“Sir Hugh?” said Bane impatiently. “Go on. Tell me about Seven Fields.”
“It was back when the elves ruled us. Over the years, the elves had grown soft in their occupation of our land.” Hugh gazed at the smoke curling upward into the darkness. “Elves consider humans to be little better than animals, and so they underrate us. In many ways, of course, they’re right, and so you can hardly blame them for continuing to make what seems to be the same mistake over and over.
“The Uylandia Cluster, at the time they ruled it, was divided into bits and pieces, each small bit ruled nominally by a human lord and in actuality by an elven overlord. The elves never had to work to keep the clans from uniting-the clans did that quite well themselves,”
“I’ve often wondered why the elves didn’t demand that we destroy our weapons, as was done in centuries past?” interjected Alfred.
Hugh, puffing on the pipe, grinned. “Why bother? It was to their advantage to keep us armed. We used our weapons on each other, saving the elves a lot of trouble.
“The plan worked, so well, in fact, that the elves shut themselves up in their fine castles, never bothering to open a window and take a good look at what was really transpiring around them. I know, for I used to hear their talk.”
“You did!” Bane sat forward, blue eyes glittering. “How? How did you come to know so much about elves?”
The ash glowed red in the pipe, then dimmed and faded. Hugh ignored the question.
“When Stephen and Anne managed to unite the clans, the elves finally opened their windows. In flew arrows and spears, and humans with swords scaled their walls. The uprising was swift and well-planned. By the time word reached the Tribus Empire, most of the elven overlords had been killed or driven from their homes. The elves retaliated. They assembled their fleet-the greatest ever seen in this world-and sailed for Uylandia. Hundreds of thousands of trained elven warriors and their sorcerers faced a few thousand humans-without our most powerful wizards, for by then the mysteriarchs had fled. Our people never stood a chance. Hundreds were slaughtered. More taken prisoner. King Stephen was captured alive-”
“It was not his wish!” cried Alfred, stung by the sardonic tone in Hugh’s voice.
The pipe gleamed and dimmed. The Hand said nothing; Alfred was goaded by the silence into continuing talking, when he had never meant to speak. “The elven prince Reesh’ahn had marked Stephen out and ordered his men to take the king unharmed. Stephen’s lords fell at his side, defending him. And even when he stood alone, he fought on. They say there was a ring of dead around him, for the elves dared not disobey their ruler, and yet none could get close enough to take him without being killed. Finally they rushed him en masse, bore him to the ground, and disarmed him. Stephen fought bravely, as bravely as any of them.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” said the Hand. “All I know is that the army surrendered-”
Shocked, Bane turned to face him. “You must be mistaken, Sir Hugh! Our army won the Battle of Seven Fields!”
“Our army won?” Hugh raised an eyebrow. “No, it wasn’t the army who won. It was one woman who beat the elves-a minstrel called Ravenlark, for, they said, her skin was black as a raven’s feathers and her voice was like that of a lark singing to welcome the dawn. Her lord had brought her to sing his victory, I suppose, but she ended up chanting his death song. She was captured and taken prisoner like the rest of the humans. They were herded together on a road that ran through the Seven Fields, a road littered with the bodies of the dead, wet with their blood. They were a pitiful lot, for they knew the fate that awaited them-slavery. Envying those who had died, they stood with heads bowed and shoulders slumped.
“And then the minstrel began to sing. It was an old song, one everyone remembers from childhood.”
“I know it!” Bane cried eagerly. “I’ve heard this part.”