and to take back again the land they had lost centuries ago. What lay ahead was a battle in which one or the other, Elf or Demon, must surely be destroyed.
As he spoke, he studied the faces of his listeners, seeking in their eyes and expressions something of how they judged his actions since the loss of both their King and his heir–apparent. He accepted now that his father might die, and that he might then be King; he knew that the High Council and the Elven people must come to accept it as well. Acceptance had been difficult for Ander because, before the battle at Halys Cut, the possibility of such a thing happening had always seemed so remote and because he had not wanted to believe that he would lose both his father and his brother. But his father now lay within his bed at the manor house, unchanged since his fall. All the while that the Elves had fought at Baen Draw and on the long march home again, Ander Elessedil had waited for his father to wake, refusing to believe that he would not. But the King had not regained consciousness, and now it seemed that perhaps he would not do so ever. The Elven Prince understood that, accepted it, and thus looked past it to what must then be.
«Elven Lords,” he finished, his voice worn and empty. «I am my father’s son and I know what is expected of a Prince of the Elves. The Elven army has come out of the Sarandanon and now must stand here. I intend to stand with it. I intend to lead it. I would not have it so if there were any way that this moment could be undone, if all that had happened within these past few weeks might be wiped from the record of our lives. But that cannot be. Were my father here, you would rally to him to a man — I know that. I stand then in my father’s place and ask that you rally to me, for I am the last of his blood. These men who stand with me have given me their support. I seek yours as well. Pledge me that support, Elven Lords.»
Wordlessly, he waited. He need not have asked for their support, he knew, but merely assumed it. His was the power of the Elessedil rule, and there were few who would dare to challenge that. He could have asked Allanon to speak for him; the Druid’s voice alone might have silenced any opposition. Yet Ander wanted no one to intercede for him in this, nor did he wish to take anything for granted. The support of the High Council, and of the outlanders who had come to give them aid, should be won over by what they might see in him — not by fear or any claim of right that did not ground itself squarely on whatever strength of character he had shown in his command of the Elven army since the moment that his father had fallen.
Emer Chios came to his feet. His dark eyes swept briefly over the faces of those assembled. Then he turned to Ander.
«My Lord Prince,” his deep voice rumbled. «All who gather in this Council know that I follow no man blindly, even though he be of royal blood and the child of Kings. I have said often and publicly that I trust the judgment of my people better than the judgment of any one man, though he be King of all the known world.»
He looked about him slowly. «Yet I am Eventine Elessedil’s faithful Minister and his great admirer. He is a King, Elven Lords, as a King was meant to be. I wish that he were here to lead us in this most dangerous time. But he is not. His son offers himself in his place. I know Ander Elessedil — I think I know him as well as any. I have listened to him; I have judged him by his words and by his acts and by what he has shown himself to be. I say now that in the absence of the King there is no man to whom I would more willingly entrust the safety of my homeland and my life than he.»
He paused, then carefully placed his right hand over his heart the Elven pledge of loyalty. There was a moment’s silence. Then others rose with him from the table, a few at first, then all, hands placed across their hearts as they faced the Prince. The commanders of the Elven army stepped forward as well — Ehlron Tay, dour– faced and gruff, who, after the death of Pindanon, ranked highest in command; Kobold, the tall, immaculately dressed Captain of the Black Watch; and Kerrin, commanding the Home Guard. In moments all of the Elves who had assembled within the High Council stood facing their Prince, hands lifted in salute.
At Ander Elessedil’s side, a dark figure leaned close.
«Now they follow you, Elven Prince,” Allanon spoke softly.
Ander nodded. He could almost regret that it was so.
They talked then of the defense of Arborlon.
Preparations for that defense had begun almost immediately following the departure of the Even army to the Sarandanon two weeks earlier. Emer Chios, as ruler of the home city in the King’s absence, had convened the High Council, together with the commanders of the Elven army who had not accompanied the King, for the purpose of deciding what steps should be taken to protect Arborlon in the event the Demons broke out of the Sarandanon. A series of carefully drawn defensive measures had been settled upon. The First Minister reviewed them now with Ander.
There were but two approaches to the city — from the east, along the trails that ran through the Valley of Rhenn and the forests beyond, and from the west, out of the Sarandanon. North and south of Arborlon stood mountains that offered no passage, tall peaks that shut away the lowland woods and ringed the Carolan in a wall of rock. Allanon had warned that the break in the Forbidding would come in the Hoare Flats. That meant the Demons must come east through the Sarandanon, and unless they turned north or south to bypass the mountains sheltering Arborlon — a march that would consume at least several days additional time — the attack on the Elven home city would come from the west.
Yet it was here that the Elven defenses were strongest. Two natural barriers would immediately confront the Demons. First was the Rill Song, somewhat narrow where it arced eastward below the Carolan, but deep and difficult to navigate in the best weather. Second was the bluff itself, a sheer cliff that rose more than four hundred feet to its summit, it’s stone face split by a web of deep crevices and choked with scrub and heavy brush. A single bridge spanned the Rill Song below the Carolan at a point where the channel narrowed. There were no shallows for miles in either direction. The Elfitch provided the primary access route to the Carolan, although a series of smaller stairways wound upward through wooded sections of the cliff further south.
The defense of Arborlon depended then upon the river and the bluff. It had been decided that the bridge spanning the Rill Song would be destroyed immediately upon the return of the Elven army. This had been done as planned, Chios pointed out, and the last link between Arborlon and the Sarandanon had been severed. On the east bank, the Elves had anchored hundreds of pitch–burning stanchions to give light in the event a night crossing should be attempted, and they had constructed a stone and earthen redoubt almost at the edge of the Rill Song that ran for several hundred yards along the riverbank at the base of the bluff and arced backward into the cliff face at either side of the Elfitch. The east bank extended back from the river about two hundred feet to the cliffs, and most of this ground was wooded and grown thick with scrub. Here the Elves had set dozens of traps and pitfalls to ensnare any Demons who sought to flank the redoubt.
But it was the Elfitch that provided the major defense to Arborlon. All of the smaller stairways leading to the great tableland of the Carolan had been destroyed. All that remained was the Elfitch — seven stone–block ramps and ironbound gates that ran upward from the base of the bluff to the heights. Battlements ringed each gate to close off passage to the gates and ramps above it. Each ramp and gate was set back slightly from the ones below and, as the Elfitch rose toward the heights, it spiraled upward in a series of evenly measured turns that permitted each successive gate and ramp to offer some measure of protection through the use of longbows and darts to the gates and ramps beneath. In times of peace, the gates to the seven ramps stood open, the battlements were left undefended but for a token watch, and the ancient stone grew thick with flowering vines. But now, with the retreat of the Elven army from the Sarandanon, the ramparts bristled with Elven pikes and lances and the gates stood locked and barred.
No defenses had been constructed atop the Carolan. The plateau ran back to the deep forest in a broad, rolling plain spotted with woods, isolated cottages, and the solitary closure of the Gardens of Life. East, within the fringe of the forest trees, stood Arborlon. If the Demons were successful in reaching the Carolan, the choices left to the defending Elves were few. If enough of them remained, they might stand upon the plain in an attempt to sweep the invaders over the cliff edge. Failing that, they would be forced to fall back to the Valley of Rhenn, there to fight one final battle or face being driven from the Westland altogether.
Chios paused in his report. «Of course if they bypass the mountains and come in from the east…» he began.
Allanon cut him short. «They will not. Time becomes important to them now. They will come from the west.»
Ander glanced questioningly at Stee Jans, but the Free Corps Commander merely shrugged. Ander turned back to Emer Chios. «What other news, First Minister?»
«Mixed news, I’m afraid, regarding our request to the other lands for aid. Callahorn has sent us another two
