Chopping down trees was noisy work. The silent forest echoed with the sound of blades biting green wood. Nomad scouts could not fail to hear the commotion.
Mathi chopped and hacked until her hands were blistered. Then she chopped some more. She dulled an axe and switched to a thick-bladed falchion loaned to her by one of the centaurs. The horse-men were unflagging workers. They’d been dashing around all night, but they kept at the work until the sun’s first rays put the stars to sleep.
Mathi raised the falchion high to finish cutting down her forty-third sapling. An eerie baying filled the woods below, and she stayed her hand. She listened, and the sound grew more distinct. Hounds. They had the scent of their prey.
Something crashed through the undergrowth. It was hurtling toward her. She put an elm tree to her back and raised the battered falchion. The dogs were chorusing loudly now in a wide half circle, all the way from the extreme left to the far right. As on the night she was caught outside Bulnac’s camp, the baying dogs raised the hair on her neck and made her heart hammer. Their calls spoke to her blood far more frighteningly than anything the humans did.
She saw a sudden blur of muddy brown. For a moment Mathi thought it was a bear. It drove past her beyond arm’s reach but close enough for the wind to stir her clothing. The eyes of the beast met hers in passing, then Balif was gone. He ran up the hill through the field, disappearing over the rise into camp.
Balif had been out nosing around when the dogs had picked up his trail. Even he could do little against a veteran pack of hunting hounds.
The centaurs arrived at a gallop. Warchief Loff-as they called Lofotan-was calling everyone back. From the summit he could see movement in the trees. Lots of movement. Mathi ran. The centaurs thundered past her and kept going.
Lofotan’s fence was only three-quarters complete. A small pile of poles lay scattered on the ground where the stakes ended. There was no time to finish.
Balif had run to the first shelter he could reach, which happened to be the supply tent where Mathi and Treskan slept. The tethered horses, brought with great labor across the river, were terrified by his presence. They milled around snorting and stomping. Mathi watched the centaurs join their fellows behind the stakes. Treskan had a spear. Lofotan was there too, but he did not see the Longwalker. She guessed the kender had abandoned them to their fate at last.
Mathi approached the tent. She heard Balif snarl, “Get back!”
“This is no time for vanity,” Mathi said. “I’m coming in.”
The general’s response was a low, throaty growl that would have stopped a charging wolf. With the hounds still baying in the woods and Lofotan shouting for him, Mathi braced herself and strode straight into the tent.
She looked at the general of the Speaker of the Star’s armies, lying on his side, panting. There was just enough of his original form left in him to make his appearance even more grotesque.
“I … shall kill … you!”
“You’ll have to stand in line, my lord! The nomads are coming!”
“Think … I don’t … know?”
“We need you, sir. We need everyone, every hand!”
Balif’s panting sound like laughter. “I … have no … hands left.”
“Then lie here and die! I’ve no more time to waste on you!”
She raced to where Lofotan, the scribe, and the centaurs waited. Seeing the elf warrior with his helmet on gave Mathi an idea. She diverted to Balif’s tent and got the general’s polished helmet, with the white horsehair plume on top. She held it out to Lofotan.
“I can’t wear the general’s armor,” he said.
“Wear it, captain. Be our general in this last fight.”
Taking in the expressions on the centaurs and the scribe, Lofotan removed his simple headgear and donned Balif’s helmet.
The baying hounds abruptly ceased their song. Everyone on the hill stirred nervously. Only the dogs’ handlers could silence them so suddenly. The enemy must be close.
They were. Daylight glinted off bits of armor and naked blades down at the tree line. Mathi couldn’t count them scattered among the trees, but it looked like several hundred men on foot, milling around in the greenery.
Between them they had seven bows. Centaur bows were simple curved staves, which lacked the range and power of Lofotan’s elegant Silvanesti weapon. They also used stone arrowheads, not bronze like the elf’s. Against fur-clad nomads it might not make much difference, but if there was much armor distributed among Bulnac’s men, the centaurs’ arrows would be almost useless.
Nevertheless they braced and stood ready. Mathi swallowed hard. If only the kender had been as steadfast as Zakki and his comrades.
After a short period of disorder, the nomads advanced up the hill. They came on in no formation, just a ragged line with men bunched together around individual leaders. It was close to two hundred yards from the forest edge, to where Lofotan stood. He pointed his arrow skyward and released. Plunging out of the lightening sky, Bulnac’s men couldn’t see it coming. It hit a nomad in the center of the line. He threw up his hands and went down. His friends stood around him momentarily, then resumed their advance.
Lofotan loosed arrow after arrow. He never missed. His targets were thickly clustered together. The morning light was against them, but they doggedly came on. At a hundred fifty yards some of the nomads halted and loosed their own arrows. Things were hectic on the hilltop as everyone dodged incoming missiles. To Mathi, who had never been on the receiving end of archery in broad daylight, it seemed as though the arrows flew and fell very slowly. When they hit the ground they only buried a few inches of shaft. Were they really dangerous?
Her curiosity was answered when one of the centaurs was hit in the palm of one hand. The nomad arrow penetrated for half its length. It was a horrible looking wound, but the tough centaur snapped the hardwood shaft with his teeth and pulled the arrow out.
The nomads’ archery sputtered and ended. Too many of their comrades were in front of them, and they no longer had a clear field of fire. From the heights, Lofotan had a perfect view. The centaurs joined in, and they attacked the advancing humans without mercy.
Beating their swords against their wooden shields the nomads kept coming, shouting their chief’s name over and over, like a spell to insure victory.
Without anyone in overall command, the mob of nomads began shifting to their left. The gap in the stake line lay that way, and even though they could have squeezed between the stakes at any point, the warriors naturally made for the easier path.
Lofotan lowered his bow. Mathi asked, “Are you out of arrows?”
“No, but there’s no point using them all now.” He called for the others to form beside him with weapons drawn.
“We’ll charge them when they enter the gap,” he said. The narrow way would cause the nomads to bunch together, hampering their movements and their ability to use their weapons.
“Now, forward!”
They trotted toward the fence gap. As they passed the supply tent, the canvas sides billowed out, and a dark shape burst out of the front. A blood-chilling howl rang from the hilltop.
Balif had joined the fight.
Mathi checked Lofotan. The elf warrior kept his eyes straight ahead, not paying the slightest attention to the misshapen creature entering the battle on their side.
Balif reached the enemy first. They gave ground before his charge, unsure what they faced. He batted away the spears they jabbed at him. The beast’s jaws opened wide, revealing a jaw full of long yellow teeth. A human archer took aim, but Zakki put an arrow in him first. Balif sprang at the enemy, bowling over three when he landed. His power was terrifying. He had claws on all four limbs, and he ripped his way through the lightly clad nomads. What his talons did not shred, his teeth tore apart.