'We do not have to face them alone. The Glen-folk can muster a hundred bows in their own defense.'
The wizard looked at Daried thoughtfully. 'You did not give much account to that when we first took up our watch here.'
'I hadn't seen any of them shoot then. Now I have.' Daried laid his armor on the ground, and stretched himself out on the blankets, loosening his tunic. He could already feel Reverie stealing over him, but he resisted long enough to add, 'Make sure you set watchers along the track leading southwest out of Glen. That's the road the mercenaries will follow. We need to find the mercenaries and shadow them until they get here.'
'It will be as you say,' Teriandyln answered. 'Get some rest, Daried. We will rouse you when we need you.'
The bladesinger nodded once, and sank into silence.
Late the following afternoon, scouts sighted the mercenary warband marching on Glen. They had moved faster than Daried expected, but many of the mercenaries were mounted. A few of the Chondathans rode big warhorses draped in leather barding, while most of the other riders made do with a saddle and blanket. The men who weren't riding simply walked alongside the column, with dust caking their faces and sweat staining their dirty leather jerkins.
They must have brought most of the horses with them, Daried decided. It seemed unlikely that the marauders could have appropriated so many horses from the farmsteads dotting the countryside south of Glen. And that meant they faced even more enemies than he'd feared- Nilsa would certainly have noticed any horses corralled near the camp she had found. Given that, Daried couldn't avoid concluding that some of them at least were mercenaries they had not yet encountered.
'I did not expect so many riders,' Teriandyln said softly.
'Nor did I,' Daried admitted.
He brushed the hair out of his eyes. It was another hot day. Insects hummed and chirped in the still air. They stood in the apple orchards of Andar's manor, warm and fragrant in the late afternoon sun. The blossoms had fallen long ago, and small, tart golden fruit clustered in the branches. In a tenday or so they'd be ready to pick, but Daried wondered if anyone would be left to tend to that work by the time the apples ripened.
The Chondathans approached slowly, following the dusty cart track through broad grainfields that shone golden in the sun. A few hundred yards farther, and their road would lead them past the orchard where Daried and his warriors waited.
The sharp-featured mage frowned. 'The cavalry ruin your battle plan, Daried. Perhaps it would be wiser to just let them pass. Most of the Glen-folk have taken shelter across the Ashaba in Cormanthor. These marauders will find nothing but an empty village.'
The bladesinger studied the approaching warriors, taking their measure for a long moment. Then he shook his head. 'No, we will continue. I suspect that many of those fellows won't handle their horses well in a fight.'
'Do not underestimate them, my friend.'
'Trust me, Teriandyln, I am through with making that mistake. I would have liked fewer riders or more bows, but this is the fight we have, and we will do our best.' Daried did not take his eyes away from the approaching band. 'Pass word to our warriors to aim first at any man riding a barded horse-those will be the men who have skill in fighting on horseback.'
He waited for a short time, as the mercenaries came closer. The air was heavy and humid, as it always was in this wide green land in summer. The scent of vanished apple blossoms lingered in his memory. Evermeet had no season like it; the fair island of the west was kissed by ocean breezes throughout the year. He hadn't realized how much he had missed the lush richness of Corman-thor's summers in the decades he'd been away.
'Now?' Teriandyln asked.
The bladesinger drew in one deep breath. 'Yes,' he answered, and made a single curt gesture with his hand.
Twenty elves hidden among the apple trees bent their white bows and loosed arrows at the hundreds of mercenaries marching north toward Glen.
In the space of three heartbeats, chaos erupted in the mercenary ranks. Silver death sleeted into the horsemen. Men slumped from their saddles, arrows feathering throat or chest. Others roared in sudden pain and anguish, pinioned by elven shafts that did not kill in a single stroke. Horses screamed and reared, footmen scattered, and another round of arrows struck, moving farther back into the human ranks.
Despite their surprise, the Chondathans were not easily broken. Shouting and swearing, the human mercenaries began moving while the third flight was still in the air. Footmen shrugged large diamond-shaped shields off their shoulders and hurried to kneel shoulder-to-shoulder, interlocking their shields to form a wall of wood and leather against the elven arrows. Crossbow-men closed up behind the shield wall and began to fire blindly back into the trees. Quarrels hissed and whirred through the air over Daried's head.
Sweeping his sword from its sheath, a captain near the head of the mercenaries avoided several arrows whistling past him. 'Come on, you dogs!' he roared. Shouting defiance at the unseen archers, he led a score of the riders straight into the orchard.
Farther down the Chondathan column, large bands of cavalry swept out into the open grain fields on either side of the track and rode hard, circling wide around the covered ground.
'Watch the flanks!' Teriandyln warned. 'They're trying to trap us here.'
'I see them,' Daried replied. But first they had to deal with the Chondathans storming the orchard. He pointed at the captain and riders thundering toward the elves' hiding places. 'Take that one first!'
The mage nodded once. Deftly he retrieved a pinch of silvery dust from a pouch at his side. With a weaving motion of his hand he cast the dust into the air, then snapped out the words of a deadly spell and gestured at the approaching riders. Each mote of dust hanging in the air above his fingertips grew into a long needle of silver-white ice, and flew swifter than an arrow at the charging horsemen. The brilliant shards punched through steel breastplates and mail shirts like paper, only to explode an instant later in a white flash of deadly frost. The first impulsive rush of the Chondathan horsemen disintegrated in the lethal hail of frost-needles, man and beast alike pierced through or seared by cold so intense that flesh whitened and blood froze.
Glistening frost and dark blood blighted the apple trees. Daried winced, but he clapped the mage on the shoulder and ordered, 'Now move! They may have mages of their own.'
The two elves dashed back thirty yards, darting between the trees. Behind them a great blast of fire erupted in the orchard, just where they had been standing. A wave of sulfurous hot air flapped Daried's cloak around his shoulders and singed the hair on the back of his head. Daried went another ten yards or so, crouched behind a tree, and quickly surveyed the skirmish.
Arrows still hissed into the ranks of the Chondathans on the road, but they were far fewer. The elf archers moved between shots, trying to avoid being spotted. And Daried could see at a glance that the riders sweeping through the fields around the orchard were drawing the fire of the archers on his flanks. In a matter of moments he and his warriors would be trapped in the grove, and that would be all for them.
He clutched a silver medallion hanging above his heart, and whispered the words of a spell. The magic carried his words to all the elves in the grove, whether close by or a hundred yards away.
'Fall back now!' he commanded them. 'To the second line, quickly!'
Together, the bladesinger and the wizard turned and sprinted toward the north, heading for the far side of the great orchard. Daried glimpsed more of his warriors, appearing and disappearing as they ran through the trees alongside them. He could hear the distant shouts of the humans behind him-it had not taken the Chondathans long at all to realize that their ambushers were in flight.
They know what they're doing, he decided. After meeting the wizard-warrior Sarthos two nights ago he hadn't really expected that the mercenary leaders would prove incompetent, but he'd still hoped to surprise them with his show of resistance.
They reached the edge of the orchard and broke into the open fields beyond. Daried lengthened his stride and ran at his best pace, all too aware of the lack of cover around him and his warriors. At a glance it seemed that most of his warriors were still with him-more than a dozen elves silently dashed across the field at his heels. But sweeping up from the west, only a couple of hundred yards away, threescore cavalrymen appeared, galloping furiously around the great orchard.
'Daried!' called Teriandyln.
