He could see why she indicated caution now. They were overtaking a huge force of elves. Most of them were on the ground, bows and spears in their hands. Some of them rode on the back of spiders the size of mastodons. Their carapaces were armoured and their legs were reinforced with chitin and seemed much larger and thicker than those of the Brood Mother. They stalked forward like great living war-machines.
He tried to make as assessment of the military impact of such monsters. On a battlefield they would terrify men and horses. Against a castle they would have less effect unless they could scale walls like their smaller kindred which he very much doubted. Against the spiked log palisades that surrounded the woodland villages, they would be terrifying. By rearing up they could pull themselves over the walls. He wondered how you could stop them— pikes, hacking away their legs with a battle-axe. Normal arrows would most likely have no effect unless they struck a vulnerable point.
“We need to try and circle round them, off the path,” Gilean said. “We can never make it through such a force.”
They moved off the path and, crouching low, scrambled through the underbrush. As they moved, Kormak became aware of shadows around them and he knew that there were elves there. Whether they were pickets, scouts or simply folk wanting to move away from the crowded paths he did not know. It did not matter much either, if one of them spotted him and gave the alarm; things would get very dangerous, very quickly. There were too many enemies around for him to be comfortable with the thought, and too much rested on them getting through in time to warn the inhabitants of the Settlements.
At last they seemed to reach an area clear of potential enemies and speeded up even though there were webs all around them, and the sounds of large animals moving through the undergrowth. Kormak wondered whether they had merely swapped one type of danger for another and whether some huge predator would spring on him any second.
He felt sweat running down his back. He felt his mouth go dry and his heart beat strongly against his ribs. He pushed aside a thick, black leaf, large as a dinner plate on which sat a glistening insect with strange blister marks on its side and he stepped forward. Mulch sucked at his feet. They emerged on the river bank. Gilean stopped short and glanced back along the watercourse. A large body of troops and gigantic spiders were fording the river downstream.
“This is it,” she said. “Across there are your Settlements.”
“Thanks for your help,” Kormak said. “I would never have made it this far without you.”
“This is not farewell, Champion of the Sun. I am coming with you. I wish to see the outcome of this.”
Kormak nodded and considered. The river was broad and swift flowing at this point and the current was likely to carry them away if they were not careful. He moved down the bank to see what the elves were doing. The great spiders spat rope-like webs across the river and smaller spiders wove an aerial bridge between the cables thus created. Soon there was a walkway across the river for Weaver’s troops. The gigantic spiders then plunged into the river and waded across.
“We could wait and take the bridge ourselves,” Gilean said.
“That would put us behind and they will most likely leave guards anyway. We need to cross now if we are going to bring warning to the villagers.”
“Then we swim.” Kormak stripped off his armour, wrapped it in his jerkin, and bound it with his belt.
As he did so Gilean emerged from the undergrowth pulling a rotting blighted log. “It will float. Put your gear on this and we can paddle it across.”
Kormak nodded understanding but left his blade strapped to his back. He could not take any risk of losing it. They plunged into the cold, fast-moving water and clinging to the log pushed their way across. Kormak emerged shivering on the far side and tried to dry himself with his hands. He put on his soaking jerkin once more and put his mail coat on top of it. Gilean watched him amused.
“We go now.” They set off into the woods, moving as fast as they could.
Only a few days ago Kormak would have considered this a blighted land. Now after his experiences across the river he was relieved to be back in it. The air felt cleaner and the trees looked much more natural. There were even normal looking birds and beasts to be disturbed by their passage.
Ahead of them was a clearing, a small cottage with a wooden roof and a small verandah, Elder Signs cut into the wood. “Wait here,” Kormak said. “I don’t know how they will react to the sight of an elf.”
Gilean nodded and Kormak raced up and began to bang on the door. “Wake up! The elves are across the river. We will soon be under attack.”
He heard voices within and saw light as a lantern was lit. A man came to the door with a spear in his hand. “What you say?”
“The Settlements have been invaded. Take your family and flee. Now!”
The man looked at him suspiciously as if suspecting a trick. “The elves have crossed the river in force. They mean to kill or enslave every man and woman they find. Your children they will feed to their spiders.” Kormak was far from certain that the last was true but it certainly gave a sense of urgency.
He saw a woman’s face peering over the man’s shoulder and a couple of frightened tousle-headed children looking at him. “In the name of the Holy Sun take your family and go. There is not much time.”
Kormak turned to leave and that seemed to convince the man that he was not a robber. “We should muster at Green Oak,” he said. Kormak shook his head. “Green Oak will soon be overwhelmed. Take the Forest Road to Eastbridge. Warn your neighbours. Tell the sheriff there what is coming. Tell him to send word to the Baron of Enderby.”
The man looked at him, his wits still slow from sleep. It was all too much for him to take in. “The elves are here and they serve the Shadow,” Kormak repeated. “There is nothing to be done here now except take what you can carry and run.”
The man continued to stand there but the woman was in motion. “Listen to the man, Standa,” she said. “Green Oak was already attacked. Grogan and the Rangers are missing. Bertram has sent the war-arrow around.”
“Why should I listen to this stranger?” said Standa.
“Because I am a Guardian of the Order of the Dawn,” Kormak said. He did something he would not normally have done and slid his blade partially from the sheath. The runes along its length glowed before he covered them once more. “The Shadow is closer than you think,” he said. “Go now!”
Something in his tone convinced the man to move. He began to load his few belongings onto a handcart, set his wife and children to pulling it and walked along ahead carrying a bow in his hand.
“Rouse your neighbours,” Kormak told him and when he saw the man’s indifferent look, added, “There is safety in numbers.”
He did not think there was any safety if the encountered the full body of Weaver’s force but there might be from stragglers or scouts. He returned to the forest. Gilean was waiting. Ghostwing fluttered overhead.
“What now?” the elf woman asked.
“We need to get to Green Oaks and warn them, if there is still time.” She nodded. “You’d best keep out of sight. I don’t think they will be particular about shooting an elf tonight, and they don’t have any reason to know you are different from Weaver’s people.”
“I understand.”
“Men do not have your ability to tell a follower of the Green from a follower of the Shadow at a glance,” he said, unable to keep a note of bantering irony from his voice.
“I have already seen that,” she said. They moved on through the forest, heading towards Green Oaks by the road. Kormak realised that at some point they must have passed the point where he had first met the elf woman, but felt no need to point this out to her.
When they reached Green Oaks, the Gates were open and the village was ominously silent. There were signs that a massive force had moved through the clearing around the village but no sign of a fight.
“What happened here?” he asked Gilean. She shrugged.
br /> “There’s only one way to find out.”
“Cover me, I am going to go in and take a look.”
“Let Ghostwing scout first,” she said. He nodded. The great owl took to the air above the village, circled and then moved on. It returned many minutes later, landed in front of Gilean. She ruffled its feathers with one hand, picking out a large parasite and tossing it away. They looked at each other for a score of heartbeats.
“The village is empty except for a few stragglers,” he says. “Weaver’s army is already moving along the road. It looks like a small force has already returned across the river with the slaves taken here.”
“Let’s take a look,” Kormak said. “I want to find out what happened here.” She nodded and they moved cautiously towards the open gates.
In the watchtower the sentries’ throats had been cut. In the street they found men with knives buried in their chests. Those knives were not elvish blades but the sort carried by hunters. Propped up against a wall, outside his inn, he found Bertram. The man had a hunting knife between his ribs. He was very pale and blood trickled from his wounds. He was clearly not long for this world.
“What happened here?” Kormak asked.
“Are you one of the Shadow-worshipping bastards too now?” Bertram asked. Kormak shook his head. He went to the water barrel and brought a scoop for the dying man.
“What happened?” he repeated gently.
“Grogan came back with our missing people,” Bertram said. “Claimed they had ambushed the elves and got them back, that you were slain in the fighting. We let him in-- of course we did.”
A sick feeling gathered in the pit of Kormak’s stomach. He knew what Bertram was going to say next. “They turned on you once they were through the gates.”
“They must have done. I did not see it all. I just heard a scream from the gates and when I tried to get out and see what was happening, Grogan and Jaethro stopped me. There was something weird about them, spooky. I told them I was going, tried to push past and Jaethro put a knife in me. I tried to wrestle with him, but he stabbed me again and again. By the Holy Sun, it hurts.”
“They must have opened the gates and let the elves in because the next thing I knew the place was swarming with them, and spiders big as bloody houses. One of them checked me and saw I was too weak to move. They knew I was a goner so they just left me here. One of their bloody spiders stung me with something. I thought I was poisoned but I actually started feeling a bit better after that. At least it did not hurt so much.”
Kormak did not have the heart to tell him that his body was most likely riddled with spider eggs which would hatch and devour his corpse. “Where did they go?”
“The next village I guess. Silas Springs. They seemed to want prisoners and lots of them. Never heard of elves taking slaves before.”
Gilean came into view and the innkeeper cursed. “Bloody elf. Guess you’re one of those Shadow-cursed changelings after all, Guardian.”
“No,” Kormak said. “She’s not one of Weaver’s people. She helped save me.”
Bertram gave him a bleak smile. “Guess it’s a bit too late for her to save me,” he said. He closed his eyes. When Kormak checked his heart had stopped.
“They are using the changelings to infiltrate the villages along the Settlements,” Kormak said.
“I heard,” Gilean said. “Your friend Grogan is one of them.”
“He’s not my friend now,” Kormak said. “He’s not anybody’s friend except the Shadow’s.”
“They’re taking the prisoners back to the Stump of Mayasha,” she said. “They’re building an army, turning them to the Shadow.”
Kormak thought about the number of people in the Settlements. There were thousands and if they were all turned, they would provide a formidable force if allied with the elves and the Spiders, possibly one strong enough to resist a Burning.
“We’d best try to warn the other villagers, at least get them to clear out. If they flee, there will be fewer recruits for this army of darkness.”
“I can’t fault your logic,” she said. “Let us go.”
CHAPTER TEN
FROM UP AHEAD came the sound of drumming. They had moved on through the night, hoping to bypass the invasion force but all they had managed to do was keep up with it. Kormak again felt weary and the elves were moving fast. Silas Springs was already surrounded. The woods around the village seethed with elves and spiders.
Kormak and Gilean picked their way slowly through the undergrowth, cautiously avoiding sentries. Ghostwing had gone to rest during the daylight and Kormak was sorry, for they missed his scouting abilities. Eventually they found a position where they could get a clear view of what was going on, staring down from a small rise across the cleared area around the village.
He lay flat on his belly in the undergrowth and tried to grasp what was happening.
Obviously something had gone wrong with the elves’ plan of infiltration and surprise attack. Men stood alert on the walls of the palisade, bows in hand waiting for an attack.
In the daylight the invaders held back, content to beat on their drums and blow their horns and wear on the nerves of the villagers. Occasionally one of the huge armoured battle-spiders was allowed to loom into view, a terrifying sight calculated to lower the morale of the defenders. A few arrows arced dispiritedly towards it from the walls. They glanced off chitinous hide before the spider retreated back under the shelter of the trees.
Dead bodies littered the ground, mostly elves. A few were impaled on the spikes that jutted outwards at an angle from the ditch around the wall. Silas Springs looked like an altogether better defended place than Green Oak.
“Looks like the locals did not fall for Weaver’s tricks,” Kormak murmured.
“Maybe,” Gilean said.
“Maybe?”
“I suspect Weaver split her forces to attack more than one place last night, hoping to double her gains. They would have tried to slip over the walls. Judging from the bodies, the locals were ready for something like that.”
Kormak considered her words. “Bertram sent out the war-arrow before we left. Somebody paid attention.”
“Much good that it’s going to do them,” said Gilean. “I would say that reinforcements came up from Green Oaks during the night. Weaver has enough people now to sweep over this place come darkness.”
Kormak agreed. With the spiders, the extra elves from Green Oaks and the corrupted humans, the elves were in a much stronger position. He doubted that Silas Springs would last very long when Weaver threw her full strength against it.
“There’s nothing we can do here,” Gilean said. “Those people are doomed.” She laid a hand on his shoulder to tell him to be still.
A spider scuttled by on the branches above them. It did not seem to have noticed that they were there, but it was hard to be certain. Kormak froze as he heard elves moving in the trees behind them.
Had they been seen? Were they going to have to fight? Would it be wise to sprint towards the village if worst came to worst. He doubted the last. The villagers might, just might, open their postern gate for him but they would not do it for Gilean.
The elves were settling into place around them. They were taking up a position here for the same reason he and Gilean had. There were spiders in the branches overhead. The drums kept beating. He heard the strange trumpeting roar of the battle-spiders in the distance.
She put her lips close to his ear. “We cannot move from here. They will spot us.”
He nodded his understanding. “We wait until nightfall and the attack begins and we try and get away in the confusion.”
He cursed the curiosity that had caused him to stop here to attempt to observe the situation. It was going to cost them hours of vital time. At least he was going to have a chance to get some rest before they had to flee once more. He put his head down, but for a long time sleep simply would not come. There was too much unsettling movement in the bushes around them.
The
braying of an elvish horn woke him. He had been dozing fitfully, lost in dreams where he dangled for a huge web while a score of huge spiders stalked towards him from every direction.
When he opened his eyes he could make out activity among the trees across the clearing. The light was dying. The walls of Silas Springs were more crowded. Within the village bonfires had been lit to provide illumination, and maybe to scare the battle-spiders if they entered. It looked like every man, woman and boy who could hold a spear was up there on the walls. Some of them shouted feeble defiance at the horde of elves. Most only watched with blank faces, probably too terrified to even open their mouths.
Someone was emerging from the forest. Kormak could see it was Grogan accompanied by Jaethro and some of the rest of the foresters. They marched under a soiled white flag of truce and stopped when they were close enough to be heard clearly.
“Roberto, Jana,” Grogan said. “You know me.”
“Speak your piece, Grogan. What are you doing here?” shouted someone from the wall.
“I’ve come to offer you your lives,” Grogan said. His voice was measured, calm and persuasive.
“I doubt you are in a position to do that,” said a woman. She was big and red-faced with a voice like a foghorn. “Since when did you speak for the elves?”
“Since they captured me over the river, Jana,” said Grogan reasonably. “They spared my life so that I could negotiate a deal with the people of the Settlements.”
“And what would that deal be?”
“They want their land back,” Grogan said. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” The woman’s voice was mocking. “All we need do is give up everything our grandfathers sweated over.”
“They’re going to take it back anyway,” Grogan said. “And some of the elves here knew this land before our grandfathers walked it.”