The Coming Storm (58 page)

Two hands pressed hers, a flow of sympathy and empathy moved between them in tribute to the friend they’d lost, and then they released.

It wasn’t enough but there would be time later. Perhaps.

“There wasn’t,” Ailith agreed. “Jareth? Jalila?”

A shadow moved in Elon’s eyes. “Jareth is above at the castle. Jalila…?”

He hadn’t felt her death. That was all of which he was certain.

Ailith said, softly, “She lives.”

In the aftermath of battle people started to flow past them, the gates above  were opened to let them past. They scrambled to search for loved ones lost, to survey broken homes and broken lives. There were cries, shouts of joy, wails of grief.

As one, they turned toward the castle, Ailith searching for familiar lights in her mind.

“Wait,” she said, finding one, happily. “Slow.”

Jalila stepped from between some buildings out into the street, in one motion Colath reached an arm out to put her up behind him.

There was no mark on her, none at all save smoke and soot. Her eyes were weary, stunned and her quiver was empty.

“Took your time coming,” was all she said.

Elon shook his head and allowed himself a smile.

The castle yard emptied as well of all but the wounded scattered about. Of those there were many and the castle yard was filled with the groans and moans of injured men and women. Doril looked up from one such, blood smeared on her cheek and staining her clothes as Jareth walked across the yard to join them.

Jareth looked from one to the other, seeing the wounds both large and small. He reached a hand to each, Elon and Colath, Ailith and Jalila with relief. Each clasped it, briefly, with the same emotion. He looked to Ailith, thankful to see her alive and well and Jalila, too. The depth of that feeling surprised him somewhat, a strong surge of warmth, but he couldn’t be sorry for it.

“Hai, Ailith,” Doril said, wearily, coming to them as they dismounted. “Westin’s in his Chambers, he’d like to see you.”

Ailith looked down at her battle-torn and stained clothing. Only a simple leather thong bound her hair, to keep it out of her eyes.

With a sigh, Ailith said, “He’ll have to take me as I am this time.”

It was a much different place than they’d seen only a day or so before. The bright chatter of folk in the hall, the butterfly brightness of their clothing, was diminished, hushed and muted. People went about their business with purpose, some with haunted, worried eyes, wondering at the fate of loved ones they hadn’t yet found.

A flurry of people surrounded the chubby little King.

Westin looked up as they came in, unannounced. He seemed quieter, his eyes shocked and somewhat shamed. A wave of his hand sent those around him back.

“My Lord Elon,” he said, stood, and bowed. “I owe you a debt.”

Straightening, he held up a hand for silence when Elon would have spoken. He shook his head and gestured his hand at the people who waited for him and sighed.

“This is what I am good at,” he said, resignedly, “and I know it. If not for you my Kingdom wouldn’t have survived at all. I’ve no head for war, no hand for weapons. No skill at it either sword or bow. I ran. I couldn’t face it. You did what I should’ve done and couldn’t do and for that I’m thankful. Thanks as well to you, Ailith. You tried to warn me. It seems you’re a better friend to Raven’s Nest than Raven’s Nest has been to Riverford. I can’t make amends but I can and will make apologies. Now, what can I do for you?”

Elon looked at him.

There was little to be seen of the petty little man who’d played with power only two days before. Still small and rotund but his eyes were shadowed now. To have watched a goodly portion of his city go up in flames to save the rest had marked him.

“Give me your warrant to speak on your behalf,” Elon said. “We’ve long suspected such an event would occur and we learned it was likely to occur here, which is why we came. I need proof enough to take to the High King. Until today, there was none.”

He gave Ailith a glance.

Geric hadn’t come, where then was Riverford? Still waiting? The garrison was still here and the Elves, the Hunters and the Woodsmen from beyond the Rift.

Would they take the chance?

Even this much was something to take to Daran High King, though, proof enough that the creatures of the borderland would attack like this, something that had never happened in history. Even during the wizards war there’d never been anything like this.

Daran might see the defeat here as teaching them a lesson but it might be enough to convince him to strengthen the garrisons in the north at the very least.

“If that’s all you need, you shall have it,” Westin said.

With a snap of his fingers a secretary handed Westin a warrant with his gold seal on it of a Raven crowned. He gave it to Elon with his own hands.

“Food, drink, a bath and rest as well await you. Doril laid in enough food for a siege, so we might as well use it rather than waste it. Go and take your rest, none of you escaped unscathed. Let me do what I am good at.”

Ailith kept looking back over her shoulder, curiously uneasy. A sense of wrongness weighed on her. There was a sensation of being watched, of eyes that bored holes in her back. Exhaustion trembled in her every limb but she had to see.

“Thank you, my Lord,” she said and bowed to Westin.

She touched Elon’s arm.

He looked down into her eyes which looked puzzled and disturbed.

With a small gesture of her head she indicated he should come. She looked to Colath, who raised an eyebrow in question but she shook her head in bewilderment. Jareth and Jalila looked at each other, at the question in her eyes and followed.

On the steps to the castle she looked up and out. Elon followed her gaze. So did the others.

There was the answer to his earlier question.

Massed in the pass was a dark shadow, not of creatures of the borderlands, but men. Many men.

Riverford’s men.

Elon’s heart sank. He looked around at the wounded. At the smoke that rose from below.

Jareth said, “What will they do?”

Then, though, the shadowed mass of men in the pass melted away, returning back the way they’d come. Only two figures remained, one large, one smaller and then they, too, melted back into the shadows.

“I felt it,” Ailith said, her voice was calm. “His eyes on me. I don’t like that… thing in my thoughts so.”

Elon’s eyes went to hers, she met his gaze evenly.

“What now, Elon?” Colath asked.

“For what remains of this day and tonight, we rest. Tomorrow… “He sighed, looking out at the pass. “Time grows short. We’ve thwarted Tolan’s plans here but not the rest. There’s no reason to believe he’ll give up them up. There’s a larger plan at work here. In a matter of weeks the snows will begin to fall in the north. Unwarned, the castles and the garrisons won’t be prepared for something like this.”

Even now a plan formed in his mind. He didn’t like it but he could see no alternative. He couldn’t be in two places at one time.

“And you must go south and see the High King,” Ailith said, tilting her head to look at him.

She, too, had been thinking, weighing the time, the distances, it seemed.

Elon could see she saw it as well.

Arms folded, Colath looked at him and nodded. He knew.

Elon turned to Jareth, who also nodded, understanding, and Jalila. She waited impassively but she knew and understood also.

“Take Colath with you,” Ailith said lightly.

It pained her but he could see she was resigned to it.

“You’ll need him at your back, Elon. If Jareth and Jalila are amenable, I would take them with me. Where we go a good archer will be useful and a wizard as well. My status will gain us entrance to places you couldn’t. I’ll see if Doril can find me something more regal to wear, so I can make a good impression.”

Jareth sighed, but nodded assent.

After a moment of thought, so did Jalila.

It only made sense but it pained him. Ailith made it easier for him but Elon knew the thought of separation pained her as well.

There was no other answer though he didn’t like it.

“We’ll do well enough, Elon,” Ailith said, with a grin. “I’ll have a wizard and a master archer at my back. For now though I’ve a visit to make.”

She sighed and her eyes shadowed.

“To Danalae.”

As tired as she was, it had to be done and done now. There was no putting it off. She couldn’t leave Danalae waiting and wondering what had become of her beloved husband.

“When you return, meet us at my room, we’ll plan then,” Elon said.

He clasped her arm in sympathy, knowing how difficult the task was and saw the gratitude in her eyes.

He and Colath had their own duties before they could rest, to thank the Elves that had come on their behalf and to see to the Healing as necessary. By some miracle, they’d lost none of their own, although some had taken wounds.

It was late in the day when they finally rejoined in Elon’s rooms.

Food and drink had been laid out on one table, a map spread on another.

Ailith collapsed in a chair by that table, too tired to make more effort.

“How will you go?” Elon asked her, a map stretched out before him as he leaned on the table.

Letting her head loll across the back of the chair, Ailith looked at his familiar stern face and then at the map.

“East to West as we can, in an arc, moving as fast as we dare. I don’t know that country well although I’ve visited most at one time or another. I don’t want to get caught in the High North once the snows come. Tolan, at least, has done us a favor with that, moving his plans here up, but it will still be some weeks to cross.”

“I know,” Jareth groaned.

She raised an eyebrow, amused, too weary to do more.

It was such an Elven gesture, Elon thought.

“He’s been there before,” Colath explained.

“Ah. Well, then,” she said, with a small smile and a wave of her hand, “he can lead the way this time. I was growing weary of it.”

Looking at the map, weighing distances, Elon nodded. “With luck, we should be able to meet you here, at Raintree, once we finish with the High King. We’ll know by then what we need to do.”

He was quiet a moment. He still had misgivings.

Ailith said, “We’ll be fine, Elon. We’ll keep to good roads and I’ll keep an eye out. You have to go into the heartlands, past Riverford and Tolan again.”

“Not so close,” he said, faintly amused.

“Any close is too close to Tolan,” she said, her tone wry but he saw the twist of real concern in her eyes. “And his trackers.”

“We’ll be fine, Ailith,” he echoed.

She smiled a little again although her heart ached. “I’ll stop worrying if you do.”

“Since that’s not possible, we’ll have to agree to worry about each other.”

“Better to worry than not,” she said, with a sigh. “Westin will supply us, I’ve no doubt of that. For the rest, I suppose we have only to do it.”

“Tomorrow.” Elon looked around at all of them. It couldn’t be avoided. “Go. Rest. Tomorrow comes soon enough.”

One by one they left, Ailith and Colath leaving last, both giving him one last glance before they left him alone with his thoughts.

He paced, trying to find another way around this plan but he couldn’t.

What did Tolan plan now? And that dark Other Ailith had seen? Their plans had to have changed. Raven’s Nest was no threat to them any more, not in its condition. Westin was no warrior but Aranoc had been, even as old as he was. Now he was gone and Raven’s Nest pummeled. They had no fear there anymore.

He didn’t know what they would plan next.

It remained to him to convince Daran High King to put more of his army in the north. If he could. What they had was alarming but slight. Was it enough?