A hot–air balloon hung silhouetted against the western horizon, floating slowly on the sluggish air. He blinked in disbelief, watching its progress.
It was coming his way.
No, he thought, it isn’t possible.
Praying at the same time that it was. Praying with every last shred of faith he could muster that he wasn’t mistaken. Watching the balloon grow larger, settling lower in the sky as it neared him, the details growing sharper, more certain.
Until at last there could no longer be any doubt.
It was Simralin.
TWENTY-SEVEN
AFTER HE HAD HELD HER for long minutes, needing the feel of her body pressing against his own to make her presence real enough that he could accept it, grateful beyond anything words could express, he asked her to tell him everything. She did so as he drove the Ventra in pursuit of the demon, eyes on the rough terrain as he listened, searching for tracks, for sign of his quarry’s passing, his hands steadied by their grip on the wheel in a way they might not have been if they were only resting in his lap.
He had been so afraid of losing her, of having to live without her, of the consequences of his decision not to insist that she come with him. He had been terrified, and now he could breathe again in a way he hadn’t been able to in many days.
She seemed aware of this, and she touched him frequently, smiled often, and reassured him that she was really there. She was feeling the same way he was, he told himself, as much in love with him as he was with her. He couldn’t have explained how he knew this beyond what his instincts and his heart told him. It was in things that would have been barely noticeable to others–the small gestures, quick asides, and momentary glances. It was in the changes in her tone of voice when she spoke and in the silences in between. In these little things, seemingly unimportant and fleeting, everything was made known. It was cemented by her physical closeness to him, by the fact that she had come back from the precipice on which he had left her standing, alive and well, a whole person still despite the terrible struggle she had been through.
Almost no one else, he thought, could have done what she had done and lived to tell about it.
Even so, she had not survived unscathed. There was blood and dirt on her ripped clothing. Save for her adzl, her weapons were gone. She had been wounded several times, although she had cleaned her injuries and bound them up. She had not eaten in more than a week save for what she had managed to forage. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks hollow, and her eyes haunted.
Even in this condition he found her the most beautiful woman he had ever known.
AFTER HE LEAVES her days earlier in the mountains of the Cintra, she goes back in search of Arissen Belloruus and the others who remain behind to defend against the demon army. She is with another dozen or so Trackers and scouts, all of them mindful of the need to find routes of escape for those who fight to provide cover for Kirisin’s escape.
They encounter resistance almost at once, the once–men under demon command flooding through the trees and rocks in an unstoppable torrent. The Elves under her command take cover and fight back with bow and arrow and javelin, slowing but not stopping the attack. Gradually, they are forced to give ground, unable to get through or stem the tide. They back their way clear of the forests and up into the rocks, counterattacking the entire way. The once–men try to get at them, but fail. They lack automatic weapons or even blades in most cases and are forced to rely on pieces ofpipe and lengths of wood. These poor weapons are useless against the experienced and well–trained Elves.
Still, Simralin and her companions cannot reach the main body. They cannot even determine where it is. The shouts and cries of battle seem to come from all sides, and the trees hide the truth of what is happening.
“Chenowyn!” she calls finally to one of her scouts. “Climb higher into the rocks and try to see what is happening!”
The other woman is gone at once, and Simralin moves the rest into a position where the rocks narrow down into a space barely wide enough for two abreast to pass, and she chooses to defend there. Their attackers may find a way around them, may even cut them off, but for now it is the best they can do. The once–men are still streaming out of the trees, seemingly without order or leadership, consumed by their efforts to find their quarry, scattering this way and that like wild things.
Then, before Chenowyn can report back, a large body of Elves bursts clear of the trees into open ground below, colliding with the once–men that have gotten around behind them. Other once–men erupt from the forests, a massive force of attackers. The Elves try to stand and fight them off, but there are too many. They give ground quickly, retreating toward the rocks and the high ground that Simralin and her companions occupy.
She makes a quick head count and doesn’t get past a hundred.
She doesn’t like to think about the answer. Instead, in an effort to make a difference, she takes her own small force down out of the rocks in a counterattack that catches the nearest of the once–men by surprise and opens a path for the beleaguered Elves. She sees the King then, trying to rally his soldiers. He is bloodied and disheveled, and he fights with short swords in both hands. The once–men recognize that he is the leader and try to get at him. But Home Guards surround the King protectively and fight them off. Sporadic gunfire erupts from the trees, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the combatants.
“Home Guard!” the big Tracker Eliasson roars from just below her, throwing back the creatures that come at him. “To me, Elven! To the rocks!”
The Elves hear and see, and in a tangled body they begin to fight their way toward him. Simralin pulls her diminished force–now down to eight–into the shelter of the rocks, where they use longbows on the once–men in an effort to help. But it makes scant difference. The forest below is alive with others, masses of them pouring out of the trees, too many to count or stand against.
Arissen Belloruus is still trying to pull back, to fight his way free with his Home Guards.
Hurry, Arissen, Simralin pleads silently.
Chenowyn is back beside her, as white as a wraith at the new moon. “What have you seen?” Simralin demands of her.
“There are thousands more.” Chenowyn has to shout to make herself heard. “So many they fill the forest at every turn. We cannot hope to stop them all.”
“Stay here.” Simralin is already moving. “Keep the way open.”
She is down out of the rocks in seconds and charging across the open spaces toward the Elves below. Dozens have gone down, their numbers diminished as if by magic. The trees continue to bleed once–men, an endless stream of bodies exploding out of the shadows in a cacophony of screams and waves of wild–eyed madness. More Elves go down, fighting to the end, dying on their feet. The Home Guard surrounding the King is reduced to less than a dozen, separated from the main body of Elves fleeing for the path she has opened for them.
Get out, Arrisen, she wants to scream at him, but knows she will not be heard.
An instant later a burst of automatic weapons fire erupts from the edge of the trees and a creature only vaguely human pushes out of the woods with a huge double–barreled killing machine that spits fire and death everywhere. Most of the Home Guards collapse. The King goes down as well, dropping to one knee, head lowered. He is spitting blood.
“Arissen!” She screams his name aloud.
The creature has raised its arms in triumph and is howling with glee when the first arrow pierces it through its right eye and knocks it backward a step. It tears the arrow free, heedless of the pain, but a second arrow spits its throat and a third buries itself deep in the hairy chest. Eliasson is fitting another arrow to his bow when the creature staggers and sinks to the earth and does not move again.