Alliances

She nodded, and Nalaryn pulled her back from the drop. “Pick up the pace! The bandits are coming!” she called up and down the hillside.

The two of them resumed their own ascent and reached Birch Trail in time to see the sun break through the fence of dead trees rimming the broad crater. About a third of the elves were there, including Alhana, Samar, and Chathendor. The rest were scattered across the face of the high hillside, in plain view of the enemy. Kerian asked where Orexas was.

“No one knows,” Alhana grumbled. She sat on the ground, looking wan and small. The black cloud of her hair emphasized her pallor, and the linen bandage that cushioned her head wound kept slipping over her left eye, lending her a distinctly piratical air.

“Do your guards have bows?” Kerian asked.

“Of course,” replied Samar. He understood what she wanted. Stiff from his wound, he moved among his guards, ordering them to string bows and take their places overlooking Silveran’s Way. Just under a hundred lined up shoulder to shoulder, arrows nocked.

The broad column of bandit soldiers drew closer and closer until the very ground vibrated with the thud of their boot heels. They filled the road from side to side, two or three thousand in number. Each wore a hammered breastplate and polished pot helmet with a vertical comb, carried a shield, and bore a long pike ported over his shoulder. Beards curled under their helmet straps like exotic foliage. Kerian never could understand how human males could bear all that hair on their faces.

She lay on her belly and studied the enemy. At the head of the column rode a quartet of officers. Captains and subalterns plodded along the flanks. Kerian didn’t recognize the green banner drooping above them. Gathan Grayden must not be leading the troop. As yet, none of the bandits had noticed the elves frozen in place on the hillside.

“Steady. Perhaps they’ll pass on,” she said to the archers, although she didn’t really believe it.

The elves had tried to clear away all signs of their presence below. Unfortunately, there simply hadn’t been enough time to remove every piece of ruined carts and broken traces. The lead horseman saw enough to cause him to halt the column. Kerian cursed softly but thoroughly in Kagonesti.

A voice shouted an indistinct command, and the leading company went clattering down the road to investigate. Pikes leveled, the soldiers advanced, their attention focused on the far side of the road, on the slope descending toward the lake.

Kerian nearly laughed in relief. They were looking in the wrong place!

With the bandit force seemingly distracted, some of the elves on the hillside unwisely resumed climbing. It didn’t take long for a bundle of swords, awkwardly slung over someone’s back, to clang against a rock outcropping. The mounted officers turned to look. Shouts went up. The elves had been seen.

“Prepare,” Kerian said, rising to her knees.

The four remaining companies on the road swung around to their left and advanced. Kerian let them come. The pikemen clattered against each other as they began the difficult climb. Seeing them flounder, Kerian gave the command: “Now! Loose!”

Arrows dropped onto the closely packed bandits. In a harsh reversal of the ambush the elves had stumbled into, they commanded the heights and the mercenary soldiers suffered. A few, goaded by their officers, broke ranks and tried to get free of the confusion so they could climb, but the hail of death from above was too much. Despite the furious bellows of their commanders, the bandits fell back. Lowering their pikes, they interlocked shields to ward off the missiles.

Kerian hoped they might withdraw completely, but their officers stubbornly held to the road. Commands were shouted and the ranks parted. A lightly armed company of bowmen jogged forward. Judging by their long hair and dark faces, they’d been hired from one of the Blood Sea Isles, probably Saifhum.

“Aim for the archers,” Kerian said, but the Silvanesti around her were already shifting to hit the new target.

With six-foot yew staves, the longbowmen could loft arrows to Birch Trail, but most of it was out of their view, screened by boulders, twisted bushes, or scraggly trees. The elves still climbing were not so fortunate. Long shafts hummed through the air, and elves began to fall. The bundles they carried burst on impact, scattering swords, daggers, and pieces of armor along Silveran’s Way. The human soldiers cheered each time an elf toppled.

The Silvanesti archers gave as good as they got. With the advantage of height, their short bows could put a broadhead lengthwise through a man on the ground.

“Keep moving! Get up! Come on!” Kerian shouted, waving the climbers on. She clenched her fists, furious at her inability to help as elf after elf was hit and tumbled down the hill. Porthios’s sudden, silent appearance at her side brought a flinch of surprise.

He regarded the fight with his usual detachment then announced, “We need a greater weight on our side.”