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.No people.For lack of a better plan, she went along."Come ahead! Empty-handed!"Something left the tree line.Three white blobs.Faces.A few paces later, Knucklebones made out dark, slim forms, a smooth, high-stepping walk like deer, black, curved lines behind heads of black hair.Why, she marveled, did they come?When the trio closed to scale the last slope to the shelf, Knucklebones barked, "I said empty-handed! Two dozen crossbows can sweep this rock!"In answer, six white palms rose.Still, the surefooted trio scaled the rock.So graceful and strong, they made Knucklebones feel crippled and clumsy.She backed from the edge and almost turned her ankle in the fire pit.Standing on gray-white rock, framed against black sky, three elves waited patiently with hands in the air.Knucklebones imagined that they were the same elves who'd tried to kill her many times these past days.Wild black hair banded with headbands, smooth faces without war paint, boiled black armor and green shirts, and small slippers.Ornate swords swung at their hips.At their back hung quivers of black arrows and short, curved bows.Hoping the dwarves were still present, not slipped over the next mountain, Knucklebones demanded, "What do you wish?""We come in peace," said the middle, an elf woman, one of two.They were all the same height, within inches."We sue for peace.""Peace? With whom?""You.The dwarves.The horse-tailed clan on the grasslands," the elf said."We know their shaman is here.""How do you know—Oh!" Knucklebones jumped as Sunbright stepped up.Absorbed in the terrible beauty of the elves, the music of their voices, their aura of ancient dignity, she'd failed to hear him.His voice was flat as he said, "Sunbright Steelshanks am I, but no longer shaman of the Rengarth."The elves looked at one another.The middle one said, "We need you to negotiate a truce with your people.Orcs swarm into our forest from north and east, more every day, vast hordes.We cannot fight barbarians and orcs too.You must tell them—""I can tell them nothing," Sunbright interrupted."They will not listen."Again the elves exchanged glances, and Knucklebones thought a sigh of exasperation escaped the spokesperson, as if dealing with thick-witted humans were a chore."They must listen," the elf woman said."You must talk to them.Failure to talk will have dire consequences for all our peoples.Mortal consequences."Chapter 16Everywhere on the outskirts of the Netherese Empire, fire and sword and steel reigned supreme.Zenith was attacked by pirates swarming from the Marsh of Simplicity and sacked, the gates breached and torn down, the marketplace and city hall burned.Near Earsome, orcs massacred religious pilgrims and heaved their bodies into Kraal Brook until the rapids overflowed their banks.The muscular mining community of Bandor Village was overrun by bandits that burned scaffolds and sluices and hoppers, but worse, introduced a throat-rotting plague that claimed four thousand lives.Angardt Barbarians took revenge on Thiefsward, long suspected of cheating them, and crucified the city elders and dozens more on the high wooden gates.Kobolds and goblins dragged ballistae and catapults and siege towers from Blister and laid siege to Frothwater.The noise awoke a jacinth dragon, rarest of beasts, that swooped upon the remnants of both armies.Trolls rose from the ground near Coniferia and burned their own forests, so smoke blackened the sky for days and ash smothered winter crops.Even Seventon, birthplace of the Empire of Netheril, was overrun by orcs of the Eastern Forest.More than the people, the land suffered.Already strained by the life-drain of the Phaerimm, the fields of the empire felt the axe, the torch, the scythe, and the spade.Rampaging armies burned ripe grain, chopped down orchards, slashed vineyards, slaughtered cattle and hogs and fowl.Half the harvest was lost.Food shortages became so acute even the highborn Neth looked up from their gaming tables and decided to take action.What they saw were not petty raids, but concerted action by many scattered factions of humans and monsters.Most wore the bloody red hand of the One King.The empire roused their army: young, battle-hardened, scarred veterans under officers with twenty or more years' experience, fitted with the finest armor and honed steel.But the empire had grown complacent in decades past, had cut back the army to save money, and the current forces were stretched to the limit.Sometimes they conquered, sometimes they were overwhelmed.Yet the raids increased, and in the wake of marauders flowed other horrors: wyverns, tanar'ri, plagues, elementals, dragon-kin, swarms of magebane and kalin, and more.Then, a call for truce.Messengers of the One King, unarmed and carrying a banner with a bright red hand, approached Ioulaum, oldest of cities, and delivered a dispatch.The One King would meet a negotiator for the empire atop Widowmaker Mountain at the next new moon.But the king insisted on choosing the envoy.He would address only the strongest, most brilliant, most capable archwizard of the entire empire.Lady Polaris.* * * * *Widowmaker Mountain stood alone in a vast plain of dead grassland rapidly turning desert.Nine airboats skimmed the air in approach: wooden peapod hulls topped by horizontal masts and metal foils to catch the sun's rays.For this occasion, each boat was painted black and white, the ambassador's colors, and black banners marked by an ornate white P snapped in the wind [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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