Moth had given him a brief summary of the rebellion—and to say that he'd been shocked was an understatement. There's a considerable number of the ones who are Lords only because they aren't human, the scornfully disregarded Elvenlords no one talks about—the ones with little magic. Moth had introduced him to two of those bitter rebels, men Lord Kyndreth's age if not older. I wonder if the Great Lords have any idea how cordially they are hated by so many of their "inferiors " ?
Mind, this invulnerability to levin-bolts wasn't going to do the rebels any practical good, in the planned scenario. Kyrtian's army was too large and well-organized, and when the rebels fled, their army would fall apart. Kyrtian's men had orders to take anyone who surrendered as a prisoner; the rebels had no illusions about the loyalty of their slave-fighters. When they fled, their army would drop weapons and capitulate. Kyrtian's victory was a certainty—as finely scripted as a Court dance and as predictable.
It was definitely getting lighter. When he'd first brought his reluctant mount up here beneath these trees, it had been too dark to see. Now the horizon had lightened, and he could make out the dark shapes of trees and undergrowth beneath him, and in the distance, the square and rectangular bulks of the buildings where their quarry waited—supposedly asleep and unaware of the army about to descend on them.
Good thing we aren't going to have to besiege this place; we'd be here for months. Before battles, or even the practices he and Gel had held on the estate, he usually got a tightening in his stomach, a dry mouth, and his skin felt hypersensitive. Not today; in fact, if anything, he was bored and he wanted it over with. The conclusion here was foregone; the only question was whether or not any of Moth's people would be injured before they could surrender.
The Young Lords had actually chosen their supposed stronghold well—although there wasn't a man on the Great Council who would have valued it properly. For the last couple of centuries it had been the very minor holding of a very minor El-venlord who had not been swallowed up by some greater Lord only because he never quarreled with anyone, never gave offense to anyone, and raised nothing more desirable than herbs and spices. This was finicky work, far more than any Great Lord had any interest in undertaking, so V'trayn Ildren Lord Je-remin and his wife, daughter and slaves had been left in peace. Until the rebellion, that is. At the moment, Lord Ildren and his household were safely waiting out the conflict in their cara-vanserie in one of the cities.
So much for him; what was of interest was his manor, which in the far past had been one of the original fortified manors of this region, built back when humans had armies and were considered at least a threat to Elvenkind. It had been further fortified at the beginning of the first Wizard War, making it quite a snug little retreat. It was Kyrtian's opinion that its former owner would have done better to remain buttoned up inside it rather than fleeing to the city and the cramped discomfort of his tiny caravanserie.
But he hadn't, and the rebels had appropriated it as a place to house and train their human fighters.
It had been, therefore, of minor strategic importance until this moment. But he and Moth had decided that for today's purpose it would play the role of the rebel's headquarters, so that when the Young Lords all went to ground on Moth's estate after a spectacular rout, no one would be looking for them there.
It was a given that no one on the Council would wonder why people who had been clever enough to choose a defensible structure like this one as their headquarters would also leave it for a pitched battle outside the walls of the structure. Analyzing the enemy's strategy was not a skill that the Great Lords of the Council exercised. So long as things went their way, they were not inclined to ask why or look the situation over very closely.
Which is why they are in this particular quandary in the first place.
Birds twittered softly and sleepily overhead. They had begun to wake; it wouldn't be much longer before the attack.
Light seeped into the landscape, revealing it in shades of blue-grey. Rounded shapes were bushes, trees. Pointed ones, rocky outcrops. And in the far distance, leagues below his hill, the squares and rectangles were the fortified manor.
The light strengthened, although the only sign of the sunrise to come was the steady brightening in the east. A single figure stood sentry on the walls below; those of the Great Lords observing this in their telesons must be laughing now. One sentry! And the gates wide open!
The gates were wide open so that the army within could boil out easily—which, in a moment, when the sentry "spotted" the first of his troops attempting to approach by stealth and sounded the "alert", they would.
The distant figure suddenly moved, and the thin wail of a trumpet carried up to Kyrtian's ears, and the peace of the morning shattered like brittle glass as fighters erupted from every gate, shouting, their voices rising to Kyrtian in a confused babble.
Time to give the signal.
Kyrtian stood up in his stirrups, pointed his right hand skyward, and launched a bolt of magic up to the deep blue-grey bowl of the pre-dawn sky: not a levin-bolt, but one of the harmless illusion-bolts often used to enliven evening entertainments, a soundless shower of colored sparks of light high in the air. And now it was the turn of his army to emerge from the places where the men had lain hidden half the night, not shouting, but eerily silent, like an army of spirits....