Highlord Falaeve smiled slightly and put his wine down again, making the smallest of signs with one long, slim finger. The servant saw and glided forward silently to refill the goblet.
The silence had lasted so long that it could almost be heard—the high skirling of ready swords, jangling above the crackle of the hearthfire. Or perhaps it was just the sound of taut, restive nerves.
“My—good—Highlord of Siluvanede,” Huntinghorn said softly, precisely duplicating the elf-lord’s deliberate hesitation, “I do not term such beliefs mere ‘rumors.’ It has been my misfortune to see—in a scrying pool cast by my good friend the Aeltagarr, whom I know you revere as the most senior sorceress of your realm—” he paused, and the elf bowed his head stiffly, angry eyes glittering in a face that had paled slightly,“foul sorcery worked to butcher your kinfolk and hurl back the woods, so as to expand the borders of a human realm and win it space for more farms.”
“And what human mage worked this destruction?” Highlord Falaeve asked, voice very soft. “One of those irresponsible children of Netheril?”
Somewhere in the hall, a servant gasped audibly. The rise of Netheril was told of in half a hundred cradle-tales and folk rumors; its magical might had kept even the spellstrong elven lords and the numberless, savage ores at bay when men first came to the North, and though its might had long passed, it remained a shining memory—a memory, the priests said, that had been passed down for more than a thousand winters… the lives of thirty fathers and sons. Could this elf-lord be as old as that?
Yet the herald was shaking his head. “Your pardon, lord,” he said to Breiyr, and then turned back to set calm words before the elf. “Nay, Highlord. No lich nor immortal Netherese sorcerer-king. Nay—‘twas a man high in the councils of a land near this one: the realm of Athalantar.”
Lord Breiyr gaped, and there was a stir in the hall, a wordless rustling of cloth as servants leaned or stepped forward to hear better. The elf-lord’s lips thinned. “Enough foolishness,” he said. “That is a land of simple farmers and boar-hunting swordswingers whose young king has had the sense to gather in a few landless hedge-wizards to advise him. They’ve neither the magical skill nor the want to work such destroying magic.”
The herald smiled without humor. “So I, too, thought. And yet they’ve broken much of the burned lands with their plows this summer, and work at it still.”
“What man would not take advantage of such a happening? Men wait about, and rush in to seize or slay when they find weakness or opportunity. It is their way.” The elf-lord spoke coldly—and in the stillness that followed his bitter words, all in the hall saw the dwarf nod his head, slowly and reluctantly.
“Aye,” Lord Breiyr rumbled hesitantly. “The boar-hunting princes of the Stag? ‘Tis hard to believe.”
The herald spread his hands. “I saw what I saw. Do you tell me the Aeltagarr deceived me, working her scrying falsely? I’ve seen such spells worked many times before, and know them well; there was no deceit in her casting. Moreover, she did not know who the man was in her pool. I did, and have spent much time since then trying to find other tellings and signs to prove her right or wrong.”
“And?” The elf-lord’s soft tones were a silken challenge.
“I work still. I have found certain things that may prove her right. Nothing that proves the other.”
“Yet,” the Highlord said in soft dismissal.
“Would you cry the Aeltagarr false, my lord?” The herald spoke mildly, but there was an edge of rebuke in his tone that made the elf flush. “I would not like to report that when next I see her.”
Highlord Falaeve waved a long-fingered hand in dismissal.
“Enough! One foolish or careless wizard o’erreaching himself, then. Not a plot hatched in such a simple realm … a good neighbor to these folk here.” He waved at the hall around, and won a few nods among the servants along the walls. “I’d not hear such slander against a realm entire, without much more to make it stand. I’ve seen, o’er more years than you or anyone else here—perhaps all of you together, saving only milord dwarf—that many truths and beliefs, especially matters of intrigue, when looked at hard and long by right-minded folk, blow away like mist before the bright sun of late morn.”
Stretching himself like a lean and dangerous cat, he raised his mint wine. Holding it up to catch the firelight, he said, “So let us hear no more dark talk of Athalantar. ‘Tis unseemly, when one is a guest.”
“Nay,” the dwarf rapped out, breaking his long silence. He leaned forward, his bristling beard as amber in the firelight as the mane of a lion, and said, gesturing with a leg of spiced lamb as if it were a scepter, “Say on! Not of wizards felling forests, an’ all that. Tell me more of this Athalantar. We’ve heard of strife there, an’ I know not enough of the place to know what to believe. Tell me more of it, my Lord Breiyr!”
The Lord of Morlin cleared his throat with an uncertain rumble. He was a direct man, an old warrior who liked simple questions, orders, and views; explaining the whys and wherefores of an entire realm was a task beyond him. He spread his hands. “I—well, eh, my lord herald, ye are a better judge of things there, having seen more of other lands to compare…”
The herald inclined his head. “I shall essay a quick guide, my lord.” He turned to face the dwarf and said, “Athalantar is very much as you’ve heard—a land of farmers and foresters, with but one hold of size: Hastarl. It is called the Kingdom of the Stag for its last king, Uthgrael Aumar, dead these eight years. He had seven sons, known widely as the Warring Princes. Since their father’s death, they’ve fought for the throne. One had no interest in such strife; another has grown rich in far Calimshan and has shown no desire to return; at least one, and perhaps others, are dead; and the
eldest, Belaur, seems now to hold the Stag Throne. Among the Heralds, though, we wonder who really rules.”
“Men wonder many things,” the elf-lord said smoothly. “One must always take care lest such wonderments be mere castles of fancy.”
“Oh?” the dwarf shot back. “Among my folk, we value plain speech. Say on, sir herald, and heed not the clack of overclever tongues.”
The elf drew himself up coldly, but the dwarf ignored him, bending his gaze on the young herald, while the Lord of Morlin sat looking uncomfortably from one guest to another.
The bearded man smiled reassuringly at his host, and said, “Our concern over the rule of Athalantar stems from Belaur’s manner of achieving victory. He bought, or allied himself with, human wizards from other lands, who are now a strong force in Athalantar. Men call them ‘the Magelords.’”
“Which men?” the elven Highlord asked smoothly. He stretched again, and shook out his long silken sleeves. The dwarf and the herald both watched narrowly and saw long elven fingers, half-hidden beneath the silk, moving in intricate gestures.
“The snake casts a spell!” the dwarf snarled, as he hurled his gnawed leg of lamb across the space between them. His powerful shoulders rippled with the throw, and the bone spun swiftly, catching the elf full in the face and rocking him back in his chair.
Servants shrieked, shouted, and fled. The elf shrieked in fury, grease and sauce shining together on his face, and thrust out one hand. As he pointed at the dwarf, face darkening with rage, a ring on that hand winked with sudden light.
The dwarf roared in fear and anger. His hand streaked to his belt. An instant later, as the Lord of Morlin bellowed in anger and fright of his own and tried to shove himself up from his table with hands no longer as strong as they looked, metal flashed and spun in the firelight. A war axe of the dwarves, flung as hard and as fast as Axelord Arthlach could hurl it, crossed the air even before the dwarf could get out the roar, “For Ammarindar!”
Highlord Falaeve of Siluvanede seemed to be trying to turn and look at the axe, which quivered by his ear, deep-sunk in the high back of his seat. Blood sprayed and splattered in red rain over the white silk, the shimmerweave, and the table around as the elf-lord’s head continued to turn, then flopped and dangled loosely, almost severed.