Chapter 18: The Ambush (pt. 2)

Brant spotted the flare rising into the morning sky, and was flooded with a mix of anticipation and dread: he relished the opportunity to fight, but knew that Pembleton and the others must have been overtaken, which sent a small shiver of fear down his spine.

“Mount up!” he yelled to the other four soldiers. “Pembleton shot the flare, we need to move out. Did any of yeh bring poisons with yeh?” he asked. Two of the soldiers nodded in response. “Good, then you two’ll want to apply them ta yer arrows and position yerselves just behind the battlefield on opposin’ sides an’ shoot down as many rebels as ye can as quickly as yeh can. Tie yer horses up when we’re nearer and use ta boulders and rocks fer cover. You other two’ll ride in with me, and we’ll do our best to cut them down where they stand.”

*****

“He’s called reinforcements, which are sure ta be ridin’ like ta wind towards us now,” Rethnaki said as he walked away from Pembleton’s lifeless body. “There’s no way ta outrun ta second group, so we’ll ha’e ta stand an’ fight again. Prepare yerselves as best ye can.”

Jellihondor handed Glothnafar a canteen of water and quietly inspected the centaur’s wounds. Glothnafar took it gratefully and drank deeply. Out of the corner of his eye, Glothnafar saw Moshel and Jarthen scramble out from behind a boulder and saw the gray elf sprint across the field towards Sellior. The tinker crashed into him forcefully, wrapping Sellior in a tight embrace, which the red elf gratefully returned. To the centaur’s great surprise, Moshel took Sellior’s face in his hands and kiss him with a grateful urgency, and saw the tears of relief glisten in the morning sun as them made their way down his slate-gray cheeks. Glothnafar had noticed the two elves spending time together, but was until this moment completely unaware of the deep romantic bond that had developed between them. Glothnafar smiled to himself, glad that such tender feeling could flourish in even the darkest of times.

Sellior gently pulled away, but placed a reassuring hand on Moshel’s cheek, wiping the tears away. “Moshel, I’m fine, not a scratch on me. But, Elcrona’s got a nasty gash on her arm, Glothnafar’s been cut ta ribbons, and it looks like Helkint may ha’e broken a couple of fingers. Would ye help me care fer ‘em before ta rest o’ ta bastards get here?” the red elf asked. Still unable to find his voice, Moshel nodded.

Sellior sent Moshel to tend to Elcrona’s arm, which was a deep but not substantial wound, and went to clean and bandage Glothnafar himself. He approached the centaur wearing a fretful expression, and was clearly preoccupied. He wiped the grit away from Glothnafar’s many cuts and gashes, and the centaur couldn’t help but wince at the sting the medical attentions caused. He decided to distract himself by talking to Sellior. “So…Moshel, eh?” he asked, smiling, eyebrows raised.

Sellior blushed and shot Glothnafar a slightly suspicious look. “Aye, Moshel,” he replied.

“I think he suits you,” Glothnafar said warmly, as he lifted a great, muscular arm so that Sellior could wrap bandages tightly around his torso.

Sellior softened and blushed again. He peered up at Glothnafar with a skeptical look, as if he was not quite sure whether to believe him. “Ye really t’ink so?” Glothnafar nodded. “Ellie t’inks he’s too quiet,” Sellior said with a sigh.

Glothnafar laughed, and then wished he hadn’t when the laughter pulled at his wounds. “Sometimes, your kind need a quieter sort, I think.”

Sellior nodded and patted the bandages. “Yer all done, I t’ink. Try not to pull them too much, eh? I’ve got ta put splints on Helkint’s fingers before ta next wave hits us.” Glothnafar nodded, and thanked the red elf, and watched him talk to Helkint. Glothnafar had been struck by how much Helkint had changed since the battle with the nybbas: before, he had been young, carefree, utterly naïve, and after the loss of his friend, the boy had become withdrawn, morose, and resistant to speaking with anyone but Sellior or Rethnaki. He found himself simultaneously impressed by Helkint’s ferocity and bravery in the battle and disheartened by it, for it seemed to signal a lack of regard for the boy’s own health that Glothnafar found worrisome.

“They’re coming from ta south, Naki!” Jellihondor called out. Glothnafar steeled himself for the oncoming battle and finished off the rest of the water in the canteen.

Rehtnaki nodded. “Alrigh’, archers in ta same position, an’ remember ta take down their horses first. Glothnafar, Helkint, Vathorem – make sure they don’ get too close ta us. Moshel, take Jarthen back behind us. We can’ know fer certain how many o’ them are comin’, but ‘tis unlikely tha’ ‘tis as many as we jus’ fended off. Keep yer wits about ye and we may make it out o’ this yet!”

Once again, the rebels obeyed Rethnaki without question, and moved seamlessly into their positions. The rebels stood silently, tense and waiting, as the horses’ footsteps grew louder and louder. Finally, three men on horseback rode into the field. A wiry man with a Fethilian accent on a gray horse called for the rebels to surrender.

Rethnaki gave a derisive snort. “Surrender? Ta ta t’ree o’ ye, after killin’ t’irteen o’ yer friends? Seems ta me tha’ ‘tis ye who should consider surrenderin’!”

“Black Diamonds dunna surrender to the likes o’ yeh, elf!” the man spat as he rode towards the quartet of archers. Elcrona, Sellior, Rethnaki, and Jellihondor let a stream of arrows fly at the man’s horse, which keeled over and fell heavily to the grass. The soldier gave out a cry of pain as he pulled himself from underneath the great animal and ran, limping, towards the elvish archers. He was intercepted by Helkint, who cut the man behind the knees. As he fell to the ground screaming, Hellkint sliced open the man’s neck in a manner that Glothnafar found disturbingly casual.

“They brought an archer with them!” Vathorem yelled out, as he ran towards the south end of the field. Glothnafar heard Vathorem call out in soothing tones to the archer, telling him that he would be safe if only he’d come out into the open. Slowly, anxiously, the archer stood up from behind a boulder – only to be felled by one of Jellihondor’s swift arrows.

The elvish marksmen had by this point unhorsed the other two Black Diamonds, who were picking their way across the field towards Glothnafar, using the dead bodies of their comrades and horses for cover from Rethnaki and the others. Glothnafar stood in place, regal even covered in bandages, waiting for them to reach him. The Black Diamond approached cautiously, and looking closely, Glothnafar could see how young this soldier was – his face was unlined, there were no scars or evidence of broken bones – but was unmoved by the realization. That this soldier stumbled into such a terrible occupation at a young age was no concern of his, and Glothnafar was only too happy to mete out the just rewards for such a choice. All the better if this one dies before he wreaks much havoc, the centaur thought with a bitter smile. The young soldier crouched just beyond Glothnafar’s reach, clearly trying to discern how best to take the massive creature down.

“AHHHHH!” Moshel let out a piercing scream so loud that it seemed to ring and reverberate through the battlefield. “Jarthen, run!” the tinker shouted as he tried to fend off his human attacker. Without thinking, Glothnafar whipped around to find the scream’s source, and saw that one of the remaining Black Diamonds had crawled to their hiding spot and stabbed Moshel deep between two ribs. The soldier near him took this opportunity and leapt at the preoccupied centaur, scrambling onto his broad, chestnut back. The soldier wrapped his forearm around Glothnafar’s neck and squeezed, strangling the great centaur.

Glothnafar was overcome with rage – how dare this pitiful Elothninian bastard use him like a common horse?! Glothnafar felt the fury and indignation more strongly than the pain of his windpipe being crushed or the panic rising in his chest from being unable to breathe. He was blinded with it, and lashed out at the soldier with instinct alone, bucking and twisting violently until the man fell off. He narrowly avoided being trampled by Glothnafar’s heavy hooves, and once again retreated just out of Glothnafar’s reach.

But now, the soldier had offended Glothnafar in the deepest and most visceral way possible. Glothnafar had not felt such unending rage, pulsating like a third blackened heartbeat, since his love’s father had shot her down so many years ago. He roared at him, and noted the man’s fear with satisfaction, and began slowly circling him like a predatory cat. But, the soldier himself remained wily, and managed to dance just out of Glothnafar’s reach over and over in a most infuriating way.

Now he and the soldier had reversed positions, and Glothnafar knew that he was likely blocking any clear shot the elvish archers had but he did not care. Just as he was about lunge at the young wiry Black Diamond – whose very presence now disgraced Glothnafar – he caught something moving out of the corner of his eye.

It was another human archer, drawing a bowstring taut. Glothnafar followed the man’s line of sight and felt cold torrents of fear pour through him when he realized that his target was Jarthen. The boy stood, bow drawn ready to shoot at Glothnafar’s attacker, completely unaware of the harm about to befall him.

“NOOOOO!” bellowed Glothnafar, causing both Jarthen and the Black Diamond to pause, startled. Elcrona, finally having a clear shot at the Black Diamond, shot him once in the chest and once in the throat, and the man fell to the ground. Glothnafar galloped over to Jarthen, and knocked him aside with enough force to force the air out of the boy’s lungs. Glothnafar felt the arrow lodge itself in his massive bicep and felt a moment of tremendous relief, for its sharp sting meant that he had saved the boy’s life.

But something was wrong – Glothnafar, too, collapsed. The arrow sent radiating, throbbing waves of pain coursing through his veins, and the great centaur found himself unable to pull himself back up again. He lay prone, drawing shallow, ragged breaths, as the strength seeped out of him.

Glothnafar’s eyes went wide with shock and disbelief. Today is the day I die? I had so little time left! he thought, struggling to accept his looming and immediate death. All through the battle, Glothnafar had felt invincible, as if he had been guarded and protected by fate herself from just such an untimely demise. But the boy was safe now, and fate had come to collect her due, and all Glothnafar could do now was submit to his destiny willingly.

Glothnafar saw Jarthen gingerly hovering over the arrow out of the corner of his eye. The color had drained completely from the boy’s face, which had become a mask of confusion and fear. Glothnafar wanted to reach out to the boy and comfort him, to ease his fears, but Jarthen was pushed thoughtlessly aside by Jellihondor as the older elf rushed to Glothnafar’s side.

“Jelli….second archer had….poisoned arrow,” Glothnafar wheezed in a barely audible, strained voice. Glothnafar’s heart wrenched as he watched Jellihondor’s face go from confused and concerned to panicked and terrified.

The old elf quickly removed the arrow and put his mouth to the wound, as if to suck the poison from it. “Too late….Jelli….” Glothnafar wheezed. Jellihondor, tears streaming down his face, shook his head fiercely, whispering that he was going to try anyway. Glothnafar winced, mustering the strength to gently bat the elf away from the wound, covering it with his great, dark hand. He wished deeply that he could have prepared his dearest friend for this moment, and regretted bitterly that the old elf was going to feel his loss so acutely. The centaur knew he only had minutes left to live, just a few mere seconds to give Jellihondor any measure of comfort to take with him as he lived on, and could not allow the elf to waste that precious time futilely trying to save his life.

Once again, Glothnafar remembered that the pair were nothing but pawns in a grander scheme, one that superceded the kind words that he desperately wished to say to Jellihondor. But he was not at all Jellihondor saw the situation that way – Jellihondor who had always been so willing to flout the demands of fate, who was so reluctant to even admit that the future was derived from little more than random chance and coincidence. “Remember….what the Oracle told you…the prophecy…” he said weakly, fixing Jellihondor with a stern, pained look. This is what she was trying to warn him about, he thought. He will take this so hard – what if he blames the boy for my death? Will it all unravel? Will I have died for nothing?

But his words made no impact on Jellihondor. “Glothie, no, I can’ – I don’…I ne’er saw this! I can’ lose ye! Anyone but ye!” he whispered in a desperate, anguished voice.

Glothnafar was in great pain now: every fiber of his strong, muscular body felt like it was on fire. Every breath made him feel as if his insides were being drug slowly across shards of broken glass. Still, he knew that Jellihondor was experiencing a far deeper sort of pain than his physical torment could contend with. Glothnafar would die soon, a good death full of purpose and nobility, but he knew that the suddenness and seemingly senseless nature of it would haunt Jellihondor for a long time to come.

Glothnafar took a painful-sounding, ragged breath, and then another, and reached up to place his hand gently on the graceful curving place where Jellihondor’s neck met his shoulder. The elf’s features relaxed slightly at his touch, and Glothnafar himself felt the unceasing, blinding pain ease a little when he felt the warmth of Jellihondor’s skin against his own. He looked into the elf’s endlessly green eyes, wide with fear and rimmed with tears, and wished that they had been able to live together in a different sort of time that would not have required such a great sacrifice from him.

“Jellihondor…thank you…for the gift of your companionship for so many years…” he said in a voice heavy with emotion, his face still pained but also warm and grateful, at peace with everything except for Jellihondor’s suffering. He knew how much he owed to the elf: Jellihondor had saved him in a thousand ways, both large and small, literal and figurative. But he could not save him now, and all Glothnafar could do in return was offer him this small measure of comfort.

Glothnafar wanted desperately to do more – to give his friend more words of kindness, or muster the strength to embrace him – but he felt that familiar tug at the back of his head that signaled an oncoming trance. No! No! Let me have these last few moments with him! he pleaded silently with some unknown, unseen force. He tried to resist the strange force drawing his consciousness out of the present, but nevertheless he felt his hand slip from the old elf and felt his broad, expressive face went slack and emotionless. In some distant, half-aware way, he heard Jellihondor calling his name in feverish desperation and felt the elf shaking him by the shoulders as if to pull him out of the trance by will alone.

Still, the strange force drew him out, against his deepest desires. Quickly, Glothnafar realized this was no ordinary trance – no, instead of just hearing disjointed bits of speech or sound, Glothnafar saw the eerie forgotten spires of the elvish ruins take shape around him. Slowly, the face of the Oracle came into view.

“I have been waiting for you, Glothnafar,” she said in her surreal, echoing voice.

“Send me back! Send me back to him, do not take what little time with him I have left from me!” Glothnafar responded, his voice cracking with emotion.

She looked at him with large, marble-white eyes, which were inscrutable and somehow still sympathetic. “I cannot. Fate sent you forward in time, here, for a reason that I dare not meddle with. You must do what you were sent here for, but do not tarry, for your consciousness, delicate thing that it is, can only last as long as your body does.”

“I do not wish to live my last few moments in some other time, separated from my body. There’s nothing you can do?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head sadly, and made a strange gesture with her hand, and Glothnafar suddenly became aware of his body. Or, rather, the image of his body – it was his as he had been in the ruins weeks ago, unmarred by the battle, but it was ghostly now, like the insubstantial reflection of his corporeal form. Then, she walked into the ruins, leaving him there with his life slipping silently away from him, stranded alone in the wrong place and time.