by Terry Brooks
He let his gaze shift then to the leaden evening skies and wondered suddenly if Ander ever felt the same.
Fatigue lined Ander Elessedil’s face as he pushed through the manor house doors, shed his rain-soaked cloak, and turned down the darkened hallway that led to his father’s study, the troop registers and supply listings cradled protectively in his arms. His day had been a difficult one and it had not been helped any by his brother’s continuing refusal to have anything to do with him. It had been like that since he had taken Amberle’s part at the High Council. What had always been a rather broad gulf between them had widened into a chasm that he could not begin to bridge. Today’s encounter with his brother had illustrated just how wide that chasm had grown. Sent by his father to collect the information he now carried, he had gone to Arion for assistance because Arion had been given responsibility for mobilizing and outfitting the Elven army. Though Arion could have shortened his work by hours, he had refused even to meet with him, sending a junior supply officer in his stead and keeping himself conveniently absent the entire day. It had angered Ander so much that he had very nearly chosen to force a confrontation. But that might have involved his father, and the old King did not need any additional problems to occupy his time. So Ander had kept silent. For as long as the Demon hordes threatened the homeland, personal difficulties must be set aside.
He shook his head. Such reasoning did not make him feel any better, however, about the way things were working out between Arion and him.
He reached the study door, nudged it open with his boot, entered and nudged it closed again. He managed an encouraging smile for his father, who crossed to relieve him of the charts and listings. Then he sank down wearily into an empty chair.
“That’s everything,” he said. “Inventoried, recorded, and placed m order.”
Eventine set the material his son had brought him on the table with the maps and turned back. “You look tired.”
Ander rose and stretched. “I am …”
In a rush of wind and rain, the window-doors flew open.
Father and son whirled as maps and charts scattered to the floor and oil lamps flickered. Allanon stood framed in the entry, black robes glistening wetly in the dusk, trailing water onto the study floor. The angular features were strained, the thin line of his mouth hard. Both hands held firm a slim wooden staff, its surface the color of silver.
For an instant Ander’s eyes met those of the Druid, and the Elven Prince felt his blood turn to ice. There was something terrible in the Druid’s expression, glimmerings of fierce determination, power, and death.
The Druid wheeled and shoved closed the window-doors, fastening once again the latch he had somehow managed to loosen from without. When he turned back again, Ander saw clearly the silver staff and his face went deathly pale.
“Allanon, what have you done!” the words slipped out before he could think better of them.
His father saw it as well and cried out in a horrified whisper. “The Ellcrys! Druid, you have cut a branch from the living tree!”
“No, Eventine,” the tall man replied softly. “Not cut. Not harmed her who is the life of this land. Never that.”
“But the staff …” the King began, his hands reaching out as if to touch a thing that would burn.
“Not cut,” the other repeated. “Look closely now.”
He held forth the staff and turned it slowly so that it could be inspected. Ander and his father bent close. Each end of the staff was smooth and rounded. Nowhere was it splintered or nicked by a blade. Even the boles that roughened its length were healed and free of markings.
Eventine looked bewildered. “Then how …?”
“The staff was given to me, King of the Elves—given by her, given that it might be carried against the enemies who threaten her people and their land.” The Druid’s voice was so cold that it seemed to freeze the very air of the small room. “Here, then, is magic that will give strength to the Elven army, power to withstand the evil that lives within the Demon hordes. This staff shall be our talisman—the right hand of the Ellcrys, carried forth when the armies meet to do battle.”
He stepped forward, the staff still clenched before him, his dark eyes hard within the shadow of his brow.
“Early this morning I went to her, alone, seeking to find a weapon with which we might stand against our enemy. She gave me audience, speaking with the images that are her words, asking why I had come. I told her that the Elves had no magic save my own with which to counter the power of the Demons; I told her that I feared that this alone might not be enough, that I might fail. I told her that I sought something of what she is with which to do battle against the Demons, for she is an anathema to them.
“Then she reached down within herself and stripped away this staff which I hold, this limb of her body. Weakened, knowing that she dies, she yet managed to give to me a part of herself with which to aid the Elven people. I did not touch her, did nothing but stand in awe of her strength of will. Feel this wood, King of the Elves—touch it!”
He thrust the staff into Eventine’s hands, and they closed about it. The King’s eyes widened in shock. The Druid took the staff from him then and passed it wordlessly to Ander. The Elven Prince started. The wood of the staff was warm, as if the blood of life flowed within.
“It lives!” the Druid breathed reverently. “Apart and separate from her, yet still filled with her life! It is the weapon that I sought. It is the talisman that will protect the Elves against the black sorcery of the Demon hordes. As long as they bear the staff, the power that lives within the Ellcrys shall watch over them and work to keep them safe.”
He took the staff from Ander’s hands and once more their eyes met. The Elven Prince felt something unspoken pass between them, something he could not quite comprehend—just as it had been that night in the High Council when he had gone to stand with Amberle.
The Druid’s eyes shifted to the King. “Now hear me.” His voice was low and quick. “The rains will end this night. Does the army stand ready?”
Eventine nodded.
“Then we march at dawn. We must move quickly now.”
“But where are we marching to?” the King asked immediately. “Have you discovered where the break will come?”
The Druid’s black eyes glistened. “I have. The Ellcrys told me. She senses the Demons massing at a single point within the Forbidding, senses herself weakening where they gather. She knows that it is there that the Forbidding will fail first. The rent has been made once already by the ones who crossed through to slay the Chosen. The breach was closed, but the wound was not healed. There the Forbidding will break. It weakens already, straining with the force that pushes against it. The Demons are summoned to that place by the one who commands them, and who wields the power of sorcery so near my own. He is called the Dagda Mor. With his aid, the breach will be forced once again, and this time it will not be closed.
“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 work table.
“The break will come here,” he said softly.
His finger pointed to the broad expanse of the Hoare Flats.
XXVII
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 even 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 Jans 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 sooth 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 Callaho
rn 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 Callahom 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 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.