Part 2: Soldiers in the Good Old Way
It was the last bog to have endured the dry spring, and the only bog for miles around, and the wagon was stuck in it. Brockle and Chowley had managed to stop it from sinking while the rest of the group had continued to the ruins. Getting it out had been beyond their considerable combined strength, however. Ten hours later, and it was exactly where it had been that morning. Except maybe half a foot lower.
Lila dismounted and trotted around the wagon, inspecting each wheel to see how far it had sunken into the black, foul-smelling mud. The straps of the haversack dug into her shoulders. Naturally, the Illefarn sculptors had used granite for their statues, having not foreseen the day when the enemies of the King of Shadows would really appreciate something that was light and easily transportable. A small bust carved from soapstone, perhaps. Or even better: a cameo brooch.
The wheels were in deep alright. She had to perch on a mossy ridge to be able to look at the front left corner, which had sunk further down than the rest. With enough leaves and branches to pad the surface and change the blackish, brackish gloop into something more solid, and a space to give the wheels room to move, and a fair bit of lifting, they could have the wagon popping out of its glutinous harbour before Draygood or whoever had salted the porridge.
"What did you think you were doing, lad?" Brockle was demanding of Luan. "It's a wagon, not a warthog. Jump in yourself if you want a mud bath."
She stopped the rest from piling in with criticisms by giving the order to stand back. Then something dark shifted in the young woodland on her left. She squinted, and her eyes latched on to a boulder, which unfolded itself into a form that was roughly humanoid, yet much greater in size than any of the races that walked on two legs. In so far as she'd encountered them. It looked – and, as it lurched closer to Lila, smelled – like a part of the boggy ground that had grown limbs and a blind, bullish head. It approached the front of the cart with lumbering steps. Standing between the shafts, it wrapped them each in a rough, unlovely hand. A single jerk of the massive shoulders was all that it took to free the wheels from the mud. Another jerk, and the wagon was back on solid ground.
"What is that thing?" Luan asked from close behind.
"That thing, I believe, is Elanee," said Lila, noting with amusement that the creature's back was covered with mosses and lichens of all the hues that could be seen in nature. Even as a walking clod of wet clay, Elanee couldn't help having a certain elegance. "Though now shapeshifted into an earth elemental. And a powerful one, too."
"Ooh," said Luan, looking fascinated.
A thin line appeared in its face, and turned into a mouth, blasting out fetid swampish air. When it lifted its hands from the wagon's shafts, black prints remained behind on the wood. Unbidden, the thought shot into Lila's mind that this was what the souls of the Harbour-folk must look like. She brushed the idea away, irritated. Now was not the time for such things.
The earth elemental took a couple of steps towards Lila. She looked up at it, resolved to be calm, reminding herself that it was only Elanee behind the dripping façade. Only Elanee? But the druid was not what she had been when they met on the road from the Merdelain. Her reserve made changes hard to grasp, yet Lila was sure that there had been a change, and not just to the potency of her spells.
"My idea with the leaves would have worked just as well," she remarked. "In Red Fallows Watch the people once helped pull a cart full of pig iron out of the mire using just willow branches and grit. The moral kind, I mean. They stole the iron afterwards, of course. West Harbour folk did not approve."
"Red Fallows Watch burned down long ago," said Elanee, having morphed from earth to elf in a single blurred instant. Beautiful again, she disturbed her forehead with a frown.
"Yes. It did. Do you approve of that?" Lila asked.
"Why would I approve?"
"When I was last there, there was nothing left but a few stones and turf mounds. Isn't that what you want for the world? To be overgrown and wild? For nature to claim it back?"
"Nature didn't claim it. It was Bishop. He burnt it down."
"Your druid friends told you that?" The Circle. She should have said 'The Circle'. Calling them 'druid friends' made it sound as if Elanee was going through a phase that she'd grow out of in a few decades, before accepting a secretarial position in the Neverwinter Customs House and marrying a clerk. It would be like asking Ammon how he was getting on with his little demonic pals.
"No," said Elanee. "They did not."
"Then you saw it happen?" This was simply agonizing.
"No." That meant either Elanee had been granted the knowledge in a divine vision, or...
"So Bishop told you?"
"Yes."
"You weren't hanging him upside-down over a fire, or anything? He just volunteered the information, all of his own accord?"
"Yes," Elanee gave a faint smile. Was that a light deep within the druid's eyes? And if it was, what did it mean? "You are surprised."
Lila thought of Bishop – the short, the fox-faced, the insolent, the poor son of Merdelain made bad. "Yes," she answered, though Elanee had not asked a question. "Very."
"He spoke to me one day when I was meditating in a glade on the eastern flank of the Keep. He was out hunting, but had lost his prey. He started confessing – everything. He set fire to his village while the people were all still asleep in their beds. Did you know that?"
Lila shook her head. Goosebumps ran up her back despite the warmth of the evening sun. "He never said." She could have known if she had wanted to know. For the last two years, she'd had the resources to set discreet agents on the trail of Bishop's past and present. Even without that, there had been enough dark hints from her uncle to form a picture...but she had been careful not to piece them together.
"Watch yourself," said Lila. "He's playing games. He might try to hurt you. Not physically..." Lila had watched how Bishop behaved around women in the Flagon; even the ones that hated him would start to melt when he decided to reel them into him. She herself had always considered herself immune. Though with Bishop living all-expenses-paid at the Phoenix Tail and working for barely one day in five, she wondered if the joke was on her.
"It's not me he wants to hurt," said Elanee.
"Not you? Then – but I've never - "
"No. I'm not -" she paused, and twitched on the horizontal, like a dog with some irritant drops of water trickling down its ears. She briefly pursed her lips. "I'm not thinking of you, but of Casavir. He hates Casavir."
Before Lila could ask any further questions, the druid had walked away, offering no excuse for her abrupt departure. No offence was taken. After their years of tepid co-operation, the display of rough edges was a welcome change.
Back at camp, the preparations for their second and final night away from the Keep were getting under way. Luan was leading the horses away from the wagon to the clearing where their nosebags awaited them, while Draygood and Chowley checked the palisade. A couple of the soldiers – Olly and Ellis – simply lurched straight across to their pallets and collapsed onto them without even removing their armour. No doubt they would recover in time to receive their evening rations. They could have Lila's as well as their own if dinner was going to be porridge with cold porridge biscuits again.
She felt suddenly immensely tired. The innumerable anxieties of her role pressed in on her. If only, as Olly and Ellis had done with their allotted tasks completed, she could lie down and rest.
But to spend a second night in the open, and overlooked on three sides. It wasn't good. To continue on towards the Keep through the evening and night might be possible, but seemed if possible more dangerous that camping here again. She was exhausted. The rest of the troop would be too.
"Katriona?"
"Captain?" Her sergeant was standing straight-backed and alert by the gap in the palisade that served for a gate during daylight hours. Another haversack, a twin of Lila's, rested high on her back.
"Those hills to the north and west," she said, waving one arm vaguely at the crags that overlooked both the road and their encampment, "I need you to -"
"Harfer and Medir are already stationed there. They will be relieved at sundown by Chantler and Brackle."
"Am I -"
"Yes. You have the watch at dawn with Draygood. Myself, Elanee, Chowley and Luan will take turns in the camp itself."
"Thank you, sergeant." Perhaps she should worry that Katriona was becoming her own personal Sir Nevalle. If the woman became any more efficient, Lila should just delegate saving the world to her along with the Keep and the title.
As she limped over to her bedroll, she noticed Chantler setting up the cauldron for that night's meal. A bundle of long green leaves nuzzling against tiny white flowers lay beside the ladle.
"Plant porridge?" Lila hazarded.
Chantler gave her a dirty look. "I've got half a mind to make some now. That would suit you, wouldn't it? The rest of us are going to have rabbit casserole with parsley and these here ramsons which I found after casting about for half the day for some fresh ones that aren't past their best. But just for you, Cap'n, I'll boil you up a nice bowl of plant porridge."
"My gratitude is limitless," said Lila. "But why don't you save the oats and leaves for Lord Nasher's next visitation? I'm sure His Lordship would feel blessed."
"Is that an order?" Chantler asked. The wrinkles around his cheeks and mouth smoothed, then reformed into laughter lines. He'd do it, too.
"Uh, no. Better not," said Lila, remembering her position. Nasher was the Knight Captain's liege lord. Unless she woke up tomorrow from a strange dream and found herself back in her narrow bed in West Harbour, or else a disgraced exile on a ship to unknown lands, she had to act this part she'd unknowingly auditioned for. And she liked the man, anyway, in a way. "Don't want to spoil him too much. He'd just think we're wasting the Keep's resources on luxuries, and decide to cut the money we get from Neverwinter."
"Any time you change your mind, just say the word," said Chantler, and returned his attention to the dinner preparations.
Her bedroll was under the centre of the awning, while those of the soldiers were spread out around the edges like the spokes of a wheel. That made her resting place the wheel's axle. She let the haversack fall to one side. Gods, it was good to be rid of that weight. What the thin mattress lacked in comfort, it made up for with its scent. She nestled her head on the pillow. Thyme, apples and juniper oil: a breath of the attic storerooms at Crossroad Keep. The one time she had overnighted at Castle Never, the sheets had been damp and stunk of it. How much better they managed affairs here in the south...
She yawned, ready to give way to sleep. Let her hand fall protectively on the haversack with its precious contents. They had found three intact statue heads; Katriona and Elanee had care of the other two.
Out of habit, she turned on her side to face the border of the camp. Through a gap in the primitive palisade, she could see the trees that climbed the southern slope of the hill watching over the glade.
Something was there. Something ragged and thin. A grey ghost.
Her hand went to her thigh where a knife was strapped. Neeshka's idea. She brushed the hilt with her palm. Focused.
Then chortled at herself. It was a heron - grey and rather small, but the black crest on its head was unmistakeable. This one was turning over the leaf mould with its long beak, perhaps puzzled at the lack of water.
"Off wit ye, yeh blitherer," Lila hissed to it. The few old and indigenous Harbour-folk had spoken like that when she was a child. It came back to her at odd times, in lonely fragments. "Water's t'other way, in't it?"
The heron twitched its neck round, and looked at her. It looked for a long while, took a slow and careful step forward. She raised herself on her elbow. Dismissively, the heron shook its head, and stalked away, its destination hidden by the palisade fences.
"Damn bird," Lila muttered. On instinct, she pulled the haversack closer to her, so that it lay under her breasts against her chest and stomach. Beautiful smells were starting to waft across from the cauldron. Eyepatch and Chowley were laughing, and all she could hear from the camp were the sounds of good order and contentment. Contented herself, she pulled her blanket over her shoulders, and let herself float into a pleasant sleep, dreaming of an ancient barn near Highcliff where she had once spent the night drinking and playing draughts and snap-dragon alongside a dwarf and a tiefling with a name that sounded like a sneeze, and finally passing out on a bed of hay in the apple loft as the night faded away...
A trumpet. Four high, staccato blasts. Then silence. Already, while one hand rubbed the crick in her neck that the thin bedroll had gifted her, with her other hand she was tossing away the blanket and reaching for her sword belt.
"We're under attack!" Katriona shouted not far away. "On your feet, lads. To arms!"
Lila snatched up her sword-belt, and had jumped to her feet and shouldered the haversack long before Katriona's orders came to an end. "Arm and watch the palisade. Form a circle – face outwards."
More trumpet blasts flooded into the camp. Longer and more complex than before. And not from above them – from the sentry on the eastern crag then. The enemy was to the east.
Orange beams were spreading across the sky from the setting sun. The changing of the guard had probably taken place already – which meant that either Chantler or Brackle was up there. She grabbed the nearest soldier, who was still raising himself groggily from his own mattress. As he wiped the sleep from his eyes, she shifted from foot to foot, her impatience for action pricking at her heels.
"Luan. Do you know what those calls mean? They were different to the last ones."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Lila took in his young, good-natured face, and reminded herself to be kind. "Uh...maybe if they get repeated again. Or you could...hum them...?"
She exhaled through her teeth. "It doesn't matter." It damn well did matter, but poor Luan didn't have to be told that. She drew her sabre.
"Go and guard Katriona," she said. "I'm going to find out what's happening." He hurried away. Hopefully, he wouldn't think too much about the plausibility of the order until Katriona had assumed charge of him.
She scanned the camp. Eight soldiers – and Katriona – and Elanee. The men were armed – alert – their shields were up and ready. So far so good. She dodged between Eyepatch and Olly, and hopped over the eastern side of the palisade.
"Captain!" Olly hissed anxiously.
"Going exploring. You two, stay here."
Olly moved his hand to the nearest post, and seemed on the verge of following her anyway. "Stay here," she repeated. "That's an order, not a suggestion. Your job is to help your sergeant hold the camp."
She jogged into the darkness the under the trees. Dangling elderflowers smelling of summer brushed against her cheek. Above her the sky was bonfire red. Through the larch trees on her right, the line of the road appeared and disappeared at intervals.
Sabre held ready to slash or stab, she advanced as quickly, as lightly, as she could. Her heart beat fast. In the excitement of the moment, the weight of the haversack became mere ballast, it steadied her, else she felt she might have floated free of the earth. The blood was rushing to her cheeks. Had she felt so alive since they took the Keep from Garius?
The mossy ground was cushioning her steps. Sabre, knife, spells, scrolls, fire-powder. That was all her armoury. And she'd wager that if it came to it, that damn great head of the Illefarn statue could give a good whack to anything that came her way –with the right momentum and angle.
How damp the air smelled down here. She must be near the place where the wagon had been stuck earlier. Pressing her brow, the fingers came away wet. Just like home. The air on warm days that soaked clothes when you were nowhere near water.
She paused, and squinted at the land ahead of her. Where the red sunlight shone, every blade of grass could be distinctly made out; the long, lush ones with their roots in damp earth, and the shorter ones, where it was better to tread. But each tree cast a deep shadow, and where those fell she could see little at all.
Ahead of her, where the ground began to rise and lead up into the hills, she heard rustling. Then the heavy thud of footsteps. Here the patches of darkness could help her. She merged into the shadows, as Neeshka had taught her. Not good for more than the blink of an eye, yet that could suffice. She waited. Held her breath.
"Chantler!" He stopped, looked around, didn't see her. He was panting. No sign of his easy-going humour now. A trumpet bounced on a string at his back. She stepped into the light. "Chantler, what is it?"
He shook his head. Clutching his side, he leant against the nearest sapling. It bent sharply, unable to take his weight, and sent him staggering in surprise. Lila's laughter shrivelled into nothing as she realized that he still wasn't laughing, indeed, hadn't even noticed his mishap. She grabbed his shoulders to steady him.
"Shadow creatures," he said. "On the Great East Road. Too many to count. Hundreds. Maybe thousands." He trembled, then seized her hand and pulled her back the way she'd come. "Need to get to the rest and retreat at the double."
Lila blinked, and mentally shrugged. As long as they brought the Illefarn fragments to the Keep, whether they managed it through a leisurely ride tomorrow or a headlong retreat tonight wouldn't matter.
"Good plan," she said. None other was possible, if Chantler's report was true. He looked exhausted. She reckoned that came more from the shock and fear than from the effort of hurrying down from his vantage point.
"I've got one of the stones on me," said Lila as they jogged along, she half-supporting him, he half-pulling her forwards. "Katriona has another. Another is -" where was it then? "-in the horse's saddle-bags, I think. We can get ourselves and them away fast enough. Have to lose the wagon though. You can summon Brackle with another of those trumpet calls, if he hasn't reached the camp already."
She stopped talking, and listened fiercely. Nothing. The wrong kind of nothing. No birds. No mice rustling underneath last year's leaf mould. It was the kind of nothing she'd once heard by the Neverwinter docks before rounding a corner to find half-a-dozen of Moire's thugs waiting for her.
"Really? Hundreds of shadows?"
"My eyes weren't lying, Cap'n."
"Hells." She'd fought ten at a go at most. And that was with some serious muscle and spellcraft to back her up. No Khelgar or Qara were here tonight.
"The Sarge will have it all in hand, you mark my words," said Chantler, sounding more like himself.
"I bet she's getting the men ready to leave as we speak," agreed Lila, thinking this more than possible.
And then she saw Katriona. The woman was not alone. Luan and Eyepatch were at her back. And leading the way... The circumstances made speech unwise until they were standing almost nose to nose.
"Elanee," Lila hissed. "What are you all doing out here?" A brassy, minor note prevented an answer. The note fractured into a series of descending triplets.
"That's..." said Chantler.
"...Brackle," Katriona completed. "On the north post. His call means -"
"- danger," said Lila. "It means he's seen the enemy on the road. That's what it means, isn't it?"
Before anyone could confirm her guess, a cacophony of trumpet calls arose ahead of them; one or two from the hill, others from the camp itself. A meaningless raucous tangle of noise. The group listened together in concentrated silence.
"I heard 'Retreat to the North!'" said Chantler.
"I heard 'Help!'" said Eyepatch. "Or it might have been 'Charge!'. Or the one, then the other."
"I think the last call was sounding a retreat to the south," said Luan. "That was from the camp," he added, looking rather pleased. No time to give him a verbal pat on the head and a biscuit now. Just enough time to imagine having the Greycloaks' trumpets beaten out into silver ropes she could use to hog-tie whoever had first introduced them into military practice. And now a breath...and now...
She charged. She was within arrow-shot of the camp. The palisades reared up ahead. The way was clear. She vaulted over the nearest, her skin already hardening, her arms stronger, legs faster through her own enchantments. Her feet smacked against the packed earth. She gritted her teeth, just as her sabre slashed through emptiness.
The camp was abandoned. Wagon, bedrolls, fireplace, all were as they had been. But of the six men who should have waiting, there was no trace. None that she could recognise, anyway. She knew she would be embarrassed about this later. First, she had to find her missing soldiers.
"They went south," said Elanee, not even bothering to check the grass for boot prints. As she spoke, Eyepatch nonchalantly opened a hole in the palisade fence, and walked through it across to the wagon. He started to pull food from one of the bags, and started transferring the contents to his own haversack.
"Bring water, too," said Elanee. Eyepatch's eye-patch moved in a quizzical sort of way. If he'd had any eyebrow left, he would have raised it.
"Do what she says," said Lila. "She's a druid. She knows this stuff. And throw me a flask of water while you're at it." Catching it one-handed, she looped the catch over her belt, and turned to Katriona. "Have you got – you know -"
Katriona narrowed her eyes. "Of course. But why are we hanging around here? We need to find the others."
The others had walked south, directly onto the road that according to Chantler was a thoroughfare for their enemies. What could have possessed them to rush off in that direction? There was no shelter that way for miles, bar a few ditches and thorns. But perhaps her soldier farmers just planned to make for familiar territory...They weren't native to the hills like Katriona. Panicked, they'd head for home, or towards whatever most closely resembled home.
"We should leave," said Elanee. She tilted her head. "I can hear them. They went on foot, and they're surrounded. It's too late. We have to go." Lila's stomach lurched. The druid could be so matter-of-fact.
"Too late?" Lila repeated, stunned. She had barely been awake for five minutes. She shook her head to clear it.
"I'm not leaving them," Katriona snarled. "If you hadn't run off after the Captain-"
"-she's too important to risk losing-"
"-but she was never at risk. She was fine -"
"-I did not ask you to follow me," Elanee said, unruffled by the sergeant's anger. "Your men were alive and well when I saw them. If they lost their nerve and fled after just a few moments without an officer present, it is their training that is in question."
"Brackle sounded the retreat. They followed their training perfectly!" The sergeant's pale cheeks were blushing with anger, and the scar on her chin stood out more vividly than before, as red as a rose.
"Then -"
"Wait, they left on foot?" Chantler put in. Katriona and Elanee broke off their argument to stare at him.
"What is it?" snapped Katriona.
"They went on foot. That means they didn't take the horses." He spun round to Lila. His eyes were bright. "I'm not leaving them creatures tied up to die. I'll get 'em saddled up if I have the chance, and we can get away all the faster. If not, I'll let 'em loose and bring you back what we came here for."
"There's no time to saddle all the horses. Just get one ready, take the statue head and ride back to the Keep as fast as you can, if you can," said Lila.
"Got it."
"Take care of yourself, Chantler."
"Always do, Cap'n. Always looking out for number one, you know me." He saluted, and jogged away into the woods that lay to the west of the camp where they'd tethered the horses the evening before. Poor Sorrel, Lila thought, guilt stabbing at her. She'd forgotten about her sweet-natured mare.
"Are the rest of you ready?" she asked.
"To go south or north, Captain?" replied Eyepatch.
"First south. Onto the road to get the others. Then north. North extremely quickly, I expect."
Eyepatch pulled a morning star from the wagon, and nodded. Katriona smiled.
"This is not good strategy, Lila," said Elanee. "I have learned that much while I have been living in your Keep."
Lila knew it was a poor strategic decision. Yet she could not bear the thought of choosing otherwise. Why was that? Was it the reputation she'd have to live with afterwards? Having the Torios of the world remind her for the rest of her life that she was the hero that left her men in the lurch? But then at least there'd be a rest of her life. Even enduring a life-time of the mockery of bar-room generals and armchair knights would be better than having her soul sucked into some shadowy nether realm, or being given a window seat in some celestial Palace of Divine Joy while all the people that mattered most would live and die and progress to other eternities far away from her.
She shot a glance at the four misfortunates that remained with her.
"Stay close by me, Luan," she said. "Don't let yourself get isolated."
"Yes, Captain."
"But leave enough room for my sword arm. In fact, walk on my left."
"Yes, Captain."
She began moving towards the road. Cautiously, this time.
"Casavir would not approve," said Elanee.
"On the contrary," said Katriona. "If Casavir were here, he'd do the same as our Captain. He didn't give up on his men in Old Owl Well. He valued life. And not just the fuzzy kind on four legs."
Elanee shrugged, then looked at Lila, almost smiling. "Jerro would not approve."
What was that about? Lila's stomach lurched; she pursed her lips, and felt her skin grow hot. For once, she didn't have a reply.
"We're nearly there," was all she could say.
The long silence from the road had been alarming her. There should have been shouts or cries for help or something, anything, audible much earlier. Now, with a clear view through the trees, she understood the quiet. They were all still alive, thank the gods. On their feet, and sheltering behind their shields; the tips of their long-swords protruded through the gaps in their tiny shield wall. The point of Medir's sword was trembling.
On every side, they were surrounded. A river of shadows was filling the road, of which every part was concealed. No broken paving and shale was visible, but only dark tendrils, claws that flexed and lengthened and contracted, and growing somehow more solid, more real in the light that was turning from orange to rose-red. The road seemed to channel sunlight as if it was guiding water through a cutting. Lila thought of Ammon again, and his warning: "The King and his forces are most powerful at dawn and dusk..."
One eyeless head turned towards her group. As one, the rest of the hundreds – perhaps thousands – of heads turned. Some of the shadows had the form of animals, others were vaguely humanoid. One shadow near them resembled a tall human archer. Featureless, of course. A dark outline that floated apart every few heartbeats, and then rebuilt itself in the same image. Hadn't Callum reported that a party of archers had vanished on this road last autumn?
The shadows began to flow towards them, ignoring the little island of men huddled in their midst. The men's route to the south was open behind them over open ground. She didn't have long to make her decision. It was a simple one, anyway. They were good soldiers, strong and well-trained. But against such numbers, all they could do would be to die uselessly.
"Go!" she shouted, as she whipped her sabre through her first opponent, a shrunken, old, indefinable thing, a being of black dust. A weak blow. She was putting all the force she had into her voice. "Go! That's an order! Draygood, take the others and get away – we'll meet at the Keep!" She struck again. "Go!" she shouted once more, her voice cracking.
They'd heard her. Draygood saluted, and started leading the others to the southern edge of the road. Watching their progress was impossible. She had to fight.
A stinging pain bored into her left shoulder. That archer. She dodged behind Eyepatch and Luan, who had their shields raised. No arrow shaft had transfixed her; whatever the creature was firing, it wasn't two feet of sanded poplar. There wasn't even a hole in her jerkin. Her shoulder hurt nonetheless.
"All that food not weighing you down too much?" she asked Eyepatch.
"No, chief," he answered. Luan laughed rather shrilly.
"Good," she said. She stuck her right hand out from behind the shelter of the shields. From the ring on her forefinger, fire blossomed, formed a vast globe. For a moment the heat was unbearable. Then the fireball hurtled away from them across the road and burst into flames at the feat of the shadow archer. The creature shuddered, shook in the midst of the fire, seemed to crack into pieces – but as the flames died, he straightened and, drawing his diverse elements back to him, he resumed firing his translucent missiles.
Katriona was cutting through all that came near her as if slicing butter, but she wouldn't be able to keep it up. There was sweat on her brow already, with seven enemies down and hundreds more pressing towards her. She would be surrounded, drained and overwhelmed. They all would be.
Lila jumped forwards to attack a shadow that was coming at Luan. She ripped her blade twice through it, shoulder to waist and back. That creature didn't reform. As another arrow flew near her elbow, she moved back behind Luan.
Again, she scanned the road. All that she saw confirmed her instinct – they had to go, and fast. Elanee's summoned elementals were being smothered under the writhing darkness. Lila's soldier boy was casting desperate glances at her, as if he expected her to turn into the Hero of Neverwinter at any moment and wipe the shadows from the land with a raised eyebrow. It was probably easier for real heroes of legend; the ones with light in their eyes and courage stamped in their innermost selves. "Fate be thine, fair fortune mine," she muttered to herself, remembering an old saying. It didn't work like that here, if it ever had anywhere. They would have to run. Now.
Something new tugged at the edge of her field of vision. She cut down another shadow, then snapped her head round to the west. A horse was braying and bucking at the roadside. Unsaddled. Riderless. A bad omen.
If the shadows started swarming around them and closed off their line of retreat, they'd be in serious trouble.
"Luan, hold your ground for a little longer. Will you do that?"
"Yes, Knight Captain!"
"When I say 'run!' you'll run north towards Brackle's watch post. Right?"
"Right."
"What will you do?"
"Run north."
"Good. This won't take long!" She slashed viciously at the shadows that stalked nearest to Luan, and threw a handful of fire-powder at them. No pause to watch the results. The crackling at her back was satisfaction enough.
Elanee stood sheltered in the lea of her elementals. She looked tense. Almost frightened.
"We can't do this, Lila. There are too many. You need an army for this..."
"I know. But we just need a short head start. They're strongest at dusk and dawn. Once the sun sets, they're weaker, and we can outpace them easily. Even on foot. We just need -"
"-a distraction. A hindrance." Elanee closed her eyes. Lila waited impatiently. When she opened them again, she seemed more confident. "Yes, there is something I can do. A powerful spell. Guard me."
Lila nodded, and Elanee closed her eyes again. Fine silver threads began to creep over the druid's olive skin, until it seemed almost totally covered by icy cobwebs. Her hands shook. Instantly, the elementals disappeared. Cursing, Lila sprang forwards to take their place. Shadows surged around her. Some of their wavering talons tried to claw at the ties of the haversack. She sliced through the reaching, thrusting limbs.
More came at her. She cut them to shreds too. And then another wave...
Shandra had once claimed that she'd heard the shadows whispering to her as she hid from them in a tomb in Blacklake. An unlikely story, it had seemed then. Lila had thought the shadows about as sentient as moss or lichen, and as capable of speech as the creepers that choked willow trees to death in the merelands. And now...from everywhere and from nowhere, and from the horizon, and from the ground under her feet, she could hear one unified voice. A quiet mantra, caressing her name in a hundred different tongues and tones, clipped, drawling, hoarse, smooth: Lily. Hreri. Alia. Krinē. Lilia. Layla. Lirio. Liliya.
Lila. Come to us.
Her right hand was shaking with cold. It was too early in the fight to have a block of ice for a sword-arm. If only she could make her body understand that...
"Fortune is mine," she told herself. She drew her knife with her left hand, and lunged about her. Listen. Listen to us... the shadow chorus was murmuring.
More braying. Another horse had broken onto the road through the tree-line. This horse had a rider. A bag at his side must contain the third of the statue heads, the last that they had found intact.
Staying alive was consuming all her focus. Awareness of her position, of her sword, of her enemies. It was impossible to do more than snatch a look to the west. But without looking, without needing to look, she knew it had to be Chantler on the horse, and that he'd be surrounded. Curse him. Why did he go running off on his own? And why had she let him? Why had she encouraged him? Separating never did anyone any good.
"Captain – it's Chantler!" shouted Katriona. Lila didn't reply at first. Chantler was clinging to the neck of his terrified horse; underneath him, it kicked and reared and writhed. Sorrel. There was a flood of shadows between Lila and the man who was about to die. "He needs help. He's stuck out there. I'll try and get to him!"
"Stay where you are!" Lila yelled back. "Katriona, that's an order. Chantler – Chantler!" She prayed for him to hear her. "Throw the fucking thing away – they want it – not you!"
He was so far down the road that he couldn't have understood. He simply raised his head numbly from the horse's black neck, and stared at them. He made no move to release the bag. With the horse rearing up on its hind-legs, perhaps he couldn't. The shadows were crawling up the horse's flanks like rising smoke.
His face was so white...
Lila shuddered. She threw the last of her firepowder at the shadows that were pressing in on her. "Shut up!" she spat at them as they darted back. This was the point were the Hero of Neverwinter would do something amazing...
She hacked at an orc-like shade as it crept towards Katriona. Her sergeant's blue eyes were fixed on the solitary old soldier.
"I'm going -" Katriona began.
"Wait!" said Lila. The cold was seeping into her larynx; her shout had become a whisper. She tried again. "Wait! If you leave, we all die."
Katriona's lips were set defiantly. She was too strong for Lila to physically restrain. The steel torque around the woman's wrist wasn't worn for the sake of prettiness. Its enchantments enabled their wearer to punch a hole in a wall.
As Katriona took her first step westwards, Chantler pushed himself upright on the horse's back. He shook his head, just once, but that one time was clear enough. Then his hands let go their grip on the horse's mane, and he slipped down into the arms of his enemies without uttering a word.
Suddenly finding itself riderless, the horse snorted in panic, and drove its unevenly kicking legs into a wild canter, and soon the shadows had pooled across the space where Chantler had been.
Lila turned away. She was in time to see the first bolts of light racing along Elanee's bare forearms into fists that were swollen with it. From them, the light burst across the road in a blitz of thin rays, each interlocking with the others till they looked like the geometric meanders that lay thickly over the surfaces of Illefarn craft works. They shone so brightly that Lila couldn't even face them with her arm across her eyes.
"Get ready," said Elanee's soft voice nearby.
"To run?"
"To catch me." With her back to the fireworks, Lila shuffled cautiously towards the druid. The few shadows that were not trapped on the other side of the magical defences were drifting, stunned. Elanee's olive skin was fading into a silver-grey sheen, as if the price of her spell had been paid from her flesh and blood. She didn't look alive. But then first one, then another almond eye opened to regard her work with their usual calm. Her mouth opened to let out a sigh. And all at once, her legs gave way, and she slipped to the ground as silently and with as little protest as Chantler had done.
Lila reached her in time to save the druid's skull from receiving an unhealthy knock. After catching her, Elanee's shoulders and back lay against her arms, while the druid's head rested on her own shoulder. For a thin, light-boned elf, she felt surprisingly solid. Cumbersome. Not made of birdsong and starlight after all, as a drunk in The Sunken Flagon had once opined before sobbing his heart out into a dishcloth.
She took stock. The conjured barriers were holding back the shadows – but not, unfortunately, destroying them. She couldn't count on the barriers lasting. Katriona, Eyepatch and Luan were all still on their feet, praise be whatever deity wanted the credit for it. Luan was swaying; he was leaning against the brow of his shield to stay upright.
"Katriona – I need you to lift Elanee. I can't move her on my own."
Although trembling and pale, although weighed down already by the second of the stone heads, Katriona put an arm under Elanee's back and another under her knees, and lifted her into the air without any sign of strain, except for the blue glow that radiated briefly from the torque around her wrist.
"What about Chantler?"
"He's beyond the barriers." She shot a look at the soldiers, and lowered her voice. "If he's still alive, we can't save him. We can die with him, maybe."
Katriona didn't respond. Behind the sergeant's back, Lila saw the barriers begin to flicker. The shadows lay patiently along the road and the banks, waiting.
She ran to Luan and Eyepatch. "Drop your shields. Take Luan's right arm. Luan, you give me your left. Now. As fast as you can."
The boy did as commanded, but woozily, as if not fully conscious of his actions. She started to jog. Eyepatch, on Luan's opposite side, kept pace, while the boy did his best to match their tempo. Every so often he would look back through the trees to the road, to the place where Chantler most probably lay, and when that happened he would stumble. Then they would simply lift him up between them, half-carrying him until he returned to putting one foot in front of the other. Katriona soon caught up with them, in spite of her double burden.
"Glad you're here," said Lila, as Katriona drew level.
"I have a duty," Katriona replied.
Silence fell. The gradient was becoming steeper. The air was beginning to catch and scratch in her lungs with this new trial coming on top of the fight with the shadows. It was a welcome kind of pain though for with every step, she could believe herself further away from the terrible army that lined the valley floor. And it drew her mind away from Chantler, from the rest of the men who were fleeing south across hillocks and fields of brambles.
She tried to pay attention to what might lie ahead, and to listen for sounds that would betray the enemy creeping up behind. Her bag of tricks was at Crossroad Keep; most of what she'd brought on this mission was still in the wagon. Without her usual array of spells and potions, there was little she could effectively achieve. The only thing was to keep going, and pray she wasn't leading the survivors directly into another ambush.
What else had Ammon said? "Walk on the northern sides of hills"? Well, that's what they were doing at the moment. And "stay away from the edges of forests." With a sense of foreboding, she squinted ahead to where the trees thinned. forest becoming scrub, then the kind of short grass that sprouts on upland soils. Nosing from the hillside was a great crag, jutting out like the prow of those slender trading caravels that moored a few feet from her uncle's tavern. That crag was where Brackle had been stationed, and where he must have sounded the alarm.
"Katriona – stop -" Lila said. She leant against a tree and took a few deep breaths.
"We need to press on," said the sergeant.
"No," Lila stated, feeling some firmness returning to her, as the rapid beat of her heart pulsed through her chilled hands and throat. "No – it could be a trap. I'm going to go ahead. Only follow me when I signal that it's safe."
"But we left all the trumpets behind in the wagon," said Luan, his confusion intense. Eyepatch was gently lowering him to the floor to give them both a rest.
"Uh – it's okay, Luan. I'll just whistle. No military band will be necessary." She handed her water flask to Eyepatch; if only someone would call him by his name – then she'd find out what it was and pretend she'd always known. "Make sure he drinks some water. You too."
Bending low, she continued up the slope. No birds, no mice or insects. No shadows either. As she left the shelter of the trees she paused. Held her breath. Scanned the sky above, wheeled around to look back down the hill to where her four companions were waiting, resting and yet poised to run.
All seemed clear.
She dropped to all fours as the undergrowth turned to grass. There was just enough light coming from the sun sinking over the Sea of Swords to define the terrain ahead of her. Springy turf, interspersed with sandy ledges that provided good footholds. Here and there a patch of clover and buttercups. The mouth of a rabbit warren with the droppings of its residents forming neat piles on the turf outside. No rabbits though. Not even a glimpse of kicking hind-legs vanishing under a bracken bush.
The base of the crag was level with her now, and the ground became much steeper as she started to haul herself up the grass that ran beside the bare cliff face. It seemed a far higher and more formidable outcrop at close quarters than when she had looked up at it from the camp that afternoon.
The straps of her haversack were biting into her shoulders. Not far now, though. And after the crag, the rest of the way to the summit would be a stroll in comparison. Once there, with no more enemies sighted, she'd feel more secure.
Her foot slipped. Quickly, she drove her knees and fingertips into the earth, feeling the web of grass roots below the surface break under the pressure of her nails. "Damn it to hell," she muttered, and looked up.
Something big and white was lurking at the top of the slope. Lila's feet scrabbled for purchase in the shallow soil. She couldn't fight while spread-eagled on a near-vertical field. Her right foot found a hold. Then her left. That gave her enough stability to draw her knife.
The white shadow trotted downwards. A vast, raucous bleat came from its heavy jaws. It was a sheep.
Lila bit her lip, forcing down the relief that made her want to laugh till she cried. A higher bleating came from another part of the hill, perhaps from a lamb. More and more sheep joined the chorus, each one adding its own individual voice to the medley.
So much for discretion. Anything waiting on the crag would have a pretty good idea she was coming after this racket.
"Thanks a lot, milady," she commented as she passed the sheep. It gave a dour look. This animal wasn't skittish like the ones at the Keep. She was in the dales, alright.
A final scramble, and she was on top of the crag. Save for a few small rocks, and yet more droppings, it was empty. Nothing could have been a more welcome sight. Lila raised her hands in a generic prayer of thanks to no particular deity. Deep down, what she had been expecting was another army of shadows, and the corpse of Brackle.
Still crouching low, she shuffled to the crag's end. If it had been daylight, she might just have been able to see the Neverwinter flag whipping against the pole that surmounted the highest turret of the highest tower of Crossroad Keep. Strain as she might, however, all she could perceive to the south-west was a charcoal grey sky lowering over rolling fields, unenlivened by the lamps of villages or farms. The sheep on the hill-top were the closest thing belonging to civilization that she could see.
As a precaution, she scanned the land above and below her once more. The summit of the hill was unforested. A poor place to shelter, but a poor one to set an ambush as well. Sure that it was reasonably safe to do so, she cupped her hands around her mouth and whistled. Once, twice, three times. Then she lay flat on the crag to wait. Soon, the four others emerged from the woodland. Luan was walking unaided. Elanee still lay unconscious in Katriona's arms.
If only she had ignored Elanee yesterday. What had seemed like caution now appeared to be the worst sort of recklessness – to spend a second night in the open without need, and near the Illefarn ruins to boot!...They would all be home and safe by now if Lila had simply trusted to her initial instincts. She had let a foolish doubt destroy her better judgement, and for that doubt, Chantler would never be home again.
A wail tried to form somewhere deep inside. She ignored it. She never cried on the job, she told herself, repressing the memories of the times she had. Instead, she rubbed her temples with fingers that smelled of the earth. Bits of soil were wedged under fingernails. Idly, she picked at them. Bishop cleaned his with the tip of his knife. That was probably why the tip of his little finger was missing.
Rolling on her back, she gazed upwards. A welcome breeze cooled her face, drying the sweat of the fight and the climb. Night was approaching. The first stars were shining clearly in the northern sky. If there were any lovers remaining in Neverwinter, they'd be coming together now, though the stars, outshone by a thousand street lamps, were not as bright there. The night watch were treading the walls of the Keep. In the Sunken Flagon, the last seats would be occupied. Even the horrible three-legged stool that no one used during the day would be a prize for a regular in the packed-out pub. And here was Lila Farlong, lying exhausted on a lonely hill with innumerable enemies not an arrow-shot away. Better to have paid the best healer in the land all her money to conjure the splinter out of whatever recess it had lodged in, and go her own way.
The air up here smelled beautiful. Sharp, cool, and filled with the aroma of night. Why was it that night always smelled different to daytime? Addictive. If only it was in the young orchard of the Keep that she was enjoying it, and not here...
Nearby, someone stumbled. A muffled yelp, and a not very muffled curse succeeded the first sound. Lila briefly let her eyelids close. Opening them again on a dark world, she pushed herself up from the crag. It was time to be the Knight Captain again. Still bent double, she went to help her people stagger up the last few yards.
