falls, Porthios yielded to Alhana’s calm insistence that the war- horses were too useful to be left behind with the draft animals. He ordered a small band of riders to lead the horses away and find a safer way up. The remaining dismounted fighters would stay by Alhana.
Alhana made the ascent in a litter of spear poles and blankets carried up the hillside by four strong warriors. She was none too steady on her feet and was forced to admit she would only slow them down should she try to climb on her own.
Porthios led the way. All through the night, the elves climbed, narrow lines of straining bodies snaking up the hillside. Laden with the bundles of arms, and bearing the litters of wounded elves, their progress was slow. By the time dawn cast its pitiful light on the hillside, the bottommost climbers were only yards above Silveran’s Way.
Kerian was taking a breather against a boulder when word came up from the lowest level. Movement had been seen eastward on the road. With Nalaryn gripping her hand and acting as counterbalance, she leaned far out from the hillside and looked. The sun wasn’t yet up, but there was light enough to show her a dark mass moving along Silveran’s Way. She had no trouble identifying packed ranks of human soldiers, clad in burnished armor. The bandit horde was coming. Of the few warriors Samar had left to guard the road, there was no sign. They must have been overwhelmed.
She nodded, and Nalaryn pulled her back from the drop. “Pick up the pace! The bandits are coming!” she called up and down the hillside.
The two of them resumed their own ascent and reached Birch Trail in time to see the sun break through the fence of dead trees rimming the broad crater. About a third of the elves were there, including Alhana, Samar, and Chathendor. The rest were scattered across the face of the high hillside, in plain view of the enemy. Kerian asked where Orexas was.
“No one knows,” Alhana grumbled. She sat on the ground, looking wan and small. The black cloud of her hair emphasized her pallor, and the linen bandage that cushioned her head wound kept slipping over her left eye, lending her a distinctly piratical air.
“Do your guards have bows?” Kerian asked.
“Of course,” replied Samar. He understood what she wanted. Stiff from his wound, he moved among his guards, ordering them to string bows and take their places overlooking Silveran’s Way. Just under a hundred lined up shoulder to shoulder, arrows nocked.
The broad column of bandit soldiers drew closer and closer until the very ground vibrated with the thud of their boot heels. They filled the road from side to side, two or three thousand in number. Each wore a hammered breastplate and polished pot helmet with a vertical comb, carried a shield, and bore a long pike ported over his shoulder. Beards curled under their helmet straps like exotic foliage. Kerian never could understand how human males could bear all that hair on their faces.
She lay on her belly and studied the enemy. At the head of the column rode a quartet of officers. Captains and subalterns plodded along the flanks. Kerian didn’t recognize the green banner drooping above them. Gathan Grayden must not be leading the troop. As yet, none of the bandits had noticed the elves frozen in place on the hillside.
“Steady. Perhaps they’ll pass on,” she said to the archers, although she didn’t really believe it.
The elves had tried to clear away all signs of their presence below. Unfortunately, there simply hadn’t been enough time to remove every piece of ruined carts and broken traces. The lead horseman saw enough to cause him to halt the column. Kerian cursed softly but thoroughly in Kagonesti.
A voice shouted an indistinct command, and the leading company went clattering down the road to investigate. Pikes leveled, the soldiers advanced, their attention focused on the far side of the road, on the slope descending toward the lake.
Kerian nearly laughed in relief. They were looking in the wrong place!
With the bandit force seemingly distracted, some of the elves on the hillside unwisely resumed climbing. It didn’t take long for a bundle of swords, awkwardly slung over someone’s back, to clang against a rock outcropping. The mounted officers turned to look. Shouts went up. The elves had been seen.
“Prepare,” Kerian said, rising to her knees.
The four remaining companies on the road swung around to their left and advanced. Kerian let them come. The pikemen clattered against each other as they began the difficult climb. Seeing them flounder, Kerian gave the command: “Now! Loose!”
Arrows dropped onto the closely packed bandits. In a harsh reversal of the ambush the elves had stumbled into, they commanded the heights and the mercenary soldiers suffered. A few, goaded by their officers, broke ranks and tried to get free of the confusion so they could climb, but the hail of death from above was too much. Despite the furious bellows of their commanders, the bandits fell back. Lowering their pikes, they interlocked shields to ward off the missiles.
Kerian hoped they might withdraw completely, but their officers stubbornly held to the road. Commands were shouted and the ranks parted. A lightly armed company of bowmen jogged forward. Judging by their long hair and dark faces, they’d been hired from one of the Blood Sea Isles, probably Saifhum.
“Aim for the archers,” Kerian said, but the Silvanesti around her were already shifting to hit the new target.
With six-foot yew staves, the longbowmen could loft arrows to Birch Trail, but most of it was out of their view, screened by boulders, twisted bushes, or scraggly trees. The elves still climbing were not so fortunate. Long shafts hummed through the air, and elves began to fall. The bundles they carried burst on impact, scattering swords, daggers, and pieces of armor along Silveran’s Way. The human soldiers cheered each time an elf toppled.
The Silvanesti archers gave as good as they got. With the advantage of height, their short bows could put a broadhead lengthwise through a man on the ground.
“Keep moving! Get up! Come on!” Kerian shouted, waving the climbers on. She clenched her fists, furious at her inability to help as elf after elf was hit and tumbled down the hill. Porthios’s sudden, silent appearance at her side brought a flinch of surprise.
He regarded the fight with his usual detachment then announced, “We need a greater weight on our side.”
“A brilliant observation. If you have extra archers concealed somewhere, I’d be happy to make use of them!”
“No, not arrows. Something bigger.”
He studied the area. All around were bits blasted out of Qualinost to rain back down upon the ground. A particularly huge, wedge-shaped slab of stone stood on the edge of Birch Trail. Porthios pointed at it.
“That one. Over the side with it.”
Kerian was aghast. The slab probably weighed three or four tons. No doubt, in days gone by, elf mages could have shifted it in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, there were no mages in sight. Ignoring her sarcastic comment, Porthios walked away and called for all available elves to gather at the stone.
Spears and pike shafts were thrust under it as levers, but most of the elves simply took hold of the slab with bare hands. Samar joined in, despite his wound. So did Hytanthas. The archers continued to loose at the longbowmen below, but their supply of arrows was running low. As each one ran out, he joined the effort. The only ones not engaged were Alhana, sitting in her litter, Porthios, arranging bodies around the slab, and Kerian, who thought it a stupid waste of effort. When Alhana rose, straightened her bandage, and made her way to the slab, Porthios gave the Lioness a sardonic look.
She slammed her sword into its scabbard. “I will if you will!”
The slab rocked, encouraging them to new efforts. The elves redistributed themselves. Porthios counted to synchronize their efforts, and they heaved with all their might. Teeth clenched, sinews cracked. The slab came free of the grasping loam and rumbled down the slope.
“Get clear! Get clear!” Kerian cried.
The archers still in action darted aside. The slab toppled forward. As the narrower top hit the ground, the slab cracked in half. The front portion dropped down the steep hillside, followed immediately by the weightier rear.
Climbing elves in the path flung themselves aside, and a shout went up as the mass hurtled past. The first piece hit the ground in front of the bandits and shattered into a thousand fragments. The wave of stone shrapnel
