Alliances

Accessible only by a single pass at its southern end, Inath-Wakenti would be a deathtrap for the last free elves in the world. They could be blockaded easily by their enemies (of which there were many). The valley also was cursed in a strange and mysterious way. In all the time Kerian and her soldiers had spent there, they never found a single living creature. Plants aplenty, yes, but not so much as a fly or bird dwelled within. Something about the valley was hostile to animal life. By night specters wandered the valley’s faceless stone ruins, and weird lights, possibly intelligent and certainly malicious, pursued her warriors, causing several to vanish without a trace.

Kerian tried to make Gilthas understand, to see reason. Their people didn’t need that uncanny valley. They needed to stand and fight! She argued passionately for a new war against the invaders who had taken what rightfully belonged to the elves. Yet Gilthas would not be dissuaded from his dreamer’s notion, even by her report of the dangers of Inath-Wakenti. He insisted their people must make the treacherous desert crossing and conquer the valley.

Kerian halted, realizing she was drenched in sweat. As her mind had raced, so too her pace had quickened through the willow thickets. That was not smart. There were too many enemies about for her to behave so irrationally.

Fireflies sparkled around her. Since her experience in Inath-Wakenti, she had become wary of phantom lights in the night. These proved to be nothing more than luminous insects, sad reminders of the lost serenity of summer nights in Qualinesti.

She was exhausted: first a battle in Khur, then a fall from great height, a near-drowning, and a trek through the wilds around the Lake of Death. It was past time to halt for the night. Food was a problem that could wait, and she’d trained herself to need less water than most, but rest was absolutely necessary. An exhausted soldier was soon a dead soldier.

She wedged herself high up in an elm, above the clouds of mosquitoes. As she had done so many times before, Kerianseray slept in the arms of a tree—a leafless, blasted tree, it was true, yet it would keep her safe, at least from the lesser predators of the forest.

The stars above her were the same ones that sparkled over Khur. She stared at them and allowed herself to wonder what had happened after she’d vanished. Had the nomads beaten her people, or had the children of Kith-Kanan taken the day? Did her comrades survive? Did Gilthas still live?

Only to that last question did Kerian have an answer. As surely as she still drew breath, she knew her husband was alive. Some ties were not easily broken, despite the damage they sustained.

She rested her cheek against the elm’s rough bark. A cool wind eased over the woods, drying the sweat on her face. She trembled a little from the night’s caress, then succumbed to a deep and dreamless rest.

* * * * *

For two days, Kerian dodged many dangers. Qualinesti was dotted with outposts of the Knights of Neraka, and freebooters led by the human Captain Samuval ravaged the roads and cities. Bands of goblins and other vermin infested the countryside, robbing and killing unopposed. Small bands of draconians might pounce on the unwary. Rogue sorcerers were on the loose. She sensed dragons too, patrolling shifting enclaves of their own.

Despite the wounds of recent years, Kerian’s soul could not but rejoice in her return to Qualinesti. She was an elf, and her heart spoke to trees and growing things. The sun and sand of Khur had almost leached the wildwood from her veins.

This was another point of contention between her and Gilthas, She tried to make him see that if they abandoned the forest to live in distant lands, very soon they would cease to be elves. With her bare feet once more traversing the mossy glades and leaf-littered hillsides, Kerian could feel a new strength filling her heart. This was the land of her ancestors, the land to which she and her kind had been born. She would never give up the fight to regain it. Here was where the elf race belonged!

She fashioned a crude knife from a flint shard and made two spears from windfall limbs. Thus armed, she felt better able to face what might come, with one glaring exception. What she could not seem to find was food, despite all her craft. High summer was on the land. There ought to be berries and roots, small game aplenty, but there was none. She blamed the proximity of Nalis Aren. Its miasma of death infected the land for miles in all directions. Trees and bushes grew in abundance, but all were subtly wrong. Limbs were twisted, growth stunted, green leaves tinged with brown and yellow. Of birds, rabbits, and squirrels there was no sign, though insects thrived.