by Terry Brooks
“Rest well,” he whispered finally, then turned and stepped from the room.
In the adjoining chamber, he found Pindanon waiting. Dust and blood covered the Commander’s armor, and his white-bearded face was flushed with anger as he advanced on the Elven Prince.
“Why did you order me to withdraw, Ander?” he snapped.
Ander held his ground. “Lower your voice, Commander. The King lies within.”
There was a moment’s silence as Pindanon glared at him. Then, more quietly, the Elven Commander asked, “How is he?”
“He sleeps,” Ander replied coldly. “Now what is your question?”
Pindanon straightened. “Why was I ordered to withdraw? I could have retaken Worl Run. We could have held the Breakline as your father intended that we should!”
“My father intended that the Breakline be held for as long as it was possible to do so,” Ander responded, his eyes locked on Pindanon’s. “With my father injured, my brother dead, and Halys Cut lost, it was no longer possible. We were driven from Halys Cut, just as you were driven from Worl Run.” Pindanon bristled, but Ander ignored him. “In order to retake Worl Run, I would have had to make a forced march north with an army that had just been routed, knowing that they would immediately be thrown back into battle. If our combined forces were then defeated, they would face an exhausting march back to the Sarandanon with little chance to rest before undertaking a defense of this valley. Worst of all, any battle fought within the passes of the Breakline would be fought without the use of Elven cavalry. If we are to withstand the Demon advance, we will need the whole of our strength to do so. That, Commander, is why you were ordered to withdraw.”
Pindanon shook his head slowly. “You are not a trained soldier, my Lord Prince. You had no right to make a decision as crucial as this one without first consulting with the Commander of the Army. Had it not been for my loyalty to your father …”
Ander’s head came up sharply. “Don’t finish that sentence, Commander.”
His gaze shifted momentarily as the outer tent flaps parted to admit Allanon and Stee Jans. Allanon’s appearance was not unexpected, but Ander was somewhat surprised to find the Free Corps Commander there as well. The Borderman nodded courteously, but said nothing.
Ander turned back to Pindanon. “In any case, the matter is done. We had better concern ourselves with what lies ahead. How much time do we have before the Demons reach us?”
“A day, possibly two,” Pindanon offered abruptly. “They must rest, regroup.”
Allanon’s black eyes lifted. “Dawn tomorrow.”
There was instant silence. “You are certain?” Ander asked quietly.
“They are driven beyond the need for sleep. Dawn tomorrow.”
Pindanon spat upon the earthen floor.
“Then we must decide now how we will stop them once they are here,” Ander declared, hands running lightly over the Ellcrys staff.
“Simple enough,” Pindanon snapped impatiently. “Defend Baen Draw. Cordon it off. Stop them at the narrows before they reach the valley.”
Ander took a deep breath. “That was tried at Halys Cut. It failed. The Demons forced the Elven phalanx by sheer strength of numbers. There is no reason to believe that it would be any different this time.”
“There is every reason,” Pindanon insisted. “Our strength is not divided here as it was in the Breakline. Nor will the Demons be fresh and rested, if they march straight from the Flats. Cavalry may be used in support where it could not at the Cut. Oh, much is changed, I promise you. The result will be different this time.”
Ander glanced momentarily at Allanon, but the Druid said nothing. Pindanon came a step closer.
“Ander, give me command in your father’s stead. Let me set the defense as I know he would set it. The Elves can hold the draw against those creatures, whatever their strength. Your father and I know …”
“Commander.” The Elven Prince spoke softly, firmly. “I saw what the Demons are capable of doing at Halys Cut. I saw what they did to a defensive line that my father felt certain would hold them. This is a different sort of enemy we fight. It hates the Elves beyond understanding; it is driven by that hatred—so much so that dying means nothing. Can we say the same, we to whom life is so precious? I think not. We need something more than standard tactics if we are to survive this encounter.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Allanon’s brief nod.
Pindanon bristled. “You lack faith, my Lord Prince. Your father would not be so quick …”
Ander cut him short. “My father is not here. But if he were, he would speak to you as I have spoken. I seek suggestions, Commander—not an argument.”
Pindanon flushed darkly, then turned suddenly toward Allanon. “What has this one to say? Has he no thoughts to offer on how these Demons are to be stopped?”
Allanon’s dark face was expressionless. “You cannot stop them, Commander. You can only slow them.”
“Slow them?”
“Slow them so that the bearer of the Ellcrys seed may gain time enough to find the Bloodfire and return.”
“That again!” Pindanon snorted. “Our destiny in the hands of that girl! Druid, I do not believe in old world legends. If the Westland is to be saved, it must be saved through the courage of her men-at-arms—through the skill and experience of her soldiers. Demons may die as other things of flesh and blood.”
“Such as Elves,” the Druid replied darkly.
There was a long silence. Pindanon turned away from the others, hands clasping angrily behind his back. After a moment, he wheeled back on them.
“Do we stand at Baen Draw or not, Prince Ander? I hear no suggestions but my own.”
Ander hesitated, wishing Allanon would say something. But it was Stee Jans who stepped forward, his rough voice breaking the silence.
“My Lord, may I speak?”
Ander had almost forgotten that the Legion Commander was there. He glanced at the big man and nodded.
“My Lord, the Free Corps has faced similar odds on more than one occasion while in the service of the Borderlands. It is a matter of pride with us that while our enemies have frequently been stronger than we, still we have survived and they have not. We have learned some hard lessons, my Lord. I offer one of them to you now. It is this—never settle a stationary defensive line where superior numbers will overrun you. We have learned to split our defensive front with a series of mobile lines that shift with the flow of battle. These lines attack and retreat in sequence, pulling the enemy first one way, then the other, striking always on the flanks as the enemy turns to repel each new assault, withdrawing beyond the enemy’s reach when the strike is done.”
Pindanon snorted. “Then you neither gain nor even hold ground, Commander.”
Stee Jans turned to him. “When the enemy has been pulled far enough out in his efforts to catch you, when his lines have thinned and split, then you close ranks to either side and collapse on him. Like so.”
He placed his hands in a V and brought them together with a clap. There was a startled silence.
“I don’t know,” Pindanon muttered doubtfully.
“How would you defend Baen Draw?” Ander pressed.
“I would use a variation of what I have just described to you,” Stee Jans replied. “Long bows on the slopes of the Kensrowe over the mouth of the Draw to harry the advance. Foot soldiers at its head, as if you meant to hold it as you tried to hold Halys Cut. When the Demons attack, stand for a time, then give way. Let them break through. Give them a rabbit to chase, a cavalry command to draw them on. When their lines are strung out, their flanks exposed, close on them from both sides, quickly, before they can fall back or be reinforced. Use lances to keep them from you. The Demons lack our weapons. If you stay beyond their reach, they cannot harm you. When you have destroyed their front ranks, let the rabbit pull through a second rush. Take them another way; keep them off balance. Concentrate on their flanks.”
He finished. The E
lves stared at the Borderman. Pindanon frowned.
“Who would be the rabbit in this?”
Stee Jans smiled crookedly. “Who else, Commander?”
Pindanon shrugged. Ander looked over at him questioningly.
“It might work,” the old warrior admitted grudgingly. “If the rabbit is any good, that is.”
“The rabbit knows a few tricks,” Stee Jans replied. “That is why it is still alive after so many chases.”
Ander glanced quickly at Allanon. The Druid nodded.
“Then we have our plan for the defense of the Sarandanon,” the Elven Prince announced. His hand clasped Pindanon’s, then that of the Iron Man. “Let us make certain now that it succeeds.”
Later that night, when all was in readiness for the morrow’s battle and he was alone, Ander Elessedil paused to reflect on how fortunate it was that Stee Jans had been present at his meeting with Pindanon. It was only then that it occurred to him that it might not have been good fortune at all, but a foresight peculiar to the enigmatic dark wanderer they knew as Allanon.
32
They buried Arion Elessedil at first light of dawn. His brother, Pindanon, and four dozen of the Home Guard interred him in the traditional manner of the Elves, at the birth of the new day, at the time of beginning. They bore him in silence to an oak-shaded bluff below Baen Draw that looked west over the blue expanse of the Innisbore and east across the green valley of the Sarandanon. There the firstborn of Eventine Elessedil was laid to rest, his body returned to the earth that had given it life, his spirit set free once more.
They left no marker to the Crown Prince. Allanon had warned that there were some among the Demons who would search out such testaments and prey upon the dead. There were no songs, no words of praise, no flowers—nothing to show that Arion Elessedil had ever been. There remained nothing of Eventine’s firstborn but memories.
Ander saw the tears in the eyes of those who gathered with him and felt that memories might be enough.
Less than an hour later, the Demons attacked the Elves at Baen Draw. Down out of the northern hills they streamed, their screams and howls shattering the stillness of the dawn. They came as they had come at Halys Cut, a mass of twisted dark bodies surging forward like the unleashed waters of a flood.
At the lower end of the Draw, the Elven phalanx waited, rows of lancers and pikemen standing shoulder to shoulder with weapons braced. As the foremost Demons clawed their way toward them, Elven long bows hummed along the slopes of the Kensrowe and the air was filled with feathered arrows. Demons convulsed and fell, buried beneath those who came after. Wave after wave of dark shafts ripped through their ranks, and hundreds died in the rush.
But at last the phalanx was reached and the Demons flung themselves against it, shrieking with pain as the iron-tipped shafts pierced their bodies and held them transfixed. The attack faltered and was thrown back. Again it came, a sudden surge forward of malformed bodies, teeth and claws ripping, and again it was thrown back. The ground before the Elven defensive wall grew littered with dead and dying. Still the horde of Demons pressed ahead, endless in number, and at last the Elven line wavered and broke, its center seeming to fall away. Into the breach surged the Demons, bounding and leaping and scrambling from the draw.
Instantly they were set upon by a body of horsemen, gray-cloaked riders with crimson trim, their leader a tall, scar-faced man on a giant blue roan. The riders swept across the head of the Demon rush, lances scything. Then they were gone, turning back into the valley, gray cloaks flying, lean forms bent low over their mounts as they galloped away. The Demons gave chase in a frenzy. Moments later, the riders came about, charging back into their pursuers, lances lowered, scattering bodies as again they struck and swung quickly away. The Demons howled their frustration and scrambled after them.
Then suddenly the gray-cloaked riders wheeled in a solid line that barred the Demons’ path forward, and the arm of the scar-faced man lifted. No longer massed protectively, but strung out along the grasslands for hundreds of yards beyond the mouth of Baen Draw, the Demons who had breached the Elven defensive line stared about wildly, seeing now what had been done to them. To either side, lines of Elven cavalry burst into view, hemming them in like cattle. Behind them, the breach had been closed by a tall, black robed figure, standing atop the lower slopes of the Kensrowe, with fire spurting from his outstretched hands to scatter the Demons who milled uncertainly within the Draw. Desperately, those trapped without sought to break the lines about them. But the Elves converged quickly, sword and lance cutting apart the black forms that reached up for them. In moments, the whole of the Demon advance had been destroyed. Through the length of the Baen Draw, the Elven cry of victory echoed.
It did not end there. For the remainder of the morning and into early afternoon, the battle raged on. Time and again, the Demons massed for a rush on the Elven phalanx that barred passage through Baen Draw. Time and again, they broke through, battling their way past Elven archers and Druid fire, past lancers and pikemen, only to find themselves face to face with the gray riders of the Legion Free Corps. Teased and harassed, they gave chase. Heedless of what lay ahead, they allowed themselves to be drawn on, sometimes toward the shoreline of the Innisbore, sometimes toward the slopes of the Kensrowe, or into the valley of the Sarandanon. Then, when it appeared that they had caught the elusive horsemen, they found themselves encircled by Elven cavalry, their own ranks thinned and unprotected, their thrust having carried them far from those brethren who battled still within the Draw. Raging, they threw themselves at their enemy, but there was no escape. The Elves swept back, and again their lines closed across Baen Draw.
For a time the Demons sought to gain the slopes of the Kensrowe, thinking to put an end to the hated long bows. But, carefully placed, their ranks deep and sheltered within the rocks, the Elven archers cut to pieces those who tried to reach them. In their midst stood the black-robed giant, sorcerous fire lancing from his hands, his awesome power sheltering the Elves who struggled below. All forms of Demons tried to reach him—Demons that burrowed within the earth, Demons that flew, Demons that scaled cliff walls like flies. All failed; all died.
In one attack, the Demons smashed through the Elven phalanx where it bordered the shoreline of the Innisbore, turning it back across the Draw as hundreds of attackers swarmed over the sandswept hills toward the open valley beyond. For a moment it appeared that the Elven defensive line was finally broken. But, with a valiant effort, the cavalry converged east of this new advance and rode into it in a charge that drove the Demons back into the waters of the Innisbore. Again the evil ones could not mass, but were strung out along the beachhead, their backs to the lake. The attack faltered and broke apart, shattered on the lances of the Elves. The breach closed one time more.
Thousands of Demons died that afternoon in senseless, mindless, savage rushes through Baen Draw. They attacked ceaselessly, surging forward on their race to the cliffs with the blind determination of lemmings, oblivious to the destruction that waited. Elves and Bordermen died with them, caught up in their frenzy to break through to the Sarandanon. Yet the rout that had occurred at Halys Cut was not repeated this day; time and again the Demons were thrown back, the forefront of their assault destroyed before it had an opportunity to gain reinforcement from the masses that came after.
Finally, in midafternoon, the Demons launched their final attack. Massing within Baen Draw, they surged against the Elven phalanx, bore it backward by sheer force of numbers, and snapped it apart. Into the seams they poured, and suddenly there was no time for carefully wrought tactics, or for skill and finesse. The Elves and the Legion struck back, their horsemen charging into the midst of the onslaught. Sword and spear cut deep into the tangle of twisted dark forms below. Horses and riders screamed and went down. The lines of fighters surged back and forth desperately. But at last the Demons broke, snarling and clawing as they fled back into the Draw, shrieks of anger rising from their midst. This time they did not turn. They co
ntinued on, trampling through their own dead and dying, hobbling and crawling and scrambling into the hills beyond, until Baen Draw stood empty.
The Elves stared after the retreating forms in weary disbelief, watching as the last of them disappeared into the curve of the hills, the sound of their passing fading slowly into silence. Then the Elves looked about them and saw clearly the enormity of the struggle that had taken place. Thousands of tangled dark bodies lay scattered across the grasslands, spreading east out of Baen Draw from Kensrowe to Innisbore, still and lifeless and broken. The Draw itself was massed thick with them. The Elves were appalled. It was as if life had meant nothing to the Demons, as if death were somehow preferable. Eyes began to search out the faces of friends and comrades. Hands stretched out to one another, clasping tightly, and the Elves were filled with relief, grateful that they had somehow survived through such terrible destruction.
At the head of the Draw, Ander Elessedil found Kael Pindanon and impulsively hugged the veteran soldier to him. Cries of elation began to rise from the throats of their countrymen as the realization set in that the day was theirs. Stee Jans rode in at the head of the Free Corps and the Bordermen joined the Elves, lances raising in salute. Down the length of the Sarandanon, the roar of victory swelled and echoed.
Only Allanon stood apart. Alone now on the slopes of the Kensrowe, his dark face turned north toward the hills into which the Demons had so abruptly fled, he found himself wondering why it was that they had been willing to give their lives so cheaply and, perhaps more important still, why it was that through all that slaughter there had been no sign of the one they called the Dagda Mor.
The afternoon faded into dusk and the night slipped silently away. At the mouth of Baen Draw, the army of the Westland waited for the Demons to attack. But the Demons did not come. Nor did they come at dawn, though Elves and Bordermen stood ready once more. The morning hours began to creep past, and a growing uneasiness pervaded the ranks of the defenders.
