The Coming Storm (86 page)

She forced herself to eat something, however much it wanted to rebel.

In her internal constellations she found the ones she loved and marked them, the stars in her heart. Elon was to her right, Jalila with him, which reassured her. At least he had her at his back, if he couldn’t have Colath. She would guard it as if she was.

Colath was to her left but his back was exposed. That was her place or Elon’s but they’d had no choice.

Searching for Jareth she found him up close to the front, which she didn’t like. She feared for him there. It seemed he’d been right about that, Avila would put so many of her wizards at the front. Itan, too, was there, which Olend couldn’t like either, being so far away from his wife.

Ailith had come to know and like both of them.

In the darkness before dawn Ailith woke to see to her people, to ride among them a little as she roused them, to ask their names and home Kingdoms. She wouldn’t remember them but it didn’t really matter, either, they simply wanted to be seen, to be recognized as themselves before the enemy came.

Then they came.

The enemy
.

As before, the sound of their approach was like the sound of thunder but even greater without the sand to muffle it. This time, they were closer and far easier to see.

Trolls, their arms like banded oak, with their great broad faces and lower teeth like tusks that pushed their upper lips into a sneer. Some were mounted on hellhounds. Mandrakes, their sinuous necks stretched out to test the bounds of the harness that held them, wailing their frustration and hunger while their Goblin riders screamed their anticipation of blood. Drows, massive and mud-colored. She remembered them well. Boggins and boggarts in between.

“What say you, Lady?” a soldier beside her asked.

Surprised, Ailith glanced down at him. He was a grizzled old veteran, his face seamed.

“No Lady am I, no more at least,” she said, gently, in the moments before battle. “What is it you ask?”

“Are you afraid?”

His eyes slewed toward the soldier beside him.

She looked at him and then looked at the young man beside him. He looked pale and very, very frightened.

Raising her eyes, she looked out upon the approaching host. She’d fought most of these at one time or another. She tried to remember being afraid and knew she had been but there had been no time for thinking about it. That time when she went to warn Elon and the others. After? Truthfully, she’d never been much afraid for herself, more for Elon and Colath, Jareth and Jalila, for the people she’d commanded.

That wasn’t what these two wanted to hear.

Was she afraid now?

She was, but more for the ones she loved, for Elon and Colath, Jareth and Jalila, Olend and Itan.

For herself?

She could die here. But she could have died a thousand times before it seemed.

“My father,” she said calmly, and remembered the last time she’d thought this, “once told me that only a fool isn’t frightened on the day of battle.”

She smiled a little.

“Are you afraid, Lady?” asked the young soldier, his voice trembling. He sounded surprised.

Ailith took a deep breath, looked out at the enemy, then down at them both, and gave them the truth.

“Terrified.”

She thought of the others, those ones she loved.

“But, I’ll stand, for my family, my friends, for the people of the Kingdoms.”

His eyes wide, the young soldier looked at her and those around him. Then he nodded and set his pike more firmly in the ground.

Ailith smiled to see it.

The High King rode out before the army to give a rousing speech in defiance of the horde that approached behind him.

Ailith scarcely heard him.

She didn’t need a stirring speech to know what it was she did here, what and who she fought for. She did this for those she loved, for these people here, for all those she’d seen in her dreams and visions, for the ones who’d died in the mountains unnoticed and the ones Mornith wanted in chains. Most especially, for the Elves and the Dwarves, who were so few. And for Elon. For him, so much, for Colath very much, for Jareth up near the front and for Jalila who guarded Elon’s back in her stead.

Guard him well for me, Jalila
, Ailith thought, knowing that Jalila would, and tried not to feel the deep ache in her heart.

There were eyes on her.

Eyes she’d felt too many times and still hated.

Did anyone else see him? Had anyone else seen him?

It was as if he’d just appeared from nowhere.

Perhaps he had.

Mornith, mounted on an animal that looked like a horse but with its red eyes wasn’t, rode up the southern hill.

People pointed.

Daran turned as he rode back through the massed army, seeing them glance behind him.

A darkly cowled figure sat on something that looked like a horse except for its burning red eyes and sharp white fangs.

There were no features to be seen beneath that cowl – only a deeper darkness within it that left him with a strong feeling that he didn’t want to look too hard at what was inside – and two glowing orbs.

It was his first sight of his enemy.

For a moment Daran wanted to shout
Why? Why me, why now
? But he suspected he would get no answer. At least none that would make a difference.

Or what answer he would get would be laughter – maniacal, bone-chilling laughter.

Restraining a shudder, Daran turned his back on it and rode through his troops with his head held high. It was more of an effort then he’d expected.

Now Daran knew who it was he faced even if he didn’t have a name. There was something, someone, to lay it to. This was the one Elon thought lay behind this madness.

Elon had said there had to be someone’s hand in this but Daran had ignored it, Elon’s counsel outweighed by the advice of his generals, his Kings and Commanders. Never once had Elon advised him poorly or misled him as some of them had. So what had he done? Listened to that communal voice rather than the singular voice of reason.

A foolish and now possibly fatal mistake.

That terrible figure on the hill. Wizard or what?

There was a dire and dreadful look to that one. Nothing could truly be seen within the edges of that cowl and that was very disturbing.

From her place among her new command Ailith pulled her sword, pointed it at Mornith.

If I can reach you, I’ll make you pay for what you have done to me and mine. To Elon and Colath, my other hearts, to my family, to my friends and to me
, she swore.

It wasn’t a vow, not a promise, there was her duty to her troops, but it was in hope that the opportunity would come.

As if that was the signal Mornith raised his sword to the sky to catch the dawning sunlight on the tip and then let it fall.

With a horrific roar the massed horde rushed forward.

From the archers in the army’s midst and those on both sides, a flight of arrows arched up into the sky with the sound of a thousand birds taking wing. When they fell, though, they fell silently as shields went up among the enemy. Some still found targets. Shrieks of pain rang out.

Another flight of arrows took out some and a second flight more. They were still pouring arrows on them as the enemy struck the forward line with a crash so loud it echoed off the hills.

Yet Ailith watched Mornith.

Daran waited to see if the carefully crafted plan Elon had helped him lay out would work. There had been some changes and he knew Elon had reservations about the placement of Riverford but Geric had asked and Daran had had no reason to refuse.

Elon brought his people forward a little, to improve their range. Bows rose and a flight of arrows lofted over the heads of the front lines to thin the opposing forces. To his far left a similar flight flew, as Colath directed his group to good effect.

And Ailith
? He couldn’t see her.

As the armies came together there was a tremendous clash, an incredible sound, and with it the ululating cries of the goblins, the roars of the trolls and the crash of metal against metal. Shouts, screams and cries filled the air. Mage-bolts flashed from the front.
Jareth
. His light was there, Ailith could see it, a little brighter than those around him.

The army actually moved forward as the front line advanced, pushing the enemy back. The Dwarves, so massive, used their axes to good effect, being a more natural match force-to-force for the goblins and trolls than Men or Elves. Their size and their strength offset that of the trolls and outweighed the goblins. The Lore Masters as well. Her heart lifted a little. She began to believe they might win.

Then she felt it, a hum of discordant magic. Where? She couldn’t see anything.

Mornith
. Hiding something, he was always hiding something out of sight, out of view, but the plain was so open. Out of sight, like the firbolg as sappers at the base of Marakis castle. She went cold. Wanted to cry out a warning, but there was no one to warn.

‘
Elon, Colath
,’ the bond shimmered with it as she tried to warn them.

She looked at the ground below the enemy’s feet. Something moved there, the earth shifted. There were things that burrowed, things that moved beneath the earth. Whatever these were, they were large, the irregular movement of the ground beneath them threw some of the hell hounds off balance.

Some instinct warned her. There was a hum, something that reminded her of Tolan somehow.

“Look down,” she shouted, averting her own eyes. “Look down.”

Basilisks.

They were the only creatures that would account for that hum of magic. They were one of the few borderland creatures that actually used magic, as opposed to having been created by it.

The earth erupted as the huge heads twined fluidly up out of the earth, reaching for the sky, the graceful movement naturally drawing the eye.

Don’t look up
, she told herself.

From the corners of her eyes she could see the size of them and they were huge. She’d seen basilisks before but she’d never seen them this big and never so many.
Where had Mornith found them
? The creatures swayed, movement intended to catch the eye.

Almost as one the front lines froze, locked in place by the magic of a basilisk’s gaze. They were instantly rendered helpless, prey for the basilisks.

The goblins and trolls moved in, their swords hacking.

In an instant, the whole first line of lives went black in Ailith’s mind. Dead. Gone.

Some of those behind who resisted the urge or who knew of basilisks, tried to push forward to defend those being butchered in place by the goblins and trolls but the lines were too thick. A few mage-bolts flashed. Jareth was one of them, he knew magical creatures. Itan was another, basilisks were native to Marakis. Many others, caught by surprise, hadn’t looked away, and so were caught by surprise.

Ailith glanced to each side. The Elves would have known about basilisks but the Dwarves might not, having little experience with such above-ground creatures. For all that basilisks burrowed, they didn’t burrow deep.

They hadn’t and the Dwarves were now frozen like the rest, even some of the Lore Masters.

A well-placed arrow, into an eye or the throat, would kill a basilisk but there were no arrows flying close enough, the best archers hemmed in by the frozen army before them.

To her horror Ailith saw that the Elves were trapped, locked in place on all sides by the bespelled army. They couldn’t fight their way through without overrunning those before them. Without killing them.

Behind them banners turned. Cold fear washed through her. It was Elon’s vision made true.

Riverford turned in on the right flank and attacked the forces next to it, blades flashing to cut their way through the army between them. Not to the enemy, they were trying to reach the Elves.