Char didn't let go her hand. "Take hold of your god, girl. Let him hear you."
She let the weight of the talisman sit in her hand, the silver chain slipping over her fingers. "We know a thing about gods," she said, wonder filling her voice as the magic against her fingers throbbed like a heart beating.
"We do," the dwarf said. "In Qualinesti, in Thorbardin…" He looked away across all the distance of the two courtyards, past the Tharkadan and to the mountains rising between him and Thorbardin, the kingdom under the mountain, the fabled city where he could never again go. "They forget, or never knew, the humans out here. But we know, you and me. We know. Trust your god, Princess."
Princess, he said. She had not been named so in all the months since before the winter.
In the courtyard between the first wall and the second, a voice rose up from the shadows against the tower wall. Wailing, keening, it sounded a death knell.
"By Reorx!" Char went white.
Elansa’s hand shook. She clenched it round the talisman, and magic pulsed, catching the beat of her blood again.
"Hush," she whispered, perhaps to herself, perhaps to Char.
In the silence, she heard two things: a brittle rattling as of bones being shaken, and the low thunder of horses running. Char's voice rose in a sharp curse. Elansa looked down at her hand. The sapphire glowed, the black shadows of her finger bones showed through her flesh. High above, in the bowl of the sky, the light of day quickened. Behind, the valley and the low thunder of horses running, the elven army bound for the gates of Pax Tharkas, headlong to some battle of their own and soon to find a princess. Below, the keening and the rattling of bones.
Brand's voice rose above all the sounds, the thunder and the bones. "Swipe the heads off ’em! Don't waste your strokes!"
She lifted her eyes and looked into the courtyard between the two walls. Not but shadow did she see, for the day had not yet broken the night below. And then, as the keening rose, the voices of things long dead, she saw the little pricking gleams of the first light on honed steel. One shadow moved from out of the darkness, only a shape, but she knew it: Brand, and he was looking up at her. She felt it.
"Char!" His voice boomed, echoing against the walls. "Char! Don't leave her!"
And the light broke, at last seeping into the dark place between the first wall and the second wall of ancient Pax Tharkas. Elansa saw then, what until now she had only heard.
They had been the valiant guard of a great king. They still wore the wretched rusted remains of their gear-helms, leather gauntlets, a scrap of silk waving from the thin bones of a neck, and tattered ring mail hung on skeletal shoulders. In their heads, they had no eyes, only dark holes. In their mouths were no tongues, yet the keening howls never ceased.
"Reorx preserve," Char groaned.
In the courtyard Tianna shouted warning, but too late. A man's voice rose in agony then choked as bony fingers clutched his throat, clenching. Ballu died and in the instant he fell, Ley swiped the head from the undead thing that had killed him.
These things Elansa saw and heard, but only as though there were distance between her heart, her mind, and the soul that now sought to engage a god's magic. That, the magic of the talisman, the power of the rising phoenix, began to touch her, first as a caress, almost tenderly.
Low and wondering, she said, "Char, move away now. Move away."
Her voice had a hollowness to it, the same sound it had taken in the caves before she'd called out to the god. The hair rose on the back of Char's neck. He knew about gods, but it had been a long time since he'd been comfortable with their doings. He moved away, but he did not leave her. He took up his post at the door, never taking his eyes from her as, to gods few believed in but they two, she lifted the wondrous sapphire to the breaking light and began her prayer to the Blue Phoenix.
Lindenlea’s heart rose to see the ancient fortress. On wings it rose, and it sang old songs, remembered old tales. The Peace of Friendship, it had stood a long time in the gap between warring kindreds, a monument to their hopes for the end of fighting. It had been that, for a time. Seeing it now, bestriding the gap between two arms of the mountains, she saw it marred by the hard hand of time, the gates in the wall sprung, fallen from hinges, the old chains that had pulled them open or closed useless. Still, she thought it was a magnificent embodiment of what it is to love and defend.
"There!" she shouted to her weary troops. With her lance, she pointed. "There! We'll hold it and wait for the prince to drive the goblins to us."
One of the soldiers laughed and said he thought those goblins would shatter against the wall of elves before they ever hit the walls of Pax Tharkas, and Lindenlea laughed with him.
"That's the plan, my friend. Now, all of you, we'll make the ground before the first wall ours. Don't set camp, but rest the horses and yourselves. You've done well today, my warriors. Rest, eat, and make ready to rid the Outlands of these goblins for once and all."
A cheer went up, starting from the middle ranks and rippling forward. The sound of it lifted Lindenlea’s heart, making all the long weary ride through the night worth the ache and effort. She laughed, and they cheered louder. In moments, though, the sound took on another tone, a wilder sound as a rider came galloping from the west.
"Goblins!" he shouted, brandishing his lance, his face alight. It was maimed Demlin, who had come to Pax Tharkas in hopes of finding his princess. "Goblins coming right to our doorstep!"
More and better news he had. Scrambling down from his frothing mount, the scout made his salute to Lindenlea and said he saw the sun on lances across the plains.
"And not too far away. The prince is coming, my lady, with all his army."
Lindenlea praised him and thanked him for his hard riding. She sent him to the others, to rest and await the battle to come. Alone, astride her mount and watching the great silent fortress where, it was feared, the hobgoblin had found a trove of magic, she thought long about the tactics that would be needed. She wondered whether she would lose many of her warriors.
"To you all," she said, and gestured as though she were raising a cup in salute. "To all who will fight. To those who will ride home and those who won’t."
It was in that moment Lindenlea saw the two figures on the wall. Keen-eyed, she didn't have to squint to see that one was a dwarf and the other was a woman dressed in rags, her hair a-tangle, an elf perhaps, or a human. The woman lifted her hands, and from her fingers something dropped, blue and glinting in the new light.
"Hear me!" cried the woman. She flung her head back, the wind caught her hair from her face. "My Phoenix! Hear me!"
"Dear gods have mercy," Lindenlea whispered when the woman called out, her voice ringing against the stone of the mountain.
Beside her, Demlin shouted, "It’s the princess!" Lindenlea saw Elansa turn, obviously startled and shaken. She staggered against the wall, torn from the magic.
"I cannot believe what you say, cousin," Lindenlea called up to Elansa. "You are captive, you are-"
Elansa could not stand alone, ripped from her magic and shaking. She was forced to lean on the dwarf's shoulder. This Lindenlea saw, but she did not see that the dwarf had to hold her steady with a hand at her back.