“Pallendara?” Bryan asked excitedly. “We will go with the wagons?”
“A road longer,” replied Meriwindle.
The hesitant look on Bryan’s face showed that he suspected but did not dare to speak the true meaning of his father’s words.
“I had thought to be returning to Lochsilinilume,” Meri-windle said plainly. “I desire to walk again through the land of my birth.”
Bryan fell back a step, not knowing how to take the news. “But, could I?” he stammered, hopeful and afraid all at once. He would like nothing better than to see the enchanted valley, but he wasn’t certain how long his father planned to be gone. Certainly they could not leave the farm unattended. “Would I… I mean, there’s the farm to consider. Would you want-”
“I most certainly would!” Meriwindle replied with a hearty laugh. He dropped an arm over Bryan’s shoulder and shook him. “The farm will be here when-if-we choose to return. But you must come with me. What fun would an old elf find along the road if his most trusted companion was not riding by his side?
“Besides,” he continued, giving Bryan another playful shake, “the armor and the blade belong to you now. It is your duty, in return for the gifts, to protect your aging father on his long journey.”
Bryan straightened at his father’s honest respect, smiling from ear to ear. “They’ll be picking a leader before we get out of town,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at the open door. “I believe that they meant to choose me when we planned this journey. Now, bearing the sword and armor, it is very likely that I will be selected.”
“Then accept,” Meriwindle was quick to reply. “But remember always that a true leader speaks less than he listens.”
“Come on, Bryan!” came an anonymous call from outside.
“To Jolsen’s!” the rest of the anxious troupe piped in on cue.
“I have to go.”
Meriwindle gave his son a final hug, then put him out at arm’s length to look him over. “You certainly do,” he said. For some time Meriwindle had feared the inevitability of this moment, but now, looking at Bryan, the elf found his fears washed away on a tide of sincere admiration.
No more was Bryan his little boy.
Chapter 6
The Black Tide
THE STURDY FOLK of Windywillow Village, the westernmost settlement in the Calvan kingdom, were not unused to skirmishes against talons. Tribes of the wretched things lived all about them, in the great forest that gave their village its name, and to the west, in the marshlands of Mysmal Swamp. Plundering talons constantly searched out the homes of the village seeking easy takings.
Mostly, though, what the talons got for their troubles was a general thinning of their raiding ranks. Windywillow Village had become a veritable fortress over the years, with tunnels connecting many of the cottages, and trenches and devious traps lining the perimeter of the entire settlement. And the people here, just over a hundred in number, including the few women, were practiced and fearless fighters.
But when the sun rose through a dreary gray mist on this particular summer morning, Windywillow Village saw the approach of doom.
“Big tribe,” one of the villagers remarked over the shouts of alarm at the coming cloud of dust.
“Biggest I e’er seen,” another man agreed. “Well, we’ll give ’em a taste o’ steel an’ set ’em runnin’ the right way.”
But the villager was not so sure. Before long the very ground beneath his feet began to vibrate under the stamp of the approaching army, and the throaty song of the talons carried along on the morning breeze.
“Damn big tribe,” he said, considering, for the first time in his fifteen years in Windywillow Village, the option of retreat. But he shook the notion away and clapped his great ax across his shoulder. “Just means there’ll be more to hit,” he grumbled, moving to his position in the first line of defense.
Less than fifteen minutes later, when the leading cavalry of Thalasi’s army burst into view, rushing over the horizon, followed by rank after rank of filthy talon soldiers, the villager thought of retreat again.
But swamp lizards are swift beasts, nearly as swift as a horse even bearing a rider. For the villager, and for all of Windywillow Village, it was already far too late, and had been too late since the first sightings of the dust cloud.
The villagers fought savagely even when their hopes of victory and survival had flown.
Twenty thousand talon soldiers stamped the village flat. Within half an hour not a man, woman, or child remained alive.
From his comfortable chair in his litter, the Black Warlock surveyed the devastation. An evil smirk became a laugh of joy. How easy this all would be! Thalasi’s only regret was that he could not take part in the slaughter, that he could not reveal himself. Not yet. The longer the Black Warlock was able to keep the news of his return from spreading throughout the land, the longer his talon army would be unhindered by the countering magics of his wizard adversaries.
He looked to the east, and his laughter continued. Another plume of smoke had already started its lazy climb into the late morning sky; another village had ceased to exist.
They would crush a third that same day, and two more the next. Thalasi clenched his bony fist in victory. Every kill kept the ranks of his rabble army at peace with each other; every kill spurred the wicked talons on in their relentless hunt for more human blood. With the eager pace they had set this day, and with only minor towns standing in their path, they would make Corning within a week, and the Four Bridges just a day or two after that. Pallendara would never be able to muster its peace-softened troops and get them to the banks of the great river, the only defensible spot in all the southland, in time.
Then the King of Calva would learn of the true power behind the talon uprising. And then the King of Calva would know terror.
Later that night, Thalasi’s tireless litter bearers brought him up to the main force of the army, encamped on the flattened ruins of the third sacked village. The Black Warlock’s glee only heightened when he learned that a large contingent of the troops, not satisfied with their kills this day, had pressed on into the night to assault the fourth village in line.
Four thousand bloodthirsty talons thundered up to the wall of the small town of Doogenville, smashing the wood and stone with more fury than the defenders at the barricade could hope to repel. The townspeople threw boiling oil, sticks and stones, whatever they could find, at the enraged beasts, to no avail.
The brave men of Doogenville, outnumbered forty to one, knew that they could not hope to win against such a throng, but it was not for their own lives that they fought. To the east of the town, running down the road, went the elderly, the womenfolk, and the children, the only refugees of the first day of the Black Warlock’s campaign, the only witnesses to the coming darkness.
And the only hope for the people of the remaining villages.
The mass of the talon army hit the fifth village the next day on schedule but found no resistance, and no sport, at all awaiting them.
The refugees of Doogenville had arrived first.
Enraged by the lack of prey, the talons broke ranks and rushed onward, determined to hunt down the fleeing humans. And when the reports filtering down the line finally reached the Black Warlock, he began to realize his first tactical error.
It would not matter, Thalasi reminded himself. His lizard-riding cavalry would cut off any chance for the people of the western fields to get across the river. Still, Thalasi was wise enough to understand that he had a problem: the rabble that made up his army was beginning to disintegrate, going off on their own without command or direction.
He quickly assembled his captains to repair the damage.
“You fail me!” he roared at them.