The Witch's Daughter (9 page)

“I most certainly would!” Meriwindle replied with a hearty laugh. He dropped an arm over Bryan’s shoulder and shook him. “The farm will be here when—if—we choose to return. But you must come with me. What fun would an old elf find along the road if his most trusted companion was not riding by his side?

“Besides,” he continued, giving Bryan another playful shake, “the armor and the blade belong to you now. It is your duty, in return for the gifts, to protect your aging father on his long journey.”

Bryan straightened at his father’s honest respect, smiling from ear to ear. “They’ll be picking a leader before we get out of town,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at the open door. “I believe that they meant to choose me when we planned this journey. Now, bearing the sword and armor, it is very likely that I will be selected.”

“Then accept,” Meriwindle was quick to reply. “But remember always that a true leader speaks less than he listens.”

“Come on, Bryan!” came an anonymous call from outside.

“To Jolsen’s!” the rest of the anxious troupe piped in on cue.

“I have to go.”

Meriwindle gave his son a final hug, then put him out at arm’s length to look him over. “You certainly do,” he said. For some time Meriwindle had feared the inevitability of this moment, but now, looking at Bryan, the elf found his fears washed away on a tide of sincere admiration.

No more was Bryan his little boy.

T
HE STURDY FOLK
of Windywillow Village, the westernmost settlement in the Calvan kingdom, were not unused to skirmishes against talons. Tribes of the wretched things lived all about them, in the great forest that gave their village its name, and to the west, in the marshlands of Mysmal Swamp. Plundering talons constantly searched out the homes of the village seeking easy takings.

Mostly, though, what the talons got for their troubles was a general thinning of their raiding ranks. Windywillow Village had become a veritable fortress over the years, with tunnels connecting many of the cottages, and trenches and devious traps lining the perimeter of the entire settlement. And the people here, just over a hundred in number, including the few women, were practiced and fearless fighters.

But when the sun rose through a dreary gray mist on this particular summer morning, Windywillow Village saw the approach of doom.

“Big tribe,” one of the villagers remarked over the shouts of alarm at the coming cloud of dust.

“Biggest I e’er seen,” another man agreed. “Well, we’ll give ’em a taste o’ steel an’ set ’em runnin’ the right way.”

But the villager was not so sure. Before long the very ground beneath his feet began to vibrate under the stamp of the approaching army, and the throaty song of the talons carried along on the morning breeze.

“Damn big tribe,” he said, considering, for the first time in his fifteen years in Windywillow Village, the option of retreat. But he shook the notion away and clapped his great ax across his shoulder. “Just means there’ll be more to hit,” he grumbled, moving to his position in the first line of defense.

Less than fifteen minutes later, when the leading cavalry of Thalasi’s army burst into view, rushing over the horizon, followed by rank after rank of filthy talon soldiers, the villager thought of retreat again.

But swamp lizards are swift beasts, nearly as swift as a horse even bearing a rider. For the villager, and for all of Windywillow Village, it was already far too late, and had been too late since the first sightings of the dust cloud.

The villagers fought savagely even when their hopes of victory and survival had flown.

Twenty thousand talon soldiers stamped the village flat. Within half an hour not a man, woman, or child remained alive.

From his comfortable chair in his litter, the Black Warlock surveyed the devastation. An evil smirk became a laugh of joy. How easy this all would be! Thalasi’s only regret was that he could not take part in the slaughter, that he could not reveal himself. Not yet. The longer the Black Warlock was able to keep the news of his return from spreading throughout the land, the longer his talon army would be unhindered by the countering magics of his wizard adversaries.

He looked to the east, and his laughter continued. Another plume of smoke had already started its lazy climb into the late morning sky; another village had ceased to exist.

They would crush a third that same day, and two more the
next. Thalasi clenched his bony fist in victory. Every kill kept the ranks of his rabble army at peace with each other; every kill spurred the wicked talons on in their relentless hunt for more human blood. With the eager pace they had set this day, and with only minor towns standing in their path, they would make Corning within a week, and the Four Bridges just a day or two after that. Pallendara would never be able to muster its peace-softened troops and get them to the banks of the great river, the only defensible spot in all the southland, in time.

Then the King of Calva would learn of the true power behind the talon uprising. And then the King of Calva would know terror.

Later that night, Thalasi’s tireless litter bearers brought him up to the main force of the army, encamped on the flattened ruins of the third sacked village. The Black Warlock’s glee only heightened when he learned that a large contingent of the troops, not satisfied with their kills this day, had pressed on into the night to assault the fourth village in line.

    Four thousand bloodthirsty talons thundered up to the wall of the small town of Doogenville, smashing the wood and stone with more fury than the defenders at the barricade could hope to repel. The townspeople threw boiling oil, sticks and stones, whatever they could find, at the enraged beasts, to no avail.

The brave men of Doogenville, outnumbered forty to one, knew that they could not hope to win against such a throng, but it was not for their own lives that they fought. To the east of the town, running down the road, went the elderly, the womenfolk, and the children, the only refugees of the first day of the Black Warlock’s campaign, the only witnesses to the coming darkness.

And the only hope for the people of the remaining villages.

    The mass of the talon army hit the fifth village the next day on schedule but found no resistance, and no sport, at all awaiting them.

The refugees of Doogenville had arrived first.

Enraged by the lack of prey, the talons broke ranks and rushed onward, determined to hunt down the fleeing humans. And when the reports filtering down the line finally reached the Black Warlock, he began to realize his first tactical error.

It would not matter, Thalasi reminded himself. His lizard-riding cavalry would cut off any chance for the people of the western fields to get across the river. Still, Thalasi was wise enough to understand that he had a problem: the rabble that made up his army was beginning to disintegrate, going off on their own without command or direction.

He quickly assembled his captains to repair the damage.

“You fail me!” he roared at them.

The captains grumbled under their breath, but none dared to openly oppose the Black Warlock.

“Regroup the troops!” Thalasi snapped at them. “Send swift riders to halt those in the front until the rest of the force can catch up to them.

“And spur the back ranks on more quickly. The humans are taking flight now; we must beat them to Corning.”

“Walking soldiers tired,” one of the swamp talon commanders complained. “Cannot run as swift as lizards.”

“Then encourage them,” Thalasi sneered. The big talon didn’t understand. “Whip them! Drive them on! I assure you that the fate they face”—he clenched a fist in the air suddenly, and the complaining talon leader rose off the ground as though a powerful invisible hand had grabbed its throat—“
the fate you face will be infinitely more painful than the lash of a whip.”

Thalasi had made his point.

The army regrouped in full just beyond the limits of the empty fifth village, the spot Thalasi had originally planned as their second encampment. But the Black Warlock had to make up for lost time now, and he would hear nothing of rest. Now riding his litter at the head of the army, he drove his forces through the night, overtaking many of the fleeing refugees. Still more of the retreating folk had made it to the sixth village in line, but those who stopped there for but short rest were caught and slaughtered. Like the five villages west of it, the sixth village was literally flattened.

The talons would find little rest until the western fields were secured. Risking the use of minor spells, Thalasi sent magical messages to his northern cavalry and southern mountain brigade, urging them on to greater speeds. The timetables had been turned up now. Thalasi wanted Corning in three days.

    Belexus, Andovar, and Rhiannon tarried at Rivertown and the Four Bridges longer than they had planned, but it was a vacation, after all, and the trio refused to be rushed, however slow their progress thus far had been. They finally set out toward Corning on the morning after the sixth Calvan village, unknown to them, had been sacked. They trotted their rested steeds easily down the western road, in no hurry, and saw their destination just after dawn two days later.

A column of black smoke rose in the west, and the large town, second only to Pallendara in the whole of Aielle, seemed all a-bustle. Guards nervously stalked the high wall that surrounded the town, always pointing back to the west, while inside rose cries of distress and calls of alarm.

Recognizing the uncharacteristic tumult—though none of
them had actually seen Corning before—the three northerners galloped down the last expanse of field and up to the city’s eastern gate.

“Halt and be known!” a guard demanded, and a dozen bows pointed down from the high wall at the trio.

“I am Belexus of Avalon,” the ranger called out. “Come to see yer fair city on holiday. But me eyes be tellin’ me that I might find no leisure here this day.”

The guard turned away to confer with another, apparently not recognizing the name. The second had a better understanding of the world beyond Corning and the western fields.

“Avalon?” he called down to Belexus. “Rangers?”

“Ayuh,” Andovar replied. “That we be. And methinks ye might be using our help.”

“If you are as fine with your blades as your reputation speaks,” the second guard said, “then indeed we might.” The gates swung open and the three were led in.

The sights within Corning were far from what they had anticipated when they began their journey from Avalon. Peace had reigned in this town for fifty or more years, and even way back then, the only battles had been hit-and-run attacks by groups of rogue talons. With the growth of population since the rightful king had regained the throne, and the founding of many more outlying communities to the north and the west, Corning had become too sheltered for rogue bands of talons to even attempt an attack.

Now, though, it appeared that the peace was no more. Lines of pitiful refugees streamed in through the western gate carrying no more possessions than the clothes on their backs. And beyond that gate, out on the western plain, pillars of black smoke belched into the blue sky, and cries of terror cut above the general rumbling of wagons and horses.

Belexus and Andovar rushed across to the western gate,
while Rhiannon dropped from her mount to aid a child running about frantically in search of his mother.

“Talons.” Andovar spoke the obvious.

“It is indeed,” came a reply from the side. The rangers turned to see a plump man, very official-looking, rushing toward them, an elf at his side.

“Our greetings, rangers,” the plump man said. “You have arrived not a moment too soon! I am Tuloos, Mayor of Corning, and this is—”

“Meriwindle,” Belexus said.

“Well met, son of Bellerian,” replied the elf. “And to you, Andovar.”

“And to yerself,” said Andovar. “Hoping, we were, to be finding the likes o’ yerself on our holiday in yer town.”

Meriwindle cast an ominous glance down the western road. “Not such a holiday by what my eyes are telling me.”

“Many talons?” asked Andovar.

“A great force!” answered the mayor. “Perhaps as many as four thousand by the estimate of those fleeing Doogenville.”

Belexus and Andovar exchanged looks of concern. Talons had never been known to organize into such large bands against the civilized lands, other than the one time Thalasi had led them in the Battle of the Four Bridges.

“But they’ve had their fun,” Tuloos went on, tucking his thumbs under his belt. “They will find a garrison awaiting them at Caer Minerva, and beyond that, though I hardly believe it to be necessary, we will muster the gathered strength of all the western fields right here within Corning’s high wall.”

“And now we have two rangers to help us organize the defense,” Meriwindle added. “Glad I am to have the likes of Belexus and Andovar standing beside me in defense of my home.”

“Yer words are kind,” said Belexus. “But me hopes are that we’ll need not be raising those blades.”

“We should out for Caer Minerva,” Andovar suggested, looking forlornly down to the west at the continuing stream of pitiful refugees.