Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy (60 page)

Cort, Nandel and Lendril ended up together. “You two
get out of here. Use the magicians to devastate their
northern front and ride through.”

A messenger arrived. “They’ve broken through on the
east.”

Cort turned to a nearby general. “General, take fifteen
squads to the eastern part of the camp.” The man snapped
into action, quickly finding fifteen squad captains with
awake men, and charged to the east. “Get out of here, and
do as much damage to those northern forces as you can.”

“See you in a few days, Cort. To your health,” Lendril
said as she broke into a jog towards the area where the
magicians slept.

“To your health,” yelled back Nandel, trying to catch
the princess.

Cort turned to a messenger, one of the ones assigned to
stay near him, and said, “Go find out if the patrols have
made it back.”

The endaril sprinted off to the north. Cort gave out
orders and sent men to various points of reinforcement,
waiting for the messenger to return. He had to catch his
breath when he did and said, “The group you sent to the
northwest is pinned. The other two have returned.”

“How long do the others think they can hold?”

“They have the high ground in some rocks, but they
have maybe an hour before they’re overrun.”

“Send a hundred human soldiers through the xadineft
and bring them back. Have Prince Zif lead them.” Cort
quickly turned to one of the men assigned to guard him at
all times and said, “Go find out if the magicians are still
here and see that they leave camp through the northwest.
They should be able to help Commander Zif at least get out
swiftly.” The lanky man sprinted off.

The endaril took a deep breath, comforted by the looks
of confidence in the faces of his generals. He itched to join
the battle, but he knew his responsibility lied with
command. As one of the generals spoke, he came out of
his thought. “Sir, should I wake the rest of camp?”

“No, you should all go back to your armies and make
sure you’re men are asleep. If they are needed they will be
called. That is why the human armies are in the middle of
the camp. They will be called upon come morning. We
have twelve thousand daril and neftir engaged in a
defensive posture, with several squads of humans assisting.
I will call your men as needed. Now go to them.”

The generals nodded and headed off to their commands.
They had missed the strategy sessions, their duties limited
to night when their commanders slept. Soon only Cort and
his guard remained, as his messenger returned to inform
him that with the magicians’ help, Zif broke through almost
clean.

Lendril waited for the spell casters to get into their
saddles with a little impatience. After what seemed like
ages to her, the last one climbed up. As she readied to give
the order to move forward, a soldier came running up.
“Cort would like you to leave where Prince Zif wants to
take his men through. He should be making his way there
now.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. You are dismissed.” As the
soldier ran off, the Princess turned to the others. “Follow
me and stay close. We will go to Prince Zif’s aid first.”

The group of thirty or so magicians broke into a trot to
the northwest. After weaving through a quarter mile of
tents, they found the Prince in a steady jog with a hundred
men behind him. Lendril leaned down, but didn’t force
him to slow as the others stayed out of the way. “We will
break through where you want to take your men. We ride
to the Lakian army.”

Zif pointed to the conflict about ten rows of tents in
front of them. “We’re going straight down this corridor of
canvas into them.”

“We’ll go first.” Lendril swerved away so that a row of
tents separated her riders from the company of men. With
a nod she hoped they all understood, she kicked her horse
up to a good speed. When she felt they had gained enough
distance in front of Zif’s men, she wove back into their path
and charged at full speed in front of them. As they came
closer, the army forces engaged there beat a retreat out of
their way. The xadineft hesitated long enough to gain no
ground.

Lendril unsheathed her axe and slowed to let the
magicians cast their spells. Chaos broke among the green
apes as fire, lightning and stone rained upon them. With a
shout she charged forward, cleaving xadineft skulls as she
led the rout. The others with staves or wands cast more
spells, not having to stop to prepare. Those without swung
swords and other weapons clumsily, trying not to fall out of
the saddle. All found scared, easy targets.

In a few seconds they reached the end of the attackers
and could hear Prince Zif’s men charging through the
corridor. Every now and then a scream could be heard as a
man fell in the acidic blood of the green apes or died on a
blade. The magicians just charged onward, circling back to
the pass.

By morning they had reached the plain and put some
distance between them and the mouth of the pass. Lendril
felt confident they had cleared it far enough to avoid
detection, and at least be out of range of a chase. As night
fell, they saw the edge of the Lake army.

The soldiers on watch immediately recognized Lendril
and let her pass without a pause. They quickly arrived at
the command tent, the flag of Lake flying above it. Sir Xalt
greeted them warmly and beckoned Nandel, Blard and
Lendril inside. The other magicians just dismounted and
lay down on the grass of the plain to rest.

Aquendar stood and offered his seat to Lendril. She
took it and he began to speak. “The hiftnuvin and pemilon
armies joined us with the Fendolian engineers. They all
came on Quelian navy ships. I wish we had known they
were coming. Why didn’t you and Tych tell even us?”

The others looked at Lendril. “They swore us to
secrecy. The kind of power you’re going to see from these
weapons is enormous considering their nature. They’ll fit
perfectly into the plan, which has changed to the one we
discussed on our last night together.”

“Let’s go over it again,” said Xalt.

“The Lake army will...”

A couple hours before dawn, the xadineft withdrew.
Cort immediately had all of Seftrel’s army chasing them
down, having been awakened the minute the withdraw
seemed imminent. The daril and neftir races took care of
retrieving casualties from the acid, some of them dead,
some badly injured, others just needing a little bandaging.

Cort entered the command tent, soon joined by Andri,
Findra, Tendelbro, Zif, Lazol and Arif. “Let’s hear the
damage.”

Andri said, “Tendelbro has informed me of his
numbers. Everything is just estimates, but of the over five
thousand neftir that entered this night’s battle, we lost about
a thousand, either to death or crippling injury.”

Findra nodded, “As did the daril races, though these are
just estimates. I’m sure the numbers would be higher if not
for Prince Zif’s activity.”

Cort’s eyebrow went up. “Tell me about this,
Commander Zif.”

“Well, I only lost four men breaking through the lines
thanks to the magicians. The xadineft pinning our patrol
down fell to surprise and I only lost a couple more with the
help of the neftir in the rocks. That made our force close to
one hundred fifty. With no magicians to help us back
through, we took to harrying the back edges of the
attackers. We circled the camp three times and turned a lot
of battles, though we never stayed long, so that we didn’t
get trapped again.”

Arif said, “He helped in the battle in my area. The
chaos caused by being attacked from behind was
invaluable.”

“If you’ll excuse me now, I would like to join in my
army’s chase,” said the Prince.

“What about sleep?” asked Cort.

“Sleep is for my father and the other kings.”

Arif and Lazol stood with him. Before Cort could
object, Lazol said, “We will be back just after dawn. Then
we will join the enchanted races in sleep.”

“At dawn, half the army will move to the plateau the
patrols found. Join us in that if you would like. Today we
move to that position, tomorrow we begin the larger
battle.” He said the last to the three backs.

“It was good to fight beside our endaril cousins again.
You did not grow soft in the valley,” said Findra.

“I hope we will not be called to do the fighting again
without support, Cort. The neftir are not fond of dying,
though we do so honorably.”

“This night was the only and last time you will not be
backed up by the human armies. From now on, all one
hundred thousand humans will be engaged. The service
you provided last night will make most of them sharper
from the rest. All of us will be rewarded for our
cooperation.”

“I hope so, Cort, I hope so.”

As the army began to move down the pass in the early
morning light, Lazol and Arif returned. They informed
Cort that Zif had vanished with some of his men and they
didn’t know if they lived or not. There had been a lot of
rumbling in the direction they had run off to, and the two
warriors feared they had fell to a xadineft trap.

Cort oversaw the departure of half the army, all of them
human, and then went to bed. Arif and Lazol also went to
their tents near the command tent. The other half of the
human army would trickle out one hundred at a time.
When night fell and Cort woke, he led the rest of the army
down the pass to join the others.

A messenger came into Cort’s tent as he ate his
breakfast. “The Seftrel army has returned, Sir.”

“Didn’t they arrive early this morning from their hunt?”

“No, Sir, they’ve been at it all day.”

“I guess you’re right, soldier, nobody else ever told me
they came back. Was Prince Zif with them?”

“Yes, Sir, he is on his way here to brief you.”

Suddenly, Cort’s tent became as busy as a marketplace
as Zif and another messenger entered with the neftir and
daril commanders. The first messenger left at a nod from
Cort and the second spoke. “There is a dragon here to see
you at the clearing. The men can barely contain their fear
but they know he fights with us from the golden scales.”

“You are dismissed, soldier,” said Cort as he wiped his
mouth and stood. “You others, follow me and talk to me as
we walk.”

Prince Zif spoke first as they left the tent. “I assume
you want to hear what happened on the hunt.” Cort nodded
so he continued as they passed through the corridors of
tents. “The bulk of the xadineft had retreated to the west,
towards a valley about three miles from here. I knew that if
they reached that valley, there would be thousands of
hidden entrances into the mountains to escape the sun. I let
all of my generals know of my plan and took two hundred
men to the hillsides on the lip of the valley. We waited on
each side for the first xadineft to reach there as my army
herded them. When they arrived, we began a rockslide that
shook the ground, burying them and cutting off the retreat
of the others. It took us all day to force the others into the
sun, but we got almost all of them.”

“Once again, Commander, you have done well. Now,
go get some sleep like the others.” They had just reached
the clearing and Zif took a good long look at the dragon
from the edge of the tents while the others went to talk to it.
From the puff of fur on the forehead, he figured it must be a
female. He turned and went to bed.

Cort raised his hands to the gathered soldiers. “It is
alright, this is an ally. Go back to whatever you were
doing.” He looked at the dragon. “By whose presence am
I honored and to what do I owe it?”

“I am Molif, parent of the dragon that has chosen Tych
as guardian. I am here for news of Prince Tych.”

“I am honored to meet you, Molif. I am Prince Cort di
Corl. The wizard Nandel was unable to find Tych in this
plane of existence.”

“We have detected the absence of Rangdor, but there is
a faint nagging among us that Tych still lives.”

“That is very encouraging.” Cort apparently spoke for
all of them as they smiled and sighed with relief.

“Remember that our awareness is not limited to this
plane like yours. He may be only a faint pull because he is
in one of the most separate planes from this one. But, he is
most likely alive for now.

“I have other business here. The watches have spotted
demonic and supernatural forces leaving the Valley of
Death. The magicians successfully intercepted them and
ten gold dragons went to help. Five green dragons have
come out of hiding to assist us as have two whites.”

The humans nearby that overheard this began
mumbling in shock. Only the golds and reds had ever been
bold enough to appear in their natural form in the sky.
They didn’t know the others had walked among them in
humanoid form from time to time.

“Will the reds, blacks or silvers join the enemy’s
forces?”

“Buhlaht doesn’t think so. All three races have
resigned themselves to extinction and only stay on this
continent because it is home.”

“Thank you, Molif, you have been very helpful. Send
my personal greeting to your cousins welcoming them into
the army.”

“I will, Prince Cort. If you have any more news of
Doleofa’s guardian, send an eagle for me.” Before Cort
could respond, she teleported a few hundred feet up so that
her wings wouldn’t knock anybody down. Then she
vanished at the speed of sound, leaving an astonished group
of soldiers behind.

Cort began out of the clearing, and talked to his night
commanders. “Zif’s news is good for your forces I hope.”

“Yes, but they are all instructed to be very vigilant on
watch,” said Andri.

“Get the Polentair army to help and break it up into two
hour shifts. The enchanted races should stand down and
relax but not sleep when they aren’t on watch. The humans
should sleep when they aren’t up.”