by David Wind
He reached out and took her hand. “Your vision shows that Fasil expects our fighters to best the ghazi at the pass. The ambush planned is not their true strategy, only a part. I do not believe they know what lies here; their purpose is to weaken our forces with the ambush so when the survivors reach safety, their larger force will attack. Then he will turn his army to Dees.”
Areenna understood the complexity of what Mikaal explained. “We have to warn your father.”
“Yes, and I have to intercept the Northcrom warriors and bring them here before they are discovered.”
Areenna closed her eyes in thought. “I will send Gaalrie tonight. You go in the morning. We should fill in the tunnel so they know not the entrance.”
Again, Mikaal shook his head. “Just doing so tells them something is there. Filling it in risks noise that might reach Lessig. It would be pointless. Once The Masters find the tunnel entrance, they have the power to clear it.”
“Are you saying that no matter what we do, if our troops are not victorious, the Island is lost?”
“Yes.”
Areenna shook her head. “If the Island is lost, so is Nevaeh….”
“Yes.”
CHAPTER 34
JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, with the moon slightly past its zenith and partially hidden by strings of clouds, the mounted force of Tolemac stopped for the night. They’d traveled half the distance to the mountain pass; both kraals and riders were in need of rest.
Roth chose a large open field, near the edge of a rolling hillside, and called for a halt. The warriors of Nevaeh, six thousand riders strong, gathered by dominions, dismounted, and after tending to their kraals, laid out sleeping silks.
At the front, Roth and Enaid tethered their kraals and, after the long day and half a night, sat in a semi-circle with Ilsraeth, Timon, Retlaw, and Layra. The other king and queens accompanied the second army. “We have made good time,” Roth said when everyone was seated. “By this time tomorrow night, we will be within an hour of where Lessig and her ghazi wait.”
He turned to Enaid. “What news of the others?”
Enaid turned to Layra, whose mixed silver and raven hair shimmered beneath the moonlight. “Has there been another message?”
Layra shook her head. “Only the earlier message from when they made camp. Nothing since.”
“Good,” Roth said. “Then we should all get some sleep. We leave with the dawn.”
As the others stood, there was a screech from above. Enaid looked up as Gaalrie flew toward her. She held up her arm, and the giant treygone landed gently.
Untying the message with her free hand, Enaid transferred Gaalrie to her shoulder, opened the message, and read it quickly while everyone waited.
When she finished, she looked at Roth. “Areenna sends a warning. The ambush is but one part of their trap. She says the largest part of The Masters’ force marches toward a point between the pass and Dees to make certain no Nevaen warrior survives. She writes too, that the warriors of Northcrom reach them tomorrow.”
Roth’s eyes closed as he concentrated on Enaid’s words. When he opened them, he nodded slowly. “Every last man, woman, and animal of our other troops must be blocked. They must stay hidden from The Masters. It will be our only salvation. Who among you can make this a certainty?”
From between Layra and Ilsraeth, Laira, Princess of Aldimore stepped forward. “This task is for me, My Lord.”
Roth met the young woman’s eyes, and saw not only determination, but also need. The same age as Areenna, the princess stood straight and tall, a sword at her side, a bow across her shoulders. “You are strong enough?”
“I have not the experience of my mother, or of the High Queen, nor am I the equal of Areenna, but in this I will not fail.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Enaid’s imperceptible nod. “Then go, now. Impress them that speed is needed.”
Before she could move, Enaid, Ilsraeth, and Layra surrounded the younger woman. Each placed a hand on her. “Do not attempt to do this blocking on your own. Join with the other Women of Power who cloak them now. Add to their power, support them, and amplify. For each Women of Power , have a rider on each side. Their only need is to block. The riders will guide their kraals.”
“I understand,” she replied as her aoutem, a ret, peeked out from beneath her cloak.
The three queens released Laira and stepped back. Enaid held the young princess’s gaze. “Go now; be swift, reach them by morning.”
<><><>
At mid-morning, Mikaal and Charka cleared the foothills and were on a direct angle to the Northcrom forces. He’d left just before daybreak; minutes after Gaalrie returned with a message from Enaid that they would be ready.
As he rode, he could only hope that the Northcrom troops had received Ilsraeth’s message to stay off the main route, rather than leave evidence of their passing. He pushed outward, using his senses to seek the army. He crested a low, treeless hill a half hour later, and drew to a stop. Below him, stretched out for a quarter mile, were the five thousand warriors of Northcrom.
Without hesitation, he urged Charka forward. Five minutes later, he drew alongside the captain of the troops. The man sitting astride a dark brown kraal that seemed as powerful as Charka, was perhaps thirty years old, with light blue eyes, and skin as deep a shade brown as his kraal’s coat. Long, wavy brown hair hung to his shoulders.
Next to him rode a woman of middle age, her red hair streaked with silver and white. Her deeply tanned face held large umber eyes, which inspected him closely.
The captain gave a slight head bow. “My Prince, we have been expecting you. My queen sent word. I am Retsel. This is the Lady Sirc, advisor to the queen.”
Mikaal nodded to the woman. “You know what is to be done?”
She shook her head. “Only to expect you and to follow your orders.”
Mikaal looked from the Women of Power to the captain of the Northcrom troops. “I will explain more as we ride. Send word along the ranks that there is to be no noise. The kraals are to be kept calm and quite.”
“My Lord, there are five thousand, there will be noise.”
“There will be some,” he agreed. “But if too much, then they will bring death to all—tell them such. Retsel, have each foot soldier mount behind a rider. No one walks from here on.” Retsel stared at him as if to say something; instead, he nodded once, turned his kraal, and rode back to his troops.
When he left, Mikaal leaned toward Sirc. “How many Women of Power are with you?”
Her brows drew together. “Only a few. Why?”
“Call them to you. We must create a block to hide us from Lessig’s sensing, and The Masters, if possible. Can you do this?”
“There are … we will try.”
“What know you of me?” Mikaal asked suddenly.
Again, Sirc’s brows drew together in thought. She looked at him. “I…”
“Be open with me, Sirc.” He stared at her, waiting.
She moistened her lips with her tongue, shifted on the saddle, and confessed, “My Lord, there are rumors… I...it is said that you are the only man ever, to go to the Island and return.”
“And this means what?”
She shook her head. Her hair moved freely over her shoulders. Her dark eyes held his, and even though he sensed fear beneath the surface, she faced him squarely. “I know not, other than the Princess Areenna protected you somehow.”
“If Ilsraeth trusts you to be her advisor, to sit her throne when she is absent, then I will do the same. Cast your senses over me. Tell me what you find.”
A moment later, her eyes widened. “You are blocked.”
“Do you sense any darkness?”
“No, My Lord.”
“Will you trust me?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“Call your women to you. Set the block over your people. Question not the aid that strengthens your block.”
“Yes, My Lord,” she whispered before turning her kraal t
oward the three women approaching them.
When Retsel returned, Mikaal, without speaking, turned Charka and started him forward.
Behind him, Sirc and the other women cast their block over the army. Very carefully, he pushed his senses outward, testing their block and then added his own strength to their block. When he was done, he looked at Retsel. “Tell me about your fighters. How many ride? How many on foot? How experienced are they?”
<><><>
Areenna sat on the ground next to Neleh, whose aoutem, Duv, rested his head on Neleh’s lap, while Areenna was still joined with Gaalrie, who drifted on a warm updraft a quarter mile above the mountain. Through her aoutem’s eyes, she searched for Lessig’s army, most of whom camped beneath the leafy tree branches of the mountain ridge.
The pass the troops from Tolemac rode toward, was hundreds of feet wide and a third of a mile long. Both walls of the pass had been carved by waters long before, and the sides were made of layers of sandstone and granite, which slanted fifty feet upward before stopping at a level rocky ridge. The tree line began a hundred feet behind the ridge, allowing more than enough room for several rows of archers to rain down shafts on the passing riders.
The more she studied the area, the more she knew this was where the archers would set up for the ambush. She and Mikaal had talked about how, if he were planning the ambush, he would use his forces. There was no longer any doubt that Mikaal was right.
Hundreds of ghazi warriors spread across both sides of the flat ridges, some preparing piles of arrows, while others stayed hidden inside the trees; two large groupings of ghazi were camped at each end of the pass, hidden deep within the trees. When the last of the riders entered the pass, the ghazi would close in behind them; at the same time, the ghazi at the far end of the pass would block any escape. All the while, the archers above would decimate the riders below.
The more she studied the area, the more precarious Nevaeh’s existence appeared. There would be too much noise for Northcrom’s kraals and their riders to reach the areas above the pass; only foot soldiers could do so quietly.
Gaalrie did another wide sweep of the area, which gave Areenna a view of the furthest reaches of the ghazi encampment, showing her the only possible way the Northcrom troops could pass undetected.
Find Mikaal, she asked Gaalrie. When Gaalrie flew into the distance, doubt grew about the ability of the Nevaens to defeat an army five times the size of their own, an army controlled by the most powerful of black sorcerers.
Realizing what she was doing, she cut off the dark thoughts and opened her eyes. “Help me reach Mikaal,” she asked Neleh.
Areenna took both of Neleh’s hands into her own and, an instant later, they were one. With Areenna leading the way, and Neleh adding her power and block as well, they pushed their combined senses to Mikaal who, a moment later responded with a rush of warmth.
We are coming.
Gaalrie flies to you, she told him.
<><><>
Mikaal looked up and, seconds later, Gaalrie dropped from the sky to his shoulder. In the next moment, the treygone jumped to his saddle bar and pressed her head to Charka’s neck.
Areenna’s voice cut clearly through his mind. Charka will lead you along the mountain path, Areenna said. Make certain there is no noise. You go up the back of the mountain.
There are four Women of Power blocking the troops. I aid them.
That is dangerous. If they suspect it is you...come safely to me.
The moment Areenna was gone, and Gaalrie lifted into the air, Mikaal turned to Retsel and Sirc. “We must leave this route and circle around to the back of the mountain.” With a nod to the captain, he joined with Charka and let the kraal lead them.
He did not miss the single raised eyebrow as Sirc stared at his back.
<><><>
Above the pass, Areenna sat across from Neleh, joined together, their minds projecting outward, holding yet another block over the area Mikaal would be traveling in an effort to make certain neither Lessig nor a Master detected anything out of the ordinary. Their aoutems stood watch: Gaalrie on Hero’s saddle bar, while Duv paced a circle around them, keeping careful watch on the woods.
An hour later, a traimore landed on the ground next to Areenna. Releasing one of Neleh’s hands, she took the message from its leg and read it. “Enaid says they will be here after dark.” She lifted the traimore, brought it to eye level, and gave it a command to stay with them. The traimore rose to a branch on a nearby tree and a moment later, settled itself.
Not a half-minute later, Duv growled low in his throat. With its four inch fangs bared, the fur at the nape of its neck rose as the huge rantor stared into the woods.
Someone comes, Neleh sent.
Areenna pushed her senses outward scanning the area near them. Two ghazi, foraging, hunting. They move toward us.
She pushed her senses further until she found a small family of dar a hundred yards from the ghazi.
Send Duv after the dars. Ask him to chase them to where the ghazi hunt. If the dar are frightened, they will race past the ghazi, who will chase them.
Neleh called Duv to her and pressed her head to his. A second later, the huge cat raced into the woods.
With a quick asking to Gaalrie, the treygone flew to the tops of the trees and followed the rantor. Both Neleh and Areenna watched as Duv ran behind the dars and then emerged from behind a small clump of trees. The dars, seeing and hearing the giant hunting cat, panicked, whirled, and raced straight at the ghazi. Neleh called him back, while Gaalrie flew above.
It took only seconds for the frightened dars to reach the ghazi and speed past them. The ghazi turned and ran after the dars, each of them setting a shaft into their bows as they ran, their ungainly feet crashing through the woods.
Areenna could not stop the laugh bubbling from her lips. “Even if they catch them, they’ll be a mile away… but they won’t catch them.”
<><><>
As the ghazi chased the dars, and Mikaal and the Northcrom forces moved toward the mountain, Sirod stood on Tolemac’s parapet. Her hands resting on the cool surface of the stone balustrade, she stared at the dust cloud in the distance. Two miles, she judged.
She looked down at the great lawn between the keep’s protective wall and the outer wall, where several hundred Nevaens had settled. Then she went to the interior side of the parapet and viewed the central courtyard, where more Nevaens gathered. Stubborn are these people of Nevaeh, Sirod thought, and remembered something Enaid had said on the voyage from the Frozen Mountains.
‘Be prepared, Sirod, for a stubborn lot we Nevaens are. Once our minds are set, little can change them.’ She smiled at the memory while thinking that the Nevaens were no more stubborn than were her own people.
When the army had ridden off, and she’d walked through the keep, she’d found the chief cook and three of her staff in the kitchen. After asking why the woman had stayed, the cook stared at her as if Sirod were insane. “And let some stranger destroy my kitchen?”
Sirod shook her head. Stubborn! She looked over her shoulder at the approaching dust cloud and knew the time had come.
Leaving the parapet, she went down the staircase and out the main doors of the keep. Walking from the keep to the outer wall, Sirod looked around at the last of the families who stayed behind. Most were already inside the keep, but unexpectedly, almost a hundred had arrived last night and early this morning, running ahead of the oncoming army.
She turned to Stamel, Roth’s captain of the guard, who had remained behind. “Get everyone inside to the gardens, quickly!”
She went to the West Gate, climbed the staircase to the walkway, and called her people to her. When they gathered around her, she spoke, “We have perhaps two hours before they attack. Waste not your stones until you are sure of your targets. Hold them as long as you can, but sacrifice not yourselves, for we need you within the keep. When the ghazi threaten to overwhelm—and they will—retreat to the keep and join the rest of our
people on the parapets. They cannot gain entry to the keep, but they will not stop trying.” She looked at each of the men surrounding her.
“Your only purpose is to make them wary of our ability to defend. Your job is to hurt them before they break through. Yesterday, we lost forty of our people in Freemorn. We lose no more on this outer wall. You will all make it to the keep before they breach the walls.”
The fifty men gathered by her all nodded solemnly. “If we can, we will. If we cannot, then we follow the destiny given us.”
<><><>
Sitting beneath an old gazebow tree, away from the ghazi encampment, Lessig grunted in frustration and ended yet another search for her cousin and the boy sorcerer. For more days than she wanted to think about, she had kept up her search for the two. Vexed by her failure, she shook her head in frustration.
Staring at her hands, she saw only the long, slim, graceful fingers of what used to be, and not the gnarled and crooked fingers and hands that were the physical evidence of her transformation to Afzaleem. Her long hair was gone, her skin blackened by the transmutation of the Master’s male power into her own. She accepted her sacrifice had been worthwhile, for there was no Woman of power in all of Nevaeh equal to the powers and abilities she now possessed.
She settled her mind and pushed her senses outward, probing and searching along the route she’d sent to Zil. The timing had to be perfect. By now, the first ghazi army should have surrounded Tolemac, keeping the Nevaen forces behind Tolemac’s walls. The attack on Tolemac would begin this night; and, in two days, Roth and his troops will meet their deaths.
What unimaginable honors would fall upon her when she killed not only Areenna and Mikaal, but Roth and Enaid as well?
Pressing harder, she broke through the block hiding the Nevaen riders, who led their foot soldiers. They were exactly where she had expected them to be. Satisfied, she withdrew before their Women of Power could sense her.
