When Redhelwar had said he was giving Kellen a "force" to take to Halacira, Kellen had imagined it would be something small perhaps his own troop with a few supply-wagons added.
Instead, Redhelwar was placing a full third of the army under Kellen's direct command.
There were ways in which it made sense. Two sets of messengers had failed to report back from Sentarshadeen; Kellen might need to fight his way into the southwest and be able to send back word with a heavily-defended force to the main army without weakening his own forces. Artenel and several of Rulorwen's people were accompanying Kellen in order to begin the assessment of the caverns, and Engineers do not travel light; there would also need to be enough mounted troops to protect the Engineers' equipment.
Pack animals, destriers, and draft animals and their riders and handlers all had to be fed and sheltered, which meant supply and equipment wagons, which in turn added to the number of draft animals…
And Kellen was in charge of all of it.
In part this indicated a vote of confidence from the Army's General. Partly it was Kellen sighed inwardly another test. Being placed in charge of this portion of the army meant he was being placed in charge of commanders who were except for Artenel his equals in rank, and certainly his seniors in age and possibly experience. Redhelwar would wish to know if Kellen could command them.
What Kellen wanted to know was if he could keep them alive. The continuing silence from Sentarshadeen worried him desperately. Perhaps Cilarnen could find out what the problem was there.
If today's meeting went well.
If Cilarnen didn't manage to offend Kindolhinadetil completely.
And, of course, don't forget, if this is something Kindolhinadetil can even grant. Redhelwar only said we could "ask his counsel." He didn't say what would come of it.
"Will you stop twitching?" Cilarnen whispered beneath the steady crunch of their horses' hooves through the snow-crust. The day was clear and bright for a change one less thing to worry about in a day that held far too many things to worry about. As much as Kellen had needed to leave Isinwen behind to oversee the work of departure, he'd felt he'd needed him with the embassy to Kindolhinadetil even more. Ysterialpoerin was Isinwen's birthplace, and Kellen's Second might be able to help keep Cilarnen from unwittingly giving grave offense. Isinwen rode silently behind Kellen, dressed, as Kellen was, in the best their clothes-chests had to offer after a season of hard campaigning.
"I'm worried enough as it is," Cilarnen went on, in an undertone that was nevertheless perfectly audible not only to Kellen but to every Elf there. "You've already made it sound as if everything I know about Elves is true."
"That they never lie, and they never tell the truth." Kellen didn't even need to look around to know that Isinwen would be wearing his blandest expression. Kellen forced himself not to think of the consequences if Cilarnen said something so shatteringly tactless in front of the Viceroy. Dammit Cilarnen was the one who'd grown up being successfully groomed for a Council seat until Anigrel had maneuvered him into plotting treason. Why couldn't he remember something as simple as how acute Elven hearing was?
I'll only have to hope he remembers it when it really counts, Kellen thought gloomily. Then a new thought struck him. Just what did Cilarnen really know about Elves? The proverb he'd just quoted to himself was from the oldest Proscribed Histories of the City. He'd learned it from Idalia, who'd been using it to teach him quite a different lesson. What Cilarnen would have been taught, as Kellen had been back in the City was that Elves were fatally beautiful, treacherous, and incapable of telling the truth at all.
He only hoped experience and familiarity had been a better teacher to Cilarnen than the City Histories had been.
Kellen forced a smile. "The truth is, I don't know what to expect in Ysterialpoerin. I don't like that."
"Well, who does?" Cilarnen said crossly. "But from what you say, the Viceroy is the only one who can give permission for me to try this experiment, so… " he shrugged helplessly, the gesture muffled by the heavy cloak he wore.
Kellen nodded. Outnumbered as they were in this war, they could afford to overlook nothing that might give them the edge in battle. No matter what risk it involved.
* * * * *
THE High Reaches had a stark beauty in winter. It was a land of dark forests and deep valleys nestled among the mountains that had given the area its name. It marked the border between the Elven Lands and the Wild Lands, and its people loved it fiercely. Centuries ago, in the aftermath of the Great War, humans had come to these high hills and mountains seeking one thing: freedom and peace, and they had found it here. They traded with their neighbors the Centaurs, the lowlanders, even with Armethalieh in the West and went their own way, holding to their own customs as they always had, for as long as they could remember.
They followed the teachings of the Huntsman and the Forest Wife, who taught them to live in harmony with their land, taking only what was needed, and always returning gift for gift.
And so they had prospered.
No longer.
Death came to the High Reaches on silent scarlet wings.
* * * * *
PRINCE Zyperis stood in the middle of the forest. He could barely contain his glee. Where to begin? The best part was that the foolish Lightborn would not know that he had been here… oh, not for a moonturn at least. It would all be done in secret.
And sometimes secrets could be the highest form of Their art.
He spread his wings wide and shook them, and a fine black mist drifted from them on the cold still air. It settled on the trees around him, and wherever it touched, the greenneedle bark began to whiten, just a little.
Within days, the tree would be dead.
The blight would spread throughout the forest, spreading from tree to tree upon the wind, to everything that grew. The winds would carry it beyond the High Reaches, into the Elven Lands and the Wildlands as well. It would begin slowly that was its beauty but within one turn of the moon that the Lightborn used to mark Time, it would have spread so far that all who lived here would know of it… though they would not know its source.
Zyperis walked on, pausing now and again to seed the forest with blight.
And that was not all.
As he walked, he transformed himself, taking on a form he had often used: a shape pleasing to the Lightborn. There were many wanderers these days, and even if someone should see him, out here in the deep woods, it would not be that unusual.
As he walked, he scattered grain upon the snow. It glowed faintly, but the hungry animals hares, deer, birds who came to feed upon it would not notice. All of them would leave their feast carrying plague. As would those who fed upon them. And those who fed upon them.
Plague and blight, the surest, most stealthy weapons of the Endarkened. They would spread through the High Reaches oh, not necessarily to kill. That would not be sufficiently elegant. But to starve, to weaken, to cripple.
To call the Elves' troublesome Allies home.
* * * * *
AS on his last visit, Kellen felt entirely out of place in Ysterialpoerin, and the idea that the Elves any Elves could consider the city homelike and inviting was disturbing to him in some way he couldn't entirely articulate.
It wasn't as if they were simply living in the woods. Kellen had done that with and without a roof over his head and while he preferred to be comfortable, he could understand people (like Idalia) who'd rather live in the forest than in a town.
But in Ysterialpoerin, the Elves had taken a city and made it look like a forest. Only not like a real forest by now Kellen had seen plenty of those but like a dream of a forest, so that the longer you were in Ysterialpoerin, the more you felt as if you were asleep with your eyes open.
It was… perfect. Every snow-covered branch, every drooping bough, even the shadows on the glittering surface of the snow were… perfect.
It made Kellen feel as if he were suffocating. In a strange way, it reminded him of the City. But at least if you were born in Ysterialpoerin and didn't like it, there was somewhere else you could go, since in the Elven Lands, nobody objected to your leaving the place where you had been born.
He glanced over at Cilarnen. Cilarnen looked as if he'd been hit over the head with a very large hammer. He was staring around himself, eyes wide, and his lips were pressed together in a tight line.
At last they reached the House of Bough and Wind. Kellen was pleased to see that its beauty had brought Cilarnen out of himself. So far as he knew, it was the only building in Ysterialpoerin that looked like a conventional house, and it was as beautiful as all things Elven, though thankfully in a way humans could appreciate.
This time they were making a formal visit, so Kindolhinadetil and Neishandellazel were not waiting for them on the steps of the House. Instead there were six servants waiting one for every rider all wearing long gray hooded cloaks precisely the color of the House. The cloaks were stitched all over with tiny colorless crystals that precisely duplicated the pattern of the carving of leaf and vine that covered every inch of the structure, and when they came silently down from the steps and across the snow to take the horses' headstalls, the fabric shimmered in the pale sunlight as though stitched in flame.
They did not speak, so Redhelwar and the others did not speak either. When the riders had dismounted, and their horses had been led away, the door of the House opened, and a woman appeared.
To Kellen's great surprise, he recognized her. It was the Lady Arquelle, the Elven Healer from Ysterialpoerin who had aided the Unicorn Knights after the Battle for the Heart of the Forest.
"In the name of Kindolhinadetil, Voice of Andoreniel in Ysterialpoerin, in the name of Neishandellazel, Lady of Ysterialpoerin, we See you, Redhelwar, General of Andoreniel's armies; Adaerion; Dionan; Kellen Knight-Mage; Isinwen; and Cilarnen High Mage of the City of a Thousand Bells. Be welcome in the House of Bough and Wind, branch of Leaf and Star."
As was traditional among the Elves, she had put the most important name last; Kellen wasn't sure whether to be pleased that Kindolhinadetil knew that Cilarnen was important or just continue to worry about all the ways this meeting could go wrong.