“The troops are ready, my lord marshal,” reported that erstwhile general. “Would you care to give the orders to charge?”
“We’ll attack, General... but not with a charge.”
Bandial looked surprised but said nothing. He waited for an explanation.
“Call up your archers,” Porthios said. He turned to squint into the sky, looking at the monsters arrayed on the open hillside. “We’re going to finish this off with arrows.”
“And so they fell without fighting, killed to the last by elven arrows.” The dragon spoke without passion, as if describing the extermination of an anthill, or the removal of a nest of mice.
“And you—you lived, but you didn’t help them?” the young elf demanded accusingly. He stalked a few paces away, then turned back and glared at the creature.
“Why should I?” retorted the wyrm, his tone genuinely curious.
“They were your comrades!”
“They were nothing! The battle was lost, and there was nothing for me in Silvanesti. Instead, I decided to go away.”
“Yes,” Samar noted wryly. “And perhaps that was not such a bad idea.”
“But in Silvanesti, what happened next?” asked the young elf. “I must know!”
“You should know—but it is a tale of elves, not dragons,” replied the serpent.
“I was not there, not until much later, but I can tell the story,” said Samar softly. “It is not a pretty tale, nor one that should make any elf feel even a twinge of pride.”
“You must tell me!” demanded the other.
“And so I shall...”
Chapter Six
Trial in the Sinthal-Elish
“Two hundred and seventeen Qualinesti flew with this army... and two hundred and one of them came back!”
Konnal’s voice boomed through the chamber in the Hall of Balif, which was crowded with Silvanesti nobles and high-ranking commoners. The gathering, occurring the day after the Second Division’s return to the city, was so large that it was occurring here in the palace, rather than in the smaller council chamber at the base of the Tower of the Stars.
Now Konnal had the rapt attention of every elf present. Porthios sat on the marshal’s chair at the front of the rostrum, steeling his face to show no reaction as he listened to this elf’s words. He knew what was coming, hated the words, even the speaker, but he had no reply.
For Konnal spoke only the truth.
“More than four thousand Silvanesti sailed down the river... four thousand of our bold sons, warriors we entrusted to the command of this—” the general groped theatrically for the term, making it apparent that he couldn’t bring himself to repeat the name of the other nation of elvenkind—“this prince out of the west!”
He paused again, looking at a small piece of paper he held in his hand. On that paper were numbers, though Porthios suspected that the general was fully acquainted with each figure on the sheet. Still, Konnal made a great show of studying the information, and, like the rest of the nobles, generals, and lords, the marshal waited without making a sound.
When Konnal spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper, yet still it carried to the far corners of the marbled chamber.
“Fewer than seventeen hundred of them returned.”
“Shame!” The word was hissed by a Silvanesti noble, the elf anonymous among the throng of his fellows. All of them sat on their stools, rigid and stern, their looks cold and accusing. The charge was repeated, picked up, carried with sibilant force throughout the chamber. None shouted it, but every voice, it seemed, echoed it, until the sound washed over Porthios like waves pounding against a beach of sand, driving into his soul, twisting and tearing and flensing his flesh away.
“Shame... shame... shame... shame.”
Konnal, the master of timing, allowed the sound to be repeated for a long time, until the resonance had been drilled into every ear, repeating in the depths of every mind, universally condemning the marshal who stood alone on the rostrum. The golden images high on the walls glared down, silent and accusing. Only then did Konnal raise his hand. As if trained to wait for the cue, the elves ceased the chant.
“This is a tragedy... a catastrophe... a failure,” he said grimly. “These facts are apparent to us all, and these facts alone suggest that action is required. But I submit, honored nobles, esteemed senators, brave generals, that this is more than a tragic, catastrophic failure.”
He whirled, his cold eyes resting on Porthios, and suddenly, with utter clarity, Porthios saw where Konnal was going. And there was nothing he could do to prevent it, save to feel an insignificant twinge of satisfaction as, with his next words, the general proved that the marshal’s instant of foresight was correct.
“I say to you, elves of Silvanesti, that this is nothing less than betrayal!”
The hiss of agreement came from all over the hall, a nearly universal sentiment that surprised Porthios with its passion and depth. His first reaction was to flush with anger and scorn. Could these Silvanesti elves really be that stupid? He drew a deep breath before he stood and cursed them, knowing that such a course, however gratifying, would only fan the flames of a very dangerous situation.
Instead, he rose from his stool to stand, his expression mild as he regarded the array of hostile glares around him. He spotted a few sympathetic faces—Lord Dolphius shook his head in dismay, while General Bandial’s one-eyed visage was locked in an expression of dignified outrage at his fickle countrymen.
Like his expression, Porthios kept his voice calm as he began to speak. Ignoring the undercurrent of muttering, he spoke quietly, thereby forcing the elves in the hall to fall silent in an effort to hear.
“General Konnal is right about a number of things.” His opening statement provoked some startled astonishment, though all too many elves nodded in arrogant agreement, as if he could have said nothing else. Grimly he resolved to ignore the prevailing mood, to speak his piece deliberately, carefully, accurately.
“The events on the delta island were catastrophic and tragic. Far too many brave warriors lost their lives. The plan of attack was mine, and the responsibility for its execution lay with me as well.” He paused to draw a breath, fairly certain that his calm and reasonable approach would begin to reach these elves. After all, weren’t they famed as the calmest and most reasonable people on all Krynn?
“The opposition on the island was well prepared, and our initial—”
“You killed my son!” shouted a noblewoman from the back of the house, and abruptly the Sinthal-Elish rang with echoed cries of outrage. Once again Porthios was shocked by the depth of emotion, and for the first time, he worried that the outcome might indeed go badly for him. Furthermore, it was harder than ever to retain his self-control, to master the rising temper that sought to burst from his expressions and words.
“I did not kill your son. In point of fact, I did everything in my power to save him, just as I have done everything in my power to restore Silvanesti from the effects of Lorac Caladon’s nightmare!”
There was still an undercurrent of muttering, and Porthios felt his voice rising as he struggled to be heard. “Is there an elf here who does not remember the state of this nation twenty years ago? Who does not know that I have dedicated those years of my life, that I have worked with my wife—your queen—to wrest this hallowed land from the corruption that, some claimed, would forever make Silvanesti a place of ruin and death?”
“Qualinesti scum!” came another shout, this one in an elder’s stern and unforgiving voice. “Your own people lived, while ours died!”