‘She is alive. Of that much, I am certain, Warden of Yvresse,’ a new voice cut in. A blue-robed shape descended the steps down into the hold. Pale eyes looked about from beneath a diadem of emeralds, and a thin mouth quirked in disgust. ‘Why you two insist on spending so much time in this makeshift stable, I’ll never understand. It smells awful.’
‘It’d smell worse if someone didn’t see to the animals occasionally,’ Eltharion said, turning to face the newcomer. He cocked his elbow up on Stormwing’s flat skull. ‘And you could have waited until we came back up on deck.’
‘Probably, yes, but then I wouldn’t have been able to interject my opinions so smoothly, now would I?’ Belannaer groused. He tapped the side of his head. ‘It’s all about the seizing the moment.’
‘What is?’ Eldyra asked, smiling crookedly. She enjoyed teasing the Loremaster of Hoeth, and Eltharion couldn’t find it in his heart to blame her. Belannaer had once been the High Loremaster of Ulthuan, before ceding the title and its responsibilities to Teclis. Many, including Eltharion, thought Belannaer had been only too happy to do so, making him a rarity among the Ulthuani. In the years since, he’d found contentment amongst the tomes of yesteryear, forgoing the crudity of politics and war, for a life devoted to study and contemplation. But he’d set such prosaic workings aside when he’d learned of the Everchild’s capture. Belannaer knew, better perhaps than anyone else save Teclis, what such an event meant to the fate of Ulthuan. But though he’d shed his reclusive ways and taken up his sword once more, he was still a scholar, with a scholar’s stuffiness and a pedant’s obliviousness.
‘Everything,’ Belannaer said. He gestured airily. ‘History is made of moments and the people who seized them.’ He looked at Eltharion. ‘Aliathra has seized hers. I can hear her voice on the wind, stronger now than before, for all that she’s growing weaker. Time is running short.’
‘We can only sail as fast as the wind takes us, loremaster,’ Eltharion said. He knew what Belannaer was feeling, for he’d felt it himself. The growing impatience, the anxiety of uncertainty. There were still hundreds of miles of overland travel between them and Sylvania. They would make up time by keeping to the river, but even then, there was no telling what might arise to stymie them.
‘I know, which is why I stoked the winds with my sorcery, so that we might move faster,’ Belannaer said. Eldyra looked at Eltharion.
‘I wondered why the ship was creaking so,’ she murmured. Eltharion shushed her with a quick look and said, ‘Something is different, isn’t it?’
‘Aliathra has shown me… flashes of what awaits us,’ Belannaer said. ‘There are dark forces on the move, and this is but the smallest shred of their plan. We will need allies.’ He said the last hesitantly.
Eltharion tensed. ‘Allies,’ he repeated. ‘You mean men.’
‘And the dwarfs, if they can be convinced,’ Belannaer said.
‘No,’ Eltharion said. ‘No, the dwarfs are the reason that Aliathra was captured in the first place. I’ll not surrender her fate to their hands again.’ He felt a surge of anger at the thought of it. ‘Neither will I entrust it to men.’ He shook his head. ‘They are worse even than dwarfs. They cannot be counted on.’
‘And yet we must, if we are to have any hope of rescuing the Everchild,’ Belannaer said. ‘I’ve ordered the fleet to sail due east, for the Empire of Sigmar. They know Teclis of old, and will be open to our entreaties. We gave them aid, once upon a time, and they owe Ulthuan a debt.’
‘You ordered?’ Eltharion shook his head, astounded at Belannaer’s arrogance. ‘I lead this expedition, loremaster, not you,’ he said softly.
‘You do,’ Belannaer said. ‘And I am sure you will come to the right decision eventually.’
Eltharion glanced at Eldyra. ‘Did you know about this?’
‘No, but he’s right,’ she said.
Eltharion’s eyes narrowed. Eldyra spoke quickly, ‘Think about it, cousin… Our army is small and we will have to cross lands held by men sooner or later. Better to do it with permission, and perhaps even with allies, than to fight our way through.’ She held up a hand as he made to protest. ‘We could do it. Our army, small as it is, is better than anything they can muster. But elves will die in the doing of it. And for what – pride? Better to sacrifice pride than warriors, especially where we’re going.’
Eltharion listened silently. Some of Teclis had rubbed off on her as well, he thought. Then, given how closely the twins’ fates had been linked these last few centuries, that wasn’t surprising. Eldyra had learned the art of battle as Tyrion’s squire. But she had learned something else entirely by watching Teclis’s crooked mind at work.
Regardless, she wasn’t wrong, save about his pride. It wasn’t pride that motivated him, but caution. What profit could be gleaned from faithless allies or worse, useless ones? They would hamper the clean, quick strike, and slow them down. He was certain their host could cross quickly into Sylvania, before the men could mobilise to question them. But could they then get out again, once victory had been achieved? It would be unfortunate if they succeeded in rescuing Aliathra from one savage, only to fall prey to another.
Finally, Eltharion nodded. ‘You are right, cousin, loremaster,’ he said. ‘Better we ally ourselves with willing primitives than stand alone in defeat.’
‘Then the fleet will continue east?’ Belannaer asked.
Eltharion nodded. ‘East – it is time to see if the Empire of Sigmar remembers its debts.’
Durthu, Eldest of Ancients, spoke in a voice like the rustling of branches and the cracking of bark. It filled the King’s Glade, travelling through the branches of every tree and slipped from every leaf, until the air throbbed with the sound of his voice. ‘The cycle of the world begins anew, and just as the forest once aided the folk of Ulthuan in days now slid from mortal memory, it shall do so again.’ Durthu shifted his immense weight as he spoke, and the air was rent by the squeal of twisting branches and the dull, wet crunch of popping roots. The treeman was the oldest of his kind, and his mind was like the forest itself: vast, wild and unpredictable.
Araloth watched as a ripple of murmurs spread through the assembled ranks of the Council of Athel Loren where they sat. It was rare that Durthu spoke, and rarer still that he spoke so lucidly. More and more often these days, his mind was awash in the forest’s rage, and he spoke words of war and madness. But here was the calm Durthu of old, the wise spirit who had so often guided his folk in ages past. Araloth felt a twinge of sadness as he watched the ancient tree-spirit speak. The forest was dying, glade by glade, rotting from within and falling to the madness that had poured forth from the Vaults of Winter. Soon enough, if it was not halted, Durthu would join many of his kin in either decay or madness. And that would be a terrible moment indeed.
Araloth pushed the thought aside and concentrated on Durthu’s words. ‘But as in those days, there will be a price for the forest’s aid, Everqueen of Ulthuan,’ Durthu said, his ageless eyes fixed on the proud figure of Alarielle. She stood before the council, bound in chains of leaves and vines, as was customary.
The Everqueen lifted her chin and said, ‘I know nothing of these events, revered ancient, but whatever your price, know that I will pay it willingly and in full.’ Her voice possessed a liquid musicality to it that, in other circumstances would have seemed the epitome of beauty to Araloth. But now, he could hear the sadness that tainted its harmonies, and the desperation that had driven its owner to this point.