“Lash to the base of that ladder, there,” she suggested, and soon the boat was made fast. Borand went up the ladder first, doing his best to look casual, though he checked to make sure his sword swung freely from his belt. Aurand went next. When Darann waited for Konnor, he gestured for her to precede him. In another minute all four of them had climbed to the dock and were ambling down the stone pier toward the waterfront.
They reached shore in front of a quiet inn, in the midst of a section of small warehouses. The ghetto lay to their right and, without speaking, they turned of one mind toward that direction. A few dwarves emerged from the inn, cast them uninterested glances, and turned to walk the other way.
They soon found themselves alone on a dark stretch of the wharf. The waters glimmered in the dark off to their right, and the buildings to their left-stone structures of one or two stories-were silent, projecting an air of dilapidation and abandonment.
“Business must be bad this close to the ghetto,” remarked Borand. “I can remember when that place there was a dance hall as lively as any in the habor quarter-and you could buy and sell gold in the shop next door, trade it for anything in the whole First Circle and beyond.”
“Not surprising they’ve all closed down now. Would you want to do business in the shadow of that?” asked Darann, nodding toward the dark wall that stood before them. It extended to the edge of the water, where it terminated in a watchtower capped by a platform and a swiveling beacon. They could see the silhouettes of three dwarves atop the tower, all facing the other direction; it seemed the trio were occupied with their bright light, casting a coolfyre beam back and forth through the ghetto and the water just offshore.
The foursome took shelter in a narrow alcove, the doorway to the last building in front of the wall, in order to discuss their options. “Sounds like the trouble is on the other side of the ghetto, at the Metal Gate,” Darann said. “For now, anyway.”
“Yep, seems pretty quiet over here,” Aurand agreed. He looked at Darann. “You’ve been to visit the goblins before. How do you get in?”
“I just have to talk my way through one of the guard posts. They have ’em set up at every gate,” she replied. “But I don’t think they’ll be too likely to let anyone in now, not when there’s some kind of raid going on.”
“Well, let’s have a look at the wall then,” Aurand suggested. Moving to the end of the alcove, he leaned out to examine the barrier.
Darann heard something and pulled his collar, yanking her younger brother back in the split second before a troop of guards came into sight, emerging from a side street a stone’s throw away. The soldiers turned toward them, marching along the waterfront.
The alcove was deep, and the four dwarves huddled soundlessly as the company-at least a hundred strong and fully girded for battle-hastened past at a double-time march.
“Heading for the ghetto,” Konnor remarked.
“Looks like the Wood Gate will be the next to get it,” Darann agreed. “I have the feeling we don’t have much time.”
14
Embattled Nayve
’e ’eld ’is ’ead as ’e saw th’ dead, and ’e laid ’is blade on the plain; till ’e raised it again, and ’e scoured the flame and ’e led all o’ trolldom to fame!
From the Saga of Awfulbark by Roodcleaver Kingwife
A volley of arrows arced through the sky, falling among the black-shirted Delvers as the dwarves sorted out their ranks. Again and again the Hyaccan elves launched their feathered, steel-tipped missiles, and many punctured enemy armor and flesh. But the steady barrage seemed to have no effect on the horde of attackers, as the dwarves formed their lines, lifted their shields, and started to advance.
“Mount up and fall back!” Janitha cried, furious at the necessity of retreat. For five decades her company had stood here, and she had allowed herself to believe that Riven Deep was a barrier that would stand forever. Now, in an explosion of dark magic, the Delvers had crossed that vast gulf in the space of a single hour.
The great slabs of stone had each borne a thousand or more Delvers. The air rafts, as she thought of them, had drifted across the chasm as gently as any lighter-than-air balloon. They had rumbled to the ground on the near rim, their edges cracking into rubble. The elves had ridden forward bravely, shooting hundreds of arrows, but the slabs were close together, and the attackers easily scrambled down these slopes of broken rock. Those who fell with broken legs or wrenched knees were abandoned as quickly as if they had been wounded on the battlefield, as the Delvers had quickly massed into their great, blocky battle formation. With shields raised over their heads to protect against the barrage of arrows, they had started forward at a fast march, forcing the mounted elves to withdraw.
That might have been the best-the only-time to have defeated the attack, Janitha quickly realized, but she lacked the warriors to make anything more than this token stand at resistence. Her elves were skilled riders and deadly archers, but they were outnumbered forty or fifty to one by the Delvers. The best they could do is shoot as many of them down as possible, then mount up and slowly withdraw.
Janitha gathered a hundred or so riders, led them in a sudden rush that broke through a Delver line. Slinging their bows for the moment, these elves chopped with swords, hacking back and forth as they left the rank of dark-armored dwarves scattered and bleeding. They gathered on the far side, and the khandaughter looked around, seeking another likely target.
Instead, a tall, faceless giant strode toward them-one of the iron golems created in the Delver workshops of the First Circle. The monster moved quickly, but the mounted elves scattered, nimble ponies darting this way and that, eluding the giant’s crushing blows. But that was no path to victory, Janitha knew. For how long could they run, if they didn’t have any means of slowing the enemy’s attack?
Yet for now, there was no other option.
“Rally at the Skull-Face Hill!” she cried, naming a landmark two miles back from the rim of the canyon. “Ride to the top where we can get a look at these bastards!”
The ponies and their elven riders streamed across the plateau, leaving the rim of Riven Deep behind. They raised a cloud of dust, but Janitha knew that they would need to send a better warning than that. Thankfully, she spotted a faerie buzzing along with the riders and waved him over with a gesture.
He flew beside her racing mount, gliding easily as her loyal stallion pounded at full speed. “Can you take a message to Natac?” she asked, shouting to be heard over the din of galloping ponies.
“Yes,” he said. “I can tell him about-” He gestured vaguely in the direction the dwarves.
“Tell him we won’t be able to stop them, even hold them up very much. If they start toward the Swansleep, he’ll have to pull his army off the river, or he’ll be taken by surprise.”
“I will tell him,” said the faerie with a bright salute. “Good luck to you, Lady Khandaughter!” he offered, then turned and flew away so fast that he seemed simply to disappear.
“Luck… that’s the least of what we need,” she muttered, casting a glance behind where the dwarves and iron golems were still forming ranks, taking time before they commenced the pursuit.
“We’ve got to have a miracle,” Janitha concluded, with a grim and hopeless shake of her head.
F OR five days the druids maintained their vigil at the Swansleep River, backed up by the legions of elves from Argentian and Barantha, as well as by the trolls of King Awfulbark’s tribe. There were a few gnomes there, too, by now, survivors of the disaster at the shore who had made their way inland. These Natac had armed with crossbows and held back from the river as a thus-far-unneeded reserve.
Countless times during that interval, during the days and during the nights, in misty darkness and searing sun, the ghost warriors had tried to force a crossing of the small stream. Each time the winds howled forth and the waters surged into the attackers’ faces. Waves had overwhelmed them, and Nayvian weapons had cut them down, a crop of souls harvest
ed in every onslaught.
Natac had not even tried to estimate the number of the enemy who had perished in these attacks, for the toll was really beyond comprehension. During the hour or two after each attack, the river channel would be choked with slowly decaying corpses, until the force of the current bore them on, pushed them along until they reached the fall plunging into Riven Deep. Not long after this natural cleansing, the enemy horde would come forward again, make another frenzied attempt to cross, and countless more of them would perish.
Despite the success of the defense, Natac had a number of worries. The defenders were growing fatigued, especially the druids, who were sleeping at their battle stations and inevitably roused several times a night to wage another furious fight. The elves and trolls were faring better, for the fury of the druid storm was such that they did not need all of their numbers to hold the line. As a result, they had taken to standing half of each force down for twelve-hour shifts.
But how long could this stalemate last?
Once each day Natac mounted Regillix Avatar and took to the air, scouting back and forth over the horde. He flew all the way to the canyon, watching with awe as the placid river abruptly plunged from the lip of the visible world, vanishing into the fog-shrouded depths of the canyon. The defenders seemed like a pathetically thin line on the center side of the river, while the horde of the Deathlord was a blanket of darkness across the water, spreading over the ground on the far side for as far as he could see. Every tree in the path of the advance had been hacked down, many of them burned while others were apparently just removed and cast aside. Each sward of green had been trampled into mud, with orchards ruined, sluice gates smashed, and terraces washed away.
The vast sweep of the army extended away from the canyon for a distance of more than twenty-five miles, as far as the Whitemarsh. There the Swansleep rose in a swamp of immense proportions, such that even the undead warriors of Karlath-Fayd could not pass. So it came down to this stretch of ground and this thin and desperate defense.
Throughout this time Natac was obsessed with worry about Miradel. He could spare no attention from his work with the army, yet he found himself fretting about her as he rode through the sky, or thinking of her during the last moments before he fell asleep and the first after he awakened. Where had she gone? Why? Was she hurt or-the unthinkable-had she perished? It was an agony of ignorance, and it allowed him not a moment’s peace.
On the sixth day of the stand, he inspected the enemy front and saw no signs of any imminent change in tactics. The ghost warriors were still ranked across the river, Roman legionnaires together in their regiments here, the dead of the American Civil War over there. Some of the largest legions were the Tommies and Germans who had been harvested from the fields of France; they, too, waited patiently in formation, far enough back from the riverbank that the general would have plenty of warning of any impending attack.
Even so, he couldn’t suppress his sense of nervousness. He talked to Gallupper and was assured that the batteries were all in place. Additional wagons of ammunition had arrived from the factories in the Ringhills, courtesy of the gnome King Fedlater of Dernwood Downs, so the centaurs were confident and ready. The Baranthian elves, too, were well rested and certain that, with the help of the druid windcasters, they could defend against anything the ghost warriors could send.
Next Natac sought out some of the druids, speaking to Cillia and Juliay. Both women were wan, even haggard. Cillia had begun to show streaks of gray in her long, ebony locks, and Juhiay had dark circles under her eyes.
“Maybe we should try resting some of the druids, like we are with the elves and trolls,” the general suggested. “Do you think you could raise much of a storm with half your number?”
“I wouldn’t like to try,” Cilhia said with a firm shake of her head. “I think we have the upper hand, but it takes everything we can throw at them from all hundred-that is, ninety-eight-of us.” She looked at him pointedly as she concluded.
“Has there been word of Miradel?” he asked quickly. “Do you know where they are?”
“Not exactly,” replied the matriarch. “More, we have some evidence of where she is not.”
“What do you mean? Tell me!”
“She is not in Circle at Center, nor is Shandira. But they did not come here. The sage-enchantress who was casting the spell didn’t complete the last casting at her focal pool; she left, exhausted, and gave her position to another. But she didn’t notice who replaced her.”
“Could her spell have been sabotaged?” Natac asked in sudden panic.
“Unlikely. They would have had to talk to the sage-enchantress before the spell was cast, to confirm the details. I doubt they would have gone if they hadn’t trusted the person doing the casting.”
“The sage-enchantress… yes… but would it have to be an enchantress who cast the spell?”
“Well, yes,” the druid answered. “At least, that’s most likely. I suppose some of the elder sage-ambassadors might be able to muster the magic… at least, it’s not inconceivable.”
“It was Belynda Wysterian!” Natac said, anger and relief mingling in the realization. “She’s been Miradel’s friend for a thousand years or more. Perhaps they hatched some plan-but what?”
“That is impossible to tell, though perhaps Belynda could tell you,” Cillia replied. “Or tell someone, since you are needed here, it seems to me.”
“Yes… someone.” Natac started thinking: could he entrust Horas of Gallowglen with such a mission? Perhaps-but first, there was the rest of his inspection to conduct. He thanked the druids for their information and continued along the riverbank until he found Tamarwind Trak at the command post of the Argentian elves.
“We’re still driving them back every time they try to cross,” the elf reported. “The wind and waves are getting most of them, and we pick off the stragglers before they can even crawl up the bank.”
“Good. For the time being, we seem to be doing okay.”
As if to mock his words, he heard a distant, deeply menacing rumble. The trembling of the ground underfoot was unmistakable: a quake. Though he had experienced plenty of them during his first life in Mexico, he knew they were extremely rare in Nayve and very upsetting to the residents of this once rock-solid world.
Tamarwind’s face had gone pale, and his eyes were wide as he stared around wildly. “What’s happening?” he asked. “The ground is moving!”
“It’s a quake,” Natac said. “Just ride it out-it won’t last long.”
Despite his confident words, the general was frightened by the intensity of the temblor. The ground heaved upward, and he staggered, dropping to his hands and knees to keep his balance. All around, Tam’s elves were doing the same thing, many of them crying or shouting in fear.
Farther away Natac could see the oaks where Awfulbark had made his camp. Some of the largest trees were whipping back and forth, and several of them cracked and toppled before his eyes. Next the general looked across the stream, standing up and balancing on the lurching surface in order to get a look at the enemy troops. It was at least slightly reassuring to see that the formerly neat ranks were now disordered and confused as even the ghost warriors found it impossible to stand on the pulsing, rolling turf.
In another instant Natac went down, pitched by a casual shrug of the quake, and for several more minutes he concentrated on riding it out, trying not to get hurt or to tumble into anyone else. At last, after what seemed like a very long time, the rumbling faded away, and the ground settled back to a solid semblance of normalcy. The general pushed himself to his feet, staggering as if drunk from the memory of the shaking. All around him elves were sitting on the ground, stunned and frightened. One by one they tried to stand, weaving and bracing themselves on each other, looking around in awe.
Natac’s next thought was of the trolls. He knew that, despite their size and toughness, they were easily spooked. He found a faerie settling down toward the ground-having taken the sensible
precaution of hovering overhead during the quake-and quickly sent him to check on Awfulbark.
A few minutes later the faerie came back, reporting that the trolls had broken away from the riverbank and seemed to be streaming toward the plains beyond the Swansleep valley.
“Were the ghost warriors advancing yet?” asked the general.
“No.” The faerie shook his head with certainty. “They still seem to be getting their bearings.”
“Good, thanks. Tamarwind!” called Natac. The elf was there in an instant. “Can you send some of your warriors to cover the troll position? They got spooked by the quake. I’m going to get Regillix and go after them, hopefully get them back on line.”
“Sure,” Tam said. “I have a thousand warriors just marching back from the bivuouac. I’ll send them up the river right away.”
Natac was encouraged by that prospect and guessed that the elves would be in position in time to prevent a sudden enemy move. His optimism was dashed almost immediately, as Karkald tromped up to him. “What is it?” asked Natac, alarmed by the dour look on the dwarfs face. Karkald was accompanied by another faerie, and he gestured for this flying messenger to speak.
“Bad news from nullward,” replied the winged scout. “I’ve just gotten word from Janitha… It seems the Delvers have crossed Riven Deep.”
“How?” demanded Natac.
“I don’t know,” the faerie replied. “Some kind of magic, for sure. It happened at the same time as the quake, like the whole world was breaking up. And the Delver army came across, she said, and was marching this way.”
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