Elves: Rise of the TaiGethen (18 page)

Hynd shook his head and lowered his voice. ‘I don’t think our boys need to hear that, Captain Jeral.’

‘Anyone who decides to march the bulk of the army through this continent-sized mantrap deserves nothing but my scorn and the scorn of us all. Just ask your boss.’

‘You had a better idea, did you?’

Jeral gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah. Build. More. Barges.’

‘But think of the time that would take,’ said Hynd.

‘Think of the people who won’t be dead if we did,’ said Jeral. ‘Think of the final condition of those who actually make it to this mythical place, wherever the hell it is.’

‘Ystormun wants to send a message to the Sharps. Marching through their land is the best way to do it.’

‘No. Ystormun wants to wipe them out. There’s no point making a statement if the goal is to leave no one alive to take it on board. Waiting fifty days and using those massive stockpiles of timber to build troop transports would send a much better message. One that reads: we’re coming to slaughter the fucking lot of you and there’s nothing you can do about it. The way we’re going about it now, the message is: help yourself to rich human pickings because this column is totally indefensible.’

Hynd flapped his hands dismissively and stood up.

‘We are where we are,’ he said. ‘And I have a message to take to the people who are actually in charge.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Jeral. ‘What did he say anyway?’

Hynd smiled. ‘Well, among all the things I can tell you, there is one you’ll really enjoy. He said we aren’t making enough progress. We have to march faster and longer each day.’

Jeral felt his mouth hang open. ‘You have absolutely got to be joking.’

‘I never joke, Captain; you know that.’

Out in the forest, downstream somewhere, a man screamed. The sound carried clear above the hubbub of the camp. Alarm wards were triggered, sending sheets of light out into the forest. A heartbeat of silence along the column was broken by a concerted move to make ready for action. Weapons were drawn, mages began to prepare.

Jeral shot to his feet and ran down the river bank with Hynd right behind him.

‘Stand your ground!’ he yelled. ‘Stand!’

Jeral flew down the lines. The wards were going off in an arc about a hundred yards downstream and fifty yards into the forest, right in the middle of his section of the line.

‘Stay out of the forest. Remember your training.’

Jeral cursed under his breath and scratched at his face. He could feel his fear growing and the memories taunting him. Light flickered through the trees and sound wards blared out their flat tones, setting sleeping birds to flight and driving animals deeper into burrows or higher into the trees.

Jeral wished the wards were quieter. He wanted to know if they were up against TaiGethen or ClawBound. He ducked into the forest as a spell was cast ahead of him. A cold wave surged away into the trees, ice rattling against wood with a sound like breaking glass.

He could hear orders being barked. Someone was still screaming. And finally he heard the roar of a panther. Jeral’s legs wobbled and he stumbled. His stomach churned, his face felt hot and his hand sweated on his sword hilt. He could see lanterns and guard fires just ahead, shot through with the shadows of men and ClawBound.

Jeral pounded on, driving himself forward, refusing to give in to the fear. He raced around a banyan trunk and was struck by two hundred pounds of solid muscle. The wind was knocked from him and he was hurled back to sprawl through the leaf litter, fetching up face down in a slew of muddy sludge.

Jeral rolled over quickly, getting his sword in front of him, but all he could see was Hynd standing stock still, his back to a tree, staring towards the river. Jeral surged to his feet, gasping a breath into a bruised chest. The panther had not broken stride and was streaking towards the water’s edge. Jeral could see elves too, and other panthers, all taking the attack to the main column.

The screaming behind him hadn’t stopped. Guards ran past, chasing the ClawBound. The sound of the last alarm ward died away and Jeral looked to the screaming. Bodies lay around a fire. One man still stood, a mage by his clothes. He was rigid, his hands clenched by his sides.

Down towards the river, orders were hollered out. Jeral heard men come to ready. He heard the roar of many panthers and realised he didn’t have a choice. Not really.

‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘Hynd, see to him.’

Jeral turned and ran back towards the river, where he saw it all. ClawBound pairs exploded from the forest, hammering into his men. Panthers leapt. Jaws and claws ripped and raked, sowing confusion and panic. He saw a mage spin about and fall into the river, his face torn open. A warrior sliced the empty air with his sword as a panther leapt above it and clamped jaws about his skull, bearing him down.

But the elves weren’t with them. They were attacking to the left and right of the targeted units. This was no random attack to scare and kill. This had a defined purpose.

‘Target the elves! Stop them!’

Jeral leapt over a root, ran through some brush and burst from the forest. The body of a mage slapped into the ground in front of him. The panther snapped its jaws through his neck and turned to roar at Jeral.

Jeral slashed at it with his sword, simultaneously trying to slither backwards. His blade clipped an ear, slicing off the tip, and the panther howled, unaccustomed to a fight, and leapt away. Jeral tracked its path straight to an elf who had broken from the fighting to clamp a hand over his own ear.

In the midst of the fight, Jeral stared open-mouthed, just for a few moments. Swords flashed all around them. Men and ClawBound engaged in ferocious fighting. The army was closing in on both sides, and in the midst of it all the elf knelt by his panther and covered her wound with his hand. The pair of them touched heads then turned to stare straight at him. Then they moved, fast.

‘Oh no.’ Jeral cast about him. He was surrounded by fighting but there was no one close enough to help. ‘To me! I have incoming!’

Jeral couldn’t back away except into the forest, which offered nothing but a lonely death. The ClawBound pair streaked towards him. To his left, a mage cast. The invisible mana cone caught up two elves and hurled them back into the forest. The next instant, a panther roared as if in mortal pain. She pounced on the mage, her claws slashing great rents in his chest and her jaws ripping flesh from his shoulder.

The ClawBound pair was on him. Jeral held his sword in front of him, determined not to die a whimpering coward. But they did not attack. They moved apart and slowed, forcing him back. The elf barked like a wild dog and the elves and panthers pushed away in their attacking arc, forming a defensive line into which enslaved Sharps ran.

‘Cast!’ shouted Jeral. ‘One of you ca—’

The elf in front of him stepped in and cracked a punch against his chin. Jeral didn’t even see it coming until he was falling. He hit the ground and all he could hear was running feet. Belatedly a spell howled away, and he heard the death cry of a single elf and the agonised roars of panthers.

Jeral tried to get up. His head was swimming. Rough hands helped him back to his feet and someone pushed his sword into his hands. Men were running into the forest and Jeral went with them, groggy at first but then with increasing sureness. He ran towards the guard fires, coming to a stop by Hynd and calling to his men to end the pursuit. They were already chasing shadows.

‘Hynd,’ he said.

Hynd was with the stricken mage, who was still standing in the same position, staring at the forest. Men were filtering back past them. Some saw the mage and their eyes widened as they hurried past. Hynd gestured Jeral to him.

Jeral could see the blood before he saw the wounds, and when he looked at the poor mage could feel nothing but pity for him. Around the fire, the quickly slaughtered guards and other mages lay mercifully blind. Jeral understood the violence of their deaths, but he could not comprehend the cruelty that had been visited upon the sole survivor.

Jeral thought he recognised him as Pirian but could easily have been mistaken. The cuts, inflicted by panther and elf, began on his forehead. A long wound ran from temple to temple, described with clinical precision. Blood ran down into his eyebrows and over his face. His nose had been sliced along its length and the cut continued down and through his top lip.

Pirian’s cheeks each carried four ragged tears that ran from the sides of his nose all the way to his ears, both of which had been bitten half away. And finally, his neck had been sliced from the tip of his chin all the way to the top of his shirt. No single cut was deep enough to be fatal but every single one was designed to scar. Jeral touched his own facial wounds and blessed his relative good fortune.

Pirian himself was lost to shock. His eyes were seeking an end to his nightmare and his face was shrouded in his blood. But while his face and mind were wrecked, the rest of his body was wholly undamaged.

‘Can we move him?’ asked Jeral. ‘Have you tried?’

‘He’s totally rigid. I think we’ll have to carry him,’ said Hynd, his voice quiet. ‘Why have they done this? Why not just kill him?’

Jeral sighed, and another small door into the elven psyche opened for him. His fear and respect for them grew in equal measure.

‘It’s a message,’ he said. ‘By morning, everyone will know what has happened to him. Sooner or later, everyone will see him. The elves know we can’t kill him, or leave him behind, and so every day he will be there, the most chilling reminder of what is waiting for us out here.’

‘They came all this way just to do that? Deliver that message?’

‘Oh no,’ said Jeral. ‘This was just a sideshow. They’ve just freed about seventy Sharps. Didn’t bother killing as many of us as they could have, either. But they’ve weakened us nonetheless.’

‘What can we do about it?’

‘Build. More. Barges.’

Chapter 14

It was not until the next morning that Auum noticed something that he should have seen much sooner. He found Onelle, and after they had prayed together at the statue of Yniss, they walked towards the Hallows of Reclamation beyond the village.

‘Takaar has been here, hasn’t he?’ asked Auum.

Onelle nodded. ‘I’ve wanted to speak to you about it but Lysael’s news rather took over, didn’t it? And you needed more rest last night. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you be the one to bring it up.’

‘You have nothing to apologise for. He’s taken your orientation class, hasn’t he?’

Onelle put her head in her hands.

‘Auum, he was wild. He was unshaven, he stank like he’d run all the way from Ysundeneth without pause and he was weak from hunger and thirst. He should have collapsed but there was something in him, driving him on. He brought the Il-Aryn together, and he gave this extraordinary oration. It lasted for an hour, maybe more, and we all sat and listened though so much of what he said was little more than ravings; nonsensical mutterings. Half the time I wasn’t sure if he was talking to us or talking to his other self. I have never seen anything like it.’

Auum nodded. It sounded like a continuation of his meanderings outside the city a few days before.

‘He’d been talking to Garan,’ said Auum. ‘Something got so far inside him he couldn’t shake it. He’s descending fast, isn’t he?’

‘Is he? I don’t know, Auum.’

‘You’re going to explain that, I hope,’ said Auum. ‘Because from where I’m standing he’s a menace, pure and simple.’

Onelle sighed. ‘I know you and he don’t see eye to eye but I’ve spent a great deal of time with him during the years since his return. We’ve studied together, worked together and talked endlessly about the Il-Aryn and how best we can harness it for the good of us all.

‘He’s passionate to the point of zealousness and he’s given to flights of fancy, but more than that, he’s a genius. Don’t scoff, Auum, because you don’t know, you don’t see. He believes Ix is the rising god in our pantheon and that the Il-Aryn are the bedrock of our future.’

Auum’s heart missed a beat. ‘I see. The days of the Ynissul are over, are they?’

Onelle stopped and Auum was surprised to see the frustration in her expression.

‘No, Auum, you’re missing the point. Yniss will for ever be the father of us all, but we have to evolve. Man is here with his magic and we have to be able to fight fire with fire or we will fall. Magic has been awakened within us. In some threads it will remain dormant but in others it will burst into brilliant life and we have to be able to harness it. Ix is undeniably in the ascendant and you have to face that. Embrace it. Magic will be the salvation of the elven race.’

‘Really.’ Auum raised his eyebrows and gestured in the direction of the River Ix. ‘There are thousands of men in the forest right now and magic will not save us from them. Takaar would do much better to refine his fighting skills and join the TaiGethen. If we can repel them, then we can talk about where our future lies.’