covered the ground rapidly, with Tol only a few steps behind.
As soon as the camp came into view, he raised the alarm. Sentries took up the warning, beating an improvised gong-a battered brass tray from a Juramona tavern. Men and women came stumbling out of their shelters, grappling with helmets, bits of armor, and weapons. Tylocost, moving with all the speed and agility ascribed to his race, dodged the clumsy humans and hurried to Tol.
“Horsemen,” Tol panted. “Massed horsemen coming from the west!”
Tylocost rounded up his makeshift troops and led them out to his crazy-quilt fortifications. The able-bodied men had joined Tol’s foot companies, so following the elf was a motley band of boys, women, and old men. It was a lot to ask, that these folk should bear the brunt of the nomads’ first assault, but the survival of every soul at Juramona depended on their steadfastness.
It was two marks before midnight, and the night sky was streaked with clouds. Moving fast across the field of stars, the clouds were stained pink by the light of Luin, no more than a crescent of scarlet and hanging low on the horizon. Solin, the white moon, had already set. Tol hated night battles. Facing horsemen with green militia was difficult enough, but the dark gave an even greater advantage to veteran fighters.
He arranged his militia outside the dark, frightened camp in an arrowhead formation. Foremost was the reconstituted Seventh Company, led by Tol himself, with two of his steadiest companies behind them, and the rest echeloned behind. At Tol’s order, any who fled the coming battle were to be cut down in their tracks. The soldiers clutched their pikes, looking sleepy and frightened at the same time.
To the west, Tylocost doffed his gardener’s hat and tied a strip of white cloth around his forehead, to make it easier for his people to pick him out in the dark. He climbed atop the highest of the brick mounds to search the deep darkness for signs of the enemy. He could certainly hear them. Even the dull-eared humans couldn’t miss the low, constant thud of so many hooves.
In the open lane, he had arrayed a few troops as bait. Should the nomads prove reluctant to charge into his trap, the presence of those pitifully equipped foot soldiers should entice them.
Shards of brick skittered down the side of the mound on which Tylocost stood, shaken loose by the growing vibration of the enemy’s approach. The Silvanesti’s vision, far keener than a human’s, detected movement upon the plain. Bits of brass horse tack glimmered, as did hundreds of bare iron blades. It was only the advance guard. From the sound of it, thousands more nomads were behind the outriders.
Tylocost had done his best with the defenses, but inwardly he doubted that few if any of his people would survive the night. For the first time in his long life, he admitted the possibility of his own death, acknowledged he might never again look on the crystal spires of Silvanost, never walk among his own graceful, civilized people. Ugly, despised Janissiron Tylocostathan would die before his time, alone, surrounded by crass, bloodthirsty humans. Astarin and all the gods would weep!
The first wave of nomads cantered toward him. None seemed to take particular notice of Tylocost’s defenses, which looked very like the rest of the ruined town. The riders now were only paces from the stakes the elf had driven into the turf to mark maximum effective arrow range.
He removed the white cloth from his head and raised it high. “When I give the signal, loose all!” he called down to his troops. “Mark your targets well, but don’t dawdle! There are plenty for all!”
The first line of horsemen rode over the wooden stakes. Tylocost brought the white cloth down sharply. His archers let fly.
A rain of arrows in the dark is an unnerving thing. The nomads couldn’t hear the snap of bowstrings, or the thrum of the approaching missiles, over the noise of their horses. They glimpsed the hardwood shafts falling through the air only an instant before the arrows struck.
Riders toppled from their horses. The vanguard hesitated, then spied the bait troops huddled in the open lane between the obstacles. With much shouting, the enraged nomads charged.
Tylocost descended from his perch and stood beside his tiny band. Most were visibly trembling, but all remained where they were, gazes shifting between their unlikely leader and the oncoming horsemen.
“Remember what I taught you,” he called over the swelling noise. “At my command, fallback!”
Archers in the front ranks continued to sting the nomads, and marksmen atop the mounds also took their toll. A few plainsmen shot back, concentrating on the bowmen they could see silhouetted against the stars. One by one the Ergothians were picked off.
“Steady,” Tylocost said. “At my order, not before.”
When the nomads were just twenty paces away-close enough to see the flaring nostrils and gnashing teeth of their hard-charging ponies-Tylocost gave the command, and the small block of townsfolk broke apart. They streamed back down the dirt path, still clutching their weapons.
Ten paces along, the elf general halted and gestured with his bared sword. Eight Juramonans dropped to their knees and took hold of the buried ropes. Tylocost raised his sword, and the Ergothians hauled on the lines. Sixteen sharpened stakes rose up, hinged at the base, which was buried in the dirt.
There was no time for the leading edge of nomads to avoid the trap. They piled up on the stakes, and the press of horsemen behind them added to the carnage. Men and horses screamed.
“Withdraw!” Tylocost ordered. The Ergothians let go the ropes and followed as he backed slowly away.
Their charge disrupted, the nomads milled about in confusion. Finally, twenty riders worked their way around the first obstacle, and came on. Tylocost’s people uncovered a second set of ropes. The nomads reined up.
After raising the second hedge of stakes and tying the ropes to anchors already driven into the ground, the Ergothians withdrew further, and raised a third line of sharp pilings. Their part of the battle done, Tylocost’s troops filtered back through the waiting militia and returned to camp.
Donning his floppy hat once more, Tylocost joined the militia.
“Not much of a helmet,” Tol remarked.
“So far I’m having good luck with this hat. I’ll keep it.”
Their respite was brief. Horsemen had picked their way through the garden of traps and obstacles the elf had created, but arrived at the camp to find Tol’s troops drawn up to meet them. With veteran soldiers, Tol would have attacked the disorganized riders, but he didn’t dare break ranks to advance with his newly minted militia. Much of their courage came from solidarity with their fellows.
The nomads threw spears and showered arrows on the motionless blocks of Ergothians. Now it was the defenders’ turn to fall prey to death arriving out of the darkness. They raised their shields high, but not everyone had a shield, and the arrows slowly pared their ranks.
Tol held his men steady, knowing that, as bad as it was, the bombardment was another ploy to make the Ergothians break formation.
Zala, standing behind him, said, “Can’t we do something to stop the arrows?”
He watched shafts pepper the turf at his feet. “Send word to the leftmost companies,” he said. “At my order, they will advance into a solid line with us.” Zala hurried to deliver his message.
Tol’s blood was up. The nomads wanted to make things hot for them-he’d teach them what war was really about!
With much shuffling and clanking, the companies on Tol’s left moved forward. Immediately, the hail of arrows faltered as the enemy horsemen crowded forward. Pikes leveled, the militia halted in place.
“All front ranks will kneel,” Tol said. His order was repeated by his officers throughout the companies. The first line of Ergothians went down on one knee.
He drew Number Six. “There will be no retreat. When a soldier falls, the man behind him will step up and take his place in line.”
Tylocost drew a slim, straight blade and stood beside Tol, darkness cloaking his homely features.
“Juramona!”
Tol’s battle cry boomed out over the anxious Ergothian line. Raggedly, they echoed the shout. He repeated it, and this time the response was stronger.
The nomads hit the end of the line, trying to outflank the leftmost company. Tol’s men faced about, forming a square bristling with pikes. The horsemen couldn’t reach them with their shorter swords. After a sharp struggle, the riders broke off.
This continued for a seemingly endless space of time-nomads surging against one spot, only to be repelled by Ergothian pikes.
“This isn’t like them,” Tylocost panted, gesturing with his sword at the withdrawn enemy. “Usually, it’s one
