The Coming Storm (54 page)

The goblins and trolls closed. Too close.

Both set arrows and let fly, aiming not for the riders but for the larger mass of the hellhounds the things rode.

Both struck true. Goblins and trolls tumbled as their mounts fell over those that had fallen. Some, but not all.

A hail of arrows arched from the trolls, whistled around them and then they were inside and racing down the narrow, rock-strewn defile that was the Rift.

An echo of pain, like a memory, stung Colath but he had no time to dwell on it. A baying rang behind them, echoed from the walls. Hellhounds.

There was a tingle, a riffle of magic like a breeze across his skin.

Ailith looked up at the frangible stone above them and reached out to let her fingers run along the wall that slid past them as they rode.

Hearing a rumble, Colath looked behind them.

A small rock fall now blocked their trail.

He looked over at Ailith. “We won’t be able…”

That echo of pain.

There was an arrow in her back.

“Yes, we will,” she said, tightly. “They’ll have to clear it to chase us. They must stop us. By the time we return, it’ll be cleared.”

“Ailith,” he said.

Her name only. Ailith heard the dismay and concern in his voice.

“I know. It hurts.”

The pain was intense and each beat of Smoke’s hooves increased it. Her limbs grew weak.

Slowing the horses, Colath caught her as she fell.

“Get it out, Colath,” she said, tightly.

It would hurt and Colath knew it. It was deep. He hated hurting her but she was right it had to come out.

Do it quickly
, he told himself.

Although she willed herself not to, she still cried out when he pulled it.

There was a great deal of blood.

Her knees went weaker.

“Why is it?” she said, through gritted teeth at the pain and weakness. “That I can Heal everyone else but not myself?”

Strength seemed drain out of her through the soles of her feet.

“None can,” Colath answered, as he eased her down to the ground, wrapped his arm around her. “Even Healers need Healers, else Elon would have Healed himself before, with the drows. Given enough time, his magic would have done it for him. Even with so terrible a wound the healing would have taken a great deal of time. Once we’re adults, even grievous wounds will heal… ”

The truth suddenly dawned on him as if he had been drenched in ice water.

“You’re Elven. You’ve just reached your majority, your magic hasn’t fully taken hold yet. You’re still vulnerable.”

She could die.

It struck him like a blow.

She could die from this. Truly. Not passing into the Summerlands, but truly die.

He couldn’t allow that. He couldn’t let it happen. This was Ailith and he was fond of her. That moment when he, she and Elon had sparred, had melded, merged. Like Elon she was now another piece of his soul, a part of him. A true-friend, like Elon, however impossible that was. Newly-bonded and she didn’t know.

“Borrow my strength,” he said, suddenly.

Looking up at him, her eyes filled with pain, she said, “What?”

“Borrow mine,” he repeated, insistently. “You can. You can Heal, so you can borrow. Healers do it all the time when the need is great. Do it, Ailith. You must.”

Looking up at him, she could see the determination in his pale eyes.

“I don’t know how and what will it do to you?” she whispered.

The pain was bad but the growing weakness was somehow more terrible. Even more horrible was the cold that crept into her limbs. It was growing harder for her to breathe.

He shook his head. “Nothing. I’ll be a little weaker, that’s all. You must, Ailith, or you might die.”

The pain was intense but the coldness seeping through her made her know the truth of it. The weakness and the cold.

Or he might. He might die. Elf or man, she knew he couldn’t go on alone, while he didn’t.

The Rift was a maze, a fracturing of the earth like a poorly fired pot with the glazing crazed in a hundred different directions. Even an Elf would have a hard time navigating it. That was why she’d had to be the one to go, she knew this place from the days when she’d visited Raven's Nest as a child. If she died, he must face the goblins and trolls alone in here. They would get through the rock fall eventually, she hadn’t meant it to hold for long, since they would have to return through here. If he went on, alone? One wrong turn and he’d be lost. There were dozens of wrong turns, some that turned back on themselves. All it would take was one. The odds were against him, it would only be a matter of time.

She couldn’t do that. Not lose Colath, who’d become another part of herself. A choice, between an untried magic or Colath lost in the Rift.

The weakness and pain made her sick and dizzy.

“Do it, Ailith.” Colath took her hand, skin to skin, so she would know, so she would feel it as their people did.

She smiled, faintly. “If it means so much to you.”

Gravely, he looked at her. “It does.”

Over the years there had been little need for magic such as this. He knew such sharing could be done, the Healers in Aerilann had done it when he’d returned from the Borderlands. With Ailith, though, he didn’t know what to expect and so he braced himself.

There was no need.

It was like that moment during the forms, he and she and Elon but gentler, easier. A knowing and a sharing, a warmth. This, not shared between three but just two, knowing now where they fit together. Ailith, her true self, not the regal woman of Raven’s Nest’s throne room but the one who’d stood in the doorway of the ruins, the one with the quick smile, the one who stood at his back no matter what came and would never give up.

True-friend, his true-friend, like Elon.

Ailith knew that as well of him, of Colath, with his warrior’s heart and his determination, the beauty of his face concealing his sheer resolve. There was that of Colath, that he would keep moving, keep fighting until his very last breath.

Reaching out, she sought the harmony that was Colath, her friend, another part of her soul. Strength flowed into her, his strength and then, to her surprise, another’s.

They both felt another drop into the Healing.

Elon. His soaring spirit, his indomitable will, with his poet’s soul and his Healing magic.

The other part of themselves.

Somehow, from so far away, he reached out to send Healing.

Ailith felt that familiar harmony and opened herself to it without thinking and the three of them settled into it as they had when they’d done the forms. It flowed through Colath, eased into her, filled her with a warmth that pushed back the deadly seep of cold.

For all the pain that stabbed at her, it was joyous to feel Elon there, too, part of them once more.

Colath felt Elon’s presence through the bond between them and then Ailith opened. He felt the energy move through him, between them, his strength, with Ailith channeling them, and Elon’s Healing. He looked at her, knowing where they fit with each other and Elon. At peace with it.

The deep pain faded. Ailith could feel the wound knit and then close. With a sigh tinged with regret, not for the loss of the energy but for the loss of the sharing that passed between them, she sent silent thanks through the bond between them and reluctantly let it go.

At her look Colath nodded gravely and then wrapped a hand around hers to help her to her feet. He was a little weak but not much. She, who’d lost so much blood so quickly, was the weaker.

Already, they could hear the sounds of rocks being moved on the other side of the fall, torn down and thrown aside hastily.  It wouldn’t hold long.

Worried, Colath looked at her.

“I’ll manage,” she said, with a lift of her eyebrow. Her eyes were determined.

“I know,” he said, as they mounted. “We ride, hard.”

The horses would do most of the work.

Up on the ramparts Elon heard the roar of the trolls and the goblins as they came but his eyes were on the two riders that raced for the Rift. It would take some time before the trolls and goblins hit the walls in earnest. He’d come here to see better, to know Colath and Ailith had reached the canyon safely. He willed them faster, if intent would help. It was close, so close. He saw the hail of arrows fall around them and then he felt it. Pain, an echo of another’s. And then sharper, piercing. A breath of magic. Ailith. The bond that had begun to be forged between them in the forms shivered. As he feared, her life was in the balance. A cold chill settled around his heart. He couldn’t lose her, couldn’t lose Colath. And Colath would die, too, if she did, if he was forced to defend her. There was nothing Elon could do for them. They were too far away and he had his responsibilities to the people here.

Below, he saw and heard the goblins and trolls hit the wall. He gave the signal. Flaming arrows arched  out over the second ring wall, pierced the thatched roofs and the poured oil on them. Mage-light flared as Jareth helped fire the lowest ring of the city. The Guards, Hunters and Woodsmen had worked with dispatch, as had every man or woman that owned a wagon. Fire bloomed and spread with a will, smoke filled the air. It would be long time burning, would buy them precious time to set their defenses. Some of the goblins and trolls would find their way through the flames but the second ring and third rings were already evacuating and crowded into the first, into the large lands and estates of the rich and the titled. Those people poured into the castle proper, their wagons loaded with their most precious possessions, Doril somehow finding a place and a space for them.

In the distance, a life trembled and then somehow there was a merging. Elon felt it, over the long distance.

Below, the fires burned.

If they didn’t succeed, he would have lost those two now closest to him. His oldest and dearest friend and Ailith.

They would lose everything.

He reached out. Never in his life had he tried to reach so far but never had he been received so well. He might have been standing beside them. Like hands clasping, they reached for each other, drew themselves together. A flow, a circle. Colath lent his strength, Ailith the merge and he the Healing. Ailith’s joy, Colath’s determination, his will. The wound was deep and it chilled him to realize how close she’d been but he felt wholeness come. Knowing it was done, he felt her reluctance to end the connection and shared it, but honor and duty called and she wouldn’t deny them. Nor would he or Colath.

Below the battle had begun in earnest, as archers on the second level – Jalila leading them – peered through the smoke to pick off any goblins or trolls who reached the top of the outer wall.

Jareth came up beside him. “What are our chances?”

Folding his arms, Elon looked out over the mass that  surrounded the walls, crowded toward it. Then he looked toward the Rift.

“If they get through and can get help back in time, it’s possible.”

Jareth hesitated. “Did they make it?”

The last he’d seen the two horses raced into the Rift with a number of trolls and goblins behind.

Elon nodded. “Yes.”

“And Jalila?”

Tipping his head below, Elon said. “On the second wall.”

Below them someone wailed that they were all going to die. The poorer people of the villages hadn’t carried on so and they’d seen this for many more nights. Elon shook his head.

Westin had fled, had taken his family into his chambers and locked the doors. He wasn’t a warrior, he’d said, he was a leader of merchants. Even his son hadn’t protested. Without a word they’d simply ceded command to Elon and left him to it.

He saw Aranoc and Gwillim coming up the steps, treading heavily. Along the walls, Guards stared down at the chaos along the outer wall below and listened to the blood-curdling screams of the goblins.

“They made it,” he said, answering the question before either asked it.

Neither asked how he knew nor did he elaborate.