But this was no elf. Instead, he stared upward at a creature that towered over his head. The last thing Giarna saw before the club crushed his skull and scattered his brains across the muddy ground was a lone white tooth, jutting proudly from the attacker’s jaw.
“He’s alive,” whispered Kith-Kanan, scarcely daring to breathe. He kneeled beside Vanesti, noting the slow rise and fall of his nephew’s chest. Steam wisped from his nostrils at terrifyingly long intervals.
“Help little guy?” inquired One-Tooth.
“Yes.” Kith smiled through his tears, looking with affection at the huge creature who must have marched hundreds of miles to find him. He had asked him why, and the giant had merely shrugged.
One-Tooth reached down and grasped the bundle that was Vanesti. They wrapped him in a cloak, and now Kith rigged a small lean-to beneath the shelter of some leafy branches.
“I’ll light a fire,” said the elf. “Maybe that will draw some of the Wildrunners.” But the soaked wood refused to burn, and so the trio huddled and shivered through the long night. Then in the morning, they heard the sound of horses pushing along a forest trail.
Kith wormed his way through the bushes, discovering a column of Wildrunner scouts. Several veterans, recognizing their leader, quickly approached him, but they had to overcome their fear of the hill giant when they came upon the scene of the savage fight.
Gingerly they rigged a sling for the youth and prepared to make the grueling ride to Sithelbec.
“This time you’ll come home with me,” Kith told the giant. In the thinning mist, they started toward the east. Not for several days, until they met more survivors of his army—some who had had word from the fortress—did they learn that the home they marched to had been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble.
Epilogue
Shapeless blocks of stone jutted into the sky, framed by the burned-out timbers that outlined walls, gates, and other structures of wood. Sithelbec lay in ruins. The tornadoes and lightning had razed the fortress more effectively than any human attack could have done. The surviving Wildrunners collected on the plains around the wreckage, nursing their wounded and trying to piece together the legacy of the disaster.
Only gradually did they become aware that the humans were gone. The Army of Ergoth had broken and fled, driven by nature to do what forty years of elven warfare had been unable to accomplish. The surviving humans streamed toward the lush farmlands of Daltigoth, the war forgotten.
The Theiwar dwarves—those who survived—headed back to Thorbardin. And the elves who had fought for the human cause returned to the woodlands, there to strive for survival in the ruins left by the storms of spring. Dunbarth Ironthumb organized the ranks of his Hylar legion, most of whom had been fortunate enough to find riverbank caves that had sheltered them during the worst of the storm.
“It’s back to good, old-fashioned rock walls and a stone ceiling over my head!” announced the gruff veteran, clasping Kith-Kanan’s hand before he embarked on the long march.
“You’ve earned it,” said the elf sincerely. For a long time, he watched the receding column of stocky figures until it disappeared into the mists to the south.
Sithas journeyed to the plains once more, two months after the great storm. He came to get his son, to bring him home. Vanesti would live, though barring a miracle, he would never stand on his own legs.
The twins stood before the ruins of Sithelbec. The city was a blackened patch of earth, a chaotic jumble of charred timbers and broken, twisted stone. The Speaker of the Stars met his brother’s eyes.
“Tamanier Ambrodel has gone to Daltigoth. He, together with an ambassador from Thorbardin—a Hylar ambassador—will arrange a treaty. We will see the swords sheathed once and for all.”
“Those swords that remain,” said Kith quietly. He thought of Parnigar and Kencathedrus—and Suzine—and all the others who had perished in the course of this war.
“This war has changed many things—perhaps everything,” observed Sithas quietly. Hermathya told me! his mind screamed silently. He wanted to accuse his brother, to set this discussion on the solid ground of truth, but he couldn’t. Kith nodded, silent.
These lands, Sithas thought, with a look at the wreckage around him. Were they worth clinging to? They had been held at a cost in lives that was beyond measuring. Yet what had they won?
Humans would never be totally banished from the western lands, the Speaker knew. Kith-Kanan would certainly allow those who had fought for his cause to remain. And the elves who had opposed them—what would be their fate? Permanent banishment? Sithas didn’t want to think of further strife, further suffering inflicted upon his people. Yet at the same time, he was opposed to further changes.
There was only one way now to preserve the purity of Silvanesti. Just as the infected limb of a diseased person must be removed to save the whole, so must the infected society of his nation be cut away to preserve the sanctity of Silvanesti.
“I’m granting you the lands extending from here to the west,” announced Sithas firmly. “They are no longer part of Silvanesti; You may do with them as you like.”
“I have thought about this,” replied Kith, his voice a match for his brother’s strength. His words surprised Sithas, for he had thought his announcement would be unanticipated. Yet Kith-Kanan, too, seemed to sense that they were no longer part of the same world.
“I will build my new capital to the west, among the forested hills.” Qualinesti, he thought, though he didn’t say the name aloud. To himself, he vowed that it would be a land of free elves, a place that would never go to war for the sake of some mistaken purity.
As the two brothers parted, the clouds remained leaden over the storm-lashed plains. The elves, once one nation, henceforth became two.