Straken

Six

Dawn broke on the Prekkendorran, a brilliant flare of golden light sweeping out of the eastern horizon down the twisting, broken maze of ridges and gullies where Pied Sanderling crouched. The sky was a cloudless canopy of brightening blue, the air still and cool, the light knife–sharp, etching the contours and folds of the land. It was a day created for the witnessing of great things.

The Federation army, a steady wave of silver and black visible through gaps in the shadow–dappled draw, approached like a winding snake toward the rise where the Elves waited. The scrape of their boots against the hardpan, and the clash of metal armor and weapons, signaled their arrival long before they came into view. In two days of steady marching, they had encountered only remnants of the force that had withstood their efforts to gain the heights for almost thirty years. Clearly, they felt they would encounter no meaningful opposition now that they had broken the back of the Elven army.

AAaybe they will pay for their arrogance and overconfidence before the day is over,Pied thought. Or maybe such arrogance was justified, and he was the one who should take better stock of the situation. What reason did he have to think his ragtag force of Elves could defeat an army of regulars? Yet he knew that the Elves were determined, driven by rage at the losses they had suffered and by a humiliating sense of impotence at having been made to flee like cattle.

« Drum,” he called quietfy to his aide.

Drumundoon scooted over, staying low on the crest of the rise to keep hidden, his young face intense. «Captain?»

« What is this place called?»

Unable to answer, Drum shook his head. He crab–walked away, speaking to a handful of the Elven

Hunters before coming back again. «It doesn’t have a name. There’s never been a reason to give it one.

Indeed, Pied thought. Look at it. A barren wasteland in which no one would want to live, a nature–ravaged stretch of earth which humans and animals passed through quickly on their way to somewhere more inviting. But it needed a name. His sense of his own mortality was strong that morning, and if he was to die there, he wanted to do so knowing where it happened.

« We will call it Elven Rock,” he said. He gripped Drum by his shoulder. «It is here that the Elves become a rock against which all enemies are smashed. Pass the word.»

Drum gave him a strange look, then turned and hurried off to do as he had been ordered. Pied watched him go, watched him stop and speak with groups of soldiers as he worked his way down the line, watched some of those soldiers nod in agreement, watched fresh determination etch their brows. They would fight hard, those men and women. They would not break easily.

Within the draw, the sounds of the Federation’s approach deepened. The army was almost through. In moments, it would begin to emerge onto the flats leading up to the rise and the Elves.

Pied took a final look around at the defenses he had set, taking their measure one last time.

He could see nothing of the Elven bowmen hidden in the rocks and crevices in the heights to either side, where the draw opened onto the flats. There were more than two hundred, and they would have an unobstructed view of the Federation soldiers as they emerged from the shadows. Longbows were the order of the day, the favorite weapon of Elven bowmen, who disdained use of the bulkier, heavier crossbows. Erris Crewer, a Third Lieutenant, the highest–ranking officer left among them, commanded.

From his slightly higher vantage point, Pied caught glimpses of the Elven Hunters hidden in the deep folds of the ravines to his right. Almost a quarter of his little army was concealed there, waiting for the summons that would bring it into battle on the Federation’s left flank. The timing of that strike would determine the outcome of the battle. The soldier who was to call for that strike was a veteran Captain of the Home Guard who had served under Pied for many years. Ti Auberen could be depended on, and Pied Sanderling was depending on him heavily.

The bulk of the army, the Elven guards armed with swords and short spears, was gathered about Pied, grouped in makeshift units with newly designated commanders and lieutenants. Because they were formed of remnants of decimated units, few had fought together before. That was a considerable disadvantage in close quarters, where one’s life often depended on the experience and quick thinking of those on either side. But most were familiar with the triangle formations Pied had chosen to employ, so the Captain of the Home Guard could only hope that in battle the men would remember to do what was needed to keep the units intact and the enemy from breaking through.

Pied glanced up and down the lines to either side, checking for readiness. He found it in the faces of most, and he knew that would have to suffice. There was no time left for anything but hope and trust. Alternating the advances of the triangles would give each unit a short respite between strikes and a rear guard to buttress points threatened with breakthrough. He had decided to hold two units in reserve, keeping them back for when they were needed most. With luck, they would not be needed at all, but he couldn’t trust to luck in the face of what was at stake.

These were the best of what remained, they were still alive and they had not fled during the night. They had chosen to stay, to stand with him against an enemy that had already routed them once. That said something to him about their courage.

The first wave of the Federation attack force appeared from out of the draw, marching in loose formation, shields up but swords locked in place in the carry straps behind the shields. Their scouts ranged to either side, but were still well below the ravines and rocks in which the Elves hid. Had they chosen to come on ahead, doing what scouts were supposed to do, they would have been disposed of. Pied had no idea what the Federation commanders were thinking.

Perhaps that the Elves were too disorganized to make a stand. Perhaps that they would do so farther north. Perhaps that they were rallying with reinforcements in Callahorn.

Or perhaps they weren’t thinking anything. Perhaps they were just moving ahead, surprised themselves that after so many years the stalemate was broken. Perhaps they were still coming to terms with what that might mean.

Pied glanced behind him at the veteran archer he had chosen to give the attack signal. The man’s bow was strung and the whistle arrow notched. Meeting his commanders eye, he nodded that he was ready.

Pied took a deep breath. The sounds of the approaching army filled his ears. Their boots stirred the dust from the flats and filled the air with a light haze. Spear blades glinted in the sunlight, and coughs and shouts emptied out the last of dawn’s silence.

Patience,he willed himself. His hands closed more tightly about his sword.Another few seconds.

He let the first ten rows of the Federation army clear the mouth of the draw before he gave the hand signal to the archer at his back. The archer dropped to one knee, drew back his bowstring, and released the signal arrow. Its shaft meticulously cored and its tip altered, the arrow caught the wind as it flew and made a shrieking sound that could be heard for hundreds of yards. In the silence of the early morning, it was deafening.

Instantly, the Elven bowmen released their arrows from both sides of the advancing Federation force. A deep whine like the buzzing of a thousand swarming bees replaced the shriek of the warning arrow, and Pied’s heart lurched. Positioned to fire in three alternating waves, his bowmen sent wave after wave of steel–tipped arrows raining down on the unprotected men. Screams and cries rose on the morning air. Dozens of Federation soldiers were dead or injured before they could react. When those remaining realized what was happening, they turned in all directions at once, and dozens more fell. Caught in the open, they had no chance of escaping the assault. Even using armor and shields to ward off the deadly killing shafts, they were vulnerable. No matter where they turned or what they did, some missiles still managed to get through.

Finally, someone in the ranks took control, and the remnants of the stricken forward units formed up and charged the archers in small groups, reinforced by soldiers still coming out of the draw— hundreds of them, flooding the flats with silver–and–black uniforms.

« Elessedil!» Pied Sanderling shouted the Elven war cry, leaping from his hiding place and raising his arm.

In a solid line, the front ranks of the Elven Hunters surged from their hiding places behind the rise and charged the Federation command, taking up Pied’s war cry. The Southlanders, split apart in their efforts to reach the archers on their flanks, were caught by surprise. To their credit, they swung into defensive formation with practiced smoothness, but their ranks were already decimated, and there were gaps that could not be filled quickly enough. The Elves hammered through the front lines to the center, bowling over Federation soldiers who tried to stop them, pushing back the entire command.

But the soldiers of the Federation were well trained, and they regrouped quickly, first slowing, then stopping the assault, bracing behind dozens of oncoming ranks, behind weapons and armor, front ranks dropping to one knee and bracing the butts of their spears against the hardpan, rear ranks lowering spears over their shoulders. The Elves slammed into the wall but failed to break it, tried a second time and failed again.

Pied, still standing on the rise with the bulk of the Elven forces, signaled his archer a second time. A pair of arrows shrieked a command as they arced above the combatants. Not all heard the shrieking sound, but those who did signaled their fellows to pull back. Swiftly, the Elves disengaged, retreating on the run to the topmost part of the rise, moving past the six fighting triangles into which the remainder of the Elven foot soldiers had been formed.

It took only minutes for the first wave to retreat, but even in that short time, hundreds more Federation soldiers poured through the gap onto the flats, joining their fellows. It was a much larger force than Pied had envisioned, much larger than his Elves were equipped to handle, but there was nothing he could do about that. Lifting his sword a second time, he called out the Elessedil battle cry and sent his triangles into battle.

The triangles advanced as one. Shields locked and spears lowered, they presented bristling walls of steel tips. The triangles were formed into two lines, three triangles of eighty men each in front and three behind, the latter offset slightly to the right of the former, so that the leading points of each triangle filled all the gaps. As the triangles bore down on the Federation, Erris Crewer had the archers on the slopes rake the enemy soldiers once more, forcing them to cover up with their shields as they scrambled to reform their shattered lines. Federation archers responded with crossbows, but they could not see their targets and were forced to fire blindly.

The men of the Federation reformed their ranks once more, but many of those in the front lines had been downed by the initial attack and the gaps were hastily filled with reinforcements. The result was a reconfiguration of ranks where the soldiers were unfamiliar with each other and slow to act in concert or to a common purpose, it was all they could do to make ready to engage the advancing Elves. Their commanders struggled to unify them, but the chaos was so complete that no one could be heard.

Fifty yards from the Federation lines, the Elves shifted hard to the left, drawing the Federation squares about to face them. As the Federation lines turned to face the Free–born advance, their rear left flank was exposed. Ti Auberen, still hidden in the rocks with his men and waiting for his opportunity, was quick to act. Just before the triangles reached the Federation ranks, he brought his own soldiers out of hiding and attacked in a rush. Once again, the unexpectedness of the assault caught the Federation off guard. Having survived the first ambush, the Southlanders were not looking for a second. Ti Auberen’s forces caught their rear ranks unprepared and vulnerable, and they smashed through before the surprised soldiers could even bring their weapons about to defend themselves.

Caught in a classic pincer movement, the Federation lines collapsed into pockets of men fighting to survive. The triangles came at them in a series of thrusts, first one rank and then the second, jabbing at them repeatedly, forcing them back and apart from each other. The Federation defense held only minutes against the Elves, then fell apart. The attack turned into a rout, the men in the front lines who tried to flee piling up against those still coming through the draw. Screams and cries filled the air as soldiers fell beneath the crush, trampled. The ground grew cluttered with dead and wounded, the flats turned into a slaughterhouse. The destruction of the Federation force was so complete that it became difficult for the Elves to advance across the body–strewn ground.

Finally, the surviving Southlanders broke free of the charnel house and began to retreat into the draw, the rear ranks falling back so that those still alive in the front could follow. Most of the latter never made it. The memory of their defeat on the Prekkendorran was still fresh in the minds of the Elven Hunters, and they were consumed by a killing lust that would not allow them to stop fighting, even when almost no one was left alive to oppose them.

« Signal a retreat,” Pied ordered the archer at his elbow, exchanging a quick glance with Drumundoon.

The archer did so, three arrows whistling through the midmorning air, their shrieks mingling with those of the dead and dying men below. The Elven Hunters, streaked with blood and wild–eyed with battle fever, fell back reluctantly, leaving behind a tangle of dead men and an earth turned slick and matted with blood.

In the shadows of the draw, the last of the retreating Federation soldiers disappeared from view.

Thirty minutes later, Pied stood at the head of the rise with Ti Auberen and Erris Crewer, watching the details move through the carnage below, extracting the Elven dead and wounded. The sun was high in the sky by then, midday approaching, and the air was hot and still and thick with the smell of blood and death. Flies swarmed in black clouds. The men on the rise were making a conscious effort to breathe through their mouths.

« It’s not finished,” he said.

« No,” Ti Auberen agreed, looking off into the hills as if he might catch sight of the enemy. He was a big man, broad–shouldered and lean, wearing his dark hair long and tied back. «But they will come at us another way.»

Pied nodded. «They will regroup, reinforce, and come looking for us again, but not through that draw. There are other trails through these hills, tough to navigate, but usable. They will find one and try to get around behind us.»

« But they won’t underestimate us next time,” Auberen added.

Pied thought about that a moment, then turned to Drumundoon, who was standing off to one side. «Drum, see if we have someone in the command who knows this country well enough to talk to us about its passes and trails.»

Eager to be doing something other than standing around trying not to watch the burial teams, Drumundoon hurried off. Pied would have been happy to go with him.

« What about that airship?» Erris Crewer asked quietly. His blocky form shifted. «The one that destroyed the fleet?»

Pied shook his head. «I don’t know how badly we damaged her. If they can make her fly, we’re in trouble. We have no defense against her from the ground, and little enough from the air. We have to hope they can’t use her yet.»

« They might already be using her against Vaden Wick and our Free–born allies,” Auberen growled. «If I was them, that’s what I would do. Break us where we still hold, chase us back into the hills and then hunt us at leisure.»

Pied considered the possibility. Auberen might be right. It made sense to finish the effort to drive the Free–born completely off the heights, to smash their defenses and claim the Prekkendorran themselves before worrying about the Elves, most of whom were already scattered to the four winds, his command notwithstanding. After all, how much trouble could his little force present in the larger scheme of things? Pied did not fool himself about their chances. They might have won this one battle, driven back one unit of the Federation. But the enemy forces were vast and close to home, where reinforcements were readily available. A sustained Federation effort at finding and engaging his Elves would eventually succeed, and when that happened, they were finished.

He exhaled softly, frustrated. They couldn’t win the war, not with the way things stood. The best they could do was to avoid the forces hunting them long enough to link up with their allies. As their leader, it was up to him to find a way to make that happen. It was a tall order, one he was not sure anyone would be able to carry out, let alone a Captain of the Home Guard whose primary duty until two days ago had been to safeguard one man.

Drumundoon had reappeared with a smallish, nervous–looking Elf with lean features and quick, sharp eyes that darted everywhere.

« Captain,” his aide said, «this is Whyl. He has served on the front for more than a year, working as a scout on both sides of the line, much of the time aboard airships. He has seen more of the terrain than most. I think he can help.»

Pied nodded. «Tell me what you know about the passes that run through the Prekkendorran to these hills. Are there many?»

The Elven Hunter hunched his shoulders and pursed his thin lips. «Dozens.»

« How many that a large force could negotiate, coming south to north?»

« Three, maybe four.» The eyes skipped across Pied’s face to the faces of his companions and back again. «You think they’ll come at us again, Captain?»

« Maybe. Could they, if they wanted to, do you think? How would they come?»

Whyl thought about it. «Other than through the draw they just retreated down, they have only one other good choice. There’s another cut through the hills to the west. It’s wide and flat and open. But it will take them two or three days to reach it and get through, then come up to where we are.»

« To the west,” Pied repeated, thinking. «Nothing east?»

The Elf shrugged. «One trail, through scrub, forests, low country. Pretty dangerous. Lots of bogs and sinkholes. Cuts pretty close at its south end to where the Dwarves and Bordermen hold the east plateau. It would be risky for them to try it.»

For them, but maybe not jor us,Pied thought. The beginnings of a plan were taking shape. He nodded to Whyl. «Your help is appreciated. You may go back to your unit. But keep what we’ve said to yourself for now. Don’t speak of it to anyone.»

The Elven Hunter nodded and hurried off across the grass with several anxious glances back. In spite of his promise, he would tell his friends what had been said. In particular, he would tell them that their commander was anticipating another attack, one that might not turn out as well for the Elves as this one had. Word would spread quickly. Panic, if not squelched, would as well.

Pied turned back to Ti Auberen and Erris Crewer. «Form up the wounded—everyone who can’t fight another battle right away. Detail enough men to carry those who can’t walk. Ilse as few as you can manage, but enough so that they can travel afoot for several days. I want them to make for the Rappahalladran, then for the villages in the Duln. They will find wagons there to complete the rest of the journey home. With luck, they will come across an airship to transport them. Form up everyone else and prepare to march. We’ll move east toward that pass Whyl mentioned, the tougher one that leads to the defensive position of our allies. Our best choice now is to try to link up with Vaden Wick before the enemy finds us again. There’s some cover along the way. It may help shield us from Federation airships.»

« Captain, if they send airships after us, whether it’s the one with that weapon or not, we won’t be able to hide this many men,” Erris Crewer pointed out quietly.

Pied met his gaze. «Get on with it, Lieutenant. I want all burials completed and the wounded dispatched north within the hour. I want the rest of us heading east. Wait, not all of us. Detail two dozen men to stay behind to watch the pass in case the Federation decides to send scouts through to see if we’re still here. We don’t want them to find out too quickly that we’ve gone. All we need is a presence to keep them guessing. The men can use the time to create false trails. 1 want them to hold the pass for one day, then catch up to us. Put a Tracker or two in the mix. And bring up Whyl again, as well. We’ll need what he knows about the country.»

When they were gone, he walked over to Drumundoon. His aide shifted his lanky body from foot to foot. He looked dusty and tired, but he smiled at Pied anyway. «Not much help for some things, is there, Captain?»

« Drum, I need you to do something,” Pied replied, taking the other’s arm and steering him away from everyone else. «Word has to be sent to Arborlon of what’s happened. Maybe it’s already been done, but we can’t know. The Elven High Council has to be told that the King and his sons are dead. More to the point, they have to be told to send reinforcements. More airships, more men to fly them. We don’t stand a chance without their support. I want you to do this. Travel on foot until you can find horses. Then ride until you can find an airship. Take two of the Home Guard with you, just in case. Leave at once.»

Drumundoon looked at him. «Arling will be Queen now,” he said. «It will be her decision.»

He was saying that she might not be favorably disposed toward Pied’s suggestion, no matter what the High Council said. Nor toward Pied, for that matter, once she learned that he had failed to keep her sons safe. But there was nothing Pied could do about it without speaking to her. He had to hope she would allow him the opportunity, that something of what he believed she had once felt for him would persuade her to do what was right.

« Do the best you can, Drum,” he said quietly. He placed his hand on the other’s shoulder. «But do it quickly.»

« I don’t like leaving you, Captain,” his aide replied, shaking his head slowly, looking down at his feet.

« I don’t like having you leave me. But we don’t always get to choose in these matters. I have to send someone I can depend upon to do this. There isn’t anyone I depend on more than you.»

He thought he saw Drumundoon actually blush, but it was hard to tell beneath the layers of dirt and sweat. Drum rubbed his fringe of black beard and nodded. «I’ll do my best.»

He was, as usual, as good as his word. By the time the wounded were loaded on litters and their bearers and caregivers ready to depart, Drum was already gone. Pied found himself wishing he could have given his friend something more than encouragement, but at least he was sending him out of the fighting. Drum was a good man, but he wasn’t meant to stand in the front lines on a battlefield.

Maybe I’m not meant jor this, either,Pied thought.But here I am.

He slung his longbow across his shoulders, cinched his quiver a notch tighter, and went off to meet his fate.