Porthios thought of Alhana and Silvanoshei. He had a fleeting wish that his baby could have been born into a time of peace. Such eras, he realized grimly, were all too rare. “Nor is that the case with us,” he replied. “I suggest that we choose our battleground as far from this camp as possible. Perhaps by doing so we can keep this gorge safe. If the worst happens, the new mothers, the elders, and the children will learn of our defeat, and then they will have to make a quick departure.”
“Madness! What are these crazy ideas you discuss?”
The shrill voice came from out of the darkness, and then the Qualinesti General Palthainon, his head bandaged where the lightning bolt had seared his scalp, shambled into view. He was waving his arms, looking wide-eyed from one elf to another.
“They have dragons—surely you saw that! They cut my companies to pieces, wiped us out almost to the last elf! The only solution is to take to the woods and try to make our way back to the city. Once there, we can sue for peace!”
Dallatar looked at the Qualinesti general with ill-concealed scorn. Porthios kept his expression neutral but rose to his feet and gestured that the commander of the troops from the city join them at the low fire.
“I am glad to see that you are recovering from your wounds,” he said graciously. “But you have been unconscious. Perhaps you don’t know that more than half of your troops survived the attack.”
“Survived? How?” demanded the general.
“They joined us in the woods,” Samar said curtly. “We know that your mission was to find and attack us. We were prepared to ambush you as you crossed the stream. You might say that the dragon attack actually saved the lives of a good number of your warriors.”
“Madness!” cried Palthainon again. “I—I order you, as the duly appointed commander of Qualinesti forces, to cease this insanity!”
All intentions of civility vanished in the rush of anger that swept through Porthios. He whirled on the general, his hand going to the hilt of his sword, knuckles whitening as his grip tightened. Frightened by the gesture and by the expression on the dark elf’s face, Palthainon stepped hastily backward.
“I remind you, General—” Porthios’s voice was heavy with scorn—“that you were appointed to the command of a force with the task of seeking and attacking my band. Also, that you failed dismally in that task. You led your companies into the perfect site for an ambush. If the blue dragons hadn’t come along, you would have been cut to pieces! Now you speak of tactics that any loyal elf can only describe as treasonous!”
“You are the traitor!” hissed the Qualinesti commander, apparently deciding that his life wasn’t in immediate danger. “You hide here in the forest, taking the rightfully earned goods of loyal elven merchants! How dare you—”
With lightning quickness, Porthios reached out a hand and slapped the general, spinning him around, sending him tumbling to the ground.
“You will not address me with contempt,” he growled, standing over the cringing elf. “Nor will you ask how I dare to do anything. You have drawn your own sentence. I would have willingly treated you as an ally against the greater menace of the Dark Knights, but now I can only see you as a craven coward. You will be treated as a prisoner, and even that is a role of higher honor than I think you deserve.”
Palthainon looked as though he wanted to speak, but he gulped and reconsidered his words.
“Guards!” shouted Porthios. Several of his warriors came running. “Bind this elf securely, hands and feet, then tie him to a tree. I want him watched at all times!”
The elves quickly did as they were told. In the meantime, the outlaw leader looked around the encampment, seeing that all of the elves had observed the confrontation between the two leaders. Porthios also considered the problem of the general he had just ordered bound to a tree. There were not enough elves in his band to spare any for guard duty, and as long as he was here, Palthainon was an obvious irritant and distraction.
He decided that this was the time to address the issue of the band’s past and future loyalties.
“Elves of Qualinesti,” he declared, speaking loudly. His words were directed at the warriors who had marched with Palthainon, though all the elves in the camp listened attentively. “I offer you a choice—a choice that you must make now, tonight.
“My loyal scouts and the braves of the Kagonesti will strive to resist this new invasion of our homeland. Our opponents are many, and include blue dragons among their number. But we are elven warriors, and we are fighting for our own forests, so I promise you that we will give these invaders something to think about. We will let them know that Qualinesti is not a nation to be violated with casual arrogance.
“There is at least one among us who feels that this is a doomed course, that we should crawl back to the city, and there try to make peace with these invaders. He has not said what he is prepared to pay for this peace... his treasures? His woman? Who knows—and who cares? I only know that such a choice is repugnant to me.
“But know this, also: I intend to release General Palthainon, to allow him to make his way back to the city and to sacrifice whatever he feels is necessary to save his life. He will be taken into the woods before dawn and pointed in the direction of Qualinost.”
Here Porthios drew a deep breath. He was about to make a tremendous gamble, and he could only hope that he had judged these elves properly.
“I offer this opportunity to any of you who would accompany the general back to the city... back to his negotiated peace, or whatever that course holds. For the rest, I ask you to sharpen your swords and make ready your souls. In the morning, we march to war.”
After a few minutes of deliberation, only about two dozen of Palthainon’s original company elected to desert the band in the gorge. The outlaw leader had these elves escorted southeastward from the camp. They were divested of their swords—“You won’t be doing any fighting,” he pointed out with inescapable logic—but allowed to keep their bows and a few arrows for hunting.
As he was led from the encampment, the general tried to bluster some threats about returning with a new army, but the outlaws took the sting from his words by laughing in his face. While a strong escort of Kagonesti insured that these refugee elves kept going, Porthios met with his other chieftains and discussed a plan for the attack on the Dark Knights.
“We have seen the strength of the enemy, and we know something about the heart of our own troops,” he began as Dallatar, Tarqualan, and Samar all listened intently. “It has been suggested that we strike the Dark Knights while they are on the march, then melt back into the woods. This is a tactic that has some chance of success, but I would like to propose something else.”
“Speak,” Samar said earnestly. “We have all seen the wisdom of your battle plans.”
“Very well. Instead of an ambush while the enemy is on the move, I suggest we strike their camp during the quiet, dark hours before dawn. They will be weary and unsuspecting, while many of them will be sound asleep. We, on the other hand, will be able to make our escape under cover of darkness.”
And so it was decided. The battle was planned for the middle of the following night.
The Dark Knights marched with military precision, and the elves who spied on them from the woods soon saw the wisdom of Porthios’s suggestion. Outriders on horseback preceded the column, and skirmish companies of the blue-skinned brutes were scattered far and wide. As a result, any ambushing party of elves would have been discovered long before the main body of the enemy force was in range.
Furthermore, the blue dragons ranged before and to the flanks of the marching column, always within hailing distance. Any attacking force would have been hammered hard by the lightning breath and crushing weight of the massive, deadly wyrms.