The Coming Storm

by Valerie Douglas

  He nodded sharply.

  The guard at the door took his name and went inside and then came back to gesture them inside.

  By all appearances the garrison commander was a jolly fat man with many jowls and a jovial nature. His eyes didn’t match his appearance or manner, they were sharp and calculating.

  “Come in, come in, King Olend to what do I owe this visit so late in the day,” he said and gestured them to precede him into the office.

  His very joviality raised Ailith’s hackles, there was something that sounded false in it.

  With this many stars in her internal sky it was hard to differentiate but there seemed to be too many of them in his office. In that confined space their swords would be of limited use.

  Since this was supposed to be Olend’s visit, Ailith had stepped back to allow him to go first.

  Now she grabbed his arm and threw him back, shouting, “‘Ware, Jareth!”

  She drew her shortsword to parry the one the commander suddenly drew and swung at her as men burst out of the office at her cry. The corridor was too narrow to draw her longer sword, so she swung the shortsword in a quick slashes to drive them back, then Olend was next to her putting his shorter scimitar to good use beside hers.

  A mage-bolt went off behind her but didn’t flash past her.

  Jareth grunted as she spun to put Olend at her back and she at his.

  To her shock and horror Jareth was down but so was the woman beyond him. She, though, seemed only dazed, shaking her hands as if they stung while trying to bring them up. Having seen Jareth make that gesture many times, Ailith knew what was coming.

  Leaping forward, Ailith dodged sideways as the mage-bolt went past her. She bounced off the wall, pivoted and swung. The mage-bolt scorched her side a little before it punched through the men in the hall but the wizard now had no head.

  Turning quickly, she saw Olend dispatch the last of the men from the office.

  Jareth, however, was down and bleeding bad.

  “Warded against the mage-bolt,” he hissed between clenched teeth, “missed the knife.”

  It protruded from his chest, buried to the hilt. He coughed, winced and there was blood on his lips. His lung was damaged, at the very least. Without even thinking about it, Ailith had her hands around the knife, trying to assess the damage.

  “Ailith,” he whispered, warningly.

  Very few wizards Healed, it wasn’t a talent that came naturally to men. Some Lore Masters did and many Elves.

  If she Healed him she would give herself away but if she didn’t he would die. That much, she knew.

  Elon trusted Olend. She glanced at him as he knelt down next to Jareth to prop him up on his knee, making it easier for Jareth to breath.

  “Can you keep a secret?” she asked, looking Olend in the eye.

  Jareth shook his head, “Ailith, don’t.”

  He knew what the penalty was if someone found out what she truly was. At the very least, the Dwarves would behead her.

  “If I don’t you’ll die,” she said, sharply. “I won’t lose you, too, Jareth. I’ve lost enough.”

  Olend’s black eyes studied her. “No one will know from me, Ailith but my wife. I keep no secrets from her.”

  There was no choice and no time.

  “All right,” she said.

  Ailith pulled the knife quickly, placed her hands around the wound and found the harmony that was her friend, Jareth. The one that cared so much about her and Elon that he’d asked difficult questions. That had been hard. On both of them. He was the one who had stood beside her, fought beside her and feared for her enough to risk dying to keep her secret. She wasn’t going to lose him.

  Finding that harmony, she set about restoring it again, felt damaged tissues rejoin and muscles knit again. In moments the wound was closed.

  Her hands were covered in blood. She looked at Olend.

  “You can Heal,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Taran the Otherling,” he said, after a moment, “came from Marakis. We here know the histories, all of them and are quite proud of him but I know why you don’t speak of it. I won’t either.”

  “Thank you. Can you check the Commander’s office for any more surprises? His quarters as well, they should be through there.”

  He nodded and moved quietly away.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Jareth whispered.

  “It’s already done,” she said, with a small smile. “I can’t take it back.”

  Jareth’s eyes closed.

  Olend helped carry him back into the commanders quarters and laid him on the bed. He looked at Ailith.

  “I swear this, I won’t speak of it.”

  She smiled wryly. “I believed you when you said it the first time. We have a command to take. There’s the chance there will be a snake, a turncoat, and we’ll have to find him. They learn from their mistakes, they’ll have insurance this time. Let me show you a thing.”

  Drawing back the dead commander’s shirt back she showed him the charm quickly and then covered it again.

  “It’s called a soul-eater. It kills a man’s soul and puts him in thrall to the wizard. We’ve seen them before. We’ll leave the bodies in the desert and drop these down the well before we leave.”

  The troop leaders apparently already knew the snake in their midst. When Ailith announced the change in command, one of them killed him for her.

  So far in the desert, any who had wished to escape the commander or his wizard would have had to leave under cover of darkness, risking the creatures of the desert and almost certain death so far from water. Even if they survived the night, they then faced the heat of the day. An attempt at a mutiny had cost several their lives. Some had died unpleasantly at the hands of the wizard. They weren’t happy people and more than willing to find their own justice.

  By morning Jareth was still weak but well enough to ride. Ailith sent the garrison under the command of one of Olend’s troop leaders to Marakis.

  “If I were the one who was doing this and there were two garrisons between me and success, I would take both if I could,” Ailith said, as they rode up to the gate. “We’ll go in fast and sort the innocent from the guilty after.”

  Olend nodded.

  “Jareth, are you up to this?”

  He looked a little pale and tired but he nodded, shaking his sleeves back from his hands.

  Two snakes and a wizard later the garrison was theirs.

  On the way back to Marakis she felt a familiar quiver in the bond and then saw Chai in the stables.

  Colath found she and Jareth in the hall on their way to find him. They clasped arms and for a moment simply looked at each other.

  Jareth said dryly, smiling. “It’s only been days.”

  “For true-friends, too long,” Colath said, surprising them both by naming her as such openly even as he reached for Jareth's arm to grasp it tightly. “Ala, again, old friend.”

  “Ala, to you as well, Colath, it’s good to see you,” Jareth said, returning the gesture, fiercely. It was good to see him.

  Turning to Ailith, Colath asked, “The garrisons are secured?”

  “The garrisons are secured. Both commanders had been suborned. They’re dead and the soul eaters are down the wells where they can do no harm. It was the only thing I could think of to do with them.”

  He looked at her with worry in his eyes. “If both were taken then Mornith is taking no chances. He’s coming through here.”

  Nodding grimly, Ailith said, “There’s still time, I think. Olend’s Hunters and Men of the Desert are out looking. We’ll know when it comes. I sent a messenger to Elon to let him know.”

  Elon was in his tent when the messenger arrived, a Hunter on an Elven-bred horse.

  “Ailith said to tell you the garrisons have been taken. She said to also tell you she met two Tolans but that Colath has arrived with the Elves. The Hunters scout the desert. No sign yet. All is well.”

  It was good to kn
ow Colath was there now as well, although he missed Colath’s presence at his side acutely. And Ailith’s.

  The information about the ‘Tolans’ sent a rush of concern through him but she and Jareth had obviously faced and defeated them.

  He wished he could say the same.

  Ailith’s example hadn’t been duplicated after her departure. The army moved too slowly no matter how much he tried to urge them faster. As he’d feared Daran had begun to have second thoughts about an attack from the south, largely due to his generals and commanders. Even though he’d been right about the first attack. His one voice had been drowned out. Daran was too political an animal to risk the displeasure of so many.

  If the garrison commanders had been suborned then the chance was good that Mornith was indeed coming through there.

  After the messenger had had a good meal, he sent him back on a fresh horse with an urgent message for Ailith and Olend, and a less urgent one for Ailith and Colath with greetings as well to Jareth.

  Standing in the darkness, arms crossed, he watched the rider go.

  Ailith dismissed the messenger and leaned over the rail of the second floor veranda to look down into the garden below where Colath stood talking with Jareth and Olend.

  "We have orders of a kind from Elon, Colath.”

  “Of a kind?” he asked raising an eyebrow.

  “Olend, we need to send Elon a messenger as soon as something is seen. Regular reports if we can. The High King’s army has slowed, his generals doubt, they don’t fear an attack. Since he can’t prove to Daran that some have been suborned, he can’t explain about the garrison commanders. There’s no urgency.”

  “That’s not ‘of a kind’,” Colath said, with a lift of his eyebrow.

  She smiled. “That was the first part, this is the last. He said to do the forms.”

  His eyes lightened. “Have you your swords?”

  She held them over the railing for him to see.

  The garden was empty as it often was at this time of day.

  They began with grace and precision, their swords swooped and slid through the air in perfect unison. Although Elon wasn’t there in body, he was there in presence. Each movement was known to and by the other, neither rushed nor rushing.

  There was a small audience on the veranda, Olend, Itan and Jareth smoking his pipe.

  “It’s beautiful to watch,” Itan said, quietly. “Soothing.”

  Jareth said, “I haven’t tired of it yet. There’s something about watching it that eases mind and soul. It makes me wish sometimes I was better with a sword. You should watch when Elon is there, then it’s magical. When they spar, though, it’s astounding. One sword to another around, then around to the next. There’s a rhythm to it.”

  He sighed.

  Many miles away, Elon felt it through the bond as he sat alone in his tent mentally reviewing the reports he’d received.

  It came as a warmth, a joining as it flowed through the bond. Stretched out on his cot, he saw himself there, pacing through the forms with all their grace and precision. In his mind he stood beside two of those closest to him, their swords in rhythm with his own.

  When they sparred, their swords ringing, Elon could almost hear the distant chime, the music it made.

  Ailith could feel him, could almost see Elon there and knew by the warmth in his gaze that Colath felt it, too.

  After a while, it slowed and they stopped.

  The watchers above stepped quietly away.

  That night, as every night, Ailith searched through the stars in her internal sky and found her bright ones, the ones that mattered, the ones who weren’t with them.

  Jalila, surrounded by Elves, was on her way.

  And the other.

  Half asleep, almost dreaming, she pictured Elon stretched out on his cot in his tent, his dark eyes closed, his stern face relaxed in sleep and wished she could be there. She couldn’t think about that, though now and then she caught herself remembering the smooth warm feel of his skin when he’d held her.

  A light, a life-light went out very close to him. Alarm shot through her.

  It was too close.

  That was wrong, something was wrong. Her heart leaped in fear even as she reached for the bond between them and pulled. Hard.

  The pull and Ailith’s alarm through the bond had Elon off his cot and rolling for his swords when the figure came through the tent flap and put a sword through his cot. He came to his feet quickly, his own swords in hand and much more effective.

  He stood for a moment quietly, listening to the night. Extended his senses.

  Nothing.

  Whoever the man had been, he’d been alone.

  He tipped his head a little to see his face. It wasn’t familiar.

  The speed with which the man had moved said tracker, the warning from Ailith giving Elon the edge of surprise, rather surprised himself by the sudden attack.

  He looked out at the stars, the Loom low on the horizon.

  Have you been watching over me, Ailith? Every night? he wondered.

  Sensing both her alarm and the pull through the bond, Colath ran into Ailith’s room, a question in his eyes.

  “He’s safe, he’s fine,” Ailith said.

  “You were watching?” he asked.

  “Always,” she said. “Over you when you were gone , Elon and Jalila now, always.”

  It was a good thing to know and oddly comforting. Knowing, too, that one true-friend watched over the other.

  Colath allowed himself a small smile, then he sobered.

  “What happened?”

  “An assassin, Colath,” she said, softly. “I’m fairly certain.”

  Colath went still as their eyes met in mutual worry.

  An assassin. Elon was there among the armies alone with no one to watch his back.

  So far away. There was nothing either of them could do.

  The first report came the next day.

  Ailith and Colath were honing their swords, Jareth mending a tear in his shirt.

  “There’s something,” Talik said, coming in at a run, “in the distance. At first we thought it a sandstorm. It’s not.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  A tower of rocks reached up where once a mountain had stood, scoured down by the ceaseless blowing of the sand. It now looked out over the deep desert, a seemingly endless expanse of rolling dunes and barren wasteland that stretched as far as the eye could see. In the distance a shadow spread across the sand and a darkness rose behind it to blot out the sun, the dust and sand stirred by what passed over it.

  Talik looked at them grimly.

  “That is very large,” he said, “and it’s not a sandstorm.”

  It wasn’t a sandstorm. It was difficult to see details but it was enough to see something that reflected, the occasional glint or glitter of steel.

  Looking at the size of it, she turned to Olend. His jaw was tight, his expression grim. Her eyes went to Colath, who took a breath and nodded.

  It had come.

  Against those numbers they couldn’t possibly hold the city.

  Colath looked at the two Elves that had come with them. For this men wouldn’t do, Elven speed, strength and endurance were required. They nodded and were gone. To Elon, to tell him it had begun.

  “How far out can you go,” Ailith asked Talik, “to harass them?”

  “Not that far, not yet.”

  She looked to Olend. “What can we do to slow them before they get here?”

  “Pray for a sandstorm, dig pits in the sand.”

  Ailith had her doubts about the prayer but she did it anyway. She put the garrisons to work digging pits in the sand.

  A sandstorm did hit, far out in the deep desert, they watched it pass in the far distance from the walls of Marakis. Ailith shook her head at the very idea that prayers had helped and hoped it had gone deep enough in the desert.

  The garrisons weren’t happy with the work, it was hot, hard, backbreaking labor but they couldn’t compl
ain much when she stood beside them and helped dig, as did Jareth, Colath and the Elves.

  Each pit was staggered in relation to the others across the center of a break in the bony divide that marked the division between the desert and the deep desert, where the main advance would have to come. Each morning they dug the pits, each evening, the Elves, Hunters, Woodsmen and Men of the Desert drilled around them and each other so that everyone knew where they were and could avoid them as they came and went.

  The next day when the enemy was closer another set of messengers was sent, to be certain the first wasn’t overlooked.

  When the approaching army was close enough to see details they sent another messenger and the harassment began. The orders to those who went were clear, get close enough for a bowshot, fire and run, no chances and no heroes. Observe, report and return. Dead people couldn’t fight.

  Trolls and goblins were at the fore, or so they reported when they returned from the first run.

  Ailith was tired of both.

  Where was Mornith getting them all? They must have been breeding up in the mountains like flies. According to the reports some were mounted on hellhounds, some on mandrakes. Surprisingly, they were marching in very much like military order, those creatures who weren’t much known for it.

  It wasn’t that they weren’t intelligent, some were, although not in a way that Men, Elves or Dwarves understood or measured, but many were canny.

  Every once in a while back in Riverford they’d had a troll or a goblin come along who was brighter or a better leader who would organize raids into their Kingdom. Then Gwillim would take his people up into the mountains and chase them back again. It never lasted long. While both creatures were a bit less intelligent than men, they were obstreperous by nature, greedy and easily distracted.

  That memory of Gwillim pained her, she missed him intently and wished he was there. She missed his flattery but she missed his honesty more. Friend and advisor, he’d always told her the truth.

  Unable to be still she rode out again, to look and to see for herself, to check over the ground she’d chosen for her people. Most of those of the garrisons now knew her personally as she’d made it a point to try to meet each of them. They were her people now.