The Cleric Quintet: In Sylvan Shadows (Page 25)

 

Pack of Wolves

Hammadeen's hand stroked Temmerisa's muscled flank, tenderly touching the bloodied white flesh around the garish three-holed trident wound. The great horse hardly moved in response, only snorted now and again.

"Can you do for Temmerisa what you did for me?" Tintagel asked Cadderly.

The young priest, retrieving his walking stick, shrugged helplessly, still not even certain of exactly what he had done for Tintagel.

"You must try," Elbereth bade him. Cadderly saw the sincere grief in his friend's face and wanted dearly to say that he could mend the horse's wounds.

He never got the chance to make the attempt, though, for Temmerisa gave one final snort, then lay very still. Hammadeen, tears in her dark eyes, began a soft song in a tongue that none of the companions could understand.

Cadderly's vision blurred and the forest around him took on a preternatural edge, a surrealistic, too-sharp contrast. He blinked many times, and many more when he looked at Temmerisa, for he saw the horse's spirit rise suddenly and step from its corporeal body.

Hammadeen spoke a few quiet words in the horse's ear, and both she and the spirit walked slowly away, disappearing into the trees.

Cadderly nearly fell over as his vision shifted back into the real and material world. The young scholar didn't know how he could apologize to Elbereth, didn't know what in the world he might say to the elf, now a king, whose father and prized steed lay dead at their feet.

Tintagel started to offer condolences, but Elbereth wasn't hearing any. The proud elf looked to his father and to Temmerisa, then rushed away, stained sword in hand. Cadderly propped up the injured wizard, that they might follow.

A pair of orcs were the first monsters to have the misfortune of crossing Elbereth's path. The elf's sword moved with sheer fury, tearing through the monsters' meager defenses and slicing them before Tintagel and Cadderly had the opportunity to join in.

And so they went on through the forest, Elbereth leading, his sword, an extension of his rage, cutting a swath through the ranks of monsters in the trees.

*****

"The trees fight at Deny Ridge," an elf told Shayleigh. "A great force of our enemies has taken to the high ground."

"Then we must take it back," Shayleigh replied firmly. She and the other elf looked around, counting heads. Including the dwarves and Danica, their numbers totaled twenty-three, but while the other elf held reservations, Shayleigh, with full confidence in her nonelf companions, only smiled and started away to the south.

They came within sight of the ridge twenty uneventful minutes later. A dozen more elves, one a wizard, had fallen into their ranks as they went, relieved to see some semblance of organization amid the chaos.

Deny Ridge was aptly named, Danica noted, staring at it from the tree line across a small, grassy break. From this side, the ground sloped upward at a steep pitch for a hundred feet, climbed straight up a rock face for thirty more, then sloped another hundred feet or so through thick grasses to the ridge top. According to Shayleigh, the other side, where the goblinoids battled the remaining sentient trees, was even more defensible, being a rocky and almost sheer drop from top to bottom.

The band could hear the fighting, and could tell from the sounds that the trees were having a hard time of it. Goblinoids lined the top of the ridge, using burning torches as their main weapons. Several archers were among their ranks, eagerly tying rags to their arrows, lighting them on the torches, and shooting them down into the attacking trees.

"We must get up there, and quickly," Shayleigh said, pointing to the left, to still another band of monsters making their way to join their comrades atop the ridge. "If our enemies are allowed to hold this ground, more will come beside them and they will have an unbeatable base from which to conduct their conquest."

"Two, three hundred of the things up there now," Ivan replied. "Ye might find getting to the top a bit of work. But still . . ." the dwarf mused, and he wandered off toward his brother.

"Have you any ideas?" Shayleigh asked Danica and another elf by her side. Danica looked to the dwarven brothers, now engaged in a private conversation, pointing this way and that. Ivan was doing most of the talking, with Pikel nodding eagerly, or shaking his head vehemently and piping in an "Oo," or an "Uh-uh," every now and then.

"They will find a way if there is one," Danica explained to the confused elves.

Ivan stomped over a few seconds later and announced that he and Pikel had done just that. "Get us down to the right," he said. "And we're going to be needing plenty of ropes." Ivan wet one finger and held it up. Pikel pointed behind them and Ivan nodded his confirmation that the wind was favorable.

Shayleigh and Danica understood none of it but had nothing better to go on. On the maiden's command, the entire elven band moved silently through the trees down to the right as Ivan had instructed. They managed to produce five lengths of fine cord, which Ivan declared long enough for the task.

"Set some of yer friends about, looking back to the woods," Ivan instructed. "If we get caught here by some more goblins making their way in afore we make the top, then the game's up. But put yerself and yer archer friends, and that wizard elf, too, in line for shooting to the ridge top. Me and me brother'll make it to the rocks easy enough. After we get up on them, we'll be needing yer help."

"What are we to do?" Shayleigh asked, somewhat hesitantly, for others of the elven band had expressed some concerns about being led by dwarves.

"Ye'll know," Ivan said slyly. He looked to Pikel. "Ye ready?"

Pikel hoisted the coiled lengths of cord over his shoulders, stuck a small hammer between his teeth, and responded with an enthusiastic, "Hroo hoi!"

From one of the many pouches on his wide belt Ivan produced a similar hammer and several iron spikes. His nod sent the brothers off and running, up the first grassy slope toward the rock break. Shayleigh, Danica, the elf wizard, and half a dozen archers took up positions along the tree line, their flanks and rear guarded by the remainder of the elven troops. Whispers circulated among the ranks, most in admiration for the brave, if foolish, dwarves.

Ivan and Pikel picked their careful way up the rock face, apparently still unnoticed by the monsters atop the ridge. Just under the lip of the cliff, the dwarven hammers rang out, driving spikes to hang down the five lengths of cord.

"Are we to charge and climb?" Shayleigh asked Danica, wondering if the time to act had come. She thought that the plan was not such a good one, for the elves, though they might make the top of the rocks, would still be out in the open with more than a hundred sloping feet between them and their enemies.

Danica held her hand up to calm Shayleigh. "Ivan and Pikel are not finished," she replied with some certainty, though she, too, still had not quite figured out what the brothers had in mind.

Danica's guess soon proved correct, for Ivan and Pikel were far from finished. Pikel swung himself over the rocks first, coming onto the higher grassy slope. Immediately the goblins spotted him and let out a unified hoot. Pikel dove for the cover of a boulder, but wasn't quick enough to dodge the first arrow.

"Ow!" The dwarf grimaced and pulled the shaft from his hip not too serious a wound. Pikel looked back to the trees, then peeked back up the slope. He smiled despite the pain when the first elven arrow took out the archer who had hit him, sending the goblin flying over the back side of the ridge.

Ivan came up over the rock face next, hollering, "Dwarven brigade, charge!" at the top of his lungs and in the goblin tongue. Pikel ignored his wound and rushed out beside his brother.

"What are they doing?" Shayleigh asked. "And why did he cry out the attack in the goblin tongue?"

Danica seemed similarly stunned for just a moment, until she noticed the goblins' reactions. The creatures atop that section of the ridge went berserk, it seemed, many of them rushing down toward Ivan and Pikel and heaving their flaming torches down the hill.

"Dwarves," Danica muttered above the din of twanging bowstrings as the elves let loose on the suddenly open targets. "In all the wide world, there is nothing a goblin hates, or fears, more than dwarves."

"Oh, fine trick!" the elf wizard cried, and he rushed from the trees to get into range and sent a volley of magical bolts from his fingertips, dropping two of the closest goblins.

Ivan and Pikel were no longer hanging around for the battle. As the flaming torches flew thick around them, the dwarves headed back for the rocks, caught two of the ropes they had hung, and swung out below the ledge.

The goblins' mirth at the apparent rout from their viewpoint, only two of the wretched dwarves had even shown their ugly faces! lasted only as long as it took the dim-witted creatures to realize that the fires begun by their own hurled torches were swiftly making their way back up the slope!

"Follow the flames!" Ivan roared, hearing the startled screams from above. Then he added quietly to Pikel as they made their way back over the lip, "Goblins been around for a hundred, hundred years, and they ain't learned yet, when things get tough, that fire burns up!"

"Hee hee," came Pikel's reply.

With incredible agility and swiftness, Danica and the bulk of the elven force got to the hanging ropes and climbed to the top of the rock face, while Shayleigh, her archers, and the wizard remained behind to continue their distant assault.

The fires led their way to the ridge top, clearing a path in the goblin lines. Monsters fell all over each other; many were pushed over the cliff on the back side of the ridge, in an effort to get away from the fast-moving blaze.

The fuel soon consumed, the fires died away as quickly as they had started, leaving the elven force holding a high spot atop the ridge. Enraged goblins came at them from both sides, outnumbering the small band ten to one, determined to recapture the lost ground.

"Forward!" Shayleigh instructed, knowing that she and her archer companions would have to get closer to provide any real aid in the desperate battle. The handful of elves sprinted up the first slope and took to the ropes.

Ivan, Pikel, and Danica centered the defensive line on the right, the short side of the ridge. The three worked with their typical harmony, complementing each other's movements and biting so fiercely into the goblin lines that many elves were freed up to join their kin on the other flank, where the bulk of the enemy force remained. It was a tenuous position indeed for the defenders, and every elf that fell left a large hole for the enemy to get through.

Danica thought the fight would be lost, especially after Shayleigh's band came up over the rock face, only to be met in close quarters and hard pressed, with their backs to the cliff, by another group of goblins.

"Should we be planning a retreat?" Danica asked Ivan.

"Never said it'd be easy," was all the dwarf replied as he chopped down a goblin that had come too near.

Then a strange cloud, greenish and thick, appeared over the ranks of goblins, just a few feet from Danica and the dwarves. The companions couldn't see under the opaque layers of that cloud, but they could hear the goblins gagging and choking. One miserable creature stumbled out, too intent on grasping at its churning belly to even realize its doom as Ivan and Pikel simultaneously smashed it down.

Most of the goblins that managed to escape the sickly vapors went out the back side of the cloud, angling down the slope, away from the fight. They found little running room, though, for there waited Elbereth, stern and mighty, and his sword worked tirelessly on the startled and weakened creatures.

Then the magical cloud dissipated suddenly, leaving more than a dozen goblins exposed and helpless on the ridge top. Ivan and Pikel started for them, but furious Elbereth got there first, hacking and slashing his way through. Without a word of greeting, the grim elf passed the dwarves, Danica, and the first rank of elves. He crashed through the faltering elven line defending the left flank and threw himself headlong into the pressing goblin throng.

No goblin sword or spear seemed to harm him; he did not sway an inch from his path. In just a few furious moments, goblins ran from his terrible blade and the elves rallied behind him.

With the right side of the ridge swiftly cleared, Ivan and Pikel led several elves down to aid Shayleigh and the archers. Danica did not accompany them, for she saw someone else, a friend she could not ignore.

Cadderly and Tintagel braced themselves for trouble as those goblins who had escaped both the cloud and Elbereth's fury rushed down at them. Tintagel muttered a quick spell, and Cadderly stood amazed as several images of himself and the wizard appeared, making their band of two seem like many. The goblins, already panicked and with the high ground fully lost, came nowhere near the unexpected throng, veering instead into the tree line to run away screaming.

Then the goblins were gone, and Danica was with Cadderly, and for both of them for just that quick moment, the world seemed right once more.

All across Deny Ridge, the battle became a rout. With Elbereth in the lead and Shayleigh and her archers freed once more, the elves and the dwarven brothers plowed the goblins away, crushed them and scattered them. Ivan and Pikel turned one band around at the base of the ridge, drove the stupid things into the waiting branches of four enraged oak trees.

It was over in ten short minutes, and Deny Ridge belonged to Elbereth.

*****

"Ye give me six hours, a dozen elves including yer hurt wizard there and move them trees where I tell ye, and I'll hold this place for a hundred years, and a hundred more after that if ye need me to!" Ivan boasted, and, after the dwarf's exploits in leading the charge up the hill, not an elf in the camp doubted his words.

Elbereth looked to Cadderly.

"The trees will move as we bid," the young scholar answered confidently, though he wasn't quite certain of how he knew that to be true.

"The ridge is yours to defend," Elbereth said to Ivan. "A fine base from which our hunting parties might strike out."

"And your strikes will not be blindly orchestrated," Cadderly announced, looking to the nearest of the oak trees. "Will they, Hammadeen?"

The dryad stepped out a moment later, confused as to how the young scholar had seen her. No human eyes, not even elven eyes, could normally penetrate her camouflage.

"You will guide the elves," Cadderly said to her, "to their enemies and to their wayward friends."

The dryad started to turn back to the tree, but Cadderly cried, "Halt!" so forcefully that Hammadeen froze in her tracks.

"You will do this, Hammadeen," Cadderly commanded, seeming suddenly terrible to all watching the spectacle. Amazingly, the dryad turned and nodded her compliance.

Cadderly nodded, too, and walked away, needing some time alone to try to decipher all the surprises that were meeting him at every turn. How had he seen the horse's spirit? He hadn't asked, but he knew instinctively that Elbereth and Tintagel had not seen. And how had he known that Hammadeen was in those trees? Furthermore, how in the world had Cadderly so commanded the wild dryad?

He simply did not know.

All through that night and the next day, while Ivan and Pikel set the defenses of Deny Ridge, small bands of elves - "packs of wolves," Ivan called them slipped out into Shilmista and, following Hammadeen's guidance, struck hard at the disorganized enemy. More elves were discovered in the woods, or found their own way to the new camp, and soon Elbereth's forces had systematically sliced holes through the encircling monsters.

Cadderly remained at the ridge beside Tintagel and the other wounded, though Danica was quick to join Shayleigh and set out on the hunt. It didn't fall upon Cadderly to strive for the level of healing power he had needed to save Tintagel, and Cadderly thought that a good thing, for he did not believe the healing powers would ever flow through him with such intensity again.

He knew that something was happening all about him, or to him, but he didn't want to depend on this unknown entity, for he certainly did not understand it.

*****

The first real test of Ivan's defenses came late the next afternoon, when a band of more than two hundred monsters, ranging from skinny goblins to hill giants, set their sights on reclaiming the high ground. Only a score of elves were on the ridge beside Cadderly and the dwarves at that time, but that number included both wizards. After two hours of vicious fighting, more than half of the monsters lay dead and the rest had been scattered to the woods, easy pickings for the "packs of wolves" that roamed the forest. Not a single elf had died in the fight, though two had been nicked by giant-hurled rocks, for the battle had never come to hand-to-hand fighting. Cunning dwarf-made traps, volleys of arrows, magical strikes, and the four towering oak trees slaughtered the enemy before they ever got past the steep rock face halfway up the ridge.

By Ivan's estimation, the most difficult part of the whole fight was in cleaning up the fallen goblinoids when it was all over.

"I'd forgotten that one," Ivan remarked to Cadderly, pointing to the tree line as darkness began to fall over the forest. Out of the trees came three elves and a companion that Cadderly, too, had forgotten in the commotion of battle.

Kierkan Rufo leaned heavily on a staff and, even with the stick, still needed the support of one of the elves. The angular man's leg was not broken, as he had feared, but it was badly bruised and twisted and would not support his weight. He instructed his escorts to take him to Cadderly, and after several minutes of struggling to get past the natural obstacles of the ridge, Rufo plopped down in the grass beside Ivan and the young scholar.

"So nice of you to look over me," the angular man, in a foul mood, remarked.

"Bah, ye took to the trees, way up, to keep out of the fight," Ivan retorted, more amused than angered.

"High ground!" Rufo protested.

" 'Hide ground' would be a better way to name it," Ivan replied.

"Hee hee hee." Rufo didn't need to look over his shoulder to know that the laugh belonged to Pikel, walking behind him.

"Could you at least get me something to eat?" Rufo growled at Cadderly. "I have spent the last day under the limbs of a fallen oak, miserable and hungry!"

"Hee hee hee," came a distant answer.

*****

Danica and Shayleigh returned a short while later. Neither of them was overjoyed to find Kierkan Rufo in the camp. The angular man defiantly pulled himself to his feet beside Danica.

"Another supposed friend," he spat. "Where was Danica Maupoissant when poor Rufo was in need? What alliances are these, I ask, when companions care nothing for each other's welfare?"

Danica looked from Cadderly to Ivan to Pikel as the angular man continued his tirade.

"You are all to blame!" Rufo fumed, his anger gaining momentum. Danica curled up her fist and gritted her teeth.

"You are all - " With that, Rufo fell to the earth and abruptly slept.

Danica's shrug was not an apology for her blow, just an admission that her behavior in slugging Rufo might have been a bit impulsive. She expected Cadderly to berate her, but the young scholar could not, not against the wave of approval coming in from all around her.

*****

When the friends came upon Elbereth later that night, they found him smiling more than they had seen in many, many days.

"The news is good," the elf explained. "More than seventy of my people are known to live, and that number might increase, for nearly a score of elves are as yet unaccounted for and Hammadeen has told us that a battle was fought back in the east. And the paths farther to the east, through the Snowflake Mountains, are open once more, for a contingent of priests has arrived from the Edificant Library. Guided by the dryad, one of our hunting parties has joined the group, and even now they make their way to Deny Ridge."

"We are still badly outnumbered," Shayleigh put in, "but our enemy is disorganized and confused. With both Ragnor and Dorigen dead . . ."

Cadderly's sudden grunt stopped her and turned all eyes toward the young scholar.

"Dorigen is not dead," he admitted. The looks all about him turned sour, but the most painful retort to Cadderly, by far, was the sharpness of Danica's tone.

"You did not finish her?" the young woman cried. "You had her down and helpless!"

"I could not."

"I am doomed!" Rufo wailed. "Dorigen will see to our end, to my end! You fool!" he yelled at Cadderly.

"Are ye looking for more sleep?" Ivan asked him, and Rufo realized from Danica's scowl that he would be wise to remain silent.

But in this encounter, Kierkan Rufo did have an ally. "Fool indeed!" roared Elbereth. "How?" he demanded of Cadderly. "Why did you let the wizard escape?"

Cadderly couldn't begin to explain, knew that his admission of compassion would not be appreciated by the new elf king. He was truly amazed at how quickly Elbereth had apparently forgotten his actions in the battle, in Syldritch Trea and against Ragnor, and in saving Tintagel.

"Dorigen cannot use her magical powers," the young scholar offered weakly. "She is sorely wounded and stripped of her magical devices." Cadderly unconsciously dropped a hand in his pocket, to feel the rings he had taken from Dorigen. He had considered giving them and Dorigen's wand to Tintagel, to learn if they might aid in the fighting, but he had dismissed the notion and resolved to check out the dangerous devices himself when he found the time.

Cadderly's claims did nothing to alleviate Elbereth's anger. "Her presence will bring unity to our enemies!" the elf growled. "That alone dooms Shilmista!" Elbereth shook his head and stalked away, Shayleigh at his side. The others, too, dispersed, Pikel sadly, leaving Cadderly and Danica alone by the campfire.

"Mercy," Cadderly remarked. He looked at his love, caught her brown eyes in a gaze that would not let go. "Mercy," he whispered again. "Does that make me weak?"

Danica spent a long moment considering the question. "I do not know," she answered honestly.

They stood quietly, watching the fire and the stars for a very long time. Cadderly slipped his hand into Danica's and she accepted the grasp, if somewhat hesitantly.

"I will remain in the forest," she said finally, dropping Cadderly's hand. Cadderly looked at her, but she did not return the stare. "To fight beside Elbereth and Shayleigh. The priests will arrive tomorrow, so it is rumored. Likely they will stay a few days to forge pacts with the elves, and then some might remain to fight on. But most, I assume, will return to the library. You should go with them."

Cadderly found no words to immediately reply. Was Danica sending him away? Had she, too, perceived his compassion as a weakness?

"This is not your place," Danica whispered.

Cadderly took a step away from her. "Was Syldritch Trea my place, then?" he grumbled coldly, as openly angry at Danica as he had ever been. "And have you heard of how mighty Ragnor met his end? Or have you forgotten Barjin?"

"I do not question your value," Danica answered honestly, turning to regard Cadderly, "in this fight, as in anything. You will find no comfort in the continuing battle for Shilmista, just more violence, more killing. I do not like what that will do to you. I do not like what it has done to me."

"What are you saying?"

"There is a coldness here," Danica replied, poking a finger to her heart. She crossed her arms in front of her, as if to ward off a wintry blast. "A numbness," she continued. "A fading of compassion. How easily I told you to kill Dorigen!" She stopped, choked by the admission, and looked away.

Cadderly's visage softened with sincere pity.

"Go away," Danica begged. "Go back to the library, to your home."

"No," Cadderly replied. "That place was never my home."

Danica turned back and eyed him curiously, expecting some revelation.

"This is not my place, that much is true," Cadderly went on, "and I have little fight left in me, I fear. I will leave with the priests when they depart, but to the library only long enough to retrieve my belongings."

"Then where?" Danica's voice hinted, just a tiny bit, of desperation.

Cadderly shrugged. He wanted desperately to beg Danica to come away with him, but he knew that he must not, and that she would refuse in any case. It struck them both then, that this was farewell, perhaps forever.

Danica hugged Cadderly suddenly and kissed him hard, then moved back and pushed him away. "I wanted to stay beside you when the fighting began in earnest," she said, "after the trees had come to life. But I knew I could not, that the situation would not allow me my wishes."

"And so it is now," Cadderly said, "for both of us." He ran his fingers through Danica's strawberry-blond hair, matted and tangled from so many days of battle.

Danica started to kiss him again, but changed her mind and walked away instead.

Cadderly remained at Deny Ridge for five more days, but he did not see her again.