Cilarnen stared at Kellen as if Kellen had lost his mind.
"Think about it," Kellen said. "I never paid any attention. Idalia left the city more than a decade ago. But you… you know the families, the people. If someone can figure out a way to get a warning to them that they'll listen to, it might just turn out to be you."
Cilarnen shook his head in disbelief. But he looked thoughtful.
* * * * *
KARDUS insisted that Kellen share Cilarnen's meal, and Kellen was grateful for the strength that it lent him, for he realized that he had another stop to make before he could return to the comfort of his bed.
Redhelwar, the Commander of the Elven Army, had shared in the spell-price for the Working, and like all the others, was still recovering from its effects. From Idalia, Kellen knew that Redhelwar already knew all that she had learned. But what Kellen did not know was what Redhelwar intended to do about it. When Cilarnen had first come with his cryptic warning, Redhelwar had set the Wildmages to discover what it truly meant before deciding what to do.
Now he knew.
If the Demons got Armethalieh…
They have everything They want. Everything They were waiting to get before They attacked us openly. And if They can convince Armethalieh to attack us…
The thought made him feel sick. Against Armethalieh even with the power of the High Mages on the Armethaliehan side the Allied Army would be fairly evenly matched. Which meant both forces would cut each other to pieces in a long, bloody, drawn-out war. Armethalieh would give no quarter. The Demons would see to that. They would make sure that the Golden City was convinced that the Elves, the Wildmages, and anyone who fought at their side had to be utterly destroyed.
And when it was over, no matter who won, there would be no victory.
So we can't fight them. We can't possibly surrender to them. There's no place we can run from them I'm sure the Endarkened will see to that. We've got to keep that war from happening.
He walked up the slope to Redhelwar's scarlet pavilion. Ninolion, Redhelwar's adjutant, was waiting inside the doorway and ushered Kellen in out of the wind with the briefest of Elven courtesies.
Kellen stood inside the doorway, waiting to be noticed.
The Army's General was alone at his worktable, making changes to the great map that represented the eastern portion of the Elven Lands. Maps fascinated Kellen, though they were largely a mystery to him: In Armethalieh, the world had stopped at the City walls, so of course in the City, the creation and study of maps aside from maps of the streets of the City were among the many things that were strictly anathema, forbidden to Mageborn and Commons alike. Before Kellen had come to live among the Elves, he had never imagined that the world could be depicted as a series of marks on vellum. Well, actually, he'd never imagined the world at all, come to that.
Under Master Belesharon's tutelage at the House of Sword and Shield in Sentarshadeen, he had learned a little a very little of how to read them, and so he could tell that this one represented not only Ysterialpoerin and its surrounding forest, but the Army camped outside it. Its scale was such that it included even the two Elven cities to the north of Ysterialpoerin: Lerkalpoldara and Realthataladon, and the mountains that surrounded them.
But north even of them, Redhelwar was making careful marks upon the map, at various points along the Border.
At last Redhelwar glanced up. "I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage. Be welcome at my hearth. It is my hour to drink tea, and I would be honored if you would join me."
"It is always a joy to drink tea in the pavilion of a friend," Kellen answered. The proper response came easily to him now, though once finding the right words for the intricate verbal dance of Elven courtesy would have baffled and frustrated him. But Elves did not hurry if there was one lesson that Kellen had had to learn the hard way, it was that one. They were creatures of age-honed ritual and politeness, and except when actually using War Manners sometimes maddeningly indirect speech.
But at the moment nobody was actually attacking, he'd be glad of a cup of tea, and he'd welcome the chance to collect his thoughts before finding out what Redhelwar was thinking and figuring out if he had to try to change the Elven Commander's mind.
Redhelwar gestured him to a seat, and Kellen sank into it gratefully.
In the fashion that Kellen had become used to over the past several moonturns, Redhelwar then began a seemingly-idle discussion of the weather cold, though after the last series of severe storms, they could expect only moderate snow for the next few sennights and the entertaining seasonal menu they had been granted through the generosity of Kindolhinadetil, Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin, who had made sure that the Army was well-supplied with both fresh and preserved food.
Apparently "entertaining seasonal menu" meant they were eating the greenneedle trees of the Heart Forest; Kellen tried not to think too hard about that, but he'd eaten a lot of things he never thought he'd eat since he'd been Banished from the City.
"One observes that the other Wildmages are still abed," Redhelwar remarked shrewdly when they both had full mugs of Winter Spice tea before them. "Even Jermayan, with Ancaladar's power to draw upon, has not ventured forth to taste the pleasures of the day." "The pleasures of the day" being a joke, or as much of one as Redhelwar ever made.
And Jermayan is probably the strongest of all the Wildmages, with Ancaladar's power to draw on.
"I was restless," Kellen admitted. "And I am well-served for my impetuousness."
"Nevertheless, you have come in a good hour, for matters have… progressed since They chose to move so openly against us, and I would welcome your counsel," Redhelwar said, allowing the conversation to turn to practical matters at last.
The Army's General gestured to the map spread out upon the table. "Scouts have come from Lerkalpoldara and Realthataladon, bringing news of the Borders. The Enemy sends its creatures to gather in strength here, and here, and here the Ice Trolls and the Frost Giants and those who can pass through the Boundary-wards the ice-drakes, the Deathwings, the Coldwarg, and others freely do so in greater kind and number than have been seen since the Great War. They once used the Lost Lands as their nursery, but I think that now that time has passed. Now Their creatures will use the Elven Lands as a gateway to harry the Wild Lands to the west and south… and I do not think we can protect them."
"It's another feint," Kellen said slowly, reasoning it out. "They must know we've discovered Their agent in Armethalieh. Anigrel wants to open the City to Them. If he succeeds, They win."
"Yet we cannot abandon our allies to Their attack," Redhelwar said. "And those who might defend them are here, gathered at Andoreniel's word. I sent to Sentarshadeen as soon as Idalia told me the news from the City, and only this morning I have received Andoreniel's answering word to me."
Kellen was impressed. Even a unicorn couldn't cover the distance to Sentarshadeen and back in just four days, and that would have left no time for the royal Council to debate its reply. Though Andoreniel was the king of the Elves, he did not act without the advice and consent of his Council.
"It would be good to know how this was done and to hear the words of Andoreniel," Kellen said carefully.
"You will wonder how word could travel so fast in winter, without magic to aid it," Redhelwar said with a faint smile. "Yet we have never relied upon magic as you humans do. The weather was calm enough to send birds; they flew to the signaling towers, and the towers passed the message along by means of sunlight and mirrors through the mountains until it reached a place where it must be transferred to the birds once more. Andoreniel's word to me returned the same way.
"As soon as Ancaladar has recovered enough strength to fly, I am to ask him to go to each of the Nine Cities in turn, starting with those closest to the Eastern borders, and carry all the women with child to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns of the Moon. Andoreniel says that we will open it to the children of our Allies as well the Centaurkin, the Mountainfolk, and the Lostlanders who have come down into the Wild Lands so that their Wildmages may fight at our side."
It took Kellen a moment to understand what he was hearing. The Crowned Horns of the Moon was a fortress in the Mystral Mountains that dated back to the days of the Great War. It had never been taken by direct assault, and Kellen didn't think that even the Demons' trickery could manage to find Them a way in. When Andoreniel had first realized that Shadow Mountain might be moving against the Elves, he had ordered all the Elven children of the Nine Cities moved to the fortress, purely as a precaution, there to be guarded by a coterie of hand-picked defenders, Elven Knights and unicorns both. Elven children were few, and when Kellen had visited there, most of the Crowned Horns still stood empty.
But now Andoreniel was proposing to fill it.
And that told Kellen that Andoreniel was certain the Allies were going to lose.
Of course, if the Allies lost, nobody in the Fortress of the Crowned Horns was going to survive anyway.
But that's not right! Kellen thought angrily. For the first time since this all began, we've finally got a chance of winning. We know what They want what They have to have and where it is. For the first time, we actually have a chance!
"It won't work," Kellen said bluntly.
Redhelwar gazed at him, his brows raised in mild reproof. Kellen knew he'd been rude much more than rude, by Elven standards but he couldn't help it.
"Knight-Mage wisdom?" Redhelwar asked, dropping into War Manners.
"Simple common sense," Kellen answered. "They won't all fit. The pregnant women and the children of the Herdsfolk, the Centaurkin, the Mountainfolk… humans and Centaurs live shorter lives than Elves. I don't know about Centaurs, but humans certainly breed faster. You're talking about not a few dozen children and women, or even a few hundred, but a couple of thousand at the very least, and probably more, scattered throughout the Wild Lands and the High Reaches. If you choose to do this, you can't leave anybody behind. And if you do choose to do this… Redhelwar, it is as good as saying we have already lost. There will be panic. And… how are they to get there? Ancaladar can bring the women of the Nine Cities, I guess, but the others? If they have to come overland, in winter… either the Army will have to protect them and we can't split the Army or they have to come unprotected. Either way, anyone on the ground is a feast for anything They want to throw at them."
The longer he spoke, the more problems crowded into Kellen's mind. Getting word to everyone. Preventing panic. Gathering them for the journey. Protecting them at every stage keeping them from freezing would be the least of everyone's problems; these were children they were talking about.
Kellen shook his head wordlessly. It wouldn't work. It was well-intentioned, but it wouldn't work.
"Surely Andoreniel has thought of this," Redhelwar said, sounding puzzled and weary.
"The message came very fast," Kellen suggested tentatively.
"I will send again," Redhelwar said after a long pause. "This time, the message will go by Unicorn Knight. Meanwhile, of your courtesy, perhaps you will oblige me by thinking of some way to protect the children of our Allies that does not involve feeding them to a pack of Coldwarg."
* * * * *