More elves were coming from the towers now or pressing up the ladders, and slowly the parapet was being reclaimed by the elves of the Second Division. It was the draconians inside the wall who were being sorely pressed, finally bunched into little pockets here and there. Even the sivaks, with their mighty two-handed swords, could not hold the onslaught of elven steel at bay, and now they were too tightly packed to spread their wings and take to the sky. Most of them died, though a few hurled themselves back over the wall to limp and crawl toward the imagined safety of the woods.
With a look into the camp, Porthios saw the dragon disappear into the river, dark water closing over the sinuous tail with a slight splash. The ogres and their allies had withdrawn from the parapet, slinking back to the woods in admission of defeat. Many of the retreating denizens were limping or leaning on the arms and shoulders of comrades. The more badly injured lay among the corpses of their companions, a gory swath marking the base of the wall where the initial attack had slammed home.
As always, the sudden silence after battle seemed surreal to Porthios. He heard a scream from a wounded elf as the warrior was gingerly carried from the wall by his comrades. It was not truly silent, he realized as he heard the soft voices of elves asking each other how they had fared or inquiring if anyone had seen the fate of this or that bold warrior. The base of the parapet was a seething mass of dull sound as well, hellish with the pitiful moans of wounded draconians and ogres. Somewhere an elf called for his lady, the voice a bubbling gasp that ended in a sickening gurgle of blood.
Griffons began to land in the middle of the palisade, and Porthios saw that most of his Qualinesti had survived the battle. The healers in their silken shelters were busy with the wounded, but it saddened the marshal to see that many of the injured were being shunted off to the side, their injuries judged too serious to waste the limited powers of the elven clerics.
Porthios found Bandial on the shore of the river, where dozens of elves lay dead. They were not marked by wounds, but each face was distorted by an expression of monstrous horror. Tongues protruded from gaping jaws, and eyes bulged with the knowledge that death had come, had reached into lungs with tendrils of green mist and torn away life from the inside.
The boats along the riverbank were still intact, and for a moment the marshal and the general looked at them longingly. Bandial, Porthios suspected, was feeling the same urge that was influencing him.
Yet then he looked back toward the dark forest, toward the corrupt island that sprawled beyond this bloodstained parapet, and his decision—if there had ever been any doubt—was cemented in his mind.
“We march after the bastards tomorrow?” Bandial guessed, his tone grim but not the least bit hesitant.
“Aye, General,” Porthios replied. “There’s still a job to be done.”
Three weeks later, the warriors of the Second Division closed in on the lone hillock on the southern terminus of the island. Behind them lay a forest that was slowly being restored by the nature priests who followed in the warriors’ wake. And it was a forest divested of dangerous denizens, for the division’s sweep had been thorough and deadly. Porthios knew there wasn’t a draconian or ogre anywhere on this island, except for the band that had now gathered on this one outpost of high ground.
It was not a prepossessing force, this remnant. Perhaps two hundred ogres and twice that many draconians had formed a ring on the grassy slopes. Weapons pointed outward, they waited as the companies of elves emerged from the forest to gather in a large circle around the base of the rounded hill. They had been herded here like cattle, and now they were gathered for a last fight, a battle with a predetermined outcome, but which still must be fought before the conclusion of the campaign.
“They’re up on that hill, my lord... all of them,” Aleaha Takmarin reported for the Kirath, having skirted the entire elevation since early that morning.
“This is where it ends, then,” Porthios said. He felt no elation, so sense of accomplishment as he contemplated this last attack, the culmination to a campaign that had lasted thirty years, had been his own quest for the last two decades.
“And... my lord?” Aleaha hesitated but obviously had something else to say.
“What is it?”
“I... I wish I could tell you how sorry I am about the ambush. It was my failure and that of my scouts that led to—”
“No, it wasn’t!” Porthios cut her off, speaking sternly. “It was my own fault more than anyone’s—and how could any of us have known?”
“It’s just that we missed them, we Kirath,” she insisted. “If we had looked more carefully, stayed on the island longer...”
“Then the Kirath would have been killed, just like Cantal-Silaster and the First Division,” Porthios shot back. “No, we all did our jobs as best as we could, and that one time, the enemy was ready for us.”
His face softened as he acknowledged that his anger was directed at himself, not at this bold scout, nor at any of his brave warriors. “We have to be grateful, at least, that we’ve brought the matter to a close.”
“Aye, my lord,” Aleaha replied. Still, her head was low, her eyes downcast as she backed away.
But now there was the last battle to fight. Porthios swung onto Stallyar’s back, and the creature’s wings pulsed downward as, with a smooth leap, he carried his rider into the sky. Griffons spiraled overhead. Stallyar and Porthios rose to fly in the middle of the formation. The marshal looked over his enemies arrayed on the hill and wished he could take some pleasure from this final battle. He remembered the brave elves of the First Division and knew that they would be avenged here today... but even that knowledge was no consolation. It was time for the killing to be over, time for the elven veterans to go home.
Twisting in his saddle, he scanned the horizon, saw the ocean waters gleaming dully to the south. All across this broad marsh, lined with the now healing forest to the north, there was no single sign of the enemy he really sought, the green-scaled horror who, he felt certain, was behind the initial ambush and the subsequent long and bloody campaign.
He felt another pang of regret as he saw the thin ranks of the Second Division companies. These veterans had fought boldly, driven by duty and by a powerful desire to avenge the slaughter of their comrades. They had relentlessly pushed through the fen, butchering the denizens wherever they were encountered. But at the same time, they had suffered casualties, more than would have occurred if the two divisions had been able to work together.
As a result, the remaining Silvanesti elves in his force were significantly less than half of the total that had departed Silvanost a month earlier. The losses were greater than he had suffered on any of his previous campaigns, and it seemed exceptionally tragic that they had come on this, the last march in thirty years of war.
Looking at the ground for this final confrontation below, Porthios knew that still more of his warriors would have to die if they were to charge up that hill. Inevitably the Silvanesti numbers and discipline would carry them through the surrounded rabble, but just as inescapably, brutish ogres and savage draconians, holding the high ground, would be able to exact a horrific cost in blood from their attackers.
Yet there was a way, perhaps, to change that toll. It was not a method that would assuage elven honor, or aid in the thirst for vengeance, but Porthios viewed these two considerations as far less important than saving elven lives.
A gentle nudge with his knees guided Stallyar downward, and the griffon came to rest in the field before Bandial.