The Coming Storm (72 page)

From the height of a hill on the most likely path the army would take it was impossible to miss. Two days of steady riding later and it was clear as they watched that the army was indeed moving too slowly. Elon saw standards waver, not the ones of his dreams, the ones that turned, but the ones that didn’t move quickly enough.

How much was incompetence and how much deliberate delay?
he wondered.

There was no way to know.

As they rode through the camped army, Elon studied who was picketed where while a guard ran ahead to announce them.

Far to one side Ailith saw her father’s standard, the castle regnant with the silvery river curled around it.
So, he’d come
. Not that he could have cried off if the High King summoned him. Still. It would make things interesting.

She caught Elon’s eye and pointed to the standard.

An eyebrow went up.

“I wonder how he does without Tolan?” Elon murmured. “Who controls him now?”

Colath looked to see where they looked and saw Riverford’s banner.

He looked at Ailith to hear her answer to Elon’s question.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. He seemed to become more independent as time went by but most likely Mornith does, or another like Tolan. Keep an eye on that standard, Elon. It could turn at any time.”

He nodded.
No surprise. And which others? That was the question
.

The High King’s banner sat with his tent as it should in the center of the army. Like much about Daran, it was oversized, far larger than necessary, a great expanse of deep purple Elven-silk topped by the swallow-tail flag. On that flag was the emblem of his rank, a great crown linking a number of lesser crowns. Gold thread winked and gleamed in the late afternoon sun.

Even in the cool of fall the dark color would render the interior nearly unbearably hot but Daran would have his trappings.

The Guard recognized Elon. He passed him and his party inside without question.

The tent was empty at the moment of all but Daran.

Within the stifling interior, his dark brooding presence only added to the sense of shadows.

It wasn’t the first time Ailith had seen the High King, she’d been properly presented as her father’s presumptive Heir, although never at such close quarters. As always and however trite it sounded, she was reminded of being in the presence of one of the great hunting birds. Like theirs his dark, cold eyes were never quite still, always alert for the nervous motion of potential prey. One had to be wary of that sharp beak.

At the moment, it wasn’t Daran that caught her eye but the great table before him.

As it did Elon.

Not that he needed such a thing. His people had inhabited these lands since before history was written and he knew it well. It was not for his folk that such a thing had been made but for Men.

Still, the memory of how it had been made was mostly a pleasant one.

Foresight had told him he’d stood, then, at that moment, at a pivot point but not that it would be so on so many levels. It had prepared him for Daran’s emissary, for that first offer of peace, the first chance of a real permanent and truly lasting peace between the elder races and Men.

There had been offers before. Many of them. They’d been broken as often as they’d been made.

This his Foresight had predicted might be different. Daran was cut of a different cloth than the others. He seemed truly sincere, not simply looking for concessions of land as the others had, and been given, to the detriment of Elon’s people when those boundaries had been violated again and again. With Daran’s powerful personality there was the chance he might be able to hold his fractious, contentious race in hand long enough for peace to take and hold. It was too great an opportunity not to risk it.

So Elon had.

With that offer had come a thousand unforeseen complications and a hundred compromises. Save in only one area – the boundaries and borders of Elven and Dwarven lands. If they were to have peace, it would be for all three races – and Elon would bring his people and the Dwarves to the table only if Men promised one thing, to set borders and boundaries so that none among men could argue or dispute them.

That had nearly been the sticking point. Daran had debated and fought him on it but Elon had been adamant. And he’d won.

As with everything with Daran he’d gotten his own back by securing Elon’s promise he himself would help set those borders. Not that either the Elves or Dwarves would have accepted any less.

To set borders men would respect one must first have map.

Who could have known that journey would set the foundation for a friendship nearly as strong and binding as his true-friendship with Colath? For that was where and when they’d met Jareth for the first time. It had been an enlightening experience for all of them. Outside of the Kingdom of Marakis, long friends with Talaena Enclave, for the first time Elon met a man who had a concept of honor and duty nearly the like of Elves. That friendship had held true through the years and still did.

Jareth looked at the table before him with a great deal of satisfaction, smiling a little at the memories that came with it.

It was an amazing construction, a masterpiece of both carpentry and art that he was rightly proud of his part in creating.

Here before them lay the whole of the Kingdoms in deep relief.

There were gaps, to be sure.

To the north there was the barest suggestion of the great saw-toothed mountains that rose up so precipitously. On the east it fell away to the splintered, barren plateaus, the spindly spires that wore down to the great desert at the edge of the sea. Canyons and ravines were etched into the foothills of the western ranges that bordered the west as far south as the High King’s city of Doncerric and the sea again. In the center were the plains and green hills of the inner Kingdoms and the Heartlands, around the edges were the forests and fields that were the outer Kingdoms.

Great fingers of the borderlands pierced the Kingdoms, one below Riverford and another above Raven’s nest – the great maze of the plateau he now knew contained the Rift.

Another thrust below Aerilann, while ripples of others turned the border unknown.

Small markers showed where each part of the army was camped, tiny flags in the colors of that Kingdom.

It was something to see, and, seeing it, Ailith’s blood ran cold. She glanced at Elon, knowing  he would see what she did.

Elon didn’t need to see it to know how desperate the situation was. Nor did he doubt that Daran hadn’t the least idea how bad things were.

They were far too far south still. Deep in the Heartlands, in the green fields that were the Kingdoms’ lifeblood. To the north were Aerilann and Lothliann – both vulnerable.

If Ailith’s vision, his vision, was correct and the borderlands creatures came through now, soon, they would sweep down out of the mountains and pour out upon the Heartlands in a flood. With nothing to stop it that torrent would wash up against the borders of both Elven Enclaves, isolating them as the creatures ravaged the green fields of men.

Even worse still, there was no place to stop them there, the battle would be fought in a thousand skirmishes across miles, spreading the army across with no hope of a front.

With an effort, he restrained himself from shaking his head in dismay, knowing it would only anger Daran if he saw it.

Daran looked up as they joined him with something like relief on his narrow strong-boned face.

“Elon, about time. Tell me now how to get this army moving? Never mind.”

He waved it away and with another gesture sent pages running before looking over the others in the party.

Unsurprised, Daran noted the wizard Jareth with still them. The damn wizard was with Elon almost as much as the ever-present Colath. Daran hadn’t decided yet whether he was pleased or displeased with that arrangement.

It also irritated Avila, which had its advantages. Advantages Daran had every intention of using.

Another Elf. This one female.

His eyes settled on the last of the party. Riverford’s wayward Heir. Another problem.

These then, were the ones for whom Elon had cut the High Council short and rushed north to find.

“I see you found them and safe.”

Elon watched him. Daran’s black eyes rested too long on Ailith. Something in his look didn’t bode well.

“I did,” he said, and eyed Daran warily in return.

“Lady Ailith,” Daran said.

Restraining a small frown at something she heard in his voice, Ailith bowed her head a little, “Your Highness.”

She didn’t like the way he looked at her, and something, some instinct warned her that whatever he was about to say wouldn’t be good. A chill went over her and her stomach knotted.

This would be difficult and uncomfortable. Daran disliked both emotions intensely.

Such a little thing she was, as forthright as his brief memory of her introduction at Court served. Her gaze was direct and clear. Without a doubt, by the look of her she was Riverford’s get. Whatever the cause of their problems – and he neither knew nor cared as it was the business of that lesser Kingdom – this part of it was his to do. There was no easy way to say it and he had no time or patience for it anyway. It was best to get it over with quickly and move on to more important matters. It would be the last time she heard that honorific.

Even so, there was a protocol to such things. At least a modicum of formality.

“I regret to inform you your father has disowned you.”

Ailith just stared.

At first, the words made no sense.

Daran had already turned away, gone back to brooding over the map when what he’d said penetrated. It took her breath away. It was as if she’d been struck, the shock of it rocked her. For a moment she could only stand, motionless, trying to encompass the reality of it.

It didn’t seem real.

Jareth heard the words as something meaningless and then meaning took hold. He swore softly under his breath as his heart twisted, sank. Disowned. He closed his eyes in dismay and sorrow, in a grief and pain nearly as great as Ailith’s own. No home or family, everything, gone forever. The woman who had owned Westin’s Hall, so much more a ruler than he who ruled there would never be.

He didn’t want to believe it, yet Daran’s dismissiveness spoke volumes. Ailith of Riverford was no longer important to him.

It was bitter, all the more so for the memory of how regal she’d looked in the Westin’s Hall that day. For all she hated the formalities, hated the titles, she’d been meant to lead.

Disowned. It wasn’t a term Elon knew. That Jareth was swearing beneath his breath so forcefully told him much, though. Ailith’s face even more so.

Something important had happened here.

Her expression was still but by the stunned look in her eyes and what trembled through the bond he knew she’d been shaken badly.

Oddly, Ailith found she was surprised by it and she didn’t know why, she should have expected it. It was so obviously the next move. Yet she’d assumed for so long Riverford would be hers it never occurred to her that her father’s ensorcellment would change that. It hurt. It hurt so much more than she could have imagined. It was as if some essential part of her, some part of her identity, had been ripped away. She understood now, far better, how Elon, Colath and Jalila felt about Aerilann.

“When?” she asked, flatly. For some reason she needed to know, had to know.

Surprised at the interruption, Daran glanced up with an irritated frown. The matter was done, what mattered when it had been done?

“A week ago,” Daran said.

To his surprise she seemed to be taking it well. He’d expected some weeping and wailing but she might have been Elven herself for all it showed.

Ah, Tolan
, Ailith thought.
Plotting again
.

That would have been just before he’d taken Elon and Colath. Once, Tolan had been a man. He would have known what the news would mean to her. It would have been a devastating blow, then, too. He’d wanted her shaken, shattered, when he took them. Word had just not reached her.