The Coming Storm (84 page)

Ailith was warm and comfortable and it felt very good but there was an odd sense of rising and falling. She opened her eyes slowly. Blinked.

Elon.

She was curled in his lap. His dark eyes were closed. Sleeping. For a moment she couldn’t think, she simply absorbed the feel of him, breathed in the scent of him, felt the rhythm of his breathing. Beneath her ear she could hear the strong, steady beat of his heart as she lay her head against his chest.

For a time she simply looked at him, absorbed as she memorized the strong lines of his face, from his broad forehead to his dark arched brows and the firm line of his mouth.

Her eyes shifted to Colath. He slept with his head resting against the back of the chair, his legs on the bed. One foot touched hers. He’d needed the contact, as had she.

True-friend, there was a deep bond there, too.

Ailith looked up again as Elon’s breathing changed.

His dark eyes opened and he looked back at her.

She smiled.

Elon didn’t move, for the moment content to stay as he was, not thinking, only looking.

Alive. Feeling Ailith, her weight light in his lap.

In the chair by the bed, Colath still slept.

It was enough for the moment. They were together and they were all safe. Soon it would begin again. The war and the fighting, the worry and the fear. They wouldn’t have this moment of fragile peace again soon.

Laying her head back on Elon’s shoulder, Ailith simply listened to his heart beat.

It grew steadily lighter outside. Elon couldn’t ignore it as much as he wished to do so.

Nor could Colath, who woke.

Ailith looked up again to meet Elon’s dark, concerned eyes.

“What happened?” Elon asked, quietly.

She shook her head in disgust at herself. “It was foolish. I thought the city was empty. I forgot to look after myself. I’m sorry, Elon.”

His chest moved beneath her ear, a laugh at her apology, that she felt the need to do so.

“No need.”

That was rare, to feel him, Elon, Elf that he was, laugh.

“You couldn’t have known,” Colath said, reasonably. “The city was supposed to be empty. Jareth said they were men from the garrison. One of them was a wizard.”

“Mornith,” she said, shaking her head, “always something hidden. How did we miss him?”

Colath said, “That’s what Jareth wanted to know.”

“What did they want?” Elon asked.

“The battle plans and my magic,” she said. “They didn’t get either. Thanks to you.”

Elon allowed himself a smile. “You didn’t go easily, either. It seemed only fair, though, to return the favor you did us.”

She smiled back.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Stretching elaborately, she said, “Well enough, a little weak.”

A little reluctantly, Elon said, “We should go.”

“I know,” Ailith said, softly.

Duty called, and not just Elon and Colath.

Ailith sighed, she didn’t want to move but she knew she must.

She felt a pang and something through the bond as Elon lifted her off his lap and the bed, steadied her when she wobbled.

Looking down at the wreck of her clothing, she said, “I think a bath and a change are in order. I’ll be along shortly.”

She would need the time to gather herself again as well.

Elon watched her walk into the bathing room and sighed. He looked to Colath.

“We should join the others.”

Reluctantly, Colath nodded.

There was no time left.

As Ailith walked into the room where they breakfasted, she heard Itan ask, “What was that last night?”

“The Door to the South. The one who directs this,” Elon said. “The enemy.”

“Who is he?” Itan asked, frowning.

Shaking his head, Elon said, “That  we don’t yet know.”

“What did he want with Ailith?” Olend asked.

“The battle plans,” Ailith said, in answer as she joined them.

She thanked and nodded to the servant who offered her a plate of food. A good thing, she was ravenous.

“He didn’t get them, although he was persistent in asking.”

There was a glint in Elon’s eyes.

Elon caught her glance.

They had been very persistent. As much as his people preferred to avoid killing, if he could have killed them again, he would have.

No one seemed to feel much like eating but everyone did. When they might get the chance to do it again was questionable.

Finally, they went up on the walls to watch. Reports had been coming in all morning from those who harried Mornith’s forces out in the desert but now the time had come for the battle to begin in earnest.

A dark cloud spread across the eastern sky. It was not a true sandstorm either, instead it was the sand disturbed by the passage of many feet. It presaged a storm of a far different kind.

The enemy stretched beneath that cloud, adarker shadow across the horizon, a mass that sparked with the glitter of metal like flashes of lightning. As they drew closer, a sound grew, swelled, an endless rolling thunder.

A light burst high above their heads at Ailith’s nod, Jareth sending a mage-light soaring in signal.

Elon summoned a messenger.

He nodded his head at the oncoming enemy. At the numbers of them. He glanced briefly and apologetically at Olend and Itan for what he was about to say.

Both looked at him steadily, Itan slipping her hand into that of her husband. Their people were gone. If they survived, they would rebuild.

“Tell the High King what you see here,” Elon said to the messenger. “Tell him Marakis cannot hold, the city will fall, and soon.”

His face and eyes grim, the Hunter nodded. Elon sent him off with an Elven escort to be sure he arrived safely.

As they watched, the bands of Elves, Hunters, Woodsmen and Men of the Desert answered Jareth’s signal. They swept across the face of the enemy forces. Flights of arrows winged high like a flight of birds and then rained down. Some of the enemy fell to disappear beneath the feet of the hellhounds and mandrake that followed. They were too distant yet to hear the cries of the fallen.

No one spoke, there was no need.

A look was exchanged, as the enemy neared the pits and a breathless silence fell that was broken only by the whisper of the wind through the rattling fronds of the palm trees and the soft hiss of the shifting sand.

The plan worked to some effect. Dug in the shadows of the dunes, the pits couldn’t be seen from the enemy side.

They drew closer.

Suddenly, part of the front of the line disappeared. Others slipped, stumbled, tumbled and fell trying to avoid the same fate. Then another section. Those coming behind couldn’t see the danger ahead and so pressed onward, falling on those that scrambled to escape the pits.

From their positions on the walls around them, some of those from the garrisons cheered.

As the enemy struggled in and around the pits the archers swept past, firing at those seeking a way around.

Mornith’s forces slowed.

Turning his eyes to Ailith and Colath, Olend and Itan, Elon nodded with satisfaction.

Ailith sensed a familiar light in her mind and turned with a smile as a well-loved figure strode along the parapets toward them.

“We’re complete again,” she said, turning to greet her. “Ala, Jalila!”

The tall Elven archer nodded, her expression grave, and clasped her arm but looked at her warmly, pleased by the comment.

Still clasping Ailith’s arm tightly, Jalila looked past her to Colath and Jareth. Her eyebrows lifted just a fraction at the sight of Elon but she nodded.

“I’ve brought friends.”

She waved down to the Elves who waited in the street below.

Looking down, Elon saw familiar faces. Some of his own Hunters and Woodsmen, other faces known from Aerilann.

“Ala,” he called down, “and to you, too, Jalila. It’s good to see you again. We’ll need your skills, too, and soon.”

He glanced significantly toward the horizon and watched her golden eyes darken.

Taking a breath, she nodded.

Itan said, “Go, eat and refresh yourself. You may not have a chance again soon. There are places for you in the castle. We merely watch. Later that may change.”

As the day passed it became clear the pits and the harassment had indeed slowed the enemy. At least by half a day. Whether they had diminished their numbers in any significant way was more questionable.

Elon watched with arms folded as darkness slowly fell and the enemy neared the walls.

The sun set as they watched the army spread and settle out before them. It was very large. Mornith, trying to daunt them. Fires bloomed among them and torches as darkness fell.

There was no sign of the dark wizard himself, no tent that seemed to point to him and say, here I am. That would have been easier.

Another messenger was sent, to say the enemy was now camped outside the city and the siege had begun.

Standing vigil on the wall, Elon had plenty of company.

Colath, of course, to his right, Ailith once more at his left, with Jareth and Jalila to either side, Olend and Itan. All of them watched silently.

Something Ailith had said that morning bothered Elon, niggled at him.

Palm fronds rattled in the breeze. The darkness covered too much. Beneath the ceaseless whisper of the sand blowing across the dunes, the sounds were wrong.

“Ailith, you said that with Mornith, there’s always something hidden?” he said, his Foresight twitching. “Lights!”

She looked at him startled, then alarmed, she gestured, as did Colath.

Elf-lights illuminated what lay below them.

They were at the walls, a contingent of trolls, setting ladders into the sand. Even as they watched, a ladder raised and swung toward the wall. Along the base of the wall, firbolgs dug rapidly, acting as sappers, sending sand flying. A clatter farther down the wall gave warning of another ladder.

“Jalila, get the archers,” Elon said, as he ran toward the clatter. “Jareth!”

Colath and Ailith were already stringing their bows, picking their targets. There’d been no need to speak to either of them. They knew what needed to be done.

Spinning on her toes, Jalila raced away to get help.

“I see them, Elon,” Jareth said and sent a mage-bolt into a mass of firbolgs below him.

A hail of arrows from outside the city pattered off the stones of the walls to drive them back. Elon reached the ladder and heaved, tossing it away. Cries rang out as those on the ladder fell.

The archers spread out along the walls and fired down. Elf-lights flew along the sides of the building as they heard odd noises, a shout and a cry. A goblin had fallen into the pitch in the pits stretched out beyond the city walls.

The archers spread their fire while Olend sent someone to fetch poles to push off the siege ladders.

Another sound caught their ears. Marching. Jareth swore softly. The sound was unmistakable. Mornith was taking back his lost time. The enemy was on the move, the fires and torches had been a mask, a feint while they had waited for the cover of darkness to conceal their movements.

It was time.

They looked at each other.

Elon clasped Olend’s arm in farewell. A glance and Jareth and Itan turned on their heels and sprinted along the parapets to the rearward towers, Itan’s skirts flying. Ailith shouted orders down to the runners waiting below as she, Elon and Colath ran down the stairs for their horses, followed by the archers. The runners disappeared into the darkness as the three of them took the steps two at a time then vaulted onto their mounts.