“Elves?” he gasped. “We are fighting elves?”
Both arrows found homes in the sergeant’s chest and his dead body tumbled off the horse.
* * * *
General Fortella rose earlier than normal. He wanted to reread the reports about the attacks on the foragers to see if there was a pattern to the timings or a flaw in the enemy’s method that could be exploited. He had been hesitant to send units into the forest to engage the unseen enemy until he fully understood the risks involved. That philosophy had been fine for the first few days, but the meager supply of food was beginning to take its toll on the men, both physically and in terms of morale. Something had to be done to change the situation, and Fortella was determined that today was to be the day he reacted strongly. He got out of bed and lit a lantern, but noises from outside the tent caught his attention. He walked to the tent flap and peered out.
Dawn had not yet arrived, and fog had enshrouded the camp. He peered through the mist and saw a squad of cavalry riding towards the perimeter. He recognized it as the advance squad. He let the flap close and returned to the table. Gathering the reports, he spread them out on the table before him and began reading them one more time, making notes when he saw something that might be important. An hour went by before he realized it, and Colonel Tamora entered the tent with mugs of tea and plates of food. The colonel looked at the cluttered table, and failing to find a safe place to set down the food, waited for the general to notice him. The general sensed the colonel and looked up.
“Anywhere, Tamora,” the general said with distraction. “Whitman is not even up yet. Wake him before you leave.”
“I will, General,” replied the colonel as he set the plates and mugs on top of the reports. “It is dawn, General. Shall I start the column moving?”
“Yes.” The general nodded. “Same formation as yesterday. Alert me when the 2nd Corps cavalry has completely left the camp.”
“As you wish,” the colonel replied before leaving the table.
General Fortella picked up a mug and sipped some tea, turning his attention back to the reports. Some time later, General Whitman pulled out a chair and sat down on the opposite side of the table. General Fortella ignored the Aertan general and continued perusing the reports.
“It’s quite foggy out this morning,” commented General Whitman. “Perhaps it would be better to hold off the column for a couple of hours.”
General Fortella seethed at the cowardly words. Whitman and his men were afraid of everything. The man should never have been made a general. Matching him up with Whitman had probably been Kyrga’s idea of a joke, but Fortella was not laughing. He once again vowed silently to take out his wrath on the Grand General when he returned to Despair.
Despite his inner rage, General Fortella’s voice was calm when he spoke, “I have seen the fog. I watched the advance scouts leave the camp this morning. As for your request, be thankful that your army follows mine. By the time your 24th Corps leaves the camp, the sun will be high in the sky and the fog will have burned off. As for my 2nd Corps, the cavalry has already begun their departure. Now, if you will allow me a period of silence, I would like to finish analyzing these reports.”
Sufficiently rebuffed, General Whitman stood and left the tent. General Fortella continued reading the reports and making notes. After a while, he heard the rousing of the infantry forming up outside the tent. He gathered his papers and stowed them well before the colonel came into the tent to inform him that the last of the 2nd Corps cavalry were leaving the camp.
“Have my horse brought to me,” commanded the general. “I will ride with the cavalry today.”
The Baroukan general prepared himself for battle and stepped out of the tent. He mounted his horse and rode downstream towards the bridge. The infantry companies already packing the path to the bridge stepped aside and made way for the general. Fortella reached the bridge area just as the first infantry company was preparing to start across. The captain of the company saw the general approaching and halted the column so that the general’s crossing would be unimpeded. By the time the general started crossing the bridge, the tail end of the 2nd Corps cavalry was already halfway across.
General Fortella looked down at the swiftly flowing river and the swirling mists above it. Visibility directly over the river was actually better than on the banks, and he glanced upstream and downstream. While gazing downstream, he detected movement out of the corner of his eye on the opposite bank. He frowned as he focused on the wooded bank. He saw a man race out of the forest and throw something at the far end of the bridge. That section of the bridge instantly burst into flames, horses and men screaming out in terror. The general immediately pulled his mount to a halt and stared at the attacker in horror. The man hurled something in his direction. Fortunately for the general, the river was wide, and the attacker’s strength was insufficient to reach entirely across the river. The object struck the wooden planks of the bridge not twenty paces in front of General Fortella, and the planks burst into flames. The general turned his horse and raced off the bridge.
When the general reached the end of the bridge, he dismounted and stormed to the bank of the river. The shouts and cries of his men were clearly heard, and he saw men and horses being pulled downstream by the swift current. What shocked him more than the attack was the sight of some of the bridge planks burning even as they were being carried downstream. The water did not appear to be extinguishing the fire.
“What in the world are we up against?” he muttered to himself.
“I believe it was an elf, General,” said a voice alongside him.
General Fortella turned to see Colonel Tamora beside him. “What are you talking about?”
“The man who threw the objects,” answered the colonel. “He certainly dressed like an elf.”
The general was about to berate the colonel for making wild assumptions about how the unmet Alceans dressed when he suddenly remembered that Colonel Tamora had been to Alcea the previous fall. He would know what local customs the Alceans observed.
“Did you see any elves last fall?”
“No, General,” the colonel shook his head, “but the man was dressed as the elves in Elfwoods dressed. Could the Dielderal have made it all the way to Alcea?”
“It is hard for me to imagine an elf with the courage to expose himself long enough to attack a Federation column, but that is not what I was remarking on when you arrived. Look at the debris floating downstream. It still burns, even when underwater. It must be magic of some kind.”
“And we are without mages,” the colonel stated.
“I am more concerned about being without cavalry,” replied the general as he gazed across the river at the tail end of his two-thousand-man cavalry detachment.
“We still have the cavalry of the 24th Corps,” the colonel said with an air of optimism.
“I will not trust my flanks to Aertan cavalry,” snapped General Fortella. “Find me a way to get across this river, and be quick about it.”
* * * *
Princess Rhula of the Elderal elves watched the general of the Federation army turn tail and run from the burning bridge. She smiled broadly.
“An unexpected surprise, brother,” she said softly to Prince Garong beside her. “Did you see him scurry away from the bridge? Too bad we didn’t wait just a moment longer. The enemy column would be crippled by the loss of its leader.”
“The timing was perfect for accomplishing our goal,” replied the Knight of Alcea as he stirred his fairy to life. “The Baroukan cavalry has been isolated. Now it is time to kill them.”
Sprout shot upward to Prince Garong’s shoulder and rubbed his sleepy eyes. “Is it killing time already?” he asked. “I feel as if I just closed my eyes.”
“It is time,” nodded the elven prince. “Carry word to the others and be swift about it.”
“I will spread the word faster than an elven arrow,” vowed the fairy.
Sprout shot up into the canopy a
nd disappeared. Prince Garong watched the near end of the bridge to see what the tail end of the cavalry column would do. He expected a certain amount of confusion as to whether they should follow the vanguard or stay near the river until a new way across could be established. He was not disappointed. Loud arguing broke out among the riders, and one rider was sent towards the vanguard to report on the bridge’s destruction. Two squads were assigned to ride along the banks of the river in opposite directions seeking another bridge or a ford. The rest of the small group, which Prince Garong estimated to be about one-hundred men, dismounted and remained by the burning bridge. The elven prince turned to his sister.
“It is time to go,” declared the Knight of Alcea.
“What about the scouting parties coming along the bank of the river?” asked Princess Rhula. “You intend to leave them alive?”
“The cavalry column is over half a league long,” replied the prince. “You will have plenty of soldiers to kill without endangering yourself so close to the bulk of the enemy. Leave the scouts alone.”
Princess Rhula pouted, but she nodded obediently. The two elves faded deeper into the forest and disappeared.
* * * *
Captain Plaggor was a member of the 2nd Corps cavalry, and his place in the cavalry column was somewhere in the middle. He usually enjoyed the early morning rides as he found it exciting to be among the first Zarans to explore this part of Alcea, but the morning’s fog had dampened his spirit. He could see a fair distance ahead of him, but the fog appeared thicker along the sides of the road. He could see the first couple of rows of trees, but nothing else. He slumped down in his saddle and prepared for a boring ride.
Soon he heard shouting from behind him and he turned in his saddle to see what the commotion was. At first he could see nothing because of the fog, but he eventually understood the commotion. A rider was trying to reach the vanguard, but the column already took up all of the road. The riders shouted curses at the man, but he seemed to care little as he forced his way between files. Captain Plaggor intentionally moved closer to the rider next to him to make the hurried man’s passage a little easier. After the rider had passed, the captain resumed his normal position.
“Must be an urgent message to brave disrupting the column,” the captain said to no one in particular.
“If it’s not important,” the rider next to the captain chuckled, “he will find himself walking tomorrow. You can be sure that the colonel will hear earfuls about the rider at camp tonight. You just don’t disrupt a column, especially in hostile territory.”
Sudden shouts came from the riders far ahead of the captain, and he initially dismissed them as more complaints about the messenger, but he then realized that the shouts were more alarming than curses, and they were getting closer. The captain rose up on his stirrups and peered into the fog. He frowned as he saw men falling off their horses in the distance. He stared intently and focused his listening on the column ahead. The riders before him were falling off their horses like a wave flowing towards him, and the shouts were now recognized as cries of pain and surprise. And then he heard the telltale song of bow snaps.
The captain gave no conscious thought to his actions, but he instinctively dove off his horse and rolled into the forest as the bow snaps grew louder. He heard the surprised cries of pain from his comrades as the wave of death passed by, and he quickly crawled under the cover of a large bush. He peered out at the road as the sounds of cries diminished, the wave moving away towards the bridge they had crossed earlier.
At first, the captain saw nothing other than riderless horses milling about, but eventually he saw the attackers. He gasped softly as elves silently exited the forest and began checking the bodies of the soldiers. Judging from what he could see, there were very few survivors of the attack, but the elves spared none of them as they gathered the horses and led them away. The captain quaked with fear the whole time, and his body continued to shiver long after the elves were gone. Vowing to remain hidden until the rest of the column appeared, the captain waited for hours before realizing that the rest of the column was not following the vanguard. By that time, the fog had burned off, and the sun was high in the sky.
Captain Plaggor crawled out from under the bush and hesitantly made his way to the edge of the road. He looked in both directions and felt his stomach grumble. Whether the feeling was from hunger or disgust at the sight of all the bodies, he was not sure. The bodies littered the road as far as he could see in each direction, and none of them were stirring. Gathering as much courage as he could, the captain eased out of the forest and turned towards the bridge. He started walking.
As high sun approached, the captain heard the distant sounds of lumbermen. He eased towards the side of the road and slowed his pace, not wanting to stumble upon the elves. Eventually, the river came into view, and the captain realized the woodcutting was coming from the Federation camp. He breathed a sigh of relief and felt the tension drain from his body. He walked boldly down the center of the road, his relief visibly evident in the spring of his step. Unexpectedly, two men emerged from the trees on each side of the road, their swords drawn. Captain Plaggor grinned broadly at the men. They were riders of the 2nd Corps.
“Plaggor?” one of the men asked as he recognized the survivor. “Are there any others coming this way?”
The grin fell from the captain’s face, and he shook his head. “They are all dead,” he said sadly.
“You need to get across the river,” one of the men said to the captain as he pointed to a rope stretched across the river. “General Fortella will want to know what you have seen. Be careful. The logs are not very stable yet.”
The captain nodded and moved towards the riverbank. The Zarans had felled trees and shoved them into the river where they rested against the stone pillars that had supported the original bridge. A rope ran across the river directly above the logs, and the captain grasped it firmly before stepping onto the crude replacement bridge. He moved slowly, but the danger of the temporary bridge never registered in his mind. He was just thankful to be alive, and things that might have frightened him before no longer seemed so scary. Within a few minutes, the captain was across the river and was escorted to the large command tent. General Fortella waved him to a chair.
“I understand that you survived the attack,” opened the general. “Tell me what you know about it.”
The captain thought the general was asking him why he had survived while the others had died, and he felt compelled to lie.
“There was a messenger trying to speed his way through the column,” stated Captain Plaggor. “We bumped and I was thrown off my horse. That is the only reason that I survived the attack.”
“I sent the messenger,” a voice said from the side of the tent. “Where in the column were you, Captain?”
Captain Plaggor turned to see a colonel off to his side. “I was somewhere in the middle,” he answered.
“So the messenger never made it to the vanguard,” sighed the colonel.
“He did not make it far past me,” confirmed the captain. “I fell just as the attack reached my area of the column.”
“Reached your area of the column?” questioned the general. “What do you mean?”
“It was like a wave, General. I could hear the cries of surprise and pain rippling down the road towards me, but there was no time to react to it. The men never knew what hit them.”
“That would take thousands of archers for such an attack,” frowned the general. “Your column had to be over a half league in length. Has the whole Alcean army taken the field against us?”
“It wasn’t Alceans, General,” reported the captain. “It was elves.”
Chapter 33
Meeting the Enemy
General Mobami, governor of the province of Sordoa, sat on his horse atop a hill in the middle of the Coastal Highway between Caldar and Trekum. Next to him sat Sergeant Musaraf, his long and loyal confidant. Before them, the road rolled down the hillside, acro
ss a wide valley, and up another hill. The valley and the hills were treeless with grain fields that had only recently sprung to life. The two men sat motionless, waiting for the enemy to appear.
“I don’t like this plan,” complained Sergeant Musaraf. “These people are invaders. We shouldn’t expose ourselves until our swords are drawn, and even then the enemy should be caught unawares.”
“King Arik requires that we capture as many of the enemy as possible,” replied General Mobami. “That requires giving them a chance to surrender. Besides, I am loathe to commit my forces while another enemy army marches up from the south. We may yet be forced to flee from this army and defend the walls of Trekum.”
“That has never been the Sordoan way,” frowned the sergeant. “We are riders of the plains, not Targans who hide behind their walls.”
General Mobami smiled. “You have yet to lose the mentality of the old days. The Targans were never that predictable. We were just led to believe that they were. Perhaps that is why they bested us in every war.”
“How can you speak against your own kin like that?” scowled the sergeant. “We are Sordoans.”
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