There’s no point in going back, he told himself. You know what you’ll find there. It’s done, and any people there are beyond help.
But finally he could stand it no more, and he stood up in the stirrups to look back at the ruined farm, several hundred yards behind them.
Mottled gray shadows raced through the undergrowth and bounded along the road behind the elven company.
Fflar stared for a moment, too horrified to even call out a warning. The monsters were doglike things as large as small horses, but thickly built. Chitinous plates armored their bodies, but for all that they were quick. Blunt, eyeless heads ended in enormous rasping jaws, from which long barbed tongues lolled. The nearest darted through the dusty shadows along the roadside only forty yards behind them.
Finally he found his voice. “Canoloths!” he cried. “Run!”
He spurred Thunder, and the roan stallion leaped ahead in a gallop. It galled Fflar to lead the flight, but he’d seen a dozen or more of the monsters in his single glance, and he didn’t doubt that there were just as many that he hadn’t seen yet… and if the creatures were herding them into an ambush, he wanted to meet it himself.
Ilsevele did not waste a moment before spurring Swiftwind right after him, and the rest of the Silver Guards were no slower. In the space of five heartbeats the small company was at a full gallop, racing along the dry, dusty trail. Two of the guards bringing up the rear unlimbered their bows and managed a few awkward shots at their pursuers, guiding their mounts with knees only as they twisted around to shoot at the closest of the canoloths. One of the monsters tumbled into a great cloud of dust, lamed by an arrow that caught its shoulder. Another broke away, shaking its head to dislodge the arrow embedded in its jaws. The rest began to fall off the pace, outdistanced by the elves’ horses.
“I think we’re losing them!” Ilsevele called.
“Watch out for an ambush!” Fflar called back to her. “These things are clever.”
He turned his attention back to the road ahead, just in time to spot three canoloths leaping down out of the shadows from the higher ground on the right side of the road. One bowled over a Silver Guard and his mount, dragging the warrior down into the dust. The second came right for Fflar. Thunder whinnied and sheered away, almost throwing him, but the swordsman kept his seat and drew Keryvian. The canoloth darted after Thunder, lashing out with its hawser-thick tongue to lasso the horse’s rear leg, but Fflar leaned back in the saddle and severed the tentacle-like member with a quick overhand cut. The monster roared and jerked back, only to be ridden down by another of the Silver Guards.
“Ilsevele!” Fflar cried.
He whirled around to find his charge, just in time to see her stand up in her stirrups and shoot a pair of arrows over Swiftwind’s shoulder, skewering the third of their ambushers twice in the center of its open maw. The creature bucked and jumped, black blood spurting from its mouth, and Ilsevele hurtled over it in one smooth jump and kept going. Fflar galloped after her, and their remaining guards followed.
“Captain Starbrow!” cried one of the Silver Guards. “Illithor went down!”
Fflar risked another look over his shoulder. A hundred yards back down the road, four or five of the canoloths snarled and snapped in a murderous fury around the guard and the horse that had gone down.
“He’s gone!” he snarled back at the escorts. “Keep on!”
Half a mile later, Fflar judged that they had outdistanced the canoloths, and signaled for the rest of the company to slow down. They eased first to a canter, then to a quick trot. The canoloths were nowhere in sight.
Ilsevele turned her mare and looked back the way they had come. “Illithor,” she murmured. “Aillesel Seldarie, what an awful fate.”
“There is nothing we can do for him now,” Fflar said. He exchanged a long look with Ilsevele, and they continued on their way.
Only four miles farther on, they crested a steep hill and spied a large company of riders a few hundred yards ahead, encamped around an old roadside inn overlooking the Ashaba. Most of the cavalrymen were human, dressed in assorted surcoats of blue and white, with red-pennoned lances standing at the stirrup. Fflar held up his hand, and reined in. Beneath the tree-shadows at the top of the hill he was relatively certain that the cavalrymen below had not yet spotted them.
“I can’t make out any device,” Ilsevele said. “Are they Sembians?”
“It seems likely,” Fflar said. He peered at the company ahead. “I don’t know of any Dalesfolk cavalry that might be this far to the east. Of course, they’re probably mercenaries in Sembia’s pay, not Sembians proper.”
“Even if they’re only mercenaries, they’ll report to someone with the authority to treat with us,” Ilsevele said. “I suppose we have to start somewhere.”
Fflar looked over to her. “They may have no interest in talking to us, Ilsevele. You know that.”
“I know.” She looked at the riders who followed them. “Seirye, you stay here with half the company. Be ready to cover our retreat with archery, in case we must flee.”
Seirye, the young officer who was in charge of the Silver Guards, agreed with a nod. “We will be ready. Be careful, Lady Ilsevele.”
“I will,” she promised.
The Silver Guards detailed to accompany her down to the Sembian encampment fixed long white streamers to their lances, and she led Fflar and the others out into the open, riding slowly down toward the inn house.
The humans below noticed them immediately. Men shouted and hurried to mount up and make ready for a fight, but as it became evident that only a handful of elves were approaching, the stir of excitement in the camp died down. After a few moments, a pair of human riders cantered out of the inn yard and rode up the road to meet the elves.
“I think this is close enough,” Fflar observed. “Let’s wait for those fellows to come to us.”
“Very well,” Ilsevele said.
She came to a halt in a spot about halfway between the hillcrest and the inn house. The Silver Guards waited nearby, watching the humans come closer. Fflar studied them as well. They were good riders, comfortable in the saddle. One was a stocky brown-haired man with a sweeping mustache, and the other was younger, with a long mane of fine yellow hair.
The two humans clattered up close to the elves, and reined in. They looked over Fflar and the others, traces of puzzlement in their eyes. Then the older man pointed at the white pennons hanging from the guards’ lances.
“Is that a flag of truce?” he asked.
“It is,” Ilsevele replied. “Will you parley with us?”
The broad-shouldered man shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt to talk. Might I ask who I’m speaking to, my lady?”
“I am Ilsevele Miritar. I am a captain of the Queen’s Spellarchers of Evermeet. This is Starbrow, and my guardsmen Aloiene, Deryth, Hasterien, and Sylleth.”
“I’m Randil Moorwatch, of Elturel. This is my bannerman Teren. I am the captain of the Blue Griffon Company, formerly in the employ of Lord Borstag Duncastle of Sembia, now in the employ of Lord Miklos Selkirk of the same.” The mercenary captain glanced up at the trees shadowing the hillcrest, and frowned. Fflar could imagine that he was asking himself how many more elves were hidden in the woods there. Then he returned his attention to Ilsevele. “Well, my lady Miritar, what is it that I can do for you?”
“I wish passage through your lines, and an escort to the commander of Sembia’s army in these lands,” Ilsevele said. Her Common had improved in the months since she’d left Evermeet but still held something of the melodious tones of Elvish in her accent.
“And what would you like to speak to our commanders about?” Moorwatch asked.
“We believe that the daemonfey are your enemy as well as ours. We wish to make common cause against the forces of Sarya Dlardrageth.”
The human captain narrowed his eyes, thinking. “If by ‘daemonfey’ you mean the various hellspawned monsters roving around these little flyspeck Dales, then I can’t say I disagree with you. But you’re not thinking clearly if you believe you can talk the Sembians into helping you retake Cormanthor.”