Perhaps it would draw the enemy, buy them time.
The other three quickly gathered and packed their bedrolls.
“You have a place in mind?” he asked.
Nodding, Ailith hid her astonishment. “Yes, my Lord.”
“Elon. A King’s daughter should not address me so.”
Briefly, a shadow moved in her eyes. A sadness she offset with a twist of her mouth that would have been a smile were it not for the pain.
“Once, my father spoke of you with great respect. He told me you should give honor to those to whom it’s due.”
It was hard for her to remember those days of late.
Her hands moved, turned the horse. That the cull had even let her mount it said much. He shook his head in amazement and caught his sleeping roll when Jalila tossed it to him. The girl had ridden it with neither saddle nor bridle, nor even a halter.
Ailith of Riverford, Geric’s daughter, looked back once to be sure they were ready and then they were off, weaving through the trees out across an open field toward a narrower band of trees beyond. He could see moonlit skies between and beyond them. A windscreen, trees such as men grew to cut the wind that blew around their houses.
He couldn’t have said why he trusted her but he did. As with Jareth, he sensed there was no guile in her as there was in some.
A shriek came out of the night, the sound faint, a little distant but unique. He knew it well, as did the others. Boggart. As did Ailith, apparently, whose head shot up to glance back worriedly into the darkness behind them before leaning forward to urge her horse to more speed.
Darkness didn’t seem to deter her. With only the light of a thin sliver of moon they sped between the trees and came upon a tumble of stone, before dodging around the shattered remains of a wall. Ailith guided her horse around and through them with sure knowledge, toward the greater shadow of what appeared to be the partly tumbled ruins of an old manor.
Without pausing, Ailith turned her horse and ducked her head as she passed through the arch of a doorway.
“Did you know this was here?” Elon asked in a quick aside to Jareth.
Jareth shook his head, curious now. “No, but I haven’t spent that much time in this domain.”
Few did, these highland Kingdoms were an independent lot, and in the higher reaches even more so.
Ducking, too, Elon passed beneath the doorway with the others close behind.
Elon conjured a sphere of elf-light to light the place as Ailith turned her horse to face them.
“There are only a limited number of ways for them to come,” she said, tilting her head at the doorway. “There and that hole up there. The arrowslits in the walls will give those with a bow a clear shot. It was the best place I could think to bring you in the time we had.”
“You knew about the boggart,” he said.
There was no accusation in his voice and for that Ailith was grateful.
“Yes,” she said, simply. “I knew.”
“How?”
She shook her head. “It’s a long story. That’s for later. For now, it’s not only one boggart. There may be more.”
“How many more?” Colath demanded.
Again she shook her head, this time clearly helplessly. “I don’t know. They said many.”
“Who?” Elon said, insistent.
A deep, centering breath, as she willed herself to calm. “Tolan and my father.”
Four pairs of eyes met hers. Ailith looked back at them squarely. It was nothing but the truth – despite the ache it caused her and the dishonor of their act.
Elon looked at her, her face as still as if she was one of his race, her chin level and her gaze firm. There was pain there, deep and piercing, but her honor and dignity wouldn’t allow her to turn her gaze away. It caught at him. Looking in those eyes he didn’t doubt it was true but there was more to this story, far more it was clear. As she’d said, though, that was for later.
As a reminder, something howled in the distance. Closer than the boggart’s shriek. Still distant but closing.
Stepping beside her horse, he lifted a hand to her. It was a long way from there to the ground for her.
For a moment, she looked at it and he saw the gratitude in her eyes.
Ailith bowed her head for a second, nearly overcome at the gesture. It had been a long time since she’d dared accept a kindness. Knowing as well that Elves didn’t touch any of other races much. Then she took a breath and reached for the offered hand.
“My legs may be unsteady,” she warned him. “I’m not used to riding something so large for so long.”
In fact, she could barely feel her lower legs, they’d been bent and clenched for so long. She slid off the horse carefully yet she still staggered a little when her numb feet touched the ground. He steadied her. She looked up into his even gaze.
“Thank you,” she said.
It had been apparent on the horse that she wasn’t tall but now Elon realized how small she was. The top of her head would only reach his shoulder and yet she was clearly at her adult height. She had strength, though, it was there in the grip of her hand and the pressure of her arm. When he looked in her eyes he caught a touch of self-deprecating humor. A matter-of-fact acceptance of her slightly diminutive stature.
“How did you get up there?” he asked, eyeing the horse.
Her quick grin surprised him.
“I jumped. High. How else?”
Jareth snorted laughter again. “You’ve got to give her that, Elon.”
It also surprised Colath into a small chuckle.
With a shake of her head, Jalila led the horses to the back of the room.
“I do indeed,” Elon said. “You are an intriguing person, Ailith of Riverford.”
With a sigh, she said with mock resignation, “So I’ve been told.”
“No doubt,” Elon conceded, intrigued and amused. “What is this place?”
Looking around she said, “Once upon a time, it was the original lands of my mother’s family before my father’s took it. Not all the family fell in that conflict but their status changed to landowner instead of lord. So this place was abandoned.”
At another howl, this one closer, Colath took up position next to the door.
Unslinging her bow, Jalila strung it and nocked an arrow loosely before she stepped to one of the arrow slits.
Jareth considered it. His skills with a sword were only fair…
“How many?” he asked, again.
Taking a breath, Ailith said, “They wanted to be sure of you. Many.”
“I think I’m better off with magic, Elon.”
Jareth’s lack of skill with a sword was well known among them.
Nodding, Elon strung his own bow and took the other arrow slit.
For a minute, Ailith considered what she should do, then drew her sword and stepped to the side of the door opposite Colath. It was the weakest spot.
Colath looked at her a moment.
“I wouldn’t like to misjudge you again,” he said, diplomatically.
Her mouth twitched. “Then don’t. As Riverford’s heir I’ve fought trolls, boggins and boggarts with the Hunters. Hunted mountain cats and bear with the Woodsmen. I’ve been trained in the use of a sword. I can shoot a bow as well, although I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to assume I could do it better than an Elf.”
Raising an eyebrow, though never turning his gaze from his watch into the darkness, Colath asked, as intrigued as Elon, “As I’ve been presumptuous in assuming you couldn’t?”
“I never said that,” she said coolly, but a grin twitched at the corners of her mouth again.
“No you didn’t but the point is well taken.”
Calmly but with humor, she said, “Good, don’t do it again.”
Jareth sputtered, swallowing laughter.
Despite the tension, Jalila smothered a smile. “Look out, Colath. I think you’ve met your match.”
His eyes on the darkness outside, Elon listened to t
he banter. He couldn’t imagine what that ride had been like for Ailith, knowing what awaited out in the dark. Yet she’d come and now she made light with Colath. Resilient, that one.
“Perhaps,” Colath conceded but his eyes had lightened. His voice grew sharp. “Movement.”
“Here as well,” Elon added.
There was a sharp thrum as Jalila saw enough of a target to let fly. Something screamed in fury out in the darkness.
As if that was a signal, they came. Boggarts and boggins, an ogre, the paler fur of firbolg far out of their territory, to swarm over the tumbled walls, shrieking. Light flared above them as Jareth let loose a magebolt to give them more light.
For only a second, Ailith felt a flicker of fear as she saw the numbers of them, saw those wide jaws with their terrible teeth. Her father’s words echoed in her head as they had the day they fought the trolls. ‘Only a fool doesn’t feel fear in battle, Ailith.’
She wasn’t a fool. What choice was there now? Fight or die.
And missed her father terribly.
Colath swung and she was only a second behind him.
Talons raked at her face, she threw her sword up to fend them off and struck back. She felt the blow through the sword and knew she’d struck true. Another screamed as she swung at it. All the while she kept Colath’s sword in mind so as not to hamper him. Aid, not obstacle. She ducked as another set of claws reached around the door. Then all she could do was keep swinging, driving them off to the hum of bowstrings and the flash and crackle of the wizard’s magic.
From the corner of his eye, Jareth caught movement where there shouldn’t have been any as a boggin tried to leap through the gap in the ceiling. He sent a mage-bolt flying through it. The thing dropped to the floor, dead. Part of his attention followed it to make certain it was indeed dead. That was what saved him. He saw something appear from seemingly nowhere to leap at him. He felt a brief tug along his back as he ducked and something snagged his vest.
Something, some awareness made Ailith turn to see something bound at the wizard Jareth.
“Hold the door,” she said to Colath, sprinting across the floor as Jareth ducked and the thing sailed over his head.
She hadn’t seen one of these before – a wicked-looking thing that vaguely resembled a cat covered in filthy fur, with narrow slitted eyes. Short claws like a cat, too, that retracted and extended as it leaped at her. She swung but it twisted in mid-air to spin and swipe at her. She ducked. Parrying that, she trapped its arm in a spiral of steel, circling it as if it were another blade, twisted her sword and thrust. It screamed as her sword cut both arm and chest and slashed at her with its other arm. She ducked, drove her sword in through the exposed ribs and leaped back as its teeth gnashed at her. Back-handed, she spun to take its head.
From the corner of his eye, Elon watched, alarmed for her safety but unable to aid her for the numbers coming at them. He was surprised and startled by her skill. It seemed she didn’t need the help he’d wished to give.
Jareth pointed.
“It came from there,” he said, sending a blast of mage-fire through the hole in the roof that cleared that opening.
Darkness in the far corner. Movement. A boggin. About halfway through a hole that had been dug underneath the wall. She got to it before it could pull itself all the way through, though it slashed at her. She brought the sword down on its neck as if she were chopping wood. That hole would be blocked until they could get the carcass clear.
Something charged at the doorway. Big, a massive shadow. Two bows hummed but it didn’t stop. The ogre.
Colath grunted as it hit him and knocked him flying.
At the sight of it, Jareth hammered it with mage bolts but it merely shook them off. The aire was suddenly filled with the stench of burning hair. He needed to get the eyes, small and piggish, red-rimmed and mean. Hard targets. Two arrows already pierced its hide, quivering. It seemed oblivious to the pain.
Spinning on her toes, Ailith saw the massive thing in the doorway, Colath scrambling backwards as Jalila turned to fire another arrow into the thing. Elon mirrored her. The ogre roared, the sound magnified in the small space, enormous. Elon dropped his bow and went for his longsword, leaping over Colath to bring his sword up in time to drive off the massive arm that reached for the fallen Colath.
It felt as if his sword had struck stone but Elon had fought ogres before and knew the feeling of old. Behind him he heard Colath scramble to his feet. Not badly hurt or Elon would have felt it through the bond. Elon parried another massive blow, dodged as it swiped at his head with the other arm. The thing was massive. Its face was like a block of furred stone badly carved, its head sunk onto its muscled shoulders, caught perpetually in a wrestler’s crouch. If it caught him between those arms, even he wouldn’t survive.
Seeing them come his way, Jareth danced backwards while keeping his eyes on the hole in the roof. The last thing they needed was something else, a boggart or a boggin, dropping in on them in the now-close space.
Colath darted in to carve a slash across the ogre’s ribs.
It spun to face the new assault.
The door was undefended.
Ailith ran to cover it, slashing with her sword just as a pair of claws reached around it. Another lashed out and she felt something burn down her forearm before she smashed her elbow into it. A solid kick in the chest drove the boggart back long enough for her to put her sword through it. Jalila too, had turned back to the arrowslit. Her bow hummed.
Slashing and swinging at anything she saw, Ailith risked glances back over her shoulder to see what was going on behind her.
Watching Elon move was like watching a dancer, every move graceful but deadly. He ducked and dodged, searching for the moment for the fatal blow. Colath matched him, the two darting in and out, taunting, striking at the creature. The ogre was huge, easily the size of the two of them together and then some. It was fast as well, nearly as quick as the two Elves that moved like deadly dancers around it.
There was little time to watch, she caught only glimpses. A shout of warning and she dodged out of the way a fraction too late as the ogre fled backward. It was only a glancing blow but she went flying, tumbling across the floor. She scrambled to her feet even as Elon and Colath drove the ogre backward. Their swords wove a web of steel. Bewildered and beset, it roared its frustration. It bled from a dozen cuts and the arrows, shaking its head in fury. Then Colath stung it sharply and it turned just enough for Elon.
If he’d misjudged, it would have had him but the opening was there. Elon sent his sword through it in a fatal strike and jumped back just as it grabbed for him. It bellowed, staggering backwards. Something in the doorway struck at it, in fury it grabbed for it and flung it at Elon. He ducked. A boggart, crushed by the ogre’s grip. The ogre staggered backwards through the doorway and kept going, its arms pin-wheeling as it fell.
It crashed to the ground outside with a force they felt in their feet.
As suddenly as the fight had begun, it stopped.
There was silence.
For a moment they stood still, waiting… Nothing.
Ailith tilted her head, stretched all her senses. Something? She couldn’t tell. The scratch on her arm stung and her shoulder hurt where she’d landed on it.
“Jalila,” Elon said, “Anything?”
Jalila shook her head.
He stepped to the door and flung an elf-light out to light what had once been the courtyard outside.
“Nothing,” she confirmed.
He took a quick look around the door. There was no movement outside. All was still.
Bodies of boggins, boggarts and firbolgs pierced with arrows littered the ground. Some were crushed beneath the ogre’s corpse. Looking at the numbers, Elon’s jaw set. They’d wanted to be very sure indeed. If he and the others had been in the open at their original camp, they wouldn’t have survived. So far from the borderlands, they hadn’t felt the need to take more cover.
Turning, he looked
around the room. There were dead boggins and boggarts in here as well. Jareth’s work. A firbolg. He’d seen Ailith go after it. She was quick.
He leaned against the doorway, peered out once more, extended his senses. Was there something? No.
Turning, he looked across the room.
“I think it’s over.”
Jareth sighed and settled to the floor, blowing out a breath of relief. “How long? An hour? I feel like I ran half the country again.”
Wiping his sword, Colath sheathed it. “Or something like it.”
Jalila unstrung her bow and walked toward the horses. “Anyone else want water?”
“Yes,” Colath and Jareth said, in chorus.
The tension and the fear drained away leaving Ailith feeling tired and stupefied. Her arm hurt and her shoulder ached. She rolled her head on her shoulders and then rolled her shoulders to take the rest of the tension out of them.
“Ailith?” Jalila said, looking back over her shoulder. “We have plenty. You must be parched from the ride and all of this.”
It startled her out of the lethargy. “Yes, please.”
“Here, Ailith,” Colath said, handing her a cloth. “Wipe your blade. The blood of some of these things can corrode even the finest steel. Toss it in a corner once you’re done, it’ll be of no use to anyone now.”
She smiled at him gratefully, wiped her blade and sheathed it.
Tossing a water-skin to Colath, Jalila took a long swallow before she handed it to Ailith.
Jareth looked at her.
“I owe you a debt,” he said.
Startled, she looked at him in bewilderment.
With a tip of his head, he indicated the firbolg. “If you hadn’t gotten that, it likely would have gotten me.”
“You ducked,” she said and took another sip of water before she handed the skin back to Jalila. “There’s also a fair pile of boggins and boggarts there. I think that makes us even.”
“No,” Elon said, “there’s still a debt. If you hadn’t warned us, this would have gone badly.”
Her face went still.
“No debt,” she said. “Were it not for Tolan and my father, it wouldn’t have happened at all. There’s no debt to right a wrong.”
The Coming Storm Page 16