The Elven Prince had finished with the bandaging and was pulling on his armor when the tent flaps, parted suddenly and Stee Jans appeared out of the night, his giant form streaked with dirt and ash and blood. Those within the tent immediately fell silent. With a single word, Ander bade them all leave. The tent emptied, and Ander moved forward to stand before the Borderman. Wordlessly, he clasped the big man’s hand in his own.
«You saved all of us tonight, Commander,” he said quietly. «There is a debt owed you that will be difficult to repay.»
Stee Jans studied him a moment, then shook his head slowly. «My Lord, there is nothing owed to me. I am a soldier. Anything I did this night was no more than I should have done.»
Ander, smiled wearily. «You will never convince me of that. Still, I respect and admire you far too much to argue the matter. I will simply thank you.» He released the big man’s hand and stepped back. «Kael Pindanon is dead; and I must find a new field commander. I want you.»
The Borderman was quiet a moment. «My Lord, I am not an Elf nor even of this country. ”
«I have no Elf nor countryman better suited to command this army than you,” Ander replied at once. «And it was your plan that enabled us to hold Baen Draw.»
Stee Jans did not drop his gaze. «There are some who would question this decision.»
«There are some who would question any decision.» Ander shook his head. «I am not my father nor my brother nor the leader they thought to have. But be that as it may, the decision is mine to make and I have made it. I want you as field commander. Do you accept?»
The Borderman thought for a long time before he spoke again. «I do.»
Ander felt a bit of the weariness slip from him. «Then let us begin… ”
A sudden movement in the shadows by the entry brought them both about with a start. Allanon stood there, his iron face grim.
«The trackers sent north and south within the valley have returned.» The Druid spoke softly, the words almost a hiss as they left his mouth. «Those who went south along the Innisbore found nothing. But those who went north encountered an army of Demons so massive as to dwarf that which battles us within Baen Draw. It comes south along the eastern wall of the Kensrowe. Already it will have entered the Sarandanon.»
Ander Elessedil stared silently at the big man, hope fading within his eyes.
«This was their plan from the beginning, Elven Prince — to engage you here at Baen Draw with the lesser force while the greater skirted the Kensrowe north, to come down into the Sarandanon from behind; thereby trapping the army of the Elves between the two. Had you not sent those trackers…»
He trailed off meaningfully. Ander started to speak and stopped, choking on the words. Suddenly there were tears in his eyes, tears of rage and frustration.
«All the men who have died here — here and at Halys Cut… my brother, Pindanon — all dead that the Sarandanon might be held… is there nothing we can do?»
«The army that comes down out of the north contains Demons whose powers far exceed anything you have yet encountered.» Allanon’s head shook slowly «Too much power, I am afraid, for you to withstand — too much. If you try to hold the Sarandanon longer, if you attempt to stand here at Baen Draw or even to fall back to some other line of defense within the valley, you shall most certainly be destroyed.»
Ander’s youthful face was bleak. «Then the Sarandanon is lost.»
Allanon nodded slowly. The Elven Prince hesitated, glancing back momentarily toward the rear compartment of the tent where the King still lay unconscious, unknowing, locked in dreamless sleep, far from the pain and the reality that confronted his anguished son. Lost! The Breakline, the Sarandanon, his family, his army — everything! Within, he felt himself breaking apart. Allanon’s hand gripped his shoulder. Without turning, he nodded.
«We shall leave at once.»
Head bowed, he walked from the tent to give the order.
Chapter Thirty–Three
Wil Ohmsford found the Wilderun as bleak and forbidding as the stories had foretold. Though the afternoon sky had been brilliant with sunlight when he and Amberle had left the Rock Spur, the Wilderun was a tangle of shadows and murky darkness, screened away from the world about it by trees and scrub that was twisted and interwoven until there seemed to be neither beginning nor end to its maze. Trunks thick with mold grew gnarled and bent, the limbs coiling out like spider’s legs, choked with vines and brush, heavy with spiny leaves that shimmered in streaks of incandescent silver. Deadwood and scrub littered the valley floor, decaying slowly in the dark ground, giving it an unpleasantly soft, spongy feel. Damp with must and rot, the Wilderun had the look of something misshapen and grotesque. It was as if nature had stunted the land and the life that grew within it, then bent it down within itself, so that it might ever be made to breathe, eat, and drink the stench that rose out of its own slow death.
Down the crooked forest road the Valeman walked, the Elven girl close beside him, peering into the darkness about them with cautious, worried eyes, hearing distantly the sounds of the life that prowled and hunted within. The road was like a tunnel, walled about by forest, lighted only by faint streamers of sunlight that somehow slipped past the tangle overhead to touch faintly the dank earth below. There were no birds within this forest; Wil had noticed that at once. Birds would not live within such blackness, Wil had thought to himself — not while they might fly in sunlight. There were none of the usual small forest animals, nor even such common insects as brightly colored butterflies. What lived here were things best left to blackness, night, and shadow: bats, leathered and reeking of disease; snakes and scaled hunters that nested and fed on vermin that lived within fetid ponds and marsh; cat– things, sleek and quick as they stalked the treeways on silent pads. A time or two their shadows crossed the roadway, and Valeman and Elven girl paused guardedly. Yet as quickly as they had come, they were gone again, lost in the blackness, leaving the humans on the empty path to stare anxiously at the forest and to hurry on.
Once, when they had gone deep into the gloom, the pair heard something massive move, pushing through trees as if it were pushing through fragile twigs, its breath huffing loudly in the stillness that fed across the forest with its passing. Lumbering invisibly through the gloom, it either did not see or did not care to bother with the two small creatures who stood frozen upon the trail. Slowly, deliberately, it moved off. In the silence that followed, Valeman and Elven girl fled quickly away.
They encountered only a handful of travelers as they walked the forest, all but one afoot and that one slouched atop a horse so thin and worn as to appear more an apparition than flesh and blood. Cloaked and hooded, the travelers passed them by singly and in pairs, offering no greeting. Yet within the shadow of their cowls, their heads turned and their eyes blinked with the cold interest of cats, staring after the intruders as if to measure their purpose. Chilled by those looks, the Southlander and the girl found themselves glancing back over their shoulders long after the cloaked forms had disappeared from view.
It was nearing sunset when they passed at last from the gloom of the wilderness forest into the town of Grimpen Ward. A less inviting community would have been hard to imagine. Set down within a hollow, Grimpen Ward was a ramshackle cluster of wooden plank buildings so closely jammed together as to be nearly indistinguishable one from the other. They were a seedy lot, these shops and stalls, inns and taverns. The garish paint that colored them was chipped and faded. Many stood shuttered, bars drawn, locks fastened. Poorly lettered signs hung from swaying posts and over doors, a patchwork maze of promises and prices beneath proprietors’ names. Through windows and entryways, lamps of oil and pitch burned, casting their harsh yellow light into the shadows without as dusk closed down about the hollow.
It was in the taverns and inns of Grimpen Ward that her denizens were gathered, at rough–hewn tables and bars formed of boards set atop barrels, about glasses and tankards of ale and wine, their voices loud and rough, their laughter shrill. They drifted from one building to the next, hard–eyed men and women of all races, some dressed gaily, some ragged, bold in the glare of the lamplight, or furtive as they stole through alleyways, many stumbling, lurching, and reeking of drink. Money clinked and changed hands quickly, often in stealth or in violence. Here a lumpish figure slumped down within a doorway, asleep in drunken stupor, his clothes stripped from his body, his purse gone. There a tattered form lay still and twisted within a darkened passage, the lifeblood seeping from the wound at his throat. All about, dogs prowled, ragged and hungry, slinking through the shadows like wraiths.
Thieves and cutthroats, harlots and cheats, traders in life and death — and false pleasure. Wil Ohmsford felt
