On the maps the gap between the Nefer and Qoble ranges was marked as Nefer Moor. Perhaps it had been open country when it was named, but now it was mainly dense forest. Wooded terrain favored the nimble elves over the cumbersome legions, and yet all these weeks of marching in the rain had brought success at last. Shandie had cornered the elves brilliantly. This time they could not escape. The history texts listed seven Battles of Nefer Moor; the eighth would be a rout.
Rain and falling darkness and cold and mud.
“Is that a light ahead, or just mud in my eye?” Shandie asked at his back.
“It’s a light, sir.” The bait in the trap.
His tone must have revealed his thoughts, because Shandie said, “You still don’t believe we can trust them, do you?”
“No, sir. I might trust them with anyone else, but you’re too valuable. ”
A chuckle. “I’m worth more to them alive than dead, Ylo. One thing you must never do in warfare is create causes! Understand what I’m getting at?”
Ylo said, “No, sir,” just as his foot slid on the slick grass and he flailed wildly off balance. He steadied himself with the flagstaff, feeling a dozen new trickles of icy water launch themselves down his skin. His sandals were sodden.
“This is just a sordid little border squabble,” the prince said. ”Politics and nothing more. The elves know that. But if they kill me, I become a martyr. They rouse the whole Impire to fury! IIrane would be overrun from one end to the other. Worst thing they could do.”
No one had ever accused elves of being logical before, so far as Ylo knew. And what if they took Shandie hostage?
“Why negotiate at all?” he asked. “You’ve got it all now! You’ve nailed their ears to the chopping block!”
The prince actually laughed, as if he were on a summer stroll, not a funeral march. “The second-best time to negotiate, Ylo, is when you know you can win. Gives you a chance to get it all for free. That’s why we’re here.”
That wasn’t what his commission required of him, though. Ylo had decoded those orders and he knew that they demanded stern measures. That was a nice way of saying that the imperor wanted a massacre or two. Take no prisoners! Teach the slantyeyes a lesson! Emshandar would emphatically not approve of a parlay when the enemy was helpless.
Ylo couldn’t say that. Shandie was a considerate and longsuffering commander, but Ylo could hardly throw the man’s own orders in his face.
“What’s first-best time to negotiate?” he asked.
“When you’re certain to lose. Then you may salvage something, right? And that’s why they’re here!”
“Think they’ll surrender . . .” Ylo asked, and added, ”sir?” as he realized he was questioning a proconsul.
“I hope so. They should!” Shandie sighed. “I just hope they haven’t gone into one of their suicidal sulks, that’s all.”
The elves’ lantern was clearly visible now, sitting on a stump in an open glade. Two men stood beside it. How many hundreds lurked in the undergrowth, all around?
Ylo turned aside from the path, trudging through the long wet grass toward those two still figures. Tall and slim, they looked like boys, both bare-headed, with elvish curls shining in the rain as if they wore golden helmets. One of them held a white flag. Neither seemed to be armed.
Indeed, only one was wearing armor under his cloak and only chain mail at that. In the murky evening light, the colors of their garb were muddied and indistinct, but undoubtedly more somber than elves’ usual riotous display.
This was a strange setting for a historical meeting! Ylo might feel proud of having a part in it, were he not so accursedly wet and cold. He strode to the stump and laid his lantern beside the other. Then he backed off a pace and planted the staff in proper military style. Shandie stood at his side. The elves watched in wary silence. Lit from below, their faces were cryptic masks of beaten gold, their oversize eyes sparkling in the ever-changing hues of opals.
Ylo had known a few elves back in Hub, long ago. He hadn’t liked them much, although he had nothing really specific against them. There was no way to tell an elf’s age, which was always disconcerting. They tended to be artistic people, absurdly impractical, but they could fight when they wanted to. History was littered with the bones of impish generals who had underestimated elves. He hoped Shandie was not going to be another.
The elf in the armor raised his hand in greeting. “Welcome, your Highness!”
The voice was high and sweet. Gods! A woman! Ylo glanced at her companion and decided that one was male.
“Greetings to you,” Shandie said harshly. He removed his helmet, to be on equal terms with the opposition. He wiped his face with a wet arm. “I am Proconsul Emshandar, Governor of Qoble, Legate of the XIIth legion.”
“I am Puil’stor, Sirdar of the Army of Justice, President of the Council for the Emergency, War Chief of Aliath Gens, Deputy Syndic and Presenter of Aims of Stor Clan, Exarch of Aniel Sept.”
Under other circumstances, Ylo would have laughed at that gibberish, but he continued to play statue. He was only a decoration at this meeting, not a negotiator. The history books would not mention his name, unfortunately—unless, of course, he became famous later. The prince, accompanied by the future Consul No . . . His fingers around the pole were growing numb. “You have strayed outside your jurisdiction, Proconsul.”
“That is what we are about to decide, isn’t it?”
The elf laughed and the bell-like sound was an obscenity in such morbid surroundings. “Nicely put, Prince! Now, the evening is inclement, so let us be brief and begone. I have a song to study, one I would fain sing on the morrow.”
It had better be a lament.
“You called for this parlay,” she said. “What do you offer to earn our mercy?”
“I find your humor inappropriate,” Shandie said. “I seek to avert bloodshed. You have seven thousand men—”
“Five. Two thousand are women.”
“You have seven thousand warriors, then, and they are trapped. I have four legions at my back and two more at yours. The lake road is blocked. Your famed elvish archers are useless in this weather. Pardon the cliche, Sirdar, but you are at my mercy.” She did not dispute the facts. “And your offer?”
“I shall allow you to withdraw, upon your parole.”
Having been expecting a demand for surrender, Ylo barely choked back a gasp. The imperor would have his grandson’s head in a bucket for this!
The woman showed little surprise. She arched a shiny golden eyebrow. ”Parole? What means that? And what happens after?”
“I ask only your word that all your warriors will disperse and return to their homes, until after Winterfest. They may keep their weapons. I shall occupy Fairgan, but I give you my word I shall go no farther. The valley of the Linder will be the border, as it used to be.”
Shandie! The Old Man will make a doormat of your hide! Puil’stor considered, putting her head on one side like a bird. “And if we refuse your terms?”
“My orders are to butcher you.”
She rubbed her cheek with slender fingers. Ylo could not imagine her as a soldier, although common sense said she must be, and a good one. She was a looker, and under other circumstances he would have been planning an effort to advance his education in elvish matters.
“It’s tempting,” she said.
Tempting? She should have her words bronzed. It was insane generosity, that’s what it was.
“Nothing you can do can stop me taking what I want,” Shandie said. ”I dislike unnecessary bloodshed, that’s all.”
“I suspect you have more scruples than you admit, Highness. You are a fine soldier. You outmaneuvered me splendidly. We elves always assume that imps are unimaginative. It is often our downfall.”
“We frequently underrate the tenacity of elves.”
“Of course the warden of the east has revealed all our secrets to you? ”
Shandie hesitated. “Of course.”
The sirdar smiled ruefully. Ylo wondered what Warlock Olybino was thinking of this parley. He enjoyed bloodshed, that one, as long as “his” legions won in the end. He had appeared at least three times in Shandie’s tent on this campaign and perhaps at other times, also, when Ylo had not been present.
Shandie was a superlative leader of men because he could inspire loyalty. Ylo knew that better than any. But Ylo knew also what perhaps no one else did—that the prince’s reputation as a military genius rested entirely on the occult help he received from the warden of the east. Without Olybino, he would be only another legate.
So what was the warlock thinking of this meeting?