Paul Thompson - Alliances

Samar went to Ironhead but still hesitated to touch the griffon. The sound of Alhana’s laughter startled him and everyone else present.

“Don’t be afraid, Samar! He accepts you!” she cried. Despite the laughter, her eyes swam with tears.

Samar put a hand on Ironhead’s shoulder. The griffon did accept his touch, and it was Samar’s turn to laugh. He cut the creature’s remaining bonds. Wings and feet free, Ironhead stood by his newly-made rider, head held high.

A joyous shout went up. Alhana turned a radiant face to Kerian. “Oh, I had forgotten! It has been so long since I heard them.” Alhana touched her temple with one hand. “I had forgotten how wonderful it is!”

The Lioness showed her own jubilation by slapping Hytanthas’s shoulder so hard, the young warrior staggered.

Only Porthios did not join the celebration. He stood silent and dazed, his arms hanging at his sides.

Frantic cries interrupted the moment of Alhana’s triumph.

Elves from the camp came streaming toward those gathered at the sacred circle. “Look up!” they yelled. “Look in the sky!”

Those who’d witnessed the bonding became aware of new sounds: the clash of arms, the shouts of elves, and the screams of horses. They looked up.

The great vault of clouds had grown as opaque as polished slate. Lightning flickered and danced around the outer rim, but in the center a wondrous sight had appeared. The elves beheld a battle in the sky, vivid in every detail. Horses with human riders swarmed over a small band of elves, who fought with their backs to a crude stone spire. One elf stood on the tower’s steps, a few feet above the rest. Sword in hand, he directed a futile defense.

“Planchet!” Kerian cried, her shout echoed by Hytanthas and Alhana.

Kerian scanned the mad scene for Gilthas, She didn’t see him, but in the chaos only Planchet stood out clearly. As the nomad horsemen pressed in, hacking with their guardless, curved swords, the elves’ line grew thinner and thinner. Around Kerian, Alhana’s guards were shouting encouragement and advice to the phantom combatants, but no one in the cloud-scene appeared to hear them. All any of them on the wind-scoured bluff could do was watch as the besieged circle of elves was slowly worn away.

The end was inevitable. The circle disintegrated, engulfed by the human horde and a sea of hostile swords.

Instantly, the vision vanished. Although every eye strained to see more, the dense clouds showed only occasional flickers of silent lightning.

Kerian and Alhana, Hytanthas and Samar, even Porthios, were left regarding each other in open-mouthed shock.

Arrayed in along, curved line, the elf cavalry waited and watched. They were the last line of defense for the unarmed multitude struggling through the sand behind them.

The pass leading into Inath-Wakenti lay directly ahead, its entrance marked by three peaks lined up abreast. Their snowcapped tops, rising above the shimmering desert, drew the elf nation like a beacon, No one ordered them to make haste, but all quickened their steps. The injured and infirm who couldn’t keep pace were carried.

For a full day after the departure from Broken Tooth there had been no sign of pursuit. The reason for that was agonizingly clear: The nomads had taken the sacrifice offered them on Broken Tooth. Before noon on the second day, however, telltale streamers of dust rose in the southwest. The Speaker, Hamaramis, and Wapah rode back to the end of the column to see for themselves.

“They’re coming,” Wapah said, nodding. “No more than a hundred. Scouts.”

Hamaramis immediately offered to send the army to keep the scouts from reporting back. Gilthas rejected that notion. A battle would only slow their escape, and capturing the scouts would be pointless. The mass of fleeing elves was leaving a trail even the blind could follow. Scouts or no, the nomads would find the elves eventually.

Nevertheless, the Speaker did concentrate the remaining cavalry at the rear of the column, to screen it from attack. Gilthas needed Hamaramis with him, so Taranath was put in command. His orders were clear. If small scouting parties came within reach, he could pick them off, but under no circumstances was he to engage the enemy with the bulk of the surviving army.

The elves’ stumbling, arduous trek continued. They swallowed meager rations on the move, not daring to pause even for a moment. At their backs, the dust cloud thickened and spread. More nomads were joining the chase. What that meant for Planchet and the Sacred Band left behind on Broken Tooth, all understood. Although some murmured among themselves, no one broached the subject to the Speaker. Gilthas’s face, usually so expressive of his emotions, was stonily impassive. He concentrated all his energies on getting his people to safety. Planchet had sworn to return; Gilthas clung to that oath.

Two hours before sunset, the elves came upon an obstacle no one had expected. A wadi nearly a mile wide and a dozen yards deep ran almost due east-west. The dry riverbed wasn’t on Gilthas’s map (copied from an original made thousands of years ago), and Wapah confessed he’d not encountered it before.

“I thought you knew this country.” Hamaramis said.

“As I know my own face.”

“Then how do you not know of this enormous ravine?”

The nomad scratched his bearded chin. “Lacking a mirror, a man does not see his eyes.”

The Speaker cut off the impending argument. “Find a way down, General.”

Hamaramis and a small party rode away to make a quick search. They returned with disheartening news. Scores of trails led down into the wadi, but none was wider than a goat track. The elves could descend but would have to do it at dozens of widely separated points.

Even Gilthas, no soldier, knew that was bad. Fragmented in such a way, elves would become lost, and time would be wasted while they waited for the more distant parties to rejoin the whole. Worse, they would be highly vulnerable to ambush. There was of course no other choice. Wapah theorized that the freakish rainstorm that had hit as the elves left Khuri-Khan could have cut the ravine. Funneled down the mountains, rainwater would acquire torrential power. The wadi might easily run for many miles in either direction. They could not waste precious time searching for a way around.

Breaking into parties ranging from a handful to several hundred, sorting themselves by family or clan, the footsore, sunburned refugees fanned out along the bank of the wadi. They hacked their way through chamiso and thorn bushes, skirted cacti and the tangled debris of forgotten floods. As Gilthas and his councilors watched from atop the south bank, the first elves began to stream north across the wadi floor.

“What tribe owns this land?” Gilthas asked.

Wapah shrugged one shoulder. “Children do not own their mother, Khan-Speaker.” Gilthas gave him an impatient look, and the nomad added, “An offshoot of the Mikku are its most numerous inhabitants.”

The Mikku was a very warlike tribe, Gilthas knew. Their chief occupation was hiring themselves out to Neraka or the khan as mercenaries. He asked if Adala’s army contained many Mikku. Wapah’s solemn nod was not the answer he’d hoped for.

“Our pursuers must be delayed,” Gilthas said, worried the crossing was going to take longer than he’d hoped. The desert foliage did not yield easily, and the elves had few knives and machetes with which to attack it. If the nomads caught them at the wadi, the result would be catastrophic.

He ordered the rearguard, which had been closely shadowing the great column of civilians, to head south. Hamaramis asked to lead them, but Gilthas decreed that Taranath would command. Taranath accepted the assignment and asked whether the Speaker had any specific instructions.