They had just reached the upper levels, where tall windows opened to hazy gray light and heavy clouds, when a lone Gnome Hunter came out of a room right next to them. Everyone froze for an instant, and then the Gnome was crying out. Rue buried her dagger in his chest, knocking him back into the room, but the damage had been done. The cry was immediately taken up, and the pursuit they had feared was mobilizing.
They began to run again, Bek’s arm about Rue’s shoulders, her arm about his waist. She felt the thick dampness of his blood seeping into her own clothing.
“It’s not far!” Trefen Morys called back to them, leading the way. “Just ahead, through those doors!”
A pair of heavy, ironbound oak doors stood closed at the end of the corridor. But the sound of boots reverberated on the stone flooring from just out of sight behind the fugitives. We’re not going to make it, Rue thought.
Gnome Hunters burst into view, rounding a corner of the hallway perhaps a hundred feet back. Too many to stand and face. Too many to overcome with conventional weapons. Rue glanced at Bek. His eyes were slits in a face gone pale and sweaty. His breathing was shallow and ragged. He was failing rapidly and in no position to use his magic.
Then they were at the double doors, and Trefen Morys was wrenching them open. Rue and Bek stumbled through, and the young Druid shoved the doors closed behind them and stepped back. “Wait!”
He mumbled something, his hands weaving. The locks on the doors melted and fused into a knot of iron, sealed shut.
He turned back to them and grinned triumphantly. “I know a little magic.”
They were in the airship courtyard and Swift Sure hovered just off the ground not a hundred yards ahead, straining at her anchor ropes, her light sheaths rippling in the breeze and her radian draws taut. She was rigged for flying and ready to lift off. From the pilot box, a solitary figure dressed in black Druid robes jumped up and started waving.
“Bellizen!” Trefen Morys shouted.
The girl shouted back, then darted out of the box and down to the decking. A moment later, one end of a rope ladder flew over the side.
But in the same instant a clutch of Gnome Hunters appeared on the Keep’s battlements behind them. They howled in anger when they saw what was happening. Still supporting a wounded Bek, Rue lurched toward the safety of the airship. Trefen Morys darted ahead. Then, seeing how badly his companions were struggling, he raced back to help, taking Bek’s other arm and slinging it over his shoulder.
“Hurry!” he urged.
Rue didn’t need to be told. Arrows fired from Gnome bows were falling all around them, sharpened heads clattering and skipping across the stones. Rue realized suddenly that she had no weapons of her own, that none of them had, that they had left everything behind in their battle to escape the cells.
She glanced ahead at Swift Sure, caught sight of the starboard rail sling in place on the bow, and felt a flutter of hope. “Does Bellizen know how to use airship weapons?” she shouted at Trefen Morys above the cry of the attacking guards. “Do you?”
The young Druid shook his head. “Neither of us does! We aren’t trained in the use of weapons!”
A bad oversight, she thought. She took a deep breath. “Stay with Bek!” she ordered.
She dropped her husband’s arm and sprinted for the airship ladder. She knew what she was doing. She was trying to save him, but she was also leaving him to his fate, abandoning him to the Gnome Hunters. He would never reach the airship if she failed. Both he and Trefen Morys would die.
But there wasn’t any other way.
A crossbow bolt caught her in the thigh, passing so deep into her flesh it jarred the bone. She cried out in pain, stumbled, righted herself and hobbled on. Arrows rained down all about her, but she was only nicked until one caught her in the shoulder and spun her all the way around. She continued to run, teeth clenched, hands knotted into fists.
Just a little farther.
She leapt onto the rope ladder and clambered up the rungs in a wash of razor-edged pain and suffocating heat that took her breath away. She reached the top and Bellizen grabbed her arm and pulled her past the railing and onto the deck. The Druid girl was no older than Trefen Morys—younger still, Rue guessed. Short-cropped blue-black hair formed a helmet about a face paler than Grianne Ohmsford’s. Eyes as black as pools on a moonless night peered over. “What do you need me to do?”
Rue hesitated. Gnome missiles thudded into the airship decking, bristling from the planks and rails like quills. Impatient with the failure of their bowmen to bring her down and infuriated by the efforts of Trefen Morys, Gnome Hunters were rappelling down the Keep’s walls on ropes. The young Druid had shown enough presence of mind to use his Druid magic to cause clouds of dust to swirl across the courtyard, hiding Bek and himself. It was a clever strategy. But once those descending the walls reached the ground, the pair would be found again quickly enough.
And the rail sling, with its slow-cranking winch and single bolt, wasn’t going to be enough to stop them.
“Help me into the pilot box,” she said, struggling to stand.
Bellizen was stronger than she looked, and she hauled Rue to her feet, practically carrying her across the deck and up the three steps into the pilot box. Fighting the waves of pain and nausea that threatened to undo her, Rue gripped the controls of the airship, unhooding the parse tubes to release the power stored in the diapson crystals and readying the thruster levers.
“Cut the aft and forward anchor ropes,” she ordered the girl. “Then drop flat against the deck close by the rope ladder. But leave the ladder down!”
Bellizen saw what she intended, jumped down the steps out of the box, and raced off to cut the ropes. Swift Sure was already straining against the lines, responding to the fresh power Rue was feeding her. In the courtyard, the haze of dust still obscured Bek and Trefen Morys, but the Gnome Hunters who had rappelled from the battlements were almost upon them. She shouted again at Bellizen, feeling the ship swing about as the aft anchor rope was cut, then lurch forward moments later as the bow anchor rope followed.
Swift Sure shot forward as if catapulted from a sling. Too much power! They would run Bek and the young Druid down! Rue hauled back on the thruster levers, reversing the flow of power through the parse tubes. The airship bucked and slowed, and she was suddenly in the thick of the dust cloud, arrows and crossbow bolts flying everywhere as shouts rose from the Gnomes charging across the courtyard.
“Bek!” she screamed.
The big airship swung about, clearing a space in the dust cloud, and she saw her husband and his rescuer almost underneath the hull. Bellizen was on her feet, calling down to them, directing them toward the ladder. They reached it in seconds and began to climb, Bek in the lead, Trefen Morys helping to boost him up. But they were too slow, each step taking too long. Bek, weak from loss of blood and exhaustion, was barely hanging on.
Frantic, Rue leapt from the pilot box onto the decking and charged forward to the rail sling. Cranking back the winch furiously, she inserted a bolt, swung the weapon about, and fired it into the clutch of Gnome Hunters just emerging from the haze. Three or four of them were knocked backwards like rag dolls. The rest, caught by surprise and not exactly sure what had just happened, dropped flat against the courtyard stones, trying to shield themselves. That gave Bek and Trefen Morys just enough time to gain the airship railing, where Bellizen was waiting to pull them aboard.
Rue dropped the handle of the rail sling and raced back for the pilot box. Leaping inside, she threw the thrusters to the left parse tubes forward and yanked the thrusters to the right parse tubes all the way back. Swift Sure swung violently about, turning toward the outer walls and the Dragon’s Teeth, and Rue shoved all the thruster levers forward and tilted the tube noses up to gain lift.
An instant later, the airship exploded out of the courtyard and rose into the midday sky, leaving Paranor, with its Druids and Gnome Hunters and dark memories, behind.
SIX
Dawn broke on the Prekkendorran, a brilliant flare of golden light sweeping out of the eastern horizon down the twisting, broken maze of ridges and gullies where Pied Sanderling crouched. The sky was a cloudless canopy of brightening blue, the air still and cool, the light knife-sharp, etching the contours and folds of the land. It was a day created for the witnessing of great things.
The Federation army, a steady wave of silver and black visible through gaps in the shadow-dappled draw, approached like a winding snake toward the rise where the Elves waited. The scrape of their boots against the hardpan, and the clash of metal armor and weapons, signaled their arrival long before they came into view. In two days of steady marching, they had encountered only remnants of the force that had withstood their efforts to gain the heights for almost thirty years. Clearly, they felt they would encounter no meaningful opposition now that they had broken the back of the Elven army.
Maybe they will pay for their arrogance and overconfidence before the day is over, Pied thought. Or maybe such arrogance was justified, and he was the one who should take better stock of the situation. What reason did he have to think his ragtag force of Elves could defeat an army of regulars? Yet he knew that the Elves were determined, driven by rage at the losses they had suffered and by a humiliating sense of impotence at having been made to flee like cattle.
“Drum,” he called quietly to his aide.
Drumundoon scooted over, staying low on the crest of the rise to keep hidden, his young face intense. “Captain?”
“What is this place called?”
Unable to answer, Drum shook his head. He crab-walked away, speaking to a handful of the Elven Hunters before coming back again. “It doesn’t have a name. There’s never been a reason to give it one.”
Indeed, Pied thought. Look at it. A barren wasteland in which no one would want to live, a nature-ravaged stretch of earth which humans and animals passed through quickly on their way to somewhere more inviting. But it needed a name. His sense of his own mortality was strong that morning, and if he was to die there, he wanted to do so knowing where it happened.
“We will call it Elven Rock,” he said. He gripped Drum by his shoulder. “It is here that the Elves become a rock against which all enemies are smashed. Pass the word.”
Drum gave him a strange look, then turned and hurried off to do as he had been ordered. Pied watched him go, watched him stop and speak with groups of soldiers as he worked his way down the line, watched some of those soldiers nod in agreement, watched fresh determination etch their brows. They would fight hard, those men and women. They would not break easily.
Within the draw, the sounds of the Federation’s approach deepened. The army was almost through. In moments, it would begin to emerge onto the flats leading up to the rise and the Elves.
Pied took a final look around at the defenses he had set, taking their measure one last time.
He could see nothing of the Elven bowmen hidden in the rocks and crevices in the heights to either side, where the draw opened onto the flats. There were more than two hundred, and they would have an unobstructed view of the Federation soldiers as they emerged from the shadows. Longbows were the order of the day, the favorite weapon of Elven bowmen, who disdained use of the bulkier, heavier crossbows. Erris Crewer, a Third Lieutenant, the highest-ranking officer left among them, commanded.
From his slightly higher vantage point, Pied caught glimpses of the Elven Hunters hidden in the deep folds of the ravines to his right. Almost a quarter of his little army was concealed there, waiting for the summons that would bring it into battle on the Federation’s left flank. The timing of that strike would determine the outcome of the battle. The soldier who was to call for that strike was a veteran Captain of the Home Guard who had served under Pied for many years. Ti Auberen could be depended on, and Pied Sanderling was depending on him heavily.
The bulk of the army, the Elven guards armed with swords and short spears, was gathered about Pied, grouped in makeshift units with newly designated commanders and lieutenants. Because they were formed of remnants of decimated units, few had fought together before. That was a considerable disadvantage in close quarters, where one’s life often depended on the experience and quick thinking of those on either side. But most were familiar with the triangle formations Pied had chosen to employ, so the Captain of the Home Guard could only hope that in battle the men would remember to do what was needed to keep the units intact and the enemy from breaking through.
Pied glanced up and down the lines to either side, checking for readiness. He found it in the faces of most, and he knew that would have to suffice. There was no time left for anything but hope and trust. Alternating the advances of the triangles would give each unit a short respite between strikes and a rear guard to buttress points threatened with breakthrough. He had decided to hold two units in reserve, keeping them back for when they were needed most. With luck, they would not be needed at all, but he couldn’t trust to luck in the face of what was at stake.
These were the best of what remained; they were still alive and they had not fled during the night. They had chosen to stay, to stand with him against an enemy that had already routed them once. That said something to him about their courage.
The first wave of the Federation attack force appeared from out of the draw, marching in loose formation, shields up but swords locked in place in the carry straps behind the shields. Their scouts ranged to either side, but were still well below the ravines and rocks in which the Elves hid. Had they chosen to come on ahead, doing what scouts were supposed to do, they would have been disposed of. Pied had no idea what the Federation commanders were thinking. Perhaps that the Elves were too disorganized to make a stand. Perhaps that they would do so farther north. Perhaps that they were rallying with reinforcements in Callahorn.
Or perhaps they weren’t thinking anything. Perhaps they were just moving ahead, surprised themselves that after so many years the stalemate was broken. Perhaps they were still coming to terms with what that might mean.
Pied glanced behind him at the veteran archer he had chosen to give the attack signal. The man’s bow was strung and the whistle arrow notched. Meeting his commander’s eye, he nodded that he was ready.
Pied took a deep breath. The sounds of the approaching army filled his ears. Their boots stirred the dust from the flats and filled the air with a light haze. Spear blades glinted in the sunlight, and coughs and shouts emptied out the last of dawn’s silence.
Patience, he willed himself. His hands closed more tightly about his sword. Another few seconds.
He let the first ten rows of the Federation army clear the mouth of the draw before he gave the hand signal to the archer at his back. The archer dropped to one knee, drew back his bowstring, and released the signal arrow. Its shaft meticulously cored and its tip altered, the arrow caught the wind as it flew and made a shrieking sound that could be heard for hundreds of yards. In the silence of the early morning, it was deafening.
Instantly, the Elven bowmen released their arrows from both sides of the advancing Federation force. A deep whine like the buzzing of a thousand swarming bees replaced the shriek of the warning arrow, and Pied’s heart lurched. Positioned to fire in three alternating waves, his bowmen sent wave after wave of steel-tipped arrows raining down on the unprotected men. Screams and cries rose on the morning air. Dozens of Federation soldiers were dead or injured before they could react. When those remaining realized what was happening, they turned in all directions at once, and dozens more fell. Caught in the open, they had no chance of escaping the assault. Even using armor and shields to ward off the deadly killing shafts, they were vulnerable. No matter where they turned or what they did, some missiles still managed to get through.
Finally, someone in the ranks took control, and the remnants of the stricken forward units formed up and charged the archers in small groups, reinforced by soldiers still coming out of the draw—hundreds of them, flooding the flats with silver-and-black uniforms.
r /> “Elessedil!” Pied Sanderling shouted the Elven war cry, leaping from his hiding place and raising his arm.
In a solid line, the front ranks of the Elven Hunters surged from their hiding places behind the rise and charged the Federation command, taking up Pied’s war cry. The Southlanders, split apart in their efforts to reach the archers on their flanks, were caught by surprise. To their credit, they swung into defensive formation with practiced smoothness, but their ranks were already decimated, and there were gaps that could not be filled quickly enough. The Elves hammered through the front lines to the center, bowling over Federation soldiers who tried to stop them, pushing back the entire command.
But the soldiers of the Federation were well trained, and they regrouped quickly, first slowing, then stopping the assault, bracing behind dozens of oncoming ranks, behind weapons and armor, front ranks dropping to one knee and bracing the butts of their spears against the hardpan, rear ranks lowering spears over their shoulders. The Elves slammed into the wall but failed to break it, tried a second time and failed again.
Pied, still standing on the rise with the bulk of the Elven forces, signaled his archer a second time. A pair of arrows shrieked a command as they arced above the combatants. Not all heard the shrieking sound, but those who did signaled their fellows to pull back. Swiftly, the Elves disengaged, retreating on the run to the topmost part of the rise, moving past the six fighting triangles into which the remainder of the Elven foot soldiers had been formed.
It took only minutes for the first wave to retreat, but even in that short time, hundreds more Federation soldiers poured through the gap onto the flats, joining their fellows. It was a much larger force than Pied had envisioned, much larger than his Elves were equipped to handle, but there was nothing he could do about that. Lifting his sword a second time, he called out the Elessedil battle cry and sent his triangles into battle.
The triangles advanced as one. Shields locked and spears lowered, they presented bristling walls of steel tips. The triangles were formed into two lines, three triangles of eighty men each in front and three behind, the latter offset slightly to the right of the former, so that the leading points of each triangle filled all the gaps. As the triangles bore down on the Federation, Erris Crewer had the archers on the slopes rake the enemy soldiers once more, forcing them to cover up with their shields as they scrambled to re-form their shattered lines. Federation archers responded with crossbows, but they could not see their targets and were forced to fire blindly.