‘I’ll fetch you a mirror.’ Auum smiled. ‘Tell me how you feel.’
‘I ache. And I feel weak. Hungry though, really hungry.’
‘Good,’ said Auum. ‘Merrat, broth and meat. Our patient is hungry.’
‘Well that is good news indeed,’ said Merrat.
Auum helped Elyss out of her hammock and to a sitting position with her back against a tree. Merrat brought over a steaming bowl of broth — a hare, root and herb soup infused with guarana. Auum held the bowl and gave the small wooden spoon to Elyss. She reached out a trembling arm from a shivering body and Auum shook his head.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll only spill it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Elyss.
‘For what?’
‘I’ve delayed us, stopped us from fighting. I-’
Auum proffered a spoonful of broth to stop her speaking.
‘Quite the reverse,’ he said. ‘You’ve bought us all time and we have landed a heavy blow.’
Elyss managed a thin smile. A dribble of broth ran down her chin.
‘Really?’
‘Really. Hang on. Ulysan? Come over and tell Elyss what you saw yesterday morning.’
Ulysan trotted over. He knelt by Elyss, kissed her cheek and then sat down facing her.
‘Good to have you back.’
‘The mushrooms worked then?’
‘You could say so. Hundreds of them died yesterday morning. Their mages weren’t prepared and there was confusion in their command. We lost elves too, to man’s revenge and to the mushrooms, but we knew that would happen. Be happy that the ClawBound have freed so many or we would have lost more.’
‘Are we winning?’ she asked.
Auum shrugged. ‘It would be premature to think so. Perhaps after Haliath Vale we will be. But four thousand started out from Ysundeneth and only a clutch over three thousand now remain. We are tearing the heart from them and draining the courage from their souls. But we must not let our guard down. We are so few that one reverse could turn the tide.’
Auum glanced around him. All six of them were gathered to listen. He offered Elyss another sip of broth.
‘Ulysan, what of the direction of our enemy?’
‘They’re on the move again but very slowly. Their defence has become far more solid. Mages are evident on the flanks of the army and I believe they are lacing the forest with wards as they go, determined not to be taken by surprise while they march, whereas before they only really feared the dark hours.
‘Their strength of arms on the flanks is also much increased. For now, it seems, speed has been sacrificed for security. Unless they change direction, they will pass close by Haliath Vale, and at their current speed they’ll reach it in five days. We’ve done well. Their warriors are nervous and their mages are using up their stamina casting so many extra spells.’
‘We won’t attack them again until they walk into the teeth of our ambush. Let’s rest here today while Elyss regains her strength and move on tomorrow at dawn,’ said Auum. ‘Men’s blood will flow at Haliath.
‘Tais, we pray.’
Chapter 20
Today was a dark one. I had to formulate legislation concerning the manufacture and distribution of narcotics. Katura was built as the elven sanctuary. From where did this great evil grow?
The Diaries of Pelyn, Governor of Katura
Boltha was too old for another fight but the Apposan spirit within him would not let him step aside for the younger of his thread. It had always rankled with him that they had been forced from the Olbeck Rise to Katura by a combination of human expansion and elven harmonic pressure — or something like that.
The irrevocable descent of Katura had given him the excuse he had needed to take his people back into the forest and to the Haliath Vale, a place he had coveted for decades. A broad valley floor was threaded through with a fish-laden tributary of the River Ix. The great head of the canopy hid them from human mages’ prying eyes and the richness of resources here allowed a sprawling settlement to grow up along both banks of the stream.
Far to the south, the steep-sided valley was packed densely with trees clawing at the sunlight and eventually led into the sheer landscape of the Katura approaches. To the west, the rainforest ran towards the main flow of the River Ix. To the north, the river broadened into a swamp that was impassable by river craft and was only risked by the foolish, stocked as it was with crocodiles, large constrictors and other lethal predators.
That left the east as the only viable route from the River Ix to Katura. It was very easy to miss the Vale. First you had to find the hunting trails through the forest and up the long steep slope to the crest of the Haliath valley.
If you missed them, you would walk along the sludge of rain runoff, heading gradually up a narrow cut in the forest whose sides fled away into shadow even on the brightest of days. It was a place made by Yniss to trap and slaughter enemies of the rainforest and the place which Grafyrre of the TaiGethen had made his own. It was known locally as the Scar.
Boltha and Methian had been preparing the Apposans to retake Katura, but Grafyrre’s arrival and his news of the human invasion of the forest had changed all that. For days they had put themselves under the command of the twelve TaiGethen cells that had run into the Vale on that dreary morning. Boltha had tried hard not to be excited, he was very old after all, but there was something undeniably exciting about working with the TaiGethen and that feeling was not tempered by the thousands of enemies flooding their way.
Today, though, new excitement had gripped the entire settlement with the arrival of Auum, Merrat, Ulysan and their Tais; all three were legendary TaiGethen warriors of fame and renown who brought an aura of invincibility with them. Word of Auum’s arrival brought old and young alike from their houses and ensured an expectant crowd awaiting his every gesture.
Auum, though, spent little time in the settlement, just enough to see one of his cell, Elyss, to comfortable rest. His only other concern was the Scar and the work that had been done there. Boltha almost burst with pride when he and Methian were asked to accompany the TaiGethen inspection.
The two old friends hung back behind Auum, Grafyrre, Ulysan and Merrat but the Arch motioned them into the heart of the group.
‘This is your land,’ he said.
Boltha met Auum’s gaze.
‘This is a fight for all elves,’ said Boltha. ‘And I will do everything in my power to see it won.’
Auum put his hands on Boltha’s shoulders and kissed his forehead.
‘It is for elves such as you that the TaiGethen fight. For you and for the true heroes still inside Ysundeneth. For Koel.’
Boltha gasped, his heart leapt. ‘Koel lives?’
‘He lives and is at the centre of the rebirth of harmony among elves. When we are finished with the humans in our forest, we will free every slave in every city on Calaius. Koel will be first. Then you and your people can go home,’ Auum said.
Boltha smiled. ‘I wonder how many will. Much has changed.’
‘You will always be welcome in the forest and we will always protect you.’
Auum had walked down to the base of the Scar and was looking along its length. Boltha and Methian flanked him with the other TaiGethen grouped just behind them. The Scar ran in an almost dead straight line north to south, the merest easterly curve taking it off true.
The edge of the swamp was a hundred yards to their right and the approaches at their back narrowed naturally to drive travellers along the Scar.
‘Graf, speak to me.’ Auum began walking. ‘Thoughts, plans and positions. Everything.’
Grafyrre fell in beside Boltha. The two had formed a friendship over the last few days, adopting a familial relationship that had some of Boltha’s friends joking that he had adopted a new son and bodyguard combined.