“And only then, my elves, will the First be avenged.”
There was no cheering following his speech, nor did Porthios expect to hear any. But he could tell by the looks on the faces that his warriors had taken his words to heart. They would fight with confidence and fury and, the gods willing, the First Division would be avenged.
Two hours later, well after darkness had settled over the mist-shrouded island, the woods erupted with sounds of musical bells as the magical alarms set by the wizards were tripped by the approaching horde. Immediately Porthios sent his Qualinesti, whose griffons had been resting within the palisade, aloft. They had strict orders to keep alert for the dragon and to shower the creature with arrows if it appeared.
The Silvanesti of the Second Division took their posts along the walls, with two companies detached to watch the riverbank in case the attackers somehow found a way to slip around the barrier by water. The main defensive line consisted of archers on the ramparts and towers who would shower the attackers with deadly missiles and oil-soaked bundles of flaming rags. Steadfast swordsmen lined the entire inside of the wall. The palisade was made of stout tree trunks, but there were gaps of several inches between each pair of posts, and the elves had learned through experience that the enemy would press close to the wall in an attempt to get at the defenders. This very proximity would make the denizens vulnerable to elven counterattack through the gaps of the palisade.
The white moon, Lunitari, was waning but still more than half full, and though low in the western sky, she cast enough light to aid visibility. Porthios was fairly certain that the dragon wouldn’t be able to approach unseen. As an additional protection, he had posted a wizard atop each of the eight towers. They would cast spells to aid the defense on the ground, but were also charged with scanning the sky, through eyes magically charmed to detect invisible attackers.
Soon the clanging of the alarm bells gave way to the grunting and cursing of thousands of creatures. Tree limbs snapped, and heavy boots and taloned feet tromped loudly on the ground. The horde of island denizens broke from the woods a hundred paces from the palisade wall, and there they waited. Their numbers continued to swell as more and more of the beasts emerged from the woods, until it looked as though the clearing was fringed with a dark and deadly border.
“Stand to, there,” Porthios called to his elves from the wall top. “Don’t shoot until you’ve got a good target.”
“Aye, Marshal!” came a cheerful reply. “I’m going to pluck me an ogre eyeball!”
“Get one for me as well,” shouted General Bandial from a different tower. “I need something to wear under this patch.”
The elves raised a quick hurrah, and the commander was heartened by the evidence of his warriors’ high morale.
Stallyar remained on the ground, prancing and fluttering nervously in the center of the fortified shore. Porthios knew that this fight would be won or lost on the ground, so he had decided to stay here among the Silvanesti, at least for the time being. The Qualinesti, two hundred strong, were all flying overhead, and he just had to rely on them to prevent the big green dragon from getting into the camp.
The mass of creatures emerging from the woods had grown to a horde by now, spreading in an arc to face approximately half of the total length of the palisade. With a rhythmic tromping of heavy feet, the ogres began to count a cadence that would build their excitement and inevitably compel them to make a charge at the elven camp. Porthios had seen and heard this many times before, but the steady beat and rising volume still brought a queasiness to his stomach. He wished they’d get the preliminaries over with and start the damned fight.
The draconians started to hoot, hiss, and jeer. Their batlike wings, insufficient for true flight but able to hasten their speed in a charge, flexed and fanned, giving the moonlit horde a shifting, unreal quality, as if the monsters were not individual creatures, but parts of a blanket that was being fluttered horizontally in a light breeze. All the noises increased, until it seemed as though the forest itself was screeching and stomping at the elves. Finally the warlike sounds reached a crescendo, holding at this frenetic pitch for several taut heartbeats.
And then, as if a dam had burst, the entire mob spewed forward from the fringe of the trees. Some draconians burst into the lead, galloping on all fours, using their wings to propel them as fast as a galloping horse. These were dangerous, Porthios knew, for their momentum—coupled with the sharp, gripping talons on their hands and feet—could help these creatures to scale all the way to the top of the wall in the first impetus of their charge. His veteran elves had seen this before, however, and he noted that the archers along the top of the wall all had their swords close at hand.
The ground shook from the impact of heavy boots, and the impossibly loud noise seemed to swell even more as the horde closed rapidly on the camp. Arrows began to dart out from the elven positions as archers picked off the leading draconians. Here the natures of the magical creatures worked in the elves’ favor. The slain kapak draconians dissolved into pools of caustic acid, while the occasional bozaks among their number died in explosions of sparks, smoke, and fire. These fatalities inevitably created obstacles, slight falters in the momentum of the thundering charge.
And even if a draconian wasn’t killed outright, the impact of a steel-headed missile from fifty paces away was enough to break the pace of the creature’s charge, to send it rolling and tumbling to the ground. As often as not, the wounded monsters were quickly trampled by the mob rushing along right behind.
The survivors among these first draconians, still racing at breakneck speed, used their wings and their powerful legs to fling themselves into the air. They crashed heavily into the timbers of the palisade, but the sturdy posts held. Some of these attackers were felled by sword thrusts through the fence, cuts that gouged into exposed bellies and necks. Others, however, leapt too high to be struck from the ground, and now they scrambled up the rough posts, clawing to climb over the spiked parapet at the top.
But now the elves on the ramparts had their swords out, hacking and stabbing at the scaly, crocodilian faces. One elf was seized by the arms and, clutched in the grip of a dying draconian, pulled over the wall to tumble into the frenzied creatures now smashing into the base of the parapet. A couple of the winged monsters actually scrambled over the top of the wall, but these were quickly cut down by the elves manning the upper parapet. The rest of the beasts were knocked back, bleeding, to tumble into the chaotic press below.
The elves on the towers maintained a steady rain of arrows into the horde, and now, with the last of the first wave repulsed, the archers atop the walls again took up their bows. There was no pausing to aim now; the attackers were so closely packed that any arrow sent downward was likely to plant itself in monstrous flesh.
On the ground, killing frenzy raged on both sides of the parapet. The elves stabbed with their long swords, cutting any creature that pressed close to the barrier. Some ogres wielded huge spears, and they used these with grim effect, sticking the long weapons through the gaps in the fence and twisting them about to gouge into any defenders within reach. Many elves tumbled back, bleeding, but others seized the spears behind their crude iron heads and tried to wrestle them away from the brutes.
In places, the wall of posts rocked back and forth, straining under the impact of thousands of bodies. Some of the elven archers on the rampart staggered under the shifting footing, and a few fell back into the encampment. But the Second Division had done its work well, planting the timbers deep, and nowhere did the palisade show signs of imminent collapse.