Douglas Niles: The Kinslayer Wars

A more hideous thought occurred to him. Had Suzine betrayed him, revealing their battle plans to the human commander? Did the enemy march somewhere unknown to set up a new ambush? He couldn’t bring himself to believe this, yet neither could he ignore the evidence that she had been here at the human command post.

Where was Suzine? In his heart, he knew the answer.

Grimly he mounted Arcuballis and took off. He made his way back to the east, toward the spearhead of his army, which he had ordered to march westward in an attempt to catch the human army in its camp. Now he knew that he had to make new plans—and quickly.

It took two days of searching before the proud griffon finally settled to earth, in a damp clearing where Kith had spotted the elven banner. Here he found Parnigar and Vanesti and the rest of the Wildrunner headquarters. This group marched with several dozen bodyguards, trying to remain in the approximate center of the far-flung regiments. Because of the weather, the march columns were separated even more than usual, so that the small company camped this night in relative isolation.

“They’ve broken camp,” announced Parnigar, without preamble.

“I know. Their base camp is abandoned. Have you discovered where they’ve gone?”

Kith’s worst fears were confirmed by Parnigar’s answer. “East, it looks like. There are tracks leading in every direction, as always, but it looks like they all swing toward the east a mile or two out of the camps.” Again Kith-Kanan thought of the ungarrisoned fortress rising from the plains a hundred miles to the east.

“Can we attack?” asked Vanesti, unable to restrain himself any longer.

“You’ll stay here!” barked Kith-Kanan. He turned to Parnigar. “In the morning we’ll

have to find them.” “What? And leave me here alone? In the middle of nowhere?” Vanesti was indignant. “You’re right,” Kith conceded with a sigh.

“You’ll have to come. But you’ll also have to do what I tell you!” “Don’t I always?” inquired the youth, grinning impishly. * * * * *

General Giarna slouched in his saddle, aware of the tens of thousands of marching soldiers surrounding him. The Army of Ergoth crept like a monstrous snake to the east, toward Sithelbec. Outriders spread across a thirty-mile arc before them, seeking signs of the Wildrunners. Giarna wanted to meet his foe in open battle while the weather was unchanged, hoping that the storm would neutralize the elves’ flying cavalry. The Windriders had made his life very difficult over the years, and it would please him to fight a battle where the griffons wouldn’t be a factor.

Even in his wildest hopes, he hadn’t reckoned on weather as dismal as this. A day earlier, a tornado had swept through the supply train, killing more than a thousand men and destroying two weeks’ worth of provisions. Now many columns of his army blundered through the featureless landscape, lost. Every day a few more men were struck by lightning, crippled or killed instantly. The general didn’t know that, even as he marched to the east, the elven army trudged westward, some twenty-five miles to the north. The Wildrunners sought the encampment of the human army. Both forces blundered forward in disarray, passing within striking range of each other, yet not knowing of their enemy’s presence.

General Giarna looked to his left, to the north. There was something out there! He sensed it, though he saw nothing. His intuition informed him that the presence that drew him was many miles away.

“There!” he cried, suddenly raising a black-gloved hand and pointing to the north. “We must strike northward! Now! With all haste!” Some companies of his army heard the command. Ponderously, under the orders of their sergeants-major, they wheeled to the left, preparing to strike out toward the north, into the rain and the hail—and, soon, the darkness. Others didn’t get the word. The ultimate effect of the maneuver spread the army across twice as much country as Giarna intended, opening huge gaps between the various brigades and adding chaos to an already muddled situation.

“Move, damn you!” The general cried, his voice taut. Lightning flashed over his head, streaks of fire lancing across the sky. Thunder crashed around them, sounding as if the world was coming apart.

Still the great formations continued their excruciating advance as the weary humans endeavored to obey Giarna’s hysterical commands.

He couldn’t wait. The scent drew him on like a hound to its prey. He wheeled his horse, kicking sharp spurs into the black steed’s flanks. Breaking away from the column of his army, he started toward the north ahead of his men. Alone.

Warm winds surged across the chill waters of the Turbidus Ocean, south of Ergoth, collecting moisture and carrying it aloft until the water droplets loomed as monumental columns of black clouds, billowing higher until they confounded the eyes of earthbound observers by vanishing into the limitless expanse of the sky.

Lightning flashed, beginning as an occasional explosion of brightness but increasing in fierceness and tempo until the clouds marched along to a staccato tempo, great sheets of hot fire slashing through them in continuous volleys. The waters below trembled under the fury of the storm.

The winds swirled, propelled by the rising pressure of steam. Whirlwinds grew tighter, shaping into slender funnels, until a front of cyclones roared forward, tossing the ocean into a chaotic maelstrom of foam. Great waves rolled outward from the storm, propelled by lashing torrents of rain. And then the storm passed onto land.

The mass of clouds and power roared northward, skirting the Kharolis Mountains as it veered slightly toward the east. Before it lay the plains, hundreds of miles of flat, sodden country, already deluged by thunder and rain.

The new storm surged onto the flatlands, unleashing its winds as if it knew that nothing could stand in its path. * * * * *

A soaking Wildrunner limped through the brush, raising his hand to ward off the hail and wipe rain away from his face. Finally he broke into a clearing and saw the vague out-lines of the command post. Finding it had been sheer luck. He was one of two dozen men who had been sent with the report, in the hopes that one of them would reach Kith-Kanan.

“The Army of Ergoth!” he gasped, stumbling into the small house that served as the general’s headquarters. “It approaches from the south!”

“Damn!” Kith-Kanan instantly saw the terrible vulnerability of his army, stretched as it was into a long column marching east to west. Wherever the humans hit him, he would be vulnerable.

“How far?” he asked quickly.

“Five miles, maybe less. I saw a company of horsemen—a thousand or so. I don’t know how many other units are there.”

“You did well to bring me the news immediately.” Kith’s mind whirled. “If Giarna is attacking us, he must have something in mind. Still, I can’t believe he can execute an attack very well—not in this weather.”

“Attack them, uncle.”

Kith turned to look at Vanesti. His fresh-faced nephew’s eyes lit with enthusiasm. His first battle loomed.

“Your suggestion has merit,” he said, pausing for a moment. “It’s one thing that the enemy would never suspect. His grasp of the battle won’t be much greater than mine, if I’m on the offensive. And furthermore, I have no way to organize any kind of defense in this weather. Better to have the troops moving forward and catch the enemy off balance.”

“I’ll dispatch the scouts,” Parnigar noted. “We’ll inform every company that we can. It won’t be the whole army, you realize. There isn’t enough time, and the weather is too treacherous.”

“I know,” Kith agreed. “The Windriders, for one, will have to stay on the ground.” He looked at Arcuballis. The great creature rested nearby, his head tucked under one wing to protect himself from the rain.