It took Tharash as long as he had expected to finish his hair, and longer than he had expected for Sirbones to finish quoting Lauthin. The ranger had to admit that Lauthin seemed to have a glimmering of wisdom brightening the hitherto dark expanse of his narrow mind. However, none of what Tharash expected was in the words.
“What do you expect?” Sirbones asked. He seemed truly curious.
“A formal apology to my lady, my lord, and their daughter. A further apology to all the other captains here. Forgiveness of all those elves who marched out into the forest. Restitution from his own purse to the kin of those who died because he held his strength back from battle.”
“Dream, Tharash.”
The ranger’s anger flared. “That is little enough, from one who has been sitting on his bony arse while I drag mine, not much better-fleshed, through the forest. From one who thinks Solinari shines out of his-”
“I understand, Tharash. But it will take time before Lauthin says much more than he has already.”
“Very well. Let him hesitate until newly planted saplings are stout trees. We are both elves. We have time.”
“You are both old elves,” Sirbones said. “And we are all, young and old, in the middle of a war.”
“So?”
“Can we not have peace among ourselves, if only to better face our enemies?”
“Folk like Lauthin are the enemy, Sirbones. Even when they are not in arms against us.”
The fireball was just large enough to draw Zephros’s undivided attention to the door of his tent, but not to be seen outside. With his foot, Zephros pushed aside filth on the floor. Unsteadily, he stood to greet Wilthur.
“I have heard of no reply from Migmar.”
“There has been none.” Zephros was pleasantly surprised to find that he could speak clearly. “But there is another message. Aurhinius is coming.”
“To take command?”
“Only if he reaches us before Migmar, and that he probably cannot do.”
“Then what is to be feared from him?” asked the mage in his steel and brick rasp. “You seem downcast at his coming.”
“He is old, shrewd, and no friend to the kingpriest, to evil wizardry-”
“I am not evil!”
“How you see yourself is one thing, how Aurhinius will see you is a second, and what he will do when he comes is a third. Let me tell you about the ways of old intriguers like Aurhinius, even when they do not command.” Zephros had not found a chance to talk to anyone for so long in nearly a month. He went on so long, he suspected any common listener would have been bored to rudeness long before he was done.
Wilthur, however, did not know war, soldiering, or Aurhinius, and therefore did not know the menace they faced. “It seems best that we strike before Aurhinius arrives.”
“Without Migmar?”
“Do you want the glory of victory?” Wilthur countered.
“To the Abyss with the glory! I want-” What Zephros really wanted was to erase the stain of the name “deserter” or “mutineer,” and then never put on armor again. But Wilthur was the last person on Krynn he would honor with that confession.
“Well?”
“You are asking that I turn you loose on Belkuthas? Against its two wizards-at least two?”
“You inherited my loyalty from Luferinus. Did you inherit also his fears of me, so that you will quiver and quail when I propose-?”
“Luferinus was a brave man! You put the fear into him, you brown-robed windbag! That is the only way you know to deal with others!”
“Fear is the gods’ gift, like everything else, Zephros. It is through fear that I will enter the divided mind of one within Belkuthas. Divide his mind further, and what he will do will divide the folk of Belkuthas one against another, so that we shall be able to walk in long before Migmar or Aurhinius are within a day’s march.”
“Such sublime confidence!” Zephros wondered if Wilthur would throw a larger fireball for such a sneer, and hardly cared.
“You will learn that it is not unjustified,” Wilthur said. He marched out with as much dignity as was allowed by his increasingly rank robe and still more emaciated frame.
Rynthala had watched from the walls as Belot mounted Amrisha and the great wings lifted them both from the courtyard. They vanished swiftly into the clouds-this night had been especially chosen for its darkness.
Rynthala frowned and considered inspecting the sentries.
Air boomed, then whispered. Amrisha plunged out of the clouds, gliding so fast that Rynthala feared the pegasus was flying away. Then the great wings flared wide again, breaking the plunge just above the level of the walls.
The pegasus circled the castle twice while Rynthala ran down the stairs from the wall. Pegasus and rider landed in a flurry of dust as Rynthala reached ground.
She ran toward them. “That was asking much of Amrisha, to put that kind of a strain on her wings the first flight!”
She expected Belot to flare back at her, as he had several times since he recovered his health. Instead, she saw what might almost have been a shy smile.
“I confess. This is not the first flight. Closer to the fourth.”
“Without my knowing?”
“When you were asleep. Rynthala-Lady Rynthala-I-well, I thank you for all you have done for Amrisha. It has been-more than generous, with all the rest you have had to do.”
He was standing closer than he ever had, and she was more aware of him than before. He was tall for an elf, able to look her in the eyes, and as graceful in his own way as Darin, for all his elven slenderness.
“It is a poor gift, but all I can offer now,” he went on. He reached into his belt pouch and drew out a silvery collar. It looked to be dyed leather, until Rynthala touched it and realized it was a gorget of exquisitely fine elven mail. Running her fingers over it, she realized that the point of a needle, let alone a blade, would be hard put to find a way through it.
“You must think very well of my poor work, which was mostly done by others,” Rynthala said before she realized it sounded ungracious. “Do you wish to put it on me?” she said, then realized that sounded flirtatious.
Belot meanwhile stepped behind her, laid the gorget around her neck (a stiff neck, her father had once told her), and fastened the catches. The links were so fine that it felt like a caress. She half expected that the next thing she felt would be a caress.
Instead, she looked about, to see Belot leading Amrisha toward the stable. She almost ran after him. If he had been Sir Darin, and had stood that close and given her such a gift, she would have. Except that she would have been in his arms long before now.
Marvelous. She could draw responses she did not want from Belot, and not draw them from Darin, when she did want them. Or did she really want a man who did not seem to want her, instead of an elf who did?
Too young for war, and now she felt too young for love-or at least for both at the same time. Both had come at their own convenience, rather than hers.
She turned toward her quarters. Behind her, Amrisha whickered. To Rynthala, it sounded almost as if the pegasus was laughing at her.
With Amrisha healed enough to fly, the citadel of Belkuthas now had its own aerial scout. Belot made at least one flight every second day, trying to stay high enough to be out of arrow range and low enough to see clearly what lay below.
“Of course, spells can strike at any height without warning,” he said. “I doubt Tarothin could endure one of the scouting flights, however.”
He said this to Lauthin, with Pirvan present. The high judge had yet to apologize to the Belkuthans, but he seemed to expect the knight to forgive and forget. Pirvan vowed Lauthin would be surprised one day, but only after the fighting was done.
“Then by all means do not put him in danger,” Lauthin said. “The honor of the Silvanesti demands holding Belkuthas.”