The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  The guards had seen her coming, so she couldn’t spend too much time but the pleasure in Elon’s eyes, the welcome in Colath’s as she gave her report, lifted her spirits a little.

  Meetings and meetings each night, with little done. Too much talk and too few decisions. It irritated Elon, though he hid it. He was far too used to his own people who said little and did much, rather than these of men who said much but did little. Daran had little patience for it either, complaining in bitter frustration of the endless talking and occasional bickering among his generals, commanders and the Kings. Here lay the difficulty of a peacetime High King whose generals and commanders came from the very families of those Kings. For Elon, his only relief from such things was the occasional sight of Ailith among them.

  She spoke rarely at the meetings but when she did it was always to point, so much like their people it was like a breath of fresh air.

  Unfortunately, she made few friends there. Elon heard the muttering. Her push with her company up the valley had put many of them to shame. As Daran intended.

  Most now knew she’d been disinherited. It was impossible not to see how that affected her in their eyes. Not knowing the why of it only added to speculation.

  Where possible she avoided Geric. Since that one seemed largely disinterested that wasn’t difficult. There was a faint air of amusement about him, knowing as he did that they knew he wasn’t who he seemed yet couldn’t prove it. Elon had worried somewhat that Geric would reveal Ailith for what she was but he kept silent. It wouldn’t have been in his favor if he did. Geric’s own mixed blood kept many of those there distant. To reveal that his daughter was Otherling and that he’d concealed it for so long wouldn’t serve him well, either. It was in his own best interests to stay quiet.

  Worse, most knew she’d arrived as part of Elon’s party.

  There were those who disapproved of her keeping such close company with someone not of her race. Others knew and distrusted the fact that she seemed to have the ear of someone in power. Among Elves there were none who wouldn’t have such access to him, among men there were few who had such with Daran. Her behavior in meetings didn’t encourage the kind of speculations that would have been difficult for them both but she was always careful to give him a quick, warm look when no one would see.

  Elon found himself longing now and then for the days when there had been only the five of them to know or care.

  There was no time for such considerations. If Ailith’s scouts – and Ailith’s lights – were right, time was growing desperately short. Reports were of large numbers of ogres, trolls and goblins. With luck they would make it in time, but only just.

  Colbreath. Surveying it from Smoke’s back, with Jareth and Jalila to each side, Ailith nodded with satisfaction. If they were to have any chance at all to win, it would be here.

  The terrain wasn’t bad, Elon had indeed chosen well. At the top of the slope it was as flat a plain as you could hope for up here. On each side were mountains, to their right, above and behind the lines was the Dwarven Cavern. A smaller range of rugged, rock-strewn hills to the left. A natural bottleneck that sloped upward to their position.

  She deployed her people.

  Now she could at last release the fear they wouldn’t make it in time.

  Of the stars in her mind, there were now large splotches of darkness and shadow. And they were closing.

  So when the Hunter woke her late in the night to make her report, Ailith wasn’t surprised. She took the report and sent her reserves to call the others back. She’d hoped they would have more time but she wasn’t surprised. The time had come, the enemy had finally been spotted.

  Summoning another messenger, she sent him back to awaken the High King and Elon. This report, however, she would deliver herself. She desperately needed to see Elon and Colath again, on what might be the eve of battle.

  As the guard drew back the flap, she had a brief private glimpse of them, framed by the flaps of Elven-silk tent as she stepped between them. Elon’s dark head was bent over the map table, the smooth fall of his hair gleamed. Beside him, Colath looked over his shoulder, listening as Elon spoke to Daran. Her heart lurched a little.

  The minute Ailith stepped inside the High King’s tent, Elon sensed her presence and looked up. In the past days she’d grown thinner, honed for battle. Their eyes met and the warmth in hers eased his heart.

  Pulling her gaze away from Elon’s, Ailith nodded to the High King.

  “They’re coming fast. They’ll be here early in the morning. I’ve called the scouts back,” she said, formally, feeling Elon’s dark eyes on her.

  Looking at her, Colath’s heart sank.

  Tomorrow. There was no more time. Elon had hoped they might have more, at least a day to prepare, a chance to spend a few moments with her. Colath had as well. That chance was gone. It was likely this would be the last time he would see her before battle.

  For Daran, her news was like being doused with cold water. He stiffened. Was this real? He wanted more time. There should be more time. Only then did he realize that in some part of himself, he hadn’t really believed any of this. He hadn’t really wanted to. None of it seemed real. Suddenly and shockingly, it was. Tomorrow, they would face the enemy. An enemy who wanted to kill him.

  He would be at war.

  There was no King who could please all the people all the time. No ruler could. So there were always some few who grumbled and made threats. Threats were all they were.

  If all they said was true, if all this preparation hadn’t been for nothing, tomorrow wouldn’t be a mere threat.

  “Thank you, Ailith,” Daran said, numbly. “You’re dismissed.”

  Ailith gave Elon a swift glance, seeing the light in his eyes and then went back to her company. There was nothing else she could do. She roused them, saying a word or two to each. She knew she would lose many of her people once it started. Forward companies always did. There were two companies up in the mountains to each side, spread out in wings to funnel the enemy to the center.

  To her, her people and the two companies to her left.

  There was no time for anything but preparation. And so Elon stood beside Daran, offering suggestions, passing on orders, looking for holes in their plans, anything that might have been forgotten that could spare even one single, precious life.

  Beside him, Colath ignored the tightness in his chest as he knew Elon did and gave Elon what aid he could, intercepting someone here, directing messengers there.

  They stood for each other and for those who weren’t there. Both were aware of the absences, of Ailith and Jareth, Jalila, at their side.

  Ailith set her people.

  Archers were invaluable, so the Hunters and Woodsmen with their bows were in the center, protected by pike men in the front, with swordsmen behind them. The archers would fire into the oncoming lines over the heads of those in the fore. Jalila would lead them once the fighting started in earnest. As her only wizard, Ailith put Jareth where he could see, with orders to concentrate only on that which couldn’t be killed easily with conventional weapons – manticores and the like – and more conventional targets only if nothing better was in view. It was nothing more than he already knew but saying it steadied her. She set guards on him.

  She wouldn’t risk him or Jalila more than she must.

  Jareth seemed to understand, clasping her arm tightly before he went. Now, he was on the slope of the hill to her right, with pikemen and two archers to protect him and some cover from rocks.

  Avila, refusing to believe so great a threat existed, hadn’t been generous with her people. If it weren’t for the itinerant wizards, they’d have had almost none at all. In the first light of very early morning they had the first sight of the enemy.

  Out of the fog, they moved like shadows within the shifting morning mists. Darker shadows within shadows, all the creatures of the borderlands, a massive horde.

  Until now even for Ailith it had only been a theory, something born out
of Vision. Even she had doubted it upon a time. All doubt was now gone.

  For the army, it had only been rumor, backed up by the stories that now streamed out of the mountains of death and destruction. Still, it hadn’t been real. Now it was.

  The King’s Tent had been set on a rise on one side of the mountain with a clear view of the battlefield below. Arms crossed, Elon stood beside Daran, with Colath standing at his shoulder. Both wished they could be in the battle. Even at this distance, they could see the unmistakable figure of Ailith astride Smoke, her chestnut hair distinctive over the heads of the army, so far at the front. So small. So far away.

  Daran stared, horrified. His bowels seemed to turn to water. Only an act of intense will kept him standing where he was as a horrible cry split the air.

  From the distance there came a great shout, the blood-chilling ululating cries of goblins mingling with the coughing roar of the manticores and the bellowing of ogres as they caught sight of the army. Goblins and trolls on hellhounds, ogres, boggins and boggarts seemed to vomit out of the fog.

  That great dark wave spilled, rushing down into the valley before them, screaming..

  Elon only had time for a brief, sharp spurt of fear for Ailith in the vanguard, for Jalila and Jareth with her but there was no time to think on it now. The battle was on them.

  He could see the line to the left waver. To the right Ailith’s line held firm.

  Emboldened by that, the rest of the line straightened and held.

  Ailith sat on Smoke beside her archers, her Hunters and Woodsmen, grouped in the center. Jalila was on their other side. Their eyes met, Jalila’s calm as she nodded in salute. Ailith nodded sharply back in acknowledgment.

  Do what you know best, use what you know best.

  Watching the enemy close, she prepared herself, hearing the eerie wail of the goblins but she focused only on her forward line.

  “Hold,” she shouted, as the enemy drew closer.

  Her pike men dug in, couching the heels of their long pikes in the earth, in the good hard soil of the Kingdoms.

  “Wait,” she called, as the flood broke against the base of the hill below to wash upward towards them.

  A breeze brought the sharp stench of them to her nostrils.

  There was still clear ground ahead but the enemy was nearly in range of the bows. And then they were.

  “Now,” she cried, her own bow in hand.

  Never in her life had she heard the sound of so many arrows in flight. It sounded like an enormous flock of birds taking wing, a tremendous whirring. They darkened the sky.

  Some of the enemy fell and some didn’t. A second flight of arrows took more. The space between them and the enemy vanished.

  Even as the third flight flew, there was a tremendous crash as the armies came together. Ailith spurred Smoke forward, calling, shouting, launching arrow after arrow, picking her targets. Jalila was somewhere to her left, directing the archers to the most effect. Mage-bolts flashed, leaving trails of smoke, sometimes seemingly everywhere. An odd silence seemed to surround her. She fired her bow until she ran out of arrows and then drew her swords as Smoke danced, spun and kicked beneath her. She hacked and slashed and somehow stayed in Smoke’s saddle.

  She took a cut on her forearm but she took the goblin’s head.

  A second wave hit and somehow they still held, now mixed with some of the company that had been behind her. Reserves. An arrow struck her in the thigh like a punch but didn’t penetrate her saddle to hamper Smoke. The sudden pain sickened her. She snapped it off so it wouldn’t pester her so much. It pained her badly but she knew pain now and how to endure it. There was no time for it, it was keep fighting or die. Elon and Colath would feel it and she was sorry for that.

  Then she sensed something odd. A strange shivering sensation ran up her spine. Even in the heat of battle, laying to with her sword on both sides of her as Smoke lashed out with his hooves beneath her, she felt it.

  Magic, a lot of it.

  A chill streaked below her skin as she sensed where it was. Beneath her. Underground.

  She risked a quick glance up the mountain at the Dwarven Cavern and the King’s Tent just before it. It was coming from there, from the Cavern. Elon looked up as well, sensing it, too. She knew it was him, with Colath standing behind him. Dark head and fair. Then there was no time. There was only the foe in front of her.

  Whatever happened there, she could do nothing about it until it came for her.

  “Jareth,” Ailith shouted but he’d already turned, sensing the swell of magic as well.

  In his entire life, Jareth had never felt that much magic concentrated in one place.

  The wizards had all turned as the sense of magic exploded and something large, with many legs and pincers and a maw erupted from the confines of the cavern.

  For a moment, Jareth could only stare in shock. He’d never even heard of such a thing.

  Then sense kicked in – he could die here as he stared at the thing – and he rolled onto his back to fire mage-bolts at it.

  Elon felt the magic from within the Caverns. A number of Lore Masters. More Lore Masters than he’d sensed since the days of the Wizard wars.

  Bows in hand, Elon and Colath fired arrows at the thing, trying to find something that resembled an eye, to get to the brain, to stop it or at least slow it down. It was very large. Guards formed up around the High King’s tent but most of them just stared in terror.

  “Keep fighting,” Ailith shouted at her people, who glanced over their shoulders at the terrifying thing behind them, “fight the enemy in front of you. That one will kill you sooner.”

  Mage-bolts flashed toward the thing on the mountain, she saw from the corner of her eye. She also saw Elon standing, with Colath beside him – both as calmly as always – to fire arrows into the thing. Please don’t die, Elon, she thought. Please don’t either of you die.

  The fighting continued.

  Her arms felt like lead, even as she urged Smoke forward into the thick of the battle. Around her the ground was covered with the dead and dying, her own and creatures of the borderlands. The stench of death lay thick and harsh in the back of her throat.

  A soldier fought through to pass the order for her to pull her people back, that more reserves were being moved up. She shouted and called, laid the flat of her sword against one or two, telling her people to fall back. Her voice was hoarse and harsh, even to her own ears. A glance backward, a small risk to take. The thing from the caverns was still and seemed dead but there was no sign of either Elon or Colath. A chill went through her as her stomach clenched. The bond was still there, though, she would know if something happened to either of them.

  They fell back, her few, and back more. She saw Jalila, still whole and Jareth, the same, riding toward her. Both were wounded but neither seriously. Relief washed through her. The fighting still went on behind them but she and they were out of it for now.

  Smoke limped as she guided her people back toward the rear and she counted them as they passed her. So few. Weeping was useless even if she could have done it. It wasn’t honor enough for the dead.

  Exhausted, she allowed a chirurgeon to pull the arrow out of her leg and bandage it under Jareth and Jalila’s watchful eyes. The rest of her wounds were mostly unremarkable and hardly worthy of his time compared to the more dire injuries of those around her.

  Almost none of her few surviving people were unwounded and she made the rounds through the pallets, touching, patting them on the back or the shoulder, clasping a hand. She thanked them each for what they’d done or commiserated on dead friends, on how they’d fought.

  From the distance of the King’s tent, Elon watched her with quiet relief, Colath at his side. She had survived and they had survived. Whatever that thing was, it had died. Whether from the battle the Lore Masters fought within the cavern, the barrage of mage-bolts from their few wizards, or a lucky shot with an arrow, he neither knew nor cared at the moment. They had survived, that was all t
hat mattered.

  The rest of the day was spent at Daran’s side, telling him what he needed to have done next, keeping him steady, keeping things organized, holding their remaining reserves back until the right moment. Ordering the fresh units forward.

  It was working.

  As the sun settled toward the horizon it was clear that the borderland creatures were scattering, in retreat. The back of the attack had been broken but it wasn’t quite over. The goblins wouldn’t give up so easily and night was the natural environment for some of the others. Preparations had and would be made for that – torches and mage-lights would run in shifts throughout the night.

  Watching Ailith was some small comfort to him as she moved among the pitifully few survivors of her company, the pain in her leg making her limp but she ignored it to do for her people what was needed. She was right, she was good at this.

  It was late when Elon slipped into the tent. This time the candle wasn’t lit. Ailith felt his presence, looked up as he came in and smiled warmly with obvious and evident relief. She was sitting in a chair, her bandaged leg stretched before her, looking tired, battered and worn. And alive.

  Ailith let out a breath. Just the sight of him was enough to lighten her heart.

  “The last I saw you were firing arrows into that thing that came out of the Caverns,” she said and he could hear the worry in her voice, the fear.

  He’d shared that same fear watching her.

  There wasn’t a mark on him that she could see. She was dirty and tired and knew he didn’t care. Neither did she.

  “Someone found an eye or the Lore Masters got it. No one knows for certain, it simply died.”

  “All I saw was you and Colath in the path of it.” Her fear for him was in her voice.

  Elon looked at her, expressed his own concern. “You were in the thick of battle.”

  With a sigh, she shook her head. “Gwillim always told me never to volunteer.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “I lost so many today. Good people. We held though.”