Silver Shadows (18 page)

Hasheth reached for a bellpull and gave it an imperious tug. A young servant appeared promptly at the door, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The prince handed the lad a sealed note. Explanations were not needed; the servant had been schooled at great length and knew precisely what must be done. The note would go to another contact, who would set in motion a well-planned chain

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of events. Hasheth had been a willing apprentice to the Harper, and he had learned much.

“The boat?” she demanded.

“All is in readiness,” the prince assured her. “I will slip from the palace, get one of the horses I’ve boarded at the public stable, and ride for the southern gate. When it opens at dawn, we will both join a certain trade caravan and ride south to the Sulduskoon River, I as a representative of Hhune’s shipping interests, you dressed as a courtesan employed to sweeten my journey. When we reach the river you will slip away. After the caravan’s alleged business is completed, I will see your mare safely to the tinker’s hidden lair while you travel upriver to a destination that you have not seen fit to share with your trusted ally.”

Arilyn responded to this recitation only with a curt nod of approval. To Hasheth’s pointed attempt to pry information from her, she responded not at all.

“At dawn, then,” she said and ducked through the low doorway.

Hasheth listened to the faint sound of her boots on the narrow stairs and marveled anew that she did not stumble and fall in the darkness. The door was hidden in the stone of the hearth that warmed his room on chill nights, and the tunnel itself was chiseled into the thick walls of the palace. He wondered what his fattier, the pasha, would say if he knew that an assassin of Arilyn’s rank could enter the palace almost at will.

Nothing good, Hasheth concluded with a tight smile. He closed the door and began his hasty preparations for the journey ahead. Of late, the pasha had not had many good words to spare the restless young man and had not been pleased with Hasheth’s request to enter the service of Lord Hhune, yet in time he agreed to arrange it simply to silence his troublesome younger son.

It amazed Hasheth that his father could not see the importance of such men as Hhune, or the potential threat that their ambitions posed. He remembere^ the

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warning Arilyn had given him, and he nodded his head in grim agreement. Pasha Balik’s short but spectacular reign would soon come to an end.

And that was as it should be. From his first encounter with Arilyn he had learned an important lesson: know your enemies. If Balik could not recognize his, then he deserved to fall from power.

And he, Hasheth, would find a way to benefit from this eventuality. Perhaps, he concluded as he slipped beyond the palace gates, he would even help to bring the inevitable to pass.

In the lush gardens that surrounded the palace grounds, nearly invisible among the branches of some exotic flowering tree, Ferret watched as the half-elf crept along in the shadow of the palace wall.

Arilyn lifted the vines that sheltered a section of wall and ran her fingers over the smooth stone. A door opened where none had been a moment before, sliding noiselessly to one side. It closed after her, and the vines fell back into place. Even to Ferret’s keen eyes, there was no apparent outline, no sign that the hidden door was there.

Perched in her tree, Ferret waited patiently until the half-elf had finished her meeting and slipped away into the night. And then she waited a bit longer. The mystery that was Arilyn Moonblade could not be solved in direct confrontation. Ferret would have to piece it together as best she could. She wanted to see who else emerged from the palace.

To her surprise, the half-elfs contact was not a palace guard or a half-elven maidservant, but one of the lesser sons of the ruling pasha. Ferret remembered the lad from his illfated attempt to learn the assassin’s trade. Now that she thought of it, she remembered that Arilyn had entered the guildhouse shortly after Hasheth had

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left. She had not made a connection between the two; apparently, she should have.

Ferret crept along after the young prince. Following him was easy, for in this part of town lavish gardens were the norm, and the exotic flowering trees that lined the broad streets were so closely planted that their branches entwined. She was able to follow him for several blocks without her feet once touching the ground.

At length he turned into a stable, emerging in moments on the back of a fine Amnish stallion. Ferret grimaced. She herself did not like the idea of riding upon horses, but if the boy had far to go, following him on foot might prove to be difficult.

The assassin climbed down to the street and crept into the stable. She silenced the stablehands, then quickly selected a likely-looking mare. She wrapped the animal’s hooves to muffle the sound, and then, as quietly as she could, she led the horse from the stable. She climbed onto its bare back. She would ride if she had to, but no power beneath Hie stars could compel her to shackle an intelligent creature with saddle and bridle!

Ferret seized the horse’s mane and leaned forward, whispering a few words to her in the centaur language. Apparently the mare understood the gist of it, for her ears went back and she set off at a brisk pace in pursuit of Hasheth’s stallion.

*****

As the long night slipped away, the deep shadows of the forest began to fede to green, heralding the coming of dawn. The elven warriors who had survived the raid picked up their pace, for the death that pursued them would travel more swiftly with the coming of light.

Exhausted, heartsick, bearing the marks of battle ae well as their dead and wounded comrades, the elves retreated into their forest home. Their progress was slow, for they would not abandon their wounded

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take to the trees, and they feared what use might be made of the slain elven folk. Word had reached them that Sparrow’s body had been placed among the slaughtered humans of a northbound caravan and that his arrows had been used against the merchants.

The distant yapping of hunting hounds lifted into a triumphant, baying howl. They have found a blood trail,” Korrigash noted grimly. He shifted the limp body of an elven male that he carried across his shoulders, as a hunter might carry a slain deer.

Foxfire nodded, and his eyes fell upon the face of the girl he carried in his arms. Hawkwing, her name was, a new name Tamara had bestowed upon the girl to mark her acceptance into a new tribe. It suited her well; she had fought like a cornered falcon and brought down several of the humans before a coward’s dagger took her through the back—from the back.

She would survive, Foxfire repeated silently, staring into her pain-bright black eyes and willing her to live. The tribe had need of courage and spirit such as this child possessed. Tamara had claimed Hawkwing into the Oakstaff clan. She would raise the girl, but Foxfire would train her. He knew a war leader when he saw one.

Hawkwing stirred in his arms and met his intense gaze. “Put me down,” she said in a barely audible whisper. “Flee! We are too few to fight, and the People cannot bear to lose more this night than have already fallen.”

“She is right,” Korrigash said softly.

But Foxfire shook his head. Quickly he took stock of the forces remaining. The prospects were not good. Twenty-and-four of the elves from Talltrees could still run or fight, but only two of the rescued elves could walk without assistance. The elves carried three dead and several who were gravely wounded. There was not one among them who had escaped injury entirely. They could not stand and fight. Not as they were.

He turned to Tamara. “You are the fastest among us.

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Take word to Talltrees. We need as many warriors as can be spared to meet us in the fen lands south of here.”

The female nodded, seeing at once the wisdom of this plan. The elves needed to rest and treat their wounded, and no nearby haven was better for this than the lowlying fens. Always dark and cool, in this valley the forest lay under a thick mantle of mist. The massive trunks of several ancient cedars—trees that no longer lived and grew, but whose roots still held firm—had been hollowed out to make emergency shelters. Healing plants grew in abundance. And if the humans followed them so far, they would find a battleground not at all to their liking. The soil was soft, in some places dangerously boggy, and the ground was densely covered with large, fernlike plants large enough to reach an elf s shoulder.

“We must do what we can to hold back pursuit,” Foxfire added. “You, Eldrin, Sontar, Wyndelleu—take to the trees and circle back. Hunt down the dogs. Stop them, and you have stopped the humans. Harry the men and herd them toward the north. Green arrows only,” he admonished them.

“And you, Tamsin,” he said, turning to the young fighter whose leathers were dark with blood, none of which was his own. Foxfire dared not send this one after the humans—after this night’s battle, Tamsin was as blood-ravenous as a troll. “Go straight north, into the caves that lie beyond the ashenwood. Awaken the young white dragon who slumbers there and lure her out after you. Lead her to the humans; see that she is fully engaged with them. Then take to the trees and return to us.”

A savage grin spread across the younger elf’s face as he visualized the results of his leader’s plan. “And I will leave bundles of wintermint in the dragon’s lair, that she may later cleanse the foul taste of the humans from her tongue!”

The elven warriors melted into the forest to do heir

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leader’s bidding. Korrigash turned to his friend. “Good plan. But is this enough to stop them?”

“For now? Perhaps,” Foxfire said in a low tone. “But not for long.”

Nine

Each morning at dawn the massive gates of Zazesspur swung open to admit the flow of commerce that was the city’s lifeblood. The city’s coffers benefited from tariffs placed on exotic goods that passed through on their way north from Caiimshan and points east. But the markets of Zazesspur were much more than a stopping place for merchant caravans. The people of Tethyr took great pride in their craftsmanship, and their goods were in great demand in lands to the north and south.

Into the city poured the raw materials that ships and overland caravans brought from all over the known world. Chultan teak and Maztican rosewood were fashioned into the carved wooden boxes for which Tethyr was famed, and delicate contraptions of gears and tiny chimes came from Lantan to transform some of these boxes into wondrous musical toys. Fine metals from the icy Northlands were brought into the city to be worked into vessels and armor and jewelry, gems to be set into

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sword hilts or ladies’ rings. Tethyrian furniture was prized for its durability and elegant lines. For sheer practicality, Myratman fabrics were considered second to none. A cloak woven from the wool of the sheep that grazed the Purple Hills often lasted long enough to be handed down from father to son, and few were the weavers outside Tethyr who could spin thread so fine that the results were nearly waterproof.

Another form of commerce, also important to the city’s well-being if somewhat less glamorous, was the trading for foodstuffs grown in the fertile Purple Hills south of the city. Daily caravans traveled between Zazesspur and Marakir, the farmers’ market located at the intersection of the Trade Way with the Sulduskoon River, to purchase fruit and grain and mutton. It was an important task, but a routine one, and therefore one that seldom fell under close scrutiny.

And so it was that Quentin Llorish, the captain of one such caravan, was none too happy to be awakened from his slumber and informed that Lord Hhune’s new apprentice would be riding along on the day’s trip.

Not that Quentin had anything against Hhune—far from it! The lord and guildmaster paid well, and he treated the men and women in his employ with a degree of fairness unusual in Tethyr, which made him quite popular among the people and purchased loyalty more surely than would coin. At least, fair treatment worked that way with most men; Quentin, frankly, preferred hard silver.

Quentin was not a man overly constrained by the bounds of loyalty or by a compulsion for honest dealing. He was not above skimming a thicker layer of cream from the caravan’s daily profits than that to which he was strictly entitled. The thought of a young and eager apprentice looking over his shoulder and thumbing through his books made Quentin’s stomach burn with the pain that was becoming his constant companion.

And so, as he watched over the caravan’s predawn

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preparations and waited for the city’s gates to open, Quentin sipped at a large flask of goat’s milk mixed with some chalky mineral that he could not identity. It was a vile concoction, but according to the local alchemist it would in time soothe his sour stomach. If it did not, vowed Quentin grimly as he downed the last of the swill, he would gladly spend every copper of this day’s profit to have the wretched alchemist slain, preferably death by drowning in goafs milk.

“Captain Quentin?” inquired an imperious voice to his left. “I am Hasheth, here on behalf of Lord Hhune.”

The man let out a mighty, chalk-scented belch and turned to regard his dreaded passenger. Hhune’s apprentice was a young man, probably not yet twenty years of age. Maybe a by-blow of the lord himself judging from that dark hair, though the lad’s curved nose and sun-browned skin suggested a bit of Calishite blood. Well, that was common enough in Zazesspur these days, what with the pasha and all. It was fashionable among society folk to keep a southern woman as mistress, or so Quentin had heard tell. He himself Lad to make due with a wife—his own, unfortunately.

“Welcome aboard, lad!” he said with a heartiness he certainly did not feel. “Well be on our way with the dawn. Pick any horse that catches your fancy, then HI show you what’s what.”

That will hardly be necessary,” Hasheth said, his lip curled with disdain. He gestured to a covered carriage pulled by paired chestnuts, beautiful, fine-boned animals whose glossy red-brown coats had been groomed to the sheen of fine sable. The carriage horses were all the more striking for the fact that they were nearly identical, even to the white stars on their foreheads. To add excess to opulence, a magnificent black stallion and a long-legged gray mare were tied behind the carriage.