“Right,” said Artus. “So all we have to do now is go into his camp, sneak past all the goblins, trolls, Shadow-Born, and Wendigo, find Pandora’s Box, and close it. It’s simple, really.”
Charys slapped his forehead. “Ah, boy,” he said, resigned. “You had it going so well, up until the end.”
“But he’s right,” said Charles, who’d been listening in from the perimeter of the council. “That’s exactly what needs to be done.
“Look,” he said, gesturing at the island beyond. “It’s a natural battlefield—everyone is expecting that both sides will meet in the middle, and the Winter King’s side is expecting the cover of darkness to be to their advantage. So no one would be looking if someone went behind their camp to snoop around while all their attention is focused on us in the center.”
“That sounds like a plan,” said Charys. “Good luck.”
“What?” Charles said, his face suddenly gone pale. “I-I wasn’t really volunteering. I’m not a soldier.”
“Not many here are, lad,” Nemo said. “But we’re going to do what we can, all of us, nevertheless.”
“We’ll do it!” came an excited voice from somewhere nearer the ground. “Master Charles an’ his faithful squire, Tummeler, vanquishing foes and, uh, closin’ boxes!”
Charles blinked, then grinned. “I guess we’re the stealth force,” he said, looking down at the exuberant badger. “God help us all.”
“The torches are ready,” said Aven, approaching the council with several in hand.
“And just in time,” said Nemo, shading his eyes and looking up at the sky. The sun was half-covered in Shadow. In minutes the island would be plunged into darkness.
It was determined that Eledir would command the primary force of the allies’ army—appropriate, given that it was comprised mostly of elves from the Blue Dragon. The elves were primarily armed as archers, although they all bore wicked long swords for one-to-one battle.
Falladay Finn and his dwarves were the most heavily armed, as they’d been at the Council at Paralon, with each of them bearing heavy axes, braces of short knives, and archery equipment of their own. Finn, along with Nemo, served as Eledir’s primary lieutenants, with Charys and the assembled creatures bringing up the rear.
Jack, despite cautions from both Charys and the Elf King, had chosen to join in the battle alongside Nemo. Aven and Bert tried to dissuade him, but Jack would brook none of their concerns. His eyes were shining from the fire that blazed in his belly to see real combat. He didn’t understand that skirmishes aboard a ship, which were all he’d really experienced, were not the same as war, and further justified his choice by pointing out that he was at least as physically able as John, who’d been a soldier, and was more willing to boot.
“I’ll be fine,” said Jack. “No one’s gotten killed so far, have they? And you know it yourself—I’ve proven myself to be braver and more resourceful than you thought I’d be. So don’t worry. I’m going to do things on this battlefield you’ll remember for the rest of your life.”
Aven flashed a concerned look at Nemo, who indicated with a brief nod that he would try not to be separated from Jack during the battle.
As she walked back to the beach for more torches, Aven wondered if of the two, she was actually concerned for the right one. Like a drowning man can drag down his rescuer, she hoped that Jack’s inexperience in combat would not similarly impair Nemo. She though of going back and saying something more, but she had other matters to attend to and soon forgot about her concerns.
“We’re going to find the Winter King.”
John said it matter-of-factly, but it sounded more ludicrous out loud than it had inside his head.
He and Bert had reasoned that the Winter King would not engage in the actual battle—not if his goal was still to summon the dragons. John surmised that to make the attempt, the Winter King would move as far away from the battlefield as he could get—and that meant the rocky bluff to the west, which sharpened to a peak high above the roaring falls.
“That’s where he’ll be, I’m sure of it,” said John. “And Artus and I will have to be there too.”
“Why me?” asked Artus. “Shouldn’t I be on the field, with all the rest?”
Bert took the young man by the shoulders and peered at him over the top of his glasses. “You should not,” he said with equal parts sternness and affection. “If John is right, then you may be the only one of us who is able to summon the dragons, and that means you are too valuable to risk putting in open combat. Go with John, and see what you discover. We’ll buy you as much time as we can.”
The old Caretaker embraced the boy king in a brief hug, then turned and walked to the top of the hill, where Aven was waving a torch.
The sun vanished, and a cry and hue rose up from the other side of the island.
The battle was beginning.
The enemy force was moving south with a slow, deliberate pace, but Eledir directed the elves to rush forward and establish a center line to hold as far into the shallow valley as possible. Against the greater force, they would eventually, inevitably lose ground and be driven back to their ships. Eledir wanted to make sure they had as much ground to lose as possible.
Falladay Finn and the dwarves could not quite keep pace with the elves, so he instructed them to sheath their axes and pull out their bows and arrows. They would fire behind the enemy lines, then pick up their axes again to push forward when the elves were pressed to their first retreat.
Charys and the centaurs had one mandate: to flank the rest, and make sure that none of their enemies were trying to outflank them. It was bound to happen at some point, as battles frequently spill past their prescribed boundaries, but with John and Artus heading to the west, and Charles and Tummeler heading east, it would be better to keep as much of the action corralled in the valley as possible.
Nemo, for his part, was firing a weapon of his own manufacture, an air-propelled gun of some kind, which had greater range than anything in use by the other races, and he was augmenting his assistance to Eledir by taking out the Troll and Goblin commanders long-distance.
From the hills behind, Bert watched and worried, too old to join in himself. It was not the battle ensuing that worried him, but the one still to come. The trolls and goblins had engaged them, but the hundreds of Wendigo, who were better fighters than the trolls, and more fearsome than the goblins, were still inexplicably clustered around the tents. He had also been scanning the encampment with Aven’s spyglass since the battle began, but still…
…There was no sign of the Shadow-Born.
Charles’s plan was for himself and Tummeler to skirt around the eastern shore of the island and come around behind the Winter King’s encampment, there to look for the kettle. They were dressed in dark leathers and would carry no torches, planning on Tummeler’s animal senses to guide them through the darkness.
They were preparing to move down to the beach, when something in the torchlight caught Charles’s attention. He stopped and looked more closely, then his eyes widened in shock, and he dropped his supplies to go find Aven.
“Master scowler?” said Tummeler.
“Stay there,” said Charles. “I’ll be right back.”
“Aven!” Charles said, finding her gathering more flammable materials from the Green Dragon. “Listen to me. Something is wrong! Something is wrong with Jack!”
Aven started a curt retort, but bit it back. Something in Charles’s tone told her that this was not an unconsidered assessment. “What is it? What’s wrong with him?”
Charles took her arm and pulled her closer. “I couldn’t put my finger on it until just now. For the last few days, he’s grown more and more brash, reckless even. I thought…”
He blushed. “I thought he was just trying overhard to impress you.”
“Since the moment we met,” said Aven. “What of it? He’s grown confident. He’s become a man—maybe even a warrior, although I’d cut out my own tongue before I let hi
m hear me say that.”
“I thought the same, but—”
“But what, Charles?”
Charles pointed to the rise twenty yards off where Jack was organizing several of the fauns and satyrs into a staggered line of archers. Aven was right: He was more confident. He did direct them with an authority that belied his youth, and he had proven himself in every battle they had joined. But Charles’s suspicions had manifested themselves in a form visible yet subtle, and Aven’s breath caught in her throat when she saw it.
Jack had no shadow.
The first engagement had gone badly.
The elves, impressive as they were in battle, were not a match for the trolls, the smallest of which outweighed the largest, stockiest elf. It was only the quality of their elf-forged armor that saved them from being completely overrun, and they retreated to switch to bows and arrows.
Unexpectedly, the dwarves fared better at hand-to-hand combat against the trolls, and they added to the attack a benefit for the Elven archers to the rear. The dwarves’ short stature meant that the huge trolls had to stoop to strike a blow, exposing the backs of their heads and shoulders to the arrows, while the dwarves whaled away at their legs and midriffs with the massive battle-axes. Still, the overwhelming might of the trolls was something to be held, and held only, not beaten back.
As they’d feared, the goblins had attempted a flanking action, only to be forced back into line with the others by the centaurs. The goblin archers’ aim was deadly, but the centaurs shrugged off the arrows as if they were wasps.
The other archers and pikemen gleaned from the mythbeasts and animals, led by Jack, came in behind the centaurs, and in moments the goblins were in full retreat. The trolls made another great push forward, then, amazingly, began to pull back as well.
“They’re retreating,” Charys said in amazement, blood streaming from his wounds, running freely down his flanks. “The goblins, and the trolls—they’re retreating!”
As unlikely as it seemed, the centaur was right.
With a cheer, the elves drew their swords and pressed ahead—then, suddenly, Eledir gave the command to stop, and the dwarves and centaurs also wheeled about.
Nemo signaled desperately to Bert, then gestured to the Winter King’s encampment, calling out something Bert couldn’t discern over the din of battle and roar of the falls.
He put the spyglass to his eye and looked in the direction Nemo had indicated. As if on cue, the Wendigo opened the tents all along the shore, which they’d assumed to belong to trolls and goblins who’d come from their homelands to fight.
They were mistaken. The Shadow-Born had been there all along—they had merely waited until the light and heat of the noonday sun had been enveloped in Shadow, when their power would be at its strongest, and they would be able to move almost invisibly in the dark.
“Dear God in Heaven,” said Bert. “This may truly be the end for us all.”
Aven spun around and suppressed a shudder, then, worse, began to silently weep.
John and Artus, who had not yet gone west, exchanged worried looks, then clambered up the rise to see what had shaken Bert and Aven so badly. A moment’s glance and an instant of comprehension was all that they needed.
They had expected, even planned for, the army of Wendigo; the trolls, guided by the traitorous Prince Arawn, had also come as no great surprise. Even a few of the lesser races from the edges of the Archipelago could have added to the bulk of the opposing army without rattling a veteran such as Aven. But what they saw not a mile away chilled the marrow in their bones and clenched their spirits in fear and growing horror.
At the edge of the vast plain of the battlefield, the great host of the Winter King had begun its approach. Marching toward them, from horizon to horizon, were the howling, snarling forms of Wendigo, and with them, mute and relentless, came the hooded specters of thousands and thousands of Shadow-Born.
Chapter Nineteen
The Circle of Stones
There was an unusual kind of quietude on the stony peak that rose above the waterfall at the edge of the world. An almost white noise, created by the commingling of the sounds of battle from the valley to the east and the never-ending combustion engine of the falls to the remaining west.
The Winter King made his way along the bluff line, taking care not to slip on the rocks that were dampened and slick from the eternal spray. It was slow going, for he had only the hook to reach out with to steady himself. In his good hand he was clutching the Imaginarium Geographica. He didn’t trust his translator to carry it—if Magwich were to drop it over the edge, accidentally or otherwise, he’d have to kill him, and as it was, he was merely planning on forcing the hapless Steward to look into Pandora’s Box and become a Shadow-Born.
He’d have done it long before, were it not for the fact that Shadow-Born were mute—and annoying as it was, he still needed Magwich to retain the ability to speak.
For a little longer, anyway.
“How much farther?” whined Magwich, who trailed his master by several yards.
“That’s the place,” said John…“I’m certain of it.”
The Winter King spun about. “What? You’re the one who said this was where we had to be to speak the summoning!”
“Well,” said Magwich, “I told you it said in the Geographica that you could use the Ring of Power only at the place in the Archipelago farthest to the west, which, technically, is here on the bluff. I don’t really know if the exact spot where you do it is important.”
The Winter King glowered. “Don’t waste my time, Steward. Are we there or not?”
In reply, Magwich motioned for the Geographica. The Winter King passed it over, then watched impatiently as the Steward thumbed through several pages, leafing back and forth between them, making little humming noises as he did so.
“Well?”
The Steward shook his head. “I don’t think it matters. I’m pretty sure we have all you need, and we’re in the best place to do it.”
“Pretty sure?” said the Winter King. “I thought you had been trained to read that atlas.”
Magwich shrugged. “I never actually finished training, remember? A few of the languages here are just beyond me—but I can still get the gist of it, so what does it matter if we miss a few details?”
“Never mind,” the Winter King snapped, snatching the book back. “Let’s just get this done, and then after I’ve assumed control of the entire Archipelago, I’ll make sure you get the reward you’ve earned.”
Magwich licked his lips and bowed deeply. “Thank you, my Lord.”
“Idiot,” said the Winter King.
“Whatever you say, my Lord.”
“Just shut up, will you?”
“As you command, my Lord.”
The Winter King clenched his jaw. “If you say one more word, I’m going to put my hook through both of your eyes and pull your brain out through the sockets.”
“Sorry, my Lord.”
The Winter King sighed heavily and opened the Geographica. “Just show me where the summoning is, and tell me what to say.”
A hundred yards into their mission, Charles already regretted having agreed to it. He was soaked from head to toe in seawater, and he smelled faintly of brine. Worse, Tummeler was also soaked, and the odor of wet badger fur emanated from him in waves.
They had decided to keep to the edge of the shoreline, the better to steer clear of any stragglers from the Troll or Goblin armies. But unlike the beaches on the south, which were smooth and sand-covered, the eastern side had been subject to the unending tidal forces created by the pull of the falls—and as a result, the beach was rocky and uneven. Every few steps, one or the other of them had taken a tumble into the surf, only to reemerge splashing and sputtering.
They were noisy, dragging a trail throughout the visible sand, and were projecting a smell that could be followed by a blind Wendigo with a head cold.
They were, Charles decided, the worst stealth force ever to b
e sent on a mission during wartime.
“Don’t mind my sayin’ so,” said Tummeler, “but you’re starting t’ smell funny.”
“I was about to say the same thing,” said Charles.
Tummeler stopped, and looked visibly hurt by the remark. “What d’ you mean?”
“Nothing—forget it,” said Charles, realizing the badger had meant his remark as a compliment.
He was outfitted in light armor the elves had given him to replace the ill-fitting Dwarven tunic, but otherwise carried only a short sword and small hatchet, as he thought appropriate for a stealth mission. Tummeler, however, not only had a large knife, but also was still dragging his supply of rock-hard muffins inside the battered bronze shield.
“Listen, Tummeler,” Charles began, “do you really think it’s justified to take along all this, this, stuff? After all, we’re supposed to be sneaking in to search for Pandora’s Box—not engaging in a conflict.”
Tummeler puffed up his chest in a gesture of badgerly defiance. “Better t’ make th’ effort t’ bring it, then t’ find ourselves in a situation where we wants t’ have it, and finds it’s not there.”
Charles thought about that a moment. “Now that you’ve put it that way,” he said, “it is a bit comforting to have more weapons along. But do you really need the shield? It’s leaving quite a track.”
“Mister Samaranth gave it t’ me,” said Tummeler, “and told me t’ bring it here. He said we’d need it, sooner or later, so bring it I done.”
“Fair enough,” said Charles, “but what say I carry it, so we make better time?”
“Okee-dokee,” said Tummeler, hefting the knapsack over his shoulders and passing the shield to Charles.
“Heavy,” Charles muttered as he slipped the shield over his back.
“Y’r not kidding,” said Tummeler. “Onward.”
With the retreat of the trolls and goblins, the strategy of the Winter King was now obvious. The first onslaught by the denizens of the Archipelago was meant merely to test the resistance of the allies at best, and to cut down as many of the opposing forces as they could at worst. For their part, the trolls and goblins were merely cannon fodder—if they survived the initial attack, and damaged the allies in the process, then all was good. But if they faltered, and many lost their lives—just as good. Because the main force of the Winter King’s army were the Wendigo and the Shadow-Born, and there would be no testing or trials, no retreat and withdrawal—just brutal, bloody combat to the end.
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