Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries Boxed Set (The Coming Storm) (21 page)

Smoke rose and billowed behind them.

“Elon,” he said. “The fields behind us are on fire.”

With no lightning to set it ablaze there could only be one cause.

Men.

They all knew what it meant and what it was.

Jareth let out a breath.

Looking back, Elon’s mouth tightened.

It was a tactic of men from days gone by. Not surprisingly it was one of the few things men still remembered and held from the past, to be used specifically against Elves. For a people who lived in and among the trees there could be no other more elemental enemy, no more intrinsic and atavistic fear but fire. The fire behind them was meant to cut off their retreat.

Which meant the enemy was before them and probably surrounding them. Again, the same tactics used in the past.

No single man could best an Elf sword to sword as Elves were far stronger, had more endurance and were trained with sword and bow from childhood.

Not all men sought peace, for reasons of their own, and some few of those fought it violently, if not always openly.

In an effort to stop the Agreement assassins had been sent after Elon many times during the years he had spent negotiating the truce between men, Elves and Dwarves, or when he worked on Daran’s behalf as envoy to the lesser Kings.

Daran High King was no diplomat. Elon was.

He was called eloquent, persuasive - and he was that, too. His integrity was legendary, his honor unquestioned.

To stop him men resorted to these old tactics, the old strategies from the days when men and Elves had been at war. They were taking no chances. This was one of their last chances to stop him. Few things could defeat an armed and prepared Elf. One was overwhelming numbers. Another was fire.

Surrounded, with fire at their back to cut off their retreat and no recourse, there was no choice left except to fight their way out, if they were to survive.

For a moment despair and shame threatened to overwhelm Jareth.

His people had done this. His.

At least the Dwarves talked, negotiated. Not his own folk. They could hate without reason, just because someone was different, or for greed, for what another had that they didn’t. Others for fear, not knowing what change might bring, believing the rumors, the stories and the lies, the fear-mongering that spread like the wildfire behind them - burning good grain, needed grain, destroying, not building.

Despair wouldn’t help them though, and so Jareth refused to give in to it. Not everyone felt that way. Some truly did want peace. He was one of them.

If they pushed him to it he would fight for it, too.

He reached for power even as Colath reached for his bow.

A bowstring twanged and an arrow shot toward Colath from out of the wheat.

With a flick of his fingers, Jareth sent a flash of mage fire to intercept it even as Colath got his bow strung and fired an arrow toward the thatch from where the arrow had emerged.

“Wizard,” someone shouted, “this isn’t your fight!”

“It is now,” Jareth called back. “You just made it mine.”

A dust cloud - riders - approached from the road ahead as dozens of men burst from cover in the fields around them, some bearing bows and firing as the rest ran toward them, waving their swords and shouting.

Elon reached for his bow even as Colath did and sensed Jareth raising power. The bow wasn’t his best weapon, Colath bested him there but he was still better than any of these. Sheer numbers though would do for them, though.

Obedient to the commands of their riders’ knees, the three horses spun on their heels to face outward, putting them back to back.

A flash of mage fire torched an arrow in flight with a precision Elon had to admire.

Jareth’s oath as a wizard prevented him from using magic against a man without it. Even the thought of turning mage fire on a man - having him roast alive - was enough to make his gorge rise. But there wasn’t anything in his oath that prevented him from using it against their weapons.

Meanwhile, Elon and Colath targeted the archers with the lethal accuracy for which Elves were known as the swordsmen closed on them.

Even so, arrows penetrated their defenses. Most fell harmlessly but not all. One creased Elon’s thigh, another Jareth’s arm… then one slipped past Jareth’s guard to catch Colath in the lower back.

The pain struck, hard and fierce, shared across the bond between Colath and Elon, the shock of it startling, the force of it catching Colath off balance and nearly driving him out of the saddle.

Fear shot through him.

On the ground? Even with his swords and uninjured he’d be more vulnerable there. Wounded, against these numbers…?

Empathetic pain flared through Elon and his heart wrenched as he turned his head, already reaching for Colath but Jareth was closer.

Instinctively, Jareth snatched at Colath’s shirt, keeping his friend in the saddle.

With his free hand he sent a burst of mage fire flaming in front of them to guard against another arrow.

Fear for Colath was piercing but the swordsmen were closing and Elon only had time for a quick glance, the sight of Jareth steadying Colath in the saddle a relief so great his vision blurred. Then Elon turned back to the fight, his bow claiming the last of the archers.

Slinging it over his back, he reached for his swords as the swordsmen burst onto the road - shedding wheat chaff as they charged.

Willing himself strength, Colath nodded thanks to Jareth and drew his swords despite the pain of the wound in his back, freeing Jareth to fight as well as he could.

Spinning his swords in his hands, Elon looked over the oncoming men and set heels to his horse.

He charged into them, Faer wheeled and spun beneath him, hooves lashing out. Colath came in behind him, matching him with only his shortsword in hand, the other clasped to the wound in his side. Blood stained his tunic and Elon’s jaw tightened fractionally in helpless fury at the sight.

None of it showed clearly or these then might have turned their focus on Colath as such men had in the past, using the true-friend and soul-bonds to wound and weaken both.

The on-coming riders were almost upon them. They were running out of time.

At Colath’s back, reduced to using his sword, Jareth hacked and cut, clearly no swordsman, yet still keeping both Colath’s and Elon’s back covered as well as he could, despite the risk to himself. The men they fought were too close for his magic.

Elon trusted Zo to keep Jareth where he could do the most good and faithful Zo did as required, kicking at anyone who came too close.

Which left Elon to do what he did very well.

It was a deadly and nearly hopeless dance of swords and horses, driving off their attackers.

Colath lashed out on each side desperately as warm blood drenched his side, soaking his trews. He and Jareth kept the swordsmen from flanking Elon, who fought like a cornered lion, slashing on every side, driving this one back with a kick, his sword cleaving the throat of another.

Even so, the riders crested the rise before the last of those around them fell.

But the last did fall.

Resolutely, Colath drew his bow, despite the wound in his back, despite the pain, training an arrow on those who approached even as Elon finished the last of those around them.

“Hold,” Elon called to those riders drawing near, “on the orders of Daran High King. You attack his Envoy.”

“Daran is a paper tiger,” one of the men shouted. “Who will tell him of what passed here when you’re dead?”

“Arlis of High Reaches?” Elon called, the man’s voice familiar from Daran’s Council. “Do you know what it is you do?”

One of the lesser Kingdoms to the North, High Reaches was one of the Kingdoms that crowded tiny Lothliann, its people straying across the Enclave’s borders time and again to take what wasn’t theirs.

Warily, the men pulled up just out of reach of Colath’s bowshot.

Jareth couldn’t imagine how much pain Colath was in, how much blood he lost with each moment he held his bow at full pull. It was as if he were poised there, a statue of an archer, unmoving, locked on those beyond.

He frantically searched for a solution, a way out for all of them that wouldn’t require him to violate his oath.

“More of my men are on their way, Aerilann,” Arlis said, leaning indolently on his saddle horn.

He looked at the dead scattered around their horses’ feet, at the blood staining Colath’s tunic.

And smiled.

“How long do you think you can hold out against us, Aerilann?” he asked.

Tall and spare, balding with only a fringe of grayish hair around his head, his face narrow, Arlis of the High Reaches was far from his own lands. He sat his saddle with the ease of many days spent in it. So far from his own lands he felt himself safe from censure for his actions. He cared little whether another took the blame so long as his own lands were secure, but he didn’t care to be called greedy for wanting some of Lothliann’s lush green lands. Few would seek to blame him for this so long as no one knew where he was this day.

 “Go back to your Enclave, Elf. Forget this Agreement. Don’t draw a line in the sand you don’t want to cross.”

It would serve him well if Elon did; having an Elf - especially this one - break the Agreement, which he would do if he gave up his mission.

Even if he would have, though, Elon couldn’t have. Foresight had spoken.

The first step on this path had already been taken, for him there was no turning back or turning away. Doing so would be the death of his people as men encroached more and more on their lands with nothing to hold them back and Elon knew it. The first act of backing down or backing away would only cede power and give credence to those who fought against him.

His people would suffer if men were allowed to spread unchecked, despoiling everything they touched.

They wouldn’t die easily but they would die and then the races of Elves and Dwarves would die as well. All for the greed and hate of men like this.

Arlis hated Elves, hated Elon’s gentle people with a passion Elon couldn’t understand.

He couldn’t allow a man like this to win, not if his people were to survive.

Now was their only chance for a peaceful resolution. Even if they had to fight for it, as ironic as that was.

Few would know of this solitary battle but it must be won if the elder races were to continue.

He looked to Colath, resolute.

Colath dared not take his eyes from those before him but he didn’t need to, it was there in the bond for Elon to know.

Elon could feel the pain in his old friend, deep and terrible, the waves of weakness that battered him that he wouldn’t show to these.

Although it pained him deeply, he knew Colath would fight until his last breath.

He looked to Jareth.

These were his folk, his people.

Meeting that look, Jareth nudged Zo a little closer to Elon, making his allegiance clear to Elon as well as to Arlis and his men.

“I would have peace, Elon,” Jareth said, quietly, “even if I have to fight and die to achieve it.”

He was more than aware of the irony of their position, too.

Elon met those deep brown eyes.

Jareth was no swordsman but he was strong and sure, determined.

It was no less than Elon expected, knowing Jareth as he did. As young as he was, Jareth knew Honor as most of his kind didn’t, he had courage and strength of purpose.

All right.

“We would as soon not fight, Arlis,” he said, “but if we must fight, we will.”

He spun his swords around his hands in a glittering arc.

A challenge, if Arlis chose to take it.

Behind them, the fire spread, closed. Flame now blossomed to each side of them, hemmed them in further. Their choices narrowed.

“Last chance. Go back to Aerilann,” Arlis said. “Forget this nonsense of borders…”