When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

  Another section of the wall collapsed, caving mushily, as if it were made of wet sand.

  Satisfied at last that the forest was dead beyond all rescue, Jermayan and Ancaladar flew after the others.

  THE first attack occurred at dawn a day later.

  They were given that much grace at least: a night and a day and a night to race across the snow toward the Gatekeeper, knowing every minute, every mile, was precious ground gained. They did not stop, though after the first exodus from Lerkalpoldara the convoy moved only at the walk. Riders stopped to change for remounts and rode on. At slightly longer intervals, one of the sledges would change its team, releasing its exhausted animals into the larger herd. That was all.

  Though it was seemingly effortless, and hardly faster than the pace an Elf on foot might keep, the toll it took on both beast and Elf was brutal, for there was no rest for either. Many of the animals fell behind—too tired to go on, or simply unwilling to be driven further; they fell to their knees in the snow or simply stood, heads hanging, staring miserably after the retreating herd.

  Water was the most precious commodity, for one of the things that had to be left behind in Lerkalpoldara was the bulky collections of mirrors and catchbasins that melted snow and ice and turned them into warm, drinkable water. And there was no time now to stop and build a fire to melt snow.

  There at least Jermayan could aid them. The spell that would temporarily unfreeze a mile or so of river as they passed, so that the animals could drink and be on their way again quickly, was a simple one and did not drain him. His Mage-strength grew with each passing hour; when the time came, his power might, perhaps, be enough.

  The convoy lost animals at the rivers as well. Some waded out to where the river turned icy again and drowned, some drank so much they made themselves sick, some simply refused to leave the riverbank, for the talldeer were not used to being driven this way.

  The main force went on.

  Jermayan and Ancaladar flew above the long column, watching for pursuers. They’d expected trouble at the dawn of the first day, but not even Deathwings were visible in the sky, and no Coldwarg were to be seen upon the ground. Even the smoke of the burning Flower Forest had long since blown away, and when Jermayan and Ancaladar returned to overfly the site of the city, they saw that the trees themselves, and such things as the Elves had left behind, had been reduced to cinders and ash at the center of a glistening disk of flawless ice. The melted snow had re-frozen as smoothly as a mirror around the ruins of what had once been the Winter City.

  All through that day their luck had held, and on into the night. Another day and night would see them into the foothills and forests at the base of the mountains, where Magarabeleniel hoped to rest the animals before beginning the climb to the Gatekeeper. Though Jermayan had cleared the pass itself, the road to the pass was still choked with ice. He had not tampered with it yet, knowing he must save his power to help the Lerkalpoldarans deal with what might be following them.

  As it developed, he was grateful that he had.

  At dawn of their second day on the march, Jermayan heard a distant chorus of howls greet the rising sun. Those below him heard it as well: From his vantage point high above, Jermayan saw a ripple of movement pass through the animals below, as horses that had been plodding through the snow a moment before were now lifting their heads to sniff the wind nervously. The talldeer jostled for position, preparing to fight.

  It was not coming from behind them—No, thought Jermayan wearily, that would render things far too simple—but from in front. The long absence of the Coldwarg from their trail was now explained: They had been making a great circle around the convoy, a circle so wide that Jermayan and Ancaladar had not seen it, and now they were attacking from directly ahead.

  The wind was blowing toward the convoy, and the pack was still several miles off. The Lerkalpoldarans’ animals could hear them, though were not yet sure where they were.

  “Magarabeleniel—Chalaseniel—the Coldwarg pack lies ahead,” Jermayan said, using a simple spell to carry his words to their ears alone.

  “There is worse,” Ancaladar said tersely.

  Without pausing to consult Jermayan, the black dragon wheeled around, carrying Jermayan back along the way they had come. In a moment, Jermayan saw what Ancaladar had seen.

  A herd of serpentmarae was following them.

  Serpentmarae were often used as riding animals by the Creatures of the Dark. They vaguely resembled small misshapen horses, but with cloven hooves, wolf-yellow eyes, and the sharp fangs of flesh-eaters. Their mottled mud-colored skin was hairless, as were the long whip-like tails that had given them their names. Their preferred method of killing a group of victims was to trap them in the center of the herd and then trample them to death, but their sharp fangs were just as effective as a means of killing their victims.

  With a gesture, Jermayan summoned lightning down from a cloudless sky. The bolt sizzled as it split the air, and struck the herd dead-center with a bright flare of light. Bodies—and charred pieces of bodies—flew in all directions. The handful of survivors staggered slowly away from the crater Jermayan had made and then began to flee from the convoy.

  Though the attack had not pained him, a few more such would truly weaken him, and he could not afford that so early in their flight. As little as he liked the idea, Jermayan must hold back from doing all he could, for if he exhausted himself here, there was no chance of resting this side of Windalorianan, and his magic might be even more vital later. He unwrapped his Elven Bow from its protective covering as Ancaladar turned in the direction of the Coldwarg pack.

  “There are more serpentmarae,” Ancaladar said, resignation in his voice, “but they are several hours away.”

  “We will deal with them when we must,” Jermayan said. “The Coldwarg pack is here now.”

  Coldwarg were difficult to kill. They were nearly as large as serpentmarae, and far more savage, for they had no other purpose in the world than to kill any creature they could clamp their jaws around.

  Ancaladar flew low over the pack, and Jermayan fired. Every arrow hit its mark, but he quickly realized that unless he managed to take one of the creatures directly in the heart, he could expend an entire quiver on one of them without killing it, and flying over the pack the angle was such that a heart-shot was difficult to get. He continued to cast spells upon the pack as much as he dared—Fire was one that did not strain his resources, and it would kill as well as any other.

  But he could not kill them all.

  Ancaladar’s approach was more direct. He simply dipped low enough to seize the creatures in his foreclaws, one by one, and twisted them in half.

  A few miles behind, the Lerkalpoldarans had made their preparations as well. They well knew that their convoy could not outrun the Coldwarg pack, nor outmaneuver it—the creatures had been bred to take down unicorns, after all—so their only hope left was to outthink it.

  The riders of the sledges abandoned them and mounted horses. They separated out the horses from the talldeer herd; if it were possible afterward, they would reclaim the talldeer herd and their possessions.

  By now the animals had caught the scent of what hunted them. Without the horses to hold them back, the talldeer turned in a body and began to veer away from the horses, picking up speed as they saw they were not stopped, until they were running as fast as they could.

  All of the riders strung their bows and nocked arrows, bunched their horses and the unsaddled stock, and waited. And a few—a very few—of the bravest of the Elves dismounted and prepared to do battle on foot, for the Elven longbow could not be used from horseback.

  Not all of Ancaladar’s depredations upon the pack, nor Jermayan’s careful sparing spells, had discouraged the pack’s survivors, who seemed to understand that the inhabitants of an entire Elven city were attempting to escape the wrath of their Endarkened allies. Even while the convoy was settling itself into position, the first Coldwarg appeared.

  The convo
y was not an army, and they had no true leader. A human city would at least have had a city Militia, and even a city guard, but Elven cities had no such things, for to offend against good taste and good manners was unthinkable. Their Knights and their Scouts defended the Elven Cities from danger arising from without: Lerkalpoldara’s Knights were all away at war, and her Scouts were used to acting independently.

  It was almost enough.

  The archers shot at whim and random, without plan. The first Coldwarg died under a longbowyer’s arrow, for the range of a longbow was farther than that of a horseman’s bow, but she was only the fastest of a pack that still numbered in dozens. Others followed, and the archers did not slay them all.

  Jermayan and Ancaladar were busy enough. They were circling the bunched Elves from above, firing down at the Coldwarg.

  Though Jermayan could call down Fire, he could not be everywhere at once. And so he was helpless to do much more than watch as one of the Coldwarg eluded death at the arrows of the archers and reached the Elven band. It broke through the line, followed by half a dozen of its fellows, snapping and slaughtering in a mad frenzy as the horses nearest to it plunged madly to escape.

  The convoy was ringed by the Coldwarg pack. Any of the horses that tried to bolt through the ring of circling Coldwarg would be instantly cut down.

  The Elves frantically tried to destroy the predators in their midst. They succeeded, cutting the Coldwarg down with axes and spears, but the cost was high: ten or a dozen Elves slain for every Coldwarg life ended. Beyond the immediate range of the herd, Jermayan and Ancaladar did all they could to ravage the pack, decreasing its numbers as best they could. Jermayan had discovered that an arrow fired from directly above would pierce a Coldwarg’s heart and kill one of the beasts, but to make the shot required perfect timing and absolute concentration, and as good as he was, Jermayan often missed.

  The pack had quickly learned that the vast black shadow in the sky meant danger, and scattered quickly the moment Ancaladar swooped down from above. But such momentary intermissions in their attacks gave little respite to the Lerkalpoldarans. Jermayan’s only hope was that together he and Ancaladar could kill enough of the Coldwarg to make the creatures break off their attack and flee.

  As the dragon and his rider pulled up from one such dive, they saw movement in the sky from the east. Flying toward them, their motion a ponderous parody of that of their smaller cave-bat cousins, were several score Deathwings, as many as had circled the Winter City two days before.

  They could not be allowed to reach the convoy. They would swoop down among the massed Elves, pluck riders from horseback, and toss their victims to the waiting Coldwarg. Jermayan did not know who they took their orders from here—he hoped there was no Enclave of the Shadowed Elves this far north—but from all Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel had told him, these Deathwings behaved much as the ones that followed the army had, whether they were following orders or not.

  He must abandon the Elves on the ground to fend for themselves against the Coldwarg to deal with an enemy only he and Ancaladar could fight.

  In moments they were close enough to see the glitter of the pale winter morning sunlight on the Deathwings’ flat black eyes. The Deathwings bore a faint resemblance to Coldwarg, with their long canine muzzles and sharp carnivorous teeth. They might deliver prey into Coldwarg jaws, but they would probably quarrel over the remains later.

  You should not have come, Jermayan thought toward them grimly.

  In the south, they had not known how easily the Deathwings burned. Now Jermayan set the nearest ones afire with a thought.

  The winged monsters burned like pitch-soaked torches, keening wild soundless death-cries that made Jermayan feel as if some invisible force was pressing his head between two giant hands. In their death-agonies, they veered wildly in circles, some crashing into each other before they plummeted to earth.

  Weariness pulled at him like quicksand, warning him to cease his labors—Fire was a simple spell, but he had been casting it for what seemed like hours—but he dared not stop. Now he and Ancaladar were the pursuers, hunting the Deathwings across the sky with merciless ferocity.

  When they were gone, he saw no more.

  They turned back to the convoy, scanning the ground below as they flew. Riderless horses—both saddled and unsaddled—fled from the battle; Chalaseniel had released the herd, maddened to panic by the presence of so many predators, hoping to draw off the pack. A few Coldwarg loped after them, harrying their heels, but the main body of the pack remained with the mounted Elves. The snow around the Elves was churned to red mud. Coldwarg bodies lay upon the snow, and living Coldwarg toyed with the bodies of the dead and—horribly—the dying. The screams came faintly to Jermayan’s ears.

  He set another arrow to his bowstring and carefully took aim at a new target.

  It was brutal, agonizing work; not quick, without easy victory. Hundreds of Elves died to kill a pack of less than three-score Coldwarg.

  When the last white-furred body lay dead upon the snow, Jermayan made a broad circle to look for the talldeer and the horses.

  He came upon a slaughter.

  The talldeer, fleeing from the Coldwarg, had blundered directly into the following serpentmarae. The talldeer that were running free had been able to make their escape, but those yoked to the sledges had been easy prey.

  Terrible as it was, the beasts’ sacrifice had bought the fleeing Elves time, for the serpentmarae had lingered over their kills, and lingered longer to feed. Now they wandered slowly in the direction of the convoy, but almost certainly would trail the convoy without attacking until hunger—or superior numbers—made the thought of attacking attractive once again.

  Jermayan returned to the convoy to replenish his supply of arrows and give what aid he could to the wounded.

  HE was able to report what he had seen to Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel, who made the decision to try to recover the sledges and round up what talldeer and remounts could be gathered quickly.

  Only twenty of the sledges had usable harness. Salvaging what harness they could, and rounding up the herd animals, took precious hours they did not have. But there was no choice. The supplies and the remounts were as precious as sleep. Or water.

  There was no room to carry their dead with them. They could lay them out decorously in the clean snow before they left. That was all.

  IT took twice as long as they had expected to reach the Gatekeeper—a full sennight. As Tanarakiel had foreseen, on the fourth day out from the Winter City, the weather had failed, bringing heavy snow.

  It was that, paradoxically, that had saved their lives. The Coldwarg and the serpentmarae had harried them across the plains—though the Deathwings had not returned after Jermayan’s first decisive victory over them—winnowing their numbers slowly but inexorably.

  The hellbeasts had been no more bitter an enemy than the cold. The Lerkalpoldarans said it was cold enough to freeze fire, though Jermayan did not put the local saying to the test. It was the cold that made leather brittle and delicate, no matter how lavishly it was greased, and when enough pieces of a harness broke, the sledge its talldeer were pulling had to be abandoned.

  Night and day, they did not stop. Every hour, every mile, was precious. They made camp only to brew tea, to allow the animals with them to eat and drink, before moving on. True children of the Plains, the Elves slept in their saddles and wagons. For food, they butchered the animals that dropped from exhaustion on the long march. When they had left Lerkelpoldara, they had packed little food for themselves, knowing this was what they would do. Nearly all the space they could spare in the sledges was packed with fodder for the animals. But even so, they drove the talldeer onward in nearly starving condition; a mark of their true desperation.

  When the snow came the harsh cold lessened, the temperature rising nearly to freezing. The serpentmarae fled for shelter and even the Coldwarg dropped back out of sight.

  It had taken them five days to reach the foothill
s, when it should have, by Chalaseniel’s estimation, have taken three. But they had reached them at last, and there was wood to burn and shelter from the wind and the snow.

  In summer this would be the foot of the trail that led over the mountain, and the trail would be clearly visible. Now, in the middle of a winter snowstorm, with their horses floundering through snow to their withers, to believe that there was a path here at all required an act of faith.

  Jermayan did what he could to clear it. His spellcasting against the Death-wings had tired him, and that strength had not been easily regained, here in the High Cold. But it was enough to ease their way.

  They had paused in the foothills long enough to eat, and to make a final disposition of the nine sledges that still remained, and to rest a few hours.

  Then they had begun the ascent to the Gatekeeper itself.

  The combination of the storm and the air-currents near the mountain wall were such that scout-flying was now impossible for Ancaladar and Jermayan, and would have been even if Jermayan had possessed the full resources of an Elven Mage to wield. They could wait behind, or wait ahead, but they could do nothing else. In any event, they would not be able to see the Lerkalpoldarans through the trees and the blinding snow. Jermayan left them Coldfire to light their way, and he and Ancaladar went on ahead.

  If he had not, none of them would have reached the summit.

  “I smell something,” Ancaladar said.

  They stood within the pass itself. Bare rock it might have been a sennight before, but it was already filling with snow that would soon pack down to ice. Fortunately the constant winds at this altitude blew most of it away. The Gatekeeper would remain passable for some days yet.

  Without Ancaladar, Jermayan would have frozen where he stood, but the dragon’s body radiated heat like a furnace. Jermayan stood beside him, within the shelter of one half-spread wing. It was, he reflected, the first time he’d been truly warm since they’d left Lerkalpoldara.