Elven Nations - The Kinslayer Wars Part 33

"But enough of this talk," said Giarna, suddenly rough. He took her arm and pulled her to a chair, throwing her into it.

"My spies tell me that the Wildrunners prepare an attack. They will move on my headquarters here because they have learned of our plans to ambush the griffons."

Suzine looked at him dumbly.

"No doubt you know the route of march they will take when they come west. You will tell me. Be sure of this, you will tell me. I will simply move my ambush and consummate the victory that has eluded me for so long."

Fear pulsed hotly in Suzine's mind. She did know! Many nights she had been present during battle planning between Parnigar and Kith-Kanan. The other officers had ignored her, a.s.suming that she wasn't listening, but out of curiosity, she had paid attention and absorbed most of the details.

"The only question is" Giarna's voice was a deep ba.s.s warning"will you tell me now or afterward?"

Her mind focused with exceptional clarity. She heard the rain beating steadily against the wooden frame of the house. She thought of her children and her husband, and then she knew.

There was a wayan escape for her! But she had to act fast, before she had second thoughts.

Her bleeding fingers, still clutching the knife blade, jerked upward. Giarna saw the movement, an expression of mild annoyance flickering across his face. The crone already knew she couldn't harm him!

Him. In that instant, he recognized his mistake as the keen edge sliced through Suzine's own neck. A shower of bright blood exploded from the torn artery, covering the general as the old woman slumped to the ground at his feet.

One-Tooth plodded through yet another thunderstorm. His march, already an epic by hill giant standards, had taken him through the foothills of his beloved mountains and across hundreds of miles of flatlands.

How did people ever live around here? He wondered at a life without the comforting rocky heights. He felt vulnerable and naked on these open prairies of gra.s.s.

Of course, his journey was made easier by the fact that such inhabitants as he encountered fled in panic at his approach, giving him a free sampling of whatever food had been bubbling on the stove or whatever milk might be chilling in the damp cellar.

The giant still didn't know why he had embarked upon this quest or what his ultimate destination would be. But his feet swung easily below him, and the miles continued to fall behind. He felt young again, more spry than he had in decades.

And he was propelled by an inchoate sense of destiny. When his march ended, that was where his destiny would be found.

32.

One Week Later.

Rain lashed at the griffon and its rider, but the pair pressed on through the storm.

Though the day was hours old, the horizon around them remained twilit and dim, so heavy was the gray blanket of clouds. Arcuballis flew low, seeking a place to land, cringing still closer to the earth against sudden blasts of lightning that seemed to warn them from the sky.

Finally Kith-Kanan found itthe small house in the center of the farmstead, down the trail where the coachman had seen Suzine disappear. Parnigar had showed him the trail two miles back, but he had flown past the clearing twice. So closely entwined were the overhanging branches that he hadn't even noticed it.

The trailhead was more than two miles away, and she couldn't have walked much farther than this. Yet there seemed to be nothing else besides anonymous woods for several miles in all directions. This had to be the place.

Arcuballis dove quickly to earth, dropping like a stone between the limbs of the broad elms. The griffon landed in a crouch, and Kith's sword was in his hand.

The door to the small house stood partially open, slamming and banging against its frame as the wind gusts s.h.i.+fted direction. The yard around the house was churned to mud, mired by the hooves of countless horses. Blackened pits showed where great cook fires had burned, but now these were simply holes filled with sodden ash.

Cautiously Kith-Kanan dismounted and approached the house. He pushed the door fully open and saw that it consisted of one main room, and that room was now a sham

bles. Overturned tables, broken chairs, a pile of discarded uniforms, and a collection of miscellaneous debris all contributed to the disarray.

He began to pick through debris, kicking things with his boots and moving big pieces with his free hand, always holding his longsword at the ready. He found little of worth until, near the back corner, his persistence was rewarded.

A tingle of apprehension ran along his spine as he uncovered a wooden box he recognized instantly, for it was the one Suzine had used to store her mirror. Kneeling, he pulled it from beneath a moldy saddle blanket. He opened the top, and his reflection stared back at him. The mirror had remained intact.

Then as he looked, the image in the gla.s.s grew pale and wavery, and suddenly the picture became something else entirely.

He saw a black-cloaked human riding a dark horse, leading a column of men through the rain. The human army was on the march. He could recognize no landmarks, no signposts in the murky scene. But he knew that the humans were moving.

Obviously the planned ambush of the Windriders was suspected and now would have to be cancelled. But where did the humans march? Kith had a sickening flash of Sithelbec, practically defenseless since most of the garrison had marched into the field with the Wildrunners. Could General Giarna be that bold?

A more hideous thought occurred to him. Had Suzine betrayed him, revealing their battle plans to the human commander? Did the enemy march somewhere unknown to set up a new ambush? He couldn't bring himself to believe this, yet neither could he ignore the evidence that she had been here at the human command post.

Where was Suzine? In his heart, he knew the answer.

Grimly he mounted Arcuballis and took off. He made his way back to the east, toward the spearhead of his army, which he had ordered to march westward in an attempt

to catch the human army in its camp. Now he knew that he had to make new plansand quickly.

It took two days of searching before the proud griffon finally settled to earth, in a damp clearing where Kith had spotted the elven banner.

Here he found Parnigar and Vanesti and the rest of the Wildrunner headquarters.

This group marched with several dozen bodyguards, trying to remain in the approximate center of the far-flung regiments. Because of the weather, the march columns were separated even more than usual, so that the small company camped this night in relative isolation.

"They've broken camp," announced Parnigar, without preamble.

"I know. Their base camp is abandoned. Have you discovered where they've gone?"

Kith's worst fears were confirmed by Parnigar's answer. "East, it looks like. There are tracks leading in every direction, as always, but it looks like they all swing toward the east a mile or two out of the camps."

Again Kith-Kanan thought of the ungarrisoned fortress rising from the plains a hundred miles to the east.

"Can we attack?" asked Vanesti, unable to restrain himself any longer.

"You'll stay here!" barked Kith-Kanan. He turned to Parnigar. "In the morning we'll have to find them."

"What? And leave me here alone? In the middle of nowhere?" Vanesti was indignant.

"You're right," Kith conceded with a sigh. "You'll have to come. But you'll also have to do what I tell you!"

"Don't I always?" inquired the youth, grinning impishly.

General Giarna slouched in his saddle, aware of the tens of thousands of marching soldiers surrounding him. The Army of Ergoth crept like a monstrous snake to the east, toward Sithelbec. Outriders spread across a thirty-mile arc before them, seeking signs of the Wildrunners. Giarna wanted to meet his foe in open battle while the weather was unchanged, hoping that the storm would neutralize the elves' flying cavalry. The Windriders had made his life very difficult over the years, and it would please him to fight a battle where the griffons wouldn't be a factor.

Even in his wildest hopes, he hadn't reckoned on weather as dismal as this. A day earlier, a tornado had swept through the supply train, killing more than a thousand men and destroying two weeks' worth of provisions. Now many columns of his army blundered through the featureless landscape, lost. Every day a few more men were struck by lightning, crippled or killed instantly.

The general didn't know that, even as he marched to the east, the elven army trudged westward, some twenty-five miles to the north. The Wildrunners sought the encampment of the human army. Both forces blundered forward in disarray, pa.s.sing within striking range of each other, yet not knowing of their enemy's presence.

General Giarna looked to his left, to the north. There was something out there! He sensed it, though he saw nothing. His intuition informed him that the presence that drew him was many miles away.

"There!" he cried, suddenly raising a black-gloved hand and pointing to the north.

"We must strike northward! Now! With all haste!"

Some companies of his army heard the command. Ponderously, under the orders of their sergeants-major, they wheeled to the left, preparing to strike out toward the north, into the rain and the hailand, soon, the darkness. Others didn't get the word. The ultimate effect of the maneuver spread the army across twice as much country as Giarna

intended, opening huge gaps between the various brigades and adding chaos to an already muddled situation.

"Move, d.a.m.n you!" The general cried, his voice taut. Lightning flashed over his head, streaks of fire lancing across the sky. Thunder crashed around them, sounding as if the world was coming apart.

Still the great formations continued their excruciating advance as the weary humans endeavored to obey Giarna's hysterical commands.

He couldn't wait. The scent drew him on like a hound to its prey. He wheeled his horse, kicking sharp spurs into the black steed's flanks. Breaking away from the column of his army, he started toward the north ahead of his men.

Alone.

Warm winds surged across the chill waters of the Turbidus Ocean, south of Ergoth, collecting moisture and carrying it aloft until the water droplets loomed as monumental columns of black clouds, billowing higher until they confounded the eyes of earthbound observers by vanis.h.i.+ng into the limitless expanse of the sky.

Lightning flashed, beginning as an occasional explosion of brightness but increasing in fierceness and tempo until the clouds marched along to a staccato tempo, great sheets of hot fire slas.h.i.+ng through them in continuous volleys. The waters below trembled under the fury of the storm.

The winds swirled, propelled by the rising pressure of steam. Whirlwinds grew tighter, shaping into slender funnels, until a front of cyclones roared forward, tossing the ocean into a chaotic maelstrom of foam. Great waves rolled outward from the storm, propelled by las.h.i.+ng torrents of rain.

And then the storm pa.s.sed onto land.

The ma.s.s of clouds and power roared northward, skirting the Kharolis Mountains as it veered slightly toward the east. Before it lay the plains, hundreds of miles of flat, sodden country, already deluged by thunder and rain.

The new storm surged onto the flatlands, unleas.h.i.+ng its winds as if it knew that nothing could stand in its path.

A soaking Wildrunner limped through the brush, raising his hand to ward off the hail and wipe rain away from his face. Finally he broke into a clearing and saw the vague outlines of the command post. Finding it had been sheer luck. He was one of two dozen men who had been sent with the report, in the hopes that one of them would reach Kith- Kanan.

"The Army of Ergoth!" he gasped, stumbling into the small house that served as the general's headquarters. "It approaches from the south!"

"d.a.m.n!" Kith-Kanan instantly saw the terrible vulnerability of his army, stretched as it was into a long column marching east to west. Wherever the humans. .h.i.t him, he would be vulnerable.

"How far?" he asked quickly.

"Five miles, maybe less. I saw a company of hors.e.m.e.na thousand or so. I don't know how many other units are there."

"You did well to bring me the news immediately." Kith's mind whirled. "If Giarna is attacking us, he must have something in mind. Still, I can't believe he can execute an attack very wellnot in this weather."

"Attack them, uncle."

Kith turned to look at Vanesti. His fresh-faced nephew's eyes lit with enthusiasm.

His first battle loomed.

"Your suggestion has merit," he said, pausing for a moment. "It's one thing that the enemy would never suspect. His grasp of the battle won't be much greater than mine, if I'm on the offensive. And furthermore, I have no way to organize any kind of defense in this weather. Better to have the troops moving forward and catch the enemy off balance."

"I'll dispatch the scouts," Parnigar noted. "We'll inform every company that we can.

It won't be the whole army, you realize. There isn't enough time, and the weather is too treacherous."

"I know," Kith agreed. "The Windriders, for one, will have to stay on the ground."

He looked at Arcuballis. The great creature rested nearby, his head tucked under one wing to protect himself from the rain.

"I'll take Kijo and leave Arcuballis here." The prospect made him feel somehow crippled, but as the storm increased around him, he knew that flight would be too dangerous a tactic.

He could only hope that his enemy's attack would be equally haphazard. In this wish, he was rewarded, for even as the fight began, it moved out of the control of its commanders.

The two armies blundered through the rain. Each stretched along a front of several dozen miles, and great gaps existed in their formations. The Army of Ergoth lumbered north, and where its companies met elves, they fought them in confusing skirmishes. As often as not, they pa.s.sed right through the widely s.p.a.ced formations of the Wildrunner Army, continuing into the nameless distance of the plains.

The Wildrunners and their allies struck south. Like the humans, they encountered their enemy occasionally, and at other times met no resistance.

Skirmishes raged along the entire distance, between whatever units happened to meet each other in the chaos. Human hors.e.m.e.n rode against elven swords. Dwarven battle-axes chopped at Ergothian archers. Because of the noise and the darkness, a company might not know that its sister battalion fought for its life three hundred yards away, or that a band of enemy warriors had pa.s.sed across their front a bare five minutes earlier.

But it didn't matter. The real battle took shape in the clouds themselves.