He only hoped they'd remember that those so-called "Lesser Races" had just saved all of their lives.
Kellen patted the ox on the shoulder, urging it to move on.
The air was filled with the scent of green growing things, overlaying the smell of blood and death. Amid the shouts and cries of the workers, Kellen caught a snatch of birdsong.
He wondered just how long it was going to take to wipe away all trace of the battle.
* * * * *
WHEN he got back to his tent not his own pavilion, but the one he was using now Cilarnen was waiting for him.
It was a shock to see him. Cilarnen looked every inch a Mageborn. He was dressed head to foot in Armethaliehan garb, wearing what Kellen supposed must be House Volpiril's colors, copper and green. Only his heavy fur-lined cloak and sturdy though elegant calf-high boots made any concession to his present surroundings.
But he looked far better than he had when Kellen had seen him last. The drawn, pinched, feverish look was gone from his face, and color had returned to his cheeks.
"You're alive!" Cilarnen said, grinning with relief. "Redhelwar told me you were, but it's good to see it for myself."
"Idalia isn't."
Kellen hadn't meant to blurt it out like that. She'd been Cilarnen's friend as well. And it was unfair for that single death to hurt so much more than all the rest, but there were moments when it seemed to Kellen that Idalia's death summed up for him every loss he had suffered in this war.
Cilarnen looked away. "I'd hoped… Lord Volpiril told me she vanished from the Circle, and Lord Lycaelon took her place."
"We found her body at the Stones."
Cilarnen reached out and put a hand on Kellen's arm. "I am so very sorry for your loss, Kellen. I know if you could you would have died in her place."
"Any of us would," Kellen said quietly.
"Jermayan?" Cilarnen asked.
"He was with her when we… found her. Alive, but I do not know where he and Ancaladar are now."
Cilarnen sighed. He looked around. "So many dead. In the City… our losses were light by comparison, but much was destroyed. And as soon as we can, we must send to see what is left of the Delfier villages and the Home Farms. If anything. We shall need those Selken grain-ships that are coming, and more besides. I do not think that anyone will be planting anything this spring."
Kellen shook his head. "The fields may come up by themselves, though. Look at the forest. It is green already."
"Thank the Light for that."
"Leaf and Star."
"The Wild Magic," Cilarnen said.
The two of them smiled at each other, and Kellen felt some of his heartsickness ease.
"What will you do now?" Cilarnen asked.
Kellen hadn't really thought about it. "I suppose, eventually, I'll go home. Back to Sentarshadeen."
"But Kellen, this is your home. Armethalieh."
Kellen shook his head, as certain of that as he'd ever been of anything in his life. "Cilarnen, whatever has happened, I'm still a Knight-Mage. There's no place for me in Armethalieh, and there never will be."
"Don't be so certain of that," Cilarnen said, smiling faintly.
"Oh?" Kellen said. "I suppose you're going to change things around here?"
"I might," Cilarnen answered. "They're going to make me Arch-Mage."
* * * * *
IT was an ancient Law of the City, and one that had only been invoked once before in all Armethalieh's thousand-year history. Yet it was a Law of the City and as such, it could be brought before the Council as a petition. Volpiril had done so, early that very morning.
"My lords, I come before you today not as a member of this so-august and so-worthy body, but as a humble petitioner," Volpiril said.
If the towers had been functioning, it would barely have been halfway through Morning Bells, but the High Council had been sitting since Second Dawn Bells. Between Cilarnen's spell of the day before, and the storm the Mages themselves had allowed to lash the City, Armethalieh was in ruin and chaos. Work-parties must be assigned, Mages must be set to the task of repairs and spellcasting, the Commons must be advised and soothed.
Normally, none of these tasks and decisions ever reached as high as the High Council, for Armethalieh was run by a complicated and very efficient bureaucracy of many interlocking Councils. But after the events of the previous night, too many of the Mageborn who formed the links in that chain were absent or dead on the Allied battlefield. The entire Militia, who should have been able to support the City Watch in keeping the Commons in their place, was dead. Much of the Watch's functions had been taken over moonturns ago by the Commons Wardens, and the Commons Wardens were not to be trusted. They were being held under guard in one of the warehouses until their memories could be thoroughly gone over and edited. The Magewardens filled the cells below the Council House, and were being similarly though more immediately dealt with.
Meanwhile, the High Council floundered, bogged down in petty details it had never been meant to deal with.
"Oh, make your petition and have done, Lord Volpiril," Ganaret said irritably. "What is one more petition on a day like today?"
"My lords, it has not escaped my notice as I am certain it has not escaped your own that Armethalieh is at present without an Arch-Mage to rule her."
"This is no news," Lord Dagan said. "I suppose you wish to put yourself forward for the position, Lord Volpiril? You have always wished to take Lycaelon's place."
Lord Volpiril bowed. "Acute as always, Lord Dagan, but no. Perhaps it has escaped your notice that I am not a member of the High Council at this present. No, I have another candidate in mind. But first, I would pose a question to you all: If you were to vote at this moment, for whom would you vote as Arch-Mage? The vote, as you know, must be unanimous among so small a Council as this."
There was silence from the five men above him upon the black stone bench. Lord Volpiril smiled.
"I see what you have already seen yourselves: None of you will support the accession of the others. Yet there must be an Arch-Mage. And in these times, more than ever before, he must be one with a wider knowledge of the world than any of us has. One who is not mired in the past, in the empty traditions that have already nearly doomed us all. One who can make Armethalieh truly a golden city, a city of the Light, once more.
"Consider, my lords. The harbor has been swept free of ships, many of them destroyed. The Delfier Valley has been scoured. We shall have to rely upon the Selkens foreign trade to feed us in the coming seasons. We date not alienate them. We must resettle the Delfier Valley, and the folk to farm it must come from somewhere. We must somehow explain to our people not only what has happened this night past, but what has happened in all the moonturns of Lord Anigrel's poisonous influence that preceded it. Who shall do these things? You, Harith? You, Lorins? Ganaret? Nagid? Dagan? Which of you shall embrace this troublesome future with an open mind and willing heart?"
There was silence from the High Mages.
"Oh, do tell us your amazing plan, Lord Volpiril since you so obviously have one," Harith said pettishly.
Lord Volpiril bowed mockingly. "Lord Cilarnen has the necessary qualities to do all these things. He is a friend to the Elves and the Wildmages. He has saved the City. Elect him Arch-Mage let him rule with your guidance, and the guidance of those others who will join the High Council in the moonturns to come. That is my petition."
"Impossible!" Ganaret roared. "He is but an Entered Apprentice! A child!"
"He has cast a spell at Master level," Volpiril said. "You know that perfectly well. Waive the tests."
"It can't be done," Nagid said. "He was Banished."