She lost her balance, fell heavily to the ground. His guards surrounded her. The guards killed her standard-bearer and made an attempt to seize the horse, but the animal lashed out with its hooves. Breaking free of the holder, the horse charged straight for the rear lines, as if it would join the battle alone and riderless.
The girl lay stunned on the ground. She was covered with blood, but he could not tell if it was hers or that of her standard-bearer, who lay decapitated by her side.
Fearing she would be trampled, Silvan furiously ordered his guards to keep back. He slid from his horse, ran to the girl and lifted her in his arms. She moaned, her eyes fluttered. He breathed again. She was alive.
“I will take her, Your Majesty,” offered his commander.
Silvan would not give her up. He placed her on his saddle, climbed up behind her. Clasping one arm around her tightly, he took hold of the reins in the other. Her head rested against his silver breastplate. He had never in his life seen any face so delicate, so perfectly formed, so beautiful. He cradled her tenderly, anxiously.
“Ride!” he ordered and he started for the woods, riding swiftly, but not so swiftly that he risked jarring her.
He rode past the minotaur, who was on his knees beside his buried sword, his homed head bowed in grief.
“What do you men think you are doing?” Silvan demanded.
Several of the elves were starting to ride in the minotaur’s direction, their swords raised. “He is not a threat to us. Leave him.”
“He is a minotaur, Your Majesty. He is always a threat,” protested the commander.
“Would you kill him unarmed and unresisting?” Silvan demanded sternly.
“He would have no compunction killing us, if the situation was reversed,” the commander replied grimly.
“And so now we are reduced to the level of beasts,” Silvan said coldly. “I said leave him, Commander. We have achieved our objective. Let us get out of here before we are overrun.”
Indeed, that seemed likely. The army of the Knights of Neraka was falling back rapidly now. Their retreat was in good order, they were keeping their lines intact. Silvan and his Knights galloped from the field, Silvan bearing their prize proudly in his arms.
He reached the shadows of the trees. The girl stirred and moaned again and opened her eyes.
Silvan looked down into them, saw himself encased in amber.
The girl was a docile captive, causing no trouble, accepting her fate without complaint. When they arrived back in camp, she refused Silvan’s offers of assistance. Sliding gracefully from Silvan’s horse, she gave herself willingly into custody. The elves clapped iron manacles on her wrists and ankles and marched her into a tent that was furnished with nothing but a pallet of straw and a blanket.
Silvan followed her. He could not leave her.
“ Are you wounded? Shall I send the healers to you?”
She shook her head. She had not spoken a word to him or to anyone. She refused his offer of food and drink.
He stood at the entrance to the prison tent, feeling helpless and foolish in his regal armor. She, by contrast, blood-covered and in chains, was calm and self-possessed. She sat down cross-legged on her blanket, stared unblinking into the darkness. Silvan left the tent with the uncomfortable feeling that he was the one who had been taken prisoner.
“Where is Glaucous?” Silvan demanded. “He wanted to question her.”
But no one could say what had become of Glaucous. He had not been seen since the start of the battle.
“Let me know when he comes to interrogate her,” Silvan commanded and went to his tent to remove his armor. He held still this time, still and unmoving, as his squire detached the buckles and lifted the armor from him piece by piece.
“Congratulations, Cousin!” Kiryn entered the tent, ducking through the tent flap. “You are a hero! I will not need to write your song, after all. Your people are already singing it!” He waited for a laughing response, and when it did not come, he looked at Silvan more closely. “Cousin? What is it? You don’t look well. Are you wounded?”
“Did you see her, Kiryn?” Silvan asked. “Go away!” he shouted irritably at his squire. “Get out. I can finish this myself.”
The squire bowed and left. Silvan sat down upon his cot, one boot on and one boot off.
“Did I see the prisoner? Only a glimpse,” Kiryn said. “Why?”
“What did you think of her?”
“She is the first human I have ever seen, and I did not find her as ugly as I had been led to believe. Still, I thought her extremely strange. Bewitching. Uncanny.” Kiryn grimaced. “And is it now the custom among human females to shave their heads?”
“What? Oh, no. Perhaps it is the custom of the Knights of Neraka.” Silvan sat with his boot in his hand, staring at the darkness and seeing amber eyes. “I thought her beautiful. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
Kiryn sat down beside his cousin. “Silvan, she is the enemy. Because of her, hundreds of our people lie dead or dying in that blood-soaked field.”
“I know. I know!” Silvan cried, standing up. He tossed the boot into the comer. Sitting down, he began to tug viciously on the other. “She wouldn’t say a word to me. She wouldn’t tell me her name. She just looked at me with those strange eyes.”
“Your Majesty.” An officer appeared at the entrance. “General Konnal has asked me to relate to you the news. The day is ours. We have won.”
Silvan made no response. He had ceased to tug on the boot, was once again staring into the dark tent comer.
Kiryn rose, went outside. “His Majesty is fatigued,” he said.
“I’m certain he is overjoyed.”
“Then he’s the only one,” said the officer wryly.
Victory belonged to the elves, but few in the elven camp that night rejoiced. They had halted the enemy’s advance, driven him back, kept him from reaching Silvanost, but they had not destroyed him. They counted thirty human bodies upon the field of battle, not four hundred as they had anticipated. They laid the blame to a strange fog that had arisen from the river, a dank, chill gray fog that hung low over the ground, a swirling, obfuscating fog that hid foe from foe, comrade from comrade. In this fog, the enemy had simply disappeared, vanished, as if the blood-soaked ground had opened up and swallowed him.
“Which is probably exactly what happened,” said General Konnal to his officers. “They had their escape arranged in advance. They retreated, and when the fog came, they ran to their hideout. They are skulking about in the caves somewhere near here.”
“To what purpose, General?” Silvan demanded impatiently.
The king was feeling irritable and out of sorts, restless and antsy. He left his tent that was suddenly cramped and confining, came to confer with the officers. Silvan’s courage had been praised and lauded. He was undoubtedly the hero of the hour, as even General Konnal admitted. Silvan cared nothing for their praise. His gaze shifted constantly to the tent where the girl was being held prisoner.
“The humans have no food, no supplies,” he continued, “and no way of obtaining any. They are cut off, isolated. They know that they can never take Silvanost now. Surely, if anything, they will attempt to retreat back to the borders.”
“They know we would cut them down if they tried that,”
Konnal said. “Yet, you are right, Your Majesty, they cannot remain in hiding forever. Sooner or later they must come out, and then we will have them. I just wish I knew,” he added, more to himself than to anyone else, “what they are planning. For there was a plan here as certain as I live and breathe.”