He looked intently and constantly about the garden, paying particular attention to the parts of the garden hidden in shadow.
“Madam will want to know why,” Kelevandros said, hesitating.
Medan gave him a shove that sent him staggering across the room. “Go fetch your mistress,” he ordered.
“Travel?” Laurana said, astonished. She had been sitting in the arboretum, pretending to listen to Kalindas read aloud from an ancient elventext. In reality, she had not heard a word. “Where am I going?”
Kelevandros shook his head. “The marshal will not tell me, Madam. He is acting very strangely.”
“I don’t like this, Madam,” Kalindas stated, lowering the book. “First imprisonment in your house, now this. You should not go with the marshal.”
“I agree with my brother, Madam,” Kelevandros added. “I will tell him you are not well. We will do what we have talked about before. This night, we will smuggle you out in the tunnels.”
“I will not,” said Laurana determinedly. “Would you have me flee to safety while the rest of my people are forced to stay behind? Bring my cloak.”
“Madam,” Kelevandros dared to argue, “please—”
“Fetch me my cloak,” Laurana stated. Her tone was gentle but firm, brooked no further debate.
Kelevandros bowed silently.
Kalindas went to fetch the cloak. Kelevandros returned with Laurana to the front door, where Marshal Medan had remained standing.
Sighting her, he straightened. “Lauranalanthalas of the House of Solostaran,” he said formally, “you are under arrest. You will surrender yourself peacefully to me as my prisoner.”
“Indeed?” Laurana was quite calm. “What is the charge? Or is there a charge?” she asked. She turned so that Kalindas could place the cloak about her shoulders.
The elf started to do so, but Medan took the cloak himself. The marshal, his expression grave, settled the cloak around Laurana’s shoulders.
“The charges are numerous, Madam. Harboring a human sorcerer who is wanted by the Gray Robes, concealing your knowledge of a valuable magical artifact, which the sorcerer had in his possession when, by law, all magical artifacts located in Qualinesti are to be handed over to the dragon. Aiding and abetting the outlaw sorcerer in his escape from Qualinesti with the artifact.”
“I see,” said Laurana.
“I tried to warn you, madam, but you would not heed me,”
Medan said.
“Yes, you did try to warn me, marshal, and for that I am grateful.” Laurana fastened the cloak around her neck with a jeweled pin. Her hands were steady, did not tremble. “And what is to be done with me, Marshal Medan?”
“My orders are to execute you, madam,” said Medan. “I am to send your head to the dragon.”
Kalindas gasped. Kelevandros gave a hoarse shout and lunged at Medan, grappling for his throat with his bare hands.
“Stop, Kelevandros!” Laurana ordered, throwing herself between the elf and the marshal. “This will not help! Stop this madness!”
Kelevandros fell back, panting, glaring at Medan with hatred.
Kalindas took hold of his brother’s arm, but Kelevandros angrily shook him off.
“Come, madam,” said Marshal Medan. He offered Laurana his arm. The torch smoked and sputtered. Orchids, hanging over the door, shriveled in the heat.
Laurana rested her hand on the marshal’s arm. She looked back at the two brothers, standing, white-faced with shadowed eyes, watching her being led away to her death.
Which one? she asked herself, sick at heart. Which one?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Prison of Amber
The midsummer’s morning dawned unusually cool in Silvanesti.
“A fine day for battle, gentlemen,” said Mina to her assembled officers.
Galdar led the cheers, which shook the trees along the riverbank, caused the leaves of the aspens to tremble.
“So may our valor set the elves to trembling,” said Captain Samuval. “A great victory will be ours this day, Mina! We cannot fail!”
“On the contrary,” said Mina coolly. “This day we will be defeated.”
Knights and officers stared at her blankly. They had seen her perform miracle after miracle, until the miracles were now stacked up one on top of the other like crockery in a neat housewife’s cupboard. The idea that these miracles were to now come spilling out of the cupboard, come crashing down around their ears was a catastrophe not to be believed. So they did not believe it.
“She’s joking,” said Galdar, attempting to pass it off with a laugh.
Mina shook her head. “We will lose the battle this day. An army of a thousand elven warriors has come to test us. We are outnumbered over two to one. We cannot win this battle.”
The Knights and officers looked at each other uneasily. They looked at Mina grimly, doubtfully.
“But though we lose the battle this day,” Mina continued, smiling slightly, her amber eyes lit from behind with an eerie glow that made the faces captured in them glitter like tiny stars,
“this day we will win the war. But only if you obey me without question. Only if you follow my orders exactly.”
The men grinned, relaxed. “We will, Mina,” several shouted, and the rest cheered.
Mina was no longer smiling. The amber of her eyes flowed over them, congealed around them, froze them where they stood.
“You will obey my orders, though you do not understand them. You will obey my orders, though you do not like them. You will swear this to me on your knees, swear by the Nameless God who is witness to your oath and who will exact terrible revenge upon the oath breaker. Do you so swear?”
The Knights sank down on their knees in a semicircle around her. Removing their swords, they held them by the blade, beneath the hilt. They lifted their swords to Mina. Captain Samuval went down on his knees, bowed his head. Galdar remained standing.
Mina turned her amber eyes on him.
“On you, Galdar, more than on anyone else rests the outcome of this battle. If you refuse to obey me, if you refuse to obey the God who gave you back your warrior’s arm, we are lost. All of us. But you, most especially.”
“What is your command, Mina?” Galdar asked harshly. “Tell me first, that I may know.”
“No, Galdar,” she said gently. “You either trust me or you do not. You put your faith in the God or you do not. Which will it be?”
Slowly, Galdar knelt down upon his knees before her. Slowly he drew his sword from its scabbard and slowly held it up as did the others. He held it in the hand the God had returned to him.
“I so swear, Mina!” he said.
The rest spoke as one.
“I so swear!”
The battleground was a large field located on the banks of the Thon-Thalas River. The elf soldiers trampled tender stalks of wheat beneath their soft leather boots. The elf archers took their places amid tall stands of green, tasseled com. General Konnal set up his command tent in a peach orchard. The arms of a great windmill turned endlessly, creaking in the wind that had a taste of autumn’s harvest in it.
There would be a harvest on this field, a dread harvest, a harvest of young lives. When it was over, the water that ran at the feet of the great windmill would run red.
The field stood between the approaching enemy army and the capital of Silvanost. The elves put themselves in harm’s way, intending to stop the army of darkness before it could reach the heart of the elf kingdom. The Silvanesti were outraged, insulted, infuriated. In hundreds of years, no enemy had set foot on this sacred land. The only enemy they had fought had been one of their own making, the twisted dream of Lorac.
Their wonderful magical shield had failed them. They did not know how or why, but most of the elves were convinced that it had been penetrated by an evil machination of the Knights of Neraka.