Still the Black Warlock had to act or lose everything here and now. The opposing forces were equal enough to guarantee that little would remain of either-too little to carry him to glory.
The five swamp talon leaders shouted commands to their forces; a line of lizard-riding cavalry formed to lead the charge. Thalasi’s army roared to similar life, their loyalty to the Black Warlock, wrought of abject terror, standing strong against the specter of the swamp talon army.
Thalasi silenced them all in the blink of an eye.
“I am Thalasi!” he roared in his godlike voice. A pillar of fire engulfed the Black Warlock, blazing yet not consuming his mortal form. Stunned talons on both sides fell back from the spectacle.
Thalasi reached a hand out of the fiery pillar, and a line of flame sprouted from each finger to gobble up the five opposing leaders. They, too, found themselves enshrouded by pillars of blazing white fires, yet they, too, lived on.
Thalasi addressed the largest, the one who had so openly opposed him. “Who is your master?” he demanded.
“Men die!” the stubborn creature growled. The fire devoured it.
“Who is your master?” Thalasi demanded of the other four, witnesses to the folly of their peer’s defiance.
They gave themselves over to him wholeheartedly.
Thalasi released them from the fiery pillars and swept his fisted hand in a wide arc. Again the flame leaped out from him, this time reaching out behind the swamp talon army, building a deadly barrier behind them to discourage those who had started to flee. When the herding was completed, Thalasi shut down the magic, hoping that he had not revealed himself to his distant enemies.
“I am Thalasi!” he said yet again. “Follow me, join in my war! Taste the blood of Calvans!”
The rivalry of swamp talons and mountain talons had spanned centuries, grown since the first defeat of Morgan Thalasi on the Four Bridges. But none dared resist the specter of power that loomed before them now, and none wanted to resist the promises of man-flesh.
Thalasi walked across the encampment that night, a new and more complete attack plan formulating in his mind. He had doubled the size of his army this day, and had more to work with now; no need to keep his entire force together as a single entity. He could send them out across the fields to the north and through the Baerendel Mountains in the south, engulfing the entire region in a ring of hungry talons and cutting off any chance of escape.
He looked out over the countless campfires and smiled.
In the morning he met with all of his commanders and laid his plans out to them. Five thousand riders, swamp talons on the swifter, sleeker lizards of the lowlands, would spur to the north, sweeping out the few villages that lined the borders of the desolated wasteland of Brogg, then cut back to the road between the town of Corning and the Four Bridges.
A second group, only a few hundred smaller in number and without the lizard mounts, would cross the Baerendels, not pausing for any battles in the slow terrain, but to get beyond Corning before the main attack force arrived at the city. These flanking riders would slaughter the first, unorganized groups that would surely flee, and then hinder any other retreating forces, giving the northern cavalry the time it would need to get into position.
The whole of the force started out that same day, around the northern rim of the great Mysmal Swamp and down the straight southeastern run that would take them unerringly to the city of Corning.
And through a dozen helpless communities in between.
Chapter 5
Bryan of Corning
MERIWINDLE EASED THE gleaming sword halfway out from its jeweled sheath, remembering the land, his homeland, where it had been forged. The weapon’s slender design and graceful hilt marked it as elvish, and of course it was, and so was Meriwindle, though he had not walked the ways of Illuma Vale, that magical mountain valley called Lochsilinilume, in half again more than a dozen years. Not such a long time in the ageless lifespan of an elf.
Still, thoughts of mortality now led Meriwindle’s gaze out through the window of his small cottage to the solitary marker in the backyard: the gravestone of his wife.
He would return this year, in the autumn, he vowed, to visit those many friends he had left behind in the elven city. Ever the wanderer, Meriwindle had been the first out of Illuma Vale after the Battle of Mountaingate, when Benador, the new King of Calva, had opened his doors to the elves. What sights the adventurous elf had seen in those days!
But none more beautiful than his sweet Deneen.
She had caught the nimble elf in her gaze, and held his wandering feet firmly in place. Love took them both by proverbial storm, overwhelming them and refuting their denials. Both of them feared the inevitable joining-not all of the prejudices the two races, human and elf, held for each other had been washed away by the carnage of the battle. Such a mixed marriage would invite whispers, even open hostility. And as Meriwindle and Deneen were the first couple to actually attempt such a union, none knew what to expect from any offspring they might bring into the world.
But emotions greater than fear kept Meriwindle and Deneen together and brought them to marriage.
The whispers did come, but less than the couple had expected, and it did not take long for the northern elf to carve out a place for himself and his soon-to-be-growing family among the kindly farmer folk of Corning.
And then Bryan had come into their lives, had brought to the small cottage on the western edge of town more joy than the couple would ever have believed possible. That baby smile, Bryan’s whole face lighting up at the sight of mother or father, surely washed away any of the fears either of them had ever felt. If any believed that the union of the two races was against some unspoken laws of nature, one sight of Bryan would surely change their stubborn minds.
But then Deneen had gone away, taken in the pain of her second birthing, with the tiny girl who would never see the world beyond the womb.
“Are you all right?” came a voice that shook Meriwindle from his memories. He turned to find Bryan, now a fine young lad of fifteen years, standing in the doorway to the little kitchen.
“Yes, yes.” Meriwindle brushed away his son’s concern, and sniffed away a final thought of Deneen and the unnamed baby girl.
Bryan took a moment to consider his father’s position in front of the window, and the view such a seat gave to him, and he understood. “Thinking of Mother?”
“Always,” Meriwindle replied, and Bryan did not doubt that his father spoke the truth. A sadness touched the corners of the elf’s gray eyes, a sadness that would endure through the centuries.
“Are you still planning to go?” Meriwindle asked, needing to change the subject.
“Yes,” Bryan replied, but he quickly added, “unless you would like me to stay. I can change my plans. The others would understand.”
He would do that for me, Meriwindle thought, and without regret. What a fine young man his son was growing into! “No,” he said to Bryan. “I gave you my word, and you certainly did more than your fair share of the spring planting. But all of the work is done now, and summer nears its high point. As we agreed, you may go.”
Bryan’s face lit up. He would indeed have remained beside his father without complaint if he believed that Meri-windle needed him. But he was thrilled to be going. He and his friends had been planning this expedition for the whole winter.
“But…” Meriwindle said, stealing a bit of the smile. The elf paused for a long, teasing moment. “You must take this.” He spun and tossed sword and scabbard to Bryan.