And the only hope for the people of the remaining villages.

The ma.s.s of the talon army hit the fifth village the next day on schedule but found no resistance, and no sport, at all awaiting them.

The refugees of Doogenville had arrived first.

Enraged by the lack of prey, the talons broke ranks and rushed onward, determined to hunt down the fleeing humans. And when the reports filtering down the line finally reached the Black Warlock, he began to realize his first tactical error.

It would not matter, Thalasi reminded himself. His lizard-riding cavalry would cut off any chance for the people of the western fields to get across the river. Still, Thalasi was wise enough to understand that he had a problem: the rabble that made up his army was beginning to disintegrate, going off on their own without command or direction.

He quickly a.s.sembled his captains to repair the damage.

"You fail me!" he roared at them.

The captains grumbled under their breath, but none dared to openly oppose the Black Warlock.

"Regroup the troops!" Thalasi snapped at them. "Send swift riders to halt those in the front until the rest of the force can catch up to them.

"And spur the back ranks on more quickly. The humans are taking flight now; we must beat them to Corning."

"Walking soldiers tired," one of the swamp talon commanders complained. "Cannot run as swift as lizards."

"Then encourage them," Thalasi sneered. The big talon didn't understand. "Whip them! Drive them on! I a.s.sure you that the fate they face"-he clenched a fist in the air suddenly, and the complaining talon leader rose off the ground as though a powerful invisible hand had grabbed its throat-"the fate you face will be infinitely more painful than the lash of a whip."

Thalasi had made his point.

The army regrouped in full just beyond the limits of the empty fifth village, the spot Thalasi had originally planned as their second encampment. But the Black Warlock had to make up for lost time now, and he would hear nothing of rest. Now riding his litter at the head of the army, he drove his forces through the night, overtaking many of the fleeing refugees. Still more of the retreating folk had made it to the sixth village in line, but those who stopped there for but short rest were caught and slaughtered. Like the five villages west of it, the sixth village was literally flattened.

The talons would find little rest until the western fields were secured. Risking the use of minor spells, Thalasi sent magical messages to his northern cavalry and southern mountain brigade, urging them on to greater speeds. The timetables had been turned up now. Thalasi wanted Corning in three days.

Belexus, Andovar, and Rhiannon tarried at Rivertown and the Four Bridges longer than they had planned, but it was a vacation, after all, and the trio refused to be rushed, however slow their progress thus far had been. They finally set out toward Corning on the morning after the sixth Calvan village, unknown to them, had been sacked. They trotted their rested steeds easily down the western road, in no hurry, and saw their destination just after dawn two days later.

A column of black smoke rose in the west, and the large town, second only to Pallendara in the whole of Aielle, seemed all a-bustle. Guards nervously stalked the high wall that surrounded the town, always pointing back to the west, while inside rose cries of distress and calls of alarm.

Recognizing the uncharacteristic tumult-though none of them had actually seen Corning before-the three northerners galloped down the last expanse of field and up to the city's eastern gate.

"Halt and be known!" a guard demanded, and a dozen bows pointed down from the high wall at the trio.

"I am Belexus of Avalon," the ranger called out. "Come to see yer fair city on holiday. But me eyes be tellin' me that I might find no leisure here this day."

The guard turned away to confer with another, apparently not recognizing the name. The second had a better understanding of the world beyond Corning and the western fields.

"Avalon?" he called down to Belexus. "Rangers?"

"Ayuh," Andovar replied. "That we be. And methinks ye might be using our help."

"If you are as fine with your blades as your reputation speaks," the second guard said, "then indeed we might." The gates swung open and the three were led in.

The sights within Corning were far from what they had antic.i.p.ated when they began their journey from Avalon. Peace had reigned in this town for fifty or more years, and even way back then, the only battles had been hit-and-run attacks by groups of rogue talons. With the growth of population since the rightful king had regained the throne, and the founding of many more outlying communities to the north and the west, Corning had become too sheltered for rogue bands of talons to even attempt an attack.

Now, though, it appeared that the peace was no more. Lines of pitiful refugees streamed in through the western gate carrying no more possessions than the clothes on their backs. And beyond that gate, out on the western plain, pillars of black smoke belched into the blue sky, and cries of terror cut above the general rumbling of wagons and horses.

Belexus and Andovar rushed across to the western gate, while Rhiannon dropped from her mount to aid a child running about frantically in search of his mother.

"Talons." Andovar spoke the obvious.

"It is indeed," came a reply from the side. The rangers turned to see a plump man, very official-looking, rushing toward them, an elf at his side.

"Our greetings, rangers," the plump man said. "You have arrived not a moment too soon! I am Tuloos, Mayor of Corning, and this is-"

"Meriwindle," Belexus said.

"Well met, son of Bellerian," replied the elf. "And to you, Andovar."

"And to yerself," said Andovar. "Hoping, we were, to be finding the likes o' yerself on our holiday in yer town."

Meriwindle cast an ominous glance down the western road. "Not such a holiday by what my eyes are telling me."

"Many talons?" asked Andovar.

"A great force!" answered the mayor. "Perhaps as many as four thousand by the estimate of those fleeing Doogenville."

Belexus and Andovar exchanged looks of concern. Talons had never been known to organize into such large bands against the civilized lands, other than the one time Thalasi had led them in the Battle of the Four Bridges.

"But they've had their fun," Tuloos went on, tucking his thumbs under his belt. "They will find a garrison awaiting them at Caer Minerva, and beyond that, though I hardly believe it to be necessary, we will muster the gathered strength of all the western fields right here within Corning's high wall."

"And now we have two rangers to help us organize the defense," Meriwindle added. "Glad I am to have the likes of Belexus and Andovar standing beside me in defense of my home."

"Yer words are kind," said Belexus. "But me hopes are that we'll need not be raising those blades."

"We should out for Caer Minerva," Andovar suggested, looking forlornly down to the west at the continuing stream of pitiful refugees.

Rhiannon caught up to them then, walking through the huddled and confused crowd.

"By me eyes," she declared. "Ne'er have I seen such sufferin'."

"And ye'll find more when we see the wounded," Belexus a.s.sured her. He turned to Meriwindle and the mayor, their eyes wide at the sight of Rhiannon, to introduce the young woman. But before he could even begin, Rhiannon stepped out of and to the side of the western gate. Belexus shrugged an apology and led the others out after her.

Rhiannon moved to the empty gra.s.s beyond the confusion of the road. She paused for a long moment, looking to the west, then fell to the ground, putting her ear to the gra.s.s.

"We have no time-" the mayor began.

Belexus cut him off, believing that Rhiannon's actions, however confusing they might appear, were somehow important.

"But talons approach!" the mayor demanded, and he turned back to the gates. "Four thousand, perhaps."

"More than that," Rhiannon a.s.sured him, lifting her head from the gra.s.s.

"What?" barked Tuloos. "How could you know?" Rhiannon shrugged, not really understanding the answer. Something had compelled her to this spot, as though the ground itself had called out to her. And when she put her ear close to hear its words, it had told her the truth of the size of the approaching army.

"You could not know, of course," the mayor went on. "Come, Meriwindle," he said, a bit perturbed. "We have many preparations-"

"Five times that number," Rhiannon said, more to Belexus and Andovar than to the mayor. "And from a long wood beyond the mountains, more're coming to join the force."

"That would be Windy Willows," Meriwindle put in, amazed and not yet knowing whether to believe the young woman or not. He turned to Belexus. "But how could she-"

"She could not!" the mayor insisted.

"Methinks she could," Andovar replied. "How, Rhiannon?" he asked softly. "How do ye be knowing these things?"

Rhiannon shrugged again and looked back at the spot on the field, hardly believing the answer herself.

"'Tis the gra.s.s that telled me," she said honestly.

"We have no time for such foolish words," the mayor spouted.

Meriwindle looked helplessly to the rangers. "It does seem incredible."

"Do ye know who she is?" Andovar asked the elf.

Meriwindle shook his head.

"Have ye heard, then, of fair Brielle?" Andovar went on.

Meriwindle's eyes popped open wide. He had lived most of his long life in Illuma Vale, and of course he knew of Brielle of Avalon. "The Emerald Witch," he breathed. "Rhiannon is the daughter of the Emerald Witch?"

"That she is," said Andovar. "And me heart's for heeding to her claims."

"As is mine," Belexus added. "Twenty thousand. Can Corning hold back such a number?"

Mayor Tuloos had also heard of the Emerald Witch, but in Corning, Brielle was only a fireside tale and hardly taken seriously. "What nonsense is this?" he demanded. "The count is four thousand, no matter what the gra.s.s has to say to her." Rhiannon dipped her head at the bite of his sarcasm, but Meriwindle rushed to her defense.

"Believe the woman," he told the mayor.

"Meriwindle!" Tuloos cried. "Certainly you have more sense-"

"Believe her," Meriwindle said grimly. "If the gra.s.s talked to Rhiannon, then be a.s.sured that it spoke truthfully."

As if in confirmation, a new pillar of smoke rose up into the western sky only a few miles down the road.

Caer Minerva was burning.

Thoroughly fl.u.s.tered, Tuloos slumped down from his haughty stance. "Twenty thousand?" he asked Rhiannon, his sarcasm gone. But Rhiannon didn't hear him; she had dropped back to a second call from the gra.s.s.

"A lot of talons," the mayor conceded. "But we've all the men of the western fields at our disposal and our walls are st.u.r.dy enough. I suppose-"

"No!" Rhiannon cried, springing to her feet, her eyes riveted on the growing smoke cloud over Caer Minerva. "Do not fight with them!" she pleaded, and when she turned back to the four men, they saw that her face was ashen. "Run away. Run away as swift as ye may!"

"What is it?" Belexus asked before Meriwindle and Andovar could get the words out of their mouths.

"I do no' know," Rhiannon answered with a shudder. "But we cannot hope to stop them. A corruption leads them-never have I felt such strength!"

Belexus and Andovar exchanged grim looks, then turned to Meriwindle, who shared their knowing concern.

"He is back," the elf said with as much calmness as he could muster. Meriwindle had witnessed the evil of Morgan Thalasi twenty years before, at the Battle of Mountaingate. Even now the memory, the terror of the appearance of the Black Warlock, remained vivid in his mind.

Mayor Tuloos, never having witnessed the scourge of the Black Warlock, did not understand, nor did Rhiannon, who knew only that something terribly evil was leading the talon army. But over the years, Tuloos had come to trust Meriwindle as one of his closest advisers, and he could not deny the look of sheer horror on the elf's fair face.

"If they are in Caer Minerva, how long do we have?" Belexus asked grimly.

Mayor Tuloos fidgeted for a moment, trying to remember the obvious answer. "Five hours, perhaps," he said. "If the city is fully beaten." He looked again at Meriwindle for an answer to his growing problem.

"We must run," the elf replied to the mayor's helpless expression.

Tuloos turned back to the rangers. "I am hesitant to leave my home," he explained. "Corning is the pride of the western fields. She was built and designed for the very purpose of fending off such a raid."

"Not such a raid," Belexus replied. "If the Black Warlock has indeed risen again, yer height o' yer walls'll not be stopping him."

Tuloos looked from person to person, rubbing his face, trying vainly to find an answer to the dilemma. "Help me, then," he begged the others. "Get the weak off and running, as swift as they may. But I will remain in Corning with a garrison. More will come down the western road, fleeing the destruction of Caer Minerva. I will not leave them stranded and alone in the fields."

"And know in yer heart that we will stand beside ye," Andovar a.s.sured the man.

Rhiannon moved up and down the eastern road, keeping the refugees in organized retreat and whispering words of encouragement to man and horse alike.

Andovar watched her from the town gate, his love for her doubling.

"She does well," Belexus noted, moving up to join his friend.

"No fear in her," Andovar replied. "And her words're keeping the whole in stride."

"Quite a la.s.s," said Belexus.

Andovar put a steely gaze on him. "Do ye fancy her, then?"

Andovar hid his feelings well, but Belexus understood the tinge of jealousy that edged his words. "No, me friend," he laughed, "not as ye do."

Andovar turned back to the road, embarra.s.sed but unable to refute Belexus' observation.

"'Tis her mother that holds me heart," Belexus admitted, and he clapped his friend on the shoulder. Their chatting was interrupted a moment later, though, when Rhiannon suddenly bolted with her horse away from the line of fleeing citizens, riding hard to the north. She dropped from her mount and to the ground.

"Trouble," Belexus realized, and he and Andovar jumped down from the wall to their horses and rode out after the woman.

"What do ye hear?" Andovar cried when he caught up to her. The woman was standing now, beside her horse, looking toward the empty northland.

Rhiannon turned to her friends, then led their gaze down the eastern road. "They'll not make the river," she explained gravely. "Another force rides to the north. Swift they run, getting ahead o' the fleein' folk."

"They'll cut the way," Andovar agreed, again not doubting the woman.