by Terry Brooks
“But we will be waiting for them.” His hand tightened on the staff. “We will be waiting. We will catch them while they stand newly crossed and still disorganized. We will close off their passage to Arborlon for as long as we are able. We will give Amberle the time she needs to find the Bloodfire and return.”
Wordlessly he beckoned Ander and his father forward. Then he reached down and pulled from the floor one of the fallen maps, setting it squarely on the worktable.
“The break will come here,” he said softly.
His finger pointed to the broad expanse of the Hoare Flats.
27
That same afternoon, when the daylight had nearly gone and the rain had turned to fine mist, the Legion Free Corps rode into Arborlon. The people of the city who saw them pass paused in the middle of their endeavors and turned to one another with guarded whispers. From high atop the tree lanes to the forest roadways below, hushed voices spoke as one. There was no mistaking the Free Corps.
Ander Elessedil was still closeted in the manor house study with his father and Allanon—kept there, oddly enough, at the Druid’s insistence that he familiarize himself with Westland maps of the Sarandanon and proposed defensive plans—when Gael brought word of their arrival.
“My Lord, a cavalry command of the Border Legion has ridden in from Callahorn,” the young aid announced, appearing abruptly at the study door. “Our patrols picked them up an hour east of the city and escorted them in. They should be here in a few minutes.”
“The Legion!” A broad smile spread across the old King’s weary face. “I hadn’t dared to hope. What command, Gael? How many are they?”
“No word, my Lord. A messenger from the patrol brought the news, but there were no details.”
“No matter.” Eventine was on his feet and moving toward the door. “Any help is welcome, whoever …”
“Elven King!” Allanon’s deep voice brought Ander’s father about sharply. “We have important work to do here, work that should not be interrupted. Perhaps your son might go in your place—if only to give greeting to the Bordermen.”
Ander stared at Allanon in surprise and turned eagerly to his father. The King hesitated, then seeing the look in his son’s eyes, he nodded.
“Very well, Ander. Extend my compliments to the Legion Commander and advise him that I will meet with him personally later this evening. See that quarters are provided.”
Pleased with having been given a responsibility of some importance for a change, Ander hurried from the manor house, an escort of Elven Hunters in tow. The surprise he had experienced at Allanon’s unexpected suggestion turned quickly to curiosity. It occurred to him that this was not the first time that Allanon had gone out of his way to include him when the Druid need not have done so. There was that first meeting when he had told Eventine of Amberle and the Bloodfire. There was his admonition to Ander upon leaving for Paranor to assume responsibility for his father’s protection. There was that sense of alliance that had brought him to his feet in the High Council to stand with Amberle when no one else would do so. There was this afternoon’s meeting when Allanon had given the Ellcrys staff to his father. Arion should have been present for these meetings, not he. Why was Arion never there?
He had just passed through the gates fronting the manor house grounds, still pondering the matter, when the foremost ranks of the Border cavalry crested the roadway leading in and the entire command wound slowly into view. Ander slowed, frowning. He recognized these riders. Long gray cloaks bordered in crimson billowed from their shoulders and wide-brimmed hats with a single crimson feather sat cocked upon their heads. Long bows and broadswords jutted from their saddle harness, and short swords were strapped across their backs. Each rider held a lance from which fluttered a small crimson and gray pennant, and the horses wore light armor of leather with metal fastenings. Escorted by the handful of Elven Hunters who had picked them up while on patrol east of the city, they rode through the rain-soaked streets of Arborlon in their precise, measured lines and glanced neither left nor right at the crowds who gathered to stare after them.
“The Free Corps,” Ander murmured to himself. “They have sent us the Free Corps.”
There were few who had not heard of the Free Corps, the most famous and the most controversial command ever attached to the Border Legion of Callahorn. It drew its name from the promise it gave to those who joined its ranks—that its soldiers might leave behind without fear of question or need for explanation all that had come before in their lives. For most, there was much to be left. They came from different lands, different histories, and different lives, but they came for similar reasons. There were thieves among them, killers and cheats, soldiers broken from other armies, men of low blood and high, men with honor and men without, some searching, some fleeing, some drifting—but all seeking to escape what they were, to forget what they had been, and to start anew. The Free Corps gave them that chance. No soldier of the Free Corps was ever asked about his past; his life began with the day he joined. What had come before was finished; only the present mattered and what a man might make of himself for the time that he served.
For most, that time was short. The Free Corps was the Legion’s shock unit; as such, it was considered expendable. Its soldiers were the first into battle and the first to die. In every engagement fought since the inception of the Corps some thirty years earlier, its casualty rate had been the highest. While the past had been left behind by the soldiers of the Free Corps, the future was an even more uncertain prospect. Still, it was a fair exchange, most thought. After all, there was a price for everything, and this price was not so unreasonable. If anything, it was a source of pride for the soldiers who paid it; it gave them a sense of importance, an identity that set them apart from any other fighting man in the Four Lands. It was a tradition of the Free Corps that its soldiers should die in battle. It was not important to the men of the Corps that they should die; death was the reality of their existence, and they viewed it as an old acquaintance with whom they had brushed shoulders on more than one occasion. No, it was not important that they should die; it was important only that they should die well.
They had proven it often enough before, Ander knew. Now it appeared they had been sent to Arborlon to prove it once again.
The Legion command drew to a halt before the iron gates, and a tall, gray-cloaked rider in the forefront dismounted. Catching sight of Ander, he passed the reins of his horse to another and strode forward. On reaching the Elven Prince and his guard, he removed the wide-brimmed hat he wore and inclined his head slightly.
“I am Stee Jans, Commander of the Legion Free Corps.”
For an instant Ander did not respond, so startled was he by the other’s appearance. Stee Jans was a big man, seeming to tower over Ander. His weathered, yet still-youthful face was crisscrossed with dozens of scars, some of which ran through the light red beard that shaded his jaw, leaving streaks of white. A tangle of rust-colored hair fell to his shoulders, braided and tied. Part of one ear was missing and a single gold ring dangled from the other. Hazel eyes fixed those of the Elven Prince, so hard that they seemed chiseled from stone.
Ander found himself staring and quickly recovered. “I am Ander Elessedil—Eventine is my father.” He extended his hand in greeting. Stee Jans’ grip was iron hard, the brown hands calloused and knotted. Ander broke the handshake quickly and glanced down the long lines of gray riders, searching in vain for other units of the Legion. “The King has asked me to extend his compliments and to see that you are quartered. How soon can we expect the other commands?”
A faint smile crossed the big man’s scarred visage. “There are no other commands, my Lord. Only the soldiers of the Free Corps.”
“Only the …?” Ander hesitated in confusion. “How many of you are there, Commander?”
“Six hundred.”
“Six hundred!” Ander failed to hide his dismay. “But what of the Border Legion? How soon will it be sent?”
Stee J
ans paused. “My Lord, I believe that I should be direct with you. The Legion may not be sent at all. The Council of the Cities has not yet made a decision. Like most councils, it finds it easier to talk about making a decision than to make it. Your ambassador spoke well, I am told, but there are many voices of caution on the Council, some of opposition. The King defers to the Council; the Council looks south. The Federation is a threat that the Council can see; your Demons are little more than a Westland myth.”
“A myth!” Ander was appalled.
“You are fortunate to have even the Free Corps,” the big man continued calmly. “You would not have that if it were not for the Council’s need to soothe its collective conscience. A token force, at least, must be sent to the aid of their Elven allies, they argued. The Free Corps was the logical choice—just as it always is whenever there is an obvious sacrifice to be made.”
It was a simple statement of fact, made without rancor or bitterness. The big man’s eyes stayed flat and expressionless. Ander flushed.
“I would not have thought that the men of Callahorn would be so stupid!” he snapped, a sense of anger rushing through him.
Stee Jans studied him a moment, as if measuring him. “I understand that when Callahorn was under attack from the armies of the Warlock Lord, the Borderlands sent a request to the Elves for assistance. But Eventine was made prisoner by the Dark Lord, and in his absence the High Council of the Elves found itself unable to act.” He paused. “It is much the same with Callahorn now. The Borderlands have no leader; they have had no leader since Balinor.”
Ander eyed the other critically, his anger subsiding. “You are an outspoken man, Commander.”
“I am an honest man, my Lord. It helps me to see things more clearly.”
“What you have told me might not sit so well with some in Callahorn.”
The Borderman shrugged. “Perhaps that is why I am here.”
Ander smiled slowly. He liked Stee Jans—even without knowing any more about him than he did at this moment. “Commander, I did not mean to seem angry. It has nothing to do with you. Please understand that. And the Free Corps is most welcome. Now let me see you to your quarters.”
Stee Jans shook his head. “No quarters are necessary; I sleep with my soldiers. My Lord, the Elven army marches in the morning, I am told.” Ander nodded. “Then the Free Corps will march as well. We need only rest the night. Please tell this to the King.”
“I will tell him,” Ander promised.
The Legion Commander saluted, then turned and walked back to his horse. Remounting, he nodded briefly to the riders of the Elven patrol who escorted his command, and the long gray columns swung left once more down the muddied road.
Ander stared after him with mingled admiration and disbelief. Six hundred men! Thinking of the thousands of Demons that would come against them, he found himself wondering what possible difference six hundred Southlanders would make.
28
At dawn, the Elves marched forth from Arborlon, to the wail of pipes and the roll of drums, voices raised in song, banners flying in splashes of vivid color against a sky still leaden and clouded. Eventine Elessedil rode at their head, gray hair flowing down chain mail forged of blue iron, his right hand holding firmly the silver-white staff of the Ellcrys. Allanon was at his side, a spectral shadow, tall and black atop a still taller and blacker Artaq, and it was as if Death had ridden from the pits of the earth to stand watch over the Elves. Behind rode the King’s sons: Arion, cloaked in white and bearing the Elven standard of battle, a war eagle on a field of crimson; Ander, cloaked in green and carrying the banner of the house of the Elessedils, a crown wreathed in boughs set over a spreading oak. Dardan, Rhoe, and three dozen hardened Elven Hunters came next, the Elessedil guard; then the gray and crimson of the Legion Free Corps, six hundred strong. Pindanon rode alone at the forefront of his command, a gaunt, bent figure atop his warhorse, his battle-scarred armor lashed about his spare frame as if to hold his bones in place. The army followed him, massive and forbidding, six columns wide and thousands strong. They numbered three companies of cavalry, battle lances hoisted out of their midst in a forest of iron-tipped shafts, four companies of foot soldiers with pikes and body shields, and two companies of archers bearing the great Elven long bows—all clad in the traditional manner of the Elven warrior, lightly armored with chain-mail vests and leather guards to assure mobility and quickness.
It was an awesome procession. Trappings and weapons creaked and jingled in the early morning stillness, flashed in dull glimmerings through the new light, and cast the Elves in half-human forms that whispered of death. Booted feet and iron-shod hooves thudded and splashed along the muddied earth as the columns of men and horses wound from the parade grounds north of the city to the bluff of the Carolan and prepared to turn onto the Elfitch, the hooked rampway that led down from the heights of Arborlon to the forestlands beneath. The people of the city had come to watch. Atop the Carolan, on walls and fences, in fields and gardens, lining the way at every step, they bade farewell with cheers of encouragement and hope and with silences born of emotions that had no voice. Before the gates to the Gardens of Life, the Black Watch stood assembled, present to a man, their lances raised in salute. At the bluff’s edge were gathered in review the Elven Hunters of the Home Guard and the man who would command them in their King’s absence—Emer Chios, First Minister of the High Council, now the designated defender of the city of Arborlon.
Down out of the Carolan the Elven army wound, following the spiral of the stone-block ramp as it dropped along the forested cliffs through seven walled gates that marked its levels of descent. At its lower end, the army swung south toward the narrows. A solitary bridge spanned the Rill Song, the lone passage west from the city, its iron struts nearly awash with the swollen waters of the river. Like a metal-backed snake, the army moved onto the bridge, crossed, and passed into the silent woods beyond. The glitter of weapons and armor twinkled into darkness, banners slipped from view, and the strains of song, the wail of pipes, and the roll of drums faded into echoes quickly lost in the leafy canopy of the trees. By the time the morning sun had broken through the clouds of the departing storm to rise above the crest of the Carolan and light the forestland below, the last remnants of this grand procession had disappeared from view.
For five days the army journeyed west from Arborlon, winding its way through the deep forests of the homeland toward the Sarandanon. The rains had moved east into Callahorn, and the sun shone down out of cloudless blue skies to warm the woodland shadows. Travel was measured, the cavalry forced to slow its place to match that of the soldiers afoot. Evidence of the danger threatening the Elves became steadily more apparent as the army passed westward through the outlying provinces. Tales filtered back from Elven families on their way eastward to the home city with their possessions bundled in carts and on the backs of oxen and horse. Their homes and their villages were abandoned behind them. Terrifying creatures roamed the land west, their frightened voices warned—dark and brutal monsters that killed without reason and disappeared as quickly as they had come. Cottages had been stripped and homes violated, the Elves within left torn and broken. Such incidents were scattered, but that merely served to convince the fleeing villagers that there was no longer any place west of Arborlon that was safe. As the army marched past, the villagers sent up cheers and shouts of encouragement, but their faces remained clouded with doubt.
The march west wore on until, late in the afternoon of the fifth day, the army passed out of the forestland into the valley of the Sarandanon. The valley lay sandwiched between woodlands on the south and east, the Kensrowe Mountains on the north, and the broad expanse of the Innisbore on the west. A flat, fertile stretch of farmland dotted with small clumps of trees and pockets of spring water, the Sarandanon was the breadbasket of the Elven nation. Corn, wheat, and other seed crops were sown and harvested seasonally by the families who lived within the valley, then bartered or sold to the remainder of the homeland. M
ild temperatures and a balanced rainfall provided an ideal climate for farming, and for generations the Sarandanon had served as the principal source of food for the Elven people.
The Elven army encamped that night at the eastern end of the valley; at dawn on the following day, it began the journey across. A broad, earthen road wound through the heart of the Sarandanon past fence lines and clusters of small dwellings and sheds, and the army followed it west. In the fields, the families of the valley toiled with quiet determination. Few Elves here had yet gone east. Everything that had meaning in their lives lay rooted in the land they farmed, and they would not be frightened off easily.
By midafternoon, the army had reached the western end of the valley. In the distance, beyond the Innisbore, the humped ridge of the Breakline rose up against the horizon, curving north above the Kensrowe into the wilderness of the Kershalt Territory. The sun already lay atop the crest of the mountains, brilliant golden light spilling down out of the rock. In the growing darkness of the eastern sky, the moon’s whiteness glimmered faintly.
The army swung north. Between the Innisbore and the Kensrowe, Baen Draw opened down out of the rugged hill country below the Breakline into the valley of the Sarandanon. It was there that the army of the Elves made its camp.
At dusk, Allanon came down out of the Kensrowe as silently and unexpectedly as he had gone into them hours before, his tall form moving into the Elven camp like one of night’s shadows, dark and solitary as he passed through the maze of cooking fires that dotted the grasslands. He went directly to the tent of the Elven King, oblivious to the soldiers who stared after him, his head lowered within the darkness of his cowl. The Elven Hunters who stood watch before Eventine’s quarters stepped aside wordlessly at his approach and let him enter without challenge.
