The drow shook her.
She couldn’t get to her longsword from this position. Frantically, she pulled her shortsword from its sheath at her hip and swung, hacking deep into the neck of the thing. The drow howled but didn’t release her. Her belt knife. Desperately she pulled it from its sheath and stuck it up under her shirt where the fabric was gathered in the thing’s claws, ripped upward and hoped she wouldn’t cut her own throat.
Jareth shouted. A drow had him. Colath hammered at the thing with his swords but it had its arms around the wizard, crushing him. There was a flash as Jareth clapped his hands over the thing’s ears. It released him, staggered backward and fell away into the chasm. Colath spun, swung and took off the head of the next. It collapsed.
So did Jareth, falling to his knees with his arms around his cracked ribs.
Colath took a stance in front of his friend to defend him.
The fabric of Ailith’s shirt parted, the sound drowned out by the drows.
Ailith dropped to her feet and rammed her shortsword deep into the drow’s belly as she dropped her belt knife and drew her longsword.
At its scream one of those who pressed Jalila howled, turned, and charged.
Spinning, Ailith put her weight into her swing and cut the thing in half.
The scream from that drow was a call, as one the others turned and charged across the clearing toward her.
A massive blow sent Jalila flying to crash into a tree. She hit hard and went still, sliding down the trunk. That drow yowled and rushed at Ailith as well.
More drows came, leaping or bounding across the gap.
Elon caught only a glimpse of Ailith, her sun-lightened hair beyond the mass of drows, just as she was buried beneath them.
Despite the tearing pain in his side, he ran, with Colath beside him.
Jalila and Jareth were both down as well, he saw from the corner of his eye.
Ailith saw the rush coming and tried to scramble away from Jalila lest she be trampled. The creatures followed. Then there was nothing but fighting and slashing before the mass of them hit her.
Pinned to the ground, her arms and legs held firmly in place, their claws scratched and scrabbled at her as she struggled and heaved to get them off.
A hard overhand blow from Elon and one went down as Colath stepped in and took another’s head off. A drow turned and swung but Elon stepped back and ran it through with his shortsword.
Under attack from the rear, the others turned to fight.
One of the drows had a handful of Ailith’s hair and used it to smash her head into the ground. Their weight crushed her, drove the air from her lungs. She twisted and fought, tried to get her head free, to get the weight off her chest. Wrenching her arm, she got her left hand free and swung, connecting enough that the drow drew back a little with a yowl. It was enough.
She drove her blade through the ribs of the one that leaned on her chest and pinned that leg. Drawing back she kicked, hard, as one collapsed and its dead weight fell against the arms and legs of those pinning her right side.
They toppled like dominos.
Pulling, feeling muscles and tendons scream, Ailith kicked with her free leg.
Unbalanced, another wobbled and she wrenched her right arm free, her hand clenched firmly around the hilt of her longsword and drew it across her body, sucking in her belly. It raked across two of them, made one yelp and another stagger backward.
Elon took that one’s head off.
From her knees she drove her longsword upward into the belly of one as Colath took the last.
To their astonishment they stared around at the sudden silence. It was over.
For a minute, they simply stood and looked at each other, dazed, amazed they’d survived the assault.
Elon let his sword droop then leaned on it wearily.
There was a hideous gash in his side.
The sight of the wound horrified her.
If he hadn’t been Elven, it would have crippled him.
As it was the pain had to be horrendous and yet he stood there, leaning on his sword.
Colath staggered and sank slowly to the ground, blood running down his chest from the jagged cuts there.
Beyond him, Jareth was huddled on hands and knees whooping and coughing as he tried to breathe around damaged ribs.
There was another, though, who fared even worse.
“Jalila!” Ailith said and ran to the fallen Elf.
The tall female Elf was breathing but not well. Her golden-brown skin was sallow. There was blood on the tree, from where her head had contacted it, marked where she had slid down its length. Sickened, frightened, Ailith glanced back at the others. Elon was bleeding badly, his hand to the tear in his side, trying to stem the flood. That terrible wound wrenched at her but Jalila… Her injuries were grievous.
Even Elves could die.
Everyone said she had magic, that’s what she’d been told. The lights in her mind were proof of it. Well, the light that was Jalila had grown dim. Not the way Ailith’s father’s had but dim all the same. She knelt next to her friend, her heart aching.
No. She was only trying to help. I should be able to do something. If I have magic I should be able to do something.
This was something she’d never done and yet she had to try.
Elon couldn’t, it was clear. There was that terrible wound in his side.
Her heart twisted. Jalila and the dimming light in her mind.
Ailith reached but for what she didn’t know.
Nothing happened, she couldn’t feel anything.
She leaned over, put her hand on the earth, on the ground. Took Jalila’s hand.
Please.
Something answered.
A surge of energy, a rush of power.
It flowed up through her hand, as if her fingers were roots. Energy poured into her and through her.
She was the channel.
There was a right Jalila and this one. Bones were broken and muscles were torn, blood flowed and then somehow they were coming back together again, knitting. It was like listening to music, a music she knew, one she remembered. Like the music she’d heard when she was sick. At first it was discordant and then it flowed in harmony once again.
Beneath her hand, Jalila gasped.
Her eyes opened, dark golden-brown, hazy at first but then clearing.
Sitting back, Ailith took her hand away. The music faded but harmony had been restored.
“The drows,” Jalila said, weakly and struggled to right herself.
Gently, Ailith pushed her back. “Gone. It’s all right. Stay there, I’ll be back.”
The bond, Colath thought, as pain echoed through him and looked at Elon.
Elon, with the rip in his side, his shirt torn, and blood.
The pain was terrible.
Elon hunched over his wound, trying to stay upright as he looked around to assess the damage to himself and the others. The wound in his side was severe, more so for the exertion. He knew that. If nothing else, he could feel it in the concern that came through the true-friend bond with Colath and by the look in his eyes.
“Let me,” Ailith said as she ducked under his arm to give him support.
Wrapping an arm around him, she held him up.
Startled, Elon glanced down as he sensed the flow of Healing magic.
There was a harmony to it, to her magic, almost a scent and a taste, like flowers, the soft aroma carried on a gentle breeze.
All unexpectedly, there was a Healer in their midst.
“Ailith…”
A rush of emotion raced through her, he could feel it through that connection.
“Let me do this,” she said. “Just please let me do this.”
He took a breath, the first without pain since the drow had struck him. “If it means so much.”
A smile, quick and bright. “It does, so hush.”
The energy was there, it ran through her in a torrent. It made her blood sing, her nerves hum.
“It seems,” she said, wonderingly and lightly, “I’ve learned more from you than swordplay. It’s only fair then to return the favor.”
The terrible pain eased. Elon felt his muscles knit, flesh close over the wound. Relief. In time, with enough time and with rest, it would have healed on its own but without a Healer it would have been days at least. Days they clearly didn’t have.
The pain faded but he was still weak. Blood loss, something no Healer could undo, what was gone couldn’t be replaced, the body had to do that on its own.
“Can you stand?” Ailith asked.
Elon nodded.
She let him go and he watched as she ran to Jareth, dropped to her knees beside the injured wizard.
Jareth was gasping, bent, braced on one arm, his forehead nearly on the ground as he tried to draw air into his lungs past the pain in his cracked ribs.
Bowing her head next to his, Elon could hear her, her voice soft and reassuring.
The pain in Jareth’s ribs was terrible, he could feel shattered bone scrape against shattered bone, a dozen jabs each time he breathed. Breathing came harder and harder. Then Ailith knelt beside him, laid a gentle hand on his back. Pain diminished as warmth flowed into him.
Carefully, she lifted his arm over her shoulder, helped him sit up so he could breathe easier. He let his head fall back as his breath came back to him.
“Ailith, can you Heal?” he asked on a gasp.
“It seems so,” she said, with a wry smile and a sigh.
Gently, she settled him into a more comfortable position against a tree.
“Rest for a moment.”
Colath. She’d so seldom seen him sit. It seemed Elves preferred to stand.
He waved her off. “Scratches, nothing more, Ailith. And tired.”
Still leaning on his sword against the weakness, Elon looked around at the mass of drow bodies on the ground around them. Movement deep in the ravine caught his eye as something crept out from the shadows beneath the trees. There was something down there among the trees. Another fed on the remains of a drow. It’s very wrongness drew the eye. He had only Colath’s description of the thing but it fit.
His blood chilled.
“Get the horses, Colath,” he said, softly.
At the sound of what they heard in his voice both Colath and Ailith followed his gaze.
“What is that!” she asked, horrified, her eyes widening.
“Manticore,” Colath said on a breath.
A whole pride of them.
The sides of the ravine were steep but not that steep, Elon saw. The deepest part was far below them but the sides were sloped somewhat and ragged. It wouldn’t keep those things there for long. There was other movement, as other creatures of the borderlands crept out from cover to feast. Kobolds, a number of them slinking out from beneath the bushes and rocks. Boggarts and boggins, all of the lesser creatures.
All around their party were the bodies of the drows they had killed, more carrion. Food for those below. Sooner or later they would come for it. They couldn’t stay here to recover.
Colath saw it, too, and Ailith.
Both moved swiftly to the horses.
It was an effort but Elon made it into the saddle. He was as weak as a kitten. Ailith might Heal but no one could replace blood he had lost.
Between them, Ailith and Colath got Jalila and Jareth mounted as well. Each of them took reins in hand. With so many horses and the riders so weak, it would be easier for them to lead them on foot.
“There is a place. It’s not far,” Ailith told them, “if you can hold on for a bit, there’ll be food and shelter soon. In a shelter proof against even manticores.”
“I didn’t ask, Ailith. What about you? Are you all right?” Elon asked.
Her clothing was in tatters and visible through the tatters were thin runnels of blood. There were more on her arms and legs.
She shrugged. “Bruises, some scratches, they will heal.”
There was something in her eyes, though, a haunted look.
“Ailith, what is it?”
“They had the chance to kill me. As they were so obviously trying to kill all of you. They didn’t. The first held me up like a trophy. The others held me down but didn’t harm me much. I think Tolan sent them to kill all of you but not me. I think he wants me back.”
“He shall not have you,” Colath said, firmly. “We beat him back this time and we will again.”
Glancing at the others, at their injuries, she answered, “Yes, but at what cost?”
His pale eyes settled on her. “At any cost. Knowing what we know of this Tolan, we’re honor bound to aid you. Were it not for the circumstances before, Elon wouldn’t have allowed you to return nor would any of us. It was difficult then, it would be impossible now.”
Elon, listening, said firmly, “At any cost. Hear me, Ailith. Colath has the right of it. At any cost.”
It had pained him to let her go then, there would be no repeat.
Looking back at him, she saw the determination in his dark eyes.
“For myself,” Colath said, “I owe you a life. My own. Had we been caught out that night as Tolan intended, we would none of us have survived.” He shook his head when she started to speak. “We wouldn’t have been here to stand with you if you hadn’t come. It does you credit that you won’t claim it but it’s there all the same. You fought bravely and well when you could have stood back. You could have warned us and fled. You didn’t. You stood beside us at risk of your own life. For that alone I would fight for you. Whatever else you may be, Otherling or not, for that I would fight beside you.”
He glanced at Elon for confirmation of what he felt through the bond then turned his eyes back to Ailith with a small smile.
“You hold a sword as if you were born to one. I would see the time when you match Elon stroke for stroke. But I’ll make you work hard to best me.”
She smiled. “I’ll never best you,” she said and both knew she didn’t mean in swordplay.
Ailith was true to her word.
It was a fairly large structure, made of stone to keep out all but a very determined ogre. Across one side were stalls for horses and a hayrick. On the other were bunks, the bedding rolled up and hung from the ceiling to air, and to keep rodents and vermin out. A large fireplace dominated one end of the building.
“What is this place?” Elon asked.
“Gwillim had it built, with my father’s consent. It’s a waystation for the Hunters and Woodsmen and for travelers in need. There are only three ways across the Gorge. The Bridge, the ford at the River and some twenty leagues up in the mountains there’s a trail that cuts through it at a shallower point. He lost three people who were stranded on this side by a storm. The Bridge is nearly impassable in winter, more so if there is ice. We found them in their travel shelters after the storm passed. It had been very cold.”
It wasn’t a pleasant memory, you could hear it in her voice.
“He wanted to be sure anyone in need would have a place to go in the future.”
Soon dried salted beef and vegetables had been made into a stew, with travel bread softened by the moisture added as dumplings.
Jalila and Jareth were soon asleep. Since Ailith had cooked, Colath had taken the chore of bedding the horses down.
The next time Ailith went by, Elon caught her hand and stopped her.
“What is wrong?” he said, quietly. “You’re uncharacteristically quiet and your smiles are in abeyance.”
She took a deep breath. “My head hurts. But more, Elon, I don’t like this. I can’t complain that I can Heal, nor say I wish I couldn’t. I… It frightens me, this magic.”
Relieved, he sighed. “Is that all?”
Narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously, she said, “What do you mean, is that all?”
&n
bsp; He gave her a level look back. “The headache is a reaction to using that power. You did too much when you aren’t used to it. As for the other? Being frightened of it isn’t wrong, Ailith. If you fear it, it’s because you fear misusing it. I would be more concerned if you weren’t.”
Some of the tension drained out of her. She gave him a small smile.
“Better,” he said. “Now, get some sleep.”
Colath came up behind her. “I’ll keep watch. The door is barred, so we’re safe enough for the night. You can take the second watch.”
“Are you certain?” Ailith asked.
“Yes,” he said, firmly. “Go to sleep, Ailith. Things will look better in the morning.”
Her head pounded. She smiled gratefully. “Well, if you’re that certain.”
Pointing, he raised an eyebrow.
Her smile became a grin before she went obediently to her bed.
He and Elon traded satisfied glances. That was more like it.
The truth was, the pain in her head was bad and Ailith was exhausted. She didn’t so much as fall asleep as it took her. Sleep. Rest. Oblivion claimed her.
For a time.
Darkness. Rough stone walls with mold that blotched them like a pox. Shadows slipped and swayed across the walls. Glimmers of light, like firelight dancing. Dark dripping walls. The sound of water. From out of it rose a voice. A so-even, sing-song voice.
No, Ailith thought. Denial. Shaking her head. No.
Firelight gleamed on dark and damp stone walls, walls that dripped but it wasn’t water now. It was blood as if the very walls themselves bled. There was even the coppery stench of it to breathe.
She caught her breath. No.
The iron door. No. The door. Light spilled out of it, flickering firelight. Please no. She fought it but she was drawn to it inexorably. No. Clawing at the walls, she tried to keep herself out. Fear turned her legs to water. No. The door. A figure stood by the wall, sandy-haired, nondescript, average height. No, oh no.
He turned as she spun to flee but the door slammed shut behind her.
Ailith turned back.
Tolan stood there, smiling at her. He had never smiled much and now she knew why. She also knew why his thin mouth always looked as if he were sucking lemons. Those teeth, pointing inward, were narrow and sharp.
The Coming Storm Page 29