The Coming Storm (75 page)

“A little less than a month ago Raven’s Nest was nearly destroyed by goblins and trolls. Some of you may have heard. I was there and I was fighting. Tomorrow we march. We march up there,” she gestured with her sword first in one direction then the other, “to protect those down there.”

“Families. Your families, so they don’t suffer the fate that some of those at Raven’s Nest did. If you don’t believe that’s worth fighting for, go home, wait for them to come and face them alone. Otherwise, tomorrow, we march.”

She gestured backward. “I want them, the rest of the army…to chase you. Tomorrow at dawn I want every man and woman among you to prove to me and to them that you don’t really want your families to be dinner for trolls. I want you to show them you aren’t the slowest company here but the fastest. I think you can do it. So prove it. Get some food and some rest so you’re ready in the morning. Here is the trick to killing a troll. Stick them with the pointy end.”

There were a few nervous chuckles.

“Good night.”

Watching, Jareth nodded. It was the right tone to take.

She went to her tent.

“Rousing speech, Ailith,” Jareth said, amused, as he followed her.

Jalila stood beside him, her arms crossed, shaking her head at Jareth’s comment.

With a sigh, Ailith said, “We’ll need to see if it works. Can you find me a map?”

She was bone-tired but she didn’t dare stop moving, or she’d fall asleep.

Jareth gestured. One appeared on the table. They were precious and rare, laboriously hand-copied.

Looking at it, then at him, she said, “Do I need to know?”

Seeing the twinkle in his eye she decided she didn’t, and waved it away.

“Jareth, Jalila, you’re my seconds. I want both of you riding alongside me tomorrow when we roust them before dawn. I want them used to seeing you and taking orders from you. Otherwise, go get some sleep. That won’t be plentiful sometime soon.”

This needed to be done. Jalila went to her, handclasp to handclasp as she would have done among her own and let the empathy say what couldn’t be said in words.

Ailith closed her eyes and simply absorbed it. With a slightly shaken sigh, she nodded, gratefully. Tentatively, Jareth laid a hand on her shoulder.

She let out a breath and let go.

Eyeing her intently, Jalila stepped away. For now, it would have to be enough.

Ailith stopped them before they left the tent. “Oh and lest I forget sometime later to tell you. Thank you. Both of you.”

A quick smile from Jareth, a nod from Jalila and they were gone. She was alone for the first time in months. For now, she wouldn’t think about any of it, only about what needed to be done next. It was a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, simply moving forward.

They’d found her a small table to use as a desk and now she spread the map out on it.

How far and how fast could she push them?
She wouldn’t truly know until the morrow.
What places could she use as a gauge for how far they’d traveled? What terrain might slow them down?
She marked those points in her mind.

Ailith was still pouring over the map by the light of a candle when Elon slipped silently inside. At first she didn’t notice him, so intent was she, her hands pushed up in her hair and propping up her head.

For a moment, he simply observed her. Those remarkable eyes were lowered, focused. It was so like her. She did nothing by halves, his Ailith.

His heart twisted.

Then she sensed him and looked up.

Her eyes lightened at the sight of him and she smiled.

“Ala, Elon,” she said, “You’ve chosen good ground.”

There was a serious look in his stern dark eyes. Colath wasn’t with him.

“Why did you do this?” he asked.

He needed to know.

Taking a breath, Ailith stood, brushing her hair back from her face with both hands. Idly, she rubbed the heel of her hand over the ache in her chest at the sight of him and at the reason why she’d chosen to do this.

“It’s all I know, Elon,” she said, simply. “I have nothing of my family left now. Not even a home. There’s you, you and Colath. Jareth and Jalila. You’re all I have. You’ve seen it and I’ve seen it, that black wave. If he wins he would have you in chains. All of you. I’ve seen you in chains once. I won’t see it again. There are all these people here and to the north, while Aerilann and Lothliann are still not yet behind us. The Dwarven Caverns at Colbreath. Elon, in my mind the high country gets darker and darker. They’re all my people, those of this Alliance, all my blood. I need to help and I want to help. It has to be done and I know how to do it. I hope.”

Her face was calm, as still as any one of their folk but he could hear it in her voice. All that had been taken from her. She’d lost everything now, everything except who she was and what she could do. Rootless, with no place to belong, no place to call her home. Except the Kingdoms.

In a terrible way, he understood.

“You do. Ailith, I’m sorry for what’s been done to you.”

He wished he could take her in his arms and hold her as he had the night Tolan had wounded her so badly by showing her how a soul-eater felt. This, in a way, was somewhat the same. They had taken her identity. But as much as he longed to give her comfort, he couldn’t. There were those who’d seen him come and the light of the candle would show on the thin walls of the tent what was done here. That would do neither of them any good.

She could hear in his voice and see the compassion and understanding in his stern, dark eyes. Once before, she’d leaned against him, seeking and giving comfort but now she couldn’t. She wished the candle wasn’t lit. Elven sight would have been enough.

But it was.

The bond between them hummed.

“I know, I do know, Elon,” she said softly.

He didn’t want to go but he must. “Get some sleep, Ailith.”

The candle went out as he walked away. Too late.

Before dawn Ailith was up with Jareth and Jalila and all the long day, pushing, cajoling, shouting and berating, but she got her people to move. By the end of the day she knew a number of their names and they’d opened a distance between themselves and the rest of the army. The other companies were forced to try to close the gap or show they were lagging.

Deliberately, she rushed her people into setting up camp, getting campfires and tents set up in quick-time, making it a race.

Once some of her people caught on to what she wanted, they got into the spirit of it.

By the time the other companies arrived, her own people were lounging comfortably around their campfires. The smell of cooking stew filled the air. Ailith had ordered extra rations and spirits sent around.

As they watched the others straggle in, staggering around to set up, her people got it and started to laugh.

Jibes rang out hot and heavy, full of mirth and good fun.

If she couldn’t smile as easily, Ailith did still smile a little and there was no small amount of satisfaction in knowing they had done it.

The next morning, her people were up before dawn – not grumbling but moving with a will. Extra rations and the chance to beat the others were incentive enough.

Grumbling himself, Jareth looked at Ailith astride Smoke and nodded. If Daran wanted his people to move, she would make them move. And they would like it. He wouldn’t, he hated mornings.

Each day she made it a race to get to Colbreath before the other companies did.

The closer they got, the more refugees they saw,  ragged, frightened people, those still capable of fleeing before the wave in the north. Families. A steady flow.

If food and spirits had been incentive before, seeing those desperate folk became a different spur.

Mirth faded to be replaced by grim determination.

The exodus was cresting. The scout’s reports confirmed it. As did reports from those who fled, and the survivors of the towns, villages and kingdoms that had fallen or were falling. What their wounds didn’t say, their eyes did. They were lucky to be alive. More and more refugees every day, their eyes shocked and stunned, bodies battered and bruised as they rode past the army.

Ailith saw Elon and Colath only at meetings in the High King’s tent with the other company commanders, yet she dared not make much of it when she was there. Nor could they, although she would see the light spark in Elon’s eyes when she arrived and the warmth in Colath’s gaze. That separation pained her more than she dared to examine. She felt the absence of their company keenly. Only the presence of Jareth and Jalila and their friendship made the separation any easier.

That and work.

The northernmost garrison fell. She knew it, through the stars in her mind. Her scouts didn’t see it, they hadn’t been able to get that close. Although they all reported sightings they still reported nothing like the numbers she feared but she knew that would soon end. The mountains were dark in places where there had always been light Mountainhold, though, still held. For some reason it mattered to her that the doughty old Queen still survived.

She let Elon know, in a too formal meeting in the tent he and Colath shared.

The guards had seen her coming, so she couldn’t spend too much time but the pleasure in Elon’s eyes, the welcome in Colath’s as she gave her report, lifted her spirits a little.

Meetings and meetings each night, with little done. Too much talk and too few decisions. It irritated Elon, though he hid it. He was far too used to his own people who said little and did much, rather than these of men who said much but did little. Daran had little patience for it either, complaining in bitter frustration of the endless talking and occasional bickering among his generals, commanders and the Kings. Here lay the difficulty of a peacetime High King whose generals and commanders came from the very families of those Kings. For Elon, his only relief from such things was the occasional sight of Ailith among them.

She spoke rarely at the meetings but when she did it was always to point, so much like their  people it was like a breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately, she made few friends there. Elon heard the muttering. Her push with her company up the valley had put many of them to shame. As Daran intended.

Most now knew she’d been disinherited. It was impossible not to see how that affected her in their eyes. Not knowing the why of it only added to speculation.

Where possible she avoided Geric. Since that one seemed largely disinterested that wasn’t difficult. There was a faint air of amusement about him, knowing as he did that they knew he wasn’t who he seemed yet couldn’t prove it. Elon had worried somewhat that Geric would reveal Ailith for what she was but he kept silent. It wouldn’t have been in his favor if he did. Geric’s own mixed blood kept many of those there distant. To reveal that his daughter was Otherling and that he’d concealed it for so long wouldn’t serve him well, either. It was in his own best interests to stay quiet.

Worse, most knew she’d arrived as part of Elon’s party.

There were those who disapproved of her keeping such close company with someone not of her race. Others knew and distrusted the fact that she seemed to have the ear of someone in power. Among Elves there were none who wouldn’t have such access to him, among men there were few who had such with Daran. Her behavior in meetings didn’t encourage the kind of speculations that would have been difficult for them both but she was always careful to give him a quick, warm look when no one would see.

Elon found himself longing now and then for the days when there had been only the five of them to know or care.

There was no time for such considerations. If Ailith’s scouts – and Ailith’s lights – were right, time was growing desperately short. Reports were of large numbers of ogres, trolls and goblins. With luck they would make it in time, but only just.

Colbreath. Surveying it from Smoke’s back, with Jareth and Jalila to each side, Ailith nodded with satisfaction. If they were to have any chance at all to win, it would be here.

The terrain wasn’t bad, Elon had indeed chosen well. At the top of the slope it was as flat a plain as you could hope for up here. On each side were mountains, to their right, above and behind the lines was the Dwarven Cavern. A smaller range of rugged, rock-strewn hills to the left. A natural bottleneck that sloped upward to their position.