Laya’s first act was to order the walls raised about the city. These were no ordinary walls, of stone or wood, but living walls, magic vines that sprang out of the ground in a protective circle around the city. The vines grew in mere minutes, thickening to the size of tree trunks, and each one bristled with spear-long and sword-sharp thorns.
The goblins rode upon giant wolves. Both the beasts and the beast-men yowled as they loped toward the citadel. The rearing thorn barrier gave them pause. They milled in front of it, gnashing their teeth, growling, and in the case of the goblins, cursing. A few enterprising spirits tried to set the vines on fire, to no effect.
The leader of the army pulled out in front of the others. Laya knew him. It was not Akraz, but one of his sub-chiefs, one of the goblins who had come to help move Akraz when he was sick. Zathstragomal must have instructed the goblin leader what to do, for the goblin spoke a word of power.
The thorn vines trembled and curled away large enough to form a gate through which several horsed men could pass abreast. That was all, but it was enough. The goblins had a breach through the barrier into the city.
Laya and the other elves had their work cut out for them. With arrow after arrow, they defended the breach. Goblins pierced with arrows fell like pincushions, but the elf defenders numbered too few to hold back the horde forever.
Smoke choked her and blinded her. The goblins had failed to set the thorn barrier on fire, but they succeeded in setting the trees ablaze. Now the magnificent, ancient wood billowed orange flame and black smoke. The elves still held the breach, but their numbers were dwindling. Laya herself had suffered several injuries and barely stood on her feet.
A horse charged through the goblin ranks from behind.
“Let him through!” shouted Laya. “It’s Hunter!”
Hunter slid off his horse and stood side by side with Laya. He had a bow in his hand in place of his favored weapon, the sword.
“Did I miss all the fun?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
“How did you know?”
“Lathaniel arrived. He warned us that Zathstragomal knew the real location of Sylvindell and also that the ‘elf’ Acariel was really a goblin. We would have seized the goblin at once, but he had already disappeared. The army turned around, but I fear they may arrive too late to prevent the goblins from taking the city.” Hunter put one hand on Laya’s shoulder. “Nemesis, I’m sorry. I know you had feelings for Acariel, but—”
“But I feel nothing for him now,” she said. She nodded out toward the goblins. “The monsters should have tried another assault by now. Something is agitating them.”
“Your elven eyes are sharper than mine,” he admitted. “Can you see what is going on in that knot of soldiers?”
“There is a newcomer. He is addressing all the officers. They are arguing. He…oh, gods. It’s him.”
“Acariel?”
“His real name is Akraz.”
“Akraz?” Hunter whistled. “As in Akraz the Terrible, the Goblin General?”
“That would be the one, yes,” she said bitterly. Terrible doesn’t begin to describe it. “Now he’s mounting a wolf. Now he…”
“What? Laya, what?”
“Look at them,” she said, stunned. “Look at the goblins.”
“By the gods of Light!” Hunter said in shock. “They’re fighting each other.”
Indeed, the goblin army had fissioned into two halves, which fell on one another with merciless abandon. Akraz led the smaller but more cohesive cohort. They positioned themselves between the others and the thorn walls of Sylvindell.
“Hunter, don’t you see?” cried Laya. “Akraz is leading the officers loyal to him against Zathstragomal! They’re rebelling against the dark wizard! He and his troops are defending our city!”
Akraz could not convince all of his men to turn on their cruel overlord. No goblin harbored Zathstragomal any affection, but many feared him too much to betray him, not even in the cause of their own freedom. However, the troops that remained loyal to Zathstragomal lost all heart when the elf and human armies returned. Finding themselves trapped between Akraz’s rebels and two fresh armies, the goblins scattered.
Akraz knew he could not expect the newcomers to distinguish between his own troops and those still loyal to Zathstragomal, so he ordered his sub-chiefs to sound the call for surrender. His soldiers put down their weapons and the flag bearers lofted white flags in place of the black banner of Zathstragomal the Malicious. Unfortunately, goblins had used such tricks before with no intent of honoring the truce. Would the elves trust Akraz to keep his word? Or would they decide the safer course might be to let their peerless archers pick off the rebels one by one?
One of his loyal sub-chiefs, clearly plagued by the same worries, drew his wolf up alongside Akraz.
“At least your sister’s family is safe, as you requested,” the other goblin said gruffly. “Well, all but that ass of a husband of hers. Sorry, he was drunk as a mosquito in a beer mug and wouldn’t budge. But we rounded up all the little rascals, sure enough.”
“I’m sure Hwega will be equally grateful that you brought her children and left her husband,” Akraz said. “Thank you.”
“I expect we’ll all be in pots soon,” said the sub-chief. “The elves are cannibals, you know.”
“If you were so sure of that, why did you agree to follow me in this crazy plan?” demanded Akraz.
The sub-chief grinned. “Because it was you that asked it. That’s enough for me. Besides, being et might not be so bad. Maybe they’ll at least fatten us up first.”
“Whatever happens to us, I don’t think we’ll be ‘et’,” Akraz said. However, he knew no more than his companion what he could expect.
For himself, Akraz expected no forbearance, and he did not care. Any future without Laya by his side would be empty whether he was formally punished or not. He only hoped that he had not made a disastrous choice for his men. Would the elves enslave them, or slay them in cold blood? Had his band of would-be rebels exchanged one overlord for another fate just as cruel?
Chapter Twelve
They had blindfolded him, stripped him to a loincloth and bound him in cords. He waited on his knees in an empty room to hear what his fate would be. The council, Akraz had been told, would discuss and decide what do with him and the other goblin rebels.
Footfalls alerted him that the elven warriors had come for him. They prodded him to his feet with the tips of their spears. They escorted him from one building to another. While they were outside, he felt the coolness of the air and gauged that sunset drew near. How appropriate. When they meted out their judgment upon him, he would revert to a monster.
A bell reverberated throughout Sylvindell, calling all public citizens to attend to the ceremony in the Palace of Justice in the center of the citadel. The clanging caught Laya already on her way up the steps into the Palace, but she paused for a moment in horror when she recognized the pattern of the chimes.
Treason. Disgrace. The highest punishment.
No, she begged the gods of Light. How can they still blame Akraz for giving away the location of the city after what he did to defend it? Surely they must realize that Akraz couldn’t have been the one who betrayed us after all!
The streets outside the Palace of Justice began to fill with curious elves. No one had been sentenced to the highest punishment in the land for over three hundred years. Some elves, who had seen this before, had come prepared with slender wood rods. Opportunistic vendors sold sticks and arrows to the rest of the crowd for use in the upcoming ceremony.
The guards at the Palace gates stopped Laya. “It’s already full inside.”
“I am Nemesis,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height. His eyes widened.
“I beg pardon, my lady Nemesis,” he said with a bow. “Please, enter.”