“Ye got to give ‘em to me,” Kos-kosio Begulne said suddenly. “We got to settle with Nightbird now, afore half the force leaves us. Already the goblins’re rumbling about going home, and me own folks long for the Weathered Isles.”
“So go, all of us,” replied the giant, who had never been too keen on coming south to Honce-the-Bear in the first place. Before the dactyl had awakened, Maiyer Dek had enjoyed a comfortable existence in the mountains north of the Barbacan, with a tribe of fourscore giantsincluding twenty females for his whimsand plenty of goblins about for good hunting and better eating.
“Not yet,” the powrie retorted sharply. “Not until the damned Nightbird’s paid for our troubles.”
“You never even liked Ulg Tik’narn,” the giant said without even his customary pause.
“Not the point!” Kos-kosio Begulne shot back, “He was a powrie leader, and a good one! Nightbird killed ‘im, so I’m meaning to kill Nightbird.”
“Then we go?”
“Then we go,” the powrie agreed. “And once we’re past the human lands, me and me folk’ll not protect the goblin scum from yer belly.”
That was all Maiyer Dek needed to hear.
By the time Juraviel returned from the towns, Elbryan and Pony had the folk in full agreement with delaying the attacka difficult proposition given the success of the fight in the woods and the return of Roger and the other prisoners. All of the folk were eager to be done with this adventure, to be sitting in a comfortable commonroom exaggerating their fireside tales, and if going through Caer Tinella and Landsdown meant they might soon be in the safety of Palmaris, then they were more than ready for the fight.
Pony was still with them, working out details should the attack on Caer Tinella or Landsdown commence, when Elbryan returned to the pine grove.
As soon as the ranger saw Juraviel come down from the tree, he knew something was wrong.
“They have fortified,” the ranger reasoned.
“Indeed,” Juraviel answered with a nod of his head. “There are three new scout towers about the edge of the town, north, southwest, and southeast, and an impromptu barricade has been erected about the whole of the place, a barrier of barrels, torn walls, anything they could find. It seems solid enough, standing near to the height of a man, but not too thick.”
“Enough to slow down a charge,” the ranger said.
“Perhaps a bit,” Juraviel admitted, though he was not too concerned or impressed with the fortification. “Still, with the new ally that has arrived, I doubt that they feel the need to fortify.”
“Another group of powries?” Elbryan asked.
“Giants,” Juraviel replied. “Including the biggest and ugliest of those big and ugly brutes I have ever seen. Maiyer Dek, he is called, and even the powries, even Kos-kosio Begulne himself, gives him great respect. His armor is special, I fear, perhaps even magical, for it seems almost to have an inner fire.”
Elbryan nodded; he had battled with giants similarly outfitted and he remembered the name of Maiyer Dek from the Timberlands. The armor was earth magic, forged by the demon dactyl for its elite soldiers.
“We cannot allow these people to go against Caer Tinella,” the elf went on. “We might skirt the town in the dark of night, or we might hit at Landsdown, whose garrison does not seem as formidable. But to send these people, untrained warriors all, against giants, particularly this new monstrosity, would be folly. Even your own plans to do battle pose a great risk.”
Elbryan had no argument against the simple logic. He had fought enough giants to understand the possibility for complete catastrophe. “If we flee around the towns, they will likely catch our trail,” he reasoned. “We would never get all the way to Palmaris ahead of them.”
“A wider berth, then?” the elf asked, but he suspected that the ranger wouldn’t be easy to convince.
“We can send them,” Elbryan replied tentatively.
“But you still wish to go to the town and wage your fight,” Juraviel reasoned.
“If this giant, Maiyer Dek, is as powerful and as revered as you indicate, perhaps he and I should speak,” the ranger explained.
“Speak?” Juraviel echoed doubtfully.
“With weapons,” Elbryan clarified. “How great a blow do you suppose it will prove to our enemies if Maiyer Dek and Kos-kosio Begulne are both slain?”
“Great indeed,” the elf admitted. “I do not know what holds the giants and goblins together with each other and even more so with the powries, if not the strong leadership of those two. But still, think wisely, my friend. It will be no easy task to even get to the giant and powrie leaders, and even if you can, even if you somehow find a way to fight them without their minions swarming over you, you may find yourself overmatched. Turn your own question about: What will the refugees do without Nightbird to lead them?”
“They did well enough without Nightbird to lead them until very recently,” the ranger reminded. “And they will have Juraviel.”
“Whose business this is not!”
“Who chose to come to the aid of the humans,” Elbryan replied with a wry grin.
“Who chose to follow his protege, Nightbird, to make sure the young man did not act foolishly,” the elf corrected, smiling widely; and Elbryan knew from that smile that he had Juraviel on his side. “I have too many years invested in your trainingand you carry an elven sword and a bow made by my own fatherto let you get yourself killed.”
“Some call it foolish, others daring,” the ranger said.
“Or perhaps they are one and the same,” Juraviel put in.
Elbryan clapped the elf on the shoulder, and both were still laughing when Pony moved through the pine grove to join them.
“The news from the towns is good, then?” she reasoned.
“No,” both Elbryan and Juraviel said in unison.
Pony rocked back on her heels, caught by surprise, given their jovial attitudes.
“We were just discussing the folly of your Elbryan’s intentions,” Juraviel explained. “To walk into the middle of an enemy encampment and slay both their leaders, though one is a powrie, as tough and stubborn a creature as ever lived, and the other a huge and mighty giant.”
“And you find this amusing?” Pony asked Elbryan.
“Of course.”
The woman nodded, and sincerely wondered if the stress of their existence was finally getting to her companion.
“I’ll not walk right in,” the ranger corrected, staring hard at the elf. “I will sneak, of course, quiet as a shadow, uninvited as death.”
“And dead as a piece of wood,” Juraviel finished, and both started laughing again.
Pony, who understood that there was a measure of truth beneath their levity, was not amused. “Enough foolishness,” she scolded. “You have a hundred warriors pacing anxiously, wondering if they will die this night, awaiting your decree.”
“And my decreewhich I will insist upon-is that they stand down,” Elbryan said, his tone serious.
“I am not certain they will listen,” Pony admitted, for in the time the ranger had been away, the talk had again reached a fever pitch, in favor of driving the monsters far away.
“We cannot attack the towns,” the ranger explained, “for the powries have found more giant allies, including one attired in the earth magic armor of the dactyl.”
Pony sighed deeply and hoped that the folk would listen. She remembered that armor from the fight at the Barbacan, and knew that any of the refugees who came against this new ally would fall quickly. She looked to Elbryan and recognized the dangerous expression on his face.
“We need only explain that they must wait another day or two for the fight, until we can discern the power of our new enemies,” Elbryan reasoned.
“But you still plan to go in, and fight, this very night,” Pony stated.
“I wish to find a way to destroy this giant, and Kos-kosio Begulne,” Elbryan admitted. “It would be a great blow to our enemies, and might cause enough confusion for us to scatter the remaining monsters and get these people to Palmaris.”
“Then let us discern how we might accomplish this task,” Pony said calmly, moving before Juraviel and bending low. She took up a stick, handed it to the elf, and cleared away the pine needles from the ground before her. “A map, to start,” she instructed.
Juraviel looked to Elbryan, both surprised that Pony, usually more conservative than the ranger, had so easily agreed, given the new monsters in town. And Juraviel wondered, too, if this turn of events had changed Elbryan’s thinking. Did he still mean to include his love on so dangerous a mission?
The ranger nodded, his expression grim, in answer to that unspoken question. He and Pony had been through too much together for him to even think of excluding her from this important fight. While he had intended to keep Juraviel out of itan elf’s diminutive weapons were not much use against a giant, after allhe had planned all along to execute the attack with Pony beside him.
The daylight was fast fading by that time, so Pony took out her diamond and brought forth a minor globe of light. In a short while Juraviel had the town of Caer Tinella mapped out.
“I cannot be certain where Kos-kosio Begulne will be,” the elf explained. “But there are only three buildings high enough to hold a giant.” He tapped each in turn on the map. “Barns,” he explained. “And this one is the most likely for the giant leader.” His pointer settled on the marker for a large structure near the center of town.
“They had no organized defense, as far as I could tell,” the elf went on. “Other than the barricades and a few posted sentries.”
“Powries are usually prepared,” Pony said. “More likely, their defenses are well-concealed.”
“But this group has had little trouble of late,” Juraviel replied.
“Except for the fight in the forest,” said Elbryan.
“And the theft of prisoners,” Pony added.
“But no real attacks against the town,” the elf explained. “And I doubt they’ll expect one, with the fomorian giants so visible to any who think to attack.”
“But with Roger, who has shown his ability to get into town at will, gone from their grasp, the ring about the leaders, particularly Kos-kosio Begulne, might be tight,” Pony reasoned.
“And that is precisely where I intend to go,” Elbryan added.
“No easy task,” Juraviel said.
“It never is,” the ranger replied.
“But you intend to go anyway,” the elf remarked.
Elbryan looked to Pony. “This very night,” he explained. “I will seek out Belster and Tomas Gingerwart first and tell them of our plans, and of what they should do, depending on whether Pony and I succeed or not.”
“And my role?” the elf asked.
“You will serve as my liaison to Belster,” Elbryan explained.
“You will learn quickly the outcome of the fight, no doubt, and the sooner Belster is informed, the better he will be able to react.”
Juraviel spent a long while staring hard at Elbryan, at the man who had earned the title of Nightbird from the Touel’alfar. The elf felt that doubting Tuntun was with him then, admitting wholeheartedly that she had been wrong in her initial assessment of Elbryan Wyndon, the “blood of Mather,” as she had so often sarcastically referred to him. Tuntun had never thought that Elbryan would make the grade as a ranger, had thought him stupid and uncoordinated. She had learned differently, though, so much so that she willingly gave her life to save the young manand elves were not often altruistic toward humans! And if she were here now, Juraviel knew, to witness the calm determination and sincere sense of duty with which Elbryan was approaching this incredibly dangerous fight, she might well call him “blood of Mather” once again, but this time with sincere affection.
“Your role in this battle will be with the stones alone,” Elbryan said to Pony as they made their slow way toward Caer Tinella. Belster and Tomas had agreed that the battle should be delayed while more information was gathered, but did not know that the ranger meant to wage it on his own.
Pony eyed him skeptically. “I have been training hard,” she replied.
“And well.”
“But you do not trust me to fight with sword?”
Elbryan was shaking his head before she finished. “You are between fighting styles,” he explained. “Your head tells you the next proper move, but your body is still trained in the other style. Will you lunge or slash? And in the moment it takes you to decide, an enemy weapon will find you.”
Pony bit her lip, trying to find some logical response. She could do the sword-dance quite well now, but that was in slower motion than she would find in a real fight. At the end of every session, when Elbryan speeded up the process, she could not keep up, caught, as he had said, between her thoughts and her muscle memory.
“Soon enough,” Elbryan promised her. “Until then, you remain most effective with the stones alone.”
Pony didn’t argue.
The pair came upon Juraviel on a hillock overlooking Caer Tinella from the northeast, the high vantage point affording them a view of all the town. It appeared remarkably as Juraviel had described it, the new barricades wrapping all the central structures, but all three found their gazes locked to a huge bonfire burning in the southeastern corner, all the way to the other side.
“I will investigate it,” the elf volunteered.
Elbryan nodded and looked to Pony. “Find them with the soul stone,” he said to her, and then to Juraviel added, “If Kos-kosio Begulne and Maiyer Dek are in the barn, then that is where Pony and I will go. You watch our progress into the town, then return here to gather Symphony, for I suspect that I’ll leave the horse behind. And then you need only wait and watch.”
“You wait,” Juraviel corrected, his tone showing that he did not intend to be dissuaded. “There is nothing ordinary about that bonfire; you would do well to let me discern its meaning before you go into the town.”
“We may only get one chance at these two,” Pony said to Elbryan, nodding her agreement with Juraviel’s assessment. “Let us make certain that the time is right.”