“As far as I could tell. It doesn’t look like more than one in ten of them is a veteran of any kind of campaign. Maybe that’s why he’s holding them in such a tight formation—he’s afraid the novices will run away if he’s not looking over their shoulder every step of the way.”
“So he marches them like swine going to the butcher...” The outlaw leader was still amazed. Every elf who’d ever held a sword knew that a loose formation, flexible and supple, was the best marching order for thick woodlands. That way, if part of a column was attacked, the rest of the elves could circle around and strike the attackers in the flanks. But a dense, short formation such as Samar had just described meant that it was quite possible for the entire force to wander into an ambush.
“Remember, he’s never fought Qualinesti before. His victories were against small tribes of wild elves, who could rarely muster more than two- or threescore warriors against him. I daresay he’s in for a nasty shock.”
Porthios nodded grimly. He felt none of the excitement that normally preceded a battle, but he knew he had a job to do and was determined that his own forces would suffer very few casualties. He turned toward Stallyar, who was prancing eagerly under the nearby trees, when he was stopped by a gentle pressure on his arm.
Alhana stood there, sweat standing out in beads on her fair skin. Her huge eyes were dark with concern.
“Please, my husband, isn’t there some other way? Do you have to kill them?”
Porthios sighed, at once angry with her persistence and at the same time grieving for the necessity he perceived in this situation.
“When we robbed from them, we were able to do it without killing. We outnumbered the caravans, and the guards were easily scared away. But this is an armed force sent to find and attack us! You know they won’t hesitate to use their weapons against us. Furthermore, they outnumber our warriors by three to one. There is no longer any room for gentleness.”
“Can’t you just avoid them?” She used the same argument she had been pressing for the last week, ever since the Kagonesti had reported that Palthainon’s force had departed Qualinost.
“You know that’s impossible—unless we want to abandon our camp, to be ready to move at a day’s notice wherever we settle.”
Through a combination of the wild elves and his own outlaws mounted on griffons, Porthios had kept careful tabs on the advance of the Qualinesti force. For a time, it had looked as though Palthainon might blunder southward along the coast, which would have taken him away from the camp for another month or two. But a day earlier, the general had made a fateful guess, veering his force to the north on a bearing that, within another few days, would lead him right into the gorge where Porthios had made his camp. To counter, the outlaw prince had brought his elves out of the encampment and gathered them in this clearing in the deep forest. He had studied the general’s route of advance and planned his battle accordingly.
“I ask you again, can’t you try to frighten them away? You have to see that, up until now, many elves perceive you as the true leader of their people, someone who has been wronged by the Thalas-Enthia. But if you draw elven blood, you suddenly prove to them that you are an outlaw, a threat not only to their pocketbooks but also to the lives of their husbands and sons, to the very fabric of Qualinesti society!”
“Why should I care about the fabric of Qualinesti society?” Porthios demanded harshly. “Isn’t that the agency that stole my crown, that cast me into exile—called me a dark elf?”
“No!” Alhana was annoyingly insistent. “You know that was a few hateful old men in the Thalas-Enthia. They are your enemies, elves like Rashas and Konnal. I beg you, my husband, don’t make this into a war that you’ll regret for as long as you live!”
“Lord Porthios!” cried the scout, Daringflight, who was landing in the clearing. “They’re only a mile away, and they’ve picked up the pace of their march.”
“The decision has been made,” Porthios declared to Alhana, trying for a stern tone but knowing that he merely sounded petulant. “Now I’ll have to ask you to get away from here. The battle is about to begin, and nothing anyone does can change that fact. You’ll be safe here, though if you’d like, I can ask Samar to stay with you.”
“It is not my safety I’m worried about!” she snapped. “I wish you could see that, could understand what you have to do!” Her tone dropped, her words pointed and hurtful. “It’s not enough, husband, merely to send Samar to take your place.”
Her jaw set, Alhana stepped back. Porthios was stunned by the depth of her anger and deeply hurt by her rebuke. He wished she would turn and march away, but instead she kept her eyes fastened upon him, her glare harsh and unforgiving as he stepped to Stallyar’s side and lifted one foot into the stirrup. Samar, nearby, looked away awkwardly. Finally Porthios whirled to face her, his own face distorted by anger.
“I don’t have any choice!” he shouted. “Don’t you see that? Why can’t you see that?”
“I see you, husband, and I see the choices that you make,” she said calmly. “And I grieve for those choices, even as I know that you do the same.”
Only then did she turn and walk away, melting into the woods that made her invisible within a dozen paces.
“Why does she do that?” Porthios growled to himself, kicking Stallyar with unnecessary harshness. The griffon cast a reproving glance over his shoulder as he spread his wings and sprang into the air. “Sorry, Old Claws,” the bandit leader said in chagrin, patting the softly feathered neck.
Within a minute, the sky over the clearing was filled with griffons, the savage fliers silent as they took to the air, bearing Porthios’s company of elite fighters toward the approaching file of Qualinesti. He had picked the site for the ambush carefully, knowing that Palthainon’s force would have to cross a wide clearing and then ford a deep stream. The obvious crossing was a tangle of broken tree limbs that would serve as a makeshift bridge but would allow only one or two elves to cross at a time. The far side of the stream was thickly wooded, and this was where Porthios had decided to conceal his force.
As they flew the short distance, Porthios reflected more on his wife’s accusations. Did she really think that he sent Samar to be with her to take his place? Yet, in honesty, he knew he had relied on the warrior-mage for a lot of help, and he was always willing to attend his queen. A glimmering of suspicion sparked in his mind, but he roughly pushed that poisonous thought aside, though it didn’t vanish entirely.
But now the flying elves were settling into the trees just before the stream. The griffons gathered in several small clearings, a few hundred paces back from the scene of the ambush, while the elves crept forward to take up hiding places in the underbrush to both sides of the prospective crossing. Within a few minutes, all of the bandits, nearly three hundred strong, had secured hiding places for themselves in the tangle. Arrows were laid beside bows, and swords were loosened in scabbards, though if the plan worked as Porthios intended, there would be little need for the bloody combat of a close-ranks melee.
Soon the Qualinesti companies broke into the clearing on the far side of the stream. They marched, as Tarqualan had reported, in tightly packed ranks. Many of the recruits shuffled with weariness, while a few veterans shouted harshly at their comrades, even jabbing and slapping with swords to move the recalcitrant warriors along. Clearly this was a raw and dispirited group of elves.
Porthios’s military mind admired the perfection of the setting, even as his elven conscience railed against Palthainon’s stupidity. Oblivious of the danger, the general marched his column almost to the river’s edge on the far side of the stream. Scowling, the commander stalked along the bank, finally pausing to study the tangle of trunks that spanned the otherwise rock-filled and treacherous gorge.