"I would have been disappointed if the sight of me so could not hold you in place," Elbryan said playfully, and all tension was abruptly gone.
Pony wrapped the man in a hug then, and gave him a deep kiss. "Will you teach it to me?" she asked. "The dance, I mean."
Elbryan looked hard into her face. "It was a gift to me from the Touel'alfar," he explained. "A gift that I will, in turn, offer to you, but only with the blessings of the elves."
Pony was honored, and she moved to kiss Elbryan again, but a rustle at the side caught her attention.
Paulson moved out of the brush. "The caravan must've traveled half the night," he said, referring to a goblin supply train they had been watching, coming from the north. "We hit it today, or it makes Weedy Meadow."
"Are they still along the river?" asked Elbryan.
The big man nodded.
Elbryan looked at Pony, who understood her role; and without further bidding, she ran off to find Avelyn and gather together those warriors who had been put under her charge.
Elbryan closed his eyes and sent his thoughts into the forest, to Symphony
— the stallion grazing, as always these days, not so far away.
"Let us be off," the ranger then said to Paulson, "to prepare the battlefield as best suits us."
There was no high ground in the path of the caravan, except those hills surrounding Weedy Meadow, and that locale would be too close to the occupied village. Elbryan and his forces had to go out further to the north, had to intercept and destroy the caravan before any aid could come from the monsters already encamped in the area.
But there was no high ground, just thick woodlands, giving way to the brown and gray stones that lined the riverbank. At least the river would form a barrier to their enemies, the ranger thought, preventing an easy escape.
"Two groups coming," Bradwarden explained, catching up to Elbryan and the others as they determined their attack routes. "Small one in front, goblins mostly, but with a giant helping, cutting the trees and clearing the way."
"For wagons?" Elbryan asked, and he hoped that he was right.
"War engines," the centaur explained. "Two big contraptions, catapults, all set on wheels and pulled by three giants each."
"Too many," muttered Paulson, standing at Elbryan's side.
The ranger looked at the man, no coward certainly, and wasn't sure that he could disagree. Seven giants — at least — and a host of powries and goblins might indeed be more than the ranger and his band could handle.
"Well, we can hit at them anyway," Paulson offered a moment later. "But we best be ready to run off if the tide turns against us."
Elbryan looked at Bradwarden. "What of scouts?" he asked.
"Oh, they've plenty o' goblin rats running about the trees," the centaur replied, smiling widely as he lifted a twig to pick his teeth. "Two less, now,"
he said mischievously.
The ranger made a subtle movement, one that only Bradwarden caught, putting his finger up beside his ear, indicating a pointy ear, thus an elf.
The centaur nodded; the elves were in the area, and Elbryan was confident that he and his band would not have to worry much about any goblin scouts.
Pony came riding in then on a roan mare, one of several wild horses that would allow themselves to be ridden. Brother Avelyn came huffing and puffing behind her, the monk trotting along without complaint.
"The most important task before us is the destruction of the war engines,"
Elbryan decided. "For surely they will be put to deadly use against the towns to the south, even against the high walls of Palmaris."
The ranger paused for a while and considered all that he had heard. "How many in the front group?" he asked the centaur.
"Ah, a motley bunch," Bradwarden replied sourly, as if even speaking of the creatures left a foul taste in his mouth. "A dozen, I'd say, hacking at the trees, tearing at them, while the giant clears what's fallen. Ugly wretches.
I'll kill the lot of them, if ye want."
Elbryan almost believed that the centaur would do just that. "Can you handle a giant?" he asked.
Bradwarden snorted as if the very question were insulting.
The ranger turned to Pony. "Take ten and the centaur," he explained. "You must destroy that front group and quickly. The rest will come in with me to cut off the main caravan, right in between the groups."
"Facing six giants?" Paulson asked skeptically.
"Drawing their attention," the ranger explained, "long enough for Avelyn to burn the powrie catapults. After that, we can scatter as we must, but my hope is that many monsters will be dead in the wreckage."
"But they have scouts," Paulson argued. "They might be knowing we're about afore e'er we get near them."
"The scouts are all dead," Elbryan said firmly. Paulson, and many others, looked at him hard.
"Yer elfin friends?" the big man asked. "I'm not sure I'm liking that."
"Tell me that after the battle," Elbryan replied wryly, then to Pony he shouted, "Be off!"
Paulson sighed, accepting the ranger's word for it. He was surprised when Pony tapped him on the shoulder, indicating that she wanted him and Cric and Chipmunk to work with her group up front.
"We will come straight in. at them along the riverbank," Pony explained to Elbryan as she and the others moved away.
"And we hit from the side, through the trees," the ranger replied. He nodded at his beloved. He could feel that tingling excitement, prebattle, and he knew Pony felt it, too. Indeed, there was danger for him and for Pony, but this was their life, this was their destiny, and for all the' horror and all the fear, it was exciting.
Elbryan had to grit his teeth and let the front group of monsters move past his position, though with every hack of a goblin axe against one of the beautiful trees, the ranger wanted to rush out and cut the creature down.
The goblins and their giant escort moved along slowly but steadily, and soon after, Elbryan and his companions heard the rumble of the war engines, the grunts of the towing giants.
"Hold until they are right upon us," the ranger instructed, "then let fly your arrows and loose your spears. Aim for the giants only," the ranger quickly added. "They are the most dangerous. If we can bring a couple of them down with the first volley, our enemies will be at a sore disadvantage."
"And if we don't?" surly Tol Yuganick grumbled. "Are we to run in front of six giants to be squashed?"
"We hit at them as hard as we safely can," the ranger replied evenly, trying to keep his continuing frustration with the disagreeable man out of his voice, "and then, when we must, we flee. A single caravan is not worth risking many casualties."
"Easy for you," Tol snapped back, "up on that fast horse of yours. The rest of us are running, and I'm not thinking that many can outrun the likes of a giant!"
Elbryan glared at the man, wishing that Pony had taken him with her group, or even that Tol had been sent off to the east with the other refugees. Tol was a fierce fighter, but the amount of discord he caused made him a detraction, not an asset.
"Wait until they close," the ranger said again, addressing the whole group. "They think that they have scouts in place, and will be caught unawares.
Concentrate your missiles on the giants pulling the front catapult. Let us see what remains after the first volley."
He turned to Avelyn then. "How many will you need with you?"
The monk shook his head. "None," he replied. "Just keep their attention ahead of them, and I will get in behind! Stay back from the catapults, I warn you. I am feeling quite powerful this day!"
With that, the monk scrambled off into the brush, and Elbryan nearly laughed aloud watching him go, watching the light step that had come over Brother Avelyn Desbris. The monk had found peace within himself, ironically, in the midst of a war, a battle that Avelyn knew justified the actions that had weighed so heavily on him these last years.
Elbryan turned his attention back to the scene before him, ten yards of trees, followed by a few yards of cleared brush, a dozen feet of river stones, and then the river itself, waters rushing fast with the beginning of the spring melt. He heard the rumble of the war engines above that watery voice and discerned, by the alternating sounds, both sharp and muffled, that the caravan was moving right along the edge of the riverbank.
The ranger motioned to his companions, who started slinking from tree to tree, setting up their shots. Elbryan held his place, behind the tangled branches of two close hemlocks. He glanced about for the elves, and hoped that they were nearby. None in all the world could better concentrate their shots, and even a giant, the ranger knew from personal experience, could be brought down by the small arrows.
Up in front, one of the women signaled that the caravan was nearly upon them.
Elbryan fitted an arrow to Hawkwing and eyed his course. He contacted Symphony telepathically, and the horse nickered softly.
The first of the giants came into sight, bending low, pulling hard, a heavy harness strapped across its torso. Two others were close behind, in similar posture.
Elbryan felt the anxious gazes of his companions upon him, waiting for him to start it all. He was somewhat concerned that no sounds of battle came to him from further south, from the lead group, but he and his companions were committed, he knew, and would have to trust that Pony would not let the goblins and giant get behind them, cutting off any quick retreat.
The ranger let fly his first arrow even as he kicked his heels against Symphony's ribs and the horse leaped forward.
The lead giant grunted, more in surprise than in pain, when the bolt dove into tiffs shoulder, and then all the air about the monster and its two companions erupted as a dozen arrows and nearly that many spears came slicing in.
Elbryan fired again and again, scoring a hit each time as Symphony guided him to the open ground before the caravan. By the time he got there, the lead giant was down and dead, the other two were scrambling to get out of their encumbering harnesses, while a score of powries and twice that number of goblins were hooting and rushing about, grabbing for weapons or diving for cover.
Out came several of Elbryan's companions, right behind him, and all of them, and the ranger too, breathed a sigh of relief to finally hear the sound of battle behind them.
One of the powries stood tall on the first catapult, barking out commands.
The ranger's next shot laid the dwarf low.
Pony charged in hard, running her horse right across the lead line of goblins, her sword slashing hard across the face of one, then darting out to stick a second in the throat. This was the easy part, she knew, for she and her companions had caught the monsters by surprise, and diminutive goblins couldn't take a solid hit. Before the woman had even swung her sword, half the small creatures lay dead or squirming in agony on the ground.
But then there was the not so little matter of a fomorian giant.
Pony tugged hard on her mare's mane, turning the horse when she saw the behemoth moving to intercept. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the galloping charge of Bradwarden, the centaur singing at the top of his considerable voice, waving a huge cudgel as easily as if it were a tiny baton.
The giant braced as the centaur came in, but Bradwarden skidded short and leaped about, putting his tall closest to the monster. Thinking that the centaur had changed his mind and was trying to flee, the giant lunged for that tail, but Bradwarden's haunches came up high, the centaur kicking out with both his hind legs, hard hooves perfectly aligned with the stooping monster's ugly face.
The giant staggered backward, its legs buckling under it.
Singing wildly, the centaur charged in, bashing the monster about the head with his heavy club.
Then Pony rushed by, her sword slashing a line across the side of the giant's neck.
"Hey, but ye're stealing me fun!" the centaur protested, leaping about again and snapping off a second mighty double kick, this one connecting on the giant's massive chest and throwing the monster flat to the ground.
Bradwarden smiled, seeing Pony run down another goblin, seeing all the wretched creatures falling fast before the deadly group. And seeing, most of all, the giant, dazed and helpless, up on its elbows, its head lolling about.
Perfect height for an underhand swing.
The second giant went down before it ever got out of the harness. The third did get out, but Elbryan put an arrow into its eye, and half a dozen other arrows hit it in the neck and face.
It, too, slumped to the ground.
Of mote concern, though, were the powries, taking up their weapons, and the giants from the second catapult, out of their harnesses and with hardly a scratch on them.
"Hurry, Avelyn," Elbryan muttered under his breath. "Do not delay."
"Here comes Jilly! Flying fast!" one man cried, and Elbryan was truly glad for the timing and for the much-needed boost to his group's tentative morale.
The monstrous troop in the south had been overrun, so it seemed.
"Concentrate your shots on the giants!" the ranger bellowed, and then under his voice, he repeated, "Hurry, Avelyn."
Bradwarden galloped off to catch the woman and her fast-flying roan, but the centaur skidded to a stop, seeing Chipmunk teasing free a pair of daggers from a dead goblin, but with tears streaming down his face.
"It's Cric!" the man wailed. "Oh, my Cric!"
Bradwarden followed his gaze to a tumble of a pair of goblins and, unmistakably, a bald-headed human lying among them.
"He's dead!" the small nervous man declared.
"Where is yer third?" the centaur asked. "The big one?"
"Paulson's running up ahead," Chipmunk explained. "Says he'll kill every goblin, every powrie, every giant."