Elves: Rise of the TaiGethen (36 page)

A concerted howl erupted from the minds of the five and Ystormun shrieked with the pain that blistered his psyche.

‘You delayed for too long before sending them out. Your love of the elves will be the undoing of us all.’ Aramun’s voice boomed around his skull. ‘We
need
those men.’

‘And you will have them,’ said Ystormun. ‘Surely your strength of arms is enough to hold off our enemies.’

‘Idiot!’ Pamun again. ‘If it were, then we would not be wasting our energies on you.’

‘Then I shall call off this attack and you shall have your precious men sooner. Unfortunately, that will mean handing Calaius back to the Sharps. Perhaps you consider that a small price to pay?’

‘Calaius can never be lost to us,’ said Weyamun.

‘Then let me do my job as you do yours. You assume our troubles are caused by my failure. I contend that they are due to yours. Perhaps you need me to help you with your tactics?’

The noise was unbearable yet Ystormun found some small satisfaction within it.

‘You gave me no choice,’ he said. ‘And now I am happy to return the favour. Do not trigger a conflict now. Direct your energies towards diplomacy for as long as you must.’

‘Fool,’ said Aramun. ‘We are not the ones who seek conflict. Others do and we may be powerless to stop them.’

‘Find a way,’ said Ystormun. ‘But if you fail, so be it. I will be the only one of us to survive, and I will remain strong here. I can live with that but can you die knowing it? This Communion is at an end.’

Ystormun broke the link before the battering could recommence. It was some hours before he began to worry that it had been so simple to do.

Auum led the TaiGethen into Katura as the afternoon began to wane. They spoke to no one, acknowledged no one and ran into the marketplace at Katura’s heart before they stopped, a growing crowd following them. It had been over fifty years since any of their calling had entered the city.

The market day had already ended. Such stalls as there were, were either covered or dragged to the side of the circle. Auum took in the malevolent feel of the city. Two- and three-storey buildings and temples surrounded them. Cobbled roads led off in six directions. Domes, spires and steep-angled roofs dominated the skyline.

The TaiGethen had gathered on the Yniss stone in the marketplace, the first laid in the new city and bordered by benches set among flower borders and blessed with messages from the priests of each god. But the flowers were dead and had not been replaced. The messages were covered with graffiti and had been defaced by weapons. The stone itself had been carved with the symbol of Tual.

Even the flagpole, which had once proudly displayed the symbols of every thread, was criss-crossed with insult and threat, promise and mindless muttering. It was bare of any flags and probably had been for decades.

During their run to the centre, Auum’s heart had fallen. His worst imaginings about Katura had been exceeded. The place stank. Rubbish and faeces clogged alleys and gutters. Many houses and businesses had been boarded up, vandalised or reduced to skeletons, their timbers stolen for other purposes.

Addicts had stared at them from the open windows and doors of run-down dwellings as well as the streets, where they lay, all their possessions lost or bartered away. Elves of every thread walked with their heads down or glanced at them with haunted expressions before their curiosity overcame suspicion.

Boltha and Methian had painted too rosy a picture for him. There was no harmony here; Katura was as good as dead.

Word of the TaiGethen’s arrival had fled through the streets and people were crowding in to see the spectacle. They filled all the spaces and pressed forward, eager to get a view of the elite warrior caste they had entrusted to keep them safe from man and to return them to their homes.

But a hundred and fifty years of waiting had lessened the awe in which the TaiGethen were held, and the first insult was followed by a barrage of others, the assembly emboldened by numbers and giving vent to their frustration.

‘Faleen, take your Tai and get to the hall of the Al-Arynaar. I want Pelyn. Illast, take your Tai and go with her. This place is dangerous. Take no chances. Trust no one. The rest of you, form a perimeter around the flagpole. This is an opportunity too good to pass up.’

Auum climbed the flagpole, his agility hushing the crowd. He used the silence to begin speaking.

‘People of Katura. My brothers and sisters. Hear me. I am Auum, Arch of the TaiGethen, and I need your help.’

The silence deepened. From his vantage point, Auum saw Faleen lead the way to the second ring, where the Al-Arynaar had built their hall, and he could see more elves hurrying to join the throng around him. He wondered who among them were the pure, and who were the fallen. They would announce themselves soon enough.

‘You failed us!’ shouted a voice.

Others took up the call. Auum waited for their anger to subside.

‘If that is what you believe, then I shall not seek to persuade you otherwise. Nevertheless the TaiGethen have fought every day to free our country. Our blood has kept the humans at bay to give you the chance to rebuild. It seems to me you have spurned that chance. The reek of edulis is stronger than that of timber here. Perhaps we were wrong to fight on. Perhaps the elven race is not worth saving.

‘But I have good news for you. For all those who believe the TaiGethen have failed them, I bring you the chance to show us how you could have done it better.’

Auum, his feet clamped around the flagpole and with one hand resting atop it, let his body swing around in a lazy circle. Every eye was on him, every ear waiting to hear what came next. A few insults rang out but were shushed.

‘Two human armies are heading here. The first will arrive in ten days’ time. Combined they field over four thousand soldiers and mages. Plenty enough they think to destroy this city and its entire people. Without the sixty TaiGethen, now reduced by a third, they would have arrived with almost two thousand more.’

Auum paused while the shock sank in. Katura should have been an eternal sanctuary. Those below Auum were the few who still worked for its good, or at least who had not succumbed to its drug-ridden underbelly. They had withstood a great deal while the city fell around them and now they faced losing everything.

‘Ten days is ample time in which to run and hide in the rainforest. If that is your desire then go, because I do not want cowards standing by me when the enemy pounds on the gates.

‘I am here to tell you to stand. To run would signal the end of elves. We would scatter ourselves through the forest to be picked off at their leisure. That is not how my story shall be written.

‘I am here to tell you to stand and fight. To fortify this city, to arm yourselves and to join me in the battle that will decide the fate of elves across our land. How much do you want to return to the lives you led before the humans came? How much do you want to see the elves prosper once more without the malign hand of man controlling us?

‘How much do you want to live?’

Auum watched while a furious babble broke out. Arguments rang back and forth, scuffles erupted. Some people pushed their way out of the crowd and hurried away to their houses, presumably to pack and run.

Auum waited, wondering if there would be any silence long enough for him to speak, to ask for what he wanted. Question upon question was being hurled at him. How had the humans found them? Did the TaiGethen lead them here? How could they defeat so great an army? Will the Apposans return? Is this why Takaar is here?

Auum started at the sound of that name. He scanned the crowd, searching for the one who had said it. In the sea of a thousand faces, it was an impossible task. He raised a hand, hoping for some quiet. He was granted enough for his purposes.

‘We will answer all your questions; I know you have many. But please, time is short and every moment of every day counts. All of you who desire to live, I need you. I need metal workers, architects, weapon-smiths, fletchers. I need anyone who has training with a blade or bow. I need builders and I need your priests. All of you, come to the hall of the Al-Arynaar at sundown.

‘Lastly, who spoke of Takaar?’ A nervous-looking Gyalan
iad
near the front raised her hand. ‘I would speak with you. Ulysan, see her inside the perimeter. The rest of you, please, stay in Katura to fight. We
can
win. No TaiGethen will leave here until the last elf has fallen. We believe. So must you. Go and pray for strength, and then bring me every skill and weapon you can.’

Auum shinned down the flagpole. The crowd moved forward on all sides, questions raining down on him. The TaiGethen shouted for them to disperse, reminding them all that there would be time enough at sundown. The
iad
was ushered into the ring and Auum sat with her on a bench while the crowd’s bluster began to break up and they slowly started to disperse. Some, though, stayed firmly put, determined to see everything that unfolded.

‘Thank you for speaking to me. I am Auum.’

The
iad
smiled. She was middle-aged. Lines of worry creased her forehead and grey flecked her hair. Her clothes were drab but clean and her face was proud.

‘I am Nerille.’

‘How long has Takaar been here?’

‘For two days. His arrival caused trouble with the Tualis, and he killed Calen, head of the thread gang. For that we are thankful. Every dead supplier of edulis is a good one.’

Auum had to smile. Even in Takaar’s madness, there remained a core that was good.

‘Where is he now? With the Gyalans? Or perhaps the Ixii?’

Nerille raised her eyebrows. ‘You know why he’s here, then. He says it is for the good of all elves. I presume he’s here to fight.’

‘I wish that were true,’ said Auum. ‘But he wants to take those he seeks away to train them as mages when they should remain here and hold blades. How many has he convinced?’

‘Quite a lot.’ Nerille shrugged. ‘Two hundred? I don’t really know. He speaks to them several times a day, urging them to bring more to the next meeting. They are captivated by him.’

‘Where does he speak?’

‘In the temple of Ix.’

Nerille pointed across the circle to the garishly painted temple, its single spire twisting up to the heavens and its founding timbers carved to resemble the roots of trees.

‘Thank you, Nerille, that is most helpful.’

She smiled. ‘Can we beat them, the enemy? I have a family,
ulas
of fighting age, though two of the three seem to have become devotees of Takaar. I will not risk them in grand failure.’

‘We will prevail,’ said Auum. ‘And if it makes you happier, I will stand by them and see them survive. We must save as many as we can. You are all that is left of the free elves.’

Nerille took his hands impulsively. ‘We will stay. We will fight.’

Auum kissed her cheeks then drew back, another question on his mind.

‘Is Pelyn still alive?’

Nerille sighed. ‘Yes, after a fashion. She fell under Calen’s spell and it is a spell not easily broken. She’s with Takaar now, what’s left of her.’

Auum stared at the temple. ‘She’s about to discover she has work to do.’

Chapter 28

As Auum marched into the temple of Ix, Pelyn was once again counting the time since her last smoke of nectar. Its absence burned through her mind and made mud of her bones. It shouted through every nerve and made each breath a quivering exertion of almost insurmountable magnitude.

Her nose could smell it, her teeth ground on its memory and her eyes fogged with images of it. She couldn’t escape the memory of smoke writhing in the air, the glorious feeling of the spirit washing through her body, the escape over the waters to the retreat of her mind, the feeling of others around her, at one with her body and loving her flesh so much that they clung to her always.

‘Need it,’ she muttered.

‘No, you don’t,’ whispered a voice.

Pelyn was startled. Takaar was in the middle of an oration. The temple was full of his acolytes hanging on his every word, devouring his promises and eager to taste the glory of the Il-Aryn. He was no better than Calen had been, busy peddling his own drug, his own promises. But Calen was dead and her route to edulis had gone because she was being chaperoned day and night. She’d only just remembered their names even though they were very old friends.

Pelyn hunched her shoulders and looked to the
ula
on her left. He was Tuali, strong and loyal, though if her memory served he hadn’t always been that way.

‘Tulan,’ she said. ‘You know I’ve broken the habit, don’t you? So one more won’t hurt. Just to say goodbye.’

‘I’m afraid we need you clean,’ said another voice, Ephram’s.

Both were Al-Arynaar and both were wearing their cloaks once again.