The Paraiko themselves were there. In their caves. Alive. And, in some way she still hadn’t seen, being held.
She looked back. Brock was trudging sturdily along just behind, carrying most of their gear: one fight she’d lost. The Dwarves were even more stubborn than the Fords, it seemed.
“Break time,” she called down. “Looks like a flat ledge where the trail bends up there.” Brock grunted agreement.
She scrambled up; had to use her hands a couple of times, but it really wasn’t too hard. She’d been right, there was a flat plateau there, even bigger than she’d guessed. A perfect place to stop and rest.
Unfortunately, it was occupied.
She was grabbed and muzzled before she could scream a warning. All unsuspecting, Brock followed her up and within seconds they were both disarmed, she of her dagger, he of his axe, and tied quite securely.
They were forced to sit in the middle of the plateau as the large level space gradually filled with their captors.
After a little while another figure leaped up from the trail along which they’d been climbing. He was a big man with a matted black beard. He was bald, and had a green tattooed design etched into his forehead and his cheeks. It showed beneath the beard as well. He took a moment to register their presence, then he laughed.
No one else had made a sound. There were perhaps fifty figures surrounding them. The bald, tattooed man walked commandingly into the center and stood over Kim and Brock. For a moment he looked down at them. Then he drew back a booted foot and viciously kicked the Dwarf in the side of the head. Brock crumpled, blood pouring from his scalp.
Kim drew breath to scream, and he kicked her in the side. In agony, retching for air, she heard him laugh again.
“Do you know,” the bald man asked his companions in a gutteral voice, “what the Dalrei have done down below?”
Kim closed her eyes. She wondered how many of her ribs were broken. If Brock was dead.
Save us, she heard within her mind. The slow chanting. Oh, save us.
There had been a time when Dave hadn’t regarded any of this as his concern at all. That had changed, long ago, and not because of any abstract awareness of the interwoven threads of all the worlds. It had been Ivor and Liane, his memories of them as he’d ridden south to Paras Derval a year ago. After the terror of the Mountain, it had been the presence of Levon and Tore beside him, and then it had been battle by Llewenmere, when men he knew had died—slain by loathsome creatures he could not help but hate. There had been brothers found in Pendaran Wood and, finally, there had been Jennifer and what had been done to her.
It was his war now too.
He’d always been an athlete and had prided himself on that as much as surviving the rigors of law school. He’d never let himself get out of shape and, in the season after their return home when they waited to go back to Fionavar—for Loren to come for them, or Kim to have her long-sought dream—he had worked his body harder than ever before. He’d had an idea of what might lie ahead. Dave was in better physical condition than at any point in his life.
And he had never ached so much in every muscle and bone, or been more brutally exhausted. At any point in his life.
They had ridden through the night, by torchlight until the moon rose and then by its shining. He had been in the saddle from Paras Derval the two days before that, too, riding at speed. But that speed, for which Mabon had gently chided Levon, was as nothing compared to the headlong night ride of the Dalrei, north behind their Aven.
He’d wondered about the horses during the night and even more now as the sun rose on their right—wondered how long they could sustain this killing speed. They did, though, they kept it up, pounding over the grass without rest. They were not raithen, but every one of the horses had been bred and trained and loved by the Dalrei on this open prairie, and this was their finest hour in a thousand years. Dave stroked the streaming mane of the stallion he now rode and felt a great vein pulsing in its neck. It was a black horse—like Aileron’s. Who, Dave prayed, silently, was riding his own black not far behind them now, alerted by the lios alfar.
It was Levon who made his father stop before the sun climbed overhead. Who ordered them all to stretch and eat. To walk their horses and let them drink of the waters of Rienna by Cynmere, where they had come. Men falling down with utter fatigue could not fight a battle. On the other hand, they had to win the race to Celidon and to Adein, if they could. Dave chewed some meat and bread, drank from the cold waters of the river, did his knee bends and flexes, and was back up in the saddle before the rest time was done. So too, he saw, was every other man in the army.
They rode.
It would be the stuff of legend and of song if any generations came after them, to tell old stories and sing them. Sing the ride of Ivor, who rode to Celidon with the Dalrei behind him through a wild night and a day to meet the army of the Dark and to battle them on the Plain in the name of Light.
Dave let the black have its head as he had for the whole journey. He felt the churning power of its strides, unflagging even now, despite the weight it bore, and he drew grimmer resolution yet from the heart of the horse that carried him.
He was close behind the Aven and the Chieftains when they saw the lone auberei come streaking toward them. The sun was over to the west now, starting down. Ahead of them the single auberei stopped, then expertly turned his horse and began racing along with them in stride with Ivor’s grey.
“Where are they?” the Aven screamed.
“Coming to the river, even now!”
Dave drew a breath. Rakoth’s army had not reached Celidon.
”Will we beat them there?” he heard Ivor cry.
“I don’t know!” the auberei replied despairingly.
Dave saw Ivor rise up in his saddle, then. “In the name of Light!” the Aven roared and urged his horse forward. Somehow, they all did. Somehow the horses increased their speed. Dave saw Ivor’s grey hurtle past the auberei who were leading them and he threw the black after it, feeling the horse respond with a courage that humbled him. A blurred thunder on the Plain they were, akin to the great swifts of the eltor themselves.
He saw Celidon whip by on their right. Had an impression of standing stones much like Stonehenge, though not fallen, not fallen yet. He glimpsed, beyond the stones, the great camp at mid-Plain, this heart of the Dalrei’s home for twelve hundred years. Then they were past, and flying, flying to the river in the waning of the afternoon and, seeing Tore, beside him, loosen his sword, Dave drew his axe at last from where it hung by his saddle. He caught Tore’s eye; their glances held for a second. He looked ahead for Levon and saw him, sword drawn, looking back at them as he rode.
They cleared a rise in the land. He saw the Adein sparkle in the sun. He saw the svart alfar, hideous green creatures he knew, and larger dun-colored ones as well. They were beginning to wade across the river. Only beginning. Ivor had come in time. A thing to be sung forever, if there should be anyone to sing.
For there were very, very many foes coming to them. The Plain north of Adein was dark with the vastness of Rakoth’s army. Their harsh cries rang in the air: alarm at the sight of the Dalrei and then high, mocking triumph at how few there were.
His axe held ready, Dave raced down behind Ivor. His heart lurched to see the ranks of the svart alfar part to make way for urgach mounted upon slaug, and there were hundred of them, hundreds upon hundreds, among thousands upon thousands of the svart alfar.