The Coming Storm (53 page)

It was as if her very resistance was a signal or a sign.

“Ah,” Tolan said, “speaking of your daughter! Join us.”

The first face she saw as she was drawn into that unspeakable room was her father’s, but the eyes were not her father’s eyes. They were cold, distant and empty, the eyes of a man without a soul. Her father’s face but slack in ways his had never been slack and harsh in ways it had never been harsh. In some ways now, he only somewhat resembled him and seemed to appear little like the father she’d known.

And Tolan, where was he?

From behind her. “You have been very bad. Very bad indeed.”

She turned, startled, although she shouldn’t have been.

Tolan, with his normal face and the trackers ranged behind him.

“I think,” Tolan said, “ you have been bad. I think you shall have to be punished.”

Each of the trackers held a set of chains. They swung them. The chains were stained with old blood, reddish-brown, they clanked and clattered unmusically as they dangled.

“Yes indeed, yes indeed. You must be punished and the punishment should fit the crime. You must all be punished, all of you. You’ve frustrated me too long. I will have them. I will make them pay. That one, that Elon, he thinks he’s so clever, so clever. He thinks he can best me! Me! Well, he won’t and you won’t. That wizard, those others. They all will pay, all of them. The longer you fight me the longer it will go on. I think so, yes I do. You inspire me, you do. I think your Elven friends have grown attached to you. They’ve spilled blood for you or so my friends tell me. So I think perhaps we’ll start with you. What will they think? How much will they struggle? Will they fight for you when they hear you scream? Will they offer their lives for yours? And you? Will you fight for them? Will you offer up your life for theirs? How entertaining. We’ve done that, you know, forced them to choose. To offer themselves to save another. And took them both anyway. Once we had one kill another to save him from the soul-eater.”

He waved a hand,  and the doors in the wall appeared.

I won’t see that
, she thought.

To her shock the doors slammed shut.

His eyes narrowed, anger flared. “Where is my mark, where is my mark? I left it there. Where is it? Gone! No matter, no matter. You think you can fight me, you think you can win? You can’t fight me. None of you can.”

 The doors flew open. The trackers were inside, laughing. Blood and chains, a knife, a blade, irons and fire.
On people she loved
.
NO
! The doors slammed shut.

“I will have them, you know,” Tolan said. “I will. I’ll have you. I will. You’ve all caused me difficulty, you think you can win but you only delay. I will have them and I will have you. I’ll chain them to the wall and make them watch what we do to you. I’ll chain you, battered, broken and bleeding and make you watch what we do. Slowly, so  you know and see the pain. They’ll watch as I put the soul-eater on you. They’ll watch as it bites into your soul and at that exquisite moment when you’re in thrall but still aware I’ll make you hurt them and you’ll make them bleed. So you’ll know what it is you do. So they’ll know you know. And then, one by one, you will put the soul-eaters on them. Which one will be first?”

The doors flew open, first one then another. She saw the trap, saw what he intended.

NO.

She reached for her swords and drew them, the blades flashed in the firelight. Alarm was in his eyes as he danced backward away from her. It gave her heart. The trackers leaped in front of him. Instead she struck the door and it shattered in a flash of light.

Awake.

The first light of dawn was in the sky, the thin light filled the room beyond the curtains of the bed as she scrambled out of it. Her heart pounded. She threw on her shift, her clothes. Her hands shook. Where? All the lights in her mind but the one she needed was close.

Down the hall, barely aware of the cold slate beneath her feet.

It was so quiet in the empty corridor but her mind clamored.

She knocked. “Elon.”

Elon hadn’t been asleep. Something had awakened him, some sense of something wrong.

The knock at the door wasn’t entirely unexpected, he quickly threw on his trews and went to the door.

Her face was pale, her blue eyes huge in her face.

 “Ailith? Another dream?”

 “The attack,” she said, “it comes today.”

His mouth tightened. “Come in, tell me.”

With a gesture Elon ushered her quickly into the room.

The look in his eyes, the concern, was gratifying but she wouldn’t have him worry so much about her.

She shook her head, smiled a little. “It wasn’t bad, Elon. I didn’t give him time this time.”

“You didn’t give him time?”

Tilting his head in question, he looked her in the eye.

“No,” she said, with satisfaction.

He smiled at the sound of it until her expression clouded.

“There is one thing, though, Elon. You said I should tell you all. I don’t think it’s only me he wants any more. Now it’s you as well. You and all of us. We’ve frustrated him too long, he said. He seeks not just me anymore but all of us. If he takes us, any of us, he threatened to make the others watch. They’ve done this before.”

In her mind’s eye doors opened and she saw blood and pain. Heard Tolan’s voice again, ‘Which one?’ and the trap he’d tried to set. Watching that vision, she saw the doors open again and beloved faces covered in blood. She closed her eyes and willed the images away.

Her smile faded. The anger Elon had first felt when he knew how Tolan had tormented her blossomed anew.

He kept his voice gentle but firm. “It won’t happen, Ailith. He won’t have any of us.”

Ailith looked into his dark eyes and nodded. It was enough.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she said, “I don’t think he knew I was there at first. He was talking to Geric. He suspects we’re here or close, so he’s moved the plan up.”

Knowing Ailith was here
?

“We don’t have much time, then,” he said as he tossed his shirt on over his head. “I’ll wake the others. You know where to find Aranoc?”

Ailith nodded. “I’ll find him.”

She raced down the hall but the image of Elon as he drew his shirt on stayed with her until she chased it out of her head. That didn’t bear thinking.

Stepping out onto the steps leading up to the hall she looked out across the valley in the pale early light and all other thoughts fled. Her heart seemed to stop. There was less time than they thought. Much less time.

The guardhouse and the guard quarters. A sentry had been posted.

“Wake Aranoc, wake him now.”

“Why?” he said.

“Turn around and look, you fool. That’s why. Get Aranoc, go, now.”

Obediently, the sentry turned, looked, gasped, and then he ran with Ailith on his heels. Charging through the doors of the Guard quarters, he disappeared inside.

In moments, Aranoc came out, throwing a shirt on over his trews.

“Ailith?”

She looked toward the gates. The view through them was clear.

He followed her gaze, caught his breath, turned to the guard and snapped, “Sound the alarm, go.”

The guard ran.

Ailith’s heart sank further, for the longer she looked the worse it was.

As Elon came out of the door he stopped, his gaze locked on the horizon and what awaited there.

Colath was a step behind him, Jareth and Jalila at his heels.

They all stopped, transfixed, as Ailith ran towards them with Aranoc behind her.

There was a sharp intake of breath, and then Elon said, “How many Guard? Did you get the Hunters and Woodsmen back?”

Aranoc shook his head, his expression grim and set.

“Most, not all. The ones I sent out for them haven’t returned either. Now I think I might know why. A hundred Guard, half that many Hunters and Woodsmen. We’ve had no wars, not with the mountains and Riverford to guard us. Westin didn’t think we needed more men. Half as many peacekeepers down in the town.”

The alarm bells began to ring, echoing through the city, a steady tolling.

“Send down to where the refugees are,” Elon said. “Find a man named Gwillim and have him gather his men. Empty the first level, pull everyone back to the second. Tell those in the second and third to gather their goods and move to the levels above them. Assemble as many men as you can, have them round up all the pitch, lamp oil and candles they can find. When they come, we must be prepared to put the first ring to the torch. Do it quickly.”

The outermost ring would be made up of the poorest and those with the most noisome trades, the tanners and such. Elon felt a twinge of sorrow for those folk, their lives already difficult, for they would lose now what little they had.

Aranoc’s face blanched at the thought but he couldn’t argue it.

He sent messengers and servants running to summon people and shouted orders at others as doors flew open behind them.

The King had taken time to dress before he stormed out of the main doors.

“Why are the alarm bells ringing? What is the meaning of this, Aranoc? Ailith? Aerilann, what are you doing here? What do you have to do with this?”

Elon inclined his head toward the horizon.

The early morning light had strengthened. Pale pink light stained the sky and illuminated the dark flood that drowned the bright green of the hills.

Westin paled.

“What is that?” he asked.

The gates opened and Gwillim and his people rode in.

He looked at them, gave Elon a  respectful nod and rueful look.

“Frying pan to fire. Remember when I said I wondered where the goblins and trolls were? I wish I hadn’t asked, now. I had some of my people up on the walls, to get to know the folks here, and just in case. One woke me as soon as he saw. I thought you might need me.”

Westin looked as if he might faint. “Goblins? Trolls?”

It was unlikely that in all his life he’d ever seen either up close, having left it instead for his Hunters. Many now dead.

With a shake of his head, Aranoc looked at Elon. “We won’t hold long, not against that. We can’t. I’ll put every able-bodied person on the walls but it won’t matter. There’s a garrison of the King’s Army on the other side of the Rift. If someone can make it through to them, bring them back, we might have a chance. Ailith knows the way.”

“The Rift?”

Aranoc pointed at the wall of mountain that cut across the valley end. From where they stood one could see that a narrow dark cleft split it.

Elon looked beyond the walls to the mass of goblins and trolls. How close and how fast? It would be very close and those who went must ride very fast.

He couldn’t go. It was clear from Westin’s demeanor and Aranoc’s deference that there was no leader here. Save him.

It was very close and it was Ailith who must risk it.

Nor could he risk all the others, he would need aid and allies here.

With a lift of her brow and a resigned sigh, Ailith looked at the dark shadow that spread across the horizon as well and accepted it. Merely the thought made her heart pound, though. It would be close, and risky.

“So, who goes with me?”

“Short straw,” Jareth said, gathering up a handful from the ground. The sweepings from the rushes laid down the day before.

Elon looked at Westin, who said nothing, merely stared in dread at the darkness that stained the horizon. The man was useless, in this he couldn’t lead. Someone had to.

He looked at the others, who looked back at him expectantly.

Aranoc took the straws, held them out.

“You won’t get them to come,” Westin said, suddenly. “They won’t come.”

Ailith gave him a steely-eyed stare. “They’ll come. Or I’ll know the reason why.”

Each drew a straw, Jalila, Jareth and Colath.

The short one was in Colath’s hand.

Elon’s true-friend, his aide and constant companion. These two. Nor could Elon deny but that Colath was the best to go. There was no one Elon would trust more than himself at Ailith’s back.

He would also need Jareth’s skill as a wizard and Jalila’s with a bow.

Colath looked at Elon, saw the look in his eyes and then looked at Ailith.

“Take the back way,” Aranoc said, “It’ll be faster.”

It was a terrible risk against certain disaster.

Colath and Ailith. Elon nodded. It was the only way.

“I know it,” Ailith said to Aranoc.

Ailith looked at Elon and saw the look in his eyes, as did Colath. There was nothing for it.

She gave him a quick nod in return, as did Colath, and then called for their horses. They mounted swiftly.

Clattering through the streets they dodged fleeing people with arms laden with their possessions as they rode.

“Why have they not come?” Colath asked.

It was the same question Aranoc asked Elon.

Looking out across the horizon at the numbers there, Elon said, “Anticipation. Whoever guides them they wants to build the fear. They want everyone looking out at them, at the numbers of them and they want them afraid.”

“It’s working,” Aranoc said, bitterly.

Ailith stopped at the third gate for a moment, to place her hand against the wall. With so many people running around no one would notice what she did. Colath looked a question at her as he felt a small brush of magic.

“If the wall begins to fall, I’ll know we don’t have much time,” she said.

Earth Magic, Dwarven magic. She was learning.

He looked at her in understanding as they both leaned into their horses, hooves clattering over the stone cobbles. They reached the outer gate. The guards looked at them in stunned horror.

“You’re not going out there?”

Colath looked at Ailith.

She looked at the guard. “We are. Once we’re through, bar it again and leave. If we don’t make it where we’re going, we won’t be coming back.”

The guard opened the gate.

As one, they set themselves, leaned into their horses and shot at a gallop from the gate.

High above, from the steps of the castle, Elon watched them go as they raced out of the shadow of the walls of the castle, both crouched low over their horses. It suddenly occurred to him he hadn’t told Colath that Ailith wasn’t fully settled into her magic yet. The magic that would protect her. An icy ball of fear settled around his heart. He willed them to go faster.

As if that had been the signal, there was a tremendous roar from those massed on the hillsides, the voices of hundreds of trolls and goblins. The flood crested and rolled toward them.

Two small figures raced across the plain.

A troop of trolls and goblins broke off from the main mass and rode to intercept.

Ailith saw them out of the corner of her eye. She looked at Colath. He nodded, he’d seen them, too.

The Rift appeared to be growing larger as they approached but the trolls drew closer as well. Both drew their bows, notched their arrows while keeping low in the saddle and urged their horses to go faster. What looked like a thin line in the cliff face became wider, yet barely wide enough for two horses to fit through together.