Calis watched. There was something within the Lifestone. He had noticed it within minutes of Pug shifting the lifestone in time so that all could see it. He could sense energy inside, and as he watched for hours on end, after a while he believed he could see it.
The Oracle’s companions, when they were breaking from their mystical lessons, would approach and some would stand watch with him for a time. They shared their food with him, though he couldn’t really recall much of what they ate. He was preoccupied with the gem.
Calis relaxed and let his mind wander, and from time to time, flashes of images came to him. He saw people, beings looking much like his father, and he saw things: occurrences in places impossible distances away, creatures and beings from some other time. And he saw hints of forces moving behind those images, and those were the most compelling.
Hours stretched into days, and Calis lost track of time as he went deeper and deeper into the mystery of the Lifestone.
Erik shouted orders and his men began their orderly withdrawal. The enemy was less than a half-mile down the road, in strength, and word had come from Greylock that the next fallback position had been secured.
Erik had decided the best way to gain back some of the time lost in the fall of Krondor was to do it a day at a time, rather than try to hold at the first defense for the extra three weeks. The original battle plan had called for them to hold the first defensive position for seven days; Erik had held it for nine.
There were seven more defenses until they reached the mountains at the pass to Darkmoor, and if he could add three or four days at each defense, they would have gained back much of the time they had lost. But Erik wasn’t optimistic about realizing that goal; the plan for the defense of the West had the northmost and southmost defensive positions being unyielding, while Erik’s center was the ‘softest’ defense, withdrawing to lure the enemy along. The northern and southern flanks would funnel the enemy into the center, putting the bulk of the Emerald Queen’s army on the King’s Highway and within five miles of either side. The problem with that plan was that as the days wore on, more and more enemy soldiers would be thrown at Erik’s position.
More than once in the first week of fighting, Erik wished that Calis hadn’t been called off to whatever crisis needed his presence, and that Greylock had been in charge of the center. Erik would rather have had his original mission, holding the northern flank. Fighting from behind a strong defensible position was far easier than this delaying action.
Now his forward observers had seen battle flags going up, as the enemy prepared for a major offensive against his position. He had planned on being at least another mile down the road when the enemy got here. Erik used hand signals to order his men out of the area, while instructing the archers to fall back. Originally they were to harry the enemy along the line of march, but reports indicated there were too many gathering to risk exposing the bowmen. He’d improvise and find another location along the way to set them up, so that they could slow the enemy’s advance, yet have a fair chance of getting away.
The difficulty was that during the first phase of the withdrawal, if the enemy attacked, they’d have little time to prepare themselves. If they could steal a march on the enemy, get far enough ahead, then they could quickly dig in and defend if they were overtaken, but if they were hit while they were in the process of withdrawing, the superior numbers of the enemy would prove devastating for Erik’s command.
He had to get his men moving, down the road, and into the next prepared defensive position, where Greylock and his command were waiting. The two units would defend that position until the enemy pulled back, at which point Greylock’s men would move out, falling back to the next position after that. That would be the pattern for the next three months, or until they reached Darkmoor. As the enemy withdrew from the extreme north and south flanks, those units were scheduled to move down the line, adding fresh soldiers to the center, but that phase of the operation wasn’t scheduled until next month, and if the enemy didn’t withdraw from the flanks, the support wouldn’t materialize.
When the men were under way, Erik lingered at the rear, with his last line of skirmishers, who would hang back until the enemy was in sight. He looked to the west, to the late-afternoon sky, and saw the smoke rising. Krondor was burning, and Erik wondered how William, James, and the others there were doing. He said a silent prayer to Ruthia, the Lady of Luck, that if the chance presented itself, those people might somehow get out.
Then he turned his horse and galloped off to overtake the front of the command. He knew he had roughly three hours to get to the next position, and another hour to dig in before night fell. He had no idea if the enemy would march until nightfall, then attack, or wait until dawn, but either way Erik intended to be ready.