The dragons departed, bearing the strange girl away with them. The Dark Knights of Neraka swept down upon the Silvanesti people, carrying salvation in one hand, death in the other.
Alhana’s heart hurt almost to breaking at the sound of the screams of those first to fall victim to the wrath of the Dark Knights. Smoke was already starting to rise from the beautiful city. Yet she reached out a hand to detain Rolan of the kirath, who was on his feet, sword in hand.
“Where do you think you are going?” Alhana demanded.
“To save them,” Rolan said grimly. “To save them or die with them.”
“A witless act. Would you throw away your life for nothing?”
“We must do something!” Rolan cried, his face livid. “We must help them!”
“We are thirty,” Alhana answered. “The humans outnumber us dozens to one.” She looked back grimly, pointed to the fleeing Silvanesti. “If our people would stand and fight, we might be able to help them, but—look at that! Look at them! Some flee in confusion and panic. Others stand and sing praises to this false god!”
“The human is clever,” Samar said quietly. “With her trickery and her promises, she seduced your people as surely as she seduced that poor besotted boy out there. We can do nothing to help them. Not now—not until reason prevails. But we might be able to help him.”
Tears streamed down Rolan’s cheeks. Every elven death cry seemed to strike him, for his body shuddered at each. He stood irresolute, blinking his eyes and watching the gray tendrils of smoke rising from Silvanost. Alhana did not weep. She had no more tears left.
“Samar, look!” Kiryn pointed. “Silvanoshei. They are taking him away. If we’re going to do something, we’d better do it fast, before they reach the city and lock him up in some dungeon.”
The young man stood on the battlefield in the shadow of Mina’s pyre and appeared stunned to the point of insensibility. He did not look to see what was happening to his people. He did not make any move at all. He stared as if transfixed at where she had stood. Four humans—soldiers, not Knights—had been left to guard him. Seizing hold of him, two began to drag him off. The other two followed along, swords drawn, keeping careful watch.
Only four of them. The rest of the Knights and soldiers had raced off to effect the subjugation and looting of Silvanost, about a mile distant. Their camp was empty, abandoned except for these four and the prince.
“We do what we came to do,” Alhana said. “We rescue the prince. Now is our chance.”
Samar rose up from his hiding place. He gave a piercing cry, that of a hawk, and the woods were alive with elven warriors, emerging from the shadows.
Samar motioned his warriors forward. Alhana rose too, but she remained behind a moment, placed her hand upon Rolan’s shoulder.
“Forgive me, Rolan of the Kirath,” Alhana said. “I know your pain, and I share it. I spoke in haste. There is something we can do.”
Rolan looked at her, the tears still glimmering in his eyes.
“We can vow to return and avenge the dead,” she said.
Rolan gave a fierce nod.
Gripping her weapon, Alhana caught up with Samar, and they soon joined the main body of the elven warriors, who ran silently, unseen, from out the whispering shadows.
Silvanoshei’s captors hauled him back toward Silvanost. The four men were put out, grumbling that they were missing the fun of looting and burning the elven city.
Silvanoshei stumbled over the uneven ground, blind, deaf, oblivious to everything. He could not hear the cries, he could not smell the smoke of destruction nor see it rising from his city. He saw only Mina. He smelled only the smoke of her pyre. He heard only her voice chanting the litany of the One God. The god she worshiped. The god who had brought them together. You are the Chosen.
He remembered the night of the storm, the night the ogres had attacked their camp. He remembered how the storm had made his blood burn. He had likened it to a lover. He remembered the desperate run to try to save his people, and the lightning bolt that had sent him tumbling down the ravine and into the shield.
The Chosen.
How had he been able to pass through the shield, when no others could do so?
That same lightning bolt blazed through his mind.
Mina had passed through the shield.
The Chosen. The hand of the One God. An immortal hand that had touched him with a lover’s caress. The same hand had thrown the bolt to block his path and raised the shield to let him enter. The immortal hand had pointed his way to Mina on the battlefield, had guided the arrows that felled Cyan Bloodbane. The hand had rested against his own hand and given him the strength to uproot the lethal Shield Tree.
The immortal hand cupped around him, held him, healed him, and he was comforted as he had been in his mother’s arms the night the assassins had tried to slay him. He was the Chosen. Mina had told him so. He would give himself to the One God. He would allow that comforting hand to guide him along the chosen path. Mina would be there waiting for him at the end.
What did the One God want of him now? What was the plan for him?
He was a prisoner, chained and manacled.
Silvanoshei had never prayed to any god. After the Chaos War, there had been no gods to answer prayers. His parents had told him that mortals were on their own. They had to make do in this world, rely on themselves. It seemed to him, looking back, that mortals had made a hash of things. Perhaps Mina had been right when she told him that he did not love her, he loved the god in her. She was so confident, so certain, so selfpossessed. She never doubted. She was never afraid. In a world of darkness where everyone else was stumbling blindly, she alone was granted the gift of sight.
Silvanoshei did not even know how to pray to a god. His parents had never spoken of the old religion. The subject was a painful one for them. They were hurt, but they were also angry. The gods, with their departure, had betrayed those who had put their faith in them.
But how did he know for certain that the One God cared for him? How did he know that he was truly the Chosen?
He determined to test the One God, a test to reassure himself, as a child assures himself by small tests that his parents really do love him. Silvanoshei prayed, humbly, “If there is something you want me to do, I cannot do it if I am prisoner. Set me free, and I will obey your will.”
“Sir!” shouted one of the soldiers who had been guarding the rear.
“Behind—” Whatever he had been about to say ended in a shriek. The tip of a sword protruded from his gut. He had been stabbed in the back, the blow so fierce that it had pierced the chain mail shirt he wore. He fell forward and was trampled under a rush of elven warriors.
The guards holding Silvanoshei let loose as they turned to fight. One managed actually to draw his sword, but he could make no use of it, for Rolan sliced off his arm. Rolan’s next cut was to the throat. The guard fell in a pool of his own gore. The other guard was dead before he could reach his weapon. Samar’s blade swept the head from the man’s neck. The fourth man was dispatched handily by Alhana Starbreeze, who thrust her sword in his throat.
So lost was he in religious fervor that Silvanoshei was barely aware of what was happening, of grunts of pain and stifled cries, the thud of bodies falling to the ground. First he was being hauled away by soldiers, then, looking up, he saw the face of his mother.
“My son!” Alhana cried softly. Dropping her bloody sword, she gathered Silvanoshei into her embrace and held him close.
“Mother?” Silvanoshei said dazedly. He could not understand, for at first, when the arms wrapped around him in maternal love, he had seen another face. “Mother . . .” he repeated, bewildered. “Where— How—”