“Get up, human, if you wish to live,” one of them said, speaking Anuirean in a guttural, heavily accented voice.
Aedan slowly struggled to his knees, wincing with pain, then rose unsteadily to his feet, clutching at the crossbow bolt protruding from his shoulder. He saw another goblin try to seize his horse, but the stallion reared up and neighed, then bolted from the creature. Run, Windreiver, Aedan thought. Run swiftly back, so they will know at the castle that something has gone amiss.
One of the goblins bent and snatched the dagger from Aedan’s boot, and then a spear point in his back prodded him into the trees. As he walked, Aedan tried to ignore the pain in his shoulder. His mind raced feverishly. Had they taken Michael?
They approached the remainder of the party, waiting under the cover of the trees. There were about a dozen of them, in addition to the four who had captured Aedan. Two of them held Michael between them, gagged, with his hands tied behind his back. The rest were mounted on large, gray wolves that growled threateningly as Aedan approached. Wolfriders, he thought. That clinched it. A raiding party out of Thurazor.
He realized that if they had meant to kill Michael and him, they would undoubtedly have done so already. What then? Take them as slaves? Hold them for ransom? The latter seemed a likely possibility. He and Michael were obviously not peasants, so the goblins must have naturally assumed they were nobility from Seaharrow. If the creatures planned to hold them for ransom, at least he and Michael had a chance of getting out of this alive. So long as they didn’t know who Michael was.
“Listen,” Aedan said to his captors, “if you mean us any harm, then know that my father will pay handsomely for the safe return of my little brother and me.”
One of the goblins chuckled as he sat astride his wolf. His laughter was an ugly, rasping sound. “Brothers, is it?” he said with a sneer. “Funny, I seem to recall that the emperor had only one son.”
Aedan tried to keep his alarm from showing. They knew! But perhaps there was a chance he could still convince them otherwise. He glanced at Michael, who apparently didn’t even know enough to be afraid. Instead, he looked angry—furious, in fact—and was making noises into his gag, which fortunately were completely unintelligible.
“The emperor?” said Aedan, trying to look surprised. “What in Haelyn’s name makes you think our father is the emperor? He is but a lowly viscount who—”
“Save your breath, boy,” said the goblin leader. “The prince has already told us who he is. He has promised to have us all drawn and quartered and then boiled in oil for daring to lay hands on his royal person.” He chuckled. “No one but a prince could possess such arrogance at so young an age.”
Aedan silently cursed Michael for a fool. If only he’d known enough to keep his mouth shut! “What did you tell them that for, you little idiot?” he said to Michael angrily. “If they think you are the prince, they’ll only demand a higher ransom, more than our father could ever hope to pay!” He turned back to the goblin leader. “Don’t listen to him; he’s just a child! He must have hoped to frighten you into releasing him. He didn’t know that goblins would not fear the power of the emperor, as we do!”
The goblin leader smiled. “A good attempt, young lord,” he said. “And I might even have believed you had I not had the prince described to me in detail, nor seen the royal signet graved in gold on his left hand.” He held up the ring. “I shall keep this as a trophy. Our quest has gone far more easily than I could ever have expected. Who would have thought that our quarry would come riding straight into our waiting arms?”
The goblin leader’s words sent a chill through Aedan. They had not merely stumbled onto a raiding party. These wolfriders had come specifically for the purpose of kidnapping the prince! They knew the royal seal, and they had a description of the prince, as well. They must have been waiting in the forest for an opportunity to seize Prince Michael as he was out hawking or riding, and they had come prepared to do battle with an armed escort that, Aedan realized miserably, he should have brought along with him as he usually did. All that could only mean one thing—someone had given them that information. There was a traitor in the Imperial Court! But who?
Who stood to gain the most from some tragedy befalling Michael? Arwyn of Boeruine, of course. Aedan’s father had considered the possibility of Arywn’s ambition leading him to treachery, but he had not considered that Arwyn could be so bold and black-hearted as to ally himself with goblins. But then, if Arwyn wanted Michael dead, why go to such lengths? Why not just hire some brigands or some mercenaries to perform the task, or else entrust it to some of his own men, whose loyalty to him was beyond question? Why involve the goblins? And why, for that matter, would goblins enter into any plot with a human warlord? There had to be some reason that would benefit both parties. Aedan tried to think clearly. If he could reason out their motives, it might help him figure out what to do.
If the goblins planned to hold the prince for ransom, as seemed likely from their behavior and what the goblin leader said, Arwyn of Boeruine would be the logical choice to deliver that ransom. And since the emperor was at Seaharrow and not Anuire, he had no immediate access to the treasury, which meant Lord Arwyn would have to raise the ransom himself. And that would put the emperor—and more significantly, the empress—in his debt. But what would be in it for the goblins? Well, the ransom itself, obviously. That could be enough. The only heir to the imperial throne would bring, literally, a princely ransom.
However, if no ransom was forthcoming, Michael would probably be killed. The goblins would get all the blame, and no suspicion would ever fall on Lord Arwyn. All he had to do was fail to deliver the ransom, or claim the goblins had killed Michael anyway, in spite of the ransom being paid. And that, of course, would mean war.
That had to be the answer, Aedan thought. A war would benefit both Lord Arwyn and the goblin prince of Thurazor. If the Archduke Boeruine declared a war of retribution against Thurazor for the murder of the prince, the empire would surely unite behind him, for any noble who refused the call to arms would appear to be taking the side of the goblins. And the same thing would unite the goblin kingdoms behind Thurazor. The elves living in the Aelvinnwode would be caught squarely in the middle, and it would be impossible for them to remain neutral in the conflict. They would have to choose one side or the other. There would be no question of their siding with the goblins, their age-old enemies. Even at the height of the gheallie Sidhe, the elves had hated the goblins just as much as they had hated humans, if not more. Besides, since then, the elves of Tuarhievel had established tenuous trading ties with the outposts of the empire.
It was a foregone conclusion that, caught between two warring armies, the elves would take the empire’s side. Regardless of which side they chose, however, they would be the losers in the end, for the war would be fought upon their lands, which lay between the goblin kingdom of Thurazor and the empire’s northern frontier. It would mean the end of Tuarhievel’s independence. Because of geographical factors alone, the elves would suffer the greatest death toll, and when, at length, the war was concluded with a negotiated peace that would allow both sides to claim victory, the elven lands would be partitioned between the empire and the goblin kingdom, and any elves who had survived would either be forced to flee or else live in subjugation under the goblins or the humans.
It all fit together and made perfect sense, but reasoning it out gave Aedan little satisfaction at this point, for it meant Michael almost surely had to die. And if Michael’s death was a foregone conclusion, so was his. Well, Father, he thought, it seems I’ve learned how to consider possibilities, for all the good it’s done me. And I thought my worst worry would be Laera.