The deceased was a royal guard. A healthy lad, well fed until recently, he was younger than Kerian. His neck and face showed bug bites, but no more than what had been endured by the rest of them, The only oddity Kerian could find was a swollen neck. His throat had closed so tightly, so quickly, he had suffocated while walking.
They had no idea why. Toxic air, poisonous insects, evil spells-anything was possible. They kept moving.
Trailed by her quartet of Qualinesti, Kerian sought out Hytanthas. She was pleased to see he had improved in health despite the foul conditions.
For a time they tramped along in a silence Kerian considered companionable but which Hytanthas found uncomfortable. Finally, he nerved himself to speak what was on his mind.
“Commander. About Khur-”
“What about it?”
“I feel I’ve been derelict in my duty. My task was to bring you back to the Speaker.”
“You nearly died of fever. It’s a wonder you found me at all, and you think you’ve been derelict?” She shook her head. “I’ve told you, I can’t go back to Khur.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
She glared at him, giving the young warrior a glimpse of the Lioness of legend. Hytanthas did not back down. After a moment, she returned her attention to the uncertain footing.
“What difference does it make? The Speaker dismissed me, and I found myself hurled across the world.” She shrugged. “He didn’t need me then. He cannot have me now.”
“Would you condemn all our people in Khur to death or slavery?”
Temper flaring, she curtly told her troop to take themselves elsewhere. When they had moved away, she demanded, “Am I a goddess who can save a nation by herself? Gilthas has thousands of warriors and the combined skills of veteran generals like Hamaramis, Taranath, and Planchet. The safety of our people in Khur rests with them, not me!”
“Very well. Commander. But I must return to the Speaker. Will Orexas and Alhana forgive me if I leave once we’re clear of Nalis Aren?”
“Do as you like.”
To her relief, he said no more. He had the same failing carried by all the Qualinesti Ambrodels. Although resourceful and brave, Hytanthas was just the sort of soldier who’d follow an order to certain death simply because his name and honor demanded it. Kerian had no patience with martyrs, no matter how gallant they might be. The world needed realists, hardheaded, hard-fighting realists. The humans had a saying she liked: Wars aren’t won by dying for your country; they’re won by making the other fellow die for his.
The traverse of the Cleft claimed more lives. Seemingly healthy guards and town elves collapsed, dead. At sunset the temperature plunged. No betraying torchlight was allowed, so the terrible march continued in full dark and graveyard chill. The elves took turns climbing onto the remaining carts and wagons and napping for a short space. Kerian did not avail herself of the rest. She pulled a blanket around her shoulders and kept walking.
Alhana, clad in a white fox fur robe, moved along the caravan, speaking to everyone, and making sure all had a chance to rest in the wagons. She’d given her other furs and extra clothing to shivering townsfolk. Despite the fretting of her chamberlain, she would not stint on her self-appointed tasks.
“You must rest, lady,” Chathendor urged. “And you shouldn’t give away all your clothing.”
“Shall I ride on velvet cushions, wrapped in furs, while they walk, hungry and cold?”
“You aren’t a young girl any longer. Privation is harder at our age.”
She nearly smiled. “Our age, indeed. You have a few centuries on me at the very least,” she sniffed, returning the jest.
When they got back to the head of the column, Alhana spoke briefly to Samar, who was organizing patrols for the night. That done, she consented to rest. Chathendor led her to a wagon fitted with a canvas top. He lifted the flap at the rear of the still-moving conveyance, and she climbed inside. She reminded him to wake her in an hour. He assured her he would and dropped the flap over the opening.
She had barely settled herself next to several wrapped bundles of swords when the flap shifted again and Porthios entered the wagon.
“Peace, Alhana. It is I,” he murmured unnecessarily. She’d known immediately who he was, if for no other reason than he was faceless. Porthios was the only one in the caravan whose face was completed covered.
Chathendor did not have the luxury of her better eyesight. The tent flap flew up.
“My lady! I saw an intruder enter!” he exclaimed, short sword in hand.
“Your grip and stance do you credit, sir, but you’re facing your lady, not me.”
The chamberlain recognized Orexas’s hoarse voice. He did not lower his blade until Alhana assured him she was safe and sent him away.
Alone with her husband, Alhana lit a candle stub. She used a small incendiary stick, made by the gnomes of Sancrist and called by them a “dragon’s tooth.” When scratched smartly, it flared into flame. The sudden flare caused Porthios to recoil sharply.
“I have no liking for fire,” he said. In the wagon’s confines, he could move no farther away. “Candles and lamps can be dropped. Fires start that way all the time.”
She lit a lamp with the sputtering yellow flame. “I’ll be careful.”
Breath plumed from her nose as she exhaled. She waited for Porthios to speak. When he didn’t, she asked, “Do you believe the Kagonesti will find griffons?”
“Yes.”
“And that we can tame them?”
“Yes.”
She was impatient with his terse answers. “If we do find them, they will be wild adults, not creatures reared among our people. How can you be certain we can train them quickly enough to be of use?”
“I am sure.” His eyes found hers in the gloom. “I was Speaker of the Sun, Alhana. I know the tath-maniya.”
She nodded. The Keeping of Skyriders, the secret of taming griffons, was the birthright of Kith-Kanan, handed down to every Speaker of the Sun.
“I’ve not done it, but I know what’s required,” he said. “That’s why I came to talk with you, to tell you-to make sure you know. It’s important you believe it can be done.”
He seemed uncertain, his words halting. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Something’s troubling you.”
“Despite the evil we have faced thus far, I don’t think we’ve plumbed the depths yet. And I don’t expect the bandits to give us up. Grayden will come after us no matter what.” He reached out suddenly and laid his gloved hand on hers. Immediately, she placed her free hand atop it. “But I wanted you to know…I wanted to tell you to keep heart. Nalaryn’s people will find griffons. We will tame them. Whatever the dangers we must face on our journey to that point, remember that.”
He slipped out of the wagon. The wind of his passage snuffed the candle, leaving Alhana in darkness. Her hands were still warm from his touch. She placed them against her cold cheeks.
She smiled, then she laughed. For the first time in a very long time, Alhana laughed.
Chapter 17
At a snail’s pace, the caravan trudged on. Short of a sojourn in a deep cavern, the elves could not imagine a darker night. The stars were barely visible, as though black mist had risen from the ground to obscure them.
After midnight they reached the river that marked the southern boundary of the Cleft and the end of the oppressive swamp. The river was choked with vines and dark green lily pads. So stained was it by black earth washing down, it looked solid enough to walk over.
“How will we get the wagons across?” said Geranthas.
“Ford,” Porthios replied.
Kerian protested. “You have no idea how deep that water is."
“Have you a better idea? Can you pick them up and carry them on your shoulders? No? Then we must ford!”
None of them had any better ideas. There was no timber with which to build rafts, and Samar had relayed the rearguard’s report that sounds of pursuit could be heard, so time was fleeting.
“I will take the first cart across,” Porthios declared. “We’ll cut bundles of sticks and saplings, and if we get stuck, we’ll dump them ahead of us to give us traction.”
Such bundles could fill a moat or an enemy trench, but a - river? Not if luck went against them and the river was deep.
Nonetheless, Porthios set a crew of exhausted elves to work hacking down creeper bushes and scrub willows. While they worked, Samar and Kerian conferred.
“There’s someone behind us, no more than a few hundred yards out,” Samar reported in a low voice. “There aren’t many, and they seem unusually quiet for humans or goblins.”
Spies, Kerian said. Grayden had sent his best scouts to keep an eye on them. Some rare humans could manage to be quiet in the woods. It was even possible Gathan had found renegade half-elves or Kagonesti to hire. Such things had happened. She took a deep breath.
“Let’s find out who they are. I can use the stimulation.”
For once Kagonesti and Silvanesti were in total agreement:
Samar also was tired of fleeing, tired of creeping along with the civilians. He called a squadron of twenty mounted guards. To them Kerian added another twenty, without horses. The elves would ride double. At a prearranged moment, the riders would slow to a walk, and the extra riders would slide off silently. The enemy would hear the mounted attack coming and flee or deploy for battle. If they deployed, the elves on foot would infiltrate their line, confusing them. If the enemy fled, the riders would pursue, able to move quickly with their extra riders dismounted. It was a tactic called “Sowing the Garden” which the Lioness had used successfully against the Dark Knights.
Kerian sat her own horse and waited for a royal guard to climb on behind her. Instead of a Silvanesti, she got Hytanthas.
“You’re well enough to fight?” she asked.
“Well enough, Commander.”
The Bianost elves were still cutting sticks and brush as Kerian and Samar rode out to investigate their pursuers. Dawn was three hours away. Alhana saw them off, waving as they trotted past. Porthios stood on a two-wheeled cart, directing elves to roll the bundles to the water’s edge. He did not acknowledge the warriors’ departure.
They proceeded carefully, keeping to the path they’d probed through the Cleft. It was just wide enough for two horses abreast. A hundred yards from the rear of the caravan, Samar halted them.
They sat in absolute silence, listening. They heard the chirp of bats on the wing, the splash of a toad into a stagnant pool, the tap-tap-tap of a deathwatch beetle looking for a mate.
And the gentle crush of a footfall.
Samar shot Kerian a glance. She nodded. Hytanthas and the other extra riders slid off the horses. Silently, they fanned out ahead of the riders. Their swords were already drawn, so not even that scrape betrayed them. Only ten feet away, they vanished into darkness. The mounted warriors waited. Periodically, each would lean forward, silently communing with his horse to keep the animal from growing impatient or chafing at the noxious atmosphere.
A scream shredded the air. They’d heard no swordplay, no twang of bowstring, just the single, sudden, heartfelt scream. Was it human or elf?
A chorus of shouts erupted in the night. The noise was accompanied by the clang of blades. Kerian lifted her sword, and the other elves followed suit. Despite pounding hearts, they went ahead at a canter. No sane rider would gallop in such darkness, with the usable trail confined to a narrow track in a treacherous mire.
They bore right around a bend and found bodies strewn across the path. Kerian swung down to the ground. The first body was indeed one of their dismounted comrades. His neck had been broken. Someone incredibly powerful had throttled him. His sword lay in his outstretched hand without a trace of blood on the steel.
Kneeling by the next corpse, Kerian rolled him over, and bolted to her feet. Turning to Samar, she flung a hand at the corpse and demanded, “Am I mad? Am I seeing things?”
Samar rode closer. He recoiled. “You’re not! It’s Jalanaris! We buried him yesterday!”
The dead fellow was one of the elves who had collapsed and died of suffocation during the crossing of the Cleft. How had he come to be here?
A total of eight lay dead. Half were dismounted riders Samar and Kerian had brought with them. The other half were comrades who’d died on the march across the Cleft. All had been strangled.
The sound of a shrill whistle sent Kerian vaulting back into the saddle. She knew that call. It was Hytanthas in distress. Flinging caution to the wind, she galloped down the path, Samar and the rest following hard on her heels.
Beyond a bubbling pool of slime, a melee was under way. The remainder of the dismounted guards stood in a circle facing outward, swords drawn. Advancing on them slowly but inexorably were pale mud-streaked figures. A guard behind Samar nocked an arrow and loosed, putting the shaft through the neck of one of the stalking figures. The impact staggered but did not stop him. He came on, arrow protruding grotesquely.
“Undead!” Samar cried. “Our own people are trying to kill us!”
Hytanthas’s party slashed at the walking corpses, rending terrible wounds in the dead flesh, but the undead elves simply kept coming. The horror of their existence was evident from their faces. Some had eyes open; others walked with unerring accuracy although both eyes were closed or clotted with dirt. Samar’s warriors hit them again and again with arrows, to no effect. They carried no weapons, for none had been buried with them, but they would grapple with any living elf within reach. When they found a living foe, they held on with such an iron grip only dismemberment stopped them.
Even hewn limb from limb, the cursed corpses twitched and heaved.
There were fifteen walking dead. With Samar’s reinforcement, the elves quickly subdued them, but Hytanthas stopped the warriors from destroying the corpses. He explained why.
“They were lying in wait for us. Our fellows didn’t fight at first. We thought we’d made a terrible mistake-buried comrades who were still living. Then they attacked! They strangled four of us before we could fathom what was going on. As soon as a revenant had killed its victim, it collapsed, lifeless at last.”
Hytanthas said he feared the curse might work the other way, that if the undead were destroyed, then their intended victims might die as well.
Surveying the still twitching limbs and torsos, Kerian had no desire to test his theory. She wondered whether the attack was a horrible by-product of Nalis Aren, or an evil spell worked against the elves. Samar didn’t care. He ordered the dismembered undead scattered so the corpses would trouble them no more.
His words sparked an idea in Kerian’s mind. She told Hytanthas to find himself a horse; they were taking a ride.
“Where are you going?” Samar asked.
“If we are troubled by our own dead, I wonder how Grayden’s army is faring behind us.”
“A worthy question, but don’t take too long in your search. Orexas won’t wait for you.”
His warning ended with a grunt. A severed arm had crawled across the boggy soil and fastened itself to Samar’s ankle. He kicked it loose and flung it far out into the mire. Hytanthas protested his callousness. Kerian told the young warrior to get to his horse.
Leaning close to Samar, she muttered, “You’d best take care of those warriors who fell tonight too.” They couldn’t risk allowing the four who had died to return as undead. Their remains must be scattered.
“Dirty business,” Samar muttered, grimacing.
Kerian pulled a small leather-wrapped package from her waist pouch and handed it to him. It contained the venom Chathendor had collected from the giant serpent. Viper poison paralyzed the limbs and destroyed flesh. Perhaps a dose would protect the brave, lost warriors from whatever malevolent influence was disturbing the sleep of the dead.
“Don’t wait for us,” Kerian said. “We’ll be back as soon as we learn what we can.”
The two elves rode off into the dark. They had no idea how far back the h
uman army might be. They proceeded at a trot. Kerian was so exhausted she felt as though she wore the heavy chains of slavery again. She’d been awake and on her feet (or in the saddle) for-how long had it been? Two days? Three? She’d fought a monstrous serpent to the death. At least Hytanthas had the benefit of rest during their journey.
“Commander!” Hytanthas’s hiss jerked her upright. She’d actually dozed in the saddle.
Hytanthas took over the lead. A few more miles and he reined up sharply. “Do you hear?”
The metallic clash of combat was unmistakable. It had to be Grayden’s bandits. Who else would be abroad in the Cleft?
They continued more slowly. Shouts and screams could be heard, and beyond a mossy knoll they spied flickering light. The elves had forbidden fire in their caravan to conceal their position. Until that moment, so had the humans. Dismounting, Kerian told Hytanthas to hold her reins while she took a closer look.
“Let me go,” he urged. “You’re done in.”
“I’m not that far gone.”
In truth, she wanted to spare him what might lie ahead. For all her disagreements with him, Kerian felt protective of Hytanthas, as she did all the young warriors under her command. His brief brush with the undead had shaken him badly.
She dropped into a crouch and moved toward a right-angle bend in the path. On the west side of the trail was a broad mire that stretched all the way to the lake itself. The elves had lost two Bianost townsfolk in it, plus a horse they could ill afford to spare. Kerian skirted the mire’s edge. The path had been rising slightly. She dropped nearly prone and inched forward to peer over the crest. The scene she beheld was drawn straight out of the Abyss.
Slightly below her was a bowl-shaped ravine containing a small pool of stagnant water. The firm trail the elves had scouted circled the rim of the bowl. Arrayed around the pool were several hundred bandit soldiers. Many brandished torches and all wielded pikes, but it wasn’t Silvanesti cavalry they faced. A swarm of pale, half-naked bodies moved slowly yet inevitably forward. Scores of corpses littered the ground around the bandits’ circle, some newly killed and bloody, others undead who’d perished at last after killing a victim. Horses whinnied and struck out with their hooves, terrified. Some of them had blundered into the mire on the other side of the path and were slowly sinking to their doom. They struggled, teeth bared, but the bog had an unbreakable grip. Alongside the dying animals were the banners and helmets of their riders. When a horse got stuck, its rider tried to get off and was dragged down. The weight of their armor sank them fast.
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