In the next moment, the air erupted with clacks and sizzles as the caravan returned the attack. A din of orc grunts and squeals joined the cacophony of shrieking humans and horses, and panicked voices behind Arietta yelled, “Go! Ride!”
She urged her mount forward, then looked over to find Joelle leading both strings of pack horses. Beyond the heartwarder were yet more orcs, charging up the slope, armed with hand axes and short swords and trampling their fallen fellows. Malik was nowhere in sight, and Arietta could only assume that the instant the battle began, he had used his god’s blessing to go into hiding.
As her horse raced onto the bridge, Arietta nocked another arrow and twisted around to fire back over her shoulder. The fastest orcs were less than five paces from the road and were turning to charge onto the bridge behind her.
Arietta loosed and saw her shaft take the lead orc high in the chest, above his leather breastplate. It wasn’t the throat shot she had been hoping for, but it made the brute stumble and pause to snap off the shaft.
Then a plummy voice rose from the party of eladrin traveling behind her, and a tremendous crackling erupted from the ground beneath the orcs. They continued to come, not even bothering to glance down until a tangle of thorny stems shot up to entangle first their feet, then their entire bodies.
A trio of the brutes managed to leap free and cut the horses from beneath a handful of riders. They were soon felled as the caravan raced past, attacking with everything from rusty sabers to coin-filled saddlebags to golden wands.
Someone well back in the column sent a fireball streaking into the thorn wall, and the entire hedge burst into flames. Arietta turned away quickly, but still found herself sickened by the sweet black smoke that billowed from the hedge.
And then Arietta and her companions were twenty paces onto the bridge, with no orcs in pursuit and dozens of riders between them and shore. Arietta hung her bow from her saddle horn, then loosened her sword in its scabbard and began to watch the bridge’s walls for emerging Shadovar.
“That was too close.” Joelle’s voice was difficult to hear over the din of screams and squeals coming from the burning thorn wall. “I hope that blood is your horse’s.”
Arietta glanced down and realized her left side was coated in blood. Since she felt no unusual aches or numbnesses, she assumed it had all come from her horse’s head wound.
“I’m fine, but I think my mount may need a few stitches,” Arietta said. “What about you?”
“A few lumps.” Joelle glanced down at her far thigh. “And an arrow wound.”
“An arrow wound?”
Arietta reached across and took the reins of both pack-strings. They were nearly halfway across the bridge, and the sounds of the battle behind them were starting to fade. She glanced back and saw nothing to suggest that the fighting would spill onto the bridge-nor any sign that she and her companions were being pursued by orcs or Shadovar. Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned back to Joelle.
“How bad?”
“I don’t think it’s in very deep.” Joelle switched her reins to her right hand, then lowered her left toward her thigh and instantly looked a little less anguished. “Nothing that can’t wait until we’re safe.”
A muffled tumult rose ahead. Arietta feared for a moment that the orcs on the far side of the river had recovered from the cavalry charge and were mounting an attack. But when she looked, she saw Kleef riding back across the bridge, hugging the balustrade as his big courser pushed past the long line of nervous riders and jittery pack animals.
On the slope above, the few orcs who had survived the cavalry charge were racing for the trees. A company of guards rode back and forth behind the fleeing orcs, picking off stragglers and making sure the rest did not return to renew their attack. The caravan had a clear route onward-at least for now.
Kleef soon arrived, then drew up and studied the far end of the bridge for a moment. Once he seemed convinced the rearguard had the battle there in hand, he wheeled around to ride alongside Joelle. His gaze slid from Joelle’s injured thigh, to Arietta’s blood-soaked flank, to the empty space between the two women where Malik usually rode.
“Malik?” he asked.
“He’s fine.” Joelle glanced over her shoulder, looking back between the two strings of pack horses. “Behind us.”
Arietta followed her gaze and saw nothing for a moment. Then a colorless blur appeared between the second horse in each string, and she realized there was another horse trotting between them. Lying stretched along the horse’s back, clinging to its neck, was a scrawny figure in a shabby gray robe.
“He looks healthy enough to me,” Kleef agreed. His gaze dropped back to Joelle’s thigh. “You want me to snap off that arrow?”
“Not on your life,” Joelle said, growing pale. “You can help me cut it out later.”
Kleef shrugged. “Your choice, but it’s going to be a while before the caravan can stop to regroup. You’ll ride easier without the shaft swinging around like that.”
“I’m holding it,” Joelle snapped. “Don’t you see that?”
Kleef looked more amused than offended. “Now that you mention it, I do.” He peered past Joelle to Arietta, searching her flank for wounds. “How about you, my lady? Are you hurt?”
“The blood is my horse’s,” Arietta said. “I’m fine.”
Kleef gave a nod of relief, then asked, “What happened?”
“What happened is that Faroz has entrusted our safety to a buffoon and a fool!” Malik answered. He sat upright in his saddle and urged his mount forward-until he found himself caught between the two sets of pack-leads that Arietta was holding. “You failed to scout the bridge approach. There were orcs hiding in the grass!”
Kleef glared at Malik as though considering whether to toss him off the bridge or cut him in half, then finally turned to Arietta. “What’s he talking about? We did scout that ground.”
“You wouldn’t have seen them,” Arietta said. “The orcs were invisible.”
“Invisible?” Kleef frowned, thinking. “I didn’t know orcs used that kind of magic.”
“It gets worse,” Joelle said. “They waited until we were the ones in front of them.”
Now Kleef really began to look worried. The companions had already begun to suspect that the orcs were after the Eye of Gruumsh. But they had been hoping the reason the horde hadn’t launched an all-out attack yet was because they didn’t know exactly who they were after, that the same magic that kept the Eye hidden from the Shadovar was preventing the orcs from determining which humans had it.
After a moment, Kleef said, “There’s no doubt now that the orcs and Shadovar are working together. That explains the invisibility magic and how they knew to look for Joelle and Malik.”
Arietta shook her head. “Then where are the Shadovar? Why help the orcs at all, if they don’t intend to take advantage of the attack?”
Kleef fell silent for a moment, and then his eyes slowly began to widen. “Because it wasn’t the real attack.”
“They were shooting at us with real arrows and pelting us with real rocks,” Malik said. “If that is not a real attack, then I am not a real man.”
“They were just trying to see how we would react, probing our defenses.” Kleef looked forward again, to where Faroz and the nobles were starting to lead the caravan up the hill. “The attack will come later, after they’ve had time to consider what they saw.”
“How much time do we have?” Joelle asked. “Enough to heal the wounded and prepare more magic?”
“No,” Arietta said, taking Kleef’s point. “They’ll hit us sooner than that.”
Kleef nodded. “Before morning.” He scanned the slope above the bridge, his eyes lingering on the tree line. “I need to talk to Faroz. If the scouts can find defensible ground, we can stop early and spoil their plans-for today, at least.”