Ilse Witch (31 page)

“Never a moment’s concern.”

“That old sword strapped to your back reveal any secrets on the way?”

Quentin flushed. “One or two. You don’t forget a thing, do you?”

Bek shook the Wing Rider’s hand, as well, feeling a little of his earlier uneasiness fade with the other’s appearance. “Is Walker here?” he asked.

Hunter Predd nodded. “He’s here. Everyone’s here that’s going. You’re the last to arrive.”

Panax rose from his bench and wandered over, and they introduced him to the Wing Rider. Then Hunter Predd turned to his companion, a tall, powerfully built Elf of indeterminate age, with close-cropped gray hair and pale blue eyes. “This is Ard Patrinell,” the Wing Rider said. “Walker wanted you to meet him. He’s been placed in command of the Elven Hunters who will go with us.”

They clasped hands with the Elf, who nodded without speaking. Bek thought that if ever anyone looked the part of a warrior, it was this man. Scars crisscrossed his blunt features and muscular body, thin white lines and rough pink welts against his sun-browned skin, a testament to battles fought and survived. Power radiated from even his smallest movements. His grip when shaking hands was deliberately soft, but Bek could feel the iron behind it. Even the way he carried himself suggested someone who was always ready, always just a fraction of a second away from swift reaction.

“You’re a Captain of the Home Guard,” Panax declared, pointing to the scarlet patch on the Elf’s dress jacket.

Ard Patrinell shook his head. “I was. I’m not anymore.”

“They don’t keep you on as Captain of the Home Guard if the King is assassinated on your watch,” Hunter Predd observed bluntly.

Panax nodded matter-of-factly. “Someone has to bear the blame for a King’s death, even when there’s no blame to be found. Keeps everyone thinking something useful’s been done.” He spat into the dark. “So, Ard Patrinell, you look a seasoned sort. Have you fought on the Prekkendorran?”

Again, the Elf shook his head. “I fought in the Federation Wars, but not there. I was at Klepach and Barrengrote fifteen years ago, when I was still an Elven Hunter, not yet a Home
Guard.” If Patrinell was irritated by the Dwarf’s questions, he didn’t show it.

For his part, Bek was wondering how a failed Captain of the Home Guard could end up being given responsibility for the security and safety of Walker’s expedition. Was his removal only ceremonial, made necessary because of the King’s death? Or was something else at work?

There was an enormous calm in Ard Patrinell’s face, as if nothing could shake his confidence or disrupt his thinking. He had the look of someone who had seen and weathered a great deal and understood that loss of control was a soldier’s worst enemy. If he had failed the King, he did not carry the burden of that failure openly. Bek judged him a man who understood better than most the value of patience and endurance.

“What remains to be done before we leave?” Quentin asked suddenly, changing the subject.

“Impatient to be off, Highlander?” Hunter Predd chided. “It won’t be long now. We’ve got an airship and a Captain and crew to speed us on our way. We’re gathering supplies and equipment. Loading is already under way. Our Captain of the Home Guard has selected a dozen Elven Hunters to accompany us.”

“We’re ready then,” Quentin declared eagerly, his grin broadening with expectation.

“Not quite.” The Wing Rider seemed reluctant to continue, but unable to think of a way not to. He glanced out at the encroaching night, as if his explanation might be found somewhere in the gloom. “There’s still a few adjustments to be made to the terms of our going, a couple of small controversies to be resolved.”

Panax frowned. “What might these small controversies be, Hunter Predd?”

The Wing Rider shrugged rather too casually, Bek thought. “For one thing, Walker feels we have too many members assigned to the expedition. Space and supplies won’t support
them all. He wants to reduce by as many as four or five the number that will go.”

“Our new King, on the other hand,” Ard Patrinell added softly, “wants to add one more.”

“What you are asking is not only unreasonable, it is impossible,” Walker repeated patiently, stymied by Kylen Elessedil’s intransigence on the matter, but fully aware of its source. “Thirty is all we can carry. The size of the ship will allow for no more. As it is, I have to find a way to cut the number who expect to go.”

“Cut that number to twenty-nine, then add one back in,” the Elven King replied with a shrug. “The problem is solved.”

They stood in what had been Allardon Elessedil’s private study, the one in which he had perused the castaway’s map for the first time, but more to the point the one in which he had conducted business with those with whom he did not want to be seen on matters he did not wish to discuss openly. When the Elven King desired a public audience or a demonstration of authority, he held court in the throne room or the chambers of the Elven High Council. Allardon Elessedil had been a believer in protocol and ceremony, and he had employed each in careful and judicious measure. His son, it appeared, was inclined to do the same. Walker rated courtesy and deference, but only in private and only to the extent to which the old King had obligated his son before dying.

Kylen Elessedil understood what must be done regarding the matter of Kael Elessedil and the Elves who had disappeared with him. There was to be a search, and the Druid was to command it. The Elves were to assign funds for the purchase of a ship and crew, secure supplies and equipment for the journey, and provide a command of Elven Hunters to ensure the ship’s safety. It was the command of a dying King, and his son was not about to challenge it as his first official act of office.

This did not mean, however, that he viewed the idea of a
search for ships and men gone thirty years as a sane one, the appearance of the castaway, the Elessedil bracelet, and the map notwithstanding. Kylen was not his father. He was a very different sort. Allardon Elessedil had been tentative, careful, and unambitious in his life’s goals. His son was reckless and determined to leave his mark. The past meant little to Kylen Elessedil. It was the present and, to an even greater extent, the future that mattered to him. He was an impassioned youth who believed without reservation that the Federation must be destroyed and the Free-born made victorious. Nothing less would guarantee Elven security. He had spent the last six months fighting aboard airships over the Prekkendorran and had returned only because his father was dead and he was next in line for the throne. He did not particularly want to be King, except to the extent that it furthered his efforts to crush the Federation. Imbued with the fever of his commitment to a victory over his enemies, he wanted only to remain on the front in command of his men. In short, he would have preferred it if his father had stayed alive.

As it was, eager to return to the battle, he was chafing already at the delay his coronation had occasioned. But he would not go, Walker knew, until this matter of the search for Kael Elessedil was resolved and, even more important, until he was certain the Elven High Council was settled on the terms of his succession. This last, Walker was beginning to understand, was at the source of his insistence on adding his younger brother’s name to the ship’s roster.

Kylen Elessedil stopped pacing and faced the Druid squarely. “Ahren is almost a man, nearly fully grown. He has been trained by the man I personally selected to command your Elven Hunters on this expedition. My father arranged for my brother’s training five years ago. Perhaps he foresaw the need for it better than you or I.”

“Perhaps he believed it should continue until Ahren is older, as well,” Walker offered mildly, holding the other’s gaze. “Your brother is too young and too unseasoned for a
journey like this. He lacks the experience needed to justify including him. Better men will be asked to remain behind as it is.”

The Elven King dismissed the argument with a grunt. “That’s a judgment you cannot make. Is Ahren less a man than this cabin boy you insist on including? Bek Rowe? What does he have to offer? Is he to be left behind?”

Walker held his temper. “Your father left it to me to make the decision about who would go and who would stay. I have chosen carefully, and there are good reasons for my choices. What is at issue is not why I should take Bek Rowe, but why I should take Ahren Elessedil.”

The Elf King took a moment to walk over to a window and look out into the night. “I don’t have to support you in this matter at all, Druid. I don’t have to honor my father’s wishes if I deem them wrongheaded or if I decide circumstances have changed. You are pressing your luck with me.”

He turned back to Walker, waiting.

“There is a great deal at stake in this matter,” Walker replied softly. “Enough at stake that I will find a way to make this voyage, with your blessing and assistance or without. I would remind you that your father died for this.”

“My father died
because
of this!”

“Your father believed me when I told him that what the Elven people stood to gain from completing this voyage successfully was of enormous importance.”

“Yet you refuse to tell me what that something is!”

“Because I am not yet certain myself.” Walker walked over to the King’s desk and rested the tips of his fingers on its polished surface. “It is a magic that may yield us many things, but I will have to discover what form that magic will take. But think, Elven King! If it is important enough for the Ilse Witch to kill your father and your uncle as well, important enough for her to try to kill me and to stall this expedition at all costs, isn’t it important enough for you?”

The young King folded his arms defensively. “Perhaps your concerns in this matter are overstated. Perhaps they are not as important as you would have me believe. I do not see the future of the Westland Elves tied to a magic that may not even exist, may not be able to be traced if it does, and may not even be useful if found. I see it tied to a war being waged with the Federation. The enemy I can see is a more recognizable threat than the one I can imagine.”

Walker shook his head. “Why are we arguing? We have covered this ground before, and there is nothing to be gained by covering it again. I am committed to this journey. You have determined that your father’s wishes should be followed regarding any support from the Elves. What we are arguing about is the inclusion on this expedition of a youth who is untested and inexperienced. Shall I tell you why I think you want me to take him?”

Kylen Elessedil hesitated, but Walker began speaking anyway.

“He is your younger brother and next in line for the throne. You are not close. You are the children of different mothers. If you were to be killed in the fighting on the Prekkendorran, he would be named Regent, if not King. You wish to secure the throne for your children instead. But your oldest boy is only ten. Your brother, if available, would be named his protector. That worries you. To protect your son and heir to the throne, you would send your brother with me, on a journey that will consume months and perhaps years. That removes your brother as a possible successor, either as King or Regent. It removes him as a threat.”

He spoke calmly, without malice or accusation. When he was finished, Kylen Elessedil stared at him for a long time, as if weighing carefully his response.

“You are awfully bold to speak those words to me,” he said finally.

Walker nodded. “I am only telling you this so that I may
better understand your thinking on the matter. If Ahren Elessedil is to go with me, I would like to know why.”

The young King smiled. “My father never liked you. He respected you, but he never liked you. Were you this bold with him?”

“More so, I would guess.”

“But it never helped you, did it? He never agreed to support you in your bid for an independent Druid Council, convened anew at Paranor. I know. He told me.”

Walker waited.

“You risk all that now by challenging me. Part of your bargain with my father was his agreement to support a new Council of Druids on your successful return. You’ve worked twenty-five years for that end. Would you give it all up now?”

Still Walker waited, silent within his black robes.

Kylen Elessedil stared at him a moment more, then judging that nothing further was to be gained, said, “Ahren will accompany you as my personal representative. I cannot go, so he will go in my place. This is an Elven expedition, and its goals and concerns are peculiarly Elven in nature. Kael Elessedil’s disappearance must be explained. The Elfstones, if they can be found, must be returned. Any magic that exists must be claimed. These are Elven matters. Whatever happens, there must be an Elessedil in attendance. That is why my brother is going, and that is the end of the matter.”

It was a firm decision, one rendered and dismissed for good. Walker could see that nothing was to be gained by arguing further. Whatever his convictions and concerns on the subject of Ahren Elessedil, Walker knew when it was time to back off. “So be it,” he acknowledged, and turned the discussion to other matters.

It was after midnight when Quentin shook Bek awake from the sleep that had claimed him an hour before. With no further word from Walker on the fate of the expedition and its
members, they had retired from the palace gardens and been shown to their sleeping quarters by another of the silent Home Guard. Panax was snoring in another room. Ard Patrinell and Hunter Predd had disappeared.

“Bek, wake up!” Quentin urged, pulling on his shoulder.

Bek, still catching up on sleep lost during their journey west out of the Wolfsktaag, dragged himself out of his cottony slumber and opened his eyes. “What’s the matter?”

“Hunter Predd just returned from the palace, where he’s spoken with Walker.” Quentin’s eyes were bright and his voice excited. “I heard him come in and went to see what he’d learned. He said to tell you good-bye for now. He’s been sent to the coast to recruit two more Wing Riders from the Hove. The decision’s been made. We leave in two days!”

“Two days,” Bek repeated, not yet fully awake.