Gilthas was about to suggest the meeting be adjourned when the chamber was rocked by a violent pounding on the great golden doors. The noise reverberated like a drumbeat, and a steward immediately looked through the spyhole, then turned to announce to the chamber:
“It is the scout, Guilderhand. He says he has information of urgency to the senate, relevant to the matter being discussed here today.”
“Admit him at once,” Gilthas said, knowing that Rashas would have spoken the same words if he hadn’t. Guilderhand was one of the senator’s trusted agents—“scout” was a euphemistic term for an elf who was widely regarded as a spy. His arrival at such a climactic juncture was typical, for he had a way of drawing attention to himself when he wanted to be noticed.
The scout came into the room, and if Palthainon had looked travel-worn and scuffed from the road, Guilderhand looked as if he had crawled through a muddy sewer to reach this exalted council. His hair was plastered to his skull, his face was filthy, and his dirt-green cloak was thick with brambles and leaves. Apparently unmindful of his unkempt state, he stalked down the aisle and climbed the steps toward the rostrum. He offered a perfunctory bow to Gilthas and a longer genuflection toward Rashas before turning and sweeping his gaze across the rapt audience of elven rulership.
“Elven nobles, esteemed senators, honored elders,” he began. He paused, a long delay even by elven standards, but no one spoke. No elf’s attention wavered even slightly from the bedraggled figure.
“I come with grim news from the west... news that would brook no delay. I have traveled day and night to reach the city and came at once to the chamber where I knew our nation’s wisest leadership would be gathered.”
Again he paused for dramatic effect. Gilthas wanted to urge him to get on with it. Why should news that would brook no delay be delivered with such tantalizing deliberation? But he knew the ways of Rashas’s spy, and so he held his tongue.
“The honorable Palthainon is correct in reporting to you that the bandits number at least two hundred,” Guilderhand said, with a bow toward the general, who stood proudly aloof as he accepted the praise.
That statement begged another question, at least to the Speaker, who was listening with a certain amount of skepticism: How did Guilderhand know the substance of Palthainon’s report? Gilthas knew then that the spy had been waiting outside, eavesdropping on the meeting, waiting until the moment was right for his dramatic entrance.
“My own investigations carried me right into the bandits’ camp, and it was there that I gained my startling information. I have learned the nature of these outlaws and the identity—though it grieves me to know it—of their leader.”
Again he paused, but this time there came urging from the Thalas-Enthia. “Speak—say the name! Who is it?”
“The bandits that have come to prey on our western highways are not, as we all expected, mere human wastrels, scoundrels who seek to enrich themselves off of elven labors. No, my honored leaders, I tell you that these bandits are themselves elves, traitors against their nation and their people!”
“Shame!” The sibilant curse rose from the Thalas-Enthia and was followed by uglier cries and demands for further information. “Who is their leader? Who draws elves into treachery?”
“Their leader is a dark elf, one who is well known to these chambers and to this very rostrum. I grieve to tell you, members of the Senate of Qualinesti, that these outlaws represent an insurgency, and that they are led by none other than Porthios Solostaran, the former Speaker of the Sun and current traitor to his people.”
Gilthas felt weak in the knees and had to exert all of his discipline to keep himself from falling. Porthios! Turned against Qualinesti, violating the exile that he had chosen as he made his escape from Silvanesti!
Suddenly it seemed to the young Speaker as though the entire world was going insane, torn by a hurricane of uncontrollable events... and that he, Gilthas Solostaran, somehow stood at the center of the whirlwind.
“And this was the place you now came to live?” Silvanoshei asked the green dragon.
“Yes. For my part, I flew westward for many days. It was not the purposeful flight of a journey to a specific destination. Instead, I spiraled north or south as the spirit moved me, stopping to hunt whenever I chose. Once I killed a whole herd of cows just so I could feast on delicacies—tongues, hearts, udders—that were most pleasing to my ancient palate.
“I flew past the snowcapped High Kharolis, for I was seeking a vast woodland—and, too, there were more griffons there than I could abide. I remember a mountain that loomed high, in the ominous shape of a human skull, but the environment was far too dry for any green dragon. The mountains beyond showed more promise, for they were forested, but they were also well populated with settlements of humans, hill dwarves, and elves. I had had enough of war for a while and knew that any attempt to settle here would be met with ruthless violence.
“And thus I continued westward, skirting to the southward of an elven city of arched bridges and a lofty, golden tower. Finally I found myself over a woodland that at last reminded me of Silvanesti, for here the trees stretched in a blanket from one horizon to the other. Of course, I did not make my lair near the great, crystalline city, nor near any concentration of elven habitations. Instead, I continued over the limitless forest, allowing my wings to glide through the air, bearing the one I fancied to be the new master of these skies.
“Eventually I came into sight of a vast ocean, the western terminus of this realm, and a perfect coastline for a dragon lair. It was not flat and marshy, like so much of Silvanesti’s southern border. Instead, the forest continued right to the ocean’s edge, where in many places the land plunged down steep and craggy bluffs to meet a rocky and inhospitable shore. There were caves in these cliffs, and some of them even smelled of ancient dragon spoor.
“I found this large cavern... as you can see, a place where fresh water trickles warmly from springs in the bedrock, where moss grows thick across the flatness of smooth rock. And this is the place where I made my new home.”
“So you, too, had come to live in the path of war,” Silvanoshei said, and his voice was almost sympathetic.
Chapter Ten
Horizons of Conquest
“Can you believe there was a time when all elves lived like this?” Porthios said, leaning back in his hammock, pushing with a sandaled foot to sway the garland-draped net easily in the clearing.
“Sometimes I wonder why we felt it necessary to move into cities,” Alhana agreed, likewise swaying beside her husband. Silvanoshei was drowsing quietly at her breast. The baby seemed content to eat and sleep, for the most part. Porthios had just chuckled softly with the realization that, for the first time in his life, he was happy with the same regimen.
The three of them were not alone. They were never alone in a camp of more than two hundred warriors, many with spouses and children. Still, they shared a sense of sublime solitude, the late afternoon broken only by the sounds of murmured conversation and the pleasant, swooshing sound of the gentle wind through the trees.