“All right then, what should we do?”
Mackeli glanced quickly around. “Here’s what I think…”
When he’d finished ransacking the tree-home, Voltorno supervised his men in setting up traps around the clearing. Where the foot path had been worn in the grass, they strewed caltrops—small, spiky stars designed to stop charging horses. Against the hide leggings Anaya and Mackeli wore, they would be deadly.
In the grass around the tree, they set saw-toothed, spring-loaded traps, such as humans sometimes used to catch wolves. String triggers were strung, a pull on which would send a crossbow quarrel whizzing. Even by the last of the afternoon light the traps were hard to see. Kith-Kanan shuddered as he watched these diabolical preparations and prayed fervently that Anaya’s nose for metal had not deserted her completely.
Night fell, and the cold returned strongly enough to remind the raiders that summer wasn’t around the next sunrise. Kith-Kanan shivered in the chill while he watched Voltorno’s men wrap themselves in Anaya’s warm fur.
Voltorno brought a tin plate of stew and sat on a log in front of the prince. “I was a bit surprised to find you still here,” the half-human said. He drank beer from a tin cup. In spite of his thirst, Kith-Kanan’s nose wrinkled in disgust; it was a drink no true elf would touch. “When I returned to Daltigoth, I made inquiries about you. A Silvanesti, living in the forest like a painted savage. I heard a very strange tale in the halls of the imperial palace.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Kith-Kanan, staring at the fire built some distance in front of the hollow oak. “I don’t believe the humans would allow you into the imperial palace. Even human royalty knows better than to let street garbage into their homes.”
His face contorted in anger, Voltorno flipped a spoonful of hot stew into Kith-Kanan’s already much-abused face. The elf prince gasped and, despite his bound hands, managed to rub the scalding liquid onto the shoulder of his tunic.
“Don’t interrupt,” said Voltorno nastily. “As I was saying, I heard a strange tale. It seems that a prince of the Silvanesti, the brother of the current heir to the throne, left the city under a cloud. He bared a weapon in the hallowed Tower of the Stars or some nonsense like that.” Voltorno laughed. “It seems the prince’s father married the son’s sweetheart to his brother,” he added.
“Sounds like a very sad story,” Kith-Kanan said, betraying as little emotion as he could. His shoulders ached from being forced to sit hunched over. He shifted his feet a bit, making the chains clatter as he did.
“It has the quality of an epic about it,” Voltorno agreed, stirring his stew. “And I thought to myself: what a prize that son would make. Imagine the ransom the elf prince’s family would pay!”
Kith-Kanan shook his head. “You are gravely mistaken if you think you can pass me off as a prince,” he said. “I am Silvanesti, yes—a warrior whose nagging wife drove him into the forest for peace and quiet.”
Voltorno laughed heartily. “Oh, yes? It’s no use, my royal friend,” he said. “I’ve seen portraits of the royal house of Silvanesti. You are this errant son.”
A shrill shriek pierced the night air. The humans reached for their arms, and Voltorno went quickly to steady his men. “Keep your eyes open,” he cautioned them, “this could be a trick to divert us.”
A flaming brand hurtled through the air, tumbling end over end and trailing sparks and embers. It hit the grass twenty feet from the tree. It tripped a trigger string, and a crossbow fired with a dull thud.
“Aahwoo!” came a wailing cry from the dark trees. The humans began to mutter among themselves.
A second flaming brand flew into the clearing, from the opposite side of the forest. Then a third, some yards from the second. And a fourth, some yards from that.
“They’re all around us!” one man cried.
“Quiet!” said Voltorno.
Carefully avoiding the wicked caltrops, he strode out on the central path. The men clustered together near him in a fighting circle facing outward from their campfire. From his staked position, Kith-Kanan smiled grimly.
A figure appeared at the end of the path, carrying a burning branch. Voltorno drew his sword. The figure stopped where the caltrops began, some four yards from the half-human. The torch Voltorno held lit Anaya’s face. Her face and hands were painted black. A single red stripe ran vertically from her forehead, along her nose, over her chin, and to the base of her neck.
Voltorno turned to his men. “You see? It’s just the girl,” he crowed. He faced Anaya. “Where’s the boy? Hiding?” he asked with a sneer.
“You have come into the wildwood once too often,” Anaya intoned. “None of you will leave it alive.”
“Someone shoot her,” Voltorno said in a bored tone, but the humans were mesmerized. None of them moved. Taking a slow step toward her, the commander declared, “It’s you who will die, girl.”
“Then enter the forest and find me,” she said. “You have bows and swords and iron blades. All I have is a knife of flint.”
“Yes, yes, very boring. You’d like us to flounder around in the woods at night, wouldn’t you?” remarked Voltorno, moving another step closer to her.
“It’s too late,” she warned. “One by one, you shall all die.” With that, Anaya slipped away into the night.
“Such melodrama,” grumbled the half-human, returning to the fire. “I guess one can’t expect more from a pair of savages.”
“Why didn’t you use your great magic, Voltorno?” Kith-Kanan asked sarcastically.
Quite earnestly, one of the terrified humans began to explain. “Our master must be very close to the one he.” This helpful information was abruptly cut off as Voltorno backhanded the speaker. The human fell back, his face bleeding.
Now Kith-Kanan understood. Voltorno’s repertoire of magic was probably quite limited. Perhaps he had only the spell of befuddlement he had used in his duel with Kith-Kanan. And he had to be very close to the one he wished to enchant, which was obviously why he had been sidling closer to Anaya.
The next morning Kith-Kanan awoke stiff and groggy. The chill had penetrated his bones, and his chains didn’t allow him to rest comfortably. He was trying to stretch the ache from his legs when a shriek of pure horror rang through the clearing. Kith-Kanan jerked toward the sound.
One of the human guards was staring down at the bedroll of one of his comrades. His face was bone-white and his mouth slack. He would have given vent to another scream, but Voltorno arrived at his side and shoved him away.
Voltorno’s face registered shock, too, as he looked down at the bedroll. The human who had screamed now babbled, “Master! They cut Gernian’s throat! How?”
The half-human rounded on the frantic raider and commanded him to be silent. All the humans now ringed their dead companion. Each of them asked themselves the same questions: How had Anaya and Mackeli killed the man without being seen by the watch? How had they gotten through the traps? Voltorno was rattled, and the humans were close to panic.
19 — Sithas Returns
Morning, and the humans stirred half-heartedly through the ambassador’s large tent. Sithas heard them, their voices hoarse from sleep, talking in the cloth-walled corridor outside his room. He rose and shook the wrinkles from his clothes.
Ulvissen greeted the prince as he entered the tent’s main salon. The seneschal offered him breakfast, but Sithas took only a single apple from a bowl of fruit and forsook the rest. Humans had the habit of eating abysmally heavy meals, he knew, which probably accounted for their thick physiques.
It had stopped raining during the night, though now the wind blew steadily from the south, tearing the solid ceiling of gray clouds into ragged, fluffy pieces. From their vantage point on the hill overlooking the river, it seemed as if the broken clouds were scudding along at eye level. Flashes of early morning sun illuminated the scene as the clouds passed before it.