"I heard it too, but I couldn't see or speak," Darsett said, puzzled.
"Yes, yes," Tant Jova said. "The word must be shouted in every village and every tent-Eladamri is the Promised One. Eladamri is the Korvecdal!"
Rebels on the mound gathered quickly when they heard the Vec matriarch shout. They took up the refrain, "The Promised One! The Korvecdal!" and shouted it as loudly as they could, over and over. Liin Sivi and Gallan raised Eladamri on their shoulders. Despite his misgivings about the oracle's murky predictions, Eladamri was vastly relieved. All his life he had dreamt of this moment. So much had been sacrificed, not least by him-his wife, his only child, a safe and normal life-all lost to the dark forces of the Stronghold. Now the final fight could begin. He would be the Korvecdal, no matter what gloomy and ambiguous prophecies the Oracle enVec made.
They carried Eladamri around the perimeter of the Eye, shouting and singing war songs. They were about to start a second circuit when four weary, bleeding elves appeared at the edge of the mound. The triumphant parade abruptly ceased, and Eladamri was set back on his feet.
He greeted the harried new arrivals. "I know you, Brother," he said to the eldest elf in the group. "You're Raydon, of Moss-bridge village?"
"I am. Health to you, Brother." Raydon had a number of sizable sword cuts on his arms and visible blade marks on his breastplate. "My nephews and I are all that's left of a band forty strong. We were on our way here to join you, Eladamri, when we were attacked by the evincar's flying ship."
Alarm ricocheted through the crowd.
"What?" said Darsett. "Predator flies again?"
"It does, or its twin," said the weary Raydon. "We took a shortcut across the plain from Mossbridge, and the devils fell upon us without warning."
"You have hand weapon injuries," Eladamri said. "How did that happen?"
"It was their method, Brother," said the elf. "They did not rain fire and arrows on us, as in the past. The flying ship alighted, and a hundred soldiers came out. Greven iiVec led them."
Mention of the Rathi warlord provoked fresh outcries for vengeance. Eladamri quieted his friends and allies.
"This changes much," he said. "I had hoped to forge an army to meet the Stronghold's soldiers in open combat, but we dare not expose ourselves to destruction from the air."
"What can we do?" asked Gallan.
Eladamri pondered for a moment. "We must go on," he said. "We'll go back to the old ways-ambush, hit the enemy, and run. We'll steal their weapons and bide our time as our strength grows."
"We can't win by ambushing outposts," said Darsett.
"It's that flying ship," Tant Jova said, striking the ground with her staff. "Without it, the Stronghold would collapse like a rotten cask!"
The allies fell to arguing strategy. Voices rose as they disagreed on how to fight under the threat of aerial attack.
Gallan turned to Eladamri. "What is our best course of action, Brother?"
"Destroy the flying ship."
"You make it sound easy," Darsett said sourly.
"It won't be easy," Eladamri answered, "but it must be done."
"But how? Predator roosts inside the Stronghold," Gallan objected.
"Yes."
Darsett snorted, "Are you proposing we storm the Stronghold just to destroy the flying ship?"
"Not 'storm,' Darsett. Just pay a little visit, a few friends and I."
Tant Jova looked stunned. "You're not going to raid the Stronghold, O Eladamri!"
"No," he said. "I'm going to give myself up."
It would have been faster to seek Crovax by air, but Greven had taken Predator to find the Skyshroud Expeditionary Force, so they were forced to rely on one of Volrath's old two-legged walkers. The Headless Turkey, as Ertai called it, lumbered across the undulating landscape below the crater. The walker made slow progress over this uneven terrain.
Opposite the Stronghold's main causeway, the plain was level and covered with knee-high yellow grass. As the Turkey climbed out of a shallow gully, Belbe's acute eyes spotted a smudge on the horizon-a crowd of people.
"Faster," she said.
Volrath's old machine covered the flat ground at an admirable clip, each sweep of the metal-toed feet tearing up a dusty divot. Ertai was at the controls, which consisted of two levers, one each for the right and left leg. He had them shoved forward as far as they would go, maximum speed. Belbe stood at the front of the car, hand to her brow, scanning ahead for obstacles. Bouncing in the back was Dorian, gripping the sides of the walker with white-knuckled hands.
When they were still a mile away from the evident crowd, Belbe stiffened and signaled for Ertai to slow down. He hauled back on the levers, bringing the Turkey from a gallop to a lazy lope.
"What do you see?" asked Dorian.
"People," she replied, puzzled. "They seem to be floating above the ground."
A far-off shriek reached out to them, a thin wail of pure terror and utmost anguish. Ertai dropped his hands, and the walker stopped.
"He's not-!"
"He is." Belbe vaulted over the side. It was eight feet to the ground, but she landed lightly on her toes and took off running. Ertai shoved the controls forward, sending the walker pounding after the fleet emissary.
Belbe covered the last eight hundred yards in seconds. What she thought were people "floating" was not that at all. Ahead the plain was thickly studded with sharp poles, formed from the flowstone substrate under the thin layer of topsoil. Impaled on the poles were the hostages-thousands of them.
Belbe stopped, frozen in her tracks by the scene before her. Crovax had commanded the spikes to thrust out of the ground, impaling the victims where they stood. Some died immediately. Others took time to find death, and a few still clung to life. Their moans were like a swirling wind, coming from every direction at once.
She didn't hear the walker thump to a halt behind her. It squatted, and Ertai got out. Dorian couldn't. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
Next thing Belbe knew, Ertai's hand was on her shoulder. She shrugged it off.
"How could he do this?" Ertai whispered.
"His power over flowstone is developing exponentially," Belbe said. "He's learned to fix the forms into permanent shapes. Impressive."
"Impressive? How can you say this savage is impressive?" Ertai took a step back, a horrified look on his face.
Slowly, Belbe walked into the forest of death. Most of the poles were eight to ten feet high, tall enough that the victim's feet couldn't reach the ground. The gray metal spikes were black with gore, and the air was heavy with the smell of blood. Ertai tried to follow Belbe, but within a few yards he broke down, nauseated.
Dazed, Belbe wound her way through the maze of spikes.
Since they'd sprung up wherever a person had been standing, there was no order, no pattern to their placement. Where a family huddled together for safety, a spike for each of them had erupted. Standing alone was no safer. Many victims looked as though they were caught in mid-stride. Age and gender made no difference-all had fallen to Crovax's insatiable vengeance.
A scream came from close by. Numbly, Belbe turned toward the sound. She saw a band of moggs manhandling a Dal man. Without thinking, she hurled herself at them, lashing out at the loathsome gremlins with her fists and feet. Bewildered, the moggs let their prey go and fled, whooping.
Belbe tried to help the man stand, but he was crazed with fear and kept trying to crawl away on all fours.
"It's all right, it's all right," Belbe said over and over. The man, mired in gore, looked up at her and started to speak.
His words were cut short by a spike bursting from the ground beneath him. It thrust up so powerfully that the man was carried four feet in the air before Belbe could even react. She grasped the still growing post and tried to break it, but even her considerable strength could not affect a metal pole eight feet tall and now almost seven inches thick. Blood cascaded down the pole over Belbe's hands. Trembling, she backed away and screamed.