• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1455 0

the men from the village were patrolling on the walls or sitting in the great hall. Salamander recognized Marth the blacksmith, giving orders to a contingent of younger men as they stowed bales and barrels of provisions inside the dun. Out in the stables he saw cows and hogs instead of horses; apparently Honelg had sent his riding mounts away to some safe pasture. But Salamander never saw the herald, nor any sign of a beribboned staff. The dun’s women had shut themselves up in the women’s hall. He saw Adranna weeping, and the aged Lady Varigga apparently comforting her, holding her hand and speaking gravely, but he could hear nothing of what she said.

As the long summer twilight deepened, Salamander gave up his futile watch and went to find Dallandra. The two princes and the gwerbret had agreed that the Westfolk archers were such an important weapon that they should pitch their tents well behind the lines of the be sieging army. No one wanted to lose them to a unanticipated sally from the dun by a desperation squad. They’d found reasonably flat ground along a rivulet for the tents, but near an outcrop of rock from which sentries could see Honelg’s dun. Between them and it stood the Red Wolf encampment, also set back, while Ridvar and Prince Voran had disposed their men in the actual siege line circling the dun’s defenses.

Salamander wandered among the tents, asking the archers if they’d seen Dallandra, but none had. Finally, he met up with Calonderiel at the big campfire in the middle of the encampment.

“Where’s Dalla?” Cal said. “Do you know?”

“I don’t,” Salamander said. “I was hoping you did.”

Calonderiel made a growling sound under his breath. “One of the men tells me that she might have gone to the Roundear camp to talk with Voran and the other lords. I’m on my way to look for her.”

“Good idea. And if I see her first, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”

“Please do. I hate it when she just wanders off like this.”

Eventually, when the twilight had faded into night, Dallandra returned to the elven camp with Calonderiel shooing her along in front of him as if he were a sheepdog and she the prize ewe. Salamander hurried to meet them.

“Ah, there you are!” he said. “I see that Cal found you.”

“I was merely speaking with Ridvar and the princes.” Dallandra shot Cal a poisonous sort of glance. “I gave them some ideas on how Lord Oth might root out the Alshandra worshippers back in Cengarn.”

“I suppose it’s necessary,” Salamander said.

“Of course it is!” Cal joined in. “Do you want someone there to send a warning to Zakh Gral?”

“No, of course not. I doubt if anyone could, though. Most of them are probably servants, like Raldd the groom, or maybe some of the town’s craftsmen and the like, no one with the horses or the knowledge to find Zakh Gral.”

“Still, I refuse to take even the least bit of risk,” Dallandra said. “If the gwerbret hangs a hundred traitors when he gets back, that’ll be a terrible thing, of course, but I’ll do what I can for them then.”

“By the Black Sun herself! You’ve turned ruthless lately.”

“Of course.” Dallandra set exasperated hands on her hips. “Ebañy, don’t you realize what’s at stake here? Our very survival as a people out in the grasslands, that’s what. If we fail, if the Horsekin take over the plains, then the only elven culture left will be in the islands, and the only Westfolk left will be the ones who manage to reach those islands as refugees.”

For a moment Salamander couldn’t find the words to speak. “I see it now,” he said at last. “Somehow I hadn’t wanted to see it so clearly.”

“Oh, I don’t blame you for that,” Dallandra said. “Fortunately, Prince Voran and Ridvar both realize that if we fall, their western provinces will be next. They’re planning on fighting the Horsekin with every weapon they have. Voran just assured me that his father—that’s the high king himself—will see that the matter’s urgent. And that’s the only thing giving me hope.”

“Hope?” Calonderiel said. “Of course, but it’s also bringing obligations. Do you realize that, my darling? Prince Dar will be beholden