The Coming Storm (81 page)

“For true-friends, too long,” Colath said, surprising them both by naming her as such openly even as he reached for Jareth's arm to grasp it tightly. “Ala, again, old friend.”

“Ala, to you as well, Colath, it’s good to see you,” Jareth said, returning the gesture, fiercely. It was good to see him.

Turning to Ailith, Colath asked, “The garrisons are secured?”

“The garrisons are secured. Both commanders had been suborned. They’re dead and the soul eaters are down the wells where they can do no harm. It was the only thing I could think of to do with them.”

He looked at her with worry in his eyes. “If both were taken then Mornith is taking no chances. He’s coming through here.”

Nodding grimly, Ailith said, “There’s still time, I think. Olend’s Hunters and Men of the Desert are out looking. We’ll know when it comes. I sent a messenger to Elon to let him know.”

Elon was in his tent when the messenger arrived, a Hunter on an Elven-bred horse.

“Ailith said to tell you the garrisons have been taken. She said to also tell you she met two Tolans but that Colath has arrived with the Elves. The Hunters scout the desert. No sign yet. All is well.”

It was good to know Colath was there now as well, although he missed Colath’s presence at his side acutely. And Ailith’s.

The information about the ‘Tolans’ sent a rush of concern through him but she and Jareth had obviously faced and defeated them.

He wished he could say the same.

Ailith’s example hadn’t been duplicated after her departure. The army moved too slowly no matter how much he tried to urge them faster. As he’d feared Daran had begun to have second thoughts about an attack from the south, largely due to his generals and commanders. Even though he’d been right about the first attack. His one voice had been drowned out. Daran was too political an animal to risk the displeasure of so many.

If the garrison commanders had been suborned then the chance was good that Mornith was indeed coming through there.

After the messenger had had a good meal, he sent him back on a fresh horse with an urgent message for Ailith and Olend, and a less urgent one for Ailith and Colath with greetings as well to Jareth.

Standing in the darkness, arms crossed, he watched the rider go.

Ailith dismissed the messenger and leaned over the rail of the second floor veranda to look down into the garden below where Colath stood talking with Jareth and Olend.

"We have orders of a kind from Elon, Colath.”

“Of a kind?” he asked raising an eyebrow.

“Olend, we need to send Elon a messenger as soon as something is seen. Regular reports if we can. The High King’s army has slowed, his generals doubt, they don’t fear an attack. Since he can’t prove to Daran that some have been suborned, he can’t explain about the garrison commanders. There’s no urgency.”

“That’s not ‘of a kind’,” Colath said, with a lift of his eyebrow.

She smiled. “That was the first part, this is the last. He said to do the forms.”

His eyes lightened. “Have you your swords?”

She held them over the railing for him to see.

The garden was empty as it often was at this time of day.

They began with grace and precision, their swords swooped and slid through the air in perfect unison. Although Elon wasn’t there in body, he was there in presence. Each movement was known to and by the other, neither rushed nor rushing.

There was a small audience on the veranda, Olend, Itan and Jareth smoking his pipe.

“It’s beautiful to watch,” Itan said, quietly. “Soothing.”

Jareth said, “I haven’t tired of it yet. There’s something about watching it that eases mind and soul. It makes me wish sometimes I was better with a sword. You should watch when Elon is there, then it’s magical. When they spar, though, it’s astounding. One sword to another around, then around to the next. There’s a rhythm to it.”

He sighed.

Many miles away, Elon felt it through the bond as he sat alone in his tent mentally reviewing the reports he’d received.

It came as a warmth, a joining as it flowed through the bond. Stretched out on his cot, he saw himself there, pacing through the forms with all their grace and precision. In his mind he stood beside two of those closest to him, their swords in rhythm with his own.

When they sparred, their swords ringing, Elon could almost hear the distant chime, the music it made.

Ailith could feel him, could almost see Elon there and knew by the warmth in his gaze that Colath felt it, too.

After a while, it slowed and they stopped.

The watchers above stepped quietly away.

That night, as every night, Ailith searched through the stars in her internal sky and found her bright ones, the ones that mattered, the ones who weren’t with them.

Jalila, surrounded by Elves, was on her way.

And the other.

Half asleep, almost dreaming, she pictured Elon stretched out on his cot in his tent, his dark eyes closed, his stern face relaxed in sleep and wished she could be there. She couldn’t think about that, though now and then she caught herself remembering the smooth warm feel of his skin when he’d held her.

A light, a life-light went out very close to him. Alarm shot through her.

It was too close.

That was wrong, something was wrong. Her heart leaped in fear even as she reached for the bond between them and pulled. Hard.

The pull and Ailith’s alarm through the bond had Elon off his cot and rolling for his swords when the figure came through the tent flap and put a sword through his cot. He came to his feet quickly, his own swords in hand and much more effective.

He stood for a moment quietly, listening to the night. Extended his senses.

Nothing.

Whoever the man had been, he’d been alone.

He tipped his head a little to see his face. It wasn’t familiar.

The speed with which the man had moved said tracker, the warning from Ailith giving Elon the edge of surprise, rather surprised himself by the sudden attack.

He looked out at the stars, the Loom low on the horizon.

Have you been watching over me, Ailith? Every night? he wondered.

Sensing both her alarm and the pull through the bond, Colath ran into Ailith’s room, a question in his eyes.

“He’s safe, he’s fine,” Ailith said.

“You were watching?” he asked.

“Always,” she said. “Over you when you were gone , Elon and Jalila now, always.”

It was a good thing to know and oddly comforting. Knowing, too, that one true-friend watched over the other.

Colath allowed himself a small smile, then he sobered.

“What happened?”

“An assassin, Colath,” she said, softly. “I’m fairly certain.”

Colath went still as their eyes met in mutual worry.

An assassin. Elon was there among the armies alone with no one to watch his back.

So far away. There was nothing either of them could do.

The first report came the next day.

Ailith and Colath were honing their swords, Jareth mending a tear in his shirt.

“There’s something,” Talik said, coming in at a run, “in the distance. At first we thought it a sandstorm. It’s not.”

A tower of rocks reached up where once a mountain had stood, scoured down by the ceaseless blowing of the sand. It now looked out over the deep desert, a seemingly endless expanse of rolling dunes and barren wasteland that stretched as far as the eye could see. In the distance a shadow spread across the sand and a darkness rose behind it to blot out the sun, the dust and sand stirred by what passed over it.

Talik looked at them grimly.

“That is very large,” he said, “and it’s not a sandstorm.”

It wasn’t a sandstorm. It was difficult to see details but it was enough to see something that reflected, the occasional glint or glitter of steel.

Looking at the size of it, she turned to Olend. His jaw was tight, his expression grim. Her eyes went to Colath, who took a breath and nodded.

It had come.

Against those numbers they couldn’t possibly hold the city.

Colath looked at the two Elves that had come with them. For this men wouldn’t do, Elven speed, strength and endurance were required. They nodded and were gone. To Elon, to tell him it had begun.

“How far out can you go,” Ailith asked Talik, “to harass them?”

“Not that far, not yet.”

She looked to Olend. “What can we do to slow them before they get here?”

“Pray for a sandstorm, dig pits in the sand.”

Ailith had her doubts about the prayer but she did it anyway. She put the garrisons to work digging pits in the sand.

A sandstorm did hit, far out in the deep desert, they watched it pass in the far distance from the walls of Marakis. Ailith shook her head at the very idea that prayers had helped and hoped it had gone deep enough in the desert.

The garrisons weren’t happy with the work, it was hot, hard, backbreaking labor but they couldn’t complain much when she stood beside them and helped dig, as did Jareth, Colath and the Elves.

Each pit was staggered in relation to the others across the center of a break in the bony divide that marked the division between the desert and the deep desert, where the main advance would have to come. Each morning they dug the pits, each evening, the Elves, Hunters, Woodsmen and Men of the Desert drilled around them and each other so that everyone knew where they were and could avoid them as they came and went.

The next day when the enemy was closer another set of messengers was sent, to be certain the first wasn’t overlooked.

When the approaching army was close enough to see details they sent another messenger and the harassment began. The orders to those who went were clear, get close enough for a bowshot, fire and run, no chances and no heroes. Observe, report and return. Dead people couldn’t fight.

Trolls and goblins were at the fore, or so they reported when they returned from the first run.

Ailith was tired of both.

Where was Mornith getting them all
? They must have been breeding up in the mountains like flies. According to the reports some were mounted on hellhounds, some on mandrakes. Surprisingly, they were marching in very much like military order, those creatures who weren’t much known for it.

It wasn’t that they weren’t intelligent, some were, although not in a way that Men, Elves or Dwarves understood or measured, but many were canny.

Every once in a while back in Riverford they’d had a troll or a goblin come along who was brighter or a better leader who would organize raids into their Kingdom. Then Gwillim would take his people up into the mountains and chase them back again. It never lasted long. While both creatures were a bit less intelligent than men, they were obstreperous by nature, greedy and easily distracted.

That memory of Gwillim pained her, she missed him intently and wished he was there. She  missed his flattery but she missed his honesty more. Friend and advisor, he’d always told her the truth.

Unable to be still she rode out again, to look and to see for herself, to check over the ground she’d chosen for her people. Most of those of the garrisons now knew her personally as she’d made it a point to try to meet each of them. They were her people now.

The enemy drew ever closer. Remembering the thing from the Dwarven Caverns, Ailith worried about what was hiding behind the cloud of dust. What was Mornith concealing? What didn’t they know?

As she rode back she could see beyond Marakis to the long line of refugees. Olend was evacuating the city of everyone but the most able-bodied. They would try to hold if they could but the flight of the defenders was already planned. More holes in the sand in wings on each side of the city, each filled with pitch and tar. Itan and Jareth would be in the towers closest to the battle to fire mage-bolts and then to fire the pits. A rope would be let down the other side where their horses would be waiting and they would be away.

What wasn’t she seeing? What hadn’t they planned for? What had she missed?

That was her secret fear, the worry that ate at her. What hadn’t she seen that might cost lives?

She walked into her room abstractedly.

There was a thrum in the bond.

She spun and her heart leaped. Her breath caught as she looked up into a familiar strong face, into stern dark eyes that warmed as he looked at her.

Her heart lightened just to see him. It took a moment before she realized she was holding her breath. That wouldn’t do.

The figure in the white burnoose had been unexpected. Elon almost hadn’t recognized her with her vibrant hair covered.

Sensing him standing in the corner, she turned, uncovered her mouth and tossed back the hood so all that lovely chestnut hair tumbled over her shoulders.

Her blue eyes were shining.

“Elon!” she exclaimed, smiling.

“Have you gone Marakisian on me?” he asked and his heart lifted as he clasped her arm.

 “It’s more practical.”

“Ah, that’s my Ailith,” he said, “it’s good to see you.”

He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed her until this moment.

“And you, Elon,” she said,  taking in his face with her eyes. “Does Colath know you’re here? Or Jareth?”

Trust her to think of Colath and Jareth. He smiled a little.

“I’ve sent for Colath to let him know I’ve come and Jareth was out watching. As you were.”

“That’s what you sent me here for.”

“It is.” Which reminded him of something else. “Have you been watching over me every night?”

“Of course,” she said and then looked at him. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head. “No, especially when you warn me of potential assassins.”

Ailith went still. So, she’d been right, it had been an assassin. 

In her eyes he saw the shadow of her alarm and fear.

“You warned me in time. Daran had more guards posted afterward.”

It suddenly occurred to her. “Elon, what are you doing here? You were with the army. Not that I’m not glad to see you or that I’m complaining in the least, but why are you here?”

“When you reported the size of the army I think Daran believed you exaggerated. He doesn’t know you well. So he sent me to see.”

They heard running footsteps, the bond telling them who it was before Colath was through the door.

The two clasped arms tightly. 

“Elon,” Colath said, “what are you doing here?”

Ailith grinned. “That was my question, although don’t think that either one of us is complaining, Elon. Don’t think we’re not very glad to see you.”

“As I told Ailith, Daran thinks you exaggerate, though I told him you wouldn’t. Your daily messages went a long way toward convincing everyone there is indeed a problem.”

The messengers, their urgency clear in their disheveled state, their sweat-stained horses and the speed with which they rode had done as much to convince the army as the messages they’d brought.

“Between us we laid out a battle plan that should work so he might be prepared if there was need. The ground is good. The problem with Daran, though, is he was a heartland King, he hasn’t as much experience with those things of the borderland that those in the outlying lands have. I can’t convince him there are things that are a greater threat than what we faced at Colbreath. His dislike of magic makes things difficult and Avila makes it worse.”

Especially when she worked at cross-purposes with him. If there was one thing that had come out of Colbreath, more than a few of the Generals had complained about the poor number of wizards. There was little doubt among them there would have been less loss of life had more been sent. On that point, Elon agreed. It was one of their few points of agreement. Despite all attempts at reason, he couldn’t convince Avila or Daran not to put all their wizards at the front lines, seeing magic as their best weapon.

He put that aside for now, there was this battle to fight now.

The three of them rode out once again to see what could be seen and for Elon to see it for himself, picking up Jareth on the way.

Surprised as well, he asked the same question and got the same answer, in a little more detail.

Jareth shook his head. “She won’t understand, Elon,” he said, of the situation with Avila. “For her it’s a personal affront that you won’t allow us onto the Council, not just an affront to wizards.”

Holding up his hand, Jareth forestalled Elon’s denial. “You know I agree with you, Elon and not only for history. We warded the Council Chambers together. It’s not necessary. Magic is only a tool or a talent, like your ability with a sword. Avila doesn’t see that.”

“I suggested she spread the wizards out through the forces, to make the best use of them. She thanked me for my advice and walked away.”

Dismayed, Jareth sighed. “After Colbreath, she’ll feel the need to redeem herself, she badly underestimated there. She’ll throw all of us at the front and try to win the war herself, battle plan or no battle plan, to prove to Daran that he needs wizards. She’s heartland born as well and spent little time outside of it so she doesn’t know what we face. Witness the number of wizards she sent north.” The last was said in disgust. “If she’d sent more we wouldn’t have had half as many dead.”

“That’s a point all of us agree on,” Ailith said, remembering the pitiful few people she’d brought back from the front lines at Colbreath. “You did your best, Jareth, but we lost too many.”

Names and faces came back to her, those that hadn’t returned from the fight.

He sighed, too,  remembering.

Looking across at Elon, seeing his familiar face and with Colath riding at his side as always, Jareth next to her, only Jalila was still missing of the original five.

Seeing her expression, Elon said, “Jalila’s on her way with more archers. She should be here in the morning.”

She smiled. “You read my mind, Elon, I didn’t know you counted mind-reading as one of your gifts.”

“Like minds,” he said, his grave eyes lightening. “It will be good to have us all together again.”

The four of them reached their vantage point. The invading army wasn’t so distant now, slowed somewhat by the harassment but not much.

Looking back over her shoulder at the city, Ailith said, “They should be close enough to see from the ramparts of Marakis by mid-morning. There are pits in the sand all through there.”

She gestured across the sand beside and before them.

“They’ll probably hit them by mid-afternoon tomorrow at the pace they keep. The Elves, Hunters and Woodsmen will continue to harass them.”

“And the city?”

“It depends on Mornith and his intention. Attack the city that night or wait until morning so we know they’re there to let anticipation and fear do some of his work for him. Either way, there are more pits dug along the sides of the city out in wings. We’ll defend from the walls as long as we can. When they reach them we run. Itan and Jareth fire mage bolts at the pitch in the pits on each side to slow them down even more. Then we run, harassing them as much as we can as we go, hit and run.”

“It’s a good plan.”

Some of the weight lifted from her shoulders.

“Between Olend, Itan, Colath and I, we’ve been over it a thousand times it seems. If you find a hole in it let us know.”