“They were afraid of something,” Verhanna said, lowering her voice and tapping her chin thoughtfully. “At first I thought it was us, but now I think they were afraid of Diviros.”
The kender crinkled his nose. “Why would they be afraid of him?”
Verhanna wrapped her reins tightly around her fist. “I have an idea.”
She turned her horse back toward the bard’s campfire. “Get your knife out and follow me!” she ordered, putting her spurs to work.
Her ebony mount bolted through the underbrush, its heavy hooves thrashing loudly. Puzzled, Rufus turned his unwieldy animal after his captain, his heart pounding in excitement.
Verhanna burst into the little clearing in time to see Diviros shoving his small son into the back of one of their carts. The bard whirled, eyes wide in alarm. He reached under the cart and brought out a leaf-headed spear-hardly bardic equipment. Verhanna shifted her round buckler to catch the spear point and deflect it away. Diviros planted the heel of the spear shaft against his foot like an experienced soldier and stood while the mounted warrior charged toward him.
“Circle around them, Wart!” the captain cried before ducking her face behind the rim of her shield. Verhanna and Diviros were seconds from collision when the young elf boy stood up in the cart and hurled an earthenware pot at his father. The thick clay vessel thudded against Diviros’s back. He dropped his spear and fell to his knees, gasping for air. Verhanna reined in her mount and presented the tip of her sword at his throat.
“Yield, in the name of the Speaker of the Sun!” she declared. Diviros’s head dropped down in dejection, and he spread his hands wide on the ground.
Rufus clattered up to the cart. The boy scrambled over the baggage and bounced up and down in front of the kender.
“You’ve saved us!” he cried joyously.
“What’s going on here?” Rufus asked, his confusion evident. He looked up at Verhanna. “Captain, what in darkness is going on?”
“Our friend Diviros is a slaver.” Verhanna prodded Diviros with her sword tip. “Aren’t you?” The elf didn’t answer.
“Yes!” the boy said. “He was taking us all to Ergoth to be sold into slavery!”
The two elf women were released from their cart, where Diviros had bound and gagged them. Gradually the whole story came out.
The Guards of the Sun, under Kith-Kanan’s orders, had so disrupted the traffic of slaves from Silvanesti to Ergoth that slave dealers in both lands were resorting to ruses like this one. Small groups of slaves, disguised as settlers and held by one or two experienced drivers, were being sent on many different routes.
Verhanna ordered Diviros bound. The elf women did her bidding eagerly. Once the erstwhile bard was secured, Rufus approached her and said, “What do we do now, Captain? We can’t keep trailing the Kagonesti with a prisoner and three civilians in tow.”
Disappointment was written on Verhanna’s face. She knew the kender was right, yet she burned to bring the crafty Kagonesti slavers to justice.
“We can resume the hunt,” she said firmly. “Their trail was leading west, and we’ll continue in that direction.”
“What’s in the west?”
“Pax Tharkas. We can turn Diviros over to my father’s guards there. The captives will be taken care of, too.”
She looked up into the starry sky. “I want those elves, Wart. They ambushed my soldiers and made a fool of me with their smoke phantom. I want them brought to justice!” She drove her mailed fist into her palm.
They bundled Diviros into one of the carts and set Deramani, the older elf woman, to watch him. The younger woman, Selenara, volunteered to drive their wagon. Rufus tied Diviros’s horse to the other cart and climbed in beside Kivinellis. Once Verhanna was mounted, she led the caravan out of the clearing and headed west.
The elf boy told Rufus and Verhanna that he was actually an orphan from the streets of Silvanost. Then he proceeded to shower them with questions about Qualinesti, Qualinost, and the Speaker of the Sun. He’d heard tales of Kith-Kanan’s exploits in the Kinslayer War, but since the schism between East and West, even the mention of Kith-Kanan’s name was frowned upon in Silvanesti.
Verhanna told him all he wanted to know—except that she was the daughter of the famous Speaker.
Then Rufus posed a question to Kivinellis. “Hey, was that story about the elf coming out of the tree true?” he asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” put in Verhanna. “Diviros was lying, playing the part of a bard.”
“Oh, no, no!” said the boy urgently. “It was true! The green-fingered elf appeared just as he said!”
“Well, what happened to him?” queried the kender.
“Diviros tried to feed him a potion in order to steal his will so he could sell him in Ergoth as a slave. But the potion had no effect on him! In the night, while we all slept, the green-fingered one vanished!”
Verhanna shrugged. “I don’t believe it,” she muttered.
The red moon, Lunitari, set at midnight. The freed slaves slept in the carts, but Verhanna and Rufus remained awake, and the caravan continued to move west through the night.
7 — The Black Amulet
“Clear Away, clear away there! Do you want to be mashed to jelly? Get out!” The dwarf overseer, Lugrim, bellowed down at one of the workers pushing a granite block ten feet long, eight feet wide, and six feet high. It didn’t help the grunt gang that the rotund dwarf stood on top of the block, adding his own weight to their overall burden. The block was sliding slowly down an earthen ramp. Other workers, human and half-human boys, skipped back and forth in front of the stone, sweeping the wave of displaced dirt out of the way with shovels and rakes. Theirs was a dangerous job; the block could not be stopped once in motion, and if the boys got caught or fell while sweeping, the stone would crush them. Only the most nimble worked as sweepers. Ulvian was embedded in a mass of sweating, straining bodies, his hands flat on the block and his bare toes dug into the dirt. The red rain had stopped just two days before. Its remains were evident all over Pax Tharkas in the form of crimson puddles, and now the damp soil gripped like glue. Five days he had been at Pax Tharkas. Five days of exhaustion, toil, and fear.
“Push, you laggards!” Lugrim exhorted. “My old mother could push harder than you!”
“I knew your mother,” Dru shot back quickly, face to the ground as he strained. “Her breath could move solid rock!”
The overseer turned and glared in the direction from which the voice had come. A squat fellow, even by dwarven standards, he could barely see over his thick, fur-wrapped belly. “Who said that?” he demanded, his eyes darting over the gang.
“All together, lads,” grunted Splint. As one, the convicts gave a hard, sudden shove. The block slid forward, skewing to the left. The dwarf atop the stone lost his footing and toppled over the side. He let out a loud “oof!” and lay stunned. The block ground inexorably onward.
Merith appeared, elegantly clad in burnished armor and a fur mantle, his fair hair clean and neatly combed. Helping the fallen dwarf to his feet, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Aye.” Lugrim braced his arms against his back and winced, then turned ponderously to face the grunt gang, who were watching him. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, scum?”
“Yes, Master Lugrim,” they replied in unison, sing-songing their words like naughty children.
Merith easily picked out Ulvian in the crowd of twenty convicts. The prince didn’t meet his glance but kept his legs driving forward in the blood-colored mud. In spite of his growing blond beard, the marks of his beating by Splint still showed. Gossip had told Merith what happened, but the warrior refused to intervene. Kith-Kanan’s son had hard lessons to learn if he was to survive.
Below the pinnacle where Merith stood, the two square tower keeps that were the innermost defense of the fortress rose to unequal heights. Construction on the west tower was farther along than on the east. Its parapets were already in place. From this distance, Merith could see tiny figures walking on them and on the great wall that connected the two towers.