Alliances

It was time to go. Kerian cried, “Ay-hai-hai!” Chisa spread her wings and ran forward three hopping steps. On the third bounce, she took to the sky. Despite her formidable dignity, Alhana let out a whoop of joy as the ground fell away. Hytanthas’s griffon, Kanan, sprang down the slope and took off. Samar turned Ironhead’s mighty head and snapped the reins. Unlike the short, bounding run taken by the first two, the big male griffon reared up on his hind legs, crouched, spread his wings wide, and launched himself skyward from a standing start.

All Breetan could see was pounding wings, rising griffons, and bobbing riders. She had four bolts before she must reload. The Scarecrow was on the largest griffon, sitting behind a warrior elf. With four arrows, she could bring down their griffon. If the fall didn’t kill the target, she would reload and finish the job.

She began to stand, to track the flying beast, but Jeralund grabbed her sword belt and dragged her down again.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “He’s getting away!”

“Don’t be foolish, Lady! You’d never hit him now! And if he is alerted by your shot, you’ll never get a second chance.” The target was quartering away from them at a speed greater than that of a horse at a full gallop. Adding to the impossibility of the shot were sweeping wings and the other griffons still rising from the plateau, crowding the target.

In her anger, Breetan saw none of that. “This is mutiny, Sergeant! Let me up!” She struggled, but the heavier man kept her from standing. “I’ll see you hanged for this!” she raged.

“As you wish, but if I’m to be gutted by a mob of furious elves, I would at least like the satisfaction of having succeeded in killing their leader.”

The griffons passed high overhead, and the two humans hid beneath the overhanging boulders. Jeralund put his lips next to Breetan’s ear. “He maybe gone, but where he goes, we can follow.”

Her teeth were bared in a hiss of fury. “How can we follow flying beasts?”

“Think,” he urged the impetuous knight. “We can find out where he intends to land.” He pointed to the elves in camp, all staring rather forlornly after their departing comrades. “All we have to do is get one of them and ask.”

As usual, the sergeant’s tactics were sensible. “You get one. I’ll ask the questions.”

When the griffons had circled away, Jeralund released her and raised up to peer down at the elves’ camp. Immediately, he felt the cold edge of Breetan’s dagger on his throat, just below his knotted kerchief.

“If you ever lay hands on me again, I will kill you.”

His voice was maddeningly calm. “My life is yours, Lady, for the duration of this mission.”

He slipped out of their hiding place and crept down the shadowed side of the promontory to waylay an elf from the camp. Leaning against a sun-warmed boulder, Breetan trembled with anger and more than a little hunter’s fever.

Chapter 22

The elves walked all night, across the wadi and up the opposite bank. There they waited while the various groups trickled in. Dawn was just brightening the eastern sky by the time the last of the stragglers arrived and the nation was once more a single great column. They had made it across the obstacle. No nomads had attacked. They began to congratulate themselves.

Their relief was premature. When the first blood-red sliver of the rising sun cleared the eastern mountains, the nomads fell upon them.

The Mikku, familiar with the wadi, had ridden hard and crossed it at a low point farther down. They caught the elves with their backs to the dry riverbed. Of Taranath and the rear-guard cavalry, there was no sign, only more and more Khurs. Like ants converging on a dying serpent, riders emerged from a screen of low trees and charged. Only forty yards separated them from the elves, so they hadn’t room to gain much momentum. They were counting on swords, rather than the impact of their galloping horses, to drive the laddad nation to its death over the steep side of the wadi.

Gilthas, at the head of his people, had just cleared a stand of juniper and seen the pass into Inath-Wakenti ahead when the sounds of battle reached him. Joy evaporated in an instant. Despite all his people’s sacrifices, the nomads had caught up with them.

He slipped out of their hiding place and crept down the shadowed side of the promontory to waylay an elf from the camp. Leaning against a sun-warmed boulder, Breetan trembled with anger and more than little hunter’s fever.

The elves walked all night, across the wadi and up the opposite bank. There they waited while the various groups trickled in. Dawn was just brightening the eastern sky by the time the last of the stragglers arrived and the nation was once more a single great column. They had made it across the obstacle. No nomads had attacked. They began to congratulate themselves.

Their relief was premature. When the first blood-red sliver of the rising sun cleared the eastern mountains, the nomads fell upon them.