The archers parted ranks, revealing a dozen sword-armed comrades, but when they rushed the garden wall, Amergin rose up with his sling.
Three Quenites went down, clutching their legs. Amergin had thrown three stars at once. He reloaded and hurled again, bring down two more. The remainder hesitated and inched back.
“Volley!” Howland cried. The stone-throwers hurled their missiles, pelting the wavering gang with more stones. More elves went down with cracked heads and bleeding scalps. The survivors backed away.
“Now’s the moment! Charge!”
Hume, Howland, Khorr, and Raika scrambled over the wall and ran yelling at the elves. Carried away in the fervor of the moment, Malek, Nils, and Wilf followed. Carver stood on the wall and whooped encouragingly while Caeta hurled stones over their heads.
Raika had almost reached the retreating elves when she suddenly realized she was unarmed. The elves didn’t seem to notice. They ran up the street, away from the yelping band attacking them. Amergin flung sharp bronze stars by their ears until they gave way and fled farther.
The only person to actually close with the elves was Hume. He grabbed one gang member who’d taken a stone to the head and sat dazed on the ground. Lacking a blade, he head-butted the unhappy elf then relieved him of his sword.
In moments the battle was done. The fleeing elves’ footfalls faded up the hill, and the street was theirs.
“Ha! We did it!” Wilf crowed.
“We were lucky,” Raika said cheerfully. “They weren’t expecting a crowd of crazy humans, just a lone forester.”
Hume stuck the slim elf sword through the sash at his waist. “Help yourself to their weapons before they come back with reinforcements,” he said. Seven members of the Quen gang lay unmoving on the street. Two were dead, slain by Amergin, and the remainder were insensible. Malek, Nils, Wilf, and Raika gathered up all the weapons they could carry.
Howland, author of their tiny victory, stood with his hands braced on his knees, retching. Caeta came up behind him and comforted him.
Amergin waited a few yards away, fog swirling around him. Wilf came to him, arms laden with swords and daggers.
“You’re an amazing fighter,” Wilf said. “I’ve never seen anyone use a sling like you!”
The Kagonesti coiled the thong around his hand. “Among my own, I’m counted a mediocre marksman.” There was a trace of a smile on the dour elf’s face.
Hume urged speed, and they quickly fled the scene. Once past a final row of shanties and storehouses, they beheld open country at last.
“Where to now?” Amergin asked.
“East. Our village is seven days’ journey from here,” Malek said.
Amergin nodded briefly. He ran down the weedy hillside to a ravine, headed roughly in the right direction.
“How are you feeling, general?” Raika asked.
Howland wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Though pale, he looked a little stronger than before. Leaving Robann was like a tonic to him.
“The Brotherhood isn’t done with us yet,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder at the weathered rooftops of Robann. “Follow the elf. He’ll keep to the low ground, and so should we.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Fifteen days had passed since Rakell came to Nowhere and stole Laila away. Fifteen days.
That time hammered in Malek’s brain with every step he made. Half the time was gone before the raiders would return to enslave twenty more of his friends and neighbors, and they were still four long days’ walk from home!
It didn’t help that summer showed no sign of fading. Every step seemed a struggle in the heat. A haze covered the blue of the sky, leaving it a dull white, the color of steam. The sun hung low over their heads, glowing like hot iron through the haze. Since leaving Robann, the party had kept to sweltering airless ravines and gullies. Light breezes stirred the trees atop the hills, rattling the dry leaves, but the farmers and their hired champions did not dare show themselves against the light sky.
They were being followed-even Wilf could tell. By night, distant campfires lit up the western horizon. On the first night there were eight, the second night four, and since then, one. Howland assumed bounty hunters in the pay of the Brotherhood of Quen had come after them but finding the fugitives too fleet and elusive, a few gave up each morning and returned to town.
Yet the danger had not lessened, he told them. The toughest, most persistent hunters were the ones to fear. The farmers took to looking over their shoulders so much they developed cricks in their necks.
“There’s worse to watch for,” said Howland, glancing skyward. “We’ll soon be crossing the territory of an Overlord.” In the past year, he told the group, a red dragon of fearful power had claimed much of this land as his own. The dragon exacted stinging tribute from every caravan or trading party crossing his domain. Still, a small band of empty-handed travelers like them probably would not attract the dragon’s notice, or so Howland prayed. So far the farmers had seen no sign of the dragon on their journey to Robann.
Four days out of Robann their path took them across a well-marked dirt road, passing northeast to southwest. Amergin approached the road cautiously. There was no one in sight, but he felt the flour-soft dust on the path with his fingers, bringing them to his nose to sniff.
Howland halted the group behind a stand of bracken. He and Hume ventured out to confer with the Kagonesti.
Howland looked as if he’d regained ten years of his life since leaving Robann. His complexion and carriage had improved, his eyes had lost their fevered look, and he even allowed Carver to crop his matted hair.
“I could do a very artistic trim,” the kender said, scissors poised.
“Cut it all off,” replied the Knight. “Let me start this venture clean.”
With a shrug, Carver cut Howland’s hair down the scalp, leaving only a fine, brushy nap on the old man’s head. Without his lank, gray locks Howland’s sunken eyes and broad forehead lent him an air of perpetual sorrow. He now resembled a priest more than a fighting man. Knight and soldier stood on either side of the pensive elf.
“What can you see?” asked Howland.
“Many people came this way, two or three days ago.”
“How many?” said Hume.
“More than twenty on foot. They were walking quickly, pulling a two-wheel cart.” He stood up, dusting his hands. “No pony.”
“Soldiers?”
Amergin shook his head. “Ordinary folk-farmers, herders. Men, women. Most barefoot.”
“Where did they go?”
The elf pointed down the road, southwest.
“Probably just peasants on their way to market,” said Howland. He turned to his hidden companions and waved them forward.
“What’s wrong?” Malek asked upon joining them.
“Nothing. All is well.”
“I never said that,” said Amergin tersely.
Exasperated, Howland said, “Is there any obvious danger?”
“Perhaps. Something is strange.” Without a word of explanation, he started down the road. The farmers were appalled. For days they’d taken great pains to conceal their tracks. Now the elf was leaving clear footprints in the soft dust.
Howland and Hume shouldered their gear and hurried after him. When no one else moved, the Knight barked, “Don’t just stand there gawping! Move!”
“The heat’s gone to the elf’s head,” Raika said.
Khorr, who wore an old apron draped across his horns to keep the sun off, said, “It’s some clever forester ploy, do you think?”
“What I think is, I need a drink,” she replied.
The road curved to the left until it led due east. Heavy, gnarled trees crowded in on both sides. The shade was welcome. Years of traffic had worn the path into the earth, and before long they were traversing a sunken road, bounded on either side by near-vertical hillsides.
“Feels like a trap!” Raika said, looking around nervously.