"Who could keep it going forever?" said one of the soldiers, striving for an off-handed tone. "They said they couldn't, and so… it's all right. All must be going according to plan."
The ground beneath the feet of the Wildrunners and the lone cleric trembled, groaning, as elven army and the warriors of the Dark Queen flung themselves at each other as though blood were their only food and they had come starving out of winter. Swords shining in the dull light of the sunless day, they hacked and they killed. War axes harvested. Daggers drank deeply.
"We'll have one more mission for you," Lord Konnal had said when he'd positioned the exhausted runners along the edges of the forest, in the place between the stonelands and the foothills of the mountains.
One more, and that a mission of mercy, one that might succeed or might well fail.
Brush rustled deep in the shadows-a young man who'd broken the stillness to scratch an insect bite. A soft moaning sounded from the darker shadows behind him. The mages, who had spent themselves in mindspeech as the illusions were being set up and executed to perfection, sat huddled and weak, helpless in the doubtful shelter of the forest's shadows. One, whose name was Leathe, whispered to the cleric, "My Lord Tellin." She said nothing more. He knelt beside her, and their voices joined in the rhythm of prayer. He did not look so lordly, his white cleric's robe stained with dirt, his hair hanging lank with sweat. Leathe, though, looked worse. Her hair hung around her shoulders, and it had been black in the morning. Now it was silver-streaked. So hard had she labored in magic, calling from one mind to another, relaying the commands of Lord Garan to Konnal and of Konnal to the mages back in the glen. When they had gathered their strength, the mages would be escorted by Wildrunners-and one cleric-back behind the lines, back to the glen where surely the dragonarmy would never penetrate.
The prayer done, Tellin left the mage and went to stand among the Wildrunners again. "We'll have to move soon," he said, eyes on the north and the rage of battle, "or be overrun by the two armies."
One and another, the Wildrunners traded glances. They didn't like doubt from a cleric, and yet they didn't think he was wrong to doubt. Lord Garan might well hold the army of the Highlord for a while, but he could not hold it forever. Unless they chased the enemy all the way back to the Khalkists, the elven army would be giving ground soon.
Leathe groaned deeply, and she looked up, pointing to the sky where red dragons sailed, spilling fire out of their maws. Dragonfear, like cold claws, gripped the elves on the ground, twisting their guts with terror.
"Time to go!" shouted a Wildrunner, Reaire Fletch.
Tellin's heart hammered against his ribs. He looked wildly around at the exhausted mages trying to stumble to their feet, at the Wildrunners grabbing onto white-sleeved arms and dragging up those who could not rise.
Someone slapped him hard on the shoulder and shouted, "My lord cleric! Time to go!"
Time to go, time to go. Dragonfear leaking down from the sky, creeping like a fog of poison into his heart, Tellin grabbed Leathe's hand and dragged her to her feet. His legs threatened to give way. All he wanted was to fall to the ground and curl up tight against the terror of the dragons. Who would not be afraid? Who would not?
None, but he dared not give in to terror now. Though it withered his heart and turned his knees to water, though his legs threatened to fail him and spill him onto the hard ground to grovel in terror-he dared not. He clenched the mage's hand in his. Another's life depended on him now, on his heart and on his courage. If he fell screaming, if he gave up his charge to terror, Leathe would die. Still holding on tight, Tellin ran, dragging Leathe with him back into the forest, into the aspenwood where the trees arched golden over the dark paths. All the while he ran, he heard the others stumbling and crashing through the brush, finding paths or forging their own. With Wildrunners behind, the warriors were ready to turn and fight at need. Tellin remained the guide for the mages if none survived but he.
Screaming, Reaire fell. Tellin stumbled and, staggering, flung a look over his shoulder. Reaire lay sprawled upon the ground, neck twisted and hands clenched into fists of pain. In one instant of clear-seeing, the arrow's cock-feather glared brightly, the color of dragonfire. Another Wildrunner leaped the corpse, but she got only a long stride past before she, too, fell, pinned to the ground by a quivering lance. Tellin's blood ran cold in his veins. The dragonarmy was breaking through the ranks of the Wildrunners! Or they were flowing around them like relentless water pouring past stone.
"Leathe, run!" he shouted, glancing over his shoulder in the very moment the mage fell, a bright blossom of blood staining her white, white robes. Her hand fell away from his, her grip broken by death.
High above, the gray sky vanished as the tops of the tall aspens burst into flame, the voice of the sudden fire like the roaring of dragons. By the lurid light Tellin saw that there were no Wildrunners protecting their backs now. All of them were dead. In a short time, there were no mages left alive. Exhausted, some fell with hearts burst and bleeding. Others died of flame-fletched arrows.
None but he lived now, only he, running and gasping, falling and sobbing.
All the others were dead. Dead or changed into ogres and dragonmen, for these were all he saw behind him, fists filled with swords, eyes mad with rage, and running down into the Silvanesti Forest.
Doom dropped low over the burning treetops, lower than he would have if he'd been given his choice. He had no choice. He was driven by an urgency that goaded like bitter spurs in his mind, the commands of the mage whose body lay in ruin upon a bed of silks and satin in distant lands. So powerful was that mage's mind that Doom would not have needed the intercession of the avatar clinging to his back in order to hear and be obliged to obey Tramd's commands.
In rage-filled joy, he sent a burst of flame ahead, glorying in the fire, in the terrified screams of the white-robed elves scrambling and scattering on the ground.
Enough! the mage cried in his mind even as the hard-handed avatar pulled back on the thick leather reins, obliging him to rise above the trees and the fire. Burn it all later! Now we must find the mages!
For barely an instant the dragon thought he would roll and turn and send the avatar tumbling to the ground, just to let him know what he thought of this puny creature's imperiousness. The mage felt that thought. In Doom's mind, Tramd showed himself to be stronger, more ruthless, easily capable of destructions and killings far worse than any a red dragon could contemplate.
And if I die, little wyrm, you will die with me. It will be my last act, and so loudly will you scream that Takhisis, all the way in her deepest, most lightless dungeon in the Abyss, will know we're coming.
The dragon didn't doubt it. He shot up to the sky, leaving the burning below and heading south again, ahead of the fire. Tramd knew what he hunted. The smell of it teased his nostrils the way a hound scents a stag in the thicket. Doom felt the knowledge passing along the mental connection between them-what the prey looked like, how it sounded, how it smelled. They hunted elves, white-robes.
Doom sailed over the forest, the stench of burning in his nostrils. He flew in joy, with a speed unrivaled by any of the reds in Phair Caron's wing, for he was older, stronger, and leaner than any of them. Upon his back the avatar sat the saddle with the skill of a long-time dragonrider, moving as the dragon moved, anticipating his rising and dropping by the feel of muscles. So powerful were those muscles that even the thickest leather could not shield the rider from the bunching and loosing. In Doom's mind, deep as his most powerful urges, Tramd's will moved, demanding that what he sought be found.