"How many?" Belexus asked.

"As many as the mayor thought to be the whole o' the force," Rhiannon answered grimly.

Belexus called upon all of his many years of training then, searching for some solution to the devious trap they had stepped into. They could not hope to defeat the approaching army, especially if the Black Warlock was indeed at its head, yet they could not spare enough fighters to destroy the force circling around from the north.

"Ye must ride!" he said to Andovar. "Swift as only Andovar can ride!"

Andovar understood, but was not thrilled at leaving Belexus, or Rhiannon, behind.

"To the bridges and Rivertown," Belexus went on. "Send the cry to every town from here to Pallendara!"

"I'm not for leaving," Andovar replied. "There's a fight coming, ye know that. Me sword'll help."

"If ye fail on yer ride, then yer sword and all other swords'll be to no avail," Belexus told him. "And all the folk running from Corning this day are suren to be killed. The kingdom must be roused! Only the might of Pallendara can turn the darkness aside."

Andovar could not deny the truth of the words. He rushed back to his horse, then turned to regard Rhiannon. "I'm not for leaving ye, me fairest lady," he said. "Ride beside me."

"Ye've yer duty," Rhiannon replied, moving over to him. "And I've me own. They'll be needing me eyes."

Andovar kissed her then, knowing that if he never saw her again, he would die a broken man. But he was a Ranger of Avalon, a disciplined warrior, and his duty was clear. He nodded his accord at Belexus and sprang into his saddle.

Rhiannon whispered into the horse's ear and chanted some arcane verses, stroking the steed's muscular flanks.

"What're ye doing?" Belexus asked her.

She shrugged in reply. "I do no' rightly know," she answered honestly. "But me thinkin's that it might help."

True were her suspicions, for when Andovar kicked his mount to action a moment later, it sped off swifter than any living horse could possibly run.

Chapter 7.

Flight THEY THUNDERED OUT of Corning's eastern gate, a thousand grim-faced riders-nearly half the town's garrison-with the ranger Belexus at their lead. of Corning's eastern gate, a thousand grim-faced riders-nearly half the town's garrison-with the ranger Belexus at their lead.

"They must keep the road clear if the fleeing people are to have any chance of getting across the river," Meriwindle remarked to Mayor Tuloos as they watched the cavalry roll away.

"They will," Tuloos growled. "We must believe in that." He turned and led Meriwindle back across the town. They had their own business to attend.

Belexus spotted the lone rider, coming hard from the south, speeding like the wind, on a course to intercept his group. He gave over the lead position to the next in line and veered his mount away.

"Yer place is not here," he said to the lone rider when she reined in beside him.

"But it is," Rhiannon answered. "Those on the road know well enough the path o' their flight; they'll not be needing me."

Belexus studied the young woman. She carried no weapon, and none would have rested comfortably in her soft hands. But there was something about Rhiannon, some growing power, that the ranger had a feeling might prove critical to the events of this day.

"How can ye help?" he asked.

"I'm no' for knowing,"' Rhiannon answered honestly. For all of the powers she had exhibited that day, the witch's daughter understood them no better than the amazed witnesses. "But if ye fail in yer mission," Rhiannon went on, "those fleeing'll not make the river, whether I'm guidin' them or not. Me place is here."

Belexus' first instinct was to send her back; he had promised his father he would watch out for the witch's daughter. But looking at Rhiannon now, sitting so resolute and grim on her black and white horse, Belexus sensed that she did not need his protection. Indeed, it seemed that her presence would bolster his chances against the talon force.

"Come then, and be quick," he said to her. She nudged her mount up beside his and bent low to whisper her magical encouragement into his horse's ear. Then they were off, gaining on their comrades with each powerful stride.

A tear rimmed Mayor Tuloos' eye as he looked back over his city, deserted except for the remaining garrison and the line of refugees, being guided from the west gate out through the east. But the stout mayor shook the moment of weakness away and turned back to his post on the western gate, rea.s.suring each poor refugee in turn.

"The day will be won!" he told one man. "And fear not, the King of Calva will lend you aid to rebuild your home!" The man nodded and managed a weak smile.

They are all so tired, Tuloos noted. How can they possibly run all the way to the river? He patted the man on the back, hurrying him along.

"Another group!" the lookout called. "And talons at their backs."

Tuloos rushed up to the parapets to stand beside Meriwindle. A few hundred yards down the road came a band of stragglers, mostly women and children, running for their lives. Behind them, and gaining quickly, charged a band of bloodthirsty talons, weapons clanging.

The few able men among the refugees turned to slow the monsters, brandishing pitchforks, wood axes, even clubs.

"They'll not make it," Meriwindle said with a grimace. Even as he spoke, the talons trampled down the meager resistance and bore down on the women and children.

"Mayor!" Meriwindle pleaded, grabbing the man by the collar.

No provisions had been made to split the garrison, and Tuloos had only thirteen hundred men remaining to guard his town. He could ill afford to lose any on the road outside the gates. But, like Meriwindle beside him, the kindly mayor could not ignore the terrified screams.

"Go to them!" he cried.

"To the road!" Meriwindle screamed, leaping down from his perch and rushing to his readied horse. He burst through the gate, sweeping up dozens of volunteers, most riding but others simply running. The n.o.ble elf did not look to see who was following; he cared not if he found himself facing the talons alone. In that moment of rage, all that mattered to Meriwindle was halting the talon charge.

But the elf was not alone-far from it-and the soldiers who rode with him were spurred by anger equally great, and they matched the frantic pace. As one they breathed a sigh of relief when they pa.s.sed the refugees and put themselves between the helpless people and the talons.

One giant of a man, wielding a huge mallet and astride a monstrous horse, rushed past Meriwindle, slowing the lead talons by the mere spectacle of his appearance.

"Jolsen!" Meriwindle called after the smith, but there was no panic in the elf's voice. Jolsen had lost his wife and all of his family except for the boy, Jolsen, in a talon raid a dozen years before. The huge man had moved to Corning shortly thereafter, and had promised that one day he would avenge those murders.

Though they understood that the main force of Thalasi's army was far behind them, the talons had known only easy victories these last few days and came in with all confidence.

A single sweep of the huge smith's mallet felled two of them, and Jolsen, his sinewy muscles bulging, reversed the stroke easily, back and forth, chopping and swatting.

Meriwindle used the confusion to his best advantage. "Charge on!" he cheered his riders, and the sheer weight of their mounted rush crushed through the first ranks of the enemy. Swords rang out above the screams, and many a soldier, talon and human, died in the first seconds of battle.

And an exhausted Jolsen, smiling in the knowledge that he had indeed avenged the deaths of his kin, went down under a flurry of talon blows. Even as the darkness of death closed over his eyes, the great smith managed one final swing, blasting yet another talon from life.

From the wall, Tuloos watched helplessly.

"There!" Rhiannon cried out.

Belexus followed her pointing finger to the north, but nothing was yet visible to the eyes of the ranger on the open plain. He trusted Rhiannon's instincts, though, and he swerved the cavalry line to follow Rhiannon's lead. Sure enough, only a minute later the talon cavalry came into view, swinging down around to the south for a straight rush at the road.

Belexus knew at once that he was outnumbered by at least five to one, but at that moment, with the memory of the pitiful line of desolate people making their way to the river so vivid in his mind, the odds didn't seem to matter. The ranger understood his objective. He wouldn't engage the talons fully; he couldn't risk complete defeat. He would meet their lead riders from the side, turn them back to the east, and force them to parallel the road all the way to the river.

Where, Belexus could only hope, reinforcements from the eastern towns would be waiting.

Rhiannon, unarmed, broke off to the side and let the soldiers pa.s.s her by. She slowed her horse and tried to tune her senses in to the land around her, hoping that the earth would once again speak to her and give her the power to aid in the cause.

The forces came together in a brutal rush, the heavier horses gaining initial advantage over the smaller swamp lizards. Belexus drove hard into the talon ranks, every sweep of his mighty sword dropping a talon to the ground.

But the advantage was soon gone, for the sheer numbers of the enemy slowed the charge to a near standstill. "East!" Belexus cried, knowing that his brigade could not hope to survive a pitched battle, and he started them on their wild run, talons pacing right beside them and the battle moving on in full flight.

Rhiannon easily kept close to the thrashing throng, trailing the fighters by barely a hundred yards. The ranger's plan seemed to be working, she noted hopefully. The talon line, intent on the ranger's troops, followed the flow to the east. And in the continuing battle, where riders of both groups were more intent on merely staying in their saddles than inflicting blows on the enemy, few were slain. Belexus, so skilled with horse and sword, got his share of talons, though, and more than once Rhiannon grimaced as she watched a soldier go down, only to be swallowed up by a sea of the vile monsters.

But then the trailing edge of the talon line, in a rare display of insight, apparently began to understand the ploy. Remembering the commands of their warlock leader-that the road was their primary goal-more than half the force cut back behind the riders, once again aiming for the south.

Only Rhiannon stood to stop them.

Meriwindle could not guess how much of the blood that covered his body was his own. He was still in the saddle, one of the few who could make that claim. But three talons had fallen for every soldier, and, more importantly, the charge had been halted, and the elf looked back now at Corning to see the last of the refugees being ushered through the gates.

But any smile that might have crossed Meriwindle's face was short-lived, for in the other direction, down the western road, now came the main force of Thalasi's army.

"To the town!" Meriwindle cried, and those soldiers who could manage to break away turned back for home. Meriwindle scooped up two of the men, their horses torn apart from under them, and carried them along on the retreat.

"By the Colonnae," Mayor Tuloos muttered from his spot on the wall, for beyond the fighting, all the western field had gone dark, a writhing ma.s.s of wretched talons. The boom of their drums and their battle cry rumbled out ominously, drowning all other sounds.

"Men die!"

Tuloos watched a spur of the talon force break to the north, another to the south, and knew at once that his town would be surrounded in a matter of minutes. He could break out now with his garrison, back through the eastern gate and down the road. But then the refugees would have no chance of survival, and the talon army would continue its run unhindered after the remainder of the helpless fleeing people.

"Secure the gates!" Tuloos roared with all the strength he could muster. "To arms!"

A moment later Meriwindle was back by his side. As soon as the elf looked around at the spurs of the talon force, he understood the wisdom of the mayor's decision to close the town. A continuing flow out the eastern gate would only fall easy prey to the circling talons. Still, looking at the overwhelming ma.s.s of the Black Warlock's force, Meriwindle had to wonder what hope the walls offered.

Tuloos shared those feelings, the elf knew. The mayor leaned heavily on the wall, watching the events unfolding around him. "We will stop them," he said to Meriwindle.

"We must," the elf replied.

"And reinforcements will arrive!" the mayor went on, mustering courage despite his doubts to the truth of his words. "Andovar will return with the army of Pallendara at his back!"

"Indeed!" said Meriwindle, and his face brightened. He clapped the mayor on the shoulder and turned back to the field, taking care to keep his true feelings of their doom from showing on his delicate elven features.

The talon army rolled on, not even slowing at the sight of Corning's high walls.

"Arm every man, woman, and child," Tuloos instructed.

Meriwindle understood; talons took no prisoners.

She never even thought of fleeing. Her duty was to the helpless souls on the road to the south, and to the valiant ranger and his troops battling the odds so bravely.

And as the talon cavalry approached, Rhiannon felt again that strange sense of power flowing up from the earth itself and gathering within her. "Go back!" she demanded in a voice so suddenly powerful that it caught the attention of Belexus, far off and moving away. He managed to look back over his shoulder to see the young woman standing so resolute against the flowing tide.

Belexus didn't care that his plan had apparently failed; he didn't care for anything beyond the figure of Rhiannon and the charge of talon cavalry that would gobble her up long before he could get to her side.

But as Belexus would now learn, and as the daughter of the witch herself would now learn, Rhiannon was far from helpless.

Power surged through her body and flowed down into her mount. She tugged on the beast's mane, rearing it up. And when it slammed its hooves back to the ground, there came a flash as bright as a bolt of lightning and an explosion that rocked the plain for miles around. In front of the lead talons the earth split wide, gobbling up those whose beasts could not stop their rush. The rest of the talon force swung abruptly to the east to join their kin, fleeing the power bared before them.

But Rhiannon spurred her steed to the east and chased after them. Each stride of the enchanted horse continued the thunderous rumbling, and the crack in the earth, too, took up the pursuit.

Hope came back to the ranger in the form of awe and even fear. Most vividly of all, Belexus saw Rhiannon's determined ride. She kept just behind the lead of the talon line, using the split in the ground to prevent the monsters from turning south.

Then Belexus realized that Rhiannon meant to carry the split all the way past his force.

"To the south!" he cried to his men, cleaving another talon down the middle. He charged back and forth, herding the soldiers out of the approaching gully.

Talons, also recognizing the danger, pursued the Corning force, carrying the fight to the other side of the coming divide.

But then, suddenly, the battle came to a standstill, a hacking mob of confusion. Rhiannon kept her charge straight in, knowing that if she veered to the south, she would take her chasm with her and strand Belexus and the others in the midst of the entire talon force.

Belexus saw her intent and tried to get beside her, but the press was too great, and the ranger could only watch in horror as a group of talons formed a line in her path to intercept.

"Fly!" Rhiannon whispered to her horse, and the horse leaped high into the air, soared higher than a horse could possibly leap, clearing the stunned talons beyond even the reach of their weapons.

And the ensuing thunder when the black and white steed's hooves crashed back down to the ground rolled the plain like waves in an ocean. Lizard and horse, talon and human, tumbled to the ground, stunned and blinded by an upheaval of dust and clumps of earth.

But Rhiannon, her face streaked with sweat and grime, her black mane matted to her neck and shoulders, emerged from that cloud, charging along her route. And to Belexus, watching her courageous ride, she seemed no less beautiful.

They crashed into the walls, clawing and hacking with wild abandon, ignoring the hail of arrows or the burning death of boiling oil. Possessed with the fury of Morgan Thalasi, the talons knew no fear.

Meriwindle charged about the parapets, spurring his soldiers on. And when a few of the wretched talons managed to gain a foothold over a wall, they inevitably found the n.o.ble elf in their faces, slashing away with his sword.

And so it continued for half an hour, the talons blindly fighting to appease their master and their own hunger for man-flesh. And the proud people of Corning fighting back for their lives, and for the lives of those who had fled for the river.

Tuloos knocked one talon from the wall, only to find two others taking its place. The mayor stumbled backward and fell, and the hulking forms towered over him. He cried out, thinking that the moment of his death was upon him.

But then a sword flicked above him, once and then again, and both talons dropped. Meriwindle pulled Tuloos back to his feet.

The elf was a garish sight indeed, and Tuloos could not understand how Meriwindle was even standing with his life-blood flowing from so many grievous wounds.

"We are holding them!" Meriwindle cried, and all fear flew from Tuloos at the sheer determination in Meriwindle's voice. Here was the elf who had stood beside Arien Silverleaf on the field of Mountaingate, the warrior who had survived the centuries in the jagged shadows of the Great Crystal Mountains.

Tuloos looked around at the carnage that was Corning, the rubble and the dead and dying. But more so, the mayor let his gaze drift out over the eastern gate, down the road to the river.

The empty road to the river.

He knew that the sacrifices made this day in Corning had bought those helpless, fleeing Calvans some precious time. If only he and his men could hold out a little longer.