“I will deal with Rashas in good time,” Porthios declared grimly. He wanted to mount Stallyar, to fly to Qualinesti and to storm the Tower of the Sun. Unconsciously his hand went to his medallion, the badge of his rank as Speaker. His temper flared as he tried to imagine the arrogance of those who would work so hard against his will.
Only gradually did reality intrude. He remembered the imminent campaign, the last stage of an unfinished task. He knew that he would have to carry that matter through to its finish. The marshal looked at Samar, who, like himself, was kneeling over the wounded man.
“Damn Rashas and all his ilk!” Porthios growled. “I’d like to go and deal with him right now... but you know I can’t.”
“I understand,” Samar said grimly. “And you should know that all Silvanesti is grateful for your sense of duty.”
“I also know you cherish your queen, my friend. I must ask you to go to Qualinesti, to see what aid you can offer her. And to tell her that I will be coming very soon.”
“As you command, lord. I could wish to do no less.”
“It was Konnal, then. He was the traitor,” declared the young elf.
“Yes,” the dragon replied. “He returned to my island to give me the date of Porthios’s attack.”
“The bastard!” hissed the lancer, his voice a growl of pure rage.
After a momentary hesitation, the dragon squinted carefully at the older elf.
“Samar... I thought it was you. And so Konnal conspired to draw you away?”
“With the help of Rashas of Qualinesti, yes. It’s hard to think of two more vile traitors, nor more natural conspirators, than that pair.”
“Still,” interjected the young elf, addressing the dragon. “I know you didn’t kill Porthios. The ambush failed, of course!”
The serpent shrugged. “Yes, apparently you know that he lived. Still, the ambush was not without some success. Porthios was careless.”
“He was,” agreed the elder elf. “But it was because he was worried about his wife.”
Chapter Four
Battle in the Delta
Porthios completed the preparations for his campaign like an automaton. With every free moment, he thought of his wife, held prisoner in his own homeland. For every minute he spent planning his battle against draconians, he spent an hour plotting the vengeance he would take against Senator Rashas of the Thalas-Enthia in Qualinost.
He drew his only comfort from the knowledge that Samar had gone to Alhana. The loyal warrior-mage, carrying his dragonlance and riding his fleet griffon, had no doubt made the long journey as quickly as possible, though even at an exhausting pace, the flight would take a week. And Samar’s devotion to Alhana was legendary. Hadn’t he even blushed in embarrassment over the matter at their last dinner together? And there were other allies close to Qualinesti. Much as he distrusted his brother-in-law, Porthios had hope that Tanis Half-Elven would also come to the aid of the queen.
Furthermore, Porthios felt quite certain that Rashas wouldn’t dare to harm Alhana. Most of his misgivings arose from the fact that he knew his wife would be frightened and anxious about her detainment, and he wanted to be able to alleviate her concerns. And there was the matter of his unborn child. How wrong it was that the future king of elvenkind might enter life as a captive of his own countrymen!
Yet he tried to force himself to attend the matters of his duty, to finish the task toward which he had devoted the last three decades of his life. The preparations went well. His was a veteran army, and under Generals Bandial and Cantal-Silaster, he had many reliable officers who tended to the mundane matters of readiness. As the departure date for his sweep against the delta approached, Porthios found himself increasingly distracted by his hope for a letter, for any kind of message, from Qualinesti. But the time slipped away without any word, and finally the marshal resolved himself to focus on this one last campaign.
At least Konnal stayed out of his way. The Silvanesti general had been gone for several days after the meeting of the senate, but then he had returned to lend his considerable organizational skills to the preparation for the expedition. Thanks to Konnal, Porthios didn’t have to worry about getting the boats he would need to transport his force down the Thon-Thalas. Furthermore, the general organized a full array of provisions, wheels of hard cheese, barrels of salted fish, and crates of elven warbread that were gathered at the dock several days before the army was due to depart.
The standard component of replacement weapons was also delivered promptly. There were boxes upon boxes of deadly, steel-headed arrows, as well as a hundred or more replacement swords. Even though the elven weapons were of splendid quality, a few of them inevitably were broken or lost during the course of a campaign. Other crates contained shields, buckles, straps, sandals, and bedrolls, all the equipment necessary to keep his warriors safe and as comfortable as possible.
Delivered to the docks at the last minute were two long wooden crates, secured by thick hasps and shiny steel locks. These were the storage cases for precious dragonlances, each holding a pair of the lethal weapons that could be borne by elves on foot and used against the event of draconic attack. Though Porthios was not expecting to encounter dragons on this campaign, he had requested that the weapons be added to his inventory as a standard precaution; he would assign one pair of lances to each of his two divisions.
The twenty companies of Silvanesti warriors boarded the boats with the first light of dawn on the Day of Second Dream Dance. Despite the early hour, thousands of city elves turned out to cheer their heroes’ departure. Carried more by the current than by the languid efforts of the polers, the wide, flat riverboats slowly drifted away from the dock and meandered down the stream. The warriors gazed back toward Silvanost, looking at the towers and gardens bright in the morning sun, enjoying the cheers that remained audible until the force made its way around the first great bend of the river.
The Qualinesti archers, all of whom would ride their griffons through the air, departed from their bivouac outside the city. Though they could make the journey in a fraction of the time required by the sluggish riverboats, Porthios had ordered that the two forces would travel together. He considered it a symbolic gesture, but an important one. Under his command, the elves of the two nations had learned to function with cooperation and reliance upon one another. He wasn’t about to let some notion of favoritism color the impressions of his Silvanesti warriors.
It was for that same reason that Porthios rode along on river barges. Stallyar would carry him into battle, of course, but for the river voyage, the griffon flew above the boats, gliding back and forth while his master met with Bandial and Cantal-Silaster and planned the specifics of the campaign on the open deck.
During the voyage, the plan evolved from its simple beginnings. Instead of a single landing at the broad clearing located by Aleaha Takmarin, the army would be split into two divisions and would land in two places, on the northeast and northwest ends of the island. In each place, the ground troops would quickly establish a large, fortified encampment. The Qualinesti, on their griffons, would fly back and forth, maintaining communication between the two divisions, and the Silvanesti would quickly venture forth to clear the ground between the two camps of draconians and other dangerous inhabitants. Once the two forces were securely united, the Wildrunners would commence a southward sweep, spanning the width of the island and forcing all unfriendly denizens into a south corner at the bottom, where—if any survived—they would be confronted in a battle of annihilation.
With the griffons wheeling back and forth overhead and the sure knowledge that this was the last outpost of the nightmare that had plagued their realm for three decades, the Silvanesti elves on the boats treated the four-day journey down the river almost as a holiday outing. The splendid woodlands around them were sculpted as perfectly as any formal garden, with groves neatly arranged, framed by trimmed hedges, often complemented by regular, reflecting pools. At night, no worm was safe anywhere near the army encampment, and all day fishing lines drooped into the water from stem to stern of each boat. The elves ate well—fresh fish morning, noon, and night—and the crated provisions hadn’t even been touched as the army finally came within sight of the festering island.