Their cavern began to hum, gently at first, but gradually built into a song. She joined in with the wistful song flowing with lamentations of ages lost. Juil’s eyes flew open in recognition and she mentally faced off against the energy that is Riverhouse.

  “It was you?”

  “I was there. I had to bring my children home.”

  “Children? But there was only me.”

  “No, you were not alone, but now he is home and together we may survive the coming doom.”

  * * *

  Tic hurried along the front of the shops lining the bank just south of his own. He didn’t bother going into the neighborhoods as they would have to be attacked via the passages or the river. The flower shops, tanneries, and sawyers were closed, leaving only the baker still at work as they tried to prepare as much bread as they could before the oncoming storm. Everyone knew what was coming. They were very much aware of what waited for them just beyond the stone wall of their sanctuary. They also knew there was nothing they could do about it except wait and fight when the time came.

  “You don’t seem to be doing much to prepare for the upcoming battle.” A voice came down from above as two giant wings caught enough air to slow his decent to a gentle landing right next to him.

  “There isn’t much I can do really,” Tic replied.

  “Really, I thought you cobblers were all about planning?”

  “No, more like cutting and stitching and a lot of pounding. Once you know the type of boot you’re making, it is pretty much by the numbers. To be honest I wish there was more that I could be doing, but most of the tunnels have been prepped for the non-combatants and the army, if you want to call them that, is staging their stand. They don’t have enough to provide much of a layered defense so they simply do what they can. After that it is a matter of waiting, I have my stave if anyone should enter prematurely,” he finished and held out his long straight piece of ash that was a foot longer than he was tall, yet otherwise nondescript. He of course didn’t need it for magic so much as he did to provide a solid bonk on someone’s head if needed.

  “A bow stave, is that your only weapon? I would think you would have opted for a sword or a hammer or even an ax,” Nigel said mockingly.

  “I don’t know how to use any of those things. I tried to learn from the piners on the islands out in the Swirl, but I caused more harm than good. With this though, I am pretty good. Not great but pretty good nonetheless.”

  “Oh well, chances are that you won’t be doing much hand to hand fighting anyway and my sword is skillful enough for the both of us.”

  “So, you will fight with us?” Tic said with a half question tinged with hope.

  “Not us, Tic, you…as well as the orphans who seem to have adopted me,” Nigel said and Tic chuckled.

  “I have to be honest, I didn’t think you would like the orphans as much as you do.”

  “Oh bloody hell, why not? They’re cute as hell. They run around in their little monkey gaits trying to act like real people.” Tic would have been offended, but he knew how sarcastic the aerial was and could even see the smirk out of the corner of his eye as he waited for a reaction. None came and Nigel let out a chuckle of his own.

  “So why are you out here then?”

  “I am trying to avoid all of the desperate questions about how I am going to save them. I can’t handle that kind of stress right now.”

  “So…how are you going to save them?”

  “I have no clue, Nigel. I don’t know if I can. The energies granted to me through this place were designed to build and repair. I don’t know if I can even kill with it and I strongly suspect that I can’t. I can restrain and even banish, but kill? I simply don’t know.”

  “Well fuck, me. Our first line of defense is a wizard that can’t kill.”

  “I’m not really a wizard, you know.”

  “Oh. What are you then? A magician, charlatan, or simply just a trickster?”

  “Ha, none of the above. I am a vessel or a conduit. She channels through me directly. I have given Frodeg and Juil the ability to control more power than I can at will. I know, I can feel everything they do and it kind of drains on me.” Tic paused as if lost in some deep thought or had come to some critical realization. “Maybe I’m not a vessel at all, I might be more of a conduit.”

  “Wait a minute, you destroyed an entire navy when you escaped Lemure, you told me so,” Nigel stated bluntly, not really knowing how he should react.

  “Yeah, but that was different. I was using a talisman,” Tic said, thinking of the stone that had revealed his powers as a child. The stone that had been scribed and he had stolen from the tomb of ancient records located in the catacombs of Lemure. He had intended to only borrow it, but then he couldn’t give it up. It was on his journey with Tia that he realized it was a crutch and was changing him into something…he didn’t know.

  “The power was different then. Now it is deeper and comes from the very ground that I walk upon. It is stronger too; much, much stronger, but it isn’t as malicious. No, that’s not right. The power was the same in a way, but one was more focused and devoid of conscience. When I disposed of the talisman and began to tap into this new power, it was instantly more compassionate, I guess you’d say. I made a stone like it for Frodeg and Juil who are both trained in the arcane arts, maybe they will be able to be more blood thirsty than I.”

  “That’s all good and fine, but it still means we’re screwed.”

  “No, it doesn’t, not yet anyways,” Tic said and glanced up toward the aerie where Juil trained with her new talisman. Nigel cocked his head strangely.

  “Do you hear that?”

  “Almost, it sounds like a hum, but it is getting louder,” Tic replied and they both listened for a bit until the hum flowed into indiscernible words sang at a pitch that seemed too want to creep inside of you and lay claim. It was a warmth of all things beautiful and right with the world, yet it was in a tone of intense sadness. Tic wanted to weep and then chuckled only to have his heart sink into reverie. He worried for his sister; for his dad and brothers, the poor orphans, as well as the stray dog on the corner.

  “I know that song,” Nigel said in an angry yet slightly confused tone.

  “It’s beautiful,” Tic replied.

  “The hell it is. You didn’t have to listen to it for three, or should I say three hundred years.”

  49

  Elves

  Drick didn’t join the formation of lancers due to the donkey on his tail that would follow no one else. Drick felt that it was because they had gone to battle together and that made them some sort of comrades. Or it could be that he had buried and honored the grave of his master Bryan, his last human. He didn’t really know why, but he did know that he certainly didn’t behave like a horse. He was a rugged beast, everyone had to admit, and could carry three times what a horse could as long as it wasn’t a person. Lilieack had a few donkeys and mules down in the trader’s area, but nothing on a military or household scale.

  Juin and his father Lindren were pushing the group hard toward Riverhouse and there was no resistance to the army’s progress, but the chance of having energy to go into battle when they arrived was doubtful. All at once the column came to a stop, a large cloud of dust billowing around them. As Har Karoome, it was Drick’s duty to be in on any planning or decisions, so he and Spunk moved toward the front of the army to see what was going on.

  “There is a large contingent of humans and dwarfs ahead of us.”

  “Humans? There are enough of them over here to make an army?” Juin asked, remembering the enmity between humans and fair folk. Then again, Spunk’s last partner was human and Drick remembered him as a friend, a stranger who he trusted. Rumors had said that the humans had two flaws that didn’t allow for many allies. Greed, and the incessant need to be in control. So they left, at least most of them left, and were doing quite well on the opposite side of the Swirl without interactions with the other races. There were several humans who stayed on this side but there wasn’t an entire city or town of them other than Skorsdale and there certainly wasn’t an army there.

  “Alright, let’s get some emissaries together and go speak with them, hopefully they are with a larger group that we know,” Lindren said and moved as if he was planning on being a part of the group.

  “They’re not friends,” Drick said. “An unknown force in this situation is an enemy until proven otherwise.”

  “You’re out of line, Har Karoome,” King Lindren said.

  “I disagree,” Diedrick spoke up. As head of the military he had every right to speak his mind at any time. “I disagree that my son is out of line, that is.”

  “Commander?”

  “I’m sorry, my king, but this smells of a trap as much as anything ever has,” Diedrick replied and gave a nod to his son Drick.

  “We have been strung into traps by these bastards ever since they started their offensive. This is just another part of that plan. We are not going to get any easy breaks in this war because they know every step we take before we take it because they are dictating them,” Drick said in a rush so as not to be cut off.

  “What are you suggesting, Har Karoome?” Deidrick plied his son.

  “I don’t know yet, but it doesn’t include entering a forest that hides an army. We have had clear sailing all the way from the glacier to here where the heaviest forests begin…this is a trap. We have to go in hard with full-frontal action. I think it is safe to assume that they know where we are and that we have stopped. They probably have eyes on us right now. Signal fourth battalion to fade east and penetrate the tree line in a half hour with infantry pikes supported by archers. Have the fifth do the same on the west using lite cavalry with crossbows and pike support. The rest of us will have to attack right through the woods. If they have targeted on anything it will be the road and any obvious trail.”

  “I would recommend we move infantry slowly through the brush immediately,” Diedrick said, prompting his son to take charge. He did.

  He waved his arm in the air signaling the commanders forward. While he waited and under the scrutiny of Juin and the king himself, Drick climbed off of his mount and started to unpack Spunk. The other elves watched curiously as the donkey was outfitted in his strange battle tunic.

  Within minutes they were moving silently through the woods. All elves are born to the forest, but Drick, due to a donkey that followed him like a puppy, was one of twenty who stuck to the main trail as the distraction. He knew that they may have been watching as troops maneuvered, but it didn’t matter. This was a battle that needed to be fought and this was the best way he could think to do it. He was concerned that none of the higher authorities stepped in, preferring instead to let him take the reign’s, but then again, he was the only one who had one successful mission to date. The mines he had assaulted with his group up in the ice fields was a monumental victory that freed hundreds, if not thousands, of slaves from their slaughter pens. He did that by not being where they had expected him to be and attacking fast and hard.

  Silent and without the signal of horns, the elves attacked, and instead of using the large heavy lancers as was typical for elves, they struck swiftly and silently by using the woods skills that came naturally to their kind. He could see them before they attacked and he could tell that they were lined up facing away from Riverhouse as if in defense. These were not his people; they would not join with his armies and fight beside them. The camp had been set in a line across the forest floor with soldiers in boiled leather breast plates and gauntlets bearing a symbol of a tower crossed by two wickedly curved swords. These people were not on their side.

  Drick dropped his arm and a hail of arrows flew into the group of ruffians, proving to Drick that they hadn’t known the elves were this close. They didn’t seem completely surprised, simply appearing as if they thought they had more time. A large human looked over the field at Drick, his eyes opening as if he recognized the elf and he smiled showing teeth filed to points and capped in silvery steel. The interaction enraged the Har Karoome, his people had lost so much already to this cowardly war to find this creature acting as if it were a game, boiled his blood.

  He let two more shafts fly, the large human side stepping to let his followers feel the pain of broad heads striking flesh. Drick threw his bow to the side and pulled his sword. Having stuck to the road due to Spunk being on his tail, he didn’t have to worry about the brush and charged headlong into the mass of confused enemy warriors. His compatriots screamed for him to stop, but they had never seen Spunk in full battle mode.

  Dwarfs and humans were looking toward the road not yet realizing that the full attack would come from the trees. These were soldiers used to walking long distances and to do that, you stuck to roads and trails. Drick’s mad rush was the signal they had all waited for and the tree line came alive with arrows and pikes. There was a thrum in the air as almost a thousand bow strings released death upon the gathered force as Drick closed with the silver-fanged man.

  He used a two-handed broad sword and swung it as if he intended to crush the fleet elf under the sheer force of impact, but Drick was no longer there and the warrior found a long line of blood from an elven rapier stretching up the inside of his forearm and across the tendons in his elbow. His fingers on that hand suddenly wouldn’t function and the muscles no longer responded but he didn’t have to worry about it for long as the jaw of an enraged donkey clamped over his skull and slammed him to the earth where the next elf gladly plunged his blade into his throat, ending his existence.

  Drick was no fool and had no intentions of staging a one on one pitched battle with any of them. His aim as point was to injure and maim as many as he could in his initial attack and allow those on the follow up to do the actual killing. For him to have stopped and faced off against the human would have bunched up the forces behind him and that was not how elves were designed to fight. They were fast, lithe, and agile creatures who needed the room to maneuver. If they had wanted a pitched battle, then they should have found some dwarfs.

  The ambush force was not nearly the size of the elven force, seeming to be equipped with only melee weapons. How such a force could be caught unawares baffled Drick, but without any other evidence he had to assume that they had arrived here much sooner than they had been expected. This was further proof to his theory about doing the unexpected.

  As soon as it was started, it ended, with the advantage going to the larger force of the elves. There were no cheers or screams of triumph, simply looks of disgust as the elves dispatched the wounded enemies and gathered their own together. Drick patted the large equine snout that hung over his shoulder, congratulating the beast on a battle well fought, but he didn’t have to. Spunk relished these battles as if he was working out some sort of latent vengeance. He looked around the camp searching for some sort of evidence as to who these people were, but found nothing. He noted that they fought as raiders as opposed to a cohesive force which was proved by the lack of a shield wall from the dwarven constituents of the group. Dwarfs always fought from a phalanx, but these hadn’t. The uniforms and crests were of none he was familiar with and their steel was black, roughly hammered and shaped in foreign designs and patterns, but that was all he could find on the group. These were from faraway lands which brought his mind to the dwarfs from the west he had rescued up in the ice land. Could they be connected? If so, where did the humans fit in? Too many unanswered questions, he needed to change the game.

  * * *

  “I’m saying that there is more going on here than what’s obvious. We get just enough to keep us distracted with this battle or that,” Drick said to the assembly after the sortie.

  “I don’t know, Drick. A war against the five is pretty straight forward if you ask me,” Juin said with a little more sarcasm than was needed. He and Juin had grown up together and though they had liked each other as kids, it was off and on as adults. Juin was the prince and would one day be king of Lilieack and Drick was merely the youngest high commander of their armed forces. It was hard to call it an army since there has been no aggression between any of the races for over three hundred years and the concept of an active military had fallen by the wayside. Until now, and they were hard pressed to figure things out on the fly.

  “It’s not a war, it’s an invasion,” Drick stressed. They are not here to fight a battle or win a kingdom, they want all of it and they want us… dead.”

  “That is a pretty ambitious goal for races and people we have never heard of before, let’s not be overzealous,” Diedrick said to his son, not really understanding where he was coming from or going with a statement like that. The muridai however, were a mystery, something he had never even heard of in his two hundred fifty years, so he decided to listen to his youngest son.

  “It is the only thing that makes sense,” Drick said in earnest. “They have been collecting slaves for years up on the ice shore as well as in the west, both being places that we would never hear or care about.”

  “It’s callous to say that we wouldn’t care,” stated Lindren, who had recently gained the throne of Lilieack upon the assassination of his father, Lindrow.

  “Is it? Let’s ask some breeds about that when we have time,” Drick said, knowing that he was bordering on insubordination, but this was a war council and he should have the right to say what needed to be said. “They weren’t capturing the breeds and western dwarfs for work or labor of any sort, they were to be cattle. Stock. Intended to exist merely for the sake of feeding the trolls and muridai who make up their army as far as we could tell. Lindrow, the great king was suddenly assassinated leaving Lilieack, the most influential elven kingdom in turmoil. Then they stage an attack where it will get noticed and Pine Hold is annihilated and used to trap three of our most influential leaders, but do they kill those leaders? No, why?”