Broken, lame, I was found by you and spared. The Master enlisted me in his cause, not knowing he was really serving mine! Zannian raised a mighty band to fulfill his ambition, but it was mine he was achieving!
“The bronze dragon abandoned his people, why? Because I willed it! The Dragon’s Son was slain—by my Jade Men! Even Ungrah-de has subordinated himself to my design. All that remains is to destroy Karada herself, and my revenge will be complete! I cannot possibly fail now.”
Hoten stared at her. He had lived too long to believe in anything so childish as heartbreak, but at that moment he knew, win or lose, Nacris was lost to him forever. The knowledge left him feeling empty.
He dismounted and came to her side. Her glittering eyes were fixed on the eastern horizon. Bending down, he kissed her gently on the forehead. She paid him no heed whatsoever.
Back astride his horse, Hoten turned toward Arku-peli, already ringing with the sounds of combat. “Farewell, Nacris. Hoten, son of Nito, salutes you.”
She did not look up as he rode away.
10
By the time the nomads entered Cedarsplit Gap, day was well advanced. Though tired from their all-night ride, not one wanted to stop. Before sunrise they had flushed a party of raiders camped on a ridge overlooking the pass. From them, they’d learned the ogres and raiders were close to capturing the town. Karada united the different segments of her band and set off immediately for the Valley of the Falls.
The Silvanesti, on foot, had fallen behind during the night but caught up at the ridge. Ironically, it was the elves who had the stiffest fight in the mountains.
As Karada had ordered, Balif led his soldiers to the cliff top and immediately ran into a force of five-score raiders. Outnumbered three to one, Balif attacked. The raiders had detected Karada’s large, mounted band moving through the pass and closed ranks in expectation of an assault on horseback. They did not expect thirty metal-armed Silvanesti on foot.
Balif spread his elves out in skirmishing order, taking a small pinnacle above the plateau first. From there, the Silvanesti hurled bronze-tipped javelins down on the tightly packed raiders.
Outflanked, half the raiders bolted there and then. The rest charged the elves with their long stabbing spears leveled. Balif drew his soldiers back on the crag where the raiders’ horses couldn’t reach them. The undisciplined raiders broke into small groups and attacked at will, which allowed Balif to pick them off, equally at will. By midday, the elf lord was master of the plateau.
Sending a messenger on a dead raider’s horse, Balif informed Karada he held the cliff tops. To his surprise, the messenger returned with Karada herself and an entourage of twenty nomads.
She looked over the field of Balif’s small victory. The elf lord, long hair tied back with a leather strap in nomad fashion, was sweating in the heat but as composed as ever.
“Well done,” she said. “How do they fight?”
“They’re fell foes. With better leadership, they’d have driven us off the mountain.”
They went to the edge of the high precipice and looked down on Yala-tene. Smoke drifted over the beleaguered town, and a mass of horsemen was milling about below the wall on the north end of the village. Whatever pangs of memory and loss Karada felt looking at her brother’s home she quickly suppressed.
“Pakito!”
“Aye!” The giant appeared at his chiefs side.
“Take two out of three in the band and hit those yevi-spawn! Go now!”
“Aye, Karada!” Pakito kissed Samtu and started shouting orders. His booming voice carried across the open plateau, putting the heat of battle into everyone’s veins.
“Bahco! Wait here with the third that Pakito doesn’t take,” Karada ordered. The young nomad grimaced with disappointment but did as she said.
Beramun slipped in beside Karada. “Can you see the ogres? How many do you think there are?”
Karada shaded her eyes with her hands. Her vision was proverbially keen, but even she couldn’t distinguish ogres from men at this distance, and she said so.
Hawk eyes still fastened on the scene below, she suddenly exclaimed, “By my ancestors! On the valley floor, there—folk on foot. Do you see?” Beramun and Balif agreed they did. “Do they look green to you?”
Balif frowned. “They do.”
“The Jade Men!” Beramun breathed.
The grim calm of the nomad chieftain gave way to the fury of Amero’s sister. “Bahco!” Karada said, voice cracking with rage. “Take the rest of the band down there and get them!”
“Yes, chief. Do you want prisoners?”
“I want corpses! Those are the snakes who killed my brother! Not one of them is to live, Bahco! Kill them all!”
The dark warrior nodded gravely and departed.
Beramun stared after him, her hand resting on the mark on her chest. Strangely, when she’d escaped Yala-tene to search for Karada, the green brand had saved her life. The Jade Men had captured her but, seeing their master’s sign, had let her go, thinking she was one of them. Their calm assurance had frightened her, but she’d proven she was not Sthenn’s tool, hadn’t she? She was returning with Karada and her nomad warriors.
“I must get to the village as soon as possible,” Beramun said. “May I go with Bahco?”
Karada glanced at Beramun and at Mara, standing behind her and quietly observing everything. “All right,” the chieftain said. “Leave Mara here, and mind what Bahco tells you. He leads in my place.”
Soon only Karada, Mara, Balif, and his elves remained on the cliff. Anyone else might have felt vulnerable being surrounded by armed former enemies, but not Karada. She knew Balif well enough by now to know he would not try any treacherous coup.
They remained overlooking the scene until Pakito’s column hit the raiders from behind. Zannian’s men were crowded in close to the wall, awaiting their chance to come to grips with the weakening villagers, and they never knew what hit them. Pakito, disdaining the use of bows, closed with spear and sword.
“That’s it!” Karada cried, racing along the edge of the cliff, following the fight. One wrong step, and she would have plunged hundreds of paces down the mountain. She was oblivious to the danger. “Drive in! Keep them against the wall, Pakito. No room to maneuver! Give them no room!”
Turning suddenly, Karada sprang onto her horse. “Why am I here? To battle!”
Mara said, “Take me with you!”
Karada gave the girl her hand. “Hold on!” she said as Mara scrambled aboard. “If you fall off on the way down, I’m not stopping to pick you up!”
Mara wrapped both arms around Karada’s narrow waist. The nomad chief waved to Balif, who mustered his elves and started them jogging into Cedarsplit Gap. At a bone-jarring gallop, Karada passed the Silvanesti and hurtled down the slope, drawn by the intoxicating tumult of battle.
The Jade Men formed a circle around Nacris, each facing outward. The youth who’d led the killers after Amero said, “Mother, we await your will.”
“Good boys. Be patient. She will come.”
The din of battle waxed and waned behind them as Zannian tried to bludgeon his way into Yala-tene. More distant was the noise of Ungrah and his ogres resuming their attack, having now demolished the west baffle and part of the outer wall. The sound of ogre war drums could be heard again throughout the Valley of the Falls.
It was high summer, and the Jade Men suffered in the heat, though they wore nothing but green kilts and leggings. They made no complaints and kept formation as the hot sun beat down on them. The ground around them became stained with their dripping sweat.
A strong breeze blew down Cedarsplit Gap, driving eddies of dust before it. The Jade Men on the east side of the circle sniffed the air and immediately stiffened with alarm. They looked to Nacris, reclining in the litter, the javelin still on her lap.