Days Of Light And Shadow (18 page)

But then he was an elf. Were any of their words of use?

Better, he decided, to sit there in silence as the sun continued to climb, and watch their actions speak the truth instead. And their actions said that they could not fight back. That was the only truth that mattered.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

“By Gaia!” Iros heard the woman’s voice through the darkness, but he didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t know that he even cared.

Until then he’d been happily floating in some strange dream, and he didn’t want to leave it. Not when he woke once more to find that his home was now a dank, cold cell with no light and water running down the broken stone walls. That his body burned with fire. Waking life was a house of pain. It was such a change from his old home in Castle Drake or even his more ordinary quarters in the mission. He let the woman’s voice float away as he returned to his dreams of happier times and places.

“Waken!” Time had passed, the woman was back, her voice louder, and someone was even shaking him. But as he lay face down on the cold stone floor, he didn’t really want to wake. So instead of responding, Iros just lay there, patiently waiting for her to stop. Soon whoever or whatever she was, she would go away. Everything would go away.

Cold salt water hit him, lots of it, and the shock was finally enough to rouse him a little. Not all the way, but enough that he could open his eyes and stare at the dark stone floor under him. Enough to turn his head to see a pair of sandaled feet and realise that the woman and the water were actually real. But not enough that he really wanted to do anything about it like try and get up. Least of all for an elf.

He was becoming very tired of elves of late. And perhaps he hadn’t liked them that much to begin with. So formal and stiff, so proper. Or at least the nobles were. Out in the markets though, things had been different. Those of the lesser houses, the low born, and those born of no house at all, they were more welcoming. But then many of them also had human blood flowing through their hearts. And gnomish, sprite, troll and even dwarven blood. The nobles, he suspected, didn’t have any hearts at all. And daily he was being proven right.

They were cold blooded monsters.

Half a dozen more buckets of what was surely snow melt though, and much more shaking and screaming at him did eventually return him to something approaching life, reminding him that no matter how much he loathed them, the elves still had some power over him. For a while. The water even roused him enough that he could finally turn his head and look up at the woman. Strangely he even recognised her through his blurry eyes. Her blue hair was unmistakeable, when most of her people had hair of green or the more normal reds and browns.

“Sophelia.” He croaked out her name, not quite sure why. She knew who she was. But then he wasn’t even completely sure it was him speaking. His voice sounded so strange. Somehow so rough and yet so faint at the same time. Not like his voice at all.

Still it was proper to speak to her. Even here. She had always struck him as a proper woman among her people. Formal like the rest but more than that, a woman with actual principles behind her. Not like the foul child that was her lord. His manners and politeness were only for show. And then only when it suited him. But some of the others of his court, they showed true nobility. He had thought that she was one of those few.

But she was also the high lord’s cousin. They shared the same blue hair and blue eyes of House Vora. Her ears pointed in the same direction. That did not seem good. In fact it made him angry.

“Forgive me if I don’t get up.” It was half good manners drilled in to him by his tutors, half poor jest, and mostly a barb at her expense as he reminded her of what her miserable family had done to him. It was also probably a completely stupid thing to say but the words somehow croaked themselves out. She didn’t laugh. Then again, he’d never seen her laugh. Her words were always calm and measured, her face perfectly at ease. But at least her words had sometimes shown a concern for the people.

He wondered some days if that had something to do with her eyes. Her bright blue eyes. Most elves had green eyes, yet her entire family had blue eyes to go with their blue hair. Was it maybe a trace of outsider blood? Running through House Vora? Not that he would ever ask such an impertinent question. But if so it might explain something of her nature.

“I do not ask you to get up envoy. Only to send a message.” As if he could do even that much. His body was racked with illness and pain and he doubted he had the strength to hold a quill. And even if he could do that, he had no way of sending one from inside this foul prison. And why was she speaking so formally? As if they were in the court and not a dungeon?

“Why would I help House Vora? And even if I wanted to how could I?” There was silence after that, as she didn’t have an answer for him, and he didn’t care. But eventually he realised that there was still another question that needed to be asked. “What message?”

“To your king. Asking that he end this madness.” Iros guessed that the war was going badly for the elves, and despite it being base and cruel the thought brought him some small pleasure. After all that they had done to him and his people, and all the lies their poxy High Lord had given him, he felt he was due some small reward.

“I cannot send that message. It must be from your plague ridden cousin. You know that.”

“He will not.” Of course he wouldn’t. The hatred that burnt in Finell’s soul would not let him stop until it was finished, no matter the outcome. And that was why she had come to him. Hoping he could send a message that her cousin wouldn’t.

“Then I’m sorry, I can’t help you. It’s too late.” And it was. It was far too late for anything but the obscenity that was war to consume the lands. Things had gone too far already. Towns sacked, cities attacked, fields and forests burned, thousands, maybe tens of thousands dead. And that was before he’d been locked up however many weeks ago. Against that there was nothing he could do. Nothing that anyone could do. The high lord was mad, an evil youngster drunk on power and anger, dreaming of conquest, vengeance and death, and last he’d seen him, lying as well.

His first strike had finally been defeated just before Y’aris and his watchmen had come for him. The pigeon had arrived barely ahead of Y’aris. Arrows, pitch covered chain and monstrous evil had been no match for cannon and true steel. Twenty thousand of Finell’s finest soldiers had been routed, and if Iros was sure of anything, it was that Herrick, ever the trained soldier, had followed up that victory with a counter attack. The divines only knew what elven towns and cities had paid for that loss with the lives of their people. Or how many had shed their blood in the cause of a mad elf lord’s vengeance.

“No! Don’t say that! My brother!” Sophelia sounded frightened and even through his blurred eyesight he could see tears rolling down her cheeks. It was then that he understood why she had come. Her brother was in Castle Storm in Tendarin, filling the same position he did among the elves of Leafshade, envoy. And she had every reason to worry. If she imagined humans were anything like her evil little cousin and his black blooded advisor, she should be terrified. And though they weren’t he wasn’t sure that her worries were completely unfounded.

Herrick was a wise leader and not a new blood to the throne, but still there was only so much a man could take. And when the elves had come marching into the defenceless border towns, pillaging, murdering and burning, he would have been angry. He had been angry. Before his house arrest Iros had had to relay his words to the high lord, and they had not been those of peace. And when the king’s personal envoy had been dragged out of his quarters in the diplomatic houses by Finell’s royal guard, locked up in a dungeon and tortured, that anger would surely only have grown. It was an insult to his rule after all.

Still, if his assistant had managed to send away the pigeon with Iros’ words before whatever else had been done to the house, there was hope. Herrick was never a fool, and he would not lightly set aside the ancient codes. But he had been most grievously provoked. He couldn’t tell her that though. She might be an elf. She might be of House Vora. But in the end she was a woman and she was crying, and he simply couldn’t add to her pain.

“I’m sorry Sophelia. I did what I could.” Iros let his head slide back to the stone, too tired to hold it up any longer. And he didn’t want to see a woman crying for her brother. Even an elf. There had been too much crying already. Too many women’s tears shed. And he had his own family to worry about. Greenlands was on the border, standing directly between Irothia and Elaris, between Tendarin and Leafshade, between Herrick and Finell.

Even locked away in the dark for however long he had been, Iros knew it would have been attacked by then. And that was the truest torture he faced in this dungeon. Worrying how terribly his home, his friends and his family had been hurt. The town’s walls had never been finished. Not in centuries. The armed forces they had were few, mainly patrols to ride out over the vast land area and protect the roads from brigands, and a few guards to keep the law. They weren’t prepared for a war. Least of all a war of such evil as the elves had launched.

“What did you do?” Her tears were still flowing, her voice trembling, and he knew that no matter what he could have done, it would never have been enough to ease her fear. But all he could tell her was the truth.

“I said to Pita to send a pigeon beseeching my king not to retaliate in kind. To observe the codes and to keep the discourse alive. That it was the only hope for peace. But that was on the day that Finell had me imprisoned. I do not know if the message was sent. I don’t know what became of Pita or the mission.” And he was worried about them. From the first he had guessed that Y’aris and Finell would not want witnesses to their crime reporting back to his king, and he was frightened that somewhere in this evil underworld he would find the rest of his staff. He only wished that he’d been able to say something of his fears to them before they’d hauled him away.

“They were burned.” She squeezed the three terrible words out between sobs, and Iros wished she hadn’t. Not when they were worse than his worst fears. Such terrible words. He wondered if her tears were for the loss she believed she would now suffer, or for what had been done. He wanted to believe the latter. He needed to believe that among the nobles there were at least some good men and women. Some not like the high lord and his black robed advisor. But it was hard.

Even before Finell he had known of House Vora. A trading house, gold and moon silver in their blood. These were not the teachers and healers and priests who made a land agreeable. These were not the artists and musicians and poets who inspired. They were the traders. They ran warehouses, repositories, and caravans that ran across all the realms. They valued gold. So did she cry for the innocents already lost, her brother, or the family business being torn apart?

Still Iros let her cry. He desperately wanted to ask about his people. He wanted to know that they were alive, or saving that, that they had died easily, but Sophelia was in no fit state to answer him. And in the end did it really matter. Tens of thousands were dead, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions more would join them in time as the madness grew.

War was a fire that fed on itself. It would not stop until there were no more souls to burn. And even then the few that survived would smoulder, waiting to burst back into life. It was no surprise then that he had found such comfort in the darkness. It was easier than thinking on what was happening elsewhere.

But Sophelia did not have that blessing. And he had only a little comfort he could grant her. He gave it.

“King Herrick is an honourable man. He would not lightly break the code even though he has been sorely provoked.” And he had been most sorely provoked. Surely even Sophelia knew that. She didn’t answer him though. She just kept sobbing quietly, and in the end all he could do was let her.

Eventually she stopped, and her thoughts ran in a different direction.

“Why? Why did your people do this terrible thing? Why?” Even through her tears Sophelia knew the right question to ask. The only one that mattered, though it probably didn’t matter that much any more.

“I don’t know Sophelia.” And that was the single most terrible truth of the matter. He didn’t know. Decades, centuries of peace, borders established and respected always, the rule of law held by all, there had been no reason for the attack. Not by Herrick’s men anyway. And brigands should have been seen to long before they could have reached the sacred groves. The rangers should have tracked them down and killed them almost immediately they’d entered Elaris. They kept a close eye on the borderlands and particularly the wild towns where brigands were known to make their homes. It made no sense. None of it.

“I don’t know who murdered poor Elwene. I don’t know why they did it. All I do know is that it was a terrible crime. The guilty should have been rounded up and tried and punished. The victims laid to rest properly. But instead justice was forgotten in the name of vengeance, and that swiftly became a war, and now there is innocent blood on everyone’s hands. There will be much more. Enough for everyone to drown in.”