The Federation army. Preparing to attack.
Pied Sanderling opened his eyes to dawn's faint glow on the eastern horizon, scanned the maze of hills and ravines that surrounded him, and waited for the buzzing in his ears to quiet. Every muscle and joint in his body ached, but he couldn't very well complain. He was lucky to be alive at all.
He closed his eyes again, remembering. The explosion of fire, rocking theAsashiel, sweeping away railguns and deck crew. The plummet of the craft toward the earth as he clung to his safety line and called in vain for Markenstall. The impact of the airship as it slammed into a grove of wide–limbed conifers, breaking them apart, leaving him hanging from their shattered boughs. Miraculously, in one piece. No broken bones or severed limbs and no cuts or slashes deep enough to bleed him dry while he waited to be found.
And found he had been, almost at once, by Elven Home Guard in retreat from the airfield, who had watched his vessel fall out of the sky. His own troops, who had recognized him instantly and cut him down, pleading with him not to die, begging him to hold on until they could get help. He had been half–delirious then, burned and shocked, fighting demons that he imagined still flew overhead and hunted him as a hawk would a mouse seeking refuge where there was none to be found.
He had come around eventually, sometime during the long nighttime retreat through the cut to the hills north of the Prekken–dorran, getting his first good look at the ragtag condition of his valiant Home Guard. Obedient to his orders, abandoned by Elven army regulars, they had stood alone against the hordes of Federation attackers that had swept across the airfield. The Home Guard had tried to hold their position, a hopeless task that, in the end, had failed. He had learned this much from Drumundoon, who had found him somehow during the night and stayed with him. He had learned, as well, that the Elven sector of the Prekkendorran was lost and that the Free–born allies, besieged on three sides, were in danger of being overrun. The battle was still being fought, a mix of Bordermen, Dwarves, and mercenaries fighting under the command of the charismatic Dwarf Vaden Wick. But disheartened by the death of their King, broken by the swiftness of their defeat, the Elves had abandoned the field.
«We need you, Captain,' Drum had hissed at him, bent close so that only Pied could hear. «We need you desperately.»
Pied could not quite understand why his aide was saying that. There was no longer anything he could do. He was a Captain of the Home Guard relieved of his command, reprimanded and humiliated by his King in a way that left no doubt about his future. Nothing could change that, especially with Kellen Elessedil dead and the Elven army scattered to the four winds.
But that was just the point, Drum had said. Kellen Elessedilwas dead, and so was everyone who had heard him dismiss Pied as Captain of the Home Guard. The whole incident might never have happened, and in truth it would be best if everyone thought it hadn't. Look at how matters stood. Stow Fraxon, who commanded the Elven army regulars, was dead, killed in the Federation assault during the night. All of the airship commanders were dead. Most of the other commanders were scattered or lost. Of all Elven army units assigned to the Prekkendorran, only the Home Guard was still intact, and only Pied Sanderling was still with his command.
«We have Elven Hunters coming in from all over, Captain,' Drum whispered. «They think you are their only hope, the only commander of the only unit still making a stand. Think about it. If they can't depend on you, whocan they depend on? You still command, no matter what Kellen Elessedil might have said. Besides, a dead King can't do anything to save us from his mess. Only a live Captain of the Home Guard can do that.»
Pied slept for a time, too tired to argue the point. When he woke, it was midday, and the Home Guard was deep in the tangle of hills north of the flats, pulling together the strays and the lost, linking up with other units that still looked to stand and fight somewhere, in spite of what had happened the night before. Most were in shock, but word had spread that Pied Sanderling had led a successful counterattack against the Federation and damaged the airship and weapon that had destroyed their fleet. While others had run, the Captain of the Home Guard had stood his ground. If there was any hope for the Elves, it lay with him.
Pied heard the talk, even though the words were whispered and the looks cast his way furtive. Drum hadn't exaggerated—everyone was depending on him. He might have been an ex–Captain of the Home Guard twenty–four hours earlier, but he was back in harness, like it or not. He could choose to set the record straight, but what good would that do? The Elven army needed confidence and determination, — he knew better than most how to provide that, and he was in a position to do so. To forgo that responsibility would be to commit a violation of trust worse than anything Kellen Elessedil had ever imagined.
So he had called together his subcommanders and Lieutenants and devised a plan that would give them a chance to stall the Federation advance. In these hills, the Elves were a less visible target than on the flats or in the skies. Here, they could be more elusive as the terrain better suited their style of fighting. The Federation army was advancing on them with the intention of crushing any final resistance they might offer, then flanking and surrounding their Free–born allies. Putting a stop to their effort might very well determine the outcome of the entire war.
With a plan in place and the army regrouped, Drum had persuaded Pied to go back to sleep. He was still battered from his tumble out of the sky, still exhausted enough that he needed to rest. Nothing he could do now was more important than what he would do when the Federation found them.
And now,he thought, opening his eyes once more to stare up into the still–darkened sky, ithas.
He looked at Drumundoon. «Any sign of their airships?» He pushed himself up on one elbow with a grunt. The resulting aches and pains gave evidence of the time and distance he must travel still before he healed. «What about that big ship that was carrying their weapon?»
«No airships in sight at all,' his aide responded, reaching down to pull him all the way up and handing him the chain–mail vest he always wore in battle.
Pied stared in disbelief. «How in the world did you find this?»
«I never let go of it, Captain,' the other man advised, giving him a wry smile. «I knew you'd be needing it when you came back.»
That he believed Piedwould come back spoke volumes about his faith in his commander. Pied pulled on the vest, buckled on the leather greaves and arm guards that Drum had also somehow salvaged, strapped on a short sword and long knife, and slung his bow and arrows across his back.
He shook his head. «You never cease to amaze me, Drum.» He stretched, adjusted the armor and weapons, and nodded. «All right. Lead the way.»
They went down through the camp to cheers and waves from the Elven Hunters and Home Guard. The ranks of the previous day had swelled to double and, in some cases, triple what they had been, units that had been broken and scattered re–formed and made whole again overnight. The day was clear and the sky cloudless, but the light was pale and silvery on the horizon, the sun still down behind the hills. When it lifted into view, it would blind those walking into it.
Accordingly, Pied had set his defensive line on a low rise that placed the Elves with their backs to the sun and required their enemies to come at them from out of a wide draw that was flanked by high hills on either side. The draw led out of a ten–mile–long cut that twisted through the twin plateaus of the Prekkendorran, a natural passage that seemed to those marching north to be the beginning of a clear opening to the land beyond. But the look was deceptive, — after entering the draw, it became apparent that navigating a series of narrow defiles was then necessary to reach open terrain.
Pied was hoping that whoever was leading the Federation pursuit force did not realize that. It was a realistic hope, given the fact that no Federation force had penetrated that far north in almost fifty years. Airships scouting the Prekkendorran might have noticed the lay of the land, but surveys so far north would have been deemed unimportant or, even if made, long since forgotten or lost.
He put his archers on the flanking heights and his Home Guard and regulars within the draw in two ranks, splitting each into a series of triangles that could attack or retreat in sequence. He was counting on a shifting, three–sided Elven counterthrust to slow the expected full–frontal assault by the larger Federation force. He was counting on being able to turn the attacker's left flank into its main body. He was counting on the resulting confusion and the blinding sunrise to allow the Elves to inflict enough damage to force a retreat. The Federation, he believed, would be relying on superior numbers and brute strength to break the back of the Elven defense. Its perception would be that Elven morale was low after the previous night's debacle and that not much would be needed to put an end to whatever resistance remained.
In truth, Pied was not entirely certain that that wasn't exactly what would happen. He believed the Elves had recovered their pride and sense of purpose, but he also remembered his own assessment of two days earlier,
