The Elven (77 page)

Before the enemy could reorient itself, Nuramon and his fighters were on them. He raised his sword, but as he was about to bring it down on the nearest enemy soldier, the man looked up at him, and Nuramon saw only the face of Noroelle. Nuramon wanted to spare him, but the man attacked. It was as if Noroelle herself were striking at him, punishing him for his failure. The man’s blade grazed his armor at the shoulder, and then Nuramon had ridden past.

Slowly, their advance ground to a halt, and they found themselves in the crush of the melee. All around him, the killing and the dying had started long moments before, but Nuramon was unable to strike at the enemy. His clan surrounded him and protected him on all sides, and all he could do was stare as if hypnotized into the faces of their foes.

Then Lumnuon was cut on one leg by a sword, and he cried out in pain. Nuramon looked into the enemy soldier’s masked face. When the man raised his sword to swing at Lumnuon’s head, rage overcame Nuramon. He lashed out with his long sword. The blade penetrated the enemy soldier’s breastplate. When Nuramon jerked the blade from the man’s body, his foe collapsed in the saddle.

Suddenly, Nuramon was thrown from Felbion’s back. He hit the ground hard. Above him, he saw one of their masked adversaries raise his arm to strike.

Nuramon rolled aside and jumped to his feet. He parried two slashes from the enemy, then feigned an attack at the man’s head. At the same time, he drew Gaomee’s sword with his left hand and stabbed the blade into the man’s throat. Nuramon quickly spun around and realized that he was encircled by his clan. He turned his attention back to the Tjured soldier, who was lying on his back and fighting for air.

Nuramon leaned down over the dying enemy and tore away his mask. Beneath it appeared the blood-flecked face of a young man looking back at him with pure contempt. The man spat blood at Nuramon, and his hate-filled face froze like that forever.

At the Shalyn Falah

W
ith his armored gauntlets, Ollowain gave Farodin a ringing clap on the shoulder. “That was the last buckle.”

Farodin straightened up a little clumsily. The armor was lighter than he had expected, but it would still seriously restrict his maneuverability.

Ollowain stepped down the row of armored elves. They were twenty in all, and each one wore smooth, polished armor, masterfully worked, the rounded steel plates able to deflect any spear.

“Remember to keep your head
down
when we attack,” Ollowain shouted, impressing the point on his troops. “The most vulnerable point is the eye slit in your helmet. The humans know that, so keep your head down.”

“Do they have troops on horseback?” asked an elf to the left of Farodin. His voice sounded metallic behind the closed visor.

“I’ll be frank. Since midday yesterday, none of our scouts have returned. We have been fighting them too long. They know all our ruses.” He pointed up to the sky, where the silhouettes of three birds of prey could be seen carving wide circles in the sky. “They have trained kestrels to hunt the flower faeries. Our scouts knew the danger, and they still went out without hesitation. Let the brave hearts of our little sisters be an example to you.”

Farodin could hardly believe what he was hearing. How far had things come in Albenmark if they were sending flower faeries to war?

“Keep at least two paces between you and the next man,” Ollowain continued. “You do not want to be knocking in your neighbor’s skull.”

Orgrim came down the path toward them. “They’re advancing,” he bawled. “Are you ready?”

Ollowain raised his enormous two-handed sword. “Ready,” he called, and he turned back one last time to the armored elves. “Forget everything you’ve ever learned about an honorable fight. Our enemies know no mercy. They will not be taking prisoners. Kill as many of them as you can. And stay away from the ones with halberds.”

Farodin lifted the mighty sword leaning against the rock wall in front of him and closed the visor on his helmet. He did not want the troll king to recognize him. There was nothing he had to say to the reborn murderer of Aileen, least of all at the place where the woman he loved had died.

The small troop of elves marched up the last section of the path to the cliff top, passing the burned remains of wooden watchtowers. The Albenkin had retaken this position at the top of the cliff from the Tjured knights only two days earlier. They had paid for it with rivers of blood.

The number of defenders they still had to hold the steep path winding down behind them to the Shalyn Falah was ridiculously small. Seven hundred trolls each armed with a huge shield and club, four hundred elven archers, and around three hundred gnomes with crossbows. The fort on the far side of the bridge was manned only with the wounded and with kobolds, who were too small to fight humans in open battle. This was Albenmark’s last stand.

“The humans are going to be damned surprised when we attack them,” said Ollowain in a cheerful mood. He had fallen back to Farodin and now marched at his side.

“I must admit that I’m surprised myself,” Farodin replied. “Twenty madmen charging a battle line of thousands of humans. Did you perhaps slip something into the wine last night when you told me your plan and I said I liked it?”

Ollowain pushed up his visor and grinned broadly. “I thought about doing something to the wine, but then I told myself, anyone insane enough to attack a troll fortress with no more than a single human at his side, well, someone like that is going to love today’s plan.”

A gap opened up in the ranks of the trolls to let the armored elves pass through. In front of the trolls, the archers had taken their positions. The entrance to the steep path was defended in a wide semicircle by rows of sharpened posts rammed into the earth at an angle. The obstacle worked well against cavalry, but it would not stop an infantry attack.

In front of the weak lines of their defense, the land sloped down and was cut by broad gray bands of rock. The forest that had once stood here had disappeared, and even the tree stumps were gone. Sallow grass was all that grew there now. The stone circle of Welruun lay just a few hundred meters away from their positions. Farodin swallowed. For a moment, he saw Aileen’s pale face in his mind’s eye . . . the dark blood welling from her lips.

“Stay low,” Ollowain ordered.

Farodin obeyed. When they crouched, they were harder for the enemy to see clearly. It was vital that they manage to take the humans by surprise.

A little more than a quarter of a mile away, the Tjured soldiers were marching up the hillside. Their long pikes stood like a forest over their heads. Drums and pipes sounded from their ranks. It was a surprisingly cheerful melody, nothing like a battle song. The pikemen were marching up the slope in time. They wore high helmets and shimmering, polished breastplates, exactly like the soldiers Farodin and his companions had seen on the ice close to Firnstayn.

“Positions! Spread out!” Ollowain shouted. Concealed behind the archers, the elves in their polished armor now formed a single line from left to right, taking care to keep their distance from one another.

Farodin’s mouth was completely dry. Mesmerized, he watched the army of advancing men. Like a rising tide, their battle rows parted around the stone blocks on the hillside, then closed again on this side. There were thousands of them. Their mass alone would be enough to drive the defenders back over the edge of the cliff.

Sharp commands rang out along the rows of pikemen. The first five rows lowered their pikes, and the elven archers began their deadly handiwork. The air was filled with the whirr of arrows and the sharp clacking of the gnomes’ crossbows. Dozens of the advancing soldiers were cut down, but the gaps in their ranks were filled instantly by men from the rows behind.

The enemy forces were only a hundred paces away. Farodin could see the crossbow bolts punch round, bloody holes in the humans’ breastplates.

Only eighty paces. The rhythm of the drums quickened. The pipes fell silent. The entire column began to march faster.

“Attack!” cried Ollowain. The blond elf closed the visor of his helmet. Farodin raised his two-hander. The archers made room for the armored elves to pass, and the gnomes, who had formed a crouched firing line in front, retreated.

Farodin’s hands were shaking. He lifted the two-handed sword high over his head and leaned forward like a raging bull. Absolute madness. Thousands of Tjured soldiers were standing in front of them, and they were attacking with twenty.

Still forty paces.

Farodin began to run. The pikes of the first row jutted a good six paces ahead of the men holding them. Behind them came four more staggered rows of steel. He saw unrest spread through the front ranks. The pikes were angled now, coming together in bundles at the points where the elves would hit the soldiers.

The force of the impact was much less than Farodin had expected. Steel scraped against steel. The points of the pikes glanced off his armor. He kept his head down. Another impact and he’d made it through the second row of pikes. Piercing cries rang out. He whirled his heavy sword, and the ash-wood shafts of the pikes splintered.

Farodin felt something glance off the gorget protecting his neck, and he dared to raise his head. He was looking straight into the horrified faces of the men in front of him. Three more steps and he would be on them. A pike guard bounced off his helmet sideways. The world around him looked tiny. The narrow eye slit only allowed him to see whatever lay directly in front. Some of the soldiers had dropped their pikes and were trying to draw their daggers and short swords. A man with a wide-brimmed hat was fumbling with a strange rod. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and white smoke plumed from the hollow rod. Farodin’s heavy weapon sliced through armor, flesh, and bone. The blade of the two-hander was a pace and a half long, and nothing could resist the elven steel. As fearsome as a unit of pikemen might be on the advance, they were extremely vulnerable once you got past the points of their weapons. The officers in the rear kept a sharp watch to make sure no man dropped his pike, but it took two hands to hold the heavy, ungainly weapon. And anyone drawing a short sword had little room to swing it in the tightly packed formation. The points of the long spears simply glided uselessly off Farodin’s armor. Like a reaper in the wheat, the elf sliced his way through the rows of the pikemen. Warm blood sprayed through his eye slit and ran down his cheek. He moved at the center of a chaos of desperate screams, tearing metal, splintering bone.

Ahead, Farodin saw the glittering blades of halberds. With its long three-edged spearhead, wide axe blade, and hook at the back of the blade, the weapon was designed solely to strike fear into armored enemies. The three-edged point, if it met a surface at the right angle, could penetrate even the best armor. The blade was heavy and strong enough to slice through any helmet or shoulder plate, and with the hook, a soldier could pull an enemy’s feet out from under him, then stab the spike through his visor.

Farodin’s sword separated the head from the shoulders of a man in front of him. The elf was not targeting individual soldiers. He simply swept the sword in a wide, powerful arc, and in the press of bodies, it was difficult to escape its deadly circle.

Someone clutched at Farodin’s leg and tried to pull him to the ground. The elf glanced down without breaking off his attack. A wounded Tjured soldier had his arms wrapped around Farodin’s left leg. Farodin rammed his armored boot into the man’s face. He felt the soldier’s teeth break. The man let go of his leg and rolled away.

Something glittering came down quickly toward Farodin, and he dodged the halberd’s blade just in time. A squad of halberdiers had pushed their way forward to him through the formation of pikemen. Half of the halberdiers held their weapons low and tried to get to his legs with the spearheads and hooks.

Farodin lowered his head. Something hit him on the shoulder, and his left arm was suddenly half numbed with pain. He jumped forward. His heavy sword flew. It destroyed one soldier’s helmet and buried itself deep in the chest of the next.

He felt a hook sit firmly behind his left heel. He tried to lift his foot at the same time as several spearheads hit him in the chest. The points glanced off to the sides, but the impact knocked him off balance.

He fell backward. The sword was torn from his hands. He tried to roll to one side, but a foot planted itself on his breastplate and pressed him to the ground.

Over Farodin slipped the shadow of a falcon gliding high in the cloudless, turquoise sky of Albenmark. Then a three-edged spearhead sparkled in the sunlight and came down.

Helplessness

I
n the heat of the battle, Nuramon barely had a moment to catch his breath. He had lost sight of Felbion in the turmoil. After being pulled from his saddle three times, he decided he felt more secure on the ground. He had been wounded twice on his arms and once on his shoulder, and he could only raise his right arm with a great deal of pain. He felt warm blood flowing over his skin.

His plan had not worked perfectly. They had spent too long battling the cavalry and had not completely broken the enemy’s superior numbers. Nuramon could still hear the raw screams of humans struck by elven arrows, certainly, but he could not say exactly where the screams were coming from. In the melee, he had lost his orientation, and everything in him was now focused on surviving.

High overhead, he saw stones flying. That could only mean one thing: the infantry were now so close that the dwarves’ catapults could target them.

He looked around. His own relatives and the elves of Alvemer were fighting bravely and proving yet again that an elven warrior is as good as two humans.

A dizziness came over him then, quickly followed by pain. He stumbled, tried to find his footing, but felt his senses fading. Suddenly, arms were under him, holding him up, and through blurring eyes, he saw a face. If it was the mask of Guillaume, then it meant the end had come.

“Nuramon!” someone yelled, and the sound of his name startled him. He narrowed his eyes and saw Lumnuon. “Warriors of the Weldaron clan! To me!” the elf cried. “Hang on! We’ll protect you.” But whatever his young relative said next, Nuramon did not hear it. The fear of death filled him. There was only one thing he could do. He began to speak his healing spell, casting it on himself. His injured arm cramped immediately; it felt as if someone were tearing the meat from his bones. Then the pain took over his entire body. The elf clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt. Suddenly, something cold hit him in the face, and he opened his eyes at the shock of it. Above him, he saw Lumnuon. The warriors of his clan were still in a protective circle around him. Lumnuon felt Nuramon’s arm. “Did you heal yourself?” he asked.

Nuramon nodded fitfully and gasped for air. Lumnuon helped him to his feet. Beside him, one of his fighters fell to the ground, struck down by the enemy. Rage overcame Nuramon. He finally managed to shake off the paralysis that had come over him since he had been forced to look into Guillaume’s face a thousand times. He reached for his swords and leaped into the gap left by the fallen soldier just as an enemy knight’s sword swung down. Lightning fast, he crossed his blades over his head and caught the knight’s sword on them. A swift kick sent the man to the ground, and Nuramon jumped after him and stabbed him in the side. After cutting down two more of the Tjured soldiers, he raised his long sword and screamed to his clan, “Weldaron!” His people took up the name of their clan’s founder. They drove the enemy back on all sides, joined forces with fellow fighters, and battled their way through to the dwarves.

The children of the Darkalben had not yet opened up their dragon shell formation. They were advancing only gradually. Piles of corpses and horse cadavers disappeared beneath their shields as if the mass of dwarves were some sort of vermin that fed on the meat of the dead.

Yelling from thousands of throats broke through the noise of the battle. The main mass of the enemy must have reached them.

“To me!” called Nuramon. “Regroup!” His comrades fell back a short way and reassembled around Nuramon. The few on horseback were to his left, the rest on the right.

There they were. Uncountable Tjured fighters pouring into the battle, flowing like floodwater over the land, and filling the gaps in the battle lines.

Nuramon felt like he had the previous day, when he rode first to meet the dwarven army, then returned on foot toward the elven cavalry, but now his fear was mixed with other feelings. He saw how the dwarves’ dragon shell array split into two, as if to silently signal him to go between them. Nuramon gave his people a sign and pulled back into the shelter of the dwarves’ formation.

The infantry would roll over them mercilessly. They were within fifty paces now. For the Firnstayners, it was too late to join the battle line.

Nuramon raised his long sword high in the air and cried “Albenmark!” as loud as he could. His own clan and the elves of Alvemer returned his cry. The enemy was within twenty paces when Nuramon lowered his sword and screamed, “Attack!” But his battle cry was lost in the roar that sounded at that moment to the left and right of him.

The dwarves’ dragon shell split open. The shield bearers in the first rows advanced, drawing their short swords as they moved. The partisan wielders followed them, and they in turn were followed by more and more of the dwarves, who lowered their shields in front of their chests and charged the human horde. It was like a metamorphosis. The huge war beast broke apart, transforming into a sea of dwarven fighters.

The advance of Wengalf’s troops left an equally strong impression on the enemy. Fighters in the front lines slowed their step, and their battle cries fell silent. And as the first of their foes came to a stop, the two armies met, and Nuramon thrust far into the rows of the enemy. For now, the fear of dying had disappeared.